New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism - <AUTHOR> http://techraptor.net/content/new-york-times-reddit-piece-shows-dangers-of-internet-journalism <comment><USER2> I've believed since newsdiffs.org (mentioned in the OP) was launched that an in-house diff-tracker/displayer for the New York Times would be both a win in transparency, accuracy, and the company's bottom-line. The first two are mostly self-evident...in terms of improving the bottom-line...well, I often go to the NYT for breaking news. For a given event, they'll often have a main story which they update throughout the day. The obvious problem is that if I've read it once, I have to re-read the entire story throughout the day, and mentally parse out the updated bits.

So why not have, for _every_ story, a "History" link, or even a _feed_ of latest changes, so that readers who re-visit a story can quickly see the atomic updates? For my own reading habits, this would cement the NYT has a place to go to for developing stories...the transparency/accuracy bit are just icing on the cake.

This issue of having an in-house Newsdiffs was brought up by the public editor back when Jill Abramson was still editor:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26pubed.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26pubed.html)

Here's what she said:

> _Right now, tracking changes is not a priority at The Times. As Ms. Abramson > told me, it's unrealistic to preserve an "immutable, permanent record of > everything we have done."_

I can't speak for her true motives or intentions...but part of the problem here is technical ignorance. Her perception seems to have been that tracking changes would have been too much of a burden -- and she is justified in thinking this if she has never worked with something that uses a diff-like program...and in my experience, this includes most _news people...in a newsroom, editing and re-editing stories and supplying reasons (i.e. as in a correction) is a very manual process. If a newsroom is using WordPress, sure, they know of the concept of article versions..._ but they don't really grok the ability for machines to create timestamped diffs _.

However, if Ms. Abramson was familiar with the kind of system that Github (or Wikipedia, for that matter) uses, she would see that keeping an immutable, permanent record is actually quite easy for machines to do. So to create a inhouse change-log-per-article would be quite easy, technically, and with some interface work, it'd be a very welcome feature to more than a few readers, IMO.

_ edit: In terms of "most news people" not knowing diff...I'm basing this on anecdotal experience with non-programming investigative journalists who, among all journalists, have the most to benefit from understanding the implications of an efficient document diff, but I haven't worked with any who demonstrated that grasp. A common scenario is having two versions of some important document and wanting to see every change made. A diff would not be perfect, but it doesn't have to be, it just needs to _triage_ possible changes to further investigate.

<comment><USER3> Inability to keep an immutable record of what's been published disqualifies nyt from its claim of being "the paper of record".

<comment><USER4> Not if the print edition is considered the record. The analogy would be eventual consistency in exchange for higher availability: the tradeoff is the occasional stale read.

<comment><USER3> I just don't agree. It's not as though this isn't a solved problem. And this isn't just a stale read, it's a bait and switch.

<comment><USER4> It becomes bait and switch via a presumption that the editorial direction wrought by the changes is improper. It's not if one presumes that the additional context makes for better journalism: then the changes are improvement. This appears to be the belief _The New York Times_ 's editors.

<comment><USER5> Switching a neutral article for an opinion piece would bother me even if I agreed with the opinion.

<comment><USER6> I read this comment and was moved to summarize every graf in the piece to check whether it was an opinion piece:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891](https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891)

Spoiler: I don't think "it's an opinion piece" is a colorable argument.

<comment> shawn-butler It's called parajournalism. "Opinion piece" has a clearly defined meaning in journalism and is an entirely different genre.

Parajournalism seems to be journalism — "the collection and dissemination of current news" — but the appearance is deceptive. It is a bastard form, having it both ways, exploiting the factual authority of journalism and the atmospheric license of fiction. Entertainment rather than information is the aim of its producers, and the hope of its consumers.[0]

Your bullet list summary reveals little but your own bias/agenda and adds little to the conversation. We have the actual diff and can read for ourselves which is sort of the point. The diff link was provided in the source article: [http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/technology/ellen- pao-reddit-chief-executive-resignation.html)

I hope Margaret Sullivan looks into this. Seems appropriate.

0: [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/aug/26/parajou...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/aug/26/parajournalism- or-tom-wolfe-his-magic-writing-mach/)

<comment><USER6> People level this charge, or charges just like it, at every news story they don't like. Nerds are going to get a rude awakening if they think they're going to cow the Times (or the WSJ editorial board, for that matter) over "bias" in their newsrooms; these publications have been at the center of the real-world culture war for decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something first- hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media, and seeing how incredibly inaccurate media articles are. Anytime I read an article about a subject I actually have first-hand knowledge of, it reaffirms the lesson.

<comment><USER8> > _I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something > first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media,_

Even better: Saying something to a reporter, and then reading what you supposedly said within quotation marks. (Although perhaps my data is old and things have gotten better since adequate interview-recording equipment is now on every smartphone.)

<comment><USER9> Yes, trying to give any sort of nuanced answer to a reporter is almost hopeless.

For instance if you say: "Plan ABC is good, however the specific concerns are X, Y, and Z. If care is not taken in how these issued are addressed it will likely be a very expensive failure".

The article will appear as: PLAN HAS BROAD SUPPORT. _red says, "Plan ABC is good".

<comment><USER8> Or if the writer is in a different mood: PLAN IS NOT GOOD. _red said "The unaddressed issues in this plan will likely make it a _very_ expensive failure!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was hoping someone would write about how bad this article was. (Shocked to see it's the _same_ one as the pretty good piece from earlier.)

The worst part to me was the article quoting _Mitch Kapor_ to back up its implicit support of internet censorship:

>...charges that bullying, harassment and cruel behavior are out of control on the web...

>Mitch Kapor, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that Reddit users were predominantly male and 18 to 29 years old.

>"In my view, her job was made more difficult because as a woman, she was particularly subject to the abuse stemming from the pockets of toxic misogyny in the Reddit ecosystem," said Mr. Kapor, now a partner at Kapor Capital.

<comment><USER11> It is not censorship to say that a private entity has the right to choose who gets kicked out of their dinner party.

I keep hoping that somebody will write about the difference between censorship and private parties choosing not to support and/or tolerate certain behaviors. It shouldn't be necessary, but there's a generation of people so incredibly entitled and so incredibly insane that they actually need a primer on reality.

<comment><USER10> Sure it is. It's just not freedom of speech.

> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other > information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, > politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media > outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked as a journalist for over a decade -- CBS, Time, CNET, Wired, etc. -- before founding [https://recent.io/](https://recent.io/) and every news organization I can think of updates articles after publication.

This practice predates the Internet by decades; wire services called updates "writethrus." Updated copy would be labeled internally for editors as 2nd-lede writethru, 3rd-lede writethru, with perhaps some details about what was changed or added, with those internal notes typically not being published for readers. So east coast papers would print a different version of the story than later-deadline west coast papers. The Washington Post did this in print form, with stories in the early "bulldog" edition often modified and expanded before appearing in the final edition. News has always been a snapshot in time.

There is significant pressure on reporters to post news quickly to capitalize on social sharing and search -- even if the quick first post is one or two paragraphs with little review by editors -- and update their articles quickly. This was the official policy in at least one newsroom where I worked. That can and does lead to inaccuracies and hasty reporting, though errors do tend to be corrected quickly. But the linked article does not accuse the NYT of factual errors.

It is true that it would be near-trivial for news organizations to have a history tab appear on each article that shows older versions -- I've suggested this and other features before, like providing people quoted in the article an automatic right of reply in a text field underneath the story. The reason we don't see history tabs is probably a combination of legal risk (imagine that a green reporter writes that John Doe was convicted of murder, and John Doe was the prosecutor, not the defendant), little demand from readers, embarrassment about errors in early versions, and newspaper-era newsroom thinking.

<comment><USER13> This was not a simple update. This was a rewrite that changed the format and the content - from a factual report to an opinion piece chastising the evil white men of SV, all while managing to put a positive spin on a humiliating trial.

This may not be new in the dishonorable world of journalism, but it's the first time many of us outsiders get to look behind the curtain. We kind of suspected how the sausage is made, but actually seeing it is still shocking.

<comment><USER14> This complaint and others in this thread all seem to be that you don't like the new content of the article and have nothing to do with the article being updated.

<comment><USER13> Is that really what you understood from what I wrote?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> People simply choose the facts they want to hear. On balance, the news industry is rapidly declining and is not rewarded for objective and insightful well researched pieces.

 _People choose the facts they want_

Then they choose where to read the facts they agree with. Feminist blogs and news agencies were quick to highlight a woman being blasted out of tech for her gender and highlighting other related stories of abuse on reddit and in tech, MRA blogs post about how a woman was promoted on gender and her attack on free speech in pursuit of a biased agenda, and some fell in the middle.

Virtually none of these stories generated revenue from consumers directly paying subscription fees. It is ad traffic from people rushing to confirm their own bias.

<comment><USER6> "Feminist news agencies".

<comment><USER15> > "Feminist _blogs_ and News Agencies"

Is what I said. I don't understand what you are implying though.

<comment><USER6> That your belief that there are entire news agencies corrupted by feminism is revealing.

<comment><USER16> > Feminist (blogs and news agencies)

> (Feminist blogs) and (news agencies)

That you assumed one of two equally appropriate interpretations of this (admittedly awkward) phrasing and jumped to conclusions is even more revealing.

<comment><USER6> You're right! I didn't read his response to my comment very carefully; I missed the italicization, and thus his point. And: yep, that's pretty revealing about me, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had read the "It's Silicon Valley 2, Ellen Pao 0..." article. I remember being surprised that misogyny was mentioned since this issue had nothing to do with gender.

And they even attacked Reddit users themselves - Essentially calling them sexist. It was obvious that this article was politically motivated - There is some corruption happening there.

Journalistic integrity is dead. There is a financial or political motive behind every article you read. I don't trust anything I read online anymore. Maybe Reddit itself is the only place which still has some degree of credibility left. Maybe it's only a matter of time though before moderators start using their powers for personal gain.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Dangers" seems like a strong word to me. This blog post is strong on technical analysis, but light on substantive analysis. It tells us exactly how many words are common between the first and last piece, but doesn't say whether any factual errors or omissions occurred between the first and last piece. We know that facts and analysis were added, but is that a "danger?"

The undercurrent in the blog post, and I predict an undercurrent here, is that reporting on issues of gender is not appropriate for a story about a tech company. The Times article went from basically a transmission of the official line from Reddit, to a more in-depth story of the background and implications. This is presented, implicitly, as a bad thing. I don't necessarily agree that it is.

The Clinton story had the opposite problem--there were factual inaccuracies in the first version because of the rush to print. I agree that the rush to be first is usually pointless and potentially harmful.

<comment><USER19> I don't get that angle at all.

Issues of gender are perfectly relevant in tech. But the issue wasn't gender - it was basic competence and cultural fit.

IMO Reddit would be absolutely fine with a good female CEO. But Pao wasn't a good Reddit CEO, she was a terrible Reddit CEO. Her gender is incidental to that.

So when journalists try to frame the narrative as "cellar-dwelling young male mouthbreathers vs a shocked and innocent victim of disgusting sexism" \- that's heavy-handed editorialising at best, and plain bullshit at worst.

Now - there's always been a thick and disgusting stream of bullshit running through trad media. (See also, Fox News.)

But that's a problem with the old journalistic model, which was (is...) based on selling opinion-shaping to advertisers, sponsors, and media owners.

Pretending the Internet is _worse_ than that seems very self-indulgent.

It's also a rather panicked attempt to undermine the effectiveness of Internet communities as opinion-forming media machines in their own right. The machines happen to self-assemble rather than being engineered in a top-down way like trad media, and they're certainly more open than they believe to external influence.

Even so. The newsies aren't just losing the ad sale and eyeball space, they're also losing the traditional op-ed space to spontaneous community narratives.

If you're an editor, that's a serious problem. If you lose both eyeballs and PR leverage, you really have no reason to exist at all.

<comment><USER20> >If you're an editor, that's a serious problem. If you lose both eyeballs and PR leverage, you really have no reason to exist at all.

Well, one can still be useful by becoming a toady for elite power interests by promulgating certain cultural narratives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Publishers who wish to rein in the excesses of editors and journalists who abuse updates could establish a policy of linking to a change history which shows all the iterations of a specific article.

The temptation to make questionable edits would be curbed because evidence would be immediately available, enabling punishing critiques.

</comment><comment><USER22> It looks to me like they published the original article as breaking news, then changed it to be similar to what is going to, or was printed, in the physical edition of the newspaper.

I would strongly prefer the two articles be posted in their entirety at different (permanent) URIs, but I'm guessing this has already been debated and decided at the Times in favor of what they did.

</comment><comment><USER4> For context in regards to journalism, the linked article offers "related" content. Looking at what TechRaptor believes to be relevant, recently TechRaptor in their editorial _Reddit Banhammer_ [1] took the position:

 _CEO Ellen Pao of popular social media site Reddit seems to have more up her sleeve after a failed gender discrimination lawsuit. After new anti-harassment terms have been laid down, subreddits have mysteriously vanished. Of the subreddits that have been banned, /r/fatpeoplehate was among the largest. For those readers unfamiliar with what a subreddit is, think of them like mini communities._

 _One might think that we're better off without bile aimed solely at a targeted group, but something doesn't sit well with me._

The phrase "up her sleeve" has no positive connotation in this context. More importantly, the same history of alleged gender discrimination that the linked article claims is irrelevant to _The New York Times_ 's reporting forms an important part of TechRaptor's position regarding her actions in _Reddit Banhammer_. Indeed it ends with the conspiracy suggesting:

 _How do you readers feel about Reddit's censorship with the banning of certain subreddits and would you agree they were justified? Or is this part of something bigger?_

TechRaptor's position appears to more about _The New York Times_ 's interpretation of events than about the relevance of the facts about Ms. Pao's history when interpreting events.

[1]: techraptor.net/content/reddit-banhammer-crack

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone who frequently rewrites, revises, and deletes their online comments, to me the article's changes just look like part of the writing process in a world of realtime publishing. _The New York Times_ did not have a front page story ready within minutes of the news breaking, and unlike CNN, they didn't publish random tweets about the event as news: there's better and worse.

Maybe newspapers need git repositories...with no ability to rebase of course.

<comment><USER23> But why not add the new story as a separate analysis piece, as the NYT often does? What did they gain by changing the original?

<comment><USER24> There is a very clear movement in journalism to create the narrative that Ellen Pao is a feminist hero. Apparently the NYT is in that cabal.

<comment><USER23> Please stop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't understand what this post is implying. If the original article was neutral and information driven then the changes aren't a cover up, maybe you could call it a cover down? The people that read the original article and missed the updates are better off. So what's nefarious about it?

<comment><USER6> According to 'yzzxy, "TechRaptor" is a GamerGate spin-off site. So the subtextual nefariousness might be what you think it is: a bunch of people who don't like it when people write about gender discrimination making special pleading arguments about how the Internet should be covered by press outlets.

<comment><USER26> Seeing you, of all people, peddling this genetic fallacy claptrap is rather discouraging.

Any such "subtextual nefariousness" is in the mind of the reader.

<comment><USER27> It's funny because it isn't even true, TechRaptor as a Tech reporting site has existed since early 2013, here is a Web Archive from about a year before "GamerGate" started: [http://web.archive.org/web/20131124114156/http://techraptor....](http://web.archive.org/web/20131124114156/http://techraptor.net/)

In fact it was founded by Rutledge Daugette in March 2013, over a year before "GamerGate" started in August 2014. So apparently the site was "set up by evil GamerGaters" over a year and a half before it ever existed in prescient foreknowledge and expectation.

What this should tell you both about said claim and the people making it I would like to leave up to you.

<comment><USER6> You know, my message board nerd instincts tell me I should attempt a grasping litigation of this point, attempting to establish for my faction the notion that TechRaptor is in fact a GG spinoff. But, you're right: I did some research, and while they are beloved of GamerGaters and the KotakuInAction crowd, that doesn't make them GamerGaters.

I retract the implication I created upthread that TechRaptor's story is weird because it's a GamerGate product. I'm back to "it's weird because I don't know why".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Same thing happens with reporting on Qatar death toll of building stadiums for the World Cup in 2022, they have used a total number of deaths of immigrants in Qatar instead of those who build stadiums ( their overall death rate is on par with other counties even UK and USA), they have edited [1] the article since then but the original impression has been made and now people are throwing invalid "facts" everywhere blaming Qatar of slave workers deaths for building stadium.

[1] - [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/27/a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/27/a-body- count-in-qatar-illustrates-the-consequences-of-fifa-corruption/)

<comment><USER29> Slave labor in Qatar and Dubai is real. Some of the living conditions literally have a sewage trough running right through the run-down and horrible housing complexes. Forced to shit where you eat, have our passport taken away, work unpaid, have no where to turn to for help, and be beaten if you don't meet standards every day.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed- qatars...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars-world- cup-slaves)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7985361.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7985361.stm)

<comment><USER28> You should see how some Mexicans live in USA or Africans in UK, not much different from how those mentioned in your quoted article live in Qatar, these people decided to do it themselves.

<comment><USER6> There are 800,000 Mexicans in Chicago, and the neighborhoods in Chicago that are dominated by them are nice. I don't know what you're trying to imply about American Mexican immigrants, but if it's what it sounds like you're implying, please educate yourself.

<comment><USER28> I used to work at construction sites in Brooklyn where mexicans were living 10 people a room in horrible conditions in Brighton Beach, so those "nice" neighborhoods that you see in Chicago are just a face of it, try going inside the actual houses...Looking at them from your office or just by driving by will not obviously show a real picture, so please educate yourself.

<comment><USER6> Your comment shouldn't be grey. I didn't downvote you. I assumed, unfairly, that you were being casually racist (or something; "racist" isn't the right term). Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you, like me, or tptacek [1], were confused why this is a big deal, that's because it's not. It's common practice for online articles to be changed after they are published, especially as new information comes in. If the article originally contained factually incorrect information that was later corrected that would be one thing, but that's not the case with this article; new information and context was added.

TechRaptor, the site that hosts the article, is strongly associated with the GamerGate community, and that is the source of this concern of this new non- existent "danger". Standing up for "ethical journalism" was and continues to be one of GamerGate's most popular smoke screens. In this case, the NYT article was modified to include context that TechRaptor author didn't like. However, it doesn't look good to say "no, this totally wasn't about the fact that Ellen Pao was a woman" because that's easily disprovable: there are a trillion and a half Reddit threads out there displaying some of the nastiest sexist invective you've seen in a long time, all targeted at Ellen Pao. Instead, TechRaptor attempts to attack the article via a sidechannel discreditation. It attacks an unrelated feature of the article (that it was modified after it was published), which casts a pall over the entire thing, effectively undermining the main argument simply by association.

There is a ton of talk in this discussion thread about how the NYT article is "biased" or trying to present an "opinion". This seems to me like just another way of disagreeing with the argument without seeming like you're disagreeing with it. Claiming that this should be reported on like any other CEO being fired is not a cry for journalistic integrity, it's a request to willfully ignore the very, very special context that this firing took place in. The behavior of the Reddit community during this process, a behavior that was blatantly sexist and clearly occurred at an outsized volume and level of rancor _because Ellen Pao was a woman_ , cannot and should not be ignored. To do so would be, well, unethical.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891](https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891)

<comment><USER31> > Standing up for "ethical journalism" was and continues to be one of > GamerGate's most popular smoke screens.

This is very unfair and uninformed statement to make about GG.

Most important thing to know about GG is that there are many images of GG circulating around. For some people GG is internet hate campaign. For others its political movement. For others its protest of trends on game scene. For others its outrage about reporting on poor releases or cliques in gaming media. Finally there are people who are just exploiting whole thing for internet fame they can capitalise from down the lane.

So quite obviously everybody finds the thing he/she seeks in GG, and so we have number of people attacking other people in different ways under different pretenses, like "IGN sold out!" or "GooberGaters chased girl out of her house!" naturally followed by "they didn't, they display game ads because they are gaming site" or "girl didn't run anywere, reporting her escape off her house's sofa all the time" retorts.

The greatest tragedy here is that there's whole lot of people with binary perception amounting to "with us or against us" who can't tolerate the tought that there may be valid points raised by other side, and thus dismissing (or more often flaming) either Adrian Chmielarz or Anita Sarkesian voices simply because they are on _wrong side_.

<comment><USER30> I sympathize with your plea for us to move beyond labels, but that doesn't change the nature of this TechRaptor piece.

This _is_ a smoke screen and it _is_ being used in the same old way to obliquely discredit an argument that a member of the GG community doesn't like. And the argument being discredited is, _once again_ , about the status of women in tech and on the Internet. Far from being an "unfair" characterization -- it's depressingly apt here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Thanks for sharing, next time somebody tells me news are not fabricated I just pull this up! :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Probably should have just been a second article, though I could understand why they might not want two very similar articles covering a lot of the same ground. I assume only the latter version ran in print. The first version should probably have just stuck around as a web-only piece that links to the newer one. Be interesting to see what the Ombudsman has to say.

</comment><comment><USER34> For actual journalism on the internet, it is worth going to shared common sources. I almost always rely on Reuters and AP. Since they are cited so often by downstream media, which is a major part of their business model, their content is--by its very nature--somewhat static. I have also generally found their writing to be less biased, with the exception of Reuters being inherently pro-finance and globalization (again, due to their specialized business model). In terms of more immutable print media, back n the early 2000s, I was also a firm believer in that the ridiculously low word count limits and easier barrier to reader entry encouraged at the Metro (the free public transportation newspaper) left whatever was able to make it through less biased. This again is on the basis that bias would add too much complexity to stories whose sole purpose was to impart the basics of widely agreed upon fact (cf. Simple English Wikipedia).

</comment><comment><USER35> "Associated Press caused a major uproar when they reported Hilary Clinton was running a homebrew email server from her home. This story was updated numerous times throughout the day with archive sites not catching all of it, though ZDNet has a very good run down of the situation with screenshots of the original. By the end of the day the story was about the Benghazi email probe instead of the original story about running a homebrew email _that was essentially disproven once people looked into it._ "

That story was not only not disproven, but not even contested.

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/hillary-clinton-says-she-did- op...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/hillary-clinton-says-she-did-operate-a- private-server/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not clear why I'm supposed to be alarmed by this.

The update neither changes nor removes any of the substantive material from the original story (look carefully). It adds additional material, and fleshes some of the previous material out.

It seems like standard practice at newspapers to get a first take on a story and then flesh it out later. It's _certainly_ standard practice at The New York Times, as even a casual look at NewsDiffs.org will show you: all sorts of pieces are effectively rewritten multiple times between their quick-take online version and the final print version. The Times never posts correction notices when that happens; they post them when they get something _wrong_.

 _Later_

A thread running through this controversy is that the new NYT story is an "opinion piece". Let's analyze it, graf by graf. This list is numbered by graf; the summaries are my own (you could dispute them if you wanted).

1\. _Pao is a hero to many online for her gender equality fight, but was ousted by people online as well_. This is mostly beyond dispute, except for the presumption that the Reddit mob actually did oust her, which all the principals in the story deny. That interpretation _favors_ the Reddit mob.

2\. _Pao 's resignation was abrupt and happened amidst a torrent of misogynist drama, renewing concerns about SV sexism_. It's indisputable that her resignation was abrupt. It's indisputable that the story has generated concern about online sexism. Some people may not appreciate that concern, but that doesn't make its existence not a fact.

3\. _There is a debate about online invective, particularly around gender issues. Calls for Pao 's ouster focused on her failed KPCB lawsuit._ First point: indisputable (see: GamerGate). Second point: indisputable (see: petition for her ouster). Second point particularly interesting because the suit has no obvious connection with Reddit.

4\. _Pao 's lawsuit revealed a culture that prized machismo._ This is the closest the article comes to opening up a salient in the debate. I happen to agree that the trial proceedings and community response did that, but reasonable people could disagree. It would be hard to argue that the Times simply _made this up_ , though.

5\. _Pao 's popularity amongst Redditors was influenced by the lawsuit_. Again: indisputable; the petition for her ouster _leads off with it_.

6: _A direct quote from Reddit 's chairman about Pao asserting that misogyny payed a role_. Reported story is reported.

7: _Pao 's unpopularity generated a petition, and lots of ugly comments_. Nobody disputes this.

8: _A direct quote from Pao 's resignation letter_. Reported story is reported.

9: _A direct quote from Pao, and background on Reddit._ Reported story: still being reported!

10: _A direct quote from Mitch Kapor on the demographics of Reddit_. Still more reporting. Three quotes in this story so far, two from the story's principals, one from an extremely well-known person in the industry.

11: _Direct quote from Kapor about gender issues on Reddit_. Kapor is corroborating points raised earlier in the article.

12: _Many subreddits went on strike over the firing of Victoria_. Indisputable, and also the event that precipitated the story.

13: _Pao posted an apology over her mismanagement of the site that was somewhat broad in scope_. Indisputable fact, directly relevant to the core issue of the story.

14: _Pao 's ouster is a setback, after losing a lawsuit and turning down a lucrative settlement_. Indisputable fact.

15: _Kleiner 's side of the story is that Pao was a bad investor_. That is indeed their side of the story. The Times does not rebut it.

16: _Pao owes a large amount of money, which the judge believes she 's capable of paying_. Still more facts.

17: _Pao is unclear on how she 's going to proceed with appeals_. Still more facts.

18: _If Pao succeeded in her appeal, the legal showdown between Pao and KPCB could recur._ Factual, and relevant to the story: Pao's suit was, again, in the lede graf of the petition for her ouster, and it could happen again!

19: _Huffman is the new Reddit CEO and part time at Hipmunk_. Indisputable facts.

20: _Huffman and Ohanian started Reddit_. Indisputable facts.

21: _Reddit is a private company with 50MM in funding_. More undisputed facts.

22: _Pao is remaining as an advisor, looking forward to getting more sleep_.

I'll go ahead and say it: by no reasonable definition is this an "opinion piece".

<comment><USER36> You should be concerned because:

1\. the rewrites weren't noted in the article, thus undermining the authoritativeness of ALL NYT pieces.

2\. They added a bunch of opinion to what was a fairly neutral piece.

<comment><USER6> Again: it is not standard practice at the NYT to note rewrites between quick takes and final versions. If you spend even a few minutes on NewsDiffs.org, you're going to see that this happens all the time.

This is important because the "TechRaptor" story doesn't concern itself with the NYT's standard practice --- in fact, it doesn't even seem to be aware of the practice. Instead, it takes a commonplace and uses it as a fig leaf to suggest that the NYT is distinctively bad at covering tech.

Reasonable people can argue that it's bad that the NYT posts quick takes and then substantially rewritten final stories. If they make that argument, they should acknowledge that it happens constantly.

Reasonable people can argue that the NYT sucks at covering tech. If they make that argument, they should not make quick takes the fulcrum of their argument.

<comment><USER37> > it is not standard practice at the NYT to note rewrites between quick takes > and final versions. ... they should acknowledge that it happens constantly.

I thought this was the point of the article?

<comment><USER6> No, it is not. The article's claim is more specific. In essence, what it says is that the Times does not provide a "git blame" for all their articles, and for that reason, it is bad at covering technology.

<comment><USER37> hmm, I didn't read it as a piece about nyt covering tech, but about covering news posted on the internet, with the ability to rapidly update and change articles without providing a record. E.g. they gave an example of the AP and spoke of journalism generally. I guess both examples, nyt/reddit, AP/email had an element of tech in them.

Fwiw, this shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The fact that they deleted the original version, rather than added or appended the new one is very telling. People worked on writing and editing it and that work got thrown away. "Hey, Mike, sorry." Why do you think that is?

You know, in the age of hypertext and search engines you would think that news would become more focused on actual events and facts. (Because anyone who cares could follow the links and do searches to get background information.)

Instead, everyone races to push forward more "analysis" and "context". We get "news" articles that pull in unrelated issues, do everything possible to frame the facts, and use emotionally loaded language wherever possible.

<comment><USER39> The Times (as of 2008) was explicit that they had two stages for online publication (see [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/washington/11askthetimes.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/washington/11askthetimes.html?pagewanted=all)).

The "Continuous News Desk" correspondent quickly write an article, in consultation with reporters. But the final draft of the article -- for print publication -- could be entirely different and with a different byline. I'm wondering if the techraptor reporter is noticing not a conspiracy to editorialize, but rather the difference between the breaking news story (just- the-facts) and a semi-considered story (context).

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> No matter what the subject matter this does seem like a questionable practice.

Why not make a new article if it is that different? Is there a URL shortage at NYT?

Or was it a case of one commit, another commit and yet another commit and then you have a whole new article?

</comment><comment><USER41> All that these professional victims do is drown out the voices of the actual victims.

</comment><comment><USER42> That was the same article?! I was just reading that and though it was some kind of editorial followup.

That NewsDiff link seems like a case for Margaret Sullivan. I can already picture the appeasement article in my head.

<comment><USER43> Seems like a reportable issue to me. Margaret Sullivan's page is here:

[http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/](http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> There are two convenient fact omissions when talking about sexism and racism towards Pao: the fact that the fired employee was female too. And the fact that Pao is of asian origins and that Asians are traditionally over- represented in SV and not traditional victims of racism in technology.

Those facts made the case for a racist and sexist crowd a bit too nuanced for a front page.

(Or maybe Asians and Indians are officially not counting now? They were getting too much in the way of the simply racist technoworld narrative?)

<comment><USER45> Regardless of whether the article's editorial stance is a bit kind to Pao, I think the fact that numerous racist comments were directed towards her is a lot more pertinent to the story than the number of Asians working in SV...

<comment><USER44> in a world where storytelling and example is more important than statistics and hard numbers, this story will be used in the future as an example instead of an exception.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> "This is a challenge that journalism faces today -- how to fairly update and keep stories current while informing readers as best we can."

I work in and around the media industry, and I don't think most publishers see this as a "challenge" \-- they have other things to worry about (like how to survive post-print, how to operate in an Internet ecosystem with Google/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube, etc.)

Instead, I see a lot of excitement around the ability of journalists to update their work after they publish it -- one of the few upsides, in fact, of the Internet, from their standpoint. Just as Wikipedia articles get better over time, some important pieces of journalism do, too -- with the guidance of new information or challenges to the original writing.

But look, the Internet isn't print. You can publish something at a URL, then change that URL's content. That's not a crime and it isn't worrying -- it's built-in to the medium.

Just like nothing makes the moment of publication special, nothing makes the moment of re-publication or re-writing special.

The New Yorker did a nice piece on the Internet archive, who is trying to "solve" this problem by periodically archiving the web. They pointed out that when Tim Berners-Lee invented HTTP, he considered the idea of versioning, but ultimately discarded it.

        In 1989, at CERN, the European Particle Physics
        Laboratory, in Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee, an English
        computer scientist, proposed a hypertext transfer
        protocol (HTTP) to link pages on what he called
        the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee toyed with the
        idea of a time axis for his protocol, too. One
        reason it was never developed was the preference
        for the most up-to-date information: a bias against
        obsolescence. But the chief reason was the premium
        placed on ease of use. "We were so young then, and
        the Web was so young," Berners-Lee told me. "I was
        trying to get it to go. Preservation was not a
        priority. But we're getting older now."

You can read the full story here: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb)

I think ultimately having a strong and well-supported Internet Archive (if you care, donate: [http://archive.org/donate/](http://archive.org/donate/)) is the best possible solution to this "problem". As long as we can go back and see how content evolved over time, we'll be able to study the changes.

And no, media companies are not going to embed Git into their news stories -- most of their visitors don't even know what Git or version control is. And most probably have never even clicked the "revision history" tab in Wikipedia.

<comment><USER47> Quite. Who cares whether the NYT revised the article? The more salient criticism is that the article is a deeply lazy and tendentious exercise in using insinuation to push a predetermined narrative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> site is not accessible to me, google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:techrap...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:techraptor.net/content/new- york-times-reddit-piece-shows-dangers-of-internet-journalism)

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder how much the stability of the URL influences this sort of editing. If traffic is coming in via a site such as reddit, a new article with a new URL might not get as much traffic as an edited version of the original article.

<comment><USER50> Internet popularity should not take precedent over journalistic integrity.

<comment><USER49> I was commenting on the motivation to edit existing articles rather than posting new articles, or even just pulling the original article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Technically this should be quite easy to fix. Each story gets a git repositiory. URLs denote the state at the time of view. A visitor to the URL gets a small header giving them the ability to read the article as shared or the most recent version. The full commit history should be accessible.

The reasons for not doing this would be mostly non-technical. Face-saving and risk of liability would seriously inhibit implementation.

</comment><comment><USER52> NewsBlur (newsblur.com) automatically diffs everything I think. Mostly just grammar updates.

</comment><comment><USER53> Who here didn't know anything about entrenched sexism in SV until codes of conduct, angry twitter mobs and odd journalism articles such as this post came about?

</comment><comment><USER54> This is interesting, since the piece by Mike Isaac was already _very_ liberally biased.

</comment><comment><USER55> News are corrupted as fuck, internet makes this worse. Rewrites, frequency, amount, lies, anything goes if you can get +1 view

</comment><comment><USER56> NOTE: Techraptor is a site set up by Gamergaters to talk about games and tech news without reprecussions from people who find their views exclusive of progressives, minorities, feminists, and LGBTQ folks. They call this "ethical journalism" because they claim to not receive kickbacks or have special relationships with their journalistic subjects, as they perceive their ideological enemies do.

The quality of journalism is low in my experience, notable moments include the point where writers believed "death of the author"[0] referred to authors dying out as a profession.

[0] A major concept in contemperary literature concerning authorial importance after a work is published, see _Rereading Barthes and Nabokov_ by Zadie Smith for a good intro

<comment><USER57> What I'm seeing is a news piece citing sources I can independently verify.

This is _really_ damning: [http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/technology/ellen- pao-reddit-chief-executive-resignation.html)

Did "gamergaters" (whatever that means...) set up newsdiffs too? Oh wait, googling it brings me to a git repository created in 2012, years before "gamergate" was a word on the internet.

So, I click that link, and I see exactly what the article talks about. A neutral piece on a CEO stepping down completely rewritten to push for a "look at how they're mistreating that poor female CEO" agenda. A solid article, turned into opinion mediatrash.

And you're making an ad hominem argument about the website because of who created it.

Quick sidenote (and if this gets me downvoted, have the decency to reply; blind downvotes with no discussion breed censorship)... As someone who is pro- women in tech, pro- women in general, pro- minorities, and even as an activist at times, I am finding it _really fucking hard_ these days to be pro _feminism_ when the agenda consists of _lying to people to get into the spotlight_.

I can't ever support a cause where this crap happens all the time. Where the facts aren't good enough to push the agenda.

Are there really not enough stories of opressed women that you have to find Ellen Pao, a _CEO_ (which already almost nobody can relate to) in the middle of extremely controversial _fraudulent lawsuits_ , that is accused of being out of touch with its own userbase? And people try to make readers relate to _her_?

There's so much shit to be outraged at in the world. Why fabricate?

Edit: Yep. Downvoted without discussion. Brilliant. We're really encouraging debates here...

<comment><USER32> "Edit: Yep. Downvoted without discussion. Brilliant. We're really encouraging debates here..."

Common practice here nowadays. You have to be ready to take a hit in your karma if you bring up a viewpoint that is not widely accepted here. Kind of makes me sad.

Anyways back to your points, this is exactly right. Ellen Pao fired Victoria for no good reason and NYT conclusion -> she is hated because she is a female. I can't find words to describe this level of hypocrisy. I am pretty sure that there are people who disliked her due to sheer misogyny but 200.000 people signed that petition. You don't need to be extremely good with math to understand that those people cannot just all be like that.

Anyways, I agree with you that fabricating things like this article is extremely bad, btw. this is what Chomsky calls manufacturing consent, and he is damn right about it.</comment></comment></comment>


Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas <comment><USER2> Well, duh. We point spy satellites everywhere as well, for exactly the same reasons (and I'm pretty sure that a) nobody's going to quit using Google Earth and b) the government pays attention to what people chatter about in the GE forums and so on because some of that has intelligence value). All significant military powers maintain lists of strategic targets in other countries as a matter of course.

Next you'll be telling me that military compiles detailed maps of foreign nations for potential distribution to troops, and that we have spies on our payroll.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, at a time when someone might be examining their opinions and conclusions on what limits governments should have on spying and information gathering on people living in the country's borders, it also seems prudent to examine actions governments take against those who don't live inside those borders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is one very efficient way to thwart these big data collection attempts: build fake profiles and build fake networks. If everyone would use a little of his or her time to do this, it would be extremely difficult to find the real address or security number or phone number of a person.

I foresee quite some opportunities for startups who would automate this. In this case not for "evil" purposes such as fake product reviews, or spam, but for - I would say - this ethically acceptable purpose of making it a tad harder to mine your personal information online.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking if everyone increased the noise to signal it would thwart their attempts. If everyone talks about illegal stuff their monitoring will useless for finding people that are actually trying to do illegal things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone else thinking this could be a coordinated effort by Chinese intelligence to discredit the USA?

Not passing judgement, but as a outsider this looks like a full fledged cold war.

<comment><USER7> In this case I don't think we needed the quote of a disgruntled or corrupted official to know how offensive the US has become in _cyberspace_ in recent years (see all the malwares attacks Stuxnet/Flame against Iran). (Note I used the terms _disgruntled_ , _corrupted_ to assume the worst case scenario, but it could as well be a _patriotic_ official who is concerned by what happens and wanted to raise the issue).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Again, not surprising, since other countries are actively engaged against us in the same manner.

<comment><USER9> At least they can stop being hypocritical about it, and stop pretending they're only ramping up cyber capabilities and trying to pass new bills for "defense", when it's obviously much more about offense than rather defense and real security.

<comment><USER10> That's always been the case. You'll never see a Department of Offense or a Ministry of Destruction. Even when we're busy bombing and invading foreign countries, we do it to " _defend_ strategic interests". It's doublespeak, of course, but it's always been like that.

<comment><USER11> It has not always been the case. Until 1947 the USA had a Department of War.

However since then we've been marching towards euphemism.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The 3D-printed gun: When is high-tech too hot to handle? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/137269-the-3d-printed-gun-when-is-high-tech-too-hot-to-handle <comment><USER2> Despite hysteria from the ignorant, it's perfectly legal in most of the USA (local jurisdictions may vary).

The key breakthrough is "printing" an AR15 lower receiver. All other parts needed are, by law, mere accessories. (Note that law is often very different from practical and/or social reality.) Buy those parts mail-order, and (so long as barrel is over 16" and total length exceeds 26") it's legal and functioning. Of course, "printing" the lower receiver at this point still suffers precision and strength issues, but just a matter of time before serious metals can be used and the item hardened. The great thing about doing this with the AR15 lower receiver is that it serves more to just screw all the real precision-and-strength parts together, while being less so itself.

The problem with most lawmakers is all too often they know little about what they're legislating about, consenting to the demands of the ignorant and biased to circumvent restrictions rather than addressing realities in a straightforward Constitutional manner. In this case, attempts to ban certain products by practical irrelevancies result in cases such as this: form a single odd-shaped part, and all kinds of restrictions are avoided.</comment>


A new kind of light in the universe? Light that exceeds limits of natural law - <AUTHOR> https://scitechdaily.com/a-new-kind-of-light-in-the-universe-super-planckian-material-emits-light-that-exceeds-limits-of-natural-law/ <comment><USER2> [spoiler alert] > _This doesn't violate Planck's law. It's a new way to generate thermal emission, a new underlying principle._</comment>


Atari's "The Book" (1980) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://pdf.textfiles.com/technical/atari_thebook.pdf <comment><USER2> Also Atari related, for those that don't know this resource.

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

Full of great books about programming the Atari home computers and a time window for the youngsters how we used to code.

<comment><USER3> Very nice. Also [http://www.atarimagazines.com/](http://www.atarimagazines.com/) \- classic scans of Analog, Antic, creative computing, Compute! ...

<comment><USER4> What a blast from the past.

I use to write game reviews for a few of these magazines for fun.

I also wrote this feature length article for STart magazine when I was 18: [http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/hownottoshop.html](http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/hownottoshop.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did they know how to write a good manual back then. You've got your soldering primer, guides on how to use test equipment... heck, you can probably apply some of the mechanical knowledge to fix your kitchen sink.

<comment><USER6> Most of the trouble-shooting techniques also apply to cars and computers. It's incredible how large a chunk of this manual is totally non-specific to Atari stuff but just general solid information on the technology used in those days and how to maintain it and repair it.

It says in the preface that 'the book' will not turn you into a technician but I've seen some 'technician course materials' that couldn't hold a candle to this one publication.

Very nice to see this preserved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is this one of the manuals recently salvaged?

<comment><USER8> I don't think so. Jason/textfiles only scanned a few single manuals and the Last-Modified HTTP Header says "Wed, 02 Apr 2003 20:20:24 GMT", of course - that doesn't have to be indicative of the actual modification time.. but still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for posting this; very cool!

The thing that always impresses me with the early game developers was their knowledge of the hardware, and not just the software. They were so close to the metal that it would have been difficult to develop a game without knowing the capabilities and details of the hardware.

Fast-forward to today, and we have really nice APIs that facilitate game development. For example, most of us don't need to have detailed knowledge of iOS hardware (or most any modern platform, really) to create a game.

Of course, that's a big win for how technology has progressed, but I can't help but hold those early game development pioneers in high-esteem.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you are into classic arcade games, visit FunSpot in Laconia NH:

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

They have everything. I remember playing Bosconian there when I was a kid and took my kids there this year.

</comment><comment><USER11> ZOMG! I remember this; I had a copy when I was 13 years old and I have no idea what happened to it. I learned soldering with this. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER12> Who needs an EE degree when you've got this.

<comment><USER13> Oh, just those who want to do magnetics, motors, radio, radar, batteries, robotics, sensors, electrostatics and so on. Pretty much anything beyond become a television repair technician.

<comment><USER14> Truth. On the flip side, if you're intimidated by working with all of the physical objects that are part and parcel of basic electronics technology, this book does a really good job of demystifying a bunch of it.</comment></comment></comment>


Search for an Airbnb apt on desktop, get mobile FB ad for same village and date - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1204920699628007424 <comment><AUTHOR> Follow up thread here[0] that discussed how Facebook's "Advanced Matching for Web" works.

[0] [https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1204965655482527744](https://twitter.com/thezedwards/status/1204965655482527744)</comment>


Ask HN: If Evernote goes out of business, what happens to all our notes? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> If they go out due to bankruptcy/liquidation, the b'y trustee can "avoid" what(ever few) privacy and IP ownership protections that my exist in the Evernote EULA and sell all of your data AND identity to data brokers... after all what's more important than making the creditors whole?!?

<comment><USER3> I've been thinking about this lately. It would be difficult, but I think legislation against this scenario should be an immediate concern.

It's like Snapchat; the whole premise of security disappears when the user realizes they can take a screenshot.

A company can go bankrupt and sell off all user data, in raw form or otherwise, regardless of the agreement under which they collected it.

Huh.

<comment> finance-geek Is that really the case? Would liquidation take priority over contracts (EULAs in this case) -- I wonder what happened when St. Vincent's Hospital went bankrupt...were all the medical records sold off to the highest bidder(I dont remember hearing about that?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is anyone aware of any good open alternatives to Evernote? I've been reluctant to try Evernote for that particular reason (and lock-in factors). Ideally something like: 1) open source format; 2) you host the files e.g. on Dropbox; 3) markdown; 4) searchable (and entries can be tagged). Happy to pay for the app but the files need to be self-hosted in an open format.

<comment><USER5> This was discussed on HN previously, with no GREAT alternatives, but a few workable alternatives[1]

I'm actively looking for a replacement. I have tried Paperwork[2], Laverna[3], and DevonThink[4]

If you're on OSX, and open to a fair amount of upfront work, DevonThink is the best alternative I've used, and can sync with webDAV against Owncloud-or- other-DAV-server for multi-client-access.

That said, I've not yet found anything that approaches the overall feature set of Evernote across OSX+iOS, and continue to use it daily. I wish they would just let us host our notebooks on our own datastores.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9206002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9206002)

[2] [http://paperwork.rocks](http://paperwork.rocks)

[3] [https://laverna.cc](https://laverna.cc)

[4] [http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/overvie...](http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/overview.html)

<comment><USER6> +1 for DEVONthink. Your description is fitting, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whatever evernote decides.

</comment><comment><USER8> I guess before that happens, we should have all migrated to another tool - Microsoft OneNote being the closest competitor, having this tool at hand may make sense: [http://www.howtogeek.com/227719/how-to-convert-from- evernote...](http://www.howtogeek.com/227719/how-to-convert-from-evernote-to- onenote/)

<comment><USER9> FFS Microsoft, let me pin my notebooks on the lefthand side of onenote for mac. The navigation when you have lots and lots of sections is horrendous. ESPECIALLY when you can't sort by name from the mac client. Regardless, scrolling left to right isn't natural with a keyboard and mouse when you've got literally hundreds of sections like I do (one per client).

<comment><USER10> as a side note, I'd be curious to see what you store and how you organize it and use it for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found this while I was looking for info on Evernote just now; they were Inc magazine's company of the year in 2011.

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company- of-...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201112/evernote-2011-company-of-the- year.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Similar to NvAtl and Devonthink for the Mac is Eaglefiler [http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/](http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm working on a real-time collaborative note taking app with math typesetting. (www.escherpad.com)

Do you think porting data over is something that people might be interested in paying for on a subscription plan?

<comment><USER14> not to sound rude but I don't think people who are concerned about their notes would move their precious notes to another not-yet-proven startup.

<comment><USER13> I agree. So I will just focus on building the core app then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I _loved_ Evernote. With Libin leaving, it seemed like writing on the wall. I migrated everything to Google Drive while I plan my migration to DEVONthink.

</comment><comment><USER15> if you're seriously concerned about this, then the answer is to backup your notes periodically. There are a number of ways to do this - the one I use involves installing Evernote locally and then periodically exporting the database into Dropbox. Of course, this doesn't guarantee that your notes won't fall into the wrong hands. To avoid that you'd need to either encrypt your notes or run something yourself.

<comment> finance-geek There is probably a diff history, so if the notes get out, encrypting only protects you on new notes going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What usually happens in cases like these is that you get to download all of your notes in some format. This is what happened when google wave was taken down.

<comment><USER17> Google shuttering a product is a bit of a different thing than a company going out of business. It's a different pool of people in a different position dealing with different issues. I'd like to think they would do the same (right) thing, but I think that's a risky bet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The Evernote desktop app got some quite nice export functions.

It can, among others make a quite nice linked HTML tree.

I guess, google keep and onenote is the closest competitors.</comment>


World's worst website ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.theworldsworstwebsiteever.com/ <comment><USER2> Definitely not worst in terms of page load speed</comment>


Portugal runs for four days straight on renewable energy alone - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal-runs-for-four-days-straight-on-renewable-energy-alone <comment><AUTHOR> Think this is a great rebuff to those that say renewable can only work when there is traditional generation to meet daytime or nighttime needs. Obviously this is just four days, but does to show what is possible with just a few more years investment.</comment>


Ask HN: Are YC or anyone else funding generic drug disrupters? - <AUTHOR> Seems like an obvious choice for VC would be a generic drug company. To take a single example,  even "generic" epipens costing $300 or so in the US, a new take on generic drugs feels like a strong candidate for VC funding. What am I missing? <comment><USER2> These types of businesses are getting created and funded (just not in large quantities like tech companies), and you will not find it here on HN or really in typical VC tech circles.

Medical devices and Pharmaceuticals are not easy or simple things to bring to market and you can't "hack" around the FDA to short circuit the timeframes etc. Even using approved formularies there are very detailed testing requirements which take significant amounts of time. Which leads to costs not being so inexpensive once all the research, development and market costs are calculated. Obviously I agree the $300 epipen for example is insane and although I am not sure how much can be trimmed there, I am sure it is fairly large.

<comment><USER3> Generic Epi alternative you can get through CVS.

[https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen- alternative](https://www.cvs.com/content/epipen-alternative)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, YC is specifically requesting for startups who can make cheaper pharmaceuticals: [https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Look at news + stock price movement in the past 5 years on Teva and Mylan, two of the largest generic makers in the world.

The outlook on the generic industry isn't great to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER6> Coincidentally, today Sequence Bio (YC S19) posted their Launch HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20986079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20986079)</comment>


Why Most Marketers Fail at Web Analytics - <AUTHOR> https://www.dynamicyield.com/2015/02/web-analytics-fail/

<comment><USER2> What really marketers miss is the difference between raw data and meaningful data.

What is raw data?

Number of visits Unique Visitors Country

What's meaningful data?

Source/Medium Time spent on Intent of user Visitor journey etc.

Turning meaningful data to scale a marketing strategy is more important than anything.

For an example, if a specific blog is sending you massive traffic and the visitors are converting into subscribers and buyers.

Then you should look out for a way to add more of similar blogs to double and triple your conversions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. Good comment growthape!</comment></comment>


Snowden Documents Reveal Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks - <AUTHOR> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/ <comment><USER2> > One classified document shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to > secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to > tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, > the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP > addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that > visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.

This is _real-time surveillance_ of website visitors & search terms to websites that governments don't like. I'm guessing it wouldn't take much for them to correlate those visitors to IP addresses, cookies, device IDs and cell tower signals to pinpoint people in real time too?

 _Knock knock_

Who is it?

 _It 's the police. We know you're browsing Wikileaks right now._

Edit: Looks like GCHQ's "ANTICRISIS GIRL" [0], the tool used to monitor Wikileaks visitors in real time, was based on Piwik [1]

[0] [https://prod01-cdn01.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/pi...](https://prod01-cdn01.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/piwik2.png)

[1] [http://piwik.org/](http://piwik.org/)

<comment><USER3> Well spotted. To be honest, I'd be pissed off if I found out GCHQ had repurposed my project for this sort of thing.

Not really possible to fix this situation either as "do no evil" license clauses are pointless.

<comment><USER4> If it was GPL you might be able to argue that they violated the derivatives clause. I doubt it would help since this is top secret intel work and I'm sure they have legal loop holes that essentially allow them to ignore things as trivial as copyright when it suits them.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePo...](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic)

<comment><USER4> s/GPL/AGPL/

Which raises the question of whether or not a program that passively wiretaps you falls under the provision of network services clause in that :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Illustrating how far afield the NSA deviates from its self-proclaimed focus on terrorism and national security, the documents reveal that the agency considered using its sweeping surveillance system against Pirate Bay, which has been accused of facilitating copyright violations. The agency also approved surveillance of the foreign "branches" of hacktivist groups, mentioning Anonymous by name.

Good to know that the NSA is on top of that Pirate Bay threat! I was worried for a little bit. Good thing they're keeping tabs on script kiddies too. And of course WikiLeaks; that's just information terrorism. Better go ahead and classify them all as malicious foreign actors:

>any communication with a group designated as a "malicious foreign actor," such as WikiLeaks and Anonymous, would be considered fair game for surveillance.

>When NSA officials are asked in the document if WikiLeaks or Pirate Bay could be designated as "malicious foreign actors," the reply is inconclusive: "Let us get back to you." There is no indication of whether either group was ever designated or targeted in such a way.

Knowing Greenwald, I've got a suspicion that he already knows the answer to that question. Gonna go grab some popcorn. Y'all want anything from the concession stand?

EDIT:

Notice of course that it doesn't really matter if the NSA classifies any of them as malicious foreign actors or not. They can always count on the GCHQ to scrape up US citizens' data for them:

[https://prod01-cdn01.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/pi...](https://prod01-cdn01.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/piwik2.png)

That blue spot on the "Visitor Countries" map looks familiar...

<comment><USER7> > Good to know that the NSA is on top of that Pirate Bay threat!

As I've mentioned in another comment already, this reminds me of Pete Seeger's comments on the (anti-communist) Black List:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now we know what we've speculated darkly about all long: the NSA and GCHQ actively track users who visit sites they don't like.

Presumably your visit to The Intercept and First Look are similarly tracked and correlated with your other online and offline activity.

I for one will visit this site and open every linked document from each IP I have access to. These tactics of mass surveillance and intimidation must be resisted.

<comment><USER9> Launch a bunch of t1.micros or tiny dockers or something and have them constantly curl or wget all the links. Setup a spot request with an autoscale script which will constant request spot instances from the cheapest zone where they are spawned and curl/wget to dev null then die and get a new spot spawn.

<comment><USER10> Or, you know, lease a VPN connection. [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/)

<comment><USER7> I wonder how many of those are either run by spy agencies, or are infiltrated by spy agencies?

<comment><USER11> They don't even need to run fake VPNs anymore, just go to the host of vpn host, get all the metadata you want [http://www.wipeyourdata.com/other-data- erasing/no-logs-earth...](http://www.wipeyourdata.com/other-data-erasing/no- logs-earthvpn-user-arrested-after-police-finds-logs/)

<comment><USER7> Well, if they already have most of that data (ip/connection metadata from backbone isps) -- and the provider/target site is small enough that traffic analysis is enough to defeat the vpn -- all bets are off anyway. This is a basic problem with VPNs -- you need to assume all data going in and out is logged -- if you're the only one visiting omghowcanimakebombsforeal.com at any given hundreds of a second -- then you're pretty much done for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know about you guys, but these two quotes together with the events in the life of Assange seems to paint some picture.

 _According to the Post, officials "realized that they have what they described as a 'New York Times problem'" – namely, that any theory used to bring charges against Assange would also result in criminal liability for the Times, The Guardian, and other papers which also published secret documents provided to WikiLeaks._

 _USA [...] urged other nations with forces in Afghanistan [...] to consider filing criminal charges against J.A. [...] focus the legal elements of national power upon non-state actor Assange, and the human network that supports Wikileaks_ (from [https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/as...](https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org/wp- uploads/2014/02/assange_pressure.png))

Not that this came as a surprise for people who read things outside NYT.

<comment><USER13> In particular: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_A...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_Authority)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am not surprised one bit.

Not directly related to the article, but more to the issue at large: One thing many people fail to realize is that humans can be terribly, terribly corrupt. There are those among us who, without a drop of guilt or compassion, would take the life of another. Given the means, we are capable of carrying out some heinous acts. Many believe that there is some moral or ethical boundary that these spy agencies will not cross. That given all the information that's been leaked, all the lies that've been exposed, there is still an area of corrupt behavior that is off-limits.

I have no doubt in my mind that there are those within these agencies that have abused their access to information for political, financial, and personal benefit, eg insider trading, selling damaging information to political candidates, suppressing journalists, etc. I'm not sure if it'll ever be brought to the public light, but I'm certain it's happened and is happening. The stuff that we read about is peanuts.

<comment><USER15> >I am not surprised one bit.

I think this is something that Hollywood movies such as Enemy of the State promotes. So that when it does come out non of us are surprised it really exists. We should just make sure that our lack of surprise doesn't turn into disinterest and apathy.

</comment></comment><comment> grey-area I find it really interesting that a huge number of GCHQ internal training documents, giving away an awful lot about their operations and systems, was available on demand with no logging to poorly vetted contractors at US sites. They don't even know what he took. Contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton are a huge, soft target with a constantly changing roster of workers.

That lack of any significant firewall between the allies, combined with a huge army of contractors in the US with top secret access, means China/Russia etc have probably had access to this information for years, if not decades, and could feed CGHQ and the NSA misinformation at will, because they'll know exactly what their capabilities and aspirations are.

<comment><USER16> An ex director of GCHQ has said how disappointed he was at the poor control of information the NSA had.

The way he said it made it sound like things were going to change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> These findings illustrate the difference between _surveillance_ and a _surveillance state_. The GCHG and by relation the NSA had plenty of information about who visited or donated to Wikileaks, but did not act on any of that information [1]. These documents could easily be construed as a vote of confidence for the agencies in question. People love to throw around the phrase "Orwellian" these days, but his seminal work does not appear to be relevant here. We all know that the government could be surveilling us at any time. We should all be afraid of it taking widespread action based upon that information. This day has not come yet.

The government can listen to what you say and watch what you do all they want. The moment they move from surveilling to censoring, from watching to interfering, the average citizen will come down on them with righteous fury. No one is coming to your door or telling you what lawful websites you can and can't look at or what you can say to people. It's a testament to the strength of our ideals that government agents can tap your phone and hear you say how much you hate them, and yet still not lift a finger against you [1].

Keeping an eye on quasi-legal websites and organizations is the government's job. Using force to harm them is a line that we cannot allow them to cross. There are many, many more documents that have yet to come to light and I'm sure that this community will be the first to point out any serious abuses of power.

[1] _" That we know of"_

<comment><USER18> Assuming that the government reaction would be to beat down your door is naive. The government knows, as you do, that down that path lies insurrection. Beating down doors and imprisoning dissidents is a crude tool.

There are other tools for influencing individuals and controlling society, much more targeted, silent and insidious.

<comment><USER19> I'd love to see some brain-storming on what those techniques might be; together with civil-society countermeasures.

<comment><USER20> There's the MLK method: spy on a meddlesome soul, discover his infidelity, tell him to commit suicide or you'll tell his wife:

[http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/15/the-fbis-attempt-to- bl...](http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/15/the-fbis-attempt-to-blackmail- martin-luther-king-into-suicide/)

[http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a- lette...](http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/21/the-fbi-wrote-a-letter-to- martin-luther-king-telling-him-to-commit-suicide/)

[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/king-like-all-frauds- yo...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/king-like-all-frauds-your-end- is.html)

Or just general COINTELPRO: [http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel- pro](http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro)

(Yes, that's the FBI's own archives, happy reading.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "discovering that an American has been selected for surveillance must be mentioned in a quarterly report, "but it's nothing to worry about.""

This is so bad. Just when you think it can't get any worse.

The worst part is that more leaks with probably even more depressing revalations are on the way.

</comment><comment><USER22> Who gave the order to monitor Wikileaks and its visitors? What I'd like to see _at the very least_ is that these agencies get reformed to the point where if we do find out about an abuse of theirs, we can put pressure on the so called "oversight committees" who clearly aren't doing their jobs, to uncover exactly who monitored Wikileaks and who gave the order to do it. And then fire them.

Right now even if there was such a pressure on them, there's probably no way to link to who did it, because NSA and GCHQ seem to be run in a very chaotic way and that's on purpose, so there are no ties for specific operations to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess that bitcoin donation to wikileaks I sent a few years back means I should probably dump my computer's bios and ssd firmware physically out of flash with a logic analyzer and compare it with others of the same model.

Fuck.

<comment><USER24> I know this guy, let's call him hypothetical Fritz, who was seen talking in public to a WL spokesperson after an event a few years back. I don't know if he should be worried, but from listening to him when he talks of it, I know that he is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah, page 19 (18 for context) of this presentation is kind of interesting:

[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/02/18/psych...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/document/2014/02/18/psychology- new-kind-sigdev/)

Firefox: browser of choice for neurotic introverts!

(I use Firefox:)

Actually that whole slide deck is interesting. Watch how "Squeaky Dolphin" help us go from "real-time" monitoring of likes on facebook and youtube/blogger views to splunk powered(?)[1] "Battle Damage Assessment Demonstrator - City Activity"...

[1] Slide 26-32. Splunk is namedropped, wonder if NSA are big customers of [http://www.splunk.com](http://www.splunk.com) ? I guess all PR is good PR...

</comment><comment><USER25> Related:

The Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders has the U.S. ranked #46 in their 2004 report [0] - just above Haiti and just below Romania.

[0] [http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php](http://rsf.org/index2014/en- index2014.php)

<comment><USER26> On The Media last week had a great piece on why this index is pretty bunk [http://www.onthemedia.org/story/press-freedom-not- decline/](http://www.onthemedia.org/story/press-freedom-not-decline/)

OTM is a pretty great podcast, by the way. Covers lots of stuff about the Snowden leaks with a very level head.

<comment><USER27> Click through to the actual WaPo article. It isn't exactly a huge endorsement of US press freedom.

The article has a graph showing US press freedom bouncing between sort of OK down to "less than Lithuania" levels over a period of decades. In other words, mediocre levels of press freedom happen regularly in the US. That does not actually contradict the notion that, currently, it sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Are we surprised by this?

What Snowden taught us, the lesson we all have now, is that those with that level of internet/computer skills are not citizens of a single country but RATHER citizens of the Internet and its our actions that determine the future of the internet and its freedom.

</comment><comment><USER29> That screenshot of how they tracked WikiLeaks visitors... isn't that Piwik?

Edit: Oh never mind, should have kept on reading.

<comment><USER30> And the Wiki software they're running is MediaWiki. Viva la Open Source!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Piwik works in the same way as Google Analytics and uses an injected JavaScript to report the stats back to the server. If they didn't modify Piwik a lot it means that the script should be visible and the address of the server too.

Just tested, not seeing any suspicious JavaScript tags from inside the UK.

<comment><USER32> Javascript is only needed for more detailed information about their browser. The analytics appear to collect only header information and the ip address suggesting that they don't require Javascript to be injected.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands The interesting thing is this is getting massive headlines here, but when the IRS targets conservative groups, there's barely a peep.

I'd say government overreach is starting to get to a fever pitch. People have good reason to fear their government and that's pretty scary.</comment>


Google buys domain for search terms stolen by bing - <AUTHOR>

hiybbprqag.com has been bought by google <comment><USER2> The Whois record suggests otherwise:

Registrant: Chih-Chung Chang Level 73, Taipei 101 Tower, 7 Section 5, Xinyi Rd. Taipei, Taiwan 110 Taiwan

<http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx?Domain=HIYBBPRQAG.COM>

<comment><USER3> That's the address of Google's Taipei office:

<http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html>

To be fair, I only thought to check that because I recognise the guy's name and know he's in CS (though I had no clue until today that he worked for Google) --- he co-developed LibSVM, which I've used heavily:

<http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> ...and points to their jobs site!</comment>


Why is n++ faster than n=n+1? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-is-n++-faster-than-n-n+1?share=1 <comment><USER2> > The generated code is identical, and thus the performance will be identical > (all other parameters being equal).

So it's not faster</comment>


Could Samsung pose a threat to Google's Android? - <AUTHOR> http://dailysocial.net/en/2012/01/10/could-samsung-pose-a-threat-to-google/ This week's Monday Note by Jean Louis Gassée sparked an interesting thought and possibility that Samsung is gaining a serious upper hand in the Android world and could use it as leverage against Google. Now why would Samsung do that?<p>At this point, Samsung probably wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the relationship with Google, after all, it's selling tons of Android phones across the world and has become the number one smartphone maker on the planet because of it. Samsung owes a lot of that to Google. <comment><USER2> Samsung have their hands in the pies of all mobile operating systems; Android, Windows Phone, iOS, their own Bada and now Tizen. It's that impartiality that makes them into the success that they are.</comment>


Incident Response Roles Overview - <AUTHOR> https://response.pagerduty.com/before/different_roles/ <comment><USER2> Unionizing SRE and on-call jobs (all tech jobs) should be a huge priority. Stop letting them use tools to make it cheaper to wake people up. Stop externalizing your bad business and hiring practices</comment>


Linkedin reaches 200 Million Members. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/01/09/linkedin-200-million/

<comment><USER2> Linkedin would probably be at a billion, if unlike FB and Twitter, there wasn't the burdon of being an actual person.</comment>