Golden Carrots - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mpesce/golden-carrots-1b496d032f21 <comment><USER2> > It's getting hard to remember, but a decade ago — before iPhone — all our > mobiles were dumbphones. We'd use them to call or text and perhaps play the > occasional game of snake. But that's it. That's all we could do.

Tell that to my HTC Wizard / Cingular 8125 [0], released almost two years before the iPhone. The term "smartphone" was already in use before the iPhone also [1]. I don't mean to downplay the arrival of the iPhone; it did a lot to advance the state of the art. But to say that these things just flat out didn't exist before the iPhone is grossly wrong.

For those who want to know, this is how history is rewritten.

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

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2006/02/21/review- cingular-8125/](https://www.engadget.com/2006/02/21/review-cingular-8125/)

<comment><USER3> They weren't great phones, and the iPhone definitely did a lot to push UI/UX forward, but the iPhone was most definitely not the first smart phone.

I'd argue that the Blackberry was the first practical smartphone, released in: 2003. I remember being blown away by the Wizard before the iPhone was a rumor.

Edit: Changed year from 1999 to 2003, 1999 was the 2-way pager, 2003 was the first device that resembled a smartphone.

<comment><USER4> > 2003 was the first device that resembled a smartphone.

I had a Handspring Visor when they were first released (around 2000), and while it was just a PDA on its own, there was a phone module that slid into the back, making it a smartphone. After that, I had almost all of the Treo's starting around 2002, which (what I think) were the first all-in-one smartphones.

<comment><USER5> And then there was the Nokia Communicator from 1996.

<comment><USER6> I was going to bring up the iPaq line of Windows PDAs and phones beginning in '99, but you already preceded me by 3 years with that Nokia play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Kenya began a slow transition to a cashless society — and they did this > without banks

This is a bit odd. Safaricom _is_ the bank here, inasmuch they track cash transfers and perform deposits and withdrawals. If you don't trust them, surely you wouldn't trust this system?

It's certainly an interesting state of affairs, because a one-layer payment system is quite different from e.g. American infrastructure where a consumer bank, payment method, and business bank are three different entities. But I wouldn't call it bank-free in the sense that, say, cryptocurrency advocates mean.

<comment><USER8> Well if you want to be pedantic about the definitions:

"and they did this without banks" = "and they did this without legacy incumbent banks (/financial institutions) that previously dominated traditional banking"

The reason it worked so well in Kenya was because everything didn't have to go through these legacy organizations. These legacy organizations dominate the market in each western country and face little competition from upstarts like Safaricom/Kopo Kopo due to high barriers of entry via regulations (regulations designed with the mega-banks with teams of lawyers in mind).

I mean why else was a poor country full of dumbphones able to implement a cashless society in a very short time frame while a rich country full of powerful smartphones can't even get chip-based debit cards implemented in a timely fashion?

The reason is none of us entrepreneurs, or the typical SV investors, are in a rush to do the same here is because of the huge risk involved. The risk being spending a huge amount of time/resources getting regulatory approval while simultaneously trying to build a customer base and keep the bills paid.

Even Google/Apple have only put a token investment in getting their payment systems adopted, they built the client platform and assumed other companies would jump up to push adoption to the platform ...if only there was some type of company that had relationships with both SME businesses doing consumer billing/retail AND had access to client bank accounts and credit cards...hmm they'd be ideal to do this. Maybe if the banking industry had competition they'd put this type of effort into their industry and we could have gotten rid of our wallets full of plastic cards years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Kenya system is very centralized - there's one big player. It's not hard to make that work. The question is whether the central operator does a good job. Remember PayPal's customer service problem.

The Kenya system is expensive to use. Wikipedia says that fees take up 27% of the funds transferred. That's huge. Almost as high as the Apple Store. Most transactions are tiny, and the fees add up. This is far more expensive than credit cards.

The author discusses a W3C scheme where money transfer services become "dumb money pipes", with the browser in charge. The money transfer services lose the relationship with the customer; all they do is transfer the money in the background. This is a good idea which will be hated by money transfer services.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _If an Australian company writes an app that allows a purchase to be made — > and paid for, via the app — it's more likely than not that Apple or Google > will appear, asking for a big slice of that sale._

> …

> _All of this is fine if you're buying an album from iTunes, but what if > you're buying a sofa from IKEA?_

Except Apple (and I have to assume Google) very explicitly says that purchasing real-world goods is not required to go through their IAP and therefore Apple does not take a cut. This is why you can buy things using the Amazon app, or call a car using Lyft. Apple only demands a cut for digital goods.

<comment><USER11> One area I've noticed the digital-world restriction is in reading sample chapter(s) in a Kindle book. If you decide to purchase the e-book at after finishing the sample chapter(s) the Kindle App does not offer a one-click `buy this book and keep reading` button. Presumably because of Apple's TOS and restrictions on in-app purchases. Instead the flow is to leave the kindle app, and find the book on Amazon's website in the browser and then purchase it there. Then return to the Kindle app refresh it and then switch to the new book.

<comment><USER10> Yep. That's Amazon's end-run around Apple's IAP requirements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Let's say a restaurant booking app wanted to get your a taxi to take you > door to door — right now that would all happen behind the scenes, because > that booking app can't order and pay for that taxi. There's no API allowing > these apps to perform transactions._

Do I want that? Do I trust Rstrntr to get me a cab? Which one of my ride- share/taxi app will it use? Is part of my install process now telling every app I install which of the other apps on my phone I prefer to use for what?

Maybe that's just a bad example; maybe being able to print a photo from Flickr by sending it, along with a small payment, to Shutterfly would be cool. But I also don't want it constantly badgering me for permission, the way some apps tend to.

<comment><USER13> That sounds like a perfect use for Intents.

<comment><USER14> which Google crap over all the time.

install another gps app, such as Here. now use any Google app, such as calendar, search app, etc and click any address. it will open gmaps. always.

this is specially evil for search and voice integration.

<comment><USER13> I just checked, and pressing a location from Google Calendar shows a list of my map apps. You can also pick your "assistant" app (which, for example, decides what should happen when you long-press your home button) in the settings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A point that is missed by this essay is that in a lot of the west the types of activities he is describing are, for legal/regulatory reasons, only permissible by a bank. So while we can have Apple Pay, PayPal, etc., under the hood those products and companies are still built on top of inter-bank payments with banks actually holding the cash.

</comment><comment><USER16> tldr; NPP a mobile payment API inside your smartphone will make it easy to move cash among apps across phones too.

it's like the 10th thing in mobile payment space so why NPP differs and will win is not answered in comparison.

you can skip mostly rhetorical, revisionist smartphone history and references to Kenya/Australia.

<comment><USER17> Except I find I'm biased against an author when they make categorically false statements that are within the same realm as the primary topic.

 _> It's getting hard to remember, but a decade ago — before iPhone — all our mobiles were dumbphones. We'd use them to call or text and perhaps play the occasional game of snake. But that's it. That's all we could do._

That's just simply unture.

Yes, on the one hand, it's a contextually small detail. Unfortunately, on the other hand, I can't help feel it calls into question the rest of the content since they couldn't be bothered inform them self on a basis point.

Edit: Blockquote fail

<comment><USER18> Yes, this article is terrible; it wastes the reader's time with pointless minutia, uses too much rhetoric, and doesn't get its facts in order.

> _writes for El Reg_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Why exactly Australians need a peer-to-peer payments system isn't exactly > clear...

Probably as the first steps towards removing cash. Cash must be such a pain for a government, I'm surprised it is still around.

<comment><USER20> Which is a shame, because of how incredibly authoritarian the tracking of credit cards is. Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points) and so with every purchase you are uniquely identifying yourself to the seller.

Unfortunately making cash digital is quite hard (you could argue that zcash and zcoin will solve this problem but I'm not so sure).

<comment><USER21> > Credit/debit cards are a proof of ID in Australia (40 points)

Can you elaborate on that? I'm curious what the points are.

<comment><USER20> In Australia we have a "points" system for proof-of-ID. In order to get certain things (open a bank account, get a passport, so on) you need to have a certain number of "points". Most things require 100 points of ID, and there are different classes of IDs (passports -- 70, credit card -- 40, water bill -- 35).

The purpose was to make it harder to commit fraud, though it also makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you're a minor (or if you're an immigrant).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check)

[http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133...](http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/133193/FACT_SHEET_100_PT_ID.pdf)

<comment><USER18> > _makes it kinda difficult to legitimately bootstrap your ID when you 're a > minor (or if you're an immigrant_

Or a slacker: I somehow scraped up 100 points to get a passport, then didn't have photo ID to collect it from the post office. I had to point to the packet & say, I need to open the packet to be able to show you the photo ID you need to see before you can release the packet to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The article uses "SME" out of nowhere like I know what it means.

<comment><USER23> I'd never seen that either. Given the context I am guessing it is the Aussy equivalent to the American "SMB" which would mean it is "Small to Medium Enterprise"

<comment><USER24> It means "Subject Matter Expert"

<comment><USER18> "Shaking My Ear"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure if the author is being intentionally misleading, or if he really doesn't understand the state of mobile payments today. My guess would be the first based on the rest of the article.

Take this: "If an Australian company writes an app that allows a purchase to be made — and paid for, via the app — it's more likely than not that Apple or Google will appear, asking for a big slice of that sale." ... "All of this is fine if you're buying an album from iTunes, but what if you're buying a sofa from IKEA?"

The above clearly implies that Apple / Google are going to charge merchants their 30% app sale cut on a couch, but that's ridiculous. Ikea can implement Apple Pay directly in their app and pay a 0% cut to Apple today, without requiring users to enter their CC details. Heck, you can even build that in to a website, you don't even need an app. I assume Google's mobile payment stuff has similar features, if not they'll catch up.

<comment><USER26>
       > The above clearly implies that Apple / Google are
       > going to charge merchants their 30% app sale cut
       > on a couch, but that's ridiculous.

I'm fairly sure that if either Apple or Google thought they could get away with a 30% cut on a couch bought at IKEA they would absolutely implement that "feature."

Both companies continue to make moves to avoid being disintermediated from cash streams. Nobody wants to be the wire, everyone wants to be the service.

<comment><USER14> well that's exactly what the kenyan phone agent takes: 27%

this article is a ridiculous eulogy to late stage capitalism. No banks because privacy laws make it too expensive? just start a bank but call it a mobile company and you can operate your bank without any regards for affordable fees and transaction privacy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is the first I've heard of the new australian "New Payments Platform" (NPP). Is anyone here working in the space?

<comment><USER28> People have been talking about it for a while, though there hasn't been much take up from big 4 banks with use cases from what I can see. End of day batch processing isn't "that" bad so it will be interesting to see if it gets the kind of legs some people are suggesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > It's my hope that at least one person in the room today gets the opportunity > that's opening up here

Is this a transcript of a speech?

</comment><comment><USER30> I was hoping it was about some GMO super nutritional carrots. Like Golden Rice.

<comment><USER31> Since Golden Rice gets its color from beta-carotene, carrots are already pretty golden in that sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > You have seven months until the NPP is released, and all of the > documentation you need to use to write services that make these APIs > available to apps has already been released.

Anyone know where to find the API Docs?

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder whether P2P transactions would ever take off in North America.. my feeling is the entrenched system and the regulations that support it would make it very difficult, if not criminal.

<comment><USER34> I use venmo a few times a month; I guess this isn't really 'taking off' but it doesn't seem like the regulations are really the dampening factor; just that we have better alternatives.

<comment><USER21> I use square cash very often. I like it more than venmo, mostly because it started out using email, which is so universal and doesn't rely on a mobile app or anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Of course, someone will have to setup a micropayments processor

... and that someone will soon be bankrupt due to fraud.

</comment><comment><USER35> Feedback to the author. I found the writing style of the opening extremely choppy and without flow. Every paragraph was one or two sentences except for one which had 4 sentences (and only accomplished that by being super short, choppy sentences). Stopped reading :(</comment>


The Mosquito - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito <comment><USER2> Had to increase the volume but yep that is unpleasant!</comment>


Instacart: Making emails long enough that Gmail cuts off Unsubscribe - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/5A2fpY2 <comment><USER2> Why are you specifically calling out Instacart? I'd estimate that maybe a third of all emails I decide to unsubscribe from do this. It's a horrible behavior, for sure.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just looked at two different emails from Instacart and can see the unsubscribe link.

<comment><USER3> Viewing from mobile if that would make a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How many emails do you have showing this issue?</comment>


DuckDuckGo Proposes the "Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" - <AUTHOR> https://searchengineland.com/duckduckgo-proposes-the-do-not-track-act-of-2019-316258 <comment><USER2> I have DoNotTrack set and my browser blocked several tracking scripts from their site.

As for the problem, it really comes down to making money: Data is sold to inform targeted adverts. An additional requirement is that the ad company needs to know how much to pay the ad host. Also remember that ad blockers came about mostly as a result of reducing web bloat and reducing the fight for the users attention.

Nobody in their right mind would agree to this without some sensible solution in place. Servers cost money to run and content is usually not free to create.

<comment><USER3> >> Servers cost money to run and content is usually not free to create.

Yes- and you know who makes a lot of money out of servers and content? ISPs. If they want to keep making that money, perhaps they can fork out some of it to cover the costs of running the infrastructure and the content that keeps them in the money.

<comment><USER4> I don't want my ISP determining which content and infrastructure to funded; that seems like an even more broken model.

<comment><USER5> At first I agreed, but it might actually be a good idea if the payment is enforced.

Imagine a scheme in which any traffic has to be bought/paid by the ISP, which is financed by your monthly subscription. So if you open an url, you're gonna have to pay a tiny amount for the request.

But it's probably too easy to game. Just write a malware that keeps downloading from your servers. It would make hijacked chrome extensions insanely profitable. And just imagine the money Mirai's Creator could've gotten with this...

It would also make bigger websites more profitable than lean and clean pages.

So I guess you're right. Not a good idea.

It would be cool if it worked though. sometimes I wish capitalism wouldn't pervert any system at the cost of society. Too bad there aren't any alternatives that actually seem to work.

<comment><USER6> _> It would be cool if it worked though. sometimes I wish capitalism wouldn't pervert any system at the cost of society. Too bad there aren't any alternatives that actually seem to work._

Only if you adopt the mainstream, incorrect definition of what capitalism is. To put the correct definition into laymen terms, capitalism is essentially paying someone less than the value that they produce. A privately-held and operated Ponzi scheme with nearly everyone on the bottom. That's what all the talk about "mode of production" is about. The term does not hold exclusive domain on profit or enterprise. There were markets under feudalism.

To address your second point, there are plenty of alternatives that work. There's even one that's currently showing itself as being outright superior. Look into worker owned cooperatives such as Mondragon in Spain. Both Microsoft and GE have sent representatives there to figure out why their quality level is so high and so consistent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems weird that they would ask survey respondents to check their browser settings to determine if they had Do Not Track enabled. DNT status is transmitted over HTTP headers, and is available to JavaScript. Couldn't they have just checked DNT status automatically to get more accurate data?

</comment><comment><USER8> Pretty much the low hanging fruit of PR efforts.

Propose a legislation that has zero chance of ever coming into effect and then watch as all of your target audience pat you on the back for all the great work.

Problem of course is that this isn't how legislation gets passed in the US. Especially these days when you have Democrats, Republicans and the President all with completely different stances on privacy. And of course a 2020 election with a President who is relying almost exclusively on digital marketing and would be hurt by this legislation.

If this was a SuperPAC with a high profile lobbying firm then you could take all of this a little more seriously.

<comment><USER9> In the meantime DDG makes almost 100% of its money from tracking users via revenue sharing agreement with Yahoo/Microsoft and Amazon.

<comment><USER10> Indeed, no one talks about the privacy implications of referral links, although when it comes to the agreement with Bing, etc., I think everything is proxied. Not so much with the direct links to Amazon. Amazon knows when you are a DDG user.

Even though affiliate links are a low hanging fruit in regards to making money with search engines, it is not made transparent by DuckDuckGo.

They also use all the data they can get, they just tell us they get rid of the identifying information as fast as possible (IP address). I wouldn't be surprised if, from a privacy-standpoint, using Google and DDG as a non-logged in user is basically the same, especially if you use google with an ad blocker. The process of Google ads is basically to have a profile based on cookie data, which the user can easily control.

<comment><USER9> yegg (CEO @ DDG): "We've actually been using Yahoo technology along with our own and others since the very beginning of DuckDuckGo. Over the past year though we've been working on a stronger partnership with Yahoo so we can get access to more features like date filters that everyone has been asking for (that one in particular is our most requested feature by far).

With regards to the ads, nothing is changing in terms of ad privacy/tracking or our privacy policy in general. Ads should just become more relevant."

Have you noticed "improving.duckduckgo.com", the analytics service that logs all requests ?

"To be clear, this means we cannot ever tell what individual people are doing since everyone is anonymous"

Oh, except the IP address, right. Fun fact (experiment now removed): [https://web.archive.org/web/20180910042004im_/http://image.b...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180910042004im_/http://image.bayimg.com/oaebkaaed.jpg)

<comment><USER11> But Yahoo search itself has been, for the past four years, a mishmash of Bing, Google and Yahoo results. I wonder which mix of the three Yahoo will pass along when using its API, versus using its search page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They should rename it to "Do-Not-Track-Just-Inject-Ads-Based-On-Keywords" act

<comment><USER13> Notably, [https://startpage.com](https://startpage.com) proxies non- personalized Google results and monetizes using non-tracking keyword-based ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great way to promote themselves. DDG is growing like crazy, although I had to switch back to Google after half a year with DDG because search quality is nowhere near that good.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party seems eager to stick it to the Silicon Valley, so they may at least use a similar proposal as a way to negotiate with the big tech.

<comment><USER15> FWIW, somewhere in the past year I stopped fallbacking to Google at all. I can't remember when I used "!g" bang the last time; it has improved a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I rather want to see the "Duck-Not-Track Act", as DDG has a complete "data survaillance" system built into their product.

<comment><USER16> Can you supply some more information on this?

<comment><USER10> It was a cynical way of critizing that they collect so-called anonymized usage data, for example for people who really need something anonymous they could start offering a gateway to a search that doesn't collect anything at all.

[https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/atb/?redir=1](https://help.duckduckgo.com/privacy/atb/?redir=1)

<comment><USER17> What is your search engine of personal choice?

<comment><USER18> Qwant.com produces far better results than DDG in my experience.

<comment><USER10> and they have a nice lite search: [https://lite.qwant.com/](https://lite.qwant.com/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pinry, a self-hosted Pinterest - <AUTHOR> http://getpinry.com/

<comment><USER2> I suggest making the 'Demo' button more prominent! It's tiny and low contrast (white on light green).

Both 'View the code' and 'Download' are bigger. People could ostensibly want to view the code before seeing it but I can't imagine many would want to download without demoing first.

<comment><USER3> You are correct and I have adjusted accordingly, you can see the results immediately: <http://getpinry.com/>

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I had the same issue. Some other suggestions:

1\. Perhaps try shortening the copy. The large buttons could just read:

Code (Github) | Demo

Either increase the text size or also shorten the copy on the smaller buttons to fix the resulting size offset:

Download (62kb) | BitBucket | Issues

2\. Your "Follow @getpinry" is overlapping the "Tweet" button.

3\. I find the grey borders superfluous and a bit heavy-handed. I think you could just remove them, replace them with shadows, or lighten them and tint them a bit blue so that they don't stand out so much.

Looks great, btw. Have been looking for a platform on which to share inspiration with co-workers inside corporate intranet.

<comment><USER3> Yep, these are all issues and it's just a starting place, I don't plan on the current design to stay the same very long. Just wanted to get this released. I'll keep your comments in mind for when I update it later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why the change from a BSD style license to the AGPL? While it looks like a neat project, and I'd use something like this for my personal use; but that particular license means I won't touch it with a 10ft pole.

The older BSD version -- [https://github.com/overshard/pinry/tree/26f9c76988b8cc5b0ee5...](https://github.com/overshard/pinry/tree/26f9c76988b8cc5b0ee5ec434b2bab9df0f9ec35) \-- looks like something I might play around with though.

<comment><USER6> What's wrong with AGPL?

<comment><USER7> It's a license that requires any changes you make to the code be made available to the public as well as all code that connects to it in related services.

It is a license that touts "ultimate freedom" but the reality is that it removes your freedom to make changes that you would like to keep private.

<comment><USER8> No it doesn't. It gives the right to any users of your service to get a copy of the source code under the same license. Has nothing to do with "code be made available to the public".

<comment><USER9> unclear, the license says "interacting with", so even getting a not authorized response technically entitles you to a copy of the source code...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you are interested in using this for your own project look at the previous version at <https://github.com/overshard/pinry>, which has more friendly licensing terms (BSD, vs AGPL).

</comment><comment><USER11> Very nice. Kind of scary the power of open source and how quickly competitors can spring up these days

<comment><USER12> Why is this surprising. It's not exactly difficult to build something very like Pinterest.

<comment><USER13> Most things aren't hard if you're only working at the scale of a single server.

Running the actual Pinterest, with millions of users, would be pretty hard. (At least for those with no prior experience of working at scale.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just a public service announcement: Please respect trademarks and avoid naming things tied to others peoples' branding work. I know it's usually an homage, but there's no reason to do it and it does bend trademark law (if not break it) sometimes.

<comment><USER15> Just a public service announcement: trademark holders can't seize the centuries-old common English language for their private use.

<comment><USER14> Don't misunderstand this as an endorsement of jerky trademark enforcement.

My point was that they did the work to associate "pin" with this concept in the public mind. Of course they don't own the word. That's just stupid. When people do these homages or clones, they are gaining traction and influence by riding on the work they did. Enforcement? Who cares... it's just unoriginal, cheap and lazy to trade on the name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> UI looks clean and fast. Just curious, do you have any revenue model on this?

<comment><USER3> There is none, in the future we do have plans to have hosted instances of Pinry so those who don't know how to setup their own server can purchase easy one-click hosting through us. We plan to do hosting as close to cost as possible/not looking to get rich off this.

<comment><USER17> Thank you so so much. So many people have built their businesses and lives on open source, I don't know what the internet would be today without free software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How do you see the issue of possible copyright infringement when self-hosting pinterest clone? Normally, if you republish copyrighted photo (even smaller version), you might get accused of stealing it - you are basically posting a resized version of a photo, which might not be fair use.

Pinterest can get around this by claiming that it was the user who pinned the photo, not them, and they also allow websites to opt-out from pinning (and some websites like National Geographic actually do that). But if you self- host, you are responsible for what is posted...

I am asking because, if I could legally run a website where I would publish smaller version of any photo I find on the Internet, then well, there's a great monetization potential there. But I don't think it would be so easy.

<comment><USER19> "...if I could legally run a website where I would publish smaller version of any photo I find on the Internet..."

Doesn't Google/Bing do this with their image search?

<comment><USER20> Well, they actually copy and host almost the entire internet, without permission. But maybe that's another story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice, but lose the font. The footer's contrast is a bit low. I also find the fixed background image on the landing page to be confusing, since the rest of the page does not use any parallax effects.

</comment><comment><USER22> Very nice to see something like this built on Django!

<comment><USER23> Pinterest itself is built on Django as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> agpl? People still think using that is a good idea?</comment>


Show HN: Epoch.place – A modern, sensible Unix timestamp tool - <AUTHOR> https://epoch.place/ <comment><AUTHOR> Any time I need to convert a date to or from Unix epoch timestamps, I find something on Google and I'm pretty disappointed with the experience. Every single option on the first page of results uses six or more form fields to enter the date and time, and they use discrete forms to go in each direction. Even the one available on Omni Calculator isn't so great.

And spending a lot of my day in JavaScript, I always have chop off some digits by hand before any of these tools work, since they don't detect when values are in milliseconds.

I made epoch.place [1] to try to modernize things a bit. It's open source [2], and features include:

\- Modern natural language date parsing \- Automatic detection of Unix timestamps in seconds and milliseconds, with overrides \- Multiple output formats always available \- Click-to-copy any resulting values \- Linkable results \- Realtime output of the current time in all formats, and the delta between your input and now

Simple, straightforward, no frills. The page should load in about a tenth of a second, so you can get in and get out.

It uses Chrono [3] for parsing, and runs entirely client side with no cookies, tracking, ads, or dependencies (other than Chrono which is being loaded from jsDelivr).

Mobile support is still a WIP, but I hope this app makes the task of dealing with timestamps a little bit easier.

[1] [https://epoch.place/](https://epoch.place/)

[2] [https://github.com/farski/epoch.place](https://github.com/farski/epoch.place)

[3] [https://github.com/wanasit/chrono](https://github.com/wanasit/chrono)

<comment><USER2> Barely readable on FHD screen + heavy flickering in Chrome ?

Will stick with [https://epoch.sh/](https://epoch.sh/)

Not to be discouraging, love those small weekend projects turned out to be big helpers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, not seeing any flickering in Chrome on my end. Can you give more details on hardware and OS?</comment></comment></comment>


Rebuilding times are a hot topic in light of the industry adoption of 1TB drives - <AUTHOR> http://dev.cleversafe.org/weblog/?p=277

<comment><USER2> Obviously as storage becomes plentiful and cheap, those who care about their data will use filesystems that are intelligent enough to deal with latent sector errors (such as ZFS or NetApp's WAFL). Perhaps storage servers will also incorporate daemons that actively scan online volumes in the background to detect and recover UREs before they foul up a rebuild.

RAID-6 is also a possibility, though it just postpones the inevitable.

I don't understand what this has to do with rebuild _times_ , though, as stated in the title. The time is directly proportional to the bits per spindle and so is the probability of latent sector errors, but they are otherwise unrelated. If there were a magical way to recover an array in zero time it would still fail on a URE, and if we took twice the amount of time to recover it wouldn't double the probability of failure (though it would increase it slightly because there would be a larger window for a failure to occur).</comment>


H. G. Wells' interview with Stalin (1934) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i-am-more-left-you-mr-stalin <comment><USER2> The little preface says that Wells was critisized for being too 'deferential' toward Stalin (Wells was a socialist, of course).

It is actually striking to me... today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power. Politicians today don't even expect to talk about ideas, certainly not with journalists for publication, let alone to be challenged on ideas in such conversations.

It's also interesting to be reminded that Stalin was indeed a guy who could talk about ideas.

<comment><USER3> >today, one can imagine NO journalist engaging in as _confrontational_ an interview with ANY politician or person in political power.

Just a guess, but are you saying this from an US POV? As an USian, I can't imagine seeing journalists confront or challenge a politician except by accident. Even when those accidents happen, the _journalists_ and _civility_ become the center of a follow-up media frenzy, rather than the subjects (the lives and deaths of millions.)

By contrast, I see confrontation in a lot of (less consolidated, less war- profiteering) non-US media constantly. Paxman would be hounded out of the industry within days here.

<comment><USER4> Came here and read your comment immediately after seeing the link I've left. A (perceived?) weak press in the US has a way to fall before it get to the level seen today in Russia. [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/20/russian- politician-ord...](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/20/russian-politician- orders-aides-to-violently-rape-pregnant-journalist-at-press-conference/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The interview is interesting from the perspective of economic history because it reveals the prevailing thinking of the era; namely that capitalism leads to "anarchy" in production. What Stalin and others did not appreciate is that the free market produces a "hidden order", which was understood by many 18th and 19th century economists. Another major error of the era was the belief that central planning of an economy - socialism - could replace capitalism. There was a major debate at the time, now known as the economic calculation debate[1], between socialist economists Harold Laski and Oscar Lange on the one hand and liberal economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek on the other. In the 20's Mises had made the stunning argument that allocation of capital was impossible without the price function that is inherent to the capitalist system[2]. Laski and Lange obviously disagreed and provided the socialist counter argument. It was many years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that socialist philosopher and historian Robert Heilbroner admitted in the New Yorker "It turns out, of course, that Mises was right. The Soviet system has long been dogged by a method of pricing that produced grotesque misallocations of effort".[3] Still, many do not understand or appreciate the importance of economic calculation and the price function in the rational allocation of capital, which has implications not only for states, but for corporations[4].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem)

[2] [https://mises.org/econcalc.asp](https://mises.org/econcalc.asp)

[3] Reflections after communism, Robert Heilbroner (apologies to those without a subscription) [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1990/09/10/1990_09_10_091_TNY_CARDS_000357236)

[4] [http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_1.pdf](http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_1.pdf)

<comment><USER6> This counts as an ideological tangent, and therefore off-topic. There is no meaningful path from this article to Austrian economics.

Edit: Perhaps this needs more explanation. "Stalin -> communism -> capitalism -> Austrians" is not a meaningful path, because there's nothing specific about it, nothing to tie it to this _particular_ story. It merely uses the story as a launching pad to jump straight into a perennial ideological debate, which—if it continues—is likely to drown out any nuanced conversation that really is relevant to the article.

<comment><USER7> If you're serious about not letting every story dissolve into the same tedious arguments we've seen for the past few years, I would be so happy.

<comment><USER6> Definitely serious, and interested in your suggestions re how.

<comment><USER7> I got your email. It'll be awhile before I have the time to compose my thoughts on the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not one mention of the terrible famine in the Ukraine which had occurred over the two previous years.

As Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, initially a supporter of the Soviets until he witnessed what their policies actually meant as a correspondent for the Guardian in Moscow:

 _" The novelty of this particular famine, what made it so diabolical, is that it was the deliberate creation of a bureaucratic mind, ... without any consideration whatever of the consequences in human suffering"_

<comment><USER9> Honest question, what's the point being made here? Are you attempting to imply that because Stalin presided over a terrible famine his political ideals must be flawed?

Churchill and friends presided over the Bengal famine of the 1940s. Six million people died in a famine during which food was exported out of Bengal to aid the British war effort. Or what about the British East India company raising land taxes from 10% to 50% during the great Bengal famine of the 1770s. A famine which killed 1/3rd of the population of Bengal. Also a famine which saw the British East India company's profits increase from 15 million to 30 million (non-inflation adjusted) rupees.

Do you think any of this counts against capitalism or do you have any reasons why we should disregard these anecdotes but count the Ukrainian famine against socialism?

<comment><USER10> There's no part of capitalism that requires the oppression of others, except in maybe some metaphorical economic sense. In communism the ability to oppress is a necessary feature of the system (and if you don't think so, read Marx). The world has seen many implementations of capitalism that don't involve forcing large numbers of people to starve. The same cannot be said of communism.

<comment><USER11> I think it depends on what you mean by capitalism.

A common notion of it is the "increase shareholder value" version, where the only thing that matters to executives is profit. There, I don't think oppression is a necessary precondition, but it is a necessary outcome. You can see that in the company stores of yore, and the eternal reemergence of monopolies and oligopolies that will treat treat both their workers and their customers exactly as poorly as they can get away with.

There are other approaches to capitalism, of course.

<comment><USER12> It also depends on what you mean by 'oppression.' To make an analogy, Marxists also consider externalities oppressive, because they're talking about the system as a whole. Libertarian/liberal ethical systems tend to focus on individual actions. A transaction between two parties where one isn't pointing a gun at each other is categorically not oppressive to libertarians/liberals, but may still be an oppressive action to a Marxist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was a particularly interested/relevant excerpt from Wells. I think of the open source ethos as one small example of what he's calling for in the second paragraph:

I object to this simplified classification of mankind into poor and rich. Of course there is a category of people which strive only for profit. But are not... people in the West for whom profit is not an end, who own a certain amount of wealth, who want to invest and obtain a profit from this investment, but who do not regard this as the main object?...

During the past few years I have been much engaged in and have thought of the need for conducting propaganda in favour of Socialism and cosmopolitanism among wide circles of engineers, airmen, military technical people, etc. It is useless to approach these circles with two-track class-war propaganda. These people understand the condition of the world. They understand that it is a bloody muddle, but they regard your simple class-war antagonism as nonsense.

<comment><USER8> Credit to Wells for then saying:

 _" They understand that it is a bloody muddle, but they regard your simple class-war antagonism as nonsense."_

I wonder if Wells was one of the last people to disagree with Stalin who didn't end up with a bullet in the back of their heads?

<comment><USER6> The Bolsheviks cultivated celebrity visitors from the Western left. It wouldn't have worked to shoot them.

(Edit: Originally this comment had a moderation bit in it as well, but someone rightly pointed out to me that it isn't helpful to wear the moderator hat and make a regular-user comment in the same post. So I've edited that out. I considered restricting myself to _only_ making moderator comments, but (a) that's never been how HN worked, (b) I was a user long before a moderator, and (c) I'd burn out from boredom.)

<comment><USER8> For what it's worth, I apologise, mostly for the initial comment I made that mentioned the Ukraine - it looked very much like a partisan comment intented to reference the current conflict and, in all honesty, it wasn't.

Sorry for any grief caused and keep up the good work.

[I promise to engage more brain cells when posting on obviously highly emotive topics in future and, if I have any doubt, to not post].

<comment><USER6> Thanks for being so kind about it. It means a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > But I have some experience in fighting for Socialism, and this experience > tells me that if Roosevelt makes a real attempt to satisfy the interests of > the proletarian class at the expense of the capitalist class, the latter > will put another President in his place. The capitalists will say: > Presidents come and Presidents go, but we go on for ever; if this or that > President does not protect our interests, we shall find another. What can > the President oppose to the will of the capitalist class?

Thats the truth we have all resigned to ourselves unfortunately.

<comment><USER15> But then Roosevelt was quite effective in putting the capitalists in their place for an entire generation, perhaps longer, until Nixon and later Reagan turn us to the right again.

<comment><USER16> That's putting it too strong. He reigned in some of their worst excesses, which were detrimental to the capitalist class as a whole just as much as it was detrimental to everyone else. "The capitalists" are not a single force - it's a mess of conflicting interests, just as the working class. And many of them have interests that are part aligned by parts of the working class. It's not black and white.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This strikes me as fake. Maybe entirely written by Wells, or someone else.

I thought this bit was interesting: _On the other hand we have the class of the poor, the exploited class, which owns neither factories nor works, nor banks, which is compelled to live by selling its labour power to the capitalists and which lacks the opportunity to satisfy its most elementary requirements._

What are these elementary requirements and aren't they now satisfied?

<comment><USER18> > What are these elementary requirements

Food, water, housing, clothing, healthcare, education. The list is long, but basic. I'm sure you can come up with the rest.

> and aren't they now satisfied?

Not for the vast majority of people living in the vast majority of countries. Even in your own, I'm sure imperialist country, huge masses of the population are in want.

<comment><USER17> Well, let's see, I live in the UK.

We have running, clean water in every part of the country, I've never heard of any problems relating to people going thirsty or becoming ill from the supply.

Likewise with food, I haven't heard of anyone actually starving, and while you could conceivably run out of money to buy food, there's a safety net of food banks.

Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough clothes to last years.

Education is provided for everyone to a level beyond what is necessary for most jobs, and that's before you consider the subsidised further education and of course the vast reams of learning material available for free on the internet (access to which is provided in public libraries).

Healthcare is also provided for everyone via the NHS. You can of course get better education and healthcare through private means, but most people don't bother even if they can afford it (unless they can _easily_ afford it).

Which leaves just housing - only 0.1% of the people literally do not have a place to stay, and local authorities are obliged to provide accommodation for those people if they apply. There are also large private charities to address this issue.

So, is there more stuff we should add to the list that would make it more obvious how huge masses of the population are in want?

<comment><USER19> I know some people working in this area and they tell me that there is absolutely a problem with hunger in the UK. The existence of the safety nets is more a sign that there is a problem than that there isn't, as such charities get started when people who have the wherewithal to act realise how bad the situation is.

You seem to be dismissing it on the basis of the fact that you simply haven't heard about the problem, which is partly because there is no official monitoring, and the current government like to claim that it doesn't exist.

The red cross apparently stepped in last year to try to help: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive- red...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-red-cross- launches-emergency-food-aid-plan-for-uks-hungry-8872496.html)

If you want to know more, check out some of the charitable campaigns:

[http://endhungerfast.co.uk/](http://endhungerfast.co.uk/)

[http://www.trusselltrust.org](http://www.trusselltrust.org)

<comment><USER17> Put it in perspective. When Stalin was speaking, there were people actually dying of starvation, millions of severely undernourished people, and huge structural problems with food production. In the UK today, most people have copious amounts of food, a lot actually goes to _waste_ every day, and while some people might find it hard to put food on the table, it's within the means of private charity to help them without the government having to intervene. The reported increase in the problem seems a bit dubious to me, e.g. here is an actual food bank founder speaking:

 _Consider again the views of Robin Aitken of the Oxford Food Bank, a former BBC journalist who now collects unsold fresh food from supermarkets and distributes them to charities in Oxford. He says: 'Some people like to believe that there has been this enormous upsurge in food poverty. My point is that there have always been poor people in this country. You could have gone back ten, 20, 50 years and there would be people who don't get enough food. 'The fact is that food banks are a new phenomenon. Now we have got up to 500. If you provide a service, people use it.' Significantly, he believes that people suffered greater hardship in the recessions of the Seventies and Eighties than today, when food banks didn't exist._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Fascinating how important the questions of class and revolution are in this conversation (from both Stalin and Wells).

Equally interesting is how theoretical and ideological the answers are.

Great read!

<comment><USER21> What I find even more interesting is that in our time class is not a subject at all. We go along like the concept of social classes was never thought of.

And as for the subject of revolution, we glance over it like a ghost from the past. We act as (a society and a culture) though the current system will last forever although history, as both Stalin and Wells points out, shows us that social and economic systems gets replaced, in many cases by force.

<comment><USER22> With such a huge middle class in the 20th century in the U.S. and the collapse of the Soviet empire, I think a lot of politicians, economists and media pundits felt that class was no longer an issue. I suspect it will become more widely discussed again if our current economic trends continue.

<comment><USER16> What I'm seeing is that people are raising the questions, but are largely oblivious to the historical discussions of the same questions.

E.g. people are constantly - especially in tech circles - raising the spectre of automation of production and how we will deal with it in terms of unemployment, worrying about large numbers of people being plunged into unemployment, as if this is a question nobody has considered.

But that was one of Marx' core criticisms of capitalism: That he believed that while it would bring production to a point where poverty could be entirely eliminated for the first time in history, rather than doing so, its dynamics would instead lead to the paradox of overproduction and plunging millions (back) into poverty at the same time.

People didn't use to ask these questions, and when they did, if you brought up Marx' you used to get into a flamewar, and death threats were not uncommon well into the 90's. Today you tend to get a reasoned discussion and honest questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> great comment by nmrm

Stalin, in particular, has been a fascination of mine. Anyone interested in learning how a man can literally seize control of the thoughts of millions of people - utterly - in an age when the radio was considered cutting-edge technology should read "Who Killed Kirov?" ([http://amzn.to/1moOVmE](http://amzn.to/1moOVmE)) That book haunts me.

</comment><comment><USER16> The class war part of the interview is interesting because it really highlights the main part where Stalin (and most Leninists) diverged from marxism. You see it clearly in Stalins later statement:

"You, Mr Wells, evidently start out with the assumption that all men are good. I, however, do not forget that there are many wicked men. I do not believe in the goodness of the bourgeoisie."

Where Marx saw capitalists (and workers) as forced by circumstance into playing an inevitable role in society - neither inherently good or bad -, Stalin saw capitalists as "wicked men".

In general, a lot of the worst flaws of the Bolsheviks boils down to the near unwavering belief that they were on the side of good in a battle between good and evil, and an idea of a "working class" that they fetishised as near super- human.

While Marx would agitate against specific people, he would not categorise groups of people in moral terms. He attacked ideas and behaviour, and expected people would change with circumstance: The capitalist behaves like a capitalist because that is what he needs to do to protect his own interests, and if he don't act as a capitalist, he won't remain one - he will eventually face financial ruin and become part of the working class, where he will act as a worker.

In fact, in part I of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote:

"Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress."

This treatment of a persons class as a matter of circumstance was _essential_ to Marx: Large parts of Marxist theory was based on the foundation that politics in the large is defined by people acting broadly in their self- interest, moderated by their understanding of that interest (e.g. the extent to which a class "buys" the justifications the ruling class gives; consider for example Marx' Critique of the Gotha program, where he points out that the proposed program is meaningless when it writes about "fairness" in part because the current system of distribution is "fair" according to bourgeois standards - without being explicit, the word says nothing)

But the world becomes so much easier to deal with when one can write off ones opponents as "wicked men".

<comment><USER24> Stalin was a leader, Marx was a philosopher.

> Where Marx saw capitalists (and workers) as forced by circumstance into > playing an inevitable role in society - neither inherently good or bad -, > Stalin saw capitalists as "wicked men".

Because politicians work for a reality change. It's not so obvious to make effective, concrete, viable change in a country, so you have to take shortcuts. Leading a country for change is like sailing a boat into space, it's dark territory and you know there are huge political and economical risks. The first effective thing Stalin could do was to neutralize self interest, because that's the one smallest thing you can do when you listen about Marx.

It's harder to sensitize everyone about the flaws of capitalism and expect real change. Maybe he could have organized country wide conferences and seminars to talk about the work of Marx instead, but you know that that's not how politics happen and work.

The difference between Marx and Stalin ? One's a philosopher and the other a politician. Even today politics cower at the ideas of Marx because of the story of the soviet union. Nobody can really implements efficient policies that 100% prevent the accidents of capitalism.

Stalin, Marx and Russia is just another example of incoherences between theory and practice.

<comment><USER16> Marx was a politician first, philosopher second.

Most of Marx' most influential works were political agitation written as part of his work on organising the first and second Internationals, and actively meddling in the affairs of various socialist parties.

He was under regular threat of deportation and arrest for his political work. (edit: and moved countries several times because of these threats)

We only see Marx' as predominantly a philosopher today because his political work was overshadowed by later developments.

> The first effective thing Stalin could do was to neutralize self interest, > because that's the one smallest thing you can do when you listen about Marx.

On the contrary - self interest is _essential_ to Marxism. The very core of Marx political agitation was aimed at getting the members of the working classes to understand that _their_ self interests were separate from those of the bourgeoisie.

If you eliminate self-interest, Marxist socialism becomes impossible.

<comment><USER24> > The very core of Marx political agitation was aimed at getting the members > of the working classes to understand that their self interests were separate > from those of the bourgeoisie.

That's like teaching sheeps to unite. It's important to enlighten people, but it won't prevent self interests to collide. Politicians in power can't listen to everyone, it's always easier to listen and talk to powerful minorities who have the strongest self interest.

> Marx was a politician first, philosopher second.

I'd say an activist. I don't see Marx as an active member of a political party, making speeches and announcements. He was more of an intellectual.

When I say politics I say the original etymology of the word politics, meaning having power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The thing that is most interesting is that neither of them seem to have ever heard of "consumer surplus". This is two of the most ... "educated" men of the time; now the concept is much more widely understood. Say what you will of Milton Friedman, he'd done a lot to at least get people familiar with these sorts of concepts.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very interesting. Was it ever translated into Russian? I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that it wasn't.

<comment><USER18> Stalin spoke Georgian and Russian, not English.

<comment><USER6> I think what listic may be referring to is that the Soviets conducted a more liberal discourse in their interactions with the Western press than they permitted domestically.

<comment><USER26> Sorry if I was unclear. As a Russian myself, I wondered whether this interview, which we can read here in English, was ever, during the period between 1934 to now, translated from English into Russian. The most direct reason for this interest being to show it to my non-English-speaking friends.

<comment><USER6> Ah, I get it. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'd bet a translation exists somewhere (because Russians translate everything, or at least used to, and this class of material would be of obvious interest), but have zero idea how to find it. (Edit: uh, other than Google :))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "We Bolsheviks call it "self-criticism". It is widely used in the USSR."

Indeed! Coming out of Stalin, the irony of these word is unbearable.The first Moscow trial was to take place in two years.

</comment><comment><USER6> All: this article is on-topic for one reason: it is historically interesting.

Predictable ideological tangents are _not_ interesting. Please keep them out of this thread and off HN altogether. If it isn't clear whether a comment counts as a predictable ideological tangent, err on the side of assuming it does.

I know it sounds arbitrary to declare what's "interesting", but (a) the term has developed a specialized meaning on Hacker News over the years, and (b) editorial judgment plays a role on this site.

<comment><USER28> Since HN seems to have an interest in Soviet history, I would recommend _Darkness at Noon_ by Koestler and _Khrushchev: The Years in Power_ by Medvedev.

<comment><USER25> I can't recommend _all_ of Solzhenitsyn enough. You'll be forgiven if you don't make it all the way through "1918"... I, frankly, didn't. Perhaps someday. also it never cease to astound me how deeply Boris Pasternak drew his picture of the thing. The David Lean film is almost better than the book, but the book is amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When ever I mention anything about the current the gap between the rich and poor; I get posts deleted? So, I won't even comment on this article. I hope the Vigilant Moderators are happy?</comment>


Dilbert-Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/monetizing_business_ideas

<comment><USER2> This was submitted just a day ago. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1857228></comment>


Google recruitment mistakes: part 3 - <AUTHOR> https://asylum.madhouse-project.org/blog/2016/08/29/recruitment-mistakes-3/ <comment><USER2> Is this really necessary? If you get this worked up about contact from a recruiter, I imagine you also might write back to every piece of direct mail junk mail telling them how your interests don't align and to please stop contacting you.

Why not just delete it or reply no thank you? Google is a massive company, and unless they are specifically head-hunting you, it's not fair to expect them to even spend 5 minutes going through your personal site. You're going to get picked up by automated scripts for big hiring campaigns. Accept it, and don't waste time or mental energy getting frustrated or mad about it.

<comment><USER3> Recruiting is a sales process just like any other. No one would ever say it's unfair to expect a business developer to spend 5 minutes researching a prospect just because he/she sells for a big firm and doesn't have the time.

Come on. This is their JOB.

<comment><USER4> When they have someone they specifically want to recruit/headhunt, I would expect them to spend at least 5 minutes research.

<comment><USER5> Your argument boils down to:

        Large corporations do not have to sell employment.
        Potential employees should feel honored to merely be contacted on the basis of an opportunity.

This sounds a lot like a cargo cult, or some weird corporatism worship.

Frankly if I'm contacted by a recruiter who is a direct employee of a company, and it is blatantly obvious I'm receiving a form letter based on a keyword search of a resume data base. I know exactly what my role will be at this company, an employee ID in a database row.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the argument is that you must feel "honored". Just not personally affronted by it.

I work for a company that has open developer positions. None of them are related to keyboard firmware, but if you told me nothing about a potential candidate except that he'd been doing keyboard firmware for fun, my first instinct would be, "great! Let's see if he wants to come in for an interview". Don't we all spout the company line about how specific skills are less important than "passion" or whatever? Well, then don't bitch if someone contacts you about something other than the specific skills on your CV. You don't have prostrate yourself before their glorious presence, but I don't see a reason to get upset about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It doesn't take much to piss someone off.

But it also doesn't take much to win someone's love and respect.

A Korean journalist (from here on referenced as Ms. Kim) once interviewed Guus Hiddink, the football coach for 2002 World Cup SK National Team. The SK team had placed fourth, an unprecedented miracle. Hiddink instantly became a household name in Korea.

After the World Cup, countless journalists interviewed him; but Kim sought to foster this relationship — to win Hiddink's love and respect.

Upon finishing the interview, Kim, the journalist, handed Hiddink a portable drive with highlights of all the matches he coached this World Cup.

She gleefully recommended that he watch them on the flight back home.

Hiddink was so touched by her care that he took her out for lunch two days later. This time, Ms. Kim brought kimchi that her grandmother made, and shared that story at the table.

Kim and Hiddink kept in touch, and five years later, Hiddink came to her wedding.

Hiddink flew half-way around the globe for the wedding of a journalist — whose initial meeting was a typical interview.

Hundreds of people interviewed Hiddink. But only one managed to get him to come to her wedding.

And all she spent was a little time, care, and attention.

<comment><USER8> that actually sounds like a lot of effort

<comment><USER7> Recordings of matches were just raw video files. No editing or anything.

"Highlights" must have given the wrong impression!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Years ago I had a rather poor internship with Google. Wrong team, wrong time, wrong me at the time. No one's fault really, but no one would call it a success.

Their recruiter contacted me a couple years ago using the sentence "everyone who worked with you had great things to say about you!". I replied back "really? Who in particular?". Things went downhill from there.

I really do wish their recruiters (or all recruiters really) did a better job of remembering what their company's previous interactions with candidates were.

<comment><USER10> I think you have to put things in the right perspective. The bar for a software engineering internship (for a student) is not that high. The expectations are not that high. When I was in college, I knew several fellow students who were bored with their projects, felt like they didn't get along with their team, and didn't really do anything useful, who got return offers (which implies positive feedback).

Did you deliver _any_ code features / bug fixes during the internship, even if you hated it and/or the code got thrown away? There is a good chance that is considered enough for an internship. I'm pretty sure one of my internship project's code got thrown out at a company, but I still got a return offer.

For some reason I doubt the recruiter would lie about something like this. Perhaps the recruiter couldn't name names because the feedback was years-old and/or anonymized?

<comment><USER9> Given the lengthy apology afterwards, I suspect it was more like "People love to be told they're great, let's start with that".

<comment><USER10> I see. Well this is just a standard feature of human interaction. I am _always_ polite and cheerful in tone when I write emails. Even if I'm actually annoyed or bored or tired. It costs me absolutely nothing to use certain words instead of other words, to add an exclamation mark in certain places, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A while back, as spent 3 months sourcing my own candidates as an engineering manager and it was enlightening. I spent a while on each candidate, finding their github repo, personal webpages, and the roles they had held, then wrote a personalized note explaining who I was, what I was doing and why I thought their experience was useful. Out of hundreds of emails I sent, I got a handful of responses. I had a few takeaways:

\- People with really good information on-line get tons of responses. Someone from LinkedIn confirmed that a small number of profiles get most hits.

\- Most public information about engineers is total crap. Most LinkedIn profiles have no detail to determine if someone is a fit. I looked at the profiles of some of my coworkers who I thought were really good and there was nothing interesting in them. Most github repos have not substantive or interesting projects. Looking at github was a big waste of time.

\- Being a recruiter is hard work. It's exhausting looking through profiles and dismaying to get rejected and ignored all the time, especially when you've spent time researching people.

\- Often you need to contact people several times before they will respond, even if they are interested. I've found this even when I've been contacted by recruiters: I think "interesting, I'll get back to them" and forget about it.

Recruiting is a volume game. Carpet bombing is the only effective strategy in my experience, which is why recruiters do it. It's simply not worth doing that much research up front.

Also, bear in mind that the recruiting staff is usually divided into recruiters and sourcers. The latter are who are doing a lot of the contacting, and their job is mainly to find lots of profiles, not do deep research. Once they get a response, the recruiter takes over and does more of the relationship building and candidate vetting. Given low response rates, this is also a more effective strategy.

<comment><USER12> we sourced all our candidates through [https://lispjobs.wordpress.com](https://lispjobs.wordpress.com) . Given hard requirement of relocation to Australia Adelaide that was very efficient and pleasant experience.

We also tried recruiters and stackoverflow. One recruiter was very good at selling himself to upper management and was pushing unqualified engineers into our throats. Stackoverflow was less targeted than lispjobs blog, but much better than typical recruitment company.

lispjobs was so good that another our practice of flying candidates in to spend a week of hacking together after brief phone screen wasn't that expensive at all.

<comment><USER11> Do you think lisp being a bit of a niche specialization makes it easier or harder to find people for your roles?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another Stupid post about us privileged techies complaining about recruiters for the point of reverse bragging.

Recruiters are awesome and if you are smart(you should be you work in this field) you should know how to use recruiters to your benefit!

1\. Don't ever give them your real phone number or email address. Give them your spam email address and number.

2\. If they are so bold to hunt you down and call you at your place of work get them fired and or shame them publicly. Doubtful this happens a lot

3\. When they are chasing you... Jack up your price and get the best deal ever(money, benefits, work location).

I never understood these silly complaints about recruiters minus to me it sounding like reverse bragging.

<comment><USER14> The sarcastic passive aggressive personality in me wants to say "Man, that must have been really rough on you. I'm sorry you had to say no."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Best advice I ever saw about dealing with recruiters, from someone on this site, though I don't remember who you are; sorry, internet-friend:

        Hi $recruiter,
        I appreciate you taking the time to reach
        out about this opportunity. Luckily, I am
        quite happy at $current_employer and not
        currently pursuing other options. I do
        have one question for you, though. Right
        now, what would a typical salary range
        look like for someone with my background
        and level of experience for a position
        like this?

        Thanks,
        greggyb

I'd say anecdotally that I get an answer more than half the time with a salary range, sometimes based on the position they're hiring for, and sometimes their ballpark based on my profile.

It's not scientific, but it is helpful to keep a pulse on the types of opportunities and compensation available.

<comment><USER16> This is great advice. I'm a recruiter known for being critical of recruiter behavior, and when people claim that recruiters are mostly worthless to them, I encourage them to simply use recruiters for this kind of information. An experienced recruiter, specifically an agency recruiter with a wide variety of clients, should be able to give you a fairly solid expectation on your marketability and market value.

Instead of wasting the opportunity, a reply like this can be quite useful. If the recruiter doesn't reply, don't respond to them again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Recruiter here, though of the agency variety (even less popular than the internal recruiters).

Google has no real excuse not to have a better candidate database in place where this kind of thing doesn't happen. This person's information (email, GitHub account, LinkedIn, name, web pages, etc.) should all be entered into a system and marked as "DO NOT CALL" based on his previous interactions with Google. Google recruiters should be required to check the name and contact info of anyone before they send any correspondence - that only takes a minute.

The Google recruiter might be required to do this already and just didn't do his/her job properly, but I can't imagine a company like Google doesn't have this system in place.

The recruiter appears to have done some minimal level of research on the candidate, but it's hard to tell that the recruiter discovered anything other than the fact that this person had a GitHub account. Some recruiters looking for software engineers of any kind will contact anyone with a GitHub account, as most of those people will be developers.

The recruiter could have done a bit more, and most recruiters could do a bit more research.

All this said, if this candidate actually wanted to work for Google, this blog post never gets written. Candidates will accept a bit of laziness from the recruiter if it's from a desirable company. If this person was interested in Apple and this same email came from an Apple recruiter, the response is probably "Sure, let's talk!". Because it's Google, and because this person (unlike many in the world) doesn't want to work for Google and really wants us to know that he doesn't want to work for Google, this is supposed to be interesting.

This kind of thing happens thousands of times a day. It's not unique or interesting.

<comment><USER17> One reason that people like the author might not be on a 'do not call' list is that long lists of crappy leads are often what gets passed to the new sales person [and what is recruiting other than a sales process?]. I mean why waste good leads on someone who is just learning the ropes and might screw up a slam dunk or why pass good leads to someone who may not be cut out to handle the high rate of rejection and will move on to a better match for their talents in a few months?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> An automated github keyword search to shotgun job offers? Pretty much like the rest of the place. A couple of hundred guys wrote some scripts to automate everything a few years back, then retired to their isolated clubhouse. That is the only logical explanation to lack of useful contact with the outside world. (The bot that posts to hacker news once every 13.87 articles saying 'Hi I am Tony from this project and we really do care' is a similarly poor imitation of a real person BTW).

</comment><comment><USER19> I've never had ANY good experiences with ANY recruiters in my career so far. Ditto with most HR of ANY company I've worked for. That being said, being miffed because the recruiter didn't research him thoroughly (because he is such a special 'snowflake'?) seems like a bit of a stretch. But then again, who I am to talk? I've never had such offers from ABC Company's subsidiuaries.

<comment><USER20> Have you ever considered that the issue could be you, not HR/recruiters? Not trying to insult here in any way. People at times are super oblivious to small stuff that causes huge issues.

<comment><USER19> Actually, I just remembered I did have 1 recruiter do a fantastic job which landed my my first job in Video games. And yes you are correct in pointing out I could be the problem, however in my case the only interaction I've ever had with recruiters was very courteous but they always seem to be "shooting from the hip" and simply contacting me in a haphazard way without any real or concrete offers other than to expand their contact portfolios? Never any follow through or any contact after the first initial email. As stated before, I did my best to help them help me. I just simply ain't no rockstar/ninja/10x dev enough for them I guess.

As for HR, their incompetence seems more due to the fact that: 1) There seems to be a turnaround rate in HR departments, which if harvested could power a small city 2) The head of HR is usually not given the power to enact proper recruitment efforts (see #1) 3) The level of disorganization is at best amateurish. This is not a personal statement against any HR employees, which seem like great people who are stuck in sinking ship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Let me reply to this automated email, post about it on my blog and hopefully get some lulz.

This being HN, I was hoping for something better from the link.

</comment><comment><USER22> "... I do not wish to work for Google. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever."

Are you really sure? How about in 15 years when nearly all programming jobs have been replaced with AI[1]. Programmers are jobless, hungry, homeless and without any access to healthcare. However Google bizarrely needs some keyboard firmware written because AI is pretty shitty when it comes to keyboard firmware.

[1] maybe even less dramatic, how about a year 2000 dot-com-style crash when you are out of work for 12 months?

<comment><USER23> Many – including myself – would rather then go and work in a supermarket or even work with the garbage disposal men than working with Google.

Many people just have strict morals and refuse to work for multinationals that try to use their market power and might to influence local laws, or think they're above the law.

Again others dislike the corporate culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I agree with the sentiment, and Google recruiters have shown to be disconnected from the candidates several times, I disagree with the tone of the message

(However I can't condone their recruiter's behaviour - on average - as well)

I know, so many "amazing career opportunities" show up in my inbox from people that can't even read that I'm not in the US and send me "no visa sponsorship" openings there. Those get the 'report as spam' treatment

<comment><USER25> The tone of the message is appropriate to the state of acceptance of his initial wish stating "Thank you, no".

This kind of behaviour irks me in RL too. If someone can't respect your decision of a polite "thank you, but no", then still keeps riling at it, then there's perhaps no other way for them to realize that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm sorry but I don;t understand why you are posting this? This is a personal correspondence between you and Google and I'm not sure why it needs to be made public. Do you also post every other conversation you have with every other entity?

<comment><USER27> > This is a personal correspondence

No it isn't, that's the problem: It's impersonal bulk-email that _pretends_ to be personalized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For a company who specializes in data and search, Google is remarkably disorganized and doesn't seem to have the right data.

Mind, this is far from the first case of Google being disconnected from the outside world. Like Google's lack of support for web standards, while loudly supporting them. Or not communicating vital information to YouTube's creators when they screw up, and disable monetization on all videos for no reason, or unsubscribe people seemingly randomly. I could keep going, but I think you get the picture.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow, what an overreaction. Just politely reply no.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think it's kind of overreaction and a waste of time responding that way. What is he tring to prove by responding in that maner and publishing it on the blog?

<comment><USER31> People can write whatever they like in their blogs, that's kinda the point of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What pisses me off is when companies get my contact information off Monster and then try to recruit me for a job in another city or a contract position.

My profile on Monster, and on other sites, explicitly states that I am not interested in relocation and I will only accept full-time employment.

And I know for a fact that these recruiters are getting my information from Monster because I get a flood of calls and emails every time I update my profile there (which I haven't done in a while because I just started a new job and thus I'm not looking anymore, so fortunately the calls have died down lately).

Most of these are Indian recruiters hawking positions at no-name companies, but I've received a disproportionately large amount of emails from Amazon. Every few months, I'll get another email saying they're checking in on me and that they've got positions open for me.

<comment><USER16> Your first mistake is having a profile on Monster. Recruiters that use Monster are probably the bottom-feeders most in the industry hate, and the reason they are on Monster is that is where you can generally find the bottom of the talent pool. I don't think I've known any decent industry pro (I recruit engineers for startups) in 10 years that has posted their info to Monster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That is not really constructive.

If I were him, I would have replied with something really interesting for anyone at Google (I'm guessing actually recruiters would not care), for example, what would it take me take a job at Google?

Certainly I'm not so arrogant to say I would never accept a job at Google. You will never know the future, so you will never know if 3 years from now Google would be funding the side-project of your dreams...

But even then, there are some things about Google that bother me. And this is what I would have written in an email to a recruiter. Some examples below:

\- Stop spending resources on developing bad languages such as Go. (Or at least, really improve it please by adding generics and removing ignoring- errors-by-default. And merge it with Dart, or just throw Dart down the toilet please...)

\- Stop tracking everyone and be more like duckduckgo.

\- Take down GooglePlus, it doesn't make any fucking point nowadays, it's just useless and shameful.

\- Resurrect GoogleReader (I still sometimes begin to write "reader.goo" when I open a tab nowadays), or at least make the code opensource and publish it.

\- Open source the software that brings automation to google cars. We need accountability and transparency here.

\- Stop the inclusion of proprietary software in Android. And stop blackmailing smartphone manufacturers by forcing them to include these services.

\- After you have fixed Go (and flushed Dart), stop pushing for Python so much. If I get hired I don't want to write code that is going to be broken 6 months down the road.

\- Same thing as previous bullet, but Java. Move Android to be Swift or C# based.

\- Deprecate the stupid GoogleWallet thing and just adopt bitcoin, for once.

\- Don't ever stop organizing Google Summer Of Code please (not everything in this comment was going to be criticism).

If these items get fulfilled, I would be less annoyed about working for Google.

</comment><comment><USER34> Google+?

I'd rather work on accounts receivable for a ball bearing factory.

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems down, Google Cache version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Pb4VPWY...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Pb4VPWYBhQIJ:https://asylum.madhouse- project.org/blog/2016/08/29/recruitment- mistakes-3/&num=1&lr=lang_de%7Clang_en&hl=en&gl=de&tbs=lr:lang_1de%7Clang_1en&strip=0&vwsrc=0)

</comment><comment><USER36> TL;DR = Humble brag

</comment><comment><USER37> You're not wrong, Walter.</comment>


The Myth of Web 2.0 Non-participation (pic) - <AUTHOR> http://www.insightbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/myth_participation.jpg <comment><USER2> That's on a log scale.</comment>


Is it surveillance if only computers are watching? - <AUTHOR> http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2013/07/is-it-surveillance-if-only-computers.html <comment><USER2> You make a really good point. Also, and just to "level set" as they say, my immediate reaction about all the news around surveillance it that it is evil. But to play the devil's advocate, if the Internet is subsidized by the government, does that give them the right to snoop into it? If there is a network that is totally and completely private, built with zero money from the gov, then I would say no way, you cannot snoop, but if they are picking up a piece of the tab, I am not so sure?</comment>