A Wikipedia editor's long-running campaign - <AUTHOR> https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/ <comment><USER2> > 'Philip Cross' has edited @georgegalloway 's wikipedia page over 1800 times.

This, and many other political arguments I have seen on it before, really makes me think that Wikipedia would benefit from a policy where a sufficient number of individual complaints against a user who has passed some threshold of number of edits to a single article (say 100) would be automatic grounds to block the user from further edits to the article, regardless of fault. I understand that this sort of obsessiveness is also an important asset to Wikipedia (and so they are understandably reluctant to set up obstructions to what it considers its "10x editors"), but in my eyes this pattern of personal crusading and article ownership causes damage to its utility as a source on any contentious topic far in excess of the damage it would suffer even in the worst case of every single editor that has put more than 1000 edits into any single article quitting.

<comment><USER3> 1800 edits on a single page in only a few years is essentially a sickness. I'm not a doctor, but that should be classified as obsession.

<comment><USER4> So, here's the Wikipedia page in question: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway)

The revision history is interesting to look through as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Galloway&offset=&limit=500&action=history)

Many of Cross's revisions seem to revolve around removing unreliable sources (such as RT and Sputnik), integrating edits such that the verbiage flows better, and so forth. I can't find any edits that he's performed that were out of line.

It's also not especially interesting to have a high number of edits. For example, of Cross's most recent 50 edits, the vast majority are to a single article (which is not the George Galloway biography): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Philip_Cross)

The more I look into this, the more convinced I am that the bad actor isn't this guy, it's the Russian propaganda network who are mad that he's getting in the way of them using Wikipedia as an outlet.

<comment><USER5> That's a very generous interpretation. Usually, when you find something that is not sufficiently well sourced, you add "citation needed" or mention it on the talk page or something. You don't just delete entire sections that aren't obvious vandalism.

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, it's only fair to respond to hit pieces with generous interpretations. The internet outrage machine needs more coolant, not less.

<comment><USER5> That is a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Wikipedia editing process is broken. Wiki-lawyering is used to shut down the collaborative editing process, even when not on political topics often by people who don't know much about the topic that they are editing.

I don't trust Wikipedia content and tend to examine the Talk pages (sometimes even the Talk page histories) on controversial articles.

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia is useful for looking up technical info that there is no conflict over. It is _not_ a good source for diving into a top-level controversial topic as those articles are long and have many places for people to stump and push for their ideas. The more specific a topic (think, a specific author associated with an ideology vs. the page for the ideology) the better. I think I've just adopted these mental heuristics automatically due to this.

<comment><USER8> > Wikipedia is useful for looking up technical info that there is no conflict > over.

Even this isn't true. As a former contributor to the Linux desktop community, false information about projects and codebases I had runs rampant on Wikipedia. One Wikipedia editor with more time on his hands than any of us [0] devotes his time to maintaining those articles, despite self-admittedly having little topical knowledge [1]. Trying to correct these things quickly caused me to spiral down into edit wars I wasn't that interested in winning, and tomes of naming policy after policy.

To get something incorrect on Wikipedia, you just have to be persistent and cast your WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:DEMOCRACY, etc. spells at the right time. Anybody interested in correcting the record will eventually tire out and have to go back to doing the work...

[0] [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ScotXW](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ScotXW) [1] [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2013-No...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2013-November/013970.html)

<comment><USER9> If it's "rampant" on Wikipedia, you should have no trouble pointing out examples. So, respectfully, I'd ask that to support your argument with evidence, you do that.

I had trouble editing technical topics I was familiar with, too, and found it incredibly aggravating. I'd write demonstrably true, helpful, factual content about something only to have it struck for lack of sourcing.

It took awhile to get through my head the model of the project, which included as a basic premise that I, as an editor, am not a valid source. I came to the project knowing that, of course, but didn't realize viscerally how much of the technical writing I do implicitly relied on my own experience and understanding as a sort of "source".

On articles that WP'ians pay attention to, you won't get away with doing that. You'll have to tie claims to a _secondary source_ (you usually can't just point to source code, because then you're doing interpretation, which is a form of original research) both for the claim itself and, sometimes, for the noteworthiness of the claim.

The best way to metabolize this is to realize that Wikipedia isn't the Hitchhiker's Guide; it's an encyclopedia, which means the project has explicitly opted-in to some limitations as a tradeoff to accomplish other things.

(Some articles also just have possessive editors; there is dysfunction everywhere, and WP is no exception).

<comment><USER8> I don't remember the exact claims I tried to fight, but let's pick a random diagram from the page I linked: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Linux_AP...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Linux_API.svg)

See if you can spot any inaccuracies. Here are a few:

1\. SDL doesn't use libevdev. It uses the kernel ioctls directly: [http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/3a50eb90e4b2/src/core/linux/SD...](http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/3a50eb90e4b2/src/core/linux/SDL_evdev.c)

2\. Sockets, netfilter, network protocols are all listed under "everything is a file", but notably, sockets are one of the _few_ places of the UNIX API that _isn 't_ a file namespace! Sockets _can_ be files in the case of UNIX domain sockets, but configuring Netfilter goes through NETLINK: [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man7/netlink.7.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man7/netlink.7.html)

3\. Similarly, the I/O scheduler isn't a file. Admittedly, I don't have a source for this other than the kernel source code itself.

These are nitpicks, yes, but they add up, especially considering the near-100 diagrams this guy has made and cloned all over Wikipedia. When we saw people joining our community and asking questions, this information made them think things were different than they were, and that was frustrating. And yes, I used sources like these when trying to correct this misinformation.

<comment><USER10> 1\. You missed a thin red line in the diagram. The diagram is not meant to claim that SDL uses libevdev.

2\. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do have file descriptors and even inode numbers.

3\. The diagram does not imply that the I/O scheduler is a file. The I/O scheduler is listed as a component underlying the listed filesystems.

There are no inaccuracies. That said, the diagram is awful. It is hard to follow (your misinterpretation being a great example) and seems to be a cluttered and incomplete collection of parts.

<comment><USER8> > 1\. You missed a thin red line in the diagram. The diagram is not meant to > claim that SDL uses libevdev.

There's an arrow pointing to "SDL input". In theory, it makes sense that libevdev is like libDRM and libasound in being "the officially sanctioned userspace library", but that's not the case -- evdev is much, much older than libevdev and does a lot more than wrap the ioctls.

> 2\. Sockets are files. No, they don't have filenames usually, but they do > have file descriptors and even inode numbers.

Lots of things have file descriptors and are not files. For instance, eventfd(). Or timerfd(). File descriptors should probably be renamed "kernel object handles". As for inodes, abstract UNIX sockets do not have them. Seriously, have a program make abstract sockets (sun_path should start with '\x00'), then call lsof. The 'inode' field will be 00000000.

<comment><USER10> There is not an arrow pointing to "SDL input". Look again. :-)

Spoiler:

There is an arrow pointing to a large red box that happens to contain libevdev right below the arrow. To see the edge of the box, you may need to scroll right if your browser has a narrow window.

It is a terrible diagram, but it is correct.

In UNIX terminology, anything with a file descriptor is a file. Plan 9 would have a filename, but that is a different OS.

See the man page for stat(1) where you will find S_IFSOCK. The st_mode value is 0140000 for a socket, which is 0xc000 in hex.

I just hacked up the program shown by "man 3 getaddrinfo" to call fstat on the file descriptor and show the results. I get this:

        fd 3 has inode 325043100, mode 140777 0xc1ff, dev 8 rdev 0

That inode number is the one that shows as symlink content in the /proc/*/fd/ directory listing.

Clearly, it works. Sockets do have file descriptors and inode numbers. Inside the kernel, there is even a "struct inode" for each socket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've interacted with Philip Cross many times (UK politics Wikipedia is a very small place) and found him perfectly reasonable and his edits usually well justified.

Needless to say, an anonymous critic launching a campaign complete with website and Twitter account against him for allegedly being unfair to conspiracy-mongering figures like Craig Murray and George Galloway and genocide denial specialist Neil Clark and too nice to two Jewish journalists (one considerably more outspokenly pro-Israel than the other) isn't about to change my mind...

<comment><USER12> Why don't you engage with the substance of the criticism rather than who's made it. He's made over a hundred thousand edits on Wikipedia in almost 15 years. I'm sure some of them are well justified. We're highlighting the ones that aren't and in which he has a serious conflict of interest.

<comment><USER11> To be brutally honest, the fact he's made over a hundred thousand edits on Wikipedia and the examples you choose to highlight of alleged bias include following WP policies and removing an unsourced claim about a libel suit from a biography underlies the fact that beyond Galloway et al moaning about it and Murray actually suggesting he's part of a government ' "cyber-war" op aiming to defend the "official" narrative against alternative news media', there's not a terrible amount of substance to the criticism. I'm pretty sure _I 've_ sided against him (and many other editors) in talk page disagreements over more substantial issues of possible bias than that. Similarly the screenshot suggesting that despite obviously politically disagreeing with them he apparently contributed the majority of the very fair and balanced introduction to the MediaLens article would be a _point in his favour_ for anyone interested in the substance of the encyclopedia rather than going down the Murray rabbit hole . Admiring a figure is not a prerequisite for writing articles on them.

Sure, he has political opinions and wears them on his sleeve, but that applies to pretty much everybody else involved in political Wikipedia.

<comment><USER12> _Admiring a figure is not a prerequisite for writing articles on them... Sure, he has political opinions and wears them on his sleeve, but that applies to pretty much everybody else involved in political Wikipedia._

Who said you have to admire them? He's openly hostile toward them and taunts them on Twitter. Then makes blatantly unfair edits as we've shown. Remember, we're not talking about posting your political views on your blog. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure the set of people who (i) know about and (ii) are neutrally disposed towards most of the political figures highlighted here is an empty one (maybe one can feel neutral towards Kamm, whose foreign policy views in the early 2000s were very wrong but I've never felt to have behaved in a particularly loathsome manner). And it's perfectly possible to contribute in a dispassionate manner about people and organizations you fundamentally dislike, as funnily enough the diff of the MediaLens article linked in the OP appears to offer evidence for...

Traditionally, Wikipedia's approach to "unfair edits" is to make a case for their reverting on the talk page, not to offer rewards for doxxing the responsible editors, launch campaign websites against them and blog about how it's likely he's part of '"cyber-war" ops aiming to defend the "official" narrative against alternative news media' and Jimmy Wales is implicated too...

(I'm not exaggerating: here's Craig Murray's take on the same thing. [https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the- philip-c...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross- affair/) I could insinuate that "fivefilters" must surely be part of some shadowy organization coordinating to release information hostile to Philip Cross, but I live in the real world where sometimes people have common political views and wish to share their take on things they read online...)

<comment><USER12> I'm really not sure where you're going with all this.

We haven't offered rewards for doxxing anyone. We've written an article highlighting a problem with a particular editor's behaviour on Wikipedia where he has a conflict of interest and Wikipedia is refusing to act. You seem to be talking about anything and everything except this.

<comment><USER11> George Galloway offered the reward, according to RT in the article posted above (and various other sources generally supportive of Galloway). That's... not usual behaviour.

And as I pointed out above, having a negative opinion of a subject is not a "conflict of interest", and several of the diffs, of literally thousands you could have chosen, are entirely unobjectionable. I even pointed out one above was actually removing something editors are _required_ to remove according to Wikipedia policy. I'd expect the ratio to look rather different if he was a disruptive or agenda-driven editor, as opposed to one whose choice of commentary to include I don't always agree with. If the real interest was in the edits as opposed to promoting conspiracy theories about Wikipedia colluding with conflicted editors to damage the good name of Messrs Murray and Galloway, presumably people would be devoting their time to reasoned explanations of why X is important or Y is irrelevant in talk page discussions on article wording rather than inviting people to astroturf HN as part of their #ditchwikipedia campaign instead... [https://twitter.com/newsyc50/status/997927206167941120](https://twitter.com/newsyc50/status/997927206167941120)

<comment><USER12> _George Galloway offered the reward_

Well, we're not George Galloway.

 _If the real interest was in the edits as opposed to promoting conspiracy theories about Wikipedia colluding with conflicted editors to damage the good name of Messrs Murray and Galloway, presumably people would be devoting their time to reasoned explanations of why X is important or Y is irrelevant in talk page discussions on article wording_

I'll just repeat what I said in another comment here:

What it seems you're suggesting is that those unfairly targeted on Wikipedia, as Cross is doing, should learn the labyrinthine processes Wikipedia expects to correct their entries. And then presumably to put in the same amount of time Cross is putting in (hours and hours on weekdays and weekends) to monitor their pages for more abuses from him.

Should we not be more concerned about blocking those who are clearly in the wrong here?

<comment><USER13> If there's an editorial dispute, please solve it in an editorial manner. Editors opposing Cross on Wikipedia have shown prior bad-faith activity. For example, User:Leftworks1 created over a dozen sockpuppets ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Leftworks1/Archive)) to push their viewpoint, only to get smacked by several editors including Cross repeatedly.

If there's a real editorial dispute - if anyone wanting to "correct" the bias on the articles is actively doing that, with reputable sources, and getting smacked down, then you can bring that to dispute resolution ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution)) and come to consensus. But yelling about Wikipedia being broken or unfairly targeting people is just bunk until you've worked through the process.

In case you think this is me telling you to submit to the bureaucracy - that's exactly what I'm suggesting. If you have a dispute in the real world, you would go to the courts and use the legal system, not just yell about it endlessly to passersby.

<comment><USER12> You might want to read Leftworks' response to you here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17162387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17162387)

You have much more faith in the Wikipedia process than I do. Please read our update which highlights how a certain admin has tried to shut down debate around this from the beginning: [http://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html](http://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/agenda.html)

It's only finally now being debated thanks to lots of people "yelling" about it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#George_Galloway)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Anti-war" doesn't sound like a particularly descriptive adjective for the apparent targets here. They are not anti-war campaigners per se, they seem to be sitting in the Russia-sympathetic zone of discourse. I'm not saying that to discredit them (I might, but I won't), but calling them anti-war rather obscures the problems people might have with them.

That doesn't mean that a "one-man" effort to shepherd their Wikipedia entries isn't notable or concerning but let's not pretend these guys are pacifists.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure if whether it's Russia has anything to do with it. The point is that objective truth requires moving above tribalist mentality, clearly cross failed to do that. Dragging Russia into this is also failing to rise above tribalist mentality.

<comment><USER16> The fact that this "article" was published on a site that appears to have no other purpose other than advertising some RSS tool and who has a Twitter account that seems to be almost entirely dedicated to pushing this one story is an objective truth.

Their other Twitter activity is mostly from an anti-western perspective with a lot of pro-Assad, pro-Iran, pro-Wikileaks, pro-Corbyn, and a handful of straight pro-Putin messages. I'm not giving an opinion, just stating the objective truth (I can link exact Tweets if you'd like).

This article also mirrors pieces being shared predominately on pro-Putin outlets like Sputnik and RT.

So the fact that some of the targets in this seem to be pro-Russia isn't entirely a non-point when trying to evaluate the full picture of this situation and the motivation of the different parties involved.

<comment><USER15> The question at hand is whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially. You instead focus on the political views of the website that published this piece, which is irrelevant, and also creates a distracting us/them mentality. None of which has any bearing on whether Cross is editing wikipedia beneficially.

If you think the piece is unfairly critical, then dispute the facts of the case (the merits of the edits he made) rather than the character of the speaker.

<comment><USER16> I think the editor may have been trolling these people, yes, and the people offended should escalate the issue. But so far that's been Wikipedia's response so I don't see any wrong-doing from their behalf. Just from one editor.

But instead of going through the proper channels and attempting to resolve this within the Wikipedia protocols these people seem to be launching a campaign against Wikipedia which, in my opinion, borders on propaganda.

Some of the debate here was also over a subjective accusation that the targets were "anti-war" when in reality the commonality seemed to have been pro-Putin. That distinction also stinks of propaganda. Again, just my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In the early 1990's, I picked up a complete with the bookcase 1957 _Encyclopedia Britannica_ at a yard sale for $15. Over the next decade and more it was a useful resource for historical topics in the days before the internet became what it is today...the basic scholarship of the Roman Empire, Ming vases and Howe trusses has been pretty stable for a long time. On the other hand, social and political topics usually tended to an editorial bias long past expiration even twenty years ago...let's say the phrase "spinning in his grave" is particularly appropriate for many of those _Britannica_ authors and editors given today's events when "today" is taken literally.

Wikipedia is like any other encyclopedia, human endeavor with shortcomings, biases, and failings. It should be taken with a grain of salt where warranted, trusted as canonical elsewhere, and constitute one among many sources in other cases. For me, at least there is the relatively high degree of transparency that allows people to independently research the claims of this article theirself should they choose. That's not the case with Google's search results and those probably have more a role in my ordinary decisions than Wikipedia.

None of which is to say that this is good. Only that for me, it is a corner case...contemporary politics is an area of Wikipedia where I expect political gerrymandering and biased reporting simply due to the size of the attack surface, the nature of politics and the stakes at stake.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not that involved in wikipedia, but I do recall his name. It came up during a discussion on reddit about aljazeera documentary "the lobby"[1]. He was accused of actively censoring any mention of the incident from the "Israel lobby in the United Kingdom"[2] wikipedia page.

[1] [https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/](https://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/thelobby/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Kin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_lobby_in_the_United_Kingdom)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is extremely concerning. Phillip Cross was easily caught because he was running his mouth on twitter, and was blatantly making one-sided edits from his single account. Imagine if a country like Russia makes an orchestrated effort to achieve similar goals, using an army of fake-wikipedia-profiles. They could easily turn Wikipedia into a platform for disseminating propaganda. In fact, I'd be surprised if they haven't done so already.

[https://www.vox.com/2018/2/16/17020974/mueller-indictment- in...](https://www.vox.com/2018/2/16/17020974/mueller-indictment-internet- research-agency)

<comment><USER12> Wikipedia, however, appear to be trying to protect him. Please see one Wikipedia editor's efforts to flag his behaviour: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:KalHolmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:KalHolmann)

<comment><USER9> Exactly what is it we're supposed to be looking at here? And what does "Wikipedia", as an entity, mean in your comment?

<comment><USER7> The relevant bit is the last two comments by KalHolmann. Attempts to discuss Cross' behavior in the relevant, public boards were closed within minutes of each posting with unsatisfactory explanations. See [0] for example.

Not a wikipedian, but from my nerdish poking around and learning about how wikipedia works, it was my impression that these boards are supposed to be public forums to openly discuss issues, in line with its spirit of open collaboration. The fact that editors closed it immediately is evidence that, as KalHolmann says, there is circling of wagons going on.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:Philip_Cross)

<comment><USER9> I see an admin with no apparent connection to this subject[0]:

(1) instructing KalHolmann not to canvass (this is one of WP's older rules and comes up all the time in AfD, where people will canvass WP and Twitter to get votes to keep marginal articles)

(2) backing out KalHolmann's canvassing comments

(3) responding to KalHolmann's question about where to direct his concern by telling him to take it to ANI

(4) advising against him taking it to the "COI Noticeboard" (I'm not sure I know what that even is but I guess I can guess and I'm not surprised it exists)

(5) after KalHolmann takes it there anyways and complains about the outcome, telling him again to take it to ANI.

None of this seems bad to me; it seems like a WP admin going out of their way to be helpful (in a WP'ian sort of way) and getting slagged for it on HN.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contribut...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/NeilN&offset=&limit=500&target=NeilN)

<comment><USER12> You misssed the fact that he took it to ANI and was shut down there too very quickly. Frustrated with the fact that no attempt was made to deal with the matter, he, quite sensibly, concludes that it appears they are trying to protect Cross.

I should also add that the people targeted by Cross all have a fairly large audiences on Twitter, and have been vocal about this issue. Jimmy Wales is aware (he's tweeted to them, as I say in another comment, but to dismiss the matter). I, too, would conclude they were trying to protect him if I was met with that kind of response.

<comment><USER9> Who is "they" and why is it sensible that they're "protecting" some random WP admin?

What seems more likely to me is that people have very legitimate concerns about Cross's POV, but aren't following WP norms in raising those concerns, and are getting shut down as a result. That's an expected outcome, not a sign of something nefarious happening.

<comment><USER20> That's certainly the sort of thing that can happen, but as far as I can tell the COIN report was within Wikipedia norms, and closing the report two minutes later with "Zero evidence of COI. Galloway has picked a fight with Cross, not the other way around." was not.

(Unless "don't criticise a top-1000 user" counts as a Wikipedia norm, I suppose.)

I disbelieve that that the admin in question is both a neutral arbiter and capable of determining within two minutes that Cross is not an "avowed rival" of Galloway (see WP:BLPCOI), particularly given the "And being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right" bit on his talk page.

[The relevant part of BLPCOI is:

« Therefore, an editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person » ]

<comment><USER9> A biased point of view isn't a conflict of interest. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#What_is_conflict_of_interest)?

We all have biases. But we have _conflicts_ when we have direct relationships with topics.

Similarly: _edits_ are supposed to have NPOV. But _editors_ almost always have a POV.

<comment><USER21> Is truth defined by perseverance?

<comment><USER9> No?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Please hacker news... use your skeptical nature and research inclination to understand where this junk is coming from. This is a propaganda outfit.

I have a suspicion HN is getting played here... upvotes and downvotes seem suspicious on these comments.

Some info on who Media Lens and FiveFilters are...

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/fuller](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/fuller)

<comment><USER23> I mean, you can actually see the edits the guy makes.

Why would FiveFilters falsely defend Media Lens - a conservative organization - while attacking a wiki editor who is extremely pro-war? Your argument really only makes sense if the editor is liberal and attacking Media Lens and FiveFilters.

<comment><USER22> Their issue with the editor is that he cares about sources... so whenever these anti media outfits want to post unsubstantial claims in Wikipedia, he has a problem with that (as he should).

This is propaganda war at its finest. Make it look like conservatives and liberals agree with your points... then gloss over actual facts with hand waving. Most people won't dig deep enough to find out the truth. These guys just want to control the narrative and generate public opinion that we should doubt our journalistic institutions.

And if we stop caring about journalism and hard facts and the importance of sources, then our democracy is going to have real issues.

Their ties with Russian propaganda outfits should also be troubling. Do a little googling and you'll see a host of pro Russian conspiracy stuff from these "agencies".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why is FiveFilters taking such interest in this particular anonymous Wikipedia editor? This doesn't look like simply an honest piece of investigative journalism, given how far FiveFilters seems to be going to promote this story ([https://twitter.com/fivefilters/](https://twitter.com/fivefilters/)).

Why doesn't the article disclose the relationship between FiveFilters and Media Lens? The FiveFilters blog ([http://blog.fivefilters.org/](http://blog.fivefilters.org/)) mentions Media Lens three times (they've built tools for viewing Media Lens articles) and explicitly thanks Media Lens for making their content go viral.

There's a lot that doesn't quite add up.

<comment><USER12> We're a huge fan of Media Lens. They do great work. But we're not Wikipedia. We don't need to live up to the standards they set themselves. We don't run an encyclopedia that pretends to be neutral.

<comment><USER22> By huge fan you mean "are". (Look at parents posts)

How did this garbage get on Wikipedia? Fivefilters and MediaLens are part of the whole anti media propaganda outfits.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/fuller](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/02/fuller)

<comment><USER12> No, we are not Media Lens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This part:

" _We pulled in the dates from his user contributions page and found that Cross had not had a single day off from editing the site in almost 5 years!_ "

Makes me think that this is an account shared by many people. Since we don't know who this person is, there is a chance that this person is really a whole organization.

<comment><USER26> There are a _lot_ of obsessive people on Wikipedia. Back in the days when I was an active editor, I was regularly embroiled in edit wars with somebody who had odd but _extremely_ firm opinions about the romanization of Okinawan (not a political topic even in Japan) and what appeared to be 24/7 ability to enforce them. I suspect quite a few of those shut-in "hikikomori" types are top Wikipedia editors...

All that said, checking the manual of style in question today, I'm positively surprised to see the weirdness is gone. This is a strength of Wikipedia: over time entropy of opinion tends to decrease, even though it may take years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan- related_articles)

<comment><USER27> Is it good, though? I'm all about reducing entropy about facts, but what about opinion or more delicate subject? The power on propaganda, on making a new truth, is so big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cross's modus operandi seems to be many small edits which accumulate to produce a large negative effect, at odds with Wikipedia's principle of "neutral point of view". It's an example of operating within the letter of the rules but not their spirit.

<comment><USER3> I bet that if you changed 1 word per day on a page, after 2 or 3 years, you've successfully modified the tone of an article that cannot be easily reverted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "ditch Wikipedia" seems a bit melodramatic.

Nobody should rely on Wikipedia as the sole source of any information, but it can be a useful starting point and usually has enough references to back it up.

People need to be more careful about examining the source of claims in general. Including what is shared with them on social media, YouTube videos, news articles, etc. But that doesn't mean those mediums are no longer useful.

<comment><USER29> If anything, it seems like more of a reason to get more active and involved with Wikipedia. Otherwise, people like this will get more and more control over the site

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Next time Jimmy pesters me for a donation I'll be contacting him and citing this as a reason why I won't.

<comment><USER31> Why don't we start a big "don't contribute to Wikipedia campaign". Can we start one of those "fund me" campaigns and use the proceeds to battle this?

<comment><USER32> Do you have a proposal for an alternative place to contribute to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also: [https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the- philip-c...](https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross- affair)

</comment><comment><USER33> Judging by the time card, I would bet _multiple_ individuals are using this account. And they're probably getting paid to do it.

<comment><USER34> Many wikipedians are obsessive types. Also why would multiple people pretend to be one. Groups are more effective than individuals on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER33> Because many people would get upset if "my-political-party" was hiring team of editors to change the wiki articles.

And if they are indeed getting paid, the organisation might have an important turnover. By using a single account (or multiple shared accounts; I doubt there's only one), you keep the 'prestige' you have built.

Your 1 week old new recruit can edit texts left and right while most people think it's a legit old wikipedians tidying stuff up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This appears to be a bit longer running: [https://sputniknews.com/amp/analysis/201805161064505256-cros...](https://sputniknews.com/amp/analysis/201805161064505256-cross- galloway-wikipedia-obsession/)

(note: Sputnik news seems to be associated with the Russian government).

</comment><comment><USER36> My experience with Wikipedia's editing is that there doesn't seem to be any unified concept of editors should act, nor does there appear to be any type of non-reactive review process for changes. While I think that Wikipedia's "anyone can edit" mantra sounds very nice it results in people changing articles out of their personal interest, and nobody notices for a long time.

For instance, I recently discovered that the article on Comodo[1] didn't mention any of their controversies (something that is quite important given their history and significance). After I mentioned this there was an edit war and the controversies were eventually restored, but it definitely worries me that a single contributor removed a large portion of an article without any checks in place (the edit description was just that "controversies are not encyclopedic" \-- whatever that is supposed to mean).

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

</comment><comment><USER37> Early on, I tried to join in the Wikipedia community. After a couple of years of on-again, off-again BS on the part of those with admin powers, I bailed.

Wikipedia is like a weird cult of powermad accountants.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wikipedia should maintain 3 separate threads for all these polarizing individuals and organizations. Obliviously biased for, obviously biased against, and the the idealt neutral statement of facts(with no facts removerførsel because they play negative or positive, they can be dismissed or remover In the biased sections only.

<comment><USER39> There is frequently a "Controversies" section. Also the Talk page and revision history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This article makes me sad. Sad it has so many upvotes for a blatant piece of manipulative propaganda. Sad that hn has been the bated. For those that don't follow British politics, these politicians are oddly pro Russian. I would like to see the reverse analysis, of pro Russian trolls' edits on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER41> What has pro-russian to do with anything? Even if they are or were Nazi sympathizers that doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia is being gamed by someone with an agenda. 1700+ days of edits without pause? It is clearly a group behind that account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> regarding general participation in English Wikipedia -- the last three or four edits I made to Wikipedia articles I found interesting, were summarily reverted. Why try ?

<comment><USER5> Same here. I realised that many articles are watched over by obsessive editors that immediately revert edits for whatever reason. Makes it hard for occasional editors and newcomers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As someone who's regularly donated to Wikipedia every year, this is concerting.

I can't trust Wikipedia. I'm shocked actually.

<comment><USER43> Actually you can't trust this article. It's an anonymous attack piece by an apparently pro-Russian person or group.

<comment><USER44> Thank you for your deep insight, detailed analysis and surfeit of evidence, Mr. Throwaway Account, sir!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> seems like a fairly obvious ops campaign by some interested group. I would think that many state organizations would want long term reputable editors to craft their messages.

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes, it just means it is working. There are a lot of anti-war people on Wikipedia. I am personally very very anti war, a pacifist even. But I appreciate the intellectual integrity of being challenged.

When I was first challenged with the arcane rules of Wikipedia I was a little frustrated. But then I realized I could just learn those arcane rules and use them myself. After that it was amazing how many of my edits were able to get through.

<comment><USER47> Let's stop pretending any of these rules are "arcane". Go to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). Right there in the sidebar in plain view, the first option is "Help": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents). Everything you need to know to edit is there. You can also just Google "Wikipedia how to edit" and plenty of hits will come up. It's not hard at all. You sound no better than someone who bitches about some open source project when they didn't even do basic due diligence and RTFM.

<comment><USER48> How can it be considered _not_ arcane when it contains gems like "Wikipedia:Be bold" _and_ "Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point".

In other words, when I'm skirting a rule, I'm "being bold". When you claim your edit did not violate some rule any more than my edit did, you're "disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point".

If these issues are resolved by reasonable folks, it may still work, but Wikipedia is not a democracy and issues are frequently not resolved by reasonable folks.

<comment><USER47> What is nuance and actually reading what these titles say? It's all written out for you and there's no contradiction. Also, no one actually uses the disrupt point like that.

<comment><USER49> >It's all written out for you

>no one actually uses the disrupt point like that.

You're using institutional knowledge here, not something that's obvious straight from the text. This is exactly the point GP is making.

<comment><USER47> Nope, I'm saying they fabricated their own scenario that none of the documentation actually backs up. Maybe you should read it too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've been conducting a similar campaign, on WikiWikiWeb, against anyone that maligns functional programming. No one seems to mind though.

<comment><USER51> well you have the advantage of being on the right side of history on this one

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's weird to see articles like this without a publish date or author attributed to them.

<comment><USER52> It's not just article. It's specifically created anonymous website just for this single page on top of nearlyfreespeech.net.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> On one hand, some shady Wikipedia vigilante. On the other, a bunch of Russia- backed war crime deniers. Quite a moral dilemma!

<comment><USER39> Sorry, could you unpack and clarify that?

<comment><USER53> From the fine article:

> Tim Hayward is one of the group of academics (his colleague Paul McKeigue is > another) who set up the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – or if > you prefer the Times description, Apologists for Assad. The group's > questioning over whether it could be definitively concluded that the Syrian > regime was responsible for the Ghouta chemical attack last month (they have > also queried the Novichok attack of the Skripals) is apparently what > provoked their pillorying in the Thunderer.

> The RT piece opens with: A mystery online figure called Philip Cross is > targeting anti-war and non-mainstream UK figures by prolifically editing > their Wikipedia pages – to the point that George Galloway is offering a > reward to see him unmasked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Behavior like this is very prevalent in gamergate-adjacent wikipedia pages. For example the OAPI page [1] claims that OAPI is a non-profit organization and any attempts at amending it to clarify that it's not incorporated, only exists as a wordpress blog and hasn't done anything in 3 years (including updating said blog), gets reverted.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Abuse_Prevention_Initia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Abuse_Prevention_Initiative)

</comment><comment><USER55> This stuff is happening everywhere on Wikipedia, sometimes obviously, and sometimes with more subtlety.

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't trust Wikipedia for anything political. I mainly rely on it for purely factual stuff. Basic geographical information, for example. I look at technical stuff, but only as an introduction.

</comment><comment> amiga-workbench There was a similar pattern of behaviour with articles concerning Gamergate, Wikipedia's rules regarding first hand sources meant that only the slanted reporting of journalists who had a lot to lose in the exchange could be referenced as a source.

The information up there now is a less than complete picture.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'll preface this with noting that I did my own research into both sides prior to writing this. I don't have a horse in this race one way or another.

Something is not right here. This is not the first attempt to discredit a major organization - fivefilters previously ran a campaign against The Guardian ([http://theguardian.fivefilters.org/](http://theguardian.fivefilters.org/)), with much the same kind of conspiratorial tone that I detect in the page on Wikipedia. The fivefilters folks seem to be surprised that this user is spending so much time editing their favorite articles.

The articles in question have had quite a history of "interesting" editors pop by. Look for example at the page on Oliver Kamm. The fivefilters folks allege that Philip Cross is suppressing information about a pending court case. The edit history ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oliver_Kamm&offse...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oliver_Kamm&offset=&limit=500&action=history)) shows something much different:

\- 05/01, 22.214.171.124 adds some information about this "court case", which is really just a crowdfunding request for pending legal action (sourced to a blog). This user gets reverted several times by Cross for adding poorly sourced material.

\- 05/01, User:Leftworks1 re-adds it, and gets into a revert war with Cross, User:ScrapIronIV, and User:Cullen328 (all of whom are reverting the poorly sourced stuff). This user has only ever edited the Kamm article.

\- 05/02, several IP address editors, in quick succession, attempt to re-add that section. Three established editors revert. Protection is added to prevent anonymous users from editing.

\- 05/04, protection expires and a pile of anonymous IPs start to add the material again. Total of 12+ attempts.

\- 05/07, Leftworks1 comes back and attempts to add the court case material again. Protection is added back.

\- 05/09, the article is edited several times by User:Ubli9917, User:Ubli4351, User:Ther7514, User:Ifit8488, all of which are accounts created 05/05, who have made exactly 10 edits to unrelated accounts (to gain autoconfirmation), and who then promptly tried to add the court case to the Kamm article.

So what this reveals is that a number of _sockpuppet accounts_ , anonymous IPs, and such have been trying to push unsourced crap through onto Wikipedia, and Philip Cross (and others) have been trying to get it removed. This gets played out on other pages, too. Just look at this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Leftworks1/Archive)

While Philip Cross might have a certain bias in his choice of articles, I can't help but view this particular fivefilters article as a very biased attack on an established editor who happened to step on some toes. His Wikipedia opponents, apparently tired of fighting him with sockpuppets and normal edit procedures, have taken to an external medium to decry him. Wikipedia has many layers of dispute resolution, but other than an AN/I posting by a largely uninvolved user, the aggrieved opponents of Philip Cross appear not to have attempted any form of real dispute resolution. Until they provide evidence that they have attempted to work within Wikipedia to solve their editorial dispute, I would not pay this fivefilters article any heed.

</comment><comment><USER57> > RT piece

> Sputnik

Pretty much discredits the entire article.

</comment><comment><USER58> It's interesting, I edited the Salim Mehajer article and provided extensive citations, yet I got banned. This guy makes thousands of edits and continues with impunity? Wikipedia is rotten.

</comment><comment><USER59> So would this mean Encyclopedia Brittanica becomes relevant again?

</comment><comment><USER60> We used to moderate supports of the Wiki Foundation (4 figures a year) and dropped in recent years. It does seem rudderless.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is hardly the only problem with Wikipedia, the assumed infallibility of sources is one I've run into several times before.

I've seen some pretty bad faith editors justify their edits by dumping piles of sources that were flat out wrong or using suspect sources to push some sort of political bias.

Not to mention editors adding crappy sources in good faith, or the classic xkcd citogenesis phenomenon.

[https://xkcd.com/978/](https://xkcd.com/978/)

</comment><comment><USER62> here is the editor's wikipedia page: [https://everipedia.org/wiki/philip- cross-wikipedian/](https://everipedia.org/wiki/philip-cross-wikipedian/)

</comment><comment><USER63> Maybe these editor(s) are paid Public Relations of some "war investors".

</comment><comment><USER64> This is why I never donate to Wikipedia when they beg for money. That organisation has long been rotten from the top down.

<comment><USER53> Can stop visiting them too, to complete your climb to the moral high ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Okay what about editors with a left-wing agenda/bias and who abuse their powers. I'm sure there are some within the top 300.

<comment><USER66> You should find them, and write articles about them, rather than just assuming they exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Id.wikipedia.org Thank you

</comment><comment><USER68> My friends and I had a shameful game in uni where we competed to see who could make the most egregious edits to wikipedia without getting reverted.

What was surprising was just how easy it was. We started with minor edits in small articles, just adding our own name to some list of notable achievers.

Then, due to competition, we would add an entire paragraph that fabricated an event. Like adding ourself as a conquistador of some made-up novohispano population in some made-up location.

Imagine how compromised wikipedia must be by people with agendas more lofty than uni students passing some time.

Hell, just the other day I removed "See Also: Donald Trump" from one of the major fallacy articles. The history showed that the scathing political commentary was up there for over 8 months and nobody cared.

<comment><USER69> It is easy to mess up public places. You can spit on the floor in a bus, throw trash on a street, vandalize Wikipedia. Or you can clean the trash and help Wikipedia. The choice is yours. There's no mystical powers coming in and cleaning up after you - just you and people exactly like you. So before complaining "nobody cared" ask yourself - how did I help? What did I do to expect others to clean up after me and feel entitled offense if they did not? Maybe if you and your friends helped instead of messing it up, there would be less need for somebody else to do it.

<comment><USER70> You have a choice. You can engage in conversation with peers as if you might want to understand the reasons for their actions. Or you can preach at them and blame them as individuals for system problems.

<comment><USER71> Those individuals, and a few thousand more like them, _are_ the system problem.

<comment><USER72> And the way I see it the only way around it is cultural indoctrination.

It doesn't have to be a negative concept. It can be as simple as picking up a can as you walk by it on the street, and otherwise having a completely normal life. People with you can then see "huh, I can contribute just a little bit, feel good about it, without going full hippie high-viz jacket and tongs with a trash bag every weekend."

<comment><USER69> Yes. Small things help. Or at least not making it worse. One doesn't have to be a Greenpeace activist to not throw trash on the street, normal everyday behavior would be enough in this case. If only all other societal problems were so easy to solve!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> We could have had the Encyclopedia Britannica still. But the people voted with their wallets and now we have... this.

<comment><USER74> We do still have the Britannica.

* [https://www.britannica.com/new-articles](https://www.britannica.com/new-articles)

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Wikipedia been disappointing for a while. I had few years run when every year I got Jimmy email, I did donated $10 cause they gave me tons of info. Just recent year or so, every single article is locked for edition and by different reason (which really doesn't matter). After spending some time you clearly see "clans" of wiki editors fighting with others, removing their content and clearly having agenda, whether it is to continue discredit some individuals, or keep others record unfairly "clean".

Here are all the locks they use as pretex to forbid you from adding your own content, aka supposedly "wikipedia is build by anyone willing to donate their time".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#fu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#full)

<comment><USER47> It's not hard at all to be able to edit these articles once you make an account and takes a bare minimum of effort. See one of my earlier comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582767)

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I'm confused as to why this is newsworthy? Are we operating on the assumption that the 303 more prolific wikipedians are somehow all without a personal ideology?

If the rules he's using are being followed correctly, and if the information he is posting is well-sourced, then your only other course of action would be to petition to change wikipedia's rules.

<comment><USER12> There's a clear conflict of interest which Wikipedia is refusing to act on.

<comment><USER7> I feel like we're missing the context here. Why is wikipedia ignoring it?

<comment><USER20> The admin who summarily closed the conflict-of-interest report explains his motivation as follows:

« You can't amass 130,000 edits, as Philip Cross has, without being reasonably committed to Wikipedia. You'd be noticed if you were an agenda account with that many edits. And being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right. »

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

This doesn't inspire much confidence in me, because obviously it _has_ been widely noticed that "Philip Cross" is an agenda account (and it seems it was noticed already almost a decade ago: [http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/wally-of-week- phil...](http://neilclark66.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/wally-of-week-philip- cross.html) )

<comment><USER77> >And being attacked by RT and George Galloway is a reasonably reliable indicator that you are doing something right

That is an absolutely astonishing statement and IMO something you should immediately lose admin privileges for making. I have no love for RT or for Syria sympathizers, but to defend someone's edits on the mere basis that they are opposed by those groups is completely unacceptable.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People – Maciej Ceglowski - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLaLoXSqdjlcJwDDQn1B7s5ONz7N3diz3h&v=kErHiET5YPw <comment><USER2> I love this. I am reminded of an article from a year ago that discussed a philanthropic arm of google deciding that since the potential harm of an evil AI was total annihilation they logic'd themselves into focusing their efforts on trying to prevent that rather than solving more immediate problems. I can't find that article.</comment>


Where to See Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/seesv.html <comment><USER2> This is spot on, but at least tell them to not take the spots with the outlets if they're going to visit Red Rock? How we going to work there now?

Edit: Bah. If we're going to out one coffee shop, then why not the others. There's Dana St, also in Mtn View. Peet's at across El Camino works as a spillover. Verde Tea has nice drinks but the wifi seems to block you after an hour and you can't get Google Wifi inside. The other bubble tea place across from Red Rock is open later than anything else on Castro but it's a bit dingy inside and you likewise can't pick up Google Wifi inside.

If you work late, there's the Starbucks at El Camino and Lawrence which is open till 1. Any proprietors here? We need more shops open till 1.

In Palo Alto, there's Philz, which has the best coffee I've ever had in my life. The Peets up the street is also supposed to be a decent place to hang out. There's also Mitchell Park which is nearby to both.

In 'tino, there's the Coffee Society. The Peets down the street is also a surprisingly good place to work, and the Whole Foods has free wifi. There's also some Donut shop next to the Apple HQ which never seems to close but the stuff they have there is so-so. But if you just need to get out of the apt to work, it will do.

In general, the Peets are nicer places to work but the wifi will only last an hour.

That's all the ones I know. Anyone got any others?

<comment><USER3> For a hacker I cannot imagine a more amazing gift to oneself than the gift of ever-present Internet access via Sprint/Verizon/Whatever via USB dongle or expresscard.

It's ~$50/month -- but I would definitely give up lattes and buy black coffee for it.

<comment><USER4> I personally recommend CLEAR, which works great and has 4G coverage in places that the website doesn't even say!

<comment><USER5> CLEAR is great except you cannot stream Netflix

<comment><USER6> I have Clear and stream Netflix.

<comment><USER5> Argh. I guess I need to edit the post to say if you are in a good coverage area (I'm not) - you can stream Netflix with no latency issues.

<comment><USER6> Ya, it's no FIOS but With 4 bars on my modem's signal indicator Netflix usually works well. It's a little dodgy when it rains. Try moving your modem around your house and setting it at different angles. I initially had it in a position where it got three bars I moved it across the room and set it at a slightly different angle, now I get 4 bars and it's nearly twice as fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that San Francisco is only mentioned in passing. This list seems to me like the old view of Silicon Valley. (Or, maybe, if you had to describe the valley geographically.)

It feels like the new Silicon Valley is in San Francisco, and that its heart is in Soma (or the Mission).

<comment><USER8> SF is primarily a hub of Web-based companies - consumer applications. Though there are many big players down in Palo Alto/Mountain View. Also, startup doesn't mean only web-based startup. There are thousands of hardware and enterprise software companies down in San Jose/Santa Clara.

Here is the stack geographically, that works quite well with stack of software.

San Fran: Web based apps

Palo Alto/Mountain View/Cupertino: Web based + Desktop based software

Santa Clara: Enterprise + Desktop based software + EDA software + Hardware

San Jose: Hardware

<comment><USER9> Since the biggest employer in San Jose is Adobe, the "hardware" moniker may not be the best.

<comment><USER10> Adobe's a big employer, but Cisco is the largest private-sector employer in San Jose, at least according to the city's numbers: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Top_Employ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose,_California#Top_Employers)

<comment><USER9> Wow, was I off! Thanks for the correction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is it with the cromulent word 'atmos'? Second time in a pg article. Atmosphere too hard to type? Personal shorthand slipping past the proofreader?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JpwjnMFlJI#t=1m33s>

<comment><USER12> Having worked in television, "atmos" is a semi-technical term with a specific flavor and specific baggage. This article uses it reasonably (but not entirely) accurately.

<comment><USER11> Ah, so you're saying it's a silly affectation rather than an abbreviation.

<comment><USER12> In the contexts where I've worked it's a genuine piece of jargon, a technical term that implies more than would the term "atmosphere".

So when used in that context yes, it's not just an abbreviation, but no, it's not a silly affectation. It's interesting that PG's usage matches (closely enough) the baggage-laden jargon version.

<comment><USER11> Right, I meant out-of-context usage (if that's what this is) would be a silly affectation like if one started inserting technical sailing terms into one's speech for no good reason, arrr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why not _bike_ Silicon Valley? This area is very bike accessible (just stay off the sidewalks), and lots of engineers love bicycles anyway.

 _Stanford University_ \- You can't drive around Stanford without being cut off by bikes, so why not ride one? And if you want a good ride while you're in the area, do "the loop," which is Alpine Rd to Portola Rd to Woodside Dr.

 _University Ave_ \- I'd avoid this on a bike because it's always ridiculously busy. However, Palo Alto has lots of casual suburbia rides, and note that Bryant St is a "bicycle boulevard" -- lots of it is usually car-free except for the locals, and it'll take you to Charleston, which runs into the Google campus.

 _Sand Hill Road_ \- A good ride with some reasonable hills. Take this road south to Portola and then try the gold standard of climbs -- Old La Honda Rd. If you can make it from Portola to the stop sign in less than 30 minutes, you're in good shape. Less than 18 and you're Lance Armstrong. Don't go _down_ Old La Honda, though -- go north on Skyline a bit and take 84 down since the visibility and view are better.

 _Castro Street_ \- This place really _wants_ to be a hip, urban center, but believing whether it is is up to you. Bike here and, like PG said, stop at Red Rock. Or grab a gyro and some baklava from the Gyro House, which is terribly underrated.

 _Google_ \- The Google campus is so bike accessible that they provide clown- like bikes for employees to ride around. Hit up the main campus and see the dinosaur and, currently, granite head sculpture exhibit. Of course, you should probably show up with someone who works there and can throw in a free lunch.

 _North of Google_ \- If you're biking from Palo Alto to Google or vice-versa, cut north through the Shoreline Lake reserve and the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve. Keep your mouth closed during the spring months so you don't inhale a cloud of gnats.

 _Skyline Drive_ \- A mixed bag. In the morning this is beautiful, and when the fog clears you can see the entire valley. It's _epic_. Unfortunately, the road is used as a testing ground for Porsche and motorcycle lovers -- people have died, and I have more than one friend who was almost hit.

<comment><USER14> Instead of following Skyline drive, another (safer?) option is to go up Page Mill, cross over Skyline, where Page Mill turns into Alpine Road, and then down through the Douglas-fir and redwoods towards the ocean. Once you get on the other side of Skyline, there is very little traffic and the views are tremendous. On the way you'll pass by the Heritage Grove, one of very few remaining groves of old growth redwoods in our area. Stop for ice cream in Loma Mar, or if you don't mind the crowds, head to Pescadero and Duarte's for some artichoke soup and a slice of pie.

<comment><USER15> As a fair warning - going up Page Mill requires being in very good shape. Its 30-60 minutes of climbing, some of it steep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You CAN see the city from Stanford, on a clear day. If you go up the dish trail (counter clockwise) your uphill slog is rewarded, just before you turn left, by a wonderful view of San Francisco skyscrapers in the distance. On the rare days of good visibility, it's one of my favorite spots in the world.

<comment><USER17> If you have a little more time my favorite view is from Skegg's Point near El Corte de Madera (<http://www.openspace.org/preserves/pr_ecdm.asp>) above Woodside (Take King's Mountain Rd and turn left at the top onto Skyline).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It looks like this was inspired by the Ask:YC question "How do I make the most out of Startup-school?" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1753141>).

To that end, if anybody is interested in taking a tour of the Silicon Valley before or after Startup School, let me know and I'll make it happen. (I've organized something like this once already. It was a blast: <http://hackspedition.org/sv>)

<comment><USER19> I'd love to do a tour with other people that are going to Startup School.

<comment><USER20> Mee too! Maybe 1-2 days before or after Startup School, I imagine many people will be flying in for a week or so around the event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "In case you can't tell, the founders are the ones leaning forward eagerly, and the investors are the ones sitting back with slightly pained expressions."

I like pg's new humor.

<comment><USER22> I also enjoyed this one: "The buildings are all more or less the same, their exteriors express very little, and they are arranged in a confusing maze... These buildings are a pretty accurate reflection of the VC business."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> San Andreas Lake came first, and then the fault was discovered and named after the lake.

(talking about the 280 section of the essay)

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure the San Andreas fault _came_ first. It just wasn't _discovered_ first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A friend regarding Hacker Dojo not being mentioned:

      well, he hasn't visited it.... ever, right? heh
      i mean, i guess you can't blame him
      it's a really long way from yc to the dojo

[Google Maps has it at 5 minutes away walking distance]

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd add Fry's Electronics and WeirdStuff Warehouse. If you came to the Valley from the sticks like I did they are wonderful wonderful places.

<comment><USER27> Story of my first trip to Fry's:

Myself and my roommate (another startup guy) were pretty hungover. I think it was some launch party the night before or just playing Halo with drinking rules. We were sitting at Gelayo Gusto in Mountain View. We had no furniture at the time and our TV was this crappy trinitron we got from Good Will. (Keep in mind, we somehow negotiated a ridiculous deal on a townhouse 3 bootstrapped entrepreneurs could never afford otherwise). We decided it was time for furniture or electronics. My roommate suggested we go to Fry's if it were electronics. I said: What's Fry's? Fast food? His response? Screw furniture, we're going to get a TV, and you NEED to experience Fry's. $1000 later we walked out with a 50 inch TV and saved $100 of it to get some lawn chairs + a tent for the living room. Some of you may have even stayed in this tent before. It was kind of the guest house we set up, inside the house.

Tent picture: <http://cl.ly/fbb39c0b2477b483de73>

I have a ton of stories like this. My year in silicon valley was without a doubt the happiest time of my life.

<comment><USER28> Great story! Why'd you move away?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I always think it's fun to drive down random streets in the commercial areas of Mt. View, Sunnyvale and San Jose and see the crazy mix of famous, has-been, and still unknown companies' signs on the buildings.

<comment><USER29> Here's an example. Java Drive (no relation to the language) in Sunnyvale is five blocks long. According to Google Maps, the following businesses are on it. (Plus I'm pretty sure there's at least one Yahoo! building there.)

Supertex

Logic Devices

RGB Networks

Infinera Corporation

NStreams Technologies

CTT

Palo Alto Networks

Net App

I, personally, only recognize Netapp and Yahoo!.

<comment><USER30> A guy who used to work for me now works for PAN and their product is very cool, from what I've seen. You should check them out if you're a network guy and pay attention to the company in general

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just reading about these places makes me dearly miss the Valley. Outside of startup culture, it is just an absolutely beautiful place to live. If you haven't visited, I suggest you do. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER31> I must have been to a different Valley :/ The majority is dull concrete sprawl. Each to their own of course, but I can only stand it for a week or 2 before I go insane.

Here's my favorite places though:

University Ave, Frys, Stevens Creek Mall, The Great Mall, Great America Theme Park

<comment><USER32> Dull concrete? How about lake Tahoe, Yosemite park, Muir Woods park, Monterey Bay, Black Mountain, and I could go on.

I do miss living in California ;-)

<comment><USER31> OK, sure. But I think that's the problem. It's either wilderness, or concrete. Nothing in-between.

<comment><USER33> I live in Santa Cruz. It's hardly wilderness but I walk through a forest to get to my research lab and then am greeted with a view of the ocean when I leave campus.

When we decide to fuck off for the day and go surfing it's a 10 minute drive. Counting the beach traffic. It's 40 minutes over the hill into Silicon Valley, counting the people from the valley who don't know how to drive CA-17.

I think that's as in-between as you can get.

<comment><USER14> You are at UC Santa Cruz, quite possibly the most beautiful university in the country. Enjoy the redwoods, the banana slugs and the amazing views of Monterey bay while you are there.

For comparison, over the hill my office is on a university campus that is mostly concrete, ringed by areas you may not want to travel alone at night, and in the fall shrouded under a thick pocket of San Jose's brown smog.

<comment><USER33> Correct! It is a joy driving down to Monterey to meet with some of the folks we collaborate with down there. "Oh no, a meeting? How terrible!"

I am constantly thankful the UC Regents generally chose such beautiful locations for their campuses. UCSB and UCSD were excellent choices as well. We'll give them a pass on a few of their other choices. ;)

The point though, is that middle ground does exist in California. As another example, I grew up in Sonoma County, which is both beautiful and not a wilderness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The coast is cold and foggy? Maybe if you're all the way up in Half Moon Bay. ;-)

It does seem like it's declined in its role in startup culture lately, but it's spawned a good share of startups--- Seagate, SCO (pre-patent-troll era), RF Micro, Plantronics, etc., are from the coast. Would be interesting if anyone had a guess as to why there's less of that now than there was some years ago. There are still a bunch of profitable (!) indie-game studios, at least (the folks behind Bridge Builder, Gish, Super Meat Boy, Aether, Bit.Trip, etc.).

Judging by the commute traffic on 92 & 17, it seems quite a few people who work in the valley still live on the coast, too, but it's quite possible they're mostly 9-5 rather than startup types.

<comment><USER31> This was a large culture shock to me (Coming from the UK). We see California as some sun drenched beach babe area.

Imagine our shock when we visited some beaches and they were full of fog so you couldn't see, and the water was yellow and frothy. I guess we were still too far north, but it seems like to get a half decent beach you have to go down to Santa Cruz or further.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, the public image is Los Angeles / San Diego beaches. Santa Cruz is pretty warm though (well, the air, not the water), and usually sunny. How close it is depends on where you think of as "silicon valley"; from San Jose/Cupertino/Saratoga/Los Gatos it's closer than SF is, but gets increasingly far if you're up in, say, Menlo Park.

You probably don't want to go further south, at least for warmth--- Monterey and Big Sur are beautiful, but about as cold and foggy as Half Moon Bay.

A tangent: biggest CA culture shock for me was visiting Hollywood and finding out much of it is closer to a ghetto than to its glamorous mid-20th-c. image.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm surprised SuperHappyDevHouse and Hacker Dojo were not mentioned. Many people, including local press, describe both as microcosms of Silicon Valley culture.

If you want to _see_ Silicon Valley, sure, go to Palo Alto and drive 280... but if you want to _experience_ what Silicon Valley is _about_ , you should go to a SuperHappyDevHouse or visit Hacker Dojo.

<comment><USER34> I live in Michigan, but work for a company headquartered in the Valley and I've flown out there a few times for them. You might be used to it if you live there, but it is something worth _seeing_ , trust me. Yes, there's even more than that, but just the seeing is itself a worthwhile endeavor. The mountains, the houses, the downtowns, the campuses, definitely worth seeing.

<comment><USER35> I agree, but you're entirely missing progrium's point.

I think PG's emphasis on places like Skyline and 280 was trying to help compensate for the fact that a lot of people come here and stick close to highway 101, which leads them to think this is an ugly place. But in focusing so much on the landscape stuff, he left out some of the best people stuff.

<comment><USER34> And I daresay you're missing mine. Making a particular point doesn't obligate you to make any other particular point. It's OK to just talk about the stuff there is to see, and it doesn't incur an obligation to talk about the other "more important" stuff, even discounting the fundamental relativity of "more important". If you take such logic to its logical conclusion (which I really mean, as opposed to its illogical conclusion), one can never talk about anything except matters of immediate life and death.

Yes, you may have _preferred_ that pg talk about something else, but it is sufficient and OK to talk about the things to see if he wishes to. (It's not just landscape, either, believe me. The "tour of Silicon Valley corporate campuses" was almost as interesting for me, if not moreso. I've done the tourist thing quite a bit all over the place, but that's not something you can do anywhere else.)

I can't be _missing_ the point if I'm disagreeing with it, now can I? (And no, I don't think that defense applies to your post.)

<comment><USER35> Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In case you were wondering where our company name "280 North" came from, see #9.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'd include: 1) Hacker Dojo (conveniently near YC!) -- a slightly-more- corporate hackerspace

2) Computer History Museum

3) Weird Stuff and the other used hardware vendors

4) Drive by the "HP Garage" in Palo Alto

5) Facebook's new offices

6) In-N-Out

7) The Old Pro in Palo Alto

8) Drive by Moffett Field (and go inside if you can; there are events there a couple times per year)

<comment><USER25> Define "slightly-more-corporate".

<comment><USER38> I would assume the OP means corporate compared to noisebridge. Now, I've never been to the place but I hear it is even less formal than the dojo.

If the dojo is corporate, though, I'm a CEO.

<comment><USER37> Yeah, corporate compared to noisebridge. Uncorporate compared to most other places, although I would still say the dojo is a little more corporate than a lot of other hacker spaces (in a good way).

I like both noisebridge and hacker dojo.

<comment><USER38> I think "corporate" might be the wrong word. I agree, though, that it is much more business oriented than, say, a linux users group, or many of the other social places I hang out. It's more like the culture you see on hacker news than the culture you see on LKML.

but it's very oriented towards small companies; while there are a lot of people with funding there, we also see a fair amount of bootstrapping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The Computer History Museum link at the bottom points to the essay itself. Presumably, it's meant to point to wikipedia or another relevant page.

<comment><USER40> Also, the Gates building (and others) at Stanford has bits of computer history including a plaque to Vint Cerf and one of Google's lego servers

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Apple fans should make the trip to HQ in Cupertino. Apple operates a company store here that is, I believe, the only place in the world to buy official Apple apparel. The 1 Infinite Loop sign makes for a nice photo op.

<comment><USER33> Plus I always feel a bit of excitement driving the parts of the roads you can see on the icon for the maps app on the iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sadly, one of the most beautiful spots in the valley was at the old DC Power Lab (named after someone called "DC Power", but it was the Electric Power Research Institute before it became the old Stanford AI Lab, and was eventually torn down).

In its decrepitude, a laser printer startup I helped found (Imagen) lived among the ruins (we traded space from Stanford for laser printers ;-), and it was glorious. It was up in the trees not too far from the dish, and we'd work out on the deck (watch out for holes) under the eucalypti on every fresh Palo Alto morning. Heaven.

Now I think it's a riding stable.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 Never noticed before that Google doesn't really seem to like if you try to look at their offices in Street View: [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Charleston+Rd,+Mountain+View,+California&ll=37.421107,-122.082873&spn=0.001576,0.002642&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=37.421138,-122.082944&panoid=sNcUHX86GlUgMN9ed037zQ&cbp=12,325.77,,0,-0.12)

<comment><USER42> On the contrary, googlers lined the street when the street-view-mobile came by:

[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=charleston+road+mountain+view&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Charleston+Rd,+Mountain+View,+California&t=h&layer=c&cbll=37.423295,-122.086003&panoid=7bIjlFG04zceRVn6gITkow&cbp=12,167.15,,0,19.54&ll=37.42335,-122.086306&spn=0.001973,0.00284&z=19)

Amusingly, their faces are blurred out even though they clearly _wanted_ to be in the shot.

The link you gave is to an inner parking lot. It's interesting that it's "fogged out." I've never seen that elsewhere in Street View.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Around the start of the Afghanistan war, our high school (I lived in Finland at the time) invited someone working for the US Embassy to give a talk. The auditorium was full, as a lot of the students had opinions about the US involvement in Afghanistan, and mostly negative ones, so there was much curiosity about what an "official" would say about it to such an audience. The embassy representative arrived, had a long talk about how much work it was to get his job, and how cool it was to travel to Europe and live here, and then stated the purpose of his visit was to show us how beautiful the US is. He then proceeded to slow hundreds of slides of landscape/sunset/nature photos. After all this, he evaded the inevitable request for commentary on the war by stating he had run out of time. This is sort of the feeling I get from this article. It's a travel guide look at silicon valley, but doesn't have any depth or insight about the actual effect SV has on startups. This is a great guide for people who live in the region and want to play tourist for a day. But how many of those don't know these things?

<comment><USER44> It's not like pg has neglected to write about the subject:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/kate.html> <http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html> <http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html> <http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Wish I'd had this for my first GDC conference in San Jose.

I went up El Camino Real, and saw fabled places like Palo Alto, but I couldn't help thinking "This is just like Scarborough" (ugly Toronto suburb). It's just strip-malls. KFC, Taco Hell, KFC, Taco Hell. What a disappointment!

I guess I expected there to be code and money dripping from the trees, while pot-smoking surfers built rockets, or something.

</comment><comment><USER46> good article. Yes, SF is full of startups. My half baked ex-stackexchange site has a nice list: [http://sfanswers.com/questions/429/list-of-start-up-tech- web...](http://sfanswers.com/questions/429/list-of-start-up-tech-web- companies-in-san-francisco-bay-area)

</comment><comment><USER27> This whole list reminds me of an idea I've had for such a long time that I've wanted to do, just to meet people and provide something useful.

Once a day daily email that highlights great places in an area. These are well known spots, but there are tons others that I'm sure long time residents haven't even heard of. Thrillist and all the others seem to focus on bars/restaurants, but there's just so much more to an area to see. I lived in the Valley for a year and still never got to see enough. I wish I had one email a day telling me of places to check out/unique things to see. I'd never get around to all of them, but it would have made my time there even more enjoyable.

<comment><USER47> Weekend Sherpa does pretty much this for the greater Bay Area, and focused on outdoor-type things.

<http://www.weekendsherpa.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I was interviewed in the valley a few years back. I didn't try to go to Google but I did go to Stanford on a free evening. I had some idea of trying to find the CS department, or maybe Knuth's house. It was a little late though.

Instead I ended up just wandering around the campus looking at the amazing art and soaking it in. There's a cast of a Rodin piece called The Gates of Hell that is unreal. I got to it just after sunset when the lights were starting to come on.

It was after dark when I left campus, and I took a wrong turn. Suddenly all the signs were in Spanish, and I was lost in California. I made it out alive though.

They offered me a job but I ended up in Colorado instead.

</comment><comment><USER49> One way of seeing the Google offices is to keep an eye out for hacker events hosted there. I was able to get in by attending an OpenSocial hackathon, and met some people who were habitual visitors to their different events.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why hasn't SV built out towards the west and the pacific ocean and instead built downwards? There seem to be big swaths of unused space there, and for such an expensive place it seems a bit strange.

<comment><USER51> Look at a map of the Bay Area using Google Maps in "terrain" mode. Everything between I-280 and the Pacific Ocean is basically mountains.

<comment><USER50> I've lived on mountains. Other than having to worry about your soccer balls going into snowball mode it isn't bad at all.

<comment><USER10> Quite a few people do live in the mountains, it just isn't particularly high- density, and a relative lack of good roads reduces the area where even that low-density development can happen. The Hwy-9 corridor probably has about 50,000 people along it, as the main concentration (if you include Scotts Valley and the upper part of Los Gatos). There are other people scattered about, but once you're off the main roads, it starts to get remote enough that nobody's going to commute to San Jose daily. Lots of interesting "weird" folks, though, ranging from the lefty types (hippies, pot farmers, etc.) to the righty types (gun-toting mountain libertarians). Also, Robert Heinlein built a geometric house up there: [http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=37.058811,-122.158461&ie=UTF8&ll=37.058593,-122.158452&spn=0.001785,0.001998&z=19)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I would add Rainbow Mansion <http://www.rainbowmansion.com/>

The ultimate Hacker Villa and the location of many SuperHappyDevHouses

</comment><comment><USER53> Some people have already mentioned going to see Apple HQ. I remember driving on I-280 in the late nineties when Jobs had just gotten back to Apple and they were doing their Think Different campaign. There was a huge billboard of Einstein right by the exit to the Apple campus. I had been an Apple fan since the early eighties; to see this and know their founder was back and they were doing great things again literally brought a tear to my eye. ;)

</comment><comment><USER54> More on that magic 165 University address <http://milo.com/blog/lucky-165-university-ave/>

</comment><comment><USER55> This guide comes too late for me! When I visited the area while travelling through cali 8 years ago I couldn't find a hint of SV... but Stanford's campus is great.

<comment><USER56> Eight years ago would have been right during the bust, when all the overtly Valley stuff was in hiding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> If you're in the bay area there are way better things to see than those things. those are just famous startup places

<comment><USER58> True. If you are in any way human, you'll have more fun hanging around San Francisco than you will standing around in the Google parking lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone have advice for getting in and seeing offices at startups/companies in the valley for people that are coming in for startup school, tours and whatnot?

I found the info for the Airbnb party on their blog (<http://blog.airbnb.com/>), that should be cool.

</comment><comment><USER59> I found the "condense rain out of fog" statement interesting, thanks! I looked into it more and have a nitpick: if I understand it correctly, redwoods will directly absorb (or at least condense onto itself) much of the fog. Rain must fall under the influence of gravity.

</comment><comment><USER60> i hope to see sunfire offices on this list some day. it's one of the most underrated places in mountain view to find other smart, driven hackers. their mixers are on the level of yc's dinners--i've learned some really interesting and contrarian advice from the founders of companies who attend those mixers, a few of them were yc-funded (one in particular that stood out was ngmoco's methods of generating revenue from free apps). i've also heard some bizarre ideas, like when the seasteading institute's founder came to speak. salman khan was at the last mixer i believe.

</comment><comment><USER35> One of the best things PG didn't mention is the Book Buyers (used book store right on Castro in downtown Mountain View) technical books selection. Very impressive.

</comment><comment><USER61> The list sounds more Palo Alto than Silicon Valley. I personally think there is much more to SV than the 9 items. But I agree on the weather, it is nearly perfect.

<comment><USER62> I have to agree. I would think the epicenter of Silicon Valley would be more likely Sunnyvale. It's surrounded by Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino and North San Jose. Think Apple, Google, Intel, AMD, Lockheed, Nvidia, Cisco, Adobe, HP, ebay, Yahoo. These are all a small drive from Sunnyvale.

I think Fry's started in Sunnyvale... And Cyberdyne Systems is in Sunnyvale. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Great list.

While living in Palo Alto I was surprised that there seemed to be more startup events in the city. SOMA definitely feels like part of the scene too.

</comment><comment><USER64> I would agree that it's nice to work for a company on University/Castro streets that is before the company moves to some soulless office park.

</comment><comment><USER65> See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759141>

</comment><comment><USER66> hm, really? Castro street?

Wow! I was there last month and I walked Castro street several times, but I thought all the "action" was around Stanford University (I didn't go there, only went to Stanford Shopping Center and the landscape was amazing).

</comment><comment><USER56> Dana Street Roasting Co. > Red Rock. :)

<comment><USER67> Not for Hackers. DSRC has no outlets. Or rather, they cover up the outlets.

<comment><USER68> Yeah. It used to have the outlets exposed, but people like me would arrive around 10am and camp out for most of the day :) At one point my startup referred to DSRC as "the other conference room." Red Rock had this problem for a while and then acquired the second floor and this has kept the day campers from getting in the way of traffic to/from the counter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Next we need where to eat in SV.

</comment><comment><USER70> Nice, Don't forget to look for the linear accelerator on 280 in Menlo Park. Endless Loop Drive <http://goo.gl/z2iR> in Sunnyvale. Also, if your on Cal ave. get your hair done with my girlfriend @ Di Petro Salon. ;)

<comment><USER71> Good point. I'll add something about SLAC and The Dish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there any nerd bars where you can talk about jQuery, AdWords campaigns, etc?

<comment><USER4> I would also like to hear a place to find a basketball game</comment></comment>


Show HN: Vue.js drag and drop and sortable library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kutlugsahin/vue-smooth-dnd <comment><USER2> Cool, the tilt is a little odd when moving elements though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The tilt is just a css rotation to demonstrate that you can set classes on drag and drop states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks awesome!</comment>


Facebook, Google to Stand Trial in India - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277263704300998.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

<comment><USER2> The view from India - [http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/unfriending- ka...](http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/voices/unfriending-kapil-sibal)</comment>


Ask HN: In what areas/ways will robots/AI replace humans in upcoming 50 years? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> in 50 years, I better be able to say, "Robot, 3d print a few copies of yourself, 3d print an oven, a table, some chairs, some organic ingredients, and cook me a pizza"

in parallel, and all FLOSS.</comment>


reMarkable – The paper tablet for people who prefer paper - <AUTHOR> https://getremarkable.com/ <comment><USER2> Some of the intriguing books appearing in the video:

* [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sparse-distributed-memory](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sparse-distributed-memory)

* [https://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Concepts-Creative-Analogies-Fun...](https://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Concepts-Creative-Analogies-Fundamental/dp/0465024750)

* [https://www.amazon.com/Theater-Consciousness-Workspace-Mind/...](https://www.amazon.com/Theater-Consciousness-Workspace-Mind/dp/0195147030)</comment>


Show HN: Deadlinks Documentation Checker - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/butuzov/deadlinks <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I tried to work with kubeflow[1] project this summer, and i got a lot of 404 reading it's documentation, which outranged me a bit. I wrote two functions php script and checked kubeflow site for deadlinks, made a few PR and hopefully fix the situation a bit. During hacktoberfest I made a tool called a deadlinks[2] (I am kinda bad in naming things), and start checking different project documentation for this kind of error (hey guys if you remember me - cheers!). I have discovered that there are (almost) no documentation without such errors. Every single one has it (except hashicorp tools, they are good!).

I start spending more time trying to improve deadlinks, and define use cases. Currently, I am working more on the kubenetes website and deadlinks swinging back and forth, and I think we are ready to be used.

I made simple documentation[3] so you can check examples and how this tool can be integrated into existing ci/cd systems.

How can it be useful for your opensource project/static website?

1\. You can check it on broken links during CI.

2\. You can apply it to a folder with files or to a server (standalone or ssg powered).

3\. If you switching SSG you can check what will be the difference in terms of a number of broken links.

4\. It's available as pip package, brew and docker image.

[1] [https://kubeflow.org](https://kubeflow.org)

[2] [https://github.com/butuzov/deadlinks](https://github.com/butuzov/deadlinks)

[3] [http://deadlinks.readthedocs.io/](http://deadlinks.readthedocs.io/)</comment>


Google Ad Portal Equated "Black Girls" with Porn - <AUTHOR> https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/07/23/google-advertising-keywords-black-girls <comment><USER2> What's even worse than adult porn results for "black girls"? Non-adult porn results for "white girls".</comment>


The use of the couch in psychoanalysis evolved from asylum-based therapies - <AUTHOR> https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/freud-19th-century-therapeutics/ <comment><USER2> I'd be interested in what home-grown remedies emerged from asylums of this era. Physical therapies were very... varied, so what were ailments of the psyche treated as?

<comment><USER3> Obviously we must drain the bad humors from the brain or shock it. If that doesn't work maybe spray them with water.</comment></comment>


Douglas Rain, voice of HAL, has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.mystratfordnow.com/56807/stratford-festival-founder-dies/# <comment><USER2> The deactivation of HAL 9000, a scene that took over 6 minutes of running time, is one of the most indelible cinematic memories from my teenager years. I have never felt more conflicted with empathy for and gripped by fear of an electronic conscience since. In the scene at one point when HAL says "I'm afraid, Dave", I'd almost want to stop Dave, but I am also simultaneously aware and fearful that HAL may be manipulating the human!

I've watched many SciFi movies with similar themes - even ones where the artificial beings are given faces. But HAL's baritone voice and the precise controlled cadence did for evoking emotions what none could top. Douglas Rain's voice and how Kubric used is an example of craftsmanship mastery at its best!

RIP HAL 9000. I'll sing Daisy for you.

<comment><USER3> HAL did not have a baritone voice.

<comment><USER2> I think you're right. I'm going to leave my embarrassment unedited for all of internet history. (If anyone knows Douglas Rain's voice type, I'd appreciate some education.)

<comment><USER4> I'd like to hear HAL in a baritone anyway. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DAVE?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apparently he never actually watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I find it pretty incredible that somebody could have such an iconic role in such an iconic movie and never actually watch the finished result.

He's apparently not the only person to have done that either. John Williams, the composer of the film score for Star Wars, has never watched any of the Star Wars movies.

<comment><USER6> I've never heard that about John Williams, but it's probably not quite the same sort of thing. He must watch the nearly-finished rough cuts dozens of times in the process of scoring (which is one of the last steps in the movie making process). Then again, on the screen behind the orchestra, during the recording process. By the end, he probably knows the movie by heart and isn't excited to watch it yet again, just to see the last bit of polish.

That's pretty different from recording some voiceover lines in a studio then never even seeing the movie they fit into.

<comment><USER7> In that specific role, I'd direct him not to watch and to avoid getting too much context in order to prevent emotion from getting into the voice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wishful thinking, but according to his bio, he's been in more than a hundred film/TV roles, so there's quite a lot of his voice that's been recorded. There would be enough for his voice to be sampled and re-created for an AI assistant. Obviously this would require the approval of his next of kin.

<comment><USER7> I think it'd depend on how fond of that role he was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Damn, just yesterday I went to an exhibition about AI that heavily focused on 2001 and HAL. A truly visionary film. RIP.

For the curious - [https://espacio.fundaciontelefonica.com/evento/mas-alla- de-2...](https://espacio.fundaciontelefonica.com/evento/mas-alla- de-2001-odiseas-de-la-inteligencia/)

<comment><USER10> I visited the Stanley Kubrick exhibition in Barcelona this week-end, the 2001 area is still the one that gets me the most, they were projecting the opening of the movie, which is always breathtaking, but what got me the most is the HAL wall repeating the lines from the movie. A great place to visit if you have the the opportunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> NYT published a nice article on Rain and his role in HAL's voice earlier this year:

"The Story of a Voice: HAL in '2001' Wasn't Always So Eerily Calm"

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/movies/hal-2001-a-space-o...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/movies/hal-2001-a-space- odyssey-voice-douglas-rain.html)

Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16734859)

</comment><comment><USER12> I only watched the movie recently, but still overwhelmed by how a 60s movie can be so realistic. Rest in peace, your voice will forever be remembered.

</comment><comment><USER13> RIP Douglas/HAL. Yes, you will dream.</comment>