For Sale: 50,000 Bitcoins - <AUTHOR> http://www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2014/dpr-bitcoins/ <comment><USER2> I don't have a deep grasp of Civil Forfeiture but it seems like this is unusual considering DPR has not been convicted of anything yet. Is this part of a plea bargin or something similar?

<comment><USER3> from the link, and their all caps treatment preserved:

ON JANUARY 27, 2014, THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ENTERED A STIPULATION AND ORDER FOR INTERLOCUTORY SALE OF BITCOINS WHEREIN THE UNITED STATES AND ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT AGREED THAT THE UNITED STATES MAY SELL ANY PORTION OR ALL OF THE COMPUTER HARDWARE BITCOINS ON A DATE OR DATES IN A MANNER TO BE DETERMINED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

So, it sounds like he clearly agreed to something, as he is mentioned by name here.

<comment><USER4> The "Computer Hardware Bitcoins" term is notable and I wonder to which statute it refers. What actions were taken or crime alleged where it would be important to characterize Bitcoins in this way?

I speculate that Ulbrict needs funds to pay attorneys fees. It may be he stipulated to a portion (or all) of the BTC as his in-exchange for unfreezing the asset and permitting its sale.

<comment><USER5> > The "Computer Hardware Bitcoins" term is notable and I wonder to which > statute it refers.

It doesn't refer to a statute. It is a short form to refer to what is described in long form in the first paragraph of the notice as "THE BITCOINS CONTAINED IN WALLET FILES THAT RESIDED ON CERTAIN COMPUTER HARDWARE BELONGING TO ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT". (The same long description, and the explicit linkage of the same short form to that long description, is in the linked Stipulation and Order from the court allowing the sale.)

The stipulation also refers to the reason -- Ulbricht and the Government agreed to the sale to convert the bitcoins into dollars to protect both parties from risk due to volatility; the bitcoins are not being forfeited at this time, the forfeiture action will continue with the proceeds of the sale as the subject property rather than the bitcoins themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's sad is that this was half the point of bitcoins; they can't be easily seized. I hope the other DPRs are smart enough to have a system which moves their coins before the gov breaks the encryption on the wallets they seize in person.

<comment><USER7> There are many DPR-related bitcoins that they were unable to access. Fear not.

This was not "half the point of bitcoins" \- the intent of the bitcoin release is only hinted at by Satoshi. Any point you are asserting here is pure speculation.

However, if you think this is a valuable property, a so-called "brainwallet" provides exactly this safety. They've been around for ages. No moving of coins required.

<comment><USER6> Where there really coins they didn't get? Source? (Not to dispute the claim, just interested)

About it being half the point: Perhaps not stated explicitly, but he knew what he was doing by not baking in a government back door. From the whitepaper: "any two willing parties to transact directly with each other"

I'm probably not getting the joke, but are there people who memorize their secret keys? I've never looked to see how long they are but I assume that's quite a feat.

<comment><USER8> No joke. Brainwallets use keys derived from a passphrase. Of course the passphase has to be reasonably long and something no one would ever guess, but even a randomly generated passphrase is easier to memorize than a long string of characters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For scale, this is not even a day's worth of normal transactions. Yesterday about 177000 BTC was sent across the network, and that wasn't a big day.

<comment><USER10> A lot more than 177k BTC changed hands yesterday. You don't see it on the block chain because most of it is transacted off-chain: 788k BTC were sold and bought on Bitcoin exchanges in the last 24 hours - [http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h](http://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h) So 50k BTC is really nothing (~6%) compared to what the market usually handles every day.

<comment><USER11> > because most of it is transacted off-chain

Does this come with risk? Shouldn't all transactions be on the chain?

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure why this was downvoted, it's a legitimate question.

The problem is the sheer quantity of transactions that occur on the various exchanges. Adding that volume to the public chain would make the public chain significantly larger than it is. The bitcoin.cc wiki Scalability page [1] does a better job of documenting the constraints than I could in this space.

The flip side of this is that there's a required level of trust when doing business with an exchange. Thus far no exchanges that I know of are actually publishing their ledgers - so we really have no way to know that all trades are made in good faith and all funds are properly managed by the exchanges.

Unlike regulated government currencies, there are no audit requirements. This means there is nothing that actually requires an exchange to be operating in good faith. I'm actually surprised that there are not yet any private exchanges[2] with public/open ledgers, in response to Mt Gox and various other scams (both for bitcoin and other currencies). Seems the market _has_ to be there for it, after people have been burned so many times.

[1] [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability) [2] that I know of. I know there are protocols under development intended to handle this, but no actual exchanges that simply publish all transactions for the world to see.

[edit] can't believe I used 'shear' instead of 'sheer'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How does this relate to the previous auction of approx. 30,000 seized bitcoins back in June?

[http://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-one-auction-bidder- claim...](http://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-one-auction-bidder-claimed- all-30000-silk-road-bitcoins/)

<comment><USER14> That was the sale of the Silk Road 1 server's bitcoins - the bitcoins SR1 users had actually in the site, either deposited because they intended to buy something, locked up in escrow as part of an in-flight order, or not yet withdrawn by a seller.

This is Ross Ulbricht's personal bitcoins on his laptop and backup drives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll keep an eye out for this. I think the final price will reach quite close to the market price with no guarantee of being able to sell at that price. Still might be worthwhile for someone to build up their position considerably without spooking the exchanges.

<comment><USER16> Last time the US auctioned off bitcoins, the price was above market price [0]. A VC wanted to buy a large chunk of bitcoins for a company he invests in without driving up the price.

[0] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-01/bitcoin-auction- end...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-01/bitcoin-auction-ends-single- bidder-wins-entire-cache.html)

<comment><USER17> I don't see anywhere in your cited article that says the coins were purchased for more than market price. Can you point it out for me?

Additionally, if you were a rational investor who believed the coins were worth above market price, why would you not additionally buy up any coins on the market that were selling below that price? Ultimately, bidding up the market price to whatever the "above-market" bid was.

<comment><USER18> For a rational investor it would make sense to bid above "market" price. There are many markets, and those markets have a limited volume of coin to sell. Buying 30k coins would have a big effect on the price of any single market.

Bitstamp, which says "world's leading bitcoin exchange" about itself can't sell you 30k coins right now. Oh, and bitcoin exchanges have a history of.. let's call it.. problems.

A rational investor who wants to buy a large volume of coins would certainly bid above "market" price for coins handled by a reputable seller.

<comment><USER17> You seem to have misread my post. I didn't say that no one would bid above market price, I stated that they would additionally buy up all the coins on the market below their buying price.

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't that risk driving up the market price of bitcoins, which leads to a higher competing bid on the bulk coins?

<comment><USER17> Well you wouldn't want to do it before the bids are in. However, there was a gap between when bids are placed and when the winner is announced, that would be a good time.

edit: Of course, any time after the bids were completed would be a good time. After the auction ends would be just as good for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> According to Coinbase, the current buy price for bitcoin is $385. 385 x 50,000 = $19.2MM

<comment><USER18> Coinbase doesn't have enough volume to sell you 50k coins right now, you would hike the price towards infinity. You could buy something like 22k coins for 24M.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It seems to me that the several bitcoin auctions by the US government aren't that bad a thing for the cryptocurrency movement. To me, it provides a headline story that's sure to raise awareness of bitcoin for the general public (something that is certainly needed). Plus, it brings out the major bitcoin buyers. It's the equivalent of Sotheby's or Christie's having an auction of Picassos or Warhols.

</comment><comment><USER22> It would be cool if bitcoins seized in one crime would be compensating bitcoins stolen in another crime: Mt.Gox ..

<comment><USER23> It is not the governments role to replace the stuff that was stolen from you. That is what insurance is for.

<comment><USER24> Especially Bitcoins, of which a key 'feature' is 'No Government Intervention required'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Will be interesting to see how this announcement effects the price of bitcoins. I would imagine there will be an initial drop out of panic, but if we see some wealthy individuals with a vested interest in bitcoin buying these up, it could very much cause a large shift upwards in price.

<comment><USER9> > Will be interesting to see how this announcement effects the price of > bitcoins.

That's what people asked last time when, if I remember correctly, the FBI was selling off some of the Silk Road coins. Nothing really happened, maybe a few percent drop, but that happens every day so I'm not even sure that was due to the sell.

<comment><USER26> To add more context, a well-known investor who happens to have significant influence ended up buying those bitcoins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Marshals say there are 94 thousand more where that came from so if you're still scraping together the 100 grand to join the bidding, you'll have a couple more chances.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if they'll accept drugs?

</comment><comment><USER29> How does a party go about determining a bid for something like this?

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh, was there a trail and a guilty verdict I didn't hear about?

</comment><comment><USER31> This guy calls it BS. Any thoughts?

[http://trilema.com/2014/the-united-states-scammers- service-f...](http://trilema.com/2014/the-united-states-scammers-service- formerly-marshalls-service/)

<comment><USER32> It does seem odd that they don't release the name or price of the winning bid.

<comment><USER33> Well the winner of the first auction came forward voluntarily so it isn't like it was a mystery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The world has gone insane.</comment>


Synesthesia might be more common in people with autism - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/20/5125888/synesthesia-might-be-more-common-in-people-with-autism

<comment><USER2> "Synthesia"? For God's sake, PLEASE copy the title from the original article -- _do not_ try to press the keys on your computer's keyboard. That is clearly beyond your competence.

Copy: Ctrl+C

Paste: Ctrl+V</comment>


How the Casio F-91W became the world's most versatile (and dangerous) watch - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/10/20/how-the-casio-f-91w-became-the-worlds-most-versatile-and-dangerous-watch/ <comment><USER2> > However, after 9/11, investigators at Guantanamo Bay started to notice a > strange pattern. Some 32 inmates were found to be wearing the F-91W at the > time of their apprehension

When I was in the British Army almost everyone wore this watch (actually the green light version whatever that is called). I used to carry two in case the one on my wrist became damaged. I think it's just a universal soldier thing, not a suspected terrorist or bomb-making thing.

<comment><USER3> That's interesting... my present watch is a super cheap Timex that doesn't even have a date function. The best reviews on Amazon were from soldiers. One of them said that he already has every possible electronic doo-dad strapped to his body, and all he needs from a watch is being able to tell the time.

For my use, I guessed that the date function (on a mechanical watch) is what eats the battery, and indeed, this watch has a very long battery life.

<comment><USER4> The one thing that always intrigued me is that militaries never seem to have outfit their soldiers with watches (the only 2 i heard anecdotal evidence that they had were the Russians and the Swiss) .

Even today where you'll have an electronic optics, laser designator, night vision, a bunch of different radios, and even PDA's if you are in the US, but still no bloody watch.

Can't navigate without one properly, can't know if you are keeping the correct pace when on patrol, can't know when you need to get up to a watch or when you are about to be replaced, can't calculate the distance of enemy fire can't do squat without a watch, but still they don't give you one.

<comment><USER5> > The one thing that always intrigued me is that militaries never seem to have > outfit their soldiers with watches (the only 2 i heard anecdotal evidence > that they had were the Russians and the Swiss).

This could be a hold over from habits established before cell phones became common. Back before, say, the '90s, most people in the US (and I assume in most other first world countries) from their teens onward had a watch.

Perhaps militaries assumed that everyone coming in would already have a watch.

Furthermore, watches were often of great sentimental value, and many people would have viewed the military telling them what watch to wear as being as absurd as, say, issuing a standard military wedding ring to married soldiers to replace their civilian wedding ring.

As long as a soldier's watch was accurate and reliable enough for military needs, they probably saw no reason to not let the soldier use his own watch.

<comment><USER2> Until recently officers usually had to provide most of their own equipment. You can still see leftovers from this in the British military, where for example you are responsible for buying your own dress uniforms from private tailors (but you get a grant to somewhat cover it these days).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
      It's a statement of cool detachment and a brilliant
      way of blowing up explosives.

I've never heard anyone give a satisfying explanation of why the F-91W is any better at blowing explosives than any other cheap digital watch with an alarm. Surely all you have to do is take the signal from the beeper, amplify, and connect to your trigger circuit - which you could do with any watch with an alarm.

Is there some reason the watch is "a brilliant way of blowing up explosives" compared to any other watch on the market? Or has the journalist just made that up?

<comment><USER4> Could be reliability or voltage related, more likely just availability Japan didn't participate in most sanctions and Asian goods are more readily available in the Middle East.

<comment><USER7> >Japan didn't participate in most sanctions and Asian goods are more readily available in the Middle East.

As opposed to watches made in the US or Europe? Aren't most electronics made in China/Japan anyways?

<comment><USER4> Yes but the brand and parent company are what affects the distribution not the place of manufacturing.

Timex being an American company is less likely both historically and now to sell in say Iran, Iraq or Syria than a Japanese or even a European company.

Historically as far as electronics, cars and similar things go Asian and European brands are more common in the Middle East than American ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is one of those pathetic propaganda stories from The War Against Terror that people will regurgitate for years to come. See also how 'al-qaeda' stored messages as 'drafts' on Yahoo mail so that they could outsmart the CIA. These sorts of stories are popular with 'educated' people that think they read the news and form their own opinions about fundamental-islamic-extremalism rather than just admit to being brainwashed by the defence-sector owned mainstream media.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Saleh performed internet searches for the terms 'watch', 'casio', and 'vacuum'… these searches reflect Saleh's efforts to identify and obtain components required to create an explosive device."

I wonder want few words would implicate me as a terrorist?

Last three keywords I used: stack blow unsigned</comment>


In wich I rant about developing on Android - <AUTHOR> http://bitboxer.de/2012/09/01/in-wich-i-rant-about-developing-on-android/ <comment><USER2> I concur. But it ain't beds of roses with iOS either, especially when you hit blocks with "private APIs", or wanting to do anything more than Apple allows you to. Basically, each platform has its quirks. The problem with Android is, it can afford to have more "tools" to building beautiful android apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> The rant is a mixed bag:

The state of Android visual GUI editors? Much improved but that just moves them from abysmal to shameful.

Animation? General-purpose property animation, which debuted in Honeycomb is very powerful. LayoutTransition is less-general, but very convenient for transition animations.

Declarative UI in XML is the worst possible way to do it, except for every DSL that's been tried. If you prematurely proliferate different layout files for different configurations, you are screwed. There is no solution, except to convince your designers they will never get the pixel-perfect results they get on iOS. Maybe lie to them and tell them they get only three size variations and two density variation: Big tablet, small tablet, and handset, plus hi-res and medium-res.

</comment><comment><USER4> It should be noted that the Android Tools get better with every release, and that it can display and edit XML you have created. I recommend watching this video about recently shipped and upcoming functionality <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erd2k6EKxCQ> \- if you only have a few seconds then watch 30 seconds starting at 22 minutes in.

Out of curiousity how do you handle "pixel perfect" layouts on iOS in the face of diversity (screen sizes, orientation, languages)? As a simple example German text is typically 25% larger than the equivalent English text.

One thing that amuses me while doing Android (Java) development is just how much of the code Eclipse writes for me. You just put in what you really want to type and then the various tools come in and "fix" it for you. This of course is an indication of just how much boilerplate there is.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am currently prototyping a jar dependency solution that could help my workflow and looks similar to cocoapods, but on top of Maven and Android repository xmls.

See here:

<https://gist.github.com/3603015>

If you think that can be improved, add your comments to that gist.

And if you have a list of common used maven or android repos, just post them there, too.

Please help!

</comment><comment><USER5> I prefer Android development to iOS, but some of his criticism are valid.

The Android SDK is a bit too Java-ish for my liking. I mean, yeah, it is written in Java, sure, but some Java libraries/frameworks are able to live in Java and still feel light. While the Android SDK isn't EJB-bad, there is too much unneeded abstraction in most of the SDK, IMO, a feature which I tend to associate strongly with Java in general.

On the IDE issue... while Eclipse's 'quick fix', logcat plugin and powerful intellisense features are awesome, the horrible bloat cancels out all of the nice features. I'm frankly amazed how slow it can run on a new i5 system when everything else flies on it and I'm constantly annoyed by the sloppy way it is integrated with the Android SDK code generation system resulting in a situation where a build can randomly fail and then work if you hit rebuild without changing anything. I've basically given up on using Eclipse as the primary editor and now develop my Android apps in Sublime Text 2 and use an ant-based command-line build solution. I highly recommend ant (over Maven which he mentions in the article) simply because the Android SDK is already very ant friendly. Chances are good that building your project will Just Work in ant, especially if your dependent libraries are properly using the Android SDK and available via custom library sites through the Android SDK Manager. Sublime Text 2 has a good logcat plugin available via Package Control. The only time I fall back to Eclipse is when I have to do on-device debugging.

GUI Editor: I don't use the Android one, I write XML by hand. Yes, the Android GUI editor isn't that great (though much better than it was before). This is at least partially related to the non-pixel-perfect layout issue. Writing a GUI editor that allows for fully reactive UIs is a much more difficult problem than one where the elements remain fixed. Having said that, the Android GUI editor could be a lot better.

The duplication of XML files is another issue I agree with. I actually _like_ declarative XML for UIs. If Android had a good property binding system and it was integrated with the layout XMLs, you'd be able to have single XML files that could powerfully lay themselves out properly for different orientations and resolutions without having half a dozen different XML layouts for the same view. This is an area where Android should crib from Adobe Flex (or WPF, but avoid all the special DependencyProperty bloat) rather than iOS.

StackOverflow: He's sadly right here with one exception. User "CommonsWare" is a great resource. A lot of the other people who answer Android questions are clueless and will just lead you down paths of stupidity. I highly recommend just downloading the Android AOSP source code and if you have a question read through the base classes. It would be nice if the framework classes were simple enough that you didn't have to do this, but to understand how tabbed page adapters (as one example) really work, you basically have to dig into the Android code because there is a lot (too much, IMO) of "magic" that happens under the covers in many cases and it isn't good "magic" because if you don't know about some of it, it will bite you in the ass.

Pixel-perfect UIs just aren't possible when you're developing reactive/liquid layout apps. This isn't a failing of Android, it is just the reality of developing for a platform without a small set of fixed resolutions. Tell your designer to suck it up because outside of iOS, reactive designs are the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you blog or link to an example on your ant setup? I am really interested in that one. And how do you manage dependencies to third party jars with the sdk manager?

<comment><USER5> Using ant basics:

[http://developer.android.com/tools/projects/projects- cmdline...](http://developer.android.com/tools/projects/projects-cmdline.html)

<http://developer.android.com/tools/building/index.html>

And using the Android SDK Manager to manage packages (this assumes that the 3rd party libraries you are using are well-admined enough to have a proper Android SDK Manager add-on site, which many popular libs do have):

<http://developer.android.com/sdk/exploring.html> (Scroll down to 'Adding New Sites')

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there an index somewhere that has a list of all libs that have a proper repository.xml? It would be great to have something like rubygems or cocoapods where you can search for all options you have for that problem you are facing.

<comment><USER5> Not that I know of. I agree it would be great to have a central repository of vetted quality projects, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OP, your piece begs the question: "What are you going to do about it?"

</comment><comment><USER7> Really sounds to me like you mostly dislike Java. Personally, I can't stand objective-C and very much prefer Java and developing on Android. Personal preferences, man.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, I don't dislike Java. I was the project lead of a "TV-Browser", an Java Swing GUI that is used by over 100.000 Users. You can't do that if you hate Java ;).

A broken GUI editor can't be a personal preference ;).</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Convert Video To FLV With H.264 - <AUTHOR>

Correct me if im just being a moron here:
a) The video is recorded in 1280x720 and made a mov b) I want to convert that .mov to a h264 HD FLV
I know flash 9 started supporting this.  How do I convert the .mov to a h264 flv (HD).  This is for a bunch of demo videos and quality really matters. <comment><USER2> Short answer, just try to play the .mov file in Flash.

Long answer: Flash 9 Beta 3 added _limited_ support for the MP4 file format (or "container") and the H.264 video encoding. The FLV container format does not and will never be able to contain H.264 data.

MP4 is an ISO standard -- before that it was known as "QuickTime" aka ".mov". Yay! But MP4/.mov/QuickTime has very little to do with the actual video and audio encoding it contains. Your .mov file, which is an MP4-compliant container, may have video data in lots of different encoding formats, tracks, cover art, meta data, etc etc. Boo!

Flash 9b3 supports _only_ MP4 files with a single video/audio trak, and only moov atoms containing H.264 data. The file extension does not matter; it inspects the magic bits inside the file.

There is not at the moment a cheap open-source way to stream these files. MP4 is an odd format: all frame metadata, usually about 2% of the total file size, is in the front of the file and MUST be fully downloaded & decoded before a video will start playing. Adobe is very aware of this and will gladly sell you expensive server software to stream H.264 video. :(

<comment><USER3> _MP4 is an odd format: all frame metadata, usually about 2% of the total file size, is in the front of the file and MUST be fully downloaded & decoded before a video will start playing._

Actually that sounds quite convenient for seeking.

Also, <http://code.google.com/p/rubyizumi/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For better playback on older (>2 years) computers you're better off using the VP6 or VP6-S codecs over H.264 and Flash. If you choose VP6 your video will also play on client computers that have older versions of the Flash player.

FFmpeg or Mencoder are great OSS projects for converting video, and as someone already mentioned ffmpegx is a good front to ffmpeg on osx.

There is a new FLV file format spec in the works, but for now Adobe recommends your h.264 stay in MPEG-4 containers (mp4, mov, 3g2, etc).

</comment><comment><USER5> The video doesn't have to be in FLV format. Why do you want the video to be in that format? You can use a flash player to play a h264 MP4 video file.

</comment><comment><USER6> ffmpegX. <http://homepage.mac.com/major4/>

Give that a shot.

</comment><comment><USER7> Get QuickTime Pro (totally worth the money). Go to File->Export. For the format, select QuickTime Movie. Open the options window. Under video, click settings... and choose H.264 as the compression type. Adjust the quality settings for your taste. For sound, use AAC and select a quality level that you feel comfortable with. IMPORTANT! CHECK PREPARE FOR INTERNET STREAMING and select "Fast Start". This places the MOOV atom at the beginning of the file so the entire thing doesn't have to download before it plays. And viola, you have H.264 video that is playable in Flash. If you want, you can just change the file extension to .mp4. Sometime Flash doesn't like it when you use a relative link to the video file. Use an absolute web link to the video file if you are having issues. If you want a super easy was to play back these files, be sure to check out the open source FLV media player:<http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player></comment>


Life after users: The Detroits of the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/software/374952/life-after-users-detroits-internet

<comment><USER2> I was waiting for the "myspace" example. I didn't realize FOX bought it for $520 mil and sold it for $35 mil. /OUCH/.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's an interesting article. I enjoyed it. Ahh usenet, the good ol days.</comment>


Software Licenses and Failed States - <AUTHOR> http://250bpm.com/blog:82 <comment><USER2> The methodology behind this graph is really rudimentary, as the original author admits[1], and I wish people would stop quoting it without big health warnings.

"To detect what license, if any, a project is licensed under, we used an open source Ruby gem called Licensee to compare the repository's LICENSE file to a short list of known licenses. However, it's important to note that this approach doesn't count a project as licensed if the README indicates a specific license or if individual project files contain a named license in the code comments."

Of my 13 (original, non-forked) projects on github, 11 state a licence; each one would be immediately found by a human looking at the project; not a single one would be found by the above method.

[1] [https://github.com/blog/1964-open-source-license-usage-on- gi...](https://github.com/blog/1964-open-source-license-usage-on-github-com)

<comment><USER3> Right, I don't understand why it doesn't at least look for COPYING or COPYRIGHT as well, those filenames have quite some seniority.

<comment><USER4> Hell, you can't use GNU Autotools without a COPYING file or it will yell at you until you create it or figure out the incantation to make it ignore the lack of said file. There's still plenty of software out there on github that uses automake/autoconf that wouldn't be properly recognized like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The conclusions of this article are wrong. The vast majority of Github repositories with no license are those that also have no followers and no stars. These are repositories with little useful code most likely.

I more useful metric would be to measure repositories that have 10 or more stars or followers, and to see what percentage of such repositories have no software license.

As it is, the whole digression into the failed state metaphor is premature. The author should have done some digging for better supporting stats before spending so much time on a stretched failed state metaphor.

<comment><USER6> It would also be interesting to look at the inverse relationship - how many average stars does a "licensed" repository have vs an "unlicensed" one. I suspect that you're right that repositories with licenses will have more stars, and thus more widely used.

Another interesting metric would be lines of code (licensed vs. unlicensed). This would probably make your argument more obvious... more useful repositories will have many more lines of code than unuseful ones; and thus also more likely to have a license.

I believe that the author may have just re-discovered the concept of the long tail, reproduced in source code repositories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _The projects without license can in theory be considered open source (the > source is published after all)_

That is not what "Open Source" means.

> _but legally, the copyright is still owned by the authors_

In Open Source/Free Software, the copyright on the software is still owned by the original authors.

<comment><USER8> > That is not what "Open Source" means.

"Open Source" means different things to different people and not everyone accepts the OSI definition, there are even people who are angry at ESR for grabbing the phrase for himself and making his definition the most popular one.

<comment><USER9> esr didn't coin the term, Christine Peterson did, and Tim O'Reilly funded the OSI compaign. Also, nobody used the term before OSI did, except with an unrelated meaning in the intelligence community.

[http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have- forgot...](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/5-things-we-have-forgotten- about-open-source/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am one of those who (would) publish their code source-open, but not Open Source. The reason is not that I reject the legal system per se (although I do dislike and fundamentally criticize it). The reason is that publishing code without a license gives me the effect I want.

People can look at my code, they can use it privately and do whatever they want. They cannot build a business with it or use it in any way I don't like without my permission. Yes, people with a contempt of copyright law (which tend to align with me politically a bit) profit from this. People who have internalized copyright law and won't even look at my unlicensed code in secret, on their phone on the toilet, because it's 'wrong', are disadvantaged. That's great!

Most importantly, I don't give any rights away. "All rights reserved" is the default. And I don't enter any obligations. Remember, we like to talk about licenses that are attached to code. But how are they implemented? In reality, licenses are in fact like contracts between you and the license taker. I'm extremely hesitant to sign contracts with strangers - I especially don't want to offer a blanket contract to everybody who reads my code and wants to accept it. I can't be 100% sure that such a contract doesn't create any obligations for me that I don't want - the legal system is so complicated that even lawyers have problems finding all side effects of clauses. At the very least, I'll be giving courses of action away if I license my code.

Without a license, putting code online is a bit like writing a poem in a park. People can look over your shoulder, read what you're writing, you can interact with them if you like, they can take your words and pass them on - but they can't publish a book with them, and you have no obligations towards those people.

</comment><comment><USER11> If it doesn't have a license, then don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Run, don't walk away.

He may not care about the law, but the user of that unlicensed software will care when they get sued for using it.

"Oh, but I would never sue you for using my software" says the unlicensed GitHub author.

"But I can't trust you. You're not trustworthy."

"Oh, but I am. I won't sue, I promise!"

"Then why don't you put that promise in writing? It's called a License."

<comment><USER12> > "Then why don't you put that promise in writing? It's called a License."

Because the author of this particular source code strongly prefers users who like them who are ignorant of the law? The author doesn't want to get sued for his license.

<comment><USER13> What most likely will happen is that if the person likes you (IE: not some big company), they will allow you to use their code. If you are a huge corporation profiting from it, you will get sued for misuse.

This is exactly why you don't use unlicensed code in any commercial application.

<comment><USER11> So if you are one of the people he 'likes' and will allow you to use his code, then does he give you a license? If he likes you, he would give you a license, which describes how you can use the code without getting sued.

But I thought by putting it on GitHub, and claiming that he doesn't believe in licenses, because he wants EVERYONE to be able to use the code -- that he wouldn't then 'allow' a special friend to use the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > So, the other possibility is that authors deliberately reject the legal > system per se. The reasoning can go as follows: I do care about my peers > using my software. I don't give a damn about whether the lawyers and mega- > corporations they work for use it. So, if you are like me and you don't care > about all the intellectual property antics, here's my project, feel free to > use it. If you are the kind of moron who wants to have their legal ass > covered, go screw yourself.

I totally buy the idea that at least some users who upload source to GitHub without a license feel that way. I have slightly different priorities (creating software that is used is more important to me than avoiding the copyright antics) but I'm pretty sympathetic to that sentiment.

The problem with expressing that sentiment by not licensing your software is that it doesn't express that sentiment at all, especially on GitHub. GitHub's terms of use require that public repositories contain only open source code, so there's an argument to be made that uploading your code to a public repo on GitHub implies an open source license.

If you really want to make a civilly-disobedient statement rejecting the idea of licenses, I'd do so with something like the Forget Users License[1].

[1] [https://www.kerkeslager.com/forget-users- license.txt](https://www.kerkeslager.com/forget-users-license.txt)

EDIT: I'm not a lawyer and would love to make this more lawyer-y. Suggested improvements to the license are welcome.

<comment><USER15> I have dev peers who think like that and they release code into the public domain.

<comment><USER16> Except that they legally can't in plenty of countries, so that are, in practice, just making the problem of unclear licensing worse :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Mogadishu actually has a functioning local government, with (mostly) functioning utilities, telecom, etc. No need to pick on it.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's nothing odd about publishing something on Github without licensing it.

For example, imagine you have an MVP for a failed startup idea. By throwing it up on Github other people can learn from your project. Potential employers can review your code.

But if someone wants to fork your code and try to launch an identical startup, they really should cut you in.

</comment><comment><USER19> Simpler explanation - people go with defaults. The default is no licence. So it is mostly github UI problem.

<comment><USER20> I think this is the best explanation per Occam's Razor. Licensing is often complex and a lot of developers would rather not think about, plus the alternative is that GitHub by default waives certain copyrights when publishing which might get them in trouble.

<comment><USER4> It'd be nice if more tooling yelled at you for trying to publish something without a license attached. As much as it annoys me about refusing to even generate a working configure script and Makefile without it, autotools enforcing a COPYING file's presence is a great idea.

<comment><USER20> I think perhaps a lot of it is also simple misunderstanding. People don't realize that publishing something is not the same as licensing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Most of these are probably Node.js packages with "License: MIT" somewhere in the README.

</comment><comment><USER22> > It's going to be weird, but bear with me, I have a point to make…

> So, the other possibility is that authors deliberately reject the legal > system per se.

I hope he's sarcastic because it's blindingly obvious to anyone who knows there's a copyright and published any stuff for other people to use. Reality is that if you publish something everybody can take it and use it. Copyright flies in the face of actual reality. So most people just ignore it. Consumers but also producers. Only lawyers still care. Nothing weird about it.

If you had a law that water is dry until explicitly declared wet by appropriate rightholder people would ignore that law in their daily lives if there were no enforcer around.

<comment><USER23> "Reality is that if you publish something everybody can take it and use it"

Patents are a (controversial) way to publish something without allowing others to use it. So at least, there must be a (controversial) rationnale behind "publishing without allowing any use".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Parallels in the video world: [http://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/](http://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/) [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=No%20copyrigh...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=No%20copyright%20infringement%20intended)

</comment><comment><USER25> _The interesting question is why would anyone make such a contradictory statement? Why would they make the code physically available to everyone and yet make it legally unavailable?_

Why is that contradictory? That's how every piece of sample code in a book works; the book generally has a copyright statement at the beginning and no license on the code. That's how, for instance, Microsoft's sample code _explicitly_ works: there's a license that clearly states you can't use it unless you make nontrivial modifications.

That's also how code under non-simple-permissive licenses works. If I post something under the AGPL, it's legally unavailable _for many purposes_. If I post it under GPLv2-only (as I would default to for, e.g., a kernel module), it's legally unavailable to even GPLv3-only software.

In my experience it's been pretty easy to ask the author and say "Hi, I'd like to use your code under this license, here's my use case, can you provide it under that license?", and a good chunk of the time they'll say "Sure." For that question, it doesn't really matter whether the software is under any license at all to start with.

Don't compare those of us living under the rule of international law adopted in Berne in 1886 with people in failed states.

</comment><comment><USER26> Piggybacking on the thread. I am a person that would like to provide Open Source for personal use, non-profits and other Open Source projects, but I'd like to force commercial institutions to pay me some money or give back to community.

What options do I have?

<comment><USER27> As far as I know, only dual licensing under a copyleft license (usually GPL or AGPL) and a paid proprietary license. It allows people to pay to avoid the copyleft.

That said, it works best for some kinds of software, since unlike commonly believed, the GPL doesn't require one to contribute back, only forward, so in some cases people might be allowed to modify it without sharing those changes.

By the way, if you follow the dual licensing route, you need to be careful about accepting contributions, as unless you make them sign a document saying so, you won't have the right to issue those paid licenses for that code.

<comment><USER26> Yes, the accepting contributions part is such a pain...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've had code on GH before without a license. It took a while to go through every file and add a license header. I know I could of used sed/awk and probably made life easier, but I didn't feel like it.

<comment><USER29> Unless you're paranoid, you can just add a single file named "LICENSE" at the root of your project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's an interesting thesis, to say that law has failed because people believe so little in the law they see no reason to even make their intentions clear in a legally common manner.

And let's face facts here : he is right.

1) a common person making open source code cannot reasonably assume he will enjoy the protection of the legal system when others violate the licenses (just look at GPL enforcement efforts and their lack of results)

2) the power of the law to enforce these things in the first place is very limited. If you don't notice the abuse yourself (either because you do, or because it's pointed out to you), the law isn't going to do so either (this is in fact an important legal principle in western law : if no-one cares, it's not against the law, not even if there actually is a law against it. Note that in criminal cases the state can "care" in a legal sense, on behalf of someone else (e.g. a murder victim), but this cannot happen in civil cases. This becomes obvious in the case of contracts, for instance: feel free to violate contracts ("commit fraud"), if the other signatory to the contract agrees with your actions. I will advise you to get that agreement in writing though)

3) you can make mistakes which get you into hot water. For instance, if you accidentally relicense, or appear to relicense, code from a large company, that can get you in serious legal trouble.

4) in practice, such massive portions of the law are ridiculous and unenforceable, and these portions have expanded, and expanded, and expanded yet more over time. Effectively, following the law is not a realistic proposition, and nobody should be under the illusion that they're following the law, ESPECIALLY when facing the police, but also in all other cases (remember this when the police asks you questions. The answer is always the same : I refuse to answer except through my lawyer (and even then, take the fifth). Why ? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc) )

You should always treat any situation as a negotiation. Even when there is a clear law against what the person you're talking to is about to do.

I remember coming to a law lecture. The professor had 3 bottles of Bols (a famously strong alcoholic drink in western Europe). Why ? Well, the case he had started in his second year of law study against the telecom monopoly had completed, 45 years later. He had won. For 45 years of regular legal efforts, he got 83 euros (enough for 3 bottles of bols and some fast food). It was extremely nice of him, but it really drove the point home for me : the law, by itself, is merely an argument in any negotiation, and not a very strong one.

So we have established:

1) the law will not help you against others, at best it will enable you to help yourself (for a price, not for free)

2) the law may work against you. Taking legal actions, no matter how small, is something you don't understand (not even experienced lawyers or even judges can understand their everyday actions in a legal sense). Adding a license is definitely a legal action you don't understand and is not risk-free.

And I would add that this is plainly visible:

3) a LOT of people openly violate the law in pretty much all aspects of life (as a tenant which recently changed apartments, I was yet again reminded of this last month, getting charged with replacement costs for consumables, which was explicitly mentioned in the contract, and in law, to be the landlord's problem. Mentioning that got me a 50% reduction in what I got charged, and I accepted. Realistically I would have accepted a 10% reduction in what I was charged)

So why would you put licenses on your own code ? Don't. It's a risk without reward. If you want to go on a crusade, then go ahead. Otherwise, just stay away.

<comment><USER27> I don't disagree with your assessment of the law, I just think you (and possibly OP) are looking at issue from the wrong POV. The point of adding a license is not to allow you to initiate legal action, it's to give others some assurance that you _won 't_ initiate legal action against them when they use your code.

And while adding a license might get you in trouble, so can _not_ adding one - for example, if the code from that Big Corp is GPL-licensed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> with deference to venomsnake, a simpler explanation is that people are to cheap to pay for a github subscription and instead of keeping private code private just don't share the code. These folks aren't publishing code without a license, they aren't even publishing code with intentionality period.

<comment><USER32> Other code hosting platforms such as GitLab do exist. I find it plausible that people don't know about them, but if they're reading this comment now they do.

<comment><USER31> and now I do as well...which I appreciate</comment></comment></comment>


The Freelance Surge Is the Industrial Revolution of Our Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2011/09/the-freelance-surge-is-the-industrial-revolution-of-our-time/244229/

<comment><USER2> This is great for the people it's great for, but not everyone is cut out to freelance.</comment>


PUPPICAD - <AUTHOR> http://pupi.co/ <comment><USER2> I don't get it. What am I looking at, exactly?

<comment><AUTHOR> every now and then people get the idea to build a visual programming language, meaning that you don't have to write code but instead make a bunch of boxes and arrows to indicate programmatic flow ( and probably have to write some code inside of a box or something but at least the whole program flow is really clear). Dr Dobbs used to always have articles highlighting implementations - for example [http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and- design/visual-progra...](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and- design/visual-programming-in-3-d/184409677)

My comment might sound like I'm against it, not exactly though, it's a fascinating idea (the first time I saw anything about it I though wooooo, this is the future!!!) but whenever I get into it I just find it awful and confusing.

<comment><USER2> Yeah... I've heard of visual programming before, even played with Scratch a bit some time ago, but I couldn't tell if that's what this was for or what.

I don't really see any advantages to this. I feel like once you get familiar with your languages and libraries, typing is fast because you don't have to search for what you want, you can put it from your thoughts into your program directly, and everything you need to know is laid out before you. With this it seems like you'd have to hunt through menus to hunt what you want (and they're all white text in little blue boxes, none of them being visually distinct from any other), and then spend time targeting it with a pointing device (and they're small targets, which requires more precise movements and generally more time to position), and then you can't see the values of the parameters/fields unless/until you click on them (so, yes, I have a color stacked on top of a sphere... what color? what size? where? that's three separate clicks, as far as I can tell).

I didn't find the demo videos impressive or even interesting, really... I couldn't tell if it was some kind of awful general-purpose programming environment or some kind of awful 3D modeling program (I still can't tell, actually, but it's got "CAD" in the name, so if I had to guess I'd go with modeling).

Text also has the benefit of being a linear format, amenable to listings. It's also a simple and standard format, with hundreds if not thousands of powerful tools already available. It compresses well, and is decently small to begin with. In most programs, spatial relationships typically aren't meaningful, whereas linguistic ones are (or, at least, they _can_ be). In non-trivial programs, a spatial representation of references can get ugly, messy, and confusing _fast_.

I'm sure there's more, but I feel like I've made my point ;)

Oh, and, as is customary on HN, I'd like to point out how terrible the web site is. I get the feeling this is supposed to be a product of some sort, not just a weekend project, and, in that light: I've _literally_ seen Geocities sites that looked more professional. Text-to-speech narration in the demo videos will never sell me on any product. Now, I'm no good at designing web pages myself, so I can sympathize. But when you've got a product to move, that's when you need to call up a buddy who _is_ good at it and make a polite request for assistance. The kind of impression your web page leaves on people _does_ matter when it comes to making sales.</comment></comment></comment>


Hiding Go HTTP Client Behind a Proxy or Tor - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tufin/how-to-use-a-proxy-with-go-http-client-cfc485e9f342 <comment><AUTHOR> Lately, I wrote a crawler for a demo in #go using #tor as a proxy running inside a #kubernetes cluster. From there things rolled into this blog post :)</comment>


Introspective Robot Learns to Walk - <AUTHOR> http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=823 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehno85yI-sA
"Towards the end of the video, the robot conceptualizes itself, determining its own structure using sensors built into each joint. Then, it thinks of different ways that it might move - walk - from place to place. Starfish can also sense damage to any of its legs or joints, and then compensate." <comment><USER2> <http://ccsl.mae.cornell.edu/research/selfmodels/>

link to actual research page.

The gait looks more like a limp. The idea is neat, but it needs more work with their gait--even undamaged.</comment>


Contempt Culture - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aurynn.com/86/contempt-culture <comment><USER2> Being welcoming is nice. Being technically excellent is also nice.

The one is not an adequate substitute for the other.</comment>


YC Open Office Hours for Black and Hispanic Founders - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-open-office-hours-for-black-and-hispanic-founders <comment><USER2> As someone who is both (afro-latino), I'm really excited about this. After reading the majority of the comments, I'm a little disappointed. It seems that many do not understand that being white and male in the United States, by default, affords many privileges that monitories struggle to obtain. If there any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer.

Curious to why the word Hispanic was used instead of Latino. If you are unfamiliar with the difference, read here: [http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino](http://www.diffen.com/difference/Hispanic_vs_Latino)

<comment><USER3> I'm curious what privileges you perceive, or know to be true, for non- minorities.

I absolutely agree there is a problem. I've heard many first-hand accounts of violence and disrespect from all races. I'm interested in a solution that doesn't just take the labels from a pie chart and reinforce the dividing lines between what ultimately is one group.

<comment><USER4> Example: I have an African American neighbor one block over that I see regularly. He works in IT/devops. Like every IT person, he gets yelled at by random people at work all the time; it's a high-stress job. But when _he_ gets visibly frustrated, he's The Angry Black Man. Dipshit coworkers complain that they don't feel safe.

It is an example of a white male privilege that being frustrated and swearing at your computer screen is unlikely to result in a white male being put on a PIP for having a "threatening demeanor".

There are probably hundreds of things like this.

<comment><USER5> As a large white man, similar things have happened to me.

"Can we have this conversation in the stairwell so I can stand 2 steps down and make you feel comfortable?" <\- actual thing I've had to say and do with a crazy female coworker

There may be some racial bias here (I don't have enough reliable data to have much of an opinion), but don't think majorities are immune.

<comment><USER6> I've had similar as well. Literally had managers tell me I can't express anger the way others do because it was intimidating when I did it. Size matters as much as anything in that kind of situation.

At one job, I regularly interacted with a man who was larger than me and often angry. He was a few inches taller and 70-80 pounds heavier. He'd had a couple people threaten him with going to management for official notice when he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew he wasn't actually threatening.

But it did give be the perspective of seeing someone larger than me who was angry, which was something I hadn't encountered as an adult. I could then see where others were coming from as well.

<comment><USER7> > At one job, I regularly interacted with a man who was larger than me and > often angry. He was a few inches taller and 70-80 pounds heavier. He'd had a > couple people threaten him with going to management for official notice when > he got angry. I ended up dealing with him because I sort of understood how > he felt about all that, so I'd just let his anger wash off my back. I knew > he wasn't actually threatening.

No, he actually is treatening if he is angry enough at work to cause people fear, alarm, distress.

It's absolutely not acceptable to be that angry at work. It's understandable if it happens once or twice, but here you've mentioned a person who has had several colleagues talking about escalating complaints about his behaviour.

That employee should have been supported to change their aggressive behaviour (because it causes harm to them, and it causes harm to other employees, and it causes harm to the company) with a fairly stern reminder to stop fucking about.

<comment><USER5> If a physical trait causes people around someone to feel fear, alarm and distress, then that person actually is threatening and it's not acceptable.

As noted above, other physical traits (e.g. blackness) also cause those reactions. Your claim - namely that people's subjective perception, rather than objective behavior, are what determines the bounds of acceptability - seems to prove too much.

<comment><USER7> It's not the physical traits of height or maleness or colour, but the anger displayed.

Perhaps I should have phrased it as "Don't have a work environment that regularly causes your employees to display anger"; and "Support your employees with workplace stress".

But still, anyone who is regularly angry at work needs to realise that their behaviour is not acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You planning to open up such a thing for the handicapped as well?

I mean, until the ACA came along, I pretty much took a risk-aversion pattern career path so I wouldn't get thrown into the "prexisting condition" abyss, and I'm probably not alone here. Personally speaking, a lot of handicapped folk I've met through the years are quite clever, innovative, and determined, because starting life at the plate with a 3-2 count is a lot different than being on 3rd base, if you catch my metaphorical drift. Just curious.

<comment><USER9> > You planning to open up such a thing for the handicapped as well?

This is part of the problem with things like this - while good intentioned, it inevitably alienates another equally oppressed group.

Why can't we just have "Office Hours" and make it absolutely clear it's for anyone -- and actually follow through with the intent.

It just seems silly to says "these here are for only this one small group - and that's how we're going to help combat bigotry".

<comment><USER4> They aren't "combating bigotry". They've observed the obvious demographic gaps, and they're doing targeted outreach to try to close that gap.

Combating bigotry is a worthy cause, but it is not the only worthy cause, and evaluating unrelated outreach programs by their impact on bigotry is a sort of rhetorical sleight of hand.

I think this is worth pointing out: there is probably no criticism anyone is going to have of this program that the YC partners have not already considered. It's 2015, and they're not dumb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not trying to be a troll, I'm just trying to find a justification. Having something that says you can only can come in if you are "Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans, and International founders" kinda racist as fuck? It sounds exactly like segregation to me.

Again, not trying to be a troll. Not American, just trying to understand.

<comment><USER11> Because, at least in America, all of the time is 'white male time', and people of color and women often feel intimidated in spaces that are dominated in this way, so efforts are made to encourage a focus on marginalized people.

<comment><USER12> >all of the time is "white male time"

Like black churches and communities, professional women's societies, women's shelters, scholarships for women, women's clubs at schools, and so on? In elementary schools, where >90% of teachers are female? Among psychology majors, with 60-70% women? Do you really suggest that it is always "white male time" everywhere?

Go ask a white kid growing up in a mostly black, poor neighborhood whether he feels like it's "his time."

Initiatives like this should be based on socioeconomics, not race.

<comment><USER4> Have you spent any time in or near a predominantly black church? There's one on my corner. There's white people there all the time.

And did you really just suggest that "women's shelters" somehow advantage women over men?

Suggested Google search: [lucky ducky comic]. You might also enjoy the editorial cartoon stylings of Stan Kelly.

<comment><USER12> You're putting words in my mouth. But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men.

But that is beside the point here. My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated.

Strike that example off the list, then. It doesn't change the original comment's point.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure how I can simultaneously be "putting words in your mouth" and pointing out things that you actually do believe.

Your examples were bad. I'm going to go ahead and assert that the "black church" example shoots past "bad" and reaches "offensive"; predominantly black churches do not exclude people of other ethnicities.

<comment><USER12> Where was the implication that they aren't welcoming? The point was that a black church is not "all white male all the time". It feels like you're looking for something to be offended about.

>Your examples were bad.

I'm glad we had this productive discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans, and International founders._

I think it's great that YC is concerned about helping non-elite people. What about just focusing on helping poor people compete in Silicon Valley in general? Does anyone think wealthy founders of any kind need more help than poor founders of any kind?

<comment><USER14> You would think all the efforts towards social outreach would focus on poverty as their #1 criteria - the most direct and obvious criteria of people in need - but they almost never do. The problem is these programs are created by upper-class people in their media-social bubble, cobbled together from the arbitrary championings within that bubble. Unfortunately poverty doesn't have a strong, dedicated representative in these upper class circles, because only a tiny number of people born poor ever make it into the media or valley cocktail parties. Black, Hispanic, Women, Veterans - all have members both in needy classes and in upper classes to champion their own cause. But using this represented-in-the-bubble approach results in an arbitrary mix of random criteria that only half serves the purpose. There are certainly many Black/Hispanic/Women/Veterans in need and deserving of help, but there's also plenty who are trust fund babies who don't need it. Meanwhile, there are a lot of obvious groups left out of this list - Native Americans, poor Appalachian whites, etc. It seems ridiculous to explicitly help Blacks and Hispanics, but not Native Americans. We could go on and list a dozen more needy groups left out, but why bother when the correct criteria should just be _poverty_.

<comment><USER15> _You would think all the efforts towards social outreach would focus on poverty as their #1 criteria_

This is a really, really, really terrible criteria to use. It is one with a proven track record of actively encouraging people to be failures in order to qualify for assistance and it becomes a trap they don't know how to escape. It is much, much, much more effective to define need or merit on some basis other than _poverty_. It is much better for society to say children, handicapped individuals, new parents, people recently fired...etc... deserve or need assistance and not "poor people."

<comment><USER14> I see your point about moral hazards, but in this case, I don't think anyone would avoid working in order to become poor in order to get free advice about how to work.

<comment><USER15> There are psychological costs to having people self-identify as being poor enough to qualify for a program that are not there for self-identifying as female or black or hispanic. You are asking people to say to themselves and the world "I am enough of a failure to qualify for help." It is not a basis for future success. It is the opposite. And it comes with all kinds of problems.

I wish YC approached the shortage of women and other minorities in tech/startups differently. But I don't wish they took the approach you are suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The explicit nature of identifying these groups by race is off-putting, mostly because it is short-sighted. Racial identification can't be the solution if the ultimate goal is to end racial disparity. This obviously isn't the first or last program YC implements, but as some point the message has got to become more sophisticated to accomplish the core goal.

YC is a numbers game. This simply encourages stereotypically atypical founders to succeed, skewing the numbers in their benefit for future investors. It also creates role models for potential founders, showing that this is not an industry dominated by just white guys.

From the perspective a middle class white male, I do worry you might be making the problem worse by reinforcing and/or encouraging elitism on both sides.

<comment><USER16> Exactly this. By announcing separate open hours for groups B and C, don't they deliberately make their normal hours even more A?

<comment><USER4> I do not follow this logic. There are minority and women YC founders who already get the (A) hours.

<comment><USER9> What the parent is getting at, I think, is that by having explicitly set-aside hours for groups 'B' and 'C', it will create a stigma that groups 'B' and 'C' must attend only those designated hours -- effectively making the "normal" office hours for the "elite' group 'A'.

It seems to me, no matter what way you look at it, separated office hours will perpetuate segregation and bigotry, instead of the desired effect.

<comment><USER4> The normal office hours _ARE_ elite. They're available only to people who have been accepted into YC. The goal of the program is to make more of those (A) group people members of underrepresented demographics.

<comment><USER16> YC is a private business of course, but since they started this initiative, wouldn't it be even more efficient to make YC staff itself more diverse? Rather than doing segregated open hours.

<comment><USER4> Is a recruiting event at CMU "segregated"? If not, how is this worse?

<comment><USER16> I have no idea what CMU is, sorry.

<comment><USER4> Carnegie Mellon University.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This probably won't be very popular: but isn't the notion of special treatment from YC partners on the basis of race inherently racist? I think anyone who is black or Hispanic would much rather associate with YC on the basis of their own individual merit only now everyone who has anything to do with YC will have to wonder if they are there because YC felt the need to help out the poor, underprivileged, black dude or because they actually know what they're doing.

I feel quite mixed about this. I can see that it's well-intentioned in nature but at the same time it also seem incredibly condescending. And what kind of message is this really sending: "minorities can succeed but they also need special treatment to do so?" I don't know about this ... I won't deny that in many ways these people struggle with issues that white people don't, but maybe this isn't the best way to go about levelling the playing field. After-all, I feel that black people and Hispanics are perfectly capable of making it through the front door of YC the normal way.

I wonder if this is really necessary?

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure it serves HN very well to have exactly the same _entirely generic_ debate come up every time there's a thread about anything like this.

Rehashing the same political divide over and over merely produces the identical hash over and over. That doesn't count as interesting in HN's sense—nothing predictable does. Meanwhile, interesting discussion about the specifics of the story at hand largely gets drowned out.

I'm not sure what if anything we can do about this, but it's seems lame and not in the spirit of gratifying intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER19> If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that it's a topic that requires more discussion. Waving it away is, then, just going to make it come up again the next time.

For what it's worth, I do agree with Uptrenda. I do also want to explicitly highlight that this certainly _is_ racism - and that whether it is _justifiable_ racism is a separate discussion entirely.

<comment><USER18> > _If it comes up so often, then that is usually a pretty good indication that > it 's a topic that requires more discussion_

That might be true on a general discussion site, but it's a non sequitur on HN, which values substantiveness.

<comment><USER20> Which makes this circular comment a little ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Really happy to be launching this - if anyone has any questions I'm happy to hang for the next 10-20 minutes to answer them

<comment><USER22> Hey Micael, exciting to see YC continuing to battle the inequality that exists in the startup world.

I'm curious -- why did you chose to craft the program along racial lines, as opposed to along socioeconomic lines, which seems to be the recent trend in higher ed affirmative action?

<comment><USER23> Because racism still exists:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the- blac...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family- in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/?single_page=true) "For her research, Pager pulled together four testers to pose as men looking for low-wage work. One white man and one black man would pose as job seekers without a criminal record, and another black man and white man would pose as job seekers with a criminal record. The negative credential of prison impaired the employment efforts of both the black man and the white man, but it impaired those of the black man more. Startlingly, the effect was not limited to the black man with a criminal record. The black man without a criminal record fared worse than the white man with one."

<comment><USER12> That's a poor study to cite. If you took two people of any one race and sent them looking for jobs, probably as often as not one would fare much better than the other just because of individual variability. You get hired based on your interview(s), not your resume.

<comment><USER24> Generally people who research employment discrimination send out identical resumes except for a test factor and then use the number of interview invitations as a proxy for reaction to the test factor.

<comment><USER12> Then cite that rather than an unscientific, non-rigorous "study" (read: anecdote).

<comment><USER24> Let's take a look at the actual citation:

 _Taken from a forthcoming paper by Sampson and Kristin L. Perkins, "Compounded Deprivation in the Transition to Adulthood: The Intersection of Racial and Economic Inequality among Chicagoans, 1995-2013," in the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences._

Professor Sampson has an endowed chair at Harvard and was previously the chair of his department there. While I have not yet gone looking for preprint versions, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that he might have a firm grasp on the difference between statistical and anecdotal information. I see no reason for the author of the Atlantic article to recapitulate the methodology of every single academic reference in a long discussion of social policy.

<comment><USER12> And Watson, from Watson and Crick, who discovered the underlying commonality of all humanity, DNA, and won a Nobel prize for that work, was extremely racist[0].

That's the problem with arguing based on name recognition. Cite rigorous, peer-reviewed, established work. Let the veracity of the work speak for itself.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna- jam...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson- scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal)

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure if this is your implication, but neither Watson nor Crick is an expert on race (race being not a biological phenomenon but a very social one).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hand-holding minorities label them even more as a group that needs to be helped. They should be encouraged to be successful in the "same" environment as others and treated the same. The moment you do something "for" them is the moment you label them as that group that needs hand-holding even more. I don't think they need special treatment this way. It is done by good intention, but it does not need saying, you're black, let me help you. I would just do it without naming it.

<comment><USER27> so, affirmative action should not be done, and structural racism should not be combated, just so that we do not offend the pride of the discriminated by labelling, or? this is ridiculous. by this logic we might have to ignore racism completely. e.g. if you say that cops in the US are more prone to killing unarmed black suspects, you're also pointing out that black people need help. i guess we should not do that either :D

<comment><USER28> Have you actually seen the history of Affirmative Action? I'd suggest you read 'Affirmative Action around the world' by Thomas Sowell. There's a plethora of sources and facts packed onto every page, very enlightening.

<comment><USER15> I take it the nutshell version is that Affirmative Action is a failure (according to this book at least)? (I mean, that is what your phrasing seems to imply.)

<comment><USER28> I'd suggest you read the book, it's only 200 pages and I can't summarise it in one sentence. It's sad that someone down voted me for suggesting a book which has voluminous _facts_ and history. Human progress is building on what we have learnt before, if we can't learn from history I don't know how we will make progress.

<comment><USER15> I did not downvote you. I asked a question. There are only so many hours in the day. So, unfortunately, I cannot read every single thing I wish I could read. It would be nice if you actually answered my question instead of recommending "read this book" for the third time. I heard you the first two times.

Peace.

Edit: and have an upvote as a token of good faith.

<comment><USER28> I was under the impression you were the parent I initially replied to. I apologise.

So in regards to your question, AA has been disastrous around the world. In India and Bangladesh hundreds of thousands of deaths, people burning each other in the street, terrifying stuff. All because of class wars instigated by benefits to one class over the other. Same results, on a different magnitude, in Malaysia, Nigeria, Iran, Australia and to a smaller extent the U.S. AA has never worked in all of recorded history.

<comment><USER27> this is ridiculous. "in all of recorded history"? hundreds of thousands of deaths? in Australia?! :D but i guess if you read it in a book, it must be true!

there's also a book out there claiming the Nazi regime was all the work of gay people. look it up, you'll probably love it.

<comment><USER28> If you had bothered to read my post..."On a different magnitude".

In India and Bangladesh there is recorded history of hundreds of thousands of deaths. The book sources these facts, if you want to invalidate anything I suggest you go to the original sources, not make a straw man arguement.

I will reiterate, read the book, read the sources -- if you want to invalidate something, invalidate the primary pieces of evidence -- than come back here and we can have a productive conversation.

<comment><USER27> sorry, but you presented it very weakly. i checked wikipedia in the meanwhile, and it does it much better justice.

i certainly don't have the time or will to read a 200 page book for the sake of an HN discussion. this should not be a surprise. you could maybe outline something? i'm particularly interested in how exactly these killings came about. wikipedia quotes some criticism - that the examples were cherry-picked, and not even entirely comparable to affirmative action in the US, the contexts were too different (and, kinda funny, one critic states that he already published this same book in the 90s under a diff name :D). but then, wiki also quotes some very interesting arguments he laid out that i did not see here and that sound good.

all in all, i can agree it's a crude method, but hey, it's better than nothing. lots of people here pointing out problems and only some offering solutions, although strictly laughably unrealistic ones. certainly, no mass killings have happened in the US because of it, and such fear-mongering helps nothing. i personally would bet that, were the US a social democracy, all of this would probably be much less needed. when health and education are provided, opportunities are more available to everyone. but the way it is now, any disadvantaged group is more likely to stay that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How does this program define Hispanic?

Does it include the over 100 million Spanish speakers in the Americas of European descent? What about the 26 million white Americans of Latin American descent?

What about 100 million "Latino" Portuguese speaking Brazilians of other than predominantly European and Asian descent?

French is also a "Latin"/Romance language. Do the predominantly white Québécois count as Latino? What about the Métis, who are both indigenous Americans and speakers of a Romance language.

What about Native Americans who speak English rather than a Romance language? What if the Native Americans learned Spanish in high school?

What about the hundreds of millions of people from China and India and elsewhere in Asia who grew up in materially worse conditions than any ghetto in the United States?

</comment><comment><USER30> I think this is a good move, and glad to see YC doing it. And this is coming from somebody who is neither black nor hispanic.

I mean, I get the whole "isn't this just affirmative action and isn't AA bad?" thing, I really do. But this is a private business, not a government agency, and they are free to try and address issues of equality and what-not in whichever way they see fit. And when you're part of a group that is (or is seen as) disadvantaged, it can only help to have some very specific support thrown your way.

If this does even a small bit of good in terms of creating more successful companies founded by black or hispanic founders, I will benefit us all in the long run.

<comment><USER12> The flaw in this argument is that it makes the implicit assumption that having more startups founded by black or hispanic founders is good just because there are more startups founded by black or hispanic founders.

That there is underrepresentation with respect to a minority is indicative of that minority generally having lower socioeconomic status, and perhaps prejudices against it. To try to combat whatever those prejudices may be, the suggestion here is that "diversity is good" and that just having more minorities will help the problem.

The difference is that it actually won't, because now you have a perception of people being given opportunities they don't deserve, just because they are a minority.

A much, much better way to try to deconstruct the sorts of prejudices or minority disadvantages, which this initiative is ostensibly trying to do, is to make these sorts of initiatives open to anyone disadvantaged (such as the poor), and invest in programs targeted at children in poorer (disproportionately minority) communities.

<comment><USER30> _The difference is that it actually won 't,_

I disagree. I think having more companies (especially successful ones) founded by black and hispanic founders _will_ help everyone broadly, for this reason: It will provide young, potential founders, who might not otherwise have pursued entrepreneurship at all, with positive role models, and will show them actual live examples of how success can be achieved.

My feeling is that this promotes entrepreneurship in general among increasingly larger portions of the overall population... and if you believe that technological progress in general is basically a net positive for humanity (a position which I admit is not without controversy, BTW, although I personally adhere to it) then this is a Good Thing. More smart people working on new ideas, and creating things to solve problems? Yeah, I can accept some private companies engaging in a little "affirmative action" if it supports that.

 _is to make these sorts of initiatives open to anyone disadvantaged (such as the poor), and invest in programs targeted at children in minority communities._

Having grown up "white but dirt poor" I mostly agree with you, in the sense that I think addressing poverty - regardless of race - is also a valuable thing. I'm just not sure one approach is more or less important than the other. I think both are valuable things to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is it weird that I understood this as just trying to reach out to Blacks and Hispanics/encouragement and not hand holding? Call me crazy but as a minority, this thought of not getting in say Tech by minorities for example is taking to the extreme. Has anyone ever considered perhaps, their background just didn't qualify them for a particular role? What about attitude? Mindset? Alot goes into getting what you want. You just have to work hard at it and prove doubters wrong.. :)

</comment><comment><USER32> This is very exciting! Is the program open to those of Brazilian descent?

<comment><USER33> They did mention they planned on later opening rounds specifically for foreign founders. But if you are based in the U.S., I think they'd consider you a hispanic founder and thus eligible for the current round, yes? I'm Brazilian too, btw, so kinda curious about this. Although I have no start-up aspirations just yet :-(

<comment><USER21> Yes!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Veterans? What does this word mean in this context? I would expect it to mean a military veteran (this is what wikipedia thinks), but it sounds very weird here.

PS. I'm neither living in America nor a native speaker so excuse my lack of knowledge

<comment><USER35> Yeah, military veteran is the correct reading.

I guess if you really stretch the idea, they count as minorities.

<comment><USER34> That sounds like a really strange idea to me, can someone explain why does people who used to shoot other people count as a cultural minority, as opposed to say, retired policeman, railway worker or any other group really?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm a fan, let's be clear on what we're talking about 'short sessions to brainstorm, get advice, network and bounce around ideas' etc for those who are underrepresented. Knowledge transfer and capacity building like this is one of the best ways to help along minority groups in a manner that is deemed fair by most and, importantly, upholds the dignity of the individuals who get help.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is this open to Indigenous (i.e. Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, etc) founders?

<comment><USER38> I am always happy to see the Métis represented on an American site. Thanks my friend, most people don't know much about us. Seriously though, I am not sure that returning to a philosophy of segregation is the best path.

Perhaps focusing speakers that cover challenged and topics of interest is better then reducing intercultural exposure?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Well done, YC. I believe we need more of these types of actions to act as a shot in the arm for diversity in the industry (and other industries, too).

</comment><comment><USER40> This is the definition of racial discrimination.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think it's useful to mention that this privilege is not just a white thing. It's a "people who were born in a first world country" thing. By default, that huge group of people gets privileges that others can only dream of obtaining. You don't have to spend years of your life just trying to get out of a horrible country where you were born. And most of the time, people don't seem to realize and acknowledge this.

Hell, I've met Americans giving me blank stares when I would talk about how difficult it is for me to get even a tourist visa to go to the US.

First world privilege should end. Black, white, asian, latino - doesn't matter. If you were born in a modern and developed country, you are already a part of a privileged group. Acknowledge this, gain some humility and try to better yourself and others around you.

I urge people to organize YC Open Office Hours for non-first-world people, immigrants and the like.

</comment><comment><USER42> Google "Starting a business". You'll notice the first page results don't lead you to YC, Techstars, Hackernews, or anything (loosely) startup related.

You have to know what to search to land on HN or some other popular startup site. My point (and argument) is that most minorities don't know about YCombinator, HackerNews, etc; partially because most live in a non-startup, tech-oriented community. And searching for reasonable keywords like "start a business" isn't a direct invite to the world of startups.

This is why outreach is important. We need to key certain demographics into the startup world via outbound.

Put it this way, there are 50 states in America and the areas with the least amount of blacks/hispanics are where words like "startup" is king (and vice versa). Until then, outreach is vital until certain demographics pick it up at scale.

two cents. More theory than facts.

</comment><comment><USER43> First, I want to state that I'm glad YC is making such a step to help struggling founders. While I don't run a startup, I'm super divided on this post, and here's why:

A) It seems both condescending and racist at the same time (i.e. you're a minority in SV? surely you're doing terrible - let us help. You're white in SV? you must be doing great, move along we're not looking to help you) -- As others have stated, it's also partly because of the specified groups.

B) If the ground really is that uneven maybe the problem is not the founders, but the system (again, how to change that is a super complicated discussion)

I feel like a more tactful way to put out such a call for people who would like help might be something like:

"YC is putting on a special series of office hours for struggling startups. In past series we've found that certain groups of people were underrepresented, and we'd like for that not to be the case, so we are going to prioritize the following groups: <group listing here>. This doesn't mean anyone who is not in those groups is unwelcome."

As others have noted, getting away from the group listing would be even better. Maybe just making a call for anyone who feels like they have been "marginalized" in the SV startup community, or aren't receiving enough help might suffice (without making a laundry list of underrepresented people).

I have many opinions on the whole "diversity" debate, but I think my most defensible opinion is for organizations to aim for population-parity demographic distributions, and work to upset any limiting functions that might be skewing your sector away from the wider population's distributions (again, how to do this is highly debated, and I have a ton of my own opinions on the subject, but I digress).

I've also intentionally left out my own race/cultural group/whatever in this comment, but make sure to check your own biases at the door - I could be caucasian, latino, african american, asian, lgbt, trans, whatever .

<comment><USER21> I think you can't look at open office hours in a vacuum. YC does tons of outreach - for example: college tour, startup school, Stanford startup class, speaking at conferences around the world, blog posts with advice to founders, etc. Most importantly, YC has an open application process and you don't have to have any sort of connection to get in. Open Office Hours is just another tool we can use to do outreach to startups and when considered in combination with our other efforts I think it's only fair to conclude that we are trying to make YC assessable to all (regardless of background).

<comment><USER43> Again, I think the outreact YC is doing is amazing, and I applaud them for doing it. I'd rather have this kind of conversation (about the wording of something like this) rather than not have the outreach effort exist at all.

Honestly the point of my comment was to do with tact and wording. It's super clear that YC is trying it's best to be accessible to all, and to do the right thing by groups that may feel marginalized (whoever they may be) -- however with the current hubbub (that has no end in sight) around these issues, a great deal of tact should be applied.

More than 0 people feel that the whole "diversity" spiel is antagonistic, as well as more than 0 people feeling that it's completely justied/the opposite. It's a touchy subject, and I feel that wasn't respected by this post. Yes, you want to help a specific group of society that you see struggling, but it's also divisive to make it seem like a group is inherently more valuable for no reason other than the color of their skin, or life choices, or whatever.

<comment><USER27> > but it's also divisive to make it seem like a group is inherently more > valuable for no reason other than the color of their skin, or life choices, > or whatever.

it is also the truth, and it is a problem. labelling is like a joke compared to all the things that discriminated groups experience.

edit - apologies, i thought you said 'vulnerable'. valuable? where did you get that from?

<comment><USER43> Well a lot of the current diversity zeitgeist is (mis)represented in terms that are too simplistic.

 _diversity is good /desirable -> minorities are more valuable than white people at your company (since you clearly already have enough white people)_ seems to be the point of a lot of blog posts/conversation. This kind of thinking is most clearly visible in when companies state that they try to hire X underrepresented people to some position, as if you just need to get a certain number (and/or when corporations lower meaningful meritocratic barriers to hire people that otherwise wouldn't have been in the ballpark).

"meaningful meritocratic barrier" to me means "show me you can do fizzbuzz", rather than "tell me which ivy you came from"

There is obviously a case to be made for diversity (independent of morality), but most modern literature doesn't seem to address that at any meaningful level of complexity. I discovered this when talking to a colleague who was annoyed with what seemed to be a devaluing of potential hires just because they weren't "diverse" enough.

<comment><USER27> > diversity is good/desirable -> minorities are more valuable than white > people at your company (since you clearly already have enough white people) > seems to be the point of a lot of blog posts/conversation.

when blog posts that make such absolutely ridiculous claims get commented on here, then we can discuss that and heartily agree, ok? :D but in this discussion here, you are the one who said that this action implies minority founders are more valuable. this is simply not true.

i do agree that affirmative action is a bit crude, but it's done for a greater social good, by people who recognize the problem, sympathise, and want to help. the field is, after all, uneven. an asymmetric situation that needs asymmetric action to correct it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So this is basically open to anyone (not just YC program people)? My wife here in Europe would love a helping hand with her new business.

<comment><USER21> This is open to all people trying to start tech startups

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I gotta stop supporting this racist site. I will not pretend being actively discriminated against is ok.

</comment><comment><USER46> This wouldn't be necessary if you at ycombinator treated all people equally to begin with. Instead of doing that, you introduce discriminating "open office hours" in which some people are not allowed, based on their race.

That's some grade A idiocy.

<comment><USER2> You've completely missed the point and it also seems your view of the world is very different than it actually is. How do you propose YC approach an issue like this, in a country filled with racism and discrimination? Is your idea really just "treat all people equally" and the world will follow suit? How does that work?

<comment><USER46> >How do you propose YC approach an issue like this

By not being discriminating? You don't fight discrimination with more discrimination and the very idea is so mindboggingly stupid that it hurts. It's sad to see that the social justice warrior bullshit has arrived at HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If anyone here wants to know about the long history of Affirmative Action you should definitely read "Affirmative Action Around the World" by Thomas Sowell.

Can't sing enough praise about it. Sourced incredibly And clear logical points.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm an idiot. I feel idiots are underrepresented in the tech community. Will I get special office hours too?

</comment><comment><USER48> I'll be very curious to see numbers on outcomes attributable to this effort.

</comment><comment><USER49> Ironic as it may be, posting this story on HN was a mistake for YC.

</comment><comment><USER50> Race based office hours are unethical.

</comment><comment><USER51> Pro-discrimination quote taken directly from Paul Graham's own letter featured on their Open Office Hours page. [http://www.ycopenofficehours.com/](http://www.ycopenofficehours.com/)

"Notes [...] [2] One advantage startups have over established companies is that there are no discrimination laws about starting businesses. For example, I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon. But you're not allowed to ask prospective employees if they plan to have kids soon. Believe it or not, under current US law, you're not even allowed to discriminate on the basis of intelligence. Whereas when you're starting a company, you can discriminate on any basis you want about who you start it with."

I guess they are looking for the talented blacks, Meso-Americans and females who weren't happy with being handed the jobs they were under-qualified for, and wanted to risk throwing away being at the top of their in-group mating market for self-actualization or helping the world or something?

The whole Faustian world-saving, or hyper-competitive, tech hobbyist, leadership inclinations aren't really found in the populations they seek to reach out to. They don't want to invent anything new of valuable, they merely seek to re-distribute funding and opportunities in tech to themselves.

The same inclinations to start tech companies are more similar to ones in people who play strategic games, or who contribute to open source software, or who engage in hacking for fun or bragging rights. I think they would have far more success reaching out to those groups. It's not really imaginable that the kinds of blacks and Hispanics they are seeking to fund were the kinds of kids who would lend their friends books on programming growing up that had nothing to do with school or a career. If they believe that starting a world-class company is simply a good business decision for anyone with the talent, then, they should do more recruitment of people who actually have the skills for that.

They fail to realize that marginalized minorities are not raised to "be leaders", and "take risks". In a state where the "oppressed" talented can coast on their racial credentials, why bother taking the risk?</comment>


The most useless Tweet to date discovered - <AUTHOR> http://beerpla.net/2009/12/02/the-most-useless-tweet-to-date-discovered/

<comment><USER2> I was not aware such things could be ranked.</comment>


Addressing the Dark Side of the Crypto World - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.imf.org/2018/03/13/addressing-the-dark-side-of-the-crypto-world/ <comment><USER2> "Buggy whip consortium worried about internal combustion engine"</comment>


West Virginia to introduce mobile phone voting for midterm elections - <AUTHOR> https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/06/technology/mobile-voting-west-virginia-voatz/index.html <comment><USER2> This thread analyzes the company providing the technology:

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1026603800365330432.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1026603800365330432.html)

It's not pretty.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the right on-boarding process for our new analytics product? - <AUTHOR>

Hi!<p>We're building a new analytics tool (Kilometer IO) and we need your help so we can build the perfect product. We will be grateful to hear your opinion about our on boarding process we have and look forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions! Help us choose the on-boarding process: See our mockups here http://kilometer.io/community/forum/thread/help-us-choose-the-on-boarding-process/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the link for our mockups [http://kilometer.io/community/forum/thread/help-us-choose- th...](http://kilometer.io/community/forum/thread/help-us-choose-the-on- boarding-process/)</comment>