Ask HN: Need IP legal advice - <AUTHOR>

(I am using a throwaway for obvious reasons and pardon stilted English & style ... ;)
I joined a high end tech a few months ago. This is a established startup. We have SV presence and elsewhere. At least on its way up if not already arrived. None of the big names but well known in its niche. Smallish company in the low 3 digit head count range. The technical bench is solid and known stars here and there. Not public. Well financed, and pretty deep pockets.
When I joined, I was asked to sign a IP and confidentiality agreement, per norm. The agreement provided for my listing what I had done and been working on. This I did. A project that has been in the works for almost 5 years and is pretty novel in the general space was listed.
I never have been given back my counter signed copy and when I asked I was told it was being considered. (not exact words again for obvious reasons.) That was news to me as nothing was said verbally or in writing regarding that. I have reviewed the contract (and I am not a lawyer) and it says nothing about that. My recent email to an executive level about this has not been answered.
I have no idea what to make of this but as my work before joining and this company's crown jewels are in the same  ballpark (distributed stuff) the idea that I should be talking to a lawyer keeps coming up in my head. This and bunch other things has kind of brought the decision to say my goodbyes to this company. I have started the process of making a transition.
I have written records and notebooks and some public comments (in social nets) and partial open source aspects of my work. I like to work to a state of completion before release so the entire project has never been out in the open.
I need advice. How to make the transition and also maybe leads to solid and aggressive lawyers in the valley who know how to deal with these matters. I am not rich, far from it. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Hold on. What do you expect to gain when you get back your counter-signed copy? (Apart from reliable knowledge of what you signed... did you make a copy before you gave it back?)

In my experience these types of agreements are usually very one-sided, except for the consideration they offer. You haven't mentioned any consideration. I'm thinking it's along the lines of "I agree to sign this piece of paper and hand it to Human Resources director in exchange for... a paycheck." The agreement you signed doesn't grant you any rights, does it? So what would you gain from having a counter-signed copy? I don't see where you suggested that it would allow you to assert any particular right at all.

I am not in California and I am not giving legal advice (as a non-lawyer, I can't give legal advice, obviously.) But, as a person who is relatively new in his career and still very low-level (not a Chief Officer of Anything, certainly) I have signed lots of things that I don't precisely remember the content, which sometimes contained ridiculous language, and that I never kept a copy of, much less counter-signed. I don't lose any sleep over it.

That being said, if you have signed some non-disclosure agreements (and particularly if you're not 100% sure of the content of those documents) you will understandably want to tread carefully with those written records and notebooks that you said you have. Good for you, this is another place where I have failed. "Non-disclosure" does not mean "forget everything you learned."

If you think that you signed over the rights to some project which you had worked on prior to signing on and being an employee of the company (it's not clear from your post if that's exactly what has you concerned), you will want to talk to a lawyer. Most of the time I think the boilerplate for these type of IP documents are not about accepting non-disclosure of those types of projects (which you own, unless there is also a bill of sale you haven't mentioned), but _full disclosure_, eg. they don't want to be surprised long after you are hired that you have and have always had relevant domain knowledge that you brought in from previous experience, that could be threatening to the company in the future.

So, hope this helps!

<comment><USER2> The other thing to consider is that in California, if your dispute should fall under California law, which I suspect from your post that it does... does not allow or enforce Non-compete on termination agreements with no consideration. You did not mention non-compete, but as a NY resident and when talking about employment and IP, I must always assume that any dispute would center around a non-compete clause rather than IP law, since copyright/patent/trademark are all distinct and are already the law, even in the absence of any signed document or consideration given. So I assume you can only be worried that your agreement will restrict you from competing in the same space; and not that (less charitably) you plan to abscond with some trade secret and publish it/make it the core model of your new startup. In the state of California, it is my understanding that you should worry less about that: non-competes are not valid. A trade secret though, could be protected by an agreement that you signed.

Again I am not a lawyer, but I went to Slashdot University back in the 90's and 2000's... I am talking here only about non-competes with no consideration. If there is some consideration (a severance package?) then it would probably have been in exchange for something, and I'll admit there is a decent chance there is still a valid non-compete.

But it sounds like you're keen and you'd know alright if you had accepted an offer of some consideration in exchange for something like a non-compete. I don't think those kinds of agreements can be made in California in exchange for just your regular paycheck as the consideration, or as a term of your employment agreement.

<comment><USER3> I would be careful with this assumption. A reasonable concern the poster might have is that when he leaves his current job, if he started a venture based on his own IP, his previous employer could shut it down by suing him claiming that they own that IP.

That's not an unreasonable problem. In fact, it belongs to a class of "worst kinds of problems": the ones that only become apparent when you're first successful, and threaten to render that success forfeit despite your hard work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you both for your feedback. Yes, Thomas, something along those lines exactly, although given my personal history it would be more likely that it is an open source project, but maybe something could grow from that.

am I being paranoid reading into their playing games with giving me back my copy? And the surprise "consideration" business never mentioned in interview or at any point prior to my asking for my copy? I have the email record of sending that to them.

<comment><USER2> I might have been wrong about the consideration business. I am looking for any precedent about that, because I don't really know what I'm talking about, and I found this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- compete_clause#California](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- compete_clause#California)

A consideration is something (a payment, etc) which can be said to have been given in exchange for fulfilling the terms of a contract. You would know if you had received one.

The wiki post does not mention anything about consideration in California law. There are three conditions that can cause a non-compete to be valid, and that's not one of them. I could be reading too much into omission of this standard from the list, but it would seem that payments would have to be ongoing, and even perhaps that the only recourse if you should choose to compete would be to cut the payments off.

I also found this:

[http://www.wsgr.com/WSGR/Display.aspx?SectionName=publicatio...](http://www.wsgr.com/WSGR/Display.aspx?SectionName=publications/PDFSearch/wsgralert- fillpoint-llc-maas.htm)

I don't know if you have anything to worry about, you need to decide that for yourself. This story is about a person who sold his business (one of the three reasons a non-compete can be valid in California), worked as an employee, and signed a separate non-compete restricting him from working with potential customers of the company, which was deemed unenforceable under California law.

I don't think you're going to have anything to worry about, but I don't know how much of their IP you do or might have. I think it would be unwise to publish anything you produced while an employee of the company, that might be their IP. Certainly going to cause you some delays if you have to re-implement everything you've done since working there, in a cleanroom process, but if it's something you want to pursue after you leave, it might be worthwhile. Here's a good analysis of general situation similar to yours:

[http://hoviblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/clean-room-defeats- soft...](http://hoviblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/clean-room-defeats- software.html)

If you are not bound by non-compete, you probably have only two things to worry about. Those are copyright and trade secrets. Educate yourself about those two issues, and you should feel more confident about your position.

[http://levinebakerlaw.com/publications/post-employment- non-c...](http://levinebakerlaw.com/publications/post-employment-non-competes- unenforceable-in-california/)

This page seems to indicate you have a much stronger position than I first thought. You have the right to compete, it's California. You haven't sold any business, you were never a partner. So, just don't copy anything that's not already public domain, and try not to leverage any proprietary knowledge against your old employer that could be considered a "trade secret". Have a good head about what's confidential and what's protected, and you should be in the right. You may also want to read up on California's "Unfair Practices Act"; though you haven't mentioned a non-compete. The more I read now, the more surprised I am at how many rights you will actually have.

[http://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/you- can...](http://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/you-cant-do-what- california-summary-californias-virtually-nonexistent-)

<comment><AUTHOR> My apologies for having you search. I thought the original post made it clear I am not using the exact term. They are "reviewing" the agreement is last I heard and that was more than a month ago.

<comment><USER2> No apology is necessary, this has always been a topic of interest for me. I am glad to educate myself, I learned a lot from searching and reading.

You should be entitled to a copy of anything you signed, this is not up for negotiation and no review should be needed. If you are quitting, I suggest you get an exit interview, and negotiate a fat severance package. They are not entitled to keep you from practicing your livelihood.

<comment><AUTHOR> Going through your links, btw. Thank you kind human.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: It's 2016, what software/tools do you use to write your resume? - <AUTHOR> Just wondering if anything's changed in the last 10-15 years in terms of software used specifically for the purpose of writing a resume? Or is MS Word still the de facto standard tool? <comment><USER2> Why pay for MS Office when you can get LibreOffice for free? (It can even produce Word-readable files.)

I'm not sure why I'd need specialized software for editing a resume. It's a short and simple document that any word processor can easily handle.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, LibreOffice is free and it handles some of the MS-Office documents formats as well in case your potential employer needs a Word document or something.

[https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice- fresh/](https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/)

Even has torrents to download it via BitTorrent. I hope other FOSS apps use Torrents to download them, it is a better way to download and not have Internet timeout errors cancel your download.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> JSON Resume: [https://jsonresume.org/](https://jsonresume.org/)

The project isn't as active as it used to be though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Latex with moderncv

</comment><comment><USER6> latex -> pdf</comment>


The birth and rise of Ethernet: A history - <AUTHOR> https://insights.hpe.com/articles/the-birth-and-rise-of-ethernet-a-history-1706.html <comment> as-j The article doesn't explicitly name Ron Crane, but he was instrumental to the history of Ethernet, especially the practice engineering aspects. He passed away last week, and the world has lost a great engineer.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ron+crane+ethernet&t=ipad&ia=video...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ron+crane+ethernet&t=ipad&ia=videos)

</comment><comment><USER2> Triggered scary flashbacks to chasing down network problems with a big TDR (time domain reflectometer--basically a way of checking connectivity by virtually walking down the wire) on MIT's CHAOSnet thick yellow coax, climbing around ceilings and under raised floors in building 38 (EECS) late at night, around 1979-80.

<comment><USER3> BTW CHAOSnet used a different CSMA-based protocol than PARC Ethernet (which used PUP, also later superseded).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ron Crane and Dave Boggs visit the Xerox Alto Restoration project and show some early ethernet gear and talk a bit about the technology: [https://youtu.be/XhIohWr10kU](https://youtu.be/XhIohWr10kU)

<comment><USER5> Hehe in part 16 they telnet google.com. Time Travel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nothing makes me feel so old as reading something and thinking, "I was there for this."

<comment><USER7> I don't think of myself as being _that_ old (will be turning 35 soon) but my first LAN party was done with 10BASE2 and I remember working a summer/intern job at a factory that used a token ring network...

So either I'm in denial or you're being too hard on yourself!

[ though all bets are off if you were at PARC when they were lighting it up, in that case... you definitely are old :) ]

<comment><USER8> I'm just a bit older than you. In the 90s I got my first tech job while still in high school. The company I was working for was in the middle of moving to a new building that would have a 10Base-T network, but the current building had 10Base-2 coax.

My first week was, after getting in from school, going around to people's offices and swapping whatever network card was in their machine for a 3C509 combo card that had base-T, base-2 and another port that I think was AUI if I remember right. That way the transition would be easier when the new office was ready.

At the end we had a bunch left over and my boss let me keep them. That was my first NIC. I think I still have it somewhere. I gave some away to my friends so we could have LAN parties. :)

<comment><USER9> You are correct that the third port was AUI. I don't remember the exact details, but early in high school I bought a box of random computer hardware at auction for $20, and it had probably a dozen 3C509s in it. Add in a 10mbit hub that the school threw in a dumpster... Now all my friends now had Ethernet cards and we could start having LAN parties!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> from [http://ethernethistory.typepad.com/papers/EthernetPaper.pdf](http://ethernethistory.typepad.com/papers/EthernetPaper.pdf) (1975):

> Recognizing the costliness and dangers of promising "error-free" > communication, we refrain from guaranteeing reliable delivery of any single > packet to get both economy of transmission and high reliability averaged > over many packets [Metcalfe, 1973b]. Removing the responsibility for > reliable communication from the packet transport mechanism allows us to > tailor reliability to the application and to place error recovery where it > will do the most good. This policy becomes more important as Ethernets are > interconnected in a hierarchy of networks through which packets must travel > farther and suffer greater risks.

The Ethernet CRC works at the right timescales / data rates and does not depend on information or assumptions about above layers. It works mostly OK at quickly knocking out packets that got grossly mangled in transit -- to avoid bothering hosts with corrupted packets and to avoid transmitting them further -- but that's it. There's no retransmissions, no acknowledgement/negative- acknowledgement mechanisms, no negotiating, no dependence on address schemes. Implementing the physical layer's error correction/detection mechanisms in a minimal way appropriate to _that_ specific physical medium was a master stroke of design. This sort of end-to-end aware design gave higher layers freedom to do what they wish (in terms of latency or reliability) but also let the Ethernet frame standard remain useful for networks far beyond 10Base5.

Some Ethernet switches are in a great hurry and don't want to wait to fully receive (and CRC-check) an incoming frame before starting to output it. They start outputting a frame as soon as they know _where_ to output it: when they've finished hearing the full destination MAC address. This is kinda iffy, because the switch hasn't seen the end of the frame, so it can't know the CRC value of the incoming frame! How are they to cope with a corrupt inbound packet, if they've already started transmitting it out? There's no way to undo transmitting it, so the switch takes the next best approach -- spitefully ruining the outgoing frame, by setting its CRC field to something _intentionally incorrect_. It'll never checksum right, and will be discarded at the first device capable of doing so.

<comment><USER11> Your description of cut-through switching isn't quite correct.

If the packet is corrupted, there is no need for the switch to intentionally break the CRC, since the only way it knew the packet was corrupted in the first place was the broken CRC. Modifying the existing, broken CRC, would create a small chance of accidentally "fixing" the corrupted packet, whereas just continuing to forward it would ensure that a later (store-and-forward) switch, or the end-host would detect the broken CRC and discard the packet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thinnet was definitely a revolutionary advancement. We wired my apartment building on University Ave for thinnet in 1989 (when my apartment was the first POP for the ISP TLG, though the term "ISP" hadn't yet been coined).

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake ruined the driveway between the two apartment buildings, we asked the manager if we could run thinnet under the new driveway they were pouring. He shrugged and said, "sure" though he had no idea what it meant; the cable simply looked harmless. A few years ago I walked up and looked and the cable is still there emerging from the ground :-).

(How times change: people actually sought apartments in that building because it had fast internet built in, yet when they would ask the manager about it he had no idea what they were talking about)

</comment><comment><USER12> There was a brief period of time in the mid-90s before 100 Mbps ethernet where FDDI made an appearance:

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

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm astonished this happened without government funding :-)

<comment><USER14> Back then blue sky was seen as an investment, not an expense. These days it seems like anything that do not produce a positive stock value tick in the next quarter is 86ed asap.

<comment><USER13> Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, etc. suggest otherwise.</comment></comment></comment>


Creationism Banned from Science Classes by Scottish Government - <AUTHOR> http://www.iflscience.com/environment/creationism-banned-science-classes-scottish-government

<comment><USER2> I find it funny and sad that in 21st century we still have to explicitly prohibit such thing. Up next -- "Tooth faery theory banned from dental schools".

<comment><USER3> If you're comparing creationism to the tooth fairy, it's fair to point out that the alternate scientific theory is that we magically appeared out of nothing, like Dr. Who's telephone box. I'm not arguing for either theory, and certainly not arguing for the teaching of creationism in schools.

<comment><USER4> I assume that when you say "I'm not arguing for either theory" that you're attempting to come across as balanced in some way. Which is sad, because not arguing for the theory with a massive weight of evidence behind it is completely ridiculous.

I'm not sure whether you're referring to the Big Bang or abiogenesis when you say "magically appeared out of nothing," but either way, there's a great deal of evidence that these events did actually happen, even if the exact mechanism for how it happened is not known. In contrast, creationism is outright fiction, like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

There really is not any middle ground here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's fine to teach creationism... just not in a science class.

What the majority of the creation supporters don't get is that creationism isn't a science, it's a philosophy. There's nothing constructive or tangible about the theory. You can't test it in a lab, you can't observe it in nature-- unless you think irreducible complexity (aka "we don't understand how this could come about, therefore it must be divinely created") is a sound scientific theory. (BTW most of Behe's original examples of "irreducibly complex" biological phenomena have since been reduced.)

I went to a very Christian liberal arts college and creationism was only taught in particular classes like Theories of Origins or theology courses. Biology classes only taught evolution. There might be one day that included a broader survey of creation theories, but that was it.

That being said, both the biology and theology departments were majority evolutionist. Go figure.

<comment><USER4> In my experience (of which I unfortunately have far too much), creationists fundamentally don't understand what science is, which is why they think their ideas qualify. They simply don't grasp the depth or the quantitative nature that underlies statements like "the universe is 13 billion years old" or "humans evolved from single-celled organisms."

It's basically cargo-culting popular science articles. They see something like "continental drift is demonstrated by how the coastlines of Africa and the Americas fit so neatly together." They then come up with something that sounds similar, like, "the Grand Canyon could have been carved by a huge and sudden deluge, demonstrating Noah's Flood." The fact that the Africa/Americas thing is just a brief summary of mountains (sometimes literally so) of data is completely lost.

<comment><USER6> Its worse than that. They're deliberately hijacking the catchphrases of science to appear legitimate, so they can insert their religious message into classrooms. Its as cynical as can be. No need to impute goodwill or mistaken good intentions; they have an agenda.

<comment><USER4> They truly believe that their opposition is doing the exact same thing. They're being underhanded because they believe that evil scientists (no doubt guided by Satan) make up clever-sounding non-God theories of the world to appear legitimate and thus push their non-religious message into classrooms.

We see this as people pushing fairy tales over truth. They see their actions as a small battle in a great war between God and the Devil.

<comment><USER5> Yes, yes, all of these observations are true.

The best remedy to this that I've found is simply more education. The majority of the freshman class were creationists in my college, but the majority of the senior class ended up evolutionists. It just takes thinking and exposure, especially from other Christians. Someone might grow up in a small world where to be Christian is to be creationist. Then he meets thoughtful, well-educated devoted Christians that aren't creationists and it opens his mind to other possibilities.

You really can't argue with creationists. I've gotten to the point where I don't argue with anyone that doesn't have a sufficient scientific background and shift the discussion toward whether they're knowledgeable enough to have such opinions. Then I challenge them to take some basic biology 101 coursework so we can actually have a real discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm currently teaching computing at a independent fundamentalist Christian 'young Earth' creationist school - in London, UK.

It's surreal at times. The kids (~20 altogether!) are wonderful: well mannered, eager to learn. So my frustration is extreme when I see the material they're being force-fed. The school follows the ACE ('Accelerated Christian Education') curriculum. It's imported from the USA, and teaches that the Earth is 6000 years old, that there was a Great Flood, and that evolution is evil. The textbooks are seething with pseudoscience - from illustrations of humans coexisting with dinosaurs, to articles connecting snakes to the serpent from the Garden of Eden, and so much more...

The real problem is that Ofsted - the UK government's regulator for standards in education - has consistently given the school a 'good' rating. (WTF???) Worse yet, the accreditation offered by the school - the ICCE (International Certificate of Christian Education) - is actually considered by UK NARIC (the 'designated National Agency responsible for providing information, advice and expert opinion on qualifications worldwide') to be "comparable to the overall Cambridge International O and A Level standard respectively." (Again, WTF???)

Since the government has utterly failed these student victims, I figured that perhaps an appeal to rationality might get somewhere. So, a few weeks back I had a 9 hour(!) meeting with the school principal and her husband. It failed, and perhaps I came close to being asked to leave. But I'm diplomatic (and valuable), so I'm still there.

Since then I've devoted many hours to Bible study, and research into the arguments of Creationists. (Remember: one can't engage with these people using reason or rationality. _Know your opponent._ ) I strongly feel it's possible to convey to them the vitality of Science - that it's one of the holiest of human endeavors, to be blessed rather than reviled. And it's backed by solid _religious_ arguments, supported completely by Scripture, and by Christian luminaries from Augustine of Hippo to John Calvin. I'm preparing a presentation to the school management (and, hopefully, parents)...

<comment><USER7> Incidentally, the article is wrong on one important point: _" The teaching of creationism as a scientific fact and evidence-based theory is prohibited in schools in England and Wales."_

This only applies to government-funded schools. Independent schools can get away with _anything_.

</comment></comment><comment> m-i-l There was a case last year in England where a religious school removed questions on evolution from exam papers: "The examinations body, OCR, says it was satisfied that the girls did not have an unfair advantage. It now plans to allow the practice" [0].

[0] "Jewish school redacts exam to remove evolution questions" [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- london-26437882](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26437882)

</comment><comment><USER8> Most of the UK and Ireland are arguably secular (but not technically) with most people holding reasonable scientifically literate beliefs.

Northern Ireland however is the last bastion of open religious bigotry and nonsense in the UK. Classic example. Republic of Ireland passed a Gay Marriage referendum last week while at the same time in NI a confectionary baker "Ashers" in Northern Ireland refused to serve a gay man who requested a cake that had support for gay marriage iced on the cake. The controversy showed that many in NI are at worst openly hostile or at best completely indifferent to gay people. This kind of attitude is carried in to classrooms in NI as well.

I support this move by Scotland but Northern Ireland has some crazy creationists nonsense still happening and these kind of measures are need much more in NI than the rest of the UK.

<comment><USER9> I didn't d/v you, but I think if you dig into a few more of your friends views you'd find a lot more religion than you realise.

<comment><USER8> Actually no, not in the younger generation but absolutely in the older generations. Ireland is one of the most rapidly secularising/atheist countries in the world at the moment with the UK close behind.

<comment><USER9> Again, if you dig a bit more, you'd be surprised. Or you've surrounded yourself with a niche of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real irony is, the Creationist are so sure science can't be the right explanation. Why? The clear implication is, God was not smart enough to create a Universe that would evolve us. No, he had to cheat and Bang! here we are. Their God is as dumb as they are.

</comment><comment><USER10> Although I'm an atheist, I find this to be somewhat disturbing.

Creationism, regardless of its mythological background, still is part of Humanity and any conclusions about it should be drawn by the individual, not the State or teachers.

They'd be better off spending more time with Critical Thinking, Scientific Method and Logic, powerful tools to genuinely understand Religion and not just take "facts" for granted.

<comment><USER4> Would you say this about other subjects, or just the origins of life and the universe?

Would you say that schools should not exclusively teach that 2+2=4, but give the students tools and allow them to draw their own conclusions? Should schools allow students to reach their own conclusions as to whether the Earth is flat, or whether the Sun is pulled across the sky by chariots?

Schools should absolutely teach creationism, in the same classes where they teach Greek mythology, Hindu gods, Native American creation stories, etc. And that is exactly what happens here. To quote the article, "...creationism can be taught in religious and moral education...."

<comment><USER10> Going back to the Greeks(e.g Essentialism) all the way to Modern Evolution would foster a much stronger intellectual background and avoid most future indoctrination. Understanding fallacies in theories is better than just taking them for granted.

But why be so picky on this matter? Unlike other concepts, Religion/Indoctrination can have a serious impact on one's life and true critical thinking is the only weapon against it.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing here or what your problem is with what's currently being done.

Are you saying there should be a single class that teaches both Essentialism and evolution? It seems reasonable for the same _school_ to teach both, but they belong in different classes. The former would be in a philosophy class, while the latter would be in a science class. Are you saying that facts shouldn't be taught at all, merely the history of thought? Or, again, is it just evolution?

You say that religion is of particular importance here, but the whole point of this is that _evolution is not religion_. It's just science, like any other science, and belongs in school just as much as Newton's Laws or Maxwell's Equations. What's disturbing about a governing body saying that school science classes should only teach science and not religion?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> noir-york Now we just need the rest of the world to follow suit.

<comment><USER11> Is that really a thing in the rest of the world? I thought it was mostly the US, and even there mostly the homeschooling thing.

<comment><USER12> That's also my perspective. I grew up in Mexico, a very Catholic country and I went to a private Catholic school and we had religious classes and science classes. The content of both wasn't mixed, we had "brothers" giving the religious ones, and real scientists (Chemists, Biologists) giving the science ones. Even priests conceded that the Genesis story was a metaphor.

<comment><USER13> I had similar experiences in Hungary: I grew up in a very religious community (mostly Catholic) and went to a Catholic high school. Many of our teachers (including biology, geology and physics) were Catholic priests, yet I never heard anybody arguing against evolution.

I was 17 years old when I first met a young-earth creationist: he was an American missionary... I am still Christian and I know lots of people in various religious groups, but 14 years later I have only met one person who believes in Intelligent Design, and I know about 2 other people from mailing lists / blogs who are creationists.

The sad part is, young-earth creationists are such a vocal group that whenever somebody learns that I am a Christian, I am usually asked how I can believe in such nonsense as a 6000-year old Earth :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm divided on these sorts of things (I didn't used to be). Sure science classes shouldn't be teaching religion, but having governments decide what's an approved view for its population is bothersome. People should be allowed to make mistakes and when the parents realise that their kids are at a disadvantage then the parents should learn to gather together and fix it themselves. Encourage people to be active in their community rather than sitting back and expecting someone from the top to take the initiative.

<comment><USER15> Why is it bothersome that the goverment decides that it is illegal for schools to teach a lie?

Schools are a social(ist) institution put in place by the goverment to ensure people have an equal access to knowledge - a foundation. Schools also have to follow a certain curriculum which would give this foundation. A school cannot simply choose to not teach reading or writing, or teach that the earth is flat because they beleive this is the right thing to do.

This has come up previously with different topics over the years. In many countries it is explicitly illegal for schools to teach that the Holocaust ever happened, or use text books that alledge this.

And, this is probably a good thing.

<comment><USER16> Because banning gives a government the power to hide the truth. Who gets to decide something is a lie? The majority may all be in favor this time, but what gets banned next?

There is no issue with schools deciding it is not in their interest to teach a subject; however, not being allowed to discus a subject is same as book burning.

How about letting schools teach the subject along with skills on how to do proper investigation and scientific research and logical reasoning. In other words, how about teaching the kids how to logically reason through fact or fiction so they are prepared to analyze other subjects appropriately.

<comment><USER17> By that line of reasoning schools should no teach anything at all. 2+2=5 is just as valid math as 2+2=4, anything else would be allowing the government to hide the truth!

<comment><USER16> That is not what I stated. Banning is saying that we can't discuss why 2+2 is not 5, because that subject is banned.

If a lot of people come often come to a wrong conclusion, you should be able to teach and discuss why that happens. Banning subjects is running away from debate and discussion. It fails to teach logical analysis and investigation.

<comment><USER4> If any of my math classes had wasted a bunch of time on, "While we know that 2+2=4, there are a bunch of people who believe that 2+2=5, here's why they're wrong," I would have been rather annoyed.

The space of things that are wrong is too vast to explore thoroughly. Stick to what's right.

<comment><USER16> I didn't expect anyone to take the example as a literal. The example was only a concept in response to the original poster who used it as a concept prop for their argument.

"Stick to what's right" lol, that's the point. Who decides what is right? The government? The teachers? Education should be more about how to learn and how to discover truth, not about force feeding what some bureaucrat thinks is right or wrong or important. The greatest period of geniuses per capita in history were during time of when the socratic method was used for teaching.

<comment><USER18> > Who decides what is right?

The scientific method. This is what we call it 'science' and not just 'opinion' or 'novel'.

<comment><USER16> Sure, and the method by which government makes decisions certainly is not the scientific method and should not weigh in on such matters.

But still, even if you constrain yourself to such a definition of what is right, in reality you still may be wrong.

For example: [https://www.sciencenews.org/article/odds-are-its- wrong](https://www.sciencenews.org/article/odds-are-its-wrong) and [https://plus.google.com/+ChrisReeveOnlineScientificDiscourse...](https://plus.google.com/+ChrisReeveOnlineScientificDiscourseIsBroken/posts/FAxVc3coJVJ?pid=6096228074938200130&oid=108466508041843226480) and [http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is- broken](http://www.vox.com/2015/5/13/8591837/how-science-is-broken)

<comment><USER18> Hilarious links.

I'm pretty sure that neither "Tatties last trendings: tasty scran or cancerous shite? nor "10 things that doctors don't want you to know about wrinkles" are or will be in the curriculum of the scottish students, never, ever... You can trust me with this.

<comment><USER16> huh? Hilarious response. Was that even suppose to be a reply to this thread?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Makes one proud to be a Brit - or more specifically, a Scott!

</comment><comment><USER20> We all lucky that nothing exploded and created everything 1000000000000000 years ago in a galaxy far far away, right?

</comment><comment><USER21> As it should be, in Science class it is only allowed scientific material

It would be a good thing to argument why creationism is an scientific material and should be allowed in an Science class after voting

</comment><comment><USER22> Only two states in the US that explicitly bans creationism have above average NAEP scores. Nearly every state with above average NAEP scores allows some form of creationism in the science room. Sure kids should learn evolution, and creationism belongs in the religion class, but there are many other things to fix in education before this.

</comment><comment><USER23> Creationism has obviously no foundation in science but neither has evolutionism. Where are the repeatable experiments required in order to be able to look for counterexamples for evolutionism? Has anybody ever "evolved" a species from another? If yes, how can we repeat that experiment? It is clear that evolutionism has no scientific status either.

<comment><USER24> You don't understand what evolution is. It really a name, and needs no proof.

Basically, there are a few known facts: (1) organisms die, (2) organisms reproduce, (3) the offspring are different from each other and from the parents, (4) the differences are more or less random, (5) dying is not random but a consequence of external forces, and (6) external forces are relatively constant. From these facts, it logically follows that over generations (or ofganisms reproducing ans dying), the living organisms will become more and more adapted to the environment. To avoid this long and detailed explanation, we just call this process evolution.

It's completely the same as e.g. the word "evaporate" \- instead of saying that kinetic energy causes H2O molecules to become more and more excited, and slowly breaks the H bonds between molecules, so that they can move freely inspace (gas), we just say "water evaporates".

<comment><USER23> If it needs no proof, it is not science either, and that was exactly the point I was making.

<comment><USER21> You don't know much about evolution, it seems

<comment><USER25> Go look up what kind of people use the word "evolutionism" and you might not be surprised.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Service Will Stream Local TV Stations in New York - <AUTHOR> http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/new-service-will-stream-local-tv-stations-in-new-york

<comment><USER2> ha. and im sure it will be shut down tomorrow..</comment>


Puzzle Jugs, the Drinking Vessels Designed to Confound - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/puzzle-jugs <comment><USER2> Now if only 3D printed parts were easily food safe...</comment>


Video: At one trillion frames per second, you can see light move - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/12/08/extreme-slow-motion-photography <comment><USER2> why not just link to the TED video instead of a blog that offers nothing additional? [http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I just happened to see it on that blog, and wanted to quote its phrasing (which doesn't appear on the video's own page as far as I can see). Sometimes a sentence adds a lot.

<comment><USER3> This is a clear violation of HN guideline. HN guideline is: "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."

<comment><USER4> He's obviously new here, so why not cut him a break.

luckylemon, it's true that there's a guideline regarding blog posts that link to other material. You can see of the guidelines by following the link at the bottom of the page [1]. Thanks for contributing something you feel is interesting.

[1]<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, will do in future. Thanks for pointing me to the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As it was stated before, it's not a 10^-12 seconds camera, it's a very short pulse laser cleverly synchronized with a very short span camera.

This experiment would not work with a moving object for instance. It still has interesting applications though.

<comment><USER6> I could be wrong, but as long as the object is moving at "normal" (e.g. significantly less than the speed of light) speeds, this approach would work for moving objects too.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, you are wrong.

The "video" of the pulse of light going through the bottle is actually the result of sending trillions of light pulses through the bottle, taking pictures at very precise (recorded) times and syncing them all together.

<comment><USER6> right but doesn't this depend on how fast you can send and receive those trillion light pulses? if that can be done in sufficiently short time, the object in motion will have only moved by a small amount, and it will look like it has been elongated in the direction of travel, like a motion blur.

The above is my uninformed and optimistic speculation.

<comment><USER7> Nope, because a single frame of the video is the result of many trillions of light pulses.

Each time a picture is taken the exposure is so low that the image is incredibly dark. These means they must take lots more and "add them together" to produce a bright image.

If the object is moving it would be impossible since every new image would have the object in a different place, and when you added them together to counteract the fact each image is so under exposed (dark) the object would be blurred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3346609>

</comment><comment><USER9> Research details <http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/>

<comment><USER10> Why does the researche call it "trillion fps", when it is really 1/trillionth sec frame? That sort of misrepresentation is supposed to be saved for the news office or the popular press. The achievement is interesting enogh without the deceptive exaggerations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this makes a great TED talk title, but this probably kicks in at some point. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle>

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously, HN is getting worse.

I posted this earlier, and it didn't even make it to the homepage. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4392695>

This is a clear violation of HN guideline. HN guideline is: "Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter."

<comment><USER12> So instead of talking about the content, we are all discussing the way that he posted his content.

Who cares? One click, two clicks. It really doesn't effect me that much.

I think all of us are talking way too much much about how much HN needs to be fixed. Almost every large thread has a reference to how HN is broken. HN may or may not be "going downhill" but if that's all we talk about... It certainly will.

And I recognize the irony in this statement. :)

<comment><USER7> BUT WHAT ABOUT HIS KARMA?! :O

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This URL should point to the source of the video i.e. ted.com not kottke.org

</comment><comment><USER14> Again, it's NOT trillion frames per second. Stop spreading this bullshit.

That camera takes extremely short exposures (1 trillionth of a sec), but it cannot take 1 trillion of such exposures in one second. Not even close. Not one billion, not one million (and probably not even one thousand, as there are only a few sensors that can do that).

<comment><USER15> They capture data at about half a trillion "fps". Then they repeat this over and over and combine the data - as the light from just one exposure is too weak.

<comment><USER14> This just shows you don't understand how their technology works. They don't capture the data at half a trillion FPS. They take very short exposures and shift the phase very precisely, which creates an illusion of 1 trillion fps.</comment></comment></comment>


Collaborative screen sharing (formerly PowWow) - <AUTHOR> http://screenhero.com/

<comment><USER2> I love this app. I'm currently in NY, and my GF is in Hamburg. She's currently doing a lot of data processing in PostgreSQL and terminal, and with this app it is really easy for me to help her in case she is stuck by simply grabbing her terminal window or SQL console and working there it. It is close to magic.

Also I'll probably use this a lot in another project where me and the other guy doing it are really rarely in the same country. Utilizing this, it is much easier to discuss code, layouts, or even point out a weird behaviour of code by sharing the iOS simulator and going through the process that leads to the bug.

Thanks for this fantastic app, I love it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the love :)

We (the co-founders) are on Olark on the Screenhero website right now, if anyone has any live questions! :)

<comment><USER4> What makes you think that you can beat established players on the same market instead of just hanging in a long tail? I mean I appreciate the drive to scratch the itch, but what's your definitive innovation that gives you the edge?

First, there was VNC, but it didn't let take over the screen. So there came UltraVNC, but it didn't let connect to the target box easily. So there came GoToMyPC, but it relayed everything through its servers. So there came LogMeIn, who used servers to bootstrap sessions and did the rest in p2p fashion. But it was still too generic, so there came something like CrossLoop and made a tech-support oriented screen sharing service. GTMPC further simplified the UX and so did the LMI, but that more of an incremental improvement rather something that would've a new player to bite a part of a market.

So what do _you_ bring?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Much better name... please add Windows / Linux support :-).

<comment><USER6> Windows support is being actively worked on! Please sign up to our mailing list (from the website) if you haven't already and we should be able to give you good news in a few weeks time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those of you using emacs, I've been using imp-mode with some great success for sharing buffers:

<https://github.com/skeeto/impatient-mode>

I have found collaboratively typing/editing does _not_ go that well for most coding I seem to want to collaborate on. The guy I work closest with uses vim in a very specific way (one window per buffer, many many MacVim windows with keybindings to search titles, etc) and I use Emacs a very specific way (helm buffer search, compilation modes, eshell, etc)

So now I just share my buffer, and (kbd "C-x n d") `narrow-to-defun` to hide everything down to just the definition I'm working on (generally a C/C++ class/function).

It also lets him go off and update bugs, read some email, whatever if I go off on a tight edit/compile/test loop to get a few things right that he doesn't have input on.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very, very cool idea. The app works really well, but it feels a bit rough around the edges. I just spent about half an hour chatting with one of the cofounders though, J, and he seems very eager to improve the app, so I have all the faith in the world those edges will be straightened out. Keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER9> Hey Linux users, if you plug in a second mouse, you can turn it into a second mouse pointer pretty easily:

        xinput create-master "Second"
        xinput list
        xinput reattach [device id] "Second pointer"

where [device id] is the mouse hardware device listed in `xinput list`. See <https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multi-pointer_X> for more information. (You can also get a second keyboard focus this way if you plug in a second keyboard; see the link for details.)

This is only tangentially related since it doesn't do the "screen sharing over a network" thing, but it can be handy for pair programming on a huge monitor.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am loving this app and would definitely buy it (when you decide to charge for it).

One small gripe though (of which you are probably already aware), your reset password functionality is rather poorly done. It emails the password in plain text and also I didn't find any place where I could change the password which was emailed to me.

<comment><USER3> You can change the password by clicking on your name in the app — it brings up a profile page that lets you change your name, password, or profile photo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well crafted demo and UX. Nicely done folks.

On a side note: I found the submit to mailing list input to be non-functioning on mobile Safari (but possibly other browsers)

</comment><comment><USER12> Much better name guys!

</comment><comment><USER13> can you give a high level overview of how this is accomplished from a technical perspective? and any chance of open sourcing this?

<comment><USER14> Answered a similar question in the previous HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4925633>

We don't have plans to open source it, but we might be open sourcing components in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love this email example :) <http://screenhero.com/img/email.png>

</comment><comment><USER16> Tried it and crashed my entire Finder. Simply put. I uninstalled it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just tried this out... pretty freaking awesome.</comment>


The Upside of Complexity - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/8688007151/the-upside-of-complexity

<comment><USER2> tl;dr Essential complexity is essential. Also, not evil.</comment>


Programming with Categories - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhgq-BqyZ7i7MTGhUROZy3BOICnVixETS <comment><AUTHOR> This has probably been posted before but since Category Theory has been popping up every once in a while I thought I'd share this. I'm just starting this and the instructors' [book]([https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316](https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.05316)) here, and the subject is very approachable even for biologists like myself.</comment>


The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-dark-side-of-emotional-intelligence/282720/

<comment><USER2> Reading "However, in jobs that involved fewer emotional demands, the results reversed. The more emotionally intelligent employees were, the lower their job performance." \- I think that's a good example for seeing that not everything in should be about work :) My sense is that folks with higher EQ in those kinds of jobs, even if they don't perform as well as others, still enjoy and live life to a greater extent. Sadly, my EQ is pretty average, so this is really my way of saying that from my experience people with higher EQ we're more successful (or least happier) because of their ability to relate to others, and gain if not additional money or financial success, at least friendship and better relationships. Just my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER3> wonder how this is different that people skills? Guess more analytics about it. Also, IQs don't change much over a persona lifetime but it sounds like you can train EQ.</comment>


Vmware launches Liota (Little IoT Agent), a vender-neutral open-source SDK - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vmware/liota <comment><USER2> Does anyone actually believe that IoT is anything more than marketing fluff? What are the benefits of my LED lightbulbs having an IPv6 address?

<comment><USER3> Yes there are definite benefits. The problem at the moment is that nothing is interoperable. Everything is proprietary.

I'm hopeful that _eventually_ we'll get some semi-open standard that most things support. Probably Homekit or Weave. They have the huge advantage of native support on a mobile OS. Weave looks better, but Homekit has the advantage of actually existing.

I would say, wait 3 years then ask that question again.

And some possible benefits of connected lights are:

* Automatically turn off when you leave the house (or room if you have good enough sensors).

* Automatically adjust colour temperature over time (e.g. using the weather).

* Gently fade on when your alarm goes off in the morning.

I lived in a flat with motion-sensing lights in the bathroom and I _wish_ they had been connected so I could have made them dimmer at night.

<comment><USER4> Wouldn't it be better if they were just automatically dimmer at night? Wouldn't you still prefer a real dimmer switch, even if it moves automatically on a schedule? I can't see wanting to pull out a phone (which I may not even have with me at night) to dim the lights while my hands are wet. I don't even have a smartphone, and my flatmate broke hers irreparably the other day and has been without while waiting for a replacement.

I really don't see any reason why people should be expected to control devices which are right in front of them with something in their pocket.

There's a reason we still carry cash: when the lights go out, and the ink on the credit card recorder runs dry, you can still pay for things. People who do not carry cash deserve a nomination for the Darwin Award.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know, those things run on a schedule most of the time but maybe you want to leave early and turn off all the lights at once. Or if you want to pull an all nighter and want normal light so you don't get sleepy quicker.

There are a lot of cases when you want to change your schedule and your phone helps you do that.

Furthermore, you will be controlling the lights less with an app and more with your voice. For instance, if you tell Siri good night (and you have home kit enabled), Siri should dim or turn of the lights. Combined with Amazon's Echo, this can really be handy (although I have a lot of privacy concerns regarding Echo).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related announcement post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833620](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833620)

</comment><comment><USER7> That example code isn't going to run. Hyphens are illegal in python identifiers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Would be better if they called it Lolita :)

<comment><USER9> Or just "Iota", which already carries the connotation of "little" without the preceding "L".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Say all you want, but it's an example of how not to name things, especially an open source project meant for wide adoption. In written form, it's basically a variation of "Lolita", which leaves a corresponding impression even after it's re-read properly.

<comment><USER11> Lolita isn't a very common term outside of *chan.

<comment><USER10> It's one of Nabokov's more notable novels, but I guess to each his own, including *chan for some.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Does competition motivate you? - <AUTHOR>

Hey I was wondering if anyone has been using online compeition sites? I want to start bettering my computer programming skills and I found competition heavily motivates me.<p>Which leads me to my main question: How much does compeition motivate you? <comment><USER2> It motivates me to try harder, to deliver something exceptional.

But it's not the main driver behind what I do.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Have you tried competitive programming sites or entered in competitions? Or does the general idea of competition motivate you? I've been thinking about this philosophically for the past few days.

</comment><comment><USER3> One word: Of course.

<comment><USER4> Typo, you meant

Two words: Of course it does</comment></comment>


Reddit Dragged into Russian Propaganda Row - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43255285 <comment><USER2> If Facebook is used then reddit could have been used too, no big deal there. Facebook at least would take money to show ads, I don't think they would have taken out ads on reddit though. I wouldn't be surprised if r/the_donald is full of Russian trolls riling people up.

<comment><USER3> I always hoped r/the_Donald had a lot of Russian trolls. The racsism and misogyny there can be crazy and it would make me feel better if it was trolls instead of sincere people

<comment><USER4> A lot of trolls are sincere though, or at least are indistinguishable from them. I mean I've used nazi symbolism and whatnot ironically / "for teh lulz" in the past, but if you looked at that shit if you didn't know it you'd be sure I was serious.

<comment><USER5> "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As this article references another article heavily, wouldn't it be better to use that one?

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/russians-used-reddit-and- tumbl...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/russians-used-reddit-and-tumblr-to- troll-the-2016-election)

That said, I don't really see how Reddit was "dragged" into this whole mess. Out of all the social media sites, Reddit is the least protected and filled with most of the opinionated folks, if not outright trolls. But it seems not being a "mainstream" social media site has helped.

<comment><USER7> The notion that Reddit is not "mainstream" expired a while ago.

<comment><USER8> Even if Reddit isn't mainstream publications like Buzzfeed, Slate, etc. pretty obviously trawl reddit to find fodder for trend pieces and ideas for columns.

It's also basically responsible for the death of BBSes and community forums all around the internet. It's eaten up tons of niche online subcultures.

<comment><USER4> > It's eaten up tons of niche online subcultures.

In favor of much higher discoverability (I'd argue); having a common UI and platform helps. Similar to how in a previous age, having vBulletin like a lot of the other online communities helps with familiarity. Reddit adds that you don't need a separate account to interact with a community.

<comment><USER8> >In favor of much higher discoverability (I'd argue)

That is the trade-off isn't it? The downside, though, is that Reddit's interaction design privileges low-effort, easily digestible, and sharable content at the expense of everything else. Especially the kind of off-topic personal discussion that builds durable "communities" that go deeper than just sharing content about a particular topic.

<comment><USER9> > Reddit's interaction design privileges low-effort, easily digestible, and > sharable content at the expense of everything else

Along those lines, Reddit's format (and indeed, HN's format, because it's nearly identical) makes holding conversations very cumbersome. It's like the difference between a directory holding a bunch of files, and directory holding a single file & another directory, which holds the next file & another directory, etc, etc.

<comment><USER8> Yeah. This has been my frustration with the development of social media in general (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

The old conversational style on Usenet/IRC/BBS felt like a group of people talking together. Possibly having parallel conversations with multiple groups of people at a time.

The social media model feels more like having a bunch of individual one-on-one conversations in parallel. It's good for broadcasting a thought or idea, but terrible for actually having a discussion.

There are pros and cons to both, but the latter is a lot more cognitively intensive and makes it really hard to have the kind of conversation/discussion where you learn something new. If you have a controversial opinion it feels like you get dogpiled by 1,000 people all saying the same thing. It's hard to even know where to start and it doesn't feel like people are giving you feedback on your point, it just feels like everyone is trying to attack you. When you're speaking with a group people usually let one or two people make the points and just add on as they feel is needed.

It's a way more manageable conversational flow, and one that's more likely to encourage people to actually talk to each other rather than talking to the caricature of whatever they imagine someone who would say something like that to be. Instead you just get long discussion threads that inevitably devolve into 2 people slinging downvotes and variations on "You're a doodyhead" at each other. In an IRC chat, even if the moderator doesn't shut that down, the rest of the group will tell you to STFU and move on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I visited the worldnews subreddit at times. The pro-Russian tilt with plenty of links to RT.com was fairly obvious. I thought about writing the moderators, but with it so obvious, I personally assumed that there was somebody on the moderation team protecting the Russian submissions.

<comment><USER11> There was definitely something going on in 2006. Reddit has always been rather left-leaning, but for a ~6 month period the top of /r/worldnews was nothing but "Immigrant commits <crime>" and similar. I'm sure some real people got drawn into it, but there was definitely some funny business.

<comment><USER12> That stuff is in /r/news now, although the controlling faction changes on occasion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _The US government has already charged 13 Russians, linked to the agency, > with attempting to manipulate American voters using social media._

Is that illegal now?

<comment> GCU-Empiricist Great question. It'll be interesting to look and see what law the charges are files under. . .

[https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download)

Charges 1.Conspiracy to defraud (being unregistered foreign agents acting in politics and stealing SSNs to bring money in), 2. Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Bank Fraud (laundering money to pay for ads and using stolen SSNs) 3\. Identity theft (SSNs)

So the answer is yes it's illegal to be a state actor propagandizing if you aren't registered under the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (which I'll have to read and chuckle over) and based on a quick scan of the primary document the indictments are for the way they tried to work around it.

<comment><USER13> Looks the charges have nothing to do with manipulation. Not directly at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> /r/politics is just as much the other way.

EDIT: Not sure if the downvotes are because you feel I support Trump (I'm a Brit, I have no allegiances) or something else. But you can't deny that /r/politics and the other subreddits like esist etc cause just as much drama. There's no nuanced debate anymore. Just pick a a team and fight to the death.

<comment><USER15> "the other way" would imply /r/politics is filled with liberal false propaganda planted by a foreign enemy. Feel free to show any such examples.

<comment><USER16> [https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7szc5h/announceme...](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7szc5h/announcement_shareblue_has_been_removed_from_the/)

r/politics is just as tilted left and used by propaganda groups as r/donald is tilted right. If you think either side has a monopoly on rationality and pure intentions, you are deceiving yourself.

<comment><USER15> moving the goalposts. r/poltitics is certainly tilted left, but is not filled with false left-wing propaganda illegally created by a foreign enemy.

ShareBlue is not a propaganda arm of a foreign enemy, it is a US-based partisan blog, and additionally the accusation here is that they commented without disclosure of their affiliation. that is nothing like the coordinated propaganda, false/stolen US identities, wire fraud, and other scam operations sponsored by the Russian government. There is no criminal indictment against ShareBlue.

<comment><USER16> These supposed foreign entities helped just as many people on the left, like Bernie and impersonated left-leaning entities like Black Lives Matter. And their involvement was minimial (100k) compared to what the major political parties were spending on the election. Hillary spent 1.5 billion dollars.

<comment><USER15> > like Bernie and impersonated left-leaning entities like Black Lives Matter.

yes but not within anything generally viewable on /r/politics

<comment><USER16> Reddit had to tune its algorithm to make the_donald stop appearing on the front page. And it wasn't Russian bots upvoting Trump stuff. It was people who actually liked and voted for Trump. However you want to slice it, a good portion of this country voted for Trump on their own accord. Not because of Russians, but because they actually liked Trump. No one disputes this. So stop with the Russian bullshit. It just makes the left look like idiots, like they're trying to come up with a reason Hillary lost when in reality people just disagreed with what Hillary had to say. People are tired of this Russian stupidity. Everyone knows it doesn't pass the smell test. It's been years investigating this and the world's premier spy apparatus can't dig the dirt up on Trump. Think about what that tells you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh, so that's why Reddit started restricting what sites can be shared on large subreddits. Anything you share on Reddit these days must be from BBC, CNN, NBC, and so on. Only large sites allowed... which is just as bad as Russian propaganda. Instead of the Russian side of events, now you only hear the pro- Western side only.

<comment><USER18> That's not even remotely true. If you look at the subreddits with whitelists, the whitelists almost always include Al Jazeera, RT, and plenty of other non- western media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Instead it seems Russia's aim was to provoke and divide Americans on the > internet and, as a result, in the physical world too.

What I really don't understand about the "Russia wants to divide us!" talk is, if this is such a grave concern, why do we give a free pass to identical speech originating from domestic actors? Isn't that also dividing us as a country? BLM, #NotMyPresident, pro/anti-gun rhetoric, etc. -- we have plenty of this kind of stuff floating around already, and in the case of BLM, "the resistance", etc. it's all seen as a good thing, or at worst, "starting a dialogue on X." If spreading these kind of messages online is sowing discord in our country, why aren't we going after domestic organizations as well?

<comment><USER20> I think the idea is that domestic organizations operated (for lack of a better word) by US Citizens have an end goal of making the country better for themselves. Russia seemingly didn't care about the end goals, just sowing general discord. Their endgame isn't a better United States, it's a divided United States.

<comment><USER19> > Their endgame isn't a better United States, it's a divided United States.

But again, if we're concerned about a divided United States, why is there no concern over divisive speech generated within the United States? I mean one of the things the Russians did was organize a resistance march. So... Russian- organized resistance march = bad. American-organized resistance march = good (we had one of those too, unless those dastardly Russians were behind it as well). Huh? How does a resisting a legitimately-elected president do anything good for this country? How does that NOT sow discord? That was the whole point! And yet, we don't see a problem with the domestic actors taking these actions.

<comment><USER21> Disagreements about issues is what politics is all about. I would be more concerned if we all were in lock-step agreement! Ultimately those disagreements and differing views are from a desire to make this country better. Unchecked foreign influence undermines these debates.

The Russian case was deliberate stoking of issues until their advocates could no longer talk civilly and rationally. They played up caricatures of each side to destroy any common ground. It's the deliberate stoking of discord to our people, which bleeds into our politics, and hampers our nation's actions globally. A disrupted US politic gives Russia more room to maneuver globally without rousing our attention. None of these things serve to advance the original issues raised by the people that were targeted.

Even if the discord didn't emerge, the taint of Russian influence diminishes legitimacy and trust in an issue and its advocates by sowing doubt in the movement's motivations. This undermines all kinds of debates and freezes movement on all sorts of issues.

Lets put concrete into an abstract idea.

Putting aside everything else about Trump, during the campaign Trump insisted "Wouldn't it be nice if we got along with Russia?" Was this a legitimate call for undoing decades of demonization that is a product of the Cold War? Or does he want to score lucrative quid-pro-quo deals and access to Putin? The campaign meetings with Russian contacts doesn't inspire benefit of the doubt.

Finally all other things being equal, the protesters here have skin in the game. Foreign influencers, outside of what they want to influence, do not. Foreign powers can cause all kinds of harm while spared the consequences. Us locals have to live with those consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The presidential election showed conclusively who the real propagandists in America are, and it's not Russia. I'll admit that I didn't read the article, and this comment may not even be relevant, but I can't take the Russian propaganda meme at all seriously, either in this lifetime or the next or the one after that. This meme is just more deflection and misdirection by the American media.

Feel free to downvote/remove this comment.

<comment><USER15> Here is a 37 page federal indictment of employees of the Internet Research Agency who were deeply involved in Russian-produced propaganda in the 2016 election. This is neither a "meme" nor is it a creation of any "media" source. Worth a read:

[https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download)

<comment><USER23> Mueller directly states the he doesn't believe any of this affected the election.

I have read that IRA spent about $500 each in ad buys in the 3 borderline blue/red 'purple' states that went to Trump in the Nov 2016 election.

Even if we assume the 100k they spent on ad buys went directly to the 3 purple states, and generated a million CPM... ads paid for by the RNC and DNC and the PACs generated several trillion impressions.

<comment><USER15> > Mueller directly states the he doesn't believe any of this affected the > election.

please cite this because that sounds like an extraordinary claim.

<comment><USER23> You know what, I'm Fake News. I was not reading Mueller's remarks. I was reading Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Rod Rosenstein's prepared remarks about the indictment.

Rosenstein said there was no proof anything covered by the indictment affected the Nov 2016 election.

Here is C-SPAN video of Rosenstein announcing the indicment

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoAf_I3ULwE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoAf_I3ULwE)

at 5m 28s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoAf_I3ULwE&t=5m28s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoAf_I3ULwE&t=5m28s)

Rosenstein, reading from his prepared remarks, says:

"There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."

I loathe linking to "real clear politics" but they put up a transcript:

[https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/16/watch_liv...](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/16/watch_live_deputy_ag_rod_rosenstein_announcement.html)

<comment><USER24> "There is no allegation in the indictment" has nothing to do with what anyone believes and even less to do with what is actually true. Further, anyone definitively claiming that the outcome of the election was or wasn't affected by Russian interference is peddling partisanship and not facts because it is impossible to know.

<comment><USER23> > Further, anyone definitively claiming that the outcome of the election was > or wasn't affected by Russian interference is peddling partisanship and not > facts because it is impossible to know.

I realize this isn't math, but I've studied the ads that IRA paid for, I am pretty familiar with what the employees of IRA did, I've read about how much money was spent on Facebook ads (100k, and almost half of that was spent after the Nov 2016 election ), I've read about how many CPMs were generated vs how many ads American facebook viewers saw ( a few million vs 16 trillion), I'm pretty sure I know!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Democracy Dying? - <AUTHOR> https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/democracy-dying <comment><USER2> Will people never take Betteridge's law of headlines seriously?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)</comment>


Over third of Galaxy S5 upgrades come from iPhone owners - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/samsung/10764742/Over-third-of-Galaxy-S5-upgrades-come-from-iPhone-owners.html

<comment><USER2> Most people buys whatever advertise more. News at 11</comment>


How Startup Options and Ownership Work - <AUTHOR> http://a16z.com/2016/08/24/options-ownership/?utm_campaign=Mattermark+Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=33386773&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Yh06XfJ07IS_elY10dP8tl6Et3vg0oGecP6iW9E-6_zYuCaUP_bMpOXOVidvEs8wUZwZMrYurXUBx4DrTCsDpEFYUNA&_hsmi=33386773 <comment><USER2> The article goes over stock options; but it doesn't address an alternate form of equity; issuing early employees restricted stock awards (instead of options).

From the receiver's point of view, Stock Options are a bad deal 99 times out of 100, let's review the cases in which owners of options get screwed:

\- Company gets acquired, new terms are put into place.

\- Company gets acquired, company isn't good fit.

\- Company gets massive amounts of funding (those Unicorns), and due to the increasing funding at each round, those with options are left with a hefty tax bill and only 90 days to exercise if they leave

\- If you have stock options and are an employee of a early stage startup, chances are you don't have the liquidity to exercise it. You're also not being paid market value (since you have stock options) If you did have the capital, you could have just invested in the seed round for a much better discount and return.

\- If a company goes out of business

\- if A company stays private and doesn't offer an internal market

There are only a very few cases where employees with options are taken care of:

\- Company sells and ensures there are triggers in the options \- Company extends exercise period

\- Company goes public and employees are able to exercise their options with the tax bill that goes along with that and still make money on their shares

We have a romanticized view of options because Google, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, and a handful of other companies have hit the bigtime; but that's the huge exception, not the rule, and yet we allow companies to treat options as equal to salary, and they're not.

I know companies face reporting requirements if they have more than 50 shareholders; but the earliest employees should be compensated in a way that respects their sacrifice and risk; and options don't do that. At best, options are a placebo.

<comment><USER3> Almost all your points apply exactly equally to restricted stock as it does to options. In both cases you will have a vesting schedule, just in the case of restricted stock it's usually a grant of the shares with no exercise price. In both cases you want to file an 83(b) election so you are taxed based on the FMV of the company when you receive the unvested shares (when the shares are worthless) so that you will only owe capital gains later.

But more importantly, in both cases you end up exactly and equally screwed in terms of you are holding the same class of stock (common) with the same vesting terms (no, single, or double trigger acceleration), all the exact same issues around dilution, liquidity, preferred shares, and unfair buyout terms funneling cash to key executives, etc.

Equity is a massive gamble all around, and there's no magic bullet that I've seen which can defray many of the inherent risks of owning common shares of a private company which has perhaps a 1 in 100 odds of ever seeing a public market or liquidity event that surpasses the total liquidation preferences.

<comment><USER4> IIRC 83(b) on options is not available unless the company allows you to pre- exercise the options to turn them into shares prior to vesting.

So the vast majority of startup employees don't have the fancy tax-avoiding scheme that founders and investors have.

<comment><USER3> The only downside of early exercise I can see for the company is accounting for the cash and being ready to buy-back unvested shares as-needed. Since the tax implications are potentially massive for the employee, and we're talking de-minimis work for the employer, early exercise should be a standard term on all ISO contracts. I see this as an educational opportunity for Founders, and if you see a contract without early exercise I certainly wouldn't hesitate to question it.

<comment><USER5> Early exercise is great for the majority of situations. The 100k limit for ISO options can be a potential downside. If there is a spread between the strike price and the FMV, only the first 100k worth of shares will be considered ISOs and the rest will be treated as NSOs. In the case of no early exercise, you could get 100k of ISOs per year for the 4 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember asking for a cap table at a startup and in not so few words, was told to fuck off.

At that point I realized it didn't matter how many options I had, I was going to get screwed should there be an exit, and made my own.

<comment><USER7> I was granted 10,000 shares at a startup I worked for. I asked them "what does a share represent as a portion of the current company?" "We don't divulge that information."

I am not going to lock up a huge portion of my expendable compensation in an "investment" that's designed to benefit people besides me on the hopes that the company is one of the few successes to come to market. There are too many horror stories going on right now that the VCs are trying to keep quiet for me to trust most startups.

<comment><USER8> I don't get this age of greed that we are in. The board and the VCs are making hundreds of millions (and some of them already have that much), and they are f'n pinching pennies for the first 20-30 employees that worked their ass of to make their company work. Is it really going to hurt that much for like 10-15 people to make a few hundred grand? Geez. It wasn't this way (at least for me) back in the mid-90s. I had been lucky to make some money back then, but I hate that the 20-somethings are getting royally f'd over.

BTW, my CEO just gave me a significant bump in my options a few weeks ago. He acted like it was a huge deal. But, with the 'right of repurchase' and all the other BS clauses in my options contract, they're essentially worthless.

<comment><USER7> I've worked for the really rich. In my experience/opinion I don't think they're evil but are focused on having more for the sake of having more. They grew up in such a way that they believe they are more skilled/harder working therefore more deserving of wealth than others. They also resent those that don't do what they do but complain about not having enough wealth (even though society would stop functioning were that to be the case).

There's usually something missing from their combination of empathy and understanding which would allow them to care about the negative ramifications they're having. Look at Bill Gates, I don't think he's a bad person but he hurt a lot of people in industry and consumers to build Microsoft to what it is by destroying the competitive landscape. Steve Jobs is a better example, he proactively colluded to suppress wages and paid money for an organ that would only prolong his life but could have saved someone else's (seriously, I consider that an evil move).

One suggestion for you, it sounds like you're very angry about your current work environment. Maybe it's time to find a new place?

<comment><USER9> I used to be bitter about stuff like this but I've gotten over it.

The chances of getting wealthy by joining a small startup are very small. It happens, but it's probably not going to happen for you.

If you really want to do well, you have to pull together the resources to start a successful company.

On a different note, I used to work for an almost billionaire, they were incredibly cheap. I often reminded myself that you don't make a billion dollars by wasting money!

<comment><USER9> AND on another note, I've noticed some founders want to put you on a 5 or even 6 year vesting schedule.

I should go back to welding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article mentions '"sticker shock" (or reverse!) [up]on leaving their first startup.'

Companies can easily ameliorate this, especially for early employees, by permitting early exercise. The 409a valuation rarely changes between financing events so if you get 5000 $.50 options you can pay $2500, file 83(b), and not have to pay any tax until (unless you sell). If you leave before your vesting period is up the company pays you back what you paid for the unvested amount -- again, not taxable. I always make sure this is in the stock plan.

There's some minor subtleties (you want to put a voting agreement into place etc) but they require no heavy lifting at all, and they treat employees as what they should be: valued members of the team.

Yes, in later rounds when the share price climbs, this is less useful so but be it. It's annoying that 409a common valuations end up at about 20% of preferred these days; I think it was more fair back when the board could just determine that 10% was reasonable.

<comment><USER3> I look at companies like Uber raising billions of dollars (with liquidation preference) and losing billions of dollars in net operating loss each year, and I can only hope for the employee's sake that they have a 409a valuation on the common stock of exactly $1.

In reality they are probably handing out options with a strike price valuating the common shares at billions of dollars and those options are likely worse than worthless.

<comment><USER10> Indeed, as I mentioned, this doesn't help much in later rounds, but then again in later rounds salaries increase as well.

But for the early folks (B round or before), why not give them the maximum opportunity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Props to a16z for writing this up. Many of the practical problems that come up with stock options result from having one sophisticated party (the company) and one unsophisticated party (the employee).

When the details of their stock options become material, employees are often surprised -- and usually not in a pleasant way. Many engineers become disillusioned with stock options, and eventually the whole startup scene.

</comment><comment><USER12> > If [an ex-employee] knows (as a result of having been at the company) that > the prospects of the business are looking grim or a product launch is > significantly delayed, that's important information a buyer would deserve to > know in evaluating whether to buy the stock, and failure to disclose that > information creates real legal jeopardy for the seller. This risk exists in > a 90-day exercise program as well, but it becomes a lot more acute when you > move to 10-year exercise periods.

It seems to me there would be a _lower_ risk under the 10-year exercise window scenario. Under the 90-day window, the ex-employee would be forced to exercise or lose all of their equity and thus liable for a large AMT bill. To mitigate this, that ex-employee, with recent inside knowledge of the company's operations, would look to the secondary market to unload some of those shares and ease the tax burden unless their are strict transfer restrictions in place, increasing the divide between cash-rich and cash-poor employees.

Under a 10-year exercise plan, the ex-employee would be less likely to exercise (better to wait until the company's outcome is more certain) and wouldn't need the cash to buy the shares and cover those AMT taxes.

> ISOs have better tax treatment for employees because the employee does not > have to pay taxes at the time of exercise on the difference between the > exercise price of the option and the fair market value of the stock

This doesn't seem to count AMT taxes which is the big elephant in the room. In California and most high tax states, employees will have to pay AMT taxes on the difference.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am curious to know when is the best time to ask all the questions about the stock options. Before signing the offer letter / getting started or after?

Before may be a bad deal for startups, especially the ones that are keeping everything all the equity details under wraps.

After is a bad deal for the employee who makes the move, and could be a major bait and switch

<comment><USER14> If you don't know (minimally) the fully diluted count of shares in the company, your option grant is as specific is saying that your salary will be denominated in dollars and you'll be given more detail about it sometime after joining the company, pinky-swear.

A company which won't provide enough information to value an option grant contemporaneous with the written offer is being either abusive or stupid. There exist employment opportunities at companies which are neither abusive nor stupid. Take one of those instead.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like I was right to pass on the company that promised me "4000 options" and insisted that any details beyond that were strictly confidential and could under no circumstances be disclosed to any non-employees. It seemed especially suspicious in conjunction with the rest of their attempts at hard-sell tactics that just left a bad taste in my mouth.

<comment><USER16> If they _really_ want it to be confidential, you could tell them that you'd be willing to sign an NDA. And see if they tell you. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has anyone ever heard of or seen a way that option holders don't get 100% screwed if a company is acquired for less than the sum of the investors' liquidation preferences?

<comment><USER18> Not earning money on options when the business isn't successful isn't getting screwed. That's just life.

<comment><USER19> But the business got bought. That's not being not successful.

<comment><USER18> If a business gets bought for less than the capital invested, it's not a success.

<comment><USER19> It's not a failure. And I'd say those who poured their effort into the company should be entitled to some part of the purchase price, more so than people who's only contribution was money.

<comment><USER18> You'd consider turning a $1000 investment into a company worth $500 a success? OK, sure. You can have whatever opinion you want, but you're gonna have a hard time finding other people who see the world the same way you do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem isn't that this information isn't out there. It is -- but you need to (a) recognize that this information is important, and (b) know how and where to find it.

Writing another blog post on a VC blog isn't going to solve the fundamental problem of information awareness and discovery.

It's very much like basic personal finance. The hardest part is becoming aware of the need to educate yourself in the first place. The second hardest part is figuring out what you need to learn. Much of this awareness comes from upbringing and is an element of social capital that we often take for granted.

Establishing a neutral, nonpartisan online resource under a transparent domain name would be a plausible first step.

<comment><USER21> I find getting screwed by the taxman a few times while the VPs and investors make out like bandits motivates the research process too ...

<comment><USER20> I'd like to think that we can figure out a way to not have the first timers get screwed either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I highly recommend also reading the book Consider Your Options[0]. It's an easy yet very informative read.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Consider-Your-Options-Equity- Compensa...](https://www.amazon.com/Consider-Your-Options-Equity-Compensation- ebook/dp/B00PSGEK7U/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I was at a company that had an IPO, it did poorly and it was then that I learned about a Full Ratchet. Those are terms in fine print that employees are never told. Ugh...

</comment><comment><USER24> I'll admit that I probably have an unhealthy disdain for the financial sector, but how do investors manage take on no risk in some of these options?

Reading the liquidation preferences section, particularly about double dipping, was a little irritating. How common are these situations?

</comment><comment><USER25> As an engineer I ask for more cash so I can use options. I usually get it.

What about the non-techinical employee? I generally feel marketing, sales, etc are screwed in startups. How can a someone making < 75k actually use their options?

</comment><comment><USER26> Just remember to multiply by zero.

</comment><comment><USER7> Ironic article given the innate moral hazard for VC firms on the subject. The interests of funding VCs and startup employees only align in unusual cases.

</comment><comment><USER27> Said the fox to the hen.

<comment><USER28> Please don't post generically cynical comments to Hacker News. It degrades the discourse here, even if your underlying assumption is right.

If you're aware of an inaccuracy in the article, or an important fact (as opposed to swipe) that is left out, you could add value to the thread by mentioning it.</comment></comment>


I was excited when PG said you don't have to be smart to startup [Vote up if true] - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I think a bigger problem than not being smart is having more than one idea over time; the new one supplants the old.

I once struggled to explain to a top-notch guy what I did for the company we knew. "Ah", he said, "you're a problem solver", and he was right. Then it varied from people popping their head round the door with a question to larger scale performance issues. Now it means after solving the problems of how to do one good idea I'm attracted by the problems of the new one rather than persevering with bringing idea #1 to completion.

</comment><comment><USER3> On Reddit, I recall one day in which there were 4 polls on the front page, and two other posts complaining about the polls.

For the most part, we all agree that polls don't belong as part of the comment system. PG has offered to write dedicated poll code.

Let's try to band together to avoid filling up the stories with Polls, Stories Complaining about polls, then complaining about complaining about polls, and the like. ;)

-Colin

<comment><USER4> And needless to say, let's NOT impeach anybody! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The funny thing is how ironic the title is, in that the author seems to be making the claim that he is not smart.

<comment><USER6> I think that's the point. Maybe you just have to know Vlad to get his humor...

<comment><USER5> Ahh, then the irony is actually that I am the not-smart one :). Sorry, newcomer here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And leave a comment here if you come to News.YC for news and not content-free polls!

<comment><USER8> No! I'm reading news.yc/active these days, and adding comments to this thread makes it salient.

Please ignore such submissions entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See you at next year's startup school (hopefully)!</comment>


Your company's urge to tweet - <AUTHOR> http://www.dotcoma.it/2010/03/28/your-companys-urge-to-tweet.html

<comment><USER2> The rant really only applies to big corps.

If you're a small company (like a 2 or 3 person startup, ie. the HN crowd), then _you_ are the face of the company doing the tweeting/blogging/whatever. Sure, don't fool yourself that your couple hundred followers really care all that much, but it's cheap and easy marketing, and sometimes you get a bite.

<comment><AUTHOR> of course!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I may be wrong, but this seems like just a rage dump.

I don't work for a large corporation so I can't say how they treat this stuff, but the way we're approaching this is "starting conversations."

In addition, if you don't have any presense, how will you be found? If we stop posting blogs, making websites, using twitter and all the other tools we have to get our message out (and linked to) how would the author want us to be found? We could go back to the old days of directly calling prospects who weren't even looking for us. I just love getting unexpected phone calls from salesmen myself.

<comment><USER4> I understand that you (part of a small company, I presume) have a need to be found, but the author is in fact right when he says that blogging and tweeting by companies is really just advertising, nothing more and nothing less. Most people do not "start conversations" with companies, they start conversations with other people.

What company blogs and tweets and Facebook fan pages are, of course, good for, is providing an avenue for companies to push their marketing onto consumers that care so much about the product they've actually subscribed to the blog, twitter account and Facebook page without bothering anyone else. In that sense they're a huge improvement over traditional advertising. That does not mean, however, that they're not still just that: advertising.</comment></comment>