6 ms·

Hackpad and Loom? Dropbox is on a bit of a feeding frenzy.

by orik 13y ago

ihuman 13y ago
At least Hackpad is staying open (for now). Loom is no longer allowing new signups, and is shutting down completely next month.
rhizome 13y ago
A bit of goodwill generation after the whole Condoleeza thing.
- api 13y ago
  So did they dump the Bushevik war-pushing bitch or not?
  - mhurron 13y ago
    They probably don't need too, I doubt much of a stink was raised. EDIT: Oh my, people are upset that I stated I don't see much of an issue being made over Rices appointment.
  - bendoernberg 13y ago
    Classy
    - api 13y ago
      Classier than starting a war for no discernible rational reason. Edit: just to make my position clear: this goes beyond Democrat/Republican ideologies or politics and into the realm of criminality. This is in a wholly different league from the Mozilla CEO gay rights controversy. Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the Bush administration cynically exploited 9/11 to launch a completely unrelated war for no discernible reason other than to enrich their pals in the defense contracting industry and perhaps to pursue some crackpot political theories that were never publicly disclosed or discussed. These people lied us into a war, and every indication seems to be that they did so intentionally. They committed fraud at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and (conservatively) tens of thousands of innocent human lives. They are white collar criminals with blood on their hands and belong in prison. Am I wrong? They've had ample time to explain themselves and have failed to do so. I think it's because they can't. Anyone want to link to a rational and defensible explanation for the Iraq war that does not reference crackpot baloney from a right-wing rag like Pajamas Media or Fox News? (Just so you know this isn't totally partisan... I'd say the same thing if a similar thing were done based on information from AlterNet or TruthOut or some other lefty rag. By rag I mean 'clearly biased to the point of being untrustworthy news source.') What would you think if Dropbox had recruited -- say -- a Bernie Madoff type who happened to "get off" on a technicality for running a Ponzi scheme? What Bernie did did not (directly) kill anyone. I'm very curious to see how the stock of a company that recruits crooks to their board does on the open market.
      - gurkendoktor 13y ago
        > Just so you know this isn't totally partisan I've never even been to America, and I know fellow hackers who have also cancelled their Dropbox account over this. The Iraq war and American surveillance are not partisan topics. I'll be advising against Dropbox (and their new acquisitions) wherever I have the chance/influence.
        api 13y ago
        Iraq is far worse than mass surveillance, though the latter is definitely a problem. At least in the case of surveillance the supporters have made something like a rational case for why they think it's needed, and the topic is being debated as it should be. It also usually doesn't involve killing people, and the cost is far lower. I'm honestly not familiar with anything in recent American history as flagrant as the Iraq fraud. Even Vietnam made sense from a certain point of view and its supporters made their case and it was debated. It ended up being a bad idea, but it was technically a lot more democratic and less fraudulent. Some of its supporters have even admitted they were wrong. My darkest suspicion about Iraq is that the reasons are either too corrupt or insane to even discuss... either flat-out premeditated fraud or something in complete fruitcake territory like trying to initiate the millennial Christian eschaton. The fact that nobody has even tried to make a coherent well-articulated case that doesn't insult my intelligence makes me wonder.
        dang 13y ago
        This is off-topic and flamewar bait. Please stop.
      - DenisM 13y ago
        Politicians aren't the source of power, they are conduits of power. Rice happened to be a very good conduit.
        aridiculous 13y ago
        May I ask what/who you think is the source then?
  - nymph 13y ago
    Grow up, please. The b-word was completely uncalled for.
    - api 13y ago
      So was a trillion dollars in fraud. "NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said."
      - jkelsey 13y ago
        Most people here who don't have good opinion of Condoleezza Rice (myself included) because of the significant parts she played during the Bush Administration probably agree with the points you're making. However, gender has nothing to do with it. Building your criticisms on top of misogyny throws your entire motivations into question. The foundation has already rotted out and the rest of your arguments fell through; it's doubtful that most here are taking you seriously at this point.
        api 13y ago
        I sort of agree, believe it or not. At the same time, I must confess to harboring a dislike for polite civilized discourse in at least a couple circumstances. The films in the Hunger Games series (especially the first) really nail something: the way barbarians hide behind polite rhetoric and noble behavior. The brilliance of things like the original punk movement -- and comedians since time immemorial -- has been to mock that, to discuss the piggish behavior of corrupt elite deviants in appropriately piggish language. Condi's behavior in the 2000s I believe merits a little mockery for the upper-class rules of conduct that people like her hide behind. Of course I've had a mild personal disdain for the trappings of polite society ever since I did a stint in business consulting and watched the way white collar sociopaths conduct themselves in the real world. I'd rather count myself among the trash, thank you very much.
        13y ago
  - dang 13y ago
    The combination of inflammatory, if not abusive, language with glib one-liner sarcasm makes for a particularly bad Hacker News comment. All: When you see a comment that is truly bad for HN, you can flag it by clicking "link" to go to the item page and then "flag" at the top. We monitor those flags and take action based on them. (My point here has nothing to do with the Iraq War.)
mbesto 13y ago
They are prepping for an IPO. (note - for anyone not familiar, a common strategy just before an IPO is to cash out on a large chunk of capital so as to sweeten the deal for the much larger public capital raise)
- prostoalex 13y ago
  Mmm, how does having less capital on hand benefit the company that's approaching public markets for financing?

Hackpad and Loom? Dropbox is on a bit of a feeding frenzy.

by orik 13y ago

Hackpad and Loom? Dropbox is on a bit of a feeding frenzy.

At least Hackpad is staying open (for now). Loom is no longer allowing new signups, and is shutting down completely next month.

rhizome 13y ago

A bit of goodwill generation after the whole Condoleeza thing.

api 13y ago
So did they dump the Bushevik war-pushing bitch or not?
- mhurron 13y ago
  They probably don't need too, I doubt much of a stink was raised. EDIT: Oh my, people are upset that I stated I don't see much of an issue being made over Rices appointment.
- bendoernberg 13y ago
  Classy
  - api 13y ago
    Classier than starting a war for no discernible rational reason. Edit: just to make my position clear: this goes beyond Democrat/Republican ideologies or politics and into the realm of criminality. This is in a wholly different league from the Mozilla CEO gay rights controversy. Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the Bush administration cynically exploited 9/11 to launch a completely unrelated war for no discernible reason other than to enrich their pals in the defense contracting industry and perhaps to pursue some crackpot political theories that were never publicly disclosed or discussed. These people lied us into a war, and every indication seems to be that they did so intentionally. They committed fraud at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and (conservatively) tens of thousands of innocent human lives. They are white collar criminals with blood on their hands and belong in prison. Am I wrong? They've had ample time to explain themselves and have failed to do so. I think it's because they can't. Anyone want to link to a rational and defensible explanation for the Iraq war that does not reference crackpot baloney from a right-wing rag like Pajamas Media or Fox News? (Just so you know this isn't totally partisan... I'd say the same thing if a similar thing were done based on information from AlterNet or TruthOut or some other lefty rag. By rag I mean 'clearly biased to the point of being untrustworthy news source.') What would you think if Dropbox had recruited -- say -- a Bernie Madoff type who happened to "get off" on a technicality for running a Ponzi scheme? What Bernie did did not (directly) kill anyone. I'm very curious to see how the stock of a company that recruits crooks to their board does on the open market.
    - gurkendoktor 13y ago
      > Just so you know this isn't totally partisan I've never even been to America, and I know fellow hackers who have also cancelled their Dropbox account over this. The Iraq war and American surveillance are not partisan topics. I'll be advising against Dropbox (and their new acquisitions) wherever I have the chance/influence.
      - api 13y ago
        Iraq is far worse than mass surveillance, though the latter is definitely a problem. At least in the case of surveillance the supporters have made something like a rational case for why they think it's needed, and the topic is being debated as it should be. It also usually doesn't involve killing people, and the cost is far lower. I'm honestly not familiar with anything in recent American history as flagrant as the Iraq fraud. Even Vietnam made sense from a certain point of view and its supporters made their case and it was debated. It ended up being a bad idea, but it was technically a lot more democratic and less fraudulent. Some of its supporters have even admitted they were wrong. My darkest suspicion about Iraq is that the reasons are either too corrupt or insane to even discuss... either flat-out premeditated fraud or something in complete fruitcake territory like trying to initiate the millennial Christian eschaton. The fact that nobody has even tried to make a coherent well-articulated case that doesn't insult my intelligence makes me wonder.
        dang 13y ago
        This is off-topic and flamewar bait. Please stop.
    - DenisM 13y ago
      Politicians aren't the source of power, they are conduits of power. Rice happened to be a very good conduit.
      - aridiculous 13y ago
        May I ask what/who you think is the source then?
- nymph 13y ago
  Grow up, please. The b-word was completely uncalled for.
  - api 13y ago
    So was a trillion dollars in fraud. "NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said."
    - jkelsey 13y ago
      Most people here who don't have good opinion of Condoleezza Rice (myself included) because of the significant parts she played during the Bush Administration probably agree with the points you're making. However, gender has nothing to do with it. Building your criticisms on top of misogyny throws your entire motivations into question. The foundation has already rotted out and the rest of your arguments fell through; it's doubtful that most here are taking you seriously at this point.
      - api 13y ago
        I sort of agree, believe it or not. At the same time, I must confess to harboring a dislike for polite civilized discourse in at least a couple circumstances. The films in the Hunger Games series (especially the first) really nail something: the way barbarians hide behind polite rhetoric and noble behavior. The brilliance of things like the original punk movement -- and comedians since time immemorial -- has been to mock that, to discuss the piggish behavior of corrupt elite deviants in appropriately piggish language. Condi's behavior in the 2000s I believe merits a little mockery for the upper-class rules of conduct that people like her hide behind. Of course I've had a mild personal disdain for the trappings of polite society ever since I did a stint in business consulting and watched the way white collar sociopaths conduct themselves in the real world. I'd rather count myself among the trash, thank you very much.
        13y ago
- dang 13y ago
  The combination of inflammatory, if not abusive, language with glib one-liner sarcasm makes for a particularly bad Hacker News comment. All: When you see a comment that is truly bad for HN, you can flag it by clicking "link" to go to the item page and then "flag" at the top. We monitor those flags and take action based on them. (My point here has nothing to do with the Iraq War.)

mbesto 13y ago

They are prepping for an IPO. (note - for anyone not familiar, a common strategy just before an IPO is to cash out on a large chunk of capital so as to sweeten the deal for the much larger public capital raise)

prostoalex 13y ago
Mmm, how does having less capital on hand benefit the company that's approaching public markets for financing?