When Does Amazon Become a Monopoly? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/when-exactly-does-amazon-become-a-monopoly/530616/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> > In the near term, the Whole Foods purchase worries some analysts most > because it immediately gives Amazon another infrastructural advantage: more > than 400 small warehouses, spread out across some of the most affluent (and > Amazon-using) neighborhoods in the United States. They fret that Amazon's > logistical advantages—its network of warehouses, delivery routes, and cargo > jets across North America—have given it an unbeatable advantage over other > firms.

Super disagree with that one. WF stores pay a premium for location and are full of, you know, food. Amazon has opened up a in-city distribution center in my city - not surprisingly in a closed down Sears location. Its in a crappy part of town, by railroad tracks and the home depot. They use it for some limited pickups and uber-style delivery drivers. There's no reason they'd need the kind of setup WF has in our area - either ultra urban locations or suburban with tons of parking when they can just pickup closing brink and mortars in undesirable locations.

Grocery is hard for a bunch of reason, one of key ones being location. Why you'd give up that location to use to dispatch items out of it beyond me, and I suspect not what Amazon is intending here.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no such thing as a vertical monopoly. That is the dumbest idea I've heard this month probably from somebody who should know better.

Monopoly by definition is a single (or overwhelming) supplier. Vertical integration is about the exact opposite since it opens the business up to competition all along the supply chain. Amazon now competes with almost everybody.

We've had larger firms in retail and other industries in the past that died of natural causes. There is no reason to think different of modern tech companies. These are just the people who are getting the transition we have in the marketplace. Others will see and pick up on it to. You can't judge a monopoly over just a 10 year period of time.

<comment><USER4> I was under the impression that using your dominance in one market to secure dominance in another is considered monopolistic behavior—for instance, shipping IE with windows.

<comment><USER5> So how does a successful company continue adding things their customers want, but avoid getting accused of being a monopoly?

From what you're saying, it seems as though the company is damned either way. If you have earned a lot of market share, it doesn't matter whether you charge a high price or the lowest price ($0). Or is the answer just that when you reach a certain size, you should just be killed, never mind the cost to everyone else (including customers that depend on the products being offered as well as employees who have built careers working to make the company successful)?

Large companies don't do everything well, to be sure. But who is going to go out on a limb and fund the big bets, like Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, MSR, etc. if we keep cutting down the tall poppies? Academics have a place, but there are structural organizational and social reasons why they were not able to invent everything we enjoy today.

<comment><USER6> Bell was forced to spend a large amount on research and not keep the patents to themselves, or charge much for them, by the govt, because it was a natural monopoly. Ever heard of the transistor?

<comment><USER7> Thank you for this comment. Most people aren't aware of the relationship that Bell was in with the gov't because of its status as a monopoly. Before the gov't broke up Bell, it agreed to let Bell have the monopoly on the telephone system, and in exchange, Bell "gave back" to the public in the form of new, "public domain" technology. Not just the transistor, but also Unix and the C programming language. Sometimes I wonder how farther we might be in our technological development if Bell had never been broken up.

Folks wanting to know more about Bell Labs can check out "The Idea Factory" by Jon Gertner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Amazon basically bought the country's sixth-largest grocery store for free.

For the curios, the five bigger seem to be, in descending order: Kroger, Albertsons, Ahold USA, Publix, and H-E-B Grocery. (Walmart is #7).

Ahold owns Giant, Martin's, Stop & Shop.

<comment><USER9> where did the walmart number come from? By several sources, they are the largest grocery retailer in the US.

In 2012, this article puts grocery revenue at $255b (over twice krogers revenue): [http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/companies/walmart- groce...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/31/news/companies/walmart- grocery/index.html)

And this article says they have 25% of the 700b grocery market: [http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/will_wal_mart_replace_the_su...](http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/will_wal_mart_replace_the_supermarket_partner/)

And this article says "Wal-Mart's biggest revenue driver is food (55%)".. and walmart has 485b in total revenue: [https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/16/kroger- wal...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/07/16/kroger-wal-mart- likely-to-enjoy-market-share-gains.aspx)

<comment><USER8> [https://www.statista.com/statistics/197899/2010-sales-of- sup...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/197899/2010-sales-of-supermarket- chains-in-the-us/)

Different sources give different rankings, often very different. I picked that one because it was the only one I found at the time that put Whole Foods at #6, so at least might be the ordering the article author was thinking of.

It's also not clear how largeness should be measured. Some lists seem to be by sales. Some seem to be by number of stores. Some seem to be by number of employees. It's not always clear which a given list is using.

<comment><USER9> that site displays a lot of statistics, but has no references. its anyones guess where that data came from (and how long ago)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Last decade when they killed all the brick and mortar stores they are now forced to replace to remain competitive.

</comment><comment><USER9> this article is, at best, years too early. Walmart is the worlds largest retailer, and largest grocery retailer in the US. 55% of their 480b in revenue comes from food, and their revenue from food is over twice that of Kroger (the #2 grocer).

Acquiring the #6 grocer doesnt change that.. And Amazon, even if you include 3rd party sellers, still has not reached 480b in revenue.

You cannot be the number two player and have a monopoly. That's not the way that works.

<comment><USER11> What about internet retailers? Amazon is practically the leader there with 90%? of all ecommerce sales.

<comment><USER9> 43%: [http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-accounts-for-43-of- us-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-accounts-for-43-of-us-online- retail-sales-2017-2)

Which is a lot, but it would be hard to argue that consumers dont have choices, when the same goods are available in hundreds of other stores, both online and off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Never as long as anybody can freely compete. Once you can't compete, no matter how big or small, a monopoly is born.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was also perplexed as to why Amazon would buy WF.

The only rationale that I can think of is that Amazon wants to run experiments in having physical stores in upscale areas, use AI for running the logistics of grocery stores, and perhaps as a test ground for in-store robotics.

This seems like a long term play.

</comment><comment><USER14> big does not imply monopoly

Monopoly means control of the supply or trade of a good or service. Very little that Amazon sells is not available elsewhere at comparable prices (maybe exclusive digital content? kindles?), so it cannot be a monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER15> When Walmart declares bankruptcy.</comment>


2010 US digital music purchases reach new highs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110106006565/en/Nielsen-Company-Billboard%E2%80%99s-2010-Music-Industry-Report

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitted because actual point-of-purchase sales data (what Nielsen Soundscan tracks) doesn't seem to jive with the decline in sales that the RIAA reports (inferred from shipment data.)

Nielsen reports that total sales have been increasing every year except last year, but album sales have been going down, down (and I understand that album sales are where record companies make most of their money.)</comment>


RefluxJS – A library for uni-directional dataflow inspired by ReactJS Flux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spoike/refluxjs

<comment><USER2> I'm well underway on a large React app using Reflux for my flux implementation and I'm loving it. It removes just enough boilerplate and adds just enough sugar to keep your flux app sane. The string based event comparison in Flux's dispatcher just didn't feel right to me. Reflux actions act as their own dispatchers and works out great.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was just reading about McFly [https://github.com/kenwheeler/mcfly](https://github.com/kenwheeler/mcfly) yesterday morning. There's another library like this too, I think. Hopefully the authors can all come together behind one of these things.</comment>


Mongoid vs MongoMapper: Two Great MongoDB Libraries for Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://www.rubyinside.com/mongoid-vs-mongomapper-two-great-mongodb-libraries-for-ruby-3432.html <comment><USER2> Peter provides a very good summary of the differences between the two libraries by letting the authors of both libraries have their say. I have always used MongoMapper (for Ruby, CongoMongo for Clojure), but I am motivated to at least give Mongoid a try.</comment>


Calm Down. Facebook Is Not Screwing You. - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/04/02/calm-down-facebook-is-not-screwing-you/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social <comment><USER2> Wouldn't trust Facebook as far as I could throw them. The whole thing just gives me the ebe-gee-bees (which is a technical term).

I will never sign-up. You will have to pry the Unsubscribe key from my cold dead hands.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone suggest an accurate title that isn't linkbait?

</comment><comment><USER4> Facebook is not screwing you -- says the guy whose job depends on people buying Facebook ads and likes and managing pages.</comment>


An Overview of Micron's Automata Processor (2016) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~skadron/Papers/wang_APoverview_CODES16.pdf <comment><USER2> Here's a description of the "Automata Processor", a phrase I hadn't heard before [1]:

 _> Micron's new Automata Processor (AP) architecture exploits the very high and natural level of parallelism found in DRAM technologies to achieve native- hardware implementation of nondeterministic finite automata (NFAs). The use of DRAM technology to implement the NFA states provides high capacity and therefore provide extraordinary parallelism for pattern recognition. In this paper, we give an overview of AP's architecture, programming and applications._

[1] [https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~skadron/Papers/wang_APoverview_...](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~skadron/Papers/wang_APoverview_CODES16.pdf)

<comment><USER3> That looks interesting, so we've changed the URL to it above, as explained at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16988002). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> UVA is doing some great focused work in certain CS fields. Their student team recently won the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in their first year competing [0].

[0] [http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2018-04-15-University-of- Virgi...](http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/2018-04-15-University-of-Virginia- wins-2018-National-Collegiate-Cyber-Defense-Championship-by-protecting- against-network-attacks-from-industry-professionals)

<comment><USER5> It's interesting that most of the 10 finalist schools aren't the traditional CS powerhouses. If you wanted to study cyberdefense, what schools are best?

<comment><USER6> Interestingly enough, Dakota State University in Madison, SD has a consistently very highly-ranked cybersecurity program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What does "CAP" stand for in this case?

<comment><AUTHOR> Center for Automata Processing

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wasn't this discontinued?

</comment><comment><USER9> It's been around for at least 5 years with no real market traction. Processors in memory fix the Von Neuman bottleneck. Great for REGEX, none have floating point yet to make them useful for scientific code.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's better not to post home pages of things like institutions or magazines, but rather to submit the most interesting specific link that is available. We've found that discussion is only substantive when there's material to sink teeth into.

Edit: since [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16987095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16987095) includes such a link, let's try changing the submission to that. Original url was [https://engineering.virginia.edu/cap- research-0](https://engineering.virginia.edu/cap-research-0).

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't they have spell checker in Virginia? "Reasearch Areas"

<comment><USER11> Virginians know about spellcheck, but it may not have permeated the rarefied bubble of UVa. Mr Jefferson probably spelled "research" that way back in the 19th century when planning his Academical Village. Or perhaps this was written by a thoughtless mere first-year.

<comment><USER12> As a UVA grad, I laughed out loud at this.

<comment><USER11> Oh, I'm glad! I have several friends who are UVA grads (graduate and undergrad levels), and so I say it with love. Mockery is the sincerest form of flattery.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


8085 instruction set: the octal table - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2013/02/8085-instruction-set-octal-table.html <comment><USER2> Although this page talks about the 8085 instruction set, Wikipedia says it was almost identical to the original 8080, and therefore has a lot in common with the 8080-derived (and much more popular) Z80 CPU.

This octal-based organisation was also inherited by the x86 architecture: [http://www.dabo.de/ccc99/www.camp.ccc.de/radio/help.txt](http://www.dabo.de/ccc99/www.camp.ccc.de/radio/help.txt)</comment>


What the Ctenophore says about the evolution of intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-evolution-of-intelligence <comment><USER2> One of the ways that science has demonstrated the ancient roots of serotonin is by giving octopuses MDMA[0], resulting in the normally wary creatures getting all cuddly.

[0] [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06746-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06746-x)

<comment><USER3> Wow that sounds ridiculous but true

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can't make sense of this:

"Moroz reached this conclusion by testing the nerve cells of ctenophores for the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and nitric oxide, chemical messengers considered the universal neural language of all animals. But try as he might, he could not find these molecules. The implications were profound."

But plants make and use serotonin and dopamine

Phytoserotonin also plays a role in the following aspects of plant function: Growth regulation Xylem sap exudation Flowering Ion permeability Plant morphogenesis Regulation of ripening

from [https://www.news-medical.net/health/Serotonin-in- Plants.aspx](https://www.news-medical.net/health/Serotonin-in-Plants.aspx)

and

The functions of plant catecholamines [seems to be a ref to dopamine] have not been clearly established, but there is evidence that they play a role in the response to stressors such as bacterial infection, act as growth-promoting factors in some situations, and modify the way that sugars are metabolized. The receptors that mediate these actions have not yet been identified, nor have the intracellular mechanisms that they activate

from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolactostatin#Plants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolactostatin#Plants) and

Plants and animals diverged ~1.7 billion years ago, which is plausibly why they share these neurotransmitters, yet the article seems to say we diverged from ctenophores ~ 0.5 billion years ago "If Moroz is right, then the ctenophore represents an evolutionary experiment of stunning proportions, one that has been running for more than half a billion years"

So unless serotonon and dopamine evolved in plants and animals after the split between plants and animals, (or somehow ctenophores lost these after they split from us) how is this possible?

<comment><USER5> Evidently ctenophores don't use serotonin anymore, and have found some other molecule they like better for what they are doing. There is nothing special about the molecules we use, they just happen to fit the receptors we use, so switching would require changing both, which is too hard to bother with.

If you haven't watched youtube videos of ctenophores eating one another yet, you are in for a treat.

<comment><USER6> Thanks!

> youtube videos of ctenophores eating one another yet, you are in for a treat

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmoChWQ6xCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmoChWQ6xCk)

<comment><USER5> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkNPp6mzzI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkNPp6mzzI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article is deeply unsatisfying. Too much fluff for a very basic point: ctenophores are different kinds of organisms than we've come to expect. That's it. "Different" appears 24 times in the article, almost every single instance of which is just, "ctenophores are different."

There's not much more information in this article than that. I was hoping for some compelling science writing. But this feels like a tiny story (for now) stretched way too far. In a year or five when there are some interesting hypotheses about WHY they're different, then we'll see.

<comment><USER8> I think you're missing the key point (and perhaps the article doesn't explain it clearly): if the nervous system is completely different from other animals, then that implies (maybe) that the nervous system did not just evolve once, and then branch from there, but evolved multiple times, each time slightly differently but with similar results.

This is called "convergent evolution," and is fairly common (though not necessarily common for big systems like the nervous system), but what it implies is that there is something fundamental about the structure of the nervous system that leads it to being evolved again and again, even if in slightly different versions.

Contrast that to other things that are evolved, let's say endoskeletons (bones). These seem fundamental to us, but (as far as I know) they only evolved once, and it would be perfectly reasonable to imagine a world where they never evolved, and all the animals had exoskeletons.

Indeed, if endoskeletons really only evolved once, then we might really have no reason to expect them in any alien species. But if something like the nervous system evolved multiple times, then we expect that to be a solution that evolution finds again and again.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I understand all that going in to the article. I have, let's call it, an advanced beginner's understanding of neuroscience & evolutionary biology.

It was just an extremely long article, in my personal opinion, for "this is different."

</comment></comment></comment><comment> radford-neal Ciliates, such as paramecium, are another interesting group with a completely different approach to life. They are usually described as "single celled", and by implication simple, but the cell in this case is much more complex than one of ours.

Animals (and for that matter, plants) develop from a single-celled zygote, into a multicellular organism, which eventually dies, after producing gametes to merge into zygotes to continue the cycle.

Ciliates have an analogous, but totally different, approach. A newly "born" ciliate has a "micronucleus", similar to one of ours, from which it makes multiple copies of its DNA to form a "macronucleus", which does all the work. Perhaps gene expression in the macronucleus even changes in a way that learns about its environment. But eventually, the ciliate mates, or goes through a sort of self-conjugation event, dividing into more than one cell, each of which gets a new micronucleus formed by recombination. These cells discard the macronucleus, forming a new one from the new micronucleus.

It's sort of like a multicellular organism dying, since whatever the old macronucleus learned will be forgotten. (Perhaps that's the point, if the environment has changed, requiring a new approach.)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think a possible caveat is the Ctenophore had to continue to reproduce in an environment where other organisms possessed a central nervous system and intelligence. Although I don't think it is likely, it could be the case that evolving to that level of complexity is unlikely but once one successful organism in the ecosystem possesses it, it exerts evolutionary pressure on other organisms to move towards the greater complexity as well.</comment>


Ask HN: How to do code reviews between remote teams - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
We just started to work with a remote dev team. Due to time difference we find hard to have frequent phone calls or video conferences.
So far, we write emails with all the suggestions. We have no good way to track the suggestion and often writing those long emails is very cumbersome and leaves lot of room for ambiguity.
I would like to know if there are any good tools or ways to do code reviews with a distributed team. How do you do code reviews in your team? <comment><USER2> Part of our team uses Atlassian's tool Crucible for accomplishing this. I don't have a ton of hands-on experience with it, but they love it and it does look like it does a pretty elegant job at capturing a living code review online. <http://www.atlassian.com/software/crucible/>

<comment><AUTHOR> this looks perfect. Though, it is a bit pricey for us. Ideally the code review tool would be integrated with Github, Pivotal tracker or lighthouse.

<comment><USER2> Have you taken a look at Campfire? <http://campfirenow.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You may want to take a look at Rietveld which is a clone of the widely used mondrian tool within google.

[http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2008/05/guido-van-rossum- rele...](http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2008/05/guido-van-rossum-releases- mondrian.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Is it (un)ethical to advise older people to switch to a tech career? - <AUTHOR> I have recently had two older acquaintances independently ask me about how to get into programming. One is a retired air traffic controller (51 y.o.) and one is a lawyer who is burned out (47 y.o.). I told both of them what I tell anyone who asks me this question: it would be hard but possible for them to make the switch. I was very clear that it would require that they put in significant time, focus and work and that it would not be easy. I gave them a bunch of resources to start with and told them they could ask me questions any time. They are intelligent enough and I honestly believe that if they put in the time they could be pretty good.<p>The thing is, I am not sure I did the right thing. Age discrimination is a reality in this industry. Sure, there are older guys working as developers, but all of the ones I know have been doing it for 20-30 years. None of them got started so late. So, what kind of opportunities, realistically, are these guys looking at, provided they put in the time? I guess I am putting this out there to get other thoughts on the matter because I really just don't know. <comment><USER2> You did the right thing by providing the information requested. You can help them more by introducing them to older programmers and programmers who have made a career switch from another field to development.

Personally, I have changed career fields multiple times. What has worked for me is to build a bridge between what I know (the domain I was working in) and where I want to go next (targeted market).

For example, the lawyer can easily migrate to legal tech company and still be considered very valuable. Similarly, ATC can easily migrate to related industry tech company. Actually, their domain expertise will be considered valuable even now without programming knowledge in sales, sales engineering, and consulting roles for domain related tech companies and that might be a bridge worth walking on. Once they have entered tech space, it will get easier to build network and relationship and migrate toward development roles. This also avoids the need to restart from the bottom.

One thing I will suggest not to do is to quit their current jobs and go do some programming bootcamp/academic program. Their domain expertise is valuable as long as they are in the domain so leverage that to find a role in tech company focusing on their domain.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the alternative, not recommending resources or help based on their age, is worse.

Age discrimination is real across all industries. It may be more pronounced in some, but that's a risk they are taking regardless of what they field they are trying to switch into.

As long as you didn't build up their expectations by telling them they'll have no problem finding a job if they do xyz, it should be fine ethically speaking.

<comment><USER4> There are still many fields where experience is in high demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > So, what kind of opportunities, realistically, are these guys looking at...

Much depends on the niche/skill-set they acquire. Right now, in the United States, there are nearly 350,000 job openings for cybersecurity professionals > [http://www.csoonline.com/article/3206688/it-careers/firms- lo...](http://www.csoonline.com/article/3206688/it-careers/firms-look-beyond- job-boards-to-find-and-recruit-cybersecurity-talent.html)

Relative to Age Bias, that's hard in every industry. The smart hiring manager who values maturity over youth and inexperience will find loyal, dependable employees.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are plenty of people around technology that have no idea how it works. You might even get one for a boss someday lol. A lot of what it takes to make a company successful is managing people as much as the product. Since one is a retired ATC, he definitely has experience in leadership and that can be more valuable to management than how well he can code on a whiteboard. Just because they are new to programming doesn't mean they lack real world experience. There are far more times you need a person with street smarts over book smarts. Unless he's trying to be a professional athlete, its never too late.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think people with a lot of experience in a different industry can certainly move into tech. Moving into a direct programming role might be hard, but handling project management, specification and requirements gathering, technical documentation, quality assurance, and legal aspects are some great areas that both of those people could contribute to.

</comment><comment><USER8> The question are they going to want to take junior level pay to get in the door?

<comment><USER9> This, to me, seems to be the biggest issue. What former lawyer is going to accept a $45k salary as a junior dev?

That said, there definitely are product/management roles that would benefit from having programming knowledge.

<comment><USER10> I did. I was a shitty lawyer, though. Best decision I ever made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Old age? 50 is the new 30 and 40 is the new 20... no one is retiring soon, so they have plenty of time to learn...</comment>


Google and China: What's the real story, and where does it go from here? - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/google-and-china-whats-the-rea.html <comment><USER2> nice bunch of opnions.

...and my comment on /. asking when would they leave the US, since they already showed discontent with the gov there as well by resisting subpoenas received a +3 Funny.</comment>


About the Touch Bar - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/AbouttheTouchBar.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-CH104-SW1 <comment><USER2> While I feel a lot about the Touch Bar is wrong, one interesting thing is that Xcode now has a "Touch Bar simulator" similar to other iOS simulators. That should go a long way toward making sure that applications support this technology.</comment>


Craig Wright granted US copyright registrations for Bitcoin white paper and code - <AUTHOR> https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=15&ti=1,15&Search_Arg=bitcoin&Search_Code=FT%2A&CNT=25&PID=nzoD_881lnuCunVeTvIfD742gwJ8&SEQ=20190521081301&SID=1 <comment><AUTHOR> The article may explain it better: [https://coingeek.com/bitcoin-creator- craig-s-wright-satoshi-...](https://coingeek.com/bitcoin-creator-craig-s- wright-satoshi-nakamoto-granted-us-copyright-registrations-for-bitcoin-white- paper-and-code/)</comment>


Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://elaineou.com/2017/07/09/sexual-harassment-in-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER4> >The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances because they were desperate to raise money for their startups. There's an old- fashioned word for what these ladies are doing that I shan't repeat here.

What? I'm not sure I know what "old-fashioned word" the author is talking about...

The author then goes on to explain that men have to put up with shitty people to raise money as well.

As a man who has dealt with shitty people in an array of business situations I can say that none of my run-ins have included sexual assault.

The stories coming to light are not about "unwanted sexual advances" as much as they're about actual assault, or at the very least harassment.

The only people who benefit when we are dismissive are the abusers.

<comment><USER5> After the first time someone makes an unwanted sexual advance, you whether you are a man or a woman have the choice to walk away and NOT take their money!

From the article - "The only thing more timeless than the abuse of power is the tolerance of abuse by those who most need the money.". Many people want the funding bad enough to keep interacting with unpleasant people and tolerate the abuse and hence ensure it continues.... they do have at least the choice to walk away, same as men, or better yet bring it to public awareness. Yet many choose to take the money and then complain - at that point they have no right to complain, because they have actively perpetuated the cycle of abuse in exchange for money and helped the abuser grow a little more powerful.

If any founder desperate for money took money from a terrorist group, we would condemn them for colluding with the enemy, not give them sympathy for how hard it is to get funding.

You can't take the bad guys money, knowing full well what it cost you AND complain about it. That is the problem. I explained more in another comment here.

<comment><USER6> > You can't take the bad guys money, knowing full well what it cost you AND > complain about it.

So basically, if the problem is endemic, you're screwed and you should be happy about it.

<comment><USER5> You are putting words in my mouth. The problem is powerful people get away with a lot of shit, and the solution is to publicly expose them so they lose face, or AT LEAST stop doing business with them.

If someone continues to do business (and thus helps) with a bad actor, that action of doing business and taking money speaks much louder than any words they may have.

If you genuinely care about sexual harassment but you still take the money, the net effect of that is the bad guy gets another portfolio company and grows stronger. It conveys a childish attitude - a wish for the world to be perfect while taking actions only in your interest, that help the bad guy in this case.

All talk and no action doesn't freaking help anyone, except perhaps the authors reputation. As a society we are all supposed to applaud these people as heroes? Sorry I will save my applause for those who take action - <USER2> others have my sympathy the same as millions of other people dealing with bad people.

<comment><USER6> > If you genuinely care about sexual harassment but you still take the money, > the net effect of that is the bad guy gets another portfolio company and > grows stronger. It conveys a childish attitude - a wish for the world to be > perfect while taking actions only in your interest, that help the bad guy in > this case.

I'm sorry, but what you are describing seems, if not childish, incredibly naïve. It presumes a scenario where there is always ample access to opportunity without facing sexual harassment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances because they were desperate to raise money for their
      startups. There's an old-fashioned word for what these ladies are doing that I shan't repeat here.

So, women who reject these advances but don't want to object too loudly out of fear of burning bridges or being seen as a troublemaker, are being accused of prostitution. What a fascinating way to smear the victims.

<comment><USER5> The problem is many people keep objecting in general but without ever providing ANY evidence or at least asserting clearly "this person X did Y". Taking generalized accusations at simple word of mouth is lynching, its not a scalable solution for society. There will always be people who lie or bend the truth when its to their advantage, unfortunately thats the world we live in - thats why we require evidence and a judicial process in crimes.

I know it must be very difficult, but basically powerful people get away with all kinds of things including but not limited to sexual harassment because of the same fears women have against reporting them - burning bridges, fear of repercussions, they might have strong reputations and powerful friends etc etc. For most of us, the only choice is to leave that environment because of that fear. Harassment, unfortunately it can be a bigger offense, but women face the same choices as anyone else - leave or risk a fight with a powerful person... It sucks but it sucks the same way for everyone.

She ultimately makes a good point - "The only thing more timeless than the abuse of power is the tolerance of abuse by those who most need the money.". Many people want the funding bad enough to keep interacting with unpleasant people and tolerate the abuse and hence ensure it continues.... they do have at least the choice to walk away, same as men, or better yet bring it to public awareness. Yet many choose to take the money and then complain - <USER3> that point they have no right to complain, because they have actively perpetuated the cycle of abuse in exchange for money and helped the abuser grow a little more powerful.

You can't take the bad guys money, knowing full well what it cost you AND complain about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Male founders have to run this emasculating gauntlet too, except that they can't blame gender discrimination for how dirty they feel at the end of the day."

This is something I think about a lot. I am white & I am male, so my race and gender are naturally things that I don't think of very often (and I understand that constitutes a level of privilege). An exercise that I like to do sometimes is just imagine the situation I'm experiencing as if I was female, or as if I was black. If I'm in a meeting and everyone ignores what I'm saying, as a white male, there is no voice in the back of my head saying "it's because I'm female." If I don't get a job, or the interviewer was condescending, there is no voice in my head saying "it's because I'm black." So I entertain these ideas every once in a while, and it's actually amazing how many misfortunes I can quickly associate to being black or being female, that had I actually been black or female I would have ABSOLUTELY attributed to those features.

What makes this interesting is that my point isn't to say that a female or person of color won't actually have a different experience, and face real instances of racism and sexism...because they absolutely will. The thing that I DO find interesting is that they basically have no "control" experience by which to measure their victimhood. Once you've taken on the role of a victim, any number of injustices that are just part of human nature can be attributed to whatever you perceive as the source. The end result is a major overestimation of remaining institutional injustices, in my opinion, and the constant reinforcement of this victimhood status is largely responsible for continuing to plant this voice in the head of individuals that is constantly asking "am I being treated this way because I'm ________."

The inverse is obviously true in that a white male is very likely to underestimate the injustices encountered by a black person or a female, but I find this to be much less interesting. The reason being that no person is very aware of the injustices we DON'T face, we are acutely aware of the injustices that we DO face. If a black man experiences a 15% increase in injustices vs a white man, the white man is likely underestimate the impact of those of the black man. The black man, however, can rightfully attribute those extra 15% to the fact that he his black, but there is no clear differentiator between those that were truly racial in nature vs those that would have been encountered regardless of race.

<comment><USER9> > Once you've taken on the role of a victim, any number of injustices that are > just part of human nature can be attributed to whatever you perceive as the > source.

Why do you think this is happening? When a woman is ignored in a meeting, she doesn't think "it's because I'm a woman". She thinks "every single day people make jokes about me sleeping my way to the top, they try to hit on me while I'm doing my job, they criticize my outfit even though they've worn the same suit every day for five years straight, they refuse to meet with me alone, why would this meeting be any different?"

Next time something bad happens to you, don't just imagine being female or black in that moment. Imagine if you've been female or black for your whole life, and have direct daily evidence of people not respecting you.

<comment><USER10> Except people can be generally shitty to you for most of your life regardless of your race or gender or any other label, so one more experience of a person being shitty isn't evidence of any of those things. It's what the parent post meant about "control experiences." There's no accurate baseline to judge true prejudice vs general terribleness, because it's all being viewed through the lens of oppression. From people who play the race or gender card, I cannot recall ever reading about them ever blaming any experience on people just being baseline terrible, even though "privileged" people experience that baseline terribleness every day, but have nothing politically correct to blame it on (speaking for myself, nor would I want to blame it on anything besides human nature).

<comment><USER11> > Except people can be generally shitty to you for most of your life > regardless of your race or gender or any other label

There is even more to it: people can be just randomly shitty to you and use your gender to carry out the shittiness simply because you react to it. Female programmer: you'll never be a real programmer, male programmer: you'll never be a real man. The thing that matters is _your_ personal insecurity, not the attacker's bias against any gender.

Add the fact that some people are really allergic to others complaining about being oppressed for no discernible reason and you are on a straight way to some very unpleasant life experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's the deal:

People looking for investments in their businesses are not panhandlers. They are not begging. They do not deserve to have any abuse tossed their way. They are people working in a business environment trying to create a mutually- beneficial arrangement. They are professionals, as are their investors.

> The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances > because they were desperate to raise money for their startups. There's an > old-fashioned word for what these ladies are doing that I shan't repeat > here.

This is wildly offensive and just stupid beyond all belief. A woman who has a start-up she's trying to raise money for is a WHORE if she puts up with unwanted sexual advances from investors? Or is Elaine Ou saying that a woman who has a start-up is a WHORE because women who go "begging" for money deserve to be treated like sex objects?

Am I misreading that? I must be. Please help.

<comment><USER13> > A woman who has a start-up she's trying to raise money for is a WHORE if she > puts up with unwanted sexual advances from investors?

She is saying that if you put up with this kind of behavior rather than cutting it off, you are part of the problem.

To be fair, this goes for men, too. I have had the "joy" of turning down funding because the person involved was such a jackass. Fortunately, he wasn't offering a huge sum of money.

Add another zero, and my partner and I would probably have been in a major argument. And two zeros and I probably would have swallowed my pride. I acknowledge that I can be bought--I just hope my price is high enough to make it worth it.

I really don't envy women in this environment. Lots of people running VC funds _really_ like to throw the power imbalance around even towards men. Adding sexual dynamics to the mix has to be ferociously toxic--think about the abuse of Hooter's waitresses and then dial the restraint to zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's nice that she decides to call women who didn't report unwanted sexual advances "prostitutes" without having the guts to actually say that for the record.

</comment><comment><USER15> This post is pure victim blaming that adds nothing of substance to the conversation ( _" The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances"_... clearly the people who have come forward precisely DO NOT put up with the unwanted sexual advances?!?!?!?!). The author should perhaps realize that they are privileged to have never experienced the distresses many have reported, instead of smugly dismissing it with an argument that amounts to "well I'm old and I see no problems here" (EDIT: never mind, turns out the author was born in 1982, not worked in the valley since 1982, which makes her argument just "I'm a random person and I see no problems here", even less forgivable).

I have a very hard time understanding what kind of mind, when given the choice to support rich powerful people who abuse their power or women who just would like to get their work done and build a career in a professional environment, chooses to believe and stick by the former.

Given that this is on the front page already I expect my post to be heavily disagreed with, but at least people who have experienced discrimination/harassment can see that not all of the HN users think it's their fault.

</comment><comment> d--b She says "it's not that bad" and then goes on to explain that abusive behavior happens because of the capital raising dynamics.

So in fact the abuse is happening...

It's understandable for a woman to come out and say "look it's not that bad", because it's true that in a majority of cases, women in tech are treated fine and the media shouldn't make the tech environment look like it's a giant college dorm.

But, at the same time, it is true that some pockets of college dorm culture still exist. And because the tech culture is so homogenous (geeky male college grads) and isolated, extreme and abusive behavior towards those outside the culture arise more easily.

Media attention is necessary so that the people who evolve in that culture day in day out can have a reality check.

</comment><comment><USER16> The title misrepresents the universality of the author's perspective.

More plainly: this is HN clickbait. Ignore, please, read on at your peril.

</comment><comment><USER17> Random Non sequitur: I love Black Mirror but for the most part it concentrates on possible negative consequences of future tech. Episode S01E03 in particular concentrated on the possible negative consequences of having always on eye based video cameras that record your life 24/7 (or at least while your eyes are open). That reality doesn't seem too far away. 5 to 15 years? Maybe not implanted eyes by then but some fashionable version of Snapchat Spectacles.

If that world ever comes to pass what would be the positive consequences if any. Would it solve most sexual harassment issues since in that world most sexual harassment would be recorded? How often would it be clear sexual harassment vs individual interpretation?

While on the topic of individual interpretation you might find this season of The Heart interesting.

[http://www.theheartradio.org/no-episodes/](http://www.theheartradio.org/no- episodes/)

</comment><comment><USER18> This discussion should be about empowering women.

Not about painting people who've made mistakes with a brush. Not about placing blame.

If a friend / family member of yours, a woman you cared about, was in a situation where she was being harassed by someone with a cheque in his hand, what would you want her to do?

</comment><comment><USER19> Ah yes, I remember this person. She started an unlicensed Bitcoin-based derivatives exchange where the public could bet on the success of startups, and was fined and shut down by the SEC (not before posting an ill-advised rant first: [https://archive.is/DOVJZ](https://archive.is/DOVJZ)).

Previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642186)

Edit: I appreciate the questions of the relevance of this fact. My perspective was that Ms. Ou appears to consider Silicon Valley / the startup world a place where the usual rules do not, or perhaps should not apply. I should have been more explicit about this in my original post.

<comment><USER20> _Ad hominem_ much?

EDIT: Particularly ironic, given your username.

<comment><USER21> Ad hominem? That's an awesome thing to have on one's resume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How did this make front page of HN? This adds literally nothing to the discussion apart from rehashing arguments that were old hat in 2008, by an author who openly admits they are part of the privileged group largely responsible for the problem, complete with an oh so classy "well I can't SAY it, but you know what I mean" as if sideways implying garbage opinions is somehow morally superior to having garbage opinions.

Is this satire?

<comment><USER23> Maybe people are getting sick and tired of this constant bashing of "privileged" men (especially white men) and this is welcomed opinion.

It's good that bad people are exposed, but when the opinion starts to shift more and more towards grouping all "privileged" people in same group (like you are doing in this very post) it is only creating a bigger problem by making gender and race the primary thing that defines a person instead of their character.

<comment><USER22> The idea that nationalism will save industry is a welcome opinion in rural America right now (speaking as a white male in rural America) but a welcome opinion does not equal (and in fact, rarely does equal) a CORRECT idea. White men need to not take this shit personally which believe me, I understand is _incredibly_ hard to do but the fact is that people like me were born into a system designed _by_ people like me, _for_ people like me, and even though I've had my share of rough times, I can't then go and claim that racism and sexism are over because I overcame them and I've seen women do the same thing.

Just because one room is saved does not mean the rest of the house is therefore no longer on fire and we can all go home. There is still work to do, and "good enough" for 51% of the population, is just not good enough.

Now if you want to make the case that an opinion or idea that makes you _feel good_ is inherently as legitimate as one backed by numerous anecdotal accounts, solid demographic data, and downward trends in the industry then you're free to die on that hill, but I will not be doing so.</comment></comment></comment>


Whats up with diaspora? - <AUTHOR>

Whats the latest on diaspora? Nothing much from them in recent times <comment><USER2> Jason Calacanis recently interviewed one of the Diaspora guys: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lEtantlSsI>

The interview starts around 25 minutes in.

<comment><USER3> Context at 23:35, interview starts at 24:40

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lEtantlSsI#t=23m35s>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lEtantlSsI#t=24m40s>

(Do those work for you guys? I have an old browser and they're not working for me ...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No better way to see what they are up to than watching their Github repo.</comment>


Ask HN: Did Reddit ever end up giving equity to any of its users? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6874353/reddit-50-million-funding-give-users-10-percent-stock-equity
I always thought this was a bold idea and yet I never heard anything about it after was this one comment from Sam Altman's AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2hwr02/i_am_sam_altman_lead_investor_in_reddits_new/ckwqv8x/
Did it not pass regulation or did they just abandon the idea?
Gigster also made similar claims and I have not heard anything since: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/01/gigster-fund/ <comment><USER2> They just announced the vault. Which uses what they call "community points"

[https://www.reddit.com/vault/](https://www.reddit.com/vault/)

<comment><USER3> Aaaand it forces you to use their bloody app on mobile...

Reddit just can't take a hint it seems.

<comment><USER4> At this point they should have enough datapoints to know whether their strategy works out. Them continuing indicates that the hints of the loud is just the whistling of a minority.

<comment><USER5> That makes the assumption that the user is both happy with the "reddit app" even though they are being railroaded into using it and that the interests of reddit and the user are coincident.

<comment><USER6> No, it just makes the assumption that most users (with value to reddit) will tolerate the practice in order to get to the site's content. Whether or not they're happy with the app or being railroaded is orthogonal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reddit has changed ownership structure significant since these comments were made. It is highly unlikely that Tencent would be willing to see their $300 million investment from last year diluted at all [1]. Tencent is also one of the largest companies in China, essentially a State Owned Enterprise (SOE). Such a move would clearly privilege American users, who have been on Reddit significantly longer, than it would Chinese citizens.

Keep in mind the telecom connections to add the internet to China were not made until 1994, and residential was not available even to Beijing until 1997.

[1] - [https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/amp/](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/amp/)

<comment><USER8> You know, on HN I at least expected some nuanced discussion about this idea more than typical Reddit threads, but even here it devolves into "Tencent has a stake in Reddit, everythings censored, China Bad." Think constructively here. I am not touting any of my points as facts that China isn't massively censoring Reddit media, but take these as you will.

1\. Tencent's stake is only 10%. This is far less than other VC ownership, and it shows. Reddits board of directors are all placed by American VC firms, and of course the founders themselves [1]. The majority of Reddit's funding is from individual investors and AMERICAN VC funds.

2\. Reddit is banned in China. If all these CCP posts get so many awards, which in turn provide (probably negligible) revenue for Reddit, it would make more sense to let all of them slide by instead of ban every single one of them. After all, these "revelations" never reach Chinese users anyway, because there are none.

And honestly, can't you use Occam's razor here? I know I am being very generous here about the CCP/Tencent, but don't you think that when Tencent makes foreign investments... they do it so that they can... wait for it... extract more value from them? This is all supposition, but Tencent will likely not invest in companies like Reddit on the basis of "Oh, a free speech platform, we can get money from this AND stifle their free speech, which is a literal selling point of Reddit in the first place!" I'm going to assume here that Tencent's goal is to make money first. If this is the case, it is in their benefit to maintain the integrity of Reddit, lest it receive the (ultimately meaningless) "wrath" of their "politically aware" userbase. Do these ideas 100% disprove that Tencent somehow influences Reddit to censor anti china posts? No. Am I at least making an attempt to think critically about the situation instead of falling on my crutch of "China involvement --> bad?" I think I am.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US](https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US)

<comment><USER9> I'm surprised by this too, and then again not really. The Trump strategy to blame China seems to work really well and fit right in with some of the knee- jerk reactions in the tech-world, which does have a strong libertarian tendency.

Censorship is the devil of tech world, and invoking the image of our Satan does not lead to cool and rational thinking. The West tends to want an outside scapegoat these days because things are getting ugly in it's backyard, and China is fit for purpose.</comment></comment></comment>


Berlin's rental revolution: activists push for properties to be nationalised - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/apr/04/berlins-rental-revolution-activists-push-for-properties-to-be-nationalised <comment><USER2> At the moment it seems Berliners aren't too keen on newcomers and instead of ensuring cheap rents by ensuring there are enough units, they're agitating and regulating in a way that will ensure continued scarcity, and then to fix costs they're pushing ideas like rent control and nationalization. Which will in effect result in a kind of rationing of units, so newcomers be damned.

It's also remarkable given the history of nationalization and land reform to which Berlin had a front row seat.

<comment><USER3> Definitely not helpful. Housing will only get more expensive, the only solution is to build more.

Berlin still has comparative low rents for a city its size. On the other hand real estate speculation remains a huge problem, even if new land is claimed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A possibly better law that allows some free market aspects to continue is allowing only those who work, attend school or have lived in the area X amount of years with the ability to purchase or rent. This way people who need housing in the area are prioritized over rent seekers who have no connection to the area except for the fact that they have cash to purchase in the area. This would also reduce commute times and overall shift around the city population so everyone is closer to where they work or attend school.

<comment><USER5> * Allowing free market aspects does not make a law better.

* Virtually everyone who lives in Berlin also works there or attends school there. I cant imagine many people commute from Berlin to Brandenburg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Berlin can figure out how to have long term affordable rents, for residents and newcomers alike, similar to Singapore, Vienna or how Sweden used to be, it will be the most successful city in Europe.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If activists genuinely believe that Berlin can come up with expropriation funds between €18.1bn (low end) and €36.6bn (high end) then their efforts would probably be better directed towards obtaining those funds and directing them towards building new housing and infrastructure as opposed to fomenting populism.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is what happens when greed takes over and people don't put up with it. We need the same revolution in the Bay Area.

If you're aspiring to be a landlord: don't. It's not noble, it's not useful, and it's quite literally rent seeking.

If you live in the bay and own, refuse to sell to faceless Chinese investors, real estate trusts, etc. Sell to families and individuals who need to live.

<comment><USER8> This is a moronic statement. Housing shortages are not about "greed taking over", they are about not having enough housing.

Edit: sorry for being rude, but attitudes like yours make things worse because they get people fired up about about useless actions that appeal to their base emotions. For example, Berlin wants to spend 36 billion dollars changing the ownership of some housing instead of spending 36 billion dollars building enough for everyone. Landlords cannot charge high rents if there is enough housing to go around.

<comment> jim-jim-jim Simply increasing supply only temporarily ameliorates the problem. Eliminating landlords addresses a fundamental inefficiency in housing.

<comment><USER9> This is wrong of course. Public housing does nothing to suppress the problem of growing demand while having limited supply.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't Facebook sell developer tools? - <AUTHOR> Facebook has been at the forefront of developer tooling for a long time with React, React-Native, GraphQL etc... is there a reason Facebook can't have their own version of AWS that provides managed solutions for tooling? <comment><USER2> I hate to speculate, given that I don't have individual insight about Facebook. However, I did work on developer-facing products at Uber and learned a bit about what it takes for such a product to succeed or fail.

Ultimately, the success of AWS-like developer tools depends almost entirely on executive buy-in--maybe even more so than product-market fit. Amazon is unique in the the executives at the top clearly believe in giving AWS everything it needs to succeed. Other companies are often run by executives either don't believe in the business value of developer tools or they're unwilling to commit the resources for any developer-facing product to succeed.

Facebook is an interesting example in that they open-source such great technology even purchased [https://parseplatform.org/](https://parseplatform.org/) in 2013, but they shut down and open-sourced Parse a few years later. I'm guessing that the execs at the top didn't feel that the business value of Parse was worth the ops burden.

A few years ago, Steve Yegge wrote about the differences between Amazon and Google in how they thought about developer platforms[1]. A lot has changed since then--Google+ is no more and Google Cloud is a much bigger business, but Yegge's post describes a dilemma that all consumer-facing companies have.

[1]: [https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611](https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611)

</comment><comment><USER3> They did. They bought a great mobile backend called Parse and shut it down. Some of us who had to deal with it still have bad memories.

> Parse was a mobile backend as a service platform originally developed by the > provider Parse, Inc. The company was acquired by Facebook in 2013 and shut > down in January 2017.[1][2] Following the announcement in 2016 of the > impending shutdown, the platform was subsequently open sourced.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parse_(platform)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parse_\(platform\))

</comment><comment><USER4> haha do you have any idea about running something like AWS? Google who is the king of distributed systems and cloud cannot hold a candle to the operational efficiency of AWS. AWS isnt only great because of the technology, its the dedication to keep that behemoth running reliably at all costs.

<comment><USER5> I'd agree with this. Aws is not only selling the services it also has to maintain a large amount of capital intensive data centers

Facebook can tick asking nicely selling data and access to it's customers

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Be AWS" would mean a huge investment, and even for Facebook competing with AWS could be a huge challenge.

Facebook is not AWS and being AWS isn't what most their people and management are good at.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not their core company goal. They are known for ruthlessly focusing

</comment><comment><USER8> Security?

My son and I were wargaming threats against cloud data centers. Assuming that modern cloud data centers are all multi-building affairs connected with something akin to the 1990's mainframe FICON it is hard to make an impact with conventional weapons, even cluster bombs. Maybe a B-52 can drop a stick each on two buildings and wreck everything.

If Skynet lights up in us-east-1 even Minuteman is not good enough, you're going to need a lot of warheads just to take down a zone. You'd be wishing they didn't cancel MX.

Colocation could make a big difference in extreme scenarios of social disorder.

<comment><USER9> do you have access to GPT-3?

<comment><USER8> don't need it. I failed the Turing test in Kindergarten, graduated from Elementary school the same way Ender Wiggin did and I like bugs better than people today. ;-)

We are working on a game like Advance Wars but where you can have Spain fight Portugal or something like that.</comment></comment></comment>


A product recommendation for OS X people who do Windows development - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id715768417?mt=12 <comment><AUTHOR> I have no affiliation with this product at all but I have to say that I love it.

I use OSX for all my work but I need to use Windows too. For various reasons I don't want to use Windows virtualization on OSX.

So I have a Windows machine tucked away in a corner of the house and connect to it using Microsoft Remote Desktop and it's a really great product.

Recommended.</comment>


Double Oh Seven - <AUTHOR> https://www.kryogenix.org/days/2017/08/24/double-oh-seven/ <comment><USER2> Well done Stuart, on stopping the rot on at least those bits.</comment>


Phase transitions: the math behind the music - <AUTHOR> https://thedaily.case.edu/phase-transitions-the-math-behind-the-music/ <comment><USER2> This is basically a fluff piece. Here's a link to the actual research paper: [https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaav8490.full](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaav8490.full)

<comment><USER3> Kept waiting to delve into the theory... and waiting...

It feels like a whole article made up of first paragraphs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another mathematical theory using group theory is: The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory, and Performance by Guerino Mazzola. He shows that music lives in the Z12 group and chords are invariant subgroups. Interesting read.

<comment><USER5> The joke about Mazzola is that people who know enough about music to see through his theories are bamboozled by his maths, and vice versa.

If you want to explore that space, Tymoczko's A Geometry of Music is more rewarding.

But this misses the point. Music isn't just mathematical consonance and dissonance. Music is the practice of using consonance, dissonance, timbre, rhythm, form, and historic and cultural references, _with aesthetic intent_ \- i.e. creating metaphors and other complex cognitive experiences out of musical material.

The difference between a composer and a dabbler is that composers either work at this level consciously and deliberately, or they have unusually effective musical instincts and use them to decide if something "sounds right" or "works."

Any naive mathematical description - which includes all of the work on ML in music - misses this ability of musical material to create those extra levels of expression and meaning.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, i suppose it would be hard to generate music with ML that make cultural or emotional references, the ML would need to resemble a human in order to understand these, or otherwise understand humans like we understand ourselves. However, current ML sytems might succeed in making references in its music involving a simpler context, like an arcade game, or common physics.

<comment><USER7> [https://openai.com/blog/musenet](https://openai.com/blog/musenet)

[https://magenta.tensorflow.org/music- transformer](https://magenta.tensorflow.org/music-transformer)

[https://www.aiva.ai/creations](https://www.aiva.ai/creations)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Every Entrepreneur Should get Married - <AUTHOR> http://www.fernstrategy.com/2010/08/31/5-reasons-why-every-entrepreneur-should-get-married/

<comment><USER2> I quit google, got married, we got pregnant, bought a house in San Francisco, and started a business all in about a year (late '98-99).

My wife is on my board, technically she can be part of the set of people who can fire me.

I don't know if marriage is the right thing for everyone, it's worked well for me though. I think a huge part of it is who you marry, I got lucky with a very supportive and understanding wife. We took huge risks, didn't really have a business model (I was trying to help out Linus), she supported me throughout.

I think that support is key for any founder or early stage employee. I had a policy, still do though it is less important these days, of getting the blessing of the spouse before making an offer to any hire. Seems obvious to me but a lot of people skip that step.

On kids & startups:

When the first kid came along, my wife did 100% of the work, or very close to it. We worked out a warning system, our house was upside down, the living room (where I worked) was upstairs; if I was on a sales call and she came in, I'd stomp on the floor - for some reason a crying baby doesn't aid in sales :)

So for one kid, no real hit on productivity if you have a really cool wife.

When the second kid came along, I had to help, one person can't raise two young kids without some help (or if they can, wow, my hat is off.)

Kids do change the equation a bit, things get harder, they also get better. I personally like hiring people with kids because kids teach parents tolerance. Before I had kids if someone just hung up on me I'd think that was really rude. After kids, I shrug and assume that something more important (like a bloody nose or whatever) came up and I don't get mad.

That works both ways, if I have to deal with an urgent issue and I abruptly get off the phone with one of my people, they don't get mad either.

One other big kid related change, though age plays into it as well, is when I work. I do my best work these days early in the morning. I'm usually awake by 4am and give up on sleep by 5am. That gives me ~2 hours of quiet time before the kids get up. Lots of good stuff happens then.

</comment><comment><USER3> I want to hear more stories of entrepreneurs managing the lifestyle with children. I think it can be done but I'm still trying to noodle out HOW.

I have 2 kids (2 yr old/6 month old). It's getting harder for my 36 year old self to stay up all hours of the night hacking on code and such. I've got myself on a decent schedule but it tends to catch up with me by the end of the week:

\- Up at 7 with the kids, drop of at day sitters and at the office by 9. \- Leave office at 5PM, dinner, bathtime and kids in bed by 8:30PM. \- Sleep in older son's room until about 12:30 or 1AM. \- Get up, check in on wife and other sleeping child and work on code till about 3:30 or so. \- Back to bed and do it all over again.

My wife asked when I was going to get back on a normal schedule but when I explained to her that the late night stuff is contributing to our future, she's okay with it but she rightly worries about the long-term health impact.

Not only that but I'm a right prick when I don't get enough sleep ;)

I swear if/when I ever make the bank to do so, I'm going to sponsor people in my same shoes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some really interesting points on the connections between starting a company and a life together, especially regarding "learning to learn." Suffer through the hard times, adapt, and celebrate the good when it comes.

Unfortunately, in the majority of America and the rest of the world, it is illegal for many entrepreneurs to marry. If "marriage teaches you what real love is all about," one would hope that it's not the only way.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry, what? _it is illegal for many entrepreneurs to marry_. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> I suspect he is referring to gay entrepreneurs. It was a bit of an over-the- top way of saying it, since it seemed to imply something specifically about entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER5> Oh, thanks for explaining. It just never occurred to me, definitely unexpected in this context.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz exclusive interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2020/08/26/asana-facebook-cofounder-dustin-moskovitz-slow-burn-second-act/#33e27ae37adc <comment><USER2> > Says Rosenstein: "We are, to my knowledge, the two people on earth who have > thought the most about the work management problem."

Is Asana really that far ahead of everyone else or is this, as I suspect, just a typical presumption for corporate heads? They really think they've thought about this more than anyone else in the last 120+ years of focus on work management?

<comment><USER3> Wow. There's alot of ego in that quote.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Personal Card Will Be Your Business Card - <AUTHOR> https://personalcard.design/?ref=producthunt <comment><USER2>
        If you would like to apply a custom link for you.
        Just invite 1 or 2 friends to join us.
        And paste the Card LINK of you and your friends.

       Then there you go! A unique link for you!

That's pretty spammy. Invite 2 people, just to get such basic functionality?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey randomchars,

we change it right now!!

Thanks your advice. We think that is very correct for this inviting action. You can just answer few basic questions to get it. Forgive us we are still working on change custom name by user.

If you have any advices, just let us know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What if I don't have a Google account?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry about that for now. We'll add more ways of login soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure the value or USP compared to all the other digital business card alternatives

Edit: To be fair, it looks nice. Good work regardless!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!! We are working on more features. Something like collection of cards, scan QR code to exchange personal card each other, and an interesting floating badge for clubs or organizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Need something to dominate networking at big conferences.

QR code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, QR code will let you exchange personal card with each other in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like

\- about.me

\- freelancercv.com resume website

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe kind of? But we prefer to keep it as simple as business card.</comment></comment>


Driving the "Worst Car Ever Built" (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/what-its-like-to-drive-the-worst-car-ever-built-1735448480 <comment><USER2> One of the universities I was attending had a policy that when you get all answers on a multiple-choice test wrong, you get an A, because the probability of that happening by chance is impossibly low. Seems like 1951 Hoffmann is an example of that attitude ;-)

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of an interview I saw with one of the co-authors of "The Disaster Artist," the book about the making of "The Room," a famously terrible movie. He said that was what made "The Room" so fascinating - it's rare to find a creative work where _every single decision_ was wrong.

<comment><USER4> That's overstating it IMO - The Room's production values are pretty adequate. The sets are OK, the sound's decently recorded, it has a proper soundtrack by a real composer, the camera's mostly in focus and properly exposed etc. There are plenty of shitty DSLR films with equally bizarre dialogue, terrible acting, flawed structure etc but the unique joy of The Room is that the decent-ish production values sucker you into thinking you're watching a "real" film.

<comment><USER5> Similarly, this automobile is well built despite having every design decision be wrong. There's some distinction between the architecture and the craftmanship - a poorly crafted and poorly architected anything is just a pile of rubble, but a well crafted thing with poor architecture is fascinatingly bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aluminium isn't the first material I think of for cars, certainly not for ones built in Germany shortly after World War Two.

Because of that, I wonder whether this is a one-of (google gives me [https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/hoffman...](https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/hoffmann-1951), which agrees with that) and that coachwork is recycled from an airplane, just as the front axle seems to be recycled from a kubelwagen ([https://ww2db.com/vehicle_spec.php?q=359](https://ww2db.com/vehicle_spec.php?q=359))

<comment><USER7> The Ford F150 truck is now aluminum. Somewhat notable since it's their best selling vehicle...not just best selling truck. There's still a fair amount of debate on whether it was a good idea to move to aluminum.

<comment><USER8> They were crap in steel, I would be very surprised if they are any better in aluminum. I had one of these while I lived in Canada (longbox, 3 seater cab) and before the warranty ran out the support strut of the gearbox _and_ the associated welds gave out. Ford refused to fix it because the vehicle was not rated 'heavy duty'. The heaviest we ever hauled in it was a load of firewood.

Welding aluminum properly is a lot harder than welding steel and aluminum is also a lot less forgiving than steel when it comes to constructing cars out of it.

I never bought a Ford after that wonderful, and I'm still amazed that they would not stand behind their product, good luck to anybody that buys an F150 made of aluminum.

<comment> d-sc As long as we're getting into anecdotal evidence. I've driven an F150 as a personal vehicle and ran it pretty heavily(80 MPH over steep passes, firewood hauling, heavy trailers, off-road on farm, etc) and haven't had any problems. I've also used ford's heavy duty trucks in construction and haven't had problems.

It's important to remember that Ford is a large company and with enough vechicles you are bound to have cases where they don't meet standards. Without a statistically significant dataset it's hard to make a judgement whether one manufacturer is more reliable than another.

<comment><USER8> I don't mind them having a production issue every now and then. I _do_ expect them to correct those issues free of charge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It has competition. Here's a video (Spanish) of a man showing off his custom car made famous by "you know the car that you used to draw as a child? It exists" memes

[http://elcomercio.pe/ruedas- tuercas/internacional/recuerdas-...](http://elcomercio.pe/ruedas- tuercas/internacional/recuerdas-auto-caricatura-real-historia-noticia-454707)

</comment><comment><USER10> I am curious: is the Hoffmann who built this car in any way connected to the Hoffmann Werke in Lintorf? In other words, was it a prototype built by this company?

Wikipedia [1] lists the "Hoffmann Autokabine 250" (literally "Hoffmann Car Booth 250", which sounds exactly as ridiculous in German as in English) as the only car to ever come out of the Hoffmann-Werke. If you google the "Autokabine 250", you will find images of the 1951 Hoffmann, but it looked in fact like [2].

[1] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann- Werke_Lintorf](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann-Werke_Lintorf)

[2] [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/30/cb/5c30cb93f8a007e1e896...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/30/cb/5c30cb93f8a007e1e896930d1eb334a1.jpg)

<comment><USER11> It seems to fit a bit too well to be a coincidence.

The article talked about the car having a ILO engine, same as was used on the motorcycles mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

All in all i do believe this was an Auto-Kabine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The whole engine and back wheel setup reminds me of an outboard motor on a boat for some reason.

Similarly the linear gears thing reminds me of a motorcycle, something that makes sense given that the engine is a two stroke.

Seem to me like much of the car is a minimalist "make do" kind of thing. Like the way the windows are raised and lowered, or how the door is stopped from opening too wide by a simple chain.

So likely what we are looking at is a car made out of leftover parts from war time equipment. The back end of a motorcycle, the body plates of a aircraft, an so on.

And heh, feeding "ilo motorcycle" into ddg brings up a certain wikipedia article.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann_%28motorcycle%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann_%28motorcycle%29)

And some way down that article there is talk about a microcar with a "suicide door" on the right side as the entry point...

</comment><comment><USER7> Surprised Ralph Nader and "Unsafe at any Speed" wasn't mentioned.

The Chevy Corvair should probably be a contender for worst car ever built.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed)

<comment><USER12> Perhaps you missed the part in the video where the flimsy fuel hose is flapping around right next to the movable rear axle? I know the corvair is bad, but this car sounds way worse.

<comment><USER7> Only one of these was ever built. That makes it less interesting to me. I'm sure there were other one off builds that have been awful.

<comment><USER13> See: everything Top Gear's production team built.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a good exercise too to point out all of the tiny little elements of car UX which you just expect to be right. Things like, placement of the sideview mirror in such a way as you can see the mirror, and not placing it behind a pillar that blocks the view.

When UX is right, sometimes it blends into the background and disappears, just lets you use the object. You don't really know what's right about car UX until you see it done badly, then all of those things you took for granted really pop out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Anyone calling this thing the worst car ever built has not seen the Robin Reliant - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin)

I doubt there were many Hoffmanns built but the RR was rather popular here.

That said, I think you will find rather a lot of Brits with a deep fondness for the RR, which probably says more about Britishness (of a certain age) than anything else.

<comment><USER16> Obligatory Top Gear review: [https://youtu.be/QQh56geU0X8](https://youtu.be/QQh56geU0X8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't man... have they ever driven one of my Chryslers?

I joke but after (being under) four or five Chryslers, everyone in my family treats it like a four-letter-word and will never buy one again.

<comment><USER18> If they're so bad, why did you have 4 or 5 of them?

<comment><USER19> I've owned three Fiats, with the first being just as unreliable as the next two. Some of us are just slow that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Excellent.

The video is very good, the presenter explains why the car is terrible, pointing each one of the terrible design decisions.

It looks like some software projects I've worked on:-)

</comment><comment><USER21> I've posted this video here before. Definitely one of my most favorite things on the internet. It gets funnier every time I watch it.

</comment><comment><USER22> At least it has the right layout for a three wheeler as opposed to the reliant robin

</comment><comment><USER23> 1999 Oldsmobile Alero

It had major engine problems and they were repetitive.</comment>


Donald J. Trump position in H1-B visas - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10156715268505725 <comment><USER2> Trump is such a fuccboi.

<comment><USER3> The wikitionary definition of "fuccboi' is extremely different from the urban dictionary version.

I still don't know what it really means.

Personally I prefer the term asshat.</comment></comment>


Foxconn to hire 3,000 to support Firefox OS and software development - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/361807/foxconn-hire-3000-support-firefox-os-and-software-development <comment><USER2> Firstly, FoxConn has 1m+ employees. 3,000 is a drop in the ocean. Secondly, of those 3,000, "wastage" will whittle it down to an effective corps of maybe 100, plus 1,000 support staff.

In a year's time, the commit logs for Firefox will have @foxconn all over weird and wonderful hardware compatibility bugs for Foxconn's big customers.

This is simply a marker, put down to say "if you are a handset manufacturer, and thinking of trying this new OS, then make it with us, because we are investing in it too"

Its a sensible move, covering their bets. And if FirefoxOS takes off (and I hope it does) they can double down next year.

<comment><USER3> EDIT: On second thought, I think what they're actually saying is: "Don't worry sharemarket, our future revenue won't all depend on Apple". At this point the mechanics aren't important.

Agree with your assessment that organizing a team like this _inside a hardware company_ is going to waste a lot of human capital.

Because 3k ppl would be order-of-magnitude size of the _Windows 8_ team. However Microsoft have decades of experience doing this stuff and frankly they're still the giant that walks, e.g. their organisation is so large it's frankly astounding they manage to ship things.

Ref: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/17/introducing- th...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/17/introducing-the- team.aspx) (estimating as (40 devs + 45 testers/managers) * 35 feature groups = 3k, plus tech writers, overhead, usability, localization, etc, etc = 10k?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a joke, these people are good at hardware OEM, but they don't understand software. They are using hardware OEM thinking to build software. Maybe they think crafting software is all like to pipeline components and make cheap labor assemble them. Good try, but it won't work.

You never know how low IT salary it is in Taiwan, 20K USD is a pretty good annual salary for a new graduate Computer Science student as Software Engineer You can also see 8.8K USD annual salary for software engineer title everywhere here. How can you find talent with that shitty payment? All they can find is cheap labor.

Try to pay really good salary and find few but pretty top talents. It is better to have a 10 members elite team rather than 3000 not-so-good developers. Otherwise, go back and do your OEM.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure you don't realize that it's what people here in Europe have been saying about China for the last 15 years, until they started competing with us on the nuclear power plant and fast train businesses.

Then, we lost all our jobs in the industry (except for Germany, but for how long ?), and Europe now faces the biggest economical crisis it has ever known.

US still reigns the software industry, but should China decides to make that a top priority, you can be sure that it won't take long until we all start using "made in china" OSes and softwares.

<comment><USER6> > (except for Germany, but for how long ?)

We just work together with china and not against it. We sell them fabrication machines, together with services and skill around those.

(And in the end, we export enough weapons to not care.)

<comment><USER5> I'm all for the liberal way of thinking. Making business with someone is supposed to be good for both sides. But that works when you're making business with a democracy that plays it "fair".

Working "together" with China is a pretty idealistic way of seeing it. They've spent the last 20 years asking for european companies (both civilians and military) to give them their industrial and technological secrets before they buy anything, so that they could clone pretty much everything and sell goods back to us for 10% of the price, thanks to a workforce that lives in barely human conditions and no patent system or anything close to it (but also very smart and education oriented people, to be honest). With software, my bet is it's going to go even faster, since everything is pretty much open source those days.

Now, I know things are slowly changing and i don't mean to be too hard on the chinese regime, which managed to let that country grow tremendously, and probably improve the life of many citizens. I just wanted to balance your idealistic point of view a little bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The biggest challenge will be for the HR team who needs to find 3,000 productive new employees. They're not hiring unskilled labor here. When you're hiring that many people, you need to lower your standards and you're going to wind up hiring people who will be a drain on productivity.

<comment><USER2> Please remember FoxConn has 1m+ employees.

Everything I know about data centres and SOA and uptime is laughable at google or twitter scale. Likewise, everything I know about HR and culture and hiring practises is laughable at "workforce bigger than some countries" scale.

<comment><USER8> The vast majority of that 1m+ employees are low-skilled wage laborers. Finding 3000 high-skill engineers is definitely a monstrous task. Twitter is 7+ years old and they're only at ~1600 employees about half of which are engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A bizarre number considering that the total number of contributors on the Firefox OS frontend is currently 249 ([https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia](https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia)). No clue on which part they're gonna put these people on.

<comment><USER10> These people are probably not working on the OS, but creating Apps and UI customization.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, a good bit of internationalization and localization, I suspect, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The phrase "HTML5 operating systems" made my brain explode.

Somebody please send me back to 1996, when the world made sense.

<comment><USER13> WebRTC, WebGL, Web Speech et al. make today's browsers look like today's operating systems.

So stop making silly jokes and get with the program :p

<comment><USER12> Saying a web browser is an operating system is like saying a car is an engine. Sure, you could put the car on a dynamometer, convert the dyno to an electric generator and use the power to run your home entertainment system. It'd be kind of ridiculous though.

<comment><USER13> In software its all good.

And that will always be the flaw in this line of reasoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > On Thursday, Foxconn said it was looking to hire between 2,000 and 3,000 > people in order to bolster its research into software.

Looks like those 2-3k people might be for a wider effort than just Firefox OS.

I think it is a smart move to make such a big move, as anyone wanted to get in the market needs to do so now. If they continue on their current trajectory, the market is looking very much like Windows/Apple in the 90s (except now it's Google/Apple). If Android becomes the Windows 95/XP of the smartphone world, then it will be very good for some and very bad for others - and it would become increasingly hard to break into the market.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a FIRM believer in quality over quantity, and I feel this large number is just to bolster investment into Foxconn.

I really do hope that this pushes further development into Firefox OS...I remember seeing a demo of the Ubuntu Mobile OS running on an Atrix, that was everything I pictured for the future of computing.

</comment><comment><USER16> 3000 are many people, I believe that not even google has all those people working on Android.

<comment><USER17> It's not a lot if most of them will be working on apps to get the infrastructure competitive.

Here's their competition:

 _Google Play /Android is estimated to have 800,000 apps (Jan. 4, 2013)

Apple iOS App Store recently reported 775,000 apps (Jan. 7, 2013)

Windows Phone Marketplace is up to 125,000 apps (Oct. 25, 2012)

Blackberry World is now up to 70,000 apps (Jan. 30, 2013)_

Source: [http://www.pureoxygenmobile.com/how-many-apps-in-each-app- st...](http://www.pureoxygenmobile.com/how-many-apps-in-each-app-store/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 3000 people on a software project scares me. That's a LOT of coordination and communication. What would Fred Brooks say?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man- Month](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)

<comment><USER19> It might be that they will be working on different things, e.g., writing a bunch of apps for FFOS's app store.

<comment><USER20> It sure will be strange a year from now when we have Foxconn Chat, Foxconn Photos, Foxconn Search, Foxconn Social, Foxconn Racing, Foxconn Music...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could someone please comment on Foxconn's overall strategy here?

They are trying to take on Apple AND Google/Android AND Amazon AND Microsoft?

With no previous experience in the field?

(I'm sure most of the 3000 hires are for app development - that makes much more sense.)

<comment><USER21> No previous experience, except for manufacturing the iPhone.

<comment><USER22> That and nearly every phone/computer. Anyway my guess is they will start by tackling the low end - replacing all those candybar nokia's &c that are still everywhere in Africa and Asia with a cheap, high-quality smartphone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does Foxconn have any similar investment in other OSes? I've never heard of Foxconn-developed apps or UIs, so I'm wondering what sort of software experience they bring to the effort.

</comment><comment><USER24> Because if you put several thousand engineers on the project they got to do something great, isn't?

</comment><comment><USER25> This sounds like a plugin in disguise.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hope there won't be any suicide software engineers...

EDIT: Regarding downvotes - I didn't know so many Foxconn recruiters were sitting on HN...

<comment><USER27> Honest question: You know your comment and edit to it makes you really sound stupid right?

<comment><USER26> Honest reply: You think it is stupid to remember foxconn employees who committed suicide. What do you think you are after this?

<comment><USER28> So any time any company is mentioned we'll dig up the worst piece of controversy they courted in their past? Or is there a specific reason you're doing so now?</comment></comment></comment></comment>