PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against violence - <AUTHOR> https://savepandadoc.org/en/ <comment><USER8> A few facts about these events:

\- Based on data collected by from only some polling places, there is a huge discrepancies in results comparing to official ones. Most poling places refused to post results. People, who demanded to post results (as the law requires), were arrested. You can read more about it at belarus2020.org

\- A lot of journalists left state media. Replacements were brought from Russia's state's propaganda media.

\- While police is involved in some cases, the bulk of arrests, beating, torture is done by special forces where most of them wear full head covering at all times. In the few episodes when such head covering is removed during the altercation, these enforces were running away hiding their faces with hands 1) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspZj5wPtaQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspZj5wPtaQ) ; 2) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5cV8Dl7jA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj5cV8Dl7jA)

\- Often, special forces use plain clothes and act like criminals. The only suggestion that they are law enforcement - they often have a baton and full head covering. They never tell you their names, departments, etc.

\- Last Sunday Belarus saw its first business glass door shattered as a result of protests (protests started on Aug 9th). That door was broken by special forces because some protesters tried to hide from beating there. People donated to the business owner to buy a new door and were standing in the line next day to buy a coffee from that place - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3I8dxAwybE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3I8dxAwybE)

\- To avoid beating by special forces, some running away protesters had to jump into the river. Water is quite cold. They were saved by the rescue team worked on the river, who brought them to the other bank of it. As a result, the whole rescue team was arrested - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqA3deW_- Yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqA3deW_-Yg)

There is a lot more going on, just wanted to share a few things to explain the atmosphere of it.

<comment><USER9> > Based on data collected by from only some polling places, there is a huge > discrepancies in results comparing to official ones. Most poling places > refused to post results. People, who demanded to post results (as the law > requires), were arrested. You can read more about it at belarus2020.org

Whatever country you're in, this is a good time to think about becoming a poll watcher. The exact arrangements vary but elections nearly always have a place for volunteers to watch the count somehow.

<comment><USER10> And potentially making you a liability to unscrupulous dictators is smart?

It's either pointless because nobody wants to fake results or you're another obstacle to remove.

<comment><USER11> In 1990, my brother observed the elections in Croatia that lead to the Yugoslavian war. Western Europe was recruiting young people to defend democracy and human rights across the continent. The bet was to stabilize all countries on the continent.

Pro-Serbian regime tried to fraud, but with the help of international observers, they got shutdown, votes have been reorganized when needed, and the sole presence of neutral observers acted as a strong deterrant. Now Croatia is a prosperous country that we enjoy spending vacation to.

Because of this act of courage, my brother got hired by the UN. From taxi driver in 1990 to now diplomat in 2020. He served in Darfour, Afghanistan, Mexico, Guatelama, Irak, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania. Saved countless refugees from certain death, negotiated with dictators, put pressure one step at a time.

I understand your concern, but don't take courage for foolishness. My brother is not a fool, he is an idealist and will probably have more lasting impact on the world than me.

<comment><USER12> Shit, this is a comment that doesn't deserve to be hidden on hacker news, this is amazing. Thanks for sharing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hi Folks,

We ran the Belarus' post-election survey. Over 10,000+ respondents.

Here are the results:

\- Результат опроса «День Выборов Президента Беларуси» — [https://surveymonkey.com/results/SM-W9PZGD9B7/](https://surveymonkey.com/results/SM-W9PZGD9B7/) \- Панель индикаторов «День Выборов Президента Беларуси» — [https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM- RKSGN36D/](https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM-RKSGN36D/)

Here are the results for pre-election survey:

\- «Кандидаты на пост президента Беларуси» — начать опрос — [https://surveymonkey.com/r/IMBELARUS-5](https://surveymonkey.com/r/IMBELARUS-5) \- Результат опроса «Кандидаты на пост президента Беларуси» — [https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM- VRQR539G7/](https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-VRQR539G7/) \- Панель индикаторов «Кандидаты на пост президента Беларуси» — [https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM- VMNFBZ3D/](https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM-VMNFBZ3D/)

<comment><USER13> Лукашенко Александр - 4,64% - 404 (Lukashenko, 26 years in power)

Тихановская Светлана - 87,68% - 7,639 (Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, removed from the country)

Others:

Дмитриев Андрей - 0,59% - <USER2>

Канопацкая Анна - 0,25% - <USER3>

Черечень Сергей - 0,38% - <USER4>

Etc:

Против всех - 2,80% - <USER5>

Предпочитаю не говорить - 3,66% - <USER6>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice.

If one side (an authoritarian oppressor) is not afraid to use violence, and the other is prevented from using any response, the oppressor will win. This is why major changes usually require civil war.

This is also why authoritarians definitely do not want their population to have access to weapons. (The U.S. couldn't even control Afghan farmers with guns...)

<comment><USER15> > Unfortunately, history tells us that almost all major gains in freedom come, > at one point, through violent conflict/sacrifice.

No, it doesn't. Recent history tells us exactly the opposite:

1) Rise of democracy in Latin America in the 70s and 80s (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil)

2) Collapse of communism on Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s.

3) Democracy in Eastern Asia in the 80s (Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Pakistan).

4) Nigeria, Spain, Greece

These were achieved through pacific means. The cases of dictatorships that became democracies through violence are very few: Portugal, Romania...

Prior history of violent conflict is precisely what led to dictatorships hardening (leftist guerrilla groups in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, tentative coup in Indonesia, etc.)

Also, violent reaction against dictatorships quite often leads to other dictatorships (e.g.: Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran).

Edit: again, my point is that violent reaction against oppressive regimes is foolish and leads to the opposite of freedom. Violence is the authoritarians' favorite game because it provides them an excuse to do what they do best: brutal repression. You are already loosing when you play their preferred game.

<comment><USER16> >1) Rise of democracy in Latin America in the 70s and 80s (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil)

i'm puzzled to say the least. Aren't the 70s and 80s were the bloody decades of dictatorships there? For example:

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

"The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina (Spanish: dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina) for the period of United States-backed state terrorism[1][2][3] in Argentina[4][5] from 1976 to 1983 as a part of Operation Condor, during which military and security forces and right-wing death squads in the form of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA, or Triple A)[6] hunted down any political dissidents and anyone believed to be associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism or the Montoneros movement.[7][8][9][10]

Up to 30,000 people disappeared, of whom many were impossible to report formally due to the nature of state terrorism."

<comment><USER15> > i'm puzzled to say the least. Aren't the 70s and 80s were the bloody decades > of dictatorships there? For example:

Yes, but they weren't the cause of the dictatorships' collapses. As I pointed they were actually an argument for their hardening.

By the time those dictatorships fell the guerrillas were mostly exterminated.

Again: my point isn't to deny that repressive regimes repress. It is to point that their collapse wasn't due to a violent reaction but a peaceful one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For me, this serves as a stark reminder to invest in barriers to oppression.

* General education (ideally, not state mandated)

* General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training)

* Technological counter measures - TOR, crypto, crypto currency, and IMO we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones) *

*Edit: By great ones, I mean ones that allow us to validate our vote was both counted and correct after the fact. There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation.

<comment><USER18> > There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the > government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but > still allows tallying and validation.

Are they safe against "rubber hose cryptanalysis"? Such as forcing you to verify your vote while I can see you?

<comment><USER19> I'm not an expert, but couldn't you keep a link between your public key and your vote while the election is open. Allow subsequent votes that will nullify votes associated with your public key. And when the polls close, this link gets deleted.

This way you can be intimidated to vote and verify a certain way, then after your intimidator leaves you alone, you simply cast another vote. And after the deadline passes any record that you personally casted a ballot have been erased.

Maybe as a further safeguard keep traditional in-person polling open, wherein showing up to you automatically nullify you previous crypto vote, and only your paper ballot counts.

<comment><USER20> There's still the problem that you can still coerce and verify then use surveillance and the fear of surveillance to keep people from changing their vote. Random rechecks the day the polls close would keep a lot of people from risking changing their vote after the initial check-in.

Even beyond any theoretical security measures one huge benefit of in person voting is it limits the available attack. With IPV to steal an election you have to find a way to either physically bring enough people to enough polling places to swing the election or corrupt the poll watcher system and steal it in the counting phase. With electronic voting anyone in the world has a chance to attack you. Anything that requires Joe/Jane Citizen to reliably or securely operate their computer is kind of doomed for a long time IMO.

<comment><USER19> I do think that voting should be as streamlined and easy as possible. If electronic voting becomes a thing, you should still be able to do an in-person voting at a poll both on election day, an in-person absentee voting at a designated place, a mail-in absentee voting, etc. in addition to the e-voting.

All of these (except for in-person voting on election day) should have a sealed timestamp and a public key/barcode attached so previous ballots can be nullified with a more recent vote by an other—or the same—means.

<comment><USER20> The problem with being able to go back and revote/nullify is it makes counting very complicated to do with non-attrubution.

<comment><USER19> idk. It is already done quite successfully in many democracies, including Iceland and Estonia.

I'm guessing the vote is sealed with a key or a barcode, if a later vote arrives, a system will order a previous vote with a matching key/barcode to be destroyed. Finally on voting day, the link between any personally identifiable information is destroyed.

EDIT: Just to clarify, there should never be a time when a ballot is unsealed and a link between a barcode and a person exists in the system. A counter scans an absentee ballot before unsealing it, if the person voted in-person the scanner should reject the vote and order it to be destroyed the link could have been destroyed at any point between then and when the person showed up to the polling station. If they didn't show up, the scanner will order the link to be destroyed, the counter will then pass this ballot on to be counted. Importantly the counter (nor any human for that matter) never has access to a link to a personally identifiable information, all the counter sees is the barcode.

EDIT 2: I don't know if this is how counting is done in democracies that allow you to nullify a previous vote by voting again, but it is a system that could work, conjured up by a mere spectator.

<comment><USER20> That probably works better for smaller countries. Here in the US mail in voting kind of works that way in that the ballots are sealed until they're 'accepted' and then the ballots are removed and the identifying shell envelope is discarded. The big slow down is actually going through all the submitted votes and validating then counting, most in person votes here in the US are counted via machine immediately at the polling place.

Somewhere between 25-50% of votes depending on state are cast through some early mechanism and under this none of those could be counted until election day which is a large increase in the number of votes that need to be counted and makes them more difficult to count.

One other benefit of being able to count everything in person on the day it's cast is the votes don't have to move outside the polling place for initial counting which makes monitoring easier.

It's a nice and convenient idea but I don't see the small benefit of being able to change votes (how many people honestly want to change their vote?) vs the large increase in complexity.

<comment><USER19> Like previously stated being able to change the vote is crucial to limit the effectiveness of voter intimidation. You simply vote however your intimidator orders you, and then you change your vote afterwards.

It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information.

Regarding monitoring. Mail in ballots are sent to the polling place on election night for counting. They are counted just like any other ballots and can be monitored as easily as in-person ballots. I suppose e-votes could as easily be printed out and counted in the same place.

<comment><USER20> The voter intimidation problem only really comes out of adopting a new system where you can check your vote to begin with though.. Our current system only really suffers from that even being a possibility with mail in votes.

> It also has the benefits of allowing voters who in absentee vote early for a > candidate that later drops out (i.e. Washington State voters who voted for > Elizabeth Warren) to correct their vote based on this new information.

Maybe for a primary it's a useful feature but there are simpler options like ranked choice that could be used to do that. Though there are still uses for votes to people who are out of the race because it gives them voting power at the convention if there's not a decisive winner.

Also if we're letting things change that much primaries are never really over in a state. One of the reason for sequential primaries is that it lets smaller campaigns have a chance because they don't have to compete everywhere at once.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Several international audits and inspections by EY and other reputable > companies over the last years prove that the company adhered to all > regulations and laws prevalent in Belarus.

I don't want to take away from the point of the article, but this made me chuckle.

Are we talking about the same "reputable" EY that has been auditing Wirecard for years and years while a giant scam reported on by the Financial Times was happening right in front of their eyes? They might not be held accountable financially, but I think we can and should stop calling them reputable.

</comment><comment><USER22> My last gig we hired a team out of Minsk to help us with a project, brought them over to our US headquarters for about a month to help with planning and buildout.

When coronavirus took hold I got laid off and the team was cut loose. Not sure how they are holding up over there but damn I hope they are alright.

And fuck Lukashenko, I hope the man chokes on a cheeseburger.

<comment><USER23> > And fuck Lukashenko, I hope the man chokes on a cheeseburger.

This kind of low-effort comment belongs on Reddit, not HackerNews. It's not insightful/up to the standards of typical content for this community.

<comment><USER24> Is your comment insightful?

<comment><USER23> It is. It calls out the fact that trying to say witty remarks to get "upvoted" to the top is going to drag down HN, just how it dragged down Reddit. Why not explain why Lukashenko is a bad person to somebody who doesn't know? That's too much effort. Might as well make a quick joke and get validation from peers.

<comment><USER25> Gtfo. They simply mentioned how this a very worrisome situation, and quite rightly at the end of it, did some venting, which I haooen to agree with.

It was your original comment and the later ones trying to defend said comment are the low-effort comments you are complaining about.

And if you really don't know about Lukashenko a quick google will suffice,or the, idk hundreds of comments between this post and the last?

And finally, it seems to me at least that if anyone here is pandering for worthless internet points, it is you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is tangential..

As a European, I feel that we are too disconnected from this affair. Just as with the Ukrainian civil war and Crimean annexation, a big part of this conflict is a conservative, repressive, Russia/Putin sponsored regime at odds with a population that identifies more with European/EU values... especially younger people.

Russia see the dignity, prosperity and freedom of several nations as trivial relative to their "vital concern" of having a buffer between them and "The West."

I'm not saying that we can or should escalate recklessly vis-a-vis Russia. I am saying that they are our neighbors too, not just Russia's. We have our interests too, and more importantly our solidarity. The Lukashenko regime is anachronistic, brutal and failed.

This is not a foreign affair.

I understand and even sympathize with Putin's concerns on encroachment. He lays them out clearly enough. I will also admit that mistakes have been made, and the the US played its hand too aggressively in the 1990s. I also think that the EU (and NATO, if the US is willing) should negotiate a peace treaty that addresses these. I also genuinely believe this is possible.

For that to happen though, we need to take a much firmer stance. We need to be as interested in our neighbors as Russia is. The whole premise of the EU is peace _and_ sovereignty. Those values need to be represented here.

Ukraine was abused because of their desire to join the EU, and we treated it as above our paygrade. Now, Russia is openly propping up Lukashenko. Next year it will be Lithuania, Estonia. Putin might decide to intervene on behalf of Victor Orban. We're in this one way or another.

<comment><USER27> Ukraine yes, Belarus youth don't seem to align with EU that much. They just want a freaking democratic country. Most favour Russian values over EU ones.

source: Current and previous gfs were Belarrusian and we had these discussions a lot (both before and after this whole thing)

edit: And both parents of both women voted for lukashenko btw, as well as some of their friends (not saying he won or anything, but it isn't also like 100% are opposed to him)

<comment><USER28> I'm still not even sure what Russian values even means.

<comment><USER27> Whatever it means if you don't use the word 'values', basically they identify more with Russia than EU. The gp mentioned that they identify with EU values, and thus I used the same word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When we see that nations are hostages of their criminal governments - <USER7> real mechanisms are there for helping those nations? e.g. what would be the outcome of targeting specifically Lukashenko, Putin, Kim Jong-un along with their inner circles respectively?

<comment><USER30> Usually(last 50y) US and EU would initiate sanctions, if it doesn't collide too greatly with their own interests, that would put pressure on respective government by putting their economy in peril. Lately US has stepped down from that role, and openly started diplomatic hostilities towards the EU. EU isn't powerful enough alone, plus they deal with their own economic and social issues which make them not stable enough to afford sanctions.

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure how the US has stepped down from that role: [https://www.state.gov/ukraine-and-russia- sanctions/](https://www.state.gov/ukraine-and-russia-sanctions/) [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election-usa- sanc...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election-usa-sanctions- exclus-idUSKBN25S5JU)

And if you mean "diplomatic hostiles" in that the US is angry at the EU for not cooperating with the sanction process against targeted countries or meeting their military obligations so that they qualify to vote in international politics, then I guess you're right.

<comment><USER32> You're not sure? How about Trump fighting against new sanctions and actively pursuing removal of existing ones?

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration- battles-n...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-battles-new- sanctions-on-russia)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/us-lifts- sanct...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/us-lifts-sanctions- oleg-deripaska-russia)

<comment><USER28> Venezuela? Iran? All you have seen is a change towards friendliness to Russia. Its not a change in the policy of using sieges without declaring war to starve and kill populations to somehow punish leaders (I refuse the word sanctions because it is a weasel word). That practice is alive and well and worse then ever; the only change is in who its weirded against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm sure there's a couple people reading about this and other events in Belarus and wondering why Russia is so involved with Belarus like this. I thought I'd add a little bit on context. Like Ukraine, Belarus serves as a buffer between NATO and Russia, and was once a part of the Soviet Union. But Belarus is especially important to Russia because of Kaliningrad: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad) . It's a part of Russia that is completely separate from the rest of the country, on the Baltic Sea wedged between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad is heavily militarized, and in any NATO-Russian conflict Kaliningrad would play a vital role. And the country of Belarus is directly between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia. Any Russian war plan would hinge on being able to move troops through Belarus. I would expect Russia to pull out all the stops to defend their interests here

EDIT: sorry, Belarus does not directly connect to Kaliningrad, there is a gap of about 50 miles with Lithuania and Poland on either side. But the general point still stands

<comment><USER34> I've thought your general point was based on the fact that they were connected?

<comment><USER33> In an a NATO-Russian conflict, having free movement of Russian troops through Belarus means you only have a 50 mile gap to fight through to link up with Kaliningrad, as opposed to over 300 miles directly from the rest of Russia. At 50 miles Kaliningrad and Russian forces fighting from Belarus could have overlapping SAM cover and MLRS artillery support, it's well within the combat radius of attack helicopters, etc. And there are railway lines around that corridor that, once seized, would enable efficient transport of material.

<comment><USER34> But there is still no border between Russia and Belarus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is a bit off topic but since there are likely some people in this thread familiar with the happenings in Belarus, does anyone know what's happening with Vitali Shkliarov? I know he was arrested a while back and his lawyer has made some public statements but I haven't seen much about him recently

</comment><comment><USER36> Do not have business with any company that pays taxes in Belarus. We must deprive Lukashenko of money. Many IT companies are attracted to Minsk because of the low cost and here we are.

</comment><comment><USER37> video of what's going on in belarus : [https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/ip14z2/bela...](https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/ip14z2/belarus_citizens_have_had_enough_and_turn_the/)

</comment><comment><USER38> What's happened with hn? I don't want to read about politics here.

</comment><comment><USER39> Well, as far as I know, monstrous things are happening in this country right now. What is the cost of a complete disconnection of the Internet throughout the country? I can't even imagine how many millions of dollars it cost the authorities. I also heard that people are afraid to follow the news through the Telegram channels, because it is simply not safe. [https://utopia.fans/tools/clash-of-the-titans-telegram-vs- wh...](https://utopia.fans/tools/clash-of-the-titans-telegram-vs-whatsapp-vs- utopia/)

<comment><USER40> There was only huge problems with internet for the first few days of protests. Now they only censor specific websites, but internet is more or less working around the country.

<comment><USER41> Blocking websites thanks to silicon valley network co. Sandvine![0]

They were also used to censor the web in Egypt but nobody on the US end seems to give a shit that local companies are facilitating dictators

[0] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-28/belarusia...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-28/belarusian- officials-shut-down-internet-with-technology-made-by-u-s-firm)

<comment><USER42> _nobody on the US end seems to give a shit that local companies are facilitating dictators_

Slightly fewer than half the electorate in the US is _excited_ to vote for an authoritarian president _in their own country_ who has repeatedly talked about not giving up power due to term limits [0] or election results [1], a guy who praised Xi for just naming himself president for life and said he'd like to give it a shot [2].

It follows that a lot are indifferent to dictators abroad.

0 - [https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/election-2020/trump- sa...](https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/election-2020/trump-says- supporters-should-call-for-12-more-years-of-his-presidency)

1 - [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-election-results-white- ho...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-election-results-white-house/)

2 - [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump- praises...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-china/trump-praises- chinese-president-extending-tenure-for-life-idUSKCN1GG015)

<comment><USER43> Exactly. It's annoying when people think you're being hyperbolic or "too political/left/anti-Trump" when you point out how uniquely dangerous Trump is. He openly talks about his autocratic desires frequently and a lot of Americans frankly don't care about an American president being an open self-admitted threat to democracy.

We're in a really bad situation when a simple statement like "Presidents shouldn't talk about extending term limits and suspending elections" gets any reaction other than strong universal condemnation from all sides of the political spectrum.

<comment><USER17> > He openly talks about his autocratic desires

to be honest I've seen it as his form of jest, where he's constantly tryin to rile up his opponents. And he can get away with it because he knows his supporters have all the guns (at least amongst civilians). We'll see what the military does and if that institution is solid.

<comment><USER43> I don't see it as jest because I see he's purposely riling up his base to commit terrorist attacks on his behalf against fellow Americans like that mail bomber Cesar Sayoc.

Like his undermining of mail-in voting right now, it's obvious that he's doing it so that when/if he loses, his base will "defend" him as he disputes the legitimacy of the results and rejects a "coup".

Am I concerned that he actually would remain in office after losing? No. But I am concerned elements of his base will commit more terror attacks in the name of "preventing a coup".

That's why I don't see his undermining of institutions and democracy as funny or trolling to "own the libs". I think by now he's smart enough to be aware there are violent members of his base ready to use violence against perceived opponents and prevent a "deep state coup", and he is purposely trying to rile them up to commit violent acts against Americans by making them feel like they are "under attack/coup" by the deep state/left.

But we're supposed to pretend like a President "trolling" about term limits, illegitimate elections, coups, assassinating opponents, and civil wars is normal. This really shouldn't be a left vs right thing. In a normal world, these would be things everyone agrees are bad.

But I'm being too political/biased/left/Trump derangement syndrome for rejecting his undermining of democracy and fomenting violence so I'll get downvoted for my unfair pro-democracy anti-violence bias.

<comment><USER44> The problem is that your political opponents say similar things. They're convinced - perhaps wrongly, but as far as I can tell honestly - that anti- Trump politicians are encouraging political violence and will commit more terror attacks in the name of preventing an authoritarian takeover. They point to James Hodgkinson the same way you point to Cesar Sayoc. As someone who's extremely opposed to political violence but not strongly partisan, how can I avoid splitting the difference here?

<comment><USER42> The differences are obvious and numerous.

      * James Hodgkinson wasn't motivated by a politician's platform or speeches. This is the material difference that makes me wonder if you're asking this in good faith or not. No mainstream politicians suggested violence against standing Republican congressmen. None of Trump's opponents are saying they are going to ignore the results of any election.
      * The politicians Hodgkinson supported immediately condemned his actions in no uncertain terms. There were no half measures. No "both sides" talk.
      * This is one unprompted (see point 1 above) incident compared to dozens of cases of violence or threats motivated directly by Trump & his speeches [0]. Trump supporters specifically have this history of violence.
      * Among right-wingers, this history of violence is not specific to Trump [1], [2].

0 - [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news- finds-17-case...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news- finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889)

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_right- wing_terrorist_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_right- wing_terrorist_attacks#1990s)

2 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right- wing_terrorism#United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right- wing_terrorism#United_States)

<comment><USER44> Again, your political opponents say the same thing. They tell me that their leaders immediately and definitively condemned Sayoc, tell me that your leaders did _not_ condemn Hodgkinson to their satisfaction, and show me lists [0] of citizens being threatened or assaulted for wearing Trump campaign gear. There may well be obvious and numerous differences - I tend to agree with you that there are! - but you're not getting a complete picture if you're seeing political violence as a one-sided phenomenon.

0 - [https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG...](https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190409/109266/HHRG-116-JU00-20190409-SD008.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> imprisoned HR, I'd just let that one run its course.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think that protesters didn't think it through enough. Yes, Lukashenko is an awful guy, but what is the alternative?

Protesters say they are pro Russia - but in my opinion this is a grave mistake, and Belarus will soon find itself as a Russia-controlled state.

<comment><USER47> The protesters look to me as against Russian interference, propaganda, and the perspectives to become a Russian province. The protesters are not against common Russian people and culture,they are for being good neighbours. It's reasonable, that the more Russia interferes and helps Lukashenko - the more negative the attitude of Belarusian becomes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Whereas this is monstrous, one has to ask if PandaDoc leadership is acting recklessly by criticizing a foreign dictatorship from afar, while their employees and assets are still at risk. At least Bill Browder had the foresight to get most of his employees (and his money) out of Russia before he started going after Putin...and yet Magnitsky still paid the ultimate price. This is a dangerous game that they're playing and I really hope for the safety of the PandaDoc team.

Edit: Updated to reflect that company was founded in Minsk and later relocated to SV. Still dangerous.

<comment><USER49> I'd suggest that no one has to ask if PandaDoc's leadership is acting recklessly by speaking. Because the alternative is complicity. It is absolutely dangerous to speak, though, you're right about that. The danger exists regardless of whether their leadership speaks. The difference is timing.

Yes, it is dangerous. But the party making it unsafe is the fascists. Outrage should be directed there.

[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin- nie...](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller- first-they-came-for-the-socialists)

<comment><USER50> > It is absolutely dangerous to speak

Dangerous for who, though?

It was the founders who were supposedly acting against the Belarusian government, and the employees who are paying the price. The founders are safe in San Francisco.

My outrage is certainly directed at Lukashenko, but the commenter above us may have a point about whether it was responsible to be acting against a dictator while your employees are subject to his government. It's a tough situation.

<comment><USER49> Dangerous for the workers still in Belarus.

And yes, it is tough. It's a very difficult & complicated situation that I am thankful I don't have to experience.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Believe It, Then Don't: Toward a Pedagogy of Discomfort - bit-player https://mathenchant.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/believe-it-then-dont-toward-a-pedagogy-of-discomfort/ <comment><AUTHOR> Towards? This kind of pedagogy is nothing new. Isn't this just part (maybe the main part, along with being able to evaluate proofs) of learning higher mathematics? Being forced to develop an intuition like this?

</comment><comment><USER2> In an ironic twist, the pigeonhole principle itself breaks down for large enough sets (if we phrase it as bijection between set and set with one more element). Well the sets have to be infinitely sized for the principle to break down, but still. So, in the vein of the article, let me ask: how do we _really_ know the pigeonhole principle works for large but finite sets?

<comment><AUTHOR> It certainly isn't ironic nor is it a breakdown, the pigeonhole principle is stated on finite number of containers and a finite number of pigeons.

However, if you just arbitrarily change it around, you may well find that the new statement you just generated is not true any more, if it even makes sense at all.

<comment><USER2> It's ironic from my point of view because the article cautions against hasty generalizations, and that was a generalization I implicitly did upon first hearing about Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> using cm browser cb.ksmobile.com tells me its a fraudulent phishing site</comment>


Revealed after 50 years: The secret of the greatest-ever student prank - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030091/Revealed-50-years-The-secret-greatest-student-prank.html <comment><USER2> The nickb flashback has a comment that points to the caltech hack: [http://today.caltech.edu/today/story- display.tcl?story_id=11...](http://today.caltech.edu/today/story- display.tcl?story_id=11423).

These two examples illustrate the difference between a prank and a hack, don't you think? The prank was doing something under the noses of everyone that seemed to be impossible. The hack is getting someone else to execute your plan.

Both are awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ah, nickb flashback - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=231117>

</comment><comment><USER4> i think one of my mathematics lecturers, Mike Pemberton at UQ, (Australia) was involved in this. He explained it to us in detail many times. <http://au.linkedin.com/pub/mike-pemberton/17/a56/50b></comment>


Hacker events in SF around Startup School time? - <AUTHOR>

I am one of many who might be traveling a great distance to attend Startup School. I am glad to do so, but what other interesting events would be happening around that time to make more use of my time in SF? <comment><USER2> just went to events.hackerdojo.com, they don't seem to have anything. emailed them to ask, i think more emails will help build the case</comment>


What makes a great teacher? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/201001/good-teaching

<comment><USER2> Previously submitted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1036509></comment>


Introducing Cloudera Desktop » Cloudera Hadoop & Big Data Blog - <AUTHOR> http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2009/10/01/introducing-cloudera-desktop/ <comment><USER2> Is anyone here going to Hadoop world? I heard about it too late as I already had other travel plans but I'd be interested to hear first hand from anyone thats going.

<comment><USER3> yep, I'll be there, and I'll probably write it up.

<comment><USER2> Great could you shoot me a link when its up? (email in profile).

<comment><AUTHOR> stephen's writeup is at <http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/10/02/hadoopworld/>.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Open source window manager behind Cloudera Desktop: MooTools ART (<http://github.com/anutron/art>).

</comment><comment><USER4> These guys are really providing a lot of value.</comment>


2017: What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known? - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/responses/what-scientific-term-or%C2%A0concept-ought-to-be-more-widely-known <comment><USER2> From earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13295094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13295094)</comment>


Ask HN: How to become a product manager? - <AUTHOR>

After a couple years of failed startups, I'm at a point in my life where I'm burnt out and want to get a job somewhere to further improve my skills and finally get some income through the door. Instead of starting a company, I'd love to join another early-ish stage one.
The problem is I'm not great at any one thing. I taught myself how to code; I'm comfortable in my respective language, but I'm no "rockstar." I think of myself as more an efficient hacker than can duct tape stuff together quickly and launch early.
Sales, marketing, social media, design, and data analysis are areas I'm comfortable doing as well. But again, I'm no expert in any of these.
After talking with some mentors and friends, they suggested I look into Product Management, which I have. This position seems to resonate with me because I can flex a lot of the different skills I picked up while running my own startup.
However, I think these positions require X amount of years doing product management, of which I have 0. Also, I'm really ashamed of my failed startups, which might throw a flag that I don't know how to build and execute a product. How can I overcome these challenges? <comment><USER2> Failed startups == lots of experience. You just have to sell it that way.

The PMs I've worked with that were good at their job did a couple of things well:

They were great at talking to customers and finding out what the pain-points were, while at the same time not promising to fix them. We were SaaS, so we didn't fix/add _anything_ until we were certain that it wouldn't negatively affect too many of the existing customers.

They were also great at explaining to us the steps needed to accomplish a change. We changed our entire payment system at one job. Previously, customers bought credits, afterwards it was pay-as-you-go. Big difference. So he had to explain how to handle the customers who already had credits on account with us, plus the path of selling items differently. And identify all the points of change in the UI. Lots of diagrams with arrows and annotations...

<comment><AUTHOR> Identifying and pulling relevant information from the customer without leading them is an incredibly important skill. I've done this numerous times while refining the product at hand. I definitely will highlight this skillset. Great advice. Thanks for sharing.</comment></comment>


The real reason Japan keeps whaling - <AUTHOR> http://the-diplomat.com/2010/12/10/the-real-reason-japan-keeps-whaling/

<comment><USER2> tl;dr;

Just let the Japanese and Scandanavian countries catch a strictly limited and monitored number of Whales for domestic consumption. Stop this fig-leaf of scientific research and make it legitimate under an international agreement.

Whales are long part of those countries diet and have a part in their history. If there is a case for stopping the hunt it should come from within their own culture.

Personallly I wouldn't like it if the Japanese went around causing trouble trying to get me to stop eating Kangaroos.

The process of whaling is undoubtedly gruesome and one that turns my stomach. But I've no doubt we do things in my country that the Japanese find abhorrent.

Of all the problems in the world, both diplomatic and environmental, the tiny harvest of whales is not the one that should be receiving anywhere near the amount of attention it does. But as the article says, truth is always the first casualty in a war. Think of all the other fish and crustaceans that get harvested every day. Who is protesting for them?

<comment><USER3> What does kangaroo taste like?

<comment><USER4> Kind of like a gamey beef. It's quite delicious rare and medium rare, but doesn't take well to long cooking.

It's best as steaks, grilled kebabs and such... The mince makes an OK substitute for beef in dishes that are moist (Such as a bolognese) but isn't good for dry dishes (Like burgers).

If you're using it for something more moist, you should lard it with something... I use butter, because Hey, nothing wrong with extra butter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also regarding their slaughter of dolphins <http://www.savejapandolphins.org/educate.php></comment>


The Maturing of QUIC - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastly.com/blog/maturing-of-quic <comment><USER2> The spin bit reminds me of the evil bit[1]. Endpoints/clients/servers don't have much reason to set it, except when explicitly running a trace. It may work under initial implementations, but I expect it will eventually become a dead field. Why maintain the code complexity to expose this information to a network operator? Even worse, "malicious" clients could spin the bit randomly.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit)

<comment><USER3> > but I expect it will eventually become a dead field.

I hope that's all that happens. My worry is that middleboxes will start to depend on it, and any implementation which doesn't spin it "correctly" (where "correctly" is defined by the middlebox vendor, not the standard) will be blocked.

<comment><USER4> Depend on it to do /what/ though?

Middleboxes can equally well insist upon tampering with other data they can't interpret in QUIC, and that too just causes the packets to be discarded. To what end? Middleboxes aren't actively malevolent they're just built by idiots.

Our experience has been that middlebox vendors _ossify_ things. They see a field that's defined "Zero: Reserved for future use" and they say "Aha, that's supposed to be zero" and so now that "future use" can never happen.

For example the Certificate in TLS 1.2 and earlier isn't intended to be useful to anyone except the TLS Client. But middleboxes interpret it anyway, they insist it should be an X.509 certificate, possibly from a known CA - and so it's impossible to add a "Gzip'd Certificate" feature to TLS 1.2 even though if you look at the protocol description it's easy to see how, if you actually tried you would find middleboxes throw a fit since this isn't X.509 and now your software can't be deployed.

But in TLS 1.3 compressed certificates are a thing, because TLS 1.3 encrypts almost everything and that includes Certificate. A client can say "I grok Compressed Certificates" and the server goes "Here's a Compressed Certificate" and nobody else is any the wiser. A middlebox doesn't know about it and so it can't meddle.

<comment><USER2> In a lot of corp env, a corp CA is injected, which allows middleware to MITM sessions. TLS 1.3 still allows this nonsense. Most current gen firewalls rely on this to be useful.

<comment><USER4> In TLS 1.3 you can only do this by proxying all connections. Whereupon all these hypothetical non-compliant QUIC streams are yours and nobody on the rest of the Internet cares.

This is a significant (and for the "IT security" industry expensive) change compared to previous versions but it was done with this in mind. The methods often employed to avoid doing proxying don't actually deliver security though they did ossify the protocol but they are cheaper. Too bad.

Let's take my compression example again. Your "firewall" won't tell you it understands compressed certs since it has no idea what they are, and it won't request them from the server, no ossification. New features don't work for you inside your "firewall" making the Internet worse for you, but for everybody else improvements continue.

The same for the spin bit. Corp A enforces a completely broken spin bit for "security", it suffers mysterious and hard to diagnose network faults but the rest of the Internet isn't affected and life continues as normal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> QUIC has the concept of multiple streams within a single connection. I wish some of those streams could be set as unrealiable/unordered. The QUIC stack (with its congestion mitigation, encryption etc) could replace barebones UDP in online games, videoconferencing, WebRTC etc.

<comment><USER6> Agree. There have been a handful of proposals to add unreliable or datagram streams to QUIC, including:

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pauly-quic- datagram-05](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pauly-quic-datagram-05)

[https://github.com/tfpauly/draft-pauly-quic- datagram/blob/ma...](https://github.com/tfpauly/draft-pauly-quic- datagram/blob/master/draft-pauly-quic-datagram.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> IMO if QUIC truly wants to become TCP 2.0 it needs to accept something else than TLS.

TLS is an Ok protocol for the web, but for other scenarios it makes zero sense. Noise makes much more sense.

<comment><USER4> Noise isn't a protocol, it's a recipe for building protocols. So this is like suggesting QUIC WG having bought all the rest of the furniture for the house should instead of buying this ready made dining table & chairs that fit the rest of the house perfectly buy a book on carpentry and chop a tree down to start making the table by hand.

Most situations which would /not/ be happy with TLS here will likewise find things not to like in any particular hypothetical Noise-based TCP replacement, because the parameters of the recipe matter to them. They'd like a different hash function, different type of symmetric encryption, or different DH. In Noise the only way to do that is start over, like if during final assembly of the table you decided you want a pine table not an oak one. So these people would most likely insist on using Noise for their own custom protocol anyway regardless of what QUIC does.

And if you _do_ use the Noise recipe it's not as though you just throw in the elements you've chosen and out pops a replacement for TLS. Noise isn't interested in the handshake problem, which is 95% of TLS, it's just waved away as something you should solve for yourself. For a VPN like WireGuard that's not crazy - in practice many VPN setups did this, or worse, already. But for most TCP connections (even ignoring the Web) it's a non-starter.

So Noise replaces 5% of what TLS does for QUIC, and only once you've picked your ingredients. It's a bad trade.

<comment><USER7> > Noise isn't a protocol, it's a recipe for building protocols. So this is > like suggesting QUIC WG having bought all the rest of the furniture for the > house should instead of buying this ready made dining table & chairs that > fit the rest of the house perfectly buy a book on carpentry and chop a tree > down to start making the table by hand.

Take a look at nQUIC: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/028](https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/028)

> Noise isn't interested in the handshake problem, which is 95% of TLS

That's part of my point. If you do not need TLS, now suddenly you rely on this huge dependency and you have to figure out x509 certificates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does the QUIC proposal do anything to address encrypting SNI?

<comment><USER9> > HTTP/3 relies on QUIC as the underlying transport. The QUIC version

> being used MUST use TLS version 1.3 or greater as its handshake

> protocol. HTTP/3 clients MUST indicate the target domain name during

> the TLS handshake. This may be done using the Server Name Indication

> (SNI) [RFC6066] extension to TLS or using some other mechanism.

So if TLS 2.0 starts using ESNI (either draft-ietf-tls-esni or draft-ietf-tls- sni-encryption) QUIC will benefit from that too. Otherwise, QUIC is neutral.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm actually excited. So rarely does this industry clean out the old ossified stuff, vs slap a new layer on top. Here we finally have solid layering for networking, is QUIC is now a suite of protocols as it should be. Truly great news.

</comment><comment><USER11> > encrypt the packet first using the packet number as a nonce, and then > encrypt the packet number using some of the encrypted packet as a nonce (and > a different key).

I may be missing any number of details, but I would expect a simpler scheme to work well: encrypt the packet number in ECB mode using a separate derived key.

</comment><comment><USER12> > ...chatter within the community made it clear that many organizations were > chomping at the bit to start implementing as soon as the IETF...

It's "champing at the bit", not "chomping at the bit"

/internet pedantry

Fantastic article though and I'm very interested in the future of QUIC/HTTP3.

</comment><comment><USER13> Useful

</comment><comment><USER14> Why do I feel like one of the most meaningful things I can do with my professional life would be to find some like-minded engineers and design HTTP 1.2?

<comment><USER15> Many things would benefit from being redone "right" but the hurdles to get over are almost insurmountable.

I'd like to rebuild unix front the ground up.

<comment><USER16> > I'd like to rebuild unix front the ground up.

Pls implement proper async syscalls this time. Thx.

<comment><USER15> what do you mean by "proper"?

<comment><USER17> Many — most? — of the system calls in nixes, even Linux, that deal w/ I/O are blocking calls. Sure, you can chuck them into a background thread, but even that isn't quite what you want, since you can't interrupt the background thread while the blocking call is blocking.

Sure, we've got async networking, timers, events nowadays. But disk I/O is almost completely async unaware (and even if you can work around the main problem of I/O to a file, there's a ton of auxiliary calls like link, unlink, rename, mkdir, chmod/chown, etc. that are blocking and, AFAIK, have no async equivalents). I'm not sure if you can wait on a process (I think kqueue might support this, but IDK about Linux).

And more fundamentally, I don't think you want synchronous I/O calls that only allow you to do one thing per thread at a time. You _want_ to schedule as much I/O as you have available with the OS as it becomes available, s.t. the OS has a more complete picture of what I/O is actually outstanding, to better schedule it.

<comment><USER18> I got halfway through a back-of-the-envelope spec for how this might work. Change "everything is a file" to "everything is shared pages", but impose the additional sanity restriction that each accessor of a shared page should choose to mostly write or mostly read using lockfree structures.

Then instead of the operating system allocating a "standard in" for you, every process would be handed two event ring buffers, one for incoming and one for outgoing events. On waking, all the process has to do is scan the ring buffer.

Potentially easy to make suitable for microkernels too, by passing the buffers directly from process to disk subsystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >QUIC is a brand-new internet transport protocol

In 1979 QUIC was software (for IBM mainframes IIRC) that produced a printout of lines in lexicographic order with the twist that the words on the line were shifted to eliminate initial noise words. E.g., THE TWO TOWERS appeared in the printout as TWO TOWERS THE (and maybe also appeared as TOWERS THE TWO).

<comment><USER20> Thankfully we've now realized that "initial noise words" are fine and shouldn't be shifted when sorting.

<comment><USER4> Mmm?

No, there are a bunch of places where it doesn't matter as much because digitisation means searching is unnecessary, but when it matters, it still really matters.

In my music player under artists The Chemical Brothers sorts with Chvrches not with The KLF.

Human indexes are still really valuable in reference works, maybe we're getting close to AI making a useful stab at it, but pick up a copy of K&R and compare most auto-generated indices (if you can find a book that even bothers with an index) today, it's night and day.</comment></comment></comment>


What the Internet knows about you - <AUTHOR> http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com/all <comment><USER2> As the site loading continues to spin, I think back to some commentary about the Chevy Suburban. "The Suburban is popular among thieves, but at 12mpg they won't get very far."

</comment><comment><USER3> Apparently nothing.

<comment><USER4> Apparently it's based on the CSS history leak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It still doesn't know that I'm a dog.

</comment><comment><USER4> This technique has been around for over 10 years. I believe the CSS trick was fixed in most browsers but the cache trick still works everywhere.</comment>


Platforms are for Suckers: Why you shouldn't build your business on one. - <AUTHOR> http://spencerfry.com/platforms-are-for-suckers

<comment><USER2> I like everything about the post except for the word "platform." That is an overly broad word that does mean web browsers and the Internet itself and electricity. I prefer the phrase _Proprietary Platform_ , because the issue is one of control.

If a single vendor gains control of the "market" for web browsers, as Microsoft did for a while, you are at their mercy. If there are multiple, competing web browsers and control of the APIs (e.g. HTML, CSS, JS) is decentralized, you are at the mercy of the whims of the marketplace, but no one person can wake up in the morning and decide to shut you out.

The concerns raised in this post are isomorphic to Apple's concerns about Flash. They don't mind developers using web standards to develop apps because no one vendor controls HTML, CSS, and JS. If developers write their apps in HTML, JS, and CSS, Adobe cannot flip a switch overnight and break every app on iPhone because their proprietary tools no longer emit a flavour of JS that runs on iPhone without errors.

So...

Proprietary Platforms are for Suckers.

<comment><USER3> I'd say the true target of this criticism is _content-aware_ platforms, as opposed to _content-neutral_ platforms, which I believe are what people often mean when they talk about "closed" and "open" platforms. The author favorably mentions targeting Windows and Mac OS, which certainly _are_ proprietary, but they do not restrict the user of any content, essentially dumb pipes from hardware to content; these content-neutral platforms would be OK to build a business on. Platforms mentioned as bad were the iPhone, Twitter and Facebook, platforms where the vendor can and does restrict their users' access to content via arbitrary changes to their usage licenses, and such content-aware platforms are shaky grounds to build a business on.

<comment><USER2> Well, MacOS and Windows may be "content-neutral" in a certain sense but historically both vendors have gone into competition with developers... So from my perspective "proprietary" means sleeping with an 800lb. gorilla, and all we are debating is whether the gorilla wants to eat you or simply rolled over in their sleep and crushed you by accident.

<http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/>

<comment><USER4> The lesson I took away from Panic's Audion story is that they got gridlocked while trying to play two potential buyers (AOL and Apple), and Apple ended up moving forward with a less encumbered competitor. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Panic _wanted_ to get eaten by an 800lb. gorilla.

<comment><USER2> Oh? I think they wanted to get rich, but not to sell out:

 _In fact, I'd say that almost 5 minutes after the meeting Steve and I knew in our hearts that it wasn't time — that we didn't want to join Apple (yet). We maybe went through the motions of "deciding" on the flight back home, but I think we knew the truth. And the truth went something like this:_

 _"This is our only chance to do Panic. We don't have kids, we're not married, we don't have huge obligations. We didn't invest our life savings into it, just a few hundred dollars. We don't even have life savings. We probably won't get this opportunity again in our lifetime — the full chance to take a complete risk, to experiment, quit our day jobs, start a business that certainly may fail, put our hearts into the soul of it, and try to make it fly — making the best possible Macintosh software we can without the threat of mortgages or the cost of braces or kids wondering why we're never home. And while there may be a time in our life where we crave some stability, or there may be a time in our life when things don't work out with Panic and we return to be a player in a larger, awesome team like Apple, that time is certainly not now. Panic's time is."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I only write programs in my own custom programming language that run on my own in-house operating system. It only runs on computers that I design and manufacture myself. All the components are specially fabricated by me out of raw materials that are either synthesized in my lab or mined from my backyard. To spare you from the tyranny of the power company, it runs entirely off solar power, but it also comes with an emergency fusion reactor since the sun can just decide to go supernova any time it wants.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any safeguards in place incase atoms decide not to produce energy when fused.

If not, I have no trust in your platform

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google is certainly the biggest platform that people build on. How many businesses would die if their business had a catastrophic SEO failure tomorrow?

The point of platforms is that they make things easier, which is something that most businesses desperately need. You just have make sure that you understand the risks-- but they are oftentimes worth it. Zynga would never have built what they've built without Facebook. Yelp would be a tiny fraction of what it is without Google. Quickbooks would have a rough time without Windows.

That said, picking a really early platform has more risks (read: Twitter). Picking a platform run by a company that isn't really experienced being a platform (your Ventrilo example and, again, Twitter) has more risks.

But punting platforms as a concept is just dumb. 85% of venture-backed startups are dead in 3 years. More than that, likely, in the bootstrapped world. You need every advantage you can get.

<comment><USER8> Windows?

<comment><USER9> Spolsky has a good essay on that (and how they've lost): <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html>

tl;dr version: Windows is a platform nobody wants to develop for. Windows developers have moved to the web (or to other platforms eg: Mac). The rest of the article justifies these two assertions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I largely agree with the thesis, but can't seem to get my head around marketing on the open Internet without being tied body and soul to the Google platform.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. If anybody has some good ideas/links about this, please share.

<comment><USER12> Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives? Is it because your competition will out-market you using the better Google platform?

<comment><USER10> _Why are Bing and Yahoo not viable alternatives?_

Mostly because they have decisively lost the search market in the United States. I deal with one of the most non-technical niches imaginable, and Google gives me 10x the traffic that Bing does. (It is an interesting question of whether this is solely because Google is crushing Bing in market share, or if it is a reflection of adaptation of my business to meet Google's demands. That is largely academic, though. Its a factor of freaking ten.

Bing and Yahoo could both go dark tomorrow permanently and I might not even notice. The last time Google went dark, for 45 minutes, I started fielding customer support queries about how I "broke the Internet". And while that is amusing phrasing, I don't think it is false. Google _is_ navigation on the open Internet. (Insert obligatory disclaimer: for English speaking Americans. It is a bit different in Japan. It is even more lopsided in the UK in Google's favor.)

Edit to add: Do not get me started on their PPC services. Its like Bill Gates said "We want this to have the technical chops of Google and the dedication to service of a convent!" and the memo got horribly, horribly misread.

<comment><USER12> Does Microsoft know that Bing lost? (Maybe from their POV, it's just waiting in the wings.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amen. My startup's too dependent on a single platform right now, and we're being burnt by it.

What platforms _are_ for is speedy cash. The access you'll get to large numbers of people is a great help. Just keep your efforts cheap and dirty and put the money in your pocket as soon as you get it.

<comment><USER14> I could not agree more.

I am also dependent on a single platform and am acutely aware of the fact that this is not a good long term (6 mo +) investment of my time. However, building for a popular platform is a good way to make some quick cash without having to worry about anything but the quality of your product (ie. getting discovered, marketing, payment processing, etc.)

<comment><USER12> Is a meta-platform possible? Leaving 3.3.1 aside, what about a company acting as a clearinghouse that takes care of all of the platform issues for you, submits your app, markets it, takes care of payment.

Perhaps this is possible with Javascript web apps for mobile devices?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is silly. What was it Paul Buchheit called advice? Limited life experience + overgeneralization or something like that? That's exactly what this is.

Platforms have their positives and negatives. What you should do depends on the unique combination of your goals and market forces. Broad, sweeping generalizations like this are sad because they miss the real point, which is that you should carefully consider potential future ramifications of building on a platform. Not that you shouldn't do it, but that you need to give serious thought about what success might mean.

</comment><comment><USER16> Actually, the problem is not in _platforms_ , but in _proprietary_ platforms. As another commenter stated, it's turtles all the way down, but most of those turtles are either non-proprietary (HTML, Javascript, PHP, Apache, IBM architecture) or irrelevant to the application (it doesn't matter whether a Web application runs on Linux, Windows or MacOS).

You always build on a stack of platforms, but the only one that matters is the one directly underneath your application. If it is proprietary, and/or you have no influence on the way it works, you might get into a trouble as described by Spencer.

</comment><comment><USER17> There are some people who work well within platforms and some who work well outside of platforms. A platform, in many ways, levels the playing fields. It gives a bigger chance to us 'normals'.

See, those who do well outside of platforms are those funny, smart people that are always the center of attraction. They somehow have this magical ability to get people to gather around them - they become they center of attention wherever they go.

Those who do well within the platforms are the people who are willing to spend time studying the quirks of the platforms, and optimizing for it. Within a platform, the popular people who are usually the center of attention just by the force of their personality can get overshadowed by the meticulous researcher dude.

So often, you'll find that people who are already popular and famous say to work outside of the platform. Those who know they are not the type of person to draw people to themselves by magic will prefer to work within a platform.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use Facebook Connect as the only way to register in my new venture site. I realize it is far less than ideal, however, we're just starting out and FB connect provides a really good way of getting genuine people and traffic. It cuts out spam by the ton and there is lesser resistance to 'sign up'.

I agree though. Building on top of platforms is one way of being bitten in the derriere at some point.

</comment><comment><USER19> This may seem like an oversimplification but like the article says all web apps are built on browsers and all browsers are built on an OS and all OSes are built on hardware, all hardware is built on a chip set etc, etc, etc, till you get down to the fact that all of it runs on electricity.

It seems like it's turtles all the way down.

<comment><USER10> That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is diffuse, and change happens very gradually.

I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is beyond repeal.

<comment><USER20> > That is an oversimplification, in important respects. There are multiple > competing options for most of those platforms, responsibility for them is > diffuse, and change happens very gradually.

Also, at some point it's not platform, it's infrastructure. You could assume that your business will use credit cards and online payment since this is part of the infrastructure but when you are using the payment API of company MegaCorp to have those payments, you might get burned with their particular Platform.

> I mean, yes, technically speaking, I am dependent on electricity. But that > doesn't mean there is a $8 an hour representative at the power company whose > job is to shut down 24 businesses today to preserve the power company's > vision for what proper use of electricity looks like, and whose decision is > beyond repeal.

This isn't a good comparison. The thing is the electricity provider is much more regulated by laws, more stable and slower in changes compared to some other companies. Also -- it's infrastructure.

Technically, some "power company vision" is kept since you can't actually put any two wires to make a gizmo and sell it on the market as a product.

Another interesting factoid: home users have a limit on how much electricity you can consume. After a given limit you have to ask special permit from the electricity provider and probably pay extra. The trick is all these things are stipulated somewhere and public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I could only be as great a sucker as Zynga...

That said, it makes more sense, to me, to suggest that each business perform a cost/benefit analysis for every platform they use, and quantify risks.

1\. For some business categories, such as games, you will be on a platform. Perform cost/benefit analysis for your market. Does flash make sense? Does ActiveX? What are your risks, and what are your benefits? (Some would suggest the game market itself is for suckers.)

2\. Many platforms, such as Facebook, are glorified advertizing and lead generation. Do not create for these platforms, but rather advertize through it. The best example to me is PopCap Games, which directs people to their casual games through their flash games.

3\. The further you wish to push the envelope, the more risk a platform entails. Porn? Be as independent as possible. Corporate apps? .NET is not your worry point.

</comment><comment><USER22> > The granddaddy of all reasons, and the only one strong enough in itself to > refute any contrary opinion . . .

Setting himself up for failure by claiming that the coming point brooks no rational argument . . .

> is that at any time Twitter, Facebook, etc., can make any change to their > Terms of Service that their heart desires, leaving you high and dry.

And fails. Although this is a reason to be wary of platforms, sometimes to have a business at all you have to build it under the dominant platform. This may not be true of your level of risk tolerance, but for some people a risky business is better than no business at all. I'm sure that Zynga's owners feel this way after their recent partnership agreement with Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER23> Aside from the admitted fail in building their own software, there's some good points in this article.

In the world outside software, avoiding platforms can be equally hard. If you sell lawnmowers, cheap meat, car parts, then you may depend on respectively WalMart, McDonalds, GM, which are all platforms in their own way.

I wonder if there will be 'leakage' from iPhone software towards Mac software as the screws tighten somewhat on the App store.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's like building a house of cards. The most solid platforms are open standards, like HTML. Other platforms may be shakier, especially if they're controlled by a single individual or a single company who can change their mind at any time. If you build your business around open standards you're less likely to suffer from changes in terms of service of "platform providers".

</comment><comment><USER25> See also: Platforms are for Suckers: Why you should build one, and sucker suckers into building their business on one.

</comment><comment><USER26> Building on platforms isn't a problem. It's actually pretty cool being able to use all these wonderful APIs. The problems start when your business is depending on one of them. If what you offer is a product that work on top of 10 platforms, it wouldn't be a big deal if one of them will shut you donw.

</comment><comment><USER27> I give credit to the writer as an entrepreneur, but one thing he missed for sure is: platforms were made for an adaptable market. Maybe it was just the nature of their operation that didn't fit into the equation

</comment><comment><USER28> Commercial platforms are for suckers. Open platforms are huge wins.

<comment><USER29> Can we have examples of open platforms, please?

<comment><USER30> So far as easy to deploy webstack platforms go, Joyent's SmartPlatform seems to be open: <http://www.joyent.com/technology/smartplatform/> Code on github to run your own instance: <http://github.com/joyent/smart-platform/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment> clark-kent This is why I stay away from Google's App Engine. I don't get why Google keeps it closed source. At least with EC2 I'm only renting server hardware.

</comment><comment><USER31> How about Amazon S3/EC2 Services?

Amazon seems pretty solid, stable, and flexible to me. And many startups are using them to scale.

<comment><USER32> A good test is to ask yourself how hard it would be to switch to another provider. If it'd be very difficult and/or expensive, you should make sure that's a situation you're comfortable being in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> author's experience is creating an app around a "platform" developed by one person. you still have to pick the right platform to build for, you know.

</comment><comment><USER34> As one of those people chiding you, I see now why you make the distinction between those two kinds of platforms.

I do think you have a legitimate point, but I'm not sure how to fix this problem. There's so much potential in web platforms...

<comment><USER35> I don't think you can fix it. You take risks all along the continuum - if you are standalone you have more control but you need to get user buy in. If you go to a busy popular platform then you risk falling into the sinking sands caused by someone elses control.

in both cases people will fail from things out with their control - its just easier to point at if its someone else changing the rules. (and easier to grumble about)

edit: like the guy above says - you need to tailor your risk. On someone else's platform - look for quick rewards and work on the basis its only a matter of time until it goes away

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Sir Isaac Newton

<comment><USER2> One of the suggestions is that this was intended as an insult to a rival, Hooke, who was short and hunchbacked. Although popular, this suggestion has been disputed:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Fame>

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Ventrilo's popularity is a priori evidence of how fucking dumb gamers are.

<comment><USER12> Language! But that said, the popularity of MMOs, with game dynamics all too similar to slot machines and resort casinos isn't a good sign. (I say this as a former Eve Online addict.)</comment></comment>


I tried Joel's salary scale method, and the results were... mixed. - <AUTHOR> http://alumnit.ca/~apenwarr/log/?m=200904#05

<comment><USER2> Great essay that points out, I think, the strength of Joel's system. The author cites the primary weakness of the system as being that it doesn't translate to non-programmers. He also (correctly, as far as I know) points out that Joel has the advantage of only really having to worry about programmers.

But then, I think that's the whole point of Joel's system. Sales people are paid on commission _because it's a direct reflection on their skills_. Likewise, I think that assistants and tech support staff probably should be allowed to negotiate since _negotiation is a key skill to their position_. Where Joel's system works is that a programmer's primary skill set does not involve selling and does not require negotiation/interpersonal skills (at least, not as a primary concern).

I think the only problem the author really had (aside from the apparent disinterest in seeing the system through) was one of messaging.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to know a little more about the end... he says they switched back to private salaries and then a bit later half of the team left and half got merged into another company. Uh, that sounds like a bad result (but may have been totally orthogonal to the salary change).

And he's right. This works really well for programmers who like things to be algorithmic. It doesn't necessarily make much sense to the non programmers. That doesn't mean it's wrong, just "different" for them.

We do audition style interviews... meaning when you come to interview for a programmer position you write code all day. If you come to interview for a sales position, you will be selling all day during your interviews. If you come to interview as an office manager, you will be doing those tasks during your interview. We don't sit and have long conversations about where you see yourself in five years.

I can tell you that we've never had a single programmer that thought this interview style was strange. We had two office manager interviewees walk out during the middle of the interview. That style of interview was just strange to them and freaked them out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another example of the dangers of following Joel's advice on software managment. If you think your company is like his... it's probably not.

I'm sure it works amazingly at his company, but his is almost always the exception to the rule.

<comment><USER5> While this may be true, I didn't really get that from the article. It sounded like the system was largely a success, except that they set the maximum level at their highest-ranked people and stopped. Those people got frustrated because they had no way to move upwards.

At Fog Creek, there are several levels that no developers have achieved yet. I'm fairly certain that if someone did achieve those levels they'd rearrange the system to create a few more levels, so that everyone has something to reach for and some idea of how to continue to improve themselves.

<comment><USER6> I combine that with the quote _"I'm a company starter, not really an empire builder"_. The author couldn't see the bigger opportunity for the business, and the staff starting banging their heads on his limited vision.

If he'd had a much bigger vision, he probably could have (as you indicate Fog Creek has done) included future levels for growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The problem presented--how do the people at the top advance--has a simple solution. Have them select people to specifically mentor (via a mutual selection process) and pay them bonuses based on how much those people improve.

You motivate the best and supply them with concrete goals by asking them to try to teach--which ultimately sets them up to be better managers down the road.

<comment><USER8> While its a good idea to incorporate mentoring, tying your salary to someone else's performance does _not_ sound like a good idea.

I think the key is to leave several levels at the top empty, open to advancement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Joel also writes about measuring distorting results in some of his articles. Just thinking: if a scale is public, wouldn't people scramble to just match the criteria of the scale? For example, supposed somebody is considered "expert" if he has written a book about the subject. So wouldn't people try to somehow write books about things, which would take away a lot of their time and energy that they might otherwise have invested in their job directly?

<comment><USER10> It may be a double-edged sword. You can take advantage of that human nature. Encouraging employees to write books on the relevant fields may benefit the company---it can be a nice PR of the company's technology level, it can attract good people to join the company, and if the company's competitive field is a niche, more books may expand the customer base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to work at Avery's startup NITI! I've been wondering whatever happened to the team since they sold to IBM. Thanks so much for this. What a delightful coincidence!

</comment><comment><USER12> "Your problem is finding ways to help your best people stay happy and achieve levels you haven't invented yet. That problem is the one that defeated me, but I'd rather have that one than any other."

Wow - I couldn't disagree more. That's the absolute worst problem you can have. Anything that encourages your best programmers to leave is poison.

<comment><USER13> For sure, anything that encourages your best programmers to leave is Really Bad. My interpretation of the quoted sentences isn't "Having my best people leave is the best problem I could have" but "Having people good enough that I can't make a meaningful performance scale that they aren't at the top of is the best problem I could have". Which isn't obviously wrong, though presumably it's not because of implementing Spolsky's scheme that he had such good people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, instead of employees crying about their salaries they are crying about their level.

Humans are this way. We are a jealous and want-it-all-even-if-we-dont-deserve. It's not a problem of salaries or level, it's a human problem.

Said that, I say that Joel's method seems a better to me.

<comment><USER10> Did you read the entire article? The author says jealousy wasn't really a problem after all. The bigger problem were to keep motivation of _the highest ranked_ people, and the mismatch between this system and the rest of the company. I found this very interesting case study.

<comment><USER14> I did read the article. Just because the author says 'jealousy' wasn't the main problem I will not think otherwise. My opinion is that it was. Only masked.

<comment><USER15> Umm... that doesn't even begin to make sense... Are you sure you read the same article?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Forget Products. Build Ecosystems - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@manolisbabiolakis/forget-products-build-ecosystems-792dea2cc4f2#.mbxl2sv4r <comment><USER2> "Don't plant trees, plant a forest!" In all seriousness, this can kill a startup. You should try to allow for later extension of your product, but you have to actually get one thing to market before you can bring many things to market.</comment>