What I've learned creating a startup index fund using AngelList - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@adammosam/i-recently-invested-in-over-150-startups-ad796b79502d <comment><USER2> This is the most sane and sound explanation of Angel funding I have yet to read about. Kudos to the OP for sharing the thought process.

> _I wouldn't recommend anyone to put more than 5% of his or her investment > assets into startups._

It's surprising how many people (for those who have the ability and access to do so) notoriously do not follow this advice (which is personal finance 101) and use angel investing as a status symbol.[0]

[0] - [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/07/07/how-many- angel...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/07/07/how-many-angels-is- the-right-amount-for-a-startup-to-have/)

<comment><USER3> Those who use it as a status symbol, may view it as a business expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure if index approach will work in startups given the power law dynamics. If you are investing as part of a syndicate, I doubt you get pro rata rights to ride a rocket ship up to the top, and you likely wouldn't have the dry powder to follow on anyways. But still an interesting concept.</comment>


As California Loses People, a Las Vegas Suburb Grows - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-california-loses-people-a-las-vegas-suburb-grows-11551197094 <comment><USER2> While I can hardly fault someone for looking out for their own best interests, I have a nagging fear they will just export the very problems that made them flee in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are they unaware of the pending water shortage?</comment>


Salon magazine mines crypto-cash with readers' PCs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43053783 <comment><USER2> Large discussion on HN a week ago (153 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16364919](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16364919)

</comment><comment><USER3> Prime example of failed business models and their desperate attempts to survive.

I'm really disappointed about how online publishers handle the decline of ad revenue. Of course my ad-blocker will also block your miner script, what do you think how this works? And better yet, integrating external third-party JavaScript into your website screams for abuse by attackers. Someone could just change the wallet address the scripts mine for and suddenly all your visitors not only do not mine for Salon, but mine for someone else entirely.

But yeah, ask me about "well how do we make money?" and I don't really have an answer myself. IMO sources like Patreon are the most appealing for me, though it might hurt websites I have not yet in my list and would not be able to access if I'm not a subscriber.

<comment><USER4> Every business is failed unless it figures out a way to survive.

Businesses do not survive by default. It takes a lot of work and experimentation to find the right mix of everything to build a viable company.

<comment><USER5> Well Said

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't that a good thing?

Imagine you have a little widget in your browser that displays something like '50%' which means you constantly use 50% of one core to mine a cryptocurrency for the page you are currently looking at.

And in return you get an ad free web. I think that would be way better then the web as we know it.

<comment><USER7> Seems wasteful & fruitless.

Better to evolve a micropayments model that works (because at least i can quantify what I pay)

<comment><USER8> > because at least i can quantify what I pay

And the publishers can quantify how much it gets.

With the volatility of crypto assets this is not a viable solution for the publisher, especially because readers who have an ad-blocker installed are likely to block the mining script as well.

This is a publicity stunt. Nothing more, nothing less.

<comment><USER9> If so, this is a stupid publicity stunt, given the largely negative reaction by this community and the media. If anything, more people will install adblockers because of things like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am completely fine with this. The entire question of "How does a web site providing content 'for free' make money?" still seems to be in flux. Yes, people might push for some sort of micropayments thing, and The Guardian is making their method work, but I don't know if that's the exception or the rule. At least, not right now.

Given the choice, I prefer a background miner over ads. Even on a laptop that's running on battery. For one thing, removing the ads (and all the annoying JS they load) should make the page much better to load & navigate, meaning I can go through the content faster. If I don't want to use up my battery, then I'll add the site to my Read Later list, and read it then.

<comment><USER11> It wouldn't be so bad if Salon were using 5 or 10% of your CPU, but they are pushing it to 100%. Check out the discussion on r/BATProject[0] which is apart of the Brave browser. Brave is actually fighting the mining situation whilst also trying to help publishers and creators gain money.

Brave are actively blocking ads and background miners, but they offer verified publishers and creators to be donated Basic Attention Tokens (their own cryptocurrency). Users of Brave will be able to gain tokens either by purchasing them or by viewing ads within the browser rather than on the websites. If you're interested, I would recommend you check out their browser which is based on Chromium.[1]

[0] [https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/7y7tvy/bat_comm...](https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/7y7tvy/bat_community_weekly_update_02092018_to_02162018/) [1] [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

<comment><USER12> For some reason this reminds me of that episode of Black Mirror where you had to pedal a bike or watch ads to get tokens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So...doesn't this mean their website will start getting flagged as malware? Many security companies flag CoinHive as malware...

<comment><USER14> yes it's likely that these domains end up on some list.

E.g.:

       $ curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ZeroDot1/CoinBlockerLists/master/hosts|grep salon.com
       0.0.0.0 worker.salon.com

<comment><USER13> Yikes, you'd think a media company would be smarter than to use a software that returns hundreds of articles about malware as the top results of a google search for its name.

<comment><USER15> Salon is well known for some poor quality journalism/blogging. Not surprised to see that is reflected in their management/technology descions.

<comment><USER13> I had never really read anything from this site before and just searched it in Google News. Wow, you weren't wrong. And I'm probably THE target audience for that site (unabashedly leftist). It's very trashy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Thinking about this, how long till ad blockers will also block these crypto mining scripts... it's not that different.

<comment><USER17> I imagine the mining code can be transformed so that it will be hard to detect.

<comment><USER18> There's no winning a cat and mouse game for the people with the exponentially harder task

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Their website was already unreadable on mobile so I guess they're now going to make sure you can't view it on a desktop/laptop by pegging your cpu to 100%

<comment><USER20> That's config on the miner, can throttle to any CPU usage percentage. No reason for them to be stupid enough to peg at 100%. 50% to 70% seems much more reasonable. Most day to day, non professional applications barely use more than 30%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So they _did_ seize the means of production after all. The means of Monero production.

</comment><comment><USER22> Again mostly negative comments here. May I ask why? It's 100% opt-in so I don't really see what blocking mining scripts has to do with it. I also block mining scripts but that's for rogue sites doing it without my consent (The Pirate Bay) while this feels like a legitimate use-case. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The headline makes it sound like they automatically start it if you're using an adblocker. That is not the case. Check the screenshot in the article.

<comment><USER13> In theory, it's a great idea being 100% opt-in and all.

But in practice, we know that CoinHive is being used largely as malware, being injected in third-party sites to enrich hackers. And it's not a nice move to support that ecosystem and the company which clearly doesn't give two damns that their software is enabling so much hacking.

<comment><USER22> You are right. However, CoinHive seems to care about this (at least superficially). Check out their AuthedMiner.

<comment><USER13> According to this, they don't seem to care at all: [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbpbz4/creators-o...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbpbz4/creators- of-in-browser-cryptocurrency-miner-coinhive-say-their-reputation-couldnt-be- much-worse)

>The team don't specifically track domains, so if a user's email address is not, for example, "email@example.com," Coinhive often don't know where or how the service is being used, though.

So they don't keep track of who uses the software (perfect for malicious users), and yes they offer an AuthedMiner but why are they still offering payouts to people who use the version which runs without user consent?

It's like me selling illegal firearms in the back of my store and people saying "Hey, he is really concerned about the negative effects of illegal arms dealing, that's why he sells legal firearms in the front of the store!"

<comment><USER22> I agree. There's probably room for an actor and competitor to CoinHive who takes this very seriously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The web is open and free because ads made it possible when the internet was first evolving. You only understand the internet as "free" because someone else was footing the bill to begin with. Ads can no longer support an open web as you once knew it. So, the web closes down (publishers gating their content - subscriptions) one by one and what do you end up with? A closed web. Plain and simple. Those who feel the web is "free" are under an illusion becaue they know and knew of nothing different. These people are ignorant and the ignorance is what is actually causing the web to close down faster. The more ignorance the faster it closes. I'm not saying ads and mining are great ways to pay the toll but it's the only options since I don't see any user here writing checks to websites out of good will. Salon at least is trying to keep the web "open" by giving options - and by the way, when did an option, in your control, ever offend you. Offended? Fine you don't have to opt in. That's like saying your pissed of because the restaurant accepts discover card when you only chose to carry Amex or cash.

There are a lot of people here who just don't know what they are talking about and unfortunately they'll never know who they are because they are always right. That's fine because that's the way the world works unfortunately and it's human nature but a little honest research would do the greater community as a whole a great deal of good.

</comment><comment><USER24> The problem with ads is that they are not just ads these days. There is a big industry whose "product" is tracking users across sites, trying to build detailed profiles in order to present people with targeted ads they are more likely to click on.

In other words, a massive invasion of privacy that may very well come back to haunt us (think of an oppressive government trying to find potential dissidents, either to bombard them with propaganda or worse).

Using my browser as a cryptocurrency miner as I visit a site has obvious problems, especially on mobile devices, but from a privacy perspective it is far less troubling. With the exception of blogs people write in their spare time, most web sites need a way to recover their expenses. Even more so for news sites that employ journalists etc.

At that point, the interesting question is how effective running a Javascript miner is. When I visit web sites using a browser that has no ad blocker or tracking protection installed, I notice that ads, tracking scripts, etc. can use quite a bit of CPU, RAM and bandwidth, too. If I could be sure that a site using crypto-miners does not just gobble up my phone's battery like crazy, the idea is not _that_ bad, as long as sites are transparent and up-front about it.

Some sites already offer a model where you either have ads or make a donation and get an ad-free page. Something similar with cryptominers could work, too.

(All this assumes, of course, that web site owners play fair, which is hopelessly naive all too often.)

</comment><comment><USER25> For this model to be successful(long term), sites/anyone who does this, must set an early precedent to inform and get consent from users. (this is, of course, antithetical toward modern advertising philosophy)

Otherwise, it crosses a line from Adware to Malware, further validates the reclassification of ad blocking/protection from optional to required, and will meet a quick demise

</comment><comment><USER17> Bitcoin was inspired by Hashcash in 1992: a Proof-of-Work that protects services from DoS. Now we have come full circle.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> The best way to prevent this in firefox:

1\. Run Noscript extension

2\. Run RequestPolicy extension

3\. Keep your adblock/ublock rules updated as they block miners

4\. Don't ever visit Salon

The first three also work on most other websites that have miners or were hacked and had a miner injected.

<comment><USER27> "users must do special stuff" doesn't scale, which is why Chrome has had to roll out default blocking for egregious ads.

But using user resources to mine fadcoin? That's borderline Computer Misuse Act, in the UK, I reckon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> They've been doing shady shit with JS for years like auto-reloading their home page and other shady practices. The only solution to sites running bad JS like Salon is to block the JS. uBlock origin, NoScript, etc. The only downside is that none of these tools is user-friendly enough to run without any user input. The idea that other entities should be able to run their code on my computer was a bad one to begin with and still is. I think people are slowly coming to that realization as this default begins to show just how dangerous it is.

</comment><comment><USER29> If this is done without explicit permission from the user, I can see it being some sort of hacking offence.

So yes, I run adblockers. I will also run coinblockers. You're not going to be mining on my laptop processor and battery. Not yours.

If you don't want me reading your stuff for free (which is perfectly reasonable!) then block me, instruct your server not to send content on those terms. I'm happy with that. But I will not render your ads, nor run your mining script.

<comment><USER30> Out of curiosity... Rather than blocking ads, why not block sites that have ads? This way you comply with their implicit wish not to have you read their content without some sort of monetary return.

<comment><USER31> Honestly, it's a bit of a gray ethical area for me. On one hand, what you say makes perfect sense. On the other hand, I like having my cake and eating it, too. It's like having a buffet dinner where the host tells you: "sure, you can eat this juicy steak, but you also have to eat the surrounding shards of glass that I've put there to feed my thirst for human dignity". If I particularly like the host I might do it, otherwise I'll just take the steak and leave.

<comment><USER32> I don't love ads but that is a pretty poor and dramatic analogy... It's more like eating a free buffet and the host asks you to listen to his annoying friends while you eat... Some of them write notes about you and share it amongst themselves... I'm not sure this is really an ethical grey area for you or just rationalizing it into grey area. If the website you are reading completely relies on ad revenue to pay its employees then it is pretty black and white that blocking the ads is not "ethical." If you really object to the ad model then you should do as the parent said and block websites which are ad-driven.

I've also worked at multiple publishing companies and I can tell you that although their owned and operated websites were run with ad money, none of the people involved had a thirst for human dignity. It is more like, we all wanted to make a living and enough people simultaneously wanted to read the content AND didn't mind the ads enough to click away. Any time I've seen subscription or pay per content tried at publishers I've been with it fails dramatically because the percentage of willing readers is just too small unless you are a very niche and valuable or very large and famous publisher.

<comment><USER33> > It's more like eating a free buffet and the host asks you to listen to his > annoying friends while you eat...

That already exists: a church-operated soup kitchen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Luckily, my adblocker (uBlock Origin) blocks mining scripts as well, so the joke's on them.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is a wonderful innovation, allowing visitors access without ads while providing revenue to the site.

</comment><comment><USER36> not using UMatrix or NoScript in 2018, kek.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think it's a good thing. Better than sacrificing journalistic integrity for clickbait that helps drive more ads

<comment><USER38> Now the incentive is to keep the user on the site longer. Excessively long articles?

<comment><USER39> More video, unskippable ads. Interactivity, asking for user input. Articles read by video chatbots.</comment></comment></comment>


A Toothpaste Factory Had a Problem - <AUTHOR> http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/A_Toothpaste_Factory_Had_a_Problem_/

<comment><USER2> Any company spending 30k + on an automatic inline checkweigher is going to have an automatic reject attached to it that would knock the underweight product off the conveyor into a bin. That's typically a $1000 option on the upper end. Much less if you just use a little air jet for the reject.

Or they could spend another 200k on a shiny new cartoner that doesn't kick out empties, but that might be a really expensive fix for an intermittent problem. Sometimes fixing the root problem long term is more expensive than the medium term bandaid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Applying this parable to a startup -> the first solution was superior because it required no specialized knowledge and got you 80% of the way there. sure line efficiency was 15% lower and you lost a cheap empty boxes but for the most part it was just as good. This goes in the "problems you can solve later" bucket

edit: by first solution I meant the fan... the alarm was just stupid

</comment><comment><USER4> I almost stopped reading, because I knew the story of the fan, but this version actually goes a bit further (won't spoil).</comment>


The Nitty Gritty of In-Memory Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theplatform.net/2015/09/07/the-nitty-gritty-of-in-memory-computing/

<comment><USER2> Compressed representation isn't a trade-off but a win-win very often. When you do in-memory data structures like graphs or automata, you can perform searches times faster if you go for packed representations. What first comes in mind are language-optimised collations [http://ow.ly/RVxwa](http://ow.ly/RVxwa), lossless codes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_encoding), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_encoding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_encoding), lightweight LZ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel%E2%80%93Ziv%E2%80%93Wel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel%E2%80%93Ziv%E2%80%93Welch). One still has to decompress data chunks (pages, vertices and alike) to act locally while traversing, though cache lines utilisation is improved by more data loaded to process at once, resulting in better speeds. And you can go even faster if you can traverse compressed representations directly without unpacking, which is sometimes possible. General receipt: always shrink data to go faster, and always verify result in real scenarios.</comment>


FBI Wants to Exempt Its Biometric Database from Some Federal Privacy Rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2016/05/fbi-wants-exempt-its-massive-biometric-database-federal-privacy-rules/128051/ <comment><USER2> Information generated with public funds should be public. Law enforcement has two big caveats to that. Information obtained with a warrant should remain protected until trial, and only information used in the case should be made public. Second, Ongoing investigations clearly should stay secret.

I'm sure there are sensible exceptions for tax, military and intelligence services. But seriously, what the hell. We're paying for it, why can't we see it?

The general policy needs to be openness. Historically, i understand finding that stuff was a pain in the neck, shuffling around papers in filing cabinets. This is the information age. Read only access to everything is achievable and, i think, desirable.

<comment><USER3> Imagine if every email and report that you wrote at work was broadcast to the whole world and subject the vicious (yet shallow and unfair) scrutiny of the 24-hour news cycle. Can you see how that would hamper your ability to your job effectively?

<comment><USER4> I can see how it would cause a problem if you weren't doing you job right or had no intention to.

Outside of that... not really.

<comment><USER5> "weren't doing your job right" and "had no intention to" are hugely subjective. Anyone with an axe to grind could go through your information and find whatever they need to twist the apparent meaning to prove that you weren't doing your job "right" and had no intention to. It's really easy to take information out of context and make it appear to mean something it doesn't.

<comment><USER6> Considering the government currently has the same power over citizens, I can't see how this argument holds up. Especially when the government is granted powers of total surveillance and mass hacking[1], there needs to be some accountability and balance of power.

[1] [https://medium.com/@RonWyden/shaking-my- head-5c1b60db9086#.h...](https://medium.com/@RonWyden/shaking-my- head-5c1b60db9086#.hd5m52yso)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The FBI wants to block individuals from knowing if their information is in a > massive repository of biometric records, which includes fingerprints and > facial scans, if the release of information would "compromise" a law > enforcement investigation.

These tactics have become so predictable, do the people proposing these things even realize how this comes across? I really wonder what the discussions inside the FBI that lead up to these "proposals" sound like.

<comment><USER7> I would guess that request came from FBI agents thinking like criminals. One can imagine criminals using the biometric database as an early-warning system for fleeing the country, or for vetting accomplices. Wanted: safe-cracker whose prints are not in the FBI database. Must provide recent screenshot.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but there are many things the FBI _could_ be doing to be more effective. The only thing stopping them is constitutional protection of civil liberties. So I wonder what the conversation sounds like when they determine in this case, they should be exempt from the law.

<comment><USER7> I'm confused by this post, are you saying that you think their request in this case for an exemption during investigations needs further explanation? Or is this more a question of "why this" as opposed to other things that would, as you say, be more effective?

"Ongoing investigation" is, in my understanding, a pretty normal reason for law enforcement to not provide information.

<comment><USER6> What I mean is that I wonder what the internal dialogue is over this. This is more out of curiosity than indignation, I would like to be a fly on the wall to understand how this happens.

It seems to me, no matter what the reason, this is the justification they would give, because its the only reasonable one. But the Privacy Act exists for a reason, so I wonder what prompted them to decide it was worth making this proposal, and the discussion that actually ensued with the lawyers, etc. before making it. In particular, did they weigh the costs/benefits of what they are asking for, or are they just pushing for whatever privileges they can get?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People are really focusing on the wrong thing...

The issue is not the government wants to exempt themselves from FOIA, or Privacy Laws

The issue is that the government is allowed to compile these databases in the first place.

If I am not under active investigation, then the FBI has no business keeping records on me in the first place. If I am not suspected of a crime, they should not have my face, my prints, or anything else about me in their databases.

I dont even agree with giving them the authority to keep records of people convicted of any crime in the past forever. There should be auto expunge say after 10 years with out any further criminal conviction especially for crimes that do not involve injury to another party (aka drug crimes, serious traffic offenses and other "victimless crimes" )

</comment><comment><USER9> _> Aside from criminals, suspects and detainees, the system includes data from people fingerprinted for jobs... or volunteer service, background checks, ..._

Gotta make sure we keep tabs on those shady _volunteers_... Jesus.

<comment><USER2> It seems shady, but it's pretty common for people working with kids or elderly or disabled to be fingerprinted. There's the possibility of abuse. Volunteers have a weaker affiliation with an organization than employees so some organizations feel the need to go a little further.

<comment><USER9> And I can sympathize with that. But those prints should be destroyed -- with a verifiable chain of evidence witnessing their destruction -- immediately after the background check. And people should have the right to inquire about whether prints submitted for background checks of this form are retained. And LEO organizations, including the FBI, shouldn't be allowed to lie.

More systemically, routine background checks on people who are not suspected criminals should be handled by an independent organization outside of the FBI.

<comment><USER5> They're not destroyed because the prints aren't just used to determine if the person has committed a crime in the past; they're used in case a crime is committed in the future, and the only evidence for the criminal's identity is fingerprints collected from the scene. Without the records, every potential suspect would have to be fingerprinted again. I'd rather have my prints on file and be automatically cleared of suspicion than have the police show up at my door to bring me in for prints and questioning, especially if there is a high-profile crime (involving children, for example) and the media are digging around the lives of every suspect.

<comment><USER10> If it's a background check, it's a background check. Otherwise it's "mandatory registration in the government's database", not a background check.

There's a difference between retaining the fingerprints of convicted criminals as part of their case file and pre-emptively collecting fingerprints on people who are not even suspected of a crime.

If there's anything less than a 0% false-positive rate, having a massive database of fingerprints to scan without any criterion will just make it _more_ likely that the police will show up at your door because "your prints were found at the scene" of some crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > FBI posting claimed it is "impossible to know in advance what information is > accurate, relevant, timely and complete" for "authorized law enforcement > purposes."

> "With time, seemingly irrelevant or untimely information may acquire new > significance when new details are brought to light,"

A person is supposed to be investigated for a particular crime. Any actions clearly in association with such crime is considered relevant. But if during the investigation, it is revealed that their are other crimes that the person may be committing, any actions recorded in the past committed in association with a crime found later becomes relevant later.

I do not understand the "intent" of the law. Is the FBI prevented from investigating other crimes other than the one initially authorized?

Or is the FBI supposed to ignore crimes observed if not relevant to the crime being investigated?

<comment><USER12> The intent of the law is to end the J. Edgar Hoover-era practice of keeping files on people who aren't even suspected of a crime... and if they investigate and find nothing, the files should be destroyed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The thing about the rule of law, is that it only works if it applies to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER14> >> "Having access to your own records would help avoid detection or apprehension, the draft posting said."

So, basically security through obscurity?

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

<comment><USER7> In the sense that passwords are security through obscurity, yes. Please try to avoid using this trope except when it actually applies; obscurity in the design of a system, not a system keeping some information secret. See the difference?

As an extremely obvious example, imagine being able to screen getaway drivers whether or not their face is "on file". Now there's no "known wheelman Bobby was seen driving away with two other men". Helpful in avoiding detection, no?

Note that I'm not arguing in favor or against, just trying to play devil's advocate. There's a great deal of group think on these issues around here, and the Other Side never seems to get brought up.

<comment><USER14> This is about hiding what they have, how they got it, how they used it, etc.

For example, if you discovered the FBI had data that made no sense for them to have, such as an iris scan, you'd not only know they had it, but they they had likely taken it from a distance, and maybe even doing passive scanning too.

To be honest, aside from system design vs secret info, not following the position your presenting.

To get some idea of how this has to do with sources and methods, look into how Stringray like devices work, how they're used to collect data, how the data is used, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron Of course they do.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can the government go at least one day without doing something stupid?

<comment><USER16>
        s/government/humans/

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Url changed from [http://undergroundreporter.org/fbi-quiet-biometrics- database...](http://undergroundreporter.org/fbi-quiet-biometrics-database/), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: What exactly is a well rounded person? - <AUTHOR>

I have more often than not failed to understand some social terms which are used to describe a person in many a places.
Two of those phrases, which have been reading for quite a while and never understood the meaning are "a well rounded person" and "building character".
Care to explain this to me? <comment><USER2> Well-rounded often means the person seems generally capable of tackling a broad range of activities, though they may not be stellar at any one. A guy who does well in school, plays sports, can mingle well, has a good group of friends, etc. Balanced, normal, etc. Used in this sense, it's a pretty poor compliment and doesn't seem to be a description that one should strive to achieve. What exactly is this "well-rounded" person good at? Yes, you may want to be versatile and generally comfortable in a wide variety of situations, but you definitely want to kick ass at a narrower set of activities.

Building character is often used to justify grueling tedious work, regardless of its merits/value. Done right, building character would consist of valuable activities that improved upon an important skill or helped people. That is, one builds character by learning and by overcoming obstacles on the way.

These are basically two phrases that could be used to signify positive attributes/activities, but are usually used in stupid ways.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that the idea that one "definitely wants to kick ass at a narrower set of activities" is very much cultural, and there're many people (particularly outside of the coastal urban professional population) that think it's a pretty stupid goal. Most people define themselves by their relationships; they couldn't care less whether you happen to be awesome at one specific skill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They are stock phrases, most people ignore them. It's like adding buzzwords to a business plan.

What they are meant to mean is that you developed in a wide range of areas, such as academics skills and social skills.

An example of someone not complying to this is the derogatory stereotype such as someone who just knows how to code, and has no social skills.

But really ignore it.</comment>


React adopts new code of conduct - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/reactgate-react-facebook-code-of-conduct-twitter-2019-8 <comment><USER3> Maybe the solution is to just leave that cesspool that is Twitter? Seems like the harassment has less to do with being a minority and more with angering the Shitter mob which can happen to anyone.

<comment><USER4> The solution is to leave the cesspool that is JavaScript. For some reason these sorts of "scandals" only happen with Node.js, React and other JS libraries.

<comment><USER5> LOL.

\- [https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2017/04/18/why-i-care-about- drupal-...](https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2017/04/18/why-i-care-about-drupal-drama)

\- [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/linus-torvalds- apolo...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/linus-torvalds-apologizes- for-years-of-being-a-jerk-takes-time-off-to-learn-empathy/)

\- [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/freebsd_code_of_con...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/freebsd_code_of_conduct_controversy/)

It's everywhere. The problem is ultra sensitive people from mainly the US.

<comment><USER6> And implementing a COC is basically a cease-and-desist declaration now. I would never agree to any of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the actual instance of prejudice, harassment that is being reported? I saw a lot of _very serious_ accusations in the article (the kind that is capable of ruining a carreer), but no links or screencaps of the actual wrongdoing.

<comment><USER8> The Mac girl gave a talk about how she doesn't feel able to contribute well in tech due to people's implicit biases and existing power systems, some people online pointed the finger at two leaders in the react community as examples of that. Over the weekend, the person who gave the talk experienced a ton of online harassment (par for course for being a woman online unfortunately) and some of the accusers really escalated what they were accusing the react devs of.

I think there is likely good support in the girls original talk, an implicit understanding in JS land that the react community is has some deep bro encoding (bro meaning weightlifting, video games etc, not politics and hatred), and a misunderstanding that a deep bro encoding doesn't mean you're alt right trump supporters but it does mean that a "non bro" might have a hard time fitting in and experience relatively more harassment in that community than in others.

<comment><USER9> She wasn't getting abuse because she was a woman, she was getting abuse because she's a feminist picking fights with all men, and engaging in nasty witch-hunt behaviours. Literally, "men are biased against women even if they say they aren't and even if nobody can prove it".

Men who promote that sort of hard left identity politics get lots of abuse too, which is fair game because it's about their opinions and not their identity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry I'm too stupid for this one.

Who wrote (or said) something about what or which person? Was the indicated talk the target here? Was the person giving the talk the target here? Who was attacked and why?

On the surface that just seemed that the majority of the people contributing to some project (in this case React) are white people which presumably ends up in joining together and dismissing opinions coming from people associated with other groups. Was this the case? Where is the evidence for that? Is / was the discussion completely unrelated to this? Really - I don't get at it all. Maybe a language barrier.

Don't get me wrong - if something like that occurred then a CoC / actions from the project leads must follow, but I just don't see it. Maybe the article is not clear about it.

Thanks for helping me out on this one!

<comment><USER11> Someone associated with react gave a speech on white supremacist capitalist patriarchy at a tech conf. Someone said this is a swf topic. People agreed. Orginal speaker cries Racism/male power and has other people back her up. She says she is leaving community. React leader turns off twitter for a few days and comes back with new racism react behaviour code. Most devs just keep thier heads down and keep coding.

<comment><USER12> _Someone associated with react gave a speech on white supremacist capitalist patriarchy at a tech conf_

I'm curious - on what basis was this speaker given a slot to present this material at a tech conf?

<comment><USER13> The conference focused on the tech environment and its people instead of technology itself.

<comment><USER12> Tech is perhaps unique in that people outside of it have very strong opinions on those inside it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While we should generally just be nice to each other and we should discourage harassment, this article doesn't seem to present much in the form of evidence of harassment and is mostly tweets of people apologizing for things, and as someone who is not a member of the React community, I'm not sure what for.

</comment><comment><USER5> #GatersGonnaGate

On a more serious tone: this level of "I'm offended by []" is actually becoming counter productive. It's pushing talented, good people, with controversial lifestyle/opinion out of open source, out of the very thing that, in theory, should welcome contributions from anyone as long as it's technically sound and clear. (Related read I found this morning: [https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2017/04/18/why-i-care-about- drupal-...](https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2017/04/18/why-i-care-about-drupal-drama) )

Can we please go back to the nobody knows you're a dog times with pseudonyms and everything?

EDIT: "nobody knows you're a dog" requires the one behind the pseudonym to stay faceless and the community accept that anyone can be behind a pseudonym and approach the contribution/work/etc without assumptions. It's hard. It's never been properly done, but maybe it's time for this.

<comment><USER15> > It's pushing talented, good people, with controversial lifestyle/opinion out > of open source, out of the very thing that, in theory, should welcome > contributions from anyone as long as it's technically sound and clear.

What if the people who are being pushed out have been pushing other people out this whole time? People complain a lot about losing talented/high-profile developers because they made parts of the community uncomfortable, but then seem to ignore/minimize the way that person was driving other talented people --often from underrepresented/marginalized groups--away.

<comment><USER5> It may have been when these scandals started many moons ago and there are always exceptions to anything, but from what I've been reading for the past ~2 years, this is not the case any more.

People being pushed out are, in many if not most cases those who have a personal life, with personal view on life, which other can't accept, despite the fact that those views and their work are usually well separated from each other.

<comment><USER8> I don't think they write articles/scandals on the huge amount of harassment people receive just for being a woman on the internet, or black on the internet. The reality is that (1) everyone gets harassed online (2) black people get harassed more than white people (3) women get harassed much much more than men. If all you're reading is articles about "gates" then of course it seems like there is an assault on a specific type of person, but you need to adjust your priors to understand that many women receive that volume of abuse much more frequently and no one is writing articles on it. There might be acute attacks on individuals in scandals, but there is a constant mid to high level harassment on some individuals.

<comment><USER5> I've not challenged or questioned your points. The scandals, CoC, []Gate, on the other hand, doesn't really seems to be working, because they keep popping up. Hence the thought of pseudonyms.

<comment><USER16> I am not sure on your reasoning here. If they keep popping up, isn't that a good thing? More and more communities are seeing the internal problems these people are causing and are calling them out on it. I've never seen "ReactGate 2.0 cause the 1.0 people are still causing issues". I can't say every "gate" has fixed all their problems but acknowledging the issues and working towards a fix is a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER13> Is there any part of tech which succeeded and is now a blossoming haven of diversity? I mean, with so many people getting pushed out from everywhere else it should be easy to fill your rank with top talent, no? Given that we have a few million programmers in USA, you'd expect it to be a simple task to get a few thousand of these harassed people together to start something big.

I know there are a few projects with ~100 people, but I am not aware of anything larger than that which is not what we would expect. So the measures we apply today like CoC's seems to have no effect on how welcoming the industry feels to marginalized people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The peculiarly American coalition of political extremists, liars, con artists and mentally ill people wins again, and the longer they keep winning the worse the backlash is going to be when it comes.

Just say no to codes of conduct. Say no to victim-ideology. Say no to politics. And most importantly, say "fuck you" to anyone who dares make the claim that everything is politics.

</comment><comment><USER18> This guy was attacked for having a picture where he used the OK sign a year ago? Everyone knows what the OK sign means and it isn't "white power" except in a 4chan meme. And only people who are heavily plugged into politics know about that meme, normal people keep using the symbol for what it's always meant. Context is key with any hand symbol.

I read the whole article and there didn't seem to be any evidence of white supremacy either? Just an assertion that "move fast and break things" is somehow connected and similar other vague statements.

<comment><USER19> As far as I can tell there wasn't any. Evidence of white supremacy I mean.

The "instigating event" apparently opened the floodgates of people who felt marginalized and ostracized by the react community. I couldn't really figure out who those people are, and what events/situations they were referring to.

I think it was mostly about women and misogyny after the initial blowout. Though I can't really pinpoint anything.

This is actually quite frustrating as someone looking from the outside - <USER2> one is really saying what it's about but everyone is acting as if it's a very big deal.

<comment><USER20> Performative outrage is a social currency.

There may be something there, but outrage can easily become an end in itself.

(I have no dog in this hunt, haven't looked at it at all, it's just a social dynamic that I've seen playing out several times, especially in Twitter pile- ons based on limited or misleading quotes.)

<comment><USER21> Paraphrasing George Orwell, the object of outrage is outrage. The object of power is power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is insane.... attacking Abramov for using an Ok hand? attacking Wheeler for sticking up for react developers when someone implied they were a bunch of tech bro meathead gun toting trump supporters? I'm irritated they even apologized

</comment><comment><USER23> I am skeptical that the "React community" is a hotbed of white supremacy.

It seems wildly inappropriate to have a talk titled "White supremacy Capitalist Patriarchy" at a software conference. Is there a way to criticize that without being called a white supremacist?

edit - here's the talk that led to this controversy (I got the title wrong): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQq_gZiZ- jg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQq_gZiZ-jg)

You be the judge. My understanding is that implicit bias tests are controversial among experts [0]. I also think that the talk is extraordinarily inappropriate (given the venue) and I'm not surprised that there was backlash.

As always, the line between "criticism" and "harassment" is blurry. But, again, is there a way to criticize that talk without being labeled a harasser or being accused of "minimizing white supremacy"?

[0] [https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/07-08/psychometric](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/07-08/psychometric)

<comment><USER24> > But, again, is there a way to criticize that talk without being labeled a > harasser or being accused of "minimizing white supremacy"?

The technique of labeling your opponent or ascribing some extreme position to your opponent is as old as debating. What Twitter has done is make the technique more effective. Disagree with how antifa does things? You must be a nazi. Dislike Trump? You must be a USA hating communist.

But you can also see this happen in the small scale. Disagree with a business partner about a business idea? You must just want to close down the business.

It's all ridiculous posturing, and unfortunately seems to be used much more today. I also think it provides a smokescreen for when someone really is a nazi or racist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Whenever events like this happen there is rarely an unbiased account of what was said. I still have no clue what was said by any one of these parties. It would better serve the community at large to be able to interpret their own conclusions from the behavior than read these inflammatory click bait posts.

I'm reminded of the bullshit "dongle" incident from a few years ago.

</comment><comment><USER11> A lot to parse here.

"white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" tech topics at tech conferences are probably not the best venue. Feels a little like false advertising if I expected to learn something about react.

Mac describing the react community as bro-code break things.. male energy as awful and something to be changed. 90% of the community is male and their energy made the react community what it is today. Exclude them and react has 1% of the market.

So many other programming languages have conferences that focus on the language.. why is react different.

Mac leaving the community sounds strange. What does it mean? She won't use react and will switch to vue? She will never code again (there are other libruaries/languages)

What is a code of conduct for react and how does it affect a normal developer. Can someone still use react or do they need to be vetted first?. Will they change the licease so if someone breaks these rules they will not allow react on any sites they developed?

</comment><comment><USER26> I always see "both sides" participating in HN comments, but I overwhelmingly see people shooting down CoC's (and similar documents) here as opposed to supporting them. Here's my personal take as someone who is very socially liberal.

I would enjoy living in a world where these sort of documents are not necessary. However, people are absolutely discriminated against in open source projects and these documents aim to alleviate some of those pains. This sort of rule is necessary as an unregulated expectation of kindness isn't working (eg "be excellent to each other").

The prospect of anonymity could help, but cannot be expected. People shouldn't have to hide who they are as a person in order to contribute.

People also make a weird claim that people are more offended by things and I don't see how that's a bad thing. I would prefer society that calls out these intolerances instead of them just dealing with it. If gay people "just dealt with" the adversities they faced then we'd still be persecuting them. Part of "being offended" is being vocal about people doing and saying terrible things in order to put societal pressure on them to change.

There are some legitimate concerns around CoC's and the like, but the people protesting them aren't attempting to help solve those issues, they're doing so to get rid of these rules and maintain the status quo.

Hope this at least exposes some people on the fence to some of the reasons people support CoCs. I can't speak for every socially liberal person but I'll happily engage in some back-and-forth if you disagree with any points I made or just want more information.

<comment><USER27> >unregulated expectation of kindness isn't working

What if part of the problem is expecting kindness? Different geographic and work contexts have different kindness levels. But when everyone knows what the baseline is, it's just that, a baseline. When I hang around my friends that work in the trades, I don't have a subjectively worse experience because they bust my balls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if other industries ever experience the same thing - like a carpenter convention that veers off into an argument about whether the screwdriver community is a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy?

<comment><USER4> Well, anyone who happens to include a picture of a screwdriver on a slide is obviously a fan of the neo-nazi rock band Skrewdriver.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> From reading the article, is the issue a React conference presenter showed a slide with "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy", and people tweeting about that negatively are seen as evidence of white supremacists, etc in the community?..

</comment><comment><USER30> I use React and I lift weights (badly), yet this particular drama went by me. The article doesn't clarify matters much, can anyone try to tl;dr the situation in an objective way?

I mean, I just read apologies from people I respect (Ken Wheeler and Dan Abramov) but I'm not sure what they did wrong and the article doesn't really say.

<comment><USER31> They must have forgot the daily Two Tweets Hate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like the usual crybully story again. Nazis, sexists everywhere, etc. pp.

The usual assertions without evidence are presented. Bad journalism in my opinion and people I basically view as crazy persons were proved to be correct again. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER32> > Another user, designer and writer Heydon Pickering, tweeted a joke > suggesting that users in the React community were obsessed with lifting > weights, guns, Trump and free market ideals.

...What.

<comment><USER33> None of this makes sense.</comment></comment>


This Pizzeria Is Not a Child-Trafficking Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html <comment><USER2> All: we've closed this thread to new accounts. I don't like to do that but it's sometimes necessary to counteract abuse of this site.

If you have a new account and you'd like to comment in the thread (in good faith of course), you're welcome to email email@example.com and we'll help.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I want to know which way the wind is blowing I take a trip down to 4chan. Not because they know anything about the outside world, but because there are many who frequent the site who have an almost intuitive understanding of how to manipulate the presentation of information on the internet for maximum effect. Why? No idea, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that the only way to keep your thread for vanishing into the realm of the overlooked and 404ed is to post just the right combination of words and pictures to draw the attention of hundreds of different brains. Adverse selection at its finest.

<comment><USER4> It's also a great place for motivated actors to pour gasoline on some minor embers and turn them into a wildfire, allowing an irrelevant minority to seem like a representative majority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm kind of saddened and dismayed by the number of comments that need to be downvoted into oblivion in this thread. I really appreciate that Hacker News is a place where I can _learn_ something from other points of view, and where even if I disagree with someone, a lot of times I will gain an appreciation for their way of thinking.

But now with a number of comments insinuating that somehow this story is invalid because it's reported by NYT, and NYT is the _real_ fake news, is baffling and infuriating. I think the NYT may have some problems, but blithely and falsely reporting that a presidential candidate is running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor isn't one of them.

<comment><USER6> Pizzagate has a disturbing laywerlike blow-by-blow rebuttal [https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5ebh01/a_blowbyb...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5ebh01/a_blowbyblow_indepth_factcheck_of_the_new_york/)

I guess the comments about the new right being technocrats may be true.

<comment><USER7> That reddit group was just banned, 23 November, 00:01 UTC

<comment><USER8> Wow, I saw that this morning. I really wonder what effect it will have. For now the discussion will move to r/conspiracy, and possibly voat.co.

Will they ban r/conspiracy too? I'll delete my reddit account instantly and never visit the site again if they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't be alone in thinking that every individual who participated in or retweeted or whatever that information ought to be personally financially and criminally liable for their actions. If not every person, then pick the nodes in the graph that have the highest fanout.

If you knowingly post and spread damaging fake information (deliberately engineered to accuse people of child molestation) on the internet, you have committed a crime, and you should be subject to both civil and criminal action.

You are responsible for the things you write online. This is no different from "yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre."

<comment><USER10> >If you knowingly post and spread damaging fake information (deliberately engineered to accuse people of child molestation) on the internet[...]

What you're missing here is that they genuinely believe it to be true. As incredible as that may seem to you and me, that is the reality of it.

I've actually been lurking in r/pizzagate since the start, watching in horror and fascination as people convince themselves of the most outrageous things. But they're convincing themselves, and they do actually believe.

<comment><USER11> Can confirm they really do believe.

I've also been a lurker, and I thought it was a joke at the start--and it probably was--but watching it bootstrap itself was fascinating.

<comment><USER8> I have also been amused by all the delusional assertions on 4chan and r/pizzagate, and I feel sorry for anyone innocent caught up in this, but this whole thing would have never caught on if there weren't real connections between the Clintons and child sex offenders.

Bill Clinton really did ride on a child sex trafficker's private jet 26 times, and really went to his private island where underage girls have alleged that they were enslaved. It's also true that underaged-sexter Anthony Weiner's computer had all of Clinton's emails on it. It's true that the Podestas are close friends with Dennis Hastert and Tony mentioned post-conviction that he's "stayed in touch with denny Hastert [...] all these years". It's true that Hillary and Cheryl Mills emailed repeatedly back and forth about child trafficker Laura Silsby, with Mills referring to her only as "Laura", and that Bill Clinton traveled to Haiti and brokered a short prison term for Silsby and the release of the other "missionaries" involved.

So, while "pizzagate" in itself may be totally false, rumors like this would not exist if the US did not consistently invite human garbage into its highest political office.

<comment><USER12> Speaking of Epstein and human garbage, I wonder why The_Donald, /pol/, never talk about what Trump has to say about Epstein :

[http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_7912/](http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_7912/) :

Epstein likes to tell people that he's a loner, a man who's never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,'' Trump booms from a speakerphone. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life."

<comment><USER8> Yes, it's a sad time to be an American. For those that don't know, Trump has been sued over allegations of raping a 13 year old girl who worked for Epstein.

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/12/donald- trump...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/12/donald-trump- jeffrey-epstein-alleged-rape-lawsuit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's a full blown moral panic and it isn't pretty. But it doesn't help when the NYT simply invents a stronger version of the story right off the bat, probably for effect:

> All of them alleged something that made Mr. Alefantis's jaw drop: that Comet > Ping Pong was the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton ...

I've heard of this story before, and I can't remember a version of it that had _Hillary Clinton_ in that role.

I don't think making up facts for extra effect really helps debunk a story.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me a lot of #SpiritCooking, which had a big effect on the election.

For a traditional-valued person who thinks that participating in #SpiritCooking performance art is immoral, it's not much of a stretch to believe that the participants would also abuse children.

For those of us who are familiar with liberal culture and gay culture, Tony Podesta's art and James Alefantis' instagram feed seems harmless. For people with more traditional values, it's incredibly weird and degenerate.

If you're curious to read more about the pizza/pedophile theory (which I think is nonsense, by the way), see reddit.com/r/pizzagate.

<comment><USER10> As I mentioned below, I've followed this from the beginning. I was reading the Podesta emails and following discussion in r/dncleaks when this stuff started popping up in there. I suppose it may have started on one of the chans first, I don't know. The "code words" list had the feel of an expert in the memetic arts.

Anyway, I think you're right, it was the art of Tony Podesta and Alefantis that triggered a lot of people over. There was that one article about Podesta's collection mentioning the art photos of naked teens in his house where they took glee in the fact they shocked guests. Having been around art people a lot, I certainly understand the desire to provoke. Sometimes people will get provoked. You get different reactions outside the bubble.

<comment><USER15> I think this is the correct read. I also looked in as this story was forming, and found it to be more evidence that there's currently a 'cultural chasm' in America, with each side making false assumptions about 'what must follow' based on what they see of the other side.

Here's a non-art example that I thought was culturally interesting: [https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5b1qtf/comet_pi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5b1qtf/comet_ping_pong_pizzagate_summary/d9nr3k9/)

Jake Sullivan is going to New Haven for the day, and comments that he'll be "eating some pizza". Hillary Clinton chimes in and says "Have a slice for me!". So the question on Reddit is "WHO THE FUCK ACTUALLY CARES TO LET SOMEONE KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO EAT PIZZA..."?

And then a couple other people on Reddit answer, well, actually, New Haven is well known within certain circles for its excellent pizza, and actually it's fairly common for "hipsters" to "gush" about it with their friends. But I don't doubt that for many this sort of enthusiasm for the perfect slice is so foreign that "pedophilia" would in fact be a more believable explanation than "foodie".

<comment><USER16> I'm originally from southern Ohio, Skyline Chili is a local favorite. I most certainly am guilty of telling people that I'm going to go get chili when I'm back visiting.

Between the left's nearly blind hatred of Trump and the right's nearly blind hatred of Clinton I have to wonder who or what benefits from such a divided populace.

<comment><USER17> That is trivial equivocation. Trump and Hillary are in no sense equal.

Hillary: Yale Law grad, partner, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State

Trump: born rich, businessman with 3500 lawsuits against him, settled fraud charges for $25M, 4 bankruptcies, misogynist, ...

These are not the same.

Yes, I'm on the left but my hatred of Trump is not blind. Nor is my admiration of Hillary (I voted for Bernie). Trump is an embarrassment to America and that division you correctly point out has been created over decades by right wing media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Not that I frequently jump to Yelp when something hits big on the news, but this is the first time I've seen this "Active Cleanup Alert", currently in effect for the pizzeria:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cx1p9w_UsAAaB0L.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cx1p9w_UsAAaB0L.jpg)

[https://www.yelp.com/biz/comet-ping-pong- washington](https://www.yelp.com/biz/comet-ping-pong-washington)

I was just going to say, "Seems like this is new since that one dentist killed the famous lion", but I guess these alerts started at around that time: [http://www.thesempost.com/yelp-adds-new-active-cleanup- alert...](http://www.thesempost.com/yelp-adds-new-active-cleanup-alerts-for- local-businesses-in-the-news/)

Meanwhile, Google seems to be putting in little effort to block the brigading of its place reviews: [http://i.imgur.com/e6uCqan.png](http://i.imgur.com/e6uCqan.png)

</comment><comment><USER18> There are a number of factual errors with this article.

"He found dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant's back rooms."

There are no articles that claim Mrs. Clinton has been doing this. Not dozens - zero.

"While Mr. Alefantis has some prominent Democratic friends in Washington"

Yeah, and the Titanic was just a boat. Alefantis was named one of the Top 50 Influential People in Washington D.C. by GQ magazine. Because he is. The article mentions this later.

"was a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, he has never met her,"

This is highly unlikely. Not only has he visited the White House hundreds of times, he received a personally signed letter from Hillary Clinton for catering at a fundraiser at John Podesta's house. He displayed this letter on his Instagram, along with many images of children that raise plenty of red flags. Why not link to these and let readers decide for themselves?

"Amanda Kleinman, whose band, Heavy Breathing, has performed there several times, deleted her Twitter account after the abusive comments became overwhelming."

Perhaps the author could link to some of Amanda Kleinman's videos which contain single frame images of torture, famous pedophiles and child exploitation images?

"His customers include some high-powered locals, such as Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, whom Mr. Alefantis knows casually."

Casually? Then why are there photos of them together at functions at Comet Ping Pong? John Podesta's emails have conversations which are highly disturbing to the casual reader. Why not show us some examples to see what the fuss is?

At this stage, all evidence for there being a pedo ring operating out of Washington D.C (with Comet Ping Pong playing a major role) is only circumstantial. But there is a LOT of it, literally hundreds of data points.

<comment><USER15> _There are a number of factual errors with this article._

I agree completely with your complaints about the NYT article: it's terrible reporting, and essentially a PR release. Personally, I'm bothered most by the failure to mention that Alefantis is listed in GQ's Top 50 Influential People in DC, and the implication that he's a powerless pizza store owner. But I don't think the problem is that it's not "factual", rather it's being selective about which facts to mention so as to persuade the reader in a particular direction.

 _Why not link to these and let readers decide for themselves?_

I'm pretty sure that the author believes that "nothing to see here" is the correct conclusion, and fears that the readers, not understanding the situation as well as she does, will reach the wrong conclusions. I'd guess the author has personal connections to some of the people involved, and is confident in her judgement that the accusations are false. This is essentially the definition of 'elitism', but the author's logic is likely correct.

 _At this stage, all evidence for there being a pedo ring operating out of Washington D.C (with Comet Ping Pong playing a major role) is only circumstantial. But there is a LOT of it, literally hundreds of data points._

Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy. While it might strike people as unfathomable that their government officials could actually be preoccupied with finding the best 'cheese pizza', this really isn't evidence that 'cheese pizza' equals 'child pornography'. One could argue that it's consistent with the behavior of a ring of pedophiles, but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive.

So what's the solution? I have no idea.

<comment><USER18> > but the author's logic is likely correct.

She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. It wasn't. Oops.

> Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy.

Decide for yourself then:

James Alefantis posts suggestive pictures of children on his Instagram AND He makes lewd comments about them AND Many of his friends do too AND Some of those friends are into weird things like making child-sized coffins AND There's FBI-confirmed pedophile codes and symbols everywhere AND Alefantis knows John Podesta WHO is into Spirit Cooking with Marina Abramovic AND Podesta hangs disturbing child abuse-style art on his wall AND He likes artists who produce disturbing images of abuse AND His emails have masonic images hidden in the attachments AS WELL AS Pictures of children with notes saying "Happy Birthday John" AND contacts of his mail him with messages promising "entertainment" from the young children in the pool AND He and his brother look EXACTLY like the photofits of two men who abducted Madeleine McCann in 2007 AND they were connected to the McCanns through a mutual friend who lived nearby AND ....

I haven't even started with Hillary yet.

> but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing > with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a > likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive.

This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?

<comment><USER15> _She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well._

Then she was wrong there, and she could be wrong here too. But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false.

 _Decide for yourself then_

I did. I read the thread, I watched the birthday video, and I read some of the suggestive emails (I even quoted one in a different comment here). I'm sure I've missed a lot, but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either.

 _This is not statistics. It 's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?_

I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Section 17 of Scott Alexander's recent article trying to explain why accusing Trump of being racist is counterproductive is relevant to this point: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying- wo...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/)

But we'll see. I could be wrong. I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.

<comment><USER18> > But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very > difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false.

The cases have literally nothing to do with each other. That Cecilia Kang has authored falsehoods about both changes nothing about the facts of either.

> but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely > unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any > of the other named parties close to him are either.

It's easy to just scratch the surface and conclude that there's nothing to see here.

> I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence > are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I > think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the > actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such > points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs.

Except that the pedophile ring theory explains every single data point perfectly. Your theory doesn't explain anything.

> I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's > interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.

I hoped I was wrong. I don't think I am :(

<comment><USER19> You know, ordinary people may have massive cultural differences with pedophiles.

Jokes aside, anything can be explained by massive cultural differences. Taking more wives, marrying underaged girls can be considered civilized so long as there are enough people backing it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The fake news thing is really starting to dampen my faith in democracy. There's just no way to counteract it in the age of viral media. It's the DDoS of the political sphere. And it's a national security threat since countries can use it to undermine each other's elections. If democracy doesn't work maybe the best we can hope for is a competent benevolent autocratic state. Maybe China is the right model after all.

<comment><USER21> Sounds a bit melodramatic. Maybe you're having a hard time understanding why your country voted for someone with whom you have fundamental disagreements?

I'm perfectly capapable of considering the pros and cons of a candidate and making a judgement about their ability to lead the country in a direction I think is desired thank you. It's amazing to me that everyone living in a "coastal citidel" is still so absolutely flabbergasted that 2016 went to the Republicans.

The people that voted for Trump are not like you. If everyone wants to hold on to the narrative that they were a bunch of racicists motivated by fake Facebook posts or Russia then so be it. That type of thinking lost 2016 and it will lose 2020 also.

<comment><USER20> It's not a partisan complaint. I've seen plenty of fake stories circulating on the left too. Though the conspiracy theories seem much more elaborate on the right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I saw this mentioned in the Wikileaks AMA in Reddit, and it seemed so ridiculous that I felt compelled to look at what was being said. My conclusion was that that it wasn't a joke --- the people doing the research on Reddit genuinely believed what they were writing, and while likely wrong about the specifics of all their accusations, they in fact might have discovered enough oddities to be justified in thinking that "something just wasn't right".

For example, here's an example of the sort of email they felt might be 'coded' pedophilia:

 _With enormous gratitude to Advance Man Extraordinaire Haber, I am popping up again to share our excitement about the Reprise of Our Gang's visit to the farm in Lovettsville. And I thought I'd share a couple more notes: We plan to heat the pool, so a swim is a possibility. Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you'll have some further entertainment, and they will be in that pool for sure. And with the forecast showing prospects of some sun, and a cooler temp of lower 60s, I suggest you bring sweaters of whatever attire will enable us to use our outdoor table with a pergola overhead so we dine al fresco (and ideally not al-CHILLo)._

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta- emails/emailid/10052](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10052)

While I'm almost certain that a message sent to a listserv talking about transporting "Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you'll have some further entertainment" is just a way of encouraging people to bring their own children of similar age by pointing out that there will be other kids attending, I can see that the odd phrasing might raise suspicion in some contexts. One of those contexts would be finding out that some of the people involved in the email chain are "friends of friends" of people who in fact have been convicted of child molestation, and it seems possible that this is indeed the case. At the least, it seems to be something they believe they have found.

Anyway, if you want to dive into it to see for yourself, here's an summary of some of the 'evidence' they dug up: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5da0kp/comet_pin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5da0kp/comet_ping_pong_pizzagate_summary/)

<comment><USER22> It's pretty hilarious that amongst the pearl clutching and virtue signaling and holding up the NY times as if it was a crucifix against vampires, there is flat out deafening silence when you bring up just a shred of the things that have been revealed during the affair in question.

I don't know what to think either, but the response amongst otherwise intelligent people on this is pretty weird, in both the positive and negative case directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Smells like 4chan manufactured not just the claims but perhaps even the outrage. But they got what they wanted: NYT coverage. YHBT. HAND.

Times: please don't feed the trolls.

<comment><USER24> No. There are actual voters that believe(d) this [1]. It's trolling but it needs to be addressed.

[1] [https://twitter.com/ch402/status/796409197411713024](https://twitter.com/ch402/status/796409197411713024)

<comment><USER25> Yeah, this thing is semi-big on reddit, and to me it looks like a lot of nuts actually believe this. But the question remains, was this thing initialized by some /pol/ übertrolls, or was it only conspiracy nuts from the beginning?

<comment><USER26> Started with people finding what they thought were pedo keywords in the Podesta emails. More searching led to circumstantial evidence. Besta Pizza is the one they think is most guilty. Besta Pizza logo looked a lot like a secret symbol used by pedos, until they recently changed it.

Not sure how Comet fits in. Maybe Podesta ordered from them for the many 'pizza parties' referenced in his emails, with lines like 'i don't like hair on my pizza.'

Combination of strange references to 'pizza' in the emails, the logos, the utter distrust of establishment politicians (especially those connected to Hillary), fuelled by ongoing theories about so-called elites' child trafficking rings (Epstein).

<comment><USER25> > what they thought

What makes so sure about this? These claims are so nonsensical that it could be "what they wanted the reddit conspiracy hive-mind to believe".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm no conspiracy nut, but the way Podesta and others talk about food in Wikileaks emails is kinda weird.

But then, weirdness != criminality.

<comment><USER28> Owner of the pizzeria posting pics of tied up children to his instagram is also "kinda weird".

<comment><USER29> If there really is some top-secret pedoring, why would they post that shit online?

<comment><USER28> Perhaps because they're fucked in the head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I know where I'll be eating dinner if I ever visit Washington DC. If enough people make a practice of standing up for victims like these, we might see less use of weaponized slander.

<comment><USER31> Look at the archive of this man's instagram. Judge for yourself. Don't just take the NYTimes' opinion as sacred. This is a massive scandal that is breaking as we speak.

<comment><USER32> > Look at the archive of this man's instagram. Judge for yourself.

Done and done. Saw a bunch of happy customers posting pictures of their kids having a blast at a family restaurant...all captioned with misleading and, occasionally, vile captions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There are a disturbing number of new accounts being formed to comment idiotically on this thread. Mods should lock. The troll brigades are landing. The real target of this misinformation campaign is very likely to be the site Media Matters, as the article obliquely suggests.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't know what to believe, but I'm not going to take the New York Times at its word. I see it has already lied once in the article.

Remember 2003, Iraq war, WMDs? That took thousands of dollars out of your pocket.

Let's agree on one thing here. Spreading false information is unhelpful.

</comment><comment><USER35> I was just thinking about the recent Black Mirror episode about how easy it is for a hivemind of righteous (or totally false wacko) anger to appear and make victims.

The way twitter/4chan/facebook work is that it's basically a streaming tube of recency, where content gets pushed through it and everyone is forced to look at the top of the heap, ie the newest memes.

If you actually had a graph the size of your network, and the font size of the comments/content your friends' post actually reflect their voice in context of the whole network (e.g. smaller), maybe you'd see it less as a spotlight and more as background noise.

</comment><comment><USER36> Years ago a writer friend of mine asked me about and idea of how a group of people all doing the same thing at the same time could do the most damage in general.

I surely did not have good enough ideas for a writing, but this pizzagate thing seems to be one terrifying answer to that inquiry.

Just that in this case the damage is very concentrated and it seems to affect only on a few group of people.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was expecting a reply for each accusation and found nothing. Can you please reply about 65 grand pizza? This is so simple.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's not racism. Check.

It's not misogyny. Check.

It's not bigotry. Check.

We get it. There are disenfranchised folks in the US that feel under- represented and even targeted/blamed etc.

But this, this nonsense, is beyond the pale. You got your president elect. Worst case, thousands will pay the price in rights, access to services or the ability to live in a democratic society, free from the challenges (life threatening or otherwise) that they sought splice from.

It's a small business. Parents, customers with children, sullied by this insane, malicious group of alt right sociopaths who make up The_Donald and other locations. To justify or support this shit obliterates any legitimate credibility, however remote, they may have had.

<comment><USER39> I think it's safe to say these kinds of trolls do not represent, in any way, the majority of republican voters.

<comment><USER40> Then we can look to the republican voters to denounce their actions.

That is, after all, the standard that we hold Muslims to. As well as the standard we hold progressives to when anarchists try to turn peaceful protests into riots.

The party of personal responsibility is often quick to hold groups accountable for the actions of individuals.

<comment><USER41> I will denounce anyone who claims this is definitely true, there is 10000% nothing definitive here, but you can't really fault people for investigating after the number of secret child sex abuse scandals that have happened in the past two or three decades.

<comment><USER42> > you can't really fault people for investigating after the number of secret > child sex abuse scandals that have happened in the past two or three > decades.

Are these people really investigating though? What they are doing is posting threats, lies and rumours on social media sites under the guise of "we just don't want children to be raped." Nobody that posts:

> _I won 't stop tweeting about #PizzaGate until I know for a fact that there > aren't children in danger being covered up by the US government_

is "investigating" anything unless you count "making Twitter posts that contain the #PizzaGate hashtag" as an investigation.

You're also missing that many of these people are starting with the conclusion that child molestation is going on, and they are just looking for evidence of what they "know" is happening. That's not an investigation. That's a witch hunt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> There was a comment here previously by [redacted] which said:

"There are just so many pieces that almost neatly fit together - it's gross. Too many coincidences to just hand-wave away.

More context: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/)

Their reaction to this article specifically: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5e8lg7/the_nyt_j...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5e8lg7/the_nyt_j..).

Insane ramblings of paint-huffers? Or people who maybe saw something they shouldn't?"

They deleted their comment - I guess they were getting too many downvotes. But I created this account to reply, so screw it:

How can anyone ever disprove a conspiracy theory like that? It's impossible.

I saw in passing an interview with someone who thought that Hillary was ordering child abuse victims using "Pizza" as a code word. I never actually realized it was a serious accusation.

"False news" isn't the issue. It's people are completely unable to evaluate how likely something is in any meaningful way if that person is on the opposite side of politics.

<comment><USER2> Hey, if a user deleted their comment, that's their prerogative and it's unfair to override that without their permission. People here need to treat each other better than on the internet at large, or what sort of a community are we?

It's extremely rare that we'd edit a comment but I don't think you have property rights over this one, so I'm going to redact the username you put in there and ask you not to do this again.

<comment><USER10> Something I've wanted to ask, then... Why is there a relatively short cutoff period for deleting one of your own comments?

<comment><USER2> The window is 2 hours, same as for editing.

HN threads are collaborations; comments aren't just individual property. Active threads develop quickly in response to existing posts, and editing/deleting earlier comments removes context that the later ones are based on. The longer the time window, the more likely that later comments will get invalidated and/or history rewritten. So we need an edit window that's long enough for people to refine their comment or have second thoughts about it, but brief enough not to pull the rug out from others.

We're happy to delete comments or sometimes even edit them after the fact if people have a good reason for needing that (e.g. they're worried about getting in trouble from something they posted). But we only do that in response to specific requests about specific links. We don't delete history wholesale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Some americans are so fucking stupid it's beyond me. Unfortunately that is also true for the population in my country and much likely the entire world.

<comment><USER45> No, we more than likely have you beat. People blame Hillary for "losing the election" (that she won, actually). It's the minority of voters who happen to live in privileged areas that get to choose our next President who chose the nitwit over a Yale Law grad. Smart has been out in my country for a while now and it's really a shame considering the superpower status.

<comment><USER46> It's nonsense to claim that Hillary actually won the election, because by doing so you're changing the rules of the contest after the fact.

The goal was to get the most electoral votes, and Trump (for better or worse) followed a strategy that allowed him to obtain more than Hillary. Had the goal at the start of the election been to win the most votes in total, then the strategy followed by both sides would have been massively different. We really can't say one way or the other who would have won the popular vote in such a scenario.

People need to rip this band aid off already. Hillary lost, and it's her own fault.

<comment><USER45> More people, ~2.5 million voted for her. People vote, counties/states do not. How would you feel if you simply were born in the wrong part of the country and you're with the majority and your vote didn't end up mattering? To have your vote matter, you need to be in Ohio or Michigan.

The Yale Law grad is at fault for losing to that barbarian? Wrong again. The minority of the voting public, who believe they are victims- are at fault. And the USA is the one that will end up losing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How are people so quick to dismiss what they are talking about on 4chan and reddit? What if this is a legitimate pedophile ring of Washington elites, and what if they are using their influence to brush it under the rug? Doesn't that possibility bother you? Why not examine the evidence (intentionally omitted from this article) yourself?

<comment><USER42> ... and posting hashtags on Twitter, sending death threats, and hurling accusations at anyone within a mile radius of this pizzaria is how you go down in history for blowing the lid right off this story and getting to the truth, right?

<comment><USER6> Social pressure on people in charge works. I'm not saying its good or bad here. The new right seems to taken a huge page from saul alinksy and the control-left in their tactics.

<comment><USER42> In this case, we're talking about 'social pressure' on a pizzeria that should be innocent until proven guilty, but is being smeared by accusations based on little to no evidence (other than "wake up sheeple" type evidence).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I like how they hand-wave away the entire thing by saying "its been debunked" with no analysis or article link.

Also why is NYTimes at liberty to decide whats real and fake news ? Agree or disagree, their political analysis leans heavily left.

<comment><USER48> It isn't on the NYT to disprove the owners aren't child molesters, it's the crazies posting conspiracy theories which are still just that. This type of thinking above I think is a major problem these days.

Just because someone says something crazy on the internet doesn't mean that the person being accused is automatically guilty until they take the time out of their life to disprove said thing, it's the exact opposite.

<comment><USER41> Its not so much that I think its true (I don't) its just that I wouldn't, exactly, at this point be surprised if it _was_.

In any event, most of the stuff I read is less "omg guys this is totally 100% correct" and more "this is a seriously strange and disturbing set of coincidences" mixed with a lot of memeing circlejerk.

And after things like

[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/corey-feldman- elijah-w...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/corey-feldman-elijah-wood- hollywood-897403)

and things like Jeffrey Epstein and the whole Jimmy Savile thing, I'm just not sure anymore of ANYTHING. Honestly, the fact that the NY times feels the need to publish an article debunking it is a (very very tiny) shove towards it being true.

<comment><USER48> It really is just natural followup from the election and Trump winning.

I've seen it firsthand constantly the last few months on my FB feed. When ~50% of the electorate gets their news from Facebook only and it is 99% nonsense conspiracy theories not rooted in reality, the NYT and others have had a reality check that they should start calling out this nonsensical crap since so many people are gullible and actually are swayed by it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> After completely failing at predicting Trump's election victory and completely misjudging the views of the populace, the mainstream media is now taking advantage of this situation using the tag 'fake news' to label competition to restore its credibility. A Pizza Shop on a crusade against 'fake news', new term for this month, who knew?

<comment><USER50> > A Pizza Shop on a crusade against 'fake news'

Getting dozens of calls threatening to kill you, having your kid's pictures reposted all over the internet, and getting doxed are not how I would describe "a crusade against fake news". This is hardly new. Swatting, gamergate, etc are all manifestations of similar things. Why are you so dismissive?

Internet mobs are easy to rile up and difficult to control. Each individual participating only takes one minor action (for example calling and yelling at the other party one time) but the victims of the abuse suffer a massive torrent of hate and slander with basically no recourse. People get fired because their employer doesn't want to deal with the harassment or bad press.

For a long time a simple accusation was enough to get the mob going. Now you don't even need that much, just some conspiracy-mongering and a few likes on Facebook and you too can send a mob after anyone for no reason at all!

<comment><USER51> The NY Times helped rile up the mob that harassed Tim Hunt.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/tim-hunt- nobe...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/tim-hunt-nobel- laureate-resigns-sexist-women-female-scientists.html)

They aren't opposed to Internet mobs, just those that don't fit their agenda.

<comment><USER5> Come on, this is a complete false equivalency. In Tim Hunt's case, Tim Hunt _actually said_ the things that were the cause of other people's ire. Perhaps you can argue that NYT's opinion pages were one sided, but at least they are explicitly labeled as opinion.

The mob that harassed the pizza shop owner was riled up by a totally false and horrific, incredibly libelous lie.

<comment><USER51> > Come on, this is a complete false equivalency.

Are you suggesting the mob that attacked Tim Hunt was justified?

> In Tim Hunt's case, Tim Hunt actually said the things that were the cause of > other people's ire.

As a joke, which (we know from a recording and the reports of other attendees) was well received by the audience in general, save one reporter who saw an opportunity to profit by misrepresenting his remarks.

> Perhaps you can argue that NYT's opinion pages were one sided, but at least > they are explicitly labeled as opinion.

One discussion was, the article linked above was not. It claimed quite seriously that Tim Hunt said "female scientists should be segregated from male colleagues".

> The mob that harassed the pizza shop owner was riled up by a totally false > and horrific, incredibly libelous lie.

As was the mob that harassed Tim Hunt. The much bigger lie that he was some sort of chauvinist keeping women out of science.

A lie that was exposed by the many women who worked with him and defended him.

[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4477447.ece](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4477447.ece)

<comment><USER5> Thank you. You've changed my opinion of this episode, and I agree that NYT did a great disservice by how this was reported. The realclearpolitics summary I think gives a much clearer and fairer overview of what really happened.

I hope, though, that most people would feel the same anger and disappointment that I feel over being misled whether or not it agrees with their views, instead of doubling down on false information in the hopes that spreading it further somehow makes it more real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> First a pizza place in the Rust Belt won't cater to a hypothetical gay wedding and now this. I guess that Pizza is the new front-line in the culture wars. Pretty sad in my opinion. That said, if there is a war, I hope Domino's and Pizza Hut don't make it. They are the true villains of Big Pizza.</comment>


Netduino Contest: Build Connected Things Using C# and .NET - <AUTHOR> https://www.hackster.io/contests/netduino <comment><AUTHOR> Calling all .NET and C# Developers! Wilderness Labs is partnering with Hackster.io to challenge you to jumpstart the hardware revolution! Join us and register for the Netduino contest at [https://www.hackster.io/contests/netduino](https://www.hackster.io/contests/netduino). You can earn a free Netduino for your project and/or win the ultimate hack kit award! Learn more: bit.ly/2JPS97i.</comment>


Slideshare acquired by LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/linkedin-to-acquire-slideshare-2012-05-03

<comment><AUTHOR> $119Millon Sale price - 3Millon Funding = CRAZY RETURN!

I Love that equation!

<comment><USER2> Don't you mean:

$119Millon Sale price / 3Millon Funding = CRAZY RETURN!

<comment><USER3> Don't you mean: ($119Millon Sale price - 3Million Funding) / 3Millon Funding = CRAZY RETURN!

<comment><USER2> Yes, I suppose I do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can someone enlighten me as to why Slideshare would be worth $119 million? Just curious as to where their value comes from.

<comment><USER5> Hard to say based on what information is around, but part of it should most likely be justified from Instagram valuation for Facebook: no new feature, or strikingly innovative know-how, but a proven ability to innovate from the de- facto key feature and turn that into a sustainable network effect.

I sell what is essentially presentations (teacher & consultant data analyst); SlideShare is very far from what I'd like to have, but the only service where doing so makes sense. They could easily set up better presentation features (voice over, animations, structure) or insist on the selling tools (even the tiniest fraction of the teaching/conferencing/consulting business at large is huge) but they already have the core asset: most though-leaders are subscribed, and their account actively follows the accounts of people relevant to them. Compared to Scribd, who has the selling and control tool in place, but enrages users by blocking pdf exchange for no good reason, they seem to win.

LinkedIn is trying to move towards learning and showing your expertise at a more regular rate than job switches, and SlideShare has the best asset for that.

The quality of the Team and a pretext to talk about interaction design won't hurt, either.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does growthhackers.com mean HN is fading as the marketing go-to? - <AUTHOR>

HN used to be the go-to online community for software entrepreneurs to talk marketing shop.  Does the arrival of the software marketing focused growthhackers.com indicate the HN is no longer the go-to destination for this topic?<p>BTW I have no connection at all to growthhackers.com <comment><USER2> GrowthHackers is more marketing focused, while HN is more engineering focused. While I do see overlap, I believe both serve largely separate communities. What's really impressive is someone who can hold a conversation in both communities.</comment>


There are nearly 19,000 distinct Android Devices - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/253153/one-way-to-tell-how-rich-a-country-is-look-at-its-profusion-of-android-phones/

<comment><USER2> If this bothers you, you are doing it wrong.

If your designer is stuck in iOS pixel-perfect land, use this number to convince them they need to learn to use Asset Studio and live the RelativeLayout way.

</comment><comment><USER3> > There are nearly 19,000 distinct Android Devices

I would have said "models", not "devices". But the point is clear -- there are a lot of different configurations and hardware, all described as Android devices.

I regularly hear from people who say one of my Android apps won't work on their device. At first I would try to adjust my software, but as the years have gone by, I realized there are too many fringe cases that don't have anything remotely resembling a standard set of features -- even if they're formally running some Android version and have some "standard" set of hardware features.</comment>