WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/5338287/wework-meat-vegetarian-company-environment/ <comment><USER3> I and a few of my past co-workers have been suspecting that the facilities team in a big tech company I used to work for had an evil genius plan to reduce costs:

1\. Pick the most popular snack (e.g. nachos)

2\. Replace it with less tasty alternative (e.g. kale chips) "for your health"

3\. Consumption is a few times smaller

4\. The company can claim they take better care of their workers and no one can accuse them of being stingy

5\. Finance team high-fives each other

<comment><USER4> That could easily backfire though (healthier chips are usually much more expensive), specially because kale chips are delicious :)

<comment><USER5> > specially because kale chips are delicious :)

This is OT, but I'm curious: what do kale chips taste like to you? A little sweet? To me, they taste like lemon rind without the "lemony" taste. Just pure bitterness.

<comment><USER4> I guess there are many variants of kale chips, but never tried one that tasted particularly "lemony". They are indeed a bit bitter, but the ones I buy are mostly a fried _something_ with lots of salt (yeah, like pretty much all chips). I do like its texture and more earthy/complex flavor, which I generally find more interesting than potato or tortilla chips alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't eat a lot of types of food due to allergies. Meat is one of the few things I still can eat without issue. Yes, there are actually people out there (hi, me!) that actually cannot eliminate certain foods from our diets without getting sick. This policy would prevent me from being able to work at that company, for recognized medical health reasons, because I would not be able to do legitimate expenses of food related to travel, nor would I be able to eat probably anything during the "summer camp".

I also have serious concerns about letting companies have moral opinions about paying for choices you make for your own health, for example with health insurance, and considering the current supreme court situation, maybe you should too.

<comment><USER7> Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim.

Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vegetarians.

<comment><USER8> Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN. Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

<comment><USER7> It's definitely getting more and more extreme around here. The fact that this article made it to the front page, and is generally being viewed as a good thing in the comments section, doesn't say good things about where HN is headed.

<comment><USER9> Actually you should expect the trend to continue. More consumers are demanding vegetarian and vegan options. Restaurants are selling out of new plant-based burgers and are being encouraged by industry magazines to offer vegan options. Demand is speaking pretty clearly in fact. What was once fringe is rapidly scaling. Nice to actually see the world moving forward in a good direction on this.

<comment><USER7> I wasn't just talking about the whole vegetarian thing. I was talking about the idea that the HN community would be in support of any extreme idea like this. If you look at Twitter, for example, almost everyone that commented on this issue thought it was absolutely absurd. Yet here is HN, mostly supporting it, simply because it's left-leaning. It shows how out-of-touch HN is with the rest of the world. No wonder people are starting to block access to their articles when HN is the referrer [1].

[1] [https://jamie.build/how-to-build-an-npm-worm](https://jamie.build/how-to- build-an-npm-worm)

<comment><USER10> Are we reading the same comment section? Because I do not see "mostly supporting it", but lots of people arguing on both sides.

Just as I can find both people supporting it and people thinking its stupid on Twitter when randomly looking around. The "real world" doesn't appear to have a consistent opinion on this, which isn't surprising at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's nice that companies are releasing these types of policies publicly so peopl can choose whether to work there. It's sometimes hard to get a good bead in company culture due to reporting bias of people there or who left. Stuff like this will help companies and workers find each other.

I worked for a company for a while before I learned their expense policy was really frustrating. $40 max expenses and their headquarters and work location was on Spear Street in San Francisco. They also wouldn't allow any alcohol and required receipts for any expense. It wasn't so onerous to make me quit, but it was annoying and kind of indicative of their philosophy on cost cutting.

Had I known about this it would have changed the weighting on some other offers I didn't take.

<comment><USER12> You expect the company to pay for your drinks? That sounds ridiculous to me and I am no abstinent.

<comment><USER11> My last firm did, but no, I don't. But if I have a beer with dinner while traveling for work, yes, of course. My current employer has a per diem and doesn't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I don't think this "forces" a vegetarian diet on the employees, it is placing the employees in a situation where their company is promoting a particular ideology/lifestyle/diet through financial motivation. Dining is generally reimbursed during business travel due to the (often significant) increased cost of having to exclusively dine out, so the option for the employee is to eat vegetarian or accept additional personal finance costs. (I would also question the feasibility of finding vegetarian options all the time, but that might be due to my work travel sometimes taking me to more rural areas).

The question then becomes, is it acceptable for a business to use monetary incentive/disincentive to encourage lifestyle or ideological changes in it's employees?

<comment><USER14> In this case exacerbated by the fact that said lifestyle or ideological change involves one of the bare necessities (since all of the "equivalent" examples I've seen do not).

<comment><USER15> "> bare necessities"

That's highly debatable. A good part of the world lives completely fine even without this bare necessity.

<comment><USER13> The bare necessity here is food in general. An employee has to eat when on business trips, so they can't a avoid the issue. They either have to accept the financial loss, or accept the dietary change.

There are of course alternatives to eating meat, but the real question is whether it's appropriate for a business to use financial disincentivis (effective pay reductions) to encourage lifestyle/idealogy change in their employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Being a vegetarian is exactly as equal a choice of freedom as being an omnivore or carnivore. This feels wrong to push this lifestyle on people. Of course one can always just not do business with We Work.

<comment><USER17> Let's not be hyperbolic here. Serving food that doesn't happen to contain meat isn't forcing you to be vegetarian any more than serving only soft drinks at an event would be forcing you to be a teetotaler.

<comment><USER18> On the other hand, a policy of "you can expense vegetarian meals, but only vegetarian meals" is forcing you to be vegetarian at a much higher and more obnoxious level than that.

<comment><USER19> Employees are not being forced to become vegetarians, they can still eat fish, dairy and eggs and expense their meals.

They can even choose to go outside and eat meat, they have freedom of choice.

<comment><USER20> But dairy and eggs are part of a normal vegetarian diet. You worded it as if they are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Meatspace Meeting Space Bans Meats In Spaces"

</comment><comment><USER22> Ok, they're a private company, they can do what they want. If you don't like it, don't work there.

But, really......

<comment><USER23> Like it or not, this is the side of history that will eventually win out. In 50-100 years from now, expect this kind of arrangement to be very common with American companies.

<comment><USER11> What's a good way for me to bet you $1000 that you're wrong? This statement seems so interesting. What's the basis for this thought process? Isn't the trend for meat consumption to increase with wealth so as the world develops, more meat will be consumed. [0]

[0] [https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production- consu...](https://ourworldindata.org/meat-and-seafood-production-consumption)

<comment><USER24> There's a site that will help you do this: [https://longbets.org/faq/](https://longbets.org/faq/)

The downside is that you won't get your money. It'll go to charity. But you'll be able to prove your point to your great-great-grandkids!

<comment><USER11> It will treat them to either a nice hamburger or veggie burger.

<comment><USER25> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A lot of comments seem to be missing the facts:

\- WeWork isn't forcing employees to be vegetarian (it's not like a hiring requirement)

\- most companies have restrictions and rules surrounding their expensing

\- WeWork has decided they won't reimburse meat (employees can still buy meat)

Should we force WeWork leadership, despite their rights to hold moral positions, to pay for something they don't want to pay for?

<comment><USER27> We should certainly make sure that they feel the full effects of their decisions, in PR, the employment market, and in public praise or ridicule.

<comment><USER28> They will feel the full effects of their decisions, whatever those may be. I suspect they will not be large. I certainly can't be arsed to care about this and I don't see why you'd exert effort to "make sure" of anything here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> On one hand, this seems like a very heavy-handed move considering today's societal ubiquity of meat.

On the other hand, I believe that in 100 years we'll look at today as the dark ages in terms of the scale of our industrial meat production.

So, I'm cautiously curious to see if other companies follow suit or not.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's obvious they are trying to save money, with the weirdest excuse they could find. Meat is the most expensive part of any meal.

<comment><USER12> Eating vegetarian is more expensive if you want to feel full and satiated in the end.

<comment><USER31> I spent all my life an omnivore, until the last two years I became vegetarian; 6 of those months vegan. I'm inclined to agree with you if you meant that a 'satiated' vegan diet is more expensive, because often the (lower demand / higher price) raw ingredients to make meals from scratch are more niche and varied.

However, once you throw (principally) dairy into the mix, including mass- market meat substitutes (such as Quorn which often contains dairy derivatives), your options expand to the point where it is easy to a) just drop the meat and increase veg. intake with supplemented dairy from common dishes or b) replace the meat with a price-competitive meat substitute.

If you did indeed mean vegetarianism in general then I'm keen to know why you think it is more expensive.

I'm with other commenters here that this is a weird cost-saving measure from WW, and that dietary choices should not be imposed on people like this (whilst acknowledging WW is a private company and can do whatever they want—- it's just a strange way to force it on people IMO)

<comment><USER9> I believe WeWork opened a great discussion and I personally applaud them for taking a stand. I also applauded Starbucks with straws like most others here.

Also, I find that it's pretty easy to actually save money on vegan food. Maybe it takes a little planning, but it's not that difficult to walk away with more money eating vegan while feeling better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > co-founder Miguel McKelvey said the firm's upcoming internal "Summer Camp" > retreat would offer no meat options for attendees.

Maybe if they care about the environment perhaps they should skip the summer camp retreat and donate the money to charity? It certainly is not an essential thing to be doing.

<comment><USER33> Taco Thursdays were the _ONLY_ good reason to work at a WeWork location (Unless you are trying to get paid to be an alcoholic).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's funny to observe the criticism on a technical forum that should be in tune with the data. WeWork is setting a policy that is on the right side of history—for animals and the environment. I didn't see a lot of criticism on Starbucks straw decision. However, when the cost is a sacrifice closer to home, even when logic doesn't support the whining, so many try to find fault with a company decision that is net positive.

<comment><USER34> >I didn't see a lot of criticism on Starbucks straw decision.

There's been plenty

[https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/opinions/starbucks-plastic- dr...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/11/opinions/starbucks-plastic-draw-hurts- disabled-like-me-blake/index.html)

<comment><USER9> Ok I see one article here that I still disagree with. Starbucks says they will work on this scenario and what prevents one from bringing their own straw if it's a disability issue? I think a solution here is possible while still protecting the environment and animals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As a diabetic who is allergic to legumes... fuck you WeWork, I will _never_ do business with you given a choice.

I know eggs and fish are okay, but what were the eggs fed? It does matter. If it's a company event, will there be eggs and fish, or just soy products?

<comment><USER36> I was wondering when someone would mention diabetes. I feel like this policy will add a few more diabetics to the population. Now if they wanted to be really revolutionary they could ban sweets/sugar from their reimbursement policies instead..

<comment><USER35> The worse part, is sometimes I react to eggs/dairy (that are fed soy)... And, frankly not a huge fan of fish, which I could deal with. But there's really no way for me to get sufficient protein from vegetarian sources without getting too many carbs, and I'm not even sure there are complete vegetarian proteins without legumes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > In an email to employees this week outlining the new policy, co-founder > Miguel McKelvey said the firm's upcoming internal "Summer Camp" retreat > would offer no meat options for attendees.

Unlike some commenters, I'm okay with this! But the carbon cost of flying thousands of their employees on transatlantic return flights to the UK for this Summer Camp will be orders of magnitude greater than the carbon cost of any food choices, so it seems like an insincere concern.

<comment><USER38> You can't fix everything at once. Whataboutism, etc.

<comment><USER37> I thought about this some, and don't agree that this is whataboutism, because there's no change of topic. The environmental impact of WeWork's business decisions is supposed to be the topic. But the impact of massive transatlantic air travel gets a pass, and the far lesser impact of meat-eating doesn't. I think it's legitimate to ask whether someone's being consistent or sincere in their commitment to Cause X when they're decrying Thing X while (somewhat uniquely!) performing a Thing Y that does much more to hurt Cause X than Thing X does, you know?

<comment><USER38> But aren't nearly all individual actions to combat climate change or improve animal welfare like this? I think it's not hypocritical to take first steps that are easy, it's just tactics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > staff will not be able to expense any meals that include poultry, pork or > red meat.

What about dolphin?

<comment><USER40> Like most fake vegetarians, the policy apparently does not include any aquatic creatures like fish, squid, whales, or dolphins...even though the latter two are intelligent mammals with more capacity to feel pain than any type of poultry.

<comment><USER17> It's also already illegal to eat the latter two in the country in which WeWork operates.

<comment><USER41> WeWork operates in Tokyo as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Probably a net-negative business move.

This creates goodwill among vegetarians within the company, who will appreciate being part of this uniquely progressive organization. However, their lives will not actually change very much - they won't have to witness meat at company events, sure, but their travel lives will be the same - <USER2> will just order vegetarian, like usual.

This creates ill-will among meat eaters at the company, who will want to eat burgers and pork chops and will not be able to do so on the company expense, like every other company allows. Unlike the vegetarians, they will be reminded of this not only at company events but also every time they get food while traveling, as they have to think through what they are allowed to eat and see all the meat options, knowing that WeWork is the reason they can't have them.

The animosity outweighs the goodwill here by a large margin. Retention will suffer.

</comment><comment><USER43> Hmmm in Sydney wework charges 850 per desk per month.

After paying rent, rice is the only option.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is anybody being flown to this summer camp? A couple hours on a plane can match a few months of meat-free lunches. Especially considering employees might partially compensate with their non-expensed meals.

<comment><USER45> "A couple hours on a plane can match a few months of meat-free lunches."

I think you are mistaken there. Maybe if you only care about CO2 emissions, but meat production is also incredibly wasteful on resources like water, and is at least objectionable from an animal welfare standpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Original source (w/o sound-on autoplay video): [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework- te...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-tells- employees-meat-is-permanently-off-the-company-menu)

</comment><comment><USER47> As a business decision this seems incredibly odd. Being vegetarian or supporting vegetarianism does not seem like it would have disproportionate representation among either their target clientele or their target employees. As such it seems to me it would have minor negative effect on their perception by clients, and moderately negative impact on their perception by employees. I don't see why they would risk that for a cause entirely unconnected to their business, for which there are many less controversial ways to make an impact (energy efficiency in their buildings, commitment to purchase carbon free energy, etc).

<comment><USER48> _> I don't see why they would risk that for a cause entirely unconnected to their business_

Maybe they just really believe in it.

<comment><USER42> Well then it seems like starting an alternative to PETA would be a better use of management's time and efforts than running a real estate REIT that just has a vegetarian-friendly per diem policy.

Of course, they won't do that, because they actually just care about making money and aren't really worried about this stuff. So I'm still puzzled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Odd to see this paragraph in the middle - it has no relation to anything else in the article, and the 2 points don't relate to each other - beyond the theme of companies banning things:

> _American Airlines Group Inc. and Starbucks Corp. recently joined the chorus > of companies pledging to phase out plastic straws and drink stirrers. And > Southwest Airlines Co., in a bid to reduce allergy risk, said this week > peanuts will no longer be available on flights starting Aug. 1._

As far as I'm aware, meat-based meal options are available from both airlines and the restaurant.

<comment><USER50> I think they meant AA and *$ are looking to help the environemt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> What's their position on plastic straws?

</comment><comment><USER52> Is this any weirder than how a lot of companies let employees charge their personal electric vehicles for free, but won't let you expense personal gasoline?

<comment><USER53> The average cost per mile for an electric is about 8 cents, gasoline is about 16 cents. [https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf](https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf)

<comment><USER52> Not sure what you're getting at.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Just the annoyance of having to itemize a receipt _to that granularity_ would annoy me enough to quit working at a company like that.

</comment><comment><USER55> _" New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact," said McKelvey in the memo, "even more than switching to a hybrid car."_

What research?

<comment><USER56> Here's one example from the European Commission: [http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2359](http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=2359)

the tl;dr is that 2% of overall environmental impact in the EU27 could reduced by switching to a Mediterranean style diet (reduced red meat but not 100% non- meat diet).

And PNAS have another study which used data covering 66% of the global population: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/28/1711889114](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/11/28/1711889114)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I think the market will force them to rethink their decision, and rightfully so

</comment><comment><USER58> If a company I worked for introduced that I think my response would be subterfuge. "Hey buddy, I'll have the steak but can you do me a favour and put 2 beetroot and feta tarts on the bill instead."

<comment><USER45> Gotcha. By "subterfuge", I assume you meant "risk my employment by committing reimbursement fraud".

<comment><USER42> > committing reimbursement fraud

lol, nobody takes reimbursements this seriously

<comment><USER45> Yes, people do. What OP described is called fraud and people get terminated for fraud all the time.

<comment><USER58> One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust policy.

<comment><USER45> You can quit your job if hurting animals and harming the environment is so important to you.

<comment><USER58> I care about companies not making moral judgements on behalf of their employees.

I guess this particular restriction aligns with your morality closely enough that you are happy to give it a pass. What if instead, a company morally objected to halal slaughter and refused to reimburse employees for halal meals? What if they decided coffee production was too likely to have involved child labour and so that's off the list too. Surgery deserts make people fat and can lead to diabities, can't go paying for that either.

For what it's worth 3 of my sister's are vegan. My mother has been vegetarian since the age of 9. So it's fair to say I've eaten my fair share of meat free meals.

I think as a company there are a whole bunch of things you could do to promote vegetarianism without alienativing 90% of the population. An easy one would be offering a similar range of vegetarian alternatives as they do normal meals.

<comment><USER45> "I care about companies not making moral judgements on behalf of their employees."

This is absurd. Of course companies need to enforce some form of morality among its employees, for instance by having an anti-murder policy or by firing employees who shout racist epitaphs at quarterly meetings. The question is just where to draw the line.

"What if instead, a company morally objected to halal slaughter and refused to reimburse employees for halal meals? What if they decided coffee production was too likely to have involved child labour and so that's off the list too. Surgery deserts make people fat and can lead to diabities, can't go paying for that either."

Sounds terrifying. One day, those fascist may ask people to quit drinking on the job, enforce a no-drug policy, ask people to adhere to a dress-code, and prohibit them from carrying firearms on their desk job. Or wait, did I just take your slippery slope fallacy in the wrong direction?

"For what it's worth 3 of my sister's are vegan. My mother has been vegetarian since the age of 9. So it's fair to say I've eaten my fair share of meat free meals."

For the sake of your health, I sure hope you have eaten meals without meat every once in a while.

<comment><USER58> > This is absurd. Of course companies need to enforce some form of morality > among its employees, for instance by having an anti-murder policy or by > firing employees who shout racist epitaphs at quarterly meetings. The > question is just where to draw the line.

Those things aren't the responsibility of the employer. They are illegal.

I don't actually think my argument was the slippery slope. It was my attempt to show that other things could equally be considered immoral that perhaps don't align quite as neatly with your militant vegetarianism.

Anyway, I doubt anyone else is actually reading this 2 week old thread so I'll leave it at that. Have a good weekend.

<comment><USER45> Again you are factually wrong. As long as it is not threatening, it is not illegal in the USA to express racism. That's why companies take a stricter stance against racism than the law does.

>It was my attempt to show that other things could equally be considered immoral that perhaps don't align quite as neatly with your militant vegetarianism.

I don't think you know what the word "militant" means.

Also, your argument remains absurd. Just because there is no universal agreement on morality, it does not mean that morality is relative and it certainly does not mean that companies should not have policies based on their morals and their values.

As a matter of fact, your line of argument is so ridiculous that I doubt even you believe in what you are saying. I think that this company's policy made you feel hurt and attacked for visceral reasons (the do-gooder derogation effect) and you are trying to justify that feeling for yourself by dressing it up as a political argument.

>Anyway, I doubt anyone else is actually reading this 2 week old thread so I'll leave it at that. Have a good weekend.

It sounds like a good idea that you leave. I hope that you learned something here and wish you a pleasant week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> > In an email to employees this week outlining the new policy, co-founder > Miguel McKelvey said the firm's upcoming internal "Summer Camp" retreat > would offer no meat options for attendees.

Unless they have two events called Summer Camp, that's not an internal event, it's an event they're selling to their members as including the best hand picked Street food vendors in the UK. I imagine lots of people will be surprised that none of them sell meat if it's actually that event.

</comment><comment><USER60> No Taco Bell was harmed in the making of this policy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Meat has an horrific environmental impact, so i can see why a socially conscious company would not want to associate itself to that.

Notice that employees are still free to eat whatever they want, its just that the company will not pay for ecologically unsustainable meals.

So the freedeom of choice of the employees is unchanged, they can still go out and grab a burguer but its out of their own pocket.

<comment><USER42> That's the same as fining people for practicing their religion and then saying that their freedom of religion is unchanged, they just have to pay more to do it.

Of course this affects employee choices, to think otherwise is obtuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This is completely unenforceable.

Just claim that you ordered the dish without meat.

</comment><comment><USER62> They pay their employees like shit to start, no surprise here.

</comment><comment><USER63> Will WeLive dorms also be made meat-free?

</comment><comment><USER64> Feel like this is just gonna cause so many bike shredding arguments internally it's not really worth it.

</comment><comment><USER65> Seems like a breach of contract to me.

</comment><comment><USER66> Easy, stay away from that company.

</comment><comment><USER67> As long as chicken and fish are not meat then this is ok with me. :)

</comment><comment><USER68> This is the anti-humanistic mindset that prioritizes "no impact" on nature above all else, instead of prioritizing human well being / human flourishing, which itself would account for environmental stewardship, but not to the level of sacrificing health to avoid eating animals (the healthiest option).

<comment><USER69> Why is speciesism acceptable but not racism?

<comment><USER68> You certainly don't feel this way in principle, just in degree.

Do you swat at mosquitos or flies when they bite you?

Explain to me how you think different races compare to each other like a human compares to a cow? We are superior to the cow in so many ways... is that your opinion of races?

I think it is immoral to not hold humans in higher regard than animals, and do what is necessary to prioritize the well being of animals above humans where there is a choice to be made.

Also, I am absolutely in favor of treating animals as humanely as possible... though I won't go so far as to not eat them.

Maybe some group of humans will evolve over time to thrive without eating animals... but we haven't so far.

<comment><USER70> You are superior to a cow in so many ways, according to you, based on your criteria. The nazis thought they were superior to jews in so many ways, according to them, based on their criteria. One is just as objectively true as the other.

<comment><USER68> Let's just leave it to "power". We are immensely more powerful than the cow, seeing as they aren't having any debates about whether they should eat us or not, and can't do anything to stop whether we want to eat them.. it is simply our choice to do so or not.

I think that's pretty objective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> This seems like a Just don't work for that company issue. Some places don't reimburse travel meals at all and as long as I have a choice I wouldn't work for them.

</comment><comment><USER72> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524534)

<comment><USER73> (0 comments)

<comment><USER72> or 10...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> "The company estimates that the policy will save 445.1m pounds of CO2 emissions ... by 2023." That's 202,000 kt over a 5-year plan.

Global fuel-based emissions in 2015: 36,061,710 kt CO2.

In other words, they think they are so important as to "save" about 0.1% of global CO2 annually just by refusing to include meat in the menu of their own events and employee-expensed meals. _I doubt the magnitude of their estimates._

[added] For a sense of scale, WeWork has about 2,000 employees.

<comment><USER75> Why does it make sense to compare _global_ CO2 emissions to _WeWork 's_ CO2 emissions?

One company with one decision making an 0.1% reduction on global CO2 annually sounds pretty darn good to me.

<comment><USER76> It should sound good—unbelievably good. This is why the global comparison makes sense: it implies wework is already using at least 0.1% of the world's C02 production. Which seems absurd for 1/4000000th of the world population.

Maybe they were just letting cows rot in their pantry, I dunno.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Nice. If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. It even falls on the wrong side of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide, since the default really is _not_ eating meat, so eating meat is a positive action which must be justified. I think it's a great example of philosophy pointing out the absurdity of a (very) widely-practiced phenomenon.

Of course, there's always the perpetual ethical get-out-of-jail-free card of doubting the existence of any finite set of values (articulated in our imprecise, incomplete, informal language) which could inform all our actions in this staggeringly-complex world, plus the impossibility-in-principle of living consistent with those values ;)

<comment><USER78> How does that argument extend to animals that eat other animals? And why is the default defined as not eating meat?

<comment><USER77> We usually divide the world into moral agents (pretty much just humans) and non-moral-agents.

The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating _anything_. Humans must take a positive action to eat something.

Generally perfect duties in the Kantian sense take the form of "thou shalt- nots", so a positive action you shouldn't take, like killing a random stranger or some such. This is contrasted with imperfect duties, which are things that are merely virtuous to do - like using your time & resources to help the less- fortunate, for example.

<comment> wu-ikkyu >The default is not eating meat because the default is not eating anything.

That's default for rocks and such, but not living things, whose existence requires by default the death of other living things

<comment><USER50> I'm a solitarian. I use photosynthesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> If this is what a founder of WeWork is focusing on, I can't wait til they IPO so I can short it. I doubt this company survives the next recession.

As for livestock vs vegetation being better or worse for the environment, it isn't a contest. Farming is many times worse for the environment than raising animals. Has any of these useless journalists, CEOs and crazy vegans ever stepped on a farm? Do they understand what is involved in farming? To farm, you do your darnedest to pretty much wiped out all animals from insects to rabbits to coyotes to large herd animals to protect your farm. And if the world were to go vegan, we'd have to cut down every rich forest ( amazon to the jungles of southeast asia and africa ) to provide farmland for vegetables. Whereas wheat, soy and corn that we feed livestock can grow in harsher temperatures, most vegetables we eat cannot. Also goats, pigs, etc can forage on weed and other "pest" vegetation in harsh climates.

Also, farming kills 1000 times more animal than raising livestock. These vegans are so insane that they think vegetables fall from the heavens like manna. Nope. An incredible amount of insects and small rodents/mammals are killed prior to planting and during harvest. That's right, every salad, every fruit and every meal that you eat contains some animal.

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not- simpler/i-hate-...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/but-not- simpler/i-hate-to-break-it-to-you-but-you-already-eat-bugs/)

I am so sick of the vegan nonsense. It's not based on fact, reality or common sense. It's just agenda pushing virtue signaling where people pretend to be morally superior for nothing.

More animal lives perished for a vegans salad than a carnivore's steak. And a vegan eating a salad is actually eating more animals than a carnivore eating a steak.

So morally speaking, a meat eater has the upper hand if you think all animal lives matter.

But maybe we should listen to a dumb city dwelling vegan who has never set foot on a farm. Lets wipe out forests and cultivate the land for farming. We'll wipe tens of trillions of animals in the process. And that's before dousing the farmland and vegetation with pesticides, petrochemicals, etc. But vegan feels over reality right according to the lazy journalist and the agenda pushing CEOs and corporations.

Or do cow, pig, chicken lives matter more than insect and small mammals?

Are the thousands of lives lost for a single salad meal worth a single cow's life that could produce a thousand meals?

Edit: Downvoted? I guess vegans don't like science. Maybe you are more of a huffpost crowd.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/02/bugs-in- food_n_1467...](https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/02/bugs-in- food_n_1467694.html)

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11581770/Hair- aphid...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/11581770/Hair-aphids-and- bugs-the-horrifying-stuff-we-unwittingly-eat.html)

Downvote all you want. Vegans eat more animals than a carnivore. In case you were wondering, insects are animals.

<comment><USER80> Currently the number one cause of Amazon rainforest loss is cattle ranching.

Animal agriculture is worse for the environment than plant agriculture. There are numerous studies to support this, here's one, [1].

It is true that animal products at times use land that cannot be well utilized for most plants. But many studies, such as [2], show that this land is unnecessary to feed the world. A vegan diet uses the least amount of land, and excess land can either be utilized for other purposes or returned to nature. Of course there are certain parts of the world which have different capacities to grow different foods, so what I have written is true as a general rule it is not true of literally every location.

It is also true that a vegan diet does kill animals. Though, it kills the fewest animals, even considering field mice and insects killed in the farming process. See [3].

[1] Livestock's Long Shadow - [http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM](http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM)

[2] Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios - [https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.el...](https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/)

[3] Number of Animals Killed to Produce One Million Calories in Eight Food Categories - [http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/](http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> sounds like they are pushing Steve Jobs apple diet, worked out great treating his cancer

once again thing which would be illegal in Europe, employer can't decide what kind of food they will reimburse me

</comment><comment><USER82> > that staff will not be able to expense any meals that include poultry, pork > or red meat

That is absurd. Imagine the opposite (a company only allowed expensing meat meals) and the amount of blowback, PR nightmare, and internet outrage. The hypocrisy continues.

<comment><USER83> What exactly is the hypocrisy? Eating only meat is a very restricted and strange diet while excluding only meat can be a perfectly healthy diet. You're trying to make these equal opposites but they're not.

Sort of like how not serving alcohol is acceptable but serving only alcohol (not even water) would be outrageous.

<comment><USER82> The fact that they are limiting people's choices and free will to eat meat and write-off (financial incentive) is the core problem.

<comment><USER28> They're not limiting people's choices, they're just limiting what they want to pay for. It's not like they're threatening to fire anyone who eats meat on their own.

I don't see the problem here. Lots of companies don't buy their employees food _at all_. (And I say this as a meat eater who would definitely be affected by this change.)

<comment><USER84> The biggest issue for me would be getting reimbursed for travel expenses. True that some companies don't buy food for their employees at all but I definitely expect to be fed while traveling for the company, and I would definitely be finding a new place to work if I couldn't eat meat while traveling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> > "New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an > individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact," said > McKelvey in the memo

I cannot imagine that scales - you cannot extrapolate from micro to macro here. No animals = no food for 7 billion people.[1] Definitely no vegetarian food without animals.

Do vegetarians not know how grains and legumes are grown? How fertilizer and soil amendments are made?

It would be incredibly destructive to the soil to use no animal products to grow 'vegetarian' food. Definitely impossible at scale, you'd just be strip mining the soil. On smaller scale farms the ideal is to give crop land a break by turning it into pasture for 1-2 years. A great way to "mulch" the crop leftovers (you don't eat the whole part of the corn plant, etc) is to use them as forage (cornstalk grazing).

Seems really odd to shun the "meat" aspect when we really are "using every part of the buffalo." And a big part of our animal use is making food for sanctimonious vegetarians.

[1] about half of the earth land surface is better suited to livestock farming than legumes/grains/other row crops. You know what grows well in cold, rocky New England soil? Pork, chicken, sheep, etc.</comment>


Career-Changing Programming Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2014/02/05/top-10-career-changing-programming-books/ <comment><USER3> I read "The Pragmatic Programmer" about two years back and back then I felt inspired and excited about all the wonderful ideas shown in the book. Fast forward to today, it seems that stuff was kinda obvious - automate things, read, take responsibility, care for the craft, be patient and the other forty tips.

I kind of believe that, have I not read the book, I would have stumbled upon the ideas later anyhow, by reading blogs, tinkering, and making mistakes. Albeit, it is wrong to expect any magical words that can shift your direction completely, but still I am not sure how much value do printed ideas provide vs learning them by experience. I am not implying that books like it are futile but I don't buy that they are "career-changing".

Same goes for reading about Design Patterns. I believe it is better to learn "Design Patterns" by building and reading code and finding a certain code organization better for your use-case, rather than enforcing a kung-fu- singleton-ninja pattern where it might be simply an over-engineering.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I have been programming for many years, working in the industry for four years, and have always been interested in improving with clean code, testing and whatnot.

I read the Pragmatic Programmer last year, and it was .. very boring. Most of the tips were like "doh, of course". It's a beginner's book, not for someone who have been trying to improve their code (and processes around it) already for some years.

<comment><USER5> > It's a beginner's book, not for someone who have been trying to improve > their code (and processes around it) already for some years.

Yes -- a beginner's book for someone starting now, but essential for everybody in the industry nonetheless.

Pragmatic Programmer has influenced enough people that it has changed the industry for better. These ideas and practices may sound common sense now, but were not until popularized -- I suspect -- by Pragmatic Programmer. If you found good practices already entrenched in the ecosystem when you joined the industry, the roots can be traced back to a few good books such as Pragmatic Programmer. Even though these ideas may not have been ground breaking, nobody now needs to spend time convincing their peers about these practices from first principles. Time and energy saved for everyone.

My point is, I have seen enough [senior] programmers to whom clean code etc. does not come naturally, and they always benefit from reading this book. Not that they aren't smart, just that someone needs to present a good case which this book does very well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few of my top non-programming books that have had a major impact on my career:

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering

How to Solve It

Anything by Tufte

The Millionaire Fastlane (terrible title, brilliant book)

and since I'm in VR, I have to mention Ready Player One.

<comment><USER7> Greg, was it you who recommended Ready Player One to me? Looks like I already bought it on my Kindle on $MYSTERYPERSON's recommendation, so now I'd better read it!

Here's an odd one of mine:

The Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics

I checked this out from the Scottsdale library when I was 11. I'd learned all the usual algorithms to multiply and divide and do basic arithmetic, but like most kids, I assumed that those were the _only_ ways to do those things - <USER2> the steps we learned were truly fundamental and the one and only way to get the result.

Then I read Trachtenberg and learned that there were other procedures you could use to get the very same results. The techniques we'd learned were not the only ones!

Oh, there were tradeoffs - you might have to remember more stuff and more special cases - but once you had those down you could zip right through a calculation that would have taken a long time otherwise.

So that's how I learned that there was more than one way to do it.

<comment><USER6> Maybe! Thanks for the rec, might be a nice companion to the ideas presented in how to solve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You are young and so forgiven to have not included as #1 the seminal works of Donald Knuth, "The Art of Computer Programming", still as relevant today as it was in the late 60's and 70's. What he described is to this day true of the underpinnings of all we do, everything since is really decoration and elaboration. And I say this as a still active systems developer, familiar with and working with current SOC systems from DSP coprocessors on up, not as an old fogey left by the wayside and complaining about the youngsters today. Although they really don't know what it took to get here.

<comment><USER9> In the preamble the post discusses wanting to learn how to write enterprise- type code, but if we are going just good ol' CS books in general, no one can touch SICP. The definition of abstraction in there blew my mind.

<comment><USER10> SICP is amazing. The only bad thing I can say about it is that since it was my first CS textbook in college, it naturally became my measuring stick for "good CS book", which has nearly ruined most of the CS books I read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a recent graduate, I cannot recommend Pragmatic Programmer and Code Complete highly enough.

Pragmatic Programmer fills in the gaps you need to succeed as a professional programmer.

Code Complete is a field guide to managing software complexity.

<comment><USER12> come to say this. code complete is basically a free ticket to obtain 10 years of working experience in one go. I read it after 3 years of career, and still found the content insightful

I'd also add the mythical man month. being a programmer is good, but overspecializing as the technical guy cause a certain degree of blindness to other software requirements (cost, time, quality). some part of that books can't really work in today work environment because external constraint, like the surgical team, but every word of it is gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, it seems to me most Uncle Bob fans throw all common sense out of the window and start following him blindly in all his extremist opinions

This is a very good reason I'm not inclined to read his books (and if they're like his tweets, really not worth it, for me)

Code Complete OTOH is a nice book, that if it has a fault is that of "not taking sides" and maybe being too generic, but with good advice.

Design Patterns? Yawn

<comment><USER14> GoF came to symbolize everything which went awry with OOP for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Funny, SICP isnt on the list. It's always mentioned in these list, and it's probably one of those books that everyone recommends, but no one has ever read.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I think they recommend it for the "lispier than though" attitude, it's good if you want to learn Scheme/Lambda Calculus, but it's nothing a "wow" book (maybe if you're programming for the 1st time it is?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since a majority of programming today is still done object oriented, I'd pack "Growing Object Oriented Software Guided By Tests" on the list, simply because it teaches you what object orientation actually is and how to apply it. I feel that most of the hate against OOP would vanish if the knowledge in this book was shared and applied.

<comment><USER17> I got through this book and found myself nodding in agreement with many of it's observations and recommendations, but I'm not sure it completely sunk in (despite the examples) the such that I would be able to synthesize the same results myself. I'm considering a second reading which might be more fruitful now that I know what's going to be said, and could concentrate harder generalizing the details.

Maybe it was in fact the such extended example that threw me off.

Also, slightly worried that this style could lead to an object soup?

<comment><USER16> A fellow developer told me he worked the presented project along with the book and it greatly helped him to understand the content. I plan to do this myself one day.

I'm not afraid of object soup because first, the alternative is implementation soup, with methods that span several tens or hundreds of lines. There is little abstraction of high level concepts. Also it depends on the organization. I keep everything cohesive and organized in packages (or namespaces). With Maven, Gradle or most other build tools, you can even divide your application in Modules that don't know each other. If they need to communicate, they may use a common Message Bus, that is a separate module. Another advantage of this is that this makes it easier for you application to run distributed if desired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any suggestions for a pragmatism-oriented functional programming book? It seems like a lot of inspirational/philosophical books on software development processes and patterns can't shake the object-oriented examples, even when they try to be as general as possible.

<comment><USER19> Functional Programming in Scala would be my suggestion:

[http://www.amazon.com/Functional-Programming-Scala-Paul- Chiu...](http://www.amazon.com/Functional-Programming-Scala-Paul- Chiusano/dp/1617290653)

I would consider it an updated and more practically minded version of SICP, which is of course amazing as well but not the sort of book you asked for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Cannot agree at all with this list. For me it was:

      * SICP
      * Antipatterns
      * Bentley Programming Pearls
      * Sedgewick Algorithms
      * Stevens Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
      * Knuth TAOCP
      * Tanenbaum Computer Networks

</comment><comment><USER9> No mention of Code Complete? That book is baller.

<comment><USER11> +1. This book is a goldmine of good coding practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> While the preamble said something along the line of "these books are valuable for 'enterprise' dev situation', I find that a lot of ideas from those books are fully applicable to startups/hot-tech-companies.

Release It! => applicable

Continuous Delivery => applicable

Effective Java => absolutely IF you use Java (see other 'effective' series such as Effective C#, Effective C++ [_the_ grandfather], Effective JavaScript)

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture => Guess where Rails come from? (hint: DHH name is also mentioned somewhere in the book)

</comment><comment><USER22> I would like to recommend the clean coder books on the list. They really saved my butt when I was fresh graduate. I wasn't sure how the whole business software cycle works or how to communicate effectively with other people in the company, like my team, and the business analysts and CTO. Those books saved my butt, I don't know where I'd be in my career with out them.

</comment><comment><USER23> For me, I think the biggest one was Refactoring by Martin Fowler, which you can find here: [http://refactoring.com/](http://refactoring.com/)

This post almost seems to be turning out to be an AskHN, with everyone chiming in on their 'career-changing' programming books.

</comment><comment><USER24> +1 for Clean Code. I just recently read and reviewed it: [http://henrikwarne.com/2015/01/03/book-review-clean- code/](http://henrikwarne.com/2015/01/03/book-review-clean-code/)

</comment><comment><USER25> Would love to add CSAPP into the list.

My then college director's comment on this book is very insightful and might be some of the highest you can ever endorse a tech book.

"Worth a second read"

<comment><USER26> 'CSAPP' = ?

<comment><USER27> I think the OP means "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective" [http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/](http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/)

<comment><USER28> Yup, most likely it's the one. It's very deep and well-written book, though too focused on x86 and Linux. Though, to be fair, trying to cover widespread alternatives with the same depth would require seveal thousand pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is a pretty good list. Domain-Driven Design is definitely deserving of the list. It probably impacted me more than any other (I work on complex business applications).

</comment><comment><USER30> Surprised that Coders at Work hasn't been mentioned yet. Reminds me of Gigs a bit if anyone remembers that one - just long form interviews without the filler.

</comment><comment><USER31> " _No list like this would be complete without a book about design patterns._ "

If this is true, then no such list is complete without the Antipatterns book _AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis_ ([http://www.amazon.com/AntiPatterns-Refactoring-Software- Arch...](http://www.amazon.com/AntiPatterns-Refactoring-Software- Architectures-Projects/dp/0471197130/)).

The thesis is that if good software, projects and teams are noted for using good patterns, then bad versions of any of the above will be marked by bad patterns, and one won't have the other. This can also be a lot more useful in practice, since we seldom get complete greenfields to play in, and therefore antipatterns with prescriptions to fix them more often match what we find in the real world.

I note there are a number of other antipatterns books; this was the original, and now seems to be back in print without needing any changes are updating.</comment>


Covid-19: Google and Apple Reveal More Intriguing Details of Contact-Tracing - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2020/04/14/covid-19-google-and-apple-reveal-more-intriguing-details-of-contact-tracing/#43fb2eb03d20 <comment><USER2> > _Tiny messages get beaconed out and the phone that is listening has a > hardware filter so it only wakes the phone in the background if a beacon > with the matching ID comes in._

Can anyone explain what a "hardware filter" is in this context, please?</comment>


Show HN: Andedit 2, a text editor for Android - <AUTHOR> http://andedit.com/

<comment><USER2> I don't know if you are attached to this editor, but if you are, I'm interested as to why you would post about it. Why post before I can actually download the editor? What is the advantage of telling people in advance? I don't care enough to subscribe, and I'm not going to remember to go back and look later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted the landing page to HN myself. Mainly to gather some feedback on the current feature set.

<comment><USER2> Then, I shall make some comments (this might be too late, hope you come back and read it).

1) I hope that the 'remote files', in particular Dropbox, work well in off- line mode. I would most likely use this program on my nexus 10, which is often away from internet access.

2) While this is a bit specialised, I often connect a bluetooth keyboard to my nexus 10. In that situation it would be nice to make it easy to use ctrl / alt keys for something useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One thing I find confusing: is it git or Github support ? Because if it's git, you may want to change the logo. The octocat is representative of Github only.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the confusion. It is indeed regular git support, not only Github. I'll try to find a better suited icon.

<comment><USER4> There is an official logo set: <http://git-scm.com/downloads/logos>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking good.

So far I've been sticking to the Dropbox text-editor, since it's a decent minimum viable editor, while none of the others Ive found have been good enough to warrant investing in.

If this delivers on all it seems to promise, I'd probably buy it just to have something nice to hack with locally on my Asus Transformer (as opposed to doing SSH+emacs).

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks nice, I'll definitely check it out when it releases, but it seems like whoever succeeds at text editing on touch screen devices will have to come up with some genius new way of typing code.

I can only contemplate serious typing on Android with my tablets keyboard dock, but even then I've found the experience lacking. I hope this makes it less painful!

</comment><comment><USER7> Super excited about this. I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it had git push, custom themes and extensible/customisable highlighting. Any word on the ETA?

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't commit on an exact ETA yet but it should be somewhere in the next couple of weeks.

The syntax highlighter is opensource and can be found at <http://colorer.sourceforge.net/> It has its own format for language definitions and color themes so it's definitely possible to add your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Besides git and syntax highlighting, and I won't be using git, what can this thing actually do that I can't already?

A demo is the very least to show off a new product, not a screenshot of a notepad clone with syntax highlighting and line numbers.

Besides, I run Debian Wheezy with xfce4 on Android. I didn't try git, but I can run Geany and vim. A full desktop OS is not perfect for phones, but with a keyboard attached it works very well. How would an app be better?

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, especially at git support. How do you implement git on Android which don't have native git support?

<comment><AUTHOR> My implementation is currently based on a slightly modified version of JGit.

<comment><USER10> I hope that you'll make heavy modifications to JGit, in other projects that switched from native Git to JGit (IntelliJ IDEA, Jenkins) I've nothing but troubles with our remotes.

FWIW, the Jenkins Git plugin has quickly switched back to native Git, because JGit doesn't work in the same way and it's a mistake to believe it does.

Try JGit with login/password on a remote under https; for additional fun, try to serve it with a self-signed certificate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very interesting! Would love to see more high-res screenshots. How are you planning to price the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not made up my mind yet about pricing. Comparable (although somewhat less-featured) apps are on the Play store with prices ranging from free to about $10.

More (development) screenshots can be found on the G+ profile. [https://plus.google.com/b/117124473018253230848/117124473018...](https://plus.google.com/b/117124473018253230848/117124473018253230848/posts/S2K1vaLSXJm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why would someone clone a repo if you can't push?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cloning a repo, pulling changes and checking out revisions can already be useful for browsing a code base, doing code reviews, etc.

Pushing back changes is on my todo list but as it is a big block of work I'm probably going to release the first version with read-only git support.

<comment><USER13> Are there are already Android applications using JGit?

By the way, the features I would be most looking for in an Android text editor are:

* Loading and saving from SFTP/SSH (automatic sync on save) * Tabs or other convenient multiple views and file tree * Dropbox/Google Drive support (Saving to drive as gdoc) * Syntax highlighting including markdown formatting (maybe a preview mode for markdown with webview?)

Git could certainly be useful but it would depend on the implementation.</comment></comment></comment>


Nvidia Linux driver contains root vuln - mike-cardwell http://www.zdnet.com/privilege-escalation-security-hole-found-in-nvidia-linux-driver-7000001986/

<comment> mike-cardwell And the original disclosure: [http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.full- disclosu...](http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.full- disclosure/86747)</comment>


Sprint Omits iPhone Cost From Bonus Calculus - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/sprint-nextel-boosts-bonuses-by-excluding-apple-iphone-costs.html

<comment><USER2> How do they make money? Volume! [http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night- live/video/first-citywide-...](http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night- live/video/first-citywide-change-bank/229045/)</comment>


Show HN: Summarize webpages in seconds (inside the browser) - <AUTHOR> https://www.keenskim.com KeenSkim creates a highlighted summary of webpages directly in your browser, via a small bookmarklet (Firefox / Chrome / Safari). Also work for RSS feeds.
Works in 2-3 seconds but saves several minutes. It helps saving time and learning more.
Time is money... Knowledge is power... Get them both and build your empire!
*this is still an alpha version. <comment><USER2> At last something promising that will help me unclutter the "read it later" webpages I bookmarked and wanted to read for ages but didn't have time to read them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that one of the "solutions" to the "information overload/exhaustion" problem we're solving.

Thing is the "read it later" approach doesn't really solves your main problem (getting the facts fast).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Impressed by the bookmarklet. How does the summarizer work? Is the Gremlin technology patented? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, web startups don't work that way.

The workflow is:

        listens for news-highlighting requests

        gets each and every webpage/feed

        detects the main content

        processes the content and pinpoints the relevant sentences from each news article

        creates a new enhanced webpage/feed containing the color-highlighted relevant bits

        sends the results to your browser (webpages) or gives them to your RSS Reader

The hard-lifting is done by a semantic component built in-house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is great, I couldn't wait to have something like that!!!</comment>


Tesla's Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-11-24/tesla-s-newest-promises-break-the-laws-of-batteries <comment><USER2> Something on this page just asked for permission to record audio and video via my browser.

Wow.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like Tesla bashing all over again. Maybe it won't work out exactly as they plan, but at least they're trying to make something awesome. Why is this article so negative?</comment>


How science made an honest man of God - <AUTHOR> http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-science-made-an-honest-man-of-god/

<comment><USER2> I love all of the references to philosophers and great thinkers of the past. The article does a great job of showing you what an assortment of influential people have said about the issue, and how the debate progressed over time.

One thing that's frustrating, though, is that the essay begins with an acknowledgement that what deception means, as it applies to God, has been the subject of much debate, which continues to this day.

Yet it then goes on to treat this idea of deception as if we all _do_ agree on the definition of deception vis-à-vis God. I don't think that's a valid assumption.

As for the click-bait headline, I got about 4/5ths of the way in, and the essay still hadn't touched on the science angle. There are only a few paragraphs at the end that make that argument, and it seems far less fleshed out than the rest of the essay, almost tacked on.</comment>


A Second Snowden Has Leaked a Mother Lode of Drone Docs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/10/a-second-snowden-leaks-a-mother-lode-of-drone-docs/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10392636)</comment>


Ask HN: Assistance with Rebuilding Life in Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
I am 42 years old, born in Sweden, and have been writing software since I got my C64 for Christmas at the age of 8. I spent 13 years working professionally in companies of all kinds and sizes in several countries.
Four years ago I met a woman with whom I decided to start a family. We ended up in a tiny village in Northern Germany next to her family, with VERY limited options for work. As a result, we lived mostly on welfare and I focused on designing the programming language I always wanted [0] [1] [2]. I setup a Liberapay account [3], but never received any donations. Then disaster struck; and my partner's family decided that since I still wasn't supporting the family, I needed to leave pronto.
So I ended up on the street with everything I owned in a bag and around €250; and no passport since I didn't need one when I got there and spending €150 on welfare wasn't an option. So got a temporary passport and headed South to Riace/Italy; where I was hoping to be able to arrange a simple life and get time to process.
I've now spent two months in Riace, and come to the conclusion that there is no future for me here. The first month I was able to find work harvesting olives, which paid €20 per day. And for the last month, I've been living with a family of African immigrants who kindly offered me a bed and food for free once they learned of my situation.
I have received enough donations on my Gofundme campaign [4] to renew the passport and make the trip back, but could really use a buffer. My plan is to aim for Amsterdam, which always felt like home and offers plenty of opportunities. Any help with finding software work there would be most appreciated, as would recommendations for a cheap place to stay.
Thank you!
[0] https://github.com/codr7/g-fu [1] https://github.com/codr7/forthy2 [2] https://github.com/codr7/cidk [3] https://liberapay.com/codr7/donate [4] https://www.gofundme.com/f/analogistics <comment><USER2> I am from southern Italy and feel a little offended by your fundraiser line "back to civilization".

I wish I could also live a simpler life but, maybe because of direct experience, I knew living with 20€ a day would keep me stuck in a place forever.

Just wanted to voice out this feeling. There are thousands of people like me who study and don't spend years working on their own dream language but start fixing bugs at 3 in the night for peanuts and end up working in boring corporate jobs in (fx. Sweden) so that others can enjoy their welfare and assistance.

I am sorry you fucked up and I wish the best from you. But please cut down on the narrative and don't blame it on the place, it is entirely your mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Chill? I was talking about Riace, and if you had been here you would most probably agree.

Trust me, €20/day was not what I expected. Why do I get the feeling you're just trying to find reasons to hate?

No I didn't and no it's not, this could happen to anyone. Everyone is just one disaster from being left to rot. Blaming the person is how we cover up the complete lack of empathy that rules this world. We do exactly the same to mentally ill and criminals, it's all their fault because anything else might mean we're part of the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Have you looked into remote jobs? If you have 13 years of experience, you should have no issue finding a position. Weworkremotely.com and remote.co are the biggest two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the tip!

I worked remotely for quite some time, and I much prefer interacting directly with humans. Resolving an issue that would take 10s with the person standing in front of you easily escalates into days of heated discussion, misunderstandings and back and forths over chat/email. Add more people and it gets exponentially worse.

A combination is a possibility, but exclusively remote is nothing I feel like doing any more.</comment></comment>


Why Helsinki Feels Like Heaven - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-helsinki-feels-like-heaven

<comment><USER2> Stanford has its own cogen steam and chilled water (underground "ice cube") capabilities, in addition to power generation. Many such campuses use the industrial central plant model because it's cheaper and more efficient at scale. Residential areas could leverage this and other utilities (like internet) if people get out there, organize and develop compelling, sustainable operational (quasi-business) models that can compete with for- profit. Because it doesn't make sense to have an entire neighborhood with excess internet capacity and individual wifi boxes, having to have one "own" of everything is demonstrably wasteful compared to "sharing economy" alternatives. (Steam and chilled water as well, since temperature regulation is usually the number one energy consumer in a household without an EV.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I proposed an idea for cheaply cooling tall office buildings to a mechanical engineer and structural engineer that they thought was interesting but we were all a little drunk at the time so we didn't even get to calcs on a napkin stage...

It's a very old and widely used concept that just needs scaling up - using the Stack Effect [0] by turning the core of a building into a giant chimney that extends/protrudes past the populated floors to maximize temperature difference. The elevators would run along the exterior of the building to free up the space in the core, with the added bonus that you're not limited by the space in the core and can have an array of elevators to move lots of people.

You could even pair it with water reservoirs to create a sort of low-tech evaporative air-conditioning. Bonus points for using the extrusions/paneling on the building exterior for catching rain water and storing it in the reservoirs.

I think the main issue is that it would need some proper fire safety modelling to make sure you don't create a giant blow-torch if someone in the lower suites burns some toast or leaves a dodgy floor heater running overnight.

Disclaimer: I am in no way qualified to say whether this would work

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_effect)

</comment><comment><USER4> _> In fact, the proliferation of air conditioners has increased to such a degree that it has slowly begun to modify humans, lowering our species' threshold for heat._

What fact would that be? The linked article to support this bold claim is a health advice piece from the University of Iowa suggesting that the average body acclimatizes to warmer or cooler environments over a two-week period.

</comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me of fracking. Pumping all of our heat into the earth's crust seems like it could have some long term consequence. If only we could could send our heat into space some how...

<comment><USER6> The amount of "heat" pumped into the Earth by fracking is meaningless on the unimaginably huge scale of a whole planet, so you can relax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are a lot of buildings within the Chicago Loop that use cold water from the river for cooling. Here's an article I found about it: [http://www.sustainable-chicago.com/2010/03/11/cold-as-ice- ho...](http://www.sustainable-chicago.com/2010/03/11/cold-as-ice-how-downtown- chicago-keeps-cool/)

</comment><comment><USER8> There's also the "ice pond"[0] technique: freezing and storing water in the winter to use for air conditioning in the summer.

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

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a pretty neat concept. Seems like former mining regions might be good testbeds (as long as there's some sort of water supply).

Also interesting that they don't stop at cooling but go for "trigeneration".

</comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't even have thought that Helsinki needed that much cooling in the summer. The summer highs aren't that high (Wikipedia), so it's interesting how they still have a large infrastructure for cooling the city.

I don't think I've used air conditioning in the summer before. Though my summers are usually cooler than Helsinki's, apparently.

<comment><AUTHOR> In a different location but no that far away sea water was/is being used to cool a data center: [http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/21/video...](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/02/21/video- helsinkis-underground-data-center/)</comment></comment>


Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/ <comment><USER2> So open source becomes a moral issue after all. To judge the morality of an action, we must know the intent. To know the intent, we must be able to see inside the box.

Anything less and we face the prospect of the public getting "VW'd" in life or death matters. (Not to mention the rich and/or unethical tampering with their own cars to cheat the system)</comment>


Richard Stallman on his experience in Cuba - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/stallman_on_cuba

<comment><USER2> "One of the things we see when businesses have too much power is that they corrupt those watchdogs, and we see this in the U.S. all the time. The U.S. government has ceased to effectively monitor the market to make sure it works well. Instead, it is a tool in the hands of big business."

I think Stallman's views tend towards the extreme but I have to agree with this one.

<comment><USER3> > when businesses have too much power is that they corrupt those watchdogs

It's called Regulatory Capture:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture>

It happens all the time. The vast majority of regulation ends up doing nothing more than giving the existing large competitors in a space a tool to keep out new entrants and smaller, scrappier competitors.

One of the reasons that the software industry is do dynamic is because it's not regulated.

<comment><USER4> An illustration of this point is that in the UK the regulations for electricians, and building contractors in general, actually promotes small companies. They're usually either a two-man team or a father-son op. In fact the largest I ever saw was a three man team, which was a two-man team with one of their sons.

The point is, is that the regulations actually keep the income evenly disbursed. Essentially everyone is earning between £60,000 and £100,000 a year depending on what you do and how well you do it. However, when you work for a company (companies seem to exclusively do large businesses like factories and the few that don't have very bad reps) you earn much less, some get paid between £40,000 and £60,000. You, of course, get you tools paid for but they're a one time purchase, I mean our most expensive piece of equipment was a £1,000 tester and it has a 10 year warranty on it, so there is literally no incentive to go with one of those companies.

The companies actually run a scam, they hire people who aren't certified electricians, which is perfectly acceptable and legal. However they'll never train them to be certified, they just use already-certified electricians to certify everyone's work is done correctly. Again this is unfair on the certified electricians because if anyone screws up and he doesn't catch it, _he's_ liable and that can include a prison sentence if someone dies from shoddy work.

My point is that regulation can be used in many ways. Big business takes over the regulators, but when used effectively a regulator can actually promote smaller business and stop economic pyramid schemes forming (AKA big business, people work for minimum wage so that the people at the top can earn over a million a year).

The fact that software isn't regulated is a good thing right now. There's lots of competition and there's self-regulation going on. There's lots of virus' out there, but if you stick to the sites certified by Microsoft and don't go on any sites that google suggests may be harmful to your computer, then you're largely to be fine. However, if companies like Google and Microsoft weren't providing some form of assistance to users, then I believe the software industry would need regulation, which would probably kill millions of blogs and social websites.

<comment><USER5> > The companies actually run a scam, they hire people who aren't certified > electricians, which is perfectly acceptable and legal. However they'll never > train them to be certified, they just use already-certified electricians to > certify everyone's work is done correctly. Again this is unfair on the > certified electricians because if anyone screws up and he doesn't catch it, > he's liable and that can include a prison sentence if someone dies from > shoddy work.

You may not like the choice that those certified electricians are making, but they clearly prefer it to their alternatives (such as running a two person shop).

Me - I see a significant cost savings. I don't care about certificates. I care about output and cost.

Note that regulatory capture actually isn't specific to big biz. It's often implemented by mobs of small biz trying to reduce competition. In the US you can see this in hair cutting and interior design. It sounds like electricians have done the same in the UK.

<comment><USER4> Certainly possible, but the difference is is that regulatory capture by small biz creates an even playing field and can prevent dominance, however when big biz does it you end up with few choices and extreme difficulty.

I mean this is quite an ironic example of regulation in big business. I mean look at the Big Three in automobile manufacturing: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(automobile_manufactu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_\(automobile_manufacturers\)). Now _which one_ did I mean?

Look at what happened in the UK, the companies were making an inferior product (not many British car enthusiasts would agree, but I've managed to have a look in a few of the old cars and motorbikes and they're shoddy. Some old British bikes had the serious problem that they'd drip oil in front of the driving wheel). What happened? Well all three became one, that one became nationalized, that one ended up getting handed between multiple companies before being renamed to the Rover brand and ultimately ended up as part of Ford. Who won out in the UK for vehicles? All the more efficient foreign ones.

What's happening in the US? Well Ford seems pretty stable despite the crisis. Chrysler says they seriously doubted they'd make it past 2009 without outside help. GM was planning to merge with Chrysler, however now GM is up shit creek without a paddle and are hoping subsidies will help them survive. If Chrysler and GM get significantly weakened, well Ford will likely buy them out. Can anyone see where this could potentially go?

I think the serious problem with big biz, is that when there's problems an entire industry can move to a different country. The only US owned car manufacturer in 10-20 years could be Tesla motors probably only because a bunch of silicone valley guys understand the importance of competition.

<comment><USER5> > Certainly possible, but the difference is is that regulatory capture by > small biz creates an even playing field and can prevent dominance

Except in practice this form merely creates inefficiency that the rest of us get to pay for.

Regulatory capture works to the advantage of the incumbents vs the rest of us, independent of the characteristics of the incumbents.

Me - I don't care about the incumbents, big or small. I see no reason why they should get govt's thumb on the scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good article. RMS has an honest take on Cuba. Open source can lead to other freedoms - some good discussion of software freedom.

"DT: I've editorialized that U.S. companies should be allowed to compete in Cuba. What's your position on that?

RMS: I really don't care. From my point of view, business issues are minor in comparison with issues of human rights and general well-being. "

<comment><USER7> Business freedoms lead to human rights and general well-being. Having a thriving private economy gives people choice over their profession. Increased wealth means people have more choice over their lives. Cuba legalized the private purchase of cell phones and computers in 2008, but most people are far too poor to buy one. If that were to change, it would be a clear improvement in Cubans' lives.

Let us not forget the legions of Cubans who have risked their lives on makeshift rafts to find a better life in the United States.

<comment><USER8> While it is true that increased wealth means that people have more choice in their lives, it does not necessarily follow that business freedoms lead to general well-being or to what is normally understood as human rights. As a matter of history, there have been very many places and times where business was relatively unrestricted, while labor and political activity were tightly regulated, and where the wealth from business failed to improve the lots of most of the population.

Current examples of some of these tendencies might include Dubai, Singapore, and some parts of mainland China. Examples in the past include Chile under Pinochet, Nazi Germany, and at times, ancient Rome. Places at risk include London.

<comment><USER7> If you wanted to pick a warning example, you could have done much better than Singapore.

Singapore was a third-world country when the current ruling party took over in the mid-60s. Today, it has a higher per capita GDP than the United States, and three times that of neighboring Malaysia.

In the dark days of the 60s, Singapore was threatened by the communist plague sweeping over Southeast Asia, racial tensions and riots, and hostile neighbor states. The fact that it survives and thrives today is remarkable.

Yes, its government violated "human rights" along the way. In the 60s it aggressively persecuted communists, forbid their literature, and drove communist labor movements out of the country. This offends our Western sensibilities, but it did allow Singapore to avoid the fate of Vietnam and Cambodia. Was it worth it? I think the citizens of Singapore, both then and now, would say "yes".

In most circumstances I am a Western liberal. But I refuse to follow any ideology blindly to the point that it leads me to advocating catastrophe.

Today, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world. It is regularly ranked by international organizations as one of the 10 least corrupt, often beating the United States. Maybe its people are lacking "human rights", but their quality of life is matched by few peoples of the world, and none in Southeast Asia. The fact that it appears to be an example for the China "communists" gives me hope for the future of that country.

<comment><USER8> From the quotes you put around the phrase "human rights", am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something?

Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it. I did not mean to say that it is an example of all of the bad things that can coexist with business freedom, just some of them.

As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban. I suspect that Malaysia's per-capita GDP would be a lot closer to Singapore's if you only considered downtown Kuala Lumpur.

I think the major problem in Vietnam and Cambodia was that they had a civil war, and as usual, the people who had power after the war were military leaders. In Vietnam things got a lot better after the war; in Cambodia, things got a lot worse, as they often do. (In fact, Cambodia is almost uniquely bad in the history of the world, as far as I know; there are lots of instances of conquering armies killing 50% or 100% of a conquered people, but I don't know of any others where they killed more than 50% of _their own population_.)

In both Cambodia and Vietnam, the civil war was made much worse by a US invasion. Maybe you think the same thing would have happened to Singapore? I suspect that they had an equal chance of ending up like Thailand, or urban Malaysia, or other countries in the area; and it's not clear to me that aggressively persecuting Communists made a civil war less rather than more likely.

<comment><USER7> >"I suspect that they had an equal chance of ending up like Thailand, or urban Malaysia, or other countries in the area; and it's not clear to me that aggressively persecuting Communists made a civil war less rather than more likely."

The Thais and Maylays were with Singapore in taking aggressive anti-communist actions in the 1960s. None of the countries that escaped communism approached the Western liberal ideal of political freedom. They were bare-knuckled pragmatists. They were all scared of what happened in China and wary of the imperial ambitions of the Soviets.

However, only Singapore pursued a transparent, capitalistic society with strong property rights and rule of law. The difference in outcomes is telling.

>"Have you moved to Singapore yet? You seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it."

If I were a resident of Southeast Asia, Singapore would be my #1 place to live. As is, I like the United States just fine.

>"As far as per-capita GDP goes, Singapore has the major advantage that it's 100% urban."

This was a huge disadvantage in the early years. Singapore had no raw materials, little farmland, and a per capita GDP of about $500. They had to import everything and often ran into hostility from neighboring countries that tried to prevent them from using trade routes, or even accessing water supplies.

A unique combination of shrewd leadership and aggressive capitalism grew their economy to the point that they had leverage in negotiations with their neighbors. Their destiny as the business hub of Southeast Asia was never a given.

>"From the quotes you put around the phrase 'human rights', am I to understand that you don't think human rights really exist, or that they aren't rights, or something?"

I put quotes around "human rights" because I don't think they are as easily defined as some people assume. I also don't think they are the end-all of politics, as Western liberals often suppose. I would certainly be willing to trade small infringements on human rights for large increases in the standard of living.

This is the point where many people would call me a "fascist" and run away.

I would be willing to bet that the average Singaporean is happy that their government made the choice to restrict press freedoms and prevent a communist revolution in the early years, considering how things have turned out.

<comment><USER8> > "The Thais and Maylays were with Singapore in taking aggressive anti- > communist actions in the 1960s. None of the countries that escaped communism > approached the Western liberal ideal of political freedom."

What do you think about the pre-civil-war human-rights records of Vietnam and Cambodia? Do you think they were more protective of political freedom before the wars than Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia?

> "If I were a resident of Southeast Asia, Singapore would be my #1 place to > live. As is, I like the United States just fine."

I think infringements on human rights are less unpleasant in theory than in practice; maybe if you spend some time living there, you might have a more nuanced point of view about it.

> [Urbanity] "was a huge disadvantage in the early years." [economically]

Nearly all of world economic development during the 20th century was urban, if you measure by GDP. In industrialized countries, cities have been richer than the country for centuries — as long as there have been industrialized countries. It's true that cities can't be self-sustaining, but that seems to be an advantage when it comes to economic development.

> "I would be willing to bet that the average Singaporean is happy that their > government..."

The average inhabitant of almost any country is happy about almost everything their government has done, especially a while back, and they would have been happy about their government doing the opposite if it had done the opposite.

<comment><USER7> One final point in response to your urban thesis: the difference in the standard of living in downtown Singapore and downtown Havanna.

<comment><USER8> I wasn't trying to claim all urban areas were equal, just that the economic development that has happened has happened primarily in the cities.

I'm still interested in your answers to my questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the article:

 _So I said, "Cuba has an important resource - lots of people who have never learned to use Windows. And here you are, destroying that resource, gratuitously. If you are not ready yet to switch these clubs so that they teach people free software, at least you should shut them down until they can."_

Does he say this seriously? I've seen people using this kind of hyperbole when in a partisan environment to have a laughs. But I have no clue from the article that this is humorous.

<comment><USER8> It's completely serious. Stallman thinks the social harm done by proprietary software licenses is greater than the good done by the ability to use the software. Do you think that's an unreasonable or laughable position?

The consequence that it is better to close down the clubs than to let them encourage proprietary software usage is almost inescapable given the above premise.

<comment><USER10> Like most of us, I discovered programming using proprietary software (namely MS-DOS and QBASIC), and if an intolerant idiot tried to prevent me from using those tools, he would have been hit by a (then) heavy keyboard.

(by the way, the case against using BASIC is certainly stronger than the case against using proprietary software.)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I probably would have felt the same way. On the other hand, it's fortunate that five-year-olds don't generally decide major public policy issues; I can remember a lot of things I felt similarly passionate about at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Well, they were probably a bit surprised, because they never thought about these things in these terms. But now I'm in touch with somebody who has _converted_ one youth club to use free software, and he's now talking with the people who run the other youth clubs in his region, trying to _convert_ them. So something's finally getting done."

Notice the religious terminology. The Church of Emacs, eh.

edit: Is it possible to use bold here?

<comment><USER12> No, _you no can has bold_.

Italics are allowed because they allow you to annotate emphasis without making the text stand out more than normal -- you only notice it inline. Allowing bold would lead to asshats writing like Jeff Atwood.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't mind if there was a limit (maybe as few as 3) on the number of words you can make bold. Or a percentage of your post, or something. Now that I think about it the same solution could be used to support blockquote (ex: max 2 blockquotes in a post + other restrictions). After all the argument against implementing it was that excessive use of quoting is often bad style.

I think it's pretty ridiculous not to support useful features just because 1% of people _might_ misuse it.</comment></comment></comment>


Kim Dotcom Back Online, Prepares To Release Music Album - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-back-online-prepares-to-release-music-album-120402/ A New Zealand court has granted Kim Dotcom some basic rights following a hearing today. The Megaupload founder will now be allowed to access the Internet and have a daily swim to help ease a back problem. Dotcom will also be allowed to finish a music album he's been working on. TorrentFreak was given a sneak preview and we liked what we heard. <comment><USER2> > The prosecution naturally objected to Dotcom continuing his work and said > that his album, a collaboration with several international artists, was > unlikely to succeed.

What a strange objection. Can any HN lawyers comment on a legal reason why the prosecution would say that?

<comment><USER3> My guess is they are trying to make a distinction between it being work or trade and a hobby, as if an action can constitute a livelihood, then it often has extra legal protections.

For instance, a sheep farmer who is supporting a family may have bail conditions that restrict travel, but those restrictions may allow for travel to go to look after the sheep as that is the farmer's livelihood, but the sheep farmer may not be able to get permission to travel across state to go play music with some mates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone who, even if found guilty, would be guilty of a victimless crime, denied access to the internet, cannot live in his own house, and needs permission from a judge even to go to a music studio.

</comment><comment><USER5> With a connection to fast internet my IQ increases by an order of magnitude(with high latency), I can answer almost any question in one minute, without internet, my IQ decreases back to average.

What happens when we start merging with technology so the internet is always with us 24/7? When I get charged of a crime, am I immediately unplugged and and reduced the mental capability of a child so that the prosecution can have an easier time of it?

<comment><USER6> While I get the notion of your argument, I'd like to point out that neither intelligence, nor IQ do have anything to do with answering knowledge questions.

<comment><USER7> Could you please start a technical recruiting company?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's it like to work in Germany? - <AUTHOR> What's it like to work in Germany? <comment><USER2> I know someone who worked there for a while as a software engineer. He says it was fine at first, but eventually the overbearing "alles in Ordnung" culture got to be too much. He decided he didn't want to raise children there, so he moved back.</comment>


Simpler long polling with Django and gevent - <AUTHOR> http://prg10001.blogspot.com/2009/09/simpler-long-polling-with-django-and.html

<comment><USER2> I haven't seen gevent before but it looks really cool. Its also impressive to see Django running on top of libevent - something I'd never thought possible.

My big concern with this framework though would whether it could cope with accessing a database or similar datastore without blocking. My guess is that it currently doesn't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Your concern is valid though, if the database module is a wrapper around C library which uses blocking sockets, each database call will block the whole interpreter, not just a particular greenlet.

This is not specific to gevent thought. Tornado and Twisted face the same problem and Twisted has a threadpool to cope with that. I guess I would have to implement something similar for gevent.

However, if the database module was a pure Python or used libevent underneath then it would integrate with gevent seamlessly. Alas, it's rarely the case for database modules (?)

<comment><USER3> MySQL Connector/Python is a pure-Python implementation of the MySQL client protocol - I presume it uses sockets, in which case the gevent monkey-patching might get it to work transparently.

<https://launchpad.net/myconnpy></comment></comment></comment>


Evernote's new privacy policy allows employees to read your notes - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/evernotes-new-privacy-policy-allows-employees-to-read-your-notes/ <comment><USER2> I'm seeing a lot of people talking about wanting to switch to something else, and that something else is usually "{name of another private corporation} Notes App". How much longer do we continue playing this game?

I'm working on an open protocol that standardizes the encryption and ownership of notes.

See [https://standardnotes.org](https://standardnotes.org)

Would love any feedback/help. If you'd like to contribute, send me a message.</comment>


Preliminary results of randomized corona infection study in Germany published - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/medizin/corona-in-heinsberg-jeder-siebte-koennte-immun-sein-a-14bd9e0e-0c7e-4775-a8b0-1611ececd870 <comment><AUTHOR> 15% of the population are infected, which brings the fatality rate down to 0.37%. This was done in Heinsberg, the region with the first cases in Germany.

edit: I found the source text, this would be a better link: [https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwis...](https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwischenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt.pdf)</comment>