The Sound of iPod - <AUTHOR> http://web.archive.org/web/20060529120135/http://ipodlinux.org/stories/piezo/

<comment><USER2> I like reading little personal accounts like this by programmers. Have a problem, try a hack, fail. Sleep. Bring in some good friends. Things improve. Happen on some software or third party lib or blog post that opens your eyes. Succeed.

</comment><comment><USER3> The text is a somewhat incoherent string of words, but as far as I can tell, the author managed to extract an iPod's bootloader by encoding the raw bitstream in audio and emitting it via the piezo sound generator and then recording and decoding the result on a PC to reconstruct the binary data. Nice. Reminds me of acoustic couplers.

<comment><USER4> There exist some tools for decoding cassette games from some older computers. I wonder if he could have used C64 tape format for example, although I suspect it might not work because the piezo quality isn't good enough to produce the sounds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty old, but a decent read. Notice that the link is to archive.org, not the original site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have hesitated to put this piece information in the title. May be something like "(originally from ipodlinux.org)" at the end would have been better.</comment></comment>


Father of Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug, Dies - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8253005.stm

<comment><USER2> It is debatable whether or not Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug was the greatest human being who ever lived. It comes down to definitions. If you define greatest as saving more human lives than any other one person, he is indeed the greatest human being who ever lived. He is certainly greater than your average religious prophet.

As a social movement, Borlaug's Green Revolution saved hundreds of million of people. It is an astounding achievement in the history of humanity. He deserves so much more recognition and I hope the media doesn't forget about him. I only heard of him because of a Penn and Teller TV show. Voters, at this time you may want to consider voting this story up if you haven't already.

Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47348>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution>

<comment><USER3> It was also "Green" in terms of the environment, saving millions of acres of rain forest and wilderness from agricultural cultivation.

<comment><USER4> Hardly. Part of the Green revolution was the heavy use of chemical pesticides which is horrible for the environment.

[http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food?c=News- an...](http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food?c=News-and- Information/Documentary-and-Biography)

<comment><USER5> You can't feed 6 billon people on organic farming.

<http://www.reason.com/blog/show/132479.html>

<comment><USER6> Is anybody arguing that you can? Is anybody championing organic farming because they think it will feed the world?

<comment><USER7> Sure they are. Any progressive, liberal, green, whatever, person who corners you in a coffee shop and laments how evil farmers are for not doing organic farming. That guy, you know him. He better think it's going to feed the world. I'd rather believe he's stupid than believe he's genocidal.

<comment><USER6> Maybe the progressive, liberal, green people I've met are more nuanced. Most realize that organic farming is inherently less efficient (in calories per acre farmable land) and aren't putting forward as a solution to world hunger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd put 2 other names ahead of his:

Stanislov Petrov - who didn't intentionally decide to not start WW3, he just decided that if it were going to happen, the Americans would have started it differently. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov>

Fritz Haber - Looking to make money, he came up with a way to make fertilizer from the nitrogen in the air. This is now the process that underlies about half of the agricultural fertilizer production. If this hadn't been invented, the upper limit of human population would be a lot lower than it is now - we'd have got to about 3 billion people before we reached the point where we couldn't feed any more people.

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

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

<comment><USER2> Ah, Petrov very well may win.

As for Haber, his comparable achievements in the science of waging war and of providing the technology to enable to German war machine makes his achievements more morally ambiguous. Also, someone else would have invented his process. Borlaug's achievements were as social as scientific, he got out in the fields and got the farmers to grow the new higher yielding crops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Way too early to evaluate the green revolution. It may have just allowed us to temporarily overshoot the earth's carrying capacity, which wouldn't be much fun on the ride down.

<comment><USER10> If the practices can be sustained, then we've increased the carrying capacity. To revert to traditional practices could decrease it again. The bigger the difference between our population size and carrying capacity, the worse that ride down will be. Of course, how these practices can be made/kept sustainable is an issue.

<comment><USER9> I'd say that the sustainability of the practices is _the_ issue. Depleting groundwater, eroding topsoil, reducing crop genetic diversity, and changing the climate may all be reducing the long-term carrying capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World> is greatly indebted to Norman Borlaug.

</comment><comment><USER12> We should all make as big a differnce in our lives as Norman Borlaug, he is a large source of inspiration to me.</comment>


Neil Armstrong's purse: First moonwalker had hidden bag of Apollo 11 artifacts - <AUTHOR> http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-020615b-neil-armstrong-artifacts-purse.html <comment><USER2> _" In September 2012, one month after Armstrong died, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill that confirmed the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts had legal title their mementos."_

Which explains why he never told anyone about them, their ownership was unclear and while deeply significant to Armstrong the artifacts could easily have been confiscated by NASA and put in some dusty vault to rot away like the suits they wore mostly did before being rescued.

<comment><USER3> > their ownership was unclear

It was NASA's property and the astronaut stole it.

<comment><USER4> The items would have been lost (probably forever) when the LEM was crashed back onto the moon, so where's the harm? Other people _did_ know that Armstrong had the items - as the article states, he reported the bag to Collins, who in turn told NASA about it, so he wasn't exactly being sneaky about it. I suppose you could argue that it wasn't really "trash" but NASA obviously considered the articles "disposable" once they'd served their purpose.

Armstrong stuck the bag in a closet for 40 years. At least he didn't try to sell them. NASA turned a blind eye to Mercury and Gemini astronauts taking personal items (and things like stamps, paper money and coins) into space, because they gave them to family and friends. Only when these "space flown" items started being sold for considerable sums of money did NASA try to put a halt to the practice. I'm sure Armstrong's "mementos" could have been sold - either above or below board - for large amounts, but I doubt that's something Armstrong would have ever considered.

<comment><USER5> In fact I think remember hearing (in When We Left Earth) one of the Mercury astronauts say they made a military pilot's salary (which while not bad, probably wasn't in line with what they were doing) so they sold those space mementos to put their kids through college. They weren't trying to get rich, just trying to do what any reasonable parent would do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to compare the waist tether ([http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-020615h-lg.jpg](http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-020615h-lg.jpg)) from this article with locking carabiners used by rock climbers ([http://www.rei.com/product/722360/black-diamond-rocklock- twi...](http://www.rei.com/product/722360/black-diamond-rocklock-twistlock- carabiner), [http://www.rei.com/product/722353/black-diamond-rocklock- scr...](http://www.rei.com/product/722353/black-diamond-rocklock-screwgate- carabiner)). I wonder what the design requirements were -- it seems surprising to me that the only locking part of the waist tether is a button. It seems like that button could get accidentally hit, causing the tether to unlock and become unsafe; that is, unless the button has a spring forcing it to the "lock" position.

Interestingly, there is a new carabiner on the market whose locking mechanism is more like a button ([http://www.rei.com/product/840193/black-diamond- magnetron-ro...](http://www.rei.com/product/840193/black-diamond-magnetron- rocklock-locking-carabiner)): the difference being that the mechanism must be activated from both sides (via pinching the purple parts in the image), and has magnets forcing the carabiner into the "locked" state when not being held unlocked.

Also interesting is that the waist tether is adjustable. That could be a point of failure -- imagine floating off the end of your tether. Although I can't tell whether the waist tether is designed to attach astronauts to the spaceship, or just tools to astronauts. Howstuffworks.com implies it attaches astronauts to the spaceship ([http://science.howstuffworks.com/spacewalk4.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/spacewalk4.htm)), but brighthub.com implies it's for tools ([http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/126178.aspx](http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/126178.aspx)).

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting story. They shy away of actually saying he stole the objects. I wonder how nostalgic he was about the trip to the moon for the rest of his life...

<comment><USER8> Are you familiar with The Overview Effect? It's a reported experience that many astronauts have after viewing the Earth from space:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect)

[http://vimeo.com/55073825](http://vimeo.com/55073825)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found this on a NASA site about the purse:

"Finally, in a 13 July 2005 e-mail, Neil Armstrong says that the flown Apollo 12 purse " looks just the way I remember it - but it looks cleaner than the one on Apollo 11."

Sneaky guy.

[https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/A12Flown- Purse.html](https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/A12Flown-Purse.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Can't remember who exactly, but think it was Gus Grissom who brought along rolls of coins along during his Mercury mission as a money making scheme.

Remember reading this in The Right Stuff, and it was likely in the movie as well.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could have been titled, "Neil Armstrong purse snatcher."</comment>


No Goals? - <AUTHOR> https://nachapp.com/blog/2016/no-goals <comment><USER2> Wouldn't living life with "no goals" be a goal? It has got to be hard to live without goals so achieving that would be a goal.

<comment><USER3> Sounds like Russell's Paradox.</comment></comment>


Validate product design ideas with wireframes - <AUTHOR> https://www.simonmccade.com/blog/validate-product-design-ideas-with-wireframes <comment><USER2> Reading the book Creative Selection [1], by an early iPhone software engineer describing the development of the software keyboard, cemented my existing belief in working demos over wireframes.

A lot of what makes some UI great over others is little details in interaction design (subtle animations), color choices, typography, and live content that is very difficult to replicate in wireframes. Users have an emotional response to UI and that's what you want to "measure". Next to impossible to do that with static wireframes. I think all great UI designers should be able to code their designs, gone are the days of separate photoshop/indesign -> code steps, at least until the UI matures.

That said, wireframes are a great tool during product ideation and design. I like paper+pencil as a wire framing tool, and then go straight to working UI.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples- Proc...](https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process- ebook/dp/B079DVT6VP/)

<comment><USER3> You can make great wireframes on paper, but it doesn't scale very well. Get more than one person working on it, and more than a few pages and you start running into trouble. I worked on one complete travesty of a project once where the core requirements were 100 pages of stapled together, doodle covered wireframes that were passed around the office for months.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, which is why I think going to version controlled, working UI code ASAP is key. Also my views are for super early UI design and development. For a mature UI like existing Uber or Airbnb app where larger teams (more than a couple people) are designing each little piece, makes sense to have more steps in the process and tooling like Figma to support it.</comment></comment></comment>


Theranos Halts New Zika Test After FDA Inspection - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-halts-new-zika-test-after-fda-inspection-1472598332 <comment><USER2> Click bait title?

Theranos withdrew their application to the FDA for the test. So "Theranos Halts New Zika Test" is technically accurate, but it suggests that the test was actually being performed.

<comment><USER3> > a company news release[0] said Theranos had collected finger-stick blood > samples from patients, including in the Dominican Republic, and run the > tests on the new miniLab device, which showed that the Zika test worked.

From the news release:

> The company collected finger- stick samples from subjects, including in the > Dominican Republic, and shipped those to Palo Alto to run on the miniLab.

0: [https://news.theranos.com/2016/08/02/theranos-unveils- diagno...](https://news.theranos.com/2016/08/02/theranos-unveils-diagnostic- testing-technologies-american-association-clinical-chemistry-meeting/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Brutal mistake, it sounds like their product probably actually works in this case too but they just can't follow the rules.

</comment><comment><USER5> "We hope that our decision to withdraw the Zika submission voluntarily is further evidence of our commitment to engage positively with the agency," said Dave Wurtz, Theranos's vice president of regulatory, quality and clinical affairs.

<comment><USER6> And in other news, their general counsel stepped down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> " FDA approval of the miniLab would allow Theranos to sell the device for outside use even if she is banned from owning or running a lab for at least two years."

Scary...

Would be very worried to see any Theranos device being used for anything that impacts on clinical decision making..

Theranos needs to die and Ms Holmes needs to go back to university.

</comment><comment><USER8> How long until people go to jail? I don't see how Theranos can get out of this downward spiral due to its attitude of disregarding laws and even ethics. If they really want to help people they should try to do no harm first.

<comment><USER9> Lobbying money? Who knows...

<comment><USER10> You have people on the Theranos board of directors who have commited much worse than what the company has been accused of recently. For example, Henry Kissinger:

"In June 1999, by order of President Bill Clinton, the State Department released thousands of declassified documents[79] revealing for the first time that the CIA and the State and Defense Departments were intimately aware of Condor"

Who is Henry Kissinger and what is Operation Condor? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor)

If the architects of such chaos in Latin America have never been charged, I don't think they ever will be. Of course the 'puppets' (Pinochet and other cronies) got some form of 'justice' applied to them in recent years, but what they got does not even amount to a slap on the wrist ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow another blow to Theranos. I'm surprised they are still in business.

On another note, someone in the wsj seems to really hold a grudge against Theranos and/or Elizabeth Holmes.

Edit: Warren to Holmes mb

<comment><USER12> > On another note, someone is the wsj seems to really hold a grudge against > Theranos and/or Elizabeth Holmes.

I suspect because they were, at one point, on the receiving end of her wrath. She strikes me as a Carly Fiorina, Jr., and not even remotely above pulling some contacts to exert some backhanded political pressure on people she doesn't like.

Not all reporters are idiots. And some of the reporters who cover specific areas are pretty close to experts in their own right. If you try to feed them a line of bull, they're going to smoke you.

The relevant line is: "Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So Zika, a devastating illness that is likely to cripple thousands, will go on being undetected because Theranos _may have not quite followed the rules_ in collecting finger sticks? This is a public health emergency. Appalling.

<comment><USER13> And all of the responses and negativity skate around the positive results and the tragic loss of an effective diagnostic procedure. Because 'rules'.

The oversight (potentially risking folks safety by not doing a finger stick with the right paperwork?) has nothing to do with the actual medical test nor does it compromise the results. Yet everybody is fine with punishing an unpopular company because of yes technicalities. While public safety and the lives of unborn children are at serious risk.

I don't get the nerd mentality sometimes. Common sense flies right out the window.

<comment><USER14> Thalidomide was also banned in the US "because rules".

Common sense in medicine prioritizes doing no harm.

I can provide other notable examples if need be. The bottom line is that all parties need to be confident that the expected benefit of a test or procedure outweighs any expected potential harms. Having multiple layers or peer review is one way to ensure this.

I work on clinical trials of "black label" (potentially lethal) agents in patients that typically have no other options. Our pages can be 70-100 pages and we are doing this in our "spare" time (Ha! Ha!). I don't think it's unreasonable for a massively capitalized private company to produce documentation at least up to this standard.

It really isn't much to ask, especially for an existential venture like this (something -- anything! -- trustworthy to recover the tremendous amount of credibility they've lost.)

Other companies had no problem writing a suitable protocol. Why should peoples' safety be compromised just so that an untrustworthy company can enter the market?

<comment><USER13> We're talking a finger stick here. And a devastating illness that is poised to become a worldwide epidemic.

<comment><USER14> For which other diagnostics exist from companies that somehow managed to submit a proper protocol.

Unlike Zika tests, it is extremely rare for patients in the trials I design to have any alternatives. Also unlike Zika, the standard of care in the diseases I work on yields less than 25% 5-year survival.

Not birth defects (horrific though they may be) but death from organ failure and infection. Nearly all of the compounds are known or potential teratogens. No alternative sources for most of the drugs. Still need an IRB.

You say, "oh it's just a finger stick!" To which I must say, have you looked at the number of physicians and nurses who got Hep C or HIV from an errant finger stick in the hospital?!

<comment><USER13> And I come back again with "Mothers and babies and a worldwide epidemic"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scat: password scatterer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/redelmann/scat <comment><USER2> Awesome project, but thats an unfortunate choice of name.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahah, I did not know what that means.</comment></comment>


Proji v0.18.1: The project scaffolding tool now supports GitHub and Gitlab - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nikoksr/proji <comment><USER2> Nice. Does this also support templated files like cookiecutter? If not, I guess one can always call cookiecutter from this...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedack! :)

Yes. In your class config you can tell proji to create a file in the new project based on a given template. Templates are stored in '~/.config/proji/templates' and can be of any type(txt, py, go,..). In addition, proji can execute shell scripts, which practically offers unlimited possibilities.

For more information about files, scripts and templates you may read this part of the docs: [https://github.com/nikoksr/proji#setting-up-a- class-](https://github.com/nikoksr/proji#setting-up-a-class-)</comment></comment>


Google to close engineering office in Russia - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-russia-internet-google-idUSKBN0JQ03E20141212 <comment><USER3> Acronis, one of best known Russian tech companies, is slowly moving to Estonia: [http://www.investinestonia.com/en/about- estonia/news/article...](http://www.investinestonia.com/en/about- estonia/news/article/905-big-name-in-the-it-world-could-create-500-new-jobs- in-estonia)

There are also quite a few who are moving from Russia to Ukraine.

Also remembered this: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/luxoft-to- move-500-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/luxoft-to- move-500-programmers-from-ukraine-russia-amid-risks.html)

<comment><USER4> I can't imagine doing business with a Russian owned company at this point. An autocratic regime has never been good for internet or software freedoms.

I'm very glad I chose Sophos over Kaspersky for our shop.

<comment><USER5> Kaspersky is interesting. I like their security labs but I am always aware their founder was FSB (KGB-trained) and has good relations with senior personnel (nomenklatura) there, so, while I don't think it's automatic that Kaspersky would do the Russ gov 'favors' it's not out of the question either however Wired has reported as such.

<comment><USER6> The founder of Huawei was in the PLA, and this is often used to bash the company.

Why is it ok to serve country A, B, C and then go into business... but if you serve country X,Y,Z you're suddenly untrustworthy?

What next? Make business decisions based upon the sexual preferences of the CEO?

<comment><USER7> McDonald's CEO, James Skinner, is interesting. I like their chicken mcNuggets, but I am always aware that their CEO is US-Navy trained, and maintains a good relation with armed forces.

Seriously though, everybody was China is PLA - it doesn't mean anything. Back in the day, PLA is one of the few ways to get an education and not be a farmer.

<comment><USER8> On a semi-serious note, McDonald's is positioned at major intersections in nearly every city and town in the United States.

If you wanted to go full-militarized police state, locking down all the major intersections seems like something you'd want to do.

<comment><USER9> A friend of mine once heard a talk by one of the CxOs of McDonald's (was a while ago, and I can't remember which). He asked the question, "What business am I in?"

Obviously, he rejected the naive answer of "selling food". Smarter answers were "licensing franchises" or "marketing/branding", but he rejected those answers as well.

What business was he in? _Land_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Word is that most employees are being offered full relocation (generally to Zurich) which I have to think will be well received.

This goes for both Moscow and St Petersburg.

<comment><USER11> > which I have to think will be well received.

sorry I can't read the english here, do you expect it to be well received (why? seems like it would be a though choice for many people even with a relocation package) or are you expressing hope it will be?

<comment><USER12> At least in term of compensation, Zurich is hard to beat.

<comment> at-fates-hands You can also throw in:

\- One of the best health care systems in the world

\- Incredible educational system

\- Technology and innovation

\- Compact, well run government

\- Some of the lowest crime rates in the world

\- Ski much? Some of the best ski resorts in the world are in the Swiss Alps. If you don't, then you still have some breath taking scenery to look at.

Not sure you could find a better place to live than Switzerland. For the Google employees in Russia, this must be a dream come true.

Switzerland by all accounts, is the exact _opposite_ of Russia.

<comment><USER13> Better check how long/difficult is the settlement/citizenship process. Is it even achievable? There are fairer places to go, it should be a strategic decision not an opportunistic one.

<comment> at-fates-hands I've done some checking and if you're going to settle there on a perm basis, I think it would be worth it.

[http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a- citizen/29288376](http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a-citizen/29288376)

 _Foreigners with no direct blood ties to Switzerland through either birth or marriage must live in the country for at least 10 years (reduced from 12 years by a new law passed in June 2014) before they can apply for citizenship. (Years spent in the country between age ten and 20 count double). The person must be well integrated, familiar with customs and traditions, law abiding, and pose no threat to internal or external security. The Federal Migration Office will then "green light" an applicant's request to begin the naturalisation process but that does not mean citizenship is certain. Rather, cantons and municipalities have their own requirements that must be met. One canton, for example, might require applicants to live for two years in the region while another might require a decade. For more on the process, please visit the Federal Migration Office._

The other interesting thing is being born in the country doesn't mean you're granted citizenship.

<comment><USER11> > The other interesting thing is being born in the country doesn't mean you're > granted citizenship.

That is quite common everywhere except the americas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now.

I'm afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we're going to see more of this.

<comment><USER15> That's a very myopic view and here's why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you'll get "United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power". You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson, US conflicts with China in Asia Pacific, and of course US crackdown on dissidents like Assange and Snowden. You can also try that exercise by replacing Putin with "Greek government".

Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?

<comment><USER16> I'm a Romanian, a country that's pretty close to Russia and I am one that suffers for what the Ukrainians are going through with Russia, because I can see how the same thing could happen in Basarabia (Moldova) and there are already signs of that. Russia historically has been occupying territories, getting rid of any political dissent by effectively killing or deporting people, while crushing their national identity. I hate Russia for what they did after the secret pact from Yalta, for the soviet induced hunger that happened after that and for the years of communism we endured.

It's been only 24 years since we escaped their control and apparently we've been lucky, but now Putin is destroying any chance of having a peaceful neighborhood. War is effectively at our borders and Putin is to be blamed.

So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same. No, they are not equal. And I hope the Putin administration will receive what it deserves.

<comment><USER17> Your country was of enormous help to Hitler while attacking the USSR, and the retribution you had to "endure", given everything you did, was astonishingly mild. So spare me your complaints.

<comment><USER18> > given everything you did

Man, it's 2014, the people that did anything in WW2 on both sides are long dead.

And in the context of that time, "the Allies" included Stalin's Russia (read some history, this tyrant killed more of his own people than there were victims of Hitler's holocaust!), so _choosing to support Hitler 's Germany against an alliance that included Russia was not necessarily a bad idea at that that time, even morally and ethically speaking._

And concerning post-war "retribution" as a way to handle international relationships after a war: basically the only reason Hitler himself came to power in Germany was because this country had to endure an extremely harsh "retribution" post WW1 so maybe the people that made this harsh post WW1 deal really deserved the killings and destruction of WW2! Post WW2 western European countries all benefited from something called the Marshall Plan from the US and of decades of productive cooperation in the EU, regardless of who did what in WW2, whereas the "Eastern Block" countries all got to endure "retribution" and being part of the unhealthy forced economy of the USSR.

International politics is something that should be taken separately from concepts such as "fairness" and "correctitude" and "punishing someone for one's bad deeds". You don't punish a whole people for the consequences of what a leader decided, even if they followed that leader. You try to rebuild countries and economies, regardless of what seems "fair" or not, and you try to accelerate economical growth, even if this even means letting 1 in 10 war criminals get away. You optimize social and economical systems for performance so that they can provide the best average "quality of live", even if this means swallowing some shady politics once in a while and occasionally "forgetting" some historical truths when remembering them is not "productive".

Thankfully the US, UK and modern Germany get these basic principles right, and I really hope they will have as much of an influence as possible on international politics, in the detriment of Russia and China who, despite the immense economic growth of the last, haven't really gotten to the level where they really understand what "healthy modern democracy" is all about and know how to play "the game" and also make the people happy.

<comment> guard-of-terra "You try to rebuild countries and economies, regardless of what seems "fair" or not"

The problem here: after the cold war, which Russia lost, nobody cared to rebuild its economy; instead everything was done to siphon people and resources away and to destroy industry. Obviously US really did not want to see Russia on the map anymore and so they did that.

Guess what - 20 years pass, Russia is angry like a non-mortally wounded wild animal.

I'm not a fan of mr. Putin but he's very cautious still. With someone less cautious it WILL look like pre-WW2.

And of course it will be a disaster for everyone involved.

<comment><USER16> First of all, the cold war wasn't a real war, but a competition between the US and Russia. Russia's loss was that they overspent resources they couldn't afford to spend. Russia is also really big and has all the resources it needs to recover from anything. In such a scenario I don't understand why would anybody assume that, if it had been given international help, they would be any different than what they are today.

Second of all, if they lost the cold war, I don't get why they'd want another one. Putin is only cautious because he knows that in such a scenario he will lose. And Putin's nationalistic behavior only happened because Russia was on the brink of another economic recession.

<comment> guard-of-terra "Russia is also really big and has all the resources it needs to recover from anything"

Sure, but industries will be destroyed and people die, starve and be forcibly relocated. That's what happened to ex-USSR a lot because the rest of world did not see any reason to rebuild a country that in fact yielded to them.

You are free to "don't understand", but the damage I mentioned was done. Don't then be surprised when people you considered harmless want to nuke you for all the good. All the good that, strictly speaking, you did not _have_ to do.

"Second of all, if they lost the cold war, I don't get why they'd want another one"

If Germans lost one world war, why would they want another one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> " _Google Inc has plans to shut down its engineering office in Russia amid a crackdown on internet freedoms and a law regarding data-handling practices_ "

Should they close their offices in USA then ? (yes I'm being sarcastic here)

<comment><USER20> People are so used to their freedom, that they (rightly) get upset over even small losses of it.

But it makes them forget what real loss of freedom is, and think that what they lost is somehow comparable. They just don't realize how bad it can really get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Might be a coincidence, but they also just announced plans to rent 50'000 square meters of office space in Zurich [http://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/google- investiert-d...](http://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/google-investiert- den-standort-schweiz-711965)

<comment><USER22> I wonder why is Zurich a big part of Google's strategy as opposed to other places in Europe

<comment><USER23> Because it's been on position 1 of best standard of living in the world pretty consistently, and Switzerland is geographically central, well interconnected, business-friendly, and not part of the EU?

Just a guess :)

EDIT: It seems Vienna is on top since 2010, my bad. But position 2 is not so bad, and the other points still stand :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Survey)

<comment><USER22> It's also extremely expensive ;)

But yeah, I know the city, and I agree with most of it.

Also, yeah, not part of the EU (but in practice it's more of a "pick what you want" thing with the EU

<comment><USER23> Sure it's expensive, but if you live there your salary is indexed to that cost (especially if you work for google), so it's not like it's a problem in practice.

Of course, if you're just visiting... ouch :)

<comment><USER24> Of if, like Google, you are the one paying those salaries indexed to cost of living. Then your employees become rather expensive...

<comment><USER23> Well, it seems like Google salaries are very capable of sustaining a familly in Zurich: [http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google- Salaries-E9079.htm](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm)

And that's US salaries (the website only offers a free preview.. yada yada).

I think Google generally thinks the cost of a talented enigineer is justified, and switching locations will of course represent a cost, but probably not such a big one in the great scheme of things.

<comment><USER25> It's quite possible there will be a _relative_ loss of status. You might go from being -- say -- in the top decile or oven top few percentiles of income/wealth in Russia, to being in a middle decile in Zurich, even if you are quite comfortable or your absolute income or disposable income ends up being larger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA.

Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture.

Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly.

If anyone speaks about the actions that the Us takes in secret they are hunted to the end of the world, and must seek refuge in Russia.

We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated)

Remember that the air plane carrying the President of Bolivia was forced to land and be searched by American allies under the suspicion that Snowden might be on-board. Can you imagine AirForce One being forced to land, and be searched by Russia or China? Becaus they suspected it might be carrying a dissident? I dont think so.

<comment><USER27> _We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated)_

Assange has a TV show on Russian state television, and Snowden is a guy who fled to Russia with literally thousands of stolen NSA documents and now does TV propaganda with Vladimir Putin. Those are not dissidents. Those are Russian agents, whether they realize it or not.

<comment><USER28> You are using the exact "reasoning"/propaganda that communist regimes used in Eastern Europe in the past. EVERY dissident who fled to a Western country was automatically labeled a spy.

<comment><USER27> If you were an Eastern European person who made it into West Berlin with thousands of secret Soviet intelligence documents in the 1960s, then you probably were a spy.

<comment><USER28> Some were, some were not (I grew up there). Also, while some spies are money- motivated, most spies from Eastern Europe were simply fed-up with the system.

We will never know for sure, but did you watch "Citizen4"? A closer look at Snowden - IMO, it's highly unlikely that he was a spy. It is clear (to me, at least) that he is highly principled, not money-driven. He'd have to be an extremely good actor.

<comment><USER27> Snowden's principles are exactly what make him such a great Russian agent. They don't have to sell him on the ideology since he already has it. It's like Aikido. All they have to do is take the momentum of his enormous ego and sense of self righteousness, and just sort of redirect it a little bit. Now all of a sudden Snowden finds himself sitting in Moscow being debriefed by Russian intelligence. It's brilliant on the part of the Russians and terrible for NATO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> … and just 2 months ago Microsoft closed Qik/Skype development office in Moscow, relocating willing developers to Czech Republic.

</comment><comment><USER30> Oh my, goodbye sanitizers? There's still work on the kernel sanitizer and a few other things to be done. Disturbing.

<comment><USER31> I don't believe anyone is getting fired, though it's true that a mandatory relocation will mean a lot of people choose to leave the company.

<comment><USER30> I assumed that they will not fire their best engineers. But will their families relocate to Europe, having to speak weird languages and spend a lot of money? Zurich is super expensive.

<comment><USER31> Right, I expect many will choose a severance package instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Knowing the government's of Russia ways of controlling the media and opposition, I understand and agree with those scared for personal freedoms. On the other hand, I would feel way better if similar law would be imposed in EU, so my data would stay within its borders and be protected by EU laws.

<comment><USER33> Actually, the NSA has a greater power to spy on data on foreign soil than on domestic soil. Ironically, although the 'legal' channels for subpoenaing data with warrants exposes data in the US to government demands, there's at least in theory, some kind of oversight by the courts (although we know they rubber stamp everything).

I think the idea that data held within your home country is 'safer' may be a false sense of security.

<comment><USER34> There's that small difference of actually being able to influence our own governments and changing what they give to US.

Which is still a huge difference than being exposed to mercy of an overseas government which gives us about the same consideration as it does to cattle and approves of torture.

<comment><USER35> It's not even so much being able to influence our government versus one to which we are foreign non-residents, it's that at least the people over at the NSA, however much they may abuse their power, have some small consideration for me as a fellow citizen versus "just some German/Chinese/South African guy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's time to recognize the Internet as a basic human right. That means guaranteeing affordable access for all, ensuring Internet packets are delivered without commercial or political discrimination, and protecting the privacy and freedom of Web users regardless of where they live.

[http://time.com/3631377/internet-cia-putin-berners- lee/](http://time.com/3631377/internet-cia-putin-berners-lee/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Perhaps their executives do not want to have an 'accident' landing Sheremetievo?

They are smart to get out now, probably should have been done earlier

</comment><comment><USER38> How does engineering office relate to censorship?

<comment><USER39> If they have local presence they can be pressured in any way in a Russian jurisdiction.

<comment><USER40> But if "the internet search engine company might retain some employees to assist in sales, business partnerships, user support, marketing and communications", won't they still have a local presence?

<comment><USER39> It careful says "might" and "assist". In the best case this means minimal presence in Russia that can be unplugged immediately. We don't know if this will happen using the Google company or transferring employees to a another entity and formally outsourcing it.

<comment><USER41> The presence could be purely vendors or a Russian company acting as a representing. More like a consulate, like they still have in China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I really hope Jetbrains, a Russian company, do not secretly work with the government to plant backdoors in all its IDE offerings :). It's fascinating but uneasy feeling how some of the best tools for software development come from Russia

</comment><comment><USER43> What else "Sharikovs and Shvonders" would expect?

</comment><comment><USER44> Stupid propaganda...

<comment><USER45> What exactly do you consider propaganda? You don't believe that Google is shutting down their Russian office?

<comment><USER44> Reasoning. Internet became regulated in Russia, and what? How does this relate to hacking on V8 engine, for example? (They have such teem in Saint Petersburg)

This article appeared just to support sentiment and noise around how bad/evil Russia is doing. No matter of truth or plausibility, all kind of noise just works.

<comment><USER46> But it is indeed is bad and going worse. Free people of the world, including Russians, must do everything for this to stop, and Russian/commuinist/orthodox 'world' to be destroyed as quickly and cleanly as possible. History shows this is possible: collapse of USSR already did most of this job, what remains is easier and there is a good chance Russian threat will be over forever in a generation if we (i mean Russians, with the help of the west) try really hard. Don't let propaganda fool yourself: Russian threat is first, and foremost, a threat to Russians themselves.

<comment><USER47> The russion threat is a threat to the world, because starting a war is a popular option with those failing dictators.

<comment><USER46> Not much, there isn't much Putin could do in the military sense without completely crippling the economy. All he can in foreign affairs is bullying small neighbors. Soviet Union was up to 7-8% of the world GDP and had Soviet Bloc - allies that (not counting China - it was never a Soviet ally really) combined had almost as much. Currently Russia has no allies - not even Belarus - nobody recognized Crimea annexation for example. A few weak post-soviet states could make pro-Russian statements once a while in exchange for another shipment of cheap natural gas, but that's about it. And it is currently less than 3% of the world's GDP.

It should be too obvious even for Putin that an attempt of a new Cold War will be laughable. So he won't start another war or seriously threaten West. Victims of his policies will be, in their overwhelming majority, Russian people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is clearly a pragmatic move that protects them (and their customers), but it feels telling to me that Putin's violent anti-LGBT crackdown - <USER2> threatening the lives of many Google employees, not to mention Google's customers - wasn't sufficient cause to close or relocate their offices.

</comment><comment><USER49> Will they close their offices in Europe as well when Europe implements the same laws? They're put in a bad light now because Russia does it, but the EU is contemplating the exact same laws.

These laws are not because Russia wants the data for themselves, they are because the US currently has them and they've been shown to be absolutely incapable of dealing with that responsibility in an acceptable fashion.

<comment><USER50> No! The EU doesnt require its citizens to show ID when logging onto public WiFi!

<comment><USER51> Some EU countries do. Some want to. Why don't you get informed before talking?

Italy is one: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Italy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Italy)

The law is meant against terrorism. I am sure Russia has a good excuse too.

<comment><USER52> Russia or US - two chicks of the the same ass. I understand US and Russia and their imperialistic desires, nothing new under the sun, but what I feel most sorry about is that EU, which now has a higher population then US and Russia and has enough power to beat each of them, is acting as a brown-noser to the US and is getting tricked into this Cold War 2.0. Without EU support, US cannot effective wage this war on Russia, and US is far and is clear that EU will suffer most, when this will help bloom US economy. Stupid EU! 500 million slaves to the US - unbelievable, with all the traditions in politics, economics, and science, with all the brain power, it's pulled by the nose! I'm ashamed!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Psychedelic drugs reduce depressive symptoms by helping people accept emotions - <AUTHOR> https://www.psypost.org/2020/08/psychedelic-drugs-reduce-depressive-symptoms-by-helping-individuals-to-accept-of-their-emotions-study-suggests-57654 <comment><USER2> > _" The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting > frightened of it, then you make it worse; because you project onto it all > kinds of bogeys and threats that don't exist at all._

> [...]

> _The rule for all terrors is head straight into them. When you are sailing > in a storm, you don 't let a wave hit your boat on the side. You go bow into > the wave and ride it. So in the same way, old folklore says, whenever you > meet a ghost don't run away, because the ghost will capture the substance of > your fear and will materialize itself out of your own substance and will > kill you eventually, because it will take over all your own vitality. So > then, whenever confronted with a ghost, walk straight into it and it will > disappear."_

— Alan Watts

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

Defence mechanisms § Level 4: mature: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_mature)

</comment><comment><USER3> Note that this study is not a controlled trial. It is measuring 358 people _who already were going to use psychedelics_ , before and after their use.

What is severely missing is any report on incidence of _adverse reactions_ , especially since they have two subsamples, one within traditional contexts and other completely self administered, which I would guess have different strategies on handling those. Anyone who experienced a bad trip can attest that set & setting matters a lot, and psychedelic experiences are far from _guaranteed_ to be curative. For example for people high in neuroticism psychedelics can cause challenging experiences which can increase neuroticism even further. We don't know if those populations were screened out, implicitly or explicitly. [1]

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for linking the actual study.

The selection bias in studies like these is massive. Including only people who actively planned to use psychedelics is a guaranteed way to bias your results toward people who are already true believers. People who voluntarily chose to seek out psychedelics, despite high legal consequences for doing so, are likely already convinced that the psychedelics will "work" for whatever goal they're trying to achieve. Selecting these people over the internet will only further concentrate the group toward people who enjoy discussing and researching this topic online. In short, they optimized the test group for maximum placebo effect.

It's fascinating to watch how internet comments will quickly tear apart any study of prescription medication that has obvious sampling bias, lacks control groups, and relies on self-reported information gathered from internet surveys _except_ when the study tells people what they want to hear.

I'm all for the resurgence of proper, controlled research into psychedelics for treating mental health issues in conjunction with therapy. Let's get to the bottom of this and draw some scientific conclusions on the matter. However, questionable studies like this do more harm than good for the body of research. It may feel good to see studies that claim positive results, but the more we build the body of research on top of obviously flawed studies like this, the harder it is for serious researchers and lawmakers to take it seriously.

<comment><USER5> Even with all the caveats it's still interesting. It suggests that if someone is determined to use psychedelics to self-medicate their depression, you should not try to stop them.

A priori you might think there is is a high likelihood that the drug use will just make everything worse.

<comment><USER3> > It suggests that if someone is determined to use psychedelics to self- > medicate their depression, you should not try to stop them.

That is precisely the bias and weakness of this study. Self-medication is almost always a red flag; why not do it in a context of other people that know their stuff, be it tradition, institution (therapy) or even close friends that are mutually invested in each other's long term well-being? DIY approaches to self-transformation are fragile; no one to hold you out of potential pitfalls, to protect you from re-traumatization, to call you out on your self-deception.

The title of the article that it "reduces depressive _symptoms_ " is also telling of this bias. If _symptom reduction_ was equivocal to enduring _transformation_ , weed, cocaine and alcohol would have already healed the entire world. Without the study measuring if the subjects transformed their lives in a way that they were equally symptom free for the next 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, we can't conclude anything curative really took place.

Don't get me wrong, they make a theoretical link to ACT in which experiencing of chronically difficult emotions are facilitated, which does offer potentially huge benefits, but just like we don't use studies on antidepressants that show symptom reduction to go shop bunch of prozac, we shouldn't readily assume we can use this one to facilitate our own healing in a DIY fashion either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> phoe-krk Accepting emotions in their _whole_ shape and size as they are and occur is something that I've been struggling with (and am still struggling with) since childhood, especially since the way I've been brought up essentially repressed expressing or even exhibiting whole classes of emotional reactions. Psychotherapy works in my case, but is also long, painful, and tiring.

Any kind of scientific (and legal) development in other means of helping in this matter will be beneficial for future people who will need to suffer less after prolonged psychological stress and/or trauma.

<comment><USER6> Working through personal issues with the help of psychedelic mushrooms will still be emotionally painful and tiring -- that's unavoidable with this kind of work -- but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another person at the speed of speech.

As for legality, if you have the means to visit certain US cities¹, you can try psychedelic mushrooms with less risk, as they have been decriminalized in those cities. They are still not legal, but the risk of legal consequences is smaller.

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

<comment><USER7> > but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of > yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another > person at the speed of speech.

Insight meditation is another way of pursuing this, that does nicely side-step the issue of having to rely on "mushrooms" and illegal drugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the research article:

> We conducted a prospective cohort study utilizing an online convenience > sample of individuals with plans to use a psychedelic. Participants were > recruited via online advertisements shared through social media (e.g., > Facebook, Twitter), email newsletters, and online forums (e.g., Reddit).

> Based on when they planned to use a psychedelic, individuals were sent > emails at three key time points [i.e., 1-week prior to psychedelic use > (baseline), as well as 2-weeks and 4-weeks post-psychedelic use] reminding > them to complete the online surveys.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think this sort of phenomenon is unique to psychedelics. Anti-anxiety drugs (Benzos) used carefully for extreme anxiety issues can help reduce anxiety to a manageable level. It gives a person the opportunity to learn to manage their anxiety that would be difficult when in an extreme state. Then reduce the dose, repeat the process, etc.

I'll reiterate though: This needs to be a careful, deliberate process undertaken with both a pdoc to manage meds and a therapist to assist with coping skills, along with a close eye that the process is working rather than the drugs becoming a crutch. And it certainly won't work if the dose is high enough to eliminate anxiety instead reducing it.

Totally masking negative emotions, be it depression, anxiety, mania, etc.... that should only rarely be an initial goal. Medication should help people reach a state where those things are manageable, and work from there. Long term medication is absolutely a necessary option, but should be an approach taken when problems have been shown to be recalcitrant to various treatment options designed to help a person overcome the root causes of their problems. I fully understand that such a goal is often not attainable though. I'm often frustrated by folks who say otherwise and espouse some cure-all like a keto diet or various supplements, or plenty of other such things. It's great if it works for a person, but they are, at their core, body-changing treatments themselves, and just like all medications for these issues, whether or not they work for a person is often hit or miss.

</comment><comment><USER10> Having taken psychedlics myself, it did a couple things for me:

1) gave me a better appreciation of my body - health, pain, stress, etc

2) helped me know what I enjoy most

<comment><USER11> I'd echo that and add that it refreshes my perception of the otherwise mundane. This is extremely helpful in allowing me to reevaluate things, internal or external. I have a bad habit of being too sure of myself, often pessimistically, and I suppose in a way this does reduce depression as the study suggests. I find it lifts weights off, provides more optimism where it was missing and less pessimism where it wasn't helpful.

I've also seen it lead to trembling terror and nihilism in others so it's very much a YMMV kind of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The headline is a pretty good summary of the situation. Although it might be more accurate to say that psychedelic drugs help people see the interconnectedness between good and bad things, which helps people come to terms with difficult experiences.

<comment><USER11> For me, the ability to see that interconnectedness between good and bad largely results from a subdued reaction to how those things make me feel. I can think about it more, think about it differently than I normally would, rather than shut it out and carry on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Drugs to repress emotions

Drugs to accept emotions

Drugs to create emotions

<comment><USER14> It does sound a bit bleak. Are these drugs better or worse than the animalistic hormones locked in our bodies? Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones that destroy teen emotions, maybe humans can learn to deal with drugs... but only with constant exposure, just the same as we've done in all our adolescence.

I am in no way for or against such drugs, having not experienced any psychedelics or behavior control drugs in my entire life. Just a philosophical thought I had after I read your comment.

<comment><USER15> I'd like to point out something: "Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones...."

This is not true for 99.99% of adults: proof: if adults would know how to control "hormones" they would never experience fear, doubt, anxiety,...

Issue in most cases seems to be repressed childhood emotions.

<comment><USER14> I hope I will always be able to feel fear and doubt, and that no drug can steal that experience from me. Just as people who can't feel physical pain are in tremendous danger every moment of their life, without the ability to feel fear or doubt, you would also be ignorant of danger.

Anxiety is another beast right? Anxiety is the negative reaction to fear and doubt. Lets leave adults out, mature individuals can handle small amounts of anxiety.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Man Who Refused to Decrypt Hard Drives Still in Prison After Two Years - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/legal/man-who-refused-to-decrypt-hard-drives-still-in-prison-after-two-years/ <comment><USER3> So the police no longer need to plant drugs. They can just plant encrypted hard drives to which you have 'forgotten' the password. Hard-drives containing hashes of 'bad' pics. And then you can spend your life in jail (unless you plead guilty) ?

<comment><USER4> They'd also need to plant a sister who will testify that you showed her a bunch of child porn.

<comment><USER5> The judge's ruling says essentially what you're saying... there's enough evidence already that he considers it a foregone conclusion that there is child porn on the encrypted hard disk.

The only problem I have with this argument is that if it is such compelling evidence why not send the case to trial and let a jury decide?

<comment><USER6> You have misunderstood what "foregone conclusion" means in this case. It is not a foregone conclusion that this is child porn on the disks. It is a foregone conclusion that there is _something_ on the disks and that something is encrypted with a password known by the defendant.

See [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2016/06/07/the-fifth-amendment-limits-on-forced-decryption-and- applying-the-foregone-conclusion-doctrine/)

<comment><USER5> You're mistaken.

Source: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed- indef...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed-indefinitely- for-refusing-to-decrypt-hard-drives-loses-appeal/)

<comment><USER6> The author of the arstechnica piece (who, unlike the author of the Washington Post piece, is not a laywer) hasn't really explained things well. It's worth reading the actual decision from the court[1].

A relavent paragraph:

In Fisher, however, the Court also articulated the "foregone conclusion" rule, which acts as an exception to the otherwise applicable act-of-production doctrine. Fisher, 425 U.S. at 411. Under this rule, the Fifth Amendment does not protect an act of production when any potentially testimonial component of the act of production—such as the existence, custody, and authenticity of evidence—is a "foregone conclusion" that "adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government's information." Id. For the rule to apply, the Government must be able to "describe with reasonable particularity" the documents or evidence it seeks to compel. Hubbell, 530 U.S. at 30.

Note that the issue with this question is the "existence, custody, and authenticity" of the evidence not its actual contents.

1\. [https://arstechnica.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/rawlsopin...](https://arstechnica.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/03/rawlsopinion.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a better article in Ars:

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed- indef...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/man-jailed-indefinitely- for-refusing-to-decrypt-hard-drives-loses-appeal/)

From that article:

> The court also noted that the authorities "found [on the Mac Book Pro] one > image depicting a pubescent girl in a sexually suggestive position and logs > that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child > exploitation." They also said the man's sister had "reported" that her > brother showed her hundreds of pictures and videos of child pornography. All > of this, according to the appeals court, meant that the lower court lawfully > ordered Rawls to unlock the drives.

And then this from Rawls' public defender:

> "The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue > said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for > almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against > compelled self-incrimination."

There are numerous quotes from Comey and many others in the FBI and DOJ who have argued that forced decryption is necessary to catch the bad guys. But here the argument is the exact opposite: the evidence they have is so overwhelming that it is a "foregone conclusion" that more of the same incriminating evidence is on the encrypted drive.

<comment><USER8> > _" The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue > said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for > almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against > compelled self-incrimination."_

To be clear (and I am pretty sure the public defender knows this, but is just phrasing it like this for public perception), the prosecution's position is that the Fifth Amendment is irrelevant because they're compelling him to do an act under the All Writs Act and not to testify about anything (produce a password, produce files, etc.). The approach they're taking is that he's a person in a position to do something to let the government access evidence, and it doesn't matter that he's the person they want evidence against, instead of a third party (as with New York Telephone Co., or more recently Apple), and he's in prison for refusing compliance with the writ.

It's totally unclear that this legal strategy _should_ work in a just/ideal society, but, at least for now, the courts are allowing it.

<comment><USER9> My analogy would be that

      1. There is an unbreakable safe
      2. The judge believes he has the key to the unbreakable safe
      3. They know there is evidence inside the safe
      4. They ask him to unlock the safe
      5. He refuses to do so, so they try to force him by jailing him

They do not ask him to testify about the safes contents or even to hand over the key, just to "insert and turn the key". And their argument is that he can not refuse that by pleading the fifth. In a physical world they would be able to seize the key from him by force even if he gets hurt in the process (within some limits).

In the end he will probably be able to argue that he does no longer have the key, and they will not be able to proof he still has. But _at the moment_ this is not whats being argued about.

(Not saying I find anything about that right or just or moral, but I do not find it completely without reason)

<comment><USER10> The fact that he possesses no physical key is the crux of the matter. Any metaphor that tries to use objects like keys is pointless - there would be no controversy if there was a physical key.

<comment><USER9> Well there are plenty of safes without physical keys that use pin-pads. To to bring that analogy a little closer to reality then, they are trying to force him to enter the pin into the safe.

And again the current argument is not about whether he knows the pin or not, just whether he can refuse to enter it by arguing that this would be "being witness against himself", i.e. protected by the fifth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When the FBI used the All Writs Act against Apple to attempt to force Apple to bypass the password functions of an iPhone or develop a backdoor method of access, the courts ruled that decryption was not a violation of the Fifth Amendment "if the contents were a foregone conclusion."

So if "foregone conclusion" is the criteria that must be met, I have to ask how the contents of this man's external hard drive could be conclusively a foregone conclusion. Maybe he did download thousands of images. What if he no longer possess them? He could have deleted them. The police have been known to make mistakes and have made high profile mistakes' i.e., the Atlanta Olympics bombing when they all but destroyed Richard Jewell.

What if he decrypted it and there was no child porn but there were records of say a store selling drugs etc on the dark net? Then he would have incriminated himself for something they had zero knowledge about because the court issued this writ.

The government states that his sister acknowledges him showing her many explicit photos. Did she turn in her brother? Why would a man show his sister pornographic images? Did she tell anyone around the time this happened that this occurred? Seems to me to be unusual at the least for the government to hang their hat on something uncorroberated. If the sister had access to the computer' who is to say that she did not download the images. He could have seen them and deleted them. Seems that a mere he said -she said is enough to have the government invade your privacy and demand you willingly set aside your consistutional protections or risk going to jail when you have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime.

We have to be very careful when we start seeing civil liberties and constitutional protections erode. Tech companies have been under siege from the government's use of the All Writs Act in the last two decades and as long as they are successful, I do not foresee them changing their methods.

<comment><USER12> > What if he no longer possess them? He could have deleted them.

If that's the case he should give the FBI the key. That way he'll prove he wasn't possessing child pornography.

<comment><USER11> Or maybe he is a firm believer that there is no faster way to erode our constitutional protections than to voluntarily surrender them.

Or maybe he believes that damn pesky constitution (sarcasm) applies to everyone including the government when it comes to search and seizure, and to himself when it comes to right to due process of law, and the protection against self incrimination to name just a few.

Or maybe there is child pornography on there and he does not want to charged and tried and vilified in the court of public opinion. Right now he can stand on "higher ground" by making a constitutional law argument than exposing a secret that he may be ashamed of (guessing here).

Or maybe he truly does not know the password? Despite the governments best efforts they have not been able to crack it so it must be quite secure/complicated.

<comment><USER13> Maybe. But let's be honest here: there's CP on that drive. This is a good case for spinning around on HN arguing about the extent of the bill of rights protections in the face of creative application of the All Writs Act. It's a terrible one for actually defending the perp. I mean, come on.

<comment><USER11> >It's a terrible one for actually defending the perp. I mean, come on.

Who is defending him? I cannot in good conscience call him a perp as he has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. I am only pointing out that there are a myriad of possibilities one of which is that there is child pornography on the drive. However, we do not know that for a fact.

But just as I said, he may fear decrypting the drive because of what is on it (only he knows at this point). He may think it is better to be seen as the little guy being bullied by big brother than to be vilified by those who will presume him guilty of having "CP on that drive" and becoming "the perp" without due process.

Forgive me if I am incorrect but don't our laws apply equally regardless of the crime one is suspected of commiting?

<comment><USER13> > Forgive me if I am incorrect but don't our laws apply equally regardless of > the crime one is suspected of commiting?

The All Writs Act _is_ a law, and it allows exactly what is happening here. The question at hand is about whether that is in conflict with the fourth and fifth amendments. Equal protection is an entirely different thing and not at issue here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content."

If the disk is encrypted how can they match file hashes? Do they encrypt known CP files with the FileVault key and then compare? If so, isn't that enough to convict him?

<comment><USER15> Something doesn't add up in this story. Encryption and hashing are different processes with different algorithms - SHA vs MD5. For example, IPSec VPNs hash a packet with MD5 to prevent tampering, then encrypt the hash with SHA256 to prevent viewing. (Because the message could be modified while encrypted, were it not also hashed.)

Isn't the point of encryption that it _doesn 't_ create a reliable hash - <USER2> 2 identical files will appear different while encrypted, as part of the larger encrypted drive?

Or are encrypted-hash collisions possible when small files are encrypted individually?

<comment><USER16> There are several misconceptions in this comment, first and foremost that SHA is encryption, which it is not. It is a hashing algorithm, not unlike MD5, though "stronger".

Secondly, when you have two files that are exactly the same and encrypt both with the same key, method and parameters then both will have the same hash. ( Though I could imagine Apple doing stuff with padding, and other parameters to make this not happen)

<comment><USER17> Right... so for the authorities to "compare" the hash of an encrypted file with that of a known original, they would need to encrypt the original with the same private key used to encrypt the encrypted file. If they had that private key, wouldn't it be sufficient to unlock the drive? They wouldn't need his cooperation to decrypt the drive if they had a private key. So it seems like a catch-22 compelling him to decrypt the drive based on a hash collision.

<comment><USER18> Exactly, but the original quote doesn't say that they compared _decrypted content_ with known hashes. It doesn't say anything about _how_ they learned about the "content stored on the encrypted hard drive".

"Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content."

I read it like this: They figured out that the disk had some incriminating files, as I described in another comment of this thread. To make this work hashes are of no use, they need the original files. For various reasons they might not want to admit that they are in possession of the original files, hence the cryptic and vague phrasing.

<comment><USER19> If they're in possession of the original files they can just look at the files to see what they contain.

<comment><USER20> There could be a hash collision, which might be enough to provide reasonable doubt for a jury.

<comment><USER21> The chances of a hash collision are drastically lower than the false positive rate of a DNA test, and US courts have accepted the latter for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think, importantly and regardless of the crime itself, I would like to ask: what can be done here and how did we get to this point? We have someone who has been in prison indefinitely who hasn't been charged with anything. What can be done about this situation even if we raise awareness? Also, how did we get to the point where this is legal?

<comment><USER23> I think this is not the hill you want to die on. Everything points to this guy being guilty and the court of public perception would not be on your side. Though it does seem possible that they are using this case to set a precedent for future, less clear-cut cases.

<comment><USER24> > Though it does seem possible that they are using this case to set a > precedent for future, less clear-cut cases.

Possible? Try exceedingly likely. That's why it should be fought here, with an unpopular defendant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The accused crime is heinous and there is some evidence against him stated in the article but common, an indefinite jail sentence with no conviction?

Then people wonder why the country elects Trump to shake things up.

This guy should stand trial or be let go.

<comment><USER26> Absolutely but I'll go further. Having something in your hard drive or book or whatever should never be a crime in itself. I mean in India it is a crime to carry an authentic map of India with you.

What harm does the contents of an encrypted disk do to society? It is not like he was going out and trying to legalize child abuse. If the person was involved in child abuse, we must try to convict him absolutely but we should be able to do that without what's on the hard disk.

Oh and while I have your attention I'd like the reader to look up something unrelated but still very important. Look up cfaa. If you're in the us, please help repeal it!

<comment><USER27> Yeah, I'm uncomfortable with the banning of certain kinds of content.

The root problem here is child abuse. Anybody abusing children, or financially supporting the abuse of children, is doing a _seriously_ bad thing and this is what should be illegal.

I'm highly skeptical that images on a hard drive can _cause_ the abuse of children. That's the same kind of logic people used back in the 1970s to argue that playing D&D and listening to Kiss were going to result in a whole generation of Satan-worshippers.

You could show a non-pedophiliac person the entire contents of that hard drive, and it wouldn't arouse them or make them want to go abuse children. Wouldn't make _me_ go abuse kids. I'd probably cry a lot and go volunteer to help some kids[1]. So I am not convinced that the contents of this guy's hard drive are going to result in more kids being molested somehow.

If anything, I think the opposite may be more likely. Access to porn is correlated to a reduction in rape. I don't know if this extends to pedophiles, but it sure seems entirely possible: [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about- sex/201601/ev...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about- sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault)

Would I want _my_ kids hanging around somebody with a hard drive full of that stuff? Probably not, but I also wouldn't want them hanging around supporters of certain political parties either, and I don't think _they_ should be rotting in prison indefinitely with no trial.

______

[1] I already do volunteer work; no need to send me illegal porn in order to get me off of my couch

<comment><USER28> But children were abused to create these photos.

<comment><USER29> A 9 year old girl was napalmed to create this photo. Should it be illegal to possess?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/TrangBang.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/TrangBang.jpg)

<comment> Tech-Noir Really? The reason she was napalmed was to create that photo? You're sticking with that?

<comment><USER27> Unrelated to this discussion, but my favorite piece of unexpected good news was discovering that the girl in the picture healed and has gone on to live what appears to be a happily normal life! I'd always seen that photo and figured that she was yet another person lost to war...

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> CP is a wedge tool for politicians. Want to get around the Constitution while having public opinion on your side? Use a pedophile. I don't have a problem sending people to jail who produce the stuff, but the idea that I could put images in someone's computer, call the cops, and get them put away didn't sit right with me.

This case in particular is troublesome. There are lots of bogus claims by the prosecution like being able to confirm the CP via hashes despite the content being encrypted. If they truly had a strong case against this guy, they'd go to trial.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's appalling about this is that it effectively means that anyone can be arrested potentially for life because they forgot a password.

As someone who has forgotten passwords in the past: this is outrageous.

<comment><USER32> When I was in jail for only a month, I forgot a password I had recently changed, and when I got back home I ended up having to reformat my hard drive and lost a lot of old data. Poems, prose, music, images from my childhood... (well, what was left from recovering a failed drive from a year earlier, anyways)

Put me in jail for a year or two and I'll probably lose access to everything I own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > The suspect appealed the indefinite prison sentence twice, but both appeals > failed. His lawyers tried to argue that holding him breaches his Fifth > Amendment right to not incriminate himself, but appeal judges did not see it > that way. Judges pointed out that the Fifth Amendment only applies to > witnesses and that the prosecutors didn't call him as a witness but only > made a request for him to unlock his device, hence Fifth Amendment > protections did not apply.

> The government also said that Rawls doesn't have to provide them with his > password anymore, as they only need him to perform the act of unlocking the > hard drive.

Those two statements seem at great odds. If the government actually knows the password now, the _only_ thing having the defendant himself unlock it does is make it some sort of testimonial fact. The prosecution _will_ use the fact that the defendant unlocked the device himself a point to the jury.

<comment><USER29> I think you misread; the government doesn't know the password. Nor are they interested in the password, per se; they are interested in the contents of the suspect's hard drive. Therefore, rather than ask for the password itself, which is information contained in his head and therefore arguably "testimony", they are merely compelling him to perform an "action" in decrypting the drive; he is free to keep the secret of the password itself.

<comment><USER33> I find that so wrong I guess. The act of decrypting the drive is "testimonial" itself, even without providing the password to a third party.

But yes, I agree that I misunderstood what they were saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've got a few hard drives wiped with random data that looks like cipher text and yet it isn't and I don't know the password (but this can't be proven). Does this make me a criminal in the US?

<comment><USER35> No

<comment><USER36> Or rather "probably not, but now you'll never know for sure"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is democracy basically dead? There are all sorts of disturbing precedents being set over the last 10 years without any push back. Can anyone think of a single democracy, free speech, surveillance or rule of law issue that will get people on the street or even change their voting preference?

This is just the sort of hard case to set the right precedents about rule of law, you just can't lock someone up without trial. It goes against every know tenet of law.

If there is a rule of law that allows this, then it is basically not rule of law as we understand the word.

</comment><comment><USER38> > Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file > hashes for known child pornography content

How on earth is this supposed to work? Unless they can decrypt the hard drives I am pretty sure that this is impossible to deduce.

Maybe he used freenet or something in his unencrypted hard drive?

<comment><USER39> My best guess is that something on the unencrypted Mac Pro was referencing files on the encrypted drive. I'm not sure what kind of metadata macOS stores or what a third-party app would have, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine that something had hashes for files on the external drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> How do they know the hashes are child pornography? Did they get that from the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children? Which is controlled by child porn "artist" Jeff Koons who was accused of his exwife of molesting their son?Once you can indefinitely detain someone for a hash, all the organized criminals have to do is control the body that responds to has requests and they can ruin or exonerate anyone. Too much power to rationally consider this risk, but we're allowing it to happen.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does anyone understand the intent of the foregone conclusion doctrine? It seems like if something's a foregone conclusion, instead of overriding 5th amendment rights, they shouldn't even need whatever's being hidden in the first place. So why the doctrine?

</comment><comment><USER42> > Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file > hashes for known child pornography content.

This makes zero sense. It would have to be an utterly terrible encryption program for anyone to be able to see the hashes of the encrypted files.

</comment><comment><USER43> Last time this story was here, I posted this link [1], from law prof. Orin Kerr. I find his reasoning about "foregone conclusion" and Fifth Amendment pretty interesting.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2016/06/07/the-fifth-amendment-limits-on-forced-decryption-and- applying-the-foregone-conclusion-doctrine/?utm_term=.2d6d76adb715)

</comment><comment><USER44> > Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file > hashes for known child pornography content.

Can someone explain to me how it's possible to check file hashes in encrypted drive?

<comment><USER44> Whoops! xtanx already asked the same question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This guy is going to forget the password before this is resolved and then the argument will be about whether or not he has really forgotten. I look forward to seeing how this all plays out.

</comment><comment><USER46> Given the could convict him right now, my guess is that they are trying to bargain in some way to get access to the HDDs as a way to 1) try to find the children being abused and 2) access a wider ring of child absusers etc.

Given the legal grey area this all appears to be in and the potential upside of getting in to the HDDs this seems like something the authorities would be ok doing while the law catches up.

<comment><USER47> Or they're using it as the case to challenge encryption. If this goes to the supreme court, a decision on this will set some major prescient on encryption.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Sounds like he knows what's on that hard drive will be far more damaging to his freedom and reputation than being jailed for contempt.

</comment><comment><USER49> I saw this in the article that was posted here on Ars technica and have thought about the issues it brings up.

Why should this guy get a free pass on child pornography just because he encrypted his hard drive? Child pornography is terrible! Who cares if the guy encrypted his child pornography. He should be in jail either way. The only reason someone would rot in prison for 2 years is because he knows he's going to rot in there for a lot longer due to his child pornography if he unlocks his hard drive.

The point of the 5th ammendment is not that the government shouldn't be able to access concrete evidence. It's so that the government can't torture/imprison someone in order to get them to admit to a crime. The reason for this is that a forced confession isn't any indication that the person actually committed a crime.

Of course we will never know if the guy truly forgot his password, but chances are he's been counseled by his attorney to never give it up.

<comment><USER50> Why is the _consumption_ (not talking about production !) of CP terrible ? If that's what it takes to keep you off the streets..

Honest question

<comment><USER51> Because, as basic economics teaches us, there is no production without consumption, generally speaking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If the drive is encrypted, how can they say in contains hashes of know illegal content? Unless the content is shared in its encrypted form along with the key... This sounds like BS on their part.

</comment><comment><USER53> What happens if he forgets the password? Prison for life?

</comment><comment><USER54> One potential option:

1\. Install a hardware keylogger (software keylogger wouldn't work) in the laptop.

2\. Release the defendant.

3\. Get a warrant for the arrest of the defendant for CP-related crime.

4\. Decrypt the laptop with the password recovered from the keylogger.

All of this depends on the suspect using the laptop again, but I'm guessing they'd want to recover the contents on the laptop.

<comment><USER55> > Install a keylogger: Ok, check. Keylogger installed.

> Release the defendant: If this is judges decision, he can't be in court > again for the same crime.

> Get a warrant for the arrest: Again? Isn't he released? As such, gov must > not return laptop with backdoor either in hardware or software mode.

> Decrypt the laptop: Even if all above matched, you think he'd use the same > laptop again? If he has a bit of brain, I think he wouldn't.

<comment><USER54> > "If this is judges decision, he can't be in court again for the same crime."

He hasn't been charged with a crime yet.

> "Again? Isn't he released? As such, gov must not return laptop with backdoor > either in hardware or software mode."

Don't release him fully then. Release him on bail or some other form of conditional release.

> "Even if all above matched, you think he'd use the same laptop again? If he > has a bit of brain, I think he wouldn't."

Admittedly this is the weakest part of the suggestion. It'd rely on the person being addicted to CP to impair his judgement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> What sort of encryption scheme reveals hashes of the plaintext files?

</comment><comment><USER57> `Investigators said content stored on the encrypted hard drive matched file hashes for known child pornography content.`

Well there's the reasoning

<comment><USER58> that makes 0 sense, if the files are encrypted they cannot be a match

<comment><USER9> From what I understand, they have basically the logfile or other metadata from the program he used to download/manage these files, which contains the hashes. The encrypted drives in question are external drives, not the OS drive.

<comment><USER59> Reference?

<comment><USER9> [http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/153537p.pdf](http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/153537p.pdf)

Despite Doe's refusal, f orensic analysts discovered the password to decrypt the Mac Pro Computer , but could not de crypt the external hard drives. [...] The Forensic examination also disclosed that Doe had downloaded thousands of files known by their "hash " values to be child pornography. 3 The files, however, were not on the Mac Pro, but i nstead had been stored on the encrypted external hard drives. Accordingly, the files themselves could not be accessed.

<comment><USER59> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> 5th amendment is the wrong argument here, he should be arguing 1st amendment right to free expression. Typing is a form of speech, and the government can't compel speech under the first amendment. It cuts out all the unlock / password / vault metaphors which are irrelevant. You can't compel a person to say something / type something under the first amendment. The "right to remain silent", fifth amendment is redundant after the case law that says the first amendment protects the right to be silent.</comment>


Napoleon as Organizational Designer (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a501580.pdf <comment><USER4> This is probably easier to follow if you have read Clausewitz, and understand the pressures pertaining to an on-foot army. E.g. the references to "foraging" would today probably be called "looting".

The central organisational challenge was: how to march 250,000 men on foot across a continent with no motor transport for supplies nor radio communications? It was more effective to spread out, but this required delegating authority down the hierarchy. Effectively the Grand Armee was a set of smaller micro-armies that allowed it to overcome the scaling challenge.

<comment><USER5> Adding more "micro army" pods would exponentially increase the coordination costs / communication overhead. If communication is the main challenge then decentralizing power would lead to more org ineffectiveness (centralized/command-control structures would be better).

Anyway, as I commented earlier: I think the authors miss the central innovation that _enabled_ org innovation — which is all the tech Napoleon developed around messaging!

<comment><USER6> He also, however, managed to reduce the coordination costs by that eternal go- to - finding subordinates he could trust, who would grok his plans well enough to DTRT even without a lot of communication. The Napoleonic armies had an enormous number of talented generals aside from the Great Man himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The authors don't do enough to sell the basic org design framework well. Then they use this (somewhat weak) framework to analyze Napolean's org design. Makes it a v confusing paper. (Also, the hero worship throughout the paper makes it seem like everything Neapolean did, fits their beautiful theory. Too much fitting going on :))

"Strategy should utilize the five basic principles of organizational design: division of labor, unity of command, authority and responsibility, spans of control, and contingency factors."

What!? No one designs orgs like this. Orgs are designed around:

A) "Axis of Excellence" (Eg if you want functional excellence in your org - <USER2> the best salesperson to lead sales, the best marketer to lead marketing - <USER3> you organize around functions likes Sales, Marketing, Engineeing etc). OR,

B) "Max{Collaborative Output} and Min{Communication Overhead}" needs - Eg if people across functions need to collaborate closely to produce a business result then one create those units accordingly - they could be line of business units ( eg textile: spinning, packaging etc) or geo-based units.

Looking at the framework they use makes me wonder what useless theories are being taught in MBA schools :-)

The most interesting bit in the paper is about messaging. Seems like Napoleon invented HipChat/Slack of his day to make his orgs work more smoothly. That was quite cool!

"Napoleon utilized the existing technology of the Chappe's semaphore telegraph to improve his message traffic. He maximized its potential by constructing towers across Europe creating a communications web that would cover his expanding empire (Elting, 1988). When messages were too long or not as important to use Chappe's telegraph, Napoleon relied on the European postal system. He made improvements by creating an express courier service. Messages were carried in a lock box with a logbook that showed the date and time of arrivals and departures of couriers to each post house"

<comment><USER6> Your critique of the analytical framework is based on the assumption that this is a business school paper. It isn't. It's from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, and uses specifically military terminology and design considerations.

In military organizational design, "unity of command" [1] is absolutely a central tenet, given the need for precise coordination and the high costs of momentary lapses thereof; "authority and responsibility" is a closely related concept, since unity of authority without responsibility, or unity of responsibility without authority, produces all kinds of perverse organizational incentives. "Contingency factors" [2] are also an organizational principle especially important to military operations given the time-sensitive nature of their activities and the adversarial nature of their obstacles.

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

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

<comment><USER7> Some notable people ended up on the faculty there iirc Gary Kildall (cp/m) and Richard Hamming for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You'd expect a "Post-grad" to spell it right:

"Grande Armée"

</comment><comment><USER9> So the Grande Armee was more like Distributed Systems?

</comment><comment><USER10> TL;PL?

(Trop Long; Pas Lu?)

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is this MSc based material? Which hypothesis does he wants to accept or reject? Just a description is not worth a dissertation on uni equal level. At least not in Europe...

<comment><USER12> My thoughts exactly. This is a 40 page high school essay.

<comment><USER13> welcome to the military</comment></comment></comment>


Take your Eagle designs to the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://blog.circuits.io/post/43564427971/take-your-eagle-designs-to-the-cloud

<comment><USER2> This is the first time in a long time I've seen a TLD hack that's actually appropriate and makes sense.

I can see myself using this quite a bit actually. I've been looking for a Sketchup for circuits for a long time and I think I've found it. Good work!

Can't wait for the PCB ordering phase to kick in. I've sent out to a number of shops in the past, but the quality ones are really expensive (considering the small order sizes) or their silkscreening leaves a lot to be desired. Sub 3mm traces in particular suffer quite a lot. I hope this can deliver a better product.

"no more messing with Gerber files" Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> checkout <http://upverter.com> as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why is it that so many startups who use tumblr for their blog omit a link to their actual service?

<comment><USER4> Fixed, sorry about that :)</comment></comment>