Now That It's in the Broadband Game, Google Flip-Flops on Network Neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/google-neutrality/ <comment><USER2> IMHO, this headline & article is sensational and almost a straw-man argument. I'm not sure anyone should expect to be able to run a _substantial_ business off their home internet connection without buying a business-class connection - nor does this decision by Google somehow imply they've "flip-flopped" on net-neutrality. I run a little game-server from my RaspberryPi at home. Technically, I'm not allowed to do this. While my Comcast IP is supposedly dynamic, it only changes once every 18 months or so. But I really think the law is there for people who go overboard sending terabytes-per-hour with some crazy successful business. At its peak, my site only gets only about 5,000+ hits per month or so(because it reports real-time data and people hit refresh all the time). Like Comcast, even if Google says no, just go ahead and do it anyway. They'll probably not bother you unless you're rolling your own Netflix-clone or something, in which case you really should upgrade to business-class or get on those cloud providers.

<comment><USER3> > _people who go overboard sending terabytes-per-hour with some crazy > successful business_

Which is why they probably limit 'excessive use', and / or have hard GB caps in place, which basically every ISP does. If you paid for, say, 20GB of up/down traffic, and you can run your server within that, why should they be able to say you _can 't_ do that, just because it's a "server"? If you had uploaded 20GB to e.g. Dropbox, they aren't complaining.

If you have Google's fiber, even if they say it's unlimited, they still have the ability to restrict your up/down speed (I'm assuming, given the legal support of all the past "unlimited X!" that sometimes gets throttled to extinction). Why don't they just limit it if you're being excessive, regardless of the purpose? Or offer extended GB/TB packages and put hard limits somewhere?

<comment><USER4> > If you had uploaded 20GB to e.g. Dropbox, they aren't complaining.

It's even more ridiculous than that! If you sync 20GB to dropbox, that's a client. If you sync 20GB with bittorrent sync, that's a server. Same data, same purpose, same network load. But one gets banned.

Also, I have to wonder if someone at google has heard of a thing called an X11 server...

<comment><USER5> You are defining server that way. Google is not. So you are arguing about something that doesn't even exist.

<comment><USER4> How does google define server, then?

1\. Does P2P count?

2\. What if I'm downloading a creative commons movie and seed it to a ratio of 15?

3\. What if I'm seeding a hobby video podcast I make at a constant 300mbps?

4\. What if I use opera unite instead of bittorrent?

5\. What if I switch to nginx?

6\. What if I make a living off that video podcast?

7\. What if I was only sending it to my family instead of the world?

<comment><USER5> 1: No

2: No

3: No

4: No

5: No

6: Yes

7: No

Computer programmers like exact definitions. Server: The main controller of the program, or main sender of data.

The real world is much more fuzzy. They are concerned with business use, not server use exactly.

<comment><USER4> So your answers to my questions say that anything non-commercial will be fine.

But then you define server in a way that disagrees with those answers.

Do they care about servers, or do they care about businesses? If businesses, why can't they make it explicit in the rules?

<comment><USER5> They care about businesses, it says so very clearly in the article. And if they haven't already, they should make it explicit.

It's nothing special about google - all ISPs have the same rule.

I DID NOT define server! You read it exactly backward. I said that's how programmers define it, but that's NOT how google defines it (for internet purposes).

<comment><USER4> Oh. Sorry about misreading there.

But seriously, while programmers are pedantic sometimes, when I'm running a website out of my basement that's a 'server' by ANY definition. If google is only going to enforce the rule on business servers, they should say so.

And it doesn't matter what other ISPs do, we already know they're horrible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disclaimer: Google employee here, though nothing to do with Fiber.

I don't really like the no "server" policy, mainly because it's impossible to define what a server is, but I understand it from a business perspective. If a business likely to use a significant portion of their upstream bandwidth, it's reasonable to charge more than a consumer who doesn't. At the same time you want to be nice to power users who aren't running a business, but who use more upstream than average and might recommend the service to others.

Personally, I think this is all a consequence of not having metered billing. It would be more fair if your bill was a function of max bandwidth, actual data transferred, and service levels (support, QoS, etc.), though I would pay more than most of my neighbors.

The headline and net-neutrality tie in are just wrong though. This has nothing to do with net neutrality, it's a service level / market segmentation issue.

<comment><USER7> _" I don't really like the no "server" policy, mainly because it's impossible to define what a server is, but I understand it from a business perspective."_

But that is the rub isn't it, its easy to understand why, _from a business perspective_ , ComCast (nee Xfinity) might think it has the right to limit bandwidth to YouTube while providing full bandwidth to its Video-on-demand service right?

And yet that is exactly the sort of behavior Google argued against in ite neutrality plea arguing that it is about the _customer 's perspective_ that is important here, and if the _customer_ wants to get their video from YouTube, their _ISP_ should be prevented from interfering with that, especially if they have a conflict of interest going on.

And guess what, Google has a fecal-load of conflict of interest when you start putting a server on your Google Fiber, that is perhaps an "AppEngine" account they didn't get, or a better email experience than Gmail, or really awesome photo sharing. All things that Google would not get any revenue (advertising or otherwise) if they let that happen.

I expect that we'll eventually get to packet access to the Internet is a city service, like sewer and garbage, and all of this will be moot. But until this is a really poor move on Google's part and entirely hypocritical to their earlier stance. So in that regard I feel the headline is spot on.

<comment><USER8> > All things that Google would not get any revenue (advertising or otherwise) > if they let that happen

Wait, is Google Fiber free now?

I'll never understand why ISPs can't just tell you the bandwidth you get and let you use it. If they want you to use less, don't offer more. Why is it so hard to just tell people what you want from them instead of fooling them?

And how in the _hell_ would a customer use even a tiny fraction of 1Gbs upload speed without a server? You'd think Google Fiber was run by idiots; but no, it's just assholes.

<comment><USER9> Deceptive marketing has a ratchet effect. If ISP A advertises guaranteed 1 Mbps for $50 and ISP B advertises up to 20 Mbps for $50 (in reality both are providing exactly the same service), then ISP A has no choice but to change their marketing if they want to stay in business. It's the same thing we saw with "4G"; once Sprint started advertising 4 Mbps WiMax as "4G" then T-Mobile and AT&T had to call their 7 Mbps HSPA "4G" too.

<comment><USER10> "4G" doesn't actually mean anything. "20 Mbps" means something specific. If you advertise "20 Mbps" then you should be providing twenty megabits per second. If you don't actually want to provide that then you can call it 20 Mbps burst or what have you, but one way or another you need to be providing what you're selling.

The real problem is the lack of accountability. If the first company to advertise 20 Mbps without actually providing 20 Mbps was held accountable to the offer then everything would be fine: The users who want to use 20Mbps sustained 24/7 for the whole month would be attracted to that service, the provider would have to set the price at a sustainable level or go out of business, the market works. It's the fact that we allow them to get away with offering something they aren't actually selling that creates the problem to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think by now most people have learned never to trust Google (or Oracle or Microsoft, etc). This certainly doesn't come as a surprise to me, and I fully expect them to pull as many anti competitive stunts on Chrome and Android in the future as they possibly can.

The question is: what can we do to mitigate this? And no, choosing not to use Google products is about as useful as choosing not to use MS Windows was 10 years ago. We need to try and find solutions now before this becomes a serious problem.

<comment><USER12> > _choosing not to use Google products is about as useful as choosing not to > use MS Windows was 10 years ago_

Actually people that decided not to use Windows 10 years ago are precisely the reason for why Microsoft is more and more irrelevant today. They've been haemorrhaging mind-share amongst developers ever since early 2000.

This isn't something that happens overnight, but when losing the mind-share of influencers, the long-term effects are devastating. And developers in the software industry are the ultimate influencers.

Pick any successful product that's eroding Microsoft's market-share, anything at all. You'll discover an interesting pattern - the early adopters, the influencers, the ones providing the much-needed spark are exactly the people that stopped using Microsoft's products 10 years ago.

And yes, most people are still on Windows, but they aren't locked to Windows any more and guess who made that happen?

<comment><USER13> Like how videogame developers started shifting from DirectX in 2003 and many now write for open standards, like OpenGL & OpenAL?

Except that didn't happen. The videogame industry got too caught up in the nVidia vs ATI fanboy wars, allowing Microsoft's proprietary standards (or however I should refer to DirectX) to become the _de facto_ industry standard.

<comment><USER14> There has been some recent changes around this situation such as Microsoft now implementing WebGL in IE11 which means they are starting to loose some of their stronghold on the graphic api world.

<comment><USER13> I don't think it's a case of Microsoft consciously releasing their stranglehold so much as new devices (smartphones) forcing a change in the videogame landscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> IMO this headline is a little inflammatory; the (mostly unenforced) ban on servers is a pretty small carve-out. Also note that the NN people haven't been complaining much that _every_ consumer broadband plan also bans servers.

<comment><USER15> That's not a "small carveout". That's a muzzle. It's asymmetric power, that you're only allowed to consume, not to publish.

What's more, from a technical standpoint, it's different for a fiber provider than for a cable company. Coax cable capacity is asymmetric. It can carry only a given amount of data and they can carve it up to give you more down and less up, equal amounts, or more up and less down. Obviously most users want fast downloads and aren't as concerned about uploads.

By contrast, fiber is symmetric, offering full capacities up and down at once. So while cable has a technical justification for "service levels" to offer a server, fiber providers do not. Google Fiber is 1000/1000 Mbit/s symmetrical. Forcing the consumer to not use the idle uplink is against consumer generated content and consumer ownership of their own content, for the sake of a "differentiated business plan". It's against the democratization of consumer created content that consumers can control themselves.

(Google has dogs in that hunt too, you "should" host your content on G+ or YouTube, and host your email on Gmail, rather than drop in a Mac Mini Server or "host any type of server" at home.)

FWIW, my $50/mo residential plan doesn't ban servers, even though the company offers business plans from $200/mo up. I can host a mail server and a web server, with dynamic DNS and open ports 25 and 80. Ports >1024 are open for all classes of service, even their lowest.

Finally, I think the point here is that other consumer broadband providers weren't lobbying for network neutrality. Telcos weren't, cable wasn't. Google was.

It feels a bit icky when "don't be evil" turns out to mean " _for now_ ... until we have an offering in that area that enough people adopt and this practice we used to actively call evil turns out could make us more money and is actually good ... _for us_ ".

Mind you, being magnanimous until they own enough customers is an excellent strategy. They just need a different slogan and to quit with the flip flopping.

<comment><USER16> > By contrast, fiber is symmetric, offering full capacities up and down at > once. So while cable has a technical justification for "service levels" to > offer a server, fiber providers do not. Google Fiber is 1000/1000 Mbit/s > symmetrical.

Link symmetry is a property of the datalink protocol and service provisioning, not the physical media.

Many, if not most, FTTH deployments use PON which delivers asymmetric bandwidth that is shared among a number of users. GPON delivers 2.488Gbps down and 1.244Gbps up and is typically shared between 16 and 64 users.

<comment><USER15> For some reason, I was under the impression Google's FTTH (fiber to the home) was using real (active) fiber networking home runs instead of telco/cable's bastardized passive optical splitting down and TDM up. Wiki cited 1000/1000 symmetric, so I assumed they were using active symmetric.

Seems to be some debate about it:

[http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27731107-Google-Fiber- Lates...](http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27731107-Google-Fiber-Latest- Installs-Suggest-Non-PON-Tech)

If it's not real fiber networking, then yeah, same asymmetric song and dance as cable.

But see pages 10 and 11 of this Google PDF explaining why they might as well use symmetric point to point:

[http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/36936.pdf)

It says end run to users is the ultimate future proof approach and a costs negligible amount more.

If they didn't go that way, well, I am disappointed.

<comment><USER16> It is also possible that they are using WDM-PON with a different wavelength for each subscriber.

Even with Active Ethernet (the industry term for dedicated run of fiber to each subscriber) you likely still have a bandwidth constraint somewhere, be it at the switch uplinks or border routers so some level of oversubscription is a given.

Right now FTTH networks are getting away with some pretty wild oversubscription ratios since content and consumption are lagging. From what I've seen on my network residential traffic tends to interleave pretty well as it is really bursty. Business traffic tends to a constant during the work day so can't interleave as many business customers. It will be interesting to see what Google Fiber charges medium & large businesses.

<comment><USER15> Just checked your profile -- love what you're doing. I helped start up a metro ISP in early 90s that we grew gangbusters by guaranteeing no busies and max modem speeds, till it got rolled up by a telco in late 90s.

Incidentally, as this is about hosting one's own servers, early on I wrote the first (as far as I know) dynamic DNS for dial-up users, so when you connected to a Portmaster and auth'd via RADIUS, your username.isp.com got pointed to your dynamic IP, allowing you to host over dialup under your own name. Customers even ran their own mail servers at home since SMTP was happy to wait for them to dial in. I believed in user publishing then and still do today.

From day one competitor telco ISP services (and telco backbone links) were so oversubscribed it felt immoral. Sorry to hear that's still not changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Eh, I don't see a huge problem with Google saying "You can't run enterprise- level servers off of our consumer-level lines" even if they have ridiculous speeds.

"Your Google Fiber account is for your use and the reasonable use of your guests"

I'd consider small-time server software to be within a "reasonable use". If you're hosting a web server with 10 simultaneous requests, you're outside of reasonable use. Any other ISP would have turned your pipe off.

<comment><USER18> I remember when the internet was seen as a many-to-many communications medium. Have we given up on that premise?

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately, that pretty much went out the window when residential ISPs realized they could get away with 25mb/s down and 0.5mb/s up. Which was a while ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The thing that concerns me the most if how unresponsive Google has proven to be when someone files a complaint about being wrongly chosen for having their account suspended. Just look to the recent example of Gary Bernhardt trying to get his email turned back on. [https://twitter.com/garybernhardt](https://twitter.com/garybernhardt)

What's going to happen when someone's kid starts up a Minecraft server to play with his friends and Google suspends their Fiber account due to it. Most likely - they won't respond. I hate to see them turn into the next Comcast.

<comment><USER21> To me, this is one of the most serious concerns about Google Fiber.

Google's legendarily bad customer support (motto: make a product that keeps 85% of your customers happy and ignore the unhappy minority) combined with something as important as a home Internet connection? No thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I seem to remember lots of people talking about the exciting potential Google Fiber would create for internet startups and small businesses. Too bad Google doesn't feel the same way.

<comment><USER23> Same article: " _Google wants to ban the use of servers because it plans to offer a business class offering in the future._ "

<comment><USER22> So end users who want to make use of new and exciting internet software, peer to peer applications, media streaming and other tools need a business class connection?

<comment><USER24>
      So end users who want to make use of new and exciting internet software, peer to peer applications,
      media streaming and other tools need a business class connection?

Because having terms against running a server off consumer pipes stops you from using 'exciting internet software', streaming, or using 'other tools'?

<comment><USER22> Yes, it does. Most modern internet multiplayer games use some sort of P2P functionality at this point, whether for voice chat or hosting or matchmaking. Software/game updaters tend to use P2P to download large patches. Media players might use P2P to accelerate downloads. Gaming consoles like the PS3 allow 'remote play' by acting as a server for remote connections. People turn their home machine into a server to connect using remote access software. Etc, etc.

<comment><USER24> P2P != Running a Server.

<comment><USER25> P2P requires running a combined client/server. Its a subset of, rather than equal to, running a server. Prohibit servers prohibits P2P.

<comment><USER24> In a pedantic sense, yes, a P2P program is a server, but at that level of technicality, anything could be considered a server -- which is the point I am trying to make: you guys are taking this notion of 'server' to an absolute extreme that undermines you point. Pretending that these terms forbid you from downloading a WOW patch is flat out absurd, and to continue down this line shows you aren't concerned about practical reality.

<comment><USER25> > In a pedantic sense, yes, a P2P program is a server, but at that level of > technicality, anything could be considered a server

Well, no. Plenty of programs exist which do not listen for and respond to network connections, either exclusively initiating network connections (pure network clients) or not communicating on the network at all. It is not the case that using "server" to mean what it actually means suddenly means "anything could be considered a server".

> Pretending that these terms forbid you from downloading a WOW patch is flat > out absurd, and to continue down this line shows you aren't concerned about > practical reality.

The _terms_ plainly prohibit that (assuming that WOW patches use P2P software which involves a server, which I have no certain knowledge of since WOW isn't one of the things I have much interest in.)

It may (quite likely is, from what various Google employees have apparently said about how the Google Fiber policy is enforced) be that the actual enforcement of the terms does not, which actually is problematic in a different way (what it means is that the terms are not the real rules, and the real rules are not disclosed, which, on top of whatever problem the server prohibition itself has with the Open Internet order's neutrality provisions, seems to fall afoul of the order's transparency provisions; which underlines the extent to which what Google is doing here is exactly what the FCC Order -- which Google lobbied heavily _for_ \-- was designed to protect consumers _against_.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Google has never, _ever_ objected to server restrictions on residential connections, and the entire industry has had those restrictions for most of its existence.

Remember how big a deal Speakeasy always made of allowing servers? It's because _nobody else did_.

<comment><USER27> But this does run counter to basic net neutrality, which Google championed. If it didn't explicitly have an objection to server restrictions before, that doesn't diffuse the hypocrisy; they didn't stand to lose or gain from server restrictions before.

<comment><USER28> Apart from the point that a "server" is a very vague term, there is a big difference between inspecting every packed and block/throttle the traffic depending on the content, and requiring the subscriber to not run a business from a home connection.

<comment><USER27> If you want to draw a distinction between those two types of net non- neutrality, fine. But this is still a convenient distinction for Google to be drawing. In a competitive market, I don't think either type of non-neutrality would survive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://lwn.net/images/pdf/google_fiber_response_to_mcclendon...](http://lwn.net/images/pdf/google_fiber_response_to_mcclendon_complaint__as_filed_072913.pdf)

       Your Google Fiber account is for your use and the
       reasonable use of your guests. Unless you have a written
       agreement with Google Fiber permitting you do so, you
       should not host any type of server using your Google
       Fiber connection, use your Google Fiber account to
       provide a large number of people with Internet access,
       use your Google Fiber account to provide commercial
       services to third parties (including, but not limited
       to, selling Internet access to third parties)

I think I see what's going on here, they have to assume most people arn't actually going to use their connection. So they offer it on the pretense that no one will take advantage of it.

It's why the bandwidth caps exist, it's why bittorrent shapping is happening at all. BitTorrent really did start making use of the bandwidth the telco's promised. A promise they couldn't deliver.

Frankly, google's going to need more clauses than that in order to prevent people from taking advantage of their empty promise. I can't wait to see these obvious rule patches grow like cancer.

Anyway, Why can't I share my connection? It's very easy. "Hey neighbor, take this Ethernet cable, you're welcome." Oh that's not ok? OK so why can my family use it then? I'm the one buying right and my family arn't guests. What about multiple families that live in the same house? We should order 3 packages?

This is silly. What is going on down there?

As a closing thought. People are laying these expectations of google fiber, because google fiber was supposed to be the ISP that was going to save us. If you're going to lead by example, you're not supposed to go "But those ingrates are doing it, so I can too".

<comment><USER30> Their entire response is just fancy legal maneuvering to dodge actually having to justify the "no server hosting of any kind allowed" clause in the ToS. The response is essentially: "LOL u have no standing kthxbai" along with a dash of "this is just 'reasonable network management'" and "everyone else is doing it!" You know, the exact same talking points that all of the other ISPs have been spewing.

If Google cannot actually provide symmetric gigabit links to its customers, then it sounds to me like any network degradation is their own doing based on their own failures to reasonably provision the network. I would much rather see Google offering a guarantee on whatever bandwidth they can _actually_ deliver. I'd sooner pay 70 a month for _guaranteed_ symmetric 50 Mbps uplinks than 70 a month for a symmetric gigabit uplink that is subject to Google's (or any other provider's) touchy-feely notions of "reasonable network management."

<comment><USER9> _I would much rather see Google offering a guarantee on whatever bandwidth they can actually deliver._

And then their cable competitors would slaughter them by offering "the same" bandwidth for half the price and Google Fiber would go out of business.

<comment><USER30> And? If a competitor can do it for half the price then I'd be all for it.

<comment><USER31> Look, not everyone is going to use 100% util. of the 50Mbps internet connection, infact only a very, very tiny percent of users will, and they are better off getting a business grade contract.

What wmf is saying that the competitors will also offer "50Mbps", and to 99.9% of users, the internet speed will be exactly the same. A single netflix movie will download at 50Mbps, however if Google User A were to host a video streaming service, he would find he had much more consistent speeds than Comcast User B.

Now given that information, you had to choose:

A.) Comcast "up to" 50 Mbps for $29.99/mo or B.) Google 50Mbps 24/7 for %49.99/mo

Which would most user choose given that 99.9% of users will never use or need 100% util. of their connections?

<comment><USER30> If it were true that 99.9% of all users never ever saturated their lines, then no one would ever be having these kinds of conversations. The only reason network neutrality has become such an issue is precisely because there are ubiquitous technologies that can and do saturate your link, and consumers love them. Napster, Kaaza, Morpheus, Bit Torrent --all popular (or once popular, anyway) P2P technologies that take advantage of as much bandwidth as you want to throw at them. Consumers can, have, and do saturate their lines in great numbers. The ISP industry's response was to throw a hissy fit that consumers were taking advantage of what was sold to them, institute throttling and deep packet inspection, and dig their heels in on upgrading network infrastructure, even when the government threw billions of dollars their way to make it happen.

Google's public image on the matter has strongly revolved around shaming these practices, going so far as to file amicus curiae briefs to the courts in relevant cases condemning the very practices they're now attempting to implement. The rhetorical "think of all the things you could do with a connection that fast!" questions are pervasive in their marketing. They've gone so far as to say that the reason they're getting into the ISP game is precisely to incite the development of technologies that can take advantage of those links. These public faces are at odds with the words of their legal department that wants to hide under "reasonable network management" in ways that make them indistinguishable from the very competitors they claim to be shaming.

<comment><USER31> I really don't think Google is out to get torrent users. What I think is happening here, is a legal battle.

"Server" is a very broad term, heck every device is technically a server. What I believe Google is pushing for, is the ability to include this language in their ToS, then to discriminate on a case by case basis.

<comment><USER29> >is the ability to include this language in their ToS, then to discriminate on a case by case basis

I know. I'm pretty peeved about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> That's not what net neutrality is about - the author is taking it to the extreme.

Not allowing a server on the client side is just reasonable business practice, as opposed to shaping or prioritizing traffic to the client according to the source or the client's pay plan.

<comment><USER33> Why is it a reasonable business practice?

<comment><USER32> The way I see it, client Internet connections are for data consumption, i.e. mostly download. Servers, on the other hand, create and provide the content.

Kind of like being the manufacturer of a watch and being its end user.

The line is getting pretty blurry, but I don't think you can put the two in the same bucket - not yet anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is pretty disappointing to me, I was looking forward to being able to use my internet however I please on the off chance Google Fiber ever came to my area.

</comment><comment><USER35> If everybody maxes out a 1 Gbps line, no one will get a 1 Gbps line.

The implication is that the broad terminology will prohibit computers doing common consumer things in addition to servers. Except that hasn't happened.

The complaint was filed by a potential customer, not someone who ran in to the restriction. In fact, it sounds as though Google Fiber keeps making exceptions for even less consumer-like things (Gaming servers in this case).

<comment><USER36> No, if everybody maxes out a 1 Gbps line, the ISPs will invest in faster networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> From [http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/history/](http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/history/)

1996: "BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year—eventually taking up too much bandwidth to suit the university."

1998: "Google sets up workspace in Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park."

I wonder, were those business class connections? Or were they maybe bending the rules just at bit at times?

</comment><comment><USER38> I love the use of "should" in "you should not host any type of server using your Google Fiber connection".

For a legal document, that's a pretty muddy word. It could be just a suggestion or it could be interpreted as "shall", basically making it a demand.

</comment><comment><USER39> In other words, now that Google is an ISP, all the concerns that ISP's have about traffic management suddenly make sense.

</comment><comment><USER40> If they had said only 256 or 128 mb/sec of your 1024 mb/sec is allowed for home server traffic, I'd be ok with that. Yeah, it's a residential connection, so the TOS would surely be different. But as it stands, I now have no compelling reason to choose them over the competition (who will also be offering fast transfer speeds once Google Fiber comes to Austin)

<comment><USER41> The competition will have the same terms. None of the broadband providers in the US offer restriction-free upstream traffic on their consumer lines. You have to pay more for a different kind of account for that. This is called price discrimination, and it's a _good thing_ for the consumer as it reduces prices. No one could afford to offer 1Gbps for $70/mo or whatever it costs given a typical service provision load of ~50% utilization.

Now, I will agree that as written the terms are inflexible and would appear to apply to things like an inbound ssh port or personal web server, which are certainly things many technical readers would want to use and which clearly won't impact the network.

Also: since when is this about "network neutrality", which has always been about backbone traffic. Consumer lines have _always_ been subject to price discrimination like this.

<comment><USER25> > Also: since when is this about "network neutrality"

The reason that this is even in the news is that this is Google's response to a complaint to the FCC that Google is violating the neutrality provisions of the FCC Open Internet Report and Order. So, its an issue _precisely_ because its about net neutrality.

> which has always been about backbone traffic.

No, net neutrality has not always been (at least, not _exclusively_ ) about backbone traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What does the policy mean by servers? "Hosting a server" might include hosting custom games in Warcraft III or hosting netplay games in $FIGHTING_GAME_OF_CHOICE. It might also include operating some machines that are "servers" even if they are not running any particular "server" software.

</comment><comment><USER43> Sounds to me like they want to offer a Business level tier. The wording _" should not host any type of server"_ was probably groomed by the legal team. My guess is rather than define what a server is, which is almost impossible, they are covered by that vague terminology.

The important question is to what degree do they enforce it? 0.01%? If so, then no big deal to me. I'm paying a lot more for a lot less with my current ISP. I'd be glad to endure Google's draconion rules.

</comment><comment><USER44> Google dismissed the _don 't be evil_ mantra a while ago and has little resemblance to the company of integrity so many of us fell in love with. They're so big and pervasive - it's a juxtapose of government and multinational corporation with vastly different set of goals and values. Incidentally, not very favorable for us, users. But it will take 3 Stallman's and another Snowden some time in the future for people to finally realize that :)

</comment><comment><USER45> Its not really against net neutrality in the 'traditional' sense... but its more inappropriate advertising. Google and all the other ISPs advertise their service as 10 Mbps Down/5 Mbps Up, when really if you read the fine print its ('up to' 10 Mbps Down/spike uploads of 5 Mbps but not sustained uploads... which is a fine product, and not a big dealbreaker to most people, but is definitely not what is usually advertised.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm trying to piece together the legal basis for the whole no-residential- server thing, and the more I dig, the more baseless it all seems.

Darah Franklin's dismissal [1] of McClendon's complaint states, 'Google Fiber's server policy is an aspect of "reasonable network management" that the Open Internet Order and Rules specifically permit.' That seems like an awfully vague phrase, "reasonable network management", but here's one interpretation, offered by the FCC back in 2009 [2]:

>> Under the draft proposed rules, subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service: ... 2. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user's choice; 3. would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user's choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;

'Lawful services'? 'Lawful devices'? It seems like a private git server should be allowed, after all. But that was just a draft. Franklin doesn't mention any room for exceptions, though:

> The server policy has been established to account for the congestion > management and network security needs of Google Fiber's network > architecture.

Okay, so "reasonable network management" is justified by "congestion management and network security needs". But then I read the FCC's 2008 decision concerning Comcast's BitTorrent RST abuse [3], and right there on the first page:

>> We consider whether Comcast, a provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, may selectively target and interfere with connections of peer-to- peer (P2P) applications under the facts of this case. Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, we conclude that the company's discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management.

So the FCC has indeed set precedent that a necessity to "ease network congestion" does not necessarily outweigh "the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet". Franklin makes more than one reference to a certain Preserving the Open Internet Broadband Industry Practices document [4]. I found this reference incredibly brazen. Franklin claims this server issue was specifically discussed. In the document, Google actually argues

> The threat that wireless networks may develop into fundamental non-neutral > platforms is real. For example, the terms imposed by most major wireless > carriers purport to prohibit the use of, at minimum: ... server or host > applications. ... All of these actions threaten user choice and freedom > online, and adopting network neutrality rules for wireless networks will > allow the Commission to take action against these kinds of practices in the > future.

What the hell? Google specifically advised the FCC to disallow what Franklin specifically says is industry standard. Google is playing a Dark Knight here: the laws are bad, and Google wants everyone to feel the full force of bad law. I can't applaud them for playing the status quo so hard like this, and now that they're moving into the ISP sector it's getting more and more dissonant to hear them claim they're powerless over industry standards.

Lastly, I can't find the forum thread described by the Wired article, "But in the Google Fiber forums, employees assure subscribers the rules aren't meant to apply to Minecraft servers." I think this kind of deception is heinous. The employees can't say what their legal department will or will not state. They're maintaining a false PR stance that is simply misleading: Google (Darah Franklin) has clearly stated Google Fiber disallows servers. Tricking the public to think they are in the clear to run a Minecraft server is perhaps well-intentioned but just doesn't jive with "Don't be evil."

[1] [http://lwn.net/images/pdf/google_fiber_response_to_mcclendon...](http://lwn.net/images/pdf/google_fiber_response_to_mcclendon_complaint__as_filed_072913.pdf)

[2] [http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-294159...](http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-294159A1.pdf)

[3] [http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-183...](http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-183A1.pdf)

[4] [http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/fp- legacy/FP_Co...](http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/fp- legacy/FP_Comments_wireless_and_managed_services_10_12_2010.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER47> Sigh. To disallow the ability to run services from anywhere, particularly home, undermines the very future of the Internet's full potential as a massively distributed computational aid and data store. Google was the great hope in this. Now they too have succumbed to the $$ of acting as a cartel. Which means, eventually the Internet will be little more than a glorified cable box.

</comment><comment><USER48> Don't these terms also forbid Chromecasting? The device itself is a server on your local network.

</comment><comment><USER49> Why are ISP so terrified to say that you only get a fixed limit of bandwidth? Can you not survive in this business unless you lie and say "unlimited?" It seems we all know that unlimited actually means "some unknown number of Gb before you get a warning letter."

Server monitoring seems so easy. If you're running a serious server-based business then your upload is going to be way out of whack with download bandwidth. Why not just limit your upload traffic and let people do whatever they want?

I'd rather know what my limit was and work with it than to have my ISP tell me I have "unlimited" bandwidth, but then secretly limit or throttle me.

</comment><comment><USER50> Instead of content-based throttling, why not just switch people from 1GBPS to 10MBPS after the first NTB per billing period? Still fast enough to watch streaming video all month long, just not fast enough to _host_ streaming video.

</comment><comment><USER51> Don't be evil... Unless you know it helps us make more money or something.

</comment><comment><USER52> The key will be how they actually enforce this. Siting servers is the wrong thing to tack on to. Because there are perfectly legitimate personal servers as outlined in comments above for personal use that wouldn't eat up excessive bandwidth. That being said I think the "no professional" or "no business" uses are terrible too depending on how they choose to interpret and apply. A loosely enforced version of the latter would be better in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER53> All I can think is : thank god I don't live in the US. The telco and cable market there sounds utterly horrible.

Banning servers is normal practice? Those kind of restriction were dropped over a decade ago in civilized countries with decent broadband.

BTW, this is the second time Google has done a 180 on net neutrality. The first time was when it tried together with Verizon to redefine net neutrality with an exception for wireless networks.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why not just treat broadband as a utility like everything else (electricity, gas, water) and just charge a dollar per TB or whatever?

<comment><USER9> Because grandma is mad that she got a bill for $1,000 when her computer accidentally downloaded the Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Isn't net neutrality about giving preferential treatment to traffic depending on its point of origin? Has Google flip-flopped on this issue?? All I see is some rambling protestations about Google not allowing servers on their free internet connections.

</comment><comment><USER55> "Don't Be Evil... you know, generally. When it's practical. For us."

</comment><comment><USER56> Not surprised, it's a business and like every other business it is trying to protect its interests. The good news is now we know Google's stance, so it's upto you if you still want to get to Fiber.

</comment><comment><USER57> Frankly, I don't care if Google changes it's slogan to "Do lots of Evil". If it means I get Google Fiber in my area I'm all for it.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm not sure I understand the tone of that piece, it strikes me as yet another attempt at vilifying Google for the most trivial and altogether invalid reasons.

Google offers gigabit speeds in very select areas; coverage-wise they are hardly a blip on the map. Ostensibly the main strategic purpose of Google Fiber is proving that 1Gbps connections to consumers are possible and affordable, which in turn might shame the main players to up their game or result in municipal broadband initiatives and the like.

So now after scrutinizing a strictly worded and loosely enforced TOS agreement, the author (in a shameless display of feigned indignation) is invoking the plight of political dissidents?! this is absurd, the author ought to re-adjust his perspective and lay off the navel gazing.

I don't know what the future holds for Google Fiber but from afar it appears to be an experimental initiative that is still evolving, so disallowing enterprise grade servers at this point in time isn't the end of the world, keep in mind that doing similar things on competing services isn't even viable.</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't Google use infinite scroll? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'd say infinite scroll is considered to be an anti-pattern by many. It means your page can't have a footer, it means your analytics are weird (now you need to worry about scroll depth instead of just page loads). Not to mention that most implementations are buggy, mess up the scrollbar, etc.</comment>


The World's Emptiest International Airport - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-story-behind-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-sri-lankas-mattala-rajapaksa/#77fa67162fdf <comment><USER3> For those who can't access Forbes, it's a really interesting article about Sri Lanka's Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (HRI). It is an enormous airport that almost nobody goes to has one daily flight and

"a 12,000 square meter terminal building, 12 check-in counters, two gates, a runway long enough to handle the largest commercial jets, and capacity for one million passengers per year"

It was funded by Chinese companies trying to invest in large infrastructure projects, and partly the fault of the dictator of Sri Lanka, who was recently displaced.

</comment><comment><USER4> San Bernardino International may be emptier: [http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2014/03/26/16181/san- berna...](http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2014/03/26/16181/san-bernardino- airport-hopes-for-international-tra/)

<comment><USER5> Yes. Holy crap. That's definitely much worse; it's a fully built out international airport with no passenger service _at all_ , international or otherwise. (I wonder if that means they have the security checkpoints and whatnot staffed, or does that only happen after someone moves in?)

Worse, it's half an hour away from another international airport (ONT), which is already pretty empty. So it seems highly unlikely that any sane airline would ever start service to SBD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of the massive bus terminal in Tel Aviv, which is in some ways the opposite (crowded, but not necessarily with passengers):

[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/stop-that- bus/](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/stop-that-bus/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Too bad Forbes requires you to disable adblock.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why anyone submits Forbes articles here anymore.

<comment><USER9> There should be a blocker for sites with anti-adblock system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would be willing to fly to it to easily experience being in the middle of the jungle. If they can develop sustainable eco tourism that would be a boost for the local economy. Hopefully it would be a trickle that starts a stream of revenue for the region.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of The Tale of Two Bridges: [http://hintjens.com/blog:16](http://hintjens.com/blog:16)

</comment><comment><USER12> I was half expecting it to name my local airport, Dayton International - <USER2> security line is usually about 6 people or less when I go through. It's a breeze compared to most other airports I visit.

I think it must have one flight to Canadia or something, I'm not sure how else it would get the 'International' moniker.

<comment><USER13> 6 people? You must be going during their busy periods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> heh. Reminds me of the alleged ghost cities of China. Huge development projects in back waters waiting to be populated. Since China was behind the investment I wouldn't be surprised if similar mechanisms are at play between the domestic and international variant of this phenomena.

<comment><USER15> I this case it sounds like it was more an ego-driven pet project of the former president.

<comment><USER14> I stand by my statement.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many still use torrents to download Movies instead of using Netflix? - <AUTHOR> Nowadays there are many services to stream movies/tv shows such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon etc..
Do you find always what are you looking for?
Do you use Torrents when something is missing? <comment><USER2> Netflix/Lovefilm, etc. are a good way to justify that you've "paid" for that thing you're downloading off bittorrent.

There are so many ways that the paid content providers just can't hang, that even if something is available from them, you'll often get better service by just downloading the equivalent torrent.

So thanks, Lovefilm for sending that Mission Impossible DVD in the mail with so much DRM that it won't play in any of the DVD players in any of my 3 machines using any of their various operating systems. No, don't trouble yourself sending out a replacement disc. I've already watched the movie (turns out there's this website you can type movie names into and simply download them in HD. Who knew?) But thanks for making the effort.

And thanks, NFL GamePass for selling me access to all the games this year for $150, but it turns out that you'll also need to not let your Auth servers go down, say, four minutes before the game kicks off because that way I'd be able to actually watch it. But again, don't sweat it. Somebody actually cut together a nicer, higher resolution version of the same game and stuck it online.

It works out fine, actually. The studios, rightsholders, etc. all get my money like they wanted (and I wanted to give them). And I get to watch the stuff they tried their best to let me watch using their sorta broken infrastructure.

Sorted.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've refrained from illegal torrenting and the like.

However, Netflix' streaming content in the U.S. has been getting steadily worse, from my perspective, over the past couple of years.

Numerous films and distributors that used to be on there, are gone. "Owners" creating their own channels or shopping around for "better" deals, I guess.

New additions seem to consist largely of TV series -- a few big names, and a bunch of lower-tier stuff -- and B movies as well as an increasingly poor selection of foreign films (including _a lot_ of Korean stuff, amongst others). Sure, they picked up "Iron Man" and a couple of other big names, but these are really outliers. Most of what they are adding and maintaining is "meh", at best.

I'm not willing to sign up for a gazillion different, fragmented services. So, from my perspective, "legal" streaming is already beginning to -- or well on its way to -- failing.

My bandwidth hungry neighbors and increasingly crappy and overpriced ISP aside, the technology actually works pretty well, these days.

It is, once again, the business side that is failing.

Finally, with respect to this, and to O'Reilly Safari and a few other things, I've come to the opinion that temporary, fee-based access to a online library is a bad financial decision. I wish I'd taken the fees I've paid, and just purchased titles. DVD disks and e-books or real books.

And while I'm not a "file sharer", I have no problem with the idea of stripping the DRM from said purchases, for my own use. I'll be damned I'm going to let e.g. a dispute between Amazon and some publisher or some problem with my account result in the compulsory "unpurchasing" of a title, or my entire library, that they've "sold" to me.

I haven't done it yet -- most of my ebooks are DRM-free through O'Reilly -- but they are pushing me in that direction.

</comment><comment><USER4> People outside the US have much less choice (both in services and content)

I've had netflix for about 6 months (using unlock-us to access all regions) and have probably torrented only 10-20 movies in that time (down from a few a week)

</comment><comment><USER5> In most countries, other than US, UK and a few others, these services are either not available, or the internet speeds are not fast enough to stream movies. For eg. in India, we the avg speed we get is around 20KBps. So its ptrtty much impossible to strem via Netflix, Hulu or amazon.

Torrent is the best (read only) option we have. I myself download about 3-4 movies and several seasons of tv shows a week.

</comment><comment><USER6> We don't have Netflix here in Europe, so I guess you're only asking this question to a small number of Internet users.

I would totally use Netflix if it were available to me. I tire of downloading torrents to watch films and shows - if the producers of this content were more tech-savvy, I'd be quite happy to be paying for it. As long as it worked.

<comment><USER7> "Europe" is a big place. The UK, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, and Finland all have Netflix.

I cannot speak to how good it is in all of those regions but in the UK it is quite good, not quite as good as the US, but well worth the ticket price.

<comment><USER8> As of today, it is not available in Spain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Netflix has a pretty good collection of mainstream movies and series. Big plus is that my wife and (young) children can use it, too. I do use newsgroups sometimes to download series (X-Files) or older movies (Bullitt) that I can't find on Netflix, but I'm downloading substantially less than before.

</comment><comment><USER10> People do use Torrents quite actively still. Mainly because movies are out way faster than on netflix and you have to use third-parties to access the US- netflix which contains way more movies than danish netflix. Also in danish netflix you are forced to watch most movies with subtitles :/

</comment><comment><USER11> Primary reason to use Torrents is to get the latest movies that are not out on Netflix yet. I am still waiting for the movie "Escape Plan" and even though i m not big into torrents, it is making me go that route.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is nothing on Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always torrent. I usually always find what I'm looking for the day it goes on air (new TV shows like Shark Tank).

</comment><comment><USER14> I use Netflix and iTunes through my apple tv. I've gotten too lazy to download anything via torrents.

</comment><comment><USER15> I do. Netflix, Hulu, etc are not available in my country.

I do have a Spotify account though.</comment>


Ask HN: What substantive good can you do with $10k and 3hr/wk? - <AUTHOR>

Substantive good is good enough. Extra points for significant quantities of substantive good. <comment><AUTHOR> Possible candidates:

Math and science education

Public health campaign

Microfinance

Contribute to/volunteer with existing charity

Give it all to Watsi?

Invest it, then use the returns for good?</comment>


Medium will now pay writers based on how many claps they get - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/22/16180150/medium-paywall-articles-claps-author-payments <comment><USER2> Well, the first paragraph already has erroneous information. You cannot give infinite claps. There is a 50 clap per article limit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a registered Medium user. I assume you mean a reader gets 50 claps to give out, right (not "can clap" something 50x)?

<comment><USER2> each reader (user) has the ability to clap each article 50 times. Which seams like a lot.

At first this system might seem a tad odd, but they did say that the funds for each subscription are handed out to writers based on the distrubution of that individual users claps. so if that individual user is clapping consistently, then it isn't an issue. The only problem I could forsee is good articles getting drowned out because most that read it only clapped once, whereas other articles fewer readers could clap 50x and thus resulting in more claps.

Now that I think of it they don't really say how claps affect visibility.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find a remote, customer support job? - <AUTHOR>

So I'm relatively tech-y and looking for a customer support job I can do remotely (although it doesn't have to be strictly tech-oriented).
I'm loving weworkremotely.com at the moment but was wondering, are there any other sites I can use to find remote jobs?
Or do you know of any companies in particular that are hiring? (Not necessarily your own.)
Any help would be appreciated. :) <comment><USER2> Simply Hired - They have a "Telecommute" filter on the left hand side under "Job Type". Watch out for scams, though. If a company ask you to pay for a credit check or training, run the other way.

[http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=technical+support&fjt=te...](http://www.simplyhired.com/search?q=technical+support&fjt=telecommute)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, man. Will check it out. :)</comment></comment>


We'll Be Circling Back - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/circling.html <comment><USER3> From: edw519

To: Paul Graham

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your note and sending ?investor? our way, we really appreciate it and always enjoy meeting with YC followers. Keep 'em coming!

We loved ?investor? and are impressed by both his pedigree and the portfolio he has assembled thus far. It's exciting to see investors seeking "real-world" opportunities in important areas, which aligns well with our long-tail world view.

However it's currently a little early for us to get sidetracked here. We'd like to see ?investor? show a few more exits and demonstrate a more complete core understanding of our market. We've offered to introduce him to a few value-add founders within our network, who we think could really help him work through and grasp some of the technological issues fundamental to achieving a product/market fit in our industry. We plan on keeping in close touch and will be iterating back once he's at a more appropriate point to deserve equity from those who have worked so hard.

On a separate note, I feel like we could be doing more to help YC groupies. We're amazed at what people want to throw money at and we'd love to grab a coffee and talk more about how we could help investors better understand the opportunities we've poured so much of our hearts and souls into.

Best, <USER3>
<comment><USER4> I got in just 27 minutes before you: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5371322> ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"we'd love to grab a coffee"_

I couldn't help but chuckle at this as Harj even included the concept of "grabbing coffee", which is discussed in "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" [1]:

"Business people in Silicon Valley (and the whole world, for that matter) have speculative meetings all the time. They're effectively free if you're on the manager's schedule. They're so common that there's distinctive language for proposing them: saying that you want to 'grab coffee,' for example.

Speculative meetings are terribly costly if you're on the maker's schedule, though. Which puts us in something of a bind. Everyone assumes that, like other investors, we run on the manager's schedule. So they introduce us to someone they think we ought to meet, or send us an email proposing we grab coffee. At this point we have two options, neither of them good: we can meet with them, and lose half a day's work; or we can try to avoid meeting them, and probably offend them."

[1] <http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

<comment><USER6> Not to veer too far off-topic, but these "speculative meetings" are often (but not always) well worth the schedule disruption, even if it ripples out across several extra "productive" hours. Perhaps for Paul Graham, who has all the VCs in the world scrambling to fund his picks, it's not so important, but for the little people like you and I, the value of a good network is immense.

Business is primarily a social thing. It always has been, and is no different today. This is why inferior products can make tons of money.

<comment><USER7> There's some interesting discussion around this phenomena on this Quora question:

[http://www.quora.com/Manners-and-Etiquette/How-do-you- polite...](http://www.quora.com/Manners-and-Etiquette/How-do-you-politely- turn-down-someone-who-wants-to-grab-coffee-sometime)

and this follow-up:

[http://www.quora.com/Manners-and-Etiquette/How-do-you- dodge-...](http://www.quora.com/Manners-and-Etiquette/How-do-you-dodge-being- politely-turned-down-when-you-want-to-grab-coffee-sometime-with-someone-when- you-have-meaningful-things-to-talk-about)

I consider both threads to be worthwhile reads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I might be misreading this, but it seems like PG is humiliating one of his partners in public.

EDIT: Yep, I was misreading this. It wasn't so clear that it was an inside joke. I guess the joke's on me and the stereotypical non-partner VC, ha ha?

From Wikipedia:

Harjeet Taggar (born June 8, 1985), is a British businessperson and partner at the seed-stage investment firm, Y Combinator. He was formerly funded by Y Combinator and sold his company Auctomatic to Canadian company Live Current Media at age 22.

In 2010 he was named as the first new partner at Y Combinator since its founding in 2005, aged 25. In 2011 he was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harjeet_Taggar>

<comment><USER9> This is mail from Harjeet written as if it's from a VC to a YC partner like himself. Since Harj is not a VC and is part of YC, he wouldn't write Paul a mail like that. It's satire.

<comment><USER10> If it's an inside joke, then it's probably a good idea to explain it as such instead of downvoting the parent (not everybody on this site is an insider).

<comment><USER8> YC is apparently into inside jokes now:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5363290> (t-shirt story)

I wonder what that's about, if anything. The last time I really encountered inside jokes was in high school. It always seemed like some way to establish a dividing line between cool and uncool people.

<comment><USER11> Have you never had an inside joke with someone? It's not about exclusion, it's about connecting with someone else (most of the time anyway).

<comment><USER12> But whether or not the point is exclusion, I don't think you can deny that inside jokes foster a feeling of isolation for those not in the know.

<comment><USER13> Especially when you post it to your very public blog. Who is this post meant for?

<comment><USER8> It's meant for everyone, from the cool people who got it right away at the A table where Paul and Harj sit (e.g. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5371321> ), right on down to the D table where people like me and you sit. You can't have popular without unpopular.

 _When we were in junior high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. This was easy to do, because kids only ate lunch with others of about the same popularity. We graded them from A to E. A tables were full of football players and cheerleaders and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild cases of Down's Syndrome, what in the language of the time we called "retards."

We sat at a D table, as low as you could get without looking physically different. We were not being especially candid to grade ourselves as D. It would have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise. Everyone in the school knew exactly how popular everyone else was, including us._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html>

... and the people at the E table are the hellbanned ones like losethos / SparrowOS, who incidentally might just get up and leave if someone at the A table told them nobody was allowed to talk to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> VCs, management consultants, business gurus... all the same rubbish.

After working in Big 4 management consulting jobs for almost six years, I'm constantly surprised that phrases like "value-add" and "validate a couple of the core assumptions" still have the power to bring me out in a cold sweat.

But what is it going to take to end this nonsense? We know we're talking rubbish. Most of us hate these stock business-speak phrases, yet still most of us choose to hide behind them. Clients are partly to blame, but an industry that tries to differentiate itself by the bizarreness of its terminology (thereby fabricating "exclusivity")is more to blame.

When are we going to wake up and realise that speaking in plain, simple, understandable English does not make us look stupid and simple. Quite the opposite.

<comment><USER15> Your irony detector needs adjustment. As pg wrote in his introduction to this letter,

"I sent the YC partners an email saying I was growing increasingly impressed with one of the startups in the current batch and asking what they thought of them, and Harj Taggar replied with this brilliant piece of VC boilerplate."

The joke is on the people who think that Taggar was expressing what he thinks, rather than what he has heard too many venture capitalists say when they aren't willing to say what they think.

<comment><USER14> Then the irony is as delicious as a Hacker News T-shirt ;-)

<comment><USER16> What is ironic about a Hacker News T-shirt?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My only issue with this email is that he used the subject "we" when mentioning grabbing a coffee. The current accepted standard of phrasing in business circles eliminates the subject and would read "would love to grab a coffee".

Would love to hear your thoughts on this space.

<comment><USER18> Is that really an accepted standard? I have to go out on a limb here and ask if that's even a proper sentence? Who/what is the subject? It certainly helps to know who you would be having coffee with.

<comment><USER19> The subject is an implied first person. (i.e., "I" or "we.")

I see this kind of omission as a way for cowards to avoid explicitly standing behind their request, both to diminish their own disappointment if the recipient says no or ignores them and to mitigate the chance that the recipient perceives their note as 'needy.'

Just my 2¢.

<comment><USER20> I was wondering about this construct several times in the past.

AFAIK English is not a pro-drop language, which means that the construct should be ungrammatical.

My impression was that it was introduced to American English be immigrants with pro-drop native languages (Italians? Slavs?) Am I completely off track?

<comment><USER21> It depends on whether you think "ungrammatical" means "not approved of by prescriptivists", or you mean "not used and/or not understood by fluent speakers".

Given that you know the word "pro-drop", I assume you know this, and I'm not sure if I should bother continuing in this vein. Maybe you're asking for a descriptive grammaticality judgement from fluent English speakers?

I agree that from a prescriptivist perspective, this is improper formal writing.

From a descriptivist perspective, I try to avoid biz guys, but I suspect the GP post nailed it, with respect to common usage in the appropriate sociolect (the same sociolect that has "proof points", "value-add", "circling back", etc). Although maybe not for the last sentence of an email that already had that much circumlocution.

<comment><USER22> Ungrammaticality changes over time. For a new grad emailing her boss, douchy pro-dropping in English is ungrammatical. Eventually, it sinks in as an acquired taste, and becomes grammatical.

Hey, is it ungrammatical to call a woman Douchy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I... I hope I'm not ruining it by asking if this is a test to see how the HN comments respond to subtlety?

<strike>I suppose that's part of the joke, though like some good jokes it makes me sad. We get upset that VC's respond with boilerplate and knee-jerk, but then we do the same thing.</strike>

Update: egh, looks like we're not doing too badly.

<comment><USER24> > We get upset that VC's respond with boilerplate

Even if it sounds impersonal and lazy, this is just called being polite, most people still prefer an answer of this kind to "lol no, sorry, you suck". And that's why we do it aswell. Perhaps we should work more on make it seem less impersonal, but the message is clear and loud in any case.

<comment><USER25> Dude I would take a cut to have someone as a vc who said "lol no, sorry, you suck." I mean jesus christ these are the last people we want patting our egos.

<comment><USER26> Not me, I like people being polite with me. Which doesn't mean these messages couldn't be more informal and direct. But "you suck" is not impersonal, is rude.

I have my ego pretty much under control, exagerated compliments won't do any damage here.

<comment><USER27> Agreed. I would rather rate boilerplate than rate no response at all.

<comment><USER28> Great comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Brillant, and there is a common denominator across all this kind of communications: _there is no real information_ , so after some practice it's easy to spot it's just bullshit. Btw this style is not just common to VCs, but also to clueless management.

<comment><USER30> Here's what I gleamed from the message: 1\. Taggar doesn't want to invest in the company. 2\. He wants Graham to keep referring other companies to him. 3\. He may want to invest in the company in the future. 4\. He introduced the founder to some of his acquaintances (see 2).

The writing is pretty much WYSIWYG...

<comment><USER29> Yes but, what is the value added by the people they want to get involved? Why is too early to invest? Just because there are not already a zillion of users and they are not able to evaluate? Why later it could be interesting?

Basically there is just boilerplate to say "no thanks" but no real information. Just a general feeling that they are not able to really evaluate.

<comment><USER31> I don't know the guy, but... consider the power dynamic. PG sends him a sales pitch and the guy pushes back. What's he supposed to do, fall all over himself and say "where do I sign"?

No, he says, "yeah, maybe".

Wouldn't you do the same if someone came to your door looking to sell you something?

<comment><USER32> > Wouldn't you do the same if someone came to your door looking to sell you > something?

My usual reaction is "what else d'ya got?"--until they run out of "else"s.

This way, the situation is reframed as them not having anything I like, rather than me not being willing to accept what they have--and it's then much easier to just politely end the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Let's look at what a VC is trying to accomplish here.

\- They don't want to invest for reason {X}. Could be as trivial as someone not liking the founder or they could genuinely think they don't know whether the company will do well.

\- They don't want to tell the founders what they really think. Mostly because they want to hold open the option in case they are proven wrong as often happens. As much as founders say they like honest replies, I've seen so many founders say "VC X said he doesn't want to invest in us because he disagrees with us on {reason}- I'm going to prove that moron so wrong".

\- They want to help out the founder with a couple of intros so that the founder doesn't feel like he got nothing from them in return.

The boilerplate/corporate B.S language? Terrible and everyone could easily do better. But there's no easy to tell someone you don't believe in something they're putting their heart and soul into.

YC has the nicest rejection mails of all of VC-land and I've still seen YC- rejects get really angry and make it their life's work to prove pg wrong.

<comment><USER34> Are you sure these YC-rejects are building their companies just to prove pg wrong? They are probably just pursuing their dream, which is what led them to apply to YC to begin with. If they succeed, proving YC wrong is just a nice side-effect for them (see: <http://lightsailenergy.com/> and others).

<comment><USER33> Either way, they hold a hostility towards YC ( or anyone who rejects them) which is what such 'soft letdowns' are trying to mitigate.

<comment><USER35> I think YC is great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is brilliant.

I often wonder of VCs actually have a secret website where they go on it, select from a half dozen drop boxes of platitudes they want to include, and then out spits a message along these lines. Over the years my inbox has gathered enough of them that I could probably extract most of the patterns.

<comment><USER37> Have you considered you're doing it wrong? If you asked out 100 girls and they all blew you off, it would be time for some introspection. VCs are just ugly girls with more money.

<comment><USER38> Eh, no. I would take a bath, put on some _nicer_ clothes, and set out to find girl 101.

        while single:
            mingle()

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How many users do you have? Do you have traction? Is it viral? Who else has invested in your startup? Did Sequoia pass? Why did Sequoia pass?

[Explain how your startup will make 90 billion dollars in the first year]

I'm sorry, I've already invested into too many companies, but if you know any other Y Companies, I would love to speak to them.

<comment><USER40> Vu, try this: "Hi. What are other companies in your batch we should invest in?" <\- seriously, first question. I think our conversation ended shortly thereafter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For those in various sub-threads arguing that this is simply polite, what's wrong with the following email?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your note and sending ⟨startup⟩ our way, we really appreciate it and always enjoy meeting with YC founders. Keep 'em coming!

I see a lot of promise there, but it's not enough for us yet. We've offered to introduce ⟨founder⟩ to a few useful contacts.

As always, we value Y Combinator, and we appreciate this and future opportunities to invest, and to help YC companies. Our calendar is always open for coffee or whatever.

\--jholman

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

It's half the length. But it's still polite, appreciative, etc.

I guess it depends on what the sender thinks of the recipient, with respect to narcissism and self-importance, and what kind of sucking up is predicted to be effective. When I read plausible sucking-up, I feel gratified. When I read implausible sucking-up, I feel manipulated.

<comment><USER41> I like this. I live in a country where exaggerated politeness is deeply ingrained, and redundant over-explanation common. I've been here long enough that it's rubbed off on me to where the original spoof message didn't really ring any alarm bells. Your rewrite is natural English without the BS. The only change I would make if I wrote it myself would be taking out "or whatever". I blame the fashion for that word to be used on its own disrespectfully - <USER2> brain often reads it as the British "wha'ever", or the US "whatEVVVVAAAARRRR".

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is really funny, because it is not far off from the "boilerplate" responses YC sends out to rejected YC applicants.

>We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your late application for funding. Please don't take it personally. The chances of a late application being accepted are much lower than for an application submitted by the deadline.

If you want to apply again for the summer 2013 cycle, the application form will probably be online within a few weeks.

Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why:

<http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html>

Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. We have good statistical evidence that we fail to interview a significant number of startups that we'd accept if we did.

We're trying to get better at this, but it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Remove "We should grab coffee" to "apply again" and "We'll be Circling Back" to "if We rejected you and you become successful, email us about it". In the case of the VC if I raise funding from another VC and you rejected me do you think I would let them "circle back around"?; or in the case of YC you think if my start-up becomes a billion dollar success I am really going to waste my time explaining to YC in an email where they went wrong rejecting me?

<comment> daniel-cussen Having read that and two college rejection letters, I'd say they went as far as they could in an email that was ostensibly a reply-to-all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi Craig,

Thanks for your post and sending ⟨link⟩ our way, we really appreciate it and always enjoy reading about We'll Be Circling Back. Keep 'em coming!

We loved We'll Be Circling Back and are impressed by both it's background and the statement it makes. It's exciting to see entrepreneurs tackling "real- world" problems in important areas, which aligns well with our hacker interests.

However it's currently a little early for us to make a comment here. We'd like to see We'll Be Circling Back show a few more proof points and validate a couple of the core assumptions underlying the post. We've offered to introduce it to a few hackers, within our network, who we think could really analyze it and shape some of the strategic issues it'll face in the coming months. We plan on keeping in close touch and will be circling back once it's at a more appropriate stage for commenting.

On a separate note, I feel like we could be doing more to help Hacker News posters. We're in awe of what you've built over there at the Hacker News posting and we'd love to grab a coffee and talk more about how we could be helpful to both the posts and you.

Best,

Samiur

</comment><comment><USER43> I was totally confused reading through this the first time - it made me roll my eyes at least 5 times. Then I realized it was satirical and my faith in PG was once again restored.

</comment><comment><USER44> I laughed so hard when I got this email that I actually spit my coffee out.

</comment><comment><USER45> Did you know? Jokes are much funnier after you explain them.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm sure something Bayesian like POPFile could filter that correctly to Trash.

</comment><comment><USER47> This reminds me of the fearsome chapter in Launch Pad where Paul Graham is telling the founders of Science Exchange that VCs use any excuse when they dont like you as a reason not to fund in their case circumvention in this case "strategic issues and proof points". Which leads into another Paul Graham quote "Listen to the answer ,dont listen to the reason" Also the investor couldnt have been more obvious with the fact that the real reason he emailed Paul was that he wants to get his claws in YC on a deeper level " keep em coming" "on a seperate note we feel we could be doing more to help YC companies" on a seperate note? really? Paul is a veteran at the VC game so trying to bait and switch him with all the "we loved him and where impressed but" nonsense is crazy to me. But its one of his partners so it might be just a simulation of the dozens of emails he gets like this on a daily basis

</comment><comment><USER48> Hi X,

It's been wonderful talking to you. We are pretty amazed by your team's ___ chops and xxx.

We talked about the opportunity briefly during our meeting and would like to see a more fuller team and strategy around the product before getting into a deeper relationship.

Congrats on an incredible product and let me know if we would be any help to you along the way.

 _If you get it_

</comment><comment><USER49> So it's obviously satire, and I'm a huge PG/YC supporter, although consider this: PG (through the voice of another YC faithful) is in a way attacking the "dullard VC", lampooning them for being formulaic and unimaginative.

But, in a sense he too is using subtlety to obfuscate the real message and the reader is left to fill in the blanks. It's probably meant in good humor, but usually there is a little truth and sore feelings behind these sort of jests.

Now maybe the VC's are arrogant or whatever, although this does seem like tit- for-tat in my book.

I'll go out on a limb here and say I don't think YC-style is going to "take over" and obliterate the traditional VC model, nor do I believe traditional VC's should dismiss YC-style investing as chump-change or unimportant.

</comment><comment><USER50> There are a zillion things I do not understand about startups.

But one thing I know: never use investors. You're better off trading the next Facebook for an 8-figure startup and just not putting yourself through any of it.

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't know what's funnier - the link, or the clueless hacker news people!

</comment><comment><USER52> You know, I don't actually find this offensive, and it ranks fairly low on the comedic value scale for me.

He is essentially saying "I'm not interested right now, but I might be in the future. I don't want to tell you why. I respect you and wish to be polite and leave the door open to future discussion"

Sure, the message is padded out and business bullshitty/flowery (depending on your POV), but it doesn't give me the willies..

</comment><comment><USER53> Reminds me of that parody of a VC guy telling siri to "clear out my inbox with wishy-washy responses to everything": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WZA0TATcEI>. This is what he means by wishy- washy reponses. :)

</comment><comment><USER54> Yes, it was a brilliant parody, send up, etc. of standard venture partner communications, especially when they are loquacious but really saying "No".

The main point is, they are keeping hidden what they are really thinking. Right: They like the project and the founder, the connection with "real world" problems, etc. All total BS. They want more "proof points" -- mostly BS.

What they don't want to do is what the founder had to do -- deeply evaluate the promise of the project now.

What they really want to see they didn't mention but is in one word, significant and rapidly growing 'traction'.

What's going on? The venture partner is working for his limited partners, and they think much like traditional private equity investors or just commercial bankers. So, the limited partners really want their venture partners to make financial investments only in measurable financial assets. The limited partners would greatly prefer there to be audited financial statements, but in a pinch they will let their venture partners settle for a surrogate measure, 'traction', from, say, Comscore or some such.

If a venture partner is especially curious, then they may want to try the app or Web site. Why? Mostly to keep up their "deep domain knowledge" but otherwise to evaluate how millions of users might like the app or Web site. If such an evaluation looks good beyond belief, then they might make a seed investment.

That's just how the venture capital business works.

Is this narrow focus on 'traction' and essentially ignoring everything else working? At least on average, over the past 10 years or so, apparently not. Or as in a recent post at AVC.COM, on average, the venture capital ROI figures have been significantly less good than an index fund.

The fundamental gap is 'planning': Can we plan a project, execute essentially the plan, and with high batting average get the intended results of the plan or at least significantly high ROI? That's the fundamental challenge. And mostly in venture capital, the answer is "No". That is, the industry does not take such planning seriously.

Is all such planning so hopeless? No: Quite broadly in our economy and technology, we can plan and then execute the plan with reasonably high batting average. Even for projects that appear to be highly technical, original, and 'innovative', there can be some good early evidence of the good or bad prospects of the project. Project selection is important, and there are means of selecting good projects with reasonably good batting averages, averages much higher than in venture capital.

But back to the limited partners: They still want to think like private equity people or just commercial bankers. They just do. And, instead of changing, they will pick venture firms more carefully or just invest less in the 'venture capital asset class'.

But just now for the most interesting part of venture capital investing, 'information technology' based mostly on just software, the venture capital 'business model' is under attack: The reason is the recent and astounding ratios of price and performance for computer hardware and communications bandwidth and also the powerful infrastructure software available at least initially essentially for free. So, for a startup based on software, computing, and the Internet, the path to the coveted 'traction' is just one or a few guys living cheaply and typing quickly. Then, with such low 'burn rate', once they get the traction, and especially if their traction is growing very rapidly, they stand to be nicely profitable already or soon and, thus, no longer in great need of equity investment and likely reluctant to sign the usual term sheet and subordinate themselves to a Board controlled by venture partners. So far this threat to venture capital has not a lot of examples and maybe no examples of really big wins, e.g., another Facebook, but the threat is coming like an 80,000 pound 18 wheel truck at 80 MPH just 50 feet away.

<comment><USER55> One of the most lucid, entertaining and CORRECT analyses of the VC industry I have ever read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> TL;DR: No.

On a related note, dilbert has a piece about how most management is basically BS: [http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/managementsuccessleadership_mo...](http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/managementsuccessleadership_mostly_bullshit/)

<comment><USER57> I thought that's been the driving idea behind Dilbert for its entire run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> So funny. The hilarious thing is some VCs actually talk like that in person too! Even when they are really just trying to say "Hey, computer guy, stand in line at the A&TT store for 125 bucks and hour and get me that new iPhone for me."

</comment><comment><USER59> Awesome! I'm sure there can be a whole series of "typical response emails"....from Management, from large Co to Tiny Co, from girlfriend to ex-bf :)

In fact someone should create a Yahoo like auto-memo creator from a few years back for this precise reason.

</comment><comment><USER60> How do other founders deal with non-committal VC nonsense? I feel like only taking targeted meetings where social capital gets spent on introductions to avoid this takes too much serendipity out of the equation.

</comment><comment><USER61> Classic.

</comment><comment><USER62> After looking through the comments I'm surprised there's no speculation on the promising startup that PG reached out to the YC partners about. Any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER63> Let me know if we can be of any " other " help.

</comment><comment><USER64> On the brighter side for VCs, they can just link to this article from now on instead of typing out a 4-paragraph reply.

</comment><comment><USER65> "grab a coffee and talk " - that rang a bell with something I read this week on TC

</comment><comment><USER66> If that's boilerplate, I think he should be <he/she> :)

</comment><comment><USER67> Very helpful, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER68> Dear Paul and Harj irony falls on deaf ears.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is what billionares do for fun?

</comment><comment><USER70> Is this a joke?

</comment><comment><USER68> Haha.

</comment><comment><USER71> I like getting boilerplate responses from people, it's basically a message to me: You are worth nothing to me and if I can make a profit by throwing you under the bus, I will make no hesitation to do so, and you shouldn't expect me to.

It's actually a refreshing whiff of the jungle. Kill, or be killed.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the average salary of a tech person in your country? - <AUTHOR> test <comment><AUTHOR> H</comment>


Google Adds Voice And Video Chat to Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/11/google-adds-voice-and-video-chat-to-gmail/ <comment><USER2> Okay, installed. Now need someone to video chat with. Requirements: Intel Mac, Gmail account, Video Chat add-on, a personality.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a duplicate: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=360952></comment>


My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police-harrass-riding-uber/

<comment><USER2> The story would have been a lot shorter if the author knew not to answer police questions.

"The officer then opened the backseat door where I was sitting and asked if I was paying for the ride."

Just don't answer. You don't have to. Even if you knew the law had passed in Denver, why would you answer? It cannot help you.

<comment><USER3> Right. Piss off a cop. Brilliant! The balanced and calculated reactions of these individuals was very impressive, I only wish I had their fortitude and thoughtfulness in such situations.

<comment><USER2> There's no need to be an rude about it.

"Sorry, officer, I don't understand your question."

"Are you paying to be a passenger in this vehicle?"

"I'm sorry, officer, I want to help you, but I just don't understand how this involves me. I'm just a passenger here."

Most cops will just give up asking the question there. If the officer pushes the issue, he's being an asshole, but you can still very politely invoke your fifth amendment rights: "Sorry, officer, I should have an attorney present to help me with these questions."

At that point, answers to _any_ further questions (if any: standard police policy everywhere is to cease questioning immediately) are completely inadmissable (Edwards v. Arizona, 1981).

You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride: that's true. With that said, the cops who will bring you downtown for asserting your rights are _exactly_ the cops that you _really_ shouldn't be talking to.

(IANAL, FWIW; I'm just an occasionally rude anti-authoritarian citizen who has to mentally practice polite assertion of my rights so I don't accidentally piss off cops who, in their view, are just doing their jobs.)

<comment><USER4> The correct way to politely decline a question is "I'm sorry officer, I can't discuss this without my attorney present."

You're not dodging the question, but offering a well-understood reason, and the reason involves something real but external to both yourself and the LEO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This brings up an interesting point about what exactly the law is and how everyone's supposed to be aware of it.

It's 2014. Why can't officers carry a tablet that stores the entirety of the law, and show you exactly to the letter which law you're violating? Likewise, every citizen should have trivial access to the extant laws, with notes explaining them in a way that's comprehensible to anyone with a high school education.

If ignorance of the law isn't a valid excuse for breaking it, everyone should have simple access to it.

<comment><USER6> The law isn't just what's on the statute book, it has to be read in the context of case law (at least in jurisdictions that use a common law system), which evolves over time and can vary based on the individual facts of the case.

That said, things like that do exist - the UK's entire statute book (well, almost) is available online,[0] free of charge and via a RESFTful API in machine-readable formats.[1]

Likewise, the German federal government publishes the law in XML, and there's even a markdown representation available on github.[2]

[0] [http://legisltion.gov.uk/](http://legisltion.gov.uk/)

[1] [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/developer/formats](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/developer/formats)

[2] [https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze](https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It appears that this HN post links to itself instead of the article (as of 11:12pm ET). What's going on here?

Perhaps a server bug, or a mod mistake..?

<comment><USER8> The submitter didn't include a url. We'll add it. But this is not a good HN story: high controversy, low information.

<comment> robinson-wall It also just dropped from 2nd or 3rd position to 31st, pushing it off the front page, in a matter of minutes with little or no change to the ranking of anything else.

<comment><USER8> Sure; users are flagging it and we just penalized it. The story is not a good fit for HN, as anyone who has read the HN guidelines should know. It is deplorable that a police officer handled an Uber situation inappropriately, and stories with a high indignation-to-information ratio are not appropriate here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't submit this story because of the way the police office handled this person but rather because I (and most likely a good number of other readers) take uber x and should know that this could happen to them as well.

I was talking about the "legality" of uber x with a friend yesterday and figured other reader may have a similar question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Link should probably be [http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police- harrass-ridin...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/hey-denver-police-harrass- riding-uber/)

</comment><comment><USER10> A confused police officer made a bad call. Do we have to up vote every single article about Uber?

<comment><USER11> Good thing he didn't admit he was wrong. That would have shifted the entire balance of power in the nation, and anarchy would have ensued.

Edit: gonna leave my initial snark for context, but this isn't about Uber to me. It's further information about how completely out of bounds the power structure is in the US, and how accountability for police action is continuously declining.

"Uber" gives the article some sex appeal, admittedly, but I prefer to have articles about abuses of power up-voted. The more you know, and whatnot.

Apologies for the snark, but I'd rather read this article than not. You give the officer an out - he was "confused" and whatnot - but when you hold power over the general population, "bad calls" aren't as easily forgivable, because they cause real world harm - and every time they aren't held to account, police feel a bit more invincible.

<comment><USER3> No it's about the accelerating evolution of technology and disruption and the social chaos it's generating. Not saying it's bad, just that this is all happening.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has HN the worst luck with hardware? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> related to the recent downtime and HN's twitter post: [https://twitter.com/HNStatus/status/503255473286414336](https://twitter.com/HNStatus/status/503255473286414336)

      We have the worst luck with hardware :(</comment>


Tech Startups vs Rock Bands - <AUTHOR> http://www.televisionsky.org/2010/04/tech-startups-vs-rock-bands/ As someone who's been in multiple bands and startups, I've realized the parallels between starting a rock band and starting a web company are pretty spot on... <comment><USER2> The most important similarity between a musician with a major label contract and an a venture-backed entrepreneur is that both people have sold a piece of the business. "If all goes well", both people will be making money for someone else.

Never forget, MTV and Techcrunch are both the same kind of lie.

</comment><comment><USER3> You missed "have sex with 4300 groupies" vs. "not have sex since that lucky break in college."

<comment><USER4> It does seems hard to pick someone's brain, or pitch them your idea, while trying to lay them at the same time. Getting an honest opinion out of someone and swooning them seem to be mutually exclusive goals.

<comment><USER5> So could we combine this observation with the investment process? You could, say, try f-cking a VC before they ever get a chance to f-ck you over! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The rock music parallel to the "lean" startup, and why you shouldn't go the VC (major label) route is "The Problem With Music" by Steve Albini:

<http://www.negativland.com/albini.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> I want my _TechCrunch_

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it

You _get_ the _site_ on the _TechCrunch_

That ain't workin' that's the way you do it

Money for nothin' and your _conferences_ for free

(reference, in case you're too young to get it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ZEzWwKJnY>)</comment>


Learn Haskell Fast and Hard  - <AUTHOR> http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way/

<comment><USER2> great!</comment>


Cro – elegant reactive services in Perl 6 - <AUTHOR> http://mi.cro.services/ <comment><AUTHOR> Accompanying presentation explains the design from the ground up: [http://jnthn.net/papers/2017-spw-sockets- services.pdf](http://jnthn.net/papers/2017-spw-sockets-services.pdf)</comment>