Windows 7 is reduced to rainbows and unicorns - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-neil15-2009sep15,0,6305142.column

<comment><USER2> _I'm a computer bisexual -- I use a Mac at home and a PC at work_

\-- I have a request to make to bloggers and journalists: please don't use this analogy unless you are in fact screwing your computers as it makes it difficult for me to take you seriously. "OS agnostic," has been around for a while and is clearer.

It's especially annoying as he has a real point to make and the most noticeable thing about the article is what looks like a ribald joke.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps he feels screwed by the computers...but seriously, I agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of my professors is the creative director of an ad firm. I asked him what CP+B's plan has been with Microsoft, since their route has really been baffling me.

He said that in his mind they're making a mistake by trying to address Apple, because Apple can play better on their terms than Microsoft can. So from that point of view, this new ad is more effective, because it's stopped legitimatizing Apple's Get A Mac campaign.

I still think that CP+B is over their heads in this campaign. They do great for Burger King, where they're competing with equal brands, but Apple has a better brand than Microsoft, and so "edgy" isn't cutting it for them. Chiat has a powerful set of ads, so it's not like they're playing against a void.

<comment><USER3> I think your professor is missing a few things (or they haven't made it to this conversation so far):

Microsoft's campaign exhibits a lot of diversity - ethnicities, ages, roles. Apple's poster boy (singular) is a smart-alec white hipster. I didn't particularly care for the 'laptop hunter' ads but one of them included the line 'I guess I'm just not cool enough for a mac', which I thought was a clever dig at the snob appeal and pricing of the Mac products. It's also, I suspect, aimed at offsetting the grumbles of nativists about Microsoft's public support for H1-B workers - though perhaps I'm attributing too much vision to CP&B there.

More importantly, most of the commercials emphasize what people do with their computers - they run busineses (tattoo guy), study or make movies (laptop hunters), or grow up doing creative things (Kylie, the terminally cute little girl). The Mac guy just stands around saying how much better he is because he's a Mac - he doesn't actually _do_ anything. So the CP&B ads mostly establish a direct connection between customer's goals and the product they can use to achieve them (Windows and the computer it runs on).

The Apple 'tech' commercials (this is a Mac/iPhone - look, you can do this, this and this) are much better in that regard, but they do present a solution and invite the viewer to consider how it might solve a problem or ease their routine. I think think it's interesting that the MS ads are built around the idea of the user articulating the goal _first_ and then exercising or expressing a choice to do it with a PC. In narrative terms, they establish character first and then offer (their) technology as an aid to that.

Finally, the MS ads show Windows running on a variety of different hardware - premium to be sure, but that variety carries connotations of choice, flexibility, and mutual confidence among manufacturers in Windows, whereas Apple is an all-or-nothing proposition. You want to go Mac, well say goodbye to your existing hardware whether or not it works...not an easy decision in recessionary times.

I'm actually pretty impressed with CP&B. Even the Shoe Circus commercial with Seinfeld was clever: by playing off the dorkiness and incomprehensibility, and ending with an image of a departing bill Gates (but with a hint that new things were in the pipeline), it effectively leveraged the existing preconceptions about Microsoft and used them as a pivot to direct attention towards what was coming next in the campaign. It was like one of those movies where there's an opening scene which makes no real sense until later...'all will be revealed'. Its purpose was to engage people's attention, at which it succeeded very effectively. And for those who say Seinfeld was way out of date - for one thing, the show is still in syndication and regularly advertised (staying power) and for another, isn't that what people were saying about Windows, that it was past its peak and washed up? And yet Seinfeld is still a big wheel in his industry and is about to launch a new series...which had already been in the works for several months when he appeared in 'Shoe Circus' just over a year ago. Matter of fact, I bet any time you see a computer in that series it'll be running windows 7.

<comment><USER4> My conversation with my professor was really informal; I just thought his was an interesting view.

 _Microsoft's campaign exhibits a lot of diversity - ethnicities, ages, roles. Apple's poster boy (singular) is a smart-alec white hipster._

Justin Long's a yuppie, but he's far too casual to be a hipster. Apple isn't a hipster company. They're trendy, but that's different.

I've always held that Apple's strategy is to dehumanize their ads and focus on product. Most of their ads are simply shots of their product. I think that attempting to use diversity to sell a product indicates an underlying weakness in the product.

 _one of them included the line 'I guess I'm just not cool enough for a mac', which I thought was a clever dig at the snob appeal and pricing of the Mac products._

Sniping at a minority product was a bad idea. It made Microsoft out to be both petty and inferior. It's like if an Apple commercial made fun of a Zune.

Also: Selling a product by saying it's for uncool people never works. It gives you identification but not emulation.

 _So the CP &B ads mostly establish a direct connection between customer's goals and the product they can use to achieve them (Windows and the computer it runs on)._

That's an interesting way to look at it. I hadn't thought about that. Not totally sure what I think of it but I see what you're saying.

I responded to the Seinfeld discussion in our other thread. I'd bet that his new series shows a lot of Macs, though. Seinfeld is famously a Mac user.

<comment><USER3> I must be getting old - to me yuppies have power suits and blackberries and hipsters wear hoodies :) 'Cool' is a very elusive concept; look at _Napoleon Dynamite_. Embracing the underdog role can be a very effective social strategy. I'm coming at this from a screenwriting perspective...Justin Long is like Buzz Lightyear or Lightning McQueen in _Toy Story_ and _Cars_.

 _Coming soon: a brash young contender and old workhorse must overcome their differences and team up to defeat an evil giant who wants to turn the world into a giant server farm - staring Justin Long, John Hodgman, and James Earl Jones as the voice of Larry Ellison!_

It'll be interesting to see what Seinfeld does on the show. I'm sure MS insisted on value for their $10 million deal with him, and that he's enough of a businessman to see the big picture.

<comment><USER4> <http://latfh.com/>

That's the hipster stereotype nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Despite the author's claims to the contrary he's clearly biased (at least towards Apple's brand). He basically says he thinks every Ad that Microsoft has done sucks and every Ad that Apple has done is genius (which is a stretch on the most recent one). So is it a surprise he doesn't like this one?

Microsoft's goal in this Ad is to open people's eyes to the positive buzz Windows 7 has gotten. So they grabbed a cute, recognizable kid and basically had her do the intro because adorable catches people's attention. On that level I think it's a rousing success.

<comment><USER4> Apple's most recent ads are definitely pushing it, but they're working. They've taken every attack Microsoft has attempted and reversed it. They're starting to get really obnoxious, but that's because Microsoft got obnoxious first.

Are you saying Microsoft's ads didn't suck? First Bill Gates talked to a washed-out comedian about buying shoes. Then Microsoft launched an ad _directly_ combatting an ad run by a competitor that has 8% market share, and the ad ignored the point of the original ad anyway (namely, that Mac and PC represent computers rather than actual users, and that PC users aren't likable-but-incompetent, PCs themselves are). Then they ran an ad that took Apple's claims of being a better computer and implicitly acknowledged it by focusing on how cheap Microsoft was, which—oops—backfired because in a recession, though people want cheaper computers they're more likely to make fewer quality purchases than many cheap ones.

This new ad wasn't nearly as bad, but what it is is _generic_. I don't watch that and get any feeling that Windows 7 is better than a Mac. In fact, as the author says, the stuff the kid's doing seems low-quality and bad. The kid could make better clipart on a Mac with stuff like instant alpha, an awesome feature that Apple doesn't use in ads because unlike its competitor Apple has a hundred different features it could use for offense. So it's not as bad as the older ads, which were negatively impacting Microsoft's image. Now it's back to being neutral and bland. But that's not good. It's just neutral.

<comment><USER6> I actually liked the ads with Seinfeld(who isn't really washed out if you consider his earning power), is that weird?

You have to consider the image Microsoft has to repair here, at least they're moving in the right direction, and I'd rather them focus on their products and .NET framework than purely advertising first anyway. While the ads are not making me want to run out and buy Windows 7 right now, using the release build absolutely solidifies the fact that I will purchase a copy, it's really a pleasure to use, which says a lot about how far they've come since Vista/XP.

<comment><USER4> I'm excited about Windows 7. I just wish there were better ads.

The Seinfeld ads weren't hideous, but I can't imagine Crispin thought it would give Microsoft a better name. And Seinfeld's washed out after Bee Movie. My ad prof suggested yesterday that the ads might have made more sense with a guy like Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert.

<comment><USER6> Jon Stewart definitely would have been a better choice, but the off-beat humor fit Seinfeld well I think.

Washed up after Bee Movie? My kids loved it hah, but yes, I thought he was washed up as well, until I read he netted more total cash I think it was 2008-2009 than any other comedian.

<comment><USER4> I'd need to see that in writing.

Bee Movie after something as monumental as the Seinfeld show? That's a wash- out. Reminds me of the scene in Extras where Ricky Gervais goes to work for Doctor Who.

<comment><USER3> Seinfeld is the 6th highest-earning celebrity in the over-50 set, earning $85 million last year. Like many other top earners, he doesn't just get paid, but was shrewd enough to retain rather than sell his financial interest in the properties he created, so he makes money as both a performer and a producer.

[http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/13/top- celebrities-50-business...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/13/top- celebrities-50-business-entertainment-oprah_slide_7.html)

His overall net worth is well north of $200m, plus he's about to launch a new series.

<comment><USER4> Oh, right, syndication profits. I thought he'd given up stand-up, though.

I don't think that making money stops you from being washed-out, though. Look at Charlie Sheen and 2.5 Men. It's one of the most popular shows on television, but it's a washed-out show nonetheless, receives bucketloads of negative press, and Sheen is a loony B-list actor who pitches 9/11 conspiracy theories. I'm sure he makes more money than, say, Jason Bateman, but Bateman isn't washed-out whereas Sheen is.

The attitude about Seinfeld is that he was great 20 years ago, sold out in the process of ending Seinfeld (some people are a _little_ more generous than that), and hasn't done a damn thing since. Bee Movie generated waves of bad press, and that was supposed to be his comeback. The fact that I haven't heard of his doing a new series says something. If he was still trendy, I'd have known right away.

<comment><USER6> I'd rather Seinfeld end positively than continued until it had dried up. I don't think it's really fair to call him washed-out, Seinfeld was incredibly successful, how does anyone ever expect him to top it? He just has the bar for what's expected of him set too high to achieve that again.

It seems a majority of actors on a hugely popular syndicated TV show really fail to jump start their careers afterward, likely because people expect the same performance quality every time, no room for error.

<comment><USER4> I was actually referring to _the_ end, where Jerry and his friends get into trouble for doing nothing. There was some unrest about that choice of ending.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those who haven't caught it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssOq02DTTMU>

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the link.

I have to admit, I splurted coffee out of my nose when "The Final Countdown" started playing behind the slideshow.

<comment><USER9> I think this Steve Jobs quote adequately explains it.

 _"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products. "_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't this undermine the last advert with Kylie? I thought she'd actually done the stuff in that one, but in this one it's clearly not her work. Are we supposed to re-think our impressions of the first one?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhre2C4THT4>

</comment><comment><USER11> The main thing that bugged me about Microsoft's commercial is that a young girl isn't likely to do all of the things she was said to do. That is, she supposedly reads rave reviews of Windows 7 (that were probably in words above her grade level), understands them, and turns them all into a fancy slideshow with music; all while using Windows, the most awkward of all operating system user interfaces in the world?

I think the idea of using children to sell the computer is fine, but why not show them doing what a child _would_ do? After all, isn't the point to show what makes a PC valuable to your family, and not what makes it valuable to marketing on behalf of Microsoft?

<comment><USER12> _…Windows, the most awkward of all operating system user interfaces in the world…_

JCL?

<comment><USER13> Hmm? ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where was this guy when Apple used Gandhi, MLK etc?

And he uses the most tired argument of all: "think of the children!".

Sorry, I am not persuaded.

</comment><comment><USER15> Regardless of the opinions on the Microsoft advertising campaigns. It is clear that Windows 7 addresses many of the problems with Vista and most large companies (with large contracts with Dell and other PC vendors), will likely be upgrading this time around resulting in large adoption of Windows 7 in the enterprise. Most people are pretty tired of using Windows XP at this point.

</comment><comment><USER16> the funniest part, more so than ineffective advertisements, is that that which got everyone's panties in a bunch was happiness. down with happiness! heh</comment>


Surprises in GopherJS Performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.gopherjs.org/blog/2015/09/28/surprises-in-gopherjs-performance/ <comment><USER2> Hah, I should've checked (10 hours earlier) if someone would post it here.</comment>


Ask HN: Am I being lowballed? - <AUTHOR>

I develop Python / JavaScript applications and have a few years experience programming but am not formally educated in CS. I worked for 1.5 years using both languages on the job and have been working on a side project for the last few months.
I interviewed with a local company a few times and have been offered a rate that seems unusually low to me, $15/hr. This is much less than I made prior to leaving my last job to focus on my startup. The employer says that it is a trial period and pay would increase if all went well, which I understand; still, this rate seems lower than would be reasonable to pay even an intern when everyone else is compensated at market rate.
I'm not sure whether to take a chance and prove myself or how to respond to this. Do you think this is an unfair rate? I am in a large Texas city. <comment><USER2> Founder of Lambda ([http://getlambda.com](http://getlambda.com)) here. We negotiate these sorts of deals for a living.

We charge more for short-term trials (say 1 week), not less. Employers understand that flexibility is valuable and are often willing to pay more to avoid commitments. Conversely, they usually expect discounts for "buying in bulk", so it's reasonable to offer reduced rates for long-term (say longer than 3 months) contracts.

That said, $15/hr is way too low in any situation. There's a reason we set Lambda's minimum to $100/hr: doing so cuts out most clients that we don't want to deal with. I don't know much about your experience level, but a few years programming experience and some time spent as a startup founder should be enough for you to ask for $100/hr. I'm less familiar with the Texas market (we do business in NYC and SF), so $75/hr might be more appropriate, but I wouldn't go any lower than that.

If you send me an email, I'd be happy to hop on a quick call. We don't have many clients in Texas, so I don't think I'd be able to get you a better offer immediately, but I could give you some general negotiating advice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds very low -- how long is the trial period and what would the pay increase be? You dont want to start at the low rate and have to fight for the increase after an undetermined trial period - definitely get the final salary and trial period in writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good advice. I'm not sure how long it would be. Probably 6-8 weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think you can find this kind of work on oDesk at the same if not higher rates. In Texas you should be able to at least double the rate as a junior developer, if not triple it - a sure sign that you might be better off hunting around for a while before settling on a trial rate like this.

</comment><comment><USER5> yes you are being taken advantage of and I am sure the employer knows it. However depending on your long term goal you can use this as a stepping stone to a better job.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ya, that is really low. It sounds like an intern's salary.

<comment><USER7> I've interned a big places like Google and at little start ups, and $15/hour is way too low for an intern.</comment></comment>


When Maps Shouldn't Be Maps - <AUTHOR> http://www.ericson.net/content/2011/10/when-maps-shouldnt-be-maps/

<comment><AUTHOR> The non-map method they show for correlating income and flooding (and a few other) is a great example. It's nothing but text yest still far more effective at explaining this particular correlation.</comment>


A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from Z to Shining Z - <AUTHOR> https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/a-history-of-u-s-foreign-policy-from-z-to-shining-z/ <comment><USER2> there is RSS feed sign at the bottom of the page. [https://warontherocks.com/feed/](https://warontherocks.com/feed/)

<comment><USER3> The RSS feed is sadly lacking the URL directly to the MP3 data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The podcast doesn't have an RSS feed that I could find; the MP3 audio file is directly located at [0].

It's funny how American exceptionalism pops up over and over again. We're like Europeans, but different. We're like capitalists, but different. We're like police, but different. We're like mercantile traders, but different. It's like we're trying to say that we're the British Empire, but different.

With that viewpoint, it becomes more reasonable to understand how we came to embrace Canada and Mexico, by analogy with the British embrace of Scotland and Ireland. Our strategy to consider North America as a single large monolith, but to dominate the influence that North America controls, parallels their strategy of using the British Isles as a part of Europe which is apart from Europe and acts as a unified group, despite being mostly controlled by the Queen's political structure.

It's so funny to listen to euphemisms. We didn't colonize the Philippines, we "developed" them. Woodrow Wilson wasn't a racist, he just had "difficulties" with Native American reservations. Trump isn't a fascist, he just has "frictions" with other nations.

It's amazing to consider that we weigh whether to _not_ interfere in revolutions. By default, it seems like we always have an opinion on which way a revolution should go, and this leads directly to our continued involvement.

I did not expect to hear about Vannevar Bush. Bush was an important foundational figure in computer science, to us, but he had several other careers, including as one of the people behind the Manhattan Project. He is a good reminder that we have capacity both for inventing the memex and also for inventing atomic bombs; we can both build and destroy.

[0] [https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/force- cdn/highwinds/hornso...](https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/force- cdn/highwinds/hornsofadilemma/Horns_Aug_28_Mix_6.mp3)</comment>


The Government Shutdown Has Revealed Silicon Valley's Dysfunction Fetish - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/silicon-valleys-dysfunction-fetish.html <comment><USER2> _Companies are transcending power now. We are becoming the eminent vehicles for change and influence, and capital structures that matter._

That doesn't sound like a better world. That sounds like a worse one. Governments tend to at least have some interest in keeping their citizens alive, healthy, and happy.

The primary purpose of a company is to make money and as history has shown time and time again companies in general are all too willing to sell people dangerous products, work their employees to death, and do other unsavory things in order to make money.

Sure the US government is seeming ineffective, and in many cases less than satisfactory. But a system in which companies have the power definitely isn't better.

<comment><USER3> What specific power(s) do you object to companies having? The power to voluntarily exchange with others?

Companies don't make money killing people, they make money improving the lives of customers and employees by offering them something they value more than their money/labor. If someone is working under poor working conditions, it's because their next best alternative is even worse.

<comment><USER4> "Companies don't make money killing people"

No, they don't make money killing their CUSTOMERS. But they can make a lot of money by not giving a fig about people impacted by their operations.

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

This is why we have regulations, by the way. So when amoral idiots find themselves in a position to do serious harm, there's some external force to compensate (as much as possible) for their lack of suitable ethics and working moral compasses.

<comment><USER3> If by regulations you mean enforcing property rights and laws against murder, I agree.

In a free market the initiation of force is not tolerated. The Bhopal disaster you cited is a perfect example of an initiation of force.

The government legitimizes the initiation of force on those who have done nothing to violate the rights of others -- similar to the disaster you cited. It seems you have a problem with companies initiating force, but not the government. Why is that?

<comment><USER4> "It seems you have a problem with companies initiating force, but not the government. Why is that?"

Why does it seem that way? I don't know, it's your impression. You tell me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Those expressing the views described in this article seem to be painfully ignorant of the Federally financed origins of Silicon Valley:

[http://steveblank.com/secret-history/](http://steveblank.com/secret-history/)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)

<comment><USER6> Yup. I was watching a video about the history of BSD recently and I was surprised at how closely DARPA was involved. Marshall McCusick was describing how he, Bill Joy and others were at Berkeley and literally implementing the Internet in BSD! They were funded by DARPA and were overseen by DARPA admnistrators. But they actually were not doing all of it -- DARPA was also paying private contractors for other components. (Which ended up in some technical disagreements as I recall.)

That BSD code is of course not only the foundation of the Internet, but of your iPhones and iPads as well. Actually I believe it is fundamental to Windows as well, since my understanding is that the TCP/IP implementation in Windows is BSD code.

Silicon Valley doesn't have the foresight for the technical foundations of society (and I say that having worked here for over a decade). The web wasn't invented by Silicon Valley either. Neither was e-mail. Neither was Perl, PHP, Python, or Ruby. Python was actually government funded too.

Also don't forget that Bill Clinton and the government made all your location- based apps possible, by opening GPS satellites to the public in the 90s.

<comment><USER7> historic significance does not matter much. what it is doing now?

it is no wonder that someone who has private transportation, private insurance, private retirement, private everything... does not care about government. he is the embodiement of the capitalistic dream. government for those people is only for taxation. of course they would cheer.

the weird part is the middle class worker with the obama bumper sticker cheering for them. this i will never understand,

<comment><USER8> Not to mention the wars overseas and the war on drugs. The U.S. is the most incarcerating country in the world (ignoring North Korea).

I'll trade my roads, my Linux, my Android phone, whatever in exchange for the ending of killing those overseas and domestically.

<comment><USER9> That's quite an ode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > His statement mirrors what venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said last > year, when he proclaimed, "I love gridlock!"

I doubt Marc Andreessen loved gridlock when he was working on Mosaic @ the NCSA

> The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is an American > state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale > cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Supercomput...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_for_Supercomputing_Applications)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's frustrating that someone with such poor critical thinking skills can become so rich.

Anyone with even mediocre critical thinking abilities and a general knowledge of markets would understand that the reason the stock market went up during the shutdown is because investors _know the government will be back._ This understanding and expectation is obviously priced into the market. If they are implying that the stock market would remain resilient if the federal government disappeared overnight never to return, they are quite simply idiots.

The #1 reason the US and other western nations are able to attract capital and have sophisticated economies is because of their predictable, reasonable legal systems and regulatory environments. Capital commands extremely high rates of return in risky legal frameworks, when an investor doesn't know whether they will be hit up for a bribe or seized by a populist government, they are obviously going to demand much more. A well-developed legal system and the power of the government to enforce laws and judgments is the reason the US is a "safe haven."

<comment><USER11> >because of their predictable, reasonable legal systems and regulatory environments...

Isn't there a argument, then, that increasing the number of laws (or pages in any given law) beyond a certain point begins having negative returns on your predictability and reasonability, because of the power-law increase in interactions between laws?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a ridiculous article. It leaps from a couple of government-critical comments to declaring a "fetish" for "dysfunction"? Based on what, exactly? Why aren't the people tirelessly defending the clusterfuck that is democratic government in most of the western world the fetishists?

And for the comments on this thread suggesting that silicon valley can't be critical of government because government once had a hand in the valley? That's roughly the same level of hypocrisy as a government-fan shopping at Walmart.

<comment><USER13> I am curious about: "That's roughly the same level of hypocrisy as a government-fan shopping at Walmart."

I try not to engage in political discussions on HN so please do not interpret my question as me challenging your point. I am merely interested in what you find hypocritical in the Wal-Mart shopping example.

<comment><USER12> Somebody in favour of the government benefiting from the services of the private market = not very hypocritical at all. Just like I don't think it's very hypocritical for someone who once worked for a company that got a subsidy from the government to be against the government.

We live in the world we live in, and failing to live a perfectly pure life should not disqualify you from having opinions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Kevin Roose clearly misunderstands what "functioning" means in Congressional terms. Perhaps he was absent on the day that his 4th grade class learned:

        - The Executive branch enforces laws.
        - The Judicial branch interprets laws.
        - The Legislative branch makes laws.

Think about that: The Legislative branch's ONLY JOB is to make laws. Now, I'm a big-government-loving bleeding heart liberal, but even _I_ have to admit that it's completely ridiculous to put 535 people representing 3.8 million square miles of land into one building for 11 months out of every year for the _sole purpose_ of making new laws. How could you _not_ end up with tons of unnecessary cruft and bloat?

What this means is that the _only_ time we aren't adding more restrictions to our lives is when Congress is gridlocked. Gridlock is the system _functioning as designed_. What's not to love about it? We don't _want_ a government that moves fast and breaks things. For startups and lean companies, it can be a real pain in the ass! It's hard enough to keep up with compliance issues when you're just starting out; having to change your policies every 6 months due to the whims on Congress would be practically anti-business.

<comment><USER15> > The Legislative branch's ONLY JOB is to make laws.

I don't think that's quite right. Its job is to _change the laws_. That can mean adding laws, repealing laws, updating existing laws in the light of changing circumstances, etc. And "changing the laws" includes one-off things that do something once and don't leave much enduring cruft behind, like the Hurricane Sandy relief bill.

There's no reason in principle why they couldn't do their job while keeping the total amount of law constant or even reducing it. If in practice they do spend almost all their time (when not gridlocked) making new laws without trimming the resulting bloat, the problem isn't _simply_ that their job requires them to do that.

<comment><USER14> > _There 's no reason in principle why they couldn't do their job while > keeping the total amount of law constant or even reducing it._

Actually, there is! The reason is because Congress can only _make_ laws -- that includes laws that repeal other laws! Note how we still have the Eighteenth Amendment despite it being nullified by the Twenty-first Amendment.

While there can be, in theory (and again, with such a large mass of people, it's _really_ only in theory) laws whose sole purpose is to repeal other laws, such laws almost never make it to the President without a sizable layer of pork slathered on top in order to gather enough votes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For all the rhetoric in the article, Mr. Roose never actually refutes this belief:

"For them, government is mostly a hindrance — a regulatory obstacle to the kinds of disruptive start-ups they fund, and an enemy of a looser immigration policy that would allow their portfolio companies to recruit more talented foreign engineers."

</comment><comment><USER17> Without extensive government funding, it would never have become _Silicon_ Valley.

[http://video.pbs.org/video/2332168287/](http://video.pbs.org/video/2332168287/)

</comment><comment><USER18> The cyberpunk genre has existed for almost three decades. His embrace of the fears of that dystopian movement is pretty disconcerting.

Not to mention inaccurate. Companies are certainly powerful, but what is the power or influence of Silicon Valley compared to the titans of industry such as IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon, and yes, the financial firms and banks of NYC?

</comment><comment><USER19> > Companies are transcending power now. We are becoming the eminent vehicles > for change and influence, and capital structures that matter.

 _Becoming_? Corporations have been the transcendant power in the developed world since the collapse of feudalism.

</comment><comment><USER20> Strange that there seemed to be no mention of why the US government shut down in the first place: they failed to raise the debt ceiling on time, right? And who has primary interest in US debt? Other governments, like China for example.

So if Silicon Valley were to become the true seat of power in the US, how would they approach international relations? And how would they handle the military? And what would they do in the event of a war?

This does seem like an article written about an off-hand, not so serious comment. But it touches a nerve on something I hear echoing around my world (and I don't live in California) -- people believe Tech companies are the new driving direction of the economy and they think that makes them the new direction of power. I can't help but feel it's the wishful thinking of a new middle class.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's funny, people's loyalty seem to almost always lie with their largest patron.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't like this Chamath guy, but he has recognized something that's real. Though his words are mostly hyperbole, _power is shifting_ to the valley.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hmm, the author seems to imply the idea is wrong or dangerous, then the article ends. Not sure what to think.

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, nothing like a little crash to bring these kind of people's head back to earth.

<comment><USER25> "These kind of people" might come across as wrong to a few, which is completely fair and justified. But as you said - "getting them back to Earth" is a wrong idea. That implies that current situation is completely fine and these people are eccentrics, which is most definitely not correct. Rather than silencing a few who speak their minds and getting things back to (ab)normal; we need to find our own ideas on how things can be fixed, if not by the ideology proposed by such people.

We need to collectively work towards a solution than silencing a few.

<comment><USER24> "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills. ... I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit." — Then-Sen. Barack Obama, floor speech in the Senate, March 16, 2006</comment></comment></comment>


EBay is worst-run company I have ever seen: Carl Icahn - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101467290 <comment><USER2> Carl Icahn gives a great talk as a guest lecturer in Robert Shiller's economic class from 2009: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/15-guest-lecture-by- carl...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/15-guest-lecture-by-carl- icahn/id341651121?i=63752219&mt=2)

He talks about how many of these companies are run by fraternity presidents and their frat brothers. He calls it anti-Darwinian. You have this likable, but dumb, frat president coming in and becoming CEO. He theorizes that people who float to the top in companies are those who pose no threat and take no risks. So you have the dumb frat president will in turn appoint his frat brother, who subsequently is dumber than him and rose in ranks because he poses no threat to anyone, as his successor, and so on.

He seems frustrated that many of these companies have no accountability, they essentially can do whatever they want. And many times, the smartest people don't float to the top as they should.

So I see Carl Icahn coming in and giving these guys a hard time and can't help but think it's a good thing. Good shake em up a bit.

But are activist investors like Carl Icahn actually a good thing? I mean it's great that they introduce a bit of corporate democracy, but does he actually improve the companies he takes a large position in?

<comment><USER3> This is an interesting comment, but Icahn's recent actions (last three to four years that I am familiar with) are driven by nothing more than the motive for short-term profit.

The process proceeds along the following lines:

1\. Acquire a stake of more than 5%, which requires a public filing with the SEC. This is very key as now the public has a verifiable way of knowing Icahn has a stake.

2\. Write a letter to the board and/or management demanding changes to the structure of the company or use of its large cash pile(if applicable). This usually takes the form of a spin-off or buyback/dividend proposal. (Buybacks are more favorable these days due to tax considerations.)

3\. The stock price increases at least 10% after it is announced Icahn has taken a stake. Icahn can sell here and take his profits home; 10% annualized is a very large gain.

3\. Management predictably scoffs at Icahn's demands or arranges a show for shareholders in the form of a one-on-one meeting with the CEO or something along these lines. Nothing tangible happens.

4\. Icahn sometimes is able to pressure firm management/board into buybacks or dividends, which only adds to Icahn's paper profits (see 3). This is usually done through the very real threat of going directly to the shareholders with a proxy to elect new board members. Even if this is unsuccessful Icahn still has achieved 3.

This is known as the 'Icahn tax'. Due to name recognition and a strong track record Icahn is able to exert pressure on firms for a quick and easy buck. Nothing more.

<comment><USER4> Who's the tax on? If I'm understanding the dynamics here, it looks like it's a tax on shareholders who buy in at inflated prices because Icahn is being an activist, and that once he sells his shares, everything will return to normal. If that's the case, then over time people should realize that Icahn buying into a company is a signal that it's overvalued and that premium should decrease. (In the meantime, he gets to bank large profits off this trade, but his name recognition and track record is a depreciating asset unless he actively improves stock performance.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty straight-forward:

"The billionaire investor has been trying to get the online marketplace for months to spin off its PayPal platform from its Internet retail business."

The longer eBay refuses, the more obnoxious and louder Icahn will get. He will say _anything_ he has to about eBay to try to force them to do what he wants them to. That's his M.O. in dealing with boards. He's an actor that puts on an overly dramatic show, trying to lure other shareholders to his position (and it helps get media attention).

This is not about whether eBay actually is the worst-run company ever (talk about dramatic), this is about trying to force eBay to spin off PayPal. Icahn believes that will unlock value for him, after which he'll sell out of eBay / PayPal at a profit and never look back. This fake concern about how eBay is run, will magically disappear from his list of priorities (ie he's nothing but a shark, and his post-sale behavior every-single-time proves that).

</comment><comment><USER6> I knew Andreessen bought Skype from ebay, and flipped it to Microsoft for a massive profit. I had no idea he was on Ebay's board.

That looks really bad no matter how you spin it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unlike Warren Buffet, Carl Icahn only buys into companies he thinks are run poorly. Usually he is able to push the company around to make a profit. He also thought Apple was pretty poorly run but he gave up[1] trying to convince others of that.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/genemarcial/2014/02/14/whats- up-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/genemarcial/2014/02/14/whats-up-with-carl- icahns-about-face-on-apple/)

[1b] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/10/us-apple-icahn- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/10/us-apple-icahn- idUSBREA1913T20140210)

[1c] [http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2014/02/11/icahn- apple-...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2014/02/11/icahn-apple-stock- is-extremely-undervalued/)

<comment><USER8> It's not true that he buys "poorly" run companies. He buys companies where he thinks a simple change could make a big short-term profit for him, and then he lobbies for that profit.

In Apple's case, Apple looked really smart in 2008 for having money in the bank when there was a cash crunch in money market funds and people had trouble getting short-term operating funds. They look smart when they use their funds to lock up a bunch of Flash Memory for their devices rather than buying as they need at higher prices.

But Icahn didn't care about the long term advantages of the bank account to Apple. He just cared about trying to squeeze some of it out in the short term.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, when I read the article I objected to the headline. Icahn's definition of 'poorly' seems to me, to really be "These guys are leaving money on the table." I do not believe that in the classic sense of 'earning money, meeting goals, and running the business' that Ebay is "poorly" run, but I would agree with an assessment that there are probably ways for them to increase the amount of money they either make or retain.

However, my experience is that companies that are hell bent on getting every penny out of the business are not generally "well" run (again by my definition of what "well" means).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't remember the last time I bought or sold something on eBay. For any specific thing there is always some channel which is better, and that's the problem.

As for PayPal let's just say I lived through the age of PCI Compliance when PayPal was the most common option if you needed to take credit cards for a small business and that experience will take a long time to live down.

<comment><USER10> I haven't bought anything on ebay proper in quite a while, although I occasionally buy books from half.

However, my girlfriend buys a large quantity of good from eBay. These purchases seem to fall into two categories.

1\. Clothing. In particular, very cheap dresses and clothes that are out of stock and discontinued on the brand's website.

2\. Craft goods. Leather to make purses/wallets and scrap kimono silk are two examples that spring to mind immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Andreesan seems to have a credible defense, but Ebay's excusal of Scott Cook (who is being investigated by the DOJ for antitrust action in a non-poaching agreement with his company Intuit) seems pretty damning.

</comment><comment><USER12> What are the top competitors to EBay?

<comment><USER13> Amazon Prime and Craiglist for two.

Nowadays Ebay is still the place to buy and sell specialty items, which will always be a multi-billion dollar market, but they've lost their position as the marketplace of the internet.

If I were Ebay I'd also worry that thanks to Stripe it's quickly becoming much easier to become the marketplace for a given category, and beat Ebay via specialization.

<comment><USER14> I've been on eBay since 2002. It's only in the past 6 months that I finally got how great eBay really is.

Before I make any purchase on Amazon these days I always double check with eBay and ever single time eBay has been able to beat Amazon prices.

With same if not better checkout experience, faster shipping prices and access to Asian marketplaces; it's the jumpoff point before I hit up DealExtreme or Alibaba.

Plus no sales tax.

Plus eBay bucks.

But I'm hesitant on telling more people about this secret because I don't want the cheap prices to go away.

<comment><USER15> I think it really depends on what you're buying, and what kind of quality you need. eBay is great for cheap electronics that don't really need to work, but I'm not going to buy my food there.

<comment><USER14> I buy new/used CPG, electronics, medicine, and food on eBay. On average 5% cheaper than Amazon. Business wise, eBay/PayPal makes 15% off transactions without having to spend on COGS or warehousing.

It's incredible. Jeff Bezos lost. No one gets it yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Never underestmiate the power of billionaire's boredom.

</comment><comment><USER17> > _The billionaire investor has been trying to get the online marketplace for > months to spin off its PayPal platform from its Internet retail business._

The poor billionaire is used to getting his way and now he is pouting and ranting... Sniff.

I know two accountants that used to work for Ebay. By what they told me it is not poorly run at all. Not in any capacity. What single shred of evidence is there that EBay is the "worst-run" company he has ever seen? or even that they are tun badly at all?

If it were the worst run company he had ever seen... how are they still in business? They should be hemorrhaging money and laying off employees. You'd think that corruption, scandal and theft would be rampant for such a poorly run company. Their servers would be down all the time, they would get hacked constantly and erase their data by accident without having backups. Their web IU would be unusable, their site would be full of bugs, they would be constantly being audited by the IRS, They would be in the business news daily for their constant blunders.

This reeks of pouting and sour grapes.</comment>


Laid-off Cisco workers undoubtedly thrilled over company's planned dividend - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/business/120715/laid-cisco-workers-undoubtedly-thrilled-companys-shareholders-over-dividend-plan <comment><USER2> I love the sarcasm :)</comment>


Master Chrome DevTools free course by Google on Code School - <AUTHOR> http://discover-devtools.codeschool.com/

<comment><USER2> first github then jquery now google ..keep going codeschool..proud to be your user .</comment>


PSA: Some Kickstarter projects don't collapse, are awesome - <AUTHOR> http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories/1331669105981/seven-amazing-games-that-prove-kickstarter-works

<comment><USER2> There's also Wasteland 2, which as I understand is damn near close to release.

Further out is Elite Dangerous, and even further, Star Citizen.

<comment><USER3> The article also neglected to mention Banner Saga, another pretty big one which has been released and is pretty fantastic.</comment></comment>


Collusion: A browser addon to demo how websites track you online - <AUTHOR> http://collusion.toolness.org/ <comment><USER2> i used to browse with firefox's cookie prompting on, so every time i would visit a new site, i'd have to manually allow it to set cookies. i'd usually deny them for everything and only allow certain sites to set cookies, to avoid tracking like this site is describing. denying cookies broke quite a few sites and the prompt became annoying.

now i just browse with cookies enabled, but the "keep until" setting is "i close firefox". now every time i close firefox, all the transient tracking cookies and other bullshit are erased. for sites that i actually want to stay logged into, like hacker news, or that need to store long-term cookies for authentication like banking sites, i use the "cookie monster" add-on and just click its icon in the corner and tell it to allow cookies for the current site and no other 3rd party hosts. my current firefox cookie list is small, and only has cookies for sites that i know about.

<comment><USER3> Give the "Cookie Monster" extension a try. You can browse with a default "no- accept-cookies" policy, but at browse time decide to (based upon the domains of the cookies):

1) temporarily allow cookies from some domains; 2) permanently allow cookies from some domains.

Gradually you can build up a whitelist of just only those sites where you will allow cookies, even while blocking their own advertisers/trackers from setting cookies, while keeping everything else off.

<comment><USER2> did you read my comment? i'm using cookie monster.

blocking by default and only allowing the current domain breaks quite a few sites that refuse to work without an active session cookie. some break subtly and some throw you into a redirection loop. that is why i accept all by default, but firefox marks them as session cookies so they don't survive across browsing sessions, and using cookie monster i whitelist a few domains.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice illustration. I'm a big fan of using Ghostery to block everything, it's ridiculous how much shit is on some pages:

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

I've also started using Better Pop Up Blocker because either networks are getting smarter or Chrome's crap at blocking popups:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nmpeeekfhbmikbdhlp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nmpeeekfhbmikbdhlpjbfmnpgcbeggic)

<comment><USER5> Am I imagining things or is Ghostery starting to auto-whitelist some trackers?

Remember, the plugin got sold a year or two ago to a commercial company selling advertising services.

I rolled back to the 2.4.2 version and no auto-whitelist.

<comment><USER6> ck2, I work on Ghostery. Ghostery does not auto-whitelist.

If you'd like to see for yourself, feel free to look around. Firefox/Chrome/Safari/Opera browser extensions are mostly written in JavaScript.

If you are having issues with Ghostery, please post on the support forum at <http://www.ghostery.com/feedback>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold._

I've seen this quote around a lot lately, and it makes me very uneasy.

I understand the idea it is expressing, and as a phrase it is attractive because it is short and simple.

The problem is that the sentiment behind it ("advertising corrupts companies to put advertisers instead of users first") just isn't true. Not only have newspapers and TV stations been dealing with this for years, but there are numerous other examples.

For example, Sebastian Vettel is paid by Red Bull. Does that he (or the Red Bull F1 team) prioritizes selling Red Bull above winning races?

Media organisations are interesting - there are numerous cases of newspapers publishing stories that are against the interests of their advertisers.

There are also many cases of media organisations holding back stories that are detrimental to their advertisers. But is this any worse than product companies selling goods that are unreliable because of cost savings made during manufacture? What about a case like BP, where an oil spill directly damaged their customers, but BP acted in the interest of its shareholders instead of its customers.

Saying something like "company culture is the critical factor" sounds like some kind of management-speak way of avoiding the issue. Yet - to me at least - it is the only explanation that matches the behaviours we see in the market.

<comment><USER8> You don't think newspapers and TV stations hesitate before publishing anything their advertisers wouldn't want people to hear!?

<comment><USER7> It depends on the firm.

Given that there is a term for avoiding this (Chinese Wall[1]), many companies go out of their way to make sure this doesn't occur.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's funny. I don't see anything at all. And I have no adblocker plugins whatsoever; I hate adding more junk and extensions to my browser.

I use this: <http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/>

Quality of life significantly improved.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm amazed so many people and companies are focussed on trying to manage/limit peoples exposure to tracking technologies. Everyone is looking at this problem backwards. I say this because the vast majority of these technologies are javascript based and simply read cookies and execute simple image requests to send information back to tracking servers. If someone was to invent a plugin that allowed these technologies to still function, but randomly scrambled the data being sent (along with sending extra dummy requests here and there), it would be over...

Tracking companies rely on clean data, they even report on exact numbers coming out of these systems, so instead of people trying to avoid being part of their clean data, it would be far more effective to make their data dirty so they can't trust it (or sell it).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think Chrome will get much better cookie controls sometime in the future. They call it non-modal cookie prompt.

The German Chrome team mentioned this in a blog post a short while back. But unfortunately the announcement was very vague and doesn't have many details. The changes don't seem to have landed in the canary build yet. If I understand the blog post correctly they are in the middle of building the feature.

This is the (German) blog post I'm referring to. [http://google-produkt- kompass.blogspot.com/2011/06/chrome-ma...](http://google-produkt- kompass.blogspot.com/2011/06/chrome-made-in-germany.html)

I don't think Google Translate can be of much help here, because even the German version is very vague about this feature. Also, the post is mainly about other things, they only mention the new cookie prompt in one sentence.

<comment><USER12> Did you see how prevalent the doubleclick (Google) cookies were in the demo? Google also is refusing to implement Do-Not-Track, unlike all other major browsers. My faith in them improving in this particular area is weak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just want to point out that as we further diminish returns on advertising most internet business models die. The people who click on ads are subsidizing most of the internet for the rest of us. It's easier for me to pay with alleged personal information than with money.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are a few things I don't understand. It seems that a lot of websites are tracking behavior at toolness.org. Why? Is it reversed, i.e., the add-on from toolness.org is tracking these websites, or do these sites have sort of counter-measures to see when people use privacy tools? Can they actually read in information from non-https sites? Also, twitter seems to be tracking behavior on a number of sites. Is it because of those small twitter widgets everyone uses on these sites, or is twitter actually trying to collect data on what I like to browse?

</comment><comment><USER15> It doesn't properly understand national domains; bbc.co.uk, for example, is shown only as co.uk.

Lovely idea though, but I imagine the author is himself collecting the stats on my browser testing habbits :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Your data isn't being sent out of your browser. The source code is here:

<https://github.com/toolness/collusion>

As with all Firefox addons, you can right-click + save-as the xpi file, run "unzip addon-name.xpi" and look at the source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why doesn't the browser keep cookies organized by the website in the address bar? That way a cookie from a doubleclick resource received while browsing cnn.com is kept separate from a doubleclick cookie received while browsing imdb.com.

I guess I can answer my own question by saying it doesn't matter. If browsers did this, websites would be written so that an ad provider's resources are loaded with a querystring that identifies the user. So much for not being aggressively tracked.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell RequestPolicy is a great addon for stopping this sort of tracking (amongst other things). Takes a little while to get it trained on the sites you visit most, but it's a lot safer to use the web with it than without.

<comment><USER17> It is what I use too.

It just blocks everything which comes from an external domain.

So in most cases it will also block malware, because malware authors seem to wait to use a 2-stage system.

They let different hacked websites point to one where the malware will be downloaded from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool, I meant to create something like this for years :-) Glad somebody finally did.</comment>