Nate Silver: Does race affect votes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics.html <comment><USER2> Why is it ok for black people to vote for Obama because he is black? Isn't that equally racist?

<comment><USER3> You know that the Democratic party lost the south because of race? I mean, Strom Thurmond, of all people, used to be a Democrat.

And Obama didn't lock up the black vote until white Iowans voted for him. Hillary was winning the national black vote 2-1 until after he won the caucuses. The evidence is pretty clear that black people don't just blindly vote for other black people - they vote in their self-interest, and until Obama seemed credible, their self-interest was to vote for Hillary.

<comment><USER4> The parties flipped. Blacks were heavy Republican voters due to Lincoln until the 1950s when it started to shift. Edward Brooke, the first black US Senator since Reconstruction was a Massachusetts Republican.

Things didn't really shift until the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s were passed, coupled with Great Society programs of Johnson, that put blacks in the Democratic camp for good and sent Dixiecrats to the GOP.

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess I'll tell a story about what I had hoped would be the condition of the world today. I'm a baby boomer, which is another way of saying that I'm a good bit older than most people who post on Hacker News. I distinctly remember the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated--the most memorable day of early childhood for many people in my generation--and I remember the "long hot summer" and other events of the 1960s civil rights movement.

One early memory I have is of a second grade classmate (I still remember his name, which alas is just common enough that it is hard to Google him up) who moved back to Minnesota with his northern "white" parents after spending his early years in Alabama. He told me frightening stories about Ku Klux Klan violence to black people (the polite term in those days was "Negroes"), including killing babies, and I was very upset to hear about that kind of terrorism happening in the United States. He made me aware of a society in which people didn't all treat one another with decency and human compassion, unlike the only kind of society I was initially aware of from growing up where I did. So I followed subsequent news about the civil rights movement, including the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. up to his assassination, with great interest.

It happens that I had a fifth-grade teacher, a typically pale, tall, and blonde Norwegian-American, who was a civil rights activist and who spent her summers in the south as a freedom rider. She used to tell our class about how she had to modify her car (by removing the dome light and adding a locking gas cap) so that Klan snipers couldn't shoot her as she opened her car door at night or put foreign substances into her gas tank. She has been a civil rights activist all her life, and when I Googled her a few years ago and regained acquaintance with her, I was not at all surprised to find that she is a member of the civil rights commission of the town where I grew up.

One day in fifth grade we had a guest speaker in our class, a young man who was then studying at St. Olaf College through the A Better Chance (ABC) affirmative action program. (To me, the term "affirmative action" still means active recruitment of underrepresented minority students, as it did in those days, and I have always thought that such programs are a very good idea, as some people have family connections to selective colleges, but many other people don't.) During that school year (1968-1969), there was a current controversy in the United States about whether the term "Negro" or "Afro- American" or "black" was most polite. So a girl in my class asked our visitor, "What do you want to be called, 'black' or 'Afro-American'?" His answer was, "I'd rather be called Henry." Henry's answer to my classmate's innocent question really got me thinking.

It's quite disappointing to me that there are still as many Americans as there are who classify their fellow human beings into Procrustean beds of "race" categories, especially now that it is known that human races have essentially nil biological significance. But it is progress that the United States has elected a President who has traceable African ancestry and "black" appearance. My late father said back in the 1990s, when Colin Powell was mulling a run for President, that it would be a good idea for America to elect a black president to begin to get over this issue. Even after Obama's election, I still saw ridiculous commentary such as the statement that Obama is the first President not of northern European ancestry--completely neglecting his ancestry through his mother, Ann Dunham. Maybe someday we will get used to the idea of viewing our fellow human beings as our fellow human beings, period, but I'm appalled that it is taking so long.

<comment><USER7> >"especially now that it is known that human races have essentially nil biological significance"

Citation? Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white.

As far as I know, race correlates with genetic isolation of ancestral groups, and there are differences between races.

Researchers looking for genetic diseases are careful to choose a mixture of races in their control sample.

I agree that people shouldn't be treated differently in civil society based on their race, and who doesn't? But they should certainly be treated differently based on their race by their doctors.

Race may become less significant in the future if more genetic mixture occurs with globalization. But for now, to say it has no biological significance sounds like wishful thinking.

Edit: I make some stronger claims here than I was ready to defend specifically with citations and literature. I overstate my case. However, to the extent of my current knowledge, you can tell where someone's ancestors came from solely by looking at their DNA, and I know that some diseases are more prevalent in people with certain ancestry. That suggests to me that there are distinct genetic lineages in the human population. As far as I know, "race is biologically meaningless" is a stretch.

However, it is true that the popular social conception of race is very different from any biologically defensible conception thereof. For example, a person with significant African ancestry in America is considered "black", even if that person also has significant ancestry from other places.

Saying that race is meaningless sounds to me like saying "there are no large phenotypically distinct subgroups in the human population". I think that is simply wrong.

Since "race" is such a socially charged word, perhaps it should be dropped and replaced with another word.

<comment><USER6> _Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white._

Another reply has already shown the error of thinking that the sickle cell trait is confined to populations identified as "white." It is not. What is your proposed definition of races on biological grounds, and what is your citation for a scientific consensus on that?

See

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong- Debate/dp/...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong- Debate/dp/185168588X)

for citations to recent primary research literature backing up the statement that "race" as now construed in society has very little medical usefulness. The author is a neurobiologist.

<comment><USER7> I agree that race is a social construct to some degree. For example, in America a person is considered "black" if he has one parent of African ancestry and one parent of European ancestry. However, I am not sure that the idea that "race is biologically meaningless" is defensible. I hope it is. But I wonder what we tell ourselves if the evidence says that it's not.

I know you can tell where a person's ancestors recently came from based on their DNA, and that there are certainly distinct genetic lineages in the human population.

I am open to reading more literature and articles on the subject. I am merely stating that according to the extent of my current knowledge, the idea that "race is meaningless" is suspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wrong. The most rural and white states in the country voted more for Obama than Kerry. Look at Montana, the Dakotas, Vermont, etc.

The people of Appalachia voted for McCain for the same reason blacks voted so heavily for Obama. He is one of their own in a way that Kerry was not. McCain is beligerent two fisted Scots Irish. [http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/mccain-scots-irish- champi...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/mccain-scots-irish- champion.html)

<comment><USER9> He was also using 1996 as his reference year. Clinton was also one of Appalachia/Ozarkia's own in a way that neither Obama nor Kerry were.

<comment><USER8> Yes, why did he choose 1996? 2004 is the more obvious choice.

<comment><USER9> Because it fit his hypothesis better?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: APIs to use reviews in your apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.reviewshake.com/supervisor <comment><USER2> Is this legal?

A text is a copyrighted work. Users that post reviews on a site license their text to that site. That does not mean anybody can just copy the text and republish it.

<comment><USER3> Eh, lighten up!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's so difficult about installing a nuclear weapon in a missile? - <AUTHOR>

OK. Weird question. I know.
Here's the deal: Every so often defense "experts" come on TV news shows to talk about this or that evil power being N years away from having viable nuclear weapons.  One of the arguments I have heard with some frequency goes something like this:
"<substitute your favorite evil nation> are at least five years from being able to install a nuclear weapon on one of their long-range missiles.  They may be able to do it in three years on one of their short-to-medium range platforms".
OK, well, I don't know the first thing about what it takes to accomplish this kind of thing.  My problem-solver engineering brain goes through a few thoughts, ideas and permutations and I just fail to come-up with a lot of reasons why this one task might be so difficult.
I am sure there's someone in the HN community that is an honest-to-Darwin Nuclear Weapons Scientist (or close).  What are the issues with the idea of installing a suitably ruggedized, shock-mounted, thermally-isolated, independently-powered, redundant-microprocessor-controlled, failover-equipped, etc., nuclear power module in a big rocket and lighting 'er up?
Don't get me wrong.  I a GLAD that the problem might be difficult.  Whew! The last thing we need is more of the damn things floating around.
I just don't understand. <comment><USER2> You are over thinking the statement, when they say "install a nuclear warhead in a missile" they are not speaking to the actual job of installing it. They use this phrase to represent the finished state of the nuclear device.

The hardest part of developing a nuclear weapon(as i understand, correct if wrong) is actually getting the fissile material. When experts refer to time periods(for a nuclear device, not necessarily a full missile) this is usually what they are referring to. They physics to actually making the nuclear devices by comparison is much easier to come by.

The process of getting the fissile material usually used is using centrifuges to separate the heavier u235 isotopes from the other isotopes of uranium. You can also use a reverse osmosis method to isolate the isotopes but this method is much more expensive and as such is not usually used by countries trying to get the first nuclear weapons.

Apart from the nuclear device you also have the construction of the rocket itself, which is a whole another ordeal itself.

<comment><USER3> > The hardest part of developing a nuclear weapon(as i understand, correct if > wrong) is actually getting the fissile material.

No, not for a plutonium-triggered fusion weapon (or a plutonium fission weapon). Getting some plutonium involves setting up a breeder reactor (as Iran is now doing). That's hard, but not really hard.

The hard part of a plutonium weapon design is setting it off. Plutonium has a natural decay rate that's high enough that the core must be assembled very quickly to avoid a "fizzle", an event where a chance natural disintegration triggers a non-optimal chain reaction, before the core is fully assembled and at maximum density.

The single most difficult part of the Manhattan Project was solving this problem, not acquiring the plutonium used in the devices. The core must be assembled very, very fast, then an abrupt pulse of neutrons must be generated at the precise moment of maximum core density.

The Manhattan Project U-235 weapon "Little Boy" was a very simple design that resembles a gun barrel, because the natural decay rate in U-235 is low enough that there is little chance of an inadvertent chain reaction. In fact, that design wasn't even tested in advance -- the prototype was just dropped on Hiroshima with full expectation that it would work.

The "Fat Man" design was the plutonium device, and the prototype was tested -- on July 16, 1945 -- at great effort and cost, because the team was sufficiently doubtful that it would work as designed.

During the project, a great deal of effort went into designing lenses of high explosive, meant to symmetrically compress the plutonium core and assure correct functioning, but with very, very fast assembly.

So core assembly is by far the most difficult part, and remains so today.

<comment><USER2> I stand corrected, excellent explanation, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Usually the problem that the newspaper experts are refering is the size of the bomb.

Making a nuclear bomb that is cumbersome and big is very easy, just put some plutonium there, and craploads of explosives (ie: "Fat Man" design).

The problem is making a bomb that works, and is small and light enough to fit a long range missile warhead.

shorter range missiles can be bigger (thus why you can put it more easily on them).</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a real time electricity price API? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You can check this: [https://utilityapi.com/docs/utilities/coned](https://utilityapi.com/docs/utilities/coned)</comment>


Amtrak Residency - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amtrak.com/amtrakresidency/ <comment><USER3> This is a cool idea, my wife and I did the cross country ride (Oakland to Washington DC) in sleeper cars and it was a lot of fun. Some great scenery and a lot of time to think. Weird things at the time were the plastic utensils in the dining car seemed a bit jarring, and of course train stations in the USA can be fairly tawdry compared to European stations.

There are lots of things that challenge rail in the US, perhaps the most obvious is private ownership of the rails themselves, as opposed to freeways which are state owned and maintained. That shifts a lot of costs on to fewer payers. It also means the rail owner's trains get priority (in this case freight) so scheduling is quite difficult to maintain. There is also a tremendous amount of bureaucracy and complexity built into the system which I've found resists even modestly determined prodding. As part of an exercise in home schooling we tried to find out what it actually cost to put in the San Jose light rail in order to compare that to what we had learned about the Northern Pacific Railroad at a wonderful museum in Sacramento. All of our efforts to get what I had assumed was just boring public data were met with suspicion and resistance. That was pretty weird.

<comment><USER4> I think the biggest challenge to rail in the US is just how huge the US is.

Take a common train ride in Europe: Paris to Berlin. You've actually traveled less distance than from New York to Chicago, and it took 8 hours to do so.

In fact from Paris all the way to Moscow is much shorter than from LA to NYC.

Without some amazing new tech in rail, I doubt it'll ever be a popular alternative in the US to flying (other than intra-regional trips).

<comment><USER5> I doubt rail will replace cross-country flights, but there is a _ton_ of air traffic on shorter routes.

As one example where it's already done, the DC-NYC Amtrak route is quite popular, despite being just as expensive, if not more so, as the plane ride. It takes a similar amount of time, factoring in travel to and from airports, waiting, etc. and is much nicer. There are still a ton of airline flights between these two cities as well, of course, and those could probably be supplanted to a large degree with additional improvements.

That's with current American trains, which are painfully slow. Imagine modern high-speed rail between, for example, DC and Miami. It's a bit over 1,000 miles which would take about five hours. That would be an excellent substitute for the plane trip, which is about two hours in the air, but tons of time and hassle at the airports. I have family in South Florida and if such a train existed at something like a reasonable price, I'd definitely go for it. As it is, Amtrak on that route takes nearly 24 hours and costs way more than an airline ticket. I don't see why they get any passengers at all, given that.

Seems like 1,000 miles is about the limit for high-speed trains. How many pairs of large American cities are less than 1,000 miles apart and have lots of travel between them? I would bet there are quite a number. Rail doesn't have to solve _everything_ to solve a bunch of things.

<comment><USER6> If you consider that route pretty bad just consider this: Kentucky and TN do not have Amtrack. [Well TN has a small segment on its western side that goes N to S but its pretty much a desert.

This means that if you wish to go from ATL, Raleigh/Durham, etc to Chicago, you have to make "connections" (good luck making that on amtrack) in either Charlottesville VA or DC. After that it is still 24 hrs at best.

<comment><USER7> Kentucky used to have Amtrak, the Kentucky Cardinal. It went from Louisville to Chicago and took what felt like 12 hours although not sure I'm remembering that correctly. It was only $30. I had high hopes for that route, that it would open up more options to travel by rail from my hometown.

<comment><USER8> The problem with that was that the short line from Louisville to Indianapolis hasn't been seriously updated in over 50 years. The speed limit on the entire section of track is something like 30 mph. Of course folks aren't going to go by train when it's over twice as long as driving.

There's been some talk of a Louisville-Lexington-Nashville line, but nothing particularly likely to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is really cool and a great promotional idea for Amtrak. There used to be a universally romantic notion about long-distance travel by trains that I'm sure Amtrak is trying to bring back to the forefront of Americans' minds. Check out this article by a freelance writer about her cross country trip by rail: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/riding-an- amt...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/riding-an-amtrak-train- cross-country-a-unique-view-of-america/2012/02/21/gIQAebSjmR_story.html). I'm sure that's the type of promotion that they're looking for.

<comment><USER10> I had a bunch of Amtrak points sitting around that I recently redeemed for a bedroom sleeper trip between Seattle and Chicago.

It was an interesting experience but not one that I would repeat. It is by no means a smooth ride, and even with the bedroom I found it quite difficult to get any sleep. Between the horn constantly going off, the bumpiness of the tracks, and the hourly stops/starts, I basically ended up staying awake for 2 days straight.

While I was initially able to get some work done during the trip, after the first night I was way too sleep deprived to be able to continue programming.

But then again, I am a light sleeper, and I have trouble falling asleep on planes too.

<comment><USER11> I can sleep on a park bench that is on a non-stop roller-coaster (planes are a breeze) so for me sleeper trains are a delight, but I haven't take one in over 10 years since European flights got cheaper that trains. I do miss those long train rides across Europe, where you would meet people easily in the restaurant car. Amtrak I've never tried as I've never had the time nor inclination for train travel when in the U.S.

<comment><USER12> Trains in Europe are a pleasure compared to most of the U.S. system. I'm not sure if it's because Amtrak shares track with cargo trains or what, but the ride is pretty bumpy, noisy and much beyond a few hours not worth it with nothing to do and noway to sleep. I've done 20+ hour trips twice on Amtrak and I'll never do it again. I can see doing maybe a D.C. to NYC trip, but the economics of such a trip don't really work out for me over a plane even if door to door the train is only slightly slower (in fact I actually like the drive better).

<comment><USER13> Higher freight traffic in the U.S. has partially something to do with it. Buffering strengths here require that a passenger train be able to withstand 800,000 pounds of force without deformation, leading to trains that are nearly twice as heavy (and thus slower) than trains in other parts of the world. Europe, on the other hand, doesn't have quite as stringent requirements, and instead of requiring rigid frames they mandate crumple zones, which are arguably just as safe. MetroLink in SoCal has started employing something similar on their cars.

To give an idea just how big freight traffic is in the U.S., freight by rail is something like 1.7 trillion ton-mile (39.9% of freight by ton-mile). The total across all modes in the EU is 1.4 trillion ton-mile, of which rail makes up 17%, so only about an eighth of the U.S. in freight. This has led to fairly different rail systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For background, this is in response to someone on Twitter asking suggesting it: [https://twitter.com/Amtrak/status/416312147551870976](https://twitter.com/Amtrak/status/416312147551870976)

<comment><USER15> If that's indeed how it happened, it should be a case study in "Social Media Marketing."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I had to travel by Amtrak (forced, I lost my passport and I couldn't board a plane) from LA to NYC via Chicago once. ($230)

Not only I got to see a lot of places, but I truly accomplished more quality work than I normally do in a similar time-frame. Nearly zero distractions other than the occasional beautiful sight and the rest breaks I took, I had the chance to visit the surroundings of the major stations the train stopped at.

Perhaps it's my ability to sleep in the weirdest places, but I found the sightseer lounge car couches very comfortable. I went to bed 1hr or so after dusk, and I woke up with the morning lights. That's about 8h of sleep or so every night.

PS: Make sure to download a metric shitton of music before you do this. The sightseer car (the only place where one can truly work comfortably in the train) is usually a noisy place.

<comment><USER17> no need for passport for domestic flights.

<comment><USER18> But you do need _some_ sort of ID; I'd presume the passport was all he had.

<comment><USER19> AFAIK, Amtrak generally checks IDs these days as well

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The inaugural residency ("beta test") happened in February, when an NYC writer, Jessica Gross, was given a free 39-hour ride between NYC and Chicago (and back) in a sleeper cabin. She wrote about it in The Paris Review:

[http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/02/19/writing-the- la...](http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/02/19/writing-the-lake-shore- limited/)

<comment><USER21> Amtrak must go really slow. In Europe, with a considerably higher population density, and thus more stops, 800 miles can be traversed in 10-11 hours. That train apparently takes somewhere close to 20.

<comment><USER5> In addition to the points made by the other comments, I'd also add that "thus more stops" doesn't necessarily follow. Amtrak tends to be the subject of a lot of stupid politics, with the routes and stops determined more by what wins votes than what makes sense. As a result, a lot of Amtrak routes stop extremely frequently in pretty small towns.

As an example, the Amtrak train that runs between Washington DC and Boston (serving NYC along the way, and continuing on to Norfolk, VA) stops not only at DC's main train station, but also at New Carrollton, MD and Alexandria, VA, which are not only quite close to DC, but actually on the DC Metro system, making these stops almost completely redundant.

I count no less than _thirty two_ stops between Boston and DC. The trip is about 9.5 hours long, so that's an average of one stop every 18 minutes.

The NYC->Chicago trip isn't quite as bad, but still has 19 stops in between. Along the way, it stops in such bustling metropolises as Elkhart, IN (population 51,152) and Sandusky, OH (population 25,493).

<comment><USER22> An even better example is the Acela, which makes fewer stops than the regular Northeast Regional trains, but stops in Wilmington, Delaware (pop. 70,000 and a 30 minute drive from Philadelphia). Joe Biden, now Vice President and formerly Senator from Delaware, used to commute on the Acela every day, and was a strong advocate for Amtrak funding.

<comment><USER23> As soon as the Southeast Highspeed Rail project looked like it was going to be viable, the mayors of all the small towns along the route started lobbying for it to stop in their burg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Rather than a free program for a limited number of people, I would be much more interested if they offered a similar program for all sorts of people at an affordable rate.

<comment><USER25> I think you are right. The idea that you get a proper cabin seems wrong to me, the best train literature is travelling 'hobo style', not deluxe luxury. Clearly selling cabins is more profit, however, if sat with the riff-raff with just a chair to sleep in you can have a more interesting and unexpected experience.

I was 'fortunate' enough to sit next to a girl that had ideas on me from Grand Junction Colorado all the way to Chicago. I would not have had that random encounter had I travelled deluxe cabin class. Writing about the hundreds of miles of corn fields going by has not a lot going for it whereas an expected girl meets boy experience has broader appeal. Also on the same coach were a couple I had met months before in Yosemite. Having them in proximity cramped my style as far as my new-found lady friend was concerned, this was a constraint that adds to storytelling. A cabin based romantic experience would not be so good and neither would a few moments of passion with an existing partner in a cabin really have the 'Mills & Boon' factor.

Food was a problem on said journey for me, in part due to the train being six hours late at Grand Junction, by which point I had eaten almost all of the luxury ready eats I had bought for the journey. Even the six hour wait was noteworthy - you cannot leave the station as the train could arrive at any moment. So, for me, it was the random happenings and the constraints of money, timetable and what you can do in public that made the journey an adventure.

The thing is that you cannot have an authentic travel experience and write about it at the same time. You have to live life rather than be there to document it.

<comment><USER26> I really hate the "authentic travel" term. It reminds me of backpackers trying to one up each other on how horrible of conditions they've stayed in. Or why the travel destination they chose is more real than the one someone else chose. Staying in uncomfortable conditions doesn't make the travel more authentic or real it is just a different experience.

As for being able to experience it and write about it, you just did. My wife does travel writing and you don't have to go around with your face in your notepad ignoring the experience. Just take notes now and then about specifics you might forget(usually costs and package names) and have your pictures.

<comment><USER25> Some of my older relatives spend a lot of time going on holiday. They get to go on coach tours, see lots of airports, take cruises, swim with dolphins and all that stuff. Clearly they enjoy being waited on at various hotels around the world or they would not do it. However, it is not like they ever have 'the time of their life' and an experience that they just have to tell everyone about. They are content doing what they do, it fills the time.

For me though I need more. I need to not know if I will come out alive, I need genuine hospitality that need not be paid for, I need to meet people along the way that are not directly connected to the tourism industry. I need to be treated as a guest and a human being, not just a nice-enough tourist. I also don't need to be poking cameras in people's faces or writing about them. In summary, I need adventure, as in the stuff you cannot have an itinerary for.

In some ways your back-packers comparing notes on who stayed in the scummiest places are a bit like my relatives, just at a different point in life and on a different trail. At times on my travels I have crossed paths with them and their backpacker dives, however, I am typically able to avoid all that. I can call someone up that I met on the road and stay with them, unannounced. They might live in some unusual house, have some interesting job and be more than willing to give me an insider view of town rather than what I would discover as a tourist. That is what 'authentic travel' is about.

I should say that I have a secret weapon - a bicycle. With a bicycle you don't stay in the small out of the way places just to be more 'cool'. It is a necessity, you cannot just blast 500 miles along the big highway, at best you can do 50 miles in one burst before needing to stop for at least water, and on little roads 'off the tourist trail'. On the bicycle there is no windscreen between you and the world, you are actually in it and part of it.

Regarding writing, a retrospective account is always wrong, even if filled with tedious 'specifics'. There is no way of conveying genuine anticipation once the moment has gone, in your writing this knowing-the-answer-already aspect is not something you can disguise honestly, merely feign as the feeling has passed.

<comment><USER27> Careful trying to be the traveliest traveler. No matter how bad ass you are, there's always a bigger badass somewhere.

I remember a conversation at a little dive hostel in Durban, where the table was recounting their Bad Flight stories, one upping each other as one does at dive hostels around the world. After a particularly grim story about The Gambia, this heretofore quiet older guy mumbles "yeah, I'm never going to fly Air Ethiopia again."

Conversation proceeded, but after a few more stories, I asked the guy why, exactly he wasn't planning to fly that airline again.

Turned out he'd personally been on not one but _two_ Air Ethiopia plane crashes. Crashed two thirds of their fleet single handedly evidently.

The second time, they'd landed in the jungle in the Congo, were detained by a local warlord, attempted escape, and were gunned down by the local militia. Back in government hands, the survivors were put on a plane, which sat on the runway for an hour surrounded by jeeps and shouting men before they were unloaded and marched off to a shed, expecting to be killed. Several tense hours later, the "general" came back and said they could go now, and apologized for the delay, as they needed the plane "to bomb the rebels."

Then he showed us the bullet wound in his back.

Since then, I tend to temper my speech when discussing how authentic my personal travel experiences are in relation to others.

But I did steal his story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How about making the paying Amtrak experience nice instead of making a Potemkin ride? (see: [http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak- sucks](http://reason.com/archives/2005/12/01/amtrak-sucks) )

<comment><USER29> Wow, did Amtrak knock up that guy's teenage sister or what?

As someone who has taken train/plane/bus/car between NYC and DC the last couple of years, I can say without a doubt that Amtrak is the most civilized way to get between those two places. If I didn't have family in Oregon I'd never get on a plane again.

<comment><USER28> I am guessing the NYC/DC train corridor is nicer than what we have on the west coast. I was looking into a holiday ride through silver country here, and the reviews unfortunately came back a big "heck no."

<comment><USER30> I've done cross-country Amtrak travel multiple times and enjoyed it every time. You just have to be prepared for potential delays and willing to take it easy and roll with it. If you aren't in a hurry and see the trip as part of your vacation, then it's great.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. Sometimes the mindset is to get somewhere fast. What we really want? A teleport. But we have to settle for air travel.

Whereas sometimes the mindset "the journey not the destination". That's when you can appreciate a train, ocean liner, bicycle, or feet.

Having said that, Acela is usually the best of both worlds.

<comment><USER32> And for Boston to New York, I really find it a lot more pleasant and almost as fast as flying--especially if you're going into Manhattan anyway. The only reason I'd fly to New York would be if I had a morning meeting and couldn't go down the night before for some reason.

That said, you go much further than New York and the train makes less sense either in terms of time or money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> read the fine print. It is not a good deal. From my friend Cate:

I would NOT advise applying, as it means essentially signing away the rights to the work you send them as a sample just by APPLYING:

"6\. Grant of Rights: In submitting an Application, Applicant hereby grants Sponsor the absolute, worldwide, and irrevocable right to use, modify, publish, publicly display, distribute, and copy Applicant's Application, in whole or in part, for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and marketing, and to sublicense such rights to any third parties."

"Applicant grants Sponsor the absolute, worldwide, and irrevocable right to use, modify, publish, publicly display, distribute, and copy the name, image, and/or likeness of Applicant and the names of any such persons identified in the Application for any purpose, including, but not limited to, advertising and marketing. For the avoidance of doubt, one's Application will NOT be kept confidential"

"Upon Sponsor's request and without compensation, Applicant agrees to sign any additional documentation that Sponsor may require so as to effect, perfect or record the preceding grant of rights"

<comment><USER34> Doesn't seem like that big of a problem, just don't give them anything you can't afford to lose control of. It's pretty fair that you compensate them with free advertising since they're giving you something cool for (otherwise) free. The deal might not be for everyone, but I wouldn't say it's a bad deal. If I was running a contest like this, I would have used similar language to make sure the program created a virtuous circle of coolness rather than applicants clamping down and keeping the experience private.

<comment><USER26> From what I've heard(my wife is a travel writer and lawyer/writes a law column for writers) there are a lot of other questionable clauses in the contract as well though I don't have specifics. One she mentioned was pretty harsh content limitations too. She was actually just telling me about it a few hours ago while we were having a walk so it was random to get back here and find it at the top of HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Maybe they should focus on fixing their website so people can look up train tickets:

[http://www.amtrak.com/home](http://www.amtrak.com/home)

It's the middle of the day on Sunday. WTF.

<comment><USER36> Perhaps they can follow up with a "Code for Amtrak" on-train hackathon. Amtrak is part of our civic infrastructure, perhaps Code for America could run it.

<comment><USER37> Their onboard WiFi is horrible. Tried to stream PornHub on a train ride but lagged constantly, instead had to settle for a erotic story podcast. Very unsatisfying.

<comment><USER38> that's funny

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I took Amtrak from Sacramento to Salt Lake City once, and by the end of the trip I certainly felt like I should be establishing residency. I guess this is one way to turn lemons into lemonade.

</comment><comment><USER40> Stunning photo of the California Zephyr line, Chicago - San Francisco: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Amtrak_Ca...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Amtrak_California_Zephyr_Green_River_- _Floy%2C_Utah.jpg)

<comment><USER41> It's really fun for me, being from Utah, to have it pointed out that this is a stunning scene. I was pretty disappointed when I clicked through—it honestly just reminds me of boring car rides. Thanks for helping me continue to realize how much I've taken the scenery of my home state for granted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The brilliant thing is not the nature of the program, but the timing. Americans are driving less and less, for a lot of reasons, but in my opinion the desire to use mobile devices in idle time is paramount.

<comment><USER43> Is it true that Americans are driving less and less? Is there data to back that up? Just curious.

<comment><USER44> Yep, it is true! I think currently we are back down to ~ 1992 VMT (vehicle miles traveled) after peaking in 2004.

<comment><USER42> And the US population is 10% to 20% bigger than it was the last time it was this low, so the VMT per person is trending downward even more. Here in the northeast corridor we're trying to figure out what to do about a bunch of pending plans to add lanes to highways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is a great idea! I traveled on Amtrak a few years ago from NYC to New Orleans (30 hours) with my wife and young daughter and had a great time - <USER2> just a pleasant way spend some time, talking, reading, thinking. During the day we set up a little play area for my daughter in our sleeper car and she loved watching everything go by. We were by far the youngest in that section and we often sat with retired folks at meal times (and had some great conversations).

</comment><comment><USER46> _" Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis"_ Hah... Good one.

<comment><USER47> Yeah, I saw that and had a good chuckle. It's nice to see that humor isn't completely dead!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Although it was impossible to get important work done over a VPN over Amtrak's Wi-Fi (I really need VPN access for my job), it was still a fun journey from Charlotte to Philadelphia on my way home from a new years party. I worked from home that day, and while I was mostly incommunicado I could still get a lot of code work done on my own machine that I'd been putting off.

I would definitely do this.

<comment><USER49> > it was impossible to get important work done over a VPN

Why?

<comment><USER50> Many Windows-based corporate VPN clients like to tear down the connection on every little net hiccup, forcing you to do redo your SecurID or whatever login. And Windows IP stack likes to tear down your TCP connections on any brief loss of link, so eg. your SSH session cannot survive this type of event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Awesome idea. I wish coding counted. :)

<comment><USER52> Me too. Well technically, you "write" code. Maybe you can spin it that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I for one am super excited for Amtrak and what this will mean for the travel industry. As a travel blogger that has been in the industry for a long time, I've worked with several brands that have no idea what to do with "new media". This is setting a fantastic example for other brands that will hopefully catch on.

</comment><comment><USER54> As a millennial, I recently discovered the sleeper-car Amtrak experience. It's by far my favorite way to travel.

</comment><comment><USER55> There are apparently serious strings attached[1]

[1][http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/79161065289/the-amtrak- residen...](http://dduane.tumblr.com/post/79161065289/the-amtrak-residency- why-i-think-this-is-a-terrible)

</comment><comment><USER56> I applied. I'll let you know how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER57> This promotion is of course targeted toward writers but how amazing would it be to have 2-5 focused days to hack while on the train? Perhaps mobile connectivity would be an issue in some locations but the upside of the focus- time would probably be greatly productive. A train hack-a-thon.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'd love to do this for coding, except the onboard wifi is unusable. I tend to prefer Amtrak to any airline in basically every area except wifi, which is bizarre considering how recent a development in-flight wifi is.

</comment><comment><USER59> Or just try the virtual alternative : [http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/railroadNoiseGenerator.php](http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/railroadNoiseGenerator.php)

</comment><comment><USER60> The one thing Amtrak needs to be focusing on now is fixing their terrible ancient, expensive trains.

</comment><comment><USER61> Why is it restricted to writers? Is it less expensive than two one-way tickets?

<comment><USER62> Its based on the idea of an artist in residence (Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist-in- residence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist-in-residence) ). Another odd travel related residency is Heathrow's writer-in-residence: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- london-14371775](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14371775) .

The idea of the artist in residence is to get away from one's daily routines and environment into a new and enriching environment for the artist. Its not a "get from point A to point B" that they're giving away its a "experience riding around the US on the railway and talk with the people who are on the train or see the scenery so that you can become a better writer." The start and end of the trip are purely coincidental.

As to if its less expensive than tickets: section 10 of the official terms shows what will be given: a travel voucher for 1 person on a sleeper train for between 2 to 5 days that would be worth about $900. The key here is _given_ \- free is much less than the cost of tickets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Why is this a good thing?</comment>


How to Retrieve 100k Objects with Python: Why We Prefer Threading to Asyncio - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rbpengineering/how-to-retrieve-100k-objects-with-python-why-we-prefer-threading-to-asyncio-d6b2cbfd7d90 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here. There are some good guides [0] about using Python's asyncio module (and libraries built on top of it) but I hadn't seen a comparison of it to threading which is what I prefer for client-side coding. The key difference is that using the async module requires modifying every function in the call stack, while threading can be cleanly wrapped around existing code. So although threading has more of a memory footprint and feels less Pythonic, it's a much better option when working with third-party libraries.

[0]: [https://pawelmhm.github.io/asyncio/python/aiohttp/2016/04/22...](https://pawelmhm.github.io/asyncio/python/aiohttp/2016/04/22/asyncio- aiohttp.html)

<comment><USER2> > The key difference is that using the async module requires modifying every > function in the call stack

This is why I still prefer gevent - it's easy to do async I/O using familiar patterns (gevent Pool works like multiprocessing Pool) while mostly writing blocking code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just wanted to say I appreciate how ya'll made a bucket available to test the code on. More of this from technical blogposts, please!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you appreciated that! I want results to be reproducible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use very simple code- multiprocessing wrapped around s3.download_file and see gigabit+ throughput with a single core.</comment>


Ask HN: Books on Sales? - <AUTHOR>

Whenever I have to tackle a new field, my approach is to look for books of a certain kind pertaining to that subject. The 'certain kind' is important as I feel those are that kind of books I absorb and apply. It is hard to define what the 'certain' element is, but I'll give some examples of authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Blank, Jason Fried & DHH, Michael Lewis, Joel Greenblatt, Paul Graham and Philip Fisher.<p>I have until now, been unable to best figure out what authors or books I should be reading for Sales. Please do let me know if you know of any such books or authors on the topic of Sales. <comment><USER2> I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but what many of those authors seem to have in common is, in my opinion, that they embrace the narrative fallacy. They tell a story that is plausible, seems to fit trends in real data, and satisfies a reader's need to understand... and I think can all be worth reading. But as someone who has been quite successful in sales, I wonder if that is the sort of material you need to be seeking. Read Nassim Taleb to understand the narrative fallacy. And here is the best piece of sales advice I can offer. Don't try to persuade anyone of much of anything. Find people who already want what you're selling. Or, at least, sell them something they already want. Shocking, I know, but you'd be surprised how many people beat their head against the wall on this... counter-intuitively, realizing that "convincing people" is dumb can make you more persuasive, albeit in a way that you may only appreciate when you have embraced this. Also, find out what call avoidance is and figure out how to avoid that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know if these are the "Masters" of the field, but they come highly recommended as useful books. Several are on my to-do list:

-Crossing the Chasm

-Web Copy That Sells

-Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

-Three Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way

-Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

-Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets

-Copy Hackers (I've read these and they are very good)

</comment><comment><USER4> I know it looks a little hokey, and it's older than I am, but this ebook is gold:

[http://www.trendsaction.com/product.php?product=The+Secret+o...](http://www.trendsaction.com/product.php?product=The+Secret+of+Selling++~+Anything&ulaCartSID=HPzDsrhpodkutiyRqjnYQjGYv1239281452)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In terms of Sales, I don't only mean cold calling, or b2b selling. My startup, Grosper.com is an ecommerce company, and for us sales is those customers who come to our website. But sometimes a subject ignored, is getting them to the website itself on a small budget, and no obvious viral component.</comment>


Evented I/O based web servers, explained using bunnies - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/simon/evented-io-based-web-servers-explained-using-bunnies <comment><USER2> This is a good, simple explanation of how event-based servers work.

However, I strongly disagree with the "good code / bad code" dichotomy the author presents. Asynchronous, callback-based code is frequently more difficult to write, harder to reason with, more inflexible, and buggier than similar synchronous code. That said, moving to event-based code has generally been worth the cost for us, yielding improvements in performance and reliability that make up for the increase in developer time required.

The problem is that it's often very difficult to refactor synchronous code to be event-based since it requires an inversion of control. An attempt at changing clear, intention-revealing synchronous code to work asynchronously frequently results in ugly, hard-to-follow callback hell. Worse, a single piece of blocking code left inside the event loop can now render all of the work you've done moot, meaning such refactorings tend to sprawl.

This is why I think attempts to bridge this gap, making asynchronous read more-or-less the same way as asynchronous code, are very valuable. Scala's delimited continuations, coming in the upcoming 2.8 (<http://www.scala- lang.org/node/2096>), could help take a lot of the pain out of using event- based servers effectively.

<comment><USER3> >The problem is that it's often very difficult to refactor synchronous code to be event-based since it requires an inversion of control. An attempt at changing clear, intention-revealing synchronous code to work asynchronously frequently results in ugly, hard-to-follow callback hell.

This is true. There's some merit to the argument that you should plan for your IO code to be asynchronous from the beginning and structure your program that way.

Havoc Pennington had a nice post about that: <http://log.ometer.com/2008-09.html>

"Using async APIs is not premature optimization, it's correct design."

Some languages provide constructs that make it cleaner to write asynchronous code in a way that looks more natural.

F# has an async monad for this purpose. I'm guessing it can be done in Haskell as well. Lisp\Clojure macros may also be able to handle it.</comment></comment>


Best CTO and Engineering Lead Remote jobs found this week - <AUTHOR> https://blog.noicejobs.com/best-cto-26-tech-lead-remote-jobs-found-between-sep-02-and-sep-09/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey!

I'm the founder of NoiceJobs.com. We scrape hundreds of jobs every week, post them to Telegram channels where we have more than 3k subscribers and now just launched a blog where we'll be posting the best jobs found every week.

We have 50+ categories: Fullstack, Frontend, Engineering Managers... and many more, even non-technical ones and we'll do a post like this one for each one of those categories

Hope you find it useful, free to ask me anything about the product :D</comment>


Neo4j - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j <comment><USER2> I've been using neo4j for my startup and there are so many benefits I can't list them all. The Cypher language alone is worth using this database. When I started implementing security for my app, I was shocked at how seamless a graph database was for that particular problem, but everything I've done has been a breeze. I don't think I'd ever have the same development experience with any other database.</comment>


Plain Text Offenders - <AUTHOR> http://plaintextoffenders.com/ <comment><USER2> I think it would be alot easier to consume this data if it was in a table-like format vs image based.

Im more interested in the number and brands that are doing this vs the evidence. ( Evidence should be easy to get to aswell so you can build trust with your readers)

Cool site though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could a feature be added to name the digital agency responsible?

</comment><comment><USER4> Some accounts aren't really important, and then I don't care if they e-mail me my password or if I reuse passwords.</comment>


Avi Bryant on Trendly, Ruby, Smalltalk and Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/interviews/bryant-smalltalk-trendly

<comment><USER2> Seriously, that dude has his hands in so much cool stuff.

I'd like to posit that Avi Bryant is actually twins posing as one person. Neither of whom ever sleeps.

<comment><USER3> Busted. The hardest thing is always trimming our beards to exactly the same length.

Edit: the real answer is that I work with great hackers who aren't as mouthy as I am and so don't show up in interviews etc - my "twins" are Andrew, Ben, and Luke...

<comment><USER4> On the subject of compiling other languages to JavaScript, you might be interested in frp-js. It's a Functional Reactive DSL in Haskell that compiles to JavaScript.

<http://github.com/sebastiaanvisser/frp-js/>

<comment><USER5> dude aweeeessssooooommmee. i'm definitely going to check this out later. i had seen the YHC/JS backend a while back but it looked like progress there had seized up. this seems pretty new. any experience with it?

<comment><USER4> I haven't done too much with it yet, to be honest — things have been a bit crazy at work — but FRP seems like a really interesting potential approach to JS-based web interfaces, and I can understand the desire to write Haskell and then compile it to JS (the assembly of the web, as plenty of people in the last three years have said). FRP JavaScript doesn't seem to have taken off in a big way in the three years since Flapjax came out, but perhaps we'll see that change soon.

<http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1771>

<comment><USER5> flapjax seemed cool, but I really just can't stand writing with JS syntax and all the baggage that comes with it.

my current JS project (actually objective-j with cappuccino) is weighing in at over 5000 semicolons, 80% of which is probably glue code. FRP (or bindings if it's imperative) would reduce a lot of it, but it wouldn't make JS any "safer" to write in. i'd still get goofy mistakes all over the place that you take for granted won't happen in haskell/ML/etc.

I looked at ocamljs which can use FROC but it looked like it had a pretty large function calling overhead. YHC javascript backend also looked like it had a large overhead.

I also checked out scheme2js (actually I wrote the first version of my JS app in it, but with no GUI, haha) but it relies very heavily on the rest of HOP to do useful stuff in a browser, which I would not be using. Also, debugging in it was a nightmare. Inria does mad cool stuff though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Avi, who's from Vancouver, seems to have very similar accent and body language to the people I know from Toronto; (I lived there for a year). I find this interesting.

<comment><USER7> I grew up in Ontario and have lived in BC for 6 years now, and find the accents quite different. Most Ontarians I know here agree.

<comment><USER6> Hm, OK. Could be more mannerisms then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any news on the MagLev public github release? Supposed to hit soon iirc.

<comment><USER3> If you're asking me - I haven't hacked on MagLev for over a year, so I'm pretty out of the loop. From tracking <http://twitter.com/MagLev>, though, it sure looks like they're getting close.</comment></comment>


What is the string on the BillForward job ad? - J-dawg This job ad on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11829255
gives a 36 character string as the contact details:
> contact aWFuIEFUIGJpbGxmb3J3YXJkIERPVCBuZXQ=
What is this? Is it a puzzle for applicants to solve? Or a new way of avoiding email spam?
Sorry if this is an incredibly stupid question <comment><AUTHOR> It's a base64 string. Out of curiosity, what's your background?

<comment> J-dawg Thanks for the answer.

I'm just a wannabe web developer who really ought to know this stuff. Sorry for spamming HN with my stupid question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Na bro don't be hard on yourself. Being a dev means you're always learning!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> someone's email address. base64 encoded</comment>


Case Study: Standing Out in a Saturated, Boring Industry Without Spending a Dime - <AUTHOR> https://www.mortgagehippo.com/chicago_river_hippo

<comment><USER2> I actually saw this on the local news here in Chicago. Doesn't really come as a surprise, but I guess it's kind of refreshing learning it's a mortgage company that was behind it all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Refreshing is exactly what we're going for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That's an interesting approach. You say "without spending a dime", but what about production costs?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a lot of in-house talent who wore many hats and helped out with production, but we also called in a few favors. It helps to do a little digging in your network to see who can bring specific technical talents or knowledge, or know somebody else who can.</comment></comment>


Alphabet Shakes Up Its Robotics Division - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/technology/alphabet-shakes-up-its-robotics-division.html?smid=tw-nytimestech&smtyp=cur <comment><USER2> Perhaps we are just impatient.

Karl Benz invented the 'first automobile' in 1885 [0]. 29 years later, in 1914, Ford built the first mass-production factory for his autos. It initially produced 4 cars/hour, an annual rate of about 15,000. In 1915, there were 8,000 cars in all of the US. [1]

I cannot find data, but let's guess that it's 10 more years before 1% of households in the US have cars. That would have meant about 500,000 cars.

1885 - 1925 is 40 years between invention of the first gas powered auto and 1% market penetration (bearing my assumption). Where was the robotics industry in 1976, 40 years ago?

Moreover, the automobile solved one problem: Moving a human from point A to point B on a paved road. Many efforts are approaching robots as consumer products by trying to solve many very hard problems all at the same time. Perhaps robotic vacuums are the (only?) successful commercial robot because they solve a similarly discrete problem.

It is understandable that we have not yet seen the type of commercial breakthroughs that we so highly anticipate. Give it another 20 years...

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car#History)

[1] [http://www.thejournal-news.net/opinion/commentary/here-s- loo...](http://www.thejournal-news.net/opinion/commentary/here-s-looking-at- you-the-year-was/article_565162d6-99f9-11e4-8ff9-bf9e0d2432b5.html)

<comment><USER3> A nice segue is that especially in manufacturing robots are plentiful. From pick-and-place units that move too fast to follow with the naked eye to welding robots and so on. In a way a current car manufacturer is a series of giant robots glued together with a relatively small number of humans.

Universal robots, ones that can do basically any task that any human can do are not even on the drawing board right now, so we're limited to these application specific models but where they are engaged they are incredibly effective and have all but replaced the humans that did those jobs previously.

The reason often quoted is that this is because robots can work 24x7, won't unionize and so on, but the little fact that people usually miss is that repeat accuracy is a very important factor in reducing part and product failure so betting on robots means that you get a much more reliable and consistent product out the door saving you a fortune in re-work and warranty claims.

<comment><USER4> "the little fact that people usually miss is that repeat accuracy is a very important factor in reducing part and product failure so betting on robots means that you get a much more reliable and consistent product out the door saving you a fortune in re-work and warranty claims"

That is a very good point, the other factor is that robots can collect massive amounts of data faster and more accurately than their human counter parts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have to say I'm kind of baffled about all these companies complaining "Regulation is hurting self driving cars!" and "Regulation is hurting drone delivery!" when there are pretty much zero barriers to enter the consumer robotics market for a machine that dusts your house, does your laundry, does your dishes, picks up clutter from the floor, etc.

(And yes I realize these tasks involve surprisingly hard AI problems, but why isn't Google already running pilots where they give people special washing machines, laundry machines, robot-friendly book shelves, etc etc that help mitigate the hard AI aspects of the problem?)

<comment><USER6> In 'serious academic' robotics, if you only have one hokuyo urg lidar [1] and one xsens mems imu [2] you're on a low budget project and you'll probably need a bunch more sensors before your product can operate reliably unattended. But you've already spent ten times the cost of an entry level roomba.

The kind of butler robot we can make today [3] would seem extremely expensive for the functionality it could offer, making it hard get the sales needed to recoup your up front engineering costs - let alone to achieve the economies of scale needed to bring down the price on those sensors.

[1] [http://www.robotshop.com/en/hokuyo-urg-04lx-ug01-scanning- la...](http://www.robotshop.com/en/hokuyo-urg-04lx-ug01-scanning-laser- rangefinder.html) [2] [http://www.newark.com/xsens/mti-20-2a5g4/mems- module-3d-moti...](http://www.newark.com/xsens/mti-20-2a5g4/mems- module-3d-motion-tracker/dp/94X2368) [3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODGHw8uNnY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODGHw8uNnY)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the links; I love this stuff. I can see the laser rangefinder [1] being expensive. But what makes the xsens gyro/accelerometer [2] so expensive compared to a smartphone sensor, and why does a robot need that?

<comment><USER6> If you think that's expensive, have a look at an OXTS RT3000 [1] where you can spend closer to $20,000 - that's the sort of thing you buy for your prototype self-driving car. Or at least, it was when people were competing in the DARPA Grand Challenge eleven years ago.

Applications for IMUs include dead reckoning (working out your position based on rotation and acceleration measurements), orientation sensing (figuring out which way is down is much easier than dead reckoning, because you can just sense gravity), and compensating sensor readings for robot motion.

Some cheap sensors aren't very precise; you won't notice if your phone thinks it's rotating two degrees a minute around the vertical axis, but a robot will if it moves for five minutes then it's ten degrees off course. I haven't looked at the market for a long time - I suspect the cheaper IMUs are better nowerdays. Eight years ago they didn't offer very good precision and the open source software could be very fiddly to get working, if you could get it working at all.

[1] [http://www.oxts.com/products/rt3000-family/](http://www.oxts.com/products/rt3000-family/)

<comment><USER8> At the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, the IMU/GPS unit that CMU's team used required 4U of rack space and air conditioning. There's been a lot of progress since then. The ADXRS642 MEMS gyro[1], which costs $50 in quantity, has a drift rate of 20°/hour. Ten years ago, you were lucky to get 20°/minute from a MEMS gyro. If you're doing sensor integration while moving, you need a stable orientation reference. Alternatively, you can use SLAM to process video and align to the world, which works well today.

The OXTS RT3000 has impressive specs - 1cm accuracy in world coordinates. That's better than you need for most robotics applications that aren't running blind. The Trimble AP10 [2] has the same functionality at much lower cost, but is not as accurate.

A lot of progress in robotics comes from component improvement like this. There was a time when just getting a wireless data link to your robot was a big deal.

[1] [http://www.analog.com/en/products/mems/mems- gyroscopes/adxrs...](http://www.analog.com/en/products/mems/mems- gyroscopes/adxrs642.html#product-overview) [2] [http://www.trimble.com/gnss- inertial/AP10.aspx?dtID](http://www.trimble.com/gnss-inertial/AP10.aspx?dtID)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's one very simple reason that general-purpose robots have failed to become economically viable: robots have to compete with humans, and humans are really cheap.

I also think that not enough thought has been put into the question of: if we do manage to replace unskilled workers with robots, what do we do with all the people who are only capable of unskilled work? Not everyone has what it takes to become a coder.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU)

<comment><USER10> I don't understand what you mean by humans are really cheap, you can't upgrade a human , you can't make him faster, you can't install latest update or add some components, the main disadvantage of robots nowadays is that we have not yet achieved a human level AI that gives us the abilitiy to replace humans by robots, but if we ever do that or even achieve just good advancement in it, I strongly doubt that any "unskilled" human worker would be better or compete on the job.

<comment><USER9> > I don't understand what you mean by humans are really cheap

Seriously? I can rent a human for $7.50 an hour. In other countries they're even cheaper. If you want to sell me a robot to clean my house, that's your competition.

<comment><USER10> That was not a real statement, I just meant that it made contradiction in my mind, not speaking on short run, but in my country and european countries, you need to pay a lot of money to hire someone that includes health insurance something similar to US 401K beside so many things, so it seemed to me like on the long run, robots are much more cheap.

<comment><USER11> > _" so it seemed to me like on the long run, robots are much more cheap."_

Yes, in the very long run, assuming relatively unchanging tasks and capacity demand.

But most jobs aren't like that - industrial robotics are dominated by robots that are purpose-designed with a singular task in mind, with a narrow envelope for deviations. A human can be re-trained to do something completely different than before, whereas a robot would likely have to receive completely new hardware. A welding robot cannot become a precision fan-balancing robot, but a human can be retrained from one task to another.

It's cheaper to train a large group of humans to do something different than it is to upgrade the hardware & software on the same number of robots.

This means that some jobs (see: automotive manufacturing) lend themselves easily to robotics - the throughput is steady, the capacity requirements are stable (i.e., you don't suddenly need 5x more cars in July than in March), and even between different models the general process is the same.

Other jobs (see: warehousing, shipping) do not lend themselves to robotics easily - the job changes regularly as processes evolve, the capacity requirements are chaotic (i.e., you need to scale to 10x your normal throughput during Xmas), and there is significant variation in process requirements (e.g., Japanese retail warehouses that run vertically instead of horizontally).

Robots are also still astonishingly expensive and largely made-to-order with long lead times. This means that it takes many years to break even on a robot (whereas you can fire the human when you don't need them), and you can scale easily with humans (it's _much_ quicker to find a human than it is to order and receive a robot).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm just going to repost what I wrote 17 days ago:

"Why are they against militarizing robots? It pays the bills. They could start with consumers or business but it's harder to build a market. This makes it harder to fund further development. Once the technology is developed by anyone for non-military use, transitioning to the military is easy. There's not some magic that prevents consumer developed technology from reaching the battlefield."

<comment><USER13> It pays, but with heavy constraints. You are subject to cycles in the military budget and to the government sales process.

I highly doubt Google is interested in that revenue stream. Google doesn't just want to pay the bills -- and it doesn't need to. It wants to develop entirely new businesses that complement its existing ones, e.g. Nest.

Also, it's bad for the brand. There are probably not many companies that sell both weapons and consumer goods...

<comment><USER12> I believe the idea in the new model is that each unit does need to pay the bills.

<comment><USER14> It doesn't have to be that way. Alphabet can pump money into the robotic subsidiary forever. But it'll be more and more obvious how much of a drain it is when the robotics company is a black hole of profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems like every consumer and industrial robotics company, with the exception of the drone makers, tends to run into trouble sooner rather than later - and it turns out being a division of Google doesn't help that much.

Rethink Robotics for example had a great start, but soon ran into cultural issues and weaker than expected sales. iRobot has been unable to escape the vacuum cleaner market. KUKA and the other really big industrial robot manufactures have started doing new things with sensor-enabled manipulators, but the customers haven't exactly flocked.

What is it about robotics that seems to run these companies off the rails? I worry about Fetch robotics hitting a similar barrier, despite having a pretty clear business case.

<comment><USER16> If you take a US perspective, perhaps, but globally, there are other bright spots. For example, after reading about iRobot's struggles to get permission for its wireless lawnmower robots, I was surprised to look into it and discover there were a fair number of lawnmower robot manufacturers for both large and small suburban scale robots which reportedly work well and are rather popular in the EU. Smaller lawns and higher labor costs speculated to be why.

(I liked the idea, but after calculating how big our property was, only the most expensive commercial lawnmower robot reached parity with our John Deere Z-track riding lawn mower's capabilities, and the payback period was implausibly long, so I'm stuck doing the mowing myself. For now.)

<comment><USER15> I believe a lot of the autonomous mowers also require you to lay a guidewire around the boundary of your property.

<comment><USER17> There are a few that don't, but they require your lawn boundary to be fully enclosed. They bump off the barriers to know to turn around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article doesn't say much. Google has two humanoid robotics companies, Boston Dynamics (near Boston) and Schaft (near Tokyo). Schaft has better actuators and Boston Dynamics has better control. There's no indication that Alphabet has been able to integrate the technologies. That was the whole point of acquiring ten robotics companies. But if they can't be brought together, the acquisitions were pointless. None of the companies have significant revenue or sales, so running them as a conglomerate doesn't do anything.

Alphabet is so secretive that no one can tell from the outside if they're doing something great or getting nowhere. Boston Dynamics stopped updating their web site after the Google acquisition. Schaft has no visible web presence at all. Raibert, Boston Dynamics' CEO, is 67, time to retire. Who replaces him?

</comment><comment><USER18> What I want to know is if Alphabet is still trying to make robots for war. They promised only a year ago they wouldn't do that and wouldn't become a defense contractor, and then a month ago we found out they "failed" to sell their robots to the US Army.

Good thing it was only Google that had to abide by the "don't be evil" mantra (more or less). Alphabet apparently could care less about it.</comment>


This guy got his stolen iPhone back with OkCupid and hammer - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2013/01/04/this-guy-got-his-stolen-iphone-back-with-okcupid-and-a-hammer/?fromcat=all <comment><USER2> > That, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get yourself killed.

</comment><comment><USER3> As much as I truly, truly loathe criminals of any sort, lionizing vigilantism, especially when the self-appointed avenger threatens violence, is misguided at best and dangerous (read: deadly) at worst.

Please, if your phone is stolen, don't chase down the thief yourself. It just isn't worth it.

<comment><USER4> Bullshit. The police often don't give a shit unless you start to take matters into your own hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> He makes some great music as well.

Try Streetlight Manifesto as your soundtrack for the evening. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2yeNzL7rTU>

</comment><comment><USER6> Except it wasn't stolen…

<comment><USER7> It _was_ stolen. Taking property that obviously belongs to someone else is considered theft. And, as mentioned in this other article[1], the police were willing to get involved, but the owner preferred to keep them out of it.

[1] [http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/05/brooklyn-man- tricks-i...](http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/05/brooklyn-man-tricks- iphone-thief-using-dating-app)</comment></comment>


How did you first learn HTML, CSS, and/or JS? - <AUTHOR> What was your journey into front-end development like? Is there a specific book or website that stands out in your memory? <comment><USER2> I began my journey on the W3CSchools website, a Google search for "HTML tutorials" lead me there rather quickly and it's simple to understand format had me on my feet in no time, I was using <p> and <table> tags within 5 minutes.

After a few hours I began to get bored and wanted to create some really nice designs so I downloaded Dreamweaver, I had heard great things about the software and after torrenting it on thepiratebay along with an activation key which worked I began my journey in to the grand clusterfuck which is a beginner designer using Dreamweaver.

I began to output some quality design (or so I thought) and despite the fact that everything was black and white on my website, I was proud of it and began to show all my friends (I was about 14 at the time) what I could do!

After that I searched for "Best web design" (again using Google) and realized that, to be fair, I was quite crap. I practiced and practiced, learning CSS in the process (also on the W3CSchools website) and soon enough, there was colour and cool looking styles popping up all over the place, my website looked like a blind clown trying to put on its makeup over a heavily tattooed face.

To be honest though, looking back after 5 years I can honestly say that it wasn't W3CSchools (who I still credit with supplying me with the base knowledge I needed) who made me the designer I am today (though to be honest, I'm much more proficient in the back end) it was time and iteration. Almost no one starts out with all the skill they require and I was certainly no wunderkind, it was the 3,000 terrible websites I built before the one I built last night (which in 30 more websites time, I will look back on as a horrific disaster of colour and style, no doubt.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Had a two term multimedia class in high school. One half of the class was learning Flash timeline animation and the other was HTML / CSS. The professor had us start in notepad before jumping into FrontPage or Dreamweaver. My first major project was to redesign the schools website. After that, I kept tinkering with personal projects, picking apart bigger websites and eventually I pursued a CS degree.

</comment><comment><USER4> I taught myself while trying to build my own website. Just plain old notepad and long hours of suffering, or in geocities or tripod. When Tripod started offering perl I even taught myself enough to build the worst forum ever.

</comment><comment><USER5> I started with Dreamweaver back in the day. It was nice because you could switch between code view and design view. Also I created a really crappy music review site and used that project to help me learn html/css.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ashamed to say this, but Microsoft FrontPage, when it comes to HTML and CSS. That how I started to understand what the markup of the web was and after a while ditched FrontPage for Notepad and took it from there.

</comment><comment><USER7> I first learned about HTML by studying the tags in web page source codes in college. This was not part of the curriculum: I was picking up the skill off my own bat.

Likewise for Javascript and CSS (and basic use of forms and CGI); I first learned about them by looking at inline scripts, and later learned how to invoke external script files. I was already out of uni when I began to learn about them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm currently developing a social music discovery platform, Tune Patrol and I work on the front end(HTML,JS,CSS) predominantly. From my experience, I feel there isn't any specific book or instruction manual to follow. I've always felt that learning code is a simple three step process, no matter which the language.

1\. Understand the logic of basic commands that you will be using, for example, in java script, event listeners is a pretty important concept.

2\. After reading the core concept briefly, have a run through the syntax. Remember, you can always refer the syntax of a language, do not mug it up. The syntax will come to you after some practice.

3\. Implement it practically. Make a personal website or simply start coding a few plug ins. This is where the actual learning happens.

I've always followed this paradigm and its worked out okay for me so long.

Although for a few initial concepts, <http://www.w3schools.com> is pretty good.

Also try reading Oreily books on Javascript, HTML5 and CSS. All their books are of a good standard.

</comment><comment><USER9> I started out with the Oreily Head First HTML and CSS as a starting point.

<http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml/>

Work through the examples using WAMP or MAMP and a text editor, using Firefox to view your work, once you get the basics down learn how to use the Firebug fire extension for Firefox to inspect your own work and other websites.

Once you finish the examples in the book build your own website or pick out a project you want to build. You learn the most trying to build something new. Then improve on it. "I want my site to do this or have this element." StackOverflow.com is a great place to search for solutions, techniques. I like Tizag.com as well for specific samples.

I also did a lot of tutorials on <http://net.tutsplus.com/>.

From there . . .

There is a Head First Javascript book you can work on after picking up some HTML CSS skills.

And Head first jQuery would be the next step. jQuery is used on a lot of websites and something you should learn.

(I didn't use those two books, I learned JS and jQuery from tutorials and stackoverflow.com.)

From there I moved on to Head First PHP/mySQL to learn some server side programming and database skills.

Along the way the key to learning is creating and editing websites for yourself or projects that you need/want.

I progressed from websites to web applications to mobile websites and mobile apps.

Wordpress is a skill you should pick up as well. There is a head first book for that too.

I would recommend learning HTML, CSS, check out HTML5 and CSS3 as well, Javascript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile (for mobile web sites), PHP, mySQL once you have the basics of those start learning Ruby on Rails.

Good luck in 2013.

</comment><comment><USER10> Netscape Composer. Serious PTSD kicking in.

I'd do the Codecademt exercises, then pick up the Pragzprog book on HtML5/CSS3 if you were looking to start. Also, go through the official specs.

<comment><USER10> Wow, I'm horrid at typing on my phone sometimes.

What I meant was Codecademy: <http://www.codecademy.com/> And the Pragmatic Programmer's Book on HTML5 and CSS3: <http://pragprog.com/book/bhh5/html5-and- css3>

Official Specs: <http://www.w3.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What were some of the first things that ran through your mind when you first started learning HTML, CSS, and/or JS?

<comment><USER7> When I noticed that I would have to reference Web colours in RGB hex code, I was glad I was already very familiar with hexadecimal code.

I greeted the discovery of external scripts for JS and CSS with joy, because I knew how versatile those external scripts could become; I only needed to code one particular style or JavaScript function or object once, in one file, and use that code throughout the site; maintenance would be a breeze, too, because I'd only have to update a given style or JS function, again, in one place.

So, to summarise, my first thought on becoming acquainted with HTML, CSS and JS was "This is going to be so useful."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sam's Teach Yourself HTML in 24 hours

</comment><comment><USER13> The (paper) manual to Netscape Navigator. Ran through some basic HTML and from there I went on to more (paper) books and started a Geocities site.

</comment><comment><USER14> CGI/Perl Cookbook

</comment><comment><USER15> Looking through other people's code. Chromes/Safari's Inspect Element was my teacher.

</comment><comment><USER16> HotDog by Sausage Software</comment>


APIs and Microservices in IoT: a small case study - <AUTHOR> https://www.lunchbadger.com/iot-apis-and-microservices/ <comment><USER2> Great use case ! The first tier compute would however need to move to the edge to ensure realtime actions. Longer term down analytics still stay on the cloud. I would really like to see containers move to the edge for localized apis which Synch offline with APIs on the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting case study.</comment>


All You Wanted to Know About AI from DeepMind - <AUTHOR> https://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/13060-all-you-wanted-to-know-about-ai-from-deepmind.html <comment><USER2> Anyone else feel Hannah Fry is the David Attenborough of nerdlife voiceovers?</comment>


Tesla fires female engineer who alleged sexual harassment - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/01/tesla-fires-aj-vandermeyden-lawsuit-sexual-harrassment <comment><USER2> Is there many cases where you sue your employer, go make public statements about the case and still have a job at the end of the day?

<comment><USER3> Well, I guess the question at the end of the day is if her claims have merit. If she can prove the discrimination, her termination is illegal. If she's been unreasonable, and Tesla has indeed, as it claims, made every effort to meet her needs, I absolutely can see why they'd fire her.

<comment><USER4> Tesla isn't merely claiming they've met her needs, they're actually claiming that she's received privileged treatment because she's a woman:

> Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions "over > other more qualified candidates" and was "given special treatment and > opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her > qualifications".

<comment><USER3> Tesla says, and Vandermeyden says something else. But if this is going to court, I suspect the outcome is very much going to depend on which party can prove their side of the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >At the time, Vandermeyden said she was hopeful her lawsuit and public comments would not end her career at the company.

How could she honestly expect to keep her job with an employer she is sueing and smearing in the media? Why would she even want to continue working there?

<comment><USER6> Her employer is a company. Companies don't have the emotions people have.

In large organisations, the effect of employee lawsuits may even be beneficial, because it allows for a mechanism to escalate serious issues before they become even worse, while the high barriers in terms of cost, emotional burden etc. serve to discourage frivolous complaints.

<comment><USER7> > Companies don't have the emotions people have.

You forget, companies solely consist of people and are solely owned by people. It's a legal vehicle.

People, of which companies consist, have feelings and emotions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Their head of HR just left last week. The replacement is from EA, a company who really knows how to handle their employees.

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/following- allegati...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/following-allegations- of-discrimination-and-labor?utm_term=.mpqeb87ZB#.cfNK3rb81)

<comment><USER9> Even though the article you referenced says "Entertainment Arts" she is actually from the "ea_spouse"'s EA (Electronic Arts) as per Tesla's own PR: [https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-welcomes-gaby- toledano](https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-welcomes-gaby-toledano)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions over other more qualified candidates and was given special treatment and opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her qualifications".

Its amazing to see a company so openly admit that it gives special treatment to some employees. Everyone suspects that to be the case but nobody says a thing. Maybe the rest of us should file lawsuits.

<comment><USER11> I suspect this is happening a lot in today's PC climate, consciously or unconsciously. It's not a 100% merit-based system anymore. Maybe it never was, I dunno, but I do know some people can never be pleased and are always crying wolf.

"[Her termination] was absolutely shocking for AJ. She is devastated,"

Really? I find that very hard to believe. If you hate a company so much you're willing to SUE them and make it public, then these two things seem irreconcilable.

<comment><USER12> > It's not a 100% merit-based system anymore.

This was never the case, at any point, ever.

<comment><USER11> any system involving humans will be flawed, but I don't think the problems being discussed here are as rampant as some would like to think

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Therese Lawless, Vandermeyden's attorney_

Now that's a career name.

<comment><USER14> Nominative determinism at work perhaps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Moral of the story: If you sue your employer in an at-will state, you're very likely to be fired.

Now, the only winners will be the lawyers.

<comment><USER16> She did not just sue her employer -- she gave interviews to news outlets, touting unproven allegations.

Do you think that Tesla should continue to pay someone who is actively and deliberately tarnishing their image, without giving them a chance to make things right (if they were ever wrong to begin with)?

<comment><USER17> This is what I am not understanding why there is even a question about it. The minute she went public, Tesla has the right to fire her. If they were retaliating, she had the chance to do that internally. She could leave a paper trail and let them have a chance to correct the problem.

I don't know why it is up to Tesla to keep an employee trying to tarnish their image.

<comment><USER15> > The minute she went public, Tesla has the right to fire her.

Technically (and tangentally), they had the "right" from the moment she signed her contract. That's what at-will means - Tesla can fire an employee with no reason whatsoever should it wish. In theory, that power is balanced against an employee's right to quit without notice; but the balance of power is not really with the employee in that change.

> she had the chance to do that internally

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment, it sounds like she tried to do exactly that - resolve it internally - and it didn't work out: her allegations were classified as "unfounded." This means her options for resolving the issue internally were practically exhausted.

<comment><USER18> > That's what at-will means - Tesla can fire an employee with no reason > whatsoever should it wish.

That is not true at all.

<comment><USER15> I give you Wikipedia:

> in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason [...], > and without warning.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At- will_employment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment)

<comment><USER18> Read a little further down the page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At- will_employment#Statutory_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At- will_employment#Statutory_exceptions)

<comment><USER15> Which means that Tesla would have to indicated that the termination was in retaliation to the reporting of the harassment. It doesn't sound (to my non- lawyer ears) like it did.

But that's now between the lawyers and the courts.

<comment><USER19> No, the prohibition on termination for unlawful cause does not only apply when the employer _admits_ the unlawful cause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was once part of a case of alleged sexual harassment at a large tech company. I had worked closely with both the accuser and the accused and was interviewed multiple times as a witness.

The scenario: we were working on a prototype project that would yield preferential standards for implementation around a certain set of components. Our team consisted of 7 people. Roughly 2 months worth of effort, given the systems involved. Our objective was to present a unified opinion for implementation standards of said components, with everyone on the team supporting the opinion. I was the lead engineer of the group, and we reported to a VP/Eng.

At the conclusion of the project, we had evaluated multiple approaches as a group and prepared to make a suggestion for presentation to the eng group as a whole. In the process of doing so, one engineer pushed for an approach that had been rejected by everyone on the team. Despite our reasons for rejection, this engineer refused to advocate for another approach that the rest of the team had coalesced around. We went to our VP for support, who agreed with the findings of the rest of the team. Decision made, presentation made, and the project is completed.

Two weeks later, I receive a call from an HR representative to schedule a "deposition" (their words, but no lawyers involved.) They ask a ton of questions, which progressively become more ambiguous.

      - "Have you observed anyone on the team making racial or sexist comments?"
      - "Is anyone on the team overtly driven by race, religion, gender, or a personal cause?"
      - "Have you observed anyone receiving preferential treatment on the team?"
      - "Have you noticed any problematic or contentious interactions across members of your team?"

It was difficult to answer definitively to these types of questions, but it was completely intentional. The company was going out of it's way to assess whether the accuser's claims held any merit. The company did find the accuser's claims as meritless, but not without close examination from every angle.

The accusation: the engineer complained they had been discriminated against by the VP because of their gender, sexual orientation, and nationality. And the proof, per the accuser, was that the engineer's suggested approach from our project had been rejected. Oddly enough, the HR representative never asked me about that aspect.

One thing I learned from that experience is that public commentary about harassment situations isn't so simple as it is often described.

</comment><comment><USER21> Side note: "Therese Lawless, Vandermeyden's attorney"

A lawyer named "Lawless" in real life.

It's like there could actually be a Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe LLP

<comment><USER22> It's like an ice cream guy named Cone.

<comment><USER23> Actually, wouldn't it be like an ice cream guy named Melted?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> J-dawg Does anyone else wonder why this is getting so much media attention? Presumably any company above a certain size is likely to have one or two HR- related lawsuits happening at any particular time. I can't imagine this being big news if she worked for IBM or HP. They also shoehorned in an unrelated story about worker safety.

What is the Guardian's agenda here? Is it just that Tesla (and Musk) are very high profile at the moment? I'm not saying she doesn't have a legitimate complaint, she may well do and that's for a court to decide. But this simply wouldn't be news if it happened at a 'boring' company. (Well maybe The Boring Company).

<comment><USER24> Well… the newsworthiness of any particular thing is pretty far removed from the objective importance of the thing, for any definition of importance or objectivity that don't make the statement tautological. There was a comment pile on on another thread when someone likened opioid addiction to terrorism, because opioid addiction causes a hundred times more death and injury than terrorism. Terrorism is more newsworthy though.

Almost any article about HP or IBM is less newsworthy than one about Tesla, atm.

<comment> J-dawg Point taken. I was just hoping that someone could shed some light on exactly _why_ it's newsworthy.

It feels like there's a kind of schadenfreude at play, like people are delighted to see that an innovative 'new' company has any problems at all. Nobody would be the slightest bit interested in knowing if (say) Toyota had workplace accident rates 30% above average.

Or, (putting the tinfoil hat on), there's a PR 'submarine' at play here and someone stands to gain from rubbishing Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This sounds terrible for Tesla in many directions. Either she is right, in which case Tesla sounds very bad. Alternatively, Tesla is completely right (which I personally don't believe), in which case as they confess that : "Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions "over other more qualified candidates" and was "given special treatment and opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her qualifications"."

<comment><USER26> Most companies would refuse to comment on a situation like this, especially one that is high profile. Based on Tesla's willingness to make such an incendiary public statement, I'm guessing they have a big pile of documentation to back it up.

I agree that they probably just opened themselves up to other legitimate lawsuits. Oops.

<comment><USER27> Funny, a guess could also be that they have an entitlement complex and expect to just be believed.

I'm honestly not sure which I expect to be the case. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > In a statement to the Guardian, Tesla confirmed the company had fired > Vandermeyden, saying it had thoroughly investigated the employee's > allegations with the help of a "a neutral, third-party expert" and concluded > her complaints were unmerited.

> "Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms > Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing > Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press," a Tesla spokesperson > said. "After we carefully considered the facts on multiple occasions and > were absolutely convinced that Ms Vandermeyden's claims were illegitimate, > we had no choice but to end her employment at Tesla."

She tried to bully people utilising identity politics, the company got fed up and fired here. Too bad Tesla didn't also sue her back, it's a real shame that criminals like herself can get away with it, just because they are women. This encourages women to start weaponizing sexual harassment claims, they can gain a lot by bullying a company, yet they have nothing to lose.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions over other > more qualified candidates and was given special treatment and opportunities > for advancement that were unwarranted based on her qualifications

Wow, they should not have made that statement. Why was she given these opportunities? Was there a sexual element? If those who were more qualified get a whiff of this they might have a pretty good case purely based on this statement of fact. I am not a lawyer but have dealt with enough legal crap to know you do not make statements like that. I cringe to think that a lawyer advised them to say this or was OK with making such a statement.

As for the merits of the case. Don't have a clue. That's what court is for.

</comment><comment><USER30> Looking at her linkedin she went from an inside sales rep to a manufacturing engineer. Her major is biology. Going from inside sales to Manufacturing engineer without an engineering background seems weird.

</comment><comment><USER31> > Tesla added that Vandermeyden had been granted numerous positions "over > other more qualified candidates" and was "given special treatment and > opportunities for advancement that were unwarranted based on her > qualifications".

It makes Tesla look even worse, acknowledging that the only reason that person got the job is that because she was a woman, a man wouldn't have gotten the same job for the same qualifications.

<comment><USER32> No where in their statement do they say they based said special treatment on gender - you assumed and added that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ive worked for companies that have shorted me financially to the tune of high 5 figure sums. I have been passed over for promotions that were unfounded. I quit, I didnt get lawyers involved. Suing would damage my reputation on the job market. I cant endorse bad behavior, but what makes people expect that a nuclear option wont have consequences, fair or unfair?

<comment><USER34> If every woman who was sexually harrassed just quit, the workplace environment for women would still be like the '50s. Individuals have to make a stand for better treatment for all.

<comment><USER35> I'm not in the US but I sincerely doubt that harassment is that common.

<comment><USER36> If 1% of guys are scumbags, and 5 days a year they really act like it, and you play that out for 10 years.. most women could be harrassed at some point or other even though 99% of guys are innocent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is the first time I heard of this. Wonder why the Uber story blew up so much, but the Tesla one was pretty much ignored?</comment>