Report: Ageism in the Tech Industry - <AUTHOR> http://blog.indeed.com/2017/10/19/tech-ageism-report/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the many pernicious effects of the Standard Developer Interview™. Despite the fact that older developers may have years of proven experience at other companies, pretty much every interview goes in assuming the interviewee is no better qualified than a random person picked off of the street.

Focusing so heavily on computer science trivia questions favor those who recently went to college, since those tidbits are so rarely needed at the drop of a hat in industry those neurons wither away with more time away from academia. Older developers know you can just look it up.

Take home quizzes and side projects require significant time investments. People tend to have less free time as they get older due to family obligations, changing priorities, and so on. People directly out of college likely have less of these external time pressures and would have less of a problem solving your so-clever little project that only takes 20 hours.

Until we, as an industry, get over the lie that hiring must be incredibly accurate and therefore favor the so-called "false negative", we won't get rid of this kind of discrimination and we'll continue to harm people simply because they're older; not to mention losing out on potential co-workers with a plethora of knowledge and experience.

It's bizarre to me that ageism exists. Other forms of discrimination can be traced to othering someone because they are dissimilar to you. Every single human will become an older person one day, barring early death. Perpetuating this cycle is self defeating in the end.

<comment><USER3> > This is one of the many pernicious effects of the Standard Developer > Interview™. Despite the fact that older developers may have years of proven > experience at other companies, pretty much every interview goes in assuming > the interviewee is no better qualified than a random person picked off of > the street.

Many people who interview feel like random people off the street. You really can't tell if the resume's completely bullshit until you ask them to sit down and implement fizz-buzz.

> Focusing so heavily on computer science trivia questions favor those who > recently went to college, since those tidbits are so rarely needed at the > drop of a hat in industry those neurons wither away with more time away from > academia. Older developers know you can just look it up.

Is this still a common practice? Neither Facebook, Google, nor Amazon trains its interviewers to ask bullshit trivia questions to non-intern candidates (I don't know if they train them to ask, or not ask those questions to intern candidates.) I mean, it's entirely possible that particular interviewers at those companies do, but I have skimmed through many, many interview transcripts. None of them focused on bullshit trivia.

(Unless you feel that 'Is it possible to have a memory leak in a language like Java or C#?' is bullshit trivia. I've had people who have spent five years programming in those languages answer, with full conviction, 'No'. After some more prodding, they sometimes say yes, if there was a bug in the garbage collector.)

At this point, this feels like a meme that has been ten years out of date (Because all it takes is one person having a bad interview experience to revive it.)

<comment><USER4> It's not a meme. I just interviewed at FB (3 onsites) and the one interview that sunk me was a CS-algo question. I've never had to do that my entire career and I even though I got the answer in the end, I was told afterwards that my answer was too slow. The other tech interviews focused on real web dev experience I destroyed. Still got rejected even though I answered every question correctly, just not fast (or optimal?) enough. The recruiter said I was a "great culture fit" afterwards so that wasn't the issue. You wouldn't consider the question "trivia" because it was something you might do once or twice in an entire web dev career. But it's still a question that will favor new grads who have been trained to pattern match algos and share questions amongst each other.

So even if there's not explicit bias against older devs there is implicit bias by favoring quick whiteboard speed (memorization/practice) over the practiced thoughtfulness of older devs. And a one-off interview focused heavily on algos can sink anyone. It only takes one.

This isn't limited to FB. The $Elite companies I got offers from are the ones where I lucked through that one tricky interview by knowing it offhand.

I worry as I get older, even as I become a stronger developer, I will become less and less able to marathon through these interviews. No wonder so many older devs switch to management.

<comment><USER3> There's a world of difference between remember some bullshit trivia about how to do fast matrix multiplication, that requires some esoteric algorithmic or mathematical trick, and 'implement a data structure that does X'.

Yet, when blasting interviews, I have found that people tend to conflate the two.

I agree that 60 minutes on a whiteboard or a laptop is not the best way to ask someone to solve a coding problem. Homework is worse, though. Maybe 90 minutes is a better time slot.

<comment><USER5> How is homework worse? Homework simulates an actual job assignment. There's no better way to gauge a candidate's ability. You still couple with onsite after, of course.

<comment><USER3> It's an asymmetrical waste of time. The company invests nothing into it, the candidate invests 8-16 hours into it. This creates incentive to interview too many people, causing candidates to have to interview at too many places, wasting even more of their time.

At least in-person, both parties invest about as much time into the interview.

<comment><USER6> I interviewed somewhere recently, it went well, we talked about current technology, talked about the projects I'm working on now, and then they sent me an email asking me to do a project that would take me two days. I have a two year old and a job I'm perfectly happy with right now, I'm not going to spend my precious weekend hours writing code for free (unless maybe it was open source or something like that).

<comment><USER5> Are y'all trying to say that an 8-16 hour homework assignment is too much to bear for a new job? You're happy in your current job...great. But 8 hours for a $10-$30K salary bump? I mean, worth it from a pure monetary standpoint, even if it takes several attempts to attain one of those jobs.

<comment><USER2> The article is about age discrimination and my comment pointed out that older developers may value their "off time" more, which biases take home tests against those older devs.

<comment><USER5> Valuing your off time is great when you've got a steady job that you're happy with. If you're looking for a new job, because you're unemployed or because you're unhappy with your current job, you have to invest your off time into that. Just like, in college I had to invest my off time into studying so I could get good grades...Older folks that have kids and stuff may have less off time, sure, but that's the way things go.

<comment><USER2> So you're admitting that older people are disadvantaged by these types of assignments that are not actually selective for coding capability, but throwing up your hands and saying that's just the way life is?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I mean, folks with kids are at a professional disadvantage to folks without kids...that's pretty well established. Kids bring all sorts of other great benefits to life. But extra time is not one of them. And folks who choose to spend their off time doing other activities rather than leveling up their skills or applying to better jobs are going to remain that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From my experience working with web businesses age is irrelevant to hiring, but it strongly influences office culture. As a side note I am a front-end developer which tends to skew extremely young, but I have been doing it for 20 years. I don't consider myself either a baby-boomer or a millennial.

In offices of extremely young teams without a lot of mentorship the big focus is on abstractions and frameworks. The primary technology is JavaScript. I get the feeling of people wanting to move really fast and build cool things, but with huge limitations around their understanding of the technology.

In offices of much older developers the focus is more heavily directed towards code design and architecture. Contrasting to the previous group the older folks feel more confident they can build just about anything and don't mind jumping into the technologies directly, however their focus tends to be more narrow as though there are a set fixed few ways of doing things. This group generally tends to treat web technologies with an utter disregard and prefers to isolate themselves in Java.

Actual fullstack people are rare to either demographic but tend to have a wider understanding of how things work outside their comfort zone.

<comment> le-mark I agree, what I see in the midwest is that experienced, senior developers are in hot demand. The only companies that skew young are the Big Dumb Corps with horrible cultures (overtime, low pay, atrocious legacy code). There are a lot of second or third tier universities graduating cs (or whatever) majors who _don 't_ go to silicon valley. One company here, in particular, vacuums these people up. Senior developers won't put up with that. Me and a lot of my peers have done stints there, and consider ever going back to be a last resort. Hence this particular company pays outlandish prices for contractors, even flying people in from out of state, weekly.

<comment><USER8> Is it Epic Systems? It sounds like Epic Systems.

I did a stint there, and going back isn't even a last resort. I'd rather move to Elbonia and sell stolen credit card numbers.

<comment> le-mark Close, cerner.

<comment><USER8> I imagine GEMS and McKesson and Eclipsys and Meditech and Siemens are all so similar that you need to look at your employee ID to remember who you're working for.

Let this be a lesson for all those looking to disrupt a big, heavily entrenched industry with lots of loose money sloshing around in it.

But be warned: it's more difficult than it looks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > In fact, 29% of our survey respondents say the average employee age at their > company is between 31 and 35. Millennials, yes—albeit at the older end of > that demographic. A further 17% say that their company's average is between > 20 and 30.

> By contrast, 3 in 10 (27%) respondents say that the average age of employees > at their company is 36-40 years old, making them members of the younger end > of Generation X. The over 40s (Gen X and Boomers alike) have to share the > remaining 26%.

That's 56% of tech employees between 31 and 40. Xennials FTW!

</comment><comment><USER10> I watched a talk by Bob Martin in which he claimed that the number software engineers in the world doubles every 5 years. For a huge majority of those new engineers, it's their first careers. Thus, almost half of the world's software engineers should be between the ages of 22-27. So, tech companies are dominated by the young not because they hate old people, but because there are so many young people with technical skills and that number is growing rapidly.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't he claim a lot of things? I mind me of his "unit tests and self- discipline are all you ever need" philosophy toward software reliability, as recently discussed here on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am 45 years old, and work for a very large consultancy (I won't name them here, but you can figure it out if you're curious). I don't actually work as a consultant, but rather on a product.

One of the things I like about working here is that when I go to company events, like the internal conference that I'm at this week, I see people at all age levels. Plenty of young people, but also plenty of people my age or older. And the people older than me aren't coasting until retirement - they're mentoring, leading new initiatives, working on exciting projects. It gives me hope that I'll be able to work on interesting things until I'm ready to retire.

All this to say, there are plenty of companies that value age and experience, but you might have to look outside of the startup scene.

</comment><comment><USER13> Then come over to EU. Here not only one have to be young but as well cheap. 100k USD? Forget about it max we can do is 30-40k USD. Apart few exceptions in Germany haven't seen a developer above 40 years old, rarely have seen one above 35.

<comment><USER14> Come to Dublin. Where I work, we'd love to hire more experienced people. I'd say around 15% of my colleagues are >40, with 3 or 4 > 50.

I don't think it is at all unusual to get paid significantly more than €40k..

<comment><USER15> > I don't think it is at all unusual to get paid significantly more than > €40k..

It's neither in Germany. I have no idea where op gets their information. Sure, compared to the US pay in Germany is lower, but 40k is not even remotely on the high end for a developer.

<comment><USER13> I meant developing EU countries, in developed ones it's more like 60-80k USD, but only in those with healthy economies like DE, NL, IE, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think it boils down to one thing: How enthusiastic an old engineer is about technology in general and whether they are proactive on keeping themselves up to date on the latest things (vs reactively learning something when a project requires it).

I worked at a startup for the last 4.5 years which had a lot of older (40-50 yr) people (the founders were in their late 40s). I also interviewed a lot of older people (both with positive and negative feedback). What I noticed is two clear groups:

One set of older devs have been in the tech industry just because they needed a job and have somehow kept up with the technologies in a reactive manner. This set of people have mentality of "this is how we used to do this back in 19xx/20xx". It doesn't always work out.

The other set of people are genuinely interested in technology and proactively seek new things, present papers, blog about stuff, and are always on the look out for the next improvement and the next thing. This set of people tend to learn from their own experiences and improve on things while providing guidance to devs in their 20s/early 30s. This set of people never have trouble finding jobs.

The bottom line is that the tech industry requires you to do continuous learning and be enthusiastic about stuff. If you can't do that you'll have trouble finding jobs when you're older.

Edit: I'm seeing the same pattern at my current job even though the percentage of older devs is lower here.

<comment><USER17> If people have to "present papers" and "blog about stuff" just to keep a steady paycheck, it's a sign the industry is broken.

<comment><USER16> The industry itself is only a few decades old.. it'll take some time before it stabilizes to a point where you can largely do the same thing your entire career.

Also everybody doesn't have to present papers, or speak in seminars, etc. but most older developers who are sought after usually do.

<comment><USER18> Because the person who writes a lot of blog posts is the person who spends a lot of time marketing themselves but not actually getting shit done. If you think a blog post is proof of knowledge, well wow, you'd be shocked at what academia's peer review process is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ageism is the one -ism _everybody_ suffers from.

It doesn't matter how privileged you are. You might think "hey, I'm a straight cis white male, I'll never have to worry about discrimination!". And then 20 years later, you're middle-aged. Hello age discrimination!

<comment><USER19> Dumb argument - straight cis white males are agrubly the ones who have to worry about discrimination the most.

Why do you think we're seeing articles about ageism in tech? It's because people do care about it. Look at all the ethical issues that don't get much attention - H1Bs and social stratification in India for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >Removing terms like "recent graduate" and "digital native" could help encourage older professionals to apply for these positions.

Or, "you'll join a young team of developers ...", a type of phrasing that makes it very clear who will be a "culture fit" and who probably won't.

Recently I came across a job ad from a SV startup company that contained the text "We are looking to hire talented young developers for backend development" . The message doesn't get much clearer than that.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think framing things as some sort of discrimination, "ageism" in this case, constantly works to avoid actually approaching the question of why things are the way they are by instead simply blaming prejudice or other unreasonable issues. So for instance a few random issues, or perceived issues:

\- Older workers are genuinely more well qualified and are going to demand a substantially higher salary than younger workers.

\- Younger workers are less likely to have family and other outside commitments that may take priority over work related issues.

\- Younger workers may still see things like web technologies becoming obsoleted every few years as an exciting and invigorating thing, anxious to learn the next big thing (that will then be obsolete 3 years later).

\- Pair the above two to yield the fact that younger workers may be more inclined to spend their own time pursuing interests that could improve their perceived value as an employee.

\- Older workers have a better understanding of employee-employer relationships and may be less inclined to accept unreasonable 'friendly nudges' that can encourage younger workers to "give 110%" [without corresponding compensation]

\- Older workers are going to have a better idea of what they're worth than younger workers who will, almost invariably, dramatically lowball their worth. This gets back to point #1, but also arises in things like contract negotiations.

"Ageism" suggests people are discriminating against individuals because of their age. Choosing to hire people who have certain characteristics, even when those characteristics are less prevalent in older individuals, is in no way discriminatory. And in framing it as ageism we ignore _why_ people may prefer younger workers and the discussion of whether these reason are legitimate.

I half wish we had a way to completely remove any identity related characteristic from the hiring process and end once and for all any allegations of discrimination. Full on voice scrambling, audio only discussion, and VR in lieu of on-site interviews. Only downside would be a necessary restriction on certain topics that could implicitly reveal identifying information. It'd be like the dating shows of the 90s. After you'd made an offer that was accepted, the block would turn and you'd finally get meet your new employee.

<comment><USER22> This for me was the most thought provoking comment on this entire thread. It tends to be the case that when accusations of prejudice are lightly thrown around, slowing down, thinking reasonably, and giving our fellow humans a cursory benefit of the doubt casts a totally different light on the issue. That said:

> I half wish we had a way to completely remove any identity related > characteristic from the hiring process and end once and for all any > allegations of discrimination. Full on voice scrambling, audio only > discussion, and VR in lieu of on-site interviews.

I feel like I could figure out their age and race just from vernacular. Plus that would be ridiculous. I don't want to hire someone who I don't want around the office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are 2 kinds of old people:

1\. Old battle hardened veterans who can just jump in and clean the floor. The desire more battles and will confront problems head on

2\. Folks who are in the industry for a long time and are productive as a consequence of experience and not because they desire to be there

There are folks intersecting the two sets above. But more often than not, folks in 2 are folks with families, mortgages and other commitments making them risk/battle averse. That kills their hireability.

The reasonably confident, smart old folks are the ones who just walk into companies and bash the young interviewers right away (I experienced this as the young interviewer myself).

Young engineers fit the above categories too but they get the benefit of doubt and get hired for potential. Older folks don't seem to have that luxury.

<comment><USER24> 3\. Folks who understand business, and know a crappy deal or a hopeless cause when we see one. I believe this is the majority of the so called "risk averse."

I'm 53, and consider myself to be in the first and third categories: I'm certainly willing to jump in and produce, and I'm not afraid of hard problems, but I can see when someone's trying to lure me with empty promises, or who is taking unnecessary business risks.

We also respect you enough to have a frank conversation with you, which could be unnerving if you're accustomed to interviewing people who have been trained to tell you what they think you want to hear.

<comment><USER23> 3\. Folks who understand business, and know a crappy deal or a hopeless cause when we see one. I believe this is the majority of the so called "risk averse."

You are number 1 in the categories I defined in my original post.

Risk averse people are people who cannot move out of their language, area of expertise etc.

<comment><USER24> I hate to think about it, but answering questions about things like risk aversion may be akin to the coding interview, where they could be studied and memorized. The flip side is that with business experience, the older candidate could make an educated guess about how likely it actually is, that they will have to work outside of their existing skill set. So, objectively assessing the risk is sometimes an alternative to simply avoiding it without knowing if the risk is real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1) I've witnessed ageism.

2) I've worked with old timers who do nothing and get paid a ton. I still can't figure out what they do all all day. I think they go on 10 coffee breaks and browse the web.

I suspect the latter is a stereotype that motivates the former.

<comment><USER26> "I still can't figure out what they do all all day."

Could be not much of value, but could also be that you just haven't figured it out.

I've seen two kind of older employees. 1) Those that have the experience to know which problems are worth solving and how to solve these problems with minimal effort and disruption and 2) Those that have simply grown lazy and complacent while developing the workplace skills to keep their position.

Younger me had a hard time telling the difference and figured it was just lazy all around.

<comment><USER25> There are people whose value I don't understand. There are people who are on reddit and coffee breaks constantly. They produce no output. Others complain about them too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's incredibly irresponsible to see this and think "not my problem". This is the one form of discrimination that eventually comes for us all, unless you get rich or die first. And yet, does it come up in discussions of diversity and inclusion? Rarely, and if it does, pretty much just as an aside. I've never seen a company that had goals to hire people in certain age brackets, or even bothered to offer an age breakdown of recent hires, as they do with race and gender.

<comment><USER26> I wonder what the industry will look like at the time ageism really starts affecting the early 20 somethings.

If we are still doing JavaScript frameworks and Webpack in 20 years I'll be a bit surprised. In which case it might be a double whammy. Ageism and a significant start over.</comment></comment>


List of websites blocked in the United Kingdom - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_the_United_Kingdom#Blocked_by_mobile_operators_and_ISP_network_filters <comment><USER2> There is also a git repo that many folks use to block various categories. [1]

[1] - [https://github.com/firehol/blocklist- ipsets](https://github.com/firehol/blocklist-ipsets)

It's mostly IP addresses and networks. It contains a more complete list of proxies, mentioned on the parent link on wikipedia.</comment>


According to Japanese Traffic Lights, Bleen Means Go - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japan-green-traffic-lights-blue <comment><USER2> > _In that regard, blue—one of the four traditional colors originally > established in the Japanese language along with red, black and > white—historically encompassed items that other cultures would describe as > green—creating the concept of "grue," the portmanteau of blue and green > first coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955._

Maybe this is mere pedantry, but Goodman's "grue" and "bleen" did _not_ mean anything like "bluish-green" or "colour ambiguous between blue and green".

His definition was something like this: an object is grue if it is green and it's not yet 2000-01-01, or if it's blue and it's 2000-01-01 or later; "bleen" is the other way around. What's the point of these silly-sounding definitions? Goodman was thinking about _empirical induction_ , the process where you see lots of ravens, observe that they're all black, and decide "hmm, looks like ravens are generally black". So, suppose it's the year 1990, and you've seen lots of grass in the springtime and it's always been green. _It 's equally true that it's always been grue_. So why is it that we're so confident in concluding "grass is generally green" rather than "grass is generall grue"?

If this strikes you as interesting rather than stupid (reasonable people could jump either way), see [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction- problem/#GruPar...](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction- problem/#GruParNewRidInd) for more.

... Hence an email-signature joke I've seen from time to time. "It is dark and after the year 2000. If you proceed, you are likely to be eaten by a bleen."

<comment><USER3> Just for the record, Goodman's problem was solved by David Deutsch who profoundly observed that languages are theories. The grue/bleen theory has embedded within it the unmotivated (and false, though that's a detail) hypothesis that there is something special about some particular date which has been picked out of a hat and embedded into the theory in order to make Goodman's pedantic point. It is this arbitrariness and lack of motivation that invalidates the grue/bleen theory (which is actually a whole family of theories parameterized by the magic date) from a scientific point of view.

There are examples of words that have times embedded in them that are actually reflective of natural phenomena and hence constitute valid theories, like "main-sequence" (with regard to stars).

<comment><USER4> Deutsch is a physicist. Unless you can provide evidence of prominent philosophers applauding his contribution, it seems a bit glib to say he solved the problem posed by Goodman.

It's their conversation, they get to decide what's admissable or satisfying as an answer.

<comment><USER5> > Deutsch is a physicist.

so was Einstein. physics, philosophy, math, and a lot of other fields reward being able to find simplicity / symmetries. it's probably best to not discount people or their theories just because of a label attached to them.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a philosophical discussion, but it's unlikely to be well received. The HN crowd probably has no difficulty seeing how this would be the case with e.g. (a recent example discussed here) "trisectors". Well, philosophy has its cranky outsiders too, up to and including Hawking (arrogantly?) declaring philosophy obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By the way, the order of appearance of colour names in language might be more or less fixed across languages:

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

It's a quite interesting. Though it means that while the article says " _blue -- one of the four traditional colors originally established in the Japanese language along with red, black and white_ " (blue being equivalent to green here), yellow probably existed already as well then.

Today in Western languages the same thing happens with blue and cyan. Italians will think of cyan ( _azure_ ) as a colour while the French see it as a shade of blue, for example.

<comment><USER7> > _Italians will think of cyan (azure) as a colour while the French see it as > a shade of blue, for example._

Same in Russian - синий and голубой are usually translated as "blue" and "light blue".

Weirdly, English doesn't seem to have any problem with red and pink; you'd almost expect it to use "red" and "light red".

<comment><USER8> As a German living in the US I'm sometimes uncertain how to properly distinguish between the German colors "rosa" and "pink". German "pink" is probably a little bit brighter than American "pink". The "rosa" is a very soft pink. The best translation for "rosa" is probably "rose-colored". However, it always feels off to me. In German "rosa" is a very common color whereas "rose- colored" is more of a comparison than a real color name. I mean even "periwinkle" has its own proper word. We don't call it "smurf-colored". It always makes me feel like I'm missing a very important color word. It's probably the only part of the English language that still makes me feel very uncertain and like I'm missing some fundamental word.

Edit: so I just had a discussion with my American wife about it and according to her "Rosa" is pink and German "pink" is hot pink. Now I think what might make this confusing to me might just be the different meanings of the same word "pink". Solved.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like you're describing magenta. It's a more saturated pink.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is the same reason a green build is in fact a blue one in Jenkins by default. It was developed by a Japanese programmer.

<comment><USER11> Correct, here's an official explanation[0].

[0]: [https://jenkins.io/blog/2012/03/13/why-does-jenkins-have- blu...](https://jenkins.io/blog/2012/03/13/why-does-jenkins-have-blue-balls/)

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I misremembered the Jenkins traffic light originally using green (I probably got confused by a plugin which changes the color) and was convinced it was a weird accessibility change.

For the record: I'm green-blind and I always found the Jenkins colors confusing because red is too pale and light to provide good contrast with the blue. Hence I always assumed it was just a poorly executed accessibility fix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Whereas in English a rookie employee might be referred to as being "green," in Japanese they are aonisai, meaning a "blue two-year old."_

Just wanted to point out that in french we refer to a rookie as a "bleu" (so, blue) and, as far as I know, we don't have the same history as Japan for colors.

<comment><USER14> In France it comes from the military, during the revolution conscripts soldiers were wearing blue, while professional royal soldiers were in white.

In Japan it's probably like in English, a reference to fruits that are not ripe yet (=> ao ringo).

<comment><USER15> A Japanese friend tells me the blue is in reference to the 'Mongolian blue spot'[0] that most Asian, Pacific, Native and African American babies tend to have....

Basically bodies with lots of melanin in them; it's a cluster of melanin at the lower back, sometimes mistaken for a bruise by carers unfamiliar with the phenomenon.

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

EDIT: Oh, it's mentioned in the wiki article:

> The Mongolian spot is referred to in the Japanese idiom shiri ga aoi (尻が青い), > meaning "to have a blue butt", which is a reference to immaturity or > inexperience.

<comment><USER16> This explanation can be found on blogs and whatnot, but dictionaries and etymology sites don't seem to hold with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Referencing an old RadioLab podcast "Why isn't the Sky Blue." [http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt- blue/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/)

That podcast states that Homer never used the color blue. As somewhat of a dead language linguist that still sits in the back of my head all the time. I am not 100% sold nor 50% sold on the idea that colors are seen only when they are defined BUT....

This article states -

> In that regard, blue—one of the four traditional colors originally > established in the Japanese language along with red, black and > white—historically encompassed items that other cultures would describe as > green—creating the concept of "grue," the portmanteau of blue and green > first coined by philosopher Nelson Goodman in 1955. Indeed, a distinct word > for green is a relatively recent development in Japanese, only coming into > existence in the late Heian Period (794-1185)

<comment><USER18> As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them. A similar example might be cars. I have a 2009 Honda Fit (Jazz in some parts of the world). To most people, a Fit is a Fit but because I have one, I can tell the difference between the first second and third generation just by glancing at them. If I point out the differences, someone will see them but they don't seem them instantly like I do.

<comment><USER19> >As I understand it, it isn't that people don't "see" the colors if they aren't defined but that they haven't learned to distinguish between them.

No, this is also wrong and implies some kind of superiority. It's not that other cultures that describe colors differently haven't learned to distinguish between them, it's that they categorize them in different ways. Our terms for colors are not fixed features of the universe, and different peoples will categorize the visible light spectrum differently. No one way is more sensible or right than the other. The historical Japanese word "ao" described a spectrum of colors that covers that part of the visible light spectrum that we in English divide into two categories (blue and green). This isn't an inability to distinguish, it's a different way of thinking.

It's not about seeing or not seeing, it's that they're not organizing what they see in the same way you or I do.

<comment><USER16> Keep in mind, just because historical Japanese (or anybody) didn't have a name for a given color doesn't mean they couldn't talk about it. There's no reason they couldn't have talked about specific things as being the color of leaves, the sky, oceans, and so forth.

All that's being talked about here is how societies decide to group up or split apart general categories of colors, not whether their language allows them to talk about specific things of various colors.

<comment><USER19> You've just restated what I wrote.

<comment><USER16> I disagree. Note that it wasn't a counter-argument, just added comment.

Incidentally if you're interested, the historical "ao" didn't really refer to a specific band of the the visible light spectrum as you suggest, it could mean any pale or ill-defined color, with "red" being used for any strong vivid color. Per wikipedia, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tom Scott has a great quick explainer on this linguistic quirk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtnD4jmCDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TtnD4jmCDQ)

</comment><comment><USER21> It's worth noting that it would also help any red/green colorblind drivers.

Red/Yellow/Blue is a better choice, international standards be damned.

<comment><USER22> UK traffic lights changed the green colour to something closer to cyan at some point for exactly this reason. (This might be an EU wide thing.)

<comment><USER23> Yes, I've seen cyan led traffic lights in Spain and France. I think that's the new norm when led lights are introduced. I'd say it's for colorblindness sake mostly. They look exactly like the Japanese lights in the article.

There are also some other strange norms in Europe, as the "orange" yellow:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#European_standar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light#European_standard)

<comment><USER24> 'Strange' depends on your frame of reference. In my (European) country, you would be ridiculed for suggesting that the middle colour on traffic lights should be yellow instead of orange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> And germanic languages instead didn't make a such a clear distincion between blue and black in past. Pretty interesting stuff.

<comment><USER26> [https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/even- rac...](https://thegeekygaeilgeoir.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/even-racists-got- the-blues/)

<comment><USER27> This link is inserted completely randomly in the discussion tree, but it made my morning.

<comment><USER28> Not entirely random, since it's about a language (albeit non-Germanic) unifying blue and black.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In Mesoamerica, _yax_ refers to colours on blue-green spectrum including malachite greens, and azurite or indigo blues [1]. These ancient people used pigments of varied saturations and hues in their paintings.

[1] Veiled Brightness : A History of Ancient Maya Color; Stephen Houston, et al.

</comment><comment><USER30> >the country faced pressure to comply with international traffic customs regarding traffic lights.

It seems weird that a country would face such pressures. Is there a UN body that enforces such rules?

<comment><USER31> Japan (like many other countries) has not signed the 1968 conventions on road traffic and road signs and signals. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Sign...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals) [http://www.iard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/United- Nation...](http://www.iard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/United-Nations-Road- Safety-Conventions-Presentation.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Now I'm curious how blue the original lights were, since the current ones are pretty green, though not as green as in the west.

<comment><USER33> I think in the past the Japanese simply didn't make much of a distinction between blue and green and the traffic lights are an artifact of that.

<comment><USER34> I don't think that's the case. Several cultures (not just Japan by the way) don't really have different wordings for blue and green until recent History but this has nothing to do with them not being able to do make such distinction in practice.

<comment><USER35> As far as my basic Mandarain knowledge goes it was like this in Mandarin too (qīng) but I know there's seperate words for blue and green in Mandarin now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It would have been worth mentioning that the English language fills the gap for unambiguously expressing the blue color.

The word "buruu" (ブルー) is gainfully employed in everyday Japanese.

Other interesting things:

because unripe fruits and such are green, the word "ao" also means unripe. "mada ao da!" \--- it's not ripe. By further metaphor, anything that is young or immature, even if not a plant.

"aokusai" (青くさい) --- unpleasant (to the speaker) smell of plant origin; also means inexperienced or immature, like "greenhorn".

"aosameru" (青褪める) --- to grow pale.

"ao" also refers to the appearance of stubble on a man's chin and face.</comment>


Hackers with no equity in company: good or bad? - <AUTHOR> Does YC frown upon applicants who have hackers on their team but hold not equity stake?  How should they be included in the application. <comment><USER2> I trust that you're not going to complain if they quit your project for a project that does offer them equity.

FWIW, no one is indespensible in a startup; some are merely harder to replace than others. I'll bet that "original idea" guys are getting equity even though they cease to be indespensible.

<comment><USER3> "no one is indespensible in a startup"

I have been in too many startups that died because they lost or failed to recruit one particular person---or in the case of LMI survived (for a while) because I recruited one indispensable classmate who made their LAMBDA processor work---to believe this.

A reverse example would be the receiving clerk at Intel who single-handily almost killed them as mentioned in Chringley's book.

In my experience, just about every founder of a startup is "indispensable" after you shake things out a bit---make a single mistake with any of them, and you're not likely to survive.

<comment><USER2> The fact that a startup dies when someone leaves doesn't imply that said person was indespensible.

<comment><USER3> I am relying on "inside information".

I suppose that means this is an "appeal to authority", but, still, if a person critical to making software work is gone, and the company fails specifically because they can't make their software work, what else am I to assume?

(Needless to say, sometimes I've been that person.)

<comment><USER2> I'll buy that a company can be set up so it is dependent. Outside of some special cases (subset of technology and relationships), I think that doing so is usually unnecessary and the "indespensable" label is typically untrue, especially when it comes to biz folk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would it hurt to throw them a couple percent?

<comment><AUTHOR> What would be the reason for "throwing" them an equity stake? Many people believe this makes a person more dedicated to the company, which is absolutely false.

<comment><USER5> Then why do you think startups have such a thing as options? Do you think everyone else is just mistaken in believing that equity matters in startups?

<comment><AUTHOR> Equity should be given to individuals who are critical to the success of your company, individuals who are indispensable. Too many companies give equity to individuals who can be replaced once the company becomes self-sustaining. Equity shouldn't be given to "good" coders just because they contributed in the beginning. Equity should be saved for the "great/exceptional" coders that you may attract as your business grows.

<comment><USER5> The empirical evidence suggests startups don't work that way. All the most successful startups had great techical people from the beginning. If you don't have good technical people at the start, you never reach the point where you attract them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't dispute that. What if you have great technical people in the beginning who happen to have no equity stake? A talented developer is a talented developer (regardless of how they are compensated)...equity doesn't make them any better, does it?

<comment><USER5> If they're de facto cofounders and they have no equity, then either you're cheating them (and they don't know they should have equity) or they don't have much faith in the project (and prefer salary to equity).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> you will not get accepted.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd list such people under "suckers". YC doesn't provide enough money to pay anyone a decent salary, so anyone who isn't getting equity is being short- changed.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are being compensated, not looking for YC to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think hackers are a critical component of technical teams and therefore should be rewarded with equity/options.

</comment><comment><USER9> The verdict: "bad" - but what did you expect from this site?</comment>


Android and the GPLv2 death penalty - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/455013/7b3cbe56fc85e6d3/

<comment><USER2> This paragraph from the bottom of the article presents a vector of attack (albeit a small one) on the kernel that I hadn't considered before, but it seems like one we may quickly encounter in the future.

"One would guess that a copyright troll with a small ownership [of kernel code] would succeed mostly in getting his or her code removed from the kernel in record time. Big holders could pose a bigger threat. Imagine a company like IBM, for example; IBM owns the copyright on a great deal of kernel code. IBM also has the look of one of those short-lived companies that doesn't hang around for long. As this flash-in-the-pan fades, its copyright portfolio could be picked up by a troll which would then proceed to attack prior infringers. Writing IBM's code out of the kernel would not be an easy task, so some other sort of solution would have to be found. It is not a pretty scenario."

<comment><USER3> "IBM also has the look of one of those short-lived companies that doesn't hang around for long."

this is probably the funniest sentence I have ever read.

<comment><USER4> It's conceivable that Motorola Mobile might have had GPL-licensed linux code. That story might be playing out differently had Microsoft bought them instead of Google.

<comment><USER5> In the end, the code gets removed and rewritten. Most of Linux is drivers for hardware that you don't have anyway, so the chances of this affecting the average person are minimal.

Honestly, nothing but good could come from being forced to remove key parts of Linux. A lot of it needs a good rethinking, but breaking compat would not be tolerated. If it's legally required, then people don't have a choice.

<comment><USER4> "In the end, the code gets removed and rewritten."

Undoubtedly true, but what about deployed/sold devices? I wasn't real impressed at the pace of the update getting to my Epic, which I believe was caused in part by different motivations between Samsung and Sprint. What about devices that are no longer supported by updates? They're "out there."

<comment><USER5> I guess they get an emergency patch or Samsung pays damages. Just like they already do for the eight billion patents various trolls claim their phones infringe on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The gist of it _seems_ to be that yes, once you violate GPLv2 you need explicit permission to get your license restored (which would be hard to do in the case of the Linux kernel), but hey, don't worry about it. The copyright owners are nice people who just want the source distributed, so go ahead and ignore the license as long as you intend to eventually comply--there won't be any serious consequences.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a subscriber-only article. By linking to a subscriber link we are not helping LWN.

Quoting LWN: "Reader subscriptions are a necessary way to fund the continued existence of LWN and the quality of its content."

<comment><USER5> But LWN has a feature specifically for sharing subscriber-only articles on social news sites, and that's why everyone can see this article. Presumably if this is killing them, they'd just turn that feature off.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough I guess. I don't work for LWN. I just felt slightly guilty by accessing a subscriber link that was probably intended more for "friends of a subscriber" than the whole internet community.

<comment><USER8> Aren't we all friends here? :)

Honestly, though, if LWN was worried about this, they could put some sore of limit on the number of times a subscriber link could be used (per time unit?) or something. I don't think they are, and rightly so: the exposure to their content (which is very good value for the small amount of money they ask subscribers), as well as their liberal policy on these 'friend links' probably lead to more subscribers. Personally, I want to read the LWN articles when they appear there (on their RSS feed, to be precise), and not when someone gets around to posting a link on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I did not understand in the original article: For what is the license void? For BusyBox or for BusyBox 1.0.3. Is it valid again - new distribution - with BusyBox 1.0.4? Or is it the "same" software?

[edit] Just saw this is also discussed in the linked article.

PS: In philosophy this problem is known as Ship of Theseus. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus>

<comment><USER10> Software doesn't violate licenses, people do. Anyone who violates the license of a work loses their license to the work. A more pointed question then is about who violates/loses the license: an individual coder? A corporation/foundation?

<comment><USER8> I think the gist was: if you lose your license to distribute Busybox X, does that impact your rights with respect to Busybox Y?

My take on this (but IANAL) is that you do not really lose the rights to distribute a specific version, but the rights to distribute specific code (or compiled versions of it), and that would carry through to all code in version Y that was already in version X, but not any newer code that is unique to version Y. That won't be very useful, though.

[Edit] Just read the part of the article that deals with this question. Personally, I hold to my take on this matter -- that the scope is not a particular version of the distribution containing the code, but to all the bits of code of which the license was violated -- even if you also have access to the code in another way. My reasoning for this is that this could otherwise open up a pretty simple loop-hole: you'd only have to get someone else, whose license is not yet revoked, to fork the project, and release a new 'version' of the program, to get your rights to the code back. That can not have been the intention of that clause in the GPL.

<comment><USER10> Ah I thought you were naming BusyBox as an infringing work, not an infringed. Anyway, it does seem, as mentioned in the article, that if the copyright holder rereleases a similar work under a similar license, a past infringer gets a fresh shot, unless the author specifically publishes their revision history as a single work.

The point of the GPL really is about sharing, as the article suggests, not about punitive damages or post-violation injuctions. GPL-using authors do not want to prohibit infringers from future sharing, they want derived works published freely.

Much of the point of GPL and Free Software is about freedom for users, not making war against others. A past infringer gaining access to to code is not a loophole, it is part of the goal of the Free Software movement, which is unrestricted access for anyone to exploit software privately or to share it publicly (but not to allow public exploitation of non-shared code).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems that under Section 6 of GPL, a former violator could get a new license by simply receiving another copy of the software from anyone who still has a valid license:

> 6\. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the > Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original > licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms > and conditions.</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my book proposal - <AUTHOR>

I'm putting together a book proposal and some sample content and wanted to do a quick test with this group since many of you would fall into my target market.  Please comment if the description and concept are interesting enough that you would pick up the book or be interested in knowing more about the project.
Working Title: The Failing Point
Subtitle: Hard earned business lessons about what not to do
Description A business book for entrepreneurs and business leaders filled with lessons learned over a career working for some of the greatest companies and leaders, and companies and leaders of whom you've never heard. There are many books which attempt to lay out the steps the author thinks you should take to make you a millionaire or an overnight success. This is not that book. This is a set of essays on topics related to getting started, creating a product, building a team, starting a business, raising money, driving revenue, and operating the business. They say you learn the most from your mistakes.  If that is true, this book is a trove of learning for the reader.  Hopefully the reader can avoid failure and some of the common mistakes I, and many I have known, have made along the way. <comment><USER2> There may be other ways to package this knowledge depending upon your goals. Can you structure 10-15 key points as a 45-60 minute talk? How about in an interview format? Are there sample chapters or example content in either <http://bwatson.typepad.com/> or <http://www.manyniches.com/> If you want to do a book the easiest way is to self-publish. The challenge with the title is that--in my experience--entrepreneurs want a "to do" list not a "not to do" list. Although both are very useful.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am definitely working on the plan as to how to go about presenting all the content in alternate formats from a book. I want to build a community around this, since I believe that there is a lot of learning to be had from the collective so long as there are specific measurable outcomes that have or have not occurred.

Here's a little sample. All content is copyright. Please send feedback...don't be afraid to be brutal. That's the only way it gets better. There are 7 chapters envisioned, each with anywhere from 5-8 essays.

[http://www.manyniches.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/05/booksam...](http://www.manyniches.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/05/booksample1.pdf)

I own the domain www.thefailingpoint.com and www.failingpoint.com and plan to put content up there shortly. Am still designing what that will look like.

I find your point about entrepreneurs wanting a "to do" and not a "not to do" list very interesting. As I was testing this idea out, I found that my target customers in their mid careers were far more receptive to this idea than younger potential customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Please comment if the description and concept are interesting enough that you would pick up the book..."

Sure they are, but that doesn't matter. What matters to me is _who_ tells their story. I'd rather hear about the failures of someone who eventually succeeded that someone who's still struggling.

Make it like "Founders at Work" or "How to Get Rich" and you'll do well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I purposely left out the context around the "who" is writing it. I'm not an internet babillionaire. I've been involved in some good exits, have degrees from well known schools, etc. But I've also made a ton of mistakes, and have seen companies with whom I was working make mistakes, and haven't really seen a book lay out those mistakes, why they happened, and what could have been done better.

<comment><USER3> Great. Give us access to a sample chapter. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am looking for someone to help write my book proposal. You can contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


With trust destroyed, Facebook is haunted by old data deals - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/all-out-of-faithbook/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion of the source NYT article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18712382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18712382)

</comment><comment><USER3> I very much like to believe the "trust in Facebook is destroyed" message but...

(1) On every meetup I attend people are genuinely extremely surprised when I share with them even 1-2 of the screwups Facebook did. They are ENTIRELY clueless. And we're talking tech-savvy business founders and CEOs -- and often times CTOs and CFOs.

(2) Most don't care. They write it off as "I am not important enough to be spied on" or just directly admit "Facebook is integrated too much in my life and work and I can't replace it" and that's the end of the discussion. Many even say "they have only a part of my data, they can't have it all, right?" \-- and have no idea about how well the tracking industry does cross- referencing of seemingly unrelated data sets.

I don't think Facebook is going away anytime soon in any measurable way or form. Sure they might struggle monetizing their mountain of data and analytics, and sure the stock market circus might not be on their side right now but I can't see them actually losing a significant chunk of users in the next 5 years.

<comment><USER4> _" I am not important enough to be spied on"_

Such a familiar phrase. I'm so tired of hearing it from people I know. This is exactly like saying "I'm too broke for anyone to steal my credit card".

What you think of your own importance has zero bearing on how some unknown third party perceives you. Neither can you predict how they will use your information or how it will affect you. It's insane that people spend time and energy on keeping secrets from their relatives and friends (which _everyone_ does) and yet can't see that a third party that actively seeks your information is more likely to cause you harm than people you know. This is a trivial deduction, yet so many people can't comprehend it. They think that because they can't imagine how someone else could screw them up using their personal info, no one could possibly screw them up using their personal info.

Apparently, I'm not eloquent enough to convey this in a verbal conversation. I've tried. Funny thought: maybe I should print the paragraph above on a card and hand it out when someone says the key phrase.

<comment><USER5> > _It 's insane that people spend time and energy on keeping secrets from > their relatives and friends (which everyone does) and yet can't see that a > third party that actively seeks your information is more likely to cause you > harm than people you know. This is a trivial deduction, yet so many people > can't comprehend it._

I think this deduction is actually wrong. Ask yourself _why_ you hide some things from your relatives and friends. Could it be because quite a lot of people are really bigoted, and the immediate social costs of them learning more about you would be dire? Whereas data collection currently has only one visible consequence on the individual level: what kind of ads & spam you get, and how much. People correctly recognize this as mostly harmless.

People do react to things that affect them directly. In my country it is widely known that people trying to cheat our IRS or social insurance got busted over Facebook photos, so they know not to present a lifestyle that's different than the one they report to the government. (E.g. if you're consistently reporting low income, don't post photos of your two limos. If you're on a (paid by social insurance) medical leave that restricts you to bed, you'd better not get tagged on a photo placing you in a restaurant.)

EDIT: I don't mean to imply that the government has a backdoor access to this data; it's just there were cases of people dumb enough to share incriminating evidence of fraud that found its way to government investigators, by e.g. being posted publicly.

<comment><USER6> Wow! Can I ask what country you live in?

There are definitely some parallels here to the way people now often friend their bosses on Facebook, leading to uncomfortable knowledge sharing.

<comment><USER5> Poland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guarantee you when the first millennial takes a real shot at becoming president, someone at FB and other data companies will leak all of their private messages since they were teenagers. So much of our data is out there and it's never going away.

<comment><USER8> My hope is that by that point we have all grown enough as a society to be able to look past the little mistakes we all make as humans.

I do worry that FB/google etc could use that type of stuff as blackmail to get the policies they want enacted though.

<comment><USER9> Kompromat has been a normal part of the Russian political culture going back to negative rumors against Kerensky in 1917, and yet Russian society has not adapted a lenient attitude about it. Rather, the opposite happens, the public develops the attitude that everyone is corrupt and the right way to fight this is to make a severe example of anyone who gets caught.

<comment><USER10> We elected the "grab 'em by the pussy" guy. We're clearly not Russia.

<comment><USER11> I think that validates sharkweek's theory, above.

We have all said things, made crude and even cruel jokes, that we'd be embarrassed about if they became public. But I think we are starting to understand that it's pretty common and with cameras everywhere and social media it's much more likely that you'll be "outed" for something you said or did or would rather keep private.

I don't know if a society that doesn't shame people for that sort of stuff will be better. Shame is a powerful way that societies regulate undesired behavior. But I do think it's happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like the New York Times really enjoys blowing these Facebook stories out of proportion. Letting a company like Spotify integrate with Messenger is not wholesale selling of messaging data to advertisers. The data was shared with reputable companies using it to expand capabilities of what is offered to Facebook's users. This is not a shocking revelation and certainly not out of scope of the kind of sharing I would expect Facebook to do. Why all the sudden outrage? I have no problems with Facebook doing this with my data. There is nothing revealing about the NYT story. They are just adding hot takes to what is already public knowledge.

<comment><USER13> Does spotify need read/write on all my messages and posts ever made? I'm sure spotify isn't the only company granted this privilege of omnipotence. The cards are still falling, don't blame nyt for offering analysis when the news continues to break.

<comment><USER14> Maybe not, but do you think it is reasonable to build an API that explicitly asks the user for every single individual message? I'm not aware of a single web api that functions this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Most people still give not a single fuck unfortunately.

I went on a usage embargo for quite a while before deleting my account. Most of my friends' event planning is done through FB so it's hard to get invited to stuff if you arent a user.

After the Instagram plaintext password thing I decided it was time to go.

I made a post on FB stating why I was deleting my account and that I was keeping it up for another week for time for friends to read the post.

I outlined a lot of the things FB has done or let happen. The responses were the typical trite FB shit.

1\. What even is privacy, man‽

2\. Tin foil hat problems

3\. My account is fine

4\. I am 12 and what is this

<comment><USER16> "I'm not important enough to spy on" is the one I hear over and over again.

<comment><USER15> "No one is spying on you, they're selling you like a commodity"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am seriously starting to suspect an astroturfing campaign against Facebook. I'm not saying they do nothing wrong. But the recent laser focus has been incredible.

<comment><USER18> Facebook basically punked the entire news industry with the video nonsense. Trusting them killed a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs of people who write articles.

So I doubt[1] that there's an organized campaign against them of the sort they launched against Soros. But much like, if you punch a cop, you have to expect it won't end well, destroying a bunch of news rooms isn't going to endear you to the journalists picking up the pieces.

[1] Could be wrong.

<comment><USER19> Which basically confirms that the media is out to get Facebook.

I mean I suspect the same thing, but I wish everyone would be upfront with their motives instead of acting like they're just concerned citizens. Facebook's biggest critics are the same people that hated Facebook before they did any of this.

<comment><USER20> Nothing is quite so repulsive as someone with power motivations hiding behind a veil of morality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Through this scandal and others, society will learn just how harmful the dual- share class structures that allow founders to reap the economic benefits of public markets while shirking the oversight aspects and keeping all control are.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if Zuckerberg's job is in jeopardy at this point? I didn't think Uber was going to be able to shed their CEO, but after months negative articles about Uber, Travis lost his job, and I believe he controlled the voting shares also. Seems like FB is going through the same thing now (except there have been no sexual harassment complaints)

Can any lawyers or investors comment on what it would take for Mark to lose his job as CEO? How much value has to be shaved off facebook shares before investors loss all confidence ?

<comment><USER23> Zuck might be a prick but all of FB's business relies on user's data. Even if he was to be replaced I can't see how FB could follow a different business plan. Their money comes from advertising and advertisers flock to it because they can target groups of individuals by choosing demographics in a way that no one else offers. If you remove that part from the equation FB's revenue would collapse.

Zuck isn't the problem, the whole fucking service is the problem.

<comment><USER24> It's not even Zuckerberg's business plan. Sheryl Sandberg was brought in to make Facebook profitable, she instituted the data selling systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What trust?

It is still shocking to me that people EVER trusted Facebook. Since the very beginning, Mark has always been openly dismissive of user privacy.

<comment><USER26> We're all dumb fucks to him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I had begun to give up hope on the common sense of the masses to whom these stories are being pitched, but the comments in this thread have renewed my hope.

These hit-pieces are getting very tired and don't really do anything but put scary spins on things that have been public info for years. It's a shame a once-respected news org like the NYT has to resort to scrounging around looking for anything, _anything_ that will make for a FUD story about Facebook to get some page views. Problem is that they suffer no penalty as people seem happy to take the headline and run with it and the subtleties of the situation which Facebook itself has discussed in many instances including this one are discounted. Stories about "well it's not that bad" don't sell as well as "OMG HOLY SH*T FACEBOOK HAS BEEN GIVING YOUR MESSAGES TO EVERYONE!!!" and getting clicks is all these orgs care about now because it's all they can do to stay afloat.

<comment><USER20> The NYT has a nice long history of doing this, even as recently as helping build support for Iraq. Journalism for all the good it's done is simultaneously a very dirty business for all of its power over public opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For me, the trust was destroyed when Mark Zuckerberg bought houses which were around his house for privacy.

How can you trust a man and his company with your private data when he himself is so private about his life?

Don't get me wrong, I still admire Facebook's R&D but that's pretty much it.

<comment><USER29> I'm inclined to agree but surely there's a difference between physical privacy and privacy online.

<comment><USER28> call me old fashioned on this one but I believe that a man's character shines through any product he creates and any business he owns. Sooner or later, your business and work decisions become manifestation of your own true self regardless of the work mask you choose to apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't mean to be rude, but who the hell cares. I don't understand why people think if they are using something for free they have a right to privacy, or if the company isn't trying to make money from them to fund the service. The only way you would know you are protected is if national laws are passed, they are enforced, and they clearly set a framework of privacy that creates an even playing field...

People here might care, it might make good headlines, but I don't think any normal people out there care. When I talk to my friends who are not in Tech they just assume FB knows everything about them.. and they don't give a shit as they just want to use it for free.

</comment><comment><USER31> Facebook is a blog platform that sells ads.

I some T.V. show last night with Media people decrying Facebook and then Facebook explaining how they were trying their best and helping the world communicate.

Both sides seemed so overwhelming full of themselves. They both clearly thought all of their customers were idiots. And neither had the dignity to come out and say that they though all of their customers were idiots.

This is all going to end with another set of idiots in government passing a bunch of laws that in 10 years half the country will say were a giant mistake and the other half will say "but imagine how much worse things would be if we didn't have these idiotic laws."

Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER32> Funny thing is that some of my friends are protesting against facebook on facebook

<comment><USER33> > Funny thing is that some of my friends are protesting against facebook on > facebook

Ironically, that's _exactly_ where they should be doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Only way FB changes is if big-spending advertisers start dropping out. Losing users will probably not happen because FB can easily spoof user growth numbers.

On their next earnings call, if they say DAU grew by 5%, how would you audit the veracity of that statement? Users aren't cash, which can at least be verified by auditors that review bank statements.

</comment><comment><USER35> > "I am not important enough to be spied on"

Think about whole new generation of politicians and government. What if many of them said or did something wrong when they were young? Will our society adapt itself to new moral norms or will they be managed by some masters of the puppets?

</comment><comment><USER36> I guess for 1.5 billion daily active users "trust destroyed" doesn't mean what it used to.

<comment><USER37> The threat is not as immediate or obvious as what's covered on the evening news so people aren't scared of it....yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > But other moves aren't as bad as they sound.

TechCrunch is sure carrying a lot of water for FB here.

</comment><comment><USER39> Now, I am also curious to know how many such deals LinkedIn has and to what level they share data with other tech giants (except off-course Microsoft who already probably have access to everything)

</comment><comment><USER34> "haunted" all the way to billions in profit. If the FB revelations are to have a real impact on the culture of surveillance, the biggest advertisers have to start withdrawing from the platform (FB, IG, Whatsapp). Unless that happens, we will continue to see these hand-wringing articles and eventually become numb to them.

</comment><comment><USER40> It helps to explain the whole "if you talk about what happened on the north shore, you'll never get another job in this town again". Translated to "silicon valley runs a data mafia for sale to mercenaries" with a personal anecdote of being harassed/gaslighted in public in part with info from a private Facebook message

This stuff ruins lives. "Dumb fucks"

Burn them to the ground. Or, more likely, have the cia silently partner up

<comment><USER40> I'm literally preparing for my suicide now by giving away all of my money, after years of being harassed by strangers. The incident in August 2015 that was related to my Facebook private messages was one of many, but was particularly insidious and caused significant damage to my life.

It's highly likely that data has been for sale behind the scenes, readily available for malicious actors, making players like Facebook complicit in ugly shenanigans.

Please understand the downsides of information technology. It can be abused to hurt others in ways you may not have foreseen. I'm unable to withstand being harassed any further, and the harassment is 100% enabled by infotech. The Facebook shenanigans will hopefully serve as a prime example of the dangers of free information sharing by malicious actors.

<comment><USER11> > It's highly likely that data has been for sale behind the scenes

I would say it's a near certainty. Not saying that Facebook the company was selling data under the table, but one corrupt or extorted sysadmin in the right place is all it would take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I consider this a good lesson never compromising yoru morals. Once you do it, it can always come back and bite you in the ass.

I mean most of these deals happened 5+ years ago. And FB's stock is paying the price for it now.

So message to employees:

There are employee's who have received their entire 4 year grant fully vested now who weren't around when any of this happened. What your employer does, even if its not related to you, even if you weren't around for it, can still bite you in the ass.

They are paying the price in terms of the lowered share price and may have had nothing to do with any of this.

As another example banks are still paying fines related to 2008 that affect the current year's bonus pool.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that rank and file Facebook employees wrote code to allow all of these companies access to users chat messages, personal data, etc. and they never said no.

<comment><USER42> This reads like another part of the media crisis narrative: [https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual- facebo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook- crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis/) that users don't care about (in a measurable way).

<comment><USER43> The crisis is a manufactured "narrative" when the COO is reported to have yelled "You threw us under the bus!" in reaction to the CSO making an embarrassing disclosure to the board? And when FB is under ongoing investigation by the US/UK/EU governments?</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's future: Only Kinect - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/02/microsofts_future_only_kinect.html <comment><USER2> Is it worth noting that the title is a pun on a BBC quiz show? I get the feeling the pun was more important than the analysis in deciding the gist of the article.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/onlyconnect/quiz/></comment>


You probably won't get $125 from the Equifax settlement - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/26/8932398/equifax-settlement-125-claim-wont-get-money-alternative-reimbursement-compensation <comment><USER2> What kind of punishment is it if they can continue to operate unharmed after it? What's the incentive to actually do better?

<comment><USER3> The company has to spend at least $1 billion on cybersecurity measures over the next five years.

<comment><USER4> That won't harm them much.

That'll pay the entire engineering department's salary from it, something they were going to pay for anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish there was a way to opt out of being tracked by these credit agencies, beyond just freezing credit.

<comment><USER4> Even in Europe, with the draconian GDPR rules, credit reference agencies managed to write themselves a loophole in the law ('fraud prevention' is an excuse to hold data forever, against the will of the holder, and without their permission, or even ability to see it).

Bit sad really, considering "all banks deny me a loan, and I don't know why" is just the time you want to see the details of your credit report and correct errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gotcha crony vampiric cannibal capitalism at it's finest.</comment>


Pre-emptive arrest warrant for Snowden in Ireland - <AUTHOR> http://www.irishtimes.com/news/us-sends-government-arrest-warrant-for-snowden-1.1453364

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder how many other countries this has been done for?</comment>


Some Instacart workers to strike over pay that can be as low as $1 per hour - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/some-instacart-workers-to-strike-over-pay-that-can-be-as-low-as-1-per-hour/ <comment><USER3> I recently ordered from DoorDash, a similar service.

The app gave me a price for the order and then had a line item called "Dasher Tip" and asked me how much I wanted to put down. I put in $20.

Later when the woman arrived with the food, we stopped to talk for a minute. She was a little younger than my mom, and said she had just started working for the service after her husband died.

She asked me if she could ask me an awkward question, but I said okay. She wanted to know how much I had tipped her. $20.

She showed me her phone with the app on our order. DoorDash told her we had tipped her $6, which she thought was suspiciously low (we ordered $90 in food).

TL;DR: DoorDash presented me with an optional field called "Dasher Tip", which I wasn't sure of but assumed this was the Tip for the woman bringing us the food. I paid $20 for this "tip" but only $6 made it to the woman (whose husband had died). Incidentally I offered her a cash tip but she refused - <USER2> said I had already paid it and it should come from DoorDash.

Last night my friends wanted to order food again. I called it in to the restaurant and we picked it up. I don't want to use DoorDash anymore.

<comment><USER4> Call me crazy, but when I use one of these services, I expect the service to be reflected in the price.

<comment><USER5> I often wonder what uplift the U.S. economy gets because consumers are lured by an initial low price that doesn't include service fees, taxes, gratuities, etc. It's like an accepted form of _bait-and-switch_ , which is a proven tactic that increases sales.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure it has some effect but it's certainly diminished by the fact that everyone is aware of the markup and it's the same everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The gig economy is always going to be more volatile than full-time work. This is why grocery stores had not already hired full time drivers to deliver groceries, and why there is demand for Instacart.

It's the same with Uber. During a rainy day rush-hour there are rarely any medallion cabs available, so Uber created a way to get transportation on those days (surge pricing) that incentiveizes drivers to work during those times.

So normal (expected) peaks and troughs in utilization result in a price signal that reflects demand on a much more granular time scale than simply a full time or part time worker with a schedule planned months in advance.

There are two ways to solve this, and Instacart and Uber are both following the approach that is more economically sound -- pass the actual price signals to would-be workers, so that they can self-select in an optimizing way.

Nearly ever Uber driver I talk to is very pleased to be able to make the money on his/her terms, even if it's not great money, or if it's not as good as it used to be.

If we create an old-fashioned, industrial-era labor market overlay for the gig economy, all we'll accomplish is taking away some good employment options for those who need them most.

All of the "perks" of the industrial-era labor movement are geared at a specific labor/employer dynamic. Uber and Instacart are shifting that dynamic and doing the work of matching supply and demand to make work available that was not available before.

We must adjust our view of what a "good" and "fair" job is, when we consider that without the matching mechanism these jobs would not exist. Let's not kill them off just because someone exploited a loophole about ordering massive size cases of water.

Ultimately I think the ideal version of "uber for everything" is a worker- owned cooperative, but until VC gets tired of helping to prove out the model, such cooperatives are at a disadvantage. That is a temporary disadvantage. Let's not hamstring the cooperatives before they can even launch!

<comment><USER8> One of the lessons of Austin's temporary Uber/Lyft kick out was that very quickly worker run ride sharing emerged to serve the need.

<comment><USER9> I've used those services. They were buggy and broken to the point where I frequently ended up walking in the rain because I couldn't get a ride.

<comment><USER10> This shows basic economics is right again. Division of labour makes the economy more productive and society more prosperous. The investor/worker roles are such a division of labour.

<comment><USER11> Or it just shows that apps need some time to stabilize. The early versions of VC-funded apps are not always great either, to say the least.

<comment><USER7> Both are true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Back in the old days, when we actually manufactured clothing in this country, there was this concept of "piece work". You weren't paid by the hour, but instead by your work output. E.g. if you were performing some sewing step on a blouse, such as adding buttons, you might be paid $0.25 per blouse for that work step.

Of course employers tried to cheat, by setting the per-piece rate very low. You had to process many pieces to get a reasonable wage.

The Federal government was forced to step in. They required monitoring of all this activity so that "all employees, including piece work employees, earn at least the minimum wage."[1]

If only the people running the sweatshops in the old days thought to call their people "contractors" instead of "employees". They could have avoided most of the pesky regulation.

I'm being sarcastic. Clearly those people were employees under any reasonable definition. Same should apply here. This whole gig economy crap has gotten totally out of hand.

Fundamentally, an Instacart worker only has flexibility of when to work. The rest is more-or-less predetermined. Should that person be a contractor instead of an employee because he has his choice of the order in which to traverse the supermarket aisles? Should that person be a contractor because he has his choice of which streets to drive on from store to destination?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work#Minimum_wage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work#Minimum_wage)

<comment><USER13> It's precisely BECAUSE the law hasn't caught up that most of these exist the way that they do at all. Instacart, Postmates, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, etc. all make profit on the gap between what they pay and what the regulated equivalent pays. Their big competitive advantage is just lower costs by completely ignoring the law. We talk about "innovation" but then these services mostly operate on not paying employees, insurance, benefits, licensing, etc.

If I stop paying taxes and declare my consultancy a religion does that make my innovative? I'm instantly 40% more profitable than the next guy. You can "donate" via a mobile app too! It's not a payment, it's a donation. Please note the donation must be as it states on the invoic... err, donation services document.

<comment><USER14> > _Their big competitive advantage is just lower costs by completely ignoring > the law_

This is disingenuous. Uber started out with Uber Black, which was attractive because of its customer service. UberX was only launched in response to Lyft. Airbnb skirted some necessary hotel laws, and many unnecessary ones. Agree on Postmates and other delivery services.

<comment><USER15> All of them ignored the law. If Uber was just Uber Black you might have a point.

<comment><USER14> > _If Uber was just Uber Black you might have a point_

Uber launched Uber Black, and not UberX, because it was convinced a ride- sharing service would be shut down by authorities. When Lyft failed to be shut down, Uber panicked and responded. Next to this ambiguity are several cities' track records of racist, horrible cab drivers fully embracing their state- sponsored monopolies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Instacart pay depends entirely on where you work. My brother works for them in SF/SV and earns around $2k/week with wages and tips. For someone with zero skills or job training otherwise it's a pretty sweet deal. Plus you end up with a car load of free groceries to take home whenever the system screws up an order.

<comment><USER17> > Instacart pay depends entirely on where you work. My brother works for them > in SF/SV and earns around $2k/week with wages and tips. For someone with > zero skills or job training otherwise it's a pretty sweet deal. Plus you end > up with a car load of free groceries to take home whenever the system screws > up an order.

Funny how we were hearing these stories about Uber as well a few years ago, where people online were pretending some drivers became millionaire working for Uber. We now know none of this was true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This isn't innovation, it is exploitation. Where are the state attorneys' general on this? Injured hauling a 600-lb order of sugar and cooking oil -- it's absurd the company does not carry workers' comp insurance for this. In the real world not carrying workers' comp insurance is very serious business.

This is going to go like Napster, we'll find a better way when it is gone.

<comment><USER19> But they can opt out of any order they don't want to fulfill, right? Who would choose to fulfill that crazy order for the price on offer?

<comment><USER6> It might just be my opinion bit I think that the individual right to refuse is never enough protection. Especially in employment where preying on people who can't afford to say no seems to be the norm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Some shoppers have taken to individually showing their customers how to > remove the fee ("Do you want to know how to save 10 percent?") and pay their > shopper directly via tip instead.

This -- just remove the parasites. If you, as an insta-serf, can tell your customer that "the retail price is $X, you're being charged $Y, and I'm being paid $Z," you can become a true "independent contractor" by cutting InstaSerf, Inc. out of the equation. If the difference is greater than zero, split it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this corporate greed or is the value of unskilled labor quickly approaching zero?

<comment><USER22> I think the value of unskilled, marginal time spent is effectively zero at times where the utilization is approaching zero.

What I think this demonstrates is that the issue is very uneven demand. An analogy might be the electric company, which at some points of the day is literally seeing net negative demand in areas with enough renewable generation. They have power plants that can run any time, though, whereas gig workers cannot always pick and choose when they work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Instacart has agreed to pay at least several million dollars to settle the > lawsuits, which will result in a typical settlement payout of a few hundred > dollars per worker. The attorneys who brought the lawsuits, by contrast, > stand to make millions.

This seems like an unnecessary and out-of-context dig at lawyers. Also, the citation provided doesn't square with the claim: the settlement they linked to allowed total damages of $2 million, and capped the attorney's fees at 25%, so the maximum payout is half a million.

<comment><USER6> I get the sentiment that there are some lawsuits where the only people making real money are the lawyers but I think it's weird that it reflects on the them and not the system that pays out so little to injured classes. For a case like this it's easy to rack up a million dollars in billable hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The stories about large Bay-area tech companies placing enormous orders through Instacart are pretty appalling.

<comment><USER25> Ironically enough this wouldn't be an issue almost anywhere outside the US, where online groceries shopping was solved by the supermarkets themselves in the early 2000s. Despite employee benefits, minimum wages, collective bargaining and all that.

<comment><USER26> Well, at least in my country, their websites suck, and you can't guarantee delivery other than "sometime in the afternoon", meaning if you're on a tight schedule you're stuck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you do use Instacart, you should definitely opt-out of the "service fee" at checkout and put that money towards the tip directly for your shopper.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've said this before, but I think a key component of contractors' rights going forward will be legislating their employers' ability to "lock them in" with loyalty programs and the like.

In this case, a large part of the issue seems to be certain orders from people (and companies) that have found loopholes in the pricing (bulk orders of large, heavy goods).

If contractors could decline these orders with no repercussions, they wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. Instacart would fail to deliver these orders and quickly learn they need to change their pricing structure.

The argument could be made that you can go too far in giving contractors the right to decline. I can imagine various forms of extortion occurring or problems being unable to blacklist problematic contractors, but it's a tradeoff that seems to be too far in the company's favour right now. Maybe disincentiving contract work in service-critical environments is a good thing, considering the complaints about rising part time and contracted work and not enough full time work.

</comment><comment><USER29> Of all the delivery services out there Amazon Restaurants/ Food Delivery is the only one that pays right. There's a fixed hourly rate of about $16 that you receive whether you make a delivery or not. Any tip that you receive if you make a delivery at some point in time gets added.

All the rest give you a pittance, some even based on mileage. Its a pity!

</comment><comment><USER30> The obvious 'fair' thing for instacart would be something along the lines of paying per item with weight taken in to account.

Every packaged item has a barcode that you can look up to see the weight.

...but of course, that would make the commercial delivery services viable competitors to instacart on big orders right? Can't have that.

</comment><comment><USER31> What I don't understand is if the pay or working conditions are so bad, why don't people just go find a new job?

If they can't get anyone to do the job, they will be forced to pay more or fix the conditions. If they have a terrible reputation, nobody will want to work for them.

It's simple supply and demand.

<comment><USER32> It boggles me that anyone believes this. It's called leverage. Not everyone has equal ability, nor equal ability to change jobs for a variety of reasons.

<comment><USER33> So what do you think happens to those people if by a requirment on minimum income by instacart, they are barred from that job opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Ars spoke with six Instacart shoppers who said that they have routinely been > made to pick up several heavy items, such as cases of bottled water, soda, > or ice.

In Bangalore, I routinely see people from not only grocery delivery companies, Big Basket but food delivery like Freshmenu carrying huge carry bags with god knows how many items. Couple of times I have seen people struggle to get up the stairs with that much weight on their backs. And those are not contractors but employees.

I am sure few years later, we will need a study of back or some orthopedic problems associated with "shoppers".</comment>


Ask HN: What is a good way to coordinate online for a technical working group? - <AUTHOR> We have been considering Slack, Whatsapp, Telegram or even plain old mailing lists. Are there any other alternatives? Which ones are the best for a technical working group? Salient features that we are looking for:<p>- Ability to look at archives<p>- Multiple threads<p>- Good desktop support<p>- Ability to support technical notation<p>- Support for media and pdf <comment><USER2> whatwg creates review repositories and uses issues for their working group [https://github.com/w3ctag/design- reviews/issues/428](https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/428) and includes helper scripts so working group members can run 'make review' and publish the latest draft [https://github.com/whatwg/dom/blob/master/Makefile](https://github.com/whatwg/dom/blob/master/Makefile)

</comment><comment><USER3> Discord</comment>


Evidence that the universe is made of strings has been elusive for 30 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/string-theory-about-unravel-180953637/?no-ist <comment><USER2> The author of this article is Brian Greene, who is the leading explainer of string theory to mass audiences. He has taken on the challenge of explaining a kind of physics that many see as unintuitive and messy, and this article is a kind of "checking in" on the health of string theory for Smithsonian readers. So cut him some slack about the title, and about the French horn analogy. The gist of it is "Did string theory math explode and leave a big mess instead of finding something experimentally verifiable?" and his answer is "No. Maybe the varying options for extra-spatial dimensions in string theory explains why we have this set of cosmological parameters and not some other set."

<comment><USER3> Which is basically just using the weak anthropic principle as a convenient excuse for a lack of verifiability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lee Smolin, the physicist who wrote "The Trouble with Physics", ([http://leesmolin.com/writings/the-trouble-with- physics/](http://leesmolin.com/writings/the-trouble-with-physics/)) is the most notable critic of string theory. The basic problem with string theory is that it doesn't generate experimentally testable predictions, at least not at any energy level reachable. It may just be an mathematical exercise.

</comment><comment><USER5> >That string theory unites general relativity and quantum mechanics is a profound success.

Hmm... I'm not a string theory guy but I was not aware that they'd done that in a meaningful way.

[edit] Googling I came across a quote from Peter Woit: "The sole argument generally given to justify this picture of the world is that perturbative string theories have a massless spin two mode and thus could provide an explanation of gravity, if one ever managed to find an underlying theory for which perturbative string theory is the perturbative expansion." Dunno if that's fair?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Critic_of_string_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woit#Critic_of_string_theory)

</comment><comment><USER6> It would make more sense to me if the universe was built from precisely nothing. Thus everything around us would be merely abstract, but because we are part of it, we experience it as being real, or tangible.

The fact that multiple beings live in this abstraction is of course also an illusion, for we are all one.

<comment><USER7> You could say this about any model of the universe that's computable. You don't seem to be making a claim that could possibly be useful, or I'm misunderstanding you.

<comment><USER6> No, my remark does not give any useful explanations. The main point is that if we start thinking about how our universe could come into existence from absolutely nothing, we _could_ reach a model for it more quickly than by "just" matching theories to experimental outcomes.

Think bottom up, instead of top down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The C string theory of everything: God called printf() with a string argument that wasn't null-terminated, and now we're just running on a buffer overflow until the universe segfaults and blinks out of existence.

It's pretty amazing to realize that everything you know is the result of accessing random leftovers in heavenly RAM, but that's what C string theory tells us.

<comment><USER9> There are alternate theories though [http://xkcd.com/312/](http://xkcd.com/312/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Talk of a misleading title. This is not even the journalistic principle, which says if a question is posed in the headline, the answer is "no". The title question is "not even discussed" in the article. Which is ironic, considering the "Not Even Wrong" criticism of string theory and multiverses.

<comment><USER11> Brain Greene - the author said this about the article:

"Hi Everyone, To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the key paper that launched string theory into the mainstream of physics, I've written personal retrospective, just published in Smithsonian Magazine, on this remarkable but challenging approach to unification. \--BG PS: I didn't choose the title of the article, and don't consider it representative of the piece."

See [https://www.facebook.com/BrianGreenePhysicist](https://www.facebook.com/BrianGreenePhysicist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems that this article was published next year.

<comment><USER13> (In case it wasn't obvious), the Smithsonian is primarily a print magazine. The magazine arrives at or near the start of the month, which means the articles are written and ready before the printing starts. When I was a subscriber I would sometimes get the magazine before the start of the month, and occasionally joke about time travel.</comment></comment>