Ma.gnolia back for a week already being forced to change name - <AUTHOR> http://ma.gnolia.com/blog/2009/09/29/by-any-other-name

<comment><USER2> The lawyers that I used to work with would advise merely putting the letter in a filing cabinet and taking no action on it ("Even if they have no case, having you flapping your lips in print just makes my job potentially more difficult later").

That said, I'd be inclined to write him something like this:

Dear CEO:

I received your letter regarding your belief that ma.gnolia.com is in violation of your trademark for "Magnolia" in the United States.

In the future, you may find that when sending a cease and desist letter, it is helpful to include pertinent details of your trademark registration such as reference numbers, a detailed sample of the registered mark, and what classification you are registered under. Your legal representation can explain the significance of these to you. Without them it is impossible for me to conclusively evaluate whether ma.gnolia could possibly infringe on your registered trademark.

As a matter of US law, your trademark is likely not to the word "Magnolia" in all senses, but probably scoped to its use in CMS software. As ma.gnolia does not sell CMS software, there is no possibility of market confusion with regards to the purchase of CMS software. We both have presences on the Internet, but frankly, trademark law is not a guarantee that you will be the only mention of the word Magnolia on the Internet.

You claim that "[ma.gnolia's] graphic appearance can be totally related to our CD". It is unclear to me that you are making a claim here based in trademark law. If you are, I would need a copy of your registered specimen to compare it to our logo to determine whether the claim is valid. That being said, a cursory inspection of the logo present on your website shows the word Magnolia. A cursory inspection of our logo shows the word Ma.gnolia with a giant flower on it. Your claim that these are confusingly similar is baseless as a matter of law.

Your lawyers are welcome to contact my lawyers if they have any other questions.

Cordially yours,

<comment><USER2> Oh, I found their registration:

[http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:ri...](http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:riq7f.2.2)

Their trademark is for [Magnolia] is scoped to "in the field of content management".

<comment><USER3> The search session expires :) But (for everyone else) if you run a search for Magnolia on that site it is the first (or second) one on the list.

I cant find the supposed Europe one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lol, "within 5 days". Some people are so very unreasonable... nor does it massively sound like they know what they're talking about. 5 days appears to be a little too short imo, wouldn't most of these kind of things be measured by the week/month or is this just scare tactics.

Can I send a cease and desist that says minus 10 seconds? (meaning they've already failed to comply with it :D )

<comment><USER5> Frankly I thought the tone of "hey, we need to ask you to stop" was a refreshing and reasonable change from the usual threats and bluster to be found in most C&D letters.

Whether they have a valid claim or not would be for a lawyer to decide, but if they do have a registered trademark for Magnolia that relates to computer/internet services they're in pretty good shape.

<comment><USER6> Is this the case, where they're forced to send out C&Ds, or risk having their trademark lost? (such as happened with Google: [http://126.96.36.199/search?q=cache:UCKy7KCtdhQJ:xooglers.b...](http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:UCKy7KCtdhQJ:xooglers.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html+site:xooglers.blogspot.com/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk) )

<comment><USER5> Yes. If you do not defend a trademark you run the risk of having it deemed abandoned, after which people can use it freely or even re-register it for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps a name change wouldn't be such a bad thing for him, to make a clean break with his previous site which died spectacularly with no backups.

<comment><USER8> From what I recall, the old Ma.gnolia did have backups. They just weren't tested, and thus, it turned out that they weren't functional. It was a failure of method, rather than an outright failure to try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Magnolia trademark hasn't been issued to Magnolia Systems yet. It's only been published for opposition. Which means if the gnolia.com crew have been using the mark in commerce before March, 2006, they can file an opposition claim.

The whole cease and desist letter is bogus until the trademark has been approved. However, if gnolia.com doesn't oppose the trademark claim now, before it's approved, then it's an uphill battle if the other company decides to sue.

Note Magnolia Systems is filing under multiple subsections - the only one you care about is the online commerce section. They can have all the others.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Big surprise_ : Ma.gnolia guy continues to be an idiot.

At least this time around he's blogging about the uninformed idiocy he's about to do before he does it...

<comment><USER11> Would you care to expand? You mean that changing Magnolia's name is idiotic? Or keeping it intact is?

I think he should be able to get away with renaming the site Ma.gnolia (with a dot).

<comment><USER3> I suspect he is referring to the fact that Magnolia lost all their data a little while back due to a poor backup policy (I forget the exact details).

<comment><USER12> The details are worth remembering. They had an enormous database (half a terabyte or so) due to their decision to store cached content in database tables. Their backup strategy was to try to sync their live DB files to another machine over firewire. When the master database eventually got corrupted, they dutifully rsynced the corrupt files over to the "backup".

Once the database finally rolled over and died, they claimed to be unable to recover any user data at all from the hard drives. But it seems they never bothered to go to a vendor specializing in MySQL recovery. Offers of help from Percona went unanswered, at least in public.

Full disclosure - I run a competing site (pinboard.in). Magnolia's stunning negligence in securing user data, and Larry Halff's attempts to cast himself as a victim of internet trolls when confronted by his angry users, are pretty much what motivated me to start the project.

<comment><USER13> This is a much better reply than someone else's a few levels up. You analyzed the mistakes and you decided to learn from them and create a competing product.

That is much more enjoyable to read about than "that guy is an idiot". I wish I could upmod twice.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gunman's victims urge Apple to work with FBI - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35629381 <comment><USER2> "'It will take us three weeks,' [John McAfee] told Business Insider, adding that he would eat his shoe on television if his team failed."

Glad to see him jumping in on the media circus, at least it puts a humorous spin on an otherwise grave trend of relentless drive for state power.</comment>


The Energy Expansions of Evolution - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0138 <comment><USER2> I highly recommend this Royal Institute talk: Information, Evolution, and intelligent Design - With Daniel Dennett [0].

The presenter provides a series of small steps in the way of understanding how the combined leaps of 'dumb' evolution was able to design intelligence. He contrasts the 'bottom-up' approach to the 'top-down' design in a very intelligent manner.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZX6awZq5Z0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZX6awZq5Z0)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was thinking about something similar just this weekend - how animals are divided into successive epochs of increasing speed and power based on their food source and metabolism. So reptiles have their typically slow (though efficient) metabolisms, then mammals appeared which go racing around with their hot little bioreactor bodies generating more power, humans taking the next step and pre-cooking food to gain more endurance than essentially any other animal... it's all about your fuel source.

<comment><USER4> In what sense does pre-cooking food give us more endurance?

EDIT: the O. P. Judson paper cites [1] which explores this issue in a mouse model.

[1] E. E. Groopman et al., Cooking increases net energy gain from a lipid-rich food. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4272645](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4272645)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking it like this a cultural evolution leading to higher Kardashev scales seems like a natural expansion of the purely biological progenitor system :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting! But what about plant-eating, there is no real mention of it? Was the transition after oxygen from plant to flesh eating so fast it's too short to mention there, or do they consider plants or fruits also flesh here?

<comment><USER7> >or do they consider plants or fruits also flesh here?

Yes. The transition to flesh eating happened sometime near the evolution of eukaryotes. Back then the single celled organism would consume another organism by wrapping around the other cell and then breaking down the trapped cell inside. That's where eating comes from. When sufficiently complex multicellular organism evolved the process moved from within the cell to within an enclosed area of cells. Plant and animals have been eaten in a similar manner since they evolved.</comment></comment>


Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? A Logical Investigation [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://philpapers.org/archive/HEYWIT.pdf <comment><USER2> > The meta-question, viz. 'Should we not stop asking the Question', is > accordingly tentatively answered affirmatively.

Well at least the author got the correct answer but unfortunately via an entirely confusing and unnecessarily complex (and incomprehensible) method. It is much simpler and more direct to see that it is an invalid question.

It is invalid because "nothing" is a relative term regarding something that was or could have been present but now is gone. E.g., there is nothing in my pocket. Nothing is not a thing it is a relationship. As with all concepts, "nothing" presupposes that something exists so it is invalid to apply it to all of existence which is how it is used in this question.

<comment><USER3> Dunno - "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" seems a fairly strait forward question - it's just the answer is tricky. If you don't like the term "nothing" you can put it as "why is the universe here?" but it's still a puzzle how the big bang and all that got here.

<comment><USER2> All you have done is made the comparison implicit instead of explicit. The full form of your question would be "Why is the Universe here (instead of not here)" in which "not here" is just a euphemism or a form of "nothing". You cannot escape the axioms that existence exists and that we know it. This is the starting point of any claim to knowledge even claims that deny existence or our awareness of it. That is what makes such questions invalid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All deductive arguments are "question begging" in the sense that the conclusion is already implicit in the premises. It's because the conclusion is implicit in the premises that it's possible to _deduce_ the conclusion _from_ the premises. I would have appreciated some more discussion of what exactly it is for a deductive argument to beg the question. Otherwise, all we have is the unremarkable observation that arguments to the effect that something exists usually have a premise or set of premises that entail a sentence of the form "x exists".

</comment><comment><USER5> One of my favorite responses to this question is from Philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser. As it is put on a wikiquote page ([https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sidney_Morgenbesser](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sidney_Morgenbesser)):

In response to Leibniz's ontological query "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Morgenbesser answered "If there were nothing you'd still be complaining!"

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure that style of "logical investigation" is going to get very far. I've got my own theory that it's because necessary truths have to be, eg. five being prime, these correspond pretty much to maths and reality is maths. Now just to prove it...</comment>


#aveterottorcazzo, a simple guide to a concept y'all can't seem to grasp - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dchkKZGlpCc <comment><USER2> #avetecacatorcazzo is more expressive tho.</comment>


Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st Century (1998) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tcl.tk/doc/scripting.html <comment><USER2> I wish there was a language that was actually multiple levels of compatible languages.

At one end would be dynamic and scripted and would progress to the other side of compiled and static. You would start out at one end for speed of development and progressively optimize and compile.

I suppose python and cython are that language. But it's not as popular as it should be.

<comment><USER3> might groovy fall in to that category?

<comment><USER4> Groovy's still just a dynamically-typed language primarily used for scripting. It has statically typed extensions but they're not used very much. Groovy's used for scripty stuff like the 20-liners you find in a Gradle build script, but you don't find Groovy in Gradle's own codebase, only Java. Despite the heavy promotion since Groovy 2.0, developers aren't using statically-typed Groovy, but dynamically-typed Groovy is doing fine in Grails, Gradle build scripts, Java class manipulation, etc, everything _except_ building systems. I wouldn't even be surprized if the newer additions to Groovy's own codebase like the Android stuff are written in Java rather than Groovy, despite statically-typed Groovy and Groovy for Android having the same author. That would be the ultimate vote of no confidence in Groovy's statically-typed extensions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am waiting for someone to say, but node.js! Then some of us old-timers can jump in with just how long Tcl's been doing this asynchronous callback thing...

</comment><comment><USER6> I think tcl/tk is still the best quick gui writing setup I have seen. Unfortunately at some point the language dev team took a wrong turn and tried to force non-backward-compatible changes which, in combination with other factors, killed the community. Too bad! No other language has stepped up with such an easy-to-use toolkit.

<comment><USER7> If you want my take on what went wrong with Tcl and Tk:

[http://journal.dedasys.com/2010/03/30/where-tcl-and-tk- went-...](http://journal.dedasys.com/2010/03/30/where-tcl-and-tk-went-wrong/)

<comment><USER8> I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tcl was great. The startup I worked for back in 1999, already had something, lets call it, Tcl on Rails.

But we weren't in SV, nor the web was what it is today.

<comment><USER10> IIRC, a very succesful web framework/platform/thing back in the late nineties was based in tcl, and called Vignette.

<comment><USER9> Yes, some of the guys that left our startup went working for them.

Our product shared some ideas with AOL Server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would also say that Tcl has been used AI and data sciences efforts when it was once called Knowledge Discovery. [http://www2.lbl.gov/Science- Articles/Archive/sabl/2005/March...](http://www2.lbl.gov/Science- Articles/Archive/sabl/2005/March/06-genopharm.html)

I downloaded the codebase.</comment>


Where is my lean browser for browsing gone to? - Lorenz-Kraft

Hi all,
i'm surfing a lot in the net. I do some web development. Sometimes there are 10 to 20 Tabs opened ... and my CPU Fan is roaring at me. Time to buy a new computer? Well ... no! I don't get it why a browser with 20 opened tabs eats up 4 Gig of RAM and spikes my CPU to 100%?
So i'm looking for a cool browser that does just this: browsing. No fancy development stuff included. A FireFox Light. Have you seen it? Pleas leave a comment!
IF something like this is none existent, who is willing to help me building a fork of some browser to make surfing the web fun again?
Greets, Chris
p.s. i'm currently using Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Some Plugins like Popup Blocker installed. all eat up TOO much ram while doing, in my view, nothing. <comment><AUTHOR> OK: Epiphany Web browser (webkit based) under Gnome 2.30 on gNewSense is coping with 12 tabs or so and using 170Mb. Tabs include The Verge and other heavy sites. I have javascript enabled. Scrolling is a bit slow on this old laptop. On a 1024 wide screen you get 9 tabs then arrows (i.e. Epiphany does not wrap the tabs bar).

[http://thesimplecomputer.info/1-month-with-the-midori-web- br...](http://thesimplecomputer.info/1-month-with-the-midori-web-browser/)

Midori has had a facelift (Gnome 3 version). Might be worth a try. Can't install this myself on this laptop without changing the OS.

</comment><comment><USER2> Try Midori? Runs on Webkit, has all of the base features of the other major browsers (web inspector, bookmarks, etc) without the cloud/syncing features or addons.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm rather partial to surf myself, which you can find at: [http://surf.suckless.org/](http://surf.suckless.org/) . It's best suited for *nixes under a tiling WM, so YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER4> if you want a true lean browser then dillo is the only way to go: [http://www.dillo.org](http://www.dillo.org)</comment>


Slow-freezing Alaska soil driving surge in carbon dioxide emissions - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/08/alaska-climate-change-tundra-soil-carbon-dioxide?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other <comment><USER2> Between the changes that we keep seeing that show many of the current climate change models to be overly optimistic (!) and the complete failure of any substantial efforts to change things, it seems like it only makes sense to treat climate change as being not just inevitable but also faster and more severe than originally expected.

Where are the temperate areas with terrain that can handle "hundred year" weather events every few years and vegetation that can adapt quickly enough? Because regardless of what's said by naysayers, Rapturists and people with the resources to remain at the top of whatever we end up with, we've embarked on a high-speed terraforming project - it's just not the one traditionally talked about in science fiction of the past 50 years.</comment>


Windows 8.1 now available - k-mcgrady http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/10/17/windows-8-1-now-available.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> I'm using 8 on my primary desktop right now, haven't upgraded to 8.1 yet. Typing this comment on my Macbook Pro.

After using 8 for a while, I honestly don't see why people hate it so much. I don't use the Metro stuff, and the traditional Windows desktop experience is much faster. As a development environment I quite like it, and prefer it mightily over OSX as Apple tries to shoehorn that OS into an iOS-like frankenstein's monster.

I'll be upgrading to 8.1 as soon as I feel like it, but I just came here to chime in that I really don't get why people abhor 8 so much in the first place. It kind of feels like piling-on to me with no real substance behind. As a developer anyway--I can't speak to a non-technical user's experience with it.

<comment><USER2> We bought my junior high-aged son a laptop for Christmas last year, and it came with Windows 8. He hates it. I promise you I didn't say anything bad about it (because who wants to convince someone not to like the gift you just gave them?), but he came to me a few days later asking if I could "upgrade it to Mac OS". His words, not mine.

I think the reason he doesn't like it is that it's different from any computer he'd ever used at home or school before, and without any real benefit. He loves the Windows 7 gaming desktop we have in the living room but sees 8 as "weird" without a good reason for being so.

I personally didn't have an opinion on it until I tried to install a network printer and ended up bouncing between the Win 7-style control panel and the Win 8-style wizard thingy because neither one held all of the settings required to make it work. After a few minutes of that, I was about ready to pitch it out the living room window.

TL;DR it radically changed the UI without offering any noticeable advantages for having done so. That's why we came to not like it.

<comment><USER3> Bit worried my experience will also be voted down...

...but I had 2 kids (12 and 14) who also got new laptops and also hated windows 8. No, they didn't do a PR thing for Apple (ah, the vote down?), they wanted Windows 7 back. The daughter stopped using the laptop in favor of a tablet, which in its self is interesting, and boy asked for a Win 7 desk top for the following birthday, which he got. The two Win 8 laptops are currently sitting under my desk gathering dust as I type.

In retrospect I asked them both why, and both said it was essentially that Win 8 is an OS for a tablet, not a laptop or desktop. On a tablet, fine, other wise, not frustrating and close to unuseable.

Later on, I had to rush out and immediately buy a new PC for me. I had zero choice and had to buy a Win8 PC. I nearly cried. I hated it, and couldn't get my head round how I could have several application running, switch, and all that. It was like everything is locked in to full screen, and so on. The one single thing that saved it, was installing the classic menu thing, which I could configure to make Win 8 have a start menu, boot to desk top and remove the hotspot things. Now Win 8 runs like Win7, Vista, etc, Im fairly happy with it. The only problem for me now is that nagging feeling that a load of un- necessary Metro stuff is chugging int he back ground.

Lastly, No1 son (20) had to get a new laptop, and was again stuck with Win8. The classic menu thing has saved his day too. Shame I didnt know about it at the time for the other two.

No3 son (16), is due a new PC, and he was essentially refusing anything with win8, and was prepared to go second hand to avoid it. Now he knows he can get round metro in various ways, he's much happier about the idea of a Win8 machine.

Over all though, the one thing I want to know is why on earth a UI so obviously designed for a touch screen is being forced on laptop and desk top users which mice and keyboards and not touch screens. I have not used Win8 on a touch screen tablet, but I imagine it might work well. Now, Im quite happy with Win 8 as long as I get straight to the desktop, have a start menu as it vaguely was before, and can completely avoid metro. Win8 is fine, its just having this tablet UI forced on to my PC I have areal issues with.

Oh, never found a way for my 2nd screen to work with the metro thing either.

Lets hope my experience is somehow valid enough not to be voted down.

<comment><USER4> Consider getting your kid a touch screen laptop if you are still in the market for one. I wasn't a bug fan of metro until I got one and now I use it more and more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been thinking about a surface, anyone have any anecdotes about how their kids responded to that? I selfishly want the Wacom stylus functionality for myself.

<comment><USER5> A friend's children (aged 6 and 8) use my Surface occasionally, mainly for the Fresh Paint drawing application. They love it, and have very few problems using it -- sometimes they misjudge the swipe gestures but they have learned how to recover in most cases. (They also enjoy ArtRage on the iPad, so it's not that Surface is the only thing they know.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't miss the start button when jumping to Windows 8, because I use the Windows 8 start screen in exactly the same way as I use the Windows 7 start menu: I hit the Windows key and start typing the name of the program I want and select the program as soon as it appears.

Really, search is the only way to work application choosing now. There are just too many programs on a system now to make scrolling through a list of them an efficient use of time. It was fine back on Windows 95 when I only had an 8gb hard drive, it's awful today when I have two 500gb hard drives.

The other OS' (or rather, their window managers) have the basic implementation of this feature, but the Windows 7/8 version seems to be better about context. It seems to know that, if I type in "cursor", I might want to "change how the mouse pointer looks."

</comment><comment><USER7> Microsoft REALLY wants you use a Microsoft account over a Local account. The link to chose a Local account during install is gone. It only shows up if you get the Microsoft account login wrong, and there is no indication that a Local account is even possible until this happens.

<comment><USER8> Tinfoil hat here. Isn't using a Microsoft account just like giving the NSA your credentials to your machine?

<comment><USER9> We may never know for certain. But it would be weird if a backdoor in Windows could be disabled in such an easy fashion. It's not like the rest of the OS is fully transparent. I think a better analogy is probably using a Google account to log into a Chromebook. In both cases, you can look at the network traffic to see exactly the extent to which your computer is reporting on you.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft. Also, you can't imagine how confusing the term "Microsoft account" is for those of us who work here. That's why I still think of it as a "Windows Live account".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What's new in Windows 8.1 can be found here: [http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/dn140266.aspx](http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/dn140266.aspx)

<comment><USER11> "Improvements have been made to better support users who prefer a mouse and keyboard experience to access applications."

That's pretty strange wording and makes it sound like desktop users are an afterthought compared to mobile devices.

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't agree. I haven't tried it recently, but I tried Windows 8 in a VM on a Mac Mini when it first came out as a preview release. I found it enjoyable even with just a keyboard and mouse. I could navigate the start screen extremely rapidly, not only via Win key-search, but using the arrow keys to traverse tiles. I came away thinking Metro struck the right balance between touch-only and traditional interfaces.

I used it in a pretty limited and less typical fashion, however. I did some development to port an AIR/AS application written on OSX to Windows. (We needed a native installer and creating a Windows installer required the Windows SDK, and WORA is always a lie, so extra dev was required. So instead of requisitioning a Windows box, I thought I'd try out Microsoft's latest and greatest for free.) Edit: Also had to do some Java development, same setup, different command-line SDK.

I used little more than TextPad and the command prompt (free version of SDK = no IDE), and didn't really use the Metro apps much. Except maybe IE to search for stuff. So I did spend more time in the desktop view. However, the time I spent on Metro was definitely enjoyable.

Another thing that impressed me was that it was still pretty smooth despite running in a VM on a pretty underpowered Mac Mini. It was nowhere as smooth as the Ubuntu VM I also had, but I expected W8 to be significantly more bloated.

<comment><USER13> _I wouldn 't agree. I haven't tried it recently, but I tried Windows 8 in a VM on a Mac Mini when it first came out as a preview release. I found it enjoyable even with just a keyboard and mouse._

Wow. I love how you disagree, but then go on to point out you are anything but an expert or regular user of it, and only used a preview, which isn't even the same as what we real users are using. Let me say, as someone that uses Windows 8 every day it is horrible. It pisses me off regularly. I've detailed it here:

[http://envoy510.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/windows-8-worst- win...](http://envoy510.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/windows-8-worst-windows- ever/)

<comment><USER12> Well, I did use it regularly for about 3 - 4 months, and since it was a preview, I assumed it would only get better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After upgrading to 8.1 some weeks ago I decided to really give the new UI a change.

And it is not actually that bad. The idea in modern UI is nice. I like the way you arrange windows and how you can easily split the screen for example 20-40-40 among three apps without having to manually resize the windows (just start dragging a modern UI app from top of the screen to arrange them). This also works smoothly with multiple screens.

I also think the start menu is ok, I just had to get rid of the default apps. I don't really see point on those tiles that are showing photos or news feed. Start with empty screen and then add applications which you really need.

In multim onitor configuration the start button is handy, since it allows you to open the Start screen in any monitor.

The major problem is that Microsoft decided to split the world into two. You have the modern apps. And you have the desktop apps. IMHO this was a mistake. They should have definitely figured out a way to run existing apps as modern UI apps. Now my most important apps are destined to live inside the desktop view.

Even Microsoft seems to have difficulties getting their apps to the modern side. Outlook is perfect example of app you would expect to exist on the modern side, but nope. Just on desktop. The Modern UI apps seem to usually simple apps. I'm wondering if they will ever manage to convert the complicated Office apps to modern UI.

</comment><comment><USER15> I still have no use for the full screen (Metro) start menu and apps since I use Windows 8.1 on a desktop and laptop. Classic start shell and running everything in desktop windowed mode is still all I need. I often wonder if I will someday actually want a Windows tablet instead of Android that would make this full screen stuff necessary. Until then, the full screen stuff is just annoying and ignored.

<comment><USER16> I find the Metro start screen makes it very easy to find applications and [common] files. Hit the `Windows` key and start typing.

I find it also useful for organizing the applications that I use occasionally in my workflow. Again, just hit the `Windows` key and there they are as big as grapefruits.

Having used Windows Phone 7 for two years [though I switched to Android because I got vastly better hardware for the same price], what I miss is how well Metro keeps crap from piling up in the way it does with WIMP user interfaces.

Android and the `Windows Classic` mode of Windows 8, just dump lots of little icons higgeldy-piggeldy onto the screen. The default Windows 8/Windows Phone behavior of adding new items to an alphabetized list follows the principle of least surprise - or rather most pleasant surprise since nothing else does it.

The problem with Metro is that it often conflicts with my habits. Android and Windows 8 Classic mode conform to my expectations - though often my expectations are for behaviors which could stand improvement.

<comment><USER17> The vanilla Android also adds new items into alphabetized grid. Samsung's Touchwiz does not, it will put new items at the end by default (you can change it though).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I tried it on a new computer (Haswell desktop with SSD). But Windows 8.1 is still slower than XP.

Even though I disabled all animations I can feel some lag between clicks and response. Probably it's because of this: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay- gqx18UTM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay-gqx18UTM) ("Windows 7 GUI slowness")

I'm going back to XP, but I needed to buy a dedicated graphics card because Intel HD doesn't have drivers for XP. And there's also 3GB RAM limit.

<comment> k-mcgrady Does that fact that you prefer a 12 year old OS to the latest from Microsoft not make you consider switching to Mac or Linux? There's bound to be security issues using such an old OS (have they not dropped support for it yet?).

<comment><USER19> Support drops in April 2014.

<comment><USER18> I'll use XP until Chrome and Firefox drop support. At least until April 2015.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Very curious to see how much they've fixed. Last year I bought a brand-new laptop which came with Windows 7. The first two months the laptop was running completely perfectly, until Windows 8 came out and I decided to upgrade.

Since then, the experience has been terrible;

\- randomly crashing apps without meaningful error-messages, mostly when one app would crash it would take down all other apps with it (this was fixed with an update about half a year ago),

\- the built-in mousepad was not recognized for about 2 months until an update magically fixed it, but to this day Windows won't accept tap-to-click properly and all attempts to fix it are reset with each Windows update,

\- the windows 8 installer damaged about 10% of my windows 7 restore partition from the harddisk, at the same time corrupting the MBR and making it impossible to either revert to Windows 7 or to switch OS in general without significantly reworking the entire harddrive,

\- and last but not least, just an incredibly confusing user interface which has truly weird functions like "drag mouse from bottom left corner to the right and a mystical menu will pop up.

</comment><comment><USER21> So do you have to make a "Microsoft account" and log in to their app store just to download something that was for previous versions a Service Pack, reachable from the web?

What happens with the existing local accounts then, anybody tried?

I've found only this:

[http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2...](http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/10/17/windows-8-1-now- available.aspx)

"Brandon LeBlanc: We're not releasing the ISO images to folks who don't have MSDN and TechNet subscriptions. Best way for everyone else is to update through the Windows Store."

</comment><comment><USER22> Relevant - Couldn't resist leaving this here: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWyBkY_CUAASUq_.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWyBkY_CUAASUq_.jpg:large)

:)

</comment><comment><USER23> I can't upgrade Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 because I've moved my "C:\Users" folder to "E:\Users" (to move it off the SSD). The 8.1 installer tells me "it can't install because either the Users or Program Files directory has been moved to another partition".

Somehow every other program on my machine manages to run thanks to environment variables like %USERPROFILE% and %APPDATA%.

GG.

</comment><comment><USER24> Has anyone been able to download the update via the Windows Store? I'm on the 8.1 Preview and the Windows Store keeps throwing an error about not being able to connect.

<comment><USER25> IIRC you cannot upgrade from the preview of 8.1. You will have to do a clean install. So try getting an iso or some other file download from microsoft instead of the in-store one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is a clean install recommended or is an upgrade fine?

</comment><comment><USER27> Obligatory question: Is newline handling notepad in finally fixed? Can I maximize terminal window? Those bugs have been open for 28 years...

</comment><comment><USER28> Update link ( ms-windows- store:WindowsUpgrade?ocid=GA8-1_O_WOL_Hero_Buy_81Update_Null_01 ) doesn't do anything for me here :-/

<comment><USER29> Open the link in IE.

<comment><USER28> I ment in the Windows Store... it just launches it and does nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No in-place upgrade from 8.1 preview? Ugh.

<comment><USER31> I'm upgrading from 8.1 preview now. See [http://windows.microsoft.com/en- us/windows-8/update-from-pre...](http://windows.microsoft.com/en- us/windows-8/update-from-preview)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Been using this for a few days already since it was released to MSDN. Definitely better than Windows 8.0 and even Windows 7.

If you don't like Metro, it's pretty easy to get rid of now but not entirely (it occasionally pokes you in the eye). My setup guide:

1\. Use group policy editor to get rid of lock screen.

2\. Set IE to open tiles on desktop.

3\. Set start menu to display apps only and turn off hot corners. Then set to boot to desktop.

4\. Uninstall all the metro apps that come with it.

You will still get the "start screen" but in apps view and the search stuff but to be honest it's pretty good. I rarely see it though as everything I use is pinned to the taskbar.

Use Windows+X as your new start menu afterwards - it rocks. In fact I wish earlier versions of windows had that!

Reasons to upgrade: faster boot, power management seems more stable, Hyper-V, explorer UI enhancements, nicer file copying, new task manager, better Powershell integration.

PuTTY and Firefox still work which is the most important thing for me though...

Edit: just to add I haven't installed a start menu replacement or metro killer.

Edit 2: I haven't figured out backups yet. Windows 7 backup was trivial with an external disk.

Edit 3: to bypass microsoft account login/creation on installation (I did this on Pro edition):

1\. When it asks you to sign in, click "create a microsoft account".

2\. There is a link at the bottom to "use a local account" on the page this sends you to.

<comment><USER13> You know, right after Windows 8 was released, I noticed something really interesting. While I was struggling with it [1], there were a lot of people on reddit and here being extremely positive, and on reddit there were attacks against anyone that was negative about it. At first, I figured I was just out of step. Gradually, the number of people complaining about Windows 8 grew to overshadow the boosters, where finally the boosters were nowhere to be seen. I believe it was a campaign by Microsoft to try and turn the tide they knew would be there, against it. It failed because Windows 8 was so horrible.

So, 8.1 comes out and here we have a new account (6 days old) with a glowing review. Pardon me if I'm a little skeptical. I've been had before.

[1] [http://envoy510.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/windows-8-worst- win...](http://envoy510.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/windows-8-worst-windows- ever/)

<comment><USER33> Oh god, not this conspiracy theory paid shill nonsense again. If I had a dollar for every time I was called a shill for saying anything positive about Microsoft, well, it still wouldn't make me a paid shill.

There's an alternative to your theory that requires fewer assumptions and only requires reasoning based on the types of people involved in the discussions you mention. People who like Windows 8 were comfortable using it in new ways, people who didn't want to change didn't like it. The people who don't want to change _still don 't want to change_ and so of course they are still complaining. Me? I'm tired of debating people on whether or not Windows 8 was an improvement over 7 or not. Usually it comes down to dogmatic beliefs over how they think Windows should work and those beliefs are at odds with how Microsoft thinks it should work. Why argue with dogmatism?

As evidence for the dogmatism of this belief, look no further than your own comment. You _simply cannot believe_ anyone would think Windows 8 was good, or that Windows 8.1 is good.

You and the House stenographer would get along.

<comment><USER13> _People who like Windows 8 were comfortable using it in new ways, people who didn 't want to change didn't like it._

Go read the blog entry and tell me that's about change. You can't look at that large list of problems and tell me it's my problem.

<comment><USER34> You're talking about yourself (and repeatedly telling people to go read your blog post, which they're not required to do) - the other posters are talking about users in general.

No doubt that you may well be an outlier. Every piece of software has groups of people who use it differently, including some that are infuriated by it. That doesn't mean that everyone that posts a positive experience is a paid shill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why I won't be upgrading from 7 anytime soon:

* I don't do anything important on 7 anyways since the company publishing the OS admits to giving vulnerabilities to the bad guys

* Metro annoys me, gets in my way, and generally adds negative value.

* GFWL doesn't work right on it (see posts elsewhere in this thread, steam forums, etc)

* The last time I tried upgrading from 7 for the preview, my bootsector was nuked badly enough that I had to use Testdisk to get everything back.

I wouldn't install it in its current state if it was given to me for free, let alone shell out $100 for the privilege. There is simply nothing compelling or even remotely interesting to me.

*edit - Into the negatives for an opinion and giving reasons why? Really folks?

<comment><USER36> I never use metro, but I like it just for the speed improvements. The desktop experience is basically the same.

<comment><USER35> That's just it, you can't "not use metro" unless you either jump through some GPO hoops (and hope that a future update doesn't break it) or install a paid third party app (and hope a future update doesn't break that, either).

Still doesn't negate the other concerns, though. 7 is fast enough for my needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Once again Microsoft has learned a lesson from Linux: the upgrade comes free of charge to existing users. Not quite the same yet, but it's getting there.

<comment><USER38> Hasn't every minor Windows version been free since 95? (I could be wrong on this)

<comment><USER39> Historically, it's been a lot more complicated than that, however, I can't recall an update like this being free from Microsoft since prior to Windows 95. They've added features and changed major parts of the user experience. They've also refrained from point versions for their operating system naming, but that's really just marketing/branding, since arguably some of the upgrades to Windows 95 and Windows 98 would have been point versions if they weren't sticking with the "year" branding.

Prior to Windows 95, I believe all point upgrades were paid upgrades. Though there wasn't a universal medium to provide free updates like we have today... it was the "drive to CompUSA and get a box full of disks".

Between Windows 95 and Windows 2000, there were many updates in between that didn't have a cost difference, but also didn't have a direct upgrade path. I worked for a company that supplied and supported small business networks, and I recall that many of the OEM upgrade versions didn't even provide a way for regular users to get their features. The initial version of Windows 95 was released without Internet Explorer. When OEM Service Release 1 (OSR1) was released, it included it. Regular users could install Service Pack 1 and Internet Explorer separately giving them the upgrade to OSR 1 for free.

Windows 95 OSR2, OSR2+USB and OSR2.x did not have an upgrade path at all, nor was there a way to purchase the full version outside of the OEM program at full OEM pricing (regular users could do this by buying enough of the system components to qualify the purchase as a build, but I believe they only sold the licenses in quantities of 3). This was a big problem for regular users since the OSR2.x upgrades added FAT32, USB support, AGP and a few processor instructions.[1]

The service packs released for Windows 95 didn't add many of the features that you could get via the OEM Service Releases, but they _did_ provide service pack upgrades for free.

Windows 98 had two versions, 98 original and SE (second edition). I wasn't building systems during the late 90s and a brief Wikipedia search yielded no answers, but I don't think SE was a free upgrade. The naming of this was annoying, since they started the trend of creating operating system editions like "Server" and "Advanced Server". Windows 98 and Windows 98 SE weren't different editions so much as SE was Windows 98 point 1.

Windows 2000 through Windows 7 continued the trend of free service packs. The "Editions" mess turned from a couple to a litter. Edition upgrades came for a fee, but they were different than in the past in that they were released at the same time, but certain features were only available in more expensive editions.

Microsoft also went back and forth on whether or not Service Packs would "add features" or just "fix bugs". I remember every time we had an MS rep in and this topic was brought up, they'd indicate that they didn't like the trend of adding major features in service packs, but invariably, they would add major features anyway. Windows Update and major other security features were added as part of service packs for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Windows Vista Service Pack 2 made the operating system _usable_ , with the addition of the bug fix (or _feature_ ) of being able to copy more than 65536 files using Explorer per reboot.

Having used Windows 8.1 since it was released to MSDN, my feeling is that they've greatly improved the operating system. I didn't hate Windows 8, though I rarely use the Metro apps, however, there are many things about Windows 8.1 that work the way I would have wanted them to work in 8.0. One could argue that they "fixed bugs with the UI", but really, they overhauled the most fundamental component of the user experience of their OS, the Start Screen. Icon behavior and features are different, the search screen works wildly differently (a plus in some cases, a negative in others). Returning the Start Button to its original position, was a huge improvement despite my initial skepticism that it would make all that much of a difference.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95) and from memory.

<comment><USER37> Windows 98 SE upgrade boxes were sold separately and they looked like this: [http://i.imgur.com/RfgHpb3.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/RfgHpb3.jpg)

Though registered users could apparently get the CD for free (see elsewhere in this thread). This site has an overview of most versions (it omits 2003, 2008 and 8): [http://ackadia.com/blog/computers/a-brief-history-of- microso...](http://ackadia.com/blog/computers/a-brief-history-of-microsoft- windows/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CIA: Hackers have already attacked the electric grid  - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenercomputing.com/blog/2009/03/26/cia-hackers-have-already-attacked-electric-grid <comment><USER2> You'd think that for something as vital as an electricity grid the companies would be using hardened systems with encrypted communication links.

<comment><USER3> A utility is a business operated for a profit. Corporations will take the path of least resistance to this profit, and since hardened systems are expensive to implement and manage, and since they have mostly been entirely unnecessary (no measurable ROI), they don't get implemented.

For similar reasons, most software has only the most rudimentary security needed to maintain the appearance of security.</comment></comment>


SDF Cluster Is Now in Maintenance - <AUTHOR> https://status.sdf.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> SDF is changing its main PAUX server.

> Broadcast Message from smj@sdf > (/dev/pts/83) at 19:17 UTC... > > > The AMD > Opteron 150 known as 'sdf' will now be retired. > A new 'sdf' is standing by > to take its place with 8 cores > and 16GB of RAM. > Please stand by for a > final shutdown of 'sdf'. > The swap should only take a minute or so > > > > > Broadcast Message from smj@sdf > (/dev/console) at 19:21 UTC... > > > Good > Night AMD Opteron 150 host known as 'sdf'. > You have served us well for 9 > years. > > Final power off in 30 seconds > > Connection to sdf.org closed by > remote host. > Connection to sdf.org closed.

Direct SSH to sdf.org doesn't currently work, but you can login by connecting directly to the IP: `ssh firstname.lastname@example.com`.

The new MOTD, welcoming the new hosts:

> Welcome to the new tty.sdf.org! > > Hosts 'sdf', 'miku' and 'faeroes' have > upgraded from AMD Opteron 150s w/ 2G > to dual Intel Xeon E5345 8 cores with > 16GB of memory. > > Finally, welcome back host 'otaku'!</comment>


Even during a crisis, colleges abuse their economic and reputational privileges - <AUTHOR> https://www.city-journal.org/higher-ed-diversity-bureaucracy <comment><USER2> I'll zoom in on the diversity point, but I realise it's not the whole focus of the article.

Seems to me the real point here is both blindingly obvious, and for some reason never discussed. Education is a pipeline, and everyone is obsessing over the final stage, forgetting the rest. It's short-term thinking that misses the real problems.

If you want your society to produce successful university graduates from all demographics, you need to ensure all demographics have access to quality pre- university education. As I understand it, this simply isn't the case in the US today. No-one seems to have any interest in improving the state of affairs. (Perhaps because it's less glamorous than talking about universities?)

As it stands, the left-leaning suggestion is to explicitly weight the universities' admissions criteria to ensure an increased number of disadvantaged candidates are able to gain admission, despite falling short of the usual academic requirements (branded _positive discrimination_ ). A disproportionate number then fail in their studies, as the article says. The right-leaning suggestion is to do nothing at all, as far as I can tell.

Neither is a solution. Solve the pipeline problem. Invest seriously in pre- university education. I'm continually surprised that articles on the topic don't even mention this in passing.

Disclaimer: I'm not an American, I'm not an academic, I'm just a random muppet on the Internet.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the needed work (and hardest work) is access to quality pre- university education.

That being said, I find it bizarre that we fret over whether minority applicants are given an unfair boost, while at the same time allowing legacy admissions and athletic preferance admissions to continue. Both of these boost applicants who otherwise would not make it through. We don't fret too much when a spot is taken by a wealthy legacy admit or obscure sport admit, yet we have multiple lawsuits and court cases if the spot is taken by a racial minority.

John Hopkins University ended legacy admissions and I applaud them. [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-we- end...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-we-ended-legacy- admissions-johns-hopkins/605131/)

<comment><USER2> I'm in the UK. I've never heard of 'legacy admissions' happening here, nor admissions in return for dropping money on a university. I get the impression from The Guardian that these things are quite unique to America, and really don't occur in the UK. [0] [1] [2]

Similarly I've never heard of someone being admitted to a UK university for the purpose of getting them to complete in university sports. Sports are funded by universities, but generally, few people really care about university sports, the way it should be. It may help in admissions if you have non- academic achievements on top your academic ones, but sports aren't given the special status that they are in US universities.

On the race point, the only lawsuit I'm aware of is the one against Harvard for discriminating against Asian applicants. (There's no question that Harvard have higher grade-requirements for Asian applicants.) The courts decided the Harvard admissions policy wasn't unconstitutional. [4] My understanding is that if a similar approach were taken in hiring decisions, that would be extremely illegal.

If you'll excuse a tangent: we also don't have 'campus police' in the UK, for which I'm thankful. Universities hire security guards, the way business parks do. The American system is to have police officers on the payroll of a university, expected to follow orders from the university's power-structure [5]. Deans should not be able to issue orders to police officers.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/01/harvard- ad...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/01/harvard-admissions- process-white-privilege)

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite- school...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/23/elite-schools-ivy- league-legacy-admissions-harvard-wealthier-whiter)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2019/mar/13/...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2019/mar/13/us- admissions-scandal-oxbridge)

[4] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/01/harvard- ruli...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/01/harvard-ruling- admissions-racial-bias-asian-americans-latest)

[5] [https://www.google.com/search?q="ordered+campus+police"](https://www.google.com/search?q="ordered+campus+police")

<comment><USER3> Yes, unfortunately in the US we have legacy admissions and athletic admissions without much oversight on how athletically talented the student is.

"A study, published earlier this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean's interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard.

That number drops dramatically for black, Latino, and Asian American students, with less than 16 percent each coming from those categories.

The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, "would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs," the study said."[1]

We are already aware that the current admissions policy has the effect of heavily and unfairly favoring wealthy white students. Then we try to "correct" for that. For some reason we talk about and fret a lot more about policies that tip the scales for minorities, but for legacy admissions it's just "how things are done". In my opinion if a university uses legacy admissions, they should be barred from receiving federal funding. When JHU stopped using legacy admissions, the number of minority students increased. It would be interesting to know if the number of nonwealthy white students increased as well. My point is, there is clear favoritism for the wealthy class, and at least one easy fix (drop legacy admissions) to get towards a more merit-based system.

[1][https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard- finds-43-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard- finds-43-percent-white-students-are-legacy-athletes-n1060361)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _Almost no college is considering a tuition rebate, which implies that > online learning should be valued at the same rate as an on-campus class. > Students and their parents may start to ask why they should pay astronomical > fees for a campus experience if they can get the same instruction over the > web._

Prof Scott Galloway's blog (No Mercy, No Malice) recently took a swipe at higher-ed fees and the ever-increasing financial burdens being placed on students - and younger people in general. It considers this in a post-Covid-19 world:

[https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher- ed](https://www.profgalloway.com/post-corona-higher-ed)

<comment><USER5> Apparently, if one engine of a four engine airplane stops working, the airplane flies 10% slower. But this doesn't mean if all four engines stop working, the airplane will fly 40% slower.

What I am saying is: if a large number of the newly unemployed are not satisfied with their life circumstances in a few months, there could be a complete breakdown of society. It is unlikely the "everything will be the same, but only accelerate" model will play out when the acceleration also depends on the "cooperation" of 10s of millions of suddenly unemployed people.

Here is my counter prediction to the entire article: A lot of prediction makers are going to go back to the drawing board and come up with better models for their predictions, because no model can adequately capture the chaos which is almost guaranteed to ensue now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article seemed to me to be a mix of two things, railing against the costs (blamed on the rise of administrators), and railing against the existence of diversity administrators.

I'm a professor employed at my present institution, a small liberal arts school, since 1990. I am not an administrator of any kind, don't read the _Chronicle_ , and don't understand where all the money goes. I will say though, that when I started we had very few students who were not white. Very few, particularly if you omitted athletes. But today a good chunk, 40% maybe, of the student body is, to my eye, nonwhite. I don't know how much of that can be ascribed to the diversity officer but it is IMHO a very good thing.

<comment><USER7> The US is 72.4% white. You would then expect there to be 27.6% non-white students at any particular institution, assuming no racial discrimination, etc. So then why is 40% non-white a desirable outcome? I thought the point was to compensate for exclusion / marginalization / discrimination, in which case the target should be that aforementioned 27.6%.

EDIT: since many people are replying to me saying that using the national demographic stats is a bad thing to do, I will use the stats for GP's state, which appears to be Virginia. Using these stats (94.2% white), you would expect the school to have only 5.8% non-white students, assuming _a complete lack of racial discrimination compared to the state population_.

I personally still think using the national stats is a better idea, as the goal of a college / university should not be to only educate people from the state it is located in.

<comment><USER8> Man, you twisted this comment so much to extract that message. The commenter is likely saying it's good that the campus is more representative, not that they're for the elimination of whites or some shit. Also, you don't know where they live. Where I come from, it's about 80 percent nonwhite. Before you comment, consider that the story you make up in your head isn't always the most likely.

Edit: Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

<comment><USER7> I am using national statistics given a lack of information by the GP. If the GP wants to update with a more accurate location, they are free to, and we can have this discussion with better accuracy. Without that, the "story in my head" is, in fact, the most likely.

<comment><USER8> Also: It doesn't even matter what statistics are correct, your assumption that the original commenter was celebrating antiwhite sentiment is absurd by itself.

Original:

You're using statistics for the whole USA. There are half a million people here, you're just regressing to the mean, some states have a larger percent nonwhite people.

Hawaii has 25 percent whites, so my estimate was correct.

Edit: also, your stats are wrong, see the other comment and get some perspective.

<comment><USER7> I'm confused, why are you going on about Hawaii?

From looking at the GP's account info, they seem to teach at a school in Virginia, which is 94.2% white.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Makes me sad for the fall and discarding of meritocracy in favour of filling enrolment and diversity quotas

<comment><USER10> Meritocracy is the lie we tell ourselves to justify inequality. There has never been a meritocracy.

<comment><USER9> I think you have that other way around

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this about how D&I efforts are ruining higher ed or about higher ed being a "Ponzi Scheme"?

The conversation is starkly different here vs. the Disqus conversation on the article page.

Also, authoring "The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture." makes me question the author's motive/bias.

</comment><comment><USER12> > ever more marginal students who stand little chance of graduating

> Before their inevitable withdrawal...

> ...even larger pool of likely dropouts...

rambling mishmash of concepts and overt racism gets in the way of complaining about tuition and crass lack of support for students during COVID here. Oh well.

<comment><USER13> It's like they couldn't resist saying that those non-white students are inherently less performant. "They're condemned to failure if they get in (look at their slightly lower grades), so it's better not to give them an opportunity at all!"

Their barely contained despise, hatred and anger bleed through the lines. It's funny how decades of racial segregation were simply ignored, almost like diversity initiatives popped out of nowhere in a society that has always provided equal opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No, not a ponzi scheme. Inflows aren't funding outflows under an illusion of value creation.

<comment><USER15> The article claims that, pre-covid, an increasing number of bureaucrats were being funded by an increasing number of increasingly ill-prepared freshman. Those freshman were not receiving value. If one accepts the article's perspective, why was that condition not a ponzi scheme?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Curious to know what people here think about industrial PhD programs.

</comment><comment><USER13> For a while I thought it was about bureaucracy, but it's just someone annoyed by seeing non-whites at American universities. Nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone who has planned on returning to grad school this fall to finish my PhD in computer science in hopes of becoming a professor at a teaching- oriented university, I am worried about the future of the occupation of being a university professor, particularly from the standpoint of being able to do research. One of the things I wonder about the post-COVID-19 world is what's going to happen to research as a career, whether it's in academia or in industry. In computer science I've noticed these two trends occurring in the past 30 years:

1\. Industry has largely moved away from funding long-term blue-sky research, increasingly shifting toward short-term, product-driven research projects. We have moved from places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC where researchers had a large degree of freedom to places like Google today where researchers are assigned to product teams (see the paper "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research" which describes how research at Google is operated: [https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/](https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/)).

2\. Academia has its own challenges: (1) the competition for a professorship due to the fact there are more PhD graduates than there are professorships, (2) the competitive environment for obtaining research grants from the NSF, and (3) the increased reliance on adjunct faculty members, who don't have tenure.

The economic effects of this COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly lead to universities reducing their hiring. Some universities may even face closure. The sudden shift to online teaching may also have permanent effects on the future of university education.

I believe that there are many opportunities for students that will become available if online education becomes the new normal, especially if online education leads to reducing the cost of a university education, which is a serious problem in the United States given the student loan crisis.

However, I'm concerned that a move toward online education will accelerate the trend of adjunctization occurring across academia and may even lead to the concept of tenure disappearing at all but the most competitive schools. I believe places like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard will emerge from the post- COVID-19 world just fine. I also believe that public research universities like UC Berkeley and University of Washington will emerge fine. But what about regional comprehensive universities such as the California State University system? What about small private universities that don't have the prestige of places like Caltech or Harvey Mudd? It's these types of universities that will face the most pressures to adapt to a world of compelling online educational choices.

I'd like to still be able to pursue a career in research, ideally with autonomy and the ability to pursue long-term projects, but between the trends that have been occurring for the past 30 years as well as the challenges of a post-COVID-19 world, I might not be able to pursue such a career.

<comment><USER18> >1\. Industry has largely moved away from funding long-term blue-sky research, increasingly shifting toward short-term, product-driven research projects. We have moved from places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC where researchers had a large degree of freedom to places like Google today where researchers are assigned to product teams (see the paper "Google's Hybrid Approach to Research" which describes how research at Google is operated: [https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/](https://research.google/pubs/pub38149/))

Industry wants their money to produce other money fast. Maybe having the state sponsor long time research is a better thing to do. In some parts of Europe much of the research is sponsored by the state. I think that's true for China, too.

As for online teaching, I don't think that can be as good as participating in person.

Maybe the crisis will cut just the beaurocrats and live knowledgeable people to do their work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can't help but suspect some bias in an article that defines neoliberalism as "academic-speak for capitalism". No mention of public university tuition rising in response to cuts in state funding?

<comment><USER20> > After the 2008 recession, colleges made up for the drop in state support by > raising fees. Tuition jumped nearly 30 percent nationwide from 2007-2008 to > 2014-2015, while real median income fell roughly 6.5 percent, according to > Paul Friga of ABC Consulting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> One can only shake his head when you hear about how things work in America.

Why are you so hostile against each other and/or the weaker/younger/non- wealthy people?

In most of Europe, education is free. You'll obviously have to take care of your own cost of living, but there are no real fees where you come out of your education and have 100k in debt.

Why do things in America work so different? It's not (yet) a third world country, it could probably easily finance things like these for its residents. But instead you milk your youth, leave them with debt and shrug your shoulders about things like these?

Why?

(free = Universities in Germany have what is called "Semesterbeitrag". This varies but for my university it was like 700 €/year and you would get free transportation in NRW with that and more benefits.)

<comment><USER22> The other difference of course is that in Germany, only a fairly small proportion of high school students is even allowed to go to Uni.

People that were not placed into Gymnasium at age 8 are set on a course where, once they turn 18, do not get to go free Uni; they simply are not allowed to go to Uni at all!

Also the problem of cost of living while studying isn't exactly trivial. Accommodation, food and participating in general student life all are things that cost a lot of money. You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or more gross. That's not exactly easy to do on the side, since most degree programmes are full-time only; you are expected to put your 40 hours a week towards the degree and not some other job to finance yourself.

When polled, 87% of students answered that they were dependent on financial support from their parents and 12% received state-sponsored loans [1].

So let's not kid ourselves. The question of whether you will go to Uni or not, in Germany, also depends to a very large degree on who and how wealthy your parents are.

Statistically speaking, your chance to go to Uni is 27% if your parents are blue collar workers. It is 79% if your parents also hold academic degrees. If your parents have no professional training at all, the probability is 12%. [2]

So maybe we should focus on our own issues first ;)

[1] [https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bildung/studienfinanzierung- so-k...](https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bildung/studienfinanzierung-so-koennen- studenten-ihr-studium-finanzieren-1.3172337)

[2] [https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/lehre/nichtakademiker- kna...](https://www.forschung-und-lehre.de/lehre/nichtakademiker-knapp-ein- drittel-der-kinder-studiert-597/)

<comment><USER23> > You will need at least 1k-1.5k EUR net per month, which means earning 2k or > more gross.

I am currently living as a student with ~ 500 EUR per month from working a student job in Berlin. This is not the most comfortable life, but is certainly is doable. On top of that we have BAföG which, if your parents don't earn very much, can be enough to study or at least be a good support. While BAföG is still some kind of loan, you only have to pay back half of it and the rest has no interest.

From what I found [1] about 41% of children are eligible for studying at a university. While I don't think this is ideal and the unfortunately the early tracking still does it's part to keep people from less privileged backgrounds out of uni, I do think that a system where access to higher education is tied to formal graduation sounds fairer than a system where you have to be well off or very gifted to make it to uni.

[1] [https://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/politik/article156291438/...](https://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/politik/article156291438/41-Prozent- der-Jugendlichen-machen-inzwischen-Abitur.html)

<comment><USER7> > I do think that a system where access to higher education is tied to formal > graduation sounds fairer than a system where you have to be well off or very > gifted to make it to uni.

Seems like a false dichotomy.

<comment><USER23> You can have both success in school and wealth as a filter if that is what you mean, but I don't think that is very desirable outcome.

The other answer mentioned state scholarships, which are offered to gifted and poor students. The options to go to uni are now: \- Have parents who can pay for your studies \- Be gifted/hard working enough to get a scholarship (I don't know how easy that is.) \- Be lucky to get a state scholarship for poor people \- Take massive student debt

This still doesn't look very nice in my eyes. Of course I am heavily influenced by my own perspective. I most probably wouldn't have been able to study in the US system. My teenage self was way to inexperienced to even consider taking a massive student loan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yes, a true racket in Ponzi style, and in Ponzi style, the crash will be huge...

<comment><USER8> Tech is gonna get hit hard just like every sector, so you better learn how to say that phrase too, buddy.

<comment><USER18> Every non essential sector will be hit. Tech by large is essential. Beaurocrats are not.

<comment><USER8> A bunch of tech is advertising and shit, there's a lot of techies working in that and other areas. Not all of us have jobs at places where they can weather the storm, remember that. Also, there is a lot of required essential work outside of tech and science, and your narcissism has blinded you to thise workers' value.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon S3 Block Public Access: Protection for Your Accounts and Buckets - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-s3-block-public-access-another-layer-of-protection-for-your-accounts-and-buckets/ <comment><USER2> It's still too confusing. Too much terminology, too many settings. 3 pages and over half a dozen screenshots to explain how to make a bucket private. Too complicated.

Google Drive folder permissions are easier. Phrases like "Anyone with the link can view" are understandable. Phrases like "Block public and cross-account access to buckets that have public policies" are not.

Hide the fine-grained control in an "Advanced" panel, for those who really need it.

<comment><USER3> This again is misleading, users blaming AWS for making bucket's public.

The bucket's start out __private__.

The UI when making a bucket public comes with a big warning.

Then a big warning label is attached next to the bucket itself.

It does show I think the scale of AWS that the userbase is so large that this isn't clear. This tool is nice because it means that a perhaps more experienced admin can lock down an entire account a bit more so newer devs looking to shortcut things with world public aren't as able to (which will slow them down for sure).

<comment><USER4> >> he bucket's start out __private__.

Except one of the biggest initial selling points is hosting static websites, which requires the bucket to be public. They even have a shortcut UI for setting this up, but then they highlight this "security issue" that you have a public bucket, which doesn't make sense.

If you've gone to the trouble to specify the bucket is a website with default documents, etc, surely they can filter these buckets out of the ALERT! PUBLIC BUCKET! list...

<comment><USER5> > Except one of the biggest initial selling points is hosting static websites, > which requires the bucket to be public.

Maybe S3 should just be separated into buckets and websites. They can work the same under the hood, but call them something different to prevent this issue. Right now a lot of the new (and existing) security settings don't make any sense in the context of websites, and having the functionality to make websites within S3 creates security issues for everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could have had this a few weeks ago, when I realised popular S3 integration tool `django-storages` _sets all objects ' ACL as public-read by default_:

[https://django- storages.readthedocs.io/en/latest/backends/am...](https://django- storages.readthedocs.io/en/latest/backends/amazon-S3.html)

<comment><USER7> Can't really fault Amazon or the Django library for you not reading the docs.

<comment><USER8> I am 100% willing to fault software for bad defaults regardless of how they document those defaults.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely agree. Telling people of your bad design is still bad. Especially when "telling people" happens in a flood of other noise, like one line in documentation on a whole tool.

<comment><USER5> > Telling people of your bad design is still bad.

IIRC the person who took over maintenance and added that warning isn't the one who created the tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a useful and much needed update. Know lots of stories where people got caught off guard by ACLs setting things public that they thought were private.

Usual scenario is that the bucket is set as "private" and you think it's private but realize some app or script has set the ACL for objects to "public."

<comment><USER3> "got caught off guard by ACLs setting things public that they thought were private."

A lot of these stories are written in this way where Amazon's ACL's "set thing public" when the user wanted things private.

To add a little reality here:

Amazon defaults are generally to _private_.

You get no network ingress to an instance by default (zero). You have no username/password login by default (zero) - you need to use SSH with a public key. S3 buckets are resource owner and aws account owner only to start.

My one issue - I wish they made buckets with no permissions by default, make the account owner add themselves or resource owner add themselves.

What is happening is despite LOTS of docs out there, users find it easier during development, quick integration to do things like WORLD readable. This is BY FAR the most common issue, USERS (not amazon) setting things to totally public by choice.

I've had folks tell say:

* It will only be public for a few days / short period of time while we work out X (once everything is used to public access it actually is HARDER to switch to secure access).

* I can't be bothered to learn IAM permissions (one of the most useful features AWS has for example relative to a place like google).

I like this new thing not because amazon is at fault, but because users are super lazy, and now some annoying "admin" can block them from making things totally public when they want to share with a partner, separate project etc.

So a good feature.

Now make S3 bucket's with NO permissions by default (not even creator / account owner) so folks can learn a bit of AWS right away to get going.

<comment><USER11> This is where I have actually come to appreciate SELinux. A newer dev comes along and makes a folder in the document root to 777 thinking that will solve their problems. SELinux still needs to explicitly allow that folder to be writable. That slows them down long enough to come find me, and then we get to have the proper conversation about what needs to happen. A folder in the document root with 777 scares the crap out of me

<comment><USER12> Do you know of any good intro to SELinux guides? I'm hoping to use it to lock down webroots to prevent other users from modifying them even if the user messes up all the permissions via SFTP.

<comment><USER11> Sadly, no. I only play a sysadmin on TV ;-) I don't fully feel like I have groked SELinux, but when things behave unexpectedly, it takes me less and less time to remember to check if SELinux is involved. I have at least come to accept that it is there to help, and it has saved me from doing some really dumb things.

Things to know is that there is a specific setting to allow httpd to write to a folder. There is a way to list files `ls -Z` that shows you the SELinux Context for files/folders. httpd error_log entries will just give permission denied errors, but if you feel like the perms are correct, SELinux will probably be why you're getting denied. That's how I started learning. One error at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If people using AWS for your organization can't be bothered to take a few minutes to RTFM in its entirety (AWS has excellent documentation, compare to Azure's docs.microsoft.com behemoth of confusion), they shouldn't have access to reconfigure you're entire cloud infrastructure. Buckets are sensible private by default. If you don't know what you're doing, leave them that way.

<comment><USER13> This is sarcasm right? AWS doc's are okay, but not great. Honestly, their documents are pretty piss poor. They have contradicting statements depending on what tool, they have 100 exceptions for integrating their own toolchain, and the perspective and context is never clear. Sure...their basic stuff is well documented....but it's constantly changing and their system isn't versioned in a way that is easy to upgrade or transition legacy systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Related question, anyone know how to grant access to S3 objects via CloudFront _only_ , since CloudFront bandwidth usage is cheaper than S3 objects accessed directly?

I've got it working for top level documents using Origin Access Identity, but subfolders (example.com/test/index.html) doesn't work. I'm surprised this use case isn't better documented because it saves you money and you don't need to make your bucket public.

<comment><USER15> [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/Develope...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private- content-restricting-access-to-s3.html)

With a bucket policy you can use wildcards etc to provide access to all or parts of the bucket content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My two wishes:

Totally private (no permission) buckets by default.

Some additional support for common usecases that drive the shortcut to public readable (often sharing internally for a project). Not sure if this would be a good thing, but folks are used to defining a group, adding users to a group (project / departments etc) in enterprise context, AWS supports this with IAM, but I wonder if surfacing a UI / something here might simplify this in some way.

<comment><USER16> Please feel free to track me down and email those use cases to me.

<comment><USER3> Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure of the answer, but:

Bob says I'd like to play around with data x on S3, or grab report z on S3. They are used to the Dropbox / drive / box etc model. That's often invite by email or allow *@domain.com permission. But how does this work in S3, how do you invite someone, how do they self provision their credentials without admin involvement etc? For a non aws/s3 user? One thing you can do, make bucket world readable.

Big user base plus more stuff collecting in S3 from various systems seems to drive some risk, not sure how s3 solves for above or if it should (email or domain invite, self provisioning of credentials if not on platform etc). Tie into workdocs somehow? Push into competitor tools?

This issue also comes up in the cross account / org situation. Want to invite someone outside of org to read data etc. Tools to do this, but it takes more work than folks are used to with other approaches. Pretty soon something is world readable.

API side for developers works great.

Be curious if others had use cases that create gravity towards world readable - because s3 by default is not, but a relatively high number of people end up there for some reason. Be interesting to try to give them what they want in addition to lockdown tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hmmm [https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3As3.amazonaws.com&en=](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3As3.amazonaws.com&en=)

Combine it with the right keywords and you can find anything

<comment><USER18> Everything I found was either a PDF file (common use case when you'd want the bucket to be public) or an html file in a bucket-hosted website (another use case where public is the correct behavior)

<comment><USER19> Try this: [http://buckets.grayhatwarfare.com](http://buckets.grayhatwarfare.com)

<comment><USER17> Nice, I just searched for .env and saw multiple people AWS secret keys</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber continues self-driving vehicle testing in SF in defiance of DMV - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/16/uber-continues-self-driving-vehicle-testing-in-sf-in-defiance-of-dmv/ <comment><USER2> > Levandowski was asked why Uber couldn't just go test its vehicles somewhere > else since California regulators clearly aren't welcoming. He said that > Uber's engineers deserve to see their work displayed in the city where they > work.

So it's okay to violate regulations because your engineers want to see their work in their city?

<comment><USER3> As much as I'm not a fan of Uber, I have to agree with the _whole_ sentiment expressed by Uber in the article, which is that they are doing the exact same thing Tesla is, which is having a person behind the wheel and using the software to assist, so if Tesla isn't breaking the law, how are they?

<comment><USER4> Tesla cars do not work in residential streets because it is far more difficult to navigate autonomously than the highway.[1]

This is what Uber is doing. Frankly, Uber is reckless and someone is going to die just so that their 2nd tier engineers can feel goey inside. They are running through red lights, cutting off cyclists with their half-baked products.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-restricts-autopilot-on- res...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-restricts-autopilot-on-residential- streets-1452446300)

<comment><USER5> I use my self driving feature on my Uber in San Francisco all the time. It's an extra safety assurance against hitting a pedestrian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought well of Levandowski, whom I've met, until this.

This is typical of Uber's "blame the driver and avoid liability" approach. If Uber signs up for DMV's testing program, Uber posts a $5M bond and accepts liability. With Uber's plan, the driver has to pay, if they're not an employee. Uber's manuvering here is probably so they can have contractors drive their self-driving cars without Uber taking on liability. Uber already tries to dump as much liability as possible on the driver.[1]

Tesla doesn't sell "autopilot" any more.[2] The original system was way under- sensored and responsible for at least four major crashes. (I've posted links to the videos before.) Newer Tesla cars come with better sensors, but without the software to use them. Tesla hopes to return with full self-driving, but so far, they're still testing and issuing press releases. Tesla's crashes are still in litigation in several countries, and an NTSB investigation is in progress.

[1] [https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=37714](https://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=37714) [2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/musk-tesla-remove-some- autopi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/musk-tesla-remove-some-autopilot- features-new-cars-update-2016-10)

<comment><USER7> Do you really believe that engineers working in Uber's self-driving division sign the same contract as the guy who's moonlighting with his Prius?

<comment><USER6> The people who drive Google's self-driving cars aren't engineers. Uber's drivers are even less likely to be; they're driving actual customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So Tesla is doing this thing where they're running in the background and logging data of decisions that they would make vs. what actually happens.

I'm wondering if Uber did the same thing at all. Because at the moment, it sure doesn't feel like it. Anecdotally I've heard many stories from friends in the area encounter autonomous Ubers committing traffic violations like running red lights.

<comment><USER9> This story seems to be similar: [http://www.sfbike.org/news/a-warning-to- people-who-bike-self...](http://www.sfbike.org/news/a-warning-to-people-who- bike-self-driving-ubers-and-right-hook-turns/)

<comment><USER10> So this is interesting. I grew up in California but now live in Oregon.

The laws here are a bit different than they are in California:

• Do not drive in a bike lane. You may cross a bike lane when turning or when entering or leaving an alley, driveway, or private road.

• Do not move into or travel in a bike lane in preparation for a turn.

Makes me wonder how these cars are going to handle individual state laws like this.

<comment><USER11> _" Makes me wonder how these cars are going to handle individual state laws like this."_

Actually, traffic laws can even be specific to a city.

\- In NY City: No right turn on red, unless otherwise posted.

\- In the rest of NY State: Right turn permitted on red, unless otherwise posted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If one of their autonomous vehicles kills somebody while running a red light, it could well be the end of Uber. Kalanick should probably be fired at this point.

<comment><USER13> In that case, could Kalanick also be charged with manslaughter?

<comment><USER14> Oddly enough, the answer might be yes. Tesla is under investigation by the NHTSA for their fatal autopilot crash some months ago, in addition to a homicide investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol.

I really doubt anything criminal will be brought against Tesla, but it at least sets a precedent for an investigation. Considering Uber's complete refusal to follow regulation, it seems you could argue they're being negligent and if someone dies that might be interpreted as manslaughter (I am not a lawyer). At the very least, I'm sure it will be a PR nightmare and a huge court case that would put a chink in their armor.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-gets-extension-in- nhtsa...](http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-gets-extension-in-nhtsa- investigation-2016-8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Asked if Uber was trying to avoid disclosing accidents involving its self- driving cars, as permit holders are required to do, Levandowski denied this

...and now we see why. I'm not sure why journalists attempt to pin "intent." Enough with this "gotcha" bullshit.

Simply inform the public that one of the consequences of Uber's decision to circumvent the law is that they don't have to report accidents which then provides an advantage over its competitors.

simple.

<comment><USER16> It is very reasonable, and good journalism, to ask about motives.

If it were reported as you suggest, Levandowski would probably complain of being the victim of innuendo. Providing the responses are accurately reported, asking about motives helps to protect the innocent while possibly stripping the guilty of cover, at least if they end up contradicting themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Company that rose to prominence by ignoring regulation ignores regulation.

</comment><comment><USER18> Uber's tactics here are really nothing short of disgusting.

<comment><USER19> Its noticeable for me how visceral the reaction to disobeying government is for lots of people. But i think its important to have actors that do it.

Argentina had an Uber-copy cat that played very nice with regulators: from day one they were working with officials and lawyers and were totally legal. They started to pick up demand and the gov. suddently passed a law specifically banning a way to ask cabs that only affected that company. They were crushed by the state one day to another, when they played as nice as they could have.

AFter that I realize that Uber's strategy is necessary. The guys that played nice got their assess kicked.

<comment><USER20> There's different degrees to disobeying government. There's disobeying regulation that protects rent-seeking entrenched dinosaur industries. And there's disobeying rules that protect pedestrians from being run over by red- light speeding autonomous vehicles.

<comment><USER21> I can choose whether uber is a suitable replacement for a regular cab for myself. But I can't choose whether I would or would not like to share a crosswalk with one of their self-driving cars.

<comment><USER19> I cant choose to ban cars completely off the streets, even though they pose a real danger to me and an economic cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Previously Uber seemed indifferent to the law. Yesterday they broke the law (by running a red light). And today they deliberately defy the law.

So for now I'll stop using Uber... at least for 30 days.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some reasons why Uber might want to fight this:

\- Agreeing that they are doing testing, would probably make it more difficult to move to "production" \- when do these testing requirements end?

\- The California regulations are quite light, but other cities might come up with more complicated requirements. Agreeing in California would set a precedent and make it harder to avoid complying in other cities.

\- There's requirements for the test driver. These might be difficult for Uber if they want to use semi autonomous cars in normal business. There is for example requirements for specific training, driver has to be employee or contractor of the company etc.

\- If they agreed to apply for testing permit, it might be that the permit is declined or later suspended.

\- As others have stated, not having to disclose the accidents and other statistics might allow them to avoid bad publicity and keep stuff hidden from competitors.

\- Looks like one part of the requirements is to enroll into "Employer pull notice program". I don't think that applies just for test vehicle drivers. Would this have some implications for company like Uber? [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_content_en/dmv/vehindustry/epn/epngeninfo)

</comment><comment><USER24> I assume they are doing this so that they can try to change public and government option in the hopes that part of CA will support Uber.

 _Cool! Look at that! See, the 're safe! I want to try!_

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know why Uber didn't get a $150 permit?

They've been working on autonomous vehicles for awhile, obviously they knew about the permit requirement months if not years ahead of time. Are they trying to set some sort of precedent, or are there hidden fees or restrictions people aren't talking about that Uber is trying to avoid?

<comment><USER26> The permit is for testing purposes only.

So I think if they are charging for the rides they aren't really just testing the system.

There's also a bunch of requirements about formally reporting incidents and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> How much of this is about getting free press? As a result the self-driving story is constantly hitting the press.

</comment><comment><USER28> Really sick of this company.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if these vehicles are programmed to pull over when cops flash their lights/sirens? Do they accept tickets? Can they be towed without the vehicle rebelling (har!)?

Interested in how enforcement by the DMV would work beyond working with Uber at the corporate level.

<comment><USER30> They have drivers on board which probably don't want to deal with the consequences of not reacting to police.

Is the possibility that the car could be driving autonomous enough to pull them over, and how to actually prove that was? (Presumably having self-driving hardware fitted isn't illegal, just using it might be?)

<comment><USER31> According to the DMV, having self-driving hardware is enough to require a permit (the permit that Uber doesn't have / claims they don't need).

If the police want to sidestep that argument, I'm sure the police could find something like "failure be in control of the vehicle" to cite the drivers with, if they see that they're not touching the wheel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I want to know if the red light run caught on video was while the car was in self driving mode. Of course there was a human in there, and Uber blames them, but what role did the self driving play? Was it a case where the self driving software messed up and the human didn't catch it in time?

If so this is a pretty big deal. Wouldn't you expect the very first people they put in these things to be competent people that were doing their best? This would indicate to me that it isn't realistic to expect the humans to jump in that quickly.

There's a dude stepping out into the crosswalk, fer Chrissake.

<comment><USER33> > _Wouldn 't you expect the very first people they put in these things to be > competent people that were doing their best?_

I recently mentioned on another thread that I think the primary purpose of that driver is not safety, but to absorb culpability in the event that the tech fails.

I just don't think it's reasonable to expect any human to reliably perform the task of correcting the vehicle. Imagine sitting at the wheel in a passive mode for an hour as the car performs flawlessly. Then, in one intersection, it suddenly malfunctions. Now, you are supposed to a) recognize that it's failing and b) suddenly take corrective action--all in, perhaps, a split second?

When you're controlling the vehicle, you know your intent. When you are "monitoring" you must assess the vehicle's intent. Even if you do so perfectly there is, by definition, some delay. That delay could be costly.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, completely agree on how it is unrealistic to expect them to correct in such a situation.

I would think, though, that they'd still be smart enough to put someone competent in there. Because if there is an accident, it is still going to look bad on them and the tech. (and of course this supports what you are saying, that it simply isn't reasonable to expect them to do that)

<comment><USER34> Agreed. There is still a chance the human will see something that the vision- system misses -- like the red light far off to the side. The human may instinctively hit the brakes to avoid hitting someone/something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Uber is like the "brah" of all Silicon Valley startups. They just don't care about anything because they're too sloshed from all the beer pong.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's interesting to me to read the comments here; so many references to 'running red lights' as if it was a common thing and not one reported instance where Uber says the driver was controlling the vehicle and there was no passenger. Was there some development there I missed and it turns out none of the cars recognize traffic lights?

</comment><comment><USER37> Who's going to stop them?

</comment><comment><USER38> Legislation arbitrage

</comment><comment><USER39> I just love the brazen in-your-face audacity of this company. :)

</comment><comment><USER40> In the long run regulation (read artificial market manipulation) hurts everyone. Law/regulation (as well intentioned as it may be) always moves slower than people's wants and needs.

<comment><USER41> What about cases where the free market is known to poorly allocate resources? I'm talking about negative externalities and public goods.

As a concrete example, take regulation regarding pollution that is known to be harmful to humans and therefore have a large cost. The free market will not generally take this cost into account.

<comment><USER40> If the public majority want to favor the environment over cheap rides that's fine. I just want the public to decide unanimously with their dollars. If pollution becomes a large enough problem to sway the public at large to reallocate their dollars I firmly believe they will react in each individual's best interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm going to be going against the echo chamber here, but I traveled around Europe and South America for five months recently (digital nomad)... The common question was "...why do you think the US/Silicon Valley has the technology and opportunities that it does...". My honest answer... Less regulation and an attitude of do what it takes to be successful in the early days. The hustle.

I think people underestimate how cut-throat technology and business is, especially in the market Uber is in. Uber is doing what is takes to be successful. Ultimately you have to ask yourself, who is going to have the best and brightest minds, lawyers, and lobbyist.... Uber or the Government?</comment>