Statement from Playhaven CEO - <AUTHOR> http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/

<comment><USER2> Playhaven did the cowardly thing by destroying the guy's career as a preemptive measure for any bad PR they may receive over this. It would take a very sure minded employer to hire him now, considering the nasty ways this can be spun by the blogs/media ("Notorious PyCon Attendee Lands A Job With X, Where Sexual Jokes Are Apparently OK").

Sorry but I don't like it one bit. If PH's CEO had any balls at all he'd make this guy publicly apologize. Firing someone like this is the easiest solution. I'm sure Playhaven employees take note of how one of their own has been had a summary execution. And for the rest of us, Playhaven is now "the company that fired that guy over a joke".

<comment><USER3> If only there was some way he could have prevented this miscarriage of justice! Hint: Don't make dick jokes in a professional conference when the con has a "code of conduct" saying: "don't make dick jokes".

As a more extreme example, The Onion can be too accurate sometimes: "Athlete overcomes raping someone" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zWLJZw9Ws-g)

<comment><USER2> There are numerous ways this employee could have disciplined without destroying his career, each and every one of them would have made Playhaven actually look good coming out of this incident. They could have sent that guy to volunteer at a woman's shelter or could have donated a part of his salary for a similar cause (even making a dollar for dollar contribution, it's pittance and excellent PR) or just put up a public apology.

Instead of taking meaningful action, they've distanced themselves as quickly and as crudely from this situation, while destroying this man's career without giving it a second thought.

I'm not defending this man - although I belong to the part of the population that's more likely to make such jokes at a professional convention than to be bothered by them - I am condemning Playhaven.

And you know what, it's not even about Adria. She's taking undue fire here; she's a social person with a job focused around social media, and as such it is understandable why she uploaded this picture in the first place. Some people shoot their food, some others take photos what they deem as bad behavior in public (after all if she pictured someone acting lewdly at Walmart no one would have said a thing). She's not the bad person here, although I don't think I'd get along very well with her.

Nope, the only one I can blame squarely at the unneeded escalation of this story is Playhaven CEO, for choosing the easiest way out. How very corporate America.

<comment><USER3> _They could have sent that guy to volunteer at a woman's shelter_

"Hey women who were abused! We'd like this guy who thinks dick jokes are OK in professional contexts to come and help all those rape and violence victims you have. That's cool, right?" Yeah. not going to happen. Think your suggestions through.

We don't know the full situtation, perhaps all these responses have already been done? Maybe there are other reasons at play aswell?

<comment><USER4> To be fair, a woman who had been beaten by an abusive husband or whatever might not think a guy who likes dick jokes is such a monster in comparison.

<comment><USER3> _Highly_ unlikely. You're just saying things without doing any research.

Have you ever read feminist blogs / writings? They'll often prefix text with a "trigger warning" (or TW) to alert readers if this text needs to talk about violence or sexism or racism etc. This is because some people might be "triggered" and have strong negative emotional reactions to some things. (cf. <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning> )

Given that, it's highly likely that making dick jokes and especially claiming "It's OK, I'm not as bad as the man who beat you!" to excuse said dick jokes, is a sure fire way to get your head kicked in in some places.

<comment><USER4> People will kick your head in because you made a dick joke once?

<comment><USER3> Context!

If you go to a battered women's shelter, make lots of demaning-to-women jokes, and then say it's OK because, "hey! at least you didn't beat them!", then yes, you might get some people really annoyed.

I mean, it's like the start of Die Hard, with the "I hate N __ __*s" sign in a black area. What do you think'll happen?! Imagine going into a gay bar and making jokes about gay people. What do you think'll happen?

<comment><USER4> The guy made a fairly tame dick joke to his mate at a programming conference, it doesn't logically follow that he would walk into a woman's shelter and start making misogynistic remarks.

<comment><USER3> I never said he would, and I doubt he would people aren't that stupid. But I didn't bring it up

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a very silly situation. Someone made a joke about a dongle and got fired. Another person posted that she was offended about the said dongle joke and it's flared up into a massive discussion about gender in tech.

Here's the bottom line - if such a tame joke can have this large an effect and warrant this type of a knee-jerk reaction from the tech community, our conception of gender equality is seriously fragile.

Better discussions about sexism in the workplace could revolve around the lack of female leadership, sexist working environments, an overabundance of male developers, company roles that appear to be gender-specific, etc.

We are so wrong on the major issues that we want to make the full situation as easy to digest as a dongle joke and a tweet.

It's far more complex than that. And this is the only thing I'm going to say about the situation because we all look like children for addressing this.

<comment><USER3> One problem is that for every joke like this that was reported there are often many many more that aren't.

<comment><USER6> Many more unreported jokes would only be a problem if said jokes were a problem. So far, I have not seen a conclusive argument why such a joke would be a problem.

<comment><USER3> Listen to women. Some of them talk about feeling uncomfortable when there are loads of dick jokes.

I mean this isn't the 1960s anymore. The rest of the professional world has moved on and knows that dick jokes are bad for a professional environment. Why is this such a hard thing for people in tech?

<comment><USER6> I feel uncomfortable around openly religious people. I also tend to feel uncomfortable around people engaging in meaningless chitchat or when people ask meaningless questions ('How are you?' being one of my favourites in this regard). I don't try to get people fired for wearing a crucifix, nor do I burn chatting people at a stake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This statements leaves more questions open than it answers, it's also self contradictory.

"This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee." - why was the other guy not a valued employee?

"..we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.." - or "you can't have all the facts"

"we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts." - which is not possible because we don't have them all.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, it's right that they keep the public information relatively light. If I was fired by an employer I wouldn't want them writing blog posts about why they did it. Especially when it's just some random dude who got fired.

<comment><USER7> True, but it's wrong to state that they are open to discussion only amongst people who hold all the facts, which they also state they are not going to give out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know many guys (including me) that could possibly have said the same things joking around. I also know alot of girls that like to joke around in similar ways about guys. Is that sexcism ? Should people loose their job about stuff like that ? Absolutely not.

I get that it might be hard to draw the line, but come on, we're all human after all, this clearly didnt overstep the border and the guy apologized.

<comment><USER3> _Is that sexcism ?_

Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences.

<comment><USER9> _Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences._

Exactly. If you're in a professional environment, behave professionally.

<comment><USER8> It was a private conversation that somebody happened to listen to though.

<comment><USER3> It's not that black and white. They were at a public conference surrounded and within earshot of many people they may not have known.

If you're at home, then that's private and you can get naked. But you can't do that _anywhere_ at a conference. The conference is 'mostly public'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't the American Constitution have that 'freedom of speech' amendment?

I'm British, so American culture is alien to me, but I've always had the view that you can say whatever you want.

People have shouted how Hitler did no wrong, and people have cried how x, y and z people should be put on a plane to another country, but when someone overhears a private conversation containing technical terms (that if you're pedantic enough to take as a joke) you get persecuted; professionally shot by firing squad at dawn.

This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe).

<comment><USER4> Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot prosecute you as a criminal for saying something. It doesn't mean that a private company cannot fire you or a conference cannot ask you to leave etc.

Ironically in the UK we actually do have laws that can potentially make you a criminal because you insulted someone. <http://reformsection5.org.uk/>

<comment><USER3> _Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot prosecute you as a criminal for saying something._

Which is funny because some US states have laws that criminize you for saying something about someone, even if it's true! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Criminal_defamation_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Criminal_defamation_3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well that was a circumlocutory way of saying, "We got scared by the prospect of negative press and our knee-jerk reaction was to fire someone."

</comment><comment><USER12> In other news, productivity begins to pick back up at Playhaven as employees are just about finished scrubbing their social media accounts. Rest assured, all references to forking repo's, dongles and other "gender equality" issues have been removed.

The biggest losers here are Playhaven & SendGrid. The dev who made the silly joke will get another job and Adria successfully raised her profile and will get more speaking gigs.

</comment><comment><USER13> A great way to destroy company moral. I would never work for a company or ceo like that. Even if this was "the straw that broke the camels back", I don't see how this incident was a straw let alone a feather.

I wish this ceo and the blogger would just admit they overreacted.

</comment><comment><USER6> > dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior

Linking a sexual comment ('big dongles', possibly forking) to gender equality implies the assumption of a necessary link between sexuality and different genders since 'gender equality' wouldn't make sense otherwise. You are hence grossly discriminating against homosexuals and dismissing the efforts of the gay community not to be oppressed at the workplace. In other words, you are not only against freedom of speech in private circles, but also utterly homophobic.

If you find slight exaggerations, please feel free to reuse and recycle them :-)

<comment><USER14> I find it very hard to find the link between this and homophobia. Could you try to explain it in more detail perhaps?

<comment><USER6> I also find it very hard to find the link between this and sexism. Nevertheless, the reasoning goes as follows:

If a sexual joke is classified as sexism, it necessarily requires a link between sexuality and gender[1], since otherwise, a joke about sexuality could not have any effect on gender, hence could not be sexist[0]. But by linking sexuality and gender, you imply that there is no sexuality within one gender, since otherwise you could not make the leap from 'sexual' to 'gender'. By assuming that all sexuality is inter-gender, you ignore intra-gender sexuality, i.e. homosexuality.

Yes, this is an exaggeration and I usally don't care at all what you think/say of/about my sexuality and would furthermore prefer a society where everybody can say whatever the hell they want and if people find that offensive, it would be their own fault rather than the fault of those on whom they eavesdropped. But this whole sexism debate really annoys me, so apologies for that.

[0] Where I use 'sexist' in the meaning of 'generally treating different genders differently and/or specifically dismissive of one gender'.

[1] I hate the word 'gender', but saying that you imply a link between sex (the activity) and sex (the property) might be slightly confusing.

<comment><USER14> I initially thought you were trolling but it's clear that your response, although one I strongly disagree with, does have solid reasoning behind it.

If you're looking for actual counterpoints; I'm an LGBT man and I support Adria for her _right to be offended_ about these statements, which I feel is all that's truly at stake here.

<comment><USER6> The difference between sarcasm and trolling might sometimes be rather subjective, sorry.

I agree with you that people are allowed to be offended, but I also think that people should be allowed to offend – if we tried to never offend anybody, we wouldn't get anywhere[0]. I take it it depends on your personal values whether you think that free speech is more important than feeling well, but I hope we can nevertheless agree that it is neither possible to never offend anyone nor is it wise to always offend everybody. Things are unfortunately rarely as black and white as we would like them to be.

[0] <http://abstrusegoose.com/47>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender > and conduct

Is that so? Because judging from your concrete actions, one would be led to presume that the preferred course of action is to do anything to prevent such a discussion.

> as a company that is dedicated to gender equality

So, I noticed your leadership list (10 people) does not mention any females. I don't assume you are sexist; there probably just aren't that many competent ones that are fit for the break-neck business of peddling templated casual games.

> In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns.

I, too, like to judge people based on hearsay; fortunately for the general public, I don't have the power to let my fear of public opinion affect the lives of those who depend on my rational judgement of situations. It's too bad that a CEO position does not come with a spine and a pair of testicles.

</comment><comment><USER16> I dunno, seems like the firing is more to seem like they are "doing the right thing" I personally don't think someone should be let go over comments that are part of a private conversation. It was fine for Adria Richards to make sexist jokes on Twitter yet SendGrid firmly stand by her as a company.

Playhaven should have done the same.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you're at a conference, you should behave professionally; you're not down the pub, or out with your friends. It's as simple as that.

Hearing stories like this is both tiresome (what do you mean this is still happening?!) and embarrassing; it makes male IT workers look like a bunch of poorly-socialized teenagers.

<comment><USER4> That's true, but OTOH I used to work for a very conservative bank with all kinds of policies on diversity, sexual harassment etc but people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet.

<comment><USER9> _people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet._

I'd like to emphasize I'm not a fan of public naming-and-shaming.

That said, just because something was accepted elsewhere - or barely tolerated - does not mean that it is acceptable behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> thorough investigation and firing within 24 hours, did it happen over phone, email or face 2 face?

<comment><USER18> SMS pobably, and twitter like the original incident.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I fail to see what "gender equality" has to do with what happened. What I do see however is a company that will fire their own over the slightest chance of not being deemed 'sexist' by the deluded few with a saviour complex in our community.

<comment><USER3> One problem with many conferences is sexualised content that treats women as passive objects in sex. Only one form of sex is shown, and it's the man conquring the woman. As a result many tech conferences have started out to outright ban sexual content at events like this to counter that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's a difference between going on your own, paying for your ticket, and being anonymous... and going on the company's dime, as an ambassador for the company, wearing the company T-shirt.

I saw the photo (as I'm guessing most have), and it was very obvious that they were representing the company. I'd have been pissed too... they shouldn't be sailing so close to the wind that there was even potential for the kind of "he-said, she-heard" that has happened.

I don't fault Playhaven for firing someone who hasn't represented them in the manner they expect when that staff member is on their dime and acting on their behalf.

</comment><comment><USER21> "We're hiring" link to the right

<comment><USER22> They should change it to "We're firing".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think it's relevant that when I examine Playhaven's site, the "Leadership" sidebar features twelve different individuals in various leadership positions, none of whom are women. Balanced recruiting in this industry is difficult of course, but they don't appear to have made much of an effort in this area. They probably know they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable not just to public criticism but also to concentrated advocacy and perhaps even legal action. Their rash actions concerning their former employee don't require any complicated explanation like "what _else_ has this bastard done to deserve getting fired?"; they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created.

How many of the mosaic of "United Colors" pictures they imply are employees are actually stock photos? Why has a games company handicapped itself so much in developing products for half of the games-playing population? When will Playhaven promote its first woman to a leadership position? Would a woman have made the same stupid firing decision this sausage-party of an executive team made?

[edit: <http://www.playhaven.com/team> is the page I'm referencing. In case it changes, I see the following names listed under "Leadership": Andy Yang, Michiel Frishert, Jason Liu, Charles Yim, Ville Heijari, Brian Doxtator, Brian Howell, John P. Joseph, Sutton Trout, Zach Phillips, Thomas Gieselmann, and Hany Nada]

<comment><USER24> > they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of > discrimination they've created.

You are trolling right? Or did you really infer all of that from a web page.

<comment><USER23> It's not about what I infer. It's about what is inferred by disadvantaged parties and their advocates, especially once the stupid remarks of an employee have focused the attentions of those on the company. Ten different personnel decisions have been made, for a set of mostly-business-oriented executive positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev, and "Pub" Dev plus a _single_ non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind of tech company is this?) and in no case could a suitable woman be found? Your Honor, we rest our case.

Besides, this page is the public face of the company, which they choose to show the public. The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is clear, but it is undermined by the "Leadership" sidebar, under even the most generous possible reading.

<comment><USER24> > Ten different personnel decisions have been made, for a set of mostly- > business-oriented executive positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev, > and "Pub" Dev plus a single non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind > of tech company is this?) and in no case could a suitable woman be found? > Your Honor, we rest our case.

What case? You have zero information about how the personell decisions are being made within that organization. You don't know when those appointments were made, nor do you have any information about the composition of the organization when they were made. All you have is the result which currently includes all men. Is it plausible that a woman was passed over for one of those positions? Sure. It's also entirely plausible that the men holding those positions were the best candidate available to the company at the time the roles were filled.

> The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is clear,

You are taking a mosaic and applying what you want want to find in it. It certainly isn't clear to me that their intent was to be associated with the United Colors of Benetton. If anything I looked at it as a weak implementation of a current design trend in use on tech companies about pages.

You have also failed to address how you came to the conclusion that the company has a "culture of discrimination." Did you work there? Have you been to their offices or know someone that worked there? A single page on a web site is not sufficient evidence to understand the "culture" of a company let alone to determine that it is discriminatory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So Alex wasn't fired, was mr-hank fired? I wonder, they don't disclose the name of the guy who was fired.

</comment><comment><USER26> bollocks.

</comment><comment><USER27> this is personal privacy violation? Two people're just making joke and someone just listen them and publish on media and then messed up their life!

</comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like a canned damage limitation quote and not even remotely sincere (and doubt it is really an accurate reflection of reality either).

Anyway, where is the Sendgrid statement ? Their silence seems to be an endorsement of Adria's bad behavior (eavesdropping and then public humiliation via twitter).

I'm astonished that Sendgrid are OK with this.

There are 2 companies here I want to make sure I have no dealings with.

<comment><USER12> Saw this mentioned in another thread and it's a great point. SendGrid is going to back her 100%. They now realize, if they didn't before, that they have a risky employee on their hands - the type that would sue them and make a huge public spectacle (comparing herself to Joan of Arc, etc). They need to keep that bomb from going off and eventually she'll move on to focus fully on what she's passionate about.

 _@adriarichards Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power_ \- <http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As told in the prophesy, forever more Playhaven became known as the 'Dongle' joke guys rather than whatever they do. And for every conference they attend in the future they shalt be asked by the lowly what was said and if they over reacted.</comment>


Gerrit: Google-style code review meets git - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/359489/8edfffce5055b278/

<comment><USER2> actual gerrit link

<http://code.google.com/p/gerrit/>

plus android source gerrit example?

<https://review.source.android.com/#all,open,n,z></comment>


Did space storms drive us mad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/12/us-britain-solar-idUSTRE77B3OX20110812

<comment><USER2> watch for an increase in frequency of this kinda storyline over the next few months.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the use cases for NFC outside of payments - <AUTHOR>

What makes you excited about NFC? What do you want to see NFC do?
Most people center on the payments aspect of NFC but there are so many more. Off the top of my head:
* Payments (replacing credit/debit cards and stored value cards i.e. in a cafeteria)
* Building/security access
* Ticketing (especially plane tickets)
* Transit card support (i.e. Clipper/Oyster/Metrocard)
* Real world interaction with stickers (check into this place
on Foursquare, update Facebook, etc)
* Advertising opportunities ("tap here to watch the trailer" on movie posters)
* As MOO just announced, business cards with NFC
Do any of these excite you? Is there anything I missed?
The reason I ask all this is because every time I talk about NFC my peers say that there is no adoption and no use case outside of payments. Obviously the iPhone doesn't have NFC yet but that shouldn't stop it's adoption in the Real World. There is a long list above of valid use cases, why aren't we seeing adoption yet? <comment><USER2> Why aren't we seeing adoption yet? Quite simply, percentage of devices that support it are too low in contrast to the effort required to get any sort of deployment - a chicken and egg problem.

Adding support for QR codes requires some software (it's out there, and free usually) and a functioning camera with good enough resolution (again, almost omnipresent). NFC brings with it another chipset, another antenna and a chassis designed to have that antenna not mess with the others. If you want to do proper crypto with it, that's a rewiring of how you connect the SIM to your baseband to facilitate NFC-WI - I hope you're getting the picture here.

Geee is right about pairing being the other advantage asides from what I think are gimmicks like "bonking" to check into Foursquare. Realistically there is only a few ways to gain greater adoption: payments actually being deployed en- masse, or the incorporation of NFC chipsets into existing baseband modems.

<comment><USER3> FWIW as of June 2012 43M+ Oyster cards have been issued (which now cost £5 each although they previously used to cost £3) with over 80% of all public transport journeys in London (London Underground, Bus etc) being made through the card.

Considering this is a service for London that number is pretty incredible.

Statistics: [http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/242...](http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/24243.aspx)

<comment><USER2> Sure, and I use my Oyster card most days.

But years ago TfL tried using NFC - a trial with the Nokia 6131. Ultimately it was rejected as it was too slow at the gates, a genuine concern in stations that see tens to hundreds of thousands move through it at peak times. Even now they still dismiss it as slow, as El Reg points out, despite the fact they don't appear to have actually redone any testing to confirm this.

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/01/nfc_tube/print.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We use the lockitron app to let houseguests in (and we have many cause of AirBNB). Since you can give a key to someone with a simple email, it eliminates the hassle of arranging a time to meet for key exchange. <https://lockitron.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> At a hackathon we developed an NFC app that can scan food packaging and give you the instructions and a kitchen timer: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ92FMl1qcE> (I know, its blurry...)

After hacking with it, I have to say it is much more reliable than QR code scanning / barcode scanning. No problems with low light, shaking device etc. Replacing QR codes is probably not a very exciting use case, but I could see it happening.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it much more expensive than QR/barcode though? Since those are just printed on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can see this technology simplifying in person installation for small businesses. As in I walk into my local coffee shop and can install a payment app like Square with a tap or instead of handing me a leaflet to install the app at my local bank, let me do it instantly. I'm sure this would increase installs dramatically, especially at events or at museums.

Maybe to connect to the WiFi network or checkin on Foursquare in a cafe. In the British Airways lounge the other day I heard a lot of people going up to the desk asking which network it was, etc. This would fix a lot of the problems. Some people were fumbling to work out how to connect on their phone.

Companies like Tagstand allow any company to implement this instantly. I can see loyalty programmes being made using this tech.

</comment><comment><USER8> One huge thing you missed is device pairing. Nokia already uses NFC to pair their wireless accessories (headsets, speakers, etc). With wireless charging, it makes docks obsolete <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upo-e692lRg>

<comment><USER9> Using an out of band channel, such as NFC, is defined in the Bluetooth secure simple pairing specification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Tracking stock pedigree and automatic stock taking.

I was in charge of writing a prototype system in 2007ish of a system with NFC scanners that could be deployed to schools to track children and their healthy choices (checking out exercise equipment, checking it back in, buying healthy food from the canteen, etc). The NFC tokens would be combined with cleverly fabricated dongles to make them more inviting. I was a bit concerned about the privacy aspects as my bosses got really carried away (tracking how often children use the toilet, etc), but it never got past the prototype.

Among some of the research I did I thought that being able to track the pedigree of a single item from manufacture through warehouses, backdock and eventually on to shelves would be amazing - for everyone.

And whilst the item was on that shelf, if each shelf had a reader, then it would be possible to do automatic stock-take of what it was carrying and communicate the results to some centralised system.

</comment><comment><USER11> In San Francisco, PayByPhone has put stickers on many (all?) of the parking meters, enabling you to pay for your parking via their mobile app. In addition to a unique number, the stickers are also NFC-capable, so presumably an NFC phone owner can wave a phone against it to input the meter ID in the app.

(I use an iPhone, so this is speculation on my part.)

<comment><USER12> I've used those NFC stickers on the parking meters with my Nexus. You don't even need to have the PayByPhone app open or running. When I tapped my phone it automatically launched the app with the parking spot number inputted so I just had to confirm a duration.

Also, if you don't have the app installed, your phone should launch the Play Store to download and install it automatically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had an occasion to participate in project of a museum app which allowed people to use NFC-enabled phones as kind of interactive guides. There were NFC tags placed beside artworks and visitors with app installed on their phone could bring their device close to the tag and phone would launch the app to show more detailed informations about given exhibit. All data could be downloaded before going to the museum or during visit (there was free wi-fi inside museum building). It was launched in National Museum in Kraków and as far as I know worked quite well.

I've also heard of ideas like configuring devices over NFC, e.g. touch a tag with your phone and it will be configured to use local wi-fi network. You can use NFC in similar manner to transfer a link to a website, which I believe would be much more convenient that scanning QR code.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use Android Beam fairly regularly. Sharing contact info, transferring files, etc. is all delightfully easy now.

I hardly ever use NFC to interact with anything other than other devices, but I suppose that's because those other things aren't very prominent in the U.S. yet.

</comment><comment><USER15> One unmentioned deterrent to using NFC on Android (for cases where security is not important) is requiring the user to unlock the phone first. In ICS or later, NFC is no longer enabled at the lockscreen, presumably to address security concerns with the payments use cases.

In some cases, it can be just as easy to unlock your phone and execute an action manually rather than through NFC.

I also wonder if Square's "magical" Starbucks payments system will be future - using environmental cues in the background instead of requiring manual swipes of a phone to a terminal.

</comment><comment><USER16> Personally I think there are many uses for NFC. The way I see it, NFC is a way to enable short range communication with physical objects in the real world that are NFC enabled as well. I speculate that a NFC mobile device can be used as your key to open NFC enabled secure locations and objects (e.g. car keys, office keys, house keys, safe locks). Another usage I speculate is with pet's and pet tags. If a pet is lost you could scan the pet or a tag and it will tell an individual who own's the pet and the pets name.

</comment><comment><USER17> Generally speaking, you could just add it as another layer of security for proximity-based interaction as a three-factor authentication of sorts.

For instance, people can't open X without (1) a key/password, (2) a OTP password, and (3) an NFC device. It seems like a good way to add a proximity factor to authentication.

It doesn't have to _replace_ something; it can also augment them. Especially when it's an automated process, not a manual one.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have a night stand dock made of pencils and rubber bands (don't ask). It has an NFC tag attached to it. When I place my Android device in the stand, NFC Task Launcher detects the tag and it auto-launches the Dock Clock app which displays a pretty clock along with the local weather forecast.

I could do similar things with NFC tags under light switch plates by the front door or whatnot, but haven't found a non-geeky reason to do so, yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> You could use NFC to exchange data. You could, for example, perform a hip bump to add somebody to your Tweetface circle; or grind on somebody to trade phone numbers; or leave a tip by rubbing somebody's pants pocket... all without directly manipulating phones!

(I imagine this'd be increasingly relevant as the screens on these things get bigger and bigger and it becomes difficult even to remove your phone from your pocket.)

<comment><USER9> Most (all?) NFC implementations require the screen to be on to perform NFC actions. Of course you could just slip your hand into someone's pocket and turn on the screen...

<comment><USER19> That's because the screen is the primary UI. But imagine authorizing NFC transactions using audio instead, or something as [currently] outlandish as a neural interface. Perhaps you could pre-emptively allow your phone to collect contact information before hitting the club.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a galaxy nexus and I love the idea behind NFC. Right now it feels like a gimmick because there really aren't places that take google wallet where I normally shop, and not many friends have NFC enabled devices.

That being said, I am really excited for NFC to grow.

Someone should kickstart a project that is a usb NFC phone sync tool. I think HP just announced a computer with a feature similar (the spectre?).

<comment><USER12> Intel demoed several Ultrabooks at CES 2012 earlier this year which had NFC built into the palm rest.

The use case they showed off at the press conference was to save you the hassle of typing your credit card info by just tapping your credit card to the palm rest. It could also be used to login to your computer for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just a spur of the moment opinion...but let me come up with a list...trading cards/games...meeting people socially...exchanging listed information on a specific field aka you make a list of great investors, one cellphone to cellphone tap and the other person has it...mmm hopefully that's good enough lol

</comment><comment><USER22> Phone automation: <http://launcher.tagstand.com/>

</comment><comment><USER23> Both Google and Nokia have demoed using NFC to switch audio being played on a mobile device to audio being played over another device. Setting up simple transfers like that makes sense, although it obviously requires another smart device or dumb device + alt streaming protocol.

</comment><comment><USER24> Authentication, synchronization, ticketing, etc. I'd think something like requiring you to unlock your NFC device in order to "swipe" in would be pretty nifty 2-factor auth.

I'd suggest taking a look at the wikipedia page, it has a list of potential uses.

</comment><comment><USER25> Seems like in the building seurity case, that could be a huge afffordable improvement over RFID tags; I.e. Tap and get a key that you respond to wth a crypto function vs. RFID where any idiot can scan and replicate your tag.

<comment><USER26> Not sure you can copy all RFID tags; NFC is often classed as a type of RFID.

<comment><USER9> NFC is a subset of RFID.

<comment><USER2> Actually, it's the other way around. NFC is a superset of many different types of RFID standards that operate all under 13.56MHz - FeliCa, MiFARE, Topaz, ISO14443 etc in addition to include different communication protocols (SNEP for example) as well as payload standards (NDEF).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There are some arcade games in Japan that use an NFC card to keep track of player data. For example, Mahjong Fight Club uses one to allow for elaborate player rankings and detailed stat tracking.

</comment><comment><USER28> Location/presence. It gives a reasonably strong indication that your device was probably in a location at that time (whether GPS was present, enabled, shared, etc. or not).

</comment><comment><USER29> Found this an interesting point on speed from london's underground www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/07/london-underground-nfcs-just-too-slow/

</comment><comment><USER30> Strong (hardware PKI based) authentication for mobile banking (user and transaction auth by touching phone to bank card).

<comment><USER31> I think this will be the next one, or 'chipped' ATM cards. NFC as a solution works better than the smart card standard though as the reader than do the request / challenge without having to insert the card. That said people bumping into you on the subway can too so there is protocol work to be done to insure that isn't a vulnerability.

<comment><USER2> This is not a big concern, all modern devices with NFC have to have the screen unlocked before the NFC radio turns on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Replacing physical keys. You could use NFC to start your car or open your home's front door without a key.

</comment><comment><USER26> Secure sign on. NFC reader attached to your PC, touch and sign in. Already possible on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER33> I see NFC as a way to essentially enable interactions between physical objects

</comment><comment><USER34> I had an idea where you could carry a sort of virtual business card around with you. Meet somebody? Tap your phone to theirs and they get a business card. When they get home they tap it to a computer and they get a big resume with links to your github or art repos or online examples of your work. It'd be really cool for networking events or job fairs and the like.

<comment><USER35> [http://www.moo.com/blog/2012/09/27/the-business-cards-of- the...](http://www.moo.com/blog/2012/09/27/the-business-cards-of-the-future- nfc/)

<comment><USER34> Typical. Only posted on the 27th though, so my ideas are catching up the present.

<comment><USER10> Hmmm - not really. Microsoft in an old vision demo had just what you are talking about:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=peSYlJlg14E#t=121s)

The whole video is really good if you have the time to watch it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> All the use cases for swiping are also use cases for NFC, but obviously the added convenience of NFC will probably encourage adoption in scenarios where swiping would have been too much.</comment>


The world needs a better way to make decisions together. Help us build it. - <AUTHOR> http://love.loomio.org

<comment><USER2> I work on we've got amazing feedback from a huge range of collaborative projects, from community bookstores to linux distros.

happy to answer questions if anyone has any

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really excited about decision making becoming a thing people do with the internet.

</comment><comment><USER4> This project is awesome. I love the idea that we can help ease the pain of organizing people who care - about anything, basically!

</comment><comment><USER5> Loomio is awesome. I use it every day in a couple of organisations.

</comment><comment><USER6> This project has come a long way in the last year.

</comment><comment><USER7> This project needs more love :)

</comment><comment><USER8> The world needs this!!</comment>


Ask HN: Is the Turing Test still the gold standard of AI? - <AUTHOR> With all the stuff that is going on in AI land recently, I hear little about the turing test and advances in conquering it.<p>Is it still the gold standard to measure if we "have made it"? <comment><USER2> Nobody have a good definition of intelligence or general intelligence. How are you sure that your friends are really intelligent and they are not faking it?

A few year ago, playing chess was a task difficult enough to require intelligence, until someone solved it and it became only a brute force trick. Later, playing go was a task difficult enough to require intelligence, until someone solved it and it became only a brute force trick. You can add image classification, translation, whatever task or test you want to add. When it is unsolved it requires natural or artificial intelligence. Once it is solved is only a trick. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect)

We only agree that humans are intelligent, so the only test that we can make to ensure that a computer is intelligent is that the computer can fake a human. Anything else will be dismissed as a trick. And when we have a computer that can pass the Turing test it will dismissed as a trick anyway.

The problem is that making a computer that can fake a human is more complicated than we expected (or perhaps less complicated than we expected, it depends on whom you ask). So the current advancement are in small subtask.

When we have more computing power, more subtask solved, more clever ideas to solve subproblems and more time to make attempts, we will be able to make a computer that pass the Turing test. (Or not, nobody is sure, I guess we can.)

How about a nice game of chess?

</comment><comment><USER3> The Turing test is quite abstract. Talking with Siri can be seen as a Turing test (would you think the machine passes it? I would not). Captchas are obviously an annoying one (which are in some crisis because they need to get harder and harder). Automatic driving can also be seen as a Turing test from the perspective of the other drivers. All those problems are bleeding edge of research.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would argue that the Turing Test was never really the "gold standard." It has, and has always had, a lot of issues. First and foremost to me, is that "teaching" a computer to "pass the Turing Test" amounts to teaching it to lie very well.</comment>


Broken Time: "Nardis" and the Curious History of a Jazz Obsession - <AUTHOR> https://believermag.com/broken-time/ <comment><USER3> I first heard Nardis around a decade ago and ever since it has always been one of my favorite Jazz pieces (if not #1). It was also my introduction to Bill Evans. When researching him I was surprised to learn Nardis was composed by Miles Davis but that there was never a recording from Miles himself.

However, until I read this article I never knew there was such a following around Nardis nor was I aware that Bill Evans had such an obsession with the song. There's something quite satisfying when you discover good music independently and only then slowly discover the existing culture around it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Incredible writing by the Author, Steve Silberman.

Evans was such a tragic figure. It's hard to reconcile his lifestyle with the beauty of his piano playing.

I'm going through a similar obsession phase with the earworm "Blue in Green"; another Miles / Evans collaboration.

Evans was both a student and master of a framework that simultaneously combined chromatic melodies, complex rhythms, and non-standard chord progressions... a formula that ultimately haunted him to the grave.

<comment><USER5> I've been listening to Evans for nearly forty years now. I know how important Nardis was to him, but "Blue in Green" has always bypassed my intellect and spoken directly to my soul.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the great treasures is this performance in the home of Ilkka Kuusisto', a Finnish composer. This is his post-LaFaro trio, with Eddie Gomez on bass.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0AcvMBPuZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0AcvMBPuZI)

</comment><comment><USER6> Bill Evans' music doesn't get the attention it deserves, so I really appreciated this article. Even better would be having it appear in a more mainstream publication.

And as Evans' recordings go, I think his Shelly's Manne Hole performance is sheer genius.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzTLbjjph4o&list=PL0q2VleZJV...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzTLbjjph4o&list=PL0q2VleZJVEkZQ83uqLZd6863_kIy2-bQ)

<comment><USER7> Hadn't heard this particular recording before. Wow. Alice In Wonderland take 2 happens to be my favorite of his I think. It's from the legendary trio days.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really excellent article, thanks for sharing it on HN. The Ralph Towner recording from Solo Concert that the article mentions is also brilliant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e66mkcPsXVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e66mkcPsXVo)

</comment><comment><USER9> Write a comment for this, delete it, go back to music... which is the closest you get to communicate with appropriate weight. You can never explain what you really want, but at least you can express how strongly you feel about whatever it is you are feeling. And expressions so powerful as Nardis can easily become life changing.

</comment><comment><USER10> This seems a good place to ask...

How do I get into jazz?

I can listen to it and find it pleasant. But I'm missing something - I'm not spotting the patterns. It all sounds the same and empty.

What is a good route in?

In contrast I get and like any pop/rock, if I dance I like anything ravey.

I'm into the swirling moods of Ludovico Einaudi, and the harsh to accept beautiful patterns of Philip Glass.

I struggle with Classical as much as jazz, but I don't care that I do.

I feel like I need some kind of course - tests what I get, and helps me find the next thing which is more complex (not just a bland repetition of) what I like now, but still on the edge of accessibility to me.

<comment><USER11> I'd be curious to know why you want to "get into" jazz. The world is brim-full of music, so you don't need to listen to something you find 'the same and empty'.

Anyway, that aside, I'll make 2 suggestions:

\- the real magic of jazz is in its live performance. There really is nothing like it. If you have live jazz going on where you live, go and listen. If any of what you hear appeals, well that gives you a starting point for finding recordings.

\- for recorded music, start with crossover or fusion jazz that shares a musical border with stuff you already like. Perhaps Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert might be worth a try (solo piano with lots of ostinato passages - <USER2> 'like' Glass, but perhaps appealing to some of the same impulses). Jazz isn't the hermetically sealed thing it used to be, and you'll find it merges off in all directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Marvellous article. Bill Evans' playing is one of the great consolations of life. For anyone who likes guitar, I also highly recommend Ralph Towner's lovely Nardis interpretation on his great album 'Solo Concert'

<comment><USER12> Since you mention Bill Evans and guitar, I must recommend Antoine Boyer's video recording of "We will meet again": [https://youtu.be/iSkZVfFZmmA](https://youtu.be/iSkZVfFZmmA)

<comment><USER11> Thanks, hadn't come across him. Great player if a bit chilly/controlled from that one example - but then again detractors have said that of Bill Evans. And solo videoing isn't the most natural milieu for music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Musician Ben Sidran's (mentioned in the article) record label is named Nardis. As I am not a jazzer, I had always assumed it was just his name spelled backwards. Learn something everyday.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here's the song with a fairly long interview preceding it . I'm not a huge fan of the sub genre but it's clear talent and skill

[https://youtu.be/ObN55DQmFZI](https://youtu.be/ObN55DQmFZI)</comment>


Ask HN: Is working on online casinos unethical? - <AUTHOR> I think I think (yes..) that it is. Because you are creating technology that almost certainly is making the world worse. The amount of joy people get from gambling for fun is outweighed by the amount of grief gambling addiction causes. And even if it isn't, most online casinos are designed in such a way to attract addicts. I'm not very sure of my opinion, so I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks!
Edit: Ops. Should have mentioned that in my part of the world, online gambling is not illegal. <comment><USER3> Tl;dr - Yes.

The first source of money for online casinos is not the money that the poor addict pours into it, it is the huge money laundering operations that are done in the back. Online casinos are not based in places that you will imagine particular transparent in terms of tax policy. They are based in Malta (russian money), Gibraltar (UK money) or in places like the Caiman Islands, Panama... A journalist was murdered in Malta for just speaking about this.

<comment><USER4> You're assuming that money laundering is unethical.

<comment><USER5> Is there an argument in favor of it (money laundering) being ethical? The most I can think of is anonymity for the general public, but is this an actual use case?

<comment><USER6> Let's suppose it's 1775 and the American rebels want to fund an arguably-just fight against the ruling British.

Or let's suppose you run a VPN in China that allows the Chinese to arguably- justifiably access Western websites, and you need to launder your funds.

Or perhaps you're a spy inside ISIS and need to hide the fact that you're getting funded by the US.

Or perhaps you're in Iran and want to leave, but since Iran doesn't permit you to bring any money out of the country, you (arguably ethically and justifiably) decide to get it out via Bitcoins.

Being able to launder money is arguably very similar to being able to maintain privacy, which means it falls under Martin Fowler's excellent argument for privacy: [https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome- privacy.htm...](https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html)

I have never argued for money laundering in my life, but guys... you have to stop seeing everything in black-and-white.

<comment><USER5> So, general anonymity, as I mentioned above. My (admittedly only implied) question around this usecase is: is it a real usecase, or purely theoretical?

<comment><USER6> Well, I did donate BTC to a cause in Africa (forget the country) that was at odds with the government which was taking a steep cut of any incoming money

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My rule of thumb: will your customers regret their purchase in hindsight? If you suspect most of them will, then yes, it's unethical to collect their money now.

Elsewhere in this thread people have compared casinos to video games, tobacco, and facebook. Video games run a full spectrum from predatory to wholesome, so you'd have to look at that on a case-by-case basis. I regret some, but definitely not most of the games I've bought/played. I'm not a smoker, but I think most smokers would prefer to not need to smoke. Looking at it another way, I don't think any smokers would prefer that their _children_ start smoking, so in my view tobacco is unethical. Facebook has both saved and ruined lives so it's in a grey zone for me.

By this test, casinos/lotteries/etc. land firmly in the far unethical side of the spectrum for me personally, but you might have a different view based on your own experiences. Ideally someone would find hard data to support one view or another.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to work for one and was not proud of it because I felt our products did not provide any value.

My boss had this theory how betting small amounts of money is just another form of entertainment people enjoy, just like going to the cinema or playing a video game, and thus we were in the entertainment business. I didn't really buy it and I wondered if he truly believed it himself.

Not everyone has a chance to work on world-changing, truly innovative stuff, but there's a lot of productive, useful work to be done, and I just think that online betting is not one of them.

<comment><USER9> Except something like 90% of revenue comes from 5% of "players" so it's obviously just what he told himself to placate his conscience that he wasn't ripping off addicts.

<comment><USER10> How is this different from Apps on the playstore ? Insurance/Banking/consultancy ? Or, I have to say, sometimes I wonder how the amounts people spend on music truly vary. The merchandising for most bands means that if you really want to spend millions on a band, you can (e.g. the "pharma bro" Wu-Tang clan saga). Bands themselves say that this is where most of their income comes from ...

This whale principle certainly seems to cover quite a bit of the economy.

Even movies are similar. You want to spend a million (or a few) on star wars ? Not a problem. [1]

From a psychological standpoint I would strongly suggest that you never make it your mission to save people from themselves. There's only 2 ways you come out of that experience: evil (lost belief in mankind, and therefore anything goes), or mad.

[1] [http://mentalfloss.com/article/53388/6-most-expensive- pieces...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/53388/6-most-expensive-pieces-star- wars-memorabilia)

<comment><USER9> The question is about ethics. How is it relevant whether other people are taking advantage of addicts as well?

<comment><USER10> I'm just saying that, to varying extents, large portions of the economy are "taking advantage of" addicts. Certainly if you work for FANG, they all (including Amazon) have their addicts. As do things like reddit, in fact probably most sites.

You cannot let your life be controlled by "ethics" like this. It's not reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know friends that work in online gambling, they say they are more ashamed of people who work in banking, hft, defense (offense?) contractors, Facebook or Google. Why? Because all the above have tangible negative effects on society.

We need an engineering code of conduct - too many tech folk happy to take a dollar in return for building stuff that makes the world a worse place.

<comment><USER12> Sounds like whataboutism. Pointing at the dirty neighbors does not clean your own house.

<comment><USER11> So you are confirming the neighbour does indeed have a dirty house too?

<comment><USER12> No, I am pointing out it doesn't matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Disclaimer: I am a recreational poker player, and have interacted with all sorts of rec players from serious semi-pros to weekend tourist players to total degenerate gamblers. The answer to this question will inevitably be personal and will vary based on your own personal ethics.

As someone who _has_ quit a job partially over an ethical objection to the product subject matter (it was a surveillance system), I would have no problem at all taking a job at an online casino.

In terms of societal value, I don't see much of a difference between a gambling site and an online stock brokerage or financial trading firm. They're both zero-sum games, where the host takes a cut of the profit. Both can equally lead people to financial ruin, and can be equally addictive. So if you'd work for E-trade or even a hedge fund, why wouldn't you work for PokerStars?

In terms of legality, OP has already specified that it's legal in his/her region, so there should be no moral objection there.

In terms of providing end user value, at least they are providing entertainment value. There are plenty of worse tech jobs where you simply exploit end users and others reap most of the actual product value.

Other commenters have covered the Video Game / tobacco / Facebook angles so I won't go there.

OP, if you managed to find a job offer at one of these gaming companies (you didn't mention that), then congratulations. My understanding is that online gaming industry is quite like the video game industry, where it's tougher than average for an "outsider" to break into the industry.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is working for McDonalds unethical? Well yes, because people get obese and live shorter lives.

Is working for Tobacco companies unethical? Well yes, because people die from cancer which was caused from smoking for example.

Is working for the bank unethical? Well yes, because most banks make people buy bonds that have a high profit for the banks but lower for the customers.

Is working for your local grocery store unethical? Well yes, because you are again making people fat by placing candy at the exit so you profit more.

Everything is unethical to some extent, just decided what level you want to be on and be happy.

<comment><USER15> Hm. Sounds like temporizing. Clearly, working to produce a deliberately addictive product that is corrosive to health and happiness, is bad. If the product has any redeeming feature, and a reasonable legitimate market, isn't that different in more than a qualitative way?

If I worked at McD's National, and were juggling fat/salt/sugar to produce the most addictive fries, then I'd call that unethical. But to sell beef burgers to folks in a hurry for lunch, no.

<comment><USER14> > But to sell beef burgers to folks in a hurry for lunch, no.

Even if the person you're selling to is obese and will likely die an early death if the person in question continues his or hers behavior?

<comment><USER15> I would be a terrible counter person. I wouldn't sell to the addicted, just like a bartender has to cut off drunks. And I'd probably get fired. So yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm going to play devil's advocate here; I don't actually know what my own opinion about this is, and I never gamble online so I don't even know much about it or how horrible it might be. So I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions that should hopefully help you work out exactly how you got to your opinion and either change it or hold it more firmly.

Why do you say "online casinos are designed in such a way to attract addicts"? Aren't they just designed to attract people who want to use them, which happens to include addicts?

Aren't you assuming that addicts are helpless people with absolutely no agency of their own? Given that this isn't a question of chemical dependency, aren't they morally responsible for exercising better judgement? I mean, many people gamble without any problems. Why should the casino be considered immoral because of someone else's poor choices?

Is online gambling especially heinous for some reason you haven't clearly articulated, or do you apply this thinking to other things people may become addicted to as well with a similar joy/grief tradeoff? It would apply to recreational drugs, I'm certain. Someone else already asked about social media. Do you think this way about other aspects of society?

<comment><USER17> What's the proper way of differentiating between chemical addiction, experiential addiction, and neither?

<comment><USER16> I only raise chemical addiction as a possible exception because nearly everybody agrees there are ways to become addicted to certain chemicals without somehow choosing to do so first, e.g. you get hurt in an accident that is no fault of your own and the doctors administer medication to you that you become addicted to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why limit to online casinos? WMS Gaming creates tons of slot and video lottery terminals, wouldn't it be just as unethical to work there than on online casinos?

<comment><USER19> Exactly. Online casinos are just the tip of the iceberg here. Unbelievably large sums of money and grief are lost and created respectively in real world lotteries and casinos which nowadays are almost entirely computerized - <USER2> made up by developers working in tech companies.

<comment><USER18> I do think that online casinos may get a worse reputation when it comes to those in the US because online gambling is illegal so these companies that offer it are set up outside of the US jurisdiction. Who knows what they will pay out or if they ever do pay out. Casinos in the US are bound by the governing body of the state they are located in to have certain payouts when it comes to machines. Online gambling doesn't necessarily have that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No. Imo.

But your question is not ethical but your own belief system... Not ours.

Here is an example. The founder of Mothers Against drunk driving took a job with a liquor industry (1). Now that is unethical imo

(1) [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-01-15/news/940115013...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-01-15/news/9401150133_1_madd- board-member-beckie-brown-drunk)

</comment><comment><USER21> Why do you ask? What change in your own behaviour would the different answers elicit?

Is this just an intellectual exercise? In that case, it's a reasonable question that might lead to an interesting conversation.

Are you thinking of working for one, but worried about how you would feel? In that case, I don't think any amount of reassurance from internet strangers would help.

Are you worried about how others might view you if you have it on your CV? That may be a valid concern, but in that case, it's an XY problem.

Are you looking at a pile of CVs, and thinking about whether to reject someone on these "ethical" grounds? You don't know what predicament caused the candidate to take that job, or to (want to) leave it, or the exact nature of what they did there.

If you work on technology that can help to identify harmful play and intervene appropriately, then you are probably creating technology that makes the world better, even if you are doing so for a company whose other products may be making the world worse.

</comment><comment><USER22> Tl;dr No

The field of probability was invented by largely French philosophers wanting to understand the math behind casino games. Casino games are nothing more (or less) than pure math. The 'unethical' part of casino comes from operators extracting too large of an edge. Obviously, the operator needs to make something to get paid to run the game, but the 'house edge' can be around 10%.

When thinking about gambling being ethical or not, IMO the important question is the price of the risk, not the mechanic of money traded for risk. Money for risk is very common (think insurance for example). Nobody would argue insurance is unethical. But if a home owner policy cost the price of the house annually, people would consider that unethical.

</comment><comment><USER23> Weighing the harm of loss against the benefit of entertainment is one way to decide. An alternative viewpoint is whether the freedom to gamble is more or less important than protecting the irresponsible.

You may also want to consider that your non-participation in an activity may not affect whether it happens or not. Arguably, there will always be a provider of gambling services where it is legal (and maybe even where it isn't). From this perspective, the most ethical choice may be to be to provide the most ethical gambling service. However, this may be commercially challenging.

Ultimately, only you can decide whether this is ethical, as ethics is subjective.

</comment><comment><USER24> As a person who enjoys playing the lotto, losing money in poker, and buying high/selling low, yes. It is unethical. But most things that are fun are. I feel OK with gambling and do it every day in one of those three activities, but I have an income to support losing a few hundred dollars per day and it only kind of hurt.

I wish that casinos had to do more to ensure the person gambling had the ability to lose the money, but that adds a lot of regulatory burdens that a lot of people would find onerous on free market enterprises (I don't, but that is a political discussion not meant for this topic).

</comment><comment><USER25> Hard to answer.

Actually I'd really hear answers about a similar question: Is working on p2w games unethical?

I was wondering about that in connection with the whole Battlefront 2 fiasco. EA got a lot of flak but I remember when Apple announced the in-app purchase for free apps back in 2009. Feels like it was only yesterday but that was when a lot of things clearly changed.

[https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/apple-announces-in-app- pur...](https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/apple-announces-in-app-purchases- for-free-iphone-applications/)

<comment><USER5> The question is, in my mind, is P2W (or even, controversially, cosmetic loot boxes) gaming different than gambling? Does the fact that your rewards are digital instead of monetary really matter when discussing addiction?

Obviously my answer is that yes, it is unethical. The problem is (and this applies to gambling as well) that it's too damned profitable for companies to give it up without a huge fight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The amount of joy people get from gambling for fun is outweighed by the > amount of grief gambling addiction causes.

Show me some empirical data backing this belief and you might have an actual argument.

Gambling (in moderation) is literally the only thing my parents have in common (other than mutual respect), and they've been together nearly 50 years.

I have definitely enjoyed my trips to Mohegan Sun, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, even if I've lost money on the trip.

The vast majority of people who gamble are not addicted to it and participate in moderation.

</comment><comment><USER26> Here's the argument from an Effective Altruism perspective: if you want to earn money from gambling, you should offset the "badness" with some "goodness". Volunteer your skills for charity or open source, and contribute money to high impact charities (maybe even ones that help gamblers?).

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes. A casino exists only to take advantage of vulnerable individuals and drain them of their money. It is an immoral business. Therefore, working to help a casino is also immoral.

<comment><USER28> Devils advocate argument:

I work at an e-commerce company that is designed and incentivized to sell as much product as possible. Are we taking advantage of "shopping addicts"? Where is the line drawn between capitalism and morality?

Sidenote: Casinos also exist to provide entertainment value. I don't mind spending $20 on blackjack just to play with my friends and talk with new people. Just because there is a subset of individuals that can't handle that entertainment responsibly doesn't mean that the business itself is immoral.

<comment><USER29> Very good point. The distinction may be that a casino operates on the premise that playing will make you rich some lucky day - whereas when you shop, financial loss is not obfuscated away as a means to your big payday.

<comment><USER30> Yes, but the marketing machine still makes you want that shiny thing that you don't need. It will make you happy for about 5 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Yes.

In my opinion casinos take advantage of a loophole in human psychology to take money from people who can't afford it, so having anything to do with that is unethical.

</comment><comment><USER32> as unethical as working for tobacco companies.

<comment><USER33> Tobacco industry is made up of wholly legal and aboveboard business enterprises with many happy users.

They have a long history of malicious behavior, but it is not, on the face of it, wrong to take such a job.

But I still might avoid it, myself. Once bitten, twice shy. You spend fifty years conspiring to conceal damages to your own customers and maybe I prefer not to work for you even after you stop doing it

<comment><USER34> Just because an endeavor is legal, does not make it ethical. I agree with parent: working for a casino is about as unethical as working for a tobacco company. Your work will unquestionably lead to harm in the lives of others.

<comment><USER30> Yes, but that applies to just about every programming job too. Is programming unethical? I mean your are automating jobs away. It certainly harms lives.

<comment><USER32> By that measure taking a job is unethical because it takes away a job that another might perform...

Yes, working for an industry that does harm to people is unethical. However, the censure that is deserved is proportional to the the "status" of the position they occupy in the industry, e.g. CEOs > Professionals > Blue Collar > Part Timers. Its not just the influence the different people have on the industries or companies they work in, its also a function of their autonomy. A lot of people have little choice but to take whatever job they can get, because they have other obligations as well: to their selves, to their families, and to their communities.

<comment><USER30> Programmers have to have jobs just as much as blue collar people. I mean everything except (possibly) the CEO _has_ to work for income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> With job market as it is in EU and recruitment hell in the industry I would take any decently paying job, sorry.

</comment><comment><USER36> No it is not. Every company to some extent, does something that can be viewed as unethical. Whether its selling user data without notice, or fancy tax practices, etc. The old saying "Don't throw stones if you live in a glass house" applies here.

<comment><USER15> We can argue our way into genocide and war that way. Anything, really.

Yes there are some purely counterproductive businesses. Online casinos may be that, if they are designed solely to fleece people and hook the addicted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It really depends on your own position on Gambling. I'm of the mind that the same kind of person who throws money away at a Casino would have thrown it away somewhere else. I see nothing wrong with selling a person a service they want.

</comment><comment><USER38> It depends on what the profits are used for.

</comment><comment><USER39> What about Facebook, it is also designed to be addictive, so you can spend as much time on it as possible to be shown ads?

<comment><USER40> Hardly a fair comparison. You will not blow your (and potentially your family's) savings by browsing facebook and seeing being shown ads.

<comment><USER41> > You will not blow your (and potentially your family's) savings by browsing > facebook and seeing being shown ads.

Ads often incite people to buy things. This must work at least some of the time, or ads wouldn't exist. So some people do spend their money on unnecessary junk through browsing facebook.

<comment><USER42> To be fair, a good share (I'd say most ? But data is needed ^^) of advertising is designed to make you prefer a brand over an other once you decided you want a new product. I'm not sure there's really a lot designed to make you do a buy decision without a preexisting want (<\--- I'm trying to avoid the word need here, because it's definitely not a need, but my english isn't good enough)

You argument still holds that advertising still makes you possibily spend more for the exact same thing, but it's hardly comparable to gambling addictive behaviours in my opinion.

<comment> wu-ikkyu It's seems to me the massive advertising machine in the US produces far more collateral damage (in the form of environmental degradation from people buying junk designed with planned obsolescense) than gambling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> most mobile and console game companies sleep jjust fine making those technologies for kids.

<comment><USER44> There are definitely unethical mobile game companies that are as bad or worse than online casinos, but there are also wholesome ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's illegal. Working for people who break the law for money is generally considered to be unethical.

Even if you, personally, feel OK about it, ask yourself what would happen if a prospective (future) employer found out about your activities.

<comment><USER45> Not touching the moral issue, but online gambling is definitely legal in many countries in Europe, where vastly advertised and known betting and poker websites exist.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please suggest me some good open source physics engines - <AUTHOR>

I have to design a 3D world and a 3D robot in that world. I will have to write some programs to make that robot interact with the various objects on the scenario.
What kind of tool/programming environment do you suggest is the best for this ?
Please help. <comment><USER2> Depending on your exact needs, there's a moderate trend towards using game engines for this sort of thing. Two simulation-oriented projects:

* The Delta3d game/simulation engine is mainly funded by the U.S. military, for simulation and training applications: <http://www.delta3d.org/>

* The USARSim robot simulator is built on top of the Unreal Tournament game engine: <http://usarsim.sourceforge.net/>

Delta3d is open source; USARSim itself is open source, but depends on the non- open-source Unreal engine.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://farseerphysics.codeplex.com/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you guys.

</comment><comment><USER4> relevant: [http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics- engines-f...](http://www.wildbunny.co.uk/blog/2011/04/06/physics-engines-for- dummies/)

xpost from [http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/gkz1e/physics_engin...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/gkz1e/physics_engines_for_dummies/)</comment>


Microsoft has 'no plans for future versions' of XNA software - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/31/3939230/microsoft-has-no-plans-for-future-versions-of-xna-software <comment><USER2> those £$%£$%£$</comment>


Ask HN: What IT technologies have been available for years but aren't mainstream - <AUTHOR> Let me give you an example:
containers have been used at Google for decades, yet, only did the masses start using them when Docker made them mainstream.
So, I have been wondering what else is out there that for some reason isn't well known, and yet, would largely benefit anybody in the computer science field? <comment><USER2> Highly optimized, reproducible, multi-language build systems, such as Buck [1] or Bazel [2]. With that technology around, I can't believe how developers still put up with slow builds.

[1]: [https://buckbuild.com/](https://buckbuild.com/) [2]: [https://bazel.build/](https://bazel.build/)</comment>