The Myth That Capitalism Saved the World - <AUTHOR> https://eand.co/the-myth-that-capitalism-saved-the-world-f655e2b529b1 <comment><USER2> > So why do American thinkers keep pushing the tired, old, obviously by now > false myth that capitalism equals progress?

Because capitalism requires productivity from its citizens, and the market organizes this labor in an efficient manner, which is why our grocery stores are always filled with food & toiletries.

American democracy is the result of the British Parliament's misuse of capitalism ("no taxation without representation"). Capitalism is not static and is always correcting and improving itself with the help of pro-capital governments, like women's suffrage and child labor protection laws.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author says something that I think actually illustrates the main issue I would take with their argument:

> capitalism alone can't be the engine of human progress

For one, very few people claim that capitalism _alone_ is the solution to human progress. That being said, it very much _is_ the engine. We don't know of a better engine than capitalism, it creates value at unprecedented rates. That doesn't mean that you can't steer its output towards objectives that benefit society in ways that markets are unlikely to address in a timely fashion.

Take Norway. It has a trillion dollar fund, started from selling oil, now continuing to make money by investing in foreign companies. In addition to this, they have a market economy. Because they have so many socialized programs, the implication seems to be that this is not a capitalist country, but this is simply not true. Capitalism, again, is the engine.

Because a state with taxpayer funding produced a notable step forward for humanity does not mean that capitalism had nothing to do with this, it means that capitalism produced the taxpayer funding.

<comment><USER4> > very few people claim that capitalism alone is the solution to human > progress.

I see people claiming that all the time.

<comment><USER5> Capitalism is simply a combination of the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law.

How could this ever solve anything? It's not a solution, it's a framework.

It's like saying that Ruby on Rails is the solution to your company. We'll by definition it can't be. It can be used to do whatever your company needs but the framework can't be the company as it doesn't do anything useful in a vacuum.

However it's certainly a much better model than generating an HTTP stack in assembly to make your SAAS business. It solves a real problem that allows you to operate but it doesn't solve your higher level problem.

Capitalism is exactly the same. The lack of it can cause major problems. The existence of it cannot solve many problems but it can provide the only efficient framework in which many problems can be solved.

<comment><USER6> Rodney Stark says that the distinguishing mark of capitalism is that (at least part of) the profits are re-invested in better tools for productivity gains. In this view, "the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law" are prerequisites, but they aren't _capitalism_. Capitalism is what you do once you have that foundation in place.

<comment><USER5> From wikipedia: "Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion".

Whoever this guy is, he doesn't matter enough to get to redefine capitalism. Being in the general field of economics would be a start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is extremely ignorant of economics. The innovations and institutions he refers to, like the university, were only made possible by rising levels of productivity allowing more resources to be spent on specialized endeavors.

In the developing world, whether it's the US in 1880 or Guyana in 2019, rising productivity means people able to afford more capital and consumer goods, like insulated walls, menstrual pads, diapers and toilet paper, which collectively make an enormous impact on human health.

<comment><USER8> That entirely misses that the first universities were _centuries_ before the first joint stock company, or consumer goods. There's a few pushing near 1,000 years old, though by the 12th century they were starting to spread across Europe. The innovation and productivity gains came after.

<comment><USER9> Yah, and could subsistence farming pay for nearly as much of the population to be resident in them? Economic development is important-- we have a greater portion of the population as academics and/or doing R&D than we had centuries ago.

And it continues...

Total R&D population is up about 60% in the United States in the past 25 years, in a time when the population as a whole has increased by less than 20%.

<comment><USER8> But universities were not _made possible_ by rising levels of productivity, as the GP claimed. They were there long, long before.

Certainly a greater proportion go to university now than used to. Which came after.

Current levels of university attendance are far more down to pushing university as the right tertiary education, in place of apprenticeships; technical and vocational. Many governments have made policy to increase university attendance whilst closing or downplaying those other options.

<comment><USER9> I'm not talking about undergraduate university attendance, but the number of people employed in research. When we focus on higher institutions of research, it's what the author of the article was talking about, too.

The number of people in that category was miniscule before 1700, and has exploded in the past 300 years.

Yes, there were (a comparatively small number of) universities before this time, doing qualitatively different things. But capitalism paid the bills to transform them into institutions driving scientific advancement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author surfaces from time to time, and usually it revolves around his perceived failures of capitalism. I've responded before here: [https://www.brodoyouevencode.com/post/the-goal-of- capitalism...](https://www.brodoyouevencode.com/post/the-goal-of-capitalism- is-not-to-escape-capitalism/)

None of his arguments are appealing or interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author is correct that capitalism has brought lots of suffering. He is also correct that progress requires much more in society than capitalism alone.

However, it is definitely the case that the enormous technological advances we have seen in the last few centuries could not have happened without capitalism. The proof is that socialist countries, in spite of enormous investment in technology and science, have failed to produce any significant technological advances outside the military and space exploration realms. In the few cases where someone in a socialist country invented something important, like continuous casting or the cat scan, it languished until it was taken up by capitalist countries.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's easy to point out the faults of the communists. Are colonialism, ponzi schemes, sweatshops, pharma human experiments and environmental disasters capitalism's dark underbelly?

Everyone seems to think their ism is the best while conveniently ignoring ills in the past.

<comment><USER13> Colonialism is much older than capitalism, so no. The Romans practiced it, as did medieval kings.

Colonialism is a crime of opportunity. You see it whenever your group has relatively advanced technology in terms of navigation, transportation, logistics, governance, and military.

Humans aren't innately ethical. We've had to develop ethics through a long process of philosophical debate, with many setbacks and oversights. I think we're doing alright.</comment></comment>


DNI Statement on Recent Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information - <AUTHOR> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni.gov%2Findex.php%2Fnewsroom%2Fpress-releases%2F191-press-releases-2013%2F868-dni-statement-on-recent-unauthorized-disclosures-of-classified-information

<comment><USER2> _Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions._

Tough. Work harder.

 _Surveillance programs like this one are consistently subject to safeguards that are designed to strike the appropriate balance between national security interests and civil liberties and privacy concerns_

Words, words, words, words... blah, blah, blah, Fluffy.

YOU, Mr. Clapper and your agency, are accountable to US, you know, the "We The People" bit? And when you operate in the shadows, hidden away behind a wall of secrecy and classified information, you are breaking the bond between "your behavior" and "our ability to police that behavior". And that just is not acceptable. And don't give me this bullshit about Congress performing oversight. I trust Congress as far as I can throw it, and there's not a soul serving there that I voted for or that I consider to represent me. And I know a lot of other Americans feel the same way.

You spooks just need to learn to deal with the fact that we demand you operate in daylight, not in darkness, in the open, not behind a veil... WE are your Panopticon guards.

This is a free and open society, and we don't do shadow governments, Stasi like special police, and all that totalitarian bullshit. You assholes got caught doing something you shouldn't be doing, and if the people of this country have a shred of backbone left, you're going to be held accountable for it.

<comment><USER3> > Surveillance programs like this one are consistently subject to safeguards

Not sure if they realize but saying that makes it worse. It is like the thief caught red handed stealing saying "this is a very responsible operations, victims are carefully screened ... blah ... blah"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >> In order to provide a more thorough understanding of the program, I have directed that certain information related to the "business records" provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act be declassified and immediately released to the public.

This is the only part of this release I really take issue with. If you can _immediately_ direct that the information be declassified without first taking pause to think if it, combined with other information, could be dangerous then _it should never have been classified in the first place_. It takes a lot of care to properly evaluate that. If you _had_ thought about it before, and still came to that conclusion then it shouldn't have been done in a secret court anyway. Secret courts are for really specific things... they are limited in supervision and accountability and aren't for stuff you'd rather not have your citizenry, whom you are responsible to and for, asking questions about.

<comment><USER3> > it should never have been classified in the first place

The system is big with lots of moving cogs in it. The bigger it is the higher the chance one of the cogs will pull a Manning. They see the idiocy and waste. Classifying stuff that is shameful and sweeping it under the carpet works for a while, but soon enough someone will say fuck it, this is going against the principles of my country and my moral standards and they'll leak the shit out of it.

From their side, it is imperative to persecute and punish whistle-blowers, leakers as harshly as possible. In order to set examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is the guy that, when asked by congress (I assume under oath) if the NSA was collecting data on US citizens, he responded "No sir." That was just 3 months ago.

So... not sure what his statements are worth now...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs&t=6m10s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs&t=6m10s) (starts at 6 minutes 10 seconds)

<comment><USER3> I am sure he was briefed by DOJ on what words to exactly say in order to get off on some technicality (ah but it is not "collecting" it is ... "intercepting" LOL!).

On the other had, so he lied to Congress. What happens next? A slap on the wrist, public shaming? The public will forget about it as soon as the next major hurricane or tornado hits.

<comment><USER5> I don't think the public is going to forget. The media seems to have started an all out war against the government ever since the AP/Reporter DOJ scandal - just my opinion. I don't think the media is going to let anyone forget this anytime soon, but we'll see. As for what happens next for lying to congress... I assume nothing. Maybe Congress will do a 180, they're pretty good at reversing their positions when not doing so means losing votes and their job. I'm skeptical anyone will actually be punished for this. It's in the media's hands. The public has no power at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 404'd. Here, have some cached content:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dni.gov%2Findex.php%2Fnewsroom%2Fpress- releases%2F191-press-releases-2013%2F868-dni-statement-on-recent-unauthorized- disclosures-of-classified-information)

<http://pastebin.com/zRgpetMe>

<comment><AUTHOR> Why did this 404? Wow.

<comment><AUTHOR> No longer 404ing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The office of the DNI just officially changed the link to: [http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-pre...](http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-press-releases-2013/869-dni-statement-on-activities-authorized- under-section-702-of-fisa)

All within minutes. Check the difference on their twitter feed: <https://twitter.com/ODNIgov>

<comment><USER7> _Much_ less info, if that's supposed to be accomplishing the same thing. In particular, this implicit acknowledgement that they're Hoovering up a lot of telephone connection metadata:

" _By order of the FISC, the Government is prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program. All information that is acquired under this program is subject to strict, court- imposed restrictions on review and handling. The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization. Only specially cleared counterterrorism personnel specifically trained in the Court-approved procedures may even access the records._ "

Given that they aren't disposing this data, that their searches today are, at least officially, narrow, is of little reassurance.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't query this much data with clustering it, indexing it, analyzing it first somehow.

<comment><USER7> Nah, check out data warehouses. This data is _really_ limited in details (anything more than from and to telephone numbers, and start and stop times?), and can be shoved into a data warehouse without any analysis as that word is generally understood.

Of course it gets indexed, but that's automatic and mindless.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point but I am so tempted to assume that they are not just storing it in some flat dump but trying to extract some sort of higher order representation of the data as they are processing it into the warehouse. You could argue that surfacing trends is technically not "querying".

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/2013/slides/big_graph_nsa_rd_2013...](http://www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/2013/slides/big_graph_nsa_rd_2013_56002v1.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can dismiss any discussion now about collecting "metadata", as it's just a distraction. Cat is out of the bag that they're also collecting everything, just under a different name.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, PRISM!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great quote: "Discussing programs like this publicly will have an impact on the behavior of our adversaries and make it more difficult for us to understand their intentions."

<comment><USER11> Considering the scope of the domestic monitoring, the definition of adversaries is disturbingly close to ordinary citizens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Such as telephone number and length of calls .... "

and of course IMEI - ie exactly which device you were using, where you were at the time etc..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I cannot change the URL - can an admin do so on HN?

</comment><comment><USER13> "The collection is broad in scope[…], subject to stringent restrictions." Wait, what?

</comment><comment><USER14> Pronounced "deny."</comment>


Luck and startups: Our journey - <AUTHOR> https://www.kapwing.com/blog/make-your-own-lightning/ <comment><USER3> I agree with the premise of this article. In my nearly 40 years as a (self employed in 3 of my own businesses) software developer and watching many companies make it (or go under), it appears that pure, unadulterated luck is a _massive_ factor in whether a company makes it huge, or just potters along.

It is sad that many founders or business owners tend to gloss over this fact when they go on to write blog posts or write a book or go on the speaking circuit when they have 'made it'. It is easy sometimes to attribute to 'good old fashioned hard work' what can be attributed to pure luck.

Running a successful business is somewhat akin to a lottery.

<comment><AUTHOR> [This is Julia, the OC] In some ways, this article is a response to this sentiment. It's true that luck is an important factor, but you can make your own luck through hard work. Being successful with startups is not like winning the lottery, because lottery winners just sit around holding a ticket. Startup founders are constantly working to attract more luck - or lightning - <USER2> themselves.

<comment><USER3> I appreciate the sentiment of 'making your own luck', and while I think that it is true to a certain extent, there are also the opposite cases.

Let's look at one totally random example off the top of my head - Grumpy Cat. Now, GC's owners basically sat there while the owner's brother I believe, posted the cat's picture on social media, which turned into a storm that netted GC's owners multi millions of dollars in marketing deals. Sure there was probably some hard work after the fact in managing those deals, but initially, it was just pure dumb luck of the cat's picture being posted in the right place at the right time to ignite the response of the world. Tons of other cat pictures go unnoticed every day.

I had a client many years ago - a nice chap, but not what I would call a good businessman. He had trouble stringing a coherent sentence together, and had a bad drinking and gambling problem. Only he happened to start an aboriginal art retail business right when 'Crocodile Dundee' came out and Australian Aboriginal Art was the big thing. He basically had a $1M annual turnover business overnight, and had no clue how to manage it. In fact, we were called in to run an audit because some of his employees were embezzling truckloads of money from him right under his nose. He just lucked into a thriving business but not due to any sort of acumen or hard work. Next door to him there was an auto mechanic business I also worked with whose owner (who was in a wheelchair BTW) worked 80+ hours per week to struggle to put food on his family's table. I found it hard to look at these two businesses literally running side by side, and say that it was anything but dumb luck that separated them, regardless of hard work.

<comment><USER4> these are not startups though and you can't compare them to a startup.

sure, luck is a factor in everything but it's not a make or break factor in startups. in startups you make your own luck. you work hard, suffer the small wins and losses, until you get yourself in the right place at the right time. some people find that opportunity early, some later but both get there because they worked at it. even Uber founders had to work hard for it. and don't even get me started on Airbnb's founders

<comment><AUTHOR> [Julia again] Y'all should read the article! These examples of "lightning striking" absolutely happens to people that don't work hard for it. But knowing and appreciating the role of chance doesn't mean that hard work doesn't pay off, because hard work can make you more likely to experience a stroke of luck.

<comment><USER5> The question is the extent to which that is true, and whether or not it's the primary factor involved in a success.

Work hard => success is a simplistic and misleading mythology, not an evidence-based reality. It also leads to toxic relationships with workers, because if a founder or manager believes that more hours = success they'll make some very stupid business decisions and trash the quality of life of some of their employees _for no good reason._

If hard work (how is that measured?) isn't a primary factor - and plenty of research suggests it isn't - then the realistic way for founders to increase their chances of success is to understand that factors that actually contribute the most, and maximise those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I often think that people conflate bad product with bad luck. Specifically wrt tech startups/companies, there are way too many copycats that churn out half baked and substandard products that are yet another version of an already established and popular product. Further, there won't be many important things that set them apart from the products they intend to siphon off the customers from. These are destined to fail.

If anything, some copy cats are indeed lucky and take off, leaving most wondering how exactly did they succeed. Of course, these lucky ones later cobble together stuff that makes then a bit different from the competition, possibly eventually acquiring big competitors.

The only thing I agree with is that weak promotion and marketing can harm the success of a good product. That said, it is my firm belief that quality always wins. A really good product will become a sleeper hit sooner or later if it has gathered enough mass.

<comment><USER7> I would go as far and say that people confuse bad luck with with bad execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you have patience and persistence, this is the secret:

"Put up as many metal rods as possible" x Time

I made a list of 30 things we need to do to reach 1 million users. I didn't think we'd ever reach a million users since we were only getting like 100 signups/day.

Today, we have 3.5 million users and getting 3000 signups per day. It took us 12 years to get here but when I look at that list I see that I have tried everything on it but pretty much none of them really worked. I have tried hundreds of other things and found a few things that worked.

So, lightening is a good metaphor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, 3.5 million users?? Congratulations. That's a lot of lightning rods.

<comment><USER9> That's a product-market-fit. Promotion will get you sign ups, but if there's no demand for your product, no amount of lighting rods is going to save you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My favorite analogy to describe "luck x startups" is that it's like your first game of darts, except you only get 5 shots, and then you can never play again. Theoretically it's skill-based, and if you had the time/resources to practice you could perhaps nail the bullseye 85% of the time, but your first 5 throws are mostly luck, and that's all most people ever get when it comes to startups.

Also, even though you theoretically are better when throwing #5 (4 shots of experience and learning), it's still random enough that you could score worse than throw #1

</comment><comment><USER9> I've seen Kapwing on HN repeatedly, and I've been convinced they're very successful. Still no idea what their product is, though.

It almost seems like a pre-planned acqui-hire play, where they build up a reputation for the entrepreneurs, not the product itself.

<comment><USER11> I'm Eric, the other cofounder at Kapwing! Our product vision for now is an online video editor (think iMovie in the browser).

We're definitely not a pre-planned acqui-hire play haha. We're completely bootstrapped and just trying to build a website that can pay our bills and make money so we don't have to go back to the corporate grind. We would love to build a reputation for the product but it's hard and takes time. For now, we just wanted to share about our startup experiences along the way!

The video editor itself might not be too relevant for the HN community but I think our startup learning lessons definitely can be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Takeaway: promote promote promote promote promote.

Seems like most of what they are doing is (self) promotion. Nothing wrong with that; but I think we can distill their advice down to that.

<comment> yoz-y It also does work, somewhat. I spend my evenings finding places where I can promote my side project without being obnoxious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's very easy for a highly credentialed person who has lived in the first world of the first world for years before this startup.

These are becoming spammy.

<comment><USER11> Yeah definitely (I'm Eric, a co-founder at Kapwing). Julia and I have so many advantages it's crazy. We are really lucky to start out with. I appreciate your feedback and hope you know that we often think about how we can be more cognisant and responsible with who we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Mum ran a small successful chain of restaurants for 20 yrs, she pretty much agrees, a lot of stuff happens, business isnt one way up or one way down as most people believe but mix of sudden huge ups and downs over way too many yrs.

However have to be very prepared, risk tolerant and actually have something that stands out and attracts customers and you're either quarter or halfway there.

Luck in business is more like societal movements, consequences and jerks that catch people by surprise

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a relevant speech by Michael Lewis posted on HN not too long ago [https://youtu.be/CiQ_T5C3hIM](https://youtu.be/CiQ_T5C3hIM)

<comment><USER16> Hmm... this isn't pure luck when you actually already move in circles that involve Wall St. execs and can get to Princeton in the first place. There is a base-level of 'good breeding' he could use to launch from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> You need some luck to build a billion dollar business. You just need work ethic and persistence to build a million dollar business. And I would suggest that anyone who looks down their nose at the latter has never owner a million dollar business.

<comment><USER18> I think you need more than just work ethic and persistence to build even a million dollar business. Those things help you with execution, but you also need a decent idea that is valuable to others and also motivating and exciting to you.

<comment><USER9> For a million dollar business, just pick any existing million-dollar business, and execute well. Consulting shop, restaurant, laundromat, etc. Billion-dollar companies need brilliant ideas and new paradigms, million dollar ones work very well with decades-old ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's amazing to me how many people think luck is a causal force.

<comment><USER20> Luck is a catalyst. A lot of success stories are really stories of people getting extremely lucky if they're honest. But those stories wouldn't exist if those people hadn't been in positions where they could have taken advantage of those lucky circumstances or if they hadn't taken the right actions to do so.</comment></comment>


Sylvester the Cat's Common Lisp IDE - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/capitaomorte/sly

<comment><USER2> I was wondering why this guy's github account sounded familiar - he's the yasnippet guy (if you're an emacs user, it's worth checking out yasnippet). Good stuff:

[https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet](https://github.com/capitaomorte/yasnippet)

<comment><USER3> He's also the guy who mantains hunchensocket, bringing WebSockets to CL. Love his work!

[https://github.com/capitaomorte/hunchensocket](https://github.com/capitaomorte/hunchensocket)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sylvester the Cat is connected to Lisp how?

Ah, right: the character speaks with an extreme lisp with his tongue sticking out and spraying:

"Th-uffering Th-uccotash!"

Gotcha.

<comment><USER5> My understanding was that Sly sounds like Slime, but isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Figlet sighting. Font: slant. :-)</comment>


Hacker News Upvote: Add to Cart - <AUTHOR> http://upvotes.club/buy/hacker-news-upvote/ <comment><USER2> Upvote manipulation doesn't work on Hacker News because both the voting ring detector is strong, and flagging is significantly more powerful and serves as counteracting force to upvotes and serves as a check to submissions which legit aren't good for the site. (both of these are in contrast with Product Hunt, which turns a blind eye to voting manipulation and asking-friends-for- upvotes-but-not-explicitly is often recommended as a promotion strategy on that site: [https://medium.com/startup-grind/my-startup-launch-on- produc...](https://medium.com/startup-grind/my-startup-launch-on-product-hunt- was-disappointing-ff5c8e70860))

There is also a Hacker News "growth hacking" tactic of linking to /newest on Facebook/Twitter instead of linking to the submission directly to avoid the voting ring detector, which also doesn't work and is blatantly obvious: [http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/08pAFOw.jpg)

<comment><USER3> > Upvote manipulation doesn't work on Hacker News

I'm pretty sure that's unequivocally false. It's difficult enough to make it work that it probably wouldn't be worth it, but I'm close to 100% sure I could force something to the top if I wanted to. I don't particularly want to spend the time automating accounts to make them "look natural" and I don't really want to shell out the money to spend on IPs.

But I know for a fact the same thing is happening on Reddit with great success every day. I could spell out how, but I don't think the HN mods would be too keen on that. Any hacker should be able to figure it out, though.

Furthermore, if you produce something solid, all you'd really need is the first <10 upvotes to get on the front page and let it catch on "organically." I can promise you that is happening _all the time_ on HN.

I'm glad you keep your Twitter search running and keep calling people out that blatantly ask for upvotes; the easiest way to kill spam is just to make it difficult, but to say that manipulation doesn't work is just not true.

<comment><USER4> > _I 'm pretty sure that's unequivocally false. [...] I could spell out how_

What makes you sure? If you know something we don't, we need to hear it—the community relies on us to get this right. It's also personal: I've poured countless hours into combating vote manipulation, and if you know my code isn't working, you bet I want you to spell out how.

The upside of a public discussion outweighs the downside because (1) if you tell us things we don't know, we can start investigating for them—it's what we _don 't_ know that's worrisome; and (2) community members might respond with valuable knowledge of their own. That's also why we haven't buried the OP (which, in case users are wondering, we do know about and have lots of data on).

<comment><USER3> I'll email you.

For what it's worth, I don't think HN is in any immediate danger, nor do I know of any active, large-scale vote manipulation happening currently. But to say something like "vote manipulation on HN does not work" is a very bold claim.

<comment><USER4> Ok, I look forward to it. Edit: still waiting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know how this website actually works, but if I wanted to make a website like this, here's how I would do it.

The first thing on my mind would be avoiding detection. You can't spin up 5 DO droplets and do your work from there-- every IP you use needs to be a residential IP, and you need thousands of IP addresses. You could go to the trouble of building your own botnet, but that's illegal and very difficult.

Luckily, there's an application called Hola that has convinced 20 million people to willingly join their botnet, and you can buy yourself access to it right here: [https://luminati.io](https://luminati.io) .

You'd think that would be the hardest part, but that service means it's the easy part. Now I'd need to go learn PhantomJS and start creating accounts-- being sure to keep each account appearing at a particular IP address. The hardest part is generating some credibility for these accounts. They should always look like they're active-- so I'd be sure to have each account load far more posts than they vote on, and I would upvote plenty of things that I wasn't paid to upvote. Just to generate some randomness.

But that only gets me part of the way there-- these accounts would also need to contribute. My first thought is that you could just scan for reposts in the default subreddits and then repost popular top-level comments from the previous post. I've actually seen this pointed out a few times on reddit. With the amount of comments reddit gets, they probably don't have the resources to detect duplicates.

Hackernews would be significantly harder-- I have no idea how you could generate relevant comments without doing it by hand. That's my guess as to what they're doing.

<comment><USER6> You don't have to use Luminati, just RE hola and take out the keys and then you can make unlimited accounts on there for free, like I used to do.

<comment><USER7> wat do you mean by RE?

<comment><USER6> Reverse engineer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're ever curious how the folks at reddit's r/the_donald maintain control of the sub and why they so often disable moderation, services like this are both how and why. Intermediates who sell upvotes are happy to run jobs for both sides of a given debate.

This site is really expensive compared to some options I've seen sold.

I think my favorite part of all this is the billing screen. "Doesn't have to be your real name."

<comment><USER9> I don't use Reddit much, and I've never moderated a sub, so can you explain more? Why would the mods need vote bots to control their own sub? Can't they just moderate it?

<comment><USER10> The bots (if there are any, I don't know) were designed to upvote the posts enough that they'd flood the "all" page, which is an aggregation of many subreddits.

<comment><USER9> Didn't Reddit remove them from /r/all? I saw mods saying that they were among the ones removed from /r/popular at least.

<comment><USER11> No, reddit made a special rule that their "stickied" posts wouldn't show up on /r/all because the mods would sticky things to "slingshot" them to the front page one at a time. And the users of the sub knew to upvote anything stickied.

They still will show up on /r/all of the post was never stickied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A service like this could never work long term. HN admins could just spend $10 to upvote something, see what the behavior is like and then fix it.

<comment><USER13> It sounds like they already do: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676960)

        "That's also why we haven't buried the OP (which, in case users are wondering, we do know about and have lots of data on)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was really hoping this store was selling stickers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Anchoring is a powerful psychological weapon": [http://upvotes.club/buy/hacker-news-comment/](http://upvotes.club/buy/hacker- news-comment/)

"Why so expensive compared to Reddit": [http://upvotes.club/buying-hacker- news-growthhackers-upvotes...](http://upvotes.club/buying-hacker-news- growthhackers-upvotes-expensive-compared-reddit/)

<comment><USER8> Reddit's easier to game because the user's downvotes & upvotes received are much more powerful in their ranking there.

HN's also more expensive because there is less demand.

<comment><AUTHOR> More expensive because there is less demand? Doesn't that usually go the other way?

<comment><USER15> I imagine there's less supply as well.

Am I mistaken in thinking that they outsource to other people? (I'm having trouble loading their website due to the load.)

Also, doesn't HN rank upvotes based on karma and account age? You can't downvote until reaching 500(?) and having your account for a certain duration of time.

<comment><USER16> > Also, doesn't HN rank upvotes based on karma and account age? You can't > downvote until reaching 500(?) and having your account for a certain > duration of time.

That sounds about right.

There seem to be some additional rules, too. For instance, there are certain comments I don't see a downvote button for, and I have no clue why.

<comment><USER17> Comments older than a day can't be downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So are there any reasonable methods to combat this?

Is it a legal possibility (regardless of feasibility) to bring charges against people for manipulation of this kind? (Does HN even have a User Agreement? I can't remember if I had to do anything when I signed up)

<comment><USER19> Proof of work systems were originally designed to combat these types of 'spammy' behavior.

Give a challenge string and ask the user submitting an upvote to compute a nonce that when added to the string would produce an hash with 10 leading zeros. User submits the calculated nonce, the server computes the hash for challenge string + nonce and the upvote is registered. This makes it computationaly expensive for an upvote provider to submit hundreds of upvotes

<comment><USER20> Yeah but if you're using a botnet comprised of other people's cpus to submit your upvotes, you already have a distributed computing environment for which you pay zero dollars for computing time. So your cost is still zero.

<comment><USER11> And the response to that is to make the work have to be done by the human not the machine (captchas)

But that gets user-hostile, so it's not the best idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do you have any evidence for your accusation?

<comment><USER4> That doesn't sound like a good-faith question, which predictably leads to a low-quality argument.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676504](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13676504) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER22> Is there a good-faith way to ask that question?

I'm legitimately curious if KirinDave has evidence that r/t_d buys upvotes.

<comment><USER4> Sure. Ask in the spirit of good conversation, not cross-examination, e.g. "how did you come to that conclusion" or "why do you think that"—the way people put things in a friendly in-person conversation. Make it clear that you're just curious, and find some way to indicate that you assume good faith on the part of the other.

In face-to-face conversation, most good-faith signals are sent with tone of voice and physical expression. We don't have those channels in text so it's necessary to encode them some other way.

<comment><USER23> FYI I really appreciate the way you moderate dang, thanks for all the hard work. You're clear, transparent, informative and paitent. It really makes all the difference.

<comment><USER4> Thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (1987) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html <comment><USER2> Counterpoint: nearly all of those of us in developed countries are now better- off with agriculture, due to:

\- Even more variety of fresh, healthy fruits, vegetables, and meats than before (especially in winter)

\- Lives that are incredibly richer (all of reading, writing, culture, and art)

\- Vastly lower mortality (fell from a tree and seriously injured yourself? Thanks to modern medicine, you're not dead)

The way I look at it, agriculture made things _way_ worse... until we advanced far enough to get _way, way_ better.

And even if you argue there are some populations in developing countries which are still worse-off, it's hard to believe that's going to last long as economic development progresses.

<comment><USER3> Even in the least developed countries on earth life expectancy is nearly double the 26 years quoted in the article. This article feels less like serious analysis, and instead the product of over-problematizing

<comment><USER4> A long life does not imply a quality life. A short life does not imply a lesser life.

<comment><USER5> I have _two_ flush toilets where I live.

That, and protection from mosquitos, basically assures that I'm living a better life.

<comment><USER4> Well, I see this as a fearful worldview. Imagine instead a world without working in an office, or a world without living in a city. It takes a little, but not much, imagination to understand how that might be attractive to someone. Or perhaps imagine living in your evolutionarily suited habitat, if that's easier to see. Sure, the shitty lives are particularly violent. But it's a world where your life is dictated by your relationship with your environment and the people you know, not by people far away you have no access to.

<comment><USER6> Imagine a world where you can't get clean water so you live a life where a worm uses acid to dig it self out of your foot once every few months then you contract some tropical disease and shit yourself to death.

<comment><USER4> ...a fearful worldview, and a lack of imagination.

<comment><USER6> Imagination isn't lacking you don't need to imagine anything just look towards Africa, parts of Latin America, S.E. Asia and anywhere remote that gets hit by a natural disaster.

What I can say quite confidently is that you likely never had to go thirsty because you couldn't risk drinking the water or contracted cholera, heck you likely never even got a bad case of food poisoning thanks modern sanitary regulation and functional infrastructure.

You never had to worry about if that insect bite laid larva under your skin or if the blistering rash you got on your leg is going to spread and imobalize you.

You live a cushy comfortable and safe life which is afforded to the vast majority of people who live in developed nations.

If you want to go back to huts and other "evolutionary compatible habitats" be my guest there are plenty of places on the planet that are a bad day away from being completely sent back to the Stone Age which you can relocate too, just don't forget to get your shots, bring your monthly supply of soylent and fill your instagram with the experience to your hearts content.

<comment><USER4> > don't forget to get your shots, bring your monthly supply of soylent and > fill your instagram with the experience to your hearts content.

...talk about projecting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Help me understand why this isn't a sublimely silly argument. The era of hunter-gatherers spans the time from 12:00 midnight on Diamond's metaphorical clock all the way to 11:54PM. Virtually every advancement in human history, from the Enlightenment through the germ theory of illness all the way to the Internet, occurred _after_ that time. What ordinary person would elect to time-travel one-way to 11:30PM on Diamond's clock, as opposed to living at 11:59PM?

By Diamond's reasoning, we could live far longer on this planet if we lived like chimpanzees, scavenging what we could from the natural bounty of the land without bending it to our will. But I don't particularly want to be a chimp. Couldn't his argument be reframed as "the worst mistake in the history of the world is the human race"?

<comment><USER8> I'm seriously wondering if the article is just trolling.

<comment><USER9> No there's a serious belief in this, mainly among well-fed white intellectuals who believe in the "noble savage'.

Yuval Harari, author of the excellent "Sapiens" also believes it.

<comment><USER10> > Yuval Harari, author of the excellent "Sapiens"

Uh huh, Sapiens as excellent... there are ... problems. Some:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5613ac/in_hi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5613ac/in_his_book_sapiens_yuval_noah_harari_states_that/d8ftm8v/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4xvsia/how_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4xvsia/how_did_the_french_populations_ideological/d6jltp9/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a counterpoint to this argument: [https://www.eurozine.com/change-course- human-history/](https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/) David Graeber and David Wengrow argue that both oppression, and freedom, are present in every society from tiny to huge, the "egalitarian hunter gatherer" trope is a huge oversimplification, and really it's the cultural choices we make that determine whether we live in a free society or one full of domination and oppression. My favorite quote:

"Egalitarian cities, even regional confederacies, are historically quite commonplace. Egalitarian families and households are not. Once the historical verdict is in, we will see that the most painful loss of human freedoms began at the small scale – the level of gender relations, age groups, and domestic servitude – the kind of relationships that contain at once the greatest intimacy and the deepest forms of structural violence. If we really want to understand how it first became acceptable for some to turn wealth into power, and for others to end up being told their needs and lives don't count, it is here that we should look. Here too, we predict, is where the most difficult work of creating a free society will have to take place."

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't find this particularly compelling as given the author's fundamental assumptions regarding inequity and sexism as natural outcroppings of agrarian society. For example the mongols were a largely non-agrarian society that was highly stratified, and deeply sexist that committed human rights violations on the global scale.

<comment><USER12> This is what happens when the "gender is a social construct" rubbish infects academia. They now start off with the assumption that men and women are completely equal in all ways and look for explanations for why that changed, agriculture in this case. Starting off by acknowledging biological differences (men being stronger and faster) and biological necessities for a group to survive (pregnant women make poor hunters and warriors) is now heresy.

<comment><USER13> You should quote the parts of the article that support your view that rubbish has infected academia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and > habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one > Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. [But] > when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the > Indians, and lived a while among them, tho' ransomed by their friends, and > treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among > the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of > life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the > first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there > is no reclaiming them."

—Ben Franklin

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a topic that you can't meaningfully unpack in a short essay. Whether or not you think this has merit, I'd recommend reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, it tackles this subject in a more philosophical way and is very thought provoking. It is similarly opinionated, but helps you question things you would have never even considered before.

</comment><comment><USER16> The way I look at it, most of the humans who didn't adopt agriculture died. So I don't think they were better off.

</comment><comment><USER17> For a more recent take on this, see James Scott's "Against The Grain". Scott presents evidence from archeology that the early state (at the dawn of state- organized agriculture) had to exert considerable effort to prevent agricultural workers from departing to pursue a hunter-gatherer or pastoralist lifestyle. If you're not an elite, the latter is more pleasant in every way. In other words, most people at the time of the transition to mass agriculture did not consider it an improvement.

Note that Scott's subject is the _early_ state; he does not address the very- long term benefit that arose only after many millennia. He does give some account of how these early states (gradually) prevailed over the alternatives. Nor does he address the other major economic/productive transitions from grain empire to modernity (e.g. industrialization, digitization). That's for some other book.

I should also add the Scott shows that there were cultures with a mixed agriculture/hunter gatherer lifestyle, and that some places moved back and forth for various reasons; and also (in case you've read other word by Diamond) that Scott has a different take on "collapse" of early states: since they were, in general, highly coercive, some (but not all) of what we see now as a collapse were net improvements for the lives of all but the few at the top; they did not (always) include major loss of life, but only appear to be collapses because fewer permanent artifacts were created.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure that this essay is farcical, sarcastic, and/or ironic.

Also, I'm guessing from the style and topic this is the same Jared Diamond who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel? Particularly the clock idea I believe is repeated there.

It's also curious to note that this copy seems to have been OCRed, given that there's at least one occurrence of "fanners" instead of "farmers".

</comment><comment><USER19> Eh, I think agriculture was inevitable. It isn't as if we could have had the world government at that time just ban agriculture, or create an information campaign to educate Farmers on the long term harm if the agrarian lifestyle.

Agriculture led to industrialization. When someone can make guns, and when others can't... Someone is getting conquered.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, nice example, let's all just eat mongo-nuts (which btw I have never seen lying on the ground where I live...)

"One Bushman, when asked why he hadn't emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

Places where there is easy access to food have never evolved any technological progress and the societies are still messed up, because they never had to understand co-operation and just have tribalism of some sort. Just compare africa (probably the richest country in resources) with eg. europe.

What a stupid article.

</comment><comment><USER21> > As for the claim that agriculture encouraged the flowering of art by > providing us with leisure time, modern hunter-gatherers have at least as > much free time as do farmers.

But we're not looking at the free time of only farmers, but of society as a whole, thanks to specialisation and division of labour. Farmers produce food, others produce other goods and service and trade them for food. Economics 101: everyone is better off and more efficient because they do whatever they have a comparative advantage at.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is not a mistake, silly. It is evolution. There are is no right / wrong in evolution. Each is a step out of countless (metaphorically) possibilities played out.

Maybe, it is unfair to call it a mistake without knowing what life would have been at this point in time (or say in future.).

</comment><comment><USER23> Early adopters of agriculture most likely had the option to choose between farming and keeping their old way of hunter/gatherer life, and yet agriculture become dominant

</comment><comment><USER24> (1987)

TL;DR: agriculture.

<comment><USER25> I thought the title sounded familiar. I believe I read it years ago in my Archaeology of the Middle East class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I read something a while back stating the studies these theories of hunter- gatherer paradise are based upon were flawed in that they only took into account the actual time it took to gather food and not preparation and whatnot which turns out to add up to significant amounts of time.</comment>


The Iceman Cometh: The Rise of a Gourmet Ice Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2011/01/the-iceman-cometh-the-rise-of-a-gourmet-ice-entrepreneur/69804/

<comment><USER2> That is some of the worst filtration ever. Great filters should never lose water. Unless the article is incorrect he is losing a lot of profit by having a bad filter.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you contribute to an open source publication? - <AUTHOR> I've been researching media publications dedicated to open source software and was wondering: if there were a Medium publication where you could write about ANYTHING open source (your favorite JS library, favorite OS tool, new OS project), would you contribute to it and write articles when you have time? <comment><USER2> Isn't that what blogs do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. But, it's very hard to get attention from the community with a personal blog.

<comment><USER3> If you write about fashion in programming, then sure, you have a lot of competition around. But if you write on a (a) technical, (b) advanced, and (c) rarely touched but important topic, then there is some space. And there still are such topics if you allow yourself to see anything beside web applications, running stuff in Docker, and Arduino.

The drawback is, of course, required knowledge and experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Enhanced Analysis of GRIZZLY STEPPE Activity [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/AR-17-20045_Enhanced_Analysis_of_GRIZZLY_STEPPE_Activity.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> From page 53:

        > Organizations should ensure that they have
        > disabled HTML from being used in emails, as
        > well as disabling links.  Everything should
        > be forced to plain text.

Well, that ship has sailed ...

Further, a comment on twitter[0]:

        > ... webmail UX robbed users of clues as to
        > links' effects or origin. Then we blame them
        > for not learning.

How can we become serious about security?

\</comment><comment>--

[0] [https://twitter.com/sergeybratus/status/830864841866874881](https://twitter.com/sergeybratus/status/830864841866874881)</comment>


Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning talk about Airtime [video] - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/06/05/sean-parker-and-shawn-fanning-talk-about-the-launch-of-their-new-startup-airtime-video/?awesm=tnw.to_1EgmH&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Twitter&utm_content=Sean%20Parker%20and%20Shawn%20Fanning%20talk%20about%20the%20launch%20of%20their%20new%20startup,%20Airtime%20[video]

<comment><USER2> Seems relatively useless to me. Suffers from the same problem as Chatroulete. Everyone just nexts you. No lasting conversations. It seems like you should gentle introduce ppl rather than just showing them a video feed of each other.

<comment><USER3> were you able to sign into it? When I try clicking 'Launch Airtime' it does nothing.

<comment><USER4> I had the same issue, I realise I had flash-block enabled. Fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ick! It requires Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER6> chatroulette 2.0 - conference calling with strangers without the dicks?

<comment><USER7> IRC with your mum's approval

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like chat roulette with added social networking features.</comment>


Hashtag Tracking Tool for Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.exporttweet.com/twitter-hashtag-analytics <comment><USER2> Really cool, quick way to get a general overview of a hashtag's performance and engagement levels. If you're not already using a social platform like Sprout Social that gives you a keyword analysis, this is a good way to audit the conversations around your business/brand.

I like the contributors section- getting a sense of the influencers and participants in a given conversation can be useful.

Not entirely sure that the full reports are worth purchasing though. If anyone who has purchased one could share it's impact, I'd be eager to learn.</comment>


Maths skills add up to higher earnings, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21714640

<comment><USER2> I bless (and curse) my high school math teacher for the insane amount of homework he gave us. Thanks mr. Rappaport!</comment>


Snapchat and Reggie Brown Resolve Dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140909006378/en/Snapchat-Reggie-Brown-Resolve-Dispute

<comment><AUTHOR> What's interesting is the timing of the announcement. Snapchat timed the release at precisely 1:00 PM ET — the same moment Apple started broadcasting. I can imagine this is a common PR technique; hiding bad news behind the noise of a major event..</comment>


Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/19/21142081/susan-fowler-uber-whistleblower-interview-silicon-valley-discrimination-harassment <comment><USER2> >"I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,"

I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business to lose you (and possibly some token amount of cash) or to lose the people you're complaining about. If you're complaining about a systemic issue then there is no chance you come out on top, HR will act to protect the organisation at your expense. Since the only time you go to HR is a situation where you can't deal with this issue alone it means practically every situation where you are going to HR is a situation where HR you will see getting rid of you as the cheapest way of solving the problem.

<comment><USER3> This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be what they purportedly say they are, with all the videos and the role-playing and the seminars that everyone hate- attends yearly?

Back to the article - I'm always sad and surprised that there are women doing the work of defending bad actors by attacking the whistle-blowing women. From the article:

> "One woman called Fowler, claiming to be a PI working on a case against > Uber; when Fowler got off the phone, she discovered the firm the woman > worked for pretty much exclusively helped companies discredit people who'd > been sexually harassed or assaulted."

cf. Lisa Bloom in the Harvey Weinstein case, it's damning as Bloom vociferous claims to be on the side that believes and defends the women accusers.

<comment><USER4> "Why must it be this way[?]"

Follow the money.

I don't mean that as snark; I'm serious. I think people in general don't follow the money enough. Even some people who occasionally advocate for it are very selective about it and frequently just treat it as a slur to deploy sometimes. But it's more important than that. It should always be part of the analysis of a business. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the beneficiary of it.

In the case of HR, if you are a productive, profit-center worker for the company, you may in fact at least be _partially_ paying for it, and may get treated accordingly, though I wouldn't count on that for much. But if you are not clearly in that category....

<comment><USER5> It's a matter of legal accountability. If companies get away with defending the harassers, then that's what the cynical ones will do. Only if they get punished when they handle sexual harassment cases badly, will they start handling them better. Companies should be liable for extra damages in sexual harassment cases when it turns out they have a history of protecting the harassers. And maybe punish the individuals involved in protecting the harassers.

<comment><USER6> Exactly: it's all about money, and also individual consequences to HR staff themselves. If the company stood to lose lots of money to bad behavior, then they would police it much better. But they don't, so they don't. Instead, it would be hazardous to their own careers if they disciplined or canned people that the upper management favored (due to cronyism), so they protect those people as long as it doesn't cost the company too much.

People really need to get past this idea that HR is there to protect employees. They are NOT your friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That first article she wrote, exposing the culture at Uber, was profoundly upsetting and an important moment in the history of our industry. Kudos to her for standing up to one the most egregiously hostile work environments I've ever read about.

<comment><USER8> I remember reading that post and being surprised how little of it was actually sexism (the only thing I saw that qualified was the thing about the shirts), and how much of it was just maltreatment of programmers of all types. But I guess if you have to slap the label "sexism" on it to get it to be taken seriously, we take what we can get.

<comment><USER9> The sexism I see in her post: Upon joining, her manager sexually propositioned her; a subsequent manager sabotaged her performance reviews and attempts at transferring to keep a woman on his team; they gave leather jackets to SREs as a gift, but would only get jackets made for men (I think this is what you refer to as "the shirts"); she recalls many emails that she does not describe; HR claims _she_ is the problem in all of her claims; she was threatened with firing over her claims of sexual harassment, and they backed off when she pointed out that was illegal.

Those are the instances. What that tells me is that it was a deeply sexist system.

See: [https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on- on...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very- strange-year-at-uber)

<comment><USER10> Propositioning to her is not really sexism, but it's inappropriate and unprofessional.

<comment><USER11> It is certainly inappropriate and unprofessional. But it's also sexism, in that for centuries men here have been using power to push women to have sex without regard to their actual interest. E.g., marital rape didn't become a crime across the US until 1993: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#United_States)

<comment><USER12> That isn't sexism, similar things happens all the time in gay relationships. Similarly men murdering women in relationships is not sexism, since gay men murder their partners at a higher rate than straight men. So it isn't sexism, it isn't about men hating women, it is just about men committing a lot more brutal violence on average. Or in this case, it is just about men being a lot more forceful about sex than women, even when they are proposing to men.

<comment><USER11> The notion that the law allowed men to rape certain women seen as their property isn't sexism?

You could be right that men have some innate tendency to commit more violence. But what they also have, as your excuses here make plain, is more social license to commit violence. The former, if true, is just a fucked up fact our evolutionary history. The latter, though is very definitely sexism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can never overestimate the amount of sexual harassment women faces in the tech industry.

My Fiancée kept telling me about different incidents that happened with her and I used to always brush it off saying maybe you are reading too much. Until one of her other female colleague shared the same incident. I asked her to goto HR but be prepared for the backlash to the extent of firing. And as expected HR took no action, nothing. She changed firm and then the same story with different people. And I am not talking about small companies, they are Fortune 500 companies.

This industry seriously needs people like Fowler to come forward and write about it. I encourage my Fiancée to write her experiences as well.

<comment><USER14> >> You can never overestimate the amount of sexual harassment women faces in the tech industry.

Why just tech industry, even though I am offering anecdotal evidence? My wife works in the social services sector, and listening to her and her female colleagues; it's the same story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There have already been posts (now deleted) speaking to how terrible the culture was generally and how the experiences of men have been lost in the "#metoo noise". Both can be true. She's telling the story from a women's perspective and encountered situations that were unique to women at Uber. It also sounds like she suffered greatly in the aftermath of going public[1]. Continuing to speak out must have taken great courage. This all doesn't discount the pain and suffering many men may have experienced at Uber, but again, she's telling her story.

[1] [https://time.com/5784464/susan-fowler-book-uber-sexual- haras...](https://time.com/5784464/susan-fowler-book-uber-sexual-harassment/)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's incredibly brave of her to take on the darling of venture capital, because what she highlighted wasn't the extremes of silicon valley culture, but the ordinariness of its status quo. And how it's deeply anti-human (and anti-woman) in so many ways. Truly, kudos to her.

</comment><comment><USER17> Her work has had profound impact and I'm excited to read her book.

It's amazing to still see the ramifications of her work today.

For example, in this very thread it shows just how latent misogyny is in the majority of the community. It's a special sort of myopia dressed up as factual rational discussion but her work exposes that sentiment for what it is: fear of change, fear of women, fear of losing power over women, and the insecurity of emasculated men who work in power systems that encourage them to kick down.

<comment><USER18> > this very thread it shows just how latent misogyny is in the majority of the > community

Majority of what community? Are you noticing which comments are getting voted high, and which ones are downvoted into nothingness?

<comment><USER11> This community. Tech. HN.

Sometimes these discussions, as here, go relatively well. But that's relative. There's still a lot of misogynist nonsense, both subtle and blatant, and I can watch my antisexist posts get voted up and down. But quite often they go poorly. That's something that's easy to miss if one isn't intentionally antisexist. And since sexism is something guys can ignore if we want, it's especially easy for us to miss it.

<comment><USER18> My experience here on HN, over the recent past few years, has only ever been consistent with this thread. Anything that could possibly be interpreted or misinterpreted as sexist gets voted down into oblivion. As do any defenders on abstract principles, or who take neutral stances.

This very comment of mine could be interpreted suspiciously as insufficiently antisexist, and be downvoted too.

Further, I use HN as a proxy for the general attitudes of the tech industry.

<comment><USER11> My experience is different. I submit that maybe you are only noticing what you're noticing. People who aren't directly affected by systemic oppression rarely notice it as much as people who are, if only because for the latter group success and even survival depends on being very alert the fine details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Having worked at a rapidly expanding SV company during the same time frame I witnessed & experienced similar wildly juvenile & unprofessional behavior. My own experience parallels Fowler's in some disturbing ways and makes me think that the complete lack of corporate oversight or HR professionalism is rampant throughout the entire industry. Kudos to her for having the courage to go public.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's not just Uber. There is an ethos around running companies that succeed at all costs. Getting big is their God and everything else can be sacraficed. They are level 4 leaders...long-term doesn't matter. Burying things is the norm; culture, values, compliance, the law...doesn't really matter, outside of HR marketing speak.

It's hard to be a good company when you can get away with being bad, so long as the metrics still show good.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't know if this was just the culture and influence from Kalanick, but Uber all around seems like a terrible company. Tehy cover up data breaches, they lie to regulators when they test their self driving cars, they act passively when women get harassed on their watch. I haven't worked there but from the outside it seems pretty much "do whatever you want, but don't get caught".

</comment><comment><USER22> there should be no "WHY" someone had to sacrifice their career/life to expose systemic industry wide treatment of people that is unjust. There is only that this treatment exists and that the industry is not going to progress without everybody's collective effort to change it

</comment><comment><USER23> You seek to profit by gaining employment at a company built on disrespect for society and its laws and then you are surprised that it doesn't treat you with respect?

I have no sympathy for anyone in this story.

<comment><USER11> Uber had very good PR. In hindsight, we all know what a horrorshow Travis was, and how awful his company became. But when Fowler joined Uber, she was 24, and Uber was still on the rise, a beloved darling. It's entirely reasonable that she (and many others) joined on the basis of what the media and what recruiters were saying at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Speaking of Uber and Susan Fowler - had the current CEO frog marched out everyone that authorized, worked on, did not block, did not fight against what she experienced especially after the publication of her post?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan- fowler...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler- whistleblower-uber.html)

If not, why has not the board frog marched the current CEO out?

<comment><USER25> Such destructive cleaning of house creates the wrong incentives. Most of the people involved would have lacked either the full story or the power to do anything about it. If it's a fireable offense to be near a big scandal, the rational response isn't to start fighting against the problems you see - it's to build a massive silo to minimize the number of problems you can see.

<comment><USER24> There were people who authorized either employees or contractors to harass her, dig the dirt out on her, etc, etc, etc. There were people who read/compiled/presented that information to the higher ups in management/executive levels. Did those people write memos/emails to their bosses saying that based on their view they should not be doing it but since they may not be fully aware of the full context they need their boss to send reply to this memo/email and say "Yes, do it."

That's the accountability. Someone makes a decision. That someone gets to be accountable.

<comment><USER25> Absolutely. Maybe you don't have the full context of the story - the CEO at the time that Fowler got harassed, Travis Kalanick, ended up being that someone who's accountable.

<comment><USER24> It is highly unlikely that the CEO did it all himself.

It is far more likely that there were dozens if not hundreds of people that actively and willingly participated in it. Were those people terminated? That's the real question. I'm, frankly, shocked that it is presumed that by replacing a CEO rather than replacing everyone who thought going after Susan was "just doing their job, not a big deal, no need to have a boss sign off on it" is considered to be acceptable.

<comment><USER25> I don't think I agree - it seems very likely that bosses all the way up the chain were signing off on it. "Let's hire investigators to discredit her" is surely not a decision that some random member of HR staff would make on their own.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I Learned to Code in 6 Months – and Got into Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlaxZf3-s8 <comment><USER2> This highlights one huge problem with video blogging - you can't scan through it quickly to see if it's worthwhile spending the time watching. This is a 20 minute video that _probably_ has very few repeatable actions that someone else could use. The fact this guy ended up at Google means either he's exceptional or very lucky.

<comment><USER3> Not that it solves your problem, but it's useful to know the shortcut for speeding the video up and down: shift + , or . and use it in conjunction with the left and right arrows or j and l keys. It's the best you can do to skim clips.</comment></comment>


Dear Google, it's not me. It's definitely you. - <AUTHOR> https://www.stjohnkarp.net/dear-google/ <comment><USER2> > For those who want to take their lives into their own hands, hosting your > own email is always an option. It's difficult to set up, but it's not that > hard to maintain.

Actually, sadly, my experience is the other way around. Setting up mail server is easy, but taking care of spam and blacklist is never ending work, and you always have to wonder whether this time the mail will arrive, or whether some server on the way is going to have a bad day and drop your email without telling anyone. And of course, since it's your mail, everyone assume you're the one at fault.

At least, that's how it worked few years ago, but I don't think the situation got better. Some things only get worse.

<comment><USER3> Meh, I don't find it difficult at all. I've run my own mailserver for years and years. I generally spend about 3(ish) man-days per year working on it.

The only frustrating part is that I generally don't get to choose _when_ those 3 days happen—most all time spent is putting out fires. But then again that's sysop life in general…

<comment><USER4> "3(ish) man-days per year working on it."

Wow, that's way worse than I would have guessed.

If your salary is $100,000 a year, and you work 40-hour weeks for roughly 50 weeks a year, that's the equivalent of $1,200.

I can't imagine spending $1,200 a year just to run my own mail server. The costs vastly outweigh the benefits. Especially considering that I'm far more likely to screw up all the rest of the security involved.

<comment><USER3> If you consider it work, then it's probably not a good investment for you. I like doing it. It's like telling Jay Leno that restoring an old car isn't worth the money since it costs less to get someone else to do it (especially at his Salary). Some things are their own reward. Running my own mail server is _very_ much worth my time.

Also, my quoted 3 man days is a huge guess. I don't keep track of that stuff. It's 15 minutes or an hour here and there...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TSTwSFH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TSTwSFH40Q4J:https://www.stjohnkarp.net/dear- google/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

<comment><USER6> Oh the irony

<comment><USER7> Oh dear, if ever there was an example of Googles reach.....

<comment><USER8> I often wonder what would happen if one day google was just gone. I would imagine the internet would be in complete chaos.

<comment><USER9> Only very briefly. There are good alternatives for everything Google does. In some cases, the alternatives are better.

<comment><USER10> perhaps a list of these good alternatives is in order?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > That is their top priority — they assuredly do not have your best interests > at heart.

Choo Choo! Here comes the BULLSHIT TRAIN. All aboard!

For what it's worth I'm pretty sure the change was you, not Google. Google's business model hasn't changed. They are still an ad reseller, just like they always have been. They still don't sell your data, just like they never have.

Automatic account merging still doesn't happen, just like it never did. Google didn't link your friends accounts together, your friend did. And if you for some reason really, really want a different account for youtube and gmail, Google is perfectly happy with you doing exactly that. And there's somewhat reasonable multi-user support to help you do exactly that. And chrome's multi- profile support allows for even stronger walls between accounts. In the particular case of youtube they even let you use a different identity for youtube from the rest of Google, your "gangstakilla999" friend just didn't choose that option when asked when he was merging accounts.

<comment><USER12> I like google, but your point that "different account for youtube and gmail, Google is perfectly happy with you doing exactly that" is false.

It might be true in the general case, but Google did make a significant effort to require real names on Google+ (and by extension youtube / gmail). It didn't affect the large majority, but you can find some people it did affect. Google cared in some cases.

<comment><USER11> > I like google, but your point that "different account for youtube and gmail, > Google is perfectly happy with you doing exactly that" is false.

I have way more than 1 Google account, and I've had no issues with it at all. What evidence do you have to support your claim that Google is not happy with people having multiple accounts? Because the variety of ways Google _helps_ you have multiple accounts is pretty strong evidence they are OK with this.

> Google did make a significant effort to require real names on Google+ (and > by extension youtube / gmail).

Your "by extension" is false. YouTube never had the real names push like G+/gmail did. My account with a real name has always and continues to show a completely different pseudonym on YouTube, which was one of the options Google provided.

<comment><USER12> It didn't affect the large majority, as I said.

Youtube and Google+ have merged (in case you didn't miss the large outrage over that). It was after Google softened its enforcement a bit, and the enforcement was never good.

I also have multiple google accounts and had no troubles, but we're just anecdotes, we're not everyone. The few cases where it did happen were well publicized: [http://gizmodo.com/5830463/if-you-use-a-fake-name-on- google%...](http://gizmodo.com/5830463/if-you-use-a-fake-name-on- google%252B-your-account-is-about-to-be-suspended)

The fact that Google+ and Youtube accounts have been merged is common knowledge at this point.

Sure, the people probably did click "Update my details", but you can't expect regular users to read everything and google's actions sorta "sets you up for failure" in terms of identity.

Your argument that "I had no trouble so it's okay" is a bad one because it's an anecdote.

Your "evidence" that they help you manage multiple accounts is a good point. What I really meant is "Google has tried to prevent you from having false identities". Multiple accounts supports e.g. having a company Google Apps account and a personal account, or having a school account and personal, etc. Places where you have one identity and switch between multiple accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I understand and sympathize with this lament, but I think Ben Thompson nails it in his recent article "Privacy Is Dead"[1]:

 _There are other services that can't even realistically choose between advertising and member-supported. Facebook is a great example: the utility of Facebook is directly correlated with how many people you know who are also using Facebook, and the only way to maximize that number is to make the service free, supported by advertising. Google is in a similar boat: the efficacy of search is in many ways tied to how many people are using search. Queries and clicks are the raw grist for Google improving its algorithm, and the more the better, which means making queries free._

I'd like to emphasize that latter point, "queries and clicks are the raw grist for Google." Approaches like PageRank and tf-idf[2] are only part of the story. A really fascinating and vital point is that the search user activity itself is an amazingly valuable source of relevance data. E.g. one can build a matrix over (search term, number of clicks for URL) as a search index. This supplements the other algorithmic relevance factors, is driven directly by human feedback.

Google employees have mentioned that they've worked on other aspects of relevance analysis based on user actions: it's possible to suss out situations such as: you clicked on a link, but clicked right back to the search results because that link sucked. Eventually you found a good result and it "stuck".

So user activity itself is very powerful source of search relevance and having more users just makes it work better. In fact, it's a bit startling to realize you can, in theory, build a search index without _any source document data_ based solely on which links were clicked the most. In practice, we need to seed relevance with the purely algorithmic factors then improve it with the feedback data.

Given that, an incumbent search engine with a large user base has a big advantage over competitors: they own the base of user activity data. Google's advantage is not just the technology expertise that they've amassed over the years, but also the raw fact of its search market share leadership that any would-be competitor must overcome.

[1] [http://stratechery.com/2014/privacy- dead/](http://stratechery.com/2014/privacy-dead/) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tf%E2%80%93idf)

<comment><USER4> "they own the base of user activity data"

They don't necessarily OWN the base of user activity, if others figure out how to sniff it out:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing- uses-...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google- search.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious why people don't pay for Google Apps. Its cheap enough and basically turns off the Ads and at least some of the data collection.

[http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/premier_terms.html](http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/premier_terms.html) "1.4 Ads. The default setting for the Services is one that does not allow Google to serve Ads. Customer may change this setting in the Admin Console which constitutes Customer's authorization for Google to serve Ads. If Customer enables the serving of Ads it may revert to the default setting at any time and Google will cease serving Ads."

<comment><USER15> That is Google Apps for business. What about a @gmail.com account? Its been my primary account for the past 10 years, but to my knowledge, I have no way of paying for it.

<comment><USER14> Correct, you'd need to get a domain and switch. It is what I did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm over Chrome. I don't use it at work [1], and consequently, not much at home either.

Once Chrome the browser became the seed of Chrome the OS, the writing was on the wall - Google didn't feel it needed to prove anything anymore, innovation turned to stuff it wanted, not what users wanted.

[1] Chrome, at least v25 and earlier, crashed parsing 10MB XML files - I have to test with much larger files all the time. At some point FF started to not suck, and recently it's got speed parity with Chrome for most actions on OSX. Not looking back.

</comment><comment><USER17> > ... there are the numerous stories of trans folks who were unceremoniously > outed to their work colleagues [by Google's various service integrations].

Anybody know what the author's referring to here?

<comment><USER14> [http://www.zdnet.com/google-outed- me-7000025416/](http://www.zdnet.com/google-outed-me-7000025416/)

<comment><USER17> Hell of a story. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The one service i can't seem to replace is Google+ Photos, formerly known as Google Picasa Web Albums.

I'm yet to find an alternative that has such a good UI and sharing features.

My use case is sharing my family photos with my wider family. All photos are private. i'd like a self hosted option ideally.

Any suggestions?

<comment><USER16> The management/upload process leaves much to be desired, but we still host on Smugmug for sharing with FoF and kids classmates. More recently due to iOS being prevalent in our extended family net, we use PhotoStream more and more often - most folks have at least one iOS device in their household.

<comment> X-Istence My family almost exclusively uses iMessages for communicating with each other, and we share pictures using iMessage or PhotoStreams.

It's so simple, just works, and new photos can be added and are automatically synced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think they need to stop hiring such "clever" people? They crossed the line with me a longtime ago. They did one think I still can't figure out and this is true, or I am losing my mind. Somehow, they went into my pictures app on my Ipad, and took a picture of me out, and stuck it up on their Google plus profile? They didn't scrap it from Facebook either, I use a fake picture, or did they scrape it anywhere else. It was one of the few pictures I have of myself on my Ipad.

If you requested Google blur your residence, Google just decided to invalidate your prior wishes, and you need to contact them again.

Google--some of us paid attention to the McCarthy Era in high school--hold a fun luncheon and go over that period in history with all your clever, brilliant employees?

I am waiting for DDG to get some real money and kick Google. And yes, you were Mila Kunis--now you're Kriss Jenner. "Your too controlling and I don't need that in my life now!" Yes, I finally saw Bruce stand up to her.

<comment><USER20> > They did one think I still can't figure out and this is true, or I am losing > my mind. Somehow, they went into my pictures app on my Ipad, and took a > picture of me out, and stuck it up on their Google plus profile?

Still trying to grasp if this is serious or just a parody

<comment><USER21> I deleted my Google+ profile picture and yet it still shows up as me on Google image search, so I'm not so skeptical about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's with the ligatures on the 'ct' and 'st' pairs?

</comment><comment><USER23> Vimeo is great, in response to the question near the end of the article.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ugh that font. The "st" is so distracting.

</comment><comment><USER25> Your database is down.

<comment><USER25> And what's with all the diacritics in the text?

<comment><USER26> I believe that's ligatures, not diacritics right there.

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

<comment><USER25> It's incredibly distracting!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why hasn't shared source code ever really caught on? - <AUTHOR> There's a subscription for everything, but not one for source code. Something where similar to "open source" but you can only access it if you pay the subscription fee. <comment><USER2> Main benefits of open source: getting/making contributions and popularity, are in direct opposition to any form of limiting access. It is in users best interest to choose open source most of the time, so they don't have many reasons to choose something else. Having said that, there are cases where some form of shared cooperation leads to creation of a foundation supporting some projects. Most of the time though in such cases access to source is not the restricting factor - support and influence are more important.

</comment><comment><USER3> it's more a thing in B2B scenarios, and the question is "what benefit do you get from it" that the seller is willing to grant you? For software/libraries you deeply integrate with your software it makes sense for better debugging, or sometimes customization - although for the latter many companies would prefer you pay them for it. An example where it's relatively common is game engines. High complexity, and customization requires deep knowledge of what the customer does.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is not having a license for it a big problem?</comment>


How Capitalist Utopia Became Everyone Else's Dystopia - <AUTHOR> https://eand.co/how-capitalist-utopia-became-everyone-elses-dystopia-a25a88713956?gi=a8ea2b4ea0ad <comment><USER2> > How American Elites ... American elites mismanaged their econom.... All that > American elites could ...

Populism is the rhetoric that puts "honest normal people" against "bad elites". Left populism is poor or middle class versus rich. Right populism is honest white people versus minorities and globalists. Repeating non analytic phrases that divide people good and bad is the hallmark of good mass propaganda.

If you talk to anyone worth talking in the left, like real democratic socialist who reads books (Bernie Sanders), they don't actually believe that rhetoric themselves. They quickly confess that actual democratic socialist don't believe that elites are bad people. It's the system, class structure etc. that imprisons everybody.

Left populism is fundamentally elitist and academic tradition. The left believes that masses are stupid and you use propaganda words and phrases to turn them. That's why Bernie Sanders uses words that makes it us vs them. You need emotions to rally the rubes.

Right populism is can be elitist too but more often than not it's just vulgar and raw.</comment>


Wifi and the square of the radius - <AUTHOR> http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201407#14

<comment><USER2> The theory (a 1/2 impact doesn't make any real difference when you are dealing with 1/10th drops based on distance) - doesn't match up with reality.

As one who has run a 1-Watt 900 Mhz Wireless Mesh omnidirectional network over distances of about 8km, I can tell you that the splitter that drops your power in half on the transmission/receive side, has a _huge_ impact on networks that are close to the edge of your receive sensitivity. Enough so that we took some equipment that incorporated such a split in the signal strength, and sent it back to engineering for a 9 month spin to remove such a splitter. 1/2 drop = 3dB loss.

If you have a receive sensitivity of about -102 dBm, and your signal is just on the edge at -100 dBm, and you inject a splitter (a 3dB loss) - you lose a good chunk of your transmitters. It's the difference between being able to run a 4km hop and an 8km hop.

Here is my favorite tutorial on "how far" \- it walks the right line between theory and practice.

[http://www.afar.net/tutorials/how-far/](http://www.afar.net/tutorials/how- far/)

<comment><USER3> Power drops as R^2, coverage area is R^2 so cutting output by N reduces your coverage area by N.

<comment><USER4> To reiterate (because although I had the same thought as you it took me a moment to realize what you meant), OP is measuring the wrong thing for multi- user scenarios. Losing 10 ft from 1000 ft radius due to a 20% power loss might sound inconsequential (only 1%, right?), until you realize that's ~31,000 ft². That's ¾ acre, or 20% of your users. Nothing to sneeze at.

<comment><USER5> How do you get 20%? The area difference between a circle with a radius of 1000 vs 990 is 2%.

<comment><USER4> Oh shit, you're right. I used 900 instead of 990. That's what I get for doing math at midnight. Too late to edit it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Incidentally, GPS receivers are typically sensitive down to around -160dBm, or 0.1aW.

<comment><USER7> A really fun GPS fact is that the signal is so weak by the time it reaches the surface of the Earth that it's about 1000x, or 30dB, quieter than thermal noise. Receivers still extract usable data through long-term correlation, and the fact that GPS is designed so you don't need to reliably recover every bit, or anywhere close.

This, in turn, means that you can realistically use a one-bit ADC in your receiver, because that only amounts to a few more dB of loss. You're already dealing with a system built to overcome massive loss and it can tolerate a little more.

<comment><USER8> Additional fun fact: "[GPS receivers] being specially designed to employ anti- jam features (e.g. null steering antenna or electronically steerable antenna) to function in an environment of active or passive countermeasures" are MTCR category II dual-use missile related export-restricted components.

[http://www.mtcr.info/english/MTCR-April2011-Technical- Annex....](http://www.mtcr.info/english/MTCR-April2011-Technical-Annex.pdf)

MTCR is also why GPS receivers will refuse to provide navigation information if you're flying too high or moving too fast.

<comment><USER9> MTCR = Missile Technology Control Regime, an informal and voluntary partnership between 34 countries to prevent the proliferation of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle technology capable of carrying a 500 kg payload at least 300 km. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Technology_Control_Reg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Technology_Control_Regime)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't it a little strange to explain a square function by analogy to O(n^2) algorithms? As in, if you understand big-O notation you should already know how powers work.

<comment><USER11> Yes sounds like a hard-core CS guy who's not done any traditional engineering class's inverse square law was covered at my high school physics class at 15-16.

If you want to grok wifi get the Cisco press books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> And optimazation is critical. Most routers have omnidirectional antennas that send the signal in the most useful places[0] and there even are routers that use some fancy aiming algorithm[1].

[0]:[http://superuser.com/questions/99082/direction-of-wifi- anten...](http://superuser.com/questions/99082/direction-of-wifi-antenna)

[1]:on mobile so no link and I've only heard about it from my dad.

<comment><USER8> I assume you're talking about 802.11n MIMO beamforming

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

<comment><USER13> or even the simple analog beam forming we did at Vivato.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I always thought that in theory this is a good argument for dense multihop wireless networks - the potential energy savings from forwarding over multiple shorter hops instead of one long range transmission. I guess in practice there are additional losses at each step that outweigh the potential gains.

<comment><USER2> The nice advantage you get with Multi-Hop wireless networks is Link Layer retry. So not only can you hop 50+ miles, you also are able to retry in the face of RF noise at some of your hops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> the path loss exponent is 2 in _line of sight_ conditions.

These are relatively rare in typical WiFi deployments.

<comment><USER15> Agreed. There are some things that you wouldn't expect to attenuate signals (that much) as well, such as glass, that can have a significant effect. Tinted glass can cause a 12-20db drop. In an outdoor environment you also should keep 60% of the fresnel zone clear. This has to be taken into account when thinking of line of sight.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do companies need Cover Letter along with CV? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's not really required, but most hiring departments use them to filter out automated application processes, recruiters, and agencies.

A cover letter should show an individual's intent to work at a specific company, so it should add a step that's less automated to indicate that the applicant is a "real" direct applicant.

Obviously there are ways around this, but that's one of the reasons people ask for cover letters. It's also an opportunity for an applicant to convince the hiring manager that they are a good candidate even if their resume may not clearly indicate that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I work at Quicken Loans and we don't require a cover letter. A one or two page resume is about all you need. Keep it simple. We have about 200 openings in technology. If you are looking feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll fast track your information to our internal recruiting team. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER4> Most don't. I've never sent a cover letter.

For a few, I've never even sent a resume. One recruiter generated a resume off of my linkedin and submitted it to his client. This was after I told him I was only vaguely interested and wasn't going to be updating my resume anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER5> It always struck me as a bizarre practice.

 _Yes, I 'm breathless with excitement to join $COMPANY, and change the world as an entry-level JavaScript programmer! {Insert rambley college-application- style plattitudes}_</comment>