Linux Community: Stop Doing This to Windows 10 and macOS Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/02/20/why-you-should-dual-boot-linux-and-windows-10-in-2020/ <comment><USER2> The anti-cheat argument is an interesting one. It's not merely an obstacle to Linux adoption (it's also not special in that regard; just another first- party-support problem). It's a _cultural problem_ that we cannot fix with technology.

Intrusive anti-cheat exists for a very simple reason. Many game developers will neither grant users the ability to moderate their own spaces (as they once could) nor dedicate the appropriate resources to do so themselves. If they did, server-side heuristics would largely suffice.

Furthermore: evangelism is _good_. Without it, Linux would be nowhere near what it is today. Even if the platform somehow magic'd itself into getting _both_ end users and manufacturers to give a damn without the other one already having done so, and it could in this manner achieve feature and accessibility parity with Windows, people _still_ wouldn't jump ship. Without some kind of _major_ technical argument in favor of Linux (which is not likely to happen as all 3 major x86 OSes are pretty much always cutting-edge), the ideological angle is the best one we have.

</comment><comment><USER3> Forbes.com has become a blogging platform at this point.</comment>


Ethereum Wallet Co Knew About Critical Flaw That Let a User Lock Up Millions - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3djwj/ethereum-wallet-parity-knew-about-critical-flaw-that-let-user-devops199-lock-up-millions <comment><USER2> Hold on. So the multisig wallet itself is a smart contract? Why isn't it this stuff handled client side?

<comment><USER3> How do you plan on allowing multiple people to have partial control over a client side wallet?

<comment><USER2> I imagined something along the lines of a chain of signatures that gets broadcast as a transaction when all the pieces are in place. I've got some reading to do ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oof. I wonder if any of the people who lost funds will sue Parity for negligence. Would they have a case?</comment>


Building JavaScript at Scale - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17AbKCIiJqe53l9vgqUqoCOWKs9KE32ba2NJtLTwm1Kg/edit#slide=id.p18 <comment><USER2> In case anyone was checking the comments first, this is literally about building JavaScript, i.e., it's about using Bazel for the build step.</comment>


Ten Days of Silence - <AUTHOR> http://www.vice.com/en_us/read/ten-days-of-silence-taught-me-how-to-be-alive-500?utm_source=vicefbus <comment><USER2> This is a terrible article. Meditation is a great way to get to know yourself better or solve problems, I would not compare it to "tripping balls" in any way. If you want to learn more I recommend reading about it on [http://www.dhamma.org](http://www.dhamma.org), where you can also find meditation centers near you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Adding some science, just those crazy people from Harvard:

Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain's Gray Matter In 8 Weeks

Test subjects taking part in an 8-week program of mindfulness meditation showed results that astonished even the most experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University. The study was led by a Harvard-affiliated team of researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the team's MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history how meditation produced massive changes inside the brain's gray matter. "Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."

[http://www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/harvard-unveils-mri- stud...](http://www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/harvard-unveils-mri-study- proving-meditation-literally-rebuilds-the-brains-gray-matter-in-8-weeks/)

<comment><USER4> Can Buddhist practice liberate us from the prison of physical pain?

"How can meditation help when medicine falls short? Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts medical School, speaks to these questions as a long-time practitioner of Buddhist meditation and hatha yoga, and as a pioneer in the use of mindfulness to treat chronic pain and illness. More than 13,000 people have visited the world- renowned Stress Reduction Clinic that Kabat-Zinn established in 1979 at the UMass medical Center, and the eight-week program- described in Kabat-Zinn's bestseller "Full Catastrophe Living"- is now also offered at some two hundred medical facilities worldwide."

[http://www.bemindful.org/kabatzinnart.htm](http://www.bemindful.org/kabatzinnart.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Vipassana is an absolutely wonderful experience. A 'brain washing' where it can rid your mind of all the crud that has accumulated from our culture and society. It puts you in touch with your body in a way that nothing my life ever has. I'd be happy to answer some questions if anybody has any.

<comment><USER6> Do I have to learn how to meditate before I go? How can I learn?

Where do I find a place like this?

If I want to do this, what are my first steps?

<comment><USER7> I recommend learning how to meditate before you go. I attempted a 10 day vipasana as a complete beginner and with insufficient research, and assumed it would be some kind of "course". Instead we were instructed on what to meditate on (first day is literally "feel the breath entering your nose"), and then expected to sit still and meditate for 11 hours a day. This vipasana (Kathmandu, late 2011) had no "optional sessions", and no additional instructions. As a complete beginner I was disappointed and frustrated - was I doing it right, is there no technique to be taught, or tips to be given?

The analogy I'd give is if I'd joined a 10 day fitness camp and the only instruction was "do deadlifts", and then you were left alone for 11 hours. What's a deadlift? Is this the right form? After an hour I feel like I've exhausted these muscles, do I really just keep doing it for ten more hours today?

After three days of this, (each day having a slightly more specific focus but still lacking in the kind of direction or confirmation I was looking for), I left. I was a stone's throw from the Himalayas, and I felt that spending my remaining time in the mountains would do more for me than sitting in a dark room feeling confused and frustrated.

I can't answer how to learn to meditate, I haven't followed it up (once burnt, twice shy). But you could try the vipasana way at home - sit in a quiet room and "feel the breath entering your nose" for an hour.

<comment><USER8> You had an unfortunate experience. Perhaps if you took a course in an English speaking country the instructions would be clearer to you, and you'd be more aware of the availability of those who you can ask for help. And the evening discourses, which go into greater depth of explanation, would be more accessible to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sometimes, you meet a new person and the first thing that you notice is the immense calm on their faces. You get good vibes from them. And even without talking, you can tell they are nice people.

It happened with me recently a few times. As I got to know those people better, I learnt that they've all done Vipassana at some point in their lives. It might sound mumbo jumbo but these are the facts.

I haven't done Vipassana but my girlfriend did, about a few months back. Honestly, I didn't see any noticeable change in her. I mean she loves puppies now as much as she did earlier. She definitely did have trippy, out of body experiences. Perhaps, others who don't see her as often as I do might be able to tell some very visible, external changes.

However, there was one very peculiar effect. She had been complaining of a chronic back pain for almost a year. After she returned, her back pain was 90% gone!

Some of my close friends have also recently returned from it, and they all seem calmer, more mindful people now.

<comment><USER10> Reads like a scientology ad

<comment><USER5> Unlike Scientology, Vipassana courses are free. They provide food, shelter, and an incredible experience on the donations of others. If you want to give a donation after you've finished the course (and only after you've finished the complete course, they won't accept donations otherwise), then you are welcomed to.

<comment><USER11> I have never done a Vipassana retreat, but I've played around with that style of meditation with good results. To me this is one of the most admirable aspects of it - so many of these so called "spiritual" (a misguided umbrella term) retreats/courses functions more as a way for the founder to get rich than to do something good. See the founder of Bikram yoga.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm still looking back to my vipassana experience a few years ago. It's something I don't want to miss and it helped me focus again. Mindfulness is something beautiful.

Also something that I think is not quite clear from the article is that vipassana is not some kind of crazy cult. It's basically "just" a technique.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that part of the article I feel is off. I've never been on a retreat but I do sit. It's definitely an experience that I think people should try, but it doesn't really bear any resemblance to a trip (at least for me). It's more like turning a magnifying glass on how I make thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> From the article: _" About half a year ago I started taking psychedelic drugs fairly regularly. Partially because they were fun, but also because I could see how they benefited me therapeutically. When I heard that meditation could produce similar effects, I found a ten day intense silent meditation course I could join in Italy."_

Huey Lewis & the News:

        "I want a new drug
        One that won't make me sick
        One that won't make me crash my car
        Or make me feel three feet thick

        I want a new drug
        One that won't hurt my head
        One that won't make my mouth too dry
        Or make my eyes too red"

I'm inclined to go with Feynman on this. He was once convinced in the 1960s by Dr. John Lilly to try LSD, being told it would improve his thinking. Feynman then thought, the next day, that he had solved a hard problem he'd been working on. While going to a meeting where he was doing to discuss his solution, he realized that he hadn't solved the problem, he had hallucinated that he had solved the problem. Feynman was furious. He wrote "I like to think, and I don't want to break the machine."

That guy would probably get equally good results by taking 10 days off to go surfing.

<comment><USER11> This is such a dismissive attitude. What Feynman is talking about is putting something artificial in your body with potentially adverse side effects. This has very little to do with sitting still in a room and watching your breathing. This is something people have done for thousands of years, and it consists "only" of sitting.

Going on a surf vacation for 10 days isn't going to have nearly as big of an impact as something like this in this dimension. You may a get a lot better at surfing really quickly, and meet some friends. Which is great!

If you don't think meditation is for your, fine, don't do it. But don't downplay people's experience by imposing your own limited world view on it.

EDIT: My intention is not be dismissive of surfing as an activity. I would be surprised though if OP went on a 10 day surfing retreat and wrote a similar article to the one we are reading now.

<comment><USER15> Meditation is commonly practiced by all kinds of people, many of whom don't do it in the tradition you may associate with 'Meditation'. I wouldn't be so dismissive of surfing. Activities that force you to clear your mind (so you don't die or seriously hurt yourself) are other candidates for similar outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wanted to add that there are several forms/types of Vipassana and several different types of centers that conduct retreats. Many people get confused and think that there is only one type of Vipassana.

The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is located near Boston and is the most extensive center in the US.

"IMS offers Buddhist meditation retreats at two facilities – the Retreat Center and The Forest Refuge – in rural central Massachusetts. The Retreat Center is one of the two IMS centers in the United States. However, all Buddhist centers teach vipassana/vispashyana. It offers a full yearly schedule of more than 25 meditation courses, ranging in duration from a weekend to three months. Most retreats run for 7–9 days."

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

Insight Meditation Society (IMS) uses a sliding scale to charge for its retreats and I have found them to be my favorite center for going on a retreat.

<comment><USER16> I came here to second this. The author clearly has experience only with Goenka and has absorbed their atypical use of the Pali word "vipassana". It's not usually used as a noun to describe a retreat. Nor was it "lost" for centuries. Most serious Theravadan retreat centers have been doing plenty of vipassana.

IMS is a wonderful facility. On the west coast, its sister center is Spirit Rock, though they're not quite as well set up for long retreats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Pain is only temporary, pleasure is only temporary and you only bring yourself misery if you go chasing after either is the basic deal. And while those things sound simple as a rule of thumb, that doesn 't make them easy to follow._

That conclusion is worth something, whichever way you arrive at it. I guess it's one of the basic truths about our way of existence.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been a software engineer for 15 years, have meditated with varying degrees of consistency for 10 years, and have taught meditation to peers, friends and the public for the last 3 years.

The conclusions reached in this article about the temporary nature of all states and experiences, as well as connecting with the wisdom of the body, resonate strongly with me. I'd add that the ability I have developed to monitor and redirect my thoughts, as well as enhanced concentration, are other direct benefits.

I believe you can see some benefits from meditation without embracing the full retreat experience. But a retreat is definitely a step-up and solidifies a lot of the lessons. I've done 8-day insight retreats which are a little less austere than Vipassana but seem to bring about similar states and changes.

I wrote the story of how I ended up teaching meditation (I teach 8-week courses with similar content to MBSR). You can read it here if you are interested: [http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/why-this- software...](http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/why-this-software- developer-teaches-mindfulness-meditation/)

There's another write-up I did of how some of this affected my journey through anxiety, specifically impostor syndrome: [http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how- mindfulness-m...](http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness- meditation-stopped-me-feeling-like-a-fake/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds amazing. I can't figure out if this would be great for my ADHD or similar to CIA torture.

<comment><USER20> It would be both. 10 days of doing anything intensively is a LONG time!

The author did say that several people couldn't last. I'm sure you would either crack or have a breakthrough...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Remember that letting go is not forcing something to go away. Instead, > letting go is an invitation. We generously allow the recipient to choose > whether or not to accept the invitation, and we are happy either way. When > we let go of something that distracts our meditation, we are gently inviting > it to stop distracting us, but we generously allow it to decide whether or > not it wants to stay. If it decides to leave, that is fine. If it decides to > stay, that is fine too. We treat it with kindness and generosity during its > entire presence. This is the practice of letting go.

> Finally, if you do not remember a single thing you read in this chapter so > far (maybe because you do not care about this book but your wife made you > sit down and read it), happily, Jon Kabat-Zinn has a one-phrase summary of > this entire chapter:

> __Breathing as if your life depends on it.__

> If you can only remember a single phrase in this chapter, remember this, and > you will understand mindfulness meditation.

From Chade-Meng Tan's Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), warmly recommended: [http://www.siybook.com/](http://www.siybook.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have been trying to do 5 minutes a day of "ignorant meditation" (just sitting on the floor, clearing up my head, and focusing on breathing), but have seriously slacking off these past weeks.

Are there any worthwhile youtube videos on mindfulness meditation?

And is Vipassana meditation "better" than the other types?

<comment><USER23> I found the iOS "Yoga Nidra" app to be a good starting point. There is a trial version that gives you a 10-minute walkthrough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Masturbation was not prohibited in the course, although they ask not to perform any spiritual practices (stretching doesn't count) as it'd disturb others and might produce mixed results.

</comment><comment><USER25> Serenity now...

</comment><comment><USER10> This sounds like more feel-good pseudoscientific hogwash.

Is there any evidence that "not talking" can actually lead to an improved life, or is this yet another fad that makes people feel good about themselves?

<comment><USER26> People have been meditating for at least 3,500 years, I wouldn't call it a fad.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_meditation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_meditation)

<comment><USER27> People have been practicing tribal medicine for just as long. Not a fad either.

<comment><USER28> And, it turns out, some of those things even _work_. I know, right?

<comment><USER29> I guess with enough trial and error, you can find solutions to many problems, no matter how flawed your understanding of the problem is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Google won't remove my site URL from random business using it on Maps - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, I have a personal CS blog named X. When you search for X on google, on the right side, it will show a business located somewhere, with that very same name X. This business is for helping people for computer problems. They're even showing my website url.
If you search for the X business name on official channels, it doesn't exists obviously. I've tried to have at least my website removed from the listing, but fun fact my removal request is handled by the listing owner itself. I've contacted Google directly, the answer was along the lines of the following:
> We don't care if the business is using your website name and your url, we are just showing information. If you want to get the website removed please contact the owner of that listing.
What makes me angry is that I legally hold the mark name in europe. It's possible to check my name on the whois of that website. And there is no way for me to get that sh*t removed. What's also incredible, is that people will need to do all the verification crap for singing on adsense, but everyone can put every website in the listing with no verification and no one can't do anything about that.
What is even worst is that business will be associated with myself, and my users might call that business thinking to be speaking with me. And a business showing false information doesn't seems a business to trust. I've also explicitly talked about this, but Google didn't care.
Please HN. Tell me what to do. <comment><USER2> It sounds like someone is impersonating you on Google's services, you put Google on notice you are being impersonated (your Mark infringed) and as a result you are suffering (legal) damages and google's official response acknowledges this and simultaneously says they have no duty to prohibit infringement of your mark on their services and they have no duty to provide accurate information to their end users/the public.

In other words in the old phone book days, imagine if you were to list your business in the phone book but next to your business was a competitors phone number so they get all your business...you put the phone book on notice and they just say sorry we have no duty to provide accurate information.

Many have said get a lawyer to send a letter...that's a waste of time while you will continue to be damaged. Get a lawyer to file a small claims case for damages and injunction. A few benefits: 1) you could probably get a lawyer to do it on contingency (no out of pocket expenses for you, they would get a % of damages if and only if they win); 2) small claims cases can often fly under the radar of big companies and so maybe as soon as 20 days after filing you get a default judgment; 3) if the do respond a small claims case means 1 thing to them, their attorney's fees will exceed your damages so they will probably look into it and resolve it; 4) if they want to fight it (which would be stupid if your claims are legit) small claims are extremely expedited, typically there is no formal discovery and it's just a pretrial (where the parties will be encouraged to settle) and then a trial (possibly a mandatory mediation at pretrial or at the court on the day of the trial).

<comment><USER3> > It sounds like [...]

It does indeed. Except the actual details are scant to nonexistant, and as others are pointing out the paraphrased "response" from Google just doesn't sound right. Google gets IP violation reports like this _all the time_. Clearly they have some kind of appropriate canned response that notes why they feel they aren't liable and not the "We're totally guilty!" phrasing we read above.

My guess is this is more complicated than the OP is letting on.

<comment><USER4> In my experience, outside of engineering, most people at Google are surprisingly incompetent at their jobs. I absolutely would not assume Google knows what they're doing - in fact, at this point, I tend to assume Google has no idea what they're doing.

This is based on interacting with a couple dozen people though, so it is a small sample size.

<comment><USER5> From direct personal experience, they do not reliably have processes in place to deal with their legal obligations. We had YouTube DMCA issues for a while, and getting past their standard forms to deal with persistent offenders was difficult to the point where I would have expected to win a lawsuit, though as it turned out we found a way to go after the uploader directly and that was a quicker way to solve that particular problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a hack. Use the referral header or url tracking parameters to redirect the URL to some place seedy or maybe their competitor. I'm sure they'll change it quick after that.

<comment><USER7> > redirect the URL to some place seedy

That business can potentially claim damages.

<comment><USER8> They can claim them but I very much doubt they'd win in court - "we're infringing someone's Trademark and impersonating them on Google and they redirected traffic on their own website and that redirection is harming our ability to fraudulently profit from their trademark" ... kinda like suing someone you murdered because they made your knife messy.

<comment><USER9> The OP would still suffer expenses defending the messy knife claim in court. If the bad actor has deeper pockets, this would be just one more way for the bad guy to continue being a bad actor

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could you please share the exact answer you got from Google support?

You can definitely report false information on a listing, so I don't understand how they'd tell you "We don't care if the business is using your website name."

You could suggest an edit that removes your website from that place: [https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7084895](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7084895)

Or even better, report that the place doesn't exist in the first place. [https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3094088?co=GENIE.Plat...](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/3094088?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en)

<comment><AUTHOR> I cannot update my post anymore, but I already wrote it in another reply. The edit suggestions goes directly to the business owner. They can accept / deny the update request. I've also asked friends and colleagues to ask for the same edit and to report the listing as non existent but nothing happened.

The answer from the Google support I'm referring to in my post, is from a legal request I've sent to them.

This is the full response in Italian (this is the reason why I didn't attach it to the post):

        Gentile Sig.

        La ringraziamo per il suo messaggio.

        Le facciamo presente che Google è un fornitore di informazioni, non un mediatore. Forniamo informazioni su luoghi, attività commerciali e altre informazioni relative ad una particolare parola di ricerca di ricerca, ma non rivendichiamo alcun diritto sulle etichette associate a tali contenuti. Per ulteriori informazioni, la invitiamo a consultare i nostri Termini di servizio all'indirizzo https://www.google.com/policies/terms/. Per questioni riguardanti il marchio, la preghiamo di rivolgersi direttamente al proprietario della scheda o del luogo in questione. Se il proprietario dei contenuti in questione decide di modificare eventuali informazioni in seguito alla tua richiesta, tale modifica si rifletterà nella scheda la prossima volta che i robot di Google eseguono la scansione del relativo materiale di origine.

        Se ritiene che informazioni personali come il suo numero di telefono vengano visualizzate nei risultati di ricerca relativi a un'attività o a una località, può segnalare il problema tramite Google Maps seguendo le istruzioni riportate in questa pagina: https://support.google.com/business/answer/6163683

        Cordiali saluti,
        Il team di Google

Please notice that Sig. doesn't include my name in the email I've received.

This is google translate:

        We would like to point out that Google is an information provider, not a broker. We provide information about places, businesses, and other information related to a particular search word, but we do not claim any rights on the labels associated with that content. For further information, please consult our Terms of Service at https://www.google.com/policies/terms/. For trademark issues, please contact the owner of the listing or location directly. If the owner of the content in question decides to change any information following your request, this change will be reflected in the tab the next time Google's robots scan its source material.

        If you believe that personal information such as your phone number appears in search results for an activity or location, you can report the problem via Google Maps by following the instructions on this page:

<comment><USER11> Since the business listing is fake and your website/blog is real can you contact Google and claim that _you_ are the actual owner of the business and this person has fraudulently claimed it?

<comment><USER12> Since he owns the trademark and (according to his other answers) the business doesn't seem to be legitimate, or even located in the address, that's what I would do as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think this is the "correct" path. Google should be more open to requests, and try to be more understanding on users' requests.

Anyway, as I wrote in another comment the person behind this is either a normal person using his home address or someone working for another company located at that address.

This means that Google has assigned the ownership to him already. I couldn't find any way for requesting the ownership to the entry, but only a "ask the owner access to this entry" page.

Also, a business might exists in that address, but it's certainly _not_ called like my blog.

<comment><USER13> > I couldn't find any way for requesting the ownership to the entry, but only > a "ask the owner access to this entry" page

Pretty sure that's the link your looking for if you want owner's access to the entry.

It probably is your fastest and best path forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I really meant to write "ask the current owner to get access to this entry". Meaning that I would need to ask the current owner to allow me to access the entry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like you are the trademark holder and know the address of the offending business in question. Any lawyer should be able to compose a suitable nastygram to send to that business quickly and cheaply.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am the holder of the trademark, but I'm not sure it will be that easy unfortunately. The issue is that according to my research, there are no tech business located at that address. So maybe it's a private person or someone working in other businessess at that address. Also, since I have a feeling that there is a scammer behind this, I'm not sure if a robber will care about this kind of threaten. Of course it might be worth a shot, but I think it's incredible that google is allowing these kind of things to happen leaving users powerless. And I'm also kind of lucky because I hold the trademark (something valued zero at google, but it might help me getting out of this) but think about people not even knowing their website is associated to other businessess.

<comment><USER15> You're probably right. They would only be infringing your trademark if they were doing business in the same category of goods and services. What they're doing sounds much more like some kind of defamation than any kind of trademark infringement. But if they're criminals they probably don't care much about the possibility of a civil action.

Google Maps are rubbish. In my experience they don't even show streets in the right place. When you're ordering something you can always write in the "delivery instructions" something like: "Don't use Google; try openstreetmap.org instead." Then, if they turn up an hour late somewhat grumpy: "I did warn you!"

<comment><USER16> > In my experience they don't even show streets in the right place.

The map editing link / tools have been made much more prominent and accessible over the last year or two. I've moved done streets in my town and the experience was fairly painless.

<comment><USER17> Better to spend that time contributing to OSM, no?

<comment><USER16> I'm doing both. It's not an exclusive choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can probably just check the referrer header and display a giant nag message to people coming from that business listing.

"This website is not associated with company X which have been misrepresenting themselves by linking to my site from their maps listing."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion but:

1\. I would need to do that for every referral from google, something which I would avoid.

2\. Users might not click on the link and still think we're related.

Also, the very same listing is showing facebook and twitter links on which I cannot do much about.

<comment><USER19> You could also treat probes from google's address space differently, perhaps if you return 404s they'll automatically delist it.

<comment><USER20> It's bad luck to return something different to GoogleBot than what regular people see.

<comment><USER21> Fascinating use of language. Superstition implies belief in fate / deity.

It doesn't surprise to see this written now, even if only ironically. "The algorithm cannot be understood by anyone" \- which is a fact. So we summon the fates to describe its expected behaviour.

If this comment seems personal, that wasn't intended. I really don't know how people in SEO tend to communicate. But I just heard this kind of language for the first time. So it's just a sign of the times.

More like this to come. Surely.

<comment><USER22> Showing different content to Google and visitors is genuinely against Google's webmaster guidelines. It will get you delisted. It's known as cloaking.

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

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en)

<comment><USER21> >> It's bad luck to return something different to GoogleBot than what regular people see.

It's [against policy] to return something different to GoogleBot than what regular people see.

The facts are on your side, but GP's language choice remains interesting. Not right now perhaps, but down the road?

<comment><USER22> I can't tell if this is a bit where you play the oblivious pedant, or if you can't tell they were referring to this policy. Either way, I don't think they were suggesting some cosmic influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You might be able to claim the business. If they are using your info you should be able to verify ownership and take over the listing.

<comment><USER24> > You might be able to claim the business. If they are using your info you > should be able to verify ownership and take over the listing.

Verification of ownership is done via snail mail to the business address.

<comment><USER25> When I claimed a business it let me pick between that or an email to any email box on the domain for the site in question.

But I'll defer on that not being an option all the time since it's not my area of expertise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm assuming that you already tried contacting the listing owner and they haven't been cooperative.

The easiest thing to do would be to make them want to remove your website. At the top of your main page put a little note saying something like "If you're searching for <foo business> in <location> we're not them. Please click here." Then, since they don't have a website you can send users to a page that explains the situation, suggests that they may want to do business with a more reputable company, and provide links and phone numbers to their local competitors.

Alternatively, if you don't care about your websites reputation, you could just fill it with porn, popups, or other content that users won't expect or want from a business.

<comment><USER27> Clever, but unlikely to work. The business owner probably won't ever check or know about these things.

<comment><USER26> I think you underestimate people's desire to complain about things. If the website pops up a dozen new windows full of porn that autoplays with audio I guarantee someone will call the business to let them know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As a Google search user (just like everyone else) stories like this make me wonder about the accuracy of all the data Google displays. Loads of people claim Google search is terrible. Is Google actually still good at understanding the information on the web these days, or are they just riding the reputation they build a decade ago?

<comment><USER29> I stopped using Google 2 or 3 years ago because the search quality is really bad and it "helpfully" corrected many search terms to be not what I was searching for at all. It's not really a good search engine anymore.

<comment><USER30> Sadly even DDG does this for me now. The other day I searched for 'gradle get environment variable'. DDG 'helpfully' corrected it, saying "showing results for gradle _set_ environment variable", with a smaller text link below essentially saying "search what I _actually_ asked for".

It took me a while to spot that while wondering why most of the results are not relevant. Internet search just doesn't feel very good in general these days.

I mean, that's not really an appropriate place to be second guessed by a computer.

<comment><USER31> Unfortunately, we software developers are unusually precise with language. I'm sure that Google (and now DDG) get better results on average. But yes, I spend an awful lot of times strategically adding quote marks to Google searches that at one point would have just worked.

<comment><USER32> I think that's the core of the problem. With strong googlefu you used to be able to find what you wanted if it existed. Google have made search far easier; for imprecise searches the top few hits are probably going to be what I want. But if I need something precise, Google can't help me anymore, no matter what arcane set of search terms, symbols, and flags I use.

I also wish Google would detect when one page and another page are just the same content with different wrappers. You see this a lot with multiple sites that re post mailing list conversations. Google will not only return all the different sites, but will return replies, etc. as if they are unique results. So your entire first page can be a single conversation that just happens to be plastered all over the internet.

<comment><USER33> This began the day google decided that quotes were no longer an instruction to ignore pages without the exact sequence of characters that were between those quotes, but instead a tag indicating that the part of the search in quotes couldn't be silently discarded as if you hadn't typed it.

I've always suspected that this was actually a way to reduce their database size and simplify calculations (i.e. reduce costs and response time) rather than a way to make non-expert searches more forgiving. Non-experts weren't using quotes, and when they were, they meant them to be literal.

> I also wish Google would detect when one page and another page are just the > same content with different wrappers.

I've never quite understood this. I consider it an abdication from even the attempt to be a useful, complete search engine, and the indication of a change in company direction.

Incidentally, DDG (my SE of choice) isn't much better at this stuff. Lots of repetitive listings of the same copy as top listings, and I think it stems quoted stuff. I'm forgiving because I think most of its results are derived from the results of larger indexes that adopted google's style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Have you tried marking the listing as "Spam, fake, or offensive"? (Under the "Mark as close or remove" menu). Those are treated specially, they don't go to the owner. Assuming of course that you know for a fact that the listing does not exist. (You might want somebody else to do it if your recent edits were rejected.)

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said elsewhere, yes I did. I've asked colleagues and friends to report it as spam but it didn't help apparently.

<comment><USER34> That's surprising. The only other suggestion I have is to create a new listing on Maps with your website, a service-area listing where you don't have to provide a public address, but you still need to give Google some contact info in order to verify it. And then hope that -- over time -- Google ranks yours first when searching for that name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it, though? I assume they tried to reach out to him, and he just said "no I'm real and not spam thanks bye".

WRT your second suggestion, I disregard that option because:

1\. Even though I own the trademark, I'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening.

2\. IMO It's just not fair that I have to challange a scammer in this race, since he doesn't even have the right to be there in the first place. Google should just fix their broken process.

<comment><USER35> >> _1\. Even though I own the trademark, I 'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening._

I'm not a lawyer, but my layperson's understanding of trademarks is that filing and owning it also bears the responsibility of defending it. When trademark challenges are left unchallenged, the trademark you own becomes more likely to be further impinged on in the future (i.e. you must show a history of maintaining and challenging other claims). This is the flipside of David vs. Goliath horror stories where large companies go after small business owners or individuals -- they're defending their trademark.

In this case, you might be able to argue deliberate trademark tarnishment[1] as a form of trademark dilution[2]; not sure if it will help but worth thinking about legal options now if this bothers you this much.

[1] [https://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/Tradem...](https://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/Trademark- Dilution-\(Intended-for-a-non-legal-audience\).aspx)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution#Blurring_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution#Blurring_and_tarnishment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Post 'illegal' content on your website and send them a DMCA haha. Fight bullshit with more bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER37> Talk to a lawyer. Probably they will write a nasty letter to the appropriate party. Nasty letters from lawyers tend to get respected.

<comment><USER38> I have the same thought, send them a physical letter. Since they're on Google Maps OP already has their postal address!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> If Google wonders why antitrust action is inevitable, The complete lack of customer service for free services is going to cause it.

</comment><comment><USER40> "They're even showing my website url."

...

"Use the referral header or url tracking parameters to redirect the URL to some ..."

...

I just searched this comment thread for the string "goat" and got nothing.

Come on! Where is the fun ?! Where did it go ?!

</comment><comment><USER41> Google's behavior is that of a monopolist. Now that there is no competitive pressures, they simply ignore legitimate requests to save money.

Google needs to be broken up and competition introduced again in this space. If Google Maps or Google Search didn't rely on the revenues from Google Ads, they would take things like this more seriously because they would need the revenues.

This happens tens of thousands of times per day, and the fact that they can ignore this is because they have a monopoly and they are abusing their monopoly position.

<comment><USER42> Or if Google Maps results weren't presented as facts in Search over organic results containing first party information, this would not happen and other companies would have a chance to get more viewers and ad revenue themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> In the United States, you can sue John Doe (the anonymous party who created the listing) for identity fraud and trademark abuse, and then file a discovery motion compelling Google to divulge their identity so that they can be identified and prosecuted by the court, with your lawyer optionally noting to the court that Google removing the domain from the other entity as you originally requested (and paying your court costs and lawyer fees as damages, as they were notified of the fraud and refused to act) would be an acceptable settlement.

In the United Kingdom, you can sue Google for libel, as their misrepresentation of someone else as you harms you, and if you prove malice ('reckless disregard for the truth', which Google is clearly demonstrating) you can not only compel Google to remove the libelous material but also win damages from Google for their flagrant disregard for the truth.

What jurisdiction are you in?

</comment><comment><USER44> While redirecting or displaying something based on the referrer is a cool concept, it won't work. Referring traffic from google maps shows up as direct traffic unless yiu specifically add tracking code, which the OP can't do.

The only way to deal with this is to get the listing removed. Use The google my business redressal form to do that.

</comment><comment><USER45> I understand your frustration, but I don't think you're giving a complete picture. I did a quick 5 minute search on the internet to figure out what the website in question was, and it's the Italian equivalent of itlab.com (as in IT Lab), which is a bit generic to say the least. The business in question appears to be an actual business, but with a somewhat different name, and which is, actually, what could reasonably called and IT lab, as in a computer repair / network installer / small time website developer shop.

Searching on Google for your website name, including the TLD, does not yield the business result, only searching for the equivalent of "itlab".

All in all it seems to me like Google should remove the business suggestion for that search, but I don't think it's as clear-cut as you put it.

<comment><USER46> I think the OP intentionally didn't identify their website for privacy reasons. Don't you feel like this comment is kind of doxxing them?

<comment><USER45> He link to his personal website in his HN profile, and in his personal website he prominently links to the blog we're talking about. I thought about it and it really didn't feel like doxxing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Based on your HN profile, I assume the blog you mean is [https://blog.informaticalab.com/](https://blog.informaticalab.com/). When I search for "informaticalab" on Google (US) I do indeed see a business result, but it doesn't have a URL on it (any more). The Facebook and Twitter links seem to be legit, although obviously the address and telephone may be dubious.

The business has reviews that suggests there is actually some IT consultation or support business there, is it possible they are actually operating under your name? Have you tried calling the number associated?

<comment><USER48> I don't know if it was a good idea showing the link in the comments, since OP clearly didn't want their business mentioned.

I understand anyone could've done what you did, but that means that they would have to care enough to actually go looking through OP's profile and them finding out the name would be deliberate and not just plainly advertised for anyone.

<comment><USER49> It makes it really hard to understand the issue without seeing it firsthand. For the community to dig into the issue effectively, pretty much need to see it in order to suggest solutions.

I reached the same conclusion as @advisedwang by following OP's profile information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Bad publicity on a major news site seems to be a major Google support channel. So you're halfway there; had you included names in this post you'd have a chance at that avenue.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm not sure if this would help, but have you considered trying to add Local Business metadata to the site that Google can pick up?

It's possible that it'd overwrite the other business entry, or you might be able to report the business as a duplicate. At the very least, you might end up with both showing up stacked instead of just the one so you might reduce how many people interact with the fraudulent listing.

</comment><comment><USER52> Please consider adding instructions for reproducing the issue to this thread. E.g. what's the name of the business that's using your URL, and what's your URL? Without such instructions it's much harder for others on HN, or from Google, to help.

</comment><comment><USER53> Did you get a closure on this ? You can also use this form to file a request. [https://support.google.com/business/gethelp](https://support.google.com/business/gethelp)

</comment><comment><USER54> what is the name of the listing? i am a google guide and by some mysterious google power, whenever changes i make get approved instantly so i can try to mark them as fake or remove the information you want.

other than that... hire a lawyer and send them a cease and desist

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm not saying you should do this, but I bet if you put malware on your site it would be gone from Google overnight.

It would be a terrible thing to do (you'd never get your reputation back), but it would be interesting to see what happened.

<comment><USER56> If only there would be a way to serve a differnt sites to users coming from maps.google.com....

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I am trying to change our business location on google maps for the last 6 months.

</comment><comment><USER58> Did you contact the listing owner? Did they reject your changes?

</comment><comment><USER59> Did you recently register the domain?

</comment><comment><USER60> [removed]

<comment><USER61> It's not ok to post like this to HN. No doubt your intentions are good but we don't want HN to be used to harass people, and definitely not to incite an online mob, which in the limit case is what this point to.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER60> Fair enough (I'd delete it but cannot now)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> But did you try to contact the owner of the listing ? They might remove it.

<comment><USER63> Given the poster learned that requests are forwarded to the listing owner, it sounds like they (the other business) don't intend to fix it.

<comment><AUTHOR> ^ Exactly this.

I've also asked friends and colleagues to request the same removal and report that listing, but nothing happened.

<comment><USER64> Call me cynical (which is fair), but I would be very pleasantly surprised if Google's "report inappropriate results" links were actually logged and analyzed by an actual human instead of routed to /dev/null, because that seems like a whole lot of work for a company famous for not having reachable human support.

The message feels more like one to placate users into believing their concerns will be addressed, and hoping said users won't follow up on it to see if any action has been taken. I do hope I'm wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the things that got myself very mad at Google. They didn't even bother to put my name / surname in the response email they sent. The follow up response to my response, was a subset of the first response, and still without my name after "Sig. ".

In my last email with no response (4 days ago) I've asked to be called on the phone. They probably have a special place in /dev/null for emails sent by my address.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is it worth co-founding a startup with great funding but a poor team? - <AUTHOR>

I am lucky to have a network of friends that have excellent connections for funding through family and work.  Recently they have approached me to co-found a startup catering primarily to legal advisory firms.
They are certainly friends, but are not the most disciplined or experienced business people.  They have a primarily legal background, so I don't think they've worked on a software development project before.  And their attitude is 'funding first, business plan after,' which immediately sets off a red flag in my mind.  Basically, I question their ability to found and grow a company successfully.
They have access to a few hundred thousand dollars (possibly more down the road) in funding and the support of some 'heavy hitting' business people, including the CMO of one of the major airline ticketing sites on the web.  (I am going to leave out the name of the company for their own privacy).
My question is: is it worth jumping on to this project for the networking opportunities, the increased pay, and the obvious freedoms from a 9-5, even though I do not necessarily have faith in the idea or people?  Who you know is a lot more valuable than what you know, especially as you get higher up in business, and I would love to be able to incorporate the 'heavy hitters' into my network for future advice or funding for a personal project.  At the same time, I am horrified of dealing with a group of people who don't know what they're doing for six months, only to realize that the entire project has been a naive waste of time.
As a note, I am pretty happy with my 9-5 job right now ... it is rewarding and I am paid well (although I would ask for much more to join the startup), but there is no chance of me becoming a  'heavy hitter' there in the next three years or so.
Thanks in advance for your feedback. <comment><USER2> You said that you do not necessarily have faith in the idea or people. That says it all. There is no commitment from your end and it seems that you really don't care. So, don't just jump in for the heck of it, or just for the sake of leaving a 9-5 job. If the founder himself is not committed enough, this startup would go nowhere, no matter how much funding you get...

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic in that I have no faith in the idea or people -- it is more that the idea is so ambiguous that I am weary of trusting it.

If the idea eventually resolves to a more solid plan, I would certainly be committed to it. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> first and foremost, if you don't feel comfortable undertaking a project like this, for all of the reasons you listed, then don't. if you're going to do this, you need to jump in head first. asking if your situation is "worth" it is a value decision that would have a different answer for each individual person. if its not a good fit for you, then don't do it.

having said that, if you do go for it, make sure to set them straight. you might not need an official business plan, but you do need to at least have a road to profitability written somewhere on a napkin before you get started. it needs to be shown that it can be done. make sure the startup follows a good path and make sure that your investors/partners understand what needs to be done. introduce stability so you can maintain a stable paycheck.

and i think its been said elsewhere on YC, so i'm probably stealing the idea, but being a startup founder doesn't mean that you can expertly produce the startup from start to finish by yourself. it means that you have the knowledge and leadership required to make sure that the task gets completed. if you guys need better coders, hire some freelancers or new employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback ... the idea that these folks haven't thought things through as much as I would in their situation is scary but I guess not a deal- breaker as long as they can lead.

<comment><USER3> no problem.

this sounds like a heavily technical project. before jumping in to it, you should assert majority control on the direction of the project. not necessarily ownership or anything, but would you want a team of lawyers with no piloting experience flying a plane? no, the pilot should be at the wheel, making the directional decisions.

such is this project. a developer should be in the lead of building an application. you're the developer, so make sure that they understand that while you'll seriously consider everything everyone says and bow to others in their areas of expertise, the final decisions lie with you because at the end of the day, you're building an application.

that'll probably make you more comfortable :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. My biggest fear is that they will try to assert control where they do not have expertise. If they gave me the control I need to build the software correctly -- instead of just saying I have control but then making unreasonable demands later -- I would feel good about it.

<comment><USER3> then make that clear to them, perhaps with a good employment agreement contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> wait so you get to leave the 9-5, make your own rules, and get paid more?

how is this not a win-win.

best case: you take control and make this startup work

worst case: you fail and go back to your old job, richer

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a clear cut win-win to me because, even though I may be richer, I may hate working with these people and my life may be miserable for that period of time. And the 'richer' argument is only in the short term -- what is one year of high salary followed by nothing compared to steady gains in pretty good salary over time?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this project was a woman, would you marry her? I didn't think so.

If the answer was yes, you never would have asked the question in the first place. You'd already be working.</comment>


Human hands evolved so we could punch each other - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23018-human-hands-evolved-so-we-could-punch-each-other.html

<comment><USER2> Disputed: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4947241></comment>


XJST - Extensible JavaScript Transformations: simple, rapid, expressive - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/veged/xjst

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there any reason for this post to be downvoted?</comment>


Educated Guesses on Software Transitioning to macOS on ARM - <AUTHOR> https://shapeof.com/archives/2020/6/educated_guesses_about_a_mac_transition_to_arm.html <comment><USER2> Is it possible that Apple could add the ARM cpu to be a co-processor alongside x86? Macbook Pro 16 then has an additional powerful processor that devs can target while remaining compatible with x86. Allows a 4-5 year cycle until x86 gets dropped completely. Perhaps overly complicated and expensive to do this? I can see small/light machines (Macbook/Macbook Air) would shift to ARM only.

<comment><USER3> The T2 inside MacBook Pros is basically an A10. So it certainly isn't too expensive to do.

But it certainly is an additional complexity from software perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't moving to a new instruction set only a problem with proprietary software? Open source operating systems seem to be able to be ported to new architectures almost effortlessly, some of them quite old or obscure. It's true that some programs require modification to be able to run on new platforms, but the cost of doing that is minimal compared to the cost of "porting" binary software to new architectures, which is that of simply rewriting it from scratch. Why is everyone talking about emulation and coprocessors when the real issue is basically just a matter of source code availability?

</comment><comment><USER5> I would love to see a provisional x86 compatibility layer baked into the silicon itself.

<comment><USER6> considering that the latest OSX is x86-64 and AVX2 only, that stuff is patented for decades to come, and its pretty much absolutely 100% Guaranteed that Intel/AMD will not give Apple a license, for any amount of money Apple would be willing to pay.

<comment><USER7> x86-64 core patents expire in 2023.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but extension instructions OSX relies on are much newer than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They better have an emulator to run Intel Mac apps.

<comment><USER9> They will probably not need that. Most apps should be able to be recompiled for Arm with no changes. Only a small number of apps (some audio pipeline apps for instance) are written so close to the metal that the processor change will require more work.

<comment><USER10> But there are lots of apps that aren't actively maintained, and so will never get recompiled, even if they could be. And even the ones that are actively maintained might not be ready and recompiled on day 1. Emulation would go a long way to make the transition less painful.

<comment><USER11> Bitcode[1] would've been a good way to handle that, if Apple had ever supported it for Mac apps in addition to their other platforms.

1\. [https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest- devel...](https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-developer- news-at-wwdc-that-nobodys-talking-about-bitcode/)

<comment><USER12> I don't see how that helps apps not in the App Store, as bitcode need to changed to a platform specific type .... unless this was done on the fly on the host platform.

<comment><USER13> Apart from a return of the dreaded Win-style endless installer progress bar surely doing it on the host, once, wouldn't be a problem. The "issue" would be squaring the result with notarization and bundle integrity, but that solves itself since it means Apple is already sitting on the (in this case bitcode) app whether it's in store or not.

But they'd probably use it as an incentive to drive stuff further towards the app store.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer led illegal purge of male workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/06/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-led-illegal-purge-of-male-employees-lawsuit-charges/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1475791811 <comment><USER4> Just reading this brought back memories of working at LinkedIn, and why I'll never again work for a company who has institutional performance review processes. That pretty much excludes all big tech companies and I'm perfectly fine with that. The cookie-cutter performance review process is impersonal and has absolutely nothing to do with helping people do their best work.

In my case, I had a manager who simply didn't like me because I'm gay and used the performance review process, and eventually put me on an action plan and forced me to quit.

Most of the big tech companies will put you on something called a PIP, which is a "Performance Improvement Plan". It basically means they are preparing to fire you, but they give you an option: quit now, and you can have some severance, or you could try and stay and complete the PIP, but still run the risk of being fired for any reason, and in that case, you get no severance. It's exactly what happened to me, and I decided it wasn't worth the stress to try and stay and fight it so I just quit.

It was the most demoralizing experience ever, and really showed me that these processes are in place so managers can just get rid of people they don't want or like.

<comment><USER5> That's not really about the review process, but about making one of the biggest mistakes you can make: After you know your manager doesn't like you, you didn't do everything in your power to either switch teams or change companies.

Nothing good will come out of working for a manager that doesn't like you. You'll get worse reviews than you deserve and worse raises. You'll get less exposure to other parts of the company: Every second you spend in that situation is a second wasted.

That said, I am absolutely not putting the blame on you here. A manager that doesn't like one of their reports should either get over it or do their best to ship them to a place where they'll be better appreciated. The tech industry is full of terrible managers though, and you are probably not going to make yours better.

So the real rule when looking for new jobs is to avoid places where they hire first and do allocations later, as your picture of what the company is at interview time might be completely different than what you'll find on day one.

<comment><USER6> > So the real rule when looking for new jobs is to avoid places where they > hire first and do allocations later, as your picture of what the company is > at interview time might be completely different than what you'll find on day > one.

Oh hey that's actually a whole lot of big corps ... most prominently Google, isn't it?

<comment><USER7> My interview experience with Google a couple years ago was godawful and horribly mismanaged. Just reinforced my conviction to never work for a large company.

<comment><USER8> Do share, please (if you feel comfortable).

<comment><USER7> Sure. Set up a date over email for an initial phone screen with the recruiter. Left work early to make the appointment at home. Recruiter never called. Asked WTF, got an apology and another appointment for next week. Recruiter missed that one, too (really). Finally made a connection a few days later, got bizarre questions like "estimate 2^14 (or something) in decimal". Did poorly on that, so they forwarded me to another recruiter who passed me on to a developer for a code interview. I was fairly fed up at this point and not looking for a job anyway, so I didn't do any interview prep. Interviewer sounded bored as hell, asked me to implement a graph deep copy algorithm and some other basic stuff. I haven't done algorithms implementation since college; I work in the real world where we have Google and libraries. So I bombed that, too. Got a call a few days later saying they're not interested. OK, see ya.

Just felt like going through the cogs of a machine that didn't give a shit, which really didn't give me incentive to give a shit in return. Big companies suck.

<comment><USER9> Sounds pretty much like my experience with Google. I'm an embedded programmer with a EE degree, not a CS degree, and they hammered me with a bunch of algorithm questions like you said. I'm not even interested in (nor qualified for) heavy-CS type work; I thought maybe they'd want me for more low-level stuff or doing some kind of work with hardware, custom OS or driver development, etc.

But as I said above, don't paint all big companies with the same brush. Google's interviews are not at _all_ like the interviews I've done with a bunch of other big companies. In many big companies, the different groups work entirely differently anyway; when I interviewed at Freescale, it wasn't any different than interviewing at some small company really, and the small workgroup I ended up working in was a _great_ team to work with, and again didn't deal that much with the rest of the company anyway. It was a great experience except for upper management screwing it all up after a couple of years.

<comment><USER7> Haha, yeah, I do systems development, not far from your area of work, I imagine. I have a CS degree, but I hated doing it. Google seemed to be aiming for CS experts, and I just want to make computers do cool/useful stuff.

Of course, there's other disadvantages to working for big companies. Lots of dead weight (see: that recruiter I worked with), lots of rules, a lack of trust, lots of bureaucracy... I'd do it if I have to, but the small company vibe works way better for me.

<comment><USER9> There's advantages to big companies too: better pay usually, better benefits, more structure, and in my experience more professionalism. Also the ability to move laterally is useful. If you're a female or minority you'll probably do better in a big company too because they're very intolerant of harassment and discrimination because they can get in legal trouble for it, so they're _very_ proactive about addressing these things early on, providing training for it, etc., whereas some small companies I've been at seem to have a "good-ole boy" culture still hanging around. If you can get into the right workgroup, a big company can be a good experience, but different groups and departments can be run very differently from each other within the same company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "We believe this process allows our team to develop and do their best work. > Our performance-review process also allows for high performers to engage in > increasingly larger opportunities at our company"

Ok so has that worked out well for Yahoo? Clearly it's been enough time by now to do an evaluation of Yahoo practices looking back and say something like: "Yeah thanks to these great management practices we have reconquered market share / are the new exciting place where everyone wants to work / or we lead this revolutionary research"? It ended up being owned by a phone company in the end.

So if Yahoo is a failing company, what they did there, will be associated with failure. It seems they effectively moved the cause of promoting women in technology fields backwards. When someone will say "we should find a way to promote women more" ... "Oh, right, Yahoo was heavily into that, yeah that was ugly, the lawsuit and all...".

It is a bit like the crazy person advocating for your favorite language or framework, it's nice to have a fan, but because they are crazy, they are pushing everyone away with their behavior.

> as well as for low performers to be transitioned out."

"Transitioned out" ... there is an almost a positive ring to it. "We've reached out to them, found their pain points and helped them transition out to a new stage". Is that how everyone talks now? Or is it just me who finds it grating.

<comment><USER11> You remind me of that old joke:

When a girl fails in math class, it's "women are bad at math".

When a guy fails, it's "John is really stupid".

<comment><USER12> But when someone says "diversity is automatically good so we'll form a maths class with mostly women" and that maths class gets poor grades, it doesn't help further the notion that "more women equals better performance".

<comment><USER13> I think this applies in reverse as well.

When I see a woman running an organization that believes in inequality as a prerequisite (I'm right wing and I can say that without qualification), here I'll use the Tories in the UK, then if I see a Margaret Thatcher or a Theresa May, then I know they have the right stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "..less than 20 percent female. Within a year and a half those top managers were more than 80 percent female,"

Even if they were not deliberate about it, they must have talked about how this might be perceived by employees.

As bad as this issue is, I think hiring friend/referral/former colleague, especially en mass is much bigger issue that's rarely talked about because it's not necessarily illegal.

However, I cannot overemphasize how demoralizing it is, especially when they aren't proven to be any better.

<comment><USER15> I am OK with this. What annoys me is the discrimination against non asians happening in the valley these days. I mean, gee wilikers.

<comment><USER16> Surely you mean non-whites and non-asians.

Caucasians are still a huge portion of the Silicon Valley work force. It's women, hispanics, and african americans who make up some tiny percentage...

<comment><USER17> Are you so sure that there are fewer women, hispanics, and African Americans in Silicon Valley because of discrimination, specifically?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was once a fan of Mayer when she first took over Yahoo, until she led a crusade against remote workers. As a remote worker myself I can tell you this crusade sent ripples throughout the industry. A lot of tech companies (especially outside the bay area) want to emulate the cool kids like Yahoo, Google, and Apple, and even the company I work for started questioning its WFH policies.

So no, I don't feel sorry for her one bit.

<comment><USER19> >this crusade sent ripples throughout the industry

Were there any other companies that followed yahoo's lead?

<comment><USER20> Mine did. But it was a smaller company with about 500 people, who were mostly older with families. We had maybe 1 full-time remote worker (who was actually pretty good), and the rest of the people would simply work from home one day a week. But after hearing about Marissa's crusade, they killed that off. Didn't change performance, but it did kill morale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, so many different news about the same tech company within a month and now this one too. They could not have pulled a better stunt to compete with what Apple and Google is doing in their keynote.

[http://gizmodo.com/7-of-yahoos-biggest-fuck- ups-1745729341](http://gizmodo.com/7-of-yahoos-biggest-fuck-ups-1745729341)

[http://gizmodo.com/how-yahoo-totally-blew-it-on- security-178...](http://gizmodo.com/how-yahoo-totally-blew-it-on- security-1787177844)

[http://gizmodo.com/heres-what-happened-to-all-of-marissa- may...](http://gizmodo.com/heres-what-happened-to-all-of-marissa-mayers-yahoo- acqu-1781980352)

[http://gizmodo.com/yahoo-secretly-scanned-users-emails- for-t...](http://gizmodo.com/yahoo-secretly-scanned-users-emails-for-the-nsa- and-fbi-1787401845)

[http://gizmodo.com/state-sponsored-hackers-stole-personal- in...](http://gizmodo.com/state-sponsored-hackers-stole-personal-information- from-1786958663)

[http://gizmodo.com/sad-yahoo-sale-confirms-that-marissa- maye...](http://gizmodo.com/sad-yahoo-sale-confirms-that-marissa-mayer- failed-1784155301)

[http://gizmodo.com/the-internet-is-targeting-yahoo-for- foste...](http://gizmodo.com/the-internet-is-targeting-yahoo-for-fostering-an- illega-1755162398)

I almost felt sorry for them when I read articles like that it's the saddest deal in history as they could got more much money earlier. Now, I feel good that they are gone. fuff .. gone ..

I need to take care of my Flickr account now.

<comment><USER22> You have to wonder if there is some sort of campaign to smear yahoo? The timing does seem strange, but perhaps it's simply because they are under so much scrutiny because of the eventual sale?

<comment><USER21> I have these speculations:

1\. Tech giants are making room for themselves.

2\. Their employees (male ones especially) are unhappy with deal, so they are attacking it.

3\. Verizon is doing this to get discount.

4\. CEO does not care about hiding lies anymore, she wants to be fired to get her money and may be she has lost control over her employees.

5\. (highly improbable) They want users to delete their accounts due this kind of bad press.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's a reason why people make tons of money playing the stock market against companies that artificially force gender, or racial equality.

Practices like these are going to ruin your business the same way being sexist, or racist will. Either you hire the best person for the job, or you'll be beaten by companies that do.

<comment><USER24> This sounds great in mythical theoretical free-market land.

But businesses have been making bad business decisions to justify nepotism, racism, sexism, any other kind of ism you can imagine since the history of business and I haven't ever heard of competition actually punishing any of them for it. Markets just aren't that efficient. The job that two different people for the same job might do just isn't big enough (or, really, isn't predictable enough) to matter. For every position (yes, even CEO) there are hundreds of thousands of people who would do a roughly indistinguishable (at the time of hiring) job.

It's just that culture and regulation change, so the people running businesses and the laws they have to follow change, so business practices improve.

<comment><USER25> I suggest a compromise to only include certain kinds of jobs like manual labor under employment anti-discrimination laws, where workers are actually commodities that are measureable and interchangeable.

<comment><USER26> So tell me, what exact dollar amount do you need to make where discrimination against you is ok?

<comment><USER27> I think it's more of a question of how much leverage do you have.

If everyone is discriminating against you, like Jim Crow South, it doesn't really matter how much you make, because you can't go and find a different job easily.

But if discrimination is limited, _and_ the job market for this particular job and in this particular area favors employees, then it's a self-correcting problem - people will just walk. And if an effective boycott is possible and will take care of it, why go through the slower and more resource constrained court system?

<comment><USER26> I fail to see why the ability to get a job easily should be taken into account whether you get to have a legal remedy or not. And quite frankly, I have no faith whatsoever that a boycott would work, or gain any traction at all. We have had numerous stories of companies acting shitty all over, and yet they don't seem to have problems hiring.

<comment><USER27> Let me clarify that.

I don't actually particularly care about whether the boycott would work or not, in a sense of preventing the affected company from hiring more people. What I care about is remedying the material harm that is caused to people discriminated against.

If you are looking for a job, and they tell you that you needn't apply because of your race/gender/..., but there are thousands more equivalent jobs in your market that don't have such restrictions, there's no substantial harm to you - you can just pick any of those other jobs. If this particular business can hire enough bigots (or just people who don't care) to keep them running - <USER2> what? It still doesn't harm you. So it becomes a matter of principle, and from that perspective, I think freedom of speech and association is a more important principle than private non-discrimination, and so for the lack of measurable harm, the former should be preferred.

It's not just about jobs, too - same principle applies to services. if you have 100 bakers around you that aren't bigoted, and one who is, they cannot cause any meaningful amount of harm to anyone but themselves, by driving customers away.

Of course, if other businesses take note and start discriminating too, at some point, there are enough of them that your ability to get a job or service is hampered - you can't just go elsewhere (not easily, at least). Where and when that happens, discrimination should become illegal - but localized to the affected area and/or industry.

Think of it as anti-monopoly legislation. There are many shady practices that we don't punish businesses for until they are in a market dominant position (either by themselves, or through collusion with other businesses, which sometimes can be implicit). Same principle - shady or not, it shouldn't be prohibited unless it clearly harms someone.

<comment><USER27> It gets a bit tricky. The problem is that a lot of this kind of stuff is really pervasive, but there's no conscious collusion. Things like "women are just not as good at tech" become pervasive cultural stereotypes, and employers apply them subconsciously, with the result being widespread discrimination that is obvious in aggregated data, but not necessarily in any individual case.

So the kind of analysis that's necessary to determine whether legal anti- discrimination measures are needed or not is rather different from what anti- monopoly watchdogs usually do.

But yes, something like that _in principle_. A government institution that keeps track of various metrics and accepts individual reports, aggregates them, and determines which fields, industries, locations etc need anti- discrimination enforcement with teeth. Presumably with some sort of due process where this can be challenged etc, but ultimately, the decision should be made on the basis of whether there is discrimination or not, and not on whether it's intentional or not.

<comment><USER25> It is often the case that the discrimination is pervasive, but not that it is difficult for women for example to find jobs. If deliberate collusion makes it difficult for women to find jobs, that would be when I would suggest anti- trust regulators to be involved. This may include for example anti- discrimination restrictions in consent decrees.

<comment><USER27> It's not just about being able to find a job. It's about being able to find a job that pays the same money for the same skill & experience, and offers the same career opportunities in the future.

Based on the statistics that we have, it's definitely a problem, at least in the tech sector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is ultimately the result of things like 'implicit biases' training that tell you to accept that you are unfairly subconsciously advantaging majorities and that you should explicitly disadvantage them to make up for your biases. Disgusting.

<comment><USER29> Implicit bias is a real phenomenon backed up by good studies: [http://www.vox.com/2014/12/26/7443979/racism-implicit- racial...](http://www.vox.com/2014/12/26/7443979/racism-implicit-racial-bias)

Whether or not reverse discrimination was taking place at Yahoo, it is worthwhile to try to reduce the implicit bias we practice in our own lives.

<comment><USER30> It's not reverse discrimination; it's just discrimination.

<comment><USER29> Yes, reverse discrimination[0] is an example of discrimination.

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

<comment><USER30> I object to the term because of this, from the article you linked to:

> In a narrower sense, it refers to the specific negative impacts Whites or > males may experience because of affirmative action policies. The two > meanings are often conflated, which leads to confusion and misinformation.

As companies try to fight historical biases, there will be some from the dominant group that suffer — those that might have been promoted under the old biased system won't be under a new less biased system. Advantages that the dominant group had will naturally be eroded. That's all well and good; an inevitable and desirable consequence of progress in the right direction.

However, if the Yahoo! figures from the article are right, this seems to be a case of active discrimination against male employees, which isn't the same thing at all.

Calling them both "reverse discrimination" elides the difference between those two possible meanings. So I prefer to think of what we're discussing here as active discrimination of no substantive difference to the usual historical discrimination. In Yahoo! some female managers were the dominant group — they had the power — and they used that power to discriminate against male employees to fill the ranks with other women. That's straight-up discrimination.

Of course, the whole thing might be nonsense, but we'll have to wait and see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yahoo is in full self-destruct mode this week.

<comment><USER32> Someone could wonder if all this is being triggered by people with an agenda.

<comment><USER31> To what end? Yahoo is dead and being purchased by Verizon already for an agreed upon price. I guess they could back out, but that seems unlikely.

<comment><USER33> Not totally unlikely [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/06/report-verizon- wants-1-bil...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/06/report-verizon- wants-1-billion-discount-after-yahoo-privacy-concerns/)

<comment><USER34> Another version of the story made it to the HN frontpage: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12657576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12657576)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm extra-suspicious of this lawsuit because of the opportunistic timing. He was fired in January 2015, more than 1.5 years ago. And yet the lawsuit is only filed now during Verizon's process of closing its acquisition of Yahoo. Whether or not he has a case, his motives now have an antagonistic taint because he no doubt timed this to maximize the PR damage and his chances of getting a quick settlement.

<comment><USER11> If the article is a good preview of the case, it does seem to be bullshit... The mechanism by which this discrimination supposedly happen was the stack ranking feedback system.

Now I believe stack ranking is stupid and somewhat cruel. But I don't see how it allows more discrimination than other grading systems. The lawsuit also doesn't claim intent and it'd be quite a stretch to assign liability to the CEO for hard-to-prove unintentional side effect.

<comment><USER36> Now, once the lawsuit is filed, he gets to do discovery. And if some exec at Yahoo has ever said something over email to the effect of aggressively promoting women, and, given the current set of beliefs in the Valley, it is hard to believe nothing would turn up, the guy might have struck gold here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> With all the hubbub surrounding Mayer/Yahoo, why hasn't the board or shareholders fired her?

<comment><USER11> Mostly because there are people with opinions that differ from the hn/reddit echo chamber.

Nobody denies that yahoo failed, but most people also believe that it's fate was sealed the day it refused to buy google, and that she did about as well as anybody would have.

...but also: she'd get a 60$ million bonus if fired, and considering that yahoo has already lost 90% of its former value and is being sold of, people probably stopped caring.

<comment><USER38> Yahoo refused to buy Google? I don't remember that.

In 2000, when Yahoo signed the deal to use Google search results, they also made an investment as well. IIRC, they sold that when Google went public. Obviously, Yahoo made a ton on that.

<comment><USER39> Larry and Sergey tried selling their pagerank engine to Yahoo back in 1998, before they formed Google. Yahoo wasn't interested. They founded google as a fallback plan after being turned down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Marissa Meyer seems like a really bad CEO.

<comment><USER41> She's basically in the spot Fiorina was in - the ship is slowly taking on water for Schumpeterian life cycle reasons.

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure why you wish to remove agency and assign victimhood here. She knew the job was difficult when she took it.

Speaking of Fiorina, there was a guy who was a CEO of a company taking tons of water too. He turned it around. And then he won the primary in which Fiorina also ran.

<comment><USER41> I wasn't assigning victimhood that I know of - Yahoo is just an older company. My read is that they'd have had to have pivoted pretty sharply. We tend to assign praise or blame on people who pivot depending on how it works out, but it's just not clear that anyone ( except perhaps a very select few ) is simply better at that than anyone else. It's as much gambling as it is playing a game.

I am not 100% sure which primary you refer to, but McCain never turned any company around and Trump has just pivoted to being a floating brand. He's left a trail of wreckage in his wake but still gets to claim otherwise. I don't hold bankruptcy against anyone but you don't then get to construct an "I'm a winner" narrative from that. At least his communications style is that of a con man.

Now, in America, the phenomenon of Perfesser Harold Hill is really a thing - <USER3> "jasper" who does good without being good - but the narrative there doesn't work, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm deeply offended by this and personally I will cease to use Yahoo Mail. I urge any self-respecting males to stop using any of Yahoo services as a form of protest for this despicable act of discrimination. And I'm serious; too much is too much.

<comment><USER44> So you judge mere on the fact that some lawsuit was filed? Without hearing, without proofs presented, without looking into other party's version?

Perhaps this is exactly what someone is expecting from you now.

<comment><USER43> I don't deny that the situation must be analyzed carefully but going from "less than 20 percent female" to "more than 80 percent female" in less than 2 years leaves little room for doubt. Also this adds up to the undisclosed security breach and the fact that Yahoo secretly scanned emails for US Intel.. Not a very defensible behavior.

<comment><USER45> You had no problem with them being 80% male?

<comment><USER43> I had no problem with it, why would I have ? Some workplaces have 99% men, others 99% women but very few workplaces fire out 60% of their employees just because their gender is not trendy anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> We live in a "free" and democratic society but when you work at mid-large companies they are all basically idealistic dictatorships with brown shirts running the ranks. It really is a conundrum in some places.

</comment><comment><USER47> Worked for a high tech company in the US that hired mostly ethnic Asian people especially immigrants from China, Japan, Korea because most were single or came over alone and would work 12 hours, weekends, etc. THey did not protest, maybe could not protest because of whatever visa they were on. CEO was from China, family members in senior positions at the company etc.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does anyone here even use Yahoo's products or services? I wonder why Yahoo is still significant and why there are stockholders dumb enough to stay. Yahoo is a sinking ship, imho.

<comment><USER37> Yes. I used Flickr before Yahoo purchased it, and have watched Yahoo ruin it.

I've tried alternatives (Instagram, 500px) but keep coming back to Flickr because I just prefer it to the rest.

Over the last couple of months, I have started migrating my photos/contacts to other photo sharing networks in anticipation of the eventual straw that broke the camels back.

<comment><USER48> So did I. Same goes for Tumblr.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This seems to be a self-policing crime.

</comment><comment><USER50> As an example of the rot in Yahoo, the Yahoo Finance Message Boards don't work in IE 11.

</comment><comment><USER51> does anyone have links to go to court documents that have been filed?

</comment><comment><USER52> >Yahoo's diversity reports indicate that the percentage of women in leadership positions at the company rose slightly to 24 percent in 2015 from 23 percent in 2014.

This is buried in the very last line of the article.

</comment><comment><USER53> Better title: "Lawsuit: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer accused of illegal purge of male workers". An accusation is very different from a verdict.

</comment><comment><USER54> There's a bizarre amount of negative Yahoo news lately, and a lot of it references Mayer directly.

I wonder if Verizon isn't trying to shed her and her departure bonus.

</comment><comment><USER55> This whole thread is deeply disturbing. The bald statement in the headline is deeply disturbing. The fundamental assumption that women can't possibly be deserving of management positions. That any objective measure of performance would certainly favor men. That any man that loses his job _to a woman_ has been treated unfairly.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash It's not just any man...it was a lot of men.

This kind of discrimination could be excused if it brought a tangible value to the company, but this reshuffling did nothing to help this ailing company.

Meyer's actions were discriminatory at worst; at best, it was merely gross incompetence.

<comment><USER55> Lots of companies fail to survive Silicon Valley forever. Yahoo!'s future aside, the conversation was about promotion, not ailing companies.

A lot of women are routinely overlooked in management promotions. Since its 80% (or usually much more) men in every other company in Silicon Valley, we'll have to call discrimination and incompetence at all of them?

The assumption that _women can 't possibly belong in management_ is galling. No mystery why Silicon Valley has the reputation it does.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash >The assumption that women can't possibly belong in management is galling. No mystery why Silicon Valley has the reputation it does.

You're putting a lot of words in other people's mouths in this thread, and I believe you are equating skepticism and discomfort from the lawsuit's allegations with willful ignorance or even sincere sexism.

If a CEO wishes to fire half the company and hire new people, sure. If the CEO wants to fire half the company (who happen to be men) and replace them with new people (who happen to be women), again, sure.

If a CEO implements a review system designed to illegitimize honest work by a cohort of people and have them demoted and/or fired to minimize severance costs while bringing on or promoting people of a different cohort, then we have a discrimination problem.

Honestly I am a little surprised at the accusations of sexism towards people that are expressing discomfort with what appears to be a primarily sexist act.

<comment><USER56> One of the things that has been only lightly touched upon:

> ... and have them demoted and/or fired to minimize severance costs ...

Tangential to this was the violation of the California and federal WARN act. Yahoo reduced the workforce by 600 employees without declaring the corresponding reduction in force under WARN acts.

If a company has 100 (federal) or 75 (California) or more full time employees that have been employed for 6 of the past 12 months and lays off 50 or more employees during a 30 day period, the employer falls into the WARN act.

This also isn't something that's new at all - its been brewing for months. [http://www.californialaborandemploymentlaw.net/2016/yahoo- ac...](http://www.californialaborandemploymentlaw.net/2016/yahoo-accused-warn- act-violations/) is from March 6th.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What happened to passenger hovercraft? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34658386 <comment><USER2> Nice pictures and stories, but no answer to the actual question.

A hovercraft has to maintain a cushion of air. That means that it can only handle waves that are small relative to it. You never want even one wave to wipe out that cushion.

So a hovercraft has to be big. It doesn't want to go over open water with large seas. Therefore it winds up going over short stretches of relatively sheltered water. Given its speed, it will make many trips. You want it carrying people every time. So you need a high volume of potential traffic.

However when civil engineers see a short stretch of relatively sheltered water separating people who want to go back and forth, eventually they build a bridge or tunnel there. And then nobody needs that hovercraft any more.

Now we can improve hovercraft technology. We can possibly find new routes where the new hovercraft makes economic sense. But eventually that too will be doomed by the same facts. We have ever improving bridge and tunnel technology. And the hovercraft always loses once one of those is built.

<comment><USER3> If thats the case, i do wonder why both USA and Russia have hovercrafts in their navies. Hovercrafts that at least in the US case is supposed to handle landing troops from beyond the horizon rapidly. If they can't handle waves then they seem oddly limited for such usage.

<comment><USER2> My understanding is that the US tried hovercraft out in Vietnam, and then abandoned them. By contrast the Soviet Union put a lot of effort into them.

For military use, hovercraft have the ability to travel on water, mud, ice, and fairly flat land at very high speed. These are very interesting characteristics that are worth some compromises. The case for them is more compelling if you are considering military engagements on a variety of difficult terrains near you (like the Soviet Union was) rather than only engaging in military engagements that take place large oceans away (like the US). Plus several military targets for the Soviet Union were across relatively calm water (the Baltic and Black seas) which look very, very different than the open Atlantic and Pacific.

Secondly, military hovercraft do not need the same reliability when faced with waves. Not being able to handle a once in a hundred year wave would be a problem for a commercial hovercraft that is hoped to be in constant service for decades without a crash. For the military, if you can only deploy it 80% of the time, then you're happy that you've got an 80% chance of having it available when you need it. So they don't have to overbuild so much.

Besides, a once in decades of operation disaster doesn't seem like such a priority when you're worrying about enemy fire!

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Air_Cushion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_Craft_Air_Cushion)

Abandoned?

<comment><USER2> You're right, I was wrong.

I was aware that a handful of Bell SK-5s were used during Vietnam and then disbanded. I didn't realize that the US military had continued to develop the idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did a single channel crossing on a hovercraft back then. _never_ _again_. I'm pretty sure I'm an inch shorter since that trip. The sea wasn't terribly bad (by channel standard) but the journey was absolutely horrendous, felt like someone kicking you repeatedly in the butt for the whole way.

So yeah, fast, and cool, but hey, I'd rather sip my coffee on a ferry any day instead of having to hold to the chair I'm sitting on :-)

</comment><comment><USER5> Growing up, if the wind was right, I used to be able to hear the Ryde-Southsea hovercraft mentioned in the article from my bedroom window, about a KM away. It's still a really exciting way to cross the Solent. And slightly cheaper than everything else (which is nice, because the Solent is incredibly expensive to cross).

</comment><comment><USER6> Since 2008 until 2014 there was a regular public transit hovercraft service in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia:

[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Логопром_—_Борский_перевоз](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Логопром_—_Борский_перевоз)</comment>