Google Urged the U.S. to Limit Protection for Activist Workers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/google-urged-the-u-s-to-limit-protection-for-activist-workers <comment><USER2> These comments read like a bunch of low-income retail shoppers defending Walmart because they provide something they otherwise couldn't get.

I think these types of debates are bellwether for programmer/IT professional unionization. These are the exact types of lawsuits brought against organized labor as it was trying to get organized to prevent exploitative behavior.

It's disturbing to see these same anti-organization arguments rehashed simply for a new industry.

<comment><USER3> Programmers, maybe ones on HN especially, are super conservative and anti- labour for some reason. I don't know the history of Silicon Valley enough to figure out exactly why

<comment><USER4> You succeed at programming by spending countless hours on your own with a computer. Your career is a direct result of your own hard work and passion. From that perspective, organized labor seems like an unnecessary dependency. Programming is a form of extreme independence many will be hard fought to give away.

Developers (some) aren't super-conservative, they're libertarian.

<comment><USER5> > Your career is a direct result of your own hard work and passion.

If your code isn't using your own libraries compiled by your own compiler hosted on your own OS running on your self-built machine using a CPU you designed, no, it isn't. Sure, your own hard work and passion goes a long way but you rely heavily on the works of others and the privilege of being able to use them.

<comment><USER6> But people who developed those libraries allow anyone to use them, so you have the same chance as yor neighbor to develop the next Google, and there are a lot of smart people trying to do it, and not all of them will succeed.

So, your career is a direct result of your own hard work and passion.

<comment><USER5> > you have the same chance as yor neighbor

That assumes you're starting from the same place and head in the same direction. You have to know a library exists before you can use it. It has to be compatible with what you're using. There are many things out of your immediate control that can influence these things (imagine my next door neighbour only has an i3 and the fancy functions of the library which make it 100x faster require extensions of an i7. I immediately have an advantage. There are many subtler advantages that can come into play.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's something very rotten at the top levels at Google. The "Don't be evil" motto has long disappeared and has been replaced by apathy and/or hostility on different fronts.

Maybe this move by Google is actually good...to help more employees and others realize how the company has morphed into something that's no longer doing as much good for humanity as it used to boast about.

I'm still hopeful that the rot in companies like Google and Facebook will be the biggest trigger for decentralized and privacy respecting platforms (and also in this context, preserving the freedom of people to dissent) to grow faster.

<comment><USER8> Relations with Google are definitely starting to sour, here are a few recent examples:

\- IE switches to Chromium engine, Chrome has full clearance to dominate the web.

\- Questionable actions toward ad-blocking (seen only just yesterday).

\- Colluding with China to create a blatantly dishonest search engine.

\- Questionable products (Google Fi, Pixel phone, Google Home, etc, are share their own controversies)

\- Search results quality is decreasing (which is just my personal speculation, DDG is usually retrieves less polluted results).

Let me know if I missed anything.

<comment><USER9> _Search results quality is decreasing (which is just my personal speculation, DDG is usually retrieves less polluted results)._

My experience is that DDG results are terrible. I try it periodically and never lasts more than a day. Has that changed?

<comment><USER8> I should clarify, google is rife with visual noise, especially for simple queries. As an example, try googling "how to clean rain gutters" in both search engines. You'll need to scroll half down the page, past "Suggested Clip", past "People also ask", past "Videos", to finally arrive at the 1st search result. DDG also shows videos, but doesn't require scrolling.

EDIT: I forgot about ads because I use an ad blocker! If you don't use an ad- blocker, you'll also have to scroll past a large section of ads.

<comment><USER10> I think you're perceiving some signal as noise. For me personally, that "Suggested Clip" is what I'd be searching for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I didn't realize they had any protection in the first place. That certainly explains a lot.

Google has a small but extremely vocal (some would say "unhinged") minority of folks who mostly just do activism on the internal G+ and little else. You can even find their names online from the various leaks if you'd like to follow their own proposed practice of blacklisting people they disagree with.

It was always a mystery to me how they manage to stick around for so long.

</comment><comment><USER12> It just goes to show that a large company is made up of many different people in different departments, sometimes with different agendas. It appears that there is a conflict of vision within Google.

<comment><USER13> No, it doesn't. I think it shows precisely what's going on in every MegaCorp in the US: Woke Capitalism. Everything is calculated to maximize profit, including campaigning, branding, and marketing to say that you're NOT all about profit.

In this case, both the saying of soothing things to the people who are complaining, AND lobbying the government to make those complaints less effective in the future are in line with the real goal: maximizing the success of the company, as measured by profits. When viewed through this lens, these actions do not conflict. In fact, BOTH are REQUIRED.

These only APPEAR to conflict when you think that top leadership actually REALLY cares about anything other than money, and the influence it brings.

<comment><USER14> What could a company like Google do to convince you that this isn't the case, if it truly isn't the way you imagine for that company? Because it sounds like there isn't anything.

<comment><USER15> There really is no other credible argument that they could give. Business must grow, if they don't they die.

It's predatory no doubt, and Google certainly can't be considered an honest broker. But this dichotomy is necessary in today's hysterical environment that social media has created.

It sucks.

<comment><USER16> > Business must grow, if they don't they die.

Perhaps re-labeling major (and unprecedented) communication/organization platforms from "businesses" to something akin to "utilities"—or, more radically, "platform coops"—would quash such apologia.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So they're undermining worker's rights to protect themselves from lawsuits? And I'm supposed to be okay with it because them pushing to get the rules changes for their own gain is not lobbying, it's a "legal defense".

That being said, it's foolish to use workplace email to do things like organize unions.

<comment><USER18> Given Google's level of internal transparency, many employees (as said in the article) use internal forums to organize action like "walkouts". As you'd imagine having 60,000+ global employees trying to coordinate stuff over their personal email would not be possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > If the Labor Board did what Google wanted, "it would have a huge chilling > effect," said Google employee activist Colin McMillen

Weird, I guess then they would have to use the employee email system for employment related matters. There isn't any restriction to prevent any employee from using a non-employer email system for organizing the very same activities.

The unintended consequence of allowing this kind of activity in the office place is the creation of political gravities. If you don't agree with the mass consensus the majority will find a way to punish the minority opinions. During one of the private internal all hands Google's chief of HR said their research indicated this very behavior. If you cannot be honest in the work place then its a hostile work environment.

<comment><USER20> The fact that their employer made special deals with people accused of sexual harrassment or wanted to work on military projects are employment related matters.

<comment><USER19> As a corporate leader what is more important: allowing employees to use employer resources for personal politics or solving for toxic/hostile behavior?

<comment><USER21> The answer is that being a human with moral and ethical obligations to the rest of humanity should take precedence over being a corporate leader. If you don't sell censorship and weapons tech or cut backroom deals to silence victims of sexual harassment, there's no need to try to stop your employees from talking about it.

<comment><USER22> And there's nothing preventing employees from finding a new place to work if they don't agree with how their company handles things. It's a multinational corporation not college or even a democracy.

<comment><USER23> These are systemic problems in the industry, though. Leaving google will almost certainly place you in a company where the situation is worse, and where the ability to set industry standards is less.

As for the "it's not a democracy:" I ask why we tolerate that. In a country founded in individual freedoms, we're apparently ok with creating no-freedom zones that pretty much every adult has to spend half of their waking hours in.

<comment><USER19> > Leaving google will almost certainly place you in a company where the > situation is worse

That is a baseless assumption. For me a toxic work culture is the worse situation.

The US was founded on the concept of liberty more so than on the concept of democracy, which is how we ended up with a federal republic and an electoral college. According to JS Mill the greatest enemy to liberty is a hostile majority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Oh, to read the Google employee forums today... I wonder how those "activist employees" will respond this time.

<comment><USER25> They'll be upset and "outraged", before returning to work. I keep thinking, each time Google is in the news, that this is finally the day engineers will just walk off the job and not come back. But I know it probably isn't. Even those who have every ability to find a new job quickly will find some excuse to justify staying.

<comment><USER26> Google has a very high turnover rate relative to company age pay etc at just 3.2 years on average.

So, I suspect they really do lose a lot of people over this stuff, they just keep hiring at a very fast pace.

<comment><USER27> I wonder at what point working for Google will lose its shine, and their hiring pace will drop off.

<comment><USER28> People make a living building missiles payed for with public money that blow up schoolbusses across the world just to put their own children in a better school district. When people get a decent paycheck no one thinks about how much that dollar cost.

<comment><USER29> If you think your country commits such acts of war crimes, then you should flee your country today.

If you are not building the missiles, you are paying taxes that go to buy those missiles to blow up school buses.

As an Electrical Engineer, I would be glad to help my country or the allies of my country to build missiles to help in the war effort.

If we don't help, we will end up with barbarians blowing up our neighbourhood.

<comment><USER30> You are correct, it is pretty heinous that we are all beholden to paying the war industry vast sums of money. Is it really worth it to spend millions on missiles that notoriously miss their targets? Wouldn't a very small trained team of operators be much better and far cheaper at safely eliminating a threat than blowing up an entire apartment complex from a desk hundreds of miles away with a missile that costs more than everything in that town? In August, Saudi Arabia fired a missile that killed 40 school children (1), probably one of the many weapons they bought from the US. I'm sure that missile that ended their lives cost 1000x more than whatever school building they were bussing to when they became the latest victims of geopolitical theater.

At which point do you realize you are engineering more and more expensive and advanced ways of killing for the sake of skimming personal profit for executives and investors out of public budgets? If I worked for one of these companies, I don't think I could live with myself with that huge guilt, knowing my great efforts lead directly to further destabilizing the world and ending peoples lives. I'm not comfortable using my skills to perfect ending peoples lives. That isn't innovation, that isn't advancement, that is regression. Raytheon is the barbarian blowing up the neighborhood, not a Yemeni schoolkid.

1\. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/13/middleeast/yemen- children...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/13/middleeast/yemen-children- school-bus-strike-intl/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Are we going to ignore that Google responded that they published this as part of a legal defense rather than a lobbying effort. From the article: "We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses"

I'm not saying that makes it right, but I see a difference between pushing for it as an independent agenda and using it to defend yourself from a legal filing. IANAL, but Legal arguments tend to be set up as: They are wrong because of argument 1, and even if you don't agree with argument 1 they are wrong because of argument 2, and so on through argument n. You include everything that's relevant in that list to preserve it for future appeals even if you have some pretty weak or controversial arguments.

<comment><USER32> > Are we going to ignore that Google responded that they published this as > part of a legal defense rather than a lobbying effort.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. I'd go as far as to say that this actually makes it _worse_, not better. Saying that that those protections are important is easy when there's nothing at stake. The fact that they then called for their overturn when the chips are down is how you know what they really think about it.

<comment><USER33> It's silly to equate a legal defense with a belief though.

I may not have the belief, personally, that spontaneous crimes of passion deserve a light sentence, but it would be malpractice for my lawyer to therefore not advance that argument if, god forbid, I was convicted of a murder. Whether I committed the murder or not, and whether or not I believe those sentencing guidelines should be extrapolated to wider society, as a lawyer you have an obligation to use every tool in your arsenal that can help your client. It has nothing to do with your own personal or political views on whether those tools should exist.

<comment><USER34> Assertions of certain politicians to the contrary, corporations are not people, and Google wasn't defending against a crime of passion.

<comment><USER33> Sure, I wrote a contrived example. But the onus, I think, is on the critics in this thread to provide the theory of legal ethics under which attorneys should refrain from advancing the most effective defense of their clients if doing so might cause public relations concerns. It's my understanding that zealously defending their clients within the bounds of the law is among an attorney's highest obligations.

<comment><USER32> To use an equally contrived example of my own — there's plenty of jurisdictions where arguing something along the lines of "look at how she was dressed, she was asking for it" will get you off the hook on rape charges. Would you still argue that an attorney who makes that argument is merely "advancing the most effective defense of their clients"? Or would you find that conduct reprehensible both for the attorney, and the client who allowed the attorney to use that line of reasoning?

Ultimately, it's your own choice what lines of arguing you present, and you don't get an ethical freebie just because it's "effective".

<comment><USER35> > To use an equally contrived example of my own — there's plenty of > jurisdictions where arguing something along the lines of "look at how she > was dressed, she was asking for it" will get you off the hook on rape > charges.

Rape is an unusually problematic situation because consensual sex and unconsensual sex produce a lot of the same physical evidence, and it's possible for someone to consent but after the fact have regrets or experience social pressure.

That leaves you having to evaluate evidence of whether or not there was consent. If you're a falsely accused defendant trying to rebut a claim that she didn't consent, what evidence of that do you propose to use?

Also notice that _look at how she was dressed_ is a particularly ineffective "get out of jail free card" when the accuser was a nun dressed in her habit.

The implications of that, i.e. that you're more credible if you dress conservatively and don't attend frat parties, are very politically inconvenient.

But a black man has a constitutional right to carry a handgun, which also makes it more likely that he'll be shot by the police who will use it as a defense. It would be better if these trade offs didn't exist, but how do you propose to make them not?

<comment><USER36> It is not about "making a proposal to make sure these tradoffs don't exist".

Instead it is about morally judging someone for making a morally reprehensible argument.

If there is some country in the world where black people don't have equal rights, and a company uses this as a legal defense for it's behavior, then I am going to judge the company as being full of horrible horrible human beings.

One does not get a free pass for your behavior, just because it is legal. Onr instead should get judged for the horrible person that one is.

<comment><USER35> Someone is a horrible person if they are falsely accused of something and use the argument that most effectively allows them to avoid being falsely convicted of it?

It seems to me if you have a country where some people don't have equal rights, the problem is the law, not any individual defendant. That's the easy one to fix, in the sense of knowing what should be done. Much easier than trading false positives against false negatives when there is no way to actually know what happened.

<comment><USER36> I am saying that if you make an argument in court that says "This law should be overturned!" as google literally did, then I am going to assume that this means that you think the law should be overturned.

And I will judge you morally if I believe overturning this law is a bad thing.

A company is responsible for it's actions. And if it's actions in court cause a good law to be overturned, as is their stated argument, then I will judge them very poorly for this.

<comment><USER35> The problem is that everything is always complicated.

If employees use the company's email system to discuss politics, then the company's email system contains their policy views, which may not be the company's. Then the company gets sued by someone else who gets a copy of those emails and uses the employees' personal views as evidence of the company's official position.

A solution to that would be to have the law be that political discourse can't be used as evidence of policy or intent in a court case. That might be a good solution, but there may not be support for it in the existing law.

The alternative would be to prevent employees from using the company's official channels for their political discussions, to create a brighter line between official and personal speech. Arguing for the second thing is worse -- it has a lot of other problems -- but arguing for the first thing may not be possible under existing law, leaving it as the company's only apparent alternative to avoid liability. What are they supposed to do then?

<comment><USER36> > What are they supposed to do then?

What they should do is follow the law, and not try to get rid of worker protections.

I don't care that it has negative effects on them. I am going to judge them morally, for trying to get rid of a good law.

The whole point of laws is to prevent companies from doing bad things, that might be in their interests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why is it the most profitable companies fight the most against spending money on workers? They of all should be able to afford it. Take that money you're blowing on fighting us and spend it on us so we're living happier and healthier lives.

</comment><comment><USER38> Perhaps I'm missing something, but Google seems to experience far more labor action than most other large tech employers. Why is that?

<comment><USER39> Because they cave into the demands for better or for worse.

<comment><USER40> All employers cave to labor action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I realize that Bloomberg probably slants this for clicks but it is another example of why I left Google when I did.

All organizations that I have been a part of have something which might be called a 'dissonance' level. That would be defined as the difference between the policies that were being pursued by the leadership versus the messaging and communication on policies that were being communicated to employees. When dissonance is low, there are only small, and insignificant, differences between the two. When dissonance is high there are large differences between them. Two examples during my tenure which highlighted this were a change to the employee store and the other a change on juices.

To set the background, when I joined every employee got a credit for the employee store, and the prices in the store were half off for employees. This was a nice way to give new folks some logo wear which would show off the brand but in a way the knew they could use. Later this was changed to no credit when you were hired and a flat 20% discount. The actual reason this was done (and came out eventually) was because it was money management didn't want to spend any more. They wanted the store to be 'revenue neutral' with respect to employees. It was presented first as a way of correcting "abuse" where people would do their Christmas shopping at the Google store, or managers using it to give everyone on their team some schwag as a spot bonus. At the time, free cash flow (aka net money going into the bank account every quarter) was nearly $2B, with a cash flow per employee of $100,000 a quarter (or $400,000 a year) and management was upset that they "gave away" $150 to every new employee and "lost" about $15 per employee _per year_ on margin in the Google store. The new CFO at the time (Pichette) was extraordinarily cheap. But the problem wasn't that they took that away, the problem was that they didn't own it like a grown up company would. Instead they created this fiction of a "big problem" that was being corrected that deflected anger from management for taking away a "perk" to fellow employees who were "abusing the system."

Similarly a year later they swapped vendors for juice from Naked Juice to Odwalla, and then pretty much stopped restocking juices. It was presented as a problem with Naked Juice being able to provide for Google's needs, and yet once again it wasn't actually the story. The story was money. Odwalla was cheaper and not as many people liked it so overall consumption would go down, by not restocking popular flavors the juice refrigerator could have "juice" in it and give air cover to manager for not taking away juices while insuring that as little as possible would be consumed.

The pattern was very clear, the messaging was "We're this hip company that is employee focused and care about what you need to do great work" but the actual policy was "We're just another greedy corporation who will lie to our employees in order to extract _and keep_ as much value as possible out of the people who work for us."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And now we find they say "express yourself, we're open here" to the employees while they lobby to get the laws changed so they can fire trouble makers? Not a big surprise to me.

That said, it can be a fun place to work and there are amazing people there to work with. If you don't care about "fair" compensation and treat all of the company messaging as fiction, it was a place where you could take on tasks that no where else was ready to take on yet. I got to play with a huuuuge storage cluster to do some really useful research on that. No storage company in the world would have been able to field, much less give a couple of engineers pretty much exclusive access to for a couple of months. Eventually though, I just couldn't continue to look away from the dissonance and had to leave.

</comment><comment><USER42> The harder it is for a company to fire people, the more reluctant they will be to hire risky people.

The easier it is to fire, the more willing a company will be to hire risky people.

Can't have it both ways.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Don't draw attention to your evil"

</comment><comment><USER44> Maybe workers shouldn't be punished for it, but as an organizer why in the world would you use the company email? All company email is subject to potential review by management. Why would you give up s strategic advantage like that? Seems silly.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://duck.com](https://duck.com)

</comment><comment><USER46> I am not supprised that they are doing this, if you dont like what they are doing then dont work there. Why should people who work there be protesting their own company! They should expected be fired.

</comment><comment><USER47> can someone translate this in a way any layperson can understand?

""" In an emailed statement, a Google spokeswoman said, "We're not lobbying for changes to any rules." Rather, she said, Google's claim that the Obama-era protections should be overturned was "a legal defense that we included as one of many possible defenses" against meritless claims at the NLRB. """

thanks!

</comment><comment><USER48> Don't be evil.

<comment><USER49> What's evil about this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> No wonder they obliterated "Don't be evil" from the workers' code of conduct.

This, yet again, reinforces the idea that people with good values are no longer welcome to work for Google anymore.

But some, the same people who LOVE to point out that "Don't be evil" is still forgotten somewhere in the last line of the workers' conduct, will likely remain skeptical that Google is becoming _more evil_ by the month.

<comment><USER51> >No wonder they obliterated "Don't be evil" from the workers' code of conduct.

Of course they didn't do this. As your own comment goes on to prove. You should not encourage the spread of misinformation just because it suits your world view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Companies are people... I fint it funny that we talk about companies like a sentinent being..

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm a googler, going anonymous for soon-to-be obvious reasons.

While I think this headline is overblown, I think the change would be for the better. For the past couple of years working at Google has been like what I'd imagine it's to work for the Trump administration: constant scandals, people around you being outraged, constant diversion of internal attention to issues unrelated to the core business etc.

Nominally the internal culture is all for open communication and being yourself. However, it's far easier to express an opinion that signals your 'good' and 'acceptable' values by eg. demanding Google shuts down anything that's even remotely suspicious. This leads to the loudest voices being the most extreme ones and makes you feel like you're alone with your opinion if you happen to favor nuanced debate over knee jerk reactions. For example, I think Dragonfly is a good idea and something we should pursue - but honestly, I'm only comfortable expressing that opinion to a select few coworkers in a private setting.

This brings me to my point of why I think more company control over worker organization might be good. I take pride in my work ethic. My dad raised me to respect the work I do. And every time a new scandal comes along and the internal company focus gets diverted to an issue on which only a small part of the company feels comfortable expressing their opinions of, my attention gets diverted and my work suffers. As does the company as a whole. As a stock owner, having an internal company culture less focused on outrage would be a great improvement.

<comment><USER54> I dont think anyone is arguing it wouldnt be better for stock owners. Workers rights are generally the opposite of an improvement for stock owners. Thats not what they are there for. Its targeted at improving and safeguarding workers and in a broader sense society. In this case its so employees arent just silently doing what they are told matter the consequences those actions will have for the rest of the world.

<comment><USER4> He's also speaking as an employee who is uncomfortable with the current state of Google. Do workers rights include the right to not be constantly bombarded with political messaging you don't agree with and to be intimidated into keeping your own opinions silent?

This poster's message and the internal dialog that came out during the Damore hearing make Google sound like a horrible place to work that is aggressively overly politicized. So yeah, the stock holders would benefit from this but so would the employees.

<comment><USER54> >Do workers rights include the right to not be constantly bombarded with political messaging you don't agree with and to be intimidated into keeping your own opinions silent?

As a said, workers but also in a broader sense society.

edit: Maybe a more concrete example would help, lets take Whistleblower protection for example

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> "Do no evil" \- my ass

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow, don't they have a "Do no evil" printed around?

<comment><USER57> They quietly removed the "Do no evil" when they renamed into alphabet

<comment><USER51> Please don't spread misinformation. Alphabet created a new motto but Google never removed theirs. It's still very clearly in their code of conduct.

Alphabet's Code: [https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of- conduct/](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/code-of-conduct/)

Google's Code: [https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of- conduct/](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/)

<comment><USER58> <withdrawn due to legal concern, but parent is misrepresenting the situation>

<comment><USER51> The code of conduct is where the motto has always been. It is hardly "some document".

Your other claims are merely speculative and unprovable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I tend to agree with the people saying there's a problem in Google. But that said, I also think Google should have the right to say what can and can't be broadcast. Otherwise, you make the company transmit, broadcast, and disseminate viewpoints: coercing speech.

<comment><USER60> I don't see how allowing workers to use workplace email to organize can be equated to coercing speech. Worker protections in the U.S. are quite poor in relation to the EU. I see no evidence that further limiting worker rights would be good for the people.

<comment><USER61> Most companies, even in the EU, say that workplace systems are for performance of job duties only. That doesn't mean it's necessarily legally enforceable, but either way it's a much more nuanced argument than it's being portrayed as.

If I have a right to use company systems to organize a strike, how do they then account for those messages in their normal record keeping and compliance procedures? Do they also have to retain them for x years along with everything else? If they have some kind of mandatory audit procedure how do they separate those emails out so that they aren't reviewed on a regular basis? If someone sexually harasses someone in what is not specifically a workplace communication but do it over company email how does that impact their liability? How does it impact what materials may have to be handed over for any kind of other lawsuit?

If I were going to protest the company who is actually paying me presently I would never do it using their email system so for me it's a moot point, but it's not quite as cut and dry as an evil corporation trying to restrict the rights of workers.

<comment><USER62> Google has never, as far as I know, required that work email systems be used for performance of job duties only. They certainly want work usage to be primary, and in some countries and circumstances they claim more rights to intellectual property created using work systems that they otherwise wouldn't claim, but they do allow incidental personal use.

In my experience working there in the past (before these cultural issues became a main focus), it was a major perk to, for example, be discussing a news item about a quantum computing device on a suitably targeted mailing list and have someone with quantum physics expertise chime in. :) Also informal peer-to-peer financial planning advice and many other topics.

Note I haven't worked for Google or Alphabet since early 2015 and certainly am not speaking for them here.

<comment><USER61> And I've never worked for Google or Alphabet. The company has nothing to do with it, this is about a supposed moral issue that should (I hope) apply to every company, not just them.

<comment><USER62> Your initial argument in the post I was replying to seemed to be based on the assumption that Google forbade non-work use of work email; I was simply saying they don't, so the nuances around those bans don't apply. That's all I was addressing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gribouille: a demo hand-writing/drawing application for Firefox OS - <AUTHOR> http://guillaume.baierouge.fr/2014/08/08/gribouille-a-demo-hand-writing-drawing-application-for-firefox-os-on-the-flatfish-tablet/ <comment><USER2> The Flatfish prototype Firefox OS tablet is a preview device with a lot of work to be done before it's ready for primetime.

The point of Mozilla's Tablet Contribution Program (the program that provided the author with the InFocus Firefox OS tablet) is to enable our community with hardware so they can identify and tackle just these kinds of issues.</comment>


Israel's millennia-old 'biblical cuisine' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180508-israels-millennia-old-biblical-diet <comment><USER2> Curds and honey is quite good. Roasted grain has possibilities. Fresh barley grain bread is pretty good. Great if you're starving I'm sure.. Unleavened bread with a little olive oil and salt is really good. I love dates and figs, they are like nature's candy.</comment>


Ask HN: Script to collect iTune sales stats? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone written a script to collect daily sales figures from an iPhone app? I wish I didn't have to click so much to get my numbers. <comment><USER2> might be too late for you to see it, but i'm using this:

[http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/2009/05/04/itunesconnectarchi...](http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/2009/05/04/itunesconnectarchiver/)

had to tweak it a bit for my own situation, but it wasn't too much work.</comment>


Corona Is Slowing Down, Humanity Will Survive, Says Biophysicist Michael Levitt - <AUTHOR> https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3800632,00.html <comment><USER2> Slowing down, really?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the single most important decision you took in your life - <AUTHOR> The best decision in your life that changed your life's trajectory, i.e that made your life more secure or financially independent or brought lots of happiness etc etc. <comment><USER2> I hit my singularity when I realized that you can take as much time off as you want if you are prepared to take it unpaid.

      1996: 3 weeks
      1998: 10 weeks
      1999: 4 weeks
      2000/1: 20 weeks
      2002: 6 weeks
      2003: 36 weeks
      2004: 32 weeks
      2005-2010: ~36 weeks (9 months)/year
      2011-2015: 12 weeks

The work equation changed to: (how much do I need to travel for another 9 months) / (hourly rate) = (hours I need to work on this next contract).

I recently went heads down for a few years, when kid #1 was born, working as close to a full-time gig as I can bear to sock away college savings, pay off houses, and get my product businesses to the point where they support the family full time. But now you can stick a little Infinity symbol at the end of that chart.

Software is one of the few professions where you can effortlessly switch back and forth between High Paid Professional and Dirtbag On The Beach. For months at a time, for years on end, without harming your career or affecting your retirement savings.

<comment><USER3> How do you get to the point where you can easily switch between "High Paid Professional and Dirtbag On The Beach"?

As someone just starting his career this concept is slightly foreign to me.

Any general tips?

<comment><USER2> Contracting was how I did it initially. That's just about getting provably good at something so that you know you can always pick up an onsite gig with an email or two before flying back to the 'states.

Recently, a lot more shops have opened up to remote work, so it's much easier. You can plant yourself on that beach while still working mostly full time. And you don't need to have built up the leverage and reputation to quickly find work when you need it. All you need do is impress the folks you're working for enough for them to put up with your occasional timezone switches.

I've worked with guys doing that as part of their first job out of school.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Building up the energy to go to a party when I had one of the worst hangovers I've ever had in my life. Met a girl at the party and 4 months later, decided to leave my life in England to travel for 10 months, and then moved to Australia to be with her.

Nearly 6 years later, and I am 2 months away from having an Australia passport and pretty much every facet of my life is better.

</comment><comment><USER5> Volunteering to be the VP of the computer society.

Met an awesome guy called Christian Kent who I build a Tsunami warning widget with.

This widget got picked up by the media which enabled me to get a Masters of Design Science degree (a degree for which I didn't have the marks to get into the undergrad version).

In that degree, I had excellent lecturers and we did things like strapping accelerometers (a big box at he time, think 4 iPhone 7+ stacked on top of each other) to mobile phones (this was all pre-iPhone). I thought my lecturers were nuts when they said that soon this big box strapped to this chunky cell phone would be built into the phone.

This was also where I first met the Arduino. At the time Arduino didn't have any international distributors and it was really hard for my lecturers to buy them.

As I always worked during university, mine of my lecturers said: "Marcus, you're entrepreneurial, you should sell them in Australia." So to keep him happy I did. We were Arduino's first reseller and this one product, snowballed into nearly 18,000+ products and a multimillion dollar ecommerce company ([http://littlebirdelectronics.com](http://littlebirdelectronics.com))

</comment><comment><USER6> College -- I recently did the math and figured the tuition alone for my in- state education in Ohio was something like $22k. Doing software engineering consulting in the valley, it's not hard to bill that in a _month_ -- granted I've been out of college for 15 years and I have a ton of relevant experience, but overall, for me, an education has had huge financial upside that continues to pay off.

<comment><USER7> 22k month. Considering my tuition fees were less than $2k (that was before te Euro) in comparison my Roi would skyrocket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Leaving college and joining the US. Navy. I was able to travel the world,get paid,& learned how to be a functioning adult. Im now a lead for a Alphabet X project with decent pay.

<comment><USER9> 'decent pay'

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not going to grad school.

I've always wanted to teach, so thought I should go to grad school to be a professor. I applied, didn't get in, decided to join the working world but teach on my newly formed blog (betterexplained.com). It's been one of the most satisfying and enriching parts of my life, with complete freedom about how I want to present things, along with some measure of financial independence (another life goal).

You never know if an event (not getting into a school) was "good" or "bad" until years later ([http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/zen.html](http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/zen.html)). It helped give me a sense of equanimity about events.

</comment><comment><USER11> Quitting my high paying consulting job and starting my own business. Income is still not quite the same as I used to have but happiness level has skyrocketed.

</comment><comment><USER12> I started meditating daily.

I do it for twenty minutes every morning. It seems small because it is, but the impact has been huge.

I genuinely feel that it's recalibrated my mind, which has resulted in me becoming more and more focused on my health overall. I've started intermittent fasting, keto, and I'm about to start lifting. I was never a "gym-type" so this is quite a transition for me, but I literally imagine my body as a temple now and I can't bear the thought of polluting it.

I attribute it all to meditation as being the catalyst. Something just clicked and everything fell in to place. I'm more aware of my communication with others, which has already proven very helpful at work, and I find that I can now look at emotions as something that are just passing through me at any given time - financially, this is helpful because I can be a bit of an impulse spender, particularly when bored/sad/whatever.

<comment><USER13> How do you meditate?

I took a stab at it when I was 18 (24 now) and I'd do it by essentially trying to make myself feel pleasure. You're working out now, so a workout high is an easy start point. Try to expand the feeling and you'll notice it in your gut (un-incidentally, this is where your adrenals, a majority of your serotonin and a good percentage of your dopamine is located).

If you're interested, injecting that into your routine can be a fun experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Getting away from everything that I know.

I was born and raised in the States so it was all I knew about the world. Now that I've lived abroad for several years, in different countries, I don't know when or if I'll ever return. It's too interesting to be confronted with new/different experiences, on a regular basis, to want to go back to something I know so well.

There's a world map on my wall currently, with all the flags and countries listed underneath it. The other day I counted how many of those countries I know now (13) vs how many more there are to get to know (183), I feel like I've barely seen anything. Now if I could only earn more, that world map would look a lot smaller.

</comment><comment><USER15> To stop believing the thoughts that go through my mind and to stop calling them "mine." Which is correlated with the choice to spend time focusing on non-thinking activities.

<comment><USER5> tell me more

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reading Psycho-cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

</comment><comment><USER17> Moving country.

</comment><comment><USER18> Stop trying to please everyone</comment>


In which I am crabby about viral archery videos - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/01/in-which-i-am-crabby-about-vir.html <comment><USER2> I have been more entertained by watching Lars Anderson do archery for five minutes than any other archer on film, ever. Honestly, it was more entertaining and more memorable to me than any of the fake archery shown in the Hunger Games, Robin Hood or Lord of the Rings. I can't remember another archery video that went viral.

Perhaps some of the claims are a little hyperbolic and self congratulatory, but you can't say "all this guy is good at is marketing". Please. It obviously took practice and skill to perform some of those stunts and I just don't understand why dissenting voices always need to cut people down instead of just making their case.

<comment><USER3> > Perhaps some of the claims are a little hyperbolic and self congratulatory, > but you can't say "all this guy is good at is marketing".

No, some if not many of the claims are flat out _wrong_. If he had only marketed himself as a fast shooter, then there wouldn't be nearly so much discussion happening about this. But instead he asserted himself as some sort of expert on historic archery technique and that is what is being challenged.

protomyth points out this link in another post which makes a more directed point-by-point argument:

[http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/](http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish- archer/)

<comment><USER2> Sure, I meant to say "even wrong".

I don't know why it's OK to start derisively calling him a "marketer" though. Does anyone think Lars is being malicious or inaccurate on purpose? I thought "cockup before conspiracy" was most people's motto.

Regarding Jim MacQuarrie's takedown that you linked to, I'll say that while he abstained from name-calling I think some of his points are a little weak and/or nit-picky. For instance, if we have to dig out a black and white photo of an Indian putting an arrow on the outside of a bow, I'd say that the technique is probably largely not used by modern archers. So, we could say that it's _generally_ been forgotten by most modern archers.

Jim acts like the fact that it was a point-less arrow shot towards a knife is a big deal. Am I still a gullible fool if that doesn't even matter to me and I'm still impressed?

My point is these authors seem mad. Maybe they should be because the general public is comparing regular, boring archers to this guy now. And what is the point of modern archery if not to entertain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article has another link to this [http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish- archer/](http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/) with the great quote:

      "He uses forgotten historical methods…" No, they
      were not forgotten. They just weren't European.

</comment><comment><USER5> One of the odd personality changes that I've noticed in myself after 25-ish years on the Internet is that I now have essentially zero tolerance for whinges[1] of the form: "This one thing he said is completely and utterly wrong, therefore he is a pillock and should be shanked with a shiv.[2] (Well yes, the rest of what he said is perfectly true. But still.)"

Elizabeth Bear's primary complaint seems to be "Andersen is shooting so fast that he doesn't have time for a full draw." This is true. It is the first thing you notice about Andersen's video, after the fact that he's jumping around like a loon. (The fact that he's hitting targets while doing so is a little impressive, isn't it?) She has other complaints about his technique, and about the "viral" video, most of which are also true.

But what makes this rant a spectacular example of what sets off my own particular crab-osity is:

"His tactics, though--speed shooting and so forth--are suited to a shorter recurve [...], which is designed to be shot in motion and from horseback."

...like (although not identical to) the one he's using in the video. So...did she just admit that somewhere between a third and a half of her words are irrelevant to her topic?

Anyway, my bottom line is that I'd rather read a "...Considered Harmful" paper.

[1] A lovely term that I picked up long ago, from the Internet. Oddly, I can remember a significantly isomorphic rant about its use from long ago.

[2] Or shivved with a shank. I don't actually care.

P.S.

 _GRRR!! Argh! Razzlefrasin '...[3]_

I just read Stross's comment,

"Dirk. YELLOW CARD.

"Do not derail, annoy, or otherwise mess with the honourable guest bloggers, or I will be forced to take time out from this very important business trip to kick your ass.

"In particular, do not derail a comment thread with idiotic quibbles before it even gets started. (Broken links, mis-spellings, okay: quibbles, not so much.)

"Am I understood?

"Signed:

"The Mgmt."

Derailing is specifically the point of the article. Idiotic quibbles are the whole raison debris of ye damned thing.

Signed:

Miffed.

[3] Cf. Yosemite Sam.

<comment><USER6> You missed the part where she argued that his approach is wrong because it's impossible to be accurate when using it:

"Also having a reliable anatomical point at which to anchor your draw, and a reliable stance, means that you have a reliable point of aim. Incredibly minor alterations in biomechanics--something as invisible as tensing your neck, or not fully broadening your back--can send an arrow wildly off course over distances as short as ten or twenty yards. Something as major as moving your draw point an inch? No freaking telling where that arrow is going."

Regardless of how impractical and historically inaccurate his approach might be, do she really believe he has no idea where his arrow is going?

<comment><USER3> > Do she really believe he has no idea where his arrow is going?

Has no idea? Of course not. But there's a magnitude of difference between knowing roughly where your arrow is going within 10 to 20 feet, and within 30 to 40 yards. Olympic archers are accurate at 70 yards. Not to mention that longer distances also increasingly force an archer to take into account that arrow trajectory is not going to be a straight line, but an arch both vertically and horizontally.

<comment><USER5> Pffft. 70 yards? Pikers. Lame-o.

Ye olde longbowmen shot at 200-400 yards.[1][2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Range](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Range)

[2] [http://www.archerylibrary.com/books/badminton/docs/chapter24...](http://www.archerylibrary.com/books/badminton/docs/chapter24/chapter24_1.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that Mongol archers on horseback, in teams of 10 I believe, were the dominant military force over a vast part of euro-asia.

You have some good points about the viral videos, but watching them gives credence to how scary 10 Mongol bowmen riding on fast horses could be to their opponents.

</comment><comment><USER6> Andersen's description on the original posting of the video addresses many of these criticisms. I can't figure out how to link to it directly as text, but you can go to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG- ly9tQGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk), stop the video, and then click "Show More". Or view the copy below.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Published on Jan 23, 2015 The ultimate archery trick. Proving that Hollywood archery is not historical.

Press release: [http://clausraasted.dk/larsandersen/n..](http://clausraasted.dk/larsandersen/n..).

Podcast about how I started archery: [https://soundcloud.com/claus- raasted/..](https://soundcloud.com/claus-raasted/..).

DO I HIT EVERYHING? I use a LOT of time practicing, and every time I set out to learn a new skill, a new trick or how to handle a new type of bow or arrow, it takes a long time, with plenty of misses. When I got the idea of grabbing an arrow in flight and firing before I landed, it took me months to learn. For a long time, arrows flew everywhere!

But there's no trick in the video that I haven't done many times (except for splitting the arrow in flight – after I'd done that once I finished the video). The one with hitting the blade I've only done three times, though. All that running hurt my knees. ;-)

ON MY BOWS AND POWER Many people talk about how what I do is only possible because I use bows that are less powerful than English longbows. They are correct. I'm 50 years old, and have been doing archery for only ten years. I'll never be able to shoot really fast with 100 lbs+ war bows. I tried, but it just produced injuries. Had I started at age 10, it would have been a different story. ;-)

There is also a tendency from critics to assume that bows were always fired against plate armour (as at Crecy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415). This was very much the exception. Many opponents had little or no armour at all, and Stone Age findings show that many animals were taken down by multiple shots. Also, in 1923 Saxton T Pope examined a number of historical museum bows from around the world. His conclusion was that most only had a tensile strength of 45-50 pounds.

THE CHAINMAIL TEST Around 04:22 I penetrate chainmail. The arrows had bodkin tips, and the chainmail is riveted. However, while the gambeson is thick, it's not as thick as some I've seen elsewhere. But one reason the arrows penetrate is that I sharpen not only the tip itself, but also the edges of the bodkin tip.

SHOOTING ON THE RIGHT SIDE There are archery traditions alive today which shoot the arrow on the right side of the bow, as I do. However, the places where most people come into contact with archery (Hollywood, The Olympics, archery clubs) do it left around the bow.

THE BACK QUIVER Is it a myth? Yes and no. Some archers definitely slung their quivers on their backs for when they were marching, just like soldiers did with shields. We also can't rule out that some archers – who didn't care what arrow they picked from the quiver or who didn't need to move rapidly – had quivers on their backs, but we can rule out that this was a general thing as Hollywood makes it out to be.

THE THREE LEVELS OF ARROW HANDLING The first level of arrow handling is having the arrows in a quiver, and drawing them one at a time. It's easy, and it's intuitive. Progressing from there to holding arrows in the bow hand takes practice, but it can be learned.

There are some drawbacks, however. Arab Archery (the book) says that it's less useful, because the arrows vibrate when shooting with powerful bows, causing imprecise shots.

The third level, keeping the arrows in the draw hand, provides a several benefits, but it requires that one is able to draw and shoot in one single movement without thinking. And that takes a LOT of practice. ;-)

THE ULTIMATE TRICK TOOK 14 TAKES

At first, I didn't think it was possible. You don't have time to aim or think, but can only do it if your reactions are completely instinctive. First of all, you need to be convinced that you WILL hit it, so you can "feel" the incoming arrow and fire at it instead of just flinching away.

I was also in doubt whether it was smart to show this, because I don't want anyone to get hurt trying to copy the trick. I trained for years with soft boffer arrows and spent a LONG time before I tried it even the first time. And the arrow fired at me was not fired with a very powerful bow, though it was definitely dangerous enough!

It was a light bamboo arrow with a metal tip, and the arrow I shot back was a heavier aluminum arrow. That the arrow split was just pure luck, and I'm not certain I could repeat it without first training for a long time. I believe it split because it hit just behind the head and made the shafts fluctuate against each other, causing the bamboo shaft to split lengthwise.

I hope to try it again using a proper high-speed camera!

FINAL WORDS Thank you for watching my videos and for reading. I will remove rude and dumb comments. I will also remove dumb "archery experts" comments.

\- Lars Andersen, January 2015

</comment><comment><USER8> Ugh. Why is this on hacker news? I can see the original video being an intellectual curiosity. But commentary and more commentary on top of that? What does this add?

I really could not care less about this entire thing. I didn't even watch the original video (who has time for ELEVEN MINUTES of bow shooting!?). I hope this trend dies fast.

<comment><USER9> This makes little sense. If you could see the original, then the followons make just as much sense.

For myself, this post was just as much fun, if only for the links to more archery stuff on youtube.

<comment><USER8> That approach doesn't scale. Does mildly appreciating a skim of an archery blog post and clicking through a video mean that I need to skim EVERY archery related blog post and video? Where does it end? If someone links an engaging blog post on knitting do I have to go out and buy yarn?

<comment><USER9> No approach scales. Bitching that the collective vote here doesn't match your personal preference, though, is just silly.</comment></comment></comment></comment>