Airbnb "Bribes" Host with Cash Under NDA After Partiers Destroy Apartment - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2017/03/airbnb-nda-damage-in-london-after-drug-party/ <comment><USER4> The irony of YC's flagship startup forcing exploding term sheets on their customers is a bit much to take.

[ _ps_ ]

Airbnb's statement concluding this story says that this interaction fell short of their expectations. Maybe they can go a bit farther. Can they commit (just a comment here would suffice) to not using the exploding-settlement tactic with their clients? Maybe all they'd really need to say is that nobody outside their counsel's office will ever be authorized to put an explicit time limit on any offered settlement.

<comment><USER5> Thats a pretty unreasonable request that a billion dollar company agree not to include deadlines in their settlement offers moving forward.

In fact I've never heard of a settlement agreement without a deadline, it wouldn't amount to malpractice but it would be pretty negligent to offer any type of settlement agreement on open ended terms of acceptance. As to the NDA/confidentiality, that too is the default of settlemenre, and if this were in litigation any settlement talks/negotiations are confidential by rules of the court.

<comment><USER4> Which is why I said "nobody outside their counsel's office".

Here, we're all pretty clear these aren't good-faith deadlines, but rather negotiating devices intended to coerce people into accepting terms without consultation with their own lawyers.

<comment><USER6> AirBnB is a business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's going on here? The first half of the story sounds like routine corporate incompetency. Representatives don't read your stuff, can't be bothered to follow their own procedures, and screw you over. Unacceptable but, alas, fairly common when dealing with big companies.

The NDA is where it goes off the rails. He's entitled to that money, so why would they try to put conditions on it? I'm sure they're not thrilled to have him talking, but it's not like they have a choice in the matter. Once someone who is allowed to use their brains got involved, the result should have been a quick payment and an end to the saga.

<comment><USER8> It's not unusual for settlements to have conditions attached, which makes this NDA thing somewhat less outlandish than it seems at first. For instance, if you settle with an insurance company after a car accident, you may have to sign something which says "that is it", waiving your right to sue anyone for anything more.

If the person is properly compensated 100%, but keeps talking, it can be argued that their material damage has been fully restored, while they continue to inflict material damage against the other party. Thus there is some unfairness there. AirBNB, the company, didn't wreck that apartment; the renters did.

Not that the devil would ever have me as his advocate, but let me play one for a second ...

<comment><USER9> There is no settlement involved, because there is no legal claim, technically. None of the logic around legal settlements comes into play at all, so the devil's advocacy here is misguided. The NDA _is_ outlandish and is clearly designed to shut him up and cover up the mishandling of the case.

This might be different under UK law, but if he had sued you might have a point. Then I'd expect gag, non-disparagement, forefeiture of claims and so on. I've signed those personally and understand that. But if I haven't sued you and you gag me for what I deem fair? Well, sounds like I should potentially sue because someone is not operating in good faith, and it ain't me. That move alone would make me want to discover your internal communications about handling me and in this case, I bet they're awesome.

Keep in mind they're writing him off from saying "they fixed this! They're the good guys!" which sure, seems unlikely, but if a company takes care of something without a lawsuit a gag seems counterintuitive and in bad faith.

<comment><USER4> I think the logic is pretty much identical. Abnb could, of course, simply refuse to pay anything. His recourse would be to the courts. The most likely outcome of that would be a settlement. The highest-dollar settlement would likely include confidentiality terms.

The incentive structure Abnb is creating here is not great, though: if you know their settlement terms will include confidentiality, and you know they have to settle _somehow_ no matter what, your incentive as the aggrieved party is to get your story on the record immediately, before contacting Abnb, so that what you disclose can't violate their NDA. That's exactly what Abnb doesn't want to have happen.

They should probably just be up front about the fact that they'll pay a bonus to clean up the PR.

<comment><USER9> Sure. The suit would be public though, and exactly and to your point, wise plaintiffs would be subtly trying their case in the media from day 1, because that gag and non-disparagement is undoubtedly coming. Journos live for David vs. Goliath cases like this. Tossing a contract at me _after_ the case gets a little attention, where I didn't have to sign one for the first payment, makes me wonder what you're hiding.

I totally get the logic you're saying, that they're basically treating it as a settlement, but that maneuver is odd and tips a little of their hand that he should perhaps just go hit the courts. When I was at AT&T they were a little rough settling with someone and she ended up suing, and part of the discovery was her internal notes on the case which blew up the claim by 20x. That's mostly what I'm thinking of, because there are _for sure_ emails that would be very interesting to discover here.

Like I said, a gag smells when there's no suit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a friend who literally had the exact same experience a week ago. She rented her apartment to a guy for one night, and he proceeded to have a massive party filled with drugs, prostitutes, and God knows what else. Her apartment was subsequently degraded and destroyed beyond all recognition.

Thus far, Airbnb's response to her has been extremely non-reassuring. Hopefully they will do more in the coming week and remedy the situation. If not, expect a longer post with pictures soon.

It's stuff like this that gives Airbnb a bad name, and makes many people hesitant to ever use the service. I hope someone at Airbnb realises that pinching pennies and not helping hosts when they get screwed, is really going to hurt Airbnb itself in the long run.

<comment><USER11> It's kind of crazy. People really care about their homes, right? So when bad things happen, posting photos like these confirm potential hosts' worst fears about having their place on AirBNB.

I'm surprised that they don't go out of their way to help their hosts (i.e. buying things online was unfamiliar for users, so Amazon typically is pro- consumer any time there is a dispute and refunds your money immediately, in my experience).

<comment><USER12> Hosts worst fears? What about the neighbors of the place that is turning into a flophouse?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Not defending Airbnb's behaviour, but this sort of thing happens outside of Airbnb too. I had some tenants (sons of a well known rock star) cause around £10K worth of damage to my flat in Shoreditch (plus around £5K in lost rent given the amount of time it took to repair) a few years back. In that case the letting agency I used was no help because they said it was a private matter between myself and the tenants, the insurance was no good because they said that amount of damage could not be accidental and they didn't cover malicious damage, and the legal system was no help because it favours tenants. In fact I might even have been better off with Airbnb.

<comment><USER13> With normal tenants, you gamble once every couple of months or years. With AirBNB, you roll the dice possibly every few days or more.

It's the same difference as owner occupancy vs renters, but taken to the next order of magnitude.

<comment><USER14> Also, with normal tenants you don't rent the home you live in.

<comment><USER15> You rent them the home that they live in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand how people could do that much damage and it would only come to $8k. Just the cleanup and repairs to the complex outside of his property should be nearly that much; losing his lease, other damages, and damage to his property should be a lot more than that.

<comment><USER17> It reads like he only submitted claims for repairs to his apartment (for whatever reason, maybe he wasn't billed for repairs/cleanup outside of it). I'd be surprised if AirBnb would cover him loosing his lease.

<comment><USER16> Maybe he had renter's insurance or something, or some other form of liability insurance? (I don't know how this works in the UK).

If I were the lessor/host, I'd demand Airbnb pay 100% and then let them go after whichever other parties they want later. The host should not be the one on the hook for any of this, including float for however long reimbursement takes.

(If I were Airbnb I'd probably sue the guest; clearly there was some level of organization if they brought in an audio system and had an event. Even if it cost them $20k in legal to go after a $10k judgment it is probably worth the precedent.)

<comment><USER18> I'd be surprised if residential renter's insurance in the US, UK, or Canada covered things done during a daily sublet of the space without some special rider policy. This customer should be covered well enough by AirBNB's agreement, which apparently only with the help of _The Observer_ is actually the case.

<comment><USER16> I think it would be easy for a policy to waive contents insurance in such a case, but a lot more challenging if it waived liability. (Otherwise, as a condo association or whatever, you could be potentially ruined if any condo owner owns a unit, has "full insurance" as required, and sublets/has a guest burn the entire building down.) Insurers have far deeper pockets than individual property owners, guests, or condo associations. It's possible the condo association would have additional liability insurance above and beyond this which would step in, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is it correct that the article asserted damages assessed at USD 8K but offered to reimburse just under USD 2K?

I could be overreacting to this, but I had a really strong reaction to this article. I'll preface relating this by stating that in pretty much everything, I would usually side with the large company or startup. Just my point of view. I'm not overflowing in sympathy for people complaining about dealing with companies or large bureaucracies because in my experience that arises from people's insufficient understanding of how to operate with a company or large bureaucracy to their advantage. Most of the time I'd be like, people should learn to be smarter.

With that disclaimer aside this story made me super angry. How could AirBnB treat this person like that? Clearly guests had defrauded AirBnB's system, and the host suffered. The host should be totally compensated.

If this was my company, in an extreme case like this, I'd send out an AirBnB rep to do a damage assessment and collect evidence. And then, not just to be awesome, but to protect AirBnB against bad PR, and to encourage AirBnB to develop more robust guest fraud detection, I'd compensate as a policy 20 - <USER2> % over the amount. So this guy would get USD 10K and hands on treatment.

A complication I'm not considering is -- who is owed the damages, the guest or the landlord? But the idea above would be indicative of my response, and how I think they should have done this.

I super hate it to read great PR about AirBnB doing awesome things and then to see something like this. And the dereliction and indifference exhibited by the email chain...so angry. The worst thing is: you can judge a person ( and a company ) by how they treat people they don't think they need to treat well. So when AirBnB makes money out of you, and you use their shiny site, everything is grand. But when you suddenly suffer and need their help, their action falls well below their promise.

Like I said, maybe I'm overreacting or not seeing this clearly. But on the face of what I saw this is how I took this. So angry!

<comment><USER20> The fact that they're trying to chisel this customer out of a few grand suggests to me that host compensation must be a real cost center for AirBNB... which is actually worse than if it were just really bad customer service, because it means that the chances of this happening to your apartment are much higher than advertised. Neither way, of course, is a good look.

<comment><USER21> AirBnB is a company I want to IPO more than any other just so I can see their finances. The idea is so simple, so universal, and (theoretically) so profitable that I was surprised that they only just became profitable. I assumed the company had been printing money for years, back before they had to deal with lawsuits, regularly avoided taxes, and when everybody still loved them.

It doesn't surprise me that they're profitable at this stage, but the fact that it took them so long to get there on a completely unlevel playing field (competitors pay taxes, have better customer service, own physical property, etc) makes me seriously concerned about the future prospects of this business.

I obviously don't have the data, but it seems people are growing to like them less and less. Whenever founders have a sense of entitlement (I've met Brian and Joe - they came across as arrogant) it doesn't end well when they suddenly have to play by the same rules as everyone else. AirBnB is way too big that they can shirk the law anymore, and as the public grows to dislike them more their lobbying efforts will become increasingly futile (just look at what happened in New York).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tangentially, as a guest, I've found a new (to me) use for Airbnb -- renting places in areas I'm considering a long lease or purchase. And for "work from home", it's actually possible to check with hosts and verify good Internet (in WA, Wave G or Frontier FIOS or something), which is a lot harder in hotels.

<comment><USER22> Do you stick a budget for your WFH rentals? How long do you rent for?

<comment><USER16> For 4 APR - 10 MAY in Redmond/Bellevue I have the downstairs of a house (3 bedrooms) with 100/100 FiOS for $2k. I'm fine with that as home + wfh, since it means I can delay signing a 12mo+ lease for 3mo (as I'll be in Ukraine in June/July).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A friend of mine is having similar issues with a neighboring apartment in their building in a more suburban neighborhood of NYC. Large parties of seemingly underage kids have been renting the apartment upstairs, throwing weekend long parties, and trashing the surrounding area (using the side of the house as a bathroom, for instance). The landlord doesn't seem to care since the unit would otherwise be empty and he can make the same rent in a weekend as he would in a month. That building doesn't seem to be the only one doing the same thing in the neighborhood.

I had never really thought of kids using AirBnb like that before, but it makes sense. When I was a teenager parties happened when people's parents went away for the weekend. Now an older kid can get a credit card, create a fake profile, rent an apartment for the weekend, charge a fee at the door, and have at it.

<comment><USER24> Assume they've tried calling the cops already?

NYC's been cracking down on short-term/airbnb sublets recently so if you can twist the right arm you might be able to get something done.

I recently helped a friend with a housing issue (deadbeat subtenants) and we discovered that the NYC housing court has a great service where you can talk to a housing lawyer for free, might be worth a shot to see if your friend has any legal options: [https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/housing/vlpselfrep.shtml...](https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/housing/vlpselfrep.shtml#meet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This email exchange reads like something from Black Mirror.

[https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/emailexchang...](https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/emailexchange.pdf)

It's amazing he didn't go and firebomb AirBnB. This kind of communication would leave me incandescent with rage.

<comment><USER26> Man, that is bad; totally agree with you DanBC. The third time the AirBnB rep asked for details of the blinds I was gob-smacked that I could have noticed it twice already on a brief scan and they apparently didn't see it - or perhaps it was just a delaying tactic to force the financial situation to become more grave for their client, like you say true Black Mirror stuff.

Then at the end they try to low-ball him on what realistically was probably a tenth of what he seemed to have due (by that stage), giving him a short time- limit - what was it, 24 hours? - to click a button to accept the minimal offer or to "agree" to nothing.

That sort of vile behaviour deserves a company to be sued to within a penny of it's existence IMO.

<comment><USER19> It's totally sad, but the ignoring of client responses and repeated redundant requests for information already provided, is a standard psychological domination tactic used by interrogators and ( hey, whaddaya know ) compliance people. It's meant to cause the client to become more subdued, submissive and easier to handle.

I hate this kind of thing being used by a company that I wanted to respect.

I truly believe: powerful people ( and companies ) empower others, they don't disempower them.

<comment><USER27> > _the ignoring of client responses and repeated redundant requests for > information already provided, is a standard psychological domination tactic_

that describes some of the managers/clients i've worked for. a very effective technique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Bribes are generally illegal. This should be "compensates," not "bribes." "Bribes" is just hyperbole. This is standard practice for a lot of businesses in a similar space.

<comment><USER29> We put quotes around that word in the title. I'll add an explanation here in a bit.

Edit: ok, here's an explanation.

We put quotes around "bribes" because that's the tiniest intervention I can think of that still addresses your concern. Why so tiny? That takes a while to explain, so read on if you want to understand how we approach this.

The title breaks the HN guidelines ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)) by being both baity and misleading. It also contradicts the article text (assuming I read it correctly), since it declares a thing to have happened which the text itself reports as _not_ having happened, if you read it to the end. Such a bait-and-switch is a marker of a bad article.

Normally the moderation on this would be a no-brainer. We'd replace the title with one that is accurate and neutral, and we'd apply a standard downweight that we put on outrage stories which don't contain anything of intellectual interest, especially when the topic has appeared many times before. If we didn't do these things, HN's front page would consist of nothing but dime-a- dozen outrage and the elves would leave middle earth.

However, when the story is negative about YC or a YC-funded company, the regular rules don't apply; we still moderate, but we do it less. That is the first thing pg taught me about how to moderate HN, and the first thing I've taught every other moderator. I've written about this many times: e.g. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20moderate%20yc%20less...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20moderate%20yc%20less&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment) and [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20pg%20chair&sort=byPo...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20pg%20chair&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment).

Frankly, it bites to see an article get away with this kind of thing on HN when we spend every day trying to keep the front page good. But that's the price we pay for being able to answer users' concerns about conflicts of interest in moderating HN. It doesn't prevent a few people from saying awful things about us—this is the internet after all—but it does let us answer in good conscience. Doing our best and answering questions seems to be enough to keep most HN users happy, which is the thing we care most about.

<comment><USER30> FWIW (and I realize what it's W is minimal), despite the shade I sometimes throw re: certain policies on HN, I think you guys do an _excellent_ job of threading the needle with regards to YC-related companies.

<comment><USER31> He's in a tough position, and I appreciate that he is transparent about it, even though I am still a bit disappointed. Normally I'd be a whole lot more outraged if he _didn't_ disclose his differential treatment towards YC companies, even though I would've definitely suspected and even expected such differential treatment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hard to say what I'd do when I haven't been in that situation, but in a past dispute with a large company, I felt I had the freedom to make them pay for their desired confidentiality. (It wasn't quite like this situation, but somewhat similar.)

I demanded a 60% premium over their "final" offer for the confidentiality clause. They told me to take a walk, but reversed and paid after my lawyer contacted them. (the 60% was basically pulled out of my nether bits; it was a wild guess at what they might value it at.)

I'd recommend anyone in a similar situation putting a price tag on the gag clauses, if they can afford it. Aside from many other issues, it is a nasty tactic that is bad for markets, because it increases economic inefficiency by increasing information asymmetry.

<comment><USER33> IMHO submitting to corporate NDA is wrong. Corporations should be exposed for their wrongdoings so other people can know about it and corporations made into changing their ways.

<comment><USER34> signing an NDA is becoming complicit in the scam, like joining an MLM scheme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You'd think Airbnb would be absolutely horrified of stories like this. How many hosts does this incrementally deter from using Airbnb?

Additionally, their SLAs for customer support are incredibly user-hostile, bordering on actively so. Look at how Amazon can do things better - <USER3> questions asked refunds and generally 24 hour SLAs on contact.

How can Airbnb fail so hard on realising that an internet business, such as theirs, lives and dies by customer trust...

<comment><USER21> > How can Airbnb fail so hard on realising that an internet business, such as > theirs, lives and dies by customer trust...

Because the founders are arrogant and it's ingrained in the company's culture. This isn't the first story of AirBnB's incompetence in handling customers and the media.

[http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive- ag...](http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-aggressive- pro-airbnb-ads-appear-on-muni-shleters)

Their official response when asked for comment goes as follows:

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"

A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?"

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

edit: What I find most amazing is that guy is still a Public Affairs Lead for the company. That says a lot about how they operate.

</comment><comment><USER36> > This was all too reminiscent of the NDA Tesla asked customers to sign last > year after a defect was discovered, a request that was deemed "unacceptable" > by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (which issued the > warning about the defects).

How are the biggest and trendiest companies getting away with this kind of despicable behaviour? The lack of regulation in intervention here is especially troubling.

<comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey_v._United_States)

Despicable behavior is the history of business

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why do people find it surprising that companies who exist mainly on the premise of ignoring laws/regulations they find inconvenient, won't eventually ignore laws/regulations that you think worthwhile (ie Uber and sexual harassment and AirBnb and paying for damages).

In addition, I find it interesting that the host is only sending a bill for $8000. It seems as if he is only trying to get paid for his damages and not even considering the damage and disruption to his neighbors (who unlike the host are wholly blameless in this manner). It seems AirBnb attracts the jerks and freeloaders.

<comment><USER38> > It seems as if he is only trying to get paid for his damages and not even > considering the damage and disruption to his neighbors (who unlike the host > are wholly blameless in this manner).

I don't agree with this. Obviously, if a bystander's property was damaged, this would be true, however, the idea of being paid for a "disruption" is silly. It's called life and it's full of annoyances. I'd argue the people angling for compensation because they're annoyed probably fall into the jerk and freeloader category more than someone who is willing to forgo reimbursement for his damaged property in order to warn the public about a potential pitfall.

<comment><USER39> Hey, if some chooses to live next to a hotel then that's there choice. If a unlicensed hotel opens next to them (i.e. an airbnb rental) then they have been impinged on.

<comment><USER40> That's a slippery slope; if my neighbors plant tulips and I HATE tulips, I don't get to sue for damages, even if the tulips weren't there when I moved in.

<comment><USER41> There is no slippery slope. The legal doctrine of quiet enjoyment is well established with clear limits based on centuries of precedents.

[http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/quiet+enjoymen...](http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/quiet+enjoyment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I find it shocking that someone thought it was a good idea to list a flat on airbnb that they're only renting themselves. Largely in England subletting is not allowed under the terms of rental agreements.

<comment><USER43> But doesn't Airbnb want you to do just that? Sublease even if it's against the law?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> www.airbnbhell.com

Lots of crazy stories!

Their business model seems to rely on people willing to roll the dice on their safety and security to save (or earn) a few bucks! It will undoubtedly survive this little blip of negative publicity, but people really need to be wary of this organization's complete lack of customer service (when things go bad).

<comment><USER45> A few years ago I was going to do exactly what the guy in the article did, was going to put my own place on Airbnb when I was away, never did in the end, but it was something I was always interested in doing, I remember reading AirBnb's host insurance policy and they seemed very fair if something bad had happened to my place, but if they don't payout, it's as good as useless. So after reading this, not a chance I'll ever list. (maybe in a few years if I hear its turned around, maybe)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Am I the only one disgusted by the canned replies from Airbnb to Luciano? The guy had his home ruined and all Peter from Airbnb can talk about is file format requirements. Where is the empathy?

<comment><USER33> If it was not for Hanlon's Razor, I'd think this was deliberate and part of the process of cheating the guy out of the money he was entitled to.

Though this is a repeat of history as this has happened before, for example with the guy that got bitten by a rottweiler[1].

[1]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/your-money/questions- abou...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/your-money/questions-about- airbnbs-responsibility-after-vicious-attack-by-dog.html)

<comment><USER34> Of course it's deliberate. AirBnB's business model is to achieve profit margin by cheating laws and contracts, and facilitating their customers doing same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> >> [https://web.archive.org/web/20170330184054/http://observer.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170330184054/http://observer.com/2017/03/airbnb- nda-damage-in-london-after-drug-party/)

archive of page. adds were crashing my browser.

</comment><comment><USER48> there are endless stories like this with AirBNB. They are right in that they have millions of successful bookings and these one-off scenarios are the exception to the rule, but they are being very unprofessional in the way they handle these matters. I would lawyered up as soon as they started dickin me around.

<comment><USER49> Apparently involving the media is cheaper and faster. Right move in this scenario.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> "They barricaded themselves inside with 14 police officers being unable to get them out until morning."

What? In America (god bless thee) police would have broken down doors and pepper sprayed those monsters, hopefully a few billy clubs to the head as well and arrested them all.

<comment><USER51> Only if they weren't white (See: Oregon Federal Wildlife Refuge office occupation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Somehow that page's autoplaying video gets around the browser's mute control. The web continues to get worse...

</comment><comment><USER53> You are scum, Airbnb. I don't care that you are a YC company.

You profit by making and end-run around decades of law and regulation -- much in place for a purpose and to make the lives of long-term tenants and owners tolerable and predictable.

It sounds as if you've now also gone full-on into the typical modern corporate "customer support" model.

Everything driven by lawyers and "risk minimization." Purposeful process dysfunction to discourage and kill as many claims and as much financial demand as possible. Support staff who know nothing of the circumstances and who furthermore refuse to inform themselves as to same. Escalating pressure to accept low-ball settlements with included gag-provisions, when the more persistent claimants don't simply give up. Real, effective response and recompense dependent upon the level of "bad PR" and perceived need for "damage control."

I hope you have your Uber moment -- soon.

</comment><comment><USER54> Unless I've overlooked something, the NDA seems to work largely against Airbnb. It limits their liability to this payment, and compels the host to provide "reasonable cooperation", but on confidentiality it only states:

> I acknowledge that the existence of the payment by Airbnb and this Airbnb > Payment Agreement are confidential.

There seems to be nothing stopping the host from continuing to assert "Airbnb customers wrecked my flat; Airbnb provided terrible support and miscalculated damages".

</comment><comment><USER55> Clickbait title.

Why is this a bribe and not a settlement compensation offer? Good luck settling with your insurance company or an employer without signing an NDA and forgoing future action.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm surprised they were able to lock themselves inside and party even with the police trying to get them out. I feel like that wouldn't be possible in the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER57> I don't see the appeal of airb&b. I don't want strangers in my home when i am not there to monitor my stuff. That's crazy. And i keep horror stories like this, just read one about a trashed apt in toronto. And i travel a lot and when i do i go through established agencies for rentals. I'm in Bali now, got a great house for a good price through traipadvisor.

</comment><comment><USER58> I wonder if there are instances where people signed the NDA and took the money, that we have not heard about.

</comment><comment><USER59> Ads injected into a slideshow. We are truly living in the future.

</comment><comment><USER60> Why don't homeowner's and renter's insurance policies have short term rental exclusion clauses? This type of damage seems like a source of expensive claims.

<comment><USER61> I believe they do. That's why AirBnB advertises the policy mentioned in the article. The problem is AirBnB appears to make it very difficult to make a successful claim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Airbnb guests constantly rent my place to party. It's been a problem for years, at both of my homes. I block many of them, but can't detect them all. The other day an airbnb guest held a party, and they trashed my neighbor's balcony (below mine).

They need to get partying off the platform. It's terrible for neighbors and hosts, and it's not even much revenue; the partiers usually book for one night. Regular guests on average stay 4-5 nights.

<comment><USER41> It's sad that you abuse your neighbors by treating your home as an unlicensed hotel and allow random people in for short-term rentals without proper vetting or supervision. If I was your neighbor I would certainly complain to the HOA, complex management, or city code enforcement to have you fined or evicted. Hopefully you at least paid for the cleanup and repair, with some additional compensation for their trouble.

<comment><USER63> How are you certain that the host has not gone through the local permitting processes and is in a building that disallows STR's?

<comment><USER64> Well, aside from your issues above, "It's terrible for my neighbors, but I keep doing it, even though it's not much money" certainly isn't going to win any friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> We stopped using Airbnb years ago after a very-scary-guest incident.

</comment><comment><USER66> Moral of the story is "go to the press"

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm beginning to feel that these app business are nothing more than modern get rich quick schemes, and will not stand the test of time.

</comment><comment><USER68> Hmmm...actually the most clearly unethical act was not the low ball offer, the deadlines, or the non-disclosure request--it was the repeated insistence by "Peter" that "the decision reached in this case is final, and cannot be overturned" which is a blatant lie.

The Airbnb Host Guarantee clearly lays out an arbitration process in case of any dispute.

[https://www.airbnb.com/terms/host_guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/terms/host_guarantee)

General. You and Airbnb agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Airbnb Host Guarantee Terms or the breach, termination, enforcement, interpretation or validity thereof, or to the use of the Services or use of the Site or Application (collectively, "Disputes") will be settled by binding arbitration. You acknowledge and agree that you and Airbnb are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class action lawsuit, class-wide arbitration, private attorney-general action, or any other representative proceeding. Further, unless both you and Airbnb otherwise agree in writing, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims, and may not otherwise preside over any form of any class or representative proceeding. If this specific paragraph is held unenforceable, then the entirety of this "Dispute Resolution" section will be deemed void. Except as provided in the preceding sentence, this "Dispute Resolution" section will survive any termination of these Airbnb Host Guarantee Terms.

Arbitration Rules and Governing Law. This agreement to arbitrate evidences a transaction in interstate commerce, and thus the Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this provision. The arbitration will be administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") in accordance with the Consumer Arbitration Rules (the "AAA Rules") then in effect, except as modified by this "Dispute Resolution" section. (The AAA Rules are available at [http://www.adr.org](http://www.adr.org) or by calling the AAA at +1 800 778 7879.) The Federal Arbitration Act will govern the interpretation and enforcement of this Section.

Arbitration Process. A party who desires to initiate arbitration must provide the other party with a written Demand for Arbitration as specified in the AAA Rules. (The AAA provides a form Demand for Arbitration. [https://www.adr.org/cs/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=A...](https://www.adr.org/cs/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=ADRSTAGE2034889&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased) ) The arbitrator will be either a retired judge or an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of California and will be selected by the parties from the AAA's roster of consumer dispute arbitrators. If the parties are unable to agree upon an arbitrator within seven (7) days of delivery of the Demand for Arbitration, then the AAA will appoint the arbitrator in accordance with the AAA Rules.

Arbitration Location and Procedure. Unless you and Airbnb otherwise agree, the arbitration will be conducted in the county where you reside. If your claim does not exceed $10,000, then the arbitration will be conducted solely on the basis of documents you and Airbnb submit to the arbitrator, unless you request a hearing or the arbitrator determines that a hearing is necessary. If your claim exceeds $10,000, your right to a hearing will be determined by the AAA Rules. Subject to the AAA Rules, the arbitrator will have the discretion to direct a reasonable exchange of information by the parties, consistent with the expedited nature of the arbitration.

Arbitrator's Decision. The arbitrator will render an award within the time frame specified in the AAA Rules. The arbitrator's decision will include the essential findings and conclusions upon which the arbitrator based the award. Judgment on the arbitration award may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. The arbitrator's award damages must be consistent with the terms of the "Disclaimers and Limitations of Liability" section above as to the types and the amounts of damages for which a party may be held liable. The arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the claimant and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by the claimant's individual claim. If you prevail in arbitration you will be entitled to an award of attorneys' fees and expenses, to the extent provided under applicable law. Airbnb will not seek, and hereby waives all rights it may have under applicable law to recover, attorneys' fees and expenses if it prevails in arbitration.

Arbitration Fees. Your responsibility to pay any AAA filing, administrative and arbitrator fees will be solely as set forth in the AAA Rules. However, if your claim for damages does not exceed $75,000, Airbnb will pay all such fees unless the arbitrator finds that either the substance of your claim or the relief sought in your Demand for Arbitration was frivolous or was brought for an improper purpose (as measured by the standards set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)).

</comment><comment><USER69> It's 8k pounds, though, which is a lot more than 8k dollars.

Edit: I'm impressed how my bad reading comprehension spawned so many replies.

<comment><USER16> No. "which came to a total cost of around £6,400 (about $8,000)" (from TFA).

I'm arguing more for $50k+. The GBP/USD difference isn't significant.

(For anything less than $10k or so, as long as it was at all substantiated, AirBNB should just pay -- at worst, ban the host. The PR hit from this article is probably $500k already?)

<comment><USER70> > The PR hit from this article is probably $500k already?

I highly doubt that.

<comment><USER71> It doesn't take many full-time rentals to be pulled to make $500k, especially with the type of halo properties that AirBnB probably loves to list.

But who would also be a bit concerned after reading an article that AirBnB's damage guarantee wasn't followed through on in a clear and reasonable manner.

<comment><USER70> "Many" is such a relative term in this context, your comment basically has no meaning. I doubt we'll ever be able to quantify the damage, one way or another, that this story has caused AirBnB.

Perhaps in a vain effort to get someone else to give me a sanity check, is this story not incredible for some additional reasons beyond the terrible AirBnB response? I feel like everyone's just taking for granted the things the guest did in the rental space, but how the hell does someone get away with behaving like that, ever?

Shouldn't the guest and his fellow partygoers all be in jail? They ignored/disobeyed the orders of police officers, refused to vacate a private residence after _clearly_ breaching contract (IANAL, I don't know the precise terms here), violating what i assume to be plenty of noise statues... Shouldn't the owner of the rental space _also_ be going after the person/people responsible for trashing his home (responsible being defined here as the literal people who did the damage)?

What this is telling me is that there's simply no way for an AirBnB host to ever come after me for doing _anything_ in their home. That can't be true...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> A lot of confusing points to this story. I'm not defending AirBnB, but this story does baffle on a number of levels.

> (they came with a professional sound system)

How do you not see this coming, from a host perspective? Big red flag. How this get anywhere near as far as it did? "Well I figured the professional sound system was going to be fine in my apartment complex."

> Neighbors called the police five times and some partiers left, but most > remained and locked themselves inside to continue partying.

If the police want to enter a home, and the owner of the home agrees to it, since when do the people in the home get a say as to whether or not the police can/cannot enter?

AirBnB handled this _very_ poorly, but why is AirBnB fully responsible for this? I get that they're trying to attract people to put their homes on their service, and they _offer_ to be responsible, but why can't Dinulescu go after the idiots who did this to his apartment directly? Why can't AirBnB do that?

How can a person go into another person's home, as a guest, do something like this, and not be held responsible, either civilly or criminally?

<comment><USER72> > but why is AirBnB fully responsible for this?

Because they are literally committing to it as part of their service offering:

>We're committed to creating a safe and trusted community around the world. Though property damage is rare, we understand you may need protection. The Host Guarantee will reimburse eligible hosts for damages up to $1,000,000.

a [https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee](https://www.airbnb.com/guarantee)

<comment><USER70> Yes, I did say I get that.</comment></comment></comment>


Cycling Cadence and Bicycle Gearing - <AUTHOR> http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/touring/gears.htm <comment><USER3> Interesting article, if a bit involved. Sheldon Brown (of course) has a calculator for gearing: <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/>.

Due to the terrain here, I have a 50/34 front (compact cranks) and 11-25 cassette., and a preferred cadence between 90-100 depending on the grade or lack thereof.

<comment><USER4> Sheldon Brown anything gets upvoted by me :) The amount of information and detail of it that man put together about bikes on the internet always amazes me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's nice to see people are still finding Ken's pages on the internet useful. He was tragically killed by a drunk driver back in 2003:

<http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-37758.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure if it's the book to which the author was referring (he doesn't give any references), but I've found _Bicycling Science_ by David Gordon Wilson [MIT Press] to have a very informative treatment of human power generation. It also includes an entertaining introduction concerning the evolution of the modern bicycle.

[http://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Science-David-Gordon- Wilson/...](http://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Science-David-Gordon- Wilson/dp/0262731541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276434642&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER7> _I also have to accept another problem -- chain slap. With some of my lowest gears, the chain runs loose because the derailleur does not have the ability to wrap that many teeth._

I'm sorry, but that's just a recipe for unreliability. Surely mountain bike dérailleur can take up that much slack? (I only ride road bikes, so I don't know)

If not, I believe the new SRAM Apex groupset will be able to support it - <USER2> has an 11-32 cassette (<http://www.sram.com/node/2121/brand/sram- road/src/cat>)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, modern derailleurs have fixed that problem - it's a fairly old article. A couple of our bikes have gearing that low, and no issues with chain slap. They use MTB derailleurs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recently bought a single speed, and I think I enjoy it a bit more than my stolen 24-speed. I've done hills several miles long and standing up while pedalling slowly works great. It's like walking up steps two at a time, very slowly. I'd like to get a child trailer though, and I suspect that will push the limits of this experiment.

</comment><comment><USER10> _For instance, in one book (which was much better than most), the author said that a 27-inch gear was the equivalent of walking._

I'm not sure what 27-inches means. I have a 28 tooth back/42 front as my minimum. One day climbing Centiniel drive - to the Lawrence Hall of Science, I noticed an old guy walking was quite able to keep up with me.

<comment><USER7> _I'm not sure what 27-inches means_

It's the distance the bike moves in one revolution of the crankset

<comment><USER11> Nope, that would be "27 inches development". "Gear inches" refers to the nominal wheel diameter multiplied by the gear ratio. Approximately, development == gear inches * pi.

I prefer to use development as my unit, taking into account the actual circumference of the wheel and tire. Only at that point can you compare apples-to-apples among a broad range of bicycles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I calculated the gear inches for all my combinations and it's printed on a tiny chart taped on my handlebar stem. It's too small to be useful in the middle of a ride though. I do have a larger-print version just showing the gear combinations in order of size, which is more useful mid-ride.

<comment><USER3> I would classify this as a "great to know but not in any way essential" for someone, so I am curious why you actually take a chart with you? How do you use it?

I can understand using a chart to plan things out ahead of time, though to me it seems that it is easy to figure out workable gears when starting out just by riding and eventually you _know_ how to shift in a given situation. The more serious riders will refine that by trying out different combinations in more controlled experiments (power meters when you get to Serious Training). The best gearing always depends on the rider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're riding through Williamsburg in Brooklyn, you won't really fit in if you have more than one gear on your bike... ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> What if you prefer internal hub shifters?

<comment><USER15> Then you just skip the math and get a Rohloff Speedhub.

<comment><USER16> In addition, Shimano has an 11-speed alfine hub coming that's getting close to Rohloff's versatility at a fraction of the price.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, hadn't seen the announcement. Looks like a nice deal for the price, 400% hits the sweet spot for range and the jumps aren't too bad.

It's good to hear that there's finally going to be some competition in the high end hub gear space. Even if I don't expect to on the market until my Rohloff breaks down, which might take a while... :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I tried touring a few times, and didn't really care for it. Instead of my 'Ferrari', it feels like pushing a garbage truck around, both up the hills and down.</comment>


"Principles of Adult Behavior" by JP Barlow - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/hernamesbarbara/c647b18411157205edffcb94db0bcea8 <comment><USER2> I was expecting a list of explanations. Something that will explain to me the fundamental principles that lead adults to behave the way they do in the real world. Like why they have to look so serious when you make eye contact in a coffee shop... etc.

Instead I was delivered a list of idealistic commandments prescribing behavior that does not really occur that often out in the field. Which is ironically something an adult would do.

<comment> hi-im-mi-ih Well, I could argue that people are waiting to tell you the principles of their behavior, but you've yet to ask. If people look serious in a coffee shop, it's acceptable to ask them why they look serious. Perhaps the commandments could guide you through the process of extracting and understanding a person's motivations in their own words.

The commandments are meant to help you improve your own behavior. As you improve your own behavior, people will confide more information about themselves in you, and your understanding of what makes people tick will grow. You'll have more intuition about how someone will react to a given scenario. Use the principles to improve your own attitude and behavior so that others pass information to you more easily.

The implementation of this comes down to your clear communication (through both word and body language) that you embody the 25 commandments to everyone you meet. They will receive such a person with great pleasure. As you communicate with them, they'll freely dispense their motivations and dreams to you for study.

<comment><USER3> > If people look serious in a coffee shop, it's acceptable to ask them why > they look serious.

It is never acceptable to ask a stranger in a coffee shop why they look serious.

<comment><USER4> >>"they'll freely dispense their motivations and dreams to you for study"

This must be satire or sarcasm, but the parent got me at the beginning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I try to find out why he made this list, and here is what I found on the google.

[https://www.mail- email@example.com/msg08...](https://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg08034.html)

> ... In any event, it occurred to me that, past 30, I could no longer defend > my peccadillos on basis of youth. I would have to acquire some minimal sense > of responsibility. While I didn't want to be a grown-up, I wanted at least > to act like one in the less toxic and stultifying sense of the term.

> So, I sat down around 2 am on October 3, 1977 and I drew up this list of > behavioral goals that I hoped might assist in this process. ...

</comment><comment><USER6> Quite a few seem to be based on Stoicism.

Incidentally, I was watching last night Tim Minchin (an Australian comedian)'s address[1] when receiving his honorary doctorate, and there is a fair bit of overlap

1: [http://www.timminchin.com/2013/09/25/occasional- address/](http://www.timminchin.com/2013/09/25/occasional-address/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some of these things are pretty good things to be mindful about in adult life, most of them in fact.

However, applying them all would make you the worlds biggest doormat.

<comment><USER8> Agree too much. I'm not sure where the author is from. This all sounds great on paper, but life is a lot messier.

<comment><USER9> The author has a great experience with a messy life -- he's John Perry Barlow.

In case you're wondering how these came about though, from his AMA:

> In fact, the night before I turned 30, I found myself so surprised to have > reached an age of indisputable adult that I wrote up a set of "adult > principles" that I've been trying to live up to for 35 years.

<comment><USER8> I get where the guy is coming from. It's the pipe dream we'd like to live in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What does the phrase "blood sport" mean here? Giving up literal blood sports seems so obvious as to not be worth mentioning, but metaphorical ones so vague that there's probably a better way to phrase it.

<comment><USER11> In my mimd, this roughly translates to: don't orchestrate the misfortune of others for your own entertainment or gain.

In the business world, I think this comes down to scamming or defrauding people

<comment><USER12> Can I still watch football?

<comment><USER13> That's actually prescient with the NFL concussion crisis.

I'm not sure anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> JPB has died. See [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow- inte...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet- pioneer-1947-2018) and comments/discussion there. JPB's Principles of Adult Behavior are worthy goals for life.

</comment><comment><USER15> I appreciate these and I'm not trying to rain on a parade. But aren't these all completely obvious? The challenge I'm spending my life on is figuring out _how_ to achieve these consistently.

<comment><USER11> They are obvious when you read them. That's why they're good principles. Make a calendar event for 1 month from now, and look back on the previous month to see if you adhered to them. Personally, I will not have adhered to all of them. That makes them non-obvious to me

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a pretty good list of principles that one could use as a foundation for system of beliefs. However, I believe that one should learn about the situations in which these principles apply and don't. IMO, that is what adults are good at. That is what one should thrive to learn.

An example to consider: when thinking about rule 1, it doesn't make any sense to wait patiently in a line when others are cutting in. One has to stand up for himself/herself and say something.

</comment><comment><USER17> All of these seem sensible except "Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that."

"Your mission" is simply a placeholder for what you believe will make you happy. It's very subject to change. I'd argue that a healthy respect for what makes you happy can help you avoid a mission that you'll later regret.

<comment><USER18> It seems sensible to me. (It's a huge subject but:) I think he's referring to the well-known paradox where aiming directly for happiness doesn't work; instead going for meaningful goals that will give satisfaction does. Asking "Am I happy?" constantly stops you being so. etc.

>"Your mission" is simply a placeholder for what you believe will make you happy.

 _Simply_?! Well no. Even without that, it doesn't seem right. I think I know what you meant, (like I think you know what he meant) but the two aren't always equivalent. Some people have important and unattainable goals that they know won't make them happy. Or doing your duty, like taking care of sick family etc. More to do with meaning than happiness. It sounds like you would argue no-one can do anything but what they believe will make them happy.

And Socrates and Kierkegaard etc realized that often in life we would regret either of two choices. The grass is always greener, and feeling regret doesn't mean the other choice would have been better. (e.g. To marry or not)

<comment><USER19> Yes. Another way to look at it is the bottom line of various non-dual/mystical teachings which is basically that the best way to achieve lasting happiness is to eliminate the seeker of it (of course, not in a physical sense) - or put more accurately, to realize that the very illusion of the personal self is the root cause of the unhappiness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> OK, I see why people like this list. But I would definitely argue with several of the principles presented.

Here are some examples.

 _Be patient. No matter what._ There are times when presenting impatience is the right way to get results. They are usually overused, but deadlines do have a proper place in your motivational toolbox.

 _Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you._ Never? And what if the other is lying, cheating and stealing? I fully agree with "do not lightly assume", but "never" is the wrong standard.

 _Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)_ If a person is using force to attempt to steal from me, or harm those I care about, it is fine for me to lie to them in self-defense. Again, "never" is the wrong standard.

 _Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun._ I find that people are much more likely to accept and act on criticism if I tell a story about myself which parallels the problem that I see. (Sadly "much more" does not mean "very".) This is a concrete example of how my increasing my use of "the first personal pronoun" was a good thing, not a bad one.

 _Remember that love forgives everything._ Only if you define forgiveness in the right way. If someone steals from me, and I have a loving understanding of them, then I can forgive them their past action. But I still probably shouldn't put myself in a position where they can steal from me in the future.

 _Endure._ I did that with my ex for a quarter century. I learned that some things SHOULD NOT be endured. My life is much better now.

<comment> hi-im-mi-ih The point of the list is to reduce the best human behavior into a small cheat sheet. It's like boilerplate that includes all the important functions.

The complexity of the environment created by and occupied by human experiences is infinite. There are infinite scenarios that humans find themselves in, and there are infinite positive responses to those scenarios. You can take any positive human response to a given scenario and "disprove" the response's positive outcome by changing something about the scenario. But once you do that, you introduce other positive responses that could taken instead.

The principles boil down it into 25 patterns of human behavior that tend to result in success for the individual and his/her greater community. The list is an optimum solution: lowest number of characters for the highest amount of good outcome if followed. When confronting the complexity of existence, a set of guidelines is useful to refer to.

However, anyone that consults a list of principles when their family is in danger is likely not smart enough to comprehend the list anyways, so it does not apply to them.

<comment><USER20> More correctly, it is someone's opinion about what an optimum solution might be.

I disagree with that opinion, for reasons that I explained above.

<comment> hi-im-mi-ih You're also not interested in debating your opinions, which is your right but also frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Live memorably

why?

<comment><USER22> That one's a bit iffy, but I would argue that living memorably and living consequentially probably go hand in hand, but still iffy because some great contributors aren't popular, and some popular people are morally unwell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for posting this!

</comment><comment><USER24> Lame and not very elegant at all. Better authors have said this in more concise and interesting ways.</comment>


Accent can impact speaker's credibility - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE66J5WN20100720

<comment><USER2> The result of this insightful study is about as surprising as "Women may have two breasts, vagina".

Also, what they don't tell you is that a prestigious accent can and will improve speaker's credibility.

<comment><USER3> Do you say that because these results have been published before or because "everybody knows this"?

<comment><USER2> Yes.</comment></comment></comment>


Predicting migration between cities across the US, in D3.js - <AUTHOR> http://insights.truliablog.com/vis/metro-movers/

<comment><USER2> I think Forbes has a much better visualization with more meaningful numbers: <http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html>

<comment><USER3> Agreed. For me, arrows would be better to imply movement. Specifically, arrows going from city with the lightness/darkness (tone?) indicating how many are going where. Circles just don't connect with the data part of my brain very well. It's hard to compare the area of circles to gauge just how much bigger one is than the other.

But forbes probably had a team of people working on theirs for a few afternoons at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is a cool tool, but to me it means that people in the SF bay area use the web for housing; other areas not so much.

<comment><USER5> That assumption doesn't seem to be supported by the data. What are you basing it on?

<comment> jim-greer I thought the same thing, because of the gigantic circles for people moving out of SF, and gigantic circles for moving into neighboring suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sort of graph drives me nuts. It's all fancy and interactive, then the data is foolishly selected to be the absolute raw numbers, so the big cities have big circles and everything else doesn't, and the data is useless as all it does is tell me where the big cities are.

Circle size needs to be percentage of population or something weighted towards that to be meaningful, and also throw in a ratio of incoming to outgoing as well to show who is depopulating and who is repopulating.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be cool if there were some way to exclude cities within a certain radius. It seems that most searches (inbound and out) are for nearby cities, and the fact that a lot of people move between Boston and Cambridge isn't particularly informative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm, I think it is actually interesting to see how much either suburban or outer cities are looking to move to the "major city" and vice versa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It'd be easier on the eyes if you added transitions to the circles when the selection changes. For example, in metro_mover.js:

      line 244: .select('circle').transition().duration(500)
      line 258: .select('circle').transition().duration(1000)

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing that's interesting is that it actually doesn't tell you if more people are moving in or out, despite the title. The size of SF doesn't change when I click inbound/outbound.

<comment><USER10> I don't believe the amount of people going in or out of the city is represented by the size of the target city.

<comment><USER11> You're right. The size of the selected city is fixed, just to be visually prominent, while the size of the red/blue related cities is determined by how many searches are happening to/from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does this mean TONS of people are trying to move out of San Francisco?

<comment><USER13> For those trying to interpret this:

The city highlighted in black is the reference city.

Blue circles indicate cities where people are looking for housing in the reference city (i.e. they are maybe thinking of moving into the reference city)

Red circles indicate cities where people in the reference city are looking for housing (i.e. they are maybe thinking of moving away from the reference city to the cities with red circles)

So for San Francisco, it is not surprising that many people are looking to move out of the city into nearby cities (like Oakland) and vice versa. The same is true for New York.

More interestingly, a number of people in Chicago, Houston and DC are looking for housing in San Francisco, but few people in San Francisco are looking for housing in those cities.

One weakness of the graphic is that it makes it difficult to tell the net effect of inbound and outbound housing searches. Ideally, there would be a third option next to "Inbound Searches" and "Outbound Searches," that showed a net effect for each city using both red and blue circles.

Also, different reference cities are not comparable using the graphic. For instance, selecting SF as the reference city shows moderate inbound and outbound searches from NYC. But select NYC as the reference city and you'll see that SF doesn't make the top 10 cities for outbound or inbound searches and therefore isn't even shown. As a result, you can tell that there are more searches from NY to LA than to SF, but it is difficult to tell how great that difference is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to explain the visualization (I didn't build this, but helped with some of the bugfixes). We're super interested in looking at this kind of data, and it's not quite the easiest to explain. There are a lot of small cases that would disappear if we were only looking at the net inbound/outbound, but adding it as a third mode is a good idea.

For reference, we also have a companion blog post to this visualization here: [http://insights.truliablog.com/2012/02/where-are-house- hunte...](http://insights.truliablog.com/2012/02/where-are-house-hunters- searching/)

And a longer post on an index based around that net inbound/outbound searching, what we're calling the Metro Movers Index: [http://insights.truliablog.com/2011/11/trulia-metro- movers-f...](http://insights.truliablog.com/2011/11/trulia-metro-movers- fall-2011/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> very cool!

</comment><comment><USER15> It will be cool if I can compare several cities.</comment>


Naming Things - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flavioribeiro.com/naming-things/

<comment><USER2> So. Many. Bad. Names.

The whole Travis/Jenkins/Hudson thing baffles me. Yes, they're all butlers. I can never remember which one is which. And since I'm English, butlers represent the worst of the old, deferential world, the world I spend half my life fighting against... and that's precisely why IMHO they're unsuitable names for anything open-source.

"therubyracer". It's something to do with Ruby. It's presumably quite fast. This isn't telling me much.

But then, I've released a fair amount of shockingly badly named stuff myself, so I should stop here. Other than to improve on the quote that begins TFA:

"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."

<comment><USER3> I get why Jenkins kept the butler theme, seeing as it was a fork of Hudson by some of the main developers. But yeah, it can cause confusion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I switched away from MS Office apps to Apple's equivalents, it was such a pain googling for help in "Numbers" and "Pages". The app names are so generic it was frustrating finding relevant results.

How do I "insert page numbers in Pages"?

How do I "round down in Numbers"?

Edit: I guess "Word" is not much better.

<comment><USER5> Indeed... How do people google stuff like C or Go ?

<comment><USER6> When I studied Go I found that searching for "golang" instead worked well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fun fact: _Streams-analyzer_ , _EvoHandler_ and their ilk are recognized by the reputable compendium of general knowledge that TVTrope is: [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber)

<comment><AUTHOR> NounVerber, hehehe... this is a term I didn't know. thank you for sharing this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wikipedia Random is the best name generator ever:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random)

Naming that special machine that...: Rolling... "Troisdorf"

Naming that web project project...: Rolling... "Mimeresia cellularis"

Works like a charm (sometimes I just roll three times for one name).

</comment><comment><USER9> "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell has the best advice on naming classes, ,methods and variables that I have read (don't have the book handy here, so can't give examples right now).

</comment><comment><USER10> You should check out my little site about naming stuff: [http://namingschemes.com](http://namingschemes.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> "Marmota" is definitely a cool name for software. However, it isn't just Portugese; it's also the scientific name for a genus of rodents (marmots) that includes groundhogs.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> When I named my apps, I just tried to come up with the most descriptive name possible. ("MDB Viewer", "PG Commander"). I really want people who look at search engine result pages and app store listings to immediately recognize what my app is good for.

</comment><comment><USER13> Great article, good naming is powerful but it is damn hard.

Lately, I've been working on a project called Office Garden (officegarden.lu). It's interesting to see how people react to my pitch depending on when I give the app's name.

<comment><USER14> Even after visiting your website, I have no idea what Office Garden actually is or does. Maybe I'll find out if I enter my e-mail address into your form...

But then again, maybe not, and my email would end up on yet another list I don't want.

<comment><USER13> Well you're right, it's still in private beta so I didn't put much information about it on the homepage.

Office Garden is a platform where employees from the same company get to know each other, have fun and share their interests. We deeply believe that happy employees build more successful businesses.

<comment><USER15> At most of my jobs, I'd have been happier if I didn't know my co-workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is always hard even when naming variables, functions, and classes. I always try to be as verbose as possible and sometimes spend like 10 minutes just pondering of a name.</comment>


0 Day Bug in Grub2 Hack into a Linux Computer Just by Pressing Backspace 28 Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.haktuts.in/2015/12/0-day-vulnerability-in-linux-grub-2-allow-attacker-to-bypass-authentication.html <comment><USER2> The original vulnerability report is already on Hacker News at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10747267](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10747267) .</comment>


Four Pests Campaign - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign <comment><AUTHOR> The most compelling part is the last paragraph describing the "Campaign":

> By April 1960, Chinese leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of > insects, as well as grains.[7][8] Rather than being increased, rice yields > after the campaign were substantially decreased.[9][8] Mao ordered the end > of the campaign against sparrows, ... as [their] extermination ... upset the > ecological balance... . By this time, however, it was too late. With no > sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and > compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap > Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and > pesticides.[9] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great > Chinese Famine, in which 20–45 million people died of starvation.[10][11]</comment>


Is there a case for a unified SSL front? - <AUTHOR> http://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2012/07/04/is-there-a-case-for-a-unified-ssl-front/

<comment><USER2> Fedora also settled on one, info here: <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraCryptoConsolidation></comment>


Michigan's Postal Workers Say the Fix Is In - <AUTHOR> https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/post-office-voting-michigan/ <comment><USER2> I sincerely wish for Democratic Governors to threaten to barricade voters in their states' Republican districts so that they don't get to the polling stations. Because what Trump is doing is simply the equivalent of this. No one asks if roads turn a profit.

<comment><USER3> The liberal answer is always violence. See: Portland and Seattle.

<comment><USER2> The conservative answer is always cheating and subversion which is why liberals are forced to violence. Otherwise, the conservatives will happily own slaves, disenfranchise women, kill/convert homosexuals, outlaw abortion and in general, take us back to the 17th century.

<comment><USER4> Slave ownership was championed by the Democrat party. Study your history better.

<comment><USER5> The modern-day conservative wouldn't have been a 19th-century Republican. Study the Southern Strategy.

<comment><USER4> Filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

[https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Ri...](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm#:~:text=At%209%3A51%20on%20the,hours%20and%2013%20minutes%20earlier).

By _Democrat_ Senator Robert C. Byrd who was in the Klu Klux Klan:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United_States_politics)

And who was friend and mentor of Hilary R. Clinton:

[https://youtu.be/z0DbPnfpVus](https://youtu.be/z0DbPnfpVus)

<comment><USER5> All true, but again, look up the Southern Strategy.

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

Today's Democrats would not be comfortable in the Democratic Party of the sixties.

Today's Republicans would not be comfortable in the Republican Party of the sixties.

Senator Byrd, in particular, is an interesting case study in the swing that happened in the parties between the 60s and today. The story of how he went from the guy who filibustered the Civil Rights Act to a guy who scored 100% agreement with the NAACP on legislative initiatives is a fascinating microcosm of American politics during that time period.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Republic of Null Island - <AUTHOR> http://nullisland.com/ <comment><USER2> Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island)

 _Null Island is a fictional island in the Gulf of Guinea added to the Natural Earth public domain map dataset,[1] located where the equator crosses the prime meridian, at coordinates 0°N 0°E.[2][3] Natural Earth describes the entity as a "1 meter square island" with "scale rank 100, indicating it should never be shown in mapping."[1] Although intended humorously, the fiction has a serious purpose and is used by mapping systems to trap errors.[3] In reality, a weather observation buoy, part of the PIRATA system, is moored at the supposed location of the island.[4]_

</comment><comment><USER3> per their Department of Commerce, their lead export is vaporware.</comment>


How Much Toilet Paper? – The Coronavirus Toilet Paper Calculator - <AUTHOR> https://howmuchtoiletpaper.com/ <comment><USER2> I find [https://got-paper.com/](https://got-paper.com/) much better in terms of functionality and UX.

<comment><USER3> Can't have <1 poop per day, it seems.

<comment><USER4> Probably need to stockpile some more fiber if this is an option you are looking for!

<comment><USER5> It isn't necessarily about fiber. I don't eat much because I've been trying to keep off all the weight I've lost over the past decade. Consequently I have a lot less volume to deal with so I don't poop much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone is moaning about availability of toilet paper. The solution to the pandemic is so obvious.

 __Just stop the sale of all toilet paper, __

    1. Handshakes will become a thing of the past.
      2. People will do a much better job of washing their hands.
      3. Social distancing will increase.

Isn't that what everybody wants?

</comment><comment><USER7> Kudos to the creator for building this tool. Personally, I wouldn't trust it. Men and women use drastically different amounts of toilet paper.

<comment><USER8> Then it's up to you to average the number sheets and toilet visits, appropriately weighted to get the correct results!

<comment><USER9> the calculator doesn't handle that because how _many_ times you go is not a valuable metric. The question is more how many times do you _poo_ in a day. Because pee uses little to none (men) or little to some (women).

then there's the question of how many sheets you use, on average per poo. Some folks use way more than others.

this is a pretty useless calculator.

<comment><USER10> Did you tried the advanced options?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Neat. Can you please add a link to a Bidet search on Amazon. No one needs to fight over TP.

If people can adopt the Namaste they can do the Bumspray

<comment><USER12> Most if not all bidets are sold out on Amazon

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that's generally how this has gone. The first reaction stockpiling happens, then after that runs out people figure out alternatives. First hand sanitizer went, then rubbing alcohol and aloe vera later. First toilet paper went, then bidets. First water bottles went, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have a run on water filters too.

But as things start coming back into supply, I'd expect it is easier to get a bidet and a water filter than toilet paper and bottled water.

<comment><USER14> Wet wipes, tissues and kitchen paper are closer alternatives to toilet paper

<comment><USER15> You've never been to 3rd world countries, they're very creative there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> in addition to [https://staythefuckhome.com](https://staythefuckhome.com) there needs to be a [https://justwashyourass.com](https://justwashyourass.com) EDIT: damn already registered :(

</comment><comment><USER17> people really should be stocking up on psyllium husk powder (metamucil). one roll of TP will go a lot farther when your bathroom is experience isn't "like wiping a felt-tip marker"

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a difficult problem. During WWII the Army of the United States calculated the amount of toilet paper required to win the war in Europe at 20 squares per soldier per day. The British did the same calculation supplied their troops 4 squares per soldier per day.

</comment><comment><USER19> You know how much toilet paper you need? As much as you normally get.

<comment><USER20> As much as I would normally get is enough for 4 people who are out of the house from 7am - 6pm every weekday.

<comment><USER21> I've been saying this for years -- I've worked full-time from home for the last 9 years. One of the first things I noticed was TP consumption went up considerably.

I didn't realize how much of my employer's TP I really used prior to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you get one of those $60 bidet attachments, your tp usage goes down significantly. You can also do without if you use towels.

<comment><USER23> If you're getting a bidet, I recommend getting a heated one.

<comment><USER22> I used to, but don't anymore. TMI, but my first one was heated because I thought we needed it. Second one wasn't (we didn't have a hot water tap near the toilet) and it's turned out to be fine. You get used to it. YMMV though, if your area has super cold tap water like Colorado it may not be tolerable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Two tricks we should all be adopting: 1) Bidet 2) Wet toilet paper

Cleans much better. And less abrasive.

But yeah, two squares isn't really realistic.

</comment><comment><USER25> The "advanced" options could use some better defaults.

For example, does anyone actually use "2 sheets per wipe"?

<comment><USER26> If you only use one sheet you risk poking a hole.

<comment><USER27> I would guess 3 is a closer to average.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We use bidet! Don't need much toilet papers as long as we have water.

</comment><comment><USER29> should add support fpr multiple ppl in households

<comment><USER30> Well, just add up how many times they go to the toilet?

<comment><USER29> that's not really accurate since everyone is using different amount of wipes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> can you add a kleenex toggle?

</comment><comment><USER32> You can last infinity without toilet paper using this one weird trick I learned in India.

<comment><USER31> whatever happened to the tricks that weren't weird?

<comment><USER33> They lost the war of headlines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The hero we need.

</comment><comment><USER35> HN is clearly in a tail spin. From fairly intelligent discussions in its early days via fairly unintelligent ones on politics now down to commenting on peoples stupidity? Time to leave, methinks.</comment>


Show HN: Sniped reminds you to lock your laptop through public shaming - <AUTHOR> https://sniped.app <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Alex, one of the creators of Sniped.

I had used a similar bot when I worked at Coinbase and it worked much better than the standard lectures from IT at getting people to keep their laptops locked. When I learned that many large tech companies had similar systems but couldn't find an off-the-shelf solution, I decided to write my own.

Sniped is out of beta as of February 1st, but everyone can try it out free for 14 days, no credit card required. The basic functionality is also free for all teams under 30 people.

Would love to hear everyone's feedback :)</comment>


iOS security bug – TLS mutual-auth fails with client elliptic curve keys - <AUTHOR> http://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=5276828226813952

<comment><USER2> While this is a "bug" pertaining to "security", it doesn't look like a vulnerability; rather, if I'm reading it right, it looks like a compat/interop flaw: if your app uses TLS client certificates (like 0.001% of all apps) to talk to a 3rd party server, and you use ECC ciphersuites, the iOS SecureTransport library aborts the TLS connection.

Here's how big a deal this bug is: the feature they're talking about apparently flat-out doesn't work, they were the first people to figure that out, and this bug is the only place on the Internet that currently documents the fact.

In other words: not necessarily that big of a deal.

It's too bad, I guess, because more mobile apps should take advantage of TLS client certs; custom code that talk TLS can use them much more easily than browsers can.

<comment><USER3> I'm one of the guys who helped isolate the problem that led to this bug report, and here's my take:

I agree, this is not a vulnerability; it prevents legitimate connections rather than allowing illicit ones.

Your "3rd party" remark doesn't make sense to me; In our case, we control the entire PKI, so both the client and server certificates are issued by our own "1st party".

And it's definitely a bug - no quotes. The client is _not_ the party canceling the connection; it's failing to send a necessary signature verification message to the server during handshaking, which causes well-behaved _servers_ to send a fatal alert to the _client_. On the SecureTransport side, the library then downgrades the SSL version and tries to connect again.

Note that I'm not suggesting the root bug is "implement ECC"; the root bug is the fact that NSURLCredential and/or NSURLConnection accept identities with invalid keys. The failure shouldn't be occurring 3/4 of the way through TLS handshaking, but at a much higher level where the next guy to run afoul of this won't lose a week to trying to figure out what they did wrong, when the real answer is (most likely) "You're using an unsupported key type".

PS - The same issue is verified to exist in OS X as well as iOS.

<comment><USER2> I wasn't scare-quoting.

By "third party", I simply meant "server software not running on iOS". I wasn't referring to the PKI, which isn't actually implicated in this bug report.

The client isn't aborting the connection directly, but it is indirectly doing so by failing to complete the TLS handshake properly.

I'm not sure what the user-visible difference is between this failing mid- handshake versus failing when SecureTransport is configured, but I see what you mean about being annoying to debug.

The most likely reason you're the first person figuring this bug out even for OS X (unsurprising, given that SecureTransport is shared) is that most OS X browsers don't use SecureTransport, but rather NSS, which does have workable ECC client certs.

As you've discovered, client certificates are a bit of an exotic feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a bug in NSS. Here's the corresponding bug I filed against Chromium: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=349775](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=349775)

<comment><USER2> Wait, nobody does ECC client certificate TLS right?

<comment><USER5> It's been fixed, but that was a bug in Chrome's NSS glue between NSS and the OS X native key store. (The fix is under third_party/nss, but no one else carries that particular file.) As far as I know, it works fine on other platforms and in NSS itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you're an iOS dev, would really appreciate a dupe of the rdar. It's been an issue for a long time, apparently, and Apple needs some pressure to fix it, or at the very least stop saying it works and document the error.

If you want to see the error in action, check out [https://github.com/josephhainline/AppleBugTLSConnectionFails...](https://github.com/josephhainline/AppleBugTLSConnectionFailsWithEllipticCurveClientCert)

<comment><USER3> Speaking for the rare minority of folks who care about coding on Apple's other OS - this issue is trivially reproducible in OS X Mavericks with identical behavior. It's not just for iOS devs!</comment></comment>


Google Project Sunroof - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/get/sunroof <comment><USER2> Wow this is fantastic! I love the sun data and how much people are going to be able to save with this data. I hope this encourages more people to use Solar energy.</comment>


Apple users targeted in first known Mac ransomware campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-ransomware-idUSKCN0W80VX <comment><USER2> From what I've read it only seems to affect people that downloaded Transmission via the website and not those who used the in app updater. [1]

I've updated to 2.90 the day it came out and don't seem to have the process running.

[1] [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/06/mac-ransomware- transmiss...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/06/mac-ransomware- transmission/)

</comment><comment><USER3> From the article: To check whether you have the malware installed:

Using "Activity Monitor" preinstalled in OS X, check whether any process named "kernel_service" is running. If so, double check the process, choose the "Open Files and Ports" and check whether there is a file name like "/Users//Library/kernel_service". If so, the process is KeRanger's main process. We suggest terminating it with "Quit -> Force Quit"

</comment><comment><USER4> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11234589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11234589)

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty sure that Transmission is not the only application infected. Waiting for more bad news :(

<comment><USER6> Uh? Do you know anything specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's actually kind of surprising this is the first occurrence of ransomware on Apple's platform. It seems Macs are still, at least to some degree, protected by security through obscurity.

<comment><USER8> Is that true? Or is it that the Mac App Store makes this sort of thing very difficult? Say what you want about walled gardens, but for the vast majority of users it does have value.

<comment><USER7> Hardly anyone uses the Mac App Store. The iPhone App Store is orders of magnitude more successful. From a developers perspective it's all but impossible to turn a reasonable profit. Source: [http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app- profits...](http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/redacted-mac-app-profits/)

<comment><USER9> Interesting article. What makes me laugh is that people thought $12,000 was a reasonable daily profit for an app that draws black boxes on a photo.

<comment><USER7> What's shocking is that 87 downloads makes you the #8 paid app in the MAS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Came expecting a pun regarding old files / applications that failed to work after a forced system OS upgrade.

Was disappointed.

Not that Apple is distinctly notable for ransoming your one-time files and applications; on the contrary I've heard more often about people having issues when their Windows / Other OS reaches the end of its support.

edit: It was sarcasm and I know your downvote policies, etc, etc. I just know you guys sometimes roll with the funny punnies, and I was seeing if I had what it took this once. Maybe next time I'll nail a good one though, with a little more creativity and a little more funny to it. Contentless statements can exist here, and I want to learn to make them.

<comment><USER11> > Contentless statements can exist here, and I want to learn to make them.

Now _there 's_ an aspiration. Reach for the stars, buddy!</comment></comment>


Handling Attacks on a Community - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/814508/3f797d78d0816a08/ <comment><USER2> I've been to several workshops on abusive language, and I have yet to find someone with a clear, concrete, actionable idea on how to deal with abuse in online communities effectively. IMHO, what makes this problem particularly difficult is that, in order to tackle it, you need to...

* ...have a successful community, otherwise there is no attack to care about. And it's not like you can release an entire community's data for research either.

* ...be willing to explore newer alternatives, including the type of rules that slow down your growth metrics and/or get people screaming about free speech.

* ...be aware of current solutions (shadowbanning, moderation, COC, earned privilege, etc), knowing their pros and cons, and being aware that the best approaches are often kept intentionally vague or even in secret.

* ...have the time, energy, and knowledge to explore this problem in depth.

I'm personally a fan of earned privileges (as in HN, where downvoting requires some karma), but this is only viable if you're willing to inconvenience your members a bit (a point made in the linked summary [1]).

[1] [https://lwn.net/ml/debian- project/tslo8tgge89.fsf@suchdamage...](https://lwn.net/ml/debian- email@example.com/)</comment>


Updated FDA Covid-19 testing guidelines disallow at-home sample collection - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/23/updated-fda-covid-19-testing-guidelines-specifically-disallows-at-home-sample-colllection/ <comment><USER2> Judged by its obstructionist actions, you would think the FDA wants more Americans to be infected – by forcing them to leavethe home, to visit health facilities highly-trafficked with many other suspected-infected.

Or just to remain infected & not know.

<comment><AUTHOR> What frustrates me the most is that, even under emergency conditions, their public justification consists solely of raising the hypothetical that some patients might draw the wrong conclusions from these tests without even acknowledging the possibility that some could be harmed by being denied access to the tests. There is zero indication that the risks have been weighed against the benefits.

At least in non-emergency situations you could argue that the regulation forces the company to study and document the difference between how home and out-patient tests impact the patients. Then you can decide whether to allow the test using that information. But that information will clearly take _weeks_ or _months_ to obtain, and in an emergency we have to make our best assessment on what to do in the meantime. It's possible to harm a patient by giving them information that is subtle and difficult to interpret, but our prior _has_ to be that, all else equal, the patient will usually benefit with more information than less!</comment></comment>