Ask HN: Software Engineer Salaries in Berlin - <AUTHOR> Hi
Can somebody with enough karma create a poll with salary ranges for software engineers in Berlin?
Or you could post here, if you have something to share.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> It really depends. Minimum: 30k EUR Recent graduate: 35-45k EUR Senior: 45-60k EUR Like everywhere, salaries are higher in larger companies and for older people.

As Berlin is quite poor, expect maybe 10-15% below German average, but take into account that cost of living is low (especially rent and food).

<comment><USER3> Interesting. A bit off-topic: how much would it cost per month for basic amenities for a college student in Berlin?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From my experience, salaries can vary a lot. It depends on the following factors:

\- is it an early startup, something more stable or established company in some industry. The latter tend to pay more.

\- technological stack

\- experience

For example, as a senior software developer in JVM stack you can make in startup on average EUR 50 000 - 60 000. Also consider taxes - they vary depending on if you are single, married with employed/unemployed spouse, children.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here you go! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109180)

</comment><comment><USER6> I hate to self-promote, but I work at a company called payscale that makes its livelihood off of building super specific salary range reports out of crowd sourced data.

Below I'm posting a link for the generalized "Software Engineer" (non-senior) in the city of Berlin. Obviously where you place in the range is dependent on a bunch of other factors like your specific skills (some languages actually pay better than others), company size, and your years of experience. [http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Location=Berlin- Berlin/S...](http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Location=Berlin- Berlin/Salary)

If you want to drill down further than that, filling out our survey will give you a personal salary range based on your skills, experience level, and all the other compensible factors that we've come up with. Good luck on your job search!

<comment><USER7> You posted a link to Berlin, which has several entries for different types of engineers. But close enough :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Berlin is a cheap place to live even by European standards.

Even though salaries might appear low, Berlin has a really good balance of culture + nice place to live + affordibility.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely true. My rent in the early '00s was equivalent to $200 / month for a 3 room apartment. Granted, I had a coal furnace in my bedroom, a tiny gas furnace in my living room and no heat in the kitchen or bathroom (except for a pull-string infra-red heater over the door for when you step out of the bathtub). Everything was cheap from beer to food to clubs to travel. I made half of what I made in the States but I didn't feel it at all.

<comment><USER10> I can definitely see how that would work when a lot of the necessities of life are priced lower, in line with your lower salary. How did you feel about making purchases that are priced at a more global level? For example if you wanted to buy an Apple computer to do your development work on. I've always been curious about this as people don't tend to talk about it when discussing the cost of living in different geographic areas.

<comment><USER11> That stuff becomes comparatively more expensive, but still most of your expenses are for the basics (housing+ transit+ food probably add up to ~80-90% of most people's expenses) so it's not that big of a deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While you're at it, also ask for the taxes for a single person. It's around 35-42%. Of course some will claim that a large of that is not actually tax, but your pension. Because you know... countries always pay their pensions when you're old .

Also ask what the tax is for when claiming pension, usually it's higher than a salaried tax, because you know what the government feels about old people. At least in Sweden.

<comment><USER13> You can check taxes for yourself. Here's a quick link in English that correctly calculates taxes based on tax class, and has a short explanation about different factors.

EDIT: Sorry, the missing link is [http://www.parmentier.de/steuer/steuer.htm?wagetax.htm](http://www.parmentier.de/steuer/steuer.htm?wagetax.htm)

Also, if you would like to see what is an employers overhead over a given gross salary, this link (German only) can also help: [http://www.brutto-netto- rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-a...](http://www.brutto-netto- rechner.info/gehalt/gehaltsrechner-arbeitgeber.php)

<comment><USER14> Taxes and other contributions subtracted from your salary are high in Germany, almost as high as in Nordic countries. There are many gross-net calculators available, search for "Netto Gehaltsrechner".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This raises a lot of questions. I'm french and have gone to CA to work for a startup in SF for a while.

Salaries in Europe << salaries in the US, but you have to take into account social security, cost of life, country culture,etc...

So although the question is very important, and you should get your answer, don't make any decision based on only that.

That's just my opinion.

<comment><USER16> Ohh I have a few questions for you :

What did you do in CA ?

What was your salary and how would it compare in France ?

<comment><USER17> I have a friend software enginneer in France, came out of the same school as me.

I make 7400$ / month, he makes 2600 euros.

But he has health care paid for, 5 weeks vacations, 35 hour work weeks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I'm more interested in are costs of employing people in Berlin, vs. costs in the Bay Area and other markets.

e.g. if salary expectations for a mid-level dev are EUR 50000 vs. USD 120k, but Germany costs another EUR 50000 in taxes/permits overhead vs. another USD 30000 to the employer in the US, it's a wash.

<comment><USER19> Probably the bigger concern is it will cost a fortune to fire or lay people off in Germany. Or if an employee gets pregnant they can disappear for something like five months at full salary, and you can't replace them. Hiring people in most of Europe is a daunting proposition.

<comment><USER13> Another point is that you can't make people work 60 hours a week easily like in the USA. That could even make you a serious trouble with the law.

If you want to avoid these situations, then just hire contractors, but that will cost you more. If not, just stay in the USA. Europe doesn't need employers that treat employees as slaves. Employment in Germany is more like a long term two way relation, and regulations are made with that assumption in place.

<comment><USER20> So, a long term /three/ way relationship, then? The employee, the employer, and the state.

<comment><USER13> Well, Germans people have always been more liberal and open minded regarding relationships, so threesomes are not that rare :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was there in August and heard is was 30-40% less than the Bay Area/NYC salaries. The few web developers I talked to about salaries shared they were making 30-50k euros a year. That seemed pretty good.

It might not seem like a lot, but cost of living is also a lot less than NYC/SV.

<comment><USER22> I live in Berlin ( working as a front-end developer ) and that is correct. My rent is 700 Euro for a small flat in Mitte ( city center ) and yes, Berlin is a cheap city in terms of food, party, rent, etc. Anyway most of the people are not here to make money as far as I can see. Lots of hipsters and other people just join the city for it's special "culture / party / art" kind of spirit.

<comment><USER9> And that really is an incredible motivation to live there. No city on earth like Berlin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's going to be one of those polls where my old salaryshare can actually help. :)

I've created a salary pool.[http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4](http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4). Please only post a salary if you are full-time employed in Berlin.

If you just want to see the results, please visit: [http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4/resul...](http://salaryshare.me/a9f54a571d1b0d89a47ee481a61b0da4/results?pass=HnBerlinPool2014)

This is also interesting to me, who happened to have moved to Berlin last summer.

</comment><comment><USER24> I know a PHP programmer who makes about 6.5k EUR / month as a contractor but that's my only data point.

I'm considering moving to Berlin and working there as a contractor so I'd love to see some more data. Keep in mind that the overhead of an employee is huge (I bet it's over 100%) so a contract may be much better financially.

</comment><comment><USER25> I really fail to see what value this polls add. The sample size is usually too small, and then - only indicates values.. doesn't provide enough detail on level of skill or responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER26> You should be fine with anything around 2.5k a month.

<comment><USER27> In italy young developer are VERY VERY VERY lucky if the get something like 1200 €/months (and I think that I haven't stretch enough the VERY LUCKY part)

<comment><USER28> I've been hearing this for 15+ years now, IE: that tech salaries in Italy are incredibly low. How is it possible, just given the raw supply/demand problem for tech workers? In every other part of the world, tech workers are somewhere in the say, top 10% of earners, but not Italy. What is it that's so unique about market conditions there?</comment></comment></comment>


How hard is it to add in access_token validation protocol that provides them? - <AUTHOR> http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/26/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/

<comment><USER2> Ah, this is from 2012.

Part 2: [http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/30/on-leaving- oauth/](http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/30/on-leaving-oauth/)

A response: [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/07/28/Oauth2-dea...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/07/28/Oauth2-dead)

</comment><comment><USER2> Original title is "OAuth 2.0 and the Road to Hell" which provides more context</comment>


Ask HN: Which email client do you recommend for Android? - <AUTHOR> Keeping privacy and usability in mind. <comment><USER2> k9-mail, for its independance and ability to set up advanced features (like sender aliases).</comment>


The best presentation is the one never shown - <AUTHOR> http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/145/ <comment><USER3> I take some umbrage at the ubiquitous slighting of PowerPoint, et al. The vast majority of "business" presentations are for an internal audience that is already partially pre-briefed and the presenter just uses the slides to jog his or her own memory of the important points to review in the meeting. It's essentially pre-written agenda+minutes, and it doesn't have to be anything more.

This is easily contrasted to the kinds of professional presenters you see at TED, or someone like Steve Jobs, but those are public presentations of novel content. Not at all the same, and it's not fair to directly compare the work these folks do to prepare and rehearse their presentations to what 9-to-5ers do. Nearly zero internal business presentations need to be so polished, either in formatting or delivery.

<comment><USER4> _It's essentially pre-written agenda+minutes._

This is very insightful. Powerpoint is a prop for establishing the _structure_ of a meeting. It is -- as pointed out by many -- a lousy tool for conveying actual content. (Of course, in a world with cheap printing, and now cheap email, cheap blogging, cheap e-text, cheap recorded audio, and cheap online video as well, live lectures in general are lousy tools for conveying content.)

Meetings need agendas. Otherwise every meeting ends up being about whatever the best schmoozer at the meeting wants it to be about.

Of course, as with many tools, the use of Powerpoint is most noticeable when it is being terribly abused. People use it to force incredibly _boring_ agendas. People use it as an excuse to lecture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The rest of the site is good too. "Time makes things worse" I liked particularly.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good point about being forced to make visual presentation in the form of slides. It's too restrictive sometimes. Does anybody know good presentation tool that allows creating animated presentations not in the form of slides?

UPD. Discovered prezi.com - it's amazing!

</comment><comment><USER7> _145\. Pointless presentation_

More like "146. Pointless Blog Post".

From the title, I was expecting to read what one should do _ahead of time_ to make one's slide presentation unnecessary. Something like "How to build a tag line so compelling that people will get it immediately," "Show everything a first timer needs to know on your front page," or "How to hit the reptilian brain in the first 10 seconds".

We already know that most presentations suck and want to learn what to do to avoid suckdom. That's advice I'd be interested in learning. Alas, it never came from this post.

<comment><USER8> _Something like "How to build a tag line so compelling that people will get it immediately," "Show everything a first timer needs to know on your front page," or "How to hit the reptilian brain in the first 10 seconds"._

See, that's exactly something ArtLebedev and we Europeans object to in American business culture - do you REALLY need to get your "point" out immediately, does "hitting reptilian brain in 10 seconds" is really all that important? Maybe if you didn't need to brainwash us into business relationship in the first place, it wouldn't matter whether it took "immediately", 10 seconds or 10 minutes.

<comment><USER7> _...we Europeans object to in American business culture..._

Be thankful for being able to insult us Americans in English, because if it wasn't for us, you'd probably be doing it in German.

</stock response to any illogical European insult of the U.S.>

<comment><USER8> See, taking objective criticism as an insult and reacting strongly with a false sense of pride ("if it weren't for us in the WWII!!!"). Dealing with american here, no doubt about that.

<comment><USER9> And then there are Americans who agree with your point of substance - <USER2> still don't think HNN is the right place to flame about nationalism.

<comment><USER8> Pointing out differences between national business cultures != nationalism.

Handwaving with WWII outcomes = nationalism.

<comment><USER9> "Dealing with american here, no doubt about that" = nationalism. I downvoted both of you, but not your first post, which I agreed with. My point was that I am also an American, yet capable of agreeing with you.

<comment><USER8> Sorry if that looks like nationalist to you, but it obviously doesn't look that way to whoever downvoted you. I'm definitely not pretending I know everything about americans or that you're all the same or that we can't agree on anything.

But bringing up scars of war is definitely not something we europeans like to engage in. Especially not as a response to criticism.

<comment><USER9> Well, yes - if I could have downvoted that one more, I would have. It was in incredibly poor taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As much as I agree with his point, his America vs. Russia shtick is grating and distracting.

<comment><USER11> I just help couldn't turning every sentence into something like "In communist Russia, you do not make presentation, presentation make you" in my head.

<comment><USER12> tbh i lold at this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems he hasn't read Jason Santa Maria's article on presentations: [http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/make-yourself- presentabl...](http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/make-yourself-presentable/)

<comment><USER14> a) The author is Russian, and his article translated. He probably doesn't speak or read English.

b) The linked article predates Jason Santa Maria's article.

c) The linked article is still interesting, even if a and b weren't true.

<comment><USER15> A correction: as far as I recall the author studied in US at some point of time.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. So why does he get someone else to translate his articles? Maybe he's not _that_ confident with his English skills.

<comment><USER15> He runs the biggest design studio in Russia, so I suppose he does not have that much time to translate his entire website into English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He seems to be describing mostly bad presentations. I've seen good ones that don't suffer these problems, though they can be rare.

<comment><USER15> I've noticed that for the most part quality of a presentation rests on the skill of the speaker, rather than the quality of slides.

<comment><USER16> This is true, but it does take certain qualities in the slides, such as not re-stating what is being said word for word, and including relevant & enlightening graphics that show what the speaker cannot say.

Of course, you could argue knowing how to make such a slideshow is part of being a good speaker, because it is all about creating a slideshow to support, augment, improve & fill the holes in your talk.

<comment><USER17> I fortunately have not been in a position to attend a large number of presentations. Of the ones I have attended, the best have been by well- prepared speakers who use a whiteboard and no slides. The diagrams tend to be crude but hand-drawing on a whiteboard hardly ever outraces the ability of the audience to follow along; with slides the opposite is often the case (for me anyway).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Apple ready to play cat and mouse with malware developers? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/apple-malware-cat-and-mouse.ars <comment><USER2> Apple has no problem sheltering its users from the real goings on of the OS, but there's only so much they can do. Protecting the user from what tricks the user is largely a cat and mouse game. The daily-updated list (which the last security update added) is that unimaginable step.

</comment><comment><USER3> apple is pro . yes they can</comment>


Wikileaks attack data by year and type, over Afghanistan regional map - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/drewconway/WikiLeaks_Analysis/blob/master/images/events_by_label_map.png

<comment><USER2> fyi, those maps are flipped in a weird way compared to north/south geography (I assume this was done plotting the coords on a chart, not projecting the coords onto a map). They need to be flipped vertically and then rotated counter-clockwise 1/4 turn. The bulk of the attacks are in the south-east, not the north-west.

<comment><USER3> I noticed that too. It took me a while to figure out what I was looking at.

Also you need to change the colors. It's really difficult to tell the different types of attack apart.

Nice use of the R maps package though! With a little tweaking, this should be a powerful visualization.

<comment><AUTHOR> The orientation is wrong because I reversed the lat/long axes (dumb). Thank you for pointing that out, it's fixed now.

Color is a more difficult issue, because so many different attacks type categories exist in the data. Welcome suggestions</comment></comment></comment>


Why the answer to any sum is 10 - <AUTHOR> http://plus.maths.org/content/why-answer-any-sum-10 <comment><USER2> Of course, every base is base ten.

<http://cowbirdsinlove.com/43></comment>


My time at Nest - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@vibhu/my-time-at-nest-4aa658462595#.3cjwhn6km <comment><USER2> know none of those people, but this little opinion piece sounded a lot like one smooth taking exec talking about another smooth talking exec.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this is Tony calling up his friends and asking for defense pieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> TL;DR Nest is great, Tony Fadell is great, every Nest product is great, everything you've read or heard about any of the above in the last 18 months is wrong.

<comment><USER5> "Everything's so amazing, I left after receiving my first GSU package and retention bonus."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The first thing to know about Nest's culture is that it's a family. They > expect loyalty, trust

> Building and shipping hardware products requires an orchestra, not a band.

> Building a phenomenal, time-tested brand requires extreme discipline, and > often, a relatively ...

> The dedication to the brand is one of those things that as an employee can > seem onerous and taxing ...

> To me, doing great work is a habit, not an occasional outcome

This article is a series of sound bytes with zero information on what it's actually like to work at nest. Sort of like this person's job at nest was more like a club where he was playing pool or something. Not sure what this guy did, but clearly it can't have had many stressful deliverables.

According to his twitter page this person is a software engineer who moved to Product Management.

I bet that a place like Apple and Nest is like that : nice and easy on project managers, very hard on engineers. A company like Google, by contrast, From their products, I expect that mostly the company sides with the engineers, not the PMs.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article is a great example of why a company describing itself as a family should be a red flag. It usually means they're trying to exploit vulnerabilities in human social instincts in the same way that cults do; abuse is easiest and most effective when the targets are socialised to think of it as the norm to the extent that they start making excuses for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the NYTimes Amazon story a few months ago. There were several people who wrote that their experiences were nothing like what the story portrayed. It was possible for both sides to be correct.

It takes a lot of data points to draw a reasonable conclusion. Even then, it won't apply to everyone in a company.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks >This means that virtually nothing customer-facing makes it to production that isn't at the quality or perfection worthy of the brand

</comment><comment><USER9> Would be slightly interesting to know what happened to the other 5 employees Nest aqui-hired at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER10> Propagandistic twaddle.</comment>


Tell me about Corona Isolation - <AUTHOR> https://www.kowabit.de/tell-me/ <comment><USER2> This fantasy presupposes that no harm occurs by shutting down society.

Just because it is hard to measure how many people would die due to the economy being turned off or by having it be impossible for people to move or interact for an extended period doesn't mean that you get to assume the number is zero.</comment>


Joyent Accelerator Pricing--Is the service worth the high prices? - <AUTHOR> http://www.joyent.com/accelerator/pricing/ Right now we're running 1 dedicated server for our startup.  We pay $250/month for a 4GB machine.  We're a hosted application in the enterprise software space (reporting & business intelligence).
We've been in beta with a customer but we're about to go live in production, and I'm wanting to add a couple more servers for uptime reliability.  I started looking around and Joyent gets good marks.
It seems though pretty expensive for what is, at the end of the day, a VPS.  We're looking at $250/month for a 2GB/1CPU slice, whereas now I can get more computing machinery from a managed dedicated provider.  I'll probably be needing 2 web servers and a DB, so total cost might push $750/month which seems high to me.
In short--are the benefits of Joyent enough to pay those high prices?  Anybody here using the Accelerator service? <comment><AUTHOR> Right now we're running 1 dedicated server for our startup. We pay $250/month for a 4GB machine. We're a hosted application in the enterprise software space (reporting & business intelligence).

We've been in beta with a customer but we're about to go live in production, and I'm wanting to add a couple more servers for uptime reliability. I started looking around and Joyent gets good marks.

It seems though pretty expensive for what is, at the end of the day, a VPS. We're looking at $250/month for a 2GB/1CPU slice, whereas now I can get more computing machinery from a managed dedicated provider. I'll probably be needing 2 web servers and a DB, so total cost might push $750/month which seems high to me.

In short--are the benefits of Joyent enough to pay those high prices? Anybody here using the Accelerator service?

<comment><USER2> We have several customers using them (technically, every Joyent customer is our customer, too, since they offer Virtualmin on everything they offer), and the satisfaction level seems quite high. They are definitely among the smartest guys in the hosting business from a technical standpoint, and they build a lot of their technology in-house. The price is a wee bit high, though it's often difficult to compare virtualized systems in an apples-to-apples manner. Accelerators are Solaris Zones, which are significantly more efficient than the Linux Xen instances used for EC2, for example. Zones are comparable in implementation to vservers on Linux, though the most popular form of vserver is Virtuozzo/OpenVZ which has some serious memory bugs that strike when a system is over-subscribed--the low-cost providers all over-subscribe and thus all exhibit these memory allocation issues. Joyent boxes are quite large and fast, and not over-subscribed, so you might be pleasantly surprised by the performance you see from them.

Their support for Ruby on Rails and PHP is excellent, since the techs there are actually coders who know those platforms well. They also seem to be pretty Perl and Python savvy, though the Solaris packages for Python they use are reportedly problematic for Django. And, the Joyent forums are full of smart folks doing interesting things, which is pretty valuable.

That said, they do have their critics. Twitter left them in a huff, and at least one Y Combinator company has had a bad experience with them (I don't know the details). But, every large host has its share of complaints. It's hard to judge without knowing the number of customers they have in total and the average level of satisfaction of those customers (hmmm...that'd probably be a useful service, along the lines of the J.D. Powers automobile surveys--I wonder if anyone does that?).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks SwellJoe for the detailed response. And I did notice that a to of the people on the Joyent forums were discussing your product--congrats on that.

I think the key is figuring out a) how reliable they are, and b) how much that's worth to me. Right now if our server goes down I have big problems, since its only one box and we're not setup to quickly change to another. With a VPS at least they can just move an image to a new machine, and if we're on 2 or 3 machines already all the better.</comment></comment></comment>


Will China's Best Coders Flock to Kai-Fu Lee's New Incubator? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/06/will-china%E2%80%99s-best-coders-flock-to-kai-fu-lee%E2%80%99s-new-incubator/

<comment><USER2> This could be the best opportunity for non-Chinese entrepreneurs to get a feel for doing business in that country. I would be on the next plane.</comment>


US Postal Service is Not broke, produced a $700 million operational profit - <AUTHOR> http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/the-truth-about-the-u-s-postal-service.html

<comment><USER2> The USPS is funded by its federally granted right to deliver dead-tree spam to my home against my express wishes. Which then has to be removed by the city at taxpayers' expense.

Forgive me if I have limited enthusiasm for this "unmatched bargain".</comment>


Why is broadband more expensive in the US? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383 <comment> workhere-io _" We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight."_

This should be a wake-up call for people who believe in the free market's ability to further low prices and good products. In reality it is often up to governments to prevent monopolies from forming and ensure that there is enough competition.

<comment><USER2> Or control the infrastructure on which it relies.

Here in the UK we have a wholesale company (BT OpenReach) which is strictly regulated that provides all telephone lines, providers can then "rent" off those cables. This allows for a massive variety of competition and broadband packages from £5 a month.

This also allows a funnel for the govt to invest if required, say laying fibre to remote communities rather than having to rely commercial interests to, who never would.

<comment><USER3> A massive variety of crap, mostly. The only thing that gets close to well connected countries in Europe is BT's Infinity. The rest are just pathetic ADSL offers or throttled-to-hell cable offers (Virgin, now UPC).

<comment><USER2> to repeat what Dasmoth calls out - BT Infinity is just fibre laid by Openreach it is available to any operator (Sky etc), BT have just a great job of branding it like you can't get fibre on other providers - except you can.

[http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/fibre- optic/](http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/fibre-optic/) [https://sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/fibre](https://sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/fibre) [http://www.plus.net/home-broadband/package-guides/fibre- opti...](http://www.plus.net/home-broadband/package-guides/fibre-optic- broadband/)

<comment><USER3> Mea culpa for not reading properly and thanks for explaining it. It's a shame more ISPs aren't doing it, I for one have not heard of anyone else but BT.

<comment> vertex-four The relevant press release from Ofcom (the telecoms regulator, for those outside the UK): [http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2010/10/supporting-the- uk%E2%8...](http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2010/10/supporting-the- uk%E2%80%99s-super-fast-broadband-future/)

BT Retail has just been really good at advertising it, the rest of the ISPs don't seem to have branding budgets to compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No; it has more to do with the way that US cities are very spread out, how right of way must be established on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, and as a distant third the lobbying / political power of the telecoms.

Nothing is really stopping new entrants from joining the market -- other than the fact that deploying a broadband network in the US is really, really expensive. In Europe or Asia you can much more easily obtain a license to run cable across a wide area encompassing a whole city; in the US those rights are split between dozens of different municipalities, some of which don't have the resources to approve requests.

Additionally, US telecom regulation requires that if you're going to cover a city, you have to cover the WHOLE city; or at least you can't discriminate based on income. This is why Verizon has slowed FiOS deployments to new developments only -- it's a way to be able to only roll FiOS out to wealthy customers. People in the ghetto don't buy broadband, but if you want to roll out in a US city today, you have to make it available to them anyway.

<comment><USER5> _Nothing is really stopping new entrants from joining the market -- other than the fact that deploying a broadband network in the US is really, really expensive_

Actually, a lot is: Google "cable franchise agreements" or "city broadband franchise agreements" and you'll find that many if not most cities and counties either forbid or make prohibitively expensive real competition. Here is one news article about a lawsuit related to them: [http://stopthecap.com/2012/06/19/court-invalidates- existing-...](http://stopthecap.com/2012/06/19/court-invalidates-existing- cable-franchise-agreements-in-texas-twc-unshackled/) .

Many states are also passing telco-financed laws prohibiting local municipalities from creating Internet access as a utility. Examples: [http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/big- carrier...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/big-carriers-go- political-kill-local-broadband-235797) or [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/30/municipal_bro...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/30/municipal_broadband_s_death_by_lobbyist_san_antonio_has_the_fiber_they_should.html) .

<comment><USER6> I live in California and was hoping to lobby my municipal government to bargain for better service when our cable franchise came up for renewal.

What I learned was that this bargaining power had been transferred to the state level in 1996. When I talked to those who'd been in charge of the process previously, they claimed the state CPUC served as a rubber stamp.

[http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/Telco/Information+for+providing+s...](http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/Telco/Information+for+providing+service/videofranchising.htm)

If you live in California, the CPUC is, theoretically, the organization you want to lobby. When I tried to get a roadmap for broadband expansion in my area, I did not have much luck.

<comment><USER7> This drives me crazy. The whole reason they are given a decades long monopoly is so they build the infrastructure. Once it is built there is absolutely no good reason to renew the monopoly. It's like continuing to pay on your 30 year mortgage after 30 years!

And when local governments had this power they renewed the cable monopolies anyway?! In 2005 San Francisco, for $8 million upfront and $500k a year, the SF government sold Comcast exclusive rights to SF's 800,000+ residents for 4 years. And this has effectively been extended indefinitely.

This is a good example of the difference between the public and private sectors.

[1] [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Board- pa...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-Board-panel-OKs- Comcast-deal-2650404.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The link above is more or less blogspam. Here is the full article it links to: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383)

</comment><comment><USER9> Whenever there is article about internet prices I always see a lot of mistakes in calculations, question is just why? I am Lithuanian, living in London for the last 4 years. When I left Lithuania at 2010, you could have got 100mbps internet with unlimited traffic starting from £25 per month. Now you can get plan for same 100mbps internet for barely £12.5. Plus no contract, no traffic controlling, so you can keep your torrents 7/24\. In the mean time in UK, I just last Summer finally got the upgrade to super old-school ~6mbps internet, now speeds reach 60mbps for a price ~£40 per month, and there is a regulation of traffic, so any weekend or evening internet can slow down for torrents.

In a nutshell at 2014 this what you get in UK vs Lithuania:

BT - UK: 60mbps > £40 > regulated traffic > plus contract 12/24 month.

Meganet - LT: 100mbps > £12 > non-regulated traffic > no contract.

</comment><comment><USER10> This chart is meaningless for several reasons.

1) It's well-known that U.S. providers achieve closer to advertised speeds than European providers. That's why the U.S. does way better in Akamai's tests of actual bandwidth than the OECD's study involving advertised bandwidth. The U.S. is currently 8th for highest average internet speed in Akamai's most recent state of the internet: [http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai- soti-q313.pdf?WT.mc_i...](http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai- soti-q313.pdf?WT.mc_id=soti_Q313) (see page 13).

2) It's not adjusted for price level in each country. Many things are cheaper in Hungary or Slovenia than the U.S. Internet service isn't a commodity good like an iPhone where everything is assembled in China. Internet infrastructure is put down and maintained by (often unionized) U.S. workers earning U.S. wages, and sold to customers also earning U.S. wages.

3) It ignores the cost of government subsidies: [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband- gap-w...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-why-do- they-have-more-fiber/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0) ("There are only a handful of major projects worldwide to build fiber lines to homes that don't involve significant government aid of some sort, Mr. Burstein said, including Verizon's FiOS and Iliad's fiber network in some large French cities.").

<comment><USER11> US ISPs regularly get government subsidies. Hell they took 200 billion to start building fiber in 1996, then they didn't do it.

<comment><USER10> First, the $200 billion number is a total fabrication. It was derived by projecting how much more profit telecoms made after deregulation in 1996 than they would have had as tightly-regulated utilities. It's not money actually invested. The states never had that kind of money to invest.

Second, to the extent that tax breaks, etc, were handed out, it wasn't combined with the kind of political will you see in European countries or Asian countries. In South Korea, wiring Seoul up with fiber is a politically tractable proposal. In the U.S., wiring New York and Chicago and LA up with fiber is a political non-starter. In the U.S., rural votes count about 2x as much as urban votes, so to the extent that broadband appears on the political radar, it's all about making sure people in rural Kentucky can get DSL, not making sure people in major cities can get fiber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In many US cities, internet is a duopoly, so everyone is squeezed.

My ISP raises its price $5/mo every year.

I pay $50 for 5mbps with 100GB monthly cap.

Five years ago it was half the price.

They are making a killing.

</comment><comment><USER13> Canada is not shown. If memory serves, we'd be worse off than USA.

Strange to depict Australia, but not Canada.

<comment><USER14> Canada is between Austria and Hungary on the graph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Something I don't see addressed in many of the discussions around broadband (and a question I have) is how infrastructure already in place impacts the cost to provide faster service.

Obviously countries that skip the middle steps and go straight to, say, mobile phones without wiring up the country on hard lines have a better capability for less sunk cost. How much is this phenomenon impacting current US broadband? Are we still using crappy cable wiring from the 80s, or are we just being taken to the cleaners because we can? Appreciate anyone that may have more insight or experience taking a crack at the question.

<comment><USER16> We definitely have some problems with old infrastructure, particularly when you're talking about phone lines and DSL. Some houses still have really old lines running to them and even older lines inside them (I swear my previous house had phone cable from the 1940's). Tearing out and replacing all that stuff is quite expensive. This is sometimes called the "last mile problem." [1]

On the other hand, mobile phones are not a great analogy. Going straight to mobile allows you to skip digging up all the streets in town, but any sort of wired internet you have to put the wires somewhere. Putting in fiber right off the bat is certainly better, but you still had to do all that digging and installing.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile#Existing_delivery_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile#Existing_delivery_system_problems)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Lol. Wonder why they never bothered to put Romania on this cart. Is it because they have the best prices (1) at the moment?

[1] [http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi- net/fiberlink?t=internet...](http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi- net/fiberlink?t=internet-fix&pachet=digi_net_fiberlink_1000)

If you were wondering yes 60RON is about £12.

</comment><comment><USER18> Slightly off topic but I wonder why Romania was not included seeing that it's often quoted as having the fastest and cheapest internet in Europe.

[http://www.bne.eu/story5565/Romania_ranks_first_in_CEECIS_fo...](http://www.bne.eu/story5565/Romania_ranks_first_in_CEECIS_for_internet_speed)

</comment><comment><USER19> It says that more competition would drive prices down. Is there more competition in Korea, Denmark and The Netherlands?

I don't actually know; it'd be interesting to find out!

<comment><USER20> In the Netherlands, cable providers are essentially monopolists in their areas. On ADSL and fiber (where that is available), however, there's about 15 competitors or so. So, seems like it does.

<comment><USER21> Situation in The Netherlands is complex. There is competition between techniques, ADSL, Cable and Fiber. But realistically, ADSL is becoming too slow, fiber is still to expensive. And cable currently hits the sweet spot. But, cable companies are merging and basically there are now only two major companies who are talking with each to merge together. Thus creating an almost monopoly on cable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article doesn't live up to the title. It is just a chart of prices followed by basically "because monopolies" with nearly no supporting evidence.

</comment><comment><USER23> South Africa would have made that chart look totally out of proportion :) I believe 1Mb/s is going for around $35-$60/month

</comment><comment><USER24> Some of those countries listed are smaller than the state I live in (area not population).

Also, I believe that in the US we have much higher data caps for home internet. My cap is 300GB a month from Communistcast I cant find the reference now but I remember reading about some places in Europe on giving something like 50GB a month. Sure you may have a faster connection but you will blow through your data cap faster.

<comment><USER25> I don't know any Spanish or Italian broadband ISP that caps the connection

<comment><USER24> Here is one instance for Germany starting in 2016: [http://www.zdnet.com/deutsche-telekom-tweaks-plan-to- bring-i...](http://www.zdnet.com/deutsche-telekom-tweaks-plan-to-bring-in- broadband-data-caps-throttling-in-2016-7000016889/)

Here is British Telecom: [http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10495/~/bt- br...](http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10495/~/bt-broadband- usage-policy)

And finally here is a list on Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cable_Internet_provider...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cable_Internet_providers#Europe)

Thanks for picking two countries that dont have caps. I guess I shouldve been clearer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Glad I live in the UK - that graph shows why our internet is so amazing and so cheap!

<comment><USER27> I wonder which regulations in the UK allow for it to be so cheap. Where I live in Belfast, our only high speed internet option is Virgin, so it might as well be a monopoly as far as we're concerned, and yet we only pay the equivalent of about $30 a month for internet and +200 channels.

Maybe part of the tv license fee is going towards infrastructure costs?</comment></comment>


Google Announces 8x Faster TPU 3.0 for AI, Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/269008-google-announces-8x-faster-tpu-3-0-for-ai-machine-learning <comment><AUTHOR> not so sure if this number (that of new tpu pods reaching 100 pflops) makes sense. it seems to be higher than many supercomputers. putting 10 of these would reach 1-exaflop, which is _estimated_ (iirc) to be human brain's computation power.</comment>


CDC Suggests Avoiding Open Plan Offices - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/health/coronavirus-workplace-cdc.html <comment><USER2> I think open plan offices started to become a thing in the late 90's just before the first dotcom crash. At least that was the first time I encountered the concept codified into a formal term that everyone was throwing around. That, and "management by walking around" (which i think was the pre-cursor to "stand up meetings".) Anyway, I hated the open-office concept then and I still hate it now. Its noisy, distracting, invasive...it really made me miss cubicles. I can't believe it took a worldwide pandemic to get people to reconsider them...

<comment><USER3> I visited banks in the late 80s early 90s and the open office was already going. Wasn't a trading floor but they did need to get info from each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Over the last 3 months I've come to believe increasing human urban density is correlated with increasing viral illness. Over the next tens and hundreds of years, this bodes poorly for the viability of Tokyo/New York/Mumbai/Seoul and others.

I'll offer that only Tokyo may yet survive another couple of hundred years of widespread, infective zoonotic diseases, as Japan's astonishingly low fertility rate might halve or quarter their population by the year 2200.

Curious what others think about long term population trends vis a vis human health?

<comment><USER5> This is purely my personal opinion, but I'm not sure if one pandemic in 100 years will be enough to influence population trends. But I think if this happens again, definitely.

I also wanted to add that human health comes in many dimensions. Having lived for years in a mega city, it's clear to me that it is bad for my mental and physical health. There is something spiritually and mentally freeing about lower density cities and the balance they strike. They also encourage you to experience the outdoors more. The character of smaller cities - like open air, outside the shadows of high rises or even mid rises, with ample green spaces, private homes with backyards, etc. are a massive boon to overall health.

I view overurbanization as a fad that we will ultimately pull back from as we return to seek the basics and a connection to a simpler existence. Or maybe that's just my hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One can dream.

I never understood why cubicles took on a bad rap. Who doesn't like their own room? It's your own room in the office.

<comment><USER7> I don't know how the "hip" companies foisted this idea so successfully upon their workers. Maybe they took advantage of their naïveté and their tendency for group behavior. But man oh man, did they ever pull a fast one on them. I mean in the late aughts people dreamt of massive interconnected organic open offices where they and their bosses shared equal space (and pretend flat orgs).... ha!

<comment><USER8> The bosses didn't sell it and the workers didn't buy it. There was no discussion nor choice. It just happened because it was cheaper. It happened because startup culture couldn't afford it and startup culture is worshipped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good read. I also believe sanitation companies will continue to be in demand in foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER10> Although my company is doing right by IT workers and actually requiring everyone to work from home I'm skeptical this will result in any real change when we do return to the office. Honestly WeWork is staring to look appealing if I want a lockable office instead of a cube.

<comment><USER11> The only issue that you comes to mind when it comes to renting out a WeWork is the cleanliness of the room since it will be in constant rotation of people throughout the day..

<comment><USER12> WeWork do private glass cubicles - they get thoroughly cleaned daily.

I had one for a few years, it certainly has a door but the walls are made of lots of glass panes with nothing to seal the gaps - so you see and hear everything your neighbours and the occupants of the hallway are doing.

Since most folk take their calls in the corridors they're not actually that great if peace and quiet is what you're after. Here's an example: [https://i.imgur.com/Iuj1mo9.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Iuj1mo9.jpg)

<comment><USER10> Oh well that's disappointing. Thanks for the heads up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to hate open plan offices. I still do, but now a have a citable excuse.</comment>


Ask HN: Inventory management software for a new online retailer - <AUTHOR> I am setting up a new online store and I want to also sell on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, but I want a single piece of software that links to everything, I don't want to have to access each marketplace separately, I want to automate the process as much as possible, so I can concentrate on building the business and not doing product listing uploads.<p>Any ideas on what software I need? <comment><USER2> Do a Google Search for 'multi channel ecommerce software' and you will get lists of inventory management software that connects to marketplaces like Amazon and Ebay.

For example: [https://www.sellbrite.com/](https://www.sellbrite.com/) [http://www.linnworks.com/](http://www.linnworks.com/) [https://www.channelgrabber.com/](https://www.channelgrabber.com/) \- UK based

Or if you have the startup capital have custom inventory management software created to fit your business by a software development company.</comment>


An Ember JS Gauge Component - <AUTHOR> http://front-back.com/an-ember-js-gauge-component

<comment><USER2> This looks awesome! Also a good resource for building ember ui components. Great job!</comment>


More Bad English, Please (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://ostatic.com/blog/more-bad-english-please <comment><USER2> This is a good point to make! I don't know how accurate the article is about the emotion or reason behind this phrase being written.

I've always taken it as a social shorthand for communicating that the writing may not be interpreted 100% in the way it was intended so more thought may be required before responding. Also, I take it to mean that the writer is aware their writing is not perfect. Some may perceive that as embarrassment but it could also come from a place of humility, respect to the language, and to establish a baseline of understanding with the reader.

Just because someone is in the minority doesn't mean they feel embarrassed about it.

<comment><USER3> Maybe people associate bad grammar and limited vocabulary with lower intelligence, which may be somewhat justified for native speakers. I think announcing your poor English will make readers be mindful and see through your language barrier.

I don't think it's really about feeling embarrassed. I remember reading about a study that showed people with foreign accents are judged to have lower intelligence levels. I think, in general, bringing your language handicap to people's conscious mind will prevent them from making such subconscious judgements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey (Good) English is hard. Be thankful most of the planet feels compelled to learn it and you natives don't even have to learn a single foreign language. I wish I would be in that position, but I'm not. So excuse my french. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to my English lessons which consist in watching american TV-shows ...

</comment><comment><USER5> Sometimes when I stumble reading poor English I wish there was a way I could gently, privately, suggest corrections without making the author feel criticized.

I never feel it is appropriate to do so in a comment or reply because I am not critiquing their ideas. Usually the meaning is perfectly clear, but to a native speaker's ear it can just feel awkward.

Of course, we all make typos or fail to proofread adequately so we could all benefit from a kindly edit now and then.

</comment><comment><USER6> I could not disagree more stridently. If the goal is clear, concise communication, the ask-er should be reasonably fluent in the language they presume to get a response in. If I had to start asking questions in a primarily-Japanese tech forum, you can bet I would make sure my written Japanese was pretty darned good before I start bothering native speakers whom I'm hoping will help me for free. Yes, that process might take years, but that's what I'm signing up for if I choose a primarily-Japanese supported widget. If I'm imposing on someone, the expectation is that I am going to bend over backwards to not waste their time, and that means communicating clearly.

See: [http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart- questions.html#writewell](http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart- questions.html#writewell)

<comment><USER7> This is the old internet mindset, which apparently is not appreciated anymore. I agree with you, nobody that is helping strangers out of love and compassion, with no dollar signs attached to that role, should go out of their way to suffer fools. I guess the days of BBS's and forums with always-stickied "Search the site first" and "For Beginners" threads is in the past.

<comment><USER8> ah yes. the thousands of moderators that thundered at you with "USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION!!" while the first 10 result pages just yielded topics of people who got told they should use the search function.

merry days...

<comment><USER7> Inevitably leading to innumerable "the search function is broken" threads...

I really miss forums, in some ways. There are so few of them that are really active these days.

<comment><USER8> I liked them for their community character, this is totally missing in wikipedia, stackexchange and HN, but these three are still better information sources than the forums back in the days.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Boar wars: how wild hogs are trashing European cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/boar-wars-how-wild-hogs-are-trashing-european-cities <comment><USER2> > The arrival of wild boar in town squares and city parks is forcing us to > confront a new reality: we are bumping up against the limits of > urbanisation. This is a crisis we have largely inflicted on ourselves. City > sprawl is driving the species out of its dwindling natural habitats and > forcing it to live alongside us.

What? That makes no sense. Increasing urbanization in larger cities means higher average population densities where people live, which means _more_ land available for nature, not less.

It seems more likely that is an issue of a cultural attitudes towards animals being increasingly cuddly, and hesitant to use hunting, or similarly straightforward and lethal methods, to deal with the encroaching animals.

<comment><USER3> More people moving into and living in large cities doesn't necessarily mean the lesser populated land grows, or the built environment there is shrinking. As it happens, whereever i lived formerly and bicycled far as a child/young adult and _knew_ the territory, when compared to now on something like google/bing/whatevermaps the built environment there has massively grown outwards along the few streets connecting the smaller towns and villages. Unfortunately the applications which incorporate a time slider where you can directly compare this lack coverage, both in time and places. Call it a "dark age" ;-)

In german this is called "Zersiedelung" which means something like urban sprawl, but it's not something only related to cities, but the whole landscape.

<comment><USER4> Also, we have largely increased the average space per person. So even if people move into cities with higher densities, this might be largely compensated by larger living spaces per person everywhere else (including the City).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, they've figured out that hunting is prohibited in the cities. What did you expect?

<comment><USER6> At least in Berlin, it is not - the city does employ several hunters to limit boar numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An invasive species under attack by human "urbanization". Sounds good to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I say we mount AI controlled weapons on the boar's back to give them a fighting chance against humans.

<comment><USER9> Boars with friggin lasers....the lasers are controlled by sharks.</comment></comment>


Dumped amid coronavirus, former Bloomberg campaign aides sue for pay, benefits - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-bloomberg/dumped-amid-coronavirus-former-bloomberg-campaign-aides-sue-for-pay-and-benefits-idUSKBN21A3GS <comment><USER2> Classic</comment>


Continuous Deployment with BitBalloon and Travis CI - <AUTHOR> https://www.bitballoon.com/blog/2013/10/31/continuous-deployment-with-bitballoon-and-travis-ci

<comment><USER2> Great post! ;)</comment>


Introducing Ouster – Commercially viable LiDAR - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/11/lidar-autonomous-sensor-startup-ouster-announces-27m-series-a-led-by-auto-powerhouse-cox-enterprises/ <comment><USER2> The 64 beam output seen on their website [0] looks very good.

A couple of good things going for them:

* Clean, dense LIDAR data [1]

* Readily available (as per their claims in different articles [2])

* Small form factor

* Relatively cheap, compared to Velodyne [3]

[0] [https://www.ouster.io/](https://www.ouster.io/)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC6isLZo5Do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC6isLZo5Do)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/12/11/robocar-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/12/11/robocar- lidar-startup-ouster-has-a-novel-pitch-you-can-buy-our-sensor- now/#187d256655fe)

[3] [https://www.ouster.io/buy-now/](https://www.ouster.io/buy-now/)</comment>


Oracle v. Google - The Court Questions Oracle's Damages Report - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110710090010182

<comment><USER2> That doesn't surprise me at all. It almost seemed as if Oracle is asking for so much to make the accusation seem more _real_ , and make people think they are right on this.

I suppose that sort of worked for RIAA when they asked for $75 _trillion_ from Limewire. They did win, although they only got $100 million from them. Patent and copyright trolls are quite pathetic.

<comment><USER3> An IP troll is properly a non-practicing entity. Both RIAA and Oracle provide the IP in question.

The excessive requests are partly negotiation - in our adversarial system, it's counsels' job, on each side, to put their case as strongly as possible, and the judge (and jury if applicable) to decide. So they _ask_ for as much as they can. The decisions often seem excessive to me - but that's the fault of the judge, jury and law.

BTW: given that Google knew they were on dodgey ground when they used Java differently from Sun's licensing, and a lot of money has changed hands based on it, there could be a high pay-out. One guide is when Sun sued Microsoft for breaking compatibility with Java: $20 million [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#Sun_vs._Microsoft) (though MS was happy with the outcome, and I think they know they got off lightly). OTOH, when Oracle sued SAP for some dodgey business practices, they won $1.3 billion [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine#Sun_vs._Microsoft) (SAP wasn't happy).</comment></comment>


What are the most popular news links today? Interesting approach. - <AUTHOR> http://mostpop.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like the planned features (<http://mostpop.com/idea/>):

-link recommendations and anti-recommendations (things you likely wouldn't have seen, but lots of other people have read)

-a map of the Internet showing clusters of news sites that are frequented by the same groups of people

-make the web page visitation data available to everyone (anonymized, of course)</comment>


Denver decriminalizes psychedelic mushrooms - <AUTHOR> https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/08/denver-psychedelic-magic-mushroom/ <comment><USER2> > As written, I-301 directs police via ordinance to treat enforcement of laws > against possession of psilocybin mushrooms as their lowest priority ... > Psychedelic mushrooms still would remain illegal to buy, sell or possess ... > Initiative 301 backers hope to lower the risk users face of getting caught > with mushrooms.

So "decriminalize" seems to be the wrong word since it's just as criminal as before. Better would be "deprioritize".

> The past marijuana efforts are instructive, though. Denver voters signed off > on decriminalization measures in 2005 and 2007, but that didn't stop police > from enforcing the law

So even deprioritization is more hope than accomplishment.

<comment><USER3> That's what decriminalization means:

> In a federal country, acts may be decriminalized by one level of government > while still subject to penalties levied by another; for example, possession > of a decriminalized drug may still be subject to criminal charges by one > level of government, but another may yet impose a monetary fine. This should > be contrasted with legalization, which removes all or most legal detriments > from a previously illegal act.

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

<comment><USER4> Huh? Decriminalization would be the state declaring that possessing Psilocybin is not illegal under state law. Directing law enforcement to de-prioritize it is not the same thing.

<comment><USER5> Decriminalization means that the lowest misdemeanor is replaced by a civil citation or confiscation.

You might still have to pay a fine like a traffic ticket, but it's not a criminal charge or an arrest.

It's also still illegal to purchase but you won't be charged for doing so.

<comment><USER6> How does this work if someone on for example a green card got caught and cited for possession? Since it's still a violation of controlled substances act would it affect a citizenship application?

<comment><USER7> Yes, federal law applies for immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Absolutely fantastic news! I've had highly therapeutic experiences using psychedelics even just in the company of close friends and a relaxed, accepting atmosphere. There genuinely is medical benefit to these substances when used in a peaceful environment and amongst those you trust, and I can only imagine the benefit that a trained professional can provide: a psychologist could truly be the 21st century's "shaman." The positive effects of decriminalization/legalization on the nation could be the psychedelic renaissance that Leary always advocated for.

I'm glad that Denver isn't giving into fear mongering regarding the chemistry of our own bodies.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely agree.

If you can't find a trained guide, having close trusted friends sit for you can be of tremendous therapeutic and healing value. And, yes, working with a trained guide can be of huge benefit -- they support you in creating a safe and powerful set and setting. The work can definitely be shamanic - one of the things these substances have the potential to do is to teach us how to shamanically journey within ourselves. The safer our psyche feels, the deeper we can go.

I want to mention that there are many professions other than psychologist that are a natural fit for safely guiding people in states of expanded consciousness.

Many people who provide this kind of service are trained and apprenticed specifically in this kind of work after education and work experience in other healing and service oriented fields like therapy, counseling, ministry, medicine, nursing, bodywork, music therapy, etc. And they have lots of personal experience being in expanded states themselves, working with a guide (that's part of the apprenticeship).

<comment><USER10> How do you go about finding a trained guide? This is the part that has always confused me. In Michael Pollan's interviews on the subject he basically says he was lucky to have money and connections, and otherwise avoids answering that topic.

<comment><USER11> See resources on this here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PsychedelicTherapy/comments/beou26/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PsychedelicTherapy/comments/beou26/what_are_the_resources_youd_suggest_to_people_who/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If anyone is interested in commentary on this, this video with Anderson Cooper and Michael Pollan is great: [https://www.facebook.com/AndersonCooperFullCircle/videos/den...](https://www.facebook.com/AndersonCooperFullCircle/videos/denver- votes-on-legalizing-magic-mushrooms/604085593402796/). They talk about the psilocybin vote at the start of the video and at about 3.5 mins in.

<comment><USER12> I'm most of the way through Michael Pollan's book "How to Change Your Mind" and it is excellent as well.

<comment><USER13> Its on a my reading list since he talked about it on joe rogan. Is it worth the time? what did you get out of it so far?

<comment><USER14> You get a lot of history and also the experiences of a pretty normal person. A lot of information about psychedelics comes from people who take a lot of drugs. I am generally not interested in taking substances so I could relate to this book more than other material.

Definitely worth a read.

<comment><USER12> I would agree with this. He does a great job at describing things more like a "normal person" than a hardcore drug user/experimenter.

I actually disagree with Pollan on what he thinks drug laws should be. He generally supports decriminalization of some things like mushrooms, but then supports heavy state paternalism by keeping them restricted from any recreational use.

Still, a great read and I really appreciate his work.

<comment><USER14> In general with a lot of authors I prefer hearing their analysis and their experiences and tend to not care much for their solutions. Like you I tend to disagree with thoughts about restrictions but the writing about history and what he experienced is very good. Same could be said for Marx: His analysis of what capitalism is and where it leads is right on but then his solutions are a little questionable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting, I saw an article claiming it narrowly failed a bit ago and was saddened.

I have never tried them personally, but I suspect the threat of being arrested makes it harder to have a good "set and setting".

I know that I never enjoyed cannabis until a trip to a place it was legal. Knowing that I was 100% ok to imbibe took away all my worries about detection, people knowing I was high, etc, and let me enjoy the experience.

<comment><USER16> Shrooms are very different. Brain chemistry almost impossible to predict ~ you may think you have a good set and setting, and then get permanently damaged.

Who knew!

<comment><USER17> Permanently damaged?

Got a source that shows, empirically, you're more likely to be permanently damaged from taking psilocybin than while commuting to work, jogging, swimming, or doing any other normal life activity?

Sure, I'm not going to argue with you that some people shouldn't be doing these things alone. Shit, I would even argue that someone experienced actually _should_ probably be around to assist and guide. Shamans, witches, clergy, magicians, psychologists, gurus, life coaches, etc.... there's no shortage of archetypes to fit the paradigm. It's a real thing, and we should support it.

... and if someone wants to just go trip and journey on their own... they should be allowed... and we should do all we can to help them prepare.

<comment><USER18> > Got a source that shows, empirically, you're more likely to be permanently > damaged from taking psilocybin than while commuting to work, jogging, > swimming, or doing any other normal life activity?

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9875725](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9875725)

<comment><USER19> This paper merely suggests that a drug used for treating schizophrenia can inhibit some aspects of the experiences that individuals have on psylocibin. The paper does not suggest long term damage and if it did, the study would have been terminated early and psylocibin would not be acceptable for continued research in Switzerland (where the study was conducted) or in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Story isn't entirely accurate, Connecticut decriminalized them a couple years ago:

[https://apnews.com/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb](https://apnews.com/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb)

[https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07...](https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07104SS1-PA.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Sort of. "Connecticut's drug laws will go from some of the most draconian in the country to some of the most lenient this fall when most drug possession crimes are reduced from __felonies to misdemeanors __" So drug possession is still a misdemeanor in CT.

When I hear decriminalized I think no criminal penalties and civil infraction only, and technically decriminalization really means no penalties. Sadly, that's not what this is.

Still, the Connecticut policy is a step the right direction.

The Denver one isn't technically decriminalization either, but it's effectively decriminalization, at least in terms of Denver city police.

Also, there are a number of other states that have reduced criminal penalties for drug possession from felony to misdemeanor, such as Oregon and California.

<comment><USER20> Good clarification. For all intents and purposes though getting caught with mushrooms goes from being extremely scary to not scary at all. Even though theoretically they can put you in prison for a year for the misdemeanor, in practice you're probably more likely to get a $300 fine as long as you weren't in a school zone.

Even though everyone hated Malloy for whatever reason, he actually did a lot of good stuff for the state and it seems like Lamont is going to keep expanding on the criminal justice reform stuff that he got started. And now that Toni Boucher is finally gone it will hopefully keep passing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Says something for the value of some sort of CI process. Here in Australia there are clear popular majorities for some form of loosening laws re marijuana, yet any politician who makes serious moves in that direction is crucified by the far right press. In effect, a foreigner (Rupert Murdoch) has a veto over Australian laws.

Even with a CI though, magic mushrooms would be a bridge too far here I suspect. Imagine allowing people to pick what's growing in the paddocks around them? The suburban world might end.

<comment><USER22> Rupert Murdoch is somewhat a foreigner to you, having gained US citizenship in 1985, but he comes from Australia. He was born there. I don't know if you recognize dual citizenship, but if you do then it seems he is still Australian. His son James Murdoch is eligible to have Australian citizenship.

Their press may be a "far right press" by Australian standards, but over here they make donations to our more-left party. James Murdoch gave the legal maximum amount to Pete Buttigieg, who is hardly far right by American standards.

<comment><USER21> > Rupert Murdoch is somewhat a foreigner to you,

He gave up his Australian citizenship to further his US business interests. He is widely considered to be an enemy of the nation. I regret my 'foreigner' cheap shot though. It's irrelevant, even a tad xenophobic.

> Their press may be a "far right press" by Australian standards, but over > here they make donations to our more-left party.

Fox News!

The fact that Murdoch may attempt to smear his malign influence also over corporate Dems (a standard balanced corruption portfolio) is little mitigation.

> James Murdoch gave the legal maximum amount to Pete Buttigieg

Different person.

<comment><USER22> If you're going to apply the adjective "far" to Fox News, then you'll also need to apply it to the New York Times. According to Pew Research, that is more to the left than Fox is to the right.

I think "far" should be reserved for Slate, Breitbart, NPR, New Yorker, Glenn Beck Program, Daily Show, Sean Hannity Show, Colbert Report, Rush Limbaugh Show, Daily Kos, TheBlaze, Mother Jones.

ABC is near the center. Here is a chart centered on that, and you can pick others by clicking on the dots below:

[https://www.journalism.org/interactives/media- polarization/o...](https://www.journalism.org/interactives/media- polarization/outlet/abc-news/)

BTW, now that I think of it, Americans have a stronger case that a foreigner is running their news. By some measures, an Australian is running the largest news source. The change of citizenship is just a business tactic to enable that.

<comment><USER21> > Americans have a stronger case that a foreigner is running their news

We'll accept blame for his having been spawned, but he's totally yours now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm confused. If the federal government needed an amendment to criminalize alcohol how did it have the power to criminalize other drugs without an amendment?

<comment><USER24> In principle, the constitution outlines a federal government with specific, limited, enumerated powers. Over time, our interpretation of what those powers are and how they can be applied has changed a lot.

The 18th was considered to be needed because although Congress _does_ have the power to regulate interstate commerce, obviously selling alcohol isn't really interstate commerce. You might be brewing your own beer, or buying whisky at a local bar that was distilled in the next city over. Since it's not interstate commerce, it's not one of the enumerated powers, so Congress can't do it without an ammendment.

No ammendment was considered to be needed for marijuana because, by the time the issue came up, our understanding of the commerce clause had changed. Today we would say that _everything_ is interstate commerce. Even if you grow it yourself, you _could_ choose to sell it across state lines, and your decision to grow versus buy was probably impacted by the price of buying it, which in turn depends on the price in other states. In Wickard v. Filburn ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn)), the Supreme Court found that growing wheat on your own land to feed to your own chickens was interstate commerce, because his decision to do so had an economic impact on interstate commerce. In Gonzales v. Raich ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich)) the court made it clear this applied even if there _is_ no (legal) interstate commerce.

Under these precedents, the 18th amendment would not be necessary. Whether that suggests the poor benighted fools back then just didn't understand their own constitution, or whether modern jurisprudence has abandoned the true meaning of the text, or whether the constitution is a living document that may mean different things in different eras, even if the wording doesn't change is a matter of heated debate. :)

<comment><USER17> > the Supreme Court found that growing wheat on your own land to feed to your > own chickens was interstate commerce

ONLY because it affected the sale of other grains... in theory, because instead of buying grain off the market to feed your chickens, you used your own grain, which not only deprived the market of your purchase, it also took grains away from the market also... since you didn't sell them.

there is no competition for cannabis or psilocybin.

i'd love to see this argued in court.

> or whether modern jurisprudence has abandoned the true meaning of the text

mhmmmmmmmmmmm

<comment><USER24> > there is no competition for cannabis or psilocybin.

> i'd love to see this argued in court.

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

> In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power > because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat > or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national > market for that commodity.

(To be clear, I disagree strongly with the decision, which I think was deeply misguided.)

<comment><USER17> Recent... and interesting...

> Respondents in this case do not dispute that passage of the CSA, as part of > the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, was well within > Congress' commerce power. Nor do they contend that any provision or section > of the CSA amounts to an unconstitutional exercise of congressional > authority. Rather, respondents' challenge is actually quite limited; they > argue that the CSA's categorical prohibition of the manufacture and > possession of marijuana as applied to the intrastate manufacture and > possession of marijuana for medical purposes pursuant to California law > exceeds Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause.

Seems to me that this is actually arguing _against_ the federal government.

But then...

> the diversion of homegrown marijuana tends to frustrate the federal interest > in eliminating commercial transactions in the interstate market in their > entirety. In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' > commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home > consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply > and demand in the national market for that commodity.

I will have to dig into this to understand the nuance, but... it seems that it might be _slightly_ different.

<comment><USER17> the funny thing is, technically, if they did legalize cannabis and psilicybin, federally, THEN, it actually would fall under the commerce clause and they could regulate it as they see fit.

checkmate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Psychedelics have their ups and downs, but perhaps their best quality is their ability to enhance perspective. Being able to understand different points of views probably will change humans.

Just recently there was an article on the front or second page of hacker news which claimed caffeine and alcohol are responsible for civilization. ([http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/02/28/alcohol- caf...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/02/28/alcohol-caffeine- coffee-evolution-humans-column/98210372/))

I can't even imagine what our distant future holds as psychedelics become more accepted, but it is extremely encouraging given the mindset of our current leadership!

<comment><USER26> A theory on psilocybin's role in human evolution:

[https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape- hypothesis](https://www.inverse.com/article/34186-stoned-ape-hypothesis)

It's best to listen to audio of Terence himself laying out the theory, he's a fantastic orator.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFC- sVa9AE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFC-sVa9AE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I took psilocybin twice in my life. The first time was in my early twenties and it helped me figure out what to do with my life. The second time was following a difficult separation with the mother of my children and helped me move on.

I don't recommend it unless you are followed by a therapist and if you do decide to take some make sure you have integration time a day or two after and that someone is near you while you're on it.

Also read Michael Pollan's How To Change Your Mind prior.

<comment><USER28> I took psilocybin (est) 100+ times. My recommendations are the opposite of yours. First, I recommend everyone who is highly self-aware and extremely curious about the nature of the mind try it, _multiple times_ . There is literally nothing else (besides other psychedelics) that can - so easily - blow apart the doors of the mind and give access to what lies beneath the surface.

I don't suggest reading anything written in a commercial / contemporary setting prior to the experience. It will "infect" you with somebody else's ideas / models of the mind. What I do recommend, is immersing oneself in the myths and archetypes of one's own culture.

Finally, it goes without saying that psilocybin is not really a party drug and works best for inner exploration (psychonautics). One should minimize outside distractions by laying down, with eyes closed and listening to white noise or minimal ambient music whilst focusing on an "inner dive".

<comment><USER29> A lot of people use it as a party drug though. It's becoming increasingly common to microdose because it has similar effects at small dosages as MDMA -- elation, putting a shiny glimmer on the world. I'm not recommending it, but I see it increasingly often here where ecstasy used to be the norm.

I'm not sure we should ever be encouraging people to do a deep psychonautic dive. We don't know what past history of mental health issues someone may have in their family or what crucial brain development stages they may be at in their maturing psyche. I'd hate to be the reason someone dove off the deep end into mental illness because they were just at the precipice of brain development. I may not have experience, but I do know that psychedelics are not a one size fits all.

<comment><USER30> As long as the risk is stated, I think encouraging the use of psychedelics is fine.

I don't frown on people using them as party drugs, but I do hope they eventually do them out of those settings in a more mindful way.

I've seen people transform through the use of psychedelics, not because it impregnated them with new ideas but because it let them feel free to explore the wide range of ideas available to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Psilocybin mushrooms are less legal in The Netherlands than in Denver. All because a French student committed suicide in Amsterdam after eating mushrooms.

<comment><USER32> Depends on where you get the Psilocybin from. Search "Magic Truffles"

<comment><USER31> True, although those are technically not psilocybin mushrooms. Also, AFAIK the fly agaric (amanita muscaria) is still legal. It is also very clearly references in all kind of folklore (including religions).

<comment><USER33> Amanita Muscaria does not contain psilocybin and will make you very sick before making you fly. Interesting side note: in eastern Siberia only the shamans were allowed to eat these mushrooms. Other members of the tribe would drink his urine.

<comment><USER31> > Amanita Muscaria does not contain psilocybin

I never said it does.

> will make you very sick before making you fly.

I've used a.muscaria twice, from a reputable source (no self plucking). It never made me sick. It is perfectly safe to use. It did make me pee a lot, and my pee stank. Back when I bought it, it was legal to buy the powder in The Netherlands. I don't know about the legal state as it is.

<comment><USER33> Apparently their sale was banned in the Netherlands around the same time psilocybin mushrooms were. But they grow literally everywhere in autumn, so yeah.

Never tried them myself, but a friend did and he did experience the fairly common symptoms of severe nausea and falling asleep before having a very good trip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Do acid and molly next.

<comment><USER35> Molly's significantly more dangerous than acid or psilocybin, no?

<comment><USER36> It's kind of apples to oranges. Neither have bad direct side-effects, but they should be taken knowing what you're going into.

Acid you should know that you'll need a good two days free to really enjoy yourself. The first 12 hours will be an intense mental journey. The next day or so is used to recover as you'll be mentally exhausted. If it's your first time though, you may not know how to handle it, so you'll need a guide. That's the biggest risk when taking acid, you need the emotional intelligence or you'll have a horrific time.

MDMA is a much shorter trip and everything will be good, no matter your state of mind. The risk with MDMA is after the trip. You'll be drained of your serotonin so you'll feel fatigued and depressed. It's recommended to take 5-HTP supplements to rebuild your serotonin. Also don't take anymore MDMA for a couple months, I usually wait 3-5 months at least.

tldr: you won't want to abuse Acid because it's so exhausting, you'll want to abuse MDMA because it's so wonderful. Like any drug, you need self control.

<comment><USER37> That's great advice.

<comment><USER36> Thanks, I've been contemplating writing articles for my blog about safe tripping for various drugs. I just wasn't sure if there was interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I suffer from Tinnitus Distress and Ménière's.

From my limited experience with Psilocybin mushrooms, I believe that occasional low dosages might provide me with weeks or even months of symptom suppression and relief.

Any steps towards making possession less risky would be extremely welcome.

</comment><comment><USER39> The key question I have about decriminalisation of marijuana and things like mushrooms and hopefully MDMA soon, is "will it reduce the number of people who try meth/ice?"

My theory is that people become addicted to meth/ice because they want to get high, but "good" drugs like marijuana and MDMA/mushrooms are not legal/available/cheap, so people buy/try meth/ice.

Put another way, my theory is that legalisation of "good" drugs like marijuana will lead to fewer people trying/becoming addicted to meth/ice. I wonder if its working out that way in places where marijuana is legalised.

<comment><USER17> >people become addicted to meth/ice because they want to get high

s/want to get high/are unhappy

and... not because they want to get high, but, because meth is addictive, by it's very nature. cannabis and psilocybin are not addictive. to further your point...

<comment><USER40> > cannabis and psilocybin are not addictive.

Not _physically_ addictive. It's important to realise the difference because you can become mentally/psychological dependent on almost anything, including drugs.

As some anecdotal evidence I have a friend who was addicted to cannabis. It stemmed from his cigarette addiction, which he essentially replaced when he started smoking weed. He smoked weed every day for 4-5 years. Obviously that is not healthy. He's off it now, around a year. Needless to say, getting over a psychological addiction is much easier than a physical one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This turned into a semantics conversation pretty quickly!

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd argue that "de-prioritization" is worse than the status quo because it allows more people to feel secure using the drug but lets the state retain power of arbitrary enforcement.

<comment><USER43> Baby steps.

I remember smoking cannabis openly in front of police officers in British Columbia 20 years ago because they had a similar de prioritization policy in the city I lived in.

And now cannabis is legal federally.

It takes a long time for enforcers of unjust laws (which have persisted for decades) to learn and admit that they were wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So, how does one get Mushrooms if it is illegal to purchase?

</comment><comment><USER45> I quit visiting Colorado. Every resort I went to everyone was high and the service was lousy. People who are high all the time don't even understand how stupid they look and how poor of a job they're doing. Legal or not, there is a huge problem with druggies in Colorado.

Notably, we visited a chain restaurant and all the stone employees weren't clearing the tables. It was disgusting and we left. Places like that won't stay in business.

Ski rental places? Fuggetaboutit--it was like talking to Cheech & Chong. Do I trust these people are doing a good job? No.

I was no fan of the drug war, either, mind you. People need self-control.

<comment><USER46> Well, I've lived in Colorado my whole life and I didn't notice any change at all in the average person's behavior after pot was legalized. And I'm not really biased either. I voted against the marijuana legalization measure (something I now regret doing).</comment></comment>


React – CSS in JavaScript techniques comparison - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MicheleBertoli/css-in-js <comment><USER2> Quite a few choices in that table there. Can anybody more familiar with this space comment on which are the front-runners?

<comment><USER3> I've had good experiences with fela (search for `react-fela` in this table)</comment></comment>


Is there a solution to my manic cloud - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/106420735876542072423/posts/Bav4Au4hYvC <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this on G+. Feel free to offer solutions or discuss here or there.</comment>


What are your thoughts on Apple and Google supporting SA control over women? - <AUTHOR> I just found out about this "Absher" app that Saudi Arabia runs that allows male guardians to control the movements of women via passport control. It's pretty abhorrent to me but I thought it was an internal thing. I found out yesterday that these two companies permit the app to exist in their app stores. I would have expected something like this to be front page news, and I'm surprised Apple and Google and being allowed to get away with this without being crucified in the media, especially for two ostensibly "progressive" companies. What are your thoughts? <comment><USER2> I'm not surprised, but in this instance it sounds like they aren't directly supporting it. In the case of China, Google has taken steps directly to support China in controlling it's people(Dragonfly). I think if this does become big news I can see both companies removing the app from the app store, but at this point Google is not trying to do good in the world. It's all about the money.

I also don't think the media/journalists care about Saudi Arabia aside from the recent killing of Jamal Khashoggi.</comment>