Ask HN: How to reach SMBs? and Which SMB targetted media do you consume? - <AUTHOR>

I'm creating a product primarily targeted towards SMBs, and I'm wondering what methods you've had success with reaching out to SMBs (which magazines, online blogs, etc.)? <comment><USER2> Well, targeting a market that small is a risky move, but considering how many coins Mario and Luigi have gathered over the years, it may pay off for you.

<comment><USER3> And here I thought he was going to start sending adverts over my Windows network.</comment></comment>


Bringing Intel Xeon to notebook PCs - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2015/08/bringing-intel-xeon-to-notebook-pcs/ <comment><USER2> If this also means ECC memory in laptops, that's friggin' amazing.

I sometimes dream of a world where consumer equipment has ECC memory. Some say: total overkill. I say: the stats on servers are so that you are probably hit multiple times a year with bit-flips in memory. You'll never know because it's not registered anywhere. But those apps hanging, this strange crash, a corrupted document. All these small things.

Servers aren't desktops/laptops, but I do wonder.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. Memory errors are insidious because they can look like just about anything - driver bugs, software bugs, disk errors, power issues, media blips, or even nothing at all, just some silent bit of data corruption you don't even notice. It's easy to dismiss the risk when you have no idea how big it is.

It's eye-opening once you've managed a few machines with ECC and seen first hand how common correction events are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll go ahead and ask the newbie question - what's the benefit? I can see how more cache and better multiprocessing would be important to a server but how does a Xeon improve a single user system? Do they have some other secret sauce? I'm assuming they're not expecting anyone to build a laptop with more than one of these in it?

<comment><USER5> The big one is ECC memory.

<comment><USER6> There really is no good reason intel keep removing this from the consumer cpus.

<comment><USER7> Many server vendors are dropping ecc as the performance hit isn't worth the additional reliability in many cases. I don't see the point of ecc today for most applications also...

<comment><USER8> > Many server vendors are dropping ecc as the performance hit isn't worth the > additional reliability in many cases.

Bullshit on both counts. (even the low-end Lenovo, HP and Dell servers I see sometimes on Slickdeals still have ECC, so what brands are you even talking about?)

<comment><USER9> _Bullshit on both counts_

Hey, how about keeping it civil and polite? It's been pretty good here for the last year, following a relentless drive to call out bad behaviour. It'd be a shame to see it backslide.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure if you're familiar with the idiom "calling bullshit" but I'm pretty confident it doesn't mean what you think it means.

It is an old enough expression that an urban dictionary reference shouldn't be necessary, but here you go:

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I+call+bullsh...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I+call+bullshit&defid=5686440)

<comment><USER9> _I 'm not sure if you're familiar with the idiom "calling bullshit"_

I am familiar with it and, to me, it's rude. I might say it to a friend if we're just bantering, but I'd never say it to a colleague. Clearly, I'm in the minority here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh my god if this would power the retro ThinkPad: classic keyboard, ECC memory, hi-res screen, Thunderbolt, powerful CPU... All the good stuff :)

<comment><USER11> with the old keyboard? It sounds like someone figured out how to get me to spend more than two grand on a laptop.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, seems Lenovo after releasing three generations of laptops every ThinkPad fan hated finally gets to its senses. [http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro- thinkpad-time-machine/](http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time- machine/)

<comment><USER12> I so want one of those but for the record my X61 worked fine for me and I love my Tablet 2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this is related to a Lenovo leak:

[http://i.imgur.com/7ZorPrq.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/7ZorPrq.jpg) [http://i.imgur.com/AnP4eVU.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/AnP4eVU.jpg)

<comment><USER14> That looks like a 17" Thinkpad! Probably only has one screen though.

<comment><USER13> Yes, it looks good.

Aside, we started emailing Lenovo 2 years ago, when they ruined the touchpad & keyboard, to express our discontent. Seems that they will finally get back on track: [http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad- survey-4-misce...](http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad- survey-4-miscellaneous/)

They might even support Coreboot. This is good. As a developer, I hate bad quality hardware. Apple is good quality, but some stuff is too consumer oriented: glossy screens and fragile alu+glass. And since Tiger I dislike their software.

<comment><USER15> What makes you think they could support Coreboot? That would be a huge differentiator, but would need unpredecented Intel cooperation.

<comment><USER13> At least there's huge pressure from the community. Who knows. Thousands of people requested it in the survey. It's hard to tell, but I think Lenovo might be steering in the right direction after realising techie users are a very good niche.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would love for a Xeon in a Mac Book Pro (or in my dreams a Mac mini server), but I worry they will put it in the next Mac Pro.

<comment><USER17> They currently run Xeons, so that probably won't change.

<comment><USER16> Apple has this weird history of using laptop CPUs to make their machines smaller or thinner. I'm hoping they update the Mac Pro soon, but I can see them letting it continue to languish (no updates since December 19, 2013) or coming up with a smaller form factor (thus using this CPU).

I do wonder how these CPUs would do as processors for blades?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would be interesting to know if the number of CPU types we have right now is because of hardware issues (binning) or just plain market segmentation. Because many of the features could be enabled in software/firmware, I think they could just do a "custom" CPU where you just license whatever features you use. Do you want ECC and AVX-512 on your i7? Do you need a GPU on your Xeon? Just pay $50 (or whatever) for the key to enable these features.

<comment><USER19> Then they have to worry about licensing and avoiding hacks, two problems they don't have today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Will this have AVX512...?

<comment><USER21> I'm curious too. They talked about it appearing in "Skylake server", and this is branded as Skylake server, so maybe not impossible.

<comment><USER22> Unfortunately, I'm kinda really doubting it. Gut instinct is saying that the AVX-512 thing is Intel trying to keep companies doing high end data crunching buying their many-cored xeons. Given the performance boost that the features are going to give, it's not inconceivable that Intel doesn't want people buying their cheap quad core chips instead of a pair of their more expensive 8+ core Xeons.

<comment><USER23> They'll also need to drop some to developer systems. Then again, I'll probably get a brand new workstation when new AVX-512 Skylake Xeons arrive. Intel SDE emulator is goes only so far...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Apple get me this in an MBP stat.

<comment><USER25> Would Intel even be putting in features like "Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C" for anyone other than Apple?

<comment><USER26> Thunderbolt is Intel's baby, of course they'd include it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Any chance of getting > 4 cores in a notebook with one of these chips? Would love a 6-core or 8-core MacBook Pro, even if it had to be run at lower frequency or aggressively throttled while on battery.

<comment><USER28> MacBook Pro's are not gonna get these chips. They'll get the normal Skylake stuff, with the lower heat emissions.

<comment><USER27> Thought it might be a possibility given that these support Thunderbolt 3 over USB C, which I'd expect them to be pushing pretty hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think I read somewhere that the Skylake chips will have support for the new xpoint 3d memory. I would be surprised if it became commercially available this soon, but it would be great to have a MBP with the new xeon and xpoint memory instead of the SSD. The xpoint memory is supposed to be as much as 1,000x faster than SSD while drawing less power and having a lot more write- cycles.

<comment><USER30> Why would you need special support for it in the CPU?

<comment><USER23> Memory latency is high, it's preferable to do transfers to and from CPU L3 cache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Would be more impressed if this was the Xeon that can be used in a dual socket configurations.

<comment><USER32> For laptop? Xenon has server chips with 20 cores. That seems a bigger upgrade than just two standard 4 core i7s for the really crazy parallel workload. Not awesome for many workloads of course.

</comment></comment><comment> zupa-hu OMG I desperately want a powerful portable PC!!! I'd even buy a big ugly "notebook" without battery. Who needs a battery? There's our phone for the go.

These days I'm playing with the idea of syncing a VM between my notebook and a powerful desktop PC for at desk use. Anyone tried it? Would it work? Virtualbox, maybe Docker?

<comment><USER33> I actually have done a lot of that with one of the gigantic gaming laptops. an Alienware M18X r2 in my case. I'd love to have gotten ECC ram in it but that's the only real issue I have with it. Weighs about 20ish lbs (9kg for you non- yanks). But I've run database clusters with qemu/libvirt to learn how to set them up, but my main use of that kind of setup has been to test builds of software on other operating systems.

<comment> zupa-hu 17 lbs, wow! :D

Interesting, thanks for the input!

<comment><USER33> It's been a really interesting laptop for a lot of stuff. 3 internal 2.5" bays, you can convert the optical bay into a 4th. An mSATA bay for flash, and an express card slot that can take any pci-e 1x compatible card (pretty much everything) with the right enclosure. 2x graphics card slots with adequate cooling for everything. it's definitely a beast but i bought it entirely for that purpose. it's been great for doing CAD (though i plan on making it better) for 3d printing and also for being able to keep it up to date (aside from cpu and ram, those are already maxed out for its generation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting discussion on the thread, re memory type, ECC, etc. but fundamental question is -- how does this benefit consumers?

<comment><USER28> They get fucking faster chips, made for server workloads, and with safer memory modules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Xeon in my phone plz.

<comment><USER36> I like being able to make calls longer than 8 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's Skylake-based, so we won't see this for at _least_ two years, and that's assuming Intel isn't forced to delay _again_.

<comment><USER37> Desktop Skylake was released a few days ago and the mobile version is rumored to be coming in less than two months. [http://www.cpu- world.com/news_2015/2015052101_Launch_schedul...](http://www.cpu- world.com/news_2015/2015052101_Launch_schedule_of_Intel_Skylake_processors.html)

<comment><USER26> ...somehow I confused Skylake and Cannonlake.

My bad.</comment></comment></comment>


Dutch parliament rejects ACTA, prohibits government to sign or ratify. - <AUTHOR> https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/29/translations-of-dutch-parliamentary-resolutions-against-acta/

<comment><AUTHOR> Especially resolution 3 is pertinent:

"3. Resolution of Member Verhoeven (21 501-30, No. 288), 29 May 2012 (original Dutch text in PDF)

The House of Representatives,

\- observes that treaties like ACTA lead to a further formalization of copyrights rules on the international level,

\- observes that such treaties are very difficult to modify and as a result can be an extra impediment for future reforms of copyright law,

\- observes that strict enforcement of intellectual property on the internet is no solution for the ongoing difficulties regarding copyright law and interferes with internet freedom,

\- requests the government to vote against new similar treaties,

\- requests the government to focus the copyright policy on economic growth opportunities offered by the internet through, amongst others things, new revenue models for legal content.

Verhoeven (D66 – Democrats 66)"

I hope this will be a catalyst for other countries to implement similar regulations.

<comment><USER3> How strong are these "observes" and "requests"? Why not "requires"?

<comment><USER4> These are motions, which are not binding, and the government can ignore them if it wishes, although it may then have a political problem and parliament might send it home with a "motion of distrust", which the government cannot ignore. However, these motions were very broadly supported: only CDA voted against motion 286; motion 287 was accepted by general acclaim; only VVD voted against motion 288. (CDA and VVD are the two parties currently forming a minority caretaker government.)

<comment><USER5> Strictly speaking, there is no law dictating the government has to leave when receiving a "motion of distrust", although it never happened they did not.

<comment><USER6> is that in theory where the queen steps in?

<comment><USER4> Not sure; it has never happened yet and it would certainly get ugly, so she might. She does usually step in at a few other places, though. We're getting off-topic here; for a very nice but not yet complete overview, see <http://www.quirksmode.org/politics/> .

<comment><USER4> Hmm, I may have misunderstood adavies42 slightly here; I thought (s)he meant what would happen if a motion of no confidence were ignored, which has never happened and would be quite a shock. When a motion of no confidence is passed by parliament, either against the entire government or against one or more of its members, which has happened several times, usually the target of the motion goes to the queen to resign; the governmental parties then seek a replacement who has to be officially appointed by the queen. If the entire government resigns, the queen usually asks for advice from all political leaders, and then there are several options, all of which involve her, since she officially appoints the members of the government. In practice, power is in the hands of the political parties; she does have some possibilities to influence the process, but not very much.

<comment><USER6> > I thought (s)he meant what would happen if a motion of no confidence were > ignored

yes, that's what i meant. thanks for the info!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two critical notes to the general "holland is fantastic" fuzzy feelings.

The Netherlands are European leaders when it comes to wiretapping communications. Its laws gives the intelligence communities extensive powers to tap, filter and store. This was already the case well before 9/11. Secondly, privacy is usually not a political or social issue of any real significance.

<comment><USER8> The Netherlands recently passed a law on Net neutrality stating that a warrant is required for internet wiretapping:

[https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/08/netherlands-first-country- in-e...](https://www.bof.nl/2012/05/08/netherlands-first-country-in-europe- with-net-neutrality/)

I don't see anything wrong with wiretapping with a warrant. Do people who argue against them also argue against home search warrants?

<comment><USER9> Little bit ironic BTW, seeing as The Netherlands has one of the highest phone wiretapping rates in the world.

<comment><USER10> The difficulty here is that NL has a strong oversight on wiretapping - <USER2> whereas in the UK, a single wiretap warrant can get other phone numbers on as riders (usually one cop doing a favour for another cop), which makes the UK numbers look smaller, the NL is more open and so has larger looking wiretaps.

<comment><USER11> That "strong oversight" has been hampered by a refusal to publish details (we have absolutely no clue why there are so many wiretaps, and it's been hard enough to get the authorities to publish the raw numbers), and the oversight fails when it comes to storing and providing access to the collected data.

The latter is particularly worrying, because we already know that in other areas, police access to private data collection is seriously being abused, and very badly organized.

The oversight basically starts and ends with granting the permission to wiretap. Everything else is murky as hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thank you, Netherlands! (from the Polish, whose Prime Minister initially thought signing ACTA was a good idea "because everyone else did")

<comment><USER13> Which is a marginally better excuse than the standard 4 year old's "someone else did it and ran away", but only just.

<comment><USER14> For the record - Polish PM backed off after few weeks of mass protests in Poland, and said he was wrong, and Poland won't ratificate ACTA.

I still don't like him for his other decisions, and the lies he told about ACTA before he changed his mind, but at least he can say he was wrong.

<comment><USER13> Fair point, however I admit I am a bit of a cynical bastard and so suspect that most politicians would swear the earth was flat, if they thought for one second it would extend their time in power.

<comment><USER15> That is main reason why he (Polish PM) has to be very wary now - if he didn't back down from ACTA he wouldn't stand a chance in next elections. And there is still some time before we will have them but if he makes more blunders it will be his political death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a Dutch resident (British citizen), who's working on a file sharing startup, this news really makes me happy. Hopefully other countries will follow

<comment><USER17> Also a Brit in NL. Net neutrality and this news makes me very happy too, though I actually work (indirectly) for Hollywood!

<comment><USER16> Seriously? Where are you based?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And on the other and now the majority of ISP are blocking access to the PirateBay.

As much as I like the Netherlands (living here from 2006, I'm Italian), these inconsistencies in their systems are really annoying[^1]. Net neutrality, ACTA rejection on one side, blocking web sites on the other.

[^1]: I won't mention the other kind of inconsistencies, but if you really curious about some health care system madness, I encourage you to read<http://blog.lanzani.nl/2011/doctors/>

<comment><USER19> Really? The ISP-PirateBay blockade was ordered by a judge based on existing legislation. The field of net neutrality, privacy, copyright/piracy is changing and complex: I don't think it is reasonable to expect full consistency now. Tell me which country is consistent, and is so democratically? At least the Dutch have set a course, and in my opinion it is a good one.

[I read your blog entry, sorry to hear about your knee but otherwise I find your story single sided and your statement that doctors get money for not helping is so crude and slander-like that it needs citation, in my opinion - if it were not for the fact that I have to email you to comment on the post I would have placed this part of my reaction over there.]

<comment><USER18> Not saying that other countries are better, just saying that there are still a lot of inconsistencies.

[As for the doctors: for what regards the money, this is what I've heard. Of course there will be nothing official but: I know 2 (!) persons who died of uncured cancer, because Dutch doctors just told them to take pain killers (not kidding). Then I know other 2 (we were close) that had to go to their home countries to get the cancer cured, because here the doctors told them to wait a couple of weeks. Once home their doctors hospitalized them immediately, saying that further delays would have killed them. A PhD student from Russia, also here in the Netherlands, emailed me after reading my blog post, because the same happened to his knee and the doctor didn't want to treat him. My mother-in-law had kidney stones, and what did the doctor say? Drink some warm milk. She had to fight 3 days to be sent to the hospital. I'm here since 2006, but I already met so many people who where _shocked_ by the incompetence of Dutch doctors, that I could write for hours. The entry in my blog reflects some facts happened directly to me or my family.]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's things like these that makes it hard for me to ignore that the U.S. is heading down the wrong path and most of its governmental arms are controlled by corporations. Let the people decide on something for once.

</comment><comment><USER21> The last few years have been particularly crazy - Apple's pursuit of what is essentially a black rectangle being the oddest of all.

Looking forward to the next generation of laws appropriate to the growth of the internet and the people who use it...

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a bit scary that it is news worthy that some politicians stood up for the people.

Well done though :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow, is this really what bills in the Netherlands look like? 500 words, half a page?

How do we get our govt to stop churning out multi-thousand page piles of pork- barreling instead of simple, straightforward resolutions like this?

<comment><USER24> Actually, it's a "motion", a (strong though non-binding) suggestion from the house to the cabinet that they should change the regulations to accommodate the motion.

The actual law or laws that will be changed or created are not nearly as pretty. (Although judges here are allowed to pass judgement in the "spirit of the law" rather than taking the text literally, so there is less of an incentive to get every little detail nailed down on paper)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm happy that privacy is still on the political agenda

</comment><comment><USER26> Net neutrality, a lot of ISPs counter-suing BREIN for having to block thepiratebay, and now this. I love the Netherlands ^^

</comment><comment><USER27> Good news to start off the day. I hope many will follow.

</comment><comment><USER28> Earth to Congress, Europe is starting to turn against this treaty drafted in secret, when are you going to come out against this on the side of the American people?

<comment><USER29> Well, Sen. Wyden has asked the Obama administration to send ACTA to Senate for ratification, but the Obama administration refuses to do so, and says ACTA, which is a global treaty, can be made and signed just by the president. Something about that argument sounds very wrong to me.

<comment><USER30> Sen Wyden has been great on these issues. See also [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/11415519051/wyden-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/11415519051/wyden- to-obama-hollywood-shouldnt-know-more-about-tpp-than-congress.shtml) Where the Obama administration would not share the contents of the TTP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement with congress or senate, while representatives of U.S. corporations are being consulted on the agreement.

Crony Capitalism at its worst.

<comment><USER31> Without commenting on the TPP specifically, I will point out that this is the process that the Constitution sets out for international treaties: the executive branch negotiates them as they see fit, then the agreement is presented to the Congress for ratification.

If TPP makes it that far (no guarantee it will), the Congress will have plenty of opportunity to read and react to it--especially now that Fast Track has expired. Just look at how many times the negotiators had to go back to the table on the South Korea and Colombia free trade agreements to satisfy Congressional objections.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Toxic workplace, what do I do? - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/0cUnah3Q <comment><USER4> _> This is a not for profit organization that is strictly mandated by government procedures. It has a large budget. It has been around several decades. It serves tens of thousands users a year and enjoys monopoly on the services it's users require._

I'm familiar with that situation.

Two things:

1.) You're in no danger, there's likely no accountability at any level and you don't have to be in a hurry to quit. As a relative newcomer, what you see as a death spiral is likely status quo for the organization - it's a zombie.

2.) You never had a chance at effecting any real change, so don't feel guilty about bailing.

<comment><USER5> It might be a black spot in his career. It will be difficult to explain what went wrong while staying positive. Beside, this can strongly affect his moral. A back flip, if possible is in my opinion the right move: get the hell out of this.

<comment><USER6> If I was hiring him and he just said "wasn't a good fit" and didn't say anything bad about the organization, I'd be happy with that answer.

Bad mouthing former employers in an interview is totally not cool in my books.

<comment><USER7> Even if they were disorganised, behind the times and afraid of source control?

Sometimes companies are just damn awful.

<comment><USER8> Never, ever, ever bad-mouth a previous employer during an interview.

Ever.

Even if you worked for Satan himself, and he had Kafka and Joseph Heller design the Waterfall development process, and your team lead had the IQ of a telephone pole and the personality of a Comcast customer service rep.

You can say you weren't a good fit. That you felt the toolchain hurt developer productivity. Talk about how you want to be part of an organization that will let you hit your maximum level of achievement. Talk about how you hate bureaucracy because it puts barriers between you and the work that needs doing.

That's all fine. Show me, the interviewer, how driven you are to create.

But the second you start talking about how miserable you were, or how much of an asshole you thought your boss was, or about how much of an idiot your team lead was, you've basically cost yourself the job.

You might be completely right, but if you start talking about this during an interview, you come across as an antisocial, whiny, needy child. If these problems were so upsetting, why did you stay so long? Why didn't you try to fix things?

I want people in my company that will actively fix problems, not just complain about them.

I, the interviewer, can't change anything about your last job, and complaining to me about it doesn't help either of us. I'm going to wonder how you'll be to work with if you can't put the past behind you. I'm also going to wonder what you'll say about me, and the team, when you leave. Will you paint us in the same light as the job from hell?

If you whine about how much you hated your last job, all you do is turn on every red flag I have regarding personal interaction.

<comment><USER7> Who's talking about whining or getting personal?

If the company was badly organised, behind the times and resistant to change, I don't think there's anything much wrong with saying it. IMHO.

<comment><USER9> The interviewer doesn't know if your claims are true.

There are lots of people in the world who are impossible to satisfy, who blame all failure on everyone but themselves. They have complaints about everything, justified or otherwise.

By bringing these things up, a person who does not otherwise know you has two possibilities:

\- The company you worked for really _was_ that bad. This claim cannot be verified in a meaningful way.

\- The candidate you're interviewing is one of these dreaded negative nancies who will disrupt your workplace as they proceed to complain about everything and redirect their own problems upon other people.

Since there is no way to tell which is true, and I have no incentive to trust you, and every disincentive to bring in someone like that into my office, I will not hire you.

Direct, concrete criticism is fine. "We used the waterfall model and I don't believe it works" - but _do not_ come off as bitter, because that's exactly what the Negative Nancy typically sounds like.

<comment><USER10> True. Delving into any negativity in an interview answer exposes you to this evaluation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just think about it this way, you are never going to get the days and weeks and months and potentially years you put in here back. If you don't spend them on something useful you will forever see this as a problem.

So since the place is clearly clueless, you need to decide what your going to do. When you talk to people about this place in the future, they are going to ask you "why you stayed" and your answer is going to reflect on your character and your outlook.

You can try various strategies to fix things, some might help, some might not. But you can practice you skill in identifying roadblocks.

You can switch into anthropologist mode and start studying the people who are dysfunctional. Find how how complete idiots maintain a lock on their power base, what techniques do they use if it is clearly not skill in their job.

You can practice organizational dynamics, try to figure out who the 'players' are and who the 'pawns' are. It's a sort of morbid curiosity and of course once the players notice you are looking at them you will have to be on your toes and bob and weave lest they corner you on the board. (You don't want to end up fired with everyone in the organization thinking you're the reason the world is screwed up, and a good player will try to make that happen to protect their turf)

I wish there was a way to quit and on the way out mark the entrance with ultraviolet sensitive ink or something so that others could know what goes on there and stay away.

Since you are asking these questions though, you are in good shape.

<comment><USER12> > Find how how complete idiots maintain a lock on their power base, what > techniques do they use if it is clearly not skill in their job.

While this is extremely interesting, it's not something that can be learned in a reasonable timeframe, and may never be learned if you don't have the right approach or luck into the relevant facts.

For example, one company I know of, the CEO was in charge for 8 years, while the company constantly lost money. They struggled to come up with new products, flailing around. They only stayed afloat through patent lawsuits, without which they would have been long out of business. During this entire time, the CEO made mid-six figure salary. I use to remark, "If I understood why that company was still in business, I'd be rich".

Why did the CEO stay in charge? The answer is very boring. 2 of the 3 board members had already checked out, writing off the entire investment, and the third was personal friends with the CEO.

The answer is not always interesting, and there's not always as much to learn as you'd hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is too big a need for talented developers for you to stay there. Call a head-hunter.

I've been in such clusterfucks, probably a dozen times (that's a _very_ large number no matter how long your career is) and, as much as I need to tell me that, I never really learned from staying. All I learnt from trying to point out how brocken the situation was (the three first times) was that people do not like to be pointed out their mistakes, and some might actually commit suicide for that. The fourth time, my desk-mate wrote a book on how bad the situation was; the book was really good, actually, in a lucidly desperate and unwillingly helpful way. It ended up selling a dozen million copies (US Ed.: ISBN 0-375-42373-7.) After that, I've learnt more than I want to, and more than I can actually use about too-big-to-fail, harrasment, corporate fraud and covering one's ass. The only useful tidbit: I'm not happy in larger organisations (something anyone who met me for ten minutes can figure out).

Chiph is right: you will learn something, and be able to avoid patterns, but that's actually not very useful: you can tell a mess without experienced it before (you just did) and two messes never really look alike. Staying would just make a part of your CV uncomfortable (mine is a minefield); one is probably easy to avoid or explain, and a great source of jokes for dinner- parties.

I make very funny presentations listing fuck-ups; none of them has ever actually helped anyone around me to not find a creative way to get something deeply wrong.

<comment><USER14> The original of the book in question: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_paresse> (roughly "Hello laziness")

The company was French electricity monopoly EDF, and their reaction to the book was instrumental in propelling it to success. Its creator is now widely known as the French version of Scott "Dilbert" Adams.

<comment><USER15> Wow, just wow. I am working there at the moment, and it's even worse than you may think. I've been there as a consultant for almost 2 months now, and I still don't have my computer. As a developer. I've been told it's normal, and nobody seems to be alarmed.

But that's not the worst thing. People actually enjoy it, if you listen to some, they found the perfect "job"! But it's crushing me, I'm a very passionate developer, and I miss coding. I'm done working for big french companies, I started looking for greener pastures a week ago, and I'll probably quit my consultancy firm next week.

<comment><USER16> We're hiring :)

(we = Mozilla Paris)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can't ignore the psychic impact of working on a project going nowhere, or down the toilet. As noted here, I don't think your own job seems in danger, but if you are not working on stuff that juices you up, and is going well, it will have a medium to long term impact on you.

Hiring managers can tell that you've been working on boring, soul-crushing stuff. This sense is almost indistinguishable from the sense that you are a bored individual; hiring managers won't bother to figure out what's what.

It can take a couple of years to get your 'mojo' back if you have been in the wrong situation -- I would urge you to act wisely, and move before you lose it. You'll be glad.

<comment><USER18> I agree strongly with this. I worked as a consultant on a zombie project where the out-of-his-depth PM held a 2-3 hour phone call every morning with a team of 15 as his way of moving development along. Needless to say, that didn't work. I was billing a pretty great rate for myself at the time, and for a while sort of enjoyed just reading HN or a book on someone else's dime every morning, but eventually I realized it was sapping my will to do good work of any kind -- either paid or for myself. I found a good stopping point and left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the Netherlands we have this TV show called: "help! my husband is a handyman". It is about families living in a mess that should have been a palace. But the handyman had so much jobs to do he just could make up his mind were to begin.

I think this also applies to problematic projects like this toxic one. The mess seems too big to clean up. But it isn't. You just have to start somewhere and clean up little by little.

In the past I had to implement a feature in a toxic software project. While implementing the feature I also refactored some messy code and even deleted some functionality nobody every used (thousands of lines). By doing this I broke some parts on purpose and added some functionality to fix what was broken. Now others who were also working on the project had to deal with the stuff I broke. Ofcourse nobody liked it, but when they knew I provided better functionality to fix the problems everybody was happy because they knew this had to be done.

Broken gets fixed, shitty lasts forever. That's why sometimes you need to break shitty things on purpose.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Toxic workplace, what do I do?" quit. F' that noise. It isn't worth the frustration. I did the same thing about a year ago, working for federally funded science. The worst decisions on earth were made, money was wasted AND they complained about budget cuts. It got to the point that someone was like, "you look miserable?" and I was. Toxic is a perfect word, it was literally eating away at me. I quit, had no job lined up, went on vacation while emailing my contacts about jobs, came back with a job. Done and done. Being in a toxic environment does nothing for you with the exception of teaching you how NOT to do things. But, it seems clear the author of this post realizes that, so your lesson is done. Quit. move on, don't look back. Simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER21> This sounds like the kind of place where one could put in his 40 hours and bootstrap a project on the side. As long as you can sort of disconnect yourself and avoid feeling overwhelmed, you could also put in just a solidly competent performance and enjoy the steady pay.

If that doesn't interest you, then quit immediately for greener pastures. Even if there's no risk to you, you only get one career, and staying there is wasting time.

<comment><USER22> _This sounds like the kind of place where one could put in his 40 hours and bootstrap a project on the side. As long as you can sort of disconnect yourself and avoid feeling overwhelmed, you could also put in just a solidly competent performance and enjoy the steady pay._

That's not a bad idea. I did basically that for almost 2 years while working for on a trainwreck of a project managed by clueless PHBs. I just came in, did the bare minimum I needed to do to stay employed, and reserved as much of my mental, creative and emotional energy as possible for Fogbeam work after hours. Hell, I'd probably still be there, except I got so bored and tired of the B.S. that I started speaking my mind about things, and pissed off a lot of the managers, and eventually got laid off.

In hindsight though, getting let go from that place was a blessing. You can do that deal, but it takes a toll on you after a while, even if the job is nominally "easy". There's a unique sort of mental stress that comes from grinding through soul-sucking boring bullshit, tedious meetings, and inane bullshit day after day after day after day...

The day I walked out, the sense of relief was virtually palpable.

So I guess I'd say "go this route, but don't let it stress you out too much. Tolerate it as long as you can stay sane, then just bail, or force them to let you go".

<comment><USER23> > There's a unique sort of mental stress that comes from grinding through > soul-sucking boring bullshit, tedious meetings, and inane bullshit day after > day after day after day...

So true.

<comment><USER24> Absolutely, and also very hard for others to understand it unless they are in the same situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Although it adds color to the situation, not all non-profits are clueless about technology. There are many that are run as well as (or better than!) many tech startups.

If you're based in the Washington DC area, drop me a line. I'd love to connect and help you find a better position. (I'm not a headhunter or recruiter - <USER2> a non-profit developer who doesn't want to let one clueless NGO tarnish your impression of all non-profit tech for life.)

</comment><comment><USER26> First, what you describe is pretty typical in certain sectors. They have a monopoly mandated by the government. They have no profit motive. You need to start by stepping back and realizing what the incentives are.

This is to do just well enough to avoid the ire of the government regulators. They don't need to earn customers. They don't need to offer quality services. They just need to do just well enough to scrape by. This is exactly what they are doing.

So the first thing you need to do is adjust your expectations and understand that it is all a charade, and that that is what the real game is.

The second thing you need to do is take a look at yourself. Do you want to work in such a place? If not start looking for another job now before the environment poisons you. The real danger is that it can poison what you want in your career if you want to effect change.

</comment><comment><USER27> Will you learn more (career-wise) by staying and observing the fall & aftermath, or by leaving now?

I would put forth that you'll learn more by this experience about how people deal with failure and what happens afterwards than you would if you left. Will there be shouting & tears? Probably. Will people get fired? Almost certainly. Will you get fired? Chances are low, but not zero. Worst case scenario - <USER3> get some severance money.

Given the track record of successes in the software industry (few/poor), learning what not to repeat will probably take you further than anything you could learn by swapping jobs and doing CRUD work. And if you get asked about it, you say "I could have left, but I intentionally stayed on, as I felt that this was something that I needed to experience so that I wouldn't repeat these errors."

The important thing is to act strictly as an observer (do your work, but .. observe what is going on around you), and not to engage in any schadenfreude or gloating. The people that lost their jobs -- for the majority of them, what happened was not their fault and they shouldn't be blamed or made fun of.

So build up some savings (you should have 6 months of fixed expenses saved up, anyway), sit back, and enjoy the ride.

<comment><USER28> I disagree, but respectfully so. You will learn a lot by staying, but as you said, it truly is a toxic situation. You'd learn a lot by shoveling toxic checmicals every day for 6 months too, but _that has semi-permanent effects on you_ , and it's just not worth it.

I recommend you get the hell out, ASAP. Take your time enough to try your best to pick a new landing spot that is not so dysfunctional (even then, there's no guarantees, but give it a good shot).

Life is short. Pick a new spot that will be as enjoyable as possible on a daily basis, while also carrying your career in the direction you want to go, and GET THERE ASAP.

(And I say that from experience -- I've found myself in a few of these messes myself).

<comment><USER29> But if you're young enough, you may be able to quickly recover from this situation. Better than if you ended up in a similar situation towards the middle / end of your career. One thing that a similar situation in my early twenties helps me with now, is no matter what, I can always say "At least it isn't near as bad as that company". Or, I can properly assess my current situation and know if it is getting just as bad / worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Eat everyone.

Barring that, adhocratic takeover. Loudly proclaim "I AM TAKING OVER THIS WING, IF YOU LOVE ME FOLLOW ME" and start treating the project as if it was only you working on it. See what those who do follow you want to work on, and split tasks according to mesh-management protocols.

This assumes that you care about the project getting done, if you don't, pull a Wally and enjoy all the extra free time. :)

<comment><USER30> By the way, I give this advice after having done this at least once. The product was delivered slightly ahead of the revised schedule, after which the team was disbanded because the higher-ups did not want to deal with the surreal situation. I managed to get 1 out of 6 developers to follow me.

<comment><USER31> Sorry, just to clarify - when you say "this advice", do you mean "eat everyone", or the other thing?

<comment><USER30> The other thing :) Much as I seriously considered treating my cow-orkers at the time as valid sources of protein.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Leave when you get a good offer.

While this fish was rotting from the head down long before you arrived, it would be better not to be around when stool samples hit the gaseous oscillator. Some of it might stick to you by mere association.

<comment><USER33> This is superior advice to quitting immediately. You're much more likely to get a good offer if you already have a job and don't _need_ a new one (talking in the financial sense here) than if you quit first and then have to negotiate a package from a position of unemployment.

I've seen people quit their job and be forced to come back when they couldn't find work elsewhere. Why take that risk when there's no need?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > In addition to that, we are being thrown onto the Agile train with hope that > it will save us.

I can hear the higher-level discussion in my head: "We don't have a plan, we don't have clear requirements, and we have no process ... that means we're already agile, right?" "Let me look at my checklist, Jeff. Yes, it seems we are in fact agile."

<comment><USER15> It's indeed funny how some managers apply Agile methods religiously, conveniently disregarding the fact that everything else went haywire years ago. Is that snake oil or what?

<comment><USER6> Agile is the biggest piece of nonsense I've encountered in a over a decade of software development. Why is it allowed to persist?

<comment><USER35> It isn't necessarily nonsense... To some Agile is a word to describe a process that leads to quality software being delivered with a happy team. To others, it's a consulting gong show. All depends on who is leading. Just like any approach.

Lean startups are talked about a lot on HN for example but there are plenty of debacles and snake oil consultants in that realm as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> How do others cope with such a situation if

\- they are no longer in their early 30's. I have a family to sustain.

\- don't see themselves as rockstar developers. I constantly dabble in side projects from natural language processing to web development to building Android apps. I feel I provide a lot of "out of the box" input. But since I am a hard case of impostor's syndrome I don't feel like I could eg. lead a team. Or, heaven forbid, do a start-up.

I feel I am wasting my life here, but the market is not great for self- conscious devs.

<comment><USER37> If the option exists to keep doing the horrible job, that means there is no direct pressure to quit it. That means sustaining your family is never a problem, you can hold on to the job while you are looking for a new one. You can even have someone else (a headhunter) do the looking while you work the job.

Maybe you should stop giving your self syndromes and acknowledge that you know how to program. Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great? Last thing I heard many businesses are still scrambling for web and app developers.

It is a well kept secret, but the kind of team leader that doesn't think he's a good team leader often is a good team leader. If you position yourself as just 'one of the boys' you get a lot more honest feedback, and you'll be less of a cock to your team.

Doing a startup as someone who lacks confidence and needs to sustain a family seems like a bad idea, unless you could get into YC or something.

Also.. maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child?

<comment><USER36> >Businesses are looking for people who know how to program, why do you think the market is not great?

Because basically the only interviews I got in the last months were in other enterprisey gulags. It's not enough to know how to code, you need to be able to market yourself, be part of the attention-based economy (I am an introvert, I don't really know how to leave an impression in the web 2.0) and presumably invest a ton of time in grooming your open-source projects.

I am no complete failure, over the years I have done quite some stuff - but a lot of that is NSFW, so not so great as a showcase.

>maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child?

I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch.

<comment><USER37> >> maybe I'm naieve but you should do something about your confidence, aren't you raising a child? > I don't really know what to make of this - I do, but it's not like I can just pull myself together to raise my self-confidence. I have been making gradual improvements, but I just can't flick a switch.

I'm sorry I am not trying to say that it's something you can just do, but you were sounding a bit defeatist. If you say you're making gradual improvements I respect that.

The attention-based economy is simpler than you make it sound. The idea is just to build something you like, NSFW or not, and put it on github. Use some hip technologies to show you have the ability to learn new technology.

For fun, here's a small recipe:

Pick a combination of 3 technologies that have been up on HackerNews lately, say AngularJS with MongoDB and Node.js, do 2 small projects with them, and maybe an Android app in Java (or whatever your enterprisey language of choice is) that does something silly like open your garage door or plays words your child said.

Now you have 3 original projects on github that show aptitude in frontend dev, backend dev and app dev, fill out your github resume with at least 3 forked open source projects you find interesting, and another 2 you submitted a patch to (just fix a spelling mistake in their docs or a trivial bug in their tracker).

I bet you could build this github resume in 2 months of free moments in evenings/weekends. Accomplishing this will give you a confidence boost ('hey I can do hip stuff') and I bet it'll do your resume a lot of good :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Dude just quit. Do you really need 100 randoms from HN to help you make an easy adult decision?

</comment><comment><USER39> > _I am planning on doing a graceful back-flip out of this mess and quit. What > are your suggestions for immediate and eventual haul until my tenure is over > ?_

Are you asking what you can do to improve the project while you hunt for a new job? I'm not sure what "immediate and eventual haul" means. It sounds like you feel some personal or professional motivation to help the project, even if you have already "checked out".

I recommend that you start your job hunt immediately, network with positive and connected people in the organization while you still can, leave a good impression with your managers if possible, and generally avoid rocking the boat.

Even though it may feel cathartic, burning bridges is unproductive. This is a small industry and you can only hurt yourself. The organization will not make _any_ changes based on anything you say in your exit interview that might rescue the project or improve the lot of the co-workers you leave behind.

</comment><comment><USER40> I have to add my vote to the "quit sooner rather than later" column. Several years ago I worked in a similarly dysfunctional environment (also in a monopoly position in their industry): terrible code, terrible development processes, you name it. I was tempted to quit after a month but gritted my teeth and tried to change things as best I could. I quit after nine months there because I realized that I was a) getting nowhere with higher mismanagement b) waking up angry because I was having dreams about the technical arguments I'd have the next day. Leaving that place was I think one of the best career decisions I have ever made. Epilogue: I nearly doubled my salary at my next gig, which also was nicer to work at. Life is too short to endure a shitty job. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER41> Some of the time, potential employers look at what you did when they knew times were rough at a given job. They assess your actions and ability to perform under duress. While I do not say stay. I would say take the time to provide the most value you can while you consider your next career move.

For example: Document inefficiencies, cultivate worthwhile relationships if applicable, establish trust where available and create a turnaround plan. The goal is not necessarily that you have to save everything but provide an open communication channel in case someone decides to shift culture for the better.

Lastly, stay humble. While it seems toxic and a road to nowhere, remember that where you are could be worse. You are a professional. Don't lose sight of that.

</comment><comment><USER42> Been there. You're in no harm as long as you leave within the next 6 months. Don't let yourself grow bitter. Don't get to the point where you feel you have to leave now! You don't want your sanity or your career to suffer. Once you become "damanged" it will take a while to "heal" but during that time other hiring managers will pick it up like a sixth sense.

If you make the exit and explain to anyone who asks why you are leaving that you feel you are under utilized (no negative remarks) then they have to accept that. If they press, be diplomatic. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why stay until 'your tenure is over'? The mess isn't of your making, looks to be best described as 'management failure' and you're not going to be able to fix that or even make a dent in it.

Just walk if you can afford it, if you can't afford it start looking for something better and walk as soon as you have found that.

</comment><comment><USER44> I think this article describes the majority of jobs out there. Of the 5 places I've worked, only one of them could be described as "functional". I've learned to just deal with it. I put my 8 hours in each day, and then hit the personal projects hard when I come home. I've learned not to rely on my job for anything other than a paycheck.

</comment><comment><USER45> Until you find a new gig, go to work, do what you're told, and collect your paycheck. Don't invest any emotion in it or try to go above and beyond to help, it will just leave you bitter when it goes nowhere. Get out quickly though, because it could easily become a blemish on your resume.

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes, I have that situation too, with 2 other guys I develop some government's application from scratch, this 2 other guys don't understand anything about software development, there's no solid foundation, messy database structure not even have standard code convention and yes in business level changes is inevitable, the development itself running for almost 2 years, this is hell for me, I value best practices in any level, but reality is cruel, even my boss quit this project and replaced with other mediocre boss.

Until now, I still in this toxic workplace, hope for changes always came everyday, then again reality is cruel, I'm thinking to quit, surrender, find other place and I will.

So, my poor friend, if there's no good progress at all, please get out, you and your talent deserve better.

</comment><comment><USER47> quit. I know the organization you are talking about, their HR department is a complete mess right now

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: out of curiosity, what is the first and last letter of the city you think this org is in ?

<comment><USER48> First B, Last N?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I would like to say that there's a chance of salvaging the project but there probably isn't and its not your fault. I haven't been in your situation before but I would suggest that your course of action depends on you core morals.

Do your job, find a better place switch. if the money is good, consider one more lap at accepting the state of affairs and stay clear of the guillotine that will eventually make an appearance.

It sounds like you did more than your part.

</comment><comment><USER50> Although I'm no developer I've been in a similar situation, where the boss was bullying a colleague of mine. Situation got so infected because of this that almost everyone in the company stood up to the boss. For the bullied colleague, and the few of us who worked closely to her, it ended up getting us all fired. I consider myself good at what I do and some of the others that were sacked excellent. I didn't have the choice to stay or leave. Being let go, I was afraid my career would take a serious dive. It didn't. Next employer bumped my salary, gave me great conditions and I actually enjoy working nowadays.

In hindsight being let go was the best thing for me. It's hard to realize it when you're in it though. My advice to you is to leave and (try) to never look back.

Considering bad mouthing your previous employer, just don't. You can share such details after you're hired and people have gotten to know you. Mention the work you've done instead during interview.

</comment><comment><USER51> > There's an insurmountable amount of technical debt that nobody wants to > acknowledge.

That is the impossible issue. By refusing to acknowledge the fundamental technical debt, ALL other conversations are entirely pointless.

You end up trying to come up with backchannel misleading ways to solve the real issue... "maybe if I just say we need more tests" ... "maybe if I recommend a new architecture, which will force a rewrite" ... etc.

The problem with all these things is that if they aren't validated and required by the technical debt (which is unacknowledged), you just seem crazy!

I have now had to deal with crippling technical debt twice, and I think it is maybe the most toxic issue I have ever seen, made worse when there is an emotional connection or overvaluing of that code.

At a certain point, if you have too much technical debt... I think you just have to declare bankruptcy on it and start over, doing your best to reuse the bits that are worth it.

</comment><comment><USER52> I enjoy my job a lot and once in a while I think about quitting. My reasons are what you might call the first world problems of the tech world. The people I work with are great, but the organization is occasionally bonkers.

I left a defense contractor because I didn't like the way they managed projects. I found a new job and gave two weeks notice when a hole appeared in the schedule.

It is healthy to think about moving on even when you are in a stable, even great situation. If you don't, you won't make your life an adventure.

Saying all this as a generally satisfied person, I have no doubts I would be looking for an exit in your shoes.

I would find one too, because as an engineer, interviewer, and needer of engineering talent to work with, I know that good candidates are hard to come by.

You are in demand and will be for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER53> Well it looks like a mess and you can't do anything about it so here's what I would suggest. You already decided you want out so you have nothing to loose make a lot of noise and get everybody's attention, try to take the lead and make something out of that crap project. One of 2 things will happen 1 you will take the lead and save the project and earn a lot of respect from everyone by doing so or 2 and most likely they will treat you like the new guy with no experience and ignore your or fire you because you see things they don't want you to see and are being disruptive.

From where I'm standing both outcomes seem favorable to you 1\. you earn respect and maybe more 2\. you get out of a failed project and dysfunctional community

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER54> In before michaelochurch.

Since this is non-profit, it almost certainly doesn't pay you well enough to waste your days on a massive death march project like that. No unit tests? You've gotta be freakin' kidding me. Cut and run as soon as you can get another offer.

<comment><USER55> > In before michaelochurch.

heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Quit. Tell the reason why in a polite way. Write an email to the CEO of the organization, and to your bosses. In the end they will thank you. Find a nice job that suits your working style.

For me for example, I worked one year in a big telco where they hired lots of CertifiedScrumMasters, which tried to introduce scrum, but at the same time managers without any technical knowledge came walking into our room asking when feature X will be delivered, and why it is not delivired yet.

Introducing automated testing went very difficult since the budget was strict. Bad developers where hired because they had a "Certified Java" certification. It's a mess.

I now work at a startup and I get to hire the people! :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> "The specific project I work on is way behind. It was supposed to be delivered before I joined. There's an insurmountable amount of technical debt that nobody wants to acknowledge. Bad decisions were made with regards to developer software, tools, source control, software design, database management, environments etc."

Welcome to the wonderful world of IT :-)

My advice: You're going to be looking for a new job very soon and during the interview you're going to be asked about your last job. You'll tell them how bad it is and they'll ask you what you did about it. At this time you need to think about how you'd like to be able to answer that question, and act accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER58> If all of the common procedures like peer review and QA are absent, you've got some sweet freedom. The real problem is that you're trying to change it, try to live with it instead. This kind of workplace could be a lot of fun ;)

</comment><comment><USER59> Sounds pretty normal for a big org. If that's not your cup of tea, quit and move on to something that fits you better and do it quickly. You've got nothing to lose and they really won't miss you so why prolong the agony?

</comment><comment> brown9-2 I think it might be revealing that nothing positive or anything about the job that might want to keep you there is mentioned in the writeup. If you don't like it and the environment is toxic, life is too short.

</comment><comment><USER60> I suppose I am in the minority when I say I was in the same sort of position but stuck with it. I was hired to work on a zombie of a product, walking dead, unprofitable. The problem was there had been no direction for several years and with my help the project is now back on track. There was a period of time where I did the absolute minimum but by taking the initiative and doubling down I am proud of what I have done. I have a problem with startup culture where people are quick to jump ship instead of putting in the required work to create real change.

</comment><comment><USER61> It seems you already decided to seek greener pastures and your main concern is what to do until you find something else.

What I have done the couple times I found myself wanting to move on was to inform my supervisor up front. I ask if it is ok for me to seek new challenges elsewhere.

This way there is no need to hide from them you are actively pursuing another job and once you get a new offer, they are not surprised when you give the 2 weeks notice.

Now, needless to say that until you find something else, be professional. Show up on time, with a smile and perform to the best of your abilities.

</comment><comment><USER62> I think your plan is right - leaving is the only option. And rocking the boat before you leave is probably not useful to the org, nor helpful to your career. This sucker is going down, and moving along is the right call.

As you transferred in, and seem to show some loyalty to the org transferring seems to be a good possibility to look into, particularly as I agree with Incision: you in no danger (of getting fired/etc.)

On the other hand projects that are going down are horrible for your mental health and sometimes physical health, and as such getting out is important.

</comment><comment><USER63> Just imagine what you could do in an environment that nurtures you, values your opinions and embraces change as a Great Thing (tm). The job markets are in your favour these days. There are a lot of start ups and more established companies looking for people like you who obviously stand out. If I was you I'd start fishing to see what are my options in other places. One of these options will be something you just can't not take and your notice of resignation will be easier to hand out.

</comment><comment><USER64> If you decide to stay, how you handle this situation and how you get to the end of the project will be remembered by everyone involved. Assuming you dig in, do the best you can and try to keep your chin up, this can help lead you to better opportunities on new projects where you are asked for by name. Also, the relationships you make now, can also follow you and can be leveraged down the road as the company grows and as you maneuver through the growth of your career.

</comment><comment><USER65> While I can't give any meaningful advice I can say that I relate a lot with the following "People that should not make any decision with regards to how we develop and deliver the software have all the say." At my workplace I feel the same, what I have been doing is just keep up with the orders and tasks assigned, just enough to stay employed. I must say that I have been considering leaving for a long time now.

</comment><comment><USER66> This sounds like almost every nonprofit I've worked for as a consultant. There are very few that are actually technology driven, moreover they're often driven by mediocrity.

That doesn't mean they're not nice people, and that they're stupid (well ok sometimes it does), but it usually means they're working poorly. Often the organizations lack leadership because people with leadership skills tend to go for money.

</comment><comment><USER67> Do what I did: Leave and let everything you learnt from whats wrong with the situation guide how you develop for the rest of your career.

</comment><comment><USER68> Sometimes the fix cannot be implemented at the team level. It has to be implemented on a larger systems level. In other words, either the organization itself has to go bankrupt and be dismembered, or your entire team has to be dismantled and rebooted.

That's the advantage of living in a capitalist society though. Organization level reboots are relatively easy.

<comment><USER69> Unfortunately according to OP the organization in question is not subject to market pressures and cannot go out of business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Find a company you'd want to work in, contact them. If you don't find one, build it.

You're passionate enough to have written this. Most people do not. Don't let this situation destroy it.

My co-founder lived in that kind of company for 2 years. He learned a lot of what not to do but it took its toll.

Sidenote. We're looking for passionate people.

</comment><comment><USER71> Leave. The org is old enough and established enough that it isn't going to change and you won't change it, it will change you (think Gollum). There are plenty of good and great places for a talented person to work. Don't waste your life working for bad organizations.

</comment><comment><USER72> What should you do? Quit. Sooner the better. It's like dating someone and hoping you will be able to change the things you don't like about them later - it will never happen. Get up, get out and go work for a smarter organization. Life is too short!

</comment><comment><USER73> Why not put in minimum effort, and do something like study or develop your skills?

Or put into place unit tests into the code you do write. Or do awesome work on what you are meant to be doing? Is this at all possible?

</comment><comment><USER74> If you don't want to wallow in somebody else's shit, quit.

</comment><comment><USER75> My company is hiring. We do things right. Drop me a line if you'd like to hear more!

<comment><USER76> Hey, how's it going?

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> well, this is obviously the VA.

</comment><comment><USER78> You are describing 99 percent of IT shops. Focus on your career, not your employer.

</comment><comment><USER79> Change your job. If you can't, change jobs. - that worked so far good for me :)

</comment><comment><USER80> sidenote, but kind of alarmed by the number of anon accounts getting created for posts like the OPs.

We could have one anon account for submitting anon posts, whereby upon request, a one time access password would be generated.

</comment><comment><USER81> Alternatively, write to your member of Congress describing the problems...

 _I don't feel comfortable bringing suggestions up as I was instructed that I'm not the source of change._

...such as a supervisor that is resistant to learning new information.

</comment><comment><USER82> You work for Southern California Edison. Quit.

</comment><comment><USER83> Do you work for the VA by any chance?

</comment><comment><USER84> you should build something on your own that solves the problem, then open source it, then quit.

</comment><comment><USER85> Why did you join such a mess in the first place? Didn't you get some intel before making a decision?

</comment><comment><USER86> just take your salary and do side projects.

</comment><comment><USER87> "what do I do?"- If you can jump ship ASAP, there is tons of opportunity out there.

I was in a similar situation (not quite as bad), but I couldn't leave because of a business obligation. I survived by insulating myself from the dipshits. We formed an isolated 'blackops' team within engineering that was beholden to nobody but ourselves. We were able to move at lightspeed compared to the rest of engineering.

After a year our small team actually began a major pivot for the company (culture, technology, etc..) and breathed new life into the company. Most of the diphits were jettisoned and the others were moved into supporting roles.

</comment><comment><USER88> This sounds like pretty much every software project/team that's managed by a large company (or a subsidiary thereof).

</comment><comment><USER89> Get all your stuff that's yours out of the office. Don't go back.

</comment><comment><USER90> As others said - commit to Quit. Create two options for yourself - one job and one working for yourself. Staying will tar you with the brush of the company.

But before you leave write a very well considered and professional memo and send it to the CE/board/exec team, offering to meet with them as well. Keep it internal, and leave it there.

I would aim at communicating three things:

1: That a problem exists at your level, and give three examples of how this manifests. Focus on how things work rather than on people and personalities and the overall implications for the project and organisation.

2: Your understanding of the root causes of the problems. For this it's best to canvas other people but make sure the conclusions are your own and not blamed on others. Focus on causes that are not people but processes/structures that have et the organisation up to fail.

3: Your recommendations for the senior exec/board etc. Again I would give tangible things they can do that do not involve individuals, such as immediately de-scope the project, bring in certain external help, separate out this department and that and so on.

If they are smart they will meet with you, and even keep you on in a role where you can help make changes. I suspect they will not, but at the very least you will have tried, and they will have evidence that they should not ignore.

<comment><USER91> This is terrible advice. Don't send anything other than a neutral message to your immediate supervisor informing them of your 2 week notice.

<comment><USER92> I agree. When quitting, you have to be positive. Pretend that the workplace was the best you ever worked for and you regret leaving. "I'll miss everyone on this great team and the awesome office".

Think about your old workplace as your ex-husband in a divorce. Why would your ex be happy if you told him he has bad breath and would benefit from regular workouts? He will be offended and angry.

A company may say they want input from ex-employees, but it's a huge risk for the ex-employee to give it and there is no upside. Keep quiet, or lie if you must reply.

My advise is to send only a neutral written notice. If there is any verbal communication, keep it positive.

<comment><USER90> The only thing we always have is our reputation. I suggest that relying on others to be nice is a good way to lose it, and that knowing we didn't do the right thing in a certain circumstance is also bad for our own self-esteem.

If the poster would like a reputation as a nice guy - then sure, he could leave without saying much and hope that nobody says anything bad about him, or even remembers that he worked there.

If he'd like a more proactive approach, then he could try to leave a reputation as a nice yet strong person, a competent person who was brave enough to try to help, but also polite enough to escalate it quietly.

Imagine being were offered a job at Enron, or with Bernie Madoff, knowing what we know now. Who would take it? Who would steal away into the night if we found ourselves there? Who would first try to do something about it or at least document that we saw things were wrong and/or try to escalate?

I would hope I would be firmly in this camp, trying to be someone who is unafraid to live to my own values, not those of others.

To reply on the divorce example: A thoughtful discussion about why things are not working out between two partners is always in order, even after the divorce. We are all trying to learn. But just as the example of bad breath is not the root cause of a divorce, some of the symptoms in the original post are not the real problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Peter Thiel's CS183: Startup - Class 7 Notes - <AUTHOR> http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21869934240/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-7-notes-essay <comment><USER2> "It's like getting a degree at Berkeley. Okay. It's not Stanford. You can a complicated story about how you had to do it because your parents had a big mortgage or something. But it's a hard negative signal to get past."

I agree that YCombinator is head and shoulders above its competitors but is Stanford really considered that much better than Berkeley? Honest question.

<comment><USER3> I read it as a joke just playing to the audience (ongoing good-natured rivalry, etc).

It's like when someone really likes reddit. Okay, it's not HN. They can tell a complicated story about how they like cats and populist rage politics, but it's a hard negative signal to get past.

<comment><USER4> You're probably right ... it was likely a good-natured joke. However, I see the elite school bias happen a lot in tech. When you're a young person trying to get that first job, etc., it really stabs you in the heart. The idea of signaling is reasonable but taking it to the extreme is just plain stupid. Peter jokes about the poor family with a big mortgage ... that isn't a sob story ... a lot of people have that or worse. My folks immigrated to the west with very little. I went to the best school (not Stanford) I could afford and tried to make the best of it. And I know for sure that I'm not the only one like that. All I ask is that we don't take these things as innocent jokes. It is just another form of discrimination ... we should point that out every time we see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole Stanford vs. Berkeley... Honestly, if you make anything more of it than the joke it's intended to be, you're wasting time. To be fair, he did joke earlier this quarter about how Stanford is outscoring Berkeley in terms of the value of companies started at each school every year. However, those are jokes. I'm a Stanford student, but I think Berkeley has made incredible contributions outside the field of making-VCs-rich. Fundamental science, counter-culture, and engineering (including tech). I'm sure Thiel thinks so too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Paul Graham: "$50m companies innovate. Mine did. We basically invented the web app. We were doing complex stuff in LISP when everyone else was doing CGI scripts. And, quite frankly, $50m is no small thing. "

Of course, no one uses CGI now. It's all complex stuff done in LISP. Innovation is amazing, isn't it?

<comment><USER7> <http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/bbnexcerpts.txt>

That's more advanced stuff than most web apps or frameworks do today. If viaweb had been done now instead of 15 years ago, they probably would have spun off lots of open source projects.

<comment><USER6> Doubtful. Yahoo rewrote Viaweb in C or C++, didn't they?

There's a reason why so many programmers still use CGI scripts. And why they depend on a host of scripting languages that rely on external libraries written by others. Perhaps it's because they just don't grasp what Paul Graham is describing. They can't comprehend languages like Lisp or Forth or developing incrementally from an interpreter prompt. And they don't need to. "Web 2.0" is an easy sell, no matter how crappy the "web apps" are, no matter what library-dependent, inflexible language they are written in. "Market forces" inhibit the few folks who do understand Lisp and Forth from spending more serious time with those languages.

The web browser as a UI. Brilliant. Programmers and end-users (a group to which programmers themselves belong) are getting smarter every day.

Anyway, you're right. It is definitely more advanced. Let's keep that in mind as we're looking at what's coming down the pipe hence forward and marvelling at what some will portray as "innovation".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can find notes essays of all of Peter Thiel's startup classes here - <http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup>

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone interested in the actual slides?

<comment><USER9> Yes please! Also could you tell us about the assignments and exams?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the more interesting asides here is PGs idea that our society is starting to reflect a power-law distribution. Not sure what he was thinking about specifically, but it certainly seems to be true in terms of wealth these days.

How does a society deal with that for the long-term?</comment>


In California, Where Cancer Warnings Abound, Coffee Is Next in Line - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-drink-coffee-in-california-be-warned-it-may-cause-cancer-1516795200 <comment><USER2> These warnings are worse than useless. Since they usually don't actually name the substance, let alone quantify or contextualize the risks, I have no say of using the information.

If I see a warning, it could mean that there are harmful, odorless chemicals being emitted by some manufacturing process. Or it could mean I'm near a parking facility. Or it could mean they're serving alcohol somewhere in the venue. There's a huge difference between those three, but the warning posted is identical.

They're worse than useless because they actively desensitize people to actionable information by overloading them with unactionable information.

<comment><USER3> This is a very important point to make because it starts to devalue the warning and desensitize people to it to the point of meaninglessness.

<comment><USER4> Yep, bought a set of non-toxic chalk pastels for my son and found the generic "know to cause cancer" warning. I had to go to the manufacturer web site and look up the MSDS report. Turns out the white chalk (presumably) contains Titanium Dioxide—you know, what makes some sunscreens white. It wasn't clear if nanoparticles are the concern or just that TiO2 is just on the list.

<comment><USER5> Many cosmetically coated pharmaceuticals also use TiO2 in the coating formulation, to make the coating nice and shiny white. Iron Oxide is another common pigment used for coating tablets and pellets.

<comment><USER6> In addition, I once noticed that some gourmet "natural" bottled juice drinks had silica on the ingredients list, to give the appearance of having some sediment in the bottle.

<comment><USER7> link/pics? is that's actually a thing?

<comment><USER6> It's been years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28288025](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28288025)

Coffee and cancer risk: a summary overview.

Abstract We reviewed available evidence on coffee drinking and the risk of all cancers and selected cancers updated to May 2016. Coffee consumption is not associated with overall cancer risk. A meta-analysis reported a pooled relative risk (RR) for an increment of 1 cup of coffee/day of 1.00 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.99-1.01] for all cancers. Coffee drinking is associated with a reduced risk of liver cancer. A meta-analysis of cohort studies found an RR for an increment of consumption of 1 cup/day of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.81-0.90) for liver cancer and a favorable effect on liver enzymes and cirrhosis. Another meta-analysis showed an inverse relation for endometrial cancer risk, with an RR of 0.92 (95% CI: 0.88-0.96) for an increment of 1 cup/day. A possible decreased risk was found in some studies for oral/pharyngeal cancer and for advanced prostate cancer. Although data are mixed, overall, there seems to be some favorable effect of coffee drinking on colorectal cancer in case-control studies, in the absence of a consistent relation in cohort studies. For bladder cancer, the results are not consistent; however, any possible direct association is not dose and duration related, and might depend on a residual confounding effect of smoking. A few studies suggest an increased risk of childhood leukemia after maternal coffee drinking during pregnancy, but data are limited and inconsistent. Although the results of studies are mixed, the overall evidence suggests no association of coffee intake with cancers of the stomach, pancreas, lung, breast, ovary, and prostate overall. Data are limited, with RR close to unity for other neoplasms, including those of the esophagus, small intestine, gallbladder and biliary tract, skin, kidney, brain, thyroid, as well as for soft tissue sarcoma and lymphohematopoietic cancer.

<comment><USER9> How many milliliters of coffee is a cup?

<comment><USER10> According to [0], "per additional cup of tea or coffee daily, adjusted to 200 mL or 2 g of dry tea each cup as appropriate" suggests that they consider 200mL, or closer to 6 than 8 oz.

[0]: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340062/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340062/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's just erect a giant billboard at SFO/LAX/etc. reading "WARNING: This state contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm" and be done with it. It will be about as useful as now and will be much less of a hassle.

<comment><USER12> I once saw a sign on a door at a hotel in California that said something similar to this: "This door leads to an area with chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm"

The door led to outside. I'm pretty sure the sign was serious.

<comment><USER13> Sounds to me like the sign was put there by someone making fun of the signs they had to put elsewhere in the hotel

<comment><USER14> Nah, I think this was legit. I lived in a place that had the same thing. I think it's because some doors lead to a place that is near a location where cars might be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is all you need to know about Prop 65, from the article:

"The statute allows any private citizen to sue over an alleged violation. Last year, 681 settlements worth $25.6 million were reported to the California attorney general's office. Attorneys' fees and costs made up more than 75% of the total."

<comment><USER16> > Attorneys' fees and costs made up more than 75% of the total."

This is all you need to know about Prop 65.

<comment><USER17> And this is why there's no appetite to change it. The trial attorneys' lobby would eat any such initiative alive, casting even a reasonable reform as "bad for the environment" and "bad for public health."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is seriously pathetic. I literally see these signs everywhere - when I enter my car, when I enter a restaurant, when I enter a grocery store, in my office etc. At this point, I am completely desensitized. I don't even read them anymore since I have just assumed they are there because of some useless law passed few years back by people who didn't foresee how worthless this could become. At this point, even if the barista draws Cancer on top of my coffee instead of a smily face, I will gladly drink it since I know she did it because of some stupid law which doesn't make any sense. That is how sad the situation is.

<comment><USER13> Or she did it because she's into astrology

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> These warning stickers seem to be the passive aggressive way of undermining regulation. Just put them on everything and people soon will stop reading them.

<comment><USER20> I think the original intention of Proposition 65 was to provide a disincentive for businesses to use toxic chemicals and a disincentive for people to frequent spaces where they were used. However, it doesn't seem to have been calibrated effectively: the authors of the proposition may have thought that businesses would have a clear and easy choice between "using dangerous chemicals" and "not using dangerous chemicals", but so many things have ended up getting included that the value of that signal has been severely diluted.

It would probably be more useful if they had some kind of scale of danger, kind of like in the NFPA fire diamond where hazards are rated from 0 to 4. Another alternative could be to label only substances that a typical citizen would not expect to be present in a certain kind of facility (which maybe could be established by having the state perform surveys). For instance, a typical citizen would probably expect jet fuel to be present at an airport.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, those thresholds got set way too low. But worse, they don't really provide much in the way of actual _information_, as several people above have noted.

An article I read about this whole coffee thing mentioned that

"The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment adopted new regulations last year that will require more specific warnings that list the chemical consumers may be exposed to and list a website with more information. Parking garages, for example, will have to post that breathing air there exposes drivers to carbon monoxide and gas and diesel exhaust and warns people not to linger longer than necessary."

(From: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/coffee-sold-in-california- co...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/coffee-sold-in-california-could-carry- cancer-warning-labels.html))

...which should hopefully make the warnings more useful - though I've no idea whether their overall usefulness will outweigh their overall cost.

<comment><USER22> How would it make them any more useful? It's not like hanging out parking garages and breathing in exhaust are a favorite pastimes for Californians now (though this impression can easily be made if one considers the results of California lawmaking, I admit). People know exhaust gases are not a healthy thing, and there's no reason to hang out in parking garage anyway. However, since being in parking garages, when parking, is unavoidable, putting useless warnings there desensitizes people to all sort of such warnings, and makes them ignore any kind - including those kinds that might have been useful (such as in a facility where actual dangerous chemicals are present) - but now, nobody would even notice those warnings anymore, just as nobody reads what's on Windows warnings, people just click 'OK', whatever it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well this was certainly enlightening. I've never lived in California before and I've only visited it infrequently, so for a moment there I was shocked to find out that coffee might actually give me cancer despite all the buzz proclaiming that it might lower your risk of various forms of cancer, lower your risk of diabetes, lower your risk of erectile dysfunction, lower your overall risk of all-cause mortality, etc.

No, turns out I'm fine. Well, very likely fine. I just happened to learn something new about California law. The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.

<comment><USER14> > The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions.

If only the statists of this world would come to the same conclusion...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think everything we eat and breathe is somewhat carcinogenic. The question is where to draw the line. As far as I'm concerned I'm happy to give 1 month of my life (assuming that's the time span associated with coffee and cancer _on average_ ) for the joy of drinking coffee everyday.

Life should not only be longlasting, but also joyful

<comment><USER25> Yes, it has been known for quite awhile that mitogenesis (cell division) "causes" cancer: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/)

Literally anything that leads to the need for cells to divide is a cause of cancer (eg smoking -> replace lung cells more often; UV light -> replace skin cells more often; obesity -> more cells overall needing replacement, etc).

It makes zero sense to frame the issue in terms of X causes vs doesn't cause cancer. Instead it is a matter of how much.

<comment><USER26> IIUC it's not really the cell growth rate, but the harm from toxic molecules or radiation.

<comment><USER25> Each division there is some probability _p_ the cell gets an error that can contribute to cancer. Anything that increases the number of divisions or _p_ will increase the chances of cancer.

<comment><USER27> Unless it's the division of cancer destroying immune cells :). Then the (net) chance should decrease due to division.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If everyone agrees these are basically useless as-implemented, I wonder what we could do to change the process so that useless laws actually get removed, instead of hanging around forever.

An expiration-type system just seems like an invitation to play stupid political bargaining games instead of letting reasonable stuff continue unargued, a la the spending bills in the US Congress.

<comment><USER29> > I wonder what we could do to change the process so that useless laws > actually get removed

This was a California Proposition, which means it was citizen driven legislation. As a result, legislators aren't keen to interfere with them. To get rid of it, we're basically going to need another proposition which nullifies the reporting requirement and changes the way legal settlements around Prop 65 are handled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Prop 65 is ridiculous, though well intentioned I'm sure. There are so many things on the list, at such low levels, that raw vegetables would need the warning label if not for being exempt.

Companies just slap on the label so they don't get sued by a lawyer who makes a living suing over Prop 65.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_65_(198...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_65_\(1986\)#Abuse)

[https://redmond.life/prop65/](https://redmond.life/prop65/)

[https://www.sunfood.com/sunfood-prop-65/](https://www.sunfood.com/sunfood- prop-65/)

<comment><USER31> You know your consumer protection laws are a little over the top when "not for sale in California" is a marketable feature for pretty much any product you wouldn't want to ingest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [http://archive.is/saZrP](http://archive.is/saZrP)

</comment><comment><USER14> This brings to mind the wireless warning controversy in SF a few years back:

[https://ehtrust.org/policy/san-francisco-cell-phone- ordinanc...](https://ehtrust.org/policy/san-francisco-cell-phone-ordinance/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Has anyone proposed to repeal Prop 65 yet?

Seems like a pretty obvious thing to do. How easy would that be to get on the next election ballot?

<comment><USER34> The lawyers who make a killing off suing for violations would fire back and claim that those who want a repeal obviously don't care about public health

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Among other reasons, this is a great reason many are against GMO labels.

<comment><USER17> I think the GMO labeling problem is related, but separate. To date, no one has ever proven that GMO foods are somehow unsafe, much like the flap over rBST in milk, for which products proclaiming they are rBST free have in small print that no difference between rBST cow milk and non-rBST cow milk has ever been demonstrated. With both GMO and rBST, there's possibly a food _quality_ issue, but not a food _safety_ issue.

Proposition 65, however, actually claims that there's a _safety_ issue. And, to be sure, the chemicals on the list are indeed legitimately unsafe; it's just that the context and the probable dosage or actual level of exposure in many cases makes them largely irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Non-paywall:

[https://outline.com/H992nD](https://outline.com/H992nD)

I'm like, 90% close to making a bot that just does this for HN submissions.</comment>


WANdisco Delivers Certified Subversion Binaries With Enterprise-Class Support - <AUTHOR> http://www.wandisco.com/php/pr.php?rss=0&prdate=2010-04-06

<comment><USER2> This is truly great news!</comment>