The Rise of the New Global Elite - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/ <comment><USER2> Single page: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the- rise-o...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the-rise-of-the- new-global-elite/8343/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I question exactly how long-lived this new wealth is or will be.

Look at the Rothschilds - they have figured out a way to take the initial 1700s wealth and keep it (we can assume mostly) together in a relatively cohesive lump for some 300 years.

A less "notorious" example would be the duPonts, easily trillionaires if you were to add up the wealth accumulated amongst this wealthy family.

Against that, someone worth $100 million who gives 90% of it away when he/she passes doesn't seem all that significant.

Not sniping, just expressing a contrary POV to consider...

<comment><USER4>
       > keep it .. we can assume mostly.. in a relatively
       > cohesive lump for some 300 years.

I think I disagree but it might just be over choice of words. It's an interesting topic that I want to develop and I'll charge on.

On the topic of intergenerational wealth, it's not enough to say that you can keep a lump of wealth. During the 300 years you talk about, governments rose and fell, and currencies and sovereign debt with them. In order to stay above water, you have to float your position across multiple regimes and positions. Or keep it in a lump of gold. That didn't do that - they worked money hard.

Rothschilds took on huge positions in the Napoleonic wars that could easily have gone wrong. They then would have lost it all due to poor timing over the end of the waterloo campaign but leveraged up by taking an audacious position on sovereign bonds that paid off and made them even richer. My point is, they gambled the house at several points.

Part of what's striking about the Rothschilds specifically is that they kept a healthy mindset across several generations. This is a wildly interesting topic that has crossover with another article hacker news today link today to the atlantic, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2072200>

In that article you see lots of people who came from aspirational backgrounds. But how do you keep that? How do you raise a wealthy family in a way that passes on those values?

<comment><USER3> I upvoted you because you have hit on the core question: how do you stay hungry after that first x million, and how do you pass it on to the next generation?

Some family members have achieved relative wealth and I see this with their children who attend private schools ... I see nephews and nieces likely to pursue professions, but do not see the same competitive drive being passed along.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a fine exposition on the state of the world today -- and the hope that these hard-working global citizens will help create a more equitable world -- but it's worth remembering that there's nothing new under the sun.

After all, the British royal family is of German descent.

</comment><comment><USER6> > . . . but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and > the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.

Because opportunity springs not from the ingenuity of man but the granting of nations who "own" him.

<comment><USER7> I understand your sentiment, and don't really disagree, but keep in mind that it's basically impossible to innovate or build wealth under unfavorable institutions. So... some value probably "should" accrue to nations.

<comment><USER6> Yes, for sure. Some of the benefits should return to the nation that provided the favorable conditions (and do, in the form of that person's taxes and also in the form of opportunity-seekers from around the globe flocking to the places where growth is possible). But I don't like the notion that people owe their successes to their country any more than I believe they are indebted to oxygen or gravity.

<comment><USER8> You may not like the idea but that doesn't necessarily have any bearing on its truth. None of us does anything on our own - water, power, roads, schools, the list goes on and on (not all directly attributable to the country itself, but certainly national governments are high on the list of contributors to these projects in almost all cases, and I haven't even mentioned things like tax policy yet). I think the days of the nation-state are numbered but we can't ignore what those entities did for human progress. Maybe not in the form of a literal debt, but it's short-sighted and antisocial to pretend that the elites didn't have a hundred million helping hands on their way up.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps, but the elites have already paid for all of those helping hands many times over. The top 5% paid about 60% of the nation's taxes, for instance, and they almost certainly have not used 60% of the public services.

<http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html>

In spite of this, most of the services they paid for are _not_ the public goods (e.g., roads, power, water, police) you describe. Of the top 5 biggest expenditures in the US, only the 4'th is a public good.

<http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year2008_US.html>

And this completely ignores all the consumer surplus they have created (i.e., the happiness you get from using a macbook rather than having $1000). The elites have paid their debt. Let them leave if they want to.

The US should not become a prison state.

<comment><USER10> I think the point is that the elite benefit from the public services even if we do not use them directly. E.g. if we work in an office building we benefit from the services that allowed the worker vacuuming to be there, though we didn't necessarily take the bus there ourselves. [edit] but this is not to say that anyone should be restricted unduly.

<comment><USER9> First of all, if the worker is a taxpayer, the employer is already paying for those services in the form of pre-tax wages. I pay for my own police protection, and I raise my wage commensurately [1]. This is all included in the cost of labor.

Secondly, most government spending does not provide those necessary services. Roads, police and water are just not very expensive. Most government spending is just transfers from the wealthy to the less wealthy - see my second link in my previous post.

[1] Actually, my landlord pays for police protection, and has raised my rent commensurately.

<comment><USER10> Most of the cleaning service people are not _really_ taxpayers[1], which is why including them distorts the equation. They are benefiting w/out contributing, and we do in fact, need them. Also reinforcing my point, How can you claim that Defense is the only public good in the top 5? What percentage of the population must benefit to qualify?

[1]From other IRS data, we can see that in 2008, around 52 million tax returns were filed with either positive or negative AGI that used exemptions, deductions and tax credits to completely wipe out their federal income tax liability. Not only did they get back every dollar that the federal government withheld from their paychecks during 2008, but some even received more back from the IRS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is Greenspan so often referred to as libertarian or an ultra-capitalist? Central banking is the polar opposite of both these things.

When Greenspan says something like "capitalism has failed", it isn't some sort of grand ideological reversal, it's an unwitting joke.

<comment><USER12> not that those references are true, but the guy was part of the friggin Ayn Rand Collective.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I wasn't skint I would right now buy the domain

fucktheglobalelite.com

Not sure what it would have apart from a link to the article and "seriously, fuck those guys"

<comment><USER14> Why do you have a problem with them? They made money and now they hack word poverty. What's wrong with that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is wealth/poverty relative or absolute?

I think most people would be happier if they saw it in more absolute terms. I have witnessed wealthy people made to feel like paupers when a yet more wealthy person puts on a display that they can't afford. The phenomena is actually quite comical.

Still it's fairly clear that wealth will always be a measuring stick that people will use to display their relative worth. It's like plumage. A lot of resources go into growing those fancy tail feathers. In itself I don't see anything wrong with that. It's quite natural.

However it's important for societal cohesion that the absolute wealth of the average does not fall and that they can maintain some semblance of dignity.

</comment><comment><USER16> Good read on the world trending towards meritocracy, esp during these times as a lot of older institutions are getting turned upside-down. It reminds me of this old PG post, "After Credentials" - <http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.html>

"The course of people's lives in the US now seems to be determined less by credentials and more by performance than it was 25 years ago."

</comment><comment><USER17> One thing that's disturbing these days is there is even a huge gap in wealth between someone in the top 1% and the top 0.1%.

<comment><USER18> Why? Why is that disturbing? This is a genuine question.

It doesn't disturb me one bit. As long as each generation is relatively wealthier than the prior one, I don't care about the spread within that generation.

My grandfather died of pneumonia at age 56 due to a lack of oxygen and antibiotics at the hospital. They didn't have enough money to paint their house and instead used old tractor sump oil. My parents, when married, didn't have hot water or a toilet inside the house. They had never travelled more than 200 miles from their place of birth.

My kids have access to better health, leisure, education, food and housing than even I did, which is not that long ago.

This continual improvement in wealth amongst my own family is proof enough that the very rich aren't impinging on what really matters, which is improving living standards for the majority of people.

Paraphrasin PG in one of his essays - it doesn't disturb me that Mozart was 1 million times more musically talented than I am, or that Tiger Woods is 10 million times better at golf. Their ability and success doesn't impede on my life at all - if anything - it improves it. It's not unfair (in any real sense) that Federer can play tennis very well and I can't hit the ball to save myself. So why is it unfair that someone has talent at making money and can make a million times more money than I can? In a free society, (apart from a very tiny minority who steal or lie their way to it) the only way they can get (and stay) rich is by providing excess value to everyone else. That's true whether you are kicking a ball, trading stocks or building software.

Nobody has ever successfully convinced me why wealth disparity in a free society is a problem. If anything, I see it as a sign of a healthy society.

<comment><USER19> No time for a thorough answer, but a few clues as to why it's not always a great thing.

First, some data:

<http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html>

[http://www.good.is/post/americans-are-horribly- misinformed-a...](http://www.good.is/post/americans-are-horribly-misinformed- about-who-has-money/)

In a nutshell: the top 20% of the populace controls 85% of the US's wealth.

1\. Increasing wealth concentration = increasing concentration of political power => democracy undermined. US is excellent example - the populace can vote, but only for candidates preselected by funders in the top 20%; populace can advocate, but top 20% has much better access, influence (due to both campaign funding and 'revolving door' jobs when leaving office), and in some cases actually writes the legislation (bank bailout being a major example).

When that happens, you get capture of the government and regulators, financial excess & crisis, and symptoms of banana republic:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the- quie...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet- coup/7364/)

2\. _'As long as each generation is relatively wealthier than the prior one, I don't care about the spread within that generation.'_

That's held true for decades, but is not guaranteed to continue forever. Problem of induction: no amount of confirming observations can prove a theory true, while one single refuting observation can disprove it. Eg, even if all strata of every generation has always been relatively wealthier than the previous generation, that is no guarantee the same thing will continue indefinitely in the future.

Highly concentrated wealth also skews some economic statistics, masking the plight of the lower and middle class. The latter can even be in decline while the top 20% are making out like bandits by outsourcing chunks of our wealth- creating 'making things' industries to higher-profit-margin manufacturing centers, and that wouldn't show up on some stats based on averages.

The workers get laid off while the CEOs, boards, 'pay consultants', and shareholders pocket the increased profits. And when the top 20% controls 85% of the wealth, guess who those shareholders are. Bottom 80% is increasingly locked out of the wealth that can be generated from ownership, and forced to subsist as wage slaves.

There are arguments that is what is beginning to happen now.

3\. _'This continual improvement in wealth amongst my own family is proof enough that the very rich aren't impinging on what really matters, which is improving living standards for the majority of people.'_

Your standard for 'proof' is pretty low. That's a single data point anecdote. C'mon now.

4\. Extremely high wealth concentration has historically been associated with revolutions and other unrest. The French Revolution comes to mind. I'll let the amateur historians here argue over causality, but it's really not a road we want to go down.

For anyone who believes in the adaptive, corrective power of free markets and democratic government, increasingly extreme wealth concentration should be a concern, since it can and does undermine exactly that.

PS - I'm not implying wealth redistribution is the solution, since that's just a poor kluge that addresses the symptoms rather than the underlying problem/s. But I do think the reasons for this accelerated wealth concentration need to be clearly understood, and in some cases neutralized - unpunished financial fraud that led to the crisis, CEO pay based on board & pay consultant connections, free trade with countries that allow effective slave labor, among others.

<comment><USER20> > _"Extremely high wealth concentration has historically been associated with > revolutions and other unrest."_

The truest statement of all. American history books would glorify the American Revolution as a battle against tyranny for freedom, but above anything it was a battle against extreme economic exploitation.

Just like the French Revolution... just like the Russian Revolution... just like the Chinese Civil War...

The rich are digging their own graves. No amount of economic power will hold back a sea of desperate, furious peasants who have nothing left to lose and every desire to see your head on a stick. I'm not looking forward to that mess.

<comment><USER14> Oh please, get a fucking grip on reality for fuck sake. Those populations starved for _years_ under insanely despotic regimes.

Today even poor people have too much to eat (look at obesity rates) and _leave tvs behind when they loose their house cause it isn't worth taking with them_. Your computer would have been worth fighting a war over 200 years ago.

To suggest that we are anything close to a "sea of desperate, furious peasants who have nothing left to lose and desire to see your head on a stick" while the peasents have access to better food, medical care, running water, communications, transportation and entertainment that the Sun King ever dreamed of shows how crazy that argument is.

<comment><USER21> Marie Antoinette would approve of that sentiment. Let them eat Big Macs?

<comment><USER14> They have access to Big Macs, they are one of the cheapest foods ever. Do you think anybody would have cared about that cake remark (which she never said) if they really had eaten cake instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Peter Lindert is an economist at the University of California at Davis and one of the leaders of the "deep history" school of economics, a movement devoted to thinking about the world economy over the long term—that is to say, in the context of the entire sweep of human civilization."

North America: "Deep history" school of economics

Rest of the World: "Marxist"

Stuart Hall must be impressed...

<comment><USER23> Pattern match detected: 'Deep history' and 'Marxism' both discuss human economies over millennia. Conclusion: Deep history == Marxism.

Pattern match detected: 'George W. Bush' and 'a duck' both have 2 legs. Conclusion: George W. Bush == a duck.

<comment><USER24> > _Conclusion: George W. Bush == a duck._

You're probably onto something here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sadly, yet another author who either did not bother to read and think about Ayn Rand's work, or, worse, pretends to have NOT understood it.

<comment><USER26> explain

<comment><USER27> Rich people already have power. Trying to minimize their political power, in favor of a more "democratic" system, is just denying the reality that the rich are powerful. If the government antagonizes rich people, the rich will fight back economically until they get what they want anyway (with lots of collateral damage). On the other hand, if you give the rich political power to begin with, you are merely acknowledging that they have power. Then they can wield it more effectively, and (Ayn Rand hopes) society will be better off.

Edit: Also, income inequality is no big deal if the rich aren't stepping all over the poor. As the article points out, the super-elite in Shanghai haven't stopped the middle class in China from exploding, and average income is growing strongly despite the financial crisis. The super-elite aren't hurting anything.

<comment><USER26> That's a fair point but I don't think it is obvious from Atlas Shrugged.

You can read that book in many ways.

<comment><USER18> You know I've wanted to read Atlas Shrugged for a long time but I can't find a copy that isn't in microscopic brain-hurting print and crappy paper. Any ideas?

<comment><USER28> You can also wait for the movie <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/>

<comment><USER14> When I clicked that link I though you were making a clever joke.

But they did actually film it - and it only took them 35 years to get it done.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Morgan Freeman Converts His 124-Acre Ranch into a Giant Bee Sanctuary - <AUTHOR> https://life.gomcgill.com/morgan-freeman-converted-giant-ranch-bee-sanctuary-protection <comment><USER2> Near my house there is what you could call a insect "sanctuary". When it was established a few tears ago we kind of shrug our shoulders and did not think much of it. But the amount of new flowers and insects popping up, not only inside but also around the area is astonishing.

I almost see it as a positive feedback loop with more insects, better pollination, more diverse flowers, more insects...

Just as pesticides could create a negative feedback loop.

<comment><USER3> Could you describe the sanctuary nearby? We live on a typical city lot, and I am going to try to become a mini-sanctuary over the next few years and would love working examples.

<comment><USER4> Be careful of your city bylaws. I grew a wildflower garden in my backyard in Canada and got a complaint once. Given that the neighbour to one side asked be to do it makes me think it might have been the neighbour on the other side :-) I actually didn't mind cutting it down because I was moving that year anyway, but it pays to talk with your neighbours and find out what the city requires. It is especially important to understand what is and is not a noxious weed and to be on top of keeping them out of your sanctuary.

<comment><USER3> Actually, there is a pro-organic, pollinator and wildlife friendly program in my city whose lead I am following. Another reason I don't move....

My only plan for the summer is to seed the lawn with clover, water weekly, and keep it cut at the top height of my mower.

How big was your garden, and how visible from the neighbors? In the front I can see that, but who cares in the back, at least in my area.

<comment><USER4> Ah in that case I don't think you'll have a problem. I had white clover, camomile and timothy hay (the latter I don't recommend, but it's an annual, so easy to recover from ;-) ) in the front and didn't get any complaints about it.

The back yard was HUGE. I had wild daisies, black eyed susans, and a variety of other wild flowers. The previous year I'd grown it in order to bring in butterflies, etc and my one neighbour really liked it because they could see it from their second floor windows. The way I did it was to grow it into about the middle of July and after most of the flowering was finished to mow it down.

I think the other neighbour was trying to sell their house that year and instead of just telling me they made a complaint to the city. In fact, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't my neighbours (who I was friendly with) but their real estate agent. Like I said, I was not worried about it at all, but having the city inspector to come to your house and demand that you cut your garden is somewhat stressful (especially if you were planning to grow it out).

You _may_ get some push back from neighbours about the white clover because it is fairly invasive, but probably there isn't anything they can do about it. Anyway, good luck with your lawn! I _really_ enjoyed mine. If you feel like it, mix in some camomile when you overseed. I think you won't regret it (low growing, _super_ soft, smells nice and pretty yellow flowers if you let it grow long enough).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A number of people have mentioned varroa mites and the problems they cause for domestic and wild bee populations. For those interested mycologist Paul Stamets has been trialing the addition of polypore extract to bee food (water / sugar water) to boost their immune system. Results on smaller sample set (~100 hives) was near total eradication of the mites (I think broken wing disorder was diminished too). Next trial is on sample size of 10k+ hives.

Since domestic and wild bees comingle this should reduce transmission from domestic to wild bee populations, and hopefully give wild bees a chance to recover.

For those interested you'll be able to find Stamets talking about this on YouTube in his talk "Into The Mycoverse", and elsewhere, I'm sure.

<comment><USER6> Ha, I could have sworn this was a carefully worded joke -- Paul Stamets is the name of the mycologist on the new Star Trek series. Coincidence?

<comment><USER7> Calling the Star Trek Stamets a mycologist is almost an understatement.

<comment><USER5> Astromycologist.

Speaking of which: [http://journalofastrobiology.com/Mars5.html?fbclid=IwAR0YOON...](http://journalofastrobiology.com/Mars5.html?fbclid=IwAR0YOONxWeybQ65SehF_- mBJh52rIsppc2n1roqGpKV6G4VwA8xtk-IRzmQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Your periodic reminders that:

1\. Honey bees in North America are a non-native invasive species.

2\. Virtually all honey bees in the United States are livestock.

3\. Colony collapse disorder is an economic issue for commercial beekeepers, and apparently not much of a problem.

4\. The true threat to honey bees in the United States isn't environment, but rather the introduction of the _Varroa destructor_ mite in 1987 (which eradicated feral honey bees).

A "honey bee sanctuary" in the continental US is a weird idea.

<comment><USER9> About number 3, according to wikipedia [1]

> the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on honey bee pollination > was estimated to exceed $15 billion.

and

> honeybees perform some level of pollination of nearly 75% of all plant > species directly used for human food worldwide.

Which sounds like a bit more than just beekeeping.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder#Econo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder#Economic_and_ecological_impact)

<comment><USER10> Is there some real figure which would give truth to the amount other insects would pollinate, if not honey bees? It seems like we have way too many insects in the world for the honey bee to be the only reliable pollinator.

Besides, aren't solitary bees supposed to be better pollinators?

As much as I like honey, I can't help but thinking there is a huge gap in logic with all of these people waving and screaming we aren't going to have food because of dwindling honey bee populations.

<comment><USER11> Realistically, the only plants which rely on honeybee pollination are from eastern europe, since that's where honeybees lived before the indo-european expansion.

So any plant that's say native to the new world (corn, beans, squash, tomatoes) must not rely on honeybees for pollination.

This is not to say that there's not a bee problem: non-honey bees suffer from habitat loss (and a lack of investment keeping them around).

<comment><USER12> The honeybee origin is African rainforests, there are a few of other honeybees species native from Asian rainforests also.

Some families of plants native of Europe use bees, other not. Is more about plant phylogeny than about geography. Similar species of flowers in other areas are quickly adopted by bees when available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One glaring problem I see with this is that anyone who has ever had hives (which my family has) knows how quickly Varroa mites can spread (the #1 killer of bees.) If all the bees are in a single location, that could wipe out every hive there. Would make more sense to me if you made sanctuaries that were spread on ~1 acre plots around a wide area (thinking several cities/town in a clustered area.)

Anyone with more expertise is free to correct me, but I feel like clustering bees on single plots, even 124 acres (which seems big, but is not really that big,) really has some risk if your end goal is to preserve the species.

<comment><USER14> Spreading bees out would not make a difference here. All hives have some level of varroa nowadays. The level depends on management techniques and not so much proximity to other hives with mites. Spreading hives out into 1 acre plots wouldn't do much when bees are foraging miles away from the hive, and would make it more difficult to visit each hive for maintenance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've seen people calling him out the use of the word "sanctuary" and suggesting that this is really just sanctuary for taxes, not bees.

As a pre-emptive counterargument, there's nothing saying that all 124 acres of his ranch can or should host bees. There are tons of arguments for not wanting the hives near the house, other outbuildings, or anywhere animals are kept, for example. It may be that only 26 acres or so (assuming a 1:1 hive:acreage ratio) have flowering plants etc. that are hospitable to bees, even.

<comment><USER16> I've yet to see an argument for why using tax incentives to coerce good outcomes from people is even a bad thing

<comment><USER17> Because it can easily be corrupted since you can't define "good outcome", and it's impossible to prosecute quid pro quo for a wink and nod deal since there isn't sufficient evidence.

In a democracy, the government exists to provide a set of services agreed upon by the people for the benefit of all the people, many times via their elected representatives. Roads, educational facilities, welfare, military, all of those expenses don't disappear because someone decided to donate something.

If you want tax dollars to support a cause, then vote for it. And there's no reason tax deductions should be given to support your own little tribe.

<comment><USER18> > If you want tax dollars to support a cause, then vote for it.

This is literally what people have voted for by having tax deductions for certain "good" things, like giving to charity, using some of your land for bees or whatever.

Just because it's agreed that something should be done in the aggregate, doesn't mean that it needs to be centrally managed by some state agency. You decide X is wanted, and then leave the implementation to distributed decision making.

<comment><USER17> I think it's easier to hold fewer larger entities accountable, assuming we mandate transparency, than many small ones. Increasing complexity always benefits the seller (politicians and their influencers). Ideally, all tax receipts would go into one pot, and then all expenditures would come out of it, so it's simple to account for.

We have a system that enables "donations" to religious tribes in exchange for political support or politicians looting current taxpayers in exchange for future votes by kicking retiree benefit costs 30 years into the future (this is literally happening now).

All of these undesirable outcomes for society are only happening because the complexity creates plausible deniability and difficulty in accounting.

If people want to donate, let them donate, but it needs not having anything to do with taxes. We can save resources on enforcing tax laws, preparing tax filings, and obviously remove all this under the table stuff. Just like how electronic payments reduce tax fraud, only difference is we need total transparency.

<comment><USER18> Whether something is a worthwhile expenditure is a separate from the discussion about the implementation detail of it being supported directly through state funding, or indirectly via tax deductions.

E.g. in many EU countries religious organizations are directly funded through taxes. So in some way it comes down to the same thing, both systems have their ups & downs.

Doing it via tax deductions is often cheaper, because in many cases you can get people to match state dollars at some ratio, and since they get to choose what they fund within some framework they often get some benefit for themselves as well.

E.g. in this case Morgan Freeman gets to walk around on his private land covered in bees which'll be partially state funded. The government didn't need to buy land somewhere just for this purpose.

Instead they find someone who's willing to do this not just for the tax benefit, but also because they for whatever reason don't mind a lot of bees on their land.

So Freeman gets a tax write-off, less money is spent overall for the same amount of bees in the ecosystem, it's a win-win.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article is a bit superficial. CCD is more than just pesticides killing bees. The invasive varroa mite is likely a big factor. It's a good thing that he is taking care of bees. The solution might be more complex than sanctuaries though— IE how can we reduce the mite population?

Potential CCD Causes According to EPA:

... researchers who are leading the effort to find out why are now focused on these factors: Increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honey bees). New or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema. Pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control. Stress bees experience due to management practices such as transportation to multiple locations across the country for providing pollination services. Changes to the habitat where bees forage. Inadequate forage/poor nutrition. Potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above.

<comment><USER20> I like bees, but aren't they effectively an invasive species too?

 _When temperatures increased, fauna and habitat changed drastically, causing the extinction of Apis in the New World until they were reintroduced by European settlers in 1622 (Engel et al. 2009)._

[https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/9700...](https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/97006/UMURJ- Issue09_2012-EWeber.pdf?sequence=1)

<comment><USER21> European honey bees are an "introduced species"[1], but this doesn't in itself make them an "invasive species"[2]. To be labeled invasive, they also have to be causing harm to their new ecosystem. While there might be some ways that honey bees are harmful[3], they aren't usually considered invasive.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduced_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduced_species)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species)

[3] [https://www.xerces.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/16-067_02_...](https://www.xerces.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/06/16-067_02_Overview-of-the-Potential-Impacts-of-Honey- Bees_web.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this website a source we can trust? I've looked at a couple other articles and it looked a bit sketchy.

<comment><USER23> You can just google the headline and you will find a Forbes article about it.

<comment><USER24> It's an article on "Forbes sites", though. It's the equivalent of sort-of- trusted bloggers. Seems Forbes really don't care about their online brand anymore.

<comment><USER25> Personally, I would see who the writer on Forbes is, rather than just dismiss the entire Forbes website.

For example, I read articles published on Forbes by "Starts With a Bang" (an astrophysicists) and "GrrlScientist" (a biologist) because I have read their articles previously published from other sites before they moved to Forbes and enjoy what they write.

<comment><USER4> This particular author seems to just be starting out on their career. I could only find 2 other articles authored by them on the internet. The article itself is pretty light and is mostly quoting twitter and pre-existing interviews on on a talk show.

Can you trust it? Hmmm... Well, you could check up the Twitter postings to see if they are real :-). Not sure if there is much to trust...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 🇺🇸 I met Morgan Freeman at a screening of Bucket List in DC.

I asked him if we could play Rock Paper Scissors.

He said he didn't know how. So I taught him.

He then told me what he was going to throw. I told him he shouldn't do that.

Then I beat him.

So I both taught and beat Morgan Freeman at Rock Paper Sissors.

<comment><USER27> Fun story. Btw, is that an emoji? Thought they were stripped from input.

<comment><USER26> I thought so too, but for some reason a few aren't. I posted about it yesterday.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19482991](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19482991)

<comment><USER27> Ok, looks like some unicode blocks such as flags are not stripped.

<comment><USER28> 🇯🇵 Cool

<comment><USER26> 🛶 as Terrance McKenna said "Build your own damn boat."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 124 acres doesn't seem all that giant, not even a half mile squared. Maybe I'm reading "Giant Bee Sanctuary" wrong. Is it a sanctuary for Giant Bees[0]?

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19221337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19221337)

<comment><USER30> Without knowing the median size of current bee sanctuaries it's impossible to say how 124 acres ranks. Perhaps the typical bee sanctuary is less than an acre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For those who were wondering:

124 acres =~ 0.5 square km or 50 hectar

so pretty big

<comment><USER32> Pretty big is relative. Sure, that's pretty big relative to suburban plots that are more likely to be in the 1/2 to 2 acre range. But it's not huge once you get even moderately rural; my two neighbors and I are on about 75 acres collectively. And it's actually pretty small relative to, say, many ranches out West.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This website ... Normally I wouldn't complain but really isn't there a better source?

</comment><comment><USER34> James Hetfield (singer of Metallica) has also become a part-time beekeeper: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrFdI8U9Ri4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrFdI8U9Ri4)

</comment><comment><USER35> Is it safe to live in a sanctuary for giant bees?

<comment><USER36> In my experience bees don't really mess with you unless you try to (or accidentally) mess with their nest.

<comment><USER37> I think GP was making a joke based on the ambiguous wording of the headline. ;)

FWIW though, we have a hive in our back garden and the bees don't bother us or the neighbours at all.

<comment><USER38> Dosing them with honey works in my experience. I'm up early with lights on and it's the end of the season (meaning lots of bees with little to productive work to do). They are pinging off the window next to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's up to the wealthy to save us helpless souls now

<comment><USER40> That's the end result of crony capitalism, baby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I believe that is to get the tax break by classifying the land as agricultural ? Scarlet Johnson, Bon Jovi and many have been doing this for years.

Of course I wouldn't care about motives, if it ends up protecting bees why not.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is this for honeybees?? I hope its for native bees because why would you create a sanctuary for what is basically an agricultural animal like cow or sheep.

<comment><USER37> Why not both? Native bees can live alongside honeybees quite happily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Giant Bees!

</comment><comment><USER44> Get beesy living or get busy dying.

</comment><comment><USER45> That's nice, but the honeybee population is not declining.

[https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246....](https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246.pdf?v=43186) [http://time.com/4885569/honeybee-population- increase/](http://time.com/4885569/honeybee-population-increase/) [https://www.agprofessional.com/article/bee-population- rising...](https://www.agprofessional.com/article/bee-population-rising- around-world)

<comment><USER46> That's nice, but none of those articles address wild populations.

<comment><USER45> The original article is about Morgan Freeman keeping honeybees, in case you didn't read it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would appreciate feedback on our startup - <AUTHOR>

Hey hackers,
My cofounder and I would be really thankful for any feedback you may have on our startup at www.stockray.com.
StockRay is a virtual stock market where you can buy or sell virtual shares of the things you care about: TV shows, celebrities, cities, tech products, politicians...  Invest in the things you believe in and make a profit if your stocks go up!
Our goal is to create the largest real-time interest graph and trading platform in the world.
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated! <comment><USER2> Have you answered the three big questions of validating an idea? 1\. Who is the target market? 2\. What problem does this solve? 3\. How will you make money?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks fearless. The short answer is: absolutely. These are the questions that drove us to this product, and we feel very passionate about our answers, but it's helpful to see idea validation articulated in such a clear, concise way.

<comment><USER2> Yeah- I mean it would be easier for the community to give feedback if we knew your answers as to who the target audience was. i.e if your business model was to be a gambling site like Intrade, I would be very interested in participating and trading. If it's more just for fun/timewaster, I wouldn't be in your target market and couldn't give good feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense: our business model is not gambling. We want to offer:

\- Users a way to show their support (at first, with virtual dollars, but pending JOBS Act implementation, with real investment) for the businesses, products, and causes they care about;

\- Businesses, products, and causes a way to find, track, and engage their supporters and eventually turn them into investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Have you seen <http://play.twidaq.com> ? Isn't that the same idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It's indeed similar, but twiDAQ is built around Twitter activity / performance, whereas we are a completely standalone exchange market. We don't consider ourselves a social media site: our end goal is to engage users with real-world, offline properties, and we're using stock-trading as a metaphor for this engagement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <https://www.stockray.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> I am sorry but i am against website with facebook-only login.

<comment><AUTHOR> Point taken! We'll add other logins in the future.</comment></comment>


Macroscopic and direct light propulsion of bulk graphene material - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.04254

<comment><AUTHOR> For more context see also: [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630235.400-spacecraf...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630235.400-spacecraft- built-from-graphene-could-run-on-nothing-but-sunlight.html)</comment>


Renewables Surpass Coal in U.S. Power Mix - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-25/for-first-time-ever-renewables-surpass-coal-in-u-s-power-mix <comment><AUTHOR> Energy Information Agency: Planned U.S. Electric Generating Unit Retirements

[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_06)

I count 4144.6 megawatts of coal retirements planned for 2019. But this table was last updated in April.

2000 MW of coal retirements directed this week:

"Illinois directs Vistra to retire 2 GW coal by 2020"

[https://www.utilitydive.com/news/illinois-directs-vistra- to-...](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/illinois-directs-vistra-to- retire-2-gw-coal-by-2020/557452/)

 _The order directs Vistra to retire 2 GW of coal generation by the end of the year. ... The process to retire so much coal by the end of the year must begin very soon, as Vistra must notify the Midcontinent ISO (MISO) of any intended retirements 180 days in advance._

Two weeks ago:

"In a Surprise Announcement, Colstrip Units 1 and 2 to Close by Year-End"

[https://www.powermag.com/in-a-surprise-announcement- colstrip...](https://www.powermag.com/in-a-surprise-announcement-colstrip- units-1-and-2-to-close-by-year-end/)

That's another 614 MW to retire by year's end.

</comment><comment><USER2> The growing disconnect between the politics and the reality of renewables versus (specifically) coal is troubling.

The current Australian government has been denying climate change since they came to power in 2013. They've been talking down renewables and placing national-security-scale importance of the role of coal in Australia's future economic success (which I actually find a significant worry because the bottom will drop out of the coal market sooner rather than later). Without much support from federal government policy (but with some support from state governments), renewables in Australia have been steadily growing in their contribution to the overall energy generation mix at a rate higher than expectations, such is the purely commercial justification of renewables.

And yet politics is trying to (s|t)ell a different narrative without providing any foundational reasoning other than motherhood statements about the importance of coal to Australia's economy.

Either politicians know more than they're letting on about the fragile state of Australia's economy and its fundamental over-dependence on a single mineral, or the Australian powers-that-be are over-dependent on a single mineral for their power base.

The more politicians talk down renewables, the more they damage their legitimacy on any other topic; the more they advertise that their speeches are for sale.

<comment><USER3> I have to admit, Australia looks particularly weird from afar. I mean, you guys are baking under intense light for huge parts of the year and yet someone thought "I know, let's burn some coal". I mean, at least here in Canada people have a sort of emotional attachment to burning things for heat.

Anyway, I just find it amusing.

<comment><USER4> It's a complicated (and somewhat regional) story. But at the root of it is something our politicians have known for a long time, which has made (for example) constitutional alterations almost impossible to achieve: Australians are very, very easy to scare when it comes to any change from the status quo. All a politician has to do is hit the 'this will affect your standard of living' riff (whether justified or not), repeat it endlessly, and a change is usually nixed.

Why? It would require a book. Donald Horne's 'The Lucky Country' covered some of it. My (highly contestable) short version is that Australian culture is preturnaturally shallow. There is nothing that holds our society together other than material consumption. Citizens are somewhat aware of this, and are (perhaps subconsciously) terrified of what might happen if anything threatens our lazy prosperity. We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground.

<comment><USER2> _We have nothing to fall back on - no heroic national myths, no exceptionalism, no religion, no idealism, no common ground._

That's all true, and yet Australians are very protective of what they consider "theirs". Maybe it's because of this historic void meaning all they've got is their material things and social status etc.

I'll have to have a read of The Lucky Country, thanks for the reference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The clean energy industry should enjoy this moment while it lasts. One of the main reasons coal-fired power plants produced so little in April was because some were down for routine, springtime maintenance. Coal is forecast to return to its perch as the second-biggest source of electricity -- after natural gas -- as those units return to service and demand peaks this summer."

<comment><USER6> Two noisy signals will cross many times before overall trends dominate.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, I don't think "nationwide, planned maintenance" could be considered noise in the coal-output signal.

<comment><USER8> What's your point then? The point of the article is that the renewable share of the energy production budget is growing (and coal isn't), and the notable data point is that "for the first time ever, renewables surpass coal". That's the way news works. It wants a fact to hang the trend on. And both the fact and the trend are correctly reported.

The fact that this is a local maximum doesn't say anything about the shape of the function on either side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would like to see how the renewable section breaks down in to carbon- intensive varieties vs others.

Non-solar, non-hydro renewables make up the bulk of renewable energy, and with the notable exceptions of wind and geothermal, many of these methods are very dirty. Burning of waste/biomass is probably not significantly better than coal from an emissions or pollution standpoint.

<comment><USER10> You can go here and download a spreadsheet of Fuel Mix Reports for the ERCOT grid: [http://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/generation](http://www.ercot.com/gridinfo/generation)

In ERCOT wind is 2nd in generation to Gas Combined-Cycle generation (basically jet engines running natural gas). Coal is slightly behind wind and solar and biomass is tiny.

<comment><USER9> I dug a little deeper into the EIA reports and their non-hydro renewables category is almost 90% wind. Wind and hydro alone are almost even with coal in April, with the other contributions being quite small.

<comment><USER11> Solar (if you include non-utility solar) was about 3.5% of the total electricity produced in April. That's actually pretty significant. Solar only scraped 1 percent starting in 2015.

(Although I worry about the second derivative... solar's growth is not as impressive in the last 12 months as it was the 12 months prior.)

<comment><USER12> Solar punches higher than its weight because it produces marginal electricity at times of peak demand.

<comment><USER13> Yeah people compare solar pricing to subsidized baseload prices. Which is unfavorable. Instead of the more lucrative peeking plant pricing which is higher. Often a lot higher.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I look for in a Cowork space? - <AUTHOR> I've been working remote for years but lately I've been thinking a lot more about getting out of the house semi-consistently. If you've done the cowork thing, what have been the aspects that made it worth it for you? <comment><USER2> A good community</comment>


How An Introverted Engineer Came Out Of His Shell To Lead Mozilla - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1762632/telling-the-story-a-qa-on-leadership-with-john-lilly <comment><USER2> Shame that fastcompany.com redirects me to the front page of the mobile site and I cannot find the article! :(</comment>


2 Steps to Becoming a Great Developer - <AUTHOR> http://theadmin.org/articles/2010/04/16/two-steps-to-becoming-a-great-developer/ <comment><USER2> I can definitely appreciate the fears listed in step one. I am about four years into my career and have recently begun realizing that I will not surpass what I consider mediocrity without taking steps beyond my 9-5 job. Now that I have begun looking seriously at my path, it is amazing to look back at the fears that have been holding me back. I have been afraid to start my own side projects, out of fear that I won't be able to contend with what other people can do. I had to have the very obvious realization that I will never get better if I don't try, and that everyone has to start exactly where they are. Since then it is like a light has gone off, and I have become much more appreciative of those who try, rather than hold back and criticize. Thanks for posting this.

<comment><USER3> "I have been afraid to start my own side projects, out of fear that I won't be able to contend with what other people can do"

Why do you care? Taking some one else's code and rewriting is a great way to learn. First, you don't need your own idea. Second, there is already a "viable" solution you can learn from and third, you can get to the meat of being a great coder. "How can I make XYZ better, simpler, more performant..."

Once you learn thoughs skills you can go off and create yor own projects. Look at all the things people love today, they are simpler. better architected, more performant versions of existing solutions. Apache -> ngnx, MySQL -> ...,

If you are afraid to fail or worry about what others think you won't be a great coder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These blog posts are kind of like those "Learn this language in 24 hours" books. They're not bad per se, but it's as if becoming a great developer is some kind of <insert-number-here>-step process. Becoming great is, in my opinion, not a final destination. You can be great from day #1 by pushing yourself to learn more, for every day in your life as a developer.

<comment><USER5> That is essentially what this article is saying. It just gives a couple concrete examples of how to do this. I think the title of the article does it a disservice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. What has Giles started?! This "I'll-teach-you-to-be-a-great-developer- for-$$$" trend is scary...

</comment><comment><USER7> #5 is true: fear makes you tired.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is Eric Davis a great developer?

<comment><USER9> Maybe not (don't know him), but teaching is an entirely different skill set. Perhaps he's not a great developer, but is a great teacher?

<comment><USER10> I can't emphasize this enough. It applies across all disciplines too. Great teachers don't have to be the best in their field, most are not. However, in my limited experience, those who _think_ they are best in their field are more often than not awful teachers.

In those rare cases where they are both, it's something magical. I can only think of 3-4 teachers that I have ever had that fit that bill.</comment></comment></comment>


With Nanogenerators, Cellphone Use Powers Itself - <AUTHOR> https://edgylabs.com/2016/12/15/nanogenerators-power-cellphone/ <comment><USER2> You only get tiny amounts of energy out of energy harvesting in general. The press release [1] links to a video that drives a black and white LCD display [2]. You really should look at that video to see what the tech can do. You can't power smartphones with that.

Still energy harvesting is pretty interesting for e.g. sensors. There already are zigbee light switches that work through energy harvesting (e.g. [3])

[1]: [http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/flexible-device- captures-e...](http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/flexible-device-captures- energy-from-human-motion/)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS2thXzbSek](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS2thXzbSek)

[3]: [http://www.nxp.com/video/nxp-enocean-energy-harvesting- wirel...](http://www.nxp.com/video/nxp-enocean-energy-harvesting-wireless- switch-at-ces-2014-zigbee-nfc:ENOCEAN-ENERGY-HARVESTING)

<comment><USER3> I'd think of as energy recovery more than energy generation. The analogy would be to regenerative braking on an electric vehicle. Thermodynamics still applies, but the device becomes more energy efficient at the macro scale. Here the relationship to energy recovery seems to be that what is displayed on the screen is related to the amount of swiping.

I'm not sure it's going to change the world, but I'm not certain it isn't worth pursuing either.

<comment><USER2> The power generated by this is probably several magnitudes smaller than what a phone uses. What's the use when your phone gets e.g. 0.1% more energy efficient?

Regenerative braking makes sense because it's a lot of energy and you can use the motor as a generator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Energy harvesting is essentially heat reclamation.

This makes for a trivial smell test for claims such as these: Think about how much heat is generated as you discharge your phone battery. Now imagine how long it would take you to generate that same amount of heat by swiping on your screen.

Cars, for instance, generate a LOT of heat when you hit the brakes. This makes them an excellent target for energy reclamation.

Now if they can reclaim the heat radiated from a CPU/GPU, that would we worth talking about.

</comment><comment><USER5> I find it exceptionally unlikely that the statements in this article are correct. I suspect a phone with the screen lit uses somewhere in the range 0.5-2W continuous. The amount of energy you'd get from a light touch on the screen is, at an educated guess, in the order of a few millijoules at best.</comment>


Spool in deadpool - <AUTHOR>

"Dear Spooler,
We're writing to inform you that Spool has shut down. Your bookmarks are attached to this email. If you'd like to import these bookmarks into your browser or another service, please visit http://blog.getspool.com/instructions/ .
Thank you for using Spool and providing feedback during our beta period. It's been a pleasure to build Spool for you and we've been flattered with the overwhelmingly positive feedback we've received. However, after careful consideration, we've decided to pursue our vision in a new way. You'll soon be able to read details on our blog at http://blog.getspool.com
Thank you again for your support, The Spool Team" <comment><USER2> Why is it seemingly every acquisition these days guarantees that the original service must shut down, have startups just devolved down to making themselves into hellish advanced interview bootcamps ?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Very unexpected email message I received today. Spool received $1 million in funding which was announced January 4, 2012.

</comment><comment><USER3> But, why? Suddenly, without any confirmation and rumour?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly, loved the service a lot. Used it +10 times a day. Had their blog in my RSS reader.

I got this email, and instantaneously the iphone app and web app stopped working. Rude and strange way of dealing with users... Never received an email or survey invitation whether I'd like to pay for the service or anything.

So I assume what was being commented in this thread became reality: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2989256></comment></comment>


Show HN: A website for exchanging McDonald's Monopoly stickers - <AUTHOR> http://monopolyexchange.com/

<comment><USER2> This idea is presumably based upon the notion that there is an even distribution of the relevant monopoly "tokens" across a given market.

Think about that a little - in terms of the potential prize liability for MacDs.

The normal way of controlling such (to all intents) lotteries is to have a few "golden tickets" capable of winning the more interesting prizes that are only dropped into the market in very small numbers - sufficient only to match the pool of prizes.

My experience of such marketing schemes (now rather historic I will admit) is that many prizes remain unclaimed - but giving them away was not the purpose of the exercise anyway.

Still the exercise was a worthy one - and it should be fun watching everyone looking for exactly the same missing tokens.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you! My guess was that there's probably a very small number of stickers with very high demand, too. But really, we wanted to create something that people could potentially be helpful to people while not feeling bad that we are not revising :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone! A fellow classmate and I have exams approaching, so we thought that the best way to procrastinate will be to build something. That's why we hacked Monopoly Exchange quickly (in about 2 days) to allow people to exchange stickers in the McDonald's Monopoly game and we are interested in your opinion!

</comment><comment><USER3> You might get a spike in traffic when the game is on, so consider making one for the US version. But otherwise it will only be useful in the niche case where someone with a rare winning token got in on the last days and couldn't buy more to find the common matching tokens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we realize that. As for the US version - the template is applicable to any country as long as the game rules stay unchained. Of course, we would need to check that.</comment></comment>


Lawyers who don't code may soon be obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://etherscripter.com/what_is_ethereum.html

<comment><USER2> There is a large population that doesn't code, that has problems that do not deal with programming. Hard to imagine in this current technology hype, but yes.

Even developers get divorce. You would rather have your rights ensured or to be able to talk about Ruby with the lawyer?</comment>


Ack - a faster, more featureful, grep - <AUTHOR> http://petdance.com/ack/

<comment><USER2> Wow, impressive homepage from a marketing angle. You hackerheads would do well to print out this website and hang it on your wall.

Note the use of: quick, clear description; testimonials; subscribe box so you can keep in touch with the project; a top-ten list; and no-frills detailed information.

<comment><USER3> I am a strong believer in having code examples on your front page. Ruby wins at this, as does Groovy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While we're on something that is essentially a more powerful "find and grep", I wrote this years ago:

<http://uzix.org/cgvg.html>

Like ack, it uses perl's regexes... just add more file extensions and you're golden. The nice thing is you do:

      cg pattern

which gives you a list with what it found, which file, the line number and an index... then you

      vg index

and it opens that file at that line.

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems like it is only faster because it applies a bunch of heuristics to avoid searching certain files and directories altogether. I use "ack" myself and it's quite nice, but the heuristics aren't perfect: ack won't search for strings inside yacc grammars (".y" files) by default, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, part of the speed comes from it's (configurable) heuristics.

But, it's faster even when doing the same thing. For example, see the benchmark at <http://blog.i-no.de/archives/2008/05/06/index.html>.

Then end result is that, on the same search, ack is approximately 5 times faster than grep. I ran a few test cases myself and got similar results.

But the real reason I like it is the perl compatible regexes. The differences between perl regexes and gnu regexes are just big enough to be an annoyance.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't use "perl _compatible_ regexes", it uses Perl.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would argue that 'perl regexes' are a member of the set of 'perl compatible regexes' ;-)

<comment><USER7> Proof? ;p

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it possible to install it under Leopard without using Ports?

<comment><AUTHOR> yep, it's just straight perl, and Leopard comes with perl

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do all these regex utilities sound like onomatopoeias for really obscene things?</comment>


John Carmack:"freedom to have your own style" in languages is counterproductive - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1215626495370170368 <comment><USER2> Personal projects: format however you want!

Otherwise, decide on a style and let the automatic formatter enforce it. The tools and IDEs are so good you can literally format each time you hit enter.

</comment><comment><USER3> As evidenced by praise for Gofmt and tools like Prettier.

</comment><comment><USER4> He's right, of course. Though it has been a long time since I saw someone bother complaining about indentation in Python. It turns out not to really matter very much.

<comment><USER5> Maybe it's just because they've given up? I mean, what's the point.

> _Python brings new meaning to 'off by one errors' by offering 'off by one' > indentation errors._ (EDIT: quoting a tweet on that thread)

Imagine a long chunk of procedural code. Simple but tedious automated munging. "If conditional" codepaths depending on whitespace/indentation makes diffs very hard to read and codepaths harder to keep track of. Similarly no way to mark off logical blocks other than with comments.

For any code longer than half a screenful, indentation based semantics is very unpleasant.

I'll even go a little farther and say that python has a bunch of warts for anything beyond beginner programming (and of course many nice parts too).

But all of that is somewhat tangential to "freedom to have your own style". I like standardization, auto-formatting, etc. I just wish there was better syntax for encoding structure.

<comment><USER6> > If conditional codepaths depending on whitespace/indentation makes diffs > very hard to read

Wouldn't this be the case in other languages too? Especially if you're using an auto formatter

<comment><USER5> When you cut/paste/move around chunks of code, the existence of an unbalanced bracket provides redundancy which is a HUGE blessing in case you mess something up.

Eg: When removing a bunch of lines from an indented python block (with empty lines above and below), you might accidentally un-indent later lines and never realize, or at least forget what was the "correct" indentation! Particularly cases where editors mess up indentation level when you delete part of a line.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wild chimpanzees use at least 66 gestures to communicate with each other - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9475000/9475408.stm <comment><USER2> It's a shame that chimpanzees get all this attention, lets shift some of that to bonobos.

<comment><USER3> True. Bonobos are more closely related to humans. There's some incredibly fascinating information about how humans are related to bonobos in sexual behavior (and overall communal behavior) in the book _Sex at Dawn_. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting...

I once saw a parrot dance to the beat of music while singing along then call out to the children in the next room to join it.

There are a number of very intelligent animal species. Still, I think the barrier to "human-like intelligence" isn't understanding words but using words in grammatical sentence (call me a stick-in-the-mud Chomskyan...).

<comment><USER5> Does the intelligence of human beings fill a niche that in some way prevents other intelligences from evolving?

As the dominant species, on top of the foodchain, I can see that we might try to prevent a rival intelligence from competing for resources; but it seems that that would not prevent that rival intelligence from arising in the first place.

The brains of birds have developed further since our common ancestor, and it seems reasonable that an intelligence similar to our own could evolve in quite a different brain structure. (I think abstraction is the key need; maybe grammar is somehow based on an internal mechanism for relating abstractions, but it certainly helps in communication - and without that, we would gain much less benefit from our intelligence.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's 65 more than I use when driving!</comment>


Gemalto says that Gemalto sim products are secure - <AUTHOR> http://www.gemalto.com/press/Pages/Update-on-the-SIM-card-encryption-keys-matter.aspx

<comment><USER2> I don't see where they claim they're still secure… it seems they'll only tell the public what they've discovered tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> "Initial conclusions already indicate that Gemalto SIM products [...] are secure [...]."

It's the last sentence in the article.

<comment><USER2> Thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.lewro.com/personal/my-english-sucks-how-much-does-it-devalue-my-message#respond

<comment><USER2> Firstly, I most highly commend you for your existing use of English. It's _not_ an easy language to learn, and the item you've pointed to is really rather good - I only spotted a few small errors that matter, and I'm very picky. It's certainly much, _much_ better than I ever got at French, German, Danish, Swedish, Bulgarian or Spanish. Overall, they didn't really detract from the item.

For many people it won't matter much, but for a few it definitely will. You need to decide how much it matters to you, and if you decide it matters, you need a copy-editor. You don't want someone to write the copy, you just want someone to tidy it up and remove the worst of the errors without changing the content much.

What contacts do you have? My circle of contacts would, for me, each copy-edit a few hundred words a fortnight. Depending how much I wrote, that would probably be enough without imposing on them too much. I'd also then buy them a beer, or cook them a meal every couple of weeks to say thank you.

There are also tools such as the Link Grammar. After spell checking, type what you want into that and see if you get one parse. If so, you're done. It's easy to download and install, and not so hard to automate.

That would be my recommendation.

PS: I'm a complete grammar-nazi and am probably much more severe than most people. Trust me - it was pretty good.

<comment><USER3> >I only spotted a few small errors that matter

Just out of curiosity, can you point out these errors?

<comment><USER4> I'm a native speaker of American English. It was certainly readable, but some of the sentence constructions were stilted enough to distract me. Here's my extremely pedantic edit, which also changes the tone to be more conversational:

<http://pastebin.com/f4c49579f>

HTH :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

And if anyone wishes to see the changes: paste both texts into <http://www.quickdiff.com/index.php> and hit 'Compare'

Okay, if any of you actually went through the exercise of pasting it onto quickdiff.com, you probably noticed how aggravating it was to copy & paste from that container. Really a bigger turn-off in terms of UI than his English skills, in my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this! I am not sure if I should change the copy now as it would probably does not make sense for people who would come later to read the article and there would be no mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've lived in London and in the US for a while and English is my third language (after Romanian and German). I'm quite proficient in English, not as good as my mother tongue, but I understand everything that is said to me and my vocabulary is quite extensive; however my accent is east-european with no doubt.

What I've found out is that while Americans are a lot more insensitive (tolerant?) to broken accents the British absolutely can't stand it. They avoid talking to people with bad accent and will generally walk away form any conversation with somebody of a non-british accent. I've observed this with brits around the world, not only in the UK and for sure it's not related to talking among conationals only: generally they are willing to engage in conversations with people that are obviously not british as long as they speak proper english with proper accent.

Of course you can not generalize the above to every brit in the world however this is my observation.

About blogs I observed in a comparative study that pages not ending in .com are just a bit less likely to be clicked.

About a written message, what can I say? If the English is badly broken I get annoyed too. If there are minor spelling mistakes it does not bother me, substance prevails over form.

<comment><USER6> I'm a brit, and I have a very high tolerance to broken English, however I'm from the north where Scottish/Welsh/Irish and various non-English-speaking minorities are much more prevalent and where people generally take more time with people.

I wouldn't say Americans are more tolerant in general, however I suspect they are in the California area. I've met a lot of Americans who are very intolerant of broken accents, the same seems to go in Canada too (where I currently live). People in the Greater Toronto Area can be much more intolerant of accents, where as people from the Atlantic and Prairies seem much more tolerant.

I don't know what causes this intolerance, however I believe it may be caused by a lack of exposure to different accents. I tolerate accents very well and tend to have a chameleon-like ability when it comes to moving between areas. However, I regularly visited France growing up, I had Scottish + Welsh + Irish teachers throughout high school and have visited lots of European countries, so I wonder if it's simply due to lack of exposure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How many people clicked the down arrow expecting to see more content? What's the reasoning behind reversing the longstanding tradition of down means down?

<comment><USER2> Certainly I did. I understand the reasoning, the arrow shows which way the text will move. The convention is that the arrow shows where your eyes want to go.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is good point guys, I will need to change that. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having some grammatical errors definitely sends a signal to your customers. If you're a large company, it just indicates sloppiness and lack of respect. But if you're a very small company, it's _not_ necessarily a negative signal.

If I look at a bilingual website for a company I know is run by non-native English speakers, and the English version is error-free, that tells me it was probably translated by outsiders. Possibly the company doesn't even have the capacity to handle Anglophone customers (i.e. no internal staff sufficiently fluent in English to communicate with me), but just put up the English website to send a signal to impress their own-language customers with how "international" they are.

On the other hand, if I see some grammatical errors --- enough to be noticeable, but not so many as to entirely obscure the message --- it tells me they probably did it themselves. I.e. somewhere in the organisation there is some guy who speaks good enough English to describe their product. Maybe with a hellacious accent and horrible grammar, but at least I'll be able to communicate with him.

</comment><comment><USER9> The linked blog post is certainly quite acceptable, grammatically.

Different audiences have different reactions to bad grammar. Financial professionals are put off by it, while teenagers expect it. Are you building ETrade, or MySpace? For something like ETrade, that's a handicap -- get an editor or a copywriter. For something like MySpace, you're fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Noah!

I am building project management application. I expect it to be used by freelancers and small companies. I guess it would be better if I hire someone.

I hope good copy-righter could help me to present the service in the right "light".

<comment><USER2> In the interests of assisting your English:

You mean "copy-writer" as in "one who writes copy (text)". And I don't think you need someone else to write your copy. I think you just need someone to make small corrections to your copy. You need a "copy-editor".

I think it's important that the voice is yours, even if someone else helps with the grammar and/or spelling. Your English is clearly good enough to communicate what you intend to say. It just needs a little tidying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @RiderOfGiraffes Thanks a lot for your feedback.

I really appreciate it! Thanks also for pointing me to the right direction. I am going to check the Link Grammar.

<comment><USER10> On hacker news, you respond to messages using the "reply" link below the comment rather than using twitter '@' style replies.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry, I missed the reply link. I will know from now on. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> The "Reply" link doesn't show up immediately. On deeper comments it takes longer to show up, thus discouraging the "flame exchange" problem.

Are you willing to put contact details in your profile? Or email me for more comments, suggestions and random advice?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @marilyn Thank you! I actually read a lot but no novels. I usually read rails, design books and tech blogs these days. I will need to find some time and squeeze some novel in so it is not tech oriented content only.

</comment><comment><USER11> maxklein intentionally uses bad English to be more personable and boost sales.

[http://blog.cubeofm.com/radically-improving-sales-for- high-p...](http://blog.cubeofm.com/radically-improving-sales-for-high-priced- pro)</comment>


Moving beyond the classroom - <AUTHOR>

I've always heard, from talking with my fellow programmers, looking at posts on HN, and viewing blogs, that programmers must learn outside of the classroom. And I have always wanted to do so.
I have taken 4 years of programming academic classes in my academic career, 2 in high school and 2 in college. I currently attend DeVry University. While all of the classes were very helpful in learning techniques and basics, I feel they have not fully prepared me for becoming a programmer. I do have a thorough understanding of OOP, or atleast what they have taught in class which ranges to Polymorphism, inheritance, and interfaces. My primary language is Java but I have begun learning C++ and have 3 years experience in SQL.
I took up a job at a local hospital to work in their IT department. There I was able to sharpen my SQL skills. From there I took up my current a job at a government contractor. Here I am working on my Java and C++ programming and starting to learn Socket programming with Java.
My issue however, is in trying to learn something to better myself. I have attempted to learn web development, since I figured that would be the next best move. However, the path to moving pass basic HTML and CSS seems to elude me. I have always had a problem with self teaching and most of the programmers I am around either seem on-par with me or are too busy to mentor me. Thus I need another avenue in which I can better myself.
I have attempted to look into open source projects, but they all seem more complex than anything I have worked on. I attempt to just learn a piece of the project, but each time I try, the piece seems to expand in an area I don't understand and I begin to feel overwhelmed.
So I am posting here to ask advice from anyone who may know the best avenue for me to take in furthering my abilities as a programmer. I see myself as a competent learner as long as I have the resources to learn from. <comment><USER2> Two years ago I felt just like you. It is overwhelming, there is a lot of people talking about the best approach, the best technology .... Don´t hear that, I am sure there is nice stuff around there, but what makes the difference is you. Thinking about programs is a nice advice, try to see things from different points of view. A year ago I did some hacking in Common Lisp and Haskell, that certainly changed my way of thinking. Now I am more interested in making things simple, I am hacking in Go now and trying out Plan 9, is really rewarding reading real world programs that are easy to understand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. So are you suggest learning other programming languages that would oppose my current understanding, such as scripting and procedural languages to solve problems so my understanding is more diverse? Just trying to see what your suggestion for my next move would be. Thanks again for all of your help.

<comment><USER2> And I forgot the best of all tips: good theory leads to good programs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for your help. I will start looking into your suggested references. I know my Prior knowledge is in OOP but that is because it is the main focus these days for academics. Thanks again.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Collecting and copying the ID in Singapore will be illegal from Sept 1, 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/collecting-nric-numbers-and-making-copies-of-the-identity-card-will-be-illegal-from-sept-1 <comment><AUTHOR> Updated guidelines are at the Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission website [1]

[1] [https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/pdpc/news/latest- updates/2018/08/upd...](https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/pdpc/news/latest- updates/2018/08/updated-nric-advisory-guidelines-now-available)</comment>


CVE-2017-16544: A Busybox autocompletion vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://www.twistlock.com/2017/11/20/cve-2017-16544-busybox-autocompletion-vulnerability/ <comment><USER2> I find these type of vulnerabilities very interesting.

I've also seen a sysop once using curl or wget in such a way that it would print out the response, while checking for an image file; it outputted all kinds of special characters. Then, afer some magic character was printed, their terminal would start interpreting the rest of the output as commands. The commands were gibberish, nothing happened, but very dangerous nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> > Then, afer some magic character was printed, their terminal would start > interpreting the rest of the output as commands. The commands were > gibberish, nothing happened, but very dangerous nonetheless.

By commands, you probably mean "escape sequences", which are not the same as running executables and isn't very dangerous.

If a terminal actually executed commands based on data printed to stdout, that would be a very significant vulnerability. It seems far more likely that the gibberish you're talking about is the usual mess of escape sequences.

<comment><USER4> _> "escape sequences", which are not the same as running executables and isn't very dangerous._

Unless your terminal has support for something like setting the answerback string, in which case the escape sequence could set it and then send an ENQ immediately before ending, causing the answerback to be typed into a shell prompt and executed. (Escape sequences aren't always as innocent as you might expect.) I don't know if any modern terminal emulators support this, but I believe it's been a vector in the past.

Edit: The article mentions some alternative vectors, specifically the screen dumping escape sequence (potentially allowing overwriting arbitrary files) and window title reporting (which behaves similarly to the answerback exploit I mention above), and links to [1] which gives more details on such exploits.

[1]: [https://www.proteansec.com/linux/blast-past-executing- code-t...](https://www.proteansec.com/linux/blast-past-executing-code- terminal-emulators-via-escape-sequences/#exploitation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is quite ungood considering how many devices (read: routers, IoT) have busybox (or some zombie-like corpse of it) installed on them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author of the article. To stress your point, there really are so many embedded devices using Busybox, and most of them were never designed to be updated (or nobody cares enough to update them).

Also I never got to fuzzing networking applets (wget is the most obvious) but this is definitely something I plan to look into, if no one did that before, there are definitely vulnerabilities there too.

<comment><USER6> When you ssh to your device are you not running Busybox shell on the device? I don't understand why this is less of a problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes absolutely. Whew. Updated my comment accordingly, thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Adblock buying ads to advertise Adblock - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/08/24/web-ad-killer-adblock-launches-crowdfunding-initiative-to-finance-an-internet-ad-campaign/? <comment><USER2> How likely would advertisers be to refuse to allow the Adblock ads?

I don't really have a problem with ads on websites, experienced users can easily block them, but I see no problem with providing ads for a free service.

Many organizations only have three methods to generate revenue, either show advertisements, have paid memberships, or take donations. Google shows advertisements, Apple has paid memberships, Wikipedia and Apache Foundation take donations. All three are great companies, they just have different ways to generate revenue. Many websites have no choice but to move towards an advertisements method to remain operational,

Adblock is trying to destroy that method of revenue and the online advertising market, it could destroy many great websites and companies that currently make money from advertising. While I'm not a huge fan of ads, they do serve a purpose, and destroying a harmless market such as online advertising without replacing it or supplementing it somehow isn't good. Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business.

<comment><USER3> "Plus if Adblock is actually successful and the online advertising industry collapses, then they will be putting themselves out of business."

Even worse. Some of these companies (not adblock) are asking protection money from big advertisers to be whitelisted. Mafia style.

<comment><USER4> A free service putting itself out of business...

Can someone explain to me how that works?

<comment><USER5> > A free service putting itself out of business...

Are you suggesting a free service can't make enough money to operate a business? Man, how am I getting away with not paying for that Wikipedia subscription.

Adblock operates on donations and if it were to eliminate advertising, its current product would become useless.

<comment><USER6> > Man, how am I getting away with not paying for that Wikipedia subscription.

Because other people pay for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To be effective, the adverts need to be the most obnoxious, loudest, gaudiest and intrusive designs possible :)

For extra points, they should flaunt their privacy invading features, e.g. follow you around on all the sites you visit, cheerfully reminding you about the places you've been and how all the other advertisers are recording this too.

</comment><comment><USER8> This initially sounds crazy and paradoxical, until you realize they'll surely be able to reach people who haven't yet installed AdBlock.

<comment><USER9> Yes, it's a good way for them to bombard people who aren't sufficiently annoyed by ads to actually look for ways to block them with messages telling them they should be. They already "empowered" people to choose an ad-free internet by building the app; people that want it download it. Why exactly _isn 't_ it equally obnoxious and irritating for AdBlock to follow everyone else round the internet trying to change their behaviour? Or is their rationale that _advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have_?

Either way, I'm baffled by the whole exercise, and I have Adblock installed on my primary browser.

Still, the Kickstarter campaign is a great guerilla ad for the Scouter app...

<comment><USER10> Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't see the adverts.

 _Or is their rationale that advertising serves the legitimate purpose of informing users about choices they may not realize they have?_

Exactly. Believe or not, most people on HN are computer savvy. There are some users who are not aware of AdBlock. Personally I have installed it on a number of friends and family computers, and guess what, it has reduced the amount of adware and malware they install.

<comment><USER8> > Luckily for you then, since you already have AdBlock installed, you won't > see the adverts.

Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed -- I just saw my AdBlock icon light up and, when clicked, display this ad:

[http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png](http://i.imgur.com/Kwi9qmD.png)

I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Dorothy.

<comment><USER10> _Actually, AdBlock is making the new ad appear to those who have AdBlock installed_

I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of something they are implementing in a hidden way.

If you really take offence to what they are doing then you (and not directed at you per se) \- Uninstall AdBlock \- View ads on websites, maybe click on them occasionally so click-through rates increase \- Install Adblock Plus, because it's not the ad blocking that you are specifically against, just the fact they are advertising

The point is, you have options, and they are presenting options to potential users. This is how things work in a free-market economy. We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet...

<comment><USER8> > I saw the same thing, but that's not exactly the same thing as seeing ads, > they're not (AFAIK) only showing AdBlock ads... they're informing you of > something they are implementing in a hidden way.

I think it counts as an advertisement, and I'm not complaining, only observing. I just thought there was more than a touch of irony in AdBlock showing an ad within the AdBlock app.

> We're not living under a totally facist regime just yet...

Interesting comparison. A regime that forced us to watch ads could be described as Fascist, as could one that blocked all ads regardless of people's tastes. Anything that prevented free choice.

<comment><USER10> I don't think the irony is missed on anyone, no doubt the AdBlock guys them themselves... and the ability to watch or not watch ads is not the point I was making. The point is we have a choice of whether to use or not use, either Adblock, AdBlock plus, something else or nothing at all. But more so, the general state of the web and the big brother on everything. It's a slippery slope :)

<comment><USER8> > But more so, the general state of the web and the big brother on everything. > It's a slippery slope :)

I couldn't agree more. I was posting on Usenet before there was a Web, so I've seen the entire sequence of events. Rather depressing overall. But it could be worse -- we could be hunted down and killed for expressing dissent, for protesting, for supporting unpopular causes. When I say this, I'm thinking of this man:

[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/narendra-dabholkar- shot-d...](http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/narendra-dabholkar-shot-dead- pune-pushing-law-against-superstition/1/300345.html)

This man, this doctor, was an activist against unscientific quackery. He became too well-known and too effective, so his enemies hired a hit squad. And this was in India, a country and people that revere democracy and free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Todd Garland from BSA chimes in - [http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock- misses-the-mark.html](http://toddgarland.com/where-adblock-misses-the- mark.html)

Take away quotes -- "Seems to me like this is nothing more than a half-thought idea because they have nothing better to do and are jealous of AdBlock Plus taking bribes from ad companies to "white-list" them from being blocked."

"Want to have a real impact on advertising AdBlock? Do something that puts money in publisher bank accounts and gets advertisers results that's less obtrusive than the current state of affairs. Be creative.

An ad-free internet is a desert."

(full disclosure I work at buysellads)

</comment><comment><USER12> How dare they blight the web with hideous banner ads, I'm now going to go and install....oh.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd understand the use of adblock that only blocks annoying ads, like pop-ups or animation / sound. But why would sane person block regular ads?

<comment><USER14> Because I'm paying for the bandwidth, and because I'm there for the content, not the adverts, and because I can - it's my computer, I can decide what it does.

<comment><USER15> It's not your site, you cannot decide what it does. I mean really, blocking regular ads won't get us anywhere.

It's like receiving free news every morning, but you have ordered a kid who delivers them to cut out ads.

<comment><USER14> "It's like receiving free news every morning, but you have ordered a kid who delivers them to cut out ads."

What's wrong with that? What laws is that breaking? I'm not even sure that's breaking any social contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If they are successful I imagine they will end up as a Yelp-style legal extortion business that is rent-seeking on advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER17> This makes a perfect sense actually. They want as much people as possible to use the extension so that more advertisers are forced to pay to adblock itself to allow the ads through. The ethics on the other hand on such a moves are questionable, since it makes ordinary advertising either obsolete or makes adblock the bottleneck of it's effectiveness.

<comment><USER18> Ethics? Ad blocking is facilitation of content stealing. Not one inch better than, say, a torrent site where the vast majority of torrents are copyrighted material.

<comment><USER19> _Unlicencesd_ copyrighted material. Most free software and free music/movies are copyrighted, but they are licensed for distribution.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, that's what I meant of course but trying to simplify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A workaround to this would be self serving the ads, in combination with dynamically named tags / divs etc.

Obfuscating would complicate things, but at least it'd be a workaround.

It's crazy that buySellAds hasn't taken advantage of this.

<comment><USER21> This arms race has already begun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's actually pretty trivial to detect AdBlock and make your site inaccessible unless the user disables it. I've seen a couple sites doing that in the wild. Sounds like a business opportunity...

<comment><USER23> I am sure they know about it... but they must have figured it isn't work blocking them (this Adblock detection technique has been around for years).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm interested in knowing how they'll message the ad campaign.

</comment><comment><USER25> Chalk that one as an example of irony.

(The other front page article today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6274914))

</comment><comment><USER26> Coming from the other irony thread , is this an example of irony :P ?

</comment><comment><USER27> When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't understand how ad-blocking is even legal. It's like stealing - stealing content for free, IMHO there's no difference between stealing MP3s and news or any other content. There's some kind of user agreement between websites and its users - "you can use our site for free, but you have to watch the ads". Adblock violates this agreement. The people responsible for this should be in prison, they're thieves. And I'm pretty sure the time will come they will.

<comment><USER29> If you choose not to read billboards displayed alongside highways, is that also stealing?

<comment><USER5> That's not exactly the same as the billboards effectively not existing for you like with adblock. You still see absorb the advertisement passively.

<comment><USER30> > _You still see absorb the advertisement passively._

Good thing I have control of my software and can opt out.

I'm already assaulted at the senses all day long in different forms. The whole concept of advertising I find abhorrent. A service should only offer itself to me when I want it, otherwise they are just imposing themselves and I will dislike them for that.

Any way that I can opt-out of ads I will make use of.

Services that rely on just this business model should adapt or fail, simply. If the service is relevant it will come again from a different source with a more acceptable model.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Removing Android System Stock Applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.montuori.net/removing-android-system-stock-applications/ This week post is "Removing Android System Stock Applications". Ever wondered why an Android system or stock application cannot be removed with the GUI? How you would remove the annoying applications that comes installed with your phone?<p>In this post, will guide you to remove an application only with system commands and without any GUI applications <comment><AUTHOR> Check it out. A way to remove apps without GUI.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great way to remove those unwanted stock apps

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great Site really enjoy it...</comment>