Stepping down as Nodevember organizer - <AUTHOR> http://www.kevinold.com/2016/09/05/stepping-down-as-nodevember-organizer.html <comment><USER3> It's in scenarios like these that in spite of the slow & tedious peer review process I am thankful that IEEE / ACM research conferences exist. Those are the places that truly strive to be inclusive by enforcing peer review and often double blind processes, where technical merit alone being the deciding factor. There are no calls to disinvite authors because of the beliefs held by them. Researchers from China, Russia, Middle east who likely do not subscribe to the same "progressive" ideas, can still participate purely on basis of the technical merit of their work. That to me is real inclusivity.

These new "cons" with their long list of rules are not about inclusivity but rather about imposing cultural hegemony.

<comment><USER4> Double blind makes plenty of sense for determining merit of papers.

Does it also make sense when selecting a speaker? These are often people chosen because of their public reputation for something they've accomplished, often uniquely identified as "inventor of X," and each usually come with their own off-topic oddities that need to be overlooked if you want to hear their on-topic thoughts.

What's the right process here?

<comment><USER5> I think the right process here is being a grown up.

"off-topic oddities" is another name of "being a person", how sad is the fact someone goes to a conference and demands the speaker to be a one-dimensional deliverer of the topic they subscribed to and most of the cases already agree 100% ( not 99% )

These kind of people always existed, the fact that organizations fold so easily to them is news to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I started as a developer, I didn't care who I talked to if I thought they could contribute something interesting. I wouldn't care what religion, gender or country they were from - I was just interested in learning.

I recently stopped going to tech conferences. I don't want to go to gender/sexuality/religion/you name it-equality conferences and it seems like thats the main topic in all tech conferences these days.

Can someone bring back the technical discussions and throw out the bullies?

<comment><USER7> >Can someone bring back the technical discussions and throw out the bullies?

-"The Tale of the Interwebz"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > A suggestion to boycott the conference was made, because of suspicion that > diverisity and inclusivity were not top priority.

I don't have a reasonable word to describe this (ie. nothing better than name calling). So let's just say "I think it's not particularly reasonable for a tech conference to put anything besides tech to be top priority" is an understatement for me.

That said, I want to note that any flak being shot should not be aimed at the organizer at all. The topic of "diversity" is slowly joining the rank of "What you can't say"[0] topic, and it takes a lot of work, courage and risk for an organizer to stand against an accusation like that. It's entirely reasonable for an organizer to drop a speaker under said circumstances, although they did botch the execution of removing a speaker pretty badly.

What's unfortunate is that such action can be considered "reasonable", and the question of who to send flak to is left as an exercise for the sub-comment thread.

[0]: [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

<comment><USER9> Disclaimer: I haven't been following this particular case and thus don't know the details or have any opinion.

 _So let 's just say "I think it's not particularly reasonable for a tech conference to put anything besides tech to be top priority" is an understatement for me._

That being said I do disagree with this statement. Conferences are, at least for me, never primarily about learning about the latest hard core technical topics. They're about meeting and talking to people in my field who share my technical interests, sharing ideas and getting inspiration and talking hard problems over beers in the evening. They're as much, if not more, about the social as they are the purely technical. And even when it comes to presentations I'll take a fun and inspiring talk showing a novel take on something 'trivial' over someone reading their latest paper out loud while staring at their feet, no matter what the technical merits of that paper might be.

<comment><USER10> Don't worry, there are no known details in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It truly warms my heart to hear this!

I'm so glad people are fighting back against political correctness.

We're all just trying to get work done, and we have to put up with this constant background noise. Checking in once in a while to see what language is now deemed inappropriate to avoid chastization by some Twitter white knight legion.

Its the ultimate bikeshedding.

<comment><USER12> The irony here is people like this HURT their own cause. Rememeber the Adria Richards debacle (aka "Donglegate")? That gal set back females in tech years because who wants to deal with a co-worker that might complain to the boss and get you fired because they overhear something you say and don't like it?

Same thing here. These folks aren't fighting FOR equality in work or safe workspaces, they're essentially cutting off their noses to spite their faces because they're going to turn people against them out of the desire to not deal with the drama they bring.

<comment><USER13> Someone who looks at the Adria Richards story and decides "women are the problem", well, that's the actual problem right there.

<comment><USER14> It's considered rude in polite text conversation to attribute using quotes words that another person didn't say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Previous discussions, in chronological order:

"In defence of Douglas Crockford" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420) (2 days ago, 407 comments)

"Crockford" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425061) (1 day ago, 95 comments)

"Inclusivity Is a Joke" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12425353) (1 day ago, 203 comments)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's amusing how strongly the Node community strives to be "inclusionary" when comes to race/gender/orientation/religion/etc but when someone presents dissenting technical ideas or thinks an implementation is wrong, they might as well be crucified for voicing such blasphemy.

<comment><USER17> I have noticed that the most self identifying "progressive left" people are some of the most intolerant individuals I've ever had to deal with. They are extraordinarily dismissive of any "non-aligned" viewpoints, they are miniature despots. I would hate for any of those to have any real power over other people's lives.

Being tolerant is being OK with other people being "wrong".

<comment><USER18> If you want to truly understand political correctness, try living in a communist country for a few years. The media is maddening. So is the word- policing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Every article I've read about this repeats the characterization of Crockford as a "grumpy old man." Self-important not-yet-old people with thin skins apparently unaware of rampant age discrimination in the tech industry, I guess. And unaware of multiple meanings of words and lameness of geek humor.

</comment><comment><USER20> What is this nonsense? Why do conference organizers need to care about finding speakers to represent fat people, for example? Is this really a tech conference?

<comment><USER21> We also need to consider left handed people are equally and fairly represented, for too long the privileged and dominating right handies have over-run these conferences.

<comment><USER22> Dont't forget a diverse mix of opinions, religious or political beliefs! Like more conservatives, religious folk or people with controversial viewpoints not currently represented!

Oh wait. The people wanting this stuff only care about diversity of appearance, not diversity of thought.

<comment><USER21> Yes, some ISIS should definitely be on the speaker list.. It would have to be a meta talk as their aren't too many javascript experts in this unrepresented community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The whole situation is just ridiculous. SJW's have well and truly infiltrated the Javascript community. The Paul Straw linked post really highlights how silly this situation is. A few comments taken completely out of context and because some people took them the wrong way, things spiralled out of control.

I personally am not a fan of Douglas Crockford, but my views of him personally don't override the fact that he did nothing wrong in this situation. He should not have been un-invited to the conference. Their loss, Crockford is a smart guy and a huge drawcard for an event like this. Now we get to listen to a bunch of twenty-somethings talk to us about a language that Crockford was pioneering when they were still in school.

</comment><comment><USER24> >Each of these were most likely represented.

That's what this is all about. It's not about being diverse, it's about ticking off a list of checkboxes to make sure every group that some moral authority thinks needs to represented is properly represented.

</comment><comment><USER25> This just confirms the old principle that anything taken to the extreme turns into its opposite.

If you fight for inclusivity, prepare to exclude people.

If you strive to make everyone comfortable, prepare to face some very uncomfortable situations.

<comment><USER26> Aristotle said virtue sits at the middle of two extremes. That was thousands of years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's a strong movement for Codes of Conduct at conferences. It's a very good idea.

How about a CoC for conference organisers? Some minimal level of professionally? The official statement:

> This conference was started by a group of friends to gather around the love > of a shared language and community.

> We are in over our heads.

[http://nodevember.org/statement.html](http://nodevember.org/statement.html)

Is zero excuse. Don't organise a conference if you can't organise a conference.

If Codes of Conduct are meant to protect attendees from incumbent inequalities and prejudices, what hope do we have if the organisers behave like an old boys club who keep out people that aren't like them?

<comment><USER28> The need to be more agile about unit testing their codes of conduct stakeholders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The problem with using diversity as a selection criteria bias means that statistically on average the diverse speakers will be worse. While attending such a conference, if one were to optimize for the quality of speakers a simple rule to achieve this at such conferences would be to avoid the diverse speakers and pick a different track.

I avoid 'diverse' speakers, not because I'm racist, sexist, transphobic etc but because I don't like having my time wasted.

<comment><USER30> > that statistically on average the diverse speakers will be worse

I mean, since you're being technical, then it actually means that the speakers will be slightly worse at writing talk proposals. But ability to write a talk proposal isn't the same as ability to give a talk.

And even if it were, it's meaningless—when doing a conference, maximizing the individual speaker "quality" isn't helpful either. 10 speakers speaking about the same topic amazingly is worse for an attendee than 10 speakers speaking about 10 different things merely very well.

<comment><USER29> I was not proposing alternative metrics for measuring quality but I believe it should be safe to say that talk proposals are a better indicator of talk quality than race and gender.

Nor was I recommending maximizing individual speaker quality over maximizing conference quality. To reuse your two metrics, I would expect 10 different talk topics given by people of the same race and gender to yield more value to attendees than the 10 same talk topics given by people of all different race and genders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Competitive political correctness is a difficult and high stakes game at the best of times, but this lot are so ultra inclusive that they included JavaScript on the server side. I wouldn't get involved.

<comment><USER32> Sheesh, you could have made that joke without the unnecessary jab at political correctness, you know. Why drag PC into it?

(surprisingly necessary edit: /s)

<comment><USER33> Because it is what caused this issue?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People just need to start standing up to these SJW people. They are literally infesting everything: Colleges, workplaces, open source, everything. They act like bullies whenever someone says something they disagree with, even calling for open retaliation across social media because they have no understanding of the real world. What is worse is that more and more people are actually catering to them out of fear instead of standing up and saying "Look, you're an adult. Act like one instead of a kindergartener who missed their nap. People are going to say things you don't like or don't agree with; shut your mouth and learn to live with it". Instead, we get things like this that juts reinforce the SJW belief that they are pure and right and that everyone needs to do what they say.

It's really pathetic.

<comment><USER22> Isn't that what GamerGate was basically about? Well, at least in part anyway.

But the issue with standing up to them (however necessary it might be) is that such individuals have a tendency to play the victim a lot and get quite a bit of the media to rally around them every time someone calls them out. It's hard to call out cases like this when the inevitable media coverage will be 'Javascript conference harassed by internet trolls over Douglas Crockford's invite'.

<comment><USER34> No, Gamergate was about ethics in journalism. That's why it started when Gerstmann was pushed out of GameSpot for his unfavorable review of Kane and Lynch.

<comment><USER35> Hah. I read some of the very first discussions - before it was even called Gamergate yet - and in some sense it did start when Gerstmann was pushed out of GameSpot. The threads were full of of anger and distrust in the gaming press being stoked by past incidents, including that one. All that changed was that for some reason social justice activists decided to tie their credibility to that of the gaming press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Seriously? I never imagined I'd see this slow-motion move towards the kind of bigotry and conservatism we're accustomed to blame theocracies of.

Seriously, if "dog balls parens" and a metaphor involving "promiscuity" (sexual, I presume) is all that's needed to be toast, you're so badly f*cked it's not funny. at all

<comment><USER37> Crockford said:

> the Old Web was great because it provided promiscuity [0]

and

> promiscuous: indiscriminate; without discrimination [1].

It's just people getting offended for absolutely no reason.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w6tZEbrHIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w6tZEbrHIY)

[1]: from [http://www.dictionary.com/browse/promiscuous](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/promiscuous)

<comment><USER38> Hyper-vigilance is quite often an ongoing response to PTSD. It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact reliving previous issues.

Would it not be better that root cause are addressed; honest to goodness cases and their psychological fall out are dealt with so that whole conferences don't need to duck and run for cover every time a car backfires.

<comment><USER39> > It would not surprise me if a large number of people who get so offended > over the use of language no matter tenuous or non-existent are in fact > reliving previous issues.

I highly doubt that. There seems to be a great deal of deliberation behind these attacks always involving some self declared champion of 'rights' that is flexing their muscle in an underhanded game of power.

<comment><USER40> I think it's a little of both. On the one hand you have people who really do have troubles and really could use a little kindness, and on the other you have people who are totally okay with cynically exploiting them and their troubles in order to acquire power. And if we're honest, people who've been abused already? _Super_ easy to exploit. You don't even have to break them yourself! That's already taken care of.

Do I sound bitter? Perhaps I sound bitter. I was going for savage sarcasm, but maybe I've overshot and landed in bitter. I've seen this dynamic play out to completion once, with homosexuals like myself in the role of foil. Now I'm seeing it play out again, this time on the backs of people whose uniting characteristic is having gone through hell at the hands of others, in many cases at the hands of people whom they should have been safely able to trust. Now they get to be used all over again, at the hands of people claiming to want to help - indeed claiming, implicitly or otherwise, to be the only ones who _can_ effectively help, a classic abuser's trick in itself. In the face of such enormities, perhaps I may be forgiven a bitter moment here and there, shameful though they nonetheless be.

<comment><USER38> This would gel with my experience of working with LGBT+ people; some of them fight the "system" for so long that it takes a very heavy toll in stress; sometimes stress they don't even realise, or don't consciously realise the full impact it has.

<comment><USER40> To be sure I've made myself clear, let me note explicitly that my prior comment's "on the other hand" refers to people who claim to be acting on our behalf as they behave in ways inimical to our interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I still don't understand what it is that Crockford is supposed to have done. I mean, I've heard him speak: he's insufferable and obnoxious and self- righteous. But is that enough to earn a no-platforming these days? Cripes.

<comment><USER42> He's not supposed to have done anything tangible, at least as far as anyone has shown to be the case. Just some vague handwaving in his direction.

There's speculation he's sometimes a bit grumpy and curt, made some jokes about people not wanting to use weak maps and promiscuity in respect of internet connected devices which could be at the root of this, but you'd have to be professionally offended to find issue there.

Ultimately these days it seems there are people who go looking for reasons to be offended, or be offended on behalf of others. Naturally, they find what they're looking for. It's a shame this has affected people who just want to discuss technology without prejudice, even if they are javascript developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> _The tweets go on to chastize the conference for being held at a "Christian university". It is worth noting: I am a Christian. I would challenge that I am in the minority among most conference attendees._

Be interesting to know if that last line is true.

<comment><USER44> Probably, especially if you limit it to practicing Christians. You know the diversity brigade doesn't really want people like that to attend.

This is starting to look more and more like someone's personal hangups turned into vendetta, using the nearest available excuses and target.

<comment><USER45> I'm atheist and think that religion is outright harmful so I'm somewhat aware of people's expressed or apparent religious beliefs.

In my experience vocal Christians (as in: people mentioning Jesus, prayer or other church-related activities in person or on Twitter) are the minority, at least when it comes to JS conference speakers. So much so that they stick out as much as e.g. a Muslim wearing a hijab.

That said, even as a "militant" atheist I wouldn't mind having a Christian university as the conference venue or having Christian speakers -- as long as they don't try to use the talk/event as a means to force their ideologies on others. If anything, I'd find it interesting, because it's a place and a kind of person I would not actively seek out otherwise (i.e. outside the technical/conference context).

A few people I follow on Twitter or outspoken Christians or even Mormons. Yes, I find their religious gobbledegook annoying (but I'm sure they'd find my atheist rants equally unpleasant) but if they have enough interesting things to say otherwise, I'm willing to put up with that no matter how much it offends my sensibilities.

I'd hope this is the norm, but apparently "diversity" these days often means "no disagreeable persons" and being a white Christian heterosexual cis-man is borderline offensive in itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> At this point, it would be desirable if people started actively boycotting Nodevember. I understand that quite many individuals in the Node community may be in favor of the decision to exclude Crockford, but I also suspect that there is a significant amount of people (if judging only by the responses in this thread) who very much dislike that decision. A concerted effort to boycott the conference, even if done by a minority, would set a precedent and send a very clear message that such arbitrarily rude behavior on the part of the organizers will not be tolerated in future events like this.

A boycott would also pressure the organizers to either "put up or shut up" regarding the evidence surrounding Crockford's dismissal. There is a very good chance [1] that this is a personal vendetta happening rather than any ethical misdeed done on Crockford's part. If so, a move to boycott the conference would benefit not only the liberal side, but also the "politically correct" (for lack of better words) side, as nobody is interested that their political movement be hijacked by people seeking personal/egotistic goals [2]. If, on the other hand, Crockford was indeed dismissed due to political motives, there is still a decent chance that the evidence against him is extremely weak (hence reluctance to present it). Such a situation would also benefit both sides, in the sense that it would teach them a valuable lesson that persecuting people is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

There are other JavaScript conferences happening this year [3]. Go to those instead. Encourage your friends to do the same.

\---

[1] See Tim Hunt's case for an example of a similar situation where the evidence against an individual later turned out to be mostly made up of thin air. [https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-timothy- hunt...](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-timothy-hunt-witch- hunt/) [2] Per conversation with the organizer, he had admitted to having "a long and storied history" with D. Crockford, which further corroborates the possibility of personal vendetta. [https://twitter.com/getify/status/772413034773909504](https://twitter.com/getify/status/772413034773909504) [3] [https://github.com/prigara/javascript- conferences](https://github.com/prigara/javascript-conferences)

<comment><USER17> Absolutely. I will not willingly associate myself with the Nodevember cabal, and neither should any other reasonable and tolerant progressive.

<comment><USER35> Exactly. We must fight back against this dangerous, oppressive trend of conferences giving into threats of boycotts by threatening to boycott any conference that doesn't do as we demand.

<comment><USER47> > We must fight back against this dangerous, oppressive trend of conferences > giving into threats of boycotts by threatening to boycott any conference > that doesn't do as we demand.

Yep, because that's the only way to fight it that will be effective. Conferences will only stop caving in to these vicious, hateful cry-bullies when caving becomes more costly than not caving.

All of the tactics these SJWs employ should be employed against them, on a massive scale. One of the instigators in this case, @nexxylove, is, get this, a "developer evangelist" for Salesforce.com. And they hold developer conferences. I hope a lot of people who find her behavior offensive let them know that the won't "feel safe" at any Salesforce developer's conference where she is in attendance. Another one, @nodebotanist, is, according to her Linkedin page, a developer evangelist with Auth0.

Let's all make our feels known to these companies! Let the boycotts commence!

<comment><USER48> This seems dangerously close to inciting a brigade against these two people. I don't agree with their complaints or nodevember's response to them, but we need to be super careful not to aim the crazies at these people personally.

<comment><USER47> It would be doing to them what they did to Crockford. Nothing more, nothing less.

Turnabout is fair play. It would make them, and hopefully others, think twice before trying to publicly smear someone in the future.

<comment><USER48> Uh,no man. When the rabid anti-SJW's go after someone they hound them, send them rape and death threats, hack them etc. It's insane. Douglas Crockford didn't deserve to be disinvited, but the accusers also don't deserve that kind of mob justice.

<comment><USER47> >Uh,no man. When the rabid anti-SJW's go after someone they hound them, send them rape and death threats, hack them etc. It's insane. Douglas Crockford didn't deserve to be disinvited, but the accusers also don't deserve that kind of mob justice.

So far I've seen no reports of that happening. What I would like to see is for conferences who hire these bullies as speakers to be flooded with boycott threats, along with their corporate sponsors. Until there is some personal risk involved to their own careers, these demented, vicious, hateful bullies will never stop harassing and hurting the careers of other people who hold views they disagree with or use language they don't approve of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> If I understand correctly, the conference "de-platformed" Douglas Crockford because at some point in the past he made a joke about the internet being promiscuous?

How utterly absurd. One should question the competence of these people to organize a technical conference. Irrational, childish behavior.

<comment><USER50> I think the conference was facing a number of people who refused to participate as speakers due to Crockford's attendance. The conference organizers presumably felt pressured to do something to prevent speakers from leaving en masse. That's slightly different than what you were saying, but it seems like an important distinction.

<comment><USER51> The proper response to this is to show the speakers who were protesting to the door. It is the same scenario as when an employee tries to blackmail an employer into getting a raise or a promotion.

<comment><USER52> But if a significant group of employees do it, that's called... a strike, which is absolutely a reasonable thing for an employer to acquiesce to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It seems like most comments here (and in previous times this has been discussed) are avoiding the actual reason why Crockford was disinvited - it is because a number of speakers said they would be uncomfortable with him speaking and would not speak and attend the conference. The comments appear to be looking for facts, reasons, examples of past behaviour of Crockford to see if these facts can justify the decision. HN'ers are looking to understand the reasons why someone has an emotional response.

That is the reason - <USER2> [http://nodevember.org/statement.html](http://nodevember.org/statement.html) : "that his presence would make some speakers uncomfortable to the point where they refused to attend or speak.". Instead of addressing this point, we generally are looking for concrete, binary, true and false examples. So it's harder for me to see how his past behaviour makes me uncomfortable. But I also can understand how it can possibly make other people uncomfortable.

How should any conference deal with speakers being uncomfortable with things?

How can comfort be increased for all? How can a small conference defend against accusations of uncomfortableness? What would the best way to do this be?

Personally, I don't think "well I'm comfortable, so it's okay" would be an acceptable response.

So, working towards an answer to my own questions, instead of looking for logical reasons, and responding coldly, we should look towards emotion, and respond in kind: "Please be welcome here, we will have separate speaker lounges, multiple places to interact and speak with each other. Many people from a wide range of backgrounds will be attending. It will be our priority to ensure you, and everyone can feel safe and welcome and have an enjoyable time at the conference. We are a group of local friends putting on a great conference about a topic we all like, we arn't a soulless corporate conference. We are approachable and thanks for trusting us and feeling like you can approach us with your concerns."

Respond with reassurance, comfort, trustworthiness, essentially more PR and less rationality (and I would suggest that if they did that, the speaker wouldn't need to have been removed)

<comment><USER54> You say "some speakers" and "a number of speakers". I read the article by Mx Kas Perch. Is there anyone else?

I guess regarding the search for facts/reasons/examples - I guess we're interested in trying to form a view as to whether that is an understandable position on the part of these 'other speakers'. No doubt there is a spectrum here. If it is just "person X doesn't like person Y because they hurt X's feelings once" that is quite a different thing to "persons X, Y and Z have been physically threatened by person A and fear for their lives".

<comment><USER53> > You say "some speakers" and "a number of speakers". I read the article by Mx > Kas Perch. Is there anyone else?

"Some speakers" was from [http://nodevember.org/statement.html](http://nodevember.org/statement.html) and I used "a number of speakers" as being equivalent to that unknown but small number. I wouldn't say "many speakers" though (British English).

I am also curious about the actual number - and also the number of supporters or allies not directly involved. It is quite different actual threats, experiences and imagined thoughts and emotions. And then (passive or active, online and offline) supporters to anothers emotions or experiences. I would argue that all these types of response can be addressed in a positive way.

Emotions can be addressed in kind - and perhaps reducing the number of concerns is similar to increasing the level of comfort. For example, I might say "well my friend is concerned that the venue is far away from public transport stops and it's at night" but a good response from the organizers may say "don't worry, we have security on the venue, it's well lighted, there will be good taxi service, we're working with the venue and local police etc". This may well reduce my hypothetical concern, and increase my comfort. I couldn't speak for my friend though - but I'd imagine my, as an ally, reassurance would help.

<comment><USER10> Blacklists and Other Economic Sanctions:

[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/mccarthy/schrecker5.htm](http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/mccarthy/schrecker5.htm)

Listen, the behavior at some past conferences and in the industry in general are unprofessional, unacceptable, and egregious. It's at the point that I want to disregard anyone who uses the term "social justice warrior" as an imbecile. Everyone should be as comfortable as possible in this community. Everyone should be welcome.

But punishing people based on the words of an unknown person or persons, with no recourse or defense is not better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This whole saga is just painful to watch. It's the Super PC Crowd vs the Ultra PC crowd competing on who can moralize the hardest.

Can't we just grow up and get some real work done?

<comment><USER56> Splitter!

<comment><USER44> I hate these social judean warriors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hopefully, Nodevember will implode, and serve as an example to other organizations.

The growing power of the hateful, vicious SJW cry-bullies will only be checked when caving to them becomes more costly than not caving to them.

I hope Nodevember's corporate sponsors are flooded with complaints and boycotts over Nodevember's cowardly and shabby treatment of Crockford. Next year there will be few if any takers.

I hope Nodevember's 2016 speakers will be subject to pressure to withdraw over Nodevember's actions.

The potential downside of associating with Nodevember needs to be made far greater than any potential upside.

These demented SJWs will take over the world if no one stands up to them.

<comment><USER57> One of the bullies is actually a 'developer evangelist' at salesforce... I find that ironic.

<comment><USER58> Is 'developer evangelist' just the term for a sales rep who makes their personal crusade everyone's problem? Seems as much.

Also, a terrible title. It induces eye rolling as much as rockstar or ninja.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Excluding older people because they have a different kind of humor is bordering on ageism.

</comment><comment><USER60> Can someone explain to someone who has not been following this (me) what happened in a short way, all I find are huge posts and I can't spare the time unfortunately.

<comment><USER61> Douglas Crockford is a grumpy old man who has a history of making politically incorrect jokes. There are a handful of inclusivity activists who campaign against him because of that.

The main Nodevember organiser recently dropped Douglas Crockford as a speaker. No one knows why because they haven't properly explained themselves. But presumably it's because they're sympathetic to (or scared of) the inclusivity activists.

This is part of a wider battle between inclusivity activists and their critics, hence the controversy.

<comment><USER60> Thank you so much, I am getting tired of these inclusivity activists that want to force the list of speakers to be representative of every religion, ethnicity, etc.

No I have no problems with the speakers being of any specific ethicity or whatever. The speakers at conferences should be invited by merit or because they can give a good talk about a subject relevant, not just the sake of diversity, I will not care if the speaker is a woman, man, straight or gay, if I go to a conference it is because of the theme not because it has representation of every ethnicity etc.

<comment><USER61> I'm going to differ on this. I 100% support inclusivity.

I really, really like my job and I know activists have the power to destroy my career. Therefore I'm doing like Scott Adams[1] and supporting inclusivity, because it's safer for my career if I do.

[1] [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement- for...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for- president-of-the-united-states)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I've written a few thoughts inspired by this brouhaha. Mostly: diversity and inclusivity need empathy and compassion to be worth having. And some wise advice on this by Kurt Hahn.

[http://sklivvz.com/posts/diversity-being-comfortable-and- ten...](http://sklivvz.com/posts/diversity-being-comfortable-and-ten-good- principles)

I'd welcome respectful feedback.

</comment><comment><USER63> > The tweets go on to chastize the conference for being held at a "Christian > university". It is worth noting: I am a Christian. I would challenge that I > am in the minority among most conference attendees.

> The acceptance of persons from all religions are part of diversity and > inclusivity, as a whole. This is a postion I support and encourage.

> We, as organizers, were being publicly shamed because of our inclusion

> of a speaker, in which another speaker had a preference against.

> This is not tolerance. This is not acceptance. This is not inclusivity.

Wow seriously ? and that person who got Doug unvinvited talks about "inclusivity" while shitting on Christians and getting people kicked out ? I'm not going to that conference that's certain. The person who got Doug uninvited is just despicable. I'm christian myself.

How can one brag about "inclusivity" while saying this kind of crap? hypocrisy at its finest. I hope it backfires.

This conference needs to be cancelled for the sake of the tech community.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think Mx Kevin is quite right to step away from this grand mess, it sounds like this all could of been avoided if the main organizer spent more than 41 minutes in deliberating what action to take when a hypersensitive social justice warrior started venting on Twitter. Complete dog balls..

<comment><USER64> Your reference to dog balls makes me feel uncomfortable.

<comment><USER65> Quick, someone prohibit talk of dog balls in the CoC!

<comment><USER21> All in time.. I'm expecting the banishment first..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Since we're keeping score on what speakers make others reluctant to participate, I do not feel comfortable speaking at or attending conferences where Kassandra Perch is a speaker.

And when it comes to the selection of speakers and their topics, I'm more interested in learning about technology than hearing about diversity and having an equal number of male, female, and gender-neutral speakers. After all, these are TECH conferences.

</comment><comment><USER67> this crockford business is even more stupid than the eggplant issue.

glad to see ordinary, decent people are fighting back.

<comment><USER68> What was the eggplant issue...?

<comment><USER63> I searched on google I found this :

[https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3syfzb/socj...](https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3syfzb/socjus_github_project_nodejs_bans_user_for/?st=isrrahay&sh=3d34c693)

It might be about it since it's the same people that kicked out CrockFord from Nodevember. I have no opinion about this specific matter nor endorse what is said in this thread, but it looks like it is related to "EmilyRose", the same person that wrote a blogpost on medium saying how CrockFord made her feel unconfortable which led to the situation at hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> > I was not apart of the decision to uninvite Douglas Crockford to Nodevember

Quite literally, the quoted sentence means "I was part of the decision". From the rest of the article, I think the poster has a serious grammatical error.

"a part" != "apart".

[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/apart](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/apart)

</comment><comment><USER70> The left always eat their own.

<comment><USER71> Define "left". I don't have a definition either, I don't like or use the word, but I know there have been and are people that I adore and agree with on many things who probably would be labelled that way, and all of them would spit out what you seem to consider "left". One example:

> _Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the > wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool > yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you > cannot sacrifice an armchair for it. Say honestly, "I love arm-chairs better > than free men, and pursue them because I choose; not because circumstances > make me. I love hats, large, large hats, with many feathers and great bows; > and I would rather have those hats than trouble myself about social dreams > that will never be accomplished in my day. The world worships hats, and I > wish to worship with them."_

> _But if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, > and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to > make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong > and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the > strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter > the last possibility of freedom will become easy._

> _At the end of life you may close your eyes saying: "I have not been > dominated by the Dominant Idea of my Age; I have chosen mine own allegiance, > and served it. I have proved by a lifetime that there is that in man which > saves him from the absolute tyranny of Circumstance, which in the end > conquers and remoulds Circumstance, the immortal fire of Individual Will, > which is the salvation of the Future."_

\- Voltairine de Cleyre

If you say a little candle (or even just one that is fake and painted on) is the sun, that just means you don't know what the sun is. Keep looking maybe, or keep rationalizing your inertness to those who would fall for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Someone mistook Mr. Crockford for Brendan Eich and fired away some tweets.

<comment><USER40> Would it have been okay if it were Eich?

<comment><USER73> In the U.S., anyone "guilty" must be driven into the ground for the rest of their life, having forfeited everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Another win for the SJWs.

</comment><comment><USER74> So it's because a religious person felt uncomfortable about a non religious person (Crockford presumably)?

<comment><USER45> No, it's because a feminist felt uncomfortable about a non feminist.

<comment><USER75> Specifically an intersectional feminist. It's worth observing that Crockford's own intersections are that he's older, white, cis-male, an authority figure; which ticks just about every box for being an intersectional feminist enemy. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a fair bit of ageism, racism, sexism, heterophobia behind this, for him not being 'diverse' enough.

<comment><USER64> Indeed. And apparently, according to these people, we must hold Douglas responsible for being an old white male. It's his fault! He should have known better and been a young black woman instead. Obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Holy cow, HN. Get this _less_.

Hey, hiring managers: I'm a woman with 10+ years engineering experience and _great_ references. I'm working on leaving the tech industry because this crap isn't getting better fast enough.

I'll work for literally any company that pays half decently and puts a real priority on empathic communication.

Email's in my profile. Wait, no it isn't-- I'm closing this tab and not looking back, and I definitely don't want any of these people to know my email address.

Thanks for sticking up for me.

<comment><USER44> Empathic is a preference, and judging from your post, one you'd apply selectively and one way.

We're the people _you_ don't want to work with, because our communication style is different.

Nobody's required to stick up for you, your attempts at shaming not withstanding.</comment></comment>


'Practice makes progress' is the name of the game - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/practice-makes-progress-is-the-name-of-the-game-at-adult-skill-learning-programs-like-ladies-rock-camp/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Programs like these break down mystique, fill gaps in experience and provide > the relaxed, necessary assurance that failure is an option, and growth and > bravery are more important than looking cool — a lesson that's arguably just > as applicable at 50 as it is at 5.

This is what caught my attention. We need more of this in every field. Perhaps, that is already the case, but from what I can see, it looks like it can get better.</comment>


Study calculates effect on lifespan of healthy habits - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/30/the-five-habits-that-can-add-more-than-a-decade-to-your-life <comment><USER2> One thing you realize by practicing healthy "life extending" habits is that you feel better and actually find value in the present. The extra life if it happens is just a bonus. The real win is quality of life now while it matters.

<comment><USER3> Well said!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How much more research do we need to say people will live longer if they "[consumed] a healthy diet, controlled their weight, took regular exercise, drank in moderation and did not smoke."

<comment><USER5> Most of what you quoted has no meaning.

Don't smoke is probably true (does vaping nitiotine increase life expectancy?)

The rest not at all.

What's moderation. Some say 0%.

What's regular exercise and how do you do that? Or do we believe telling people is enough. It's also not true as far as I know. I though a lot of light activity is much more healthier than exercise.

There's evedence fatter people later in life live longer. What's the graph of weights for my DNA and how do I manage life long changes as I move between the weight I should be at parts of my life.

What's a 'healthy diet'? it's rubbish that some things are 'healthy' it's just somethings are not bad for you.

This article is next to useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Avoid facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, reddit, TV and hackernews (which I couldn't). One can easily recoup another decade of life

<comment><USER7> People should definitely do this no matter what.

But I don't think it's so simple. You also have to develop a long-term habit of minimizing wasted time.

<comment><USER8> As long as daydreaming, play and leisure aren't considered wasted time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd imagine you could guess these, not much surprising.

> The five healthy habits were defined as not smoking; having a body mass > index between 18.5 and 25; taking at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a > day, having no more than one 150ml glass of wine a day for women, or two for > men; and having a diet rich in items such as fruit, vegetables and whole > grains and low in red meat, saturated fats and sugar.

<comment><USER10> Does anybody knows what is "...rich in items such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains" and "...low in red meat, saturated fats and sugar"? This is way too vague for me and I couldn't find it in the paper.

<comment><USER11> Don't eat processed food.

<comment><USER3> In today's day and age, its tough to escape sugar. Surely you would agree.

<comment><USER11> Don't eat processed food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who cares? As always, correlation!=causation. The causal effect of alcohol is notoriously the topic of fierce debate for decades now, diet is known confounded by things like healthy user bias, and exercise actually has been the subject of randomized experiments and the effect on mortality is less than the naive correlation. These results are already known to be wrong when interpreted the way they want them to, and beating a dead horse won't extend its lifespan.

</comment><comment><USER13> Josh Mitteldorf's nascent project using the Horvath Clock might be of interest to some people here.

[https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2018/04/08/the- mother...](https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2018/04/08/the-mother-of- all-clinical-trials-part-i/)

</comment><comment><USER14> So where are the numbers? The article only mention cancer and heart issues. But the way to tell it was weird. No timespan is mentioned. Did I miss it?

Asking, because if they less likely die from cancer they more likely died from something else.

<comment><USER14> Oh, found it: +12y for men, +14 for women. No data per habit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> On a similar note - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16959472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16959472)

</comment><comment><USER15> Making correlation vs causation mistakes could add years of health-related articles to a journalist's portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER16> They must have done quite a large study, if they're able to detect any effect at all. There's a huge amount of variation in human lifespan that cannot be attributed to lifestyle choices.

<comment><USER17> 123.000 people according to the article</comment></comment>


YC RFS: Things Built on Twitter [2009] - <AUTHOR> http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html

<comment><USER2> When this was written it was bang on. But Twitter is deliberately choosing to go down a different path. I can easily predict Twitter will find itself swimming in the wrong direction within a couple years because the need for an open messaging protocol still exists. That creates opportunity that will be taken advantage of.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll bet PG is still interested in investing in "the next big protocol" startup. It's related to another RFS, "the email killer". Email as a protocol is dead. Twitter, as a protocol, is now dying.

There's definitely still a need for the next "protocol" - but it won't be Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER4> PG said that this RFS is not as promising anymore here, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4332000>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know that this request was written in 2009, but it's obviously not one that has as much potential with the recent changes Twitter has made.

 _"And the people at Twitter also want to encourage people to build stuff on top of it."_

Funny, how that has changed so quickly. Sad, that it's changed so quickly.

<comment><USER5> Building something on top of Twitter is rather different than building a Twitter display client.</comment></comment>


Launch an App - <AUTHOR> https://danielgauthier.me/launch-an-app/ <comment> eigen-vector This is cool. Just to give you some product validation, this is essentially what WhatsApp was before it became a messaging service. The 'status' that you see when you look at your WhatsApp contacts was the entire app; launched to ensure people knew when was a good time to text or call a contact. It was free, and more importantly, instant. So what ended up happening was that people started using it to broadcast announcements, have conversations etc. That's when WhatsApp pivoted to a messaging service.

Good luck!

<comment><USER2> Sounds like messaging would be the next logic iteration for this app to grow indeed. It's async and not too intrusive to solve this issue.

Regardless, very neat project and execution, hope it gets where you want it to!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really like the look of the app although I can't use it since it's iOS only.

Actually, my wife and I need something like this - we work together, and it's hard to coordinate around periods where I am in programming flow.

If you are the developer of the app, congratulations on your launch! :)

<comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the developer!

Thanks for the kind words. Sorry you can't check it out – really wish I could get this onto Android too, but I'm a solo iOS developer who can only take on so much at once :(

<comment><USER5> Congrats on the launch and thanks for writing about your story – it's truly invaluable to me, personally.

How did you cut your teeth with iOS development? I'm traditionally a backend (hobbyist) developer, and am a little lost as to what are good resources to get started on iOS development for someone who's already familiar with programming

<comment><USER4> I started doing iOS stuff in 2012, so a lot has changed since then! If you're just getting into it now, I'd probably recommend diving straight into SwiftUI, which is Apple's new UI framework, and likely the future of iOS dev. Paul Hudson's "Hacking with Swift" website has a "100 days of SwiftUI" series that I've seen people really enjoying – might be worth checking out!

<comment><USER5> Thank you! Definitely will!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This may or may not be the place, but isn't there something unfortunate about the ever-increasing "need" for public validation (at scale)?

The author mostly managed to extricate himself by defining his own successful launch, but it's not the norm. Our conversations are rated by strangers, and I have friends who go back to old tweets regularly and delete the ones that "didn't get enough likes."

I'd _really_ like to know if there's a place to discuss and advocate against this phenomenon. Or at least mitigate.

<comment><USER7> sounds like a good medium post. i'm sure you'll get lots of claps :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Love this story. Idea to launch in less than 2 months.

Are iOS devs still shying away from SwiftUI for now?

Also, I find it interesting to start coding on day 1 with just a vague idea in your mind. It's probably my UX influence, but I wouldn't dare do that anymore these days. In the least, I want to hash out my domain/data model, no matter how simple the app might be.

<comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the dev!

This is a great point, and you're not wrong. This was a pretty unique case where I had a really clear idea in my head of what this would require from the get-go, and it was also meant to be a pretty quick, experimental little project. It seems to have struck a chord with some folks, so now I get to find out if my off-the-cuff approach is going to come back to haunt me soon.

As for SwiftUI, I think it'll be a slow and steady process for most of us. I've been a UIKit developer for the better part of a decade now, so I still feel most comfortable in that domain, but I think most folks acknowledge SwiftUI is the future. Although it's still a bit immature, I'm hoping to start shipping bits of SwiftUI here and there soon.

<comment><USER9> > I still feel most comfortable in that domain, but I think most folks > acknowledge SwiftUI is the future.

As a counterpoint, SwiftUI is easier to grok to me (a student who's done a lot of web work in React) than UIKit ( _especially_ storyboards and the constraints system, but maybe I haven't made enough of an effort to learn it). HStacks and VStacks are very similar to flexbox layout.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I admire your writing style. Did you take any courses or practice regularly otherwise? English is not my native language but I find your texts incredibly natural to read. Kudos on the launch!

<comment><USER11> It's a good example of informal but easily understandable technical writing. Most of the progress update phrases are written lightheartedly and don't contain subjects (i.e. the subject is implicitly "I"). This type of writing is appealing because it's conversational: it's pretty much exactly how a native English speaker might tell the story to a friend.

I don't have any advice for nonnative speakers on this particular subject other than to analyze how native speakers write and speak informally (like in movie scripts or text messages). Saying what you're writing out loud before writing it can help as well.

<comment><USER4> Yep, I think snazz said it better than I could have here! I'll emphasize the last point especially, about saying it out loud – I may not /actually/ read my stuff out loud, but I'm always very focused on how my writing would sound if I was talking to someone. I want it to sound comfortable and natural, while also keeping it well-structured and grammatically correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Your sense of design is imo simply impeccable! I was wondering what you used to build your blog? Checked out the code and it seems custom-built! Is that right?

<comment><USER13> Looks like it's using github pages and jekyll. Here's the source code: [https://github.com/danielmgauthier/danielmgauthier.github.io](https://github.com/danielmgauthier/danielmgauthier.github.io)

<comment><USER4> Yep, I just started with a Jekyll template and tweaked it over time. But, fair warning: I am by no means a web developer, and most of my "tweaks" are just poorly written css changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool. Thanks for posting and congrats to @danielmgauthier for launching!

Probably makes sense to link to [https://danielgauthier.me/2020/01/26/indie- intro.html](https://danielgauthier.me/2020/01/26/indie-intro.html) instead of this final chapter, since I don't believe this series has ever been shared on HN before

</comment><comment><USER14> For the tips screen (May 5 update), can you elaborate on what the app store team made you change about it?

</comment><comment><USER15> This is quite nice. How do you plan to evolve it once people get back into offices (if ever) ? I can potentially see teams using it in their slack workflow as an integration. But how do you forsee it evolving outside of perhaps roommates or couples wfh?

<comment><USER4> So far, my approach has been to not think too much about the in-office use case since, in theory at least, there are already tools like Slack that _should_ be able to serve this purpose (though admittedly, they don't always do it well).

It's still very early days with this thing, and I've got lots of ideas bouncing around, but one avenue that might be interesting to explore is to try to better serve the use case of letting friends and family know, at a glance, what you're up to and whether you're up for a chat. I know I've already got users doing this kind of thing with the app today.

But we'll see! I think what makes the app appealing is its simplicity, so I don't want to stray from that too quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Enjoyed the writing style of the post and the clean design of the app. Cheers to launching!

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulations on your launch! I like the design

<comment><USER4> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Defcon Is Canceled (Black Hat also Cancelled; Both will be Virtual Events) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/defcon-is-canceled <comment><AUTHOR> 'Defcon's more buttoned-up sister conference, Black Hat, which takes place in the days leading up to Defcon every year, has been called off as well. Both events will host online conferences instead that include research talks and social events. The founder of both conferences, Jeff Moss, who is also known by his hacker name the Dark Tangent, said in a forum post [0] that the 28th Defcon will be known as "Safe Mode," referencing the name most operating systems use for their diagnostic and recovery mode.'

[0] [https://forum.defcon.org/node/232005](https://forum.defcon.org/node/232005)

Original title wasn't explicit, but article also announces Black Hat cancellation.</comment>


Secretive X-37B Military Space Plane Could Land in California Tuesday - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/secretive-x-37b-military-space-plane-could-land-132030466.html

<comment><USER2> TL;DR : I think the X-37 is nothing more spectacular than an upgradable spy satellite that can change it's orbit of inclination giving it the ability to spy on any part of the globe as quickly as possible.

Although the X-37B's mission is a closely guarded secret, many facts are public knowledge. I compiled a quick timeline a while back and seeing as it is in the news again, I am reviving it.

1998 : During the Clinton administration, Boeing test drops the X-40A, a test vehicle that would later be developed into the X-37. The government's own National museum of the US Air Force [freely states]([http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id...](http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=13873)) "The SMV program aimed at developing a new generation of small and reusable, highly maneuverable space vehicles for deploying satellites, surveillance, and logistics missions."

1999 : Public acknowledged start date of the X-37 project. Obvious similarities between the X-40A, launched a year earlier, and the X-37 show that work had already been started on the project, in one form or another.

2004 : The Bush administration decides to shake up nasa and outlines it's [Vision for Space Exploration]([http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2....](http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf)). In it, they outline the future of spaceflight laying out the, later cancelled, renewed efforts to send manned missions to the moon and later mars. In it they talk about a new generation of launch vehicles. This document is the beginning of the end for the already aging shuttle program. In it, they spell out that the shuttle program's only continuing purpose would be to finish the international space station.

2004 : Also in President George's plan is the further classification of the X-37/X-40 projects as they are [moved from NASA to Darpa]([http://www.space.com/337-nasa-transfers-37-project- darpa.htm...](http://www.space.com/337-nasa-transfers-37-project-darpa.html)) where a tighter lid can be kept on the whole project.

2006 : First Drop test of the X-37

2009 : Barack Obama is elected POTUS

22Apr2010 : First launch of the first X-37, Mission USA-212, and lasted 225 days

5Mar2011 : A different X-37 is launched and lasted 469 days

11Dec2012 : Another X-37 is launched and is still in orbit at the time of writing this. It is possibly that it is the same ship as was used in the first launch. As of today it has been in orbit, 657 days. USA-240 Mission

8Oct2014 : [NASA Partners with X-37B Program for Use of Former Space Shuttle Hangars]([http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-partners- with-x-...](http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-partners- with-x-37b-program-for-use-of-former-space-shuttle-hangars/#.VDaql6XF9K8))

13Oct2014 : [The X-37B is reportedly going to land in California Tommorrow]([http://news.yahoo.com/secretive-x-37b-military-space- plane-c...](http://news.yahoo.com/secretive-x-37b-military-space-plane-could- land-132030466.html))

My personal conclusions on all this lead me to believe the following however I highly recommend anyone with interest in the subject research it and make your own conclusions as I might have missed something: Due to the long amount of time they have kept each X-37 in orbit and the apparent desire to keep one in orbit at any given time, I personally believe that the mission is ongoing and of perceived strategic importance to the united states. Given that the US government itself has described the X-37's predecessor as a "highly maneuverable space vehicle for deploying satellites, surveillance, and logistics missions" I believe this is exactly what it is doing. It is an orbital space plane with a next generation optics and surveillance package that has the added ability of being able to change it's orbital inclination in the event that a certain spot on the earth needs observation urgently. Changing your orbital inclination costs a lot of fuel so you still want to be able to deorbit to be able to refuel and have another ready to take it's place when you do this. This also gives your engineers at Boeing time to make improvements and upgrades on one bird while the other is flying keeping your optics and sensors at the cutting edge all the time.

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the Poor Formatting. I tried editing my post and Hacker News wont take my changes. I suspect it is because I made a new account for this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA407255](http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr- doc/pdf?AD=ADA407255)

This report explains the background, scope and goals of the X-37 project.

The title of the second part of the report sounds interesting: "Is Space the next Pearl Harbor?"

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there any information or speculation on what kinds of package(s) it carries?

With the payload bay the size of a pickup bed, it doesn't seem like it could carry much.

<comment><USER5> It's military. Other than surveillance devices, it likely contains weapons to destroy, disable, or physically acquire portions of other satellites or acquire/modify/inhibit their communications. Think deniable jamming, component frying, physical acquisition of embedded encryption electronics.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious as to what anyone is speculating regarding the mission durations. It seems that a small reusable craft shouldn't necessarily have a requirement that it stay in orbit for one or two years.

Since the three tests that were done all had long durations, I really wonder what the mission profile for this thing is.

Some sort of readiness is needed, that is, it needs to wait in orbit, rather than relying on a launch schedule.

Launch -> deploy a payload -> wait -> capture a payload (either the one already deployed or some other one) -> return to Earth

The longest shuttle mission was 17 days, and they deployed and recaptured two satellites in that time.

It's possible these are used as a platform for servicing existing Air Force/government assets in space.

If you look at Hubble as an example, it required servicing every 2-4 years. Space instruments suffer pretty steady degradation, and various transient events can cause that to degradation to accelerate.

If you spend a few billion to launch an instrument, and you need to replace it entirely every few years, you're spending a lot of money on replacements, but it may only be small parts that need to be replaced or repaired. Having a "pick up truck" of modular, drop-in components waiting in orbit could greatly extend the life of surveillance equipment and reduce the amount of downtime (either out of commission, or operating with reduced coverage).

<comment><USER7> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Express](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Express)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So is this just a rapidly deployable surveillance platform? What's the advantage over existing spy satellites?

<comment><USER9> > What's the advantage over existing spy satellites?

The first nukes in a large scale war will be detonated in space to eliminate communication, spy, and other satellites. If an opposing force has a successful 1st strike then a rapidly deployable surveillance platform to re- establish our capabilities would be highly valuable.

<comment><USER10> Large scale war? Give me a break. The white flags will go up as soon as people loose access to their facebook streams or hackernews for that matter.

<comment><USER9> I never said that it would be a popular war...just large scale. Just because something is not popular with the majority of a population (loss of FB) does not mean it cannot/will not happen. Even in a democracy.

I must ask.

> Large scale war? Give me a break.

Are you suggesting that large scale war cannot ever happen in the future. That it's completely outside the realm of possibility? Is it an impossibility?

<comment><USER10> "Large scale wars" happen when both sides are equally balanced in resources. When was the last time that happened?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> o0-0o If it's secretive, why would any of this be out in the press?

<comment><USER11> In general, because you can't hide anything in LEO. X-37B's orbit (and orbital changes) are well known.

That doesn't explain why we know it's coming down, but I'm guessing that leaked or wasn't considered sensitive.</comment></comment>


Are Face-Detection Cameras Racist? - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1954643,00.html

<comment><USER2> This story was submitted a month ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1014011>

And a few days ealier than that: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1005406>

The BBC item got flagged and deleted, but here's the link in case you're interested:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8429634.stm>

It's a hard problem, a really hard problem, and it's been oversold.

</comment><comment><USER3> No, they just don't work very well.</comment>


How Ultima Online rares were born - <AUTHOR> http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/11/24/how-uo-rares-were-born/ <comment><USER2> In my youth, I had what could only really be called an obsession with Ultima Online, I played it on and off (including playing on and running independent servers,) for the better part of a decade and the economics of the world were always really intriguing to me. When I started playing, it was totally possible to make a living as a humble miner. At some point, we started stealing ore - I'm not proud of it, but early UO was a very Hobbesian place.

But things started to get really interesting once everyone was capable of reliably accumulating more gold than practically necessary (I preferred hunting liches on the fourth level of Deceit) the de facto currency became overt displays of wealth. The built in prices became meaningless. There was a market for housing that differed in interesting ways from shard to shard. There were whole _malls_ that housed secondary markets for bulk purchases of reagents and crafting supplies.

I literally went furniture shopping for my house at the carpenter shop in the mall run by Dragon's Claw in a castle outside Britain... and while I was there, I probably picked up some regs.

As a player, I remember the early days of the pure black dye tub. IIRC I bought my first one for 25,000 gold [edit: for reference, a boat cost 15k, and a house deed, 40k] and instantly dyed everything I owned this anti-color. It was a very trying time, waking up not knowing if your valuables were still there. But it's really interesting to read the events from the perspective of a very reasonably upset artist. The way they ended up handling the black dye tub, however, became the sort of precedent for this type of incident.

The most compelling aspect of UO was the diverse ways in which people made use of the world and its resources - and OSI seemed to be, on the whole, fairly receptive to these things. One other good example was the practice of "Server Wars." Every Sunday morning, the server would save and go down for updates. When this happened, everyone would get a grey message after which no activity would be saved, but the server would stay up for a while. This became the worldwide cue to go to your local graveyard for a colossal melee which would be wiped away when the server came up.

I could go on at great length about other ways in which the world of UO was great, but I'm moving tomorrow and really need to sleep.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. The economy of UO was awesome - yes it had its usual inflation problems, but still. Whats most impressive is that many markets developed in spite of (probably more because of) crude mechanics involved trade.

There was the grind - but it was awesome, actually. Since it was risky - beyond loosing a couple of minutes of gametime. You either played your gathering and crafting safe - making many trips to your hoarding spot, which made you profits painfully low or you could try to maximize your hourly rate - at insane risk to falling prey to an enemy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah, one of so many reasons I loved UO!

@patio11, I think the scorn for virtual item sales was not always just one of condescension. Rather, the idea was born from a certain economic understanding. If the belief was that virtual item sales would be a fraction of subscriptions, but that virtual sales could upset gameplay and unbalance games, harming the play experience and undermining the community, they were to be eschewed. At least, that was an argument that I would see a lot.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I saw that, too. It seemed to me that a lot of developers connected very strongly with their audience on the level of: "I am cash-poor and time-rich and should win, because I am willing to work for this. Victory should not go to people who are cash-rich and time-poor. I should beat their face in and people should be in awe of me, because I worked for my pixels."

<comment><USER6> Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I interpret you as saying "they wanted to preserve gameplay over a potentially more interesting business model, and that's a bad thing".

Maybe you're not a gamer, so that makes it harder to imagine. But games like Farmville aren't on the same level as something like Ultima Online. It's like comparing a fast food chain to an authentic French restaurant. Nobody will blame the restaurant that they're using a different model.

<comment><USER5> There are a lot of dragons who would vigorously contest the notion that I am not a gamer, or would if I hadn't spent years of my life getting together with my closest 39 friends to genocide them. My interest is mostly academic, about how for-profit companies convince themselves that suboptimal processes are in their best interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is interesting for me, in a lot of ways, that MMORPG developers scorned virtual items sales and claimed they would never work (and later, that they would never work in the US) for literally _decades_ while simultaneously trying to stamp out thriving markets in their games... and then Zynga blindsided them "out of nowhere" with how much money could be extracted through sales of virtual goods. There was always a strong ideological component to the "no real money transactions in our games" -- and for a while it not only defeated the clear business benefits of swapping stuff for money, it successfully convinced the industry that that was an unviable model despite them being literally engaged in a losing holding action against that very model.

<comment><USER7> I don't think Zynga invented this. The big Korean games like Maple Story, Kart Rider, Sudden Attack had mixed game and real-life currency for quite a while before.

I remember going to a GDC (2007?) where western developers were heavily discussing the Korean model and whether it would work in the west.

Aside: IMO, Zynga is a bit of a cynical money making machine. The Korean model seems to be more about the game, while still making plenty of money.

<comment><USER8> The Korean games remain fun to play. 9/10ths of things on sale are one-offs like a longer duration healing spell or a temporary strength booster. They generally didn't alter the gameplay hugely. Sure it meant a same-level player could pawn you, but it didn't guarantee it and in most cases the player using these specials wasn't a match for an actual hardcore gamer.

Then there was the marginal 1/10th of products that were like a level 15 armor but a level 12 could wear it. It didn't genuinely change much again, because when I played these games I frequently attacked well out of my level range for the huge XP you'd get because I was genuinely good at fighting in them.

I see Nexon cash cards in 7/11, Bestbuy, Zellers and even in pharmacies. I see Zynga getting sued for millions of dollars for ripping off competitors ideas (Mob Wars, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea of an item being rare due to emergent properties reminds me of something cool from Diablo 1. There was at least one unique item that shared a "kind" slot with another, lower level unique. Due to a bug, the game would always choose the lesser item. This might have made the other item not just rare but actually impossible to get, except for an interaction with another feature: if a unique dropped once in a game, the same unique would not drop again. This mechanism took the lower level unique out of the running, allowing the other one to drop - but only if this same kind of unique were chosen twice per game.

So the probability of finding the second unique was P(A|B). That is, the probability of finding it in any random game was probability of A _given B_. Out of the four billion 32-bit seed integers the random number generator for Diablo 1 might be initialized with, only a handful satisfied this requirement.

</comment><comment><USER10> this reminds me of the missingno glitch in pokemon blue/red from my elementary school days (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MissingNo.>)

</comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like they might have learned the lessons of Habitat (<http://www.fudco.com/chip/lessons.html> \- long but worth it; if you want to skip to the relevant portion, scroll down to the "A Warning" section, or to the "Keeping 'Reality' Consistent" and keep in mind this was about 25 years ago).</comment>


Network of fortified towns indicates Amazon was once heavily populated - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/network-of-fortified-towns-indicates-amazon-was-once-heavily-populated/ <comment><USER2> It's worth mentioning Terra Preta [1] the manmade soil that makes the Amazon Rain Forest possible in such a huge flood plain.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta)

<comment><USER3> According to that page "Terra preta soils are found mainly in the Brazilian Amazon, where Sombroek et al.[18] estimate that they cover at least 0.1 to 0.3%, or 6,300 to 18,900 square kilometres (2,400 to 7,300 sq mi) of low forested Amazonia;[1] but others estimate this surface at 10.0% or more (twice the area of Great Britain).[12][19]

Terra preta exists in small plots averaging 20 hectares (49 acres), but areas of almost 360 hectares (890 acres) have also been reported."

So the rainforest doesn't depend on Terra Preta.

<comment><USER2> No of course not, rain forrests happen in any tropical environment. But that the diversity and resilence of the Amazon Rain Forest, specifically the Terra Preta islands is unique, and is a direct result of human intervention. That's what's so interesting and amazing to me about Terra Preta and why I feel it should not be brushed aside and reiterated whenever possible.

<comment><USER4> I think its a result of a good management of the forest. What if instead of cutting the trees we manage them to get a better forest? Like pruning and laying the wood in the soil to decompose faster and better, we can increase the speed of ecological succession a lot. What if for every hard good wood we cut we plant more so we can have even more later?

I've being learning and practicing this type of agriculture for 3 years, its incredible how the soil can improve without adding things from outside, like fertilizers, just seeds: [http://vimeo.com/159262175](http://vimeo.com/159262175)

Also by eating raw fruits, the food we should eat the most, we act as a very powerful seed dispersal, where you through your food there is big chance for the seeds to germinate, its a mistake to get every trash together and treat them the same, by spreading rests of fruits and vegetables and just covering them with enough dried leaves to stop the smell you will plant easily thousands of trees every year with little effort.

<comment><USER2> Exactly! There's a great book called Wisdom of the Native Americans [1] that curates a lot of the oral tradition that was only ever recorded during the first trials with the US government. Reading that book really gives a sense of the responsibility felt by the individuals to nature. It's easy to extrapolate from that book and these new studies that are coming out with the population sizes involved how a comparatively simple societal structure could give rise to such large ecosystem refinements that made such large populations possible and subsequently have given us so many of the foods and medicines we enjoy today. It truly is staggering.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577310799/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_t1...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577310799/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awdb_t1_SPyVAbBTRY497)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of the book 1491 ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000JMKVE4/ref=dp- kindle-redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000JMKVE4/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)) by Charles Mann.

It really changed my worldview about what the Americas were like before Columbus.

<comment><USER6> There's also the follow up called "1493 ..." (I forget the rest).

<comment><USER7> > There's also the follow up called "1493 ..." (I forget the rest).

It's called "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created"

</comment></comment></comment><comment> purple-again I am not a historian of any kind.

If we have accounts of massive villages criss crossing the Amazon from early Spanish explorers then why is the article saying we thought it was empty? We're they not believed? Didn't the Spanish return to the same place with conquistadors later to fill up all those gold ships? Even if everyone died of disease in between Spanish forays wouldn't the second one have noted all the abandoned villages creating new folklore like the single abandoned Roanoke?

<comment><USER8> I just read the book "1491" which covers a lot on this theme. Recommended. Short answer: it was always politicized, in various ways, for various ends. Most of those ways downplayed the size, scope and sophistication of native cultures.

<comment> 52-6F-62 This was also dramatized in the film _The Lost City of Z_ to some extent. It's worth a watch.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_of_Z_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_of_Z_\(film\))

<comment><USER9> Or a read. The book is fantastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Elsewhere in this thread there is a discussion about Terra Preta (the local version of sustainable soil). Simple techniques like this have been used all over the world for thousands of years, from Eastern China, to the Steppes, to the cow-dung based agriculture in India.

I wonder if there is an analysis somewhere on how much land will be needed to completely move away from harsh, "chemical" based fertilizers to naturally occurring ways to replenish agricultural lands. We don't have to eat meat all the time and may be 7 billion people could be fed a decent, vegetarian, varied diet with the existing lands without the modern fertilizers?

On a side note to that point, have you tasted the difference between simple, unsalted German butters and the ones sold in NYC? Oh my god. You will never want to come to America on that basis alone. (Sorry, a bit of hyperbole there; there may be one or two other reasons to not go to the USA).

<comment><USER11> It's not hyperbolic. I've thought the same about tomatoes from Greece compared with tomatoes purchased in NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I briefly thought this was a satirical article about Amazon.com's recent round of layoffs...

<comment><USER13> I clicked thinking it was a sci-fi piece about a future where historians inspect the remains of our current society. Amazon had grown to be so significant that the future generations regarded this whole period and all our cities as Amazon

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone is interested in seeing some neat artwork by a pre-Columbian era society, near the Tapajós river mentioned in the article, type "marajoara art" into Google Images. The same type of art is still being made in and around the capital city of Belém, specifically in the neighorhood of Icoaraci, in case anyone is traveling there.

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

</comment><comment> purple-again On another note, what would have happened if humanity didn't do a big disease swap back in the 1500's. Could a flotilla of South American ships have showed up in Italy in the 1700's and caused massive death across the Old World?

<comment><USER15> There is a good book that deals with the question of why it was Europeans that colonized the Americas (and other places) and not the other way round: "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel)

One of the main points is that the geography of Eurasia allowed easier transfer of staple crops and useful animals between cultures. More, higher quality food than elsewhere allowed a better division of labor, and among other things it made it possible to send flotillas across the ocean.

(I should add that all the other points made in the book are _also_ non- racist. There is nothing inherent in European humans that made them the explorers and colonizers; it was simply winning the geographic lottery.)

<comment><USER16> The central thesis of Guns, Germs, and Steel doesn't hold up that well when you compare it to facts. One point to make is that maize was very readily adopted by North American culture to a strong degree (it took historians a while to realize that North Americans had in fact developed agriculture independently of Mesoamerica). By contrast, there was no major transfer of crops along the Eurasian interior between the independent agricultural discoveries in Mesopotamia and China.

Another thing to point out: the American staple of maize is very nearly a complete provider of essential nutrients (just add beans), which cannot be said for Eurasian crops. And maize is the highest caloric yield crop, followed by potatoes. As 1491 points out, when the Mesoamericans faced the Spaniards, the Spaniards were probably suffering from lifelong malnutrition... and the Aztecs weren't.

The evidence is, in fact, that Mesoamerica in particular won the agricultural lottery, meaning that Eurasian supremacy cannot be based on agricultural superiority.

<comment><USER17> He also goes on about how there were no large animals to be domesticated, completely ignoring the bison, and basically just saying the llama and alpaca don't count.

<comment><USER18> Llama and alpaca really don't count. They are much smaller and much weaker than cattle. You can breed them to be bigger, but there may be limits to that; there may also be a path dependence to it, in that they started in one economic niche and there was no reason for a concerted effort over dozens or hundreds of generations to make them stronger.

Bison are much more problematic IMO for Diamond. The most I've seen on them is that they are surlier than cattle. But it's not like aurochs were cuddly fur friends in the beginning either.

<comment><USER17> > They are much smaller and much weaker than cattle.

Same with Donkeys.

Totally agree w/ Bison.

edit: It is worth considering the maximum extent of the Inca Empire roughly coincided with the greatest distribution of alpacas and llamas in Pre-Hispanic America, so I think they had a major influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is actually how the aliens who discover earth will describe what we now call Seattle in a hundred thousand years or so.

<comment><USER20> Or as we describe Mars today, maybe [ _mutatis mutandis_ ].

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Historical stock data indicates Amazon was once seen as valuable

</comment><comment><USER22> Not the online retailer.

<comment><USER23> I re-read the headline 5 times before clicking on it and reading it again. Then I read the summary. Then I realized it wasn't the online retailer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> at first read, my thought was "oh, Amazon's getting into building fortified towns. that makes sense in Trumpistan..."

<comment><USER25> But in that case it reads like a report from 100+ years from now.</comment></comment>