Twitter engineers replacing racially loaded tech terms like 'master,' 'slave' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/twitter-engineers-replace-racially-loaded-tech-terms-like-master-slave/ <comment><USER2> I never in my twenty years of computing have thought of those words in terms of race until today.

Race is being dragged into everything now and I hate it.

<comment><USER3> It's likely that you have something that has a particular word that some how 'offends' someone.

Given the word 'Master' would asking 'MasterCard' to change its name make it less racist? Can't say Masters degree anymore because someone has dragged race into it and has been 'offended' by it. Perhaps you know some academic who's in a dilemma and can't cite a quote from a paper because the terminology contains the scary 'Master' word in it due to fear of being called a 'racist' if they use it. See where this goes? Where do you draw the line and how far will this be taken?

At some point, someone is going to draw the line somewhere and disagree with renaming for the sake of virtue signalling.

<comment><USER4> I'm wondering if "Master" isn't the problem — it's "Slave" that's not so good.

And, when changing "Slave" to e.g. "Follower", it makes sense to rename "Master" to "Leader" too.

I'm surprised some people want to rename the Git "master" branches to "main", although the word "slave" is absent in this context. That's similar to your MasterCard example? (Rename to "MainCard".) But I'm not a native speaker or color minority person where I am currently, so what do I know.

At the same time, "main branch" is shorter than "master branch" and simpler to understand for beginners? I think it's a better name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (Non-US opinion) I don't mind changing the usage of loaded terms, either racially or in other ways (like grooming).

Changing the usage doesn't harm me in any way and if it arguably provides a more welcoming environment for people then why not.

<comment><USER6> it distracts from the real problem and from actual solutions as I mentioned in my other comment[1]. companies actions (such as using off-shore havens, and funding surveillance Tech) need to stop. by playing the culture war we make ourselves feel good without stopping anything.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23727420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23727420)

<comment><USER7> > by playing the culture war we make ourselves feel good without stopping > anything.

Thank god I'm not alone.

<comment><USER8> Not only are you not alone, that's both the default view of many (most?) programmers and the stated claim of many closeted racists who want to detract from incremental steps by referencing orthogonal issues and derailing conversations.

<comment><USER7> I don't want to detract anything, I just find it absurd. You can call me what you want, don't really care at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please explain to me how "sanity check" or "dummy value" can reasonably be considered non-inclusive.

There are multiple definitions of these words including:

Sanity - reasonable and rational behaviour.

Dummy - an object designed to resemble and serve as a substitute for the real or usual one.

It strikes me as incredibly sensitive to say these are unacceptable for use. Sure, we _can_ use different words but that is not the point - the point is how can words used as commonly defined and with no spite or foul intention be banned?

The comedian Stewart Lee has an excellent routine on this:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdyz5](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdyz5)

<comment><USER10> Copy-pasted my comment here, but similar to how we no longer use "retarded" to be sensitive to the disabled, people have been rethinking words like "crazy", "insane", or "sanity" to be sensitive towards those with mental illness. For people with mental illness those words may be loaded with negative meaning and there are often more neutral or descriptive terms that can be used instead.

Update: Not sure why I got downvoted for stating the rationale for why people are making this change. Objectively I haven't even stated my opinion on the change, just the rationale I've seen for it. If you want a source here's one from NPR around this language: [https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739643765/why- people-are-argu...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739643765/why-people-are- arguing-to-stop-using-the-words-crazy-and-insane)

<comment><USER9> I fundamentally disagree that you can't use a word in one context because of its use in another. If I call someone a bastard I do not mean that they were born out of wedlock the context and use of the word are entirely different.

<comment><USER10> Sure, I agree everything has nuance and context to it. I was really just stating the rationale I've seen given for avoiding those words rather than offering my opinion.

That being said, given your example I'd ask you to consider this situation: If you call someone a bastard jokingly and they happened to be a child who was born out of wedlock and it was a sensitive subject for them, do you think it would potentially be hurtful? Is there another word you could choose to get the same point across that might have been less hurtful? If so, is there a significant downside to using that other word instead? If you found out that someone was literally a bastard and the word made them unhappy, would you continue to use it when talking with them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There were masters and slaves thousands of years before it existed here in America. To claim the terms are _only_ referencing slavery in America is rather short sighted.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure i saw that claim in TFA. Did i miss it?

<comment><USER13> It's only "racial" if master/slave is racial. There has been racial slavery in America. But the master/slave are themselves are not inherently racial words. To be hyperbolic, it'd be like avoiding the use of the word "cotton".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That will change a lot of stuff.

I really have an inside battle when I read this sort of stuff here on HN, because I don't want to post derailed political comments, I want this place to be like it is, keep it cool and avoid _kulturwars_ , but man it's hard.

Look, I'm not in the US, so maybe I can't even think how it is with racism there, but I just can't help to think this is kind of stupid-naive virtue signaling. It feels like some bunch of uber-priviledged SV guys who think too high of themselves want to feel good about something and they come up with this BS that everyone will forget a week later.

Man, it's so surreal. Don't you have poor people in your city? What about helping your local NGOs? What about working for them for free? One week you help feed the people, another in the kitchen and another one in accounting.

Dunno, it feels sooooo far away from my reality. I don't know what is to be earning +100k year and thinking this is a great idea! It was even difficult to write this comment because I find it funny and just feel the impulse to mock this.

<comment><USER14> _> I just can't help to think this is kind of stupid-naive virtue signaling. It feels like some bunch of uber-priviledged SV guys who think too high of themselves want to feel good about something_

Except that's not what happened. This was spearheaded by Black developers who don't want to have to read about "slaves" being "rekicked" at their jobs. Is that not a reasonable request?

<comment><USER15> Please don't capitalise the term 'black' here, leave that to political pamphlets like the New York Times (who seem to be the ones who started this). The more people start identifying themselves with their inalienable characteristics like skin colour, hair colour or eye colour , the further we'll get away from the ideal of a colour-blind society.

Yes, that is the ideal, that the colour of your skin does _not matter_. If you don't want to take my word on it, maybe Martin Luther King can convince you:

 _I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!_

[1] [https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm](https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm)

<comment><USER14> I don't see that quote as advocating for color–blindness. There is a difference between seeing the color of someone's skin and _judging_ them for it.

But if you adopt MLK's views like this, can I take it that you then support reparations and civil unrest in response to racial oppression? That you think the biggest obstacle to racial justice are white moderates? That you oppose capitalism and support socialism?

<comment><USER15> > But if you adopt MLK's views like this, can I take it that you then support > reparations and civil unrest in response to racial oppression

Why would you think that? MLK was his own agent and so am I. Just like he agreed with some of the things e.g. Fredrick Douglas said but disagreed with others, I agree with some things he said and disagree with others. On the subject of the response to racial oppression I can, in some cases, support civil unrest as that is often the only way of breaking a status-quo. I do not support direct reparations because a) this does not solve the problem and b) neither those who would pay nor those who get paid are either guilty of enslaving people or having been enslaved. Targeted investments in areas which still suffer from the effects of earlier redlining and similar Jim Crow laws are something I can stand behind, as long as they are just that: targeted and effective. I do not support "Socialism" since I interpret that as being the precursor to Communism which has cost enough lives by now that it should be clear to even the most stubborn observer that it is a dead-end street - literally. I do not oppose Capitalism as it is implemented in e.g. north- western Europe, i.e. an economically liberal social democracy. Is it perfect? No, certainly not. Can it be improved? Absolutely. Given all that it still seems to be a reasonable compromise between individual liberty and social responsibility, both terms which when taken to the extreme lead to (extreme liberty) chaos and (extreme social responsibility) oppression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Soon:

Chess is racist, blacks always move second and are thus at a disadvantage. Cancel chess.

Daoism is racist, yin is black and has negative connotations. Cancel Daoism.

Star Wars are racist. Droids are enslaved, C3P0 even calls his owner 'Master Luke', a racially-charged word. Cancel Star Wars.

Education is racist. Issued Master's degrees use a racially-charged word. Cancel education.

"To kill a mockingbird" is racist. It is full of insensitive language and it makes reader feel uncomfortable. Cancel "To kill a mockingbird".

"Mysterious island" by J.Verne is racist. The only black character is a servant to a wise white engineer and serves mostly as a comedic relief. Cancel "Mysterious island".

Coal industry is racist, miners are always mocking blacks wearing blackface after every shift. Cancel coal mining. (Good for environment, too!)

Disclaimer: I'm so insensitive because I was born with a white privilege, which I greatly enjoyed since my early childhood in an industrial/mining town in the Ural Mountains, near the eastern border of Siberia.

</comment><comment><USER17> Saying that these terms are racially loaded is, well, racist.

I can kind of understand the argument that there is a history of racism connected with slavery, but the concept of "slave" predates discrimination of coloured people by millenia, closely followed by the word itself, which is actually derived from "Slav" (like you sometimes hear Russians being referred as). But fair enough, seeing a connection to racism is maybe just misinformed.

But "blacklist" (and "whitelist") is just completely absurd. "Blacklist" is a term from a play, referring to a literally black list. Whitelist is just an antonym. Such color metaphors are incredibly common, think wedding dresses or "black death", or black flags, or white lie. Obviously, none of this is connected to skin color. How exactly does your mind have to be wired to come to the opposite conclusion?

As one of the largest (and most criticized) players in political information, one would think that Twitter could maybe do something better about the current situation than engaging in etymological misinformation...

</comment><comment><USER18> This is going to be controversial; thus flagged, but I'd like to have an actual conversation about this.

It's my understanding that slavery has very little to do with race, blacklist has nothing to do with black people and "man" is the default term of humanity that comes from a completely different etymology than the word we use to refer to a male person.

I'm generally pretty stubborn but given the amount of traction this is getting, can someone _please_ explain to me the logic here? I'm perfectly willing to change my mind but right now I cannot fathom that these terms were harming people- unless those people were looking for reasons to be harmed.

<comment><USER19> There were eras where slavery had little to do with race (see: the Roman Republic and Empire) but the history of slavery in the last half-millennium had everything to do with race; it is the edifice on which white supremacy was built.

You're not "controversial" for skipping over the blindingly obvious, but we're not allowed to insult people on this forum, so feh!

<comment><USER16> > but the history of slavery in the last half-millennium had everything to do > with race;

Slaves in Russian Empire were freed a few years earlier than slaves in the USA. There were roughly 5 times more slaves in Russia than in USA, and I can pretty confidently say that zero of them were black. Even if you add ~2 million black slaves from Brazil, the number of black slaves would be dwarfed by the white slave population from Russia.

Based on this calculation, I don't think that your thesis about the history of slavery in the last 500 years holds well.

<comment><USER20> There was also the Barbary Slave Trade, which lasted until the early 19th Century and during which over a million Europeans were removed from Europe during raids and enslaved in North Africa. Not to mention slavery in Africa itself, which goes from pre-history to today. The Atlantic Slave Trade is a stain on the history of the West, but it is by no means unique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's been a movement at my employer to replace some of these terms for years, though it seems to be getting more widespread attention lately.

Some of the terms, especially 'whitelist' and 'blacklist', are also very confusing to many non-native english speakers. 'Allowlist' and 'denylist' are just a lot clearer in those cases.

</comment><comment><USER22> Moving away from race a bit and totally anecdotally, but my wife was looking at my screen once while I was using the command line and she remarked how it seemed like all the commands were chosen by men: kill, terminate, spawn, mount, push etc. It may be subtle but words matter and they do attract or repel people. And then we complain why there are too few women in tech. Inclusion is not just about race.

</comment><comment><USER23> >Sanity check becomes quick check, confidence check or coherence check

why?

<comment><USER10> Similar to how we no longer use "retarded" to be sensitive to the disabled, people have been rethinking words like "crazy", "insane", or "sanity" to be sensitive towards those with mental illness.

Update: Not sure why I got downvoted for stating the rationale for why people are making this change. Objectively I haven't even stated my opinion on the change, just the rationale I've seen for it. If you want a source here's one from NPR around this language: [https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739643765/why- people-are-argu...](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739643765/why-people-are- arguing-to-stop-using-the-words-crazy-and-insane)

<comment><USER24> An interesting tangent is-- "retarded, moron, imbecile" all were relatively neutral medical terms once upon a time.

Labels applied to disadvantaged groups linguistically develop a pejorative connotation over time.

<comment><USER25> It doesn't really help that a lot of what we used to consider mental illness was mostly just behavior not conforming with the mainstream. US suffragettes hunger-striking were institutionalized and force-fed under the guise of mental illness, and being gay itself used to be classified as a mental illness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not american and don't know what do these words _mean_ for a lot of people. My sidestory that I only feel "bad" because as a non-native english speaker it's really hard sometimes to speak correctly PC-ish. For example my native tongue doesn't have gender pronouns. Grammatical gender doesn't exist at all. So third person singular doesn't make a difference between gender like english. It doesn't exist when I address that person. But when I go to Twitter or check people's profile they more and more ask how they should be addressed or what pronoun to use. Just interesting how the language can affect your way of thinking about the world.

<comment><USER27> It is hard for native speakers to keep up with the demands too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are they going to rename their servers as well? The word 'server' comes from the Latin word 'servus' which means _slave_.

Also, the word 'twit' has several meanings which might not fall so well with certain people. Ask Google Translate what it means and this is what you get:

Twit: (noun) a silly or foolish person. Syonyms: _idiot ass halfwit nincompoop blockhead buffoon dunce dolt ignoramus cretin imbecile dullard moron simpleton clod dope ninny chump dimwit nitwit goon dumbo dummy dum-dum dumbbell loon jackass bonehead fathead numbskull dunderhead chucklehead knucklehead muttonhead pudding-head thickhead wooden-head airhead pinhead lamebrain peabrain birdbrain zombie jerk nerd dipstick donkey noodle nit numpty clot goat plonker berk prat pillock wally git wazzock divvy nerk twerp charlie mug muppet nyaff balloon sumph gowk gobdaw schmuck bozo boob lamer turkey schlepper chowderhead dumbhead goofball goof goofus galoot dork lummox klutz putz schlemiel sap meatball gink cluck clunk ding-dong dingbat wiener weeny dip simp spud coot palooka poop squarehead yo-yo dingleberry wing nut drongo dill alec galah nong bogan poon boofhead mompara tomfool noddy clodpole loggerhead spoony mooncalf_

While I personally think they chose a name which fits the product very well indeed I do get the feeling that, if the current witch hunt continues, they'll eventually fall foul of the mob and be either forced to bend to their will or find themselves in the position now reserved for Facebook, i.e. the whipping boy of the social media giants.

</comment><comment><USER28> Really sad seeing a flagship company making headlines with something this superficial.

<comment> Anthony-G With its 140 character limit and its desire for "engagement", I always felt that Twitter was optimising for superficiality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As an Asian American. I find Yellowstone national park offensive and oppressive.

<comment><USER30> Sorry but you have to wait your turn. We will burn down buildings, tear down statues, loot and protest for you after the blacks.

I get dibs after Asians, as a person who has some rosacea. For too long we have been disadvantaged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> To say that these terms are racist, one must start with a racist point of view.

<comment><USER32> +100. Race is a product of racism, not the other way around. One is not born of a particular race and the practice of racism is what makes being of certain colors the same as being associated with a certain race. Would recommend reading "Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life" by Karen E Fields.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> ridiculous. context is king

</comment><comment><USER34> I would think racism and slavery are two different things. Usually slaves and masters are of the same race. But I understand why this might be a good move, the word "slave" itself is pretty loaded with negative connotations.

<comment><USER19> > Usually slaves and masters are of the same race.

Not for the last 500 years.

<comment><USER16> In the last 500 years, too, without any doubt. There were 21 million white slaves in Russia, emancipated only in 1861. USA and Brazil had ~4,5+2 million black slaves, combined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Another discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23723433)

</comment><comment><USER36> This endeavor is doubleplus good!

</comment><comment><USER37> The whole idea is to remove the subconscious bias that it creates in our minds, always associating black with bad and white with good in the case of blacklist and white list.

None of this has any effect on me and I don't see the negative side of changing it.

<comment><USER9> Black is not always associated with bad and white is not always associated with good - their general associations with bad/good respectively are independent of race.

<comment><USER37> Judging by your response (and the amount of comments you've made in this thread) I don't think you really took the time to think about my comment.

We obviously didn't chose black list or white list to donate race but regardless it's another brick in wall for black to equate to bad.

As a white European this has no impact on me in any way shape or form apart from wanting a more inclusive space for my friends.

Out of interest why are you so against the idea of changing terms? In your comment here ([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=f3295cde](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=f3295cde)) you make the comparison of "will replace the word 'football' as it is offensive to people with limb difference", you do realise these are fundamentally different issues right? People aren't looking to replace the words for the fun of it.

<comment><USER8> It's a troll account made just to stink up this specific thread, report it and move on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is controversial but shouldn't be flagged. It's a link to a factual news story. Dang could you unflag this or otherwise explain why this remains flagged?

</comment><comment><USER39> Anyone else find it ironic the official announcement on twitter about a major programming change about inclusivity was posted in a non-accessible way?

</comment><comment><USER40> Tl'dr the list of words to be replaced:

>Whitelist becomes allowlist.

>Blacklist becomes denylist.

>Master/slave becomes leader/follower, primary/replica or primary/standby.

>Grandfathered becomes legacy status.

>Gendered pronouns (for example "guys") become folks, people, you all, y'all.

>Gendered pronouns (for example "he" or "his") become they or their.

>Man hours becomes person hours or engineer hours.

>Sanity check becomes quick check, confidence check or coherence check.

>Dummy value becomes placeholder value or sample value.

<comment><USER41> >Gendered pronouns (for example "he" or "his") become they or their.

For the love of grammar, just invent a neutral pronoun.

"He" or "she" is singular.

"They" is plural.

These things are not like each other.

<comment><USER42> "The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375" [https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular- they...](https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/)

<comment><USER41> If thou takest thy authority from a 1375 education, methinks the chasm betwixt us doth yawn overbroadly for debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Could "Spartan" and "Helot" work? Or would Greeks be offended?

</comment><comment><USER44> And yet they allow Trump to tweet his hatred.

</comment><comment><USER45> Orange is the New Purple

</comment><comment><USER46> Thank you twitter engineers. To the people trying to deflect, consider this as an opportunity to learn and progress.

So much of the tech language is filled with insensitivity.

<comment><USER47> It seems that there is a movement that values "sensitivity" more than understanding. How does this so-called progress lead to greater understanding?

<comment><USER46> Ahhh it allows minorities feel welcome, more involved and free to be themselves.

It certainly was a relief for me ( I am a dark Indian) when SQLServer went from master/slave to publisher/subscriber.

I don't have to second guess intonations when people say master/slave as a sly joke or a sincere discussion in tech meetings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gator-io We now live in clown world.

</comment><comment><USER48> There is a lot of "white" and "black" out there to replace, especially on paper.

</comment><comment><USER6> github (owned by Microsoft) also was on the FP just recently for renaming _master_.

this feels like empty (if not hypocritical) when (as Cory Doctrow writes) the same companies:

 _" spend 20-45% of their budgets on policing on but cops run foundations that solicit millions from large corporations, which then take tax breaks for their donations. The money goes into a slushfund used to procure off-the-books military and surveillance gear. "_ \-- [https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1278391796733669378](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1278391796733669378)

this just fuels the culture wars but does nothing to address the problem of racism

</comment><comment><USER14> To everyone whose first reaction to this is negative, can I ask why? Do you really have an emotional investment in these specific terms?

We have the opportunity to make tech marginally more hospitable to Black developers at basically zero cost to everyone else. Let's not mess it up!

<comment><USER9> It is not about the specific words, it is language and the use of words. Let's say ESPN came out tomorrow and said they will replace the word 'football' as it is offensive to people with limb difference - would you nod and toe the line without raising an eyebrow?

<comment><USER14> Sure. Again, why is that a problem? I have literally zero emotional investment in being able to call football "football". Why would I _not_ make a tiny change that has no pragmatic impact on my life in order to be more considerate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> There is a lot of downvoting going on in here on very valid comments. I know it goes against the guidelines to complain about downvotes, but it's surprisingly toxic in this comment section. I expected better on HN, it's pretty disappointing.

<comment><USER50> People on each side are downvoting the other side. I changed that in a few cases, but I'm also not seeing a lot of fine comments here that are downvoted. It's mostly flamewar stuff that breaks the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

If you have links to other examples, I'd appreciate them. You can always send them to email@example.com.</comment></comment>


A Programmer's First Experience with Google+ (Screenshots) - <AUTHOR> http://lifebyexperimentation.com/2011/06/a-programmers-first-look-at-google-plus/

<comment><USER2> > I don't mind curating my circles… to an extent. I added a few members and > created a new circle, but had no desire to go through my thousands of > contacts and organize every one.

Anybody else finds it weird that in gmail you get a hint when you write to a person who belongs to a group you write often together, that you should add the other people from the group, but Circles can't figure it out?

<comment><USER3> Isn't it because of privacy issues? Google probably tried to avoid any Buzz- like backlash of people creeped out by them knowing who's who in their lives. Integration efforts like that can only succeed if people feel it's ok, which will come naturally if Plus succeeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A nice writeup. I think the title is a little misleading though. The 'programmer' part was telling me that there would be a few more specifics on some of the smaller details. I'm really looking forward to checking out Google+ though. This review, like many, only makes me want to get my hands on it sooner

</comment><comment><USER5> This thing is really slow. Plus, I got this JS error, don't ask me how: <http://imgur.com/bdDvZ>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It occurred to me after posting this that Google+ is essentially stealing what was ORIGINALLY Facebook's business model (but which has been abandoned): exclusivity

<comment><USER6> Because of the slow initial rollout? Even Orkut did that...

<comment><AUTHOR> No, the very concept of circles is about content being exclusive. The point is that you know who you are sharing it with, of course, but the result is that all content posted is inherently more exclusive than elsewhere. Even the very creation of circles feels like adding someone to a club.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I got an invite yesterday. The iPhone experience was a little opaque. E.g., when you go to Circles the first time, you see a note telling you there is no one in a circle, but there is no way to add anyone. But I definitely didn't have any of the profile-related difficulties the Manchester reviewer found, and I did get some circles set up. I like the default separation into Family, Friends, Acquaintances (which I just discovered I don't know how to spell) and Following.

The website experience is much better and now that there are some messages I see it is rather Facebook-y. Unlike Facebook, photos pop up instantly (vs. Facebook's sometimes interminable delays) but of course this may be load- related. It isn't yet obvious Google+ is _better_ than Facebook, esp. since all my extended family is already there. Perhaps there are some great features I haven't discovered. But, unlike Waves and Buzz, a decent stab at social.

</comment><comment><USER8> And posting from beautiful montpellier no less!

interesting how the really basic info page still seems to be the most valuable aspect

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, MP is GORGEOUS right now! I just had to take a walk to clear my head, lots of emails coming in from this post ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't have a g+ acc yet, but I was curious if for example I have a couple of friends on G+, can other friends viewing my profile see all the friends I have?

<comment><USER10> On your profile, you can set it either so that they see people who you've added to a circle ('friended'), people who have added you, or both, or neither. The default setting is both.

<comment><USER11> I thought I'd add some additional clarification. For people you've added there are two sharing concepts: Who you're sharing with and what you're sharing. For who you're sharing with there are 3 options: no one, everyone on the web, only the people in your circles. For what you're sharing there is the ability to pick and choose what circles are visible. It might be confusing to think about, but suppose I have the following circles: "Family", "Friends", "Coworkers", "Poker Buddies". I can choose to share the friends in these circles to everyone on the web, but opt to exclude "Poker Buddies" so they don't show up on my profile.

For people who've added YOU to their circles, there are only two options. Show them on your profile or don't show them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anybody requested an invite to Google+ through the blog they should be sent out now (8:30am Thursday PST). If not, contact me via the About Me page.

</comment><comment><USER12> How can I search for things in my stream?!?

</comment><comment><USER13> Question (i 'm not signed up on g+ yet): People seem to be calling circles "groups" while they seem more like the "friend lists" of facebook. Does G+ have discussion groups that anyone can join (and start a twitter revolution)?

<comment><USER14> I think circles/"groups" are no different to categories in your contact list

<comment><USER15> Circles are to groups as tags are to folders.</comment></comment></comment>


Full size C64 dec 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/QEVgQa2tXsw <comment><AUTHOR> I think there are some old programming books in some archive can go with it. Just not tape or type in program I hope.

For a comparison in doing task vs a MacBook Pro 2019 and it might beat the modern machine if you do some hack available then.

[https://youtu.be/nI3C9yLVsVE](https://youtu.be/nI3C9yLVsVE) (Jump to 7:21 for the fight and nearly end for the "hack").

I like mac 1984 or a bit latter more.</comment>


Ask HN: List your SF Services - <AUTHOR>

I'm an intern working in the Bay this summer. My friend and I want to try all those services that you just can't find anywhere else.
What're the top things we should try?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JwAdYoKAC7Ua2ElB-z1lwzs1fgbWQCFOnitzIvrC3JQ/edit?usp=sharing <comment><USER2> Submit new entries here: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z2qOKog-- r2dKUuHBUYPfCdwEG6...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Z2qOKog-- r2dKUuHBUYPfCdwEG6Q8PPHEOxo4uSOskw/viewform)

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends where in the Bay Area you are - there a lot more things in SF proper than South Bay, for example. That said, some of the best things, like Google Shopping Express, cover a ton of ground.</comment>


People are twice as smart as they talk, three times as smart as they write - <AUTHOR> http://blog.figuringshitout.com/people-are-twice-as-smart-as-they-talk-three-times-as-smart-as-they-write

<comment><AUTHOR> Text of the article until I can get my blog back online:

I used to think that the point of editing was to eliminate all of the poor writing from an article so only strong arguments remained. It wasn't until I started writing this blog that I began to appreciate how much good content routinely gets cut from the final product. Ideas will get cut if they detract from the focus of the piece, if there's no logical place to put them anymore, some are even cut because they're too interesting and merit their own separate post. I even cut a good line from the end of this paragraph because it wasn't the appropriate sentence to close a paragraph with.

Of every post I write, I estimate that I cut two good lines for every one good line that makes it into the final piece.What this means is that if you're reading a piece of writing that you think is pitched at your level, the writer had to be three times smarter than you to have written it. Similarly, I noticed that when I was speaking, I would only say about half of the clever stuff I wanted to say which meant anyone talking to me was probably twice as smart as I think they are.

This is, perhaps, why the internet is so full of assholes who think they're the smartest person in the room. If you have a look at the comment section of almost any piece of content, at least half the comments tend to be some snide implication that the commenter is smarter than the author. Next time you read something, mentally assume that the author is three times as smart as they appear and think of how you would respond then. All I can say is ever since I started doing that, I've not only been far calmer, I've learned much more too.

<comment><USER2> What made you choose a person's ability to write and say "clever stuff" as your measure of intelligence? It certainly isn't a good indicator among the people _I_ know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to have a crack at taking this advice on board in future readings or discussions, not because of the logic behind it but because when the author _"started doing that, I've not only been far calmer, I've learned much more too."_

The logic seems flawed to me, in that it equates _focused_ with _clever_. You can be one without the other. Of the two, I'm definitely more clever than focused. I think the value a person contributes is usually the other way around. (Which is why my focus for this year is 'be more focused'.)

</comment><comment><USER4> The post is just wrong. People write a lot cleverer than they speak or think, because they spend a lot of time formulating what they want to convey.

</comment><comment><USER5> hah. really? when I met my now-girlfriend for the first time, she said "wow, you are a lot less articulate in person"

<comment><USER6> Did you meet online? If so, that would make sense according to this article, since she would observe you being a third less smart.

<comment><USER5> yeah, on a mailing list. but if I'm twice as smart as I talk and three times as smart as I write, then assuming my IQ is constant, I would seem dumber if you read what I wrote (as it is 1/3rd my actual capacity) than if you listen to me talk, (as that is 1/2 my capacity.)

But that's just a dumb joke. As for the article, I think it misses the point... writing and talking are quite different. (and writing in different mediums is different) - But when you write, you have a chance to strike out all the really stupid shit you said, before hitting send.

<comment><USER6> The part I don't understand is: twice or thrice as smart as what? What are you doing if you're not talking or writing? If you're not doing those, then no one can test your intelligence against when you are.

<comment><USER5> yes, twice is a silly way of quantifying intelligence. 'standard deviations' is what you'd use if you want to sound, ah, intelligent. I'm just saying, people perceive me to be less intelligent in person than in writing, which runs counter to the author's point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He can't be too smart if he thinks that phrases like "2 times smarter" or "3 times smarter" have any meaning. 2 standard deviations above the mean, yes, "2 times smarter" no.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was meant to be somewhat facetious, obviously, there's no such thing as two times as smart.

Incidentally, one of the parts I cut out of that piece was predictions as to what nitpicky points _would_ be raised in the comments and this was, indeed one of them :).

<comment><USER7> Rather than addressing such points in an addendum, you could also have simply rewritten your piece so it wasn't word salad in the first place. But I suppose you'd have to have been 4 times smarter to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> quantity != quality, being smarter isn't about how many smart things you say, but about how smart each of them are.

<comment><USER9> Then there's the problem of the person who only says 1 thing, but it is brilliant. How about quality*quantity?

<comment><USER3> That formula may still have a signals v noise issue since it rewards each equally. How about quantity^quality, which would still factoring in quantity, but exponentially reward quality?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Words of wisdom from "Figuring Shit Out."

</comment><comment><USER11> Weird. I write smarter than I talk.

<comment><USER12> Talking happens in real time and cannot be faked.

Besides there are multiple intelligences. No way you can determine intelligence from a single data point like how well you talk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> After figuring Shit out, let's hope the author figures out how to scale this website.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm at a loss at this point. The server's been hit with higher loads than this and survived fine. It's running Wordpress on Apache on a 512MB slice, there's no reason it should be this slow. Just rebooted it and it's still slow.

If you want to help me debug it, my AIM username is the same as my HN one.

<comment><USER14>
        location /people-are-twice-as-smart-as-they-talk-three-times-as-smart-as-they-write {
            serve static_article.html
        }

<comment><USER15> Wordpress should do that by itself...

Also, I think he mentioned apache rather than nginx...

<comment><USER14> Wordpress can't do it by itself, it can't configure the webserver, and if you meant loading and serving the file by itself - it still means using a heavy php process instead letting the webserver serve a few bytes of disk (which they are always great at doing).

Yea I saw he was using apache, but I thought I may as well try to lead him to the dark side :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Send money with Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/wallet/send-money/ <comment><USER3> Hi everyone. I've been working on this at Google for a while and would be happy to answer any questions you might have. If you don't want to ask here, feel free to email me at <my username> AT google.com. There might be a delay in responding if I get a lot of messages or if you have a particularly challenging question.

<comment><USER4> My question is: when you send emails like "it has come to our attention... fraudulent activity..." [1] [2] and confiscate $30,000+ earnings by shutting down long-standing AdSense accounts, will you do the same to the entire Gmail accounts, or just to the money transferring functionality?

One would have to be a fool to use this, knowing Google's arrogant heavy- handed history of dealing with AdSense publishers (and an absolute lack of any meaningful customer care): this is why Google Wallet has never taken off as an alternative to PayPal in the first place.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803568>

[2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4585043>

<comment><USER5> Because Paypal is known as a bastion of neutral dispute resolution _rolls eyes_

<comment><USER4> Paypal is actually much better. When you reach about 10k/mo, they give you a special representative from the account management team, with a special phone number, and those guys are quite smart and easily available. First hand knowledge.

<comment><USER6> I used to manage a Paypal account that did significantly more than that, and nobody ever offered that to me.

<comment><USER7> Internationally I think it's $50k/mo in revenue...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is going to be really big. But it might require actual customer service; that must have made them think twice.

<comment><USER9> Many years ago, Google made statements like "we only do things that scale, and customer support doesn't scale". It was a strong guiding philosophy for many of the engineers, but that philosophy has eroded.

If we look at some of Google's biggest successes, it has been things that don't scale:

\- The Ground Truth team in India, manually drawing the world's maps.

\- Manual spam detection in search results

\- Customer Support for most adwords accounts

\- Customer Support for Nexus devices

I think the executives at Google have enough evidence that "do things that don't scale" can have a big payoff and it is really not that bad. They are clearly no longer too chicken shit to tackle problems that require customer support. The old Google only did things that match the business model of search, today's Google does what it takes to win.

I wouldn't bet against their ability to provide customer support. In the last 2 years, Adwords support went from non-existant to impeccable.

<comment><USER10> Not to mention, scanning many thousands of books manually.

<comment><USER11> I thought the same thing till I saw this

[http://hackaday.com/2012/11/16/google-books-team-open- source...](http://hackaday.com/2012/11/16/google-books-team-open-sources- their-book-scanner/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> B-Con How is this going to be handled, as a money exchange system ("yo, here's for covering lunch for me yesterday"), or like a payment system ("send your payment to email@example.com")?

It seems presented as the former:

> you can securely send money to friends and family in the U.S. - <USER2> > leaving your Gmail inbox

but people will assuredly try to use it as the latter. When that happens, how will Google address fraud claims?

Edit: Specifically, I mean, how will they investigate fraud claims? Will all transactions be final (easiest), or will they try to refund people who make mistakes (harder)? And what happens when a GMail account gets hacked?

<comment><USER12> The real issue issue is here;

> securely send money to friends and family _in the U.S._

Google Voice it's the same problem - most of the world can't use it. Instead of 80/20 this is 20/80

<comment><USER13> That's just the first step, testing to a smaller set of users. If it works well, they will expand it to the rest of the world for sure.

<comment><USER14> They generally don't. Many Google services have regional restrictions and had them for years. I think they want to do these legally risky stuff within their comfort zone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ok, so it's 2.9% fee for credit / debit card payments. And I'm assuming the "connect directly to your bank account" is just using ACH transfers, which take a couple days.

Anyways, a while ago I heard a rumor that they had a team working on adding some, um... alternative, payment methods. Does anyone know where Google Wallet is headed with this?

 _Edit_ And here's some clues from the ToS[1]:

> 6\. Google Wallet Balance & Peer to Peer Payments

> 6.1 The P2P Service is currently available only to Senders and Recipients > who are U.S. residents and who otherwise meet the requirements of these > Terms of Service. The P2P Service may not be used for business, commercial > or charitable transactions.

> 6.2.a.iii For a Funding Account that is an ACH-enabled checking or savings > account, initiate a debit through the ACH Network in the P2P Payment amount.

> 6.6 GPC may charge fees in accordance with the then-current fee schedule, as > stated herein. Google Wallet may assess a fee of 2.9%, with a minimum fee of > $0.30, per P2P Payment charged to the Sender for P2P Payments processed > through the Service. Such fee shall be waived where your Google Wallet > Balance is used for the P2P Payment, or an ACH-enabled checking or savings > account is the Funding Account for the P2P Payment.

Looks like they've beat out Dwolla here. Ouch.

I'm also really interested in what forbidding "charitable transactions" actually entails. Is it just donations to 501(c)(3)s or is it gifts of other types? How about political donations? And what's its primary purpose? My first thought was that it must be for tax reasons, but then I remembered that people who want to prevent PayPal charge backs often request that payments be marked as "gifts", so it can't be disputed.

[1] [https://wallet.google.com/legaldocument?family=0.buyertos...](https://wallet.google.com/legaldocument?family=0.buyertos&gl=US#)

<comment><USER16> > I'm also really interested in what forbidding "charitable transactions" > actually entails. Is it just donations to 501(c)(3)s or is it gifts of other > types? How about political donations? And what's its primary purpose? My > first thought was that it must be for tax reasons

I think its either liability reasons or just market segmentation (so that receivers of the transactions need a merchant account of some kind); note that they don't ever single out "charitable transactions" alone, its always an exclusion of "business, commercial, or charitable transactions" (in several different places in the agreement), so I would assume that the reason for "charitable transactions" is linked to the reason for business and commercial transactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's unclear what happens to your Google Wallet balance if your account is closed:

2.4 Relation to your Google Account

In order to use Google Wallet Services, you must have a Google Account which is in good standing with Google, in accordance with the Google Terms of Service. If you or Google closes your Google Account for any reason, your Google Wallet Account will also be closed and you will no longer be able to access the Google Wallet Services.

<comment><USER18> It seems pretty clear from that: you loose it.

<comment><USER19> That's not clear at all. When you close a bank account, they give you cash. You can't close the account without bringing the balance to $0 (unless it's done by executive fiat / government closed and froze your account with a warrant)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I know this will just get burred under the 428 comments this story already has - but can we _please_ change the title to include "Within the US"

Not all of the worlds 7 billion people live in the united states you know ...

</comment><comment><USER21> What's not clear is how a person without a google wallet account claims the money. Is it the same tedious process of having to verify a bank account, give a social security number, promise a first born child, etc.

<comment><USER22> It should be noted that much of this process is federally mandated across a multitude of regulations. Since 9/11, it has been illegal to open bank accounts without a valid SSN, so that the government can track money more easily.

AFAIK, IANAL, IIRC, etc etc etc etc

<comment><USER23> I've known plenty of people who have opened bank accounts in the US without an SSN. I don't think it's strictly required.

<comment><USER24> I managed to open accounts with Chase while my SSN application was still pending / didn't have the paperwork in hand yet. They chased me up afterwards for it though and have sent me paperwork repeatedly asking for the information (SSN, reason for being in the US etc) in relation to any interest paid on accounts.

Is it possible to hold an account without any sort of tax ID number (ITIN or SSN) Surely one of them is required?

<comment><USER25> I've had a bank account and associated credit card with HSBC in the US for about 5 years now, and I only got an ITIN about 6 months ago. I managed to get the account because they offer a service for Premier customers where you can link accounts in different countries together, and I already had an account in the UK.

However, over the years it's been a massive PITA to maintain since I'm not a resident, and it's getting progressively more difficult - in fact I just moved all my money out of the US to a USD account in a more friendly jurisdiction (New Zealand, where I currently live) because it was getting to the stage where I could see them possibly freezing my account and it being a pain to sort out. I suspect I wouldn't be able to open the account under the same circumstances now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Amazon Payments allows you to send up to $1000 from your credit card for free. Step it up Google.

<comment><USER27> EDIT: It's not Amazon Payments, it's Amazon WebPay.

<comment><USER28> Looking for some citations right now, but I think personal usage of Amazon Payments to send money to individuals is much cheaper. I'm familiar with Amazon Checkout which is what you describe above, but longer ago, I did use Amazon Payments to do a personal transfer and it was free. Citation or retraction coming soon...

edit: Found it - GP may be referring to this - I have not yet looked at Google's new offering enough to see if this is truly comparable for personal payments, however:

Is there a fee for using Amazon WebPay?

No, there is no charge to send money using Amazon WebPay.

[https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq#wp...](https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/personal/webpay/faq#wpFee)

<comment><USER27> Ah, the main drawback I see about WebPay:

"Note: You cannot add funds to your Amazon Payments account by using a credit card."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Awesome video. The music got me kind of perked up for the day. It almost made me forget that nobody uses Google Wallet. We've run an ecommerce store with a decent amount of throughput for about 5 years now and I think we had 1 person try and pay with Google Wallet (and she was a Google employee and friend at the time).

I'm probably off on the whole thing here, because the examples in the vid show it as sort of a way to make good with your pals and not so much for ecommerce, but being an old timer, I sort of like to leave my money transfers to people that specialize in it and not as an add-on to my email client.

<comment><USER30> Uh, given the mega conglomerate Google is making themselves out to be, I think it's safe to say Google knows how to deal with money transferring (at least in the U.S.). You are right though, this service reads and is purposely marketed as a way to exchange money between close circles, and not service your eCommerce store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting move on Google's part. Clearly the payments space is a getting a lot of investment from both big and small players each with their own take on it.

It is also the first time that it felt like Google was stepping where it might not belong. And its a weird thing since I believe anyone should be able to do anything and let the market decide. For some reason this gave me the same vibe I used to get when a Microsoft would announce they were going to enter some hot new market in order to chill any investment/work in that market. I don't think that is their plan, but perhaps its a happy side effect they get?

I'd much rather see Google create an actual bank and then integrate with that banks services than do it this way.

</comment><comment><USER32> I can't wait to send money to Mt Gox.

</comment><comment><USER33> How quickly can I get money out of google wallet? this url: <http://www.google.com/wallet/how-it-works/in-store.html> doesn't really render properly in chrome. I guess I can spend the money pretty easily once it is in my wallet.

<comment><USER34> "Sending money with your Google Wallet Balance is always free and usually instant. You can also send money using your bank account, which may take up to 10 business days to complete. Sending money using your credit or debit card is almost immediate, and usually takes up to a couple of minutes."

[http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...](http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=3122600)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> jrockway,

You said to ask you any questions, so far you only answered one single question for the last hour. Why would you say ask me anything and don't respond to the questions?

<comment><USER36> All the questions are pretty much the same - given Google's track record of avoiding human interaction and examples of being arbitrary, why should we trust them this time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> While this obviously reduces friction in sending money, it's not clear that this is entirely a good thing.

This would definitely make classic social-engineering tricks like Nigerian scams easier to pull off.

[http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/latest-facebook-scam- phishe...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/latest-facebook-scam-phishers-hit- up-friends-for-cash/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Hmm, if they were devious they could use this to get people to sign up for G+ and by allowing micropayments to G+ accounts (they can be sent _from_ anywhere).

People will just through hoops to receive money.

</comment><comment><USER39> In case there was any ambiguity about whether Google knew the 'real you' from their logging of IPs and search terms, this should remove all of it.

In a way I think we're seeing Google striking against Facebook in what I call the "identity wars" where each service is struggling to be an identity and information service about people.

<comment><USER16> > In case there was any ambiguity about whether Google knew the 'real you' > from their logging of IPs and search terms, this should remove all of it.

How? I mean, obviously, if you use this service (either as a sender or receiver) Google will know more about your real identity as part of conducting the transaction, but how does this say anything about what Google knows "from their logging of IPs and search terms"?

<comment><USER40> The part I can't figure out is I did "verify my identity" using my legal name, addrs, last4ssn and bday. And it responded back in about 1 second "verified". So how does that work? (Other than perhaps they already have a detailed file on me LOL)

<comment><USER41> Better yet, mine failed. I'm presented with this page: <http://i.imgur.com/hPqLd58.png>

On the phone, I'm told roughly: "I'm going to ask you four questions to verify your identity. The questions are based on publicly available data." [hold]

(He just asked me the last four of my social and the year of my birth. And my address. And is now preparing four questions. \- Where was my SSN issued? Multiple choice. \- Which month was I born? Multiple choice. \- Which name are you associated with (weird list of names? None of the Above.) \- Which county have you lived in? Multiple choice.

I answered them correctly, obviously. Now being redirected to a survey.

<comment><USER42> > _Where was my SSN issued? Multiple choice. - Which month was I born? > Multiple choice._

I am fairly certain both of those can be determined with reasonable accuracy from your SSN itself. (the middle two digits of your SSN should roughly correspond with the month of issue (likely the month of birth), and the first three digits should give you the area).

Edit: Nevermind, it only asked for the last four of your SSN I guess.

<comment><USER41> Still, of the questions asked, last four of my social were the most secure in my opinion, and it's fairly easy to come by that information.

<comment><USER42> Oh yes. I agree absolutely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Google Wallet is using Bancorp Bank ([https://wallet.google.com/termsOfService?type=BUYER&gl=U...](https://wallet.google.com/termsOfService?type=BUYER&gl=US)), the same as Simple.com -- so it's possible bank-account transactions could be made fast if you use Simple for your bank.

</comment><comment><USER44> I can't believe how Paypal isn't out of business. With their poor service, dire fees and all. It's become a very poor service.

It's a massive market. Google has hit a jackpot there. I salute then.

<comment><USER30> PayPal is global, for one, and they have reputable foundation. They have brand recognition too. You and me know about Stripe/Google Wallet/Amazon Payments/Dwolla/etc. but does John Doe from Craigslist/Ebay/"Mom & Pop shop" know about them?

<comment><USER44> No but if he uses Gmail (and it's a pretty good chance) he will. If not, he will find out sooner or later.

Paypal's era is coming to an end, it was just a matter of time who would have claimed it. Luckily, it was Google rather than Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This could be a huge dagger to apps like Venmo. This is so much more convenient than using Bank of America.

Also note you need to verify your identity before you hook up your bank acct.

</comment><comment><USER46> [http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...](http://support.google.com/wallet/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=3026245&ctx=go) (linked to from the main article)

> Google properties such as Google Play, Google Drive, YouTube etc. are not > covered under the Google Wallet Purchase Protection. Please reach out to > those products directly through their help centers.

Is gmail lumped under the "etc." above?

</comment><comment><USER47> > "... and our customer service team will help resolve any questions you might > have"

Yeah. Right.

</comment><comment><USER48> Will users need to have 2 step turned on for this service?

I work at a large place, about 100k people, and we have at least 10 compromised accounts a week.

</comment><comment><USER49> Wow. Leverage all those reams of data about us to freeze out fraudsters... Impressive/scary if they pull it off. Hopefully they don't make too many false-positives that result in innocent bystanders being banished from the Kingdom of the Google.

</comment><comment><USER50> I don't see why this is such a big deal. I've been able to send money via gmail for a long time now! My penis is bigger, I can get drugs from Canada, my hair has grown back, and I've discovered long-lost wealthy relatives in Nigeria!

</comment><comment><USER51> Could this potentially hurt Paypal monopoly?

<comment><USER52> As long as it's US-only (as with almost every cool thing Google does) it's not a threat at all.

<comment><USER53> ... it's US-only, again?

It won't be long before I just proxy all of my traffic through Amazon s3 or something.

<comment><USER54> Given the country-specific regulatory red tape that comes with anything involving money, there's more of an excuse than normal to roll this out country-by-country.

<comment><USER55> Google Wallet is how old now, three+ years? They didn't even bother adding any other way to pay than credit cards. Someone needs to tell them that there are countries where people simply don't use credit cards. They exist, but at cost, and the culture just isn't there.

If they continue innovating in the payment space at this rate, they will maybe have a solution people here can actually use in 2020.

<comment><USER53> Talking about credit cards, what's the difference between a credit card and just a bank account?

At my bank you can get a credit card at an added cost, but it's not needed for anything in the Netherlands so I never looked into it.

<comment><USER56> Credit cards have nothing to do with bank accounts. Maybe you're thinking of debit cards?

<comment><USER53> Uh yes I guess. With a debit card (we just call them bank cards) you withdraw money from the bank account, but from what I've heard a credit card doesn't work entirely the same.

<comment><USER56> Credit cards are merely debt obligations, and therefore money printing machines. If I have a credit limit of $10k, there isn't actually a $10k account anywhere backing that limit. The bank pays the merchant, yes, but you can follow the trail of that money all the way up to the central bank which created it out of nothing for purpose of fulfilling debt obligations. The money is then destroyed when I pay the bank back at the end of the month.

To the consumer they appear basically the same ("they both have the VISA logo right?"), but in understanding the mechanics of what is happening, they could not be more different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Finally. Let's hope they can hook it up with the Play Store and Adsense (so they can add money to that account automatically). I think that will make a dent in PayPal's universe.

</comment><comment><USER58> I wonder if this is a re-thinking on what they want to do with Google Checkout, as it hasn't really been taking off in the commerce realm since it's initial release.

</comment><comment><USER59> I use Venmo to send money between friends. It is the ideal way to deal with dinner bills. "Everyone just Venmo me $11". $ is sent immediately to my Venmo balance and I can cash out at any point.

The biggest problem with Venmo was users. Only my close group of friends has Venmo but with co-workers or strangers we have to resort to cash and bill splits.

Pretty much everyone I know has Gmail. Google just made Venmo obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER60> A few years ago, this would've been the equivalent of an April Fools google gag.

It's pretty amazing that it's possible now and so easy.

</comment><comment><USER61> At last the true reason for the Pixel becomes clear: lovely product shots of Google's apps.

</comment><comment><USER62> Does anyone know what fees are incurred for using this service, and if there is a maximum limit on the transaction amount? I had trouble finding this on the Wallet site.

(edit: The FAQ page just says it's free, but doesn't isn't clear about limits)

<comment><USER63> It seems like they charge fees for the sender, if they fund via credit card. Otherwise it's free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I hope they improved their phishing/scam detection as well.

If it only takes a few clicks to 'reply with money', and if the scammer only asks for a small amount, this method seems to have a much lower 'barrier' than wire transfers.

</comment><comment><USER65> I'd trust Google with my money just like I'd trust them with my real world information.

/s

</comment><comment><USER66> Imagine if Google set this up for Bitcoin? Every Google user gets a Bitcoin wallet stored in their profile, and they can use this as a web wallet to send and receive Bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wonder about the morality of this move. They basically replicating venmo exactly. I know it's legal if there isn't a patent, but it sure feels bullyish to me.

</comment><comment><USER67> If I was a betting man, I'd say this is almost certainly a preemptive strike against something that Apple plans to release.

</comment><comment><USER68> Massive centralisation: information habits, social circles, spending patterns. Globally.

Where does the "not evil" part come in? It doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER69> This seems like such an obvious thing for Facebook to do - any guesses as to why they haven't?

</comment><comment><USER70> Hmm. Can I filter by amount of cash attached? That will make things easier to organize.

</comment><comment><USER71> Thanks, but no thanks! Don't trust you with my money. kudos for the service though.

</comment><comment><USER72> Interesting timing. Amazon coin also popping up as well, and Mt. Gox going down.

</comment><comment><USER73> Now might be a good time to activate two-step verification to login to Gmail.

</comment><comment><USER74> How is this different than paypal?

</comment><comment><USER75> No thanks, I'll use bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER76> How secure is this?

</comment><comment><USER77> Dwolla killa?

</comment><comment><USER78> US only.

</comment><comment><USER79> Wow!

</comment><comment><USER80> s/Send/Lose

</comment><comment><USER81> Very interesting how they structured the fees. Instead of how PayPal, Square, Stripe and just about everybody else in the World does it, where it is free to send money but merchants must pay a fee to receive it - they are making it always free for merchants and free for users who pay from a bank account or G Wallet balance - and users who want to pay by debit or CC have to pay a fee.

I'm not sure how the market will react to that but it's clearly deliberate and could turn into a great way to drive adoption, as merchants will clearly prefer to use G Wallet with no fees and will push their users toward that whenever possible.

(I realize this is being marketed as P2P but if they intend to take down PayPal et al, it will surely evolve into a way to pay merchants for things).

<comment><USER82> Seems almost like their wish would be free for everybody, but of course Google has to pay to process your credit card so they can't very well give you that for free.

And if they charged you anything less than 1% for CC transactions, even if it cost them less than that, they'd have people gaming it for the purpose of accumulating CC rewards like cashback and airline miles.</comment></comment>


FanGamb: Gamble + Fantasy Football - <AUTHOR> http://www.fangamb.com/pages/home

<comment><USER2> Since it's not immediately clear from the link, just wanted to point out that FanGamb is a DreamIt Ventures startup from Philadelphia -- for more details, check out: [http://technicallyphilly.com/2009/09/15/fangamb-fantasy- spor...](http://technicallyphilly.com/2009/09/15/fangamb-fantasy-sports-and- gambling-come-together-in-addiction-inducing-glory)

</comment><comment><USER3> That intro video on the homepage is so good, it nearly got me excited about American sports!

Very polished.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks! You can find us here: <http://www.istrategylabs.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks cool. I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, and have played around with it a bit but never really took it seriously. I'll have to check it out.

Another example that proves ideas are nothing and implementation is everything. Good luck guys!

</comment><comment><USER6> Pretty cool concept. We considered doing something like this briefly. I'll be curious to see how this ends up, and wishing the founders well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does the winner get money, or is it just for fun?

<comment><USER8> At this time FanGamb is not providing prizes. We've found that most users treat this like any other fantasy sports league or march madness pool where all players ante up something on their own. But all of that is handled offline totally separated from the site itself.

<comment><USER7> Cool, thanks. Look forward to trying it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Promo video looks fantastic, who made it?

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the comments! The video was made by iStrategyLabs in Washington, DC - they are an awesome design team!

<comment><USER6> Are you one of the founders? I previously ran Draftmix.com, a fantasy football site (and YC Alum). I live in Ohio, so if we're ever near we should meet up.

<comment><USER2> Matt, I am one of the founders. Great to hear from you! My co-founder has sent you an email about getting in touch.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Going back to C - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aue06/going_back_to_c/ <comment><USER2> Reading between the lines, it sounds like the author came back to C after _learning to program_ , and sees quite a bit more in it than he did as a teenager. I had the same experience - I had a lot of fun writing programs as a kid, and taught myself C/C++ * . Still, I didn't learn anything about good coding conventions, programming in-the-large, etc. until a couple years later, when I discovered Linux and Perl (no waiting to compile!!!), and later Python, Emacs Lisp, Scheme, OCaml, Erlang, Prolog, ...

Nowadays, my first choice is usually a mix of Lua and C, but I've learned a ton from every language along the way. C is useful for many things, but it's probably a terrible _first_ language - until you have a fair amount of experience, there are just too many aspects of it that will bite you in the ass. Pointers are sharp tools, the type system is a joke, etc.

* Quite literally, a mishmash of C and early C++. Hey, I was a kid learning from library books in the early nineties. That's what I think of when people say they program in "C/C++" - a naive mix of C and C++.

</comment><comment><USER3> So he can figure out how to write the algorithm in Haskell, but he can't figure how to use "`par`" instead of "`seq`" to allow ghc to auto-parallelize the code? And then rewrites the whole thing in C, which doesn't have any language support for automatic parallelization?

I guess this kind of upsets me, but whatever. It's his own life he's wasting.

(Don't get me started on writing a compiler in C. Then I really will get mad.)

<comment><USER4> With all due respect, I think bland whining about C and its partisans isn't really a productive way to advocate for your language ("wasting his life"? good grief). C is, after all, what the world is built on. If you really want to show us a better way, you'd be better served by trying to help build that world.

How about _just one_ core library that does something useful and irreplacable on a modern system, and that works significantly better than the dinosaur code you keep complaining about? We've seen enough toy implementations and cute hacks (and, gack, web frameworks!) to last a lifetime.

How about a clean, bug-free and parallel implementation of zlib instead? Or a better h.264 codec? Or a crypto/TLS implementation that beats openssl? Regular expression engine better than pcre? World-class numerics library? GUI framework? SVG implementation? HTML parser? 3D modeling and rendering framework? ... Anything that isn't mostly a joke compared to the standard C junk you keep sneering at?

Seriously guys: get off your butts and write some real software. Most of us tolerate the sniping most of the time, but this bit was just over the line, sorry.

<comment><USER3> _Seriously guys: get off your butts and write some real software._

<http://github.com/jrockway/>

Oh.

<comment><USER5> <http://github.com/jrockway/lisp>

Please let us know when it is ready ;-)

<comment><USER3> Heh. I'm not even sure what that was going to be :)

But really, a lot of those projects have actual code in them... and some even have users. :)

As such, I think it's unfair to dismiss anything I say with "shut up and write some code", because I code _and_ talk about coding.

<comment><USER6> He wasn't asking you to write code. If you read it, he is asking about writing code that is better, or more specifically, products that are better. A list of projects you've worked on is mostly irrelevant in the face of that accusation.

<comment><USER3> His "challenge" is too ridiculous to even reply to. Of course software that has had millions of users (and hundreds of contributers) over 30 years is going to be better than what some language advocate is going to be able to crank out in a week or month or year. Put enough time and polish into something, and it's going to be good regardless of what language you choose.

It would be a waste of time to rewrite some well-established project to prove some point about a language. ("Hey, I spent a year of my free time to make a $foo that's not as good as the $foo that already exists! Yeah!!!") It's much better to incrementally move away from the legacy code, to make future incremental improvements. (Firefox is a good example; more and more of the code is safe Javascript instead of raw C++. That's because it's easier to write/test/enhance, and because modern computers and virtual machines make the overhead acceptable.)

There is, of course, a surprising amount of non-C code out there. Firefox is Javascript. Emacs is Lisp. SBCL is Lisp. GHC is Haskell. Xmonad is Haskell. Debian's packaging system is Perl. The websites you use daily are Perl/Python/Ruby/PHP. And so on. Of the software packages that I use on a daily basis, very few are pure C. (xmms2 is. That's all.)

C exists in production software, but that's because it was the only option when these programs were being developed.

Take a snapshot of new ideas and projects being started _right now_ , and see if C is still the most popular. That is a more reliable indicator of the state of the art.

<comment><USER4> You're straw-manning. I didn't say that C was the best language for everything, nor did I even say it was better than Haskell.

I was responding specifically to _your_ claim that Haskell was better than C for the tasks that C is good at. And I asked for one example of a non-trivial core library (again, not a framework: something like crypto, graphics, numerics, yada yada -- things that are hard, not toys) that would prove that. And there are none.

Obviously I think that says something about the wonderful advantages you think Haskell has.

<comment><USER3> It has a great FFI layer, so you can just call all that code that already exists and get on with building something new.

That's what it says.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There was a guy in our university tutorial support group (a PHD grad) who, in the first session said, "I only do C, Im your speed guy".

We all hacked around with other languages and implementations. And when we needed some fast and efficient little "thing" to plug in we went to the "C guy".

He was by far the most important guy for all the teams there :) (save me countless hours in writing a non-crucial but useful optimized array sorting algorithm to work with our program)

<comment><USER8> I find the hubris of a C guy saying "I'm your speed guy" amusing. I could contrive of several scenarios where said C guy would be somewhat chastened, perhaps involving applications for polymorphic inline caching, or runtime code generation with applications to sorting or searching, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Programmer has a domain problem ill-fitted to his current programming language of choice and knowledge is said language's libraries.

2\. Programmer switches languages to one well-suited to the domain and his current knowledge.

3\. Miraculously, the domain's previous speed and abstraction munging issues suddenly disappear.

Why is this news?

Use the right tool for the right job. Syntax matters. Baked-In abstractions matter. Standardized library interfaces matter. This is precisely why the number of programming languages has grown, not shrunk, over time.

For the most part, programming languages aren't "better" or "worse"; than each other; they're simply "different".

Let that same programmer attempt to leverage C against an entirely different problem domain, such as a 3D physics simulation, and watch how rapidly the language's merits suddenly dissolve.

<comment><USER2> That's not what the post is about. He's surprised how different C seems now to how it seemed when he was younger and new to programming.

(C would definitely not be my first choice for a compiler, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> C with a decent dynamic language (C + Lua for example) make a better choice, than C++. Or Objective C, or C+Python, C+Perl, C+WhateverElseDynamic.

<comment><USER11> Why?

<comment><USER2> You can write the stuff that needs to access system calls, deal with hardware, heavy number crunching, etc. in C, but use a language with garbage collection, real strings, and a REPL for all the stuff that doesn't need to be chiseled out of diamond (and will probably change, anyway). For many things, slow prototypes are good enough. When you could do 95% of a project quickly in Python/Lua/Ruby/etc., writing everything in C anyway has the same downsides as any other form of premature optimization.

As a bonus, the border between the two languages often settles along conceptual seams in the codebase -- your low-level graphics rendering code shouldn't be tangled up with your enemy AI or UI templates, for example.

Rather than writing everything in a language that tries to do everything and winds a mess (C++), you can use two smaller, more focused languages.

<comment><USER11> Ah, my mistake. I thought you were contrasting C+Lua with all the other C+language pairs, C+Lua with C+C++.

<comment><USER2> The comment was by someone else, but I think he/she meant C paired with any dynamic language vs. C++ alone, not C with Lua specifically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Near the end the author looks towards the future and writing a small compiler. He mentions "Modern compiler implementation in C," and I was aghast. That was one of the worst textbooks I ever had to suffer through.

<comment><USER13> Why, if I may ask?

My memories of that book are mostly positive.

<comment><USER12> I am speaking from memory, and perhaps should revisit the text to see if these same criticism still hold years out.

As part of a series, "Modern Compiler Implementation in..." the C version came across as a poor translation. I would say this is akin to Sedgewick's earlier version of his "Algorithms in..." texts, of which one was high quality but the translations were not. Where Sedgewick seems to have first written in Pascal, Appel seems to have first written in Java.

The constructs that Appel places on top of C to make implementation discussions easier did not help. While they attempted to make it object oriented, they made it messy and not "C" friendly.

For the basics, I kept referring to the Dragon book for better explanations then were provided there. I did not find it encouraging that this book drove me to the text it is trying to out-date.

I had bought it for the last half, since texts on modern compiler design are rare (functional languages, optimizations, garbage collection). But I recall the algorithms discussion to be subpar in that it was neither clear nor deep.

I still like the idea of structuring a compiler book around the semester long project of building one from the ground up. However, I think both the Tiger language and this text could have used another year of revision.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. I also tried reading the Dragon Book, but I found it quite stale. I really enjoyed "Modern Compiler Design" (<http://www.few.vu.nl/~dick/MCD.html>). They also talk about implementing functional languages.

And if you already know how to write a lexer and a parser, "The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages" by Simon Peyton Jones is worth reading.

<comment> loup-vaillant I fond that "implementing functional languages: a tutorial" is even easier. Now, these books are not for eager languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _I suddenly realized that everything I wrote would be inside the program's code, and that nothing more would._

Uhh... what does this mean?

<comment><USER16> I think he means C doesn't require a framework or VM of monstrous proportions in order to do its thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are no fast languages, only good compilers. C is fast because there are decades worth of work put into its compiler. If someone put the same effort into a javascript compiler, javascript would be just as fast.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't know if C is the best answer for him. Ada has most of C advantages(unless you are doing "dirty" C tricks), while retaining type safety, exceptions, bound checking... (Haven't used it in years, though).

</comment><comment><USER19> I suppose I've had a partial rediscovery of C this year. It was all nice and fast until I needed to code up a binary search tree using structures and perform lookups and rebalancing... performance tanked, and I spend quite a lot of time debugging this pointerfest. One of the main reasons to use C nowadays is performance, and if that's the case you'll likely need datastructures. So,I would advice against C and go with C++ (or any other C variant that has objects) in almost all cases...

</comment><comment><USER20> HN is turning into Reddit.

<comment><USER21> and comments like this one (and unfortunately, mine) do not help the situation. Constructive comments, criticism and information is all we need to avoid becoming reddit.

<comment><USER22> Is there a "personalized" social news site that shows me stories based on their user-vote correlation to the stories that I vote on?

<comment> loup-vaillant While such a site may please you more, you would be less likely to discover new things. Is this what you want?

<comment><USER22> What I'd really like is to reduce the noise. Yes, it's iPad day (now), but I fail to see why 1/3 of the 30 links are Apple related. I don't need to know about the new SDK being available, I don't need to see an old Paul Graham essay, I don't need to see the FSF's reaction, and I don't need to see a poll on whether or not people are going to get one.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I started a Google Sheet to break down CARES Act budget - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GamoN8fUFhXM_vdTNlgb4MMhZDpfluxZ_UHqudAbqRg/edit#gid=0 <comment><AUTHOR> It took me hours, but I was very curious how it all broke down. Did my best to chug through the legalese, and references. Trying to map things to their different departments, or different groupings based on the summaries the media has been putting out.

Anyone can comment!</comment>


High-Frequency Trading Created Fascinating Patterns During "Flash Crash" - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/business/23flash.html?src=me&ref=business

<comment><USER2> Tantalizing, but too full of statements like "high frequency traders move so fast that regulators cannot keep up", which is nonsense. So HFT moves in milliseconds and regulators move in, what, months? (Worse, if you read _The Big Short_ , or his editorial in NY Times).

The hint that someone is trying a denial of service attack is intriguing. A theory was proposed about how quotes were time-stamped as they exited a queue rather than when entering the queue, causing an unfortunate feedback situation.

So we are wondering if there is a connection between that and these patterns.

<comment><AUTHOR> my guess is that the market looks like that all the time -- the things it describes sound like reasonable automated market-making strategies that people would try.

market making is certainly a job that needs doing, and high-frequency trading is a way that people can do it; like any system, there's some risk of a breakdown. it's a game like poker, where you've got to guess what the intentions of the other guy are.

honestly I'm not worried about the high-frequency traders, I'm worried about the longer term expectation that investors have, and about a general inbalance between capital that exists on paper and the ability of the system to put it to work</comment></comment>


Cool project, what CMS did you guys use? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sunlightlabs.com/2008/08/07/cool-project-what-cms-did-you-guys-use/ <comment><USER2> While I agree, I think the same argument can be made that most frameworks impose some of the same problems as a pre-built CMS. I've never worked with Django, so I won't accuse it specifically of having this problem, but I know that Ruby on Rails in the past made building anything other than a CRUD application a pointless exercise in working around rather than working with (I specify "in the past", as I haven't tinkered with RoR in a few years, and I'm certain it has evolved dramatically in that time).

I'm fond of the phrase "libraries not frameworks", and I've been hearing it from lots of folks lately, and I think it's probably a backlash against choosing tools and then trying to figure out how to bolt your ideas into the poorly fitting framework. TANSTAAFL, and all, being what it is, sometimes it's better to build bottom up rather than choose a framework that was designed for a different kind of application.</comment>