freshfunk

I agree with you. I think people are overreacting.

With that said, I don't find the question any better than how it's currently done.

I think companies would be a lot better if they administered the a Myers-Briggs personality test (or something along those lines). Having people choose and prioritize options that have no clear right or wrong answer speak better to their value system.

For example, a question could ask:

What do you value when it comes to coding (priorize)?

a) Quickness of delivery b) Stability, solid code c) Building for the future d) Efficiency (code execution)

There is no right or wrong answer. Some may say, "well it depends on the situation!" But picking a priority order will speak to the default way in which people think.

Personally, I'd answer honestly and wouldn't BS. I do agree, though, that the word "imagine" is way overplayed. Most people who are having a conversation like this would likely miss that word and concentrate on the bulk of the question which is "name 3-5 things on how you rank companies."

Right on. You've clearly got your head on straight.

Others here seem more interested in giving snarky half-truths.

This is true but Google has always been an engineering-led organization as opposed to a product-led one. Social networking is less of an engineering problem than it is a product problem. This is true for other social products as well.

Fundamentally, Google is taking the wrong approach. Listen to how Vic Gundotra talks about Google+ as opposed to how Zuckerberg talks about Facebook.

This may be a step in the right direction but it will mean more than just hiring idea people. Those people need to have real power in the org if they are going to make a difference.

It's more likely that Kevin Rose will end up like Dennis Crowley. He'll try his hand at Google, will realize that he can't make much of a difference given his position and leave in a few years to scratch that itch at another startup.

Same here. I've read filtered and unfiltered reviews and my conclusion is that Yelp does a good job with its filtering. It's not perfect but does a pretty decent job.

WRT your problem: Have you tried filtering by price ($, $$, $$$)? Perhaps if you did this, you would find good restaurants that aren't just rated highly because they are cheap.

On your last point, I disagree. I used to think that only bad restaurants would need to advertise. But then I ended up going to a restaurant that I saw had advertised heavily in the past on Yelp. I went there because they were in my neighborhood. The restaurant and food were absolutely fantastic (which matched their overall rating). So advertising is good for 1) new restaurants and 2) residents who don't know all the restaurants in their neighborhood.

It's funny because many years ago I read comments from people saying, "Yelp cannot last."

Then a few years after that, "It's a fad and it will die."

The a couple years after that, "When people catch on, they'll disappear!"

And, now, on the day that they went public, there are people still harping that Yelp's days are numbered.

Really? Remember they used to say that about Google (and still say they about Facebook).

Yelp is a reality that will _not_ go away. Venues have to adjust to the modern day reality that it's easy for people to share information. As you said, "There's no way to keep people from talking about the things they enjoy."

If Yelp did disappear, it wouldn't be because people "wised" up or because of some court order. But if they did, there are plenty to take its place. Facebook, Foursquare, or any other social media website that supports ratings of venues.

WRT prejudiced reviews, venues that have a decent number of reviews usually reach some sort of average weighting such that aberrations hardly affect the star rating. That's why 5 star places still have 1 star reviews and 1 star places have 5 star reviews.

Outright hyperbole.

Service and location is one component of the eating experience just as food is. Service and location are ways for similar restaurants to compete against each other.

To call people "service and location whores" speaks to your own condescending attitude that you, ironically, accuse others of.

With that said, in my experience, most places with a decent number of ratings tends to be spot on. The thing is that people need to measure their expectations. If a place is highly rated for cheap sushi or cheap taqueria food, then, obviously, ratings are going to be based primarily on price and less so on decor/food. After all, that is the _value_ that cheap eateries provide.

Yelp features a price indicator ($, $$ or $$$). If one was looking for good, expensive sushi, they could easily search for sushi with $$$. If they found a result where the restaurant had one $, then their expectations should adjust accordingly.

No one should be surprised that this is coming from Mark "I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just To Get Revenues" Pincus.

It not just looks bad. It IS bad. Arbitrarily deciding who does and who does not deserve to vest is ridiculous. If the person is not performing, let them go. They are an at-will employee.

By negotiating them to keep their job by giving stock options back, they are simply trying to keep that employee at a cheaper rate. The employees must be performing effectively if they want to keep them. The notion that these people are doing nothing and still employed by Zynga is disingenuous.

The naivete (or CEO apologism) around here is astounding. I understand keeping an unbalanced and impassionate point of view but at some point if it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck it IS a duck.

Agreed. It's a bit naive to think they assembled this at the last minute.

With that said, having a whole issue dedicated to someone in this manner (photos, quotes, no ads) is still pretty awesome.

Misleading title but scary nonetheless. It's not my complete phonebook... not even close. But it does have numbers of friends who aren't in my phone (which is useful and possibly OK considering they added me as friends).

Nevertheless i never explicitly opted into this which is bad.

I don't go that high but I can easily have 4 windows with 6-10 tabs each. They are grouped by purposes (work, type of dev I'm doing (server/client), personal, personal project). At any one time I use 1-2 groups but switch between them depending on the major task I'm working on at the moment.

I'm in both camps. Typically I'll have a window with about 6-10 tabs. But I'll have maybe 4 of these windows. 2 will be for work, 1 will be personal and the last one is either personal or my personal project I'm working on. That's easily 24-40 tabs.

Lately I've been trying to keep them down because of memory constraints (tab/process model in Chrome).

>But at the same time, the renters have got to take on some responsibility for handing out their keys to strangers; yes that's what you're doing, is that a surprise?

It's a good point but if AirBnb can't take measures to mitigate these horror scenarios and all the onus is on renters, then they can kiss their stratospheric valuation goodbye. Who's going to want to participate in this service with even a 0.01% chance that they will sustain $1000s in damages? The risk wouldn't be worth it.

Much like Ebay took measures against cheaters, AirBnb should create measures in case of nightmare renters (valid ID, credit card, etc).

This story comes soon after the issue with AirBnb being outted where they were emailing/spamming listers on Craigslist and posing as fake people. Not only is this illegal (CAN-SPAM act) but also unethical and dishonest.

One thing I didn't see from this was a response by PG. Only silence.

But I didn't assume his stance. After all, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. (And I can't track all responses to stories on HN.)

But now we have this story. I'm still open to seeing how things play out and finding out what's really happened. But, so far, it's not looking good for AirBnb or PG. All the sympathy is going to EJ IMO.

And I did see a response by PG which essentially called Arrington's reporting "bullshit." His comments also seemed to directly contradict what EJ said. So someone's not being completely honest.

Given that EJ's the victim and PG's an investor, most readers are likely to be biased in favor of EJ (unless they are an HN/YC/PG fanboy).

So I wouldn't call it shadenfreude. I see it as AirBnb/PG having at track record based on other, recent, controversial events. I think to blame HN or its "collective IQ" is somewhat ignorant and self-serving.

>Also, in regard to the so called "coverup", it's totally natural when someone says bad things about you on the internet to ask them to take them down. That's not a "cover up". That's "being human".

I believe PG used the word "bullshit" in his slander against Arrington's reporting. This isn't PG's "first rodeo" either and so such strong words can't easily be chalked up to just "being human" IMHO.

Arrington's a report and PG's an investor. They both have their motives for acting/reacting in certain ways.

I think the mistake being made here is to assume that any party is necessarily "great people" without actually knowing them personally (YC, AirBnb, Arrington, PG, etc.). Even EJ has motivations in making as much noise as possible (ie. her compensation for damages will likely be much better now).

It's two-fold. On one hand, it's the law. On the other hand, I consider it a fair law. Pointing to other countries was simply to show that the US isn't alone in this thinking.

It has everything to do with opening the borders because if illegal immigrants have all the same rights as citizens then you're essentially inviting every immigrant to come to the US.

Of anyone, I would think you understand that our physical borders does not do a great job of preventing illegal immigrants from entering the country.

You seem to pick and choose your literal arguments from your theoretical ones.

The USA is not responsible for the citizens of Mexico and to imply that they are is actually insulting to Mexico. It says that they can't take care of their own citizens.

Everything else you said is simply biased slander on your part.

Do they? Just the other day I met an entrepreneur who was not American (either Canadian or European) who's able to work here on a "extraordinary ability" visa. He wasn't under an H1B and he's starting his own company.

My original point is that H1B is not a right, it's a privilege. Even though you're awesome (by your own account), I fail to see why you're owed anything.

I didn't meant to imply that. I just meant what I said which was that I'm well-aware of the illegal immigrant situation since I've lived in the middle of it.

While you understand the definition of discrimination, you fail to understand the concept and it's legal use.

Discrimination, in the legal sense, says that there should be no prejudice against people by race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and other protected groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

But legal status is _NOT_ a protected group.

Here's another way to look at it:

Criminals lose rights. They lose the right to roam freely in public among many other freedoms. Some of them lose the right to vote. By your definition, we discriminate against criminals since we treat them differently than we do law-abiding citizens.

Do you disagree with the disparity in this treatment?

Many people see illegal immigrants as breaking the law. Ergo the use of the word "illegal." Many people see them as criminals.

Ergo, differential treatment (or discrimination) is justified.

Even outside of these concepts, discrimination happens all the time. When people apply for a job, the smarter, more qualified candidate is discriminated against lesser candidates. Is this not fair?

When the NFL drafts certain players over others, that's discrimination. Is this not fair?

Anytime a person is chosen over another, you have discrimination. Your assertion that it is inherently unfair is wrong.

> At least today's undocumented immigrants live in peace.

Did you RTA? The whole article was about how he lives in constant fear. OTOH, my parents were legal immigrants and have no guilt over the british colonists who took this land over from the native americans. Same goes for me.

You can stick your head in the sand but, at the end of the day, you still have to obey the laws of the country you're in. Even if you join a cult or live in the remote mountains of Montana, you're still bound by law. This is true for you and for people who come here illegally.

Well 1) that is the rule of law. It's not just the case for the US but many other modern nations in this world.

2) Being a citizen doesn't just have benefits but also responsibilities. This is why we pledge allegiance.

At age 21 I had to register for the civil service. That means that if my country goes to war and I'm drafted then I must fight and possibly die for my country.

An illegal immigrant will not be drafted.

It also means other things I'm bound under federal law like paying taxes. There are also other civil duties like being on a jury to judge my fellow citizens. As a citizen, I'm bound by the laws on our constitution and those created by our legislature.

3) The privileges of a citizen allow them to contribute to the way our democracy functions including the right to vote.

An illegal immigrant cannot vote.

The rest of my argument was already stated above to you. If we completely open the borders to everyone, then our government wouldn't even be able to serve the current legal citizens.

You may dislike the system but in other countries such as Japan and Germany it is even more difficult and exclusionary. They are based on parentage and while that make more sense to you, it actually ends up leaving large classes of immigrants unnaturalized.

How is it not fair? Because you say so? Because you disagree with the system?

Is it more fair to have a free for all where people sneak in?

It's convenient to say something is not fair as justification to break all the rules.

Go BEARS!

Looking forward to seeing what you guys have in store.

If you think the privilege of an H1B is "indentured servitude", it seems that immigration is not for you. I don't expect to enter a foreign country and immediately have all the same worker rights as a citizen of that country.

I sympathize but, ultimately, do not find your argument compelling.

Mexico isn't the only poor country in the world. They just happen to be the one that's closest to the US. When my parents legally immigrated here, South Korea was a poor nation. Look at the history of US immigration and you'll see that this is a pattern (eg. Irish and Italians in the 1900s to modern day immigrants from Africa and Asia).

I'm from LA so I'm well aware of the economic contributions of the Mexican illegal immigrants.

With that said, I don't necessarily agree with your positions. Due to the massive rate of illegal immigration, agriculture has been able to thrive on low cost economics. If they didn't have that labor, it doesn't mean the US would shut down. What it would mean is that the US would have to adjust the economics in order to make it viable. This could result in the following:

a) A much larger legal guest worker program. b) Importing more agriculture from countries like Mexico. c) Higher wages for legal farm workers (including legal residents of Mexican origin).

In all 3 of these cases, it would lead to be a better situation for Mexican-Americans or Mexico. In the case of b), it would help the economics of Mexico.

I sympathize that Mexico is a poor country. Like I said before, there are many poor countries in this world. I don't want to sound callous but I don't understand how this is specifically the responsibility of the US. We don't even have a nationalized health system.

Also, allowing illegal immigration does not help Mexico in the long term. It won't fix their lack of economy and unemployment problems. Saying there are "physically too many people" is an excuse IMO. Every country battles the problem of unemployment.

Again, you're just reframing the argument in order to make it convenient for yourself.

I understand your position and, philosophically, it's an interesting one to take. But if you take your position to the extreme then there should be NO concept of citizenry.

It's all fine and dandy as a theoretical concept but has no bearing (or utility) on the real world. In the world, we are citizens of nations and citizenship is defined by laws. In the US, that citizenship can be given through birth.

Is that fair? Maybe not. But life's not fair. America has established a legal immigration system in order to (try to) make it fair. Simply ignoring that whole system and questioning the basic order of things seems like just an excuse to cut in line.

Better at rioting due to hockey losses! ;D

I'd keep in mind that this is the bay area which tends to be pretty gay friendly.