Open Letter to My Students: No, You Cannot be a Professor (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://northwesthistory.blogspot.se/2011/11/open-letter-to-my-students-no-you.html <comment><USER2> Replace "history professor" with "any traditionally stable white collar job" and you can re-post this same article on websites for bright, aspiring young people in many different fields. Certainly, I've said more or less these words to aspiring lawyers.

There is an underlying phenomenon affecting an entire generation of kids of educated middle class parents, and that's this: the future of our society is one of fewer jobs and more competition. It's just the structural dynamics of a society that transitions from a long phase of fast growth to an indefinite phase of maintenance.

It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it. A big generation that has a lot of kids creates a high demand for liberal arts education. A smaller generation that doesn't have many kids creates a lesser demand. When that big older generation continues to hold onto jobs, you have a recipe for a job crunch for younger people.

More broadly, as capital shifts and is put to work in Asia, there is less demand for ancillary jobs here in the U.S. That phenomenon affects nearly everyone. Say you're an architect. Where do you think all the jobs are designing big corporate high rises?

<comment><USER3> >It's not anybody's fault, not really, and there isn't much you can do about it.

It's plenty of people's fault and there is plenty we can do about it. Instead of investing in education, infrastructure, the social safety net, and everything that helps the majority of people, we invest in the military industrial complex, farm subsidies, and rush to cut taxes to the richest people in the country. There is a massive wealth distribution going on right now, I predict history will show the biggest ever, and it's easy to see the repercussions. The rich are getting richer and the rate at which they are accumulating wealth is accelerating. There is plenty we could do, we, as a society, are just to lazy, comfortable, and scared to do it. Let's be honest about it. This is all our fault.

<comment><USER4> How is any of this responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market? What does it have to do with colleges recognizing that lower-paid adjuncts can deliver comparable services to tenured professors? What does it say about the ability of smaller numbers of professors to teach larger numbers of students?

<comment><USER5> "Responsive to the dynamics of the academic job market"? A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you can command them. As in any market, you have the incentive to pay less and get more; the other person has the opposite incentive. An area of antagonism.

You seem not to prefer the frame of wealth distribution. Instead, your post reframes it into terms that school administrators prefer, as if we are supposed to care what bureaucrats think.

A recent analysis of replacing people with lower-paid workers: _" The second claim is that low-wage workers are easily replaceable and offer no benefit to society. This is the argument aimed at service workers, who are on strike because they make so little they cannot afford food or rent."_ ([http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/20139231015...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/09/2013923101543956539.html))

Perhaps professor Vojtko herself saw this as a larger struggle between bosses and workers: _" Contrary to what the Duquesne administration would have the public believe, she sought out and strongly supported the new union."_ ([http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts...](http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/adjuncts- class-and-fear/))

We still spend money — but on administration rather than teaching/research: _" The last thirty years have seen a veritable explosion of the proportion of working hours spent on administrative tasks at the expense of pretty much everything else. In my own university, for instance, we have more administrators than faculty members, and the faculty members, too, are expected to spend at least as much time on administration as on teaching and research combined. The same is true, more or less, at universities worldwide."_ ([http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars](http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars))

Hope some of these sources answers your questions, and puts them into the greater context?

<comment><USER6> > A job market is where you rent someone's life; then you command them.

This seems like a one-sided and unproductively emotional framing. One could easily flip the emotional bias and say "A job market is where greedy people with skills stubbornly refuse to volunteer their help unless they get paid for it." In fact, I suspect that's exactly how some might characterize the "job market" for independent medical services where the employer is the patient.

Here's my suggestion for a neutral take: a job market is a mechanism where people who are willing to take on responsibilities are paid money by people who would like to delegate responsibilities. The current dynamics of the academic job market (and many other markets for people with conventional liberal arts education) suggest that fewer people want to delegate those responsibilities, and more people are willing to take on those responsibilities. This is not a market-created problem, it is a social problem (i.e. we have somehow encouraged far too many people to invest in educations that don't line up with current and near-future demand for responsibility- delegation).

As to your point about intrinsic antagonism: naturally, in any negotiation there is a zero-sum element _on the margin_ , i.e. while we both benefit we can still argue over how the mutual gains are to be distributed. On the one hand, this is a valid point, and the asymmetry of leverage in this on-the- margin zero-sum negotiation between employers and employees is an excellent theoretical argument for labor regulations and labor unions. On the other hand, framing the labor negotiation as zero sum _overall_ is, I believe, counter to even Marxist [0] analysis of labor relations.

[0] My lay understanding of Marxist labor relation theory is that it argues capital obtains the lion's share of the mutual benefits (or "surplus value") arising from delegation, but it does not argue that the exchange is what we would nowadays call zero-sum on an overall basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" The thing about grad school is that everyone else is at least as special as you, and most of them are more so. They all had 4.0 GPAs, they all have gone through life in the same insulating cocoon of praise, they all really, really love history. Hell, some of them shoot rainbows out of their butts and smell like a pine forest after a spring rain--and they mostly aren't going to get jobs either."_

Oh man, does this ring true. If I had a nickel for every snotty remark by an arrogant first-year grad student about how _they 're_ not going to have trouble finding a professorship, I think I'd have enhanced my earning power more than the actual degree. In academia, everyone is a unique snowflake.

If you ever interview for a PhD program, you may notice that the people at the recruiting party are all first or second year students. There are many reasons for this, but a big one is that there are _very few_ students past the second year of a PhD program who are under any illusions about their specialness in the order of the academic world. These are not the people you want recruiting new grist for the research mill.

<comment><USER8> > In academia, everyone is a unique snowflake.

and in startups, everyone is a 10x ninja. Guess that's an invariant.

<comment><USER9> Same for corporate life.

"But I'm super smart and work really hard!"

Congrats, you're not fired.

<comment><USER10> Congrats, you're not fired, _today_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> With the exception of a professional school (medicine, law), do not pay to go to graduate school. If they're not paying you, something's wrong.

<comment><USER12> Would you apply this advice to even a master's degree? In my experience, it is exceedingly rare for universities to offer tuition reduction for a master's degree, unless it's a pure research master's degree. Some offer a limited number of scholarships, but other financial aid is rare.

And I actually think paying for certain masters degrees, for example in computer science or engineering, is a better financial investment than paying for most law schools, particularly in the present environment.

I do agree that one should not pay anything for a PhD.

<comment><USER13> A master's degree is almost certainly worth less than than a year of full-time work experience on your resume.

So, the master's is potentially costing you triple - you're paying for it, you're not getting paid, your value as an employee isn't going up as much as someone who is working.

If you can't find a sponsor to pay for a master's degree, then I would assume that nobody values you having that master's degree.

<comment><USER14> >A master's degree is almost certainly worth less than than a year of full- time work experience on your resume.

For how long is this true? I mean, at this point, I have "more than a decade" of experience - and, considering, I think I'm likely to say 'more than a decade' even when I have two or three decades of experience; no reason to point out that you are old.

On the other hand, people leave their degree on their resume forever.

My point here is that years of experience seem to have, ah, a diminishing marginal return.

(that said, I'm almost certain that you are correct for the first five years of your career... /if/ you can get a good job without a degree and without experience, which in my very relevant experience, depends a whole lot on the shape of the job market at the time.)

Actually, as someone without a degree... the 'perishability' of my credentials is something I think about often. I mean, i wrote a book, [1] which is a pretty strong credential, but will one obsolete book mark me as 'middle class' 20 years from now? probably not. A masters degree would. (Now, would that masters, if it was fallow for a decade or two, get me a job? probably not by itself. But, my impression is that it keeps it's value as a credential longer than, say, my book, and certainly longer than work experience.)

[1][http://nostarch.com/xen.htm](http://nostarch.com/xen.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am currently about a year away from my PhD in computational physics and chemistry and looking out towards the future I have very similar sentiments to this professor. Finding a decent job in academia is very very difficult. Even when you do get one it really won't be worth the work and time you have to put into it. At least in my field it is much better to develop your skills elsewhere and use that to enter into industry. I just wish someone had told me this 4 years ago.

<comment><USER16> The world for a graduating History PhD is totally different than for most STEM majors. Very very few History PhD's get their tuition paid for and are typically hugely in debt upon graduation. At least in the sciences its /possible/ to graduate debt free. Also in the sciences its entirely possible that your specific domain expertise will land you a job.

Not to say a history PhD is useless for finding work, but its likely more difficult to find work than say a Physics PhD (which has a 96% employment rate 1st year after graduation, according to the APS[1]).

[1][http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/phdinitial.pdf](http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/phdinitial.pdf)

<comment><USER17> _" Very very few History PhD's get their tuition paid for and are typically hugely in debt upon graduation."_

This is incorrect. It's absolutely possible to earn a humanities doctorate without going into debt (at least for the postgraduate degree(s)).

<comment><USER16> Yes, that was poor wording. I meant to imply it is often difficult to graduate debt free for STEM majors as well. TA stipends simply aren't enough to pay the bills these days.

I don't mean to imply a STEM major is more valuable than a History PhD either, simply that its (likely) easier to get a job after graduation. Honestly, its a damn shame the public doesn't appreciate both of these areas of work more as they are the cornerstone for improving society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would be the time to discuss or even revamp the tenure system of the professorship at universities, just like what happens to the NYC public school teachers. The tenure system of the job protections for the past 200+ years of the Western higher education system is based on the low supply of advanced degree holders, which is just the opposite to today's situation. There are a lot of very good tenured professors doing amazing academic works and teachings even at their old ages. But I believe everyone knows one or two such tenured professors just doing sloppy works or not publishing for a long while. You want to complaint about those kind of professors? Try ratemyprofessor or FB and that would be it. The only winners of such university tenure system are the tenure holders who view their professorships as entitlements, rather than try to advance the human knowledge or educate the next generation. The losers? The schools, the students and the new crops of PhD graduates with mountain high of passions.

<comment><USER19> It isn't that simple. One of the key reasons for the tenure system is to insulate "thinkers" from political or social pressure. Tenure allows researchers to be more objective because they don't have to worry (as much) about being fired for unpopular teaching or research findings.

This system has already been polluted by the prevalence of corporate funding for research, but destroying it entirely would be a terrible thing for society as a whole. There is certainly waste (and we should try to minimize it), but some waste is worth the benefits in my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article is funny, and the cynicism adds to the humor. But as someone who was on the faculty market last year, I have to say it is not at all representative of Computer Science.

CS depts are still growing, and are helped by the growing number of students wanting to major in CS. This is requiring many/most departments to grow further. And the reason why students are wanting to major in CS, is that there is plenty of work to be found. If you are well grounded in basics, and can program well, there is ample opportunity in both big companies, as well as startups.

</comment><comment><USER21> "you will find yourself...banking on the thin chance of landing a job in some part of the country usually only seen on American Pickers"

Because those of us who live in rural areas are worthless degenerates, right?

<comment><USER22> Almost by definition fewer people want to live in rural areas.

<comment><USER23> Well, any _given_ rural area of the same size. America only recently crossed the 50% urban threshold.

<comment><USER24> Hmm, I suppose it depends on how you defined "urban," and the particular area (etc), but a quick google generates a lot of results that show the U.S. generally passing the 50%-urban threshold around 1910-1920...

E.g. the graph here seems typical: [http://blogs.census.gov/2012/04/04/how-do- we-measure-urban-a...](http://blogs.census.gov/2012/04/04/how-do-we-measure- urban-areas/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I work at a private intelligence firm in London. We provide intelligence and risk analysis to oil companies, banks, insurance firms etc.

In the office next to me there is a PhD in classics, a MA in maths, and a PhD in ancient history. They all make over £150k (that's like $240k).

I don't earn that much as I work in a different part of the firm, so I'm not boasting.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think there is an important missing caveat. Yes, everyone might be really bright and have 4.0 GPAs, but there are signs that you might have a real chance. Are you not just bright and have a 4.0, but did you also get into more than one of the top 5 departments in your field, giving you the pick of the litter and some negotiating power when you enter? Is your prospective advisor high profile and genuinely excited about you? Are you entering the program with an NSF GRFP fellowship or a Javits? If you are answering yes to these kinds of questions, you will most likely be able to get an academic job at a research university or a major liberal arts college. Seriously. I fit into this profile, defended in 2012, and have a tenure track job. I was in a small cohort--three people--but two of us have tenure track jobs and the other is in a high profile post-doc. I looked at all the PhDs from the last 5 years of my program. 8 people have TT jobs, 1 has a post-doc, and 3 have industry jobs, but 1 of those 3 really wanted an industry jobs when he entered. No one is unemployed, and we're talking about the roughest years from 2008 on.

Yes, it is not the case that a PhD guarantees you an academic job without reference to your department, thesis topic, and advisor. Do people actually believe otherwise, though?

Can you be a professor? Yes, but not based on your undergraduate performance alone. You need to do an honest assessment to see if you are on a trajectory to be one of the top people in your field when you graduate. You can see this, in part, by looking at what the current graduate students in your prospective program are doing and where the recent alumni are. If not, then you should absolutely not go into grad school thinking otherwise.

<comment><USER27> I would just like to highlight one of your criteria: Is your prospective advisor... genuinely excited about you?

This is more important for future academic prospects than I would have anticipated going into my PhD program. I fit your list of attributes for all other criteria save this one. And without my supervisors enthusiasm for my work or my future prospects I've started losing confidence in myself and in my abilities. More than confidence, I'm missing out on networking opportunities due to his lack of interest.

<comment><USER26> That is so rough. I don't know exactly what your situation is, but there might still be options. If you're at the dissertating stage, you might have a committee member that is more stoked with stuff you're doing. You might be able to use them as your unofficial mentor to cover for deficiencies in the relationship with your primary advisor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I sometimes wonder whether there is indeed less need for professors or whether it is easier and cheaper to use postdocs, adjuncts, "research professors", etc. for the work that professors are supposed to do. It appears that universities are trying to avoid offering tenured positions at all costs. Florida polytechnic for example adopted a non-tenure faculty model which according to its Board of Trustees _will help recruit and maintain top talent_ [1]. I wonder if they actually believe that.

When I was a phd student I did an informal check on the professors in my department. Even though it was no ivy league school, on average it took them 2.8 years from entry into the phd program to getting a tenure-track position. Now 2.8 is probably the average number of years as a postdoc you need to have.

1: [http://floridapolytechnic.org/news/non-tenure-faculty- model-...](http://floridapolytechnic.org/news/non-tenure-faculty-model-and- bog-work-plan-approved)

</comment><comment><USER29> If you still really want to be a professor, find a load of other unemployed PhD's and a bored billionare or two and go and found a University.

</comment><comment><USER30> What's really heartbreaking about this is growing up in high school, the most respected older adults in my life -- indeed, the ones most responsible for steering me out of the abyss -- where high school history teachers, and local university history professors.

 _Every long-term educational trend points towards the end of the professoriate. States continue to slash funding for higher education. Retiring professors are not replaced, or replaced with part-time faculty. Technology promises to provide education with far fewer teachers--and whether you buy into this vision of the future or not, state legislators and university administrators believe._

<comment><USER31> Keep in mind that even if the tenured faculty of yesteryear do not disappear, the numbers are likely to not do better than flat.

Consider the numbers...

A successful professor, who brings in the grant money, can supervise 10-30 graduate students towards their PhDs over the course of their career. Others will supervise fewer, but that is because the money is scant.

The bottom line is that if you are not _obviously_ one of the top 10% students of your program, you are second string. Half the first string players are having trouble finding a professorship. What are your odds?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The problem with this kind of advice and the fairly overly confident advice over here at HN is the individual, in my view, should not pay a terrible amount big attention, sure read and think about but this kind of thing applies in _aggregate_. For _you_ , things could be very different because of various situations, opportunities, etc. You could sit and ready stories of upset adjuncts or you could just be tenacious keep jabbing and find a way.

Sure, in aggregate, let's mourn the professoriate.

But for _you_ , don't buy into the hype too much .., you don't need every job, just one that makes you happy.

This applies to most of lamentations of job markets.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've never understood the argument that getting a PhD is worth it because education is worth it on its own. The premise is correct, but the conclusion doesn't follow. A PhD used to mean a qualification you had to get for a specific set of jobs or careers, now a lot of people argue for it as some culturally enriching experience. If you look carefully at this assumption it masks a pretty insidious elitism, which is that you can only truly appreciate culture and art via qualification. This is bogus. As Will Hunting said,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZI1vgJwUP0&t=2m25s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZI1vgJwUP0&t=2m25s)

</comment><comment><USER34> I was originally going to comment that it was more accurate to say they shouldn't try, but he's right. In history, they just can't. The academia machine has screwed up incentives. Schools and professors are individually incented to produce more candidates than the market needs. It's up to people to say "No, I won't do it." or "No, I don't expect to get a job after 5 years of service and learning."

I do wish I had the guts to follow up with his _Hell, some of them shoot rainbows out of their butts and smell like a pine forest after a spring rain-- and they mostly aren 't going to get jobs either._

</comment><comment><USER35> The only growth profession is entrepreneurism.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://s.mlkshk.com/r/NF6J](http://s.mlkshk.com/r/NF6J)

</comment><comment><USER37> What else can you do with a History Degree?

<comment><USER25> My brother studied history at Oxford, and is now a captain in the British Army.</comment></comment>


The Bash for Loop, the First Step in Automation on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://ma.ttias.be/bash-loop-first-step-automation-linux/ <comment><USER2>
      $ for file in $(ls); do echo $file; done

Please don't do this. I understand why it was put there, but don't. There are other examples of this construct, and most of them actually make sense.

People reading the article _are not_ shell experts and _don 't know_ that in this particular case it's _extremely bad idea_ to use `ls` (shell wildcard is the proper way here), so don't give them such example. This statement should be burned with fire.</comment>


Bitcoin price unwinding ... $400 and falling - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD

<comment><AUTHOR> looks like it had sufficient support at $400... that's over 40% volatility. I guarantee some well funded technical traders are making a motza out of this.</comment>


Reversed dating - <AUTHOR> http://cheekd.com/#4

<comment><USER2> My first thoughts:

1\. you need to explain it - it is not obvious for the user. That's bad if you hand someone o card and need to explain it

2\. if this is a guy to hand this card to the girl it sounds a bit like: a) I am geek using this service b) I am not confident to give you my phone number. Are these advantages in dating game?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get this. I have personal business cards I give out when I want to hand someone my contact info (google voice # and email address). I don't get what I gain by paying this site $. Printing out business cards to carry around in your wallet costs about $8 plus shipping all over the net.

</comment><comment><USER4> This makes perfect sense. people won't admit it but there is a fear of meeting people in person to get a number or a name. This takes the hardest part of the relationship out. I think this would be great maybe even in a college setting when people are at a bar or a party.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a terrific idea. I think this is about the concept- not the fact that you already have a business card. The mystery and humor are a part of this company, plus- it's memorable!

</comment><comment><USER6> Met the founder in DC last month - remember you had the idea when a bolt of lightning came from sky and turned your hair white. remember it - and use it! best of luck

</comment><comment><USER7> have you ever been in the train and caught eyes with someone? this would be the perfect opportunity to hand off this card (minus the personal deets)... the doors close and you've been left with the opportunity to find that person again. i love the idea, but maybe it's because i'm a girl. : (

</comment><comment><USER8> So what is the purpose of this? How is this better than business cards?

<comment><USER9> They are trying to sell business cards for dating use. It's trying to solve the issue of writing down contact details by simply passing a card to check later online.

Nice idea.

<comment><USER8> Okay... I still don't understand how this is better than simply putting the contact details on the card itself, other than the risk of staleness.

(And the marginal case where you want to revoke the ability to view your details after you give out the card, but before the person checks...hmm...)

<comment><USER10> This is better than business cards because you don't have to disclose any personal information like email, phone number and address. There's less pressure on both parties as well. I like Cheek'd, it's great for NYC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea.</comment>


Ask HN: Finding a remote job / Creating a resume - <AUTHOR>

As someone who has never actually even needed to apply for a job, i'm perplexed on how to create an internationally viable resume to be able to seek remote jobs. I've had the blessing/curse of being employed straight out of secondary school, so i've actually never had to seek jobs, especially not in another country.
How does one create an attractive looking resume based on that? No real degree, 6 years working experience from the same place, some personal minor coding projects, nothing big.
I'm a fast learner with a hacker mind with no doubt that i'd be able to perform as well as people with degrees and more diverse experiences, but how do i express this? <comment><USER2> I have found that if you want to work remote many times it is better to just freelance. It seems that people are far more agreeable to remote work when the projects are in 1-2 month work increments. Many time freelance gigs will lead to a direct offer of employment if that is what you are after and many times the terms will be similar to the freelancing arrangement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Certainly not an exhaustive list, but: 1) Open source, even if you're only helping find bugs 2) Launch something 3) Blog your expertise 4) Volunteer tech projects

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you looking to work remotely (live in one country, work for a company based in another country), or get a job in a remote location and move there to work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Remotely.</comment></comment>


Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry's out of touch - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/05/23/glossy-vs-matte-screens-why-the-pc-industrys-out-of-touch/ <comment><USER2> The only valid argument that I'd find for glossy screens is that you can build them more robust than matte screens. For example, it's much easier to clean the glass on the new Macbooks compared to a matte screen, which you wouldn't clean with a normal towel. Another example is Lenovo's new X1 laptop that uses Gorilla Glass which should be even much more robust than Apple's screens. Still, I prefer matte screens, as the reflections on glossy screens are too much of a distraction for me.

Speaking of "out of touch" another issue with new screens is the format: On my old IBM/Lenovo X41 and X61s laptops the 4:3 screen format was perfect for the 12" screen. Although the screen was small I used the X41 as my main laptop for about half a year (without an external monitor). On my current X201 the 16:10 format is much worse: I'm a programmer, I don't need horizontal space, but vertical space. Even for non-programmers I guess that for reading web pages or other documents vertical space is also more important than horizontal space. With Lenovo's new X210 they've introduced a further step in the wrong direction by switching from 16:10 to 16:9.

<comment><USER3> > I'm a programmer, I don't need horizontal space, but vertical space

Mostly agree, but my opinion on this matter was somewhat swayed after I started using :vsp in Vim on my 13" widescreen notebook (combined with a full- screen mode in iTerm). Not only had splitting the screen vertically right in the middle helped me recover the "lost" space, but it also forced me to wrap my code consistently to 80 characters, so now it looks/prints better. I guess the moral is that sometimes a bad thing can lead to something good.

<comment><USER4> On my 1920x1080 laptop screen, I can comfortably fit 3 emacs sessions side by side, all windows on the same process, all frequently further split one level horizontally. This is a lot of code. I generally only use 2 and have a shell on the left, which also comfortably fits, but if I need 3 I have it.

(I would generally consider the need to have 6 views of your source to get your job done a code smell, but it isn't always my code, and lately we've been doing some client/message-bus/server code where 6 starts to feel a bit constraining.)

Technically I'm still neutral on the emacs v. vim wars and they're both good editors. But looking around me, the vim users in my office really need to get better about buffer management. I'm sure vim can technically do everything emacs can do with buffers and splitting and windowing, but "nobody" seems to do it.

<comment><USER5> Ah! Another Emacs user who likes to spread 6 windows across a 1920-wide display. I knew I couldn't be the only one :-)

I use XEmacs with the 6x10 font, and can get three windows across, each 100 characters wide, all in the same frame (it takes a little fiddling to set up, but then I keep the session around a long time).

<comment><USER6> I use some revive mode code a friend wrote to revive my frame config.

Just like desktop-save, I do C-x S instead, and it saves all open frames, and the buffers they contain (no frame size or position though, afair).

C-x F to load in the rare event I need to restart emacs.

The code is at <https://github.com/nunb/revive-mode-config>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems to me that the reason for this shift is the same reason manufacturers ship their TVs set to overblown saturation and brightness: it looks good in the showroom.

As someone who has no office and works every day either from home or from a coffee shop on a laptop, the glossy screen is pretty annoying. It's not impossible to work on it and you do get used to it, but my next MacBook Pro will be the matte finish. It's more annoying that a matte finish costs $50 more.

<comment><USER8> i think technically it is $150 more, since the only way to get the antiglare is with the hi-res option. definitely annoying.

<comment><USER9> Annoying? Unsurprising is appropriate too. Remember the $100 'black' tax? "Same model, specs, just in black, for only $100 more!" Apple knows that their fans might moan a little, but in the end will hand over their credit card regardless.

<comment><USER10> I don't remember that, and I owned a black MacBook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is sad they didn't ask the manufacturers why they do that. One reason is that 'glossy' screens have higher contrast than 'matte' screens because off- axis light is reflected mostly off screen, but on a matte finish off axis light adds a 'glow' to the screen (which is a diffuse reflection rather than a specular reflection) and that glow gets counted against the 'black level' and the contrast.

Glossy screens in a darkened room perform demonstrably better in terms of contrast than matte screens.

Matte films are easy to come by and I'm rather surprised that given this sort of market research there isn't someone out there selling them by the boat load.

<comment><USER12> I've looked into getting one but all of the matte films I have seen have a 'shimmery' appearance to them. It looks like the surface grain of the film is not fine enough. Does anyone know of a good brand of film to use?

<comment><USER11> I used some 3M anti-glare film which I believe was this:

[http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Vikuiti1/BrandPr...](http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Vikuiti1/BrandProducts/main/marketsweserve/displayaftermarket/antireflectionfilms/)

On a 44" LCD television. I got it through a window tinting contractor who had a relationship with 3M (they bought their window tinting film from them).

<comment><USER12> as aidenn0 mentions, I don't think a film that works well with a TV would necessarily work well with a laptop. The pixel sizes are different but also the viewing distance is much greater.

This 3M product says:

 _Anti-glare film, for example, incorporates a special roughened surface. When external light is reflected on this surface light is scattered across many different angles, giving the appearance of reduced reflection. Anti-reflection film takes a different approach and actually reduce the magnitude of the reflection by passing the light through specially engineered thin layers that reduce the amount of reflection, not just scatter it._

I'm not sure that makes any sense but it sounds like it's the right direction. I assume they mean they reduce the reflected light by absorbing it?

Anyway, thanks for the pointer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Based on the title, I was hoping to learn from this article _why_ the PC industry was out of touch, but I only learned _that_ it was, which I already knew.

</comment><comment><USER14> See also the almost complete takeover of 16:9 aspect ratios from 16:10 or 4:3, often with horrible 1366x768 resolution.

<comment><USER15> Here's the blog post from Lenovo/Thinkpad as to why they switched to 16:9 screens: [http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2009/04/display- rati...](http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2009/04/display-ratio-change- again/)

They say that PC makers have no say in the issue, screen manufacturers are all wide-screen these days.

Yet Apple had no problem sourcing 4:3 displays for their iPad? I guess when there's a will there's a way.

<comment><USER16> Aren't iPads 16:10? Honestly curious, I can't tell if 4:3 was a typo or if there's something I'm missuing.

<comment><USER17> Funnily enough, Daring Fireball just had a bit on the 4:3 aspect ratio today: <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/24/tall-and-narrow>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't think PC Pro readers count as an accurate sampling of people who buy PCs. And I must be in the minority that I like glossy screens. Colors are more vibrant, and it's not hard for me to avoid situations which cause glare.

</comment><comment><USER19> Am I the only person here who doesn't care? I've used both a ThinkPad T61p (matte) and 15" MBP (glossy) regularly in the past 5 years. The only time I've had an issue with the glossy screen on my MBP is in full on sunshine. Even a matte screen would have been terribly washed out in that situation.

<comment><USER20> It's really not a big deal to most consumers. Most people don't even notice and will never use a laptop in direct sunlight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> PCPro is out of touch that their readers are not the average computer buyer.

<comment><USER22> Who is a more important market? 5 people that buy a laptop every 5 years, or 1 person that buys 1 laptop a year?

The person that goes to Best Buy to buy an "ultra value" laptop is not the same person that buys a $2000 laptop. And my guess is that $2000 laptops are more profitable to make than $100 laptops.

<comment><USER21> Individual enthusiast consumers are an incredibly small portion of the people who buy computers.

You're lucky if you can interest a computer manufacturer with the concerns of the consumer market as a whole, much less the tiny fraction known as enthusiasts. Most companies in hardware make their money on selling to people who buy a lot more than one machine at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that the visceral reaction to the terms "glossy" and "matte" could be a factor here. Glossy, by itself, is associated with cheap and shiny. Matte sounds understated and elegant.

If the survey had been done with a picture of a glossy screen, and a matte screen, and readers would have been asked to choose, I suspect the results could have been closer.

</comment><comment><USER24> Personally, I much prefer glossy screens, both the glass-covered screen on my Macbook Pro as well as the polished LCD on my old Aspire netbook. In general, the higher contrast and more vibrant colours are a net win, and I find my eyes less strained looking at the display.

</comment><comment><USER25> Video and computer games arguably look better on a glossy screen. A lot of people play games on their computers.

Even in the mac world, I can see why Apple have gone glossy even though for the HN-type crowd matte makes more sense.

<comment><USER26> I play FPSs very often, and a glossy screen really has no merits unless you are playing in the dark with no other light sources to reflect. I'd much prefer a matte display with good color reproduction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Apparently PC Pro has a little trouble with the term "selection bias."

</comment><comment><USER28> I dunno i really like the glass screen on my macbook pro. I dont mind the gloss at all. I would say I prefer it even. Offering a choice would be nice though.

<comment><USER29> I would prefer a choice for the same price, no matte surcharge

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I don't get is, on a display like an iMac where the front surface of the display is glass, why doesn't Apple offer an optical coating (i.e., anti- reflection coating) option?

Optical coating used to be standard on high-end CRT monitors. It seems like the right solution here as well. I wouldn't miss the matte finish nearly so much if I could get the glossy screen coated.

</comment><comment><USER30> I was looking at an HP laptop online last night and saw it has a "Brightview" screen. This description of it, apparently from the company that makes the screens, suggests that, while glossy, it is also anti-reflective.

Does anyone know if that means it is more like a matte screen than a regular glossy screen or not really? [http://www.screentekinc.com/hp-compaq- brightview-lcd-screens...](http://www.screentekinc.com/hp-compaq-brightview- lcd-screens.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER31> It doesn't seem to be a PC problem, it seems to be a laptop problem. My lcds at home (and my TV) are all matte, its only my laptop (mac) that is glossy.

<comment><USER32> Isn't laptop a PC? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer>

<comment><USER33> Bonus irony considering Apple basically mainstreamed the personal computer revolution. Now they're trying as hard as they can to distance themselves from the term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't know about y'all but I got the glossy screen on purpose, it's damn near impossible to use a laptop in sunlight with a matte screen.

</comment><comment><USER35> My last (windows) laptop purchase, in February 2011, was actually made easier by the fact that only two manufacturers (Dell and Lenovo) offered matte/anti- glare screens on high-end developer laptops. It was actually the default on the Lenovo W701DS I ended up buying.

<comment><USER36> Yes, I had pretty much the same situation. I finally got a T510.

Previously I had been using an antiglare filter, which works OK but is impossible to apply without leaving bubbles in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I hate glossy finishes :(

</comment><comment><USER38> I've used both on a Mac. When Apple started offering both, I agonized but finally opted for glossy and haven't looked back. My preference on most things is matte - I always opted for matte when people printed photos from something called "film."

Here's why glossy screens are better, for me anyway:

1) It's better in sunlight. Counterintuitive I know, but it's far, far better. Matte screens diffract light and render the screen unreadable. Glossy screens can be made visible either passively (in very strong light) or actively if the screen is bright enough (as many now are.)

2) Glare is controllable and not diffused on a glossy screen. With a matte screen, glare manifests as blobs, and spread across the screen. With a glossy screen, glare is localized and easily defeated by repositioning the screen.

3) Matte makes screens less bright. It's a translucent filter, so of course it reflects and absorbs light.

4) Matte filters can be added, but a matte screen can't be made glossy.

The real solution: get rid of awful overhead florescent lighting. Ok, not that easy for most of you, but I think Steve Jobs probably wants those gone as much as he wants Flash gone. Any word on lighting at Apple?

<comment><USER39> _It's better in sunlight._

I was initially skeptical; after using an iPad outdoors I found it hard to believe matte could be worse! But some quick research seems to confirm your point.

Does anyone know of a solution to using screens outdoors? I hear the Kindle is good, but I'm thinking color screen.

<comment><USER40> My friend recently got a Sunbook, which he loves to use outdoors: <http://www.cloversystems.com/SunBook.htm> (their website is horrific, but the product is decent).

It's essentially a netbook with a special screen that can can work in both daylight and indoor light. In the sun, most of the colors wash away and it becomes a mostly black&white screen. But you can read it perfectly easily (similar to eink, but I don't think it actually uses eink, despite what their PR claims).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do I protect my IoT project by not doing over-the-air updates? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a simple piece of hardware that just sends a single data point. I don't foresee many needs to change the firmware.<p>It seems like many of the IoT security problems step from "hijacking" from over-the-air updates, and that I can avoid this by not allowing them. Is that true? <comment><USER2> On one hand, you get rid of a big attack vector.

On the other, if a vulnerability in your code exists, it's there for good.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

If there's no infrastructure for updating the code, what vulnerabilities that could exist should I be aware of?</comment></comment>


Can the Fed raise interest rates? - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/492940/what-if-the-fed-cant-raise-interest-rates/ <comment><USER3> The crux of the problem is that the Fed is "pushing on a string" \- playing with the supply side of money while having absolutely no effect on the demand side.

Thomas Palley [1] sums this up nicely in a 2011 critique of QE:

 _The underlying problem is structurally deficient demand caused by thirty years of neoliberal economic policies that have undermined the income and demand generation process (Palley, 2009). However, rather than fixing this problem, policymakers are again turning to ultra-easy monetary policy in the form of QE. Viewed from this perspective, QE can be interpreted as a form of asset market trickledown whereby supporting asset prices is supposed to jumpstart the macro economy…From a political standpoint, this is an enormous change from the world of forty years ago. The New Deal policy paradigm of wage floors and household income supports has been replaced by one of asset price floors and asset market subsidies. Viewed through a political lens QE therefore represents the triumph of plutonomics, and that makes it an obstruction to the extent it obscures the challenge of repairing the income and demand generation process._

The Fed has dug itself into a hole with QE, where it is losing the ability to control anything in the economy due to the lower 0 bound of the FFR and the economy's inability to handle an interest rate hike.

It is up to the Federal Government (which, democratically speaking, means we the people) to adopt New Deal-like investments in infrastructure, R&D, education, and tech to seed long-term prosperity in order to rebuild an economy with a strong middle class that will demand loans for things like mortgages, appliances, cars, and machinery, as well as drive invention and wealth creation rather than rent-seeking & arbitrage as we are seeing today.

[1] [https://ideas.repec.org/p/uma/periwp/wp252.html](https://ideas.repec.org/p/uma/periwp/wp252.html)

<comment><USER4> You mean: "we keep pouring money in at the top, but it just isn't trickling down" ?

<comment><USER5> Precisely.

In Silicon Valley it would be like a company that is raising record amounts of money at mind-boggling valuations but whose revenue isn't growing at the same pace.

One of the major question marks has been wage growth during the recovery. Stock markets have been skyrocketing, but wages have generally remained stagnant.

Similarly, labor participation (i.e. of the people who could work, how many are actively looking/employed) has remained worryingly low. While the US unemployment rate is very low (~5.1%), that isn't a direct inverse of those who are employed. There is a huge group of people who have simply given up trying to find work and others who are working but less than they would like (e.g. part-time, have one job but would like to work another/overtime, etc.)

We see that effect on inflation, which is no where near the 2% level that the Fed would like. Inflation crudely correlates with real growth because it encourages spending; if the money I have will be worth less in the future, I'm more likely to spend it today.

So in effect, we look at the S&P and think "Awesome! We're at all time highs!" But then we look at the economic fundamentals for people and it looks less sketchy.

<comment><USER6> Don't you mean "more sketchy", as in we look at the S&P and think "Yay" But we are getting dubious signals from the so-called real economy that do not correlate with the signals we are getting from the stock market. Hence, "more sketchy", no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the article:

 _Why doesn't the Fed sell its Treasury bonds then?

Because there's no one buyer big enough to purchase them. The Federal Reserve itself is now the world's largest holder of US government debt, after its bond-buying programs pushed its holdings above those of China._

In an otherwise interesting and well written article, this is just an absurd statement. They are under no obligation to sell all of them. They can sell whatever amount is appropriate to lower the price (and raise the rate) to where they want it. Further, toward the end of the article, it is suggested that they might have trouble raising the long term rates even if they are able to successfully raise the short term rate . . . well, duh, sell some of the long term treasury bonds.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for this, it is spot on.

It's like saying Amazon can't have a sale because then it would have to lower the price of every item it sells.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That 10% reserve number is interesting. I learned about the 10% reserve ratio in macroeconomics class, where I also learned that there's this thing called the money multiplier. See, if banks are required to hold a fraction r (10%) of their deposits in reserve, then obviously they'll lend out the rest, which will in turn be held or spent by the borrower, and one way or another it'll end up back in a bank. So a (1-r) fraction of the actual cash and Fed-issued money ends up lent out and redeposited. But the banks can loan out a (1-r) fraction of /that/, ad infinitum. So the total amount of deposited money is 1 + (1-r) + (1-r)^2 + ... = 1/r of whatever money (cash and things actually deposited at the Fed) the Fed created in the first place. Since r = 10%, the multiplier is 10.

The official page AFAICT is here:

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm](http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm)

The effective ratio is actually under 10% these days.

Edit: Fixed an inconsequential typo.

<comment><USER9> Well written, thank you. It's beyond my understanding why the fractional reserve banking is allowed by western societies. Why should banks be able to do this, but not other companies or even private persons?

<comment><USER10> > _Why should banks be able to do this, but not other companies or even > private persons?_

Companies and individuals are most certainly able to create "money" on their own. You can issue all the debt you want, as long as you find a willing counterparty and sign your own name to it. It's balance sheet expansion.

For example, you go to purchase a new car, and sign a note telling the dealer that you will pay the price of the car, plus interest, over five years. You've created an asset out of nothing, for which the bank is more than willing to pay the dealer cash for. People and companies create such assets every day. There is no magic to issuing your own liabilities, which is what the Fed does when it prints money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > If the Fed tried to sell its bond portfolio it would likely tank the market > and cause interest rates to spike, undoing much—if not all of—the beneficial > economic effects its efforts have achieved over the last few years.

Isn't that exactly the goal? To "raise interest rates"? I mean, the solution to the problem is the thing that they can't do? I don't get it. It makes no sense. The argument is circular.

If rates would spike too much -- which is the same as saying bond prices are falling -- then all they have to do is slow the rate at which they're selling the portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER12> The problem is that the Fed _must_ corner the market in Fed Funds in order to meet their objective. They must set the price floor. In the past, this market was small and controlled by the Fed.

Now in ZIRP, the Fed claims they will solve this problem by doing reverse repos with a wide array of counterparties. The list of counterparties is here: [http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/rrp_counterparties.html](http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/rrp_counterparties.html)

Their current limit is $300B - what happens when say, $4 trillion dollars shows up asking to be paid at the Fed's targeted rate. If the rate were 0.5%, that would be $20 billion a year that the Fed would need to pay out. If they limit it to the first $300B, then they _cannot_ hold the rate at 0.5%. Can the Fed pay $20B in interest a year?

IMHO, long way of saying, after taking the economy to ZIRP, the Fed has to find a safe way to drain the system of excess reserves before they regain control of Fed Funds.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The Fed is by definition the safest place to put your dollars in the world—because it has the ability to create any money in might need to pay you back." This is fantastic. "The Fed can only pay interest on reserves to one type of institution: banks" This is not fantastic. Why can't I as a simple citizen, put my money at Fed and take advantage of the safest interests ever known to man ? This discrimination has to cease or am I missing something ?

<comment><USER14> You can - buy T-Bills. You can even buy them directly from the US treasury at [https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tbills_gl...](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tbills_glance.htm)

This is pretty much exactly what the banks are doing, albeit at a larger scale. They buy T-Bills, or other equivalents such as Gilts (UK government backed bonds) as they're as secure as investments get - with reduced returns as the compensation for the increased security of the bonds being backed by one of the worlds major economies.

For more information - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_bond](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_bond) and [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_\(finance\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So first the fed cut rates and many people called them unprincipled and we would have run away inflation "just around the corner" and they were shown to be quite wrong. Now these same people are calling for raising rates what traditionally used forms of data suggest is at least a little too early and there seems to be a possibility that the fed is going to raise rates.

</comment><comment><USER16> They can't raise the rate because of structural flaws in the fractional reserve banking system. It might actually break this time.

</comment><comment><USER17> > How did the Fed push these reserves into the system? Easy. It created them > out of thin air, and used them to buy government securities from banks.

This type of economic wizardry can't be good...

<comment><USER18> Why?

<comment><USER19> Creating money out of thin air ends up devaluing the currency that is currently in circulation.

My understanding is weak and I'm still not clear whether the Zeitgeist Movement's position on the matter is correct, but I'd recommend watching the second of the Zeitgeist Movement's video on the matter to enrich your opinion.

<comment><USER20> Not necessarily. Over the past seven years the monetary base has expanded significantly, yet inflation has remained super low.

It's true that creating money out of thin air increases the supply of money. But the price of money is not set by one factor of supply alone. You also have to consider the velocity of money (affecting supply) and the demand for money. If these are changing too, then you can certainly increase the supply of money without devaluing the currency.

Also you can have counterintuitive effects where increasing the supply of money stimulates the economy increasing the demand for money thereby strengthening the value of the currency overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The US Treasury could raise rates on their paper (T-bills and bonds) to push rates up, but then the Treasury would be paying above market rate.

<comment><USER22> I believe the rate is determined by the bidders at the auction and not by the Treasury.

[https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/auctfund/work/work.htm](https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/auctfund/work/work.htm)

<comment><USER6> Exactly, otherwise Greece and other countries wouldn't have been locked out of the commercial markets if they could set rates. German rates were/are low because the German economy is thought to be a decent shape, Greek rates are high because the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _"The committee is confident that it has the tools it needs to raise short- term interest rates when it becomes appropriate to do so," Fed chair Janet Yellen told Congress earlier this year, adding, "and to maintain reasonable control of the level of short-term interest rates."_

subtext - Keep a close eye on this situation, as it may require popcorn and a safe viewing platform.

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, at this point, if the Fed is not forced to raise their rates, then you might as well kiss the global economy goodbye.

Downvote me if you want, but what I said needs to have been said, no matter if you personally agree with it or not.

<comment><USER16> You may want to explain more about why you feel that way for people who don't have insights into your personal viewpoint or the broad arguments for that matter :)

<comment><USER22> I agree. Too often sweeping viewpoints are made without data. The crazy part is this is not some grand hidden conspiracy, the data is out there to explore and use to support arguments for and against the fed. [1][2]

[1] [http://www.federalreserve.gov/](http://www.federalreserve.gov/) [2] [https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/](https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/)

<comment><USER25> Agreed, there is no conspiracy here. Just a series of systemic flaws. What's scary is that there needs to be a discussion on this but few economists are brave enough to voice their concerns. David Harvey, Steve Keen, and others are stepping up but we need more people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most central banks dictate that there should be 2% inflation, which means the economy needs to grow 2% per year. But we live in a world with linear resources so unless we talk about virtual goods the economy cannot grow that much and still be sustainable over the long run. Basically it will violate a nature law which says we cannot ventilate that much heat into space as the economic growth requires.

"At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years. We would consume something comparable to the entire sun in 1400 years from now - <USER2> more at: [http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist- meets-...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets- physicist/#sthash.xiFGrVJY.dpuf")

Further the FED is privatly owned by banks.

Economics is trying to violate nature laws, it cannot do that so the current system will fail. A new sustainable economic system will emerge.

<comment><USER27> As several people keep hammering into my head, inflation is not the same thing as what people would consider "growth".

Depending on your school of economic thought, inflation represents the increase in money supply. So, if I took away every $1 bill and replaced it with a $100 bill, the willingness of everyone to now pay $100 for a coke is inflation.

It seems to be an accepted principle that we want to keep people from hoarding cash, so inflation of ~2% is wanted. It gives everyone a nice buffer to avoid dipping into deflation.

<comment><USER26> Point taken about inflation. But the thermophysics part still hold true though. You cannot increase economic output a lot without using more energy which will make earth boil.

<comment><USER28> The economy doesn't follow natural law, or - in many ways both literal and figurative - any laws at all.

If you think it should, then it'll appear to violate all sorts of principles all the time. In some cases it behaves like a closed system (employment in countries), in others it's an open system (companies). Some cases money is conserved (double entry booking), in others money behaves more like a Banach- Tarski ball (think bank money multipliers).

<comment><USER25> Neo-classical capitalism doesn't even acknowledge the laws of nature let alone follow them.

Jeremy Rifkin has written a lot of about this topic and his arguments that economists should first learn the laws of thermodynamics before being set loose on the economy.

His book, "The Third Industrial Revolution" touches on this topic quite a bit, if your interested… [http://www.amazon.com/Third-Industrial-Revolution- Lateral-Tr...](http://www.amazon.com/Third-Industrial-Revolution-Lateral- Transforming/dp/0230341977/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442434897)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SoftBank Plans $5B Rescue Financing for WeWork - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-16/softbank-said-to-plan-5-billion-rescue-financing-for-wework <comment><USER2> I mean... Masayoshi Son must be one of the worst investors in history, at least in terms of absolute losses. That guy loses more money than anyone.

Lost 70B during the dot com crash. Writing down billions in 2019 on Uber and WeWork. I know a few folks that worked at other companies he/Vision Fund invested in. One received $200M and they had no idea what to do with it. They spent it on headcount, which isn't the smartest when you don't know what direction to go. That investment will never see a positive return.

Anyways, other than Alibaba, does Masa have any other big wins?

<comment><USER3> Yes, he also made money on Yahoo! and SoftBank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just nuts. Wasting tens of billions of dollars. More and more the vision fund looks Saudi's vehicle to throw money away. There must be some underlying reason why they are ok with wasting this much money. I bet the billions wasted on WeWork, would have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty

<comment><USER5> Apparently Masa promised a 1 trillion dollar gift. Maybe they still have hope. Link to interview: [https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/03/masayoshi-son-trillion- dol...](https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/03/masayoshi-son-trillion-dollar-gift/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When someone searches for a "Sunk cost fallacy" description in the following years, this will be the example everyone will use.

<comment><USER7> Possibly, but there is another angle here. WeWork isn't really a tech or realestate company, but a financial instrument to be propped up and then dumped into the lap of late investors or the market, so that early investors can run away with a nice profit. The IPO attempt failed. Now they need time for people to forget, so the financial instrument can be repackaged and sold to some gullible private investors a bit later. SoftBank will get new shares significantly cheaper than the older ones, and as long as they can keep the patient on life support long enough for someone else to believe in it, the whole game will pay off nicely. Probably a few years though, waiting for the next wave.

<comment><USER8> Except that some percentage of their investment is at a $47B valuation.

They already bought quite a bit of early investors/employees of positions who cashed out happily.

I think this really is about loss mitigation than anything else.

They're already $10B in - spending another $5 to get $10B out vs <$1B out if they go bankrupt is probably worth it.

<comment><USER9> So basically a dollar auction [1] on a billion dollar scale?

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If there's one thing to throw after bad money it's good money...

</comment><comment><USER11> /r/wallstreetbets

</comment><comment><USER12> Would suggest taking the "Deals" out of the title here, it seems to be some formatting issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done, thanks!</comment></comment>


APA Review Confirms Link Between Playing Violent Video Games and Aggression - <AUTHOR> http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx <comment> vezzy-fnord From the report:

       The link between violent video game exposure and aggressive
       behavior is one of the most studied and best established.
       Of the 31 studies reviewed, 14 investigated the relation
       between violent video game use and aggressive behaviors.
       Aggressive behavior measures included experimental proxy
       paradigms, such as the administration of hot sauce or
       a noise blast to a confederate, self-report questionnaires,
       peer nomination and teacher rating of aggressiveness.

If this is indeed the case, then there is cause for concern with these techniques, especially depending on the age group. [1] We further see self- reports mentioned as evidence for later factors, so as a whole I'm not sure what to think of this.

Moreover, the actually interesting question (does this aggressive behavior lead to real-world violence) is openly admitted to be unanswered. I'd wager that to a large extent basic measurements of "aggression" will be positive simply due to the player being engrossed by the game in question. The methods listed above in general are hardly that rigorous.

Furthermore:

       The research has also not adequately included samples
       representative of the current population demographics,
       nor has it sufficiently examined the potential differences
       in effects when participant samples have been diverse;
       no conclusions about differences in effects related to
       ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or culture can be
       drawn from the currently available research.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812902/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812902/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Call this confirmation bias or anecdotal evidence. I can relate to this study.

I only play a few video games. The most recent that I play is "ShadowGun - DeadZone" on my iPad. Its a MM first persons shooter centered around networked games of CTF or DeathMatch options. I love it. It helps me unwind and keeps me alert. Its damn fun.

However I can't play it when my kids are around. Kids are kids. However my tolerance for normal kid stuff (mistakes, arguments, things dropped, repetition of noises) drops significant after playing. I'm more short tempered. I'm more combative when I should be conciliatory. I've noticed it and I don't like myself afterwards. Its not helping me to be a good father.

I'm not singling out the game. Its me, so I've elected to delete it. I can re- install after bedtime or when I travel or never.

<comment><USER3> Anecdotal counterpoint. I believe your aggressiveness is due to the competitiveness, not the "violent" content of the game.

The video games I play are generally shooters (e.g. Halo series) or sports games (e.g. FIFA). I'm not a violent or aggressive person and video games have almost never made me upset. However, I tend to play mostly offline, either by myself or couch co-op with friends.

This past year, I started playing FIFA (soccer) online, against others. It's a rush because it's competitive, but for a while (during the learning curve) I was embarrassed and shocked by how much it affected my mood. After a bad session of FIFA, I was angry, short-tempered, aggressive and it easily bled into my actual life. I recognized this negative behavior and was able to stamp it out (which shouldn't be an accomplishment for a 30-something adult).

My point being, the trigger for me was not the content of the game (shooting vs. sports), but playing in an ultra-competitive environment against others, where winning comes at all costs (even unsportsmanlike tactics).

I imagine that if I went out to play a competitive soccer match (which I do play) and lost a tight game to an obnoxious opponent, I would also come home with higher than normal anger and aggressiveness - that is what competition can do to you, chemically.

<comment><USER4> > Anecdotal counterpoint. I believe your aggressiveness is due to the > competitiveness, not the "violent" content of the game.

Abso-freakin'-lutely. I participate in a religious debate forum online, and when I find myself sucked into a conversation with a recalcitrant jerk who is actively trying to deceive people with slimy rhetorical tricks, I get _so angry_. And after I've had my say, I still find myself getting snippy with my wife and generally having a short temper.

I'd love to see the APA recommend against debating religion online. That would really help me improve my life and the relationships inside my family. Either that, or I show some self-discipline and simply stop participating. ;-)

<comment><USER5> I recommend against debating religion online. That sounds like a hobby for jerks. Do you enjoy being angry?

<comment><USER4> I recommend against calling people names because you don't like the nature of the conversations they have in their spare time.

I assure you, that kind of childish insult is even beneath the standards of the forum you apparently disdain so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do these findings stack against the fact that violent crimes in the U.S. Have been trending downward for decades, while violent game and media sales have been trending upwards? (And parental awareness and involvement have been trending upwards as well...)

[https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in- the-u.s/2012/...](https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in- the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/violent-crime/violent-crime)

[http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=00...](http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003627)

<comment><USER7> Violent crime rates are affected by literally hundreds of factors. There can be dozens of factors pushing the rate down and few dozen less pushing the rate up with the end result being we have an overall reduction.

<comment><USER6> Yes! You're right. This is true.

So... if the trend is down, and somehow games are a force for increase in tendencies, then something else is pushing down even faster than games are pushing it up. What might that be?

And what evidence do we have that games are pushing it up at all?

<comment><USER7> This study? That's my point, an overall trend in a statistic with multiple confounding variables says nothing at all about any specific variable. The study is either correct or flawed. The overall crime rate is NOT evidence against nor for the study.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, you're right. Sorry I'm not being clear & maybe sounding argumentative too. I'm really responding not to the study itself, and not to the direct conclusions they make, but to the suggestions and implications they leave open.

The study says one thing, but the presentation says something else, and it is implying that this is a stepping stone to showing that violent games do affect the crime rate, and "negative outcomes" in general for children who play violent video games.

I'm responding to this speculation. You're right that the overall crime rate doesn't say anything about this study, but it does say something about the implication they're trying to make in this press release, and the future work and courses of action they suggest in this study's conclusions.

<comment><USER7> Ah, got it. Yeah, I hate that section of papers; "I've shown small, isolated result X. Perhaps this implies large, wildly extraordinarily speculative claim Y."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I watched a documentary on this the other night, which seemed to imply that the aggression was caused by the level of challenge, not by the onscreen violence. I think this was the study that was cited.

[http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/study-games-link-to- ag...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/study-games-link-to-aggression- comes-from-challenge-not-violence/)

</comment><comment><USER9> To get another perspective on this read this article:

[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/18/apa-studies- video...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/18/apa-studies-video-game- violence/)

<comment><USER10> from the link, emphasis mine: "In 2013, _230_ academics and scientists signed an open letter stating their objection to the claims being made by the APA, calling them "misleading and alarmist"."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A counter point could be that playing violent games would allow people to vent out their aggression in a safe way so that they don't take it out on us. I am curious if there is a study that links playing (violent)sports with more violent tendencies, because the reasoning seems similar. Also it goes without saying correlation != causation(Just for fun please try [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations))

<comment><USER12> There's some research that indicates that the "venting anger" theory leads to the opposite, i.e. more anger, not less.

[1] [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbushman/PSPB02.pdf](http://www- personal.umich.edu/~bbushman/PSPB02.pdf) (quick google, there are certainly better and more up-to-date papers).

<comment><USER11> I skimmed through the paper and they used a punching bag for venting out frustration. I think that and video games are fundamentally different. Punching bag do not give you a sense of objective fulfillment which video games do. Also video games generally have group dynamics, even in quite a few of single player games. But agreeing with you on the broad point, other research papers do suggest that violent games increase aggression. Although another interesting link([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/violent- video-games...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/violent-video- games_n_5112981.html) :the actual paper is behind a paywall) seems to suggest that it is not violence but our failure to master the game play that causes anger.

<comment><USER12> Would be interesting to figure out whether the different methods "used for venting out" anger make any difference. I do agree that playing a game is different from punching a bag though, takes more intellectual skills and such, yet I for one remain convinced that the problem persists – whether it's punching a bag or hunting bots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can certainly believe there's a link. It seems intuitive that a violent individual would be attracted to violent games. But to go from noticing a link to suggesting more stringent parental controls isn't particularly well thought out.

Owning a Porsche has been linked to improved cancer outcomes, let's give luxury sedans to people battling cancer...

<comment><USER10> > It seems intuitive that a violent individual would be attracted to violent > games.

The aggressive people I encounter outside the bars in my town seem to be sports fans and weightlifters, not video game players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> """[...] but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency [...]"""

</comment><comment><USER15> Keep in mind: the APA is also the professional psychological organization that signed-off on torture, and gave it a veneer of medical legitimacy.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/te...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/terror- torture-and-psychology)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american- ps...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american- psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html)

<comment><USER16> In fact there was a minor scandal that senior members of the APA in fact backed CIA rendition / "enhanced interrogation" methods... Hippocratic Oath not withstanding.

<comment><USER17> APA (the one from the linked article) - American Psychological Association - no hippocratic oath - www.apa.org

APA - American Psychiatric Association - hippocratic oath - www.psychiatry.org

According to [1] it was the first of these that it was the psychological association that did this. So a Hippocratic oath violation would not seem to a valid criticism of these guys.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american- ps...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/us/report-says-american- psychological-association-collaborated-on-torture-justification.html)

<comment><USER18> Wow, I didn't even know there were two APAs... Well, I guess this is why trademark protection is a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's also a confirmed link (in western societies) between being poor and being overweight. Though I'm pretty certain we all realise not having money does not cause your body to accumulate fat. Correlation != causation [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)

<comment><USER20> In that case, higher stress, lesser-quality food, limited means to exercise for pleasure, et al. related to being poorer do contribute directly to physical health and being overweight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I feel like something is missing. Aggressive/violent people might have a preference and tendency for violent games (seems obvious, but I don't want to jump to conclusions) over, for example, puzzle, casual sports, adventure, or any other non-violent games.

I grew up on all sorts of violent games and violent anime, and I'd never hurt a fly. I don't even enjoy them that much, but I still enjoy them and play them.

You'll also find various types of players (profiles?) when playing. If you ever see me on the top 3 in the scoreboard, it's probably because I've captured flags rather than because of my Kill/Death ratio. I guess our existing personalities become part of the way we play the game, and not the other way round.

Sounds like a load of rubbish.

</comment><comment><USER6> Spend an hour at any little league soccer game anywhere, and you'll find most parents there shouting and imploring their children to "be more aggressive" the entire game.

I haven't read the full report yet, but this summary on the one hand takes care to separate the research conclusions between "aggressive" behavior and "violent" or "criminal" behavior, even though it doesn't specify what "aggressive behavior" means, and then seems to turn around and intentionally conflate the two for speculation purposes at every turn.

</comment><comment><USER22> Since this task Force is about violent media, it would be very interesting to see how film or music change people. Through out the 80s and 90s we had a bunch of studies linking movie violence to increase aggression, violence in kids, and criminal behavior. Music has also seem to been claimed as an risk factor for delinquency behavior in the last 100 years or so, and before that I assume it was books and poetry.

There does look to be a pattern here, so should we just wait a 20-100 years until games will be proven innocent and the next thing can be blamed?

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been playing video games long enough now that I've seen this as a major claim three times now throughout my life. I'm willing to bet this will fade away the same as the previous two times. I'm close to being convinced this is just a scam to take advantage of an easy target to make money.

</comment><comment><USER24> Eh, I don't know about violence, but I'm pretty sure games teach people to:

Secure a weapon - and use it if necessary for the following:

Secure shelter;

Secure food and water;

Secure transportation;

 _When in a bad situation_. I don't know if it's a bad thing or a good thing.

We've been taught to stick together and help each other in hard times, video games kinda teach us the opposite - fight for yourself/your team and the use of force is acceptable.

Maybe it ingrains itself in our subconsciousness.

Then again, I laugh at how people in The Walking Dead break up in groups that treat each other with extreme suspicion or hostility; surely Americans aren't crazy and would all work together if something bad happened?

</comment><comment><USER25> I think its all about competition and the level of challenge a game has that makes people more aggressive. However I think the aggression fades very quickly.

I play a lot of games. Two games right now fight for my attention HOTS and Mad Max. I actually had to take a break from HOTS this weekend because I had gotten into argument with a friend over a stupid play. So I switched to Mad Max and kind of washed away my anger. Mad Max is not a very frustrating game has just enough challenge for me to stay interested.

With that all said in most cases just breaking from the activity after several minutes I will be back to normal.

</comment><comment><USER26> APA Review Confirms Link Between Watching Scary Movies and Fear

APA Review Confirms Link Between Relaxing on the Beach and Serenity

APA Review Confirms Link Between Reading Nihilistic Poetry and Ennui

Entertainment media are specifically designed to elicit an emotional response. Books, movies, games, music, if they didn't make you feel _something_ then why would you buy it?

If we dislike being afraid so much, why would we seek out a game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent or a movie like Saw? Could it be because despite the emotional response, we're still rational actors with a firm grip on the separation of fantasy and reality?

</comment><comment><USER27> I definitely wouldn't be surprised if there's a link. My immediate concern is whether or not this APA study will give more bait to legislators. It is an election year after all.

</comment><comment><USER28> Give me a break. "Link" should be a huge warning flag that weasel words, non sequiturs, and good 'ol conflations of causation/correlation are ahead.

</comment><comment><USER29> None of these studies are randomized trials. All we've learned is that aggressive kids prefer violent video games to non-violent ones. It's useless.

</comment><comment><USER30> While they're at it, could they research the link between playing pinball games and aggression too?

<comment><USER31> I don't remember ever playing any violent pinball games.

<comment><USER32> I think I understand what he's talking about. I do remember seeing people becoming aggressive while playing games like pong, dig dug and pinball.

Come to think of it I've seen the same kind of aggression in other play as well(Basketball, Tennis, etc).

I have to wonder if the aggression that is mentioned isn't due to violence in those games and due more to frustration?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Lots of video game players coming out of the woodwork in this thread with low- content reckons.

</comment><comment><USER34> Someone should a study to test the link between aggression and assembling IKEA furniture.

<comment><USER35> I think they made a movie about a violent guy who liked IKEA furniture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't know about you guys, but I don't play violent video games because I'm a violent person. I don't even think specifically about the violence.

I think that one of the important outlets of video games is letting you do or experience things that you wouldn't experience in real life.

Even if that means driving a car up the sidewalk at a fancy outdoor mall and running over scores of people.

</comment><comment><USER37> Before we accept this as gospel, can we confirm a link between psychology and science?

</comment><comment><USER38> I really, really doubt it. Take me for example. Mortal Kombat Fatalities were my past time activity, now I feel a bit guilty if I eat beef.

<comment><USER39> Your empathy would be a little more plausible if you did not rip the heart out of the live cow before you ate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this reproducible?

</comment><comment><USER41> What about the link of being aggressive, and playing violent video games?

</comment><comment><USER42> The APA is a joke.

<comment><USER43> On the other hand, if they ship policy with -every review- as just now, and can get rid of the bit where resolutions endorse (getting s'mo data and intervening it where we pay them to get it intervened,) I won't be tempted to shred them to pieces. I mean, put them in a theraputic chilled bath without depth inhibitions, and with appropriately sized workstones. From newsrelease: 'The picture from the survey is more complex than usually covered in news...' faint praise. Mark Appelbaum! I'm callin' you out!</comment></comment>


How Much Electricity Does It Take to Run the Web? - <AUTHOR> http://www.switched.com/2009/10/22/how-much-electricity-does-it-take-to-run-the-web/ <comment><USER2> that sure was a lot of clicking and looking to get to '1.5% of the total US electricity usage'.

</comment><comment><USER3> How much does it _need_ : not much, according to this potato-powered web server

<http://d116.com/spud/>

</comment><comment><USER4> This figure would only be interesting if it were anywhere near the cost of the internet not existing. Without the internet there would, for example, be more car trips to shops which is a less effective use of energy. I am sure there are many other examples of a net saving in energy.

</comment><comment><USER5> So, in other words it's essentially nothing: $4.5B is about 0.3 promille of US GDP.

Or for example, just Apple alone could power a complete web US infrastructure for ~7.5 years with its current cash reserves.

</comment><comment><USER6> Direct link: [http://www.americainfra.com/media/media- news/infographics/da...](http://www.americainfra.com/media/media- news/infographics/datacentres.png)</comment>


YouTube employees say violent threats from creators have been going on for years - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/former-youtube-staffers-say-video-creators-have-threatened-employees-2018-4 <comment><USER2> Basically the article confirms what I wrote back when the shooting occurred ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16754438)): Youtube (and the other social networks!) desperately need a customer support that actually deserves to be called a support.

When you have a service where people's livings depend on, and you take away their income source (in corp doublespeak: demonetize them) AND at the same time offer them only canned responses or, worse, no contact at all, some of them WILL be driven to desperation. Hell, the inhumanity actually IS the word "demonetization": it sounds harmless but it is everything else than that.

And even worse: Youtube has _recognized_ that there is a problem with the consequences their non-existence of a support has, but, typical for US culture, they head for fighting the symptoms (increasing "security") instead of fixing the problem (hire support staff with a decent bit of leeway).

<comment><USER3> I always wondered why tech companies had such an impenetrable inward communication until I came across the following insight:

"If you have a billion users, and 0.1% of them have an issue that requires support on a given day (an average of one support issue per person every three years), and each issue takes 10 minutes on average for a human to personally resolve, then you'd spend 19 person-years handling support issues every day.

If each support person works an eight-hour shift each day then you'd need 20,833 support people on permanent staff just to keep up. Amazing."[0]

It's not necessarily the exact same source that I discovered back then but the idea is the same. Even a tiny portion of customer service would still soak up a large amount of money, perhaps rightfully so, but at the scale some of these companies are, it quickly becomes unsustainable.

[0]: [https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz](https://plus.google.com/+DeWittClinton/posts/1hRWj489oEz)

<comment><USER4> It's a misleading estimate because it doesn't define "user". In the case of YouTube, there are a billion users but only creators would require support.

Maybe there are 100,000 YouTube creators who get paid anything meaningful? (I have no idea, just guessing.) If 0.1% of them require support, that's 100 requests per day. Any moderately successful mom-and-pop SaaS gets that much.

There's no financial reason for Alphabet not to provide personal support to YouTube creators. They just don't want to.

<comment><USER5> What you're suggesting is how it already works. Partnered creators all have access to a creator support email (with a 1 business day SLO). Top partnered creators (aka the "creators who get paid anything meaningful") will also have a partner manager they can contact for 1-1 advice/support/etc.

<comment><USER4> Great. So maybe the bar for support is set too high? Someone making $50 / month on YouTube is meaningless to Google but may spend an enormous amount of time on that content in the hope of a breakout. Those are probably the people whose mental health is most at risk.

It's Alphabet's community, they own it. Extending more support to dedicated members may not make direct business sense but it could be the right thing for long-term community health.

<comment><USER6> But how do you tell those dedicated users apart from all the bot accounts that post millions of hours of garbage backed by a computer voice narrator?

<comment><USER7> Bot accounts won't be calling customer support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is what happens when you promise ad revenue, and then slowly, without any information, begin shadow banning channels and videos, meanwhile YouTube still runs ads and gets the cut. You will get crazy people who depend on YouTube for income, and then without any warning your income is slashed. Did you break the terms? No. Did you get banned? No. You just get 1/8th the views because who knows why?

Well you say to yourself, just go somewhere else. Where? There is no video platform that offers the ability to advertise like YouTube that has even close the amount of eye balls. Well then just use Patreon! Yeah good luck getting people to sign up unless you're wildly popular and do this as your day job. You're basically squeezed into this hole where you were making money, enjoying what you were doing, and trying to build something with YouTube, and now you're trying to read between the lines of what is advertiser friendly and won't get your shadow banned. It's an abusive relationship that people who have money think you should just do something else.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a two-sided coin actually. You cannot blame Youtube for people's choices to go fully dependent on viewer count revenues, it's irresponsible to say the least. But, you can blame Youtube for changing the rules whenever and however they sit fit without considering such grave consequences. This thing with Youtube demonetization is pretty messed up. In any case, would you rather invest in a Ponzi scheme? No, who would be _that_ stupid, right? Right?

<comment><USER10> You absolutely can blame YouTube for encouraging content creators to go "all in".

They are absolutely aware of this and the design of YouTube highly emphasises these metrics (which in turn translate to financial success). They allowed the formation of networks (few successful channels are "independent", finding a network is usually one of the first steps creators take when seeking to become "professional"). Their promos (e.g. Rewind) routinely feature content with high production values that are only possible with financial investment and they actively promote the idea of having YouTube "celebrities" (although lately there has been a shift towards "importing" TV personalities).

What YouTube did was create a culture around their platform that encourages people to go full time and earn money by producing content for YouTube for free and get a cut of the ad revenue in return.

In order to fight creators who gamed the system they then went and created an air of mystery around what content they actively promote (just listen to YouTubers talk about "the algorithm"), leading to various superstitions and conspiracy theories while intentionally driving creators to change the kind of content they create in order to adapt.

Then they pulled the rug underneath creators by secretly demonetising videos, resulting in revenue to drop for seemingly no reason until they made the monetisation status more visible (which sparked the "adpocalypse" drama). At that point many creators diversified their income via patreon but this relied on viewers to actually part with their money, which only worked for channels with very dedicated fans or a consistent level of quality (further adding to the pressure to churn out new content and reach a wider audience).

Meanwhile YouTube has been abandoning the independent creators that drove the site's initial success in favor of big name production studios moving content from TV over to YouTube or creating tie-ins. The independent creators that still do well are mostly the ones heavily relying on clickbait to drive fews and churning out short and shallow content that allows them to feed the algorithm and stay relevant (although even these now often rely on product placement and sponsorship deals).

On the one hand this is a classical story of a startup pivoting as it adapts to market changes and hits problems of scale. On the other hand there is a massive social cost YouTube is all but neglecting to take responsibility for.

YouTube doesn't care how their changes affect the livelihoods of creators. Free market libertarians will say they shouldn't have to care about this and they are absolutely right legally speaking. But let's not pretend the effects those decisions have on real people's lives weren't predictable.

There's the old Web 2.0 joke that "there's nothing social about social media" but YouTube certainly lives up to that. Note that all of this wouldn't be half as bad if YouTube were at all approachable to its creators. Instead, by using an unpredictable "algorithm" to hand out punishments (demonetisation, content claims, strikes) and rewards ("trending", "watch next", etc), YouTube creates a victim mindset which naturally breeds resentment.

EDIT: If anything, YouTube is a high-risk high-reward precursor to other "sharing economy" companies like Uber, except Uber's playing field is much more level.

<comment><USER11> I fail to understand how any of this justifies violence and threats against YouTube employees. Tying your income to an "algorithm" will always be a high risk proposition. The whole field of entertainment video itself has always been a very tough business to break into that carried with it lots of risks. People thought YouTube was easy money, and perhaps for a while it was, but it would be naive to assume that gravy train had any long-term potential.

The world of television is full of stories of pilot episodes that get picked up, are a smash hit for a few seasons, but get cancelled. The producers of those shows didn't have right to shoot up ABC, NBC, or Fox and many just licked their wounds and tried again.

<comment><USER12> People tie their income to Youtube because they think Youtube is fair. They certainly give the impression that it is (we only demonitize terrorist videos, etc.). But because Youtube is completely controlled by a messy algorithm, they don't live up to that impression at all. People find out when it's too late.

<comment><USER10> This is pretty much it.

YouTube disavow their responsibility by deferring their decisions to "the algorithm" and surely you can't blame a machine. But the obvious truth is that they're in control of it and could change it -- even if it is too complicated to predict, nothing is forcing them to use it and they could still replace it with something more predictable but less "error-prone". Instead they chose not to, which means they are entirely responsible for the outcome.

This isn't unique to YouTube either. Plenty of tech companies try to hide behind a wall of maths to justify unethical behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suspect Twitch has/will have the same problems as more creators move over to live shows to fill the gap left by Youtube.

</comment><comment><USER14> so much for "don't be evil"

<comment><USER15> Ridiculous. I work in security. Public facing security names often get threats from organized crime. I'm not at Google, but is what I do evil?

The existence of threats does not mean what you are doing is evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Speed of your thrusts?"

Somebody's gonna get injured.

</comment><comment><USER17> this is totally unsurprising.

</comment><comment><USER18> YouTube and Google are brutalistically antihuman companies. It would be trivially easy for them to solve these problems, but they don't care.

<comment><USER15> Trivially easy to solve violent threats?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Off-topic, but "creators"?

It's funny to think that some people think they can be called "creator" just because they're making and uploading video to the Internet.

Yes, some of those videos are fun to watch, maybe informative, but to be honest, I don't think they "created" anything more than other media did, so why give them that title?

"Producers" maybe better?

<comment><USER20> It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have two different groups of users you need two words.

Also, I think you underestimate how much work goes in to some popular channels. People with millions of subscribers often have production teams that would rival a well funded TV show. It's something I find a little saddening when kids say they want to be a YouTuber as a career choice; they think it's a guy in his bedroom with a camera and a laptop. It _really_ isn't.

<comment><USER19> > It differentiates them from "consumers" who watch the videos. When you have > two different groups of users you need two words.

So the "consumer" is the viewer, and "creator" is the video maker/uploader.

Well, that make more sense when you put those two words inside the YouTube circle.

Thank you and corobo for explaining.</comment></comment></comment>


The Introverted Leader - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/startup-grind/the-introverted-leader-b1d84c2bc974 <comment><USER2> "Marissa Mayer, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steven Spielberg"

Most of the people listed here essentially built their own businesses. You don't really need to network and schmooze your way to the top when the top isn't even built yet.

How about people that started out as a non-executive at a company and worked their way through management and then to a top executive position? I'm guessing this is much less common for introverts (but more of a common leadership position) because you need to network and interact with people constantly and effectively.</comment>