America's housing system still has not been properly reformed - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas-housing-system-was-centre-last-crisis-it-has-still-not-been-properly <comment><USER2> I'd agree that the US housing and derivatives markets are in a much better position than in 2007-2008. Atleast people who are getting mortgages now have some form of documentation, and risk manages are being asked to do their jobs.

The crisis now is that, and this is just my opinion, low rates are here to stay. with the amount of money in the system, people are being priced out of homes and as time goes on the amount by which they are priced out in the big cities is only going to grow.

As an aside...

I'm not a lawyer but I've heard people say My cousin Vinny is the most accurate court room movie ever. In a similar vein, I'd nominate the Big Short as one of the more accurate wall street movies ever made.

It showed the lone wolf who not only saw the coming crash, this was far and away the easiest part, but figured out how to profit form it by getting the banks to write him a CDS.

The two smart kids working out of their garage that were smart enough to succeed despite all their mistakes.

The hedge fund who did an incredible amount of due diligence, going to properties, knocking on doors, talking to people inside the industry to put together the pieces that no one else could.

The wall street sales guy who sold the CDS knowing that it might bankrupt his company but figured he'd make a killing on his commissions long before that happened.

And the most accurate part of the movie was that it showed the anguish that each of these people went through. They'd seen something no one else had, been right about it, had the event happen and even then everyone else continued to plug their ears and pretend nothing was going on while they continued to bleed money each month. It really did a good job of showing that you can be right about everything and still not make money if the rest of the market continues to act insane.

In 2007 there really was a sense that people knew things were way out of hand but everyone was thinking, "If I can just get one or two more years on the bonus cycle, I'll be able to get out". To be fair, this type of thinking probably ins't going away anytime soon.

<comment><USER3> Pretty much everyone is saying that interest rates are going up in the US and are going to go up soon. Alan Greenspan just came out today saying people are going to be surprised how quickly they go up.

<comment><USER2> > Pretty much everyone is saying that interest rates are going up in the US > and are going to go up soon.

I wouldn't say that.

According to Bloomberg's interest rate predictor the probability of a hike before the end of the year, ie the definition of soon, is less than 50%.

Even if you go out to the end of 2017 you still only get to 67% probability of a fed hike. And 67% is a far cry from "pretty much everyone".

And even with all of that, the most predicted rate hike is a minuscule 0.25% to 0.5%.

Now, I agree that this is all up for debate and markets can definitely get this wrong, but I stand by my assertion that low rates are here to stay. I really don't think the years of 5-8% rates are coming back any time soon.

But I'm always willing to change my mind if someone can convince me, so back to you.....What makes you think that this era of low rates is going to end?

<comment><USER4> Not that people's bets mean much, but you can look at how financial markets expect rates to move using the interest rate futures market. These contracts allow you to infer what the market really expects rates to do (as people are putting their money where their mouth is - to the tune of billions of dollars rather than an off the cuff comment on a financial news show). Free data for the 30 day future contract/bet is available from Quandl - which is a great site for checking out free financial data: [https://www.quandl.com/collections/futures/cme-30-day-fed- fu...](https://www.quandl.com/collections/futures/cme-30-day-fed-funds- futures)

<comment><USER5> Or just look at government bonds. Investors wouldn't be investing in 10-year bonds with negative yields if they thought interest rates were going to go up significantly.

I don't work in the financial industry, but just as a bystander it seems clear to me that there are a lot of bond traders, like Bill Gross, who have strong interests in rates going up significantly. Just like small-cap, pump-and-dump scammers, they're trying to move markets with their sophist predictions.

I don't think there's much of a dispute that there'll be a regression to some mean. But judging by where people are actually putting their money, the time horizon appears to be much further away than many of the pundits would have us believe.

Also, Japan....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fact that we were not able to ban mortgage securitization after the crisis is appalling. IMO this is the root of the problems. Make banks hold their loans on their balance sheets!

I also think the point about banks having capital buffers is laughable and not logical. It's like claiming we've solved chronic migraines because we have a stash of Tylenol. The cause has not been eliminated. And let's say there's a crisis and that bank capital is used to cover the losses. Now what? You now have banks which according to our own definition are under-capitalized. They used all their capital for yet another crisis. So now your banking system is weak again. Who is going to give money for these banks to capitalize again if they keep having crisis after crisis? Ah that's right, the taxpayer!

A nation's banking system reflects its cultural values. This is quite true about the USA.

<comment><USER7> It sounds like a reasonable theory on its face. However, the outcome of this is likely that banks will stop making loans all together. If they were to offer mortgages at all, it certainly would not be a 30 year fixed rate product.

It's not correct to say that banks can sell off all of their risk through securitization. They do in fact retain some of the risk. Though most has been transferred.

The buffer is (in theory) in excess of the losses. So, after a crises a bank would be left with the buffer and be able to continue to operate as a going- concern. The question is how to set the buffer and how big ?

<comment><USER8> >However, the outcome of this is likely that banks will stop making loans all together.

Really? We had a healthy mortgage market for a great many decades before mortgage backed securities were invented. And if mortgages are such a bad idea that banks can't make money off of them, then we shouldn't have them.

<comment><USER9> The secondary mortgage market isn't a recent invention. It's been an explicit policy goal of the US government at least since the Great Depression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Partly because the state charges too little for the guarantees it offers, taxpayers are subsidising housing borrowers to the tune of up to $150 billion a year, or 1% of GDP._

The original post makes this claim without any citation. I don't think it is correct. Recent stress-test reports on Fannie and Freddie show that, even making provisions for future bailouts in the stressed scenario, the agencies are profitable to the government. [1] Instead of costing $150 billion per year, since the agencies were nationalised they have returned $60 billion to the government.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-08/fannie- an...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-08/fannie-and-freddie- will-be-profitable-after-their-next-bailouts-too)

<comment><USER9> This stress test is assuming credit losses about a quarter of the size of the stress test 2 years ago, and much smaller than the last crisis (0.56% vs. 2% vs. 1.4%). Does anybody know if something has structurally improved in the Fannie/Freddie portfolios, or whether the testers are just less pessimistic than they were 2 years ago?

[1] [http://www.fhfa.gov/AboutUs/Reports/ReportDocuments/2016_DFA...](http://www.fhfa.gov/AboutUs/Reports/ReportDocuments/2016_DFAST_Severely- Adverse-Scenario.pdf)

[2] [http://www.fhfa.gov/AboutUs/Reports/ReportDocuments/GSEFinPr...](http://www.fhfa.gov/AboutUs/Reports/ReportDocuments/GSEFinProj2014FINAL.pdf)

[3] [https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/irasohnfin...](https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/irasohnfinal2014.pdf)

<comment><USER11> If anything this [1] article would lead the reader to believe since Fannie/Freddie are now spearheading the leading charge their portfolios are further out of line with the market reality.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas- hous...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas-housing- system-was-centre-last-crisis-it-has-still-not-been-properly)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To sum it up, despite there being regulations on CDOs the real problem still exists. That problem is that loans are easy to get the gov stamp. Thos makes it easy for new home owners to get loans. And this makes it easy for sales people to sell the loans.

Much of this opinion article is based on an other article [0] which seems less doom and gloom and more about the shift to a majority of state sponsored loans. This in itself its own issue in that capitalism isnt doing what it should be when everything is subsidized by the gov.

Ultimately these two articles seem to be about responsibility. Banks are not responsible for homeowners making poor decisions. Banks are not responsible for investors trusting a market that is not self sufficient. And Banks are not responsible for the government to enable them with tax payer money. Meanwhile everyone can point the finger back to the banks and the bank depends on the fact that too many economies rely on them to fall

[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21705316-how- america-...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21705316-how-america- accidentally-nationalised-its-mortgage-market-comradely-capitalism)

<comment><USER13> Why does the government need to be involved in mortgage lending at all? Is there a specific market failure inherent in it people can point to that calls for government intervention to overcome (akin to the public good failure for e.g. roads)?

<comment><USER14> Homeownership was a major pillar of post-WW2 cultural stability among the middle class, so subsidizing it was considered a social good.

<comment><USER15> Cringed while reading. We've got to stop transcribing intuitions into universal laws if we want to claim the sapiens in homo sapiens.

Regardless of political stance, for any animal to require half its lifetime in effort to acquire a shelter, well that is retarded. And for some reason we consider ourselves more enlightened than our ancestors building functionally useless monoliths. At least the pyramids united the tribe or whatever.

<comment><USER12> I feel like I can relate to your position however I believe there is much more to this than simply "unevolved"

\- a hive mind (similar to that of bees or ants) likely considers death to be a reasonable loss to the point of canabalism being deemed reasonable. This is probably the closest to full centralization there is.

\- in gorillas there tends to be one male per multiple females and per area. There also tends to be a female pecking order where one stands dominant and weaker ones get scars. This is probably the closest to fully independent since each individual only gets what they take.

We live in a world where money can be anywhere and we want to allow anyone to have the opportunity to get what they want (so long as it doesnt harm the collective good). What tends to happen is the money becomes centralized to trade centers or with rare resources like peaceful community or opportunity in entertainment. However, space is a scarce commodity in these locations because it attracts so many people. So isnt it fair to increase the prices? The people who are making the most money for the area should have the most convinient location.

"unevolved" implies that there isnt rhyme or reason to this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _The simplest approach would be ... The nationalised mortgage firms that guarantee the bonds ... should be forced to raise their capital buffers and increase their fees_

Raising capital requirements seems like a minor tweak, a band-aid cure.

I would argue that the systemic risk could better be managed by changing the fundamental economics of the financial instrument in question: the classic residential mortgage.

I'm surprised the Economist didn't mention the short-selling idea which Richard Schiller has been pitching [1] since the Financial Crisis.

The basic idea is to make it possible to accurately short-sell residential real estate. This would allow homeowners and lenders to be partially protected against declines in real estate prices (the risk being transferred to third- party speculators and investors). Just like a lender requires homeowners to buy property insurance, it could also require homeowners to enter into financial protection against declines in property value. This would protect the homeowner against negative equity (where the property value falls significantly below the borrowed principal). It was because of negative equity that so many homeowners defaulted on their mortgages during the Financial Crisis, leading to a vicious cycle of foreclosures, sales and declining property values.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/upshot/the-housing- market-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/upshot/the-housing-market-still- isnt-rational.html)

<comment><USER17> the "protection" against negative equity is the down payment. negative equity only matters if incomes take a hit and sales are forced.

<comment><USER16> The down payment is equity, it's not really the same as protection. Although the higher your down payment, the lower your leverage risk. Let's say you put $100k down to purchase a property for $500k (i.e. you borrow $400k). If the property value falls to $400k (20% drop), your entire equity is wiped out. If you sell the property, the proceeds go to the bank to pay back the loan, and you have lost 100% of your the original $100k down payment ... This is due to leverage. If the property value falls below $400k, then you are in a negative equity situation ... Get deep enough into negative equity and it becomes rational for some people to just default and "walk away."

<comment><USER17> very few non-recourse loans in the housing market these days. a 20% decline in housing prices, and there's limited - zero systemic risk (ie the banks via linked derivatives that the author's so worried about); only the owner loses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The linked article seems to be a bombastic summary of a longer, more neutral, and better-supported article [1]. Strangely enough, they were published on the same day and apparently are both featured in the print edition? It seems like The Economist is doing A/B testing to see what draws more outrage from its readers: "Nightmare on Main Street" or "Comradely Capitalism"?

The linked article is confusing and uninformative. I suggest reading the longer version.

[1] [http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21705316-how- america-...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21705316-how-america- accidentally-nationalised-its-mortgage-market-comradely-capitalism)

<comment><AUTHOR> The linked article is an editorial, the other article the news article. The Economist calls their editorials "leaders," which I agree is confusing. But its standard practice to publish both an editorial and a news/information piece in the same issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One other thing to keep in mind is that there was a great boom in building in the US during the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the homes built during that period were built using substandard building materials and techniques, many of which are no longer up to code for new construction but were grandfathered in.

How many of those millions of homes are actually solid, reliable structures? How many suffer from moisture damage, mold, or have been poorly maintained? What kind of cement was used to pour the foundation? What kind of insulation? How many insect or rodent infestations has the house suffered?

There is a vast difference in quality between an old building in a city that has been renovated for apartments compared to a suburban home that has essentially gone unmaintained for decades and was built as part of a speculative housing development project by someone who had no long term interest in the quality of the construction.

I think we'll start to see a gradual crumbling/disintegration of suburbia as the houses fall into disrepair and the mortgage debtors are in too far over their heads to afford proper maintenance.

The right thing to do in 2008 would have been to let the prices fall and stay down, to encourage proper renovation and maintenance.

<comment><USER20> Do you have any articles/books detailing construction practices during that time period? Also any numbers on what percent of housing in America was built during that time period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can anyone provide any background/documentation on the claim "Now 65-80% of new mortgages are stamped with a guarantee from Uncle Sam that protects investors from the risk that homeowners default"? I don't really doubt that it's true, I'd just like to learn more about what that is and how it works.

<comment><USER7> Meaning, the mortgages (default risk) are guaranteed by the government, either explicitly (FHA) or implicitly through a government sponsored interprise (Fannie and Freddie).

After the housing crisis the private market (mostly banks) left very quickly. FHA and the GSEs stepped in and took their share.

<comment><USER21> Does the FHA issue bonds? (Turns out this stuff is nigh impossible to Google.)

<comment><USER7> Yes. FHA and the GSEs pool mortgages from banks, stamp them with their guarantee, and then sell the loan pools as MBS to investors.

(Most) banks, especially small ones, are unwilling to sell and hold a fixed rate 30 year mortgage. There's way too much risk, price volatility (driven by rates) and uncertainty about what will happen over a 30 year time period.

Banks only do a 30 year mortgage because they know they can sell it to FHA or the GSEs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The last crisis was also heavily related to sub-prime mortgages. How much has sub-prime lending been mitigated?

Before the last crash, you could get "no paperwork" mortgages, you'd just to have a little higher interest rate. Lenders would also squeeze people into ARMs so their initial rates were really low and then would go up after the adjustment period. And nobody cared about things like PMI because prices were going up so quickly. You'd have enough equity in your house if a few years and the PMI would go away.

The general consensus was that if you were in the market to buy, you should buy as soon as possible before prices went up much more.

Thankfully, I live in an area that didn't see the enormous run up of house values. The crash affected our housing and we still had the normal negative effects of a big recession. Housing prices have certainly recovered by now and I do wonder how much of it is still smoke and mirrors. But in markets like Florida and Arizona where house prices got really out of control, have those areas also recovered? That would be more shocking to me.

<comment><USER23> As far as I know, the last crisis _wasn 't_ heavily related to sub-prime mortgages. The primary predictors of default were the amount of money down and the numeracy of the borrower, not the borrower's credit score.

Plenty of people with excellent credit scores spent too much money on a house and ended up defaulting, and even people who could afford the payments ended up severely underwater; houses became very expensive very quickly, you couldn't buy one without spending too much.

Blaming subprime is largely a right-wing narrative. The worst thing that happened in subprime is that a lot of people (especially minorities) who could have qualified for mortgages on better terms were steered into subprime and ARMs because of their worth in high-growth (and ostensibly low-risk) CDOs.

<comment><USER24> I'm really curious about the things you are saying since they are so different than what people regularly say on the subject. Especially the right-wing narrative part. Can you suggest any sources on all this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> NIMBYism is already putting places like Palo Alto, Boulder, etc... well out of reach of the middle class, with a class of "haves" that live there, and "have nots" who have to drive in to work. What would happen to this situation if you killed the subsidy off?

What would it do to the dynamic between generations: older people got a big leg up, and you get nothing?

<comment><USER26> It would cause alot of anger. I hear a lot of hatred at work towards the baby boomers about everything

<comment><USER15> Niall Ferguson called this several years ago.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9338997/R...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9338997/Reith- Lecture-Were-mortgaging-the-future-of-the-younger-generation.html)

His Reith Lectures on the subject (Burke's social contract and its implications today) are worth putting into your mp3 player.

Ctrl-F niall

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/downloads](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/downloads)

<comment><USER26> Thanks didn't know about that, and podcast link is super great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> House prices are like bond prices. When interest rates are low, prices go up. When rates rise, prices will fall. People buy houses based on the monthly payment they can qualify for. Right now, prices are high because the low interest rates mean lowish monthly payments on inflated prices. But when rates rise, the value of the houses will fall because buyers will not be able to qualify at the previous inflated prices. This will mean that a lot of homeowners will be underwater again. Even though they should be able to afford their payment, there will be a similar level of panic.

</comment><comment><USER28> In retrospect, I wonder what would have happened if we let AIG and the banks fail. The FDIC would convert them into DINBs with the insurance limit raised to $250k per account holder. All debts including mortgages would be discharged tax-free automatically (making the topic of mortgage notes moot). Bank charter restrictions would be loosened so that new banks can be created as soon as possible.

<comment><USER29> Whatever the implications of letting the debt just "fall on floor" would have been, it's worth noting that the decision to not allow that outcome was reached years before the events themselves. Ben Bernanke's helicopter money speech was at least one demonstration of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As I was driving into the office today, passing all these auto dealerships, big, small, and mom and pops small. I wondered if they have an exit plan. In 5 years or less, every automobile manufacturer will have a self driving car. Will it make their inventory obsolete or a lot less valuable? Will it make my car a lot less valuable? On a side note: [http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-largest-companies- mark...](http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-largest-companies-market- cap-15-years/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Has anyone heard of this business? Why did I not know about this company around 2010 when I needed a loan modification?!? They are in 42 cities in the U.S. and have been around for 22 years. No down payment, no closing costs, no fees, no income limit, no need for perfect credit! [https://www.naca.com](https://www.naca.com)

</comment><comment><USER31> > _Partly because the state charges too little for the guarantees it offers, > taxpayers are subsidising housing borrowers to the tune of up to $150 > billion a year, or 1% of GDP._

The current environment offers housing borrowers money at a price below the market.

The simplest bet with this cash (buying a house and holding) has probably been overdone in the market. House prices are quite high now.

Still, small but crafty borrowers should be able to profit with this cheap money.

<comment><USER32> Buy and hold is fine, but that's a strategy like buying Blue Chip stocks. Early 2000s real estate was like the options market -- super short term.

If you can hold a house 10 years, chances are very, very good you won't be underwater at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yes it has not been fixed, but it's a supply-side problem and not a demand- side problem. More houses should be built to meet demand, but this is not happening in many cities.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am still of the opinion that the government's maximums for its lending are too high at 417k to 1.8m depending where you live.

<comment><USER35> You should be more concerned about downpayment amounts (3% is acceptable, and some lenders will finance with 0%). This is what pushes home prices up artificially.

I had a foreclosure where I stopped making payments in 2011. My foreclosure finally completed in December of last year (4.5 years later). I already have lenders who will finance me on a new mortgage.

It's madness.

<comment><USER36> Yeah. Was speaking to a realtor yesterday actually about this (just an acquaintance) and homes in some areas in a particular midwest city have risen in value 23% in one year. As soon as a place goes on the market it has 10 offers over the asking price. This isn't good. But if you have a great job and good job security it is idiotic to not buy a house right now with the low interest rates assuming it's not way overpriced (and these can be found).

I purchased a home that costs about twice my annual salary. I think it's reasonable. I put 0 down and walked away with a check at closing after seller closing costs for some items I wanted repaired.

Anyway this is just my general commentary and my experience. I don't know enough about the market as a whole to make any real informed contribution, but just wanted to share anyway.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter's Speech Problem: Hashtags and Hate - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/01/french-anti-semites-and-the-american-cloud.html <comment><USER2> Well, it's just ridiculous. YouTube can be a cesspool of racism but if Twitter has any comments related to one particular group, it faces legal action. I don't want to preach to the choir about free speech; however, what do people really expect from censorship?

Let's say some racist group was spewing hatred on Twitter. Now, let's say someone was, rightfully, offended and then went and tattle tailed to Twitter or the legal authorities. What is their benefit from that? Those people still think and believe exactly the same things. You could say at the very least it reduces the spread of certain and so forth, but I don't think it does; just because they can't say it on Twitter doesn't mean it is not said hundreds or thousands of times a day. I don't know why anyone would want the government to be our nanny in this case. If anything, taking action like this just eggs them on.

<comment><USER3> More and more, people think that nannying is the essential function of government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not for hate, but once you go down the road of censorship and get called out for specific types of censoring you are doing, troubled times are ahead; more groups will jump on the bandwagon and cry foul on more and more tweets.

<comment><USER5> The corollary being that I have just shut down one of my websites because I'm sick of the racist and other abuse that myself and my brother were receiving (the justification being "you take offence, not give it"). There's only so many times you can use the block button.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry. Racism should not be ignored. But I'm not sure how censorship initiated by the provider solves it. It is truly a tragedy that you had to shut your site down, and I think those that caused you to have to do that should be punished. However, when a provider starts censoring specific types of speech, there is much left ahead that they will be asked to censor, which is all I was trying to say.

I hope that you and your brother find a safe place to share your information without being harassed.

<comment><USER5> For the most part, I agree.

But "free speech" has real, human, costs; just as censorship does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The obvious solution is for nations that want censorship is for them to censor through filtering at their ISP level. By offloading the cost to private organizations it allows the cost to be hidden, and when people have to pay to censor their neighbor maybe they won't do so.

Though, on the other hand having this brought up in the news whenever they want to censor a new company keeps the arguments about censorship current and lets people see the backwardness of countries not embracing free speech.

The argument against offensive or incorrect speech is not less speech, but more speech. Win in the argument with words not violence.

<comment><USER7> I agree, but in practice they'd have to block entire sites due to HTTPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like a significant event.

<comment><USER9> It's certainly not trivial, but it was very predictable. France has had strong censorship laws for years when it comes to what is deemed to be 'hate speech.'

For example, what they've done to Brigitte Bardot for voicing her opinions publicly.

<comment><USER10> > what they've done to Brigitte Bardot for voicing her opinions publicly.

Made her pay fines under "incitement to racial hatred"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like France is pretty racist and hateful in general. Can you imagine #AGoodJew or #AGoodNegro trending in the US? That's absurd.

I don't see how censoring the tweets will fix that or change anything. So much for fraternité.

<comment><USER12> Nobody blame Twitter nor ask it to censor those tweets.

There is a law in France (and in most west europe countries as UK, Germany etc) that prohibit racist/sexist/religious/etc discriminations and hate encouragement.

Unlike USA, most european countries put boundaries to free speech. It do not mean that there is censorship. Nor it mean that it's illegal to think that jews stinks or whatsoever. You can think whatever you want, and tell whatever you want in your private circle, nobody will arrest you for that. But if you use your _public_ free speech to propagate these ideas you will have to face a court.

I know it can seems strange to US people, just like the ability to buy an AR-15 in a WallMart seems strange to us...

But that's our law, and it have been democratically voted.

Now the interesting question in the article is: Do French people that tweet are subjet to French or US laws ? Should Twitter obey to the laws of it's users or only to american laws ?

"All the French are racists", "French should filter web content at ISP level", etc subjects are just bullshit.

<comment><USER13> Please. You can only buy hunting rifles at Wal-Mart. Hey, maybe they could sue you in France for that defamatory statement?

<comment><USER12> It seems that it was true not so long ago: [http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate- intelligence/2012/12/17/wal-m...](http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate- intelligence/2012/12/17/wal-mart-takes-an-assault-rifle-off-its-virtual- shelves/)

And yeah they could sue me if they prove the diffamation i.e. that my statement was false and only stated in the attend to cause damages to WalMart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am slightly disappointed. I was hoping the article would be about what to call 'hashtag' in other languages. What do the Swedes call it? What about the Polish? Then it just turns out to be another relevant article about free speech.

<comment><USER2> I will say when I saw the headline I thought was going to be about something along those lines.</comment></comment>


How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome - <AUTHOR> http://tessrinearson.com/blog/?p=564 <comment><USER2> A long time ago, I was once a Microsoft intern attending a party at Bill Gates' house. At that party, a high-ranking Microsoft HR employee told me that it was Microsoft's goal to have twice the percentage of female interns in their program than female CS majors.

For example, if women only made up 10% of college CS majors, Microsoft wanted to have 20% female interns.

I replied that, if that were their goal, they would most likely have to lower the bar as compared to a male intern, or else pay the female interns more, give them more perks, or purposefully interview fewer qualified male interns.

My argument was that if Microsoft's hiring bar was the top 1%, most likely only 10% of that candidate pool is female. So, one must either drop the bar for females, interview more females in that pool than males, or somehow double the chance that a female in that 10% of 1% accepted your internship offer. However, in those days almost nobody rejected Microsoft offers, so that last route seemed difficult.

The only way to maintain equality of pay and skill without purposefully rejecting male applicants is to spend a huge amount of effort finding more female applicants than male applicants in that 1% and persuading them to apply. But that's still not really fair, as that really implies that recuiters pay less attention to males, e.g. spending less time and money finding them and recruiting them.

The HR representative got very angry, but couldn't articulate why.

<comment><USER3> Not really - there's a really simple solution for hiring more women without dropping the bar for them. Make your company the most desirable place for _anyone_ to work, so that you have vastly more applicants than positions, and then you can pick whoever you want as the incoming cohort. Math:

Say that your goal is to hire from the top 1% of the field, and the top 1% is indistinguishable from each other. There are 1 million people in the field, and you will be hiring 1,000 this year. Also say that women make up 10% of the field. In this scenario, there are 10,000 people that you would be happy to work for you, and 1,000 of them are women.

If only 10% of prospective employees would even consider working for you (which is the case for many startups, and probably for present-day Microsoft), then you're trying to fill a class of 1000 from a universe of 1,000 candidates, and only 100 of the women both apply and meet your hiring threshold. The best you can do is 10% female interns.

If, however, _everyone_ in the field wants to work for your company, you have a universe of 10,000 candidates, 1,000 are women, and you're trying to fill a class of 1,000. You can have a female proportion anywhere from 0-100% with no loss of quality.

<comment><USER2> The strategy you describe drops the bar for all employees in order to achieve a gender target.

This is not how companies operate, for the most part. If a company wants to hire 1,000 people and 10,000 applicants are in the top 1%, they will move the bar up to hire the top 0.1% instead.

Given a normal distirbution of applicants, there is a huge difference in talent (10x?) between top 1% and top 0.1%. The bar always automatically adjusts higher; otherwise, a competitor will hire the fraction of the 0.1% that you've passed over. Now the competitor has a 1,000 workers, and you have 1,000 workers, but the competitors are 10x more talented for the same pay (most of the 0.1% didn't get an offer from you, so there's no bidding war for their talents).

Actually, if a company spends more money recruiting each equivalent female employee than male employee, they do effectively drop their total hiring bar if spending more money lets the company climb the bell curve, because it's effectively a reduction in spending efficency, but that effect is small, and skill parity is still achieved.

<comment><USER3> You're assuming you can continuously & linearly rank every single applicant. The labor market doesn't work that way. Typically, it's organized into tiers - you have your superstars, and then you have a pool of developers that are good enough, and then you have a bunch of clueless n00bs. Within a tier, it's rare to find significant, measurable performance differences. The studies showed a 10x difference in productivity between the best _teams_ and the worst _teams_ \- that does not mean it applies to individuals, or that it means the best developer is 2x as good as the second best developer, at least on an industry- wide level.

(How would you stack-rank John Resig against Rob Pike? The two of them against Zed Shaw? The three of them against Guido van Rossum? Note also that even if you can stack rank their _accomplishments_ , that won't necessarily reflect in their day-to-day performance. Guido van Rossum wrote Python, but he also wrote a bunch of AppEngine code that isn't all that much beloved.)

<comment><USER2> Even if the population is divided into discrete tiers, the process is still rife with unfairness no matter how you dice it.

If you have 1,000 slots, 10,000 candidates in your tier, and 1,000 of them are women, you can hire any ratio of women to men that you like and all will be equally talented. Great, right? It's great for those that are hired; not so much for everyone else.

Say you make the gender ratio 50%. You hire 500 women and 500 men from the top tier. Every first-class company like Google or Facebook adopts this strategy. This means that the odds of being hired at a first-class company is 50% for women in the top tier, and only 5% for men in the top tier. For every interview a woman does, a man must do ten. Eventually all the slots in all first-class companies are filled up, leaving some top-tier men working for second class companies--but no top tier women are working for second class companies.

<comment><USER3> Right, but you're going to get this unfairness no matter what criteria you use, gender or otherwise.

Say you leave the gender ratio unspecified and instead decide based upon the interviewer's gut feeling. Then you'll bias the hiring process toward schmoozers with good social skills.

Or you decide based on which college the applicant went to. Then you bias it towards people who were willing to shell out for a prestigious piece of paper.

Or you decide based on whoever responds to your offer first. Then you bias it against people who have lives and better things to do with their time than refreshing their e-mail waiting for a callback.

Really, the only solution is to acknowledge that life's not fair, and people sometimes get things for completely arbitrary reasons. Which is really hard for a lot of people to do - it was hard for me - but you end up being a lot more successful when you don't think too hard about all the folks who get undeserved job offers and promotions and think more about how you can tilt the odds toward being one of the lucky ones instead.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree. I make this point, though, because the parent article begins,

"You only got that internship because you're a woman."

Note that this statement does _not_ imply she is unqualified. She could be absolutely qualified (and probably is). However, in the ficticious tiering example above, the female applicant has 10x higher odds than a male applicant of getting a sought after job at a first-lass company, even though both are equally qualified. For this example, at least, the above statement is explainable (minus the "only" part, which is just mean) by the huge difference in probability between her and her friend. Her friend would have to apply to ten times more internships in order to land an equivalent gig.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately I think the dismissive attitude of your friend is a direct product of very real reverse discrimination. Anecdotally it really does exist; a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university. My ex girlfriend had her hand held for literally years by Microsoft recruiters on the stated basis of being a female cs major. Policies of reverse discrimination are definitely not limited to the special programs with women in their name.

Note that the former never was able to pass interviews, but it was only enough to get a foot in the door. It goes without saying that I have worked with many extremely capable women that no one would question they deserve everything they have, but it is easy and to see why some insecure college students have some backlash at having explicit discrimination against them (usually for the first time ever), since they are not being able to see how the less explicit but very real institional discrimination against women.

<comment><USER5> > Anecdotally it really does exist

You can take just about any conceivable trend and anecdotally "confirm" its existence based on a small enough sample size or the right anecdote. That doesn't mean it is statistically relevant.

<comment><USER4> Can you clarify this, are you claiming that reverse discrimination for women in CS doesn't exist? I wasn't aware that there was any question about that; I understand it to be publicly stated policy at all big tech companies. Note that I'm not making a claim that women are more likely to be hired or promoted; as I said there is a lot of discrimination against women that is less visible which is exactly what reverse discrimination is trying to, well, reverse.

<comment><USER5> I wasn't claiming anything, in terms of whether it does or does not exist.

I was just pointing out that the two anecdotes you presented are merely that. Anecdotes. I see a lot of people on HN making statements like "that claim makes sense to me because [anecdote]," without regard for how representative the sample size is. This is called cherry-picking and is a great way to (unintentionally) reinforce a flawed world view.

It might be true that reverse discrimination in CS is commonly practiced, but your initial statement did nothing in the way of proving or disproving it.

<comment><USER4> I'm aware of what "anecdotally" means, that is exactly why I qualified my statement with the word "anecdotally".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Imposter syndrome is quite widespread. I first learnt about it from a law academic: <http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07/12/imposter-syndrome/>

On my office wall hangs my degree -- first class honours from a good university. I still half expect that one day they will ask for it back, that they were just being nice because they like me.

My Dad has it bad -- very bad. He has > 50 years experience in his field. He knows more about electricity than most electrical engineers. I tried to convince him to join the IEEE; with his experience and knowledge they'd probably bump him up to Senior Member grade quick smart.

Nope. Not good enough.

This can actually be quite crippling -- he used to _give away his services_ rather than charging for them. "Too simple a job, I couldn't possibly charge for it". He was not a successful small businessman, thinking like that.

It takes most of my willpower to ask people for money. Because surely, I'm not that good. _Surely_.

<comment><USER7> That's interesting. Has your dad ever tried partnering with some sort of agent/hustler (I don't know the right term) to do business deals? A confident front-man might be able to sell your dad's expertise to businesses for a pretty penny.

<comment><USER6> Oh, my mother tried. In her prime she was a formidable people-person, a savvy deal broker. And she pushed Dad very hard to charge more, but he really does have crippling modesty.

Another anecdote. He applied to work in Antarctica, a lifelong dream of his, for ANARE (now the Australian Antarctic Division). His CV listed at that point nearly 40 years of experience working on every major class of communication known to man -- radio, microwave, telephone, fibre optic -- and throughout South East Asia and Russia.

So which position did he apply for?

The _junior_ communications officer.

<comment><USER7> I'm sorry, I'm confused. If she was the deal-broker, why didn't she dictate the prices?

<comment><USER6> Sometimes you can't get someone to do something they don't want to do.

One of the things about my father that I most admire is his inviolable integrity. He felt that he couldn't morally charge for a lot of what he did and no force on earth, even my mother, could change his decision.

He was wrong, in my opinion. But that's how it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Say, "You so deserve that promotion/scholarship/interview offer."_

I read something recently that suggested using language like "You really _earnt_ that [whatever]" when complimenting people. That is, you define the merit in terms of the person's effort which, hopefully, the recipient of the compliment is less able to deny. We often _deserve_ nice things, but when we think we _earnt_ them it's a more concrete achievement that's harder to wave away with impostor syndrome.

<comment><USER9> From here perhaps:

> The point is to praise children's efforts, not their intelligence, she said.

<http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html>

<comment><USER8> It wasn't that, but it does seem to tie into that whole idea for sure. Good link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a former and returning Microsoft intern, who interviewed in her freshman year. I strongly suspect I got the interview as a result of being female and facing discrimination early on (but not because I was female and they wanted to hire someone of my gender).

Long story short, I'm used to being dismissed or looked over by my male peers - often in CS, but also in the hobbies I've taken up over the years. I found the only way to be listened to or respected was that I had to prove myself very quickly to anyone I had to work with. I got my interview after talking to a Microsoft dev doing recruitment for 10 minutes about a project I worked on after identifying he had a personal interest in that field. He didn't even look at my resume, but I saw him star it when I gave it at the end of our chat.

I would never have been able to do that if I wasn't used to being over-looked. I can signal that I'm competent and easily discuss projects or tech interests within a couple minutes of meeting someone because in the past few years, I've learned that when I neglect to do that, I'm going to get ignored. Because of that, I have an incredibly advantage in that many of my male peers CAN'T do that, simply because they've never had to until it came time to search for a job.

FWIW, one of the biggest reasons I'm returning to Microsoft is that it's one of the few places I've ever felt like I was respected off the bat regardless of age or gender. I couldn't imagine working with most of my peers back in school because of the lack of respect. There are bad apples everywhere, and certain teams are definitely geared towards older folk - but there are highschool kids doing internships there, in some very coveted areas. The guy was out of line, but he's definitely the exception and not the norm.

</comment><comment><USER11> Anecdotally, I know that myself and most of my friends deal with the impostor syndrome.

But, I also think it's important not to fall prey to what I think is the opposite problem: the narrative fallacy. It's easy to feel that you were "fated" for many positions. Or, if not some form of predestination, then some notion that things were "bound" to happen. I know that there was an enormous amount of luck in how I ended up where I am today. While your abilities may have enabled you to be in an elite pool of candidates, there may still be some random chance that landed you the position instead of one of your fellow elite candidates. I can think of three instances that afforded me opportunities that have made enormous impact on my career that were essentially luck.

What you can control is that when you are lucky, make sure you make the most of it. When fellow grad students would ask me for advice on finding jobs, the best I could do was reply, "Be lucky and be good."

<comment><USER12> Your post made me think of a recent comic: Luck > Good (<http://abstrusegoose.com/494>)

I'm not sure that's true in the long run, but in some very important situations it certainly can be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My personal belief is that a diversity of backgrounds and life experiences outweigh intelligence and skill to a fair degree. It counteracts group-think, and fosters more innovation and creativity.

So don't feel guilty about how or why you got an opportunity. You came by it honestly, and whether Microsoft feels their benefit from you is due to your ability or your gender, the fact is you are benefiting them or they wouldn't give you the opportunity. Enjoy it and use the chance to improve yourself as much as possible.

<comment><USER13> In my experience, mixed-gender workplaces are a far better environment than the alternative. Last team I worked on was 40% female on the engineering side, and it was an absolute pleasure. Skills and productivity weren't disproportionately on one side or another, either.

Particularly, as a grown-up with a family, I appreciate the salutory effect that women have on subduing frat-house atmospheres. You probably find fewer women who think of themselves as rockstar ninja pirate hackers, but I'm pretty sure that's not a bad or uneconomic thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> _> "You only got that internship because you're a woman," P. said. I was floored. [...]_

 _> "Good one," I said. After all, we were talking about my Microsoft internship. Microsoft has a program for women and underrepresented minorities, but I wasn't in it. I was a regular old SDE intern._

Yes - but what _if_ you had been in one of those programs? That is the problem with explicitly preferring some group over another, not based on their skill level, when the people you select _want_ to only be selected for their skill and nothing else.

I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution is more difficult than "just hire more women"

<comment><USER15> > I'm not saying that sexism in the industry isn't a problem, but the solution > is more difficult than "just hire more women"

This is true, but one of the biggest steps you can take toward fixing the various forms of explicit and implicit sexism in the industry _is_ to hire more women. It's not sufficient, but it is necessary. Moreover, the existence of such programs can be beneficial in the short term, as well. They really only skew significantly problematic if they are willing to compromise on standards in order to meet the goal of hiring more from underrepresented groups but we have no reason to think they are.

That is, think of it another way: the programs exist to provide more opportunities than would otherwise exist but getting in doesn't imply you only got in because you were of a given demographic. You're still being selected for your skill above all else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Deeper thoughts aside, what kind of good friend says that to someone?

<comment><USER17> Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skilled, or had more more experience, they must have had an unfair advantage. That's easier than taking a hard look at yourself, being honest and addressing the real issues.

<comment><USER18> A good but insensitive friend. And maybe he was right (though overstated), perhaps being female was an advantage in getting the intership. If she wasn't sensitive, she could have responded, "maybe so, but you had the advantage of being male." And she'd be right.

<comment><USER17> I see your point, there are likely just as many people who consider being male an advantage, as there are people who consider being female to be an advantage in this situation. The only person(s) who actually knows why she got the internship and he didn't is/are the person(s) making that decision. Frankly I'm more concerned with her self-doubt than I am with his lack of tack. If you aren't going to believe in yourself, why would you expect anyone else to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When they want to flatter students or buck up their spirits, professors at selective colleges are prone to saying things like, "The fact that you're even here means something." It's a good idea to let that thinking go as soon as possible. The fact that you're here, there, or anywhere means _nothing_. The world is complicated. In a sense her friend was right to point out that being female in a field that is desperate for more female representation is usually an advantage, but he was wrong to be certain -- sexism is still rampant among computing professionals. More importantly, he was wrong to care. Actually, they were both wrong to think that they could know the answer to the question and both wrong to think it was important.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm just going to leave this here...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rinearson></comment>


Google AMP Issue: Links to visit the site currently not working - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/scotch_io/status/1138316707150348288 <comment><USER2> It's ironic to me that AMP is a problem we all brought upon ourselves, really. It's almost (jokingly) a Prisoner's dilemma [1]. Had no one ever opted into it, it probably would have just been swept under the rug by Google, and a win- win for us all. But since a competitor of yours ( _probably_ ) opted into it to get ahead of you, you now _have_ to opt into it also, to compete and get the same SEO "power juice" it gave them. The fact that everyone now adds the code to their site to make it work with AMP is the problem. Google gave us the rope. And then all the SEO managers/marketers/specialists hung us with it. Ha

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)

<comment><USER3> Counterpoint:

WE don't live in an ideal world and AMP is my only option of getting de- bloated webpages. I would love if managers and directors would do this themselves and AMP wouldn't be needed, but that's just not the case.

I have to choose between downloading some text and images to read an article or load 5MB JavaScript SinglePageApp with tracking, ads, auto playing video's...

I know in an ideal world AMP would be useless, but until we reach that world I'm going to prefer AMP links over normal ones.

<comment><USER2> I understand your point, but I guess I just wish it wasn't an "either or" world, so we both could enjoy the web how we would respectively like. Why won't Google let us have both? Right now, I don't believe there is a way to disable AMP ( _unless you use like a Firefox mobile extension for that specific use case_ ). That's what bothers me the most, personally. Google shoving it down our throats, and force feeding us AMP is so user hostile. Let the user decide, even if it was hidden under a super obscure setting in something like chrome://flags/, that'd be better. It's a simple win-win for everyone.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. I would prefer a world where AMP isn't needed and websites don't ad 4MB of bloat to their sites.

But, we don't live in that world I'm afraid. And for many news websites I don't want to even begin downloading the auto-playing video on their page. So AMP is for many the easiest choice.

<comment><USER4> AMP is not needed to promote less bloated websites in search results. Google could easily boost the ranking of lightweight websites without AMP.

AMP is an obvious abuse of a dominant market position and Google will come to regret it.

<comment><USER5> They could, but then we'd see a lot of cheaters even there, AMP is very locked down. I don't like the market position abuse either, but the other parties are far from guilt free.

<comment><USER4> Of course SEO will never end. But if the question is how to improve the open web, then turning the open web into a Google property is not an answer.

<comment><USER5> Signed exchanges are a thing, I don't see how Google intervenes there more than just providing the AMP standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just came to say I hate amp. If I want to go to a site I want that site not a google cache of it. It's not a better experience. It just means another click to get to where I was going. Stop the madness Google kill amp.

<comment><USER7> I don't think I've ever seen anyone on HN defend AMP. We all hate it. It's a pox on the modern web.

<comment><USER8> Depends on who you mean by "we", people working directly on implementing/supporting AMP? Anti-google crowd? Sure, you're probably right.

But as someone who's just an end user, and not working on frontend development who likes AMP, I don't bother commenting when the opinion is extremely skewed to one side.

I love AMP. The website loads faster, feels a lot snappier, and is overall positive experience for me. That's what I care about. I don't care how it got to that point, I want usable and fast loading website - and AMP gives me that.

Can this be speed and mobile friendliness be implemented without AMP? Yes. Is it implemented without AMP? Very rarely.

Of course there's the argument with google trying to get a tighter grip on web and while that is not a good thing the truth is that I, and huge majority of average consumers, just don't care if it means better results for me.

<comment><USER9> I highly doubt that you are just the "end user" you claim to be, otherwise you wouldn't be here, having this discussion. But let's assume that you are.

>Of course there's the argument with google trying to get a tighter grip on web and while that is not a good thing the truth is that I, and huge majority of average consumers, just don't care if it means better results for me.

What you are describing is the very common mix of "tragedy of the commons" \+ "pure utilitarianism". The future would be vastly better if everyone made a small sacrifice now, but each individual action counts for so little that you make the selfish but rational choice of letting others do the small sacrifice.

Maybe your page loads faster now, but this is happening by risking the destruction of the very environment that makes such pages worth reading (independent journalism, freedom from corporate control, etc.). In the long run, it means worse results for you, but your individual sacrifice is unlikely to have any effect. You feel selfish, so you rationalize a story where you are just the "common person" doing what makes sense.

The fact that we have a civilization is proof that there are ways out of this deadlock. For a long time, the answer was religion. We need something for the XXI century to play that role, i.e. making people think not only as individuals but also members of an entire species, ecosystem, etc.

Meanwhile, what you are saying amounts to: "fuck you, I got mine".

<comment><USER10> Don't forget that they don't even actually load faster, but rather support the illusion of such because Google lazy-loads a few of them in the background while you're reading through the search results. Which honestly has some merits of its own, though it's a kick in the dick for metered data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Arguably this means that Google is breaking point 11 of their own AMP Cache Guidelines [1]. If I ran any AMP pages, I would be quite upset.

1: [https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp-c...](https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp- cache-guidelines.md)

<comment><USER12> When you have the power to write the rules, you can break the rules. Google is too powerful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope AMP is the straw that breaks the camels back in googles antitrust suit - its the most blatant and shameless abuse of their position, IMO

</comment><comment><USER14> When I attended the Drupal Europe 2018 conference I had the opportunity to talk to Barb Palser of the AMP global relations team. I asked her in an intentionally innocent way: "I thought AMP is supposed to replace RSS, but from the presentation it seems like it's trying to be a better HTML?" to which she replied yes. I acted all optimistic, so she wouldn't be defensive, but this conversation sent chills down my spine and I remember it to this day.

<comment><USER15> What would it even mean to be better RSS? The idea is sites can preload an AMP page safely so that when you click on it, it can display to the user instantly.

In that specific case, isn't Barb correct, no chills needed?

<comment><USER16> The fundamental change is that now the content comes from Google's servers. Google is hosting the Internet.

Of course Google can't host illegal content on their service, right? And won't host content that goes against a future AMP user agreement...

From there they can tighten the screws against competitors, or future attempts at privacy, or basically anything they get away with.

<comment><USER17> Do you also think that CDNs are bad, since you end up accessing content from the first parties?

<comment><USER16> With CDNs I can decide which to use for my site, if any. If AMP gets established as the "new HTML", the new way Internet content is provided, then it's under Google's control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When AMP was introduced I assumed the actual content would be loaded from the canonical URL anyway. This whole in-between caching layer G introduced is very weird.

Also, I think what AMP was pitted against--Facebook instant articles--no longer exists, or at least doesn't particularly matter (now that FB is several pivots beyond the whole 'newsfeed is full of articles' stage).

<comment><USER19> One way to think of AMP is as a solution to "When people click on links from search the pages often load very slowly. Can we make this instant?" Any preloading based solution has to involve caching, because otherwise sites could learn that they had shown up in your search results without you having clicked on then.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, not on AMP, and I'm only speaking for myself)

<comment><USER20> While this might have been one of the reasons, most likely from the (sometimes rather native) perspective of devs, I still attribute mostly malice to this whole thing and hope it gets them good in the whole antitrust issue. Even if it were just that, trying to tackle slow loading pages out of selflessness on Google's side, I can only say: None of your ducking business. Make sure _your_ pages load fast, and then that's it.

<comment><USER19> _> trying to tackle slow loading pages out of selflessness on Google's side_

I'm not sure where you're getting "selflessness". The faster pages load from search the better people's experience of using search is. This directly benefits both Google and people who use search.

<comment><USER20> Then don't link to slow pages. Stop pretending to be the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> AMP links are a major reason I switched to duckduckgo on mobile. Google seems to be shortsighted in doing this.

Yes, only a tiny minority of technical users will know what amp pages are and switch search engines to avoid them. But, a larger group will likely find the amp pages _annoying_ , even if they can't precisely articulate why. This weakens google's hold on the market.

<comment><USER22> Why do you think a larger group will find AMP annoying? I know I'm in the minority, but I generally like AMP in my search results.

<comment><USER21> If it breaks things. For example, I had a common issue where reddit links in search didn't have comments and I had to click through to get to them

If the amp page displays what you expect, it works well. It it makes you click through, it doesn't.

Of course, users may or may not realize amp/google are the reason a site is broke.

Dunno how many people have issues like this though. Reddit was the main one for me, plus a few random sites having issues.

<comment><USER22> "broken" and "requiring an extra click" seem like two different things to me. Although I understand that you're not getting what you expected, so my judgement here is subjective.

<comment><USER21> It may not be obvious to users _why_ their site is broken. Of course, at that stage they may blame the site unless they know why the site appears that way in the first place.

But it isn't always obvious how to get to the site from an AMP page.

<comment><USER22> My point was that "broken" feels like the wrong term. I think the site owner should be blamed if content the user needs is not either on the AMP page or accessible with an easily found link.

<comment><USER23> > I think the site owner should be blamed if content the user needs is not > either on the AMP page or accessible with an easily found link.

Hmm. If AMP participation were voluntary, I would agree, but given how necessary it is to SEO ranking, Google deserves a _large_ portion of any blame for broken content - They do not get a free pass to enforce usage of a protocol, but dodge the consequences of its implementation (which will always involve friction and some breakage).

<comment><USER22> Fair point :) For my own stuff, I don't really care too much about SEO so I'm not sure what the full implications are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> <tinfoil> What if it's not a bug, but Google testing user response </tinfoil>

(assuming Google is not stupid so Hanlon's razor may not apply)

<comment><USER25> Your post remined me of this twitter thread from one of mozzilla's developers:

[https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871240432660480](https://twitter.com/johnath/status/1116871240432660480)

Downthread:

""" And every time, they'd say, "oops. That was accidental. We'll fix it in the next push in 2 weeks." """

<comment><USER24> I remember that thread now. Well, looks like standard Google behavior then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This seems to be a way for Google to make revenue from news sites and is a clear abuse of monopoly power. When I click on an AMP news link, I see a "carousel" at the top that shows multiple news articles. I can go to various articles on a topic by swiping left or right, all without going back to the news site.

But now that Google has removed the link to visit the site, it is clear they don't want you to visit the actual news site but do everything through Google.

This means that only the Google ad network will be allowed, so they stand to benefit from this arrangement, and news sites can have no hope of receiving any traffic.

<comment><USER15> No, multiple ad networks (100+) are allowed in google amp, so publishers are free to chose what monetizes best: [https://marketingland.com/google- says-100-ad-networks-suppor...](https://marketingland.com/google-says-100-ad- networks-support-amp-releases-3rd-party-technology-support-234579)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Yes! I've been having this issue for days but assumed it was just me. It is particularly frustrating for sites like Reddit where the AMP version is too aggressively cached and misses most of the recent comments.

<comment><USER28> Reddit plays it's own games. While they dropped the aggressive "Use app" nagging, they now frequently and purposefully (?) break back-navigation (eg. from individual posts to the subreddit) with the all too common "Oh snap. Something went wrong" and cutesy picture excuse for a dysfunctional site.

<comment><USER29> Reddit is fun now; start Tor, try to visit a soon-to-be-banned sub-reddit, enjoy Tor's tracking notifications not present on normal reddit sub-reddits. Looks like reddit is turning into one large honeypot.

<comment><USER30> I don't understand, can you elaborate? What are Tor's tracking notifications?

<comment><USER26> I think bitL is saying that reddit embeds some sort of tracking script in "soon-to-be-banned subreddits" that they don't embed in normal subteddits, and that you can tell this from notifications within Tor

<comment><USER31> Still don't follow. Why track soon-to-be-banned subreddits differently?

<comment><USER29> Don't ask me, it's just an observation. I don't think Reddit employs imbeciles so the usual "oops, a bug there!" is unlikely. But given it's pretty easy to track a visitor across multiple social networks in real time, including their real identity, it's good to be aware of it and even being a bit paranoid about one's privacy while on Reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't know anything about AMP, so I'm genuinely amazed that one could create bugs in it that just downright break hyper references.

I though links was a pretty important part of HTML, and so people took care to ensure they work?

<comment><USER33> Not for google. They want to kill links.

<comment><USER34> What do they intend to replace them with?

<comment><USER35> As far as I know they have not proposed a replacement, only an intention to come up with one.

<comment><USER36> They've proposed the 'portal' element in the last month [0] to replace the link with something... Different... Haven't they?

[0] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a- new-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-portals-a-new-web-page- navigation-system-for-chrome/)

<comment><USER22> Portal is moreso an alternative to iframes than an alternative to links. But it's true that it could very well make it more likely for a portal to another site to be included in a page rather than using a link.

<comment><USER34> They still use a link to source the embedded page as well, it's just that a portal is a bit more friendly with the host frame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Interesting, I didn't even consider that could be a bug. I just assumed that was how AMP was supposed to behave and moved to Duckduckgo for mobile search.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised I haven't seen more discussion on the actual bug in the comments. In the screen capture the user shows, the AMP header shows the link icon in the upper right corner, and when you click it it should show the real URL and let you navigate through (but that's not happening, hence the bug).

However, in _my_ experience the header is totally different. There is an (i) icon in the upper left corner that shows the link when tapped, and the upper right corner shows the share icon and tapping it opens the share dialog. Note this changed for me recently (I used to get the link icon like the poster).

So Google is clearly testing different behavior, which probably led to the bug. In any case, I'd note the version I got that I think the (i) is much less clear than the link icon, and I'm sure the end result is people clicking through to the source site less often. Fuck Google and their aggressive attempts to hijack the web even more than they already have.

<comment><USER39> I think in general anything about amp receives a bit of attention to put it mildly. I'm curious if anyone from amp/google is lurking around to give a perspective. It is reproducible on all my devices now. I remember it working at least yesterday...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> So many people in this thread complain about AMP being forced on them as an end user. Nobody forces you to use Google...

Just use another search engine like DuckDuckGo. It is sufficient for over 90% of my searches and I haven't seen an amp page in ages.

AMP for SEO is another discussion, in that case it is kind of forced on you if you want to rank high on the Googlenet.

<comment><USER41> The problem is that _everyone else uses Google_.

Even though I don't use Google for search, my friends do and they'll gladly share AMP pages with me.

<comment><USER42> "Weird, what web site even is that?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> First of all, I'm not a web developer, so I may not get all the problems with AMP.

I actually love AMP on mobile. Every site I've used(1) that has an AMP version loads faster and works better even with some ads than the normal version on Firefox mobile with uBlock Origin. Given that it's possible for people to host their own AMP cache (like Cloudflare does), I really don't see the problem with AMP itself.

(1) Other then Reddit, but considering how much of a dumpster fire their normal mobile site is I honestly think that it's broken on purpose to try and make people use the app.

</comment><comment><USER44> The AMP links to visit the original site are working fine for me on Brave (based on Chromium) on Android: clicking on the "(i)" icon shows the URL.

The easiest way to to get rid of all AMP pages in Google search results is to disable javascript on www.google.com/*.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't work on iPhone Safari for me, I get the same translucent gray overlay regardless of where I tap.

<comment><USER44> Could it be an iOS/Safari-specific bug?

<comment><USER45> The tweet says it's Chrome on iOS.

<comment><USER46> Which is still actually Safari/Webkit as foreign rendering engines are not allowed to ship on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Maybe an obvious or stupid question, but that's worth asking: As a user, do we have a way to disable AMP?

<comment><USER47> Use DuckDuckGo instead? There's no switch in Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> A reminder that AMP results don't show up on Google Search if you use the mobile version of Firefox ;)

<comment><USER47> Yet…

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Chromium on mobile has always had issues with AMP for me, I've just come to acept it I think it's wrong for a monopoly to take control of what another entitys site looks like. It's a we can take care of EVERYBODY feature: we were fine without it and will be fine when it doesn't exist anymore

</comment><comment><USER50> Try this [https://phys.org/news/2019-06-mass-anomaly-moon-largest- crat...](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-mass-anomaly-moon-largest-crater.html) on iOS safari. The source link does not open.

</comment><comment><USER51> I also absolutely hate how it lets you zoom out but not zoom in. Have to reload the entire page to get it to the original size :/

</comment><comment><USER52> May I ask what screen recording app is he using?

<comment><USER53> It's built into iOS nowadays, you can add it to your control centre via settings.

<comment><USER54> I just discovered this, after my daughter told me about it. You need to set it to show in your control center first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Use Kiwi Browser, it has built-in AMP removal.

</comment><comment><USER56> Oh look another "completely innocent mistake" by Google

<comment><USER45> You're getting downvoted, presumably because "they wouldn't be evil", but I find the alternative just as problematic: a superpower tech company with a budget larger than many nation states hiring the best and the brightest and paying them unbelievably well so they do their best.. breaking fundamental features in widely used software and not realizing it themselves (they wouldn't ship the update otherwise, I believe). What's happening there?

And the follow up thought: "move fast and break things" suggests that we should think twice before relying on these companies for anything close to critical infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Google's power abuse with AMP is really upsetting. Hopefully this is being looked into and AMP canned before its spread via monopoly is irreversible. It's bad for all, but Google.

</comment><comment><USER50> Happens in iOS Safari too

</comment><comment><USER58> Why would you want to visit sites that aren't Google (c)? They're probably very unsafe and full of very annoying ads!

</comment><comment><USER59> Simple. Don't use it. It doesn't make any sense anyway.

<comment><USER28> Sure if it's your site, you don't use AMP - it just indicates disregard for basic web usability and competence. But what about the (rare) site using AMP with you having no control? Hmm ... ok thinking about it I don't know any site using AMP worth reading. I guess using AMP, like script-heavy content, is just a negative marker for quality content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Isn't AMP blatant copyright infringement? If so, how does a website owner demand the infringement to be taken down?

<comment><USER2> The sites themselves are opting into AMP, I believe. Google isn't just converting the site to AMP automatically. The owners of the site themselves have to add code to their site for it to work with AMP...

<comment><USER60> Oh, I see. Never mind then. I've never used AMP so thought it was automatic for all or most websites on the internet.

<comment><USER61> Google strong-arms sites into implementing AMP by giving SEO boosts to those sites, such as showing your articles in the "Top stories" section</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft brings Google war to Kansas - <AUTHOR> http://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-brings-google-war-kansas-010115788.html

<comment><USER2> TL;DR Microsoft, who's forgotten what innovation is in the past 10 years and is hanging by a thread in a declining market, engages in the one thing it still knows and loves to do - FUD campaigns against their more successful and innovative competitors.</comment>


Play mario to navigate this website - <AUTHOR> http://www.concetto.co.in/

<comment><USER2> Sometimes, if you _really_ know your target audience and how they'll respond, it's okay to create what might typically be considered a UX nightmare. I'm not convinced that this was one of those times, but I could be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cute, but surprisingly difficult to get to some places. (Also, wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo lawyers came knocking.)

<comment><USER4> A Nintendo lawsuit threat would be the best possible press outlet for these guys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cute and potentially litigious.

Hope that is what you were going for.

<comment><USER6> I could be wrong, but I think Nintendo has been very hands-off when it comes to old Mario stuff. It's blatantly infringing, but they probably won't even send you a C&D.

It suffers by not fully committing to the idea. For example, once I've gone into a specific event category, now I have to use my mouse to navigate and scroll. Oh well. It's a nice HTML5 novelty, but just as unusable as all those terrible Flash sites.

<comment><USER5> > It suffers by not fully committing to the idea.

It suffers by committing to this idea at all. Were it not for the exploitative nostalgia, no one would feel it was compelling.

> It's a nice HTML5 novelty, but just as unusable as all those terrible Flash > sites.

It is a poor counterfeit. SMB has physics, this does not appear to. Your example of the context switch is another obvious annoyance. How does it's presentation add to the experience? I think it detracts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really pretty cool but I had a major issue not relating to the content but more about the goal. After spending about ten minutes navigating the "site" I still had no idea what this company was about or what it had to offer, I still don't really know quite frankly. I was so distracted by this really cool and novel concept that I didn't even bother to find out what the "point" was. That's a very serious problem.

Now if this is just a proof of concept then it worked, however it appeared as though there was a real company behind all of the distractions.

It's kind of funny really, as an indie game developer myself I find one of the hardest tasks to portray to the user is the "point" of the game so to speak, it's kind of cool to see what types of challenges this site and the developers are going to have to face.

</comment><comment><USER8> A lot of painful movement bugs

</comment><comment><USER9> I wouldn't want to have to use their site all the time in this way but I really enjoyed this. Talk about "gamification" of your website!

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome site. Navigate enough and you'll find a hidden 'Star' on the home page behind the Events pipe. :D

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of <http://www.effectgames.com/games/mariodemo/> which is also made with divs only (no canvas!).

</comment><comment><USER12> In Chrome and Safari I can't get past the instruction screen :(

<comment><USER13> Make sure you enable plugins.

<comment><USER12> :( I am so used to seeing toy things like this in html/js that it is a bit sad to see a flash plugin is required.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Page scrolls left and right as I move around. E.g. white borders appear on side of screen.

Also, lots of other bugs. :(

</comment><comment><USER15> ctrl+arrows are keys in Opera to go back/forward and to highlight links on a page. Needless to say, you cannot use the run button on this site in Opera.</comment>


A Crypto Kitty was just sold for $100k - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/CryptoKitties/status/937058830143254528 <comment><USER2> Is there any way to differentiate a legitimate sale from someone transferring $100k of ether to themselves?

<comment><USER3> They bought a cat from the developers, sold with a decreasing price auction (400 ether to 0 ether)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could someone provide some background on this?

<comment><USER3> Its a digital collectible game where you can breed cats, and some of them are special (fancy cats). This cat was part of theni initial batch auctioned by the developers.

<comment><USER5> Initial Cat Offering?</comment></comment></comment>


Trump adviser: $600 weekly boost in unemployment benefits to expire in late July - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/weekly-boost-unemployment-benefits-late-july-expire-kudlow-trump-2020-6 <comment><AUTHOR> _" We're paying people not to work. It's better than their salaries would get," Kudlow said._</comment>


Effect of electrolyzed high-pH alkaline water on blood viscosity - <AUTHOR> http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-016-0153-8?author_access_token=MpBnYSGexQcxBHYSfBCEMG_BpE1tBhCbnbw3BuzI2RNGtq_gj_Kl5xZm_FpBDRkPhpbhXIimbyHd0vie47N5Jv7XEqR2j-vcUE2tAA1sAN7oe2lIItuN17H5BBiiYGEn55alnEX5AExWl6L4vUfs5g%3D%3D <comment><AUTHOR> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_ionizer#cite_note- Lower-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_ionizer#cite_note-Lower-3)

has old sources cited for the statement "There is no medical evidence for any health benefits of alkaline water."

are we still sure? is Essentia Water a scam?</comment>


Which is the most sexist national anthem? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/feb/25/how-sexist-is-canadas-national-anthem-compared-with-others

<comment><USER2> > In the national anthems of countries such as Italy and Turkey __, similarly > to O Canada, lyrics reference "men" and "sons", omitting women and > daughters. Italy may be feminine, but "every man has the heart and hands of > Ferruccio" in the Song of the Italians.

Flagged. The article is an awful stylistic exercise. I'm Italian and I can assure you our anthem is all but sexist. I'm for gender equality, not the obsessive compulsive need to mention each and every gender in each and every media in perfect ratio.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're barking to the wrong tree, dude. I'm italian too and I know what you mean. I'm just looking for others opinion. :)

<comment><USER2> Sorry if it sounded harsh. It's a decent article on grammar and semantics – an enjoyable topic by itself – but the writer chose the easy way to market it, that is, "sexism". I hold The Guardian in high regard, so I was surprised the article came from it.</comment></comment></comment>


Google and Mastercard reportedly partner to track offline purchases - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/31/google-and-mastercard-reportedly-partner-to-track-offline-purchases/ <comment><USER2> discussed in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17881157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17881157)</comment>


Is Square Ruining the Starbucks Customer Experience? - <AUTHOR> http://jasongrimes.com/post/45940936971/is-square-ruining-the-starbucks-customer-experience

<comment><USER2> Square is, IME, ruining the customer experience pretty much everywhere it is used in regular, fixed-premised established retail/restaurant businesses.

Its an improvement in other places, though.</comment>


A query from down under: How do our universities *really* compare? - <AUTHOR>

I'm about to graduate in Software Engineering from what would (and does) describe itself as "the leading" university in Australia. I've certainly been happy with the experience - most of the lecturers have been very knowledgeable and reasonably engaging, and the course material has been quite interesting most of the way through. Anyone wanting the opportunity to specialise in whatever field has had the opportunity to do so.
But.
Some of my cohort are, to put it bluntly, awful - awful - software engineers. Working on my final year project this year - a major assessment piece completed in teams of 15 - I've seen so many examples of code that reflect a complete lack of knowledge about, understanding of, or enthusiasm for the craft that you have to wonder why they would choose the field in the first place. It's not just that their technical skills are deficient, either. Broader engineering concepts and supporting processes are also left wanting. One student I worked with - in their final and fourth year of university-level study - had a project group of five people in which only one person understood the idea of version control. Rather than take the time to research and learn about, say, SVN or Git, the group - for the entire year - emailed versions of files between themselves and the group. For a year-long project. It would be funny (and it is) if it wasn't so infuriating. These are students who have chosen to undertake study in Software Engineering (over, say, Computer Science or Information Systems) and yet who, at the end of their degree, are absolutely guaranteed to be virtually useless to any self-respecting company that would like to hire an engineer.
However, before this devolves into a lengthy rant, the main reason I posted this is to ask the following:
> Have those of you who have attended "leading" institutions in your own countries had similar experiences?
I ask because it would be nice to know that it's not just us down here (although it would also be nice to know that it is just us down here).
I'm also interested to know what other people think about the above situation - is it acceptable, or desirable, to have students graduating top-level universities in a technical discipline with a negligible degree of technical skill? There are some obvious points raised by this second question (bad students lower costs for good students, bad students won't be successful in industry), but as this question has become far wordier than intended I'll leave them for discussion :). <comment><USER2> That's weird, I was told I'm graduating from the leading university in Australia and we don't do 15 person final year projects ;) We also MUST use and understand version control so "leading" might be closer to truth (branching/exploring existing code bases, submitting assignments as constant SVN commits over the time allocated). But there are so many technologies that are neglected that both have a great theoretical base and practical application; like test driven development/design by contract. It is difficult for faculty to always be on top of the latest and greatest because of the rapid pace of change, but that's no reason to give up completely. So in short; YMMV re: "leading".

It is an unfortunate fact that incompetent (in the most literal sense) and undedicated people are hired, let alone as engineers. If you've done the field work component of the Software Engineering degree, you should have experienced this. As a pre-graduate, I have been more knowledgeable about the technologies and more committed to the project than some bad apples amongst the vastly higher paid career staff.

At the same time, I would say that a HN reader should know that being enthusiastic about something where others aren't isn't a waste of time. There are those just as dedicated as you out there and they will appreciate your thirst for knowledge, no matter what degree you have. If you have taken the time to really understand the core courses (statistical analysis/mathematics, engineering practice, software design, computer science), not just pass their assessment, you'll have gained valuable skills for approaching any task - software or otherwise.

<comment><USER3> In my experience the more "leading" a higher educational institution, the less likely they are to teach you practical vocational skills such as version control. It's almost a point of perverse pride that you are unsuitable for work when you leave.

There's lots of fascinating reasons for this, one is that part of the aims is to grade you compared with peers. Making everyone more effective doesn't actually achieve this goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ever hear of the bell curve? It applies to everything from intelligence, height, weight, to whatever else you care to measure. Also I refer you to [http://searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.ht...](http://searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.htm) for a good read on what you can expect in general. Holding a grudge and fixating on the shortcomings of others will not help you in life. It is much better to focus on your strengths and to constantly improve yourself.</comment>


T-Mobile, Sprint break off merger talks - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/t-mobile-is-ending-merger-talks-with-sprint-2506406296.html <comment><USER2> Good. Corporate consolidation is not good for consumers.

<comment><USER3> Sprint is barely viable by itself though. I was hoping this would give Essential Phone a viable network but without the merger it feels DOA

<comment><USER4> > Sprint is barely viable by itself through.

This is currently true, but it does not need to be this way. Sprint is barely viable because of near-constant mismanagement for over a decade now.

There's nothing about the market at large that makes Sprint non-viable. There's plenty of customers and money in the US to support a strong 4th place provider. Sprint just refuses to execute anything properly (this was true both before and after SoftBank, despite the change in leadership).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I got from the article: its clear TMO needs this less than Sprint and is holding out for a better offer.

Also glad they didn't merge as a TMO subscriber.</comment>


Amazon Picking Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/ <comment><USER2> I saw this competition at RoboCup in Leipzig. So many improvised-looking stuff going on, some with home vacuum cleaners to generate vacuum for suction cups.

Apparently, the winner, Team Delft from the Netherlands, had 0 errors on recognizing the objects. They used some sort of deep neural net for that.

[http://www.tudelft.nl/nl/actueel/laatste- nieuws/artikel/deta...](http://www.tudelft.nl/nl/actueel/laatste- nieuws/artikel/detail/team-delft-wint-amazon-picking-challenge-1/)

</comment><comment><USER3> First prize is $25,000 USD. Doesn't seem worth it given that it appears one must upload their code, eg: [https://github.com/amazon-picking- challenge](https://github.com/amazon-picking-challenge)

In comparison, Netflix gave away $1,000,000 for a better recommendation algorithm.

<comment><USER4> It seems worth it if you want 25000$ and are willing to do this work for it, no?

<comment><USER5> I think what was meant was that a winning solution to Amazon's problem is probably worth a lot more to them than $25000 to them. Eg. cents saved picking item would rack up to millions saved annually. Amazon bought Kiva for $775 million.[1] a top rank robotic picking and packing solution would be worth as much too.

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-19/amazon- acq...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-19/amazon-acquires- kiva-systems-in-second-biggest-takeover)

<comment><USER6> Amazon won't be using any of this technology. Heck, nobody will be using this technology. This is just an opportunity to encourage people to get together and further research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What people don't seem to understand is that picking is _hard_ even for humans. The technology isn't yet close to replacing human labor imho.

The bins used here are the best case scenario- every item visible, every item is actually in the bin it's supposed to be in, the bin only 20℅ full by volume. A human can pick at ten times the speed of these robots given those conditions. Fill the bin to the point that nothing more will fit in, and now try competing with a human.

Amazon Robotics isn't paying the winners $25,000 and actually using what they built next week. They're just trying to put research on the right path.

</comment><comment><USER8> There appears to be a stray object replacement character (U+FFFC) in the title (right after the 'n' in Amazon). Perhaps someone can edit it out?

<comment><USER9> I assumed that was intentional - I read it as "Amazon Object Picking Challenge"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something that seems really odd is they are working off the false assumption that current picking bins are suitable for the job. It seems every team was effectively competing against the bins, not devising an efficient way to put a subset of objects in storage into a container.

<comment><USER11> How do you know it's a false assumption and not a tested fact?

<comment><USER12> How do you know if it's a tested fact? And even if it was, why not experimenting without human constraints?

<comment><USER11> I _don 't_ know, that's why I'm asking!

 _And even if it was, why not experimenting without human constraints?_

Who says they didn't? Really, all I'm asking is: why is everyone assuming that Amazon/Kiva didn't think about these things? Because unless one has a good reason to think they are taking a wrong approach, it just seems like hubris to flat-out claim so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is kind of sad to see the animated gif at the bottom of the page. Robots are coming for his job.

[http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/kivapick2.gif](http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/kivapick2.gif)

<comment><USER14> I was about to write the same thing. He's the last guy at the factory. Surrounded by other robots impatiently waiting on this slow human.

I used to think Amazon was great when they sold books. Now I'm not so sure.

but I suppose it's too late. Once humans are removed, they can drop prices lower than anyone with humans could possibly provide. yikes.

<comment><USER11> So when Amazon replaced all those cashiers, cleaners and rest of retail personnel with a site they were great, but replacing a few warehouse jobs is sad?

<comment><USER14> you make a good point, but it wasn't so obvious back then what was happening. the world was still dialup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> the prize 25k is not relevant since most of the equipment can be taken from a sponsor and the participants are mostly universities, which means that every single cost is paid either by a sponsor or by amazon, we entered last year and ended up paying a total of 250€ for 5 members

personally i love the fact that this competition exists even if only to push research in the field

</comment><comment><USER16> Why are people from Quebec not allowed to enter?

(Challenge is void in Brazil, Quebec, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and where prohibited by law.)

<comment><USER17> Legal hurdles. Quebec has some interesting laws about conducting business in/with their province, particularly around doing business in both French and English.

I'm not sure about why Brazil and Crimea are not allowed to participate, but I know Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Sudan will all be prevented due to US sanctions against those countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google approaching this kind of challenge with neural networks[0]. Which is, perhaps, connected to why they are putting Boston Dynamics up for sale.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuoX_866UFg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuoX_866UFg)

</comment><comment><USER19> I've thought that maybe a better idea for amazon woud be containerising their products. Is it easier to delevop a picking robot that can deal with odd shaped objects, or a packing robot that can put an individual object into a cardboard box, with a universal way to grip?

</comment><comment><USER20> They having this contest in germany for a reason - but if they are so cheap with the price money I don't think employees should feel threatened - yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand why this site is hosted on BlueHost...</comment>