Ask HN: Why has nobody else 'defected' from NSA/GCHQ since the Snowden incident? - <AUTHOR> I am not looking to start a rambling thread here, however, we like to believe that conspiracies don't exist because surely someone would speak out.
Yet, within the fun world of NSA/GCHQ, nobody has came forward since Snowden to tell the world what it is that the spies are really up to or even how the Snowden stories affected morale in Peeping-Tom-Land.
Clearly there are penalties for speaking out, i.e. jail terms, however Snowden also showed how it is done. Why haven't any other NSA/GCHQ persons booked themselves a 'holiday' in some place like Bolivia/China/Russia?
This is a genuine question.
-EDIT-
Compare the situation with the sex abuse scandal that has gone on at the BBC. (Where, for many decades, many of the BBC's top presenters/DJs were able to rape/abuse children/young adults on BBC premises 'safe' in the knowledge that they would never get caught.)
Nothing is said until a year after the BBC's most voracious paedophile dies, then the whistle gets blown. Thereafter, all of a sudden hundreds of people that never had the courage beforehand come forward. Previously they did not think they would be believed, now they know they will, so, for them it is desirable to speak up even though they are still taking on powerful people.
A similar thing of 'disbelief' has gone on with spying. Before Snowden nobody would have believed that the government taps everything, now we know. So claims that might once have sounded ludicrous could now be taken seriously. You would think others would be incentivised to speak up, surely? <comment><USER2> Consider the possibility that others have come forward and leaked documents, which have then gone on to be published (perhaps even by Greenwald et al) with sources listed as "NSA documents obtained by $publication". Everyone would assume they came from Snowden without much question giving excellent cover for other leakers who want these things to be known but aren't willing to give up drastically above average salaries in tropical locations to do so.

</comment><comment><USER3> Snowden wasn't the first NSA whistleblower. Wikipedia lists 4 other NSA employee whistleblowers. And every one of them was investigated by the FBI, subject to armed raids, or otherwise persecuted. Surely NSA employees know what they're dealing with better than we do (and I don't mean that in a good way).

</comment><comment><USER4> Greenwald et al haven't finished their run yet, and have done a good job of keeping the story in the news. A second leaker probably wouldn't change the trajectory of the story right now. They may want to stay and see if things change. If real reforms happen, there's plenty of fun stuff to work on at NSA. If some programs are continued despite those reforms, then it's time to blow the whistle.

And if only bogus reforms happen, then they would be in a good position to leak Feinstein's phone calls from last week.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its not the same thing at all. The people coming forward about a sex offender have absolutely nothing to fear; they weren't the ones that broke the law.

On the other hand, revealing classified information will send you to prison for decades. Depending on what you do for a living, it could even result in the death penalty. Best case scenario, you will spend the rest of your life living in a country with a government worse than your own, wondering when a member of the intelligence community is going to murder you.

The comparison really doesn't hold up.

Also, think of how badly this has damaged not only the U.S. government, but also the private sector. No company in its right mind, foreign or domestic, still wants their data to traverse networks from the United States. They might not be able to avoid it, but that's besides the point. By the time all is said and done, tens of billions, if not trillions of dollars in damages will have been done to the U.S. economy. The NSA's shenanigans have been the most detrimental thing to happen to the United States in at least a decade. Unfortunately, the government doesn't blame themselves, they blame Edward Snowden. And so you can be sure that billions of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours are being dedicated to the task of closing any holes that allowed Snowden to leave the country with large amounts of classified information.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pedophilia is a taboo in the entire western world. Especially, homosexual pedophilia is something that you _never_ get away with. When you can't win an argument against bitcoin or TOR for example, all you have to do is drop the sentence 'pedophiles use it to [...]' and you're able to see even the most liberal people taking a step back.

That's to say that pedophilia is something unacceptable by 99,9999% of UK's (and probably large part of the world's) population.

What Snowden did, was eventually hailed by some newspapers, but not without very cautious words. No one in the 'establishment' called him a _Hero_. Keith Alexander is still there IIRC the Obama administration didn't accept any sort of discussion about bringing him back without penalties, etc. Most importantly, the political hypocrisy is backed by the sentiment of _betrayal_ which is strong even among the US population. Even in this thread you can see people arguing that _it was planned_ \- which IMHO is stupid and doesn't make sense but anyway - or it was a mistaken move, etc.

So while the one situation finds all parts aligned the other, even after the revelations came true and minor actions where taken in the right direction, doesn't. And if the IT community understands the repercussions of his actions, so much that you compared the two situations, most people don't know enough to understand and care about what's going on and how important online privacy will be in the future. But give them a pedophile and people will burn him alive (maybe, just maybe... rightly so).

</comment><comment><USER7> cus he still can't go home, or see his family, friends or anyone, and is in a precarious position with another super power and occasionally has to pawn along basically for his survival now. I doubt too many other people want to sacrifice their entire lives. He has shown us how it's down, and the price and I don't think anyone else wants to pay (and that's if they are lucky, there is still large risk it could go much worse)

</comment><comment><USER8> "To Arendt's mind, Eichmann willingly did his part to organize the Holocaust — and an instrumental part it was — out of neither anti-semitism nor pure malice, but out of a non-ideological, entirely more prosaic combination of careerism and obedience."

[http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/hannah_arendts_original_a...](http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/hannah_arendts_original_articles_on_the_banality_of_evil_in_the_inew_yorkeri_archive.html)

And the original book,"Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" in PDF -

[http://platypus1917.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/arendt_ei...](http://platypus1917.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/arendt_eichmanninjerusalem.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> You're taught that ethics mortality legality are someone else's job to worry about.

People tend to adapt their personal set of ethics to suit the things that pay them. See almost every website that runs advertizements, and/or sells user's data.

Plus all the legal and financial risk.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's an interesting question. I think most people wouldn't have the combination of courage, access to sensitive info, and be able to uproot their life potentially forever.

</comment><comment><USER11> I kind of hope they wait until we get proper "reform" which is treated like a piece of toilet paper at the agency and they continue business as usual.

</comment><comment><USER12> Snowden himself might not have left the NSA if someone like himself had blown the whistle as effectively.

</comment><comment><USER13> you should check out Frontline's The United States of Secrets [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of- sec...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Who says snowden has "defected"?

Maybe it was on purpose..

</comment><comment><USER15> because they like their jobs? because they're afraid of retribution?</comment>


Facebook's head of AI urged Elon Musk to stop advising Trump - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-head-ai-yann-lecun-elon-musk-advising-trump-2017-1 <comment><USER2> It doesn't make sense to burn the house down and just refuse to cooperate with... you know, the legally elected government. Why should anyone stop providing advice. MORE PEOPLE SHOULD be advising Trump. Clearly, he needs all the help he can get. And while Trump is busy burning our climate change promises to the ground, Elon Musk is making a pro-business case push for green energy becoming cheap, and market competitive. Not because it's "the right thing to do", but because it's "good business".

I'd much rather suffer a Trump presidency with intelligent advisors trying to convince him to do the right thing and not do the wrong thing than suffer a Trump presidency of him doing whatever comes to mind.

You need to ask yourself which is scarier? A world where Trump gets advice from Elon Musk, or a world where Trump doesn't.

<comment><USER3> I have expounded this viewpoint before to similar comments from friends only to get a 'you're one of them' comment in return. I cannot recall a time in my life where I felt so much division. Please if you disagree with the post above, think about why, and post a thought out response. Because I honestly don't get it and want to. I feel both sides pulling away from reason and open discussion, and it frankly scares the humor out of me. There is no way to solve any of this by attacking each other and refusing meaningful dialog.</comment></comment>


Sharing Economy Index - <AUTHOR> https://www.justpark.com/creative/sharing-economy-index/ <comment><USER2> Great interactive piece. Didn't realise there were so many things that I could get other people to do for me!</comment>


Kevin Rose interviews Chris Sacca - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NpHbMFaQ8

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, I posted it so I would get redirected to the HN disucussion on this. Did no-one post it already? I actually accidentally wrote "Kevin Smith" at first, haha.</comment>


On Science and Success, and Why Theranos Isn't Worth $9B - <AUTHOR> https://syrah.co/joshdickson40/5620662f3c1755e900ba5ce7 <comment><USER2> I've already given my opinion on Theranos [0] but I want to call this out:

 _Clinkle might be a joke in 2015, but its core technology surrounding ultrasonic payments was an idea that deserved to be tried and deserved to be invested in. If it had worked out, the results could have been wildly profitable._

I disagree with this. Anyone with any knowledge of payments knew that was a stupid idea.

And it doesn't matter which billionaires invested in it.[1]

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10398655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10398655)

1: [https://twitter.com/joshdickson40/status/655481568115445760](https://twitter.com/joshdickson40/status/655481568115445760)</comment>


The CLARA Method of De-Escalation - <AUTHOR> https://calimac.dreamwidth.org/798770.html <comment><USER2> Occasionally when dealing with irrational people I have found it useful to match their energy level. So if they're yelling, you start raising your voice too. And you take whatever it is they're saying _seriously_. And if you have an objection, you state that objection. Then you continue the argument until the raised voices seem pointless and you both just calm down.

I had to learn this technique when I was living with friends that had undiagnosed and untreated personality disorders. Remaining calm while they're blowing up simply didn't work, and led them to think I was patronizing them. So I'd start making the same points I was trying to make to them, only with a raised voice. I would get completely invested in the argument, while remaining in full control of myself. Soon they would calm down.

It usually wound up being a cathartic experience for them. They'd break down after the whole thing was over, sometimes even cried. At first I thought I was doing God's work, but eventually I realized that that sort of thing just wasn't ever going to 'fix' them, and they needed treatment. For most of us, major cathartic events happen once a month to once a year and provide opportunities for permanent personality growth.

But when you have a personality disorder, no amount of catharsis will change your behavior, because your brain isn't wired the same way.

<comment><USER3> One of my sales mentors shared this story with me, but I'm not sure where he heard it originally. Basically what you said, if someone comes to you angry about something, be angrier _but not at them_. In all but the most extreme cases _they_ end up trying to calm _you_ down.

His example was a tailor of very high-end clothes, think tuxedos that cost as much as most folks' cars, custom women's jackets for formal events, etc. A customer comes in, angry that a button is sewed on with an incorrect thread pattern. Something to fix if you're paying $10,000 for a jacket but not exactly something reasonable to get angry about. The customer comes in, throws the jacket on the counter and demands that it be fixed. Rather than trying to de-escalate their anger, be absolutely outraged that one of your employees would do this. Assure the customer that you _will_ find out who did something so inconceivably stupid, and that you will most certainly fire them on the spot. The expected response will generally be something like "well, it's not _that_ big of a deal I mean if we just fix the threading..."

I'm sure there have been exceptions for other folks but every time I've used this tactic (generally reserved for the most egregiously ridiculous displays of anger) it's worked almost immediately.

<comment><USER4> > (generally reserved for the most egregiously ridiculous displays of anger)

On the other end of that spectrum you have Monty Python's "The Restaurant Sketch".

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzqTGmEcZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzqTGmEcZE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I did phone technical support for a computer company, I received my share of angry customer calls. In addition to keeping calm at all times in response to angry statements, I would try to subliminally impart better customer behavior on all calls. Since this was in the days of Windows 95, I would often have to spell out DOS and Windows commands. If the command included an "I" like "regedit" or "sysedit", I would specifically say "I as in intelligent" for that letter. These were almost all fairly complicated issues like getting a modem to work in the days of Config.sys and IRQ conflicts and "Plug and Pray". Having a customer primed for intelligence couldn't hurt, as I was leading the customer through regedit and sysedit editing over the phone (no fancy remote control software existed).

<comment><USER7> Oh those were the good old days!! IRQ conflicts, jumpers all around and thinking which device I need less :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This technique is extremely powerful in parenting. These are exactly the steps you take to reason with a toddler. Before anything else you have to get them out of their temper ta tantrum and articulating why they are angry. Then you segwey from listening to dialog.

<comment><USER9> But...

If you have to still do this with adults, it means the adults haven't learned to regulate their emotions well enough to listen to a rational argument even while they're upset. It's gotten so bad that some adults _never_ listen to things they don't emotionally agree with, even when they're not initially upset (hearing contrary facts _makes_ them upset). That is a _catastrophe_ for rational thought and discourse.

If an adult or an adolescent routinely requires being engaged on an emotional level before they'll listen to your rational argument, then once you do engage them emotionally they will listen to _anything_ you say, whether it's logic or pseudologic or rhetorical, semantically-null bullshit.

To elaborate a little bit...

Of course humans have all sorts of rational deficits. I never meant to imply they could be turned into Vulcans.

Putting too much emphasis on emotionally positive engagement over rational engagement leads to even worse emotional fragility and dependence than humans normally have. That leads to a constant preoccupation with the emotional side of interactions. And that indirectly atrophies their ability to evaluate incoming communication rationally, because they're constantly thinking about their own emotional state, or even worse the group emotional consensus of whatever groups they primarily identify as. That emotional evaluation interrupts rational evaluation.

I'm not advising people to eschew emotional engagement if they're in the business of persuasion, or in the business of keeping peace, or if keeping peace is a priority in a specific situation. I agree that that is sometimes needed, but I think it needs to be more limited in its application, and not the default approach for handling all disagreements. I don't think it works to create _lasting_ rationally-based changes to concepts in someone's mind; when emotional evaluation (mostly) replaces rational evaluation, anyone who makes the listener feel good can get them to believe anything. All the valid rational arguments you use today can be undone tomorrow by someone else who has no rational arguments but can keep the listener engaged.

<comment><USER10> I get what you're saying, though I've found that handling the emotional part of a discussion first makes the "rational" stuff way easier.

One thing to keep in mind is that many people out there have mental disorders (treated and untreated) that make it difficult on a chemical level to control these things. For example, ADHD destroys inhibition (causing the classic "speak before you think" behavior) on a deep level that's hard to work out even after a lot of training.

The way I see it is that emotional appeals serve first to level the playing field for this kind of state of mind, so that the rational discussion can happen. The Jobsian Reality Distortion Field is a thing, but for the most part I think it's about complementing the rational discussion.

<comment><USER11> Your note about ADHD completely resonates with a close friend who has adhd is often open in ways that are to his detriment. Any chance you have a resource I could read more on this as it relates to ADHD

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is basically Non Violent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg). First you need to address their feelings (empathy), to make contact, then proceed to reason and find a solution (strategy). Solution doesn't mean that the problem is gone, but could mean that the situation is accepted.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can totally relate to this from both perspectives (being pissed off at someone, and trying to calm somebody pissed off) and seeing how both approaches work/dont work.

Not too long ago I opened a dispute with Ryanair about what I thought was quite obvious their own issue for which I should be refunded (I provided screenshots and everything). I've reached out to their customer support expecting to raise a simple issue that should result in a quick solution on their end. I was shocked to see their support behaving in a very defensive and completely dismissive way that resulted in a 2 hour long support case that didn't really fix anything (they still have the same bug on their website, and I was not refunded). These guys basically upgraded me from 'slightly annoyed' to 'never again will I fly ryanair' kind of customer.

In another case, I've reached out to an online chocolate vendor to point out an issue I had with their shipping carrier. I knew it was not directly the vendor's fault, but this being their only shipping method I figured they should be aware as it is a constant problem. These guys acknowledged my frustrations immediately and even offered a symbolic gift card as a way of apologizing for an issue that they can't really fix any time soon. I was generally happy to see them even acknowledging my problem, and in turn completely understood that this was out of their hands. I continue to be their customer even though the shipping is still a pain.

I also have a local ad to help my father sell some stuff he makes by hand. As its a hand made thing that he makes in large quantities, mistakes happen every now and then and I get complaints. I try to be understanding of every issue they raise and offer urgent refunds/replacements to anyone affected. Even though people get pissed off they didnt get what they expected, everyone responded much better if I used similar methods of de-escalation.

People are often (and understandably) very impulsive and rude when they feel they are being wronged. We should try to be more understanding of these emotions and work towards solving the issue instead of taking it so personally.

<comment><USER14> I've found, much to my chagrin, that anger seems to be a much better way to achieve what you want than being pleasant and diplomatic.

Cases in point: ecommerce retailer offers next day shipping, but nothing arrives. I chase. "Oh it's out of stock". "It said in stock on your site... i'll have X instead". A week later, still nothing. "Oh it's in the post". A week later, still nothing, still "in the post". I ask for a refund. "Our policy forbids it."

So I find the email addresses of the company directors and send them a blistering email full of threats and insults. I get a refund 20 minutes later.

Other case: company installs satellite dish on roof. Stops working very next day. Ask them to come back. "Thursday.". Three months on they're still saying "Thursday", so I threaten court action in a blindingly rude phone call in which I call him names and belittle him. He turns up an hour later and fixes it, apologises.

When I ran my own business, I would always end up giving the shoutiest nastiest motherfuckers the most attention, to the detriment of the people who asked nicely - the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and most people will act to avoid conflict. I certainly do. I'm just as guilty.

I _loathe_ this aspect of human nature, as it just generates unnecessary grief for all parties involved.

A society that refuses the carrot is doomed to the rod.

<comment><USER15> I've found that contacting directors and explaining _politely_ , but bluntly, why you are upset at the service their _employees_ are providing, works wonders. No need to be rude.

<comment><USER14> I was polite and pleasant in my first half dozen emails - but after several weeks of being ignored, the gloves came off and I got an immediate resolution. Many business owners don't give a tiny damn about their customers, but all business owners care about legal embuggerances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have friends in politics and I have even run for office (School Board 17 people ran for 5 positions and 4 were re-elections I got 6th :( but my friend I was running with she got 5th :).

My job every election is to go to where the screamers and yellers are. For some reason the election official leaves these people outside that will yell and throw a tantrum if anyone even mentions a different opinion, which lowers voter turnout. So I stand there for either 20 minutes or 2 hours until I can get people to start dialoguing with me. It can be painful but I actually go through these exact steps and until someone is felt heard and emotionally calmed down and they will never care about a single word you say.

I hear how my friend has tens of thousands of dollars spent on his Man Cave in his basement and made all these crooked deals that they have proof of. I stand there and say have you been in his basement? He has a 20" TV a drum kit for 20 years ago and an ugly green carpet. I also want to say that he actually has personal debt and why would he be in the hole if he was raking in the money but ...

People just love to feel like they have superior knowledge to anyone they disagree with. This is why debates never change eachother's mind, because we hold on to certain "facts" when in all honesty they are opinion or speculation at best.

<comment><USER8> I volunteered for my town Planning Commission last year and have to deal with this all the time now. Residents are constantly ranting on social media accusing us of moving town borders, down-zoning our enemies, holding secret votes, and cutting deals. In reality, the only thing we did last year was approve a swimming pool and do some research on parking.

It's extremely stressful for me as an introvert, but I quietly and patiently explain concepts like due process and open-hearings when I have the opportunity. I stress that everything we do is open to public scrutiny and public comment. I explain that we can't engage on Facebook because it's not an official public forum. I invite people to attend our meetings or read our meeting minutes, but they never do.

Real government is incredibly boring and complicated. Its much more fun to rant and rave about conspiracies on social media.

<comment><USER17> Every time I've had to deal with the general public in any kind of scheduled gathering for policy discussion, with or without specialists present, someone inevitably says something (loudly and at length) which displays such an utter lack of understanding of what the meeting is for and what it can accomplish that it makes me scream inside. It makes me feel terrible for those who are facilitating. I got so furious the last time it happened that I walked out and left my favorite water bottle behind.

We should have great respect for anyone with even remotely good intentions who is willing to plow through this mess of misguided humanity to get something useful done. I'm pretty sure I can't do it, so if I want to see change happen I have to support those who can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Direct link [PDF] [https://www.nasco.coop/sites/default/files/srl/Bystander%20T...](https://www.nasco.coop/sites/default/files/srl/Bystander%20Training.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd be interested to see how this works in dealing with bad reviews. They often feel disenfranchised/slighted/wronged and not a few, angry.

I've been pretty effective in dealing with bad reviews for our app and lots of this method resonates with me.

As I'm systematizing the company a key area is putting in a process and tools for the team to handle bad reviews rather than me. So far however, it seems each situation and personality makes it difficult to pin down an effective process.

<comment><USER20> Regarding bad reviews, I feel for you. I am close to someone who is a good person, but seems unable to stop himself from leaving scathing reviews. If it's any consolation, I really believe that 1) trauma he experienced at a young age contributes to this behavior and 2) if he knew the person who produced the product and understood the difficulties they faced during its production, he would not do it.

<comment><USER21> I don't understand - do you think it's wrong to leave a critical review? Why should be stop himself leaving them if the product was bad? And whatever difficulties caused a product to be bad are irrelevant in a review of the product. People just want to know if it's bad or not.

<comment><USER22> The tone matters, I think. Think of how teachers leave a critical review of an assignment, versus the rants you see online. Both are often unpalatable, but the scale of the first kind often seems justified.

Often one feels that _one aspect_ of the product underperformed, while the others were on target, but the reviewers fly off the handle.

<comment><USER23> Is the review for the benefit of the manufacturer in order to improve the product, or for the benefit of prospective purchasers, to inform them of the quality of the thing they are considering?

Whether a review should be constructive depends on which of these it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Won't someone, who applies this technique often enough, need some psychological help? So that we help customers here and ruin brains of these who do listen and try to calm down all these angry people? I think there is an analogy of conservation of energy law that could be applied to psychology...

</comment><comment><USER25> What also gets me angry is if they leave no way for me to get back in contact with the same support-person after chatting with them.

<comment><USER26> "Can I have your name [again]?"

"Could you please transfer me to [name] as they were helping me out previously with this issue?"

<comment><USER25> That's difficult to ask when you are kicked out of the session with a "have a nice day, please rate this conversation". Come on, just give me a link to click on or an email address.

<comment> the-dude When I get connected I always take a note of the persons name, and ask for it if it not given upfront.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Coincidentally on the frontpage together with the rant of Linus Torvalds

<comment><USER28> I never got the impression that DE-escalation was Linus' goal.

<comment><USER29> Isn't it? If you're the unchallenged dictator of a project, it seems to me that saying "I will brook no more of this nonsense" is a better de-escalation strategy than inviting further discussion.

Edit: I hope my downvoter understands the irony in their actions.

<comment><USER30> I rather believe Linus' goal is to change Intel. Some curse words got it escalated to the Hacker News frontpage and that publicity helps. Why de- escalate?

<comment><USER29> You're right, but I think he's actually accomplished two things - one is to create useful publicity _outside_ the mailing list, and one is to minimize drama _on_ the mailing list. I guess I assumed the latter of those two meanings.

Also I interpreted it as a more general claim, not specifically about this fairly unusual instance where nerd talk interacts with stuff that's in the public consciousness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> First of all, take a deep breath to take yourself out of "fight-mode". Then when you got your brain back you can take these steps.

<comment><USER32> Easier said than done though, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So is this why when you phone up your broadband provider to complain that the service is down yet again, you get the incredibly infuriating nonsense about how sorry they are and how much it means to them that your service isn't working, before completely failing to do anything about it?

</comment><comment><USER33> I would not get mad if Comcast didn't feel the need to transfer me 3-4 times before addressing my issue...

</comment><comment><USER34> Someone should send this to Intel management.

</comment><comment><USER35> For the record, the original, descriptive and not next-to-useless title: "How to talk to angry people: the CLARA method of de-escalation".

HN guidelines say: _" please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."_ Maybe it's time to add _" or if it's vague and non- descriptive"_?

<comment><USER36> @dang please change it back, and many would prefer that you don't change helpful, submitter-submitted titles to original article titles just because the guidelines say so.</comment></comment>


Say Hello to Underachieving  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html <comment><USER2> From my own experience, I can say 'don't feel bad, this is character-forming and will give you insights you can use later'. At the same time, unpaid internships are a scam.

<comment><USER3> No, you are completely wrong. Taking a paid summer job that is "character- forming" just to make ends meet instead of pursuing the career you want is just a diversion. Any time someone says that something builds character, I am very suspicious.

"Unpaid internships are a scam?" Wrong. You have never heard the wisdom that you should give the first one away.

Obviously, you've never tried to work in a highly competitive industry in which it is difficult to judge aptitude. Most of these jobs are filled by networking and word-of-mouth references.

If you want to work in, say, fashion, it will be nearly impossible to get a decent gig if you don't first work as an unpaid intern in NYC. (Unless, of course, daddy is rich and powerful.) So you start at the bottom, doing shitty menial work for an established person, and working hard, and then you leverage their professional network and credibility to work your way up the ladder. At the very least, this system filters out people who can't get shit done.

<comment><USER2> Oh, am I. Yes, economic necessity can be a diversion, and it's important to ensure you don't get trapped by said diversion. But to think you can't learn anything from being diverted is foolish. You can, and you can leverage that experience in a variety of ways so in that sense it is not a terminal disaster.

Actually, I do work in a highly competitive industry of the kind you describe, the film business, and networking and word of mouth does matter. And I've done a lot of free work to get a toehold in it - in that sense, my comments were far too general and therefore wrong. On the other hand, those were mostly cooperative ventures where everyone was working for free or nominal payment.

Let me rephrase: unpaid internships at well-established, highly profitable companies are a scam. If you can afford the risk of having a clueless newbie around, you can afford to pay them minimum wage. If the work needs doing, then plainly it has some economic value. So does the learning environment for the intern, but that doesn't pay the rent while they're working for you. Landlords, retailers etc. aren't in the business of giving the first one away, they tend to request money up front.

It's not the shitty menial work I object to, mastering those tasks with a smile is an essential quality in many industries. It's the willingness to exploit people when you can afford to pay them without any significant cost to yourself. Shitty menial work on internships does filter out people who can't get shit done, have an entitlement attitude etc. Unpaid internships filter out anyone anyone who doesn't have a financial safety net, regardless of their skillset, motivation, or potential benefit to your organization. Working a second job for that period can be impractical, considering that the eager intern wants to give 110% to show off how great they are.

Is it really too much to ask that in return for such a commitment, someone should get paid enough to afford food, laundry, transit and a bed to sleep in?

<comment><USER4> Hmmm... Had a bit of a think about this one. We have some things that we could do with a hand on but don't have the time to do ourselves nor the budget to put out elsewhere. This stuff is mainly developing internal tools for our penetration testing team. If you're a Uni student looking to expand beyond a straight CS degree or go into pen testing or information security I can think of worse ways to spend your summer than helping a bunch of guys out with projects, probably wangling sponsorship for government clearance and getting to help out on real world pen tests - then of course if you do well there might be a job when you finish uni, or at least a set of industry references.

I agree that exploitation is wrong, but the key is to find something that pays you back in ways that will help you, and money isn't always the best way to get paid.

<comment><USER5> But, at minimum, that university student would need room and board ---plus income to service debt--- to work with you. Not all people have trivial access to that even small income ---particularly if their family does not live in the metropolitan area.

This doesn't mean that unpaid internships shouldn't exist if they otherwise couldn't exist as paid positions, but it does mean that some empathy and social awareness to offer even a couple hundred dollars a week, plus lunch, would help many young people "find something that pays them back in ways that will help them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I completely miss the point of the article. I do not know what was normal nation-wide, but I went to a State School (Oklahoma State University) and most of my peers worked through the summer to save up to have a little spending money for the next year.

Yes, a few, mostly those with well off parents, spent the time traveling or taking unpaid internships. A few others, mostly those that were both intelligent and worked exceptionally hard, got paid internships. But most of my friends and myself went off to the summer work this article speaks so derisively off.

The other thing this article seems to forget about is that if you have the time available it seems to talk about then it is a great time to do study and development on your own. It was a great time to read about the things you heard about but didn't have time to go in depth during class or to look at subjects not normally taught in schools, or at a minimium to read about the subjects that were coming next semester.

</comment><comment><USER7> So start a company. I (thought I) had an internship lined up for this summer too, it ended up falling through, so I ended up starting a new company.

<comment><USER8> So what happens to the company at the end of the summer when you go back to school? Will you have enough time to run it, or will it sort of die off slowly?

<comment><USER7> That part has yet to be seen. Hopefully, I'll have enough time to run my part, since I'm in it with 2 others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> College-aged kids living in a shabby apartment. One's eating noodles and the other is typing on his laptop.

I bet it even smells like a startup.

<comment><USER10> Article implies that was their parent's house...</comment></comment>


Tinder for Products - <AUTHOR> https://claporslap.app <comment><USER2> Hi HN

I have built a fun product - claporslap. While upvoting on PH people unconsciously upvote the product with highest upvotes or because of a bias towards a makers. So some of the good products never see the light of the day.

ClapOrSlap shows you a recent random product without any upvotes or the name of the maker. It is an experiment to prove the above hypothesis.

We are live on PH! . Check out ClapOrSlap here :

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/claporslap](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/claporslap)

So far, we have seen some popular products getting a significant number of slaps. I will release the stats soon .

Happy clapping or slapping</comment>


Anti-IRS Rant of Software Engineer who Today Flew Plane into IRS Building - <AUTHOR> http://embeddedart.com/

<comment><USER2> The site was pulled down, here's the copy of the rant:

If you're reading this, you're no doubt asking yourself, "Why did this have to happen?" The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn't enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I'm not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was "no taxation without representation". I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a "crackpot", traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven't had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it's time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country's leaders don't see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political "representatives" (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the "terrible health care problem". It's clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don't get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You've got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly "holds accountable" its victims, claiming that they're responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law "requires" a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that's not "duress" than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early '80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having 'tax code' readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful "exemptions" that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the "best", high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the "big boys" were doing (except that we weren't steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two "interpretations" for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their "freedom"… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of "paying my dues"), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I'm sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be "healthier" eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn't quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn't trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early '80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a 'wet- behind-the-ears' contract software engineer... and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report ([http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeRe...](http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport)) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (<http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml>).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL - Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. - This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. - The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

· "another person" is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

· "taxpayer" is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

· "individual", "employee", or "worker" is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it's not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can't believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my 'pocket change', and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their "freedom". Oh, and don't forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn't bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren't going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn't need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to "shore up" their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, 'special' facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I'm thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I'll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I've never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn't give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn't have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn't notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I'd never enter another accountant's office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl's unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn't have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the "great" depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn't it ironic how far we've come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn't have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it's "business-as-usual". Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn't that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I'm hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn't limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at "big brother" while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won't continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn't so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

<comment><USER3> If you can't live with the IRS or other parts of the US system, there are 194 other countries out there. Many of them are good places for English speakers to live and work. Vote with your feet, not with violence against helpless government workers.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately that solution doesn't work so well in practice. The United States is one of the few countries in the world to tax income earned by US citizens in other countries. (The only other ones of which I am aware are North Korea and, while it was in existence, the Soviet Union.)

Furthermore, any US citizen who decides to renounce his or her citizenship is assumed to have expatriated for tax reasons if the tax liability is over $127,000 or the individual's net worth is at least $2 million. (Though those, of course, are not the only reasons that an individual will be assumed to have expatriated for tax purposes.) An individual who has expatriated for tax reasons must pay US taxes on all US-derived income for 10 years and if the individual returns to the US for 30 days in those ten years, all income earned abroad is taxable by the US government. If such an individual has the misfortune of dying during any year in which he or she spent at least 30 days in the US, the entire estate is taxable by the US government.

I'm not sure Stack's tax liability was $127,000, but given his problems with the IRS, I wouldn't be surprised if the IRS would have declared him expatriated for tax reasons had he tried to leave the country. Escaping the long arm of the IRS can be easier said than done.

<comment><USER3> _An individual who has expatriated for tax reasons must pay US taxes on all US-derived income_. True, and they're fairly effective at collecting it too by withholding at the source. So if you don't want the IRS in your life, you can't get paid by US companies. Billions of people manage to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Department of Homeland Security released a statement calling this a criminal act, not terrorism. I am confused. A few years ago everything was considered terrorism and now nothing is.

This guy wasn't targeting individual people in the IRS, he was targeting the whole establishment. This is akin to the Oklahoma City bombing. If that was a terrorist incident and 9/11 was a terrorist incident, this is too. He even has an IRS hate manifesto.

I think it is a shame that the government uses certain words to its advantage, but I guess propaganda is just the nature of the beast.

<comment><USER6> You, sir, have obviously failed to memo that in this post-9/11-world, only brown people are terrorists.

Here's a key, in case it gets confusing again:

\- Guy in an airport with a Koran and an accent: terrorist.

\- White software developer who flies a plane into buildings for ideological reasons: not terrorist.

<comment><USER7> Actually, this guy's goal was not to incite terror, hence not a terrorist.

I'm not necessarily defending the way the government labels different crimes, though. AFAIK the Unibomber was pretty much like this guy.

<comment><USER8> He's absolutely a terrorist according to 18 USC 2331:

(5) the term "domestic terrorism" means activities that— (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

His explicitly stated goal was to affect the conduct of the government and coerce the civilian population via mass destruction.

<comment><USER9> I don't see how me meant to coerce civilians.

<comment><USER8> _"I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm convinced that domestic terrorism is going to be a bigger problem over the next couple of decades than foreign attacks. The political discourse/tolerance in this country has gone downhill significantly even in my lifetime. I can only imagine at the extreme fringes these people have gone off the deep end. We see it over and over again. Probably the most disturbing sign of what to come is the 2008 election where the VP candidate for one of the two major parties was openly inciting hatred and smiling as people in the audience shouted horrible things.

<comment><USER11> How old are you? There's been plenty of political discourse all through time. That's how this country was founded and nearly split up. Just look at the 70's. I'm not that old and even I know how much protest was going on at that time. It's just that the fire is being fanned by mainstream media and the growth of the Internet, and that gives it more visibility than before. The Teabaggers are a perfect example of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I surmise his software ventures never succeeded because he hated the IRS more than he loved programming. In 1987 alone, he says, he spent at least 1000 hours railing against the tax code -- about 20 hours a week.

His obsession with, and resentment of, the IRS started when he and others tried to create their own religious organization, ostensibly to draw attention to the capricious laws exempting religious organizations from taxes. How this plan was supposed to work is unclear. L. Ron Hubbard saw the same opportunity and was better at exploiting it.

People don't respond well to acts of violence directed against them or those with whom they empathize. Timothy McVeigh's act caused shock and anger yet achieved nothing. Whatever message Stack wanted to convey has been utterly discredited by attempting to murder people going about their day. And if he wanted to give the government a way to dismiss him, he couldn't have made it any easier.

<comment><USER13> So what do people respond well to? I'm not seeing any changes even though the guy's sentiments are shared by many.

<comment><USER14> A conflict of some type is necessary to bring in change. The people who benefit from the tax code will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo. Luke warm sentiment will not change things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't justify his method of protest but have some understanding of his frustration...

In behavioral economics there's the game called the "Ultimatum Game"

Essentially it's when one side thinks the deal is so biased and unfair he'd rather tip over the board and have both get nothing than accept what he considers to be a rip-off offer.

This guy decided to tip over the board...

There's another concept in communication called "no acknowledgement"... which arise when you are trying to get someone's attention and they just don't seem to notice you're there... which causes people to essentially start pulling their hair out with frustration.

SO...

It makes sense for politicians to be very nervous about citizen anger over perceived favoritism to the wealthy... and feeling like they're not being listened to.

This isn't political conclusion...

It's a scientific one!

</comment><comment><USER16> PDF if the site goes down: [http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://celes.niran.org/~ni...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://celes.niran.org/~niran/joe_stack_note.pdf)

The site's been holding up surprisingly well. Not bad, T35 Hosting.

EDIT: It looks like it's gone now. Here's the home.htm that was on the site as well: [http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://celes.niran.org/~ni...](http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://celes.niran.org/~niran/embeddedart_home.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> It helps that it's 33K of static HTML. Looks like it was converted from Word, some interesting metadata:

      <o:Author>Joe Stack</o:Author>
      <o:LastAuthor>Joe</o:LastAuthor>
      <o:Revision>27</o:Revision>
      <o:TotalTime>1848</o:TotalTime>
      <o:Created>2010-02-16T19:24:00Z</o:Created>
      <o:LastSaved>2010-02-18T06:42:00Z</o:LastSaved>

<comment><USER16> Most static pages still get pulled by hosting providers when faced with that kind of traffic. That might be what happened here, or the authorities could've asked them to pull it.

<comment><USER17> I could understand for dynamic pages, but static? Do they think they are getting attacked?

<comment><USER16> Accounts usually have bandwidth limits that get tripped by this sort of thing. 33 kB * millions of viewers = gigabytes of data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised that no one's commented on what Jon Stack was talking about — the laws affecting Indie Contractor's tax status.

<http://synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml>

"20 Questions" of the IRS to determine status <http://synergistech.com/20qs.shtml>

Has anyone had any trouble with this? As an early indie contractor, I'm pretty damn concerned about this.

</comment><comment><USER16> It looks like the note was originally found by a redditor who Googled the guy's name after it was released: [http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b3nte/plane_cras...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b3nte/plane_crashes_into_building_in_austin_texas/c0ksdo8?context=3)

</comment><comment><USER19> Problems that this creates:

1) Because of how governments deal in collective punishment, private aviation is likely to suffer further regulatory decimation even though events of this type are extremely rare, statistically speaking.

2) His rambling, narcissistic screed will be broadcast widely, and his immature and senseless actions used to paint those with legitimate and sensible criticisms of our tax system or systems of governance.

<comment><USER20> > rambling, narcissistic screed

Maybe to you. Most of his rant just sounded honest and true to me.

<comment><USER21> Maybe you are a rambling narcissist?

<comment><USER20> Maybe. Then again, maybe extreme actions cause people to unconsciously try to discredit the beliefs (no matter how rational) behind those actions to distance themselves from being exposed to uncomfortable truths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So, was this related to the changes reported in today's front-page New York Times story, "U.S. Cracks Down on 'Contractors' as a Tax Dodge," or is the timing just a coincidence?

 _"Federal and state officials, many facing record budget deficits, are starting to aggressively pursue companies that try to pass off regular employees as independent contractors. President Obama's 2010 budget assumes that the federal crackdown will yield at least $7 billion over 10 years."_

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/business/18workers.html?em>

</comment><comment><USER23> What are people's thoughts on the hosting company pulling the site so quickly at the request of the FBI?

Would they legally be required to? IANAL but I can't think of any reason.

<comment><USER24> I certainly can't say I know the law in this respect. His rant did include the names of a few people which could possibly be bad for them, but it's too late now - it was posted online, cached by lots of spiders, copied by lots of people... Pulling it down now doesn't seem like it'd much matter.

<comment><USER25> They have a link to the copy at the Smoking Gun, right where it's down; I'd say this was a question of keeping the FBI happy without actually impeding the flow of information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think it is interesting that the IRS treats certain workers differently:

"This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work."

(this was cited in the letter)

<comment><USER27> Here's a little bit of background about that provision:

<http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/25870.html>

<comment><USER28> I'm highly amused that the last name of the guy who wrote that piece is "Henchman."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tragically naive, but naive in a self-serving and narcissistic way. Childish, I guess one would say. Hard to sympathize with for that reason. It's one thing to take a naive and idealistic look at government with the intent of improving it; it's another thing to take that approach to your own taxes.

</comment><comment><USER30> I was considering going to SCALE this weekend, but maybe I'll take the train or not go after all.

Like many people on HN, I am pretty close to the guy's profile. I've been negatively effected by SEC. 1706 - now, I'm far to cynical to think such things can be changed, and I'm not really the murder/suicide type but, uh, I certainly fit the profile.

</comment><comment><USER31> In 2008 somebody in Germany got fed up with the high taxes on fuel. He couldn't afford to run his business (which required a car) any more. So he parked the car on a lawn in the city centre of Frankfurt, wrote "Fuel Profiteering <http://www.acidware.de/> in big letters on it, and put it on fire.

I just want to say that there are other routes to explore before taking it this far.

<http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,562570,00.html>

<comment><USER32> > I just want to say that there are other routes to explore before taking it > this far.

Yes, but they are much less effective. E.g., I have never ever heard of him or his protest before.

<comment><USER33> There aren't that many 24-hour cable news stations in Germany that are broadcast around the world in a language that a fair number of people internationally can speak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If he couldn't pay back taxes on $13K, I'm curious how he acquired the plane.

<comment><USER35> stolen.

<comment><USER36> Not according to reports.

<comment><USER37> Initial reports said it was stolen, actually, but it seems they've taken that back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This blog would hold no value if it were not pinned to this story of "terrorism".

If you look deep and examine what is happening here, 106 comments later, you see that people are thinking. A great thing.

Another question I stop to ask myself: His method was poor and for a lot of people that disqualifies his perspective. But should it?

</comment><comment><USER39> Maybe he should've used google to do some research about how to avoid being classified as an employee.

<http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-30177.html>

<comment><USER40> Wasn't that kind of his point? With guidelines like "Don't ask for instructions from the hiring firm about how to do your job." it's just silly and you never know on which side of the line you are currently... There's just no way to be sure and even if you are right, you might be notified too late to protest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> the discussions about the IRS employees reminds me of clerks.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6lzEhoXads>

how innocent are people who work for evil empires?

</comment><comment><USER42> Also archived here: [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack...](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> Summary?

<comment><USER44> Guy dicks around with forces he doesn't have the free cash available to dick around with, blames IRS.

Later finds himself losing work due to working in aerospace as Air Force bases are closed in the 90's, leading into 9/11 and a meltdown in his ability to generate personal revenue. Blames IRS.

Runs out of money, blames IRS.

Flies plain into IRS building with the intent to indiscriminately murder anyone who happens to be in the building at the time, ending his pathetic life. Doesn't even garner a headline on the Huffington Post. Forgotten two weeks later.

<comment><USER45> I tell you, I can be sympathetic to a letter such as his, to some of the things any of us can easily see are wrong right now in the USA, but of course I do not condone his extreme by any means.

However, here was the kicker for me: "But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income". Let me get this straight -- he was in love and married. Forget all the money stuff, tax liens, unemployment, whatever it was. He was so in love that he just got married. And then what does he do? He pilots a plane into the IRS building. I also read somewhere that he burned his house down before doing that. It's probably anyone's guess that his wife was at work while all this was going on. So this troubles me that a man focuses so myopically on purity principles such as anti-corruption, that he would block out one of the purest principles at all, which is love.

<comment><USER46> _Meanwhile, local television in Austin, the Texas capital, said Stack's house was fully engulfed in flames this morning just before the crash into the IRS building, and that Stack's wife and 12-year-old daughter had been pulled out distraught but unscathed._

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/18/austin-plane- sui...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/18/austin-plane-suicide- manifesto)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> cache removed at google but bing still has it:

[http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=%22embeddedart+com%22&d...](http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=%22embeddedart+com%22&d=300636768106&mkt=en- US&setlang=en-US&w=14b2d29e,6b966fab)

</comment><comment><USER48> Sorry, buddy. Trying to kill people and destroy property doesn't get me to listen to you. I'm not going to read this.

</comment><comment><USER49> apparently the "site" was written in Office 2000, at least according to the HTML file

</comment><comment><USER50> I find it laughable that he suggests that the solution to this problem is somehow Communism.

<comment><USER51> That's not what he says. He just quotes the creed in order to play off of it regarding capitalism.

<comment><USER50> and that would be why I said "suggests".

<comment><USER52> Except that without any editorial text accompanying the two quotes, two readings are possible: "here's the motto of a good system and a bad system," OR: "everyone's heard of the moronic motto of this system, but the current system is just terrible in its own different way." Reading the whole thing my impression was that the second interpretation was what he was getting at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> How sad, one guy has guts to spend his life and others can't even keep a letter online.

</comment><comment><USER54> I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how many people look down on these actions, but I am. No american is "innocent" when they legislate thievery so they can continue eating nachos while wanting to expense thier medical costs to the rest of us, have us pay for their poor judgment with money. Ignorance of the consequences isn't an excuse. Most Americans are vanilla enough that they never find themselves outside the american comfort zone, otherwise they would find just how small the room is. Cryptic and meaningless to most but I couldn't stand reading all of these other comments. Downvote away.

<comment><USER20> > Most Americans are vanilla enough that they never find themselves outside > the american comfort zone

Most Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck (about 60% last I heard).

<comment><USER54> Wonder how many of those still have cable TV. Give me a break.

<http://www.heritage.org/research/welfare/bg1713.cfm>

<comment><USER20> Of course a conservative policy center will tell me that poor people are wasteful and/or lazy. However, the same Americans that are mostly living paycheck-to-paycheck are also the same Americans that work more hours than a lot of countries with much better situations. It's also not just about what you have... it's about where you can go and how far you are from outright financial ruin. In the US you are probably not mobile and probably just a serious illness or injury away from bankruptcy.

It's not like the amount of the cable bill would go very far to pay for things that other civilized nations take for granted, like medical care and education.

<comment><USER54> What do you think this even has to do with my original statement? People are in better situations in other countries because they support more of a welfare/legislative based system? Do you live there? Why not?

"Of course a conservative policy center will tell me that poor people are wasteful and/or lazy."

An excellent way to write off an opinion without consideration. Come back when you have a valid reason to write their numbers off (not that there isn't one, just don't parrot "conservative" or "republican" at me because that puts you in the majority of people who cite the same BS over-generalizations).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> The next guy that does this will learn from his predecessor's mistakes, and use a bigger plane.

<comment><USER56> And write a shorter rant.

<comment><USER57> Or at least a clearer rant. I was surprised at how well written Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and its Future" was. I don't like that he got it published by mailing people bombs until the New York Times promised to publish it, but it's still worth reading.

<comment><USER58> I doubt any future rants will get clearer. Rants of these types are big, sprawling, disconnected tales of tragedy and woe with the point heavily obfuscated or altogether absent. This makes it very easy for other people will similar unbalances, but possibly unrelated motives, to write their own motives into the gaps. The problem is, to these types of readers, their own motives are blindingly obvious in what they're reading, so they don't even perceive the lack of clarity that you and I do. They can just hold it up and say "this is exactly what I've been saying!" not because the post says anything, but because it doesn't. It's big and empty, which makes it a great echo chamber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I urge everyone not to read this. We should not reward murderers (or attempted murderers) with out attention.

<comment><USER22> Fortunately - and not surprisingly - it's barely readable anyways. I read most of it and I still don't have a clear picture of what made this guy so mad.

[Edit: While I don't agree with lliiffee, I think it's a valid point of view and I wouldn't vote it down. I wavered between wanting to understand this person's state of mind, and not wanting to "reward" him with attention. But even if he were alive I don't think he'd get any satisfaction from people's reactions to this meaningless, incoherent screed.]

<comment><USER35> did you actually read it or just skim it?

It made perfect sense to me. I see exactly where he is coming from, and why he did what he did. I have been wondering how long until someone did something like this. I would bet this will be the first of many things similar, where people start to rebel against the government. The less violent the better however.

<comment><USER24> It made perfect sense to you? Did we read a different note or something? The one I read seemed to ramble and drift and eventually lose the thread of logic by the end. I saw no great injustice perpetrated that necessitated the need to fly a plane into a building.

<comment><USER35> It did ramble and drift a bit but it all added to his story.. just very slowly. I don't think he should have flown a plane into the building. However I believe he did it because he tried the proper way spending over $5k of his own money and months of his time to change it. No one listened/cared (which is the main problem) about his problem. So when push came to shove and the government and businesses took everything he had by taking advantage of him, he had to finally stand up and say no more. Thus we have this event today, which is his way of raising enough commotion about the problem to hopefully get them changed. Honestly I cannot believe its not more common (not the plane part but the people rebelling part).

<comment><USER22> He spent $5000 lobbying dozens of government officials, but what was he trying to change? Does it really all come down to the rule determining whether programming consultants are treated as employees for tax purposes? Was he even able to explain his case to them coherently, without using phrases like "declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave"? And then he makes ludicrous choices like taking an IRA distribution (which in most cases results in taxable income and/or early distribution penalties) without reporting it or paying taxes on it:

 _"I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn't have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed..."_

Why is he just assuming that there's no need to file, rather than looking it up himself or asking someone for advice? Oh yeah:

 _"After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I'd never enter another accountant's office again."_

...because he once had a bad experience with accounting (which as far as I can tell he never actually describes), he decided that all accountants are frauds and there is no way to find an honest person to help him. It sounds like he was an antisocial crank long before flew a plane into a building.

<comment><USER28> Yes, and after he expresses his reluctance to ever enter an accountant's office again, he says that he did, out of desperation, and then got screwed _again_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Home Tower Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.kc0ll.net/tower/tower001.html <comment><USER2> General strategy for dealing with municipalities, zoning and codes that are blocking : share (very nicely) what you WANT to do, and ask (very nicely) why not?

If they say, "no", ask (again, very nicely) what part of the code/statute is the limitation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. Politeness counts. It may turn someone's opinion around and result in them being more helpful; and if they're set from the start to deny you, being rude won't help anyway.</comment></comment>


ICANN will allow filenames as TLDs (.pdf, .exe, .jpg, etc) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kpyke/status/789156391726387200 <comment><AUTHOR> This is the actual source, but it's a PDF (ironically?) and it wouldn't be obvious what was being discussed: [http://archive.icann.org/en/topics/dns- stability-draft-paper...](http://archive.icann.org/en/topics/dns-stability- draft-paper-06feb08.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> This...seems ripe for abuse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, why not? .ai is already a TLD.

[Adobe Illustrator files, for those not in the know]</comment>


Modern cloud architecture on AWS: server fleets and databases - <AUTHOR> https://start.jcolemorrison.com/understanding-modern-cloud-architecture-on-aws-server-fleets-and-databases/ <comment><USER2> Although there are a ton of AWS servers, there's only a few core services that I recommend:

      EC2 - You need a server.
      RDS - You need a database.
      S3 - You need to store files.
      Lambda - You are building an API with short lived requests.

These services are all very high quality and are excellent at what they do. Once you get outside of these core services, the quality quickly drops. You're probably better off using the non-AWS versions of those services.

For a few quick examples, you should be using Datadog over CloudWatch, Snowflake over Redshift or Athena, and Terraform over CloudFormation.

<comment><USER3> Why would you ever use Terraform over CloudFormation? There are so many parts of AWS that use CF and that you can modify from the getting started templates like CodeStar and exporting a SAM template from your lambda template.

Before someone comments on how TF is "cross platform", all of the provisioners are vendor specific.

As far as what other services to use, if you are hosting your own services on AWS instead of using AWS manager services, you're kind of missing the point of AWS.

But a few other services we use all of the time are CodeBuild, ElasticCache (hosted Redis), ElasticSearch, Route 53, load balancers, autoscaling groups, SSM (managing the few "pets" until we can kill them), ECS, ECR, Fargate, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB, SFTP, CloudTrail, Microsoft AD, we are experimenting with the recently announced Device Farm/Selenium service, step functions, Athena, Secrets Manager, and a few more I'm probably forgetting.

<comment><USER4> > Why would you ever use Terraform over CloudFormation?

1\. You're using Terraform already for resources outside of AWS (cdn, monitoring, dns, anything else) and want to stay with a common tech.

2\. You're running into cases that CF doesn't support and have to generate your descriptions externally, or use sparkleformation hacks.

3\. You want to manage a new AWS service. (CloudFormation support lags behind Terraform, new services don't get CF resources for months)

<comment><USER3> In cases two and three it's just as easy to write a custom resource....

<comment><USER4> You mean just as easy to write/test/deploy a custom resource as it is to use a ready one? I disagree. I think there's a few days of work of difference in that case.

<comment><USER3> Actually, no.

Examples for creating them in Java, Python and Node are here

[https://github.com/stelligent/cloudformation-custom- resource...](https://github.com/stelligent/cloudformation-custom-resources)

Just add a few lines of code for create, update and delete for your resource.

For Node and Python, you can write them in the web console, test them, copy the code to your git repo and export the SAM CF template for your CI/CD process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At what scale would you want to use RDS rather than using an EC2 instance with Postgres installed?

Assuming that the operator has the skills to manage Postgres.

It's not like RDS does something complex like Geodistribution, right?

Also what is the scaling like? Is it automatic? How quickly can you handle more connections? Because my understanding was that it was slow.

I did have a play with their RDS Postgres nonths before, and I managed somehow to crash it requiring a restore from snapshot. Also their smallest instance was quite expensive for the performance.

<comment><USER6> I'd ask the opposite question - at what scale would you want to have your own custom setup rather than RDS? Managing your own database infrastructure for workloads other than "a few queries a second" is hard work with a lot of pitfalls, and you better be at a size that there's some benefit (high levels of customization, use case specific tuning, economies of scale, etc). As a person who does exactly this for a living, I'd rather shell out for RDS or a similar offering than my own setup most of the time. Especially at first, before you discover what exactly you /don't/ like about it or what you'd want different.

<comment><USER7> Is it hard work though? In a couple hours you should be able to setup automatic backups and practice going through the recover process a couple times. That's all there is for most small-business setups, but if you are daring you can now do whatever you want with the config file, install extensions, setup basic system monitoring (CPU/Ram usage, disk usage, etc.). GCP/Digital Ocean let you look at node resource usage automatically, and since Postgres is probably the only process it means you don't even need to set that up!

<comment><USER2> > In a couple hours you should be able to setup automatic backups and practice > going through the recover process a couple times.

Unfortunately there's a lot more too it than that. You need to handle when the backup job fails or dies, have a process for deleting old backups, etc. Not just that, but if you have multiple Postgres instances, you need to do this work for each machine. I've seen first hand this kind of stuff become a huge distraction. It's often worth it to pay AWS a bit more in exchange to not worry about this stuff.

<comment><USER7> > Unfortunately there's a lot more too it than that.

Is there though? Consider what I would argue to be the "average" case:

* Your database never exceeds > 40% resource usage

* You service fewer then 1m queries/day

* You never burst more then 1k queries/minute

* You have a script tied to a cronjob that backs up the database, with basic error handling that sends you a Slack DM if it fails

* You have a script tied to a cronjob which deletes old backups, with basic error handling that sends you a Slack DM if it fails

What percentage of companies need more then that?

<comment><USER8> Any that can't afford more than a couple minutes of downtime when a server fails.

<comment><USER4> That's definitely not an "average" company. It's also a _really_ small number of companies that really can't afford that, rather than "earn less money than usual".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I keep reading all these horror stories about Aurora (especially PostgreSQL). Is there anyone out there with an alternative story?

<comment><USER10> Using Aurora MySQL for over a year now in prod, purrs like a kittycat.

Just don't use the AWS Database Migration Service if you can help it, that thing has a couple of badly documented pitfalls. (Fe. tables can't have ENUM fields)

<comment><USER11> AWS Database Migration Service had a shockingly large gap between how it's marketed and how well it actually performed.

It had so many gotchas and broken features. I'd be amazed if anyone got it really working on large applications without weeks of time invested.

It would be so cool though if it worked seamlessly. It addresses some of the hardest tasks in DB management, namely zero downtime server migration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Modern" architectures can get quite complex and fast at scale & in complex cases. This is merely a simple introduction to simple components of modern cloud architecture.

<comment><USER13> I do agree with you, and I was lured into reading it because of that. However, this seems like a nice introduction for beginners. Maybe it should be tagged as such.

</comment></comment><comment> root-z As someone who has spent a fair amount of time working with AWS. I appreciate how approachable this tutorial is, as the official docs are usually way more arcane.</comment>


Little girl will die if she falls asleep - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/specialbooksbyspecialkids/videos/765624226872893/ <comment><USER2> If you want to get more people involved help, post it also on reddit

<comment><USER3> Specifically, /r/nosleep would probably go nuts with this both ironically (with her problem being like something you might actually read on the sub) and directly (as something to throw impromptu fundraisers for).

A link to the subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep)</comment></comment>