Just finished "I'm Feeling Lucky" by Douglas Edwards - <AUTHOR>

And it's the book about Google i always wanted to read. Books like "In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives" and "What Would Google Do?" and the like is written by professional journalists/writes telling a story their target audience (you - the technophilia) wants to read. Douglas Edwards on the other hand just tells the story of an early google employe (his story) - and that's what i actually want to read (ok, he is not an engineer, "just" marketing - but good enough)
Here are some fun facts that i as an professional Google stalker (it's a living) found interesting:
the google toolbar green page rank bar is indeed just a bait to turn on the "advanced" features that communicate all your pageviews to google. that is nothing new, but it was a conscious decision when they developed their product.
marissa mayer seems to be ... hard to work with and she really thinks that everything she does, she does for the users.
there are/were different factions inside google on what to do with (i.e.: how long to store) user data.
google did not come this far because it's a nice company, as a matter of fact they hired the most ruthless negotiators they could find.
sergy rules.
if the founder were not overruled CPC adwords and adsense would not have happened.
the original pagerank algorithm was already faded out 2002/2003.
according to paul bucheit (creator gmail) orkut failed not because of bad technology, but because of 'tech snobbery' - yeah, the tec. behind orkut was bad, but if google would have decided to do "everything to make this thing work" then it would have worked - but as the engineers just deemed orkut "not scalable" and let the original rot and worked on a new version instead (and wasted precious time).
they really worry about bad PR.
it's a good book. <comment><USER2> I haven't read this one yet, but I very recently read the other two books you mentioned, and I'm surprised to see you lump them together. I thought In the Plex was much, much more interesting. What Would Google Do taught me almost nothing about Google, while In the Plex had lots of great detail and amusing stories. For example, google "in the plex shoes gnome" and read the 1-2 pages that show up in Google Books.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the insight, sounds very interesting. I will have to put this on the to read list.</comment>


Startup Growth Calculator – if nothing changes, are you alive or dead? - <AUTHOR> http://growth.tlb.org/# <comment><AUTHOR> For context, here is PG's essay on the subject:

[http://paulgraham.com/aord.html](http://paulgraham.com/aord.html)</comment>


We're an Indian startup that went remote on May 6. Here's what we've done since - <AUTHOR> Early last month, we announced our remote-first policy at Springworks (after consulting 130+ employees) and decided to move to WFH till the end of this year 2020.
We've given up our office space and we're now helping the team optimize for this new setup.
#1: We recognized some colleagues have power/internet issues. We're doing one-time INR 10,000 per person WFH setup reimbursement - for router, UPS, work table etc.
#2: We're shipping monitors/keyboards/accessories and office chairs to folks within Bengaluru.
#3: To tackle loneliness/inability to mingle with colleagues in-person, we started ChaiTime calls every day @ 530 PM. Some days, we play Pictionary using Zoom's whiteboard. Other days someone creates a quiz and the participants vie for the title of Quizzard
The quizzes we did on Zoom were fun, so we went ahead and created our own app that virtually allows you to play 100s of quizzes right inside Slack! springworks.in/trivia
#4: We realized with no in-person discussions it was much more important to celebrate team spirit. In fact, we went ahead and built a Slack app that gamifies this whole experience now!
Our random channel is full of celebrations of 'wins' - both BIG and small
#5: Internet reimbursements for all folks. This includes interns as well.
#6: If someone needs extra leaves due to kids/parents at home or just due to increased housework, they can dip into the common pool of leaves (created by relatively free-r colleagues  who donated leaves)
#7: We added another INR 3000 one-time reimbursement for headphones for all employees.
#8: Apart from this, we do virtual mindfulness sessions every day, celebrate birthdays over Slack and Zoom, do lots of fun team/individual challenges (fun video challenge, walking challenge etc.)
Sharing this here so other startups/organisations who are on the fence can use our example to replicate whatever part(s) of this makes sense. <comment><USER2> Seems like most companies are doing similar models. May I ask what your startup works on and what are the business impacts that you have felt due to the current situation. It would help to have context so that others can understand why you can afford this. Several other startups cannot afford luxuries for employees at this time due to large losses in revenue.</comment>


Amazon's Sick New Sick Policy - <AUTHOR> https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/sick-new-sick-policy <comment><USER2> This seems to come off as a means of using peer pressure to ensure everyone comes to work every day, regardless of personal or family illness.

If little Timmy gets the flu or something worse and you take a week or longer off to look after him because he can't go to school, your team is going to feel like your child has cost them money, which he has.

Not a good work way to build an environment based on affection and personal respect. Childless people will hate people with sick kids and if someone has a chronic illness that person is now a drain on the team.

Also a good way to ensure sick people heroically come to work and infect everyone else.

<comment><USER3> I don't agree with the policy but surely you use vacation time not sick leave when your children are sick? I do at least and assumed everybody else did too. (I'm in the UK though so appreciate sick leave may be a different concept in the US).

<comment><USER4> Very common in the US to use sick time for either you being sick of staying home for a sick kid.

At one co this causes some friction. Company policy was 20 vacation days and 10 sick days. A young healthy type guy would use maybe 1 sick day and 20 vacation days, for 21 days off a year.

Anyone with kids know they get sick a LOT. So basically anyone with any amount of kids would use all 10 for their kids. So parents go 10 sick + 20 vacation = 30 days off a year.

I guess enough people complained that they just combined the two into a single "PTO" pool of 28 days. That way you can take the 28 days if you have kids or not. I guess the downside is people with kids got less vacation, but it seemed bit more "fair" overall.

<comment><USER5> I guess it's more fair if you view someone taking a day to care for their sick child as "vacation".

I personally don't view it that way (I say this as someone who doesn't have a child).

<comment><USER6> Having to meet with a lawyer, accountant, etc isnt a "vacation", but I'm expected to use vacation not sick days for those appointments. Arguably, those are all more essential to life than having children, which is optional.

Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't incentivize having children by making extra allowances for that, but let's not pretend it's anything but unfair.

But if we're talking _fair_ , why should they get a day to take care of their child but I don't get one to take care of necessary legal paperwork?

<comment><USER7> > Having to meet with a lawyer, accountant, etc isnt a "vacation", but I'm > expected to use vacation not > sick days for those appointments.

You think you've made a point, but you really haven't. You don't have to take vacation time for that, you can always take unpaid leave - at least, everywhere I've ever worked. If you dispute using sick days for looking after children, perhaps you should examine your employment contract and perhaps consult an employment lawyer? There will be plenty of legal reasons why it's this way.

Feel free to apply to take a sick day while consulting the lawyer, too.

<comment><USER6> And those reasons are _unfair_. They're fundamentally about incentivizing a behavior via the legal system.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's ridiculous to say it's fair when at a fundamental level, the exact point is that it's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So they are encouraging people to go to work sick under penalty of losing portions of their bonus? How long until a strong version of the flu puts whole teams out of commision? It's things like this that cause me to always reply "Thanks, but no thanks" to their recruiters whenever they reach out to me.

<comment><USER9> You can accept their invitation and screw up on the onsite interview. Just enjoy visiting whatever city that they fly you to.

<comment><USER10> Not that I'm suggesting you do this, but if you're going through the trouble of flying out to interview, you might as well do well. In the worst case, you are where you started, and in the best case you have a good offer that can give you leverage in other negotiations.

<comment><USER11> And when you take the other job instead, be sure to tell Amazon "It sounds like a great opportunity, but I have a comparable offer without your godawful sick policy." Amazon's doing this because they think the extra hours they'll squeeze out of employees outweighs the talent that it costs them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The bonus pool is finite. Teams should use their germs to make other teams sick so they get a larger slice of the bonus pool.

<comment><USER13> The problem here is that employer-employee isn't perfect. Employers are expected to provide a variety of things, like health insurance, sick leave, parental leave, and even vacation, among other things. There are costs to all of these benefits. These costs are amortized and factored into your pay, and effectively reduces your pay.

Imagine you make $130k a year--that's about $65/hr _in your eyes_. But to the employer, factoring in the ancillary costs of benefits, and payroll taxes, you likely cost around $100/hr. What if instead, every person instead had their own little personal one-person LLC, and they worked as independent contractors? Then you would bill for hours worked, and you could get paid the $100/hr you actually cost.

The downside to this is that you don't get paid when you are sick, or have a child. But a more accurate way of putting that is that your coworkers do not subsidize/pay for your parental or sick leave. You'd have to get independent insurance to cover such situations. You would also get a solo 401(k) for saving, you'd get your own health insurance, and manage your own benefits in general.[1] It could be a bit empowering.

[1] A bit off-topic, but note that solo 401(k)s come with a higher contribution limit got $52,000 verses $18,000 for regular 401(k)s. I've also found that healthcare.gov offers a lot of choice (at least in New York, NY), and I'd rather my company pay me the amount they spend of health insurance, and I get my own care (provided there is an above-the-line tax deduction for health insurance premiums).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is likely to be slightly controversial, but is Amazon running some sort of "Stanford-Prison-Experiment" kind of test on their employees? It seems like about once a month we're seeing some kind of horrific thing being done to their workers that are almost comic-book-supervillain-bad.

It's stories like this that make it easy for me to deny the Amazon recruiters when they bother me.

<comment><USER15> Amazon horror stories go way back. Anyone remember that hilarious Yegge hangouts post from 2011 [1]? I kind of hoped they'd changed their ways since then, but guess not.

Easy pass tbh. Working for one of the "big 4.5" isn't worth some of the shit they pull.

[1] [https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX](https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good grief, that's horrible. I used to work in Amazon's Edinburgh dev office, and this would never have flown. Apart from the basic humanity of the entire thing, there was very much a culture of "if you're sick, you better stay home because we don't want you to infect anyone else." I really hope this doesn't spread to other locations apart from Germany.

<comment><USER17> >Apart from the basic humanity of the entire thing

No 'apart' about it. With Amazon, that concept simply never enters into the conversation.

<comment><USER16> Well, that's the thing: the folks running the centre I worked for were very much human, and really quite understanding of regular everyday human things. I think, though, that the Edinburgh culture was very influenced by the centre being started by a guy who wanted to move to Scotland to start a family - it's been explicitly family-friendly from the start, with people being encouraged to keep a good work-life balance rather than working more and more hours.

From what I heard that wasn't the case in the rest of Amazon, which always made me feel a bit icky about working from said megacorp - along with all the other dubiously moral stuff. I'm rather a lot happier being out of there, I must say.

<comment><USER17> It's the organization. You can't change the rules of the organization. Everyone working there is human, and there are a lot of good people. But there's no room for common sense or human decencies in the policies and the legalities, and when you sign on the dotted line, as far as Amazon is concerned you have signed away your soul.

A court might disagree, but what's that to the individual who can't afford to keep a prestigious law firm on retainer?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I briefly worked at a company with combined sick+vacation "PTO" days.

Worst idea ever -- people would come to work with a full-on cold, coughing and sneezing all over the place. Just because they didn't want to "waste" vacation days being sick.

Now I work at a place with more traditional sick days separate from vacation days, and people stay home when they are sick. And are actively encouraged to stay home, no one wants to see a flu sweep through the entire engineering team.

<comment><USER19> If you are going to give combo sick/vacation PTO days, I think the minimum number that is reasonable is at least 4 weeks. That way, people can have 2 weeks of sick time, and 2 weeks of vacation.

<comment><USER20> I work for a company like this (a direct rival to Amazon, aping many of its policies) in a country infamous for its workaholism, and given the intense pressure to never get sick (not becoming sick is considered part of one's personal responsibility), what typically ends up happening is one week of genuine vacation, a day or two of scheduled PTO for whatever personal reasons, and then perhaps one or two sudden sick days, in a year.

But there is also half-hearted pressure from HR to consume more than about 30% of our total PTO, combined with unstated pressure from management in general to consume less than 50% of it. Everyone ends up worrying about the exact number of socially-acceptable days to take off per year rather than just living their lives. I've gotten used to it but when I hear about European standards, I'm just green with envy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like they should be encouraging people to stay home if they're un-well, that's just basic science isn't it? Feels like this policy will backfire.

<comment><USER22> Maybe that's what they want to see, and it's not impossible that it will turn out to work very well, for Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think this can be viewed two ways:

A) Use peer pressure to keep people at work even when sick. Incentivize coming to work regardless, because you don't want to "let the team down".

B) Incentivize a group to care about each others health. To keep sick people home (so they don't get more people sick), and to avoid putting to much stress on individuals (to prevent them from getting sick in the first place).

This seems like the culture of the group is going to drive it one way or the other, and kind of vacate the middle ground.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder why Amazon did this..

Is it because people were taking too many sick days in Germany ?

If so, then it means the company thinks that people were taking sick days when they shouldn't have, so they're indirectly calling their own employees liars and making them all pay for that.

Is it a way to save money ?

I didn't know things were so tight at Amazon ... In fact, next time I try to order, I'll remember to remember that the lower product prices are funded by people's sick pay...

Either way, very shitty move, Amazon.

<comment><USER25> While I'm not a fan of this approach, sick leave abuse is a common issue. While I've never seen actual studies to back that up, anecdotally I've seen it a lot.

My employer had to institute a policy that if you take sick leave on the work day immediately before or after a holiday, you need to bring a doctors note to receive the holiday pay. They did this because it was common practice to call in sick on Friday when Monday was a holiday, turning a three day weekend into a four day weekend.

<comment><USER26> > sick leave abuse is a common issue

Reminds me of a legal case in Ontario. Guy was fired for calling in sick in advance. He said he would be attending a wedding, or maybe a bachelor party, and would "be too hungover to come in" the following day.

The court sided with the guy that got fired. Recovering from a hangover, even a scheduled one, must be treated as a sick day... and you can't fire someone for taking a sick day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It seems like most people here are assuming this'll mean employees will simply go into work when they are sick. This might actually lead to employees taking vacation time instead of sick time. One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick time. One was only able to take vacation time when one was sick.

In reality, it probably will lead to people coming into work when they are sick. However, for serious sickness, like the flu, it'll probably lead to people taking vacation time.

<comment><USER28> > One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick time.

Thankfully, that's not legal in a lot of countries. Vacation time and sick leave are two separate things workers are entitled to. I'm not on vacation when I'm sick, I'm miserable in bed. Not out enjoying a cocktail on a sandy beach.

But even better, if I'm sick on vacation I can actually swap out vacation days for sick days and recover my vacation time. I can spend all of my vacation days on actually being on vacation, even if I get food poisoning on vacation.

<comment><USER29> It's commonplace to use up your vacations when you are sick instead of being declared as sick, in some environments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looks like it's legal in Germany to tie individual bonuses to sick days taken. Making it a group bonus though is going to really generate pressure to show up.

<comment><USER31> Cue a whole department going down with the flu because of this. Dumb. Employees should be encouraged to stay home when ill, not encouraged to go to work. Besides the obvious risks from infection of course there are contributory risks such as someone causing a workplace accident because they are ill and therefore not as concentrated on their work as they should be.

<comment><USER32> You'd think Amazon would be sensitive to this after an operator error caused their bi-annual S3 outage just over a month ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash My girlfriend and I have been severely sick for the past month. Never been so afflicted in our lives. Neither of us got one word of trouble for working remote or taking sick days, because the people we work for care about us as human beings.

I have no idea how other people put up with this shit.

<comment><USER33> I assume that a WFH day does not count as a sick day.

<comment><USER34> Can a German reader read the original article for us? I would assume the warehouse staff can't work from home, then again maybe they have very generous group sick day quantities. The translations supposedly relate "german IT groups up in arms" so thats probably not the janitorial staff being affected.

Where I work if you're sick or a kid is sick, that means work from home via VPN, just like if they called you for an emergency at 2am except its 2pm. If you're not a total loser or slacker your boss won't expect much "work" especially if you're genuinely sick, but even if all you do is idle on instant messaging and reply to emails, they're getting at least some kind of value out of you more so than a sick day and if you accomplish anything, however slow, plus for the bean counters you're not logging a sick day. Actually burning an actual literal sick day frankly means you're going to baseball opening day or a job interview or you're in the terminal stages of your career so to speak (bad relationship with company or boss), or maybe you feel cheated out of vacation days so you pad mondays and fridays with more than 2/5th of sick days etc.

Obviously jobs or employers incompatible with VPN work are a different scenario.

Sick day in the 90s mean literally sick, like the flu, whereas in the 10s if I have the flu I just work from home very slowly and literal sick day means "go local professional sports team go" or similar unscheduled vacation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This sounded absurd and we haven't heard the justification for it, so I tried to think of possible benefits.

It is actually interesting that if I go to work sick and get a couple others sick, it will cost me more money than if I had stayed home to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sick days get abused by both sides.

A manager once told me that a member of his team was sick for exactly two weeks every year. Coincidentally, the company offered 2 weeks paid sick time. He said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't get a raise as a result.

In another company I knew, it was well known that a sunny day after many days of rain resulted in a spike in sick days.

<comment><USER19> This is easily solved by giving people "Paid time off" days which can be used for either vacation _or_ sick days.

<comment><USER36> This is not so easy when you are expected to give notice for vacation so your employer has time to make arrangements to cover your duties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This reminds me of the soap bar beat-down scene in full metal jacket.

In theory it might encourage group-consideration when you're sick though.

</comment><comment><USER38> I just wish Bezos would find it in that cold heart he has to share some of the success that so many of his employees are responsible for with them. The richest man in the world and it is still not enough for him and always looking for ways to screw everyone not just his competition.

</comment><comment><USER39> The articles on FACE of Amazon look insane. What a read!!

[https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home)

Is this all really true?

</comment><comment><USER40> I earn my living with a mail-order online business. The costs for picking & packaging are around 1-2%, even though we use a rather expensive option (a home for mentally disabled people).

I just don't get why Amazon bothers with trying to shave off what, in total, cannot amount to more than 1/3 of 1% of its costs, considering how much these policies have cost them in bad PR, and, possibly, pangs of conscience.

If they managed to reduce packaging material by 50%, they could easily double the salary of everyone in the warehouses, and still have enough over for all- you-can-snort blow at headquarter's x-mas party.

<comment><USER16> Frugality is part of the company culture. Sometimes people take that too far - to the point where the word "frupid" got coined internally to describe policies that saved pennies at the cost of massive frustration or inconvenience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> You could look at it like this: the goal is to reduce the total number of sick says in the pool, however you do it. A pooled allowance might encourage people more to stay away from work when ill.

A given individual may not have much control over whether or not they get sick, but then can influence whether or not they share that illness with their colleagues. The individual allowance has a stronger incentive to return to work vs the pool, because there is no cost to the individual if their colleagues become ill. With a pooled allowance, there is a cost to the individual if they make their colleagues ill.

</comment><comment><USER42> Another angle is that it can encourage teams to have a good working environment where employees aren't staying home because they hate their jobs.

Being a place where people _want_ to go when they wake up in the morning, improves attendance and many other things.

</comment><comment><USER43> Perhaps someone could look into how they handle their warehouses employees? In UK you also get "points" for sick leaves and such nice things. In Germany they have employed neo-nazis to take care of their foreign workers and so on.

</comment><comment><USER44> Interesting.

Typically collective punishment is used against out groups, in order to get out groups to police themselves in their interactions with your in group (vs. in group members, where individual punishment is used.)

Apparently Amazon employees are an out group for Amazon corporate.

</comment><comment><USER29> Meanwhile at Expedia London: 25 days of holidays + 25 days of sick leave by standard.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated to Expedia. I just interview everywhere to find out whom I can extract the most money, holidays and sick days from.

<comment><USER45> Minimum in Norway is 4 weeks holiday and 9 days sick leave. Most have 5 weeks holiday and many have 24 days sick leave. This is without a doctors notice. With a doctors notice you get 50 weeks sick leave, after that the employer can consider firing you and your pay will be cut.

<comment><USER29> Sadly, London is closer to the USA than Norway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Would people getting angered by this policy be angered by a rephrased policy that allows transferring sick days between workers? I'm not familiar with all the details but it sounds quite similar.

<comment><USER47> How does that work? I'm sick, but I come in and my colleague stays at home?

<comment><USER46> Some companies let you give your sick days or personal days to your co- workers. Say if you have 10 days for the entire year but you don't really get sick, the days don't carry over, and you want to help out Alice (friend/coworker). You'd be able to transfer your sick/personal days to her that you would otherwise not be able to use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> US federal government workers can donate unusued sick leave to people who have run out due to long-term illnesses. Many do. That is a more positive way to implement collective sick leave policies.

</comment><comment><USER29> 1) Go to work.

2) Lie down on a desk for half the day because you're half dead.

That's the last time I had to handle a sick leave in France. It didn't shock anyone. Normal practise.

Gotta adapt when you can't take sick days.

<comment><USER49> I worked for an HFT a while back that had a zero-sick-day policy. This is exactly what I did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> If the amazon offices in Germany are anything like the ones in Seattle sounds I'd project they get less productivity out of this than more. They pack people in like sardines in a can.

</comment><comment><USER51> And this is why freelancing and gig work is taking over the world.

/Darwin Award

<comment><USER52> That's quite a myopic view. Yes freelancers a probably doing great for themselves but I don't see large corporations adopting a fully freelance dev workforce anytime soon.

<comment><USER51> I do freelance writing. I have seen articles that indicate that 40% of the US workforce will be freelance, gig work, contractors et al by 2020. It is not a myopic view. It is disgust with this policy combined with real world data.

(Anecdotally, I increasingly see people complain they have been job hunting for a long time and can't find a job, plus the UBI discussion is ongoing. Both of these support the idea that the job base for traditional employment is shrinking.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> So Amazon's way of dealing with sick time costs is to... step on the gas, and throw oil on the fire with respect to the #1 reason that people call in sick (at rates above median) in the first place -- namely, a general sense of hopelessness about their working conditions, and a deep and abiding distrust of upper management. At least the move is most likely illegal in Germany, and hence hopefully won't stand too long.

On that note - so what are people's latest recommendations for AWS alternatives (for those services which do have reasonable alternatives)? In particular - any significant updates to the following recommendations, in the last 6 months or so? My group will be making some decisions soon, and I always prefer not to go with AWS unless there (absolutely) no comparable alternatives available.

[1] "Ask HN: Alternatives to AWS" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12621716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12621716)

</comment><comment><USER54> This is a "butts in seats" is more important than results move. Expect unproductive busyness to ensue...

</comment><comment><USER26> Uhm... collective punishment is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

</comment><comment><USER55> How can this possibly be legal under German law?

</comment><comment><USER56> A big win for infectious disease spread in the office! Did AMZN start selling cough syrup?

<comment><USER57> Cough syrup appears in search results at amazon.com, but it's hard to quickly gauge who the sellers are or how reputable. Plus I imagine it would be harder if I were sick.

<comment><USER29> Next news: AMZ employees fired for stealing a cough syrup during service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Who comes up with this shit. If someone is sick they shouldn't come to work at all, ever. You should encourage people to stay home so they don't get others sick. If they can manage, have them do a little work from home.

Moving from a small (10 person) company to a building with 1000 people in it I went from almost never being sick to getting sick 3+ times every winter.

Strongly encourage your employees to stay home when they're sick as long as they're getting their jobs done. If they're out frequently or for a long period of time (4+ days) require a doctor's note. That's your sick policy. Done.

<comment><USER20> I've never understood the whole "doctor's note" thing. When you're sick, the last thing you want to do is go out in the cold or rain, ride the train with other possibly-sick people, sit in a doctor's waiting room with other definitely-sick people, just to get a note that says something you might be able to prove with an e-mailed photo of the thermometer you just took your temperature with.</comment></comment>


The feeling you get when you say a word a lot of times, and it seems weird - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamais_vu

<comment><USER2> You're thinking of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation>.</comment>


Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54 <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: While I do not agree with Jordan Peterson on all points, I believe that in this interview he comes across as highly intellectual, well-spoken, and thought-provoking, if not interesting in general...

That being said, your proverbial mileage (and opinions) with respect to this interview probably can and will vary...</comment>


Hands on the Google Nexus One phone - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5432678/google-nexus-one-hands-on

<comment><USER2> So it appears multi-touch is disabled on this device also? IIRC Google stated that Verizon wanted multi-touch disabled on the Droid but here's Google's first party blessed handset and it's also lacking multi-touch. Something's not adding up. We're past the point of oversight or third party objections.

</comment><comment><USER3> The rumors that it won't work on AT&T's 3G (UMTS) being true would shock me. In order to support T-Mobile's 3G (UMTS) network, it would have to run on Cell, PCS, and AWS (850/1900/1700/2100) spectrums. Currently T-Mobile only supports UMTS on their AWS (1700/2100) spectrum, but that could change in the future. AT&T's 3G network runs on Cell and PCS (850/1900). They would have to intentionally disable UMTS on Cell and PCS in order to block out AT&T's 3G network, which would be extremely stupid considering that T-Mobile will eventually move UMTS to their PCS spectrum in the future.

<comment><USER4> "Intentionally disable" ? I don't think so. There are plenty of phones that get 3G on T-Mobile and not AT&T (And vice versa).

900/1700/2100 is a pretty common set up for T-Mobile phones. According to FCC documents, this appears to be the only frequencies the Nexus 1 has been tested on.

Really, the only reason this is an issue is because of the rumor Google will be pushing this phone unlocked through retail. I don't think this is true. I think it will be exactly like the G1.

<comment><USER3> In order for your first statement to be true, those phones would have to be told only to operate UMTS on T-Mobile AWS frequencies, which is an asinine strategy. The 900/1700/2100 might be a common setup for European T-Mobile phones. T-Mobile phones in the US are almost entirely 850/1900. T-Mobile operates almost exclusively on PCS (1900MHz) frequencies in the US.

<comment><USER5> _T-Mobile phones in the US are almost entirely 850/1900._

Being that 850/1900 are AT&T's 3G bands, I think you might be confused. I just looked at T-Mobile's and HTC's websites; all of the 3G phones I could find operated on either 2100 or 1700/2100.

Also, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UMTS_networks#Americas>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So where's the part where Google, or any carrier, says that this phone will ever be sold to consumers?

All we have is a Google blog entry that specifically says this is a development phone to test new features, and a bunch of speculation.

</comment><comment><USER7> It all sounds very impressive, but the Motorola Droid continues to have a trump card: Verizon.

<comment><USER8> If the worst they've got to worry about is _another Android phone_ , I'd say they're doing pretty well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> how long until it will be available?

<comment><USER10> The rumors are saying Jan. 5th.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So basically, this is the GSM version of the Droid when it gets 2.1. Yawn.

<comment><USER12> But doesn't it sound like the underlying hardware is faster?</comment></comment>


Ted Nelson's Pre-Final Reply to "The Curse of Xanadu" by Gary Wolf / Gory Jackal - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_-5cGEU9S0 <comment><AUTHOR> Recorded on the 20th anniversary of _WIRED_ 's publication of the 1995 piece "The Curse of Xanadu"[0] (and adding onto his previous rebuttals in the same[1] and online[2]), Ted Nelson announces his creation of a feature-length rebuttal video to be released upon his death.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/](https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/)

[1] [https://www.wired.com/1995/09/rants- raves-123/](https://www.wired.com/1995/09/rants-raves-123/)

[2] [http://www.xanadu.com.au/ararat](http://www.xanadu.com.au/ararat)</comment>


Show HN: Anonymous Blogging - <AUTHOR>

http://valleyanon.com/ -- A simple anonymous blogging platform for free speech online. I built it so that people can let their stories be known without fear. <comment><USER2> For the login you ask for an email address. There are plenty of services providing disposable email addresses but I wonder if you need to ask for an email at all. Perhaps an 'Alias' field would be more in keeping with the ethos of the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> The email field will take any string. Only enter your email if you want access to alerts, updates, and recovery tools -- otherwise you can just use some random handle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice project. Noted that my Ghostery script is blocking both facebook connect and Google Analytics. Even if TOR is used these services are able to easily fingerprint the browser and compare to their own databases (<https://panopticlick.eff.org/>).

It would be nice if these where opt-in.

</comment><comment><USER4> Your like/tweet counter is serving as negative social proof. Get rid of the counter until you build up some likes.

<comment><AUTHOR> done and thanks.

<comment><USER4> You could have left the buttons there, just without the counter.

Facebook doesn't let you do this easily, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://valleyanon.com/p/2> oh dear...

<comment><AUTHOR> a(n) (un)fortunate side effect of anonymity online. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see a hidden service anywhere..

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call. I'll look into supporting this next. In the meanwhile I just assumed people could connect through a Tor exit node to post.

<comment><USER7> when you assume. you make mistakes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://valleyanon.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> this is not anonymous in any way. read: google analytics , ect</comment>


Larry Ellison's Cat Island - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewdalton/welcome-to-larry-ellisons-cat-island <comment><USER2> Interesting quote:

 _" [...] Ellison's relationship with his own cats was remarkable enough to deserve two mentions in his 1997 biography The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison (subtitle: "God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison"). Ellison's biographer, journalist Mike Wilson, relays a story told to him by Ellison's first wife, Adda Quinn. When Ellison's cat Yitzhak died, Quinn said, he "took off two weeks in mourning. He was nonfunctional." In another anecdote, Ellison tells Wilson he once returned home to find out his cat Clio died while he was out of town on business. Ellison had the cat's body exhumed so she could be buried under her favorite tree."_

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we all see where this is going.

        [x] Evil
        [x] Volcanic island
        [x] Cats

<comment><USER4> He's just a simple product-driven CEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between a billionaire and a king? The former "earned" the right to rule the rest of us? This is a sad state for an alleged democracy.

</comment><comment><USER6> I never thought I'd be upvoting a BuzzFeed article on Hacker News, but this was surprisingly well-written and interesting. The best part:

 _" Since litter training is the only thing separating the sanctuary's residents from their feral cousins, one might wonder about logistics of supplying all that kitty litter. Where do all these cats go to shit?

Here, Ellison's predecessors have unknowingly left behind a solution: the common but non-native Cook Island pines, which were imported to the island in 1911 by naturalist and rancher George Munro after he noticed the fog condensing on the stubby needles of the lone pine outside his cabin and saw an opportunity to solve the island's fresh-water problem. Fast-forward a hundred years and it turns out those needles, once dried out and mulched in a woodchipper, are also great for soaking up cat piss."_

<comment><USER7> Buzzfeed News does some fantastic long-form reporting. I'm pretty sure they take the money from all their clickbait listicles and use it to fund their serious reporting.

Just don't read the comments...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cat Island is cute, but Japan's Bunny Island is adorable.

[http://www.dailydot.com/lol/rabbit-island- japan/](http://www.dailydot.com/lol/rabbit-island-japan/)

</comment><comment><USER9> On the one hand, it sounds like a cool place to visit.

On the other hand, I'd have to give Larry Ellison money. And that just won't do.</comment>


Who Killed Ötzi the Iceman? Clues Emerge - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/world/europe/bolzano-italy-iceman-south-tyrol-museum-of-archaeology.html <comment><USER2> I wonder if Otzi was the instigator in the described conflict. The piece describes him as someone who was not a laborer but did plenty of walking. I can imagine a vagabond type individual traveling place to place taking his pickings from the weaker groups (or perhaps stealing and stabbing in the process seeing how he had little upper body strength but carried a dagger). His clothing is made of multiple furs of multiple species yet he doesn't have a finished bow? I mean, it's possible he was an excellent trapper and caught all them animals OR did he take his possessions elsewhere? I can just picture him coming up on a small village, stealing some stuff and stabbing the individual who confronted him, then retreating back into the mountains. Upon discovery of a crime, a more practiced village member tracks the villain into the mountains and without so much as a flinch pierces him in the back from a distance far off.

<comment><USER3> I love all the speculation in this thread so I thought I'd just chime in and say blood from four different people has reportedly been found on his weapons. I believe both axe and arrow heads.

This was on HN a few weeks back but I couldn't find that particular article, instead I found one on NatGeo[1] from 2003 saying the same thing.

1\. [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1030_031030_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/10/1030_031030_icemandeath.html)

<comment><USER4> > blood from four different people has reportedly been found on his weapons.

This article doesn't mention it, but he was also carrying a birch polypore, which is a styptic.

<comment><USER3> That's very cool. 45 years old in good shape in those days must have been a status symbol in itself. 45 years today is pretty wise already but back then I'm sure your average wandering 45 year old knew basic field medical techniques just to stay alive.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily. A lot of people died young, which lowered the average lifespan considerably, but once you got through your childhood and teens, your chances of living to an old age were reasonably high.

<comment><USER6> Actually, take away infant mortality (and maybe even not) and their lifespans exceed ours on average. Agriculture doesn't provide the same level of nutrition, no large groups to spread disease, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> After reading the article, I was curious about all the objects they mentioned he had carried. This site has descriptions and pictures of each:

[http://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/](http://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/)

Very interesting.

<comment><USER8> Wow, some of that stuff is in great condition. The axe is definately the most interesting... the only surviving one of it's kind even though it was a status symbol often buried with bodies of important people. And it's 99% copper from a body from the Copper Age!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The museum in Bolzano, Italy where Ötzi is held is well worth a visit and the items found with the body mentioned in this article are also on display with theories about their use and significance: [http://www.iceman.it/](http://www.iceman.it/)

<comment><USER10> I agree, I think this is one of the best museums I've ever visited! Other more famous museums (e.g., El Prado in Madrid) overwhelm visitors with a lot of stuff presented in a quasi-random order. On the other hand, this one is extremely well-thought, with a good use of multimedia and clear explanations provided along the path.

Museum's website: [http://www.iceman.it/en/](http://www.iceman.it/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this fascinates you I recommend you read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature). It's a book that talks about violence in history. Ötzi is mentioned and so are a few others.

<comment><USER12> Steven Pinker's assertions in TBAOON are nice and intellectually attractive but ultimately, difficult to prove or disprove. Naseem Taleb had quite a strong reaction to it.

" "Pinker doesn't have a clear idea of the difference between science and journalism, or the one between rigorous empiricism and anecdotal statements. Science is not about making claims about a sample, but using a sample to make general claims and discuss properties that apply outside the sample. "

Further here: [https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet- idiot-13211e...](https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet- idiot-13211e2d0577#.mjjzuif7b)

Since at least a bit of that seemed like a personal attack on Pinker, that was then followed by personal attacks on Taleb by Pinker. He even wrote a quora post on it describing it as "The paper by Taleb that I saw was a mess: sloppy, inaccurate, and incoherent."

[https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of- Steven-P...](https://www.quora.com/Is-Nassim-Talebs-criticism-of-Steven- Pinkers-work-fair)

I think our recent history with Trump, and the increasing friction with China suggest that perhaps the celebration of Pinker's ideas was a bit premature. As Taleb has shown us, a long period of peace doesn't mean that violence is declining or that we can presume that it will never reoccur with the magnitude and intensity we saw during earlier periods.

<comment><USER13> > I think our recent history with Trump, and the increasing friction with > China suggest that perhaps the celebration of Pinker's ideas was a bit > premature. As Taleb has shown us, a long period of peace doesn't mean that > violence is declining or that we can presume that it will never reoccur with > the magnitude and intensity we saw during earlier periods.

I highly doubt the increasing friction between the USA and China (and the rest of the world to be honest) is leading to any sort of third world war so I'm confident that a tendency to violence does in fact decrease in certain societies.

<comment><USER12> > I'm confident that a tendency to violence does in fact decrease in certain > societies.

Could you elaborate on which certain societies you mean? Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Every time I read stories like this, I still am amazed at modern science. A man is killed thousands of years ago, but we can still deduce with fairly reasonable certainty the circumstances of his death, and all sorts of facts about him. Fascinating!

<comment><USER15> Or ... we could be completely wrong and don't know it.

(But yes, the possibilities of modern science are amazing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Glad to see this piece on HN. Very fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER17> Otzi looks remarkably similar to Kris Kristofferson

[http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Abraham- Whistler-...](http://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Abraham-Whistler- Blade-movie-Kris-Kristofferson-a.jpg)

I wonder if this is an indication that modern people from Scandinavia, where half of Kristofferson's ancestors are from, are more similar to older European populations, while the European South and Centre saw more change through migrations.

<comment><USER18> Otzi is a member of haplogroup G[1], which is fairly rare in Europe, especially Scandinavia, while more common in the Caucasus and near east.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Where are mummies of other villagers? Everyone of the villagers should also be preserved as icy mummies in the same region. Right?

<comment><USER20> He wasn't found is the remains of a village, but at a solo camp site far up in the mountains. He was killed there and his body was covered in snow and ice soon after, which preserved it.

Analysis of his stomach contents gives evidence that he visited a village down in the valley where it would be warmer and had a meal there, because semi- digested food in his stomach is consistent with the sort of food you'd normally only have access to in that kind of environment. I think that's mainly from pollen analysis.

It would be very unusual to find an entire village and it's population entombed in ice. They would all have to die at the same time (nobody left to bury the bodies) and their bodies be left exposed and undisturbed to be frozen. Usually when someone dies the rest of the population would bury them, but in this case because he was killed and abandoned the body was left in a situation where it could be naturally preserved.</comment></comment>