Pace of Change Too Slow to Keep Entrepreneurs in France - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/business/worldbusiness/11french.html?ex=1362888000&en=8b6215a301207e44&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I feel that Sarkozy has squibbed the reform process, and so France is going to have to wait a long time for a rejuvenated economy. I posted about this here: <http://reddit.com/info/6165b/comments/c02iflh>

One of Sarkozy's first acts was to make an impromptu decision to subsidise fishermen because the cost of fuel had gone up. He gave them the full amount they asked for, when the fishermen themselves said afterwards that it had been an ambit claim. His private life has now detracted from his ability to wield power; this in a country where voters traditionally don't care about a politician's private life, as long as (s)he is reasonably discrete.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article. This is 100% how I feel about France and why I plan to leave it.

<comment><USER4> From what I've learnt of business in France, it appears to have a lot of anti- competative laws built in. From talk between British Ex-Pats living out there, it appears most see more benefit working outside the law than in it.

I talked to one guy who ended up going out to work on a guys Chateau to get it out of a weird "uninhabitable" status that houses can get. Apparently the owner started out getting legit french workers, except the plasterers doing the walls suddenly refused to work because they needed some old wiring removed and they're not allowed to do it. The guys said this happened so often he fired them all, came back to the UK and found a bunch of contractors, paid them to drive down and then when they'd finished a months work he paid them back in the UK to avoid money trouble crossing the border.

A guy we met out there works as a handyman, apparently the only one in the area because you have to pay multiple taxes or something stupid to do more than one area of work. So he's "based" in the UK and every six months he goes out to see his kids and travels back to his house in the south of France, "on business". The insane thing about it is that it's perfectly legal in France for the guy to spend 50 weeks there a year, and he doesn't even have to pay the French taxes as he's working in a business loop hole.

Essentially he's working under the contract worker laws, that a Brit can work in France as a reporter or specialist or whatever and not pay taxes as he's working for a British company. The thing is, he's the only person employed in his company and he requires himself to work in France. It's just ludicrous. With the EU how it is, the French builders could just start a business in the UK and do the exact same thing and make more money because UK taxes are lower.

<comment><USER3> Lots of people 'route around' the French legal system (especially concerning tax and social charges) because it's onerous. This is a classic example of what happens when you introduce a really complex burdening system... people figure out now to ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > one of 12 seats in the French Senate reserved for representatives of French > expatriate voters

We need this in the US. There are hundreds of thousands of essentially disenfranchised American expats. Congress does not address the special concerns of expats. We should create one or two congressional districts called "overseas" and expats should have the option to register there in exchange for giving up mainland voter registration.</comment>


Looks like I have traction, but no connections. Where to go? - <AUTHOR>

The company I founded (a social web startup) is getting about 100 new users per day organically (would be more but I can't afford to let them all in), second day retention is between 60 and 70 percent, activation is about 20%, and the people who say they would be "Very Disappointed" if they didn't have the product is 42%.<p>By these measurements it would seem I have reached PM Fit, but I have absolutely no connections to raise a seed round. I live in Los Angeles, but wouldn't be averse to moving to SV. Any tips? <comment><USER2> Apply to an incubator. That's what they're for: providing connections.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was the logical next step, but they seem to have something against solo founders, and I am averse to taking on a co-founder ONLY to appease.

Edit: Not opposed to taking on a cofounder if they provide an adequate amount of value other than pacifying incubator/accelerator/investor fears.

<comment><USER3> You're right in that there's a negative bias towards solo founders, but having traction trumps that to a large degree. I would give it a shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Build-in time for strategic networking. Create a Top 10-20 list of social web players (Linkedin is a good search tool). *Important: actually, reach out to these folks for a live conversation (first by phone). They need to hear your voice and vice-versa. If there's good tonality, schedule a meetup in person for more dialog.

</comment><comment><USER5> For consumer apps, you would need millions of page views/ users / daily interactions to declare product/market fit. I would wait for some more time. Get more users, interactions and then decide on applying to incubators of moving to SV. You will be in strong position then.

</comment><comment><USER6> It would be really helpful to have some more context.

(0) Can you link to the product?

(1) When did you start and what has the growth trajectory been (e.g., weekly growth rate)?

(2) Is there some marginal cost other than server space that is limiting growth?

<comment><AUTHOR> 0\. I would have linked to the product, but I'm honestly trying to avoid anymore sources of traffic. It's a microblogging platform wherein all posts have a shelf life determined by the user. Currently building the iOS app, but won't release that until the product can handle even more growth.

1\. I started part time about a year ago, full time about 6 months ago. I recently completed the survey (I think created by Sean Ellis; with a few tweaks), and implemented based on that. This resulted in a spike in growth in the past week, but I fear that'll only hurt if the product stays as slow as it is now on the current hosting situation.

2\. Server space is the only cost limiting growth, unless the stats have fooled me and it's really not at PM fit; in which case marketing would be another cost.

<comment><USER7> Given how cheap server space is why that is limiting you, you should be able to get a few hundred gigs of space for a few dollars ?

Also you shouldn't have performance issues with your numbers, you should be able to comfortably run a site with 100k users off a cheap server. Maybe you should spend some time analyzing the source of your performance issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. I'll look deeper into that today as well, but the question remains the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps start with Angellist. Angels are pretty approachable, and many are happy to make introductions to VC funds if appropriate.

<comment><USER8> Look for angels in the LA area, too. There are some!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ask your customers to pay $5/month and bootstrap. Then, with revenue, look for investors if that's the path you want.

<comment><USER3> If this is a "social" product then getting more users should be the first priority. Monetizing too early will slow down user growth (maybe even lead to starvation), and only limit options for monetizing later on, when it really matters. That's why Twitter, etc only started monetizing recently.</comment></comment>


Brain researcher hacks Who Wants to be a Millionaire using memory tricks (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/who_wants_to_be_a_cognitive_neuroscientist_millionaire/

<comment><USER2> A 'practical' application of some neuroscience principles makes for an interesting article.

Poor application of the word 'hacks' in a link bait title makes for an annoyed me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Link bait? Are you serious? I don't own SEED magazine, and I have nothing to gain from your clicking on it.

I think it is an appropriate use of the word hack.

 _Since the producers allow contestants unlimited time to work out answers (as long as they're not just stalling), I knew that I could employ the most basic of priming tactics: talking about the question, posing scenarios, throwing out wild speculations, even just babbling—trying to cajole my prefrontal neurons onto any cue that could trigger the buried neocortical circuits holding the key to the answer._

...

 _I tried priming the missing words of the acronym, reiterating "National Collegiate Uh Uh, National Collegiate Uh Uh," over and over until my synapses finally fired off the complete pattern: "National Collegiate Athletic Association."_

He interpreted the rules cleverly to gain an advantage, in a way that I suspect no one did before, at least not to the extent that he did.

If you don't like the title, suggest a better one, and perhaps the mods will change it.

<comment><USER2> I didn't intend to imply you had anything to gain from attracting clicks, so I want to withdraw any such accusation as may be inferred.

I was referring to the HN guidelines, specifically that _"You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."_ and the general policy of using the source's title wherever possible. I felt adding Hacks was gratuitous spin.

"Who wants to be a cognitive neuroscientist millionaire" tells me more about the story than "Brain researcher hacks ...", but it appears that we have different applications of the word hack, and I respect your explanation.

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries.

I did consider using the original title, but felt it was a bit cryptic. Maybe it was just me.

<comment><USER3> FWIW, the original title of the article is absolute rubbish - it's a "clever" title that gives nothing away. I wouldn't have clicked on it. Your title got me in there and I wasn't disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know I'm going to get killed, but...

Isn't what he did just good old fashioned thinking?

<comment><AUTHOR> Most people subconsciously employ (some of) the techniques described in the article, but the author seems to do it consciously. Note that he didn't claim to have invented the methods he used. That's why the article strikes a chord when you read it, but I doubt you would have been able to articulate your memory processes quite as well yourself.

Learning a skill by applying subconscious processes consciously greatly accelerates your mastery of it. People can pick up new languages over a period of a few years, but if you study it immersively, you can do so in a few weeks. That's why this guy is so good (note that most people don't win 500 grand on the show :-), and we can all learn from him.

I've been using priming and other tricks for a few years, and it has had a dramatic impact on my memory. (It has also been a lot of fun for me, but YMMV.) Two days ago, on my nightly jog, I noticed the license plate number of a parked car. Last night, as I started my jog, on a whim I tried to see if I could recall that number. It took a few minutes, as I tried to retrace my brief reflection the previous night on the patterns I noticed in that number, but I was successful. When I went past the car again, I realized I'd correctly recalled the number, and let out a yelp (slightly startling a few passers-by.) Anyways, the incident made an impression on me and made me realize how far my memory has come, so this morning I decided to hunt down this article for the benefit of fellow HN readers.

<comment><USER5> I got a lot of practice at these 'tricks' while taking a few chemistry classes; all multiple choice. It was excellent practice too since I attended classes but did not study, so the answer was somewhere hidden in my mind, associated to whatever I was thinking about when it was discussed. A large part of it also, as the author also mentioned, is reverse-engineering the question to find likely decoys and falsely intuitive answers.

For those interested, it worked pretty well for itself. On one of the classes, I entered the final with a perfect 80% and got a perfect 90% on the final-- netting an A due one of the instructor's policies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll certainly try to remember to use priming more often.

Good read, thanks for the link.

</comment><comment><USER7> I thought this article would be about looking at the reaction of the host while reading each of the answer choices but it was still an interesting read.

I imagine there are people who are able to say a list of words and then know what the person is thinking of based on their reactions.

<comment><USER8> I would think the host doesn't get the answer until it's "final".

<comment><USER7> You're probably right but I imagine the host may still know the answers to some of the questions. In that case the answer may be easily discovered and the producers can't quite ask the host if they know the answer to such and such a question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I dont know about researhing the human brain in order to win a million. I'm an MBA, not a CNS PHD. But us startup entrepreneurs sure know about incorporating the research of consumer behavior in order to earn a million from our innovative business ideas.</comment>


"I'm wiping this repository away" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI <comment><USER2> Sending legal threats to individual contributors to open source projects is extremely poor form, and reflects badly on both the company that sent them, and the lawyers or law firms who helped them do so. From the perspective of the open-source software development community, this will be perceived as both an attack and a breach of ethics, and the reputation cost is likely to affect WhatsApp's ability to hire and retain developers in the future.

Just saying.

<comment><USER3> > the reputation cost is likely to affect WhatsApp's ability to hire and > retain developers in the future

Have Oracle's attacks on open source software [1] affected their ability to hire and retain talent?

Is there any example where bad behavior by a large organization [2, 3] meaningfully affected its ability to buy the talent it needs?

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2010/08/oracle-attacks- opensource/](http://www.wired.com/2010/08/oracle-attacks-opensource/)

[2] [https://www.nsa.gov/careers/FAQs/index.shtml#isNSA_5](https://www.nsa.gov/careers/FAQs/index.shtml#isNSA_5)

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

<comment><USER4> Oracle can hire the best developers money can buy. Others, with a better reputation will hire the best developers money can't buy.

That makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER5> I was recently looking at finance job ads for programmers and the one thing that set the ads apart from 100% of the ads from the companies we all read about here was that they didn't say "competitive salary." They said, "extremely high salary."

<comment><USER4> I noticed that too. I won't say I'm oblivious to the possibility of a much earlier retirement, but leaving my current job, one I really love, will take more than just that.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but you could do finance for a short time and then go back to riskier startups, which is the thing I was trying to illustrate with my comment: finance companies appear to be much, much more confident in their viability, or at least are willing to demonstrate their confidence in having a future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting observation: out of the 105 comments in this HN thread, none mention the company that owns whatsapp: facebook. Is whatsapp still a separate entity? Aren't whatsapp laywers facebook lawyers? just asking as I'm curious to know.

In related news: "Facebook drops hint about MAJOR changes to WhatsApp – and you are NOT going to like it" [1]

[1]: [http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science- technology/57826...](http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science- technology/578264/Facebook-Revenue-WhatsApp-Money-Subscription-Business- Company-Messages)

<comment><USER7> From what (admittedly little) I know, WhatsApp still operates as an autonomous entity beside Facebook. Kinda similar to Oculus and Facebook or YouTube and Google.

<comment><USER8> Facebook spent billions buying WhatsApp. There is no way they are operating autonomously. Same goes for Oculus, and the same most definitely goes for YouTube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious about the legality of this. Someone wrote that it was an "unauthorized" PHP API which was a client to the Whatsapp service. You don't need authorization to write a client to someone else's API, do you? They own neither the API, nor the right to build clients to it, right?

A second question is: so you have the right to build a client. Do you actually have the right to run that client against their service? Is that "unauthorized access"? It makes sense that you can control who accesses your computer system; controlling how they do it seems murkier to me.

<comment><USER10> I think you and many people are overcomplicating this subtopic into the legal context of receiving C&D, etc letters.

Their service is their software. They have control over it. If they wish to impose technical limitations to how it may be accessed and by whom, that is entirely their prerogative. Nothing in the law can tell a company or a user otherwise, short of subpoenas for customer data or some such like that.

I think the larger legal issues come from the fact that circumventing these technical limitations can lead to to degradation of value and security for a company's customers due to derivative products created via this unauthorized client -- much like what has happened with SnapChat and third-party services retaining snaps. If systematic unauthorized access to a system could serve to diminish the value and trustworthiness of a company and its brand, you're damn right they will legally pursue those enabling it.

<comment><USER11> Sure, they have complete right to safe guard customer data with authentication checks.

But the situation here is that the customer is offering its consent to use their data on another platform or application.

The same holds for rooting android/iphones and making them do what you want. Not getting into legal details, you should _own_ your data across services and your hardware that you buy.

Adding technical barriers is one thing, suing and interdependent group of people trying to learn the API and building tools on top is completely unfair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another case where I wish the answer was for the court to tell the company:

"This is venomous0x's and other contributors information. They developed it on their own and have no contract with you, and as such are free to do with this information as they see fit. Your lawyers, who are under contract with a local Bar Association may be in violation of their contract if they continue to make some outlandish claims concerning the law. We shall not be hearing from you again in this matter."

<comment><USER13> Binding Arbitration is a solution to this- companies don't sue each other so much these days because they just get it resolved by hiring a mutually agreed arbitrator from one of the Binding Arbitration organizations.

The number of cases handled by this method now, today, in the USA is far larger than the number handled by courts.

The government run the courts in a very inefficient way that makes the costs of lawsuits very high, and take forever and less reliable than arbitration.

Worse, courts interpret the laws often in a way that favors the government. EG: Courts are not actually neutral in the way that arbiters are. (Remember many judges are hired via election, many more are appointed by elected politicians and these politicians re-electability depends on who they appoint... at the federal level the judgeships are highly political.)

A lot of big problems, like copyright and patent disputes, could be resolved more quickly via an arbitration method (where the possibility of getting an arbiter who actually understands the technology issues at hand is a possibility.)

<comment><USER14> Mandating Binding Arbitration as condition of service or sale can be problematic. A contract of adhesion may effectively be used to deny people their rights in law; throwing in a biased arbitration process just adds insult to injury.

And the arbitration process will inherently be biased. Which party picks the arbitrator? Pays them and has a long-term relationship with them? Not the customer.

<comment><USER15> There are a few ways to decide who picks the arbitrator. Depending on how the agreement was written, one party may get to pick, or both parties may need to come to a mutual agreement. I recently saw one where each party picks an arbitrator, and those 2 arbitrators then decide on a 3rd party to be the final arbitrator.

So yes, the customer may have a long-term relationship with the arbitrator and may even pay them. It depends entirely on the situation. (For example, I know an arbitrator that I have used in the past and would be willing to use again.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> WhatsApp complained about users of the API spamming the service; instead of taking the necessary steps to secure their service, they sent lawyers. So they've been dealing with legal threats for a long time.

[https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/issues/83](https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/issues/83)

</comment><comment><USER17> It is not like there are no forks [https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/network/members](https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/network/members)

<comment><USER18> This seems to be one of the most recent repo clones:

[https://github.com/rtoIedo/WhatsAPI](https://github.com/rtoIedo/WhatsAPI)

<comment><USER19> That fork only has a PHP implementation. The other fork I found, for instance, has Python implementation: [https://github.com/abdosumsam/WhatsAPI](https://github.com/abdosumsam/WhatsAPI)

<comment><USER20> That one dates from 4/2013.

This one found via a recent merge-request is current to 9/2014.

[https://github.com/Sydcul/WhatsAPI/](https://github.com/Sydcul/WhatsAPI/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If WhatsApp wants to get rid of the project, shouldn't they send a DMCA request to GitHub rather than individual users? That way they could wipe out the clones/forks too.

(I'm not saying I want them to do that -- just curious why the lawyers aren't using that technique.)

<comment><USER22> The DMCA takedown procedure is only applicable if your complaint is about copyright infringement.

If WhatsApp is invoking other, non-copyright theories, a DMCA takedown related to those theories would be invalid.

<comment><USER23> Looks like you may be right: [http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=13f9814f-b56e-...](http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=13f9814f-b56e-4314-8e1b-95215ce60a6d)

Still, most platforms have somekind of program like eBay's Vero service that is used to report and enforce violations of its terms of service that trademarks and copyrights not be used without permission. Which would have been the better way to go in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Missing the context... What code was there before? Was it a reverse engineering of the API whatsapp binaries use? Is there any legal basis for demanding someone remove that?

<comment><USER25> Yes, WhatsAPI was a reverse engineer and implementation of the WhatsApp protocol.

It was mostly used by websites offering a web based chat interface for WhatsApp and by spammers.

<comment><USER26> Pardon my ignorance, but is it using the same api which inherently whatsApp client uses? Or is it just a open sourced version of whatsApp?

<comment><USER27> Yes it's a client for the WhatsApp API, presumably reverse engineered from the what the official app does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think a renamed fork is (maintained) here [https://github.com/mgp25/Chat- API](https://github.com/mgp25/Chat-API) (it was linked in [https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/issues/1140](https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/issues/1140))

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm trying my best to avoid using such closed services in favor of alternatives that have open clients and servers.

<comment><USER30> Is there something that

1) can do Chat+Voice securely, 2) works on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android?

<comment><USER29> Nothing suitable for regular users yet. We don't have a true open alternative to Skype yet, but we will. There's more effort in the area over the last couple of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I may be slightly OT but to me it's kinda sad that the internet is increasingly being built around closed platforms instead of open APIs/protocols. Especially in the IM scene there must be a ton of services incompatible with each other. You need to have a dozen or so of IM programs installed (skype, viber, whatsapp, you name it). Too bad XMPP will probably never see any mainstream adoption. I know it had its share of problems but I believe that it was a step towards the right direction. My hope is with decentralized protocols but still if there isn't some form of standard you will still need a different client for each service. Admittedly opener (anyone can implement a client) but not quite there.

Now I'm only waiting for Google to completely kill XMPP access to Talk/Hangouts. That will be... frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER32> The authors intention of wiping the repository is in direct conflict with one of the demands (the last bullet):

      "Immediately take steps to preserve all documents,
      tangible things and electronically-stored information
      potentially relevant to the issues addressed in this letter."

I'm not a lawyer and don't know how enforceable it is, and I doubt that WhatsApp would take any action once the repository is no longer a concern, but I'm curious if there are any comments about this.

<comment><USER33> Presumably the person did preserve all those things... just not on GitHub.

<comment><USER32> Perhaps.

However, even if they did keep the source code, there are issues and other information on github that would not be preserved. I think it's safe to assume this information is very relevant to litigation involving a scenario such as this one.

Even if that wasn't a factor, the court may get the idea that the repository was wiped in order to destroy evidence. Convincing them otherwise may be technically challenging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not sure I get it. Are the individuals/firms sending these letters to the repo maintainer actually connected to WhatsApp in any way?

<comment><USER35> Yes. WhatsApp has been pretty aggressive with hunting down and stopping any third party implementations out there. They're also issuing temporary bans for anyone caught using third party clients:

[http://mashable.com/2015/01/22/whatsapp-third-party- apps/](http://mashable.com/2015/01/22/whatsapp-third-party-apps/)

<comment><USER36> Reminds me a bit of the old dispute between AOL and GAIM, which was later renamed to Pidgin in part to appease AOL. WhatsApp seem to be acting in an even more aggressive way than AOL was, though. AOL limited themselves mainly to: 1) complaining about the name; and 2) playing occasional games with the protocol to break third-party clients. Afaik they didn't sue anyone claiming that simply distributing a third-party client was illegal.

<comment><USER37> There was recently an article from a person working at Microsoft who implemented AIM support in MSN Messenger back in the day who had similar experiences.

<comment><USER38> Which was a really entertaining article when microsoft were also doing it to block trillian and other third party clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> FYI, this repo used to be an unauthorized PHP API to WhatsApp Messenger. [https://github.com/mgp25/Chat-API](https://github.com/mgp25/Chat-API)

</comment><comment><USER2> "Couldn't load network graph. Too many forks to display."

(Finding forks of this is really easy; for example, you could go to the Pull Requests tab, and check some of the authors there.)

<comment><USER40> Here is a list: [https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/network/members](https://github.com/venomous0x/WhatsAPI/network/members)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I probably would have never heard of this if someone wasn't trying to kill it. Now I am interested and have been looking through the source of the clone.

</comment><comment><USER42> What are they gonna do if you use TOR to set up a public repo of this code? It's not like they can send their petty legal letters anywhere. If github is forced to take it down, we need some kind of a distributed github.

<comment><USER43> Git _is_ distributed. If it is taken down it will immediately be uploaded somewhere else.

EDIT: Immediately in people-time, not some git mechanism :-)

<comment><USER42> No, the origin is one central server. Or am I missing something? If I work on a piece of open-source code with a github repository, if github is down, nobody else will be able to access my code unless I upload it somewhere else (which doesn't happen automatically).

<comment><USER44> With git there doesn't need to be a central server. Many people/orgs use one (e.g. github) because that pattern is very well understood and most developers are used to it. There is no reason that you can't push branches/commits between individual clones (in this context called remotes). Origin is one remote, but you can set up any other clone to be a remote as well.

<comment><USER22> Or even exchange pull requests via e-mail, like git was originally designed for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Fuck Whatsapp in particular.

</comment><comment><USER46> Shouldn't those letters have been sent to Github and taken down that way?

<comment><USER47> Individual developers are easier to intimidate. I suspect they don't have a strong legal argument. It's relatively cheap to have your lawyer draft a letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I see a lot of interest in saving the repo/forks as archive, perhaps to revive it to some extent in the future. Wouldn't it be more constructive to build an open client that can compete with WhatsApp instead? Granted that it's hard, but definitely more fun than fighting legal notices and guessing hidden features that break the code occasionally.

<comment><USER49> I believe that the Telegram (telegram.org) server is open source. There is also a publicly documented API.

Correction: the clients are open source.

<comment><USER48> Thanks for reminding. I read about telegram a while back but forgot to try it out. Doing it now, hoping it'll have more friends over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> 52 minutes, 74 upvotes, and no context or discussion?

Any context would be appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER51> Another reason to use Telegram I guess.

<comment><USER52> I am not a cryptographer but I'm not sure Telegram is "better"

[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/is- telegra...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/is-telegram- secure)

<comment><USER51> at least they have 3rd party clients and apis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wonder if he is here, but I was under the impression this dude was/is Bahraini or Emirati. I wonder what kind of legal pressure they could seriously impose, seeing as few in the GCC would care (locals routinley do not even show up for criminal legal proceedings, so I am skeptical).

Now, could there be side channels they would use to pressure and bully him into giving up? Sure. But I would love to hear more from this venomous developer.

</comment><comment><USER54> I would like to dump WhatsApp, any alternatives? I almost switched to Telegram once.

No matter how bigger WhatsApp gets, I am glad there are some alternatives.

<comment><USER55> What made you decide Telegram was a worse choice than Whatsapp? At least Telegram doesn't send nasty letters to people developing unofficial clients.

<comment><USER56> Telegram bills itself as secure, which comes with a rather large burden of proof if anyone is to take you seriously.

As the saying goes: "don't roll your own crypto, unless you're a professional cryptographer, and even then…". Telegram are not cryptographers but decided to roll their own anyway and have come in for not a little flack as a result.

Search for "telegram app crypto criticism" and you'll find plenty of examples of this.

Is Telegram secure? I'm not qualified to answer that, but I understand enough to be sceptical.

<comment><USER55> Is Whatsapp secure? If not, and they're both insecure, then I think Telegram makes a better choice, if for nothing else than its better multi-platform support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Facebook use to be open company, opening up platforms for letting other developer write amazing application on top of it. But with WhatsApp- approach has been very close than open. In India where whatsapp is so popular, companies and startup are trying to get hands on any form of access to build a solutions around it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Presumably everyone here will boycott Whatsapp.

And tell their friends to do the same.

It's easy for me because I don't use it but I suspect that for some it will be difficult, imagine telling your girl friend that you are deleting Whatsapp and that she can't contact you that way any more.

</comment><comment> johnx123-up Anyone knows what happened to Whoya app? [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ego.whoya](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ego.whoya) Same DCMA issue?

</comment><comment><USER59> I suggest everyone here fork the repository in one of it's older forms and contact firstname.lastname@example.com to tell them how you feel about them attacking one of our own.

</comment><comment><USER60> Seems fair. After all, it must have been such an investment for WhatsApp to come up with their innovative product.</sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER61> "What's" is a common English word. "API" is a common term in English.

Combining them together should not be a copyright infringement of "WhatsApp."

<comment><USER62> You mean trademark infringement.

"Whats" isn't a generic term in the computing field. "WhatsAPI" isn't a dictionary word, it's a colocation of Whats and API, the first element being chosen specifically to render association with WhatsApp. The use of WhatsAPI differs in only one letter from the trademark.

IMO provided they headline the fact they're not associated nor extraordinarily authorised by WhatsApp then there would be no actual trademark issue; the law I suspect will see it quite differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> According to the company:

"WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messenger that replaces SMS and works through the existing internet data plan of your device. WhatsApp is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia Symbian60 & S40 phones. Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends."

<comment><USER64> Actually, their service does cost money. They are lying.</comment></comment>


Amazon's Stealth Brands: Everything on Amazon Is Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/style/this-is-also-amazon.html <comment><USER2> "it's about the scale that Amazon does it at" "it's just they do it on a massive scale" "This is something that Amazon is great at" "Target is doing the same...but they just don't have the massive scale" "As a consumer I love what Amazon is doing" "Lots of respect to those guys" "the most important advantage Amazon has: it has data...with this data, it enters markets and undercuts its competition at the perfect price point"

At some point I feel like I'm being astroturfed.

People are amazed Amazon sells pasta and batteries under their own brand? Sounds like Ikea to me.

Amazon has several problems they haven't corrected in years - generally not great prices, fake products being co-mingled with genuine items, fake reviews, flaky or slow shipping (esp. with their own delivery people). I've even had a few brand new books arrive with binding or cover damage. Ugh.

<comment><USER3> They really need verified vendors that Amazon can vouch for. These vendors would need to be tested without knowing by Amazon to make sure third party ones are not being sneaky. Especially if customers complain.

<comment><USER4> Twice I've got 12 mouse traps from Amazon. Each time it's been a different vendor (not Amazon.) Literally 20 minutes ago I just checked the mailbox, and there was a padded envelope in it - my latest (third) order of mouse traps, from a third vendor. Inside the envelope? ONE mouse trap.

Sorry, anecdote and vent. But yes, we need verified vendors that actually ship you what you order.

(I'll be a good boy and pick up mouse traps from Home Depot. I've learned my lesson the hard way.)

<comment><USER5> You must have a lot of mice? I've had great luck with these: [https://www.homedepot.com/p/Tomcat-Mouse-Snap- Traps-2-Pack-B...](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Tomcat-Mouse-Snap-Traps-2-Pack- BL33505/202021750)

<comment><USER4> Well the first order was at my old house. The next was last winter when we got the fall/winter influx. That repeated, even worse, this fall. The Victor Snap traps work great. But we need a bunch of them (and we'll probably need to find entry points and try to reduce that if we can.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was actually a fairly interesting article, except for the strange tone - amazon isn't hiding that these are their brands, they seem to be flagged as "our brand" all over the place. so what's with the mspaint red circles pointing out incredibly obvious associations? Is this supposed to be satire, or does the author really believe they've discovered some sort of conspiracy here?

<comment><USER7> As the article points out, the practice is nothing new, it's about the scale that Amazon does it at.

And that's basically the point for everything Amazon does. They aren't doing anything other companies don't, it's just they do it on a massive scale.

With "store brand" specifically, the idea is that Equate or other store brands were well known to be comparable, if slightly less good versions of name brands. In economics terms they were "substitute goods" from brand names, but depending on quality they may not be "perfect substitutes."

In the case of Amazon, if they have brands that are at first glance _not_ Amazon brands, but actually are amazon brands, then they are kind of doing an end run around what was an implicit agreement between consumers and retailers. Namely that a retailer will make it explicitly clear, with obvious branding, what is a "store brand" and what is not. Simply stating "our brands" isn't obvious enough to make that connection if you are only spending 30 seconds on a product description page.

This is something that Amazon is great at actually.

<comment><USER8> > Namely that a retailer will make it explicitly clear, with obvious branding, > what is a "store brand" and what is not.

how are brandings such as Kirkland Signature(Costco), Simple Truth(Kroger) or 365(Wholefoods) any more obvious than what Amazon is doing with "our brands"?

<comment><USER9> The fact that those brands are used storewide make them more identifiable as store brands.

You can buy simple truth milk, chicken, soup, and diapers at Kroger stores.

Amazon has multiple distinct brands per category, which makes keeping track much harder.

<comment><USER10> Kroger: [https://www.kroger.com/b/ourbrands](https://www.kroger.com/b/ourbrands) Macys: [https://www.macysinc.com/macys/private- brands/default.aspx](https://www.macysinc.com/macys/private- brands/default.aspx)

Many of those brands are not obviously private label. Whole Foods and Costco are the exception in that they have only 1 store brand that everything is labeled under. This is probably because they are high-value brands unto themselves and it's advantageous to put their own stamp on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most telling paragraph in the article is the last one:

> "As is often the case with Amazon, what seem like strange or inexplicable > new behaviors are often old retail strategies unfolding on the internet, > quickly, and in plainer view. Brooke Mille is no more a lie than any other > brand: It's just newer and faster and more online. And it has a lot more > company."

In other words, nothing new here, Amazon is doing what retailers have always done, just on Internet scale. As someone who worked in retail for a long time, I kept waiting for the punchline but I should have read that last paragraph first.

It's hard for me to figure out why this is newsworthy. I wish the New York Times would stop publishing stuff like this. Amazon does a lot that is interesting, evil, novel, etc. to report on. This article just adds noise.

<comment><USER11> >> In other words, nothing new here

Up until now, when i read stories about the market share of Amazon private brands(and i'm quite curious about that subject), i never heard about those kind of hidden brands mentioned in the story. And of course, they we're mentioned in market share calculations.

Taking that into account, it's possible that Amazon has or will have:

1\. A large/dominating market share in many categories.

2\. It would be a secret, preventing questions about a monopoly to rise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> On the extreme end of "brand value you've got Kanye West selling a 100% cotton t-shirt for $120. (1)

On the other end you've got Amazon not even bothering with a logo and selling a 100% cotton t-shirt for $14.99. (2)

And the Amazon shirt is rated 4.5+ stars.

As a consumer I love what Amazon is doing,

Retail "brands" are the most notorious of all of the middle men.

And they had to be - how do you deliver a product to a physical retail location that needs at least a 2 - 3x on each product sold to pay the rent, the front of house employees, etc?

As a result these "brands" were never product innovators, mostly they're perfunctory with giant marketing budgets to build their "brand value".

Remember Nike's "pumps" innovation back in the day? Was that a product innovation or was that a marketing innovation?

And this reality in retail brands has led to all sorts of notorious abuses - on the subject of Nike they famously figured out how to arbitrage child labor - relying on shit hold labor conditions for ~30 years until they got caught truly well and good with their pants down w/a famous LIFE Magazine story.(3)

Amazon's supply chain innovations flattened the market, and now we see cases as laid out here where the overseas factory owner is building the brands, or building the brands in collaboration with Amazon. It's not going to be perfect, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Amazon is clearly in the middle of calibrating their own own morale compass, but as a consumer I delight in seeing the mid-market retail kings getting stomped on.

(1) [https://www.okayplayer.com/news/style-kanye-west- apc-120-pla...](https://www.okayplayer.com/news/style-kanye-west- apc-120-plain-white-hiphop-t-shirt-sells-out.html)

(2) [https://www.amazon.com/Goodthreads-Short-Sleeve-Crewneck- Cot...](https://www.amazon.com/Goodthreads-Short-Sleeve-Crewneck-Cotton-T- Shirt/dp/B06XW6GDZC/)

(3) [http://mallenbaker.net/article/clear-reflection/nike-and- chi...](http://mallenbaker.net/article/clear-reflection/nike-and-child-labour- how-it-went-from-laggard-to-leader)

<comment><USER13> 15$ for a cotton T-shirt is still a huge markup.

And the way this operates, Amazon is just a middleman somone else manufactures the shirts they just don't provide the brand. Which means the actual manufacturer has little reasons to care about quality.

<comment><USER14> > 15$ for a cotton T-shirt is still a huge markup.

How does the profit and costs break down on a t-shirt sold online?

Curious to hear since you sound like an expert in the field.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bezos read about Rockefeller's old plays.

Standard Oil had a large number of small subsidiary oil companies under different names, many of which weren't clearly understood to be owned by Standard. It was one of their ways of preventing anti-trust accusations against them.

Amazon Prime is effectively a postal commerce version of Standard's rail rebate system.

Lots of respect to those guys, whether you agree with their actions on a moral basis or not. They've been reading up on their history.

<comment><USER16> Amazon as a retailer doesn't make much money. Margins are thin, and even thinner with their free shipping. Creating their own private brands of consumer products are not going to make them much money, but it'd make sure they control not just the sale but the production of the item itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Bezos recently talked about how Amazon would eventually fail, it seems inevitable when you commandeer your vendors' profits _and_ claw back any disposable income your workers have _and_ demand massive tax breaks to complement massive tax manipulations. Vacuum up all the money and what will people spend on Amazon?

Apple seems to do the same under Cook too, focusing obsessively on making sure their suppliers don't have any undue profit whilst they themselves demand $100s in profit per telephone, to toss on $100s of billions they desperately avoid taxes on.

The only profit these organizations want to pursue anymore comes at someone else's expense, rather than creating more value.

<comment><USER18> Bad for people as a whole? Sure. Good for people who have 1/10th+ of their portfolio in Amazon? Absolutely.

<comment><USER19> Down 12% in the last month though. I guess you could say everything is down, but that's kind of the point when billionaires and corporations hoard all of the money.

<comment><USER20> That's my fault personally. I recently put a significant amount of money into it. It happens every time I buy something.

<comment><USER21> You too? For the benefit of the greater good, I've stopped investing for several years. I just couldn't stomach the damage I was doing to the markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As the article points out, Costco just sells their own stuff under the Kirkland brand. Much Kirkland stuff is made by major US brands, and is often identical to the branded product, but cheaper. They don't bother hiding that it's their own brand.[1]

Amusingly, Costco sells their Kirkland items on Amazon. Or, rather, somebody called "ShippedFast" does. Now who's ShippedFast? They seem to be in Florida and the phone number maps to a residence. But Amazon doesn't disclose the identity of the seller.

[1] [https://hip2save.com/2018/09/11/brands-costco-kirkland- items...](https://hip2save.com/2018/09/11/brands-costco-kirkland-items/)

</comment><comment><USER23> The article doesn't go into the most important advantage Amazon has: it has data on what sells well and what markets it should enter using existing brands on its marketplace. With this data, it enters markets and undercuts its competition at the perfect price point.

<comment><USER24> Then consumers win. The competitors can lower their prices/increase their quality/improve efficiency and consumers get to buy better products for less.

<comment><USER25> Amazon often has higher prices than Walmart & Target, but people still don't shop Walmart online because Amazon is convenient. Amazon knows the perfect price point to stop people from shopping around to other online outlets, that doesn't mean it is giving the lowest price to consumers.

People will, in person, buy something from Walmart instead of Kroger over $2, but Amazon has somehow figured out how to keep people on their site by properly measuring demand elasticity.

Not to mention most listings on Amazon now are ads for products on Amazon. Tide, etc pay for top placements in the stores. So Amazon gets fulfillment cut and money from ad revenue. It's pretty impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They're pulling a Google...they've started to eat their tail. Google, for those that don't know, started with the goal of sending you to the best site. Today, oh well, it's virtually all ads /google products. They're trying to make you click their most profitable ads

<comment><USER18> I half agree. Google is still pretty good for finding information on many subjects.

<comment><USER27> Indeed but the cognitive load of scrolling through those ads, especially on mobile, is part of why everything is perceived as sucking these days IMO.

It's like there's a late-stage capitalism barrier to entry to get to the good stuff on every platform these days. I mean who out there actually wants autoplay videos and unending push notifications?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What is the idea with these garish MS Paint graphics? Am I the only one finding them incredibly distracting?

<comment><USER29> No, that really threw me off too, not because it's objectively bad, but because I know and have seen how NYT is capable of some really impressive feats creating visualizations and visual aides for their stories; it's objectively bad _considering the source_.

<comment><USER30> Yes, because the graphics are a visual joke. The illustrator, Tarcy Ma, does great work: [http://tracyma.com](http://tracyma.com)

<comment><USER29> _the graphics are a visual joke._

It sailed _way_ over my head apparently, what's the punchline here?

<comment><USER31> It seems to be parody of conspiracy sites. Which would make sense, given that none of this is actually that crazy or hidden as a conspiracy.

Intentional terrible graphic design has been used before by other notable publications like Bloomberg: [http://incitrio.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/09/tim-cook-bloo...](http://incitrio.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/09/tim-cook-bloomberg-cover-01.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "Is Amazon" meaning "is made by other manufacturers and white-labeled for Amazon" apparently. Why is this interesting?

<comment><USER33> Antitrust concerns when they compete with their own vendors and give themselves advantages

<comment><USER32> Are they competing with their own vendors when they're paying those vendors to make the stuff?

<comment><USER33> They aren't paying the same people. If I sell my own brand, and they make their own brand and pay someone else to make it, they're competing with me on a platform they control and they give themselves advantages - such as showing up ahead of me in search (Google got fined a lot of money for this exact practice), putting links to their products on my product page saying "buy our brands instead" (yes, they really do this, see [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-is-testing-a-new- feat...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/amazon-is-testing-a-new-feature-that- promotes-its-private-label-brands-inside-a-competitors-product-listing.html)), giving themselves exemptions from policies they apply to third party sellers like review manipulation bans (see Vine program), etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So Amazon offering more and more business services, or in other words doing more tasks that other businesses used to do.

And the interesting thing is, that they found almost a risk free way(for them), to do those tasks. Which fits Bezos's experience as an investor, always dealing with profit vs risk.

For example, for small/medium companies, creating efficient supply chains for varying demand was risky. But for Amazon, with it's size and great demand control and forecasting, it's probably not that risky.

The same with creating a new private brand - Amazon has a lot of knowledge of what sells, They control free ad inventory, and they control their customer, via search.

So it would be interesting to ask: what things businesses do are still risky - and would be left to external companies to do ? And what risky things can Amazon de-risk and take in-house ?

</comment><comment><USER34> Amazon is useless for high end outdoor gear. Not just gear even, but clothing. If something is available, it is often past years models, odd colors, sizes and the prices are non-competitive.

</comment><comment><USER35> Amazon definitely focus on quantity, not quality.

Everything works.. Just and no more.

Their web interfaces and APIs are clunky, and there is a lack of any way to flag up an undelivered package.

</comment><comment><USER36> I don't read the gray lady on account of the paywall, but this is something I have noticed somewhat in recent days. For the usual reasons of distrust of excessive economic power, I have not bought from Amazon for a few years. However, as part of that, I have bought from Abebooks until the last month, when I learned that it was owned by Amazon. I had previously run some quick searches trying to learn who owned Abebooks, and did not find anything. It is also not evident on the Abebooks website. Looking for another source for books, I found an on-line vendor that looks similar to Abebooks, listing used and new books for sale from various booksellers in diverse places. I checked it out and could not link it to any overly large enterprises. That was good, and the other site prices are not obviously higher than Abebooks, but the new site adds $4 shipping on each book, so my cost for used books is now up about 25%. Not good, but I'll pay it to not feed the monster.

So, as both Abebooks and the new site list used books for sale by various bookstores, many of the same books are listed on both sites, and my new vendor might even present a better selection of what I look for. That's good. But some of the vendors that offer the lowest prices deal only through abebooks.com, ie Amazon/Bezos, and they list very many books on the Amazon/Bezos site. Coincidentally, one of them, the Book Depository, shown as being located in England, is owned by Amazon, ships free to the US, but when the packages arrive, they appear to have been shipped from the US.

All of that is business as usual for a megacorp, but another bookshop that sells beaucoups of books through Amazon's abebooks is Seattle Goodwill, a non- profit. This raises my eyebrows because I live in a state near Seattle in which Goodwill's non-profit status has been in question because of high compensation given to its executives. I suspect that the relationship between Amazon and Goodwill may be somewhat complex. Amazon gives its customers free shipping to donate items to tax-exempt Goodwill, Goodwill then sells the items through an Amazon subsidiary, Amazon gets a commission on the sale, what's going on? Goodwill is a non-profit that does 'job-training'. Are 'trainees' not earning Seattle's high minimum wage part of this business? What does this operation look like? Anyone know?

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder: if I sell something on Amazon and make it an Amazon-exclusive brand, will I find it easier to keep counterfeit knockoffs out of their inventory?

<comment><USER33> Yes, you pay an extra 5% commission or so but get real "gating", nobody else can sell it

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is so Amazon can sell you garbage and avoid tarnishing their brand. For a while anyway.

</comment><comment><USER39> The real story here is why is NYT systematically attacking all the FAANG companies?

</comment><comment><USER40> Amazon's been well known for relentless A/B testing of every last pixel in their checkout UI. This is simply an extension of that A/B testing mentality to individual products. Flood the user's search results with a litany of similar and confusingly-branded products and see what sticks.</comment>


Show HN: Lini, a tool for smart Linkedin contacts management - <AUTHOR> http://lini.co

<comment><USER2> Looks cool. I'm a bit puzzled every time I have to do something on Linkedin cause it feels bloated and slow.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks @nyddle yeah, we created the tool cause we wanted to provide users with an easy and intuitive tool for managing contacts. Happy that you liked it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks super useful & well-thought!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! Happy that you enjoyed using Lini :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will it allow me to export email addresses to Mailchimp?

<comment><AUTHOR> @smikeyev, unfortunately, no, you can use group messages to reach several contacts on Linkedin at once

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very neat and tidy app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


[LIVE] Trump expected to back a move to reopen government for a few weeks - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/government-shutdown-trump-to-make-shutdown-announcement-at-white-house-2019-01-25-live-stream/ <comment><AUTHOR> The announcement was in the first 20 seconds of his speech. He will support a bill to re-open the government up to Feb 15th. Back-pay will be provided ASAP.

The rest of the announcement is just him describing his wall plan.

<comment><USER2> Yea he's pretty much just spouting racist nonsense now.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh boy, he just doubled down and said that if congress doesn't give him his wall he's shutting government down again on Feb 15th.</comment>


The Music Industry Is About to Change, and Apple and U2 Are Just the Beginning - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/13/the-music-industry-is-about-to-change-and-apple-and-u2-are-just-the-beginning/

<comment><USER2> The article's premise is that the music industry is about to change due to the model that the movie industry uses called windowing, thus extracting the maximum dollars in order of one willing to pay the most for it up front.

What it fails to mention is that this practice by the movie industry is hated by he various consumers, and thus exacerbates the piracy problem. The difference between the movie and music industry is such that, movies are difficult to leak and the most widely used methods of leaking them typically don't carry high enough quality to be worth watching for most, thus the consumers oblige. For music, ripping full quality sound waves at ones liesure and releasing them is much easier. I'd suspect that introducing windowing into music will only exacerbate piracy during the most exclusive periods.</comment>


Pythagorean Theorem and its many proofs - <AUTHOR> http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/ <comment><USER2> The Pythagorean Theorem is wonderful and very multicultural, as it is plain that basic knowledge that the theorem applies to real-world measurement problems is much earlier in time than the era of Pythagoras, and interesting demonstrations of the theorem have arisen in several different parts of the world. And the Cut the Knot site, from which this link is kindly submitted, is a wonderful site about mathematics in general and should be known by all readers of Hacker News.

Cut the Knot has another good page, "The Pythagorean Theorem is Equivalent to the Parallel Postulate," pointing out that the conventional form of the Pythagorean Theorem is a theorem only of Euclidean geometry, and the theorem's statement has to be modified in non-Euclidean geometry. I make sure to tell all my students that, even though my students are studying mathematics at the "prealgebra" level and are of middle-elementary-school age (taking supplementary classes for advanced learners). Learning non-Euclidean geometry is harder if early math teachers don't mention that our usual school lessons in geometry assume Euclidean geometry with the parallel postulate is the only possible true description of the world. I like pointing my students to other resources about non-Euclidean geometry and the parallel postulate for possible optional further reading for them or for their parents.[2]

[1] [http://www.cut-the- knot.org/triangle/pythpar/PTimpliesPP.sht...](http://www.cut-the- knot.org/triangle/pythpar/PTimpliesPP.shtml)

[2] [http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/geometry/gp13/Pythag...](http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/geometry/gp13/Pythag.htm)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#Non- Euclid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem#Non- Euclidean_geometry)

[https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-happens-to-the- py...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-happens-to-the-pythagorean- theorem-in-a-non-euclidean-space.226522/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just to give an idea of how many proofs there are (and can be), I went to high school with a girl who found a previously unpublished method of proving the Pythagorean Theorem around 2002. I think we intuitively know that PT is a sort of fundamental theorem for a huge number of different fields and the number of proofs reflects the number of different areas that it constrains.

<comment><USER4> > I went to high school with a girl who found a previously unpublished method > of proving the Pythagorean Theorem around 2002

if it is not too inconvenient, may you please link to it ? it would be instructive to see a novel proof of something which has been around for approx. 2500 years. thank you !

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is even a proof by 20th United States President, James Garfield. [http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emt668/emt668.student.folders/hea...](http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emt668/emt668.student.folders/headangela/essay1/pythagorean.html)</comment>


Asset seizures fuel police spending - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/ <comment><USER2> There is an amazing correlation between how much money police seize and what percentage of that money they can keep. The states that allow police to keep a high percentage of the money take in many millions per year, and the opposite is true when that percentage is low. California averaged 24 million in asset forfeiture per year between 2002-2008, after the feds took their 35% cut, in spite of offering better than average protection from the law[1].

With this in mind I've wondered what would happen if,say, 100% of the proceeds from asset forfeiture went to ALS. I expect ALS would benefit very little but at least it would save thousands of people from having their assets stolen by the police. It turns out I'm not the first person to have this idea. The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR)[2] seeks to remove the profit incentive and conflict of interest from civil asset forfeiture (along with some other good ideas). There have been other attempts for reform in various states, but FAIR has a lot of potential to change things at the federal level.

1-[https://www.ij.org/asset-forfeiture-report- california](https://www.ij.org/asset-forfeiture-report-california) 2-[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2644](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2644)

<comment><USER3> > With this in mind I've wondered what would happen if,say, 100% of the > proceeds from asset forfeiture went to ALS.

That would certainly _reduce_ the problem, but the correct solution is to prevent assets from being seized without criminal charges and require them to be immediately returned without further proceedings if the government fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the assets are the proceeds of a criminal enterprise of which the owner/defendant is found guilty.

<comment><USER2> Good point. This has me thinking more about the root of the problem. It seems like the justification they use most of the time is related to drugs. Perhaps asset forfeiture is a another example of how the war on drugs undermines our civil liberties, and yet not even John Oliver has framed it that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> John Oliver did a segment on this - [http://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks](http://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks)

One thing that doesn't seem to be covered is how it changes the motivation to seize contraband, as it is much more profitable to wait until the contraband is sold and then seize the money.

<comment><USER5> Contraband that is not in-and-of-itself illegal is routinely sold at police auctions to the public. I'm not entirely sure what happens with the proceeds of those auctions. I'm pretty sure they go to the local police department in the same revenue split as cash.

Illegal contraband, such as drugs, are destroyed. The federal government gives grants to companies or police departments to cover the inflated costs of destruction.

No matter how police choose to play the game, they get money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems to be a clear violation of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Even if the seizing of assets is legit, the assets should be looked at as revenue, and should be allocated by the legislature, not the police department.

It is incredibly unseemly for police to be operating their own private economy based on forfeited assets that were acquired due to their position/power.

There should be a downside for police if the seizure turns out to not be legit. I don't think paying back double would be that out of line.

<comment><USER7> Seized assets should sit in escrow until their owner is convicted of a crime _and_ the assets are shown to the be the fruits of that crime. If that can't be done within, say, a year -- two, at the most -- the assets should be returned, with interest.

That, I think, is the most important change to make here. Right now people who have assets seized are effectively guilty until proven innocent, and I don't see how that's even remotely Constitutional.

Once that is changed, I agree with you: the money should go to the state's general fund or the US treasury, not the police department.

<comment><USER8> How do I pay my legal fees if my seized cash is being held in escrow?

<comment><USER9> You can't, and that is on purpose. You know, if you could pay your legal fees, so could a drug lord.

<comment><USER10> If a drug lord has massive amounts of money, that's just a sign the government has failed in its job to catch him earlier. They don't build up those reserves overnight. Why should the government be rewarded for failing in their job for so long?

But aside from that...so what? If the system allows pricey attorneys to subvert the system, the problem isn't the pricey attorneys...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is a distraction from the real issue. Most of the spending (including the oft-repeated $225 for "Sparkles the clown") is legitimate. The process of civil forfeiture, on the other hand, is a clear violation of the constitution.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I'm not really sure what happened to the fourth and fifth amendments. Both prohibit arbitrary seizure of property.

<comment><USER13> Simple; the people affected are not wealthy and, especially after their money is taken, cannot take the process to courts.

<comment><USER14> There have been cases that have gone all the way to the supreme court, including a decision in February of this year:

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/02/ci...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/02/civil- liberties-and-supreme-court)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A more explicit one on this subject, (don't be black while carrying valuables or police will assume you stole them): [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas- pro...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas- profiling_wittmar10-story.html#page=1)

<comment><USER15> I read the whole WaPo article hoping they'd stop listing the things purchased with the funds (who cares?) and instead talk about where they got the funds and what percentage of seizures are dubious / fraudulent.

The Chicago link provides a narrow window into that question, and it doesn't look good.

For instance I have a nice painting on the wall that a friend created. There's no paper trail of how I got it. Does that mean I continue to own it only at the pleasure of the police?

I'm less worried about my major assets, but what if someone decided I could have been using my house as a venue to write code that could be used for illegal purposes? Do I have to prove every library on my Github account can only be used for legal purposes or risk having my house and laptop seized?

Is the reason the answers to those questions is "no" merely because I'm white, prominent, and a political donor? How is this different from Putin's Russia? (Aside from in degree.)

<comment><USER16> The reason the answer to these questions is "no" is because ownership in a civil forfeiture proceeding must be proved by a "preponderance of the evidence" standard. The difference between a car trunk full of $100 bills and a painting on your wall is proving that, "more likely than not" the item is the fruit of criminal activity.

<comment><USER17> "preponderance of the evidence" is a low standard compared to the "presumed innocent" standard of criminal trials. It's not helped by the fact that the judge in civil forfeiture proceedings sometimes has a clear conflict of interest: cf. Coutroom 478. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/p...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/philadelphia- civil-forfeiture-class-action-lawsuit/)

<comment><USER16> The key distinction is between punishing you by taking property that is yours (criminal penalty) and taking property that is not yours in the first place (civil forfeiture). In a civil context, preponderance of the evidence is the typical standard. E.g. If I sue you for embezzling my money, I don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to get my money back.

I think civil forfeiture has major problems with how it's applied, but it's pretty internally consistent with the rest of the law.

<comment><USER3> There are at least two major difference between civil asset forfeiture and civil litigation. First, the plaintiff is the government, and the government has vastly more powers and resources than typical plaintiffs, making it more difficult for ordinary people to defend against them and more reasonable to demand from them a higher standard of proof. Second, in typical civil litigation, the plaintiffs don't seize your house/car/money first and put the burden on you to initiate litigation to get it all back now that you no longer have any resources with which to fight that battle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > "In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset > forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with > the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the > citizens," said Prince George's County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie > Parker.

He's stealing those assets from the citizens he professes to protect. Do they have seminars on cynicism at police academy?

</comment><comment><USER19> As a Canadian I would often take what people from the US say about police with a grain of salt but recently it's seems to have become much worse, even my own government has warned Canadians.

I have to wonder though is this not just policy but also a cultural thing on the far-left side there's the 20-something Occupy 1%, pro-weed crowd is this the same thing only on the far-right?

As far back as 1999 my first time to the US by myself I was held at the border for no reason other than I was traveling alone, I was going to visit a friend for US Thanksgiving. My car was searched, my suitcase torn apart, held for an hour. Now I wonder if that means I will be flagged on the system as someone who was searched even though it was for no good reason.

<comment><USER20> We live in a police state where the police are allowed to legally rob and even kill people. The sad part is that hiring "Sparkles the clown" actually makes people forget this and trust the police. Stupidity of the people is on par with the vileness of the police. You should consider yourself lucky that that is the only thing that happened to you, which BTW is standard procedure. I would say that's SOP only at the border, but it is becoming more common everywhere within the US, regardless of alleged constitutional rights that are no longer considered by the police or courts.

<comment><USER19> I don't think it was SOP, as you say, since I was about to go through when I casually mentioned to the guard at the booth a woman I know invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. It was the last question of a series of questions the guard asked me.

The guard at the border said "I think you're going to stay with her and not come back but there is nothing I can find that will prevent me from holding you."

I can't see what going through my entire car would accomplish I had one suitcase, which they took into the main building, and nothing else was in the car yet it took them an hour to search it.

Anyway a big FU to the St. Stephen border guards at the crossing in Maine. I honked to them as I drove back into Canada.

<comment><USER20> It's very possible they just didn't like you and wanted to make your trip miserable. Or they were just hoping to find contraband, mainly drugs. Or they were bored. Or there was no reason. Who knows? From my experience and research, that is SOP for law enforcement in the US. If they can harass (or worse) you, they will.

<comment><USER19> I'd agree, I got the guys working the Thanksgiving weekend and they were pissed, took it our on me.

I don't even fit into any often searched groups I'm a pasty white Canadian who speaks nothing but English. I'm so common and dull I could be a spy and blend in anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The law as it reads is simply too much of an incentive to take everything you can lay your hands on knowing there is little chance of having to give it back. Until there is a requirement that the reason for seizure is backed up by conviction, so you have to give it back later if you can't make the crime stick.

</comment><comment><USER18> > "All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have."

Had.

</comment><comment><USER22> When I was traveling to Russia 15 years ago, relatives warned me not to show any cash to police.

</comment><comment><USER23> Nice article, we were just talking about this -

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8423035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8423035)

This is an amazing amount of coverage in fairly large, established news organizations.

</comment><comment><USER24> these seizures infuriate me, but i do think it is interesting that the slant on a lot of the coverage falls along the lines: 'and look at this stupid shit they bought with it!'

which leaves me to wonder.. what would be appropriate, or publicly acceptable, use of the seized funds?

perhaps donating directly to services that hope to solve the problems that the seizure was made in claim against?

</comment><comment><USER25> Reading of such articles makes me wonder about the reports/ranks given by transparency international ...etc on corruption. Comment by @icantthinkofone in this thread indicates this problem can be seen in other organizations too. If that is true, then corruption is there across all public organizations in US. In India too, we hear stories of corruption but scale is different. I conclude, it is explicit in some sectors/countries and implicit/polished/organized in other sectors/countries i.e. indices such as corruption,human life quality are just instruments to point out at emerging countries and show them in negative shades while pushing similar issues in developed countries silently under carpet and showing them in positive shades (at least during preparation of ranks). After consistent media focus, damage will be done and countries will be forever labeled as negative and leaders,future generations will forever live in that pseudo bubble thinking that they are inferior/corrupt ...etc to developed ones. (Many Indians think America/Europe is heaven with no issues like drought/crime...etc).

I included human life quality because as long as systems are working, west including Europe and America appear good(seeing from very far) but once in a while catastrophe occurs(due to nature or man-made), then we will see ugly side (e.g: looting during katrina[1], London riots[2], riots in sweden[3] ...etc) as if that ugly side is suppressed under the weight of systems/rules rather than genuine intrinsic goodness of people living there[4].

My intention is not to show any one in bad light but to give the conclusion or correct the myth that just because a country is materially wealthy i.e. developed, does not mean that there will be no daily issues. If emerging countries like BRICS understand that, then they pursue all round development rather than blindly becoming photo copies of west in pursuit of material wealth and harming themselves like pollution in china[5].

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9131493/ns/us_news- katrina_the_lon...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9131493/ns/us_news- katrina_the_long_road_back/t/looters-take-advantage-new-orleans- mess/#.UI73ZMVG-Nw) [2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots) [3][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots) [4][http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/why-is-there- no...](http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/why-is-there-no-looting- in-japan/) [5][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China)

<comment><USER26> This is systemic corruption. As long as the federal government thinks it's kosher and they take their cut, it's unlikely to show up in international reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the Washington Post, and others, would turn the same eye on any other organization, they would have a field day of things they would find, but it wouldn't sell as many newspapers. The problem is, they make it sound like all police have these issues (and others they "report" on) when the reality is far from it.

Someone will comment, "But the police shouldn't be doing this and it's a government institution!!", as if such institutions are not run by human beings but angels from God.

<comment><USER28> Oh please, I think the litany of "it's just a few bad apples" has been disproven enough already. I suppose the _up to 40%_ domestic abuse rates among police families (4x national average) is lying about the reality as well?

[http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp](http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp)

I don't claim to know what the solution to America's law enforcement problems are but I have grown increasingly tired of apologists rushing to defend every police action no matter how abhorrent. Police are an important part of any modern society and you aren't doing them favors by sparing them all scrutiny.

<comment><USER29> I should not have to start my iPhone voice recorder and keep my vehicle's dashcam running during a traffic stop because of fears I would normally have living someplace like Russia.

<comment><USER27> If you do, you are the only person I know who does. I've never even heard of such a thing.

I do not fear the police. I have no need to.

Whatever happend to you that you feel you need to do that? Or is it only because of something you read on the internet?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Mac App Store Jailbreak [poll] - <AUTHOR>

How long do you think it will take before someone Jailbreaks the Mac App Store?
Never
> 1 month
< less than a week
> 24 hours
< 24 hours
too late, they did that yesterday!
i dont care, ill buy those apps either way
Answer here: http://twtpoll.com/potive
and... does it matter? <comment><USER2> while people are voting on this, can someone explain enough about the mac app store to explain what you would be jailbreaking?

<comment><AUTHOR> i guess i used the wrong term, should have said, when will piracy hit the mac app store

<comment><USER2> day 1? at least AFAIK there are no anti-piracy measures.

i'd love to hear from someone who isn't speaking out of their ass though.</comment></comment></comment>


Paul Buchheit:  What does it mean to own a "right"? - <AUTHOR> http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-does-it-mean-to-own-right-was.html

<comment><USER3> I'm behind you 100% on this one It's nice to see someone taking a stand on this, it's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time.

On a whim, I did a search for posts that I've made on this subject and came up with a bunch in just a few minutes, beginning in 2003 and the most recent being here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823>

I put the rest on a page here: <http://www.goladus.com/copyright.html> (Basically random greppings from various forum threads in the past 4 years, They aren't proofread very well)

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't you feel owning the rights to a piece of music is different than owning rights to salt, though? No one has a monopoly on music, because anyone can compose their own. The same goes with software. It's not artificial like restricting goods; it really is your hard work.

When I said "Copying software is stealing", I was incorrect. What I meant to express was "Copying software is wrong if you can afford to buy it". There's something morally wrong about taking someone's hard work against their wishes and giving it away for free. I don't know what to call it, but don't you at least agree it _is_ wrong?

<comment><USER5> Infringing on people's legal rights is often wrong, but not everything that's wrong (or illegal) should be called "theft".

<comment><USER4> Okay. Is your argument about semantics?

I'm fine with renaming the act, but I have no idea what to call it. Do you have a suggestion? Just "illegal copying" perhaps?

Also, do you feel the law should punish the act as if someone had shoplifted an item of equivalent value, or some other punishment? I'm worried that if the punishment is a fine, people might risk it anyway because the chance of getting caught seems so small in peer to peer networks.

<comment> daniel-cussen Copyright infringement is never treated the same as property theft. In any jurisdiction.

In any case, copyright was not established to help companies like Warner or Scholastic---in fact, it was originally designed to protect authors from having large corporations distribute their stuff without paying authors anything, as opposed to today's model, in which companies pay authors relatively little.

<comment><USER6> Copyright infringement is often publicly referred to as theft. So there is obviously an overlap in people's minds.

<comment><USER5> It wouldn't be a popular misconception if a lot of people didn't believe it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great post. I remember someone writing a short story based on that Gandhi anecdote for Kuro5hin a few years ago. Sadly I can't link to it because it never made it through the queue.

</comment><comment><USER8> The key feature of property is the determination of its use, rather than mere possession. If you own something by law [1] then an infringement of that right is stealing. As for India, well, it just goes to show you're better off controlling the opium market than the salt market.

[1] There are two kinds of ownership: By law, and by adverse possession. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession>

<comment><USER3> Making an illegal copy isn't stealing the copyright, though.

If I copy paulgraham.com and post all his essays, claim they are my own, and then try to sue him for infringement, I'm trying to steal his intellectual property.

If I copy some of his essays without his permission, I've infringed.on some of the exclusive rights granted by law. I'm not stealing.

<comment><USER8> If you define "stealing" as "transfering property from one pocket to another," then you are right, since copying essays or whatever doesn't deprive the owner of possession.

If you define "stealing" as "preventing another from determining the use of his property", then you aren't right.

<comment><USER5> The dictionary doesn't seem to include your second definition, but regardless, you would NOT be preventing him from determining the use of his property, because his property is the copyright, and he can still use it any way he likes.

<comment><USER8> The dictionary is the wrong place to look for discussion on property. It's a complicated subject, and I'm trying to squeeze it into as few words as possible. If you want a citation:

 _In a private property system, property rules are organized around the idea that various contested resources are assigned to the decisional authority of particular individuals (or families or firms)_ <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/>

...In short, it is a matter of "use" (decision) rather than possession. A copyright indisputably is owned by all creators unless surrendered. But the copyright itself codifies control over a work, and thus is not _that which is lost_ but _that which proves loss_ in matters of IP violations.

<comment><USER3> Intellectual property is arbitrary relative to, say, a hammer. Everyone agrees on what a hammer is, and that it is a "contested resource." The term "Intellectual Property" is very recent and we are still trying to reach an agreement on what it means.

"Stealing a portion of an owner's exclusive copyrights," isn't generally the message being sent when someone talks about "stealing music" or "stealing software."

I agree the dictionary is not the right place to look, however I disagree that legal lexicons are much more helpful. I think the issue here is the general metaphor used by regular people to communicate these ideas with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this argument can be generalized. There are no real laws. Only consequences. You can do whatever you want. Some actions will cause the cops to throw you in jail, some wont. Timing is everything - what is illegal today might be legal tomorrow. Any law can be changed, if you can convince enough people.

<comment><USER10> Not sure I would express it like you, but perhaps we agree. I think to argue about right and wrong as Paul did in the article is a slippery slope - <USER2> might never agree. Wars go on forever because of reasoning like that, each party believes to be in the right.

The "real" reality is that what is right is exactly what the people in power say is right. If you believe something is right, but the people in power believe differently, all you can do is gather the power to make it right. That is what Ghandhi did, even though he did it without using weapons. But being able to convince enough people to support your cause is a form of power, too.

There is no god given right to own intellectual property, or any other property for that matter, people can own it only because society as a whole allows them to. If there is no society/police to enforce your rights, all you can do is sit tight in your house with the shotgun ready. You might still be able to defend your property. But that is because you have a shotgun, not because the property belongs to you.

People chose to organize in societies and accept property rights because they think it benefits everybody. As soon as it does not benefit somebody, there is no reason for that person to go on supporting property rights (but the "benefits me" equation should factor in things like jail).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do you call it Imaginary instead of Intellectual?

</comment><comment><USER12> So your point is that all the patents and IP rights should not be allowed?

<comment><USER13> The point I read was that infringement is not theft.

He didn't rule out that there might be some situation where a government- enforced exclusive right might be appropriate.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. IP can be good, but that's no reason mix up the language.

I've added an update clarifying this.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: any SDKs for embedded secure processors? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently using JavaCard smart-card chips to prototype my research project (MIT PhD). My performance isn't that good because I can't access the processor directly.
Does anyone here know of a SDK that I can get my hands on (I'm an MIT PhD) that would allow me to run code directly on the hardware? (I'm hoping to use a mixture of C and direct assembly.) Due to the nature of my research, I need a secure platform, like the smart-card chips.
I'm asking this on HN because I've ran out of places to try. Big companies like Atmel don't want to work with me because I do research, or maybe I wasn't very good at pitching my project.
If you want more information about my project -- I'm researching the design of a secure chip resembling the TPM in that it works in conjunction with an untrusted computer. My design is better than the TPM in that it supports arbitrary computation on the chip, and doesn't require a secure binding to the computer. My design is better than existing smart-cards (e.g. JavaCard, MultOS) because it can run untrusted code, and the code doesn't have to be embedded in the chip when it's issued.
My first paper on the topic: http://people.csail.mit.edu/devadas/pubs/cardis08tem.pdf
OSS code (MIT license): http://rubyforge.org/projects/tem
Thank you so much for reading! <comment><USER2> Have you looked at these? I warn you, they are expensive.

[http://www-03.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/pcicc/overview.sh...](http://www-03.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/pcicc/overview.shtml) [http://iss.thalesgroup.com/en/Products/Hardware%20Security%2...](http://iss.thalesgroup.com/en/Products/Hardware%20Security%20Modules/nShield.aspx) <http://www.cputech.com/acalis/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the recommendations! I didn't know about the Cputech product.

Your intuition was right, they are too expensive for me. So, I should clarify: I am happy with using current-generation smart-card chips, but I would like to use them directly. The folks who wrote the JavaCard VM must have used some SDK... I want that SDK, so I can write my own OS.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I assume you've already talked to the faculty at MIT and they haven't been able to provide any useful contacts for you; have you also tried talking to the security group at the University of Cambridge? They've done a lot of work on breaking smart cards, so they're likely to know some of the right people.</comment>


Compensation Flap: What Satya Nardella Should Have Said - <AUTHOR> http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/?p=5893

<comment><AUTHOR> Bob Lewis offers a practical perspective on salary negotiations in the workplace and suggests an alternate answer for Satya Nardella's recent kerfuffe:

       Nardella's response was, in many respects, thoughtful. The problem was
       that he failed to include something critical, namely, useful advice for
       the world as it actually is. A far better response would have been:

       "The situation for women at Microsoft … and at any other company, but I
       only have influence over Microsoft...should be exactly like the
       situation for male employees. What we're striving for is that no employee
       should ever have to ask for a raise or promotion. We want every employee
       to be in a position they can succeed in, and that provides them with
       opportunities to achieve and grow. And we want to pay every employee what
       he or she is truly worth.

       If we're failing to do that for any employee, that employee should make
       her...or his...case and we should listen and make an objective judgment.
       We should give that employee a raise or promotion if one is warranted, and
       an honest response either way."

       Were Mr. Nardella's words disrespectful to women?
       I don't think so. They were worse than that.
       They were terrible advice.</comment>