Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel? - <AUTHOR> http://geektime.com/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-outsourcing-its-domestic-spying-to-israel/ <comment><USER2> It is outsourcing domestic spying to an Israeli company (yes, a private enterprise) that produces "lawful interception" software (which it undoubtfuly sells to other customers too). Saying "Israel" is helping NSA spy on its citizens is akin to saying "the United States" gets people hooked on Farmville.

<comment><USER3> Or that "China" hacks American businesses.

<comment><USER4> So you are taking the position that Unit 61398 of the 2nd Bureau of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department's (GSD) 3rd Department has no relation to the state of China. Please elucidate.

[http://intelreport.mandiant.com/](http://intelreport.mandiant.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm going to invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here.

"One theory that's been gaining traction as of late, on how the NSA got around those pesky little things called laws, is that they outsourced the project to Israel."

So basically a random conspiracy theory clickbait. Also the reference to 8200 here really shows the author has no fogey idea.

In short, Israeli intelligence out of necessity doesn't focus on PRISM like data-mining approaches.

<comment><USER6> Well said. Also, tip to US journos (and Israeli Business-Insider-wannabe bloggers): 8200 _used_ to be a small and highly selective unit. These days it's the biggest unit of any kind in the IDF.

The fact an Israeli company has people who served there is meaningless, it reflects nothing on what the company does nor the quality of its people.

<comment><USER7> Conspiracy theory presumes a secret: not a fog of misinformation to counter the known and open facts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Carry on citizen. You have nothing to worry about. Yes, the government is collecting all the possible data they can on you, but it's okay. You can trust them to never use it against you if you ever speak against or embarrass the government, or any other future governments.

<comment><USER7> All your government are belong to us. (HN gave me -7 for this statement. But some pts just come back.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Narus is an Israeli company ? Headquarters in California but also offices in India. Half of the management is Indian the other half American. I would say if an NSA really outsources to Narus it would be to India not Israel.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hate to repeat myself here, but they forgot to mention AMDOCS, another Israeli firm who run 'outsourced billing' for loads of major telecommunications companies globally. What do you need for billing? Metadata on everything.

</comment><comment><USER11> Back in the day, many European countries had registers of known communist and socialist sympathizers. They where used to keep communists out of government and union jobs. Those in the registers had a harder time getting promoted, was fired for spurious reasons and so on. The other effect it had is that people became frightened to voice their support of communists lest they also be placed in the register and having their careers ruined.

It is not far-fetched to think that broad intelligence gathering will be used in the exact same way today. Communism may not be the big boogieman it once way, but there are still ideologies and causes that can get you branded as undesirable. For example, by being drug liberal.

I think it's naive to think that the information they are collecting will go unused. There aren't enough terrorist threats in there to act upon, so they will focus on the secondary threats which is people with the wrong opinions.

</comment><comment><USER12> They could be watching us read this right now!

<comment><USER13> this is not a very good news for our future

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Israel is the best!

<comment><USER14> At oppression!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Mormons don't go on missions to Arab countries, so the Utah spy site is of limited use. But many Israelis on the other hand do speak Arabic; its a secondary language there; so they are naturally a place to outsource electronic surveillance of Arab speaking countries.

<comment><USER15> Not so many: there are indeed ~1.4*10^6 arabic speakers in Israel, but most are Palestinian-Israeli, barred from getting any security clearence by the Israeli military.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When they say "Israel", they actually mean "Jews". Exploit the prejudice without appearing antisemitic.

<comment><USER17> That's stupid. When they say "Israel", they mean "that nominally democratic ally of ours who survives on our military aid and who is well-known for technical savvy and outsourcing to whom would neatly circumvent our inconvenient laws forbidding the wholesale surveillance of our citizens." Not "Jews". We have more Jews than they do anyway.

<comment><USER6> US military aid is about %1 of Israel's budget, so factually it can't be said to "survive" on it (BTW it's required to spend nearly all of it buying from US suppliers).

As for "nominally democratic" I'll ignore it in order to not bring the already devastated level of discourse here yet lower.

But, back the point, do you seriously believe the NSA will outsource its most sensitive operations to another country? HN is now moving from r/politics to r/conspiracy.

<comment><USER17> I didn't mean financial survival. To listen to any apologist of our Middle East policy, it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call.

Perhaps "military assistance" would have been a better term.

As to "nominally democratic", they're governed by a bunch of repressive thugs who don't listen to their own people - slightly better than the United States in that respect. Or do you really think their Palestinian policy is democratically derived?

And yes. I think the military-industrial complex will do anything to win, and the Israelis are known to be non-stupid. They could do worse.

As to the level of discourse, I thought my response was better than JEW JEW JEW ANTISEMITISM, but your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER6> I agree the parent comment's insinuation of antisemitism was nonsense.

>it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call

(1) Why exactly do you think Israel has US support at their beck and call? I can tell you Israelis definitely don't think so. (2) Why does Israel need it, when - following the collapse of the USSR which was the main lifeline of other Mideast forces - it now has the most powerful military in the region? and (3) Israel has its own nukes since the '60s.

American support for Israel started only in the early '70s, after Israel proved itself a useful asset by winning the Six Day War, without any US support and as counterbalance for the USSR support of Arab nations. Israel is one of very few nations in the world (certainly the western world) which the US _didn 't_ have to send its military to protect at some point.

<comment><USER17> Now _this_ is the kind of comment I come to HNN for.

(1) From the point of view of a liberal American, it seems a given. To have _any_ negative opinion of Israeli politics in the States marks you as Not The In Crowd.

(2) I dunno - all I know is that American politicians represent the situation in this way. I know a few Israelis, but we've never talked politics and I've never been to Israel, sadly. So I'm woefully ignorant.

(3) We're never supposed to talk about that, are we? Only Evil Rogue Nations violate nuclear treaties they didn't sign, after all.

On your final paragraph - now I'm going to have to go read some things.

<comment><USER6> (1) Well, Chomsky is doing alright.. And I wouldn't say The Nation or the New Yorker have any qualms about criticizing Israel (and they shouldn't).

(2) I agree, the situation is represented in the US in very simplistic terms, by both sides.

(3) IMHO Israel, along with Pakistan and India, took the only respectable option by not signing that treaty. When my wife was doing her MA she'd often tell me how her professors mentioned various UN human rights treaties the US didn't sign and which many dictatorships did sign. It amazed me how her ivy league teachers didn't realize the signature of most nations is meaningless, as they have no intention of committing to it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New New Fatherhood in the Inner City - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/02/new-new-fatherhood-in-the-inner-city.html <comment><USER3> > motherhood provided the crucial, emotionally satisfying transition into > adult life.

I know someone who worked at a treatment center for disadvantaged inner city girls (drug treatment, mostly court mandated). From what I understood motherhood is a status symbol, also a right of passage. A way to earn respect. All of the sudden people pay more attention to you. It also affords a pass into a club of other unwed mothers, many older ones, that might have served as role models growing up. Like the observation said, it is seen as the next step in life.

One deeper level, I think it also provides companionship and family where there is none. Deadbeat deads or moms, girlfriends and hookups who are abusive, come in an out, but this one little person, will be there looking up to them never going anywhere, providing love and attachment that they never got much. That is at least my interpretation of it. It is unfortunate because in most cases these children and parents will have a hard time. It is very selfish to bring children into the world just to be used a status symbol or someone to provide companionship when there are just no resources to raise safely.

On an even deeper, perhaps unconscious, level, maybe having children can be seen as giving up on accomplishing more in life and instead choosing to procreate, hoping maybe the offspring might have a better shot at it.

> The good father is somebody like your friend."

I can see how that would be an attempt at reversal or mend their own experience with their fathers growing up. Their father wasn't there. Their father wasn't their "friend". Their father used to beat them and be harsh. So they vow to be the opposite.

The one hope in this is that it would also reverse some of the stereotypes about men. Men are the default guilty party in family disputes. They are the stereotypical predator and abuser while women are given a a great leeway and only with concrete and absolute evidence will they be considered as unfit to take care of the child. This mentality has permeated the court system, the school system, the culture in general. Hopefully this leads at least to a re- evaluation of those stereotypes.

<comment><USER4> > It is very selfish to bring children into the world [...]

Would you say there are any unselfish reasons for having kids? I believe poor and rich folks do it for the same reasons, although the circumstances are different.

<comment><USER3> > Would you say there are any unselfish reasons for having kids?

I didn't say it was selfish reasons. I said it was a selfish act. There is a difference. You can make the argument that there aren't unselfish reason -- everything one does can be linked to benefit to oneself.

In this case it is a selfish act. It is selfish because it exposes this new human being to most likely a bad environment, poverty, abuse, danger. To make it unselfish would be to have better guarantees that the child will have stable home, parents who can provide, other caretakers, make sure that well police doesn't get called to the neighborhood every Friday night and there is no need to duck if you hear loud noises that sound like gunshots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> " Since 1965, mothers at every level of the economy have tripled the hours they spend working outside the home. Fathers now spend much more time playing and talking with their children than they did in past decades, but men's domestic labor—cooking, cleaning, and readying the kids for school—has not kept pace, meaning women are still working the "second shift""

This is a fine example of how to misuse statistics for ideological reasons. Without absolute numbers, this is completely meaningless - women tripled their time working outside of the home - from what? How much are they working now, and how much are fathers working? Why is the time spent on household chores even relevant? It's relevant who contributes how much to the survival of the family, not in what way they contribute.

The message of the article is simply that "men who don't earn a lot of money are not good enough", not very surprising.

<comment><USER6> I thought the point was the opposite of that. Something along the lines of : "in the psst men worked and provided money to their wife and children. If they didn't they were morally suspect. Now, in communities where there is no hope of work, men should spend some of their time on the non-paid work required to raise children."

<comment><USER5> It never says how much the men work, just that they are poor.

Another choice quote: "responsible women and feckless men in the poor and working classes" \- how are the women more responsible than the men? Don't they know who they are having kids with? And women seem to get something out of having kids, they are not just the victims of men recklessly impregnating them.

I didn't quite understand why they don't want to marry, either. The argument is "because the mates are low quality", but at the same time they seem to expect all the services usually given in marriage - doing housework, providing, raising kids...

I just don't trust that article very much to really provide the relevant data.

<comment><USER7> The article is written under the assumption - an assumption enshrined in American family law - that women are helpless and must be provided for by a man. Women lack agency and thus it is unreasonable to expect them to behave responsibly.

This is the law of the land throughout the Anglo-Saxon world (though thankfully not outside of it).

All is rather remarkable when one thinks about it. Women have the ability to jettison any child they do not want (either by killing it [!] or by post birth adoption), yet men of course are not afforded this right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting that the relationship between fertility rates and economic status applies so strongly within the US as well as between countries.

Often the high fertility rates in poor counties is seen as a way of guaranteeing someone will be around to care for the parents when they are old. I wonder if this explanation is backed with research, or the reasons that apply within the US also apply elsewhere?

</comment><comment><USER7> Child support needs to be abolished wholesale.

If a woman wants a mans support, then she either needs to be married to him or convince him to do so of his own free will.

This simple change would inject much needed sanity into this entire process.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that you don't want to punish the children. They are innocent.

<comment><USER7> Removing a child from the custody of a parent who was not financially prepared to raise the child is not punishment.

<comment><USER5> I thought it is just about the money. Giving the child less money is punishment.

<comment><USER7> If the mother doesn't have enough money to raise the child, she was clearly being irresponsible and should be relieved of her ward.

Of course, I assume that women are volitional human beings and thus should be held responsible for their actions. A concept quite foreign to the Ango-Saxon legal tradition.

<comment><USER5> You seem to be talking about something else than the OP. I was under the impression he was talking about fathers paying up for kids, not kids being taken away from their parents.

Let's check if I understood you correctly, though: your opinion is that parents who can't afford their kids anymore should have their kids taken away from them. And you are sure that is what is best for the kids?

<comment><USER7> I'm staying one step ahead of the conversation.

We're all talking about parents taking care of their kids: If moms have the option not to have to take care of their kids - as they currently do - <USER2> fathers should have that option as well.

Once fathers have that option, and women are thusly treated as responsible adults, then we will come across situations in which mothers claim not to be able to care for their children. They will require assistance, or so they shall claim.

Simple solution: If the caretaker is sufficiently irresponsible as to have children without the means to care for them - which is precisely what they are claiming - then the children should be removed from their irresponsible care. Offer the father custody, and if he isn't interested then off to foster care.

Why is this so important? Why am I being so callous? Why is this relevant?

Simple. You incentivize behavior, you get more of it. Current law in Anglo- Saxon nations incentivizes irresponsibility by women. Get rid of these silly laws and you'll have _less_ of this silly behavior.

<comment><USER5> In my country, if you don't take proper care of your kids, the state will take them away from you. But there is social welfare, so you will get money if you don't have a job.

If parents are unable psychologically to take care of their kids, I suppose the state should step in. If it is just money woes, I am not so sure. Especially as it might be cheaper to give money to parents than to finance foster homes (I don't know). I also don't trust that foster homes generally provide good care for children. I suppose some do, but it seems difficult to assess, so there are probably a lot of bad apples. You can't make people love a kid - caregivers in foster homes are being paid to take care of the kids, but maybe they won't be able to provide some crucial things like love.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Seamlessly track work and automate tasks in Slack - <AUTHOR> https://fireflies.ai/?ref=hn <comment><USER2> Hey HN! Sharing a Slackbot we've been working on for some time. We wanted to figure out a way to ensure important work items don't get lost in conversation streams, especially places like Slack. Project management tools are great but are not reflective of the work that is happening in real time. Fireflies let's you quickly turn messages into tasks. On top of that, it suggests potential tasks you might have missed as it learns over time. Fireflies also classifies certain tasks and let's you take actions like setting up meetings, making calls, etc. Let us know what you think.

<comment><USER3> one thing I'd love to see from you guys is a User Interface where I can physically move around my tasks. The trello integration is great, but I feel like you guys could do a better job with the task automation component</comment></comment>


Here's Why Musicians Won't Stand for Illegal Uploads Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1088-heres-why-musicians-wont-stand-for-illegal-uploads-anymore/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr music industry want's to kill safe harbor for service providers because you know, internetz is not fair.

You can tell they really want to be able to flag uploaded content as something they own. So important in fact that they are now introducing a service where you can upload what was uploaded to your system and they'll tell you it's ok or or not...wait, no, no. they did not do that, anyone know why??

</comment><comment><USER3> Safe-harbour might be responsible for the web we have today. I can't imagine a web without its protections.

That said, the DMCA exists in multiple countries now thanks to trade negotiations. No way it's being changed...</comment>


Police use ultrasonic device to make sure drivers stay 3 feet from cyclists - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/police-use-ultrasonic-device-to-make-sure-drivers-stay-3-feet-from-cyclists/

<comment><USER2> Brilliant. Necessary. And all cars should have autonomous braking that keeps them at least 3 feet from cyclists.</comment>


The Social Media to Sharing is what Porn is to Love - <AUTHOR> http://benatlas.com/2010/02/the-social-media-to-sharing-is-what-porn-is-to-love/ What is "Web 2.0 Sharing" is all about? <comment><USER2> ...Screamed the blogger.</comment>


The show Bill Nye the Science Guy is 20 years old today - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXLdcqIj-SA&noredirect=1

<comment><AUTHOR> The original objective was to "change the world". I think they succeeded.</comment>


Boeing 737 Max Software Fixes Due to Lion Air Crash Delayed - <AUTHOR> https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/618252-boeing-737-max-software-fixes-due-lion-air-crash-delayed.html <comment><USER2> Yikes...

Referenced WSJ article here: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-and- regulators-delay-jet...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-and-regulators- delay-jetliner-fixes-prompted-by-lion-air-crash-11549821489)

(Outline link because paywall: [https://outline.com/MpaknT](https://outline.com/MpaknT))</comment>


Wolfram Alpha Isn't Google, So Stop Comparing Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/wolfram-alpha-isnt-google-so-stop-comparing-them

<comment><USER2> Nor Wikipedia. If you need to compare Wolfram Alpha to something, compare it to Freebase.

</comment><comment><USER3> link w/o the splash advert: <http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1282717/print>

Anyway, I think this has been well hammered home by now - excpet the media are still plugging at the theme (as I keep saying I'm convinced that is Google's doing and _very_ clever of them too :))

One thing that _has_ occured to me is that we were wrong to compare it to Wikipedia too (which I spent weeks doing... :( oops). WA is certainly not in any state to compete with WP either, yet; when you consider the wealth of information available on WP.

WA is really an academic and research tool: they have got some good hype from the "vs Google" and "vs Wikipedia" media coverage but I suspect that it will die off and wont last 6 months. It will have it's uses (if I were a student/academic/journalist etc. I imagine it would become as useful as Google and WP to me!) but.. well.. that's it...

And how do they monetize it?

<comment><USER4> _except the media are still plugging at the theme_

So much of our mainstream-facing tech media are infuriatingly bad! What can we do about this? Maybe David Pogue should set people straight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They're certainly not the same. But when Google debuted, it wasn't the same as Yahoo either. And many of Yahoo's categories were superior to Google's early search results.

Definitions aside: If Alpha works, it -will- impact how people use Google. If people change how they use Google, it -will- impact Google.

<comment><USER6> But only for a very small value of impact.

What percentage of Google queries do you think might eventually become WA queries? I'd say easily < 1%. I see the two as very complementary, not really competing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amen. Here's my question from the spin/marketing/PR perspective:

They got press because everyone loves talking about a Google killer. Freebase killer just doesn't get you the same type of hype.

Was the hype created due to:

a) Wolfram knew that people would talk more about a google killer and positioned it this way. b) The press mis-interpreted what the product did and wanted it to be a Google killer, even though it's NOT. c) A combination of both.

<comment><USER8> This quote from Conrad Wolfram was probably something to do with it IMHO

"It does at first glance look like a normal search engine, but in fact we have 10,000 computer processors behind the scenes working out an exact answer. It will really change the way we get our knowledge, and we hope it will change the way people search online."</comment></comment>


A Few Notes on the Culture, by Iain M. Banks - <AUTHOR> http://www.i-dig.info/culture/culturenotes.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, someone who still believes in a planned economy? I guess he is old?</comment>


Nvidia  Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA): a free and open inference accelerator - <AUTHOR> http://nvdla.org/ <comment><USER2> Well good luck AMD...

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this different from TensorRT?

<comment><USER4> TensorRT is a framework, NVDLA is actual open hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> AI for IoT sensors? Why?</comment>


Amazon outage: Dissecting what happened - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getsocialize.com/2012/amazon-outage-dissecting-what-happened

<comment><USER2> Okay, but c'mon its pretty funny for this site to pretend like Amazon did a post-mortem investigation and write up for _them_.</comment>


Apple says it's tracking your calls and emails to 'prevent fraud' - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2018/09/20/apple-says-its-tracking-your-calls-and-emails-to-prevent-fraud/ <comment><USER2> The title is misleading.

Most people would believe the title is saying "Apple is collecting information on who you call, who calls you, where, when; and it's reading your emails."

But then the article says: "information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive"

So, no, they aren't "tracking your calls and emails" in the layman's sense of the term. They're just counting the number of calls and emails.

In terms of privacy violation that's at least an order of magnitude less egregious, and so it's an important distinction.

Not to mention that those numbers aren't even sent to Apple directly. Again the article states: "The data that gets sent to Apple, according to the company, is a numeric score that is computed on the device itself."

<comment><USER3> I'd guessed there's a reason the links being posted here on this are from low- trust sources: Sun, NYPost, etc.

<comment><USER4> These posts being flagged is a bit of a relief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1) Apple has a pretty good privacy record so I'm more inclined to trust them on this one. Go ahead, light me up for saying that. :-)

2) No one I know ever calls me anymore. I am however getting 10 to 15 spam calls a day (one literally just came through as I was typing this up). Its so bad that I had to install a paid spam blocker and even that only catches 80% or so.

If Apple is looking for ways to deal with these jokers, I am all about it. This is getting ridiculous.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you. FWIW, the article is talking about assigning each user a fraud score for iTunes purchases. I'm guessing it's so that people can't use new iTunes accounts to game apps, or to use in-app purchases to test stolen credit cards.

Having said that, Apple should definitely be more aggressive about blocking spam numbers. My perception is that it does absolutely nothing about them. Does Android do a better job here?

<comment><USER7> I've been pretty happy with the way Android is handling spammers. Not only it shows when a call is suspected to be spam, it also gives me the opportunity to flag a caller as such.

<comment><USER8> How is this configured? I've never seen an incoming call shown as possible spam.

In fact, when I tell Google Voice a number is spam, while it won't forward calls from that number anymore, it still forwards both calls and texts to Hangouts. The only way to prevent Hangouts from receiving _known spam_ is to block the number, which is buried in the app. (I hate Hangouts, it has to be the best self-torture app ever.)

Edit: As I was typing this, I received notification on both my phone (Hangouts) and in my web browser (Hangouts) of a voicemail from a number previously marked as spam. "Our system is showing your local Google listing is currently not managed or has not been properly cleaned and verified ..." In Google Voice, this voicemail is in the Spam folder. And yet I received two notifications on my devices for it.

<comment><USER7> There is a setting on the Phone app just for Caller ID and Spam and you even have the ability to filter spam calls. I don't have Google Voice so I don't know if/how it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That is not what Apple says. Apple says that developers submitting apps to the store will be given a trust score to prevent spammers based on the approximate number of calls and emails made. It does not look at your emails or calls. If you use the phone for spamming purposes and say send 1000s of emails a day and 10000s of calls a day and marked as a spammer you will get a lower score to avoid abusing the app store.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Tracking" is probably too aggressive a word here. Sounds like they're counting, while "tracking" opens up a lot more metadata potential.

</comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, I'd probably take this with a grain a sand while "nypost" are the ones reporting it without too many details. They aren't really known for high journalistic standards.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wait, I'm confused:

Are spammers using Apple devices? I always assumed they were just generic VoIP devices in boiler rooms (or bots, obviously).

Why would you invest that kind of money into a device for making spam calls?

<comment><USER13> This isn't about call spam calls. This is about app review farms and spam reviews. The way the headlines are being made and the way it's being discussed is FUD trying to show that Apple is evil; they're just making an effort to make sure app reviews are legitimate.

<comment><USER14> To remove issues with fake reviews, remove the ability to post reviews and rankings for an application. Instead, enable a application refund system. If you don't like the application, you have 60-90 days to get a refund. No more nonsense with fake reviews and such. You as the individual will determine if an application or song or whatever is good for you. Don't rely on reviews, they can be faked.

peace

<comment><USER15> This is a really good idea!

Although, I suspect, app developers would absolutely hate it.

<comment><USER16> Because it would be a disaster. There are so many games that you can complete in a day or two. They may be absolutely FANTASTIC, like Monument Valley. But people already don't like paying for apps so they'll ask for their $.99 back after they've played the game.

The end result is the only games they can survive or 90 our games that are full of in app purchases. Every other app could be easily download it, used, and refunded it quickly.

As bad as monetization is in the App Store right now it would be in order of magnitude worse.

<comment><USER14> Build in a trial period then with limited functionality/levels. The cost of that trail period is a small percentage of the overall price. For isntance, let's say the game is $12 USD. The trial period of the game would be 2 days 1 or 2 levels & cost $2 USD. you can upgrade to the full game (no refunds) or pay as you go for each level/functionality.

Yes - maybe this is more programming, but we have better languages & libraries to make this happen.

I think there's a way to do this & eliminate nonsense.

<comment><USER16> $12 games are an absolute no-go on the App Store. If the app is paid its almost certainly $0.99, maybe $2.

So that doesn't work, unless the 'trial period' is $0.20. And at that point Apple/etc is losing money on CC fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This sounds like something they should be doing. If someone used a tool or service I provided to commit fraud I would take it as a personal failing.

Privacy and security are the reasons I moved from Android to iOS four years ago. After reading the details this sounds like such a minor collection of data that it doesn't bother me.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Originally published by BGR.

Well, there's your problem right there. Certainly explains why they would use a word like "tracking" when it doesn't apply.

</comment><comment><USER19> do you think it only tracks emails if you are using the default Mail client?

<comment><USER20> I would cautiously assume so— though I don't know enough about the innards of iOS to say for sure.

That is to say, my instinct is that it would be difficult (if not impossible) for the OS to extract meaningful data from, say, the Gmail app, if it's communicating with its servers using end-to-end encryption.

The OS _might_ be able to see 3rd-party app calls and emails through the API which allows app data to appear in Spotlight search, but that's at least a permission the user can revoke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, they could hardly do worse than Google has with Google Voice. 90% of the calls I get are spam and outright fraud, i.e. "Yes, hi sir. I am calling from Microsoft. The big company. And we want your computer to be safe! Can I have your password?"

Google is collecting a ton of data, and I no longer have any reason to believe they care about fraud and spam filtering one bit. It's far worse after porting the number to GV.</comment>


Siri what song is this? The ios 8 GM doesn't have a clue - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/10/siri-what-song-is-this-the-ios-8-gm-doesnt-have-a-clue/

<comment><USER2> Quote: "This approach proved to be a bit counterproductive, as the software would often misinterpret air conditioners, wind, or a sneeze in the background as music ..."

If one spends a few minutes listening to modern music, this confusion becomes perfectly understandable.</comment>


How Zynga cloned its way to success - Edge Magazine - <AUTHOR> http://www.edge-online.com/features/how-zynga-cloned-its-way-success <comment><USER2> How much can you say about "how to copy?" The title is a QED.</comment>


After Technology Destroys Capitalism - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/03/after-technology-destroys-capitalism/ <comment><USER3> The alternative is a continued and ever more absurd growth in the service sector. In the end 95% of the population will be cutting each others' hair and saying nice things to each other for money. With the most detail and attention dedicated to the 5% that actually does useful stuff, then trickling down. It does sound absurd, doesn't it? But we're already getting there. Does your kitchen really need a marble counter top? No, but you want to feel important/worthy enough to have a luxurious lifestyle, and a luxurious lifestyle includes a marble counter top, so you get one. Replace "kitchen" and "marble counter top" with whatever you want to.

The two great expanding economic sectors of the future I foresee is conspicuous consumption (luxury cars, clothes) and emotional prostitution (massages, photoshoots, personal trainers). Indeed, prostitutes are a great example of this. High-end prostitutes earn as much as doctors and lawyers, all for providing emotional support for their clients/johns. They are the ultimate modern workers, in my opinion, and most of us will be following in their footsteps soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER4> Re that pg tweet - "Will ownership turn out to be largely a hack people resorted to before they had the infrastructure to manage sharing properly?"

We have the technology to share the profits of AirBNB right now. The "sharing economy" can work on many levels now that we have the technology. Or we could all share YC, or Google, or even TechCrunch.

Who will step up to the plate first, then?

That's where this line of thinking goes, universal ownership not just of commodity resources, but of everything.

Who will lead us?

Note- While I sound satirical, I'm really not. This is the logical and likely necessary progression. And it really does require some leadership.

<comment><USER5> I'm genuinely curious but how to do prevent abuse with shared stuff? There's lots of people in the world who will abuse, destroy, hog, etc. There was that story about the airbnb sex party just over a month ago as just one example.

I'm sure there are good ideas. Maybe that's yet another tech solution?

A quick google about abuse of Zipcars brought up this article

[http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/07/zipcar-users-dont- good-c...](http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/07/zipcar-users-dont-good-care- cars-new-research-offers-4-lessons-access-economy/)

<comment><USER6> That link makes 4 good points.

I'll add another observation - library books. They are "shared stuff" by any definition. Libraries will rebind books to make them more durable and sharable. This suggests that a 5th point is to design shared things for higher amounts of abuse.

However, it's much easier to rebind a book than a car.

<comment><USER7> Don't forget to include a few common and important properties of the library model that I think are very pertinent to this discussion:

1\. If you damage the book that you are "borrowing" or "sharing" then you are to pay a fixing/repair fee.

2\. Natural degradation/wear & tear of books is covered by a general library fee/subscription.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The crux: "It seems to me that technology will soon destroy jobs faster than it creates them, if it hasn't started to already. Which is a good thing! Most of the jobs it destroys are bad, and most of the ones it creates are good. Net human happiness should be vastly increased, not decreased, by this process — but, unfortunately, capitalism doesn't work that way."

Instead of trying to lower costs for big companies by creating software that replaces people, we should strive to create something of value that can also employ people in meaningful numbers. Don't know what exactly, but that is the shape of it.

<comment><USER9> Basically, that quote was the foundation of Marx' argument for why he saw capitalism as doomed to eventual failure.

People tend to think that Marx argued for the overthrow of capitalism because it is/was in his eyes morally "bad" or "evil", but that's not really the case.

Marx argued that capitalism was better than any previous system, and - <USER2> failings - vitally necessary to bring the world to a point where production would for the first time in history make it possible to meet the basic needs of everyone

(without which, he insisted, a socialist revolution would be doomed to failure: in such a situation, redistribution would just make want common, and cause the old class struggle to re-assert itself - like it did in the Soviet Union etc. with the party installing itself as a new upper class).

But he expected capitalism to continue to push production efficiency to the point where it would overproduce and under-employ, and that _this_ would eventually trigger socialist revolutions.

> Instead of trying to lower costs for big companies by creating software that > replaces people, we should strive to create something of value that can also > employ people in meaningful numbers. Don't know what exactly, but that is > the shape of it.

Why? If we can reduce or remove the need for people to work, why should we not?

<comment> muuh-gnu We can not remove the need to work, because there will always be a need to eat, and to be able to eat, you need to work because nobody will feed you voluntarily.

If somebody else has to work so you can eat without working, thats theft and your victims will try to kill you to stop you taking the products of their labor.

<comment><USER10> I believe the parent is thinking of a hypothetical reality trending toward one where technology is capable of solving nearly any arbitrary problem at no material cost.

Imagine, say, a world where clouds of von Neumann self-replicating builder robots fly around and plant seeds, tend trees, harvest, and deliver food. They also charge and repair and modify themselves, take material from mined asteroids, and are so plentiful that they may respond to every nonviolent human whim.

That world may have problems (which I don't care to discuss, I am just throwing out a possibility), and it's nowhere near reality. Not close. But I think such a pie-in-the-sky scenario is the one under discussion, where assumptions like 'nobody will feed you voluntarily' are not as bedrock as they are for us.

<comment> muuh-gnu Lets set aside the fact that somebody has to build those robots and wants to profit for building them...

Once we have that hypothetical robot slave army feeding everyone of us, the discussion would be over by itself because there would be nothing left to discuss. Everyone would have all he needs and that would be it.

The only reason we do have the discussion already now, long before the star- trekian replicator utopia has been realized is because a lot of people are so impatient to stop working, that they want to engineer a system where not robots, but _other people_ are working for them, of course involuntarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article contends that we'll replace capitalism with a "reputation economy":

      > I strongly suspect that any post-capitalist society
      > will be built around a technologically sophisticated
      > reputation economy, very very loosely a la Cory
      > Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

      > Obviously we already live in a world full of subtle
      > reputation economies — you see one in action any time a
      > celebrity gets special treatment. Nowadays, though,
      > technology could enable something much more codified and
      > quantitative. (Crude hacks like Klout may at least light
      > the way, for all their flaws.)

Perhaps I'm being thick, but isn't reputation just a form of capital? Why would it replace capital?

<comment><USER12> You're not being thick. The author conflates currency with capital and corporatism with capitalism. The only question is whether or not the author is making this mistake out of ignorance or malice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Or after Capitalism destroys technology (such as TWC/Comcast or RIAA/MPAA). Or even after Technology destroys technology (NSA). People are still greedy and power wants more power. If you push powerful people too far they will fight back. If you push governments with power you usually wind up dead. If you try to take people's wealth away they usually have the resources to beat you back. A few exceptions is not a rule.

History is full of people who tried to fix society's ills and virtually always have things wind up even worse. The French revolution started out as idealism and wound up using "technology" to chop off people's heads.

I'm not at all against technology trying to make things better but unless we eliminate people it's not going to change basic human behavior.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a really awesome book that explains what that it is and how it might work.

Race Against the Machine,

by Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee

[http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-The-Machine- Accelerating-...](http://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-The-Machine-Accelerating- ebook/dp/B005WTR4ZI)

It has some ideas on how to get from where we are to there. I think the philosophies of Race Against the Machine and Capital in the 21st century are pretty insightful and the truth may be somewhere in between the two.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it's a mistake to call the ubiquitous emphasis on corporate growth in the US for the last 40 years "capitalism". The argument really breaks down if you try to call this all laissez-faire capitalism. There has been nothing "hands off" about our government's handling of the economic infrastructure. They have walked campaign-contribution-hand in regulation-and-subsidy-hand down the aisle of oligopoly and oligarchy. It's much closer to the mercantilism of Europe out of which the US was _created_ than it is to laissez-faire.

I don't believe in completely unregulated markets, either. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking government will ride in to save the day. They were complicity in creating a system whose soul purpose is to drain 99.9% of people in the country of their money and leave nothing for anyone else. That's not trade, that's not capitalism. That's scorched earth warfare. You won't get reform out of Congress, they have too much skin in the game of the current system.

In a world where corporations can't buy off congresscritters, and congresscritters can't pass laws to give unfair advantage to their cohorts, I don't believe you can have an oligopoly of giganto-corporations. There is such an inefficiency to them that a truly capitalist system would have swarmed, killed, ate them up, and spat them out already.

We need to continue to push the internet to be independent, to grow an economy disconnected from governments, one that can, through mutual benefit of trade (i.e. capitalism) support the individuals within it with understanding and fairness, with no favor provided to any individual just because they won the Ivy League roommate lottery.

</comment><comment><USER15> Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources. Capitalism is one method of allocating scarce resources. If some resources become so plentiful that they are no longer scarce, they are treated as having no value. I don't see how _everything_ could possibly become non-scarce. Maybe energy, maybe even food, but we still need to build homes, transportation of some sort, to provide medical care, and go into court when someone screws you over. And because of that, there will need to be a way of allocating resources.

Economist Ludwig von Mises a long time ago demonstrated that a cashless society couldn't function because there would be no method for effectively allocating scarce resources. While it's nice to predict some moneyless utopia in the future, it presents real and insurmountable problems.

<comment><USER16> >Economist Ludwig von Mises a long time ago demonstrated that a cashless society couldn't function because there would be no method for effectively allocating scarce resources

So I guess he never heard of the Incans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What irked me about this article was the author's immediate need to declare his love of Marxism and "Marxist-powered technology". It's a reminder of how entrenched the current ideology is and how people feel they must align themselves to it, for fear of ridicule (or worse). But I agree with the overall tone of the article. Maybe there will be a day when Marxism is considered to be a thing of the past and we can move on to some other socio- economic paradigm.

<comment><USER18> But the idea that capitalism will eventually produce the conditions of its own demise is /the/ Marxist argument. It's like Marx 101. Capitalism is a stage (and a necessary one) on the way towards full communism. (Unfortunately we've seen that attempts to move past that dictatorship of the proletariat time period haven't worked out so well)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > by guaranteeing people money without requiring them to do anything in > exchange, we decouple their value in society from their ability to do a job

He makes this sound like it was something bad.

<comment><USER20> He doesn't make it sound like anything - it was a quote from the Boston Globe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "...a basic income, supplemented by occasional temporary gigs..."

The problem I see with gigs, as can be seen on the various freelancing sites, is you're competing with people on the other side of the world who need way less than you to get by. As far as online gigs go, I'd like to see some borders go up in all but special cases.

<comment><USER22> You would like to protect the benefits you get from being far more privileged than people in other countries.

<comment><USER21> I would state it differently. I'd like to protect the price generally paid for certain types of work in my country. Even if that price is low for my country (but higher in others), I'd still hope to be able to compete with others in my country. Privilege doesn't necessarily enter into it.

<comment><USER22> And by "certain types of work", I guess that you mean services that you get paid for, but not goods that you have to pay for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And this new reputation economy will only be as good as the cultural biases of the engineers of the technology. Which could net us a worse situation than there is currently.

</comment><comment><USER24> The kicker [http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27253103](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27253103)

</comment><comment><USER25> ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOAD!

</comment><comment><USER26> Technology has already destroyed capitalism. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- frequency_trading](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading)</comment>


Introducing zetcd - <AUTHOR> https://coreos.com/blog/introducing-zetcd <comment><USER2> A big use case of this that we are thinking about is enabling people to use the etcd Operator[1], which makes it simple to run etcd clusters on Kubernetes, to back their ZooKeeper applications.

The neat thing about the etcd Operator is you can define a cluster and the etcd Operator takes care of normal operations by using the Kubernetes API.

      apiVersion: "etcd.coreos.com/v1beta1"
      kind: "Cluster"
      metadata:
        name: "example-etcd-cluster"
      spec:
        size: 5
        version: "3.1.8"

Pretty neat!

Anyways, the zetcd project is still super young but would love more folks to try it out. As the post says folks have already tried using Kafka, Mesos, and others.

[1] [https://coreos.com/blog/introducing-the-etcd- operator.html](https://coreos.com/blog/introducing-the-etcd-operator.html)

<comment><USER3> Who are you targeting with this? The "hesitant" zookeeper folks that already depend on etcd? Are you hoping to unseat cdh here? Pardon the naive question here - I never bump in to k8s selling to traditional enterprise hadoop customers.

I'd also never pick kubernetes for my "from scratch" cluster due to already being reliant on the JVM stack. I actually like the idea of giving an IT department that already understands zookeeper a mesos cluster with DC/OS.

That being said - k8s has a ton of momentum but it seems to be mainly with startups or maybe niche teams (prove me wrong here?) outside of google. It would be great to understand what you guys are looking at for things like this. Right now it feels like k8s and a lot of the other startups in this space like pachyderm are trying to compete with the hadoop ecosystem (which is great! competition forces innovation which is good for the ecosystem as a whole)

<comment><USER4> Kubernetes is actually getting a solid amount of large-tech and early adopter enterprise deployment. That's still pretty nascent, but it's picking up quickly. Happy to discuss in more details offline the adoption we're seeing.

The reason you don't bump into k8s while selling to Hadoop users is that Hadoop isn't something you'd run on a container-based stack (at least not right now and IMO it wont be). There are lots of Hadoop users who run containers for their application infra (as opposed to data infra). Pachyderm's whole pitch is that containerized data infra can be really powerful and that enterprises will want to unify their stack to all be containerized and k8s is THE answer for the orchestration layer.

P.S. Despite all my opinions above, I actually agree with your initial question around who zetcd is actually targeting. I don't have a clear picture of that.

<comment><USER5> >"Pachyderm's whole pitch is that containerized data infra can be really powerful and that enterprises will want to unify their stack to all be containerized and k8s is THE answer for the orchestration layer."

Doesn't Pachyderm predate K8s though? Is this a recent development? Have they shifted focus then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did some quick testing with Apache Curator (note: I'm the main author of Curator) and it looks like zetcd isn't implementing the create2 opcode and several others. If the goal is to really be ZK compatible it has a long way to go. I'm not sure who the target of this is. But, I'll keep following and try to get the Curator tests to run when it's further along.

<comment><USER2> Issue filed: [https://github.com/coreos/zetcd/issues/49](https://github.com/coreos/zetcd/issues/49)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. Maybe hashicorp should release an etcd compatible layer for Consul. Or CockroachDB even. Both have one thing etcd does not...inbuilt WAN support.

<comment><USER2> etcd can cross WAN links with tuning for the expected latencies. Tuning latencies is required to ensure the leader election algorithms know when to trigger a failure[1].

What is your use case?

[1] [https://coreos.com/etcd/docs/latest/tuning.html](https://coreos.com/etcd/docs/latest/tuning.html)

<comment><USER7> Yes, you can sort of detune the whole cluster. That's not quite the same as Consul's and CockroachDB's specific WAN awareness. Those two take different approaches, but do specifically understand and compensate.

>What is your use case?

Contract work, so use case varies. I agree that etcd is often the right answer.

<comment><USER2> Right, etcd's entire focus is on being a consensus database for distributed systems needing coordination, locking, etc. So, eventually consistent WAN replication hasn't really been a focus.

I do think this sort of cross-cluster key replication is useful and we offer it as a userspace external tool called make-mirror[1].

[1] [https://github.com/coreos/etcd/blob/master/etcdctl/README.md...](https://github.com/coreos/etcd/blob/master/etcdctl/README.md#utility- commands)

<comment><USER7> Worth noting that CockroachDB isn't using an eventually consistent model. Yes, it's not the same thing as etcd, but I can see some potential use case overlap.

<comment><USER8> There is some overlapping. But we should choose solution wisely :P.

Here is a doc [[https://github.com/coreos/etcd/blob/master/Documentation/lea...](https://github.com/coreos/etcd/blob/master/Documentation/learning/why.md)] comparing etcd with other systems, including CockroachDB.

I work on etcd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great idea, we only run Zookeeper because of Kafka but everything else is in Consul so the idea of this existing is pretty neat.

<comment><USER10> Same here, Storm and Kafka - everything else is in consul - and 2 single sources of truth.. well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So how does zetcd handle the zookeeper session? It's in zetcd and then the "ephemeral nodes" are removed from etcd if the zk client session expires? This is handled by the proxy?

This seems to be the major design compatibility item between the two is that the zookeeper protocol has a session state and so supports ephemeral nodes. If a gc pauses the jvm for a long time the client session will expire. In etcd there is ttl instead (zookeeper always lacked ttl as it wasn't needed)

<comment><USER2> A Go routine is spawned which runs the etcd client's KeepAlive method to tie a session to a lease in the proxy. The code is here: [https://github.com/coreos/zetcd/blob/d33e3b836a2a2de8a8ec077...](https://github.com/coreos/zetcd/blob/d33e3b836a2a2de8a8ec0771f5d249aa66d4bf8a/session.go#L48)

Disclaimer: The person who wrote this is AFK at the moment so I might be completely wrong ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another reason to use zetcd over Zookeeper is security. I don't believe it is possible yet to use TLS for Zookeeper-to-Zookeeper communication (clients can connnect to Zookeeper using TLS). The Jira covering this feature [0]. This will increasingly be a problem for those running Zookeeper for Mesos, Kafka etc. from a security and risk point of view.

[0] [https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ZOOKEEPER-236](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ZOOKEEPER-236)

</comment><comment><USER13> A few years ago I tried to reimplement the server connections directly in Zookeeper to be HTTP connections and a REST-like API and try to use long- polling and some other things. I got some code written, but no prototype up and I had to put it aside. This was initially before etcd was really going (I think it was at version 0.2 when I started the work). I had always hoped somebody else would try the same thing, but no such luck.</comment>


Googleallready.com - No I don't want Google in language X. - <AUTHOR> http://www.googleallready.com/

<comment><USER2> This isn't a problem for me on the pc, but on the iPhone, sometimes I want to kill someone it is so annoying. Even though the OS itself is totally language- localized, there is no setting to choose the language of the built-in google search in safari, and it always ends up searching in Japanese for me.

OK, so let's make a bookmark to a localized google. Hey, there is a built-in main-page bookmark to Google! Which you cannot edit.

So you have to jump through so many hoops that I just grit my teeth while a search for "widget-342 review" returns 10 pages in japanese that all contain the word "review" in katakana. Sometimes the small-mindedness of these half- baked localizations is extremely annoying, all the more so because I know the engineers that wrote it have almost certainly NEVER tested their code except as "US English, operating on a US network".

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get why Google doesn't respect the Accept-Language header. Even though my Firefox is sending this as en, I get redirected to google.co.jp. Is there a reason why most sites ignore this header and favour ip range based redirection?

</comment><comment><USER4> You can use <http://www.google.com/ncr> if you don't want localisation..

<comment><AUTHOR> By using that, you wouldn't exactly be making a statement against all this bullshit localization and forced redirection to local sites, with results in local languages preferred to the stuff I'm _actually_ searching for.

If I wanted to go to www.gooogle.MYCOUNTRYCODE I would have gone there, and not www.google.com. The fact that google seems to forget these settings between Firefox sessions as well pissed me off enough to just set this up.

I guess I'm a stubborn bastard that way, but I thought others might enjoy the service too. It comes neatly with a opensearch provider to replace google so that it's next to no work doing the switch.

On a privacy plus side, this is a google-proxy which sends out none of your confidential data and requires no cookies, and hence leaves your search anonymized, although that is more of a side-effect than any specifically desired feature on my part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess people make spelling mistakes when they're frustrated by localizations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. Should be registered with the proper spelling (<http://googlealready.com>) now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, somebody was pissed off by Google's already spartan search UI and tried to create a slightly more spartan UI?</comment>


Ask HN: anyone else sick of startups for startups posted on HN? - <AUTHOR> I've seen 3 different "Review my startup" posts on hacker news in the past week that was a startup whose sole focus is curating content for startups. I hate to sound like an ass, but it feels a bit like navel gazing or preaching to the choir. It would be one thing if those startups are doing something truly extraordinary, but so far I can't even say that.
I realize that hacker news is the ideal place for marketing to other startups, so kudos to you for knowing your market. But it feels a bit like when I played in a band and most of the audience watching were in other bands. If you are going play to a bunch of other musicians you better be amazing and blow people away or have something that will make jaded people remember you, i.e. amazing musicianship, great energy, brilliant songs or talent, even something unique like using different instruments like accordion or tuba. Otherwise you are wasting your time.
Similarly the expectations for building a startup for startups is very high, and these little projects for curating content for other startups when there are already some brilliant sites for startups does not bode well for your idea. Sorry to sound like ass, believe it or not I'm trying to help. <comment><USER2> Hacker News is our gym. We're just working out.

You bring up an great point about excellence and applicability. I agree. Just remember that each of us is in a different place and many of us are not as far along as others. Better to get feedback here first before approaching others in the real world.

The rest of you, keep those "Review my startup" posts coming. We won't be bashful. Promise.

<comment><USER3> _Hacker News is our gym. We're just working out._ \- Possibly the best analogy for HN I've heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sick of a lot of things... but one of them is all the "Ask HN: Anyone else sick of $foo" submissions. If you don't like a submission, don't click it. If you think it doesn't belong, flag it.

If other people were, in fact, sick of topics they'd disappear off the front page rather quickly.

<comment><USER5> Although this post was upvoted by quite a few people...

I think it really depends on the tone of the post. If you don't really see the point in something and it turns out there _is_ a point, it's better to say something and find out, than just ignore it.

Of course, if the point of a "anyone else sick of..." is just to be snarky, then I'd agree. But this felt like an honest question to me.

<comment><USER6> There's a difference between, "I am sick of..." [as implied by "anyone else"] and "Are there too many of..."

In the first case the question doesn't facilitate investigation and reasoned argument, but rather venting and defensive rebuttal. The question isn't about analyzing the content but a rallying cry.

<comment><USER5> Fair point. The title could definitely be phrased better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "If you are going play to a bunch of other musicians you better be amazing and blow people away or have something that will make jaded people remember you, i.e. amazing musicianship, great energy, brilliant songs or talent, even something unique like using different instruments like accordion or tuba. Otherwise you are wasting your time."

I look it at more from the angle that if you want to become a better musician you should play with musicians who exceed your ability and learn from them. HN isn't the big stage in my opinion. Maybe it's more of a jam session or an audition, where you can show what you've got and display the potential.

I honestly don't think there is too much promoting of new start ups, but the "Show HN" makes it easy to avoid them if I wanted to.

</comment><comment><USER8> Like Oracle sells software to companies making software. It's called B2B.

The quality of those 'startups for startups' thingies is another thing, obviously some of them will fall more into a 'wannabe for wannabies' category, but it doesn't mean the model is broken.

When it comes to 'preaching to the choir', I feel like all those 'why you should start a company / learn to code' are exactly that.

<comment><USER9> The key to B2B is finding customers that actually have money.

Startups, practically by definition, generally don't.

<comment><USER10> A startup with no money is not in business. Yes they have limited funding, and they have to use that funding wisely to build their product and customer base. But if you sell them a tool that will clearly help them to do those things, they will spend money. Heroku is the canonical example of this. They extract a premium price from many small startups who value a hassle-free production environment more than a few hundred dollars a month they could save by hosting themselves.

<comment><USER9> Do you think that Heroku makes most of its money from startups? I don't.

However they definitely do believe in getting people to be customers early. Hence they market to startups in the hope that they'll grow up.

<comment><USER10> I don't know about most of their money, but almost all of the companies listed on their (fairly extensive) success page are start-ups or small businesses.

To me, Heroku makes the most sense when you are building a business that may scale very quickly, and especially one that does not have a full-time sysadmin. It also makes sense for web apps that will stay very small and unlikely to grow that much past the free tier, but those are pretty much a loss-leader for Heroku.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In case of a gold rush, sell shovels?

</comment><comment><USER12> The thing is, businesses like that work.

Compare the tool seller you describe to this other "review my startup" that happens to be on the "new" page at the moment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4904624>

With no additional information, would you expect a company selling a product that fixes a real problem that real businesses with real money actually have and are willing to spend money fixing to be more or less profitable than the startup in the linked article? How many Instagrams does instagramfixerthing.com have to connect to how many Twitters before they are matching the revenue from a single $50/month plan from a boring tools company?

B2B makes a lot of sense. So that's why people build B2B companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> B2B is great - my startup is B2B. I'm just saying I am seeing a lot of startups whose sole market is other startups. And they are not impressive. Wouldn't you say the hacker news crowd is a bit jaded? Review my startup is great, but not sure if the startup you built is a startup for startups is the right direction for most of these people unless they do something amazing. And so far I have not seen it.

<comment><USER13> The conventional wisdom is to start with a niche, do well, and expand. They may not be impressive to you yet, but certainly some of them have the ability to do more that what you can see initially.

<comment><USER14> And if they can't come to the HN crowd to have their ideas vetted, where would padseeker have them go instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not that these ideas are necessarily bad. But they need to convince me that they're not being done purely out of the fear of getting out and talking to potential customers.

Make a product you would use yourself is all well and good, but there are two ways to get there: limit your products to the domains you know, or go out and learn new domains.

I believe the second strategy has a dramatically higher chance of success, because you can pick from a near-infinite choice of domains, many of which are woefully lacking in people who understand software.

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe these start-ups _will_ be something extraordinary.

I am sure most of us here have looked at a particular start-up and thought 'No way in hell that will fly!'. For me it was Facebook.

I am not sure of which ones you were talking about, but I did see the one on curating info for start-ups. That could turn into an interesting business: link it with the the topic on 'how would I get started' and it could turn into an uber FAQ for start-up newbies (maybe even keeping HN clear of some noise) Breed it with the idea of stackoverflow and you could have an interesting site which collects info instead of creating new info (there's some great stuff out on the web, but, there is a lot of it). So who knows what it could become.

So three in a week isn't bad. It could be great in the end.

</comment><comment><USER17> Honest question - before you complained, did you make any effort to understand the origins of Hacker News, and why it exists? Before stomping on a flower, you might endeavor to understand something about the soil it sprang from; as well as whether it is rare or common, and what nutrients it needs. If you do that, you will understand why HN needs startup posts, but probably not you (or me).

HN exists to serve the needs of a specific startup community. There is nothing wrong with this. If the flowers bring forth fruit that can entice we who do not have the needs of that community in mind to eat it, and spread the seeds, fine. But asking the organism to bear forth, say, twinkies, is a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER18> Well I think it's important that people bring these ideas they have to fruition. Because you don't know what is going to be completely disruptive going forward. Look at Twilio. Anyone following their entrepreneurial dreams is to be commended in my book.

</comment><comment><USER19> Startups for startups is a real need and even pg encourages startup for startups here (item #30) <http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

Now, as far as the quality of startups for startups is concerned, you can always argue whether they are good or bad etc. So you saying that you are sick of sick of startups for startups is probably no different than someone saying "I am just sick of all these Show HN posts" because essentially both are trying to achieve the same thing: get their startups shared with HN community (regardless of quality, purpose, type etc.)

</comment><comment><USER20> Your complaint seems to have two main components: (1) that the startups exist at all, and (2) that they were posted to HN. While you may be right about the quality of the ideas, I definitely want people to continue to post any and all startups for review on HN. Both great and horrible ideas tend to lead to intelligent, informative back-and-forth in the comments from which I feel like a learn quite a bit even as just a lurker.

</comment><comment><USER21> When in search for a new idea one starts looking at a well-known problem domain, so for most of us who work at startups, talk about startups and live amongst startups, solving startup problems is a very natural thing to do. While it does allow us to be domain experts in this field I do agree that this whole thing can feel a bit 'meta' and inflated.

</comment><comment><USER22> I somewhat agree with this sentiment, but the `musicians playing for musicians` analogy just does not make sense -- it implies the target audience (the other startups) has the same skillset the new product demonstrates.

However, I too feel these new startups are ends in themselves, but then again I'm not in their target audience.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes definitely. I'm here for the technical discussion which I think is unsurpassed.

</comment><comment><USER24> You posted a thread asking for help on your startup after being a member for 15 days.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4240543>

Seems like an unfair rant. Flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> fair enough. Although I feel like you missed my point. Review my startup is great. And all for people building a startup for startups.

I'm just seeing a lot of startups whose focus is to market to startups. And I feel like many people might be spinning their wheels by building for a market that is oversaturated.

What the hell do I know? Keep building startups for startups and asking for a review on HN. I'm just concerned that those people who are building their startup for startups might be wasting their time. And I myself and finding myself irritated about seeing nearly the same exact startup idea within a week. So flag me, I deserve it.

<comment><USER24> Sorry, my post came off as being a total dick. I didn't flag it lol.

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, thanks man - it's alright. The title of the post was not quite on target. Startup for startups are alright if it is something compelling.

I wrote something on "review my startup" for another site where there was a a list of categories for tutorials, and under the javascript category were videos for JAVA. Between that and the 2 posts this morning for startups curating conent for startups I just found myself annoyed, like "really, is this what is has come to?". I did sign up for user diary, a start up for startups but it struck me as compelling.

Your apology has been upvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Darn, because my next project is for startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> don't not do it because of me. Just make sure it is compelling and interesting or creates real value. To hell with this post if you are doing something at least slightly different.

All I'm saying as a HN reader is I am seeing the same type of post - a startup for startups that is not doing anything new or compelling.

<comment><USER25> >All I'm saying as a HN reader is I am seeing the same type of post

Ok, I can definitely see that. I personally hate seeing clones and "me-too" offerings.

My idea, in case anyone cares: naming. The "From Holden" debacle has reminded me how people struggle with naming and I've kicking around the idea of a naming tool for a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm sick of hearing news about different accelerators, there are way too many being posted on HN.

</comment><comment><USER27> S2S anyone? Startups to Startups!

<comment><USER28> S2S4S - I'm working on this startup for startups who market for startups. I'll post your startup on hacker news and filter out complaining and only send you constructive criticism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Review my startup" posts should be moved to <http://www.pivoted.co>

<comment><AUTHOR> I still think people should post "Review my startup" on hacker news. I am just seeing the same exact idea over and over again. I will definitely check out pivoted.co</comment></comment>


Google offering grants to women to attend tech conferences. - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/students/proscho/scholarships/emea/travelgrants/ <comment><USER4> Some people immediately think this is bias but remember you have to correct the massive imbalance first.

If Google was doing this where the attendance was even 33% women I could understand a bad reaction.

But I think it's more like 3% in reality?

Personally I'd love to go to Velocity, there were some great presentations at the US conference this year, they should extend this offer for people in USA to fly to Europe.

(ha, who am I kidding, I am not subjecting myself to the TSA)

 _adding some right-on-topic humor:[http://socialsignal.com/cartoon/cherchez- la-femme](http://socialsignal.com/cartoon/cherchez-la-femme) _

<comment><USER5> Nah, it's just PR bullshit. Did women ever complain that tech conferences are too expensive to attend?

<comment><USER6> Isn't it mostly the case that people's employers pay for conferences? How many people pay out of their own pocket?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is pure sexism,

Where are the grants for males? This is giving women an advantage over males wanting to get in to the field. And they are getting an advantage because of their gender that is sexism.

If women want to work in tech there is nothing stopping them, the issue (i believe) is that females are generally more attracted to social based working roles rather than tech problems. Example on avg men speak 2000 works a day (google facts), women speak on adv 7000. Females are drawn to more social enabling roles, where are men prefer to play/fix/tinker than be social. I do not understand this need to have balanced male and females in all roles when it is proven that we are biologically different and that male and females look for different things from employment. in fairness, males and females have very different base priorities.

Now becuase of hte above post, I will be labeled as a bigot and or Chauvinism male, oh well

<comment><USER8> Agreed.

Where are the grants for women to work in the building trade? Or for men to work as nurses? Both are under-represented in those fields.

Plenty of fields have a gender imbalance, but they don't present it as a problem.

<comment><USER9> Both of those exist. One example of each...

Women in building trades grants:

[http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552012/approved/20...](http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552012/approved/20120830a.html)

Grants for men in nursing:

[http://voices.yahoo.com/top-20-nursing-scholarships- grants-m...](http://voices.yahoo.com/top-20-nursing-scholarships-grants- men-11806793.html)

(Note for the later its a top 20 list - implying there are more than 20 such grants).

If you would like to make an argument, please do the tiniest bit of fact checking before you make wild claims. I mean, I opened 2 tabs and typed into the search "grants for women in building trades" and "grants for male nurses". Basically your wanton ignorance is showing.

<comment><USER10> Two points on that 1) Are these grants on the same order as tech-industry grants? I don't think the implication was there there are literally _no_ grants in the world, but that the scale differs considerably.

2) people on a tech forum are likely to be _far_ more familiar with the issues and grant available within the tech industry. It does seem this issue is discussed a lot though.

On another note, your message is v. condescending.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, he asked where they were, and went on as if they didn't exist. I showed him that they do, with trivial research.

As for your points:

1) on the same order - what does this mean? How do you measure. Pure dollars? Some ratio related to size of the industry? Number of opportunities? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but please, expand on your notion of differing scales. You are making the assertion, you need to show evidence, not just some conjecture.

2) Sure, I didn't know about those outside of "tech" grants either, yet I had the not-at-all-interesting insight to google. 14.8s later I was able to be informed. Choosing not to do so is wanton ignorance.

As for condescending: I don't cater to people who chose to be uniformed. That is not something I am willing to be polite about under any circumstance - <USER2> is 2013, google is everywhere, and holding an opinion that contradicts facts, or stating a "fact" that is simply false are mere agenda building disingenuities.

<comment><USER10> > Sorry, he asked where they were, and went on as if they didn't exist

He described them as 'under-represented', which isn't how you describe something you were claiming didn't exist.

> How do you measure..

Any of those examples could be used as a metric and provide meaning to the question of differing scale. Each one would be a different discussion - <USER3> only conclusion is there there is no simple metric that we can make the simple claim that one thing is the same as another, just because of these examples - which is what you're claiming, right?

And you're wrong, I'm _not_ making a claim, I'm just questioning yours. You're trying to shift the burden of proof, but it was _you_ that rudely asserted that your googled evidence showed parents' argument to be ignorant.

> I had the not-at-all-interesting insight to google

Again more snark, but who says you are now informed? You are of that impression, but what a googling? Do you have an education now? Does a 14.8s search-engine lookup make you an expert on the matter for which such arrogance is appropriate? Maybe parent _did_ google, and considered the results weak evidence compared to other sources.

Again, your attack is based entirely on beating the straw-man of "parent claimed there where no grants for men", a claim never made.

> I don't cater to people who chose to be uniformed

What did parent choose? what do you know of parent?

> That is not something I am willing to be polite about under any circumstance

I subscribe to a less conditional for of politeness - especially to those I have no need to respond to at all. And, as I'm arguing, I think you have read unduly into parents post, and your attitude only serves to jump the gun after a hasty mis-judgement.

> holding an opinion that contradicts facts, or stating a "fact" that is > simply false are mere agenda building disingenuities

Google = facts? and yet no fact were stated, and now you read a "disingenuous" "agenda" into parents post - isn't this clear that you are reading into parents post more than can be reasonably inferred - that you are applying a stereotype, and fighting a perception that exists within your own biases.

<comment><USER9> First of all - the sentence talking about underrepresentation is easily interpretable as "men are underrepresented in nursing and women are underrepresented in building trades" not that grants are. (men and women are the subjects of the sentence, and pronouns usually to refer to the subjects when unqualified in english) I'll allow that its an ambiguous sentence.

Second - I don't claim expert status. I just claim that a small amount of research shows that pure ignorance is a moronic position. Googling doesn't equal facts, but certainly the links I chose - a news organization and a top 20 list to sites that look legit - are enough evidence that an assertion of "where are they" needs some backing beyond "i don't think they exist".

Third: because context matters, this is in response to a comment about the lack of male only tech scholarships, and its sexism to fix the underrepresentation of women in tech with women only scholarships. The post as a response (particularly since it starts with "Agreed.") in support of that notion. Supporting statements about "where are the men only scholarships in nursing". So I answered the question. If you want to switch the subject to grants are being underrepresented (which isn't about the sexism of the existence of gender specific grants, but about the sexism of volume) the onus is on you to evidence your claims. Otherwise it is mere goalpost moving.

Fourth - your evidentiary requirements are amusingly inconsistent. You want to require extra evidence from me, because you don't like me answering the question that was asked about "where are the grants", and question my method of finding the evidence, and provide tons of conjecture (but no real counter evidence) that I'm not making a good argument. Yet you are blindly accepting the claim that they are underrepresented. Even defending it. Yet that claim has 0 supporting evidence (which is less than "flimsy" evidence). Such a set of actions suggest a beginning bias - that you think there is an underrepresentation of grants. Like I said - its amusing, hypocritical and honestly, kind of stupid.

Fifth - since you have chosen to ignore the core of the argument and instead attack my presentation of them, I will assume you are using the fallacy fallacy and ad hominem to try and discredit my point rather than responding to the point itself. Usually (note, because you seem to have problems with this sort of thing - the word usually is distinctly different than always dictionaries may be able to help if you need some explanation) this means you have no actual argument towards the point.

Sixth - you can approach politeness however you want. Fortunately, so can I. It has no relevance to the actual discussion about sexism tho.

<comment><USER10> > the sentence talking about underrepresentation...

fair enough

> are enough evidence that an assertion of "where are they" needs some backing > beyond "i don't think they exist"

"where are they" doesn't necessarily assert "i don't think they exist" on a worldwide scale. Very often statements such as these assume a particular location (e.g. the west, the us, etc) and other context (what is the norm / the usual case). But in any case, my post was mainly about how you assumed the intention of parent, and attacked their post; so I think it less important if they poorly supported their argument, and more important that their argument was _so_ poorly supported that it was offensive, and can be attacked as 'ignorant'. I don't want to beat you down for factual in-correctness, but rather for unreasonable manner!

> So I answered the question.

If all you did was that, a constructive argument could be had, that could go in many directions; but this ignores tone entirely. Saying the issue is about 'existence' not 'volume' and is therefore a change in topic is wrong. _you_ assert that the topic is about absolute, worldwide existence of these grants, an extreme straw-man. 'volume' is another common interpretation of 'existence' that seems far more relevant to the context.

> You want to require extra evidence from me, because you don't like me > answering the question that was asked about

I guess it was a matter of time before I got the same treatment as op, and had my intentions analysed in bad-faith.

> provide tons of conjecture (but no real counter evidence) that I'm not > making a good argument

The issue then is burden of proof. If a claim is made, and the burden on you, then the argument isn't good-until-proven-bad, it needs to meet certain standards first. My 'conjecture' is that you know nothing about parent to make assertions about him. For example, whether you realise it or not, you made an assertion that "[I] don't like me answering the question that was asked about". How do you know this? what do you know of my intentions?

Are you saying I have to _prove_ that you know nothing about me? now _that 's_ an amusing evidentiary requirement.

> Yet you are blindly accepting the claim that they are underrepresented

Please quote me on that

> which is less than "flimsy" evidence

Why does 'flimsy' have quotes? I didn't say this.

> its amusing, hypocritical and honestly, kind of stupid.

really? Can you never take the high-road?

> since you have chosen to ignore the core of the argument and instead attack > my presentation of them

Let me clarify that - this isn't a case of judging a book by its cover, or an argument by its style; communicating in a rude, abrasive manner is something deserving of criticism in itself. Show me were I've implied that "You argument is invalid because of how it's is presented". I _have_ implied "Your argument is invalid, and it is presented in an unacceptable manner" \- These are two issues, but the second relates to the first in that a discussion of the validity of your arguments should require civil discourse.

> I will assume you are using the fallacy fallacy and ad hominem to try and > discredit my point

You discredit _yourself_ by presenting your argument in this manner, if this is the case. Are you saying you can be as rude as you like, and if anyone takes exception to it, they're trying to derail your argument?! Then avoid this, and deprive them of this tactic by being civil.

> Usually (note, because you seem to have problems with this sort of thing - > the word usually is distinctly different than always dictionaries may be > able to help if you need some explanation) this means you have no actual > argument towards the point.

 _sigh_ , more nasty snark - and why then do you think it's _me_ that has a 'problem'? I would be happier discussing this nicely, _you_ insist on not doing so. Which point are you referring to in this case?

> you can approach politeness however you want.

You seem to approach it from a direction that _certainly_ differs from the dictionary definition. This has no relevance to the _topic_ of sexism, but it _is_ relevant to the discussion of it.

<comment><USER9> Again with more disingenuous argument. I've already stated my position on politeness. I don't think people who go on tangents without actually addressing the main points of the argument - in this case that of sexism and the existence of grants (which not even 5% of your comments touch on, other than vague statements of disagreement with no factual backing), deserve politeness. Politeness seems to you to mean "allow people to go on tangents because calling them on stupid bullshit[1] is impolite". I on the other hand see allowing such tangents to be a distraction from the central discussion point, and a way of deflecting actual conversation - an attempt to avoid having to back up an indefensible position.

You can keep harping about your insulted sense of propriety, or you can address the point.

So, do you actually have anything (evidence backed) to say about your belief that there are more grants for women in tech than men in nursing (etc)? Do you have any clarifications of the vague phrase about "on the same order"?

[1] snark is a fantastic method of pointing out bullshit, as is flat out saying "your argument is not addressing the point", as is noting disingenuous behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure this thread will be filled soon enough with people debating the degree of inappropriateness of the grant, but I for one applaud them for taking an initiative.

To put it differently: I'd rather live in a world _with_ this grant than in one _without_.

<comment><USER5> i know plenty of guys who would like a grant to attend conferences. How is this not sexist?

<comment><USER12> Sexist = discriminating.

Assuming you're male, do you feel discriminated because Google wants more women to attend conferences? I don't.

Now if the site would say that men in general shouldn't bother going to tech conferences, and if the majority of society would agree that men shouldn't bother getting into tech at all, then it would be discriminating. We're quite far from that.

<comment><USER5> It's sexist because it treats women as some sort of 'weaker' sex that needs to be bribed to attend tech conferences (as if attending a conference will solve the problem of employment in IT). This is pure PR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Google's PR department seem to be working overtime. I guess after the NSA revelations their public image took a nosedive, developers with strong morals have probably abandoned that sinking ship. I'd rather work for Oracle right now.

<comment><USER13> Are you seriously going to post a "Google ♥ NSA" message on every single topic about them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's wrong: attending to conferences does not make a huge difference in the process of _becoming_ a good programmer. Much better to use the same money to sponsor a primary school program to make kids understand computers and programming for instance.

<comment><USER12> > attending to conferences does not make a huge difference in the process of > becoming a good programmer.

That's probably why it's called "Women in Tech Conference and Travel Grants", and not "Women in Tech Become Better Programmers Grants".

I do see a point here. Going to conferences hasn't made me a better programmer per se, but I think it has made me more passionate about the field, in my early days.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To add to the confusion, the application form has gender as a required field where you can select 'male' as an option.

</comment><comment><USER15> "to be paid after the conference"

"All applicants will be notified ... 3-4 weeks prior to the event."

How likely is it that this will increase participation, rather than just wind up just effectively refunding people who would have been going either way?

If you apply, and receive confirmation 3 weeks prior; it's pretty much guaranteed that travel/accommodation/ticket prices will all be higher than they are today. Maybe even 1000 EUR higher.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is this some kind of gender bias and is it appropriate?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tough question. I personally can't see how paying for a small group of women who essentially are winning a contest can even begin to encourage other women to attend tech events.

If the grant was aimed at both genders but specifically for those who simply can't afford to attend these types of events then it would be significantly more appropriate. That, however, is just my opinion.

<comment><USER17> I think aimed at underrepresented groups in general would be a better idea BME and LGBT or example.

<comment><USER18> There are plenty of body modifications on show at the tech conferences I've been to. As for LGBT, that's not usually a visible thing, unlike the massive gender imbalance (I actually went to a conference a month ago which was _entirely 100%_ male).

<comment><USER17> Well I wanted to be inclusive and just because you have piercings doesn't make you gay BTW.

I probably should have added caste and religion as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Personally I think this seems kind of sexist. I would highly doubt that this would go down so well if it was "schools offering grants to men to encourage them to become teachers". Assuming that there are more female teachers than male.

There's no good reason that we should treat men and women differently just so that we can try to force each job to be 50/50 gender split. Giving women some exclusive opportunities is ultimately still discriminating on gender and two wrongs don't really make a right here.

<comment><USER20> > There's no good reason that we should treat men and women differently

Men and women are already treated differently, the point of these is to try and apply corrective actions to lead to better gender balance and hopefully, down the line, social consciousness changes leading to balance in the first place making the grant unnecessary.

If you don't like this grant, help fight for a more equal treatment at the root.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Come attend our seminars. We have so many guys attending, we are now giving cheap tickets to all females!"

Kinda sounds a like a reverse advert for a (scam) dating website.

<comment><USER6> It's quite common to give women free entrance to nightclubs, too.

Well nobody will admit the real reason "we" want more women in tech. Let's just say it makes for a better atmosphere and more "attractive" work place. (I have nothing against women in tech, btw).

<comment><USER21> The word you are looking for is a more "dynamic" workplace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is very tactless move, and will more likely do harm than good to gender equality. Compare the following two requirements for a grant and decide which one would be better:

Be a person with female genitalia, who work in computing and technology, and who has leadership ability.

Or:

Be a person whose work is inspiring others for better gender equality in computing and technology.

</comment><comment><USER12> One requirement is puzzling:

> Have a strong academic background with demonstrated leadership ability

Why the need for "demonstrated leadership ability"? Doesn't that completely rule out CS students and junior workers, as well as senior workers who aren't interested in leadership?

<comment><USER23> Maybe they want they want to ensure that they get women who will go back and ?evangelize? and lead other women to the conference in the future. But I agree - not wild about that requirement. And - not to stereotype - but I would think that women with "demonstrated leadership ability" would already feel comfortable attending the conference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If I identify as a female but still look like a male can I apply for this?

<comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure anybody can apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> this is pretty sexist.... maybe they just don't want to go?

they are allowed to be different last i checked? or are we going to control that freedom away from them?

</comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of topblacktalent.co.uk</comment>


Yasei (Mern Social Network) - <AUTHOR> https://yaseisocial.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> A small social network i've been working on as a side project just for learning purposes. Any feedback is welcomed!</comment>


The Cost of Apple News - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2019/the-cost-of-apple-news/ <comment><USER2> There's a perverse incentive to having publishers compete for user engagement, in that it undermines real journalism. The former is how you get listicles and meaningless interviews with people who share publicists with someone more famous (like their parents). It leads to empty evergreen content that just gets clicks and views.

The latter how you get real investigative journalism, like the newspapers who reported based on Edward Snowden, or Watergate.

It's sad to see apple doing this, when they could easily empower users to choose how they divide their money, similar to humble bundle.

</comment><comment><USER3> Screw apple, the utter greed, to add nothing and want half.</comment>