Paypal is evil - <AUTHOR> http://cooking.fourbeansoup.com/post/322154074/paypal-is-evil <comment><USER2> PayPal is not evil.

I can't think of a company that has done more to democratize banking than PayPal.

Setting up a Merchant Account can be a real pain (and I too hope PayPal improves in this regard), but I really hope the author thinks harder about the title next time before making such a generalization.

If you want to know why PayPal is not evil, try this experiment:

Go to your bank and try to open a checking account with a debit card with _no minimum balance_ , a positive interest rate, ability to transfer money instantly without writing a check (basically a wire transfer) for free, _no insufficient fund charges_ , no monthly fees, free online and mobile banking, etc.

PayPal offers this to everyone, regardless of how rich or poor you are. If you don't have a lot of money other banks such as WellsFargo, Bank of America, etc., could care less about you and will try and take as much as they can from you in the form of ATM charges, monthly fees, overdraft charges, etc. Of course, I may be making my own over generalization here, but suffice it to say that I don't think PayPal is evil.

<comment><AUTHOR> breck,

I disagree, to me when you don't offer customer service availability to departments and don't offer any real explanations for denial of service, that is bad.

Just because a "big bank" is worse, doesn't make Paypal "good". Credit Unions are the only true "good" in the banking industry. The credit unions are non- profit and thusly they don't try to gouge you.

<comment><USER3> What you describe is ineptitude and inability to provide service at a massive scale. That is bad, but it is not "evil."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm on the side of PayPal is evil.

I'm tempted to ask everyone who has been affected by PayPal's "security measures" (a frozen account) to write a post and submit it to a blog. -But I don't want to waste anyone's time. Anyways. Aye. I have been affected.

<comment><USER5> paypal's security measures can seem draconian, but they are necessary in many ways. the relative ease with which you can open an paypal account (versus another type of merchant account) makes them vulnerable to fraud. i'm not saying it couldn't be improved, i'm just saying that it's necessary in many ways.

where paypal falls on its face (in my humble & biased opinion) is that they are pretty inflexible and unaccomodating with customer service. this turns a frustrating situation into an "evil" one.

disclaimer: i cofounded wepay.com, which competes with paypal (in a few limited ways)

<comment><USER4> Well. I hate to be like this -but- you are now my friend. You go competitor! You go!

Okay. Now for the "ness" which makes this post not spam.

" _they are pretty inflexible and unaccomodating with customer service_ "

Yes. That is a problem. Another problem is that they freeze accounts almost to the point of "seemingly randomly". In my opinion. It's not uncommon either. It's not rare enough to be forgiven as a mistake. Paypal has problems with (I guess?) flagging "spam". If the problem is viewed as originating because of the ease of access (easy to sign up), then Paypal should make it harder to sign up.

However, if you build a fence, you must consider the consequences for when it falls down. Anyone who has personally been affected by Paypal is also at fault for not considering it might happen and planning ahead. That statement is my opinion and I stand by it. There is a reason why I don't have a Paypal account with ten thousand dollars in it. The reason is that I will need those ten thousand dollars and I expect Paypal to take it away from me. My paranoia, however, is founded from experience.

Okay. I ranted. I apologize =/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with these stories is that the millions of PayPal users who have never had a problem aren't heard from, so there is no sense of perspective or balance.

That said, I have a low trust tolerance of payment processors, so I (1) have alternate payment methods setup and available, and (2) transfer cash out frequently.

</comment><comment><USER7> The evil part of paypal is that they don't learn from their mistakes very quickly and they seem to not realize they are affecting peoples MONEY. Kinda silly but true. It's business as usual over there regardless of $1 or $100,000 they just tied up of your cash.

I went through the same scenario in 2003 with paypal with tens of thousands of dollars locked up pending a review... Thankfully we had a back up plan (credit card processing)

The plus side of paypal... when you and if you can process some serious loot through them you get treated like a rock star and you get access people and help you wouldn't otherwise get.

<comment><USER8> tens of thousands of dollars is not serious loot?

<comment><USER7> It wasn't to them at the time... not until we had processed about 80-100k did things settle down.

I think they have a hard time with their risk management protocol. Keep customers happy and loose a lot of money or piss off customers and loose less money from scammers...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Concerning that posts with the word "evil" in them seem to rocket up towards to the top of Hacker News. This post totally abuses the word "evil"

<comment><USER10> Hackers (and I do think that, by and large, HN is still populated by "hackers") are aesthetes. When we say that something is "good" or "evil," we're not making a _moral_ judgement, but rather an _aesthetic_ one.

Consider, for example, that most people here would consider the famous MIT pranks to be "good." There is no argument that can be made that they are _morally_ good—but they are certainly aesthetically pleasing, and we respect that. This article points out the contrapositive: PayPal, no matter its ethical implications (which breck pointed out above), is aesthetically displeasing—it offers a bad communicative interface to the developer (a bad API), and the rules governing it cannot be elegantly described (a bad design).

This also explains quite a bit of what HN seems to love or hate. We love Apple because they care about aesthetics, but we hate the App Store because it is capricious and seemingly internally shoddy/"crufty." We love Google because they're open about everything they do, and so they're predictable—they give us a sense of being a controllable force, even if they're too large to actually control.

None of this has anything to do with whether their actions are helping or harming us. It's purely a matter of subjective Quality, with no quantitative measurements going on behind it. No one here ever shuts up and multiplies[1]—and _that's okay_. Humanity is pointless without subjective experience. But it's good to be conscious that that's what we're really talking about here.

[1] <http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That scares the shit out of me. I am planning to start offering a paid option on my startup and using Paypal (so far it was free to everyone)...

Is there a simple solution (at least as a backup) to paypal? I am not in the US, so most of the recommended solutions I see only work for US companies.

</comment><comment><USER12> In the most recent PayPal horror stories I've read the common denom has been digital goods. PayPal doesn't seem to know what to do when there's no physical product being shipped, and no tracking number. Do similar problems happen with physical items?

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps there is a _reason_ for the interesting Google "suggestions" when you start your search with "paypal is"

[ following the strategy on boy-/girlfriends at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1043476> ]

Although there are customer service horror stories about Google itself, the stories about PP seem to keep on coming (as, apparently, do their policies/procedures).

I make a practice to process only that $ amount through PP that I am comfortable losing.

</comment><comment><USER14> With all the horror stories around I'd say they're simply not a professional choice as a Merchant Account. Simple as that. They do a lot of other stuff very well.

</comment><comment><USER15> What's evil is offering Twitter software that lets people auto-follow followers and auto-tweet rss feeds. The former helps perpetuate all the follower spam out there and the latter fills Twitter with yet more redundant content.</comment>


New AWS region coming soon: eu-west-2 in London - <AUTHOR> https://www.nilsjuenemann.de/2016/10/14/new-aws-region-eu-west-2/ <comment><USER2> Why EU in name? UK just decided to stay out.

<comment><USER3> Likely `Europe` at a geographical level rather than `European Union` as a geopolitical thing.</comment></comment>


KindleLendingClub Forced By Amazon To Rebrand; Now BookLending.com - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/kindlelendingclub-forced-by-amazon-to-rebrand-now-booklending-com/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Does any one here in hn use this?</comment>


Ask HN: What's on your bookmark bar - <AUTHOR>

for those with no bookmark bar this question can be translated to "websites you frequent regularly"<p>(I realise than answers might be long, I'm just interested) <comment><AUTHOR> Here is mine (left to right and vaguely in order of most used):

[In house tools and client portals] x4

[https://github.com/](https://github.com/)

[http://www.google.com/analytics/](http://www.google.com/analytics/)

[http://dochub.io/#css/](http://dochub.io/#css/) <\- useful for super quick css reference

[http://leftlogic.com/projects/entity- lookup](http://leftlogic.com/projects/entity-lookup) <\- html character look up

[http://www.famkruithof.net/uuid/uuidgen](http://www.famkruithof.net/uuid/uuidgen) <\- random uuid generation

[https://www.box.com/files](https://www.box.com/files) <\- file storage

[http://www.colorpicker.com/](http://www.colorpicker.com/) <\- save me opening up GIMP

[http://jsfiddle.net/](http://jsfiddle.net/)

[http://hastebin.com/](http://hastebin.com/) <\- preferred paste bin

[https://imo.im/](https://imo.im/) <\- browser based IM (main for chromebook)

[http://news.ycombinator.com/](http://news.ycombinator.com/)

[http://www.reddit.com/](http://www.reddit.com/)

[https://medium.com/](https://medium.com/)

[http://toolong-didntread.com/](http://toolong-didntread.com/) <\- (I had high hopes for this, but it's not really updated enough for me, I still seem to check it every day though...)

[http://www.facebook.com/](http://www.facebook.com/)

[http://www.twitch.tv/](http://www.twitch.tv/)

[http://worldoftanks.eu/](http://worldoftanks.eu/) <\- I'm addicted what can I say

[http://www.gosugamers.net/general/](http://www.gosugamers.net/general/) <\- I like to keep up with HoN news

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_one](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_one) <-radio

[http://www.freeview.co.uk/TV-Guide](http://www.freeview.co.uk/TV-Guide)

[instapaper]

data:text/html, <html contenteditable> <-for taking notes on the phone

[http://userium.com/](http://userium.com/) <\- for the rare occasion that I write something for general users

Context: I'm one half of a UK based eBook/digital publishing partnership

</comment><comment><USER2> I use RSS to follow my frequently used sites. My startup related stuff is design-y, but my top 5 recommendations are:

[http://sidebar.io/](http://sidebar.io/) \- most frequent, always bump into something new

[http://worrydream.com/](http://worrydream.com/) \- of course

[http://littlebigdetails.com/](http://littlebigdetails.com/) \- collecting little patterns into my brain

[http://theindustry.cc/](http://theindustry.cc/) \- see the reviews, probably the best site for app reviews that I've seen. allows me to know what's new.

[http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits](http://penny- arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits) \- look forward to this every single week

I'd include [http://www.paulgraham.com](http://www.paulgraham.com), but you probably already follow that</comment>


New project allows you to send files using DNS - <AUTHOR> http://sendtodns.github.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a disaster.

Being able to DNS (and do other tunnels) through pretty much any "open but subscription only" wifi hotspots as well as any other service provider was phenomenally useful (for a number of reasons where convenience trumped torrenting everytime). If torrenting through DNS becomes mainstream, then expect all those holes plus throttling etc etc to become widely adopted.

Great proof of concept. Now you're in the club. First rule of DNS tunnel club is ?

</comment><comment><USER3> I did a similar thing a long time ago. <http://netrogenic.com/dnstorrent/></comment>


When is a startup no longer a startup? - <AUTHOR> I know this sounds like one of those useless philosophical questions - bear with me.
I returned yesterday from a job interview. My wife, who is naturally skeptical, asked how it went. "Well, they're a Series A startup. Maybe 50 people. The problem they're solving is really interesting..."
She immediately gave me the stinkeye upon the mention of the funding, then said "OK, fine. Whatever. So when does a startup quit being a startup? Is it when they get (insert eyeroll here) Series Z funding? What's the definition?"
I'm not really expecting an answer. I'm more interested in the points at which HN readers realized that their shiny new company was no longer shiny.
Honest question. Thanks for your thoughts. <comment><USER2> I'd consider a few things:

What is the product/service that will generate revenue? \- The "start up" is bringing that to the market \- So they're developing, or working to get that product or product pipeline to the market \- That can come in various stages, the company survives this developing stage through various funding (like that series A $) \- I'd consider, are they generating revenue? margins are looking like? P&L / forecasting future sales revenue measuring with margins and profitability \- Size really depends on what is going on, 50 people can mean several things...

So really, I'd consider it out of start up mode once there is a viable product that can be taken/sold in the market and bring in revenue.

I think once it's out there, once $ starts coming in, the company may still grow and hire more or expand and all that, but that's generally a good sign

My answer seems more vague now that I've read it, but its all about the $$$, healthy P&L, and forecasted revenue!</comment>


Graphs and charts for the web - <AUTHOR>

Anyone have any nifty methods for creating nice looking charts and graphs dynamically on the web?
I'm currently using .png files created in Photoshop that I stretch via the width element to the desired size based on a variable.
I have some data I'd like to plot using a line graph but I haven't liked what I saw so far. Google has an option but they have some weird size restrictions.
I also found this http://www.r-project.org which seems a bit much for what I want but I may end up having a back end script that generates an image from a data set.
I'm hoping people much smarter than I have a better idea. <comment><USER2> Here are a few i've used before:

Google charts: <http://code.google.com/apis/chart/> (if you want a really nifty flash tool to help you create google charts check out: <http://www.clabberhead.com/googlechartgenerator.html>)

Sparklines: <http://omnipotent.net/jquery.sparkline/> (on HN right now)

Flash charts: <http://maani.us/>

PHP Charts: <http://naku.dohcrew.com/libchart/pages/introduction/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Processing is reasonably powerful, and has also been implemented in javascript.

see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=185191></comment>


UI / UX Design Interviews, Gaia Zuccaro, UI designer based in Rome, Italy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@frankiefreesbie/gaia-zuccaro-e34e895bbe5e

<comment><AUTHOR> Frank : The "design" is an important part of our analogic life. What is the role of the designer in our digital life?

Gaia : In few years we have gone from the totally analog 1.0 world to the 3.0 one, where we speak about internet of things. I think a so rapid curve in terms of digital evolution cannot but promise and determine a role which would be, if not essential, at least of huge support for the future.</comment>


Forget Pandora - Machine Learning Does Music Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/18/forget-pandora-brooklyns-clio-uses-machine-learning-to-recommend-music/

<comment><USER2> Their video really makes it like they are the first to ever do this.

This has been tried many times before including EchoNest, MusicIP and Gracenote. Not sure what is different here.</comment>


Dave Winer: A tech conference where everyone on stage is over 50 - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/2015/09/16/aTechConferenceWithPerpsective.html <comment><USER2> I'd like to actually see a tech conference with people over the age of 50 who had a breakthrough later in life</comment>


Maybe don't keep your Apple Card in a leather wallet, Apple warns - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/08/maybe-dont-keep-your-apple-card-in-a-leather-wallet-apple-warns/ <comment><USER2> Why does it seem like that anything Apple manufactures, while beautiful, is easily broken/damaged?

<comment><USER3> They've been the poster child for "Form Over Function" since the Apple //c.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the point of having an apple card? When your credit card, debit card can do the same thing AND be in a leather wallet and you can hold it however you like. What rates are they going to charge you for using this?</comment>


One second-hand space shuttle: Yours for $29m - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/18/shuttle_sale/

<comment><USER2> Oh boy... Along with the launch and repair facilities, this would be the dream gift for an aspiring supervillain.

My birthday is March 3rd ;-)

I wonder if they would bundle some spare SSMEs for the same price.

<comment><USER3> From the sound of it they will only sell to federal and state government organisations - which makes me wonder whether they would achieve a higher price if they sold it to anyone willing to bid, no questions asked. (Just put the damn thing on ebay?)

<comment><USER4> There's likely quite a bit of classified material in the shuttle that they wouldn't like to give out. Perhaps that all gets stripped out before delivery though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Admittedly, I am uninformed here, but what is the plan to maintain manned space flight in the interim between now and whenever they complete the next vehicle platform?

<comment><USER6> We're going to depend on the Russians. So much for American know-how :/

<comment><USER7> We definitely know how to outsource.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What happens when Michael Bay needs this back to destroy an earth bound comet?

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe you could stick it in your backyard and just sell tickets to the "Space Experience" like this guy did with an old Airbus 300 in India:

[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2558...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2558290.ece)</comment>


On the Timing of Time Zone Changes (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://codeofmatt.com/2016/04/23/on-the-timing-of-time-zone-changes/ <comment><USER2> I was missing references to the time zone chaos in Egypt, so I looked it up. Apparently that started shortly after the article, but the same author also wrote about that.

[https://codeofmatt.com/2016/07/01/time-zone-chaos- inevitable...](https://codeofmatt.com/2016/07/01/time-zone-chaos-inevitable- in-egypt/)

</comment><comment><USER3> time zones are really stupid as a modern society why not use one single time measurement

it would complicate coordinating something between Earth and Mars if both parties are keeping their own seperate time

<comment><USER4> That would only marginally help, I think. Shifting the numbers used for hours of the day around won't make people go to bed at 2200 UTC in Australia or Los Angeles. Now instead of asking "If it's 1300 PST here, what time is it on Mars?", you're asking, "If it's mid-morning here at 1300 UTC, are people eating dinner or fast asleep on Mars?"

<comment><USER5> Exactly. No matter what, the Earth is round and the sun rises and sets at different times for different locations. We coordinate our schedules with this wherever we are. Moving to a single time everywhere just exchanges one set of annoyances for another. It doesn't fix anything.

I do get the aversion to "odd" zones like :30 or :45 offsets, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Russia plans $65bn tunnel to America - <AUTHOR> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1680121.ece <comment><USER2> That article is four years old. The project was greenlighted by the Kremlin last week, according to this: [http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3764606/Plans- for-...](http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3764606/Plans-for-Russia- NYC-train-link.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News)

<comment><USER3> Funny, it used to be a $65B project (The Times, 4 years ago)... now it's a $100B project (The Sun, this week).

<comment><USER4> Wait until it's done. It will be 200 or more.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, 500 is more likely.

<comment><USER6> Probably likely once American engineers look at the plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [2007]

The first hard part is building the tunnel.

The second hard part, as alluded to in the article, is that there is essentially no infrastructure (highways, railroads) within 2000 miles of the Russian terminus, and the Alaskan side is not exactly a thriving metropolis either.

<comment><USER7> Also I don't have the numbers in front of me so it would be cool if anyone can back this up, but I believe transport by ship is cheaper per container-mile than both rail and highway transport. Is there a reason that balance would drastically change in the near future?

<comment><USER8> Rail is faster than sea and truck but can't do last-mile like trucks and is more expensive than sea. Sea is the cheapest, slowest form and obviously only works port to port. Truck is fast and flexible but most expensive.

Not sure how the math works out if you have to ship stuff across Siberia, Alaska, and Canada.

<comment><USER9> But sea and trucks depends on oil. Rail can easily be electrified and energy consumption is way less than the other two anyway.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a pending battle over oil rights under the arctic shelf, russia's stake is potentially trillions of barrels of natural gas and billions of oil in that section of the world. As cold weather and deep sea drilling options expand, they will have to build out more stuff in this section of Siberia.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the_Ar...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the_Arctic)

</comment><comment><USER11> Absolutely crazy idea. I lived there in Siberia, there not even a railways available. The reasonable-price logistics is only possible 2 month a year. This idea is a political hype. Such kind of idiotic projects appear shortly before elections and pass away shortly after.

<comment><USER12> Seems one can make a decent living from proposing mega-projects with price tags so vast and political inspiration so great it's not hard to to convince someone to commission a multi-year "study" at a "paltry" cost big enough to keep a small team living comfortably.

Another example project was construction of a billion-dollar indoor ski resort near Atlanta. Somebody was making a good buck "studying" that one ... until the nearby lake, proximity chosen to supply water for making snow, dried up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of commenters are mentioning that the distance is greater than the distance by sea -- but the difference isn't as much as you might think.

Look at the shortest route between LA and Beijing and you'll see that you already go over Siberia and the coast of Alaska. <http://www.gcmap.com/map?P=LAX-PEK>

<comment><USER14> Let me guess - some people don't understand cartographic projections? The shortest distance between two points is _not_ a strait line on a map[1], especially when you are a long way from the equator.

[1] For most maps. Gnomic maps (image - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gnomonic_projection_SW.jpg>) are designed to show the shortest distance as a straight line. I think the Dymaxion Map aka Fuller Map (image - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png>) is also OK.

<comment><USER15> _The shortest distance between two points is not a strait line on a map_

You're right. The shortest distance between two points lies on a 'great circle':

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Great_circle>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Russia's biggest problem is centralized major cities: Moscow and St Petersburg, everything else is a "province".

US major cities are spread geographically: Boston, NYC, DC, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, SF, LA.

Seattle was the gateway to Alaska. What's a gateway to Siberia? Vladivostok? Does Vladivostok has something comparable to Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing?

</comment><comment><USER17> The smart part of this equation is in placing Russia as a central connection of goods through Europe/Asia/North America.

Much like Eremites is trying to do in being an air transport hub between Asia and Europe.

<comment><USER18> I think you mean "Emirates." An eremite is a religious recluse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Given Russia's history in high-tech construction (and particularly tunnels, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefortovo_tunnel>) I'm surprised that an oligarch-financed tunnel would get a positive response from the US.

<comment><USER20> Considering the success of the Big Dig in Boston, I'm not sure we can criticize too much.

<comment><USER21> Boston is not in siberia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The plan alone worries me greatly for the wildlife in Alaska, it's one of the world's last refuges for untouched nature and the last thing we need is to send any sort of human traffic in that direction.

If I were the richest person in the world I would probably buy up as much land as possible and keep civilization away from it. Keep it wild for future generations.

<comment><USER23> Alaksa is really really big.

Rail lines aren't really all that wide.

Compute the fraction of Alaska and Siberia's land from which you'd be able to see or hear the trains going past and it's... quite small.

<comment><USER24> "Alaska is really really big."

Indeed it is. [http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/ded/dev/student_info/images/...](http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/ded/dev/student_info/images/akoverus.jpg) (yes, this is in correct scale).

<comment><USER23> Slightly over half the size of Western Australia!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not to mention the fact that Canada is sitting on what is considered to be the largest oil reserve in the world.

This is also a very smart long-term strategic move to run a pipeline from Canada to Eurasia and Africa.

<comment><USER23> _This is also a very smart long-term strategic move to run a pipeline from Canada to Eurasia and Africa_

This is what I don't get. Isn't there _plenty_ of oil in Eurasia? And plenty of demand for oil in the Americas? Do the Russians really expect that in the future the flow of oil will go in that direction?

<comment><USER25> Well they could be playing the long-hand on this.

Oil is obviously a finite resource, and very soon, (when oil becomes much more scarce than it is now) whoever controls the oil will control a _large_ portion of the world's economy.

If Russia (I assume you're talking about Siberian oil here?) has a ton of oil, it would make sense for them to sit on it and wait for the rest of the world to deplete their own supplies before drilling.

<comment><USER26> If some university somehow invents batteries that have the same weight/energy ratio and charge time as a diesel engine system (accounting for the energy efficiency difference), wouldn't most of the oil dependence go away?

<comment><USER27> Pretty big double "if" - it may not even be physically possible.

Energy density of diesel: 45.4 megajoules / liter

Energy density of a lithium battery: 1.30 megajoules / liter

"Same weight/energy ratio" (using volume as a proxy for weight since the lithium battery does not have a energy density by weight listed) is 40x.

"Charge time" of a diesel engine is probably also 40x (to pick a number) faster than battery charging (e.g. several minutes vs. several hours).

Multiply the two together and you have three orders of magnitude between the two "ifs".

Ref: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density>

<comment><USER28> Taking engine weight into account for automobiles, electric cars have much lighter motors and the extra volume/weight can be used for batteries.

Consider 30l fuel capacity = 30kg of battery. Petrol engine is about 300kg, Electric motor about 30kg. So that's 270kg that could be used for batteries (and is in the Tesla). And since the batteries can be anywhere in the vehicle, there's a benefit to that too!

Ref: <http://auto.howstuffworks.com/tesla-roadster.htm/printable> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone have a good handle on freight costs?

If I wanted to send a container of stuff from (say) China to the US, would it be cheaper to send it in a ship, or go round the long way through a Bering Strait tunnel (assuming such a thing actually already existed)?

<comment><USER29> freight cost is tricky to compare, but considering Trans-Siberian Railway is competing with the long-way sea route, and is mainly winning on speed and safety thanks to pirates. *

I think shipping via ship is going to be way cheaper than the to-be-built tunnel, unless, maybe if you are shipping from Siberia to Alaska?

*reference:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway#Developm...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway#Developments_in_shipping)

<comment><USER23> Right. In that case I really can't see much use for this tunnel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Makes you wonder how they will deal with shifting tectonic plates?

<comment><USER25> You don't built it underground, you build it floating in the water (anchored to the sea floor). Build stretch into the tunnel, and then expand it every $foo years as needed.

<comment><USER10> ice would be a huge issue in this. thats the big impediment to bridge building in the arctic north.

<comment><USER20> ambiguity above. underwater but not underground. So beneath the ice but above the mud, silt, and rock so no tunneling problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Interesting! As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, this sounds really cool. Maintained, it could really open up some economic expansion in that part of the world.

</comment><comment><USER32> Any particular reason this article from 2007 has been resubmitted now? Has a deal been struck at last? Any developments? Or...?

<comment><USER33> Approved by Kremlin last week.

<comment><USER34> The only source of this info is an article in The Sun, which is as trustworthy as a madman in the street.

<comment><USER23> According to <http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44212283/ns/world_news-europe/> the report was from The Times, not The Sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is AWESOME. Well, at a naive and fleeting glance it is. I'm sure it has political, environmental, etc. etc. implications. And it got the green light. I'm wondering how big the tunnel is. I would assume it would have to fit many many trains at once, I mean one or two tracks would probably be a waste...

</comment><comment><USER36> I can only imagine what (and who) will be smuggled via that tunnel.

<comment><USER37> That was my first thought. Then again, it wouldn't be anything that isn't already coming in via ships.

<comment><USER23> It's worth noting that the Bering Strait end of Alaska is as far from Seattle as Mexico City is from... well, Seattle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> In Soviet Russia, the tunnel bores you!

<comment><USER23> While I must admit that is one of the better applications of the In Soviet Russia meme I've seen, I'm still modding you down for it.

<comment><USER38> Oh, I'd hoped the pun would save it. Alas!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Any good Palin jokes?

<comment><USER40> No, but as I sit here I can feel Putin burrowing his head into Alaska's groundspace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does it start at Sarah Palin's house?</comment>


Things I've Stopped Saying - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@beaugunderson/things-i-ve-stopped-saying-fa7dea0bf317/

<comment><USER2> A few of these I certainly agree with--using the gender neutral pronouns for hypotheticals is actually handy, because it denotes that gender doesn't matter in the issue at hand and also because it lets me fill in whatever I want.

I similarly agree with using "folks" instead of "guys", because it's technically more accurate in a mixed group (and because it sounds...well...folksy and kinda adorable in an anachronistic sort of way).

I think the author ignores the infantilizing "boys" in common use as well as "girls", though if called out on it I imagine they'd correct themselves. It can be condescending in either context, even when meant with adoration--such is the problem of diminutives in any language.

The entire notion of preferred pronouns kinda is just being nonconformant with the English language, and honestly gets a bit absurd--neutral pronouns exist and are sufficient.

"Master/slave" is common and reasonable terminology...in the former case, it pretty well describes the relationship compared with secondary/primary. Consider: does a slave get promoted to master? There's a nuance in word choice (though I'd prefer to see more entertaining language, like top/bottom, domme/sub, etc.) that reflects typical usage.

"blacklist/whitelist" is common terminology.

"blind spot" is something referring to an inability to see certain things, despite functioning fine otherwise. A common discussion I have with friends on tech projects is "what are our blind spots here"; this is not because we are ignorant, but because we accept the possibility that an issue may approach us from an angle we wouldn't normally be observing. That's pretty much the textbook definition of blind spot.

I see what they're getting at, but I don't really think it's something worth doing myself.

EDIT:

Also, I'd prefer if the npm folk's spent less time being sensitive and more time fixing the fucking lame and short-sighted slapdashery of their package management.

 _Least_ of all because those chucklefucks are endangering the ecosystem in the pursuit of magical VC funbucks.

<comment><USER3> this is just a list of things that i personally stopped saying--so i wasn't ignoring boys, i just never stopped saying it because i had never started. :)

i also would have included "lame" on the list, though, if it was something i'd previously said.

what's your problem with npm though? i love it.

<comment><USER2> NPM managed to look at all the other package managers out there--bundler, etc. --and pick the worst way of doing things.

So, first, the entire idea of having arbitrarily nested--and versioned!-- dependencies is not good, least of all because it means that you can end up with like five different versions of underscore or lodash in your project. This is just plain ugly.

Second, there were two issues spanning like two years of discussion about this nesting. Specifically, on one of the official operating systems supported (cough _windows_ cough), this nesting of directories tends to cause things to break in weird ways. This is especially annoying when bundling for deployment or cleaning during CI.

They're still hemming and hawing about fixing it--and that's only after _finally_ admitting they goofed.</comment></comment></comment>


Git is exploding - <AUTHOR> http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=subversion+git+mercurial+bazaar&show_installed=on&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date&to_date&hlght_date&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1 <comment><USER2> "bazaar" should be "bzr".

It's important to note that this graph is generated with data collected from people who have the popularity-content Debian package installed [1]. The "vote" metric it provides is probably a more accurate method for comparing which of the packages are in active use (it records accesses of the package's binaries in the last 30 days).

[1]: <http://popcon.debian.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually heard this: "Linus Torvalds, the creator of Git". That's like saying "George Lucas, director of American Graffiti".

<comment><USER4> To be fair it's more like George Lucas, director of Star Wars ep. 1 if we are going chronologically.

<comment><USER5> Let's be fair to Git. It's more like George Lucas, producer of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I took the suggestions and re-made the graph: bazaar -> bzr, git-core added, and only votes used.

[http://qa.debian.org/popcon- graph.php?packages=subversion+gi...](http://qa.debian.org/popcon- graph.php?packages=subversion+git+git- core+mercurial+bzr+&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> Can someone offer an explanation as to the sudden explosion in git's popularity in early 2010?

<comment><USER8> I think it's partly an artifact: due to a naming conflict, the git package in Debian used to be named "git-core" and was renamed "git" around then.

<comment><USER9> Looks like that might be the case, if you combine the graphs of git-core and git, you get a roughly-exponential growth shape:

[http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git+git- core&...](http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git+git- core&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1)

<comment><USER10> [http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git++git- core...](http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=git++git- core+mercurial+bzr+darcs+cvs+subversion+monotone&show_vote=on&want_legend=on&from_date=&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1)

With CVS, darcs, monotone also interesting.

<comment><USER9> I keep tacking RCS onto the ends of these, too :) It keeps surprising me - Mercurial passed RCS ~ last June, and Bazaar passed it in roughly June of _this_ year. It gets a _lot_ of usage still.

<comment><USER11> I use it pretty often for casual alteration of configuration files.

<comment><USER12> Why do you prefer it to git or hg for this use case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another explanation could be that some packages started having Git as a requirement or dependency. I seem to remember there used to be a package related to the KDE desktop that required the SVN client. I'm not saying Git isn't becoming increasingly popular, but strange jumps might be explained by dependencies or renames, too.

<comment><USER14> The "vote" metric measures actual use, not just installs.

See the bottom of this page: <http://popcon.debian.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mercurial can be installed as a python package, but git is almost always installed as a OS package.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am looking forward to seeing a graph of gnome3/kde/awesome/xmonad a couple of months after gnome3 hits testing.

<comment><USER17> Throw in XFCE in that list for those missing Gnome 2 and can't stand Gnome 3 nor Unity.

<comment><USER16> That was kind of the point...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd like to suggest that git growth, enhanced by the network effect of github, might also be down to the the ease of entry into using version control provided by the excellent freely available documentation and tutorials.

I'm a one man team, by no means a guru but a competent coder, and git was the first version control system where I could make it past the documentation and get to actually using it day to day. I knew I should be using something, git was the something that made learning and implementing it very low cost.

</comment><comment><USER19> Git's growing popularity is _not_ an artifact of some packaging decisions by Debian. See Google insights for search: [http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=0-5&q=git%2Cs...](http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=0-5&q=git%2Csubversion%2Cmercurial%2Cbzr%2Cmonotone&cmpt=q)

</comment><comment><USER20> As a ratio, subversion has more people who use it recently than git does. Interesting, you would think that if people were using git, they would be using it much more frequently than subversion (due to local commits).

<comment><USER21> I wonder how many people use git primarily for "git clone <github url>" and that's about it?

I have to admit we still use svn at work (although I've started using git at home on personal stuff) but at the moment the most frequent task I use git for is still simply cloning stuff from github.

<comment><USER22> At work, before we switched to Git, I used the git-svn bridge. It feels kind of hackish, svn-externals don't work and working with remote branches is doable but you have to be careful when merging ... that being said, I did extensive work with local/remote branches with git-svn and I never saw anybody actually branching / merging in SVN.

I would never go back to SVN. And this is not a zealot-thing in which I'm stating an opinion to protect an investment -- Git is so much better that it isn't even funny.

<comment><USER21> I agree I prefer git (and also agree that 99% of svn usage in our environment doesn't involve any merging), I think it's just that svn is filling our need for a remote backup/storage for the source code so we're sticking with that for now.

That said we are a very small team and all in the same office so it hasn't been an issue.

I suspect we will slowly start moving new projects over to git though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder where TFS would be on this graph. Not that I think it competes well on merit with these others, but it still has some market forces pushing in its favor. It would be interesting to know how it compares.

<comment><USER16> TFS?

<comment><USER24> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Foundation_Server>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> indeed.com's Job Trends shows Subversion still king, Git growing, and Mercurial holding its own.

Subversion, Git, Mercurial Job Trends [http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Subversion%2C+Git%2C+Mercu...](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=Subversion%2C+Git%2C+Mercurial&l=)

</comment><comment><USER26> Where could I get ahold of the stats tables used to generate these graphs?

<comment><USER27> All the links are on Debian popularity contest front page: <http://popcon.debian.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> i <3 gnuplot

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't think this is an accurate representation of what is going on because market share is not being taken from the others.

<comment><USER30> pretty sure any developer is likely to have several of these installed; I know I've needed to install them to pull stuff from various open source repositories, regardless of the fact I use git for personal projects

<comment><USER31> Indeed. E.g., I am using git for more projects than I use mercurial. To these projects, however, I just submitted a limited number of change sets. Most heavily I am using mercurial instead, which I also would choose for future projects. Maybe it would more accurate to measure the number of submissions per time interval.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> thanks lt, all and github</comment>


Schizophrenia study: Digital avatars to represent hallucinatory voices - <AUTHOR> http://www.mdmag.com/medical-news/avatar-therapy-for-auditory-hallucinations-if-you-cant-beat-the-voices-join-them <comment><USER2> This reminds me a lot of what I read about phantom limb pain in V.S. Ramachandran's book Phantoms in the Brain[0] and the kind of treatment he helped pioneer for that.

In the book he describes an innovative but quite lo-tech approach using a cardboard box and cleverly arranged mirrors that enabled patients to visualize the missing limb and effectively, as I understood it, rewire their brains to reduce phantom limb pain.

That example does make me wonder how critical the digital component of the treatment is. The article notes:

> Patients were then encouraged to engage in a dialogue with the avatar, who > was controlled by a therapist.

I wonder if this would work with similar effectiveness using puppets or actors or perhaps even mirrors.

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

<comment><USER3> This is indeed exactly the same principle, where you fool the brain into connecting a buggy representation with a concrete object that can be gradually modified into something that better fits reality.

Re. digital vs. puppet, that's a good question. I suppose that the closer you can get to the hallucinations the better the treatment will work. So it may work with low tech gear, but it will probably be less effective (because it would be harder to reach the suspension of disbelief that's probably required for the treatment to work).

<comment><USER4> It is not really a buggy representation though. Autocorrecting your behaviour based on other opinions is a huge part of being human. Its a loss function that we seek to minimise. Whats buggy about it is that you start hearing the process that results in a loop. Listening to the outside world normally has a higher priority. Thats how you autocorrect you inner model. But now you are autocorrecting your inner model based on your inner model. As a result your theory of mind skills deteriorate.

<comment><USER5> John Nash concluded eventually that his hallucinations were part of a conversation with himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> tldr; Was smoking weed for over 10 years, later on started clubbing and mixing weed with stimulants like Ecstasy and Amphetamines, got a drug induced psychosis within 5 months. Symptoms: Auditory Hallucinations, Paranoia, Persecutory delusions - was searching for hidden cameras around me every time I had an episode.

My two cents on this study - it works because the voices you hear are what you think others would think of you in this particular situation. Once you start having a conversation with your voice[s], your expectations (your inner modelling of others) change.

</comment><comment><USER6> A close friend of the family had hallucinatory voices. He thought he could read minds. He decided to play Texas Holdem poker in the casino to take advantage of his mind reading inner voices. After a painful period of not having any money, he figured out that the voices weren't real nor could they read what the other players were holding in their hands. He is totally normal now.

<comment><USER4> Yes, external correction mechanisms are very helpful. Installing little snitch, monitoring wireshark and checksums helped me a lot :)

<comment><USER7> Absolutely helps. Separation from a screen for 20~ hours can cause an episode for me. Left my PC at home to read a book and ended up having a panic attack and hallucinating a skull out of a blanket. Panicked and left my grandmothers house at the time. Only about a month and a half ago.

Mostly under control otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want to add two things that aren't directly related to the article, but which might contribute to further discussion.

First, there's an anthropologist who's found that the stereotypical, combative voices are only universal (among a small sample) to the American/western participants in her study.[1] In cultures that offer alternate explanations for them ("spirits" or such), the voices are much more frequently friendly or even helpful.

Second, but less rigourous, that "new approach" mentioned in the Stanford article sounds remarkably like how someone one of my high school teachers knew handled his own voices: he did have trouble with them for a while and wound up needing to take a break from the handyman outfit he (if I recall correctly) ran with his brother. Eventually, though, his therapist recommended he stop trying to push the voices away completely, and the next time my teacher saw him, a few years later, he was back working again, and just telling people "if you hear me talking as I fix your porch, it's not to you."

It's not my own depiction, but I like the idea that part of why the voices here get so aggressive is that we're dead set on denying their reality -- if we try to ignore them, they just shout louder until we _can 't_ ignore them. And, as this article shows, the way we cast someone's voices as controling or, at the very least, setting the course of their life doesn't do anybody any favors when that leads so easily to feeling like they're subject to the voices' whims.

[1] [https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture- luhrmann...](https://news.stanford.edu/2014/07/16/voices-culture- luhrmann-071614/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Another win for talk therapy and important implications for therapeutic applications of ai. A great business opportunity where a lot of good can be done. The pharmaceutical market is huge.

<comment><USER3> You probably meant health care, this will probably shrink the pharmaceutical market by a non-trivial amount. Hopefully the effects will be long lasting and therapy won't have to be repeated (or if it does it will be with months if not years of remissions without treatment).

The people who will benefit from that treatment will probably need to take less or no anti-psychotics daily.

A great win since these drugs have ugly side effects (obesity in the short term, and neurological problems after decades).

<comment><USER9> My implication was that a lot of money is spent on antipsychotics and if this non-pharmaceutical approach can be automated it might be able to capture some of the antipsychotic medication market for very little cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me once again how much of our reality is in the brain. So, if you "think" you hear voices - you do, if you think the thing you hear are just your thoughts running wild - you do that and act accordingly. I guess in the first case you would be terrified (after all you _hear_ voices) and in the second case you could be amazed (what a cool thing your brain is since it can imagine voices, "their" thoughts, etc.) How much of the bad things in this world and in life come from wrong perspective... :(

<comment><USER11> I don't think an abundance of negative, however vivid, intrusive thoughts could leave anyone in a positive state of amazement. Maybe if they were positive?</comment></comment>


Google's new Ajax-powered search results breaks search keyword tracking for everyone - <AUTHOR> http://getclicky.com/blog/150/googles-new-ajax-powered-search-results-breaks-search-keyword-tracking-for-everyone

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work at Google.

This is not about analytics. This is just an experiment to test if using ajax instead of the typical form submit can make the result page load faster.

Here's an official statement -

      We're continually testing new interfaces and features to enhance the user experience.
      We are currently experimenting with a javascript enhanced result page because we believe
      that it may ultimately provide a faster experience for our users. At this time only a
      small percentage of users will see this experiment. It is not our intention to disrupt
      referrer tracking, and we are continuing to iterate on this project.

[http://searchengineland.com/google-ajax-search-results- death...](http://searchengineland.com/google-ajax-search-results-death-to- search-term-tracking-16431)

</comment><comment><USER3> Many of the comments seem to assume that websites are entitled to know what I searched for. I think that it would be a great step to give millions of people a little more privacy, even if it's just an accidental side effect of a change to Ajax.

<comment><USER4> I feel that the benefit in letting webmasters know what their users are looking for outweighs any privacy gains to be had. If people are that concerned about their privacy they could always set their browser to not send the referrer. I doubt that this move has anything to do with concern over user privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a potentially huge problem. Google is effectively cutting off all other search analytic packages from their information.

<comment><USER6> No, they're not. It's not like they're deliberately obfuscating the information in order to shut everybody else out. They've made a technology decision which will probably significantly speed up searches and result in increased revenues for them. Google shouldn't be beholden to other people's business models.

That said, given the amount of referrals that Google generates, and how important referral information is for a lot of things online, as a courtesy Google should probably communicate this to the web-at-large before rolling it out on a massive scale. However, they're not "cutting off" other search analytic packages. At worst they're forcing a rushed bugfix.

<comment><USER7> Yes they are cutting off other search analytic packages. If there is no tracking of the search term in the referring url then the analytics package has no way to determine what keywords were used to bring a user to the page.

Since google provides one of the most commonly used analytics packages, Google Analytics, and owns another, Urchin, I would think that they would be the last ones to try this.

<comment><USER8> I thought Urchin became GA? I remember early on in my analytics use the script mentioned urchin, and the newer one they provide doesn't anymore...

<comment><USER7> I think that Urchin was the basis for GA. Urchin is still available from google here though <http://www.google.com/urchin/>. The main difference that I know of between them is that Urchin has the ability to parse server logs as well as track users through javascript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google is a business who wants you to use their analytical service over others. They have no obligation to you send you the information their users are using to find your site.

<comment><USER10> Google is also arguably close to being a effective monopoly in web search. Antitrust law prohibits using monopoly power in one market (eg search) to acquire a monopoly in another market.

So there's a bit of a bind for Google: strategies that were perfectly legal when they were up-and-coming become illegal at some point of dominance. But there's no 'bright line' for when the rules change -- market definition, thresholds, and acceptable practices can all be argued after the fact.

A naturally competitive company is almost certain to keep the 'pedal to the metal' until it's too late.

<comment><USER11> Is there ever really a "too late"? Shouldn't Google push for dominance as far as it possibly can? Isn't it some other entity's role to stop them?

<comment><USER10> Depends on how the risk and costs of antitrust punishment compare to the benefits of 'full speed ahead'.

<comment><USER12> If Google ever gets split up in an antitrust case, they'll most likely pull a T-1000 and reemerge years down the line the same way that AT&T did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't really see how google can easily pass the search query to Google Analytics. GA requires atomic data to perform all this analysis and custom segmentation magic.

The only way I see is using a cookie (with a user id) on the google.com domain, which ga.js must interpret in backend on every request. But this means that ga.js will have to be dynamically generated, rather than being a simple static file (and yes, it won't be cached by users visiting your site, making tracking even slower). I don't think google wants this additional load every time anyone loads some GA-enabled page on the web. Besides, ga.js is currently hosted on google-analytics.com, not google.com, so all users will need to upgrade to a new tracking script. And it will not be possible to self-host the script anymore.

Anyway, this does not sound like anything reasonable to me. I hope it won't be implemented - it would destroy an entire industry, and not a redundant one.

<comment><USER14> When you click a link from a google SERP, it goes through a redirect script. They could easily be using that to feed Google Analytics.

<comment><USER13> Yes, but in that case other web analytics packages will also have access to referrer that contains the search query and there is no problem.

I wasn't clear enough, sorry - I was concerned with how Google could be able to share the search query _only_ with GA but not other analytics tools, because it is clear that Google will not sacrifice GA usefulness to some ajax SERPs.

<comment><USER15> I might be missing something, but I think Google can easily modify their redirect script to store the data they want (for use by Google Analytics) and then strip that data out before it hits the target URL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _See how there's a hash mark # in there now, and the "q=test" is after it? The problem is that web browsers don't send anything after the # in the referrer string._

I wonder why they don't send it in referrer string. Are there any technical or security reasons?

<comment><USER2> Originally the content after the # was only used for automatic scrolling to particular tags within a page, so there was no need to ever send it to a server. Once Ajax came around, people realized you could use javascript to read the url after the # and do arbitrary stuff based on it. So you can show different pages at

      foo.com/
      foo.com/#bar

but since the server doesn't treat them differently, when the user transitions from one to the other, there's no page reload. So you can move from page to page, but cut n pasting links still works.

There are libraries like RSH that let you do this to speed up your site.

<comment><USER17> Seems to me that browsers ought to start including the fragment (the part after the #) in the referrer, now that different fragments can refer to entirely different pages. I can't see any security issues, as the previous poster was wondering.

<comment><USER2> There would be security issues if any existing website has put confidential user data after the #, expecting that no other website would see this in the referers. This doesn't seem typical, but still I'm sure some websites would have security issues if this was changed.

Also, practically speaking, even if all browser developers agree this was a good thing, it takes quite a long time for people to upgrade their browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just wow. I'm really starting to anti-trust Google.

<comment><USER19> They don't owe you that information, sure it's nice I guess...

In any event, the only way I can think to do this with an ajax search is to pass every outgoing link click through a redirection script, so that the referrer is rewritten to something useful.

However, whilst improving things for webmasters, that would seriously negate the point of using ajax, and be a pain for end users.

Google are serving their end users. I don't think trust comes into it TBH.

What would you rather google do? _not_ progress and use ajax search, or use a redirection and make a worse experience for end users?

<comment><USER20> Unless I'm way off, Google is already doing a redirection script on all outbound clicks. The endpoint url shows up in the footer of the browser on hover, but if you right-click and copy the link location, you get something like:

[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FY_Combinator&ei=k8KISfaEJpGksQOturCOBg&usg=AFQjCNGLIQ4vyID6JQEC5r9XGE36mIoZUg&sig2=CZQgmDgORRcK6IceMaiCsQ)

<comment><USER2> The author says he is seeing referers of just "google.com/" in his logs. If they were redirected wouldn't he be seeing these /url pages instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hmmm. I'm not seeing this new "feature" when I search Google. I've turned on Javascript, I'm accepting Google cookies, I've even logged in. And I still see the usual <http://www.google.com/search?q=ajax+crap> results URL. I'm running Firefox 3.0.5.

Anyone know what triggers the new search results?

<comment><USER13> Probably (and hopefully) it's just being bucket-tested...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There are a variety of things which I don't think anybody has noted. First of all, for those without Javascript, the old Google page is used. So, you'll still see some sampling of keywords coming in... albeit only 2% of what it originally was. So it's not _totally_ ruining things. You'll still get some sample of referring keywords.

The benefits to Google are more than anybody is reading into. It is _definitely_ an intentional move to cloak their redirects and keywords. And it _definitely_ increases performance for them.

Performance gains:

The back/forward buttons do not cause anything to be reloaded. This should save a nice percentage of page loads which were along the lines of "what was my last search?" and going back and forth between pages.

If you look at Firebug, the Ajax request is actually going to the proper google search page... google.com/search?q=... Google is taking the entire search page and essentially replacing it without a page refresh. This doesn't really mean anything significant, it's just a neat observation.

Strategy:

More than anything, in the long run this will improve search results. It's not about locking down the "analytics" arena... as one poster noted, they probably won't be able to show Google search terms either (unless they set a cookie on the Google search page, and read it on GooAnal [yes, GooAnal] pages, which might actually happen). The important thing is: _SEO gamers now do not have access to which google keywords work and don't work_. Without giving SEO gamers which keywords are working and which aren't, it's going to be a lot tougher to game the system. These SEO firms that manage to get the spammiest crap on the top pages won't have much to work off of other than the raw amount of visitors coming from google. I imagine that Google has secretly rolled out quite a few significant changes in their search algorithm as well, to work in tandem with keeping analytics in the dark.

My prediction is, in a few months, you'll be thanking Google for the much better search results. I welcome this change with open arms, because I'd much rather see quality content rise to the top, rather than gamed content targeted at keywords. The trade-off that people running websites won't be able to see referring keywords... well I guess Google might lose .001% of their market share.

<comment><USER14> "My prediction is, in a few months, you'll be thanking Google for the much better search results."

I don't really think this is going to change anything. How is this going to affect SEO? I doubt any of them use referrers logs - waste of time. They scrape the SERPs. The old SERPs are still available. They can tell when a rank goes up or down.

How is this going to change that?

<comment><USER22> It's one thing to tell what rank you are on what keyword, but quite another to track how much traffic you are getting from a specific keyword. Though I guess there's ways to estimate that.

You bring up a good point, though. Guess it's not as grand a scheme as I thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Surprised to see this as the keyword reports are a big part of Google Analytics as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> I just looked at the Source for google.com's new search result page, You can't read 1 word of english off it - totally Ajax. Looks amazingly complex.

</comment><comment><USER25> the standard is the referrer being in the HTTP headers, not specifically that if the referrer is google, that it must include the search terms used in their search

we seem to be putting more reliance on these flimsy things... in the future will i create an outage because i @somebody instead of #something on twitter?

<comment><USER26> In the case of web browsers, we don't even SEE the stuff that comes after the #

So it's not like putting "@someone" instead of "#someone" but rather like putting "" instead of "#someone"

See the difference+

<comment><USER25> sorry, maybe a bad example on my part, my point is that querystring parameters being passed should include the search terms used on that search engine is something of a rule of thumb more so than a standard... but i don't know that there are any standards built on top of the http referrer other than this is how google and many others operated, so these reporting companies wrote code that relied on that, rather than coding to a standard.

<comment><USER27> I can see your point, but if Google adds that capability to Google Analytics they will have a significant advantage over their competitors. So the question is not simply about following an unofficial standard.

<comment><USER28> How would they even do that if there's no query data in the referer? Set a cookie on google.com and then read it back from analytics.google.com is the only thing I can think of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I believe the problem is bigger than what the article points out. Under the new scheme, all search results pages have the same URL. The part after the hash not part of the URL, it is a fragment or anchor.

It breaks my firefox extension that nukes searchwiki. __It breaks my custom CSS for the search results page (see userstyles.org). __I often bookmark google search results in del.icio.us. Depending on how such services are implemented, different search results pages might show up as the same page.

I'd guess there's just a lot of code out there that assume search results are separate URLs, and that's going to break.

 __Those two breakages are simply due to the regex identifying the search results pages not matching anymore, and are easily fixable.

<comment><USER22> Search results to the old ?q= google will still work:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=test>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Google could easily fix this by redirecting through some sort of shim script. But will they?

</comment><comment><USER31> Google has ~65% of the search market.

The other 35% is probably still representative enough for you to figure out what the population is searching for that leads to your website.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem with that is that your search ranking for any given key word is probably different in each search engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is anyone _not_ getting this on google.com ? It looks like it might be happening for everyone on google.com, but not on, e.g. google.co.uk or google.it .

<comment><USER13> I don't get anything ajaxy on google.com

Even if I go directly to <http://www.google.com/#q=test> it redirects me to [http://www.google.com/search?q=test&cad=h](http://www.google.com/search?q=test&cad=h)

<comment><USER33> <http://www.google.com/#q=test> sends me to a blank google search with no results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice to get a comment from Google right away, though.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nightmare scenario. What if analytics goes paid?</comment>


Bill Gates' masterpiece, DONKEY.BAS, finally available for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2012/01/28/donkey-bas-is-back/

<comment><USER2> My knowledge of DONKEY.BAS comes from Andy Hertzfeld's story[1] on Folklore.org, which paints the game in a somewhat less nostalgic light.

[1] [http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Donkey.txt)

<comment><USER3> My favorite comment about that was one by "Reed" in this Jeff Atwood blog post -> [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/05/bill-gates-and- donk...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/05/bill-gates-and-donkey- bas.html):

"DONKEY.BAS is actually a great illustration of the early philosophy of MS/PC vs. the Mac philosophy (which has endured to this day, unlike the MS/PC philosophy): The PC and BASIC are for churning out crappy hacks at 4AM that get something simple done acceptably well, not spending days/weeks/months wandering through the Mac toolkit documentation, compiling Pascal, tring to figure the frameworks out, creating icons and graphics, and trying to make some really elegant program.

Compare that idea to Donkey.net to see how much the programming philosophy of MS has changed:

'Donkey .NET is a three-dimensional driving simulator game that demonstrates the new features available to Microsoft Visual Basic developers. Written in Visual Basic .NET RTM, this sample uses XML Web services, multithreading, structured exception handling, shaped Windows Forms, and custom-drawn controls. The sample includes the setups for both the game application and an optional XML Web service used with the game. The setups will also install the source code.'

jeebus. I know it's supposed to basically be a parody, but that means that there's somtehing there to parody!"

<comment><USER4> I think both donkey.bas and donkey.net try and demonstrate the platform's abilities rather than promote elegance.

Things have just got a lot more complicated since donkey.bas.

I don't like the Mac platform as a whole - it doesn't and has never delivered the software environment required for industrial grade business softwarae development. UNIX and Windows have provided that for about 30 and 15 years respectively now. The Mac has end user elegance, but that is it. A large chunk of iCloud is on Windows Azure if that gives and credence to my claim.

Side note: I don't necessarily think that complexity is a good thing and would rather like an 8-bit Z80 powered dark age for 20 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Luckily someone has already brought GORILLAS.BAS to the iPhone:

<http://gorillas.lyndir.com/demo>

</comment><comment><USER6> Altair BASIC was Gates' masterpiece. DONKEY.BAS was probably just a quick throwaway.

</comment><comment><USER7> Donkey Source:

<http://drivey.com/DONKEYQB.BAS.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> I think his masterpiece is having persuaded a lot of very, very rich people to give away huge chunks of money to charity, and the amount of money he gives away to various charitable causes himself, and being personally involved in making sure it is used in the right way.

</comment><comment><USER9> From the article comments:

If Bill was really that smart he would have realized that on a road track having larger front wheels would be important. His car is more appropriate for the drag strip not a road race. I guess he didn't have a proper beta test or proper user review before publication.

Annoys me when donkey killing software isn't realistic.

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting that the iOS download is .5mb, which is the lowest I ever remember seeing. And probably 50x the size of the original version.

<comment><USER11> _And probably 50x the size of the original version._

Actually it's closer to 120x ;)</comment></comment>


Self-referencing ManyToMany through with Django - <AUTHOR> http://www.charlesleifer.com/blog/self-referencing-many-many-through/ How to implement self-referencing many-to-many relationships in Django. Example use cases are modeling asymmetrical following (a-la twitter) or symmetrical friendship (a-la facebook). <comment><USER2> This is an excellent guide. Very clear on usage and writing with the correct Django pattern. Thanks for submitting this.</comment>


Angular Expression Injection Vulnerability Excercize - <AUTHOR> http://ryhanson.com/angular-expression-injection-vulnerability/ <comment><USER2> Author here. Thanks for sharing! I was wondering why I was getting traffic from HN :)</comment>


HP's x360 14 Chromebook is a radical change from last year's model - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1391141 <comment><USER2> I have a three year old Chromebook, still really useful. Kevin Mitnick in his latest book suggests Chromebooks or iPads for online banking because they are more secure.</comment>


Nvidia  – significant increases in parental benefits for employees - <AUTHOR> https://virtuallyvisual.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/nvidia-significant-increases-in-parental-benefits-for-employees/ <comment><USER2> "they've left their teeny 6 week old baby in nursery to pay the mortgage etc…" As someone living in Denmark, this really blows my mind. In no way should a 6 week old baby be in a nursery. Here the norm would be 6 months to a year before they see any kind of nursery/daycare.

<comment><USER3> When my wife and I took a birth class in Boston, the ice breaker was to go around and say who you were and how much time you had off once the baby came (ostensibly so the instructor could tailor her advice).

After a long string of answers like "two weeks.. three weeks.. six weeks.. four weeks", the international parents in the group felt compelled to begin their introductions with an apology for numbers like six months, one year, two years...

I've never been able to understand how a parent could advocate against European-style healthcare goals (implementation details left as an exercise for technocrats).

<comment><USER4> > I've never been able to understand how a parent could advocate against > European-style healthcare goals

I'm pretty sure parental leave is not mentioned in the US Constitution nor in the founding documents of most countries.

If we don't have it today, it's not because people advocated against it and removed it, it's because we simply haven't had enough push to advocate _for_ it and _add_ it.

Large countries have a _ton_ of inertia. Diverse, thinly populated countries even more so. When people are far apart, they care much more about local politics and their neighbors than they do centralized government. Making change happen at that scale is _very very hard_.

People living in European countries enjoy criticizing the US on stuff like this, but they fail to realize how much bigger and more spread out we are than they are. The US is more than twice as large as the entire EU. Our density is less than a _third_ of the EU's.

Another comment here mentions Denmark. If Denmark was a US state, it would be 36th in size, smaller than more than half of all US states. In population, it has fewer than 20 other states. The metropolitan area of the city I live in (Seattle) alone has almost half the population of the entire country of Denmark. LA and surrounding environments contain more than two Denmarks worth of people.

Consider if every US state were to independently enter the EU. In that case, of the top 40 largest members by area, _only 9 would still be in Europe._

The US is behind in many ways, but this is not because we are backwater full of regressive idiots. We are a very large country without the density and homogeneity to benefit from good economies of scale. It's a lot easier to reach consensus and move a government forward when you have fewer people and they can more easily relate to each other.

If you are unable to understand why we might not have attained the same healthcare goals as your country, consider that your inability to understand people whose situation is different from yours is the exact psychological problem that slows us down.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I gather the defense you're making for the US's position. You're arguing that since the US populous is so spread out they have a hard time getting on the same page to advocate for positive change in health policies?

What part of population density or land mass size makes for this excuse where there's examples worldwide of both ends of either measure who've implemented paid leave by law:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Variation_in_international_law)

Countries larger and smaller than the USA have better policy. Countries with greater and lesser population densities. Diversity of people _might_ matter but I fail to see a demographic within the US that is outright against increased parental benefits of new parents that doesn't exist within every country that _has_ overcome the problem.

<comment><USER6> The parent comment by munificent is just making the lazy go-to excuse for US policies that it's so big / special / whatever that everything has to be different there.

Notice how these lazy comparisons never make any specific comparisons to other countries that would trivially refute their claims, such as Russia having 4x less population density than the US, but still somehow managing to have a federally mandated parental leave.

If it were true that it's just so hard for people far removed from one another geographically to relate to each other wouldn't it follow that the situation in Russia would be 4x worse than the US?

<comment><USER7> Well, I would suspect that the US is much more culturally diverse than Russia. Something like a quarter of all US residents are foreign born or have a foreign born parent; that's reflected in cities like NYC. I am doubtful the numbers are similar for Russia, which is very large and does have some ethnic and cultural diversity, but has been dealing with the same groups for much longer and probably in more of an authoritarian way.

Not a defense of America; I do think the difference is more complicated than just the size.

<comment><USER8> [Insert default arguments of why America is special]

1.) big and sparse. oh wait..

2.) culturally diverse. oh wait.. [1][2][3][4]

I only have one explanation for social service scarcity in the US: It seems to be dominated by a culture where you'd rather have large parts of the population suffer rather than having anyone chip in for the bill of groups of people (s)he doesn't identify with. It's the idea of self responsibility pushed to an unhealthy extreme. At the same time when talking to people in the US personally (almost) everyone seems to be helpful and nice, much more so than in most European countries actually. That dichotomy is something I'm really struggling with, i.e. I fail to find a good explanation.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Ethnic_groups)

[2] [http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity- leav...](http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2014/11/11/maternity-leave- allowance-china.html)

[3] [https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil- healthca...](https://www.angloinfo.com/brazil/how-to/page/brazil-healthcare- pregnancy-birth-maternity-leave)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_Brazil#Ethnicities_by_region)

<comment><USER7> Keeping to the comparison with Russia, I think the data bears out my point.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)

That's a very different story than the Russia link you provided, which, as I suspected, says that the country is mostly a) ethnically Russian and b) the rest are minorities the Russians have been dealing with for most of their history. I've even seen suggestions that the "White" category is perhaps too coarse, with observable cultural and political differences between whites of English descent and whites of German descent.

There's another pertinent datapoint, which is that Russia has a very low TFR and is experiencing a population _decline_ and is pursuing policies to reverse that, as it is seen as a major problem. The US, on the other hand, continues to grow, largely because of immigration; policies to increase the number of children are superfluous.

That said, as I mentioned earlier, I think that's just a _factor_. Every country _is_ special and has to be considered on its own terms. Is geographic size a factor? Probably. Is population size a factor? Probably. Is population diversity a factor? Probably. Is some remnant of the mythological self- reliance of American frontierism a factor? Probably. Is the rivalry with the USSR a factor? Probably.

Moreover, while I personally would like at a minimum a year of paid parental leave, the idea that parental leave represents Forward Progress and any country that doesn't have it is _backward_ and deserves to be shamed is rather disturbing. Instead of trying to shame America to conform to somebody elses' norms, we should probably work instead on convincing them that it's a worthwhile and workable idea, and that the potential tradeoffs are worth making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm lucky enough to be Canadian and we've had universal parental leave for some time now, though not at full pay. Of my group of 5 close families, all of them ended up taking some form of parental leave. One parent was initially told no by her company before she pointed out that the government enforced this and the company couldn't say no.

Most did things like rent a house somewhere else and stay for 2-3 weeks. All of them still rave bout this as being some of the best times of lives. If you do ever get the chance to do this, I recommend doing it with another couple in the same situation so you have a built in baby sitter so you can go out to diner without having to worry about who is watching your new born.

Just to show the other side, one of my friends sent out this article below to highlight the downside of parental leave. As this becomes more common, I think companies will learn but it can still be a sticky topic.

[http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/the- dark-s...](http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/the-dark-side-of- maternity-leave/)

<comment><USER10> I hope to one day have children and experience these things, but this runs counter to the narrative that parents put forward rationalizing why these kinds of benefits should not be afforded to people who choose not to have children. Often I've seen the argument that having and raising children is, itself, a form of work not a vacation or that having children is a form of public good and that's the reason why we can't all just have a standard paid "leave of absence".

<comment><USER11> _raising children is, itself, a form of work_

This would be true if the child were the property of the company paying for its raising ;-)

<comment><USER10> There's a problem in language here too. Obviously a child isn't a form of paid work in service of a company, but if not work and if not vacation what is this? If this is a medical leave, then how do we extend this opportunity for medical leave to those who choose to not or cannot have children?

Or do we just say that having children is just that, having children, and that parenting is a privileged class?

<comment><USER11> On a planet of 7Bn with dwindling resources the case that making more people should be rewarded or subsidized isn't very convincing.

<comment><USER12> If you don't subsidize another country will. Where will that get you in a couple generations.

<comment><USER11> What are you saying, that only children of your own race matter?

<comment><USER10> No they are saying that the societies best investment in the future is ensuring that the children of that society are nurtured and provided for. I agree with this and I think it's on us all to pitch in.

I also think that those who don't have children should have the opportunity to have the same time away from work that parents who get time to "have the best times of their lives" are allowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Am I reading this correct ? 12 weeks of paid paternity leave. My jaw is still hanging :) (Maternity leave is awesome too but its already more than 22 weeks in the country I live).

<comment><USER14> Google has had 12 weeks for a while. I think Facebook is even more (3 or 4 months).

<comment><USER15> 12 weeks is 3 months :)

I believe FB is 16 weeks?

<comment><USER14> 3 months is actually 13 weeks, which is why I referred to it as more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While some gap in paid maternity vs paternity leave is permissible as women uniquely have to recover from a childbirth (considered short-term disability), courts have found 6-weeks as the typical recovery time and thus the typical allowed difference in maternity/paternity leave duration [1]. Nvidia's clearly understands this issue - adoptive and foster parents parents receive the same leave as paternity (no disability for these groups of course).

How are they've overcoming the legal issues around offering a 10-week difference in maternity/paternity leave?

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/business/attitudes- shift-o...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/business/attitudes-shift-on- paid-leave-dads-sue-too.html)

<comment><USER17> Why would there be legal issues? Don't they have no obligation to do anything beyond the FMLA?

<comment><USER16> It's a legal issue because courts have previously interpreted large differences (i.e. beyond recovery time) in _paid_ maternity vs paternity leave as a gender discrimination issue. See linked NYT article above

One example from the article: "Just last week, CNN and Turner Broadcasting quietly settled an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge with a former CNN correspondent, Josh Levs, who claimed that the company's paid parental leave policy discriminated against biological fathers.

At the time Mr. Levs's daughter was born, in October 2013, CNN offered 10 weeks of paid leave to biological mothers and the same amount to parents of either gender who adopted children or relied on surrogates. By contrast, the company offered two weeks of paid leave to biological fathers."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is really awesome! Good for you nvidia! As a dad it sucks typically getting such low amounts of time off simply because I wasn't the one who gave birth when I want to bond with the baby as well as help my wife with anything I can. The last two times we had a baby they were at companies where I had to take vacation time to cover my time off (I was only able to take a little over a week off the last time).

</comment><comment><USER11> And if you don't want kids the consolation prize is lots of unpaid overtime covering for your fellow employees...

</comment><comment><USER19> The American company I work for gives 24 weeks (6 months) of both maternity and paternity paid leave, more if you need it. As a single guy I'm a bit envious, but at least I get a 3 month paid sabbatical every 5 years plus unlimited time off.

I'm surprised more companies don't do this.

<comment><USER20> What exactly are you envious of? That those 6 months off are akin to a 6 month vacation? It's a full-time job.

The smart business move would be to let people just take the time "off" and come back healthy and rested after a few months. Not sure why businesses don't see this obvious fact.

<comment><USER17> > That those 6 months off are akin to a 6 month vacation? It's a full-time > job.

Except I'm sitting in a little room all day staring at a computer, you're spending all day with your family and seeing your new child walk and talk for the first time.

Gee, I wonder who has a more rewarding time.

<comment><USER20> You think new parents sitting around laughing and taking pictures all day? hahahaha sorry, no.

New parenting (infants) is about 5% photo-filled rewarding, 95% just repetitive work, cleaning up shit (literally), waking up every couple of hours, trying to keep it together with your spouse in stressful situations with very little sleep, and feeding this organism that will eventually have a personality and start interacting back. And that ratio gradually changes as they grow older.

I remember after the first month, I used to consider going to the office my "break from parenting" because of its consistency and ability for my mind to just rest for a bit.

Just remember when you're asking a parent of an infant to have a full-time job on top of parenting, you've essentially now got an employee that is splitting their time/attention/energy between two jobs. If you're ok with the altered productivity, then that's fine.

But let's not fool ourselves.

<comment><USER17> I refuse to accept this ridiculous idea that you are making some great sacrifice by taking time off after your kid is born. If it's so horrible then don't take the time off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well if you like vacation or planning to have a child, you should get a job in Sweden.

[https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental- leave/](https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I just wanna buy an NVIDIA rig now

<comment><USER23> Funny, I thought ATI had a pretty large presence in Canada before AMD bought them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> According to NVIDIA's glassdoor, they have a thing where you can ask any time to take time off for any amount of time. It means you have to stress out about negotiation, according to reviews.

This seems to be a stark contrast between the normal policy!

</comment><comment><USER25> How much vacation time does Nvidia offer?

</comment><comment><USER26> This is obviously a nice gesture by Nvidia but I always wonder how can it be legal to have different amounts for father/mothers? Are there no laws on discrimination based on sex in the US?

<comment><USER27> It's a political 3rd rail. There are laws about discrimination based on sex in the US, but you generally get a lot of flack for pointing out the unfairness if it benefits women, which is mostly considered ok since it's making up for the many years that the discrimination went the other way (and I'm actually ok with that).

And to be fair, it's a hell of a lot harder on a birth mother than anyone else. You'll notice adoptive mothers in this policy only get the 12 week benefit too, so this one is already fairer than most.

<comment><USER28> Your use of "unfairness" sticks out to me, considering you go on to say you're OK with it. Are you actually OK with the disparity or do you think it's unfairness? Can't really be both.

<comment><USER29> Unfair can simply mean not the same. Dunno about GP but this is a pretty popular sentiment. Look at e.g. GitHub saying they won't consider racial or sexist behaviour, depending on who is the offender. Look at recent popular protests in the US, where leaders organize people on skin colour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is there something going on right now about parental leave benefits? Just a few stories below this one is a similar piece about Patagonia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I am the person who submitted the link. I got to know the Nvidia story last night because a long-term friend who works there posted it on social media. He is newly wed, so he is understandably very excited about the new policy about paternal leave.

It is indeed an interesting coincidence that there is another story about parental leave at the front page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _In no way should a 6 week old baby be in a nursery._

It's the price you must pay for having so much Freedom (TM).

<comment><USER32> It's the price they pay for taking on a mortgage payment that can't be met on a single income.

<comment><USER33> I was kinda thinking the same thing but kept my mouth shut. My wife stays at home and I mostly work from home. We aren't rich, but are doing alright.

<comment><USER32> Same here. I used to live in NYC, but planned for a significant lifestyle change (move, job, etc.) with kids because I didn't want (and couldn't afford) to pay someone else to watch them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I doubt it's related, but today NVIDIA's stock price is down 2.4%. I don't remember it falling down that much in intraday for a while.

I don't know who took this decision to just give away money and free time to employees, and maybe it's good PR after all, but I do hope this is not announcing a trend.

<comment><USER35> I applaud it very much. When a company has money to give to someone, they can give it to shareholders or employees (or just the bosses who set their own remuneration). It's nice to see it going to employees. It's not just good PR; it's good. I hope it is a trend, and I'm speaking as someone who currently makes more money as a shareholder than from my job.

<comment><USER34> Employees are supposed to receive a salary in exchange for their work. The decision on how to distribute profits is, theoretically, made by shareholders. Maybe they decided to give some to employees in order to improve morale or something. If so, that's OK. If somehow the shareholders were left out of this decision, via some authoritative action from the executives or something, it's wrong.

<comment><USER35> "The decision on how to distribute profits is, theoretically, made by shareholders"

I disagree strongly. When shareholders purchase their shares, the rights they get with it are clear. Very, very commonly, they do not include the right to set renumeration. Not theoretically. Not practically. Not at all. Non-voting stock very deliberately gives shareholders no power.

"If somehow the shareholders were left out of this decision, via some authoritative action from the executives or something, it's wrong."

I disagree very strongly. It is the job of the executives to make these decisions. Their first duty is _not_ to shareholders, despite the pernicious myth that there's some kind of legal obligation to do the best for shareholders. Shareholders do not need to be consulted.

<comment><USER34> They are not supposed to make decisions regarding personal management, but if those decisions consist in throwing money at employees, they may certainly be pissed off.

Shareholders literally _own_ the company. They have influence on _everything_ , at least indirectly. They vote the board of directors, so if they are not happy with the way employees are thrown money at, they will sack the directors and elect a board that will not do the same thing.

<comment><USER35> "They are not supposed to make decisions regarding personal management, but if those decisions consist in throwing money at employees, they will certainly be pissed off."

Not only are shareholders not _supposed_ to make such decisions, they also actually don't make those decisions. Literally _owning_ the company doesn't actually mean they can do what they like it, and that's how it should be. It's not as if they're liable for anything the company does wrong, so even calling it "ownership" is a leap.

Secondly, I am a shareholder and I applaud this. I'm not pissed off. I take a long term view and I find the attitude of shareholder value above all to be backwards and damaging.

I also know that the best shareholders could do is put up their own nominations for directorship positions. It would damage the company and should be done, frankly, only if the company was already a slow motion car crash. Sometimes you see activists doing this as a prelude to getting as much money as they can out of a healthy company.

Here's a company doing its job, looking after its employees and investing in its future.

<comment><USER34> > Secondly, I am a shareholder and I applaud this.

I'm a shareholder as well. I'm willing to believe this decision was made for good reasons so I give the executives the benefit of the doubt, but to me it _is_ slightly worrying.

You applaud this, fine. We disagree, still fine. There is no right or wrong here, in the end it's only the votes that count. Because, if what the executives do pisses enough shareholders, they will be voted out and unlike you I believe this is all right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This fucking over everybody who isn't going to have children, can't have children or are die having children.

<comment><USER37> They can adopt and get the same 12 weeks away from work if they want to.</comment></comment>