The prison inside: Japan's hikikomori lack relationships, not physical spaces - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/06/01/lifestyle/prison-inside-japans-hikikomori-lack-relationships-not-physical-spaces/ <comment><USER2> People in quite a few countries I've been to are more and more reluctant to try and form a relationship with a stranger, especially one who does not seem outgoing. No idea about the root cause of this general mistrust.

It's also easier to have substitute "network" relationships which are not complete.

Abd it shows we're geared towards living in relatively small communities whee everyone knows everyone, but new forced mobility breaks that, and so do long work hours. (I believe the optimum size is somewhere around 10k and average 30h workweek, more bursty.)

My personal solution to what almost happened to me was to fix the underlying problem with medication and start building from ground up. It took two lost years of my life (funny enough, during studies) and it's always a risk of relapse...

The solution is unfortunately to get really creative in finding actual humanity around. It's rare but happens.

It is actually quite hard for an adult to find an actual connection who isn't a spouse nowadays. You get to dig into weird social spaces like clubs (some are really niche too) and there are few guarantees. It's also for some reason harder for men because women still tend to build minimum social groups as a reflex ("coffee clatches" or rumour Mills)

A lot of it is extremely superficial too which can be annoying.

<comment><USER3> I guess that's true if you consider churches weird. Some are weird. Most are full of fairly normal people. Other than the desire to focus on growing as people. And, depending on your area, the theism.

But all the other desires and concerns you list are met by millions of people by going to church. And participating! Just like university, it's possible to _go_ while essentially being disconnected from everyone.

And if the concern is the weirdness, most churches would be more than happy to let folks join in on activities and charitable work with no theological or financial commitments. I've never seen religious tests in churches other than to _be a teacher of religion_ , which makes sense.

<comment><USER4> Starting with the caveat of "not all churches", but it is a very common trend.

Churches have a weird entry criteria - you have to believe in their god (which can be offensive when it's phrased like "you are incapable of handling your own life, leave it to God"). And if you don't, you're silently and persistently pressured into making that conversion, with a healthy dose of pity for you and your sinful ways.

<comment><USER3> I've never been to a church that required people to believe anything in order to engage in any particular way. Except to become a teacher or minister or priest, but that's fairly common sense I think.

But, yes, people will often discuss theology and proselytize. If that sort of thing angers you, maybe skip out after the music and then catch up with folks when the coffee or potluck starts. Or maybe skip all of the above and just sign up for the volunteer activities at retirement homes, women's shelters, etc.

<comment><USER4> > I've never been to a church that required people to believe anything in > order to engage in any particular way.

Communion at the Catholic Church. Or entering the Mormon church at all.

<comment><USER5> You're probably thinking of entering a Mormon Temple. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints distinguishes between churches where people meet every Sunday, and Temples where more important ceremonies are conducted (and which, incidentally, aren't open on Sunday).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "But the reality is that most hikikomori are people who can't get back into > society after straying off the path at some point," he says. "They have been > forced into withdrawal. It isn't that they're shutting themselves away — > it's more like they're being forced to shut themselves away."

Articles need some narrative, and I get that it's also trying to put the spotlight on a different variant of a phenomenon.

But I feel it's going too strong on the opposite direction. There must be a sizeable number of Hikikomori who cut themselves willingly from traditional society because they feel there's nothing there for them. Others, like quoted, are forced into it.

I'm sure the reality of it is pretty mixed and varied, especially as the definition has been broaden to encompass people who don't get out of their homes out of pure necessity.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel like this has alot of parallels with the incel movement

<comment><USER8> I find it very disappointing that the definition of "incel" has now strayed incredibly from the actual literal abbreviation of "involuntary celibate", a rather clinical and descriptive term.

In my eyes, it now encompasses anti-feminist politics and overlaps a lot with "redpills". What happened?

<comment><USER4> Some people started looking for a cause of their "involuntary celibacy", and chose the easy route - it can't be me, so it must be you. Once the blame has been assigned in such a way, hatred is one easy step further.

<comment><USER9> What do you want them to do? Better themselves - Are they not already trying? Accept they were born unattractive - then what, suicide?

<comment><USER10> They could lower their standards and settle, as people have always done. It doesn't feel great but companionship can be found in people who are not "classically attractive", as much as it stings to not be an optimum mate

<comment><USER9> One of the big incel complaints is that the least attractive women don't want the least attractive men. If that is indeed true there is none for them to settle for.

<comment><USER11> Take a step outside into a busy shopping street. I think you will find you see a lot of couples, varying from average both towards attractive and unattractive. Maybe they are attractive to each other, I can't say. People are into wildly different things. The point is that it's not exactly difficult to find evidence of this complaint not being true.

Rather than a legitimate complaint, it reads more as an excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _The term was coined by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito in the late 1990s_

{Citation needed.}

This seems unlikely given that "hikikomoru" is a compound verb which means to stay inside.

If it's nice weather but someone stays at home all day, the hikikomoru verb is used for that; it (still) doesn't have automatic connotations of it being a way of life.

The "komoru" part has various meanings (according to EDICT): "shut oneself in (e.g. one's room); to be confined in; to seclude oneself; to hide away; to stay inside (one's shell)" as well as "to be heavy with (e.g. smoke); to be stuffy; to be dense", plus others.

<comment><USER13> > _The term was coined by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito in the late 1990s_

I interpret the term (n. hikikomori) differently to the verb (hikikomoru) from which it is derived.

The term (hikikomori): individual instance of the social phenomenon of withdrawing from society and living in persistent isolation.

The verb (hikikomoru): used in reference to a specific (non-persistent) act of staying indoors, without necessarily carrying the broader sociological meaning. Edit: as another comment points out, just staying indoors for a weekend, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> The verb is used in normal daily conversation amongst us without the negative connotation ( as yet, given a general context ), as explained in a previous comment.

It's basically just staying home when you could do otherwise. A normal reply to "what did you do last Sunday ?", etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is there such a fascination with hikikomori on this site?

<comment><USER15> Because Japan Times says, "Oh, it's been _days_ since we published an article on hikihomori" and publish another one. People who read Japan Times, then post it all over the place (not just HN). It gets voted up on HN for 2 reasons I think. First, there are a lot of people who use social media (like HN) as a crutch for dealing with their own mental health issues. Because they spend a lot of time trying to learn how to become healthy, they are interested in a lot of things like this (and it's not just hikikomori -- it's depression, and schizophrenia, etc, etc). Just look at all posts about various drugs and diet relating to mental health on HN.

The other reason is because some people like to bash Japan (and increasingly Korea it seems to me). I don't really like the word "racist" here because it really doesn't fit, I think. It's more culturist. Some people really _hate_ the culture and think it's wrong, so they promote stories that show it in a bad light. I would say equally prevalent are people who unduly _love_ the culture and promote stories that show it in a good light. There are _tons_ of overly optimistic stories about Japan on HN.

Japan Times makes money from this second category (people who unduly hate Japanese culture and people who unduly love Japanese culture) and so post a ridiculous amount of trashy articles about these kinds of things. If you really want to understand Japanese culture well, I would advise avoiding it as much as possible. They are only in it to whip up emotion as far as I can tell.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Some people really hate the culture and think it 's wrong, so they promote > stories that show it in a bad light._

I posted this story. I certainly don't hate my own home or culture. Rather I think one must have lived a very sheltered life in Japan not to have been affected by the hikikomori issue, by alcoholism, or both, which I'd argue are the two biggest problems today in Japanese society, bar none.

Japan Times criticism is valid, somewhat. It's certainly not top notch journalism, very few articles are these days. But I can't quite go and post a study of hikikomori in Japanese.

Not a single person I know in Japan has had no contact with, or not suffered themselves directly these issues. Any public conversation about them is good and necessary.

<comment><USER15> I never meant to imply that hikikomori was not an important issue. However, the questions was, why do articles on hikikomori show up on HN so frequently. HN is a forum about high tech, and startups, mostly centred around Silicon Valley. How does hikikomori relate? Why are we discussing the problems of Japan -- unrelated to high tech, unrelated to startups, unrelated to Silicon Valley -- on HN? Sure, you can imagine that it would show up once or twice, but the frequency it shows up is beyond what you would expect.

Why do _you_ think people on HN want to talk about this phenomenon?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot of talk about mental issues in HN. Sometimes from a societal point of view, sometimes medical, etc. So it's part of that interest for people here, I suppose. There's a lot of talk about health, and nutrition too. HN is definitely not what I thought it was either.

Personally, I know a significant number of people ( not just in Japan ) who work from home, glued to a keyboard.

I do too on occasion -- as I assume is the case for many people on HN. But I must travel more than I like for work as well.

At any rate, these people always looking at a screen, they don't think of themselves as hikikomori. And mostly aren't, in fact they may have an uncle, or a son, or a niece, or next door neighbour, who really is, and makes life very, very difficult for people related to them, or living with them. So, not hikikomori, yet these work-from-home types can have close to zero interaction with the outside world other than a couple of holiday trips per year, and the occasional shopping weekend with wife / husband / partner.

I think some of them wake up one day and think they're going to end up like their neighbour. Others want to know how to get their son out of the room.

The thing is, hardly anyone talks in person to anyone else about it in so- called real life.

Maybe many in our line of work can be in situations that relate to the problem. Isolation in the age of hyperconnectivity is ironically very real.

<comment><USER15> I have a good friend who is hikikomori. I actually met him on the internet before I moved to Japan. I've never met him in person, despite trying many times to set it up. Hikikomori, in my experience, is _very_ different than the isolation of working from home (something I also experience). It's obviously not a single medical condition. It's a result of dealing with some mental illness, but rather than living on the street or being institutionalised, you live at home because your family cares for you. It is uncommon in most places in the world because you simply _can 't_ live in your bedroom without leaving. In Japan it is possible. That's why it exists only in Japan and a few similar cultures.

I'm all for talking about the feeling of isolation and the frustration of working a long time without much social contact (story of my current life). However, I would not conflate that with hikikomori which is a much more serious social issue of how to deal with mental illness.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not conflating. I was answering why I think it may be of interest for HN readers.

Also, there are many types of hikikomori. Some have no family support or live with them.

I know one who lives in an internet cafe, alone, and has for years. The staff told me she avoids everyone as if they were toxic poison. Only comes out at night for bathroom trips / snacks and she will run back into the cubicle if anyone's in the hall when she comes out. It's been three years now. In a cubicle. Leaves the payments near the drink section in an envelope always at the same time of night. Doesn't even use the cubicle computer, she works out of her smartphone. ( Our company actually hired her for a while. ) Most employees do not even know what she looks like, I certainly don't. She's adamant that she wants to live like this.

The son of a friend has been in his room for the last ten years. Does nothing all day. Tried to kill himself several times. Their life is an absolute nightmare.

Etc. There's no one-size-fits-all, and in some cases I don't know if mental illness has anything to do with it.

Edit : Our next door neighbour, as far as I know, has not been out of his one room apartment in at least 8 years. He's old ( 80s ? ) and a couple of volunteers check on him once a week and bring him food, otherwise he'd be dead already. We tried to talk to him once and were told not to do so as he could turn violent, "he's a hikikomori"... It took a while to find volunteers to help him out that he would not attack, apparently. I mean, the list is awfully long. I could go on and on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Feelings of failure and shame are common among hikikomori of all ages.

It sounds to me like Japan's hyper-competitive business culture has chewed these people up and spit them back out (even though for some this happened while still in school), and now an entire population segment has paralyzing depression. Maybe that aspect of the country's culture will be forced to change for the sake of the economy.</comment>


What happened to all the non-programmers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.benkuhn.net/nonprog <comment><USER2> "In fact, just the fact that I'm interested in doing sports for leisure is associated with class, since it's not something that would be so easy for, say, manual laborers or shift workers."

This statement says a lot about his bubble. Most of the adults I see playing soccer in the Washington, DC, area are most likely working in construction or service trades. Softball can be pretty blue collar, depending on where you are.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there's sort of a weird meme among (for lack of a better word) creative class types that anyone who doesn't use a Macbook for work is literally working 120 hrs in a salt mine to support 8 children as a single parent. It's sort of a noble savage stereotype, but in reality "working class" (even just that name is indicative of this idea) people are still people too -- they do things on their time off, some of them are hard-working, some of them are lazy, some of them do a good job at work, some of them suck, some of them are good parents, some of them aren't.

<comment><USER4> Btw we are working class too, even with those fancy 6 figure salaries...

At least I'm not living of off strutting around in my park telling my gardener what to do while stroking a white cat. I don't have employees in my factory solely working for me generating my income while I twiddle my thumbs. I'm actually sitting on a computer working for money every day, so: working class.

<comment><USER5> > even with those fancy 6 figure salaries...

And I hate to break to it you Google and Facebook employees, but your salary ain't that great when you factor in cost-of-living. There are many, many thousands of devs across America making much more than you once you account for cost-of-living (and you should).

But between the proven wage suppression, ageism, and now this passing meme that somehow making $100,000 in the most expensive place to live in the U.S. makes you part of the global elite, I have little hope that you all will wake up and demand fair compensation.

<comment><USER6> A few things you're missing: The perks. If my company feeds me and provides transportation stipend my only bills are rent, utils, and fun. Utils are the same as just about anywhere else in my experience. The rent is the only killer.

You're also looking at it the wrong way. Many of us don't plan on staying here. Yes our savings are very small in comparison to cost of living while we're here. It's when we leave that our money becomes very valuable. Knowing the ratio of your savings per month(in the bay area) vs cost of living where you want to be (somewhere cheap) can be very motivating to keep you here (my ratio is 4:1 , so every month I'm here I save enough money to live 4 months at the place I plan to live). It's sacrificing a few years of insane living cost to have a cushion that allows you a comfortable life after the craziness as well as a resume that looks outstanding. There's also the possibility your startup sells, but I can't claim that as a valley only perk because that can obviously happen anywhere, but I think you're a bit more likely to have it happen in the bay area.

You also meet a great deal of people and make a great deal of friends that love the same things you love all the way down to a specific framework (there are no Flask meetups in milwaukee). You also meet lots of people who introduce you to things you never knew you would love, which is often MORE fun.

All that being said, I agree that there are more efficient places to live where you could save more, and there are companies outside of the bay area doing all of the above things, but the luck factor there grows as you get away from the valley because there are fewer positions.

<comment><USER7> > A few things you're missing: The perks. If my company feeds me and provides > transportation stipend my only bills are rent, utils, and fun.

It's not a perk if the ultimate effect, if not the intended effect, is that it keeps you at work 60 hours a week. There's something deeply insidious about plying your employees with free food and services and encouraging them to build their social circles entirely out of their co-workers. Who needs work- life balance if work _is_ your life?

<comment><USER6> I will agree with that in certain cases such as Apple or Google, but the startup world isn't really that way.

If you're working for a startup and just think of yourself as an employee you're doing it wrong. You should think of yourself as an investor, not an employee, because you very likely are in every sense of the word.

This is where the friend thing comes in. You're not building friends at company X, you're meeting other people who happen to be investing in the same thing you do. I've kept great friends from previous companies I've worked at who understand that you're an investor and you must look at the company as an investment and be able to walk away if you don't like where it's going.

It does keep you working 60 hours a week, sure, but that's your investment for the shares your received in your offer letter. You stand to make a large amount of money without any capital put in. Regular 40 hour a week employees never get those shares, so obviously they shouldn't put in 60 hours a week to make the CEO a few extra bucks (however there's a caveat here when it comes to bonuses, and i'd argue THATs the return on investment for google employees).

A clearer example of a difference here is that I've seen developers walk away after 5 months at a job. In a regular employee universe that would be career suicide. Because this is the startup world, you only have to say "I didn't like the direction the company was going..." to other potential employers and so long as you're competent they totally get what you mean, because obviously many startups fail and if you see true disaster coming you would be crazy not to bail.

Often times it's actually these "employee" types that kill the startup. They just ride the funding into however many rounds they can until the ship crashes, then find a new place and continue the dragging.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I came here from a place where the "employee" mentality is king (40 years x 40 hours a week x 401k = retire), because it's the most common thing in America and it took me a very long time to get this (I'm an investor, not an employee). There's also the other factors like most people here REALLY enjoy their jobs and have been doing this on their own time for 60 hours a week already, so doing it for a paycheck is just a really cool side effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A much longer post with a similar gist is "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup"[1] by Scott Alexander (I recommend the whole blog actually):

> _According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not > just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think > evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist > right now. That's half the country._

> _And I don't have a single one of those people in my social circle. It's not > because I'm deliberately avoiding them; I'm pretty live-and-let-live > politically, I wouldn't ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And > yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty > confident that not one of them is creationist._

1: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate- anything...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything- except-the-outgroup/)

<comment><USER9> Thank you for sharing. This was a great read. Remind me of the time at lunch when one of my co-workers proudly claimed "Straight men always kill transgendered people."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this happens in many professions. My wife became a lawyer and now we have a million lawyer friends. This is not so fun at parties.

<comment><USER11> What's the collective noun for a party of lawyers?

<comment><USER12> I believe that's called a 'firm'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ... You are simply a nerd/geek/techie surrounded by likeminded people. Nothing wrong with that.

I am a programmer that has met most of his friends in bars, raves and other music related places. Guess what? All of my friends are musicians or DJs.

What happened to all the non-musicians?! ... Well, I am simply not going to meet them in the backstage of a show.

I was under the impression that this is general knowledge, no need to make a blog post about it.

Go meet people outside your work circle if you are tired of talking with techies.

<comment><USER13> That being said, most of my co-workers are avid hockey players. We have a team that is mainly programmers, a few designers and some managers.

No need to base all your hobbies around chess, you will still be a good programmer if you have hobbies that make you sweat!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is why I love New York. There are so many industries here (media, fashion, finance, etc) that tech is just part of a larger pool of people (who often cross over between different industries).

<comment><USER15> I've found that people in big cities can get pretty provincial in their thinking at times. At least with NYC, this kind of isolated thinking doesn't cut you off from too much of the rest of the world.

I live near D.C. and it's hard to fathom that people have lives that aren't in some way connected to the Federal Government or Government Contracting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The internet makes it easier than ever to only hang out with people exactly like you. E.g. making friends at meetups for interest-specific sites like HN. Class and location are also an issue. It may be that 10% of folks with college degrees in San Francisco are programmers, but I bet among among single 20-35 year olds who have enough disposable income to frequent certain sorts of places, it's much higher.

<comment><USER17> > I bet among among single 20-35 year olds who have enough disposable income > to frequent certain sorts of places, it's much higher.

I think people tend to just gravitate toward doing the best things they can, as limited by time, cost, taste, and social access. It's the same reason sleep away camps on the east coast were/are disproportionately jewish -- you're drawing from the subset of parents with enough money to send their kids, but who aren't allowed to play golf or whatever, and share the same set of post- holocaust gemeinschaft ideals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I feel this problem is especially significant in San Francisco. Having lived in several other cities, I can say that, at least for me, this was never a major issue before living in SF. Meeting other programmers and people in tech out in the real world used to be a pleasant surprise. Now it's just a given.

Coffee shops, climbing gyms, museum nights, hiking meet ups, hanging out in the park, etc etc... I, like apparently every other person in tech, enjoy these things. I do miss the diversity of thoughts and lifestyles to be found in other cities. Not that SF doesn't have such diversity, it's just that I never before had to make an effort to find it outside my normal activities.

<comment><USER19> Well SF is clearly saturated with people working in the tech industry. As we're seeing more and more on HN, there's a huge amount of people in the tech industry who are in it for reasons that do not include a passion for technology, writing code or developing things.

So you've a huge amount of people fairly dissatisfied with what they're doing 40+ hours a week, in an area full of similar people, and who have the disposable income and time to look for more in life outside of those 40+ hours.

So it's not surprising more cultural/outdoor/etc. things are flooded with people from the tech industry in SF, I suppose, where elsewhere they would be both less people in the industry and those that are would be slightly better geographically dispersed.

<comment><USER20> _> Well SF is clearly saturated with people working in the tech industry._

It sounds like you didn't read the article. (Ctrl-F "It turns out")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's social groups. Want to meet people different from yourself? Study jiu jitsu or ballroom dancing.

For better or worse, I noticed at a recent friends catch-up that almost everyone was in advertising technology.

</comment><comment><USER22> Come to LA. Everyone is in entertainment, and I never meet other technical folks.

<comment><USER23> I'm in DTLA, everyone is in fashion, film, photography, or works in the service industry attempting to get into the former. I can count on one hand how many devs I know in my neighborhood. I am surrounded by way more lawyers.

But that is okay, and I actually prefer it. Else my life would be completely monotone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I dunno, I like hanging out with tech people.

<comment><USER25> Me too, and I'm conflicted about it. I'm well aware that I'm bringing my own preconceptions to the situation, but I continually find it harder to engage people outside of technology.

People outside of tech may be more diverse in appearance, but in perspectives, interests and awareness, people working in technology (in my social sphere) tend to be less conformist and more open minded. This may simply be a regression to the mean - but if it is, it's still supporting my conception.

<comment><USER24> Exactly. I find tech people to be, on average, more rational and share more of my interests. It makes conversations much more enjoyable. As someone who isn't a great conversator, trying to come up with small chat with a lawyer or an accountant is rather stressful. Talking about programming languages, video games, or comic books is much easier.

<comment><USER25> >Talking about programming languages, video games, or comic books is much easier.

IMHO, it's more than just a lack of topics for small talk: it's the size of the talk in general. The people I meet outside of tech tend to be less well read and less open to new experiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Don't try things that "sound fun". Things that sound fun are either things that you've done before, things your friends do, or things you think you'll be good at.

Instead do things that kind of scare you even though they shouldn't. If you're afraid to fly, take a Cessna flying lesson. If you're afraid to speak in public, join toastmasters.

The author mentions football as out of the question. I think football is exactly what the author needs. Start with touch or flag football if you're really terrified of brain damage. In reality, friendly games of tackle football are unlikely to cause a concussion, and even if they did, the real damage from concussions is when you get one and keep playing.

When you think about it, it becomes obvious: you meet people different than yourself by doing things which you wouldn't normally do. Oh, and you get to conquer irrational fear, improve yourself, have awesome adventures, etc, while you're at it.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's quite likely that many of his choices regarding non-programming hobbies have been highly influenced by programmers/tech people around him in the workplace or outside it.

He also likely has developed biases, not on socioeconomic grounds but through his own experiences and influences, regarding certain things in society. Football, for example, he probably consciously or subconsciously regards as being something for "jocks" or the people he didn't get along with in school (presumption here).

Ultimate frisbee, however, is probably something he regards as being in-line with that with which those that influence him partake in, or that which he imagines his peers (mainly techies) would approve of.

It's an ok article from the point of it being a look at someone's personal experience, but it's certainly more reflective of his experience and the bubble he lives in than a commentary on society.

</comment><comment><USER27> Perhaps I can help:

> _I have plenty of social circles that are (at least nominally) totally > different from my work: contra dancers, people interested in effective > altruism, folk musicians, friends from college, and so on. And yet I keep > finding myself in the middle of a programmer monoculture. Why?_

1\. These are contact circles in some online social network, perhaps, and not actual social circles?

2\. Programmers are the only people who don't have anything better to do than to go to gatherings with other programmers. Non-programmers aren't there because they are otherwise engaged. Or, perhaps, let me put it from this angle: any time some get together is announced, most of the people who have that spot free in the calendar are geeks. "What, Saturday night at 9? You _bet_ I will be there! I'm super social! ... Hey, why is everyone here a programmer?"

</comment><comment><USER28> I've never lived in SF but this is a reason why people sometimes mention how they prefer to live elsewhere. I've lived in Los Angeles and New York and I feel a nice sense of diversity in interests and backgrounds [of all forms] and I like it. And the tech communities aren't too small either.

</comment><comment><USER29> A person who looks around at the people he's socializing with, then apparently immediately grabs a computer, downloads a statistical data set and begins to analyze it in R wonders why he's surrounded by other programmers?

<comment><USER30> You can analyze data and use R and not be a programmer. Less than half of the students in my advanced stats classes at college which used R were CS majors. Granted, for me, knowing how to program made things a lot less frustrating.

Spreadsheet programs are built for analysis without deep programming knowledge too.

<comment><USER31> I am not, nor have I ever been, a CS major. Yet I am a programmer.

<comment><USER32> I think you're kind of missing the point. There are not nearly as many MBA, liberal art, lawyer, etc people on here as techies and programmers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is one reason I joined a philanthropic group (like the Elks, Rotary, etc). Membership tends to be very diverse, both in age and in occupation.

</comment><comment><USER34> Could some non-programmers be masquerading as programmers? A little more observation and less R could reveal this. It is also quite possible to play flag football without risking your brain. If I were in SF and weighed 150 I would definitely look into sailing.

</comment><comment><USER32> It seems obvious to me to bring up "correlation does not imply causation". Just because a lot of programmers like X, doesn't mean that they like X because of programming.

With that said, I dont really understand confusion with social groups forming of similar people. I understand a desire...even a need...for diversity, but people who like X are naturally going to want to be with other people who like X. Seems pretty natural.

</comment><comment><USER35> My social group mainly involves other physics graduate students. I however don't fit with them usually, so I started going to instagram meetups. It seems like people with a passing interest in photography are much more diverse than the types that go to graduate school in physics.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm calling nerd.

A lot of us have monomaniacal interests. A programmer who works all day programming and spends his free time programming other things and writing blogs about programming and posting on forums about programming is going to meet a lot of programmers. Cows in a cow pasture are going to spend a lot of time with other cows.

If you ratchet down your monomania just a little it's very easy to meet non- programmers. Join a Latin reading group and you meet a lot of classicists. Join a beekeeping meet-up and you meet a lot of beekeepers. Join a weekly board game group and you meet lots of gamers.

I'm willing to believe programmers are prone to monomania.

</comment><comment><USER37> This reminds me of "How to become a hacker" from Eric S. Raymond. There is a part in that essay where he talks about common hobbies for hackers and after a few examples he concludes:

> "Why these things in particular is not completely clear, but they're > connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be > important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside > the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice."

Link: [http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker- howto.html](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html)

</comment><comment><USER38> When I play softball is what feels like the only time I meet someone who isn't a programmer here. I briefly took swing dancing lessons with my SO and it was 90% programmers, maybe more.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure that's the go-to activity to meet women for a male programmer.

<comment><USER38> Yeah I think so as well. Most of the women were programmers as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> None of my friends are programmers and hardly anyone I meet at parties understands what I do or what my job is. I live in NYC.

I chalk it up to being late to the game and hardly going to any meetups.

</comment><comment><USER9> The best thing about my current job is interacting with non-techies. I have been under-socialized after 6 year of engineering schools and 5 years at a pure tech company.

</comment><comment><USER40> This subject is one that interests me a lot.

As I've mentioned before (in fact, I created this account to post about it a few weeks ago), I'm MtF transgender, and it's been my observation and the observation of the trans communities I participate in that a disproportionately high percentage of MtF trans people work in the tech industry and/or are tech hobbyists. The "MtF computer geek" is in fact one of the most prevalent -- and in my experience, _one of the most true_ \-- stereotypes of trans people I've seen.

I'm reminded of the old Russian meme, where one person wanders into an anime IRC channel and asks "Hello, is this an anime channel?", followed by "How do I patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?". It became a popular meme because it's true: anime fans tend to be computer geeks. I've also seen this same exact joke posted in trans communities, by the way...

(Oh, and lest I forget, a huge chunk of the trans community is into anime, too.)

There is something about certain characteristics that heavily draws people to the tech industry.

If you're trans? If you like anime? If you play sports like Ultimate and rock climbing? You're probably a techie.

Honestly, I've noticed that for many of these (e.g. anime, Ultimate), the inverse is true as well, and if being trans wasn't hard-wired and such a tiny, tiny minority of the population (most estimates I've heard are around 0.3%), I'd bet a huge amount of techies would be trans.

I think of all the theories OP proposed, the most likely one is that "programmer culture" is a distinct subculture much like e.g., "academic culture".

Of course, there are a few reasons for that. If you look at ESR's "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker" ([http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/appendixb.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/appendixb.html)), he absolutely nails a personality type that goes into some of this. The section on sports, for example, goes into how hackers are drawn to sports that focus on self-discipline and technical ability.

Another is that tech stuff is looked down upon by society. Mainstream society sees us as weirdos to be shunned. You know who else societies see that way? Anime fans. Trans people. By and large, all three communities are very accepting of cultural differences. For example, techies will happily accept trans people into their communities because they know what it's like to be marginalized. And I think LGBT people are more likely to hang out with communities focused on marginalized hobbies than other minorities, because of how we're perceived. Racial and ethnic minorities are set apart because of how they look and sound. LGBT people, on the other hand, are set apart because of what we do, and "set apart for what we do" is also a good description of how techies and anime fans are separated from mainstream culture.

<comment><USER41> Its interesting how the mix of tech and being trans works-being trans is being part of an extremely marginalized group, but someone making six figures and is trans also has a ton of class privilege. Clearly trans people working in tech in the Bay Area (which I have experience being around) aren't the average trans people.

<comment><USER40> For the record, I'm not talking about "rich" people in the Bay Area.

I live in Texas, and the trans communities I associate with are online with membership scattered all over the place. I've probably ran into more fellow Texans than people in the Bay Area, actually (I even once tried to create an online community specifically for trans Texans because there were so many of us, but it never took off).

Actually, a common thread I've seen among trans people is that many of them are tech hobbyists who wish they could be professionals but are unemployed and living with their parents (usually a product of the depression that so often goes hand in hand with gender dysphoria). And the younger members of the communities tend to be college students.

(As for me, I'm employed but not making anywhere near six figures. Hell, until two months ago, I made under $50k, and I'm 30 years old)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> >Find someone that's not using a Mac/iOS device and strike up a conversation.

This is good advice if you're looking to meet people with different perspectives.

<comment> mkr-hn It would be the opposite for me. Everyone around me uses Windows and Android. The people with a different perspective are the ones with an Apple logo.

<comment><USER42> What environment/industry do you find yourself in where that is the case? Apple has over 30% of the smartphone market share in the US, and even more in many fields/groups.

<comment> mkr-hn The northeastern edge of metro Atlanta.

<comment><USER42> I could deduce that much from your homepage. I was more interested in the sort of environment (university, enterprise, Starbucks, etc.) you're basing this off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wonder how the statistics will look if you filter based on individuals background. Programmers I know do not live in the city they were born or studied in, which could be the cause of a distinctly different social circles than for those who stated with the community they were born in.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sounds awful. I don't intentionally push away colleagues, but most of them are too "nerdy" for me, or just have interests I find dull, etc. I don't really like being in a big group of developers, for so many reasons.

</comment><comment><USER45> I purposefully do not gather techies as friends. While I share some similar interests, I don't want my life to become a mirror of the people I work with. I feel enriched by my diverse friendship base.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm a sys admin and security researcher and I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the word. Nor do I have a CS related college degree. I'm an anomaly in the tech world. ;)

</comment><comment><USER47> The answer is that they're all hanging out with people who do the same thing they do too. This situation isn't unique to programmers.

</comment><comment><USER48> Move to New York.

</comment><comment><USER49> (not on HN)

</comment><comment><USER50> And techies wonder why San Franciscans are pissed off about gentrification and their disappearing culture.

<comment><USER44> Sure. I would imagine most of those San Franciscans would prefer for the tech crowd to keep amongst themselves though...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How is the status of remote working in Europe? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Absolute shit. Its easier to get a contract from a US firm working from europe than it is to actually work remote in europe for a european company.

Besides, the pay is shit. European companies think 40k is a great salary for an engineer. Better rates to be had in murica. much better. 3-4x+ better.

<comment><USER4> How easy it was to get US clients? In my experience, Americans are afraid of dealing with people from "overseas". I did have a couple of US clients though.

<comment><USER3> well, its simple.

Step 1: Don't call yourself a freelancer. Freelancers are the idiots who get paid after the fact, can't speak proper english and have to deal with money- conscious clients who think $5000 is a lot of cash. If you do contract work, you are a CONSULTANT. You CONSULT. The word implies you know more about what you're doing than your client. Words are powerful.

Step 2: Have a skillset that is in demand.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Get Rich

<comment><USER4> Yes, I'm consulting, for European clients mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-saleh (Czech republic) - in my peer-group, fully remote work is rare, but not unheard-off (for past two years I have worked with colleague who was fully remote, even though he lives in the same country, and we are about to hire another one. Both of them were hired as senior engineers)

What is really common, is reasonably generous attitude towards working from home. Few of my colleagues have arrangement with my manager that they can work from home indefinitely and basically come to office only when they feel like it, because of ~1h long commute from one part of the city to the other. Company policy is 1xWFH/week.

</comment><comment><USER5> (Germany) In smaller companies it's certainly possible to arrange it - <USER2> sure how common it is. In larger companies, this is very unusual and usually not even considered, except for contractors.

There are a million of workplace laws and regulations that are hard to apply for someone who's working from home. E.g. I have heard from people working at home that their desk and chair needed to be inspected to make sure it is compliant (ergonomics etc).

</comment><comment><USER6> Linux software tester reporting in from Eastern EU. I am fully remote and would not have it any other way. My client company (I'm a subcontractor) is located in the same county so it's not like I work overboard. This is pretty standard for some companies, and completely alien to others. Look for the former ones and ask during interviews.

</comment><comment><USER7> In the UK, I've noticed remote working has become more and more common, particularly in the last 2 or 3 years. Not only are there more distributed companies, but commutes in the London area are quite long as people have to live far out.

So yes, it's happening. I say this as someone who generally prefers to work onsite...

<comment><USER8> What hourly rate range have you been seeing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In Europe software companies are more like factories. You punch in, work like a slave all day, then punch out. The socialist mindset created retarded managers. So anything deviating from the standard factory setup is seen as depravity. Europeans don't understand technology. For them software development is like manual labor. Get some monkeys, throw them some peanuts and use a whip to make them do stuff.

Overall, remote working in Europe is mostly done for US companies. EU companies are usually mentally disabled.

<comment><USER10> That's weird thing to say, I guess no replies from guys in UK (London & rest of the country). It's similar for Netherlands and I know (from my experience) in Germany (Berlin).

'In Europe software companies are more like factories. You punch in, work like a slave all day, then punch out.' > again not sure which countries you speak about (ukraine or romania lol?), maybe it's like that in some, but some have very relaxed attitude

'Overall, remote working in Europe is mostly done for US companies. EU companies are usually mentally disabled.' > again, there're tons of EU based remote work, and I just won't comment on the rest of this generalisation.

I've got a nice remote offers from Spain and Netherlands as we, despite being in UK. I'm getting them all the time.

So just to top the thing about working like a slave all day... \- my EU company gives me remote because I do work better in this mode, \- my EU company gives me a lot of benefits that guys in US don't see (despite that average salary I'd say is lower in here), \- basically it's yet another EU company that hires me and gives me total freedom because I deliver

i.e. if you're good you will always find a remote job with conditions you want.

btw. your comment shows your ignorance and nothing more (and a lack of ability to produce some facts instead of meaningless offences)

'EU companies are usually mentally disabled.' \- seriously? you work for some1 or you're building your own 'empire' with this kind of attitude and beliefs?

Overall, your post is full of bs.

<comment><USER11> What benefits does the EU company give you more beside more free days compared to US ?

<comment><USER10> I'll just mention one thing, maybe that's not important for you - US maternity law, come on... it's a joke ;) all of this stuff is way in favour in most countries of Europe.

btw. I like my free days, I like a lot the extra ones (not the ones that companies are obligated to) if you work for good company.

time is precious so a lot of companies are very flexible, in here it's nothing new & nothing uncommon to do 4 days instead 5 etc. or change any day with any weekend day if you please.

<comment><USER9> I think you drank too much of the kool-aid. You're very happy about things that are normal in Europe. And you are willing to be underpaid to get them. You don't have to be. You can get a good salary and the benefits too. It's funny how you're fighting the guys that want this to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know several people working remotely for European companies. They do complain that the pay is less, but that's probably not related to being remote.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately we're not there yet. It's doable if you negociate it with your local small-midsized company.

</comment><comment><USER13> Not sure what are you asking. Could you be more precise?</comment>


Ask HN: Joining an Incubator. Concerned About 2 Items in The Contract. Advice? - <AUTHOR>

I've been developing my web startup for a while now. I applied to this government funded incubator in my country to be able to use their services. It's not a profitable entity and aims only to boost technology startups in the country.
I applied to join, and after several meetings, they sent us the agreement contract. Two items stood out the most to me in the contract:
1) The Incubatee shall, permit the Licensor to participate in agreed negotiations or discussions in respect of Incubatee's business activities or the financing thereof.
And
2) The Incubatee shall, after expiry or termination of Agreement or after graduation and for five (5) years thereafter, provide the Licensor on regular intervals agreed on, with written reports showing its business status and business progress, number of its employees, turnover, capital on value, total third party investment, copies of audited balance sheet and accounts and other similar matters.  This obligation shall survive any expiry and any termination or discharge of the Agreement.
Now the agreement does not include funding, although they can make it easier to get once we sign (and want it). The services I'm after are mainly office space, simplification of governmental procedures (in a 3rd world country these can get tiring), access to legal advice, and the advice they can deliver on things like business model and marketing (although they don't seem particularly savvy about web startups).
It's enticing because these services are free, they only want this monitoring and other measures that would help the success of the venture. I just wanted to make sure that these do not encumber our startup, or make it unappealing to potential investors.
What do you guys think? Is this okay or not?
PS: I'm assuming they want the data to monitor the performance of the businesses they incubate. The agreement states that this information will be treated as confidential.
Any help would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> My first guess on how to proceed would be to find some other parties that have already signed on to this program and to ask them what these tersm mean in practice.

regarding the first term:

That one seems to be the most serious, why they would want a seat at the table in negotiations is hard for me to understand. What I don't see is the teeth this contract has in case you do not live by its terms in the long run. What recourse do they have if you decide to negotiate a deal on your own ?

as to the second part:

It sounds like the reporting requirements are quite heavy for something that is basically government supported cheap business space.

Figure out how much it will cost you to comply with these requirements and how much you will save because of being in the program (and there might be fringe benefits).

Another avenue would be to take on some angel funding and use that to rent your office space but that will cost you equity and may not come with the same networking possibilities.

It reads like they want more statistics on what is going on inside the businesses they have a contract with, which is typical for government services, it is one of the coins with which you are expected to pay them back.

It is very well possible that you will be making these reports anyhow (for yourself or your co-founders or for some other funding entity), in that case the overhead would be minimal.

good luck!

<comment><USER3> _It sounds like the reporting requirements are quite heavy for something that is basically government supported cheap business space._

I'd assumed they were heavy precisely _because_ it was government supported cheap business space ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As should be automatically mentioned whenever someone asks for legal advice - don't trust self-selecting smartasses on the internet, go talk to a lawyer.

<comment><USER5> True insofar as it goes, but remember that many legal issues really boil down to a question of whether a particular _business_ risk is worth taking. Some of the most valuable legal training I've ever gotten was from being the one- lawyer law department of a 500-person software company -- for a while, I was regularly 'educated' by our business folks that sometimes you've just got to take the risk even though it might make "the lawyers" slightly nervous.

(Usual disclaimer: This isn't legal advice, consult a licensed attorney, YMMV, etc., etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Suggestions:

A) Be sure the agreement includes a suitable confidentiality clause obligating the other side -- see [http://www.ontechnologycontracts.com/clauses-for- contracts/c...](http://www.ontechnologycontracts.com/clauses-for- contracts/confidential-information-clauses-for-contracts/) for some sample clauses and commentary.

B) Consider adding a reasonableness qualifier -- e.g., in 1): "The Incubatee shall, permit the Licensor to participate ___to a reasonable extent_ __in agreed negotiations or discussions in respect of Incubatee's business activities or the financing thereof."

C) In # 2, consider asking to add an upon-request qualifier, and limit the obligation to providing copies of what you already have. Example: "The Incubatee shall, after expiry or termination of Agreement or after graduation and for five (5) years thereafter, ___upon the Licensor's reasonable request,_ __provide the Licensor [STRIKE: on regular intervals agreed on,] with __ _copies of_ __any written reports __ _developed by the Incubatee_ __showing its business status ...."

Usual disclaimer: This isn't legal advice, I'm not your lawyer, consult a licensed attorney, YMMV, etc., etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I signed something a little less intrusive than #2 - in practice it just meant updating them whenever something major changed with your company so they could put out a press release and get more incubatees. Nobody who'd ever been through the process had ever submitted accounts, a balance sheet, etc. Though I was getting money, it makes a bit less sense if you're not :/

I'd ask to get around #1 though, that could get nasty...

</comment><comment><USER6> With regard to negotiating this, i'd suggest to delete item (1) in a first turnaround of the draft agreement and, if they don't accept the deletion, to change it to some sort of right to information or observer's role at meetings.

With regard to item (2), water it down to non sensitive information. This should be acceptable as this seems to be, as jlees points out, only for statistical and promotional reasons.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all, your input is very much appreciated.</comment>


The Sewol Tragedy: Part I – The Accident - <AUTHOR> http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-sewol-tragedy-part-i-accident.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The Sewol Tragedy: Part II – Causes and Contributing Factors: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7695266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7695266)</comment>


Energy companies 'overcharge customers by £600m' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9490712/Energy-companies-overcharge-customers-by-600m.html#

<comment><AUTHOR>
      The Government believes companies have been "profiting
      unfairly at the expense of [the] consumer" by overloading
      the national grid with electricity.

Does anyone know any more about this? It seems the companies were exploiting compensation payments made for having to reduce the output of their wind farms near Scotland.</comment>


The Aarne–Thompson system for classifying folktales - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_system <comment><USER2> See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp>

</comment><comment><USER3> While I've owned it for years, I have no idea how it made it to HN---anyone got a clue?</comment>


The Future Internet is rip-off/black hat based - <AUTHOR> http://rarestblog.com/2009/05/the-future-internet-is-rip-offblack-hat-based-told-ya/

<comment><USER2> The Scribd tactic, mentioned in this article, is particularly shitty. Linking to articles under Google search terms increases SEO, but it still feels dirty.

I've never heard of Twine before, but I'm writing them to tell them in advance to bar content from my URLs. Is it a big site that I've never heard of before? Also: How would one set up a content policy on a web site forbidding use of the text published within? Certainly it's possible to make an attempt to persecute these copiers?

<comment><USER3> Scribd earned my permanent disdain for spamming engines with irrelevant content. Part of it is not their fault - my browser's flash plugin is very choosy and likes to lock up and crash my browser when their embedded pdf loads. But combine that with the fact that I've been repeatedly misled to their documents in the first place and I have a sort of Pavlovian response going.

(Not that I blame the Scribd guys for this. I would use and have used similar tactics, but it does have its costs.)

<comment><USER2> They wanted to become the "Youtube for documents" and they did. Nobody that I know of has a better docstorage method, and, like Youtube, Scribd feels cheap and often gives me results that lied about what they were to get views. I'm not mad at Scribd for doing that, since it worked, but I have to wonder who would willingly demean his life's work for the sake of popularity. Perhaps that's just my pretension speaking.

<comment><USER4> "Nobody that I know of has a better docstorage method..."

HTML.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This guy is thinking too small, which reflects the year he stopped spamming. The problem is not high value keyword spam creation or even long tail spam creation or link cramming, the next frontier is legit unique low quality content ... and lots of it.

The stuff he's talking about is easy to spot and easy to kill, when the content is unique and low in quality but extremely high in number, the game changes completely.

</comment><comment><USER6> What we need is an adblockplus for black hat sites.

<comment><USER7> yeah, but the big problem is who is managing the blacklists...

<comment><USER6> UGC, a firefox tool bar that lets you flag stuff. If a user searches for something, and the first result is bullshit, chances are they'll be pissed enough to take the extra step to "punish" them by flagging the result

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was linked to a ripoff site today and it took me a couple of minutes to locate the original article - they didn't provide a backlink. I emailed them of course, but they clearly know and do this on purpose. Makes me sad.

We get a lot of people syndicating our blogs' content and have to get AOL legal to serve them with notices to take it down - that works, but not everyone has such resources at their disposal.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a startup specializing in tracking webspam:

<http://www.attributor.com/>

Here's the (old) TechCrunch article:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/04/attributor-launches- ser...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/04/attributor-launches-service-to- track-copyright-infringement-across-the-web/)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a great rant that highlights a lot of the dark side of Google's ranking and AdSense, with respect to web quality and honesty.

It's too bad that 10 years from now, people may not be able to read this rant to help understand the evolution of the web -- because he's blocked all robots from visiting (including the archival robots of the Internet Archive, where I work).

</comment><comment><USER10> This problem is related to DRM. There is no way to stop people from making copies.

<comment><USER2> There certainly is a way of stopping people from printing those copies wholesale on their web sites. If I put up entire albums free for download on my site, I'd have some angry bands after me.

I'm fine with the things I put online being passed around, but when a site replicates it all and takes my traffic, it means I lose viewers and popularity. I dislike things like FriendFeed as-is, because I don't like that there's no way to track conversations about me online. (Somebody ought to make a solution to this so I can give them some money.) It's much worse if they're actually _stealing_ my writing rather than just linking back.

<comment><USER10> What is the way for stopping the copying, that you assert there certainly is?

If two people hand in the same essay in school, how do you know who actually wrote it? It is a judgment.

There is no way to make such a judgment without seriously violating the usefulness and the current M.O. of the internet.

I am not talking about what you think is fine or not fine I am talking about what is possible and actually happening.

<comment><USER2> _If two people hand in the same essay in school, how do you know who actually wrote it? It is a judgment._

A judgment based on things like writing style analysis, which is pretty easy. I have blogs steal my posts wholesale pretty often, and most people stealing your writing do a really shitty job of it.

 _I am not talking about what you think is fine or not fine I am talking about what is possible and actually happening._

What is actually happening is that so far nobody gives a damn about writing enough to prevent blatant infringement. It's not an incredibly hard problem. Youtube is solving a much harder problem with their audio/video copyright issues, and while their solution isn't perfect it's certainly stopped me from using them to reliably find movies and songs. The music I _do_ find there is the sort of stuff that's not popular enough for the band to care. If they did, those videos would be gone within hours.

Remember that there's a copyright on text just as there is on anything else. Nobody enforces their copyrights because so far there aren't particularly huge rip-offs that are costing writers money, but if somebody ever _does_ create anything that's effectively leeching then suing him would be _ridiculously_ easy, since on the Internet everything is archived and most things are stored with dates. You couldn't possibly steal one of my blog posts and get away with claiming it's yours, and so if I care enough to go after you you have no defense and have clearly broken the law.

<comment><USER11> but if _somebody_ ever does create anything that's effectively leeching then suing him would be ridiculously easy (emphasis added)

The problem is, according to the rant, that everybody is doing it.

<comment><USER2> Persecution doesn't necessarily mean a lawsuit, when it's an instantly verifiable claim. If everybody is doing it, then it's a matter of finding and reporting those people, and either having it removed or pressing charges against the criminals involved. (Once it reaches that point, a lot of people will find ways to stop ripping off writers. I hope it doesn't reach that point any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "I stopped doing black hat, because it backfired, I've seen spam everywhere I went in the net. Often I stumbled into my own sites, when searching for something. That bothered me a lot!"

Nice try, but somehow, I don't believe you. This just sounds like a new pitch.

<comment><USER13> Actually, no it's possible.

I did "blackhat" back in 2006 and had about 500,000 pages indexed into Google. A few real queries and I saw my own site as the first few listings.

<comment><USER13> P.S. I should elaborate why I saw my own listings.

The 500,000 pages that I had indexed in Google were mostly mispellings/typo pages of the _top_ 500,000 searched keywords in terms of volume.

So you can see statistically, it's very possible to come upon your own sites...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's time to create a bugtraq for black hat SEO, a strong full disclosure group will uncover page rank exploits.

</comment><comment><USER15> facebook will save us.. ;)

</comment><comment><USER16> Anti-ripp-off software is an emerging market.

<comment><USER11> perhaps so is internet law, tricky waters to surf on I think.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: About.me for business? - <AUTHOR>

Wondering if this exists? I've been googling around and haven't found anything remotely close to what i need.
The only solutions that i seem to be finding are the run of the mill template type sites.
There doesn't seem to be a simple, elegant landing   page service out there for businesses. (Maybe an idea for a startup?)
Anyone able to point me in the right direction? Would appreciate any help. <comment><USER2> Wouldn't that be the first results page from google search?

I thought idealistic like you and although sounds great. Once you have in excess of 1,000 businesses all vying for exposure..then how do you provide that exposure time/place?

The only thought that would be idealistic would be if you're searching for specific niche/vertical product or services. But again once you've exceeded a comfort zone of the viewer. How do you again find time/space? AND be democratic about it? Meaning I personally like to give little guys time/space but money always wins... bottomline isn't it?

PS> everyone.. EVERYONE on about.me has an agenda. No one exposes themselves for the sake of exposure without an ulterior motive.

</comment><comment><USER3> We (Formstack) launched <http://shoutmy.biz> last month. It's goal is to provide a great looking landing page for small businesses who otherwise don't have a web presence. I'd love to hear feedback from the HN crowd!

<comment><AUTHOR> ShoutMyBiz is EXACTLY what i need. Thanks alot for posting here. Helped alot.

<comment><USER3> Great! Glad to hear it. We'd love some feedback if you have any.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, having cname domain mapping would be awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://central.ly/page/home>

<http://www.justabout.co/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestions! Central.Ly also looks awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://onepagerapp.com/></comment>


3D Cube using CSS transformations - FofR Online - <AUTHOR> http://www.fofronline.com/2009-04/3d-cube-using-css-transformations/ <comment><USER2> For those with Safari 4, try Inspect Element and mouse over the different parts in the html. Notice how the correct face highlights correctly even when rotated. Nice

</comment><comment><USER3> nifty, wish it was generic though (firefox)

</comment><comment><USER4> I was hoping it would rotate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Broken in Safari 3.2.3.</comment>


Woman files lawsuit against Google after being run over by Google bus - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/17/google-bus-runs-over-elderly-woman-company-denies-responsibility-lawyer/ <comment> java-man these buses routinely cut me off when merging from ramp.</comment>


Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says Apple Card discriminated against his wife - <AUTHOR> https://us.cnn.com/2019/11/10/business/goldman-sachs-apple-card-discrimination/index.html <comment><USER2> Site autoplays video with sound with no controls (for me, FF on Android).</comment>


Microsoft to Google: We've got a better corporate email product - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/02/microsoft_battles_google_on_youtube.html

<comment><USER2> This is such garbage. I love the part where they talk about how Google's email magically cannot be used to send Office files from one person to another. Google apps is more than sufficient for the majority of small businesses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you ever had to send email to hotmail, or live.com? Its horrible, they reject (not put in the spam box) perfectly legit emails that all other web servers accept. Would i call that better? No.

<comment><USER4> You are comparing apples and oranges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> it's not that Outlook is more secure (it's probably not), it's that there's no chain of responsibility or someone to blame when gmail gets hacked.

</comment><comment><USER6> Outlook and exchange both suck.</comment>


HBO Max Acquires U.S. Streaming Rights to Studio Ghibli Library - <AUTHOR> https://deadline.com/2019/10/hbo-max-studio-ghibli-streaming-rights-1202762553/ <comment><AUTHOR> 2 days ago:

 _You may never see Studio Ghibli's movies on streaming services_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21259697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21259697)

</comment><comment><USER2> I grew up on Ghibli movies, so I will probably get a free trial of HBO Max when it launches to rewatch/binge them.

On a different note, I hadn't heard of HBO Max before this announcement. I'm kind of reaching "peak subscription" at this point: I have Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, and now I'll have to decide whether to add Apple TV +, Disney+, and HBO Max?

I wish there was some way to "bundle" these into one monthly payment.. oh, wait. That's basically a cable subscription! It's funny how cyclical streaming has become.

<comment><USER3> The average household only has 3 streaming services, so you're already above that. No wonder you feel overwhelmed by yet another option!

[https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2389991/how-much- mone...](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2389991/how-much-money-us- consumers-apparently-spend-on-streaming-services-per-month)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe on Angular and Firebase - mck- http://mck-.github.io/T3

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe there was a post about this earlier that the game is solved[1]. Interesting game for those who don't know that, or who want to go through the exercise to figure out the correct strategy.

[1] [https://www.joachim- breitner.de/blog/archives/604-Ultimate-T...](https://www.joachim- breitner.de/blog/archives/604-Ultimate-Tic-Tac-Toe-is-always-won-by-X.html)

<comment> mck- Hmm.. makes me wonder if things change is the first move is not allowed to be right in the center?

<comment><USER2> The variant that you can't be sent to a _won_ board _or_ a full board is not vulnerable to this technique, and, to my knowledge, hasn't been solved.

[https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/in-tic-tac-toe-ception- perfec...](https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/in-tic-tac-toe-ception- perfect/1681243068)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ultimate Tic tac toe, check. Angular, check. Firebase, check. GitHub, check. I cooked exactly this recipie a month ago: [https://github.com/Barnabas/tictac9x](https://github.com/Barnabas/tictac9x).

I'm not complaining; delighted actually. This game is a perfectly natural combination of these technologies. I imagine this happens all the time. Good job.

<comment><USER4> I think you're undervaluing the aesthetics of this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw the post on HN a while back that introduced Ultimate T3. This is an awesome implementation of it. Well done!

I hadn't heard of Firebase before, but it sounds very interesting. How was your experience working with it?

<comment> mck- Thanks :) Firebase is pretty neat, especially in combination with Angular's two-way binding; which essentially means a real-time app out-of-the-box .. without a backend!

So all you have is a static page :) which is why I could host it on Github pages

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not relevant to the topic but my Midori browser on Ubuntu says:

Error - [http://mck-.github.io/T3](http://mck-.github.io/T3)

The page '[http://mck-.github.io/T3'](http://mck-.github.io/T3') couldn't be loaded.

Cannot resolve hostname (mck-.github.io)

\--

Works fine on Firefox! Did Midori's URL parser mangle the path?

<comment><USER7> Firefox 22 on linux on my box chokes on the URL too. Chromium works here. Weird.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is amazing looking. I love your sense of design!

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I weird for expecting "online game" to match me up with a random person instead of having to send a URL to a friend?

<comment> mck- Implemented a random opponent matcher -- except the traffic has subsided heavily, so you might need to be patient :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Contrast seems too low on osx+chrome, or maybe its just poor eyesight on my part.

<comment> mck- Thx for feedback -- just increased the contrast of the boards.. waiting for GH to update the page

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sweet game! Nicely made.

</comment><comment><USER12> You do know some of us have work to do, don't you?

</comment><comment><USER13> Awesome game!</comment>


Flying Taxis May Be Years Away, but the Groundwork Is Accelerating - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/technology/flying-taxis.html <comment><USER2> I think the ideal scenario for this tech is running a downtown core to airport shuttle:

\- a short trip allows battery needs to not be excessive

\- bypass traffic, you don't have to go all that fast to get a huge speedup, and remove the extra buffer time on traffic uncertainty

\- radically less infrastructure than roads or rails, reduces the cost of adding more pickup zones

In cites with poor airport to downtown infrastructure you could probably start off as a high-end service and charge i.e. 5x than an airport limo.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't a helicopter serve these needs? I think the problem is there isn't a market for it yet. There is Blade in NYC and LA but it's closer to 10x the price. I think the cost could be a lot lower if there was higher demand.

I think there doesn't need to be new tech to make this work. Helicopters are safe and reliable, but are out of reach financially for most. I don't see how drones or multirotor would be able to compete on price for a very long time.

<comment><USER4> Why do you think electric drones have taken off as toys and for filming etc, when remote controlled helicopters have been available for ages?

Because they have better properties for many use cases: much simpler mechanically, cheaper to operate, easier to control, etc. I'd also expect drones to be more reliable, but that remains to be seen.

<comment><USER5> There's a problem here, though. Drones can't autorotate, and autorotation is kind of an important safety feature for helicopters carrying humans.

<comment><USER4> Don't know about the (8-rotor) eHang, but the 18-rotor Volocopter remains fully controllable with 3 rotor failures (or more, if they're benignly distributed), and has a ballistic rescue chute in addition (which is hard to fit on a heli).

(Of course, you need a certain altitude for the BRS to kick in successfully, so low-level hover is a risk, just as with a helicopter.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the chances "flying taxis" become a thing before fully autonomous cars is actually pretty high.

It's an easier technical problem I'd think, and the regulatory issues are probably about the same.

But a flying, electric, quiet, self-flying drone taxi will mean no traffic issues, as-the-crow-flies travel, and higher top speeds. It may eventually mean the death of roads and the ability for people to live 100 miles from where they work, possibly solving a lot of housing issues in metropolitan areas.

Also it'd be a better way to get around watery/mountainous areas, not to mention just a few helipads to clean off after snowstorms.

It would also be super cool, jetsons-style!

<comment><USER7> Flying cars or taxis will (IMHO) never take off for various reasons:

\- they are inherently fuel inefficient compared to devices with wheels

\- they are noisy, a problem which can probably never be solved unless breakthroughs are made in science-fiction fields like anti-gravity

\- airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic

\- it's not sustainable from nature-perspective. Current air traffic accounts for quite some insect & bird loss. Imagine a multitude of current airtraffic; it would be disastrous for the already dwindling quantity of airborne creatures

\- flying is inherently weather-bound. Especially for relatively small aircrafts this is true. Taxis fit this property. This means service is limited to a subset of all weather conditions; YMMV depending on the area of flight.

\- flying is heavily regulated, which poses barriers. Obviously, startups can overcome these barriers, but they don't help in solving the overall problem

\- social opposition will always be a thing unless 100% security is neared _and_ near-100% noiseness is reached. Until that time, there will be fierce opposition to add any type of aircraft for mass-use to the airspace

This being said, I really, really, _really_ do like the idea of hopping in an airborne transportation device and go straight to any place in a +-(a few hundreds of KM) range.

<comment><USER8> > it's not sustainable from nature-perspective.

There's no nature-perspective, there's the question how to keep the environment the way we like it (or accustomed to). Flying insects/birds loss is a tiny part of the equation that needs to be taken into account.

<comment><USER8> From nature-perspective it's just another selective pressure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interestingly, the iRobot founder and brilliant robot scientist Rodney Brooks puts flying cars and robot taxis in similar buckets as to wide availability: [http://rodneybrooks.com/my-dated-predictions/](http://rodneybrooks.com/my- dated-predictions/)

<comment><USER10> The reasoning for that is kinda thin. "I am pretty sure that practical flying cars will need to be largely self driving while flying, so they sort of fit the category." Essentially, because self driving technology is a necessary precondition for flying cars, flying cars are at least as difficult as self driving vehicles. There really isn't any argument for why flying cars aren't much more difficult than self driving vehicles.

<comment><USER11> > There really isn't any argument for why flying cars aren't much more > difficult than self driving vehicles.

On a software level Self-flying aircraft are much more simple than self- driving cars, there exist today technologies to have 100% safe self-flying vehicles similar to small electrical planes capable of 1 to 2 passengers, it's much more a regulation challenge.

<comment><USER12> I don't believe that resilience against mechanical failure is a solved problem for flying cars yet. Flying a plane when everything is working isn't particularly hard. Diagnosing and coping with partial failures is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Flying cars/taxis will never be a widespread thing for the public (IMHO).

The weight of a car is an excellent kinetic energy weapon. Fly over soft target, detonate something on-board to disable safety features and you have the poor-man(terrorist?)'s remote-kill drone.

Makes driving trucks into crowded streets look positively medieval.

The danger of this _far_ outweighs any possible benefits.

Flying cars will become a thing, but stay heavily regulated and a rich- person's toy.

<comment><USER14> Isn't it sad that we can't have an exciting new technology because the threat that some outsider will blow themselves up? Is there really nothing we can do about this, either now, or in the future?

<comment><USER15> Very few people actually blow themselves up (terrorism is really really low on the list of the most common causes of death) so I doubt that it will be why we don't have flying cars.

<comment><USER13> Self driving flying cars (which will be essential for mass market adoption) make an excellent weapon. No one needs to blow themselves up, just the car.

<comment><USER16> As far as I know terrorists have no problem blowing themselves up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Right now all ATC clearances (routing, takeoff, landing) are done by AM radio. So how would a pilotless taxi do this? Drones don't, as currently UAS are physically separated into their own airspace, they also can't fly in instrument/zero visibility conditions.

To share the same space requires either really agile and smart flying taxis that will always avoid legacy aircraft, regardless of conditions, a kind of "smart separation" of aircraft, or we need a new air traffic control system.

Setting aside ATC's automation, even autonomous aircraft has all sorts of unsolved technical problems. The reality today is that the vast majority of flights are not automated at all when it comes to taxi, takeoff, and landings. Most flights use Visual Flight Rules. The landing capacity of airports when using Instrument Flight Rules is substantially less, and there are various technical reasons why not least of which is that there is only one kind of precision approach to landing system, and it requires ground systems, airborne system, and pilot competency and certification. So we need a separate system invented for autonomous systems to do this at scale, while also integrating into the existing VFR and IFR systems for legacy aircraft.

Or someone comes up with a cheap enough retrofit of existing airplane cockpits that this can happen really fast, and just ban all the legacy aircraft from operating in autonmous only space (make it Class A, B and C space). That's sort of a joke because this would be very expensive. But maybe a hybrid pilot with augmented non-human secondary pilot could make this vaguely plausible.

Add in both FAA and ICAO regulations (global regulations apply for obvious reasons), economics, politics, and it's just really complicated. So I have to laugh every time I read "technical problems all solved" and "this could happen in 5 to 10 years". That's something I've heard for 30 years...

<comment><AUTHOR> > Right now all ATC clearances (routing, takeoff, landing) are done by AM > radio. So how would a pilotless taxi do this?

That is the status quo, but FAA has been trying to move to an automated system forever (they were testing ATD-1 in KMWH as of last year) [https://www.aviationsystemsdivision.arc.nasa.gov/research/ta...](https://www.aviationsystemsdivision.arc.nasa.gov/research/tactical/ATD1_FS-2015-09-01-ARC_Web.pdf)

Most likely they will have to set up special flight rules for unmanned taxis.

It also helps that rotor-driven vehicles don't need the runways the way the airplanes do - any large parking lot next to the airport could be designated as UAS landing space.

<comment><USER17> All of the existing automation systems are predicated on the existing use cases. It's a centralized system where humans evaluate that data, and then issue directives/clearances based on them.

ILS will not work on a large parking lot, the antennas are huge, transient objects attenuate the signal making it unreliable, all kinds of monitoring is needed to detect deviations and automatically shutdown the system if necessary, etc. A whole new precision landing system is needed to fit into smaller space requirements you're suggesting. And now there are new problems like people walking around the landing zone and having physical access to the ground based equipment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think there is an interesting problem to solve here is one of mass production. To be cost competitive these vehicles need to be produced as scale. This is nothing that the traditional aircraft business has experience with, but car manufacturars have plenty. This reflects in the savety architecture of airplanes vs cars: Airplanes rely on redundancy, which makes manuacturing more expensive but. Cars on the other hand try not to break in the first place, which is ensured through exhaustive testing and monitoring of the production chain. I think the winner will be the one who brings these two worlds together.

<comment><USER19> >Airplanes rely on redundancy, which makes manuacturing more expensive but. Cars on the other hand try not to break in the first place, which is ensured through exhaustive testing and monitoring of the production chain.

I don't agree with this. You're missing a variable: safety factor. Cars try to minimize safety factor to save money and weight, airplanes often have more regulations to prevent this. Cars definitely break more often then airplanes. Also, keep in mind that aircraft can rely on preventative maintenance by trained professionals. Cars really can't, meaning they have to simplify their components and assembly a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I used to joke around that we passed the Minority Report point, which was the latest movie where computer UI felt something unatainable (and new gesture, recognition etc is mainstream). This would be the 5th element point.

</comment><comment><USER21> In the US Flying Taxis/cars would require require a massive change in FAA regulations. In 2015, there were 6,876 air carrier aircraft.[1] Roughly 1/50,000 people. Air carrier aircraft are the only aircraft authorized to carry passengers for hire.

There are so few because getting an aircraft certified is hard. Not just for commercial use. Even private use. Most private planes in the US were built in the 20th century. And there were only 210,000 of them in 2015. Roughly 1/1500 people. Even among the commercial fleet, many air carrier aircraft are more than thirty years old because FAA certification is so difficult. To put it in automotive terms, much of what is flying in the US is analogous to a 1973 Dodge Dart or a 1985 F600. Aircraft in the US are like old cars in Cuba.

The number of aircraft in the sky is limited by long standing policies against general ownership. The FAA licensing of drone pilots is part of a general stance of limiting access to private aviation that began long long before 9/11\. Just compare the number of private aircraft to recreational boats.

[1]: [https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...](https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_11.html)

<comment><USER22> Which is why the skies are so safe. It's not about limiting access. FAA licencing is one of the more liberal aviation regimes across the world.

<comment><USER21> FAA regulations make the sky inaccessible to the general citizenry. The safety claim is analogous to a world in which the roads were restricted to commercial vehicles and sports car owners. Safety is primarily achieved by limiting access and hence use.

<comment><USER22> > Safety is primarily achieved by limiting access and hence use.

lol. No, safety is achieved by having strong licencing, both for pilots and aircraft, maintenance requirements, such as engine checks every x hours and so forth, and investigation into accidents. Any of the general citizenry can sign up to get a PPL, and in the US it is quite cheap and easy to do so. Long may it remain so. Even so, GA is considered dangerous, and can have impact on your ability to get life insurance. The main cause of GA deaths is pilot error.

You can get easier access and lighter touch regulations simply by going for a plane in the light sport category. That has an even poorer safety record than GA.

<comment><USER21> The 'light sport' category exactly supports the analogy to sports cars. Two seats and an impractical cargo capacity.

The limiting factor for citizen access to the sky is aircraft availability not pilot licensure. A Cessna 172's engine is slightly more sophisticated than an air-cooled VW's but the same basic 1930's technology. A new one starts at $70,000 because there is only a single source. There is only a single source because FAA regulations create a moat. Again, there are only 210,000 non- carrier aircraft in the US, the sky is only accessible to a fraction of the one percent by regulatory intent.

<comment><USER23> $70,000 is also the price of a Lexus or Infiniti or other entry-level luxury car. When you're on the highway surrounded by BMWs and Mercedes E-classes, that's the sort of people who, if flying was something they wanted to do, could have purchased an airplane instead, by your very own metric.

In fact, let's extend this a bit further. You say a Cessna is in a moat because it's the only supplier.... of Cessnas. BMW is the only supplier of BMWs! That's ridiculous reasoning. There are other GA and even light sport aircraft available - Piper and FlightDesign and Zenith and Bristell all sell aircraft. And they're all in the same price range, leading one to believe that maybe aircraft manufacture isn't as cheap as you're making it out to be.

<comment><USER21> $70,000 is about the price of a new four cylinder Lycoming O-320 engine for a Cessna 172 (traditionally among the least expensive production aircraft). Airframe, avionics, and installation not included. The alternative to a Lexus is a pile of metal on a pallet not an aircraft.

The high price of the O-320 engine reflects FAA regulations that require the use of a Lycoming O-320 in every Cessna 172...and actually a specific version of the O-320 engine for each minor variant of the Cessna 172. There's no second source for Cessna 172 engines _by regulation_...by regulation there's no second source for engine parts either. The supply is restricted.

Light sport aircraft are by regulation impractical as ordinary transportation. The allowable gross weight and one passenger restrictions insure that. It's like arguing that a YZ250 is a reasonable alternative to a Civic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hope they won't become mainstream until they can be fully battery-powered. You don't want something like that to fly above you when it has only slightly better Q&A than a regular car (and probably far less than a plane).

</comment><comment><USER25> Take all the bad road behavior you see with taxi and Uber drivers normally and stick them in the air. It's a good thing it hasn't caught on.

<comment><USER26> They will be fully automated and regulated.

<comment><USER27> Like the drones?

<comment><USER26> I bet bigger drones will be automated and regulated tightly. It's one thing that cars crash all the time but when flying vehicles crash they fall on other people. If that happens a few times people will call for rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They already exist in parts of the world like Saudi Arabia, no? (Can't read the article because I don't pay to view their site..)

<comment><USER4> Dubai is planning a trial with Volocopter, but there is nothing in production yet AFAIK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Finally. This will be great for the environment and especially the climate.

<comment><USER30> That seems unlikely. The energy cost of flying is always going to be higher. You do, after all, need to move upward.

<comment><USER12> I fly a piston engine airplane that seats 6 and gets ~15 miles per gallon at over 200mph. If I slowed it down, I could probably get it to 20mpg. That's pretty competitive with 6-pax cars, so the spread may not be as much as you'd first imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Next time you drive past a car accident, picture the cars not along the side of the road but in someone's house. That's where they will go when something goes wrong and they fall from the sky.

<comment><USER32> And yet somehow we manage to constantly have people travel by plane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> They are not years away, they are only a few innovations away, mostly related to battery performance and more compact powerful engines. Then of course, regulation.

<comment><USER34> Until the noise generated by the motors is solved they will only ever be allowed for emergency vehicles.

<comment><USER33> This is a solved problem that has mostly to do with propeller shape. By creating 3D simulations of airflow you can come up with very quiet designs.

The reason it's not done is because no one gives a damn. Planes and helicopters fly too high up and if you're in one of these vehicles the sounds of the engine will be louder than the propellers anyway because they aren't electric.

The military however already has this tech.

<comment><USER34> Relative quiet and actual quiet are different things - I don't believe the physics exists to displace the noise/vibrations generated; you can change the propeller shape and sizes, however that energy still needs to go somewhere, so you'll mostly just change where the energy's going and the frequencies and concentrations that are output. I'd love to be proven wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo hit by targeted cyberattack  - <AUTHOR> http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002061.html

<comment><USER2> Misleading subject line, possible spam?</comment>


Use the press to help your company achieve major goals - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@FirstMark/use-the-press-to-help-your-company-achieve-major-goals-8e713b5053a3 <comment><USER2> I actively have business owners contacting me looking for editorial content creation to be published on my website. Good and effective use of print published press is highly effective to increase brand awareness. [https://latechnews.org/](https://latechnews.org/)</comment>


Our Dark Past Is Our Bright Future: How the Kremlin Uses and Abuses History - <AUTHOR> https://carnegie.ru/commentary/81718 <comment><USER2> History is a delicate thing, just as truth. Even in democratic countries we have political necessities standing in its way, and resulting myopic view leads to all sorts of problems. Wonder if we can systematically decrease the distortion of history, which is always incomplete and being uncovered.</comment>


The Growth Mindset - <AUTHOR> http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/07/the-growth-mind.html <comment><USER2> _WHY do some people reach their creative potential in business while other equally talented peers don't?_

...

 _In this case, nurture wins out over nature just about every time._

Yep, "nurture" tends to win when we're already dealing with "equally talented peers". Three decades of painstaking research to prove a roundabout tautology.

</comment><comment><USER3> My favorite quote: "People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they're so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them."

However, I have one question/concern: Can the "innate ability and talent" truly be fostered in large corporations where companies have the ability to "push, stretch and confront" their employees' intellect?

I hope so and wish friends still in school read this article as well as PG's "Hiring is Obsolete".

</comment><comment><USER4> The idea of a static mindset is itself limiting. One needs to have a mindsheaf, which could be a time-varying sheaf of mindsets. This would be a contravariant functor F from the real line, with its usual topology, to the category of sets. The value F(U) for an open set U of the real line would be one of the mindsets of the mindsheaf. Of course, other topological spaces are possible, and the functor could have values in other categories. I mention only one possibility to illustrate the primitive inadequacy of the notion of a static mindset.

</comment><comment><USER5> Actual article here: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/business/06unbox.html></comment>