>Let's say that a friend of mine has a startup funded account at Chase, and where should they go?
Silicon Valley Bank... oh wait.
In all seriousness, the approachability and flexibility of SVB bankers was really unparalleled at the time. Not like Alex in this story, that made really half-baked attempts to engage with a client model he was entirely unfamiliar with (but got all the credit for). This being said, Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank continues to exist.
I see a lot of Fintech players on the scene now. Brex, Mercury and Rho are common ones, through Brex has taken steps to distance itself from true, seed-stage startups as of late. Given what happened with Synapse's failure [1], I have doubts that they have the same protections and regulations of a brick and mortar FDIC bank.
Diversification is key too - so having multiple accounts. Some non-fintech banks I've seen floating around, ironically, JP Morgan Startup Banking, Wells Fargo Technology Banking Group, Citigroup Commercial Bank, PNC Technology Finance. All big banks, just not their retail banking divisions (as the author was experienced using).
As the former community manager for ClamAV, there could have been some work done here to correct the situation and make both parties happy. I know ClamAV doesn't want to see third party utilities go away, and it's beneficial to the community for them to exist. Trolls exist, but there are ways to deal with them. I ran ClamAV and Snort for about 15 years, and we had plenty of heat over the years. This could have been avoided.
A single developer doesn't have a 'community manager' to deal with assholes. That said, why would one try to make the troll happy? What reading this results in "they both have a valid point we should address"?
Im not saying the developer needs to have a community manager. Im saying this could have been handled differently by any number of people. I dont want to point fingers.
"Confirmation. So the question in my mind is: is the UK Government attempting to cover-up its previous advocacy of ADP, by censoring this old document? Or does it instead want the UK legal profession to avoid use of ADP and to what end?"
No, they just changed their advice/webpage. They aren't trying to "cover-up" anything. They just changed their stance in the face of current requests and laws. It's not a conspiracy.
The author recounts their experience as an intern building software for the Department of Defense, unaware of its intended use. The software, designed to locate WiFi signals, utilized algorithms like R^2, Gaussian estimation, and Kalman Filters to improve accuracy and tracking capabilities. Despite the technical intrigue, the author acknowledges the software’s purpose was to aid in killing people, highlighting the ethical implications of their work.
The author recounts a past experience working on a project for a Department of Defense contractor, where they were tasked with creating a tool to locate phones, ultimately realizing it was intended for targeting and potentially killing individuals. This experience, along with examples like a deceptive quiz and Uber’s “greyball” feature, highlights the potential for code to be used unethically or even illegally. The author emphasizes the importance of developers considering the ethical implications of their work, as software increasingly impacts various aspects of society.
Developers have a responsibility to consider the potential misuse of their work, as unethical applications can have serious consequences. While there is no universal solution, developers should critically evaluate project requests, consider worst-case scenarios, and prioritize ethical considerations over deadlines. Ultimately, developers must decide whether to build a product, even if it has the potential for misuse, or to prioritize ethical concerns and potentially face consequences.
As a board member of an organization that was benefiting from Amazon Smile, this is just the lamest set of excuses I've ever seen. Amazon should have said: "We're cutting this because we don't want to maintain it, it hasn't been staffed, and isn't focused in our core business (making money)"
You may see it differently having profited but I think good riddance. Shoppers shouldn't get the false sense they're doing something good by buying at Amazon. We spend $100 and they donate 50 cents but the remaining 99.5% of the money is spent in ways that do not benefit us common folk, often to the contrary. Better to be mindful what and where you buy, shopping at Amazon and then letting them do a small donation seems a bit like they're handing out indulgence certificates.
People can make donations in their own name and get tax deductions for it, unlike with Smile where Amazon claims the deductions for itself. And why should a giant multinational corporation decide for us a list of eligible donation receivers? Some of those "charities" are very questionable and I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world.
Tax deductions for charitable donations are not a thing everywhere in the world. Here in the UK it kind of is, but the charity has to claim it, ands back 25p on each £1.
But more to your point: I have six committed monthly donors for the PTFA for which I’m treasurer. I have at least a couple dozen individuals signed up for AmazonSmile and Easy Fundraising.
People could donate before Amazon Smile existed why would that increase now it's gone? I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program.
Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
"I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world."
> I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program.
This is exactly the controversy. Customers are not making donations in these types of programs. Whether a portion of the proceeds are donated or not, the customer pays the same price. Hence, all of it is the retailer's income. The customer only influences to whom the retailer donates and how much. And because the customer is not the donor in the transaction, organizations do not get contact information.
Despite this arrangement, customers often consider themselves a donor anyway, and some have argued this can lead to a reduction in overall donations as a result.
> Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.
It is disturbing. Myths abound, and organizations sometimes struggle to educate donors about the basics of philanthropy, especially the larger numbers of donors with smaller pockets.
In the case of AmazonSmile, I think it's hit or miss. Plenty of organizations get paltry payouts. We've averaged less than $20 a quarter since we've been participating over the last four years, and almost of third of those quarters had no payout at all.
Says "looks much into if what they do with the money". Corruption means doing bad things with the money, which is what most people don't look much into. Sentences.
This doesn't make sense to me. Charities arnt just magically forces for good. I'm sure there are a great deal of charities who do things you would consider to be bad things, as their entire mission statement. And I'm sure some of those charities have names that sound very good on a Amazon smile list.
Which is ridiculous. Why would clear communication like that hurt their business?
Because that would lead to more customer outrage than this? What a ridiculous point we've reached as a society if we can't take clear communication and we give incentives to lie to us.
What if we legitimately object to the truth about their motives and/or behavior? Why would it be on us to coddle zillion-dollar corporations? It's not my job to make it easy for them to be terrible.
It's not that society, or even we as HN commenters, have decided that "this is fine" because they weren't as blunt as they could have been, but they're minimizing the overall negative emotions. By having excuses and saying they're still donating $x a year, some percentage of readers who would have started to look for products elsewhere will instead go "sad, but the impact is minimal" and likely won't second-guess using Amazon for purchases.
my email address is very guessable. I've been using iCloud's anonymous email feature since it rolled out a couple versions of MacOS ago, and my spam has decreased dramatically.
Let's say that a friend of mine has a startup funded account at Chase, and where should they go?