Amazon P/E ratio 3x that of Apple and Google - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/22/the-amazing-amazon-stock-bubble/ <comment><USER2> I actually think that amazon is sitting on an absolutely huge cash cow right now with ec2. They have a very large and growing customer base, and they are in a situation where they can slowly increase prices over the next few years without anyone noticing or minding.

By "raise prices" I mean, of course, lower them slower than their costs drop. that's just how it's done in this industry; nobody actually increases prices.

I went to a talk the other night by netflix; they were talking about how they moved all their stuff into the ec2 cloud. Now, first, this is costing them a huge premium over owning hardware, even as is. Now, just think, if amazon decreases prices slower than their costs fall (which will fall approximately with moore's law) think how much work it is for netflix to move off of ec2.

"But," you say "Power isn't getting any cheaper!" which is completely true, of course, but the amount of compute power I get for a watt of electricity is dropping approximately in line with Moore's law, so as a provider, you can pretty much bank on your ongoing costs decreasing dramatically every hardware refresh.

Amazon is in an excellent place right now. I don't know that it justifies a 67 P/E ratio, but depending on just how big ec2 is, and how many other large corporations start outsourcing to them, it very well may be worth more than that.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this and all other claims here regarding cloud computing being the future growth zone for Amazon is that they are far from the only company out there that provides or is capable of providing these services, and the switching costs are absurdly low for Amazon's customers. Right now they may have the largest piece of this particular pie, but there is no particular reason to believe that as the pie grows they will maintain their market share or margins; we could all easily come up with a list of companies that could jump in and drive Amazon's margins or market share down in the cloud computing space.

 _Now, just think, if amazon decreases prices slower than their costs fall (which will fall approximately with moore's law) think how much work it is for netflix to move off of ec2._

It takes almost no work at all. If some bean counter at Netflix tells their board next year that they the current cost/benefit ratio for EC2 now makes no sense it would take Netflix less than a month to move to another cloud provider and less than six months to move everything in-house again.

There is no switching cost and with more providers entering the space you are already seeing early arbitragers get into the game. This is going to exert strong downward pricing pressure on all vendors in this space. They are selling what is effectively a commodity, and there is no way they are going to maintain their margins for much longer.

If AWS and a bet on a future of fat profits from the cloud is what punters are using to justify this P/E they are making a costly mistake.

<comment><USER2> _It takes almost no work at all. If some bean counter at Netflix tells their board next year that they the current cost/benefit ratio for EC2 now makes no sense it would take Netflix less than a month to move to another cloud provider and less than six months to move everything in-house again._

if this were true, netflix would have never moved to the cloud in the first place, because like I said, even right now, at scale that is ridiculously small compared to neflix, it's pretty easy to beat amazon on price.

Now, first, I mostly agree with your assessment, if we limit the field to smaller companies where the people who own it are still involved with running it, and where people in positions of power have experience running cheap data centers.

But, I think the rules are different for "the enterprise." many of the large enterprises I've worked for ended up paying many times over what a company with more data center experience on the board (or in the beancounters) would would pay for compute infrastructure. You've seen the enterprise sales process... the whole system is set up to extract as much money as possible from the enterprise in question.

I saw one company that was paying a thousand bucks a month for mid-spec servers to a well-known infrastructure outsourcing company; servers that would cost me close to $2000 total capital cost, and then $100/month in power/bandwidth. According to this company's bean counters, paying that huge premium was actually cheaper for the company than buying and hosting in-house.

As for moving from amazon to another outsourced infrastructure provider... well, the problem is one of sales. Amazon is the only company in it's space that I know (with the exception of rackspace, maybe?) that has the credibility to be used by the enterprise without sending a sales guy over. This is incredibly valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The bottom line is this: Amazon trades at more than three times Apple's current valuation, eight times RIM's valuation and just about two and a half times Google's valuation. This is simply way too high."

The article is almost laughable in it's simplicity - if you take CNN/Fortune articles seriously please don't invest your money. This article is overly focusing on one antiquated notation that P/E is the only thing that matters, an idea that isn't taken seriously by anyone close to Wall Street or finance any more (if it ever was, seems like this idea is only perpetuated by "pop" finance drivel such as Fortune).

There are several more interesting metrics to look at when evaluating a stock, including cash flow, profit margin, return on equity, growth rates, and many more.

Amazon has been consistently growing in double digits throughout the recession. They have a profit margin of 3% (compared to Apple's lofty 20%). They have a market cap of 80 billion with annual sales of 24 billion versus Apple's market cap of 280 billion with annual sales of 65 billion.

Where is Amazon's growth ceiling in their respective markets? Where is Apple's? What is next for Apple after the iPad (which missed sales targets)?

If you are going to invest in a stock, you need to ask these tough questions and think for yourself. You can't just look at a P/E ratio and know whether a company is over or under valued. Amazon rode the recession with a 40+ P/E ratio, and now the market is picking up again. Decide for yourself whether it is risky or not to invest in AMZN.

<comment><USER5> Y'know, I agree with you, but I think you're arguing poorly.

 _one antiquated notation_

Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's bad.

 _that P/E is the only thing that matters_

I hate to say "strawman", but strawman. Is it really saying that P/E is the _only_ thing that matters? I think not, otherwise it wouldn't say things like "top line growth in many ways is far more important than earnings per share."

 _an idea that isn't taken seriously by anyone close to Wall Street or finance any more_

Argument from (dubious) authority?

 _only perpetuated by "pop" finance drivel such as Fortune_

Scare quotes and the use of the word "drivel"?

<comment><USER4> You're right, I'm not arguing very well. And please, I encourage any one not to take what I say very seriously either. If you want to invest, think for yourself, that is what I was really trying to say.

<comment><USER5> Well yeah, I think that pretty much goes without saying. Nobody should ever take a single "here's why I like stock X" article too seriously. But this one does provide some pretty good food for thought for anyone thinking of investing in computer/internet stocks right now.

I think I'd avoid GOOG and AAPL personally, too overpriced. Mind you, I've been saying that about GOOG since the float, so I'm frequently wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes it is more useful to look at companies on a yield perspective, that way you can compare them to "safe" assets and see how compelling a company really is.

In this case, Amazon features an earnings yield of: 1.4% and a Free Cash Flow yield of: 2.1%

10 Year US Treasuries are yielding 2.57%

Amazon, like Netflix, is run by a great operator. Both companies are trading at sky high valuations and it leaves little room for error. I could see both companies coming out on top, but I don't see much safety in either stock.

<comment><USER7> You just made me looks at stocks in a whole different angle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While a lot of people associate this company with info tech, Amazon shares more characteristics with companies like Costco and Walmart. These types of firms are focused on effective use of cash-flows in order to expand.

The PEs of superstores do not reflect the fact that they use much more debt than pure-tech firms. This debt contributes to cash-flows, which contributes to expanding operations. While Amazon may not be able to add new big-box stores with this cash, it can add more ads. Take a look at Amazon's return on equity (of which LT debt is a component) and you will see a brighter picture than depicted in this article.

PE is just one measure, and it is easily distorted in the short-run. Look at the business as it relates to the market price, and then compare it to other like businesses.

<comment><USER8> Looking at the financials for the past few years, Amazon is paying down its LT debt. This somewhat decreases the validity of my middle point.

Perhaps the PE is high because their profit margin is expected to increase above what is normally associated with retail operations (razor-thin). After all, Amazon is delving into more tech-centric lines of business.

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMZN&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AMZN&fstype=ii) [http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii) [http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:COST&fstype=ii](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:COST&fstype=ii)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's because they are so diversified. Google more of a one trick pony. Their arnings could very easily plummet... all that's required is for a very large number of people to start typing "bing" into their browser bar instead of "google". Look how quickly people moved from Myspace to Facebook.

But Amazon is entrenched not just in books, but in many other retail markets, digital music, movie rentals, and cloud computing. The likelihood that they'd get trounced in all of those markets simultaneously is slimmer, just because there are so many of them, and they don't have any single competitor who could wipe them out.

<comment><USER10> Google's not actually as much of a one trick pony as you think, but let's leave that aside. What about Apple? Rocking in every market they are in, except perhaps the appleTV. Who's hotter than Apple right now?

<comment><USER11> I wonder what will happen to Apple's products when Steve Jobs retires.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can think of some reasons why they might be priced with the expectation of massive growth:

\- The nascent cloud computing business

\- The potential to be the iTunes of books (the kindle store independent of the hardware)

\- No serious competitors in terms of becoming the wal-mart of online retail and a huge reservoir of expertise in this area.

The real question is whether this is all now rationally factored into the price.

<comment><USER13> In my eye, ebooks are the big driver here. The core market for the Kindle is older, wealthier individuals (read: investors) and sales revenue from ebooks rose 173% last year, Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical books and so on. It's all pretty impressive to the casual investor, who can feel like he's making a good bet on the 'future of reading'. Even Barnes & Noble, who is shackled by it's physical stores and has falling profits is trading at a generous 23.5 P/E today. I'm passing on AMZN for sure.

<comment><USER14> "has falling profits (and) is trading at a generous 23.5 P/E today"

23.5 is not generous at all if the denominator is tiny (coz of the falling profits). P/E is actually pretty meaningless when E is small coz of low margins [1], since small transient changes in margins (e.g. .1% to 5%) can make P/E vary wildly. And it's even more meaningless when E is negative.

[1] The exception being when the low margins are steady, and hence predictable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My guess would be:

\- People understand or think they understand Amazons business

\- Amazon has a history of few failures

\- Amazon is establishing a physical and technological infrastructure that a lot of other companies will build up on. It's like an operating system in a way, and this will be converted into huge money in the future

<comment><USER16> _Amazon has a history of few failures_

I think Amazon fails all the time. I think it tries to get the opportunity to fail as often as it can. However, Amazon's failures are mostly small scale, and not visible in the press.

<comment><USER17> Here's an interesting one: <http://www.endless.com/>

It was their competitor to Zappos. Shoe-focused, free overnight shipping and returns. I would call it a failure since they subsequently bought Zappos. But like you said, not very visible since they never shut Endless down. No real point, since it's just another skin on Amazon.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've wondered about this.

The explanation can only be that investors expect Amazon to continue to grow revenue and profits at a high rate. How reasonable is this expectation?

I've always thought that the intense competition in the on-line retail world would eventually result in lower profit margin for everyone including Amazon, but I hesitate to bet against such a well run firm.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't make any sense to me for the author to compare three companies that have nothing to do with each other. One if a all-purpose retailer, one a hardware company and one sells advertising.

That being said, Amazon is the runaway freight train in online retailing. With sales of $24.5 billion, there isn't anyone else even remotely close. Staples is no.2 at $9.5 billion and Walmart is an order of magnitude smaller than Amazon.

Amazon are on a tear this quarter with net sales growing 40%.

Now you add in their position as a leader in cloud-computing, along with the kindle.. and I think their future prospects are great.

<comment><USER19> To be fair Amazon and Google are more or less in direct competition with their cloud offerings. Also Amazon and itunes for that matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Apple sells computers, Google sells online advertising. Amazon sells _everything_.

<comment><USER21> > Amazon sells _everything_

Amazon itself, sells many things. Everything listed on Amazon is not offered by Amazon tho. Much of Amazon's wide breadth of inventory is supplied by independent retailers. So, Amazon is both a retailer, and an operator of a marketplace (of 3rd party sellers).

<comment><USER22> Put another way, Amazon also sells market space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This kind of balance sheet punditry is silly, it's just numbers and no context. Since the beginning Amazon's top priority has been growing revenues. If they started pursuing margins as aggressively as they've been pursuing growth they could probably drop that P/E pretty quick.

</comment><comment><USER24> Stockholder's equity has grown at over 100% (about 109%) over the last 2 years: [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=AMZN+Balance+Sheet&annua...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=AMZN+Balance+Sheet&annual)

ie. more than doubled annually.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Amazon is growing, no doubt. They should have a premium on their stock price, but Apple is also growing rapidly and has a much smaller premium.

Maybe Apple is seriously undervalued.

<comment><USER10> Now there's a bubble bursting attitude! When one stock seems to be excessively overrated... it's really that all the other stocks are underrated.

I like the cut of your jib, my friend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> General point about P/E and P/(E * G) ratios:

\- P is at a _snapshot_ in time, but

\- E is over a period of time (can be short/long, past/predicted-future)

\- G (growth) is over a period of time (can be short/long, past/predicted- future)

G is usually the predicted value, and -as you'd expect- predictions can vary a lot, making PEG vary wildly.

The G used in this article is one determined by some unnamed analysts, but the market thinks the analysts are wrong by a factor of 2.

</comment><comment><USER25> Apple and Google seem quite global.

What percentage of Amazon's revenue comes from the high growth Asian economies? What percentage comes from a temporarily recession ridden US, or low growth Europe?

RIM on the other hand seems like it could be dead in the water, the Palm of a new generation. That is why it trades at a P/E of 8.

<comment><USER17> Net sales for 2009 were 52% US, 48% international. They don't break down the international category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the most interesting things about Amazon is how they have iterated their business over time - from a website selling stuff to a marketplace to becoming a platform (in multiple areas).

</comment><comment><USER27> I think Amazon is worth it. Sun launched cloud computing ([http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/02/1839225&tid=...](http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/02/1839225&tid=102)) all the way back in early 2005, while Amazon didn't even start public beta testing until August 2006. The real appreciable difference is marketing and positioning. When Sun launched their service, nobody could tell why it was interesting, when Amazon launched they created an industry.

What I think makes Amazon worth the money is their ability to enter a market that is incidental to online retail, and dominating it so thoroughly so quickly. If I heard Google was entering my market, I would be nervous, if I heard Amazon was entering my market, I would run.

<comment><USER25> Here are two perspectives share price:

First value - you can think Amazon will dominate a market. To know if they are worth a price, you need some idea of the their earnings in that market and the return you want.

Another perspective is special insight. A company that executes wonderfully and that everyone can see is just brilliant is probably not undervalued. It is probably fairly valued because everyone agrees. To have a view that Amazon is undervalued you need to have some special insight that others in the market don't have. You don't care what the current view of earning is, the market has already taken that into account, you know they are going to do something wonderful that others don't. You buy based on that and sell once the insight is more broadly known.

<comment><USER27> I'm aware of that. The market for cloud computing should grow 50-100x in the next ten years, and Amazon is well positioned to capture almost all of it, with declining costs and increasing profit. Not only that, they will be a serious threat to iTunes with their book distribution. They should also be able to displace Craigslists and Ebay for the sale of used goods. Their service is easier, faster, and usually generates higher prices.

The analysts are still undervaluing cloud services, and haven't really talked too much about the Amazon marketplace ecosystem. Ebay is worth about $37B alone, so if Amazon can soak up chunks of that market, their value will go up tremendously. Used goods can probably still grow 1,000x at Amazon. Also, expect major growth in their fulfillment services. Once awareness of that picks up, they can probably take that industry and do long-tail order fulfillment for everyone selling anything online, through Amazon or not. Like I said, Amazon is definitely worth a 3x premium on Google, simply because they have so many different places they can grow revenue, and almost everything they're getting involved in has the potential to be huge businesses with clear paths to revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Did the guy own any of these three stocks and others???</comment>


Tons of microplastic rain onto western US - <AUTHOR> https://earthsky.org/earth/microplastic-rain-western-us <comment><USER2> I don't like plastic in the air any more than anyone else does, but

1) stop wearing those stupid fucking polyester hoodies (and other artificial fibers; aka your socks, gym shirts and underpants) -that's where most of it comes from. I'm looking at you, SF hacker nerds.

2) Even assuming the entire population of the Western US breathed all that plastic waste in and it was permanently deposited in the lungs:

1000e3 kg/ 100e6 people = 0.01kg or 10g plastic each person accumulated in their lungs. In a year. Pretty sure I have more shit in my lungs from being around diesel engines for a few days, or, like being around potheads.

<comment><USER3> Praying for cotton and wool to become stylish. And I hope we get creative with natural fibers like linen, beech fiber, spider silk, et.

<comment><USER4> One cotton t-shirt equals 2,700 liters of water—what one person drinks in two- and-a-half years. Google about Aral Sea.

Cotton farming is also responsible for 24 percent of insecticides and 11 percent of pesticides despite using about 3 percent of the world's arable land.

[https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/07/apparel-industrys- environme...](https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/07/apparel-industrys- environmental-impact-6-graphics)

<comment><USER5> We also need to buy less clothing overall. But this doesn't invalidate GP's assertion that natural fibers are more desirable.

<comment><USER6> Yep, but that requires a big mindset change; the insane amount of 'throwaway' clothes people buy is embarrassing. Not sure how you someone can be proud to own 50 pairs of shoes and 100 different outfits. I pity people who are that shallow (then again, I walk around like a vagrant, that's probably a bit too extreme as well), but it seems to become more normal vs less so as in; less fortunate people can (and do) do this now too. I know women and men in Philippines who make a few $100/month working online and spend almost everything on after market or knock off brand clothes and shoes. My colleague from the Philippines who is a coder and makes a fortune compared to the average there, buys new complete outfits for the wife, daughter and himself weekly (in the weekend they go clothes shopping and then to a family sunday lunch with that); they must have 100s of boxes of unused clothes stacked in their storage room (luckily they have a storage room?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We can legislate to stop producing it, or drastically reduce it. We did so with CFCs to stop destroying the ozone layer. The doomsayers weren't the scientists who predicted the problems, but those who said we'd lose refrigeration etc.

They were wrong. Legislation helped the ozone layer and society did fine. The same will happen if we legislate on plastic as we did on CFCs.

<comment><USER8> plastic is a slightly larger category than CFCs

<comment><USER9> Any other "solution" results in a local maximum. If I learned one thing last years of all the denying is that you cannot put the bar high enough especially when it concerns long term planning of the ecosystem of Earth. Just realize where we would be today if climate change was taken seriously in the 1960's. Let's not make that same mistake with plastic all over again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So are the chemicals we place on fields of food. Everything we're doing is toxic. We think the earth can support 7 or 8 billion people but in the current ways of doing things, it can probably only do so for another 100 years maximum.

<comment><USER11> > So are the chemicals we place on fields of food. Everything we're doing is > toxic. We think the earth can support 7 or 8 billion people but in the > current ways of doing things, it can probably only do so for another 100 > years maximum.

I gave it more like 300 years back in 2008, whereas Hawking gave it closer to 100 by which time he said if we're not multi-planetary we'll will have destroyed the Earth sue to our collective myopic behaviour; the time frame may differ but sentiment is the ultimately same: Humanity needed this reality check we've had with COVID, what we do from here on out may determine the fate of our entire Species' fate.

And we should act accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's in air, it's in water, it's in food... ultimately, it's also in us.

<comment><USER13> Watched dark waters last night. Pretty unreal how these companies behaved.

[https://imdb.com/title/tt9071322/](https://imdb.com/title/tt9071322/)

<comment><USER14> Please keep in mind biopics and historical films are fictionalized _movie_ and not documentaries but entertainment.

Link to NYT article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer- who-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became- duponts-worst-nightmare.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Our era will be known as the plastic age

</comment><comment><USER16> Biodegradable plastic has been a thing since the late 70's.

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

My dad once showed me transparent cellulose-based plastic envelopes you could eat. They didn't taste like anything but were totally non-toxic. That was in the 80's.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is the solution? Maybe massive taxes for manufacturing plastics for consumer uses? Just brainstorming here.

It seems like the incentives need to align somehow.

<comment><USER18> Yes. Carbon tax, plastic tax. Basically we're still in the full denial phase. We need more energy, and we need clean energy. (Because ultimately every problem with plastics and pollution is solvable via spending more energy.) And some serious transformation.

* Tyres? Make them out of biodegradable organic materials. Maybe they'll need to be replaced every year, and they'll cost more, that's why the pollution tax has to make the safe/sane/eco/green version competitive. (Also more investment in infrastructure, mass transit, denser cities, more walking, etc.) Urbanization is already ongoing, but somehow instead of building efficient dense cities many countries on Earth are just building sprawling slums and/or suburbs. (Plus we need carbon-efficient concrete and a more carbon-efficient construction industry as a whole.)

* Synthetic fibers. Cotton. Sure, but you'll need non-polluting cotton farms, so closed loop energy intensive [indoor/vertical] farms.

* Plastic packaging. Meh, just use biodegradable alternative packaging. Eg. paper. (Heavier, needs more energy to transport.)

* Plastic bottles. Use aluminum cans. Again, heavier, plus needs more energy to manufacture, but endlessly recyclable.

* Plastic pigments in paint. Meh, find biodegradable alternative or stop using them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In some just universe, oil == pure evil. It's underground for a reason and poking a million painful needles into Mother Earth to suck it out and spew it into every biome is bound to have implications on our own health.

As above, so below.

<comment><USER20> Oil has horrible consequences, but your rational for it being evil by being out of "reach" isn't very enlightening. By your logic we should not tap aquifers for drinking water, but mass desalination is fine. Instead, oil is bad because. It's not renewable, it's refinement/combustion is readily linked to cancer and other deadly/health issues, extraction/transport routinely kills ecosystems/creates toxic waste sites.

<comment><USER21> Mass desalination via solar energy seems like it would be a huge win for the environment. Plus you could sell the salt.

I wonder if it's feasible.

<comment><USER22> Desal plants cause localised brine concentration and screw ecology. If you built them at Salinas (salt pans) maybe that would be ok, and we'd get more flamingoes once the brine shrimp population rose. So you need strong solar and large flat expanses. North Africa? There was a serious proposal to sell solar power to Europe from north Africa. Maybe this is the triple play?

<comment><USER23> I've looked at Desalination in Southern California. One thing they're trying is to mix the saline water with waste water discharge. One assumes that's better. Other thing I found when poking about is the energy expenditure for some of LA's water sources is close to that of desalination.

I think I'm firmly down on the side of I'm against desalination if it just means more water for almonds. For desalination if it means replacing expensive imported water sources and leaving more water for what's left of the states natural environment.

I feel like things are complicated with a inescapable level of fucked.

<comment><USER18> Carbon tax (or a similar, more general environmental impact tax) would sort thing out in no time.

It wouldn't matter if someone uses water to raise almonds in the middle of the desert, but it should have its env. impact priced in.

Similarly, it's absolutely ridiculous that large states can't plan ahead for ~20-50 years and instead of building efficient power plants we're stuck with windmills and solar and batteries as the "green" option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Rocky Mountain National Park, which had the greatest amount of microplastics among the national parks and wilderness areas in the study"

Surprised to see Colorado so affected.

<comment><USER25> That is surprising, especially considering that it's on the continental divide and has mostly headwaters.

I live a bit south of there in the mountains, also close to the divide. A lot of our precip, especially in winter, is moisture carried by the jet stream from the north pacific that gets caught on the mountains. Could be the source, but that's a wild guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's crazy how much waste we produce. You only realize that after you start separating your trash for recycling.</comment>


GitHire - <AUTHOR> http://www.githire.com/ <comment><USER2> As far as I can tell, this equates 'best programmers' with people who run repositories for popular projects.

I suppose if you think Justin Bieber and various top of the charts pop stars are the best musicians it makes sense.

I think that good programmers can be involved in popular projects but being involved in a popular project on github shouldn't be the defining characteristic of a 'good programmer'.

<comment><USER3> I think that it depends on what you're hiring for. This is analogous to Gladwell's, "there is no perfect pepsi, only perfect pepsis"

Ideally, githire should let one select from a few different hiring algorithms, which rank people differently.

<comment><USER4> Malcolm Gladwell is not a management consultant.

<comment><USER3> All I know is that if I put in Austin, Tx, I see a few people that I know in the top 10 to be really good software developers.

However, these are the types of people who generally start their own projects, and attract other good developers to a project. Their salaries are also going to be quite a bit higher than the average developer as well.

So, it seems to me that project popularity is at least some indicator that a person is competent as a software developer, but I can think of a lot of jobs that wouldn't require someone to be in the top 10.

I think that it would be great to be able to be able to search by code quality, test coverage, etc., but I don't think that we have the AI metrics to do that yet, and unfortunately, a real human has to look at someone's code to decide if it's any good.

However, this reminds me of software that tries to detect what "reading level" a person is writing at. For example, google lets you search by "reading level". It would be an interesting project for someone to apply the same principles to software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1) Searched for "San Francisco, CA" and it was returning people from India.... ?

2) Its 2011, githire.com should work the same as www.githire.com. This is my biggest pet peeve with any site.

3) The "add info" button on a user page goes to <http://www.githire.com/user/edit> which simply loads the user info for a username of edit on github.

Overall an interesting idea, but maybe unveiled a bit prematurely.

<comment><USER6> _Its 2011, githire.com should work the same as www.githire.com. This is my biggest pet peeve with any site._

Agreed. At the very least, either CNAME one to the other. If you really want/need one canonical domain, it's not hard to define a 301 redirect to the appropriate domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't pitch the value of your product with "We have a very high tech algorithm" until it works. Invoking the "secret sauce" when your basic functionality doesn't work is amateur-hour stuff, and degrades the benefit of the doubt that people otherwise give a new product.

This project feels like it's about halfway to MVP. This is more akin to a tech demo.

All that said, equating inbound connections with programmer ability is an inherently flawed metric for measuring how hireable a person is.

<comment><USER8> That seems to be all they're offering that's different from github's advanced search: [https://github.com/search?type=Users&language=Python&...](https://github.com/search?type=Users&language=Python&q=location%3A%22Melbourne%2C+Australia%22)

<comment><USER9> But the order of that is based upon the number of followers, which isn't usually proportional to being a good Githubber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm mildly confused. What repository is listed alongside a user? My user (<http://www.githire.com/user/Shadowfiend> ) shows a repository that, to my knowledge, I've never created, forked, or contributed to...

<comment><USER11> I have the same problem with my own page on this site.

<comment><USER12> On my page it finds a different person.

<comment><USER13> Ditto (username telemachus which points to the user derekprior instead?!?)

Actually, now my profile has been updated, and it now points to Linus Torvalds. Snapshot for posterity: <http://cl.ly/C23P>

_Edit_ : Don't believe the pretender i386 below me. _I_ am the true Linus Torvalds! :)

<comment><USER14> I'm really flattered - apparently I am Linus! <http://www.githire.com/user/i386>

<comment><USER15> I'm Linus as well: <http://www.githire.com/user/Diablo-D3>

<comment><USER16> Me too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Failed Execution. Take it down and fix it up. Do at least some testing before launching.

The biggest failure is that wrong information is showing up for peoples username. Thing is, if the username does not yet exist in your data set, then query it before showing someone else's profile.

Popularity does not show how good software developer is, we are not celebrities, some of us are not even bloggers. Some of us do not actively participate on open source, even if we have few repositories in Github. Though we still might be looking for work.

<comment><USER17> Funny. Now my own profile has been fetched from github.

The edit info, button still goes to user/edit instead of user/nickname/edit.

Still the system is showing those who are listed as "hireable: false" showing up before those who are actually hireable.

The search result ordering is odd. There's no reason for gitrank, if it does not affect the order the github users are shown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I actually love this based on easy of finding cool programmers in my area using languages I can play with. Yea, this sounds silly if you're in SF, but in Columbus, Ohio, finding cool programmers that dig FoSS and interpreted languages is tricky. Too many people doing Java, .NET and Oracle stuff at Nationwide and similar. Too few people doing fun things.

THANK YOU to whoever made this.

<comment><USER19> I always thought Columbus had a pretty good tech scene going on? EdgeCase, Leandog, etc always represent at conferences and such.

<comment><USER18> Problem is in a single sentence you've got almost all of it covered :)

So much here (too much for my tastes) is around manufacturing and the insurance industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So how is this different from Klout's "high tech super-secret ranking algorithm" that everyone knows is worthless?

<comment><AUTHOR> GitRank, is based on the pagerank algorithm. Check out the best see if they don't match who you think should be there. <http://www.githire.com/best>

<comment><USER21> So it's based on inbound links (aka popularity)?

<comment><USER20> If it is, it becomes an SEO game, which defeats the purpose of such a ranking system. I'd rather hire someone who is passionate about something, designs well, and writes good code. Their page ranking doesn't help me with that.

All I really see here is a "who's who" of the popular kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hey, there's MVP, and then there's buggy as hell. Yours falls into the latter. I've loaded 'my' user profile now a half dozen refreshes, and I only saw myself once.

It'd be great if you went back and had a good look at your code, and how you got here. Less rush == better product == higher chance of traction.

</comment><comment><USER23> Currently showing Linus on my page. Bug, or feature? :) <http://www.githire.com/user/derek>

<comment><USER24> I dislike how basic functionality like this is completely broken, yet ads are being served. You can see where the priorities are. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Aside from the constructive criticism, it might help usability is you made your algorithm more transparent so users could see _why_ they are essentially irrelevant (if they expected otherwise) and why some others are getting what appears to be arbitrarily high rankings. But, I do like this idea, and it would certainly benefit me if you found a way to make it universally indicative of a coder's skill. But that's hard. 1. It's still hard to tell without sitting a hacker down and testing them, 2. popularity does affect page rank. Some highly useful repositories are lost in a sea of absolutely useless, but popular programming playthings.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is similar to what Matt Biddulph wrote back in 2010. See here:

[https://github.com/mattb/flotsam/tree/master/github- recruitm...](https://github.com/mattb/flotsam/tree/master/github-recruitment/)

<comment><AUTHOR> this is actually where the idea came from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This sounds like it's supposed to be for hiring, but a quick search for Toronto had 7 of the top 10 as not hireable (according to their profile).

Bug? Missing feature of MVP? Missing filter option?

</comment><comment><USER28> hmmm, seems I'm entirely irrelevant, with a GitRank of: N/A. Better not tell my employer.

I'm not sure whether this is due to my profile not being indexed or that its rank is so low so as to be negligible.

Would be nice if they explained their ranking system better. (On the site itself)

<comment><USER29> It looks like they are still crawling the GitHub pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Cool idea! - though the projects that show up next to users don't correspond with those users, as I would assume they're supposed to?

</comment><comment><USER31> The blog link parsing is off. If the blog value doesn't have an "<http://> on it, then it treats it as a relative link under githire.com. E.g.:

       Blog: mechanicalgirl.com

links to <http://www.githire.com/mechanicalgirl.com>

</comment><comment><USER32> The idea is great, but the implementation is totally broken presently. I tried two times with "Montreal, QC" as a query, the first time it returned only result from London (UK) and the second time only Philadelphia (PA).

</comment><comment><USER33> So lets pretend project popularity is a good measure for programmers. But what if somebody is contributing to other popular projects or is part of an organization that has popular projects?

</comment><comment><USER34> NB: It seems you have your DNS/subdomains set up incorrectly. githire.com returns nothing while www.githire.com works. Be sure to set one of them to the canonical url for seo purposes.

<comment><AUTHOR> honestly DNS still confuses me a bit. I have a CNAME record pointing www to the ec2 public url. What do I do for the naked domain?

<comment><USER35> Set up an A record and point it directly at the IP address.

Edit: on EC2, much better to set up an elastic IP as described below.

<comment><USER36> Careful not to put an ec2 host IP address directly in your DNS provider. Given the caching in DNS, if/when you change EC2 instances you'll be given a new IP, and your site will be down (or looking at the old server) while DNS updates.

Better to use amazon's Elastic IP. Simply 1) create one, 2) assign it to the EC2 instance of your choice, 3) add the Elastic IP as your A record as the parent post suggests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm a bit confused how this works.

I searched for my location and couldn't find myself.

I tried my page directly at <http://www.githire.com/user/jl2> and see my "GitRank" is N/A. I clicked "Add Info" and was taken to another user's page: <http://www.githire.com/user/edit>

Is it a bug? Did this happen for anybody else?

</comment><comment><USER38> Nice idea :) I have been working on a blog post and example app for how to do this with Gremlin and Neo4j -- should be up soon.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm sure you're working to fix a couple of issues with your app, so I'm not trying to pile on here. Love the idea, and I just wanted to report two bugs:

1\. githire.com/user/acompa returns my account, while www.githire.com/user/acompa returns someone else.

2\. Clicking "Add Info" on my profile

githire.com/user/acompa

takes me to the profile of user "edit" via

githire.com/user/edit

You might need to construct your URLs more consistently, it seems?

</comment><comment><USER40> Looks like they are in 503 land right now...

<comment><USER41> Good. As interesting an idea as this is, it'll just be exploited by worthless, lazy recruiters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nobody has mentioned the name.

A simple "Doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin" disclaimer would probably suffice...

</comment><comment><USER43> How exactly does GitRank work?

Also, the add info doesn't seem to do anything.

BUG: If you click add info on a user page, it goes to /user/edit rather than /user/<username>/edit

Finally, the repo next to me is some uni project that I haven't updated for about a year, why is it showing that? :(

</comment><comment> clark-kent Small bug, "add info" button takes you to <http://www.githire.com/user/edit> which belongs to the github user <https://github.com/edit>

</comment><comment><USER44> This thing is a joke. Searched for Atlanta Georgia and came across someone who had no open source contributions on and three skeleton projects as a top guy while high profile open source contributors were not in the system.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's something wrong. <http://www.githire.com/user/parse> has rank of 10 and doesn't own the project shown on the page.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can't even find my username (ahmetalpbalkan). I think it requires more testing on the ranking algorithm and probably more input parameters to compute rank.

</comment><comment><USER46> I tried searching for local Ruby guys, and some of the top Django/Python people I know showed up at the top of the list.

It might need some tweaking.

</comment><comment><USER47> Seems to me you don't have enough information to declare "Hireable: false." I don't have much of a github presence. I am hireable.

</comment><comment><USER48> Looks like is not showing the commits on other projects or the organizations you belong to. It's an interesting idea though.

</comment><comment><USER49> Somebody should do the same for Dribbble.

<comment><USER28> Dribbble already does it natively: <http://dribbble.com/designers>

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> For a glorified search engine, why does this require Javascript to return a static page set of results?

</comment><comment><USER51> Searching 'detroit' gives results from Munich. Searching 'detroit, mi' gives Zurich.

<comment><USER7> Quick, try "Turkey". You might get a Sandwich!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> For Palo Alto it gives me only non-hireable people. And Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER53> I found a good candidate then saw this: Hireable: false

:( I will look again ...

</comment><comment><USER54> Oh please let companies use this to determine "real" talent!

</comment><comment><USER55> Just got my first Github spam message today. Coincidence? Is this being used as a spam tool?

Anyone else got something like this in all caps? <<GREETING TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, IN MY SEARCH FOR A... >>

</comment><comment><USER56> We've had a similar project live for a little while now. It's opt-in only though.

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

</comment><comment><USER57> nice idea but poor implementation.

by the way, it would be good if users categorized by programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER58> Good use of twitter bootstrap!

</comment><comment><USER59> Search takes ~30 seconds and returns no results or "503 Service Unavailable"

Does not look viable.

</comment><comment><USER60> There are some problems with the search engine, if i search by "Bogota" there is no result from my city... and it give me exactly the same results if i write "Colombia".

Maybe you should use the Google API: <http://goo.gl/H5cGY></comment>


A Discrete and Bounded Envy-Free Cake Cutting Protocol for Any Number of Agents - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03655 <comment><AUTHOR> An article discussing the history and significance of this problem can be found here: [https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161006-new-algorithm- solves...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161006-new-algorithm-solves-cake- cutting-problem/)</comment>


The Fastest Helicopter on Earth - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/the-fastest-helicopter-on-earth/0

<comment><USER2> While interesting, this is a puff piece written by the designers of the helicopter at Sikorsky.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it just me or the writing style of this article is really weird? It's as if different people have written different sections. Some of it sounds like a pre-flight briefing manual sans the helpful illustrations and other parts sound like a PR fluff piece. For example;

>>>But here's the catch. When a helicopter flies forward, the rotor blades experience a dramatic variation in airspeed. That's easy to see if you imagine a miniature version of yourself perched on the tip of a helicopter rotor blade. If the helicopter were hovering, you'd feel a constant 800-km/h wind in your face as the rotor spun around. If the helicopter were to fly forward, you would note that the wind was stronger on what's called the advancing side, when the rotor was moving in the same direction as the helicopter, but that it would be noticeably weaker when the rotor was on the retreating side. By the time the helicopter reached 150 km/h, you would feel a wind speed of 950 km/h on the advancing side, versus 650 km/h on the retreating side....<<<

I had to re-read this paragraph at least 2-3 times to understand what it exactly meant. It was just too vague. What direction should I face? Am I moving clockwise or counterclockwise? What does it mean that the rotor is moving in the same direction as the helicopter?

Then there was this paragraph, which sounds... fake considering the tone of the rest of the article.

>>>With everyone's nerves on edge, the X2 started up its engine at 6:30 a.m., and the helicopter took off. Within a few minutes the X2 had reached a speed of 350 km/h. A dozen people watched from the ground as the airspeed crept up, first to 400, then 410, and finally topping out at 435 km/h—not quite the goal we'd set, but good enough for this round. Cheers and applause broke out on the ground. The pilot slowed the X2, turned it around, and flew back to land on the runway.<<<

The same person who had trouble explaining the simple imagery of a rotating blade can't write something as flowery as that. It's just too unlikely.

<comment><USER4> I understood that paragraph without problems, and I'm not even a native English speaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While the Sikorsky X2 might have some niche uses rescue missions probably aren't one of them. It's tiny. A tiltrotor[1] aircraft like the V-22 Osprey seems a much better fit if you need to get there fast _and_ do something meaningful like rescue work.

1\. <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tiltrotor>

<comment><USER6> The X2 is not a production model, it is an experimental aircraft. According to the article, the technology used in the X2 will eventually be used in production models that will presumably "go fast and do something meaningful." Otherwise nobody would buy them ;)

<comment><USER5> Well there's still plenty of uses for a fast and helicopter. Patrol missions for one. But hopefully they'll be able to scale this up to bigger sizes.

Does anyone know if that would be much harder? I.e. is it inherently harder to make heavier helicopters go faster? Or do you just have to scale up the fabrication.

<comment><USER7> I imagine like everything in aerospace, 'just scaling up' isn't as simple as it is. Drag increases non-linearly as you scale up for one thing, and with something as tricky as the rotors of helicopter, you probably have to do all sorts of nuts stuff to get it to work. For one thing, you can't just make the rotor span larger (with same rotation speed), cause then your increasing the velocity of the rotor tips which could cause all sorts of problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know of a decent biography of Igor Sikorsky? Most of the ones I'm finding on Amazon are either fluff or kids books.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article really should have mentioned the BA-609 tiltrotor aircraft. It's the civilian version of the V-22, and nearly ready for production.

The BA-609, with the speed and range of an airplane, has tremendous potential, and is _the_ reason why Sikorsky started resealching faster helicopters.

<comment><USER10> The V-22 should make for a very interesting engineering story when all of the history comes out. Tiltrotors inherently have a lot of moving parts, plus a very complicated aerodynamic profile as they transition from helicopter mode to airplane mode. It took decades to develop it, at least one fatal accident, and a lot of technology risk throughout, and all the while it was a prime candidate for cancellation. The only thing that saved it was its suitability for the Marine Corps, who needed an aircraft that could carry more Marines a longer distance than helicopters. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Ir...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Iraq_compared_with_CH-46E_combat_radius.svg))

It's probably not too far from the truth to say that, just like stealth aircraft, we wouldn't have usable production tiltrotor aircraft today if it wasn't for the political tendency to spend vast amounts of money on unnecessary and implausible military contracts. Not an argument either way, just an observation.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, initial stealth technology wasn't even THAT expensive. The initial development of 'true' stealth (Pave Blue/F-117) cost about 2 Billion USD in R&D and a total of about 7 Billion for all the planes and everything else.

Furthermore, it wasn't even that implausible. Some Soviet physicist already wrote the paper telling us how to calculate Radar Cross Sections. The initial prototyping was a huge success (pretty much matched up exactly what their expected/calculated values).

Now, the B2. That's a different story. It's very hard to justify 2 Billion dollar bombers, no matter how you spin it.

Linkie here: <http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-F-117A.html> and also Ben Rich's excellent (though somewhat biased) book Skunk Works.

<comment><USER10> The 2 billion dollar price tag is misleading, though--the design cost was supposed to be amortized over a much larger order of planes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everyone knows Airwolf is faster.

<comment><USER12> Truely: Airwolf's conventional top speed is 560 km/h compared to the X2's 435 km/h. With turbo boosters, Airwolf could go Mach 1+, so really nothing has progressed past the 1980's.

Source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwolf_(helicopter)>

<comment><USER13> Except that airwolf's special capabilities are all fictional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It must have a massively robust landing gear design.

<comment><USER15> Do you mean more massive than a normal helicopter? Why? The article seems to state that the newly available technologies made their new helicopter lighter than before.

<comment><USER14> Heh. I see I was down-modded, which wasn't very surprising. I was trying for exactly the kind of pun/humor that I know HN doesn't appreciate.

ObJokeExplanation: For me, the wording of the title was misleading in a funny way, since helicopters generally don't break speed records while _literally_ on Earth.

<comment><USER16> HN does sometimes appreciate that, but you have to lead a bit. Maybe if you'd quoted the title immediately before your response, since most people will have read one or more other comments (and maybe the article itself... shocking, I know) before reading your comment. The headline has expired out of memory at this point. That's my excuse for why I didn't get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why is the double rotor design not more popular than the way most helicopters are made?

<comment><AUTHOR> My guess is complexity. The double rotors require coaxial drives and the helicopter itself ends up being taller. The top rotor maintenance is going to be more difficult.

The Kamov company's helicopters were all(?) double-rotor. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov>

Kamen Aerospace has double rotor helicopters without the coaxial drive (interleaved rotors) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_Aircraft>

<comment><USER18> Complexity, yes, but for a different reason -- gyroscopic precession. Cyclic inputs for differential lift require that the actual (mechanical) blade adjustment be at an angle to the change in the lift produced. With a single rotor you can accomplish that with a simple mechanical linkage (and a bit of body english -- the angle of input precession is rarely at the "proper" 90 degrees). Counter-rotating blades mean two sets of blade pitch controls (swash plates, rods, followers and linkages, etc.) and, if you want to avoid unplanned pitch adjustments, a servo system that can moderate cyclic control input based on direction (input will be much more sensitive to fore-aft adjustment than to left-right without a compensation circuit).

<comment><USER13> > if you want to avoid unplanned pitch adjustments

I read that as 'detours to the nearest hospital'.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tech addiction 'harms learning' - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8256490.stm

<comment><USER2> _And 84% openly admitted copying chunks of information from the internet into their homework or projects on a number of occasions._

I don't know what the numbers were like 10 years ago, and its obvious that the internet makes this much much easier but wow, thats a huge number.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned...The study of 267 pupils aged 11 to 18 found 63% felt addicted to the internet and 53% to their mobile phones._

Wow.

I wonder what has to happen before society takes a hard look at learning and technology. The only examples I can think of where laws or ethics have been created is the case of texting and driving, which is killing people as fast as drunk driving (or faster).

You'd think if the next generation were being made 40% stupider (a number I just made up) we'd care at least as much about that as people plowing their cars into each other.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > You'd think if the next generation were being
      > made 40% stupider ... we'd care at least as
      > much about that as people plowing their cars
      > into each other.

Color me cynical, but I don't think so. Being intelligent isn't valued in society, whereas with cars everyone thinks everyone else is a danger to themselves and society and need to be constrained/curtailled. Generally person A doesn't want others to be intelligent, because it makes them feel stupid. Person A also doesn't want others to text and drive because it puts them (person A) at risk.

Hence laws will be passed to prevent text and drive, but not to prevent stupidity.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps western societies will implement technologies that have similar effects as opiates and then third world countries will produce the next generation of intelligentsia. As these third world nations develop, they'll sink in output as well.

Kind of like a Peter Principle for cultures.

Of course it may not play out that way. It may be that we end up with three strata of people: the non-connected, the connected-and-addicted, and the creatives. If so, it would be in the creatives interests to keep as many people as possible non-connected. (!)

Not sure. But I know we're headed into uncharted territory here. It has that runaway train feeling about it to me.

<comment><USER4> It's the old institution that fears the rapid change and tries to cling to the traditional view of education and intelligence.

To those young people, they communicate clear as day with each other. To them, the _propers_ are out of touch, boring, and slow.

I'm a young person and thus far have tempered my internet addiction quite well with a social life and plenty of book reading. I also follow the train of thought of the _propers_ , clear, focused, and concise thought is expressed unhurriedly and deliberately.

I love writing clearly and professionally (albeit I am a bit lax in comments and discussion forums such as HN). But youth should not be forced to find that appreciation for the ancients; they should find it through their appreciation of what they are becoming and what the came from which is only something they can do on their own.

Technology isn't changing things for the worse, it is simply providing so much information that people (youngins especially) are trying to keep up with ALL of it. This is what creates the unfocused and distracted state of mind, not the technology itself.

I have high hopes for Linked Data, the Semantic Web, and more broadly: the data, information, knowledge pipeline. The more meaning we give our data; the easier it will be to have technology manage that mass of input for us: allowing people to refocus on the knowledge. The meaning.

<comment><USER3> A psychological addiction is defined as when you spend time doing one thing instead of doing something else that you feel is more important. It's self- referential: only you can define whether you are addicted or not.

By this measure, if the youths are _self-reporting_ that they feel addicted to the internet, that's very, very interesting. It says that the youths themselves feel they should be doing something else, not some old, stodgy institution.

I know it's fun to play the old folks against the young, but you just can't keep waving your hands around and yelling various buzzwords. At some point there are real, independent metrics that come into play. Kids can't spell. The ability to put together (or appreciate) a cogent argument spanning more than ten words is being lost on a generation. No amount of technology is going to give critical thinking skills back to people who spent their formative years on FaceBook and WoW instead of somewhere else -- anywhere else.

It's not like being instantly connected to the world's body of knowledge and each other is going to make up for cognitive potential lost through inattention.

We've got some really cool stuff going on now -- stuff that has the potential to change the nature of what it means to be human. But we shouldn't put on blinders to the sucky stuff simply because the cool stuff is so neat.

<comment><USER4> Then the important question is, whether students _are_ labeling themselves as addicted or are being labeled by the examiners.

I never intended to play the old folk against youth; I was attempting to argue that, instead of worrying about the cogency of self-expression or critical thinking skills in the framework of _traditional_ systems (which never had the level of technology we see today, including my schooling) I think the focus should be placed on how to inspire youth to develop/learn logical thinking, rhetoric, and grammatical skills within the context of an evolving system.

I'm arguing for the reform of our educational system to grow with these new technological advancements and with it all of the changes to language and thought processes.

Is this not how new languages and forms of expression are created/evolved? I fully agree that precise, clear, and centered thinking as well as mindful and accurate self-expression are of the utmost importance in the development of an individual. However, I think a fine line must be drawn between compatibility of thought and expression between generations: should we conform to their new and developing form of communication and thought? Or should they conform to the old ways?

You are correct, that technology will and should never replace the use of the brain. It is, however, becoming a deeply integral aspect of our culture; just as the book did once the printing press was invented.

There is a lot to say on this subject, I'm going to leave it at that as this input box is too tiny and I have trouble reviewing what I wrote!

Fun conversation :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Usernames reveal the age and psychology of game players - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215301655 <comment><USER2> As someone who runs a fairly large multiplayer game with a good mix of children, teenagers, and adults, I've always been convinced of this[1] but haven't had any data to back it up, and I certainly didn't have the time or drive to conclusively demonstrate it like these fine folks did.

I would love to see someone tackle some solutions to this problem with some A/B testing. Sadly I don't think my userbase is large enough or antisocial enough for me to effectively test it.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3op7e2/wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3op7e2/whats_up_with_these_riot_surveys/cvze54n?context=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> From reading the results, they found out that you could guess someone's name when they put a year in the username and that antisocial words meant the person was more likely to be a jerk.

Am I missing something here? The idea that SatansDick2007 is probably an 8 year old troll won't come as a shock to much of anyone.

<comment><USER4> That's an appealing and intuitive idea to me too, yeah; but they have validated that it's actually the case on a large population of users. Their paper seems very methodologically careful/thorough. It's also interesting to me that they correlated this with the post-game player-feedback.

Its easy to say 'we knew that' post hoc, but they've done the science. (Also, hindsight bias is a real thing.)

This seems like the opening step in a line of research. Its like in Feynman's 'cargo cult science' address about the (apocryphal?) experimenter 'Young': this is learning how to carefully do science in this domain. [http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm](http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm)

<comment><USER3> While it's good to validate the things we all know, any forum mod could've told you that it's not usually hard to predict the troublemakers or spammers by name.

<comment><USER4> There's the things we all know, and there's things we all know because they have been scientifically studied and validated, and these two sets of things are not the same.

I'm sure the research in this area will uncover more unintuitive things later!

<comment><USER5> I once saw a study that concluded heterosexual couples were more likely to have children than homosexual couples.

I mean, there's the things we know, and then there's the things that have been scientifically studied and validated.

And then there's the things that really don't need to be validated.

I once had someone claim that if you drove a vehicle through mud, it would get muddy. But since it hasn't been scientifically proven and validated, do I _really_ "know" that to be true?

Is this really going to be an existential crisis where we don't really know anything until science tells us it's true?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I played LoL briefly during the beta and before the Tribunal was implemented, and even won their first contest (logo lookout) when Nikita was still an intern for Riot. I was very interested in the community and the lore since Riot was proactive in words and, for a brief time, actions.

I even have an email dated Oct 12 2010:

> 2\. Has the idea of a "Summoner Spotlight" ever been discussed? I think a > small article written by a Summoner about their own character, and approved > by Riot Staff could do wonders to enrich Roleplay almost to the point of The > Hollow.[0]

Suddenly, on Oct 22 2010 Summoner Spotlights showed up! Probably a coincidence since the content was totally different, but for a fan like me at the time it was exciting. [1]

To say I was drooling the Kool-Aid at the idea of having a positive community would be an understatement.

Then something must have happened internally because Babaganush was soon fired and nothing was really done to stop the community from suddenly becoming overwhelmed with adolescents describing their urges surrounding "Nikasaur" once the Spotlights did show up. That, coupled with the in-game behavior, made the whole community smell of rot.

I left after it became clear Riot was not actually focused on really cleaning up the community. Riot took the game towards the e-sports competitive scene which, sadly, helped shape the community into what it was and is. I've heard the Tribunal has helped, but it's not one of those features that is going to make me come back.

[0] [http://imgur.com/VfUvarl](http://imgur.com/VfUvarl)

[1] [http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Summoner_Showcase](http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Summoner_Showcase)

EDIT: To the downvoters, if you disagree with how I am recounting history, please do elaborate. Riot got rid of a significant amount of their moderate playerbase by their early business decisions, which was a contributing factor to having a negative-attitude playerbase in the 2010-2012 years. That negative attitude at this point has become a stereotype, and perhaps it could have been avoided.

<comment><USER3> How long have you been gone? I think you might be out of date. Most games aren't negative (compare to, say, voice chat in CS:GO...) and they've rolled out plenty of features to report people who are being jerks.

That said, honestly, you can't prevent people from saying things you don't like, especially a bunch of anonymous kids. They can always sign up for a new account or whatever. Better just to punish and move on, especially as they have plenty of things to lose for being a jerk (IP, rank, champions, money they've spent, etc.).

The Tribunal is gone, but you can file reports, some punishments are automatic (did they spend the entire game swearing at their team and get reported?), you can mute anyone you like, etc.

<comment><USER6> > How long have you been gone? I think you might be out of date.

Many years, I last solidly played sometime in 2011 and maybe a couple games with close friends in 2012.

I fully realize I am out of date, but I just wanted to provide a perspective of LoL that most people do not realize: There was a significant community of roleplay/lore interest in the game early on, most of whom were not the ragey type, that was immediately alienated by Riot's early business and personnel decisions. That brutal year or so of negativity within their community that still plagues the MOBA image could have been avoided if the more moderate parts of their community from the beta and first year had not been driven away.

<comment><USER3> You won't find that many people raging at you these days, most of those are chat banned for life, more or less. If you want to hear 8-year-olds claiming to have done obscene things to your parents, CS:GO chat has you covered, though.

Small RP communities rarely survive contact with the outside world. Sad, but true, in my experience. I've yet to see one grow large, especially when mixed with other people who simply aren't interested in that. Lore in LOL is more of a long-running gag at this point, though there are a couple of interesting champion interactions in game (Khazix vs. Rengar, battles for the Frejliord). But most of it doesn't make sense, the entire summoner thing was retconned out of existence, and would you even guess that Janna and Singed are from Zaun?

<comment><USER5> What a load of crock.

LoL is still easily the most toxic community I've ever laid eyes on, and most of the toxicity is created by the way Riot has implemented their system.

All it takes is 1 person to ruin an hour of your day, and if you try and refuse to allow it to be ruined, riot will ban you (you're forced to play a game with someone who is purposefully losing the game because they didn't get what they wanted, and there's nothing you can do except spend the next 30-40 minutes in a game you know is a loss or get banned for leaving the game early).

The result is that the community writes these long articles about the "art of dodging". For those unaware, the game happens in 2 stages. "champ select" during which everyone decides on the role and character they're going to play, and then the game itself. If you leave during champ select you get a penalty before you can rejoin a game. First dodged game is 5 minutes, every subsequent dodge is 30 minutes (resets 24 hours after your first dodge).

Because champ select + game tends to last an hour and a dodge only lasts 30 minutes, you save time by dodging and waiting. It gets more subtle than that, in that your teammates might get angry at you halfway through the game and then decide to purposefully lose the game for you. Because of this, it becomes an art to determine how much risk you have of wasting time going into a game.

So there's these guides running around about how to determine when to dodge as a means of climbing rank (most people will tell you that learning when to dodge is absolutely a skill necessary for climbing quickly).

This is all a result of Riot's decision not to give players a means of extricating themselves from these games in a reasonable manner coupled with too much leniency in ranked games with respect to people who do this sort of thing.

What happens a lot of times is people get really angry because they end up wasting 3 or 4 hours from these trolls in a single day. A 17 year old off for the summer can play 10+ games a day, a 25 year old with a job cannot, and so that 25 year old can often get very frustrated when he loses multiple games in a row due to trolls. And when you consider it takes another win to even out the loss, it's actually 2 hours that troll took away from you.

I stopped playing league because I got tired of just how time consuming it is to play that game and climb rank.

<comment><USER3> > LoL is still easily the most toxic community I've ever laid eyes on

Then I would submit that you lack experience, they're towards the head of the pack. Also, from that language, you appear to be a bit toxic yourself.

> All it takes is 1 person to ruin an hour of your day, and if you try and > refuse to allow it to be ruined, riot will ban you

You can mute them. What you cannot do is ruin other 8 other peoples' day because of one guy. Moreover, the new pick intent systems are calculated to avoid trolling due to conflict over desired role.

Champ select remains a problem they're working on, and there are games worth dodging, but they're far in the minority for me. Of course I'm happy to support, so no one is ever forced into that role unwillingly.

> I stopped playing league because I got tired of just how time consuming it > is to play that game and climb rank.

Ranked is inherently frustrating due to being competitive. Not everyone there is trolling, some are just having really bad games and there's almost a Poe's Law where you can hardly tell the difference. You will find that people are stressed in any competitive game, though, and LoL is really not as bad as most.

Note: I've never been banned. Granted, I'm only Gold II myself, but I have played with and against Challengers.

<comment><USER5> The difference between you and me is I don't view disagreement, even strong disagreement, as toxic behavior.

Which is the other part of the community that frustrates me. Riot has spent a lot of time worrying about "chat toxicity" when in fact it's a non-issue due to the mute feature. They've put all this effort into machine learning so they can start banning people automatically for things people find offensive (IIRC, one of their touted successes was folks in asian countries using last names as an insult. The system learned that was offensive and started suspending people automatically for doing it).

Imagine if all that effort was instead put into social engineering to help tamp down on people's frustrations with ranked.

But it won't be, because ultimately the really loud people are those like you who think disagreement or criticism is tantamount to being toxic (instead of demanding that they change the ranked system to put less power in the hands of the assholes). And yes, I did catch that you edited in that jab about me being toxic after the fact, did you seriously think you were going to get a rise out of me?

The truth is I've been playing multiplayer games since the old MUD days before Ultima Online and Everquest were ever a thing. Back when colored text was considered a luxury and people would switch clients based upon the speed of the triggers (especially for pk). I've been involved in enough communities that someone calling me a bad name on the internet rolls off my back.

But you know what doesn't roll off my back? Having someone announce in champ select "mid or feed", or "me and X duo bot or feed" and then watching everyone else forced into the following decisions:

1) give them what they want, 2) refuse and risk wasting 2 hours of your time (an extra game to make up for the loss) 3) dodging and being forced to sit out for 30 minutes.

Because riot doesn't give them a 4th option 4) opt into giving up the game early.

Here's how poorly designed Riot's ranked system is.

This is the internet. This means people will have disconnection issues. It's normal.

If someone fails to connect to the game (from minute 0), Riot forces the other 4 players to continue playing the game. If any of those 4 players leave they risk getting suspended or banned, and no matter what they do, they take a loss on their ranked record. They automatically lose 2 hours of their life because someone's internet crapped out.

Of course people find that shit frustrating.

A primary reason Riot has so many shitty people acting shitty in their system is because the design of their system gives those bad actors all of the power.

For anyone who is truly curious, watch this video. This man is spot on, and if you doubt it, keep in mind that I stopped playing the game specifically for the reasons this man spoke about.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UfO7qOHx5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UfO7qOHx5M)

<comment><USER3> > The difference between you and me is I don't view disagreement, even strong > disagreement, as toxic behavior.

It's not disagreement, it's how you express it ("crock"). I cannot agree that it's a "jab" to call someone on expressing themselves in a negative way, though, nor do I want a rise out of you--only self-awareness. It's true that I edited that in, my bad for not calling that out. As you can see, you were downvoted for that and neither of us is able to downvote the other.

They are trying to get rid of some of the frustration with ranked by making people call two roles and changing champ select. They have also studied the negativity regarding this. What they haven't done is copy DOTA2's leaver system.

> But you know what doesn't roll off my back? Having someone announce in champ > select "mid or feed", or "me and X duo bot or feed"

Does this mean you haven't seen the new season 6 champ select yet?

I honestly don't see that many DCs, especially in ranked. People get called on it if they play when their connection cannot support it and when there have been network outages, Riot turns on Loss Prevented.

<comment><USER5> > It's not disagreement, it's how you express it ("crock").

YOU don't like how I expressed my disagreement. I could copy/paste what I said before about loud people being loud and it would be just as valid.

> As you can see, you were downvoted for that and neither of us is able to > downvote the other.

How many people read that post and chose not to downvote?

This goes back to what I said before about loud people who are overly sensitive. Most people read it and passed on by.

> Does this mean you haven't seen the new season 6 champ select yet?

When people realize declaring support will give them a faster queue, they'll start declaring support and then refuse to take the role using the same tactics. The duo's will still attempt to force the roles they want and exhibit the same behavior as they are currently.

People's internet will still crap out and those 4 players will still be forced to play it out.

It will have an effect, but not nearly as large an effect as you're trying to imply. They need to give the group as a whole more power to deal with the bad actors.

> I honestly don't see that many DCs, especially in ranked. People get called > on it if they play when their connection cannot support it and when there > have been network outages, Riot turns on Loss Prevented.

That must mean it doesn't happen, right?

As for Loss Prevented, it has to get extremely bad before they use that. I've seen too many instances of consistent disconnects in games over hours and days where no Loss Prevented was given. Loss Prevented is, by definition, late to the party and their last resort for the most dire of situations. Any discussion about how to deal with things such as random disconnects by players cannot include Loss Prevention as a possible solution.

<comment><USER3> > YOU don't like how I expressed my disagreement.

And whoever downvoted you. You may not realize it, but you read like someone who got banned for raging at others. It _doesn 't matter_ who started it, you just have to not bite.

And with that said, I'm out. Have a good evening.

<comment><USER6> > It doesn't matter who started it, you just have to not bite.

To be fair, that reason right there is the _entire_ reason early groups of human beings -- me, many of my friends, and many strangers -- fled League of Legends. Coming out of beta, that was the _only_ defense a person could take. And it stayed like that for way too long. People have human limits -- to embody this self-defense of "just ignore it" is limiting Riot's player pool to only those who have the mental and emotional fortitude of a machine. Surprise: people are not machines. Taking the humanity out of the individual has been, and still sounds like, the root of the bad behavior in the LoL community.

<comment><USER3> Taking revenge in kind does not work, it only leads to a chain of people who feel entitled to snowball the problem, because when you respond, you're helping ruin the game for eight people because of one. People who cannot keep the peace when someone trolls are are _part_ of the toxicity, as well as victims thereof.

The proper way to deal with it in LOL report and move on, not making the game worse for the eight people who had nothing to do with it.

There's nothing to "defend" yourself from: they're words, you're not being "attacked" that's ridiculous hyperbole.

<comment><USER6> > Taking revenge in kind does not work

Nowhere did I say to take revenge.

> People who cannot keep the peace when someone trolls are are part of the > toxicity

Nowhere did I say to go up in arms and start a mob war, either. Being silent and "just ignoring it" is not the same as keeping the peace. I agree with your notion that feeding trolls is also bad, but because people are _humans_ and not machines I have to disagree that they are _part_ of the toxicity. They are a _symptom_ of it; a side-effect. Curing that _symptom_ is all that Riot really wanted to do in the early days, which is why I quickly abandoned the community.

I really do not think my original point was properly conveyed so let me clarify further:

There is someone being negative. That is the fundamental problem that needs to get solved[0]. As I mentioned before, Riot's stand has always been to "just ignore it" or "don't be a symptom". So:

> The proper way to deal with it in LOL report and move on

Is really Riot's sentiment from 2010: "Just ignore it". "Don't feed the troll". "Don't become a symptom of the toxicity". These statements are equivalent to saying: "Players are expected to have the mental and emotional fortitude of a machine". Tough shit if a guy instalocks Ez and calls mid, and tough shit if a teammate purposely feeds kills. Under the "Just ignore it" doctrine, there is no recourse during the negative experience. Sure, _after_ ruining the experience the negative person could be reported. But its no surprise there are people that would rather _not_ have to put up with the bad experience in the first place.

> not making the game worse for the eight people who had nothing to do with > it.

That right there is what is wrong fundamentally. The implication is that _the game is already bad because of one negative player_. See [0] above.

So when I originally replied to the comment:

> It doesn't matter who started it, you just have to not bite.

I was not talking about revenge in the sense you were describing it. League has a huge community and therefore huge peer pressure. _Bite back_ by leveraging that peer pressure for good: getting people to encourage each other to try new characters when they queue for a week straight with the same character, or encourage when making good cooperative plays, or not letting people instalock multiple games in a row, or being able to boot people back into queue if being obnoxious in champ select, or having mods review game chat _while games are going on_ , or creating a culture of support by giving probationary people pink names and making it cool to encourage them when they display positive behavior. There are a ton of ideas like this, and they were there in 2010. But fundamentally, Riot seems OK with that first negative player. That low bar is why I do not play.

> There's nothing to "defend" yourself from: they're words, you're not being > "attacked" that's ridiculous hyperbole.

No, it is not ridiculous hyperbole because that is not what I am saying. Please, quit the attempts of putting up a strawman argument.

But since you (trollishly?) went there, it is clear that the power of words may be lost _for you_. For other people, words can be emotionally charged. It is unreasonable to ask others to also trivialize their emotions (See the theme of my posts?). If I am a tank and I see a teammate say: "Our tank is a fucking gringo cracker nigger faggot slut bitch for feeding their carry", that carries some emotionally charged weight to it.

If you take anything away from my post it is this:

That first negative player is the _root_ of the problem. Players are humans: they will sometimes feed back as a _symptom_. Leverage the players' humanity for good to fix the _root problem_ instead of trying to turn them into emotion-less robots fixing the _symptom_.

<comment><USER3> Well, you go back to champ select as a source of team friction and they are fixing that. You don't find people using racial epithets any more, either, so about the worst of the chat text nowadays is someone complaining that you fed. They ban for slurs and swear words really fast, even automatically, and so most ragers don't get to chat, though they can play while chat banned. There are smart pings for communication and those are honestly more than enough.

That said, I personally, when I was an admin of a completely different online game, have been called every single insult, swear word, and racial epithet (I learned most of them from said trolls). I did not lose my cool or even rage at them, I keep the idiot talking to me (and away from the public chat) until a higher one could come on to ban them. It's better when they suffer from their own rage rather than you :)

But if someone is doing something that gets you banned (or in trouble) when someone else does something that upsets you, well, I can't agree with that just being a "symptom" because then there would be no "disease" in the first place. Everyone has to take responsibility for themselves because nobody else can.

And on that note, I do apologize, because I think my tone sounds worse than I intended in a few places and I don't mean to blame you for any specific problems. I'm just explaining that keeping chat peaceful requires that people do not feed trolls and those who start trolling because of another troll also require punishment, generally chat bans. And there's only one person with control (and thus, responsibility) for one's emotions: the person themselves. Learning self control takes practice, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a weak result. When I saw the title, I thought it might be useful for detecting jerks on blogs and Wikipedia. It's not. The mean age of their sample is 15.9 years. This result may not apply to higher ages, even college age.

Running a similar analysis on Wikipedia might be interesting, minus the age analysis.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, it's pretty obvious that online usernames say a lot about someone's age and personality. Heck, they often say a lot about a variety of other things too, like their gender and political affiliation.

Either way, while it was fairly obvious to anyone who runs forums or other communities, it's nice to see some actual research that backs up our common sense intuitions here.

On another note though, do you what would also be interesting to study here?

The correlation between avatars and age, psychology, etc.

Because let's face it, the picture someone choses to go with their profile (or the in game model they design or choose for an online game) says at least as much about them as their name does. A lot of people do tend to choose pictures or characters that look a bit like what they look like in real life (or in a lot of kids case, what they wished they looked like).

P.S. Am I the only one somewhat surprised about the 'ages figured from usernames tend to match what was entered on registration' aspect? Given that a lot of games and communities are 13+ only (or perhaps older), I'd expect a lot of kids to lie about their age when signing up.

</comment><comment><USER9> This analysis is certainly interesting, but I can't help but think supervised machine learning (e.g. neural networks) would have been a far better way to analyze this data.

We're using neural networks to predict future actions of users from weakly- correlating metrics and achieved surprising accuracy from one day of tinkering.

</comment><comment><USER10> What about cultural references in user names? The use of non-English words can reflect cultures other than American. Someone with the name "Browncoat" (a Firefly reference) may be younger than the name "Krell" (a Klingon in the original Star Trek).

I imagine there are other types of information that can be inferred from an alias. It supports the argument that metadata contains private information. As well whether use of pseudonyms provides anonymity.

<comment><USER11> Perhaps we'll see Diceware-or-similar usernames in addition to passwords if enough people care about keeping their pseudonyms as anonymous as possible.

<comment><USER12> Most people will re-roll if they get a name they don't like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really wonder what they would think of my counterstrike nickname: Right Ball of Legolas, which is just meant as something funny

</comment><comment><USER14> The most interesting part of this to me was that fact that players tend to use their birth year in their username. And that the number 88 was a statistical outlier because for some reason people must really like that number.

<comment><USER15> One possible reason that isn't discussed: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_white_nationali...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_\(number\)#In_white_nationalism)

On Reddit a username with 88 in it can be interpreted as a dog whistle for racists.

Although considering how popular League of Legends is with Chinese people, the other hypothesis seems much more reasonable.

<comment><USER10> > On Reddit a username with 88 in it can be interpreted as a dog whistle for > racists.

Or NASCAR fans. Which contrary to popular belief is not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Data from League of Legends reveals links between real-world and online > personality.

Surprising?

<comment><USER17> That's something I think people forget; the vast majority of folks _don 't_ have some kind of split personality disorder, and their behavior online is the same behavior they exhibit in real life, except perhaps toned up a bit.

<comment><USER18> We all sometimes have the urge to do or say inappropriate things, no? A big part of what makes you, you know, you is the degree to which you have a "filter" that screens out those inappropriate urges before they turn into inappropriate actions.

This filter is rather different in different situations, because what is appropriate (and what has consequences) is different in different situations. In a very real way, I would argue that changing that filter enough (and pesudoanonymity is usually 'enough') makes you, essentially, a different person.

Most people, in a pseudonymous situation, have much less of a filter, in part because bad behavior is more acceptable, and in part because bad behavior has fewer negative consequences, both to themselves and others, than it does in a real life situation. (I'm not saying that there are no consequences; people are hurt. But usually not as much as people would be hurt if the same people removed the same filters in real-life interactions.)</comment></comment></comment>