nymph

You're welcome to question his motives, rather than address the substance of what he's saying, if you'd prefer.

BTW: the point about drug testing applies to the handful of cool, geeky, "Agile" companies that adhere to this ridiculous practice, too.

In fact, a certain company by the name of Pivotal Labs comes to mind.

So -- anyone from Pivotal reading this? You're more than welcome to share your true thoughts about your employer's urine fetish, here and now -- safely and anonymously! On the off chance that upper management might actually care what you think about the topic, and perchance, take you seriously.

But heavens, don't do this while your frontline manager is standing nearby! You might get... caught!

Everyone knows the hours are bullshit, and actually impair productivity and judgement.

But they're there to serve a Higher Purpose: to engender classic, Stockholm Syndrome endearment -- and unquestioned obedience.

It's like so obvious, if you've spent any time at all working for one of these places. Or heck, even interviewing with them.

Here's what it all boils down to: aside the quants, the genuinely alpha traders, and few other wonky actuarial types, most of the grunts (you know: the "analysts"... and the vast majority of the IT types) don't seem to be there, or to have any other propelling motive in life, other than: (1) the above-average salary, and (2) once you're in, you're pretty much guaranteed to do alright -- as long as you're willing to fit in, never even think of rocking the boat, and be ready and willing to continually supplicate your superiors at all times.

Hence the ridiculously subdued style of dress (the dainty dress shoes, the blue and bland off-white shirts), and the curiously submissive demeanor of about 80% of the people you'll meet working there.

Oh, and that drug test, that everyone snickers about below their breath? Including your hiring manager? As everybody knows, it certainly isn't there out of any concern that you'd be abusing intoxicants (after all, you're more than welcome to get shitfaced on alcohol every night of the week -- which most nights you'll find yourself more or less needing to, to drown out the pain, and there sheer inanity of what you're asked to do).

It's there as a gesture of supplication and obedience -- nothing more. Getting you to drop your trousers, whip our your gear, and provide a "specimen" upon demand -- just because your superiors told you to! -- isn't an unfortunate side aspect of drug screening; it's the true purpose of the ritual -- the very end goal, in itself.

Precious.

Another instance of the principle that money is, in many ways, like violence: you'd like to think that if it hasn't solved your problem already, if you just keep throwing more and more at it it, you'll solve it eventually -- but all to often, it just makes the problem worse.

And inasmuch as Zuck would like to believe that being young means you're smarter... whatever your baseline, oftentimes, having too much money -- in Zuck's case, literally more money than he knows what to do with -- just makes us stupider.

Between 2010 and 2012, The New Yorker reports that "more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms with various specialties: public relations, human resources, communications, data analysis, [and] teacher evaluation." Many of the consultants were being paid upwards of $1,000 a day.

“Everybody’s getting paid but Raheem still can’t read," Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, was quoted saying.

Not a bad analogy (despite the fecal reference). Arguably the U.S. should also have been sanctioned by the world community for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere. Not to mention for the conditions endured by prisoners in solitary confinement in its own domestic system.

But what you need to understand is that the UAE is perfectly aware of its horrendous human rights record, and so undertakes "feel good" campaigns like this "good drones" program (and its partnership with NYU... and all the scholarships, and funding for the arts) specifically to distract your attention, and to burnish its image.

And BTW, speaking of shit:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - An American held in the United Arab Emirates for nine months for his role in an online parody video about youth culture in Dubai said Friday that he was scared at times and was kept in filthy conditions where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs."

...

Cassim said he stayed for about two months in the Dubai jail, where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs" and conducted room searches in full riot gear. The food was abysmal, and for a time Cassim ate just enough bread to keep himself going.

He said the conditions were unsanitary. Blankets were shared without being washed, and 130 people had to use a communal bathroom.

"The smell was horrendous," he said, adding that he thought the toilets were made of clay until one detainee cleaned them - only to find they were metal and had been covered with caked-on feces. When the communal sink was cleaned with bleach, he said, black maggots crawled out from the tile.

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/01/17/american-recounts-expe...

Positive activities like this competition will probably help make an end to this insanity

How, exactly?

How'bout a drone to enforce the death penalty for the open practice of homosexuality (UAE being one of 10 countries in the world to do so):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_United_Arab_Emi...

http://www.arablawsworld.com/uae-laws-in-english.php

Or to assist with the forced deportation of Shi'ites:

http://abna.co/data.asp?lang=3&id=390575

Or torture drones for jails (torture being a "systematic practice" in UAE state security facilities, according to HRW):

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/27/uae-reports-systematic-to...

Or a drone to help husbands "chastise" their wives (or children) -- being as "the UAE penal code, sanctions beating and other forms of punishment or coercion providing the violence leaves no physical marks" -- as determined in 2010 by the UAE's highest court:

https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/19/uae-spousal-abuse-nev...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/10/19/uae.court.ruling/i...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/UAE-cou...

Or my personal favorite, the Sheik Issa Mark V -- a drone that can run over a man while driving a Mercedes SUV; rub salt into his wounds; and set his genitals afire with lighter fluid -- all while instructing a camereman (filming everything for the world to see), "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issa_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan#Trial...

The possibilities are endless.

This makes business ethics a lot more complex.

Complex, yes, but not nearly as complex as junior founders tend to think they are.

Like as not their definition of a "complex" business ethical comes down to, more or less:

"Say WHA? They're actually reading the contract I downloaded from somewhere (or which some random mentor gave to me) -- and they actually think it means what it says? And they want to negotiate some aspect of it? OMG they're lawyering up on me! Worse, they seem to know more than I do! I'm scared!"

Sarcastic it was, I confess.

But to the friend of mine this happened to (at the hands of a 25 year-old first-time "founder"), it was anything but.

And when they gave their "explanation", it was pure deadpan -- without the slightest trace of irony or humility.

What do you mean, "without cause"? There are plenty of good reasons for firing people just after you've hired them:

"We really appreciate your strong backend skills (especially being as we're still trying to figure out like, namespaces and stuff). But we just found this frontend guy who's really hawt! And we can't afford him unless we fire you."

"It's not a culture fit."

"It's just not working out."

etc.

More likely it was an aggregation of events that prompted it.

It's amazing the extent to which (what should be) self-evident principles such as this whole "fairness and respect" thing, "honoring handshake deals", and "generally behaving in an upstanding way (even though it may be convenient or profitable for you not to)" seem to be beyond the cognitive grasp of certain "founders" I know.

A couple of remarks:

(1) I'm just putting this up there for the picture feed; not because I support the viewpoint in the blogpost (which I declined to translate further, once I came across phrases like "Typical Hollywood (USA/Israeli) false flag operation.")

(2) It's a child link of the blog post discussed here yesterday:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7708342

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_May_2014_Odessa_clashes

California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right.

I think what you meant to say was:

"The defendant's position is that California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right."

As in: this "does not override" phrase you gingerly tucked is not only far from obvious (in this use case); it's highly, highly contentious -- and requires aggressive substantiation to be tenable. In fact, it's a lot like saying:

"The title for this Brooklyn brownstone I just bought ultimately traces back to the Dutch land grants (or Lenape tribe covenants, etc; take your pick); NYC's zoning restrictions do not override the existing property rights. So if you don't like this 40-story casino-hotel-brothel complex I'm building, well, you can just bugger off."

"Underpowered" would have been damning enough, and a reasonably fair accusation to make.

But it wasn't good enough for Horvath: in order to get her point across -- and to play with your head -- she needs you to believe that you to believe there was "no investigation."

"No investigation" was just another instance of manipulative communication tactics on her part.

She knew very well that an investigation was being conducted; it just wasn't an investigation to her liking.

The patently evasive language of Horvath's non-denial -- contrasted with the very specific language in the (albeit anonymous, but credible-sounding) medium post -- make it increasingly difficult to take anything else she's saying seriously, moving forward.

In particular -- if she's going to level tacit, but just the same highly public and career-damaging accusations of sexual harassment or other misconduct against other GitHub employees -- which, going by the language of her recent j'accuse tweet ("Don't do business with ...") would pretty much have to be what she's implying (even though she won't say it directly)[1,2] -- then she had better be prepared to back up what she's saying with reality-based specifics.

Being as, going by her "uneven", to say the least, track record on veracity thus far, we just don't have much reason to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[1] https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459358875213238272 [2] also http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/24/horvath-names-names/, since deleted.

...for some value of "parsing"

If you've ever watched someone pass -- you'd know how true this is.

Tens of thousands of times over, they've desensitized us to the most intimate and intense of experiences. Yet when it happens right in front of you, to someone you truly love and have shared your life with, it completely consumes and destroys you.

There's nothing you've ever seen on the screen that can possibly compare to it.

That's about what I thought. But as it happens, no, I wasn't doubting the claims -- I just wasn't following the story obsessively and wasn't aware of the details.

Thanks.

Downvoters: Would you mind explaining yourselves? It was a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

There was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate.

Such as?

It wasn't "trashy"; it was misogynist.

And as such, there's no place for it on HN.

Grow up, please. The b-word was completely uncalled for.

Taxis are insanely expensive in Germany.

Like lots of other things in Europe, some things are cheaper, and some thing more expensive than in North American cities.

But to say that taxis are "insanely" expensive is not just overdrawn, but disconnected from reality.

And doesn't in the least detract from the main point: that just because Uber (or its fans on HN) perceive taxi fares as being higher in some locations than in others, doesn't give Uber the right to bust its way through local regulations. Period.

Strange that a practice that has been practiced for tens of thousands of years by cultures all over the world has to stake a legal claim for itself, and re-brand as "Open Source" in order to survive.

Very, very strange.

That's totally a legitimate concern.

No, it's not. If it were, you'd reveal your identities, just like in any business transaction.

"Benjamin, I want to say one word to you. Just one word … ”

"Yes … What is is, Mr. McGuire?”

"Plastics.”

    http://youtu.be/PSxihhBzCjk

Fun part is that, if convicted, he'll stand to receive a punishment multiple orders of magnitude greater than the repercussions his tormenters stand (in terms of expectation values) to face, for even a single day of the abuses they suffered upon him.

Or for that matter, those faced by the administrators of his school for allowing the abuses to happen in the first place.