Get free 250Gb Storage before May 15th - <AUTHOR> http://www.filedropper.com/special.php It's not just for reddit and digg, but everybody. <comment><USER2> If my math is right, these guys need somewhere on the order of a hojillion gigs of space if they want to give away an account or three to every digg, reddit, and news.yc reader.

<comment><USER3> That's the dirty little secret of a lot of web storage and hosting sites. They can sell you gigs upon gigs of storage because in all likelihood, you'll never use all of it, or by the time you do, storage will have come down in price.

Sure there are some users who will max out their accounts, but those will be averaged by those who hardly use any.

<comment><USER2> As a person working on a web storage product, I'll tell you that's not a dirty little secret--it's our business.

<comment><USER4> Sound's very loosely like fractional banking. What percent do you have to keep on hand per user in order to prevent maxing out the storage capacity? Or do you just let it max out and then add more storage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Couple of suggestions:

1\. HTTP/DAV access. 2\. I wasn't able to get direct URL link, other than by digging into the HTML. Not user-friendly. 3\. Changing permissions did no affect file visibility - I can still see it from outside of my account. 4\. List of files should have permissions listed, right now I have to click a button to see permissions.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> The site seems to be struggling--some images take forever to load and some of its functions don't work. Maybe they got flooded by inviting all the social news people.

<comment><USER3> I agree. It's taking its time with me, and I haven't tried uploading or downloading anything yet. At least my account says "paid until Jan. 2038"

I'm gonna try compressing and uploading my pictures (just <2GB) then downloading them to test out their transfer speeds. There's a 5GB filesize limit which is nice. If it's fast enough it will probably replace Gmail drafts as my filetransfer of choice. I'll post with the results when done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The files are kept forever as long as they are being downloaded".

Do they say how long after the last download the files are kept? Else they could always free up some disc space by removing the least recently downloaded files.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it just me, or is the sign-up YCed/redditted/slashdotted?

<http://www.filedropper.com/makefreeaccount.php> gives me a time-out error.

<comment><USER9> Looks like they got overwhelmed: "Due to extreme popularity we are experiencing unexpectedly high traffic. This special will not be available till tomorrow morning (9 AM PST). If you would like to sign up for accounts starting at 99 Cents please sign up here."

<comment><USER10> feels like a bait and switch, but for 99 cents... you might get what you pay for :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Upload utility seems to break Firefox 3 Beta 5 with Ubuntu 8.04.

<comment><USER12> Firefox 3 Beta 5 (which is great) worked for my upload on XP. The only issue was that the cursor mouseover on the upload button didn't change from an arrow to a hand -- not sure if that's a bug or a feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> No gotcha on signup page? No email checking? How many bogus account will they get?

If I wanted spread warez, I would run some bots and create a bunch of accounts.

</comment><comment><USER14> I just tried it, very slow. I was trying to upload a 2 gb file, it stops and stucks at 224kb.

</comment><comment><USER15> The word simplest just throws me off. "Most simple" seems more right then "Simplest".

</comment><comment><USER16> lifetime membership? but my account said it's paid until January 18, 2038! :D

<comment><USER17> Haven't you heard? 2038 is when the world is going to end.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem>

<comment><USER16> Exactly why I brought it up in the first place. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome, thanks!</comment>


Covid-19 Impact on Supply Chain - <AUTHOR> https://homeworkden.com/covid-19-impact-on-supply-chain/ <comment><AUTHOR> COVID-19 Impact on Supply Chain The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has drastically affected the global supply chain. This is because the worst-hit countries are in the G7 category which plays an essential role in the production and distribution of products to countries across the globe. China, United States, Japan, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany are the hardest hit by the pandemic. These countries account for 60% of the global supply and demand and 65% of manufacturing takes place in the regions. Also, 41% of world exports are shipped from these nations thus influencing the global economic growth (Fernandes, 2020). The Economics in the Time of COVID-19 article states that the manufacturing sector has been disrupted by the pandemic. For instance, China's economy relies on a direct supply of products to global markets but the lockdowns in various countries have disrupted its exports. This means that demand disruptions will emerge as various countries seek to contain the virus. Purchase delays by consumers will cause manufacturers to withhold their production which is likely to result in a decrease in supply for essential commodities in various nations.

References Carson, J. A. (2020). Innovation in Food Access Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic. Fernandes, N. (2020). Economic effects of coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) on the world economy. Available at SSRN 3557504. Yu, K. D. S., & Aviso, K. B. (2020). Modelling the economic impact and ripple effects of disease outbreaks. Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability, 1-4.</comment>


There's Something Going on in L.A - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/08/theres-something-going-on-in-l-a/

<comment><USER2> I didn't realize that UCSD was in LA.</comment>


Paul Allen revises patent suit, targets Android, Apple iTunes - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9202726/Paul_Allen_revises_patent_suit_targets_Android_Apple_iTunes?taxonomyName=Mobile+and+Wireless&taxonomyId=15

<comment><USER2> It's infuriating that one may setup a company for the sole purpose of holding patents as property. The entire purpose of the patent system is to guarantee inventors market opportunity with the incarnation of their patent. It's exploitation, and it should be illegal.</comment>


New satellite network watches everything, and everyone on Earth in real time - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalfuturist.org/2017/02/massive-new-satellite-network-watches-everything-and-everyone-on-earth-in-real-time/ <comment><USER2> > For the first time ever the entire world is being tracked, monitored and > observed in real time, that includes every movement and car journey you > make, every city, every field, every expanse of ocean – everything

This patently alarmist conspiracy bullshit. Why is this dross on HN?

</comment><comment><USER3> I know several of the founders and early employees of Planet (previously Planet Labs, previously Cosmogia).

Planet is _not_ tracking, monitoring or observing the Earth in real time.

</comment><comment><USER4> I shall have to commit my crime in cloudy weather then.

<comment><USER5> Or under the bridge

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What planet is doing is certainly impressive, but this article is inacurrate.

> well as the newer 11.8 inch scale and track and take photos of items as > small as laptops from space Planet, for now at least has the lead.

You barely can spot a human on 30cm/pixel. We barely can get automatic human detection on 10cm/pixel. I would guess the cover photo is somewhere between 1-5cm per pixel and was likely collected by the drone.

> For the first time every square inch of every landmass, all 58 million > square miles of it, as well as a good chunk of the oceans, will be tracked, > monitored and observed in real time

This could be true if by real-time they mean "at least once a month" or maybe "once a year". Imagine large forest - there are barely any use cases for regular monitoring more frequent than once a week. Imagine how much data it would generate.

</comment><comment><USER7> The site is loading very slow, so it'll probably be down soon. I archived it while it was up: [https://archive.fo/h3fBP](https://archive.fo/h3fBP)

<comment><USER8> gateway timeout on 'download zip'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I thought Planet only offers 3-5m resolution?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, and the global imagery is also not real time (so you can't track a car's journey, as the article claims), but daily. It's a BS article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An yet, MH370 still to be found. Baffling.</comment>


Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley - <AUTHOR> https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/01/21/18749504.php <comment><USER2> This flyer is just plain nuts. Some choice quotes:

"The self-driven car has been another pet project of the DARPA for many years. It sponsored a recurring Grand Challenge for people designing self-driving vehicles, hoping someone would crack open the new technology. Anthony Levandowski was one of the wonder kids who flocked to these competitions, looking for a federal handout and fame. Now, with Google handing him more money than he could ever dream of, Levandowski is working long hours bringing this dream of the military into reality."

"Levandowski started a company that created computer tablets designed to display blueprints at construction sites. The reasoning behind their venture was that updating and then printing new blueprints took a few days and slowed construction time. With this new product, construction companies could create condominiums, malls, and subdivisions with the least possible delay and the maximum profit. In praise of his prodigious business acumen, the administration-run UC Berkeley News decided to run an article on him in 2003, championing his ability to make money and enable the housing bubble that was just starting to expand."

"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety."

"Preparing for the action, we watched Levandowski step out of his front door. He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest. He appeared in this moment like the robot he admits that he is."

Seriously? That last one is particularly horrifying and almost sounds like an implicit threat.

<comment><USER3> We are writing to warn you that your neighbor is a talented and driven individual. He should not be tru...

Wait, what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this serious or supposed to be satire or something? Cause it reads like something a deranged person would write to me... Making comments about how Google employees automatically bring police, "All of Google's employees should be prevented from getting to work", etc. Yeah they do bring police.. to deal with nutjobs that decide to randomly show up at their houses and stop them from working, stop a bus in the middle of the street and cause a disruption, etc.

<comment><USER5> Just read the PDF, and it's an interesting and reasonable perspective on tech. Probably sounds blasphemous to an audience excited about investments/acquisitions of $15M, $30M and $1.54 billion (from HN's current front page), but I think techies are due for a reasonable backlash for their usual servility to power, by people concerned about their society.

<comment><AUTHOR> With respect, you are wrong. It's neither interesting nor reasonable, and indeed is barely coherent.

Gentrification is a real problem, with inequality at it's roots. I think most people would agree with that. And I'd also agree that it's easy for some in the tech community to lose touch with the relative privilege that they often live in. But this is not a "reasonable backlash" – it's a bunch of incoherent knee-jerk harassment by people who should really be doing something better with their time.

The proper channel for dealing with housing issues is local government; for NSA issues, national government; in neither is the correct channel the harassment of individual employees of a company which may (or may not be) the cause of those issues.

<comment><USER6> A while ago I was talking to an extremely cynical person in line to inherit a british aristocratic title.

He told me something his grandfather taught him: People who are protesting against you will almost certainly disagree with you about what an "acceptable backlash" is. Specifically you will prefer ineffective protests and those that that don't inconvenience you, while they will prefer effective protests and those that are spiteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whoever wrote this is a fucking lunatic. I mean, common, "His house is a pompous, minimally decorated two story palace with stone lions guarding the door."

You lost me right there. And then the parts about Google X developing "war robots" and Google threatening to release a "massive amount of carbon"?

Just... no. I thought the protestors had a reasonable argument about Google hindering the development of better public transportation and displacing San Francisco individuals by running private bus services that isolated Googlers from the community, but this is sheer lunacy.

<comment><USER8> Are housing prices in San Francisco really so insane that a two-story house is "pompous" and a "palace"?

> developing "war robots"

Technically, since their acquisition Boston Dynamics, Google is indeed in the business of war robots: [http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major- military...](http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-military- robot-maker-why-does-search-giant-2D11744237)

Though they've said they're only going to fulfill their existing military contracts, not seek out others. I guess we'll see what happens on that front.

<comment><USER7> Maybe if this was a protest of a Boston Dynamics employee in Massachusetts, but this guy apparently works for Google X. So... self driving cars and diabetes contact lenses?

<comment><USER9> Cherry picking. The list of Google X projects is largely secret. There are reportedly 98 more. [1]

[1][http://9to5google.com/2011/11/14/sergey-brin-is-working- on-a...](http://9to5google.com/2011/11/14/sergey-brin-is-working-on-a-list- of-100-secret-projects-at-clandestine-google-x/)

<comment><USER10> And we have no actual reason to believe Anthony is working on military robots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is shameful behavior - it is tantamount to mob rule & harassment, with the effective statement that "We strongly dislike what you're doing, so we are going to disturb your private residence and prevent you from going to work".

No person who isn't committing a serious crime deserves that whatever his/her beliefs.

<comment><USER12> If I where a Googler working in SF id have to start seriously thinking about getting a PPW license.

PPW is short hand for the Uk licence to carry a gun for personal protection - and yes there are tech companies that do have staff that do that.

<comment><USER13> Do you honestly think that carrying a weapon in the san francisco bay area is a good idea?

<comment><USER14> Yes. But clearly you have an opposing view on the right to defend yourself with a firearm. No need to make this into a gun debate.

<comment><USER15> And yet you do exactly that.

<comment><USER16> As far as I can tell, it's a necessary consequence of any mention of firearms on HN, in any context. There seems little point in blaming any one participant, in any one instance, for the perennial argument over what is perhaps the most immediately, or at least the most reliably, polarizing issue ever raised on HN.

<comment><USER17> Fireamrs is only one hot-button topic for HN.

Others include Isreal / Palestine; sexism; RMS; etc. it is trivially easy to troll HN. HN does not do well at ignoring trolls or not responding to overly- enthusiastic posters. (There are some exceptions to this where a person will carefully talk through differences in opinion to try to understand or communicate a point of view but these are exceptions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is getting to be a bit absurd. I understand and can sympathize with the plight of folks who feel that they are becoming economically marginalized in the region, because in many ways it is really happening. But public badgering of mid to low-level folks is not a way to gain a lot of support.

It's like damaging the lobby of a Bank of America or smashing the windows of a McDonalds -- all it does is ruin the day for the poor middle to low income folks who run the branch and does nothing to the folks who you aim to target.

<comment><USER19> I'd take a different angle:

This is the behavior of desperate people who have lost hope that our government functions and are motivated to action.

This seems like the natural conclusion of our government's inattentiveness to it's citizenry. Violence isn't far when folks have achieved this level of frustration.

The last line of the link makes it clear that Google isn't going to be the only target. "All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and everyone else building the new surveillance state--We're coming for you next." Burn the witch!

I don't think people should be resorting to violence out of principle, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that "folks" who are economically marginalized should put up with this because "manners."

<comment><USER20> But targeting developers is exactly backwards! Or at least it would be if development was, net, increasing the number of housing units. SF has some insane zoning laws; why aren't they a target? Or is there an implication that SF should only ever serve the interests of those that live there as-of some unspecified date in the (recent?) past? Will the police enforce the borders of the city to prevent anyone from entering or leaving? How exactly is this worker paradise supposed to work?

<comment><USER19> I doubt the protesters are going to be logging into HN to answer your reasonable questions.

If I lived in SF- i would be concerned that something major has changed. Your response describes reasonable questions in a level playing field where people have hope that the system works.

I don't think these people have hope in the system anymore. They're trying fundamentally different approaches rather than just giving up.

If they are willing to go after specific employees like this in spite of perception damages that come with the approach, they probably aren't averse to the perception damages that violence cultivates either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Absolutely horrifying.

More so because there are actually people here in this thread _defending_ the crazy person who's trying to destroy somebody's life because they don't like the company he works for.

<comment><USER22> The point of the protest isn't to destroy a person's life, the point of the protest is to (1) make Google's employees reluctant to continue being Google's employees and as a result (2) make Google rethink their official and unofficial policies, in order to (3) make the world a better place.

AFAIK, they haven't really hurt anybody (this time). They are just pressing the points that (they think will) hurt the most.

<comment><USER23> You'd have to be completely insane to believe #3 is in any way related to #1 and #2. I personally feel the world is a much better place (certainly Oakland is) with highly skilled employees flushing out the trash.

<comment><USER8> > I personally feel the world is a much better place (certainly Oakland is) > with highly skilled employees flushing out the trash.

To what or whom does "the trash" refer in your comment?

<comment><USER24> I think he's referring to the people who make Oakland one of the most dangerous cities in country to live in.

<comment><USER25> Cops?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I lived in Berkeley for 5 years, and I can totally imagine this happening. While some parts of the condemnation are crazy (2 story palace!?) I nevertheless see the kernel of truth that lies somewhere in the murky rationale of that rant.

Now, it's certainly not fair or reasonable to target a private individual like this, but I used to work in a DoD lab and I've considered many of the same issues raised by the protestors.

I think the bizarre nature of this protest reflects a widespread confusion over the best way to surface the issue of government/commercial collaboration on the topic of surveillance. On the collaboration point, the protestors are right on. Like so many Berkeley events, lucidity comes with a parade attached to it.

<comment><USER27> why is it not reasonable to target individuals?

when you target corporations, people point out that they are complex structures and that the decisions made by them do not represent every single employee

when you target specific employees with decision-making power, people point out that the corporations are the problem and they are beholden by law and so on and so on

when you discuss that maybe the blame is on capitalism for institutionalizing antisocial behavior, you're called naive and showered with examples of the good things it's produced

there's some cognitive dissonance from detractors/businesspeople not primarily concerned with social welfare in taking one of these positions at a time and not realizing that everyone else sees them take the three in conjunction

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> When you attack an individual because of the place s/he chooses to work you take the "Let's all protest the activities of Big X" down to a personal level. I'd be horrified if I woke up and found a large group of people protesting in front of my house because of who I work for. Reading this message, I instantly put myself in that employee's shoes and instantly became hostile toward the organization arranging this. I made a second near-instantaneous cognitive jump, and this is the most important part, to completely disregarding whatever legitimate (or otherwise) complaints this group had and to assume that I should give Google the benefit of the doubt. This may be just me, since I avoid politics at nearly all costs, but despite the fact that I'd probably agree with this particular groups gripes, I can't make my mind see them as anything other than a waste of perfectly good oxygen.

Did they change my political opinion? Probably not, but they were more likely to make me against their particular cause than for it by this action.

Can anyone see anything of value that they might have gained in the process? I'm finding it difficult to come up with anything...

<comment><USER29> Question: people will often protest at the houses of CEOs, who consider themselves just employees doing their jobs. E.g. after the Bhopal disaster, people protested at the home of the Union Carbide CEO as he was trying to evade responsibility and minimize payouts to the victims. Is this inappropriate?

I agree with you that the protestors didn't gain anything from this particular protest and did harm to their cause, if anything.

<comment><USER16> It's still inappropriate, but considerably less so, both because a C-level officer of such a large company is likely to have security arrangements of some sort, and because a C-level officer has at least some influence over the policies of the company in question -- the CEO, of course, most of all.

That said, there is a qualitative difference between showing up at the guarded front gate of a CEO's mansion, and showing up on the ordinary front doorstep of a rank-and-file employee's two-story house. The former can at least be said to "go with the territory". The latter verges very closely on an imminent threat of bodily harm; the whole _point_ of such action is to demonstrate to its victim that he and his family are not safe anywhere, not even in their home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Welcome to Berkeley, I guess.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time before the dissident left decided that the software community was just another monied enemy for them to hate.

The good news is that nobody really takes them seriously, so if you can tolerate the occasional impotent protest and the (very) occasional WTO-style near riot, you can proceed with your life and ignore them.

<comment><USER31> For someone completely outside the Bay Area, it can be hard to judge whether this is a big deal or not. The frequency of the news reports makes it seem like all the Google Buses are being blocked / attacked each morning, and now that employees are being targeted individually at their homes. I know it's turned me off accepting jobs in the Bay Area - it isn't the only reason, but it has been part of it. It would be reassuring to know if these are just isolated incidents being magnified by the media lens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Our problem is with Google, [...], and the gentrification its employees are > causing in every city they inhabit

Never thought I'd see someone on the left shaming a company for paying their employees _well_.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would like to know what this "privilege" is all about. I'm a tech worker who makes a very good salary. Am I privileged?

I couldn't afford a fancy high end college, so I chose a cheaper one and got a loan from the Government, which I paid back in full.

I studied hard in a public school and those achievements helped me get a grant to offset some cost as well.

I got a job in tech support, worked my way up through the ranks by pushing myself and going above and beyond every day.

I continually educate myself with classes and books that I pay for out of my own pocket, and invest my own time to keep my skills sharp and advance myself.

I am a "tech worker" and I have a job that pays well above average, so am I privileged? I would like to know what was handed to me that couldn't have been given to anyone else who worked hard. I'm not a rarity: tens of thousands of people in the tech industry are exactly like me. They saw a target and they hit it.

That's why I don't support these idiots. It's an idea full of fallacies. They're just trying to ruin the lives of hard working mid level people based on perceived wrongs by their bosses by people with nothing better to do.

<comment><USER34> A few questions: Are you white? Are you male? Were you born in a country that had clean running water? What about public education system, or a country that had education loans easily available for you? Did you grow up around people that had jobs? Were literate? Had gone to college? Did you know your parents? How often did you suffer from hunger growing up?

All of these are forms of privilege. Some of them may apply to you, some of them may not, but if you are posting on this board there is a very good chance that you were privileged. One of the insidious problems of privilege is those with it think it is the norm.

When we talk about privilege we are not trying to take away from the very real benefit of drive/ambition/hard work. I'm sure you deserve the good life you've built for yourself. But a little empathy/understanding that you did have some very clear advantages just as a product of your lucky birth, goes a long way.

<comment><USER33> I am not trying to discount any of those things but I'm sure the protesters had most, if not all of those privileges as well.

As far as being white and male, that's a fallacy as well. Do you work in tech? Take a look around and you'll see some of the most diversity of any industry. I worked for a fortune 100 for a large part of my career and most teams had more "minorities" on them than whites. Most of them born in India in horrible conditions. Color blindness is one of the reasons I'm proud to be in tech.

Is it so hard to admit that most of these protesters are lazy misguided kids with nothing better to do?

<comment><USER34> I don't have any characterizations of these kids. I don't live in SF and don't understand the problems at all. They definitely seem misguided from an outsider.

It's not at all a fallacy that being white & male in the US provides privilege. If nothing else the incarceration rate among African-American males in this country means that if you are born African-American there is a significantly higher chance that your father is incarcerated during your childhood than if you are born white. As the child being born white you have the privilege of a higher chance of an non-incarcerated parent. It is just luck of the draw.

Diversity & privilege are not the same things. They are orthogonal issues. A Japanese-American has a certain set of privileges as do European-Americans & African Americans & Africans for that matter. Just because a place hires a lot of Indians does nothing to mitigate the lack of privilege for African American boy children.

Finally, your experience may be completely different than mine, but the Indian colleague's I've had did not come from horrible conditions. Quite the contrary they were among the elite in their country, born with dramatic privileges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I know it must be worth a lot for the area he lives in but it's still amusing they call his two story plain looking house a "palace."

<comment><USER36> And "pompous," don't forget pompous. My house in Minneapolis is easily twice the size of that. I wonder what they'd think of me?

<comment><USER12> mm last year I almost brought a listed building and it's mentioned in pevenser (the definitive guide to uk architecture) - obviously the SF mob would have me guillotined.

<comment><USER37> I work in eCommerce, and I live in/own a Grade I listed house that has several pages in Pevsner. I am, clearly, satan incarnate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The article has a deeply discrimatory ring to it. It's essentialist to single out Google as the sole source of whatever problems San Francisco has. It also has the ring of "these immigrants are destroying the character of our community and taking our jobs, and not giving back. Let's send these immigrants a message." Disturbing, terrifying, and misguided.

<comment><USER12> Interesting that the employee targeted appears to be an immigrant and not a WASP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and everyone else building the new surveillance state--We 're coming for you next._

Given that this seems to cover almost anyone involved in telecoms, if they are successful how will they know?

</comment><comment><USER39> Well, if this isn't an incentive for Google devs to get together and make a gated community together completely cut off from other people, I don't know what is.

Not only that, it certainly won't endear this group's ideals to Googlers, while in fact they may have value.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm of two thoughts on this. Obviously, sucks a lot to be dude, but no one is being violent (though some of the rhetoric veers toward threats, which is absolutely inappropriate), and this strategy puts immense pressure on Google. Additionally he's well-chosen as a target: quite wealthy, working on a product that's closely linked to military applications, and unluckily enough (for him) someone involved in the changing urban landscape of Berkeley, which helps protestors tap into a channel of great resentment. It's a tactic that's typically been used against CEOs in the past (e.g. after the Bhopal disaster): using it against someone lower on the totem poll makes me a bit uncomfortable, but it seems like a natural extension.

The real WTF is this: what the hell are they hoping to accomplish? Everything in their manifesto is scattershot, and comes off as just a spray of resentment. I could maybe imagine a demand for Google to cease all contracts with the US military, but (1) they failed to make that demand the explicit focus and (2) they've not laid the groundwork for that demand. You don't jump into harsh escalations until you've built a community organized around the demand, but few people have heard of the Google car-military connection. The goal seems more just to express inchoate anger at Google and gentrification without having some specific outcome in mind.

So, on strategy I give them an F. Tactics a B, mostly because the execution is flawed because of an absent strategy, leading to their manifesto reading as frothing rage than an intelligent indictment of him and Google. All the neighbors who receive this flier to are going to walk away sympathetic with the guy and respecting him more.

</comment><comment><USER40> I feel for the plight[1] these people are facing, I really do and I want to help. __BUT__ if you started showing up at my home protesting and making my family uncomfortable, that creates a different problem entirely. Anyways I'm assuming this site is fake because I can't find this being reported anywhere else... and I assume the protesters know better than to pull a stunt like this.

1\. Let's be clear though, this is a first-world problem.

<comment><USER41> What they're doing is trying to make it socially unacceptable to assist the NSA/ DoD, and quite frankly it's overdue. I get the feeling that most of the criticism here against the protesters is because HN identifies with the Google employee(s), not because the protesters are wrong. It's a purely emotional reaction.

<comment><USER42> These protesters are skirting the real issue which is that they cannot afford prime SF real estate anymore. When these protesters, themselves, were uprooting the original inhabitants they did not really care but now that they are being uprooted, they suddenly are crying foul.

The criticism here against the protesters is because they are asking for free handouts rather than them actually working to earn them. Yes I understand it is not easy to be retrained and I don't have a good solution for people being uprooted.

Yet, most commenters here on HN identify with startups/capitalism and believe that creating something that the market wants is ultimately the only way to earn a living. Certainly not protesting for free handouts.

The strange thing is that the protesters would have found lots of support among Google and other Tech industry employees if they had not targeted them in the first place.

PS: Google does not assist the NSA. Google has made it categorically clear. Guardian too had to backtrack on it's claims about that.

<comment><USER43> "These protesters are skirting the real issue which is that they cannot afford prime SF real estate anymore. When these protesters, themselves, were uprooting the original inhabitants they did not really care but now that they are being uprooted, they suddenly are crying foul."

I cannot up vote or emphasize this enough. They do not want the Meatpacking District of the early 20th Century. They want the bohemian eclecticism that -they- created in the 80s and 90s when they evicted -those- families.

And now it's happening to them, and it's the most evil thing that needs to be stopped by any means necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If this guy and all of his friends would actually get off their lazy butts and get a job, they might understand the need for other people to work. We all need to make money to live, have a roof over our heads, and feed our family. Just because you don't have a job or an income doesn't mean other people shouldn't either.

<comment><USER45> That's not really a fair comment and it trivializes the issues these guys are trying to raise.

Getting a job isn't the issue; it's a complex mix of the privileged position and hard work that led to them _being able_ to get _that job_ , which these people _cant do_ and the extremely obvious difference in economic status having that job grants, which includes people being evicted from their homes so that higher paying individuals can move in.

You can see how people can get upset about it.

You can't just tell them to go get jobs; that won't solve anything. All it does is make _you_ feel better, _for now_.

If you want to solve the problems like this you have to actually engage with the community which is feeling disenfranchised. No one wants to, but problems like this don't just 'magically' go away.

(To be clear, I don't like what's happening here at all, but comments like yours are inflammatory and _make things worse_ for the people on both sides)

<comment><USER46> The person organizing the bus protests (Erin McElroy) has two degrees...that seems pretty privileged to me.

I don't live in SF, but it looks to me like the problem is simply lack of new housing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder what the person did? If it were me, I'd be tempted to just pop out the back way, and take the train to work or something. I'm sure the protesters are hoping for a big confrontation.

OK, actually, if it was me I'd stay home and peek through my windows, take a bunch of pictures, and write up a blog post about it. I kinda want a group of crazies to protest outside my house, it sounds sort of exciting.

<comment><USER48> I've had to cross picket lines (not outside my house). Not fun.

<comment><USER49> What happened?

<comment><USER48> Nothing dramatic, I was working at a different company within the compound and not involved at all with the dispute. Just... nerve wracking a bit (confined road in, rows of people abiding by the law but just looking you straight in the eye)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is a good example of what the liberal democratic movement should be about: policing corporations. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the rest of them will never end their reprehensible behavior from lawsuits or other slaps on the wrists. Until there is a boot-on-ground movement to obstruct these corporations and their employees they will continue to act without consequence using their hoards of capital.

<comment><USER51> Agreed. It's time to obstruct these money-making corporations. We can slap their hands with lawsuits brought against them for making money, or we can shut down their greedy, wealth-building schemes. These money-loving fat cats have it coming to them and we need to stand up against them, especially since we have nothing better to do after quitting our mindless jobs at our former corporate greed houses.

Anyone who wants money should be obstructed and shut down!

Anyone who starts a new company should be seen as a money-loving greed- inducing pawn in the corporate cog, renewing their vicious cycles of greed!

Anyone who takes part in a money-making company is no better than taking part in Nazi Germany!

Who's with me? Who's with me??!!11oneoneone

<comment><USER50> The issue isn't about capitalism. The issue is about the responsibility that these corporations are willfully ignoring once they have acquired copious amounts of capital. There seems to be this tendency with especially big corporations and individuals to suddenly throw their users and customers under the bus in favor of working with the government. Now the government shouldn't be engaging in this kind of solicitation to begin with, but that doesn't mean these corporations should be absolved of all guilt.

Any corporation that would rather derive its value as a government datafarm than from wealth creation has betrayed its user, customers, and capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I hope that Google is working to protect the people who work for them. It's scary that nutjobs like this are publishing personally identifiable information and all but directly encouraging mob action.

</comment><comment><USER53> Excellent. If engineers and technologists refuse to take personal political and ethical responsibility for the future they help build, they need to be reminded to do so.

We need more of this.

<comment><USER54> I've never felt the need for a down vote button for a comment on Hacker News until now.

Yes, we should be ethically aware of the tools and products we build, but this is not the way to go about this! Harassing a man at his home like this is unnecessary and aggressive.

Please stop the promotion of individual harassment.

<comment><USER53> When people block Google busses, and break one window of _one bus_ , it's inappropriate violence on par with barbarism [1].

When people peacefully protest a Google employee and try to raise awareness in his neighborhood of his activities that they disagree with, it's individual harassment.

Isn't that just lovely? Hacker News: privileged technologists setting the standards for techno-skeptical protest. Tell us what the proper way to go about it (outside the established means of the sham that is representative parliamentary democracy, of course) is, then.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6951468)

<comment><USER43> "We intend to prevent you and your family from leaving your home" \- by what means do these protestors feel acceptable? Verbal? Staring intimidatingly? Pushing his wife back as she crosses the property line? Punching his child? Drawing guns?

When you explicitly state, and act, with the intention to prevent people from leaving their own home, effectively placing them in a state of house arrest, then sorry, your protest is no longer any more peaceful than the force implied by that house arrest.

Hiding behind "raising awareness in the neighborhood" is a disingenuous sham that exposes a duplicity. What relevance has "representative parliamentary democracy" to your argument other than to make you feel martyred?

Remember, you are actively threatening a family that you will not let them leave their home, there is a distinct, and real, fear of how far you will go to do so. For all your "blocking busses, and breaking one window" (carefully emphasized to minimize), there's the Seattle WTO protests and everything in between, and a distinct set of people who -will- resort to violence that constitutes a non-zero threat to this man and his family's well being that you wave away as nothing.

At least have the courage of your convictions and stop pretending it's just some people "raising awareness".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Meanwhile, Kiev is under siege by a REAL threat, and children in Africa are starving.

Every single one of these "demonstrators" seeking to prevent people from working, harassing them, and destroying their personal property needs to seriously rethink their priorities in life.

<comment><USER55> By your logic, you should be in Africa RIGHT NOW distributing food to children instead of whining on HN. So, why are you waiting to book your tickets? Aren't you thinking about your priorities in life?

That something bad is happening somewhere else in the world doesn't mean you can't spend effort on something close to you.

<comment><USER38> It's more about perspective, not priorities. For example. I think the citizens of Detroit would probably kill to have the sort of problems that San Francisco currently has. Low unemployment, high rents/real estate prices (yes, these suck, but so does miles of blighted and unmaintained housing and a bankrupt city government) and a youthful and thriving industry would make San Francisco the envy of a lot of cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Is this an Onion style web site or is it real? If real its utterly incoherent thinking and illogical behavior on part of the people involved. I still cannot accept its real.

<comment><USER57> It's real.

Looking at their other stories/posts, I find it - I dunno what I find it, actually. It does strike me as a fight and struggle with everything. A war on life.

Personally, I'm not into the military at all, never have been. I do find that Google's connection with the military (more than just Boston Dynamics) unfortunate. I'm sure they have a reason why they are doing what they do with them, as do all the companies that work with that part of the government. It would be nice (a pipe dream I suppose) if tech companies shunned the military. Singling out this this guy - I'm not sure what good it will do.

Which ultimately leads me to think about you have to be the change you want to see. Harassing people like this is probably not going to get them to change their mind. At all. Reminds me of some documentary I watched (The Corporation maybe?) where some protestors were at an ex-Shell Oil ceo's house, doing their thing. The guy came out, offered them team and biscuits and engaged in a sit down discussion with them on his lawn. Granted, no one changed anyone's minds, but the fact they could engage in a civil conversation - both sides! - was a good thing.

As someone who's lived in SF since the early 90's and seen it go thru good and bad and ho hum times, I think all this tech worker/bus hype is misplaced. I've also lived in NYC and dated someone who completed their masters at Columbia in urban planning. While I'm not claiming to be an expert, I know a thing or two about the real reasons for skyrocketing rents and 'gentrification'. For anyone looking for a great history of NYC, check out Ken Burns 'New York'. Awesome in it's scope and presentation. It get's really interesting and relevant to today when it hits the 20th century and Robert Moses appears. (SF's version of Moses is Justin Herman)

So would I prefer the manhattanization of SF over the detroitization of SF? Absolutely. Is it that simple? Probably not. But for anyone that's been around for more than few years, you remember what the corner of 10th & Market was like before it went thru it's Twitter and redevelopment phase? This is one example and I do feel like it was a dick move on Twitter's part to cry about the tax break. But, if it means the area is cleaning up, then I figure that's better than the way it was.

Anyway, I don't feel like any of these tech protests are worth much or will amount to anything. I feel like the protesters are targeting the wrong thing and need to refocus their efforts on their local government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Where were these uber-concerned citizens while George Bush was raping the US and Iraq? Why are they not protesting at the White House or stopping NSA employees from getting to work? But yeah, trample the rights of individual people, that will help. It's easy (and a lot less dangerous) to hate and pester a guy who makes more money than you. Forget about who's ruining the country and focus on the guy you think is responsible for you losing your rent controlled apartment. A few disingenuous trouble makers (organizers) stirring up the poor and the stupid for a cause that isn't a cause, just the distracting, headline grabbing, crusade du jour.

<comment><USER59> Maybe they through Iraq war is a good idea and support surveillance state?

I do not understand what SF issue is really about, but it seems to be local problem unrelated to international or security politic.

<comment><USER60> The text is TFA is strongly anti-surveillance state.

<comment><USER59> In all honesty, I found TFA extremely hard to read. It is almost as if the text would be random generated. Something about that style made my brain pick up parts, maybe because parts make sense while whole paragraphs make much less sense.

So, I missed the anti-surveillance state aspect. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The more reasonable direct action would be to simply not use a smartphone, not use the internet (or Google Maps), and not host a website. Opt out of the whole thing. I'm not clear on how these people can justify blocking the buses and showing up at people's houses, but then organize using Google's products.

<comment><USER9> No way. The benefits of technology (and the natural resources it consumes such as airwaves and exotic materials) should not be reserved for those who kowtow to commercial interests.

A more reasonable direct action is to develop and socialize technological practices which uphold community values: DuckDuckGo, Open Street Maps, Firefox, Cyanogen, encryption, CB radio, amateur radio, GNU/Linux.

<comment><USER61> I'm saying it is MORE reasonable than showing up at someones house, not necessarily the best course of action. I agree there are other reasonable courses of action as well, as you outlined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I thought protesting the buses was reasonable and justified. Picking on a single employee of a company, especially someone who probably doesn't have any control of the company (i.e. not the CEO, President etc.) and distributing leaflets about him is despicable.

However is there any link between this protest and the bus protests? The bus protests were for economic reasons mainly. This is about surveillance so I'd guess this protest didn't include many people from the bus protests.

</comment><comment><USER62> The real problems in San Francisco and elsewhere, the problems that are hurting and displacing people, aren't caused by self-driving cars or software to make construction more efficient, and the people experiencing pain will not be made better by casting out all of the professionals, many of whom politically side with progressive causes. (And isn't doing home composting and growing your own garden what Berkeley protesters would demand people do?) The local governments need to figure out ways to encourage affordable housing.

Yes, DARPA funds long range research which can be used for military purposes. That includes the Internet, which was DARPA funded. But all technological research has dual use. The Internet could have been used as a command-and- control network for the military during war, but it is also used to distribute political dissent.

The same research into chemicals and biology that allow life saving medicines to be created to save children around the world can also be used to make chemical and biological weapons. Fertilizer grows food, it also makes bombs.

Google X's Car project doesn't seem to have anything to do with making weapons for the DoD. This is pure guilt-by-tenuous-association. Many college campuses also enter these DARPA challenges, where's the protests?

The purpose of the car is to solve a very real social problem: hundreds of thousands of people are killed in auto accidents around the world every year and millions more are seriously injured needing to go to the emergency room. This is an enormous social cost which could be used to fund better housing, or education, but instead is going to treat injuries and repair and replace damaged vehicles. There is no evidence of a Google contract with DoD for Google Car technology for weapons.

What I find really disturbing is the level dehumanization. The protest is peaceful now, but the first step to encouraging violence against someone is to describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot). When gun-advocates like Sarah Palin start using rhetorical devices that dehumanizes opponents and paints literal gun targets on them, we are not surprised turning up the rhetorical temperature leads to violent confrontation, the behavior shouldn't be tolerated or defended on the other side.

<comment><USER9> > to describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot).

Anthony Levandrowski has self-described himself as a robot:

"Although Levandowski spent most of his childhood in Brussels, his English has no accent aside from a certain absence of inflection—the bright, electric chatter of a processor in overdrive. "My fiancée is a dancer in her soul," he told me. "I'm a robot." "[1]

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_bilger)

<comment><USER63> I think that's purposefully way too literal an interpretation. It's clear to me that that's not to be taken as a literal statement but rather figurative contrasting himself with his fiancee who is more lithe, in spirit, if not physically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> It's so upsetting that they're protesting the single most life-saving technology that's likely to be developed in our lifetime (self-driving cars). Life-saving for everyone, too - poor and rich.

</comment><comment><USER65> I don't know how I would respond to this. If I had a family, I would be completely terrified for the safety of my kids. I guess when it comes to family its hard to not be irrational. Anyway, I guess I would stay calm and call the cops, and unfortunately think about moving.

</comment><comment><USER66> Can someone help me understand what effect would be had if Google did exactly what these people wanted and uprooted to elsewhere? I feel like that would cause a way bigger problem than it would solve, but my intuition doesn't have a solid basis.

<comment><USER67> _" Can someone help me understand what effect would be had if Google did exactly what these people wanted and uprooted to elsewhere?_"

Together with the rest of Bay Area tech? Perhaps like the collapse of the auto monopoly in Detroit, but with an even larger industry and a worse-run city (SF).

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> There are actual defense research establishments in the Bay Area. If these people were actually concerned with "collaboration with the military" perhaps they should be protesting in front of Lawrence Livermore Labs.

Its absurd.

</comment><comment><USER69> I read the article and the flier; I felt like I was approaching it open- minded. I conclude it's propaganda because it paints common circumstances with unfairly pejorative language, and by that undermines the few valid points it brings up. The brochure closes with: "Steal from the techies you babysit for." If that's your message, you and I are not on the same side.

</comment><comment><USER70> Ironically, these anti-Google bay area protesters are starting to sound a lot like conservative anti-immigration talking points.

* We don't want your kind in our neighborhood. * We don't want our culture changed. * Your mere presence is ruining our life. * You are different than us, therefor unwelcome here.

I thought Berkeley was the peaceful co-existence crowd?

<comment><USER71> The political spectrum wraps around and converges at the extremes. I'm reminded of the controversy in Portland around water fluoridation. Many of the ostensibly left-wing opponents of fluoridation, when presented with the argument that poor people without access to dental services would suffer without water fluoridation, rebutted this by essentially saying that poor people don't deserve to have healthy teeth anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Why all the rage directed at Google and not, say, the government that institutes these policies? Something just feels 100% misguided about these attacks.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is coming awfully close to bullying, if not terrorizing an individual because of a difference of opinion on what they do or whom they work for.

This is awful. I might not agree with some things Google does or any corporation does; however, this approach will only serve to alienate dissidence since most people will not want to be associated with this kind of awful tactic. Just because people (public) is not taking your side should not signal you the protester to go gonzo, off the reservation, as it were.

This is not the way to dissent. It's a desperate and counterproductive approach which _might_ get sympathy form the choir. In that sense, it's a very selfish (self-pleasing) act.

</comment><comment><USER73> And this is why you should have a gun in your home, folks!

<comment><USER74> There's no better deterrent than racking a shell into your shot gun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Man, everytime I read more about this, I lose a little more of my sympathy for these protesters. They sound more and more like a bunch of whack nut-jobs in every article.

I don't disagree that they have some valid concerns, but they aren't doing themselves any favors with this over-the-top stuff. In fact, I suspect they are unintentionally setting themselves up as "the bad guys" in this story.

I can't help but think the protesters should take a long, hard look at who their leadership is, and find somebody new.

</comment><comment><USER76> I think Google's threats of releasing "massive amounts of carbon" refers to the emissions of their employees commuting individually instead of by busses.

</comment><comment><USER77> I agree with everyone that's calling this mob behavior and harassment. In no way is this "OK". But...

I'm actually glad this discussion is happening. I think it's a really interesting problem that faces a lot of cities, ones even less prosperous than SF. Hopefully the opposition can follow up this overwrought and misguided protest with an actual dialog with companies like Google and the city.

I also hope they stop singling out employees.

</comment><comment><USER78> "Gentrification" became a bad word at some point.

I don't see it that way.

I hope that the tech industry gentrifies the hell out of SF to get rid of nutcases such as these people.

</comment><comment><USER58> Google employees will now organize to lobby to bring a "stand your ground" law in California. When that happens we'll see how many hipsters feel like threatening someone who can afford a semi-automatic weapon and has the skills to rig it up to a quad-copter, or their home security system.

</comment><comment><USER79> They probably used Google Maps and Streetview to get there.

<comment><USER80> The picture of his house on the flier was from Streetview...

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Why aren't they at the doors of the government officials in charge of the surveillance state? It seems like a demonstration about inequality and gentrification wrapped in the hot topic of the day. (surveillance)

</comment><comment><USER81> If the headline were _Demonstration at the Home of Developer_ and this was only over luxury condominiums, would the response of HN be more neutral or favorable?

I suspect it would be, and that raises an interesting question in regard to why I am conditioned to give more weight to etiquette when the issues are more weighty -. this event touches on corporatism, militarism, economic disparities, and the illegal use of public infrastructure for private profit all in addition to basic neighborhood activism.

When did citizenship come to be considered poor form?

</comment><comment><USER82> I am seriously dumbfounded by this for so many reasons. Why pick on GOOG in particular? Isn't Palantir "more evil" by their screwed up logic?

</comment><comment><USER83> How is protesting in a residential neighborhood allowed? Did this group have a permit? Is the SF Bay area different in this regard - no permit allowed?

<comment><USER84> "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble...."

<comment><USER43> If you tell someone and their family that you are going to stop them from leaving their home, and there is a not unreasonable expectation of assault and or battery in that, you are going beyond the right of peaceable assembly and into the realm of false imprisonment, or kidnap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> What the frack is this nonsense ? Whoever wrote this should seek professional help. Sometimes it's scary to know how many nutjobs are out there.

</comment><comment><USER86> am i the only one happy that folks like this left jobs working for the government and their contractors to work for a company like google?

</comment><comment><USER87> I'm seeing a strong parallel with occupy wall street. Clearly there are differences - these people seem more militant for one - but this is clearly a movement born out of an emotional response, if not shear jealousy. These protesters are uninformed at best, and their tactics will not yield any results.

</comment><comment><USER88> By their messed-up logic (I can't tell whether this is parody or not), their use of jQuery on their website would put them among the military-industrial- surveillance supporters since they are lending their implicit backing to a project/library that the NSA uses on their website.

<comment><USER25> I think the dependency irony starts hitting much further up the stack than the jquery library on the website, given the nature of a website on the public internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I hate this because I am in support of freedom. I love this because I am in support of freedom.

</comment><comment><USER46> Here is the person who is organizing the bus protests. I'm not sure if she was involved in this particular demonstration:

[http://www.erinmcelroy.net/resume.html](http://www.erinmcelroy.net/resume.html)

<comment><USER90> That's just as bad as the protesters who show on the doorstep of a Google engineer. Attack the action and not the person. In this case you don't even know if that person is the one involved in this action.

<comment><USER46> No, it wasn't an attack. I was simply curious about who was organizing these protests, as I'm sure a lot of people are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> I am fascinated and bewildered. I had not known fliering is a word.</comment>


Ask HN: Your startup programming language? - <AUTHOR>

What is your startup project programming language?
Just a random information collection to get a picture of how many startups picking particular programming languages to develop their project.
Really appreciate the support. Thanks :) <comment><USER2> Hi,

It's certainly an interesting question, but it does poke a pain I have. Have you tried searching for information before posting?

I'd guess not, because really recently there was a poll asking exactly this question. User "koski" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=koski>) has already linked to it, but here it is again.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1843083>

And this comment is directed just at you, but at everyone who submits questions without first searching.

Why? Unless you're asking for specific advice about a specific situation that's unique to you, there's a really good chance that the question has already been asked and already been answered.

Why not search first? <http://searchyc.com/>

<comment><USER3> Strongly agree. There are a lot of fluff posts made which could easily be avoided if people just bothered to search first. Please let's try to improve the signal-to-noise ratio here, not make it worse.

I know people are lazy to use Google for a custom search. So I put together a google custom search engine which searches HN and a bunch of other programming-related sites - <http://laughingcomputer.com>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi,

there has been couple of polls about the subject lately.

I remember at least this one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1843083>

Hope it helps.

</comment><comment><USER5> python</comment>


Boston's astounding month of snow a 1-in-26,315 year occurrence - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/25/bostons-astounding-month-of-snow-a-1-in-26315-year-occurrence/ <comment><USER2> Only 21,000 years ago, Boston was buried under a sheet of ice over a kilometer thick.

Source: [http://xkcd.com/1225/](http://xkcd.com/1225/)

<comment><USER3> I've been wondering how much snow needs to drop before we start growing glaciers.

<comment><USER4> It's less a matter of snow _fall_ and more one of snow _accumulation_.

For snow to _fall_ you want _warmer_ temperatures (relatively) which allow _large amounts of atmospheric moisture_. Ideally striking a cold air mass which then causes snow to fall. Most notably in the U.S. in the form of "lake effect snow", where warmer, moister air over the Great Lakes moves (typically NW to SE) over colder land, and dumps often major amounts of precipitation:

[http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/17000/1777...](http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/17000/17770/GreatLakes_TMO_2006343_lrg.jpg)

For snow to _accumulate_ you need _annual temperatures which remain below freezing_. In this case, _even with modest amounts of annual precipitation you can achieve large ice sheets_. The annual _precipitation_ over the Antarctic is quite low: "As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches."

[http://www.antarcticconnection.com/shopcontent.asp?type=weat...](http://www.antarcticconnection.com/shopcontent.asp?type=weather- snow-ice)

But with an annual average temperature _well_ below freezing, _any snow which falls will accumulate_.

The daily _high_ temperature in Boston is above freezing _every month of the year_ , and the low from mid March to early December. Odds of Boston being covered in kilometer-thick ice sheets any time in the near future are exceedingly low.

[https://weatherspark.com/averages/29794/Boston- Massachusetts...](https://weatherspark.com/averages/29794/Boston- Massachusetts-United-States)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's been an interesting winter. We've had more or less the opposite here in the Pacific Northwest.

Many of the Cascade ski resorts are either fully or partially closed. Further inland things haven't been much better in terms of snowfall[1]. We moved into a house in Idaho this summer with a long driveway that typically has 1'-3' of snow for a month or two every winter, but I took the plow off our UTV 3 weeks ago, after only having used it once (on about 4" of snow) the entire winter.

While of course climate isn't equal to weather one interesting side effect is that I've heard quite a few people say things along the lines of "Ok, I believe in global warming now." I'd imagine the reaction has been quite different in Boston.

[1] [http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/...](http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/1stmonth/westwide/swe/WestwideSWEPercent_Feb.pdf)

<comment><USER6> The warm PNW and the cold NE are intimately related:

[http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-is-northwest- warm-...](http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-is-northwest-warm-and- california.html): "It is quite easy to explain the proximate cause of the warmth over the Northwest, the drought over California, and the cold/snow over the eastern U.S. They are all caused by the same basic phenomenon: a high amplitude upper level pattern with a persistent ridge over the West Coast and a trough over the eastern U.S."

<comment><USER7> That article is accurate, but does not pull the pieces together. Let me fix that.

We all know that hot air rises, and cold air sinks. Therefore if you heat one place and cool another, air will rise in the one, move to the other, and then sink. The Earth is heated up near the equator, and cooled near the poles, so we show that pattern. It actually repeats several times, and the result are the Hadley cells. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell) for confirmation of this.

However in the Earth there is a complication. We are rotating. When air rises, then moves towards the pole, it maintains its angular momentum, and now goes a _lot_ faster than the ground. Thus the air that is about to come back down is going very fast. We call this the jet stream. (There are actually a few jet streams at different latitudes.) When it comes down, the ground slows it down, but it results in a prevailing wind. Over the oceans those winds are called the trade winds because sailing ships used to follow routes that used them. The one over the US goes from west to east, and that is why many major storms tend to do that.

Next piece of information. The nice symmetrical structure I've drawn so far is unstable. It is prone to develop kinks and bends, which then grow. Around the world the overall average latitude is reasonably well fixed, just not the exact latitude at a specific spot. The result is that the jet stream tends to develop fairly large standing waves which are fairly long-lasting but do move around.

Now go get a globe and look on it. North America turns out to be roughly half a wavelength for one of these standing waves. So if the jet stream goes north on the Pacific side, it will go south by the Atlantic. This is our current pattern and it results in a mild winter on one side of the country and a severe one on the other. If the wave is flipped in another year, the pattern reverses. Or you can have a phase shift and both coasts can be average and the interior can be either warm or cold.

This has been known for decades and has nothing directly to do with global warming. (I learned it all from a fluid mechanics course that I took in 1992.)

<comment><USER8> "Directly" is practically meaningless when discussing cause and effect in a system as complex as the global climate. But there is ample evidence that arctic warming, for example, can profoundly alter circulation patterns in the upper atmosphere, which lead to extreme weather events in more temperate regions ([http://skepticalscience.com/jetstream- guide.html](http://skepticalscience.com/jetstream-guide.html)). Personally, it's a lot easier for me to buy that the climate has altered than that I'm witnessing a true once-in-25000-years weather event.

<comment><USER7> The jet stream, being chaotic, can be affected by _anything_.

That said, the locations of the Hadley cells changes depending on how much heat is stored in the system, and adjustments to this is part of the whole El Niño, La Niña cycle. As you increase the rate of energy storage, this results in various chaotic changes, that can increase extreme events.

But the real problem with the rarity of the event is that you arrive at that figure by a probability model assuming independent storms, probably with a Poisson model for frequency. However storms are not actually independent events. If you have a stable pattern that results in many storms following the same track to Boston, the odds of an extreme event are way higher than the naive probability model would have suggested.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, but the more problematic assumption is that the Poisson rate function is time homogeneous is what I'm saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have to say this past month living in Boston has been really challenging on so many levels. Tension from difficulties getting to work, playing chicken on the narrow roadways, inability to get out of the house with the kids, finding baby sitters to cover when school is cancelled and the never ending shoveling. I love Boston, but I would not be able to take many more winters like this one.

If I had to narrow things down to one primary issue, though, I would have to say it is the total failure of the public transit system, the MBTA. Things wouldn't be nearly as bad if the T was running smoothly, but even now the commuter rail is running on a reduced schedule (which results in completely packed trains that are often late) and various subways trains break down on a daily basis.

Not fun.

<comment><USER10> Given the rarity of such an event, wouldn't the wisest course of action be to simply shut everything down for awhile? The nation of Sweden pretty much shuts down for a month every single year, I don't see why Boston couldn't handle doing it once every few thousands years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I may be looking a little too much into this headline, but I really think it speaks to the way humans look at the earth as some static, immutable system.

How could someone even go about calculating these odds on something so dynamic. Boston was literally under ice 20K years ago and will probably be completely under water in another 20K years.

<comment><USER12> The article covers it pretty well. This is just a simulation done for fun based on current climate conditions. Right after that they acknowledge that "Of course the climate isn't static" and offer a possible explanation for the huge increase in snow.

But I think the point of the article is that even taking into account recent climate changes, this is still a super unlikely string of storms, and there's a lot of chance and coincidence involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone raised in the south, I picked a heck of a year to move up to Massachusetts, didn't I?

What do you all do to avoid going stir-crazy when the snow leaves you stuck inside the house for days?

<comment><USER14> Fight over parking spaces. It's Boston's favorite winter pastime.

<comment><USER15> Just go around removing space-savers, then let Boston tear itself apart.

<comment><USER16> Never having lived in the snow, this concept was new to me. It lead me to this terrible article[1] which says the same thing in each of it's four paragraphs(!), but linked to this article[2] which has a better description of the cultural phenomenon, including some light flamewarring in the comments...

[1][http://www.wbur.org/2015/02/23/space-saver- enforcement](http://www.wbur.org/2015/02/23/space-saver-enforcement) [2][http://www.wbur.org/2015/01/28/space-savers- boston](http://www.wbur.org/2015/01/28/space-savers-boston)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IMO, 1 in 26,315 years is a terrible way to present low odd events. 4 per 100,000 years is much better as people don't think this can't happen again in my lifetime and you don't add a lot of false accuracy.

PS: Also, these are not independent events so those long tail odds are likely way off base.

<comment><USER18> Who thinks they're going to live 26,000 years?

<comment><USER19> That's exactly the intended meaning.

Using 1 as the first number in the ratio makes people think of it like a comet, once you see it you won't see it again for the given period (and will not live to see another).

Using 4 in 100,000 would be an attempt to get more people to reason clearly about what the odds mean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I live in the Yukon, and more than once this "winter" Yukon has been the hottest place in Canada, so we're all talking more and more about climate change and how nothing is what it used to be.

In the years to come, I'm expecting headlines like this (ridiculous odds about odd weather) to become perfectly normal.

<comment><USER21> Under-prediction of warming in the north is one of the most notable failures of climate models, although they are wrong on lots of other details as well. This is not a surprise: climate models are in important respects non-physical approximations to the real climate, and as such can't be expected to get the details right.

Depending on your politics you can now accuse me either of making excuses for "the hiatus", or of being a Denialist, but all I'm really doing is pointing out that the public's expectations of climate models is both too high ("the science is settled") and too low ("global warming is a hoax!")

There is a middle way between these extremes, one that acknowledges the uncertainty of the models (which are large) while at the same time recognizing that there is no physically reasonable way to double the CO2 content of the Earth's atmosphere without adding about 1 W/m __2 to the heat budget.

That we don't have a very good idea of how the Earth's climate will respond to that additional heating is not something we should find reassuring, and while there are plenty of good reasons for investing in nuclear, solar and other alternative power sources, there are also good reasons to invest in climate robustness: ensuring that our cities aren't entirely shut down by a rare snowfall, investing to protect the most vulnerable populations from climate variation from any source, and so on.

Our economies are highly tuned up for the climate of the past 100 years, which was unusually stable. We should be aware that the kind of forward planning our parent's and grandparent's generations did based on the assumption of climate stability is not likely to be viable in future as the climate returns to its state of natural volatility, almost certainly helped along by anthropogenic contributions.

<comment><USER20> > _Our economies are highly tuned up for the climate of the past 100 years, > which was unusually stable. We should be aware that the kind of forward > planning our parent 's and grandparent's generations did based on the > assumption of climate stability is not likely to be viable in future as the > climate returns to its state of natural volatility, almost certainly helped > along by anthropogenic contributions._

Nicely put.

To be honest, when I'm having these conversations I don't go near the whole debate of global warming / we did it / co2 / etc.

I think its simply important to acknowledge the climate _is_ changing, and we need to get with the program. _Why_ it's changing is a whole other thing for another day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The amount of snow is only half the story. It's also been very cold, way below freezing, so the snow is just not melting. If you get a foot on Wednesday and a foot on Friday, but it melts in between, that is much easier to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Boston's astounding month of snow a 1-in-26,315 year occurrence"

Until next year!

</comment><comment><USER24> That's oddly specific. Why cut it off at the year? It looks like their model is accurate enough to tack on months and maybe even days to that number!

</comment><comment><USER25> I think they should have led with Boston having gotten more snow than Buffalo has ever recorded in a similar time period. Now that's remarkable!</comment>


I don't think President Obama is here tonight, but I'm sure he's listening in. - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/usa/mick-nsa-jagger-stones-230/

<comment><USER2> This is very encouraging to see, if artists raise awareness of this issue in popular culture they have a real change changing the tide.</comment>


How not to quit your career when Git opens a vi editor - <AUTHOR> https://saraford.net/2017/03/13/how-not-to-quit-your-career-when-git-opens-a-vi-editor-072/ <comment><USER2> Or, configure git to use a different editor, and do things properly.

        git config --global core.editor [your choice]</comment>


What is the best comment in source code that you have ever encountered? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-comment-in-source-code-that-you-have-ever-encountered/answer/Vladimir-Ilievski?share=1 <comment><USER2> Without a doubt:

<!-- <![CDATA[ METAL ABS ~~real turnt up!!

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           / ノ)   ∧∧      ) ヽ
          ゙/ |  (´・ω・`)ノ⌒(ゝ_,ノ
          / ノ⌒7⌒ヽー--く  \   /
          丶_ ノ 。   ノ、  。|/
             `ヽ `ー-'_人`ーノ
              丶  ̄  _人'彡ノ
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[http://metalab.co/](http://metalab.co/)

<comment><USER3> We are done here. Competition has ended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _You are not expected to understand this._

Unix 6th Edition context switching code

<comment><USER5> This one is the classic. And it just gets better with age.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This rant [1] on the PSD format has to be my favourite:

      // At this point, I'd like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD format.
      // PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it such would be an
      // insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG. No, PSD is an abysmal format. Having
      // worked on this code for several weeks now, my hate for PSD has grown to a raging fire
      // that burns with the fierce passion of a million suns.
      // If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD will do both, in different
      // places. It will then make up three more ways no sane human would think of, and do those
      // too. PSD makes inconsistency an art form. Why, for instance, did it suddenly decide
      // that *these* particular chunks should be aligned to four bytes, and that this alignement
      // should *not* be included in the size? Other chunks in other places are either unaligned,
      // or aligned with the alignment included in the size. Here, though, it is not included.
      // Either one of these three behaviours would be fine. A sane format would pick one. PSD,
      // of course, uses all three, and more.
      // Trying to get data out of a PSD file is like trying to find something in the attic of
      // your eccentric old uncle who died in a freak freshwater shark attack on his 58th
      // birthday. That last detail may not be important for the purposes of the simile, but
      // at this point I am spending a lot of time imagining amusing fates for the people
      // responsible for this Rube Goldberg of a file format.
      // Earlier, I tried to get a hold of the latest specs for the PSD file format. To do this,
      // I had to apply to them for permission to apply to them to have them consider sending
      // me this sacred tome. This would have involved faxing them a copy of some document or
      // other, probably signed in blood. I can only imagine that they make this process so
      // difficult because they are intensely ashamed of having created this abomination. I
      // was naturally not gullible enough to go through with this procedure, but if I had done
      // so, I would have printed out every single page of the spec, and set them all on fire.
      // Were it within my power, I would gather every single copy of those specs, and launch
      // them on a spaceship directly into the sun.
      //
      // PSD is not my favourite file format.

1: [https://github.com/zepouet/Xee- xCode-4.5/blob/master/XeePhot...](https://github.com/zepouet/Xee- xCode-4.5/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#L108)

</comment><comment><USER7> I once read:

"I don't know why, but it works."

</comment><comment><USER8>
        #include "some_file.h" // we want this for reasons that i would certainly explain, if not for my wretched laziness

</comment><comment><USER9> // we'll never encounter this exception

// e.printStackTrace();

Except we were. So I put in:

System.exit();

</comment><comment><USER10> "Why the hell do we need this? She won't tell me."</comment>


Arduino: turning non-nerds into robot-makers (video) - <AUTHOR> http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/arduino-turning-non-nerds-into-robot-makers/

<comment><USER2> Or put it this way - turn adults into kids because I love playing around with it.

<comment><USER3> I've been wanting to get into making electronics for a quite a while, and the Arduino was very tempting when I first saw it.

Unfortunately, I have too many hobbies as it is, so I just don't have time to do it properly. One day, maybe, if I have a project I really, really want to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know what I want for x-mas this year.</comment>