Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/22/waymo-filing-says-ex-uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-knew-engineer-had-google-info <comment><USER2> Why does the media keep calling Levandowski a plain old engineer? If Levandowski qualifies as a nameless engineer the title should read "Waymo filing says engineer knew engineer had Google info." Levandowski is a well known tech entrepreneur and was before this case, he wasn't just some worker bee Uber hired to sling code that stole IP from Google before leaving.

It sort of feels like the VW emissions scandal being blamed on "engineers". No, in both cases they were well compensated, well connected, seasoned tech executives and knew what they were doing and thought they could get away with it because of their position (and likely also from experience.)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I always do a double-take when I read engineer, because I take it to mean that it was some other engineer, because obviously if it was Levandowski, they'd have mentioned him by name.

He's literally the protagonist of this whole drama, and they keep referring to him as 'engineer'. WTF.

<comment><USER4> Antagonist?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So to take a kind of backwards view here, are there any consequences for Waymo if they are incorrect in this filing? Or is this the part of legal wrangling where you throw mud and see what sticks?

To be sure, there's a great deal of smoke around Levandowski and the Otto acquisition, and probably some fire as well.

<comment><USER6> There are consequences, but they're more related to the adequacy of Google's basis for making the assertion rather than whether it is ultimately correct or incorrect. Accuracy of representations in filings in federal court is governed by Rule 11: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11). Lawyers and their clients can be (and regularly are) sanctioned for violating the rule. The rule enumerates various requirements, but the gist of it is that you have to have a good faith basis for any legal argument or factual assertion you put in a filing. Viewed retrospectively, if you're wrong and the other side brings a Rule 11 motion for sanctions, you had better be able to explain that you acted in good faith by conducting a reasonable investigation and finding information backing up your assertion.

With regards to allegations like the ones here, the backup might be, _e.g._ emails that tend to suggest Kalanick knew about the misappropriated IP, or even an interview with a witness who said Kalanick knew. After further discovery that could turn out to be wrong--the emails might not reveal the full context, or the witness misinterpreted the situation, or, more likely, there is simply a greater volume of emails or testimony suggesting that he did not know. That's fine under Rule 11, what matters is that there was some factual basis to begin with.

<comment><USER7> I understand you are a lawyer, but _" After further discovery that could turn out to be wrong ... what matters is that there was some factual basis to begin with."_ does sound, to the lay person, a lot like throwing mud and seeing what sticks.

<comment><USER6> I guess it depends on how you define "throwing mud and seeing what sticks." To me, that implies a lack of investigation and recklessness as to the truth. "Your honor, the Defendant cheats on his wife! What's my basis for that allegation? I mean, it could be true, so let's depose him and find out!" That will get you sanctioned. In contrast: "Your honor, the Defendant cheats on his wife! We have a hotel maid that saw a woman enter his hotel room while he was traveling on business and leave the next morning." That's a plausible allegation that may or may not turn out to be true, depending on other facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is perhaps the most important claim made by Waymo since the initial filing. Waymo had already built up a preponderance of evidence that Levandowski knowingly and intentionally stole their information. There's no way he's dancing out of that at this point. But up until now, they haven't provided any evidence or, I believe, made the claim that Uber knew what was up, which puts them in the awkward position of suing someone (Uber) who may have had nothing to do with Levandowski's crime. There was lots of innuendo (Travis Kalanick took many long walks at night with Levandowski, with the discussions totally undocumented) but no smoking gun. However, if they can demonstrate to a jury that Uber execs definitely knew what Levandowski did and ignored it, that's the sort of thing that changes this lawsuit from an expensive distraction into an existential threat to Uber's self-driving car business.

<comment><USER9> >>However, if they can demonstrate to a jury that Uber execs definitely knew what Levandowski did and ignored it

Since this is a jury trial, they only need to demonstrate it beyond reasonable doubt, no?

<comment><USER10> Reasonable doubt is the criminal law standard, and is relatively hard to achieve since any credible theory by the defense can undermine it.

This is a civil lawsuit, so probably goes to preponderance of evidence. That's a lot easier--the plaintiff only has to prove it's more likely than not that the defendant was liable.

Jury or not doesn't really come into it, except that formal criminal trials (above an infraction, at least) always involve a jury.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How long does Uber have left? Another post about Uber from yesterday said they had around a year left of runway.

As an aside: Every day for at least the past month an Uber story talking about their failings has dominated Hacker News. I strongly believe that Uber's problems are extremely importantant, and deserve to be on the front page. But, its really tiring to talk about a company that is stumbling every single day when we could have posts about other things.

<comment><USER12> the mob wants to hear about Uber's problems, the mob upvotes Uber's problems, so there's a lot of content that the mob wants to read on the front page. wait a bit for the topic to cool down.

replace the mob with happy users if you wish.

disclaimer: i'm a part of the mob, it's a very interesting topic for me.

<comment><USER13> It's only the people in tech who know about Uber's problems. All of my friends who aren't in tech don't know anything about Uber's problems and use it regularly. Heck i still use it if the surge is below 1.5 since it's either Uber or Taxi.

<comment><USER14> >"It's only the people in tech who know about Uber's problems."

No it's anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or watches Bloomberg too. I'm pretty sure that includes much more than techies. Uber has been featured on the front page of both of those newspapers and not just recently.

>"All of my friends who aren't in tech don't know anything about Uber's problems and use it regularly"

That's purely anecdotal.

<comment><USER13> >No it's anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or watches Bloomberg too. I'm pretty sure that includes much more than techies. Uber has been featured on the front page of both of those newspapers and not just recently.

Uber CEO being fired or Waymo law suit is a bigger story and a lot more people know about it. But i don't think people will stop using uber because of those two stories. Compare that to sexual harassment being rampant in Uber which could cause a lot more people to not use Uber out of ethics.

>That's purely anecdotal.

I didn't say otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hollywood, please wait until this plays out before writing the script and signing on a big name actor to play Travis[0]

[0] [http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer- lawrenc...](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence- theranos-elizabeth-holmes)

<comment><USER16> I think if they can get Melissa McCarthy they should go for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a very good read in HBR today on the fact that Uber's business model is predicated on illegality. Thought provoking read. [https://hbr.org/2017/06/uber-cant-be-fixed-its-time-for- regu...](https://hbr.org/2017/06/uber-cant-be-fixed-its-time-for-regulators- to-shut-it-down)

<comment><USER18> This is one of the dumber articles I've read on Uber. I don't think the author has used cabs much and is just theorizing. In a mid-size American city, I've had cabs cancel on me around half the times I've called them, leaving me stranded. I've been through an experience where someone with a fake taxi license fleeced me charging me 3X with physical intimidation. I know someone who was robbed at gunpoint by his fake cab driver. The author misrepresents the taxi industry as some sort of a philanthropic order of saints. The only times cabs have been reliable for me are when going to and from airports.

Uber is fundamentally different from regulated taxis. Also, there's no moral framework for the taxi-related regulations (medallion, commercial insurance, etc.). They're both a relic of an age that has passed and a prime example of regulatory capture.

It is worth noting that the byline for the article states this:

> Benjamin Edelman is an associate professor at Harvard Business School and an > adviser to various companies that compete against major platforms

I wonder what 'major platforms'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Headline choice is editorializing - the actual quote "Mr.Kalanick conveyed to Mr. Levandowski in response that Mr. Levandowski should not bring any Google information into Uber and that Uber did not want any Google information. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Levandowski communicated to Uber that he had destroyed the discs"

<comment><USER20> Headline choice is perfectly fine. Not only is it 100% accurate, but it's also the germane information that leads to the following statement:

> _This would obviously be a strong piece of support for Waymo's case, since > it establishes a timeline in which Uber was aware of Levandowski's alleged > actions even prior to finalizing their acquisition of Otto, which would in > turn mean that Uber can't claim to be completely separated from > Levandowski's actions._

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> All this Uber talk is making me dizzy. Yeah, sure, Uber is a shitty company but there are tons of them. This disproportional attention to Uber is blindsiding everyone to a lot of them.

Maybe, someone should also check out Lyft for their employee treatment, company culture, and business practices. Because, apparently, they are the good guys and a lot of people are switching to them.

<comment><USER22> While I do agree with you that a couple of Uber stories everyday with no real extra info are a bit too much, let's not put everyone in the same basket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is a podcast called The Dollop where one person essentially teaches another person about a particular subject. They recently did Uber and it was eye-opening to see just how shady this company has always been. I am not a fan of Uber but after listening to this I will never use them again.

Podcast link: [http://thedollop.libsyn.com/271-uber](http://thedollop.libsyn.com/271-uber)

<comment><USER24> Basically my impression since i first heard about them.

But many pushed them as just good old American "disrupters" of a "stale" market.

That is until the first dirty underwear regarding office shenanigans were aired, and then the twittering classes did a one-eighty in their view of Uber. And from that point on the company has been circling the drain.

<comment><USER25> The myth that you can build a billion-dollar business without some shady dealings needs to die. Startups are usually faced with hard choices if they want to survive.

Pretending like Kalanick himself endorsed sexual harassment is ridiculous. We don't know whether he knew, how much he knew, or how involved he was. All evidence points to "the trail of information stopped at HR."

I think we like to pretend that startups should be completely moral and make no questionable decisions because of how awful companies have acted in the past. While it's true we shouldn't let history repeat itself, it's false to say that merely disrupting a market is worth criticizing. And this is what disruption looks like.

Balancing morality/ethics with winning is incredibly difficult. You can be an upstanding person, thrust into the CEO chair, and still screw up. Then all of your mistakes are magnified to ridiculous proportions and people claim it's a pattern of behavior that they spotted from the start, but everyone else was too blinded to recognize. Sound familiar? Not even in Uber's case -- it's a story that's repeated itself over and over.

The straightforward response is "Well, startups shouldn't act so disreputably then." I agree that you shouldn't do anything that brings harm to individuals, nor should you ignore a toxic culture at your company. But refusing to even try -- to say that if you're not perfectly honest or perfectly moral, that you shouldn't be allowed to build a company -- is a formula for letting the true snakes dominate the world. Honest people who make mistakes are better than assholes with a thirst for power.

But you have to let them be willing to admit that they've made mistakes. Kalanick has done this.

<comment><USER26> Ironically the sister-post to your parent post complains about a vampire being killed in the 19th century, when it's the same mindset that caused that and that wants to crucify Kalanick.

The five-minutes-of-hate culture and public lynching culture is dangerous and has to end. In a year some contrarian will post an article on Medium with the title "Kalanick was unfairly ousted" and it'll be posted on reddit/r/TIL and the tide will turn as all the people whose opinions are an expression of whatever made it to the frontpage of their favorite aggregators reverse their opinion to fit the status quo.

<comment><USER27> i am against Internet lynching, but there have been enough scandals and just plain toxicity coming out of Uber for several years now.

I know it was not quite your point, but idolizing assholes like Kalanick - "they may be a bit flawed, but they are brilliant businessmen/women", quite prevalent in the US, ends up in a lot of companies run by sociopathic assholes.

Leave the fawning to sycopanthic media, please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Other articles on this subject note that upon hearing Levandowski possessed the stolen files, Kalanick advised him to destroy the stolen data and not bring it to Uber.

</comment><comment><USER29> Now just putting conspiracy theory hat for a moment, but can it be the real reason behind Travis walking out? Board got to know that this would come out and got rid of him to do some damage control?

<comment><USER30> Large organizations are always making decisions behind the scenes. I wouldn't call it a "conspiracy theory" in the "tin foil hat" sense. I would just call it a theory where actors conspired to oust Travis.

<comment><USER31> I think that's still called a conspiracy theory, but maybe with more supporting evidence than "aliens stole Waymo lidar".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> From over 10 years of using and kinda understanding the taxi industry, a different leader than Travis could not have entered that market. I'm not saying he's correct, but it takes a bully to scare a bully.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm glad this is happening to Uber.

I do not want such a company to thrive with these type of practices.

I thought they were going to win against Lyft with all these shady practices. And so I just shrug it off and chalk it up for those dirty companies stepping on people.

Glad that the public have been more empathic and a conscious on these disgusting practices. Gives me hope for the future in term of businesses and higher standards.

<comment><USER34> I do not condone all the dirty practices but i always find it amusing how lyft gets a good guy trophy. Well without Uber being there doing the dirty work of fighting regulations Lyft would not exist. I would not want Lyft to go away because it is nice to have that option and competition but I would not wish for Uber to go down after all the major changes they did in last few months. Many companies get away with doing far worse. Uber more than redeemed themself.

<comment><USER35> > Many companies get away with doing far worse.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that Uber should get away with it.

> Uber more than redeemed themself.

Umm... how?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > "Mr.Kalanick conveyed to Mr. Levandowski in response that Mr. Levandowski > should not bring any Google information into Uber and that Uber did not want > any Google information. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Levandowski communicated to > Uber that he had destroyed _the discs_ "

Emphasis mine. Does anyone else find this to be particularly odd wording for 2016/7? When was the last time anyone here that is tech savvy use multiple disks for storage of anything? Desktop and laptop hard drives can now hold multiple terabytes of data and thumb drives now hold in excess of one terabyte. Plus, most people now use drives not discs. Most laptops don't even contain disk drives and haven't for years.

I'm probably alone here, but this detail alone makes this heresay seem suspicious to me. Did anyone else find the mention of multiple discs in 2016/7 odd as well?

</comment><comment><USER23> shocker... douchebag CEO with "win at all costs" attitude is trying to win at all costs.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if the timing of Alphabet's spinning-out of Waymo was driven or influenced by a desire to, as much as possible, distance Alphabet and, more importantly, the Google brand from what they knew would become an ugly legal battle.

</comment><comment><USER38> in all of this drama, as others have mentioned that the board may have been calculating the release of travis and perhaps others, all I can think of is just how complicit and shady everyone else on the board is.

I can doubt they didnt know anything about uber's DNA and how much of a douche-factory they were running just to make a shit ton of money themselves.

While I think that uber (ride sharing in general) has greatly benefited myself and millions of others, I cannot think that the board is wholly altruistic at uber, and I think the whole top pulled shady crap to get where they are.

on the one hand, you want rogue companies to push the boundaries when nimby and laws which are obsolete are blocking evolution of how we live, but you also want fairness in how they accomplish this.

its like a Louis CK skit, "of course, but maybe";

Of course, Uber and ride-sharing is a great idea and millions of people benefit from it existing and it showed how taxi medallion services in places like NYC were an outdated and corrupt model lining the pockets of a few at the expense of the many and now a black man can reliably get a ride uptown in minutes by the magic cab hailer in his pocket....

but ___maybe_ __.... you didnt have to be a sexist, corrupt slimy douchebag to accomplish this such that your company isnt bleeding talent and the poster child for sexism in tech and actually managing to one-up zenifits HR debacle with your own literally worst HR department in history of tech stories... maybe...

<comment><USER39> Bill Gurley has a known reputation and history for being a shady VC. AngelList was created basically out of Naval's experience getting royally screwed by Gurley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Does Travis leaving now prevent him from returning at a later time as CEO under opportune circumstances? PR could spin a return if Uber starts failing and hail Travis as having learned how to lead.

In other words, does anyone think this could be temporary?

</comment><comment><USER41> I count 4 Uber stories on the front page today. There have been a few every week since the past few months. Will this sordid saga ever end? I feel this is like watching a newsreel about the same topics every few days.

<comment><USER38> This is a super annoying sentiment:

* why cant we shutup about snowden already

* stop posting about uber

* plenty of other examples

* get back to talking about [tech topic] that truly is tech

etc...

These are important issues. snowden was critically important to discuss. uber is important to learn from.

anyone attempting to shut down/stifle/limit discussion or examination/reflection of topics that stem from, affect, and, largely define, in the minds of those not in tech, the overall image of tech, should be regarded as having dubious intentions.

<comment><USER42> Don't overreact. The person you replied to was just expressing frustration with a "sordid saga" and questioned when it will end.

It's totally legitimate to feel that way. Conflating it with "stifling" and "limiting" discussion, then suggesting it has a dubious intentions. That's a little dramatic.

<comment><USER38> Sorry, I wasn't saying that ___he_ __was stifling or had dubious intentions - I am saying __ _in general_ __, if one is too oft complaining, this could be construed...

So, don't overreact to my comment either :-)

It wasn't as heated as may have seemed.

\---

The next unicorn idea is to be able to accurately convey the tone of a sentiment via text.... maybe all text should be "mood text" and have a font color demonstrating the tone/mood it was written in ;-)

<comment><USER42> That's not a bad idea. We'll just have to write like those LARP people.

 _thieving_magpie ponders, then blushes. Slowly looking up he whispers_ "Good idea sam".

<comment><USER38> ___amused and lightly impressed /aroused_ __Thank you __ _masculine yet sultry voice_ __

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The cherry on top is the history of eugenics in the US, with forced sterilizations extending into the 1970's (!)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Compulsory_sterilization)

It's a chilling read, not for the faint of heart.

<comment><USER44> Fun fact: The Nazis looked to American Eugenics and race purity laws as an inspiration. It was only after the horrors of WW2 came out that the US rejected these policies.

<comment><USER45> that doesn't sound like a "fact". I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm just saying that I don't believe you until you provide a source, i.e. some nazi expounding on how they never would have had the idea for racial purity if it hadn't been for america.

<comment><USER46> I took "looked to American...laws for inspiration" not to mean they got the idea to care about racial purity from America (it was globally a common idea for millenia before the Nazis, and remains common today) but that, in terms of concrete policy to realize those pre-existing concernd, the racial laws of the US at the time were among the sources they consulted for ideas.

<comment><USER45> without any sort of concrete evidence that the national socialists were actively modeling their policies after US policy, I have no reason to believe this either. Two countries can have backwards policies without one having been "inspiration" for the other.

<comment><USER47> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement)

[http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the- Nazis...](http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the- California-2549771.php)

> During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep > personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. > In "Mein Kampf," published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology > and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is > today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a > better conception (of immigration) are noticeable. Of course, it is not our > model German Republic, but the United States."

> Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress > of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he > told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning > prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all > probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."

> Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenics leader Madison Grant, > calling his race-based eugenics book, "The Passing of the Great Race," his > "bible."

<comment><USER45> Thank you for this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why does this article not mention that when Kalanick found out that Levandowski had this material, he immediately told him that Uber didn't want it, and told him to destroy those discs? The Bloomberg article on this topic said this directly.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/ex- uber-c...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/ex-uber-ceo- kalanick-knew-of-engineer-s-google-info-waymo-says)

<comment><USER49> Perhaps for the same reason you didn't mention the possibility of contempt mentioned in the Bloomberg article?

There are multiple ways to tell a story. I realize partisans have discovered that yelling at journalists is a great way to distract from the underlying story, but it works better on Sunday shouty shows and swampy blogs.

<comment><USER48> That is less material to the story than the idea that Kalanick wasn't involved in some conspiracy to steal Waymo's tech. The media wants to propagate the story that Uber and Levandowski were conspiring to steal Waymo's technology, but this makes it clear that it wasn't the case, and if there was theft of secrets, it was Levandowski on his own.

<comment><USER49> The media wants to tell any story that gets attention. Complaining about the media is a distraction, but at least here there's the amusement of accusing the media of conspiring to tell the story of a conspiracy that doesn't exist.

The contempt charge is less material to the story you are interested in talking about, but looks rather important to me. And we don't have proof of anything - Maybe Kalanick got cold feet partway through. We don't yet have sufficient detail to know what this means.

Although now that you shine a light on this, it does seem to demonstrate is that Kalanick went ahead with a key hire who was anteing stolen IP. Call that what you will, but I wouldn't hire a janitor who did that, nor would knowingly I work for anyone who would do that. And it is also further recklessness - even putting aside ethics and legality, who is to say Levandowski wouldn't do the same thing to Uber if he got a better offer?

<comment><USER48> I agree that the entire Levandowski mess is completely Kalanick's fault. He was in completely control when he hired him, and presumably overincentivized him with a $250 million pay package.

But that's a completely different issue than the original point. The point is that there was no conspiracy to steal Waymo's trade secrets. There was no conspiracy to use Waymo's technologies in Uber self-driving cars, who already had hundreds of engineers and professors working on it for years.

We don't know what the full conversation was between the two of them, but we do know from the article that once Kalanick knew that Levandowski had some sort of files, he told him to destroy it immediately and that he didn't want that to be used by Uber. I think that part is very clear.

<comment><USER50> Well, Kalanick told Levandowski to destroy the files immediately, _and hired him knowing that he had taken the files from Waymo_.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that. He's so desperate to win at self- driving cars that he'll hire Levandowski, even though Levandowski has proven himself to be shady? He's "telling" Levandowski (with a wink) to destroy the files, really meaning "keep a copy at home, don't let it ever touch our work computers, but keep feeding us the information"? Or what?

I guess, at a minimum, the fact that Uber tried to delay this information from getting into the court case means that it isn't innocent. (Or they're afraid that it looks bad enough that it's really going to cost them. But delaying disclosure makes it look bad, too...)

<comment><USER36> > and hired him knowing that he had taken the files from Waymo.

Google also bought 510 Systems, which was the company he founded while still working at Google. Levandowski proved himself to be shady at Google and Google not only didn't admonish him, they rewarded him by buying his side project he created while employed by Google.

Clearly the man is talented enough that both companies decided it was worth overlooking his past actions. If what was reported today is true, Uber at the very least admonished Levandowski and told him to destroy what he had taken and that they had no interest in that material and not to bring it to Uber.

Near as I can tell, the discovery process thus far has demonstrated that none of that material made its way to Uber. The only documents found reported thus far were some documents on a single personal laptop of one engineer. If any of Levandowski's documents had made their way to Uber, the discovery process would have found at least something given the number of keywords Google requested be searched for and the number of files searched.

Right now, the only thing that appears in doubt here is if he ever actually destroyed documents. I agree he's likely culpable, but I still don't see any reason for Uber to be culpable of anything more than knowingly hiring someone with a past history of being unscrupulous, that Google also employed knowing full well he actively unscrupulous in their employ.

It would be mighty ironic if Google was now sued by shareholders for negligence in how it had previously handled Levandowski.

<comment><USER49> > Levandowski proved himself to be shady at Google

I've missed this part. Have a pointer?

In any case, any shady behavior while at Google may be colorable noise in the PR battle, but is unlikely to have any relevance in court.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


August 2016 Lisp Game Jam Postmortem - <AUTHOR> http://stevelosh.com/blog/2016/08/lisp-jam-postmortem/ <comment><USER2> Super high-quality article. Kudos for the author.

Since Common Lisp has a low-lever goto, it's not really required to use something like SBCL for tail-call optimization. You can write a macro for it. Check Doug Hoyte's version in Let Over Lambda:

[http://letoverlambda.com/index.cl/guest/chap5.html#sec_4](http://letoverlambda.com/index.cl/guest/chap5.html#sec_4)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool! I was hoping the author might have some thoughts about Clojure vs. Lisp to share — what he preferred, what he missed, what he'd use in the future.

<comment><USER4> I am pleased this is not another Gorilla vs. Shark comparison. I like that the article focuses on the thing being developed rather than the tool being used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > when trying to build things and learn programming languages you should > either build something you know in a language you're learning, or build > something new in a language you already know, but not try to do both at the > same time.

This makes a lot of sense. I learned this the hard way.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this a postmortem? Everything seems to have gone well and nobody/nothing died...

Edit: I was under the impression that postmortem was usually used to mean a discussion of a failure of some sort. I was not aware of the project management version.

<comment><USER7> Agree. Stop using postmortem for neutral retrospectives.

Postmortem ("after death") is a term used for diagnosing what went wrong, when something went wrong.

It's the right term to use to report on a service outage on a website, for example.

From Wikipedia project post mortem: "is a process, usually performed at the conclusion of a project, to determine and analyze elements of the project that were successful or unsuccessful. "

Why use "after death"? it's not like latin words don't have meaning...

<comment><USER8> "…usually performed at the conclusion of a project…"

Conclusion, not unsuccessful conclusion. It's not incorrect to use it for any retrospective for a project that has concluded, regardless of whether it's successful or not.

<comment><USER7> But did it die? Is it referring to "after the lifetime" of the project, rather than during?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gates: Smartphones plugged into TVs, better for the 3rd World than a PCs - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2006/061906backspin.html <comment><AUTHOR> "Gates, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, argued that smart cell phones plugged into televisions and augmented by keyboards would be a better vehicle for computer-enabling the Third World than a PC-style device."</comment>


Five Officers, Zero Body Cam Footage, One Dead Body - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180624/18081640105/another-police-accountability-miracle-five-officers-zero-body-cam-footage-one-dead-body.shtml <comment><USER2> Quoting from the KOAT story:

"Hawkes had been seen driving a stolen truck hours before the shooting, according to police.

The autopsy report released Friday shows Hawkes was shot three times and sustained injuries to her head, neck and chest.

A toxicology report showed that Hawkes had a high concentration of meth in her body when she died. She tested positive for six different drugs including opiates, marijuana and anti-anxiety medication.

Her family and friends said she had a troubled past with a criminal history that began in her teens. ..."</comment>


Ask HN: How many hours/week are you expected to work in SV/NY/other tech hubs? - <AUTHOR> For someone outside Silicon Valley, the salaries being paid to rank-and-file software engineers seem very high - which is great!
However, on many job postings you'll see words like "grit" or "passion" listed as requirements. These are codewords for "we'll work you hard" and "overtime expected", as far as I can tell.
Software Engineers in Silicon Valley or comparable large tech hubs:
* How many hours do you work per week?
* Do higher-salaried jobs require more hours?
Both individual examples and higher-level overviews of the market are appreciated.
Context:
I'm a software consultant working with software companies in tech hubs - but I work remotely. I occasionally check their job postings and am $urprised at the pay rates and wonder if I'm underpaid. But then I think: Are there long hours involved? Is 50+ hours/week the minimum? <comment><USER4> I work remotely for a company in Silicon Valley. I worked on site for 2+ years before that.

I work 40 hours a week, no more, no less and I have good performance reviews. I think the trend for programmers is to work 40 hours a week and have a balanced life. There is tremendous pushback against working 50 or 50 hours a week lately, and I'm thankful for that.

</comment><comment><USER5> In NYC, in financial services anyway, you are expected to work around 60 hours per week plus whatever more is needed. You are expected to house your wife in Connecticut and have your parents live with you to help your wife care for any children. The big draw for that is you can typically expect high end salary and bonus around 50% of salary or more - however only if you are present on the date distributed. It's a very common practice to lay off in November or December, so employers can get the most work out of you without paying bonus or letting you cost through the holidays when things are slow and IT departments are in change freeze.

Since leaving financial services I've worked in social media where things are much more family friendly, hours are closer to 40, but salary is about a third less and bonus is closer to 25%.

<comment><USER6> What is this "bonus" thing you speak of?

<comment><USER7> Essentially it is a way for the company to allow some variability in your income, in case of an especially good or, more typically, bad year, as well as hinder turnover by withholding a large portion of your compensation until after, typically, the last fiscal quarter of the year. It's discretionary of course so the company isn't on the hook for it and called a "bonus" as if they are paying you beyond what your work is worth. You generally will not have any insight into how your bonus is calculated nor will you be given any idea how to move that number in a positive direction. That was my experience with the bonus pools in the financial industry anyway.

<comment><USER6> I was being facetious but thank you for the earnest answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What does it mean when people say they work 40 hours a week? does it mean they are focused for 40 hours, or that they spend 40 hours at their workplace (including chatting with colleagues, eating, browsing the web or moving across the building...).

<comment><USER9> Typically the latter.

<comment><USER10> I'd need some kind of drug to stay focused 40 hours a week. Although during unfocused times I often come up with subconscious insights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I work for a mobile gaming company in SV (500+ employees) where the office hours are 10 - 7. I come in just before 9 and I leave at 5. Nobody seems to care and people respect my hours. I receive good performance reviews and I'd like to think I'm seen as a "go-to" person in the company. Sometimes there's a light crunch where I'll pull 50 hours and/or take my work home with me but it's pretty rare. The problem is that it can be so hit-and-miss with these companies. I've watched teams from my last company push 120 hour weeks to get a product done while I still worked 40-45 hours (I wasn't involved with the project thank god).

You could literally work for a company (big or small) where teams or individuals work long hours. I personally don't think working longer hours should be awarded (unless the company is pushing for something) as it makes other people feel they need to work longer. I always felt it makes more sense to work smarter than longer.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm in Seattle and the answer is 'It varies'. We have oncalls which can feel like working ~70 hrs/wk, and slower weeks where I'm only really in the office for 30 or so hours.

Usually I'm in office or checking in on stuff from home for about 45hrs/wk. A lot of my office time is spent in conversation or explaining things to juniors, getting coffee, dealing with inter-team communication issues, that sort of thing. Some (like now) is spent browsing the web, which I think of as keeping up with industry trends:)

If I wanted to 'take the next step' in my career, I'd likely have to lose some of my flexibility and have a more butt-in-seat approach. I think most of the management and principal engineers here at AWS are in the 50+ hour club.

</comment><comment><USER13> I work at a large company in NYC. Based wholly on personal observation, long hours are not uncommon. I often see folks eating dinner at the office. I suspect most people put in ~50 hours a week if not a little more than that.

The number tends to increase with the extent of one's responsibilities (n.b. extent, not gravity).

As far as expectations go, I don't think these are normally elaborated in terms of hours for salaried employees. You're just expected to get your work done, regardless of whether or not it takes you more than 40. The expectation is probably that you put in ~40-50? This is purely speculation on my part, mind you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to get at the underlying expectations - "get your work done" can mean a lot of things. At a prior job, it meant that you wrote a TODO list at the start of the week, which was approved by the boss. If you finished in 10 hours, you were done!

But if it's left vaguely defined, "'til the work gets done" can mean weekend hackathons in a we-work-hard culture, no?

<comment><USER13> It's definitely a vague phrase, sorry. Here's some more detail: my situation's a bit different from other employees (I'm hourly, not salaried), so I can only take guesses, but I think the performance measurement scale is longer-term around here. Basically there's yearly goals/key performance indicators you need to hit. One on one's are the preferred method of checking in to see that work is being done, but the ones I attend are pretty informal—I just provide a general summary of what I worked on that week and where the long term projects are at. The level of formality can depend on your manager, I believe. I think some managers are a bit more clerical and ask for written weekly lists of what you accomplished and things like that. From what I can tell though, there's mostly just an understanding around here that you should be invested in the work and as such be sure to accomplish your goals, whatever that might entail. So, yes, in that sense it is a structure/culture susceptible to things like weekend hours and extra grind. It's not uncommon to see people committing work on weekends or at 10pm on weekdays either--it's not _super_ frequent but it's also not shocking when it does happen. Keep in mind though that NYC in general is quite a bit different than other places when it comes to working. There's a lot of "hustle" around here. I'd go so far as to say it's probably not uncommon for workers in _any_ industry to work more hours if they work in NYC (there's probably some study on this out there somewhere).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The expectations vary mostly depending on a few things, IMO:

1\. Life stage of the company (startup vs. mature) 2\. Role (rank-and-file engineer vs. leadership) 3\. Your management

Location has had less to do with the number of hours worked than the items above.

Startups tend to demand more of their staff because it's an existential problem they're trying to solve - become profitable/acquired/public before you run out of money or someone squashes you. Expectations there will be >40 hours pretty much across the board, and will favor single, probably white men.

Mature companies can also demand more of your time, but typically they are easier places to find roles that will not demand much more than 40 hours a week.

With those things said, you could be working for a SOB that simply demands your presence to prove you're doing the most work possible, and in those cases you should decide whether you value your paycheck or your health/sanity. I've been there and choose health/sanity 100% of the time. Burn out just once and you'll know what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER15> Single - sure, men - sure most programmers are men, but why would they favour white people? Do they work harder? I'm pretty sure white people are underrepresented in Silicon Valley, while Asians are heavily overrepresented.

<comment><USER14> Could be I'm wrong. I look at this across all locations (including where I am, in the middle of the country) and the majority of people I worked with that were putting in crazy hours were single white men. Once people settle down they have a way of self selecting out of the jobs with insane hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I moved to NYC from a tier 2 city and found the expectations tend to be about the same (~40 hours). That said, a city like NYC can attract and retain type-A people who work long hours, so I think on average NYCers work longer hours than my previous city.

> Do higher-salaried jobs require more hours

No, but moving up the management ladder can require more responsibility and hours.

</comment><comment><USER17> New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia: Only time I've regularly worked more than 40 hours was when I didn't know any better for a large consultancy. Since minor burn-out I've always maxed my hours to 40 per week unless I'm really enjoying the work (ie I'd rather work than do personal things). This can be dangerous if left unchecked, however I've got a pretty healthy relationship with work.

The only people who seem to work much longer hours are my American counterparts and the occasional person who I believe to have poor work-life balance. None of these people seem to be anywhere ahead or achieve anything more than their colleagues. They often hold the "first in, last out" of the office trope, and shame others for working regular hours as lazy.

I've got enough grey hairs as it is, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ah, it's not so precise, especially at a startup. A lot of bias and favoritism, and employee hired after you might curry favor with the CTO and show up 4 hours a week and never get fired, while you get hounded for more (no extra pay) overtime. Such is Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER19> London: 40hr/week up to 70hr/week, rough contracts and tight deadlines.

Moved to LA 3 years ago, work 40hr/week even though on 5x salary compared to UK. Never felt pressure to work more, but would when required (launches).

</comment><comment><USER20> I work in SF. It really depends on the company and team, rather than the region. Lately I have been working 35-40 hours per week at Google, but there are times when I've worked more like 50 hours.

</comment><comment><USER21> I work full-time with salary at an insurance company here in Las Vegas, NV, 9 am to 4 pm with 1 hour lunch. As a .NET software engineer, I lucked out :)

</comment><comment><USER22> I would say Stockholm is a tech hub in Scandinavia. There I worked 45-50 hours per week.

In comparison to LA where I recently moved back: I work 40 hours a week, barring any emergency that may come up. Though LA isn't really a tech hub so maybe it's not a fair comparison.

In both places expectations are unwritten, so to speak, as laws prevent abuse of labor. However in either case you are pretty well compensated for overtime.

<comment><USER23> What made you move back to LA, and is there anything you miss about Stockholm?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> London: 37.5-40 hours a week.

</comment><comment><USER25> There's no hard and fast rule. Working for banks in NYC, 50+ is very common. Same for many startups who are in "growth mode". Wherever you go, hopefully you're judged by your output, not how long you're seated in a chair.

<comment><USER26> > hopefully you're judged by your output

Why do people say this like it's impossible (or even difficult) for your employer to demand output that realistically would take 50 (or 60, or 70...) hours a week? Unless you are literally God, they absolutely can, and if they are abusive, they absolutely will. Whether you get judged in output or in ass- hours has zero bearing whatsoever on their ability to be abusive!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Gurgaon, India. Working in a startup. We have to consistently push up to 80-100 hrs per week. Sorry state of affairs I can say.

</comment><comment><USER28> RO, start-up-mode: 50-60 hrs; corporate (telco, fmcg, financial services): the usual 40 hrs/week.

</comment><comment><USER29> > However, on many job postings you'll see words like "grit" or "passion" > listed as requirements. These are codewords for "we'll work you hard" and > "overtime expected", as far as I can tell.

I was talking with some younger friends here in Seattle, and they expressed similar concerns. This was a total shock to me, because I've been involved in hiring at multiple firms and we use those terms not just in our postings but in our internal discussions for evaluation, etc, and we DON'T mean what the fears are.

In my experience, talking about "passion" is basically shorthand for "we won't have to train you and we'll have minimal mentorship - you'll learn and improve on your own". So..not really a _positive_ meaning, but a very different one from the fear. We don't expect people to put in long hours - the normal 40ish work-week, maybe with a crunch day or two each quarter, roughly speaking. But we do expect/want that people are coming in with the interests to improve and the existing skill to do so. Most places are severely shy of "senior" people (In part, IMNSHO, because they keep trying to hire "senior" people rather than committing to getting more "junior" devs) and as a result they don't have people with the time to spare for proper mentorship.

While this expectation has been consistent across the places I've worked, that doesn't mean it's a universal truth...but I've not seen anything that suggests "passion" and "grit" mean "will work stupid long/hard" outside of the game industry and startups. (Notably, most places rush to get to the point when they can recruit as "post-startup", meaning they no longer ask for those kinds of hours).

I'm in Seattle, and to address your questions:

* Roughly 40 hours/week, normally a bit less (8-4, with a work-provided lunch so I end up not working for only a short time). In the course of a year I expect to have maybe 5 days that I do crazy hours (12-15+ hours/day) and maybe 10 days that I do long (10ish hours). Probably work about 2 weekend days/year on average (excluding answering a text/message, or doing a small code review - anywhere from 5-15 of those on weekends/year, each measured in minutes, not hours)

* Higher paying jobs (I've done 90k - 180+k in Seattle) haven't required more hours, though being willing to put in hours when something real comes up is always taken as helpful and does a lot to help with promotions and bonuses. The trick has been finding places that defines something "real" in terms you agree with. Prod issues that really impacts a customer and comes up 1-2 times/year? Cool. Being "on-call" each month means you WILL get a call? Not cool.

* Certain positions DO expect more hours, particularly when a problem arises. Generally Ops people and those that have to resolve production-critical bugs. This should all be openly available info before and during interviews, though you may have to ask.

That said, I've also noticed a name cachet - My Amazonian friends, depending on their teams, have put in some hours I would consider stupid. They do this WITHOUT a pay bump relative to others in the area/field - getting the name on your resume is considered worth the extra effort. Then again those on other teams have done nothing outside of my norm.

To put this all in context - I moved here ~7 years ago, and have worked for 3 companies out here. I've more than doubled my salary in that time, but my workload hasn't changed too much. One place shifted from a good work/life balance to having "crunch-time" start to extend to being very frequent - <USER2> left, and so did most everyone else. One of the big benefits of a high-demand area is that you can be assured of being able to safely leave a company, so work-you-crazy certainly happens and in places, but cannot be the norm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your detailed answer! I'd say if you're going to put "passion" and "grit" in your job description, you should also specify 40 hour workweeks. Maybe I'm jaded, but those are just codewords to me for "wants to work overtime".

<comment><USER29> I'm certainly keeping that in mind...but why do you believe those are codewords for that? Is that assumption, rumor, or based on personal experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some personal experience, some anecdotes, some assumption. Nearly every time I've read a job posting using similar language, when I've been able to actually talk to the developers there I find out that yep: it's long hours expected.

There's specific words, like "self-motivated" or "willing to learn deeply" to convey the ideas you're talking about, without meaning working extra hours. But when a job posting uses the vaguer "passion", "grit", or similar hustle-y words, it's just a red flag to me that they're being non-specific - <USER3> probably have a reason.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CodeMirror 2: Online Coding with Autocomplete - <AUTHOR> http://codemirror.net/demo/complete.html

<comment><USER2> What exactly does it complete? A set of predefined variables? The only thing it was able to autocomplete was the word "function" while using Javascript.

<comment><AUTHOR> Go below _gatherCompletions_ , type 'g', and then ctrl+space.</comment></comment>


Why It Makes Sense to Rent Rather Than Buy Your Devices - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@karti/why-it-makes-sense-to-rent-rather-than-buy-your-devices-4efb10d9d2ac <comment><USER2> This article doesn't make any sense.

Desktop Vs laptop - do a bit of thinking before buying, how, why, where and when will you use it?

Same thing goes for the iPad/Surface decision. Work out what you want it for, research to see if it does that well and decide accordingly.

Insufficient memory - look for devices that have expandable memory. This mistake should only occur once. Buy an item with no expandable memory, realise what a ball ache that is, avoid this type of device in future.

Unused devices - eBay/gumtree/shpock or whatever your local equivalent is. Get some money Mack toward your new/replacement device.

Hardware defects on a new item should mean it is replaced whether you bought it new or rented it.

Rent a second hand device to save money. Or you know buy a second hand device to save money.

The basic economics of it are that renting will be more expensive than buying because the agency renting you your item needs to make a profit. On a phone with an expected life of 2 - 4 years the renter wants to recoup costs in the first year when demand for the item is high, the subsequent years rent is the profit. So if you rent it in year one you will essentially be paying for the item. If you rent a second hand device in year 3 and 4 you will probably pay close to what a second hand device would cost you at that time.

Refurbished devices may only have a 1 year warranty in India but that second hand macbook you are going to rent had either been refurbished or will be when you drop it back and pick up a replacement (again refurbished).

I could go on, basically renting is not going to save you money over buying and reselling an item when you are finished with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost everything you said is missing the point in some way.

You can think all you want, but your needs change over time, and in any case can't be foreseen by reading some articles. There's no substitute to using it for a few months to understand.

It's easy to say "look for devices that have expandable memory", but many don't, particularly Macbooks. As an iOS developer, I need macOS.

I'm not going to go on and refute your other (frankly mistaken) points, except to say that yes, renting will be more costly, in exchange for the benefits you get. There's no free lunch, and the article doesn't claim there is. The point is that the benefits renting provides are worth the extra cost, for many people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would make sense, yes, if someone would provide it for a useful price point. Given that they'd have to price in repair insurance and want to make a profit I don't see it happening for many use cases.

Short-term rental (e.g. for tests or if you really only need it a limited time) is a different thing and exists already.

<comment><AUTHOR> The OEM could be offering rentals as a way to drive sales, making the same profit as they do when they sell it outright.</comment></comment>


Screw Facebook Paper. Create Personal Wikis. - <AUTHOR> http://www.x-pose.org/2013/08/facebooks-first-premium-feature-profile-wikis/?paper

<comment><USER2> Struck me as an interesting idea.

How would you deal with relationships that go bad? Someone you once trusted with editorial rights to your wiki now thinks you are the devil incarnate?</comment>


Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen: Rule of thumb: Is 1-9-90 really correct? - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/04/rule_of_thumb_1.html <comment><USER2> The hurdle is converting spectators to creators. It's important to remember to cater to spectators and make the transition to creator as easy as possible. No registration for much of the good stuff, but make the process as easy as possible when it becomes necessary.

Incentives is the key here. You want to say, "Come on in and just have at it. But if you take a couple seconds to sign my guest book, look at _what else you'll get._ "</comment>


Slick CSS3 overlay system (js) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.learnboost.com/blog/a-css3-overlay-system/

<comment><USER2> I loaded the site in FF4b8, and was wondering why the demo was so unimpressive, and then decided to try it in Safari, where I saw how it was supposed to work. Seems nice and easy to implement, but unless it can work on other browsers without having me do two completely different implementations, I doubt I'd use this instead of drawing my own overlays and positioning my modal windows the old-fashioned way.

Edit - I guess the '-webkit' tags everywhere should have clued me in... They mention that it should work for Firefox, but I'm not feeling like putting in the work to see if that's true. It would be nice if FF support could be added to the demo code.

The animated version is pretty sweet, but again, I'm not sure how FF does with those CSS transitions and transforms. I've been using jquery animations which seem to have a fairly wide browser support, though they rely on javascript rather than these slick CSS implementations. It's just not clear how much I'd be shooting myself in the foot with regards to browser compatibility trying to go this route instead of tried-and-true javascript.

<comment><USER3> Firefox fixes were merged in the repo, never really had the time to update the Demo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very clean implementation. Any recommendations on the best implementation for modal form windows at the current time (until we CSS3 is better supported)?

<comment><USER5> If you're using jQuery then, <http://jqueryui.com/demos/dialog/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> FF3.6 here... not centered, won't close. Cool in Safari as mentioned but far too exclusive to consider using anytime soon. Things we get to look forward to though.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very nice, would like to see a decent reference source for transformations.</comment>


Profile of Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/the-uncanny-mind-that-built-ethereum-9b448dc9d14f#.c6mb2iotp <comment><USER2> Would just like to point out that a) he's not autistic and b) he did not learn mandarin in a few months; have heard he's been practicing for years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Eugh. Wow.

> In Miami, Buterin's army was small, but already keenly aware of the > importance of beatifying its leader. Joseph Lubin, one of the developers > staying at the house, and one of the few people who seemed to understand > Ethereum enough to decipher its potential, told me in an endearing, paternal > tone that Buterin was a genius alien that had arrived on this planet to > deliver the sacrosanct gift of decentralization. Nearby, Buterin was > shuffling around on the grass, looking down at the ground, muttering to > himself in preparation for a talk he would give to the Bitcoin elite the > next day.

Are we writing software or starting a cult?

<comment><USER4> Digital currency is a cult.

<comment><USER5> Not an argument.

<comment><USER6> it's not an argument, it's an observation. I agree with him

<comment><USER5> Why is it a cult? What's your definition of a cult?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That is a very comprehensive PR puff piece, but it's still very much PR. To be honest, more than anything it seems to be endless painstaking descriptions of Buterin's clothing, mannerisms, and eating habits.

<comment><USER8> True

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Vitalik and his organization achieved a lot, Gavin deserves a mention as well as the guy who had the math behind ethereum. Nevertheless I don't see any killer apps coming out, so overall, its just another rerun of bitcoin.

<comment><USER10> I think Ethereum has the potential to be the BitTorrent to Bitcoin's Napster.

A lot of the killer Bitcoin apps (gambling, drugs, etc.) make it too easy for law enforcement or site operators to steal everyone's money due to their centralization. It's a long shot, but if Ethereum gets really big really fast it's going to be much, much harder to shut down these apps.

<comment><USER11> Maybe you can answer one persistent question I've had about Ethereum contracts. My understanding is that you can encode logic in the contract so that you and I can, for example, gamble on the outcome of the Superbowl and the contract ''knows'' to ask some trusted authority for the result of the game and then pay out accordingly. Isn't this only decentralized insofar as you and I both trust the trusted authority and that authority isn't ever compromised? Doesn't that authority become the point of attack for hackers? Such that if I lose the Superbowl bet but I can hack the ESPN API at the right point in time, then I can trigger the wrong payout on all contracts and there is no recourse.

<comment><USER10> It's my understanding that the Augur project solves this issue by decentralizing the reporting.

That is, individuals vote for which outcome is correct in proportion to their balance of 'reputation'. If an individual votes for the correct outcome (as determined by the majority of votes), they gain reputation, otherwise they lose it.

Reputation is valuable because it entitles voters to a share of the platform fees. Therefore there is a strong incentive to play fair in order to grow the platform and the value of one's reputation (similar to miners in Bitcoin).

[https://augur.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/208857885-For- Re...](https://augur.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/208857885-For-Reporters- Guide-to-Reputation-REP-Tokens)

<comment><USER12> Sounds like somebody can dump in money to skew all the reputation scores.

<comment><USER10> As in buying a lot of REP and faking an outcome?

You could do that but the idea is that the hit to your REP value from screwing people over will be greater than any illicit profits you may gain.

Similar to why your drug dealer doesn't just point a gun at you, take your cash, and keep the drugs; he can make more money being an honest long-term dealer to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He's the uri geller of cryptocurrency

<comment><USER13> Personal attacks are not welcome on Hacker News, nor are unsubstantive comments (of which you've unfortunately posted quite a few). Please (re)-read the site guidelines and post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11896138) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No one needs ethereum. It's a penny stock scam that sells the cure to whatever ails you to any willing solutionist that's looking to get rich quick.

<comment><USER14> You and ChrisDeRose have no regard for truth and certainly have no problem spreading FUD for your own gain. You don't truly care about crypto, decentralization nor freedom but only about counterparty and bitcoin going up for your own selfish gain. Hope you can sleep well at night.

<comment><USER15> He is Chris De Rose.

<comment><USER16> No, I'm Chris Derose.

<comment><USER17> I'm not Chris Derose, but I play him on TV.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do all designers want perfection from the start? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, Im am working with a UI designer and a UX designer on our latest project and finding that both want our app to be completely perfect before we start showing anyone. I have read a lot about the lean startup methods and getting a product out there to learn and receive feedback, which will help guide the polish process but both designers believe first impressions matter and regardless of how many people see it, it has to be perfect. My idea is to show people early to validate the idea and see what people think, but I also understand design influences. Showing a product that might functionally work but has a crappy UI and confusing flow might not be good but creating a slick UI can take a lot of time.<p>I'm interested to hear others thoughts on this. I understand both points of view and wonder if anyone here has strictly followed lean startup methods and has any negative first impressions from an unpolished product? <comment><USER3> As a researcher/strategist with a design background, I think it's reasonable to expect to check in with users 2-3 times before a design is finalized - <USER2> hopefully you started from a relatively deep knowledge of the current experience & opportunity before you ever started the project! The key is to know what you are trying to learn from each research cycle. Do you want to know if the idea seems reasonable? Sketch level ideas & storyboard scenarios are the best stimulus. If you want to understand UI flow, you should expect to have at least 70% of all potential outcomes wireframed, but they can look like crap. If you want to understand which of several design directions to take aesthetically, you need more slick-looking screens, but only 1 or 2 navigation paths for each (since the goal is gauging aesthetics rather than functionality). If you want to know if you are ready to launch, you should have the whole thing as finished as possible. And in general, more cycles with fewer people (think 5 core users, 5 extreme users & 5 potential future users) beats fewer cycles with lots of participants.</comment>


Time to ditch iCloud. This private cloud device is safer, faster and cheaper - <AUTHOR> http://pozi.be/xunlei?ra= 257453

<comment><USER2> Cool!

</comment><comment><USER3> Private cloud? Cool. It looks good.

</comment><comment><USER4> looks something new~get it! MARK</comment>


Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere? - <AUTHOR> I'm a software engineer in the bay area and have been thinking about moving somewhere cheaper (in USA) where I can live cheaply and focus on my own intellectual pursuits. I'd love to be in a place where the living costs are low, and ideally where a thriving intellectual community exists. I haven't traveled too often and would love to hear from HN community about any places that match this general description. Thank you in advance! <comment><USER2> I find it odd that the text of this post is plagiarized from the last time this question was posted in 2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18164189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18164189)

<comment><USER3> It is strange. How did you notice this?

<comment><USER4> I personally remembered it, and looked at a bookmark I had to verify.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The US is dotted with college towns. Sure the town center is more expensive, but the costs drop off pretty quickly from the town center. They can be a good bang for the buck compared to large cities. Nice restaurants, shops, and coffee shops with a university anchor for the local economy. Often universities can spin off a bit of a startup ecosystem.

<comment><USER6> Lawrence, KS is nice, and inexpensive. College towns will be going through lots of changes this year. Regardless, Lawrence is literally the heart of bleeding Kansas. The Django web framework got its start in Lawrence as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would say look for communities online. In person would be better, but with the current events it would be tough. You could find cheap areas to live with high speed internet in large parts of the rural US.

I can't wait to move out of my expensive area, and it isn't even that bad compared to the really expensive places. $5k per year in property taxes is just ridiculous. If this trend continues, nobody will be able to afford to even rent.

</comment><comment><USER8> Small towns with a good college.

Ithaca, NY is a prime example.

I really enjoyed Bellingham Washington.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe digital nomad hotspots? Ones in SEA for example are in pretty inexpensive locations. I'm not too sure honestly, I'm also looking for the same thing as you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably Vancouver wa, you get to pay no income tax the cross the border and shop in Oregon for no sales tax

<comment><USER11> You're saying it's an intellectual town because the residents have optimized their lives for tax savings? (I'd actually agree with you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> College towns used to be a good place for that. It sure about anymore though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ithaca, NY comes to mind</comment>


Show HN: Shout It – A platform to shout out your feelings - <AUTHOR> https://apprester.com <comment><USER2> See also Aaaaah, a social network for yelling existentially into the void [https://twitter.com/chromakode/status/1186348053575262208?s=...](https://twitter.com/chromakode/status/1186348053575262208?s=20)

<comment><USER3> I just echo into /dev/null.

<comment><USER3> More environmentally friendly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can share your feelings, stress, and anxiety! More features are coming on. I would like to get some feedback on it.

The site isn't mobile-friendly at the moment. Please use a desktop browser for time-being, we are planning to improve frontend over the weekend

</comment><comment><USER4> I assumed this would be more personal. People expressing anger, depression, etc. This seems to be rants about things they find mildly annoying. Not sure if the site wants or will encourage/enforce one or the others.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am thinking of grouping people with similar problems so they can discuss the issue, but as of now, it has been spam I guess.

It did help me validate the idea, so I am thankful for that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://i.postimg.cc/zBhVFjDg/Screenshot-20191225-175902.png](https://i.postimg.cc/zBhVFjDg/Screenshot-20191225-175902.png)

Yikes. I get not supporting mobile for now, but what about people who like to use little browser windows like me? Doesn't seem to be responsive at all.

<comment><USER6> I have always assumed that people like to use at least most of their screen's real estate if not all - what is your reason for liking narrow windows (especially considering that I think even nowadays on most of the web the experience would be degraded)

<comment><USER7> Multitasking. Watching videos, writing something up, having another website open, messaging, Skype, or anything else you can think of while browsing. Having two windows open side by side isn't abnormal and is one of the main reasons why window managers even exist instead of desktops using a mobile-like UI paradigm where you can only have one program on the screen at a time.

Counter question: why would you want something as one-dimensional as a website (especially the OP) taking up all of your screen real estate?

<comment><USER6> I guess I don't actually believe in multitasking.

<comment><USER8> I can divide my screen among several windows to perform _one_ task.

The most obvious example for me is coding. Terminal, code editor, browser running the code locally.

Even when I want to have a break and check HN I prefer to open another tab on the non-fullscreen browser for an easy transition to and from the break.

<comment><USER6> most people I see do this do it on multiple screens not multiple windows on one screen (or multiple tablet sized windows on one large screen, and most do it without making any screen as extremely narrow as the parent did.

However I suppose also that most is not all, and there must be some outliers who do it on a single laptop screen either from necessity or preference. I might find myself doing extremely narrow windows out of necessity but never preference, and then the extremely narrow windows would almost always be on something I was working on - as it is indeed in your case - and not to interact with someone else's site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> chuck signup all together, u'll get more engagement. Signup is a hassle.

<comment><USER10> This will lead to a lower risk for people shouting their actual feelings on the platform. Also I feel like something like this is direly needed with big tech starting to become "regulated" and breeding an atmosphere of censorship and "like farming". On the other hand, this could also allow for people to easily spread hate and zeal for or about things that will cause more negativity and suffering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found signup and initial use to be quick and easy - no email or confirmation, etc.

The output does not respect carriage returns / newlines ... so while this HN post has multiple paragraphs, a similar input at "Shout It" would have this all run together with no newlines...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback! We will work on that over the weekend. I understand that it is an issue not being able to format the text.

<comment><USER12> Why would you not even bother getting basic functionality working before showing it to everyone?

<comment><USER13> Show HN can be used to show a work-in-progress. There's no expectation for the projects to be bug-free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brian-armstrong For some reason this site has gone out of its way to make reading more difficult by removing scroll momentum. As a result it takes quite a lot of effort just to read a few of these.

</comment><comment><USER14> Agh! Same thing happens to every anonymous chat app on show HN. It degraded into "your mum lolz" and "<a href...>" etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> Aside from the large signup box, the "shouts" tend to just be gibberish for me. Is the site currently being hacked?

</comment><comment><USER16> Slight UI nitpick: On narrow screens (<800px), the signup part of the screen is cut off. There is a scroll bar but it doesn't work as intended.

[https://i.imgur.com/pRtOd73.png](https://i.imgur.com/pRtOd73.png)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We have taken your suggestion and changed some features of the platform, we are continually developing it. We would like to know your feedback. \--The dev team

</comment><comment><USER17> As of typing it has a few hundred spam posts from user "a". Needs work

<comment><AUTHOR> We will be working on spam prevention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's too bad "I'll Scream Your Tweets" never took off

[https://youtu.be/Td1MYuLu5Nc](https://youtu.be/Td1MYuLu5Nc)

</comment><comment><USER19> So basically Twitter?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have some features on the hold. We want to make it a place where people help each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nice! but block tags.</comment>


Is KrebsOnSecurity.com under attack? - <AUTHOR>

I wanted to read his piece on the FBI's account of Silk Road's server configuration but it seems http://krebsonsecurity.com/ is inaccessible and http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/10/silk-road-lawyers-poke-holes-in-fbis-story/ refuses to load or timeout. <comment><USER2> same here. Probably not under attack, but it is interesting timing</comment>


Show HN: A very simple http "proxy" on runkit - <AUTHOR> https://runkit.io/dosyago-coder-0/proxy/branches/master <comment><AUTHOR> What I'm interested in, is how can they run this stuff? How is it cost effective for them? How is it safe? Runkit is basically free serverless node. It's pretty amazing.

For those interested, the code is here: [https://runkit.com/dosyago- coder-0/proxy](https://runkit.com/dosyago-coder-0/proxy)

It does the simplest possible:

\- prepends the URL form to the proxied html page

\- prepends a <base> element with the proxied page's uri ( to ensure relative links point to the source and not the proxy )

\- prepends a script which captures clicks on anchor links and instead of allowing the navigation to proceed submits the URL ( via the prepended form ) back to the endpoint

Also, for the sake of a technical challenge, I don't know how to get it to work on Amazon.com -- what happens is after the first load, any links clicked seem to break out of the proxy. Anyone who can work out why it doesn't work, please tell me!

 _edit: oops, seems as if the HN 'glance' of death ( not hug, this has only been on for 20 minutes ) kills it intermittently, and that runkit has a quota that is sometimes exceeded!_

<comment><USER2> runkit is owned by stripe so they likely don't have to be profitable.</comment></comment>


We'll Know the Election Wasn't Rigged - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/election-mass-voter-fraud-protections/ <comment><USER2> You forgot "How" at the beginning of the tile which completely changes the meaning.</comment>


Js Game Wiki - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/DaRaFF/jsgamewiki

<comment><USER2> Awesome!

For as popular as JS is, I've found it pretty difficult to find good tutorials and resources online for it. I guess I was looking in the wrong places? Google was just failing? My google-fu isn't as good as I think it is? I dunno...

I think this will be a big help and a good resource, so thanks a million.

<comment><USER3> Do you mean JS the language or game programming in particular? If its just the language then there are is a bunch of good material I could recommend you (and everyone should at least read Javascript the Good Parts even if you dont agree with everything it says)

<comment><USER2> I am lucky enough to have a "Safari books" subscription from my employer, so I have been able to look at some books - I know that one's supposed to be seminal, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Any other recommendations are welcome.

Because I've just started messing with javascript, I'm mostly focused on games programming. But more generally, it seems hard to find information about how to write well optimized javascript (especially in terms of memory usage). This could be _my_ problem, though. I get confused by callbacks and knowing when I'm creating objects (especially functions) versus when I'm reusing them. Callbacks are just confusing the hell out of me - specifically inside of something like requestAnimationFrame... how do I prevent new functions from being created every time I use it?

I mean, w3schools is awful for anything but a _very_ quick reference, and while the content on MDN seems to be accurate, it's not very exhaustive and doesn't seem to provide much explanation. Whenever I have a problem with matlab or perl I can go to some great websites or just google my problem to find solutions (and often great explanations) quickly.

<comment><USER4> Could you elaborate on the problem you're having with callbacks and requestAnimationFrame?

I initially posted this, but now I'm not sure if this is what you meant:

Don't do this:

        requestAnimationFrame(function () {
            //a new instance of this function is created every time
        })

do this:

        var efficientFunc = function () {
            //this is created only once and is reused
            requestAnimationFrame(efficientFunc);
        }
        requestAnimationFrame(efficientFunc);

Basically avoid writing anonymous functions for callbacks that are going to be callback-ed more than once.

Another thing that might help with memory is make sure you don't keep references to things you want garbage-collected.

E.g. if object `A` has a reference to object `B`, `B`'s memory won't be freed even if you never use it again. MDN has a better explanation and example [1]

As for books I'd recommend Effective Javascript by David Herman.

[1]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Memo...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Memory_Management?redirectlocale=en- US&redirectslug=JavaScript%2FMemory_Management#Garbage_collection)

<comment><USER2> Yeah I'm still stuck. Not really sure if it's a problem with requestAnimationFrame anymore, though.

If you're so inclined, I'd appreciate if you'd take a look at my stack overflow question.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18603962/javascript- memor...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18603962/javascript-memory- management-requestanimationframe-callback)

At this point, I'm either fundamentally screwed up in my design or have some small innocuous looking thing which is eating all of my memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also Game Modules Wiki[1]

[1]: [https://github.com/hughsk/game- modules/wiki/Modules](https://github.com/hughsk/game-modules/wiki/Modules)

</comment><comment><USER6> Also [http://html5gameengine.com](http://html5gameengine.com) if you're looking for a list of engines. It's limited to the more popular, actively maintained engines and has reviews, links, etc... for each.

</comment><comment><USER7> Could be better, but few things are perfect. Nice to have all of that info compiled in one place without tons of ads. Now add more detailed descriptions to each of links and organize them in beginner/intermediate/advanced/expert categories. This way a newbie won't be completely lost and pro's won't lose interest by opening first few links that are easy. More ambitious project would be to add some kind of series of links/tutorials so that people who want to learn will have a decent way of tracking their progress.

</comment><comment><USER8> You're missing one of the most vital things: game engines.

</comment><comment><USER9> I was actually just looking for some stuff about Javascript game development. (specifically looking for three.js, which I'd forgotten the name of) So this is kind of wonderful timing to have this pop up.

It looks like a wonderful hub of all sorts of information about game development, good job to the person who put this together! Hopefully I can even apply the lessons I learn from all of this generally to other languages as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not an ideal name choice: JavaScript is used in some mainstream non-web engines e.g. Unity 3D.

<comment><USER11> What Unity3D has is Javascript in name only. The syntax looks kind of familiar, but UnityScript is more like Boo with a C-like syntax.

[http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/UnityScript_versus_JavaScr...](http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php/UnityScript_versus_JavaScript)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice! You're missing analytics - Google Analytics, Snowplow, MixPanel etc</comment>


Next BMW might only have heated seats for 3 month - jor-el https://www.cnet.com/news/bmw-vehicle-as-a-platform/ <comment><AUTHOR> I guess we really need to examine if we as a society and as buyers of these products want to continue enabling people to sell us physical goods with a software subscription service to continue enabling functionality.

Do we want to buy physical products that then require a continuous payment to have all the features enabled? Do we then want the trend to continue and have microtransactions for whenever we want to adjust the car seat for example? Or have someone else drive the car?

Sure it can make manufacturing cheaper to build the same top-end thing and then disable parts in software, but they've been building custom cars for decades now.

I don't know though, I guess someone that's quite wealthy has a different mindset to me, and wouldn't mind having to pay a subscription fee for every single extra option in their car year after year. But I know that these things will get filtered down from the luxury cars (and luxury goods) down to the ones the common people buy, so I want to stop it before it does.

</comment><comment> jor-el With software-as-a-service becoming widespread and the practice of micro- transactions starting to become common, soon people might start questioning that was digital payment revolution worth it? If made life easy in the starting, but now its turning out to create more headaches. The old way of paying hard cash and walking off was much better.

</comment><comment><USER2> It will be hacked like the Tesla are hacked.</comment>


Music aggregation algorithm tracking trending music amongst influencers - <AUTHOR> http://whitelist.io

<comment><USER2> Wondering where they pull the data for this? Youtube? Soundcloud? Twitter????

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like this could be a real gamechanger for the music industry!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We pull from all three.</comment>


B-Heap vs. Binary Heap (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1814327 <comment><USER2> This is a great article and the diagrams illustrating the difference between a binary heap and a B-heap are awesome. The comments are amusingly negative, too.

It's worth noting that it was published in 2010, though. The Wikipedia article on B-heaps actually references this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-heap>

<comment><USER3> Good article, but it only demonstrate his ignorance on existing cache- oblivious data structures...

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's what 90% of the comments on the article said, too. Welcome to the club. :P

He's talking about people's everyday understanding of data structures, including his own. That the data structure he described already existed when he banged it out is beside the point; most folks don't know about it, most CS programs don't teach it, and most software doesn't use it.

That's sort of like saying, "Well, all special relativity does is show Einstein's ignorance of Lorentz's work."

It's true in some sense, but ultimately an unproductive sentiment.

<comment><USER4> I think that knowing your audience goes a long way, particularly when using "You're doing it wrong" in the title.

The audience of this article was a lot of people that knew of the problem, and knew of research into cache-oblivouis algorithms. This is a long ways from not citing somebody, it's preaching to somebody as if they are ignorant when they're a fair ways ahead of you. Quite annoying when encountered.

<comment><USER5> As he says in the comments, he didn't choose the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for the article and the comments, I had never heard of Cache Oblivious algorithms and this article seems to indicate that others have not either: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/devdev/archive/2007/06/12/cache- obli...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/devdev/archive/2007/06/12/cache-oblivious- data-structures.aspx)

I wonder if current popular libraries like the STL or the Java Collections library have started to take advantage of this work yet or not...

<comment><USER7> Cache-oblivious algorithms can be pretty wacky when you're used to not thinking about locality at all.

A mergesort can be understood by even a beginner after an hour or less in a language like Haskell. A funnelsort...? Well, I'll put it this way: even after reading the papers, I'm not sure how I would go about implementing it.

<comment><USER8> I glanced at the code files from the inventor. It doesn't look like the kind of algorithm you implement yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Those of you interested in cache conscious algorithm design should check out Anthony LaMarca's thesis from 1996: [http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lamarca/pubs/lamarca- thesis....](http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~lamarca/pubs/lamarca-thesis.pdf)

The article only cites papers from 1961 and 1964, and complains about how CS departments use out-of-date machine models when teaching algorithms. This is just not true at any of the top schools.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's some useful comments from last time this popped on to the HN front page: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1426211>

</comment><comment><USER11> Here[0] is the implementation if anyone is curious.

[0] [https://github.com/varnish/Varnish- Cache/blob/master/lib/lib...](https://github.com/varnish/Varnish- Cache/blob/master/lib/libvarnish/binary_heap.c)</comment>


Why Wordpress sucks and you should probably stop using it - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/this-is-why-wordpress-sucks-and-you-should-probably-stop-using-it-v697y30v7 <comment><USER2> Another poorly written article on Hackernoon.</comment>


Bret Easton Ellis on Living in the Cult of Likability - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/opinion/bret-easton-ellis-on-living-in-the-cult-of-likability.html?smid=tw-share <comment><USER2> > That's the real crime being perpetrated by the reputation culture: stamping > out passion; stamping out the individual.

I think he's right, the pressure is real on a social reputation site like Facebook (which he cites)... you have to present the best image of yourself, which as he says, comes down to making yourself in the image of others. That pressure does subside when you get older, but it's certainly there if you're a high schooler or 20 something.

I meet a lot of smart young people who really go way too far in the self-image game, I think without realizing how it tends to make them dull and conformist, as BEE says.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, when I look at the culture of Internet commentary and social media, being overly positive and nice are not traits I find particularly common, and certianly not oppressively prevalent.

I've not read any of his books, but from interviews I've heard and from reading this article, Mr Ellis strikes me as one of those people who has so remarkably little self-awareness about their own poor behavior that they gripe endlessly about how oversensitive the world is to their offhand profoundly honest and truthful observations, never once realizing that, no, they aren't actually particularly insightful, they're really just a big jerk.

<comment><USER4> I think you're misunderstanding what he's saying about the "Like" button. He's talking about how aggressively we've been conditioned to align our _identity_ with the things we like (aka, what we feel we must project publicly as our interests).

<comment><USER5> That's what I thought, too, but only because I've read American Psycho, which had a pretty similar thesis.

<comment><USER4> I haven't read that, but it seems like a reasonably interesting thesis to discuss. If that's Bret Easton Ellis's shtick... I definitely didn't get the impression he was saying that Facebook was to blame for making everyone happy, smiling consumers.

<comment><USER5> It's a classic, but is also pretty disturbing, so it's not really for everyone. Wikipedia says:

"He is a self-proclaimed satirist, whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style."

Which doesn't really cover it, I don't think, but is a good start. If you removed the murder from 'American psycho' you would have a book about a guy who was incredibly obsessed with how things he bought and wore effected a person's image. Really, that's kind of what the movie does. (note, still lots of murder by movie standards, so again, not really everyone's cup of tea, but the book goes over each act of violence in the same detail as describing the aftershave he uses.)

You could say that the book was about image? "Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, it even has a watermark..."

But the point is, the main character, this status obsessed person, was incredibly unlikable on all levels, even leaving aside the violence; one interpretation is that the things we do for status don't make us more likable; in fact, they make us rather less likable. I see a relationship between that and the article, where he seems to complain, essentially, "Everyone is a critic!" \- difference being, of course, is that we're now all critics who are published, whereas it used to be that your platform was only as large as your voice is loud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The intro bit spotlighting a South Park episode sets the tone for the rest of the piece with remarkable accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER7> Like

<comment><USER7> Hahaha. Got down vote for this joke. Irony is thick.</comment></comment>