mynewwork

I don't see exactly what the threat here is. How am I being harmed by someone choosing to show me an ad for something relevant to my interests than something that's not?

I'm not saying that I'm not being harmed, just that I don't see it. Are companies quoting me higher prices than if I was in the lowest-income bucket or hiding lower-cost alternatives?

That actually sounds like a very reasonable mistake for someone to make. I'm not familiar with exactly how the dropbox UI works (if they would have gotten prompts or warnings), but it does go outside of the typical users mental model if deleting a file on their drive means that the file gets deleted on the server and their friend's PC as well.

Tragically opening a call center likely wouldn't help at all. Many people in poverty in the US are actually better off staying unemployed because their entitlements (food stamps, housing assistance, free child care, etc) go down or disappear if they get a job.

Our current setup is severely broken and full of perverse incentives that trap people in poverty. In an effort to prevent abuse we've stripped eligibility for assistance programs to only the near-destitute but then set the payouts at a higher level than many of those people are likely to earn on re-entering the workforce.

Dozens of programs, at both a state and federal level, would need to be overhauled so that the incentives led people out of poverty instead of creating a chasm between government dependence and entry-level labor.

I understand the problems with checking-in as you go places. What I don't understand is the value in checking in as you leave. Why publish a check-in at all? What do users gain by checking-in?

This may be a dumb question, what is the value in checking in when leaving? I might not understand the point of foursquare, I thought the check-ins were used so people could meet up with friends who were in the area.

Are there rewards or incentives for checking in or is it for social prestige by being in the right places at the right time? Something else I'm not thinking of?

Is putting 2XC on default perhaps a strategic move in response to the rise of tumblr?

Tumblr has a pretty large number of very-active posters across a broad range of feminism/lgbt/racism/etc blogs. Basically if you can come up with something that can be discriminated against, there is probably an active tumblr blog about it.

Assuming it doesn't alienate too many other users, pulling in that very-active userbase might be a lucrative move for Reddit/Conde Nast.

It's entirely possible they are self-aware enough to appreciate being part of the joke.

Many people on HN enjoy the show despite having similarities to the characters. I see no reason to believe 'techcrunch can't realize they're being made fun of' is any more true than suggesting 'engineers can't realize they're being made fun of' on the show.

They do if they want to work for Google, Adobe, Intel...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/technology/settlement-sili...

http://pando.com/2014/03/27/how-steve-jobs-forced-google-to-...

This is the type of pointless click-bait, flamewar-starting article I used to flag, but I appear to have lost my ability to flag articles. Has the karma threshold changed or was my account specifically stopped from flagging by a mod?

When you say bitcoin doesn't have them, you just mean bitcoin is currently making it possible for you to commit tax fraud, right?

Bitcoin hasn't magically changed the laws of the world, it's not freeing anyone from restrictions. If you're using it in a manner to avoid taxes, launder money, fund terrorists or whatever, that's still just as illegal as if you were doing it with a briefcase of cash or gold.

But this app isn't a bully picking on you every day. It's every potential bully standing behind a curtain yelling non-stop insults against every person in the school.

Surely it takes most of the sting out of the insult when everyone is getting continuously insulted anonymously.

Why would anyone worry about being anonymously slandered, on a stream of nothing but anonymous slander?

It seems like it would take about 1 day for this to go from truths and half-truths to just a contest for who can write the most shocking or offensive statement. At that point, who cares if it's your name being used on a made up shock-value joke or story? Any real information would be safely obscured by a mountain of false accusations.

But, Google+ showed that they were incredibly influential. The real-name policy was the primary narrative about Google+. Feminist bloggers complained it would expose women to stalkers and abusive ex's. Journalists wrote about the underlying racism of the algorithm assuming Anglo-Saxon naming conventions and highlighted people barred from the service for having names from a different ethnic or cultural background. Techies wrote about privacy and big brother.

The end result was every article about Google+ carried with it some form of controversy, negativity or problem. Joe average might not care about the real name policy at first, but they do care when they're told it's broken, sexist, racist and dangerous.

Off-topic to OP, but relevant to your story:

As a child, I was a very competitive soccer player. The only league available for me to play in was the local rec league, where everyone got roughly equal playing time and many referees, coaches and parents had a very indifferent "it's just kids playing a game" attitude.

I was constantly frustrated and frequently felt insulted that something I cared so much about (winning, and playing the game properly) was being held out of reach by the adults in charge. I wanted to play the game right and let the rightful team win, but was forced to lose games by well-meaning parents who apparently didn't believe 9 year olds had the same hopes, dreams and aspirations as everyone else.

So you may regret that the two weakest players on your team didn't get to play as much one game. But somewhere out there is a 10 year old who got to experience playing the game right, and even though his team lost the final 9-1, it was probably the best game of the year to him.

I have average health insurance. My insurance pays 80% of my costs until I have spent $5,000 and then it pays 100% after that.

As I said in my original post, I'm talking about the middle class not the poor. A maximum out-of-pocket of 5k or 6k should not bankrupt a middle class person.

To counter your anecdote with my anecdote, I've observed the complete opposite.

An American professional will easily afford a car (and two cars for a 2-adult household), will be able to go out to lunch regularly and go out to dinner when they please. If they want to see a specialist for a medical issue they'll have an appointment in a day.

A Danish professional may not have a car at all for a few years out of college and will likely struggle to have a second car for their partner even as a senior-level employee. They will bring their lunch every day and rarely if ever go out for dinner. Their medical issues will take weeks or months to be seen if deemed non-emergency and they'll have less choice in which doctor they see.

It's probably easier to be at the bottom of society in western Europe than in the US, but for anyone in the American middle class their quality of life would go down substantially if the moved to Scandinavia.

Steve jobs lied to his close friend Steve Wozniak about the payment from Atari in the 1970s so he could keep 90% of the money. His daughter was raised on welfare by a single mother for a period of time while he refused to help or acknowledge his paternity. He cheated early employees out of equity to such a degree that Wozniak gave some of his shares away to make up for it.

I can't see any reason to believe that if Jobs was still here today that he would suddenly become compassionate, caring or empathetic after showing none of those traits for 40 years.

Missing from the conversation seems to be the complete removal of all outlets for energy, anger, aggression or frustration for children today.

Maybe if the kid dealing with his parents divorce got to play dodgeball in second period he'd be able to calmly sit and pay attention in third and fourth.

Maybe if the victim could punch his bully once without fear of zero-tolerance policies suspending/expelling him, the problem wouldn't continue to build until they snap and do something drastic or more often, just develop lasting social/emotional issues.

Dodgeball was a fun part of grade school. We had a rule that you couldn't throw the ball at someone's head. I never saw an injury and the best players on the opposite team were more likely to be targeted than the weakest.

So you completely rely on a free web service to store something that important to you? It's unlikely now that they're owned by fb, but trusting a zero-revenue startup to offer you free access to some photos indefinitely probably isn't the safest assumption.

Just the opposite is probably more important. Since sales taxes can vary locally (city, county, state) hiding the real price prevents people from noticing they can get cheaper goods by driving across an imaginary line.

Example: There is a walmart in both Cityville and its suburb Township. Cityville has a 9% sales tax but Township has a 7% tax rate. Both stores can advertise that they're selling a tv for $500, even though it costs $545 in Cityville but $535 in Township.

This helps prevent people from driving to the Township store to save money, because the advertised price is the same and most people won't think about the tax rate difference.

"Become millionaires" sounds a lot sexier than "Will be adequately prepared for retirement when they're 65".

If you have a full career in any white-collar profession and don't have a million dollars between your 401k, home equity, IRA and other savings when you retire, you spent too many years living too wastefully.

People speeding in the far left lane don't bother me. Your advice to "stay out of the left hand lane" and have a "car... on the left side shield you" are bad, dangerous advice.

Pass on the left. If you're passing people on the right then you're driving dangerously. (With an obvious exception for the occasional person going 60 in the left lane that you're forced to go around)

It's really 9 to 6 or 8 to 5. Most people take an hour for lunch (nearby restaurant, onsite cafeteria, brought from home).

I edited my comment several times and I think the message I was originally trying to convey got less clear as a result.

I don't for a moment believe the startup actually failed due solely to the designer. And yet, it's more likely that the designer just wasn't google-quality than libelling google by claiming it was sexism that caused them to hire a few engineers but not the designer from a failed startup.

What a ridiculously terrible article.

The company "decided to sell itself to Google as a last resort, after failing to find traction in the market". But the engineers got hired, so probably the product was good but the failure was in marketing, branding, etc. Who was in charge of that? "I did our user experience, our logo, the marketing – all that stuff," she said.

So the article could have been written "Strong technical team makes valuable product, but bad marketing and UI prevents success" and no one would be surprised that the engineers got hired and the marketing & design people didn't.

But that wouldn't fit with the sexism in tech narrative the author wanted, so let's ignore the most significant and obvious facts.

Another example of poor reporting of a poorly designed study. People will read this and come away thinking a vegetarian diet was shown to be less healthy. Yet the exact same study and data could have been written up as "People with health issues more likely to choose a vegetarian diet" which would invert the implied causal relationship.

If I click a link on my phone and it tries to get me to install an app, I'm instantly hitting the back button.

Do people really install random apps because they saw a one-sentence advertisement on facebook? I really don't know what normal behavior is for the average facebook user.

I love when people end an argument with "Do not respond to me about <the obviously controversial part of my opinion>".

The fact is, people from all backgrounds and political viewpoints hold opinions which they view as absolute. Whether that's "being anti-gay is equivalent to being pro-slavery" or "abortion is murder", people are going to disagree even if they are both guided by the same fundamentally good goals.

A new Corvette convertible in 1970 cost $4,849 when the average white male made $7,011.

A new Corvette convertible in 2014 costs $58,000 when the average white male makes $31,335.

Young people are going to stop caring about cars when all they can afford is a honda civic. Cars which are exciting, sexy, impressive, etc are simply out of reach for most young people. Unsurprisingly, no one cares which boring sedan they or their friends are driving.

I had the exact same experience. Eye-rolled at the title but clicked anyway and was pleasantly surprised to find a really interesting bit of research in the actual article.

Semi-related, I've lost my ability to flag things on HN. Did something about karma levels needed change or did I just lose it at the whim of some mod? (I have a tendency to flag items with headlines like this, although this article is HN worthy).