The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just Be Programmed to Hit You - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-robot-car-of-tomorrow-might-just-be-programmed-to-hit-you/ <comment><USER2> I have personally written algorithms to select paths for 800kg autonomous vehicles operating around humans and livestock, and that minimise some cost function. My cost functions always treated crashes as (effectively) infinite cost. In the limit case where all possible paths had such an infinite cost, the failure mode was to revoke any electrical system that could increase the kinetic energy of the vehicle, apply maximum braking power (and/or any other subsystem that would serve reduce the kinetic energy of the vehicle), disconnect any chemical stores of energy from any activation system (i.e. stall the engine), and then finally - and as a direct consequence of these actions - maintain heading/steering angle.

Since we elected to revoke all power systems, we lose the ability to steer. We're attempting to reduce the kinetic energy of the system to zero as rapidly as possible (since we've computed that there are no viable controlled manoeuvres available), and we concluded that the best (and in fact only) option was to maintain trajectory whilst trying to slow down.

As a result, I don't think this argument has merit. There is no concept of "who should we crash into" because both are unacceptable, and we'd let physics take over instead.

<comment><USER3> Opting to hold direction is a technical limitation of your system; it's not obvious that disconnecting all power systems is inherently the safest choice - especially as other vehicles react to the situation. Or at the very least, there is a long ethical decision tree of probabilities that must be evaluated before a crash is 100% certain. Do you pick a 48% chance of hitting the Volvo or a 26% chance of hitting the motorcycle?

I predict that the ultimate solution will be to pick the path that optimizes for survival of the occupants of the automated vehicle. After all, they paid for it.

<comment><USER2> In a manner of speaking what you say is true, because we've classed all forms of crash as being equally bad (infinitely so). And our vehicles were empty of humans, so we deemed their destruction as insignificant compared to harming anything else. I do still think the approach of treating it as an energy minimisation problem was appropriate for our situation, but the differences in the scenarios certainly alter the approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this problem is nonexistent to an autonomous car. A situation where the car has a choice to hit something would never happen. The only times humans have that choice is if we don't look far ahead enough or our field of view is impaired.

Sure, autonomous cars may eventually hit something. But if they do it will be totally out of their control, by design. We can make them see further, stay focused, and be cautious. Humans can't always do that, and that's why we have to constantly choose our lesser evils.

<comment><USER5> It is a real problem. It should be fairly obvious that it is. More realistically, It won't be a real time decision of hit this or that, it will be that it is programmed to do behavior X instead of Y. X is known to be 30% more likely to hit a pedestrian, but 10% less likely overall to be in any accident. Then you dramatize it by saying the car decided to hit a pedestrian instead of a car. Just substitute the behavior described in the story or some variation.

<comment><USER6> I think it will probably be much more complicated than that. Suppose the car is controlled by an artificial neural network that has been trained with a combination of real world experience and human-generated driving data. There is no giant switch statement that someone wrote for the outcome. Who is to blame then? Would using that data to train the model further be sufficient accountability?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The kind of scenario Wired propose between hitting two cars based on which would absorb the impact the better or cause the least harm aren't the kind of decisions humans make during a crash. I've been in a couple of car accidents caused by other people luckily and not once during any of those crashes did I weigh up my options between which car or which direction to swerve. Maybe we will expect more from an autonomous for its ability to make these kind of decisions, but I think it's an argument with a few holes.

A lot of cars are currently at a point where they come standard with sensors that can allow a car to automatically parallel park itself between two other cars on a busy street. Smart cruise control which will know when to brake if the distance between your car and the car in-front gets smaller, cameras that follow the lines on a road. It's all there, car technology is already insanely smart.

The questions people aren't asking here about autonomous cars is not what if it has to choose between two targets to hit, but rather what happens when a bug in the software controlling the vehicle rears its head and the car gets confused and reacts to something that isn't really happening? A faulty sensor thinks you're about to hit something when you're driving on a straight road and swerves into a tree trying to avoid an accident that wasn't even about to take place, now that's a scary thought.

That would be my biggest worry. I am aware modern jetliner planes are essentially fly by wire except during takeoff and landing, but if the computer fails, another takes its place and on the rare occasion redundancy fails, the pilot and crew are there to manually guide the plane.

The arguments presented here aren't even realistic. Why should autonomous computers be expected to make such decisions based on environmental factors like if a car can handle the impact or not? For accidents where the outcome will be the same (choosing between two vehicles for example) does it matter what the thinking behind the decision is? There is going to be an accident and no matter how in-depth the analysis is, depending on the speed and location, someone is bound to get hurt to an extent or killed.

I have a much better idea and it's far cheaper and more realistic: if an accident is about to take place, the car slams on the brakes and the car slides to a stop. Technology like that already exists in some cars. Swerving in a car accident is most of the time the wrong choice as well, you're most likely to cause more harm to someone swerving in an unpredictable direction then you are straight on, unless of course you can see someone ahead, something on the road or about to have a head-on collision with another car.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

The article asks the question of which way should the car swerve, when physics indicates that attempting to alter course takes available tire frictional force away from the braking maneuver.

Most modern roads are designed so that even if an oncoming car is suicidal, you can make some kind of defensive maneuver to prevent an accident. Not that it's impossible to have a no-win scenario, but the article makes it sound like autonomous vehicles will be getting in these kinds of accidents all the time.

The National Safety Council estimates the two leading causes of motor vehicle accidents in the US are:

      ~40% alcohol-related [1]
       23% distracted driving [2]

There were 34,080 fatalities from motor vehicle accidents in 2012 [3]. If someone heading home from the bar could just get in the back seat and let the car take them home, late at night, wouldn't that be worth something?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol- related_traffic_crashes...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol- related_traffic_crashes_in_the_United_States)

[2] [http://www.nsc.org/safety_home/MotorVehicleSafety/Pages/Moto...](http://www.nsc.org/safety_home/MotorVehicleSafety/Pages/MotorVehicleSafety.aspx#distracted%20driving)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

<comment><USER3> Perhaps a minor point, but nevertheless: [1] explicitly points out that the 40% number is misleading and that alcohol- _involved_ accidents should not be construed as alcohol- _caused_ accidents.

<comment><USER8> True. It's always going to be difficult to identify all the causes of an accident with the conflicts of interest. Just getting the 40% number was very difficult – number of fatalities with non-zero blood alcohol is easy to find but number of accidents with alcohol present gets political way too fast (which I find informative as the US starts to debate autonomous vehicles).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _In the name of crash-optimization, you should program the car to crash into > whatever can best survive the collision. In the last scenario, that meant > smashing into the Volvo SUV. Here, it means striking the motorcyclist who's > wearing a helmet. A good algorithm would account for the much-higher > statistical odds that the biker without a helmet would die, and surely > killing someone is one of the worst things auto manufacturers desperately > want to avoid._

This could encourage bikers to refrain from donning protective gear.

This reminds me of "Fight Club", where the central (anonymous) character describes his job in crash investigations. He has to decide whether recalling all instances of a make of car is less expensive than getting sued by the drivers in court.

</comment><comment><USER10> What if an autonomous vehicle see a pedestrian walking towards the road in front of the car (X meters in front but on a collision course with the car)?

It calculates that if the human continues this path, they will collide. Should the car slow down so that no matter what the car can stop if the human decides to run out in front of the car or assume that the human will stop?

What if you change human to deer?

Autonomous vehicles should never be in the situation of hitting something. They should always calculate ahead of time what could possibly move into their path. If there is an obstacle then the car should slow down sufficiently to prevent an accident no matter what happens.

I realize that there are near unlimited use-cases that will have to be accounted for. How would it handle a squirrel that is just sitting in the road? Stop and honk? Would it ever go around the obstacle by moving into an oncoming lane if it's deemed safe?

Should they program in the ability to recognize the difference between a piece of carpet that has fallen onto the road and a board with nails or should it stop in the middle of the street for both?

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of the Trolley Problem [1].

It could be argued it is the difference between utilitarianism and value ethics. Or around a recent dinner table, the star trek metaphor was "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the view" versus the "Prime Directive". The former would actively choose whatever crash would do the least damage by some utility function, while the latter would see that a crash would happen either way and thereby _turn off_ any guidance technology since it could then be argued to not be responsible for an active choice in either direction.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem)

<comment><USER2> The second option (turning off all guidance) is effectively what I did (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7708105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7708105)). Upon recognising that we had no controlled trajectories that were viable, we just tried to reduce kinetic energy as fast as possible without making any trajectory changes at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In an unexpected complex situation for which there is very little training data and the behavioral dynamics are not merely about physics, namely impending accident with other cars controlled by other entities that can also respond to this car, any kind of simplistic reasoning like "hit the SUV because it can survive better" has no scientific basis. It's not clear what is being optimized for. For example, how do you know that SUVs are not more likely to have babies who are more fragile, so hitting the SUV is not necessarily better in terms of reducing fatalities. Also, the other cars are responding to this car. This is not about shooting stationary targets.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another edge case I've wondered about is whether there will be driving circumstances during inclement weather in which a sensibly-programmed autonomous car will simply pull over and refuse to operate, even as human drivers happily drive forth. Autonomous cars will be capable of producing reasonably objective measurements of driving condition safety... I wouldn't be surprised winter storms are more routinely capable of inducing conditions that are worse than we humans really realize. Or, alternatively, that _we_ realize are dangerous but choose to drive in anyhow, but no autonomous care programmer would ever choose to accept.

</comment><comment><USER14> This headline got me thinking, what if such a car gets infected with malware?

Let's see. I don't know much about self-driving cars, but I imagine they use plenty of cameras and image processing software. That might make it pretty suitable to run some facial recognition software. Now multiply that with the botnets we already have today. The result might be assassination by malware: Upload a set of facial features, distribute by botnet to all infected cars, wait until target gets in range, accelerate.

Optionally report success and uninstall malware in the milliseconds between inevitable outcome and actual impact to destroy evidence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or what if people take advantage of knowing what it will do...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why program the car to choose to crash in to things? This makes no sense. What if the sensors are wrong and there was no second car?

It seems more prudent to just program it to avoid crashing in to things, even if that is an impossible goal in some circumstances. In those cases, a better fallback would be to reduce velocity, and keep the car on the road or road shoulder perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER16> "As a matter of physics, you should choose a collision with a heavier vehicle that can better absorb the impact of a crash, which means programming the car to crash into the Volvo."

Better for the car that is being hit, but not the car that we have control of. I'd like my robotic car to hit the car with more crumple or smaller relative momentum.

<comment><USER17> You raise an interesting point: does the software controlling an automated car optimize for the owner of that car (as capitalism would suggest) or does it optimize for universal utility (as this article and many write-ups assume).

I'd guess we wouldn't see as significant of gains if the cars optimize for their individual driver; however, it won't be long before some plucky manufacturer sees an untapped market and builds a selfish car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The other day I was thinking how easy it would be to DoS a robotic car. You could just walk in front of it and then out the way again, over and over. How would they deal with malicious pedestrians?

<comment><USER19> Of course you could already do this to a human car. In which case you'd call a human cop.

And thus the answer becomes obvious. Robocar is DoS'd? Call Robocop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The basic thought experiment is this: "If the robot car that hit me on my bike did so with provably the best intentions, should I still be angry?"

At least with a person driving, I can criticize their thought patterns, their reactions, their choices--I can laud them for dodging the stroller, or curse them for drinking and swerving into me (provided I can still talk).

With a machine, though, we lose any chance at morality. They act exactly as programmed, and we all know how reliable programs are.

If, following such an accident, I were to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, I would want the entire stack trace that led up to my collision. I would want the unabridged source code and issue trackers. I would want the core dump. I would want every scrap of information that went into the vehicle's decision to zig instead of zagging.

I'm not sure that we want to hand over so much blanket responsibility to black-boxes designed by committee and implemented by antisocial 20-something engineers working weird hours.

EDIT:

Reflecting on this a little has suggested, perhaps, that we should have one standard algorithm and package for doing this sort of thing, open-source and in the public domain.

There shouldn't even be a question about allowing closed-source autonomous vehicles on the road.

<comment><USER21> >implemented by antisocial 20-something engineers working weird hours.

I feel like this is a myth we should actively work to squash. The vast majority of engineers and coders are 30/40-somethings with normal social lives, families, and working 9-5 weekdays.

<comment><USER22> And even if they were, surely this is only a bad thing in that it might indicate that some potentially good engineers had been excluded from the workforce.

Is reverse-bigotry really so far gone that some people genuinely think that being an "antisocial 20-something" makes a person a worse engineer?

<comment><USER23> One of the key factors in becoming a good engineer is experience. a 20-something, antisocial or otherwise, basically by definition is lacking in this experience. Sure they may be really really smart and write incredibly clever code, but it takes more than that to be a good engineer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Ask me anything. I don't provide feedback." - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/ask-me-anything-i-dont-provide-feedback-a165a05fbe42#.z1syrmo8y <comment><USER2> While there is certainly something to be said here a lot of this seems to boil down to personality.

In fact if anyone gave me an assignment I'd prefer if they continued their own work as soon as I signalled I had understood it.

Also, if the majority of the current workforce is men I guess a cynical test is: can this woman thrive in our current environment?

<comment><AUTHOR> And if they can't does that mean they shouldn't be there? I think it means we need to change the current workforce to make it open to people of all kinds.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was disappointed to see how this lady's interview process went. How will we increase diversity in tech if this is how interviews are run. Also, I have never heard of a group interview before. Very odd.</comment>


Apple tablet can't save print on its own - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60Q0BY20100127 <comment><USER2> >Bob Sauerberg, group president of consumer marketing for Conde Nast, expects digital versions of its titles on the tablet may one day command higher ad rates than those of their print versions, because readers are highly engaged with mobile devices like the tablet and can make impulse buys.

I don't understand why major media companies—News Corp., NY Times, Knight- Ridder, Condé Nast—haven't already cartelized their advertising. They seem to depend on a market rate for internet advertising, which obviously isn't paying enough for them to sustain their operations. Why haven't they banded together to create the equivalent of The Deck? <http://decknetwork.net/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I read the title with an implicit comma between save & print, so I thought this would be a purported leak about Apple's tablet not having exposed filesystem or printing APIs.</comment>


Apple's responsibility as a superpower - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2638-apples-responsibility-as-a-superpower <comment><USER2> I don't like this post for several reasons.

1\. The author worries about Apple crowning a successor. What they're advocating is HTML5, which is essentially an open standard, where Flash is of course proprietary.

2\. The premise of the article is that Apple has the power to kill anything they set their mind to. It uses the lazy argument of the slippery slope or thin end of the wedge ("What's next?"). It's simply fearmongering;

3\. It mistakes cause and effect. A classic example of this was Intel's original Centrino platform, which became the basis of Intel's success (after the Pentium 4 debacle) for years. At the time it launched Intel spent $150m+ on marketing it. Sadly, many observers attributed its success to that marketing campaign when in fact the lesson is:

 _Good products sell themselves._

Centrino succeeded because it was a good product.

Flash came about at a time to solve a problem of creating "rich" Internet applications ("RIAs") when it wasn't possible any other way. That's no longer the case with a plethroa of Javascript frameworks and browsers with fast Javascript engines in them.

The use case for Flash was going away anyway. Apple just hastened its inevitable demise. They haven't killed it. They just threw some oil on the fire that was already burning down the house.

4\. Apple is on the outs with a bunch of other companies? Large companies are complex creatures. You will find them competing savagely on one level while cooperating on another. But the real reason they don't like Apple? Nothing breeds contempt like success.

5\. Blu-ray. Optical storage, like Flash, is dying. Apple didn't pick a side in the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray "war". Some might call this realpolitik. Personally, I think they took a long term view that the winner was irrelevant. The well is drying up. Who controls it doesn't matter anymore.

6\. Apple is by far the company that has demonstrated an utter devotion to the paramount importance of the user experience. Now you can disagree with some of the decisions they've made but, on the whole, no company has engendered quite the same loyalty and fervour that Apple has _for good reason_.

They're still at the mercy of the market as a whole.

<comment><USER3> Point 2: Apple has a great deal of influence to kill a great deal. Recently they depreciated Java on the Mac.

How many $30 desktop apps will you sell if users also have to download a 200MB Java runtime?

Don't fool yourself, Apple has to power to drive adoption (USB) or kill it (Flash, Jave, et al).

<comment><USER4> Maybe, I'm mistaken but when I think of desktop Java apps pretty much the only significant ones that I come up with are IntelliJ (which I use) and Eclipse. And I'd much prefer something native to the resource hogging of IntelliJ.

I don't think they're killing off a big industry by ditching java on the mac. It's just potentially going to make things more of a pain for those of us who write server-side java code on our Macs. Do you think their move will have an effect on that industry?

<comment><USER5> Cyberduck is a very popular FTP client for the Mac, and Vuze is a fairly popular Bittorrent client on all platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with Apple is that they try and project some moral superiority while actually having a troubled record when it comes to moral actions. They claim to be champions of open standards, open architectures, etc. And oftentimes, they do exceedingly well: The early adoption of USB, a beautiful working integrated Java platform, HTML5 and web standards are all examples where Apple championed openness and followed through.

However, there is this other side: where Apple seizes a chunk of territory that they mark out as "ours to play with" and this is roped off and defended at all costs. When Google decided that cellphones needed an open option to keep carriers and developers honest, Apple reacted vociferously against this perceived incursion into their territory. And this is, I believe, what dhh is articulating unease about. Today Goliath Apple is fighting the good fight, taking down the monolithic clunky developer-terrorizing nonsense that is Flash in the name of open standards and on behalf of Davidesque HTML5. But tomorrow, there's no telling if Apple is suddenly going to decide that this is "their territory" and they are going to defend it against all incursions (open or not) at all costs. And that is worrying.

Apple's moral standards seem arbitrary, adopted post-hoc to conveniently justify a pre-ordained course of action. And that makes everyone fearful of their next move.

<comment><USER7> > When Google decided that cellphones needed an open option to keep carriers > and developers honest...

Google hasn't kept the carriers honest, and I've yet to hear of an iOS app that quietly copies all your SMS messages off to some server in Russia.

<comment><USER8> [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/15YearOld-Sneaks- iPhone-T...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/15YearOld-Sneaks-iPhone- Tethering-App-Past-Apple-109491)

If someone was able to sneak something like tethering, I don't think it's a far stretch for text messages.

<comment><USER7> Tethering is possible because it doesn't require accessing any other app's data. SMSes are walled off. That does not appear to be the case with Android, which allows apps to send/read SMSes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think Apple's not going to "win" the battle with Flash. They're simply going to drive a portion of their customers to Android in the interim due to fighting it. Like many actual wars, everyone involved will lose.

When I use my iPad, the #1 reason I put it down and pick up my laptop is that I want to watch a video (quite frequently one I found here in fact) or play a game that I can't. It's to the point where I now just dig out the laptop if I want to read Hacker News as a result. I made the mistake of taking the iPad on a trip without my laptop, only to find I couldn't view the website of any good restaurant. (Granted there's no reason those websites should be one giant SWF, but they are.)

You don't realize how much Flash stuff is on the web until you use an iPad.

<comment><USER10> Counter-anecdote: you don't know how much on the web _isn't_ flash until you pick up an iPad.

We must use very different subsets of the Internet, because the videos I run into (on random, lower profile sites, no less) don't require flash.

Honestly, the thing that drives me from my iPad to pick up a laptop (which doesn't happen very often) is iPad-specific websites that don't let me opt-out and use their normal website. This has (unfortunately) been happening more and more lately.

<comment><USER9> We appear to use at least some of the same subsets since we're both here. Just last week there were two videos on the front page the one time I looked that wouldn't play. This happens in my Google Reader on a daily basis as well.

As a Facebook Game developer I probably see more Flash than normal people, though the number of people who play Flash games on Facebook alone numbers in the hundreds of millions.

<comment><USER11> Facebook games are also really bad in my experience at just not working on the iPad. No error message, no suggestion to try their standalone app, no nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have no worries about this, I can throw out my $199 iPhone and buy a new phone. The same apps I use (Planets vs Zombies, actually that is about it) will be available on the new phone shortly. Phones and its OS are dispensable. that is the great thing about them. As long as it can make a call and receive data the real utility of the phone will always be available.

The rest of it is just entertainment.

<comment><USER13> And what about the time and money spent by people developing skills for the Apple ecosystem — Objective-C, XCode, iTunes partnerships, etc? There's a network effect in play here and the more territories that Apple dominates, the easier it becomes to parlay with inertia...

<comment><USER7> Most of those developers hadn't heard of Objective-C just a few years ago. If something compelling enough comes around, they'll switch again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Companies compete with each other and there are winners and losers.

When Google rolled out free Google Maps and navigation apps, they were directly attacking companies like Garmin and TomTom

Now frankly, it is reasonable to sympathize with many companies whose paid offerings are under attack by "free" products, but would you ask Google to recognize itself as a "superpower" and stop killing GPS navigation companies ?

<comment><USER15> > Companies compete with each other and there are winners and losers.

The unnerving thing about this industry, though, is that _sometimes_ this "winning and losing" is fast and close to total, whereas in other industries, many players can continue to compete in the same field. Think about Microsoft's share of desktop operating systems at their peak vs car companies.

<comment><USER16> What examples of that can you think of other than Windows?

Edit: and things that were extensions of the Windows monopoly such as IE.

<comment><USER15> VHS standard, eBay, Microsoft Office probably merits its own entry. x86 in terms of desktop hardware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a rather paranoid argument of what Apple _may_ do, instead of what it's actually done. Even David admits that a) he's happy to see Flash go b) we're making a move towards open standards and c) Adobe deserves the walloping that they're getting.

Apple's done things like this before - getting rid of floppy drives, for instance, before anyone else did. (And they're very quick to remind us of this). But whether the move to 'attack' Flash is a bad thing isn't clear.

Apple seems to be more obsessed with delivering the perfect user experience - and they don't give me the impression that they're picking battles for the sake of picking battles. Whether Flash (or any other technology, for that matter) gets excluded is a direct result of this obsession. Which is the right way of going about it, of course.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't think that Apple is a superpower when it comes to promoting or killing technologies, be it on desktop or mobile. It is surely important in the whole scheme of things but certainly not the king maker. With the rise Android and Windows mobile 7 , apple and its iOS will matter even less. Here in India one can get an Android phone(1.6) for 7000rs( 120 $) which is a very competitive price, where iphone 3gs costs around 32000rs ( 650 $). I don't see apple getting a decisive share of mobile market anywhere outside of US in the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER7> > Here in India one can get an Android phone(1.6) for 7000rs( 120 $) which is > a very competitive price, where iphone 3gs costs around 32000rs ( 650 $).

Are they comparable phones? If nothing else, there've been two major Android OS revisions since 1.6.

<comment><USER19> I think his point is they don't need to be comparable. Apple "over-delivers" because of its core demographic and commitment to a small product range. This naturally limits adoption outside that demographic. Though Apple perhaps doesn't care because they're targeting the richest consumers in the richest nations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In discussions with friends, they've asked me why I tend to defend Apple and dislike Microsoft, when it seems that they both do the same things. Why is FairPlay okay, but PlaysForSure wrong?

For me, it primarily comes down to the fact that Apple has tended to impose restrictions within its own little empire, and not outside of it; for the large part, Apple seems to follow the Principle of Least Aggression. Even with the latest Flash shenanigans, Apple isn't making deals with partners to kill Flash. They're not trying to ruin support on Android or anything. They're just not including it by default on the new Airs anymore, and sort of publicly saying that they think it sucks.

I agree with David, though: Apple's cultural position of power means that if they want to keep our hearts and minds, they have some responsibility to play nice.

<comment><USER21> Apple's never really had power outside of its empire before. This is a pretty new position they're in now.

With that said, the difference between MS and Apple is that Apple builds the full stack. Apple blocking Psystar from creating clones effectively blocks anyone else from creating Apple products, thus Apple has a lot fewer people to have to bully. The just keep everyone off their block. With that said, within the industry, Apple's bullying of Intel is rather legendary, given their small market position.

Where Apple does dominate they certainly don't mind pushing people around.

MS works with a lot more partners therefore there is a lot more opportunity for bullying.

My concern with Apple is that while Steve Jobs is brilliant, he also rules with what seems to be a larger degree of malice. With MS its obvious where they're going -- where the money is. With Apple that's usually the case, but sometimes its where Steve is just really mad. There's no single person, including Bill, at MS who wields that type of power.

<comment><USER20> I dunno, maybe I'm being naive. It seem pretty obvious where Apple is going, too: whatever makes computers easier to use. Flash on mobile is total trash, from what I've read (I have yet to try it on my Nexus One, I don't visit sites with Flash). They've been working on making the music industry a nicer entity to interact with for years. They've been relentlessly simplifying product lines. The Mac App store is obviously geared toward making it even easier for people to install applications. They basically invented the modern smartphone market, and haven't let AT&T call the shots, to the benefit of consumers.

Is my fanboy showing? :/

<comment><USER21> It's showing a little bit :-)

There are plenty of things that would make their computers/products easier to use, but they don't do them. For example, their rental policy for video is horrible. I have just stopped renting because I never finish anything. How is it that Amazon can have a strictly superior policy, but Apple's sucks? I think this is actually an example where Steve plays the role of Apple CEO and Disney shareholder at the same time.

When Apple lets me run iOS/OSX in a VM on my Windows box then I'll believe their main mission is to make computers easier to use. Until then the bottomline seems to be the thing the thing that cuts across most items at Apple, like most other companies.

<comment><USER22> _For example, their rental policy for video is horrible. I have just stopped renting because I never finish anything. How is it that Amazon can have a strictly superior policy, but Apple's sucks?_

Is this 100% on Apple though? I know there was some hoopla awhile back before variable pricing came into play where the RIAA allowed Amazon to set lower prices than Apple with their goal being to get Apple to bend to their demands on pricing. Apple wanted to keep everything at 99c, but the RIAA wanted tiers and finally got what they wanted.

<comment><USER21> I'm talking about video, not audio (unless the RIAA also plays in the video space too). I've completely moved off of iTunes for music as I prefer streaming services like Grooveshark and subscription, like Zune Pass.

<comment><USER22> I used audio as a known example of content producers playing Apple and Amazon against each other. Do you think the MPAA is any less ruthless than the RIAA when it comes to controlling and pricing their content?

<comment><USER21> But I haven't heard Apple say a peep in this case. And Apple is not shy about saying their being bent over. Also if anything Apple seems enthusiastic about what they're doing. When they announced the new Apple TV Jobs had no reservations that they were making this their only streaming model.

Apple could fix this easy... support Amazon VOD. That would be the best thing for the customer. It would be super easy. Heck, if you're reading Steve, I'll implement it for you, for 1/2 my standard consulting fee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Presumably Apple is obligated to support everything on everything, simply so it isn't seen as "demonstrating its might".

Apple has said no to technologies like Flash, USB3 and Blu-Ray for their own reasons and only for their own devices, which is part of how they make those products good.

If they begin supporting every feasible technology just for the sake of not being a bully, then their products will start to suck, they will lose their customers and the power they've been giving them, and then a new kingmaker will arise. The cycle will continue.

This is an argument for making technology independent of the products that embody them, which is not realistic.

</comment><comment><USER24> I find this a bit ironic coming from 37signals. Isn't this the sort of "opinionated" behavior that they champion in Getting Real?

Maybe DHH has a good reason for thinking it's different, but I'd like to see it spelled out.

<comment><USER25> When you have the might to dictate an entire industry, you have a different set of responsibilities.

<comment><USER26> I agree with the basis of this article, re: their responsibility. But, as of late, I'm not sure we have anything to go on to say that they are acting poorly.

Pushing web standards seems like a good position for an industry leader to take. Seems like any large corporate power, like Google, we just have to expect the worse and hope for the best.

<comment><USER27> To give one example: for compatibility, it would be tremendously useful if they released specifications for AirPlay. Eg. Rogue Amoeba had to reverse engineer it for their AirFoil product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't think it was at all irresponsible of them for accepting a half hearted port of a 10 year old technology that really isn't intended for a touch screen. HTML 5, CSS3 and other standards saw wider adoption more quickly(thanks also in part to google)

What is happening here is Apple is streamlining its products in what they hope will make for a better user experience. It may or may not work out for them, but there is plenty of choice out there.

Further, this isn't the same situation as the 1990s when Microsoft would gun for other companies by releasing same-ish products for free to squash others out of the market. They are just not supporting them if they dont meet their standards.

<comment><USER11> Heh. A 10 year old technology like HTML?

<comment><USER5> HTML5 is not 10-year-old tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Empires rise and fall. The same could have been said of Microsoft only 10 years ago. Every platform provider faces this issue of responsibility and power — whether it be Facebook, Google, Apple or even Twitter.

The really interesting, and perhaps more fundamental, issue is that the various independent domains of the past (entertainment, communications, enterprise, gaming, mobile, etc.) are no longer so cleanly segregated and have been converging quite rapidly in the last few years. This inevitably results in the emergence of superpowers like Apple.

If we take this to be true, then the question becomes — what do we do about it? As entrepreneurs/developers/consumers, we fundamentally decide on the winners in these platform wars. But how do we counter superpower decisions? Lobby groups? Strategic pacts? Alternative, open, decentralised, systems?

</comment><comment><USER29> Do Apple ship every other item of Mac software on their platform? They don't? Then why are they obligated to ship with Flash preinstalled?

It's up to Adobe to make their own future, not Apple. Perhaps that's why Adobe recently unveiled Adobe Edge, and a Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool.

</comment><comment><USER11> What comes to mind: How is what Adobe does with Flash different from what Apple tried to do with Quicktime? If Apple had its way a few years back, all the video on the net would be Quicktime Sorenson encoded. Would they be pushing for open standards then?

<comment><USER5> One is a proprietary Web platform that can completely shut people out of a site and the other is a video codec. Apples and oranges if ever anything was.

<comment><USER11> Apple has always wanted to make Quicktime a proprietary interactive platform with a scripting language, UI elements, etc. It used to be used heavily to make CD-ROMs, where Flash would be used today. Apple just lost that battle.

<comment><USER5> At the point in time you're talking about, the _was_ no standard technology to use. It is, again, not comparable to the proprietary Flash plugin today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _"Blu-Ray, USB3, Java"_

They are all about minimizing Apple's investment in the Mac platform. Each shows where Apple is heading with the Mac, toward streaming content as what differentiates platform, away from cutting edge technology as what differentiates the platform, and away from enterprise sales - not that enterprise sales are a high priority for Apple beyond getting a continuous stream of articles written about "recent enterprise adoption." The same cost reductions criteria could be seen to apply to Flash, but it's more about sparking development for iOS and the future MacApp store.

</comment><comment><USER31> From the article: (Think what happened or didn't to Blue-ray, USB3, Java). \</comment><comment>--- I'm not sure I knew that anything happened to Java and Blu-ray, can someone help?

<comment><USER7> Apple has stated that they don't see a need to support Blu-ray on Macs, that USB3 isn't ready for prime-time, and that they're stopping their releases of their version of Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great piece, right to the point. What technology is Apple going to declare illegal next. And what if we depend on it.</comment>


Take Affordable Online Music Lessons - <AUTHOR> https://www.muebie.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Muebie is a platform where you can take online music lessons from passionate teachers around the world. It is affordable, convenient, and easy to use. Simply book a lesson and start learning from the comfort of your home!</comment>


Dependency Injection Is Useless in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://read.reddy.today/read/12/dependency-injection-is-useless-in-javascript <comment><USER2> DI/IoC isn't useless at all; we use it in JS all the time.

The _mechanism_ of DI/IoC is different than the concept itself.</comment>


SpaceX successfully lands a Falcon 9 rocket at sea for the third time - manu-chroma http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/27/11787532/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-landing-success-sea-drone-ship <comment><AUTHOR> The landing video from the rocket[0] really puts into perspective how much this truly is 'rocket science'. They placed a boat 600km away in the ocean, and the rocket moving at 3000+km/h from 80-ish km up landed on it using some grid fins to steer.

I get how it works, how you can do it, but it's still kind of incredible that they actually have 3 times in a row.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jEz03Z8azc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jEz03Z8azc)

Edit: it was 8000km/h at MECO, not 3000km/h.

<comment><USER2> It is incredible, but makes to wonder how many things are possible that we don't do.

<comment><USER3> It makes me wonder how much does the society suck, or what else could be achieved if more of the humanity's resources were managed the way they are at SpaceX. If Musk had decided to do fusion energy instead of rockets, would it be commercially viable by now? How about curing cancer?

<comment><USER4> Curing cancer? Which one?

Let's not assume that nobody else knows what they are doing.

<comment><USER3> Does not matter which one, does it? Pick any.

They know what they are doing all right. For instance, ITER's managerial staff surely enjoys the jet-setting between Barcelona and the French Riviera. But their goals are not aligned with making progress.

<comment><USER5> That's a load of cynical and simplistic crock. Yes ITER is super expensive, and maybe it's not the best use of research money, and maybe it'll never get anywhere. But the project's aims are very ambitious, and potential payoff is huge. Saying the ITER management doesn't deserve the same perks as other management is just wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing that this is becoming a regular-sh occurrence. Have they announced when they might try re-using one of these rockets? I wonder if the folks putting their payload on will get some sort of discount. I suppose that is the long term strategy.. to lower the price. I wonder if that price discount is already factored into the launch price -- after all they are still sort of a "start-up"

<comment><USER7> IIRC they plan on re-using one of the landed first stages at the end of the year, but they did not give any precise date or mission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please somebody justify SpaceX because "Science!" isnt cutting it for me anymore.

<comment><USER9> How about "Money!".

Glibness aside, it's a private enterprise and is profitable, so even without mentioning Musk's ultimate goal of colonizing Mars, its existence needs no further justification. It makes money and its shareholders are happy.

And before someone jumps in with the "SpaceX-is-propped-up-by-the-government" canard, the U.S. government also saves money when it launches military satellites with SpaceX. According to [1] (among many other sources), SpaceX quotes around $60m, compared to the United Launch Alliance price of about $125m (or even, depending on how you count, $200m).

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/ula-executive- admits-...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/ula-executive-admits- company-cannot-compete-with-spacex-on-launch-costs/)

<comment><USER8> I'm asking why a company who hasn't done anything novel in the realm of science garners so much attention for its science. The fanboy-ism for SpaceX seems uneducated. Please tell me how I am wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is HN now the SpaceX PR RSS feed? Are we going to have to see this same article and talk about how amazing SpaceX is every time they do anything?

I look forward to the breathless comments on "SpaceX successfully lands rocket for 38th time!"

<comment><USER11> I'm afraid you'll see an article about SpaceX being awesome every time SpaceX are being awesome.

Which is and will continue to be often.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure we'll get used to this awesome feat eventually. But three good runs does not a routine make. Hopefully they'll keep it up, and then we can have manned flight success stories instead!</comment></comment></comment>


HTTP Evader – Automate Firewall Evasion Tests - <AUTHOR> http://noxxi.de/research/http-evader.html <comment><USER2> A lot of what's seen as a "failure" to detect malware is a malware detection policy that isn't strict enough. The strictest policies make it hard to browse the web at all, and the deeper and wider you inspect, the more load on your firewall and less traffic you can handle.

And of course, there will always be clients with non-standard behavior that a more standards-compliant device won't catch, and some cases that are just missed by the product. But firewalls should not be seen as a replacement for client-side network or application security.

This tool is pretty neat, though, and has a lot of uses as a hacking tool.

</comment><comment><USER3> My software firewall/AV did it's job with the Eicar test file!</comment>


Should I open-source my old project? - <AUTHOR>

I worked as the sole developer at a small real-estate company a few years ago, 2005-2007. One of the large projects I built at the time was an ajax-driven real-estate oriented CMS that was oriented around us being able to list our available rental vacancies.
The company died about 1.5 years ago, and I still have my backup copies. Copyright ownership isn't an issue, so I'm free to release it if I want.
I've been wondering if I should open-source the codebase and put it out for whoever wants it. One thing I'm worried about is that in the 2+ years since I was working there, I've learned a hell a lot more about PHP, proper database construction, and frontend coding. I'm still very proud of the work I did, but it is a bit dated. There were a few features that were nearly ready for release before I left the company. They're still in the code but were never turned on.
So should I just put it out there? Or should I go through and update the codebase before releasing it? Is there even any interest in an open-source rental property CMS? <comment><USER2> It doesn't hurt anyone if you do release right? Since you've learned a lot more of PHP, I imagine it would be somewhat interesting working through a bit of your code, while fixing it up too.

I think there's always interest in other peoples' work. you never know who will find your work useful. As long as one person does, I think it's worth it. Maybe someone can learn a bunch from your code, even if they aren't interested in a rental property CMS.

So, in short, yes :)

</comment><comment><USER3> What I've been doing with my failed startup is to cut off the pieces that are generally applicable to programmers, then clean them up, document them, and release them as separate open-source projects.

Most projects that are built as for-profit websites aren't viable without the support of an ongoing organization. If they were, some college kid would've cloned them, open-sourced them, and driven you out of business. So chances are, you won't find too much interest in an open-source rental property CMS. Techies will probably like it, but ordinary people want a business they can turn to when things go wrong.

That doesn't mean that there's nothing in the codebase that might be useful to people. Most good software is built in layers - the bottom layers are often generally useful while the top layers are good only for specific purposes. Think of the LiveJournal stack: the open-sourced LJ code seems to be useful only for competing with LiveJournal, but memcached and MogileFS have widespread usage across a variety of projects.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is a good market for rental applications. I think open sourcing it would be a good idea, along with cleaning up the code.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the replies folks. Very helpful!</comment>


Financials, key metrics and KPMG. What's in a name, anyway? - <AUTHOR> I'm part of a small startup. This is our very first startup and after putting in a number of months work R&Ding our product we've ticked most of the boxes I can find, but not financials or key metrics.
The suggestion has been raised that KPMG would be a worthwhile pit to throw money into to get something workable back. My own experience with KPMG in the past has been less than stellar though, it felt very much like they were there to collect the corporate paycheque and middle manage as many pies as they could. Just their lack of familiarity with our product during that excursion makes me wonder what credibility they hold in the mobile app space. If our business plan and executive summary credit KPMG as a source, are we going to get laughed at for not doing it ourselves? Or does the name buy real cred?
It's safe to say that I'd much rather bootstrap it myself, but I'm at the Dummies Guide To Financials level. Can I learn this fast and learn to do a good job of it? If so, what resources should I be looking at? <comment><USER2> The big names usually mean more for audits.

Unless there's a reason not to, you'll probably have a better experience with services from a smaller firm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thanks! Do you know of any good resources for reporting on financials and key metrics?

<comment><USER3> What type of financials and key metrics are you looking to report?

Small startup here. We use [https://www.waveapps.com/accounting](https://www.waveapps.com/accounting) for basic accounting - it's free and fairly easy to use. They have bookkeepers for hire if you need something more (we haven't needed it so far).

If you're billing via credit card stripe can give you metrics on revenue, growth, churn, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Volunteer opportunities for software developers other than open source? - <AUTHOR> Contributing to open source projects is a great way to volunteer one's time.   However, I'm curious, about other volunteer opportunities where programming skills are especially helpful.<p>I'm imagining there might be something involving teaching, or something along the lines of Code for America but part-time.  Does anyone have any experience in this area or know of any non-profit organizations looking for software developer volunteers? <comment><USER2> Contact your local YMCA. almost certainly there will be volunteer opportunities to teach programming to kids.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please contact me at support at smartmadre.com

We would love to have you join our team.

[https://smartmadre.com/stats](https://smartmadre.com/stats)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you fire a "B Player?" - throw-it-away24 I've been struggling with this all week.
Long story short, we have someone on the team who is just OK. Not terrible, there's nothing specific I can point to that I can say, "This is awful," but the work they produce is just mediocre.
To be clear: They're a designer, and they're always asking me for specific critiques, which I try to give, but that can't be my job. It's pretty clear that it's just not good enough.
I know other designers we could hire who (I'm pretty sure) we could pay a lot less, would do a better job, and would need less hand-holding.
I've had to fire people before when it was not a good fir or they were obviously not skilled or talented enough, but this one is just... meh. It's not like he's a complete degenerate, but I think we need someone fantastic to get where we need to go.
This is someone I've known for a long time and I consider a friend, but I can't let the rest of the team/company suffer because I really like this guy personally.
How do you have that conversation? <comment><AUTHOR> > which I try to give, but that can't be my job

How many hours per week are you spending helping him? And how long have you been helping him?

It's pretty much a given to have to provide significant training and guidance if you want A player performance but don't want to pay for an A player.

> we could pay a lot less

Based on what evidence?

> would do a better job

Again, based on what evidence?

> but I think we need someone fantastic to get where we need to go.

And you expect to be able to just click your fingers and hire somebody fantastic for a much lower pay?

Face it: Your company stuffed up and hired a decent performer when you wanted a top performer. The correct thing to do is offer a decent severance package (at least 3 months pay if he has been with you for more than a few weeks), give him a great reference, and allow him to represent himself as still employed while he looks for another job.

<comment> throw-it-away24 > How many hours per week are you spending helping him? And how long have you > been helping him?

Probably 1/4 to 1/2 of my working day every day. We're a small company, ~7 ppl, I'm the CEO. I'm not a great designer, but some of the stuff he/she sends back is just amateurish. It ends up mostly-amateurish-but-shippable if I spend forever with him on it, but other designers I've worked with in the past have delivered much higher quality stuff for much less, and with way less headache. I think it may just be a sheer talent thing at this point, and I don't know how to instill talent.

> based on what? People I've worked with in the past, including the person I'm > going to hire to replace this person. I guess you'll just have to trust me > on that though.

I recognize we hired a decent performer when we wanted a top performer. If you know a way to unilaterally avoid that I'm all ears. And yes, I am willing to pay for a top performer.

What I am not looking forward to now is actually firing this person.

<comment> cat-dev-null For all employees, don't just hire people permanently, even if you or someone else _thinks_ they're a great fit, "try before you buy". Definitely work with someone on a temporary contract basis, and renew it, _before hiring, even a first employee_ , and then don't re-up a contract if they don't work out. If they need benefits, that's cool, you probably should be taking care of people.

Next time, check out their portfolio at the phone-screen step, because each designer's tastes and abilities vary widely from individual to individual. Run it by enough people on the "search commit" (which might be just be founders and another couple folks) for input, because you need buy-in to dispel any appearance of _' PHB CEO is arbitrarily hiring people without due-diligencing them and foisting them on us'_.

Because each hard fire makes the the hiring manager and other interviewers look bad, and it hurts the candidate... trial run (without abusing that indefinitely) _and_ be nice & professional should be the HR-focused mindset.

If you absolutely have to fire someone, do it now, do it yourself... It's a bandaid that's gotta come off, because putting it off just wastes your time and theirs, when they can be elsewhere possibly improving and someone else with a better fit could get going sooner. Be direct, honest and talk about next steps. Give feedback if they can take it and possibly help them if it, as long as doesn't put you into any HR/legal hot-water. Perhaps it's "We've discussed it and determined we have an irreconcilable mismatch in terms of design quality and taste. We're bummed that we're gonna have to let you go."

Also, have someone else impartial (before you get an HR manager) do an exit interview to see if they're going to bad mouth you, if they have useful feedback or if they're anything your shop can do to help them transition elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Definitely work with someone on a temporary contract basis, and renew it, > before hiring

If you do this make sure you pay contract rates for the contract period or good people (at least in the dev world) will avoid you like the plague.

E.g. My contract rate is $120/hr for contracts of 3 months or less whereas my full time salary is ~$120k/year. If you try and offer me $60/hr (120k / 52 / 40) I'm not even going to look at your job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> The irony here is that you come across as a "B Player" CEO wanting to fire a "B Player" designer. Just sit him/her down, tell him/her it's not working out and leave it at that. You seem to be romanticizing this by framing it as a conversation when your desired outcome is to let the person go. Just let them go. If you're worried about the friendship, don't hire your friends.

<comment><USER3> Holy shit what a great comment. I was thinking about how to convey my initial thoughts on the OP, but jesus, way to nail it on the head. Zero sarcasm here. "B player" sounds like those job posts with "looking for JS ninja".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 2 potential options:

1: Go for a walk. A long one. Near the beginning drop the news on him or her (I'll go with her for this) that you have decided to end her employment. Identify three things that she does well, and three issues that you saw that were not resolvable. Work with her to help figure out the next step, and do what yo can to get her a good landing somewhere else. Accept responsibility for not being able to give the feedback that she requires, and talk about how, at this stage, you need someone who is more able to deliver concepts and finished product that is higher quality. The company cannot afford her at this stage.

2: Do the above but over a coffee nearby the office. Easier to stop the conversation early.

3: Have a performance review, and have a similar conversation, but work out how yo hand she are going to set targets for turnaround, get her the required help (external peers etc) to assist her and agree on a go/no-go decision date. As others have said it's better to turn things around than start again.

Overall I've very seldom seen a decision to ask someone to leave that has not worked out well for both parties. Be brave, be honest, keep your integrity and let the other person keep their respect.

</comment><comment><USER5> You should first and foremost consult a lawyer specializing in labor law in your jurisdiction, firing people depending on your location can be easy or nigh-on impossible.

That said, I'd be very straight with this person, explain that you no longer wish to continue with them. If their contract will lapse within the next 6 months or so I wouldn't do anything other than maybe just buying out their contract for a lump sum. Otherwise just wait it out and hire your new guy/gal when you can afford it.

I'm not sure I like the 'we could pay a lot less' bit since that seems to indicate your motive is more economical than tied to this persons performance.

<comment> throw-it-away24 Legally it won't be a problem.

The cost isn't a factor (I mean maybe it is subconsciously), I just added that to say that we can get better talent for less - we're not just getting subpar talent because we're not paying enough. I really just want the best person.

<comment><USER5> Ok, clear. Thank you for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How long has he been in the team? If he's been with you longer than six months then I would offer a nice severance package.

Just tell him the truth, it's not that his work is terrible, but you need amazing. Let him know he'll have a great reference if needed and you're still his friend.

</comment><comment><USER7> > How do you have that conversation?

This is NOT the time for a conversation. Deliver the news in a professional, respectful, and buttoned-up manner. If you take more than 5-7 minutes, things will go badly.

If he pleads why me?!-- Tell him, to call you in 9 months time and you'll talk it through. But you can not discuss it now.

Time will take the sting, hurt, and anger out of the decision. It may also give you the clarity and perspective that this was unquestionably the right move for the business.

When (if) he calls for that follow-up conversation. Use that occasion to repair & rebuild your friendship. It can be done.

</comment><comment><USER8> It shouldn't come as a surprise to them if you've been doing your job. You've worked with them for months (I assume some significant length of time anyway), you've presumably told them specific steps they need to take to improve their skill level, (not just nickle and dimming specific things that you happen not to like which they may or may not learn from,) which they haven't followed up on, and warned them that they need to do those things or they're going to get fired.

"Bob, we've talked about this, I told you months ago that there'd be consequences if you didn't do X Y and Z. That hasn't happened so we're letting you go. We've enjoyed working with you and good luck with your next job."

If you haven't worked with them like that, sure, that's a difficult discussion to have without feeling like an ass. You've still got to tell it to them straight, pussy-footing around won't help anything.

"Bob, this isn't working out. So, we're letting you go."

If it seems upsetting, there's not a way that I know of to sugar-coat not having worked with someone - that seems to tend to make it worse.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just a point on the creative nature of the role for your future hiring...

Hiring top creative talent is massively difficult. A lot of that challenge stems from how hard it is to properly convey what you are looking for in their work. Often times they either have what it takes or they don't, and to some extent, it is talent that can't be taught no matter how much time you invest.

Starting with contract work is probably the best bet if you are still zeroing in on what you need. But finding companies that do what you like and poaching their designers is another approach.

Without knowing the kind of feedback you've provided to your current designer, I think the other thing to look at is whether they are getting the feedback they need from you despite the time you've spent giving it. If you are unclear in your feedback, or are communicating it in a way that isn't super actionable to a designer, it can end up with both parties being extremely frustrated with no way forward.

Others here have given great advice on how to let them go, so best of luck with resolving this in a clean way.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't think in your case it would be a lie to say "It's not a good fit." Design is a pretty subjective area so it's likely the case someone else will find his work to be higher quality than you do. Maybe he's asking you for critiques because he can tell you aren't digging what he's producing, or maybe the vibe between you is no good and you're perceiving that as mediocre work. In any event, best to get it over with; you'll both be better off without one another it seems.

<comment> throw-it-away24 He's been with us for long enough we (meaning I) should have recognized that earlier, so part of the problem was my fault - poor management.

This just really sucks. It's like if I do poorly other people lose.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive to this because I've been fired before and it really sucked, but it was devastating. I don't want him to have the same experience I did, because he doesn't deserve it.

<comment><USER11> If you feel like taking the responsibility, financially, then give him a fair severance such that he can look for something new without ruining his situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The sooner the better. The added bonus is you'll get more quality work out of your engineers for the next month or so until they fall into their "tests are running" routine again.

</comment><comment><USER13> A designer must be good at UX (processes) and UI (pure design).

You make them sound like they're mediocre at UI. What's their level at UX?

I know I'm mediocre at producing (vs evaluating) UI, but I also know I am great at producing UX.

Maybe they just ain't the right professional for your startup right now.

Or maybe they should focus on UX, and you should hire someone else for UI.

Again, maybe they can improve on UI if properly trained. As in a professional training course, more than as in a colleague training them on the job.

</comment><comment><USER14> You could consider investing in some training for the employee. You could have another senior designer offer the critiques and feedback you feel are eating into your time.

<comment><USER15> This is an option for large firms with resources to throw around, but at a startup, everyone needs to pull their own weight. There are already enough things eating into your resources -- don't need to pay a second designer to train your first designer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > I know other designers we could hire who (I'm pretty sure) we could pay a > lot less, would do a better job

You want an "A" you can pay for less than a "B"?

<comment> throw-it-away24 We're paying too much for a "B"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whatever you do, don't drag it out. If you're not happy with their performance, let them go.

For future candidates, pay them to come in and do a short project. That way you have a better chance of getting the right candidate, without committing yourself to full employment prematurely.

If you're not happy with their performance, surely this isn't unknown to the rest of the company. It's not good for morale (theirs or yours) to keep this person on.

EDITED: clarity

</comment><comment><USER18> If your business can afford this, talk and give him/her 1-3 months to reach the level you need, sort of a probation. It doesn't need to be public and shame, just make your case clearly and frankly, face to face. If talk derails, offer severance for resignation. Worst case, cut it short, lose a friend and fire, but from your op I don't think it will end this way.

</comment><comment><USER19> How much time do you actually spend with this guy? Measure it. Don't guess, or you'll be wrong. Verify that you can get cheaper or better work elsewhere BEFORE you let this guy go.

Ultimately you need to know if moving onto better talent is a good ROI. Training is always an option, no-one is born great, and there are costs associated with changing staff.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you are doing performance counseling with employees generally, this should be a natural outgrowth of that, and specifically of the counseling done with this employee aimed at understanding and resolving the performance deficit vs. expectations so that it _didn 't_ reach the level of requiring termination.

<comment><USER21> How do you counsel a designer into better design?

I realize it's not all art/talent, but do you seriously think he can just buckle down and become a better designer?

Also, OP says he's spending a minimum of 2 hours per day with this guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just be honest and get it done. Tell them that you expect better performance from a designer that works for you. Then let them go. Consult with HR/lawyers as needed. Whether someone is close but not quite at the bar, or far from the bar, your conversation is pretty similar.

</comment><comment><USER23> Ask Netflix managers how they went through the process of letting a "B Player" go?

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been in this situation a few times in the last several years, where I have had a good, but not good-enough player, and I have tried a new approach to the dismissal each time. What follows is what I should have done in every instance.

First, go with your gut and end it ASAP, do not try to mentor, do not try to grow them, just end it and move on. I have spent too much time, effort, and money trying to bring the performance of B-players up to A-player status. If someone has hustle, then you can point out shortcomings and they will stay up all night making it perfect. That's an A-player in the rough; don't cut those players. If you point out shortcomings and they continue to deliver mediocrity over and over, cut them and move on.

Recognize who is ambitious and who is not, and place people in appropriate roles. There's nothing wrong with people who lack ambition, but they can't hold critical roles in high-performing teams, they drag the ambitious, hard- working, self-motivated A-players down.

I agree with many other commenters that the right thing to do is to be honest that it's not going to work out, and offer a severance package. I disagree with some severance numbers that have been suggested... the standard number is a week of severance for each year of service - that's what I go with.

However, if the person made significant concessions to work with you, for example, if they moved their family cross-country to take the job with you, then more severance is appropriate. "Make them whole".

As for delivering the message, my advice is the Band-Aid approach, make it succinct, do it in a place where their co-workers can't overhear, and plan their exit in a way that they don't run into other co-workers. You don't want the person to have to answer "how's it going" as they pack up their desk. I disagree with the long heart-to-heart conversation approach. After just getting canned is not the right time for mentoring. They'll find support elsewhere, you trying to ease their pain makes it worse. If you like the person and would like to help them, tell them that, but tell them to catch up with you later on and say you're happy to talk when they're in a position to. If they want to talk right away, by all means do, but don't force it on them.

I have never fired someone too soon. In retrospect, I always should have acted faster. The fact that you're on here asking for advice means that it's time to act.

Finally, I realize that some of the above may sound ruthless, so let me make three comments on philosophy and _why_ being direct and decisive is the best course of action:

1) It is demoralizing to the rest of the team to see someone reaping the same benefits they get for doing better work. One bad player will poison an entire team. Even nice, pleasant, hard-working people who require too much care and feeding will sap energy from the team.

2) It is not fair to the individual to leave them in a position where they are not succeeding. Leaving someone in a position where they are not cutting it is cruel – s/he will find a better fit elsewhere.

3) In a start-up environment, you simply cannot afford a B-player in any key role. Everyone has to put up at least their own weight, and a single person not doing that reduces your odds of success. A lot has been written on this, so I won't go on – but one wrong hire can destroy a small company.</comment>


Haiku Alpha 1: Rebirth of legend - <AUTHOR> https://isometricleaves.wordpress.com/2020/02/12/haiku-alpha-1-rebirth-of-legend/ <comment><USER2> FWIW beta 1 is out now, this is a look back at the alpha milestone in 2009

<comment><USER3> And beta 2 should be coming soon. There's only one blocking issue left on the bug tracker [1].

[1] [https://dev.haiku-os.org/query?status=assigned&status=in- pro...](https://dev.haiku-os.org/query?status=assigned&status=in- progress&status=reopened&status=new&group=status&milestone=R1%2Fbeta2)

<comment><USER4> (Haiku developer here.) Some of those P=high should really be blockers (and the one blocker currently there is a trivial task essentially there as a reminder to do it while making driver ABI changes.) I should do that, actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love booting Haiku up in a VM and spending an hour or two here or there pretending I'm one of the lucky few who got a Be Box in the 90s. I was a Super Nintendo and Windows PC clone kid, but I had Neo Geo and Be Box taste.

<comment><USER6> Me too. Neo Geo taste, Turbo Grafx 16 budget :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just wish Haiku could distributed the old music that came from Be, included such great tubes as "BeOS - it's my OS" and "Virtual(void)" which lamented rebooting multiple times.

<comment><USER8> Happily, they're available online:

Virtual (Void) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpgLFEHrWSA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpgLFEHrWSA)

5038 BeOS It's The OS [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlOi- L-N0X4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlOi-L-N0X4)

<comment><USER9> These were from a small group of Be engineers that had a band called "The Cotton Squares".

According to kallisti5 (a Haiku dev), they may have permission to redistribute. They should!

[https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/the-cotton-squares-new- tunes/...](https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/the-cotton-squares-new-tunes/7194)

<comment><USER10> They missed an opportunity to release an album called "The Be Sides"

<comment><USER11> > _an album called "The Be Sides"_

Does it available somewhere?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Second Great Depression, or Worse? - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/a-second-great-depression-or-worse/

<comment><USER2> I don't know what to think here. There seems to be some very obvious issues with his analysis that he didn't even mention. Now this is a very qualified guy so I hesitate to point these out but I can't help but think his agenda (to calm people) is clouding the issue.

I'll run down the list...

1\. The government has goosed numbers that are used to caclulate GDP like the CPI. See here: <http://tinyurl.com/3rxzxhs>

2\. Unemployment is calculated differently today because we factor out "discouraged workers". See here where Motley Fool put 2009 Unemployment closer to 17.5% : <http://tinyurl.com/3lappx9>

3\. Yes the FDIC prevented people's savings from disappearing when the banks hit crisis mode and that prevented the banks from going out of business. But the wealth destruction still happened. All we did is shift it from the banks to the Federal Government thereby saving the banks (who wouldn't have survived with that much debt) while burdening the general populace for decades to come.

I'm not saying he's wrong as much as I'm saying he clearly had an agenda here and is making the argument for that agenda without giving the other side of the coin. If you don't believe me ask yourself this: Why didn't he use GNP in his first comparison? We still calculate GNP and using GNP now vs GNP in the 30s (when that's all we tracked) makes a lot more sense than using GDP now and retroactively calculating GDP in the 30s.

But economists agree GDP is more forgiving and makes the nation look wealthier in a global market than GNP would (since most manufacturing was still done domestically in the 30s). So again there seems to be an agenda here.

<comment><USER3> > Unemployment is calculated differently today because we factor out > "discouraged workers"

The author addresses that:

> Even by the highest estimates - which include people discouraged from > looking for a job, thus not registered as unemployed - the jobless rate > reached around 16 to 17 percent.

<comment><USER2> Your point (and jabits below) is valid but my issue is he didn't spell out the fact that "discouraged workers" were counted in the Great Depression. Also (if you follow the link provided) you'll see we didn't hit the 20%+ numbers until 4 years after the crash and by that measure we still have over a year.

I concede we're talking semantics I just think a more accurate way to say it would be "unemployment rose above 20% in the Great Depression while by that same standard we're only at around 17%". Rather than comparing their 20% to our 10% and then mentioning the real unemployment rate as an addendum.

<comment><USER4> 17 percent is very much in the range of the Great Depression. Especially since the higher unemployment statistics from the 1930s included workers who were actually employed. Scroll down for the details:

[http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/very-short- rea...](http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/very-short-reading-list- unemployment-in-the-1930s/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the author makes some good points about why this recession (or whatever you want to call it) is different from the great depression, in particular re: the decline in output and the importance of agriculture.

Nonetheless, I am concerned about a couple issues not mentioned:

a) Lots and lots of unemployed, broke, frustrated young men (for an extended period of time). This is bad on lots of levels, public safety being high on the list.

b) The fallout of state cuts to certain services will likely get much worse. This will literally slow down the economy.

b2) Related, there will be cuts to police, prisons, fire depts, hospitals, etc. The US (esp. in big cities) could become a bit more dangerous with fewer deterrents to those with nothing to lose.

Not to be all doom and gloom, and although we've seen these issues in the past, I'm not sure that we've seen them to the extent that looks likely in the coming years.

</comment><comment><USER6> >the jobless rate reached around 16 to 17 percent. It's a jobs disaster, to be sure, but not the same scale as the Great Depression.

In many ways this is _worse_ than the Great Depression. People are much more dependent on jobs today-in the thirties fewer people had mortgages they needed to pay and more lived in rural areas where food was more available (gardening or barter).

<comment><USER7> Although people today are far more wealthy as a result of astonishing increases in productivity that have led to much lower prices for goods. Consider how much you can buy at a dollar store for one hour's labour today.

Then there are the much harder to calculate ways in which you are better off such as new medicines and technologies (e.g. the internet [Hacker News]).

<comment><USER6> Most people are better off, especially in what they can buy -- but in the context of _NOT HAVING A JOB_ , and therefore not being able to afford anything, that doesn't matter.

<comment><USER7> That's true, and although I don't know much about the US welfare system, I assume you're better off on welfare than many people were not on welfare 80 years ago (economically).

<comment><USER8> I'm willing to bet that the fraction of people with flush toilets is higher among people on welfare today than it was in the general population during the 20's or 30's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Deleveraging is never fun, but it usually leaves you with a stronger balance sheet.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the best comparison is Japan.

Huge real-estate bubble fueled boom times, followed by a lot of spending to try and stimulate the economy Keynesian style. If it does not work, you get 20+ years of recession.

At least America's population is growing so that might make a difference. Also America's infrastructure is in bad shape, as opposed to Japan which went into its recession with top notch infrastructure. This means infrastructure spending in the US could be more stimulative then it was for Japan.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not a depression - a liquidation. It will be painful.

</comment><comment><USER12> Half the game is mental. If the people think things are going to slow down, they are going to do things(stop or put off purchasing, moving money to safer investments) that WILL make it slow down, which in turn will cause other people to do the same further slowing it down.</comment>


"Picture yourself as a stereotypical male" - <AUTHOR> http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/picture-yourself-as-a-stereotypical-male <comment><USER2> Hmmm, I wonder how well this correlates with the placebo effect.

In other words, how deep do the effects of negative stereotyping run? The titular study shows that with concentrated effort to overcome the limiting stereotype, the effects of the stereotype can be mostly overcome.

What if you ignored the stereotype, and tried the experiment again, using an an arbitrary advantage. For instance, if the groups in the study were performed using a "drug" or other similar placebo.

<comment><USER3> Well, the same trick (imagine yourself as the other gender) didn't work on the boys, so it can't be just a matter of "here's a strange experience... Now take the test." Is that what you are suggesting?

<comment><USER2> No, I wouldn't necessarily expect the inverse situation to be true (hence why boys still maintain high scores).

It's not a matter of a "strange" experience, its a matter of expectations about outcomes. Basically, you could do the same test with men + women, but instead of having them visualize themselves as a stereotype, have them try a new "drug" that will supposedly improve their focus and math skills.

Comparing the results of that study with the originals will likely lead to some very interesting observations, no matter the result.

<comment><USER3> I see. Yes, so any kind of expectation of performance enhancement might counteract the pre-existing expectation of performance detriment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well that was interesting, if longwinded.

tl;dr: (As you might have anticipated) Women who are primed to imagine themselves as a man perform statistically the same as men. This has implications for other standardized tests too. When people (subconsciously) underperform to confirm to a (negative) stereotype of some part of their identity, it's called stereotype threat. A similar effect occurs, e.g., when a woman is in an engineering class surrounded by men.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well this is interesting: "related to a largely subconscious apprehension about confirming the given negative stereotype" All whites are racist, all men hate women are sexual predators and wife beaters... Maybe progresives should read about this before spreading their bs?

<comment><USER3> All blacks are racist too. It's not a big deal. We're not trying to tell you you're a bad person. We're trying to say "this is normal and you're not worse than anyone else, but we do need to acknowledge the problem so we can mitigate it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I asked Michelle if there were any positives of our gender bias, in any way, across all of western society, what do you think her response would be?

<comment><USER3> "Absolutely, yes"</comment></comment>


FB, GOOG tell Congress they're fighting extremist content with counterpropaganda - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/facebook-google-tell-congress-how-theyre-fighting-extremist-content.html <comment><USER2> A horrible idea</comment>


Zagat got Googled - <AUTHOR> http://www.zagat.com/buzz/zagat-got-googled

<comment><USER2> This is a very interesting buy. Obviously Google are looking to get something more than crowdsourced opinions on Google Places, etc.- I can't say I blame them.

I wonder what this means for things like the Zagat book. I'm sure in the short term they'll continue, but the Google-y way would be to remove all the 'hard copy' stuff in time.

<comment><USER3> If they do decide to discontinue the Zagat book they could turn it into an eBook on google books possibly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google's perspective also made it to the HN front page:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974271> [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-just-got- zagat...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-just-got-zagat- rated.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> So is this Google's plan to compete with Yelp?

<comment><USER6> I imagine so. Also keep in mind that Google just lost a big court case that forced them to take reviews of restaurants, etc. off of their search results if they come from sites like Yelp.</comment></comment>


Amazon.com unveils lineup for startup contest - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/11/amazon_web_services_startup_challenge_finalists.html

<comment><USER2> the _correct_ url : <http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge/></comment>


Google's Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles: Usenet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet/ <comment><USER2>
          In the end, then, the rusting shell of Google Groups is
          a reminder that Google is an advertising company — not
          a modern-day Library of Alexandria.

<comment><USER3> Well, Wired is no NGO either... and yet its article prompted Google to do something about it, as reported by nebula [<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet_fix/>]. A nice example of two "evil" companies benefiting the public good...

I must confess to being a brainwashed Googlevangelist, but anyway... if it wasn't for Google's (lucrative) actions, maybe non-profit projects such as the Internet Archive might not have saved those magtapes in time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to participate in Usenet a lot, back in the mid 90s. Rather stupidly, I set the no archive header (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-No-Archive>) on all my posts. Now I can only find myself quoted in replies.

Shame, really.

<comment><USER5> Well, I _didn't_ set the X-No-Archive header. And now there's no chance that I'll ever get elected to be President of the United States.

<comment><USER6> Same here. Sheesh, remember when we all used to use our full names when posting online?

<comment><USER7> Actually that's a nice way of filtering mailing lists nowadays. Posts worth reading and posts signed with the full name are almost the same ones... If you missed something really interesting from other posts, it will most likely be quoted later on anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The sad thing is that if Google had had the foresight to build in decent browsing, filtering etc., and polish up NNTP a bit, they could own the vast internet message board space, and we would be reading this on alt.hacking.ycombinator or suchlike.

It's not that people aren't interested in chatting to each other on the internet, I waste depressingly large quantities of time reading and posting in 5-6 different forums, this being one of them. There's still one usenet group I read regularly, but it's degraded to 50% spam and embittered ranting from an unhappy kibo clone.

<comment><USER4> I would much prefer to have all my web message boards available through a single interface, in a single program.

I haven't seen any web message board UI that truly brings something new to the threaded-discussion style that pretty much all the old Usenet clients used.

Which is a shame, really, because I'd much prefer to read blogs via an NNTP reader (I suspect, anyway).

<comment><USER9> _I'd much prefer to read blogs via an NNTP reader_

If you use Thunderbird RSS reader to read blogs, you pretty much get the Same look and feel. I was used to Thunderbird NNTP client, when I started adding blog subscriptions to Thunderbird, the transition was seamless

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google Groups used to be a great service when they first took over Deja News, but things have been gradually deteriorating ever since.

They used to be read-only; now, they allow anyone with a fake account to post. They are a huge source of Usenet spam. I have been kill-filing posts from Google Groups for about a year. It's not a pleasant thing to do, since there still are quite a few people who I like to read but only see quoted in replies now because they use Google Groups.

Whenever someone posts the same article 10 times in a row on a Usenet newsgroup, I always look at the mail header, and every single time it is from Google Groups. I don't know what is wrong, but there must be some user interface bug that causes people to resubmit their post. Maybe they don't realize that Usenet has a lag between posting and seeing your post. Maybe there's something wrong with the submit button. I don't know, but I've been seeing this phenomenon for a few years now.

Initially, Google Groups made a clear distinction between Usenet newsgroups and Google's own groups, but they've been blurring the two more and more over the years. The result is that a lot of people don't even know they're posting to Usenet, and are unaware of the different etiquette and social customs there (real names, top posting, etc.). Lately they've started including third-party forums as well, so now it's basically a free-for-all, and there is no way to just search Usenet anymore. You have a choice between "Google Groups" and "all groups", where the latter includes Google Groups, Usenet, _and_ random bulletin boards on the web.

If Google isn't interested in supporting Usenet with a decent archive anymore (and I can understand their reluctance, since I'm sure there's little to no money in it) I wish they would pass the responsibility to someone else and get out of the way, because at this point I wish Deja News was still around - I'd have no need for Google Groups anymore.

And I know everyone loves to bash on Usenet, about how it's obsolete and dead, but I have to say that at least when it comes to programming language newsgroups, it's still hopping. I follow about a dozen programming newsgroups, and I can't keep up. About once a week I have to "mark all as read". As long as it still causes information overload, I don't think it can be fairly declared extinct.

<comment><USER11> It might be worth it to point out that a lot of projects' mailing lists are mirrored on Usenet. I'm not 100% sure if any or all of them _accept_ posts from Usenet, but I'm fairly certain that at least a few of them do.

i.e. I believe that comp.lang.python is the same as the python-list mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> When google first put the archive online, I could find 100's of posts I made in the 80's. Now, there are a few 10's. At this point, I don't even use the search for old stuff, assuming that the bits have just rotted so much that it's not worth it.

<comment><USER6> You mean when they first bought out Deja, right?

<comment><USER12> Yep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had noticed problems a few weeks ago, but it seems to be working today. [http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/search?group=al...](http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/search?group=alt.hypertext&q=mosaic&qt_g=Search+this+group)

And the advanced search always worked and still works better. [http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&sitesearch=g...](http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&sitesearch=groups.google.com&as_ugroup=alt.hypertext)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the tip about advanced search. That brought back memories of a decade ago when I was very active on Usenet. All the messages I was expecting to find appear to be there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
      (Update: Google has begun fixing the Usenet archive in response to this article)

<comment><USER15> Good info.

Any pointers to details?

<comment><USER16> Google Begins Fixing Usenet Archive

<http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet_fix/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Time to take back Usenet and build another archive independently of Google, somehow.

<comment><USER18> Machiavelli warned Princes about the danger of being an 'unarmed prophet.'

He might similarly warn you about being an 'unfunded revolutionary.'

<comment><USER17> I'm not name dropping, but I have exchanged emails with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive, and he's taken a couple of my ideas under advisement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Uh,

The Google books settlement gives Google something like a monopoly on "orphaned" titles, titles that would _otherwise be entirely unavailable_. Whether that's justified or not is debatable.

But unless there's something I don't know, Google Groups is just one archive of usenet and anyone with enough space could create another - in fact, I seem encounter other such archives regularly in my ... Google searches.

</comment><comment><USER20> It isn't just the usenet archive search that sucks -- it includes pretty much anything under the google groups banner. I'm often searching groups dedicated to projects under google code, and the search results are dismal more often than not.

</comment><comment><USER21> Upvoted to show support for the article and its point. I've once wondered into Google's Usenet jungle, it's a terrible mess.

</comment><comment><USER7> A bit off-topic, but I just read the features list for mosaic ([http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/7fde2f6d4d5...](http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/7fde2f6d4d5dc4e7)) and was really surprised how close it is to browsers nowadays. The only serious improvements that current firefox has over that mosaic are: tabs, JS and blocking stuff. (I'm not counting stuff that's just a simple improvement - like rendering new html+css, ability to use icons for favourite pages, etc.)

It's a bit sad :(

<comment><USER22> What exactly were you hoping for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It looks like they already fixed the search. I can find my own embarrassing posts from when I was a teenager. I had forgotten how excited I was about computer games. :P

<comment><USER24> They may claim that they've fixed it, but they haven't.

Try to search for old posts by USENET group and with a fixed e-mail address - it will not work properly. What doesn't work:

\- search by e-mail address,

\- search by USENET group, e.g., comp.lang.perl.misc,

\- you must log in to get any reasonable functionality.

Why don't they give it back to the Deja people along with sufficient funding? They were doing it just fine, thank you. Wouldn't worry me if _all_ Google Groups posts were trashed and USENET restored to it's primary role.

USENET was once the most important Internet resource to me and the only one I would have paid for. It's been seriously damaged under Google's reign. Heads really, really should roll over this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=870126>

In reference.</comment>


How Google Can Avert the Next Financial Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-06/how-google-might-help-us-avert-a-financial-crisis.html

<comment><USER2> _... Currently, most of the information that would be needed to calculate DebtRank or any other similar measure is simply not public._

That's why this idea won't work - banks simply don't disclose their risk levels.

And the article's title is misleading: Google is not building an algorithm to avert financial crises. A _team of European physicists and economists_ created an algorithm (called "DebtRank") based on the PageRank algorithm to identify patterns that could potential lead to a financial crisis. (But, again, the "DebtRank" algorithm needs more data that's not publicly available.)

</comment><comment><USER3> The current financial crisis is primarily one of debt. This is because of excessive government spending. How is an algorithm going to change that?</comment>