Airbus ran 'massive' bribery scheme to win orders - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/f7a01a60-442b-11ea-abea-0c7a29cd66fe <comment><USER2> > Airbus for years conducted a "massive scheme to offer and pay bribes", > involving very senior executives, according to disclosures in courts in > Washington DC, Paris and London, as Europe's aerospace champion agreed to > pay €3.6bn in penalties to regulators in France, the UK and the US.

So nobody went to jail, though

<comment><USER3> Nobody goes to jail for "lobbying" in the US while it is clearly about the same thing as bribery. Just a legal form of it.

<comment><USER4> While lobbyists have sometimes bribed officials through gifts and perks, which is illegal, lobbying is not bribery. Say you're interesting in promoting renewable energy. You and like minded people put together resources to promote renewable energy to politicians, explaining its benefits. This activity is lobbying for renewable energy.

<comment><USER5> This breaks down when politicians get some kind of personal benefit such as campaign contributions or a consulting job. This is a conflict of interest and should exclude them from any vote about the interests of the lobbyist.

<comment><USER6> Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for lobbyists to have a big impact on policy.

<comment><USER7> You haven't explained why lobbyists are necessary, or even a good thing. Why is a system allowing lobbying better than one that bans it in favor of politicians independently making decisions based on the will expressed by and likely benefits for their constituents? And please don't say it's hard for them to understand all the issues. That's literally their job and the reason they have a staff.

<comment><USER8> If it was banned, it would still happen, but not in the public eye.

A relative of a friend was a politician. He used lobbyists indirectly to work on issues. Say he needed help understanding a school textbook issue. He would call up his oil lobbyist, whose job it was to make him happy. It was definitely not his job to piss him off. He would quickly get a report on the textbook issue, probably written by _the_ expert in the field.

<comment><USER9> The lobbyist then gets to choose _an_ expert which represents the _lobbyists_ worldview. This is what he is getting paid to do.

<comment><USER8> But the oil lobbyist wouldn't have a horse in the game for school textbooks. He would play fair in the hope that the politician would "play fair" on future oil issues.

It's a wierd sort of politician problem solving, making do with the resources you have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wouldn't be the first time. In Canada our former PM was accused of accepting 'kickbacks' in 1995.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://archive.md/MIVp8](http://archive.md/MIVp8)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. How do you go from paywall to archive.org link ? Or i was your action having access behind FT's paywall ?

<comment><USER13> The link isn't archive.org. It's a different service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thank god.

A particularly nasty aspect of this story, alluded to at the bottom but not made explicit, is that Airbus was taking massive export credits (in the UK, they got the lion's share of the budget).

It was only in the UK that Airbus was required to actually required to produce documentation about the customer, and the scheme was only uncovered when someone at UKEF realised that Airbus wasn't doing this and the govt had been giving out hundreds of millions to corrupt politicians.

Also, the timeline here is incredible. As soon as the UK announced their investigation, and Airbus was banned from receiving credits...they were in negotiations to resume funding, and (somehow) Enders only lost his job 3 years later (and even the UK has turned back on the money spigot...although this time with sheepish promises about trying to fund a company other than Airbus through UKEF).

Airbus is everything that is wrong with the corporate world. Run by politicians, hopelessly corrupt, always spinning, and receiving massive subsidies by dint of their impact on local job markets.

<comment><USER15> "Airbus is everything that is wrong with the corporate world."

But it makes planes that don't crash like Boeings.

<comment><USER16> [http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm)

Not exactly...

<comment><USER17> So both companies build planes that crash, with mostly similar rates as well The outliers in this list are the 747, the A310 and the 737MAX in ascending order

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Every company doles out bribes. In many countries bribery is the way to go. Things don't happen without it. They just find creative ways to make it legal that's all.

<comment><USER19> "Every company" is obviously hyperbole. My local deli doesn't bribe anybody. What do you really mean - every $1bn+ revenue aerospace firm?

<comment><USER20> "My local deli doesn't bribe anybody."

You sure?

I mean, I agree with you that "every company" is certainly hyperbole, but bribery happens on different scales. Its not all national level and involving 6+ figure sums.

I know someone who worked at a local restaurant where the owner bribed someone at the local health inspection office to be tipped off before "random inspections" giving them a couple of days notice to get things sorted out prior to the inspection.

I suspect companies committing bribery are the minority, but it can and does happen at the local small-business level.

<comment><USER21> Vehicle inspections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bribery or MCAS? Your choice.

<comment><USER23> Option 3: start jailing these fraudsters for criminal fraud. Jail corporate profits for 6 months. Claw back any and all executive pay since the fraud began and distribute it to low level employees or other victims of the fraud.

If you can't survive as an honest company you don't deserve to survive.

And there are _very_ few people that give the government as many screws as executives to modify their behavior.

<comment><USER24> In medical devices when you screw up they can stop you from selling in a country for a while. That usually wakes people up. Stopping them from doing business for a while would wake up a lot of companies. But they can always hold their employees hostage since they would take most of the suffering.

<comment><USER25> Unless of course the screw up is "normal", like leaving your device unsecured and open to the internet (which is wide spread in the medical device community, at least in practice).

<comment><USER24> I guess with "screw up" I meant things the regulatory organization doesn't like. This could mean just wrong paperwork.

As far as security goes things are improving. Five years ago you got brushed off if you pointed out how easily hackable the devices were. Now people are listening and the FDA also seems to understand issues better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a business flyer - at this moment I am willing to pay 10-15% more for my tickets provided I fly only airbus equipment.

<comment><USER27> Even if you own the business, your funds for traveling should come from the company and not your own pocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Bribery? Don't Americans call it lobbying?

<comment><USER29> It would be lobbying if involved company would have name 'Boeing' otherwise it's clearly bribery!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anyone here actually believes it is only Airbus???

<comment><USER31> Is there evidence of others?

<comment><USER32> Well, in the UK no less than PM Blair personally interfered to get to SFO to drop the in investigation into BAE bribery on the Eurofighter Typhoon project in Saudi Arabia.

Something about 5,000 jobs, ₤6 billion, and - of course - upset Saudi princes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al- Yamamah_arms_deal#Serious_F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al- Yamamah_arms_deal#Serious_Fraud_Office_investigation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In Canada SNC Lavalin same things.

This is not an easy thing though: the countries in which bribes are paid are run by corrupt people who expect kickbacks as part of doing business, and there's no other way about it.

If the West wants to play morally superior on this - then 100% of Airbus, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton and massive industrials will full-on go out of business.

This issue is not part of the current round of negotiations with China and it's too bad, because without a level playing field - many industries will be wiped out and other countries will be happy to pick up the slack.

This stuff is quite common, we need a comprehensive solution.

One indirect approach might be to invest and push for open journalism in places like Malaysia, so as to force their own hand on corruption though that may be asking too much.

<comment><USER34> I question the premise. The US has the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 has already made it illegal to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business. Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far.

<comment><USER35> >Somehow, Boeing, SNC, Halliburton, and many other massive industrials have survived so far

>Somehow

At least in cases of SNC and Halliburton, "somehow" was by doing the illegal thing.

<comment><USER21> I don't think it's reasonable to assume that because some companies were prosecuted under the statute(s) that they, or industry in general, engage in just as much activity as they would have unregulated.

<comment><USER33> Yes it is.

It's a very natural thing for someone who has status to think that they should be able to cash in on that power.

Everyone with responsibility is looking at a pile of money every day, all they have to do is reach out and grab some. And after all, they 'work hard' so why shouldn't they? (Is the internal logic they might use).

Most businesses are commodities, it's hard to compete on price or anything else. It makes much more sense to compete on some other basis.

In 2020 most industries continue to run on soft grease. The next time you go to a sporting event, look at the Box Seats and consider that 100% of them are business write-offs, used to 'entertain' i.e. to 'give a gift' to someone in business they are not otherwise allowed to do.

 _There is no such thing as a Free Lunch_

Some might even argue that while it might be unethical to bribe a judge, it's altogether different for commercial kickbacks. Why should an exec who has toiled all of his life leave the profits to the considerably more corrupt owners? ... is the internal logic they might use.

When you think about the nature of power and influence - such activities are the natural course of action, and it takes a pretty strong, moral social organization + strong laws to overcome it.

I guess it's a good thing that most regular people in the West think bribery is bad, and that at least it's not something they should do. That probably took a few hundred years of indoctrination at least.

<comment><USER21> Ok, you disagree. But after writing "Yes it is", none of your following 8 sentences seem to support your opinion.

If someone is prosecuted and assumed guilty of a crime, then it proves that the law does not prevent the activity 100%. However, it also seems virtually certain that it prevents _some_ of the crime.

If someone claimed that because people are arrested for murder all the time, the law(s) against murder have no effect, is that _really_ serious? Or is it just the sort of thing people like to say, but everyone knows better?

If you make a statement and then don't support it, it creates the unfortunate appearance that you're not expressing sincere opinions, or if you are, that you won't explain where they come from.

<comment><USER34> You left out an unfortunate appearance: that the poster might be rationalizing the practice of bribery as "everybody does it" specifically because the poster engages in bribery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Every year we learn more about how suit-wearers do business: nepotism, bribery, kickbacks, back scratching, quid pro quo … but we continue to believe the myth of the "self made man," who raised themselves to success by hard work and thorough understanding of their technical field.

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh, very surprising, this news comes at the exact right timing for Boeing during the 737 max debacle ;-)

<comment><USER38> Reminds me of an old story:

[https://www.economist.com/special- report/2003/06/12/airbuss-...](https://www.economist.com/special- report/2003/06/12/airbuss-secret-past)

Maybe people here have never heard the EU point of view on it, so let me sum it up: Airbus bribed Saudi officials in the 90s to get a 6 billion contracts. It was "whistleblowed" by this then little-known agency: NSA and in the end Boeing got the contract. It triggered a EU investigation in what was then called ECHELON. A Cold-war era spying network that was being repurposed for economic intelligence.

Airbus defense was that in Saudi Arabia, nothing gets done without corruption and Boeing probably did the same, but of course, EU had no interceptions to prove it.

I often argue that Snowden told us very little new information and that the EU kney most of this since 2001. I don't understand why it took 15 years to become a public concern.

[https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS_STUDY_538877_Affair...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS_STUDY_538877_AffaireEchelon- EN.pdf)

<comment><USER39> I agree with all you've said, including that probably the US bribes (or threatens) as much or more than the EU. But being even more cynical about it, this is just the way the free market sneaks in, including these big government deals: one party has money, the other party has power. Say Airbus bribes Saudi Arabia Officials. The officials don't have that much money, but they surely have power, and Airbus doesn't have the power to decide on the deal but they surely have some cash. A transaction is agreed and done and both parties reach a win-win situation. Of course the losing part is the citizens, but a capitalistic view of this is that corruption is just anything that breaks the fairy tale idea that the people that work in government seek the interests of the general public and not their very own private interests. Citizens were already on the losing side when the government forced them to pay taxes.

<comment><USER40> Actually, this is orthogonal to governments. There's widespread bribery in the private sector too, where decisions makers are gifted to persuade them.

To use your phrasing, a capitalistic view of this is that corruption is just anything that breaks the fairy tale idea that the people who work in the corporation seek the interests of the company and not their very own private interests.

You can even see it play out here on Hacker News - people who optimize for their own career goals at the detriment of the company that pays them to get a job done.

<comment><USER39> It's true, but it's also true that many things that are considered corruption/illegal when you do it for the government, they are not when it's inside a company. If a business owner hires his nephew, that's not illegal and many people wouldn't consider it corruption. If a government official appoints his nephew, that's frowned upon to say the least. But going back to your argument, if an employee uses his position and gets bribed, of course that's going at the detriment of the company... but you could also say that if the company has the right checks and balances he will get caught, and that if the company had made sure that the interests of the employee were well-aligned with the company's it wouldn't be a logical step. And that's why some companies pay so handsomely.

<comment><USER41> > government official appoints his nephew, that's frowned upon to say the > least

What about when a President appoints his daughter and son-in-law?

<comment><USER42> Transparency, I guess.

(feels like sarcasm just experienced an integer overflow, or perhaps not)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> As a flyer: Do their planes fall out of the sky due to pervasive dysfunctional corporate culture? Nope.

So yeah not great & but relatively speaking I can't say I particularly care

<comment><USER44> The correct answer is : Eventually.

So yeah, everyone should care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Someone put a pdf on Drive, please.

<comment><USER46> Google "Airbus ran 'massive' bribery scheme to win orders".

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The one thing I am happy to see if how many "realist" has suddenly appeared and not try to deny any wrong doing or non- existent of bribery.

And this happen just when Boeing is in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is really US taking down strategic competitors. It's nothing new. It's foreign policy, america first, double standard or whatever you want to name it.

<comment><USER49> The US with the power of various DAs etc attacked the european banking industry whilst completely ignoring the american banking industry over almost nothing in some cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I find it irritating that this link is paywalled. the news about this topic is readily available elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yawn. This is how this works.

</comment><comment><USER52> Lockheed. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals)

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't try to change the subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> What is the etiquette about posting links that are behind paywalls?

</comment><comment><USER54> journaliasts are bored by Boeing topics?

<comment><USER55> Airbus might well be paying them to appear so...

<comment><USER56> Considering that Boeing is in deep, deep trouble Airbus has stayed very quiet and deliberately so. Their only major competitor collapsing can't be good for the strategically. Just imagine Boeing going bankrupt and being split up with China buying some parts...

<comment><USER57> US government will never let this happen, as a matter of national security. They'll bleed and may be bought by a US company, but never international interests

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Article is paywalled, what was the timeline of the bribes happening? Would it be fair to say:

Airbus runs 'massive' bribery scheme -> Airbus wins more orders -> Boeing feels pressure of losing orders -> Boeing execs pressure engineers to cut corners -> Boeing aircraft develop various major safety issues

</comment><comment><USER59> so not happy with making loads of cash with boeing loosing business they want to make even more. What happened to just making money, when did they become so greedy they want to make all the money!</comment>


16 Arrested as F.B.I. Hits the Hacking Group Anonymous - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/technology/16-arrested-as-fbi-hits-the-hacking-group-anonymous.html

<comment><USER2> _In the San Jose case, all 14 suspects are accused of using a free program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon_

...

 _When you have a decentralized group," Ms. Granick said, "the question is, Are there big fish, and are any of these people big fish?"_

No.

They're basically going to ruin a few kids' lives in order to deter other kids from "hacking" with things like LOIC.

<comment><USER3> > They're basically going to ruin a few kids' lives in order to deter other > kids from "hacking" with things like LOIC.

They'll get probation is it's their first offense. Judges do have brains you know, and don't toss people in jail (or fine them) just because the prosecution wants them to.

But I doubt it'll go to trial. The prosecution will get lots of media out it (which is all they really want). Then they'll offer a plea bargain deal with probation, and that'll be all.

<comment><USER4> But then it would be on their record, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER3> Yah. You can sometimes get those purged if you complete the probation without issues. It depends on the judge I guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmmm... it seems like the FBI decided to go after some low hanging fruit. People using Low Orbit Ion Cannon are probably not the brains of the operations. And arresting a bunch of people who have no influence probably gives validation to the message of anonymous and lulzsec.

<comment><USER6> Criminals is criminals.

<comment><USER7> Slave mentality is slave mentality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this Reddit thread: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/iu93n/fbi_raided_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/iu93n/fbi_raided_my_house_with_a_search_warrant_today/)

Is the unnamed suspect (I would guess due to being a minor).

<comment><USER9> I find it hard to believe they would enter a house with 20 armed agents to arrest someone who did not commit an act of violence.

<comment><USER10> America is a terribly strange and terrifying place to those that didn't grow up there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _The suspects, in 10 separate states, are accused of conspiring to "intentionally damage protected computers."_

This seems to relate to refer to Title 18, Part I, Chapter 47, § 1030, Part a) 5) A):

 _knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;_

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html>

There was quite a bit of debate during the December DOS's about what you could even charge folks with. This seems to be their answer. You can indict for almost anything, though, as grand juries are notoriously easy especially in technical cases.

I find it hard to believe a judge would actually buy slowing a computer down equals damage. If that was the case people who maliciously search too often. Smells like plea bargain bait at best to me, what US Attorney would want to try that?

<comment><USER12> > ...a judge would actually buy slowing a computer down equals damage...

 _cough_ flash ads _cough_

<comment><USER13> _Vista_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _And mounting an attack is..., with the right skills, relatively simple._

Do people think any more? Yeah, driving a formula one car is, with the right skills, relatively simple.

Anything is simple from the perspective of the person who has invested time to learn how to do it.

<comment><USER13> Right, but LOIC actually _is_ ridiculously simple. You either enter the url of the server that's doing the fire control, or just enter the url of your target and click "fire lazorz". It's built to be used by masses of /b/tards, so simplicity is a key design choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> PayPal has very good personal contacts at FBI due to FBI's interest in payment fraud. So attacking PayPal from the US will more likely lead to FBI action than attacking any other similarly sized consumer website.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this article summaries the whole big fish, small fish, decentralized discussion: <http://risky.biz/anonymous>

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one bothered by the fact that the New York Times just said "lulz" (as in LulzSec) with a straight face?

</comment><comment><USER17> Hate to say it...but they brought this on themselves.

</comment><comment><USER18> Seven proxies couldn't hold them back.

</comment><comment><USER19> The fact that hackers are burned at the stake and made an example of, in America for crimes similar to 'reckless blocking of a store Entrance' is what will make our networks weak and feeble against the (100 to 1) army of professional hackers in India and China.

But I suppose if we get hacked by other nations we'll just get our hackers together and with their mad elite skills, will stop them. right? right guys? Oh yeah, PS, America has a massive shortage of security experts, if you are interested in hacking, call the FBI, they need you.

</comment><comment><USER20> Apparently now a 16 year old was arrested in London. He is supposedly a prominent member of Lulzsec: [http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/19/leading-member- lul...](http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/19/leading-member-lulzsec- hacker-squad-arrested-in-london/)

Apologies for the source, every other source just points to this one at the moment.

<comment><USER21> Then how do we know it's even true?

<comment><USER20> You wait until better sources are available. Like this one

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8649621/Teen- accu...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8649621/Teen-accused-of- Anonymous-and-LulzSec-attacks.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Recruitment?

<comment><USER23> What do they need with child script kiddies who completely lack common sense?

<comment><USER24> get them to hack China?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anonymous civil disobedience just gives the powers-that-be the excuse to arrest anyone they choose.

<comment><USER25> Civil disobedience usually requires that you perform your action openly and notoriously. Running a program in your home and using an alias hardly qualifies.

Seriously, you're defending DDoS attacks?

<comment><USER6> Defending? No. Stating an observation that tyrannical institutions can use Anonymous as a pretense to arrest anyone with a computer. At least in the USA there is a shred of evidentiary requirement, but much of the world is not so lucky.

I suppose it's arguable that Anonymous is acting out of a sense of "Civil Disobedience". Perhaps it's more along the lines of "vandalism". Philosophically speaking, that is.

<comment><USER26> every act of civil disobedience can be construed as a more petty crime, if you squint. i believe gandi was guilty of loitering but that's not the salient part of his action, philosophically speaking.

<comment><USER6> Actually civil disobedience is the act of committing a crime for moral, ethical, or conflicting legal reason. And it is salient. The motivation is in part "to commit this crime I seek to prevent or change a worse crime". To say that Anonymous is acting out of a sense of civil disobedience is to say that they are motivated by a cause.

Personally, I have no idea what motivates Anonymous or if they feel morally obligated to act. It's just as likely that they believe they can commit a crime without penalty. The actions of the FBI are, in part, to deter future individuals from participating in Anonymous coordinated attacks by reminding people that they are not _that_ anonymous and there are consequences to one's actions.

Gandhi, King and other activists all were willing to suffer the consequences of their actions. They were motivated by a principle higher than blind obedience after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm interested to see if the Government throws them away in some max security prison in Colorado or asks them to work along their sides.</comment>


How Helm Works (or how to get your home mail server to run better) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/gethelm/how-helm-works-part-1-4cf68956dd26 <comment><USER2> Hey everyone, co-founder and CEO of Helm here. This post is a follow up to the thread keehun posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18238581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18238581)

Looking forward to feedback and questions, thanks!</comment>


Co-Founders: Your Idea is Worthless. Show Your Chops - <AUTHOR> http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/02/co-founders-your-idea-is-worthless-show.html

<comment><USER2> This article is too long for what it delivers. Most of it is a derivative of what all the talking heads say: "Ideas are meaningless. Execution is everything".

The value of this article can be boiled down to the following sentence. If you're not a technical co-founder be prepared to show off your sales and marketing chops before you start looking for one.

<comment><USER3> The article brings a valid point. If you're a wanna-be entrepreneur and all you have an idea, that's not nearly enough.

<comment><USER4> The article is making a valid point, but there is an equally valid counter- point that I think is being obscured. Many technical co-founders expect that coding is the entirety of what they will do, hence the shopping list of a non- technical co-founder who will do 'everything else'/'all the boring bits'.

If the only thing you - as a technical person - are bringing to the founders table is programming skills, then you're at the wrong table. Get yo bitch ass over to the 'low digit employee number queue'.

You might be one of the first employees, but you're not co-founder material. Technical people who only bring coding skills are just as worthless as non- technical people who only bring an idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If Ideas are meaningless, then why the first question everyone asks "What is the idea you pursuing?"

<comment><USER6> The idea, and more importantly, the presentation thereof -sales pitch- usually answers by itself a whole range of questions, including: target market & opportunity, positioning, ballpark estimate of market size, competitive advantage; and also, more important co-founding qualities: sales, and marketing quality of the pitcher, and a ballpark estimation on the "level of entrepreneurship" he is.

This weeds out 99% of the idea-guys in 2 sentences. They get their obligatory nod, smile, ask a fun poke question, or two, pretend not to know anything about computer voodoo, then proceed striking up a conversation with a more interesting fellow.

IFF they pass this, then, and only then, we can proceed to poking more in- depth questions, and sizing up eachother. Otherwise, it's a waste of both of our time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ideas are worthless. Great Ideas are worth their weight in gold.

<comment><USER8> People who say ideas are worthless have never had a worthwhile idea.

<comment><USER4> Dude, did you even read his entire one line post, or did you just rush straight into 'witty put down mode'?

Edit: also - people who voted this guy up - what the [redacted] is wrong with you? Reading comprehension: it's not that hard.

<comment><USER8> His one-liner was "ideas are worthless", and "great ideas are worth their weight in gold". I interpreted the latter as "great ideas are worth zero".

So unless I misinterpreted the last part, his comment was the first with witty put downs.

Good ideas are valuble and worthwhile. And it may take many years of hard work to come up with them. This is why the patent system was created: to allow people who come up with these ideas to have them valued as worthwhile, and compensated as such.

I understand there are some people who just have an idea that is shallow, and then do nothing with it. But the original comment said _all_ ideas were worthless.

<comment><USER4> Worth their weight in gold is a common way of saying that something is very valuable.

Are you an Aspie? You're being far too clever/literal, reading too much into his statement with your weight of a great idea = 0 therefore worth = 0 calculation.

The natural and much easier interpretation of what he wrote is that good ideas are common as muck, whereas great ideas are of great worth.

You really have to go through some quite unnatural contortions to arrive at the conclusion you did; that he said all ideas are worthless.

BUT

You may be right, he may have been trying to have some subtle play with words. If so, I apologise. However, it isn't the way his statement would normally be read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm glad that everyone objecting that ideas are NOT worthless are so appreciative of irony.

There's a postscript to the article. "JT" actually found his technical co- founder. The lesson to take away from this is that if you want to find a technical co-founder, you have to sell yourself more than you have to sell your idea.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't think the question is about non-technical business people 'showing chops...'

This is about smart people - there are brilliant business people and there are brilliant hackers.

They don't need to worry about showing chops (whatever that means) - they'll worry about ideas and creating greatness one way or another.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've come to hate the usage of the word "chops," outside of the music industry.

<comment><USER12> And, perhaps, food.

<comment><USER13> And lumberjack competitions.

<comment><USER14> Don't forget sideburns.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Former VW Executive Is Arrested in Croatia in Emissions Case - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/business/VW-dieselgate-arrest-croatia.html <comment><USER2> I wish these people were treated as mass murderers. The man years taken away from many peoples lives should be estimated, and his case should be taken as seriously as a serial killer who took away the same amout of lives as him and other people in the conspiracy.

I'm suffering from the effects of air pollution in my young age for the last 10 years (I'm 39 now), and I can't do anything to reverse my sickness.

<comment><USER3> This could be solved by a carbon tax. If the company lied about their emissions and got caught, you could retroactively charge them to make up for the difference, and then any profit they would have gained from skirting the regulations would be nullified. Other businesses would see this new environment and adapt or die.

American businesses don't avoid (domestic) child labor because it's illegal, they avoid it because the potential charges for getting caught make the whole endeavor unprofitable.

<comment><USER4> > This could be solved by a carbon tax. If the company lied about their > emissions and got caught, you could retroactively charge them to make up for > the difference, and then any profit they would have gained from skirting the > regulations would be nullified.

Yeah, but what if the CEOs moved on? Or secured their profits?

I think carbon tax is the way to go, but on top of that we need criminal justice.

<comment><USER5> > _Or secured their profits?_

What does this mean within the context of tax evasion?

> _we need criminal justice_

There is a reason Al Capone was booked on tax evasion. Showing an executive wilfully defrauded a test is difficult. Responsibility is too diffuse. Proving tax fraud is much easier—executives personally sign off on books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now let's see how many from GS go to jail for the 1 MDB fraud. I may be wrong but I felt the VW fines/jail terms were politically motivated(i.e Trump doesn't like the Germans/EU at this time)

</comment><comment><USER7> I still don't really get what they did wrong? What their cars did was essentially equivalent to studying the test instead of studying for the test.

<comment><USER8> The test is a measure of impact. They intentionally lied about the impact of their cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > It is unclear why Mr. Eiser went to Croatia, where he was no longer > protected by German law.

Carelessness? Germans migrate to the beautiful Croatian coast en masse during the holiday season, most of them passing through Slovenia. He may have thought he was safe in Croatia or simply didn't give it a second thought.

</comment><comment><USER10> >Among other things, equipment needed to reduce emissions of poisonous nitrogen oxides would have taken away space needed for a high-end sound system.

What component of this sound system took up so much space? Modern amps are so small.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's so interesting about this 2 months old article today?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was wondering what happened to the engineer because he is mentioned in the fast.ai book chapter on ethics in data science and stumbled upon this article.

> It's not just a moral burden, either. Sometimes technologists pay very > directly for their actions. For instance, the first person who was jailed as > a result of the Volkswagen scandal, where the car company was revealed to > have cheated on its diesel emissions tests, was not the manager that oversaw > the project, or an executive at the helm of the company. It was one of the > engineers, James Liang, who just did what he was told.

[https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipy...](https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipynb)

<comment><USER12> > It was one of the engineers, James Liang, who just did what he was told.

Everyone is an independent agent and would like to avoid the most obvious Godwin here.

<comment><USER3> Admittedly it is a bit easier to blame the independent agent in this case where he lives in a state that provides a strong safety net and healthcare. In the US, where you depend on your employer for healthcare, you could make the case that this form of free will to reject unethical projects does not exist because of the leverage your employer has over your life.

<comment><USER12> Is this leverage intentional or a side effect?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As I understood the cheating, it was just skipping exhaust warmup during tests since the car was to be turned off at the start after driving it warm. Did it acctually have any effect overall?

<comment><USER14> > skipping exhaust warmup during tests

Total aside, this is something that bothers me about my dishwasher. It has all the certifications for energy and water efficiency, but "for best results" the manual also recommends getting the water hot beforehand, by running the hot water in the sink. I wonder if the energy and water rating would still be as good if the dishwasher did that itself.

<comment><USER15> I have a dishwasher. My hands. Quite effective. Running water, sponge and soap. Takes less than 5 minutes.

For hot water have a 180L solar water heater on the roof. Never paid for hot water since. It even works in freezing winters, -20C.

I also have an awesome dryer that's lasted over 10 years. It's a thin rope across my balcony accompanied by some wooden pegs. Does the job every time. When it rains, have a rack.

<comment><USER16> Hand washing is effective, but not efficient.

[https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-much-water-do-dishwashers- us...](https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-much-water-do-dishwashers-use/)

You are using more water than a dishwasher would.

<comment><USER17> Also, the dishwasher is very effective at disinfecting since it uses steam.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oklahoma High School Student Discovers That Carbon Can Form 7 Bonds - <AUTHOR> https://www.inverse.com/article/44254-high-school-student-george-wang-carbon-7-bonds <comment><USER2> The link to the research paper is broken. The correct one is [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00894-018-3640-...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00894-018-3640-9)

For some reason the press article cut the image and put the two uninteresting isomers in the image labeled "In unusual situations carbon can form more than four bonds". The research article has also the interesting one.

It's an interesting result, they proved (in simulations) that the isolated molecule is stable. But it look like it will ret with whatever molecule is nearby, so I don't expect many applications.</comment>


FreeBSD and ZFS - <AUTHOR> http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.com/2016/02/freebsd-and-zfs.html <comment><USER3> Yes, happily the ZFS license (CDDL) and (star)BSD licenses seem to be compatible. Yay for the BSDs of the world!

Unfortunately, most of the OSS/Free Software world is running a Linux kernel whose license (GPLv2) _isn 't_ compatible with the CDDL according to current thinking by most of the people who know about these things. End of story, AFAICT. (I mean there's a theoretical possibility of relicensing the Linux kernel, but given the contributor profile it's probably impossible in any practical sense. AFAICT it would be _far_ more likely/practical for ZFS to be re-licensed under a GPL-compatible license if only the corporate overlords were so inclined.)

EDIT: Just a minor edit: I didn't mean that it's "unfortunate" that most of the OSS/Free Software world is running Linux. It works pretty damn well. My "unfortunately" remark was merely about the fact that licenses may be (or are) incompatible.

<comment><USER4> > it would be far more likely/practical for ZFS to be re-licensed under a GPL- > compatible license if only the corporate overlords were so inclined.

I feel like that ship has sailed since there's Btrfs for Linux too - <USER2> also originated at Oracle.

I've always been curious why they kept working on Btrfs after acquiring Sun since they could've just relicensed ZFS to GPL/whatever.

Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth).

<comment><USER5> Bear in mind that many of those who are interested in ZFS are interested in it specifically because they care a lot about _not losing data_.

With that in mind, let's see what the btrfs wiki has to say about the stability of btrfs:

"Is btrfs stable? Short answer: Maybe."

[https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable....](https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable.3F)

Maybe it's just me, but I'm more than a little concerned by the fact that btrfs has been in development for over 8 years and still doesn't seem to be considered safe to use for storing anything I really care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A while back I was considering Freenas and in the documentation/forums I read dire warnings about running ZFS with less than 8 gigabyte of ram. Apparently, this could actually put your data at risk.

I was a bit nonplussed by this. The least I would expect from a file system is that it degrades gracefully. I wonder if anyone knows more about this?

<comment><USER7> I would have to see proof that is was low ram that caused the data loss.

The Recommendations for higher amounts memory comes from the way ZFS Caching works. There are 2 caches, ARC and L2-ARC. L2-ARC has to be defined on a SSD and is optional. ARC will always exist and ZFS will use every bit of free memory you have (unless you change the configuration to limit it) to build the cache.. why ram is faster that is why.

So the only scenario I could conceive of that would result in data loss is if you are writing files to the ARC faster than ZFS can commit them to disk but that seems unlikely and ZFS should not allow this anyway.

for Enterprise work loads the Recommend amount of Memory is 1GB per TB of storage. This is for best performance, however my home server is 35TB and ran for about 2 years with 8GB, and recently upgraded the system to a new proc, mainboard and 16gb a memory, have had no issues with either. I have about 2-3 Movies streaming from it with about 3-4 devices/computers connected for network file storage.

The more RAM you give ZFS the better performance you get (to a point) but I believe this issue is massively over talked about and hyped.

<comment><USER8> > The more RAM you give ZFS the better performance you get (to a point) but I > believe this issue is massively over talked about and hyped.

Definitely not hyped as you said in the enterprise space - think some home users see that warning of 1GB per 1TB though and get put off.

In my experience we were running multiple vSphere NFS volumes on several large 16x bay FreeNAS systems. We started with 16x 1TB disks and 16GB of RAM. It wasn't until we installed 32GB of RAM before performance became acceptable. Ideally we should really have put in 64GB of RAM but alas Intel's damn Ivy Bridge E3 range maxed out at 32GB.

I should stress we were only running 20 virtual machines in total so nothing massively onerous, but that extra RAM made all the difference.

<comment><USER7> >We started with 16x 1TB disks and 16GB of RAM.

Type of Drives, did you have a L2 ARC and ZIL...

There are alot of reasons why you may have needed the additional ram. If you were using off the Shelf 7200 (or worse 5400) NAS drives then I am not shocked, these drives are for storage not for VM's. need atleast 10K drives for VM storage

>Definitely not hyped as you said in the enterprise space - think some home users see that warning of 1GB per 1TB though and get put off.

It still kinda is, but 90% of the questions I see posted in various places are about Home and Test Labs, not Enterprise Deployments.

you do not need 32GB of RAM for your home file server that is likely serving less than 10 clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Offtopic, the next post on the blog is about FreeBSD and RISC-V, what i find interesting is they are both from UC Berkeley.

</comment><comment><USER10> FWIW HammerFS dedup doesn't require much RAM.

</comment><comment><USER11> This feels very self-serving.

There's no need for BSD to comment on their "longstanding relationship" with ZFS if they're only saying "we have it and it works within our framework" versus adding something constructive to the dialog on its licensing in Linux. It's awesome that the BSD and ZFS licenses are compatible and that it works well. It just has nothing to do with the headlines they are addressing.

<comment><USER12> No, the FreeBSD foundation is showing that different entities, with different licenses, can cooperate. As the SFLC mentioned in their original posting, combining ZFS in the kernel feels little more than damnum absque injuria. In order for any judgement to be laid, there has to be shown some sort of injured party. Who is injured exactly by integrating a kernel module with primarily CDDL code with the Linux kernel, which itself already includes many binary only files where the licensing is questionable?

<comment><USER13> _> Who is injured exactly by integrating a kernel module with primarily CDDL code with the Linux kernel_

Oracle as the sole copyright holder of zfs might be because thy lose potential Solaris sales when zfs is distributed with Linux this way. At least they could argue that before some court

<comment><USER14> Oracle was the original copyright holder before the OpenSolaris fiasco and Illumos was forked.

<comment><USER13> There still are a lot of lines in a lot of files that were written by Sun employees which are now owned by Oracle. So the same way a kernel developer has a potential standing to sue canonical over their potential GPL violation, Oracle has the same potential standing to sue canonical over their potential CDDL violation.

It's just that oracle is ever so much more likely to sue and actually win (see: the google api's are copyrightable case)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intro to Computational Physics - <AUTHOR> http://mas.lvc.edu/walck/phy261/syl261.html <comment><USER2> All it teaches is Euler's method (and the euler-cromer variation)? That's .. not much and pretty basic. I'd expect a lot more from a comp. physics course. Usually you see at least something like symplectic integration, solving PDEs, quadratures, and a monte-carlo simulation like a 2D Ising model. I've taken two comp. physics courses at the undergrad and grad level. definitely preferred the course where he explained the algorithm in pseudo-code on the board, and we could write it however we pleased.

<comment><USER3> I can't speak as to why this specifically was posted, but the school is in my general area (less than an hour away) and is not particularly well regarded on the academic front. I'm not familiar with Dr. Walck so I don't mean that as a judgment on him at all, just referring to the school generally. If your focus is athletics it's probably okay despite being D3.

<comment><USER4> According to Wikipedia:

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>- Consistently named to US News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" list under the Regional College (North) and Best Value School categories. The Princeton Review also recognized the college as "A Best in the Northeast," and Lebanon Valley College was also named on Forbes' list of "America's Top Colleges." \</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

I'm not familiar with LVC, but it seems like it's regarded as a pretty decent place to go to school.

</comment><comment><USER5> Similar in spirit (but not so introductory and specific to mechanics): _Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics_ , by Sussman and Wisdom. Whole book available online here: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/...](https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/sicm/book.html) .

(SICM uses Scheme -- of course! -- where this course uses Haskell. SICM is cited in the paper linked by _agumonkey_ as an influence on the approach taken in this course.)

<comment><USER2> SICM also goes into way more physics than this course page does. Lagrangian / Hamiltonian mechanics, canonical transformations leading to symplectic integration, phase spaces, and perturbation theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find the combination of Haskell and such simple techniques quite odd. This seems more like an introduction to Haskell using some toy physics computational examples.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR>
      - paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.4880
      - source: https://twitter.com/prezcannady/status/807065697608224768

</comment><comment><USER7> I wish courses like this where available for CS majors instead of math and physics courses. I might actually learn something.

</comment><comment><USER8> I immediately love that this is taught in Haskell. I hadn't learned how excellent Haskell is for (non-hpc) computational physics until well into my Masters, where I began to replace my python analysis scripts.

And it's a far sight more elegant than my first Numerical Methods class, which used MatLab.

</comment><comment><USER9> Related topic: What software do theoretical physics use when developing theories? Mathematica? Or do they just use paper and pencil?

<comment><USER10> Developing theories: pen & paper Testing theories: anything from Mathematica, Python and if things get serious: Fortan

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks cool. Any way you can share the notes?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm just pushing what the tweet above said. Maybe notes/lectures will be uploaded later .. I don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> thanks for sharing this, looks really cool

<comment><AUTHOR> In case you don't know, there's a book called SICM Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (by Sussman, SICP author). Similar idea, physics + computing, except it's a scheme library. Google it.</comment></comment>


"Design for Hackers" now available on Kindle - <AUTHOR> http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/d4h-kindle/

<comment><USER2> Any reviews for this yet? I've been thinking about gifting it to a fellow hacker.

<comment><USER3> Currently, this is the only one: <http://www.amazon.com/review/R3ANEKK1HX1PGN>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. Surprised it costs more than the paperback on the UK store, though.</comment>


"How Amazon Took Seattle's Soul" - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/how-amazon-took-seattles-soul.html <comment><USER2> Old Seattle was an interesting place, but also a much rougher place. The SLU was mostly warehouses, junkies and prostitutes. South Seattle was the real hood, not the semi-tamed version it is now. Wallingford was a hippy commune where someone might walk into your house and take a nap.

Blaming Amazon is a total cop out. The death of "cool Seattle" started before Amazon was even a thought in Bezo's head.

It's also funny that many of the people complaining about this issue were first wave gentrifiers pushing out people before them in an effort to get to the hot neighborhoods. It's frustrating how many Seattleites refuse to admit their own hand in this process. Never mind the fact that your Ad Agency's contract with Amazon allowed you to buy that house.

Anyways, everyone in the region knows the "new Seattle" is Tacoma. So if you really want that "dive bar but might get stabbed" vibe you can move there?

<comment><USER3> > So if you really want that "dive bar but might get stabbed" vibe you can > move there?

As somebody who's lived there my whole life, :(

I know we were just ranked the most violent city in Washington (or something) but tbh it's never _felt_ that way.

<comment><USER4> To put in perspective Ferndale, MI, an affordable but awesome neighborhood of Detroit, is about 4x safer. 800 to 200 violent crime per 100k per year

<comment><USER5> Ferndale is an inner ring suburb not a neighborhood

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I grew up on a farm about 100 miles outside of Seattle that started as a homestead that my great grandmother and great grandfather from Germany started and my family still operates.

I moved to Seattle in 1978 after graduating with MSEE. So I have seen a lot of changes over the years, but my family going back generations have seen even more.

I recall fondly living on Queen Anne Hill (first hill north of downtown) which was my first place here in Seattle. I rode the trolley to work every day and would stop by and get coffee at a goofy place down in Pike Place Market called "Starbucks" and would tell people at work " hey you gotta try this Italian coffee, it's really good".

But the "old Seattle", pre-Amazon and pre-Microsoft had a real grungy industrial patina to it (maybe that is where the music got influence?).

Do I Love the old Seattle? Absolutely. Do I long for it? Not in the least. Every phase this great city has gone through has changed it, before Amazon, Microsoft, before that Boeing before that Weyerhaeuser. Each transformation, in my view, has brought in new people and new character and for me, I welcome it.

I am going to post here a poem from a book of poems my Great Grandmother wrote for family back in Germany. It is about this area as it think it expresses my view of the changes, maybe I see it the way she did?

The Sleeping Washington \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

The forest, a sound is not quiet in.

Washington sleeps and with nature.

Small bird mutely and the bear rests hidden,

Fleeting often only one deer hurries as frightened.

Even the Pine Trees, deliberate,thoughtful and old,

Bend the heads and nod soon.

Slumber sweetly, only lock the eyes,

Know not for a long your power rests.

If light clouds in the sky draw

And your persistent rushing wind shakes.

Sleep only, State of Washington, as child.

Sunday is today, in the solemn silence The forest is.

The serious pines their treetops bends as to the prayer.

But the environment of God's spirit and breath everywhere.

So I want to bend myself in deep humility Before you,alone

With fervency, for your benediction ask you, God the father.

Retain also all my serene love

Also ask I you, carry here a flowering Of colonies;

With work, quite soon, railways, churches, schools, Culture drawn in

The jungle country, a rich bit of earth in Washington.

Therefore, I beg you, O Father, Thy blessing

that it draws them not.

<comment><USER7> This was a beautiful poem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've lived here for 14 years and it's come a long way. I was here when Amazon was merely a place down in the International District before it terraformed SLU.

You know what everyone bitched about then? Microsoft. And MS has done more to take over sections of the city than Amazon ever has, and ever will. Microsoft "killed" Seattle's soul by setting up shop in Redmond and Bellevue and causing urban flight. _(Note: I don 't particularly believe any of this stuff.)_

Now Amazon is the new target. Whatever. Fair enough, that always happens. But Seattle was "dying" just like every other West Coast tech city before the bigger players got there.

What's not cool is railroading "techbros" who are merely 23 year old graduates making good money working a job they probably don't necessarily like very much, but living in a city that is still pretty damn awesome regarding quality of life. And regressive housing practices are driving prices up north of the Bay Area in some locations, all legacy policies that were long on the books before any of this expansion occurred.

<comment><USER9> I remember living in QA and working at MS in late 90s, before/during the startup boom/bust. Some of the same vitriol directed at us, is now pointed at AMZN folks. Plus ça change i guess.

<comment><USER10> I am a Bellevue native, but have lived in the bay area for 15 years now. Californians are "ruining" Seattle in a way it would be inappropriate to say about foreigners. Fortunately the only thing "ruining" the bay area is "techies", not people from a specific geographical location.

Oh, and the traffic has always been beyond abysmal, Seattle. You know it, and I know it.

<comment><USER9> Odd, I'm in Seattle from Oakland. Seems like outsiders are ruining everything :p

<comment><USER10> I like to joke that nobody ever thanks me for moving to CA, the way they viciously gnash their teeth about all of the horrible Californians moving north (been whining that way at LEAST as long as I can remember, into the 80s, but I've heard it predates that by many decades).

Funny, I know more people who have moved from the PNW to CA and particularly the Bay Area than the opposite. Offhand I can only think of one person who moved north who _wasn 't_ returning 'home' after college.

<comment><USER11> I like LA b/c no one gives a crap since everyone is from somewhere else and the city just absorbs you.

My home state of N Carolina has a lot of people move down for more affordable housing and decent jobs from up north. The city of Cary (near Raleigh) is casually joked about as the Central Area for Relocated Yankees.

No one really cares outside of joking about their poor tastes in sports teams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is all such self serving whining. I grew up in Seattle and lived there until just a couple years ago and yes it has changed dramatically but it is pretty unfair to characterize it as having lost its soul. There is also a very merciless bile people are constantly aiming at these new Amazon employees that that really pisses me off. They are just people, like everyone else, who got some education, took a job when they were 23-24 or whatever and moved wherever that job took them. Characterizing them as asshole tech-bros just because they aren't cool hipsters like you is just mean.

<comment><USER13> It's just standard provincial water cooler talk about how someone ruined the place because it changed. It's basically just code for "I've lived here a long time, so respect me for that". I grew up in Seattle, and I remember when they complained about California people migrating up, and then the horrible Microsoft Millionaires, and now it's Amazon. This kind of griping is what happens when very little interesting stuff is actually going on.

<comment><USER14> Poor people envy rich people. That's not weird or wrong. Eseeciall when rich people bid up housing to insane prices instead of joining forces with the poor people against the landlords.

<comment><USER15> > joining forces with the poor people against the landlords

The poor in Seattle are actually mostly allied with the landlords politically in maintaining the zoning status-quo. This is what has led to the increasing housing prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like Amazon gets a lot of undue grief for changes in Seattle and for the housing unaffordability. As someone with a background in urban planning, I feel that Amazon did the RIGHT thing by doubling down on an urban campus. Another suburban campus like Microsoft or Apple's new monstrosity would have been the wrong thing.

Seattle as a whole could have/ should have done a better job planning for that growth and taking advantage of the opportunities it presents.

<comment><USER17> What are the major effects of an urban vs suburban campus? I would expect a suburban campus would make people more likely to move out there, so it would help with city housing prices, but I don't know anything about how urban planning works.

<comment><USER18> "What are the major effects of an urban vs suburban campus?"

An urban campus will promote urban housing which is dramatically more energy efficient than single family homes.

Further, commuting from a condo building to an office tower (or whatever) is very likely to not involve a car and to involve significantly more walking - so you have positive environmental and public health externalities there.

... and then there are networking effects as the new condo building needs a new neighborhood cafe which needs a new bus station and bulb-outs for bike lanes ...

Fast forward 20 years and you have a new train line.

<comment><USER19> I'm of the firm belief that suburbs are a blight in general. Wasteful, inefficient, characterless... they are the real reason cities "lose their soul". So I agree with you that Amazon did the right thing by choosing to go with an urban campus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have some "old Seattle" credentials. I grew up in Capitol Hill. I absolutely believe that Amazon is unfairly scapegoated, but at the same time do understand the gripes that many have about the city's changes. The most bitter are just the vocal minority, but there are many more natives who are uncomfortable to some degree. Given that I'm also a tech-yuppie-gentrifier, I think a lot of the toxicity is unfortunate and misdirected.

While it's definitely a terrible idea to fossilize a city, some parts of town are entirely unrecognizable, even from what they looked like three years ago. I don't long for the SLU of old or the abandoned lots of the Denny triangle, but there was an entire "sense of place" that was wiped out almost overnight. The wrong people are blamed for it, but I can completely understand where the grievances originate.

I'd place the blame most squarely on the NIMBY establishment and our single family zoning. There were bound to be growing pains from all this growth, but they didn't have to be so extreme. If we could upzone Magnolia and Wallingford, it would give the CD/south seattle renters quite a bit of relief.

I also think that the HQ2 stuff has much more to do with hitting the limits of our transit and housing infrastructure than the leftward swing of city politics, but that's probably best left to another post.

<comment><USER21> >> but there are many more natives who are uncomfortable to some degree.

Seattle native who also grew up on Capitol Hill, and still lives here. As a home owner since the late 90s, the Amazon boom has dramatically increased my net worth.

But that said, I'd much rather have the house be worth $300k if it would mean the last 7 years hadn't happened. It's really been too much, too fast. I didn't buy a house here to get rich, I bought here because my family and friends are here.

The thing that really bugs me is the loss of community, and what exists where the sense of community used to be: crowding, the ever increasing spread of pockets of artificiality, pretentious restaurants, luxury cars swarming the hill, and outsiders absolutely as far as the eye can see.

Furthermore, if you look at the responses in this in comments on Reddit, or in comments on articles, you can see the response we get for saying that that the wholesale destruction of our community makes us uncomfortable: "shut up you fucking ingrate", or my favorite, from people who actually believe that they are liberal, "yeah, it sucks that people can't afford it, but I got mine".

We are talking about the wholesale, unchecked destruction of entire communities. Virtually all of my friends who don't own property are gone. We have neighbors from China who don't talk to anyone. Everyone is from someone else, and just here to consume or make it big or whatever. The property values are attracting people with real wealth and/or speculators, and if I wanted to live around Yuppie Gentrifiers, I would have moved to Madison Park.

There is very little sense of community left. I feel like Amazon should have made its own town somewhere else, and left us ours.

<comment><USER22> And wherever your friends move to, people like you will look down on then for being "outsiders".

Many newcomers didn't choose to not have enough jobs in their home town. I'm sure many would have preferred being able to stay with _their_ friends instead of moving to Seattle for jobs.

You could try making friends with newcomers instead of walling yourself off from them.

<comment><USER23> As someone who worked for Amazon in Seattle, the above poster is partly right. Most of it has to do with Amazon's toxic culture and hiring practices. They will hire anyone with a pulse, speaking English decently not required, having a personality not required. So you end up having people who are just there to make money and have little desire to connect with humanity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Amazon brought $700k home prices to Seattle? Wow, that's a problem I'd love to see in Vancouver!

Seriously, housing prices didn't go up because of Amazon. Housing prices went up because there was an imbalance between the zoning for jobs and the zoning for homes. Vancouver doesn't have any employers anywhere near the scale of Amazon, but we've managed to create a much worse imbalance -- and median home prices well over $1M.

<comment><USER25> Eh, I thought that was more due to Chinese money? Seattle housing prices are driven by tech incomes, it is completely different from Vancouver.

<comment><USER24> "Chinese money" has had a significant effect on the $5M+ market. And it adds a lot of liquidity to the condo market, by buying presale condos and then selling them when buildings near completion. But the amount of mid-market housing which is owned by offshore owners is too small to explain more than a small part of the housing bubble.

<comment><USER25> It is the $1M+ market from what I heard, and it mostly ate up the mid market. Vancouver real estate crashed for a decade when the Japanese asset bubble popped (remember you could buy a condo for $100k in the late 90s?), this is just history repeating itself.

<comment><USER24> If you count the number of transactions, then yes there's a lot in the mid- market range. But most of that is buying and selling presales; it doesn't affect the supply, because it's not eating up any housing units which actually exist. (In fact, there's a strong argument that this _increases_ housing supply, since a strong presale market encourages more construction.)

The real estate crash you're talking about had nothing to do with the Japanese economy; it coincided with the Hong Kong handover and an overnight 50% reduction in immigration. Keeping the supply of new homes fixed while the number of prospective new homeowners dropped dramatically had exactly the effect one would expect...

<comment><USER26> > If you count the number of transactions, then yes there's a lot in the mid- > market range.

Do you have a source for this? And is it specific to Seattle?

> But most of that is buying and selling presales; it doesn't affect the > supply, because it's not eating up any housing units which actually exist.

I'm not sure this follows. If a Seattle resident would have been willing to buy a presale (to ultimately live in), but it is instead bought by a foreign investor, then the resident has a smaller pool of housing to choose from.

<comment><USER24> _If a Seattle resident would have been willing to buy a presale (to ultimately live in), but it is instead bought by a foreign investor, then the resident has a smaller pool of housing to choose from._

Only if the foreign investor holds on to the condo in question. If they sell the unit before construction is finished (which is the most common scenario), there are just as many units of _housing_ available for local residents. The only supply being reduced is the supply of pieces of paper which entitle people to purchase units which don't exist yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > But median home prices have doubled in five years, to $700,000. This is not > a good thing in a place where teachers and cops used to be able to afford a > house with a water view.

This is a self-inflicted wound that Amazon shouldn't be held to blame for. Seattle refuses to add density- a common pattern on the west coast it seems. When supply is limited and demand increases, prices rise. This is basic economics. If Seattle wants all those juicy tax dollars of Amazonians working there, they either have to allow for the growth in homes, or accept that homes will get more expensive.

<comment><USER21> << Seattle refuses to add density- a common pattern on the west coast it seems.

This is utterly and preposterously false.

There are huge apartment and condominium complexes going up all over town. Ballard has been strip mined and turned into a virtual Las Vegas strip of luxury apartments. Capitol Hill has been strip mined and turned into block after block of luxury apartments.

I've visited the web sites of nearly all these buildings, and with the exception of projects by Capitol Hill Housing Authority, it's virtually all been built for people with high incomes.

The fact that so much housing has been built for solely for wealthy people is really, really, really central to the argument against gentrification.

Gentrification says "Hey, if your community doesn't have have money, it doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, we don't even have to erase it. You'll just be gone and no one will care."

This is an incredibly destructive ( often totally racist ) message, and it's really at the heart of the problems that arise with income inequality.

<comment><USER14> Look to the east coast or even Vancouver to see what a "huge" building is.

<comment><USER28> Speaking of changing cities with "huge" buildings; the before pic is 1990 which is just incredible, to me anyway. [http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-growth- gif-2014-11?r...](http://www.businessinsider.com/shanghai-growth- gif-2014-11?r=UK&IR=T)

The tallest in the "now" image is this building. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Tower](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Tower)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Pretty weak op-ed. I was expecting good meat, but the only thing they listed that took Seattle's soul was housing prices. I mean that's one hell of an increase (median of 700K!) but all that build up and no elaboration... I closed the tab feeling quite underwhelmed.

<comment><USER30> Yeah. I've heard amazon is really unpopular up there I'm surprised he couldn't find more to say on the issues.

<comment><USER31> As an employee, it was pretty apparent people didn't want you there. The Stranger would post inflammatory articles about tech bros and unflattering caricatures.

My girlfriend and I moved up from Texas completely unaware of the stigma. She worked in bars and restaurants, where the staff would disparage customers suspected of being tech yuppies. I even remember being a guest at a BBQ once, I told someone I worked at Amazon (timidly) and the response was "Oh, you're one of those assholes."

Coming from small town Texas and being lower income, it was a weird time for me. I was newly middle class and when I would go back home I felt weird about my income, but then being in Seattle I felt unwelcome.

<comment><USER32> > and the response was "Oh, you're one of those assholes."

Frankly, and I mean this with all sincerity, fuck those people. They're what happens when empathy dies and envy takes its place. Ask any one of them if _they 'd_ have liked to immediately be vaulted into a six-figure salary with a stable company and a benefits package that would make a Congressperson blush and I bet you six shares of AMZN (that I've never own, full disclosure) that they'd take that deal in a hot minute.

The bulk of the animosity about the "asshole tech-bros" seems like simple envy to me. To wit, lots of people are moaning about all of the wealthy people moving into the Central District and decrying that others are being "pushed out." Something like 72% of the CD was, four years ago, owner-occupied, so the people who are leaving (and, presumably, making bank on those properties they've owned for two decades) are doing so of their own free will and profiting from the sale.

Yes, housing costs are a beating here but the bleating coming out of Wallingford and Magnolia and Roosevelt can just shut the hell up because the bulk of those voters ARE THE REASON that new housing doesn't get built at the rate it needs to be built.

/end rant

//sorry about that

<comment><USER21> >> They're what happens when empathy dies and envy takes its place.

Well, forgive me for pointing this out, but what you wrote contains a fairly shocking lack of empathy.

Feeling bad or angry about being driven out of a neighborhood by an enormous wave of outsiders isn't about envy. The change hasn't even been incremental; the bulk of the changes have taken place in the last five years!

In the central district, entire communities that existed for decades are being destroyed. They are bulldozing people's communities to make room for people with more money.

How can you expect people to not feel angry?

<comment><USER33> No, I'll second the OP. Fuck anyone who chooses to hate you just because you work for Amazon. Go ahead and be angry, absolutely, but anyone who treats another person like that deserves to have their drink poured out on the floor.

<comment><USER15> Correct. It's wrong to be angry towards their fellow residents who just want a place to live and work, like them. They should be angry at themselves and the representatives they elected for the governance that has gotten the city into its current mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's ridiculous. Are we about to complain that (Bethlehem) Steel stole Pittsburgh's soul back in the steel days or Finance stole NYC's soul, or Entertainment stole LA's soul?

Give me a break. A city's economy changes over time. Sometimes you get company towns and sometimes you get diversified economies, but cities evolve and develop around the economies/industries of the rather than industries settling on a population to thrive on. Even the Bay Area where you might say companies come for the talent --that's BS, the talent comes to the companies who are attracting it. If GOOG, FB, MSFT, etc. opened campuses in Mesa, AZ, you'd have people move over there following the cos and growing their econs.

<comment><USER35> > Even the Bay Area where you might say companies come for the talent --that's > BS, the talent comes to the companies who are attracting it. If GOOG, FB, > MSFT, etc. opened campuses in Mesa, AZ, you'd have people move over there > following the cos and growing their econs.

If this is true, then why do these companies keep setting up shop in the most expensive cities in the country? If they can draw talent to wherever they want, why _not_ someplace cheap like Mesa?

(The answer is because while people do move to meet companies where they are, companies also try to go to where the highest concentrations of talent are or would like to live)

<comment><USER34> I think once a company settles in a place, they like to keep their talent together and glom people from different places --and it's only after they have distinct subsidiaries that they can geo-diversify (as GOOG slowly is, and IBM has done).

I still think for the most part, it's people coming after the companies rather then companies coming for the people. At YC talent goes to YC, rather than YC going to the talent, for the most part)

Occasionally, you get companies having satellite offices to accommodate some people (like Japanese auto opening design offices in the US and US companies opening offices in IL, to have access to some hard to get talent) --but I think that is a minority.

<comment><USER35> > and it's only after they have distinct subsidiaries that they can geo- > diversify (as GOOG slowly is, and IBM has done).

First off, Google has lots of offices all over the country and world, although Mountain View is still by far the biggest one.

Secondly, what offices they have opened in the US are disproportionately (by headcount) in expensive cities like NYC, Seattle, Boston, etc. The only cheap city they have a significant number of devs in is Pittsburgh. So your theory fails here again.

Heck even looking at Europe, you know what the two biggest dev offices are for Google there? Zurich and London, two of the most expensive cities in Europe. Where's their German dev office? Oh it's in Munich, the most expensive city in the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Seattleite here, If the city would build for density and take some steps to address the speculation and foreign asset arbitrage going on in the housing market, then this debate would be moot and we'd be back to brooding and awkwardly avoiding human contact as we so desperately want to.

<comment><USER37> Is it not building for density? I've lived in the same spot near capitol hill for 5 years and there are new high-rise and mid-rise condo buildings in every single direction. It's been nuts! They built like crazy.

<comment><USER38> All the construction is concentrated into a few small pockets. So inside one of those pockets, it feels like a lot. But the majority of Seattle's land is still single-family detached residential only. This is a zoning map, you'll see that the "highrise" and "midrise" pockets are very small:

[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55ff4befe4b029a3a1975...](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55ff4befe4b029a3a1975b6c/55ff4c6de4b06ae6b94dff59/55ff4c73e4b06ae6b94e0166/1442794731781/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm a Seattle native, but I lived in other places between 1994 and 2009 before moving back (to the suburbs). The difference between Seattle today and the Seattle I knew growing up is stark. Not all bad, by any means. But wow is it different.

<comment><USER40> I grew up in a no-name city I'm the Northeast and I can say exactly the same thing when I visit- _Wow,_ this place is _different!_

Because things just change.

We didn't even have a big company come in or anything, it just changed over time one thing leading to another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Here's a better article on the same topic: [http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/19/amazon- hea...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/19/amazon-headquarters- seattle-215725)

<comment><USER42> Normally we change the URL when a user suggests a better one, but in this case the lame article has provoked such a surprisingly excellent thread that I don't want to mess with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Meanwhile most cities in the interior have a deficit of good paying jobs and young people are leaving. A lot of those cities would give anything for Seattle's problems.

<comment><USER21> << A lot of those cities would give anything for Seattle's problems.

This is such a terrible non-argument.

If you go to a lot of those cities and ask people 'hey, do you want to be forced to move away from you home' or 'do you want to share the city with 50,000 new people in five years', or 'do you want your commute time to double', how do you think they would answer?

Honestly, as a Seattle native, it's been a mixed bag, but mostly bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What could have been done better, to reap the benefits without the downsides? I hear complaining, but are there solutions? Maybe too much emphasis on jobs, to the point we're subsidizing companies like Amazon to build HQ2, with no money left to mitigate traffic or add housing?

Does Sidewalk have any clever insights or ideas? [https://www.wired.com/story/google-sidewalk-labs-toronto- qua...](https://www.wired.com/story/google-sidewalk-labs-toronto-quayside/)

<comment><USER45> They could have voted for transit in the 70s. They could have not reduced allowable density across the city. And then when they realized people were moving in they could have increased density, a couple decades ago. And the increased density would make transit, even buses, more of an option, with both more riders and a larger tax base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> There are a lot of problems that are not at all unique to Seattle or Amazon, and a lot of those overarching issues are going to color any sort of "then vs. now" comparisons. Over the last 40 years there has been zero net income growth for folks in the bottom half of the economy. Meanwhile housing has gotten expensive. Meanwhile the economy outside of cities has crashed and burned, while cities have revitalized and become the primary sources of economic growth. You can buy a house out in "flyover country" but there are no jobs there, and certainly no high paying ones. Cities are where unemployment is lowest, incomes are highest, and housing is the least affordable. And this is a great contrast compared to the situation mid-20th century where cities were being abandoned and getting run down.

Cities have revitalized, and this has brought some salutary benefits, but not without costs. And the huge degree of income and wealth inequality makes revitalization of cities problematic in many ways. Growth doesn't translate to a "rising tide that lifts all boats", it translates to an economy that some people can participate in while others are increasingly pushed out of it. This is not only unsustainable, it's inhumane. There are many ways to tackle the problem but they are going to take years of concerted effort just to get started. For one incomes at the bottom need to be lifted up, and the easiest way to do that is increasing the minimum wage. A lot. It used to be the case that if you had a job, any job, you could at least keep your head above water: pay rent, pay your bills, indulge in a few minor luxuries, and build some savings. Now that's not true, not only for people at the very bottom, but for an increasingly large chunk of the entire workforce. We also need to address affordable housing, but addressing inequality is the more important fix.

</comment><comment><USER47> Grew up in Seattle, lived on capitol hill, moved away a few years ago.

All the "rough around the edges" components were what gave the city its character. There's a reason, growing up, why people made fun of Bellevue and how lifeless everything felt. Its also why they felt so passionate about their hometown, despite the weather.

Now Seattle feels lifeless. I used to want to move back at some point, but now I don't feel like I'm missing out on much. Thank god Amazon has realized how much it has affected Seattle and is trying to move the next 50-100k employees to a city that could really stand to benefit from the growth.

I don't blame Amazon entirely for this, but I do hope it serves as a lesson for other companies (and cities), who welcome growth at all other costs.

The greatest irony is I live in the bay area now, which seems to predict the future of Seattle quite nicely. Its clear no one gives a shit about where they live, or the communities and culture they inevitably displace. They are just trying to make as much money as possible and get the hell out.

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't think we can even comprehend what lies ahead of us for the future of urbanization. The cities, the suburbs, and the rural districts are all undergoing radical generational changes, and there's no hope things settling down anytime soon. If anything, the pace just keeps accelerating...

</comment><comment><USER49> Errr what in the world did I just read. Seattle is not special in this way and it's certainly not amazons fault. Go to places like Utah, Nashville, Birmingham, same thing happening there dude just on a smaller scale as they are smalller cities

</comment><comment><USER50> People hate change, but that's the only constant in life. I grew up in SoCal, in what was a sleepy area that combined Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas and Leucadia. Surf towns, with some nice beach houses, some excitement during race season when the surf met the turf. My mom bought a house with the help of her parents, $70K for a crappy 3 bedroom right next to I-5. Went to high school out in the boonies, near Rancho Santa Fe where the rich folk lived on acreages. I went to UCSD which was sleepy as well, though situated next to La Jolla where all the rich people who wanted to be close to the ocean lived.

I went back to visit with my fiance in 1998, and I-5 is now like 18 lanes at one merge, my old house is now worth $1.5m, and the sleepy little village I grew up in is now full of people making over $200k/year, or retirees who held on to their houses and have huge nest eggs if they can ever sell.

I had a buddy who was in the Navy, he bought a house in Encinitas, sold it when he retired, and moved to the Midwest. Bought a helluva house on an acreage, lives off his pension, and enjoys life without the stress of the West Coast.

Everything changes, and people hate it. But people will hate it when things don't change as well...

</comment><comment><USER51> I had a number of family that lived in Seattle. They all worked for Boeing in some capacity. My grandmother moved out there and worked for Boeing in the early 60s after my mom turned 18. Her cousin was an administrative assistant, eventually to the CEO. Another cousin was an engineer with the company. To hear them tell it, Boeing was the soul of Seattle, though they were probably biased.

But Boeing moved a lot of the company to Chicago for tax breaks and eventually setup another factory in South Carolina to avoid union labor. Despite being long-retired by that point, my relatives all felt betrayed by the company. And though those family members have all passed on by now, my guess is they wouldn't blame Amazon for taking Seattle's soul, they'd blame Boeing for abandoning it.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's typical of Seattle culture to blame some incoming tech movement for ruining culture. What people seem to constantly miss is that before Amazon, this was a Microsoft/Cisco town. Long before that, it was a Boeing town. Seattle culture in the 20th/21st centuries has been massively influenced by technology culture. Anti-Amazon rants miss the larger picture.

A similar phenomenon is in San Francisco, where people argue that SF is some kind of hippie paradise being ruined by tech, although in the larger context SF is defined by a long history of capitalist conquest, and the summer of love was a small blip on the timeline.

The better mindset is to try to grasp your city from a larger perspective, and stop comparing how you found it vs. how it is now.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't feel like the author ever explained _how_ Amazon changed Seattle and I'm not convinced Amazon did. Seattle changed over a few decades, like time has a tendency to do. Housing prices increased, as they did in San Francisco, Portland, and Vancouver. The author is (mostly vaguely) lamenting how things are different from how it used to be, but not offering much insight into why, how, and why I should care.

</comment><comment><USER54> May have already been said, but what about Bellevue? It's the Microsoft equivalent. I lived on Mercer Island in the early 90's and only thing Bellevue had going for it was the mall. Was bland. Today it's a dynamic area.

Better these cities are in demand than decay. In the words of Neil Young, "you're either dying or growing"

</comment><comment><USER55> Seattle went to hell after Boeing left it.

It was either a ghost town of a city that depended on one company Boeing or now as it currently is.

</comment><comment><USER56> The real problem is when half your friends are priced out of the city and have to move away.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but that's Seattle's fault, not Amazon's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I think the question this raises is : Knowing this, what might it say about the city Anazon picks next?

That is, for example, will it be "established" or more on the other of "we can impose our will on this area"?

Time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER58> Why is this title in quotes?

</comment><comment><USER59> Every city is the result of all the previous destruction.

</comment><comment><USER60> Clickbait. The only valuable information I got from the article is that Seattle is gentrified by Amazon and its employees. The rest of it is someone sharing his nostalgia.

I'm on HN for the science and mindblowing stuff and I'm tired of this kind of facebook post articles. I suppose I'm not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER61> Distasteful group think, change is the only constant. How predictably cliche.

I moved to Seattle in 1995 from 90 miles away. Let me tell you about Seattle then vs Seattle now.

1\. It had neighborhoods that were distinct and varied. 2. Street life was more vibrant 3. You could have a part time job and still live.

Some of these things change because they changed for everyone, everywhere and not Seattle specific, but also not good. Now, Seattle is the same everywhere and more of the people moving here are moving for the job. Not for the place, or the people or the culture, if we can call it that. The job, they are interested in the career, in the money, in buying into a hot housing market, etc.

Listening to tech people talk about their 2 and 3rd Seattle house (concurrent, not serial) sickens me. The poorly run record shops, lazy tea joints and bookstores with esoteric books are gone. Now it is Gucci and 200$ t-shirts. Seattle is LAME now man. Not only does it cost upwards of 3k to rent a house, everyone is burnt chasing pointers and promos. There is no slack, nothing that exists between the places. Tech people use a city, they don't make on.

<comment><USER62> > _Listening to tech people talk about their 2 and 3rd Seattle house > (concurrent, not serial) sickens me._

As a tech person in Seattle, could you please tell me where all these fantastically megarich Seattle tech people are? I'd like them to take a look at my resume.

<comment><USER45> I know some of them. They moved here in the early 90s to work at Microsoft, or they made a ton of money when their parents and grandparents all died and left them a couple houses in places like Queen Anne and Ballard. I don't think they have any good advice on how to replicate it.

<comment><USER63> Your sample might be a bit skewed. I've been working in US high-tech for a decade and most people haven't inherited couple of houses, own another one and look for buying yet another one. Surely, there might be, but not typically. Typically what I see people that either renting or finally could afford a new house. Sure, some people get super-rich on huge IPOs etc. - but not the most typical case.

<comment><USER45> We're not talking about the whole group of tech people, we're specifically talking about the ones who own several houses. I agree that it is laughably atypical and the commenter who brought it up as a problem is overstating the frequency.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


These Tech Men Were Accused Of Past Sexual Misconduct. They All Have New Jobs. - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/tech-men-accused-sexual-misconduct-new-jobs-metoo <comment><USER2> "Tech Men" (all) vs "These Men" (some). Weird change in the headline.</comment>


BMI Is a Terrible Measure of Health - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bmi-is-a-terrible-measure-of-health/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, doctors will keep on using it, as it contains a mathematical formula, which makes it seem all "sciencey".</comment>


Ask HN: Why does HN need access to my Google contacts? - <AUTHOR>

I use my google account as my openid, which I use to sign into HN. When I reach the authorization part, I see that clickpass.com(the intermediary) needs access to my google contacts.
This is a little more clear when compared to other sites where I use openid to login. for eg (taken via https://www.google.com/accounts/IssuedAuthSubTokens):
www.clickpass.com — Google Contacts [ Revoke Access ]
stackoverflow.com — Sign in using your Google account [ Revoke Access ]
facebook.com — Sign in using your Google account [ Revoke Access ]
grooveshark.com — Sign in using your Google account [ Revoke Access ] <comment><USER2> May be the question is : Why does HN need _to use ClickPass for OpenID which wants_ access to my Google Contacts ?

Check here : "Clickpass harvests users' address books".. [http://blog.teampatent.com/2009/03/30/clickpass-harvests- add...](http://blog.teampatent.com/2009/03/30/clickpass-harvests-address- books/)

Edit : updated with link.

</comment><comment><USER3> Create an account without using OpenID? As for why it needs it, no clue.</comment>