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Pretty much all research has shown that the best way to improve poverty is to give people money, and not some sort of good that you've decided is better (goats, chickens, cows, whatever).
Unfortunately, giving away money just doesn't sell. :(
grishas commented on Do startups have a drinking problem? backchannel.com/do-startu... · Posted by u/steven
What does "it wasn't exactly optional either" mean? For whatever it's worth, Mixology course sounds terrible even as someone who partakes in alcohol.
"Other industries have moved on from this sort of model"
Source? I've worked for a few corps outside of strict tech focus and that was not my experience.
What's the end-goal of this anyways? You can't moderate social interactions, so if your company stops doing alcohol-related events, your teams are almost certainly still going to go to happy hours. I get that this would be a problem if every corporate event solely revolved around getting rip-roaringly drunk, and that would be needlessly exclusionary, but I also doubt that's the reality outside of some really fringe cases. Although maybe that is how it really goes down, and I've just had a sheltered workplace experience
"It wasn't exactly optional" was that there was an implied request that everyone would attend. It went on everyone's calendars and was during work hours, not after.
I'm not arguing alcohol should be removed from office functions. I'm saying [a] they shouldn't be the focus and [b] maybe we don't need to have fridges of beer where it is acceptable to grab one and go back to your desk.
My wife's company (a nationwide outdoor retailer) does have alcohol occasionally at events, but those are semi-regular BBQs at the end of the day, and are absolutely optional. My friends work in healthcare where there is zero alcohol. Other friends work in the government, also zero alcohol. My mother works for a shipping company, also no alcohol on premises. In fact, outside of tech no-one I know has alcohol kept on premises.
grishas commented on Do startups have a drinking problem? backchannel.com/do-startu... · Posted by u/steven
IMO, The tech industry has a huge alcohol problem in general.
It's not uncommon for even largeish companies to have beer kegs and frequent happy hours.
Just recently we had a team event that revolved around alcohol, a mixology class. Although attendance wasn't mandatory, it wasn't exactly optional either. So there was a lot of awkwardness considering a number of people on our team were non-drinking muslims, 1 person was pregnant, and several others just don't drink. This creates an exclusionary sort of culture, and as one of my coworkers said it "I don't really want to be forced to go to the bar with my middle aged male colleagues". If you think about it, it does seem a bit creepy.
Other industries have moved on from this sort of model. Sure, there still can be alcohol at events and the occasional BBQ with beer or happy hour, but they have strict policies about returning to work after consuming alcohol, and alcohol is not the main focus of the event.
I take full advantage of the beer keg at our office, but if it went away I certainly wouldn't be upset. I'd just do what I used to do, and go to the bar after work with coworkers who want to go.
grishas commented on How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name fastcodesign.com/3053406/... · Posted by u/andyjohnson0
As a new Macbook user this year one of my favorite examples of this is screenshots. On Windows I've always had a prt scrn keyboard button, Macbooks forego that. As of windows 7 I think, there was a program to screenshot a portion of the screen or a specific window, Apple don't have one of those. All the screenshot commands (screen, window, portion) are behind a 3 key keyboard shortcut that I have to look up all the time.
Edit: Csydas, I got a HN notify with a reply from you, it's a shame you deleted it - you brought up good points and I agree with you. If you were down voted before deleting it wasn't me.
Mac OS X has always shipped with a screenshot utility called "Grab".
Nitpick mode: on
cat article.txt | wc
134 6494 39992
Several months ago, members of my team at work booked various Airbnbs for a large conference in San Francisco.
We booked early to get a better deal, and I'm pretty sure a lot of Airbnb hosts didn't know the conference was coming up (or was that big).
As we got closer to the conference time, pretty much all of us had our stays canceled on us by the hosts. We were then forced to rebook at significantly higher rates. In some instances, even THESE got canceled by the hosts.
We're 99% sure that the hosts were given better offers and made the deals privately.
Having used Airbnb a few times now, I'm definitely seeing the benefits of hotels for peace of mind.
Our present knowledge of how food is turned into both used and stored energy is extremely rudimentary... there's a ton of chemical processes occurring, all with various different levels of efficiencies and failsafes.
Take two humans of identical weight. Now feed them exactly the same thing. I guarantee you will not have the same outcome for both.
We are not at a place in science where human bodies are like car engines. We don't know how fuel gets combusted. We don't even know how to tell if someone is a 4-cylinder or a V8.
So, given that the user manual is basically a blank page-- how can you just claim user error? That is a gross exaggeration that trivializes the plight of many.