1000+ Uber employees want Travis back - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/over-1-000-uber-employees-ask-for-travis-kalanick-to-return-2446313529.html <comment><USER2> It's pretty clear to me that having Travis involved in some capacity going forward is in the best interest of long-term shareholder value.

How could you not believe this? Founders and long-time CEO's have so much knowledge and company/industry specific experience -- much of which will be useful and some of which is undoubtedly not replaceable.

IMO, anyone who thinks this would not be a good move for the company is being blinded by hate.

Sure, we can debate whether his return is good for society but for the company? No question.

The real question is whether Travis wants to help in this capacity anymore.

<comment><USER3> So we should forget about whether its good for the world and just focus on shareholder value? And i suppose you will go on to justify it by citing benefits of more money for shareholders, better company, perfect economic systems and efficient services etc.

I think thats a horrible idea. The real question IS whether we should reward companies that get ahead by ANY means necessary and their leaders. We should not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> culture doesn't change over night.

there is no surprise that there is a big group supporting TK, but that doesn't mean much at this stage.

founders set the culture in an organisation, and hire people that gel well with their views of the world / values. so it's a logical consequence that a big part of the workforce will support him. But that also might be the real problem for Uber's future...

<comment><USER5> > But that also might be the real problem for Uber's future...

Thats fair. But it's also possible that a company can succeed with values that don't match yours, the vocal minority, or even the majority. e.g. Comcast.

Arguably in some industries companies do better with values that _arent_ the majority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are they afraid that a new CEO will come in and actually demand the company start losing less money?

</comment><comment><USER7> 1000+ out of 12000 is like 10%.

I wonder what the other 90% think.

<comment><USER8> Obviously not interested in having hom back, especially considering how easy it was to vote yes. All it took was a click, something one does hundreds of times a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Read the article. The employees who want Travis back are people who clicked into the letter/thread and read it. No positive assertion that those who read the letter actually endorse the position. Let's generously say half of the 1000 endorse it. That's 5% of the entire employee base. I'd be interested to see how many of the entire employee base expresses the viewpoint that they don't want him back.

</comment><comment><USER10> Margaret's beautiful message to Kalanick deserves to be posted here -

I'm angry, sad, flustered, confused, but mostly just heartbroken. The only appropriate thing to say right now is thank you, Travis. Thank you for inspiring not only your own employees but an entire generation of entrepreneurs. Thank you for inspiring us to think bigger, faster, and higher- impact than anyone has ever dared to think before. Thank you for creating a place where no idea was too crazy. When we told you that in order to make the product accessible for our international riders we would need to accept cash payments, you weren't thrilled but you were willing to give it a shot. When your employees told you that we needed to change some aspects of the internal culture, you were sad but you were all ears. Building the best possible product, the best possible company- it requires humility. Admitting you might be wrong and being open to change. I was always impressed by how truly humble you were.

Thank you for creating a place so passionate about bringing affordable, reliable transportation to the whole world that your employees all over the globe were willing to hop on planes, get on Zoom calls at bizarre hours of the day, manually onboard thousands of drivers, stand on street corners handing out flyers to riders, and build last-minute stunt products to help celebrate the communities they were a part of. I've seen firsthand the impact this product has had worldwide and the universal fire and passion that Uber employees all over the world have to constantly improve it, to always be serving drivers and riders better, and to perpetually push closer and closer to truly making transportation as reliable as running water, for everyone, everywhere.

Thank you for creating a culture where- as a woman- it was okay to, no, encouraged to speak up. This is one of my oft less-told anecdotes, but I feel it's appropriate given the circumstances. Before Uber, I was at Facebook. I left Facebook because I was told that I was too aggressive. Pushing too hard, wanting to move too fast, challenging the status quo a bit too much. The amazing part is that coming to Uber was like a homecoming. I could be who I truly am, without being labeled an "aggressive" woman. I could push on assumptions, move quickly, do whatever work needed to be done whether it was "in my area" or not, question leadership in an open, earnest environment. It was like a breath of fresh air. I don't think people realize how unique this is. This company truly listens to every voice, from the VPs all the way down to the junior PMs like myself. Thank you. Thank you for listening and creating an environment where the best answer truly does win. And thank you on behalf of your riders and drivers. You've created millions of earning opportunities for drivers all over the world. From the part-time student teacher driver to the full-time driver in India, these are real economic opportunities at an unprecedented scale. I'm always amazed talking to drivers in India or Indonesia or Mexico or Kenya- their story is not too dissimilar from the drivers I talk to on my way home from work in SF. Uber has allowed them to build a better life for their family- to send their kids to school, to work more flexible hours so that they can be there for their family. Not to mention the newfound mobility that Uber affords millions upon millions worldwide. Elderly folks & teens can now access their city, stress-free. People can go out for a drink- or three- and get home safely without endangering those around them. Uber is fundamentally reshaping people's transportation habits and how they interact with their cities. This kind of impact would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, but we've made it a reality- thanks to your vision.

So thank you. We've mis-stepped at times- I'll be the first to admit that Uber is not perfect. But the positive impact you've had on this company, and the world, is truly inspirational.

Goodbyes always suck. Thanks to the OG Builder.

</comment><comment><USER11> And lots who are happy for a change too

<comment><USER12> And lots of those who have already proclaimed #deleteuber and would never use their service again regardless, so why pander to their interests?

Much like the groups who rail against McDonald's and their so-called 'unhealthy' menu, who would never eat there and continue to trash talk their business even after getting their way.

Personally I just want a car to pick me up for a for a reasonable price. The internal politics is something I do not care about as with any company I do business with.

Nobody deserves to be shamed for their spending choices.

<comment><USER13> > The internal politics is something I do not care about as with any company I > do business with.

It went way beyond internal politics and including some truely disgusting behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Margaret-Ann Seger's post referenced in the article: [https://www.facebook.com/margaretann.seger/posts/10214004058...](https://www.facebook.com/margaretann.seger/posts/10214004058522221)

</comment><comment><USER15> Ultimately the CEO works for the board and not the employees. I hate to say it but the employees probably have little to no influence here, whether they're right or wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can anyone confirm if Axios would pick up a "PR glamor piece"? Articles like this are suspect, but I don't know very much about Axios.

<comment><USER17> I had the opposite takeaway. So many employees clamoring for leadership with such abysmal values is a sign the rot has spread. Not a pro-Uber PR piece.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. Before this I could arguably say that management was rotting away, but the rank and file should be excluded from judgment because they have no control.

But to hear this and read posts on social media lamenting the loss of Travis, and then contrasting it to the silence from Uber employees regarding Susan Fowler is stark and deafening.

If this is the type of people they select for, the ones who prioritize success by any means necessary, then Uber should maybe be a black mark.

<comment><USER19> Yikes, such unbelievably strong pre-conceived biases in your post. How about the alternate and more plausible scenario where Uber employees who arguably have the most clear understanding of the culture issues internally recognize the various dynamics at play – unlike a very black and white view you seem to be extrapolating from the outside?

<comment><USER18> > most clear understanding of the culture issues internally

Is it really clear internally? It's clear to me that they don't understand the issues otherwise it wouldn't have taken public furor for them to start fixing it

<comment><USER20> > otherwise it wouldn't have taken public furor for them to start fixing it

Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the public furor is the result of an over-zealous media that likes to manufacture controversy because that's the most profitable modus operandi?

There are no lack of companies in tech and out of tech with the same problems.

Where's the public fury about those companies? That's right, there is none because the media doesn't make money writing about it. Heck, there was a UPS shooting in San Francisco like a week ago where I think four people died and the shooter was motivated by workplace grievances. Where was the public furor over culture at UPS and criticism of management at UPS? Again, there was none, because there is no money to be made.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ― Philip K. Dick

The world believes Uber has a worse culture than most other companies because the media falsely _believes_ it does, and "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" ― Upton Sinclair

For the record, I'm not saying Uber doesn't have things to fix. I'm saying they have the same things to fix as pretty much everyone else. The difference between them and all other companies is that they are actually being raked over coals to fix those problems that exists industry-wide, if not worldwide. In 6 months to a year, I suspect they will be a better workplace than most as a result.

<comment><USER21> Couldn't agree more. Let's not forget the kind of racial discrimination that exists in all industries, but tech. I speak as an asian immigrant, and i can't see myself working in any other industry, and hope to get to any senior role.

How many immigrants make it to the top tier of management in media companies? None. How many in UPS, banks, the government... you name it. None.

The only reason tech has to answer, is because there is money in tech. There are working class people, making a fortune in tech BY WORKING HARD. The media and the government doesn't like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Stockholm syndrome?

<comment><USER23> My first thought, but it's an imperfect fit -- the employees were not being held hostage.

Is there a comparable 'syndrome' for cult members, who have joined an organization voluntarily? Not saying Uber employees deserve the same sympathy as victims of cults, just that it would be a more apt analogy.

<comment><USER24> Hostage here doesn't have to mean held by force. One can be a hostage of hopes and desires.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Yahoo security policies are retarded. - <AUTHOR>

So I decided to go back through my old email accounts to reset my secret questions/answers to something a little bit harder to guess than my place of birth.
So Google was no problem, you can login and change everything right away.
Not so with Yahoo. Which is by far the most important account, since its about 10 years old and pretty much all accounts are linked there.
First of all you can't change the secret question/password in settings. Only after Googling, did I find out that you need to fill out a form to have a customer service rep let you change it.
2 days later, I finally get a reply from a Yahoo rep with a link to reset the secret question.(talk about a waste of resources) Great, I can finally change it to something harder to guess.
Success...or is it. I go back to retrieve my password page, and yes, it prompts me for a new secret answer. Except...what's this..."This is not my question" link. Clicking which, I get asked my dob(pretty easy to find out) and then it shows up the old secret question which I went through such pains to change.
I mean how stupid is this...they make you jump through hoops to change something that important, and then for your convenience they let you use the recovery option that you tried to change.
And if you are inconvenienced as a hacker by this password recovery option, no worries Yahoo will provide you with the spelled out email addresses which might be less secure. Meanwhile, Google will do the right thing and mask your email address @h*.com
I mean seriously, how are these guys still in business? <comment><USER2> I know mine is not always the popular opinion on this topic, but for something so "important" as email, I don't know why people rely on free service like yahoo, gmail, etc. There are just way too many things out of your control.

My primary mail accounts are linked to a domain that I own/control. They're also on a dedicated server in a colo facility, but I will say that is overkill for most people.

I can pick up my domain and host it just about anywhere I like, in most cases for less than $5 or $10/mo if I wanted to be uber-cheap about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have that now, its just that I used to use Yahoo before, and with 27,114 emails in the inbox its a little hard to find what websites have that email on file. That's why I wanted to change the recovery options, to pretty much make that account inaccessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's actually a lot worse than that. One time I tried to make a second Yahoo account to send anonymous emails from. Somehow Yahoo figured out my real name and filled it in under the account. So I went in and manually deleted my name from the account, and then in the settings changed it so that my name wouldn't appear when I was sending out email from the account.

Then I sent a test email to make sure it really was anonymous, and sure enough my name was still attached to the account. (I even tried sending test emails to someone else who had never gotten email from me to make sure it wasn't my email client playing tricks on me.)

Anyway, if I had actually sent out email thinking it was anonymous then I was have been seriously screwed. What Yahoo is almost certainly grounds from a lawsuit.</comment>


List of non-tech books that have influenced HNers the most - <AUTHOR> http://shelfjoy.com/sia_steel/non-technology-books-that-have-influenced-hn-readers-the-most <comment><AUTHOR> Based on this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13967350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13967350)

and this is why I have done the compilation.

This has turned out to be an amazing thread. While the first 50 books were something I was expecting, Selfish Gene, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy et all, the suggestions went interesting as I kept scrolling. In the spirit of all things books, I've compiled the answers into a list (You were expecting someone to do this, weren't you?) Since, I've done this manually, this is what I've included. 1\. Have only included the first level comments and the books mentioned in them. This means the comments that said, if you liked this, you'll also like this aren't included. 2\. Have included books from comments that have provided good answers to the 'why'. Haven't included just book mentions without explanations of why that has been the most influential book. Which book is mentioned most? Haven't counted, but I think it is Selfish Gene and the Bhagwat Gita! And here is the list --> You guys can go ahead and add these to your reading list.

</comment><comment><USER2> I found it kinda funny/sad when someone checked HN for all books that were mentioned positively, HN likes programming and has RSI.</comment>


Anti-Facebook Social Network "Unthink" Launches To Public - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/25/anti-facebook-social-network-unthink-launches-to-public/

<comment><USER2> And it's down.

This won't kill Facebook by any means. Terrible marketing, bad approach to social networking, and of course it won't make people stop using Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Unthink" is an unflattering name and does not express the what or why of their service compared to Facebook.</comment>


How to Burst the "Filter Bubble" that Protects Us from Opposing Views - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/522111/how-to-burst-the-filter-bubble-that-protects-us-from-opposing-views/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure it's that simple.

People hear opposing views all the time -- they just ignore/hate them. Democrats listened to George Bush talking for eight years. The Republicans are going to be listening to Obama's pronouncements for an equal length of time. None of this is changing any of their minds.

The real issue is _integrating_ opposing views -- the Hegelian dialectic where people take a thesis, antithesis, and turn it into a synthesis -- that's where actual understanding takes place.

But this is very difficult, and while news organizations often pride themselves on presenting "both sides", they generally neglect the synthesis step, because that moves from the realm of supposed impartiality to opinion.

The only exception I can think of is The Economist, whose articles often follow exactly the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model, which of course is why they're known (correctly) for being a heavily opinionated publication. But to their credit, they do generally present "both sides" in most articles, which distinguishes them from traditional opinion writers like columnists, editorial boards, and explicitly partisan media outlets.

<comment><USER3> > Democrats listened to George Bush talking for eight years. The Republicans > are going to be listening to Obama's pronouncements for an equal length of > time.

I think it's actually very rare that the audience get to listen to these people unfiltered. Instead the audience will have chosen their preferred channels and these channels will have pre-digested, edited and analysed any speeches. Any nuance will have been stripped away to match a simplified narrative.

<comment><USER4> "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best way to get out of the bubble is to argue the opposite of your position for a while. Do it anonymously. Even argue a position that you ridicule, just for fun. It's a great excercise that often leads to a deeper understanding of an issue.

<comment><USER6> AKA "trolling".

<comment><USER5> Is it trolling if you are arguing the opposite of what you believe currently in a sincere non-inflammatory manner?

It is because you don't believe it and you're misleading people about what you really think.

Yes, but isn't the point of it all to get to the truth of the matter that exists independently of the debate.

The truth of the matter exists and it's what you really believe. Playing around with contrary viewpoints is just childish.

Why be so arrogant to think you're right and just have to convince the other person? Are you really convinced you know everything there is to know about the issue and can't learn any more from another person who doesn't agree with you?

etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see this as, perhaps, the most important thing I've seen on HN this year.

People come to a conclusion, sometimes by informed means, sometimes not, but however we come to it, we generally stick to that conclusion, for better or worse. Once we've reached that conclusion though, we become very bad scientists. We discard data that doesn't fit with our conclusion, or if we can't discard it, attempt to minimize its significance and promote things that do fit our conclusions as more important.

The media panders to their audience, constantly surveying their audience and reactions, and serving up more and more of the news that we're already predisposed to the news we want to hear. Once a certain capture rate has occurred, the news that people choose begins shaping opinions.

Newsroom parodies this somewhat (disclaimer, I love the show, even though its politics disagree with my own), proclaiming that the Fairness Doctrine was unnecessary, and you can deliver hard-hitting news fairly and accurately without it (which may be a true assumption, maybe not), but then they proceed to deliver extremely biased news coverage that is extremely colored by their own politics and beliefs, presented as intellectualism because we're supposed to get the idea that Will McAvoy is the smartest man in whatever room he's in, so all his opinions are informed by sheer fact and wisdom, so we should believe that whatever he says is true because of that.

Despite that coloring, we see in every off-air scene that he's well informed, but terrible at drawing pragmatic conclusions from a given set of facts, belying that the central theme of the show is even possible with the cast of characters as presented.

Back on topic, because I'm rambling terribly, but the brain rewards itself when it finds facts that agree with its pre-existing beliefs. A chemical 'high five' to reaffirm how right it already was, and to reinforce that it made the right decision before, and now the rest of the world is catching up. I don't know that this can be fixed, but I think that the surest way to mitigate it is to disallow it from becoming too set in its ways, to keep it slightly off- guard, and in a constant state of discomfort.

This might kill us in some other way, and it's possible that the brain will just refuse to allow this, or that we'll all become blathering idiots as a result, but i's at least a step in the right direction of preventing a vicious cycle of arbitrary self-affirmation.

<comment><USER8> Isn't the root of this problem _false dichotomies_? The real reason you don't get synthethesis from two opposing views is that there are _omitted_ variables at play, that typically increase the complexity of the solution.

<comment><USER7> I would agree that's a part of it, but the idea that someone hasn't yet discovered a variable that bears impact on an issue is a far less crucial one than the ability of one's mind to disregard a salient factor as irrelevant.

Without the ability to think critically of an idea that one is endeared to though, none of that matters at all. Meanwhile, the ability to be challenged allows one to accept more variables as relevant than previously.

<comment><USER8> But you're assuming the variables are omitted due to ignorance. That's usually not the case. The people that profit from false dichotomies are using these constructs (typically) on purpose, to gloss over the ugliness of a situation otherwise, which usually involves some form of political advntage, self- dealing, or personal enrichment.

<comment><USER7> I was, and I agree that's an issue with the press... but that doesn't mean that this wouldn't still equate to real progress at a personal level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm interested in reading opposing views, but not stupid ones. If there's a large inferential gap, it often takes me a while to tell the difference. Does this software have a way to distinguish?

<comment><USER10> I'd be interested, maybe, in seeing opposing political views or different opinions on economics, or something like that. Because I'm interested in those things and because I'm not very certain that my current beliefs are correct, when I even have a belief. Just today a friend introduced me to a good documentary that partially changed my view of nuclear power and I learned a lot.

However I wouldn't want to get stuck with something that is a complete waste of time, like creationism, or religion, or abortion, or something along those lines. Or something that just doesn't interest me, like, say, climate change or conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER11> Personally, I have found that even in those areas where I find the intellectual position X to be a complete waste of time, it is still well worth my time to engage empathetically with people who strongly believe X.

I am unlikely to have my mind changed, but I am more likely to understand my fellow human beings better than if I just dismiss all people who believe X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Using [https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com) as a first step: [http://dontbubble.us/](http://dontbubble.us/)

<comment><USER13> Hardly seems to address the problem stated in the article, as a search for "BP" on duckduckgo contains _only_ investment-related information, nothing about the oil spill. At DDG you are in a filter bubble, it's just not _your_ filter bubble. It's someone else's filter, presumably the collective bubble of the engineers at DDG's incredibly lackadaisical and tragically understaffed search quality department.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR version: the idea is that "content you might like" should recommend not only the relevant information of your views, but also the helpful information of opposite views from highly ranked authors. This will milden the polarisation of views and make everyone more informed of the issue.

<comment><USER14> There should be some kind of ranking algorithm for "the best people on our side for talking to people on the other side." This is often very different from the people that my side enjoys listening to, since that often includes a lot of puffery about how our side is _obviously_ correct to anyone with half- a-brain.

<comment><USER7> [http://www.opposingviews.com/](http://www.opposingviews.com/) does a good job here. It lets you see the best arguments from either side at least.

Edit: I dunno what came over me. I had the address transposed in my head. I meant to post a link to debate.org.

<comment><USER15> Where? I just paged through and saw a bunch of mildly controversial news headlines (which did seen an intriguing collection of conversation starters, like hard income limits for Medicare), and then a pile of ad spam for "hot celebrity pics" and testosterone for sale.

<comment><USER7> Corrected, with apologies.

<comment><USER15> Thanks! Debate.org looks good. It even has three sections for highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow; labelled dabatew, views, and polls respectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a keen cyclist (and politically active in this area trying to get better infrastructure in Bath, UK), I have noticed that I seem to be surrounding myself with people that have similar view points (cars are bad for cities, think of the kids).

I have tried to bring in other views by following people, but it seems to only happen when one of the people I follow retweets an inflammatory tweet. I follow, get involved in the discussion then move on. Of course then I've noticed that most of my feed is pro-cycling. I've created my own filter bubble.

I should probably start looking to break out of this 'sub-conscious' filtering I appear to be doing although it would be interesting to have twitter recommend people I would find very annoying to follow.

<comment><USER17> Just because you are subject to confirmation bias doesn't mean you're wrong. I'm not a cyclist, but I can't stand all the cars clogging up my city. So dirty and noisy and dangerous. I'm not convinced cycling is the answer though. Mass transit is best. At least until we all have electric self-driving cars.

<comment><USER6> Why would self-driving cars be better than mass-transit?

<comment><USER18> They get you from point A to point B, not "somewhere near point A to somewhere near point B".

That said, I'm not greatly convinced that this model is better. It's more efficient, certainly, but I regard this in the same way that a nutrient paste is more efficient than eating regular meals. Walking as a part of daily life strikes me as something that has a lot of positive externalities.

<comment><USER19> Self-driving cars don't fix the congestion problem, though. Actually, it is quite plausible that congestion might get _worse_ with the introduction of self-driving cars, because being stuck in traffic will no longer be such a terribly mind-numbing experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > And the danger is that it can polarise populations creating potentially > harmful divisions in society.

I think we already see the effect of this. It gets harder for opposing sides to find common ground - from local to government level. People get more prone to critical commentary, claiming "hurt feelings" at first opportunity. Even here on HN a constructive debate is uncommon.

<comment><USER21> There are many that see this as a feature, not a bug.

The divisions already exist, someone is just exploiting and amplifying them. What's 'common ground' has radically shifted - so what you think is common really isn't so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe it is just me, but when I search for something I look for information, not some bit I happen to agree with for my entertainment.

We see the same problem with the news (think Fox News). It's not information, it's "infotainment".

All it leads to is more people who are no longer able to even consider other viewpoints.

<comment><USER23> " _...when I search for something I look for information..._ "

The problem is, to paraphrase someone I generally disagree with, not in what you _know_ that you don't know, but rather in what you _don 't know_ that you don't know.

To look for information, you have to know it exists; you're less likely to know to look for something if it never impinges on your bubble.

<comment><USER22> Isn't that what I do "partially" with searching, though? I am looking for something I don't necessarily know ahead of time.

The stuff I don't know I don't know is exactly that which is most valuable to broaden my horizon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is huge from an academic standpoint, and I sincerely hope this sort of mind-expanding recommendation will enter the mainstream. Here is a off-the- top-of-my-head list of some introductory thoughts:

\- I'd be willing to bet that people won't react well to this sort of thing popping up in their existing news feeds without their explicit permission. For instance, I'd love to see Facebook or Twitter introduce this as a ranking signal, but I can't see that resulting in meaningful discussion without some careful tuning.

\- This being hacker news, the first thing that comes to mind is "let's found a startup that does this." I'd seriously love to see this turn into a product of some sort. It would face something of an uphill struggle for adoption, but it might not be so bad. One major feature of the "ideal customer" is already lined out: interest in or willingness to tolerate dissenting opinions. Synthesis of opposing views into a new one correlates strongly with education, so that's a group you can reasonably target. College students are into this sort of stuff, so you could go after them. Personally, I think this has potential as a space.

\- Gathering existing data for this sort of thing could be difficult. Access to significant amount of social network data is a must, especially if you will want to perform clustering-type analysis. My hunch is that there may be a way to make this happen without a large quantity of data, but nothing obvious or market-tested comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've seen a lot of discussion of the 'filter bubble', particularly as a way for DuckDuckGo to differentiate itself from other search engines. But I have never seen any scientific data indicating it actually exists. I've seen the TED talk, and I've seen the oft-repeated example involving BP, but I've never seen anything more than a couple of examples about how it might exist.

Has anyone demonstrated in any scientific fashion whatsoever that there is a population of people that are insulated from news they don't want to hear because it is actively being kept from them on an ongoing basis by supposedly unbiased news sources?

Here's the data I do know about: we already have 'news' channels that pander to particular audience, and we've already seen that watching news you agree with activates the same pleasure centers in the brain that are stimulated by watching pornography.

Based on evidence I've seen, the problem is with the audience, not the news. The assertion in the article that the filter "can polarise populations creating potentially harmful divisions in society" seems, well, unfounded, at least so far.

<comment><USER26> I can give you my own experience - i hate using condoms, for various reasons - last time i had to Google condoms i was greeted by pages upon pages of how they constantly break, slip off, make you miserable and on and on

I also had a discussion with a friend - tried Googling to find his viewpoint - anything I'd get was heavily biased towards mine

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The linked paper is a little underwhelming: they find that people generally find a similarity-based tweet recommendation engine "interesting" even with the secret twist that it only shows tweets from those who have opposing views on abortion. Given the study wasn't focused on politics or controversy (except to the extent Chilean Twitter feeds in general are) and no attempt was made to gauge whether anyone had felt their views challenged or found interesting new perspectives, I don't think the "filter bubble" was really burst at all.

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe just me, but I'd love to sign up for a service that did this. I try to take in alternative views all the time, but it's very difficult because

a) I know the reasonable (agreeable to me) voices on my side - I have no idea how to find quality on the other sides.

b) I generally discover opposing views when someone I agree with throws up something so extreme to criticise it.

It would be amazing to have a discovery service that gave good-quality alternative perspectives. Not all the time, because a lot of the time I'm just looking for a particular thing. But certainly some of the time.

</comment><comment><USER29> In related research, the Filter Bubble problem itself is exaggerated: [http://messymatters.com/bubble](http://messymatters.com/bubble)

</comment><comment><USER30> If you live in a filter bubble, it is _your fault_. Google isn't the enemy.

When you believe something and want to check the validity of said statement (already something almost no one does), your Google searches should not be guilty of confirmation bias. For example - you think test driven development is a pile of crap. If you search for "TDD is stupid," then that is not Google's fault. That is your fault for not understanding remedial philosophy/logic.

</comment><comment><USER31> Here's what I would love to see some day and am quite sure I don't (yet) have the clout to pull off myself:

A recommendation engine which points me to articles espousing opposite views to my own but which are rated highly in terms of being understandable & logical _by other opponents of the view in the article_.

For example, as a Christian, I would love to find articles or books which are, say, pro-atheism which are rated by non-atheists as being well-argued and worth-while.

</comment><comment><USER32> This isn't a technology problem, it's a human problem, and the best (and maybe only) way to solve it is through a little empathy.

Ideas in an article you disagree with are easy to dismiss, less so with ideas in a human. When you surround yourself with a diverse group of people with differing views on a variety of subjects _and actually listen to them_ , the problem goes away.

</comment><comment><USER33> jkl.io tries to attack this problem in news by ranking with blended ranking signals, then clustering from a variety of sources so that even unpopular views will be in the top topic clusters.

I am currently building a comment system to go with it that will promote informative comments in new ways and across threads/clusters if they are in the same time period.

</comment><comment><USER34> Do I need really to discuss earthquakes with someone who believes they are God's punishment on gay people?

</comment><comment><USER35> While this may be a mathematically valid thing, it doesn't make it correct. I submit that there may be left-right filter bubbles, but there is a growing flow from ignorant to well-informed, and that flow is right to left.

This article is just a mathematical means of implementing the equal time rule (1), or the fairness doctrine (2). If anything, 30+ years of broadcast TV has shown us that these policies lead to stagnation of public though, not growth. NPR, for one, has attempted to recognize this and move the pendulum back toward the Enlightened pursuit of truth(3).

(1) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal- time_rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule)

(2) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine)

(3) [http://ethics.npr.org/category/a1-accuracy/](http://ethics.npr.org/category/a1-accuracy/)

<comment><USER35> Gotta love it a well-cited competing view on an article about tolerating competing views gets downvoted.

<comment><USER23> Well-cited? You made a manifestly false assertion, then linked to the definition of two terms and an article that specifically disagrees with your assertion:

" _For more accurate stories, seek diverse perspectives._

" _We tell stronger, better-informed stories when we sample a variety of perspectives on what we're covering. The best reporting draws on the experiences of experts, influential figures and laypeople from across the demographic spectrum._

" _A story could accurately claim, for example, that unemployment in the Washington, D.C., metro area in the fall of 2011 was quite a bit lower than the national average. But that fact would probably ring false to a resident of the city proper, where the unemployment rate was considerably higher at the time. And such a story would describe a world vastly different from D.C.'s Ward 8, which had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Any of these vantage points could make for a technically accurate story. But drawing on all of them allows for a much more nuanced report. Means and medians can be informative, but true insight often comes from surveying experiences all along the spectrum._ "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> How does this apply to content sites like hn/reddit/digg?

The number one use case for commenting systems is the expression of opposing views, isn't it?

<comment><USER37> In popular reddit subs, you can't have an unpopular opinion. Your link submissions and your comments get downvoted to oblivion. It also happens in less popular ones.

<comment><USER38> Reddit reacts incredibly negatively to poor tone. You can be completely right about something, and unless you're _nice_ about it, you will be below threshold in no time flat.

Most of the comments I see hidden on Reddit are there, not because of simple disagreement, but because the person posting comes off as haughty or smug.

I can't complain too much. Anything worth saying is worth saying nice.</comment></comment></comment>


Adblock is good for more than blocking ads - <AUTHOR> http://peroty.com/blog/wrote-about/adblock-is-good-for-more-than-blocking-ads/ <comment><USER2> I frequently use adblock to block offensive images, like seizure-inducing GIFs.</comment>


Wooden Machines - <AUTHOR> http://woodgears.ca/machines.html

<comment><USER2> Uh-oh. Perusing his site is making me realize that my long-latent woodworking interests aren't going to remain latent much longer... ;-)</comment>


Ex-Apple snr. engineer with 13 years experience gets rejected in 12 hours - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sanguish/status/840154438581002240 <comment><USER2> What a useless thing to post here. Who knows why this guy may have been rejected. I can think of a million reasons a company would rightly reject an engineer, can even a very experienced one.

<comment><USER3> It's not that he was rejected, it's that he was rejected for _lacking experience_!

Which is completely nonsensical given his background.

[https://twitter.com/sanguish/status/840293020041957376](https://twitter.com/sanguish/status/840293020041957376)

<comment><USER4> Not surprising. It was probably one of those companies where the manager said "Minimum 8 years of Angular.js experience."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've never met this person. But he raises two interesting points:

First, that "ex-Apple is hard." Is it? The only ex-Apple people I've met have been founding their own companies, clearly resting on FU money. They don't seem to have it hard.

Second, that his friends still at Apple aren't answering him either---so maybe something else is going on?

<comment><USER6> " _maybe something else is going on?_ "

Over-sharing about one's mental illness, "too much information", self-loathing and private details don't help a person's job seeking efforts.

Regardless of one's engineering talent, which ironically is likely enhanced by OCD, there's good and bad choices you can make when it comes to publishing details of your personal life.

Tweets like this "I am a total failure. My entire world is crashing down around me... Fuck the world..."

While initially expressing a moment in one's life, when left published online they emit an unwanted after-image that misrepresents their initial fleeting nature.

Twitter needs an optional expiry date for tweets you mean in the moment but that don't represent your life in general.

"A few weeks ago my therapist I'd had for 18+ months essentially fired me. She said that she didn't think we were getting anywhere"... That info it best left between patient and therapist.

Why do people think their gritty life details read like a Tolstoy novel?</comment></comment>


Someone is DDoS'ing high stakes online poker players mid-hand to win large pots - <AUTHOR> http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-stakes-pl-nl/hacker-able-disconnect-will-1316970/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if it's as simple as the attackers somehow getting their victims' IPs (maybe through some intelligent human-guided port-scanning?) & then firing the DDoS.

The alternative could be that there's some sort of common protocol the gaming sites are using that allows attackers to send malformed packets to other users (like a specially-crafted invalid private message packet) and there's no server-side validation of the packets.

Either way, I can't wait to see what they turn up.</comment>


When A Kickstarter Campaign Fails, Does Anyone Get Their Money Back? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/09/03/160505449/when-a-kickstarter-campaign-fails-does-anyone-get-their-money-back <comment><USER3> If you invest in a company that has nothing more than a rough sketch of a product on their roadmap, and the company folds 6 months later with no actual product, do you get a refund for your worthless stock?

Usually not.

Investing is a risky business. Crowdsourced investing only distributes that risk over a much larger group of investors.

An honest founder might do his best to return the remaining funds, and Kickstarter might even decree (as the article suggests) that a refund be made, but there's no guarantee that any funds will remain by the time the project is declared a failure.

So the real question is: When you fund a project on Kickstarter, are you making an investment with a certain amount of risk associated with it, or are you simply pre-ordering a shiny new gadget? If any failed Kickstarter project actually went to court, this might be the single most important question to be raised.

<comment><USER4> It is quite clear that Kickstarts are pre orders, because the SEC would shut the whole thing down if it claimed to be an investment scheme.

Really, any Kickstart that isn't "we need $X to place a bulk order with our raw materials supplier" is at best wishful thinking, and more commonly an abuse of how Kickstarter presents itself. It should not be for paying speculative salaries to the campaigners (Hi, LightTable!).

<comment><USER5> I don't think that it is clear to many people what a Kickstarter is actually. It is neither and investment, nor a pre-order. I personally view it more as a gift, which perhaps has a reward at some point. The backer "rewards" are aptly named- they aren't items for purchase, but something you might receive if the project happens to be successful.

When I back Kickstarter projects, I personally have no expectation of getting anything. I just want to see something cool happen.

While perhaps off topic, this is pretty much the model we take with the Awesome Foundation. We give money to people with a cool idea, expect nothing in return, and simply hope that they do something great with it. We take no ownership, and if it fails then that's ok. It was up to our judgement if we wanted to back them or not, and if we failed in that judgement then thats our fault and just a lesson to learn from.

Whatever it is called, you should never gift, invest, etc more than you can afford to write off and lose.

<comment><USER6> I feel too, that's it's sort of a gift or a "vote" that this project/idea should happen.

It's very much an "if, if, then" proposition. If you donate X amount and if we're able to build Y, then you'll get Z.

I think the risk is entirely on the donors, but since it is crowdsourced and the large majority of donations are so small, it seems like a fair trade most of the time.

The big problem comes when you get people donating 1k, 5k, 10k, etc and not seeing any return. I think those are the times where funds are seen more as "investments."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't like how Kickstarter basically lies:

> So I call Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler, and ask: What if Uhrman > isn't able to deliver the consoles? Would Kickstarter get involved?

> "You know, that would be new ground," he says. "I don't know. I mean, no, I > don't think that we would. But certainly, the kind of thing you're talking > about is not a bridge that has been crossed yet. Someday it will. And you > know, I think if something did go awry, it would be — it wouldn't be my > favorite day."

And yet as far as I know there are a number of projects that have failed. Can't find any names via casual googling, but I remember last time Kickstarter came up on HN a few people were citing projects they had backed that had given up. I'm a PopSockets backer, and even though he still says he'll deliver, I have some serious doubts.

Coupled with this: [http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/allegation-kickstarter- is-s...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/allegation-kickstarter-is-still- hiding-data-about-failed-projects/) I'm really starting to think Kickstarter, the company, is acting shady. Still believe in the idea of crowdfunding, but my trust in Kickstarter is waining hard.

edit: here is the thread I was thinking of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3473360>

<comment><USER8> That was definitely the shocking part of the story. Kickstarter seriously has no idea what it would do in the case of a project failing..? Even if it hasn't happened yet (and I don't believe that), they didn't think a little ahead?

<comment><USER7> I feel like they are counting on projects to fail in protracted collapses, rather than a shocking sudden failure.

I would rather they get _much much_ more proactive about explaining to people what they are signing up for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's the worst part -- as far as the IRS is concerned, that money is considered income and anything you don't spend in the same calendar year is considered profit and is taxed as such.

So after a year, assuming you spend no money at all, you'd still be in the hole to pay back your backers.

I personally only use Kickstarter to play "patron of the arts". I fund art projects with the assumption that I will get nothing in return. If I'm lucky, I get some nice art to enjoy (so far one of the projects has come to fruition, where I backed the recording and distribution of an a cappella album, and recently got my CD).

<comment><USER10> I am pretty sure that you don't have to spend all income the year you receive it to avoid paying taxes on it. One of the foundations of accounting is the matching principle: "Expenses are recognized when obligations are (1) incurred (usually when goods are transferred or services rendered, e.g. sold), and (2) offset against recognized revenues, which were generated from those expenses (related on the cause-and-effect basis), no matter when cash is paid out." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_principle>

There are multiple ways to match income and expenses that occur in different years - at least if you have some sort of business entity.

<comment><USER9> Most of the folks on Kickstarter don't have the necessary business entities set up to take advantage of that.

<comment><USER11> I would agree with that for the most part, however, if you're receiving a large sum of money (e.g. the $8 million dollars Ouya received as mentioned in the article received) I think you owe it to your investors to take the time to set up those business entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Funds collected by Kickstarter aren't "investments." They aren't "pre-orders." They are _DONATIONS_. In many cases, they are donations to for-profit companies, which I still can't really wrap my head around.

Like all donations, Kickstarter pledges are freely given, with no promise of anything in return. Yes, many projects pledge to provide you with a sample of their finished product, or a DVD of their documentary, or your name tattooed onto the creator's tush, or something like that, but there's zero legal obligation for anyone to deliver on those promises.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure this is accurate. The Kickstarter terms of service say:

"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."

<http://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use>

<comment><USER14> The problem is that if that provision were actually enforced, kickstarter would be of much less use to those people it was originally conceived of to help. If you are a small independent games company, film maker, or musician, the threat of failing to complete your project (e.g. it was too ambitious, you set your funding goal too low, you run into legal issues you hadn't anticipated, etc.) and being required to pay back tens of thousands of dollars you have already spent is enough disincentive to not use kickstarter in the first place.

In other words, if kickstarter campaigns have to repay backers if they fail, kickstarter becomes radically less useful and interesting as a proposition.

<comment><USER15> They have to fulfill the rewards it says. Which really means that you shouldn't promise a version of your product if you can't deliver it. Rather it might be better to make the rewards things that are easy to deliver such as shirts, stickers, etc... Definitely some projects like Ouya that have promised a console will technically have to refund people potentially millions of dollars if they can't ship the device.

<comment><USER16> > _will technically have to refund people potentially millions of dollars_ //

Presumably OUYA is a company with some limitation of liability for the owners, I don't know much about USA company formation but it seems that the company would fold and there would no longer be a legal entity to hold to account. IFF this is the case then "technically" they won't have to refund anyone beyond what liquidation of the company requires.

This is where someone with knowledge of company law steps in and corrects me ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmmm, I'm guessing no and no. Which is to say that if it fails to reach its funding goal then there is 'money' transferred so you don't get back what you didn't pay out. And no, since there isn't any contract involved with a Kickstarter there is not compelling reason for the person who tried and failed to return any money. Besides if they really did try they probably spent all the money in the attempt anyway.

As for Oouya, if you know anything about the tech buisiness this should tell you everything you need to know about this 'investment':

 _"I visit Uhrman in San Francisco, where she's meeting with a dozen designers to hash out Ouya's boomerang-shaped controller."_

<comment><USER8> > no, since there isn't any contract involved with a Kickstarter there is not > compelling reason for the person who tried and failed to return any money

The article says

> [Kickstarter]'s policy says creators have to give refunds on failed projects

<comment><USER17> From their Terms of Use, their entire section on refunds:

 _"Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer's request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."_

Except there are two problems with that,

1) These people don't have the funds to begin with, that is why they are running a Kickstarter campaign.

2) The actual contract language is that they "Backer" funds a "Project Creator" to _attempt_ something rather than to _deliver_ something.

So when you go to sue the person who has your money you have to contend with the fact that they have no money (and insufficient assets probably to get a lien against, and if they do they will just do the personal bankruptcy thing) and then you have to convince a court (or a jury) that they didn't try in good faith to deliver the project.

They will argue the Backers knew there was a risk when they started and that due to problems unforseen by the creators these risks actualized and there project failed to materialize. They will argue the Project Creator is just as harmed as the Backer. The only way you might get any money back is if you managed to prove fraud.

Kickstarter has only been around for a short while, so we have time to watch this unfold.

This is not 'new' (while Kickstarter is, crowd funding is not). I recommend you look up previous cases where the product wasn't delivered. There were a whole bunch in the 60's when a bunch of 'movie producers' were raising money to make movies. I took a cinema class at USC (it was a fun elective) where the professor claimed that a lot of the contract language that exists today for production companies came out of the lawsuits of that time.

<comment><USER18> Can I suggest that if you're spending money on Kickstarter where if things didn't go according to plan you'd "go to sue the person who has your money", then "you're doing it wrong".

(It's entirely possible that _I'm_ "doing it wrong", and that everybody who's treating Kickstarter as a contractually binding pre-sale offer is somehow not as insane as they appear to me. But I'll take quite a bit of convincing on that point…)

<comment><USER17> Absolutely agree with you here. There are people who fall in love with the dream, and when they wake up they are grouchy. I've wondered if folks can put an upper limit on a Kickstarter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Failing Kickstarter projects reminded me of a blog post by Matt Haughey: "Lessons for Kickstarter creators from the worst project I ever funded on Kickstarter"

[http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for- kickstart...](http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-for-kickstarter- creators-from-the-worst-project-i-ever-funded-on-kickstarter.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> The article says "a year later, there are still no PopSockets." But the PopSockets Kick Starter page says it was launched Jan 8, 2012 and funded on Feb. 12, 2012. Am I crazy or was something not researched properly?

That being said, I am personally surprised that most people are willing to fund many of the things that get funded and assume that people are treating it as a purchase rather than funding.

It will be interesting to see how all the parties handle the first time something goes horribly wrong.

<comment><USER21> It was funded -- which means that the project owner received the money -- but the actual product wasn't created and delivered to the users who funded it. So, it failed. The NPR article is telling you that things _are_ going horribly wrong sometimes, and PopSockets is an example of that.

<comment><USER22> The point of pointing out the dates is to demonstrate that it has been less than a year, which contradicts the text of the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> To be honest, I'm not sure why crowdsourcing and Kickstarter are so confusing to so many. If you put money into anything on Kickstarter and it fails, you have lost that money.

It is a gamble. End of story.

</comment><comment><USER24> From the few kickstarter projects I've seen, it seems that there's a lot of people who underestimate the costs of producing hardware and shipping it.

I'm reminded of the story of the guy contracted to write an iOS game. The game itself was trivial to code and he had it up in no time. But then he had to add the menu overlay, high score system, save system, so on and so forth. It's the same with hardware - prototyping is expensive and takes a long time, and you have to think of a ton of corner cases before you make a sample item. Sometimes your plastics or metalworks subcontractor takes weeks or even months to return samples. And if you didn't get it right first time, rinse, repeat.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am finding the discussion rather strange. It has always been quite clear to me that Kickstarter was a modern patronage model--I give to the arts because I like the arts--nothing more, nothing less. There is no investment, no sale; it is a pure gift. The artist may show her appreciation by gifting me something in return. I concede that a games console might stretch some people's definition of art, but it is still a speculative and creative project which may or may not succeed.

Clearly, I am in the minority on this subject. Most people seem to view it as a pre-order website, or even an investment. This is quite different from my understanding of the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm amazed this hasn't been exploited by an out-and-out scam yet, I guess kickstarter must have some serious vetting process.

What's to stop somebody setting up a kickstarter for something highly desirable but somewhat impractical (but not _totally_ out there) raising a few million $ and just riding off into the sunset?

<comment><USER27> [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zioneyez/eyeztm-by- zione...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zioneyez/eyeztm-by-zioneyez-hd- video-recording-glasses-for/) seems like a pretty clear example of this. Backers are actually starting a separate forum to discuss legal action. Doesn't seem to be any sort of recourse via kickstarter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > _During a break from the meetings, I ask her, "Would you have to give money > back to your backers if you weren't able to deliver?"

She takes a deep breath and pauses before answering.

"Technically, from the Kickstarter perspective, I actually don't know the answer to that," she says. "But from a doing-the-right-thing perspective, we will treat our backers the best possible way."_

Um, _what_? She doesn't know how the Kickstarter system would or could transfer money back to the funders? Or she doesn't know if there's "technically" an obligation to make a refund? The answer to the second question should have been well known to her and her lawyers. It's a little troubling that she can't give a straight answer so early in the infancy of a project that is ostensibly rooted in openness.

</comment><comment><USER29> Personally I think that there's a big risk of Kickstarter acquiring a bad reputation here. Whilst a lot of the comments on this thread show that some people look at Kickstarter contributions as donations or investments, I don't think that that's the case for the large number of people putting money into some of the kickstarters that get funded via the site, in particular kickstarters focused on making a physical product, where the product features heavily in the reward tiers

I'd also say that the site itself doesn't make it that clear, that the money is an investment or gify. From the Kickstarter proposals I've read I don't see them heavily mentioning the idea that the backer won't received the reward at the tier that they donate to if the project doesn't succeed in creating the product.

If you look at some kickstarters that have big delays on their delivery (e.g. Zioneyes [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zioneyez/eyeztm-by- zione...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zioneyez/eyeztm-by-zioneyez-hd- video-recording-glasses-for?ref=live) ) there seems to be a large percentage of backers who were expecting a product and aren't very happy not to be getting one after over 12 months)...

Definitely from a personal perspective I'm more careful now about what I back and specifically the track record of the project creators (i.e. have they done this before).

</comment><comment><USER30> Kickstarter does not provide a way for projects to give refunds. (Or if they do, they've hidden it well.)

My kick-started Test-Driven Javascript screencast [1] was very successful and I'm actually delivering on my promises [2]. But I have had a few people complain about the videos, and one person took me up on my offer of a refund.

I offered to write him a check, but he's in England (I'm in the US) and the check-cashing and currency-conversion fees would be higher than the value of the check. So I went looking for a refund option. I couldn't find a way to do it in Kickstarter or Amazon Payments. I offered to send the backer the money through Amazon Payments (he'd have to sign up for it, though) or to transfer his account to someone else, but ultimately he decided he'd rather just keep his subscription.

Kickstarter rules say you're supposed to provide a refund if you don't deliver. But they don't provide a way to do so. It's my only disappointment with them. If one of my customers is unhappy, I _want_ to provide a refund.

[1] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/188988365/lets-code- test...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/188988365/lets-code-test-driven- javascript)

[2] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/188988365/lets-code- test...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/188988365/lets-code-test-driven- javascript/posts/299166)

</comment><comment><USER31> I think it's pretty clear through Kickstarter's use of the term "perks" for the different reward levels project founders can create that you are donating money to the cause.

The fact that a lot of project creators have changed some backer's perception of the transaction doesn't change that Kickstarter is clearly a tool for raising funds through donations, not as a product pre-order transaction or investment into the company.

I think any sane person should be able to see the risks involved and consider them carefully before donating.

Maybe there are clueless folks out there who think Kickstarter is basically Amazon. But I think it's clear from the website that it's akin to demanding money back from your local school's fundraiser because you didn't like the gift basket they sent you.

</comment><comment><USER28> Out of curiosity, has anyone here invested in a Kickstarter project that entailed physical goods that actually made its proposed deadline? Between the three I've paid for so far, all of them have been at least two months late of the deadlines they made _after funding_ was successful.

This includes the Elevation Dock, Kickstarter's first $1M+ project, which is shamefully late. I doubt mine will get to me before the iPhone 5 comes out, which is somewhat extra bitter to me since I just had my iPhone 4 stolen and am waiting for the 5 to come out...so I probably won't be using the Elevation Dock at all, if it ever actually comes.

<comment><USER32> A board game called "Zombicide" published by a company called CoolMiniOrNot.com - They've run three successful KS campaigns so far and seem on track to deliver all of them on time. It also helps they've been in business for a decade or more giving them a comfort level with design, sourcing, shipping, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Well, d'uh, you don't get your money back, period. That's the first thing I learned when reading their FAQs and other pages.

It's like a donation towards something that you find great/interesting/useful, with the added benefit of some kind of return. Or you could consider it an investment, small loan, without security or guarantees of any kind.

I don't know, the article makes it seem like a negative thing for those who first hear about Kickstarter...

Fund raisers should not do "the right thing" and return any money, either - <USER2> sets a bad precedent, especially if you return the money only to some and not everyone.

</comment><comment><USER34> Many of these comments treat "kickstarter" as a homogenous group of companies. Each project on Kickstarter is different, and the resulting liabilities would be different. In many of the most successful cases, the funding is tied to a pre-order of a product. In that case, the company has an obligation to the funder to deliver the product (or possibly refund the cash). Whether the funder acts on that obligation is a separate question, but s/he is a creditor to the company.

</comment><comment><USER35> I hope people aren't put off from the Crowdfunding model thanks to kickstarter. All they have to do is bolster up their accountability tools to improve the current experience massively. Maybe show the likelihood of complication based on past projects. This what I'm working on in the charity sector, which isn't competing with Kickstarter at all apart from the fact that we both start with crowdfunding.

</comment><comment><USER36> One of my pet peeves about Kickstarter is that they considered funded projects successful projects and it's difficult to know what percentage of projects are actually successful in the sense that they delivered the goods (or even see a list of them).

That said, I did just buy my first batch of Stack Soap, which was a Kickstarter-funded venture. nifty.

<comment><USER37> It really bothers you that they consider funded projects successfully funded? The goal of a kickstarter project is to raise money for the attempt. Once the money is raised, the kickstarter is successful. I think the site is pretty upfront about this.

And any additional judgement is out of their hands. They could allow backers to fill out a survey after the tentative delivery date has passed, and that might be interesting to see. But it's hard to deal with the delays inevitable in any project.

<comment><USER36> If they said "successfully funded" that would be accurate. My pet peeve is that everywhere on the site they say "successful" they mean "funded".

<comment><USER37> If you look at a project, it will say "Funded! This project successfully raised its funding goal on MMMM DD."

And again, saying just 'successful' _is_ accurate, because a kickstarter is a fundraiser for a project that has independent life outside of that website. Some projects that take money through kickstarter will fail, but some that fail to raise money will find other funding sources and succeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The article ends up with a misleading statement. Kickstarter is not a crowddonation, it is not a crowdpurchasing site. Its crowdfunding, which means there are risks involved and there is mo money back guarantee. As a backer you expect a product as return on your investment, but it is not 50% guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER39> The number one rule for KickStarter is that it is NOT eCommerce. When a campaign operates on the mindset that it's a platform to sell goods, and when backers also operate on that same premise, both parties end up on the hook for something they weren't expecting.

</comment><comment><USER40> It turns out startups are risky.

</comment><comment><USER41> My question is, why isn't Kickstarter International in terms of startups? I am based in the UK and we could do with a successful service like KS here!

</comment><comment><USER42> Have no idea how this site hasn't been shut down by the SEC. Absolute violation of regulations wrt accredited investors.

<comment><USER43> Perhaps because that would be an absolutely horrific example of government overreach. When you put money into a kickstarter project, you know the risks - stop looking for big daddy to look after you.

<comment><USER42> The whole point of the status of an "accredited investor" was to separate (typically) savvy/knowledgeable people from complete amateurs. This designation was created specifically to prevent people from throwing money at poorly-researched/fly-by-night/scammy/hopeless investments. An accredited investor like PG has the knowledge and means to do due diligence before he commits money. Some local loser...not so much. That's the point.

I'm not going to argue this so much as reaffirm my mystification that regulatory bodies haven't interfered with this obvious conduit of fraud.

<comment><USER43> "There are too many stupid people in the world. I'm not saying we should kill them all or anything. Just take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself." -- Unknown</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What unknown technical blogs or sites do you read? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Unknown is relative, but here are some of the rss feeds I'm subscribed too:

<http://nosql.mypopescu.com/>

<http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/>

<http://eli.thegreenplace.net/>

<http://www.stefankrause.net/wp/>

<http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/>

<http://www.cowtowncoder.com/blog/blog.html>

<http://highlyscalable.wordpress.com/>

<http://hunch.net/>

<http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/>

<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/>

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

<http://blog.mikemccandless.com/>

<comment><USER3> Scott Aaronson's blog is so awesome. I would be reading it now if I still had room in my head for the whole 'rationalist' thing (along with Overcoming Bias, etc.) Check out his "Favorite Posts" in the right-hand column.

Lambda the Ultimate is also a rare gem of a community on the internet and likewise I'd still be reading it if I wasn't trying to care less about design and more about hustle right now. I'm really interested in dataflow programming and I've learned a lot by searching through previous discussions on the concept at LtU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find Planet blog aggregators a useful and surprisingly unknown resource. Great way to get a view into the blogs of a whole project community without having to follow a pile of them individually; I recommend following the Planet for any project you regularly use or have a strong interest in. I personally follow these planets regularly (via a bookmark folder that I open into tabs):

Planet Debian: <http://planet.debian.org/>

Planet Freedesktop: <http://planet.freedesktop.org/>

Planet GNOME: <http://planet.gnome.org/>

Kernel Planet: <http://planet.kernel.org/>

Planet Mozilla: <http://planet.mozilla.org/>

<comment><USER5> I also follow:

\- Planet Python: <http://planet.python.org/>

\- Planet Django: <http://www.planetdjango.org/>

The following are interesting if you're user of the Linux distribution and sometimes overlap with other planets (ie. Gnome):

\- Planet Fedora: <http://planet.fedoraproject.org/>

\- Planet Ubuntu: <http://planet.ubuntu.com/>

EDIT: formatting

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <https://cooperpress.com/>

It's not a blog, but a collection of weekly email newsletters.

At the risk of sounding like a shill (because I'm pretty sure Mr Cooper posts to HN), I have to say these are each brilliantly done. There are separate newsletters for JavaScript, Ruby, HTML5, and Dart (but sadly no Python).

Great way to keep up with changes in these areas once a week, and pretty much the only third-party emails I not only look forward to receiving, but actually open and read.

<comment><USER7> I do! :-) Thanks for the mention, you would be a great shill to hire if I were looking.

With regards to Python, I believe <http://www.pythonweekly.com/> was inspired by my newsletters. I don't run it but have seen a few issues. There is also <http://pycoders.com/> and I know those guys too. Both have a similar structure and approach to mine. Hopefully I can buy/partner with one of them someday rather than launch my own ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://newspacewatch.com/> \- Newspace sector news. Clark Lindsey knows what's going on. If you want to set into context what SpaceX does, this is the place: Usually it's something that other companies have already done on a smaller scale.

<http://www.43rumors.com/> \- Micro four thirds camera news, only interesting if you have one or are going to buy one.

<http://www.greencarcongress.com/> \- Automotive sector technologies. This is the engineering style site: just mostly text and more in depth press releases. No fancy word plays or car show girls. I do wonder though, why we are not in a better position as a new massively improved cheap battery technology is discovered every week...

<http://planet3.org/> \- Climate scientists write thoughtfully. Also in the comments. It's not as massive as realclimate and it's much less formal.

</comment><comment><USER9> Jonathan's Space Report (<http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html>) is an exhaustive accounting of human activity in space (manned or unmanned), with a focus on recent launches. Released every few weeks. Back issues run to 1989 and continue to the present day.

Emily Lakdawalla writes some very good explanations of space science for the Planetary Society - very accessible, but with more detail and intelligence (IMHO) than you get from other media outlets. <http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Fringe energy and "science" type stuff...

<http://peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page>

<http://pesn.com/>

By following the links and discussions, you can get pretty deep into it; down to the published papers in respectable journals and granted patents. But be warned, there are a lot of crack pots that pollute the matters (as expected for this category). So you have to take what's good, and throw away what's bad. But it does give you a different perspective on things.

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://cryptome.org>

<http://publicintelligence.net>

<http://landonf.bikemonkey.org>

<comment><USER12> Landon Fuller is a great read, although not as active in the past year or 2. Have seen a few posts trickle through recently, as high caliber as ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hacker News

If it's good enough it will make it's way on here. If not, there's no point in me repeatedly checking their site or collecting it into a big RSS dump where I have to wade through 99% crap to get to the good bits.

Hacker News does a great job of giving me the HREFs I like to click on and that's one of the reasons I keep coming back.

<comment> why-el Except when I am offline for a minute, then I have to do some digging. Are you aware of this news.ycombinator.com/best though? I find it helpful

<comment><USER13> I proudly present:

<http://rewindhn.com>

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Since it hasn't been mentioned yet - The Risks Digest - <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks>

See just how wrong things can, and do, go.

</comment><comment><USER15> May I suggest my friend Tim's blog? I'm pretty sure it's unknown, it seems he writes it mostly for himself. But there are some great technical articles on it:

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

<comment><USER16> Reading the top blog entry, looks like a very useful blog to me. No big fancy talking about how he scaled up to 4 million users, but a down-to-earth story about FTP and versioning that I can relate to. Thanks for the link :)

Edit: I forgot to mention another thing: It made a positive impression by being a dark blog with a good design. I don't entirely like my own blog's design, and I thought white-on-black just wasn't a good setup. This shows it can be great. I also like the lack of "recommended articles" and pop-ups (javascript ones) to keep me on the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shameless plug to my own blog: <http://blog.vjeux.com>

<comment><USER18> Another shameless plug: <http://izbicki.me>

I have both technical AI type posts and also a bit of religion.

<comment><USER19> Since this appears to be the dedicated thread for self promotion, <http://bbot.org/blog/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Probably the most unknown area I read and/or hear about today are private G+ circles. For example, much pre-publication PL/compilers work is mentioned in "limited" posts. I've heard similar things are happening in ML areas, though I have no personal insight into them.

<comment><USER21> That's not cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Technical Mapping, GIS, and Cartography blogs I follow:

<http://smathermather.wordpress.com/>

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

<http://ogleearth.com/>

<http://blogs.esri.com/esri/>

<http://mapbox.com/blog/>

<http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps>

</comment><comment><USER23> I've not seen these ones on any list here:

<http://blog.databigbang.com>

<http://blog.nektra.com>

<http://www.yosefk.com/blog>

<http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/>

<http://blogs.southworks.net>

<http://awelonblue.wordpress.com/>

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, I've been enjoying Joey Hess' build log of git-annex assistant [1], and I like Julien Danjou's [2] too, even though he writes more about Emacs, while I'm a VIM user.

Then there's Old New Thing, LtU and John Resig's blog, but those are less obscure.

[1]: <http://git-annex.branchable.com/design/assistant/blog/>

[2]: <http://julien.danjou.info/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER25> <http://www.devttys0.com/blog/>

<http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/>

<https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/>

<http://j00ru.vexillium.org/?lang=en>

<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/>

</comment><comment><USER26> I like Chris Siebenmann's blog. He writes daily about unix sys admin on a university network, mainly using Solaris, RHEL and ZFS.

It's interesting to see the tools he uses and the problems he encounters, useful when you do some amount of admin on your VPS.

<http://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER27> <http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/>

<http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/>

<http://ericlippert.com/> and <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/> and <http://stackoverflow.com/users/88656/eric-lippert>

<http://www.bluebytesoftware.com/blog/Default.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER3> I try to keep my subscription to an absolute minimum since I like to leave some time for reading books. After a lot of culling, I'm currently subscribed to some popular feeds:

<http://www.smashingmagazine.com/> (general web design / dev)

<http://www.alistapart.com/> (long form web design / front-end)

<http://dailyjs.com/> (Javascript / node.js)

<http://createdigitalmusic.com/> (digital music / software)

<http://www.creativeapplications.net/> (new-media art)

And a handful of unpopular ones:

<http://www.ribbonfarm.com/> (absolutely my favorite blog in the world – self- describes as "refactored perception)

<http://www.tempobook.com/blog/> (same author as above, posts related to his last book)

<http://worrydream.com/feed.xml> (not really a blog, but Bret Victor writes some of the best long-form articles on interaction design around – read all of them)

<http://www2.technologyreview.com/rss/video_rss.aspx> (Tech Review videos, sparsely updated – mainly because the editor's interviews are awesome/hilarious)

<http://idlewords.com/> (breathtaking travel blog from the founder of Pinboard)

<http://www.loper-os.org/> (awesome / hilarious posts by a software heretic on the general terrible state of things in technology – keeps me in touch with Alan Kay-esque thinking)

<http://we-make-money-not-art.com/> (the only contemporary art blog I like from a very dedicated Italian writer)

<http://vagueterrain.net/> (occasionally published digital art magazine, themed topics, guest curated)

<http://theixdlibrary.com/> (occasional classic UX articles)

<http://www.markboulton.co.uk/> (occasional forward-thinking posts on web design, focus on layout and grids)

<http://informationarchitects.net/> (same as above, but focus on typography)

All of these feeds have been selected for a _very_ high signal to noise ratio and most of them are updated only occasionally (which I prefer), with the exception of Smashing and DailyJS.

<comment><USER28> Ribbonfarm is truly top-notch, one of my absolute favorites as well.

I also like <http://lesswrong.com/> but I think its pretty well known.

<comment><USER3> While I've found some nice ideas on Less Wrong, articles like this recent one: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_an...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/frp/train_philosophers_with_pearl_and_kahneman_not/) go to show the tunnel vision of the "Rationalists" that haunt that part of the internet.

I think of Venkat Rao as a combination of that sort of scientific rationalism with the sort of old-school intellectualism that can only come from reading an epic quantity of literature and taking a truly skeptical attitude toward everything. Keeps the fanaticism in check and results in a much more subtle and interesting point of view.

<comment><USER28> I definitely agree about lesswrong being a mixed bag, that post you linked in particular was just... painful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Mike Ash's Friday Q&A is easily one of my favorite technical blogs <http://www.mikeash.com/pyblog/>

</comment><comment><USER19> <http://blog.elphel.com/> image processing

<http://hydraraptor.blogspot.com/> 3d printers

<http://pipeline.corante.com/> pharmaceutical development

<http://howtospotapsychopath.com/> all sorts of stuff

</comment><comment><USER30> <http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/>

PS: Awesome thread! So many nuggets.

</comment><comment><USER31> <http://www.web2py.com>

By far the most comprehensive, most underrated Python framework (actually, any web framework) that I know of. Incredibly complete library. Fantastic community. Most responsive project creator/manager-place is a dream.

</comment><comment><USER32> <http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/> \- blue pill company, etc. <http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/> \- cambridge (uk) security group

</comment><comment><USER33> It may not be living up to its name if it is popular, but NSHipster is a great blog on Objective-C

<comment><USER3> Link for the lazy: <http://nshipster.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not as much a blog as a repository of beautiful data visualizations, occasionally coupled to the story behind the visualizations' creation:

<http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/>

</comment><comment><USER35> as for technical blogs, the only ones I get consistently useful information from are: <http://blog.sanctum.geek.nz/>, from which I've learnt a great deal about vim and also about some obscure but historically significant unix tools which otherwise I'd never have known of. <http://archlinux.me/> Every now and then a good in depth article pops up pn this one. Dev blogs are great for learning about the nitty gritty details of a project aswell as getting a grip on the problems devs are facing right now.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://mrale.ph/blog/2012/12/15/microbenchmarks-fairy- tale.h...](http://mrale.ph/blog/2012/12/15/microbenchmarks-fairy-tale.html)

Slava always has great live presentations and has a great blog.

</comment><comment><USER37> My recent subscription: <http://bartoszmilewski.com/> The blog in one sentence: Think in Haskell, code in C++ & multi-core to spice it all up.

</comment><comment><USER38> 2 good JVM performance blogs:

<http://vanillajava.blogspot.com/>

<http://mechanical-sympathy.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER39> Vanilla Java is a great book. The author is active on SO as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> <http://glinden.blogspot.com/>

Mix of interesting technical articles (most related to search and information retrieval) and tech industry prognostication.

</comment><comment><USER41> I really enjoy <http://afreshcup.com/>. It's mostly a linkblog, but Mike Gunderloy always finds interesting things to share.

</comment><comment><USER42> <http://os2museum.com>

<http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com>

</comment><comment><USER43> Not sure if it's unknown but <http://blog.cwa.me.uk/> is pretty good for MS technologies (and sometimes web in general)

</comment><comment><USER44> <http://www.bernd-leitenberger.de/blog/> <\- a German blog focused on rockets and space techologie

</comment><comment><USER45> I read <http://www.blogeek.com.ar/> It's about Scala, Java, Ruby, Play mostly.

</comment><comment><USER14> The Risks Digest is great <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks>

</comment><comment><USER46> <http://www.solipsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/LumpNet>

</comment><comment><USER47> <http://www.eurekalert.org>

</comment><comment><USER48> They're not unknown to me...

<comment><USER49> "No known bugs" is a must have in all self-respecting Release Notes :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> <http://echojs.com>

</comment><comment><USER51> a very smart physicist turned quant's take on many topics - always excited to see a new entry

<http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com>

</comment><comment><USER52> im not sure how unknown it is but hackaday.com

I frequently see an interesting project posted on hackaday, then a few days later it has gone 'viral' on engadget, lifehacker, hn, ars etc...

</comment><comment><USER53> a link aggregator called coder.io and articles on codeproject.com are too good.

</comment><comment><USER54> Anyone got one for musicians?

<comment><USER55> What kind? Nothin' fancy, but I keep a snip.it for interactive/iOS music production here - <http://snip.it/collections/1518-make-music>

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> highscalability.com

 _never_ ceases to have interesting, substantive content.

</comment><comment><USER57> www.taobao.com

</comment><comment><USER58> <http://blog.sigfpe.com/> <http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/></comment>


"Fermat's Last Theorem": Simon Singh's Documentary Film Transcript - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2414proof.html

<comment><USER2> Personally I would would encourage people to buy the book. Not only is it a fascinating read, with more than the documentary, but it would in some small way support Simon in his libel battle against the British Chiropractic Society.</comment>


Ask HN: Have you noticed that Google search links are less clickable lately? - <AUTHOR> Recently, in Chrome on macOS (Sierra and High Sierra), I find that clicking (wireless mouse and wired mouse tested) on Google search result links does not open the link. I find I'm often clicking on the blue underline of the link and it's not opening. I'll even move the mouse up a few pixels and it still does not open. Why is this happening? <comment><USER4> Just switch.

Google is fully capable of providing excellent results. Today they'd rather please governments, media cartels, and biased employees. Google can get away with this because they aren't hurting for money. Search quality is no longer a priority. Google will treat you like a horse with blinders, or like a small child. Google would rather you not decide things for yourself.

Duckduckgo and Bing are decent. Both may seem wonderful if you now try them, but really you've just been getting accustomed to declining quality from Google.

<comment><USER5> Google results are still miles ahead of Bing results in my experience. Sometimes when I set up a new computer I'll accidentally search Bing, and the designs are similar enough I don't notice until I realize that the results I'm getting suck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, i've been experiencing these rather frequently. I disabled all the extensions and it's still happening.

</comment><comment><USER7> I haven't noticed, but testing it it does eat the click.

When I tap just on or below the underline, it eats it. Then if I try to move the mouse away and back to the exact same position, the underline doesn't show up (and the hand cursor is the default mouse). To be clear the mouse is at the same position I clicked on before (where it had the hand+underline). Maybe a Chrome bug?

<comment><USER8> Yep, confirmed.

When you click within a few vertical pixels of the underline, for click targets that are multiline where only the first line gets the underline, the click gets eaten 100% of the time. I'm sure there are other cases but that's the most obvious since the google search results are formatted like that.

      line 1 - <USER2>
      line 2 - <USER3>

the box around line1 && line2 form the click target. the underline only appears when you hover over the target area. if you hit that area between line 1 & line 2, where the underline is drawn, the click is eaten.

UPDATE: it's not eaten. it alternately toggles the underline on or off.

Also, you have to click above the green URL text for the click to toggle the underline. If you click past the edge of the URL text (under the 'le' in the example above), the click works correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not happening to me, but this question reminds me of something I've been wondering for a while: when did Google first start redirecting search result links so they could track what you end up clicking on? Was it like that before 2010? Has it always been that way? I feel like they had direct links throughout most of the 2000's but maybe I'm imagining it.

<comment><USER10> Since forever.

And they do it on the onClick event, so you are mislead to believe that the link is clean (as show on your status bar on link mouse over, until the very last second)

And they do that on GMail, calendar, and even on mobile apps such as google voice and hangouts. (i.e. if you long press and copy, it is a clean url, if you touch the link, it opens a tracking redirect on the browser --which chrome hides. But you should be using firefox on android as well)

Firefox (desktop and mobile) and Chorme (only desktop because google don't want you installing adblockers on their browsers) have an extension called "Skip Redirect" that works-around this problem.

<comment><USER11> I think they just modify the status bar manually on hover. If you right-click a search result URL and copy it to the clipboard, it's the super long redirect URL, even as the browser status bar shows the URL you will be directed to.

<comment><USER12> I've wondered for a while how to do that. Is there a JavaScript function that modifies the status bar?

<comment><USER11> Yes. Though other commenters have said that it is only supported on some browsers.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/stat...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Window/status)

<comment><USER12> thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been finding the opposite - where they are _too_ clickable...

Depending on which Google version loads, sometimes the green URL displayed under the blue title is also clickable. You expect hyperlinks on the WWW to be blue and underlined, so when some green text with no underline is also a link, it can be misleading.

Keep an eye out for the cursor changing to a hand, which sounds like a piece of advice from the 1990's!

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, I'm experiencing the same thing! I recently switched to Brave beta, and thought maybe it was something there, but I opened up Chrome for another task and was hit with the same issue.

I've got a couple common extensions running between the two, with uBlock Origin being my most likely culprit if it's an extension thing, but it's definitely annoying! Don't know why it's going on.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thought it were my "miss clicks"! Now its becoming interesting...

(i'm on mojave and latest chrome)

</comment><comment><USER16> Yes, a lot, getting worse facing a slow network.

But dragging or middle click to a new tab is following the link. This looks a lot an issue between the numerous javascript trackers and my browser ad blocker. But no.

</comment><comment><USER17> No clicking problems on Linux. However I have noticed (not sure how recent this is) that Google is _NOT_ redirecting the results with Google urls anymore! which is good news.

<comment><USER18> They still do. Inspect the HTML. They're doing some JavaScript magic and replace the link just when you click on it.

<comment><USER17> True, but I can still copy the link I guess, on desktop anyway, maybe it was mobile that used to change the links to google on copy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Happens to me too all the time. I've noticed it usually happens when I click near the bottom of the link. But it may just be the drag sensitivity. Highly annoying.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hmm, now that I'm thinking about it, I did have one link fail to open on the first try yesterday. But mostly nothing out of the ordinary.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not on my machine. Likely a Chrome or macOS bug (or a configuration problem... who knows?) Have you tried a Linux live USB or another computer?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have not tried other OSes yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found that its pretty much any link in Chrome for me on Windows 10. Regularly have to click twice to get Chrome to move.

</comment><comment><USER8> yep. then i realized it's not just google search results. that's just most obvious case.if i click very carefully it works first click.

so my working theory is that drag sensitivity has increased. so a sloppy 1 pixel click-drag used to be a click but now it's an imperceptible drag. i haven't got up the motivation yet to audit a mouse event log.

<comment><USER8> nope. as another commenter said, it's happens 100% when clicking within a few pixels of the underline. i'll respond to that comment with more detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes, to the point of requiring double clicks.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm experiencing this recently too.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've been seeing the same, very frequently especially over the last two weeks.

</comment><comment><USER26> Been happening to me for the past month or so, I thought I was just going crazy.

</comment><comment><USER27> Thought I was going crazy. Have definitely been experiencing this.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yeah, same here

Glad it's not just me, i thought my mouse was being buggy

OSX Mojave, Latest Chrome

</comment><comment><USER29> Could it be a play to make the ad impression stay for a longer time? Even a few milliseconds would add up to a lot id imagine.

</comment><comment><USER30> all the time. glad I'm not the only one

</comment><comment><USER31> Nope, no issues here.

</comment><comment><USER32> Same here</comment>