Uber: Disability Laws Don't Apply to Us - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/21/uber-disability-laws-don-t-apply-to-us.html <comment><USER2> This kind of concerns me. I have a T4/T5 spinal cord injury from a snowboarding accident 4.5Y ago. I have good hand and arm function but that's it no abdominals etc. I drive myself to work everyday and transfer in and out and fold up my wheelchair.

London's black cabs all have ramps. UBER is making big inroads here and I'm worried that eventually it'll be tricky to get a black cab. I can transfer into a regular car but I would need the driver to put my wheelchair in the boot (trunk) and given busy streets, harassed drivers, needing to pull right up to the kerb etc. I've not really had the guts to try it. It's particularly relevant here as the tube is mostly inaccessible and the buses painfully slow.

<comment><USER3> _> London's black cabs all have ramps._

It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) _must_ be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that _weren 't_ wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade.

So, in addition to successfully completing the Knowledge[1], black taxi drivers _must_ operate using a compliant vehicle (which is inevitably more expensive than a normal vehicle, which Uber drivers typically use), and they _must_ pick up anyone (including a disabled person who hails them while their light is on (if they ignore you or refuse to carry you without good reason, you can complain to the Public Carriage Office, which can take away a driver's taxi license).

In return for complying with all these requirements, licensed taxi drivers are allowed to pick people up on the street and calculate the fare using a taximeter.

Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter.[2]

London's licensed taxis drivers' view is that the Uber app is effectively a meter, and therefore, Uber drivers are breaking the law. The High Court will rule on the matter this summer.[3]

1: [http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi- te...](http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi-test- knowledge/)

2: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11)

3: [http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters- co...](http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters-could-mean- end-uber-london)

<comment><USER4> > _Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or > "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up > front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter._

Their lives must be _miserable_ without The Queen's "taximeter"!

<comment><USER5> I think the UK situation is fair. If the uber app lets you go to random destinations, or charges you extra per the mile, then it is a meter.

Uber should be just like a black car service: point A to point B, with no extras. If Uber doesn't find this as profitable, they're free to open a segment of their company that actually is a taxi service and follows regulation in exchange for picking up the public and being able to run a meter on public traffic.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that taxi regulation doesn't make any sense to begin with. As you said, people get transported from Place A to B for a fee.

Fundamentally, it's as simple as buying a pound of cheese from a supermarket. It's just a transaction between people.

So why should taxi drivers have to get "licensed"? What exactly _is_ that license? What does it represent besides going through a burdensome ordeal? How would getting licensed increase safety in any way? It's not like anyone _wants_ to experience a car crash.

The real point of the exercise is to maintain a state-supported taxi-cartel. Higher prices for the masses, and higher profits for the cartel. Desperation and hardship for the debt-slave drivers.

<comment><USER5> > So why should taxi drivers have to get "licensed"? What exactly is that > license? What does it represent besides going through a burdensome ordeal? > How would getting licensed increase safety in any way? It's not like anyone > wants to experience a car crash.

All businesses must be licenced. Taxi licensing is special because of their special circumstance. They conduct their business primarily on public streets, and without licensing to ensure fair pricing and service to clientele they may:

(a) 'forget' about picking up people of a certain skin color (b) refuse fare to a certain district they don't like (c) arbitrarily set fares depending on what they see as people's willingness to pay--like say setting the fare for single women outside nightclubs to 3x the normal rate.

All of these things I've seen in unregulated environments and to a lesser extent (a & b ) in regulated environments too.

<comment><USER4> You're seeing problems that aren't really there.

> _All businesses must be licenced._

 _Why_? Why the hell would a grocery store need a license and what for? I'm not asking for "because the government says so", because the government says a lot of things that don't actually make sense. Is there a good, _objective_ reason for all businesses to have to be licensed and how would the license help?

> _Taxi licensing is special because of their special circumstance._

What does that mean? What are the special circumstances? It's just people with cars and people who need to go places.

> _(a) 'forget' about picking up people of a certain skin color_

Suppose there was no regulation for taxis. Now suppose a big taxi company had emerged. Let's call it "Toober". Now Toober, just like most companies, wants to make as much money as possible.

Do you think people accusing its drivers of racism would be conducive to that goal, and if not, do you think Toober would do something about racist drivers?

What about the drivers? They want money too, right? So if there was a racist driver working for Toober, and he knew Toober doesn't tolerate racism because it's bad for their image and thus, bottom line, don't you think the driver would refrain from behaving in a racist way so that he could keep his job?

> _(b) refuse fare to a certain district they don 't like_

Don't _like_? Because it somehow displeases them like Justin Bieber's music displeases a lot of guys? What sense would it make for a taxi to leave money on the table because he finds a district distasteful?

> _(c) arbitrarily set fares depending on what they see as people 's > willingness to pay--like say setting the fare for single women outside > nightclubs to 3x the normal rate._

Again, imagine Toober getting complaints about discrimination. On the other hand, getting home safely from a night out is a more valuable service than just getting from Place A to B in less dangerous situation, so maybe it's alright to charge a bit more.

Sure, three times the normal rate would be too much, but another taxi company would be free to offer a better rate, and people would take it.

Do you see why regulation is not necessary at all? Whenever the government says it's doing something for your safety or for fairness, you can be 100% sure the results and real reasons are different.

The _real_ reason why we have taxi regulations is to maintain a state- supported taxi-cartel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can kinda get that companies might want to skip around accessibility issues when they're first getting started. But once you reach a certain point (somewhere well before billion dollar valuations) it's unconscionable to ignore accessibility.

> [Tim] Cook replied [...] that a return on investment (ROI) was not the > primary consideration on such issues. "When we work on making our devices > accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI."

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/07/why- tim-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/07/why-tim-cook- doesnt-care-about-the-bloody-roi/)

<comment><USER7> > companies might want to skip around accessibility issues when they're first > getting started

So, if it's inconvenient, you get to pretend it doesn't exist because you're a "startup"?

That kind of mindset is what's wrong with the startup community. "Disrupt" isn't a synonym for "break any laws you don't like" and "startup" isn't a synonym for "I am above the law!"

<comment><USER8> Yes, you do. Accessibility laws generally include exemptions for small businesses. The Americans with Disabilities Act definitely does. Title III goes out of its way to only require "reasonable accommodation" that is "readily achievable" and not overly burdensome to the small business.

<comment><USER9> A company, like Uber, that has raised several hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, is definitely not a small business and doesn't get to claim that exemption.

<comment><USER8> The post I replied to was talking about the "startup community," so I was addressing that. A startup isn't breaking the law by not having the same level of accessibility as a large company. Uber has 2000 employees (excluding the drivers); they definitely wouldn't qualify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Company set up to lower prices by avoiding regulatory overhead tries to avoid regulatory overhead - film at 11.

FWIW: It seems really unlikely Uber will be able to play both sides of the coin on this one for much longer.

Just in case anyone thought "courts have never considered things like Uber and the ADA before", they have.

Search for "demand responsive transportation ADA"

The fact that the drivers are or are not employees will not matter.

Also

"49 C.F.R. § 37.171 - Equivalency Requirement for Demand Responsive Service Operated by Private Entities Not Primarily in the Business of Transporting People"

Whoops. Oh well, there goes any argument about not being in the business of transporting people ...

<comment><USER11> In places where Uber is just another taxi company, it likely has to follow all the local regulations that apply to taxi companies.

It's only special in the places where Uber pretends not to be a taxi by claiming it's some kind of "ride sharing". I think _that_ isn't going to last very long.

<comment><USER10> "It's only special in the places"

My point is precisely: It is not special, for ADA purposes, in _any_ of these places, regardless of the outcome of the "we aren't really a taxi company" argument they make.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think I understand Uber's stance here. From a business perspective their drivers are all independent contractors. This is an important part of the discussion because if they start telling them what the can and cannot do during their time then they start to look more and more like employees (something they absolutely do not want).

An example of this are the popularly discussed drivers that run jewellery or other businesses out of their car while also driving. The moment Uber says you cannot do this on while a contractor for us the legal waters become murkier.

It may be the case that once someone challenges in court an Uber driver (not Uber itself) and wins on the grounds that not accepting a disabled passenger is illegal then the company will have the grounds (and precedent) to enforce that their contractors do not break the law.

To drive the point home, even if Uber wants to prevent their drivers from doing certain things doing so moves them closer to the realm of employees not contractors.

Edit: To clarify I don't necessarily believe that Uber drivers should be considered contractors, but until a case is brought against them and they lose and all drivers become employees they're going to be as hands off as possible to maintain their ability to defend the position. Also providing instructions to a contractor (provide water) does not make them an employee.

<comment><USER13> Surely I can tell a web developer contractor they can't build insecure/shitty code without turning them into an employee? They tell their drivers all sorts of instructions already - turn down tips, offer water, be courteous, etc.

<comment><USER14> Don't ask HN, look up the actual difference between an employee and a contractor if you are not sure and are employing contractors.

<comment><USER13> I don't. It's a hypothetical. Why can't Uber say "you must comply with the ADA" to their drivers if I'm able to say to a web developer contractor "website must be accessible to the visually impaired".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This really saddens me. I used to love Uber, it was one of my favourite companies. I remember when I first used it - I'd gone down to London and was going to try UberLux out, just for the one trip. I ended up using it about four times that day, even though it was far more expensive than a taxi. It was incredible and worth every penny because unlike taxis, Uber was professional[1]. The driver was polite, you got a bottle of water to drink and there was stuff to read too (and not rubbish either, quality stuff like the FT).

For a while, it seemed like Uber was about the high-end - as Travis himself said, he created Uber to have a more "baller" way to travel around San Francisco - but then they started to care more and more about being seen as affordable and UberX is now clearly the company's top priority. And as prices drop and margins are squeezed, articles like this are the end result. People will complain that luxury isn't important (and they might be right) but Uber had a really good service that was different. Now they're just like all the other ride sharing companies.

I really, really wish they would shut down UberX. I know they won't. But I want to love Uber again - but with all of these stories, almost all regarding UberX drivers - I feel obnoxious if I use them. I don't want to support them.

Love the service, hate the company.

[1] I was recently in a taxi where the taxi driver said a number of very racist things, directly insulted me, my fellow passenger and pretty much anyone he came into contact with during the ride (other cars, pedestrians, etc) and swore repeatedly. This isn't the first time I've experienced this (although it was the worst). I'm somewhat shy and find taxis to be, on occasion, somewhat intimidating. I've never felt that way in an Uber.

<comment><USER16> > I was recently in a taxi where the taxi driver said a number of very racist > things, directly insulted me, my fellow passenger and pretty much anyone he > came into contact with during the ride (other cars, pedestrians, etc) and > swore repeatedly.

Please do always reprt this! I know you shouldn't have to; I know it happens far too often. But please do report it.

[https://www.tfl.gov.uk/forms/12397.aspx](https://www.tfl.gov.uk/forms/12397.aspx)

[https://www.tfl.gov.uk/forms/12407.aspx](https://www.tfl.gov.uk/forms/12407.aspx)

[http://www.londonblacktaxis.net/complaints.htm](http://www.londonblacktaxis.net/complaints.htm)

(Are these the right websites?)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for those links, I didn't realise it was that easy. However, this was in a private taxi and not in London, but yes, I could have reported it.

Honestly though, my problem isn't with the occasional awful ride, but the far more frequent slightly annoying rides. The ones where the driver won't stop talking or asking about local women or good bars in the city or the latest football gossip. I can't complain about that (nor do I really have the right to) but it's a huge reason why I prefer the Uber service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is the thing with "sharing" economy - the moment money exchange hands, this is no longer sharing but commercial activity. So you must abide to the regulations. You cannot cherry pick only the rules that suit you.

<comment><USER18> They've been able to do it to the tune of a tens of billions of dollars valuation. So has Airbnb. Why change now? They'll get their IPO before anyone has to answer for anything, so investors & founders will be happy. Keep running the marketing machine with the "sharing" moniker right until the check clears, and after that, it's the shareholders' problem.

<comment><USER19> "Why change now?"

Because what they're doing is wrong, and doing something wrong because you can get a lot of money for it is pretty awful.

<comment><USER20> That is how business and capitalism works.

Being immoral can hurt your profits, because customers might be repulsed and boycott you. Breaking the law can hurt your profits, because the government might take action against your business.

Those are the sole reasons why you would avoid doing immoral and illegal things. If the benefit outweighs the negatives, then businesses will do those things. If they don't do it, they will lose against other businesses that are willing to do it.

Fortunately, the downsides can be quite big, which means that most of the time businesses will "stay in line". A huge boycott from the people or hard damaging actions from the government really hurts profits, so it's very rarely a profitable thing to be immoral and break the law.

<comment><USER19> Of course people can be moral actors in the business world.

"Because you might get caught" is by no means the only reason to do the right thing, even if it means leaving money on the table.

What you're describing is a sociopathic greed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Airbnb, Uber, and the unbonded money transmitter of the month, are all making obscene amount of money breaking the law and investors keep rewarding them.

It's really easy in home construction to make a profit if you hire illegal immigrants, pay them an illegal wage, don't carry insurance, don't pay payroll taxes, and don't pay overtime. If only I could hide all that behind an app, I'd call it a startup and become a billionaire!

It's to the point where I have serious issues with the morals of people working for and investing in such outright abusive companies. You might "just" be a programmer, but you're still earning your paycheck breaking the law and skimming money away from businesses that are legit, protect their customers, and exercise the base level of ethics. But I guess you personally didn't abandon a handicapped person on the side of the road, or deny a trip to a black neighborhood, so you don't feel like you did anything wrong?

<comment><USER22> I agree with you, but take in account that if these companies didn't exist like this (and I'm not saying this is a valid excuse) a lot of programmers (and other positions) wouldn't exist. A lot of folks here go with the 'I rather work at a startup then a corporate job', but the truth is, if these ventures didn't exist, they wouldn't be able to get a 'normal' job at a boring company, since those actually care about following the law and standards and what not. Most of these 'senior' developers in the new startup flavour of the week wouldn't be considered much above juniors in other industries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know what people expected from an organisation set up for the prime purpose of avoiding regulation.

<comment><USER24> A better service at a cheaper rate.

<comment><USER25> Which really only work if you're in the majority. Some groups of people rely on the rest of us to subsidise the services they require.

If we allow companies to only service the group of people that are the most profitable, we risk excluding others from purchasing that service altogether. That's the exact same reason why Obama-care (sorry I don't know the correct name for it) disallows the insurance companies from excluding people with pre- existing conditions.

I understand rule and service levels are different around the world, but allowing Uber, AirBNB and other to pretend that all the rules are solely in place to keep competition out is doing society a disservice.

<comment><USER26> I think it's been clearly shown that _part_ of the regulation is harmful to both drivers and riders. Also that some of the beneficial regulation goes unenforced.

In many cities it's definitely possible to make a system that's better than the old one for everyone (except for certain investors).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just want to point out that posting about how wrong Uber is on HN, but then still using them, doesn't help anyone.

If you feel they are in the wrong, do not use Uber until they update their policies and actions.

<comment><USER28> That's not true though, hypocritical advocacy can logically be effective. If you convince just 2 other people to make the change you are arguing for, you've exceeded the change that you can personally effect.

<comment><USER29> > you've exceeded the change that you can personally effect.

That's not true though. You're still not effecting the change that would result from you yourself taking action. In your example, you're shy the result of 1/3 of possible change.

<comment><USER28> In your reply you are just ignoring my intended meaning with "personally". You obviously understood what I said. If you think a different phrasing would be better, feel free to suggest that.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, if you get everyone else to not use Uber, you won't be able to use it either because it will be in business anymore. I have never used them but they sure hope to avoid all existing laws... some cities have even written specific laws that apply only to them because of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The real model of many "disruptive" startups is to come into some regulated industry and only handle the easy cases/jobs/customers. Because they are only doing the easy cases, they can do it cheaper and make the experience more streamlined or friendly.

Their regulated competitors are required to handle all cases.

Since the easy cases are usually them most profitable, and the hard cases might even be money losers that are subsidized by the easy cases, this can be very bad. The disruptive startup might even kill off the competitors, and then those people who are the hard cases can be left unserved until regulators manage to catch up and put the startup under regulation.

</comment><comment><USER32> I just closed my account. Unfortunately, this requires sending an email to firstname.lastname@example.com. It's inconvenient, but gives you a place to explain that you will not use the service until they comply with the ADA.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is a terrible business approach. It's just _begging_ for crusader retaliation from legislators and district attorneys - exactly the sort of negative relationship that Uber needs to avoid. Acting "above the law" makes the people who represent the law WANT to cut you down to size.

Uber's success may make its founders arrogant enough to think they're too big to mess with. They've been fighting municipal governments so far, not Washington. Washington crushes entire countries.

</comment><comment><USER34> It doesn't matter what the law says, in my opinion. Discrimination is discrimination. You wouldn't stop an African-American from getting into your car, right?

<comment><USER35> Uber drivers regularly discriminate based on race by discriminating based on location of drop off... hence the high rates of 'cancelled' riders Uber users in SF and NYC see when traveling to certain neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that just happen to have higher percentages of non-white residents. This is why we have laws against drop-off discrimination here in NYC. But Uber being Uber sees them as bureaucratic red tape that shouldn't apply to them. Just like disability access laws. And ethics.

<comment><USER36> My understanding is that Uber drivers don't see the dropoff location until they pick up the passenger, and at any rate you can simply not enter the destination and tell the driver where to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> >> Parisi says the driver called her an "invalid" and said she "must not be a Christian" and needed to "develop thicker skin." At the end of her ride, Parisi says the driver asked her if was going to give her a bad review.

Maybe the driver should have thought of the possibility of a bad review _before_ berating a customer. I don't know, maybe that's just me. Causality might not be a real thing.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've found myself using ride sharing services less and less lately, mostly because I've found uber drivers to be more and more annoying they want to talk non-stop and half the time have no idea where their going or how to get there properly since whatever mapping system they uses seems to constantly fail for whatever reason lately

</comment><comment><USER39> "But Uber describes its drivers as independent contractors, and says it therefore is unable to control their actions."

Not being able to control the actions of its drivers is a bad excuse, and precisely why there should be new regulation.

</comment><comment><USER40> This would be an awesome chance for Uber to take a leadership position and embrace rather than try to avoid & deny.

Looks like that wont happen though ...

</comment><comment><USER41> It's really not that hard to "do the right thing." Yet they have to go out their way to be dicks about it.

<comment><USER42> It depends on how you define doing the right thing. If you mean telling drivers to be accomodating of passengers with disabilities, then yes I agree. If you mean fielding an entire discrete service of vehicles across the world to service a small, non uniformally distributed number of users without actually employing their drivers; that's a bit harder. I'm not saying that Uber shouldn't deploy such a discrete service, but I'm not sure it's fair to say that ADA compliance in this context is cheap or easy.

<comment><USER43> ADA compliance is almost never cheap or easy. That was the knock on the law when it was being debated and any business owner will tell you it's still every bit the costly nightmare people said it would be at the time. It's a terrible law and most of it should be repealed (the rest should devolve to the states, which unlike the federal government have the constitutional authority to impose it), but the fact remains that courts have upheld it and it is the law. There's no reason one taxi company should have to follow it and not another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> "...but Uber claims that because it's a technology company, not a transportation service..." What the fuck?!

</comment><comment><USER45> > but Uber claims that because it's a technology company, not a transportation > service, it doesn't fall under the ADA's jurisdiction.

What the ? Come on ,They don't get to decide what law they should follow. Or maybe they know that all these lawsuits cost them less than having to respect the law, I don't know. All I can say is that Uber displays an unbelievable level of arrogance.

<comment><USER46> They make an app that allows people to charge for driving services. I wouldn't call that as Uber providing a transportation service, personally.

Remember, just because it "seems obvious" that they are "somehow" a company related to "transportation", doesn't make them a "transportation service" by whatever definition is used by the government for transportation service company regulations (or whatever that law is called).

As much as I think individuals should follow the intention of laws, rather than the 'letter'. We have to be realistic. Either we petition to have the 'letter' of the law changed to encompass what we 'think' the definition should be, or we accept that the definition is a reasonable demarcation of what constitutes and doesn't constitute a transportation company.

And lets not mix emotions into it in some sort of fit of outrage that 'they dare not' pretend like they're not a 'transportation company' when we think it's obvious.

#Edit. Typo.

<comment><USER47> _They make an app that allows people to charge for driving services._

No, Swipe is an app that allows people to charge for driving services. Uber is how the car is ordered, ride metered and payment processed. Oh, and the people driving are Uber's 1099s.

I don't have the background to say anything about whether the court will hold Uber liable in this suit. But on the question of classifying Uber, I find it incredibly unlikely the court will be receptive to the idea they're functionally equivalent to swipe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> You know, everything about Uber's structure and approach to the market has been designed with the sole purpose of evading the law. It's only a matter of time before some ambitious US Attorney starts thinking about tying all this stuff together with RICO.

</comment><comment><USER48> The disabled is a club anyone can join. Often without notice.

</comment><comment><USER49> Sad. This is the reason state legislation is necessary. Uber is banned to operate in a lot of countries because his lack of respect to law.

</comment><comment><USER50> Did this get downvoted out of the front page?

</comment><comment><USER51> better title:

Uber: No Laws Apply to Us

</comment><comment><USER52> Uber: Pissing off judges worldwide

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't give a fuck about the law. Basic human decency still applies.

EDIT: Anyone care to explain the downvotes?

<comment><USER51> I didn't downvote you, but foul language almost guarantees a downvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Using Uber with certain disabilities appears to be a real problem, this is true, but there's a very real risk that regulating Uber to within an inch of it's life will make it just another cab company -- and then what? What's the point?

The goals here are not in question: Uber should not be turning these customers away - ever - and currently it seems to be deficient in that regard. But Uber's success is testament to the fact that the old system was also deficient, just in different ways and for different people. Solving this problem optimally is a big thing to ask of a centuries old legislative/political machine, and it's quite likely it just plain old won't manage it - some absurdly moralistic view such as "all Uber cars must be capable of accommodating wheelchair passengers" is a far too predictable outcome, if we let it get that far.

There is almost always a better way, and we should be very careful about going on a witch hunt with things like this, lest we allow the old guard to slowly destroy this exciting new world minutes after we build it.

</comment><comment><USER55> I would imagine that self driving cars will be much easier to design for accessibility seeing as other design considerations become less relevant (such as needing the driver to be in a certain position and facing the front in the vehicle). If I were to design an autonomous car today I would design it with one huge top hinged door on each side and a ramp that makes it easy to drive a wheelchair straight in. Have all the seats facing each other and ensure that at least one folds up/swivels to the side to make room for the wheelchair. This would also benefit people traveling with over-sized luggage.

The only thing Uber will get from this is bad PR. Their seeming arrogance (not only in this matter) is a real turn off.</comment>


Please, Pretty Please, Lets Keep This Place Quasi-Quiet - <AUTHOR>

I have ditched pretty much every feed I had, but despite the intense volume of Hacker News threads, I still subscribe because no other place has quite as good links.
But many more, and it'll get overwhelming!
So I ask: can we keep this place quiet from the sort of self-promoting clowns that ruin other link sites? You know, the kind of people that call it "Social Media".
I am sure that is selfish, against the spirit of the web, elitist, makes me {INSERT INSULT HERE] but, you know what? I don't care! I just can't imagine more submitters making hacker news better, and I figure if you are really keen on this topic, you'll find the place eventually. <comment><USER2> If anyone has a story that you like, but doesn't fit Hacker News, tip it with Tipjoy. Our front page is becoming a good collection of content - good but not all for Hackers. There is a LOL-Cat at #1 right now, which is actually pretty surprising. <http://tipjoy.com/>

We added comments with Disqus, and are adding features to make it more social. I'd love to hear any feedback on what could make it a better destination or feed site for those seeking good content: <http://tipjoy.com/feedback/>

By the way, I've been reading this place for about around 300 days. I think the content had become more broad since I started, to the site's benefit, but runs the risk of getting out of hand. Luckily, there are tools to make things better, I hear.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it really that overwhelming? There have been 90 submissions in the last 17 hours - just over 5/hour. That doesn't seem like 'intense volume'.</comment>


CryptoHawk – Cryptocurrency news, education and alerts via chatbot - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/CryptoHawkbot/ <comment><USER2> It's ironic where they decided to do a press release considering facebook is the antithesis of the blockchain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the thought about FB is more about distribution to a 2 Billion potential users and less about the very centralized aspect of it. I'm sure it will launch on Telegram as well.</comment></comment>


Psychedelics in problem-solving experiment - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelics_in_problem-solving_experiment <comment><USER2> Myself, I used LSD to learn calculus -- or rather, to overcome a lifelong crippling phobia/anxiety of mathematics, which allowed me to rapidly learn calculus. When I was 21, I encountered John Lilly's theories of cognitive metaprogramming with psychedelics, and I designed a trip to convince myself -- at a really primal level -- of the fundamental beauty, power, and accessibility of math. 12 hours after dosing, my fear of mathematics was gone forever, and I spent the rest of the summer acing a series of intensive calculus courses. 17 years later, I've co-founded three successful and highly maths-intensive companies. I am certain that I could not have done this without the drugs.

I do hope that some day the world will wake up and realise how much of a wrong turn it took in banning psychedelic research; it has the potential to be a power for good unlike anything else.

<comment><USER3> This sounds quite incredibe. In fact, very incredible, considering you just registered that account and this is your only post. But I believe you may be telling the truth.

Do you think the same could be applied for other disciplines, like programming and computer science?

<comment><USER2> Yes, this is a dummy account; my regular account here has 4497 karma, but is linked to my real name. The conservatism of some of my clients -- and the fairly public role I sometimes must play -- is such that I'd rather not have my former illegal exploits broadcast quite yet. Hopefully you can understand!

In answer to your question: yes, I very much believe that it can be applied to programming and computer science -- and in fact already has been. Much of the early development of those disciplines was directly influenced by psychedelics.[1] I personally haven't tried to apply psychedelics to programming/CS in the same explicit way as I did for math, but I've found that the general visualisation skills developed over about a decade of fairly steady experimentation -- tripping about 3-4 times per year -- have been invaluable in solving constraints problems, visualising codeflow, etc. But one could argue, in that case, that I might have developed the same skills without psychedelics, since it was a slow development over many years. Whereas in the case of the "mathematics trip", the cognitive change literally happened overnight.

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

<comment><USER4> Love the choice of your dummy account name!

I immediately remembered it from the C64 days. Used in a FOR loop, poke 53281,x would create some marvelous color loops.... almost psychedelic ;)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tar8kV39P2E](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tar8kV39P2E)

<comment><USER2> Nailed it! ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend the book "What the Dormouse Said", which explores amongst other things the impact of psychedelics on computing.

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

Timothy Leary also has a chapter in "The Art of HCI design" in which he explores parallels between psychedelics and computer interaction.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface- Desig...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Human-Computer-Interface- Design/dp/0201517973/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1409428536&sr=8-4)

<comment><USER6> If anyone cares, this is the complete Tim Leary photo archive. A while ago I was asked to help curate it, and my payment was getting to keep a copy on my site, as long as it doesn't show up on search engines.

[http://robots-everywhere.com/leary_gallery/index.php](http://robots- everywhere.com/leary_gallery/index.php)

There's also a dosbox setup for Leary's Mind Mirror software.

[http://robots-everywhere.com/portfolio/games/mmirror_port/](http://robots- everywhere.com/portfolio/games/mmirror_port/)

<comment><USER5> Awesome! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some people have experimented with micro-dosing (~0.1 to 0.2g dry of) psilocybin mushrooms at shroomery.org, especially: [http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/17315584...](http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/17315584/fpart/1/vc/1) . He seems to have observed an increase in focus and productivity at work (editor of some kind). Unfortunately he stopped posting abruptly.

<comment><USER8> > he stopped posting abruptly...

That is the slight problem, mega-dosing types have probably independently arrived at some coherent theory of everything many times yet not got as far as writing it down. The 'increased focus...' is probably comparing micro- to mega- dosing, not 'reality'.

At least the Beatles were able to complete albums with words written whilst off their trolleys, few others seem to manage it. Really if there is to be research in the wonders of various psycho-active drugs, the hard part, writing it down, in a form that makes sense in the 'real world' is where research needs to be conducted.

<comment><USER7> > The 'increased focus...' is probably comparing micro- to mega- dosing, not > 'reality'.

A typical mushroom taker can only trip once a week or once every two weeks (as tolerance builds up very quickly). That means one or two weeks of "reality" between (mega-dose) trips.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Googling around turned up some pretty interesting results from programmers specifically: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/1n93n4/the_lsd_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/1n93n4/the_lsd_microdosing_experiment/)

<comment><USER10> Given the subtlety of the effects, I would like to see blinded washout crossover.

<comment><USER11> Gwern did a convincingly rigorous self-experiment with LSD microdosing. [1] He sums it up as, "No beneficial effects reached statistical-significance and there were worrisome negative trends. LSD microdosing did not help me."

[1] [http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing](http://www.gwern.net/LSD%20microdosing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here is a very interesting talk about this study (and on the subject), by James Fadiman, one of the researches on the team:

Scientific Problem Solving with Psychedelics: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtL5fafpRKc&list=SP4F0vNNToz...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtL5fafpRKc&list=SP4F0vNNTozFTJCv1cvvUyB11CRR62uee8)

From the talk:

"It's not 'take psychedelics and you can understand quantum mechanics'. But if you understand quantum mechanics and you take a psychedelic, you may _really_ understand quantum mechanics"

</comment><comment><USER13> Can LSD alter sexuality? Any studies on that one? Thanks.</comment>


Jobstart – Personalized, expert guidance to land your next software job - <AUTHOR> https://www.jobstart.co <comment><AUTHOR> Woah -- wasn't expecting the quick upvotes! :)

Creator here (shamefully submitted myself, haha). Happy to answer any/all questions or ramble on and on about the problem.

We basically think there needs to be a legitimately trustworthy service out there. Something that acts more like a a career coach instead of a position spammer. Something that understands your needs and specific situation.

Along the lines of "doing things that don't scale", we're completely human powered but technology assisted. There are a lot of things that are involved with career coaching or recruiting that are simply tedious -- we automate them away so we can better focus on relationships.

<comment><USER2> Your site jobstart.co has 6 trackers that are invading my privacy. Here are the URLs they hit:

s7.addthis.com

stats.g.doubleclick.net

s-static.ak.facebook.com

cdn.optimizely.com

2762420311.log.optimizely.com

cdn.segment.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to hear your perspective on that.

1) Addthis is what we use for sharing. It's helped us a lot. 2) Google analytics puts in doubleclick. 3) Facebook sharing... yup. 4) We're currently running an A/B test with Optimizely. 5) Segment.io is a great analytics tool.

I'd recommend all the above services. That's my opinion on the above!

<comment><USER3> The trouble with the FB button is that is lets FB track you just by visiting the page, even if you don't click on the button. You could use a non-JS version of the button, or use a "two-click" button that doesn't load scripts from FB until the user is ready to share something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jobstart works with job seekers to help them get hired, and gets paid when their recruiting clients hire their candidates. Sometimes Jobstart's candidates get jobs at non-clients, and Jobstart doesn't get paid.

Jobstart can help negotiate offers, for which they charge the candidate 20% of the difference between original and accepted offer.

I'm an independent agency recruiter, and it sounds a lot like what I do. I don't charge candidates for negotiating services though.

I agree that most recruiters aren't very good at what they are supposed to do. Positioning yourselves as coaches is a marketing strategy to differentiate from those recruiters, but what you are doing is basically the same thing as what a good (both skilled and 'benevolent') recruiter might do, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! Great questions.

1) All of our coaches are experienced engineers. 2) We're much more involved than recruiters. We're going to run you through in-house interview gauntlets if that's what you want and need (detailed feedback included). We'll rip apart your resume and start from scratch if that's a smart thing to do. I've found 0% of the recruiters I've talked to can do those things effectively -- perhaps you're different, but we've never met. :] 3) We help you network. 4) We'll _actively_ help you look at companies outside our recruiting contract scope. We'll recommend companies that we don't work with. This is not a "sometimes candidates get jobs at non-clients" sort of thing. This is more of a "let's put you first, no matter what" sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> Being experienced engineers is helpful. Whether or not you're "much more involved" than recruiters probably depends on the recruiter, but running multiple interviews internally with coaches is definitely a worthwhile service.

Most experienced recruiters can rip apart a resume and are usually willing to help make changes (specifically when it's for their own client). I've seen recruiters that claim ownership of the resume they modify for their candidates, which seems tacky.

I understand that you will recommend companies that you don't work with, although your business model has all the same incentives that the traditional contingency recruiting model has.

You have two ways of making money. 1 - Getting paid when a candidate accepts a job at your client (standard contingency model). 2 - 20% (of difference) paid by candidate for negotiation

You can recommend candidates to companies you don't work with, and you can make money off these deals by providing a negotiation service.

I respect that you are trying to provide a superior service to what most recruiters are providing. It's a sad state for the recruiting industry when companies are reluctant to even use the term "recruiting". I'm as critical of the recruiting industry as anyone, so I do wish you well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you in SF? If so, we should grab coffee. Even if not, we should Skype.

My email is email@example.com!

<comment><USER4> I emailed you a few hours ago. I'm in NY, but happy to share ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is the first time in a long time that I see a startup that aims to solve the hiring problem with something other than technology (with people), so my sincere congratulations.

As a CTO of a successful startup, I would sign up as an expert if you were a non-profit in a heartbeat - and I don't mean that you don't charge your clients, just a B corp or something that aims to solve this problem without getting rich. If you are successful and have a solid network that works, you will still prioritize paying clients over non-paying ones, no-matter how hard you try not to. Convince me otherwise?

<comment><USER6> Hi there,

At [http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com), we're trying something similar, but from the other size viz. Candidates.

Our hypothesis is, that if someone showed candidates how to prepare rigorously for interviews, how good engineers actually do things, and how to think about things the right way, then they'd avoid making several mistakes in interviews and at work.

We're taking a very hands-on detailed human approach. Because interviews are more like a date, than they are like a test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree that the hiring process is broken; but when I look at this, it just comes across as ordinary recruiting with some (snaps fingers) pizazz.

How do you help the hiring companies choose the right candidates?

In my experience, the best recruiters are those who bring in ideal candidates without being pushy or overselling. Do you have some objective way of ranking candidates? Do you filter out unqualified candidates?

(Snaps fingers) PiZZaZZZ!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, Pizzzaz!

I think there's a spectrum when it comes to recruiting -- some recruiters are good at their job, no doubt, but the majority of people get left behind by the industry. Helping people become better versions of themselves simply isn't a value recruiting firms hold dear.

The best recruiters, as you said, take already ideal candidates and figure out how to sell them on their companies in an authentic way.

We flip the model around and start with the candidate, no matter where they're at. That's not just a "snap fingers pizzazz" \- that's changing the core process.

We'll build tools internally to rank candidates and companies eventually, but right now it's goodm old-fashioned human power! (We have a couple tools already built, but nothing game changing is live)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know this beats the very premise of your product - "personalized" guidance but thought I would ask anyway.

How open are you to sharing general guidelines (that are insightful and not already available everywhere) ?

It would also help if you could ask the people who are successfully placed to write their learnings along the process. Similar to how the Insight data engineering fellow and others at coding schools share what they learnt/built.

Eg: [http://insightdataengineering.com/blog/mapmycab.html](http://insightdataengineering.com/blog/mapmycab.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll eventually run an entire blog series around general guidelines. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting idea!

Some UI feedback - the 'I agree/disagree' buttons on your mission component are kind of weird. I clicked on both just to see what would happen.

I think the CTA to sign up as an expert was a bit hard to find - perhaps due to the colors?

I'm also not sure why I would want to become an 'expert'. What's in it for me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, Rick!

The "what's in it for me" question is a good one. While very unintuitive, we've had no problem signing people up who are simply helpful types. There's a large population out there of talented people who enjoy helping others and this is the most impactful, time efficient way to do it.

At first we were thinking about offering money, but the economics of the model don't really work out. No matter what we do, since we're not guaranteed money, we can't guarantee experts money. Under that situation, we could offer them on average less than $60 an hour... at which point 1) it feels like work and 2) the people who become experts usually make 3x that.

After we worked on this for months, it turned out the best system was simply a volunteer system. Strange, eh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are you guys willing to coach to self-taught programmers(who do not have a comp sc. degree) for the entry level jobs? Or you are focused on taking experienced candidates and groom them for more senior level position?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely willing to take self-taught programmers. In fact, in our experience thus far, we've found self-taught people tend to get better results when coached/mentored.

<comment><USER10> I am a self-taught programmer but I find hard to crack the entry level full stack developer position in SF bay area. Almost all startups are looking for a senior developer (at least 3-4 years experience). So I am in a catch 22. Do you guys have plan to coach newbie developer for junior level position?

<comment><USER11> I ran into this same problem: everybody only seems to want senior talent. There's a chasm between intermediate and "unicorn" that needs to be bridged. I hope these guys can improve that situation.

It's tough to find good mentoring when you're a n00b to intermediate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a neat idea! Btw OP looks like you're serving the Google Lato font over HTTP while your site is coming over HTTPS; I think this is causing some of the issues folks are having not being able to see the text very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Binary!

Will fix. Little nervous pushing changes right now, hah.

<comment><USER13> There's a typo in the footer too. "helped place candidates at top technoogy", should be technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey Zach, great start.

Founder of [http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com) here. We do something similar, but with two differences:

1\. We do it from a bootcamp angle. Candidates join us for rigorous (re)training in CS fundamentals.

2\. Our revenue comes from candidates and not from companies. That helps us stay on candidates' side.

Let's grab coffee some day? We're in South Bay.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another question, are you guys aimed at programmers only or are you placing people who work in all aspects of software? I'm a business analyst/strategist in the tech sector but not a programmer- is that a position that you'd be able to help place?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, good question. Programmers for now -- sorry.

Our goal is to eventually scale the coaching model so it's financially sensible to expand into other positions and eventually industries. The expert network is a big piece of that!

<comment><USER14> Cool, thanks for the reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Haha, that mission statement though!

"empower all people," "help they deserve," "status quo is unacceptable," "they have had decades to find a solution to help the masses. They have failed," "facilitate this _movement_," "increase the rate of innovation across the world"...

Who do you think you are? MLK? You're a fancy-pants version of "Goodwill" that literally caters to just the 1%, get over it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do believe everything that is written there. If you want to take it as inflated or egotistical, go ahead -- that's your right.

If you understand the mission and what we're trying to do here though, we're really aiming to help everyone. Starting with software is simply a foothold that works when you're an early stage startup. It lets us focus the business and run the model against an industry that moves so ridiculously fast, we are forced to keep up. As we can build tech to scale coaching, we'd like to achieve price points low enough to help everyone.

That's the plan at least. Not over it! Will keep dreaming!

<comment><USER16> It's a good take. Super healthy. I hope you can go far

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "We work with top companies who pay us to specially refer them the best candidates. If we think you're good enough, we'll recommend them as a company for you to check out."

This sounds like a new twist on the same old recruiter workflow. Is that an unfair judgment?

Also, what if you don't think we are good enough? Do you still offer help?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. New twist on old recruiter workflow -- 100% correct. Making money sort of demands you fit into old models at least a little bit. Once we gain more traction, we can try out more daring things. Up until now, though, the main question was "do people want coaching?". We've found that answer. :)

2\. If you're not good enough for those companies, we'll figure out why and still help you out. Granted, we won't help you for months and months -- but we're not going to leave you hanging there. We think helping everyone is going to build a strong brand and service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks like a neat service. Just as a point of information, should I assume if I don't get a response that my submission has been rejected? Would be nice to get a replying if submissions are not taken into consideration just to know not to wait.

Good luck with expanding the service to other cities!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! No we just haven't sent out emails yet. We should have had an automated message upon signup but didn't put it in (stupidly). We're adding the automated message and will send updates to everyone tonight.

<comment><USER18> Thanks! Yea wasn't sure if there was an automated message I should have received after signup. Anyway, looking forward to hearing back!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very cool - small thing, there's a spello in the footer "We have helped place candidates at top technoogy companies and startups." Bigger thing, software jobs are pretty much all jobs, or do you mean tech jobs? Either way I like it, nice one!

<comment><AUTHOR> Snap -- will be in the next push.

We can help people understand the skills for all ranges of software jobs, but prioritize people looking in tech.

<comment><USER20> Another typo - "Thus, if you're base offer is $100k" \- should be "your" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Awesome! Are you willing to help someone from a classic engineering background transition to development and getting a more entry-level job? Or are your focus on already experienced developers working in the industry? Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> We're open to both. We really want candidates who are going to push themselves and learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is excellent idea. At least how I understand it. Recruiters such badly and we have very little reason to work with them. This would provide better value proposition and make devs more motivated to work with them.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems you're taking the 10X approach and focusing on full-time jobs instead of freelance/per-project jobs. I like it! Too bad about the location restriction, are remote positions possible to hire for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes -- we'll help candidates with whatever they're looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If your company is hiring engineers, email us firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER24> I think is awesome, you really should have a mailing list for when you go national tho in addition to the "SF batch sign up" :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Who said this batch signup is only for SF? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Are you guys willing to coach job seekers from other countries (if they have the right skills, of course)? Or is this US exclusive?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not against it, but by the looks of it we're going to prioritize people who are either 1) citizens or 2) can get work visas already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you want to work remotely: [http://offsite.careers](http://offsite.careers)

</comment><comment><USER11> Heads up: when scrolling down, the signup element overlaps some of the body text in the latest Chrome on OS X.

</comment><comment><USER27> I was looking into this. Sadly it requires that I provide a LinkedIn profile which I don't have.

<comment><USER28> As a hiring manager, I use LinkedIn either to primarily source engineers or to validate the experience of an engineer that I found via some other means (open source project, coding event, etc).

To some extent, if you don't have a LinkedIn you don't really exist within the job market _\- which is fine I guess if you never intend to change jobs but might be something you do want to do some day :)_

I'm actually curious why you wouldn't have a LinkedIn?

<comment><USER29> I have considered moving away from LinkedIn and designing an online resume. LinkedIn is not perfect, there are plenty of reasons you might not want to use it.

Besides finding engineers, what does LinkedIn provide you as a hiring manager that a resume would not? (Assuming an online resume or a pdf has links to company information, references, etc.) I can't imagine anyone actually puts stock in LinkedIn "endorsements" or "recommendations".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This looks cool! Do you guys only coaching for junior/senior positions or internships as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Coaching for full-time positions only. Junior/senior included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does Jobstart offer guidance and refer candidates who don't have permit to work in the US?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a focus on the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Do you have any testimonials from engineers who have been placed with help from Jobstart?

</comment><comment><USER33> Is there any focus on Product Management or is this just Dev jobs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just dev jobs for now! Once we figure out how to scale coaching to a significant degree, we'll tackle other areas. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is this service useful for students seeking summer internships?

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually existed entirely for students for the past 10 months, but we'll admittedly prioritize those seeking full-time positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hey guys!

Cool idea.

Sounds like a great fit for my partner.

Do you work with remote workers, non-US citizens?

<comment><AUTHOR> We prioritize people in the US, but we'll technically take any application.

<comment><USER35> Neat!

She just signed up.

Thank you friend, she is a winner.

If you meet Alicia, say hello!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If it's free for candidates, how do you make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have contracts with a certain number of companies and understand their needs the best.

When we see a candidate come through who is a shoe-in for a company on that list, we'll let the candidate know that's an opportunity for them but not pressure it. If they'd like to chat with the company, we'll make the intro. If not, cool.

Our model prioritized creating a trustworthy brand over everything else. Everything. Including revenue at this point. We'd much rather be the first place candidates think about heading when starting their job search than converting 20% more inbound.

<comment><USER36> How much of a time commitment is it for the candidate? I.e. are you expecting a 20 hour coding test?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> how important is the content of our linkedin while applying, should I be filling mine out to increase my chances of being selected?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd fill it out, yes -- we weren't expecting this high of traffic so profiles that are blank are likely to get skimmed over (unfortunately).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Congrats on the pivot and launch, Zach!

</comment><comment><USER39> Is having a LinkedIn required?

</comment><comment><USER40> The thin text is almost unreadable on Linux. [https://i.imgur.com/XFTitdd.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XFTitdd.jpg)

<comment><USER12> That's because the site is attempting to load the font over http and the site is hosted on https so I'm guessing your browser is blocking that.

It uses the Google Lato font for that text

<comment><AUTHOR> Just pushed the fix!</comment></comment></comment>


AHN: What can we learn from Reddit? - <AUTHOR>

In only the past couple months, the bottom seems to have fallen out, and to me (as someone who used the site for the past year) it's become virtually unusable. At this point, there's very little reason to use Reddit over sites like Digg unless you're reading comments on marginal topics that draw little interest.
So, the question is, what can we learn from Reddit? There was a bit of a false start the other day when somebody suggested making this a walled garden, which is clearly the wrong thing to do. What we need to do is determine the best ways to discourage thoughtless, asinine members and make the site distasteful for them without sacrificing the needs of the users we'd like to attract. I think we all agree that sites like this one fill a valuable niche, so we need to market to _only_ that niche.
* Mere exclusivity is not the answer, as evidenced by the poll results from the aforementioned post.
* Being abrasive would be in the wrong spirit as well, and would be tedious (we don't want to become moderators in that way).
I'll start: A simple option is to require a nominal signup fee to post. I'd be for it, although I'll admit that it's contrary to the "hacker" moniker which suggests anonymity (and doesn't much reflect the nature of the community, in any case). <comment><USER2> As someone who just recently migrated from reddit (almost entirely), I've noticed that one of the most defining differences on HN is the non- sensationalist headlines. Not only does this ward off the "hive-mind" mentality, but simultaneously imbues the site with a simplicity and maturity which certainly adds balance to the site's collective outlook.

Just recently, I showed this site to my younger brother and he called it "boring and pretentious." I feel like that's exactly the way it should remain, if we intend to keep the site paradigm from changing too dramatically.

<comment><USER3> "boring and pretentious"

Awesome, I think I like your brother. And I've never been prouder to be part of a community deemed boring and pretentious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> HN and the codebase does a good job of preventing the downward spiral encountered by digg/reddit by requiring a karma threshold for the more important features.

to get to the useful features, you have to prove yourself worthy with good contributions to the community, and all it takes is one really out of line comment and all your privileges are gone again.

gives the community a much easier way of self-policing.

</comment><comment><USER5> How's this for anonymous: send me your sign-up fee, and I won't tell PG who you are. ;)

...which brings me to my point: The general spirit around here of discouraging snowclones and other common easy/thoughtless forms of humor seems to be staving off a lot of the Digg/Reddit critical mass devolution.

</comment><comment><USER6> Results 1 - 10 of about 919,000,000 for digg. (0.07 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 363,000,000 for reddit. (0.08 seconds)

Results 1 - 10 of about 292,000 for "hacker news". (0.39 seconds)

The first rule about Hacker News is: you do not talk about Hacker News.

<comment><USER7> And especially not on reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A sign-up fee sounds like a way to make the problem worse. Its big business to get a link on a site aggregator like Digg or Reddit so I think spam would increase if membership came at a cost. I really love Hacker News but I'm always looking for a replacement or another source for news.

</comment><comment><USER9> never used reddit, but here's a "solution" system i thought up on the fly for a social posting site.

"karma" like HN for participating/socializing on the site.

with enough karma you can log into new.sitenamehere.com and vote on new submissions which are in queue for an hour. if you upvote something that gets more downvotes than upvotes, you lose karma. if you upvote something that passes the votes you gain karma, but the whole process is a blind vote, you don't see the results till the end.

what this does is puts moderation of site content into the hands of the people actively participating in the site, they're karmicly "voted" into moderator position, and then further vetted when they review content for the site.

downside: hour long submission "queue" before they show up on the site proper (or get rejected)</comment>


Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs - <AUTHOR> http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=38841 <comment><USER2> Hiroshima pictures should be seen, but they should be seen alongside pictures of Philipina nuns being were raped and thrown out of third story windows by Japanese soldiers. Pictures of "The Rape of Nanjing". Oh, and throw in a few pics of Unit 731. <http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm>

It would be fun to see pictures of the one million American and ten million Japanese casualties projected during the invasion of Japan, as well.

<comment><USER3> What would that achieve? (The first part)

<comment><USER4> To put some perspective on the notion that US evil >> JP evil for using the nuclear bomb.

In school (in Europe) I remember being taught how horrible the two bombs were and that it was somewhat good that the war was put to en end, but with much more stress on the former. I was never taught about the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

<comment><USER5> They teach that primarily in US schools, too. I was lucky: my teacher was fascinated in things high schools don't usually teach, and he showed us a lot of great stuff, including some of the stories about the Japanese.

I think that we should show photos of Nagasaki. Hiroshima, it could be argued, was necessary to end the war quickly and effectively. Nagasaki was more morally grey: chances are, Japan would have surrendered without it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"Their goal was to 'measure as precisely as possible the exact effects of the two bombs' in other words, to put calipers on the problem so that people back home would have a factual frame of reference within which to draw conclusions about the bomb's capacities as well as its limitations_

What was that for? To make a better bomb? Why don't we stop fighting and do something better? Heck, I'm gonna stop fighting with my neighbor about the cigar bits he throws out of his window. I could write 2 more lines of code by that time.

I remember a quote from the movie 'Troy' - _Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?_

What if we send our leaders on a 1-on-1 battle instead of a million men. We could save a lotta blood.

<comment><USER5> _What if we send our leaders on a 1-on-1 battle instead of a million men. We could save a lotta blood._

The problem is that war evolves. It used to be small-scale and formal. Then the U.S. devised guerilla warfare in the Revolutionary War and suddenly that was impossible.

If there was a way of enforcing the deal after the duel, this would work. But there's no way to prevent people from reneging.

Also, what would that change? Suddenly, the best leader isn't the brightest or the wisest but the one who's best with a gun.

<comment><USER7> [citation needed] on guerilla warfare in the Revolutionary War

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if the person that threw them away didn't know what they were or knew what they were, but didn't comprehend the value of the photographs.

<comment><USER9> The article makes it clear that he didn't mean to throw them away, and did indeed understand their significance.

<comment><USER8> That will learn me to only look at the pictures...</comment></comment></comment>


F1 'grid girls' may have lost their jobs, but are fighting back on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/f1-grid-girls-have-lost-their-jobs-but-are-fighting-back-on-twitter-2018-2 <comment><USER2> F1 seems less customer-centric entering 2018. With the implementation of the ugly-as-sin "Halo" system: [https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/133617/how-the- halo-will-c...](https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/133617/how-the-halo-will- change-f1-in-2018)

And removing of the grid girls, F1 doesn't seem interested in maintaining the pizzazz of the sport.</comment>


SteamBits.com: Steam, Blizzard, Origin, uPlay, Retro, Xbox Games for Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.steambits.com

<comment><USER2> You forgot GOG.com

<comment><AUTHOR> That was the Retro part :D

<comment><USER2> People who know the big game marketplaces probably aren't going to make that connection, especially when you're calling Steam, Origin and Uplay by their names.</comment></comment></comment>


9 hour deploy and counting. Major UK retail site – still down as stores open. - <AUTHOR> http://www.argos.co.uk

<comment><AUTHOR> I realise not the usual format for a story. But to Gawk... in this world of zero downtime deploys this is remarkable.

As the sun rises in the UK, this is half the business shut down during business hours.</comment>


Computing in Colour (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-history-of-computing-in-colour <comment><USER2> Oh, I had hoped it would be about colorForth.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Even with the British spelling? ;)

<comment><USER2> I didn't even notice. The headline just spelled things the normal way, so it didn't jump out to me.</comment></comment></comment>


Kit.com – Products Recommended by People Who Know - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kit.com/introducing-kit/ <comment><USER2> I've had the pleasure of playing around with kit for a few months, and it's really addicting. I find myself spending a lot more time than I thought I would putting together kits. Here's one I made last night: [http://kit.com/trevorkmarshall/nerd- battlestation](http://kit.com/trevorkmarshall/nerd-battlestation). Congrats to the kit team!

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems interesting and (at least for now, while the numbers are small) not to chaotic.

But really, "best viewed with $Browser" is making a comeback?

</comment><comment><USER4> love this idea!</comment>


Linux notes from DarkDuck: FreeSBIE: Is Devil Live or Dead? - <AUTHOR> http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/05/freesbie-is-devil-live-or-dead.html <comment><USER2> A review of code from january 2007; not very relevant.</comment>


Ask HN: For those moving away from React what options are you considering? - <AUTHOR> With the patent clause taking up much of the discussion when React is brought up and following that – that it may be in many companies' best interest to migrate to a different tech – what frameworks or approaches are you considering for larger frontend applications. <comment><USER2> Server rendered pages with little to no JS.

\--

The patent clause generates discourse because HN commenters love to state the obvious, particularly when it's off topic (e.g. an article about React performance has a commenter rushing to say "but the patent sucks!" to generate a thread of comments about that).

In real life, no one cares (for better or worse). Companies and start ups are adopting React like they have for the past year(s).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm waiting for WebAssembly to receive stronger toolings and lib until a radically new way to program the frontend appears. Ah, and I will relish to see the end of the Javascript dominance of the browser. I can say that again. I would _love_ to see Javascript kicked away of the browser and replaced with something less asinine that doesn't require transpilation (Babel, etc), nor a slow kludgy hack to have a weak type safety net (TypeScript).

Meanwhile, i'm sick of the current state of the art for the web frontend. It is currently so convoluted and unprofessional, that programming a Windows desktop application using the ancient, verbose Win32 API looks like heaven, compared to it.

In any case, if you need an alternative, Svelte looks good.

<comment><USER4> Expect to keep waiting. WebAssembler does not interact with the DOM and probably never will do. It is being developed as an replacement to NaCl, not V8. Page scripting will still be done in JS for several years.

<comment><USER3> >WebAssembler does not interact with the DOM and probably never will do.

Because it doesn't really need to. You can already bridge this gap by using javascript as a bridge or "glue" between WebAssembly and the DOM.

Example:

[https://github.com/mbasso/asm-dom](https://github.com/mbasso/asm-dom)

> Page scripting will still be done in JS for several years.

There are people who thought that corporate web pages would be done in Flash (& Actionscript) for several years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're using Choo. Super simple, lightweight and but very powerful. [https://choo.io/](https://choo.io/)

However, I saw this article related to why Gitlab chose Vue. [https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/20/why-we-chose- vue/](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/20/why-we-chose-vue/)

</comment><comment><USER6> We've been using Knockout.js at my company for the last ~4 years but we're in the process of switching over to Vue.js, or at least use it for new projects.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not moving away from react until a potential library has a clojure-wrapper similar to reagent ([https://github.com/reagent- project/reagent](https://github.com/reagent-project/reagent)). There are some people using it with preact, though.

</comment><comment><USER8> How about Ember?

</comment><comment><USER9> My company is switching to a combination of little to no js, vue.js, and jquery.

The big fear of c-level guys is to avoid another react legal situation. We've already had to dump angular, and after react, I now get enormous pushback on using any framework system that wasn't created internally.

<comment><USER10> Why were you required to dump Angular?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does preact come under React's patent clause? My understanding is that both are completely different libraries. If people have concerns on react's patent clause, isn't it easy to migrate to preact?

<comment><USER12> Unlike copyright, patents apply to anything that uses the patented method. This means that if Facebook have any patents on react (and so far I haven't seen anyone actually point to specific patents) they would apply to anything using the same techniques which would likely include any similar library.

<comment><USER7> It'd be interesting to see how the patent would be enforced if the company is outside US

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Elm - such a delight to use. React/Redux without all the boilerplate. [http://elm-lang.org/](http://elm-lang.org/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Angular with NGRX is not bad. Vue if you don't like typescript.

<comment><USER15> I think you can use typescript with Vue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Vue.js</comment>


New antibody mix could form 'potent' Covid-19 treatment, say scientists - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/22/antibody-mix-trialled-as-potential-coronavirus-treatment <comment><USER2> With all this research going into coronaviruses is there any chance we'll get better cold treatments while we're at it?

<comment><USER3> Coronaviruses make up a smaller portion of colds. Call me a pessimist, but it's more likely for this coronavirus to branch off into new varieties that need updated vaccines.</comment></comment>


Just 3 Questions to an Awesome Programmer Job - <AUTHOR> http://www.codeanthem.com/blog/2010/05/3-questions-to-an-awesome-programmer-job/

<comment><USER2> Interviewing is a two way street, or at least it should be. If the interviewers don't want to be interviewed it's a bad company. To that end here are some points I'd like to add (I'm currently hiring some programmers and would love to have any of them ask me for the following. None have so far):

1\. Ask questions about how a manager would handle a situation. If you're not being interviewed by your direct manager (why not?), ask what the company would do. Start off simple, "I want to use a new technology that we don't already support but I believe will make a project easier/quicker/more profitable. What's your response?" and work up to harder things "We're pushing to a rapidly approaching hard release date and someone vital quits. The team is already at breaking point. There's no way we'll deliver. What do you do?"

2\. Ask to see the working environment and sit down and talk with other employees of all kinds (programmers, designers, secretaries) without management present. Not for long, just 15 minutes. If they say no, it's a problem.

3\. If you're expected to maintain and existing code base, ask for code examples. They often do it of you, it's only fair. Nothing in particular, just something so get an idea of the quality.

Just a few of the things I'd be more than willing to do as a manager.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sorry but this makes no sense. This questions assume that the interviewers are 'crappy' in the first place. Not a nice way to start a relationship.

</comment><comment><USER4> _1\. What sort of technical exam do you use to screen programmers?

2\. What do you do to make your programmers lives easier?

3\. What percentage of the developer's time is spent in meetings versus uninterrupted coding time?_

Interesting questions, but I prefer to not beat around the bush:

1\. What will I be building?

2\. What will you pay me?

If the answers to these 2 questions are right, I don't care that much about anything else. If they're not, nothing else matters.

<comment><USER5> _3\. Q: Where will I be working?

A: hell_

Doesn't matter?

<comment><USER6> Well, if he is a devil, then it may be the right environment. Depends on the job, I guess.</comment></comment></comment>


Really Disappointed with MIT Cutting Sports - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2009/04/really-disappointed-with-mit-cutting-sports.html <comment><USER2> Interesting! My school, RPI, tends to do whatever MIT does about ten years after they do it. Right now we're in the process of building a $100M athletic village. As far as I can tell it's so we can get alumni to notice us more and donate. In ten years are we going to regret that decision?</comment>


Live coding an assembler for CP/M - <AUTHOR> http://cowlark.com/2019-06-01-cpm-asm/ <comment><USER2> It's likely that this is contaminated with the copyright of the original — the author admits having had access to the original, and it's likely that some of their code would show "substantial similarity" if examined by a jury, which is sufficient to show copyright infringement under US law. And, notoriously, Caldera has been taken over by shameless criminals even worse than the ones at Oracle — the ones who turned the name "SCO" into an obscenity meaning "to try to steal someone else's work through the courts".

It's outrageous and ridiculous that in 2019 we need to worry about possibly infringing the copyright of code written in the 1970s, when copyright arguably didn't even cover software, by a man who died in 1994 and who probably would have approved of the project. Copyright law is a menace to anyone doing preservation or creative work of any kind — note the recent million-dollar verdict in favor of Nintendo against abandonware ROM sites — and should be abolished or at least scaled back to a reasonable term, like five years.

On another note, the Z80 isn't as obsolete as you might think — like the 8051, it's used relatively often as an embedded core in modern devices, such as the S1 MP3 player from the 2000s and the TI-73+, TI-83+, and TI-84 calculators SirCmpwn wrote KnightOS for. And, unlike the 8051, the Z80 has reasonable self-hosted development tools, including Turbo Pascal.

<comment> david-given Re copyright contamination: that's pretty doubtful, actually. While it's not a clean room reimplementation it does work quite differently, with a whole set of different bugs, syntactic wibbles and semantic quirks, as well as being in a completely different language. I am actually _right now_ working on the .prn file output, and duplicating the behaviour of the original is essentially impossible as it's very much dependent on how the original parsed the input and mine parses differently. (Try assembling 'foo equ 1 ! mov a, foo' and try and predict what the DR assembler's prn file output is! You'll be surprised.)

Also, the IP's not owned by Caldera any more. It got spun off into Lineo, which then folded. Some assets went to Embedix which then got folded into Metrowerks, and the rest reverted to the investor, Canopy Group (he says reading Wikipedia), but I don't know which.

It's probably worth approaching them to try and get the license fixed --- the existing one is painfully vague and the CP/M community bickers endlessly about what it actually means, and the encumbrance requiring everything to be distributed through one site is just stupid. Whether they still contain anyone who's heard of CP/M, I don't know.

<comment> david-given Oh, yeah --- I'm not complaining about Z80 being obsolete. I'm complaining that it's too new! CP/M proper uses 8080 machine code, which Z80 code is almost (but not quite) backwards compatible with. So Z80 machines can run classic CP/M binaries but classic CP/M machines can't run Z80 code.

sdcc only generates Z80 code, not 8080, so my assembler can't be used on a Tandy Model 100, for example. I have another compiled lined up which will generate 8080 code, though. Less buggy, too.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I didn't think _you_ thought the Z80 was obsolete. (It kind of is, just less than people think.) I meant that _other people_ reading about it in the context of CP/M might think it was purely a retrocomputing exercise. (And the classic CP/M machines I had used Z80s, so they could run Z80 code.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "This is part of a slowly ongoing project to produce a completely open source CP/M clone which can be distributed with emulators and the like" \-- Will this be limited to 8080 / Z80 or platform independent? If the latter, to which extent?

<comment> david-given Z80 and 8080 only --- I would like it to be 8080 only but I haven't been able to source an 8080 CP/M kernel and shell which are provably open source. So instead I'm using ZSDOS kernel (GPL) and the ZCPR1 shell (PD).

Fun fact: CP/M is modular! You can mix and match kernels, shells and BIOSes as much as you like and everything's still binary compatible! What's more, the original Digital Research distribution contained all the tools necessary to let you do this and port CP/M to a new architecture! Truly, it was a different era.

Interested parties may wish to watch [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGWshrMZcCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGWshrMZcCc), where I demonstrate an earlier version of the thing running on a Z80-based Amstrad NC200 laptop, and do some programming on it.</comment></comment>