Ask HN: Has anyone been fired because they were job hunting? - <AUTHOR> I'm reacting to the Tell HN regarding Triplebyte [0]. A lot of people seem concerned for their job safety if they are suspected of job hunting, and I'm wondering if anyone has specific anecdotes regarding this.<p>[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 <comment><USER2> There are always a few managers who are petty and vindictive. I've certainly met a few over the years.

But beyond that, let's say you knew that a certain bank had a good chance of shutting down its branch offices in the town where you live, for whatever legitimate reason. Would you consider opening an account at that bank? Well, clearly no, because those bank branch offices might not be there for you to use in the future.

Now let's say you were a manager and you knew one of your team members was looking for a new job. Would you feel it to be worthwhile to assign important project tasks to that person if you knew there was a good chance they would be unavailable in the very near future and you'd have to move the tasks to someone else? Are you going to put them up for a promotion or a bonus to reward them, knowing that the effort might (in a sense) be wasted? The knowledge that an employee is considering leaving, no matter how much the manager might wish them well personally, changes the relationship because of the uncertainty about the future availability of their time and accumulated knowledge. It's better either for the employee not to create that uncertainty and/or resolve it as soon as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there reverse also not possible though? I'm a manager and I see an employee who is thinking of leaving, so I try to figure out why. Do they want a raise? More responsibility or autonomy? And then I try to give it to them so they won't leave. Or is that overly idealistic?

<comment><USER3> Often this is only temporary, though. They increase your salary, but it comes out of your next raise and you get fewer opportunities because your loyalty is in question, or if they're evil and the employment laws allow it they make you happy temporarily until they find a replacement. If you're company is prepared to do those things for you they should be willing to before you threaten to quit

<comment><USER4> It's the job of the manager to create an environment where employees can go to the manager to discuss things which are not going well or change of career anytime without the fear of retribution. I'm mentioning this often to make sure everyone knows it. Last month we had a case where someone was unhappy being a Team Lead and we could change their career path to something more interesting with an equal level of contribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Firing employees for job hunting is a mistake on so many levels.

1\. It signals insecurity about your culture and why anyone should want to work there. (We can't keep people here except under threat.)

2\. It's ineffective against your best employees, who will have options and will not fear you.

3\. It demotivates everyone and creates a vicious cycle of fear and distrust, which will drive a culture of keeping your head down and hoarding information, which will destroy the efficiency of your remaining workforce.

<comment><USER6>
      It signals insecurity about your culture and why anyone should want to work there. (We can't keep people here except under threat.)

well, unless you're paying top dollar you can be sure people are working at your place until they can get a job at a place that does.

      It's ineffective against your best employees, who will have options and will not fear you.

again, if your place isn't on top of everyone's preference list it's futile to hold onto your best perforers. Better to embrace it will be a revolving door.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I worked at a small company (less than 40 people in US and less than 30 offshore and 10 in Europe).

I uploaded my resume to a job site. Within a week I was called to meet the HR. They asked me why I was looking for a job and if I was unhappy here. I told them I was happy (obviously, I don't want to lose my job) They told me they won't inform the CEO because it would upset him and it was never brought up again.

I worked for a while and then had to leave. The place was toxic for me.

It really makes sense for small companies to monitor their employees because they can't afford to have people quit willy nilly. So, definitely, I am 100% sure they have monitoring software which detects employee search results.

A sudden TripleByte search result showing up on Google is definitely a red flag that the HR would notice.

Having said this. I would say TripleByte wanting to award badges and making profiles public is definitely a mistake on their part. I doubt they have malicious intent. They just did not think through all the consequences with this move.

Nobody want to lose their job in the middle of the pandemic. Bad move on their part for sure.

<comment><USER8> Do they use a keylogger?

<comment><USER9> I read it more as the company OP worked for found their resume on the job site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was fired from my first job by the CTO of my company after telling him I was job hunting.

Context: My first two managers were friendly and we openly talked about what we wanted to do next. My 3rd manager was the CTO, who talked a lot about preparing people for their next jobs/career. I assumed I could be open with him.

After a month or two where several people left, he asked me in our 1:1 if I knew of anyone who was thinking about leaving. Assuming that he wanted to know so they could make counter offers or back fill headcount, I told him I was considering it. I was trying to be helpful, and I guess I was, just not in the way I expected.

Two weeks later he either quit or was fired. I was fired three days after him. Apparently he had already advocated for my firing before leaving himself.

</comment><comment><USER11> Let's add "passed up for promotion or other desirable opportunities," because that's apparently a concern, as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> I haven't seen "he's looking for work so let's fire him". But I have seen "George doesn't seem committed let's promote Joe instead". Or "we have to cut someone we should cut Alex because he doesn't seem committed to Acme Corp".

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't job hunt at work! Many comments here are from people getting "caught" because they were job hunting at work on company WiFi. Don't do that! Job hunt on your own time.

<comment><USER14> And don't lie about it.

You're all adults. You need a day off to go interview, take a day. But if you start taking mysterious sick days or long personal calls on company time, expect disciplinary action.

<comment><USER15> >And don't lie about it. You're all adults. You need a day off to go interview, take a day. But if you start taking mysterious sick days or long personal calls on company time, expect disciplinary action.

Until your employer adds 1+1 together and stops letting you take vacation because you're on "unlimited PTO". In the end - who cares what the "official" reason is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> amw-zero No, I actually was able to successfully negotiate a better position and higher salary after getting an offer from a different company.

<comment><USER16> Having offers for alternative employment that you'd be willing to accept puts you in a strong negotiating position.

If instead your current employer only had the information that you were searching for a new job, but didn't have any firm offers, then you might find it harder to negotiate (why does a raise make sense if the market doesnt seem to be making you an offer that you consider better than what you've already got -- maybe you're already over paid etc), and might also run afoul of some of the other considerations raised in this thread (managers not wanting to put you in key role on important project if there is perception that you may be gone soon).

I've once had the strange and unexpected experience of resigning from a job without any competing offer lined up (was young & naive, jaded with the company, didn't immediately need the money) and then being offered contract work a few weeks later from the same former employer to do the essentially same kind of work on a new project at contract rates, i.e., more than twice what I was getting paid before, albeit with no security of continuing employment. So arguably there are also other ways to improve your negotiating position without needing a competing offer -- by resigning I gave a clear signal that I genuinely wasn't interested in letting the status quo continue. I don't recommend this as a strategy, it is far better to line up offers for new jobs you'd be comfortable doing well before you are sick of the current job. I wasn't resigning as some kind of considered move in a negotiation, with any expectation that this outcome would occur. But it was an interesting way to discover that in some job markets you may get paid a lot more as a contractor than as a permie employee if you're in a position to accept much more risk of having periods where the work just stops and you need to find a new project/client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My wife got fired for job hunting. She was searching on her phone in the work bathroom. She was connected to the company wifi.

<comment><USER18> How are they getting this information? Assuming usage of https they should only be aware of the IP. Do they keep list of IPs which belong to job seeking sites?

Is that enough evidence?

<comment><USER17> I'm guessing it was http (not logged in or a Google search). I would assume they could also do it based on the IP/DNS.

<comment><USER19> Ok but how did they know it was her phone?

<comment><USER17> Her user name connected to the wifi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've discussed openly with employees their career thoughts, including many occasions when they were considering leaving. Sometimes that results in them leaving; more often it does not. I've never consciously held this against an employee. I've also told my boss at times that I was considering my next move and that it might be elsewhere. I can't see where that's ever been held against me either.

I don't view looking as disloyal. If employer N isn't the best option for an employee, they are welcome and even expected to consider employer N+1.

</comment><comment><USER21> Depends on where you are conducting that activity. A big no-no is if you are using your current employer's infrastructure to job hunt(or any other personal activity, including personal projects) i.e. if you are using office premises, computers, printers, phones etc for you job hunting expeditions.

What I despise though, and personally experienced, is when HR of present employer use external recruitment agencies to spy on you and block your job hunt. And use that information to discriminate against you in various ways.

</comment><comment><USER22> Depending on what projects you work on, your org might could have installed "monitoring" software on your computer that triggers alerts when you job search. The purpose is to catch insider threat, make sure nobody runs off to the competitor with IP. If you are job searching at competition's website, they may cut you off specific projects, or just "let you go".

I would never job search on company's time or issued hardware, and I wouldn't recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have known companies that had that policy, but it was only when there were plenty of people looking for IT jobs. When the market is tight, if they find out they might try to appease you.

However, once you start seriously looking, it is just a matter of time.

I know several people who always put out their resumes, and are open about it. They say they like to know what they are worth. Typically they have not been seriously looking just keeping in practice if they needed to.

Myself I went to a job fair, and I was surprised to see my boss there recruiting. I had to get out as the tech was primitive and I was worried my skills were atrophying. I was given a 10% raise, which was nice and I used it to get another 10% at the new company.

</comment><comment><USER24> Apparently, it's a toxic management practice, and I never worked more than 2-4 days in companies, which considered such employees treatment (heard from long- time employees of that companies). Toxic working atmosphere could be easily spotted during first days by multiple factors, like fearing the management, overtimes, unnecessary and formal daily/weekly reports, and yeah, stories like someone has been fired for updating cv online. That's where you should not hesitate and leave right away, it would never become any better.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've never seen this in any company I've worked at.

Personally, if I saw members on my team looking for work, I would want to understand that decision: is it for personal reasons, is it because they felt unable to grow, is it because of salary, or is it because they find the work no longer meaningful?

There are plenty of reasons to move on from a role. Firing someone for wanting something that aligns better with their future is beyond petty imo.

<comment><USER26> I hope you have considered sharing this with your team, especially, if any of them are at a point where job hunting & interviewing is ongoing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why would a company fire someone and pay the severence instead of simply waiting for him to quit?</comment>


Comments invited on TSA use of "Advanced Imaging Technology" - <AUTHOR> http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=TSA-2013-0004-0001

<comment><USER2> Not that it will make a difference, but I feel better now.

"This, and every other measure simliar to it, are a monumental waste of tax payer money. The former TSA chief Kip Hawley has stated publicly that knives and all manner of weapons should be allowed on planes because, after 9/11, it is not possible for an attacker to gain control of the aircraft. (See here for example: <http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/06/travel/tsa-carry-on-hawley>)

These kinds of measures have a single purpose and that purpose is to enrich the companies who develop these technologies. We do not need this to have safe air travel.

A significant side effect of this corporate enriching/tax payer fleecing is a very real and unforgivable transgression on the freedom of all travelers to the USA, including citizens of the USA. In other words, the terrorists win.

It has already been shown that the current body scanners can be defeated and new systems will have vulnerabilities as well. If the government is truly concerned about saving the lives of citizens, they would take whatever money is to be spent on this useless technology, likely in the billions, and spend it on road safety. Instead of self-driving cars, we have peeping-tom scanners with unknown health effects.

Please stop this insanity."

</comment><comment><USER3> My comment is reposted here: <https://gist.github.com/2grep/5436448>

I do encourage people to read the regulation. They are basically asking for carte blanche to irradiate anyone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can read the full notice here: [http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=TSA-2013-0004-...](http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=TSA-2013-0004-0001)

BoingBoing: [http://boingboing.net/2013/04/21/tsa-finally-seeks-public- co...](http://boingboing.net/2013/04/21/tsa-finally-seeks-public-comme.html)

Gizmodo: [http://gizmodo.com/5995181/time-to-give-the-tsa-a-piece- of-y...](http://gizmodo.com/5995181/time-to-give-the-tsa-a-piece-of-your-mind- about-those-full+body-scanners)

LA Times: [http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-comment-on- ts...](http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-comment-on-tsas- fullbody-scanners-20130419,0,4478127,print.story)

Ruling: [http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/B31004711...](http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/B3100471112A40DE852578CE004FE42C/$file/10-1157-1318805.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I wonder if the comment period is just another part of security theater, given the LATimes is showing a lot of pre-established counter arguments to claims.

<comment><USER5> Under the APA, administrative acts that establish new regulations (rules) require notice and comment. The TSA tried to implement this without the required notice and comment process, and EPIC got a court order requiring them to. So it's for show on their part in the sense they didn't want to do it in the first place. But now that it's a notice and comment rulemaking, that sets the stage for endless litigation over any procedural failures and court oversight of their determinations.

The pre-established counter arguments are there for efficiency. The way notice and comment works is that you have to respond to significant new issues that come up. You might have to have another round of comments on the new issues. If you anticipate counter arguments up front, that saves time on the back and forth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The biggest issues I have with AIT are as follows:

1) How much longer they make security lines due to how much slower they are, and having to funnel two metal detector lines into a single AIT machine.

2) How much more expensive they are than metal detectors.

3) How they don't actually work any better than the cheaper metal detectors.

4) How those longer waits and compressed lines actually make a much more dangerous "soft target" outside of the screening areas. When you pack so many more people into a security situation and take longer to screen them, you have a lot of innocent people at risk.

The privacy concerns are less of an issue to me, as I choose to opt-out every time I fly (which is rather frequently, and unavoidable.) But given the overall cost, ineffectiveness, increased wait times, and increased risk as a passenger, AIT is a completely unacceptable solution.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am friends with a Southwest airlines pilot, and we poke fun at the TSA all the time. It should have never been created. The TSA is just the idea of security, it is nothing more than holding a plastic knife when you are being mugged.

</comment><comment><USER8> EPIC has recommendations for commenters and a preliminary analysis at <http://epic.org/TSAcomment/>

Anybody interested in getting involved with an education/activism campaign to get more people to comment? If so, please let me know!

</comment><comment><USER9> So now that we've already went through this mess where they deployed it then realized what a CF it was, we're supposed to comment on it? I presume this is because it was such a fiasco the first time around, the Feds are using a different approach to make it happen?

I do not like being irradiated for purposes of imaging under my clothes in order to travel. I'm not really sure what else there is to say about it. I'm also not sure why I would want to participate in a system to defend myself from an overzealous security state by way of commentary. This is not something as a citizen I should spend any time doing. I don't go downtown and lobby the local police not to beat people senseless when they arrest them, I don't go to my local state capitol and protest in order to prevent drones from spying on me from the air, and I am not going to participate in a public commenting session for invasive imaging. Not going to happen.

It's wrong. Don't do that anymore. My contract with my government is supposed to prevent this kind of thing from happening, and I elect representatives and appoint judges to make double-sure it doesn't. This is their jobs.

<comment><USER8> As rayiner points out elsewhere in this thread, they should have had the comment period before they first deployed the technology - but they didni't. EPIC sued and in 2011 the court ruled that DHS needed to adhere to the law and go through the commenting process. After delaying for a couple years, here we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just get a page that says (null) when I follow this link. Same result since the last time someone shared this link with me.

<comment><USER11> You may want to disable NoScript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought they scrapped these, and replaced them with "indicators" which show on a cartoon body which areas to pat down?</comment>


Ask HN: Necessary piracy? - <AUTHOR> This is quite a hard topic for me. As a programmer I feel bad about piracy. I wouldn't like to steal somebody's work. I know how hard it is to make smth nice and that cost of software/music/book/whatever is not just it's physical format.
I heard about Tony Hsieh's "Delivering happiness" quite a few times. Today I decided that I want to read it. I live in Lithuania (aKa ex-ussr), so naturally book shop next door doesn't have english books in stock. But I've got Kindle! Let's try amazon... Whoops, "books is not available in your region". F*ck! Next stop - book's website.. They don't sell directly at all. BN sells to US-adresses only as well. I checked amazon.co.uk as well - no digital version available, paperback can't be shipped to my address.
What shall eastern-european-to-the-bone do? Let's google "delivering happiness download". Long story short: I got it on my kindle in 15 minutes. For free.
For Americans and most of westerners piracy may be about morale and choice. But for many piracy is not a choice. And not because of price. That's the only way to access information.
What's your take? Is it OK to "steal" stuff that is very hard to obtain in legal ways? <comment><USER2> I deal with this issue sometimes, particularly getting digital content in America while living in Japan. My solution is that one of my VPSes runs a Virtual Private American: Apache running mod_proxy. Any web request proxied through the Virtual Private American appears to originate from a computer in St. Louis... because it does. I use a proxy switching addon in Chrome and Firefox to magically turn American whenever e.g. Amazon gives me guff about it. Then I can pay for the content of my choice using my American credit cards. (If you don't have one, you can fake it with a stored payments card.)

Morally, it isn't my finest hour (it is technical breach of contract with Amazon, it makes a minor imposition on the eventual rightsholder of the Japanese version, possibly retards the ability of the content to licitly reach Japan, and possibly transgresses a secular law which enjoys a presumption of moral legitimacy), but it is a much less grave offense than theft.

<comment><USER3> How do you actually receive meatspace items you purchase? Via a mail forwarding service?

<comment><USER4> Try these guys: <http://www.myus.com/>

<comment><USER5> i use <http://www.bongous.com> cause english no good and me no understand good. i use bongo like their website in espanish..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, here's how it looks from each of the stakeholder's perspective, as near as I can tell:

Artists: You invest a ton of hard work into making something you're proud of. Then you make $0.87 because everyone is pirating it (or at least, that's what your distributor tells you).

Distributors: Their primary value these days is in marketing. So far it's just the web cartoonists who seem to be making a living off their work, but the distributors being supplanted over time. They're hiring lobbyists and trying to keep their leverage by fighting stuff like Net Neutrality.

Users: I bought a game the other week. It wouldn't install and gave me some vague nonsense error message like "Install failed: try again." My best guess is that Starforce DRM was the reason. I'm out $20. I'm guessing it twigged on some remnant of a CD drive emulator I used to convert some ISO a long time ago and later uninstalled, but it won't tell me. I never got to play it. I could get a crack for it, but all the crap I took from trying to make it work made me hate the game. Long story short, I returned it. The non-techie store clerk elected to mark it as "defective." I didn't really feel like contradicting her.

Pirates: You can get anything you want for free. Unlike the users, your version won't have DRM. Worries about viruses and such are real, but overrated for people who are reasonably computer savvy. There's a reason more people transition from user to pirate.

Librarians: They're sitting on some wax cylinders from 1890 that won't go out of copyright until 2067 thanks to a 1972 law that simplified (and extended) audio copyrights. The Library of Congress report said that they generally have to ignore the law to preserve a lot of historic audio files.

Did I miss anyone?

</comment><comment><USER7> _Is it OK to "steal" stuff that is very hard to obtain in legal ways?_

With all due respect, I'd suggest you're just being lazy and looking to justify something that you seem to know is ethically dubious.

Book Depository has the book for $18US with free shipping to Lithuania [http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780446563048/Delivering-...](http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780446563048/Delivering- Happiness)

<http://www.abebooks.com/> top two results both offer shipping to Lithuania, less than $25 total cost.

As the other user pointed out, ebay sellers have the book with shipping to Lithuania, total cost ~$25US again.

I can think of three worthwhile points here, though:

* Outside the US, getting legitimate digital content is still much much harder and/or more expensive than getting pirated content. I live in Australia, so somewhere between US & Lithuania in convenience stakes, and we get the same "not available in your region" BS. I spent some time in NYC last year, and the ease & availability of digitally delivered content blew me away. Bring it on!

* There _are_ countries where piracy is the only sensible option. You own a Kindle, so I'm assuming you can afford a $20US hardback book. I used to live in Indonesia, where my housemates earned ~$60USD a month. Although they didn't have their own computers (or Kindles), some of our neighbours had computers (P2-era in 2004) and every piece of software was pirated. I don't even know where they would go to buy legit copies if they wanted them.

I think you can make a case for piracy in these circumstances. In fact, even Microsoft did - they gave the Indonesian government licenses for all of the Microsoft software on their computers, in exchange for them agreeing to pay for more licenses (at reduced rates) in the future.

Thankfully, Linux is (or was) growing in popularity in Indonesia as an alternative free (and ethical) option.

* Finally, I would say that this shows there exists a market for a site like <http://booko.com.au/>, targeted to ex-USSR countries. Hint hint. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said in original post, price is not the problem. Although laziness and not so high ethics is :)

Thanks for the links.

Offtopic: we had the same situation in 90s. Getting better now, but most people still pirate software. Photoshop costs more than average monthly salary. Before taxes. Do I need to say more? :)

<comment><USER7> That's not quite what you wrote in the original post, you were trying to suggest that you had no legitimate option and piracy was "the only way to access information".

Whereas the truth is simply that the legitimate options took more effort to find & execute than piracy did. Which is universally true, even often for those who live in the US (the gap is just narrower there.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That's an interesting moral dilemma.

I'd say that if you can't obtain it _at all_ then downloading it may well be a legitimate option if there's another way that you could recompense the author or pay it back. For example, you could find a US library address, buy the book and have it sent there instead, then download a copy safe in the knowledge that you have actually paid for it, with the karmic bonus of having donated it to a library.

<comment><USER9> ...which then results in a few people reading the library copy rather than buying their own, so that he effectively stole a book for personal use _and_ discouraged multiple sales by other people who would have otherwise bought copies. His attempt to pay back the publisher for the book just cost that same publisher $50.

Our systems of morals assume a scarcity of goods which is increasingly not the case when the goods in question can be represented as bits of information. Sooner or later society will have to decide on a new set of moral rules to account for that, but for now things are fuzzy and a simple application of the traditional answers (goodwill and charity in this case) don't always give the best solution in a modern context.

(Note that I'm not necessarily disagreeing with this solution - I just like playing devil's advocate.)

<comment><USER10> That's the standard anti-piracy strawman - you don't know that the people who borrow the book from the library would necessarily have bought it.

<comment><USER11> I've checked out books from the library, and later bought my own copies because I wanted to re-read them again, at my own convenience.

(insert standard "sample size of one" disclaimer here.)

Not to mention, by that logic, you should never donate books to a library, since it is effectively costing the author sales.

<comment><USER9> >> by that logic, you should never donate books to a library, since it is effectively costing the author sales.

Precisely. Should authors and publishers be paid by everyone that wants to read their work, or should the books be available freely to all that want them? (And yes, they would get paid for the number of books the library owns, but the system is set up to minimize that amount and it should certainly be less than the number of people reading them.)

What is the moral difference between pirating a book and paying no money to the author, or borrowing a copy that had been donated to a library and paying no money to the author? The borrowed copy prevents another patron from borrowing at the same time, but this feels more like a physical limitation (and legal loophole) than a morally relevent distinction.

People try to place value on making sure that authors get paid, and on making books freely available to all (that live near a library?), while neglecting that these are mostly incompatible with each other.

Oh, and the "I later bought my own copies" argument is also commonly used in favor of piracy.

It's reasons like this that I don't claim any strong opinions on these issues myself. Things are complicated. There are too many factors at play - especially when you toss in greedy corporations and all that - to make clear distinctions between right and wrong that hold up from all angles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you have a kindle change your zone in the kindle settings page and add an US adress (pick one on the yellow pages). I am in france and use that method to download us only kindle ebook. It's work perfectly :) (amazon dont verify the postal adress)

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoah. I thought it requires credit card on "delivery" address. Thanks.

<comment><USER13> I don't know about Europe, but in the US you just have to re-enter your credit card information if you have it shipped to another address. Obviously, so someone can't just login to your Amazon account and order stuff on your card.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same thing in Europe.

But they may just ask you re-enter CC info OR validate it against your address as well.

Fun story: been living in the UK for a while, but using Lithuanian credit card to shop online. Most websites required UK billing address. And allowed to use my cc with billing address in different country...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know what you mean. On the one hand, stealing is wrong, generally speaking.

On the other, I'm in Australia. We speak English, have a Free Trade Agreement, and are generally as available a market to the US as the US is. And yet, we pay FAR more then our fair share, we don't get releases at the same time, and generally get shafted.

And, the only reason why is often one of profit. It's more profitable to charge us more, because we'll pay it. It's more profitable to delay launches here, because then they can have big-bang style launches.

Which, as you've no-doubt noticed, leads to piracy as the means of obtaining something. It's a dilemma I've not quite resolved, myself.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's not necessary, but it's damn convenient. That's mostly the fault of the content distributors, IMO, that actively prevent honest consumers of legaly acquiring things due to outdated regional distribution models.

I don't live in the US either and saw this more times than I care to remember: "you can't buy this digital download because it's not available in your region. print and fill out this form, mail to your local distributor and you'll get it in a few weeks".

Want to watch Lost finale? Wait a couple months until it's been spoiled to death. The lastest album from your favorite band? A technical book, games, it's all the same. Sure, it's all purely convenience, unnecessary things, but it's digital bits that have people all around the world, with their credit card in their hand waiting to consume them.

I've seen people use proxies and whatnot to be able to give their money, say, to Apple to buy music in iTunes which is not available here. I think it's absurd to pay to get something that end up being infriging anyway.

Not to mention all the hoops customers have to jump through (quotas, DRM, exclusive content, DLC) that pirates don't have to worry.

I like the honest position Shane Carruth (who written, directed, produced the movie Primer pretty much by himself) about torrenting his movie:

<http://primermovie.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1626#1626>

(somewhere else he says he received several tips through paypal from people who downloaded but rejected them all due to legal issues)

All that said, I think there's a huge market for someone to provide a way for people around the world to purchase legal bits of pretty much anything, if they can work through the legal issues. Steam is already doing a good job at this in the gaming market, but there's still plenty of space there.

</comment><comment><USER16> Legal, piracy is a beneficial public policy. 19th century and 18th America benefit enormously from the piracy of British literature at the expensive of native American writers, who does have copyright. Of course, some British authors actually made money from the exchange too. Some authors like Charles Dicken are deeply upset by the fact. Nonetheless, cheaper books help Americans afford more books and learn to read.

As for me, I don't feel bad about piracy. I am an anarcho-capitalist, so I don't have much respect for any law that transcend my property right. However, I also noted how piracy hurt my interests tremendously in the long run, no matter how attractive and unrisky it is to pirate.

Piracy support monopolists, not entrepreneurs who respect my property rights. As a result, I am gald when people target pirates instead of my business.

</comment><comment><USER17> The issue with "hard to obtain" in most cases in that it is _deliberate_. It's easy to make available, in many cases you're even being taunted by publicly displaying its availability, and then telling you you can't have it. As far as I'm concerned, if that's your way of dealing with customers, all bets are off.

Second, copyright laws aren't a question of ethics. They are very artificial (nothing is being "stolen" or removed, copies are not the original property) laws that have originally been created to _promote_ the distribution of original work. If it's being abused to do exactly the opposite, again, as far as I'm concerned any ethical considerations become null and void.

And don't get me started on deliberately crippling a legally acquired product with crap like DRM.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Piracy" is how things work from now on (where "now" is about 1980's), and the change is quite similar to every other technological revolution. There will be opposition to it, but all the countermoves against it are just totally pointless struggle against how things shall naturally go: information _will_ be free.

The outcome of all this is good: it takes away power from the unskilled artists (soulless list hit generators etc.) and moves it to the skilled ones. You know, the kind that make you wanna throw money at them even if you already have their stuff.

</comment><comment><USER19> ebay may be an option where the seller ships worldwide. Found at least one [http://cgi.ebay.com/Delivering-Happiness-Tony-Hsieh-BRAND- NE...](http://cgi.ebay.com/Delivering-Happiness-Tony-Hsieh-BRAND- NEW-/120631479006?pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item1c16324ade#ht_2356wt_987)

</comment><comment><USER20> If the people putting the time/money into producing the content don't make it available to you, then that's their choice. They're still putting a value on it, so if you obtain the content without providing them that value, then it's stealing. The book you mention is a perfect example. I can't get it either. So I just don't pay for it and spend my money somewhere else instead. Your "steal" should just be steal (no quotes). It's black or white.

Now I don't think it's some huge deal, I'm just saying it's still stealing, either way you look at it.

<comment><USER15> No, it's not stealing. This word has a very specific meaning (and emotional baggage associated with it) which is often used to blur the argument (like you did).

It's called copyright infrigiment.

<comment><USER20> We can easily get lost on the definition of words without looking at what the OP was asking. You are correct based on the specific definition of stealing, but I'm pretty sure the OP meant "taking something of value without paying that value".

The OP was obviously using a broader definition, and I used his definitely to answer the question. He uses "piracy" and "stealing" in the same question, so I think his meaning is clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I realize English is not your first language, but on this particular topic, one must be _VERY_ careful with the terms you use. In classic rhetoric, the ability to control and define the terms is the means to control and define the argument. If you honestly seek a fair resolution, step back from the politics and word-smithing by trying to address everything as fairly as possible including the terms used.

Given that I respect tptacek for being bright, level headed, and having a good mind for reverse engineering and analysis, I had hoped to get him into a friendly discussion addressing root causes: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1798540>

Human nature is acquisitive, but this manifests itself in two distinct ways; for a group or for an individual. In the former, there is a part of human nature wanting collaboration (for group), so we want to return favors and want to reward efforts. In the latter, there is a contrasting part of human nature more avariciously (selfish, greedy) inclined to benefit the individual, so there is also a desire to not return favors and not reward efforts.

Copyright laws are an attempt to enforce the former, and of course, copyright infringements are an attempt to enforce the latter. The former creates "monopoly" and the latter creates "theft" but both of these terms are rhetorically loaded, and worse, both of them are a detriment to markets.

The important question is, can we design a better system to both fairly reward efforts of collaboration and at the same time also benefit individuals?

It's a very tough question, but until people are willing to step back from their biases and heated opinions, we will not be able to figure out a better solution.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been in the same predicament before for finding older software. When I needed a certain older version of Hypercam that couldn't be found anywhere, including eBay at the time, I ended up pirating it. I was willing to pay up to the full original price for it because of the need.. what else can you do if the software is a torrent search away?

</comment><comment><USER23> You've got a misleading title there. You don't _need_ to read this book, you just (in your own words) "want to read it."

So, of course you have a choice. Read something else.

The universe doesn't owe you a constant stream of your preferred reading material in the cheapest and most convenient way possible. There are 50 used and new copies for sale on Amazon.com. You're telling me not a single one of them could be bribed into shipping internationally for you? There's not a single Lithuanian book shop that will do a special order? Lithuania has blocked BonVu.com?

I think what you mean to say is that you didn't feel like paying extra for a book or waiting for it to arrive. So really, you pirated out of convenience rather than necessity.

<comment><USER24> I find your answer deeply dissatisfying.

If there are systems set up that cut off knowledge from certain parts of the world, or even make it much harder to get it, I think that is injustice. I regard it as a basic human right to have access to the same information everyone else does. That's why we have public libraries.

In the U.S., we regard free speech as sacred, and I would argue that the reverse of free speech - the right to hear others - is equally as vital.

This idea that someone owns unique configuration of words and sounds is old and dying. You can own distribution platforms, own objects, and hire people who can make streams of words. But you can't own an idea.

<comment><USER25> \--This idea that someone owns unique configuration of words and sounds is old and dying.--

That software you're working on is just a unique configuration of words and symbols. I think there's value in protecting that, and I don't see any difference in regards to written publications.

<comment><USER24> That's the thing... I'm pretty sure we can open source all of our code, and it will be business as usual.

We already open source a lot of stuff, because that stuff alone isn't nearly enough to beat us.

<comment><USER26> "I'm pretty sure we can open source all of our code, and it will be business as usual."

For everyone working on something trivial, which is most people, you're right. I don't think it would really work for important complex algorithms, etc., i.e., Google is not going to open source their search algorithm.

It sounds like you're saying that Google, after coming up with their version of search, should've just opened it up to the world, because everyone has the "right" to know what they're up to. Do you think they'd be in the same position today if they'd done that?

<comment><USER24> Google's main search algorithms are well-known and essentially open. It's all the little bits they keep adding on that are unknown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some piracy is welfare-maximizing for society. If there was zero chance that you would buy a costless-to-reproduce good at the effective price -- and the effective price includes all the hoops you have to jump through to get it, including search costs -- then obtaining a copy results in no real loss to the rightsholder, but a real gain for you.

Societies become rich by encouraging people to take as many such gains- without-loss actions as possible! (And quite a few actions where the gain of some outweighs the loss of others, too.)

Of course, having this utilitarian rationalization handy may mean you pretend you wouldn't have paid the higher cost, when in fact, you would have. And, someday the rightsholder may find a way to offer their product at a price you'd take -- perhaps through some form of price discrimination -- in which case, piracy causes a small loss to the rightsholder.

But piracy may still be net-welfare-enhancing, because their eventual-loss-at- some-future-price-point may be much smaller than your gain-in-the-meantime.

I wouldn't agonize over your situation, as long as you're trying to get legitimate copies. Perhaps you could pick up a legitimate copy when it does become available, or figure out a generalized way to pretend to be a US consumer of digital goods -- VPN, PO Box, CC card? -- whose cost can be amortized over many purchases. (Is _that_ circumvention ethical? Well, that's another interesting question...)

<comment><USER28> > Some piracy is welfare-maximizing for society

This is a point that I've often pondered with respect to piracy. From society's point of view, the net gain from everyone having access to a digital good (given virtually zero duplication cost) could outweigh the benefit to society from the income being redistributed to the company that charges for duplication of said good?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Dude, I live in Lithuania too, I buy books at www.bookdepository.co.uk. Free shipping, takes 3-5 working days.

But I know what you mean. We have way less choice when it comes to buying stuff in this part of Europe, that's why so many people tend to skip the buying part, cause they want it _right now_.

</comment><comment><USER30> Another option you could have tried would be to make contact with someone trustworthy outside of your country, transfer them money to make a legal purchase and ship it to you. Much more time consuming, certainly, but if you wanted to exhaust all legal avenues that's an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would work if I asked how to make myself feel good.

But my point is that publishers could move their asses and start selling worldwide instead of bragging about piracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Copying is not theft.

I have a rather radical proposal, which might even not be feasible (about as feasible as trying to treat virtual non-scarce things as real and scarce):

Authors should get paid for writing, not for having written something.

</comment><comment><USER32> Have you tried Craigslist?

Perhaps there are expat Americans or Brits who work in Lithuania, who could obtain a copy for you.

</comment><comment><USER33> I remember a while back there was an attempt to compensate the producers of content that was more conveniently acquired via piracy, whatever happened to that? I think the context was music, but it stands to reason that it could be employed in any market.</comment>


Show HN: Swintonreport.com Hackers News for politics - <AUTHOR> http://swintonreport.com?r=hn

<comment><USER2> See first comment in your previous submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7590134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7590134)

> _Are you faking those upvote values? Because it 's pretty obvious that with > 0 comments on every URL submit and 100+ upvotes that you are._</comment>


Musical Novelty Search - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@samim/musical-novelty-search-2177c2a249cc <comment><USER2> the author here. if you have questions, here to help.

</comment><comment><USER3> would it be possible to get this as plugin?

<comment><USER4> 1+, want this in logic!

<comment><USER2> great idea, hopefully one day ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


Underappreciated Female Video Game Pioneers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/arts/video-games/those-underappreciated-female-video-game-pioneers.html <comment><USER2> I'm thankful that women + video games is an issue that is continuing to get talked about - with a young daughter I hope that introducing her to one of my pastimes will be something that we can enjoy together. Games like Broken Age and Animal Crossing seem to have done well on that front.

One small criticism for this article - personally, I feel that these kinds of articles tend to conflate two issues: 1.) Women working in the video game field (or STEM in general), and 2.) Video games intended for a female audience.

Both are very important, but speaking about them together may give the impression that forward progress on one is required for the other. There is little reason that an industry largely populated by men cannot make content that is suitable for women. Conversely, when we reach gender equality in the gaming industry, we should not assume that gender-equal content will follow.

Generally, I'd love to see less of the "made for girls = everything pink" approach. I guess it probably keeps the lights on, which is better than nothing. The gaming industry's trajectory is promising though.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious: what, in your opinion is the definition and criteria of "gender equality" in video game manufacturing?

<comment><USER2> This is a personal question, since my values are going to differ from yours that will differ from the rest of the world.

I welcome games that treat gender as a non-issue. What I do mind are games that treat gender as some sort of precondition on body image or societal roles.

In this day and age there's enough choice and content out there that I can manufacture a gender balance for my kids that I feel comfortable with. Sometimes there are gotchas - games (or movies/TV) that seem ok but have small portions I don't agree with, but these are bumps that I can smooth out myself. It's just that sometimes I'd rather it not occur at all.

Again, I think this is deeply personal. I may think a certain game is perfectly fine for my kids, and another parent may recoil in horror at the suggestion (and vice versa).

At the end of the day, I enjoy playing video games, and if there are more games that I think are appropriate for my kids, the easier it is for me to enjoy my hobby with them.

<comment><USER4> > I think this is deeply personal.

Then why attempt to impose your standards on others?

<comment><USER2> Just sharing my thoughts. That's like, my opinion, man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, and ironically, the author of this article is laboring under a misconception as to why "video game critics" ought to feel embarrassed.

"Game journalists" are a notoriously corrupt and incestuous group who are currently cynically propping up "gender diversity in games" as an issue to use as a cudgel in order to generate more pageviews for their work and to further their own careers. The recent Zoe Quinn debacle is a perfect illustration of this dynamic.

There are a number of specific problems with this article, to name a few: an undercurrent of hatred of masculinity and men, and a persistent association between them and negative traits such as violence ("non-phallic FPS", wtf?), mentioning his personal interest in the issue because he has a daughter as though that would bolster his argument rather than undermine it, and some gender revisionism with regard to the creator of M.U.L.E. (which one may object to on purely philosophical grounds). To list them all, however would involve more text than was present in TFA.

If anyone needs to "do better" regarding gender representation, then surely it is not the people who make hiring decisions (who already add bias to favor women over men), but the people who write about these issues in such lazy, thought stifling, and intellectually dishonest ways.

<comment><USER5> _surely it is not the people who make hiring decisions (who already add bias to favor women over men)_

That's not true, though. As much as people like to shout about political correctness gone mad, I'm yet to see any actual evidence of a bias towards women in hiring.

But then, I am debating this with someone who has the username 'pervycreeper', so I'm not entirely sure if I'm being trolled or not.

<comment><USER6> Well, there is this:

> _The main challenge comes when we actually do get a female candidate. We > don't discard a single one on resume. We see all of them. We discard about > 80% of guys on resume. But even so, we get to see 4 guys to 1 girl or so. In > the interviews, we help the girls shine, because we actually want to hire > them, but then, one of the other 4 guys shows just an amazing performance, > for whatever reason, truly impressive, like he has done many more things > than the girl (and than the other candidates), can show more amazing code, > personal projects, etc. And we think: "If the girl was a guy, she would not > be on the race with this guy, just like the other male candidates are > totally discarded now". Should we let this amazing coding guy go? It's not > easy to find amazing coders either, you know?_

source: [https://startupsanonymous.com/story/hiring-girls- difficult-w...](https://startupsanonymous.com/story/hiring-girls-difficult- work-space/)

And it makes sense that someone would vent such things anonymously or not at all, considering the skewering they'd get from the media if they even suggested anything of the sort publicly.

As someone who's experienced teaching programming classes for girls, I can wholeheartedly say that trying to recruit candidates who are actually interested in the area is quite difficult. The program I worked for eventually had to move away from being a 'programming' course, to more of a 'digital arts' course just so that we'd get enough applicants to justify continuing it. And this is in the bay area, the tech/liberal capital of the country. So I can totally see this happening in the workplace too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something I always wonder when topics like this come up, maybe someone has some industry data to illuminate me. According to the article, "22 percent of the people who make video games are women." What I wonder is, for a given open position at a video game company, what percentage of the people who apply are women? My gut tells me that it's probably substantially less than 22%.

That's not to say that there isn't a problem or that women don't want to work in video games, but I feel like the blame for there not being more women (or more appreciation for women) in the games industry lays heavily on the studios. I think seeing the ratios of applicants vs the ratios of hires would be an interesting way to see how the industry actually feels about women.

<comment><USER8> Even if your gut was a valid source of data, the proportion of applications is a bad metric - you need the proportion of applications from strong candidates. Women applying for jobs in a field where there is a perception of sexism might be deterred from applying in the first place, especially if they feel they don't have the skills to outshine the men who apply; men may be more likely to apply even if their skills are only marginal for the role, because the industry has given them a disproportionate confidence in their abilities. So you might see a 16% female application rate, yet have women make up 30% of competent candidates, but still wind up at 22% women hired, which would not be the evidence of positive discrimination you suggest at all.

The way sexism in hiring decisions works is subtle. Development is a team sport. When a candidate comes to you and tells you 'I worked on this highly respected game,' you are impressed, but need to try to figure out what their contribution was to the team. Did they solve the really hard shader engineering challenges that gave that game its unique look while maintaining 60fps? Did they just do a bit of coding on the menu system? Did they do nothing but make the coffee? So you ask, but _your prejudices color how you hear the response_. If you tend to assume that girls just don't do quaternions and stuff, you hear 'I worked on the water simulation' and if it's a guy you assume they did a bunch of stuff with physics and navier stokes equations, but if it's a woman you interpret it as 'I made the sparkly bits when things go splash'. If you're gender-blind you allow the possibility that the person in front of you might fall into either of those camps regardless of their gender.

And it goes beyond hiring, into work assignments. You've got two pieces of work that need to be done: one is going to involve hard math, the other is building tools to help the testers QA stuff. Unconsciously, you let your prejudices about gender roles play in and assign the math work to a male coder and the tool to a female coder. Subtly, you push the women to less prestigious roles that limit their career options, while giving men opportunities to advance theirs.

And then when your studio goes belly-up and those two coders are applying for work elsewhere, which one has the more impressive resume and is able to get in the door somewhere else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Surprisingly, there is no good resource, online or off, that compiles the work that women have done to influence the history of video games. Uncovering who did what and when can be a challenge in a secretive industry ruled by marketing teams and nondisclosure agreements."

Check the credits? Hiding game developers has been a thing since the NES revolution AFAIK. I don't know that anyone's made great strides towards documenting the history of video games in general.

Still not really sure what to make of the "phallic first-person shooter" comment.

<comment><USER10> Credits don't list gender, and they contain a very limited amount of information about a person's contribution to a project.

<comment><USER9> I suppose, but nothing's secretive, that's just the standard across all art forms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like this article, but I won't say why because I don't want to start a flame war.

<comment><USER12> Then why post anything at all?

<comment><USER9> Because it's a poorly written article and the media on this issue is in a really silly place right now, but no one sane wants to deal with the hysteria currently associated with mentioning a burger chain so it's hard to construct well-reasoned yet diplomatic criticism.

<comment><USER13> I want to take a moment to talk about a woman in video games. She made a really great game, well some people don't call them games, but it was a text adventure game. A quite well made one. Many people didn't realize how effectively you could leverage the medium to make such an emotionally evocative piece of, dare I say it, art.

I am of course talking about Emily Short. In the year 2000 or thereabouts, she made a short interactive fiction story called "Galatea." ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_%28video_game%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_%28video_game%29) ) I highly suggest trying it out.

I think it's sad how fourteen years later, similar to the devolution of FPS's from Quake to Call of Duty, some new text adventures may have gained a much wider audience and are praised to high heaven but are clearly inferior artistically and in design.

<comment><USER14> What do you mean by "devolution from Quake to Call of Duty"? I am honestly curious, as I haven't played either (motion sickness; no FPS for me).

<comment><USER15> I don't know what he means, but I can give my own perspective (primarily ex- gamer, used to play a lot of Q3A, Doom, and similar):

FPS games used to have very simple orthogonal game mechanics. Large amounts of complexity would arise from those small lists of simple game mechanics. A 'board game equivalent' to this concept might be Go (or if we are being less flattering to the video game industry, Draughts/Checkers). This orthogonality was best showcased in weapon design; you'd often have less than 10 guns, which each behaved in completely different ways and were best used in completely different situations.

      Q3A examples:
        gauntlet: the only melee weapon
        machine gun: hitscan, accurate, fast rate of fire, low damage.
                     typically available on spawn.
        shotgun: hitscan, inaccurate, slow rate of fire, large damage when close.
                 must be picked up.
        railgun: hitscan, accurate, slow rate of fire, devastating damage.
                 must be picked up.
        lightning gun: not-quite-hitscan beam, medium-short range, high damage.
                       must be picked up.
        etc...

Modern games, typically aiming for some perverse sense of "realism", typically lack this sort of weapon orthogonality. You get typically get the basic categories of "assault rifle", "sniper rifle", "handgun", "submachine gun", and "something that shoots explosives", which is all fine and good, except each of those categories has half a dozen or more variations that have very boring differences. Like 6 pistols that only differ in clip size or damage (with one or two clearly being the dominant weapons in all situations). For a concrete example of a game that I think suffers from this: Watch_Dogs. 10 different handguns, but the only one that it ever makes sense to use is the handgun that you start the game with _(accurate, silenced, and semi-automatic. yeah there are the automatic handguns, but why would you use them when you could just use one of the automatic rifles? The game gives you absolutely no reason to care about the other handguns)_.

That's just weapons. I have observed similar trends across nearly all other game mechanics in modern shooters. It is like game developers forgot how to create complexity from a small list of simple mechanics and instead just pack games full of shallow features.

When you play or watch a game, try the following: Imagine that all the models and textures were swapped out with generic low-poly abstract placeholders. All handguns are small thin blue boxes, rifles are all long thin teal boxes, etc. Does the game still play well? If it is Quake or Doom, then the game plays exactly the same as it did before. If it is a modern game, then chances are several pointless redundancies become obvious and several previously "neat" game mechanics become obviously shallow. They have several "different" game mechanics that are different from each other only in the model, texture, or animation used.

Mario-Party-esque _" Push X to perform [every damn action in the game]"_ stuff is another biggie for me. Incredibly lazy stuff which apparently appeals to modern gamers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this about appreciating female game pioneers or about bashing the fact that games are a male dominated hobby?

"phallic first-person shooter."

<comment><USER17> Way to take a quote out of context (literally cutting off part of a word). Here's the surrounding sentence:

"Some of the most original games in recent years have been made by women. Kim Swift was the lead designer for Portal, which one game critic called the first nonphallic first-person shooter."

Oh look, the full quote is appreciating a female game pioneer, and your mangled phrase was from a singular game critic. Also, it makes sense. Instead of shooting bullets, you're shooting portals. Seems pretty non-phallic to me.

<comment><USER18> > Instead of shooting bullets, you're shooting portals. Seems pretty non- > phallic to me.

What's phallic about bullets?

Are women not allowed to be interested in small arms? The Soviet Union deployed women as snipers to great effect in World War II, and the idea that only men could be violent and warlike is itself gender-biased to those who look at history.

<comment><USER17> I can't tell if you're serious. Do you really not see the distinction between bullets and portals in a phallic vs, non-phallic context? You are literally shooting phallus-shaped objects with the intent to penetrate your target. On the other hand, you are shooting oval openings into which things enter.

This isn't very complicated or contentious from any angle I can imagine. Unless you're coming in with an agenda, and take offense to the idea that certain types of games might be traditionally male-oriented.

<comment><USER15> > _" On the other hand, you are shooting weird milky looking things out of a > phallic object, then thrusting your player into a rather vaginal opening."_

If bullets are "phallic" (despite rarely even having in-game models) then portals are "vaginal" and the primary game mechanic is to have your player "penetrate" them.

In reality, all of this is just pseudo-intellectual Freudian bullshit.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Low income SF students from Mission nonprofit ejected from Dreamforce - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfexaminer.com/low-income-sf-students-mission-nonprofit-ejected-dreamforce-conference/ <comment><USER2> While I agree that security guards are most responsible here at the end of the day they are correct to blame Salesforce. If you hold an event you are ultimately responsible for what the staff does, even when they are just contractors. And that's both from a legal, and optics perspective. In this case, Salesforce did these kids a disservice by providing them substantially different badges from other attendants, and by not doing enough to keep them in once they confronted problems. The head of the outing mentions that their contact tried to keep the guards from kicking them out but I have to question how an actual employee vouching for them wasn't enough. Seems like the ball was dropped several times, by multiple different parties.

<comment><USER3> Mostly agree. The Salesforce employee should have been able to escalate the issue to the right people to get it solved. Simply having a Salesforce employee vouching for them should have been rejected, as it was. There are thousands of Salesforce employees at the event, not all of them should have the power to override a guards instructions. So the guard acted correctly in that way, but sounds like they took it way too far - "Your kind don't belong in here." WTF!?

<comment><USER4> > Simply having a Salesforce employee vouching for them should have been > rejected, as it was.

It could be handled better. If there's a disagreement from anyone in the company that hired you, you can always escalate inside that company. They could've checked the situation with someone who does have a final say in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"Right off the bat, security gave us a hard time because of our badges, they were different than everyone else's badge. It didn't have our name on it, nor have a nice lanyard, it was Brown [sic] and cheap quality rather than the fancier ones every other guest had."

So, you make the charity-case badges look different, you choose the color brown for them(!), and you don't put a name on them ... that seems like poor planning, guaranteed to invite suspicion.

</comment><comment><USER6> Let me guess. Salesforce will blame the guards. Because the workers with the least amount of influence share an inordinate amount of blame. Some platitudes about being a welcoming company when clearly they weren't. Finally, a small donation to appears the media. And things will continue on as usual.

<comment><USER7> The guards were the ones who told the students they didn't belong there and the ones who made the determination to eject the students.

Unless Salesforce commanded the guards to eject the students, the guards failed to use their judgement properly and they failed to handle the situation gracefully.

<comment><USER6> The guards have a watch commander who is supposed to make the judgement call. The watch commander was given instructions on who was and wasn't supposed to be there, most likely from Salesforce's on head of security, which he relayed to the guards.

I imagine Salesforce created a standing order to have any removed that didn't have the correct badge. This was passed on to the watch commander and, unless Salesforce intervened, if asked for clarification by the guards the watch commander would re-iterate the standing order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: "A student of the tech education program reached out to Mission Local to say that the students were allowed to return to the Dreamforce conference after being told to leave, that the security guards who removed the students were disciplined, and that the students received numerous apologies from Salesforce staff."

[https://missionlocal.org/2017/11/students-of-mission- based-t...](https://missionlocal.org/2017/11/students-of-mission-based-tech- boot-camp-for-minorities-kicked-out-of-dreamforce-sf-examiner/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I would like to thank Salesforce for a strong security presence at the event. There were bomb sniffing dogs, many security staff, and vehicle barriers with armed guards at street entrances.

Despite being a sponsor and speaker at the event, I was denied access (due to different badge type) to the expo hall to help the rest of our company setup our booth. It was frustrating, but at least the security was paying attention.

It is very unfortunate that this group had problems getting in. I would have enjoyed talking to their group, as I did with the Girl Scouts group and other non-profits that sent STEM students to the event.

<comment><USER8> I'm curious about the demography for this event ... do you have sense for the attendees? Would be genuinely interested in what you get out of it. I've never been and am really curious what draws such large crowds.

<comment><USER3> The event is massive, something like 180,000 total attendees. They actually shut down Howard St. between 4th and 3rd and roll out astro turf and put up fake rock formations and stages.

There are tons of different badge types depending on your role in the ecosystem (developer, admin, marketing, sales, partner, sponsor, speaker, etc.). For the expo, Monday and Tuesday are for Full Pass people only (min of ~$1,000 per pass). Wednesday and Thursday allows in anyone that registered for the free Expo pass ahead of time.

The demographics skew to middle age people. Racially, mostly white, but many east asian and indian attendees. Certainly all groups were represented. I met many people coming from Australia, Europe and India.

Because of the expense of the passes, most of the attendees are decision makers within the business which I think is why it skewed older. I would understand if the group described in the article felt like they stood out in the crowd because of the racial and age difference. Also, Monday was crazy. Lots of very confused people trying to figure out where they should be going between the 3 different massive buildings the event was held in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > He credited Pineda with trying to straighten out the situation. "Angelica > did a fabulous job, she did everything in her power to keep us inside," Sosa > said. But the two security guards, who Sosa described as a black man and > Latina woman, ejected them.

Having read the entire article it seems this was a case of uninformed security grunts doing what they usually do. The race of the security guards gets mentioned as a sign of the times. Angelica in this case is the salesforce employee.

In the photo the girl in the red shirt on the back right looks to be wearing a lanyard with a brown string whilst the Salesforce employee has a blue one. From going to various festivals different colours and materials are often used to easily signify to security where you can/can't go. When I've been comp'd tickets before for events they _did_ look different to those that were paid for. This in itself isn't out of the ordinary IMO.

What seems most questionable to me is the behaviour/attitude of the (third party) _security company_ and not Salesforce (yet anyway).

A case of more details needed I think.

<comment><USER7> Don't worry, the race of the conference attendees was also mentioned along with the race of the victims. It's to help progressives apportion blame.

<comment><USER10> > _It 's to help progressives apportion blame._

Does this materially contribute to the conversation? What's your motive for saying it?

<comment><USER7> We're having a conversation about this because of progressives. Fascists and communists didn't write the article about the poor kids getting kicked out of the mean conference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The badges were issued by Salesforce.

</comment><comment><USER11> This has the markings of a PR stunt. As a reader of the article, I'm very curious what the badges look like, as those are a legitimate cause for concern for security. Any legitimate reporting on this issue would investigate that detail.

<comment><USER12> Why should it matter what they look like if someone from Salesforce says they are legit?

<comment><USER11> Because it explains the behavior of the security guards, presuming they didn't "get the memo" about a small group of people with fake-looking badges that are actually legitimate.

<comment><USER13> Again, why would the security guards not trust the judgment of an employee of the company that hired them? In the absence of an immediate and obvious threat, how is that justified?

<comment><USER14> > Again, why would the security guards not trust the judgment of an employee > of the company that hired them?

This would be a stupid thing to do, even at the office. They could listen maybe the director of physical security, etc, but not a random employee. Especially for a company of Salesforce's size.

<comment><USER4> If a random employee told them the badges are ok, they should've deferred to someone who can make the decision. Either a) the employee's right and the badges are ok, or b) the employee's trying to trick security and should be reported to the company. They did not have to make a final decision on the spot.

<comment><USER14> Maybe they should have done (b), sure. Otherwise, the badges are not ok for security, and a random employee telling them anything doesn't change status quo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article doesn't elaborate on the badges issue at all.

Were the badges fake or not? That's the first question to investigate.

<comment><USER13> Why would you think the badges were fake?</comment></comment>


The Web is the Next Platform (1995) - <AUTHOR> https://benslivka.com/2017/08/15/the-web-is-the-next-platform-5271995/ <comment><USER2> This is gold

>> My nightmare scenario is that the Web grows into a rich application platform in an operating system-neutral way, and then a company like Siemens or Matsushita comes out with a $500 "WebMachine" that attaches to a TV. This WebMachine will let the customer do all the cool Internet stuff, plus manage home finances (all the storage is at the server side), and play games. When faced with the choice between a $500 box (RISC CPU, 4-8Mb RAM, no hard disk, …) and a $2KPentium/P6 Windows machine, the 2/3rds of homes that don't have a PC may find the $500 machine pretty attractive!

<comment><USER3> Very prescient iPad / smart phone prediction there.

<comment><USER4> Web appliances are a far cry from tablets and smartphones. Those are both basically the exact opposite of a web appliance. They're network connected and _can_ store data remotely but they have significant client side power. They also have significant local storage, at least compared to web appliances.

The old web appliance concept was an extremely low powered device with no local storage. It had just enough power and storage to run a browser. The concept is more like a Chromebook/Chrometop than a tablet or smartphone.

The web appliance concept was predicated on some early to mid 90s assumptions about technology trends:

1\. Storage was expensive so just burn everything into a ROM. Saving data wouldn't be a thing as you'd bookmark sites or post data to websites. 2\. The Pentium (and associated support chips) was expensive and would stay expensive. 3\. The web would basically consist of static images and text. Input would be done with POSTs from form controls. 4\. The web wouldn't adopt any vendor specific technologies and plug-ins won't exist.

With these predicates some low powered RISC SoC running a browser would have been a decent appliance. WebTV and the Audrey weren't terrible products, they weren't great but also not terrible.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but _still_ not seeing the forest for all the trees.

Yes, a phone has substantial computing power - compared to old technology. But is has nothing in storage or processing power against the data centers of Netflix, Facebook and Google. It's very thin in relative terms.

Indeed, even native apps go to almost comical lengths to not use the CPU on the phone. Granted, they _use_ them but for inconsequential things like eye candy. Voice recognition and "your" social graph etc is on the remote server. It's almost like there is a law that nothing of importance must be computed on the local device.

<comment><USER5> > Indeed, even native apps go to almost comical lengths to not use the CPU on > the phone.

This is needed in order to save battery life. But Netflix/FB/Google do not have "substantial" processing power _per user_. They're providing a centralized service to a very large userbase, and that comes with a requirement to economize on both compute and storage.

<comment><USER3> What I think is interesting is how the data that matters is on the server.

Besides, if you think about it, you make my argument for me - "they" have the power budget, the mobile device has not. Think holistically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One comment on this being a good prediction of what we see in 2020. Yes, it was obvious in the 1990s that the web was going to be a platform for apps. That was why browsers were such a big piece of the antitrust case against Microsoft. The charge made against Microsoft was that it was better to write to a browser API than to the Windows API, and that's why Microsoft did what it could to kill browser competition with a Windows-only browser. That way, even if you wrote to the browser API, you were still writing your app for Windows.

Java transformed the way people thought about these things. Microsoft didn't like Java and they didn't like competing browsers because they were reasonable platforms.

</comment><comment><USER7> Super interesting to read about all the technologies (... MediaView? MOS? RPC for... webpage-like things?) & the way they imagined the future to look like before the web (... which is so obvious to us now that we can't even imagine anything else). E.g. the way they imagined webapps as getting a view of the file system, which is actually how Android apps turned out to be; not web apps though (... except maybe some very recent APIs?). Also, "payments" (for which we still don't have a standardized solution; we sell user data instead).

Also, knowing CSS, their statement of "layout for the web is much easier than for Visual Basic" is kinda... endearing.

</comment><comment><USER8> As a lifetime CRUD programmer/architect, I have to say that the current web standards have been nasty to productivity-oriented CRUD. Desktop GUI's are still more productive and easier to develop. We de-evolved.

The web really needs a GUI markup standard, something like YAML but with more interactive features. Emulating real GUI's via HTML/DOM/CSS/JS keeps failing in practice. They "break" too easy when new brands/versions of browsers come out. There's too many layers to get right and browser vendors don't always cooperate. A "GUI browser" that focuses on GUI's and only GUI's is needed so that distractions for other domains, such as social networks, don't get in the way.

Java applets and Flash failed at their attempts because they tried to be too many things at the same time, making them too big to patch quickly when security problems were found. Do one job and do it well.

</comment><comment><USER9> >> If Microsoft is to influence the Web, we must have broad, standards-based Web support in our products — we have to be the product supplier of choice for all key existing Web technologies — clients, servers, and publishing tools, at a minimum.

I honestly feel lack of this is what killed IE in the eyes of developers.

<comment><USER10> What killed IE (I am not a IE hater) is the amount of extra work you had to invest to get a site to work. I've recently done some work that had to work with versions of IE9-11. I consider myself pretty good with writing front end code that will work with IE and there are many gotchas that I had forgotten about. The debugger is painful to use even on IE11.

<comment><USER11> That's not it at all. You're talking about the IE tax in a post-IE world. Look at US v Microsoft in 2001 and the early Browser Wars. IE had crushed Netscape (via shady business practices) and had market domination. For a long time, all projects were IE-first, then you would worry about niche upstarts like Firefox. It wasn't until the launch of Chrome and Safari and the resurgence of Apple and OSX that there was any plausible alternative. It was at that point that standards and compatibility really became paramount. IE wasn't "extra work", it was the primary objective.

<comment><USER12> _" > IE had crushed Netscape (via shady business practices)"_

No, IE was actually a much better browser in 1999-2000.

It crushed Netscape 4 even on web standards support. For example much of CSS was terribly broken in Netscape.

<comment><USER13> Hear Hear. I look back at supporting Netscape 4 in late 90's as equally painful as supporting IE6 in late 2000's. It's difficult to imagine, but Internet Explorer was superbly superior during that time. For example, the Netscape4 window couldn't even be resized without needing to reload and redraw the page from scratch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's incredible how it is visionary, articulated and spot-on and yet:

> Once we have market and mind share on the Web with our products, we can take > a leadership role in expanding and shaping the Web.

They still want to strangle and submit the thing to their will and their will only.

<comment><USER15> So did this role end up in the hands of Google?

<comment><USER16> More or less. Microsoft tried, but they didn't spend enough time in the Embrace phase for it to work out.

Google, meanwhile, has spent long enough in the Extend phase they they barely need to move on (though they are starting to now).

<comment><USER17> > Extend phase

Chrome, AMP, "improved" HTML standards, platformization...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm happy about how web platform has progressed so far. You will be surprised how powerful it has became: [https://whatwebcando.today/](https://whatwebcando.today/)

<comment><USER17> That's not the nature of the argument. We've strayed from thick clients to thin clients, where the user has no control over hardware or data. This is _strictly worse_ from an ownership and control perspective than the early web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This blog looks strange on a mobile.

<comment><USER20> Best comment evar!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So, what's the next platform?

<comment><USER22> probably something that is not taken seriously

<comment><USER23> Why Toys? - [https://blog.ycombinator.com/why- toys/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-toys/) (2018)

The next big thing will start out looking like a toy - [https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will- start-...](https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-out- looking-like-a-toy) (2010)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Server-side Lua? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone have recommendations for server-side frameworks in Lua?  Ideally, I'd be interested in something that is less opinionated/MVC-ish like Node but I just want to get a general sense of what folks use.  I've had a passing interest in Lua for a long time and now I want to mess around with it a little more. <comment><USER2> Look into OpenResty ([http://openresty.org](http://openresty.org)). I'd also recommend Lapis ([http://leafo.net/lapis/](http://leafo.net/lapis/)), which provides a Rails-ish MVC framework over OpenResty.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know these frameworks to work with web applications: \- Lapis: [https://github.com/leafo/lapis](https://github.com/leafo/lapis) \- Sailor: [https://github.com/Etiene/sailor](https://github.com/Etiene/sailor) \- Luvt: [https://github.com/luvit/luvit](https://github.com/luvit/luvit)

There is also the Pegasus.lua - [http://evandrolg.github.io/pegasus.lua/](http://evandrolg.github.io/pegasus.lua/) -, it is a http server to work with web application written in Lua

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been working with openresty (ngx+lua) for a few months now and I love it. If you know nginx you can get started with it in a couple of days.

The idea behind it is simple. It introduces a set of directives that allow you to execute lua code. Some of these directives are completely new while others are meant to compliment nginx's native directives. Eg:

the `access_by_lua` directives is meant to execute lua code after nginx's access phase handler. Where as `content_by_lua` has no nginx equivalent.

I haven't used the MVC frameworks built with openresty myself but that was only due to lack of research on my part! I wish I had taken time to see what options were available.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know how good this is, but I recall Sailor that was posted some time ago here. Here's the submission link, so you can view the comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8673676)

</comment><comment><USER6> Since you mentioned node, I'd recommend checking out luvit. It's essentially node for lua: [https://luvit.io](https://luvit.io)</comment>


Mathematician Claims Proof of Riemann Hypothesis - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2180406-famed-mathematician-claims-proof-of-160-year-old-riemann-hypothesis <comment><AUTHOR> This would be amazing, and especially extraordinary coming from a 90-year-old (considering the common views that mathematicians do their best work early in life, which I don't necessarily buy into).</comment>


The Fun of Reinvention – David Beazley Strikes Home Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js_0wjzuMfc <comment><USER2> Does anybody know what tool he is using for live coding on top of the slides, where he edits code and runs a repl inside the same window? On twitter he says a lot of magic is going on + it's not emacs, it's not idle and it's not a terminal. He says f-strings are involved but unfortunately doesn't disclose anything else. Has anybody got any idea?</comment>


Warning: How Google Checkout Screwed Project Zomboid - <AUTHOR> http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/04/warning-how-google-checkout-screwed-project-zomboid <comment><USER2> For the benefit of the next person: don't ever sell donations. Sell sponsorships/bragging rights/etc. _In addition to converting better_ this reduces payment processor risk. I would strongly suggest doing this in preference to pre-orders, too, since pre-orders are very risky. Structurally guaranteeing that 100% of your customers have not received shipment is a bad place to be in life! You are _not_ Valve.

Bronze Sponsor: You get a 16x16 icon next to your username on our website _delivered immediately_ plus, as a bonus, a free copy of the game when it comes out. $10

Silver Sponsor: As above, icon is silver. $20

Gold Sponsor: As above, icon is gold, you get listed in credits. $40

<comment><USER3> This is a very solid idea. As an alternative, you can use a payment processor that deals with PayPal and credit card companies on your behalf. With something like FastSpring.com, you get paid as long as the transactions are genuine (e.g., excluding credit card fraud). You never have to deal with PayPal, Google Checkout, or frozen account bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As has been discussed elsewhere, they broke the terms of service (specifically, you're not allowed to use the terms "donate" or "donation" unless you're a registered non profit) -- they screwed themselves.

While they should be able to get a response from a human, the idea that they're innocent is silly. It seems every small/indie developer thinks they can do whatever and ignore their contractual obligations and get away with it.

Just because you're small doesn't mean things don't apply to you.

<comment><USER5> That's a joke.

A email telling them to remove the word donate within 5 days or their account would be closed, I would totally get that. Shutting down new orders until the verbiage is changed, same thing.

But to say that this is a reasonable action, I just don't see it. There was clearly no deception going on. While it clearly does violate the TOS, the use of donate in this context (a voluntary payment above the minimum that gives no additional benefit) is perfectly reasonable.

I'm not saying that Google isn't within their rights to do this. The author should have been more careful, fine (although I could see myself making the exact same mistake). But this still just hits me wrong. Even if the takeaway is just "if you make a completely innocent mistake that hurts no one, Paypal will alert you while Google will close your account with no recourse," that's STILL plenty of reason to choose Paypal. Who doesn't make innocent mistakes?

<comment><USER6> Hey, they clicked "Accept" on the TOS. Perhaps they should have read it thoroughly first, and made sure whomever was doing the web design understood the boundaries. A contract is a contract. It's not "let's agree to do this until I violate it and call you a meanie"

<comment><USER7> Most of the problems that people experience are self-inflicted. If we use "you should have known better" as the only criterion to determine if sympathy is deserved, we'd be really unsympathetic. The OP should have been more careful and Google should have been more accommodating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I read the post, and decided to do a quick digging on the GC help pages. It seems these guys are incorrect regarding the set_your_own_price idea:

"In the above example, the first five input fields are of type hidden with predefined values while the unit price (item_price_1) field is a text field without a value parameter.

This form will create an input field above the Google Checkout button so the user can specify his own price as shown below:"

taken from: [http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en-...](http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?hl=en- GB&answer=64730)

<comment><USER9> Humble Indie Bundle do 'set-your-price'+Google Checkout so there has to be a way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've found that the problem with using Google's services is that it's very hard to get any sort of direct, 1x1 support from them.

<comment><USER11> This is very true. It's hard to get anyone via e-mail, on the phone or in their forums when you have questions about their product services or when a problem arises. This is especially concerning when money is involved such as AdSense, AdWords or Google Checkout. They are also big enough that they don't really have to care if they lose you as a customer, especially if you're a small fry just starting out.

<comment><USER12> Adwords recently added phone support.

<comment><USER13> It's the only call I've ever made to customer service that actually asked me to leave a message and they'd call me back. Yes, really. Oh, and they didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know why this post is surprising. Google doesn't do any individualized customer service, because that doesn't scale. So they apply the same rules to everyone, including this little video game, and probably legions of Internet hucksters. There's no real incentive for Google to alter this arbitrary policy, so they don't. They don't care if you're making an RPG about dragons or selling Viagra.

At its best, this kind of aggregate data-driven decision making can lead to Google search. At its worst, it can lead to those ads you click by mistake on YouTube.

<comment><USER15> What does it mean that individualized customer service does not scale? It does for paypal, amazon and pretty much any other large co dealing with payments.

Perhaps one day google will wake up and realize that they in fact have products other than search and that they may require a new attitude towards customer service. By all means optimize so the fewest people need to call you up - but don't leave people feeling helpless when your silly online help doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER16> It doesn't scale.

If you make a software product (without support) which will be used by 1000 people, you need 3 programmers and 1 system engineer. If 100,000 people use your product, you need maybe 1 extra system engineer for a 100 fold increase in usage.

To offer a product including 24/7 customer support to 1000 people, you can get 3 people working from home in shifts. To offer the same support to 100,000 people, you need a department - maybe not 300 people, but you definitely won't get away with hiring two extra people from home.

<comment><USER15> Yours/google's definition of scale is very narrow, which was my point. Google only looks at scale from a software point of view. While that may work with search, there are many industries where you must scale with humans, such as door to door sales. Google's insistence on their narrow vision of scale may have a lot to do with why they find it hard to make in roads with their local strategy or say google checkout. Meanwhile paypal has little problem hiring more people to provide phone support to tens of millions of customers. Google isn't special. In fact, they don't even have tens of millions of customers for most of the products that require such type of support. Sounds too much like premature scaling and overthinking on google's part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > First off, there was no 'pay what you want' option on Google Checkout, so we > provided the following options:

I wonder how Google's Font Directory does it. [http://www.google.com/webfonts/family?family=EB+Garamond&...](http://www.google.com/webfonts/family?family=EB+Garamond&subset=latin#download)

<comment><USER18> Or the Humble Bundle, for that matter. <http://www.humblebundle.com/#contribute>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how Google is able to detect the use of the word "donate" and put so much "effort" into monitoring account activities, scanning widgets, blocking accounts and processing emails but not able to allocate a single human from the support department to offer a basic response and further instructions.

Google is good at serving the crowd because that's what bots can do well (tracking, data mining, etc). No one other than developers can really get some direct help from Google, even if you pay them a lot of money.

I believe that consistency and responsibility are important: if you are unhappy with your clients, you have to tell them what to do to switch to somewhere else. This is the real customer _care_.

<comment><USER6> Just a guess: they don't think they can reasonably hire people from the Turk to do support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Google has a legal fiduciary responsibility _not_ to hold onto that money.

You can't just take money on behalf of someone else and then say "Ha ha, you screwed up, read the fine print, now we get to keep the money!".

</comment><comment><USER21> Google customer service is a mess.

<comment><USER22> I agree. I'm a huge fan of Google. I honestly don't even expect them to support their 'free' products like Gmail with 1 on 1 customer service. I frankly wouldn't either.

But when Google has your actual cash as in the case of Google checkout, and you can't even get a decent reply from them? That really shakes my faith in them as a company.

<comment><USER23> Paypal

<comment><USER24> Why does everyone assume paypal has no support? There's a contact link right on their homepage with email and phone support options. If Google wants to be in this game, I believe they should have to offer the same, especially in cases like for Android developers who have to wait a month to get paid.

<comment><USER25> Don't know why you got downvoted, when I had problems with my PayPal merchant account, I called a phone number and was able to speak to a real human being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can someone link to / quote the section in the Checkout TOS that restricts use of "donate" or "donation"? I'm only finding this: <https://checkout.google.com/termsOfService?type=Seller> which only mentions "if Seller identifies ... as "non-profit" and is verified ... then Seller may use the Service to process donations from Buyers." Which is not "may not use 'donate' or 'donation' unless == nonprofit", which seems to be claimed by a great many comments on the interwebs.

Though I'm not _attempting_ to sign up. That's the TOS from the bottom of <https://checkout.google.com/sell>

<comment><USER27> I've never used google checkout from the merchant side, so I just poked around for a bit. I'll avoid doing the whole lmgtfy thing, but this appears to be what you're looking for:

[http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer...](http://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=72721)

There's also this page, which I found by just clicking "content policies" under the merchant section (look at "fundraising"):

[https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answe...](https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=75724)

<comment><USER26> Content policies seems to be the most-likely damning.

Mentions of donations elsewhere are _heavily_ paired with "donate" buttons, and I don't know if they had used such a button. Cost + voluntary bonus does, to me, imply valid use of the word "donate", and I'm hoping for something concrete, given the number of authoritative-sounding "can't say 'donate' w/o 501.c3" comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The most surprising part of this article to me is how popular Google Checkout is becoming. A few years ago you'd be lucky to see a handful of sites offer it alongside Paypal, and never in lieu of it. The explosion of Android might have something to do with it, as the Market requires Checkout (outside of the recently-added carrier billing.)

</comment><comment><USER29> I probably don't have the skills to write a video game from scratch... but I can knock out a payment processor integration in a day... so, why the hell do these companies keep relying on Google and PayPal to shitcan their businesses? Man up, get a real payment processor, where you can get real people on the phone. I'd suggest Chase Bank. If it's about conversions, if you're selling something people will only buy through PayPal, you're doing it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER30> So what happens to the money? It gets sent back to the people that "donated" right.</comment>