Fans of Second Life Hope to Bring VR Back to the Classroom - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/Remember-Second-Life-Its-Fans/236675?cid=cp34 <comment><USER2> I once loved Second Life. So many science demonstrations (NASA, NOAA, and many museums setup virtual campuses there that are still amazing), gatherings, museums, and educational experiences that only a virtual world can provide. Then it became a ghost town (with some mostly-NSFW exceptions).

The problem is that SL is closed source. I once tried to run a virtual field trip with 10 kids to show them around, but Linden Labs blocked us for having too many users access SL from the same IP address. You have to lease property on Linden Labs servers for a presence there. Why am I going to invest the time and energy into building something amazing on rented space that will vanish the moment I stop paying for it?

If SL were to be released as a open-protocol, like WWW, where anyone can pop a server onto the Internet and host a community, I think SL would thrive again. I would love to see that.

I found a nine-year-old blogpost I wrote on the science attractions in SL. It really was an amazing place. I would really like to see something like it again, but open. I think there's a huge opportunity there for someone with the right technical capabilities.

[http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second- life/](http://ideonexus.com/2007/03/03/science-in-second-life/)

<comment><USER3> There is opensim[1], which is used to run thousands of similar 3d worlds (shameless plug[2]), and the upcoming open source highfidelity platform [3].

1\. [http://opensimulator.org](http://opensimulator.org) 2\. [http://opensimworld.com](http://opensimworld.com) 3\. [http://highfidelity.io](http://highfidelity.io)

<comment><USER4> Did OS/Hypergrid ever solve the avatar/inventory issues? I haven't followed SL/OS for the last few years so my information is probably out-of-date but when I last used it, it was still a hit-and-miss experience.

<comment><USER3> still is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just because something is in 3D doesn't make it automatically better -- often times it's worse as you now have artificial constraints that you didn't have before. For example, it's far easier to scroll through Instagram with your fingers (a UI win) and have every photo at 100% scale than to glide through a 3d representation where much more work has to be done. Certainly you wouldn't want the world to scroll you in VR -- you'd throw up.

This was true before with SL, and it'll be true with VR in the future. It'll be great for certain kinds of games, therapy, housing walk throughs, and other contexts for which a synthetic 3D world is useful, but it won't be the panacea that replaces all other forms of UI. Immersion also has a cost -- it's very intense and you don't want it for hours and hours and hours. Just like you'd never want to be on a rollercoaster for 8h, VR for 8h will also be too much (unless the world itself is not an intense game, you don't have a screen 2" from your eyeballs, etc).

<comment><USER6> I agree with the key point here: VR will not replace all other forms of UI.

It is a mistake to look at VR UIs as strictly 3D. There is no reason you could not scroll through your photos on a 2D screen with your fingers in VR. You can even have the added benefit of spawning multiple giant 2D screens, then grabbing photos off them for a scrap book or a virtual art gallery.

I've shared a great deal of locomotion experiences with other Vive owners. VR sickness seems a lot rarer than it was hyped up to be, and definitely a lot easier to acclimate to. I wonder how many vomiting journalists would be fine if they eased into it over a day or two. I can fly around in Windlands without flinching these days. Don't get me wrong, nausea is still a real design constraint, but we might be a lot more adaptive to VR and weird locomotion.

On the topic of session lengths, I firmly believe this is just an issue with content and ergonomics. I've done a few 6 hours sessions in multiplayer games, the problem is barely any exist. I haven't heard anyone experience "immersion fatigue", but some games will cause actual physical fatigue. Thankfully I already stand all day and it isn't an issue. I think if you already can play a game for 8 hours, VR will be there to provide the same in the future.

<comment><USER7> One BIG problem with SL is a horrible, hard to use, unintuitive UI.

\-- It's easy to make things hard to use, it's hard to make them easy to use. --

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know this is anecdote and a single data point, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

My mom, 60+ year old, decided she wanted to learn proper English. Being an aircraft controller, she already knew enough to get by on the job (communication is pretty much standardized). But nowhere near enough to get by in the US.

After a few conventional approaches (such as physical English classes), she somehow found out about Second Life and enrolled in a (paid!) course.

Fast forward a couple of years. She can now hold conversations in English and go out by herself without a family member translating. As an observer, the progress was outstanding.

One thing that I have noticed is that it can be way more interactive than "normal" classes. For instance, there was a lesson that took place at an airport. So, instead of just an opening dialog in a book, and then some discussion, their avatars were at a functioning airport. So they could go all the way from arriving at the airport to boarding the plane, having dialogue all the way. Not sure if the airplane did or could take off though.

At another one that I witnessed, they were at a clothing store. So they could actually interact with a human shopkeeper, buy the article of clothing they wanted, then put on their avatar.

Having attended "standard" classes all my life, I was blown away by how much the virtual environment would foster dialogue. Usually, a teacher has a hard time coaxing this kind of interaction in a classroom setting.

Also of importance is that, since you are hidden behind an avatar, shy people seem more comfortable. Things such as race and, to an extent, age, are completely hidden.

Not sure if VR would help anything, except for the "cool" factor, which can't be discounted.

<comment><USER4> The ability to cheaply simulate environments is at the core of many VR education/training concepts. I hadn't heard of it being applied to language education, that's really interesting!

Second Life specifically excels at being a platform for roleplaying (in the educational sense as well as the D&D sense). The built-in creation tools allow people to very quickly create environments that have enough fidelity to be a significant step up from 'this table is now an airplane' and thanks to the marketplace one can often quickly and cheaply acquire ready-made props for virtually any scenario. Using the more advanced creation tools one can even create video-game-level fidelity however that is usually not necessary for educational environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The biggest issue for VR is similar to that of Second Life: outside of gaming, it needs to seamlessly _augment_ reality.

If the pervasive influence of social media in our times has taught us anything, it is that a platform that does interface with our everyday existence will never be more than a cool tech demo.

Off the top of my head, for success VR needs to provide:

      * Virtual Conferences

      * Remote Home Sale Walk-throughs

      * Credit for remote class attendence.

      * Remotely Shared Sports Viewing with Friends

Until the VR experience can supplant some of the activities above, I doubt it will take off.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I hear "Virtual Conferences" as a big VR application. But how about we solve videoconferences first? Skype/Hangouts etc. hasn't improved noticeably in the last ten years. Videocalls still suffer from latency and poor image quality.

<comment><USER10> really? I frequently video conference to places will 11 hour time differences, and I am constantly amazed how well it works. I am pretty sure 10 years ago this wasn't practical.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I did a Hangout a few weeks ago from Europe to a startup in TX. At least on my end I was on a 1Gbps fat academic ISP; can't speak for the other guy, but he was in his office. Still, voice and video quality was poor and we had to restart everything once.

Also have had many poor quality video conferences on Lync/Skype for Business where all participants have been on the same fat academic ISP.

<comment><USER10> Yeah it happens. I still have both Skype and hangouts and swap depending on who is having a bad day. Still, it used to be much worse, but it's nowhere near perfect yet

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently listened to an interesting discussion[1] about VR on a friend's recommendation. One of the guests had a great test for quality VR: can it perform as a hiking simulator? Can it mimic all the qualities of a good hike -- visuals, body movement, sounds?

It seems to me we're much closer to a great AR experience than truly great and immersive VR.

[1]: [https://www.relay.fm/rocket/20](https://www.relay.fm/rocket/20)

<comment><USER12> >> Can it mimic all the qualities of a good hike -- visuals, body movement, sounds?

I've got some VR hiking goggles to sell you. They are cheap, lightweight and totally wireless, but only work in the woods. They were featured on a recent SouthPark episode.

Too many discussions focus on VR being a drop-in replacement for reality. Nobody should expect them to mimic reality any more than they expect computer screens to mimic sunlight. I don't much care if VR helms don't allow me to jog up Everest. I just want to be free to look around as if I were standing on the top.

<comment><USER11> I think many people who are physically unable to take a hike (disabled, elderly, ill, etc.) would appreciate a VR system that can closely mimic a real hike.

Also, if a VR system can perform well as a hiking simulator it would be able to realistically simulate things that don't exist, places that are too difficult/expensive for an average person to visit, or experiences that are too dangerous to attempt in reality.

EDIT: For example, I'd love to visit the moon or Mars but it's highly unlikely I'll ever be able to physically go there. A highly immersive VR simulation would be very appealing to me!

<comment><USER12> But if they are disabled, then they in fact want the VR system not to emulate a hike. They cannot walk and so do not want a VR system that makes them walk. The OP was discussing a VR scheme that would mimic body movements akin to the physicality of actually hiking (ie VR on a treadmill).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do these planned top-down approaches ever work? Especially in education? It seems like when technocrats have questionable ideas they try to shove it down the throat of kids instead of having a more decentralized approach with more choice. Negroponte's failure with the OLPC project comes to mind. A mix of cheap netbooks, tablets, and phones made it quickly irrelevant.

If we see social VR in education it'll be impromptu study groups in Altspace or screensharing in Bigscreen. It'll happen dynamically as kids decide what platform they prefer. Teachers will probably make similiar decisions on a per teacher/classroom way. I've already spent a bit of time in Altspace and Bigscreen and its very impressive from many aspects like usability, discoverability, presence, features, etc. I can't imagine using a SL-like system. Its too messy, ugly, and complex. It feels very Web 1.0.

Also, my god, the uncanny valley in SL is inexcusable. Either do photorealism or use cartoony avatars, there's really no room for middle ground here.

<comment><USER14> > Negroponte's failure with the OLPC project comes to mind. A mix of cheap > netbooks, tablets, and phones made it quickly irrelevant.

To be fair to OLPC, it just predated those other devices. It [the hardware] was developed precisely because cheap laptops didn't yet exist, and then the form and market came into existence and obsoleted a large part of the project's efforts (the physical hardware development, not its educational goals).

<comment><USER13> Not really, but the time they were actually shipping the olpc in non-trivial deployments, the netbook revolution was already here. Intel also had the education aimed Classmate netbook as well. 2007 article on the two competing platforms:

[http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/03/acomparison- of-...](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/03/acomparison-of-olpcs-xo- laptop-and-intels-classmate-pc/)

>nd then the form and market came into existence and obsoleted a large part of the project's efforts

It was also a terrible, terrible product. The crappy screen, low ram, low performance, lack of software, etc. When I used one I considered it something for toddlers or preschoolers. The Classmate by comparison is something I could use right now if I had to and still be mildly productive with.

The market moves fast and OLPC wasn't ready for it. They built their house on not just last gen technology but last junky gen technology (milquetoast AMD designs, shovelware linux distro, etc). They got leapfrogged trivially. The fact that they couldn't see that is inexcusable. Moores law reigned supreme back then.

While the OLPC was ambitious, it pretty much is the poster boy for incompetent central planning by out of touch technocrats who thought they were smarter than the market, educators, and policy makers.

<comment><USER15> I seem to remember around 2007 there were several netbook manufactures who were just getting started calling out the OLPC as the direct inspiration for creating the market segment in the first place. Meanwhile, that article describes Intel's device as having a better CPU, but half the screen rez, 1/5 the battery life and costing hopefully only a bit more than twice as much two years later.

The OLPC hardware was very low-spec. But, it was a brilliant design for being so low spec. It's UI was considered alien at the time. But, today the app- based, fileless approach has been proven out by the tablet market to be much better for the mainstream, non-hardcore user.

It's unfortunate they insisted on running so much in Python on such a tiny CPU. I understand that they really wanted view/modify source as standard for the kids. But, the only language I could see that working out well at the time would have been Lua --which doesn't have nearly as much clout as Python even today.

In my outside observation, OLPC was mostly tanked by politicians declaring that "If our kids can't use it to learn Microsoft Office, I don't want it even for free." There were a multitude of issues. But, that one really cut off the investment that could have overcome them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Second Life is/was actually great especially in its open content and customization system and economy.

But there's kind of a weird thing about Second Life and VR and video games. Video games have really filled the virtual reality space without being called virtual reality.

For example, the detailed simulation of Los Angeles in GTA 5 or the details and immersive story in The Witcher 3. It isn't usually called virtual reality and doesn't usually involve HMDs, but these types of games are largely what people were thinking of when they started talking about VR many years ago.

Now there are things like GMod (Garry's Mod), Minecraft, Space Engineers, Scrap Mechanic etc. that allow you to satisfying your virtual reality engineering itch with component-based development i.e. snapping things together, which is just much more practical, efficient, and just easier for people who are trying to entertain themselves than doing a bunch of scripting in OpenSim/SL/OpenCroquet/High Fidelity/etc.

Look at the first person perspective in the Mirror's Edge series. Its a very cyperbunk-type vision along the lines of early VR concepts.

Anyway long story short, VR is a massive business, they just call it "gaming" and we don't bother wearing HMDs.

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, interesting anecdote: I found my job at AWS through Second Life, back in 2008: [http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by- amazoncom/](http://brunozzi.com/2008/05/22/how-i-got-hired-by-amazoncom/)</comment>


IndieWeb Summit 2019 – Day 1 – Livestream Companion - <AUTHOR> https://web-work.tools/indieweb/summit/2019/day-one/ <comment><AUTHOR> "IndieWeb Summit 2019 was June 29-30, 2019 (Saturday & Sunday), in Portland, Oregon; the ninth annual gathering for independent web creators of all kinds, graphic artists, designers, UX engineers, coders, hackers, to share ideas, create & improve their personal websites, and build upon each others creations."

Author of that web-page, and newfound IndieWeb fanatic

There was a lot of cool tech discussed during that livestream, so I made a page to more easily navigate its resources.</comment>


French companies benefiting from state aid can't buy back shares - <AUTHOR> https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-business-buybacks/french-companies-benefiting-from-state-aid-cant-buy-back-shares-minister-idUKKBN21H0RI <comment><USER2> .. or dividends as the article says.

Devil is in the details. Maybe French government has good conditions for the aid, but the article is not giving details.

Aid should be exchangeable debt for public companies. No dividends and buybacks. No executive bonuses or options until the debt is paid full. After (5-7) years the remaining debt is exchanged into company stocks in a rate that leaves the government in the neutral position or with small profit. I think it would be OK to give compensation package to executives if it's tied to the profit that the government makes from the aid.

The aid should be available to everyone with same conditions. Not doing so punishes companies with good finances.

Having right incentives as a whole is the issue, not some implementation details.

<comment><USER3> Presumably companies with strong finances and other options for financing would not want to take on shareholder-unfriendly terms like a multi-year ban on paying dividends or doing buybacks.

<comment><USER4> No - but then they don't need the aid, so it's fine if they don't take it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why aren't shareholders on the hook for bailing out their own companies? They have the financial incentive to protect their own investments.

Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an investment besides a non-emergency bailout?

Edit: Why don't companies raise money by issuing more stock? Isn't that what the stock matket is for?

<comment><USER6> > Why is bailing out a compay different from "investing" in it? What is an > investment besides a non-emergency bailout?

Bailing a company out is just a euphemism for making a very high risk investment that the market is unwilling to do. Putting aside whether that is the correct thing to do or not, the option would likely (in a recession) be mass unemployment, so there's an incentive from the state, that likely wishes to avoid that scenario, that doesn't exist in the same way for "regular" investors.

That said, it makes sense that if you pull the emergency lever and request a state bailout, you should pay future dividends back to the state for at least a decent amount of time since they basically gave you a loan that no-one else would.

<comment><USER5> Okay, but why is buying a company's stock not the same as bailing it out? If you're "investing" in the business, why does money have to be given to them directly, using a completely different mechanism?

<comment><USER6> "Bailing [a company] out" implies severe issues with the financing of the company, and that without that investment the company would go under. I'm not sure what you mean by "a completely different mechanism", a bailout can definitely happen through acquiring stocks in that company.

<comment><USER5> What I mean is, simply buying a company's stock does not immediately benefit them. They have to issue new shares to turn their elevated stock price into cash. So if companies simply issued shares, they could raise money and effectively undo all of the buybacks they did. Problem solved, right?

<comment><USER6> Yes, assuming anyone will buy the stocks, and at the price you want them to...

<comment><USER5> Well, they can keep issuing stock until their share price hits $0.00. If they still need money, then maybe the state can step in and start buying some.

<comment><USER7> If traders credibly believed that a stock's value was going to 0, then the price would already be 0. Just saying in advance that your scheme was about to be implemented would crater the price before any new stock was sold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Prediction: that won't be a precondition in the USA, and if it was, most companies would decline the aid.

You see, buybacks are "that one weird trick" where you can steal from the market, by inflating the EPS and hence your employee stock options, and not go to jail.

<comment><USER9> It's not "stealing" from the market. All it does is increase the value of each share in proportion.

<comment><USER10> It's not stealing from the market, but it's essentially giving away money to shareholders by spending to inflate the stock price.

In a way it's similar to dividends, but not taxes in the same way.

Basically the logic behind the French government reasoning is "we're giving you money to support your business and your employees, not to give it away to shareholders".

Note that this wasn't the initial plan of the French governement, initially the plan was to pose no conditions, just saying "please be responsible in your choice". It's after the public backlash that they finally put conditions.

<comment><USER11> Raising the value of a stock doesn't make the shareholders money unless they sell their holdings (although it might incentivize doing that) as compared to dividends which encourage holding on to your investments so long as they pay out nicely.

The real beneficiaries of buybacks are executives and employees with vested stocks. They both lose money on dividends and directly benefit from the contraction in available shares.

<comment><USER12> Dividends would also go up if there are fewer stocks and the same profit, no?

<comment><USER11> Only if the company doing the buybacks pays out dividends in the first place. (UAL doesn't.) But the cost of buying out those shares is significantly more than the slight increase in dividends yields in all cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That makes sense.

But what about prioritising partial nationalisation of these companies by injecting cash in exchange for shares? That way it would have no impact on the net public debt, as the gouvernement assets increase at the same rate as the debt.

<comment><USER14> > gouvernement

French detected. We spell it as "government" in English.

<comment><USER15> And "regering" in Swedish...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't have a big problem with stock buybacks in general. But if companies buy back stock when times are flush they ought to be issuing new stock to raise money when times are lean. Not putting their hands out to the public fisc.

<comment><USER17> Lean times are absolutely the worst time to issue new shares though. The downward trend could spiral out of control if that was put into practice.

<comment><USER16> For that reason business managers may want to hold on to cash rather than buying back shares and investors may want to buy shares in companies run by such managers. If we bail out all the grasshoppers then what incentive is there to be an ant?

<comment><USER17> Absolutely agree but a middle ground is to regulate this kind of behavior out.

<comment><USER16> I don't know that we can or should regulate how much cash every single business in the country keeps on hand. Financial institutions that pose systemic risks, sure, but if a cruise company goes out of business because it was mismanaged (i.e. didn't keep enough cash on hand) is that really something regulation should have prevented?

<comment><USER17> The argument made elsewhere on this thread was that if the cruise liner employs thousands of people then yes it makes sense to have some sort of rules in place to stop them over-leveraging (or similar) to the point where their failure has knock on effects to the greater community/society.

Another argument is that we cannot guarantee letting them fail will happen due to political influence etc so it is better to put in place rules to stop bad behavior in the first place as there is always a risk of corruption when it comes to bailouts.

<comment><USER18> But if a cruise line fails surely it won't be long before someone buys their assets (maybe a better managed competitor or new entrant) and they will still need to employ people to run those ships.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not from France, but is it controversial at all? If company wants state support, money needs to stay at the company, that's what it is about, right? Do companies in France could abuse this rule in other way?

<comment><USER20> It's only controversial with short-term investors and executives who care more about using free money for some quick profit than about saving jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The same discussion is happening in Sweden.[1] The minister of finance has basically said that (my translation):

> The tax payers are taking a risk, so they should also have the possibility > to join the rebound, when it comes, and get some of that money back.

And regarding dividends:

> If you take part of different forms of state financed support, of course it > will look bad if you at the same time give out large dividends.

[1]: [https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/magdalena-andersson-oppnar-for- oka...](https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/magdalena-andersson-oppnar-for-okat- statligt-agande/)

</comment><comment><USER21> If the government keeps bailing out large corporations, can this eventually form a pattern in which major corporations and industries may collectively and artificially engineer a crash or downturn event to game the system?

Once any pattern is formed and determined, there are always some people who will attempt to exploit it, and those people are often the ones who would eventually ruin all the good things for everybody else.

<comment><USER22> The term you are looking for is "moral hazard".

They won't deliberately cause crashes, because those are not profitable, but they will deliberately make risky bets that benefit them if things go well, and get bailed out if they fail (riskier bets have more upside for the kleptocrats looking out for Number One).

Given the odds, crashes are nearly inevitable. This is undistinguishable from deliberate crashes.

The policies enacted after the 2008 crisis have actually made the banking sector even more concentrated and increased the likelihood of another such crash caused by moral hazard in the Too Big to Fail financial institutions. The procedures to fight against that, like "living wills", will likely have the same effectiveness as bulletproof vests made of wet toilet paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some opinions on stock buybacks worth reading:

[https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous- for...](https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the- economy)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/ban-stock- buyback...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/ban-stock- buybacks.html)

<comment><USER11> Skip the NYT article, it is fluff and doesn't take paying out dividends into account. The HBR article is better (but still only a cursory introduction).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps a better approach would be to require these companies to maintain capital ratios like we do for banks. They could be forced to raise more equity if their debt becomes too large. After all the point should be to prevent them from needing future bailouts.

I mean there are other ways to extract money from a company than paying dividends or doing share buy backs.

Are they also going to cap salaries for employees? Are they also going to stop companies paying out large fees to related companies? What about investing in expensive but highly speculative projects?

<comment><USER25> Why aren't we letting them fail instead of allowing these idiots to stay in business? Say American Airlines went bust. It's debtors would get its planes and other company assets, who would then in turn sell them to other airlines. A new airline might form to take its place, which would probably be a little more prudent than the last one.

<comment><USER26> In some indistries, that means thousands of people without work, and hundreds of other companies in the supply chain going bankrupt, and even more people without work. Sometimes it's cheaper to bail out the main company, then to deal with the unemployed, many more bankrupt companies etc.

But some regulation should be put in place... if a CEO fscked up the company so much, it needed government bailout, they don't deserve a bonus, no matter what their contract says. A good system would also be, to turn a bailout into a 'long-term loan' from the government, and have a mandatory percentage of the companies profits go to repaying the 'loan', with some regulation on internal business (to prevent dumping everything to a new, 'clean' company, and letting the old shell fail).

<comment><USER27> > In some indistries, that means thousands of people without work, and > hundreds of other companies in the supply chain going bankrupt, and even > more people without work.

A popular counter-argument is that governments should plan to spend money on unemployment relief for individuals if it looks like a lot of big companies won't make it. Let companies fail but cushion the blow for people affected.

<comment><USER28> Unemployment relief is a temporary solution because people are usually single skilled. For example an airplane engineer doesn't easily get a new job in another industry.

<comment><USER29> Wouldn't former AA employees find jobs in the new company formed by whoever bought up the assets formerly owned by AA? Why would they need to change industries? The need for airlines won't go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> EasyJet in the UK is a prime example of why these restrictions are necessary. Paid out £160 million in dividends, now wants loans on favourable terms...

</comment><comment><USER31> That's a false statement, Le Maire said that he _ask_ shareholders not to. Companies and shareholders can do what the hell they want.

<comment><USER32> Right now, it's your word against Reuter's. Do you have a source?

<comment><USER31> In French : [https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/03/28/le- gouver...](https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/03/28/le-gouvernement- impose-le-blocage-partiel-des-dividendes-en-2020_6034759_3234.html)

"Enfin, les employeurs bénéficiant du dispositif de chômage partiel, lui aussi financé sur crédits publics, sont appelés à « la plus grande modération » en matière de dividendes."

<comment><USER33> You omitted the important parts:

> Toutes celles qui auraient bénéficié de reports de charges sociales ou > fiscales et qui auraient versé des dividendes se verront obligées de > rembourser cette avance de trésorerie sur les charges sociales et fiscales, > avec une pénalité d'intérêt.

So, he asked the all companies whose employees are being partially payed by the state to be very moderate in paying dividends. But they will force all companies which are getting direct aid from the state to stop paying dividends, or pay back the aid they got, with interest.

<comment><USER31> Exactly. " he asked the all companies whose employees are being partially payed by the state to be very moderate in paying dividends", my point.

<comment><USER34> But the Reuters article isn't talking about that. It is talking about the companies receiving direct state aid, which _will not be permitted_ to pay dividends, under penalty of paying the money back to the state, with interest. So the Reuters article is absolutely correct. You are just dismissing an unrelated claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Could someone explain the sudden anger at share buybacks to me?

Media seems to portray it as some sort of evil trick, but I don't see it. It's not that different from distributing divs

<comment><USER17> It's basically rent seeking behavior if you taking public money and then using it to enrich yourself with no benefit to the public. That money could be 1) saved for a rainy day (like now) so they won't have to ask the public for money or 2) reinvested in the company to generate more value. As it is it just sucks value from the economy while also artificially increasing the stock price.

<comment><USER28> It does the opposite. Buybacks send that money directly back into the economy to the shareholders that sold.

<comment><USER15> Anything that increases share values or enriches shareholders is going straight into the hands of the 1%, or the funds that hold huge percentages of the market. It's not going out to be respent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm not sure "can't buy back shares" is the right policy economically. Buying back shares is just a way to give profits to shareholders like paying dividends or similar.

What they should do is companies benefiting from state aid have to give a lot of shares or options to the state in return. Maybe near 100% in bad cases.

</comment><comment><USER37> Much was learned from the banking crisis bailouts and good to see the French are mindful of that and addressing such issues that caused public outrage (rightly so) in a way that will curtail such abuse.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think if a company wants to buy back, now is the time.

</comment><comment><USER39> Most of the commenters here focus on the finances of individual firms. The only reasons for a government to bail out a company are 1) to protect the supply chain of a necessary good or service, 2) as a way of providing a safety net for people that doesn't involve direct payment, 3) a way of maintaining the structure of the economy so it can resume normal operation more quickly after the shock, or 4) a way of giving a handout to a set of wealthy and connected members of society. I think most of us can agree that 1-3 are necessary response to a major disruption and 4 is corruption.

For a small business like a dog groomer or a restaurant, we expect the fraction that aren't viable to go out of business with some probability during small economic shocks, and we expect that this will be a small fraction. So we let them go. But in a crisis where an entire sector will be mostly wiped out, such as restaurants in the current pandemic, some attempt at preserving the sector makes sense because otherwise you send shocks through everything connected with it. For example, if a restaurant occupies the bottom floor of an apartment building, and the building's cashflow depends on that space not being unoccupied for more than two months, then you can have a sequence of events that result in mass evictions unless you control those side effects as well. It's probably easier to try to maintain the web of cashflow.

Now, you may be able to get side effects that you like in some sectors, such as restaurants turning into food kitchens for the duration as part of the direct injection of cash. On the other hand, a bar or a salon probably just shuts down. But even there, most stylists rent a chair in a salon, so you need to make sure that web of cashflow isn't broken by an owner pocketing it. It still gets very complicated. For some areas like farms we already have large measures in place, since bad seasons tend to affect large swathes of farms. Thus reserve boards, farm subsidies and the like.

Others have pointed out that such structural maintenance can be gamed by having a barely-viable company that is too big to fail. Then even small shocks can be turned into structural crises. Someone else suggested requiring capital reserves the way we do for banks, and for large companies that makes sense. If you're that big and structurally risky, you should be required to derisk yourself.

One discussion I hope we will be having as a society during and after this is what disaster preparedness looks like. We should have the regulations for what putting the economy on such a footing looks like, run simulations every few years for a week, and have adversarial gaming on an ongoing basis to try to find loopholes and close them.

</comment><comment><USER40> Wonder how hhat the conditions for the bailout money in the US is. Do the companies have to pay it back? What about small businesses?

</comment><comment><USER41> Surely government are getting equity stakes?

</comment><comment><USER42> As we pump trillions into companies, at minimum, we should get an ownership stake

</comment><comment><USER43> Investors need to change our market valuation attitude and stop expecting that companies jeopardize their operations/stability so that they give us pennies from their cashier forever. Public companies should not be allowed to pay dividends/buybacks or in other terms to use their savings to keep paying in perpetuity fictional obligations. The initial investors ( _who are the only ones that physically put money in the balance sheet of the company_ ), are being rewarded by the increase of the share price (like Amazon, Google etc). The shareholders that are coming later, are being rewarding by holding something of value, and their participation in the board can increase/decrease this value. The value of a share of a profitable company will never go to zero, the same way that gold has non-zero value (they are finite).

What will happen with that excess money? Option 1 (The capitalist) : Trust the companies that they will handle them properly by planning for a rainy week (apparently nobody does), or investing in their business. Option 2 (The socialist) : Tax heavily the earnings and redistribute them in democratically approved way.

</comment><comment><USER44> Here's a counter point from a couple economists who say that the most important thing should be preserving jobs and not worrying about preconditions for now:

 _This dramatic spike in jobless claims is an American peculiarity. In almost no other country are jobs being destroyed so fast. Why? Because throughout the world, governments are protecting employment. Workers keep their jobs, even in industries that are shut down. The government covers most of their wage through direct payments to employers. Wages are, in effect, socialized for the duration of the crisis.

Instead of safeguarding employment, America is relying on beefed-up unemployment benefits to shield laid-off workers from economic hardship. To give just one example, in both the United States and Britain, the government is asking restaurant workers to stay home. But in Britain, workers are receiving 80 percent of their pay (up to £2,500 a month, or $3,125) and are guaranteed to get their job back once the shutdown is over. In America, the workers are laid off; they must then file for unemployment insurance and wait for the economy to start up again before they can apply for a new job, and if all goes well, sign a new contract and resume working._

And: _There is nothing efficient in the destruction of businesses that were viable before the virus outbreak. The crisis cannot be blamed on poorly managed corporations. Government support, in the case of a pandemic, does not create perverse incentives. Bankruptcies redistribute income, but in a chaotic and opaque way. And while bankruptcy might be a way to deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic for large corporations, it is not well adapted to small businesses. Without strong enough government support, many small businesses will have to liquidate. The death of a business has long-term costs: The links between entrepreneurs, workers and customers are destroyed and often need to be rebuilt from scratch._

Instead, tax corporations for excess profits later:

 _Windfall profits have a fair, comprehensive and transparent solution: The government should impose excess profits taxes, as it has done several times in the past during periods of crisis. In 1918, all profits made by corporations above and beyond an 8 percent rate of return on their capital were deemed abnormal, and abnormal profits were taxed at progressive rates of up to 80 percent. Similar taxes on excessive profits were applied during World War II and the Korean War. These taxes all had one goal — making sure that no one could benefit outrageously from a situation in which the masses suffered._

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/coronavirus- econo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/coronavirus-economy-saez- zucman.html)

However, I'm not sure what would prevent the Hollywood accounting trick in that scenario.</comment>


On the Heartbreaking Difficulty of Getting Rid of Books - <AUTHOR> http://lithub.com/on-the-heartbreaking-difficulty-of-getting-rid-of-books/ <comment><USER2> I hate getting rid of books.

When I moved across the country I whittled my collection down from ~3k to around ~1.5k and I was sad. For the most part I made good decisions around which chunks of books, but there are some I really screwed the pooch on.

On the plus side, it's easier than ever to backfill collections.</comment>


Show HN: An easier way to find deals - <AUTHOR> http://www.dealscorcher.com/

<comment><USER2> Nice work! The speed is particularly impressive.

I'm not in the target audience, so take this with a grain of salt:

1\. You might want to feature some of the better-looking deals on the front page. At first I was confused as to what kind of deals the headline is talking about.

2\. The big technical problem seems to be distinguishing between X and "X accessory". The very first sample search, "LCD TV" turns up a bunch of TV wall mounts instead. I suppose you do some result prioritization based on price?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll look for some better-looking deals to feature. Do you have any suggestions? I don't really know what people are looking for/would be impressed with.

As for the technical problem of distinguishing between X and X accessory I haven't had much luck in this department yet... as you saw :\\. I'm working on it though! Sadly the first result for a LCD TV (queried from Amazon using their API) is for a mount too!

I don't do any product prioritization, I only sort by date posted (deals come and go fairly quickly). Would you be interested in a sort by price feature?

Thanks for taking a look and your feedback!

<comment><USER3> It might be interesting to let people rate deals, then you can take that feedback as a signal to create a curated set that you can compare vs. different types of signals.

For instance, say you come up with "items that are rated really well on amazon, and say TV but not Mount" vs "items that say TV and have a +1 from a user"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a developer for DealScorcher and would be thrilled to hear any feedback you have.</comment>


SSL Report: duckduckgo.com  - <AUTHOR> https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=duckduckgo.com&s=22.214.171.124 <comment><USER2> Can someone provide commentary on what this means for those of us who aren't knowledgable about SSL/secure web traffic stuff? Is an A rating really good (I presume it is), or is it one of those things that you aren't really good unless you get an A+? What does 'RC4 yes PROBLEMATIC' mean and is that a vulnerability with any real world significance?

edit: Or is this about the fact that it supports forward secrecy?

<comment><USER3> They just enabled forward secrecy today: [https://twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/349948709418696706](https://twitter.com/duckduckgo/status/349948709418696706)

This link has a nice rundown of why RC4 is no longer recommended for SSL/TLS: [http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/attack-of- we...](http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/attack-of-week-rc4-is- kind-of-broken-in.html)

Basically:

"According to AlFardan, Bernstein, Paterson, Poettering and Schuldt (a team from Royal Holloway, Eindhoven and UIC) the RC4 ciphersuite used in SSL/TLS is broken. If you choose to use it -- as do a ridiculous number of major sites, including Google -- then it may be possible for a dedicated attacker to recover your authentication cookies. The current attack is just on the edge of feasibility, and could probably be improved for specific applications."

<comment><USER4> A frustrating problem with ssllabs.com and RC4 is that it appears there is no way to achieve a 100% score. Sites are penalized for supporting RC4 if RC4 is placed above AES-CBC, and penalized as being vulnerable to BEAST if AES-CBC is placed above RC4. If CBC and RC4 are both disabled then no major browser can successfully negotiate a cipher.

The BEAST penalty applies even if the preferred AES-CBC ciphers are defined by TLSv1.2 and thus shouldn't be vulnerable to BEAST.

[https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=john- millikin...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=john-millikin.com)

<comment><USER5> It is actually possible to achieve 100%, but you have to run only TLS 1.2, IIRC. But that would also make your web site inaccessible to most users.

But don't blame us, that's just the current situation with SSL/TLS. We're only reporting it. BTW, we used to show scores in the result, but too many people were trying to game the system (rather than be reasonable). As a result, we're showing only the grades now. In the future, the numerical scoring will be probably removed completely (switching to rule-based scoring).

As for BEAST, our test tests SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0 specifically, but not TLS 1.1+. So, the way to go with BEAST is to force RC4 with TLS 1.0 and earlier, some CBC suite with TLS 1.1, and GCM suites with TLS 1.2.

<comment><USER4>
      > So, the way to go with BEAST is to force RC4 with TLS
      > 1.0 and earlier, some CBC suite with TLS 1.1, and GCM
      > suites with TLS 1.2.

Since most browsers now include mitigations for BEAST, don't you think that the proven insecurity of RC4 is more dangerous to users than BEAST?

<comment><USER5> Both (BEAST and RC4) are proven to be real. The only question is which is worse, and if the attacks are practical. In my view, both are equally unlikely to be a threat for an average web site.

I'd love to get rid of the BEAST penalty, but there are no good (high-volume) stats on what percentage of "all" users is vulnerable to the BEAST attack. Because Apple is not yet deploying 1/n-1 in their browsers, the vulnerable BEAST percentage is still quite high. On SSL Labs, about 15%.

Given that attacks against RC4 are not very practical (yet), one possible direction is to focus on supporting TLS 1.2 (without RC4, obviously), at which point both RC4 and BEAST attacks will become irrelevant.

<comment><USER6> > _I 'd love to get rid of the BEAST penalty_

Please don't. The more attention is paid to it, the more ammo I have in pressuring the manufacturers of certain embedded systems I'm stuck dealing with to upgrade their ancient browser codebases.

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with IE6?

<comment><USER6> Believe it or not, IE6 would actually be a major @#!%ing improvement in one or two cases. At least we'd already know how to work around much of its braindamage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For nginx 1.1.19-1ubuntu0.2 on Ubuntu 12.04 the following config line will get you that green 'yes' for perfect forward secrecy:

ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA:ECDHE-RSA- AES128-SHA:RC4:HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5:-LOW:-SSLv2:-EXP;

You can test with a pair of terminals before you go bouncing your server (via [0]):

openssl s_server -accept 8888 -cert mywebsite.com.pem -pass stdin -cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA <hit enter a few times>

openssl s_client -connect 127.0.0.1:8888 -cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA

I don't know what the proper way to get rid of RC4 is.

[0] [http://baudehlo.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/setting-up- perfect-...](http://baudehlo.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/setting-up-perfect- forward-secrecy-for-nginx-or-stud/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this trying to show that Duck Duck Go just enabled PFS (perfect forward secrecy)?

<comment><USER10> Yes, pretty much.

<comment><USER11> Trying my own domain, it says the same. I never touched anything. Are they sure this is working?

<comment><USER6> It's working. "Perfect forward secrecy" is not a specific feature you turn on, it's actually an implicit consequence of certain ways key exchange can be implemented.

Chrome says, for the blog mentioned in your profile:

"The connection is encrypted using AES_256_CBC, with SHA1 for message authentication and ECDHE_RSA as the key exchange mechanism."

"ECDHE" means elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman exchange. This means your server, whatever it is, is configured to support perfect forward secrecy. If you're running your own server, you're probably using some recent distribution or Apache release that defaults to enabling ECDHE. Otherwise, your host may have done such configuration themselves.

<comment><USER11> Okay, thanks for all the info! It's indeed about my blog, and I host it myself on a fairly recent version of Apache.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sad: login.yahoo.com [1] gets a B grade due to Client-Initiated Renegotiation, BEAST, CRIME, RC4 and disabled session resumption. Even login.live.com [2] isn't that bad.

[1] [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=login.yahoo.c...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=login.yahoo.com&s=126.96.36.199&hideResults=on) [2] [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=login.live.co...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=login.live.com&s=184.108.40.206&hideResults=on)

</comment><comment><USER13> It's nice to see that they have a sane configuration (even though they should disable RC4 nowadays). They should implement HSTS, though. It is very easy to do (just a HTTP header to set).

<comment><USER14> Thanks for pointing this out -- we're implementing this now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> +1 for ssllabs.com. Nice resource.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cool tool.

A bit ironic: [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ssllabs.com](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ssllabs.com)

<comment><USER17> Not particularly. If you read further down, they've marked themselves down because they intentionally disabled protection against the BEAST attack, in order to collect some kind of stats on vulnerable clients.

<comment><USER5> That's right. Good stats on BEAST are difficult to come by, so we're running a passive handshake analyzer[1] on our site in order to determine what amount of our clients support the 1/n-1 split. The last time I looked, about 15% of the browsers we see are still vulnerable to this problem.

[1] For the curious, have a look at [https://github.com/ssllabs/sslhaf](https://github.com/ssllabs/sslhaf) The 0.1.x branch is the stable one; master is moving from an Apache module toward a portable library.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The funny thing is that SSLLabs' own site throws an "Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap" when RC4 is disabled in the browser. Apparently they don't support browsers that only accept strong ciphers. This is especially odd because they advise against using RC4.

<comment><USER5> You are not going to get a failed connection if you only disable RC4. I suspect you've been too strict with the suites on your end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _" Wildcard certificates are generally best avoided. Although they are not any less secure from a strict tech- nical point of view, the way in which they are typically handled (especially in larger organizations) makes them less secure in practice."_ [https://www.ssllabs.com/downloads/SSL_TLS_Deployment_Best_Pr...](https://www.ssllabs.com/downloads/SSL_TLS_Deployment_Best_Practices_1.2.pdf)

I'm curious about this. Could someone please comment on "the way in which they are typically handled makes them less secure in practice" concern?

<comment><USER5> [I wrote that document.] With wildcard certificates, the main danger is that multiple groups with the organization will have access to the same private keys. The larger the group the worse the security gets: the chances of the private key leaking are higher, and the people from different groups effectively gain undetectable MITM capabilities against all other systems. The same goes for the intruder, who will gain access to everything after compromising a single system. From that perspective, it's much better to use separate certificates and keys, and compartmentalize everything.

Then, you are supposed to rotate your keys when someone leaves, or if there is a compromise. Revoking a shared private key is nearly impossible if it is used in multiple systems. People get really afraid of breaking stuff, and if they do, it takes them ages to fix everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Quick response. Request for PFS appeared on the duck forum only yesterday.

[https://duck.co/topic/duckduckgo-ssl-not-secure- enough](https://duck.co/topic/duckduckgo-ssl-not-secure-enough)

</comment><comment><USER21> Interestingly, Stanford's Applied Crypto Lab scores an "F" with this test: [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=crypto.stanfo...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=crypto.stanford.edu)

</comment><comment><USER22> On a related note, running this against google.com shows that they support Forward Secrecy as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> So.. I got an "A" rating but not 100% in all categories. Is there any way I can improve on this (nginx)?

I have a lot of users with older browsers so that's really important, not sure if that matters.

ssl_ciphers ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:AES128-GCM- SHA256:RC4:HIGH:!MD5:!aNULL:!EDH;

<comment><USER5> It's really impossible to give you a concise answer, because there are many details to take care of. My advice is to download the SSL/TLS Deployment Best Practices guide:

        https://www.ssllabs.com/projects/best-practices/

which covers virtually everything you need to know on this topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why don't they support TLS 1.2?</comment>


iPhones for all Apple employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/28/jobs-pulls-an-oprah-12m-in-iphones-for-all-apple-employees/ <comment><USER2> Isn't it too late? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't what too late?</comment></comment>


Swathing is going out of fashion, as most farmers desiccate to ripen their crops - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/herbicide-is-whats-for-dinner <comment><USER2> At least one part of TFA plays rather fast and loose with the numbers...

 _"Farms these days are huge," Chris Willenborg tells me. "A large farm is 30,000 acres." Willenborg is a farmer as well as an academic, at the University of Saskatchewan. "In my 'farmer' hat, desiccation makes sense because it's efficient," he says. I can't visualize the scope of a farm that big, so he spells it out for me: "Think of a farm 60 miles wide, and 100 miles long." A farm that big would have different soil types, different climates even. It would be hard, even impossible, to have good weather long enough to harvest it all._

30,000 acres is 47 square miles, not 6,000 square miles.

<comment><USER3> And there are definitely no 6000 square mile farms in saskatchewan.

<comment><USER4> Or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

<comment><USER5> According to this, there are actually a few that big: [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-farms-in-the- wor...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/biggest-farms-in-the-world.html)

It's still a bizarre statement, as harvesting is a parallelizable operation and harvesting one big farm is no different from harvesting many small farms covering the same area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This comes up on HN like quarterly, so for anyone else who is always confused when it does:

Both swathing and desiccation are primarily practices in the far north - Canada, the UK, and the Dakotas in the US.

Neither practice is necessary or common for grain production in eg the Midwest or Central Plains in the US: the growing season is long enough for wheat to ripen and dry before harvest, and so it does.

So if you're in the US, there's like an 80% chance that your flour was not produced in the way the article describes.

<comment><USER7> Seems like the lede was buried... the "acceptable" levels of RoundUp in U.S. food has been increasing from 100 percent to 2,000 percent.

 _" According to the EPA, between 1993 and 2015, glyphosate MRLs increased by 100 percent to 1,000 percent in the U.S., depending on the crop."_

 _" Current MRLs for glyphosate range from 0.2 ppm to more than 300 ppm, depending on the crop. Between 1993 and 2015, the U.S. EPA glyphosate tolerance levels have increased by a factor of 50 for corn, and 2,000 for alfalfa."_

So even without desiccation, we're still "allowed" to ingest several orders of magnitude more probably-carcinogen-related herbicides which screw with our cells and gut microbiome.

<comment><USER8> 100 percent to 2000 percent of what?

<comment><USER9> The 1992 levels, presumably.

<comment><USER8> OK so just a tortured way of saying "a twentyfold increase".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I cannot wait for the day that the US seriously revisits the farming subsidies and agricultural practices we've adopted. Everytime I read about modern, large scale farming I'm a little more disturbed by the norms we're establishing. Surely there are better, healthier ways to grow food that are still economically viable.

I say the US specifically because unfortunately we seem to be the origin for almost all of the modern, disturbing practices that have become ubiquitous. We've been setting the standard and hopefully we'll make a 180 and start raising the bar.

<comment><USER11> > I cannot wait for the day that the US seriously revisits the farming > subsidies and agricultural practices we've adopted.

As someone that grew up on a farm, can you explain why? And also explain why the practices, aka fallow fields, are incorrect? A lot of the subidies and practices we have in place today are direct results of things like the dust bowl.

> Surely there are better, healthier ways to grow food that are still > economically viable.

Have you validated such assumptions? I can guarantee that large scale farming is a lot more nuanced than one can assume in an arm chair style.

Until you've seen what pests can do to a field that hasn't been treated with fertilizer or say herbicide, its really hard to understand why they get used. It is the difference between having a crop to sell, and going out of business and selling off your farm.

This black and white thinking that comes from people that haven't any experience in the chosen field is honestly more annoying. Should we improve? Sure, no farmer would disagree, but would you be ok with increasing your food costs by 5x? 10x? even more? These are the things you ultimately have to consider when you knock modern practices.

There is no free lunch (pun intended) if you ban modern practices. There is a good chance that requiring the things you want makes large scale farming impossible, and results in more people without food at all. I'm not sure that is an overall net positive.

<comment><USER10> I've never worked in the industry but I've been casually studying about it for the last 10 years or so. I'm well aware of the roots of our current agriculture system stemming from the dust bowl. I've spent a good amount of time trying to understand the history of the subsidies that shaped the Ag industry.

The fact of the matter is that our modern farming practices are way too short sighted. Topsoil erosion is the easiest thing to point to to identify that something needs to change. Things like monoculture issues, herbicide issues, pollinator health, are all things we should take more seriously but nothing is as concrete as the argument that we need to maintain our soil better.

Small scale forest farming practices have shown that there's alternative methods to produce high yields off the same land with better practices. There's a multitude of simple techniques like hugelkultur that seem like amazingly efficient ways to improve yields. Salatin's work has highlighted some potential ways to incorporate more biodiversity on the farm to maintain a healthier long term ecosystem. There's been meaningful traction with hydroponic and vertical farming practices.

I'm certainly no expert in what the actual solution is but whatever we're doing now is unsustainable. Much of it originates from the abused and malformed subsidies that over-emphasize food security over health or environmental issues. High Fructose corn syrup and ethanol being perfect examples of the stupidity of our current strategy around agricultural subsidies.

The government already pumps a tremendous amount of money into the agriculture industry. We should just do it more deliberately and thoughtfully.

Sure, prices or taxes will likely go up. By how much is the real debate but ultimately I'd say whatever the change is it's probably going to be worth it. Modern farming practices is right up there with climate change as an existential threat that we should not neglect and saddle future generations with.

<comment><USER12> I agree with much of what you're saying.

It feels like part of the problem is one of wording. 'Modern farming' sounds very positive -- who doesn't like modern things? I suggest that 'industrial farming' would be a better description, and invoke a more realistic mental image of what it involves.

Holmgren & Mollison formulated a more recent answer to the problems of sustainable food production than Haber & Bosch. So perhaps a system that doesn't rapidly render the land unproductive, and does not requiring an energy input roughly the same as the (food) energy output, could be considered more 'modern'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I knew of this practice and it always bothered me regarding flour. With fruit, for example, I can wash off any herbicide or pesticide applied to the plant during its growth. However, how do I wash glyphosate or 2,4-d off a bag of ground flour?

I wonder if this partly explains why so many people have "gluten intolerance" (many being self-diagnosed). It may not be something inherent to gluten, but rather the way wheat is grown and harvested.

<comment><USER14> I have to be very careful about wheat products. If I eat the wrong stuff, I get acid reflux, and nasty acne. Some people tell me that I'm allergic to gluten. Others say yeast, because it's mainly crackers and noodles that I can eat. But not all wheat crackers are OK. The only one that I'm sure of is Stoned Wheat Thins, from Canada.

I wonder if it's glyphosate, or some other pesticide.

<comment><USER15> Anecdotal I know but same here - by trial and error I have also found certain wheat products OK. Name brand saltine crackers, but not generics, certain local breads, but not others. Some beers but not others too. Waiting for the day when this is all sorted out!

<comment><USER14> Yes, bizarrely enough, Nabisco Saltines are also ~OK for me. But not Breton.

I didn't figure it out until I started logging food and symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An interesting topic but there were some really silly speculations that ruined a lot of the piece. Big farms can't combine in stages because they have more diverse terrain? Multiple combines harvesting together are a picture from a horrible dystopia?

I've lived in Saskatchewan a long time. Big farms are way better than family farms; they take a lot less expensive government infrastructure to service and are way more capital and operationally-efficient. Combines also always harvest together; the crop all has to come off before the weather turns so friends and family all come out and work monster shifts to get everything done.

If you are going to present a story as evidence-base, stick to the evidence.

<comment><USER17> The same is true of most businesses, for example, big retailers are more efficient than many smaller retailers. Though I don't think I'd want to live in a world where I can only shop at Amazon or Walmart any more than I'd want to live in a world where only a few corporate farms produce all food.

Efficiency isn't always what's best for the market, and doesn't mean lower prices for consumers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I haven't taken the need to buy organic that seriously before but this is rather terrifying.

Moreover, it demonstrates that at any point, you might up with "conventionally grown" food that has been grown with this year's innovative chemical addition which uncertain implications.

<comment><USER19> I wish there was a label for food that is grown without pesticides, but with artificial fertilizers.

<comment><USER20> I undersand artificial fertilizers are pretty bad for soil biology. We desperately need healthy soil for CO2 absobtion (not to mention fertility).

<comment><USER21> What makes you think your understanding is correct?

<comment><USER22> Organic farming enhances soil microbial abundance and activity—A meta-analysis and meta-regression [1]

> we integrated data from 56 mainly peer-reviewed papers into our analysis, > including 149 pairwise comparisons originating from different climatic zones > and experimental duration ranging from 3 to more than 100 years. Overall, we > found that organic systems had 32% to 84% greater microbial biomass carbon, > microbial biomass nitrogen, total phospholipid fatty-acids, and > dehydrogenase, urease and protease activities than conventional systems. > .... In summary, this study shows that overall organic farming enhances > total microbial abundance and activity in agricultural soils on a global > scale.

[1] [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0180442)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> a couple of weeks ago i heard that people who move to the us lose ~30% of their gut bacteria diversity - here's one paper [https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(1831382-5.pdf](https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674\(1831382-5.pdf) . most sources claiming a monotonic diet lacking in fibre. could the influence of glyphosat also play a role in this?

<comment><USER24> Everything related to food in the US is just a total disaster. From meal habits, to crop to cattle, to sugar, and obesity. This society is in self destruction mode, and the only good side of it is that as a consequence your pharmaceutical industry is a huge economy that's discovering new drugs that benefits to the rest of the world.

I wouldn't expect this to be a sustainable model for too long though.

<comment><USER25> >Everything related to food in the US is just a total disaster.

The US has the most plentiful and cheapest foods. It supplies its own population with food so cheap the prices have to be supported. And, even with that, there is enormous surplus. And, on top of that, the US is by far the worlds largest exporter of food. As well as the world's largest supplier of free food for relief purposes.

In light of that, your comment seems odd.

<comment><USER4> "We have the most food so our food is the best" sums up the whole problem pretty well, actually.

<comment><USER26> You could shorten it to "we have the most corn originated high fructose corn syrup so our food is the best" and it would be pretty much the same. Sorry lurquer. :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think I'm going crazy trying to figure out how to navigate what is actually healthy to eat, and more importantly, what is healthy for my children to eat.

Is there a single, trustworthy authority that can tell me which brands are safe, knowing full well designations like "USDA Organic" are being gamed by companies?

<comment><USER28> Short answer: no. Longer answer: buy from farmer's markets, preferably places where you have seen the farm or met the farmer. You can't inspect everything they do, but you can ask yourself, "does this seem like the kind of person who is trying to do things right?" But, also, refer to the short answer, above.

<comment><USER14> Thanks. Shorter, and more to the point, than my answer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The article took a long time to get to the point. The idea is that desiccation, if done badly can result in more glyphosate ending up in the grain. There is an idea floating around that glyphosate can affect gut bacteria in humans. No one has tested that so it might be a good idea to do some research.

</comment><comment><USER30> >Cattle are fed low dose antibiotics in feedlots—not to stave off disease, but because it makes them gain weight more easily than an antibiotic-free cow. It changes their gut microbes so that they grow fat on less food.

Curious if we're externalizing the costs of producing desiccant-free food into our healthcare system. CDC says obesity will cost us $147 billion this year[1]. Does glyphosate save the agriculture industry that much? Has the link even been examined?

1\. [https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/causes.html](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/causes.html)

<comment><USER31> Obesity is generally caused by eating too many calories. The real cause of being fat is too many calories and not enough movement. The fault is at the fork, not the farm.

<comment><USER30> >they grow fat on less food.

Seems to indicate that the effects of these chemicals change the way the animal physiologically responds to an intake of a given number of calories.

When we're talking a problem that impacts us on a societal level, we need to look at all potential influencing factors. Limiting that analysis to the "calories-in, calories-out" hypothesis hasn't gotten us any closer to a solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Swathing is definitely still used for alfalfa and grass hay. It may be called "mowing" or just "cutting hay"; it's definitely not chemical desiccation.

</comment><comment><USER20> What is being done to soil biology, even in organic farming, is a disaster.

I don't know the impact this specific technique has on soil life, but I'd wager it can't help.

If we want to keep the soil fertile, and restore CO2 absorbtion to the soil, we need healthy soil !

</comment><comment><USER33> Farming is an incredibly inefficient way to keep people alive. The way we have been feeding ourselves must stop. 1. Taking some Ag indoors would help 2. Making synthetic and customized 'food' would also make sense. We eat too much and not right. 3. Enormous wastage in the industry. We treat Ag like industry and supply chain is very leaky. 4. It's imbecility to dig up fossil fuel and release it to create food and use it as fodder to eat more. We are just a fart's way to create another fart. 5. We need to think of food as fuel and food as pleasure. Let's farm to create food for pleasure. In a sci-fi world, we should be able to synthesize our own nutritional requirements...but realistically it's possible to customise individual food needs at diff life stages and consume synthetic food. 6. If I were to imagine a world where this is possible..one could go to a health center once a month and assess nutritional/calorific needs based on health requirements. A monthly supply of food-meds should sustain us. 'Food' as we know it now would be for hedonistic purposes. Why shouldn't this be possible in our lifetimes? I am appalled and horrified and disgusted by what we are doing to this planet in the name of farming. One can't say one word against large scale farming without being shamed and called anti-science...and then being accused of not knowing the reality of 'feeding the billions'. Farming has NOT made our lives and our planet better. I am hoping robotics and AI and automation would perhaps make things better by nudging us towards a diff way to farm. Not sure if it will happen in my lifetime. I just think of sci fi story plots instead.

<comment><USER26> I don't like that future of yours.

Robotic farming where traverse the fields and selectively nips the weed and kills the unwanted bugs, could probably be done with no chemicals at all. Fertilized could probably also be added very selectively this way.

<comment><USER33> What about land availability and water? And labour? Farms are just open air food factories. They are not 'natural'..they have to be erased of habitat and soil structure to start anew every year. It's actually horrifying and appalling. I am not a generational farmer and I don't harbor any romantic notions about farming anymore after 6+ years. We have to change farming. It's brutal treatment of nature.</comment></comment></comment>


Why does a cabbage cost $28 in Canada? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18413043

<comment><USER2> Wow, that's serious linkbait. Most of Canada pays a few bucks for a cabbage.

The article is more aptly titled "Why does a cabbage cost $28 in the most remote parts of Canada?"</comment>


Uber's merger with Yandex is approved - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/11/24/uber-merger-yandex-russia-antitrust-approved/ <comment><USER2> "the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company will invest $225 million into the "Google of Russia," while Yandex will take 59.3 % ownership of a jointly- held company through a $100 million investment,"

And an earlier article from Fortune also calling it a merger, when it's much more of a joint venture. From July: "Yandex and Uber said they will join forces in Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Kazakhstan to create a new company operating in some 127 cities, in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter."</comment>


Review the UI/Experience of this side project (FriendShuffle) - <AUTHOR> http://www.friendshuffle.com We wanted to make sure it was fast and dead simple.
We think there are a lot of things that we can improve on but we would love some feedback from the Hacker News community (specifically on the UI and experience).
Thanks! <comment><USER2> My review:

1) As you already know, landing on the page is very harsh. The very first thing I saw when I arrived at the page was a popup that asked me to sign in with Twitter or Facebook. I didn't really read the title or the text; I immediately pressed back. This is easily fixed by letting the user know what you are before signing in.

2) Switching between sites is really well done, I instantly understood how to do it.

3) I dislike the "I like this too" button. It's not clear with what it does; I clicked on it hoping for a "post to Facebook or Twitter" option but it went straight to my Twitter. I'd prefer having two separate buttons to know exactly what I'm doing.

Overall, neat idea -- but it feels like I'm being tricked into doing certain actions since I don't quite know what's going on at first.

</comment><comment><USER3> Extremely poor start - people have to sign in via Facebook or Twitter before they can even find out who/what you are.

<comment><USER3> My point is that the creator forces the user to choose to sign up or leave - there's no discovery or guide to help the user make that choice.

Of course this is a side project, so user experience may not matter. But he asked specifically about experience, so...

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree with this - We're working on improving this + explaining the value of the product better before you sign in.

We definitely don't want to trick a user into signing up - we want to be as clear as possible.

<comment><USER4> Most of the time, I dont mind signing up for apps on HN, to review them using my twitter account (I dont use FB), but I did not do it for your app, because I dont like it doing auto following by my twitter account WITHOUT an option to avoid it. Also it seems like it will spam a tweet from my account.

I dont mind giving feedback/review. I mind if apps spam my followers, to gain traction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed - I see where you are coming from.

To be clear we are not spamming upon login though - so you're ok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Okay, I know a lot of other folks have already pointed out the fact that just throwing up a Facebook/Twitter login might be a bit harsh. I would listen to them. But in addition to that, I would question that rather liberal policy you have taken with what, exactly, you have access to in my Facebook/Twitter account.

I didn't actually try to sign in with Twitter, but I noticed at the bottom you post a disclaimer saying that if I sign in with Twitter, I will start following you. WHY? Is that necessary to the app running? If not, that seems like a pretty bad way to increase your follower count.

I did try to sign in with Facebook, but immediately canceled when I saw you wanted access not only to my News Feed and Friends (which I fully expected), but also to send me EMAIL, access my Facebook account WHEN I'M NOT USING YOUR SITE (offline access), and POST TO MY WALL. At least the last of those, posting to my wall, I can get behind should I choose to do an action on your site that warrants it (e.g. I like something on your site and want to share it with my friends), but you should be approaching this from a standpoint of asking me for the only the permissions you need to get me started, then following up with further requests for specific permissions on an as-needed basis.

Especially since your entire site revolves around people logging in with their other social networking accounts, your site should respect those accounts. Not ask for permissions right off the bat that are going to scare away potential users who have no idea what you're going to use the permissions FOR. If I like an item and I get a request to allow your application permission to post to my Wall, that makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is that I have to give you permission to send me email through Facebook just to access your site at all.

My 2 cents, but hey, you already lost at least one potential user. Get that fixed and I think you increase the folks who actually proceed through the front gate by several fold.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great app! I was clicking much too fast on the shuffle button and it took a while for the next site to come up. This made me click on the shuffle button again, leading to more slowness. Perhaps adding some kind of progress indicator to let the user know the next site is loading would be useful.

The design is intuitive too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm... how fast were you clicking (and what browser / how is your internet connection)

<comment><USER6> Chrome on 5Mb connection. I was clicking pretty fast (two or three times a second)

<comment><USER7> The shuffle UI shouldn't get longer to load as you spam the button. There's a self-cancelling delay from the time you click shuffle button until the frame loads so that when people click through super fast that the frame doesn't try to load each one. Within 300ms of letting up on the shuffle button the frame should begin loading no differently. Can you describe what happened in more detail please? (also do you remember the site that it loaded that was slow for you)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My 2 pennies worth: I'd take away the modal window from the start, signing in with fb or twitter accounts is a first class task and should be treated as such, graphically, editorially whatever. As it stands with the darkened "I like too" etc. buttons it feels like I missed a step, or some piece of the story.

I'd also suggest you stick to one shade of blue if possible, make your border radius the same or in harmony and make the generic icon look less like a squashed fb icon, i.e. make it unique or charming, identifiable to your project.

Animating the movement of the modal box was probably wasted on most :)

Can't say much about anything else as I don't have twitter and I don't use FB to log in to other apps.

<comment><USER9> i agree, the modal auth prompt really turns me off. tell users what the app is about (not obvious from the name) before forcing an auth.

some screenshots, a demo, video, or even a textual description should be part of a landing page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The button text "Sweet I Got It" didn't make any sense to me at first.

I got what exactly?

I certainly didn't read any of the text above it, even though I eventually clicked the button to make it go away.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why do apps insist on asking for every possible permission they might ever need? Can't you ask after I do something that requires advanced permissions?

This is the first thing I see: <http://i.imgur.com/wfWCR.png> I don't even know anything about the app, let alone whether I should trust you.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congratulations on getting covered on RWW: [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/friendshuffle_stumbleup...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/friendshuffle_stumbleupon_for_facebook_likes.php)

</comment><comment><USER13> It needs an option to go back to the previous in case I overenthusiastically clicked next. Also, nexts should be deterministic so I can go forward and back in the stream at will.

</comment><comment><USER14> great job, i have nothing to complain about!It would be nice when a video ends, for the shuffle to begin.But it's not that hard to click the button!</comment>


Chrome to Kill Firefox? Be Serious - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/11/21/chrome-to-kill-firefox-be-serious/ <comment><USER2> There is room for many browsers in this market.

I switched from firefox to chrome. I still use the former for development because of firebug and the web developer extensions, but chrome is my default.

FF 3 killed itself on my pc. It operates as the slowest piece of software overall. Yes I've turned of the phishing protection. Yes I've changed profiles. It's still a resource hog. It's still full of bloat and crap that I just don't need to read stories on hacker news, check the weather and read my gmail.

For people like me who want the browser to stay out of the way, chrome is appealing. For people who would prefer their browser to be their operating system, Firefox will continue to be their choice I'm sure.

</comment><comment><USER3> i wouldn't say chrome will just kill firefox, but they might probably severely injure them.

chrome will injure everyone, however. chrome is god, all hail...

<comment><USER3> on a serious note, chrome is a very ambitious project, not just a browser. people should look into it and gears before making any judgements about what it will or will not "kill".</comment></comment>


Save the Developers!  Stop Using Internet Explorer 6 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/save-the-developers-stop-using-internet-explorer-6/ <comment><USER2> I take the 80/20 approach to supporting ie6: If 80% of the features and layout work well in ie6 and 20% not so well then that's acceptable. I have no interest in wasting time writing exceptions for a broken browser. True to their oblivious nature ie6 users don't seem to notice or even care that the looks different in ie6.

<comment><USER3> I also take the 80/20 approach but slightly different. If my site works on 80% of browsers then that's good enough... Which is why I don't bother supporting safari... even though I started using it on windows a few days ago and DAMN it is fast... but i am way invested in firfox to switch.

80/20 is the reason most software companies don't release a mac version of their software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Welcome to web development, where you WILL support any and all browsers in use. End of story.

<comment><USER5> Safari support is painful..

<comment><USER6> Safari is easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Firefox isnt perfect, but a lot better than ie6 or ie7. I think most developers should aim to support IE6+7,firefox 2, safari.. that should cover 95%+ of the market.

</comment><comment><USER8> You don't want to address 30% of the market because they're using technology you don't feel like supporting?

I'll take them. Thanks.

<comment><USER9> Who says they're 30% of _your_ market?

We're talking about people who either don't care about staying current or who intentionally refuse to upgrade (surely Windows prompts people to upgrade to IE7).

Is it worth spending many extra hours on your project – and shelving one feature or dev shortcut after another – in order to tap that market?

The answer can be no.

Do movies studios still put out VHS tapes?

<comment><USER8> "Who says they're 30% of your market?"

I do.

In fact, that's exactly what I said, "I'll take them."

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever pursuing these prospects. I have figured out how to do it without undue limitations on the rest of my business, and I'm glad to have them.

Frankly, I'm a little pleasantly surprised there are so many who would abandon them. Less competition for me. You're obviously one of those who doesn't care about them (why else would you insult them?), so why do you mind if I pursue them?

<comment><USER9> I don't see where I insulted IE6 users. I think you're referring to where I said they don't care about having the current version, but that wasn't meant as an insult.

I was making the implication that maybe they aren't as concerned about having the latest greatest in other aspects of technology as well, which would make them a more difficult market to encourage to try _your_ latest greatest.

And in the first place you insulted IE6-wary developers by implying their reasons boil down to laziness. I was offering up what I think are legitimate reasons for ignoring IE6: the _huge_ amount of dev time you save, and the freedom you gain to make use of dev shortcuts.

I think my VHS analogy is apt: you _could_ spend extra time and money publishing new releases to VHS as well as DVD. You would probably even make money from it. But if you research who still primarily uses VHS players I don't think you'll find movie buffs who buy a couple movies every month.

And ultimately I don't see the big deal: I'm not suggesting a developer block IE6 users out of spite and then sit on his ass: I'm saying a developer can choose to ignore IE6 and then have loads of time to devote to making an amazing product.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you use a Machine Learning Service? - <AUTHOR>

Hey Guys,
I am a graduate student specializing Machine Learning. Next to that I am also working for a (european) Social Network site. Right now I am busy implementing implemented a system to filter spam for them. We were also discussing if we should make use of a company which implements a general propose spam filter for websites. But we think that by making use of the information that we have on our site and that are specific to us, we could improve the system a lot. I was thinking, that a lot of other sites could benefit from using machine learning, but that the field can be really confusing at first, with all the different algorithms and methods.
So my idea was to start a general propose Machine Learning service. The service would not require the user to have any knowledge of Artificial Intelligence whatsoever. You just upload your dataset and you are good to go. You can image how big of a disappointment is was when it turned out that someone at Google already had the same idea. I am have not been able to try their Data Prediction API yet, as it's for US customers only at the moment. I think though that there is still enough room to do something differently then they do. For example allow different types of data (say images) or provide better customer service.
So my question to you guys is: Are there any of you who would be interested in such a service?  And if so what is your application? Judging from the comments here there were quite some people who enrolled in the Google API beta. Did you just do so, because it's Google (e.g. to compare it to your own implementations)? Are there maybe people here who would like to do something that is not possible in Google API ? <comment> B-Scan I think that the biggest problem is that people don't know for what to use things like that. Here at HN population is smart and they will know what and how. But if you like to catch broader developer population I think it will be great to provide separate APIs for things like sentiment analysis, comment spam analysis, images or any other concrete problem solution. If you have a platform, why not to simplify all and solve someones pain.

Ofcourse, general API will also have an audience, but on this way you will separate yourself from players like Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been thinking about this as well, but the problem is that but the problem is that people how are completely clueless probably also need some consulting, which would make it scale badly.

So I though maybe, as long as Google is the only player, the best way in the first place is to focus on the 'smart' developers and later set up almost sort of franchise system, where people create services for specific applications and my start up provides the infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Sounds interesting - definitely something I would try out. We played a bit the crm114 on beepl, I have a pretty sweet python wrapper for it if you like to see.. The project sits on <http://alpha.beepl.com> \- we use crm114 to 1) identify most interesting answer, 2) also to identify "good" questions (those seeking an answer) on twitter, 3) to combat spam. <http://crm114.sf.net> It's a good shit! I say go for it!

</comment><comment><USER3> The fact that google has the same idea doesn't mean that you can't make an offering in the same area, it just means that you need to compete in ways that are hard for them. Ie, I think their service and API looks great, but I am totally turned off by their (lack of) customer support. If there was a similar offering that offered great support, I might be willing to give that a go.</comment>


The Closing of America - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/the-closing-of-trumps-america.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region <comment><USER2> I DESPISE being in the position to defend Trump, because he is an embarrassment and a buffoon, but the article is filled with half-facts, and is really disappointing, especially for the New York Times.

Trump doesn't "hate Muslims." He banned Muslims from the known terrorist states. He didn't ban Muslims from Indonesia and Malaysia (the two most populous Muslim countries), and Pakistan. So if the author said "Trump hates Middle East Muslims" then that would be more factually correct.

This sort of twisting of words and half-truths are what got us here in the first place, and why both sides don't listen to each other anymore. We need to have honest and truthful conversations, not half-truths that sway the conversation in one's favor. That's not an honest discussion.

EDIT: The article never accuses Trump of hating Muslims, so that's my mistake. The article accuses him of not liking Muslims.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for taking the time to dig into the piece. A few additional points:

\- This is an Op-Ed piece by Roger Cohen in the Opinion section. It's not an article. The NYT has editors of different political persuasions, perhaps not as diverse as some would prefer, but while they're all published in by the NYT, I'm sure they're allowed more latitude as opposed to representing the opinion of the Editorial Board. Of course, that does not justify misrepresenting known facts.

\- Nowhere in the piece does the word "hate" appear, much less "hate Muslims", so quoting this is misleading. Cohen _does_ say "The president does not like Muslims" and goes on to support this claim. (Whether or not you think this is justified of course is up to the reader.)

\- Cohen also clarifies that the ban does not include all Muslims:

 _It is obvious now as he attempts to justify a planned suspension of visas for Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis and citizens of four other majority Muslim Middle Eastern and African countries, as well as a temporary ban on almost all refugees.

… "It's not the Muslim ban," Trump insisted to Muir. No. It's just a ban on lots of Muslims._

You're very correct that it's important to maintain the nuance and accuracy of what is actually happening to prevent further polarization, to which we should hold the press, and each other.

<comment><USER4>
      This is an Op-Ed piece by Roger Cohen. It's not an article.

But Cohen is a Times _employee_ ; an _editor_ , in fact. This is not the work of some random partisan think tank writer merely carried by the _Times_.

These two elements go well beyond the pale of any sense of journalism:

1) "... his cavalier trashing of the alliance and union that ushered the the Continent from its darkest hours..."

Um, _what_? When has he trashed (cavalierly or not) the USA-Britain alliance of WW2? Has the P.M. stated anything of the kind?

2) Cohen's piling-on of personal insults. He has _no_ place diagnosing _anyone_ with "narcissistic personality disorder", let alone claiming that Trump has a "lust for _torture... and carnage_ ".

<comment><USER3> I believe the references to World War II are due to the history of the phrase "America First", which goes back at least to the "America First Committee" which was pro-isolationist and against the US entering the war in Europe during WWII.

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee)

\- [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump-a...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/trump- america-first/514037/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one that believes there is a reasonable compromise to be made? Some groups are still faced with extreme difficulty in immigrating to the US. Chinese and Europeans find it quite difficult to immigrate here legally. Even young Europeans have many options to use Working Holiday Visas in many countries to work abroad outside of the EU and experience cultural exchange, but America does not participate.

Why shouldn't the US just treat all people equally who want to come here? Why shouldn't the process be standardized and made legal? If we really are for cultural exchange, why not participate in Working Holiday schemes for young people from Europe and Asia to legally come here like so many other countries do?

</comment><comment><USER6> Celebrate holocaust memorial day by telling refugees to go away. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actual title: "The Closing of Trump's America"

</comment><comment><USER7> Paywalled

<comment><USER3> Use the "web" link under the submission title.

<comment><USER7> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


List of Linux Filesystems & Clustered Filesystems - <AUTHOR> http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxClustersAndFileSystems.html <comment><USER2> Long list, but Ext4 not included?</comment>