One Thing Silicon Valley Can't Seem to Fix - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/opinion/sunday/silicon-valley-architecture-campus.html <comment><USER2> The common complaint among the politicians is that tech companies are skinflint. The bad laws are maintained (Marin County just exempted itself from dense housing laws for the next 10 years[0]) because the people who care about urbanism are not the people who give the many local campaign donations.

One major problem is, until recently, there has been no noticeable movement in local government[1] to create good urban policies. I suggest joining the YIMBY Party.[2]

[0] [http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill- SB106-...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Marin-bill-SB106-shows- how-housing-crisis-was-11243458.php)

[1] [http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing- cris...](http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/07/07/housing-crisis- shortage-no-fix-000472)

[2] [http://www.sfyimby.org](http://www.sfyimby.org)

<comment><USER3> Why is that a bad law? Not everyone wants to live in a concrete jungle. Nature is good for your health.

<comment><USER4> > concrete jungle

This is the sort of hyperbole that blocks reasonable policies

<comment><USER5> Devil's advocate. If SF actually wanted to meet the demand for housing it would be a concrete jungle. No value judgment, there are just a ton of people that want to move there. But since we know that SF isn't going to do that to preserve the character of the city the amount of available housing is basically arbitrary. So you could build more housing, but since no matter what prices are still going to be high and most people are still going to be left out the only reason to really do it is if it benefits the city and/or current residents.

<comment><USER2> One man's concrete jungle is another man's walkable and extremely lively community.

Also, many people have pointed out, we don't need to go full Manhattan to satisfy _current_ demand. We can do it with mid-rise construction, that still leaves lots of open spaces and views of the sky.

To do that, we have to recognize that "character" is not just the outside of the building, increasingly a playground for the rich, but the life that goes on inside them.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. Six stories is about right, imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Car culture forms a positive feedback loop and perpetuates itself just like many other things. Everyone has a car. So you build a lot of parking and don't worry if campus is miles away and not connected to transit. So everyone has to have a car. And so on.

As long as it's the predominant style and no one minds the costs it'll go on indefinitely. From other areas of the country (Washington DC, Los Angeles) it can be really bad for a really long time...people will complain but they won't change.

This being such an American cultural thing too, the pain threshold is very high.

Most people take jobs despite bad commutes and inaccessibility without a car. So people are actively voting their priorities and this isn't one of them. Bad for time, money, and environment, but hey life is busy, most everyone has other fish to fry.

<comment><USER8> That's a pretty misanthropic, and frankly, uninformed view. People know their interests.

The tradeoff is transportation versus land. You want to stop paying rent, but can't afford to buy your own place so you decide to buy farther out and spend more time traveling.

We got a middle class in this country due to the Automobile and the suburbs, which let people get out from under the thumb of the landlord and buy their own land. Cars -- and transportation more generally -- is a produced good. Land is not a produced good. For all the complaints about sprawl, an economy in which we substitute produced goods for non-produced goods that are inherited from wealthy families is a better economy.

Now you can argue that we should be using more electric vehicles, or fixed track vehicles, and all of that is worthy of discussion. But you cannot argue against _sprawl_. We continue to spread out as a society so that each person buys their own plot of land instead of paying endless rent to the landlords who monopolize the land in the city center. We continue to try to improve transportation and communication so that those who own key locations cannot extract the same rents from us as they used to. This is a virtuous feedback loop, and those wanting everyone to live as renters in large urban centers don't understand that this creates a permanent rentier class of landlords with unlimited power of taxation, and a permanent underclass of tenants who don't get to keep the gains of their increasing productivity. That's how you get serfs. That's why landlords have always opposed transportation innovation, whether it be opposition to the creation/subsidy of roads or of rail.

It is also why we have a history of diffusion. The built up areas of cities house fewer people per square meter of land than they did 100 years ago, and there it's also fewer than 100 years before that, etc. Sprawl has been happening since Roman Times, and landlords have been screaming against it for all of history.

<comment><USER9> Thank you. This is a point that usually gets missed on HN: car culture creates _massive_ amounts of housing supply. It's hard enough to build at pace with urbanization. The contention for urban housing would be truly hopeless without the suburbs. Restricting a city's housing supply to what bicycles and buses could reasonably serve is equivalent to killing several hundred residential skyscrapers.

Nevertheless, this isn't the middle ages, it's not that important to own _land_. Condos in high-rises work too.

The current policy of low height limits is a lucrative handout to landlords: it keeps their competition small, just like restricting transportation does.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately you can't blame this on zoning laws, because if you compare areas with and without strict zoning laws, you don't see much difference in this regard. E.g. San Francisco, for most of it's history, didn't have strict zoning laws. Yet, like most cities, you pretty much never tear down a whole neighborhood of two story buildings to replace them with 4 story buildings. Once an area is built up, it's built up. Whatever height/density there is tends to stay there. The way cities grow is by growing out -- recruiting new land -- and also via infill. Existing structures just aren't torn down that often. It happens, in the sense that houses are condemned and sometimes replaced with something bigger. But we don't see it happening at a fast rate, whether there are laws against it or not.

Zoning laws are relevant at the margin -- when you add to the city, are you adding 2 story buildings or 4 story buildings. But once the neighborhood is built, that's the neighborhood for the next 100 years, whether there are strict zoning laws there or not. Assume no zoning laws at all. You as a contractor will need to contact all the individual owners and negotiate some deal with them to tear down a perfectly good property and replace it with something a bit taller. How likely is that to pencil out? You might be able to tear down _one_ building, but not the whole neighborhood. The neighborhood will stay the way it is.

There is also another issue at play, which is that once the first tall building is built, the land values go up in the other buildings around it. Land is one of those things where you don't need to actually build the housing in order for the landowner to benefit financially. The developer, after tearing down the first building will have to pay much more to buy out the second. And even more to buy out the third. Very quickly, the arbitrage profits that would drive a market solution disappear, so you don't get market solutions that support tearing down existing buildings on a mass scale. Historically, cities were changed like this after fires or earthquakes, but not in response to market forces. All those people who think that the reason Palo Alto is full of single family homes is just zoning, and if we were to get rid of zoning, Palo Alto would be filled with sky scrapers are in for a big disappointment. Market forces don't work very well here. Regardless of what happens with Zoning, Palo Alto will remain pretty much the same for a very long time, barring a massive fire. Even Nero had to start a fire, and he wasn't constrained by zoning.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't say San Francisco is exactly lacking in zoning ([http://sf- planning.org/zoning-map](http://sf-planning.org/zoning-map)), and whatever it lacks in specific law, it makes up with the most horrendous process imaginable. ([http://sf.streetsblog.org/2017/03/30/yimby-asks-how-do-we- ge...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2017/03/30/yimby-asks-how-do-we-get-the- housing-we-need/))

<comment><USER10> From the second link:

"Much of the planning code needs to be tossed out. "Keep the seismic codes," said Pinkston, and get rid of everything else. "

That strategy gets you more _Ghost Ship_ warehouses.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire)

<comment><USER2> I think she was exaggerating, slightly. In reality, we have a lot of laws that, on the face, have some purpose, but are being used in terrible ways. Even the fire code, frequently, is used to make places less safe.[0]

For the most egregious example, the California Environmental Quality Act was supposed to preserve the good parts of the environment, but the overwhelming majority of the times that it is used, and the overwhelming cost of complying with it, is against development inside cities where there is no pristine nature to protect.[1]

[0] [https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/3/28/how-fire- chief...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/3/28/how-fire-chiefs-and- traffic-engineers-make-places-less-safe)

[1] [http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/sd- ut...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/sd-utbg-ceqa- obstacles-peters-20170302-story.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is no guarantee that Silicon Valley will be the center of tech innovation in America forever. There are a couple of economic trends that put California at a disadvantage in the near future.

1.) You can build a great product with fewer Engineers than ever before. A single highly skilled engineer can run a company that reaches millions of customers.

2.) California's Prop 13[0] hinders new entrants to California by so much that it becomes uneconomical for new talent to locate there.

3.) You need less capital to run an online business than 5-10 years ago. If you know how to manage your own servers it is pretty cheap to run a website. (even with high availability constraints)

4.) Open source software and online education have improved greatly in the last 5 years. Anyone can truly learn anything given time and motivation.

I think it is highly likely that newer successful technology companies become more evenly distributed across the country due to these factors.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_\(1978\))

<comment><USER12> Devils advocate time :)

1) This leads to increased competition like the one we have seen with multiple companies competing in the same growing market. The one(s) with venture backing can often muscle out companies with a more compelling product, which will maintain the importance of being proximal to capital (i.e. SV). An example of this is Balanced Payments vs Stripe, imo.

2) My parents moved to SV in the 70's and were shocked at how expensive apartments were and how high the cost of living was (they moved from the Northeast). I had a converstation with my dad about prohibitive housing costs here in 2005. It's not readily apparent to me if things really will ever come to a true breaking point. (also population dynamics wise, many baby boomers are going to perish within the next 20 years)

3) Related to #1, when many teams can build competing products for cheap, what will separate them will frequently be their sales and marketing muscle. This in turn is often backed by capital in a short-term-unsustainable manner than drives out competition.

4) Building is often the easy part, other than the small number of truly exceptional viral consumer products.

Having written all this, I don't really disagree with any of your points, though I think that you exhibit egalitarian idealism often found in hacker types :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The way to build a new business complex (like the saucer) is to build apartment towers next to it. Or a transit station next to it. Otherwise, the traffic going to the saucer will be tremendous.

Long ago when I worked at Boeing, so many people would leave at the same time that it would take 15 minutes just to exit the parking lot. This was despite Boeing staggering the shift ends to alleviate it. People would _run_ to their cars in a desperate attempt to get ahead of the wave.

<comment><USER14> Ok that sounds awful (running to your car to beat the traffic). However, so does living in an apartment on the corporate campus.

<comment><USER15> I always try to live as close to work as possible so living in an apartment on a corporate campus actually sounds pretty appealing to me but can you expand on why you think it sounds awful? I'm not dismissing your view, I just want to know if there are negatives about it that I haven't considered.

<comment><USER16> My coworkers might gossip about the number of prostitutes I hire to visit my apartment.

I would have to explain at the water cooler that I only hire the prostitutes to indulge strange sexual fetishes and I won't be spreading STDs because you can't get STDs from the strange things I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "In 2015, for example, the amount of time San Franciscans spent commuting amounted to more than $5.3 million in lost productivity, a 55 percent increase over 2011."

Editing, even at the New York Times, is becoming a lost art. I'm sure there are many high net worth individual San Franciscans who personally lose $5.3 million in productivity commuting each year. Even $5.3 billion would seem low to me. Clicking on the link over the "more than $5.3 million" phrase does lead one to a very beautiful report that contains the above quote, but I would not say that makes it true. Maybe we are heading to a Wikipedia like world where quoting something published makes a fact a valid reference rather than if it is true or not.

Quick estimate:

400000 people * 50 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 1 hour/day * 25 dollars/hour = $2.5 billion/year

</comment><comment><USER18> Zoning laws need to reverse. They need to mandate a maximum number of parking spaces be 60% of head count in 2020, then reduce 5% every 5 years until the maximum is 40% of headcount.

I really don't see any other way. You just have to force it.

<comment><USER9> A suburban office with insufficient parking sounds like a great talent repellant. I pity the poor souls who would have to work there (taking shitty bus service or cycling unreasonable distances), but no vaguely competent software engineer would be among them.

<comment><USER18> A business that fails to innovate goes out of business. These kind of zoning restrictions would hit all the businesses equally, and force them to improve their work from home policies (isn't that what software engineers want anyway?) and establish more organized/efficient ride sharing.

Besides, the new zoning restrictions would only apply to _new_ campuses being built. And we already have cities like Palo Alto debating whether they even _want_ more jobs in their city, and rightfully so. There are other places to build your campus. Silicon Valley needs housing, not offices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the title is a bit more clickbaity than HN really deserves. Perhaps "Isolated Campuses: One Thing Silicon Valley Can't Seem to Fix"?

</comment><comment><USER20> Apple was forced by local law to have the amount of parking the campus has. Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage. Maybe if the cities involved approved high desntiy housing and more effect public transport then things would get better. I live 50km from my office and it can take 2+ hours. On the other hand last week I started my morning meeting in Tokyo, then had a meeting in Osaka, dinner with friends in Nagoya and back to my hotel in Tokyo for bed.

<comment><USER10>
      Steve did not want it and did not want the ugly above ground garage.

So he chose to build in the midst of a mostly residential area far from any mass transit (even bus service is minimal, with one line going up Wolfe and another along Homestead) and with one freeway that is already a parking lot during rush hours. _Winning!_

<comment><USER20> Right. So he should have done what? Moved the campus someplace how far from his employee base?

Please let me know where in the Bay Area there is enough land for an Apple size campus and working mass transit?

My last startup - we send out a survey of where everyone lived before we moved. Guess what, screwed everywhere for all locations. Ending up paying each employee for Bart/Caltrain pass. Did not cover more then 30%.

The system of transit is the issue and the government and politics around it. Unless you are FB or Google that pays for private buses. That works so well for the haves vs have nots. It just makes it worse.

In the USA public transit is a joke for 99% of the country and is likely not to change. We are a car nation.

<comment><USER10> There were large, sparse commercial parcels between 101 and the Bay with light rail right there. Heck, the Sunnyvale Lockheed campus along Mathilda and Java used to employ 20,000 by itself. That's one example.

At the time the spaceship site was chosen, there was a LOT of vacant commercial space along the Central/Caltrain corridor, mostly single-story on large parcels (with huge parking areas). Much is still mostly vacant -- ride Caltrain on a weekday and watch the empty lots roll by.

North Santa Clara is even more sparse, with access to two freeways. A new development is being discussed for the former dump site North of Levi's stadium. But it doesn't have a Cupertino address like Jobs apparently wanted.

<comment><USER20> So at a previous startup we looked at offices in the area you talked about. They sucked. Also the public transportation was a joke. For me at the time Caltrain to Mt. View then slow VTA to a stop that was 1 mile from the 3 offices location we looked at. 2 hours train time and limited hours on service compared to a real system in a large city.

As to access to freeways I can drop off in Cupertino pretty simply from 280/85/101/17 so it is really a central path. De Anza hits both the 85 and 280. If anything it is simpler then the Santa Clara parking lot of the 101 to XYZ expressway or 101 to 237 to get to the far side. Their all parking lots.

<comment><USER10> Neither 101 nor 17 goes through Cupertino or even near its borders.

I can't even parse your second paragraph.

As for "easy drop-off" from 280, remember Wolfe is quite busy _before_ the Spaceship even opens at all, let alone staffs up fully.

 _Then_ , what?

Everybody packs Homestead from De Anza Blvd through all residential neighborhoods? Or onto Homestead from the Lawrence Expressway end, which is already busy thanks to the new, huge Kaiser medical center there? (Not to mention that access to Lawrence from 280 is via surface streets, not direct- linkage ramps).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I fear America's car dependent infrastructure will be its greatest folly. It is disappointing. If Silicon Valley can't get this right, what chance the does the rest of America have?

<comment><USER2> I think the great success of Silicon Valley was that government didn't know how to regulate it, so by default was pretty hands-off. Except for promoting the welfare of laborers in general, like how non-compete clauses are illegal.

Governments have been regulating the built environment with zoning for 100 years, so that part is not as successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Perhaps from a large company's point of view, parking lots are land held in reserve that they could build on later? (Building parking garages if needed.)

<comment><USER18> If they own the land, what prevents them from just putting trees there instead of a parking lot? Surely the cities don't forbid trees.

<comment><USER21> They often require parking spaces, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Guys... Bell Labs is designed to look like a football. Not a mystery, nor should it be part of this article as 'weird'.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why are cars a problem? The US hit "peak car" a few years ago. The US population is leveling off. Millennials aren't buying cars in a big way. Electric cars are gaining market share and dropping in price. Self-driving cars are getting close. The US already has a mostly adequate highway system. What's broken?

<comment><USER2> The "peak car" was a temporary dip associated with the Great Recession and crippling student loan payments. Since the recovery, once they get a good job, almost every millennial I know has a car. Even my brother, who advocates for dense car-free communities, owns and uses a car. It has become a real pain, here where there aren't enough parking spaces for all those cars.

Electric cars don't eliminate the central maladies of private car ownership. Self-driving cars are an excuse to justify maintaining unhealthy built environments, and like the Hyperloop I don't trust in it until it is actually usable. The highway system is clogged and cannot be expanded in the destinations where people need to go. There are many things that are broken.

[http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/th...](http://www.autonews.com/article/20170227/RETAIL/302279963/the- millennials-are-coming)

[https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl- ponzi-s...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2011/10/suburban-sprawl-ponzi- scheme/242/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Cars are freedom. Build more freeways, and use tolls to pay for them.

<comment><USER19> That viewpoint simply baffles me.

As a European who is in the Bay Area for a few weeks, I find the roads in the Bay Area to be really, really depressing. I also find them harder to use than the European variants:

* the Bay Area freeways don't seem to have consistent rules about when a lane is going to appear or disappear or peel off from the main freeway (so I constantly end up in the wrong lane; please, please correct me if I'm wrong!);

* the very frequent merge/exits mean that there's not really a taboo on undertaking, which doubles the amount of awareness I need to maintain (as well as "everyone overtaking me", I also need to track "everyone undertaking me" too, which isn't true in the UK).

The rule "stick to the rightmost lane which lets you maintain the speed you want to maintain" simply doesn't work for me because that lane regularly peels off to become a different road, and it's less effective anyway given that everyone undertakes all the time. On motorways in the UK, it's rarer for lanes to split off from the main road, and it's signalled much further in advance so you reliably have time to change lanes comfortably when you get caught in the wrong one.

I infinitely prefer public transport where it exists; if that means taking a taxi for the last short bit of the ride, so be it. Personal preference, but I just can't fathom how anyone could prefer cars over a well-run public transport system. (Of course, there are times when you just need a car or a van - hauling personal freight, for instance. But the vast, vast majority of traffic doesn't fall into that category: in the UK, over the past four years or so, I've needed a car about five times in total.)

<comment><USER25> Same - I actually state my preference for public transit over driving in my résumé, and Baltimore's system is surprisingly good - not on the same scale of comprehensiveness as NYC's, but then we're a much smaller town, too. I don't understand the car preference either; although for years I did consulting work that involved site visits, and racking up 200 miles a day in the car was not uncommon, even at the time I regarded that more as a penance than a privilege. Latterly I feel that I've done just about a lifetime's worth of driving, and any further is a waste of time tolerable only in the rare case when no other alternative can be found.

"Undertaking"? This is not a term with which I'm familiar; based on context, it seems to mean dropping back to change lanes behind a car, by contrast with "overtaking", to accelerate and pass in order to change lanes ahead. Is that a correct understanding?

<comment><USER19> "Undertaking" might be a UK-specific term, I don't know; it means "overtaking but on an inside lane relative to you, rather than an outside lane".

<comment><USER25> Oh! We just call that "passing on the right", and it's frowned upon here as well; some municipalities even have it on the books as a moving violation, but everyone does it anyway.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ad Industry Will Soon Unveil a Do Not Track Browser Solution - <AUTHOR> http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ad-industry-will-soon-unveil-do-not-track-browser-solution-157356 <comment><USER2> I'll see that when I believe it.

Counterproposal: there are two primary modes of advertising.

1\. Brand awareness and signalling. The key element here is ubiquity, that is, the _extravagence_ of your ad spend _is_ the message, and the waste is _the key part_. The message transmitted is "this is a solid, reputable, and highly profitable brand".

Or in the words of Davis, et al: "It is not so much the claims made by advertisers that are helpful, but the fact that they are willing to spend extravagant amounts of money on a product that is informative."

Not my idea, it's from Don Marti's "Targeted Advertising Considered Harmful": [http://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered- harmful/](http://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered-harmful/)

2\. Detecting intentionality and delivering optimality.

There are relatively few times when I'm actually _receptive_ to online advertising. And at those times, I run into the obverse problem: the _content_ presented is copious but the _information_ presented is sparse. Most critically, I've yet to encounter an online shopping or search interface which can perform the primary function of a semi-competent sales clerk: to register what I _don 't_ wan't and am _not_ interested in, and provide me with a "dismiss with extreme prejudice" option.

Stop showing me chargers when I'm looking for a cheap laptop. Stop showing me deck chairs when I'm searching for a _desk_ chair. Stop showing me low chairs when I'm looking for a drafting chair. Stop showing me backless stools when I want one with a back on it. Etc.

Or: _Why don 't search engines simply ask for the appropriateness of a given result and modify the result set accordingly?_

Addressed in greater length here: [http://redd.it/24107v](http://redd.it/24107v)</comment>


Show HN: Tymoot – Programers way of dealling with kids' Time Outs - <AUTHOR> http://www.ripeapps.com/ This is how programers deal with Kids' time-outs, make an app because they are lazy :)<p>My co-founder has 3 little ones. <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure any psychologist would trash this application, but having to deal with my 2 kids, i have to say, should at least be fun to use it as long as you don't think this is an educational tool.

Edit for format. (my first reply to a thread!)

<comment><AUTHOR> We agree with you, this was an attempt to tracking the time and providing some fun with the punishment wheel, in no way was meant to be a "Parenting" guide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's the appstore link for what he's talking about: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tymoot/id423231052>

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting app....but do kids really think it's cool to get time outs even if they are done on mobile?</comment>


Uncle Police: The China Model - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/mil_ops/status/1232733255918551041 <comment><USER2> What is exactly on the video? I don't understand.</comment>


Google Fiber to host Compute Midwest's hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/events/2012/10/09/compute-midwest-this-conference-is-hosting-the-first-hackathon-powered-by-google-fiber/

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I wish I could afford it, especially since KC is my hometown, but as I'm a poor college student, even the student price is a bit much for me to spend. Maybe next year!

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I'm just not being imaginative enough... but will a gigabit internet connection really make this hackathon that much different than any other? Is bandwidth normally a productivity bottleneck at most hackathons?

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds fun! I'll be there for sure.

</comment><comment><USER5> Free stuff! All you have to do is give them your source code, lol!

<http://www.computemidwest.com/#hackathon>

<comment><USER6> I'm representing Twilio (my employer) at the Compute Midwest Hackathon and the stated policy is that you own your own stuff.

That said, I personally _will_ _not_ get involved in any hackathon doing an IP grab. In fact, I'm fighting against one called 3 Day Startup (3DS). You can read about that here: <http://whatis3daystartup.com/whats-the-goal/>

TLDR: 3 Day Startup is basically a Startup Weekend focused on students but anyone that participates signs over _everything_ developed to 3 Day Startup.. later, the participants can license it back if 3DS approves.

<comment><USER7> Wow, that 3DS thing is completely f'ed up. :/</comment></comment></comment>


Teens Hate Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/teens-hate-twitter-2012-7

<comment><USER2> If 11% of teens use Twitter = teens hate Twitter, than adults hate Twitter even more. According to this Pew study, 8% of all adults use Twitter everyday.

[http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Twitter- Use-2012/Finding...](http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Twitter- Use-2012/Findings.aspx)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's maybe why ...

"One reason it appears teens hate Twitter, is that what they actually hate is news (they never read it online) and Twitter's best use is as a news-delivery service".</comment>


This is how Visa works - <AUTHOR> http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/this-is-how-visa-works <comment><USER2> Just to give some context.

RedeConv is a electronic payment company, it does not offer any credit from what I saw like Visa does, electronic payment is a market that only recently the Visa brand began exploring in Brazil, offering prepaid cards for payments of employee meals (this is what Visa Vale is basically), providing means for this type of electronic payment and offering credit for payments are not the same thing in Brazil.

In this case the company in question to blame is not exactly Visa but Cielo that probably is just upset about losing market in electronic payments, which is what I believe RedeConv provides, Cielo began as a Joint venture between Visa and some Brazilian banks some years ago, the name of the company was VisaNet until it was renamed in 2010 I believe, the company is one of the most profitables in the Brazilian stock exchange where it's listed and its profit increases after every quarter, I personally own some Cielo stocks.

EDIT: Eduardo, if you can record one or more conversations from merchants relating about that you can denounce Cielo to the CADE (the Brazilian equivalent of the FTC). Before doing that you should call a lawyer first so he can inform you how you should do it legally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just adding: CBSS (now called Alelo) is a Visa company that operates Visa Vale cards. Cielo is a gateway, actually we are Cielo partners, never had a problem with them.

<comment><USER2> Good, I stand corrected, anyway look for a lawyer, he will give you proper recommendations on what to do next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Plenty of multinationals play "dirty" in Latin America, I've heard similar stories about several other companies here from people that work for smaller, local competitors.

That said, I highly doubt that it's a policy of the home office, it's really just the end result of hiring people who get results in the region, in a situation where oversight is difficult to impossible.

<comment><USER4> > _in a situation where oversight is difficult to impossible._

That excuse no longer washes.

<comment><USER3> In an ideal world, yes, but I reside in a very similar country, and have seen and heard too many similar stories to be naive. I think the best thing that can be done is to blog about it like this; someone in Visa corporate will take notice and changes will be made, hopefully for the better.

<comment><USER4> Visa is a multi-billion dollar international company with strict regulatory controls.

For them to say that "preventing some of our employees from breaking the law is hard" is not good enough.

I accept that no organisation is going to achieve total legal compliance. But sometimes it feels as if some companies feel above the law; as if they are untouchable.

As if, indeed, they are too big to fail.

<comment><USER5> "too big to fail"

I wonder if facebook fails, will that be a good thing where a lot of developers get on the market thus allowing startups to hire :P?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't speak Portuguese, but is this the contact info for visa in the region? [1]. Maybe a few letters to some choice managers there could get Visa to act a little more responsible. if not, I'd push as high as you can get in the organization to petition. There is a corporate visa page [2], there may be something useful in there. [edit] CEO is Joseph Sanders. There may be a PO box listed for him [3] at

Joseph W. Saunders Chief Executive Officer Visa Inc. P.O. Box 8999 San Francisco, CA 94128-8999

phone: 650-432-3200 [4]

I had an employee that worked for me dig up the CEO contact info for a big insurance company and make a stink about a $500 charge and it was taken care of the next day. hopefully something like that will work for you.

[1] <http://www.visa.com.br/Conteudo.asp?pg=7>

[2] <http://corporate.visa.com/index.shtml>

[3] [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1403161/0000000000120...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1403161/000000000012022455/filename1.pdf)

[4] [http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/aspdotnet/databrowsing...](http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/aspdotnet/databrowsing/empDetails.aspx?menuchoice=emp&geogArea=0604000081&empId=558741401)

[5] google search: site:.gov joseph saunders CA

[edit]

1) Portuguese spoken in the region: sorry guys - my lack of world travel showing.

2) CEO is Joseph Sanders

3) might have found phone number

<comment><USER7> Small correction, but Brazilians generally speak Portuguese, not Spanish (for that reason, as well as a few important others such as its size, Brazil is commonly considered a distinct market from the rest of Latin America)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Random idea:

If I remember correctly, the US has extremely strict anti-bribery laws that apply to bribes made outside the US jurisdiction as well. These might only apply to government bribes (corruption), but if they apply here too, you could consider rattling the global Visa parent company's chain in the US in some way.

<comment><USER9> IANAL, but I think the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) only covers bribes to foreign government officials.

<comment><USER10> My understanding is that this is not correct. The US does have strong AntiCorruption Laws that deal with US entities operating overseas.

Transparency International have good references. <http://www.transparency- usa.org/links/index.html>

A quick search found this signed by Brazil and US in 1996.

B-58: INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION AGAINST CORRUPTION

'(3) TRANSNATIONAL BRIBERY.--Current United States law provides criminal sanctions for transnational bribery. Therefore,it is the understanding of the United States of America that no additional legislation is needed for the United States to comply with the obligation imposed in article VIII of the Convention.'

<http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/Sigs/b-58.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I built a small credit card company, we have around 500k users and 2k merchants."

URL of this company? Links to some of the merchants that you've lost or currently have? Clear scan of the document in the photo?

<comment><AUTHOR> The company is called Redeconv (www.redeconv.com.br). I didn't want to attract attention to the company itself, we are just regional. I can provide the xerox of contracts we had and the forms I'll post that to the blog post later today.

<comment><USER12> Regardless of this story, I find it very cool that in Brazil you can just setup your own credit card company. Are there many regional CC networks like yours in Brazil? How did you get the idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> Credit card company is generic term. In our case we are a PAT (we provide employees benefits). We never "touch" the money, your employer is, indirectly, who pays the merchants. We cannot provide loans (credit). For that, we need a lot of cash (FDIC insurances, etc)

<comment><USER13> So what you're providing is similar to meal tickets or coupons?

<comment><USER14> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Before we convict them in the court of public opinion, can we have some impartial evidence? A single blog post isn't much.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true. The only "proof" I have is testimonial proof and some xerox, this is why the only thing possible to me to do is a blog post.

<comment><USER16> If you can I would try and see if you can find more local companies that have suffered from these practices, get them to post as well and increase the legitimacy of the claims.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It might be more accurate for the headline to read "This is how Brazil works." In the US we tend to take for granted how much a functioning regulatory system, far from retarding healthy growth, is essential for _promoting_ it.

<comment><USER18> You remark shows that you didn't even bother to read the entire article.

They're not a credit card company, but a provider of employee benefits (hence they don't even touch the money). They just happen to use small rectangular plastic cards as a medium for carrying balance information.

<comment><USER19> I fail to see any connection between your comment and the one you're replying to...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Since I was dealing with compliance, FCPA and such for the last 15 years, here are my two cents:

\- in case people involved in the unethical behavior are either employees of Visa OR employees of Visa subsidiaries, joint ventures or partnerships, such behavior does constitute a violation of at least Visa's internal Code of Business Conduct and Ethics [1], not sure about FCPA due to lack of details;

\- compliance matters are a serious business for most all multinational companies, especially public/US based;

\- this Code is an internal Visa document, that implies that Reporting any Illegal or Unethical Behavior [2] shall/can be done by Visa's employees, but you are not an employee;

I would recommend to write an e-mail, describing your facts, and send it to 4-5 Visa employees, including US HQ. Having multiple recipients, including HQ people, will ensure that one of those will report this case internally. Your e-mail will trigger internal investigation of this matter, and hopefully favorable resolution [i.e. discontinuation of such practices].

Of course, speak with lawyer before doing anything. Also, I would advise against talking to press, at least for now.

1 [[http://investor.visa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=215693&p=irol-g...](http://investor.visa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=215693&p=irol- govConduct)]

2 [[http://investor.visa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=215693&p=irol-g...](http://investor.visa.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=215693&p=irol- govConduct#19)]

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey Eduardo, I tried to commend on your blog, but it seems that someone entered an html tag in the last comment and didn't close it. It screwed your comment system.

I'm from Brazil too, and this kind of stuff didn't surprise me. But you have to contact a lawyer and ask for help. Our legal system isn´t the best, but we have to make some effort to make it better.

Best wishes!

</comment><comment><USER22> While this is preposterous behavior, I am very surprised it's even possible to operate your own payment card network. Visa/MasterCard is the one monopoly I thought was practically unbreakable. Even PayPal, who is supposed to be a Visa competitor, issues Visa cards.

<comment><USER23> This happened in Brazil. From the figures in the blog post it seems as though Visa isn't quite so entrenched there.

<comment><USER24> Visa is huge in Brazil. However, OP is not exactly in the credit card processing market (cf. eduardordm's comments in this thread).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I just wanted to give Eduardo a shout-out to build a company that provides a tangible benefit for low-income families. I know that in the US it's hard for this segment of the population to get into the electronics payment system, and I imagine that in Brazil it's similar. It's great to see that the system is free for the end-user. In the US, most companies that target this market are predatory and charge exorbitant fees[1], like the now defunct Kardashian Kard[2]

Somehow I'm not surprised that Visa/Cielo is playing dirty to get their market share back. I hope you find a way to fight back.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/chasing-fees- bank...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/chasing-fees-banks-court- low-income-customers.html?pagewanted=all) [2] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/30/us-kardashian- debi...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/30/us-kardashian-debitcard- idUSTRE6AP41S20101130)

</comment><comment><USER26> Whether or not this particular story is true, there is a structural problem with debit transactions. Neither merchants nor consumers should be penalized for electronic transactions in which credit is not involved. Perhaps this means that the infrastructure of bank cards, which was predominantly spread by credit card companies, would fall on vendors and banks, but my guess is that they would benefit enough from the increased liquidity that they would want to create such a system.

Levying a 5-7 percent tax on vendors is simply unfair, when profit margins, particularly on less expensive items are often less than that.

<comment><USER27> There is still reasons that debit transactions should attract a charge. There is definitely still fraud risk as well as comms/infrastructure/support. 5-7% is high, but 0% is also unrealistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> More votes indeed.

The sad reality is that you might lose even more ground to Visa. At this stage it might be worth to get it on camera somehow or ask those merchants to go on record and take legal actions against Visa. But you likely figured this out already :)

Boa sorte ! A outra batalha sera com a justica brasileira.

<comment><USER29> If he only managed to find out because he had friends, I pretty much doubt anyone is going to get in trouble with this...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just got a VISA-card some weeks ago and I'm going to give it back to my bank and close the account tomorrow. Good thing VISA's not the only one offering such services. (I never used it yet anyways)

Some large companies are just not able to have some self discipline. Others do.

<comment><USER31> Which?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is beyond unethical, what is Jack Dorsey's and Square's board's response? In my opinion Jack and his board needs to either prove this guy wrong or part ways with Visa.

Winning at the startup game is fun and all, but standing up for what you believe in is far more important in the long run.

Am I wrong? Is there something I am missing?

\- [http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/visa-makes-a-strategic- inve...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/27/visa-makes-a-strategic-investment- in-disruptive-mobile-payments-startup-square/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Don't know if this will help but perhaps you can get the story in the newspaper?

If not perhaps you could buy some advertising stating that the company's "death" has been highly exaggerated, why your product is better, and because people love it so much, even dirty tricks can't kill it.

Avoid negativity and bitterness, keep the message focused (less is more), and it might help rally the public to your side.

</comment><comment><USER34> Seems like I have heard this story before. Some local re-seller of Visa products/services (Visa is in employee benefits???) being overly aggressive is what it turned out to be. If I had time I'd do some more searching for similar stories.

</comment><comment><USER35> Indeed what Visa did is not moral, but this is the law of the Jungle, no matter how despicable they find their opponents to be, losing is losing. They need real revolution to win the game.

</comment><comment><USER36> Is anybody really surprised at this?

<comment><USER37> I'm not really hip to the Brazilian legal system, but in the US this would be highly illegal.

<comment><USER38> Sadly, "highly illegal" is often not correlated with "goes to jail", or even "stopping the behavior".

For example: have you ever wondered about the aggressive charity street canvassers that have sprung up over the last few years? The people who would do just about _anything_ to get you to stop on your commute, talk to them, and hand over your credit card?

The aggressive tactics they employ are often illegal, and many instances of outright lies and fabrications have been documented.

But that hasn't really curbed the behavior - the charities and canvassing contractors (yes, they are predominantly for-profit canvassing agencies that only represent the charities, they are not the charities themselves) know full well that a great deal of abuse happens, but by keeping everything at arms- length they can shift blame and diffuse responsibility up the chain.

Whenever a canvasser is caught lying to get the donation, they are a "rogue" employee, cut loose, and the behavior continues. Whenever this happens at a large enough scale to attract media attention, the canvassing agency itself is "rogue" and cut loose by the charity. So on and so forth - nobody _actually_ gets into trouble at any point, except maybe the canvasser on the street who has nobody to redirect the blame onto.

So yeah, even in the US, if you are savvy (and evil) enough, illegality ain't got shit on you.

<comment><USER39> Same thing happens in the UK, to the point that I thought you were talking about UK chuggers until I got the last sentence.

VISA's tactics don't surprise me. What is sad is that we think it's OK because you can do anything as long as you're maximising shareholder value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This incident is not surprising. On a bigger picture, the whole system of plastic cards and bank transactions is archaic. As is their elitist attitude. It feels alien to me to experience in 2012 when cloud operations are so ubiquitous and cost effective.

How can one justify a fee of 50 euros for a 700 euros transaction except than greed? It's as if my actual banknotes are being transported, then in principle it takes a single press of a key.

It is also ironic how big social networks persuade us to disclose all we can about our private lives, while the banking system remains a secret society with black magic operations and fees formation.

I really look forward to the guys like Dwolla to disrupt the hell out of them. Time to move on.

</comment><comment><USER41> He needs to talk to a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER42> Mafia!

</comment><comment><USER43> Hi

You stated on March 27, 2012 on your blog [1] having 6K merchants. Have you lost that many of merchants ??? Without proof it's hard to believe in your words... Please provide proof and facts and I am sure you will win this battle. Or at least get some compensation for the 4K merchant losses you have lost...

[1] - [http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/square-should-have-its- own-c...](http://eduardo.intermeta.com.br/square-should-have-its-own-card)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have 2k employee-benefits merchants and more than 10k in general now.</comment></comment>


Governments are testing their own cryptocurrencies - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608910/governments-are-testing-their-own-cryptocurrencies/ <comment><USER2> National cryptocurrencies might be a good idea but advantage of bitcoin is that it is international, and wherever you live and pay, you don't need to exchange money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. One of the core tenets of bitcoin, in my opinion, is that it's borderless --or international as you say-- and not centralized in any way. National cryptocurrencies won't work (IMO) because they violate the principals of decentralization. Open vs closed/government-based crypto is like comparing the internet to a closed off intranet.</comment></comment>


Google announces hate crime news index - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/track-news-stories-about-hate-with-the-documenting-hate-news-index <comment><AUTHOR> (Seeking Alpha) Google announces the Documenting Hate News Index, a cooperation between Google News lab, Pitch Interactive, and ProPublica to use machine learning to track and report on hate crimes around the country.

The project utilizes Google Cloud Natural Language API to scrape the prior six months of Google News for stories on hate crimes, biases, or related abuses and creates a visual tool that makes the information easier for reporters to use.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hate crimes are nonsense. If something wasn't a crime without the hate part, why should it be with it, when hating others is legal.

<comment><USER3> The same reason why you have first-degree and second-degree manslaughter, for example. Intent counts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand is this is meant to be an index of crime-reports (public information) or of news-stories. It sounds like the latter, but if you're only focusing on the media and not the underlying incidents it's hard to draw valid epidemiological conclusions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Relevant: YouTube admits 'wrong call' over deletion of Syrian war crime videos [http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-admits-wrong- call-...](http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-admits-wrong-call-over- deletion-syrian-war-crime-videos-1140126078)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems to be a index as in a index in a textbook as opposed to an index like the DOW from what I can see. I'd like to see something more along those lines for comparisons sake.

</comment><comment><USER6> Google the gatekeepers, deciding the undecidable.

I find this dangerous.

<comment><USER7> As it is described, if I understand correctly, they are not deciding anything.

<comment><USER6> Because Google has an agenda, I think perhaps that colours my judgement.

But while we're here let's have a quick look at

[http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/](http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Fare-Finder Shootout: Mobissimo Wins (founded by Xooglers) - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2007/12/21/fare-finder-shootout-mobissimo-wins/ <comment><USER2> Now when I read something that this, I'm wondering about the PR submarine. I did try out mobissimo though, and their interface is kinda nice, though I have no idea if they actually have the lowest prices.

<comment><USER3> I think it's a little to obvious to be PR work...

<comment><USER4> Maybe it was from a pro pr firm that "gets blogging"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What Xoogler? <http://www.mobissimo.com/company/founders.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> AFAIC, until these fare-finder services add Southwest, they're worthless.

<comment><USER7> until southwest opens their booking system to 3rd parties, nobody wins.</comment></comment>


GNU Coreutils Gotchas - jake-low https://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/coreutils-gotchas.html <comment><AUTHOR> They miss an important bit: strings. coreutils cannot deal with unicode strings, just ASCIIZ. Nowadays one should not assume strings are ASCII or Latin1 only. Searching must include normalization, -i must use proper case mappings, sort ordering need to be observed, ... My fork on GitHub adds unicode support and -g progress-bar for mv and cp.</comment>


Think brain games make you smarter? Think again, researchers say - <AUTHOR> http://exactlyscience.com/archives/12025.html <comment><USER2> Blogspam of

[https://news.fsu.edu/news/health- medicine/2017/04/17/think-b...](https://news.fsu.edu/news/health- medicine/2017/04/17/think-brain-games-make-smarter-think-fsu-researchers-say/)

with author credit (Dave Heller) stripped out.</comment>


I didn't "get" Redux, so I rewrote it, and this is what I learned - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@davedrew/lets-write-redux-975609b0358f#.n3hwt3id5 <comment><USER2> Redux is a cool idea but what is it doing in my browser?

Javascript in browser is a single threaded environment. Immutability of data is a great concept in a context of concurrency but is an anti-pattern in browser code.

Create a global variable to store your entire global state of your application. g = {};

Use an observer pattern and create an event bus for all application entities to talk to each other. You get a simple alternative to Redux pattern.

Redux is a cool name though. Like an intern who works here said, its great to have on your resume but he does not know why its useful or what problem it solves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, that's an interesting question. The value I find in the immutability aspect comes from, I think, _everything else_ that comes with it. In being immutable, an action taken has to be explicit, and therefore is trackable and replayable. So while you don't necessarily get much in the way of safety against concurrency (though, let's be honest: there is still asynchronicity in JS even without concurrency), you get a lot of free in terms of state tracking, state replication and state reproduction. This doesn't even mention the benefits around testing and reasoning about pure functions that are reducers.</comment></comment>


What are some good books for tech company founders? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> \- The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Blank. [1]

\- Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston. [2]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/0976470705)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups- Problem...](http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Problem- Solution/dp/1430210788/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302372083&sr=1-2)

<comment><USER3> ^^ Great books. Also checkout the books about the lean startup by Eric Ries (there's like 3-4 of them now).

I would also recommend the ultimate sales machine. Even though I've only read 20 pages since I started reading it one month ago (yes, I run a startup), it's really interesting and helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Over 100 books listed here suggested for a similar question on Quora: [http://www.quora.com/Book-Recommendations/What-books- should-...](http://www.quora.com/Book-Recommendations/What-books-should- entrepreneurs-read)?

The next question you might ask is: how much time should I spend between reading/learning vs. actually doing stuff which this question might help: [http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-should-entrepreneurs- spen...](http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-should-entrepreneurs-spend- reading-books-or-online-materials)

</comment><comment><USER5> Thomas, J.P. & Robert, H.W Jr 2004. "In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies", Harper Paperbacks.

Ignore what the critics say about this book because I think this book's strengths is in their case studies on the company cultures and qualities that made them successful decades ago. This is more about how to treat people and direct a company, while providing examples of how these companies had dedicated passionate micro teams who were their "lean startup" champions that drove their innovation and success.

</comment><comment><USER6> Made to Stick Delivering Happiness Good to Great

</comment><comment><USER7> Ignore everybody by Hugh McLeod.</comment>


Xiaomi's "100W" quick charging goes from 0 to 100 in 17 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/xiaomi-teases-worlds-fastest-charging-smartphone-with-100w-quick-charge/ <comment><USER2> I'm finding myself using slow charging more as batteries are harder to replace these days.

Faster charging produces more heat, degrading lithium batteries faster. And it's just unnecessary if you leave your phone to charge overnight.

I just hope there's an option in software to control the rate of charge in Xiaomi's new phone. That would be the best of both worlds. It should default to a conservative rate, and allow you to enable quick charging by tapping a notification as you plug in.</comment>


How to Unlearn a Disease - <AUTHOR> http://m.nautil.us/issue/24/Error/how-to-unlearn-a-disease <comment><USER2> As a practicing hypnotherapist (converted from former skeptic), I can confirm the thinking in this article is right on the money.

I constantly see people for all kinds of interesting medical issues that aren't being solved by medicine.

Most people know about smokers quitting with ease and without withdrawals.

I had someone who would hear the word "cat" and break out in hives.

Another person who had irritable bowel go away after getting over some traumatic experience from their past.

Even my own experience with debilitating migraines gone with just a few minutes of work with a trained professional. They haven't come back since.

It's of course not a cure all. You probably won't reverse blindness or anything. But it works for more than you'd expect.

Medicine is wonderful. So is the mind. Use both to get better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't a simpler justification for the first story (epileptic seizures during recitation of a poem) that the particular synapses the student was using to recite the poem had a problem (demyelination?) that provoked seizures when used? Like a CPU core that has flawed silicon, or a road with a pothole, the system as a whole can work fine if you avoid it, but it's a fatal flaw if you don't.

<comment><USER4> Er, no. The initial reaction was caused by unconscious stress or rage brought on by public speaking and the subsequent incidents were a learned Pavlovian response.

I am always recommending The Mindbody Prescription on here and have no idea why you lot refuse to read it. There is no excuse, this topic is too important. And it would stop silly comments like yours dead in the water. Everything the article mentions make perfect sense from the perspective of unconscious emotion, and moreover, this perspective gives you great understanding of psychology and curative and even predictive capabilities.

<comment><USER5> Hello. I am the resident asshole here and I am calling bullshit on your claim that you always recommend the Mindbody Prescription. You don't. Three pages of your comments have one reference to the book. These pages do paint an somewhat arrogant picture of you, though. You might find it easier to get your point across if you don't sound as superior.

That being said, your comment is spot on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the infamous "Five Minute Phobia Cure": a simple algorithm for reprogramming your brain to not have a phobia anymore.

The fascinating thing about phobias is that they are such an intense and durable _one-time_ learning. A phobic person never "forgets" to have the response.

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

edit:

I realized he doesn't actually detail the process there. I can't find a good link right now but here's a live demo of reprogramming a bad memory that includes some of the same elements:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_RQxt0Wcgk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_RQxt0Wcgk)

<comment><USER7> I hadn't heard of this before - very interesting. I need to reframe a few memories.

<comment><USER6> NLP catches a lot of flak (some of it deserved perhaps) for being pseudo- scientific but it gets results and has a pretty rigorous (if nonscientific) basis.

I attended a seminar given by Dr. Bandler about fifteen years ago and volunteered for an on-stage demonstration (of hypnosis and some other techniques). I don't remember much, and my subjective sense was that I was up there for only a few moments, but I was told by a friend afterwards that it was several minutes. During that time, whatever he did, I was relieved of a severe depression that had ruined my life up to that point. Let me be clear: I had suffered from years of vicious depression that kept me from living a normal life. It went away and never came back.

<comment><USER8> Do you know what was done/said to you?

<comment><USER6> No. I went up on stage, sat down in a chair and closed my eyes. Dr. Bandler started talking and I remember him saying something like, "Oh I love it when they fight me." and that's the last thing I remember. There was the dark pink/grey light you see when your eyes are closed and then I was "waking up" and stepping off the stage. I hadn't been asleep but I did not consciously remember anything.

It was only later, during a break, when someone told me that it had been several minutes, and that I had flushed dramatically and had other reactions during the process. I have no memory of any of that. From my POV it was just a few moments.

There may even be video available of the seminar. I don't remember the year but it was maybe 2004, the seminar was a week long and in Chicago, and I think it was technically DHE (Design Human Engineering), not NLP, if you want to try to track down the actual incident.

After my depression was cured I kinda lost interest in NLP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You improve what you measure. And right now, we don't measure our brain waves at all. I can see a future where everyone has access to their brain patterns in real time and is much better at exerting conscious control over their emotions and physiological reactions.

<comment><USER10> That would be really useful.

Right now it's like trying to debug a malfunctioning program except in addition to not being able to see the source code, you also don't have access to the logs.

Most programming problems are pretty easy to solve once you know what the problem is and print statements / logs help a ton here.

<comment><USER11> Plus you have only the most general idea of the output. Try to compare how depressed you are one day against another and you'll end up with only the roughest estimations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can this work with something like depression?

<comment><USER13> Probably. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation is already being used to help treat depression, and there's likely a lot more that can be done among these lines.</comment></comment>


Here Comes the Next Microsoft Office - <AUTHOR> http://winsupersite.com/office-2013/here-comes-next-office <comment><USER2> Where is Visio?

Sometimes I think that Microsoft themselves want Visio to die off. They don't give it to students (so they can learn it) and even a lot of business licences don't come with it.

I understand they want to hold something back so they can sell their super enterprise style licences, but Visio is such a versatile tool which has a wide variety of applications far outside of big businesses (e.g. room arranging, garden layouts, college classes, etc).

Worse still each year that Microsoft hold Visio back the web-based alternatives get better and better. Eventually Microsoft will just be forced to discontinue it and nobody will even notice, because almost nobody knows what Visio is or does right now.

I would happily trade Access or OneNote for Visio. Why not let me do a "pick your own licence" deal? I can pick four or five products I want (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, Visio, and OneNote).

<comment><USER3> No one I know uses Visio any more. They all seem to use PowerPoint for diagramming.

Why? Because you have to pay more for Visio and to be honest Visio is horrible.

I use dia over Visio - it's a much stronger product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Microsoft never did a particularly good job of making Office a > representative Mac application suite

Most people who have used Office:Mac will attest that it has a _better_ interface than the original. Hopefully this cross-platform release won't be a setback.

<comment><USER5> Until you tried to load more than 100 rows into excel. Then you find out it crashes every ten seconds.

Excel for mac is also _extremely_ slow and laggy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > the subscription-based versions of Office 2013—which are sold through Office > 365

I wonder whether this will be a source of confusion among consumers. The way I understood it, Office 2013 is the desktop version, and Office 365 is the cloud-based subscription version. But I see both marketed under the Office 2013 moniker. Between this and the Windows 8 / Windows RT, their product names are overlapping, giving these launches a muddled message.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure they're trying to retire the 201X moniker from Office. Office for RT, and the 2013 final copies on MSDN, all lack year marks on the loading screen. It's just Word now, not Word 2013.

Basically, they're trying to brand Office 365 as the subscription, with Office as the software suite, which can be part of the subscription.

Of course, the box art from October still has the year: <http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/1_office2013.png>

But I think that the subscription-based model will mean that there won't be a version you receive. You just always get the newest one, whatever it may be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft will have a problem in the future - not as big of a problem as the Windows one, but still a pretty big problem. They will have to make some choices.

1) Keep Office Windows (and Mac) only as some sort of "competitive advantage"

2) Expand Office to iOS and Android, too, which will have billions of users in the future, more than the Windows ecosystem itself

3) Keep prices as high as ever

4) Dramatically lower prices by an order of magnitude to make sense for the mobile ecosystems, and be more competitive with free or sub $10 Office Suites, that while may not have all the Office features, it will have a lot for many people. If they didn't think that was true, they would've never made the Office 365 web app.

So the problem for Microsoft is that whichever way they go, they _will_ get less revenue from Office in the future, whether that's because more people will prefer cheaper alternatives like Google Docs or even their own Office 365, or because they have to dramatically lower the price for the "native" versions on iOS and Android, or because most people on these platforms, won't care as much about Microsoft's Office, because there are good enough (or free/much cheaper) alternatives.

I think in the end they will get less revenue because of a combination of both not being as relevant on competing platforms, and having to compete on a much cheaper price level.

<comment><USER9> They will almost certainly make the iOS and Android apps only available to monthly subscribers, which includes all their cloud services. If they have "billions" of customers paying them $10-$20 a month, they will be doing very well for themselves.

<comment><USER10> Is there really a market for serious office productivity apps on tablets? I'm not seeing it. I certainly would not want to do any heavy duty editing or spreadsheet work on a 7" touch screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Microsoft will also update the Mac suite at some point, meaning that by the > end of 2013, there will be a version of Microsoft Office available for every > major computing platform on earth. Just as with Multiplan in 1982.

Could someone elaborate what the sort of work it would take for MS support Linux? I'm really excited that there is going to be web version because I'm sick of LibreOffice.

<comment><USER2> But which Linux? Linux is relatively small in general, but then when you start looking at the fragmentation within Linux it gets even nastier.

For example, Mint Linux, RedHat, Ubuntu, etc? Valve has only decided to release Steam on Ubuntu and support that.

<comment><USER12> Yes, they packaged it for Ubuntu and it's been repackaged and worked in majority of distributions in a matter of minutes. Literally - around 30min after the announcement I wanted to start looking at a way to get it running under Arch, but there was already a 6th version of the packaging script available online.

I'm not sure what do you mean by fragmentation exactly - sure all distributions look a bit different and have some specific approach to packages/configuration, but apart from that it's all almost exactly the same. If something works under ubuntu, there's no good reason it wouldn't work under other distributions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Would it be possible to run the Android version under Linux? I know that this will sound like anathema to many, but it could be an interesting development, considering that not being able to run Office is one of the main obstacles to Linux desktop adoption.

<comment><USER14> It's doubtful without the source and/or running something like Ubuntu for Android.

While I respect the work put in, OpenOffice/LibreOffice are just unusable. I've tried since 2007 but I've had to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets instead.

I would pay a lot of money for a Linux Excel.

<comment><USER4> Have you tried LibreOffice recently? It had a major breakthrough some time ago (a year? can't remember) that improved loading times enormously and actually made it usable.

<comment><USER13> Personally I use LibreOffice and find it good in many use cases, but sometimes you just need Office - either for compatibility reasons, or because you need some special feature.

<comment><USER8> But I think the real question is - do you think most people who need a Word or Excel app for whatever reason will have this kind of problem?

<comment><USER13> Most people no - but, for example, a company of my group tried to go fully Linux, but constantly have problems with Word documents formatting. Having that option could help a lot this kind of choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _by the end of 2013, there will be a version of Microsoft Office available > for every major computing platform on earth._

Except Linux, which is quite a major platform it seems.

<comment><USER16> Even if I really like Linux and I'm using it on a daily basis no it's not, it's below 2%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a weird article to me. In my experience, people hated the ribbon and didn't find it useful or innovative, just annoying. Also, most of my friends that switch to Mac found the Mac version of office to be quite a bit better than the Windows version. I know Word for Mac had quite a few more features (Notebooks being the biggest one) than the windows version.

I suppose they could be talking about lack of apps, like OneNote and Visio?

<comment><USER18> I agree with you on the Mac comments, but Paul Thurrott himself talks about the ribbon in the comments- it annoys experts, but everyday users love it. Since we are surrounded by very tech savvy people, we tend to think that everyone hates it. They don't.

<comment><USER19> to some extent i can't really buy this argument. office 2007 still accepts office 2003 keyboard shortcuts, so if an expert is completely at home with 03 he or she should still be able to function normally in 2007+ without needing to visit the ribbon very much. i was quite happy with this - the ribbon is there, but it forces nothing on me. i was happily smashing away until i one day decided to pay attention and saw the yellow dialog box over the ribbon which said something like 'office 2003 shortcut'.

if an lotus 1-2-3 superuser for some reason really couldn't change his spots after 30 years, excel 2010 still keeps / as a menu shortcut for those folks, even though lotus shortcuts no longer work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Calendar.

</comment><comment><USER21> The cynical side of me that has used Microsoft software for 3 decades asks: 'WTF did Redmond break to make it "better"?'</comment>


Freelist Heap Exploitation on Docker Alpine Linux Images - <AUTHOR> https://blog.infosectcbr.com.au/2019/12/freelist-heap-exploitation-on-docker.html <comment><USER2> The point of this is if you have an existing program which does already has exploitable use-after-free bug, then Alpine Linux's libc makes it easier to convert that exploit into full code execution.

This specifically talks about lack of hardening - there is no new way to attack a program which had no use-after-free vulnerability to begin with.</comment>


Solve escorts you through the airport like a VIP - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/05/solve-escorts-you-through-the-airport-like-a-vip <comment><USER2> There was a previous thread with a couple of their employees responding to comments here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14588456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14588456)

</comment><comment><USER3> URL is solve.com. I wonder how much that cost…</comment>


How to protect your brand in the new .XXX extension  - <AUTHOR> http://www.gandibar.net/post/2011/06/07/Release-of-XXX

<comment><USER2> I fear some technical backlash from the xxx domains. Dumb filters will try to block anything that looks the same as an xxx domain, even if google.xxx does only redirect to the local one like .com.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I personally thinks that this sounds like blackmail by the xxx registry and that registrars try to cash in.</comment>


Introducing Amazon 4-star - <AUTHOR> https://blog.aboutamazon.com/shopping/amazon-4-star <comment><USER2> it would be a brilliant move if it wasn't for the fact that a felt 90% of Amazon products have a fake 4-star rating.</comment>


Extracting Price Tags from Store Shelf Images - <AUTHOR> I have a collection of 104 shelf images(consistent) taken over 104 weeks . Any thoughts about how to extract the price tags from the shelf images?
sample image(downgraded) : https://i.imgsafe.org/448b18f885.png <comment><USER2> That would be a good question to ask on the Reddit computer vision forum if you haven't already.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/](https://www.reddit.com/r/computervision/)</comment>


Parking Requirement Removal Should Be First Step in Broader Reform - <AUTHOR> http://www.urbancincy.com/2018/07/editorial-city-should-remove-parking-requirements/ <comment><USER2> Ideally, limitations on new parking would be matched with new investments in public transit, but that's always a tough slog too. But yeah, we're still living with the hangover from the days of rapid growth in the suburbs and urban planners were willing to sacrifice the city center as a warehouse for the poor and and a place that suburbanites would commute to by car. Now of course, more people want to get away from car dependency and the city center is desirable again (displacing the poor to areas without either work or transit). So it would seem to make sense to use less space for cars and convert that space to uses that allow people to more easily get along without them.

<comment><USER3> The editorial was not about placing limitations on new parking, only about removing minimum requirements.</comment></comment>


Why Twitter Is Even More Toxic Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/political-twitter-even-more-toxic-than-thought/ <comment> a0-prw Also known as a storm in a teacup</comment>


Node.js Advisory Board Meeting Minutes and Working Group Discussions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joyent/nodejs-advisory-board <comment><USER2> "0.12 is done except for a patch on windows"

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the current state of the Node ecosystem? I've heard a lot lately about some possible fork occurring, some issues with Joyent/Strongloop's involvement, npm being a full startup now (which is kinda horrifying), and a bunch of other stuff that seems to end up as FUD.

What the hell is actually going on?

EDIT:

Also, in the README the links to agendas and minutes seem to be broken. :(

<comment><USER4> As far as I can tell, nothing is going on, except the typical OSS drama.

Frankly, I don't care who "owns" an OSS project, just as long as the thing works (and node does). I leave dumb politics for people with too much idle time on their hands; I recommend you save your time and do likewise.

<comment><USER5> >dumb politics, idle time, typical OSS drama

Feeling a bit trollish, aren't you? Consensus building is extremely important to make "the thing work" sustainably in OSS communities.

I guess you don't want to invest time and resources into ecosystems that cease to develop only because some idiots (in the classical greek definiton "those who don't participate in politics") didn't care, right?

<comment><USER6> Come on, no need to call names.

And you have to admit, there's an eye for profit in here which is mucking up the whole thing. Someone's trying to make money off of Node.js's ecosystem, and it's not "consensus building" related at all, so it's actively _harming_ the "make the thing work" part of this OSS community.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Japan's IT exodus: A personal perspective - <AUTHOR> http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/30/japan%E2%80%99s-it-exodus-a-personal-perspective-part-1/

<comment><USER2> I'm 35 and have been working in Tokyo for about 10 years now. It's funny how fast those 10 years have gone by.

I was this super energetic do-everything-that-was-asked-of-me kind of guy in the beginning.

After a few inhumane projects of working 6 days/week, 9am-11pm I began to question the meaning of it all and found little.

Now I'm careful not to volunteer myself too much for fear of being seen as the point-man for every little problem that pokes up so I can enjoy a work-life balance. Now I have a family and live just outside Tokyo where it's quiet and peaceful.

Japan really does need to wake up and realize that it's throwing away its skilled people (not just in IT) but it'll take a massive exodus for the question to ever be raised unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER3> I slightly understand the push to move experienced coders into management. I have enjoyed coding but the biggest frustration has been the poor direction of management. Companies often don't know how and why technology should be used. They need smart people that know technology to lead (not just code).

<comment><USER4> That's not what this is about.

Look at the language he used, 'intense coding work', 'physical capacity', 'speed [to] absorb and understand new technologies'.

Japan seems to have the same perspective on programming that the gaming industry does. That somehow typing words into a computer, learning and thinking is a young man's game.

<comment><USER5> It is a very good translation, but when a Japanese programmer begins a sentence with "I might not be as fast to pick up a new technology as the young'uns but..." he's just making polite noises.

There is a pecking order in every company and it is almost never "sort by age asc." The two engineers at my company commonly held to be better than me (either of whom I'd stack with any Googler you cared to mention, btw) were ten and twenty years older. Both would work something similar intoba description comparing their programming abilities with a high school sophomore's first Hello World app. Everyone knows not to read it literally.

Neither of them would have much luck on the employment market but there is a separate HR pathology at play there, namely that Japanese companies do not hire for talent, they hire for perceived flexibility to mold into their corporate culture (among other things), and someone with 20 years of experience has all sorts of weird non-company habits they might have become attached to where a 22 year old is incompetent but a blank slate. Who cares, you can train fir competence any time over the next 45 years, goes the thinking.

<comment><USER6> From the industrial manufacturing era, I guess.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I've been asked to do a "1 hour consultation" for pay. What next? - <AUTHOR> I was recently contacted (cold call) by a consultant on LinkedIn who is looking for a Subject Matter Expert for "Management and Security" of SaaS products. He has floated a sum of $800-1000 for a "one hour consultation" and wants to discuss rates as well as provide more information.
The initial amount seems high since my calculated consulting rate based on my salary (<base salary> / 52 / 40 * 3) would be more like $250-$300/hr. However I naturally don't want to leave money on the table if they're willing to pay more.
I have almost a decade of experience as a software engineer delivering SaaS products both B2C and B2B, so I'm sure I can answer his questions, and I'm not afraid to negotiate but I've never done anything like this before, and I don't want to come off as naive initially - so I'm wondering what other peoples' experiences are.
Has anyone here worked as a consultant in this sort of capacity? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Someone cold contacted you on LinkedIn, without a referral or network intro, and made a vague proposal to give you $1000? I would proceed with caution. Scams are increasingly common on LinkedIn lately, and this raises a few too good to be true warning flags.

If this proceeds to a 1 hour call, you need to decide some boundaries up front. Don't let the other person talk you into revealing sensitive information about current or past employers. Don't make any verbal commitments to deliver something to the client. If it comes to it, always come back to explaining that you can send over a proposal after the call. If the person continues to press for private information and/or verbal commitments, don't hesitate to put your foot down.

Finally, be wary of payment delays. A common tactic is to ask for more and more work while you wait for payment that never arrives. Some companies pay bills on 30, 60, or even 90 day terms, which leaves a huge window of opportunity for scammers to extract a lot of free work from people they never intend to pay out. If this drags on, you can request partial payment up front for continuation work or you can insist that the company pay down some of their balance before they can bill more hours to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I've done some due diligence (glassdoor, etc.) and the company seems legitimate so I don't see it being an outright scam. Its definitely possible that they might play games with payment delays. The way I see it, worst case scenario I'm out a couple of hours of phone time and basic research with a life lesson. If I was putting code down for that rate I would be much more wary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Send them your contract and get paid before you start.

<comment><USER4> I would agree due to the nature of the engagement I require the entire payment upfront.</comment></comment>