Hirewolf: The pitfalls of hiring filters - <AUTHOR> http://www.hirewolf.com/blog

<comment><USER2> This strikes me as a bit of a straw man story. Who judges a candidate based only on their education? Experience counts for more than education in any place I've ever worked or interviewed. (At my last interview _none_ of my interviewers noticed that I'm back in school for a Master's degree, despite the fact that it's listed at the top of my education section.) If Bob has open source projects to his credit, he can put them on his CV.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you here. This is a contrived example - I would expect a bit more from an "article" voted to the front page of hacker news.

Sure, you shouldn't hire a developer merely because he went to the right schools and did well, but I can say with some certainty that if you compare candidates who went to good schools and got good grades with candidates who went to lesser schools and got poor grades, the former will as a whole be much stronger.

While you will hire some bad candidates and skip some good candidates if you work this way, your strategy will be pretty close to optimal. Some very successful companies have been using this strategy for many years.

With that said, if this company thinks they have a better way to do things, they are welcome to give it a try. If they can improve hiring even a little bit (either in improving the positive or negative filter), I'm sure there is money in it for them.

<comment><USER4> > This is a contrived example

Nope. I know developers who don't even have degrees that you'd be /crazy/ to ignore.

On the average you will do pretty well with your "good school, good grades" strategy. However, I believe you will miss out on the occasional truly extraordinary candidate, the one that was bored with school and quit to do Neat Stuff.

But (you may argue) these people are prima-donnas, or easily-distracted flakes, or won't fit in culturally, or they don't bathe. Or something.

Look at their track record /outside of school/ and see if they did indeed do anything Really Neat. If not, they were fooling themselves. But if there's evidence to the contrary, you're crazy to ignore it.

Frankly, I don't even look at the education history any more. It doesn't tell me anything. I'm far more interested in what projects they've done and their exposure to computer science and software engineering than what dorm they had an opportunity to occupy.

<comment><USER5> The people who do things Really Neat are first introduced by some means other than a resume.

<comment><USER4> Very good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like creating a new filter based on open source participation levels and quality. Potentially this is a pitfall, you're excluding brilliant developers who push all their energies into their (non open-source) day job. Although perhaps this is the idea.

I wonder what percentage of say, Google engineers have public open source projects?

<comment><USER7> Also excluded would be developers who push their non-work energies into improving themselves technically.

After a hard day of work coding, I'd much rather, for instance, spend the evening reading Russell and Norvig's AI book and working on the problems therein to learn in depth the things that were covered in an introductory fashion in the online Stanford AI class, than dabbling in some open source project (and the often associated social drama).

I've got a lot of books besides that one that need more attention.

<comment><USER8> You lost me. I'm not understanding how you think contributing to an open source project is not a way to improve yourself technically, but reading a book is. In my experience you learn far more doing the former than the latter.

And in any case the subject at hand is identifying good developers. They aren't paying you to read books, they want to know if you can produce software. If you want to show them that you can, then _producing software_ is an awfully good way to do that.

<comment><USER6> I think whether an open source project improves you, technically, depends on the scope of each project. For example, you could make 100 simple CRUD web applications in the same way, and not learn anything from it.

For the projects I tend to work on, reading 100s of pages of documentation is necessary. To create a good solution, I must understand the domain well. I spend many evenings reading books on kernel construction, networking, algorithms and so on. This is improving me technically. When I go into work, the knowledge then helps to make better software.

<comment><USER8> Isn't your point just agreement with mine? You're reading books (or wikipedia or whatever) as a necessary task in a focused effort to develop software. Clearly you didn't take me to mean that you should never read, right?

But the GP post seemed to be arguing the opposite: that focusing your effort and learning on a practical goal was _not_ a way to "improve yourself technically". And that's the part that lost me.

<comment><USER4> I don't budget books. (Well, the actual budget has to do with available shelf space and how much of the floor my wife is willing to let me pile books on).

About ten years ago I read a bunch of books on MPEG2/4 and some other video- related stuff. I wasn't doing much in the field, it just seemed interesting. Eight years later it turned out that the project I was on needed this type of expertise, so I was able to contribute on stuff that people hadn't expected me to be able to. It was fun.

You can't easily foresee this kind of thing. I'll probably never need to know the details of how Vax/VMS did its free page management, but I might run into a related problem, so reading that OS book 25 years ago might pay off.

What I see from people who /just code/ is that their skills rot far faster than people who like to learn stuff. If all you do is code, after ten years you have another 100KSLOCs of Java or C++ or SCHLOPBOL under your belt . . . and who cares?

I like to learn stuff and hopefully get a chance to apply it. Otherwise I'm just a garage mechanic who fixes bicycles in my spare time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds like a great idea. I wish you well.

While you seem to be targetting startups (which often have little money and maybe, just maybe, think they don't need the outside help), I'd consider the rest of the employer spectrum right up to the BDM's (big dumb companies). You could pitch it as similar to a background check but instead of looking for criminal history, you're digging into past performance.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Find a Job!" When I click this button I do not expect to be told "we'll be in touch", so I'm disappointed when I click it. "Join the Beta" or "Request Invite" might be more suitable language.

</comment><comment><USER11> We're using Hirewolf to help in our hiring already.

Our biggest hope is that Hirewolf will be able to help highlight candidates that our other recruitment channels aren't picking up -- not just great coders from great schools, but killer coders with unknown pedigrees.

</comment><comment><USER12> > to quantify candidate action and accomplishment so that companies can make > better hiring decisions.

How long before a startup named Hiresheep figures out how to game their metrics, and sells it as a service?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is exactly the kind of tool I think the hiring process needs. I'd met a few HR people a couple years ago to discuss a tool like this. They all said it would be invaluable.

So good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> Hirewolf is a great idea, but I don't know how it's going to capture that I am an apache project committer, or all the code I have in Hudson/Jenkins from my github profile (where none of this activity happens).

Definite room for improvement but I'd hate to be passed over because a potential employer doesn't have a complete picture.

<comment><USER2> Check out Stack Overflow Careers. It allows you to associate your github account so potential employers can see your activity.

<http://careers.stackoverflow.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Show me a sample output of what you expect a trail to look like and how your analysis is more then a google/git/linked in search.

Basically, why should a hiring company use you over tools all ready available?

</comment><comment><USER16> The best strategy is to keep HR and recruiters out of the hiring and decision making process. Problem solved.</comment>


Mathematical Impressions: Spontaneous Stratification - <AUTHOR> http://www.simonsfoundation.org/multimedia/mathematical-impressions-multimedia/mathematical-impressions-spontaneous-stratification/

<comment><USER2> Isn't it fascinating that this has been on front page most of the day, and it has but one comment? I suppose I'll fill this echo chamber.

This sort of work is absolutely fascinating to me. Emergent behavior like this can be so varied and complex, and getting any handle on it at all is often impossible. The fact that mathematics is starting to approach such problems, and may one day discover a great edifice of knowledge that explains what happens when a few simple rules interact—why, I would love to see the day. Recall that programming, too, often involves putting together just a few small pieces in an intricate arrangement, which causes beautiful behaviors to take place. Imagine understanding that phenomenon on a deep level!

</comment><comment><USER3> That was very interesting! thank you for posting that. i've forwarded your link to a scientist i know who works on sedimentation in riverbeds who'll find it a very nice reference. (e.g. 'angle of repose' is a surprisingly complicated concept)

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like the sorting occurs in the cup, not in the receiving container. It shows the red particles suddenly stacking up on the slope from the bottom, which means only red particles were coming out of the cup at that instant.

</comment><comment> Ono-Sendai Very cool. I wonder if this mechanism for stratification is the one responsible for the strata commonly seen in rock, or if there are more important mechanisms. (seasonal variation?)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like something that could be modeled with some cellular automata rule.</comment>


Switzerland Wants to Become the World's Data Vault - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/swiss-set-sights-becoming-worlds-data-vault

<comment><USER2> Will that data be as "secure" from the US government as their banking information is these days?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/us-tax- switzerland...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/11/us-tax-switzerland- idUSBRE9B80S320131211)

Also, remember when Switzerland helped the US government by banning Assange's account? So much for having a "strong reputation" in data protection.

[http://mashable.com/2010/12/06/wikileaks- switzerland/](http://mashable.com/2010/12/06/wikileaks-switzerland/)

If they are really serious about this, good on them. But one should approach them with a little skepticism given their not so flawless track record.</comment>


Google Engineering Management Mistakes - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ajfcdscjzbvp_976rt9cfw <comment><USER2> Wow, this is one of the coolest things HN has found in awhile.

It's remarkable how, time and time again, formal incentive compensation schemes are shown to cause more harm than benefit. I started paying attention when Joel Spolsky called it out 6-7 years ago, and then read Peopleware (an excellent book) which reiterates the point (and calls it "teamicide"), and then read the Harvard Business Review article ("Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work").

Why would a company as smart as Google forge ahead with schemes like this in the face of all available evidence that it's a bad idea?

<comment><USER3> Spolsky's article:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html>

<comment><USER4> One of my coworkers has one of those Ship It awards. It's... pretty sad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Stack ranking system was harmful:"

whoa! I didn't know Google practiced stack ranking. There is a lot of unnecessary stress generated at Microsoft due to this[1]. I would have thought the Google folks would be wise enough to avoid it.

As for ".... SVP response: "If you wanted to get promoted for these non- engineering tasks, move into management"

heh! How big company ish is that? The best way to join Google these days seems to be as part of an acquired startup. Then you are at worst running out any vesting period while enjoying those free massages.

[1] [http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/07/microsoft-stack- ranking...](http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/07/microsoft-stack-ranking-is- not-good.html)

<comment><USER2> I had to look up "stack ranking" just now, so, for the benefit of the class:

Stack ranking means that if you have a group of 20 people, during each performance review cycle the group manager is expected to rank them from 1 to 20, and the company distributes bonuses and promotions accordingly.

That just seems completely asinine.

<comment><USER5> "Stack ranking means that if you have a group of 20 people, during each performance review cycle the group manager is expected to rank them from 1 to 20, and the company distributes bonuses and promotions accordingly.

That just seems completely asinine."

Worse, there is often an associated ideal distribution ("the curve") with fixed ratios for "exceeds expectations", "below expectations" and so on and managers are under pressure to conform. If you have an all superstar team, a certain number must still be in the bottom most bucket, and the bottommost 5-10 % is often let go or put on a watchlist (I am not saying this is how Google does it).

Over a few years this gets _very_ political as you can imagine. The (bad) middle managers love this part of their jobs.

<comment><USER6> I was in a place that decided to give out bonuses to my team (consisting of 3 members and a leader) in the following way:

1\. Allocate fixed amount to give out per team

2\. Have team leader's manager determine how that pie would be shared between team leader and us 3 team members.

3\. NOT have 360° feedback

4\. Incorporate team leader feedback on team's performance into this decision

I'm not sure what type of HR schmuck thought up that scheme. About a month after 'self evaluation', we were called into 1-1 meetings with the TL, who told us each separately how disappointing our performance had been, and the usual spiel about 'taking initiative' and 'stepping up' and 'moving to the next level'.

Shortly after that we found out the three of us had received 0% each of the pie allotted to our team as a bonus. And the team leader had waltzed away with _ALL_ of it.

That's right: an allegedly disappointing team who'd failed to achieve any of its goals was compensated for by a super-human team leader who had somehow magically overcome all our shortcomings to over-achieve so much, that even the organisation-wide "curve" was left by the wayside to reward such awesomeness.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like your manager actually suffered a bout of insanity or was a thief.

<comment><USER8> I'm guessing thief. It's where the incentives lead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The sum of money just appeared in my bank account, but was so insulting low that I felt devalued. If a manager had just talked to me about how much my work was appreciated, it would have been better than money."

This is true at a certain threshold. Appreciation is _immeasurably_ better than an demoralizing, insultingly-sized bonus. However on the other end, if you go above and beyond normal expectations and save or earn the company millions of dollars, a "thank you" from your boss on the company newsletter is _not_ going to cut it.

<comment><USER10> I would challenge this. Let's replace your trivializing phrase "a 'thank you' from your boss on the company newsletter" with just _recognition_ , which obviously can take many forms. We have evidence, cited in this thread, that recognition is generally more satisfying and motivating than financial rewards are (at least those produced by formal incentive plans). What evidence do you have that this effect only holds "at a certain threshold"? Or that it weakens as one's work becomes more important?

It's important to resist one's intuitions when faced with a counterintuitive finding, which this is. Most of us have been conditioned to think of "never mind the touchy-feely, show me the money" as hard-nosed realism. That it turns out not to be is immensely interesting.

<comment><USER9> I left "a certain threshold" undefined on purpose, because it varies from person to person. The point is that the _reward must be meaningful to the person being rewarded_ , otherwise it is much worse than no reward; the person will become cynical, demoralized, and unmotivated.

The main problem is conflicting valuations of the work in question, which holds true whether the the payment is money or recognition. Who is to define how much recognition is satisfactory? Take the Microsoft "ship it" award[1] as an example of a formal recognition plan, which failed.

My evidence, like the evidence in this thread and the presentation, is just personal experience.

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html>

<comment><USER10> _My evidence, like the evidence in this thread and the presentation, is just personal experience._

On the contrary, I was referring to the work of Dan Pink and others on the science of motivation, which was mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

I don't usually discount personal experience but this is one area where the empirical findings are surprising. A pretty important one, too, considering the implications for good organizations and happy lives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wall Street solves this problem quite efficiently! The annual bonus is really the same as the performance review, so they simply tell everyone "you did a great job this year, here are your compensation numbers."

That way, as a rank and file employee you don't really know whether your "review" was above, at, or below average. First order, because you'd have to ask your peers about their compensation, which most people consider rude (at least in the US). Second order, because the bonus is supposed to be an aggregate of your group and individual performance (plus your seniority), so it's usually impossible to find a suitable cohort for comparison.

</comment><comment><USER12> This also reminds me of a paper I had submitted in the past. Randomly promoting people is more effective than using merit:

<http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0455>

<comment><USER13> do you know of any research on randomly electing people in the government offices? I believe it would also be much more effective.

<comment><USER12> In the US we've been doing this for years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Context: <http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/10/facebook-and-google.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> 100% confirms my fear that this is a group of incredibly smart, hyper intelligent people who don't understand that specializing in a field (like, say... Management) isn't something you can "dabble" in and do well. My experience is that most "managers" in Google (when I interviewed, I met a few Directors, Managers and Tech Leads) are 99% technically focused. Google swung the pendulum too far the other way. Engineering should be in charge of the company, but rely on Managers to do management things, not have Engineers dabble in it (with the best of intentions) I would think if Google applied the same hiring practices to hire in hyper intelligent people with a management focus and could integrate them into the teams correctly, this would be a huge win. (I haven't interviewed there since '07, so things may have changed since then)

<comment> brown9-2 I wouldn't spend too much time looking down your nose at Google's mistakes here, as piaw cautions that they're still a really great company to work for:

 _-At 1500 people, Google was more agile and less political than most 200 person startups!

\- At any given size, Google was the best company in its class to work for.

\- At its current size, Google is still more desirable an employer for engineers than Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, and many other well known names._

I think you'd find many similar stories at other software companies if you applied as focused of a lens at them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "biggest mistake is still having a tech ladder"?

What specifically is this referring to? A separate career progression for techs vs managers? I thought that was desirable so you don't need to move your best engineers out of engineering positions to promote them. I fear I'm missing something.

<comment><USER16> If I understand correctly, it's suggesting that having formal levels, regardless of whether managers do or not, is what's undesirable.

I infer the alternative to be flat, such that there's only difference in compensation, with no difference in formal title.

Perhaps I'm biased, since I very much believe you can call me whatever you want, as long as I'm suitably paid. This function-over-form attitude is why I prefer startups.

<comment><USER17> _Perhaps I'm biased, since I very much believe you can call me whatever you want, as long as I'm suitably paid. This function-over-form attitude is why I prefer startups._

Then I'm biased, too. I don't work for a start-up (100+ employees, with only seven of us doing software development), but we really don't have "career tracks." There are two management positions in our group (VP and lead engineer), so unless one of them leaves the company, no one is moving up, nor do titles change, even with raises. And this suits me perfectly fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is no perfect review and compensation scheme. People will figure out how to game the system. Perhaps the best scheme is to randomly change it every few years so people can't game the system permanently.

<comment><USER19> I've often thought about that. I think it would be a worthwhile experiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's funny how you could take "Google" out of that slide and put "Apple" in it and it would be almost word-for-word applicable. Or maybe it's not funny.

Too, I recognize that this author of this presentation spent time to make it public, and sharing this sort of information is always welcome, so moaning about the format might seem a little rich. But in the glorious tradition of the internet, I'ma gonna bitch about it anyway. I _really_ __really __hate this new fad of posting these Powerpoint-style slide decks. I would _always_ prefer to read prose, even inexpert prose, than <next> through yet another comically inept link on scribd or google docs.

Moaning off. Thanks again to the author.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, the slide deck was there as a presentation to Facebook's VP of engineering. I wasn't about to transcribe my own talk.

<comment><USER20> Like I said, I appreciate that you took the time. I was just being J. Random Internet Asshole.

(But I really do hate slide decks.)

<comment><USER19> The slide deck was part of a blog post. It's not my fault that news.ycombinator.com only linked to the slide deck and did not provide context: <http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/10/facebook-and-google.html>

<comment><USER20> Very true, and the added context is really helpful. Thanks for responding civilly to my not-very-civil bitchery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Curious, why does he end the presentation saying that a tech ladder is bad? Is the idea that they should have a management ladder, but all engineers are at the same level? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER21> Career ladders are wishful thinking and an easy way to undervalue contributions. They imply that professional development largely occurs along a single axis rather than multiple ones.

Who's worth more, Peter Norvig or Marissa Mayer? What about an overachieving SWE I vs an mailing-it-in SWE III?

<comment><USER22> The worst part about career ladders at Microsoft was that it put people who were great engineers but terrible, terrible managers in positions of authority, because there was only one advancement path. When I left,they were just starting to create a career ladder for individual achievers, because they had finally realized this. I don't know if it actually ever happened.

<comment><USER23> Dunno when you left, but you can go up many levels as an IC currently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think the problem is much more general. It seems like the underlying problem is that technology companies have idea to divide people into two categories: manager and individual contributors (developers). And then rank them into levels.

This might work for non-tech companies, but I think that is wrong approach for tech companies. One of the key problems is that big money is in "management career path", thus very smart young people which are unable or not willing to go into management will leave to start their own companies.

For example, if you look around you, you see that your fellow colleges and managers are quite different. Some of them are "mentors" (people who like to mentor), "intrapreneur" (people with weird ideas), "fire-fighters" (people who are good in fire mode), "coordinators", etc.

I'm not sure what is the solution. Maybe something like mash up structure where person who is deciding on ones bonus and raise is not his/her manager.

<comment><USER25> I actually think this is one of the places Microsoft has done very well in over the years. I don't think used to be the case a decade ago though but the IC career path is as lucrative/supported now as the management path. One can choose to be a Anders Hejlsberg/Dave Cutler as much as one chooses to be a Steven Sinofsky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> He says offhand that Google is a better place for engineers to work than Apple, but as far as I can tell, Apple makes none of these five mistakes.

<comment><USER19> I know several Apple and ex-Apple engineers. Let's just say that the environment isn't even comparable. Google wins hands down. One of my friends at Apple had to file for an information request so that she could debug a problem that spanned multiple layers of abstraction. A Google engineer faced with that kind of inanity would just quit.

<comment><USER26> I've also heard complaints from Google and ex-Google people that wouldn't come up at Apple. Examples: \- Launching a hard-to-understand product and providing it with scant marketing support, so it promptly goes nowhere (when Apple launches a product we are committed to making it a success). \- Central hiring leads to o way of knowing what kind of project you will end up working on, and high risk that it will be infrastructure grunt work which is not respected by the culture.

Does internal secrecy suck more or less than those kinds of things? I dunno. I would not be so bold as to make a claim either way without firsthand experience of both environments.

<comment><USER27> I'm sure having the trains run on time is nice, but I have to concur with piaw - from the people I've talked to, Apple sounds like a remarkably stifling place to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is a "Peer bonus structure"? I appears in #3 Recognition, "Peer bonus structure was very well done, but not widely used inside engineering."

<comment><USER29> You can give a peer bonus of $200 to any individual with their manager's approval (which is very easy to get). They encourage giving peer bonuses for when someone goes the extra mile on something, but very few engineers initiate giving a peer bonus. After tax, it's about $100, hence the "I can poop $100" bit.

<comment><USER30> Is "close to 50%" the going marginal tax rate in general? I calculate ~30% federal + ~10% California + possibly ~6% social security & Medicare to get that number; did I miss anything? (current grad student with a marginal rate a lot closer to 20%, haven't had the joy of full-on taxes yet)

<comment><USER31> Closer to 8% for SS & Medicare. Also, you'll typically have deductions taken out of bonuses for your 401(k) and ESPP contributions (maybe another 20-25%). Technically, those are still your money; and ESPP will come back to you before too long, but the psychological impact of opening up your paycheck and only seeing 30-40% of the gross you were told was your bonus is pretty frustrating.

<comment><USER32> Most of those people would hopefully be above the social security threshold of around $100K/year so that would not apply. I think a marginal tax rate of more like 30-40% is more accurate.

<comment><USER31> It depends on when in the year the bonus is delivered. If it's early in the year, it doesn't matter if you're going to hit the Social Security ceiling eventually, they take it out of your bonus. I speak from personal experience both on this matter, and on my previous accounting of only 30-40% of bonuses actually hitting my bank account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd like to hear Paul Buchheit's take on this. He was thinking a lot about company culture issues at FriendFeed, and now at Facebook.

<comment><USER19> Paul "liked" the blog post on Facebook. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is great, but I think EVERY tech company struggles with finding the right balance here. Where I currently work, they also fail each and every one of these.

<comment><USER19> That's not true. I think the traditional management systems do a good job of not setting bad incentives for tech leads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There is no perfect system and it is always very difficult to find the right incentives for everyone in the company.

</comment><comment><USER36> Any large company is going to have those same mistakes. There is really no way around it. Especially the part about only the big sexy project got recognition and not the little grungy tasks. In a company of 20,000, unless you have a 1:5 manager to employee ration at all levels you can't avoid that. If these are Google's biggest mistakes then I would happily go to work for them.

<comment><USER19> I think that it is possible to build a culture where the grunchy unsexy work becomes much less un-thanked. Microsoft at its best did it: Raymond Chen was much celebrated for his heroic efforts at preserving backwards compatibility in Windows. In fact, when the Raymond Chen camp lost its political battle, Microsoft got Windows Vista, which arguably cost it billions. I think the stakes are very high in exactly this sort of political battle, and it is worth while for top engineers to spend their time fighting for precisely this sort of culture shift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> _biggest mistake is still having a "tech ladder"_

What does that mean - there there shouldn't be an engineering career track, the only promotions are into management? (To avoid conflict of team leads being evaluated as individual contributors)

<comment><USER19> See the contextual blog post above and below this comment.</comment></comment>


Do you think you can be a good programmer?: Your journey to become one - <AUTHOR> http://www.techtalko.com/2018/03/30/can-you-be-a-good-programmer/ <comment><USER2> Is it that hard to say "he or she"? or even "they"? (stand down, grammar nazis)</comment>


Farming hard drives: how Backblaze weathered the Thailand drive crisis - <AUTHOR> http://blog.backblaze.com/2012/10/09/backblaze_drive_farming/ <comment><USER2> what happened to the post that raised ethical questions about this? i think it had a valid point.

the hard drive shortage hit us all. this one company coordinated a mass buying operation from commercial stores when the rest of use were looking for personal use.

while i don't think this is illegal, it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside either.

when there's a shortage, the "noise" in traditional distribution means that small buyers (like me, and many others) can still find what we need if we put in some extra effort. it functions like a "soft buffer", making the transition to a complete lack of resources more gradual. action like this removes that buffer.

this feels like one group of people - driven by their desire to do business - beat out a load of other people who didn't have the same logistical resources. there's something uncool about it. i am not sure i have explained very well, but it's to do with crossing the line from business to personal.

[edit: ah, thanks - separate thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4630910>]

[edit2: wtf? i thought someone replied here? was about to upvote you. thanks anyway.]

<comment><USER3> While I really enjoyed the story, I felt much the same way as you about the ethics. They justify their decision to run business as usual, supporting the same rate of natural growth, etc. by saying they didn't want to raise prices for their customers, but I don't think that's really a fair reason (eminent business failure would be a fair reason). There were other options:

1\. freeze registration of new accounts and purchase only the drives necessary to keep existing contractual obligations

2\. charge new accounts at a different rate, promising to drop the rate once drive prices returned to normal

3\. change plan storage volume limits

The only reason they didn't pick any of these 3 options, as far as I can tell, is because all of them were bad for their profit margins and it would be nice if they were upfront about that as the real driver for their actions. It's not clear that their business would have failed had they chosen one of these options.

So they chose a path that would screw over the little guy needing a new hard drive in San Francisco. Perhaps I'm wrong, though, and the timing made it very difficult to act on these other options, or their cashflow couldn't handle it. That too would be nice to know, if it's the real driver of their actions.

Entirely rational behaviour (in the same position I'd do the same), but while an entertaining story, it's a hard to story to feel enthusiastic about even though in every other way it shows great leadership.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that external drives that have to be "shucked" of their casing and circuit boards (at what environmental expense?) were cheaper than the same internal drives makes you wonder whether the internal drive prices were realistic.

It can't be cheaper to produce the external drives, so the internal drive prices must have been raised above the actual cost to the manufacturers, presumably because the internal drive demand was guaranteed. Consumers might hold off purchasing an external disk if the prices doubled, but Apple aren't going to stop selling Macs because of it.

Sometimes capitalism isn't perfect.

<comment><USER5> Were they the same as the internal drives? Or just the same capacity?

I get the impression they just kludged as many 3 Tb drives in as they could, and are ignoring any other specs. Maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER6> Gleb from Backblaze here. The drives were literally the same inside the external enclosures. We bought a few to start with to check.

We use consumer-grade drives across our entire 40+ petabyte storage farm because we do not need high-performance drives. Instead, we need low-cost, low-power, high-density drives to put into our custom-designed Storage Pods: [http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a- budget-v...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a- budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/)

We tested "enterprise drives" and found that from a pure reliability perspective, they actually performed worse in our testing than the consumer drives. With about 5 years and 40+ petabytes of data, we're fairly confident this holds true.

Finally, we assume that all drives will fail and replace about 10 drives every week. The software is written such that the system takes drive failures into account and data is stored redundantly and continuously cross-checked.

<comment><USER7> It's interesting to find that "enterprise drives" performed worse than consumer. Recently, a report came from a Microsoft datacenter, where they found most errors weren't from faulty hardware, but firmware incompatibilities between array controller and drive controller. I wonder if this type of incompatibility occurs more often for enterprise drives than consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We had this problem at rsync.net ... the price of our main consumable tripling overnight, etc.

We really never considered "shucking" external drives, since the drives inside these enclosures are the worst spec'd, highest failure rate drives ... never mind the (usually) nonsensical enterprise vs. non-enterprise, they're just crummy drives.

Good for BB for making it work ...

BTW, hard drive price weirdness continues to this day - 3TB Hitachi enterprise drives two months ago were $198 (or so) and last week they were $248 (or so).

<comment><USER9> But Blackblaze's infrastructure is properly designed to tolerate hw failures. They use RAID6 and replicate your data to 2 or 3 different storage pods. Smarter than beint forced to buy "better" expensive drives IMHO when your primary business expense is raw storage.

<comment><USER10> If a disk fails, it still needs to be replaced. RAID etc lets you avoid data loss _until_ you replace the drive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If BackBlaze are adding 50TB of data a day, are they really buying drives from NewEgg?

<comment><USER11> A few months ago I wanted to buy 1000 Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD webcams. I could order them individually from Amazon for £27 each with free delivery.

I phoned up all the official Microsoft distributors in my country, who phoned up Microsoft and whatnot. Not one of them could offer me a price below about £35. And getting in contact with Microsoft hardware directly? Ha, I should be so lucky.

<comment><USER12> _A few months ago I wanted to buy 1000 Microsoft Lifecam Cinema HD webcams._

I'll bite. Why? :)

<comment><USER11> Asked to quote to make a system like [1] for a fleet of 1000 vans. Buying in USB cameras would reduce engineering costs compared to making our own. Eventually went for a brand that cost less and could accept wide angle lenses.

[1] <http://www.smartdrive.net>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I were their customer, I would be looking for alternatives right about now...

<comment><USER14> The post struck me as slightly unprofessional, but from a technical standpoint I don't see anything that would change my opinion of the service they provide.

They achieve the best bang for buck by using ordinary consumer hard drives in RAID arrays. During the hard drive crisis, the cheapest way of procuring these was by purchasing external drives from ordinary stores.

There's nothing wrong with that. If anything, it shows agility and ingenuity.

<comment><USER13> And, I would add, intense vulnerability to future market fluctuations. If this was their contingency plan, they've exhausted it. What happens next time?

<comment><USER14> This was a one-off event that I'm sure the hard drive manufacturers themselves will be taking steps to prevent reoccurring.

What else can Backblaze do? Stockpile drives? The hard drive industry moves fast, with major product releases every 6-12 months and constant price reductions; this would almost certainly increase the cost to the end user.

No business can adequately prepare for a supply shock like this. Imagine airlines facing a 300% increase in the price of fuel. Almost every single one would go out of business.

In this case, would you be berating the ingenious airline that goes out of its way to track down fuel at a cheaper price, finding a low-cost fuel that they can easily refine themselves to aviation fuel, so as to honour their commitments to their customers and avoiding raising their prices?

<comment><USER15> > Imagine airlines facing a 300% increase in the price of fuel. Almost every > single one would go out of business.

No. They use hedges to control their cost (this is the original point of hedging...). If a company is reliant on a constant supply of hard-drives and doesn't want to be exposed to the risk of extreme price jumps it should probably do the same.

<comment><USER16> Airlines have long term fuel contracts to smooth out the short term price changes, but beyond that they just pass it on to consumers.

e.g. [http://www.delta.com/business_programs_services/delta_cargo/...](http://www.delta.com/business_programs_services/delta_cargo/current_surcharges/index.jsp) the first column is the fuel surcharge that floats with fuel prices.

The Backblaze article clearly said that paying more for drives and passing it on the customers was an option. They just found a better one. They didn't mention it, but just losing money for a while is also a reasonable option if you don't want to antagonize your customers.

<comment><USER17> *Yev from Backblaze here -> You're correct, but quick note on this. We're a boostrapped startup, meaning, we need to be constantly profitable in order to pay salary and keep the business going, taking a financial hit was the only real option we could not take, because we would have been out of business very quickly (not good for anyone).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> same news ; and comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4630910>

<comment><USER19> This one is the original article, and is better-written too.

(Gigaom blogspammed it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if the hard drive manufacturers will reconsider locating their entire supply chain in a third world country with frequent natural disasters after this incident. With rising wages in the third world and stagnating wages in America, perhaps the financial benefits of outsourcing aren't so apparent anymore.

<comment><USER21> They have more data about all the pieces and processes leading to their ultimate market share and profitability so I have no doubt they try to maximize those.

I suspect the biggest issues are that all their suppliers and customers are in that region. Think fabs to make the chips, the various motors and related electronics, coating processes, and then sending them off to the places that make HP/Dell/etc systems. If just the drive factory were moved then you'd still have the drive parts crossing the ocean to get to the US and the completed drives crossing once again to go back into the systems.

Usually the relocations happen when a disruptive solution comes along. You get the advantage of a somewhat clean sheet. For example SSDs don't need all the mechanical components and fine tuning, so they can be made with a completely different supply chain.

It won't happen in hard drives but for other products customization is what can spur relocation. For example Lenovo is opening a manufacturing plant in the US to deal with customization which allows quicker response times. (Customized orders often can charge a little more which offsets increased costs.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Now that's a startup story. Backblaze has some of the best down home old fashioned spit n glue startup stories on hacker news. Like the one where they invented their own storage pod out of commodity components to beat amazon's pricing. And now this stay-alive-against-all-odds story. Fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER23> I was impressed with the effort to get those drives. If the massive companies who produce hard drives were unprepared for such a natural disaster I can't say I expect more from a small company.

</comment><comment><USER24> Their execution was poor. Start by depleting SF and then look elsewhere? Short-sighted at best.

They should have moved quickly before Best Buy/Costco implemented constraints that should have been anticipated. During one weekend, via train or one-way flights, employees could have been mobilized to cities across the US. Utilizing USPS flat rate boxes or low-cost equivalent, hard drives could have been shipped back to HQ en masse. Three days, disaster is over.

I give them a C- on execution.

<comment><USER25> That's predicated on them being able to spare many employees just for drive sourcing, which as a relatively small company they probably couldn't. They went with the lower cost stop gap at first, if the shortage hadn't lasted as long they would have been better off with how they did it.</comment></comment>


81 Year Old Commodore Amiga Artist – Samia Halaby [video] - happy-go-lucky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfIkXf3uzA&feature=youtu.be <comment><AUTHOR> This is really inspirational. I love her studio and her attitude toward life.</comment>


TechnicalDebt - <AUTHOR> http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?TechnicalDebt

<comment><USER2> I prefer the unhedged call option analogy: [http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2010/07/23/bad-code-isnt- technical...](http://www.m3p.co.uk/blog/2010/07/23/bad-code-isnt-technical- debt-its-an-unhedged-call-option/)

\- Debt is predictable: if I know the price in the future, and the rate of interest, I know the price now. If I knew what the cost is going to be in future, I could come up with today's price for the bad code and make perfect decisions.

\- Unhedged options either blow up (incur a large future cost) or they expire worthless (I escape without paying anything). I don't know in advance which outcome will happen, so in today's price, I have to consider both possibilities and factor in the uncertainty.

<comment><USER3> That's a more accurate metaphor, but it's not usually better. There's two reasons to employ the "technical debt" metaphor - to get programmers to think about the issue, and to explain to external stakeholders why you need time for technical issues.

As a quick shorthand, "technical debt" works better than "technical unhedged call options" - and if you need to go back and explain what the hell is a call option, then you've lost your audience. Everyone understands the concept of debt already.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I should have pointed out that I work in derivatives...

<comment><USER4> I think your version is the better way to explain things to non technical personnel, like any kind of management without any programming experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related: <http://fragile.org.uk/2011/01/how-i-manage-technical-debt/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Related: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2336008></comment>


Creating the Next Bechdel Test – FiveThirtyEight - <AUTHOR> https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/next-bechdel/ <comment><USER2> The humbleness of the bechdel test is great.

Expecting 50% or more women should has different results and is less comparable. With the exception of movies with very small casts, it's always a real shame to fail the bechdel test. The 50% rules are shameful in their result (100% failed), but even in an ideal world, half of the movies could fail it without anything wrong.

<comment><USER3> Came here to say this. The "White test" is even worse, applying the 50% requirement to _three_ metrics. In a totally unbiased world only _⅛_ of all movies would be expected to pass this test.

Most of the other tests do capture the spirit of Bechdel well I feel. Their "humbleness" as you put it makes the results (e.g. of the Waithe and Villalobos tests) so much more poignant.</comment></comment>


Purism Becomes PIA's First OEM Partner - <AUTHOR> https://puri.sm/posts/purism-becomes-pia-first-oem-partner/ <comment> mike-cardwell What exactly is this? We would already be able to use PIA with a Librem 5 anyway, as it uses standard VPN protocols... Is this free access to a PIA VPN for Librem 5 owners, or is it just a UI to funnel us into PIAs commercial offering?

<comment><USER2> It's more marketing BS to push the idea that somehow purisms products are Freedom and Privacy respecting.

<comment><USER3> They're not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Private Internet Access is a decent partner since they announced that they would gradually open source their software in March 2018.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16595975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16595975)

While PIA did open source their iOS app and browser extensions, I'm a bit disappointed to see that their Android and desktop apps are still proprietary.

[https://pia-foss.github.io/](https://pia-foss.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't necessarily distrust Private Internet Access, but offering a few different vetted options would be better IMO.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like great news! I'm really excited to read reviews of the Librem 5 when it's released in the third quarter.

</comment><comment><USER2> Perfect match. They both offer a heavily marketed appearance of being Freedom and Privacy respecting, but actually just relying on the ignorance of customers.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what other companies are trying the same thing. Staying with companies that definitely peddle your data and privacy versus investing in a company who hopefully promotes a better way seems pretty straightforward to me. What hardware and software vendors should the 'smart' customers be buying from?</comment></comment>


Apple's garden wall is cracking - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/saas/apples-garden-wall-is-cracking/1423 <comment><USER2> Very speculative article.

HTML5 is definitely becoming more capable, enough to rival some of the larger players. Still, a cross-platform toolkit doesn't deprecate dedicated frameworks. There's a reason why applications on my Macintosh are different than Windows, have the same overall theme, and are better integrated with the OS. It's the platform experience that makes a good user experience.

Since cross-platform toolkits haven't had much luck historically, the only other benefit HTML5 has is its existence outside of App Stores-- which if you're in the minority of apps to be rejected is a boon, but does not do many favors to the thousands of developers making good money from their apps.

HTML5 is not a platform. Facebook's project Spartan, for example, is a platform, and that might have some success rivaling iOS/Android/Kindle. But that's the difference.

<comment><USER3> _It's the platform experience that makes a good user experience._

I largely agree with you (and there will be situations where you need native apps), but to play devil's advocate, the differences between an iOS device and an Android device are less noticeable than the differences between a Mac and a PC. If a cross-platform toolkit is ever going to work, it will be where the platforms are (relatively) similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure I read a variation of this article every month or so. I'm sure Ive even read it on ZD before as well.

But these analysts are too short sighted to remember than when Apple rolled out the iPhone it was web apps only. That was there initial business model for the device.

They adjusted and dominated the market because of public pressure to do so. I think Apple probably have business models up there sleeve from years ago they never implemented.

<comment><USER5> Please don't perpetuate the myth that Apple wasn't going to provide a SDK and only because of public pressure did they release one.

Just because there was no SDK when the iPhone shipped in June 2007 doesn't mean they hadn't planned to release one all along, which of course they did.

And just for the record, Apple released the first version of the iPhone SDK in March 2008, just 9 months after the iPhone shipped. That's an awfully quick turnaround for a company that supposedly wasn't going to release a SDK at all until there was _pressure_.

<comment><USER4> The public SDK could have been delivered easily in 9 months as the Apple devs themselves had to be using something, so many of the decisions would have been already hardened. Plus iOS wasn't a completely new system it shares core components with OSX.

Id hazard a guess the 9 months was more than luckily 9 months security testing than developing an API for the public.

<comment><USER5> Except that it's not just delivering the SDK; it was also the App Store and all of the infrastructure it requires.

As anyone else who's worked closely with Apple can confirm, they don't change strategy based on public pressure.

The iPhone was in development 2.5 years prior to its introduction in 2007; the decision to support native 3rd party apps was made long before any of us heard of the iPhone.

<comment><USER4> iTunes was already in place, so the infrastructure and payment methods already existed. TBH this is only something Apple can answer.

I think you're right that Apple don't change tack due to pressure. However the iPhone was a volatile product, with a high risk of failure.

It also ran the risk of getting booted off carriers for abusing network, and runs all sorts of security issues... remembering in an abstracted way its hooked to your bank account.. to your personal finances. I mean the last thing Apple needs is a porn dialer and malware problem like Android has got.

I would say they had plans to do the App store all along, you'd be foolish not to at least explore the concept. They where already doing games and little things for the iPod, so in a sense it already existed.

But I bet there hand was forced... or maybe the carriers hand was forced letting Apple win the argument... by public pressure and hackers already writing there own code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is still something HTML5 can't beat: games and heavily graphics apps in general. That and C will always be faster than JS+html on heavy graphic. Unless HTML5 finds a way to bridge that gap (maybe with dart?) but even then it's not highly probable and not in the near future anyway. And if it happens, Apple could still offer those HTML5 apps as stand alone apps in their app market. Sure, people would be able to get them from the web, but the the market exposure will still be a big boost for developers and so the wall garden will still be there.

Look at the apps Google removed from the Android market, they got significant less downloads as people had to visit the app site to get them.

</comment><comment><USER7> What will crack Apple's garden is a combination of things. First, HTML5 will definitely help as iOS loses market share on both phones and tablets and developers want to work with more people. Second, as other phones (Android) and tablets (Amazon Fire) gain market share, working on iOS first becomes less and less attractive. Third, as the suit over Apple's collusion with the big publishers to price-fix the ebook market goes forward (you can thank Apple for causing all the ebooks to go from $10 to $14/$15 on Kindle and other retailers and being more expensive than actual books). Fourth, as more developers get tired of Apple's childish behavior in their app store about who can and can't play ball (Adobe and 3rd party toolkits for instance) and who can and can't implement features (we'll take 30% of that nice web-based media serving platform you have even though we had nothing to do with it, thank you).

<comment><USER8> >(Adobe and 3rd party toolkits for instance)

Flash builder definitely builds for the iOS appstore now.

[http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/06/20/build-ios- applications-w...](http://www.webkitchen.be/2011/06/20/build-ios-applications- with-flex-and-flash-builder-4-5-1/)

Android has some major challenges. Android tablets haven't really "just worked", and have had crippling return rates and price points that do not truly reflect their quality relative to the iPad.

Non-standard android builds (aka, the Kindle Fire is a fork of an old, non- tablet based android) are getting more prolific, and hopefully do not fully fragment the market into two.

What $14 kindle books are you talking about btw? I've never paid more than $10 that I noticed.

Another issue is Android is becoming the gateway drug to smartphones, instead of holding share, a huge number of people buy it for their first app wielding smart phone, then step over to apple for the second. They need to become more "the windows to mac"(works okay, but has hairs, standardized) instead of the "Desktop linux to mac" (can customize anything, but all over the place and confusing to non-technical people), and I feel they're still hovering much closer to the second category there than the first.

Additionally, you should probably be classifying the 5" "tablets" such as the Galaxy S into the same market as smartphones, as well as the iPodTouch, for the purposes of looking at things like app sales. They are in some ways more important, because their dominent purpose is consumption, instead of phone calls.

<comment><USER7> Right, it does build for it now. But Apple excluded Adobe's Flash builder specifically for quite some time and built in a "no 3rd party toolkits" clause just to exclude it. Of course, they then realized that this would also kill off many of the popular games on iOS, so they were forced to relent. They still block flash and all alternative browsers (settling instead for just pretty 'chrome' over Mobile Safari and calling them 'browsers' in their store), so there's still that issue.

The ebook issue is well-known now and is the reason that many ebooks are more expensive than their paper equivalents despite having near-zero transportation costs, no warehousing costs, no storefront costs, no production costs after the first one, no ability to resell so no used market, etc. Some details, including Steve Jobs' quote showing he knew exactly what was happening, are here: [http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/891584-264/apple_and_b...](http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/891584-264/apple_and_big_publishers_conspired.html.csp)

Android tablets based on Honeycomb are quite good now and I have a couple friends that are using them, one of whom ditched his top-model iPad for it after ditching his iPhone for a Samsung Galaxy 2. Personally, I'd wait on Ice Cream Sandwich - aka Android 4, due out next month - as that'll be the point that both the tablet and phone versions of Android are in sync and open source (Android 3.x isn't yet open source like Android 2.x is).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I enjoyed the part where Phil provides us with the quote ("Some even say the Web is 'dead meat'.") even though Joe Hewitt never said that, and that wasn't what he argued in his piece.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why is every ZDNet article so wrong about Apple?

<comment><USER11> ZDNet is known for writing hit-pieces on Apple. ZDNet has not been relevant for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anything suggests a chink is developing in their armour, it is the lawsuits against Samsung, which are sounding more and more childish and desparate. Plus knowledge of the Kindle Fire on the horizon.</comment>


LessConf 2013: How Less Was More - <AUTHOR> http://www.gerlandopiro.com/2013/04/16/lessconf-2013-how-less-was-more

<comment><USER2> From the name I was hoping it was a conference for people from lesswrong.com talking about ridiculously awesome things.</comment>


Securely store all your sensitive files with Sync.com - <AUTHOR> http://sync.com <comment><AUTHOR> Virtual office address, no individuals identified anywhere on the site. Should I be suspicious?

<comment><USER2> yeah...I thought that when I clicked and wasn't taken to a https site...looks a kinda crappy copy of DropBox...</comment></comment>


Wave Computing Launches TritonAI 64 Platform for High-Speed Inferencing - <AUTHOR> https://insidehpc.com/2019/04/wave-computing-launches-tritonai-64-platform-for-high-speed-inferencing/ <comment><USER2> Another interesting offering is from Habana Labs: [https://habana.ai/](https://habana.ai/)

I eagerly wait for MLPerf [https://mlperf.org/](https://mlperf.org/) Inference benchmark. Both Habana Labs and Wave Computing are MLPerf members.

</comment><comment><USER3> A little too much "up to" next to the claims, but even if it's half as good as they say, it'll be a solid offering. Strange to see them call 7nm "industry standard" given that very few companies have access to the technology, and they themselves most certainly do not.

<comment><USER4> I thought all you had to do to get access was to drop piles of money on TSMC lap. Is the access not common?

<comment><USER3> This would be rather a different order of magnitude of cash than a 10 year old "startup" with 203M in funding, > 100 employees and no revenues would have. From what I understand the current 7nm TMSC capacity is already maxed out by the likes of Apple, NVIDIA, and AMD. And then TMSC also has just screwed up a bunch of wafers through chemical contamination as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am much ignorant about this, but I am curious to know if any comparison can be established between TritonAI and InfiniBand?</comment>


91-year-old woman fills out crossword – turns out to be $116k artwork in museum - e-sushi http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-15/elderly-woman-fills-out-crossword-artwork-in-german-museum/7632800 <comment><AUTHOR> _" With his reading and training pieces, the artist wished to increase the spectators' awareness of the systems, actions and rituals that we persist in and carry out every day without reflecting on them," Ms Torp wrote._

Sounds like the old lady was the first one to actually be aware of the piece's call to action. :-)

<comment><USER2> In fact it could be considered a success for the artwork , it fulfilled its purpose. And got the attention it looked for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> At least she didn't encounter Marcel Duchamp's _Fountain_.

<comment><USER4> Marcel, _your in all_ our hearts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interactive art pieces like this are not uncommon. And there are way too many artists out there to be able to keep track of their style of work. It was clearly an honest mistake. They are pressing criminal charges "for insurance reasons", but they could have not, "for decent human being reasons".

</comment><comment><USER6> If a person can mistaken an artwork as not-art, is it really art?

<comment><USER7> Art can take the form of an interactive installation. Perhaps that's what she thought was the case here.

<comment><USER8> This strikes me as an interesting case of failing communication in museums and art galleries. How is a visitor supposed to tell if something is supposed to be interacted with or not? This is not much of a problem in any museum with antique art — the common mantra being "touch nothing; at all" — but with contemporary art the lines often get blurred. Some pieces do explicitly invite viewers to interact in some way, but how is a visitor supposed to tell which installation is interactive and which is merely using inviting descriptions?

<comment><USER4> IMO museum curators should embrace that blurriness rather than fight it; it provides for interesting stories like the ones told in the article (I just love the party aftermath being cleaned up as rubbish); and that kind of _misshappenstances_ at museums has become a trope all by itself.

Science museums have certainly followed that route, and I think they're better for it; becoming interactive makes for better learning. For those really valuable objects that could be damaged by willing interaction, there should be some kind of physical protection anyway.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure that the insurance companies would agree with that sentiment. :)

Certainly, in such museums focussed on interactivity and a child-friendly experience, this is the (commendable) modus operandi, and it works exceptionally well.

Contemporary artists and curators at modern art museums, however, seem to have been pushing for less physical demarcation around their exhibits. Ground covering installations are sometimes placed right in the path of visitors (who are often caught up in their imagination admiring some other piece of art), with no barrier or warning in place.

With art installations that actually are intended to be interactive, I never feel comfortable interacting with them because of this air of ambiguity. Doesn't help that this may have very well been the artist's intent in the first place…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Being a German myself, I think there's a joke in there somewhere about Germans and following orders.

<comment><USER10> If you think the people of Germany follow orders, then go to Tokio. You might be surprised at how much stricter a population can follow rules. Even visiting the neighbor Switzerland will reveal a more trust-based society where people follow common rules and shun those that don't. Take their garbage disposal system for instance. But you're right that the population of Germany is more disciplined compared to many other societies.

<comment><USER9> It's more of a matter of reputation and historical precedent (Nuremberg defense and all that) than an accurate representation of modern day behaviours, really.

We're actually quite an unruly bunch compared to some other countries. It's true we have absolute no sense of humour, however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Painted Words...

"... late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple"

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

<comment><USER4> Wow, that's an insightful bit.

I always try (and fail) to explain to my friends why Conceptual Art can at times advance the state of artistic inquiry, even if the material product is on itself quite unremarkable.

Labeling it as "literature" may shift the frame of reference, and make people realize its value. I'll try that trick next time.</comment></comment>


Laguardia Airport Evacuated - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/laguardia-airport-evacuated-2013-4

<comment><USER2> Why was this submitted? The article says it was a false alarm.</comment>


Blade Runner: Which predictions have come true? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18026277/

<comment><USER2> 404ing for me. Looks like removing the trailing slash fixes it though

<comment><USER3> Yeah, same here, thanks for the fix.

Clickable (for those on mobile like me): <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18026277></comment></comment>


Taiwan becomes first Asian nation with Silicon Valley launch pad - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/19/taiwan-silicon-valley-soft-landing-bridge/28928305/

<comment><USER2> Great, Taiwan is becoming bigger and bigger on the startup world. See the new bootcamp they started: [http://www.startupstadium.tw](http://www.startupstadium.tw)</comment>


Signal Processing Primer - <AUTHOR> http://mynameismjp.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/signal-processing-primer/

<comment><USER2> An interesting review, but a bit difficult to read due to formatting issues. What resolution was this theme designed for? Even maximized on a 1920x1080 screen (I _never_ browse maximized), illustrations are being cropped. Also, zooming in causes the sidebars to expand and the text column to shrink.</comment>


Facebook just changed the design of the graph search box - <AUTHOR>

A few weeks ago I made a feeback submission to facebook regarding the new graph search user experience design. I proposed to them that you should be able to click outside of the search bar in order to dismiss the search. A few minutes ago, this happened to my search box: http://imgur.com/In1ssFd (when you click outside of the dark blue the search results is dismissed) just wondering, is this happening to anyone else or have they perhaps put my account on some A/B-testing server? <comment><USER2> here happened the same. Now the box have the background in white. <http://imgur.com/uy9h2ih></comment>


Twitter's UID associated to each tweet will very soon exceed 2,147,483,647 - <AUTHOR> http://www.twitpocalypse.com/

<comment><USER3> Always use a UUID or GUID (same thing) in todays web applications. When we get to terrabytes of data as the norm for apps int based keys are going to seem so ancient.

Sure it takes more room but space it cheap, and it makes syncing and distributed databases so much easier (not tied to one machine or cluster)

</comment><comment><USER4> I figure many twitter apps are written with SQLite as their database (in AIR, etc) so the Integer, Primary Key, can get up to 9223372036854775807

<http://www.sqlite.org/faq.html>

What is the point of creating a website like this?

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone notice the footnote on the estimated time of crossing?

"3 the average tweets per second and the Twitpocalypse date are a rough approximation, please do not schedule any vacation around that date"

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I index the tweet id's in Tipjoy with a string: tweetId = models.CharField(max_length=50, db_index=True)

</comment><comment><USER7> Meh, anyone who's coding for this platform must have put those id's in a unsigned integer, wouldn't they?

<comment><USER8> I suspect for a lot of people coding against Twitter the notion of integers being signed or unsigned is about as foreign to their experience as pointer arithmetic. I do not consider that a bad thing.

irb > "2,147,483,647".gsub(",","").to_i + 1

2147483648

(Forgive the extra code necessary to strip out the commas. The Windows irb console leaves a little to be desired in terms of midline editing.)

<comment><USER9> you know ruby supports _ as a comma separator, right?

irb(main):002:0> 2_147_483_647 + 1

=> 2147483648

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More at [http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/06/09/the- twitpocalypse...](http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/06/09/the- twitpocalypse-is-near-will-your-twitter-client-survive/)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's actually sooner. They assume 83 tweets per second (reference 2) but the number is 200 tweets per second: [http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/50e673d8/some-stats-from- tw...](http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/50e673d8/some-stats-from-twitter- conference-compared-to)

<comment><USER12> From the link:

"Twitter is seeing about 200 tweets per second, during peak loads. - <USER2> Scoble"

Note "during peak loads", so 83 is probably not too far off.

<comment><USER11> Fair enough. Do we have any solid references of the actual average rate of tweets?

<comment><USER12> I haven't seen one, but it's easy enough to get it. Just check the UID of the latest tweet on the public timeline, wait a week and check again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the age of multicore 64 bit CPUs, they're not using signed 32 bit integers as primary key, do they?

<comment><USER14> To be fair, they say "For some of your favorite third-party Twitter services not designed to handle such a case..." rather than accusing Twitter themselves of primary-key ineptitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to put money down that this will not affect anything.

</comment><comment><USER16> ALTER TABLE twits MODIFY COLUMN twitid BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL

There, fixed, send check for $20 to firstname.lastname@example.com

Call me back when they reach 18446744073709551615

<comment><USER17> That command will take several hours to complete and write lock the table.

<comment><USER18> Why can't you just redirect the writes to a new temporary table and join the original and temporary on reads? (I'm not a database admin)

<comment><USER19> I'm actually interested in this answer as well. I know of a company using a proprietary db and now that their growth has literally exploded, they're stuck with it.

<comment><USER18> I wonder what literally exploding growth looks like...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That is quite an amazingly high number. Surely 100m people have not posted 2,000 "tweets" each.

I wonder what proportion of the total is human-typed, and how much is machine generated?

<comment><USER21> _Surely 100m people have not posted 2,000 "tweets" each._

Two billion tweets would be 1M people posting 2k tweets each, or 100M people posting 20 tweets each.

<comment><USER20> Oh. Oops. Of course you are right. That was pretty dumb of me : /</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Was Warned of System Open to Cyberattacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/chinese-hackers-may-be-behind-anthem-premera-attacks.html?_r=1 <comment><USER3> This is what happens when you focus mostly on offensive capabilities and surveillance and do almost nothing about the _actual security_ of the systems.

Sounds like the main culprit of this data breach was not patching their systems and not using 2-FA. Also, when you want to make it easy for the NSA to get data on Americans, you're also making it easy for China to do the same - <USER2> wonder if this is finally when the administration will get it (but I'm not holding my breath):

> _And a number of administration officials in interviews on Friday painted a > picture of Chinese adversaries who appear to be building huge databases of > information on American citizens, useful for intelligence gathering and > other purposes._

Also, it didn't help the security that Obama hired technological morons as CISOs and "cyber czars" with their "big picture" ideas.

> _Mr. Earnest said Mr. Obama's efforts to push legislation would bolster the > nation's data.

"We need the United States Congress to come out of the Dark Ages and actually join us here in the 21st century to make sure that we have the kinds of defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system," he said._

Yup. So still not taking this seriously. The current "cybersecurity" bills are all about surveillance, not about actual security defense. Well okay then.

</comment><comment><USER4> > _"We understand that there is this persistent risk out there. We take this > very seriously."_ said every breach victim ever, _after_ the breach.

<comment><USER5> However, something is clearly going wrong in terms of:

1) How security infrastructure is constructed in the first place

2) How security experts have communicated to and educated the public

The way computers are put together and software is distributed makes them insecure by design. This puts the public (non-experts) in a position where they feel helpless to do the right thing.

On top of this, a pervasive attitude amongst security experts is that laypeople are hopeless idiots. The science, medical, and public health fields have to deal with misconceptions and misinformation all of the time. When I compare outreach from those fields and computer security, I wonder if more shouldn't be done.

<comment><USER6> The problem largely comes down to _write secure software_ , a large part of which is _stop doing manual memory management_ , to which the community responds "over my dead body."

The problem isn't how security infrastructure is constructed, it's _that_ people would rather buy "security infrastructure" and bolt it on to bad code.

Laypeople have demonstrated themselves to be hopeless idiots with regard to 1) passwords and 2) infecting Windows installations for quite a while. Taking away the ability to accidentally screw these things up (2FA, sandboxing, walled garden app stores, etc) is a huge step forward.

<comment><USER7> While I totally agree that memory management is a _huge_ source of problems (learn Rust is next on my project queue), I suspect that the problem of "writing secure software" is not actually technical in nature. The best tools and methods in the world are only useful if they are actually used in practice.

A better question is why people accept insecure software and then let the software industry blame the victims (like calling them "hopeless idiots"), when it was - as you say - the insecure software that was the actual problem.

Dan Geer was right - you fix this with product _liability_. The tools (such as new languages like rust, etc) will happen automatically if you make the person who sold you software liable for the damage it causes. (standard "when used normally" restrictions apply, of course).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _As one senior former government official who once handled cyberissues for the administration, who would not speak on the record because it could endanger the person's role on key advisory committees_

In the commercial world, speaking out about security issues makes you a celebrity. In government, it makes you a liability.

<comment><USER9> Pretty sure it makes you a liability everywhere.

Plenty of white hats have gone down for reporting publicly.

<comment><USER10> White hats go down for speaking out, because the government works with the private sector to punish them.

Outside of that, it does make them celebrities. It gives them professional credibility, publicity, and the opportunities that go with all of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well no shit. _I 've_ warned parts of the U.S. government that they're "open to cyberattacks". It's obvious even from the outside and has been obvious for years.

The surprise isn't that China (or somebody) hacked OPM. The surprise is that we noticed this one.

<comment><USER11> And it turns out that China was probably doing this for a year. And that the only reason OPM caught it was because a cybersecurity company happened to be demo-ing their product at OPM that day, which finally explains the surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's time to be transparent about this. Hell, our "adversaries" apparently have detailed knowledge of the circumstances. It's time we did, so that we can push for things to be fixed.

At the same time, pushing back against this "lock down the Internet" mentality. It's not about choking the medium to some autocratic death. It's about smartening up one's presence on and use of it.

I'm not talking about some Congressional dog and pony show. Nor about reports that sit in some pol or bureaucrat's locked desk drawer forever. I'm talking about full on sunlight. Leave the wankers no shadows to hide in.

</comment><comment><USER13> If NYT knows the Third Department and whatever private contractors they have are trying to breach USG computer systems then I guess NSA knows that as well. Not even touching on defensive needs, why isn't NSA blanket surveilling Third Department, et al. and making that intelligence known to potentially affected agencies?

</comment><comment><USER14> The NSA has two jobs - defensive and offensive/surveillance. Not only have they neglected their defensive work they and the FBI have been actively and successfully weakening US information defenses.

</comment><comment> anti-shill The govt does not hire or promote on merit. This is why this occurred and why the obamacare site and other govt software had/have so many problems.

<comment><USER15> That's only a small part of it, if at all.

Other reasons are costly infrastructure, huge size of systems, how long it takes to replace them (if it's longer than an election cycle they'll probably get cancelled/modified half way through and go late and over budget), preferred vendors (only really large companies are given these jobs), political pork and lack of oversight.

It's not just the US, the UK blew 12bn on an NHS system that basically never worked the way it was supposed to and that was just one of their disasters.

<comment><USER16> Government here in Canada blew $200m on a glorified database that never worked either. Contract given to a crony corp of the political party in power of course. [http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Auditor+general+slams+troub...](http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Auditor+general+slams+troubled+social+welfare+computer+system/10934904/story.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two words: air gap

Three words: not rocket science.

<comment><USER18> No way. For one there is no such thing as a true air gap in an organization past a certain size that probably has multiple office locations. The worse thing about this word though is idiots use an 'air gap' as a crutch to justify their lazy and inept IT practices.

<comment><USER17> If you won't listen to me listen to Kaspersky

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/05/kaspersky_says_airga...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/05/kaspersky_says_airgap_industrial_systems_why_not_airgap_baby_monitors_as_well/)

You need our wisdom badly.</comment></comment></comment>


Verizon Charges Customer $569 for No Reason - <AUTHOR> http://www.publikdemand.com/blog/verizon-charges-customer-569-for-no-reason/

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised Apple doesn't have a policy on reissuing phones from the same carrier.</comment>


How You Will Die - <AUTHOR> http://www.deliberatism.com/editorial/how-you-will-die/

<comment><USER2> Correct link for "Don't Be Terrorized" by Ronald Bailey is without the trailing dot:

<http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized></comment>


APress: all ebooks $15 today - <AUTHOR> http://www.apress.com

<comment><USER2> Nice. You can also apply coupon code STCLOUD1231 for an additional 50% off (found via <http://www.retailmenot.com/view/apress.com>)

<comment><AUTHOR> that coupon doesn't work

<comment><USER3> I just used it and it worked for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> O'reilly is also running a Cyber Monday sale:

<http://shop.oreilly.com/category/deals/cyber-monday.do>

</comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone recommend some good titles? There are a lot of really generic looking reference manuals.

</comment><comment><USER6> Code worked for me, I got Web Standards Solutions and CSS Mastery.

</comment><comment><USER7> any recommendations on books to get?</comment>


Show HN: Business Intelligence Bot for Slack - <AUTHOR> https://bintel.chat <comment><USER2> This looks so useful, I feel like people make requests for this kind of data all the time. Automating this just feels smarter.</comment>


The story of the making of the photograph Moonrise [Ansel Adams] - <AUTHOR> http://www.anseladams.com/ansel-anecdotes/

<comment><AUTHOR> Today's XKCD[1] reminded me of this.

[1] [http://xkcd.com/1314/](http://xkcd.com/1314/)</comment>


OK: An open-source interpreter for the K5 programming language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok <comment><USER2> A subproject of oK worth drawing attention to is iKe, a livecoding environment which makes it possible to write interactive graphical programs in K and easily share them:

[https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh- pages/ike](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh-pages/ike)

For example, recently I wrote this program which generates abstract art every time you press a key:

[http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html?gist=e47433cfb3...](http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html?gist=e47433cfb32ad53a15c5b23af9501645)

Many other demos are available from within iKe itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> The K implementation isn't done in one long line and has indentation and spacing:

[https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh- pages/oK.js](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/blob/gh-pages/oK.js)

I'm confused.

</comment><comment><USER4> k4 isn't so bad, either. :)

[http://kparc.com/q4/ha.txt](http://kparc.com/q4/ha.txt)

</comment><comment><USER5> One essential thing about k/q is its speed. When you use javascript, you lose everything.

<comment><USER6> It's a training tool. Also, I think John had fun writing an interpreter. It's also a very cool language which people without money don't get exposed to. Maybe it gives people some good ideas.

<comment><USER7> Well, there is always J (jsoftware.com), which is the standard open source APL-like language. It also has a columnar database. And a wealth of resources available on its website/wiki (more than I have seen for any other language's base website).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The K language is industry-wise not important enough to learn it.</comment>


Tucson-area cable TV broadcast porn during Super Bowl - <AUTHOR> http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/278448.php <comment><USER2> $20 says it was an employee's final farewell to Comcast.

</comment><comment> tsetse-fly Hacker news? I don't think so.

<comment><USER3> That porn didn't insert itself in the final minutes of the Super Bowl.</comment></comment>


How Not to market an iPhone app - <AUTHOR> http://atomyard.com/blog/How-not-to-market-an-iPhone-app/

<comment><USER2> I built almost the EXACT SAME APP at a startup weekend. Lots of people have this problem where they'll write something down and then totally forget about it. Our approach is slightly different but very similar.

Shameless promotion: <http://thoughtback.com>

We didn't really market it beyond the local press we got from Startup Weekend. We did launch the Mac app the first day of the Mac App Store though so that got us about 10,000 signups.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good post. Sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and are doing the right things, so far as the theories are concerned. But as Einstein said "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

I'm in a similar situation. I would love to hear how people are tackling these problems in practice, and any success stories.</comment>


Show HN: We built the easiest way to learn AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkster.io/pick/51d287681e4b9c9098000013/a-better-way-to-learn-angularjs?ref=hn1

<comment><USER2> How prevalent is Angular in the wild? To me, it's always seemed like something people would learn to show that they know more "cool" technologies. With its steep learning curve, how useful is it to spend the time learning it properly?

</comment><comment><USER3> Saw your work on this a while ago. Love the changes you've made to it since then. Hoping to get a weekend free to try it out.

edit: Your link sends a user directly to the content. I love the structure of the content, I was just a little confused, because I thought you linked us to the homepage. It also might just be my 13' macbook, but I think it may be zoomed in a little too much. I had to zoom out to ~75% for it to be comfortable reading.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about your site makes this 'easy'? Can you explain how the learning path on your site differs from other ways of learning angular?

<comment><USER5> Did you even click the link and read a few paragraphs? It's pretty clear that this is different than most tutorials, comprehensively covering a range of basic topics from the ground-up, and placing available resources into their contexts.

<comment><USER6> Can anyone click the link at the moment? I just get a 504... Really interested in this, it sounds amazing but I can't see it.

<comment><USER7> It should be working now; the traffic may have brought it down!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My favourite part about this resource is that it ties in a lot of the disparate resources that AngularJS newbies are first introduced to - but it puts them in perspective, provides context, and introduces parts of each where they are most relevant and useful.

Thanks for building it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I gave this a try and really liked it. Definitely easier than some of the other stuff I've tried out there for learning AngularJS. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER10> This is brilliant, thank you. I've been looking for a way to introduce Angular to the team and your site will really help.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good resource!</comment>


Ruby Procs And Lambdas (And The Difference Between Them) - <AUTHOR> http://www.skorks.com/2010/05/ruby-procs-and-lambdas-and-the-difference-between-them/ <comment><USER2> This is the sort of thing about Ruby that drives me bonkers.</comment>


Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy - crypto-jeronimo https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelans-skeptical-of-maduros-latest-measures-to-salvage-economy-1534860108 <comment><AUTHOR> How come the society has yet to collapse if the salaries can't cover a few days of spending. I mean this reaches a critical point, as far as I see it: At some wage, the employee will bail out. Because it cost more to do the job (transportation/food) than the job pays.

Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not reached a critical point where everything collapses (Examples could be Libya and Syria).

To see for yourself, go to Caracas on Google maps and turn traffic on. Try that on Damascus.

<comment><USER2> The one thing that I learned being a Venezuelan is that things can always get worse. It is easy to thing that there is a bottom for how bad things can go, but clearly that was just hopeful thinking.

The situation is a thousand times worse than when I left 6 years ago, an I would certainly consider what they are living now as a total collapse of society, yet I'm also sure that it could get even worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say disintegrating but not collpased yet. The government is still sustaining itself. There is still Internet and cars driving around.

Yes, it can get way worse. The possible bottom is way deeper. I hope the US or UN intervene before that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The situation in Venezuela makes my heart hurt. Reading about how Hugo Chavez destroyed PDVSA through ignorance and incompetence is a real life example of how much damage a populist strongman can do.

<comment><USER4> Me too. I worked on some good projects there a few years ago and now this. Is there somewhere a "for dummies" analysis / explanation of the chain of events and decisions that led to the current situation in Venezuela? I can't fathom how it is possible even in the most corrupt place in the world to reach such a sorry state.

<comment><USER5> The crucial mistake was the firing of tens of thousands of employees of the state oil company, PDVSA. Eviscerating the state oil business in an economy that depends on oil exports is, um, bad. With half of their employees replaced by Chavez yes-men, PDVSA made poor strategic decisions that left them with (almost) no new oil wells when the ones they had been using ran dry. To be specific, money that should have been used to dig new oil wells was diverted to poverty-reduction initiatives by the central government. Venezuela today has the world's _largest_ proven oil reserves (thanks to recent offshore discoveries) and yet ranks low by exports.

<comment><USER6> The firing wasn't the issue. It was a controversial move but it is not what caused the ongoing collapse. The exchange rates being in their favour is how the govt paid for the social programs. Now that the rate is not in their favour and oil prices have crashed... now it makes it difficult to pay for your debt.

The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding sanctions. This increased the cost of their debt. Maduro is attempting to avoid further economic harm with the petro coin.

<comment><USER5> > _The firing wasn't the issue. It was a controversial move but it is not what > caused the ongoing collapse. The exchange rates being in their favour is how > the govt paid for the social programs. Now that the rate is not in their > favour and oil prices have crashed... now it makes it difficult to pay for > your debt._

The "exchange rates" never could have made the government's pilfering of PDVSA revenues sustainable. Any properly-run business would save money for the possibility of a change in commodity prices. PDVSA under Chavez did not.

Exchange rates did _not_ cause the collapse of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez's decision to ignore economic reality and substitute his own is what caused the collapse of Venezuela. No other oil-based economy got hit as hard as Venezuela by the oil price collapse because they maintained sustainable business practices.

> _The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding > sanctions_

This is a joke, right? The US did not even sanction Venezuelan businesses, only the officials involved in looting the oil industry revenues. From Wiki:

> _On March 9, 2015, the United States President, Barack Obama, signed and > issued a presidential order declaring Venezuela a "threat to its national > security" and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials. > Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the sanctions as an attempt to > topple his socialist government. Washington said that the sanctions targeted > individuals who were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights, > saying that "we are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts > to escalate intimidation of its political opponents"._

The notion that US sanctions played _any_ role in the collapse of Venezuela is an utter fantasy promulgated by the Venezuelan government and perpetuated by credulous Western champagne socialists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Non-Paywall: [http://archive.is/R57av](http://archive.is/R57av)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder what is going to happen over the next year or two. Will there be a coup or revolution to overthrow the government, a bloody civil war? Or perhaps Maduro will crack down and turn the country into a full-scale Stalinist dictatorship in order to prevent this from happening. It seems there will be some sort of radical change, the question is what.

A key question here is if the security forces will remain loyal to the government. I wonder how they are making out, like are they getting enough food, and do the leaders think the present regime can be sustained over the long term.

</comment><comment><USER9> PSUV really needs to replace Maduro with someone more competent.

<comment><USER10> Why would you blame the head of the system rather than the underlying ideology ?

<comment><USER9> What underlying ideology? Socialism? There's nothing that says socialism or some form of it can't work.

<comment><USER11> There's little-s socialism and big-s socialism. Social democracies like Sweden, etc., have social welfare systems bankrolled by an underlying market economy. A company in Sweden may pay high taxes, but it doesn't have to worry about being nationalized, price controls, or central planning: [https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the- new-...](https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the-new-model). Capital will put up with high taxes. It won't put up with those other things. And without capital generating surplus to bankroll social welfare programs, your system collapses.

<comment><USER9> Social Democracy != Socialism. Socialism moves to take full ownership of the means of production, and Social Democracy only places regulations on business that are often demolished years down the line and workers get screwed at the benefit of the few.

Every system has failed throughout history, so there's no reason a Capitalistic system cannot fail as well, and we see the global collapse of Capitalism happening right now in front of us.

<comment><USER12> Have you seen the Hans Rosling talks? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y) There's a few on TED talks. It's a must see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looking at Maduro and the clowns he surrounds himself with makes it clear that it's really just a bunch of idiots running things. Chavez was a died in the wool marxist, but the failure of that ideology (as it always does fail) has lead to a massive brain drain. Now the tenth-tier morons are in charge, nominally supporting socialism but really it's just a narco/klepto state.</comment>


Is there a backdoor in Truecrypt? (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.privacylover.com/encryption/analysis-is-there-a-backdoor-in-truecrypt-is-truecrypt-a-cia-honeypot/

<comment><USER2> > Very few people compile the Windows binaries from source; it is exceedingly > difficult to generate binaries from source that match the binaries provided > by Truecrypt (due to compiler options, etc.)

I don't know if Tor considers itself hard to compile, but they recently announced the intent to avoid this issue through deterministic builds[1], so it was interesting to see this mentioned here for TrueCrypt.

[1]: [https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds- part-o...](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/deterministic-builds-part-one- cyberwar-and-global-compromise)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381498)</comment>