What Politicians Believe About Their Constituents: Asymmetric Misperceptions [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_skovron_asymmetric_misperceptions.pdf <comment><USER2> Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions!

FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.

<comment><USER3> I think it would be fascinating to look at the dynamic of how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today. Personally I don't know too many people who believe in the system/even care enough to show up to public meetings, write their representatives, or even vote for that matter. Have these dynamics have changed over the years?

Is your research group working on anything in this vein?

<comment><USER4> > how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today

Interesting. Is government, by which I assume you mean elected officials, really aging?

<comment><USER5> There appears to be some reason to think so, although this article 100% up to date:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/01/average_age_of_members_of_u_s_congress_are_our_senators_and_representatives.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The best quote of the paper (pg 23):

> _Interestingly, the reason we uncover such striking misperceptions does not > appear to be that politicians are reluctant to admit a belief that public > opinion is not on their side – many do. Rather, it seems that the reality of > where the public stands on these issues has such a weak influence on > politicians' perceptions of public opinion that two candidates coming to > judgments about the same constituents largely fail to have much more in > common than would two candidates picked entirely at random_

Basically, it is not that politicians intentionally mis-believe what their constituents support (willful ignorance, etc), the problem is that politicians are a poor representation of their constituents in general.

I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like jurors are in juries.

<comment><USER7> > I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible > citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like jurors are in > juries.

And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term?

<comment><USER8> > > I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if > eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like > jurors are in juries.

> And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart > enough to get out of their congressional term?

Now, I think that a by-lot Congress is a really bad idea for a variety of reasons, but that's a moderately stupid argument when it comes to juries (given that it assumes that _everyone_ is actively seeking to avoid jury service, so the only people who actual serve are those who fail), and its even stupider applied to Congress -- its relatively common for people to want to have a say in the government of their country (to the point where already wealthy people will sometimes spend many times the salary a member of Congress earns per term on a campaign out of their own money), and shifting from an elected to a by-lot Congress would reduce the political power of voters as voters, increasing the delta represented by serving in Congress.

And that's even before considering that members of Congress are paid substantially more than most workers; changing nothing besides the selection method would make being selected for Congress not much different than winning the lottery for most citizens -- only those who are both already wealthy and politically disinterested would have rational, self-interested reason to avoid service.

<comment><USER9> > that's a moderately stupid argument when it comes to juries (given that it > assumes that everyone is actively seeking to avoid jury service, so the only > people who actual serve are those who fail)

Overall, the problem is that the system bends to accommodate the judges and lawyers, who get paid very well to be there, and abuses the jurors, who do not. Why do I have get up at 6:00 AM just to sit around for three days while you idiots figure out if you need me or not? This isn't rocket science, and you all already have scheduled dockets.

The bigger problem with jury selection is that everything is trying to screen out people who bring in _outside knowledge_. This actively screens for the ignorant. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, though. I suspect that it's a good thing overall as the number of times you get someone smart who recognizes a fault is probably far exceeded by the ignorant who _think_ they know something false.

<comment><USER10> _" Why do I have get up at 6:00 AM just to sit around for three days while you idiots figure out if you need me or not?"_

My wife was called for jury duty a couple years back. It was a drunk driving case. During the preceding 12 months, she'd lost family in one accident involving a drunk driver, and a close friend of hers was hit (thankfully, not terribly injured) by a drunk driver in a separate accident. There was _no way_ they were going to let her on that jury - they were dismissing people for _far_ less. And she had to go back three days.

Neither she nor I try to get out of jury duty - we view it as important and want to do our part - but yeah it can get abusive in pretty stupid ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "both liberals and conservatives tend to overestimate how conservative their constituents are, conservatives' perceptions in this regard are exceptionally strong – conservative politicians typically overestimate the conservatism of their constituencies by more than 20 percentage points on these issues. This difference is so large that  _nearly half of conservative politicians appear to believe that they represent a district that is as or more conservative on these issues than are the most conservative districts in the entire country_ ."

I heard a quote years ago that "reality has a liberal bias." Based on the data...that appears true.

</comment><comment><USER12> This might be an off topic question, but how do the results change (if at all) when accounting for the age of the people involved?

That is, how do politicians do at predicting the opinions of people +/\- 5 years of their own age (which may be different than the total for the district)?

I've always been curious if politicians are just "behind the times" (due to an average age higher than the average age of constituents), leading to systemically conservative views.

<comment><USER2> Their age doesn't predict their accuracy. With that said, I like the idea of asking how they think various age groups think. Maybe they think their district is not as young as it is, maybe they think younger voters are more similar to older voters than they are, or maybe both.

<comment><USER12> > Their age doesn't predict their accuracy.

I was actually asking about the case where the demographic they're predicting the opinion of is age restricted -- are they good at predicting the views of a particular age range, even if they're not good at predicting the overall opinion?

My question was just about restricting the age to be near theirs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's kind of fascinating that the liberal assessments seem to reflect reality much more closely.

Why?

Conservative politicians don't have a good reason to be wrong. In fact, it's quite the opposite, the better at estimating who your constituents you are, the more likely you are to be reelected.

I'd guess probably error bias. As a conservative, if you overestimate the conservatism of your district, you're not likely to lose many votes (especially in a gerrymandered district). Whereas, if you overestimate the liberalism of your districts, the conservative element will punish you horribly.

Whereas, as a liberal, you have to be more in tune to a broad spectrum of issues in both directions or a challenger can carve off a chunk of your votes.

<comment><USER13> I think you make an interesting claim in your comment - that right wing voters are more likely than left wing voters to vote against (ie, punish) someone. I agree with you, since in my experience right wingers are more reactionary than left wingers, but I wonder if there's any data on that.

<comment><USER14> It's not that right-wingers are innately more reactive than left-wing voters. It's that left-wing voters are only now getting genuinely angry about being told, for the past four decades, to just shut up and take whatever the Establishment gives us.

Consider the current two Presidential primaries. Among the Republican Party, there's a contest to see who's the most conservative, and candidates are competing to come up with a platform that appeals to the party base. Among the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton is presumed to be the obvious, inevitable, _entitled_ winner, and so there's a deliberate attempt to _suppress_ actual competition for the nomination, _most especially_ competition from the insurgent left-populist Bernie Sanders.

<comment><USER13> I do think that right wing voters are more reactive. They tend to see/hear something, and that something becomes the most important thing. That's why Rep. McCarthy's statement on the Benghazi hearing resulted in him losing his opportunity to become speaker. If that had happened 6 months ago, it wouldn't have been a problem because the right wingers would have moved on to something else.

Left wing voters more often are in it for the long haul. They cringe when someone says something stupid, but they don't react with pitchforks and torches.

That's why there's never been a left wing Rush. It just doesn't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's always struck me that conservatives expect to be listened to in the US while liberals expect to be ignored.

<comment><USER16> Conservativism is born of ambiguity intolerance. One of the defining characteristics of ambiguity intolerance is a need for certainty.

As for why liberals expect to be ignored? I'd reckon that has more to do with history and a general sense of malaise and pessimism toward our intractable situation.

<comment><USER4> The malaise and pessimism might be what makes it intractable. Liberals in the prior generation made sweeping changes, in women's and minority rights, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This paper appears to use the term conservative to mean right wing. That's incorrect. You can be left wing and be a conservative; in fact, it's rather common in American today.

Looking the three perception statements on page 11, agreement means you agree to some rather radical change. A true conservative would disagree with all three questions due to that. Compared to the true conservative, a conservative right winger would be more likely to agree with the last, and a conservative left winger would be more likely to agree with the first two; however, they might not support any of them because they might be too radical. For example, I know many left wingers that support health care reform but don't support socialized medicine, so they'd likely disagree with "Implement a universal healthcare program to guarantee coverage to all Americans, regardless of income".

That leads to issues with the results. If a conservative left winger says no to the first two, s/he appears more right wing than s/he is.

On the other hand, if they are using conservative correctly, then it appears they are using liberal incorrectly. Liberal isn't the opposite of conservative. Radical is the opposite of conservative. There are radical right wingers that support same sex marriage who come to that idea from libertarianism.

The charts on specific questions are great, because they remove the terminology issue I'm raising, but when they identify the politician as liberal or conservative, it comes right back.

I'm sure the authors know this stuff better than I do, so I suspect I'm misunderstanding their work.

I know one of the authors posted here; I'd appreciate if he'd or someone else could clarify what I've got wrong.</comment>


Amazon Enters Semiconductor Business with Its Own Branded Chips - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/article_email/amazon-enters-semiconductor-business-with-its-own-branded-chips-1452124921-lMyQjAxMTE2NDAwNzgwODcxWj <comment><USER2> Would love to read more, got a non-paywalled link?</comment>


Remee - The REM enhancing Lucid Dreaming Mask - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitbangerlabs/remee-the-rem-enhancing-lucid-dreaming-mask

<comment><USER2> I see that they have not delivered their product yet.</comment>


World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews - <AUTHOR> https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/worlds-oldest-periodic-table-chart-found-in-st-andrews/ <comment><USER2> Brady Haran (of numberphile/sixty symbols/lots of other channels fame) made a video about this periodic table some months ago, it goes into how it is getting preserved as well.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eRLeS1UdPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eRLeS1UdPo)

He also made a video discussing what is on the the table

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfC4OGbbHLc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfC4OGbbHLc)

<comment><USER3> Is there an update on this? I watched the first video and it was fascinating.

Edit: found this updated image after restoration

[https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/sites/2...](https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/KMil_PTable-1.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "Treatment to the chart included: brushing to remove loose surface dirt and > debris, separating the chart from its heavy linen backing, washing the chart > in de-ionised water adjusted to a neutral pH with calcium hydroxide to > remove the soluble discolouration and some of the acidity, a 'de- > acidification' treatment by immersion in a bath of magnesium hydrogen > carbonate to deposit an alkaline reserve in the paper, and finally repairing > tears and losses using a Japanese kozo paper and wheat starch paste. "

That's a really cool process.

<comment><USER5> Using chemistry to save chemistry's history!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> And it's actually bears name of it's creator - Mendeleev.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know what typeface is used in this table (or modern equivalent)?

<comment><USER8> Kapra Condensed shown here is very similar:

[https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/typoforge- studio/kapra](https://www.fontspring.com/fonts/typoforge-studio/kapra)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article claims:

>In view of the table's age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. //

Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value.

I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any _need_ or specific benefit in its preservation?

There's a related issue, when paintings (eg old masters) are purchased by the public purse to "preserve them for the country" or similar. Do we really gain anything (in the general case) if an analysis of the methods and substances has been kept along with a digital facsimile?

It's lovely to keep old stuff, but claims of necessity always seem to be a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER10> _Does it tell us anything we didn 't know, doesn't appear to. _

1\. Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's oxide. That hasn't shown up on periodic tables for a long time. It implies that determining the oxide formula may have been tricky for students of the time. Today students are taught how to make any formula (not just oxides) given the group number of the component elements.

2\. Mendeleev's name is explicitly mentioned. You also won't find that on any modern periodic tables.

3\. The transition metals are not segregated but lumped into main groups. Today they're separated into ten groups of their own, but the rare earths and transuranium elements are kind of lumped together with no groups of their own.

<comment><USER11> > Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's > oxide.

According to the Periodic Videos video (linked from another comment), the reason those are there is to justify splitting the list of elements into rows in those particular places. The reasoning today is to do with eletron shells (I'm not a chemist but I presume that electron shells are also the root cause of those formulae) but at the time periodic table was created electrons hadn't yet been discovered!

<comment><USER10> You are right (slaps forehead), and I was not thinking about the historical context.

The earliest tables were based on "valence", or the ratio with which an element tended to combine with other elements in compounds. Two of the most consistent and easily obtained compounds are those of hydrogen and oxygen, which nearly always combine with other "monovalent" elements in ratios of 1 and 2, respectively.

When a new element was discovered, the ratios with which it formed oxides and hydrides could be determined, and this would allow its placement on the table.

A student from the late 1800s would only be able to think in terms of equivalents, not electrons and their orbitals - as you point out. The inclusion of hydride and oxide formula templates would have been an integral part of using the table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hope once it's restored they put it on a wall somewhere beside a modern table so people can see the progress that's been made since.

<comment><USER13> There are some slides explaining the restoration process:

[https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/school-of- chemistry/event...](https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/school-of- chemistry/events-and-seminars/NBTM%202.%20Alan%20Aitken.pdf)

If you want to print a copy, I would recommend fetching the high resolution scan of a later edition stored in Library of Kyoto University:

[https://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/kakezu/page/0653.htm...](https://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/kakezu/page/0653.html)

[https://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/kakezu/large/A207.jp...](https://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/kakezu/large/A207.jpg)

<comment><USER14> Here is another High Res Version of the St. Andrews Chart.

[https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/scotland/1656624/r...](https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/scotland/1656624/remarkable- discovery-in-st-andrews-of-what-could-be-worlds-oldest-periodic-table/)

[https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/sites/2...](https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/KMil_PTable-1.jpg)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which news sources do you rely on for Covid coverage? - <AUTHOR> There is a lot of half-researched, misleading news on COVID. How do you stay informed on COVID? <comment><USER2> r/covid19 on reddit. That is the only thing I use. I don't need a news service site giving me clickbait inflammatory headlines. I don't need other subs with idiotic, low-effort political potshot posts rising to the top. I want to directly read journal articles. I want discussion, but I want heavy moderation to keep nonsense out of the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> The local paper.</comment>


That's version ∞. First launch version 0.1. - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/infinity

<comment><USER2> That's a big part of the reason the iPhone has become so successful — the first release had half the features of other smartphones, but it worked well.

Apple has been slowly adding functionality — third-party applications, video recording, MMS, copy and paste — at a pace that lets the engineers get it all right.

<comment><USER3> That's true for the Mac, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Relatedly, the version number you peg on something is entirely a marketing decision, and not even that important of one these days. (Since I don't charge for upgrades, literally the only use I have for it is reproducing bugs. You won't find one written on my website anywhere.)

Back in the "all software users are software enthusiasts" days, all that stuff you learned about "point upgrades" and "beta releases" and whatnot actually made sense to people. Your mother does not care about the difference between a .1 and .01 point release, and _never will_. Make sure your website distributes the newest and best version, and make upgrading between not-the-newest-and- best-version and the-newest-and-best-version as automatic and painless as possible, to the limit of your business model's ability to do so.

Adjust as required if your product has to be compatible with other things. (Not ordinarily a worry of mine in B2C land.)

(I really envy you web-only guys some days. "The website has the latest version of the software on it" and "All users are using the latest version of the software" being axiomatic are so cool.)

<comment><USER5> Theres a flipside to that envy though: The time needed to make sure the html+css+javascript renders the same on all the different browsers and their different versions.

... especially when they like to radically change everything all the time for no good reason. I'm looking at you IE.

Why couldn't they just use mozilla or webkit, and concentrate on adding innovative features like chrome did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ∞ is alt/option + 5 on a mac btw.

<comment><USER7> I didn't have a key for ∞, so in my xcompose file I mapped it to compose 8 8. Or maybe clsn did, I don't remember.</comment></comment>


Database Startup Idea: Dynamic Relational - <AUTHOR> Over at the c2.com wiki, the idea of "Dynamic Relational" was explored. You DON'T need a DBA: columns and tables are Create-On-Write, unless you start adding constraints to make it act more like a traditional RDBMS: as a project matures, you can incrementally "lock it down". Such a tool would be great for start-up projects and situations where the requirements are still fuzzy.
Conceptually you can think of each row as an XML statement. For example, an employee record could be represented as:

  <employee lastname="Li" firstname="Joe" salary="120000" id="318"/>
 This does not imply it has to be implemented as XML, it's just a handy conceptualization. It's possible to use SQL as the query language, with some minor tweaks. For example, one has to be careful about comparisons because of the implied type model. But other than type handling, users of a Dynamic Relational system would feel right at home because they can leverage most of their existing RDBMS and SQL knowledge.
If you ask for a non-existing column, such as "SELECT madeUpColumn FROM employee", the result column would be blank or null. That is unless one adds constraints that forbid undefined columns on a given table. Also, people disagree if and how to implement nulls. I'd suggest make null-handling a configuration switch.
If you did "SELECT * FROM employee", the result table would have all the columns found in the "employee" rows. In a typical CRUD application, you probably should use explicit columns in the SELECT clause.
Now, if somebody would just build such a database system... <comment><USER2> How would this be different from a SQL interface on top of a NOSQL database.

[https://drill.apache.org/](https://drill.apache.org/) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most NOSQL databases are non-relational such that you have to deal with "impedance mismatches". They can have duplicate columns and duplicate rows, for example, which SQL itself is not designed to handle without adding ugly kludges. It's even messier for writes. I didn't mention it due to posting size limits, but each Dynamic Relational table has an auto-generated "ID" column so that each row is unique. Good question!

<comment><USER3> see [https://www.arangodb.com/](https://www.arangodb.com/) and also [http://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/](http://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what those solve. Dynamic Relational (DR) is relational so that one can use SQL on it without big impedance mismatches. Your links appear to be tying to invent a NON-relational version(s) of SQL, but they are _too different_ from SQL and existing RDBMS to be easy to learn.

DR's goal is to match/fit relational, existing RDBMS, and SQL as much as possible, yet still be dynamic. Non-relational databases and non-relational query languages probably will fail at that goal. They deviate from RDBMS too much because they are changing too many things. DR only deviates _just enough_ from traditional RDBMS to get dynamism so that users of RDBMS can easily learn/use it withOUT tossing out most their RDBMS, relational, and SQL knowledge. It just reinvents one nation, not the entire database world.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Seth's Blog: The coming melt-down in higher education (as seen by a marketer) - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/the-coming-meltdown-in-higher-education-as-seen-by-a-marketer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29 <comment><USER2> College and University tuition should, I think, be seen as a form of bond purchased by risk-averse parents willing to buy a base level of third-decade- of-life-work-success for their offspring. From the "name brand" educational institutions graduates can write-their-own-resume going out ten years. While it is true the performance of this bond over its cost is not as good as it used to be I think Seth misses that knowledge is a minor part of what "name brand" education offers.

One must weigh the cost of tuition against the value of the high-achieving friends you might have coming out of a prestigious institution, subsequent prestigious jobs, good habits learned from peers, on top of raw knowledge gotten from a good education. For more on this see Paul Graham's essay "How to Start a Startup" (<http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html>) and search for the words friend/friends.</comment>


Three Reasons not to upgrade to the new Firefox for Android browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2020/08/07/three-reasons-not-to-upgrade-to-the-new-firefox-for-android-browser-right-now/ <comment><USER2> My mobile browsing experience is fucked. New "open in tab" is weird, can't reorder tabs, thumbnails are not working and cherry on top about:config is disabled which probably could have some of these issues

<comment><USER3> Mozilla has some obsession with making their most popular and extensible browser less popular and less extensible.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Would a Hacker Think About This? - <AUTHOR> I wrote a novel.
I have made the 'Myth Framework' to which the novel belongs, licensed as CC BY (basically open source) so other writers, if interested, can create a commercial work based on it's mythology.
One day, I would like writers (if any) who have modeled their story on some element of this Myth Framework to be able to have their works connected.  (Maybe by some blockchain-like tech?)
My question right now does not pertain to the software-side of this problem, but rather, what items to include on a page in each book that basically points a unique work to its mythological 'family-tree.'
As of now, I have a page at the beginning of my story that has basically three elements to do this:
1. the symbol of the Myth Framework
2. the story
3. the URL where one can learn about the structure, plot, setting, journey-outline, etc. of the Myth
What items, for appeal, logic, or whatever, would you consider adding to this list?
Thanks for taking the time to read this <comment><USER2> HTML links to a page with all references and possible backstory. Wikipedia basically?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the backstory idea - also gives me some things to think about in lieu of how to organize the references .. Thanks for your feedback!</comment></comment>


HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer - <AUTHOR> http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/110922xb.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news

<comment><USER2> Robert X Cringely quote† from 7 months back, posted earlier today by Gruber‡:

> _Then there's Meg Whitman, who expected at this point to have resigned from > the HP board to spend all her time running California as governor. But that > didn't happen, so now what is she to do? [...] She'll eventually get around > to hip-checking Apotheker and taking his job._

† [http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/why-leo-apotheker-will-be- fi...](http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/why-leo-apotheker-will-be-fired-from- hewlett-packard/)

‡ [http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/22/cringely- apothek...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/22/cringely-apotheker- whitman)

<comment><USER3> This strikes me as an excellent demonstration of the "make as many wild ass predictions as possible until one of them hits and then have everyone think you're a visionary genius".

<comment><USER4> Yes, Cringely can really be out in left field sometimes. A good example was his recent theory that Tim Cook is only a temporary CEO and that Steve Jobs has a secret hand-picked successor that he will name in the future [1]. I read Cringely partly for the entertainment value and partly because he really does think out of the box. When the strange happens, at least we're not surprised.

[1] <http://www.cringely.com/2011/08/cupertino-two-step/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> HP appointed Meg Whitman as CEO earlier today, in an attempt to save the troubled computer maker. When asked what her first course of action would be, Mrs. Whitman firmly answered "eBay."

"I'm an excellent eBayer, and have been for years. You've never seen a feedback profile with so many A+++++'s before." Mrs. Whitman continued, "HP has warehouses full of inventory, ready to be gobbled up by the highest bidder. On my way in today, I must have passed about a dozen pallets of iPaq 3630's just collecting dust. Those go for a lot of money you know! There's so much stuff just lying around here that can be sold for big big bucks!"

The board of directors was quick to point out Mrs. Whitman's Titanium PowerSeller level status, among her many other credentials. "She accepts all major forms of payment, including PayPal." When asked about their CEO selection process, a board member went on to say "We won an auction for a used paper towel holder from her the other week. She even emailed a tracking number so we could determine the exact date it would be delivered. I must have refreshed UPS.com about a zillion times! Well, when we got it, turns out it was actually new, not used! That level of service amazed us, and we knew right then and there we found our next CEO."

Mrs. Whitman quickly detailed a plan to get the company back on track, including getting their feedback rating back up to 100%. "All these negative feedbacks about this Norton AntiVirus thing have got to go. And paying to upgrade your auction to bold, and including a picture, really does make a difference!" One shareholder noted that "It's executive-level thinking like this which will save this company." Other Shareholders have agreed, and bid the stock up to a yearly-high shortly after the announcement.

"Is Woz's cubicle still around here? I bet there's several Apple I's under his desk that'll go for lots."

When asked about long-term prospects beyond selling all of HP's assets, Mrs. Whitman indicated that they can continue to thrive by adopting IBM's business model of advertising their brand everywhere, without actually selling anything, financing it with Jeopardy-playing machines. "I love that show and watch it every night. Ooo, maybe we can make a Wheel of Fortune machine too! That'll really pump our margins up!"

<comment><USER6> this would be better than the truth.

here's an idea for the hp bod—go read something called the hp way [http://product.half.ebay.com/The-Hp-Way-How-Bill-Hewlett- and...](http://product.half.ebay.com/The-Hp-Way-How-Bill-Hewlett-and-I-Built- Our-Company-by-David-Packard-1996-Paperback/331181&tg=info) it's only a few bucks. need a primer on what it's about? read this: [http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/the-hp- way...](http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/the-hp-way.html) it's very enlightening. it seems very coincidental that it too has the letters hp in it. it might be helpful

EDIT: the save 94% on half.com makes me laugh. FIRE SALE!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, this board has recently brought in a software guy who doesn't seem a good fit for a company that does a lot of hardware, had him make a bunch of unpopular decisions, then quickly replaced him with somebody that's been on the board for quite some time, without reversing any of the previous "damage" that Apotheker is being blamed for.

Apotheker appears to be the fall guy for some unpopular decisions that the board wanted made anyway.

<comment><USER8> The article in the NYT today reported that the board fully supported the decisions he had made but didn't like the way he was communicating the changes inside and out of the company. Whether or not that is the real reason they fired him is anyones guess I suppose.

<comment><USER9> It's the only way they come out looking competent, so I guess that's what they're running with.

I don't see how Leo would go rogue... he was clearly a fall guy and he might have been ok with it.

<comment><USER10> As a creature of the board - as opposed to an internal hire with a built-in power base - he's actually the last person you'd expect to go rogue. Indeed, the big criticism of high-level external hires is that they're insufficiently independent and easily manipulated.

For a guy whose credibility was already in tatters, $35 mm to be a fall-guy for hire seems like a pretty good deal. I suspect he felt the same way when he signed up. I just wonder if he realized the payout was going to come so swiftly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I said earlier Whitman would be on my short list of bad choices for the job. I spent some time today thinking about who I _would_ pick.

Someone with experience at a product company, that had to oversee design, manufacturing, and logistics. (Ebay is clearly not this.) Also, someone with experience at a services company with a track record of success. (Despite service--and SaaS--experience, Ebay "survived" rather than "succeeded", and in my judgement is not this either.) Someone who doesn't look to acquisitions as a primary way to expand the company's strategy. (Skype is evidence Ebay isn't this.) Someone who can communicate effectively with both the public and internal stakeholder. (A failed gubernatorial bid suggests few people were buying what Whitman was selling.)

In every relevant category, Whitman doesn't make the cut.

<comment><USER12> _> I spent some time today thinking about who I would pick._

So who _did_ you pick? I'm drawing a blank..

<comment><USER11> It's possible someone from Amazon, G.E., or Oracle would meet those criteria.

The big thing HP was (is) lacking is a leader with experience manufacturing physical products. Putting that in place would settle some of the fears of procurement managers the world over (and maybe settle the stock market too). These aren't the only companies with experience, but it's one place to look.

However, were I on the search committee, I'd look internally first. A junior executive who knows the company might already have the respect of the employees.

Given carte blanche, I'd remove the Board and most of the senior staff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> HP is as good as dead. It will take a long time to die but they're now officially the Yahoo! of hardware. Brand damage this severe is going to be very very hard to fix.

<comment><USER14> They're going to chart a path like SGI. From industry leader to historical footnote.

<comment><USER13> It hurts just to think about that.

In a weird way I'm happy that Hewlett and Packard are not around to witness this, to see the work of a lifetime butchered like this is just too painful.

<comment><USER15> Actually for the company that Hewlett and Packard founded see Agilent. After the HP/Agilent division around 2000, Agilent took most of the early HP records. Why? Because Agilent's business lines were the original HP business lines.

<http://www.home.agilent.com/> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies>

<comment><USER13> Yes, and I think that Agilents future is a lot more secure than HPs at this point in time.

Agilent is basically the instrument division of the 'old' HP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not a good move. He started his job by doing some hard upfront decisions that he hoped will play in HP advantage in the long run. And the board cut him off at the point when he didn't even started the transformation. Now, who knows what will happen.

The other possible explanation is that he knew that he is going to be scraped, and had enormous compensation for receiving the blame.

<comment><USER17> His total earnings from these 11 months seems to be $35 million. $9.8M in salary, signing bonus, etc, and $25.2M severence in cash and stock.

source: [http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/22/technology/hp_leo_apotheker_...](http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/22/technology/hp_leo_apotheker_severance/)

<comment> eric-hu I figured he'd be well compensated, but wouldn't this mark the end of his career as a high level executive?

<comment><USER18> Carly drove the company into the ground too and doesn't seem to have trouble finding work even now.

For better or for worse, I don't think Apotheker will have trouble finding another company to run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Will we ever rid ourselves of corporate-speak? How many bits of information here?

 _"We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman's caliber and experience step up to lead HP," said Lane. "We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead. Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution. She is a strong communicator who is customer focused with deep leadership capabilities. Furthermore, as a member of HP's board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets."_

<comment><USER20> >as a member of HP's board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets.

8 months to solid understanding of HP products and markets?

<comment><USER21> Well, yeah, they don't make computers and just sell consulting services now - seems pretty simple to me!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ah, been a while since we had such an entertaining high profile trainwreck in progress to watch. What the hell is the board thinking?

<comment><USER23> "A while" being days, assuming Yahoo counts.

Of course, there's the ongoing smaller trainwreck waiting to happen called RIM.

\--edit-- let's not forget Netflix either.

<comment><USER13> A RIM trainwreck would see QnX in new hands, that would be interesting.

<comment><USER18> RIM is betting the farm on QNX, they have a death grip on it. If it goes anywhere it'll be down with the captain of the ship.

The only scenario in which QNX is likely to be sold, from what I can see, is when creditors are disassembling RIM piece by piece. At that point, is there enough of QNX left to save?

<comment><USER13> QnX will survive in one form or another if only because so many defense contractors rely on it. (and RTOS of course).

One can only hope that it would be open sourced under a permissive license in such a situation but I highly doubt that will ever happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I find funny about such rapid changes is, can they reverse any of his decisions? For instance, will HP magically announce they're not really leaving the PC business and will be shipping new tablets?

<comment><USER25> The simple fact of having dumped the old CEO could at least lend a bit of credibility to reversing course on WebOS. Not a lot, to be sure, but definitely a nonzero amount, unlike the present state of WebOS.

<comment><USER26> Doubt this. Layoffs within the WebOS division were announced three days ago, and are underway this week:

<http://allthingsd.com/20110919/layoffs-at-hps-palm-division/>

<comment><USER27> This is such a shame. I got a touchpad in the fire sale and they really did a decent job on that thing. I would put it ahead of android but slightly behind iOS. Although I personally don't care too much which OS I end up with, it's clear that a lot of good work went into this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm sure the HP board is full of smart people, so my question is: what's next? Over the past decade they've seemingly made so many more poor decisions relative to good decisions, I have to imagine they feel a lot of heat to do something... redeeming?

I mean, they're still a very large and very powerful company, and I think predictions of their impending doom are highly overblown, but they've certainly been dealt some serious PR damage. Do they swing for the fences with some "revolutionary" device/system/platform? Do they limp along (are they really limping in any sense other than PR?) hoping to heal as they go? Do they follow the path that's been set by the previous CEO, or do they reverse those moves?

It's going to be an interesting year, that's for sure.

<comment><USER23> HP's board might be full of smart people who make stupid decisions. HP's board started the decline by hiring Carly Fiorina, being a part of the pre-texting scandal, hiring and then firing Hurd, and now hiring and firing Apotheker.

Perhaps it's time to clean house at the board level.

<comment><USER13> It is hard to even think about what they could do to salvage their reputation at this point. The board (Whitman included) collectively falling on their swords as a mea culpa would leave HP rudderless (but that may not even be worse than the kind of shockwaves that it has undergone in the the last years).

Right now there are a number of very tough decision to be made and none of those are good. Either the former CEOs decisions will stand and then someone without that vision will have to implement them, the former CEOs decisions will be rescinded (it looks like they will stand for now) or there will be some magical third option.

For the moment the best thing about HP is that they are still selling ink, toner cartridges and enterprise gear and I wouldn't bet too long on the latter (see above).

You simply can't run a company like this, even a very big one. Employees, customers and 'the channel' want to see stability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I mistakely read that as "Meg Ryan" (yes I am slightly dislexic). She'd probably do a better job too!

</comment><comment><USER30> This will certainly help her replenish her coffers after her $100+ million depletion on last year's failed gubernatorial bid.

</comment><comment><USER31> at least everyone will finally get to see that she was successful with eBay because of luck and not skill

<comment><USER32> It was Napoleon who said that he didn't want a good general, but a lucky one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Time to accept bets on what the next screw-up will be.

<comment><USER34> As much as I love webOS... they'll resurrect it and release another set of sub-par phones & tablets and can it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> You know...this might seem silly, but until I actually read the story did I remember that Meg Whitman was Ebay's CEO.

For some reason, I kept thinking that it was Carol Bartz that was now CEO of HP.

The ironic thing is, given what I have been seeing of HP's upper-level management problems recently, it didn't surprise me. I didn't even bat an eye- lid.

It's just after seeing the title on about 4 different links that I decided to click the NYTimes article and realized it was eBay's ex-CEO not Yahoo!'s.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is like the HP Board saying - sorry we meant to shoot ourselves in the left foot not the right one proceeds to shoot itself.

</comment><comment><USER37> We all make mistakes, but give him some time. After you make your decission "wisely" at least show some faith. Ridiculous

</comment><comment><USER38> I gotta start working harder on my book... "How to fail up"

</comment><comment><USER39> According to the HP board, all you need is "the right operational and communication skills and leadership abilities"...

</comment><comment><USER40> Silicon Valley just collectively cringed upon hearing this news.

</comment><comment><USER41> I used to admire HP...

</comment><comment><USER42> Given Whitman's scummy behavior at Goldman Sachs around IPO practices, I have to ask: does HP make planes? Because they just flew one into themselves.

<comment><USER43> Too soon.

<comment><USER42> That metaphor has been around for a lot longer than 10 years and I'll continue to use it. Airplanes have been flown into human-made structures for a long time, either as an act of war (kamikaze pilots) or malice (Joe Stack) or mere stupidity.

I prefer that metaphor over "train wreck" because the latter has the sound of being accidental. No. It's not mere incompetence. You do not make CEO someone who made millions in IPO spinning unless you harbor a deep hatred for the company on whose board you serve. The intentional plane crash metaphor is perfect.</comment></comment></comment>


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