IRS claims to have lost 2 years of Director's emails - <AUTHOR> http://waysandmeans.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=384506 <comment><USER2> I've seen a fair number of comments assuming malfeasance here, so I'm just gonna note an actual news article about this. From [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3217839...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=321783982)

> The IRS said technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from > Lerner's computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said > they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency's criminal > investigations unit. But to no avail.

> The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 > because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency said it pieced > together the emails from the computers of 82 other IRS employees.

So, reading between the lines here, it looks like the IRS doesn't archive email at the server level, and any copies of mail were retrieved from individual workstations.

I don't see conspiracy here. I see incompetent IT processes and a lack of mandated data retention policies. Maybe I'm predisposed to employ Hanlon's razor, but that's only because I've found it to be the best explanation for most situations like this. If it was a coverup, it's a terrible one.

<comment><USER3> >I see incompetent IT processes and a lack of mandated data retention policies.

Having worked in government for well over a decade now, I can tell you that this is undoubtedly the case. That is not to say all departments have poor practices, but on the whole there is no standardization and each organization does things differently.

I have worked in offices that have NO server archive and everyone relies on PST's, and others where there are server archives but they are limited to 500MB or something small and they just start deleting items by date.

<comment><USER4> No, it is not "undoubtedly" the case. There would be a lot of incentives in "losing" those years of emails.

<comment><USER3> I really do think Hanlon's razor applies here. I don't disagree that the incentive is there, but I think the total failure of the USG to do technology correctly is the more likely culprit. I can tell you from first hand experience that I know of very senior people who have lost months of data from what would be a simple migration or corrupted virtual instance. Boggles the mind really.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. A lot of it has to do how government contracts for IT support. Contracts quickly get out of date. The contractors are also all trying to lock themselves in.

It's common for the contractor to own all the IT equipment and just lease it to the government. What happens when it's time to change contracts and every single computer, phone, printer has to be replaced. There is no possibility for competitive bidding in the wake of that.

<comment><USER6> Yep. This is the biggest unspoken scandal in government. It has probably taken years off of my life. The whole system is in shambles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And yet if I "lost" 2 years of financial records...

<comment><USER8> Then you would probably try to piece together your tax liability through indirect methods, completely analogous to what they did here to recover the emails. What did you expect they'd do?

Say, if you claimed $1000 in charitable donations but lost the receipts and got audited, you'd probably be able to go to the organization you donated to get their records. If they couldn't produce them, you'd probably have the deduction disallowed and have to pay back taxes + interest.

If you're going to try to glibly score points, chose a better example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wonder if the NSA can provide copies... ;)

<comment><USER10> I came here to post this joke. damn, damn, damn!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If one does one's job so poorly that no one can tell if one engaged in criminal activity while doing it or not, shouldn't that be grounds for permanent removal from government service?

It would only take a handful of examples and this stuff would go away.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't decide if this smacks more of Iran-Contra or of Nixon. C'mon, the excuse of 'irretrievable' emails has been nonsense for some decades:

[http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-10/business/fi-58_1_comp...](http://articles.latimes.com/1987-08-10/business/fi-58_1_computer- files)

</comment><comment><USER13> Rather convenient? I would love to see how they manage their IT resources.

<comment><USER14> To see whether something is amiss statistically, we'd have to also check whether data of no consequence goes missing at the same frequency.

If organizations are really bad at storing data, but it only gets tested with important queries, incompetence is going to look a lot like malice (I make no case for which this particular incident is).

Of course, I've painted somewhat of a false dichotomy. If you are required by policy to retain email, doing so is unlikely to give you any benefit and may well cause severe political problems.

The most logical thing to do is severely understaff and underbudget the sysadmins responsible. Then, when the backups are needed, there's a significant chance they'll be nowhere to be found, and you've saved money in the process too.

That would be malicious incompetence, so to speak.

<comment><USER15> Seems like an application of Hanlon's Razor[1], with an important extension:

> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, > _unless that stupidity is adequately explained by malice._

I'd like to coin this extension Hanlon's Exception.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor)

<comment><USER16> I'm a fan of Gray's Law: _" Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice"_

That is to say, if you "fuck up" bad enough, why should society give a shit that you did not have malicious intent? Much like drunk driving, I think that this is a fine case for strict liability.

<comment><USER17> What is the good you hope to accomplish by this? The reason we have the idea of intent encoded in the law is not because intentional acts are more harmful, but because inflicting severe penalties on people for things they can't even have known they were doing wrong or didn't mean to do is both contrary to the idea of justice and ineffective as a deterrent. The idea of throwing out the principle of mens rea just because the results of something were bad is both anti-utilitarian and contrary to the idea of justice. (Especially since the bar for "bad enough" is apparently low enough to include "not fastidiously keeping manually generated email archives". Jaywalkers beware!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And in the same time, IRS managed to give taxpayer data to FBI. Of course some very specific taxpayers have been included in the data dump:

[http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/06/irs-gave- fbi-1...](http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/06/irs-gave- fbi-1-1-million-pages-of-taxpayer-data-to-encourage-prosecution-of- conservatives.php)

<comment><USER19> They targeted progressive groups to a greater extent, based on the information we have. [http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2014/04/23/3429722/irs- rec...](http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2014/04/23/3429722/irs-records-tea- party/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> And here are the IRS's own standards for e-mail: [http://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/irm_01-010-003.html](http://www.irs.gov/irm/part1/irm_01-010-003.html)

of note: section 188.8.131.52.3 (07-08-2011) Emails as Possible Federal Records

5\. Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.

[edit] a video of a committee meeting [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6QGmKhRwo&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6QGmKhRwo&feature=youtu.be)

</comment><comment><USER21> At least people might honestly believe Lerner and the IRS lost 2 years of email. That level of incompetence is expected of bureaucrats, and it's harder to prove misconduct than if you hid communications through an alias like Lisa Jackson at the EPA did.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone have expertise on whether there are any regulations on proper storage of government data? Does anyone know how an agency like the IRS would store their company email and if their claim is a feasible possibility?

<comment><USER23> Simple test: Has any other IRS employee lost all their email messages covering the exact same period?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Rather than take a political side in this, I'd rather look at it pragmatically. If the IRS expects us to keep proper records, then they should set the example for us to follow.

</comment><comment><USER25> You know, as a matter of fact... I don't recall working the last two years. I also lost all of my tax records. That's not a problem right?

</comment><comment><USER26> How many businesses are _required_ to store, archive, and always have ready access to email for "compliance" reasons (i.e. by law they have to, laws which are enforced by guns)? If the IRS doesn't have to follow the same rules, well that's very interesting.

What I wonder is, how do such people (Lerner, Holder, Obama) still have _any_ credibility in the minds of those who vote for them?

(well, those who vote for them receive their information through filters, just like you and me, and so they'll probably never know that these hard drives, laptops, data, "disappeared")

Which leads to the follow-up question: how can we get this news to reach those who vote for these people, given they (or their filters) would avoid such a story in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER27> There's at least two clear incentives here.

Losing the evidence means the hole in Smaug's armor is temporarily patched for when it flies in to Laketown.

Secondly, losing the evidence means they get an innocuous selling point when they request a bigger budget to implement that arcane task of backing up files.

</comment><comment><USER28> The most interesting claim is that only email from outside the agency has been "lost".

<comment><USER29> well, considering they are claiming its only emails from the director, any email sent to her from inside would be available as a sent email from that person.

<comment><USER26> True ... if you know who was sending her email. And then we found out the White House had created hundreds of "fake" email accounts with names belonging to no actual human working in the White House ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Should be easy to fix, criminally charge those involved with obstruction of justice, declare it an issue of national security and request that the NSA provide these emails.

Where are the drives, where are the backups? Why haven't the drives been sent to 3rd parties for extraction including reading platters directly.

<comment><USER2> This appears to have been an individual workstation (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7891622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7891622)), and the problem seems to have occurred in 2011, before this became a political issue. It's possible that nobody thought that it was an important enough problem to warrant sending the disks out for 3rd party forensics.

<comment><USER30> I find it difficult to believe that an organization that advocates keeping coffee receipts for 7 years wouldn't have an email archiving solution in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It is interesting to see the responses both ways here: those who think there is malfeasance and those who don't, both with various reasonings. It would be more interesting to see the same posts next to the author's political leaning. i.e. how many people have an opinion that reflects something outside their own inherit political bias.

</comment><comment><USER32> The NSA will have a copy. Ask them.

</comment><comment><USER33> Bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER34> Republican logic: Demand the strictest most penny pinching policies from the IRS while you are defunding them[1]. Complain when said defunding affects one of your pet issues because they can't afford a central server and store every email on local machines [2].

This is the same sort of stupidity that we see on parade every time they fight tooth and nail to get some borderline unconstitutional religious law passed only to the the fastest about face imaginable when they find out that "religion" doesn't main "only my religion" in law.

[1] [http://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2012-Annual- Report/irs-f...](http://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2012-Annual-Report/irs- funding/)

[2] [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3217839...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=321783982)

<comment><USER35> Is the 'us vs them' attitude really so strong in your mind? Do you think it's perfectly reasonable for an organization that spends $1.5billion on IT to be unable to retain their _directors_ email? I can't help but think that your opinion would be different if this was email between oil executives.

<comment><USER34> "Do you think it's perfectly reasonable for an organization that spends $1.5billion on IT to be unable to retain their directors email?"

You do realize that the IRS it budget is spent on trying to keep a database of every American running for ever on $5 a years per person? Email servers don't have anything to do with that. And having seem "cost cutting" measures in both government and industry the "non-essential" services like a centralized email server would be the first to go.

So yes, it is, you get the government you pay for.

<comment><USER35> Surely organizations will always point to a lack of funding in response to a lack of performance. But I find it odd that they were certainly able to spare the time and budget to target opposition groups. Yet nothing was in the budget to keep any record of their actions.

<comment><USER34> "johngalt"

Oh I thought for a second I was talking to a non-troll. My bad.

<comment><USER16> Way to not address his point. Who is the _real_ troll?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> HN is going to have trouble with this one: The techno-utopianism clashes with messianic politics of the chosen one.

</comment><comment><USER37> The IRS is a violation of individual rights and should be dismantled. It is not in anyone's true self-interest. People who are actually pursuing their own self-interest are hurt by it, only those that are not receive the "benefits" of it.

<comment><USER38> How you plan on funding the army? Pillage?

<comment><USER39> could use corporate taxes. Note the top poster said "individual rights".

<comment><USER38> Hey, companies are people too.

<comment><USER39> companies are most certainly people; corporations are not. Don't like corporate taxes? Do business as a partnership.

Of course corporations should enjoy freedom of speech, etc (because to curtail those necessarily curtails some individual's freedom), but do they get to vote? No.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vinod Khosla Wants Californians To Keep Out of Martins Beach - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2014/01/27/264901370/california-fights-billionaire-s-keep-out-sign-for-beach-access <comment><USER3> I think Vinod's kinda being a douche here. All of the positive street cred he is getting for his promotion of green energy is being lost to this fight. I mean, is it worth having the private beach? Why not keep it open to the public, upgrade the access, and actually reap some positive PR from this?

This is the kind of stuff protesters hate about rich techies. Apparently, this beach was historically used for a long time to teach surfing by local surf schools. A guy swoops in, who probably will rarely use this beach/vacation home, buys up the land, and closes off access. Attempts to "hack" the legal system through a loophole to achieve an exception to the state wide public beach system.

If he had been appreciative of the history of the beach and local surfers, he could have actually got some benefit out of it, maybe built some local facilities people would pay to use, add some exhibits on Khosla investments, etc. It would have generated positive press and positive externalities instead of negative press and negative externalities.

I like Vinod, but this just comes off as being a rich jerk.

<comment><USER4> I know, I know I sound like a dick here, but I think this is one of those cases where his being born and raised in India is a contributing factor. Indian culture is vastly different than ours, including a very high "power distance" measurement compared to typical Western nations.

In India, if you're rich (or even middle class), you have servants and you do what you want. In his view, this is his, and he doesn't have to share it with the lesser people.

Sure, many people born in America would do this too, but they would possibly feel a bit more guilty about it.

<comment><USER5> Actuallly, he's kind of a dick anyways. He once gave an interview with the BBC about IIT's where he said that the IIT's were so difficult that he "cruised through the CMU master's program". Later, it was revealed that at the time he attended, the IIT's had a 5 year bachelor's program; something that he conveniently forgot to mention.

<comment><USER6> What's IIT and CMU? SVP?

<comment><USER7> Indian Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a very interesting and complicated case.

The judge's ruling skirts the fundamental conflict between the rights of private property owners and the rights of Californians to access the shoreline. Instead, Judge Buchwald rooted his decision in the land's history during the mid-19th century. Since there was no public easement attached to the property at the time the United States acquired California from Mexico, the judge reasoned, the question of whether the California Constitution now guarantees access to the beach is immaterial.

The original owner of the property was Jose Maria Alviso, who received a provisional land grant from the Mexican government in the late 1830s. He later transferred the property to his brother, Jose Antonio Alviso, whose rights to the property were upheld under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which settled the Mexican-American War. The U.S. government challenged Alviso's land patent, but the Supreme Court confirmed Alviso's ownership in 1859.

All that complicated history led Buchwald to a basic conclusion: The nation's high court exempted this property from the full reach of California law.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking- news/ci_24380282/vinod-k...](http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking- news/ci_24380282/vinod-khosla-wins-key-martins-beach-battle)

<comment><USER9> If you read on, the situation is actually even more complicated than just this part of the explanation. Yes, the state Constitution guarantees access, but what can the state really do if someone rightfully owns property blocking access that doesn't contain an easement?

It sounds to me like the typical course of action is that the costal commission won't issue permits for any modifications without strings attached (i.e. an easement). So, Khosla may be able to hang on to his land with no easement, but he won't be able to do anything with it, close the road, or build on it without negotiating with the CC. There is a second lawsuit pending regarding the closure of the road that may make more headway on this basis.

<comment><USER10>
      what can the state really do if someone rightfully
      owns property blocking access that doesn't contain an
      easement?

Claiming property for public use, such as the construction of roads, is the purpose of eminent domain [1].

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

<comment><USER11> And this isn't even the bullshitty "a larger tax base is a valid use of eminent domain" argument either, where the state takes something for cheap, then sells it for cheap to a developer who then builds a giant resort. This is the ACTUAL, PROPER use of such an authorization in the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a bay area tech worker I'm hurt twice by this. First I'm robbed of access to a beautiful beach and second my standing in the community is tarnished further. With leaders like Perkins and Khosla I can hardly blame bay area natives for thinking we're all entitled and out of touch. The worst part is we have to take the brunt of the rage while we get on the bus to make more money for these people.

<comment><USER13> Have you seen what happens when holiday food drive barrels are brought front- and-center to techie venues? Basically empty. Go to any Midwestern state whether an office or a supermarket, and these same barrels are most often overflowing. The generosity and consideration of the less fortunate should shame and humble more people than it does.

<comment><USER14> I can't speak for other techies but I will _never_ buy canned food for food drives. It's one of the least efficient ways to donate.

Instead I write a check which helps far, far more. Here's an article on the subject: [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/food...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/food_drives_charities_need_your_money_not_your_random_old_food_.html)

An overflowing food barrel represents very little in value, compared to the large cash donations made by wealthy techies. Cash donations are buying entire warehouses of food that you just aren't seeing.

<comment><USER15> My girlfriend volunteers full-time for the local food pantry. It was formerly an independent nonprofit, but a few years ago it was taken over by United Way.

Since then, any and all cash donations, given on site at the pantry itself, are funnelled to United Way. The pantry never sees a single cent of the money and United Way does not provide any food (UW employs two people and sends a truck periodically that delivers food from an unaffiliated food bank). No one who works there has any idea where the money goes or what happens to it. The employees there are not allowed to explain this to donors. The donors, of course, have no idea either.

The pantry is only allowed to keep tangible foodstuffs that are donated directly to them, which they can then give to people who need it. The pantry often runs out of certain types of food. When they do, there's nothing they can do but hope someone will donate more of that specific item, meanwhile watching as the cash donations that could be used to buy it get sent away.

I realize this sounds implausible and I can't cite any sources for it[1]. Just be careful about the assumptions you make regarding where the money goes. Food is food and people can eat it. Money can get funnelled or turned into other things, and unless you're there to watch it happen, you don't know what's going on.

[1]: Howevever, if you haven't already, read the Wikipedia page on United Way sometime and see if you can figure out what it is that they actually do, other than collect money, build bureaucracy and get involved in major scandals.

<comment><USER16> You could check [http://www.charitynavigator.org/](http://www.charitynavigator.org/) to see what ratio of the money goes to programs vs. admin costs and funding costs. The navigator has many entries for United Way as it seems each region has its own organisation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Vinod is a very, very hardball negotiator.

Having taken money from him myself, I advise that nobody else ever do so.

<comment><USER17> It looks like some explanation is in order. :)

1\. I founded a company called Evernet in the 1980s, funded by Kleiner Perkins and others. Vinod negotiated against at least one founder, me, hard. Then KP made sad but traditional VC errors along the lines of changing the company's strategy from a good idea to a bad one, bringing in the wrong operating management and all that.

2\. So I tracked news and anecdotes. Vinod prided himself on being a tough negotiator on behalf of his portfolio companies. But various other stories of negotiating hard against entrepreneurs were out there.

I should clarify that in the 1980s, even more than recently, there was a general screw-the-founder philosophy among VCs. I once asked a popular and likeable VC what some rules of thumb were for equity splits. After some back and forth, the VC said "You don't get it, Curt -- it's whatever we can get away with." But Vinod seemed like a particularly tough exemplar of the trend.

3\. I advise 20-30+ tech companies at a time. Most are VC-backed startups. Khosla is the 2nd-worst target of negative VC anecdotes I hear, details of which must however remain confidential.

<comment><USER18> Nice, thanks!

Just for gossip, what's the worst one?

<comment><USER17> I haven't figured out a reasonable way to make it non-confidential yet. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I truly don't understand how this can be an okay state of affairs... Beaches, at least here in Australia (and at least where I live in south east Queensland) are public. Even though yeah there are millionaires that own beautiful properties on the beaches here on the Gold Coast, we all get to use them, and access them via paths that the city council own.

Can someone explain how blocking off access to a beach works here? Is it because the access paths are privately owned?

<comment><USER20> Judging by the article, beach is only accessible through private road, dude bought the property containing the road and closed the road. Perfectly within his rights. And this rhetoric about "billionaire putting a strain on a state agency" is laughable.

<comment><USER21> Actually you're completely wrong.

If your property blocks access to another's property, you have to give up a slice of your land to provide access for the other property's owner. You can't simply buy up all the land around a property and then close off access. This is called an easement.

In this case the other property is the beach, which is owned by the government, no different than any other property. Khosla has no right to deny access to this property just because his home abuts it. The only issue here is an obscure treaty, apparently, but that will sort itself out.

<comment><USER20> Good point, some things are not completely clear though - there is still access by water, and since they own all coastland, by definition they have access through their own property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm going to guess that if this goes to court, it will be decided in favor of the public.

If California has a law stating beaches are public land, it doesn't really make much sense if someone else is allow to prevent you from accessing it.

It's sort of like saying you have "freedom of speech", but then banning all forms of communication.

<comment><USER23> I remember reading this story a few years ago, maybe two or three.

Why hasn't this gone to court already?

<comment><USER9> Did you read the story? -- it went to court and Khosla won. Apparently the land rights stem from the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which predates California statehood, therefore the CA Constitution doesn't apply.

<comment><USER23> Yes just skimmed it again. Maybe I missed a reference but I can't see it. I did read the MercuryNews link posted elsewhere, interesting stuff, but my conclusion is still the same: Vinod Khosla is being a real jerk here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Malibu has similar problems, except residents put up fake signs and blocked/obscured access. A nice lady even made an iPhone app to document this knowledge: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/our-malibu- beaches/id5656361...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/our-malibu- beaches/id565636167?mt=8)

<comment><USER24> Yes, that was Jenny Price. Here's an article she wrote about this issue in 2003. The app was released last year. This is a long-term fight.

[http://www.californiacoastaltrail.info/cms/pages/trail/price...](http://www.californiacoastaltrail.info/cms/pages/trail/price.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> California should have adopted public access rights like Hawaii a long time ago. For example, from [http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/public-access- rights](http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/public-access-rights):

Q: How should the public access beaches and shorelines that are blocked by houses?

A: If private homeowners are obstructing existing public rights-of-way to the shoreline, HRS § 115-9 provides a remedy and up to a $2000 penalty for that kind of situation.

<comment><USER26> Because a $2000 fine is totally going to deter _a billionaire_.

<comment><USER27> Something like how California does prop 65 warnings would be awesome; 50% of an $x000 fine for each violation reported by each person, per day. I'd be happy to spend an hour or two every morning racking up a new violation (and swimming), and I'm sure busloads of poor people could do the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This sort of thing has been happening in the U.S. probably ever since there has been a U.S. At common law, the waters of the state were held in trust by the state for the public, and the beach between the water and high tide line were part of this trust. People were held to have a right to access and use this public property for purposes like fishing, bathing, cleaning clothes, etc. This concept dates back to Roman times. There is an amusing case in 1892, where the Supreme Court reversed a sale by the City of Chicago of the submerged land along the shore of Lake Michigan to a railroad company, holding that the transfer was invalid because the public trust land could not be alienated: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Central_Railroad_v._Il...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Central_Railroad_v._Illinois).

Because this concept is well-entrenched, rich people, have resorted to buying up the land adjacent to the public beaches and cutting off access that way. Some states have responded by requiring private property owners adjacent to beaches to provide reasonable access to the public through their property. This particular conflict isn't any different than conflicts that are happening all over the country over beach access. Incidentally, it's quite amusing to me to watch Silicon Valley techies' sense of "but no, really, we're different!" idealism slowly come crashing down as they realize that there is nothing new under the sun. "Rich guy tries to block beach access" wouldn't even elicit a reaction from a Floridian.

</comment><comment><USER29> What everyone needs to do is call up Khosla Ventures and ask to borrow Vinod's "douche canoe" so they can paddle to the beach.

</comment><comment><USER30> A phone app helps the public find access further south in Malibu. [http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201308091630/b](http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201308091630/b)

<comment><USER31> Martin's Beach is a place just south of Half Moon Bay, nowhere near Malibu.

<comment><USER30> It was an example of citizens working around landowner's private interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder what the future is of the homes on Martins Beach.

A few years ago, I was considering buying a home near Half Moon Bay, and at the time a few different "houses" on Martins Beach were available...for incredibly low prices. Forget that the homes are basically one bedroom cottages, they're on the beach!

I inquired about it and learned that the homes are on leased land, and the leases were guaranteed only for another 12 years. No idea what happens when they expire, and if this deal is something Khosola is interested in continuing.

</comment><comment><USER33> Note that he can only keep people out who want to cross his land to reach the beach. If they come in by boat, and stay between the ocean and the high tide mark, he's got nothing.

I wonder if one could make a profit with a shuttle boat service to bring people to and from the beach for a small fee?

<comment><USER34> I think it would be better to set up a homeless shelter there and take supplies there to keep it operating.

<comment><USER27> Twice a day you'd need to move (and during any heavy waves); you have to stay below high-tide. Building structures in the water itself is itself a CC permit activity (as well as potentially involving the coast guard and army corps of engineers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Interestingly Khosla is a former partner in Kleiner Perkins who invested in... Google. So this sort of thing runs in the family.

</comment><comment><USER36> 'The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.' \--Mahatma Gandhi

</comment><comment><USER37> It'd be interesting to see the government just build a road to the beach as a workaround.

If there is the political will, the government can win regardless - <USER2> could, if for no other reason than to deter future land-owners, make a tourist attraction out of this beach and completely ruin it for the land-owner.

</comment><comment><USER38> Someone will eventually break down the gate and just drive down the road anyway.

It will be interesting to see if the cops prioritize showing up when they do.

</comment><comment><USER39> This assumes the title of the "original owner" of the land was valid. Somehow I think there just may be some legitimate claims that go further back than to someone of Spanish descent in the 1830s.

</comment><comment><USER40> What's that I smell? It smells like... opportunity!

Find a parking lot somewhere along the coast. Run a boat from there to Martin's Beach. Charge enough that you make a bit of money, but don't be greedy. You'll get to be on the beach every day, making money while you're at it.

Yeah, I know, you're going to have to get a commercial license and all, but... somebody ought to go for this.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sounds like a great spot to set up a hacker commune!

<comment><USER42> Drag the Google barge there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have to say, this puts Vinod Khosla markedly ahead of Tom Perkins.

<comment><USER44> I really don't think this rises to the level of "advocating increases in taxes on the wealthy is equivalent to the Holocaust"...

<comment><USER43> It's actually worse. One is just speech, the other is stealing property from California.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Off topic: the cliff in the first picture totally looks like the place where the Jackie Treehorn party is being held in The Big Lebowski. Is that it?

</comment><comment><USER46> "stay out of malibu, lebowski!"

</comment><comment><USER47> The story is - he closed off a private road on his private land that leads to the "public" beach.

Before him, the previous owner charged a fee to use the private road/property.

The media seems to be avoiding these points at all costs, which completely changes the story.

</comment><comment><USER48> Beaches have to be public in almost all countries. It is a very sensible thing to do. Private Property rights are sacrosanct but if every buyer knows that he can not have a private beach, he can refrain from buying it in first place.

</comment><comment><USER49> Vinod Khosala should allow public access to the beach with slight modification. Just charge $3000 access fee per person. If state didn't mind previous owner charging $3, charging $3000 should not be issue.

</comment><comment><USER50> [http://books.google.com/books/about/To_Have_Or_To_Be.html?id...](http://books.google.com/books/about/To_Have_Or_To_Be.html?id=JvG85s966koC)

</comment><comment><USER51> The problem is with the California law which should not only make the beach public, but there must be reasonable access to that beach.

</comment><comment><USER52> The first comment on the article is brilliant. Let's crowdsource helicopter rides to the beach for an all-day surf party.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sounds like Khosla aren't going to invest in flying cars :)

</comment><comment><USER54> Time to build a bridge over vinod's property!

</comment><comment><USER55> Haha, I'm going this weekend...

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow.

Talk about showing one's true colors.

</comment><comment><USER57> As far as I'm concerned, this sort of move merits Paris 1793 treatment.

The new good-ol'-boy network, the cancer cells of humanity's body, have made a statement: "We're going to take more and more every day, and we're not going away unless you force us". Time for some hard-core chemo. It's painful, but sometimes it's the only option for survival.

The statement is clear. So why waste time arguing? Why foolishly believe that you can peacefully outperform them when they will fund your competitors to spite you, use their own social contacts to ruin your reputation, and continue to corrupt every institution (high-minded or base) from government to education to business? Time to fuck some shit up. If there is a God, these are times to live by his (or her, or its) law.

</comment><comment><USER58> It's his property. And the state is threatening to reject his development permits if he doesn't cave to their will.

Fuck the city government. I hope he can keep his private land private.

</comment><comment><USER59> Maybe he does not want to be disturbed while sunbathing on the beach so that he can really enjoy the _Sun_.

<comment><USER60> I would hope (though I'm probably wrong) that people would know his history with Sun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm sorry but I'm just sick of the fat fks who need to drive to a beach then trespass across someone else land because they are so lazy any attempt at adventure doesn't satisfy their need for instant gratification.

Why not leave the beach as it is, a secluded beach you need to kayak to, or take a motor boat if you really must be lazy.

Things earned have value, this constant need to have a road to everything I find so sad.</comment>


Why the markets are like an epileptic brain - <AUTHOR> http://english.themarker.com/why-the-markets-are-like-an-epileptic-brain-1.360434

<comment><USER2> tl;dr

The boom in the use of index-linked instruments in the US financial markets since 2001 has caused an unhealthy herd of market players moving in lockstep creating a lack of healthy resilience which culminated in the 2008 financial crisis.

<comment><USER2> One wonders if on the basis of this research, a case can be made for the banning of index-linked instruments.</comment></comment>


Asynchronous IO in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://dwrensha.github.io/capnproto-rust/2015/05/25/asynchronous-io-with-promises.html

<comment><USER2> Does that mean we can soon expect Node.js-like competitors written in Rust?</comment>


Ask HN: How you promote your web apps? - <AUTHOR> Hello HNers,<p>I do not have any profile on any social media sites, meaning no followers. I am working on a web app. How can I promote my web app? <comment><USER2> Pay them ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19630181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19630181)).

Other reasonable suggestions include: \- Post on producthunt \- Post on reddit \- Google Ads \- Facebook page \- Cold-emails \- Word of mouth \- Business cards \- Scour the internet for forums related to your web apps

The best success I've had has come from winning the HN lottery, I got on the front page. Otherwise paying people was 2nd. I don't have a 3rd option that has worked well enough yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also try Show HN, if not for the views, it might get picked up by someone else.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a channel, most subreddits consider it spam, producthunt is cliquish, facebook and google cost money, and google search does not pick up unpopular stuff since years ago.

I wonder if we should revive the concept of webrings. Anyone has any ideas ?

<comment><USER4> The space for small apps like spreadsheet2website, community website, CRM, ERP to name a few are all niches with existing major competitor. Maybe the time of low hanging fruits has passed and it is time to make the brain work.

There might be room for small innovations but without network, like OP, I doubt it will work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone shared this in IndieHacker recently [https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup](https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup)</comment>


Every family basically pays an $8k 'poll tax' under the U.S. health system - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/07/every-american-family-basically-pays-an-poll-tax-under-us-health-system-top-economists-say/ <comment><USER2> I love the article's parenthetical explanation of its click-bait headline. In the U.S., "poll tax" usually refers to voting taxes used to disenfranchise black people. U.S. writers on tax issues thus generally refer to "head taxes" or use the Constitution's term "capitation."

</comment><comment><USER3> It can cost a million dollars to become a doctor in the US. Less if you go to public schools and pinch pennies during your time at school but still half a million or more.

Doctors earn high salaries because if they didn't we wouldn't be able to convince kids to become doctors. We already have a severe shortage of geriatric doctors because kids don't want to enter the field and get paid Medicare rates after accumulating a mountain of debt.

No easy solutions. We have built this problem up over many decades and it will take many painful decades to unwind it all.

<comment><USER4> Make becoming a doctor cheaper?

Teaching isn't _inherently_ expensive - you can do an online e-learning based system with online tests for 90% of the course content. This whole idea of having prestigious universities with limited class sizes to maintain exclusivity isn't helping the nation.

<comment><USER3> That's not an easy solution. Entire economies revolve around education costs. Not to mention there are tens of thousands of doctors that already paid the sky high costs. What do we do with them?

This problem is deeply entrenched into the American economy. Tentacles everywhere. Nothing exists in isolation that can be easily and painlessly fixed with the flick of a pen.

<comment><USER5> You don't do anything for them, you let time and the market sort things out rather than trying to engineer any kind of solution.

Just decrease the cost of becoming and practicing as a doctor and you'll eventually get more doctors who will have to compete, and thus decrease their own fees.

What are the relevant costs? How many of them are imposed by the government?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> pay wall.

<comment><USER7> Here you go: [https://outline.com/nHcEqX](https://outline.com/nHcEqX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems the article has confused cause and effect. US health care costs haven't caused poor health. Poor health has caused US health care costs.

40% of American adults are obese. Obesity causes heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Diseases raise a person's health care costs. Costs do not make that person obese.

It's also not a head tax, because healthy people don't pay it. Obese people need to accept personal responsibility for their condition and stop trying to leech off the system.

<comment><USER4> It's very rare to hear someone say "I won't eat this burrito - I won't be able to afford the diabetes treatment in 50 years".

<comment><USER9> It's much worse than this.

Dr: "Stop eating burritos and soda or you will need insulin"

Average Joe: "Ok just give me insulin."

Type 2 is largely reversible by diet and exercise. But people would rather just eat burritos and be sick.</comment></comment></comment>


Apache James – Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server - <AUTHOR> https://james.apache.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just found that while searching for servers with JMAP support ([https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jmap&sort=byPopularity&prefix&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=jmap&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)), and it seems James was not yet discussed on HN. The project seems alive enough ([https://github.com/apache/james-project](https://github.com/apache/james- project)).

Does anyone have some experience running this?</comment>


Parsing with Derivatives: A Functional Pearl (2011) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/papers/might2011derivatives.pdf <comment><USER2> Parsing is hard. I've worked at several companies where I was literally the only person who understood how to write a recursive descent parser and similarly the only person who understood how maintain or modify parsers of any sort.

The thing is, recursive descent, already fairly hard, seems several steps easier to me than a construct like function-derivatives (or parser- combinators).

And as far as I call follow this paper, the process seems similar to recursive descent except instead of generating code, you generate a bunch of the insides of the code and apply it as an array or something.

And that's thing. The view of process is nice and regular for someone who likes to look at languages abstractly but you have to be leveraging a lot of the laziness of functional languages to make this work.

So altogether, I tend to question whether approaches are really worth the effort.

<comment><USER3> Having worked with both recursive descent and parser combinators, I can say that I strongly prefer parser combinators. Haskell has some libraries that are fast, easy to use, and have good documentation.

I've never managed to find a parser combinator library that I love outside of the Haskell family of languages. I'm not sure why that is.

<comment><USER4> It might have something to do with most parsing libraries having a Monad/Monoid and Alternative type. Those two together give a truly excellent programmer experience for writing pragmatic, readable, and _correct_ parsers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Delighted to see they called their proof of concept library `derp` for derivative parser :-)

[http://www.ucombinator.org/projects/parsing/](http://www.ucombinator.org/projects/parsing/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This paper is hilarious, and Matt & co are geniuses. It's 6 1/2 pages long and contains a number of gems:

        Since a context-free language is a recursive regular language, it is tempting to use the same code for computing the derivative. From the perspective of parsing, this has two chief drawbacks: 1. It doesn't work. 2. It wouldn't produce a parse forest even if it did.

<comment><USER7> You can't use indentation for block quoting on HN

> Since a context-free language is a recursive regular language, it is > tempting to use the same code for computing the derivative. From the > perspective of parsing, this has two chief drawbacks: 1\. It doesn't work. > 2\. It wouldn't produce a parse forest even if it did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm working on a type-inferencer for the Joy language (purely functional, stack-based, concatinative) and I wanted to be able to specify a kind of Kleene star type variable that can stand for zero or more of some other type. I realized I could use Brzozowski's derivative of the K-star at the right place in the unification algorithm. You "split the universe" into two and in one the K-star variable disappears and in the other it "spawns" a new type variable of it's, uh, "starred type". In both cases unification proceeds as normal. It seems to work fine.

The fact that you can splice the Kleene star part of the dRE algorithm into the unification algorithm suggests that you should be able to do the same with the other parts of it and be able to specify union types and intersection types. I'm kinda out of my league I think, and a lot of the papers that seems relevant are behind paywalls.

</comment><comment><USER9> Scala implementation from one of the authors here: [https://github.com/djspiewak/parseback](https://github.com/djspiewak/parseback)</comment>


An Invitation To Technology Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/09/an_invitation_t.html Business-technology startups have a new channel for getting the word out about their products and services. InformationWeek will begin highlighting startups each week in a new section of the magazine called Startup City. Emerging tech companies: Tell us about your bright ideas! <comment><USER2> That is a very useful link!

Thanks!</comment>


All About Polymorphics (1960) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/356421222 <comment><USER2> The system they're talking about appears to be the TRW RW-400, the programmer's manual of which happens to be on Bitsavers[1].

There goes my evening.

[1] [http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/trw/rw-400/AN- FSQ-27_...](http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/trw/rw-400/AN- FSQ-27_RW-400_Programming_Man_Feb61.pdf)

<comment><USER3> The charset in Figure 16.9 is nice. Even has a nuclear cloud icon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This video is so artfully done, it not only teaches distributed computing in layman's terms but also inspires to check out TRW's offering.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Came across this video many years ago I think on Reddit while also digging into Hadoop. Continuing to talk a lot about distributed computing lately with coworkers made me remember it. Thanks to the other comments for finding the manual I've been skimming that on and off all evening.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's an extraordinary video, amazingly ahead of its time both about distributed computing and just as a film. Even the use of the word "guys" is like a bit of the future back-propagated.

<comment><USER6> It feels like an edutainment video essay on YouTube that was made today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uo! I want this kind of videos in 2020, so well explained!

<comment><USER8> You're in for a treat, just check out the other videos on that channel.

Jeff Quitney used to be on YouTube before they kicked him off due to (what appear to be) false copyright claims against his videos. He has slowly been moving them over to Vimeo for the last several months.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some use cases for my web service? - <AUTHOR> http://www.maskur.com/?

<comment><USER2> You might look into the uses, history, and eventual demise of anon.penet.fi:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anon.penet.fi>

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this idea. It serves some sort of need, I'm sure.

I don't see how to monetize it, but if your goal is just to provide a needed service, I think it's pretty cool. It's arguably more convenient than setting up another yahoo or google account.

As to who would use it, one would first assume it would be mostly folks engaged in illegal sorts of activities. Since we've decided to control our population by getting them to live in fear, by making them all guilty of breaking some law, I'd say your userbase is potentially very large.

However, some of those folks (child porn, drug dealers, terrorists) probably shouldn't be helped. There's also the paranoia aspect. How do I know you're not a cop, trying to trap me? How do I know you're really destroying your database? I think anybody that's doing something wrong won't risk using you.

So, taking out the justifiably paranoid law breakers, that need you, but dare not use you, that leaves us with dating and craigslist ads.

</comment><comment><USER4> Emailing people you meet on <http://omegle.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good use case; if only I can partner with omegle's owner.

<comment><USER5> He's on reddit and fairly active, you could probably message him over there:

<http://www.reddit.com/user/eurleif>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like a good way for people who use online services and games to collaborate without the downsides of exposing "real" email addresses (which seemingly inevitably find their way to spammers, search engines, etc).

It could be particularly useful for celebrities, public figures, political protesters, parents, teenagers or anyone who might be otherwise embarrassed (or worse) should their email logs be revealed to an inappropriate social group or the general public.

</comment><comment><USER7> Whistle-blowers and others who want to leak info to journalists/investigators without revealing their identity right away.

You should include a form that allows a user to notify a person of their maskur address via SMS ...

"I have important info regarding insider trading at YAHOOGLE, please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com"

<comment><USER4> A disposable email address would do the job. Also, a source might want to know who they're dealing with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Normally you'd come up with use cases before you actually implement the idea :) You could encourage people to use it with any sort of online trade (craigslist / ebay etc) but I don't think it'd take long for them to duplicate the behavior should this ever become very popular.

</comment><comment><USER9> subpoena magnet?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm aware of this; The mailinator guy Paul Tyma talked about this in his blog ([http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2006/06/im-getting-sick-of- subp...](http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2006/06/im-getting-sick-of- subpoenas.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could possibly create an API for this service and see how people use it. In my current project I have a need for something like this but having to send an email complicates my use case some.

</comment><comment><USER11> how exactly do you do this?

"If you want to email someone, have them send an email to your maskur.com address, so their maskur.com address will appear in the "From" field, or ask them to mask their email on this page."

at that point, haven't you already communicated with them? either by phone / in person, or via email?

<comment><USER12> Public bulletin boards, forums, and ads are a few ways to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty similar to mailinator.com witch I have been using for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference is that maskur masks the address of incoming mail, whereas mailinator doesn't. Mailinator is good for when one party wants to hide their address, whereas maskur is good for situations where both parties want to hide their address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> this is _exactly_ what Match.com started as...

</comment><comment><USER15> hookers can use it on craigslist to avoid giving out their email address to potential law enforcement, i suppose

<comment><USER8> It's not just them, anyone might need it. I'm sick of the "only <insert socially unacceptable / bad figure> needs privacy" argument.

<comment><USER16> Anyone might need it, but criminals are the ones likely to need it, and therefore criminals will account for most of the site's usage. Just math.</comment></comment></comment>


How to successfully launch a startup (go-live day) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bootstrappingindependence.com/startup-challenges/product-launch-planning-and-my-pre-launch-checklist/

<comment><USER2> Love this, not because of the list, but because the author is asking for help instead of assuming they know everything, unlike many others I've seen with similar pieces.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good list! In addition a follow up post about lessons learned from the launch would be interesting as well.

It's interesting that Drupal is being used for the startup. Drupal is used on a lot of sites but I don't normally hear much about it in startups. This was something even mentioned at a Drupal conference I attended a couple of weeks back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I plan on doing a follow up a couple of weeks after launch.

I am also not sure why Drupal isn't more used for startups - it's a powerful way to build a site. I can see that some startups want to build a lot of custom technology, but I didn't find anything Drupal couldn't do without a little tweaking in modules/themes. It also reduced my time to completion and test by a significant amount - not having to deal with a lot of the functionality most sites need anyway.

<comment><USER3> Well good luck. I look forward to seeing how things go. My partner and I are also working on a startup using Drupal. We're in early stages though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you also have a plan for after the go-live day? I think most of the work will lie in the marketing after you've launched. writing potential, posting to new blogs, refining your product and business plan, etc.

BTW. Thanks for the guide, I believe it will help a lot of people here getting the word out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I agree, I think most of the real work comes in the months and years after launch, slowly building back links, improving your funnel, trying new advertising channels.

This blog is dedicated to my business strategy, what is working, and what is not working, so I'll be including the longer term marketing efforts as well over time. Where I focus initially will depend a lot on the launch reception and initial customer reactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great detailed list! Thanks for sharing and inspiring us! Looking forward to hearing all about your launch experience!

Great job!

</comment><comment><USER6> seems like a pretty good list. I have seen a few of these in the past, and this one seems to capture a lot of the main points.</comment>


Ask if you're good enough for a monorepo - <AUTHOR> http://yosefk.com/blog/dont-ask-if-a-monorepo-is-good-for-you-ask-if-youre-good-enough-for-a-monorepo.html <comment><USER2> Described problems are not unique to monorepos.

If changes in some component's repo cause this component to break iOS, but you absolutely must use this change right now for Android, you will be left with branching too. Or, maybe, specifying different versions, if you use more complex packaging than git submodules, and only if android and ios apps are not built from single codebase.

Modularity is when APIs are well-defined and there's no unnecessary coupling. For example you don't know where public API of your component ends. Monorepos help here: it can make it clearer because tests will fail sooner when you break API contract because as soon as you make changes to component, these changes will be tested against users of this component.

I regularly have all described issues (except large number of files) without monorepos.

The real stopper is that to introduce monorepo you need advanced build system with dependencies between targets, which include tests (if tests already ran in previous build, and nothing is changed, don't run tests for that piece of code again), and that requires hermeticity. Almost impossible with e.g. Rails app and regular CI.</comment>


Jawbone Accuses Fitbit of Stealing Information by Hiring Workers Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/business/dealbook/jawbone-sues-fitbit-over-data-plundering-by-ex-employees.html <comment><USER2> > One now-former employee, Ana Rosario, was hired by Fitbit as a user > experience researcher around April 16 but did not disclose that she planned > to leave Jawbone until April 22, the complaint said. On April 20, according > to the complaint, Ms. Rosario held a meeting with Jawbone's senior director > of product management to discuss the company's future plans and then > downloaded what the company said was a "playbook" outlining its future > products.

One could see how this sort of thing might have crossed a line. Perhaps Fitbit had no idea this was going on, or perhaps they hired people and implicitly or explicitly had them go in and get specific documents and information before leaving.

One of the things about civil litigation is that sort of thing can be revealed in discovery, via looking at internal emails, memos, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER3> So Fitbit targeted Jawbone as a source of engineering and product development talent. That seems like fair play to me and anything less would seem oddly uncompetitive.

Some of those ex-employees broke the confidence and policies of Jawbone while employed there. That's the issue; Jawbone needs to address that with the individuals.

If they want an injunction preventing Fitbit from using the literal documents in question, or the specific confidential information about product roadmaps in the employees' heads, that seems appropriate, but it's unclear how you'd enforce it.

Fitbit is going to develop features in their hardware and software that compete in the market. Inevitably, some of those same features will have been on Jawbone's roadmap. The fact they get developed isn't proof to me that it was stolen.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Some of those ex-employees broke the confidence and policies of Jawbone > while employed there. That 's the issue; Jawbone needs to address that with > the individuals._

Whats the potential outcome of this? I am not an expert about this kind of things in the US, but in Europe this would mean an invalidation (if any violation is proved) of the job contract. So the guy basically loses the job pretty much immediately and gets probably fined.

<comment><USER3> Loses which job? The one they already left? That seems reasonable, but irrelevant/pyrrhic for Jawbone's purposes.

<comment><USER4> I read it as the new job - a court injunction forces FitBit to fire the employees who stole trade secrets from Jawbone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. The "optics" in this type of situation can be terrible; that can matter a lot in court. Non-technical judges and/or jurors won't understand the engineering details. They _will_ understand it when the former employer's lawyer says, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will show that _[the former employee]_ is a liar, a sneak, and a thief."

2\. It's not at all unheard of for lawsuits to come out of the woodwork as an IPO approaches. And surely these lawsuits are all brought from the purest of motives; certainly no right-thinking company would _ever_ try to _intentionally_ disrupt its competitor's IPO, right?

3\. Flashback: In the early 1990s, Computer Associates successfully sued a small company, Altai, for misappropriation of trade secrets. An Altai executive, who was a CA alumnus, recruited a CA product manager to work on an Altai product that competed with a CA product.

Unbeknownst to Altai, the former CA product manager brought CA code with him when he moved over. Altai had to rip out and replace the code and pay $364,000 in damages for infringement. (This was also a major scope-of-copyright- protection case concerning the replacement code.) [1] [2]

The dispute cost Altai a lot of money and, perhaps more importantly, time and reputation capital.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Associates_Internation...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Associates_International,_Inc._v._Altai_Inc).

[2] [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=639604498871411...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6396044988714111318) \-- see especially the part with the heading _Dramatis personae_.

</comment><comment><USER6> I feel like in these cases where one startup sues a rival for stealing trade secrets that it means neither has anything worth stealing.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's as if the CA anti-solicitation scandal never happened. Let's increase the fines for companies who are trying to own their employees by 100x.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but nothing really happened in CA. The colluding companies saved $3 billion and paid a settlement of $415 million.

<comment><USER9> Puts the FIFA scandal in perspective eh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a shit headline. This isn't about stealing talent, it's about stealing property. The whole issue is here:

"hiring Jawbone employees who _improperly downloaded sensitive materials_ shortly before leaving."

"During her exit interviews, Ms. Rosario initially denied taking confidential information, but she later acknowledged downloading its "Market Trends & Opportunities" presentation, the complaint said."

Go after the individual employees for stealing from you, not fitbit for hiring them.

<comment><USER11> First off what's a download? If I do a "git pull" on my last day of the job, simply in the course of my duties, could I be accused of stealing from the company?

<comment><USER12> If Jawbone is a typical large company, they do DPI on all their employees Internet traffic and have DLP software monitoring what files are moved to what directories/removable media on employees equipment.

I think it's safe to assume that if they're pursuing this kind of lawsuit, they have realistic evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Url changed from [http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/27/jawbone-sues-fitbit-for- st...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/27/jawbone-sues-fitbit-for-stealing-its- talent-and-trade-secrets/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it legal in some countries to leave your job for the competition? I thought that's commonly outlawed in most countries.

Stealing planning documents is another thing but I am quite surprised that it's okay to leave your company and work for the competition two days later.

<comment><USER15> Outlawed? No, and never, ever has been.

What a lot of companies attempt to do is put in anti-compete clauses in to the _civil_ employment contract.

They are often unenforceable or if they are they are heavily time limited unless a large financial incentive is provided to balance the loss of earnings.

<comment><USER14> Would you edit in which country you're referring, too?

<comment><USER15> I'm from the UK, but it's the same for most countries. Moving companies in the same field is not illegal, it's called a career.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


EverDB – The "IMDb" for high-end products - <AUTHOR> https://www.everdb.com <comment><AUTHOR> EverDB is the "IMDb" for high-end products. You can explore fantastic collections curated by users, upload your products, follow your favorite brands and designers.</comment>


The Showdown at the Window Seat - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-showdown-at-the-window-seat-11568799003 <comment><USER2> Contender for the biggest non-issue of the year award.

You have a problem with the window screen position and aren't under specific instructions from the flight crew to keep it in its current state? Speak up to your fellow-passengers and find a solution together. It's really not that difficult.

<comment><USER3> I agree with all you say, but it's a reflection of a new generation of travellers who don't want to interact with other passengers. I've seen the effect over and over again when flying. More and more of the effort of flight attendants is being shifted from serving travellers to acting as a buffer and mediating disputes between passengers.

There's another story on HN now about Amtrak shutting down their dining cars. I read the story, and one of the reasons they are ending dining car service is because when they got focus group feedback from millennials they found that most of them didn't want to sit next to a stranger while dining.

I find the fact that we are more digitally connected than ever before but correspondingly more socially isolated quite troubling.

<comment><USER4> One of the results from happiness research is that people rate their expected enjoyment from an interaction with a stranger as very low, but if you ask them after such an interaction, they usually rate it very highly.

Maybe we're risk averse because most interactions are mildly positive, but a tiny number are exceptionally bad, triggering the availability hueristic. Not sure.

Either way, we're probably more avoidant than we should be.

<comment><USER5> Interesting point and I agree as I was about to post something similar. The vast majority of interactions I've had with strangers has been mostly forgettable, but there's a few great outliers in the negative direction that really makes me try and avoid these interactions unless I really need something.

<comment><USER6> Yes. Maybe 75% of the time i discover that the random stranger is a total lunatic. If they arent a flat-earther or trying to convert me to thier cult, they want to complain about how nobody wants to listen to them anymore.

<comment><USER7> "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole."

Raylan Givens

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Mr. Hayes thinks it's a matter of airplane etiquette: Passengers should go > with the collective good. "If everyone else has it closed, why do you have > to be the one person?" he says. "I personally think it's a bit selfish."

I think some people are just wired like this. I think that everyone else having it closed gives them _more_ reason to leave theirs open.

Personally, I love looking out the windows the whole flight. I get to turn my brain off and just look at clouds. That being said, I was raised to be aware of others' needs and if I sense it bothers someone I draw the shade down.

<comment><USER9> If there's glare on someone's screen or in their face then sure, I'll lower the blind.

Otherwise no. If you care so much, book the window seat yourself. If you want a dark cabin, book a plane where you control the cabin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I read any article like this I always go back to Louis CK's "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy" bit. Like, c'mon people, can't you just let someone happily experience the miracle of flight while you watch your downloaded Netflix shows? Is that so hard?

If you're trying to sleep and the light bothers you, bring something to cover your eyes with. If you can't sleep with something on your face, maybe practice a bit before you fly.

I personally have a _very_ hard time sleeping on moving objects of any kind. I have to be at my wits' end of sleep deprivation to be able to do this. I would not think of suggesting a bus driver stop so I can get my winks -- it's _my_ problem, and I'll deal with it as such.

The sense of entitlement in this article is huge, and this is also one of the most first-world problems ever.

Almost every airline except the budget airlines (Frontier, Spirit, Southwest) make it possible to book a window seat at no extra cost. If it's this much of a problem to you, you should get a window seat yourself to grant yourself that control.

</comment><comment><USER11> > The FAA has no regulations on shades up or down, though many countries > require windows in exit rows to be clear for takeoff and landing, when an > accident could jam a closed shade and prevent passengers from seeing if they > were opening an emergency door into fire.

Is this for real? I was under the impression that SOP is, all shades up during takeoff and landing, for safety reasons. I this mandated in Europe, or do I use a skewed selection of airlines as this has been enforced on every flights in the last years?

<comment><USER12> I've been told to raise the shades in Mexico & Peru as well, but for the US they don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The bigger problem is the middle seats on aircraft with 3+ adjoining seats. Your seat mates almost always commandeer the armrests, and if you're seated with large people, it's miserable.

I've seen a few different seat configurations that fix this, but there isn't really much incentive for the airlines to adopt them.

<comment><USER14> My rule here is that the middle seat always gets the arm rests because they don't have the window to lean on or the outside isle for space.

<comment><USER13> That's a great rule, but often an awkward conversation that can end in an even more miserable flight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminded me of this video of two bus passengers having a silent dispute over window. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqeTEYBFfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqeTEYBFfM)

</comment><comment><USER16> From the Article:

 _Mr. Hyman thinks the power breakdown for airplane seating goes like this:

\- The window seat passenger gets to control the window shade.

\- The middle-seat passenger gets the armrests.

\- The aisle-seat flier gets the most freedom of movement._

Basically it's this: If you want to control the shade, book the Window seat. Simple.

<comment><USER17> The most annoying outcome there is when you book a window seat, only to find no window thanks to a plane switch - at which point it becomes worse than a middle.

<comment><USER5> Advantage of a windowless window seat is still ability to rest head at an angle against the wall. I can't sleep when I'm forced to sit straight up, I tend to fall-forward and then snap awake and catch myself.

Being able to put my head against something is the difference between sleeping like a baby on the flight and being awake from coast to coast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow people are petty. I think you're never going to have a good experience in economy - might as well just go to sleep for the duration and not worry about what anyone else decides to do.

I don't know why people choose to struggle to eat, read, or watch videos.

<comment><USER19> That is a problem for a few reasons:

1\. It's hard to sleep for all of a 13+ hour flight (North America->Australia).

2\. I'm 6 foot 2, and my head doesn't touch the head rest on most planes (even when it's possible to lift up the thing with head flaps on it). It's hard to sleep when your head is not supported.

<comment><USER18> I probably don't literally sleep the whole time either, but I do still just put on an eye mask, headphones and sit there and zone out, and don't really expect reasonably to be able to achieve anything more than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dont worry, windows on planes will go away soon enough. They make planes heavier and are going to be phased out. The replacements, screens, will be a great medium to further monitize the cattle.

[https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/emirates-windowless- plane...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/emirates-windowless- planes/index.html)

[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes- wi...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes-without- windows-could-4512820)

</comment><comment><USER20> My wife and I were on a 10 hour flight to Tokyo earlier this year and we happened to sit next to a lady with unbelievable resolve to keep the window open.

It was a very big plane and in our portion of the plane, _every_ other window was closed (several dozen). We debated asking her to shut it, but decided she must have her reasons.

For a flight that was supposed to have a sleep segment, we were quite grumpy to realize this wasn't going to be possible.

<comment><USER21> Why didn't you just ask her? It's not "resolve" if she doesn't know it bothers you.

</comment></comment><comment> rr-geil-j Probably another US-specific issue... I am not really a frequent traveler but I've accumulated around 10 legs of flights from Asia to Europe and within each continent. I do not remember encountering anything similar.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been flying for many years and I always choose the window seat for the view, and for the best reading light. There is nothing like natural light on a printed page, punctuated by the visual glory of the earth and sky sliding by.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you touch type? - <AUTHOR> I've been programming for over 10 years and have always typed with just 2-4 fingers.
I've been trying to touch type recently but am absolutely struggling.
Just wondering if it's too late for me to learn touch typing after many years sticking with a bad habit. <comment><USER2> One word: practice!

I learned how to type correctly 10 years after I first touched a computer. How? This may sound silly, but about 30 minutes/day of Mavis Typing Tutor was enough.

After a week I noticed some improvements (although I typed slower, i used all of my fingers). The whole "training" took about two weeks (until i became lazy and stopped practice).

Hint: the exercises may look dumb, but they are wiring up your brain the _correct_ way (until you discover Colemak or Dvorak that is...)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/](https://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist/)</comment>


Show HN: Professional profile management tool built using React - <AUTHOR> https://www.hiration.com/ <comment><USER2> Whats the advantage of this over the profile you can build in stackoverflow?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a pretty neat product - unsure if the monthly pricing makes sense. Don't get me wrong - it's great value, but I can't see myself using the product for more than one month if the output quickly lands me opportunities / a job after I use it.

Would it make more sense to pay per generation of a resume to maximize potential revenue?

Note: I have not signed up. Only looked at the examples.

</comment><comment><USER4> I suggest unmounting Joyride component after you go through the tutorial. It makes unnecessary renders after whatever else you do (e.g. changing the content/ on save).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out! Will work on unmounting it ASAP :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you know when a resume has been shortlisted by a company?

<comment><AUTHOR> We believe in the best customer service and client feedback. So we follow up with our users to understand how much we were able to help them. That's how we know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really like the trendy something design. Going to go ahead with it. What if I need assistance during the Resume making process? Do you provide that?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great! Thanks.

Yes! We are there to assist you at every step during the process. You can take the premium version of our tool for a DIY or you can go for a professional resume review for $30 only or you can opt for a complete resume rewrite!

No need to worry! We're there to help you out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please, please, _please_ get rid of the scroll hijacking. It's really horrible to use the site.

<comment><USER8> Very, very, very dramatic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We'll take care of it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I understand correctly, the only way to sign up is to use either Facebook or Google? There's is no way to just create a standalone account?

<comment><USER10> That all I saw too. Definitely not using until I can use any email address.

EDIT: Found this page [https://www.hiration.com/accounts/signup/](https://www.hiration.com/accounts/signup/)

Idk if that actually creates an account for the tool though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Our own in house login is on the cards. Be out with it soon!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Note (and I've seen this in a lot of apps/sites) that you should expect to not receive an email from a Facebook login. I explicitly do not share my Facebook email, and every website that wants to do Facebook login fails to notice that and ends up in an undefined state.

Your site `/dieu/rest-auth/facebook/` endpoint crashes (because I assume it expects an email and doesn't get one)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot!

We missed this one. Will take care of this ASAP!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> \- We're 2nd time entrepreneurs who have hired 800+ people & have written resumes for 1,500+ professionals globally.

\- Have worked in Adobe, BCG, KPMG, Sun Pharma etc. & have previously sold a $ 30 M company!

\- Now we're building Hiration to help people change their jobs.

\- Have launched the beta of our professional profile management tool which currently focusses on helping you build great resumes with 10+ designs & content for 50 jobs! More features incl. cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, mentorship etc. are coming soon!

\- Here's a 40% discount coupon to show our love for HN folks: HIRATIONHN

\- Happy to do a professional resume review for $30: [https://www.hiration.com/resume-review/](https://www.hiration.com/resume- review/)

\- Also, happy to answer any resume related questions that you may have! Shoot!

<comment><USER4> Why "React" in the post title? It's kind of irrelevant info in this case :)

<comment><USER12> Well, it's a resume service. Gotta include at least one JS framework to make it past HR.

<comment><USER4> Maybe including "AI or Deep Learning" would boost it even more next time.

<comment><USER13> "Built with love, using curated machine-learning, and react, to give you personalised resumes .."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I clicked on pricing and it asks me to create an account - I think that it would be fair to show the pricing without needing an account.

Ideally I'd like to try out the product without needing to make an account or enter any payment information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edit: Fixed! :) You can check the pricing here: www.hiration.com/pricing

You can actually just sign up and try it for free. We have some great free designs and free content. Have a look! Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER15> Just so you are aware, I clicked the 'prices', thinking that if they were reasonable, I'd be using it in a flash. Then I got the signin link; closed the tab, and un-bookmarked it. I won't be returning. You may want to think about how you treat customers.

<comment><USER16> Hahahaha, well seems like they have fixed it now :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cryptographic Data Structures - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bren2010.io/2015/04/07/data-structures.html

<comment><USER2> What are some applications of this? If an attacker has access to memory there's not much left you can do right?

Or is the use case similar to why you would want to zero out the memory used to store password strings?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are lots of scenarios where you would want to let an untrusted intermediary handle critical operations for you without actually having to build trust with them.

Typical example: Certificate authorities distribute CRLs primarily through untrusted channels and third parties to lower their operating cost. The CRLs are signed so its a win-win for everybody.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggestions for chat bot frameworks? - <AUTHOR> I need to develop a chat bot, and I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for a good framework to use. I've taken a look at this https://dev.botframework.com/ from Microsoft, and also there are alternates from startups like massively.ai, meya.ai and reply.ai.<p>Has anyone had an experience with these? What are the pros / cons, and which would you recommend? <comment><USER2> It depends what you want to do. If you want to access many chat apps a framework will make your life easier and provide some features such as analytics but at the expense of latency and inability to access any features specific to a particular chat application.

Wit.ai, API.ai etc. are separate services to which you forward your chat responses and they send back a response based NLP training etc.

If you're just doing a prototype, I would limit it to one chat app (eg. FB messenger) and interact directly with their webhook. You can also then add NLP through api.ai etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know someone building a tool with [https://api.ai/](https://api.ai/) integrating with Facebook chat and other APIs. It's been working well from what I hear. I just noticed it's now owned by Google.

Edit: he also just suggested [https://wit.ai/](https://wit.ai/) which is now owned by Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER4> Try out bottr? [https://github.com/Bottr-js/Bottr](https://github.com/Bottr- js/Bottr)</comment>


Generating Faces with Deconvolution Networks - <AUTHOR> https://zo7.github.io/blog/2016/09/25/generating-faces.html <comment><USER2> I wonder if you could use this to do extremely low bandwidth video conferencing. Send a network configuration at connect time (relatively expensive) but for each frame, send the convolution network parameters, and deconvolve at the receiving side. Presumably this would result in far less data over time than sending the whole image. Sort of face-specific compression.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure I've read sci fi that uses the idea - they have extremely limited bandwidth so they make up for it with aggressive compression and reconstruction that more or less reduces people to a handful of parameters and uses those to animate an avatar. It relies on computation being a LOT cheaper than bandwidth.

<comment><USER4> Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_ features this, with some hilarity and a bit of foreshadowing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing the code! I've been looking to explore deep learning a bit more with Python, this is a great place to dive in head-first.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Keras especially has a really intuitive and easy-to-use api, so definitely start there if you want to do more with deep learning.

It's almost _too_ easy, really...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very A Scanner Darkly -esque. Let's give it up for the vague blur!

<comment><USER7> Exactly what I was reminded of when I saw this. Very cool stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some of the "illegal" inputs results remind me of Francis Bacon studies.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yikes, I wouldn't want to stare at those images too long. Very cool stuff, though. Could have an impact on the 3D animation industry.

<comment><USER10> There are companies trying to use this type of thing for game content generation. I recall some guy at tech crunch disrupt won an award last year (two years ago?) for something along these lines?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just happened to have read some fiction set in WH40K universe and... now I know what exactly a mutant possessed by Chaos looks like. This makes a perfect illustration.

</comment><comment><USER12> Has there been work done generating 3D models of faces? Like Mesh files that can be loaded into Open GL.

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems useful for animation.

<comment><USER14> My immediate reaction too. Take some animated character and generate emotions at will...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Soon we'll be able to make full scale live action movies with no actors.</comment>


Ask HN: CMU's Information Systems or Computer Science? - <AUTHOR>

This question does not pertain to Information Systems in general, but rather the specific IS major at CMU. I would like some perspective so I can advise people about what they should take in college.
A little background; I'm a senior at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Information Systems. In IS, you start off learning simple web development and project management (documentation and client expectation management) in your first 2 years, and in the beginning of the third year, you complete a full scale web application in Ruby on Rails. During the second half of your third year you do project courses where you get into groups of 4-5, come up with an idea for a website and build it. In senior year, you get a non-profit client who has an idea and you build it for them.
IS cannot compare in terms of curriculum to CMU's computer science program. In CS, you start off with an introduction to programming, and quickly get into both the low level (C/bit operations, memory management, etc) and the high level (data structures, advanced algorithms, etc). In your third and 4th year, you get into functional programming and machine level code, and either build a complete Operating System from the ground up or a complete webserver, protocols and all. CS also comes with a deep mathematical background and training.
However, CS is also very difficult, even to relatively smart people. All the classes are very time consuming and leave little room for other activities. The required CS classes go very deep into theory, much deeper than you would need to if you were just web programming.
When I first joined IS, there were hardly any hackers in the program - most people wanted to become project managers or technology consultants. However, I TA some of the 2nd year classes and a handful of the students there have a programming background and take IS because it is easier, gives you a lot of free time, and lets you do a lot of electives. They just use these electives to take the CS classes that they want, but have enough time to do side projects like creating their own websites. A group of them have already gotten together and build websites for fun on the weekends.
Granted, the majority of IS majors are not hackers at all, and the project management side of IS is quite a large aspect of the program (to accommodate these types of people). Also, the program doesn't push you very hard technologically or mentally.
Now that was a long intro - My question for you is what major would you suggest and why? <comment><USER2> CS at CMU can be a crushing experience for even extremely bright students. I knew one. He chose to go into CS, but didn't realize that a large percentage of the other CS students were already hardened developers far more prepared than he was. He crashed and burned and almost lost his scholarship before moving to another degree plan. Today he's a programmer but his self-esteem is gone and he feels like he's faking it even though his work is good.

I chalk it up to the CMU CS experience. They should screen their CS students more carefully. It is extremely difficult for students (who tend to be idealistic and optimistic) to anticipate how difficult the workload will be. It should be the university's responsibility to restrict class size or offer alternative preparatory classes for less-prepared students. "Survival of the fittest" may be great for the university but it's a tremendous waste of time and effort for many students.</comment>


Does giftedness matter? – No - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/does-giftedness-matter/ <comment><USER2> I've been in a number of companies where there was an obvious IQ-gap. Some people could watch everyone else like mice running a maze but couldn't explain to them how to succeed in a way they would understand.

Someone with an average IQ, when compared to someone on the higher end of the curve, has all the tools to assert their interests but without much ability to reason abstractly about them or to recognize or interpret meta patterns.

Gifted education is only partially to help intelligent kids, it's just to protect the order among the other ones. It isolates intelligent kids from the people they might otherwise learn to lead. Yes, gifted kids can be disruptive or withdraw in normal classrooms, but removing them to a "special" class is about helping crap teachers.

Enriched education is valuable, but doing it at the expense of a childs development in the hopes of engineering better kids is awful. If you want to help them, teach gifted kids leadership skills, they'll figure out the rest.

<comment><USER3> I was in a gifted class when I was young, and I quite enjoyed it. It was a welcome addition to all my other classwork. They didn't fully separate us, though. We were still in regular classes 4 days of the week, and we had to still do the work from the day we were missing in addition to the added work that day of Gifted class. It had the effect of keeping us with everyone else while giving us enough extra to do that we weren't as disruptive as before. (And yeah, I was quite disruptive.)

I realize now that it probably could have been a lot better, if I'd gone to a school that specialized in it, but a private school wasn't really an option, and there was no way the school was going to create more of a program for so few students. (I heard later they killed the program entirely.)

I was fortunate enough to experience the other end of intelligence for a while, too. My doctor advised taking allergy medication, and it had the side effect of making me stupid. I was able to tell that there were things I _should_ have been able to do, but I wasn't unable to explain why or what they were exactly. I'd come across problems that I'd solved before and be unable to solve them, but not be able to figure out why exactly.

After halting the medical, my faculties came back and it was astounding. I came to the conclusion that I was simply unable to think well enough to _disprove_ things beyond a certain point. I found out that when I decide something is true, I do it by trying to prove it false. If I was unable to prove it false, I'd accept it as true. When I was on those pills, I was only able to go so far in my testing of the theory, and I'd accept things as true that I would not when I wasn't taking the pills.

It had the side effect of making everything about _me_. If someone cut me off on the highway, it was because they were against me somehow. The thought that they might just be in a rush or an emergency never came, and I just accepted that they were pissed at me and attacking me.

That was long-winded, but I thought it might add some insight to your IQ-gap observations.

<comment> alan-crowe Were the mental effects of the allergy medicine mentioned in the package leaflet? I worry that modern medicine doesn't look closely enough for mental side effects. It would reassure me to know that the effects were mentioned. It would help me to know how it was phrased, so that I can understand the information if I run across it.

<comment><USER3> There was no mention of those effects at all, and it happened with 2 or 3 different medicines to different degrees. At least, not that I know of.

I've also never heard of it happening to anyone else, so it wouldn't surprise me that it's not mentioned anywhere.

<comment><USER2> While IQ is a blunt instrument, saying giftedness doesn't matter is like saying money doesn't matter. It doesn't, but it does.

Compare the purchasing power and variety of options for solving problems of a millionaire to someone who earns low hundreds of thousands a year. Compare those to that of a billionaire.

Then compare how someone who inherited the money to someone who saved it, and again to someone who got it as part of an exit.

Intelligence is analogous to money this way in that you can acquire it from inheritance and upbringing, slog through work/academia and study, or get it as the result of drive and experience/risk.

Someone who had money who becomes poor is a different kind of poor, and someone who is poor who becomes wealthy is a different kind of rich.

Giftedness is a kind of class that has its own pitfalls and outcomes. When you have money, like intelligence, it's not something you think about much, even if it is weirdly revered by a lot of other people.

A lot of people think they could solve a lot of their problems if they were only richer or more intelligent, but when you are rich or intelligent, you realize quickly that these are not so much solutions as they are excuses that keep their circumstances bearable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The title here with the added "No" is opposite of the article's intent, to quote, "giftedness matters [so please define its dimensions scientifically]".

</comment><comment><USER5> I personally benefited from gifted and talented education in Australia (~1992-1993). Even though all the tests are IQ based, the thrust of this article seems to be "defining giftedness with IQ was always wrong, and also fails to match accepted wisdom in the area". Accepted wisdom, specifically, is that gifted kids have deeper emotional engagement, empathy and moralistic sense. This has no correlation to IQ.

<comment> nils-m-holm Among the people around me, I see a high correlation between IQ on the one side and emotional engagement, empathy and ethics on the other.

What I also see is an anticorrelation between giftedness and happiness, which makes me really sad.

<comment><USER6> What about moral luck: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck)

If higher IQ correlates with higher income, and higher income means better circumstances (health, safety, opportunity, etc) then wouldn't that explain greater empathy and ethics? As opposed to someone who has to fight for their survival. Because when you're talking about survival or the threat to it, all ethics go out the window.

For example, I had fairly high test scores indicating high cognitive ability - this has made life relatively easier for me. I see coworkers, on the other hand, one socioeconomic class below and there is a pattern of mistrust in others, the mentality of scarcity, and the belief that people who are successful are lucky or corrupt. All of which seems to indicate less empathy.

<comment> nils-m-holm I know a few people with very high IQs (3-sigma and above) who have been poor and miserable most of their lives, and they are among the most compassionate and sympathetic people I know. If anything, their ethics and compassion have improved during their fight for survival.

OTOH, I have met quite a few wealthy people who couldn't care less about the suffering around them.

But it's an interesting question: what creates compassion and empathy? Wealth? Suffering? High IQ? Combinations of the above? Which ones?</comment></comment></comment></comment>