How do you measure your productivity? - <AUTHOR>

Sometimes, I think I haven't really been productive in the last days, but then I later realize I found and corrected this and that bug, found some flaws in my architecture and corrected some, etc. and well, I was somewhat productive after all.
Other times, I'm pretty happy with my productivity after a day of work but when I really think hard about it, I see that I didn't accomplish so much.
And also, sometimes I don't know whether I'm going slow because I don't have much experience with the particular kind of problem I'm working on, or am I taking a wrong approach, or do I lack some critical knowledge that would make the job much easier?...
How do you measure your productivity? <comment><USER2> 30% planning, design data model, etc 25% Back end code (only the major part of it) 15% Client-side design and code (if it matters for the app I may spend more time here) 10% Integration

At this stage if I was fooling myself I'd say I'm done. but this is just a prototype and I have only tackled the major parts of the application. There are lots of details that are laying around even though everything looks as if I'm done. At this stage it may look like your productivity is low but it is actually part of. So you have to do some tests step back and look at the whole thing and find that you have to spend another

10% modify things 30% to deal with little seemingly useless fixes or just making things look nicer or adding content etc.

If I'm spending more time in any of these stages either I am being lazy or I didn't do the previous stage correctly and it is effecting what I'm doing now. so I stop and go back. it's better to cut your losses early or you'll really loose productivity and develop something bad.

here is a tip to be more productive: When you get tired of thinking switch to graphic design and when you are stuck with a design idea switch to writing code and when you are thinking about your idea write content especially help files (even of an unfinished app). You'd be surprised how this may actually effect your own views about your ideas.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's hard to measure the productivity of any given day. You can of course take a look at your todo list but that ignores the benefit of doing things that are not on your todo list (like hanging out here). I think you should look back at the last 6 months and see if you are satisfied with what you have accomplished.

Often it takes a while to realize the benefit of some otherwise unrelated activity (like reading the news or exploring with various libraries). But usually after a few months you'll run across something and be glad you "wasted" some time earlier on that topic.

For example I spent a decent amount of time at work (several years ago) researching and playing around with rootkits. This wasn't at all related to my job function at the time. Then one day we had a major breach of security and I wasn't the only person around that knew anything about rootkits, especially how to remove them. I was able to help out and as a result I got a "promotion" (transferred to do security work which was always my passion).

Only time will tell if something you learned (or did) was useful or a "waste of time".

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. By seeing how many tasks you have achieved out of your to-do list. 2\. If task takes more than a day (of planned time) you have not subdivided it finely enough. 3\. For every 5 hours it takes a task (add extra 2 hours). 4\. For every 6 days it takes a task add an extra day 5\. Roundup 3-3.5 weeks of work to a month

</comment><comment><USER5> By what I get done, and how much time it takes.

</comment><comment><USER6> For any given timeframe:

ItemsActuallyCompleted - ItemsPlannedToComplete = Productivity

<comment><AUTHOR> Then my productivity is negative, because I seldom make realistic projections...

<comment><USER7> You just have a high "Schedule Fantasy Factor"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> $$$ earned :-)</comment>


Ask HN: Live in the Future--How would you increase your energy consumption 100x? - <AUTHOR> History teaches that for some things (like artificial light [ancient oil candles->LED]) as the price decreases linearly, consumption increases geometrically.
Imagine a breakthrough in energy generation tomorrow, (i.e. fusion, automatic robotic placement of solar cells, etc.) where the world has access to vastly more usable energy/electricity than it has ever had.
Living in this imagined future, in what ways would you personally would consume 10x or 100x the amount of electricity (or energy) you consume today? <comment><USER2> I'd say it's important to distinguish between "ways I _could_ use lots more energy" and "ways I might _actually_ use lots more energy".

The former is easy. I _could_ decide to let my house's insulation just rot and heat it with electricity. But even that probably won't even get me to 10x. I could suddenly decide I want lots more "stuff" that takes lots of energy to manufacture. But I honestly can't tell you what stuff that would be, especially since "stuff" is actually trending down for a lot of us, replaced by bits. I could want a bigger house in general, but even the relatively wealthy people I know are not generally upgrading to houses that take 100 times the energy to build and maintain as mine. That would literally be somehow stuffing a decent-sized subdivision into a single residence.

Ways I'm _actually_ going to use 10x the energy are, IMHO, in short supply. And 100x is just mind-boggling.

The assumption about how the future is going to use more energy are generally based either on the idea that we're going to continue exploding in population (increasingly poorly supported by the evidence), or possibly in some post- Rapture-of-the-Nerds civilization start burning energy doing some sort of calculations the likes of which we mostly can't imagine. I say we can't imagine the calculations because merely "fully simulating a human and their environment" is probably _already less energy_ that you use now in this environment; someday our great-great-to-the-X grandchildren may be horrified by the way we pumped gas into our gas tanks not because of the environmental damage for an environment they don't really care about, but because each tank of gas could have provided enough energy for 10 or 100 or whoknows how many human-equivalent life simulations.

At the moment, I just don't see very many reasons why an HN reader is likely to use 10x the power that they do now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the thoughtful response. My own original thinking was along these lines as well.

However, some thoughts that did occur to me along the lines of cleaning the air and water that we each consume, as well as carbon sequestration. Much in the same spirit that someone launches other local public goods (tor node, public wifi, etc.), perhaps a generous neighbor/employer decides to undo all of the carbon or water pollution, or air pollution that they've ever created-- thereby creating a "blast radius" of positive effects around their cleaning apparatus. Such technologies currently exist, but are energy intensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is exactly what Michio Kaku writes about in "The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations": [http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics- of-extraterrestri...](http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of- extraterrestrial-civilizations/)

He argues that a civilization's progress should be measured by the amount of energy at its disposal. According to this, a civilization that can command all its planet's energy (Type I) would be able to modify the weather, alter the course of earthquakes, volcanoes, and build cities on their oceans.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very carefully -- not to heat up my environment. In dense cities heat output is already about 1% of solar input.

</comment><comment><USER5> We could use the energy to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER6> Legion of robotic minions.</comment>


Ask HN: What  should I look at to broaden my programming knowledge? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently studying towards my Honours degree in Software Engineering. My course is basically a CS degree with a mandatory 12 month placement.
I currently develop in Ruby, JS and Java and I'm looking to broaden my knowledge (languages, techniques and concepts).
What books/languages would you say were important in shaping your career/made you a better engineer? <comment><USER2> Since you mentioned Ruby and JS I assume you are talking about web applications. What I find interesting is that many web developers spend so much time in building applications yet don't have any experience in doing the things that actually make these things successful. Try building a simple service that you can market. Try doing a bit of Facebook and Adwords ads (you can get free coupons for starting out.) Look at the data and make changes to those ads to make them more effective. Get users, get feedback. Who knows, you might actually make some money at it.

Personally, I have have an internal clash between my geek side which wants to learn new things and play with shiny toys vs my practical side which wants for that time to be spent building something that is useful that I might be able to sell. Then when I start to commit to building, I know that I need to resist the urge to start coding and instead need to do work on validating the idea and reaching potential customers. Then when it comes time to throw up a web presence I need to resist breaking out the editors and frameworks and instead just push the "install Wordpress" button or something similarly quick and simple.

So, I would say, keep it practical. Learn what you need in the pursuit of creating value rather than learning to code with something for the sake of learning a different way to code something. I think you will find that there is more to making you a good engineer than just writing better code. If selling isn't your thing right now, then find an open source project to contribute to. With the right project, not only will you provide needed help, but you could also help boost your profile and attract notice of the people you would be looking to for job.

When you only have 24 hours in a day (and much less of that to dedicate to your craft) then it's best to get as much overlap as you can.

Oh, and go read through the endless other posts on Hacker News which have asked the same question. There are some great threads out there with information which won't be reproduced in this thread.

</comment><comment><USER3> If not already a mandatory reading, sicp. [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/)

</comment><comment><USER4> To round out your abilities I'd suggest BASH and Python.</comment>


Google Employee Writes Memo About 'The Burden of Being Black at Google' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kd3w/google-employee-memo-about-being-black-at-google <comment><USER4> As a biracial and transgender individual working for a startup: I would prefer (and am appreciative of my company's ability to) not discussing these things at work to begin with.

I can't imagine why on Earth anyone would want to bring such a personal topic into the workplace. As a matter of fact, it kind of disturbs the integrity of a professional environment to have these kinds of discussions during working hours anyway.

For the record, I have never felt discriminated against or left-out, or anything other than being another member of my team in a meaningful way.

I think focusing on these kinds of sensitivities can pull a sense of mistrust and underhandedness to the team. I'm not going to invalidate his feelings on the issue, because we are all allowed to feel how we feel; but I would caution anyone in engaging those feelings at work for the benefit of all parties involved.

<comment><USER5> I honestly don't understand your comment.

It's pretty clear that the author is bringing these issues up precisely because other employees at Google did not heed the advice you give: ""Over the last 5 years I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of 'fit' and so much more,""

In other words, there were many Googlers who did in fact discuss these issues at work.

Sure, it's nice to say, "I would prefer...", but honestly, we would all prefer things to be different than they are. But they're not.

And this is where I really don't understand your comment. Your comment seems to totally ignore the very issue that is explicitly mentioned sub-headline of the article: Apparently, some people at Google not only felt free to discuss these issues in the work place, they did so in a profoundly unprofessional manner thereby creating a hostile workplace.

So stating that "I would prefer...not discussing these things..." doesn't really address the issue that these things were in fact discussed.

That's sort of like saying, "I would really prefer it if my code always worked the way I wanted it to..."

or.."I'd really prefer not to procrastinate so much on HN..."

Don't we all? Alas, that's not the world we live in. The crux of life is what do we do when things happen that we prefer would not happen?

Controversial issues were discussed at work, the author of the memo highlighted the problem and gave solutions, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't, but I think it's important to move beyond just stating our preferences.

<comment><USER6> I grew up in a mostly black county, and attended predominantly black schools my entire childhood. Something that the typical person on HN doesn't understand is how implicitly absurd, and accidentally racist, it is to view the comments of an individual black person to be representative of black people in general.

We do this all the time, but would never accept a random white person to claim they represent all white people.

Al Sharpton knows nothing about the lives of black people where I grew up. He's never been there. My friends growing up were deeply resentful of his constant claim to be "the voice of black America." He's a New Yorker, through and through. And yet the media elites act as if he was an elected representative of black America.

This Google employee is no different. How does he get to speak for all black Googlers? Who elected him? How many black employees at Google think he's correct, vs. paranoid and overly sensitive?

Show me an actual survey, and I'll open up on this. But this is anecdotal bullshit, just like the placating white hosts on news channels signaling their virtue by picking up the phone and bringing Sharpton on since they don't know normal, non-celebrity black people.

<comment><USER7> The Googler didn't claim to represent everyone. That part and the rest of your comment are arguing against things no one is against.

<comment><USER8> He might not be, but everyone else is treating it like it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't help but feel like the continuing rise of situations like this will end up in a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which sociopolitical and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is purely on the work. Most of these conflicts seem to arise because the line between personal and professional has been eroded almost entirely in contemporary American culture.

While in theory an organization that can openly allow its employees to discuss and debate all of their strongly-held opinions, it seems to mostly result in chaos, even somewhere like Google which ostensibly employs some of the smartest people in the world. It would seem far more efficient for a firm to simply ban discussion of controversial and personal topics. Of course, this is entirely contrarian to the zeitgeist, in which local and familial social bonds have largely been replaced by co-workers and the idea of a "professional" as in "not personal" is perceived as an antiquated tradition.

<comment> core-questions > a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which sociopolitical > and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is purely on the > work.

This (a) may or may not really have existed in the austere sense you're describing it, and (b) if it did exist, it existed in a world where people had much stronger community life than they do now. In a world where everyone is atomized, where nobody knows their neighbours, nobody attends church (and if they do, their neighbours don't, so it doesn't achieve the goal), and so forth... is it any wonder that people have turned to those who they spend 8 hours a day with for some sort of socialization?

If we "return" to not discussing anything with our peers and just being professional robots, to avoid 'chaos', we'll have lost our last healthy outlet for this sort of thing. Expect more depression, more radicalization, etc. when the only people who provide you with what feels like genuine social expression are those you find online who agree with you already.

> it seems to mostly result in chaos

I attribute this far more towards the current climate of virtue signalling: being outraged or outraged-on-behalf-of-others brings you social rewards, stimulating the part of your brain that evolved to feel good when you are socially accepted. We're abusing our own chemical reward mechanisms in an unhealthy way; where in the past people used to have thicker skin and knew it was unacceptable to get outraged in a professional environment, now people see it as part of the package, and HR backs them up.

You want a return to professionalism, let's fix that, rather than stripping work of its social components.

<comment><USER10> > If we "return" to not discussing anything with our peers and just being > professional robots, to avoid 'chaos', we'll have lost our last healthy > outlet for this sort of thing.

Absolutely not. It means your healthy outlet will be with your friends, those mututally selected for compatibility, and in contexts where such discussions are presumably welcome.

As opposed to the workplace, with people brought together by happenstance to cooperate productively, despite personal differences that are irrelevant to the production process.

> I attribute this far more towards the current climate of virtue signalling:

In many a historical era, tiny theological or political disputes have set neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother.

In the aftermath, the solution that civilized societies evolved was: don't discuss politics or religion! It worked. Let's restore it.

<comment><USER11> I wonder if that was one of those solutions that only worked because of the state of technology at the time.

We didn't need to legislate certain privacy guarantees because they were simply expected and we didn't anticipate machine learning.

Similarly, we could rely on boundaried social contexts since we didn't have the ability to look into each others lives through facebook, nextdoor, etc.

So that solution might more have been a stopgap coping mechanism to delay our need to find another better solution, like societally learning to better respect each others differing backgrounds and values.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the original memo:

> Provide additional mental health support for Googlers of color — especially > following critical moments impacting their communities

> Throughout my time at Google, my mental health has been heavily influenced > by what I read in the news. And in America, that means frequently reading > about innocent black men and women who've been killed by police officers. > Whether the issue is police brutality, or mass shootings targeting the LGBTQ > community, or racist comments from the President debasing immigrants, Google > needs to provide mental health support equitably, which means making a more > concerted effort to create opportunities for underrepresented groups to seek > counseling and support.

With respect, I don't think this is an employer-based issue. Because this was caused by a non-work related source [the news], I think it should be the responsibility of the individual to seek therapy and other resources on their own time and on their own dime.

Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide support.

In fact, Google does provide free counseling for the staff who have to filter through illicit images on Google's search engine. Since those employees are regularly exposed to horrendous issues as part of their work, they get company-sponsored help with it.

<comment><USER13> > Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result > of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide > support.

I think you kinda nailed there - he was placed in awkward situations where the other employees suddenly didn't have an opinion one way or another, whereas they had lots of opinions about ebola, etc... I'm wondering if therapy is even the correct word. It's more of a societal shield we all put up in various circumstances.

Sometimes I try to imagine a world where women or men, other races, would swap places with someone from an actual conversation I had to help me reveal my own biases by trying to examine how things would go differently. We should be at a place where the conversation doesn't really change.

For example let's say you're talking to your uncle about crime in the midwest. Suddenly swap them out for a black person from Minnesota. Is that conversation different now? Why? How do you internalize that so that when you speak you can speak to anyone.

Another example - tradeshows. Sometimes I hear people talking about the customer like they are a wallet - now pretend that those people are suddenly talking TO the customer.

Not only do we have the ability to see how messed up our own actions and language is, but you can now see it in other people.

I'm not saying doing that kind of thing is going to fix all problems, but it is a very good thought exercise.

<comment><USER14> > Is that conversation different now?

Well… yeah, but only because I'm going to be careful what I say to avoid stepping on somebody else's feelings. To dance around the point just a bit - there are people who I can safely be completely honest with, and people who I cannot safely be completely honest with. I'm not sure I'm the one who needs to be doing the adjusting to change that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One point: the memo mentions some person saying "these protests aren't going to solve anything" and goes on to say how they're just blocking people from getting home. I think it's inaccurate to attribute this to racism or lack of diversity. It's something far simpler.

This person and many like them are just completely self-centered.

You'll probably fine the disruption just affected their commute home. Nothing more, nothing less.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending it. In my time at Google I lost count of the number of times that, say, some engineer 3 years out of college couldn't afford a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto for them, their partner and their dog and how they were underpaid and this was unfair and a problem (and I'm not exaggerating as much as you might think) while not thinking twice about the 2.5 hour commute of the workers who prepare the free food and drive the buses to and from SF.

It's actually infuriating how much people can buy into these things as being "problems" while being completely oblivious to what's actually a problem right under their noses.

<comment><USER16> I would like to add my (unwanted) two-cents: I'm of the (soft) opinion that protests often cause more harm than good - or, will have a neutral effect - <USER2> a cause, particularly when there is anything 'uncouth' to a protest such as violence or obstruction of traffic.

As much as I hate to say it, I struggle to think of what the Women's March or Occupy Wall Street tangibly accomplished.

Can someone provide studies or articles demonstrating the effectiveness of large protests in changing the populace's views?

<comment><USER17> The Tea party, Gandhi and his friends, Protests during Vietnam war, the storming of the Bastille.

Now, in "recent" History I tend to agree with you. My personal opinion is that protests are not violent enough to cause real change.

Edit: I would appreciate feedback from downvoters. I think the few examples I provided are valid to illustrate "protests that caused real change", but if I'm wrong I'm happy to learn.

<comment><USER18> wasn't the us involved with the vietnam conflict for the better part of 20 years? i was actually under the impression that the vietnam protests, while at times quite noticeable, weren't all that impactful in-and-of themselves.

i think that, insofar as one might be inclined to point at "successful" protests, it's often really an issue of achieving a consensus amongst a plurality of those in power.

perhaps protests can work toward that (i'm not sure); but if so, they could also work against it. i sadly doubt the protests in hong kong, despite their scope and intensity, will change much at all when the powers-that-be neither care, nor (seemingly) can ever be made to care.

<comment><USER17> Isn't it generally accepted that the US "lost" the war because of the violent anti-war protests? I didn't say _one_ single protest changed the whole thing, but these protests changed the attitude of the population towards the war, made it vastly unpopular, and in the end the US had to give up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The Vice article says that "he regularly encountered racism during his experience as a Black worker at the company", but the memo seems to just contain proposed diversity action items and a story about how his coworkers didn't care enough about Eric Garner. Is there something I missed?

<comment><USER20> Yes. His co-workers reaction to the protest and the fact that he heard other racist stuff during his time there.

<comment><USER21> I think reasonable people can disagree about whether this is racist. I would be very cautious bandying around huge accusations about racism like this. Certainly it seems very different from actively going and taking actions against people in a class you believe are inferior.

Many of us who are reasonable and rational come to different conclusions- for example, while I fully support peaceful protests, I think any protest which blocks traffic is unwise and likely to generate negative responses in people who would otherwise be sympathetic.

<comment><USER22> > I think reasonable people can disagree about whether this is racist.

I disagree. Reasonable people recognize that being miffed that a protest is disrupting your commute isn't racist. It's only the unreasonable people who think it could be.

<comment><USER23> There's no point in debating what "reasonable" means here, since everyone usually thinks they are reasonable.

I think you've reframed the situation so that it no longer sounds racist. Obviously worrying about your commute isn't racist!

This is, of course, missing the point. I think the reason this bothered the memo's author is because their coworkers had a strong negative reaction to a hypothetical (and likely minor) change in their commute, but no reaction to a high-profile pattern of racially motivated murder by corrupt police officers.

Is ignoring racism racist? I think so. Is prioritizing something super trivial over racism racist? Seems close enough to me.

<comment><USER22> > Is ignoring racism racist? I think so. Is prioritizing something super > trivial over racism racist? Seems close enough to me.

Assuming that silence represents malice is a classic example of totalitarian group think.

And fwiw, you don't know that the co-workers cared more about the commute - they could also be deeply concerned about racism and just not want to discuss it with OP.

<comment><USER23> I wasn't talking about silence, I was talking about the person who was communicating their disapproval of the situation because of an extremely minor personal inconvenience.

And of course we don't know what the person cared about, we just know what they said they cared about, which is all we can go on. They were happy to discuss their political views by saying they thought the protesters were an inconvenience, so it seems pretty unlikely that they did have deep concerns about racism because that response makes no sense for someone who feels that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Quoting "[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The- Weigh...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of- Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf") (which I prefer to the vice.com article):

> _As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working > long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of > protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat. > Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit > ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is > ridiculous?"_

> _My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to > see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms > folded in exasperation._

> _" These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what > are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? > Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they > can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it."_

I think this could be a problem of sensitivity or awareness, rather than heart being in the wrong place.

The person speaking might have felt they were aligned with the goals and intended message of the demonstrators, and was only expressing frustration with what they thought were ineffective or unwarranted methods, but...

I suspect that the speaker wasn't in that moment being sensitive to the anguish and sense of urgency some people might've felt, over brutality and related injustice. The demonstrators might've been crying "pay attention to this", and then a coworker seemed to dismiss that.

It's too bad that the writer of the piece couldn't speak up in the moment. Though they alluded to some of why, and I think I understand.

(I probably wouldn't have spoken up then, either, even with lesser stakes for myself. I learned this from a workplace incident, when I was walking up to a group of (presumably straight) coworkers chatting casually about some gay issue in the news (this was before the first US gay marriage), and one of them, who was normally thoughtful, started riffing glibly on how "it's _unnatural_ ". I doubt this struck me as deeply as the writer had been, and I hadn't really felt part of an oppressed group, nor had to fear anything around that -- but I was still shocked in the moment, and speechless, as I felt like my face flushed, and I walked away quickly. In hindsight, they were probably within earshot of another coworker, who I knew to be secretly lesbian or bi, but I don't recall whether that registered in my mind at the time. Elsewhere in life, I try to do what I can, but I couldn't speak up in the moment.)

<comment><USER22> I'm sorry, I don't understand. What's the problem with what OP's co-worker said. She didn't think the protests were effective or useful. Surely she's entitled to feel that way?

Edit: the gist of your post seems to be that expressing political opinions at work is only acceptable if you agree with them. That's obviously nonsense. Either everybody can do politics at work, and you have to accept that some people will disagree with you, or nobody can do politics at work.

<comment><USER25> I imagine from his position it's very disheartening to see his coworkers have a strong opinion about the protests, and the horrible injustice that is an unexpected traffic jam. But have nothing to say about the wrongful death of a human being. A human being who was murdered and the murderers saw now consequences.

<comment><USER26> Right, and I'm sure there are plenty of anti-abortion activists that genuinely see terminating a pregnancy as murder and are disheartened by the lack of response for what they are was widespread, systemic violence. I have as much sympathy for those people as I do for the author: not much, because regardless of how strong one's convictions are in a given political opinion the fact that one's coworker do not share that opinion does not amount to disparagement, racism, harassment, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain why Google seems to be such a hotbed for stuff like this? I ask this question in earnest. Perhaps this is just bias in what the media chooses to report, or perhaps the cross-section of news that I read fails to find other examples, but social uproar seems overwhelmingly more common at Google than most other workplaces in both the software industry and most other industries in general.

As for the memo itself, I do highly recommend reading it directly first rather than commentary on it:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo- abo...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-about-the- burden-of-being-black-at-google)

<comment><USER28> Google has long had a policy of 'bringing your whole self to work.' The company actively encourages (or at least, encouraged) its employees to be political, and to be 'true to themselves' in the workplace.

<comment><USER29> They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they choose wisely what are their opinions.

<comment><USER30> They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they are not republican views.

I think that more accurately sums it up.

Edit: Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google- employees...](http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google-employees- are-blacklisted-lawsuit-alleges-2018-1)

<comment><USER31> Where the call for "diversity" is twisted to mean that more overtly bigoted persons and statements should be brought in and entertained?

The call that claims "diversity" should include movements towards less diversity?

<comment><USER32> \- The call that claims "diversity" should include movements towards less diversity?

Of course it should. It's the diversity of opinions. Otherwise you're calling for an exterior diversity (I'm black, you're Asian, she's transgender) but a complete uniformity of opinions and worldviews.

<comment><USER31> Then I imagine they are quite happy since their desire for less diversity would be met by (the imagined policy) excluding those who want less diversity.

Unless of course the objection is not to diversity per-se but some particular groups.

If the anti-diversity crowd are under represented in tech, it's probably for they same reason the highest productivity areas are the most liberal in their countries and formed mostly from those that left other areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was sympathetic until I read this:

 _"I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I'd watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity," the memo reads. "From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I'd never heard of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent."_

It is perfectly reasonable for employees to choose to abstain from discussing fraught political subjects at work.

</comment><comment><USER34> This has a strong undercurrent of "you're either with us or against us" where no one is allowed to simply be neutral. While I understand the theory that doing nothing means you support the status quo, forcing people to explicitly choose a side more often than not ends up pushing them to support the other side, which as a result grows stronger in power. Forcing someone who doesn't want to support you to support you generally breeds resentment and generates negative value for your cause. Those who can be pushed into support tend to be the first to abandon your cause when the opportunity arises. Welcoming those who are leaning towards your direction instead of trying to force those who are ambivalent has a much higher return on investment of your time and resources.

<comment><USER35> The theory you mention is a koan MEANT to radicalize.

\- Support for any tenet of my opposition proves you directly support the opposition's atrocities.

\- Moderate, centrist or apolitical people are responsible for ALL atrocities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of > police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I'd watched them debate > countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and > alacrity," [...] particularly after big news events such as the police > killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests > against police brutality.

Is Michael Brown a good example of police brutality though? Maybe they didn't have much to say because it turns out a lot of the facts there have been twisted and embellished, to put it mildly. Maybe they just politely refused to discuss it at work?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22Hands_up,_don't_shoot%22)

[https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press- releas...](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press- releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post- partisan/wp/2015/03/16/lesson-learned-from-the-shooting-of-michael-brown/)

<comment><USER37> It is interesting he brings up Garner and Michael Brown. I think Garner was a good example of police overstepping the mark that everyone could agree on and Brown was much controversial. But weirdly enough it seemed that Brown was pushed more than Garner by activists. I think this is quite common with activist organisations. They seem to deliberately push more controversial causes. I'm not sure if this is because more controversial causes are more effective or it is because there are weird personal incentives in play.

Also, it could be that no-one wants to bring attention to negative effects from a popular policy. Garner had the attention of police because he was selling untaxed cigarettes. Taxing cigarettes is quite popular and I guess no- one wants to explicitly bite the bullet that some people need to die to have these laws on the book. In a country with a population over 300 million there is a good chance people are going to randomly die from run-ins with law enforcement over non-violent crime. All law is a trade off between the good effects and the bad effects but a lot of people believe any serious bad effect means the law is immoral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There was a stretch from 2014-15 that made it really difficult to go to work on a day to day basis for me. There is something psychologically triggering about seeing people who look like you routinely killed by the state, regardless of the circumstances or politics.

I began to feel some contempt for my white co-workers despite knowing that they had nothing to do it. I did not expect nor wanted to have a conversion with them about race and police brutality, and I don't know many of my black friends who would to be honest -- perhaps Google just has an argumentative culture.

<comment><USER39> As a non-American I don't see this. The American police kills roughly as many whites per day as the Norwegian police have killed during their entire existence (it is 1 if you wonder). Making this about race only hides the elephant in the room: the American police is extremely brutal. It shouldn't be this way in a western nation, the police doesn't kill that many except for third world countries and USA. Even if we eliminated the racism and thus halved the number of blacks killed by the police it would still be a horrible amount of blacks killed!

[https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-america-police- killin...](https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-america-police-killing- comparison?r=US&IR=T)

<comment><USER40> Easy for Norway to say. America is 60x bigger population-wise, 30x bigger geographic-wise, and some order-of-magnitude more diverse (10x? 100x?) racially.

While I agree America can do better, comparing the US to Norway is like saying "Yeah, our Norway.com servers have only crashed once. Twitter.com would do well to copy how we do things; they seem to have servers crashing way more often than we do" which completely ignore issues that come into play at orders of magnitude higher scales - for if you put Norway.com under the same strain as twitter, Norway.com's servers would be crashing left and right as well.

<comment><USER39> > America is 60x bigger population-wise

Right, so if they had the same level of police brutality you would have 60 deaths in the history of American police, or about 1 killing per year. Even if the police were racists and killed twice as many blacks, that would still just be one black dead every few years, then it wouldn't matter.

The rest of the differences are not important here. Racial diversity shouldn't be related to crime or shootings.

<comment><USER40> > Right, so if they had the same level of police brutality you would have 60 > deaths in the history of American police, or about 1 killing per year

Only if problems scale exactly linearly and there are no side effect emergent behaviors you have to account for. Otherwise when a big tech company goes from 1M to 10M users, they just need 10x as many servers, right? Problem solved.

Nope, in real life each order of magnitude has required serious, difficult engineering to overcome the challenges, you should read up on how companies like Amazon/Facebook have scaled with users. I'll give you a hint though - they didn't just draw a line and extrapolate how many servers they would need for each year.

Otherwise you could just say: "Oh, New Hampshire has a homocide rate of 1 per 100,000. New Hampshire has a population of 1 million, therefore that's 10 deaths per million, therefore by simple extrapolation, the USA should only have 3000 homocides per year!"

<comment><USER41> This is a very narrow view of things. If scale in real life worked like that, easy and obvious solution would be to break up US into 60 pieces and you'd have 60 Norways, right? Nope. US problems are due to culture, not size.

<comment><USER40> In fact, the US is broken up into 50 pieces, and some pieces fare much better than others in terms of violence/suicide per capita depending on the region.

> Nope. US problems are due to culture, not size.

Probably a combination of both. Culture isn't a thing that can be easily changed, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone else feel uncomfortable around people that talk about politics at work? I would much rather talk about the latest sports balls games. There's so many conversations that you can have and many different statistics. You can even have sports balls debates that are enjoyable such as who is the best ball thrower.

<comment><USER43> No, because that's even worse. Sports are incredibly boring and mindless; I'd rather talk about paint drying than some stupid, pointless sports game. At least politics is something that actually affects everyone whether they want it to or not. Only a minority of the population gives a rat's ass about sports, though the sports fans always delude themselves into thinking that everyone likes them, and try to push sports on everyone constantly.

How'd you like it if I kept trying to talk to you about my favorite bands?

<comment><USER44> I had an opinion similar to you, I didn't care about the drama of one team or another, what the significance of some move, or kick, or foul was. It seemed like just an exercise in physical prowess, and just a matter of genetic skill.

It irritated me to be asked about sports or asked what I was a fan of...

I grew a respect for sports after trying a few of them. From martial arts like Kendo or Jiujitsu, to high level chess, with enough practice you learn the rules and get an intuitive understanding, and then you _see_.

You see the physicality of a sport and you know how amazing that physical feat is, because you've tried something like it. You can understand on a deeper level the drama of the moment between two opponents as they are deciding what strategy, tactic and move to employ.

I may not always enjoy talking about some niche that someone else cares about, but I am now at least somewhat aware that they are trying to connect with me and they care about it because they probably know something that I don't.

<comment><USER43> >It irritated me to be asked about sports or asked what I was a fan of...

>I grew a respect for sports after trying a few of them. From martial arts like Kendo or Jiujitsu, to high level chess, with enough practice you learn the rules and get an intuitive understanding, and then you see.

Try talking to a football fan about jiujitsu or chess and see how far that conversation goes.

I can respect the physical skill needed to play a sport, but that doesn't mean I care to talk to someone about it, and it still irritates me to be asked what sports I follow and get a weird look when I say I don't. I don't think people are freaks if they don't listen to the same music I do, but sports fans absolutely treat people like freaks if they don't follow any sports.

<comment><USER45> I don't listen to music. Let me clarify, if I need to drown something out I put on the same half-dozen Classical music pieces that I can ignore while working, but outside that I do not listen to music. I listen to podcasts and audio books when commuting, playing games, cleaning, etc. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been told I was insane, weird, a serial killer, etc. all because I don't listen to music. So, yeah, not just sports fans who treat people like trash if they don't partake in their hobby.

<comment><USER43> >I cannot tell you the number of times I have been told I was insane, weird, a serial killer, etc. all because I don't listen to music. So, yeah, not just sports fans who treat people like trash if they don't partake in their hobby.

I'm sorry if some music lovers treated you this way. But did this happen at work? Musical tastes tend to be diverse these days, so I never hear people talking about music at work unless they already know the other person shares their particular taste. I talk about music with one of my coworkers, but that's because we found out with our shared music libraries (we have music libraries we bring to work and are then able to share with others on the network) that we like a lot of the same stuff. We even ended up going to a couple of concerts together. But again, this wasn't because anyone was badgering anyone about talking about prog-metal bands, it was because we found out through our music shares that we liked the same bands. Our coworkers mostly listen to other music (a few don't seem to listen to any), so we never talk music with them. In short, I just have a hard time imagining people these days talking much about music at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Over the last 5 years I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about > immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly > imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color > without evidence because of 'fit' and so much more

This sounds more like a description of (the sad reality of) American society than it does an anomaly unique to one company.

When a company reaches Google-size, I imagine the challenges of insulating the company culture from the negative parts of broader society would become quite difficult.

That's not to say that Google bears no responsibility for this. And it definitely tarnishes the overwhelmingly positive hollywood / silicon valley stereotype of Life As A Googler.

</comment><comment><USER47> > _"I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of > police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I'd watched them debate > countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and > alacrity," the memo reads. "From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the > spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I'd never heard > of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it > came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent."_

I don't think it's reasonable to expect your co-workers to openly protest _any_ issue. People have families to take care of, paychecks to earn and rent to pay. They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama. I'm sure there are a million issues that the memo author was not openly protesting that other co-workers may have cared deeply about. I would hope they wouldn't hold that against the author.

I'm not questioning whether this person experienced racism at Google, as that seems likely in an organization of that size. I just don't think it's ok to be upset about your co-workers not being openly vocal in the workplace about a political issue you feel strongly about.

There seems to be a strong push to politicize silence that seems very unhealthy. You don't know how people feel and act outside of work and the public sphere. Silence on an issue _is not a political statement_.

<comment><USER48> >They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama

I think this here is the point where the author would disagree. Google employees and the staff at many larger tech companies produces their fair share of drama on virtually any political topic, and that's what makes this more off-putting.

I'm not black but I come from a fairly poor background, and in the tech field obviously that is rather the exception than the norm and I've noticed a similar thing when it comes to class issues.

You have people who start political mailing lists on gender pronouns and technicalities that nobody on the street has ever thought about, but then that same person talks about homeless people in front of the office with a sort of callousness and elitism that is pretty breathtaking.

If we were just talking about your random corporate culture where everybody just sips their coffee and comments on nothing then in a way that'd make these things much less noticeable. But when you have workforces that are hyper- vigilant and politically correct show disregard on topics that touch a really wide population, like the African American community in the US in this case, that makes for a stark contrast.

<comment><USER47> I'm also from a poor background and agree with a lot of this. It was a _huge_ mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize the workplace. No one will be happy in the end. They should have stayed focused on being excited about making the best technology they can, background and politics aside.

Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in. Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies to return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically quagmired megacorp's lunch.

<comment><USER49> > It was a huge mistake for Google (and other valley companies) to politicize > the workplace.

I wasn't aware this was a thing. Did Google openly support one candidate or party? How did they promote politics in the workplace?

> Pandora's box is open now and I don't think they'll be able to reign it in. > Thankfully, this leaves an opportunity for another generation of companies > to return to a technology first message and eat the large, politically > quagmired megacorp's lunch.

How? What do new companies change or do differently? Are the FANGY companies doomed by a toxic culture they can't undo? And why can't they?

I'm curious.

<comment><USER50> Some of the politicization at Google may have been born out of the "Bring your whole self to work" philosophy playing out on their internal Google+ network and "Coffee Beans" discussion forum. You can see many examples/screenshots of what was tolerated internally in the Damore lawsuit[1]. I've worked exclusively for large orgs (outside of the Bay Area) and it completely blows my mind.

[1] [https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/04/201804...](https://www.dhillonlaw.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/04/20180418-Damore-et-al.-v.-Google-FAC_Endorsed.pdf)

<comment><USER51> Wow, just from briefly scrolling around I'm appalled by the sort of stuff that people are willing to put in writing and send to their coworkers at Google. e.g. managers admitting to having shit-lists of people that they won't let on their teams

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> DC-3 This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Every day we get told that cis-het white guys should shut up and stop 'splaining oppression.

</comment><comment><USER52> The Memo [PDF] itself: [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The- Weigh...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of- Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf)

<comment><USER53> Thanks for the link.

However I fail to understand two of the three points made:

1) Ok, fine

2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training"

3) I am failing to see how/why Google should be involved in the issue, I mean, what about the mental health of all the other people (part of "overrepresented" and "fairlyrepresented" besides "underrepresented" groups) working for google and all the ones not working for Google?

They are all exposed to the same news.

And is it actually the news causing this influence on mental health (as opposed to the way the news are reported or - sadly - to the terrible things that happen in the world)?

<comment><USER54> > 2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training"

Empathy. Most people are selfish and it can be difficult for us to care about an issue that hasn't impacted us directly. VR could give people the opportunity to experience what it's like to be someone totally different and "walk a mile in their shoes."

<comment><USER53> Yes about "walk a mile in their shoes" but I thought that the VR technology allows to see/experience something "different", i.e. project yourself, as you are, in an environment to which you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it doesn't change "you" (which should be actually the objective).

Let's take as a counter example a hypothetical (very realistic and VR as much as you want) shoot-em-all game, you may well play it at length and become (inside the game) the toughest soldier/killer in the world, but it is not like (mostly) you then go out and start shooting everyone.

But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of a virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority if you don't already have it, and that can do it more effectively than traditional education/culture (lessons, meetings, books, movies, etc.)

<comment><USER54> > I thought that the VR technology allows to see/experience something > "different", i.e. project yourself, as you are, in an environment to which > you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it doesn't change "you"

Yes, I think that's exactly why VR would help with diversity training. A lot of implicit bias comes from superficial differences in a person's outward physical appearance. Age, skin color, gender, even height and weight. VR could allow "you" (same skills, same knowledge, same capabilities) to experience the frustration of knowing that you're more than capable yet held back by something as silly as your avatars "skin."

> But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality > and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of > a virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority > if you don't already have it

I can. A VR room escape game would be a good opportunity. You would be assigned to complete ten room escape "levels" of approximately equal difficulty with a team of four other participants. It would be a new team for each level so at the end of the training you'd have worked on ten different "rooms" with 40 different people. At the beginning of the session you would be assigned one of a handful of generic avatars - whichever one most closely resembles your gender & skin color. You'd play as this avatar and your teammates will see and interact with your avatar.

At the end of each task you would quickly rate the group as a whole, rate your own performance within that group, and individually rate each of the other people on your team. I'm imagining five minutes to quickly respond to scale of 1-5 type metrics along the lines of technical skill, interpersonal skill, leadership skill, etc. as well as another few minutes to journal personal reflections - Did you enjoy working with that group? Did you feel like your team listened to your ideas? Valued your input? Do you feel accomplished? Frustrated?

But, unbeknownst to you, your teammates will only see "your" avatar for half of the tasks. For the other half, they'll be shown a _slightly_ different avatar. For example, if you're a white woman your avatar might appear as a black woman for five of the tasks.

And you won't actually work with 40 different people, you'll work with the same four.

At the end of the session you'd see how your teammates rated your abilities for each level and how the ratings differed based on which of the two avatars they were shown. You'd also see how your ratings of your teammates differed based on the avatar you saw.

We all like to think we're immune to bias. We're not racist or sexist. We don't discriminate. And we all like to think people will judge us on our abilities. That it doesn't matter what we look like because we're smart and capable and of course people will be able to recognize that. But I think it would be eye-opening for people to experience the impact of unconscious bias from both sides at once. Because whether we're willing to admit it or not, none of us are immune. But the more aware we are of our bias blindspots - <USER3> the _consequences_ of those blindspots - the better equipped we'll be to recognize them (in our own actions and the actions of others) and react to them accordingly.

<comment><USER53> I understand, thanks, and it seems to me like a nice approach, still I am not convinced that it will be intrinsecally superior to more traditional education.

<comment><USER54> That's nice, but you're wrong.

How do you feel right now? Frustrated? Annoyed? Do you think I'm a complete and total idiot?

I don't blame you. I also know exactly how you feel and where you're coming from. When I first wrote the comment you're replying to I initially had a few sentences at the end about how I wish more people on HN would create usernames that clearly belong to women so they could compare and contrast how they're treated and experience the frustration of what I call the "casual dismissal."

There are a lot of things I love about tech and about HN but one of the things that really drives me nuts is how often women's ideas and opinions are quickly brushed off as unconvincing or not fully-formed without any effort to articulate _why_. It's frustrating to contribute to a thoughtful conversation only to be told your contribution is without merit by a person who can't even be bothered to explain any further than a shallow and meaningless "I'm not convinced."

And it happens constantly. I've seen it happen to others and I've experienced it first hand. And it is so beyond frustrating to participate in a discussion only to have the other person respond with "that's nice, but I'm not convinced."

As you can see, you are not immune. But perhaps if you spent a little time on HN as a woman you'd have a better understanding of what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER53> >How do you feel right now? Frustrated? Annoyed? Do you think I'm a complete and total idiot?

Absolutely not.

You were so kind as to share your view on the matter and I thanked you for your well-thought out and detailed reply/proposal.

And I had no intention to dismiss it in any way, if you felt like that I beg your pardon.

That's it, before your post I couldn't even imagine a VR based kind of experience, now you provided a good example, which doesn't mean that - as said - it will be intrinsically better than more traditional non-VR methods, in my opinion.

I already tried to explain the reasons why, a simulation is a simulation and most people are aware of that, thus I cannot believe that an experience like the one you described can actually "stick" in the minds of the participants, I think that most of them will simply take it for a "game about an escape room", unless they have a previous sensitivity to the racial or gender (or whatever other) biases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Google is only 2.5% black according to a quick search (and 3.5% Latino). That's all employees, not just developers. I'm not sure how that's even possible for a company of that size in America. AA may be underrepresented in tech overall but they certainly aren't in business, HR, legal, etc in my corporate experience so that number seems very low to me. I wonder if any analysis has been to done to determine if any biases or recruitment strageties resulted in those low numbers.

To Google's credit they are developing various pipelines to recruit underrepresented communities.

<comment><USER56> I'm guessing it's because Latinos and blacks in general are underrepresented in the white collar labor pools that Google draws from. Most Google employees, if not developers, are still in white collar office-type professions.

[https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks- hispanic...](https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks-hispanics- underrepresented-white-collar-jobs-tech-2518568)

According to that study, black people make up 2-3% of the white collar workforce. This indicates that Google's diversity initiatives are broadly working, but Google alone cannot overcome the societal issues that keep various people out of these well paying career paths.

Hispanics represent about 5% of the white collar workforce, so again, the 3.5% indicates that Google is not exactly where one would expect, but still not as off as a naive analysis would seem.

The narrative that Google is not hiring people of certain skin colors because of racism on their part falls apart the moment you look at numbers over which Google has little control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I am lost at how we as a society are so quick to attack someone who has a difference in opinion. Just because someone doesn't agree with your solution, it doesn't mean they are opposed to resolving the problem.

The OP, in my opinion, does have a lot of internal anger they need to resolve. e.g., how he expresses clenching his fist and not feeding into the rage.

After reading the memo, it's my personal opinion the OP has a lot of unresolved issues and should consider speaking to a therapist. I feel like they are projecting their hate those nearby him. That's unhealthy and also very counterproductive.

I genuinely worry that socially, people are overly sensitive, and it's hurting social progress. Instead of people learning to communicate with one another, they label the "opposition". Instead of understanding someone's perspective, they project onto them what they want to "fight against."

Now is this a direct result of social behaviors bleeding into "real-world" interactions?

I don't blame Google _at all_. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way. It just feels like he doesn't care to understand the position of those around him. Instead, he wants everyone just to accept his perspective.

All this being said, it's time for people to cut back on social media. I had to do that because it's too easy to get sucked into arguments with angry people. It's also easy and honestly fun to insult and trigger pointless arguments to entertain yourself. Regardless, it's unhealthy.

<comment><USER58> > I don't blame Google at all. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of > effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.

What's mature, healthy, and positive? Maybe it's society that is the failure? Maybe the unending docility of modern life is creating emotional volcanoes. Maybe some people like hostility, and maybe some people like confrontation. Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs to die.

<comment><USER57> > Maybe it's society that is the failure?

That implies you have no self-control and require the government to tell you how to think/behave.

> Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs > to die.

Who said people need to be nice? I recall me saying:

> communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.

<comment><USER58> > That implies you have no self-control and require the government to tell you > how to think/behave.

I don't see how that implies a lack of self control, and I'm not sure what the government has to do with it.

> Who said people need to be nice? I recall me saying:

I guess I read 'positive' as 'be nice.' What's a positive way to deal with a world that you hate (hypothetically)? Why should anyone do anything positive, why can't they lash out as they see fit? Why should someone live by rules that others created without their consent, and then be 'positive' about it?

Maybe society has failed. Maybe we're not living how we're supposed to be living.

<comment><USER57> What does 'failure' mean then? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> There is definitely a problem with policing in the United States that needs to be fixed and there are a ton of cases that illustrate why. But for the life of me I can't understand why Michael Brown is championed as one of them. I don't want to be crass but Michael Brown was a bully that got caught up in his own anger and paid for it. Out of all the examples to choose from why would they choose him.

<comment><USER60> There's a theory that mainstream media outlets deliberately (or algorithmically) select and highlight news stories that are maximally divisive. The Eric Garner story got much less press than the Michael Brown case did, because the Garner one was quite clearly a case of police abuse. Only the most fringe elements would claim the police acted fairly in that situation. Meanwhile, Michael Brown's death was (at least at first) in a much more fuzzy area. So, more controversy, more clicks and comments.

<comment><USER59> "Riots are good for business" \- MSM

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> > "I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of > police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I'd watched them debate > countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and > alacrity,"

I'm not surprised countless of other topics are far safer conversation topics. They are here to do a job and not get involved with politics and touching incendiary topics would be downright stupid. They certainly have an opinion in some way. But they're not stupid enough to share it.

Why on earth would you ever expect your coworkers to talk about gun rights, abortion, police brutality etc over Malaysia 370 in an office environment?

</comment><comment><USER62> I think this article missed the mark by leaving out all context.

They don't mention the black employees role. Some roles at Google are relatively more diverse. It would be interesting to hear if his peers were diverse but not opinionated, or perhaps they were opinionated but not _as much_ as he was. Or if his peer were not diverse and not opinionated, etc.

The article mentions a team but doesn't clarify if he was on a team or if it was a team of subordinates. If my boss was black and the topic of police brutality came up, I'd avoid saying anything as well.

Lastly, "And though I eventually grew more comfortable using challenging moments to educate my co-workers..." comes across poorly. Depending on how I felt a coworker was consistently trying to "educate" me regarding social issues, I could see myself purposefully avoiding those topics around them and not engaging.

</comment><comment><USER63> An important essay.

My takeaway isn't that Google is awful. It seems Google is just like every other place, full of intolerant biased people. Which is a sadder conclusion really.

<comment><USER64> > is just like every other place, full of intolerant biased people

because that's human nature and it shows itself more acutely at scale when not everyone can possibly be on the same page about things.

<comment><USER65> Collective ego is super fascinating when you're used to stepping back and seeing how pervasive it is in our lives. That requires the mental tools and a habit of picking it out though. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> _I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I'd watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,"_

This is a nonsensical complaint. There are probably 10 topics that I am interested in, that are important to me, that nobody I know would be interested in discussing at length with me. I understand that police brutality may be an important issue to him, but coworkers not being interested in discussing it at length at work doesn't seem like an indicator of racism or bad company culture to me.

I wonder how much the current college environment has to do with graduates ascribing things that seemingly have no connection with various "isms" to them.

</comment><comment><USER67> This isn't about Google, I'm not even sure it's about race or class.

This is just how people are. Put enough of them in a place and let them get comfortable with each other and you will hear this.

That has been my experience in the industry for 17 years now. 8 years at a very large company with plenty of employees.

Stressed and bitter employees tend to talk this way. Others don't. Some might not feel comfortable talking about it, some might talk about it with their other friends.

But in general I've noticed that people who are comfortable and being themselves can vent racist and "class-related" opinons freely around the office. In teams of 6-8 people there might be one or two of the types of people who tend to take charge in these discussions. Or initiate them.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have increasingly noticed people categorize competing political or social opinions as racist or disparaging. Many of my co-workers label support for enforcing existing border controls as racist, opposition to affirmative action or racial reparations as white supremacist. This memo seems to do the same:

> "These protestors aren't going to solve anything, " she said. "Like, what > are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? > Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they > can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying . I just can't stand it." She > rattled off a couple of other disparaging comments about the peaceful > protestors I was preparing to join, repeatedly referring to them as those > people before a chorus of my team's nodding heads, each bobbing affirmingly > behind their desks. With each nod, my co-workers validated my irate > teammate's frustration — and her disgust. How could the team I'd grown to > trust and respect care so little about an innocent man who'd lost his life?

The fact that one's co-worker does not approve of protestor and thinks their tactics are ineffective or counterproductive is not disparagement. Diversity means there is going to be a diversity of viewpoints and opinions on controversial topics. Lack of diversity is not the root of this employee's distress. Quite the opposite, the fact that the author encountered people with different viewpoints is the cause of this. The author later states that, "Over the last 5 years, I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of 'fit,' and so much more." But in the absence of sharing the details of those events, we're left to wonder whether this "hateful words" about immigrants and "boasting unabashedly about gentrification" amount to genuine harassment or differences of opinion that the author finds intolerable.

I think it's great that the industry is making efforts to become more diverse. But that comes with creating an environment in which people are going to come into contact with co-workers with very different views on controversial topics. It seems to me that the solution isn't more diversity (although more diversity is welcome in its own right), it's either curtailing discussions of these topics in the office or establishing a set of approved viewpoints and forbidding espousing or sharing views outside this set. The last solution is to cultivate an environment where people respect each other regardless of differences and do not treat encountering an opinion they find harmful or bad as a personal attack - but this last solution seems increasingly difficult to achieve.

</comment><comment><USER24> Quoting the original PDF:

> _Over the last 5 years, I 've heard co-workers spew hateful words about > immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly > imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color > without evidence because of "fit," and so much more._

Not to detract from this particular situation, but I've been thinking "fit" is also part of a more general cultural problem.

At my first real industry job (software engineering of commercial technical workstation software), shortly before dotcom gold rush, half my team was female, the engineers were mostly 30s through 40+, and everyone was skilled, but with no strutting.

I know not all places were like that, but "tech" hiring the last decade or two has really seemed to operate more like a stereotypical frathouse, complete with pledging and hazing (and sometimes even in-office frat-like parties, at at least one prominent company, as a friend described it).

I suspect we've gotten very bad about "fit", using it to dress up old exclusionary biases, and that a lot of people get an impression of our field being like that, and are turned off.

</comment><comment><USER68> >In the memo, the former employee cites a few moments where he felt uncomfortable at Google, particularly after big news events such as the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests against police brutality.

The Vice article, from what I saw, doesn't clarify if the writer themself felt threatened by his coworkers, or if he/she just felt comfortable talking about police brutality against people of color. Obviously, if the writer was experiencing some hostility at work that would be one thing – and surely would be a serious problem worth discussing. But I'm not a person of color, and I'm very uncomfortable talking about police brutality at work. The topic is very sensitive and I don't think it's appropriate to distract my coworkers from their jobs by stressing them out. I work with some people that simply couldn't finish their day if I started a discussion about police brutality, or the murder of innocent people of color, or about X-phobic issues. Work is somewhat of a social place, but it's not really acceptable _anywhere_ to just openly discuss politics, gender, identity, violence, etc. in my opinion. I don't even like talking about my music and movie tastes at work! Work is also, for me, a place where I can come in and be good at what I do, separate myself from the outside world, and have a little fun here and there (and get paid). My office isn't really a place for activism, to me. Does that make me a racist? Or classist? Or sexist?

About the only important things I'm willing to discuss that isn't work related are my garden, my family, and where we want to eat lunch. Otherwise... it's headphones on.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is what Googlers refer to as "my pony is overcooked" syndrome. It's when the person detaches from outside reality so completely, they think Google is somehow "bad" on any of these hot button issues. It's not. I worked there for almost a decade, and I have not seen _any_ real racism, misogyny or discrimination. You will retort that it's sample size of 1, to which I will say that if the issues the authors of these memos describe were as pervasive as they claim, I'd notice _something_ at least.

That having been said, I'm not black myself, and during my time at Google only very few people around me happened to be black. I _could_ be they're experiencing issues that are so unique to them I can't even grasp the extent of their "burden". But knowing Google, I find it really, really hard to believe.

I'd even go as far to say that if you're looking for a company that takes gender/race discrimination seriously, for real, you'd have a hard time finding a better company to join.

</comment><comment><USER70> Wrong title. Should be "The Burden of Working in an Unprofessional Environment with Jerks."

This is a natural outcome of promoting work, not as a job, but more of a lifestyle to ring out as much as productivity as you can from young, unattached people. There isn't a boundary between work/personal life like there is everywhere else. I've seen different attempts at this on both the west and east coasts. Forced communal lunches, free food, comfy couches to sleep on "if you need to," game rooms, required outings, "bring you whole self to work," etc.

Working in these environments is draining, because some people seem to take pride in saying the most inappropriate and cringe-worthy things, and they go unchallenged. When you work in that context where no one is expected to be professional, it will cause problems; however, when you make the mistake of believing your job is more than a job, you will end up angry and vengeful.

For some reason, this seems to be much more the norm on the north-east and west coasts.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm surprised that "anti-immigrant sentiment" was a problem they observed at Google. While I was at Google the sentiment was very, very pro-immigrant. The company has a huge number of immigrant employees, after all, and Mountain View is a very pro-immigrant area already.

</comment><comment><USER72> The burden this man suffers is self placed. Unless words are spewed in his direction specifically or he is the target of some injustice personally, he could simply ignore everything and just go on living his life happily and at peace. I recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER73> There are more and more these strange cases when people for some reason think that if everybody around are not cheering them and don't have exectly the same personal opinions as to life, politics, or religion they are opressed in one or another way. While in reality they just participate in a discussion where people have different points of view. That reminds very much a victim mentality and inability to cope with own emotions to have reasonable arguments. People atribute regular behaviour of others that do not align with their own to agression and suprisingly to some sort of discrimination.

</comment><comment><USER74> Any truly result-driven company's premptive measure for dealing with these sorts of annoyances (for all employe*s), should be the solution of deeming non-work-related discussion involving politics, religion, race and such divisive topics as "unsuitable for the workplace". Discussion serious-enough to spur opinionated ramblings and ideological smartassness, to say the least, that's not work-related and that's conducted during working hours, must be ideally stated in all employee contracts as a clear set of terms a prospective candidate must comply with avoiding.

</comment><comment><USER75> Working at Google in 2019 is no fun. Political correctness seems to have destroyed the whimsy that the company used to embody. Nowadays it's just about stifling dictatorialism and thought policing.

</comment><comment><USER76> So, it's not about being black at Google, it's about Google not doing enough because the news spins everything into a racial issue?

</comment><comment><USER77> From the original:

> As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working > long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of > protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat. > Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit > ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is > ridiculous?"

Valid question. And not everyone thinks the same way. And people should not under any circumstances have to walk on eggshells because someone might be offended. Where is the line drawn? By the person who is offended? We should just all not open our mouths.

> My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to > see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms > folded in exasperation.

So what? So what??? (Not to mention that there could be many explanations for 'exasperation or even if it really was 'exasperation'.

> "These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what are > those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make > people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they > can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it."

Perfectly fine to say and I would have said that. To bad most people are not willing to admit that they either think similar things and/or don't think that is bad to say under any circumstances.

Bottom line: Stop trying to make everyone stop voicing their opinion with your thought police about what is acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER78> I'm surprised at how long it seems to have lasted, this idea that your workplace is a giant encounter group. Is there evidence that this is a good idea or bad idea? Is there evidence that leaving your sports interests, movie interests, politics, and family problems at home is good or bad?

</comment><comment><USER64> > But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.

Because it's way too risky to have an opinion on that topic unless it precisely tows the woke party line. It's a minefield. You'd have to be stupid to touch that topic in the workplace in 2019.

<comment><USER79> It's strange why are you downvoted because it's exactly this. Nobody wants to risk being misunderstood and the get fired because he phrased his opinion wrongly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> First, Google (along with almost all big tech) needs more people of color. I'm sorry this guy left.

Second: Michael Brown was not murdered. He was a bully who used his size to intimidate people and the evidence shows he had his arm inside the cop car. Everybody of every color should re-think that scenario and come down on the right side of it. Facts are facts.

Third: I'm really sorry that guy moved on. Kelsey Hightower is a beacon of hope in the tech community, we need more examples to encourage future generations. I hope this guy lands somewhere good and finds success.

</comment><comment><USER81> "I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of 'fit.'" A company the heralds its Progressive values in one of the most Progressive areas of the country. Yes, this is exactly what you should expect to happen.

</comment><comment><USER82> Former teacher, so I'm guessing this employee was not a software engineer.

</comment><comment><USER83> Does google insurance not provide for mental health care? I know it's not standard for many corporations but I'd imagine google's healthcare is very competitive. If so... idk what this person wants.

<comment><USER84> they want to complain more about being offended because they cant handle other people saying things they dont like

if you downvote this then youre doing the same thing

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I find other ethnics to be more discriminated nowadays. mostly Asians(that include Indians) and Latin American.

</comment><comment><USER38> Really frustrating to see this flagged: either we don't trust the moderators to moderate or someone simply doesn't want to have this discussion. We're all (mostly) technologists here, diversity in tech and the issues surrounding it are not going to go away, as this post shows -- people ain't gonna talk about this in the office, the least HN can do is provide a forum for tech workers to discuss the issue with guardrails on decorum.

<comment><USER86> Political topics on HN often get flagged because they tend to devolve into flamewars pretty quickly.

<comment><USER40> Also it's largely pointless. Unlike technology arguments, where you can easily convince me to try switching from Sublime to VSCode or to give Rust a try instead of C++, etc. political beliefs are much more entrenched. Each side has a very hard time understanding and empathizing with the viewpoint of the other side.

<comment><USER43> Exactly, it's a lot like religion, except that at least with politics you can at least attempt to bring facts and data into the discussion in an attempt to disprove the other side's points. But people still treat it like a religion so it generally just isn't productive to discuss it, unless you're among people who are generally like-minded, and you're only hashing out finer points (e.g., would policy A or policy B be more fruitful for reducing global warming? Rather than arguing over whether global warming is real or not).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Damore provided copious evidence that Google was hostile to his demographic, those sexual assault protests showed that it was hostile to women, this shows that it's hostile to minorities... It sounds like Google is a battlefield where everybody is getting shot by everyone else. At least it's not divided into perpetrators and victims along identity lines.

<comment><USER88> Ironically this article is still referring to Damore's memo as an "anti- diversity memo". What an overt falsehood. There are lots of valid criticisms of his memo, but this isn't one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Apropos of nothing, I actually find myself using DuckDuckGo and Firefox a lot more lately, over Chrome and gSearch. I also want to get to hosting my own email, and move off of Gmail. Not going to lie though, I really like the Gmail interface and would appreciate any good replacements.

<comment><USER47> I use Fastmail and while it's very different and not as "modern" as the Gmail interface, I did end up getting used to it and enjoy the straightforward control it offers.

I've also switched to DDG as my main search engine but often find myself using `!g` as the results are quite as good in many cases. Still, it feels great to be escaping Google's stranglehold.

<comment><USER89> ahh !g, thanks for that reminder. I find that DDG isn't indexing Github Issues as well as I'd like, and for that I still found myself going back to G.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Daily reminder that Google and other "progressive" companies are eating themselves alive.

<comment><USER64> Which is why companies should start treating politics in the workplace as a liability. You can't have a workplace where someone "brings their whole self to work" at scale.

<comment><USER91> It is strange that when I was going up companies were about the product they make - not the perceived change they could be.</comment></comment></comment>


Untold Story Behind Kickstarter Stats - <AUTHOR> http://www.appsblogger.com/behind-kickstarter-crowdfunding-stats/

<comment><USER3> God. The design of this site is just _aweful_.

Nagging for subscribing to her _private_ newsletter THREE TIMES (one in top of page, another in the middle, another at the bottom), flashing her new Android app and asking you to download it TWICE, 'Add me to your circles :)', about 10 sharing buttons, 'Tweet me' in every other paragraph, 'Click here to vote this up in HN' THREE TIMES, a disturbing lightbox (when you're halfway through the article)... Everything you hate about tech blogs is here.

I read <http://daringfireball.net> because John Gruber is an Apple and Kubrick fan (like I am), but more importantly because I think the design of his site respects _me_ , the reader. I would never, ever visit this appsblogger.com ever again, no matter how many retweets its articles get.

<comment><USER4> Don't try signing up for the mailing list. A video immediately starts playing at ridiculous volume, yelling CHECK YOUR INBOX NOW. My ears are still ringing, as I was listening to quiet music on my headphones at 50% volume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at the stats is a very useful exercise, but it's limited in one crucial capacity: it tells us only about the performance of Kickstarter campaigns after they've launched. It tells us very little (inferences and guesses aside) about the work leading up to the campaign launches. Or the lack thereof, in some cases.

As much as I hate some of Seth Godin's cutesy/quirky buzzwords about "tribes," he's crucially right about one thing here. Kickstarter is, as he puts it, "the last step" in a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Kickstarter is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of deal. You need to have the product reasonably well researched, if not prototyped, ahead of time. You need to have a compelling description and video. You need a realistic projection of your costs and revenue expectations, and you need to set your funding tiers carefully (and the rewards for those tiers even more carefully). You need to scout out your influencers, your bloggers, your best-connected connections, and so forth, well ahead of the project's debut. You have to have a plan for activating them.

The whole thing is basically a product launch, much more so than a call for R&D funding. It's a marketing push, much more so than an investment round. It's also a pre-sale. It's all of these things, _even if_ you truly need the R&D investment to build the thing you're pre-selling.

This is not necessarily intuitive, because the site presents itself as a place to pitch the crowd on R&D investment. People who actually believe that will set themselves up for failure. Conversely, people who realize that Kickstarter is more of a marketing and sales tool will better position themselves for success.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is nasty: I got halfway through the article and then got lightboxed into a signup form for an email list; the lightbox had no "close" button, and the now-background text no longer scrolled. FAIL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just press Esc to get out of the lightbox. The directions were underneath the image.

<comment><USER7> I had clicked the link and got called away. When I got back the page was "blocked" by some stupid message. So I closed the page - always do - <USER2> coming back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While I enjoy these statistics just as much as the next guy, it's funny that they rarely talk about an obvious commonality that successful projects tend to have.

The easiest projects to fund are ones that have founders with experience building either a previous version or a functioning product close to the one they want to build, not just a partially working prototype. I would rather fund a project to get manufacturing cost down because everyone benefits from that. Funding to do R&D -- it's just a harder sell for me.

It helps immensely if the product is compelling or solves a problem but the founder(s)' ability to deliver is the main reason why I will invest in a kickstarter project.

If someone comes along and tells me they want to build X product or Y app but have never done such a thing before. The real question I have is, "How did you arrive at $500,000 being the perfect funding requirement?"

It doesn't even have to be a similar product they've built. If Elon Musk did a kickstarter and said he wanted to do deep sea drilling, I would think, "He has done big projects in industries that have entrenched players before."

<comment><USER9> Exactly my thoughts - I'm very willing to fund projects with leaders and teams that have a strong history of delivering. I threw in for Pebble because I knew the team had experience delivering product and working with design and manufacturing.

This is also why I'm entirely unwilling to fund the enormous number of gaming projects led by first-time game developers, full of wild-eyed wonder and promises of the sun and stars. I want to help great people do great things, not pay so a completely green newbie developer/designer/artist/whatever can cut their teeth flailing about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's funny how most projects either succeed by a very small margin or fail spectacularly.

since Kickstarter is all or nothing model, it's obvious if the project is only let's say 20% off its funding goal, family members or even founders themselves quickly fund it out of their own pockets to ensure 100% goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, the research data suggests that Kickstarter's efforts to make self- funding (making up the difference) difficult do seem to be working.

Quoting Prof. Mollick's paper: "...the percentage funded of failed projects remain very similar for smaller projects (mean .149, SD .18 for projects under $1,000) and relative larger ones (mean .101, SD .14 for projects over $1,000). We would expect that, if self-funding was the reason that few projects were moderate failures, that cheaper projects would be more easily self-funded, and therefore would have a lower, not higher, mean percentage funded for failed projects, since relatively larger funding gaps would still be cheap to self- fund."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> One other factor to consider is that if you're close to reaching your goal, it might make sense to fund yourself just to get access to the contributions thus far. So if you're at 90% of your goal, you kick in the difference of 10%, pay the fee (5%), and get access to the 90% that people kicked in. So if you're close, it makes sense to pay... which probably eliminates all 80-99% funded failed projects.

</comment><comment><USER12> Something a bit sad about how the map is dominated by a few huge circles, and the circles in "flyover country" are small indeed.

Suspecting wrongly that the mapmaker had goofed, I checked: the amount of funding is indeed proportional to the _area_ , as it should be.

</comment><comment><USER13> Appsblogger is one to watch. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Two drones cause at least two dozens of diverted flights at Gatwick airport - crypto-jeronimo https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6513923/Chaos-Gatwick-drone-spotted-near-airport-SHUTS-runway.html <comment><AUTHOR> I hope that they find and jail those people and make an example out of them.

I'm afraid that at some point due to actions of irresponsible individuals like these both the drone hobbyist and developers will be negatively affected.

</comment><comment><USER2> Thanks to Brexit, Britain can now restore its draconian rules about kites and toy aircraft. Which was 50 metres. The EU-ruling is 150(300) metres.

<comment> crypto-jeronimo The current UK rules state a maximum of 400 feet (120 m), AFAIK. Also, speaking of EU, most urban areas of France are off limits, and the not-so- urban ones allow at most 30m/50m (depending on distance from urban areas).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has there been any attempt to Wikify HN? - <AUTHOR>

Has there been some attempt to compile Hacker News knowledge into a hierarchical FAQ/Resource format?<p>eg. "if you're looking for Scalability architecture solutions currently in use, start here." <comment><USER2> FAQ/resource for what exactly? HN is primarily focused on news rather than solving problems. There's a lot of knowledge scattered around but you'd probably be better off just looking at StackOverflow rather than pulling together all the isolated little sound bites.

<comment><AUTHOR> A FAQ/Resource of the knowledge that gets submitted via our blogs, our code, our recommendations, our solutions. While many submissions are news, a lot is also problem solving and solution sharing.

Think about it - the people contributing here have some of the most valuable grey matter in the world. They are coming up with tomorrow's technology. Obviously not all of them want to share that, but many share their knowledge and experiences in hindsight.

The solutions that HNers implement today filter down into the common practices employed by the masses tomorrow.

<comment><USER2> I think you're romanticizing HN a little too much. There are some really smart people here sharing some fairly unique insight, but for the most part it's just dudes making websites that fail in every sense of the word and people here for tech news because digg died and reddit got too popular.

Why bother trying to extract the tiny bit of lasting value when there are sites like Quora and Wikipedia that specialize in it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It comes up from time to time but as far as I know it never goes anywhere.</comment>