Mozilla to remove "meritocracy" from governance docs because it's "problematic" - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/OQlS6-gUBLQ/u0Em5XKjCAAJ <comment><USER2> Meritocracy, like all words that reduce to "good thing", are always troublesome. No one ever claims to be a "bad thing"ocracy. The issue is the opacity of the concept of merit. How do you distinguish being a meritocracy in some good sense from insisting you are a meritocracy and thus poisoning any discussion that you are not one?

Using words to maintain a culture has a sort of Newton's third law. It might push you towards striving to be "good thing", but it also pushes back, making people resistant to the idea that you aren't striving for "good thing". This is an inescapable fact of how humans hold values.

Better words are the ones that aren't exclusively evaluated by humans. These are things on which people can agree there exists an impartial _measure_ of the thing. There is no such measure of merit. Merit is an undecidable value at best and an incoherent one at worst.

So, counterintuitively, "good thing" words to describe values are kind of bad. It is easy to construe acknowledging their badness as thinking the _underlying concept_ is bad. I think that is happening in this comment thread. I think rewarding people with trust and responsibility based on merit is a great idea! I think it is detrimental to the cause to codify that in your mission statement.

<comment><USER3> Well meritocracy means we will try to select and give influence/recognition based on merit. When someone tries to push an idea like "let's have more Asians" or "let's have more men" in the project we can direct them to the very first statement where they see we do selection based on merit and not skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Any attempt to introduce gender/race/sexual orientation quotas will promptly be rejected on those basis. There is value in wording it like this beyond "let's do good".

<comment><USER4> Who gets to define merit? Say a certain style was more likely to pass code review. And that style was more often associated with people with CS degrees, vs self-taught programmers. Even though it's a stylistic choice, functionally equivalent, one is "better" than the other and is introducing bias.

It's very easy to do, especially because consistency _is_ important for legibility, but a stylistic choice nonetheless. I think a decent, practical solution to some degree are prettifiers/code-formatters and linters. Because the style is codified, and trivial for anybody to apply.

<comment><USER5> You should follow the project's style when you start contributing. If style is pointed out in code review, fix it.

<comment><USER4> Well yes, I agree. It's a bit of a toy example, simplistic, but hopefully one we can all relate to.

It does illustrate the issue of using "meritocracy" without anything else. It's like saying "we follow a style guide", and then not providing that style guide. Obviously sub-optimal.

(The example breaks down since providing a style guide is doable, whereas providing a "merit guide" is hard/impossible? In that case, is it better to remove that? I don't know.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This frightening shift away from meritocracy sounds suspiciously like what happens in India. In India, everything from government jobs, admissions to colleges and universities, etc is based on this quota system based on caste, religion, and other subdivisions instead of meritocracy.

The intentions are undoubtedly good. But the actual results? Every government department is horrifically inefficient because a whole lot of people who do not know how to do work land up there due to these quota systems. In many cases, if you fit in a special category, you can basically fail in your university entrance examinations, even not _attempt_ more than one question, get that question wrong, and still get admission.

People regularly riot, often violently, to pressurize the government into declaring their group as minorities so that they can specifically get these benefits.

ISRO and the Army are the only public institutions in India that operate on meritocracy. And they are pretty much the only public institutions held in any regard by the public.

This may have a feel good effect in the short period and some people may feel like they are somehow morally superior. But this will always lead to a whole lot of pain in the long term.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is about changing the very nature of how open source projects work for people with radical political views to 'feel included', specifically to have their political views validated.

It is not about improving actual diversity, Mozilla already has those efforts. Mozilla should welcome and support contributions by everyone, I even recognize the systematic barriers that some people face, but I don't think we should be altering how key open source software projects function to affirm the believes of a small but loud group of radicals, particularly when their solutions for diversity don't actually increase diversity, they just increase the power of that loud group.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can someone explain how striving for meritocracy stems from assumption of equal opportunity? I want projects I am part of or benefit from to be guided by meritocracy. It means some people have better chances to contribute or gain influence there than others. Those are more competent people who often got better opportunities through life. I want that because I care about those projects. I don't see how chances not being equal contradict any of it.

<comment><USER7> Let's say you get "a" tries to succeed. You'd expect equally talented candidates x, and y, to have Pr(x|a) == Pr(y|a).

But what if y only had "b" tries, where b<a? What would y have to be to make Pr(x|a) == Pr(y|b)? Our intuition seems to say that there will be a lot of variance in Pr(y|b). But the candidate's skill hasn't actually changed, just we aren't measuring it with the same fidelity!

And that's all there is to it. If you no longer assume everyone has an equal chance to show their skills, then the meritocracy isn't actually working as intended. Good "y" candidates are getting ignored for worse "x" candidates, just because "x" candidates had more chances.

<comment><USER8> I get the idea, but Mozilla is building _things_.

If I want the best _engineer_ to build my _bridge_ , I don't want to give bonus points for skin color or private parts. It's not like the trucks going over it will be any lighter or have smoother tires because the person building it grew up in a single parent household or something. When the rubber meets the road, some engineers are better than others and it affects the end product.

My fundamental concern is that the moment that the deciding factor isn't how good someone is at what you need them to do, you're driving a wedge through "the world as it is (cold hard reality)" and "the world as you want it to be (equal outcomes, diverse, empathetic)". The deeper that wedge gets, the tougher of a time you'll have meeting goals in the real world, where whether or not that bridge holds during a tornado is completely independent of the background of those who built it.

I think employees should be judged on how well they can deliver toward the company's goals, and for the most part, I think that happens. Actions like these are more about virtue signaling than anything else.

<comment><USER9> "When the rubber meets the road, some engineers are better than others and it affects the end product."

This is overly individualistic. A given engineer is not better or worse in some absolute sense. They are better or worse at a given job, which takes into account many other contextual factors: the specific goal, the rest of the team (who will be pursuing a that goal cooperatively), and the unique challenges which face that team/goal combination.

For example, it may be that your engineer Dmitri is best at solving particular types of design problems, but he only speaks Russian, and he's having trouble on a team with no other native Russian-speakers.

In this case, the "best" engineer to hire for Dmitri's team is a Russian, even if they're "worse" at solving design problems on an individual basis. In the abstract, hiring an engineer based on the language they speak goes against the meritocratic ideal, but in practice it is obviously the decision which best moves the team toward their goal.

More generally, one could say that even though language-diversity is not _obviously_ or _directly_ related to engineering effectiveness, it is still related. Having many languages represented on a team increases the odds that the performance of people like Dmitri will not be limited by a language barrier in the first place.

It's funny you mentioned "the world as it is" vs "the world as you want it to be". Because from my perspective, you're describing the world as you want it to be: each person has an abstract platonic "skill value" which can be objectively and universally evaluated, and which translates predictably and directly into metrics like load-bearing capacity. This is a lofty ideal, but does not reflect how organizations and teams actually achieve goals.

"The world as it is" involves orgs with lots of subjective, local, interdependent systems which often involve interpersonal dynamics, norms, and emergent social phenomena, all of which have an indirect but very significant effect on metrics like load-bearing capacity.

<comment><USER8> > A given engineer is not better or worse in some absolute sense.

I'll just address this first: Often they are. It is idealist and simplistic to claim otherwise. Some surgeons are better at performing surgery than others, some engineers are better at building bridges than others, and some programmers are better at programming than others. They're not inherently better _people_ , but that's not relevant.

I think the view expressed in your comment is overly reductionist. Of course everyone works on teams, and of course there are more factors at play than simply being better at some task in a vacuum. But that doesn't change facts like:

* Some people are smarter than others

* Some people are more dedicated than others

* Some people have more experience than others

* Some people have life circumstances that allow them to contribute more than others

* Some people have values more in line with the company's success than others

This is kind of what I mean by "the world as it is" vs "the world as you want it to be." The points above are common sense to people that don't have the world view expressed in your comment. The idea that all people are equally valuable is only true in the abstract sense. When you actually need to accomplish a concrete goal (like putting a man on the moon), some people are absolutely more valuable than others toward doing that, and an organization that pretends that's not the case is shooting itself in the foot.

Having a meritocratic structure doesn't even inherently mean individualist. It could be measured at the team or project level. It also doesn't have to be (and typically isn't) exactly the measurable contributions ("load-bearing capacity") to the goal itself that determines the best "engineer." More often your "best" engineer is the one who is easy to work with, embraces tough challenges, and can adapt well to changes.

But honestly: I think everyone already knows these things. That's why I see this more as virtue signaling: it's one thing to change a governance statement. It's another when it's actually put into practice.

<comment><USER9> _Having a meritocratic structure doesn 't even inherently mean individualist. It could be measured at the team or project level. It also doesn't have to be (and typically isn't) exactly the measurable contributions ("load-bearing capacity") to the goal itself that determines the best "engineer." More often your "best" engineer is the one who is easy to work with, embraces tough challenges, and can adapt well to changes._

Yeah I totally agree with that. To me, that shows that the measure of merit is, #1: extremely subjective and #2: influenced by all kinds of factors that would not traditionally be associated with merit.

Basically, I think that it often makes sense to do affirmative action within a true meritocratic framework, but that the term meritocracy is generally used to juxtapose against affirmative action. If the term is being used to argue against its true meaning, then it's not a useful term and should be retired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meritocracy means your elevation within a group is not influenced by your ancestory, wealth, socail status, who are your friends with, how much you were/are-being oppressed, charisma or twitter followers.

The group has a mission. You help with mission, you go up. You work against the mission, you go down. Thats meritocracy.

<comment><USER2> > The group has a mission. You help with mission, you go up. You work against > the mission, you go down. Thats meritocracy.

Honest question. Do you think you've cleared anything up with this definition? I don't think you've gotten anywhere closer to the truth. If _only_ it were so easy to know what the mission is or what is in service of the mission. In life, in software, there are enough derelict projects, aspirations, visions, dreams to fill a graveyard. That should serve as a warning that it's not so clear.

And anyway, does the mission really have to say "We are a 'help the mission'ocracy"?

<comment><USER11> > If only it were so easy to know what the mission is or what is in service of > the mission.

This is how you get evaluated on a quarterly (or yearly) basis at a job. You had goals. Did you achieve them? Did you fall short? You were given tasks and a timeline (perhaps you even helped set the timeline). Did you complete the tasks? Were there excessive bugs? Were you on time?

These are all relatively simple things to measure, which is why they're used so often. If you tie merit to your performance in relation to stated goals (and I think that's reasonable), it's pretty straightforward to measure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's worth noting that back in 2014, GitHub removed a meritocracy rug from their office for similar reasons: [https://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github- meritocracy-rug/](https://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is the suggested modification:

"Mozilla is an open source project. Our community is structured as a virtual organization. Authority is primarily distributed to both volunteer and employed community members as they show their ability through contributions to the project. The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing authority through active interventions that engage and encourage participation from diverse communities."

While it removes the word "meritocracy" it clarifies and validates the exact manner in which meritocracy is being promoted: "members as they show their ability through contributions to the project". While there is a debate to be had between the two formulations, the current HN title seems misleadingly editorialized for two reasons:

1\. It is a proposal by two members, yet to receive ratification from the organization.

2\. The suggested change still emphasizes the principle of meritocracy without using the word.

<comment><AUTHOR> It also adds language about debias.

So it doesn't simply remove meritocracy to appease the far-left activists.

It specifically inserts language to appear them, reaffirm their world view.

Is it really necessary to create a safe space for fringe political activists to create substantive diversity? No.

It's also promoted by high-level Mozilla employees in response to a recent anti-meritocracy movement.

After what happened to FreeBSD's CoC you can hardly claim this is happening in a vacuum, it's a cause now.

<comment><USER14> _> It also adds language about debias._

I'm confused as to why debiasing here is bad. If your contention is that bias doesn't exist, then this shouldn't have any effect. And if the distribution of authority _does_ have a bias other than "ability and contributions to the project", why _wouldn 't_ they want to fix that?

<comment><USER15> Exactly, it's _equivalent_ to saying "meritocracy", except that it uses words approved by the far-left in place of a word disapproved by them.

<comment><USER14> Insofar as many people's definition of meritocracy seems to preclude any consideration of someone's race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc, they're not equivalent.

Bias can't be addressed by ignoring attributes you suspect to be affected by it. In the new wording Mozilla explicitly commits to address bias, which is important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting, just when the "post-meritocracy" manifesto was published, Mozilla changes sides on meritocracy :

[https://postmeritocracy.org/](https://postmeritocracy.org/)

authored by Coraline Ada Ehmke who is already well known for their activism in IT and open source with the contributor convenant [https://www.contributor- covenant.org/](https://www.contributor-covenant.org/) . Coincidence? or consequence?

<comment><USER17> > But meritocracy has consistently shown itself to mainly benefit those with > privilege, to the exclusion of underrepresented people in technology. The > idea of merit is in fact never clearly defined; rather, it seems to be a > form of recognition, an acknowledgement that "this person is valuable > insofar as they are like me."

That seems strange to me, because most projects are basically saying if you have no commits you're voice is essentially noise to them, which I agree with. If you want to join an FOSS project and a make a difference put your money where your mouth is - otherwise don't expect most people to listen. All the flowery words and PR likely won't change this reality, for good reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> > an acknowledgement that "this person is valuable insofar as they are like > me."

Yeah, when evaluating PRs I rarely even look at the person making the contribution, I look at the code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this bit from the email is the most important:

> To sum up:

> -Declaring Mozilla to be a de facto "meritocracy" fails to acknowledge > evident bias in representation in the project.

> -The word "meritocracy" itself has become a bone of contention which is > unhelpful to us.

> -Meritocractic principles remain highly desirable and should be explicit.

> -We should also acknowledge the importance of measures we take to debias how > authority is distributed.

In particular, note the second and third points. The real issue here is that some people get really upset by the word "meritocracy". Is it worth fighting that, or can you just use different words for the same thing?

<comment><USER19> > _The real issue here is that some people get really upset by the word > "meritocracy"._

Clearly you have never dealt with a white man who is better off than certain women, or people from ethnic minorities, and thinks it's because his being white/male makes him _inherently_ better and invokes "meritocracy" all the freaking time.

I have. And I'm a half-Asian male - I can't imagine what it's like to deal with that jerk if I were a woman or an ethnic minority he didn't consider inherently intelligent (yes, really - he was actually surprised I was upset at the things he said because _he wasn 't talking about me_, as if that was the reason for me to disagree with him).

When the word "meritocracy" is used to structurally shut down debates of sexism and racism, it is no longer about meritocracy.

<comment><USER20> > ... and thinks it's because his being white/male makes him inherently better > ...

Could you clarify how you reached this conclusion about someone specific, as opposed to a generalized fear such a person might exist?

In many years in the tech/engineering business I have never seen anyone express such a sentiment, despite having worked with more than my fair share of unpleasant people.

Presumption of competence, or obliviousness to one's own advantages are certainly present in the community. But I have not seen anyone express such supremacist ideas before.

<comment><USER21> >> .. and thinks it's because his being white/male makes him inherently better ... > could you clarify how you reached this conclusion about someone specific,

I have seen/heard of this in academia. The specific case I know about was a good chunk of a graduate math department. The attitude seemed to come from the top down mostly, but the graduate students seemed to repeat/reflect the attitude/culture.

Other conversations here give me the impression such ideas might be experiencing an uptick in expression, if not popularity in tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why exactly do people contend that meritocracy somehow clashes with diversity? The implications being made by suggesting the two be mutually exclusive are frightening.

<comment><USER23> Suppose:

1\. There exist some quality "merit" with a random uniform distribution across the population.

2\. Some systems used to measure merit are biased for and against different subgroups of the population.

3\. People obtain power and wealth based these biased measurements.

4\. Subgroups with more power and wealth expend resources optimizing their performance on the tests, further biasing the results.

5\. The winners in this system label it a "meritocracy".

This story rings true to me. That doesn't necessarily mean merit-based systems are all bad. They can still provide lots of opportunity to the poor who have enough aptitude they can still beat the test despite the bias. Other systems may have worse problems.

In practice, organizations like Mozilla still have a competitive merit-based hiring process even if they say they oppose meritocracy. They might attempt to apply a correction to unbias the merit measurement. Getting rid of the trappings of meritocracy might make it a more welcoming place to work for everyone and raise the total merit (even if there's no way to measure it).

<comment> rich-w-big-ego Why don't you come out and say what you really mean? djajshgsjja is attempting to justify a handicap against the successful subgroups. But what amount of handicap should there be? In what measure should the handicap apply? How can you apply any sort of handicap without a massive bureaucratic intervention, with swaths of each organisation dedicated to applying handicaps? Ah, but the bureaucratic intervention is the linchpin. We arrive at the diversity and equity offices in Universities across North America. We arrive at the Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion by Law Society of Ontario that requires every law firm of 10 or greater to complete an annual report about how they are advancing the goals of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are parts of an ideology based on absolutely no science or literature, and ignores the deadly catastrophes of the 20th century whose millions of dead were preceded by cutting off the successful subgroups at the knees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As someone who comes from a minority group, I absolutely want to be judged on the technical merit of my contributions and not my skin color, gender or genetic background.

Implying that people who aren't white males can't succeed in a meritocratic environment is racist and condescending. I don't see how this helps diversity one bit.

<comment><USER25> I have thought about this and I too find it patronising and racist indeed. I don't care about your race, I only care if you are the best.

<comment><USER24> It's actually a pretty popular opinion among high performing minorities (at least the ones I know -- yes anecdotal). Sadly it's a position _entirely_ absent and forbidden in the debate around this.

While I'm not one for identity politics, I have to say there's just something weird about watching wealthy and powerful white (usually) people debate this issue and completely ignore the voice of those they are supposed to be "sticking up" for.

For me the end goal looks like an attempt to remove the tool I and others used to make social and economic advancement (legitimate skill and hard work) and replace it with some sort of cherry picking of individuals from above. It's definitely something I'm not comfortable with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sounds quite reasonable from my point of view. This idea that words should only be judged in isolation and not in the historical contexts they have been viewed is not very realistic.

</comment><comment><USER27> Isn't this a misleading headline? It looks more like "Someone proposes that Mozilla remove 'meritocracy' from governance docs"

<comment><AUTHOR> Patrick Finch is a high-level strategist for Mozilla, has been there 8 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why is time spent on things that do not matter? If you want to contribute to Open Source project the pull request literally doesn't care whether your reproductive organs are inside or outside of you (or if they even exist at all) just write some code.

People who have nothing better to do than cry about use of this kind of words (and language in general) probably do not contribute to the project in net positive manner.

</comment><comment><USER29> Meritocracy is a word used by the right (you succeed by your will and your skills). It's not compatible with the system of believes of the left (the unlucky should be helped more - something like a rule, a rate must compensate that injustice).

It's logical they change that and it confirms the political nature of those subjects.

My advice is to avoid people dealing with that because it's not related to computers.

<comment> rich-w-big-ego This is the core conflict. Do we judge people on their competence, or do we judge them by the degree to which they are oppressed?

<comment><USER29> I tend to evaluate them on their intents. Do they try to make the good?

<comment> rich-w-big-ego Intention is also very important. Are they focused on people in the office, or code on the computer?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "This proposal does not seek to change how Mozilla is governed, only how we talk about how Mozilla is governed, which may be reasonably be regarded as contentious."

...said another way?...

"It is reasonable to expect a few questions after we emphasize the importance of changing how we talk about x while we also emphasize that changing x is not the objective."

The reasoning in this part of the email is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is insane.

<comment><USER32> Words are important. Devs will argue over a correct variable name for hours but think names in other places have no meaning

<comment><AUTHOR> Words are important. Diversity is important. Changing words like "meritocracy" does not improve diversity. It is the illusion of diversity, a feel-good opportunity for well-intentioned bystanders. The true intent is for a small group of highly politically motivated people to gain more control. The governance documents are about control and changing those documents means a shift in control. The movement we are seeing here opposes meritocracy on political principle, as part of their worldview. It does not stop there though. They believe the only answer for "diversity" to put them in charge, beginning with government documents that reflect their radical worldview, see FreeBSD Code of Conduct. Even if you support diversity, you have to realize these people do not care about diversity or inclusion, they are little authoritarians who want more power to dictate what people say and whose opinion matters more/less based on immutable characteristics. We cannot allow authoritarians with such warped views of the world to seize control of key open source projects.

<comment><USER32> you sound like a conspiracy theorist. it is changing an inappropriate word, not shifting control over the entire company Mozilla. i doubt you care about diversity or improving the quality of the open source project

<comment><AUTHOR> The evidence cited for meritocracy being an inappropriate word, a study on GitHub pull requests, has been widely debunked.

Meritocracy is only an inappropriate word if you believe that certain groups of people will never be able to participate on a level playing field.

That notion is of course incredibly condescending towards members of those groups.

The goal should be to advance everyone in the meritocracy through outreach and training, not to abandon the value of meritocracy.

The proposal itself makes it clear the change is merely for cosmetic purposes, to make certain people feel better, not actually increase diversity.

If you care about diversity you should oppose the notion that certain groups of people are incapable of participating on their own terms.

This is about empowering a small but loud group of political activists who want to remake a software project to fit their fringe world view.

Do you care more about affirming their politics or the quality of software?

<comment><USER32> your arguments are hypberolic in some cases, as changing or clarifying a word or sentence even is not "remake(ing) a software project". and I think the word meritocracy is vague, a overarching word used to describe many things to many people, mozilla should instead simply be more clear about what that means. what is the "playing field", that itself is a metaphor for sports and physical ability I guess. How will the ability of those chosen for participation under this meritocracy be judged

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It seems that some people view the term "meritocracy" negatively because they believe it implies that everyone has the same opportunities. I don't see that implication, but if enough other people do, maybe it's worth re-wording their governance docs.

At the same time, the proposed replacement seems off the target:

> "Mozilla is an open source project. Our community is structured as a virtual > organization. Authority is primarily distributed to both volunteer and > employed community members as they show their ability through contributions > to the project. The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing > authority through active interventions that engage and encourage > participation from diverse communities."

What's wrong with something innocuous, like: "We strive to encourage contributions/engagement/participation from diverse communities"?

<comment><AUTHOR> > The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing authority

Because this is not about the governance documents of an open source software project, it is about affirming the radical worldview of a small but loud fringe group in the name of diversity.

Except the only diversity is creates is diversity for people with the correct political opinions. It has nothing to do with the actual diversity that benefits an open source project.

It is time we stop listening to this fringe group about how to achieve diversity, they clearly only want power and control for themselves.

We should not let them bully pragmatic moderates who generally support diversity and inclusion into ceding them more authority and dictatorial control.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's strange this has so many points and comments but almost instantly disappeared from the front page of HN.

<comment><USER34> Story with more comments than points always disappear faster from front page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gotcha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> After reading the comments in the linked google group it seems like the issue is that they just need to more clearly define (and perhaps more fairly) what 'merit' is.

Each team/role should have this clearly defined to eliminate bias/subjectivity. Also by clearly defining that, you help escape a meritocracy where 'authority' decides what 'merit' is behind close-doors (which isn't really a meritocracy).

Instead of abandoning a meritocracy because it has implementation issues, why don't they just fix the problems?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Instead of abandoning a meritocracy because it has implementation issues, > why don't they just fix the problems?

Because the small group of people pushing these changes don't want meritocracy, they want power and influence merely for having the correct political opinions.

They rely on the cooperation of well-meaning people who support diversity but don't see it's ploy for control and power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >The first line of Mozilla's governance[0] states, "Mozilla is an open source project governed as a meritocracy."

>The use of the term "meritocracy" to describe communities that suffer from a lack of diverse representation is increasingly seen as problematic: it proceeds from an assumption of equality of opportunity.

Is there evidence that the assumption of equal opportunities does not hold for Mozilla? It seems to me that they went to great lengths to ensure equality of opportunities.

<comment><USER37> I don't usually follow Mozilla, what efforts do they make that for instance effectively offsets issues of access to education or social discrimination outside of just Mozilla ?

<comment><USER5> They don't; it's not their problem.

I think addressing social discrimination is a great mission. But organization needs to focus, and can't address every great mission. Social discrimination is just not the focus of Mozilla's mission.

<comment><USER37> But I guess that's the point in rewording the mission. The proposal is to align the mission statement with something closer to reality, and give more leaway to adapt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The post cites "Gender difference and bias in open source" as a supporting evidence, but it is super unconvincing.

The study found, in the study's own words, "Surprisingly, our results show that women's contributions tend to be accepted more often than men's". They still conclude bias against women (not men)! They have their reasons, but they don't stand up to scrutiny. For more details than you probably want, see [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too- exci...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/12/before-you-get-too-excited- about-that-github-study/)

Meritocracy may be problematic, but the proposition needs better evidence than that.

</comment><comment><USER38> "I know how to fix Mozilla."

Sincerely, Someone who cannot even keep zer own room clean.

</comment><comment><USER39> It is hard to be meritocratic for Mozilla when their C-levels get half million US dollars of salary in cash and fly on chartered business jets

</comment><comment><USER40> fake editorialised title, please change to original

<comment><AUTHOR> What about it is fake? A senior-level employee and strategist for Mozilla made this proposal to the governance listserv. It's up for serious discussion.

<comment><USER41> I don't think I agree that it's fake per se, but it definitely looks editorialized to me with scare quotes around "problematic".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I keep writing paragraphs to respond to topics like these, but every time I find myself just linking to @aphyr instead, who put it so much more eloquently than I can.

[https://lobste.rs/s/nf3xgg/i_am_leaving_llvm#c_ubyrb0](https://lobste.rs/s/nf3xgg/i_am_leaving_llvm#c_ubyrb0)

Paste:

Suckless makes a window manager: a part of a computer that human beings, with all their rich and varying abilities and perspectives, interact with constantly. Your choices of defaults and customization options have direct impact on those humans.

For example, color schemes determine whether color-blind people are able to quickly scan active vs inactive options and understand information hierarchy. Font sizes and contrast ratios can make the interface readable, difficult, or completely unusable for visually impaired people. The sizes of click targets, double-click timeouts, and drag thresholds impact usability for those with motor difficulties. Default choices of interface, configuration, and documentation language embed the project in a particular English-speaking context, and the extent to which your team supports internationalization can limit, or expand, your user base.

With limited time and resources, you will have to make tradeoffs in your code, documentation, and community about which people your software is supportive and hostile towards. These are inherently political decisions which cannot be avoided. This is not to say that your particular choices are wrong. It's just you are already engaged in "non-technical", political work, because you, like everyone else here, are making a tool for human beings. The choice to minimize the thought you put into those decisions does not erase the decisions themselves.

At the community development level, your intentional and forced choices around language, schedule, pronouns, and even technical terminology can make contributors from varying backgrounds feel welcome or unwelcome, or render the community inaccessible entirely. These too are political choices. Your post above is one of them.

There is, unfortunately, no such thing as a truly neutral stance on inclusion. Consider: you wish to take only the best developers, and yet your post has already discouraged good engineers from working on your project. Doubtless it has encouraged other engineers (who may be quite skilled!) with a similar political view to your own; those who believe, for instance, that current minority representation in tech is justified, representing the best engineers available, and that efforts to change those ratios are inherently discriminatory and unjust.

Policies have impact. Consider yours.

<comment><AUTHOR> > At the community development level, your intentional and forced choices > around language, schedule, pronouns, and even technical terminology can make > contributors from varying backgrounds feel welcome or unwelcome.

The proposal is not to make Mozilla more diverse, nor would it accomplish that.

The proposal is to change the language to make Mozilla seem more diverse to people with very explicit radical views on diversity.

This will actually have the opposite effect of reducing diversity and only serves to empower the people with the correct views.

<comment><USER42> That was literally in response to: "Thus, to make your software suck less, you only take the best developers no matter what race, gender, heritage, etc. these persons have."

Meritocracy perpetuates the status quo, which is just a local maximum and not the overall maximum.</comment></comment></comment>


35+ Techniques to enhance your php code - <AUTHOR> http://www.binarytides.com/blog/35-techniques-to-enhance-your-php-code/

<comment><USER2> A bunch of cargo cult ideas and otherwise terrible advice. Looks like it was written for PHP4.

There is almost no justification for any of these techniques and they don't come close to PHP best practices.

For example, "1. Do not use relative paths , instead define a ROOT path", what advantage does this provide? Use an autoloader. Furthermore:

      define('ROOT' , pathinfo(__FILE__, PATHINFO_DIRNAME));

Is completely redundant. If you move your file, you might as well just keep using your relative path.

I'm going to stop there.. but just about every technique misses the point.</comment>


So You Think You Are a Darwinian?  - <AUTHOR> http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/03/so-you-think-you-are-darwinian.html

<comment><USER2> What is a "darwinian"? I have never heard anyone describe themselves as such.

<comment><USER3> If someone appears to be attacking evolution, people label them a "creationist" and stop listening. But if some other label is used, like "darwinian", then people who are less familiar with biological sciences will listen attentively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some designer you have. 95% of DNA is JUNK, entirely useless for the production of amino acids.

Cells, animals, apes, including that ridiculous naked ape who calls himself Man, are nothing more than gene carrying robots, carrying around junk DNA from all antiquity into an uncertain future. The human eye is one of the most inefficient mechanisms ever produced (compared with say, a fly's eye). An engineer who designed that would be fired.

If evolution by natural selection operating on the level of the selfish gene is not true, then you are left with one of the laziest, most incompetent engineers ever imagined, and this bumbling nincompoop is supposed to be operating on a geological and cosmic scale. We are either gene carrying robots as Dawkins and others have proved time and again, or we are puppets created by the most incompetent designer ever conceived.

Oh, and by the way, your incompetent designer theory still begs the question of whence the designer? It is the ultimate 747 in the junkyard, and so we have an infinite regress of "intelligent designers", each presumably even more incompetent than the last.

How tripe like this gets onto a technology forum boggles the imagination. Must we also give equal time to the Flat Earth Society and to Pastafarians? I'll retire to bedlam.

<comment><AUTHOR> This has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligent design, though you don't seem to know what that is either. David Stove is an atheist who believes in evolution. He's saying most people who think they believe in Darwinism don't know what they believe or how implausible it is.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stove#Darwinism>

You show how knee jerk reactionaries Darwinists are. If you don't consider yourself one, why react the way you did?</comment></comment>


What It Really Costs to Implement Salesforce (Part 1) - <AUTHOR> https://trifinlabs.com/salesforce-implementation-ultimate-guide/#part1 <comment><AUTHOR> This is part of a larger implementation guide but I think some people will see value in this. We work with companies every day to build web and mobile experiences that connect back to Salesforce (a la Heroku).

Since it's getting more popular(easier) to build web and mobile apps connected back to enterprise systems, people should have a good understanding of what it actually costs to do so.

Also, you'll probably discover that Salesforce consultants charge much higher rates than you thought.

<comment><AUTHOR> If in fact this is completely irrelevant to anyone browsing HN, let me know and I'll pull it to not waste anyone's time!</comment></comment>


The Politics of Space Junk - <AUTHOR> https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2019/politics-of-space-junk <comment><USER2> Check out [http://stuffin.space](http://stuffin.space) for a visualization of current space debris.

<comment><USER3> Discussed a couple times: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16763162](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16763162) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9841831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9841831)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a bit strange that it only becomes a concern now that India and china is space-faring

<comment><USER5> Well, both have behaved irresponsibly at a time when space is already pretty busy. When the US and USSR went through their 'hold my beer' phase of space exploration, they could really only hurt themselves.

My favorite US 'oopsie' is the Westford Needles ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford)) many of which are still up there 55 years later. But that was at the beginning of the space age, the Chinese actions were the equivalent of taking a dump in the swimming pool while maintaining eye contact with the lifeguard.</comment></comment>


Intuition behind Gaussian Processes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sigopt.com/post/130275376068/sigopt-fundamentals-intuition-behind-gaussian <comment><AUTHOR> This is Mike, I am the author of this post. Let me know if you have any questions; I will be checking in periodically throughout the day.</comment>


Journey on the Trans-Siberian: St Petersburg - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@grigoriy_kogan/trans-siberian-railway-journey-st-petersburg-914f4b2d58aa <comment><USER2> This is a good article and St Petersburg is well worth visiting but technically it is not a destination of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

> The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR, Russian: Транссибирская магистраль, tr. > Transsibirskaya magistral', IPA: [trənsʲsʲɪˈbʲirskəjə məgʲɪˈstralʲ]) is a > network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East.[1]

Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway is considered a separate railway line [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans- Siberian_Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg%E2%80%93Mosco...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg%E2%80%93Moscow_Railway)

<comment><USER3> I think that the part from Yaroslavl' to SPb is de facto part of Transsib. See that strange hook the northern route does just before Moscow? That's because it is continued directly to SPb from its tip via Vologda. The northern route is designed to be pointed at SPb, the capital at the time.

However, topicstarter didn't traverse this path anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't believe he raced through all the museums and historical works. St Petersburg is near the top of my list for cultural visits. The Russians bought up a ton of the best artwork in Europe and it resides in the Hermitage. The palaces look amazing- classic enlightened Russia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Russia is a big place and compromises had to be made.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here... Happy to answer any questions. This essay covers just the first two days of a 19-day trip, so there are more stories to come, along with tips for anyone considering a similar trip.

<comment><USER5> I'm headed to Russia for a month in 2 weeks. Taking the railroad into Mongolia. Did anything stand out to you in SPb or Moscow that you were really into? Great cafe or neighborhood vibe?

<comment><USER6> I have been to SPb (or Peter as locals call it) 4 times in the past year. It's become one of my favorite cities. Peter, has its own vibe, it's still relatively under-appreciated, it has an interesting street music flavor, the hermitage museum is excellent and once you become friends with locals, Russian hospitality is wonderful.

You really want to visit Peter between May till September. End of June to early July during the White Nights is quiet fun.

My favorite thing is to roam the city on bikes. Peter is a large city and having a bike gives you a great freedom to take it all in.

Peter has many restaurants. Armenian (Erevan or Yerevan named after the capital of Armenia is very good but a bit on the pricey side), Georgian, canteen (soviet style buffet). Many places on or around the Nevsky Street open late or never close.

SIM card is cheap, Megaphone and MTC is your best choice, but you can't buy Megahpone at the airport, but there are many locations in the center of the city. I think I paid like $8-9 for 10-12 Gigs of internet.

Russian language knowledge is very helpful. Though a lot more people speak English in Peter than rest of Russia, but if you plan to wonder off, Google Translate (download the Russian language to your phone to be safe) is your friend.

If you want to learn Russian, learn the polite way of saying hello (Здравствуйте) it's hard to pronounce at first, but I find it very disarming and helpful.

Uber has now become Yandex taxi. But you can still use your Uber app which is what I recommend once you arrive into the airport and want to get to city upon arrival.

IMPORTANT - If you stay at AirBNB, the host may not register you. So either ask them to register you or ask them where you can register. Registration is free, but people doing it will charge you some money. There were agencies that would do it last year, but with the world cup rules changed a bit.

If you like street music and you want to fit in, be sure to listen to the music of KINO (with the front man Victor Tsoi) they're a legend in Peter and you'll hear their music always played in the street.

<comment><USER7> About registration: Do you really think it's important? I had two recent trips to Moscow where I was staying at Airbnbs and the hosts refused to register me. I was unable to find another way to register and decided to risk it. Nobody asked about it during departure. One trip was before the world cup, the other was during the final. I'd definitely like to follow the rules, but it seems like a huge hassle when staying at Airbnbs ... (note: both trips were ~5 days, but world cup rules of ~1 day deadline for registration were in place for both trips)

<comment><AUTHOR> (Author of the story but not the person you're asking.)

I never got asked to prove my registration, but why risk it? If your host is unable or unwilling to register you, you can self-register at the nearest police station.[0]

[0] Please verify this, don't take my word for it.

<comment><USER3> They need some address to register you at, and I guess they need consent from the owner of place where you are staying.

<comment><USER8> Not really, they hold you at your word, in case you lie or owner of the place claims he doesn't know you and you never been there it goes in your file next interaction with police / border control might not be pleasant.

EDIT: Depends on length of stay of course, under few weeks they generally don't care, over a month they will definitely contact the owner and check everything.

Owner might not want his address being mentioned too many times, registering 10 random people within 2 months would definitely attract tax office attention and since renting is income tax needs to be paid on that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you writing a journal? - <AUTHOR>

After I heard good things about writing a personal journal from some friends a few months ago, I also started writing one myself.
But I recently stopped writing because I noticed that the Application I was using is saving all entries completely unencrypted in the Cloud. I started searching around a bit but didn't find a good alternative which keeps my notes save and also easily editable.
Because I don't want to switch to writing into an analog notebook or something like that, it brought me to the point of thinking about providing a good alternative by myself.
Thus I'd like to hear some thoughts and ideas from other people who also like writing a journal. Do you write your thoughts down? If so, where? <comment><USER2> I keep a daily journal which I save in a Word document. I don't particularly mind if it goes up in a ball of fire one day - I find that I never really go back to look through what I've written in the past.

For me, the journal's purpose is not to document my life. The journal is a daily check in - a tool which forces me to be honest about my current situation and evaluate what I can be doing differently or better. There's just something so real and raw about putting my thoughts into something physical. It forces me to really grapple with the issues I'm facing in life and come up with actionable solutions.

Even though that's my experience with journaling, it most likely won't be yours as well. Journals turn the lens inwards and magnify the things which are most important to you. Some people use journals to vent. Others just want to document the experiences they live in life to keep a history of what they've done.

You probably won't know what benefit a journal will give you until you just start doing it. Give it a week or two - do it before you sleep or right when you wake up. Before you know it, you'll be hooked. Or not, the cost is so low you might as well give it a shot.

</comment><comment><USER3> Were you using Day One? It stores unencrypted entries in iCloud/Dropbox and has the weakest password protection system I've seen. Your password isn't even synced across different devices, you need to set it each time for each device! I haven't yet stopped using it but I'm looking to make the transition to something else.

OneNote allows you to password protect and encrypt an entire section, so you could make a journal section an store all of your entries in there. It works quite well from my experience. Evernote also offers encryption but you can only encrypt a selection of text and it can be inconvenient to have to encrypt each entry separately. Both options have mobile/desktop/web apps.

Another option is a private Wordpress journal.

A lot of people here recommend using a physical journal and a pen (I'm planning on going this route eventually). You could also use good ol' text files synced with dropbox (or something else) and encrypt them yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that's the app I was using before I figured out that it doesn't encrypt my entries. Also it doesn't have a web-view, right?

I thought it might be great if I would build a great-looking web-application which also has a well-documented API (you can't say that of any great journaling app out there).

I think especially for people who are traveling 'round the world - and don't keep devices like an iPhone, an MacBook, etc. with them - it would be perfect (many of them are still using Internet Cafés).

But of course, the most people are writing on their own devices. For them, we could write some native apps later.

Another tiny question: Would you pay for a service like that? I mean a few dollars /month. In my opinion, there's currently no complete service out there, which focusses only on journaling.

Okay, maybe a few poor-designed and -developed ones.

<comment><USER3> > Would you pay for a service like that?

I wouldn't. There are enough free options (e.g. onenote, email, physical journal, etc.) that work just fine for me. I personally don't see the value in paying for a service that uploads and syncs my journals, even if it has a really nice interface.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. You'd have to come up with a good feature, other than just syncing/looking pretty, to make it worth paying for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have kept a journal in a text file since 2011, synced via dropbox. It's grown to be over a meg at this point. At that time, I was feeing depressed, and it gave me tremendous sense of clarity and order to be able to put my thoughts into writing and check in every day.

I haven't had this problem as much these days, but I have kept the habit. I have a rule with myself that if I find myself ruminating over some stupid thing that happened during the day, I may do so, but only in writing. For some reason, typing my way through such thoughts, even for short periods of time, tends to make them clearer and to more quickly reveal any distortions/fallacies therein.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't journal as much as I would like. I have been using Day1 as well, but lately started using Hemingway app on Mac. You can make the interface very minimal to keep out distraction, and have in the background ready for thoughts. It can analyze level of grammar if you please. Save where you want, and what you do to secure it is your choice.

</comment><comment><USER7> I used to keep all my passwords in Emacs w/ Org Mode. You can encrypt a heading, or an entire file, with a GPG key. This could work. Just store it in Dropbox/etc. If you trust Dropbox's encryption, just use a simple j.txt as manmukh says.

Or you could just email yourself, replying forever. That's pretty easy.

[link, almost forgot] [http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/encrypting- files.html](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/encrypting-files.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for those suggestions! For hackers (who also mostly write on their pc) this could be a way to journal. But for the most people, that's not really an option.

I also think in the longer term, that's not the right way to accomplish this - because it's not really made for journaling and thus also too complicated, in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I keep a journal on paper. In part because technology is a distraction both in the moment and from a management perspective for exactly the reasons you experienced. I've toyed with Emacs org-mode and Microsoft OneNote in the cloud, but nothing really beats paper for me because I have control over the process...and getting away from the computer means that I can wonder about the answer to a question rather than stopping my writing and Googling it up.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use a personal journal with 'vim'[1]. I write only when I feel like writing to it, usually when I'm under stress. The articles are encrypted with GPG, synced through my dropbox account.

[1] [https://github.com/jmcantrell/vim- journal](https://github.com/jmcantrell/vim-journal)

</comment><comment><USER10> > Do you write your thoughts down?

No. But I'd be interested to hear why people would. What is the appeal?

(serious question)

<comment><USER8> There are several reasons I've kept a journal:

\+ Writing is thinking.

\+ I believe it makes my writing better, even if only via the additional practice.

\+ Journaling has been, at times, a sanity check. Writing about some craziness in my life provides a way to stop ruminating over it.

\+ Journaling is a great way to explore ideas that I have.

Over the past three months or so. I've focused more on journaling as a writing and exploration tool and much less as a safety valve over observations of meanness or stupidity in the world or some sadness I might experience. Those things are easy to write passionately about, however I'm generating enough ideas I feel passionate about that I don't need to tap that resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow.. just today I blogged about how there is no good secure journal solution, and ended up writing one for my own..

I am building one currently which stores the entries directly to cloud services and without all boatload of features.. just for writing..

</comment><comment><USER12> I asked a similar question a month ago, you may find some of the answer there useful: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976690)</comment>


Launch HN: Simmer (YC W19) – Reviews for Delivery Dishes - <AUTHOR> Hi Hacker News community! We're Vaibhav and Richard, founders of Simmer (https://usesimmer.com). Simmer aggregates dishes from DoorDash, Caviar, GrubHub, and basically every other delivery platform out there, and tells users the best dishes across the board. We do this by providing dish-level reviews.
Users find highly reviewed dishes on Simmer, choose the delivery platform of their liking, and we deep link them into their chosen delivery app. We essentially lead gen to delivery.
We started working on Simmer because we loved trying new restaurants, but never knew what to order. Especially, when there's a 5 page menu. We always asked ourselves, "Why aren't there ratings for individual dishes?"
We launched our app with this restaurant-centric use case (reviews for every dish at every restaurant), but when we rolled out delivery integrations, we realized that users resonated most with the delivery angle. They found it particularly difficult to find great dishes on delivery (after all, there are no waiters to give you recommendations).
As a result, we have doubled down  on becoming an aggregator of delivery dishes across platforms. So far, the app features hundreds of restaurants (and even more dishes) that deliver in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
We're a young company trying to foster positivity and appreciation of food, but we have a lot to learn. So if you are a big eater, order in a bunch, are indecisive like us, or just want to know what the best dishes are nearby, do check out the app! Shoot us a message at email@example.com - we're eager to hear this community's ideas, experiences, and feedback :)
Download: https://go.onelink.me/PdWH/hackernews <comment><USER2> I was prepared to dismiss this, but I actually think this is a great idea as a consumer. When I eat out, or get takeout, I want something delicious. We can go to a well-reviewed yelp restaurant, but I still don't know what's good there (I often look in the 'frequent mentions' area, but its hit-or-miss).

It might also help me with my tendency to always order the same thing once I find something I like. And, it might motivate me to try new restaurants, if I had a specific compelling thing I was going to order.

Unfortunately, I am not in your initial markets, and we never use delivery services (we go out or pick it up ourselves), but I do like the concept.

If there was a way to a review a meal at an arbitrary restaurant, I would have done so tonight.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally understand. What market are you from? Unfortunately, we are only in SF, NY and Chicago so far.

By the way, you can review a dish from any arbitrary restaurant. You can search your restaurant and press the "Review a Dish" button. When we get enough of those in any city, we consider launching there next :)

<comment><USER2> I was able to find that with your instructions. However, I would not have discovered that on my own. I went to "Nearby", it said "Looks like there are no dishes near you, we have launched..."

If you think having new users organically add dishes is useful, I might just put a big "Review a dish anywhere" button in place of that message. I didn't realize that you had restaurants in there outside launch cities, so I just gave up. If the button had been there, and I could have discovered that I could review a dish at the restaurant I went to, I would have.

Maybe it isn't realistic to expect organic growth outside of launch cities. Still, right now the search functionality seems very prominent, but the add a review functionality does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting idea. Cross comparing similar dishes seems right up your alley too (" _if you like X at Y, then you'll love Z at Q!_ ").

What's the end game though? How would you deal with one or more of these companies refusing to give you an affiliate / referral fee?

I ask because something like this has value in aggregate but once you achieve some level of traction it's user hostile to have a series of dishes or restaurants "disappear".

<comment><AUTHOR> We are currently working with a few delivery platforms to get affiliate fee. Just to give you some numbers, delivery platforms typically get ~20% of the order value and ~15% of the courier fees. At the beginning, we expect to only get a tiny percentage of their net revenue, but we anticipate us getting more negotiating power over time. Totally agree with your point that users might not like it if we a series of dishes or restaurants disappear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi all! Richard here from Simmer. Would love your feedback on the app, HN community! I have a specific questions:

* What's your fav delivery service and why?

* How do you decide what to order when you're ordering delivery?

* How could our feed make this easier for you?

<comment><USER5> Honestly, I used to order delivery all the time from Grubhub, and occasionally the other services. I hate it when my order arrives late or incorrectly, and Grubhub was the most reliable out of the bunch. A big concern for me while ordering from Simmer would be the accuracy of my order and completion!

When it comes to delivering food, I like the process to be as swift and clear as possible- probably because I can't see the food or the place making it. I usually choose my dish/restaurant based on what I already know is good/craving. When I create group orders, which is more often than not, lots of recommendations are being exchanged because I'm definitely quite indecisive.

Because it's delivery and I'm limited to what's open/within a price range, I'm not very adventurous to avoid "risking it". I prefer to have a great meal than an adventurous one on busy days/days in.

Hopefully, with Simmer I can explore some new options confidently!

<comment><AUTHOR> We currently deep link into other apps. You find a highly reviewed dish and then choose your preferred delivery platform (i.e. GrubHub).

We plan to build out full delivery services eventually, but we would use DoorDash to take care of the backend and logistics, so we would not be the ones actually delivering (that would be DoorDash).

Group orders is tough, and we haven't figured out how to crack that just yet :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is your revenue model? I'd imagine you take a cut from the delivery service that you send customers to?

Just wondering about the long-term unit economics, given 1) many of these delivery companies aren't profitable and 2) they already charge a large premium for delivery.

Congrats on the launch!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly right. Most delivery platforms have affiliate revenue, where we get a small percentage of the overall transaction (and courier fee). We don't plan on taking a significant cut early on but may be able to renegotiate with greater traction. We see delivery platforms in a turf war, basically commoditizing themselves and competing on logistics. We think there is room for an aggregator here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a cool idea! I've been getting tired of listening to critical Yelp reviews and was looking for an app just that this that focuses on accuracy

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly right! We just do reviews for individual dishes and cut the noise that comes with bad service or dirty toilets :)

<comment><USER8> So, you're not afraid for the yelp effect? Like, on my order i write, for good simmer review.....

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by Yelp effect?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I already commented below but would be great to see more product screenshots before committing to a DL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the feedback, thanks!</comment></comment>


List of 600 free online courses launched by 190 universities (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.classcentral.com/report/new-courses-october-2018/?news_banner=1 <comment><USER2> Has anyone gone through any of these? Any standouts?</comment>


First official AWS conference - <AUTHOR> http://reinvent.awsevents.com/ <comment><USER2> In Las Vegas? What is this the 80s or 90s again? What were they thinking. They should have kept it in seattle and use it as a recruiting relocation opportunity, or in SV to maximize participation.</comment>


I Saw The Greatest Startup Pitch at The PS4 Conference - <AUTHOR> http://blog.spanishcurls.com/i-saw-the-greatest-startup-pitch-at-the-ps4-conference

<comment><USER2> > Drama and emotion crawled out of him as he illustrated the horrible > situation.

> He stabbed the audience with a knife and twisted it into the guts.

And then, he tried to sell them a video game. I've never been found of this style of pitching, and I closed the video when he said the "imagine if..." part. To evoke strong emotions, tie in real world situations, and then try to sell me something that has nothing to do with it feels like bait and switch. Whether it's just a game, or not, it starts strong and ends up sounding fake and dishonest.

</comment><comment><USER3> This link will jump you to the right timecode: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8OhDX...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8OhDX0anXZE#t=3795)</comment>


Jim Cramer's Blown Call on a Key Technology Sector - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/01/04/tracking-cramers-data-center-doomsday-call/

<comment><USER2> <shrug> Cramer's crystal ball is historically about a coin flip. Someone did a study and showed his "calls" are around 48% accurate.</comment>


Remote Controlled Auto-Pilot to prevent hijacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/08/remote-controlled-autopilot-to-prevent-hijacking/

<comment><USER2> Surely they meant,'to enable hijacking'.

</comment><comment><USER3> from 2007, yay</comment>


Google still hasn't removed "deleted" private Docs data from 2007 - <AUTHOR> http://www.line-of-reasoning.com/issues/privacy-issue-google-docs-seems-to-not-delete-but-only-hide-documents-when-the-trash-is-emptied/

<comment><USER2> I came across this old google explanation[1], but I'm not sure it (or this blogpost) are very relevant to today. Google claimed that they kept the image around because it might have been referenced in another site or something, even if the document was deleted, and they appear to still be keeping those old images around, I guess. The claim also seems to be that a cryptographic hash url is as unguessable as a password secured one, though it's not stated directly.

In any case, I actually tried it myself (gasp) with a new doc. Dragged in an image, inspected it to find the URL, deleted the doc, and then permanently deleted the doc again from the trash (I assume it hangs out there for 30 days like with gmail's trash). The image stuck around for maybe 15 minutes, but is now gone, so I don't think this applies to docs today, but I can't find any help document that says either way.

[1] <http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/03/just-to-clarify.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> In the title, "from 2007" means the article was published on July 15th, 2007. This probably would have been pointed out sooner but the site has remained down for some time now. I'd imagine it has been down since at least the moment it hit the front page (having some faith in the initial up-voters here). That said, this would have made an excellent trap for people who vote based on title alone.

Edit:

veemjeem pointed out that he can see the site just fine, which prompted me to try it from another network. I can access the site from my connection through Verizon but the server times out through my AT&T landline connection.

<comment><USER4> >> In the title, "from 2007" means the article was published on July 15th, 2007

And so is the image that is part of the private document which supposedly was deleted, but can still be accessed even today, more than five years later. Therefore the content of that article, and the evidence contained therein, actually matches the title perfectly. So what "trap" are you talking about?

<comment><USER3> The trap would serve to ensnare people up-voting an article based on the title since they cannot actually access the content to read it. It's of no consequence whether the title just happens to match what is found in the content (as far an actual trap would be concerned).

<comment><USER5> I can read it just fine over here. I don't understand why you think it's a trap?

maybe it's just your internet connection. perform a traceroute against the host to see who's at fault.

<comment><USER3> My connection does seem to be the problem here. I wonder if it's something that only affects me or if anyone else here is having the same issue connecting to this server. Traceroute times out.

<comment><USER5> Where does it timeout on? You can probably find out the router that is the issue. If it times out before it gets beyond your ISP, chances are it's your connection. My traceroute looks good here, so it's probably not their webserver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A devil's advocate could also say that they didn't have everything set up properly back then, and now that they have proper security in place, that it isn't possible to apply the new security to old documents because the options didn't exist at the time the documents were created.

<comment><USER4> It's not possible to delete those documents because they didn't have mechanisms in place to delete them back then? It's not possible to physically delete documents that have been flagged as deleted and emptied from trash?

How about "no"?

<comment><USER6> There's no evidence that the document wasn't deleted.

It's not the document that's being accessed, but an embedded image within the document, accessed by some unique identifier.

It's entirely possible they just have this jpg saved with it's identifier, but don't have good information about the related documents that pointed to it, hence not knowing that it should be deleted.

I mean think about it, google docs STARTED in 2007 and was based entirely on products built by companies they acquired.

I am 100% positive they didn't have everything set up properly in 2007.

<comment><USER4> Then simply look through all non-deleted documents and see which files are still referenced and which ones are orphans. Delete the orphans. Done.

<comment><USER2> If the "working as intended" behavior is that these images won't be deleted since they can be linked to from elsewhere on the web, as appears to be the case (see my link to the old blog post above), they actually can't delete these old images.

<comment><USER4> "they actually can't delete these old images."

They can, it just would break those old links. A dumb decision ages ago doesn't force you to stick to it as you seem to imply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Matt Cutts has responded in the comments of the linked article. ([http://www.line-of-reasoning.com/issues/privacy-issue- google...](http://www.line-of-reasoning.com/issues/privacy-issue-google-docs- seems-to-not-delete-but-only-hide-documents-when-the-trash-is- emptied/#comment-25))

I think Google make a reasonable point; a bit daft, but still.

Has anyone tried fusking the URLs?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not surprised. I'd doubt few readers here would be. That doesn't make it acceptable though.

I fear more for the people who've had private photographs 'automatically' uploaded to Google+ via their mobile devices. Even if they weren't posted, I bet they still exist somewhere in Googleland, just waiting for that Google intern to run them all through Google's 'safe search' filter in reverse.

</comment><comment><USER9> When Gmail did not let me create a mail folder with the same name with one I just deleted I knew they don't tell me the whole truth.

Last time I checked, it looks like they fixed this issue.

<comment><USER10> It's not about "not telling you the truth"--it's all about the inherent complexity of distributed systems. Might sound counterintuitive, but deletions are not easy to implement, and are very often deferred (obviously this doesn't apply to the image mentioned in the article).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could it be that the image hasn't been deleted as it's referenced from this article?

</comment><comment><USER12> Google, like every other company, "forgets" that when its users delete something, they want it purged from all the servers, not just marked as "deleted" in the database. While the practice is very common, it shouldn't be used when it comes to your customers, even if those are basically the product, like in Google, and others, case.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a bit interested in the legal situation here. I think at least in Sweden, if you asked Google to delete a private document including images (maybe personal etc.) they'd be legally obligated / forced to do so. Anyone know if there are any privacy laws regarding this?

</comment><comment><USER13> I have to wonder: If these files are never deleted, could this be used as an inefficient means of storing big blobs of data online? If someone uploads illegal content to Google Docs attachments, does Google have any means of removing it _at all_?</comment>


Surgeon stationed in Antarctica removes his own appendix (1961) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec15_1/b4965 <comment><USER2> Many years ago (early 90s?) I looked into a job in Antarctica. The job stipulated that you had to preventatively remove your appendix prior to your tour of duty to avoid exactly this situation. I believe they also wanted you to replace your dental fillings (replacing the metal with a composite substance) to avoid problems caused by the cold (I assume).

It was all rather irrelevant to me in the end since I discovered that at the time the British Antarctic Society did not accept women (I believe this has since changed).

<comment><USER3> I just want to point out that based on personal experience last week, preventative surgery to remove your appendix is no longer preformed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There have been many cases of self-surgery under extreme circumstances. Coincidentally stumbled upon a list of 10 incredible ones. [http://listverse.com/2008/12/09/top-10-incredible-self- surge...](http://listverse.com/2008/12/09/top-10-incredible-self-surgeries/)

<comment><USER5> Which I submitted a couple of days ago but it did not become noticed

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049663>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That is crazy. I don't think I would have the stomach for that myself, but I guess being a surgeon already would help.

I remember a related story of and Aussie medic imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp successfully removing the appendix of a fellow prisoner with only a shard of broken glass.

Personally, I just hope I am never in a position like that.

<comment><USER7> The survival must have mostly been luck - what are the odds of not becoming horribly infected?

What did the surgeon use for sutures, anyway?

<comment><USER6> I can't remember if it was mentioned in all honesty. There's no real reason that the incision need get infected if they were very careful.

If I remember correctly the medic sterilized his instruments, himself and the patient with alcohol or some sort of solvent.

I have a friend who lived in the Yukon (north edge of Canada) for many years. He slashed his leg open with a knife accidentally while working one day, but he was a day or so away from medical care. He just cleaned it and then sutured himself up using a needle and dental floss. He eventually got to a hospital, the doctor told him he had done just fine!

<comment><USER7> Sure, but an appendectomy implies that the appendix itself is inflamed and infected, right? Seems like it could easily spread to the blood. Not to mention working near the intestines, that are full of bacteria as it is. Sounds like sepsis city to me.

Then again, like you said, he could have just been pouring alcohol on the whole thing the entire time.

<comment><USER8> The article mentions that antibiotics were applied while the wound was open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In 2003, hiker Aron Ralston amputated his own arm with a pocket knife after a boulder fell and pinned him down.

[http://hike.mountainzone.com/2003/news/html/030502_amputate-...](http://hike.mountainzone.com/2003/news/html/030502_amputate- arm.html)

<comment><USER10> "Ines Ramírez Pérez is a peasant woman living in rural Mexico. She had no medical training, but nevertheless performed a successful Caesarean section on herself: both she and her baby survived"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%C3%A9s_Ram%C3%ADrez>

<comment><USER6> I remember being seriously grossed out the first time I read that story. And, yep. It still grosses me out now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This leads to a related question. Assuming you're in a situation where it's your best option, what's the best way to kill yourself without tools? I assume dying of dehydration / exposure is not particularly enjoyable, and a set of circumstances might exist where it would be better to get it over with...

(See below for the link to the guy that cut his arm off to avoid dying. I don't think I would be able to make it through the bone, so I would like to have this option filed away in case I need it some day :)

<comment><USER12> Bite off your tongue and you will bleed to death. Especially valuable advice if you're tied up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Brings up memories of one of the best CGA games ever:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_&_Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_&_Death)

</comment><comment><USER14> Sheer amazing. I wonder how his vitals would have compared to a regular appendectomy? Were his vitals concurrent with an appendectomy performed so late (literally the day before it would have burst), were they better because he was focused on the task at hand, or was his vitals worse? It's a shame we'll likely never know and there'll likely never be another auto-appendectomy performed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wasn't this posted here in 61?

</comment><comment><USER16> Didn't Jack do that on Lost?</comment>


Modeling Redux with TLA+ - <AUTHOR> https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/tla-redux/ <comment><USER3> His main site he mentions at the end is learntla.com. That's a good tutorial for using a subset of it that will get stuff done without trying to read a bunch of books on heavier stuff. He and I both also recommend Alloy for a taste in formal methods or blueprints like fouc said since it's designed for beginners with good guides and tutorials. TLA+/PlusCal with its model-checker is better at modeling order of execution (esp concurrency/distributed) whereas Alloy's is focused on structure of your program. Finally, Design-by-Contract combined with property-based testing or AFL-style testing with properties/contracts as runtime checks is probably combo most applicable to most programming languages and situations. If you know conditionals, you can use DbC in a lots of situations.

[http://alloytools.org](http://alloytools.org)

[https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/design-b...](https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/design- by-contract/index.html)

[https://hillelwayne.com/post/pbt- contracts/](https://hillelwayne.com/post/pbt-contracts/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Sidenote: I remember that my teacher Maarten van Steen (who taught distributed systems at my university) talked about Leslie Lamport and I remember that he started TLA+. If you don't know about any of this, I invite you to take a look.

Background info on Lamport [1]. Maarten van Steen offers his book for free on distributed systems. See [2].

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lamport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lamport)

2\. [https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/distribu...](https://www.distributed- systems.net/index.php/books/distributed-systems-3rd-edition-2017/)

<comment><USER5> I don't see the relevance on knowing Leslie Lamport to learn about TLA+ - <USER2> is the matter? One thing has nothing to do with the other... Would be valuable to learn that he dresses like a clown or like indiana jones in conferences and my preference on learning TLA?

<comment><USER4> "Would be valuable to learn that he dresses like a clown or like indiana jones in conferences and my preference on learning TLA?" Of course not. That question is too simple, and you know it! ;)

Could you also ask a question that completely gives a counter example? Could you think of a question that _does_ help learning TLA+ because you know something about Leslie Lamport? Have it as a fun exercise for 10 minutes, or not, it might stretch your mind a bit since you claim that you can't see the relevance.

Here is why I like to know about authors who found a field:

Knowing the author may give an idea or context about TLA+. While not strictly necessary, it may be interesting background information that people don't know about. I presume that Lamport has one of the most, if not the most authentic reason for why he created TLA+ in the first place. Reading that reason may motivate people more to learn more about TLA+, or demotivate people more -- but for the right reasons!

Furthermore, discussions can be associative: gabuzome gave book recommendations written by Lamport. I didn't know Lamport wrote one (I know very little about Lamport) and since he now recommended it I'm happy to know that the founder of TLA+ also writes books worthy enough of a recommendation. It personally gives me more confidence to read it and take a crack at it.

<comment><USER6> Plus his website has a bunch of good resources linked from it.

[http://www.lamport.org](http://www.lamport.org)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hillel gave a pretty interesting talk on TLA+ at last year's StrangeLoop: [https://youtu.be/_9B__0S21y8](https://youtu.be/_9B__0S21y8)

If you are new to TLA+ and just want to get the basic idea and use cases, I recommend the talk.

Edit: I think he also brought home made granola or something. So attending his talks in person has benefits.

<comment><USER8> It was 7 lb (3.18 kg) of sesame brittle.

Indeed, an entertaining and practical talk on TLA+.

<comment><USER9> _That said_, I've been making a lot of homemade granola recently. Maybe I should try bringing that next time!

Here's a recipe I really like: [https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how- to-make-granola...](https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-to-make- granola-without-a-recipe-article)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > TLA+ is a formal specification language. It's a tool to design systems and > algorithms, then programmatically verify that those systems don't have > critical bugs. It's the software equivalent of a blueprint.

Very cool.

<comment><USER5> Cool and impossible to apply to real world projects due to budget or deadlines.

<comment><USER11> People said the same things about unit and integration tests a decade ago.

<comment><USER12> And about optimizing compilers, neural networks, and static program analysis four decades ago.

Computer science is a fast-moving field, sure. But not all of today's research bring tangible results by the end of the week, and we should be comfortable with that.

<comment><USER11> I generally agree, but formal methods I can say with confidence will get adopted in the future.

Here is why: Testing is fastly becoming adopted by everyone in our industry, why? Becuase you cannot afford to not write tests if your system is large/important enough. However our current testing methods cannot not prove the absence of bugs, as Dijkstra is fond of saying. So the best we can tell our clients currently on the bug-free/security question is this: "We wrote it according to X standard and wrote tests to cover those cases.". Formal methods allow us to prove a system is bug-free/secure. It is the evolution of testing. I do not know how far off it is, but because we have already adopted testing I believe formal methods will get adopted as well.

<comment><USER13> formal methods don't magically make a specification bug-free/secure though, nor does it mean you won't making bugs in the formal verification code you're writing.. so what are you actually proving? other than just another layer of testing essentially? can anyone tell a client that a system has been 'proven' correct? I think when we use these words with people who don't completely understand the implications we need to be more precise what that means... that's what leslie lamport is all about ! being precise!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it possible to compile algorithms from PlusCal to a traditional programming language? That way you could have a provable subcore of algorithms in your actual software project, and just autogenerate the code for the algorithms, instead of going manually from proven algorithm to hand-written implementation.

<comment><USER15> There is a PlusCal -> Go compiler[1] and, as I mentioned in a comment on a thread linked in another response to your question, there are tools to translate C and Java code to TLA+ for verification. But as a relatively experienced TLA+ user, I see almost no value in doing the first, and little practical value in the second.

The kind of properties you want to reason about in TLA+ are so global and fundamental, that the code you'd end up writing would both be too far removed from the high-level spec, and the process of translation would be negligible in the grand scheme of things, so that an automatic translation, if it is able to produce usable code at all, wouldn't really save you any time.

That's not to say that you shouldn't _also_ reasons about more local properties at the code level, and there are good code-level verification tools (advanced ones include Frama-C for C, OpenJML/Krakatoa for Java and SPARK for Ada) just for that.

It is possible to use TLA+ (and other tools, like Coq or Isabelle) for what's known as end-to-end verification, which means verifying the important _global_ properties all the way down to the code level (and even machine-code level), but the process is so laborious that it is virtually never worth the effort, and, in fact, it has never been achieved for any but very small programs (and even then at great cost).

[1]: [https://github.com/UBC-NSS/pgo](https://github.com/UBC-NSS/pgo)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for your extensive answer!

> The kind of properties you want to reason about in TLA+ are so global and > fundamental, that the code you'd end up writing would both be too far > removed from the high-level spec, and the process of translation would be > negligible in the grand scheme of things, so that an automatic translation, > if it is able to produce usable code at all, wouldn't really save you any > time.

Hm - the examples in the Go compiler project look relatively good though - would it make sense to use something like this for small portions of a system? I understand that modelling and transpiling an entire system is close to impossible, but a more manageable use case may be a collection of business logic algorithms that are subject to frequent change. In that case you would still want to validate each version after a change, and it would save a lot of time to just autogenerate that particular algorithm in implementation code.

<comment><USER15> Sure, it's possible to generate particular subroutines by compiling PlusCal to code, but the gains are far too small compared to the total gains of using TLA+. The kind of subroutines you'd want to model at the code-level in TLA+ would normally be very complex concurrent routines, using low-level operations that the PlusCal-to-source compiler would likely not know about (say, memory barriers), and in any case, you'd spend 98% of the time figuring out the algorithm in TLA+, anyway. Compilation would, therefore, save you 2% of your effort. As to the correctness of the generated code, we're talking very small routines here, that a careful manual translation is unlikely to get wrong.

In short, the likelihood that a PlusCal compiler would know to use your chosen libraries so that you wouldn't need to modify the code anyway is low, and even if it did, the savings in both correctness and effort would be slim.

A more interesting possibility would be compiling TLA+ properties into code- level specifications (such as Java's JML or C's ACSL), i.e., extracting various local properties from global ones, as that's actually "interesting" work.

In general, though, you must be careful when learning about new techniques reported in research papers. In formal methods (and in many other research areas) there's a HUUUUUGE gap between what has been achieved "in the lab" and what can be made into a practical and affordable tool for industry use. TLA+ is one of a handful of formal method tools that's been put to good use in industry.

<comment><USER14> That makes total sense. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Any takers for doing this in lisp? ;)

<comment><USER17> Not formal verification, but you can specify and validate application state of SPAs written in clojurescript using clojure.spec([https://clojure.org/about/spec](https://clojure.org/about/spec)).

Example -- ([https://github.com/Day8/re- frame/blob/master/examples/todomv...](https://github.com/Day8/re- frame/blob/master/examples/todomvc/src/todomvc/db.cljs))</comment></comment>


Top Scientists Speak Out on Arctic Emergency - <AUTHOR> http://www.occupy.com/article/must-see-video-top-scientists-speak-out-arctic-emergency

<comment><USER2> This is just an Occupy wrapper for the same video you just posted.</comment>


AT&T Revamps Cellular Data Plans, Eliminates Overage Fees - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/t-revamps-cellular-data-plans-eliminates-overage-fees-n632911 <comment><AUTHOR> I guess it's OK to throttle for going over data if they speed throttle all internet traffic equally?</comment>


Ask HN: What is Scotland's food culture like? - <AUTHOR> I am doing research for a restaurant concept in the US and was wondering if anyone could share some insight into what Scotland's food scene/culture is like and more specifically, what their sushi/fish culture is like. Very interested in learning about decor/design/architecture/furniture in these venues as well! <comment> Pick-A-Hill2019 Would suggest avoiding the Scottish Wikipedia page [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24292506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24292506)

As for fish? Freshly caught and just off the boats, battered and deep-fried. Delicious. Properly smoked salmon.

For authorative links on food try [https://www.scotlandinfo.eu/scottish- food/](https://www.scotlandinfo.eu/scottish-food/) [https://flavorverse.com/traditional-scottish- foods/](https://flavorverse.com/traditional-scottish-foods/)

For decor take a look at [https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/drink/5-of-the- oldest-pubs...](https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/drink/5-of-the-oldest-pubs- in-scotland/)

As for Sushi - There are some TripAdvisor reviews. HTH.

</comment><comment> Engineering-MD To get a real feel I think you need to go and see it for your self. There is as huge range of seafood culture from cheap fish and chips to high dining or freshly caught off the boat. Apart from going there, I guess I advise to look at guidebooks for seafood and looking at the picture and websites of the places you find interesting. A chain restaurant which tries to capitalise in its Scottish seafood is loch fyne [https://www.lochfyneseafoodandgrill.co.uk/blog](https://www.lochfyneseafoodandgrill.co.uk/blog) take a look at that for a starting point.

</comment><comment><USER2> Unhealthy but delicious!

</comment><comment><USER3> their national food is made of sheep organs</comment>


Blippy Issues, Resolutions, Plan - <AUTHOR> http://blog.blippy.com/2010/04/26/blippy-issues-resolutions-plan/ <comment><USER2> It seems like these are ALL items (and very basic ones) that should have been in place before a site dealing with financial details is launched.

<comment><USER3> This. If you're polling a bank for credit transactions, everything you get is radioactive until proven otherwise. _Best case_ when you find a big string of digits is that they're meaningless, and that's not a good reason to store them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like they paid some attention to what they did wrong in their previous updates.

One hopes that represents real education, not just real PR.

</comment><comment><USER5> They seem to have got it right this time, would have been better for them if they had gotten it right the first time. I feel very sorry for them, it was a somewhat minor slip (albeit, a complete pain for the users involved), but could potentially ruin them.

</comment><comment><USER6> can we just let this go already? anytime you are sharing data that has NEVER been shared before, there will be edge cases that are less than ideal. it was 5 numbers and a perfect storm of circumstances that resulted in it being released. I applaud Blippy's aggressive response and how they took responsibility but it could have happened to anyone. I chalk this very small slip up to a consequence of innovation, and not negligence or incompetence.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1288910></comment>


JQuery 1.2.6: Events 100% faster - <AUTHOR> http://jquery.com/blog/2008/06/04/jquery-126-events-100-faster/

<comment><USER2> I'm willing to say that jQuery has changed the face of the JS environment in general.

<comment><USER3> Wait until GWT has its breakthrough year.

<comment><USER4> jQuery is designed to work unobtrusively - it's easy to write applications using jQuery that still work with JavaScript disabled.

GWT is a JavaScript black-hole. You simply can't create unobtrusive applications with it - your only option is to write two versions of your site, one using regular HTML and another using GWT.

Also, some of us prefer writing JavaScript to writing Java. Crazy, I know.

<comment><USER5> Amen! I'm not really a web developer by nature. The client environment has always driven me nuts: layer on layer of slightly-incompatible cruft. And giant javascript libraries just make the problem worse, not better.

jQuery is like a breath of fresh air. I find it absolutely amazing that a library like this (based on _minimalism_ of all things!) actually got mindshare in the modern world. Bravo!

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I just started using jQuery for a project and I am amazed at how easy it was to learn and implement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can confirm this - I've been using 1.2.6b for a couple weeks on a JQuery-UI based app, and it's much better for anything involving mouse movement. Before, mousemove() was virtually unusable for performance reasons. Now, everything is reasonably snappy.

</comment><comment><USER8> These improvements sound great. .css, .attr, and .map were major bottlenecks in my performance, meaning a lot of JQuery functionality was just too costly to use (performance-wise). Now, I'll have to play around with JQuery to see if it's usable for some heavy javascripting.

300% speed increase in drag and drop? I'll have to start using that somewhere...</comment>