Tolstoy's Children's Stories - <AUTHOR> https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/leo-tolstoys-childrens-stories-will-devastate-your-children-and-make-you-want-to-die/ <comment><USER3> Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children.

Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - <USER2> were clearly not intended for children anymore than 50 Shades of Grey are for children. The children's editions are _heavily_ sanitized.

I suspect their change into children literature was because of cultural changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take folktales serious anymore (except as anthropological studies) and found them childish. The same way that 19th century popular literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books in the 20th century.

Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow White and Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source material. Cinderella is just based on the Charles Perrault version of the story, not the Grimm version which contain a lot more maiming.

<comment><USER4> > Folktales were not originally for children.

I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typical bedtime story.

[0] [https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html](https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html)

<comment><USER5> Even the 'sanitized' versions of them haven't aged well and are often pretty silly IMO. Maybe it's just because we tend to see them as morality plays these days and try to infer a lesson, while the originals seem to just have been local stories from various villages. Terrible people do well for themselves, lots of people die to no real gain or purpose, etc.

<comment><USER6> I recently got this surprise when practicing Japanese by translating a folk tale [0]. Even revenge I was able to understand quickly turned into outright sadism. Maybe it was the morals of another time, maybe the tellers didn't care if all the characters were unlikable.

[0]: [http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html](http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html)

<comment><USER7> I think it's an effective and impressive warning, which makes one think about the tale at length. And the warning is that if you piss someone off by being greedy, you might accidentally get much worse punishment than you actually deserve for a small mischief.

The tale wouldn't make nearly as much of an impression if, let's say, the crabs just roughed the monkey up a little bit and then they all made up and lived happily ever after.

Nor would it be a realistic or helpful lesson, because that is not now reality works: sometimes actions have serious consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Those books shouldn't be judged by today's norms. They were not written for the children (nor parents... especially not parents) of today, but for children back then who lived in a completely different world.

For instance, in the version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault - the version that we all know - one of the evil stepsisters was advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper. She almost fools the prince, but doves warn him about blood dripping from her foot. He then goes back again and tries the slipper on the other sister. She cut off part of her heel in order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves alert him again about the blood on her foot.

How about that for a good night story?

<comment><USER9> Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence, blood, and plain evilness in media nowadays?

I don't understand how people in those times would be less sensitive to such themes.

<comment><USER10> In older societies, people see a lot more violence/blood toward animals. In old-fashioned societies, when you need a chicken, the butcher grabs a live one, wrestles it's wriggling body, wrings its neck, and skins it in front of you. You grab the meat and it's still warm. Butchers killing larger livestock is likely a show you can see near the market, you may even have participated in some such act yourself because of customs. It would be a common thing and it's so visceral. You smell it. You can see the animal's struggle, fear and pain. After you are habituated to that, a story is not so bad.

<comment> barry-cotter > In older societies, people see a lot more violence/blood toward animals.

Older societies? Every farming family in Western Europe would have been familiar with how to slaughter and process their own animals until the 60s at the earliest. There are very few people more than three generations removed from agriculture, and most of those would have seen animals slaughtered up until the rise of industrial cold chains in the early 1900s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop.
        When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
        When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
        And down will come Baby, cradle and all.

or

        It's raining, it's pouring,
        The old man's snoring.
        He went to bed
        And he bumped his head
        And he couldn't get up in the morning.

Tell me these ain't dark.

<comment><USER12> And relevant today:

Ring-a-ring o'roses

A pocket full of posies

A-tissue, a-tissue

We all fall down

(actually this is not at all related to the plague but it makes a more scary story if we say it does)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There have been lots of comments about how dark children'a books were. But, back then, children's lives were pretty dark. With the high infant and childhood mortality, a good proportion of children had lost a brother or sister. Given maternal mortality, many children had probably lost a mother in childbirth. Given the nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine, many children probably had a father, uncle, etc who was killed or main in an accident. And that is before you consider the frequent wars in which soldiers roamed across the land raping, pillaging, and killing. Death would have been all around children.

<comment><USER14> Nowadays everyone's wrong on the internet, but that doesn't mean I want to read a book about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This seems to be pretty much par for the course for 19th century children's books. Compare them to the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales or Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter[1].

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

<comment><USER16> My gandma used to read the Struwwelpeter stories to me as a child. I would actually disagree with the premise of the article that they make children want to die. They actually are supposed to frighten children into behaving properly.

<comment><USER17> I actually enjoyed the stories back then and they didn't really work when it came to changing my behaviour. Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier parts.

<comment><USER18> > Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier > parts.

And this is why the original folktales emphasize the gore. You can basically chop off the last quarter of any folktale and replace it with a direction to the story-teller, i.e. "[and now you shall carry on about bad things happening to the child protagonist, in as visceral a manner as you have the mind and words to render, until the children listening have been thoroughly traumatized as to the consequences of their misbehavior.]"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dan-robertson In case you skimmed the article after the first few paragraphs, note that the point is not that the stories are sad or grim but that they are only sad or grim. There is no moral or hate that leads to things happening. The characters just lives who've are sad.

I also read the article as lighthearted and humorous and so assumed some things may have been exaggerated it embellished slightly for effect.

<comment><USER15> Knowing Tolstoy's other writings I get the feeling that these one paragraph summaries don't do his prose justice.

<comment><USER19> I read the original story for "The Lion and the Puppy", and indeed, the summary doesn't do the story justice.

The story is _more_ grim and heart-wrecking.

And there is no obvious take-away, everything just sucks.

But it's a story of a loss that one can relate to. Depressed people are known to listen to sad songs, and get relief from that.

I'm not in a very good place now, and reading the Lion and the Puppy story in Russian somehow was a relief. It melted the numbness away.

And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just carefully crafted vignettes of grim life.

I do think that Tolstoy never had an appreciation of the many dimensions of human happiness. "Every happy family is alike, but unhappy families are miserable in their own ways", he wrote. I disagree; I see commonality in misery, and it's the path to happiness that has to be crafted and often ends up unique. But I digress.

<comment><USER20> > And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just > carefully crafted vignettes of grim life.

Which is great and a meaning in itself. Much of what's grim in life happens without deeper meaning. Terrible things happen to those that don't deserve it and terrible people don't get what they deserve. The only thing is to accept that that's how it often is. Which is not a bad thing to expose children to IMO

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Check out the Mioomins, good for children and adults alike.

The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II like "The Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland". Good reading in these pandemic times not gory but all about seriousnes of the world we live in and how small humans and families can cope with that.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> > _Tolstoy's tales are unusual in that they lack the depth of relationships — > and even hatred — that the old folk tales have. There are no stories of > wicked stepparents or lurking dangers in the woods. Instead, there is a kind > of dead-end romanticism: bad thing happens; a person is sad; end of story. > There isn't even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, > don't cut them down so much? People are not all that happy?_

Wow. The author seems to be missing the morals _entirely_. Just from browsing their story descriptions, the lessons seem to be about, respectively:

\- The overwhelming power of grief, which you may wind up suffering when you choose to love

\- Don't be tricked by people trying to get you to enjoy yourself in a dangerous situation

\- The feeling that makes you uncomfortable destroying beauty is a kind of conscience, so listen to it, for there is an intrinsic connection between beauty and life

\- Happiness is misunderstood by nearly all -- it doesn't come from material possessions, it comes from within

\- People are supported by those around them, not diminished, so don't treat those who surround you as unimportant or take them for granted

\- If you tame an animal, you're responsible for their well-being. You can't "go back" or shirk your responsibilities, so think twice before you take on a personal commitment or you may generate suffering you never intended

Writers for the LA Review of Books are generally... supposed to be literary and really good at finding meaning in texts, heck even way more meaning than the author sometimes intended.

This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse about these stories. I'm not sure why. But these stories seem incredibly stimulating food-for-thought to talk with your children about.

</comment><comment><USER23> > But frequently those stories are redeemed by a depth which feels archetypal: > when Rapunzel's prince falls from her tower and blinds himself in the rose > bushes below, his blindness appears to have a meaning — it's not just > gratuitous bloodshed.

If I doubted my dismissal of this article, I felt vindicated by this line. Is the author really so blind as to believe that popular fairy tale endings are archetypal for any reason beyond the fact that they became popular? They were just as nasty and surprising back then, and it's only repeated listenings and social acceptance that has made them appear to be any more child-appropriate than a screaming, dying tree.

FWIW, I generally believe kids are way more resilient to any of these things than we think they are. Like the poplar tree, in trying to protect them, we lead them to their own downfall.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think classic folk tales were more macabre, but since consumers today are not interested in them so much it's somewhat lost to us. We have Grimm's Fairy Stories, but as the author points out, in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones. We have this Tolstoy collection because he is a famous author and people are interested in his stories. And guess what, they are super dark. Is that because Tolstoy was dark? No, it's because the traditional stories of the time were much darker. Here's an example of a Yiddish Folktale:

 _Moyshele and Sheyndele_

Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who had a wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy was called Moyshele, the girl Sheyndele. The woodcutter's wife died and he married a second wife who was a very wicked woman and a cruel stepmother to the children. One day the woodcutter left the house to chop wood in the forest, and the stepmother got ready to go to market to do the Sabbath shopping. Before she left, she gave the children some food, putting Moyshele's in a pot and Sheyndele's on a plate. She said, "Moyshele, if you break the pot I'll chop off your head, So you'd better not." She told Sheyndele, "Sheyndele, Sheyndele, just you wait, I'll chop off your legs if you break this plate." Then she slammed the door and went to market. The children were afraid to eat lest they break something, but the rooster suddenly flew up on the table and knocked over the pot. It fell to the ground and broke into teeny-tiny pieces. Moyshele, seeing them, was terrified and began to cry. Sheyndele comforted him, saying, "Hush, Moyshele.Don't cry." And she took the shards of the pot and pushed them into a corner of the room. When the stepmother came home, she couldn't find the pot. "Where is the pot?" she asked Moyshele. "The rooster broke it," he said. The stepmother was very angry, but she pretended that nothing was the matter. Later she said to Moyshele, "Come with me and I'll wash your hair." So Moyshele went with her. She took him into another room and cut off his head, after which she cooked it for supper. When the woodcutter came back from the forest he said, "Where is Moyshele?" "I don't know," said the stepmother. Then they sat down at the table and ate the soup and the meat. Sheyndele, unaware of what she was eating, sucked the marrow from the bones and threw them out the window. A little mound of earth covered the bones and when the glad summer came again, a new Moyshele grew up out of it. Moyshele stood there on his little mound until, seeing a tailor pass by, he called, "Tailor, tailor, make me a pair of trousers and I'll sing you a song:

        Murdered by my mother,
        Eaten by my father,
        and Sheyndele, when they were done,
        Sucked the marrow from my bones
        And threw them out the window."

The tailor, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of trousers. Moyshele put them on, and then a shoemaker went by. Moyshele called, "Shoemaker, shoemaker, make me a pair of boots and I'll sing you a song:

        Murdered by my mother,
        Eaten by my father,
        and Sheyndele, when they were done,
        Sucked the marrow from my bones
        And threw them out the window."

The shoemaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of boots. Moyshele put them on, and then a hatmaker went by. Moyshele called, "Hatmaker, hatmaker, make me a hat and I'll sing you a song:

        Murdered by my mother,
        Eaten by my father,
        and Sheyndele,
        when they were done,
        Sucked the marrow from my bones
        And threw them out the window.

The hatmaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a hat. And Moyshele put it on and ran off to school.

        One log there,
        One log gone.
        As for my tale—
        My tale is done.

\- Weinreich, Beatrice. Yiddish Folktales

> I'm all for showing your kids reality, and bringing them to the hospital or > the wake or the funeral. But Tolstoy's tales read more like an undigested > rage at the world, unfortunately misdirected at children.

Yeah no. What's the point of such a teaching story as the one above? Perhaps it's a story to teach resilience; _Even if the world treats you so badly, that it sort of chews you up and spits you out, you can still make your way, though perhaps it might just be by telling your sad story and playing on people 's sympathies_.

<comment><USER24> > in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones

Yeah, it's disgusting. It's incredibly hard to find actual stories now, they are always screwed up by talentless editors. Reminds me of drawing fig leaves over Renaissance pictures when protestantism took over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's free collection of Tolstoy's Fables for Children

[https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys- fable...](https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fables-for- children-1904)

</comment><comment><USER26> > The publicists of the most recent edition issued by Simon & Schuster, who > seemingly did not read it, write of this book, "children will be able to > take away important lessons, as well as laugh at silly mishaps and > characters, from this timeless collection."

This is possible but unfortunately the author of the article decided not to answer his children:

> "Daddy," my stunned four-year-old son asked, "why did the lion die?"

> "Daddy Daddy," my daughter asked, still wondering about the now-dead lion's > lifestyle, "why did the people feed the lion puppies?"

Instead he "took the book away and hid it from" them. Not good parenting IHMO. Don't read from that book again, OK, but find an answer to those questions.

<comment><USER27> I happen to be a close personal friend of the author, and happen to know that he answers deep and difficult questions from his children very directly and well; and that he allows them to see all facets of life (an eagle eating a mouse; a deer not surviving the winter) as a matter of course. Perhaps the paragraph is simply lighthearted :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > I'm all for showing your kids reality

I really don't think that's why children's stories used to be macabre. Nobody ever claimed these were accurate representations of reality.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not sure why people compare these stories to folktales. These are not folktales, they are short stories Tolstoy wrote for his school for peasant children, where he also taught.

They are not meant to be read at bedtimeto small children, but thoughtful reading material for kids of all ages who are learning to read. The kids who are old enough to read the stories would be old enough to appreciate the (often very sad) stories.

</comment><comment><USER30> A lot of the children's stories I heard growing up included violence of sorts. Not saying it was necessarily good, but it is very common, hence perhaps is either harmless or maybe beneficial in a convoluted way. fwiw, the stories kept me from wandering into abandoned old houses, tall thick bushes, or too far away from home; we were pretty much on our own when I was a kid.

</comment><comment><USER31> Not directly related, but many Soviet era children's stories, by Sergei Mikalkhov, et al are very good and brilliantly illustrated.

</comment><comment><USER32> > _If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps > Anna Karenina's suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath_

Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in all this. Allow me:

Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist?

A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian optimist thinks they not only can, but will.

<comment><USER33> Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.

<comment><USER34> Keep in mind that this book was written in USA

<comment><USER35> Actually, Solzhenitsyn was still residing in the USSR at the time of completion of the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm still vaguely haunted by _Never Tease a Weasel_. Seen through children's eyes, probably a lot of books targeting them are rather creepy.

<comment><USER37> But it's never what you'd expect. The stuff that bothers parents skips right past the kids a lot of the time, but strange little things will freak a kid right out. My son refuses to read some books (going so far as to hide one of them), but I have no idea why; at the same time there are stories I find downright creepy that he'll request over and over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'll have to check it out. I've always liked the unsanitized endings. The wolf fell upon Red and ate her -- the end. The wolf fell down the chimney and into the stew, and the smartest pig ate him... probably along with a few pieces of his brothers.

There's one in the Grimm Brothers called "The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn" that's an incredibly bleak fable about power and corruption.

</comment><comment><USER39> Actually, as Russian i know that most of classic Russian literature (before revolution of 1917) is highly depressing. I was attending a school while USSR was still alive, and even with relatively small number of classic russian books passed thru Soviet censorship, it was always like this: sad and depressing. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov - no difference.

</comment><comment><USER40> For children or for adults, the fatalist style of Tolstoy is what lends him the unmistakable charm. A part of our being, I think, will always desire to be liberated from the norm of not discussing pity or death without any moral undertone. Life and violence can be sad and violent, Tolstoy reminds us.

</comment><comment><USER41> The Gigantic Turnip is an delightful children's book. I wore that thing to the spine with my kids:

[https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei- Tolstoy/dp/19...](https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei- Tolstoy/dp/1905236581)

</comment><comment><USER42> >Anna Karenina's suicide scene spoilers on side note, isn't Tolstoy famous for being a Schopenhaeur influenced writers why did he had 13 children? He is a great writer nontheless

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Did we break their site? :(

Edit: seems to be back up with everything in order.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Ring around the rosy" is about the plague.

"12 days of Christmas" and other tales and sings have hidden Christian symbolism due to persecution.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't really agree with the author at all. His examples all seem like meaningful stories.

The lion in the zoo? He lives off other animals, but when he stops to get to know one he becomes so attached he can't live without it. Could be a simple message about animal cruelty (IIRC, Tolstoy was vegetarian?). Could be a parable about aristocrats & peasants, or capitalists and workers.

Escape of the Dancing Bear? The bear was recaptured because he fell into old habits. Be careful not to do the same.

Death of the Cherry Tree? Could just be a message that all things are living, stop and consider the damage you're causing. The blasé attitude of the woodcutter is shocking: people can get used to anything. Possibly an analogy for war or other cruelty which we casually accept.

The King and the Shirt: money doesn't buy happiness. It's not sad, the poor man is legitimately happy. Possessions and worldly ties can bring unhappiness. And it's ironic and thought-provoking, for kids.

The Old Poplar: obvious lessons about family ties. Don't send grandpa to a home. And a neat lesson on systems: the obvious, common sense approach backfired because things were more complex and interdependent than they looked at first sight.

The Little Bird: some things are meant to be wild. Some things, when done, can't be undone.

I honestly kinda like these stories. Not sure I'd read them to my 4-year-old, though.

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://archive.md/yBlli](https://archive.md/yBlli)

</comment><comment><USER45> I much preferred the original title of the post -- why change it?

</comment><comment><USER46> Those stories sound awesome, my kids would love them!

</comment><comment><USER43> The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.

<comment><USER47> Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almost all modern fiction) are not intended to confront the consumer with these kinds of emotional/intellectual obstacles without a moralistic guide. This often makes it suitable for children, but I wonder if we underestimate children's ability to confront this kind of ambiguity (but that doesn't necessarily mean we should read Tolstoy's stories to them, or only ever offer ambiguity as a moral socialization strategy).

<comment><USER43> Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.

<comment><USER47> Agreed, I think the secret is often a kind of subtlety that can often be confused with meaninglessness. For example, the first time I read "Of Mice and Men", I found the "meaningless" suffering to be infuriating - how could this book possibly be considered a classic? - until I later understood more context around the novel's time period and message, and realized it was only my juvenile tastes and expectations that made it seem meaningless (no happy ending? What is this tripe?)

I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of purpose, but I agree it would be a mistake to try too hard looking for meaning in case he just felt like writing up some sad shit.

<comment><USER43> The Iliad is an example of a classic with a bunch of meaningless suffering. But, the story is much deeper than 'bad stuff happens, the end' or 'bad stuff happens, that's just life'. I can write that kind of story all day, and I appeared deep to myself as a kid because I could 'see through' the meaning. At the end of the day, that sort of story is just boring. A real artist is the one who does get to some kind of coherent meaning to the whole thing. E.g. Iliad is a commentary on the Hellenist virtue ethic, and questioning why an ideally virtuous man like Hector is pulverized by a rage controlled tyrant like Achilles, without merely amounting to the juvenile 'virtue is meaningless' that passes as intellectualism these days. The same question is asked in the Psalms by the writer wondering at the fact that so many good people are oppressed and the wicked flourish. The Iliad began a conversation that echoes deep throughout history even to our present day. 'Bad stuff happens' just doesn't have that kind of staying power. People intuitively know there is more to our reality than that. That's why we are so bothered by sociopaths running our companies and governments. If 'bad stuff happens' is all there is to the story, then we would not be bothered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is the site down?

</comment><comment><USER49> > * Tolstoy wrote them; they couldn't be that bad. Now I sincerely wish I had > never touched them.*

The reviewer is Disney's useful idiot. Gotta stay away from Tolstoy — it's not just disturbing, it's actually dangerous!

Only Bowdlerized and Disneyfied happy happy joy joy for your kids!

And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not not that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's that there's something wrong with _you_.

> _There isn't even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, > don't cut them down so much? People are not all that happy?_

Yeah. Maybe "People are not all that happy" would be a good thing for kids to learn.

<comment><USER50> Old Disney stuff was dark. The fluffy versions are relatively recent.

<comment><USER28> How far do I have to go back? I know Sleeping Beauty (1959) is definitely much sanitized from the stories it's based on.

<comment><USER50> Thirties and forties.

<comment><USER34> Snow white is dark ???

Disney is brainwash for children.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a Dark Web Crawler in Go - <AUTHOR> https://creekorful.me/building-fast-modern-web-crawler/ <comment><USER2> First of all, it's hidden sevices, not dark web.

Second, to anyone crawling hidden services or crawling over tor, please run a relay or decrease your hop. Don't sacrifice other's desperate need for anonymity for your $whatever_purpose_thats_probably_not_important. It could be some fun thing to do for you, but some people are relying on tor to use the free, secure and anonymous Internet.

<comment><USER3> > other's desperate need for anonymity

Can somebody list some positive, legitimate, not illegal uses to desperately be anonymous?

<comment><USER4> The "not illegal" part is the catch here. Something can be illegal but still legitimate if the laws are illegitimate. Someone trying to exercise freedom of speech or the press under an oppressive regime would need anonymity to avoid being jailed or killed.

<comment><USER5> I think this is an important cultural reframing that needs to occur, sooner rather than later.

Most people, when they hear of things like "the dark web" and cryptocurrency think about the massively publicized instances of drug trafficking and ordering a hit on someone.

It's going to take a lot of work to reframe the utility and purpose of them to a more universal, humanitarian angle.

People in this world live in oppressive circumstances. This should be viewed as a step toward helping them not be systemically silenced.

<comment><USER6> Under the idea of legitimate and illegitimate use, why wouldn't drug trafficking be legitimate? It gets drugs off the streets, decreases violence compare to street level drug dealing, increases safety (while the reputation of online sellers isn't a great metric, we are talking relative to the person on the street corner), and generally involves only adults.

If one is willing to argue that the US government throwing someone in a cage because the grew or bought the wrong plant is legitimate, then I don't see how they have any standing to complain about China doing something for someone who held up the wrong sign at a protest.

<comment><USER5> I suspect that since illicit drug trafficking has a strong social stigma, it may not be the best thing to lead with. It can, however, be discussed with nuance in a way that could change minds. I definitely think there's a lot of legitimacy to what you're saying.

Reminds me a bit of what you see with how some societies approach drug addiction. Providing a safe space with clean needles vs throwing in a prison. There's a lot to think about.

And I think we've seen some of that with the marijuana legalization across the US. The state adoption had strong initial resistance, but public opinion began to shift once it got out of the shroud of stigma and moral enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Disclaimer: I have rather small experience with Golang and just skimmed the crawler code.

From what I could see, author made effort to make the crawler distributed with k8s (which I don't is needed considering there are only approximately 75 000 onion addresses) using modern buzzword technology, but from what I could see the crawler itself is rather simplistic. It doesn't even seem to index/crawl relative urls, just absolute ones.

<comment><USER8> Author here. I'm fairly new to Golang too and it's my first project.

Regarding the number of onion addresses available you are wrong. Addresses are encoded in Base32 which means there are 32 characters available. So there are 32^16=1.208925819614629174706176×10^24 addresses available.

Not taken but available.

I agree with the fact that the crawler is really simplistic. But the project is new (2 months I think) and has to evolve. You can make a PR If you want to help me to improve it!

<comment><USER9> Offtopic nitpick:

>Addresses are encoded in Base32 which means there are 32 characters available. So there are 32^16=1.208925819614629174706176×10^24 addresses available.

I sorta understand what you mean, technically it's 32 characters per position (5 bits), and 16 positions. In v2 .onion addresses, that is.

v3 ones [1] are 56 positions, but not all the bits are used for addressing, so the same formula wouldn't quite work to calculate real theoretical capacity. IIRC someone already made site which generates unlimited links to v3 addresses (without having them lead to anywhere, of course).

[1] [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/NextGenOni...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/NextGenOnions)

<comment><USER10> > IIRC someone already made site which generates unlimited links to v3 > addresses (without having them lead to anywhere, of course)

V3 addresses are just ed25519 pub keys and a couple byte changes. You can use Go libraries like Bine [0] to generate as many V3 (or V2) addresses as you want from keys.

0 - [https://godoc.org/github.com/cretz/bine/torutil#OnionService...](https://godoc.org/github.com/cretz/bine/torutil#OnionServiceIDFromV3PublicKey)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd be concerned that the DB is going to contain some pretty nasty stuff that might be hard to explain in front of a judge.

<comment><USER8> You are right. That's why it's an educational project and not a public search engine

<comment><USER12> IANAL but "educational project" won't fly in court, and nor should it.

<comment><USER13> Programs like [https://www.hacksplaining.com/](https://www.hacksplaining.com/) exist purely as educational programs that teach you to exploit known flaws in web security and have no issue with the law.

<comment><USER14> Right, but possession of those items do not constitute a violation of law. Whereas, the possession of child exploitation material does. No matter the reasoning.

I would tread lightly crawling the dark web. There are cases where the FBI has admitted to running services on TOR, to collect IP addresses:

[https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting- fbi/](https://www.wired.com/2013/09/freedom-hosting-fbi/)

<comment><USER15> > Right, but possession of those items do not constitute a violation of law. > Whereas, the possession of child exploitation material does. No matter the > reasoning.

What about when the FBI/CIA does it? Genuine question.

<comment><USER16> No one watches the watchmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> To anyone experimenting with such stuff, _take care_ and don't make your services publically available. Especially the dark web is full with highly illegal content such as child pornography and in some jurisdictions even "involuntary possession" such as in browser caches may be enough to convict you.

<comment><USER8> Do you think I should add a license in Github to mention that? To protect me and the users who will use the crawler?

<comment><USER18> yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been pretty surprised at how big hidden services have become

Dread, the dark net reddit, is surprisingly vibrant

I think its weird that people almost don't _want_ to hear positive stories about dark net.

It'll be funny when news articles and romcoms just start "forgetting" to qualify their plot piece with the "its scary" trope

<comment><USER20> I thought dread was dead?

<comment><USER19> Its not, hit up dark fail for the onion link to dark fail and browse the latest onion links

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Crawlers are fun!

If you're new to the field and want something that's easy to set up & polite, I strongly recommend Apache Storm Crawler ([https://github.com/DigitalPebble/storm- crawler](https://github.com/DigitalPebble/storm-crawler)).

</comment><comment><USER22> A well written article with lot of technical details. Well done.

However, I'm wondering what would be a good practical purpose of crawling dark web.

<comment><USER8> Thank you!

There's no practical purpose for the crawler. It's more an educational project than anything.

<comment><USER23> Weird, for some reason your comments are being instantly marked as "dead." I think there's some kind of filter that's tripping out for your account since it's new. I vouched for your two comments so hopefully everyone can see them now, but an admin (i.e. dang?) will need to look into this for a longer term solution.

<comment><USER8> Thank you sir. Actually my other comments are invisible too. That's weird.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I did the same in Racket when I made a Tor search engine. Here's the source code of the crawler!

[https://github.com/torgle/torgle/blob/master/backend/torgle....](https://github.com/torgle/torgle/blob/master/backend/torgle.rkt)

</comment><comment><USER25> Any http-aware software that supports socks proxies can access information on hidden services, so any crawler can do it. I fail to see what is novel about that, except that it uses k8s and mongo and a catchy blog title.

</comment><comment><USER26> So how well would this thing work? What I am asking is what percentage of all the tor hidden service sites out there would get detected by it?

</comment><comment><USER27> How well does it handle a gzip bomb? [https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/762-At...](https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/762-Attacked- Over-Tor.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like a recipe to score yourself a free FBI visit

<comment><USER29> Generally the FBI doesn't give a hoot until you start distributing illegal stuff....

<comment><USER30> What does suck is being put on IP blacklists by various providers for merely running a Tor relay, not an exit node. There are several websites I can only access through VPN because of my IP is associated with running a relay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Go is a horrible language in which to write a crawler. The main problem is that NLP and machine learning code simply isn't as prevalent and robust as it is in Java and Python.

<comment><USER32> Go is great for a crawler. What does NLP and ML have to do with crawling?</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-11/microsoft-s-concept-videos-from-2000-were-spot-on-so-why-didn-t-ballmer-build-any-of-it-.html <comment><USER2>
      FTA: "Ballmer's Microsoft wasn't lacking for ideas; it was lacking execution."

Derek Sivers said it best "To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions." (see [https://sivers.org/multiply](https://sivers.org/multiply))

Whatever the reason for Microsoft's inability to execute, the history shows that Gates (a programmer) could get stuff done, and Ballmer (a salesman) can't.

IMHO it's probably stack ranking that killed their execution ([http://slate.me/19Jf74r](http://slate.me/19Jf74r)). Salespeople (like Ballmer) use external fear to motivate people (Make the sale or my boss will fire me!). Programmers (like Gates) use internal fear to motivate themselves (Make this code work or my colleagues will think I'm stupid!). How can any programmer execute properly in an environment of both internal and external fear?

<comment><USER3> Wasn't stack ranking in use during Gates's tenure as well?

<comment><USER2> I know Gates was/is in favour of stack ranking, but I don't think it was in use during his term as CEO.

Ultimately the answer doesn't matter to me. The company has always been a bully, both in the marketplace and internally towards their staff. No one wants to see a bully succeed.

 _Edit:_ Wikipedia says "Since the 2000s, Microsoft used a stack ranking similar to the vitality curve." ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve#Criticisms_of_ra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve#Criticisms_of_rank- and-yank)) Ballmer became CEO of Microsoft January 2000.

<comment><USER3> Root against Microsoft all you want - I just think that stack ranking is too convenient a scapegoat. Valve and Google stack rank, too, but that doesn't mean they're not great companies. Also, Wikipedia's not necessarily an infallible source; see [1] for evidence that stack ranking dates back to '96 or so (at the latest).

[1] [http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/08/30/microsoft-review- tim...](http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2013/08/30/microsoft-review-time- capsule-1997-bill-gates-ceo/)

<comment><USER2> You may be right. As I said at the top it was just my humble opinion. I still stand by the statement that execution is vastly more important than ideas.

Besides, I gave up rooting against Microsoft years ago. I just don't care about any of their products anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ideas are worth nothing. A 15 minute conversation with any expert in HCI 15 years ago would cover 95% of these ideas.

Execution is everything. Microsoft tried to execute on some of these ideas, but the result was always too cumbersome/confusing.

<comment><USER5> "Ideas are worth nothing."

While it is seen here regularly -- and is always strangely given a pass -- this remains the most profoundly meaningless, if not outright stupid, thing that anyone in this industry can mutter.

<comment><USER6> Ideas _are_ worth nothing. Ideas have a mental effect, but execution still has tangible results.

I could just do something, literally anything, and me, having done a thing, would be worth way more than me, having an idea.

Many people have great ideas, few people have the balls or resources to actually execute them and make them _worth something_.

Just a thought.

<comment><USER7> _I could just do something, literally anything, and me, having done a thing, would be worth way more than me, having an idea._

The overall claim has _some_ limited merits, but don't overstate the case.

You generating an idea in your seat about a site that, say, scrapes some public resource and presents in a useful way, are more valuable than the you who uses that same time to make yourself a sandwich.

And the ideas you can have -- ideas which you can only execute _after_ having the ideas themselves -- are of a higher quality than someone who doesn't have your cultural and intellectual resources. Your ideas are more valuable because they are informed by a more nuanced knowledge of how things actually get done.

Or to put another way, if you were approached at a party about an opportunity to work on someone's seed of a project, would you rather that person be an engineer or a fast food employee? No offense to fast food workers, but the engineer has more, and more salient, skills when it comes to this question.

The idea can't be cashed in until it's executed, and an executed idea is superior to an unexecuted one, but in choosing which idea to act on there are clearly better and worse ones.

<comment><USER8> You're missing the point. People usually have that brilliant idea about an useful service _while_ making a sandwich. If you don't act on it, it's worth nothing regardless.

> someone who doesn't have your cultural and intellectual resources

Unless you are a scholar at the very top of your field, there are thousands other people with the same background and resources as you, or better. A good chunk of them will have had the exact same ideas, plus a thousand variations. A handful will actually do something.

> choosing which idea to act on there are clearly better and worse ones

The act of choosing is the beginning of execution, and is way harder and more valuable than generating ideas.

<comment><USER7> _People usually have that brilliant idea about an useful service while making a sandwich_

How would anyone know this?

 _A handful will actually do something._

What you're saying is 'execution > idea', which is not in contention. It doesn't follow that the idea is worthless.

 _The act of choosing is the beginning of execution_

This seems like semantics to me now.

And if the point is granted, you seem to be arguing against the proposition that 'ideas >= execution' which nobody is proposing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ballmer building any of that would be equivalent to Microsoft actually building some of the technology from their latest "Vision" clip: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0)

All of those things seem simple in hind sight, but there were very real hurdles preventing them from being realized at that time (for example, the Internet infrastructure for real-time video chat).

Concept videos like this are just the tech world's version of concept-cars by the auto industry. They make the company seem innovative and research oriented without the significant resources required to make a practical product. True, they sometimes yield useful research, but most of the time they're just meant to be good P.R.

<comment><USER10> You know what's really sad about that Video, even in the future Microsoft imagines them selves using low resolution displays. I mean, for god sakes, every time they would zoom in on that frameless phone thing you would clearly see pixels. Since it's all CGI, they actually went out of their way to give it low res screen look my painting in the pixel lines.

I think, at least for me, the true failure of MS Surface was the crappy display it came with.

<comment><USER11> I played with the Surface Pro for a week or two. I felt the display was actually one of the best ones I've seen. Especially considering the quality of the pen digitizer inside.

Are you maybe referring to the lower-res display on the Surface RT? (I haven't played with that one much.)

<comment><USER10> Yep, the RT. Have not played with the Pro yet, I should stop by the local Windows store and take a look.

<comment><USER10> I wish the RT screen was as good as the pro. Played with it yesterday and it was great. Not as good as iPad, but so good that I think most people, including me, would not care. And I think the Windows 8 os is just marvelous, I just wish they would finish it. Right now it feels like beat still.

<comment><USER11> In terms of PPI: \-- Surface Pro is 207.82 \-- iPad Retina is 264 \-- Nexus 10 is 300

(The iPad Retina actually looks quite blurry to me for reading text after spending time with a Nexus 10.)

As for Windows 8. I've been using it on a laptop and have been pretty happy with it. I just upgraded to Windows 8.1 RTM and they've made tons of small refinements everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> But they did build a lot of that video. A few things even succesfully, like Lync/Skype (video conferencing) and SharePoint (document sharing)

However, they failed at most things:

\- they were too early and the market and technology was not ready for it (Pocket PC)

\- they were too late (Zune, Windows Phone)

\- plans were blocked by companies who's support they needed but who were scared of them (music/movies/mobile phone industry)

\- execution sucked and products were not good enough (Windows Mobile, home server, media center, everything speech)

\- their reputation with consumers was tainted and the press wrote very negatively without really understanding much (hailstorm, drm)

\- they made it cost money and other offered it for free, ad supported (MapPoint)

\- negotiation power and influence in the market diminished after the monopoly abuse trials

\- it took a long time before they understood their problems

<comment><USER13> I loved my pocket PC. The stylus and palm style glyth input gave data entry a practicality Android tablets can't match today.

What the IPad had was style, a lot of style. The UI was beautiful. In terms of functionality didn't carry redundant desktop features like menus with it. But it was the style, the cool factor, that made it _consumer_ in a way that nerdy Pocket PCs never were.

I feel, (like ValueAct), that Microsoft is losing consumer outside of games, and would do better to concentrate on enterprise.

<comment><USER12> I feel, like Ballmer, that enterprise just lags consumers by 10 years. Giving up consumers means loosing enterprise somewhere in the future.

They must execute better if they want to survive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of these were built, other ideas just don't scale.

But most of these? They exist now. Not quite as nice as the video shows, but they exist.

Kinect actually enabled a lot of the voice control experiences, Skydrive and Sharepoint do some of the other sharing scenarios, just not as nice as they all should be. I saw some awesome mapping stuff working on Windows Mobile well before the iPhone came out, including actual building maps and linking into ones "social network" (however limited that was at that time) to show where one's friends sat.

It is actually sort of sad that none of the experiences have been polished nearly as well as they should have been, by any of the players in the market really. Google Hangouts comes close with some of their collaborative tools, but then something falls apart in the experience, for example in the case of Hangouts, it can be a pain to start one depending on which UI path ones chooses to take, and various bugs pop up and just break the immersion of the experience.

MSN Messenger had a lot of good stuff, video and voice conferencing both worked long ago, but then that market fell apart.

Collaborative Document Editing was done right by Microsoft with One Note 2007, and then completely ignored from then on by the rest of the Office line. Amazing technology, not sure why it wasn't more widely adopted (I'm guessing due to file format needs, presumably the One Note team had the advantage of building up from scratch).

Perhaps most amusing in this video is what people thought LCD screens would look like! I am thankful the ID on LCDs did not go that way!

<comment><USER15> Don't forget Microsoft TerraServer which was a 1998 version of Google Maps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was reading about the worlds navies around the turn of the 19th century. The British dominated the seas and were very innovative during the wars with the French and Dutch.

But then they stopped. They knew that they had the best sailing ships and knew that changing the technology will only disrupt seas in a way threatening their supremacy.

And so the torpedo was invented by the Austrians, the steam and iron ships were pioneered by the French and Americans. This continued even in the 19th century - the century was of Pax Britanica was a century of catchup.

In the end economics was important - Britain remained the worlds leader in industry and trade.

<comment><USER13> As an aside, it scares me a little that Windows for Warships is a thing. [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/windows_for_w...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/windows_for_war_1.html)

<comment><USER17> Not me - sounds like your average defense contractor boondoggle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most of these devices were built, some of them with Microsoft technology, but the technology wasn't ready, the implementation was bad (the interfaces are horrendous, for instance), the licensing was prohibitive and Microsoft didn't see themselves as a device company. They saw themselves as building the technologies that supported those devices, not the devices themselves.

We must all keep in mind these concepts were showcased 13 years before in the famous Knowledge Navigator video or in Sun's less known 1994 Starfire video.

And, probably, on many others that remained unseen by the masses.

</comment><comment><USER19> Kind of reminds me of the Windows tablet being way before the iPad, yet the iPad blowing it out of the water. Microsoft had all these great ideas, but failed to execute. It really reinforces the 'ideas without good execution are worthless' motto.

<comment><USER20> FWIW, Windows Journal was _epic_ , and nothing on the iPad even comes close (nor really can it, due to the inaccuracy of the input compared to an active pen digitizer). I provided some more details on this a long time ago on Quora (which kind of sucks, but it at least saves having to go into a long description ;P).

[http://www.quora.com/Tablet-Devices-and-Tablet-Market/Why- do...](http://www.quora.com/Tablet-Devices-and-Tablet-Market/Why-doesnt- Microsoft-understand-tablets/answer/Jay-Freeman-1)

<comment><USER21> OneNote is incredible, couldn't find anything close on iPad - but feels like zero effective marketing there. If Apple made anything like that it would be all over their keynotes and ads as a USP.

<comment><USER22> OneNote exists on the iPad: [https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/microsoft- onenote-for-iphone...](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/microsoft-onenote-for- iphone/id410395246?mt=8)

Right, it's not quite the same.

<comment><USER21> It really doesn't compare, don't think it even has OCR so notes aren't searchable.

<comment><USER23> Is evernote not a good replacement? OCR searching in notes etc

<comment><USER21> Yes it looks like the nearest thing but doesn't seem to compare with OneNote usability from what I saw (had a co-worker who used it for everything).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's become more and more clear is that while Ballmer is resigning now, he actually largely abdicated the powers of CEO to the heads of the office/windows/mobile fiefdoms over a decade ago.

<comment><USER24> Here's the article I was reminded of, and I've read variations on the same theme many times:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?pagew...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04brass.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0)

 _early in my tenure, our group of very clever graphics experts invented a way to display text on screen called ClearType...

Engineers in the Windows group falsely claimed it made the display go haywire when certain colors were used. The head of Office products said it was fuzzy and gave him headaches. The vice president for pocket devices was blunter: he'd support ClearType and use it, but only if I transferred the program and the programmers to his control. As a result, even though it received much public praise, internal promotion and patents, a decade passed before a fully operational version of ClearType finally made it into Windows._

 _When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn't like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.

So once again, even though our tablet had the enthusiastic support of top management and had cost hundreds of millions to develop, it was essentially allowed to be sabotaged. To this day, you still can't use Office directly on a Tablet PC. And despite the certainty that an Apple tablet was coming this year, the tablet group at Microsoft was eliminated._

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Because they saw everything through Windows lenses - and in the end that's how they built those tablets anyway. They still see things that way. They killed Courier for the same reason - it wasn't Windows.

</comment><comment><USER26> Apple's 1987 vision on computing is nice for comparison: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIE8xk6Rl1w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIE8xk6Rl1w)

</comment><comment><USER27> Because they did. Windows-powered touch-screen Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs existed years before the iPod. Microsoft just didn't find mobile devices important enough and wasn't willing to re-invent Windows for it. Windows Mobile was pretty terrible to use.

<comment><USER28> _...and wasn 't willing to re-invent Windows for it._

And thereby, being unwilling to disrupt themselves, made themselves ripe for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For the same reason they wont execute anything on that Microsoft 2019 video in 6 years. They'll ride Office to their deathbed, which is coming into clear view. Nice run.

<comment><USER30> This is how I feel as well. For a while I thought that Windows RT might be their stepping stone into these waters as a sort of clean break from the burden of backwards compatibility of x86 windows, but alas, it seems as though enterprise rules now until 6 feet under.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> << "Kristy, guess what? I got tickets to the fatboy slim concert!"

>> "Shut. Up."

</comment><comment><USER32> >Business users did get some of the promised technology. SharePoint and Lync provide project sharing

Strange how the promised land looks like hell on earth.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've recently came across "The Road Ahead" written by Bill Gates in 1995, and in it he details many of the technologies we have today with surprising accuracy (We'll all have digital wallets that contain all our info, take movies and photos, allows us to converse with anyone anywhere wirelessly etc).

Microsoft had a great vision for the future they just failed in execution.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think they may have been a little gun shy in some of their later actions due to fear of monopoly claims after they had been smacked down.-

</comment><comment><USER35> Their version of the web seems to be mostly A/V which is not really realistic as most people can't afford the time nor have the skills to contribute content in that fashion. Does that mean that they were underestimating how valuable user generated content would be?

</comment><comment><USER36> Like all MS concept videos, it's all very pretty but useless except for the most shallow kinds of collaboration - it's not so much promising any specific technology so much as a future in which you don't actually have to do any work. How many people do companies really need whose role in its entirety consists of quickly slapping together pretty-looking "reports" full of 3D graphs?

These superficial concept videos have about as much relevance to the world of actual usable technology as porn has to the complexity and compromises of married life. The encyclopaedia we have today is Wikipedia, not Encarta, and no-one cares that it doesn't have embedded videos of antelopes bounding or the galaxy turning.

<comment><USER37> > and no-one cares that it doesn't have embedded videos of antelopes bounding > or the galaxy turning.

I care. I think Wikipedia would be greatly improved with relevant embedded video content. Unfortunately, getting high quality relevant public domain video is virtually impossible. It is nice to think about though.

<comment><USER36> Hm. Well, I agree actually, and in fact it does have some media at least associated with articles, via the "wikimedia commons".

I was more trying to illustrate that multimedia alone does not make a high quality resource, as proved the downfall of the "Multimedia CD-ROM" era of content production, which I feel these concept videos are rooted in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ballmer and his stooges were too busy making fun of Apple and Google (aka. Microsoft's version of marketing). Gosh, when Ballmer leaves, I hope all his VP's would be taken out as well.

<comment><USER39> Did you forget who is the prime candidate to replace Ballmer? Elop...

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This video won't play in Firefox on Debian or in Chrome on Android. Anyone know where else this video can be found?

<comment><USER41> Get a real OS and browser dude! Just kidding. It's in flash man, no plugin no play.

<comment><USER42> Well it doesn't run neither in chrome with w8... I think it just has problems now, probably handling the requests we are pushing on the server

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So in that video, I saw: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google Docs, iPad...</comment>


Ask HN: Can the Hacker News maintainers darken the user submission body text? - <AUTHOR> The text of the body of user submitted stories is very light and difficult to read. Is it possible to darken it a couple shades for legibility? <comment><USER2> It's on purpose to discourage that type of submissions. The links in the text are not converted to real links. And also, these submissions have a penalty so it's more difficult for them to reach the front page. If possible, I recommend using a normal submission.

Anyway, if you want an official reply from the mods, try writing an email to firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER3> WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) shows numerous contrast errors[1]. (Click the contrast button on the sidebar.)

[1] [http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/...](http://wave.webaim.org/report#/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622948)

</comment><comment><USER4> You gain flexibility by letting your browser handle such things. Have a look at Stylus [https://github.com/openstyles/stylus](https://github.com/openstyles/stylus), which is a privacy-conscious fork of Stylish for Chrome, also compatible with Firefox as a WebExtension.

</comment><comment><USER5> probably not, don't think they make frequent updates.. but you can use stylish plugin to change CSS on hackernews or any site really.</comment>


Show HN: High performance, feature rich angular Grid - <AUTHOR> https://www.npmjs.com/package/@syncfusion/ej2-ng-grids <comment><USER2> Looks cool! The demo link in the README is broken, that should probably be [https://ej2.syncfusion.com/16.1.24/angular/demos/#/material/...](https://ej2.syncfusion.com/16.1.24/angular/demos/#/material/grid/default)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @timvdalen. Will fix it ASAP.</comment></comment>


Today Is My Last Day of Smoking - <AUTHOR> http://longren.io/today-is-my-last-day-of-smoking/ <comment><USER2> Good luck Tyler!</comment>


UMass Researcher's start up looking for $20M to use new microbe to convert sugar to ethanol in one step - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/q_to_the_rescue/page1

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is what makes this new:

1) Seems to "eat" many plants including wood pulp, not just sugar cane and corn. Also eats leftovers of sugar cane and corn that microbes used in existing technologies leave behind.

2) Performs the conversion in a single "step" with its own enzymes, without requiring additional processes and treatments as other microbes, which currently take time and costly lab-created enzymes.

3) Carbon neutral or carbon negative.

From:

<http://www.azonano.com/News.asp?NewsID=4968>

</comment><comment><USER2> don't cows eat plant matter and fart methanol? why didn't we start breeding fartier cows?

joking aside, i love all the new advances we're seeing in energy tech. i refuse to pay 4 bucks for gas ever again</comment>


Is Michael Arrington About To Sell TechCrunch? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/05/03/businessinsider-did-michael-arrington-just-move-to-seattle-because-hes-about-to-sell-techcrunch-2010-5.DTL

<comment><USER2> Looks like someone out techcrunched techcrunch. Same citations of questionable sources, same wild speculations.

<comment><USER3> This is clearly marked as speculation in both the title and the body of the article.

It cites a fact from a totally non-questionable source (Arrington himself says he's moving) and then explores the potential implications, based on tax law and market analysis.

If we're allowed to speculate on HN, why can't SFGate speculate as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "One commenter on Y Combinator's Hacker News site makes an interesting point: ..."

Help, I've recursed and I can't get up.

<comment><USER5> Quick, find a base case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If TC wrote it:

"There is no indication that Michael Arrington has entertained any actual offers to buy TechCrunch at this time, and in fact we don't even have direct information that negotiations are taking place. But it's clear that Michael Arrington is at least considering selling TechCrunch."

</comment><comment><USER7> +1 for the uber TechCrunch style headline.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> On a side note, I hate it when sites, such as SFGate, append the story URL when I copy the title. If a writer is honest they will give credit either way and if they're submitting to say HN the URL just makes problems. <End Rant>

<comment><USER8> The solution is to block tcr.tynt.com: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299066>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting that BI quotes our community. I've never seen that for Reddit or Digg in any "serious" publication.

<comment><USER10> Reddit has been quoted numerous times; the last one I remember was some FoxNews story.

<comment><USER9> Happy to be wrong :)

Edit: oh wait you said Fox.

<comment><USER11> Well you did put serious in quotes ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How does the tax thing work if you build the business while in CA, but get the capital gain while a resident of another state?

With US federal taxes, they actually tax you on the unrealized capital gain if you expatriate, but that's a much bigger change than changing state of residency within the US.

<comment><USER13> it has to do with California state taxes, if his residence moves to another state sale of assets will go to that state. And we know California has high state taxes he may try to avoid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I dunno... Mike has been complaining for years that TC isn't any fun. I wouldn't blame him for selling.

</comment><comment><USER15> techcrunch is not a business he can sell. He is too embedded in the site, all his scoops etc are due to his personal contacts. Face it, he is the face of techcrunch.

Pretty much all the scoops get posted by him. The other techcrunch writers tend to just summarize press releases, they don't do any actual investigative journalism.

I think this is just a case of Arrington making a personal choice not to get raped by California high property values.

<comment><USER16> Of course Mike can sell if he wants to. I can think of a bunch of media outlets who would love to swallow TC's traffic. The deal would just have to include a transition phase. As the article itself noted, Mike's involvement is already maybe half of what it was two years ago.

Think Microsoft and Bill Gates. 10 years ago, it was inconceivable for Bill Gates to ever leave Microsoft. And it happened without major trauma (meaning you can argue that Microsoft is not as good as they used to be, but it didn't tank overnight).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If Arrington did sell TechCrunch, how would that affect events like TechCrunch50? Would be interesting to see what he would go on to do next...

</comment><comment><USER18> I wouldn't blame him. He's got a right to take profits.

<comment><USER19> Right, he didn't benefit at all from running his business in California for years. Why should he give back his fair share when he has the resources to dodge it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'll pay $5000 for it

</comment><comment><USER21> Cool, California doesn't need the tax revenue anyway.</comment>


FCC Head to Revise Broadband-Rules Plan - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303627504579556200630931292-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwMTExNDEyWj

<comment><USER2> Tom Wheeler: "You say tomato, I say to-ma-to"

It's lipstick on a pig really. The whole premise of paying for faster content delivery needs to be shelved. Because we all know once the initial language is approved and the laws are changed, the door is open to push more legislation without requiring a vote as it can be under the guise of the existing legislation.

We need to keep the pressure up and oppose this at all costs. I want to see the likes of Mozilla, Google, Microsoft and others take this further and use their connections, their captive audiences and money to stop this. I'm really concerned this is actually going to happen and it's frightening. Because once the US does this, so too will other countries (like my own Australia) thanks to agreements like the TPP.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think net neutrality is one of those things that the average laymen has to be explained and doesn't intuitively understand what is in their own best interest.

If Time Warner claims that net neutrality gives them slower more expensive internet, then they really don't have the expertise to conclude otherwise. And that's a problem.

As a result, the polls which are conducted show that the public doesn't want net neutrality. see [http://heartland.org/policy-documents/majority-public- oppose...](http://heartland.org/policy-documents/majority-public-opposes-net- neutrality-mandate) and [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2006/09/7772/](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2006/09/7772/)

I think that the big players need to plaster ads on things like the google homepage which try to explain the concepts in simple-simple terms and why having it doesn't mean "slower and pricier internet" and additionally, that any complaints they may have about expensive slow internet is nearly 100% due to too-little and not too-much regulation of the companies which they pay for this so-called service.

<comment><USER4> This is one area where techies for public interest can fight back with words.

I explain it to friends and family this way:

Neutrality means the ISP delivers whatever you request on a best-effort basis (explanation of best-effort here). Non-neutrality means the ISP gets to _auction off your ability to connect to sites /services you want to connect to_. In other words, you look at site A and it's fast because A paid the ISP; but site B is slow because they paid less.

And this is wrong because (a) you pay your ISP for connectivity to everywhere, for your own purposes, but you have no say in what they make slow or fast based on side deals. (b) you and the site you're connecting to both have already paid for your respective connections, but without neutrality the sites have to pay more again to avoid artificial slowdowns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is time to re-classify ISPs as common carriers.

</comment><comment><USER6> > _In the new draft, Mr. Wheeler is sticking to the same basic approach but > will include language that would make clear that the FCC will scrutinize the > deals to make sure that the broadband providers don 't unfairly put > nonpaying companies' content at a disadvantage_

Granted this is a non-quote from a source, so maybe that's the muddle. But muddled it is. If Comcast/Verizon are allowed to demand that some companies pay, then they're paying for... what? More bandwidth than companies who don't pay. It seems like the weasel word here is "unfair".

Look, Comcast/Verizon are _already_ getting paid by consumers to deliver whatever data their consumers request. It's not as if Netflix is pushing the stuff unsolicited, like spam. So, how about Comcast/Verizon just do what the fsck they're already being paid to do?

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like the only change is that the FCC is promising to keep the ISPs in check so ISPs don't abuse their proposed ability to charge companies for access to their customers. No thanks; I'd much prefer actual ISP regulation over empty promises.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just as I suspected. Promising to slap their hand will do nothing. We did the same thing with the telecommunications act in the 1990s in order to enforce competition in the ISP space, and the entrenched telcos laughed it off. I guess Wheeler is expecting that history won't repeat? I refuse to believe he is this naive, he knows enforcement won't go anywhere, but he thinks everyone else believes this so his agenda can be pushed.

</comment><comment><USER9> Instead, we should pass a law that prohibits regulators who have a conflict of interest. People like Wheeler should never be allowed as FCC chairs. That he's attempting to pass regulations that refer to his own scrutiny and evaluation of fairness is a huge red flag.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why don't the just use the same law the EU recently passed? No need to invent something new and argue about it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Url changed from [1], which points to this article.

1\. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/11/fcc-said-to-tweak- proposed-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/11/fcc-said-to-tweak-proposed-net- neutrality-rules-but-preserve-pay-for-speed/)</comment>


History Search – You way back to a million websites - <AUTHOR> http://historysearch.com <comment><USER2> As my mouse cursor hovered over the green Install button, thoughts raced through my head such as

'who is historysearch.com and why should we trust it?'</comment>


Show HN: Pkg Stats – NPM discovery and stats viewer - <AUTHOR> https://www.pkgstats.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Pkg Stats is a little tool that evolved from a quick day project that I threw together to help me monitor the downloads of my published packages. I wanted a way to easily scan how my packages were being used, and help me prioritize which of them I should focus on.

It was also an example project to help get my feet wet with Next.js + React for a client project that was on the horizon, so I decided to expand on it and make it more like a real project with various types of routing and endpoints.

The weird thing is, it's now become my defacto way to search and browse packages while I'm working on projects since the data is condensed and surfaces more information, I can quickly see how popular and maintained a package is. I hope you find it as useful as I have.</comment>


Ask HN: Tech stack recommendations for online ordering at a small grocery store? - <AUTHOR> If you had to quickly build a website to help a small, local grocery store accept orders online, what tech stack would you use?
For safety, the store is closed to walk-in customers and is the only grocery store on the island. All local residents have been asked to email their shopping list to the store so that staff can pick the items and hand them to customers outside.
However, there's no structure in the emails, no insight into what products the store even sells, no online billing, nothing. It's just an unstructured email that gets printed upon receipt and handed to a "shopper". It works, but I feel like some small changes could really help the staff.
As a desktop app developer, it's been awhile since my days of Ruby on Rails, so I'm curious what tech stack recommendations the HN community can offer to build something super lightweight to help a store like this. Something as simple as Google Forms + Google Spreadsheets would be a great start, but are there other services I'm not aware of?
Consider the following:
* Should be web based, not a native app. * Should run on free services.
* Should not involve managing any servers or instances.
* Usage would be around "dozens of orders per day". * Being able to create user accounts would be nice, so people can re-order, but it's not essential. * Payment info is probably not needed at this time. (Lots of customers still use store accounts.)
* Ideally extensible to be able to add product photos down the road. (But not connected to any invenstory system.) * A significant number of customers are seniors.
Thank you.
(This is just volunteer work. I'd build then a desktop macOS app, but that's not going to help too many local residents.) <comment><USER2> A Spreadsheet that uses data validation to provide a drop down list of options is super useful for entering orders. Google forms can do something similar and really thats all you need right now

</comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, Shopify is probably your best bet, although they charge the seller about 2.9% of sales IIRC.</comment>