Scientists: 'Castration is the key to a longer life' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/25/castration_long_life/ <comment><USER2> Over at the Gerontology Research Group list, epidemiologist S. Jay Olshansky commented:

"It was quite a silly story. The authors misunderstood the evolutionary theory of senescence. Furthermore, they failed to account for other behavioral attributes of the folks being studied. I don't understand how that paper passed through peer review."

There are a lot of theories floating around regarding gender differences in longevity; that we cannot definitively say why the difference exists is a good example of the tremendous complexity of the intersection of metabolism, genetics, and aging:

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+gender)

But read the paper - it's open access:

[http://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2812...](http://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2812%2900712-9)

For my money, I'd wager that their methodology for finding life spans in the genealogy data for the 81 out of 385 mentioned eunuchs (and/or the intrinsic structure of that data) is predisposed towards selecting longer-lived individuals.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure there needs to be considerable discussion of the methodology and conclusions of this paper, but in the mean time, it's going to be an useful paper to tweak people touting the health benefits of circumcision (based on research that is not all that indisputable either).

"Why cut off the tip and gain a few months of life expectation, if you could cut it ALL off and gain DECADES"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They don't seem to have controlled for daily activity, only socio-economic status.

[http://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2812...](http://www.cell.com/current- biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2812%2900712-9)

I am guessing there are confounding co-factors that make this research woefully inadequate and not useful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Bollocks to that.

</comment><comment><USER6> As someone who has suffered from the absence of testosterone: castration? brilliant idea!

</comment><comment><USER7> "... when eunuchs were less unique"

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't that woman's fault?</comment>


Amazon offers warehouse employees $5,000 to quit - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/11/technology/amazon-pay-to-quit/index.html <comment><USER2> Similar discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7572568)</comment>


Web performance: Cache efficiency exercise - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/964122680272229/web-performance-cache-efficiency-exercise/

<comment><USER2> Side note: It's ridiculous that webpages are often several MBs in size these days, while offering nothing more in value for all that extra weight.

<comment><USER3> It's hard, in that most sites/webapps aren't hand-crafted components... I'm waist deep in a web application now, that's very difficult to prune... It has jQueryUI __AND __Bootstrap controls, not to mention a dozen plugins for each. It 's a significant mess to say the least. The main .JS min/merged weighs in at over 1mb (down about a mb since I min/merged them) that doesn't include site js, just the libraries (not including jquery's base).

Of course, it's easy to clear that size with some big full-screen splash images, which are more and more common... it is kind of depressing. I really appreciate the work the Polymer team has done in creating paper components, and would love to see something closer to that for React as a base, most of the Paper/Component bases I've seen are still relatively heavy, with React- Bootstrap being one of the better ones.

It's not easy coming into something that's already in place, and harder to reign in the proliferation of modules that get added in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Uh, `Last-Modified: $now` doesn't seem to be in any RFC I can find, or any other credible sources I could find via Google for that matter.

Definitely not in RFC 1123, though.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure they're using "$now" as a variable placeholder for the example, it's not meant to be read as a literal header. (In PHP variables begin with $.) They're not very clear on that though, so your point is valid.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can someone explain the common open source licenses? - <AUTHOR>

Could someone roughly explain the differences between the common open source licenses out there (Apache, GPL, MIT, etc.) and any restrictions they may have?
I'm not working on any specific project that would require professional legal advice. I just want a basic understanding of the differences between the most common licenses and how they can generally affect or restrict projects.
What is the most open and unrestricted license? What licenses have restrictions I should be aware of? etc. etc. Thanks <comment><USER2> It would take quite a bit of writing to do all of that. And there are some significant subtleties in terms of the differences between seemingly similar licenses.

What I'd recommend, is that you read the book _Open Source Licensing_ [1] and / or the book _Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing_ [2]. Both are freely available online.

[1]: <http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm>

[2]: <http://oreilly.com/openbook/osfreesoft/book/index.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Great answer, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You might also want to check out [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_lic...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licenses)

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out <http://www.tldrlegal.com/> (Lookup software licenses summarized & explained in plain English.)</comment>


ENCR – Social Commerce - <AUTHOR> http://www.ENCR.io <comment><AUTHOR> An all-access pass for fans. A digital day job for creators.

ENCR is a niche optimization engine that has developed technologies to monetize social commerce efforts by combining a direct-to-fan Live Stream Studio, Uploadable photo/video content, Tip/Donation options and built-in E-Commerce capabilities. When we pack these powerful features into a subscription based business model, we believe that this will best allow us to disrupt the failing social commerce landscape and begin to shape it's bright future.</comment>


Ask HN: Any resources to master Hyperledger Fabric? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> If you are getting started you can start from these resources

[https://www.edx.org/course/blockchain-business- introduction-...](https://www.edx.org/course/blockchain-business-introduction- linuxfoundationx-lfs171x)

[https://github.com/CATechnologies/blockchain- tutorials/wiki/...](https://github.com/CATechnologies/blockchain- tutorials/wiki/Tutorial:-Hyperledger-Fabric-v1.1-%E2%80%93-Create-a- Development-Business-Network-on-zLinux)

You can always refer to the docs as well for more info [http://hyperledger- fabric.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://hyperledger- fabric.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)</comment>


Chromium: An Open-Source Chrome Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.greycoder.com/chromium-open-source-chrome-browser/

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know that Firefox was consider the speediest browser last year. [http://beta.slashdot.org/story/188257](http://beta.slashdot.org/story/188257)</comment>


Save money by learning to cook with this cooking/recipe web app - <AUTHOR> http://www.sublimemeal.com <comment><USER2> Meal roulette, I love it. Bookmarked!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot mate!</comment></comment>


Kuhn's Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2016/02/19/kuhns-paradox.html <comment> a-nikolaev At least in the past, it was in good taste to just call your observation simply a paradox, and let the public decide if it's worthy to stick author's name to it or not.

Let alone that for many people, the name "Kuhn" is primarily associated with Thomas Kuhn, rather than Bradley Kuhn- adding to the confusion.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. When I first saw the title, I was wondering if I missed something from _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_.

And it doesn't really qualify as a paradox in my opinion. Perhaps briefly counterintuitive. But the real question of "X is free and does the 'same thing' as Y, which is not free: so why are more people using Y?" Is perfectly easy to explain via UI/UX, discoverability, ease of install/uninstall, or network effects (all my friends/coworkers use Y, so I will too).

This seems like an uninteresting question named after a very interesting writer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It feels like open core is the new "embrace, extend, extinguish". ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) )

On the other hand, the economy just doesn't incentivize open source communities to build the very best software for average users, compared to say, making a billion bucks with by building my new shiny walled garden social network. Anecdotal examples and lots of great FOSS project aside, cash is king and capitalism doesn't favour open source.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's baffling to me how the FSF came to the conclusion that JavaScript is not 'Free software'. I know the name 'JavaScript' is proprietary but the technology itself seems to be as free as it can possibly get.

I think a problem that's coming up now is that the lines between proprietary and free software have blurred. The FSF movement made sense in the old days when we had to pay a one-time cost to buy a CD with software on it. Today because everything is delivered as a service, it becomes very difficult to distinguish the software from the service itself. We're not just paying for the software anymore - We're also paying for continuous software updates, security patches and the ongoing management of underlying hardware infrastructure... The money has to come from somewhere.

I just don't understand the purpose of the FSF anymore... For the same reason that a 'Free Hardware Foundation' wouldn't make sense - You have to pay people to look after the software infrastructure in the same way that you have to pay people to get the silicon out of the ground to build your hardware.

<comment><USER5> You are mischaracterising what the opinion of the FSF is in relation to JavaScript; their actual opinion is here:

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript- trap.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> More people in the world than ever have access to clean potable water. More people in the world than ever have no access to clean potable water.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is a horrible shame that Kuhn's Paradox is true.

I wonder how we can stop this from happening?

<comment><USER7> Easy to answer, but you won't like it: Avoid BSD-style licenses and use GPL.

<comment><USER8> Because the only way to be free is to be more restrictive!

<comment><USER7> No, the only way to be free is to constantly fight for it, even at your inconvenience. Convenience (mostly ability to use the same code at work) is the reason why so many people today, who contribute to open source, prefer BSD.

That's why you won't like the answer (I certainly don't); it's an extra effort in politics that people would rather avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The observation stated in this 'paradox' isn't even true, and if it were true it wouldn't be a paradox.

First, it's not even remotely factually true:

\- It's easier and easier to use computers while avoiding more and more 'proprietary' software. 25 years ago you could barely do anything without a paid for operating system, now you would be considered a bit of an idiot if you tried to suggest a major datacenter running anything but Linux. The same goes for office applications etc, there used to be nothing at all, now there are multiple high quality options. The same goes for web browsers, and look at the demise of Flash and IE6-only websites. So for basically every category, the last 25 years has been a story of going from complete dominance of proprietary shrink-wrapped software to one where open source alternatives are almost as good or much better.

Secondly, if it became true, it wouldn't be a "a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self- contradictory."

\- A lot of or even most of the 'proprietary' software being created has no real value as open source to begin with. Lets say Twitter open sources their mobile client, then what? Are you going to modify it and use your modified version? That is absurd, virtually nobody would do this because of the difficulty of even running your modified version on a platform with trusted computing, but lets say you don't care about that. What is the benefit of doing so? So you can tweak a font or add a button? Twitter is releasing all of the open source they can extract from their codebase that they think people would actually find useful, look at all of it: [https://engineering.twitter.com/opensource/projects](https://engineering.twitter.com/opensource/projects) . The fact that the twitter.app for IOS isn't open source is 'meh', there is nothing interesting or hard about that app, and you can find a dozen open source equivalents , some of which are actually better.

So the claim is false, and if it is someday true, it's not even surprising, much less a 'paradox'.

</comment><comment><USER10> Lol... I have never used fewer commercial applications like today. 10 or 15 ago I struggled with buying or downloading expensive software because computers were not much fun without that back then. But now... Just out of convenience I have an OS X computer, didn't buy it myself though, I would be perfectly fine with a Linux computer too. My web browser(s) are open source, same is true for my mail client, my shell, almost all of my dev tools.

It's quite amazing, computers are so much more fun with open software.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't even think there's any paradox. Software is much more ubiquitous than before, much more powerful, and takes much more resource to develop. Obviously, a lot of stuff that were previously held by wires and switches are going to use software, and since people are selling these stuff, a lot of this stuff will be proprietary.

An average user has zero reason to "avoid proprietary software while completing their necessary work on a computer." They are too busy trying to do their necessary work.

<comment><USER12> _and takes much more resource to develop_

This is I do not believe at all. Programming is today is so much more trivial than it was even just 10 years ago it's not even funny. I mean just recently I wrote a little app the allowed people to remotely connect to a server and not only interactively view 3d data stored on that server, but change the shading of the model depending on what factors they where interested in and to click on the models and based on the properties of the triangle they clicked query a database to get more information. A few years ago that would have taken a team of experts month to get up and running. Today I could do it by myself, in a few days, including the time it took for me to get up to speed on webgl/three.js, which I had never used before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The paradox ignores that more people than ever use computing devices, especially mobile devices. If we limited the view to users of software equivalent to those that used computers in the (say) nineties, the paradox might be less severe. But maybe then the programmers to create open-source code wouldn't exist either.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'd think this is caused by efficient markets and competition between software companies.

After all, developer productivity is greatly based on tools, and the best tools are rarely free.

<comment><USER15> I could type a long list of best productivity tools that are free, starting with: using a free browser to search for free answers on SO hence saving devs a ton of time. Perhaps you were thinking on some 'very specialized tools' where the paid version is better? Which would be explained by the nature of niche markets and not necessarily efficiency.

<comment><USER16> Is SO free? The paradox is referring to free as in speech, not free as in beer. Free browsers in that sense are also in the minority these days.

<comment><USER17> SO subscriber content (e.g. answers) are CC BY-SA[0] which "is often compared to "copyleft" free and open source software licenses"[1]

[0] "all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license" [http://stackexchange.com/legal](http://stackexchange.com/legal)

[1] [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am no victim of the paradox: from a practical perspective all my stack is free and open source. I say practical b/c I am sure that some drivers are proprietary but I have not paid for any end-user software license that allows me to complete my work since I don't know when.

<comment><USER5> You are accessing a website that runs proprietary software on the server as well as in your browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The My Own Paradox: Each day, I have walked more miles accumulatively than I have walked ever before in human history; and yet, the world population also uses increasingly more cars every day.</comment>


GitHub now open to everyone. Here is the pricing. - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/plans

<comment><USER2> I still don't exactly understand what they are offering? Is there an advantage to using GitHub versus dumping some (yet to be created) virtual machine image on a cheap virtual server?

I thouhgt it has a social network aspect, but I can't see it yet? I really don't want to trash their business, just wondering about the virtual server competition.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to deal with setting up proper security, which can be a little tricky with git. Plus the social aspects. Plus the pretty interface. Plus it's free for most purposes.

I don't use it for work, but I use it for personal projects.

<comment><USER4> Don't you think that git's advantage over SVN evaporates when there is only one user on a team? I run my private Subversion repository which I use for everything (not just code), I looked at git, and while I see the benefits for large teams, I simply couldn't justify the switch.

I guess I am asking for a small lecture :)

<comment><USER5> git is great even if you're developing by yourself. I use git exclusively for all my work now (and use git-svn to integrate with others at work that use svn). Some of the benefits are:

merge tracking: this will also come to subversion in the future (but you'll have to migrate your repository)

having the entire repository checked out locally for offline use (being able to code on the train on the way to work is great)

fast branches - branches are really fast, especially since they're done locally, and there's basically no excuse for not quickly creating a branch when you want to try something out, and merge tracking

forking other open source repositories (including svn and cvs ones) for hacking and maintaing patches (until they get accepted upstream). git is nice and will attempt to always rebase your patches off the latest HEAD (and let you resolve conflicts if they occur).

git bisect for binary searching for the revision that broke something (can do a binary search over revisions to find out which revision broke a certain test).

did I mention that it integrates with svn?

git svn clone <http://svnrepo.com/trunk> # do stuff git add stuff/you/changed git commit git svn dcommit # commit changes from git into subversion

I could go on...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> new features with launch:

\- network visualization on repos and all their forks (seriously cool): <http://github.com/mojombo/god/network>

\- comments on commits: [http://github.com/defunkt/facebox/commit/554c03c2e432340293a...](http://github.com/defunkt/facebox/commit/554c03c2e432340293afd56d56cb26a80f3e336b)

\- campfire and lighthouse integration

Github: I'm lovin it.

</comment><comment> meat-eater Just tried it. Very nice and very easy to use. Has some really pretty graphs of your commits as well :) . Their free plan is really good for open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER7> Very cool. Good pricing, and ToS aren't hidden/braindead like so many other (private) repository hosting services.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't the pricing seem a bit too granular, though? I suspect the pricing categories will collapse into 3, maybe 4, levels eventually.

<comment><USER9> The plan pricing works perfectly for me. I'm currently a micro and likely to move to small in the near future. It's nice that it'll only be a 5 dollar increase a month versus a 15 dollar increase to Medium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is great news. I love GitHub and the invitation only plan restricted my ability to collaborate with others (as I could only invite 3 people).</comment>


Nona.Care launches a babysitter platform merging AI with personal touch - <AUTHOR> Nona.Care launches the first babysitter platform where AI algorithm is to match parents with personally selected babysitters based on pre-set requirements. AI is to solve issues parents face when looking for childcare, such as time-consuming search, an overload of inactive profiles, lack of reliable references, and unavailability of the sitters.
With Nona.Care parents will experience the same lifestyle flexibility and security as if they had a full-time nanny available to take care of their children at any time.
"This is easy help for busy parents, - says Kirill Tiufanov, the founder of Nona.care, based in Berlin, - Being parents ourselves, we were tired of old school expensive agencies or impersonal platforms with endless profiles. My experience in tech startups brought me to the idea of creating a quick and safe way of finding childcare. These days we have anything at reach in our mobiles. In a matter of minutes, you can buy tickets, book a taxi or rent a flat. Why not a babysitter?"
Nona.care platform features detailed caregivers' profiles with reviews from other parents and a video to help parents make an informed hiring decision. Before profiles are published, all sitters undergo a five-step selection process, including completing an online questionnaire, background checks, providing references, as well as a personal interview with a Nona.Care team member and an onboarding education in early childhood development theories, Montessori method and practical issues.
"Our babysitters are not professional nannies, but rather people with values who are very good with children and love taking care of them. And they adjust to your schedule!" adds Kirill.
It takes only a few easy steps to book a babysitter and make a payment online. As an additional safety net, all bookings are covered by a worldwide insurance company.  Coming soon are extra security features, like location tracking and noise-sensitive bracelets to alert parents, when needed. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://app.nona.care](https://app.nona.care)</comment>


How UAE Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/07/27/How-The-United-Arab-Emirates-Intelligence-Tried-to-Hire-me-to-Spy-on-its-People/ <comment><USER2> Previous submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12176837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12176837)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> UAE is very safe for tourists and citizens. UAE is also a very small country <10 million people.

The UAE makes one thing very clear from the age of traders centuries ago. "UAE is not your country" you are only visiting or you are earning a living. If you don't like anything go back to your home country at any time. Don't try to change them. No politics, don't speak against state or religion etc. There are also some norms which are very relaxed compared to other countries in that area.

Source: I was never a citizen, born in UAE and grew up there. I have lots of family there who never had problems. I left after I got a tech job in Europe. might return some day.</comment>


Evaluate My Real Estate Feedback Project - <AUTHOR> http://reyalitor.com/

<comment><USER2> Questions / Feedback:

* Who's the target audience for this?

* Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet?

* Bright lime green: why!?

* Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail?

I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> * Who's the target audience for this?

The target audience for this is people that want to evaluate the value of an MLS listing. For instance, I see a listing I am interested in on Redfin/Trulia/Zillow, and search for it at Reyalitor. In the comments I can see that somebody has visited the house and it really does not have 3 bedrooms, or there is mold, or in their opinion it is overpriced. Or positive feedback such as a nice view or a good floorplan. My friends and I discuss houses we see online but there is not a good medium to share this information online.

* Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet?

Honestly this is random, but I could scale back to Seattle for now.

* Bright lime green: why!?

I need to get some css skills

* Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail?

I have thought about a picture or being able to get a screen grab using ajax. It might get tricky to require a picture since this would result in copy pasting content from other websites. I'll investigate

I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome.

That sounds like an interesting feature. I will look into it.

Thanks for the great feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I started this website as a personal project to learn more about ASP.NET MVC. Now that the site is almost fully functional, I actually think it could be pretty useful as a forum to discuss real estate listings. I know major listing sites will not allow user generated content for listings for legal reasons so this could fill that gap. I would love to get feedback and constructive criticism as well as ideas to make the site more useful.

Thanks, Joe Cartano

<comment><USER3> </p>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting idea (as well as color scheme). I think though that there are too many houses on the market and too few people using your site. Focusing in one place would be good. Personally I would choose detroit, at least you then have a story to tell, you're trying to help out the country. Real-estate startup in seattle? Boring. What story is there about seattle real estate? People love a train wreck (Detroit), and you can leech off those eyeballs.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is great advice, it is very easy to add locations so I could add some other locations to the mix without much trouble. I started with Seattle since I personally follow the listings there. I'll strongly consider narrowing the focus of the site and work on a decent color scheme as well :) Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For ny site based on user feedback, solving the chicken and egg problem is going to be your biggest hurdle. Can you bootstrap the initial reviews from some other source?

</comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps this is what you were looking for? <http://dwellicious.com></comment>


Foxconn Implement Strict Measures to Prevent Another Outbreak - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/08/chinese-factories-virus-strict-protection-measures/ <comment><USER2> And this my friends is what modern slavery looks like. But don't worry all the slaves are living happy lives. I'm pretty sure you can find similar propaganda from the 1840s about plantations</comment>


GitHub to Seek $2B Valuation in Latest Funding Round - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-15/github-said-to-seek-2-billion-valuation-in-latest-financing <comment><USER2> Github is one of the best examples of a successful company built around open source technology. This is proof open source software can be profitable.

<comment><USER3> It is proof that building a proprietary business around open source is profitable.

It is not proof however that being full on open source in everything you do is profitable however I wished that to be the case.

<comment><USER2> Right. I think open source software is great. The community, collaboration and transparency make it a great way to build and maintain software. It is not a great way to build and maintain a business. Github has struck a balance between open source and proprietary. I can't think of a successful open source company that has 100% FOSS. Can you? Would be really interested in that actually, it would be an interesting case study.

<comment><USER4> GitLab CEO here, I think Hortonworks is 100% open source. And we like to think that open core is a better model (making the core experience of the product open source instead of just tools surrounding it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know that common sense isn't always a useful lens for these matters, but how is it possible that Github, which has actual paying clients and revenue, is worth 10% of whatsapp?

<comment><USER6> I know, right? Also, how is that Whatsapp is worth more than a liquor store, which has actual revenues and profits?

<comment><USER5> I surmise you are being sarcastic, but this is a reasonable question. There are plenty of liquor stores which seem to be of greater value (and likelihood to generate future revenue) than whatsapp.

<comment><USER6> All they'd have to do is start running ads to show how absurd what you just said is.

I find it laughable that in 2015 people are still claiming companies strategically delaying monetization have worthless businesses. They care about long term growth, not money in the hand. See Facebook and Twitter. And a bunch of other companies.

<comment><USER5> I don't disagree at all, but I don't see even the advertising or collection value of whatsapp. Even if it does exist, it is not similar in kind to facebook or twitter, where you have a captive audience using a stateful application suite.

Whatsapp seems to have less revenue potential than products which have already shown an inability to find the black, such as AIM.

<comment><USER6> If they started charging a monthly fee to use the app enough people would stick around that they'd be able to buy a sizable % of all the liquor stores in the USA. How many, I don't know. That would make an interesting interview question.

Edit: gonna try it

My city has 500,000 people. I'm going to estimate there are 500 liquor stores here. So that's 1 per 1,000 people. The USA has 330 million people, thus 330,000 liquor stores.

A liquor store is probably worth about $50,000. Thus, they are all worth $16.5 billion.

Whatsapp has 800 million MAU's. If 2% of them convert to $10 a month paying customers, that is $160 million per month.

They could run that business much cheaper than the current one, so say 50 employees at $10k a month each. $500k a month. Double that for hosting and rent etc. $1 million a month.

Those costs seem way too low in relation to revenue so let's just bump that up to 50% of revenue. $80 million/month.

So $80 million per month profit. Or over 2 liquor stores per hour, 24/7/365\. In about 15 years they'd own every liquor store in America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Awesome for the github folks!

</comment><comment><USER8> The valuation may be cheap. They have 9 million developers sharing their code on their network, or at least using it to save their code. Certainly that must be worth more than $2B, or in other words $222 per user.

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought Tom Preston-Werner left GitHub? Out of the loop

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I think it was just the last video they had of them and every article just HAS to have a video on top these days doesn't it? ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does github make money? I read the article but it's only a couple of paragraphs.

Github seems to be mostly personal and open source projects. With good reason since it's trival to set up a git server yourself and so you'd only want to put up stuff that you want public-facing. But it's not so trivial to set up the web ui in git server and so I could see some value there (not sure if $2B of value though)

I used github at a company but only for some code that we wanted to share outside of our company. And if we had to pay for it we never would have used github since we could have spent a 1/2 day setting up a public-facing git server.

We would never have used it for our internal code - again, it's trivial to maintain your own git server and it would also be irresponsible of us to put our internal code on a public-facing server.

So... what makes them valued at 2B? Do they have any revenue at all? Maybe they can hook up with linkedin?

<comment><USER12> I don't understand why McDonald's is valued at $100b. Personally, I don't eat hamburgers, so they get no money from me. After all, it's irresponsible to eat junk food. So I have to ask, do they even have revenue at all? How are they still in existence?

<comment><USER11> McDonalds has a huge amount of revenue! Are you kidding us?

<comment><USER13> He's satirizing your comment.

The idea being that just because you don't find inherent value in something doesn't exclude others from finding their own value and additionally triviality doesn't necessary preclude others from claiming value.

<comment><USER11> It's the argument of a two-year-old. I asked about revenue, not about personal value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know this isn't how it works but I'd love to see 1) free private repos (like Bitbucket) and 2) Mercurial support (like Bitbucket).

<comment><USER15> Any reason not to use Bitbucket rather than Github, to get those features?

<comment><USER16> Because GitHub is GitHub. It's as simple as that.

Especially when your repo is public, it won't have the same appeal on Bitbucket.

<comment><USER17> > Especially when your repo is public, it won't have the same appeal on > Bitbucket.

I don't know what kind of software you write, but if your users choose things based on GitHub vs BitBucket hosting, I think you should find new users.

<comment><USER14> If you don't understand why people prefer Github, I'm not sure what to tell you. And if you don't understand why people would prefer to use what they prefer to use, then, well, I really don't know what to say.

<comment><USER17> > If you don't understand why people prefer Github, I'm not sure what to tell > you.

That just sounds like a reworded "It's what all the cool kids are using" to me.

If you can't describe in words, the possible reason(s) why someone using and/or contributing to a project, would prefer GitHub over BitBucket, it seems like my original comment is valid, no?

I would liken this to Todd Barry's take on Coke vs Pepsi ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nacbxCgfQHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nacbxCgfQHc)):

"It made me very sorry for her, because her body is telling her that she hates something that tastes exactly like something she loves."

The user-functionality differences between GitHub and BitBucket are insignificant.

If the original post was talking about users who download and use an app/library from GitHub, then no I don't understand why the end-users would care if it comes from GitHub or BitBucket - whether you're cloning the repo or downloading a release, both make this very easy to do.

If the original post was talking about users who may submit bug reports, potentially fork & submit pull requests, and there really are people willing to contribute in those ways, but only if the project is hosted on GitHub.com, then I would seriously question those people's values and reasons for contributing in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Is There to Learn from Finland's Basic Income Experiment? Did It Succeed? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/basic-income/what-is-there-to-learn-from-finlands-basic-income-experiment-did-it-succeed-or-fail-54b8e5051f60 <comment><USER2> Correct me if I'm wrong, but they also left out the question of financing. Since UBI needs to be financed, and would require a higher budget, taxes would need to be raised. If taking on a job would then hit you with 30% instead of 10% taxes, that would disincentivize it. These tests feel a bit like testing "free energy harvesting machines" and ignoring the power chord that runs from the machine being tested to a wall socket. That's the external source of money: the rest of the country.

I'm sure we can get a perfect example of UBI in, say, Switzerland, if we make France foot the bill. People in Switzerland will be happy: taxes stay the same, but everybody has $2000 more available per month. Alas: will the French be happy?</comment>


The Bipolar Lisp Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://marktarver.com/bipolar.html <comment><USER2> This is a rather broad over-generalization that tries to simplify a complex history into a pop psychology explanation. There's no simple set of reasons that Lisp doesn't hold a prominent position in the current software topography, and it's doubtful that Lisp programmers' psychodynamics have very much to do with it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also: [https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html) (HN referrer directs somewhere else, so paste URL directly into address bar)</comment>


Deploying Sinatra with Vlad - <AUTHOR> http://effectif.com/articles/deploying-sinatra-with-vlad Short article explaining how to deploy a Sinatra web application with Vlad the Deployer. <comment><USER2> I didn't realize how similar Vlad is to Capistrano, even down to the way it is setup (config/deploy.rb) and task names and such. Can someone tell me why it is so much better? (I can read the website myself, but really it seems to be the same product, just rewritten.) Is there any reason to switch from Cap?</comment>


The Latest Battle Over When and Where Kids Can Walk to School - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2016/01/kids-independence-free-range-parenting/423168/ <comment><USER2> The closing of this article is actually the key for me. I've been trying to teach my kids that if they have a problem, and I'm not around, they should pick an adult and ask for help. The odds that they will pick an adult that has malicious intention is astronomically small. The odds that things will get worse because they can't bring themselves to ask someone for help seem much higher.

<comment><USER3> Exactly.

"Stranger kidnappings" (where someone the child doesn't know kidnaps them) are incredibly rare, a child is at much more risk from traffic, guns, cancer, or swimming pools.

The reason why child kidnappings (non-stranger) are seemingly common is because the vast majority of these are by family members (e.g. parents during a custody dispute, grandparents, etc).

Child molesters are also very rare (although you can make them seem more common by massaging the statistics, as some charities/politicians/media like to do), and on average in a large retailer there won't even be a single one.

There are stories where kids have literally died both because they were scared to approach a stranger, or a stranger was scared to approach them.

I have a kid. I am going to teach them to approach any adult, with a slight bias towards people who work there (simply because they are more likely to know the procedure for lost child, not because they're inherently safer/less safe).

<comment><USER4> > "Stranger kidnappings" (where someone the child doesn't know kidnaps them) > are incredibly rare, a child is at much more risk from traffic, guns, > cancer, or swimming pools.

Agreed, I am a parent as well. But a word of warning, you'll get mean looks and talk behind your back from playground parents if you take that attitude.

I've seen moms and dads on playground who are way out there in assessing what is threatening and what is not. They'd see a man walking by the playground going by their business and start calling their children closer to them acting all scared. Or make comments about "hmm what are they doing, we haven't seen this person before". Mind you we were not in a crime ridden neighborhood, this is a quiet suburban area. Was going to say "lay of the news people, take it easy" but of course couldn't they'd think I am crazy.

Oh and co-worker's neighbor called CPS (child protective services) on them because they were playing by themselves in the cul-de-sac while the parents watched from inside the house. They of course don't know who did it, and even if they knew there no repercussion they could take against that person. They can always claim "they thought of the children", nobody can argue with that...

<comment><USER5> > _" I've seen moms and dads on playground who are way out there in assessing > what is threatening and what is not. They'd see a man walking by the > playground going by their business and start calling their children closer > to them acting all scared."_

This happens to me all the time in the grocery store. In the past I was a teacher, and now I'm a stay-at-home dad. If I have my son with me, everyone thinks I'm awesome for being a man who takes responsibility for his kid; if he's at school and I'm at the store and happen to be within half a mile of a kid, people look at me like I'm a creeper.

<comment><USER6> Hrmm... maybe you are doing something you're not aware of? I go in to grocery stores all the time by myself and never get weird looks. Really, I'm pretty sure I'd notice after 20+ years of being an adult male in grocery stores (nearly all the time by myself).

<comment><USER7> Something is missing from lotharbot's story. Single men pretty regularly go grocery shopping without reproach.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but _solitary men are mistrusted around children in public_

Example: your at the grocery store when a young child wanders around the corner and starts pulling items off the shelf onto the floor right in front of you. A woman could stop the child, ask "where are your parents?" and carry the child to fjnd the parents. A man better back away and ignore the child lest somebody call the cops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article (from 2007) has a map that stuck with me. It shows the decreasing range of permissible movement over the past century in Sheffield, England.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How- children-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children- lost-right-roam-generations.html)

It would be very interesting to have a similar map across different countries and compare.

The thing is, most parents I know would agree this is troubling, but few of them actually allow their children to roam with anything close to actual freedom until high school age.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a very interesting article that relates to this topic: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_childhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_childhood)

Remarkably, "During the 1600s, a shift in philosophical and social attitudes toward children and the notion of 'childhood' began in Europe." This seems to imply that the notion of childhood didn't even exist. Prior to this it explains that, "Children were often temporarily sent off as servants to relatives in need of help."

I know in my own family, my great-grandfather's many sisters and brothers (13 in total) had tremendous work responsibilities as children. We appear to have gone from one extreme to the other.

<comment> david-given Don't forget that a couple of hundred years later, the teenager was invented. Prior to that, then pretty much at puberty you were deemed to be an adult, and you'd go off to work/marriage/both. (But it's important to remember that puberty now is way earlier than it was then, mostly due to better health and diet, IIRC.)

I do find myself wondering what the next social step will be, as social maturity diverges even further from physical maturity...

<comment><USER11> My understanding is that puberty is earlier due to additives in food. Tofu, for example, has compounds that mimic female hormones. Compounds in soft plastics are thought to disrupt the hormones of young children, too.

<comment><USER12> As long as we're throwing out unproven but provocative theories along these lines -- I think I read something about how residual compounds from birth control passes through to urine and then into our water supply in trace amounts, triggering hormonal changes that lead to earlier puberty. I like that one, it has a lot of things going for it: tainted water supply, culpability of drug companies, punishment for our hubris in thinking we could control reproduction, etc.

<comment><USER13> Don't forget that it would probably be a stronger effect in more populated areas, so on the surface you'd expect it to hit inner cities more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In Japan, kids are quite independent. It's a bigger issue in the US because of the lack of social trust.

[http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/09/why-are-little- kids-i...](http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/09/why-are-little-kids-in- japan-so-independent/407590/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I feel that the battle is kind of lost when you have ventured into this level of detail. If you have to discuss "legitimate way to give permission" to a child it has reached outside the realms of parenting common sense.

I think lot of these issues tie-in very closely to the fact that government is trying to control our lives with the assumption that government knows better than us. As an Indian immigrant to India I am extremely concerned to about my child here because I simply can not exercise my inherited parenting judgement anymore.

One thing liberty loving individuals could do here is learn a thing or two from NRA and completely deny any legislative space to the law makers on this issue. These small bills will not deter the government from what they are already doing.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hate people calling normal parenting a "free range parenting movement." It's not. When I was a little kid in the early 1990's, even my overprotective asian parents let me walk to and from school. And I think even today the majority of parents would think nothing of it. Legislation like this is a response to a vocal minority of psychotic millenials. Because few of their peers have kids, and they've moved far from home in pursuit of their careers, they have no frame of reference for normal parenting.

<comment><USER17> Norms are not static and based on your experiences as a child. It's labeled "free range parenting" because it is no longer the norm.

Edit: I should have been more careful in my wording. Whether it is "the norm" is obviously very location dependent. The US is a large country with all sorts of different norms at the community level.

I happen to have grown up in a suburban Midwest community (incredibly safe) with large residential areas directly across the street from many schools. However, walking to school was prohibited. Any students caught walking were subject to suspension and the school threatened to report parents to law enforcement. Obviously my particular anecdote doesn't apply to everyone, but there are some communities with insane policies in the US.

<comment><USER18> In an affluent Maryland suburb? That should be the norm.

If you live east of the Anacostia in DC then yeah, the kids aren't as safe outside on their own, but that's more from a gang recruitment angle than a traditional "stranger danger".

Obviously people who live in crime ridden ghettos can't be quite as free as people who live in safe neighborhoods, and it's something we should fix in the long term, but it doesn't mean we should punish those people who live in safe areas with overly restrictive laws that hurt their children's development.

It's kind of sad that the kids who are already disadvantaged by being poor, having failing schools, and likely only a single parent are also the ones who don't get to be free and learn independence as children. It's yet another cog on the cycle of poverty.

<comment><USER17> I mentioned it in my edit above, but I grew up in an affluent Midwest suburb where parents were threatened with criminal action if they let their kids walk to school. Even high school aged students were threatened with suspensions for walking. Whether this is the "norm" will depend on where you live, but there are certainly entire communities where letting kids walk to school is not the norm.

<comment><USER19> And why didn't anyone sue for their right to walk?

<comment><USER20> Initiating a legal battle is not for the faint of heart. Few want to tangle with authority, and the kind of people that would implement + enforce such a thing (e.g. school administrators) are notorious for being petty and inflexible. Moreover, they often have lots of legal backing for their actions (due to "in loco parentis" status) that are hard to pin down.

Most parents don't have the resources for such a suit (or defense), and most students probably don't want to risk getting suspended/expelled or sent to a different school for being the one who sticks up for their rights.

<comment><USER19> No "tangling" is needed, just someone to file the suit. I would be surprised if there was not a lawyer in the whole state interested in working on it at a reduced cost due to the subject. The local ACLU chapter would be a good place to look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My first gut reaction was, like many, that policing whether children can walk to school is effing retarded.

But, I remember when we had no seat belt laws or child seats, and that was a dumb idea, and got solved by government intrusion. My parents moved me and my siblings to Mexico for a year, and used to send us walking through the city on own. I was the oldest, at 7, my sister was 6, my brother 4. One time my brother was kicked in the head by a horse while we were wandering in a field petting the horses. In retrospect, my parents were lucky he lived, and a little more supervision may have been called for.

I have children, and usually encourage them to walk to school, a little under a mile. But, I'd never let them loose on their own in a foreign country.

I'm also white and have lived only in at least middle class, ridiculously safe neighborhoods, except for my year in Mexico, my whole life. I realize I've been really lucky, and that there are a wide variety of people and places and standards and ways kids can and do get hurt. So, who am I to judge?

I think I could accept policing being reasonable, if it turned out that it did on average prevent injuries or deaths, and that my feelings about what's too intrusive might be irrelevant, biased, or lacking data.

<comment> jim-greer > I remember when we had no seat belt laws or child seats

There's really no downside to putting on a seat belt, or using a child seat. There's a big downside for being overly protective of children - both for their development and for busy parents.

<comment><USER21> I'd wager my personal preferences align with yours, but I'm playing devil's advocate as an exercise in trying to be open minded before deciding what I think about the new laws.

There was a lot of uproar about the downsides of seat belt laws when they were proposed. It took government action in the face of industry and some public opposition to make it happen. It doesn't seem like there are downsides now, but in fact there was a fight, and hindsight is 20/20.

Do we have proof and data that being over-protective has big downsides? Do we have proof that driving kids to school amounts to being overly protective? Is it really clear cut? Is it possible to be protective about physical safety and lax about social development? I don't know that, even if I suspect it.

I'm personally afraid of being over-protective of my children. And, like I said, I send my kids to school on foot. But I might be able to withhold my own incredulity toward the idea of this kind of policing until more evidence has stacked up. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Preventing kids from walking down a public street is nearly as stupid as preventing mature women from doing so. Reminds me of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

<comment><USER23> I'm a strong proponent of what is now called 'free-range' parenting (I just call it "normal parenting"), and think that kids should be allowed to walk around. But your comparison is ludicrous.

<comment><USER24> Both are oppressive, both are ostensibly done to protect the oppressed target (from rape and violence), both undercut the decisions of mature adults (women, parents). Seems like it's valid on at least a few dimensions.

The major difference is that children grow up to be adults and are freed from the restrictions. If that is the most salient issue, then it's a bad analogy, but I don't think it's a "ludicrous" comparison.

<comment><USER23> The problem is mature women do not compare to children. It's like saying "forbidding children to vote is as stupid as forbidding women to vote".

Children do _not_ have the same legal status as grown ups. They can't drive, should they drive because mature women can drive? They can't watch porn, should they be allowed to watch porn because mature women can?

Yes, kids not being allowed to walk down the street is stupid, but using the argument that mature women can do it so kids should be allowed to do it is not valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There mere fact that there are legal battles around this issue in a country that calls itself "free" is mind-boggling and unsettling. More like, police state cum Idiocracy, with some avenues from venting.

</comment><comment><USER26> My parents, and those of all my friends growing up, must have been complete and utter failures as parents because the ONLY restriction of our travels was be home before the streetlights came on.

<comment><USER27> Yep, that's how it was in the 70's. At 9 or 10 years old I was roaming the city on my BMX bike without a care in the world. No helmets of course. My mom would come out and yell for us when it was time for dinner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was a latchkey kid for most of school post 6th grade or so because both parents needed to work to keep us fed. I regularly made my own dinners (boxed macaroni, but still) and had to help out around the house too.

I credit this for giving me a solid work ethic and my self-reliance. I don't know what I would've turned out as without a lot of responsibilities as a kid (A lot by american kid standards anyways.)

<comment><USER15> I was raised in India. I walked half a mile till 4th grade and 2 miles from 5th grade to 10th grade. I remember I had to deal with a madman on the way who would keep running after the kids and throw stones on them. I remember once I slipped and fell into a small ravine where there was this huge f __ __python (goosebumps on my hand right now just remembering that incident), once I was chased by a fox.

I never even bothered complaining to my parents because in one way it was fun. We ventured deep into woods, caught crabs, put traps for birds and squirrels etc. etc.

It was a wonderful part of my childhood, my kids may not experience the same but I dont want the government to restrict their experience either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> About 1967 I was one of seven or eight cousins in a Midwestern suburban park when one of the younger ones tripped and hit her head against a bench. She was not gravely hurt, but it tore the skin on her temple, and it bled a lot. A couple of utter strangers, a man and a women of probably 45 to 50, drove her and an older sister to the emergency room while the rest of us waited for my mother to get us.

It all worked out. We rounded up the cousins at the ER. The one who fell had no visible scar.

Sometimes I think about this and how odd it seems in the context of the last 25 years. If my wife and I showed up at the ER with two girls from a town 200 miles away I think that the staff would call the police. I also wonder what would be required in the way of release forms, payment assurance, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am 14 years older than my sister, when I was in grade 3 I was walking myself to school, however as my parents got older and had my sister they became incredibly paranoid and she wasnt allowed to walk to school ever.

<comment><USER27> It all shifted in the 80's due to the kidnapped children on the milk cartons, among other things. I wonder did your 14 year difference span the 80's?</comment></comment>


Like Comcast, Google Fiber now forces customers into arbitration - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/like-comcast-google-fiber-now-forces-customers-into-arbitration/ <comment><USER2> Arbitration clauses are allowed because in contracts the tradition is that the parties are allowed to create private rules that will govern their future transaction. You can also nominate the venue and laws that will apply to the contract, even if you don't arbitrate.

The reasoning is that the contract is a bargained document between the parties, and if a party does not like the contract, they are not forced to enter it.

If what you get in return for the contract is not sufficient to join the contract, then you don't execute it.

This is efficient so long as the bargaining power in the market is not highly asymmetrical. The US market is not ideal, but I'm not entirely certain arbitration provisions are a bad idea, regardless.

One reason arbitration provisions might be good, is because its a way for companies to opt out of the hunting territory of the trial lawyers association. The lawyers are another powerful group that has created many kinds of nuisance lawsuits that act as a private tax on corporations in the US. If the private tax is unavoidable, the cost is passed on as a price increase to consumers.

The lack of arbitration clause could manifest itself as increased cost of goods in the current climate, because of the huge cost of nuisance class actions, etc.

Just a perspective.

<comment><USER3> The problem with this perspective is that it doesnt match reality.

Consumers have not been taught how to properly negotiate and enter contracts, and companies creating the arbitration clauses almost always have the power to push back on changes until the consumer relents.

I wash shocked when I ordered a test Dell Ubuntu machine, took the time to read the EULA/TOS, and was appaled at their terms, which included waiving of constitutional right to a jury!

The real problem, the dark discussion we need to be having, is about the inequality of access to redress of greivance via the law. We live in a society that has created a system in which you must have money to pursue legal recourse, and in a world of increasing inequality, the fact is the port and middle class are increasingly railroaded by arbitration clauses and similar legalese understood by only the people who wrote it.

I'm not advocating for restriction of private terms of contract, but corporations are abusing their power in the equation to the detriment of the people, so lets not lose sight of the reality, as opposed to the theoritical situation lobbyists would have us believe.

As a proposed solution, I think contract law should be taught in highschool as core cirriculum. I have even recently added a section in my documentation for sysadmins to address the reading of eulas/tos, and signing of contracts.

<comment><USER4> In most cases, consumers have zero ability to negotiate contracts. You can't negotiate a EULA. You either accept it, or find a different product. And if some piece of software is vital to something or other else you need with no alternative, you don't even have much of a choice on whether or not to accept it.

<comment><USER5> And it's not as if the courts are blind to this fact, there are protections when there is a power imbalance and the contract is take it or leave it, but I doubt any of these protections will extend to private arbitrators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's difficult to understand how such clause is even legal to begin with. It basically sets up a "private" justice system for non criminal cases. That's insane. I get it, there are difference sort of tribunals. But it shouldn't be up to the corporations to decide where justice is supposed to be served.

<comment><USER7> It's legal because the five justices who decided that money is speech decided that money now gets its own courts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepcion)

<comment><USER8> Not really. Arbitration has long been a path that judges recommend for non- criminal cases to reduce strain on the court system. I know that it can often seem nefarious, but a major part of the modern civil court system involves reducing the (frankly, unbelievable) strain on court resources, which are finite (and in many states, being reduced for budgetary reasons).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For more information about arbitration courts, read this New York Times article:. [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbit...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitration- everywhere-stacking-the-deck-of-justice.html)

<comment><USER4> The key quote in here, to save people fishing for what they know is in this article: "And the rules of arbitration largely favor companies, which can even steer cases to friendly arbitrators, interviews and records show."

Also, you might want to use a non-mobile link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What scenario is Google worried about where they will face a massive, costly class action lawsuit over their internet service?

<comment><USER11> Maybe there are no specific scenarios, and it's just to be safe. If you were Google, why _wouldn 't_ you add such a clause? It's not like it's going to scare customers away.

<comment><USER4> Shouldn't it scare away customers that a company will only do business with them if they cannot be held in court for misdeeds regarding that business? I sadly understand that consumers don't read the fine print. But really, this clause should be treated as a dealbreaker.

<comment><USER12> It won't because usually your options are 50 Mbit line (maybe 100 if you're really lucky) or a 1Gb line for the same price.

I'd happily take the arbitration clause for 10x and probably 20x the speedup.

<comment><USER13> Beyond that, your other options will also usually include arbitration clauses. If it's a deal-breaker for choosing Google, it'll be a deal-breaker for choosing anyone else.

<comment><USER4> That's a fair point. As the article's title points out, Comcast does the same.

<comment><USER14> Does FairPoint?

<comment><USER4> [http://www.fairpoint.com/document/Residential_HSI_Terms_of_S...](http://www.fairpoint.com/document/Residential_HSI_Terms_of_Service_tcm12-4842.pdf)

This document, found via a quick search, doesn't seem to contain the word "arbitration".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I posted this on another article- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11850870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11850870) -but it went unanswered, I'm hoping maybe this time someone will see this. It was in regards to google being brought a CA by advertisers who'd felt cheated (and rightly so if I understand correctly).

"Serious question- Would this(a class action suit for screwing customers) have been possible if Google had put in their contract that all parties waive their right to a class action? Many companies do this now- Microsoft's xbox live, for example not only forces you to forfeit any class action lawsuits, but at the time I stopped using their services, I believe they also required meditation with a mediator to be chosen by Microsoft. I sold my xbox 360 and never looked back.

edit- I also remember specifically Microsoft releasing a TOU update just days after, if not the day of, the ruling allowing companies to do this came down."

<comment><USER16> The mediation part is a moot point from what I've heard. Mediators don't really do anything other than facilitate discussion. If they got to choose an _arbitrator_ that would be a different story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Serious question: how is this legal? I can't imagine I could make someone sign a form that he waives his right to sue me and then shoot him, right? Assuming he doesn't die and it's him, not the government, that prosecutes/sues me.

<comment><USER8> > I can't imagine I could make someone sign a form that he waives his right to > sue me and then shoot him, right?

To answer your question - yes, you could legally have someone sign a contract waiving his right to sue you for shooting him. However, the contract would be unenforceable, and he could sue you (for both shooting him and potentially for the contract - IIRC, that depends on the state). One of the things that became abundantly clear in contract law is that you can put essentially anything into a contract, legally. It's enforcement of said contract that the legal system gets involved in.

<comment><USER17> > you could legally have someone sign a contract waiving [t]his right [...] > However, the contract would be unenforceable

I understand I can write any nonsense and sign it, probably because of freedom of expression or something. My point was whether that contract would be enforceable. If such a thing wasn't enforceable Google and others wouldn't be putting it in their contracts.

<comment><USER18> Not necessarily true. You have to challenge it to find out if it's enforceable in many scenarios, and it might act as a deterrent as well. Even a widely known unenforceable clause can deter someone who doesn't previously know that it is unenforceable from doing the action that the clause prohibits. So I can definitely see plenty of reasons to include these types of things in a contract. Plus, what does it cost them to include it in the contract?

<comment><USER19> Yes, unenforceable clauses in a contract can be used as a game of chicken.

      Customer: You can't enforce that clause.
      Google:   Yes we can.
      Customer: Nuh uh!
      Google:   Want to go to court to find out?
      Customer: ...

<comment><USER17> Well if the clause is not to take them to court, and they want to take them to court, then yes they do want to go to court to find out. But I do see your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Has any state attempted to ban arbitration clauses via popular vote/referendum? If so, would that even hold up in court and across state lines?

Seems like the only way to deal with this crap as there's no incentive for corporations _not_ to force customers into binding arbitration. If I was still running a large consumer focused corporation I'd insist on it as well.

<comment><USER21> Why ban it? Just make it so that when it's person vs. company, the person can choose the arbiter. Then they can't shop for a biased arbiter.

<comment><USER20> > Why ban it?

Because it prevents creating a class action to group together impacted customers. Individually it may not be worth it for a customer to proceed with a claim. En masse, there is an economy of scale.

Now I'm not in favor of frivolous lawsuits and these clauses are clearly intended as a defend against them, but if the response to that problem shouldn't be binding arbitration everywhere. It should be tort reform.

<comment><USER21> Yes, it might prevent class action, but if that many people have truly been harmed, the company will have a massive number of arbitration suits to handle which could be more expensive. So they still can't just go around and piss off large numbers of customers.

Half the things I've gotten pitiful $5 checks for were not at all in my interests and one, namely the Microsoft class-actions, I was tried but failed to figure out how to object to because of how badly the lawyers in this state sold the class out in what they settled for.

So I'm not convinced that many of the class actions were actually in the interests of the class members to begin with. I'd honestly prefer to bring my own cases to court than have some self-appointed class representative sell me out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't exactly rare. It's a very, very common clause in TOS's. It's also often a clause that isn't exactly enforceable (and I believe different venues have different rules about it).

</comment><comment><USER22> Someone gave non-specific legal advice that a hackerspace I'm a part of include an arbitration clause in its liability waiver.

Comparing Google's to Comcast in this situation doesn't really feel right.

</comment><comment><USER23> How is Google different anyway? They both support the TPP.

<comment><USER10> Is there really no other comparison between the two companies that you can think of?

<comment><USER4> They also both line politicians' pockets to ensure laws get passed in their favor? (Google has donated to over half of Congress according to OpenSecrets.org, in actual cash donated I think Comcast might still be on top, but the gap's closing fast.)

I'd also comment on their mutually horrible customer service, but at least Comcast HAS people you can call, even if they're lousy.

<comment><USER24> > (Google has donated to over half of Congress according to OpenSecrets.org, > in actual cash donated I think Comcast might still be on top, but the gap's > closing fast.)

Corporations can't donate to political campaigns. What OpenSecrets.org misleadingly advertises as "corporate" donations to political campaigns are _employee_ donations to campaigns.[1] Google has 57,000 employees. Unsurprisingly, many of them exercise their rights as members of a democracy and support their favorite political candidates.

[1] Specifically, OpenSecrets lists donations from individual employees and company-sponsored PACs. Corporations are banned from contributing directly to political candidates, or from donating to regular PACs. Only Super PACs can accept money from corporations, but those are banned from donating to candidates.

<comment><USER4> It's not misleading. Many of the donations are from top ranking Googlers like Eric Schmidt who directly interact with these politicians in a business sense. Many of these donors have stock-based compensation with Google.

Unsurprisingly, almost all pro-Google legislation is sponsored by the same Congresspeople who have received the largest donations from Googlers.

So OpenSecrets' format is specifically designed to reveal corruption that would not be obvious with mere donor names alone.

<comment><USER25> "It's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period.

" Many of the donations are from top ranking Googlers like Eric Schmidt who directly interact with these politicians in a business sense."

"many".

Opensecrets lists 503 unique people identified as googlers donating. I don't believe you have any reasonable argument that there are 503 top ranking googlers who interact directly with these politicians in a business sense. I think you can argue maybe _1-2%_ of them are.

So 98% of them somehow don't fall into what you consider "many of the donations". That doesn't seem like many to me.

"Unsurprisingly, almost all pro-Google legislation is sponsored by the same Congresspeople who have received the largest donations from Googlers."

What is "pro-google"? Who are "the same congresspeople"?

Can you give _specific examples_ of pro-google legislation and congresspeople who have repeatedly passed them, where there largest donations were from google?

I see a tremendous amount of handwaving in your comment, but pretty much no real data.

<comment><USER26> _It 's not misleading. " Of course it is. People are not the companies they work for. Period._

Did you read the leaked Sony email where one exec was hounding all the other execs to make large donations to a particular politician?

<comment><USER25> Again, there are 503 donators. There are not 503 execs at Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anybody care about the Constitution anymore? It seems like every day I read an article about someone either going against the Constitution, or getting very close to denying its importance in the United States.

<comment><USER28> You should be more specific if you want useful replies. Otherwise, people will chime in to soapbox on their pet constitutional issue.

<comment><USER27> This was in direct response to the article, in which Google Fiber's new policy strips users of their Constitutional rights.

<comment><USER29> what are you speaking of in particular?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you hiring programmers? - <AUTHOR>

What have been your most successful approaches to finding and hiring programmers?  I've tried job sites (including Stack Overflow careers AND their candidate search), recruiters, social media, all with mixed results.  I've got a decent team now, but I still need more excellent devs.  What works for you all? <comment><USER3> Work on having some inbound candidate flow by increasing awareness of your engineering team's brand.

Start an engineering blog, and make sure you put out some high quality content, with a "we're hiring" link at the bottom of every post. Make sure that you measure and try to drive traffic to these posts. Have everyone on your team that is interested help contribute a blog post or two.

Encourage open source contributions from your team. That will help them connect with other talent that might be looking.

Keep prospects warm even while you have no headcount needs so keep your pipeline from ever completely drying up.

And lastly, hire remote (or generously relocate) if you can't find enough developers in your local area.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's exactly like sales. Each of those channels work, bring a different type of lead, and need to be nurtured differently. It is a constant, slow process unless you blindly overpay. You're always working the talent pool - <USER2> candidates, vetting them even when you're not hiring. In house vs out of house, remote vs local can all be managed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Make it a team effort: "Guys, we need another front-end dev. Let me know if you have someone in mind."

As a more general note: Finding the right candidate doesn't start when the job post is up online.

You need to be constantly looking and vetting people ( don't need to tell them ;) ), so you'll have someone already in mind when the position is available.</comment>