Fired Google engineer files complaint, weighs legal options - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GOOGLE_DIVERSITY_CAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-08-18-42-15 <comment><USER2> For those who discuss this as "being fired for wrongthink":

Companies fire people for lack of cultural fit. How is this any different?

<comment><USER3> It may not be any different. In any case, and irrespective of this specific case or how anyone might feel about it, I think it's probably a good idea to be critical of claims like bad cultural fit when coming from corporate execs. Yes, there are some people who are unable to act in a way that most would agree is a professional manner, and indeed these people are toxic and pretty much impossible to work with, however, I have a strong suspicion that bad "cultural fit" in many cases is probably just an instance of bias and essentially a weasel term to make it acceptable to only want to hire people of specific demographics.

At this point I really wish tech would just abandon this whole "culture" thing were the company hopes to be a center of social activity and just go back to being a place people work and get a paycheck in return.

<comment><USER2> I feel like this is a "keep the politics out of everyday life" thing.

Ultimately if you're working together, then personal differences come into play (just like they do in other sphere of life). There are ways of professionalising environments, of course

I think once you reach "people management" itself, then its basically in the job description that this sort of stuff matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What escapes this whole shebang is the fact that his post went _Viral_ inside google. Would he have been fired if it didn't?

<comment><USER5> Perhaps not. But I don't see the fact that he wrote it as the proximal cause for his firing.

I suspect it's the fact that his PR event caused by the memo makes it harder for the company to hire women and to draw a clear distinction between Google company culture and, say, Uber company culture.

<comment><USER6> Or, put another way, the PR makes it harder for Google to defend itself in lawsuits from current or former female employees alleging discrimination. Would failure to discharge Damore _itself_ constitute grounds for a complaint of a hostile work environment?

There is some heavy legal machinery firing underneath the covers here, forcing Google's hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm willing to bet Damore would win his case with the NLRB if not for the new Trump members that will be on the board by the time he gets there. Eager to see some deal with their simultaneous passion for speech freedoms and disdain for the only remedy here—strengthening labor protections.

</comment><comment><USER8> For the life of me I still can't figure out what he wrote that was so offensive.

I see people attacking him in general terms, calling him a bigot/sexist/etc, but they never mention anything specific he wrote.

Can anyone point to anything specific that is upsetting so many people?

<comment><USER9> The document is the definition of sexism and a perfect example of why we still need diversity laws and programs.

Despite the attempts to provide disclaimers, many of the comments he wrote were explicitly sexist. For example the sections "Personality differences" and "Men's higher drive for status".

Sexism means prejudice related to gender. Prejudice means pre-judging a group. For example the belief that women do not have as high as drive for status can (and previously has been) used as an excuse for promoting men instead of women or a particular man instead of a particular woman.

[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles-I...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586/Googles- Ideological-Echo-Chamber.pdf)

And other comments. In the context of discussion of things like hiring, promotion and pay, acting on the beliefs he stated has been outlawed (even though unfortunately these biases are still very prevalent). If they do not fire him, the document will be used as evidence in discriminatory lawsuits.

These sexist beliefs are still just as popular as ageist and racist beliefs. Many may be able to find scientific studies that back up their prejudice. There are usually studies backing up just about any view, just due to the nature of science. Regardless of how well accepted or not these studies are, the laws have already been made years before. So if you want these types of prejudicial beliefs to be openly consulted in hiring, promotion, etc. decisions in companies, those laws will need to be changed.

<comment><USER10> > Prejudice means pre-judging a group.

Would it be a prejudice to say women on average are less tall than men? Where do you draw the line between "pre-judgement" and "statistics" (can we call it post-judgement?). Height is OK but work drive is not OK to post-judge?

<comment><USER9> In this context it's clearly a prejudicial belief that he is promoting that can have negative consequences for women.

Go ahead and bury my comments. Judges will eventually explain the laws to you people.

<comment><USER11> The author took great pain to distinguish between traits having a tendency to exist at higher rates within a group, and traits being exhibited by an individual. You don't seem to have comprehended his point. Barring diversity programs allowing members of select groups to pass a lower hiring/performance bar, a person sitting at the desk next to me at work is just as likely to be a competent engineer as anyone else, regardless of their gender. But if you were to take 1,000 women and 1,000 men from a young age and treat them precisely equally, there are strong scientific arguments that we should expect to see a larger number of the men go into tech than women.

To reiterate, this says precisely nothing about the qualifications and competency of individuals who actually enter tech, it only speaks to the relative number of men and women we ought to expect our workforce to be composed of. It could be that the natural result of equal opportunity for all men and women to enter tech is for there to be more than 50% men, possibly quite a bit more. Again, there is a lot of research that indicates this (for citations, see the "manifesto").

<comment><USER12> How does this apply to other countries where women are higher in STEM and tech than men? For example, in Iran more than 60% of STEM students are female.

<comment><USER11> I am not particularly knowledgeable about that, so I don't have much to offer here. I'll take a stab, but I don't have anything to cite, and my opinions aren't well informed -

For various reasons I don't want to go into on this thread, Iran is not a society that I think should be looked up to and emulated. It frequently gets cited as an example of highly misogynistic culture, and as far as I know has plenty of laws / official practices that codify inequality of women in a way that many other developed countries (e.g., the United States, countries in the EU, etc) don't. I'm happy to be corrected on this as I really don't know all that much about Iran, but I strongly suspect the people decrying the google essay as being sexist would agree that Iran is not a good role model for egalitarian society. Regardless, from what little I do know, if the structure of Iranian society/culture is what it takes to get high representation of women in STEM, is that really worth it?

I have one more thing to add - I found this video to be thought provoking:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70&t=300](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70&t=300)

(I've linked to a specific time where the material is particularly relevant, but the whole thing is worth a watch)

To summarize, that video makes the observation that less wealthy, less egalitarian countries have higher rates of women in typically male professions. Conversely, very rich and egalitarian countries have a lower amount of women in them. The explanation for this phenomenon that is proposed in the video (if I remember right, I watched this years ago) is that when factors like wages, status, family expectations, etc are given less and less importance, and people are therefore relatively more free to choose professions based on desire rather than need, women tend to avoid jobs within STEM fields. To be clear, that's merely one interpretation of the data (although it sounds plausible to me), there are likely other valid ones.

<comment><USER12> Oh I was definitely not saying Iran should be a role model for the rest of the world. I'm saying examples exist that prove the negation of the "biological" argument.

Which brings doubt into, if we're raising boys and girls without considering gender norms would boys really outnumber girls in tech?

<comment><USER11> I would not go so far as to say they "prove" the negation of the biological argument, when there is so much evidence that points the other direction, and a practically infinte number of confounding variables are involved if all you're doing is pointing at a couple of countries like Iran and saying "look at that". So I don't actually think it brings doubt into anything.

Personally, I think it's very likely that if a large number of men and a large number of women were each given exactly equal opportunity to pursue whatever career they wished, more men would pursue tech than women. I haven't seen any data that contradicts this belief, but if I did I'd like to think I would change my mind. Of course, I have no idea what range we should expect the proportions to fall into. 51/49? 60/40? 90/10? Obviously this also means that I have no idea if the gender representation we see in tech currently accurately represents the population of people who would be interested in it, given the opportunity. But I think the weight of the evidence that we _should_ expect more men than women in tech is much higher than the weight to the contrary. Not knowing the exact numbers simply means that we should focus our efforts on making sure _everybody_ has equal opportunity to pursue whichever career interests them the most, as opposed to trying to reach some arbitrary numerical threshold. As long as all people are free to make their own choices, we shouldn't be concerned how the distributions turn out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Men and woman ARE equal._

I used to believe so, until I discovered there were thousands of studies suggesting that statistically, men and women _aren 't_ equal.

Each one of these points is backed up by dozens of statistical studies.

Are there statistical differences between males and females in height? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in athletic ability? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in memory recall? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in visuospatial ability? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in short-term mating strategies? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in long-term mating strategies? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in partner selection? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in partner commitment? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in parental investment? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in life expectancy? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in aggression? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in neuroticism? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in suicide? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in infancy and play? Yes

Are there statistical differences between males and females in wealth inheritance to children? Yes

I could make this list 200 items long, it's crazy how many studies there are out there. There's at least 50 years of research on this topic.

<comment><USER14> You're not parsing the difference between "equality" and "identicality".

Equality is about the rights one has, and how one should be treated as an individual — equality before the law, and before society. We strive for a society where men and woman are equal, blacks and whites are equal, straights and gays are equal.

Universal equality, however, does NOT require us to believe that people are identical in personality, in intelligence, or in any of the other dimensions you've listed above. We don't even have to believe that specific groups, taken together, are identical to all other groups in mean, median, and standard deviation on these attributes.

People can be EQUAL without being THE SAME.

Edit: really bummed I missed the opportunity to make a JavaScript joke about == vs ===.

<comment><USER13> Edit: New accounts cannot reply so I rewrote my comment

I'm talking about equality in terms of attributes. The distribution of traits in males and the distribution of traits in females, are not equal. So I will not say males and females are equal. They do qualify as equivalent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_relation)

I believe people should be treated as individuals, if you take two distinct persons A and B, I don't believe they are equal. The only person equal to person A is person A. On this vein, you can't say Group A is equal to Group B, unless Group A and B are the same group.

You can apply equivalence relations to groups, which is basically a lower threshold for equality.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure where "equivalent" came from, and haven't really heard it used in this context before. What do you mean by that?

Anyway, I think you've got it backwards. "Equivalent" suggests that men and women are functionally interchangeable, which neither of us believes. "Equal", on the other hand, has a long history of being used to carry social and political meaning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Because evolutionary biology is fundamentally at odds with the core tenets of Feminism.

Feminism is founded on the idea that males and females are equal. Biological research over the past 30 years; specifically from the fields of genetics, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology; directly contradicts this premise. Evolutionary biology research tells us there are sex differences in human males and females during all phases of the human lifecycle, including prenatal, childhood, adolescence, mating, parenting, grandparenting, and death. Behavioral ecology tells us we see these same effects in non-human species too. Genetics tells us these traits are heritable and not socially constructed (for example, the correlation between a parent's IQ and their child is around .80, even accounting for adoption).

How does one reconcile evidence from a field of science, that directly contradicts one's own beliefs? To protect one's identity, to avoid the cognitive dissonance, the obvious answer is to discredit the field, discredit the arguments, and discredit the person citing it.

That is why there is a concerted effort by Feminists, and supporters of feminism in the media to squash statistical evidence that goes against their ideology.

It is akin to telling a Christian that God is not real. You will receive a similar response. Heretics must be punished.

<comment><USER15> And the fact that you're writing this under a throwaway drives home how difficult it is to have a discussion that goes against these ideas. You run the risk of being bullied or shamed into quitting or simply fired.

<comment><USER13> :) You get it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thank you. It's something that I think needs to be said.

One thing, about your point on 'gender deniers', I would try to avoid using the term 'gender'. It's a term perpetuated by the left to avoid direct conversation about biological sex. There has been a concerted effort to separate the concept of gender and sex through justification by the social sciences. This phenomena is not new, historically the social sciences have always been used to justify the predominant ideology of the time.

Gender is considered a 'social construct' under the theory of social constructionism, a philosophical theory not based on statistical evidence. Once you start debating about what is 'Gender', you've already fallen into their trap. I would use the term 'biology deniers' because it avoids people from making roundabout arguments on what is gender.

<comment><USER16> We ban accounts that use HN primarily for political and ideological battle, regardless of which flavor they favor.

It's fine for community members who use HN as intended (i.e. for intellectual curiosity) to also comment on divisive topics as long as they do so thoughtfully. It's not fine to make throwaway accounts to post boilerplate ideological talking points. Since that's what you've been doing, I've banned this one. Please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14969394) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Getting flagged in 5, 4, ...

<comment><USER18> I notice no stories about how Damore lied about having a PhD from Harvard have made it to the top.

<comment><USER19> > I notice no stories about how Damore lied about having a PhD from Harvard > have made it to the top.

[http://sysbiophd.harvard.edu/people/alumni/james- damore](http://sysbiophd.harvard.edu/people/alumni/james-damore)

<comment><USER20> Note how there's no dissertation or thesis advisor listed, unlike the other alumni. Here's an article saying he didn't graduate more explicitly: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/technology/google- enginee...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/technology/google-engineer- fired-gender-memo.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Liberals / progressives keep missing the point - silencing your opposition and calling them names only shows how weak your side of the argument is. That's how you get 4 more years of Trump.

Fight bad ideas with better ideas, better arguments.

<comment><USER5> > Liberals / progressives keep missing the point - silencing your opposition > and calling them names

You're conflating a political movement with a company doing PR damage control. Google management didn't "call him names".

You're not thinking about it like a corporate manager. Google is trying hard not to be seen as just another Frat startup like Uber (albeit an older one). They are actively trying to hire the best engineers in the world and this memo just put a dent in their hiring process for 50% of their potential hiring candidates.

> Fight bad ideas with better ideas, better arguments.

Of course.

The irony is that social conservatives are usually the ones to cry foul when an employee sues a company for firing the employee for social/cultural reasons. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, both political poles are shown to be hypocrites.

<comment><USER8> > You're conflating a political movement with a company doing PR damage > control. Google management didn't "call him names".

Google is heavily invested in the political movement. Lets not pretend google is an objective observer in this.

> They are actively trying to hire the best engineers in the world and this > memo just put a dent in their hiring process for 50% of their potential > hiring candidates.

Can you point to anything specific that was written that would scare 50% of potential hires? That is quite an assertion and I would love to here the rationale for it.

> Now that the shoe is on the other foot, both political poles are shown to be > hypocrites.

That's the point. Why are you defending one foot and not the other?

<comment><USER22> >Google is heavily invested in the political movement.

What "political movement" did the guy they fired represent? "All men are created equal" is a political statement, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" is a political statement, "Half the world's population is unsuitable for technical work because of their gender" is bigoted nonsense. That he tried to use discredited pseudo-science to back up his statement doesn't make it any more valid than bigoted nonsense from less educated people.

If he had kept his nonsense to himself, it wouldn't have been a major issue for Google. But because he chose to share it with his coworkers, who then leaked it, they were put in a position where if they kept him on, they would be seen as endorsing the nonsense, but if they fired him, they were seeing as joining in some kind of political crusade.

Bottom line: the core thesis of the "manifesto" was on par with eugenics, anti-vaxxer propaganda, or anti-climate FUD. If someone in their HR department was seen as embracing those ideas and encouraging their coworkers to put them into practice, Google would probably fire them as well.

<comment><USER23> >Bottom line: the core thesis of the "manifesto" was on par with eugenics, anti-vaxxer propaganda, or anti-climate FUD.

Awesome strawman!

Don't agree with someone? Equate their argument with something significantly worse..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They fired him for making women and minorities at google feel unwelcome due to their gender and ethnicity respectively. That's a violation of the company code of conduct and kind of a dick move. People who work hard to become experts in their fields should not have to continually prove that they are in fact good enough and smart enough for the positions they have earned.

<comment><USER8> > They fired him for making women and minorities at google feel unwelcome due > to their gender and ethnicity respectively.

What did he say that made women feel unwelcome? What did he say about minorities?

<comment><USER12> Automatically assuming that women are there because the standards were lowered for them. Indicating that when he's working with a female co-worker, he thinks they shouldn't be there and the only reason they're there is because of "reverse discrimination".

He spoke about affirmative action as well, but most of his arguments were against women.

<comment><USER25> Now, I haven't got opportunity to read his note. Did he really said that? Or people just assumed?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Passenger takes controls of plane after pilot falls ill - T-zex http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/09/passenger-takes-controls-plane-pilot-ill-humberside

<comment><AUTHOR> Obligatory Straight Dope link: _Has a passenger ever landed a plane after the pilot was incapacitated?_ [1] in which Cecil mentions several such cases.

[1] [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3090/has-a- passenge...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3090/has-a-passenger- ever-landed-a-plane-after-the-pilot-was-incapacitated)</comment>


Tell HN: Take my idea: dream home designer - <AUTHOR> If I was building a new home for myself I'd love some incredible dream home deigned software to help me design a home I love, incorporating a library of ideas, and a community to share a collaborate with.<p>Some smart YC company should build this. <comment><USER2> I would love to see it load various zoning laws and as well as building requirements for a particular city and then work within those constraints. There is not a lot of regular sized conforming building lots in bigger cities. In many cases, you have to get a variance from the zoning board before you can even get a building permit.

What might be a cool feature also is a renovation tool that can sort of plan what you see on a show like Property Brothers. Given a blue print of the existing house, the tool can help you visually plan a renovation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Secondlife is good for idea visualization

I think the big challenge is getting the wall dimensions right for the hidden stuff, like piping wiring, central Heat/AC, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> How much would you pay?

</comment><comment><USER5> SketchUp can help you. It has a learning curve, though.

<comment><USER4> Falling Water is the product of a skill set orthogonal to that acquired by mastering Sketchup. There is 10x residential design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> houzz.com has a lot of "inspiration" photos

</comment><comment><USER7> The Sims.</comment>


Square Cash – Try it. We'll email you a dollar. - Dorian-Marie https://square.com/cash?free-money

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't this be gamed somehow? Just create some catch-all email, and send $1 to as many as you want? I'm guessing they probably restrict a single dollar to 1 debit card number, though. Wonder if there's a way around that? Oh well.

<comment> Dorian-Marie With generated card numbers maybe, I know some banks in France do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> It won't work with UK addresses darn it</comment>


Why the NSA is staying out of Apple's fight with the FBI - chris-at http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/9/11186868/apple-fbi-nsa-encryption-exploit-hack <comment><AUTHOR> The article does mention the split between the FBI's public nature of investigations (they have to prosecute) while the NSA does not really care about methods, so long as it returns results.

The interesting part is that the NSA is compelled at all to help. Why would they? Give up their toys and secrets to help another agency go after someone who is already dead seems to put them in peril for little/ no gain. Unless you believe the "dormant cyber pathogen"[1] line holds any water (which it does not).

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/san-bernardino- da...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/san-bernardino-da-says- seized-iphone-may-hold-dormant-cyber-pathogen/)</comment>


The most interesting project I have worked on for quite a while - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stormmq.com/2010/10/01/writing-a-c-client-for-amqp-to-fit-onto-an-embedded-device/

<comment><USER2> I like the tin-foil hat...nice addition.</comment>


Kevin Rose Will Join Google - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120315/exclusive-kevin-rose-will-join-google/ <comment><USER4> Sorry if this sounds harsh, and I know he has a lot of fans out there. But this guy struck gold 5 years ago with Digg. Sure, he deserves props for this. However, he's not a developer. He's an "ideas guy" as far as I can tell. As a developer, I hate these kinds of people because more often than not their ideas suck.

In any case, what I am saying is that it seems like people in the industry get by based on one previous successful project. It doesn't matter if it happened yesterday or 10 years ago. It doesn't matter whether they had a little to do with it or a lot. It doesn't matter if they understand how to code or not. Once they have that reputation as being awesome it will stick around no matter how badly they perform after their initial success.

What could he possibly be bringing to the table with Google?

Just my two cents. I'm probably alone with this opinion, but it's extremely frustrating to see this stuff happen over and over again.

/end rant

<comment><USER5> To quote pg: "A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just how to make, is extraordinarily powerful."

As a developer, it is frustrating to see fellow developers place too much importance on being able to code as a necessary ingredient for startup success.

As a hacker, I'd say that most hackers know how to make, but don't know what to make. That is to say, most startups from these type of hackers with the "if I build they will come"[1] mentality end up basically degenerating into non- profits or open-source (when their intent was to become the next big for- profit company).

To my fellow hardcore hackers. Please get over yourself and learn some non- technical skills: sales, marketing, design, product UI/UX, biz dev, getting distribution, negotiation skills, heck - some people skills! (this comment not withstanding since I'm frustrated with the comment above).

If you're going to look down on people who can't code, you should get out of your own comfort zone and do all those non-technical things I've just listed above first. Kevin Rose has a rolodex, which I'm sure has benefits to whatever his entrepreneurial venture is. You don't? Why not? Learn how to hustle.

Just because you can't code, doesn't mean you can't build a business - <USER2> vice versa - just because you can code, doesn't mean you can build a business.

/ end rant

[1] exception, not the rule

<comment><USER6> Sometimes there may be obstacles to what you propose. Being good at networking etc. is basically a performance skill that doesn't just depend on mindset, but also on good looks, race/culture, age, sex, general likability or other external factors. This is not mentioned often, and I might be wrong but I think it _is_ a factor, despite the fact that the startup world presents itself as the ultimate meritocracy.

<comment><USER7> I don't think 'good looks' matter as much as 'clean looks'.

Shave. Shower. Get a haircut. Despite the 'hoodie chic' look, make sure it's a clean hoodie. Or better yet, wear something nicer. (no, not a suit, but a step up from a hoodie will help people take you seriously).

As far as general likeability goes, usually that stems from people either complaining or saying offense things.

All of that is under your control.

<comment><USER8> Body posture is more important than actual innate attractiveness. Body posture _creates_ attractiveness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Huh. It was just yesterday that they shut down Oink to "work on other ideas"- so that was a total lie? Heaven forbid they should just be straightforward about what's going on.

As someone who'd love some VC money, it's a little disheartening to see $1.7 million of it thrown around and wasted based on one person's name.

<comment><USER10> No, you don't understand.

He is going to "work on others' ideas" -- i.e. Ideas that are not his own.

\---

What will be really commical, is if he is going to join google with the intent to work on Google+ -- as if he were some success in the "social" play.

Remember, digg failed because it alienated the users, attempted to wrap too much UI around the content; limiting the consumption rate, and pandering to media channels.

Unless KRose can pull a magical pivot on his own visioning abilities - <USER3> would be bad.

However, I will send good thoughts his way. Let's hope we see him do something truly revolutionary to + (if that is what he is going there for) and lets hope he follows the mantra of the new Reddit CEO: "Don't Fuck It Up'

<comment><USER9> _Remember, digg failed because it alienated the users, attempted to wrap too much UI around the content; limiting the consumption rate, and pandering to media channels._

To be fair, I think that was after Kevin left his role as CEO.

<comment><USER11> He was the CEO when Digg v4 was released and was one of the driving forces behind it.

Digg v4 was the dagger that killed Digg.

<comment><USER12> Banning anyone who mentioned a certain number didn't help much either. Digg's policies were terrible long before v4 came out.

Edit: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

<comment><USER13> FYI - the ban was not his idea. He was very much against the idea. There was quite an internal struggle during the course of that day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wasn't Rose the main guy who pushed Digg over the cliff and over to Reddit with the famed v4 disaster?

Don't get me wrong, the guy did great work getting Digg to where it was, but if he was behind Digg v4 he killed it within a matter of days over a decision that no one wanted, and that puts him in a worrying position at Google if he is to work on the social aspects of the company.

Didn't he also tank publicly with Pownce? Again a service with functionality that no one really wanted, that turned up at the wrong time and was eaten alive by the likes of Twitter.

In many ways these high profile failures could be a great thing for him and Google, because the best lessons comes from those who have been there and lost it all. His acquisition could stop Google from its own "v4" moment.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Rose has also had an impressive run as an angel investor, putting money into companies like Fab, Zynga, ngmoco, Foursquare and Twitter."

Does anyone know if Rose was one of the first few to actually invest in these companies, or did he just have the connections and put his money in while they were already "hot" companies? If the latter, I wouldn't consider it that impressive...

<comment><USER16> Details in CrunchBase: <http://www.crunchbase.com/person/kevin-rose> Fab (Series A), Zynga (Series B), Twitter (Series B), Foursquare (Angel). Only Foursquare looks like an Angel, the rest look more like he knows the right people and/or has the right name.

<comment><USER17> You do realize that all of those companies grew immensely after their Series A/B rounds of funding, right?

Regardless of what I think of the guy, there is a lot of hate on here, and it's easy to look back and say "well _of course_ Twitter did well, he's so lucky he got to invest in it in '08" as if it was common knowledge that it would be this big.

<comment><USER18> Not to mention that people on HN still aren't sure whether said companies will be profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Feels like a Google-jumped-the-shark moment.

<comment><USER19> Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER16> Sure. My view is that Rose has done a very good job of making a name for himself and translating that into personal wealth. It is not clear that that adds anything to Google and if Google thinks it does then my view of Google is diminished.

<comment><USER20> I'm sorry if the question is naive, but if he made such a great amount of personal wealth, why would he still want/need to "get a job" (regardless of company)?

<comment><USER21> Because money is not everything. Once you have reached financial security like he did, you start yearning for other things like power or a legacy. He still has a long way to go to achieve all those things. If he "retires" now, before long, the name Kevin Rose will be forgotten, because there are plenty people in this industry who have achieved his level of wealth and success.

<comment><USER20> so instead of building his own thing, the best idea is to go work on a Big Corp?

I mean, is that a good way to "leave a legacy"? Why not keep trying on Milk?

<comment><USER22> It has a higher probability of success on both accounts, as opposed to getting into a new venture that might discredit whatever personal brand he built up for himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hardly anyone knows the details, but the amount of jealousy and hatred that comes out on HN on these stories is shocking.

<comment><USER24> If it's jealousy and hatred, then it's not because of being jealous of success. A lot of developers work really, really hard on their startups for years bootstrapping, just scraping by, and being ignored by investors because they're not famous. And Kevin Rose comes along with a half-baked idea of posting pictures of the food you're eating to the Internet, and his "startup" that he's "really dedicated to" get's almost a couple million just dropped in his lap for no reason and year later just whimsically quits and gets a job at Google with no real engineering skills or anything tangible to bring to the company other than stories of what actual developers produced at Digg.

<comment><USER23> That half-baked idea got hundreds of thousands of users in 3 months. That _is_ success.

Just because your definition of skills is limited to writing code does not mean having connections, being good at marketing, PR or selling has no value. It's exactly the same mentality we developers hate when idea-men want to hire us as code-monkeys to implement their perfect vision.

Reading stories on tech blogs does not mean you know how much hard work someone put into their whimsical-seeming startup. Being a celebrity certainly does not automatically imply you don't have to work hard.

And just working really really hard also does not entitle you to success. Life is unfair. Get used to it.

<comment><USER25> I thought success was measured in dollars, not a shuttered web service.

<comment><USER24> That's exactly the issue, Kevin Rose is getting dollars _for_ shuttering an unsuccessful web service. Why does Kevin Rose get to cash out for being a failure, simply because his name is Kevin Rose, while all the hardworking nobody engineers slave away to build successful companies without any help or millions of dollars splashing down on them for their supposed greatness which is unsupported by evidence?

<comment><USER26> It's not for you to decide. Why do NBA stars get millions of dollars for being able to throw a ball in a hoop really well?

<comment><USER24> You're implying that Kevin Rose is like an NBA superstar, but his startup didn't earn a single penny and got shuttered. How is that anything like a basketball star who throws the ball in a hoop well?

<comment><USER8> NBA superstars don't get paid purely for skill, they get paid for because they bring in crowds of people and sell merchandise. That's where the money comes from.

Acquisitions are not a meritocracy. If you don't like it, go into a business where what goes on _is_ more like a meritocracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think the term everyone here is looking for is "overrated". If you really think he is, stop talking about him and go on with your business. You're giving him the attention that you claim he doesn't deserve.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow, if Google did not acquire Milk outright I wonder what type of deal was worked out with the investors? There would have to be some type of upside for them otherwise KR's reputation would be seriously tarnished. "Sorry guys, remember that money you gave me to start a company?. Well no more company and I'm off to bigger and better things, K tnx Bye"

<comment> k-mcgrady I would guess that they just paid off the investors. It was only $1.7m and Google Ventures was one of the investors anyway.

<comment><USER28> Well they would still need to have seen the returns they expected (or were happy with) since the money did not come out of the funds just to get "Put back" without any upside. Speculation: 3-4 million payoff Google "we don't need the company just shut it down and come to work"

<comment> k-mcgrady TechCrunch is reporting that Google paid $15-30m for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This feels like a stunt on the part of Google. They have the money to throw around at ideas at the moment; KR seems to be a beneficiary of this. They get to hire a trendy name and hope that they can turn around G+ and other services.

</comment><comment><USER30> Say what you want but Milk has a tight team that is capable of turning out high quality apps. When you compare this to the $100m+ that (supposedly) offered Path and the $220m+ they paid for Slide then this seems like a steal.

Honestly, they are paying pennies for a team that they KNOW can produce solid product and have the personalities and operating capability to do it in a tougher environment. Adding Kevin's celebrity and understanding of social and marketing is a huge bonus that will help G+.

</comment><comment><USER31> Milk is going to have fun filling that Senior Engineer position.

</comment><comment><USER32> The allthingsd article specifically says Google is NOT acquiring Milk. They have hired Kevin Rose and a few key members of the Milk team. The techcrunch article says Milk is being acqui-hired, for $15-$30 million. I wonder which is correct.

It's nice to see the investors taken care of, if that's what happened. But it doesn't sound like Milk or Oink will survive past today.

Congrats to Kevin and all who were hired. I still stand by my position that it kinda sucks that they abandoned their customers at the drop of the hat. But at least now it makes some sense.

</comment><comment><USER33> As his last couple startups (Digg + Milk) have seen fairly bumpy roads of late, I can't blame him for wanting to leave the startup scene in favor of a little stability, courtesy of Google.

It will be interesting to see what role he ends up playing at Google. He's not much of a developer, so I suspect his role will largely be a promotional one.

Either way, I wish him luck with this latest endeavor. Having seen the Digg implosion, followed by the failure of Oink, I hope this third venture proves to be the charm.

<comment><USER28> Stability? with his investments I doubt that he needs the cash so there must be more to it. Possibly a case of "The grass is greener"

Either way I don't see this lasting very long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ha, that's one way to "pivot".

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm simply surprised that Google would do this, but I guess there was a foreshadow in early November when Google Ventures invested.

I don't know what they expect to come of this move, but I'm actually, all else aside, wanting for this Google+ thing to work out. I'm actually still a fan.

As for Kevin Rose, sometimes I listen to him speak and it seems like he's on the ball and has his finger on the pulse, and at other times he just sounds dumb. I was a little bit unsure if he had an in-depth understanding of what was really going on or if he was just sounding the part, but after listening to his webcam pitch and seeing the subpar Digg v4 that came of that line of thinking, I'm going to say he doesn't really understand a thing.

But maybe that doesn't matter, because knowing the Google monster he'll probably be nothing more than a pawn. Time will tell.

On another note, Google+'s problems are _really_ _really_ obvious to me, so I'm at a loss at to why they don't just fix things. Maybe they are trying to "stage the rollout to minimize how much they spook people," but then again what sounds reasonable and true is often reduced to nothing more than another line of politics driven BS'ing with these people.

Just get on with it already!

I have no problem with the Milk team getting an exit. I am not one to be jealous of anything like that. And all this talk about Engineer-entrepreneurs working their ass off for years and not getting anywhere doesn't make me shed a tear either. There are a few Engineers for whom things just didn't work out, but by and large if you were working on something that long and had nothing come of it, then put the hard work aside-- your product/business/positioning sucked! Get over it.

</comment><comment><USER36> I do miss TechTV, had some classic moments with Kevin, Alex and the team

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4GYg-5AdRw>

</comment><comment><USER37> Well I guess one way to promote google+ is to hire every celebrity in the world and force them to abandon twitter and facebook.

</comment><comment><USER38> It makes sense the more that I think about it. Rose has said on his podcast and in other interviews that he regrets that Digg raised so much money. They had to focus on revenue instead of building the product. I'm sure he's a little disappointed at Milk's success thus far too.

I guess he's possibly thinking that this will give him the opportunity build a huge product that he's always wanted without having to focus on the business side. If google is funding it, he doesn't have to work on raising money or increasing revenue. He'll also have hundreds of employees that can be thrown at his project.

I'll be interested to see what he's up to.

<comment><USER39> Google doesn't have a good success based on this model though - look at Google Wave which was built under a similar premise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Like I said before[1], what is up with all this Kevin Rose hate? He has a successful portfolio, seems to have a level head, and knows about tech. All this whining about "well I'm a dev and need VC why do they give him to him?" stop thinking you deserve something and get out there and make something; like he has been proven to do time and time again.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3705015>

</comment><comment><USER41> Did not see that coming. This seems like an odd route for to Google add depth to Plus.

<comment><USER10> What is this term you are using, Depth?

<comment><USER42> If you're not being facetious, depth in this context refers to the overall quality of your staff.

A good example of a lack of depth would be the Indianapolis Colts, who with the loss of Peyton Manning had a dismal, almost winless season.

A good example of a team with a lot of depth would be Ask Ketchum's pokemon. He's got a Charizard, a Butterfree, a Wortortle, a Pidgiotto, and Pikachu. If one of his pokemon gets injured, he has a handful of equally good pokemon suited to other tasks that can fill in.

<comment><USER43> Didn't he let the Butterfree go fairly early?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I wasn't surprised when I red these news. He was constantly favouring or indirectly promoting Google's products/services/news via posts on Google+.

</comment><comment><USER45> Was "we're going to build apps until one hits" smoke and mirrors for "we're going to build a portfolio that can be bought out?"

</comment><comment><USER35> Is this a joke?

<comment><USER46> No just another troubling sign for Google.

<comment><USER47> Why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Good for him! I've been a fan since tech TV days. I think this board is suffering from an overdose of hateraid. Yeah Digg blew up and then sunk, but to be involved in so many sucessful businesses this guy is talented.

<comment><USER49> Agreed. I met Kevin at a launch party a couple years ago. Upon seeing him, my first thought was "Hey, it's the Dark Tipper!" I prefer to focus on someone's positive traits. The fact that Kevin still works and tries to make a difference is admirable. Even if Digg is his only big hit, that's still an impressive accomlishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Oh, look ... they received an investment from Google Ventures. What a coincidence.

<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/milk>

<comment><USER51> I detect that you bring this to our attention because it's bad in some way, but I don't get why. Google invested in his company. Now he works at Google (with 30,000 other people). Who cares? Why is this good or bad?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Let the guy work, let the market evaluate his results.

</comment><comment><USER53> All of you who are saying things in judgement of Kevin Rose's behavior, have some perspective. This is the planet you live on: <http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/earth-1.jpg>

It has lots of problems, waiting for good solutions. Instead of explaining the nuances of your latest opinion of Kevin Rose, get up, and start fixing things!

</comment><comment><USER54> An important question is whether Kevin will thrive in Google's environment. I imagine they've promised him quite a bit of autonomy, but what happens when Kevin feels constrained or governed? Will he succeed on a very personal level when he wakes up knowing that he's earning a salary from Google instead of continuing to create his own? I sincerely hope he does succeed.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is interesting news...I wonder if he will explain it.

In other news, does Kevin really own a piece of the Packers? <http://twitter.com/#!/kevinrose/status/173532999881732096>

Was that a joke or is that legit? Never knew his angel/digg/rev3 money was that large.

What did I miss?

<comment><USER56> The Green Bay Packers are community-owned. Anyone can buy a piece of the Packers - you don't have to be a {m,b}illionaire.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Public_compa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Public_company)

<comment><USER55> Ahh...ok...interesting.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Anybody remember when google tried to acq-hire Path for 100 million? Hopefully this offer was not as ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER58> Never saw so much jealousy/flaming targeting one person here on HN. I got to say I'm a little disappointed as member of this community.

I'm pretty sure Google didn't hired him just for his pretty eyes or the 'cool' factor. Specially when 99% of these comments don't know jack of what they are saying.

</comment><comment><USER59> Will be interesting to see of they are all assigned to current efforts like G+ or if they are given some independence and freedom like the slide team. Probably assigned to current efforts as it seemed some slide base efforts in Google were fairly half baked.

</comment><comment><USER60> Google+ is not cool. It might be a better product then Facebook, but when it comes to social you need a network of people to make a product fly. I see the hiring of Rose as an attempt to give Google+ some street cred and make it cool.

</comment><comment><USER61> My one hope here is that he uses his 20% time to bring back The Broken."

<comment><USER13> Sorry to say, but The Broken is not coming back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> This might work out. I find G+ to be much more valuable than FB, and a bit more valuable than Twitter.

Hiring a non-engineer who brings new ideas to G+ seems like a good idea, at least for a while.

</comment><comment><USER63> I think Kevin is a smart guy but for some reason he just seems to lack some focus on products and I wonder if going to Google will maybe somehow wack him into place a little? Hmmm

</comment><comment><USER64> So he collected consumer data from OInk and shut it by calling it test app and now joined Google.

Google loves data

Hope you all got it

<comment><USER65> And anyone who has ever been concerned about online privacy has been operating under the assumption that it doesn't exist. Your point?

<comment><USER64> Very simple. His plate is not empty. He offered the plate which was accepted. Simple.

<comment><USER66> You think oink has some personal information google doesn't already know about a user?

<comment><USER64> oInk was quite a niche application which Google does not know

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Guys, please stop being so mean.

</comment><comment><USER68> I predict he will leave Google to create a new start up within twelve months.

</comment><comment><USER69> Are they trying to drive more people away from Google+ or something??

</comment><comment><USER13> Serious question. Who is Kevin Rose and why should we care?

</comment><comment><USER70> Kevin Rose IS the product

</comment><comment><USER71> Talk about Google scraping the bottom of the barrel.

"Remember, digg failed because it alienated the users, attempted to wrap too much UI around the content; limiting the consumption rate, and pandering to media channels."

Bingo. Unless users fell in lock-step with Kevin Rose's thoughts he'd institute the ban hammer.

</comment><comment><USER72> I wonder if they are bringing him in, to setup an internal incubator of sorts, now that labs is shut down, perhaps they think its time to do it in some structured form. I know that there was talk of it, sometime back inside the company.

</comment><comment><USER73> i don't like that guy, who digged himself on his digg site frequently.</comment>


BitTorrent Is Now Part of TRON - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bittorrent.com/2018/07/23/its-official-bittorrent-is-now-part-of-tron/ <comment><USER2> TRON is a rip off of IPFS, and everybody knows that (Source, in case you forgot: [https://twitter.com/juanbenet/status/950142785373405184](https://twitter.com/juanbenet/status/950142785373405184) )

I mean, the homepage ( [http://tron.network](http://tron.network) ) has a giant face of the "Founder" / "CEO" of the company... Glorious.

I am dropping my 50 cents here: I would not look at it as if Tron bought BitTorrent... I think it was the other way around: BitTorrent was financially known to not be very "healthy". I bet it was more BitTorrent looking for mo- mo-mo-money as a valid exit!

<comment><USER3> Some argue that IPFS is a rip off of BitTorrent, and thus, the circle is complete: BT -> IPFS -> TRON -> BT

<comment> white-flame IPFS is a rip off of Freenet, with all the anonymity ripped out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> (IMO) TRON fails to distinguish itself from other decentralized storage blockchain tokens/coins.

This move is a clever circular reasoning where taking their hype-driven valuation and using it to invest in a company that will give TRON more credibility.

Can HN help me understand why TRON is better than the sea of competition (Sia/Filecoin/Storj/Maidsafe/etc)?

EDIT: corrected 'syllogism'

<comment><USER5> > Can HN help me understand why TRON is better than the sea of competition

It's not. It's just a pump and dump scheme with no solid tech at all. 60% of all tokens were given privately for example.

<comment><USER6> There have also been allegations of plagiarism [1]

1 - [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-researchers- allege-...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-researchers-allege-tron- plagiarized-231200341.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I gave a talk on cryptocurrencies a few weeks back and used Bittorrent as one of several examples of non-blockchain software/protocols that solve an important technological problem and don't require a blockchain.

Then I get home and read the news:

"Bittorrent: Now with Blockchain!!!"

Didn't some futurist warn about the threat of a sophisticated physical replication process getting out of control and turning everything into paperclips? Because it feels like we're already there in the digital domain.

<comment><USER8> The token use case for BitTorrent is so obvious, however, that this seems more like BitTorrent using Tron's ICO money to make their own coin. The chances of them integrating all the other Tron BS is essentially zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> getting JUSTed now means getting scammed... it comes from the Tron founder Justin Sun [1]. All he does is announce partnerships, real or fake (basically all fake up until this point), to pump his coin and quickly sell it off. Looks like this is one of the few real "partnerships" because everyone has caught on by now. He's also plagiarized mostly everything, code, whitepaper...

1\. [https://twitter.com/justinsuntron?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ct...](https://twitter.com/justinsuntron?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)

<comment><USER10> no, it comes from "just fuck my shit up": [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/brendan-frasers-alimony- just-...](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/brendan-frasers-alimony-just-fuck-my- shit-up)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does Tron still exist? After the extremely public reveal of the Genesis scam - I'm confused.

<comment><USER12> what was the genesis scam, exactly?

<comment><USER13> People tried to scam people involved in TRON via Reddit : [https://cryptovest.com/news/tron-genesis-hard-fork-an- elabor...](https://cryptovest.com/news/tron-genesis-hard-fork-an-elaborate- and-sophisticated-scam/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What product or service does (did?) BitTorrent offer?

Is there revenue stream purely from licensing the name?

And does Bram Cohen have any actual involvement in this crypto nonsense or is this him cashing out and walking away from it all?

<comment><USER15> [https://www.wired.com/2017/01/the-inside-story-of- bittorrent...](https://www.wired.com/2017/01/the-inside-story-of-bittorrents- bizarre-collapse/) has a pretty good summary of the corporate history of BitTorrent Inc. They had a number of ideas beyond just licensing their tech to other businesses, most of them focused on being some kind of media company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> They could as well have bought linux.com and claim those 1 billion Linux devices.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it just me... ? I didn't know you could "buy" bitTorrent.. ? I always just assume its "only" a protocol ? :S

<comment><USER18> They bought BitTorrent Inc, the company: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_\(company\))

I'm not 100% sure but I think BitTorrent Inc may own some patents applicable to the BitTorrent protocol: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/04/bittorrent_awarded_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/04/bittorrent_awarded_distributed_storage_patent/)

The protocol specification is public domain though: [http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html](http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is TRON? I've tried reading official materials but there seems to be a lot of contention and misinformation swirling around this company/product.

Does this mean any kind of change in downloading an ISO of fedora or whatever? (Yes, I'm that boring and don't download movies or games via torrents, mostly I just watch stuff on Netflix or similar)

<comment><USER20> BitTorrent the company has been fairly far detached from the protocol and software introduced in 2001. The original client discontinued, µTorrent is proprietary, and launching various services like BitTorrent Sync and Play that really don't have anything to do with the protocol at all... I'm honestly surprised that the company still survives (though this may be why it's being acquired).

Long story short, no, it won't affect you using the protocol and Transmission or what-have-you to download Fedora ISOs.

<comment><USER21> BitTorrent Sync did do some smart things with the protocol, which is always why internal politics wound up causing it to spin out of BitTorrent the Company, which has continually tried to be a "media" company more than a tech company (which should explain BitTorrent Play, and kind of but not really explains why BitTorrent the company still exists at all in the same way that RealNetworks or WildTangent still exist in that "media" companies can be cockroaches).

So BitTorrent Sync is now Resilio Sync, and word has it most of the smart engineers jumped to that ship when it spun out.

<comment><USER22> Resilio Sync is an awesome product. Its amazing to be able to sync my pics from my Phone to my PC wireless over the Internet and to be able to sync Music and Movies from my PC to my phone over a Lan etc.

<comment><USER23> I've been using Syncthing for the same purpose.

<comment><USER24> Syncthing, Rsync, both open source and cross platform. Nextcloud also supports WebDAV IIRC.

For sending a file over LAN without using a protocol such as SSH, magic- wormhole works well.

SSH works fine for sending/receiving data, but like FTP it chokes with high amount of small files. So its best, as usual, to use tarballs or zips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I still have to steal movies from time to time--when after checking all the official, legal ways there is still no way to download it.

However, with Netflix and other studios finally getting their head out of their ass there is a lot less going for BitTorrent nowadays compared to a few years ago.

At least, that's my impression...

</comment><comment><USER26> If both of these firms (I have no idea what TRON does) disappear tommorrow, would anyone notice?

<comment><USER27> It's called an exit scam. Many have done it, few notice and even fewer care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> In case anyone is still using the ad-plagued bitorrent.com client:

[https://transmissionbt.com](https://transmissionbt.com)

Lots of features, easy to use.

<comment><USER29> For Windows users I'd recommend Deluge, because its interface is more like uTorrent but without all the adware and plus it's open source.

[https://www.deluge-torrent.org/](https://www.deluge-torrent.org/)

<comment><USER30> I see your deluge and raise it to [https://www.qbittorrent.org/](https://www.qbittorrent.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming Scare a Hoax - <AUTHOR> http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, that's one hell of a crazy page I did not expect to find on HN.

Al gore is responsible for $4 gasoline, because he and hippies like him control big oil, or something like that.

Also CO2 is essential to life, plants need it and so on - absolutely true. But that doesn't make that page any less crazy.

I myself don't know to what extent sun spots are responsible for global climate change. I would not be shocked if it turns out it was mostly the sun.

But it just might be us. And if we can find a way to turn our CO2 emissions into algae, or drive on electricity from nuclear plants, then we don't have to worry about running a giant experiment with the planet we live on.

Maybe we're not responsible for global warming, but why take the chance?

And Al Gore is not responsible for peak-oil, or the farm lobby fueled insanity that is bio-diesel.</comment>


GitHub Organization Page Redesigned - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/discourse/

<comment><USER2> GitHub's announcement, including other Organization-related enhancements: [https://github.com/blog/1763-better- organizations](https://github.com/blog/1763-better-organizations)

</comment><comment><USER3> For reference, the old design [1] vs the new [2].

[1]: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f6x473a6qaw4vi/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7f6x473a6qaw4vi/Screenshot%202014-01-22%2021.33.08.png) [2]: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/70zjz7x4tjh3u0k/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/70zjz7x4tjh3u0k/Screenshot%202014-01-22%2021.35.04.png)

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks nice.

The pagination of repos is kind of annoying compared to being able to quickly Cmd+F on a page to find a repo. They added their own search box but it feels slower than the browser-based one and also doesn't do infix searching (I type "www" expecting to find my "closeio-www" repo but it doesn't show up unless I type "closeio-w".), although hopefully that will be fixed.

Team related changes do seem more useful: [https://github.com/blog/1763-better- organizations](https://github.com/blog/1763-better-organizations)

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is the organization name in the actual repos lowercase?

For example, [https://github.com/eBay](https://github.com/eBay) eBay is the org name but the actual repos are listed in lowercase, like "ebay / restsuperman" (which doesn't matter for the website but does matter for the git urls)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd with the design would be more dense, it's a nice design and I understand that designers did it deliberately because they know whitespace does matters, but when it comes to web sites like Github I think the most important thing is functionality and not the cute and modern look. With the old design on my 13 inch MBP I could see 6 repos with the new design - only 5

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> GitHub Pages seems to be redesigned as well: [http://pages.github.com/](http://pages.github.com/)

<comment><USER2> I think that was updated in December:

[https://github.com/blog/1719-github-pages-just-got- easier](https://github.com/blog/1719-github-pages-just-got-easier)</comment></comment>


Americans' fear of losing their jobs grows - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/americans-jobs-surveys-fannie-may-ny-fed-7d3616d1-59c5-440a-bff7-f0fe1e283fde.html <comment><USER2> I think this reflects a general erosion of trust between employers and employees, which I blame Corporate America for. It used to be a tacit agreement in the workforce that if you worked hard, the boss and the company would take care of you. This illusion has been shattered first by the employers (outsourcing, at-will employment, gig economy), and now the employees (ghosting, switching firms without notice).

The lack of trust on both sides engenders the feeling that any promotion is unlikely and every position uncertain, so folks always have one foot out the door. Once the trust is gone, it takes a long time to rebuild, so even if corporations changed tack now, it's likely that employees will continue to distrust them for the foreseeable future.

Edit: Clarity.

<comment><USER3> > This illusion has been shattered first by the employers (outsourcing, at- > will employment, gig economy), and now the employees (ghosting, switching > firms without notice).

This wasn't an illusion, companies actually did take care of employees and had pensions and full-time jobs and retraining and stuff.

Also, ghosting and employees bouncing is a symptom of the employers not providing any loyalty to their employees. Boomers and GenX stayed for 30 years when they had pensions, Millenials would too.

<comment><USER4> Is it possible that the existence of companies themselves is subject to more volatility? How can they provide stability when they themselves have unstable sources of income?

I've only been around for a little more than 3 decades, but I've seen many markets and businesses be transformed. Vastly fewer numbers of travel agents, many retail establishments, tv channels, secretaries, hotel front desk, self check out are needed. Not to mention the effects of a drastic drop in birthrates.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/business/shrinking- stock-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/business/shrinking-stock- market.html)

<comment><USER5> That's just a reason why all of the benefits need to be government (and taxes on corporations to pay for them) backed things that are retained across jobs.

<comment><USER6> They don't need to be government backed, just not tied to an employer/job. Much like current retirement plans are not tied to a specific company.

<comment><USER7> 401k is government backed. The name itself refers to the law that brought them into existence. Just as Roth IRAs are named for the Senator who proposed them. Without the backing of the government, your retirement plan would solely consist of what you save and you'd be taxed on it all along the way.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure that's what was meant by government backed. The government doesn't pay for your retirement fund, a Roth IRA just doesn't charge tax on withdrawals.

<comment><USER5> My intent was the entire benefits provisioning package outsourced to the government. This way irrespective of if heath coverage (it's not really insurance, which is a separate debate), paid time off of all kinds, and all other pre-tax line items are an entirely separate income stream and go over to the government managed pool of resources.

The compensation rate for all such items might thus become far more standardized, and all of the bureaucratic conformance for such items would be there as well.

This would be an exceedingly small business friendly move as suddenly a lot of the headaches of employing someone would just be paid for with a simple 'tax'.

It would also be very worker friendly as all of those things and seniority/etc would similarly be paid for with that 'tax'.

This does assume that there's a uniform allocation of resources per employee (I know there isn't today), or that there's a standard appreciation track for employees (there isn't today)... or that there might be multiple standard ranks of benefits (which would need to be more clearly advertised in job descriptions)...

However everything really would be easier for everyone if we actually had this system; the only entities that would benefit from the status quo in a meaningful way are large corporations with enough employees to justify full time HR and legal staff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've stopped fearing losing a job because, frankly, it happens so often as a remote webdev I basically never stop looking.

In fact, I am currently unemployed after I rather unwisely completed a 20-week job in 11, and I was literally given no notice and a week's pay.

So now its back to the Upwork slog and trying to convince someone (again) that yes, since I have been a professional programmer for 25 years I can _for sure_ fix those database issues and add those rather pedantic features to your app or website.

Like I often want to shout..."Do you think I'm lying when you read the years and years of experience on my CV that literally lay out me fixing the same issues that you have, and much much more complex ones as well?"

Trying to pin the "blame" (whatever that even means) will get you nowhere...it's like blaming the "wind" when a hurricane comes and blows off you roof. Yes, the "wind" did cause your roof to fly away, but it was simply the endpoint for a huge number of directly connected and unconnected forcess, too many to measure, that were in place for that bit of wind to do its dirty work.

I feel the only sane way to look at work nowadays is to always have an eye out for opportunities that may work career-wise, and get better at interviewing.

[edits]

<comment><USER10> "Do you think I'm lying when you read the years and years of experience on my CV ..."

Yes, they do. Because so many people _do_ lie on their resume and hiring a liar is a very costly mistake. It doesn't matter that most people tell the truth... The ones that lie are just too much of a risk.

When my father was looking for a new job, he would walk into the interview and tell them all the problems they were having. When they asked how he could possibly know that with so little information, he would tell them it was because everyone who was hiring him had those same issues.

This helped reinforce that he understood the issues and had fixed them in the past.

Perhaps some similar prescience on your part could help you answer their questions quicker and easier? It's almost a party trick, but it really did seem to be effective for him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My fear never went away. As someone who graduated at the very beginning of the Great Recession, I have a constant feeling that this cannot be forever.

<comment><USER12> Even prior to that, many of us watched our parents _very unceremoniously_ lose their "job for life" jobs in the 80s and 90s. The illusion of loyalty to an employer and job security went up in smoke with those layoffs, for me personally.

<comment><USER13> And statistics don't apply to the individual. I'm a 3rd generation programmer and watched my own father get the boot by his company just because they wanted to "restructure to Chicago". 27 years at that job -- it defined where we put our roots down.

I really enjoy the people I work with, but I never take stability for granted. Ensuring I'm always updating my resume and taking a couple interviews a year is part of my professional ritual. If it were feasible, we'd move elsewhere, but we both have good social networks and roots here -- which is arguably more "expensive" to a working couple in their early thirties than gold.

<comment><USER14> Similar experience here. 25 years at a "job for life" and he got a carriage clock. A couple of years later we move to the other side of the UK. A couple of years later they shut down that office making dad redundant.

I am under no illusions about any company I might work for, no matter what size or how much I like the individuals I work with or for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The September who is hiring thread is much smaller than last year's. Employers are cutting back.

</comment><comment><USER16> Given how low unemployment is, it makes sense there are more people who fear job loss. In the past, more people were unemployed and thus could not feel afraid of losing something they didn't have.

</comment><comment><USER17> We live in a disposable world now, that extends to both employees and corporations/employers. Everything's far more ephemeral than it used to be.

</comment><comment><USER18> I always thought job loss was something that happens to other people until I got laid off despite being an 'A player.' Now I assume it is just a matter of time no matter the role.

This is the reality for everyone under at-will employment. Even if you are the best at your job, outside circumstances like changes in strategy, funding and leadership can make you a target for 'managed offboarding.'

<comment><USER19> What other types of employment are there?

<comment><USER18> Contract employment? Unions?

<comment><USER19> Can't contracts always be terminated or union workers laid off?

<comment><USER18> It depends on the specifics of the contract and the union's collective bargaining agreement, but plenty of these types of agreements exist where employment is not considered at-will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that the two data sources used concern housing and consumer credit, not employment.

<comment><USER21> Employment figures don't tell you much about consumer confidence.

Decreased employment would be an indicator of an actual economic downturn, this is focused on people _fearing_ an economic downturn which is very different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Because we are near full employment and they now have jobs to lose? From this morning's Washington Post: "For the first time, most new working-age hires in the U.S. are people of color"

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/for-the- firs...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/for-the-first-time- ever-most-new-working-age-hires-in-the-us-are-people-of- color/2019/09/09/8edc48a2-bd10-11e9-b873-63ace636af08_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> That's why we need universal basic income

<comment><USER21> UBI is an interest concept but it wouldn't solve this. If you go from e.g. $5K/month (job) to $1K/month (UBI) you'd still have to adjust your living standards (and if people expect to lose their jobs, even with UBI, they'd still make more cautious decisions which would still trigger the same indicators).

UBI and other social safety nets are "good ideas." But they aren't a one size fits all solution to every problem. It won't restore consumer confidence.

<comment><USER24> The point of UBI isn't that you will live off of $1000/month. Americans generally don't want to live off the government dole, they want to work hard.

Perhaps they want to start their own businesses and live the American dream of self sufficiency. But for most, this is out of the question unless you come from a well to do family, so you are forced to work a crappy job for many years just so you and your family don't starve.

If everyone gets UBI, you suddenly have choices. You can finally start that business you've been dreaming about if your family invests their UBI in you for some time, or if you get 10 friends together (if you have no family). And if the business fails, you're not suddenly in debt to a bank and having to declare bankruptcy and ruining your credit.

Or if starting a business is not for you, you can feel free to tell your boss you're unhappy, because if you're fired, you're not suddenly unable to pay rent (depending on where you live, you may need to save up a few months of UBI for this). You won't be so mentally distraught at the idea of 0 income, and corporations won't be able to so brazenly take advantage of workers, keeping them on their toes with the constant threat of the axe falling down because quarterly profits were down 10%.

<comment><USER25> Starting a new business during a recession is a fool's game.

The problem with a recession is that everyone has collectively decided to buy less stuff. People are buying less stuff, which means factories need to make fewer items, which means people get fired, which causes more people to buy less stuff.

It also means that banks are less willing to fund new businesses, and shareholders are less willing to buy up IPOs / etc. etc. Investors "flight to safety" and buy up US Treasuries, while selling off "risky" properties. Causing stock prices to drop, IPOs to fail, and the overall mechanisms of growth to taper off.

UBI "solves" social issues, but doesn't seem to be a solution to the economic / recession issue. If a recession hits, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.

At the moment, there are some severely mixed signals: manufacturing seems to be in decline, agriculture is also in decline. Futhermore, the yield curve has inverted.

On the other hand: the unemployment rate remains low and general investor sentiment also seems high. Investors are still investing into risky businesses and focusing on a "Growth model" (see Uber, Lyft, Tesla, etc. etc.). So some people are optimistic, while others are growing pessimistic. Its hard to tell if a recession is on the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't think I've ever felt scared about losing a job, though I think it has always been a part of my personality to reject being slotted into some corporate machine and have always had one foot out the door of a job, so to speak.

</comment><comment><USER27> The recession is coming - save some money for the winter...

</comment><comment><USER28> The United States is weird in that you are defined, here, by your job or profession. TV shows put your job title under your name when you appear on them. People's first question is always "What do you do?" at parties and at events. In other countries, this isn't always the case. When I'm in Europe, people ask where you're from, what's for dinner, and what's happening? The question of your job is rarely asked up front, I find. It's how Americans define themselves, which, in the end, generally comes down to how the US doesn't value human life, only the potential earnings thereof.

<comment><USER29> These silly "American bad Europe good" comments always find their way into these discussions, and they are as uninsightful as "if you aren't the customer you're the product!".

An equally uncharitable interpretation is: American culture, unlike European, places incredible value on personal agency. We ask each other "what do you do" because we actually have the socially enforced freedom to choose what the answer to the question is. It's always shocked me how little freedom Europeans have in choosing the course of their own lives. You can see this playing out when they don't even bother to ask each other what they do for a living (it's a taboo to ask because most Europeans hate their jobs).

This, of course, is absurd. People all over the world ask each other what they do because it's useful information to know how somebody spends their time, and may provide additional conversation topics.

<comment><USER30> >We ask each other "what do you do" because we actually have the socially enforced freedom to choose what the answer to the question is.

No we don't, or at least most people don't. People of disenfranchised communities don't choose to not go to college or get a job in software development. This makes up most people.

<comment><USER31> Saying that if people had a choice they'd go to college or get a job as a software developer is quite an assumption. There's nothing wrong with wanting to go to do something like a trade school. I've got some younger cousins that are earning the same amount as apprentice electricians as my wife with a masters degree.

<comment><USER30> This is a strawman. Disenfranchised communities don't have a choice to go to a trade school either.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, we had amazing 10 year bull market run so far. just look at your 401Ks performance from 2009 to 2019!

1-2-3 year shake down / or a mini recession would be technically completely normal and totally expected. at least by me.

get your things/portfolios in order fellas ;)

</comment><comment><USER33> > Americans' fear of losing their jobs

Unemployment rate in the US is only 3.7% (July 2019) Employee fears that they are replaceable and the truth is that most of them are. So they are working hard, they perform, they are productive and economy is better than it has ever been!

I am french and where I worked it is nearly impossible to fire a long-term contract employes (CDI). Most of them do less than the bare minimum at work. Then entire company is taking a hit.

So IMO the fear to loose their job is a great boost!

<comment><USER34> Unemployment rate is an essentially-fraudlent statistic.

Changes in the labour force participation rate are more revealing: [https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000)

<comment><USER35> Zooming that graph out to start in 1980 shows that there is a trend there that did not start in 2009 but closer to 2000.

Also, that specific graph is of limited utility because it is the over-16 labor force participation rate, not the prime-age one. Which means that as the age distribution skews more toward post-retirement-age people it will automatically drop. Which is exactly what's been happening, by the way, as the baby boomers have started retiring. This rate will also drop as more people go to college instead of starting work immediately after high school.

[https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/employment-population- rati...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/employment-population-ratio-and- labor-force-participation-rate-by-age.htm) has a chart that lets you see a breakdown by age group, sort of, for 2007-2017. Note the huge differences in the rate between the age buckets and where the overall rate falls compared to the 25-54 rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Save some money, then you don't need to fear losing your job. Fear of losing your job is a result of poor personal finances.

There's no need to fear if you have your personal finances in order.

<comment><USER37> Apparently you've never lived "paycheck to paycheck" before. I can remember a time in my life where I would be so happy just to have an extra $100 at the end of the month. This was living with roommates, never going out, and bringing my lunch everyday. No frivolous spending at all.

God forbid you have to fix your car, or some other unexpected expense. That $1,000 it took you 6 months to save is gone in an instant.

While I'm much better off these days, lots of Americans live the way I just described. You can't save what you don't have.

<comment><USER36> I have. If someone can't save a few hundred bucks a month something is wrong.

Let's use Dallas TX for example, even just waiting on tables you can make at least twice rent. Forgo a car and you'd be able to pocket $500 / mo or more if one was frugal.

It's even more critical to save when at the bottom of the economic ladder, because it allows one freedom to pursue or invest in other opportunities (paying for school, moving, weathering unemployment, etc.)

<comment><USER38> This is an absolutely incorrect and unrealistic estimation for the majority of the people waiting tables. I started writing up a long thing calculating this out and stopped myself. I am going to assume you are commenting in good faith, so I'll just state the correct information would be extremely quick for you to research with a few google searches..</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacking the English Language: Part Two - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexbrowne.info/hacking-the-english-language-part-two/

<comment><USER2> I enjoy the philosophy behind Esperanto -- a fully regular, easy-to-learn second language for everyone. It's often poo-poo'ed as not being "international enough" due to Zamenhof's inspiration and vocabulary coming primarily from European languages. It's also dismissed as having missed its window since its decline following France's refusal to allow it to supplant French as the official language of the League of Nations in the 1920s.

Is there an Internaional Auxiliary Language in the works that might have a shot at succeeding where Esperanto has not?</comment>


Show HN: Longwave – group journaling as a new form of social media - <AUTHOR> https://longwave.app/manifesto/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN —

We were sick of doom scrolling and instant gratification on Twitter, so we made a site where you can journal with friends.

It's meant for longer form writing, and it only updates once a day.

It also has no ads, no trackers/analytics, very minimal Javascript. Loads really fast. All that jazz.

We'd love to hear any feedback you have!</comment>


Universal flu vaccine remains 'an alchemist's dream' - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/universal-flu-vaccine-remains-alchemist-s-dream <comment><USER2> I've noticed that as I get older, I generally get sick less often and in less severity. This is probably because I have been exposed to so many variants through getting sick so often when I was young and also getting the flu shots yearly for the past 25 years. Seems like I've just built up a bit of a strong defense because my body's database of seen viruses is fairly long.

That all being said, I (and we) still need to be smart about reacting to an infection. It seems that reacting quickly with the cold meds can help the body react to the exponential growth of the infection. This seems to give the body time to react and catch up with the defenses. Waiting until the symptoms are the worst to take meds is the wrong process. [1]

[1] [http://vqrn.com/Colds-and-Flu.html](http://vqrn.com/Colds-and-Flu.html)</comment>


Amp your remote meetings with BWAMP - patrick-fs https://bwamp.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a company-wide "show HN" for us here at FullStory. We had a workforce that was 80% office-based and went to 100% remote. There was a lot we lost in that transition, so a number of engineers started working on a tool that would give us back that interaction.

On our weekly company-wide meeting we've got 100-200 people joining into the BWAMP session alongside the hangout and it adds a ton of colour.

There's also a volume slider so you can get "just enough BWAMP" and not go crazy.

<comment><USER2> My experience: The first thing I see is a big in your face "please accept our cookies so that this will work!"

Uh, what is it? Do I want it to work? I tentatively click "YES COOKIES"

Big cookie plea is now replaced with a big "Sign in with Google/Slack"

Hold up! What the hell is this thing? I am not just going to potentially link you to my slack or gmail!

There is a sandbox mode button? What is this thing, why would I need to run it in a sandbox?!?!

The only way to know what this is or will do without actually trying it is to watch a youtube video and the explanation doesn't even come until 20 seconds into the video!

I imagine this would have gotten more traction on HN if your page contained even a single line of text explaining what this is: an interactive sound board. Rather than forcing users to watch a video or try out some unknown thing first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The video gave a bit of an idea, but on your homepage it might be good to have more of an explanation.

Problem - Are your online meetings missing something?

How to BWAMP. Step 1. Do blah Step 2. Do another thing Step 3. Success!

Getting a short descriptor would help everyone grok what it does.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can you solve the "calendar events not showing up at the right place at the right time" issue I'm having too? My google calendar seems a bit unreliable these days.</comment>


Microsoft's Xbox One reputation system is built to make trolls play with trolls - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/3/4491108/microsoft-xbox-one-reputation-system-cordons-off-trolls <comment><USER2> Hmm, very interesting quote (emphasis mine):

> If we see consistently that people, for instance, don't like playing with > you, that you're consistently blocked, that you're the subject of > enforcement actions because _you 're sending naked pictures of yourself to > people that don't want naked pictures of you_... Blatant things like that > have the ability to quickly reduce your Reputation score.

If you think about it, what he just said is "Microsoft is quite happy with you using Xbox one to send naked pictures of yourself so long as everyone consents."

On one hand, that seems a very fair attitude. On the other hand, that's a very provocative statement (but probably not so much for the target audience).

 _Update_ : I also suspect that the question is not whether or not this system can be gamed, but _how_ it will be gamed. It seems a simple enough idea, but trolls are going to have fun figuring out how to exploit this. They know there will be a "troll hell" that no one wants to be in and they'll do everything in their power to figure out how to push people there.

That being said, I love this idea (I'd probably love it more if I were a gamer).</comment>