AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Apologizes For Firing Employee - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-apologizes-for-brutally-firing-employee-during-patch-all-hands-call/

<comment><USER2> What really bothers me about Armstrong's behavior is that in the recording, he's talking about how he doesn't mind people giving the information to the press. "I don't care if people leak information. . .I want to clear up the fact that leaking information or anything around Patch isn't going to bother me." That's a direct quote from him on that call. Today, he's claiming that the confidentiality of these meetings is paramount and that Abel was fired for violating that confidentiality.

The issue is that seconds before the firing, he had explicitly given the opposite direction to everyone listening - that leaks were fine by him. Now he's attempting to play the other side. He claims that he learned a lesson, but from the memo, it's clear that he hasn't. Or maybe he's learned the wrong lesson: that's it's ok to be mercurial and to act on whims, just make sure that you backstop your actions better so that it doesn't make you seem so crazy. "I acted too quickly" . . .if I had told him to stop, waited a week, and then fired him for some made-up reason, no one would be the wiser to my crazy behavior.

<comment><USER3> Typical of folks with his personality type. I've known a handful of them. Their MO is getting others to obey them, follow orders, etc. Everything out of their mouth is filtered through this lense, and so they will say whatever you need to hear to get you to follow.

They are just as 100% sure about one position as they are its opposite.

You'll find a lot of these folks in politics, as well as in C-level positions inside companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry, this is no apology when he says "Abel had been told previously not to record a confidential meeting, and he repeated that behavior on Friday, which drove my actions."

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really quite shocking. Surely there is something unlawful about publicly firing an employee in this way. All that needed to be said was "Please stop filming".

</comment><comment><USER6> That's a non-apology apology. If he wants to apologize properly then he should hire the person back. Otherwise it's just damage control.

</comment><comment><USER7> Patch's grave is being dug at a slower rate now. It is still being dug though.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is interesting. Wonder if the staffer that was fired might take legal recourse for reputaional damage or defamation. Armstrong certainly lacked class on the day. The legal posturing in this letter is pretty obvious if one reads between the lines.

</comment><comment><USER9> the most telling thing from the audio of this incident, is how Tim went on with the presentation after firing the guy. he might have as well stopped to take a sip of water..

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand why AOL hasn't been shut down yet.

</comment><comment><USER11> so, anyone want to go work for this guy yet?

</comment><comment><USER12> Techcrunch: "In the memo obtained from a tipster"

Tim Armstrong: "On Friday I acted too quickly and I learned a tremendous lesson and I wanted you to hear that directly from me."

First Armstrong doesn't detail exactly what the lesson he learned was (so you know others that he is sending the memo to can learn from it).

Second if you know that the memo is going to be "leaked" why not just provide the memo as a press release so it doesn't appear that the "tipster" has done anything wrong? (If in fact it was a tipster).

Then you can just send the employees the press release by email. And then they have a more definitive idea that leaking info is wrong because you are drawing a distinction between public and private info.

This more or less adds questions to whether it is possible to hold a private meeting and not have things go public (after all someone recorded the meeting which is what added so much color to the situation (hearing it directly is worth a thousand words, not as good as a video but the next best thing).

Add:

And that in a large meeting the assumption is that anything and everything that you say will get out there.

Which it will because it's a trivial to have a hidden camera record everything. And if the meeting is large enough the chance of someone doing that would be great.

</comment><comment><USER13> This whole episode ends up being positive PR for Patch (even if the employee never gets rehired)...or at least better spin than what the meeting was actually about, which was how Patch is going to shut down a large number of its sites in an unlikely bid to become profitable by the end of the year.

Instead, the narrative is, _whoa, Tim Armstrong really is going to be personally invested in Patch, so much so that he 's firing people in a blink of an eye._ Which doesn't mean that Patch will suddenly be successful, but at least Tim Armstrong's personal investment is tied to the Patch-part of AOL in a way that was before, just lip service.

<comment><USER14> I'm guessing most people didn't know Patch existed before this story surfaced, and they now associate Patch with "that asshole AOL CEO who rage-fired a random employee for no good reason." I'm not sure this is the type of PR that they want.

And the guy isn't getting offered his job back, which makes this whole apology completely devoid of merit.

<comment><USER13> Patch is known by pretty much every working journalist, so in its own field, Patch is well watched. To put it in perspective, more money has been burned through Patch than many, many of the companies usually discussed on HN

<comment><USER15> It may be well-known among working journalists, but apparently not within its (presumably) target audience - readers of online news.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


N26 raises €110m and eyes US expansion - <AUTHOR> http://www.bankingtech.com/2018/03/n26-raises-e110m-and-eyes-us-expansion/ <comment><AUTHOR> Who will be their largest competitors in the US?</comment>


Google +1 fails on HN comments pages - <AUTHOR> http://plus1.atspace.co.uk/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2Fitem%3Fid%3D3193344

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a Chrome extension installed which shows a +1 button for any page (but not every page).

When I try to +1 a comments page on HN, I get a +1 error.

This is reproducible on the linked site (<http://i.imgur.com/ZjrMU.png>).

Google says, "a +1 button error can occur for a variety of reasons, including the following:

* Server timeout: Check your Internet connection and try refreshing the page.

* Suspended profile: If your profile has been suspended, you won't be able to +1 content.

* Apps user: Google profiles aren't available for Apps accounts, so you won't be able to use the +1 button.

* Blocked cookies: If you've disabled 3rd party cookies in your browser you won't be able to use the +1 button.

None of these reasons explain why +1 would fail reliably for a given URL.</comment>


BitDefender wrongly detects Winds as malware - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GetStream/Winds/issues/596 <comment><AUTHOR> Beside the news item itself; I wonder how often this happens and how people manage to get their software removed from this false positive detection lists.

Any help with making a stronger case is also appreciated!</comment>


Microsoft is Apple Now - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1411866/microsoft-is-beating-apple-at-its-own-design-game/ <comment><USER2> Almost but ultimately their next gen windows universal platform is not only weaker than IOS in some respects it's less full featured than even Android. Until MS gets on par with the iOS API for things like pro audio their API will keep being stuck in win32 and old school windows 10 pro desktop apps.

<comment><USER3> It sounds like either they can hold onto their old customers (the current share) or try to grab the newer customers by letting go of backward compatibility and start to improve on things.</comment></comment>


How Failure Is Viewed in the Innovation Community: Seattle Startups and VCs Weigh In - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/01/16/how-failure-is-viewed-in-the-innovation-community-seattle-startups-and-vcs-weigh-in/

<comment><USER2> This is a very thoughtful piece about the culture of a region, and how supportive it is when entrepreneurs fail.I'm guessing regional economic boosters outside of San Francisco and Boston might want to read this and learn some lessons they can apply at home.</comment>


Apple will drop headphone jack to make the IPhone 7 slimmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3055208/its-true-apple-will-drop-the-headphone-jack-to-make-the-iphone-7-slimmer-and-simpler <comment><USER2> When phones first started playing MP3s the manufacturers were very reluctant to put a 3.5mm jack in them (I'm not quite sure why...). I had phones which required custom adapters, either for proprietary ports or for 2.5mm jacks. They were a complete pain to use, really easy to forget at home, and as a result I never really listened to music using my phone.

Just think of how many times this will really annoy an iPhone user. In an older car? Aux cable doesn't fit. Lost your headphones? 90% of the replacements won't work (I'm sure eventually headphone manufacturers will catch up, but it'll take a while). At a party? Can't play music.

In my experience, trying to get Bluetooth or other wireless streaming systems working at a party when 10 different people want to play music is a nightmare. The aux cable is a solid reliable backup.

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone ever asked for a slimmer phone. Doesn't everyone ask for a bigger battery when asked?

<comment><USER4> People want small, lightweight, elegant phones with large screens and batteries. Something has to give.

I'm surprised there's a net market advantage in making a phone slimmer than 7mm or so, though.

<comment><USER5> Do you actually happen to know anyone of these people?

<comment><USER4> People who want a small phone with a large screen, and a lightweight phone with a large battery? Sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something similar can be done with USB.

If you look at the USB type C connector specification, you'll notice that it already defines one alternate mode in its single appendix: a headphone alternate mode. That is, with the correct hardware in the phone, and a passive USB-C to 3.5mm jack adapter (also described in that appendix), new phones from other manufacturers which use the type C connector would be able to follow Apple's lead and drop the headphone jack. (And in case you were wondering, that alternate mode can charge at 500mA and connect to the headphone jack at the same time in a single USB-C connection.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Elephant in the room: vendor lock-in.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why not use the 2.5 jack connector?

<comment><USER9> Because it's not proprietary enough?

Edit: Original response was a little tongue-in-cheek. More seriously though perhaps they will start bundling Bluetooth headphones as standard. A slim phone plus a "bulky" lightning to 3.5mm adapter doesn't sound like something Apple would do.

<comment><USER10> > A slim phone plus a "bulky" lightning to 3.5mm adapter doesn't sound like > something Apple would do.

Oh no, that sounds exactly what Apple would do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like they want to make their phones easier to bend :)</comment>


Why the Restaurant Industry Hates Postmates - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestranger.com/food-and-drink/feature/2015/08/26/22755941/why-the-restaurant-industry-hates-postmates <comment><USER2> Isn't this article really more about the problem with the food service industry relying on tips instead of paying their workers a proper wage. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k)

Postmates isn't intentionally preying on the industry, the industry was set-up this way, with the expectation of tips being paid by customers, but the model is changing.

If the restaurants charged the actual price they expect to get for their product, then the issue would become what the couriers get paid, which may be too low, but then the market would/should decide on what is fair.</comment>


Try out the Inferno OS without installing it - <AUTHOR> http://debu.gs/entries/try-inferno-without-installing-it

<comment><USER2> Wow, great work! And thanks for the plug!

If anyone is looking for an easy way to dive in and explore the wonderful world of namespaces and 9P, this is a perfect opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool!</comment>


Superbugs Are a Costly War We Can't Win - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/100615929

<comment><USER2> Antibiotic resistance is very, very metabolically expensive. Bugs which are resistant die out pretty rapidly when you take antibiotics out of the environment.

In Sweden, they went on a very serious campaign to cut antibiotic use to give the genes time to die out and preserve the effectiveness of their antibiotics, and it has proven highly effective over a couple of decades.

In the US, pervasive use of antibiotics in livestock and pathological incentives to prescribe in the medical system mean that antibiotic resistance hard to get a handle on, but that's a system pathology, not a biological menace from the stars.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18545950> is pretty comprehensive if you want the detail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not with that attitude we wont, doctors.</comment>


Apple makes billions from Google Search each year - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-makes-billions-google-search-goldman-sachs-report-2019-2 <comment><USER2> To put that back into relatable numbers, there are about 1B installed iOS devices. So Google is paying $9/year for each device to be the default search engine.

<comment><USER3> Are those all capable to run the latest version / receive updates? Otherwise, they're paying even more per device.

<comment><USER4> _Are those all capable to run the latest version / receive updates? Otherwise, they're paying even more per device._

You can still use the web browser all the way back to the original iPhone. Updates are irrelevant.

Source: Googled using Safari on my launch day iPhone just a few days ago.

<comment><USER5> Updates are relevant, if we're talking about possibly changing the default search engine.

It's currently Google...and if they want to change it, they'd have to update these EOL devices. This could significantly increase the price per device

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My question is, would Apple default to different search engine if they weren't getting paid? Given Google's utter dominance in search, it would likely be seen as anti-user behavior to default to something else.

This one and the fact that Microsoft takes all the licensing revenue from Android seem to bubble up every few months. Head-scratching stuff from companies playing on levels of scale where strange things start to make sense.

<comment><USER7> I think Apple has the power to establish a competitor - After all most searches are simple and DuckDuckGo well satisfies those. I stil seek out Google every once in a while, but how many users will go through the trouble to change the default, especially when you have !g?.

My next question is even if they do lose on search, with all their very successful "side" businesses, how much would it impact them at this point?

<comment><USER8> Google is actually pretty well optimized for the simplest, most mindless searches. It sucks for anything complex, though - Bing/DDG is a lot better there.

<comment><USER6> I think mindless and complex might not be the right words to use here.

I find google searching to be similar to writing. If I distill the question down to the crucial elements and use clear english, I get great results. If I throw all the elements of my question in and hope for the best, I usually am disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That is about 7% of google's 2018 revenue! It is 30% of google's net operating income!!

<comment><USER10> I looked it up: "Cost of revenues was $59.5 billion, consisting of [traffic acquisition cost] TAC of $26.7 billion and other cost of revenues of $32.8 billion. Our TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 23%." So yeah, you have to spend money to make money. [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204419000004/goog10-kq42018.htm#s31376B09D3B756EEB619A1219E4F06AA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apple is sure concerned about privacy of their users until the Google dump truck full of cash arrives. Apple isn't the one tracking you everywhere but they're happy to sell access (to you) to someone who does!

<comment><USER12> Wait a minute. Google is the market leader in search. Apple offers/highlights DDG, Bing and other engines, but many folks want Google.

<comment><USER13> Agree, most users (excluding developers/power users), still default to Google. The default search engine can also quickly be changed if you wish.

<comment><USER11> > The default search engine can also quickly be changed if you wish

Then why is it worth $9.4 billion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The concept of owning demand is explored really well in this blog post[1]. A good excerpt:

> In short, if somebody successfully inserts themselves between you and your > customer, they can exercise tremendous control over you, including taking a > big chunk of your profits or outright killing you.

[1] [https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/10/22/own-the- dem...](https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2018/10/22/own-the-demand/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I would love to know how google determines the value of being the default search engine... estimating it is required to agree to the fee structure.

</comment><comment><USER16> interesting, that is the price to stop apple create its own search engine.

<comment><USER17> There's absolute no way they can do, the search engine is very very expensive to operate, to be successful you have to be better than Google and that require none existing technologies (such quantum storage).

edit: Google is not doing the best at searching, they are doing the best by budget current economy allows, to be better than Google you have to cut cost of operation in very dramatic way, so you can expand the beyond where Google stands now, other than that, you can't outperform Google.

<comment><USER18> I, for one, welcome our quantum word salad overlords.

<comment><USER19> Don't be rude to non-skilled English speakers. The comment is wrong but not because of its poor English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In Apple's reporting where they don't have the breakdown in iPhone sales any more there is talk of revenue from other services going up. Maybe this is part of that success story.

</comment><comment><USER21> Meanwhile DuckDuckGo (probably valued at under $50 million) is worth less than 1% of that fee. No wonder Google continues to retain a monopolistic market share.

<comment><USER22> That seems like a really low estimate but I have no clue what DDG is currently valued at. They raised $10 million recently but after a little search I wasn't able to see at what valuation they raised the money at.

<comment><USER21> Me neither. I just guessed that it was a 20-30% stake, hence under $50m.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> They must negotiate very well because as an iOS user I would be disappointed to not have Google as default (like when Firefox switched to Bing).

<comment><USER24> I thought Firefox switched to Yahoo

<comment><USER25> Yahoo is just Bing wearing different clothes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Quite a cost to pay for a generation of people that don't know how to set a default search engine.

<comment><USER27> This is the biggest benefit of Apple users.

<comment><USER28> I'd like to see a citation that Apple users are more likely to not change settings than average users.

Most people don't enjoy configuring systems and leave most of the defaults most of the time.

<comment><USER27> The most obvious and not controversial- Home screen on the iphone vs a home screen on Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting. That's like more than the entire yearly revenue of Bing.</comment>


Android 5.x Lockscreen Bypass (CVE-2015-3860) - <AUTHOR> http://sites.utexas.edu/iso/2015/09/15/android-5-lockscreen-bypass/ <comment><USER2> Neat. I have also seen one of the authors do videos called "Watching YouTube The Hard Way" (unsure of exact title) which is a similar concept.</comment>


Salary$hare - How do you compare against your co-workers and friends? - <AUTHOR> http://www.salaryshare.me/ <comment><USER2> So if you wanted to see the actual salary of a particular coworker, all you would have to do is create a pool, enter in 3 bogus salaires yourself, and give the link to the other person?

<comment><USER3> Or get him really drunk and convince him he's underpaid. He'll tell you then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Alright, so the obvious thing would seem to be to have a pool for HN readers, right?

<http://www.salaryshare.me/10ffcd6db9cf188be1a1175de8ff8f3d>

<comment><USER4> Now that we can see what a results page looks like, it seems like something more than a sorted list of numbers might be interesting. I mean, there's not enough data collected at the start to do something very interesting, but a chart and some statistics would be fairly simple and make it much more digestible. As it is, it's just a numberwall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > and have fun at the same time!

I'd say that's probably going to be false for approximately n-1 participants. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> On the results page, it would be nice if all the salaries were vertically aligned. On the ranking, when you go from single digtis -> double digits -> triple digits the alignment changes.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you have money going to you, doesn't the market benefit from making that knowledge public? Either you are capable and can defend your salary, or you are being overpaid and your position becomes more competitive. Something most corporations would want, right?

Too bad everyone who ranks highly at your company is severely overpaid and dreadfully scared of their competency being questioned in an open and quantitative manner...

<comment><USER8> It's a morale problem.

Anyone at the high end will see the numbers and say "Well, I'm worth it." No win, no loss.

Anyone at the low end will see the numbers and be really angry about being underpaid. Negative impact.

On net: not worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent!

Here in NZ a lot of professional contracts have a 'no salary disclosure clause' that prevents you from discussing your salary with coworkers.

We've generally worked around it by using things like tax and student loan deduction rates to work backwards. Against the spirit of the clause but nicely works around it.

On the other hand, we could just start a union...

</comment><comment><USER10> Hypothetically, wouldn't it be to everyone's benefit if their salary and compensation was as publicized as professional player salaries?

<comment><USER11> If it were a benefit, don't you think you could elucidate it?

There is a challenge to 'open' salary information (which professional players get a pass on) which is that typically the interest is in the comparing. Do I make more or less than average? Than Bob? Than the President of the US? And yet the underlying jobs are rarely matched.

The common case is that someone who you think is a complete waste of oxygen is making more money than you. Does that make you feel motivated? Can you step outside your complexes of self evaluation to listen to your manager explain why they are in fact worth more to the company than you are?

The only successful way to play this game is decide for yourself how much compensation you require in order to work at the job you are working at. If it isn't enough, then quit, if it is more than enough, enjoy it, and if it is merely sufficient then don't sweat it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting idea ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> Almost 160k here</comment>


Show HN: Lingorank.com Test/Improve Your English Listening Skills with TED Talks - <AUTHOR> http://lingorank.com <comment><USER2> An interesting idea and potentially useful, but I could not get it to work in the latest version of Firefox.

The design has a lot of moving parts. I clicked on a mainpage link and then play and it stated "loading". After a minute or so, I noticed some pulsing green concentric circles. A few seconds later I saw there was some text telling me to log in. So I tried. Ooops no account. So I signup. I get a server error. Back out and refresh the main page. Go to signup link. Fill out form again. Failure because the email address already in use. So I login, select a video, push play, and wait. Nothing plays after a minute. I try using the back button for my browser. It's been broken by the website. Close tab.

I still don't know what the site actually does. I recommend simplifying the demonstration down to the core obvious functionality and creating a clear call to action using small steps for the user.

Think about it as having a novice level and an expert level. New users start at the novice level, experts approaching the understanding of the development team will benefit from information that overwhelms the novice user.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I agree that some pages must be simplified.

EDIT: It sounds interesting to delay some information to users once they get used to the website. Great insight!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would like to remark a link to a complete review in chinese, including a video, from Esor Huang: [http://www.playpcesor.com/2016/03/lingorank-ted- talks.html](http://www.playpcesor.com/2016/03/lingorank-ted-talks.html)</comment>


Sean Parker: Facebook Should Not Have Won, MySpace Blew It - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/video/sean-parker-facebook-should-not-have-won-myspace-blew-it <comment><USER2> And now the network effects on facebook are way stronger than they ever were on myspace, they would have to really screw up privacy(a lot more than they have) to lose to another network in the foreseeable future because I don't think they would lose on engineering given the team they have assembled.

<comment><USER3> I agree that Facebook could easily screw up on privacy but I don't think they could lose like MySpace lost. If Facebook were to screw up, where would people go? Assuming MySpace, Friendster, etc. are already a lost cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's pretty simple.

Myspace was basically just a simple webpage maker that let you "friend" other "webpages".

Facebook was an actual social network where you could find people.

With myspace if you didn't know someone's myspace account, you couldn't find them. With facebook, all you needed to have was either your high school name, college class, or your past employer, and you could connect/reconnect with people.

<comment><USER5> Myspace is trashy. That's all there is to it. They gave everyone full ability to do whatever they want with their pages, and ordinary people make terrible design decisions. Facebook gave everyone a standard template and told them they weren't allowed to fuck it up - which meant that people could just socialize instead of laughing at the gaudiness of it all.

<comment><USER6> They could solve this by setting a preference where it hides many of the rationalizations and gives a standard look. Why they don't do something simple like that is just their mistake. Not really sure if they care.

<comment><USER7> "Why they don't do something simple like that is just their mistake"

I think all of the customization started from them just not sanitizing input. People realized they could customize their page, inject javascript, etc and then that just became an expect part of MySpace. If they removed that now there would probably be little reason for many of the users still there to stay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Anyone know where we can get the full talk? I'd like to see Jack Dorsey and Ashton Kutcher's reactions.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd ask for Sean Parker's MySpace URL, but it's apparent he's never actually used the site if he thinks that they should have "won" over Facebook.</comment>


PWA on Windows. Part 1: Publishing Your App as Is - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ailon.org/pwa-on-windows-part-1-publishing-your-app-as-is-d884133fc96d <comment> polski-g > You must use the Microsoft Store in-app purchase API to sell digital items > or services that are consumed or used within your app

Kinda defeats the purpose of PWAs...

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, not if you don't have any digital goods for sale in your PWA :)</comment></comment>


On podcast analytics issues: why iHeart Media Pods seem to dominate the charts - <AUTHOR> https://podnews.net/article/iheartmedia-analytics-are-wrong <comment><AUTHOR> not my OC, but I think it's interesting how challenging creating a unified leaderboard for podcasts is because measurement is so bad today.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you personally witnessed a machine replace a human job? - <AUTHOR> I was recently inspired by this NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/technology/meet-the-people-who-train-the-robots-to-do-their-own-jobs.html?_r=0
What are some of examples of your own experiences where you have seen AI and Automation replacing human jobs?
In my startup a big component of what we do is label recognition which is outsourced to a 3rd party Image Recognition as a Service provider. There are a team of people transcribing when the recognition has failed or been rejected, but over time as the vendor's service gets better and better we will be able to do transcription with less people. <comment><USER2> Depends on how personally is personally.

I've seen a lot of places like McDonalds replace most of their cashiers with self-order stands over the last few years.

I've seen parking app and terminals replace parking fee collectors over the last decade.

Road repair teams have shrunk over the last couple of decades - it's much less crowd of people with tools and more of a few big combines and a couple of dudes.

Just the ones that come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> yes i have seen a robot placing orders to tables at a restaurant in my town</comment>


On Twitter, Obama puts question mark over mortgage deduction - <AUTHOR> http://ca.news.yahoo.com/twitter-obama-puts-mark-over-mortgage-deduction-214730224--business.html

<comment><USER2> One can only hope. The mortgage interest deduction is regressive and distortionary and should be phased out. Unfortunately that's one of the many sane policies that economists across the spectrum agree on and that no politician will dare support. ([http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six- poli...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-policies- economists-love-and-politicians-hate) has the rest).</comment>


The Industry 12 Days of Christmas Design Giveaway - <AUTHOR> http://theindustry.cc/1

<comment><USER2> Anybody see Drew design and build this thing real-time last night/this morning? I watched some last night and checked back this morning and he was still going. Kind of whistling and humming to himself...he may have been tired.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's give some stuff away! Any predications on who's gonna win? It's the time of giving.</comment>


Now is the Time to be Afriad - <AUTHOR> https://mattmireles.com/be-afraid/ <comment><USER2> There is some truth in it : The US (or most of the european) healthcare is not able to handle the number of cases there will be. There will be a lot of deads.

The truth stops there, the rest is "science" fiction. It would be true if the lethality was over 5%, which is just not possible (lethality is not yet known exactly, but will probably be between 0.6% and 3%, probably around 1%.

There is no need to be afraid, however this is still a really dangerous virus and thousands of peoples will die in each countries.

</comment><comment><USER3> Starts speculative, gets fantastical, ends up deeply paranoid.

<comment><USER4> which part did you feel was _fantastical_ or _deeply paranoid_?

I'm actually terrified by doing the math with the most conservative, best case outcome: under that I will

a) be dead,

b) know somebody who has died,

c) many in my surrounding will struggle because of the socio-economic effects and lack the reserves to deal with the primary effects (emotional) and secondary effects (emotional and financial)

... also a/b/c are in no way mutually exclusive

<comment><USER2> \- If you have no breathe/heart chronic problems, and you are under 40 y/o, your death chance, IN CASE YOU DO HAVE the coronavirus, is below 1%. \- There will not be a strong economic impact that will stop globalisation. Maybe there will be economics short term changes. Maybe there will be important. But what is said here is apocaliptic. You should read about the SRAS (15 times more deadly, less infectious), or about ebola (40-80 times more deadly, less infectious).

ebola, SRASS, H1N1, H1Z1, mad cow, all of thoses deases have killed a lot of peoples. Not in EU nor US. only poor non-white people have died. Everybody is really afraid by this one only because rich countries will have to do something, not just watch poor black people die on TV. ebola killed 11k peoples during 2014-2016.

The only really special thing is that you've between 2 and 14 days, if you caught coronavirus, during which you are infectious. the dease have strong contagious capabilities because of that. But that's clearly not the most dangerous thing humanity faced, far from that. I would be more concerned about risks of economic crisis or civil war than this end-of-the-world-special- flu...</comment></comment></comment>


Apple unencrypts more of iOS 10 in Beta 2 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/MuscleNerd/status/750624369756368896 <comment><USER2> Can someone explain how this is valuable for security or what this means for the justice department?

<comment><USER3> It means Apple is bowing to the demands made by the DOJ.

<comment><USER4> User data is still encrypted.

<comment><USER5> I'm not so sure. Wouldn't leaving the bootloader/root filesystem unencrypted make the device more vulnerable to physical tampering by a non-Apple party that could compromise user data?

I'm assuming that these things were previously encrypted/signed with a key that only Apple controls. I could be wrong.

<comment><USER6> Everything is signed and most likely the parts that do the checking will stay encrypted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a beta not designed for production use, it is entirely possible these are temporary steps taken to assist pre-release debugging and development troubleshooting. I'm not saying that's the case but I wouldn't rule it out.

</comment><comment><USER8> In other words, testing iOS 10 found battery last went from 3 hours to 5 hours! I have no idea if it's related to not having obscurity.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does this also help find new jailbreak opportunities?

</comment><comment><USER10> It sounds like Apple is abandoning the idea of security by obscurity, which is a very dubious stake to have if you ask me.

Also this probably does a lot in reducing the overall burden of government request. If you have nation states demanding your source code, why not just open source it.</comment>


Google recruiter: Company kept 'do not touch' in hiring list - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12514244?source=most_viewed

<comment><USER2> So far, I don't see a lot of people asking the really tough questions of what this non-competition for employees (especially engineers / developers) actually means.

* If some of the top companies are implicitly not competing for you (as an employee), it means your value as an asset is lowered. There is simply less desire for another company to lure you away with more money, better benefits, a more attractive project to work on, etc. Once you work at one of the companies "on the list," none of the others will come knocking. Your value is also lowered in terms of being able to negotiate a better salary, for instance: HR (and perhaps your manager) knows that you do _not_ have an offer from Yahoo or Google just waiting to whisk you away.

* The basic effect on general engineers' salaries is thus: the less it costs Google/MS to hire a Silicon Valley A-lister, the less incentive they will feel to look for bargains by hiring outside the circle of "made men". Thus they will hire fewer such relative-newcomers, at lower salaries. Thus there will be less upward pressure on non-Silicon-Valley-A-list salaries: fewer engineers will leave the broader pool for Silicon Valley and those that do will be receiving less money to do so, so the competitive pressures on the non-SV-A-list employers are weakened too. So less salary for SDEs broadly. This knock-on effect is likely minimal for junior ASP.NET bank programmers etc. but likely significant for hotter engineers at more high-powered dev/research/etc. workplaces throughout the US.

* Because certain kinds of employees' labour mobility is lowered, it means that access to engineers is somewhat more limited. Your company may not be able to get the rockstar/ninja/hip term of the week who already knows the valley, doesn't need to relocate, and just wants to pay off his SF condo more quickly. Inversely, you may not want to compete for top graduates from places like Stanford with the 90k/100k first year salaries that Facebook and some others have been throwing around. This means you can either get second-tier native talent that may need relocating or that hasn't proven itself yet ... or you can play the H1 visa game and get a much cheaper foreign programmer who is contractually tied to your company, often fears for his immigrant status, and is thereby much less likely to leave your company for another one. This is a _bad_ thing for US graduates or relatively inexperienced programmers, as it depresses their salaries, as well. In terms of the free market, I guess it's only a natural expression of international labour mobility.

* The lack of commentary on the above may be due to the current economic conditions and the "thank $DEITY I still have a job" attitude I've seen quite a bit. On the other hand, we got plenty of people on here with the kind of inside knowledge who would be able to tell us more on this subject.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article mixes up two things. I can understand if google won't recruit from certain companies.

It's totally different if they refuse to hire someone who sends their resume (without having being recruited). The article mixes up these two concepts.

<comment><USER4> The filter is applied to resumes in the queue, regardless of the origination/sourcing method used to obtain the resume in the first place. Therefore I think they're discriminating against _applicants_ who submitted their resume to google.

<comment><USER5> Is it? The article didn't give me that impression - all I got was the sense that Google's recruiters were discouraged from _seeking_ employees from these companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Article URL appears borked. This one should work though: [http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12514244?nclick_check=1&fo...](http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12514244?nclick_check=1&forced=true)

<comment><USER7> Changed in posting

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little unclear on why this is worth federal time. If the companies were colluding to _not hire_ people from the various companies, this would make sense. If your resume got tossed simply because it showed "Google" or "Google Partner X", I can see how that's bad; the net effect is to destroy the job market on the employee side.

But how is it wrong to choose to not actively recruit from your partners, or even your competition? Is the solution really to _mandate_ headhunting certain companies?

These are questions. I don't know the answers. If I seem to have something wrong, please let me know; I'm posting this out of confusion.

<comment><USER4> _If the companies were colluding to not hire people from the various companies, this would make sense_

That's a hiring discrimination. What about the right to employment for a qualified, top-notch information retrieval candidate?

<comment><USER9> _What about the right to employment for a qualified, top-notch information retrieval candidate?_

A "right to employment" only exists when nobody with the means to employ someone has any right to their own property.

<comment><USER10> dude you sound like those people 30 years ago protecting discrimination against certain races/classes: "It is my property, i don't want to rent it to Black/Asian/whatever race you don't like."

Sorry, discrimination is discrimination, and discriminating somebody just b/c they worked on a company x, in a very systematic way (and colluding with other companies on this), seems very anti-competitive. At the end, is the employees that suffer b/c there is less competition for their skills.

<comment><USER11> Trying to turn "people have a right to control what's theirs" into something you can't say? :)

<comment><USER4> Well, I hope everyone reading this downvotes randallsquared and goes through his posting history for a similar treatment.

Oh wait, you don't like that? Yeah, it's called _conspiracy_.

You have the right to do whatever you want with your property, but you can not conspire with your friends against a helpless segment of society that's trying to make a living .. or any other segment for that matter.

<comment><USER11> _Well, I hope everyone reading this downvotes randallsquared and goes through his posting history for a similar treatment._

:)

 _Oh wait, you don't like that? Yeah, it's called conspiracy._

Well, "conspiracy" often implies secretiveness, so I'm not sure you qualify. Don't worry, though, since unlike if our positions were reversed, apparently, I don't want you thrown in jail for advocating mass downmodding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every partnership agreement I've worked under for a large company has had a "no employee theft" clause. I don't think they're uncommon.

<comment><USER13> Those require that if YOU move, you won't recruit your colleagues or people who work for you. This was a company wide policy at Google that prevented their own recruiters from hiring from certain companies. Big difference.</comment></comment>


Year in Pixels - <AUTHOR> https://year-in-pixels.glitch.me/ <comment><USER2> Hi HN, author here.

This is small tool I made during Friday and Saturday. The idea for this tool is not new at all, but I've never seen this format online before.

The tool is based on an image I found on the internet[0] and was coded using a Node.js server with basic jQuery for the frontend on the Glitch platform[1]

Hope you like it!

[0]: [https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/9a/02/069a02a83aca933e7a2e5edbd...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/06/9a/02/069a02a83aca933e7a2e5edbd485703c --life-in-pixels-my-year-in-pixels.jpg)

[1]: [https://glitch.com](https://glitch.com)

<comment><USER3> This is so cool! (I work with the Glitch team, and we loved seeing that you mad this.) For folks who don't know, since it's on Glitch, people can view the source and remix this here: [https://glitch.com/~year-in- pixels](https://glitch.com/~year-in-pixels)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Btw, "Your Life in Weeks" is probably (?) the originator of this kind of visualization: [https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life- weeks.html](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html)

<comment><USER5> It's incredibly sobering to see the weeks of your potential life shown like that. You think about the weeks lost to work and weekends spent burnt out recovering or sick or dodging bad weather. :|

<comment><USER6> It makes me so freaking sad to see it like this.

<comment><USER7> I wish someone would have shown me those charts when I was like 15 ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great idea for a personal tool! Two things:

The way this is organized isn't great for visualization. We read left to right, but since days are laid out vertically this means that horizontally adjacent cells are actually a month apart. A standard calendar interface would be more appropriate for seeing how your mood changed day-to-day (and be less confusing to interact with).

Also noticing that the line graph is deceptive; it only interpolates one point for each month, by averaging the entire month together. That's more of a bar graph.

</comment><comment><USER9> I made something similar to this[0] a few years ago for my own use (except I would record my mood every hour). Honestly, using it ended up making me sadder - most of the time you feel "meh" (5/10) and seeing that quantitatively can really dishearten you. In fact, my average monthly mood fell from around a 6.3 to a 5.8 while using it, with no other major changes in my life.

[0]: [https://frank.salmick.com/indexfiles/images/full/mood.jpg](https://frank.salmick.com/indexfiles/images/full/mood.jpg) \- the red line is stress level and green line is mood

<comment><USER10> Well, given that people tend to perceive swings in things rather than absolute values of things, wouldn't you expect to feel 'normal' unless things are getting noticeably better or worse at that point? And given the coarse granularity of the inputs, a drop of 0.5 seems well within what you'd expect just from random noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can imagine something like this being useful in psychotherapy. Your phone could ping you to answer once-per-day, allowing you to optionally enter comments.

American Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry are strangely devoid of routine outcome measurement. This would be a step in the right direction. Similar Likert-type scales could also be useful for people who struggle with intrusive thoughts or hallucinations.

<comment><USER12> I started using such an app (pings you each evening to choose your mood and select some tags that describe your day).

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.daylio](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.daylio) (not affiliated in any way)

<comment><USER13> I've been using that app too, but I haven't found the data particularly interesting or meaningful.

The other thing I've also been doing that I've found much more fulfilling is writing down a daily highlight at the end of each day. I just add an event to a dedicated calendar that summaries the best moment of my day.

It's been really interesting to look back over, and it's a great memory prompt, because it gives me a way of looking back at the enjoyable times throughout the year. I've been going for just over a year, and I really don't see any reason to ever stop!

<comment><USER11> Great idea. Especially because it's low effort. People just don't stick with things that feel like a chore, but this just takes a moment and gets you thinking about what's right in your life. Nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is nice, I would like to see an output of that, but there's no way I'd be doing this daily through a web page. Something like a notification each day on a smart watch (which I don't have) would work. Even phone would be a bit much I think.

Which brings me to - definitely show the input before output on the phone. The output is a huge empty grid for most new users, even for returning users it might not show anything recent, input is something user would want to interact with ASAP when using this service.

</comment><comment><USER15> I used to do the same but in analog way when I moved to the Netherlands. The weather there affected so much my mood that I started to keep track of it together with the daily color of the sky.

I kept a big paper sheet next to my bed with a bunch of pencils. The problem I realized later on is that mood changes quite a lot during the day, so just checking once a day might not be very representative.

I had "the diary" for 4 or 5 months until I moved out to a sunnier place :)

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it's great. I'd love to see somethin similar for chronic diseaseas. When you see a doctor once per several months, it's impossible to really tell him if you are doing better or worse due to recency bias. I'd love to monitor pain in my joints on a daily basis and have a real data points to show.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hi everyone ! The year in pixels is @PassionCarnets idea (first one is here : [https://www.instagram.com/p/BOiEjvjA5Bm/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BOiEjvjA5Bm/) ). She explained how it works here : [http://bulletjournal.com/year- pixels/](http://bulletjournal.com/year-pixels/)

<comment><USER2> Hi, author here. Camille sent me an e-mail asking to add credits and I added the corresponding text in the About section of the tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Dang, I was planning on writing nearly this exact app as a side project. In any case I've set a daily calendar reminder to update it, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER19> This is perhaps similar to the nikoniko board, although the point of that is that it's public:

[http://agiletrail.com/2011/09/12/how-to-track-the-teams- mood...](http://agiletrail.com/2011/09/12/how-to-track-the-teams-mood-with-a- niko-niko-calendar/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome app, congrats on launching! I love the idea. One thing I would change is font, it's really hard to read now.

Shameless plug - I'm working on a similar project, a habit tracker with a github-like heatmap(turn it on in menu>calendar):

[https://helix.startuplab.io](https://helix.startuplab.io)

<comment><USER21> I love the font. Was thinking to use it for one of my side project. But only for titles , not for critical information?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like the idea. One small suggestion though. I'd change "great" to "good" or "OK" or something. At current state the jump from "average" to "great" seems too big to me somehow.

Edit: The difference between "Difficult" and "tough" are kinda vague too actually IMO.

</comment><comment><USER23> verbatim what i've wanted to implement. if the creator reads this, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's hard to tell how I feel on a given day. One minute I could be happy, the next I could be sad. Maybe I need 'the last 20 minutes in pixels'

</comment><comment><USER25> Facebook and Google probably already can tell you what your personal map looks like for the last years.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very cool! I wonder if a slightly more elaborate tool could help with tracking of mood disorders.

</comment><comment><USER27> Amazing = Red Difficult = Green ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER4> Beautiful!</comment>


Aaron Swartz: People I've met with Wikipedia entries (or will have one): - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AaronSw/Various_lists

<comment><USER2> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AaronSw/Song_lyrics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AaronSw/Song_lyrics)

<comment><USER2> I'm swingin' thru the top of the valley

Feeling like the missing link

There's another schematic

Look, she's gettin' me a drink

By putting flowers on his crypt

'Cause Valentino's lost the script

\---

I know I'm being overdramatic

But I think I'm going to run that risk

I'm walking down that same old plank

And baby I'm about to tank

But everything will turn out fine</comment></comment>


An idea and a MVP, is it worth to continue? - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/an-idea-and-a-mvp-is-it-worth-to-continue-d21bd21898 <comment><USER2> I think a lot of money could be made with a decent GUI for managing geographical data. It is such a pain in the ass.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. Did you try the demo ([https://www.thedatapond.net/demo](https://www.thedatapond.net/demo)) ? The GUI is not good enough ? What can we improve ?</comment></comment>


Top Algorithms/Data Structures/Concepts every CS student should know - <AUTHOR> http://www.techiedelight.com/top-algorithms-data-structures-concepts-computer-science/ <comment><USER2> Isn't this the basic curriculum of any beginner/intermediate CS course?

<comment><USER3> I've taken the MIT and Stanford CS intro courses, and neither of them delved into 90% of these.

<comment><USER4> If you mean the online intro course, you're right. If you mean the second or third course of a c.s. degree, then you're wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Opposed Breast-Feeding Resolution at World Health Assembly (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html <comment><USER2> A reminder that Nestle got third world women hooked on formula by lying about it and giving away free samples (once you stop breastfeeding your child, you stop producing milk). They did this in poverty stricken countries where mothers didn't have access to potable water with which to prepare the milk.

Millions of babies died from illness and from malnutrition (when the mothers could no longer afford to buy formula) as a direct result of Nestle's greed.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula- scand...](https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula- scandal-2012-6#meanwhile-in-the-third-world-women-tried-to-save-money-by- diluting-the-formula-8)

</comment><comment><USER3> This feels like that time when the Colorado Attorney General sued Boulder County on behalf of the poor, defenseless oil & gas companies.

</comment><comment><USER4> Further proof that the US federal government now exists mainly to defend domestic corporate interests.

Climate change -- just like the breastfeeding resolution -- is the other example of corporate greed corrupting the government to the detriment of science, the environment and public health.

<comment><USER5> The U.S.A. is now literally a poster child for WHY Citizen's United and Unlimited Capitalism or Unfettered Capitalism is probably just as damaging (if not more so) than socialism/communism. I lean a little libertarian-socialist or where I'd love to see M4A, but more personal freedom.

Like legalize all drugs, and only incarcerate people who've committed violent crimes: Rape, Murder, Gunpoint robberies, Assault, etc... Everything else gets an ankle bracelet and fines.

I feel we'd also benefit from more Worker Coops. But I come at it from an incremental point of view, I don't believe full ownership of the means of production by an authoritarian regime is EVER a good idea.. Instead more liquid/democratic control of some parts of industry I think make sense, in a more organic supply/demand way.

You can't have your capitalism without revolutions if you don't have regulations that protect the working class. Eventually guillotines are brought out. It's already happening in Puerto Rico.

<comment><USER6> Let's suppose I'm contracted to provide concrete for a bridge. I provide substandard concrete, because it's cheaper, and I get to keep the profits.

I do this for years across many jobs and make lots of money. I launder most of the profits to friends and family, by overcompensating them for their "jobs" at my company.

Then, 10 years later the bridge collapses and 14 people die, due to the poor concrete.

All I get is an ankle bracelet and fines? No worries about jail, because what I did isn't a violent crime?

And if I can't pay the fine, because I don't have the money, then all I need is an ankle bracelet?

Woo-hoo! So my friends and family, who made millions from my theft, can support me as a destitute man, while I wear the ankle bracelet in early retirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers > seeking to provide nutrition to their children," an H.H.S. spokesman said in > an email. "We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety > of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives > for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which > they are able to do so."

I'm curious what those hurdles were.

<comment><USER8> >I'm curious what those hurdles were.

Made it harder for nestlè to make money marketing baby formula.

<comment><USER7> > Made it harder for nestlè to make money marketing baby formula.

Sure, that's a fair assumption. But what about them made it harder for a mother that had chosen to breastfeed to do so, specifically?

\- If you're adding things that make it harder to breastfeed (to support corporations), I think we can all agree you're a bad person.

\- If you're adding things to make it easier to choose not to breastfeed (once again, to support corporations), I think it's a greyer area.

The quote seemed to imply the first was being done.

Pushing back against either of them seems to run counter to the pro- corporation stance the US government is being berated for. Hence, why I want to know what was being referred to.

<comment><USER8> [https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-08-12/why-did-us-try- block-...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-08-12/why-did-us-try-block-un- resolution-encouraging-breastfeeding)

>Companies who sell formula often make nutrition and health claims in their advertising and on their labels which suggest that a certain ingredient, such as DHA or ARA, will lead to better eyesight, brain development or neurological development, Starken says. Instead, she insists, these companies should include warnings that formula can actually lead to increased rates of diarrhea, respiratory disease, obesity and cardiovascular disease, as well as various other long-term consequences.

The problem is misleading marketing claims are currently allowed. Claims like this would be banned under the resolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The US opposition to this goes back many years. When WHO adopted the International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes in 1981. The US cast the only negative vote [1].

At least Nestlé and friends have stopped dressing up their salespeople as nurses....

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371222/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371222/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't see how the US will get out of the current "corporations run everything of value" situation. Seems like all tools to help fight it are themselves owned by corporations in no hurry to change the status quo.

<comment><USER11> I would prefer to live in a society where corporations run everything rather than a world there bureaucrats run things. What to feed their babies is a parental choice and the government should mind its own business.

<comment><USER12> I can talk to my representatives and possibly work to vote them out when they do things I don't like. How do I do that to corporations with monopoly level powers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there a steelman for the opposition to be made? Piling on the shame- bandwagon isn't expanding the horizons of anyone in this thread.

<comment><USER14> The economist Emily Oster debunks some of the more dubious claims of breastfeeding advocates (and many pediatricians) in her book _Expecting Better_.

<comment><USER7> I don't know that debunks is the right word. Rather, it seems like she provides differing opinions and some counter-arguments/data. At least for the alcohol argument, she puts for "it hasn't been proven that drinking is a risk" which, while a reasonable stance, is not the same as "it's been shown not to be a risk". There's a lot of parents that would rather not risk it for the former.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I realize this is a problem since time immemorial, but something needs to be done to prevent corporate interests from dictating government and international policies. I can only call out the problem, I don't know what the solution is. But why should people bother to vote if leaders' ignore their constituencies' needs in the face of aggressive corporate lobbying?

<comment><USER16> Maybe I'm a bit starry-eyed and innocent, but do you think this would have happened if Hillary got in? I've no horse in this race, but this does seem to be very much in line with how the current white house administration does things.

Sorry, I know this is a fairly indirect answer to your question, but I think how people vote must have some part to play in all of this.

You could I suppose argue that a certain voting segment are staunch, and will only vote a certain way anyway, but I also remember hearing that there were a lot of people who voted against their normal preference because they didn't like her personally, or because she pulled a stroke on Bernie, or something something hurdur leaked emails ...

<comment><USER17> > do you think this would have happened if Hillary got in?

Hillary is just as neoliberal as anyone. If Sanders had gotten in, maybe we'd see some movement, perhaps.

<comment><USER16> I'd have said she's more neoliberal than most ... but still, could you imagine her endorsing something like this?!??

<comment><USER18> Maybe not on some specific instances, but it's not like this is the first time something like this has taken place.

<comment><USER16> people wanted brazen, they got brazen

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This was news to me, but is dated July 2018.

</comment><comment><USER20> (This is from July 2018.)

</comment><comment><USER21> A reminder that the US is, right now, functionally a cleptocracy and that the immense amounts of corruption we're currently witnessing has been put in place by people saying "job creators" every two sentences.

<comment><USER22> Nothing has fundamentally changed in decades. Right now is nothing but business as usual.

<comment><USER23> Was it the Obama admin that worked to rip up the Paris agreement?

<comment><USER24> Are you talking about breast feeding or CO2? If CO2, no. [https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/barack-obama- slams...](https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/01/barack-obama-slams-donald- trump-paris-climate-239032)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> (2018), and previously discussed [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17484206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17484206)

</comment><comment><USER26> July, 2018.

</comment><comment><USER27> Handmaiden's Tale

</comment><comment><USER28> Could someone please flag this as being from 2018?

</comment><comment><USER11> > "protect, promote and support breast-feeding"

Why is it any government's business in first place and why would these super bureaucracies waste they time passing such kind of stuff is beyond. If baby formula companies are any smarter they will probably not waste time and money on WHO resolutions.

<comment><USER29> Because it is government's job to promote the welfare of it's citizens. It is important for babies that they are breastfed if at all possible. That is not happening enough. So government promotes it (when not corrupt). It's similar to a marriage license. Why should the government be involved at all? because it is not purely private, but involves multiple people and is part of the public good, so it falls under the role of government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wait, why is this old article even a thing? It's a resolution being drafted by technocrats far away from "real people".

While everyone else here is debating corporate influence, what about the epistemology of the issue itself...why does an inter-governmental organization need such a resolution, and "who the fork cares"?

People across the globe know breast feeding works, and they don't learn that from the UN or any other government. They learn it from their tribe, family, friends, internet, books. It's also intuitively best...AKA its been around for millions of years and we all know that.

People should be upset that time and money was spent on this....someone tell me if I missed some vital thing like "non-compliant governments will be replaced by IMF officials", or "North Korea to ban boobs"?</comment>


Andrew Chen: How to fool VCs - Confusing them with date ranges and hits/pageviews/uniques - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/06/how_to_fool_vcs.html <comment><USER2> I think total visits multiplied by average stay is a pretty useful single number. "Our users spent over 100 man-years on our site in the past month". According to Compete.com the number for this site is 79 hours of user time per month, and Reddit is at ~4 years/mo.</comment>


British business 'benefits massively from EU' - <AUTHOR> http://www.strongerin.co.uk/british_business_benefits_massively_from_eu#GOOLYXsYUY1ztm8R.97 <comment><USER2> So basically we have UK businesses selling to europe expressing their interest in keeping 0 tax trade agreements with europe. Their position makes sense from their perspective.

How about UK businesses which DO NOT export and have to compete with low cost european countries instead?

How about UK employees which also have to compete with low cost labor from low cost european countries?

Is this also "great for the UK?"

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but is it the EUs fault that UK businesses tend to hire cheaper European labor? Does the EU tell you that you have to hire the Romanian guy instead of the British? Is there a law enforced by the EU to do so?

And people forget that cheap labor creates lower prices on the market. Are you willing to pay more even double the price for a commodity just because it was made by non-immigrants?

Not to mention, that most immigrants aren't staying for long term. They go do the work, generate GDP and after a few years they go back to friends and family. Very few have the intentions to stay.

Is it the EUs fault that British stores and businesses buy the goods from low cost EU countries? If you would have a grocery store, would you buy and sell food that was produced in Britain, but comes with a much higher cost, or would you get it from somewhere else cheaper and get it without the costs of shipping from country to the other because of the free trade?

The EU helps everyone, but it's not their fault if businesses use these to their advantage.

Hate the player and not the game, as they say.

<comment><USER4> I always think that bringing up the price of goods argument is not always the best approach when talking about immigrant labour.

The fact is that in most Western countries (a) the workforce is ageing rapidly, (b) birth rates are low and dropping and (c) young people simply don't want cheap, low skilled jobs.

So people just need to understand that without immigrant labour people aren't going to be able to rely on the quality of the life in the future. More specifically their pension, social security and decent hospitals.

<comment><USER3> You're right, but this is one part of the equitation.

The cheap labor will give you a lower price at the end. If it wouldn't then you wouldn't see the 'made in China' text on literally everything.

There was a massive debate about immigrants picking British strawberries. And a lot of the people were going crazy why the farmers don't employ British workers and that EU can go and fuck itself.

It's fine and all, but they forget a lot of things. It's not the EU who told the farmer to get cheap immigrant labor. The farmer saves lots of money because of the cheap labor. This keeps the price down of the strawberries when you go buy a pack in a store. The work is seasonal, so it's not a permanent job and keeps the people occupied only for a couple of weeks.

Some people get a fit when they see a small pack of British strawberries for 2 pounds. Imagine how enraged they would be to have the same amount for 4.

These people, who always blame someone else then their own people (for instance why aren't you blaming the British farmer, business, whatever) would be the first ones crying why are the things more expensive now?!

The whole economy is like nature, you take out one small part and everything changes.

In brexit I see the typical 'The True Scotsman Fallacy'. or should we call it the 'True British Fallacy' now? We are great and everybody is crap and it's always someone else's fault not ours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The one place I was hoping not to see Brexit was on HN. Ah well. For what it's worth, if you are still in two minds after, what feels like, 6 years of campaigning, this video gives, an evidence based argument for staying. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USTypBKEd8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USTypBKEd8Y) The lecturer also followed it up [https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2016/06/20/eu- law-expert-respon...](https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2016/06/20/eu-law-expert- responds-industrial-dishonesty-video-goes-viral/)

I am genuinely interested in an evidence based argument for leaving and whether the benefits of leaving out strip the benefits of staying.

The most sound argument I have found is the democratic deficit created by being within the EU and the delegation of authority to the EU on certain areas of law. The elephant in the room is that we seem to have a house of 800 unelected lords and a government in power event though only 34% of the electorate voted for them.

Arguments around "putting the great back into Great Britain" and "taking control" seem to stem, as much from xenophobia and 6 years of government austerity policies.

I really wish there was a good, logical, evidence based approach to comparing both positions.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The one place I was hoping not to see Brexit was on HN

Not sure if you mean Brexit the argument or the topic.

If you mean the topic: a quote from one of the founders of ef, where Magic Pony was created: "leaving the European Union will have sweeping negative effects on British startups' ability to hire, fundraise and access international markets."

If you mean the argument, then fair enough.

<comment><USER5> I was hoping the topic.

I hadn't considered the impact on start-ups. Oh joy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article URL is the full, non-paywalled text of the letter published in today's Times at:

[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-business- benefits-...](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-business-benefits- massively-from-eu-n5bhfw9nd)

</comment><comment><USER6> There's zero substance in the article. They use scary words like "massively", phrases like "more trade", "more jobs", but don't say specifically how many and why.

I've listened to the arguments from both sides, and the proponents of Brexit tend to give more specific reasons, while the opponent's seem to be stuck in the scare tactics and propaganda, like this article.

Take changing the terms of trade, for instance. They make it sound like the end of the world. In reality terms of trade change all the time - new laws, new agreements (TTPP recently, for example).

<comment><AUTHOR> Brexit folk give just as much vagueness as Remain folk - the trust is, nobody can guarantee anything whether we remain or leave the EU.

Some Brexit folk have repeatedly claimed MEPs aren't elected, which is plainly false. Furthermore every EU law must must be ratified by all member states. They've also claimed that Turkey would join, which is unlikely in our lifetimes.

OTOH, some Remain folk plainly think that Brexit is some kind of racist plot: as another commenter mentions, businesses that don't trade with the rest of the EU don't benefit as much as those of us that do, and that's a very reasonable viewpoint.

I'm Remain - like most of London tech. My reasons are that that London draws the smartest and best people from all over Europe to start businesses here and pay taxes, and that should continue. An Australian style points system is flawed - imagine rating programmers based on their University degrees rather than their actual aptitude. However I can certainly understand the opposing viewpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> (precursor I'm in Japan so I don't have a chip in this game), but I do worry for my friends in England.

My wife works for (edit removed: large vehicle manufacturer ), and she has mentioned that her company is quite nervous about the brexit due to having manufacturing plants there and worrying about the cost of importing raw materials if Britain leaves, due to new import taxes.

Take this with a bag of salt, aa i havnt verified any of this, but it's something I hadn't thought of before, and I thought it may spark a decent debate on HN.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I've heard similar things about said Japanese manufacturers. One of the big reasons they are regionally headquartered in the UK is because it is part of the EU. Given that cars make up a sizable fraction (~10% I think) of our economy, it would be a disaster if even 1 major company left for foreign shores over this.

Speaking from an IT perspective, I know of quite a few companies that have brought forward datacentre builds in the Frankfurt region, prepping for a Brexit just in case. They have to do with business with the EU and that involves complying with EU data protection regulations which require the data stored in an EU country. There's a lot of business going to disappear overseas if Brexit happens.

<comment><USER7> If that's the case+ and I have no reason to believe it isn't), what reasons could they have for leaving?

I have been listening to BBC world news, and whenever the subject comes up, the people speaking for an exit don't really seem to put forth a good argument( I hear a lot of 'keep our nationality" and 'we founded parliamentary democracy ' \- but they don't seem like a good reason to leave).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This post is blatant political persuasion, not here for interest/information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't it quite obviously both? Here are the business leaders who think Britain's stronger remaining part of the EU, and you may/may not be persuaded by their arguments.

<comment><USER9> Judging by its removal, no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Non-EU Norway and Switzerland are at the top of nearly every measure in Europe: standard of living, equality, economy, green issues, credit rating, social progress, democracy, lack of poverty, lack of corruption.

Non-EU Iceland and EU Greece both had severe economic problems. Iceland jailed the bankers, and has overcame it's difficulties. Greece has been jailed BY the bankers - and will now be in debt bondage for decades, and has seen a resurgence of Fascism. Children are digging through rubbish for something to eat. This is in the EU.

<comment><USER11> Non-EU Norway is a 5 million nation sitting on a ton of oil. Which in turn takes that oil profits and puts them in a social fund, which reduces the main stressor of all socialistic systems (pensions). If you think that you will convince BP to do the same, good luck. Especially considering that there is nothing stopping you from doing the same already.

Switzerland, 8 million, is also landlocked in between some of the best EU nations, all of which trade with it in an EU-like agreement, including free movement, and its manufacturing economy abides pretty much to Every EU regulation. What this means, is that again nothing prevents the UK to have been Switzerland, other than, super politely put, the population's innate inability to be as productive, or imaginative in thinking useful products like the Swiss do.

Greece, which ironically is my original home country so I know Very well, is a corrupt mafiocrasy. (rather Russian like in fact) It would have failed IN or OUT of the EU anyway. This however is not the EU's fault, as evident by the fact that plenty of EU countries started worse than Greece, and are now better (better as in gdp/capita), including Estonia, Lithuania & Slovakia.

If anything, this disparity is able proof that EU nations actually have more than enough sovereignty to fuck or unfuck themselves as much as they want. Its just that every time something good happens politicians say "we did it" but every time something bad happens they say "totes the EU fault, holding us down!"

To sum up. You want to be Norway. Make a referendum to throw BP's profits in a fund. (Not that you have the oil reserve anyway) You want to be Switzerland, think of more useful chemicals rather than watching x-factor (I am not even kidding. Chemicals are one of the best Swiss exports apparently). You don't want to be Greece, don't just take EU development money and use it just for politician's villas, bouzouki and civil servants appointment for votes. Simples.

<comment><USER4> Speaking about Greece specifically.

The level of tax avoidance is completely unacceptable: 24.3% of GDP versus 13.5% in Germany in 2012.

If the government had twice the revenue it would've been in a far better position.

<comment><USER12> This has been explained time and again.

To get to the bottom of tax avoidance, people have to see and feel the benefit of paying tax. In Greece they simply don't, and it hasn't gotten any better in recent years.

The average German can easily list the benefits they receive from their government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After so much campaigning, it seems plain clear that the UK is actually leaching in a big way from the EU. The UK is a sore player, only wanting to take part when there is a clear and direct benefit, is not happy to play by the rules, always requesting special treatment, and continuously complaining of how bad we are treating them. Not a team player at all.

I am not sure if the UK is better off leaving, but we in the EU will do great getting rid of the grumpy bully.

</comment><comment><USER14> Database of people who agree/disagree on Brexit and why: [http://www.agreelist.com/brexit](http://www.agreelist.com/brexit)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> dang: the article has been flagged unnecessarily. It's topical, HN worthy, factual and relevant - the discussion just has some very heated opinions against. Can you check it out?

</comment><comment><USER15> I'll just leave this here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMxfAkxfQ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTMxfAkxfQ0)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure we'll get much meaningful discussion here. It's like having a debate of Trump vs Hilary vs Bernie.

<comment><USER8> Very much so. It's turned into the UKs very own replica of the US primaries, with much the same arguments.

I guarantee if we had a land border with Europe, someone on the leave campaign would be talking about building a wall :D

<comment><USER17> We do, with the Republic of Ireland... and we have a borderless travel treaty with them called the Common Travel Area which has existed in one form or another for nearly 100 years.

<comment><USER8> It's also a condition of the Ireland peace agreement that we keep it open. No EU, no peace. We'd have to renegotiate the deal, amongst all the others...

And if we leave it open? All the migrants will just flood through NI. The whole idea that we can control migration by leaving is absurd nonsense.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Friends, Please Tell T-Mobile's CEO About EFF - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/friends-please-tell-t-mobiles-ceo-about-eff <comment><USER2> I'm very much in favor of the EFF, and I've donated a few times (not a sustaining member though).

For an organization like the EFF, the worst thing that could happen is for them to end up in some sort of funding transparency scandal, especially because of a troll CEO.

Does anyone know if the EFF publishes a list of corporate donors[1]?. Perhaps, they should, to avoid questions like this having an effect on their image.

1\. Surely, [https://www.eff.org/thanks](https://www.eff.org/thanks) is not exhaustive

</comment><comment><USER3> John Legere firmly believes that he fights for the user (consumer). So, when the EFF comes in and accuses T-Mobile of throttling video data, he's going to lash back and ask:

1.Who the f*ck are you anyway EFF? He's the CEO of T-Mobile. Of course he knows who they are. But he's asking now because to him they are acting out of character. EFF is supposed to be on the same side, the consumer side.

2\. Why are you stirring up so much trouble? Because if EFF is on the same side, they'd inform T-Mobile more quietly that they're actually throttling data. Personally, I really do believe the throttling here is not intended behavior of Binge On. I honestly do.

3\. Who pays you? Why are they attacking T-Mobile? Are they being paid to? If they fought for the consumers, why would they attack such a consumer friendly company such as T-Mobile?

<comment><USER4> That is just... stupid. Calling out a major corporation for deceptive practices is "stirring up trouble"? A non-profit organization is supposed to be "on the same side" as some company you arbitrarily annoint as the holy one? Someone who "knows who they are" seriously believes they are "being paid" to do what they always do, shine a light on troubling events in the digital world?

Are you a t-mobile employee?

<comment><USER3> I'm not a T-Mobile employee. I'm a T-Mobile customer, and as a customer I would hate to see them go down for something that I don't think to be a big deal. EFF could have easily told T-Mobile diplomatically that they're misinforming consumers instead of feeding the story to media outlets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://supporters.eff.org/donate](https://supporters.eff.org/donate) [https://supporters.eff.org/shop/](https://supporters.eff.org/shop/)

</comment><comment><USER6> It was a great reminder to setup a subscription to EFF, Thanks John!</comment>


Ask HN: Should a Developer get more paid than a Designer? - <AUTHOR> Given both are quite same in skill in their field. There are a lot of different specialisations in both carreers. Just let's take a general Designer vs Developer approach in which both are responsible for everything in there area.<p>What are the reasons? Demand vs supply? Difficulty of the study? Practical importance? <comment><USER2> Supply and demand is one thing, but there are also "ceiling" effects. This is just a hunch (and I'd love to hear some feedback on this) but I would guess that there's more of a ceiling on developers than there is on designers. So maybe the average developer makes more than the average designer (again a hunch), but I'd bet there are a select few really great designers making MUCH MUCH more, and I don't think the same is true for developers.

I mean, what's a really stupendous developer going to do for you that makes it worth paying him the equivalent of a 5-man team? a 10-man team?

We could make an analogy to construction. The best construction company is no doubt going to build your building faster, more efficiently, with fewer problems, but that's not going to triple the value of the finished product. The _architect_ by contrast can make the difference between a world-famous landmark and just another good-enough building.

<comment><USER3> > We could make an analogy to construction

To borrow your analogy:

A construction company that builds single level family homes can't build high rises. No matter how good the architect is.

Top developers can conceptualise and build products that 100 average developers couldn't achieve. Not to mention the large reverse economies of scale.

Case in point: I can get 1000 low skill Vietnamese developers for the same cost as 50 senior Valley developers. And yet for 90% of the work we do I'm better off with the 50 Valley developers.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure we disagree. When you say "conceptualize and build", you may be talking about a developer-in-the-role-of-designer or developer-in-the-role-of- entrepreneur. Certainly Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. were once developers, but they didn't get rich because they were employed as coders and got a bunch of merit pay raises.

So I was simply speculating that there may be a "ceiling" on developer _salaries_ , that is, salaries received for writing code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really compensation has nothing to do with skill. Compensation has everything to do with a demand for that skill. A highly skilled photographer doesn't make as much as a dev-ops engineer simply because everyone with a camera can "take pictures" and to many people the difference between a Pulitzer-winning photo and a decent Instagram feed is marginal. Yet, most people that can open Illustrator or Sketch and "design" something, while most people can't simply open Vim and write an application.

My theory is that the value of a good designer is equal to the value of a good developer because they serve critical, though separate roles in building a product people both want to use and are technically able to use.

The problem though is that it's very easy to "be a designer" because it actually doesn't take much technical skill. (Let's not get into a flame war about the technical skill required to use Sketch or Illustrator -- I get it; I'm being relative.) It's less "tangible." Is design A better than design B? The data-driven among us could certainly quantify A vs. B, but generally designs are subjective. With developers, it's mostly objective: does the product do X when I click this button. If yes, pass, if no, fail. (Us developers know that's not all there is to it, but in the C-suite, that's really the key metric -- does it solve the business problem, many could care less about code quality or even maintainability, until the dev team starts demanding resources to solve technical debt!)

So, back to your original question, should a developer get paid more than a designer? While, I would argue good version of both deliver equal but different value and thus they should be paid the same, the reality is affected by supply and demand. There are more "ok" designers than there are good developers. Yet ok designers are often good enough because frankly many people don't know good design even if it slapped them in the face with a trout. So an ok design has the practical effect of being a good design. Meaning: the measurement criteria is simply "do I like the way this looks." While with developers, it's much harder to find a developer that can actually execute. Thus an "ok" developer isn't competing with an "ok" designer because "ok" developer could potentially not execute the project at all, or at least not efficiently (thus costing more time,) while even a bad designer can create something that is good enough.

Which means, ok designers are in high supply, while good developers are in relatively low supply -- which makes the price for those resources adjust accordingly.

All things being equal -- yes, they should be paid the same. However, all things aren't equal. Supply and demand and perception of value are major factors at play.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the good reply. That's why I asked this question. Because it's not possible to find answers like this out there.</comment></comment>