The Big Problem with the New SAT - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/opinion/the-big-problem-with-the-new-sat.html <comment><USER2> There is a fundamental misunderstanding here.

The SAT is not designed to rank students. The SAT is designed to solve a supply/demand problem. There are less spaces available at top universities than there are applicants. The SAT creates a bell curve, allowing schools to go a standard deviation or two out to pick their incoming class.

If the test was an absolute ranking, you'd end up with a large number of people scoring 100%, and the test becomes worthless to colleges as a filter.

<comment><USER3> The article is making the claim that the test is already pretty worthless to colleges as a filter because the differences that separate, say, a 99.9th- percentile score from a 98th-percentile score (number picked by myself at random, as the article didn't mention any that I saw) don't actually correlate to much of anything of use for selecting who should get into the top schools. Especially if those differences are largely "had more time and money to spend on preparation." It reports that research shows that grades are a better predictor. (Though high schools are also hardly immune to grade inflation pressures, for the same reason that the huge test prep industry has sprung up—parents don't care about merit or fairness, they care about doing whatever they can to get the best-perceived college for their own kids. I find it doubtful that changing the SAT in the way suggested would do anything to address this root issue.)

It also makes an interesting side point about year-to-year results for tracking overall education progress.

<comment><USER2> > The article is making the claim that the test is already pretty worthless to > colleges as a filter because the differences that separate, say, a 99.9th- > percentile score from a 98th-percentile score (number picked by myself at > random, as the article didn't mention any that I saw) don't actually > correlate to much of anything of use for selecting who should get into the > top schools.

Apply multiple filters. The more bell curves you have, the easier this gets. Bonus if those bell curves are not correlated to each other! (I'm not going to comment on how useless this becomes)

Want to be an exclusive college? Use SAT scores to remove 87% of applicants right off the bat. (OK most people below the left half of the curve likely don't bother to apply.)

Now filter out kids who didn't go to enough AP classes. (You've instantly removed children with parents who "didn't care enough" to move to an area with a good AP program! bonus!) Now filter out kids whose parent's didn't have enough discretionary free time to shuttle them to and from multiple extra- curricular activities.

Alright, next up, who can afford to pay for a good essay? Drop anyone who can't.

Congrats, you've just cut down the number of papers you have to read by a _lot_.

In fairness, once the number of applications become's unmanageable, what else is a college going to do? Spend 1/2 of tuition money on entrance examiners?

<comment><USER4> "what else is a college going to do?"

Competitive bidding instead of fixed cost tuition. This is what they already select for anyway, this would just be more honest and fair about it.

Nobody seems offended that tuition cost seems to have no relationship with prof/TA salaries, facilities, future income... so removing the charade and opening for bidding seems the most fair.

I suspect the end result is freshie year at MIT will be like $5M to buy a spot, but sophomore year transfer students will probably only have to bid $5K once the less talented flunk out. I pity the instructors trying to teach the wash-out classes. The tests will still exist but for classroom placement, someone belonging in remedial algebra will not be allowed into calculus without passing algebra, geometry, trig, first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am surprised how nobody here seems to have drawn the obvious conclusion here which is these changes (making the test less g loaded) is a massive bias in favour of the rich over the poor. Kids who are naturally smart, but who attend bad schools will struggle with any test that is not heavily g loaded.

<comment><USER6> Rich/poor is itself heavily g-loaded. What's the net effect here?

<comment><USER5> It is not that rich/poor is directly g loaded, just that g is highly correlated with income. Quality of schooling is directly related to the income. The more you make the tests reflect past education quality the more you bias it is favour of the rich and dumb against the poor and smart.

<comment><USER6> > It is not that rich/poor is directly g loaded, just that g is highly > correlated with income.

What's the difference? We say an item is g-loaded when it correlates with the latent factor g; this is true whether it's an obscure vocab word on the SAT or whether it's not blowing your income and planning ahead.

<comment><USER5> I was trying to make point that one of the major reasons income is so g loaded is that education allows the poor-but-smart to rise out of their poverty (and vice versa) via things like the old SAT. Block this and you end up with something like the Middle Ages where the nobility and peasants had the same mean g.

I should say that changes like this are going to have most effect in the middle rather than the extremes. If you are born with a g in the 99.9 percentile band then you will still be likely to escape poverty. It is people born with a g say in the 80th percentile band that will be affected the most by these changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This highlights a number of problems with our public education system in general. I think the problems with the SAT highlighted in the article are reacting to these problems, not the other way around as the author seems to suggest.

* There is no standardized high school curriculum across schools, and even when curriculum is standardized, it is taught unevenly. It's hard to have a college entrance exam that covers a significant amount of content as a result, because it puts kids from poor areas at a huge disadvantage in even getting in to college. It's also very hard to identify which students are from good schools and which are from bad ones, so adjusting test scores to compensate isn't a solution.

* Teacher-student ratios in public schools do not lend themselves to the kind of one-on-one work it takes to become a good writer. Unless we're prepared to say "you have a better chance getting in to college because you went to a suburban school district", this can't be a huge part of the test. Writing ability as a high school senior is largely correlated to the amount of attention you got from your English teacher. If you're a good student in a bad school, you probably get very little attention because you're not acting up.

* There's already too much "teach to the test" as it is. Making the SAT yet another test where students have to cram and memorize content is not the solution.

There are plenty of standardized tests that cover content. The problem is that they are far too basic for college entrance purposes. Turning the SAT into a content-focused test does not solve a problem that colleges have; many colleges are not looking for the best students, but for a racially-diverse selection of the most teachable students. What schools should do (and many already do) is require students from lower quality schools to take a semester of remedial classes free of charge to get them up to speed with whatever the base assumption of prior knowledge is at that school.

<comment><USER8> _Writing ability as a high school senior is largely correlated to the amount of attention you got from your English teacher._

There's no way I'd ever buy that. Writing ability is largely correlated to the amount of time the student spends _reading_... reading novels, instruction manuals, technical books, Web pages, and cereal boxes. Teachers have almost nothing to do with it in my experience, and I think you'll find that any successful author will tell you exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER7> If you're talking about the ability to write a novel, I agree with you. But you have to learn how to get your thoughts down on paper in a way that is intelligible by other humans, and that's a technical skill that must be learned through repetition and critique. There's a basic technical skill to writing long form content, and many kids don't get it because their teacher doesn't have time to grade 140 papers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The purpose of the SAT is to be a unbiased barometer; say what you will about it, but everyone takes the same test. Unfortunately, a 4.0 GPA from an obscure high school may tell you very little about a candidate.

I don't know how much admissions officers care about 96th versus 99th percentile, but if someone has an otherwise amazing resume yet ranks in the 40th percentile on their SAT, that's a bit of a red flag.

<comment><USER10> You can see from class profiles of leading schools that they admit at least 75% of their class from the 99th percentile.

<comment><USER11> Only reason I got into Stanford is, they make (made?) a point of offering admission to all the 99th percentile each year. I was one of them.

However there're only a few hundred of these nationwide, right? Not enough to fill several leading schools.

<comment><USER12> 3.3 million high school graduates this year, so wouldn't the 99th percentile be the top 33k of them? Seems like that would be more than enough to fill Stanford and the Ivys' classes.

<comment><USER11> Ah. There were two rankings when I took the tests - math and language. Those ranking 99th in both were offered admission. That was a smaller group.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. They must have stopped that before 2009 haha.

<comment><USER11> 1983

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with the SAT is it mostly judges what you've learned, not how well you can learn. If we're going to have a test for college, it should judge your future potential and ability, not just how well your high school taught you.

</comment><comment><USER14> The SAT doesn't correlate to grades...

And grades don't correlate to much either.

<comment><USER15> There's a small correlation between SAT scores and college performance, but that's mainly because the types of questions asked for the SAT are the types of questions that are asked in college exams. SATs have ZERO correlation with success in life though.

<comment><USER16> "SATs have ZERO correlation with success in life though"

That is wildly untrue for any value of "success" that includes socioeconomic status.</comment></comment></comment>


Gov and WHO changed Hydroxychloroquine policy based on suspect tiny company data - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine <comment><AUTHOR> More details:

[https://www.medicineuncensored.com/a-study-out-of-thin- air](https://www.medicineuncensored.com/a-study-out-of-thin-air)

> Just yesterday, the Get in touch with us link on Surgisphere's homepage > redirected to a strange WordPress template for cryptocurrency. The > Surgisphere website has since been changed and the link deleted; however, > this serves as just another example of incompleteness and unprofessionalism > from a company supposedly holding highly sensitive records on millions of > patients.

> The internet trail behind Surgisphere is peculiar to say the least. Mostly > because it isn't there. The Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) has records > on more than 439 billion web pages and has long served as a tool to view > webpages as they existed in the past. I've used the tool hundreds of times > and am frequently surprised by the breadth of its database. Even some of the > most obscure webpages have historical snapshots available. In the rare > circumstances where a historical snapshot is not available, the Wayback > Machine's response is "Wayback Machine doesn't have that page archived." A > far less common response—one I've never seen before—is "Sorry. This URL has > been excluded from the Wayback Machine." It's this last response that is > delivered when searching > [https://surgisphere.com/](https://surgisphere.com/) in the Wayback Machine.

> There are primarily two ways for companies to hide internet histories. > First, they can insert special codes into their websites to hide from the > Wayback Machine's automated crawlers. Secondly, companies can request the > removal of their historical snapshots, but there's no guarantee the Internet > Archive will honor these requests. Both of these practices are highly > unusual and almost exclusively used for obscuring nefarious activities.

></comment>


Dentists reveal new tooth decay treatment - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/16/fillings-dentists-tooth-decay-treatment <comment><USER3> This headline is overly sensational — this treatment does not apply for what most people consider cavities (i.e. caries, bacterial decay). It only applies for the very early stage caries process where enamel is just beginning to become demineralized.

Tooth enamel is essentially a matrix that is hardened by mineralization. Caries initially demineralize the enamel, but as they progress they destroy the enamel as well. Once that enamel is gone, there is _nothing left to mineralize_. You can throw as much calcium, phosphate, electricity, etc at it and you won't end up with any more enamel. The decay has to be removed and filled with something.

This proposed treatment only works for the very initial stages of demineralization, which are referred to as white spot lesions, since demineralization causes the enamel to become opaque. The current conservative treatment for white spot lesions is to be judicious with cleaning and possibly apply some additional fluoride, as the tooth simply needs to be remineralized. The researchers are claiming to be able to accelerate that remineralization, which is great, but is very, very far from saying that patients won't need fillings.

Source: I'm a 2nd year dental student.

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER4> > The current conservative treatment for white spot lesions is to be judicious > with cleaning

And I'll point out that my current dentist is the only one I've ever had (or known of) who actually bothers to rigorously teach his patients how to clean their teeth well. Most apparently don't believe this is possible or worth their time. Obviously that's not going to take with every patient, but it's really quite amazing the difference between _thinking_ you're doing what needs done (yet having the hygienist grumble all the same), and actually getting the plaque off every time. Put another way, diligence != skill when it comes to dental hygiene.

<comment><USER5> Care to elaborate what the techniques your current dentist taught you?

<comment><USER6> Off the top of my head:

* Modified Stillman's

* Floss properly; "scrape" gently with the floss.

* Water rinse after acidic drinks (like red wine). Brush a half hour after that.

<comment><USER7> One thing that has done a lot for me is I've been doing more brushing without toothpaste. I do use toothpaste, but when I do it I treat it more as a fluoride treatment than as a tool to get off plaque. When I'm trying to get off plaque I use a dry brush.

<comment><USER8> Toothpaste is more than fluoride, it contains surfactants and mild abrasives to aid in the cleaning process.

<comment><USER9> Abrasives on enamel! Yay..

<comment><USER8> It's all about differences in hardness.

If everything goes as planned: The abrasive is more likely to scratch what's on the teeth; and the teeth are more likely to scratch the toothpaste if everything goes as planned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In a few years I think we will look back on how today's dentists look after teeth with shock, similar to how we do now knowing that they used to treat depression with a frontal lobotomy.

"They used to DRILL your teeth? And if that didn't work they yanked them out of your jaw?"

It all seems so low tech.

<comment> atom-morgan People still get their wisdom teeth taken out without being put under. I heard one person describe the process inside your mouth sounding like a tree trunk being snapped in half.

<comment><USER11> I am one of those people. The oral surgeon offered me the option of being put under for an extra $600 for the 45-minute operation. There are probably things I'd pay $800/hr for, but that wasn't one of them. He seemed kinda irritated; that meant he had to give me something like 16 shots to properly numb everything.

Personally, I didn't mind it. It was an interesting experience. I knew I was made of meat, but the smell of bits of it cooking really brought it home. And as you say, the sound was kinda freaky. But it was a good opportunity to practice keeping the mind centered and following the breath. Plus now I can joke that I learned to transcend dental medication.

<comment><USER12> I also recently had my wisdom teeth removed without sedation. I took some pills that the dentist prescribed to me that were supposed to really put me out of it, but I was 100% with it until about the time we got in the car to leave the dentists office. I pretty much hate having my teeth worked on. It causes me quite a bit of anxiety when normally I'm not very anxious. Whilst numbing my face, he hit a nerve 2-3 times that sent what felt like a powerful electrical jolt through my body. After that, it was a quite a physical process with the dentist even propping himself against my arm at one point to rip those suckers out. I had put the process off for about 6-8 years, but I am really happy its done and in the past. Now every time I have to get a filling, I wince quite a bit waiting for that poked nerve sensation...

<comment><USER13> I have always been a champ at the dentist probably because I was used to it growing up with all the orthodontic work. As an adult I had a wisdom tooth removed. At one point he said he had to crack it, brought out an awl-type device and leaned on it with all his weight. A tremendous crack; I saw blood squirt out of my mouth like a jet, and thought it was hilarious.

However, I can't put things into my eye at all. Karmic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> More recent article says they still haven't actually used the technique on a human being, only on extracted teeth.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/25/us-dental- device-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/25/us-dental-device- idUSKCN0QU21C20150825)

Still, sounds very promising.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting.

There was another unique treatment that hit the news perhaps ten years ago, but didn't happen apparently? The idea was awesome, they genetically re- engineered the "tooth-decay" bacteria in your mouth to stop producing acid, combined with a mild antibiotic to out-compete the original form. I've been waiting a long time for it, unfortunately.

I think this was it: [http://www.oragenics.com/?q=cavity- prevention](http://www.oragenics.com/?q=cavity-prevention)

<comment><USER15> I've read about this previously, and would love to see it take place.

But would kissing spread the non-tooth decay version of the bacteria, or the tooth decay version? Testing must be done!

Also, TIL that bottled water promotes tooth decay (by displacing flouridated tap water consumption)

" there are several factors that are likely to increase the incidence and frequency of tooth decay, including increasing consumption of both dietary sugar and bottled water. Bottled water generally does not contain fluoride, and thus does not impart any of the protective effects of fluoridated water from public systems."

<comment><USER16> > TIL that bottled water promotes tooth decay (by displacing flouridated tap > water consumption)

The elite-branded bottled water that go to lengths to set themselves apart from tap water (spring-fed-only, or rain-only, or some other esoteric, "natural" source) will not have fluorine. But many a budget-brand is simply expensively-packaged municipal tap water, and about 2/3 of municipal tap water supplies in the US are fluoridated. I suspect it is a relatively safe bet that when at a department/grocery store, if you simply pick up the house brand bottled water, it will be sourced from municipal tap water and fluoridated.

<comment><USER17> Serious question: How does fluoride in the tap water help mineralize tooth enamel? Does it enter the body through drinking and then carried to the teeth via the bloodstream? Or is it somehow helpful for teeth by simply being present in the mouth when you drink tap water?

<comment><USER16> Good layperson overview:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Important bit: "It could be available within three years."

So it might be available in 10 years or so.

<comment><USER19> 20 years. You have to wait for any patents to expire.

<comment><USER20> Are waiting for patents to expire to use a cellphone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Article is from June of 2014. Any updates on this technology?

</comment><comment><USER22> Looks like they're working on bringing it to market; [http://www.reminova.com/faqs](http://www.reminova.com/faqs)

</comment><comment><USER23> > A two-step process first prepares the damaged area of enamel, then uses a > tiny electric current to push minerals into the repair site.

Does anyone know how long this process takes compared to the current solution?

<comment><USER24> Novamin is a great way to remineralize teeth. Similar to Recaldent (found in Trident Extra Strength.) It's basically a type of micro-glass that slowly remineralizes teeth with continued use.

GSK bought Sensodyne a couple years ago and removed it from all the US Sensodyne toothpastes. Only way to get it in the US is to order from overseas, or to get a prescription from a dentist.

As much as I don't like to be that "conspiracy guy" it's kind of convenient for them to buy the product, remove it from over-the-counter, mark it up, and allow insurance to pay for a prescription strength version..

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

<comment><USER25> Why'd GSK do that, I wonder?

<comment><USER26> money.

<comment><USER27> Well, obviously. But how does it make them money? I can't imagine the market for prescription toothpaste is very large.

<comment><USER24> I would imagine that the margin on a 150 dollar toothpaste is quite a bit more than a 6 dollar toothpaste. It's possible that the margin makes up for the smaller number of sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am 32 and have never had to havea filling or root canal. I do not brush my teeth very often or do anything special, except possibly limiting sugar intake somewhat, and maybe rinsing once in a while.

I went to a dentist a year ago and they said I am developing a cavity _inside_ one of my upper treth, and should get it treated. Since then it's been a year and I feel no pain there and nothing is visible on the outside. I don't know.

Is this at all typical?

<comment><USER29> > have never had to havea filling or root canal

> they said I am developing a cavity inside one of my upper treth, and should > get it treated.

So, in fact, you DO have to have a filling, you've just declined to have it. And if you keep on that path, you'll probably end up needing a root canal (far higher cost, much more annoying procedure, far higher chance of eventual failure) as well.

I'm 30, and had never previously needed fillings, but was recently told by the dentist I needed a few. So I got them. Just because you didn't have much tooth decay until now doesn't mean you're immune; you really should get it treated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> That's neat. If it's just a few microamps, I wonder if they could create a mouthguard to remineralize your teeth while you sleep?

</comment><comment><USER31> I've often heard conspiracy theorists say that if dentists ever learned of a way to cure cavities more cheaply and without drilling, they'd suppress the information as it would endanger their business. I think this is insane, but can anyone offer a sound economic argument for why dentists would embrace the new technique instead of cartelling up to suppress it?

<comment><USER32> Why don't dentists recommend drinking more soda and eating more candy?

<comment><USER33> For the same reason a real estate agent does not try to sell you the first house they show you: their motives would be way too obviously transparent if they did that and people would see through it.

<comment><USER33> I don't understand the downvotes. I'm not suggesting that dentists actually want to harm peoples' teeth. I'm simply pointing out that dentists recommending sugar and soda is too obviously nonsensical a position for anyone to actually take, regardless of their true position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is amazing news. I wonder if this can be extended to treat osteoporosis.

</comment><comment><USER35> The article is from over a year ago, and the project has since been stopped. I was told it apparently does not work in humans.

</comment><comment><USER36> In 1939, the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration was published. In it Weston A. Price explains that you can avoid cavities by eating a good diet. I wonder if most people will ever become aware of this. Probably not - <USER2> don't read much, and certainly not non-mainstream stuff like that book.

Edit: I would also recommend reading The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, since Weston A. Price did not get everything right.

<comment><USER37> I'm really confused by your comment - isn't it general knowledge that poor diet causes cavities? I remember being taught this in public school as early as kindergarten, and having my dentists reinforce it my entire life.

However, I do believe that genetics also plays a large role in predisposition to cavities, with or without a healthy diet.

<comment><USER36> Ok, it's probably general knowledge that soda, candy etc. can cause cavities. What obviously is not common knowledge is that, with a good diet, it's possible to go through your whole life without getting a single cavity. Weston A. Price travelled around the world and looked at the teeth of many primitive tribes (still quite a few of them back in his days) and they had perfect teeth.

<comment><USER38> I would say genetics have larger role in this, you can have good diet and still have cavities.

Just example, a person with hyperthyroidism will have much more issues with teeth than someone who doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> "It could be ready in 3 years." Yup, right with flying cars. Move along, nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER40> If this turns out to be cheaper than fillings, I get the feeling my dentist probably won't adopt it haha.

</comment><comment><USER41> Not to worry, our duty-bound ADA/FDA cronies will make sure this never sees the light of day.

P.S. There is something you can already do btw. If your teeth are still good then go get them _sealed_. Most dentists won't do it, and will give you some lame excuse. Just go find another dentist. There are a few out there that aren't full of sh*t and they will do it and it will save you thousands of dollars over the course of your life (and a lot of pain too).

<comment><USER42> Wow, I've never heard of this option before. What are the potential drawbacks?

<comment><USER15> Primarily just limitations - only applies to chewing surfaces, not sides or between teeth, and can only be applied to non-filled healthy teeth. Approx 5-year lifespan, should be checked at regular dentist visits.

[http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dental- sealants](http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dental-sealants)

<comment><USER42> Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,581502,00.html <comment><USER2> _"Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride."_

Pure schadenfreude, most of it. Kind of sad, really, given that Der Spiegel has a reputation for serious content. Most of the criticism of US policy is valid, as far as it goes. And, yes, those policies have produced a ton of bad blood among trading partners.

But this article just drips with glee at the plight of the poor, dumb 'mericans. That's just beneath them. Terrible journalism.

<comment><USER3> > this article just drips with glee at the plight of the poor, dumb 'mericans.

Perhaps that is a warning sign that we should heed? When even our allies are glad to see us brought low, that suggests that perhaps maybe we have not been as well behaved as we should have been.

<comment><USER4> Why?

What are they going to do different?

When something bad happens to them or they get scared, they're going to start screaming for us to help them.

When there's a problem somewhere else, they're still going to insist that we fix it and complain that we didn't do it "right". Interestingly enough, there are very few problems that they can handle on their own and the value of their cooperation is "iffy" at best (see Afghanistan).

When you point out that they're impotent, they always point to their GDP and never point to what they can do.

They'll keep selling us stuff and buying from us.

The only thing that will change is that they'll feel better about insulting tourists. So much for "old world class".

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's fair to describe Britain's contribution in Afghanistan (or indeed Iraq) as "iffy".

<comment><USER6> And not just Britain.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. I'm no supporter of the wars being waged, I marched in London in 2003 and personally think "terror" should be somewhere down the list of global concerns at present in the face of environmental pressures and the financial issues. If the resources being expended on these wars by our governments was instead spent on ending our dependence on oil by developing clean fuel technologies or on setting the foundations for a new, more stable economic system, we'd all be far better off.

However, that can't take away from the fact that the troops, working men and women from this city, this country and from all over the world doing a professional job and putting their necks on the line in this specious global conflict. To dismiss their contributions as "iffy" does them a grave disservice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> America is still a dominant economic force right now, but the writing is on the wall. Unless careful action is taken, I think all the signs point towards a decline in America's ability to project its power. As an American in my 20's, I grew up listening to hearing about how we were such a good country with a good government, ruled by the people. Everyone preached how we were so free, how our freedom defined us.

America's decline won't just be caused by the current financial crisis. You cannot separate this phenomenon from our decreased standing in the world's eyes as a shining beacon on a hill. We were supposed to be a model democracy.

The events in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, and Guantanamo Bay have lead to world to look away from us when it comes to morality. We no longer occupy the moral high ground. We no longer serve as a guideline for how to run a democracy. Now, with the financial crisis in full swing, we no longer serve as a guideline for how to manage an economy either.

Granted, we are still a large nation with many wealthy consumers. It will probably take a generation for the full effects of our fall from grace to come to fruition. But, when it comes down to it, we simply cannot maintain our place in the world when the confidence in our country has been shaken so much, both in terms of our government and our economic systems.

<comment><USER8> Not looking for a fight, but none of these things are new.

Initiating armed conflict: Spanish-American War, various invasions into Mexico, to some degree Vietnam

Wartime screw-ups/atrocities: MyLai (sp?), firebombing of Dresden

Extraordinary rendition: probably the basis of every other spy novel for the past 50 years. Nothing new except for the outrage

We still make things people want -- we have creativity and ideas that the rest of the world desires. Take a look at Hollywood, or the electronic games industry, or the advances in microcircuitry.

We were supposed to be a model democracy, yes. But democracies are made of people, and people do bad or boneheaded stuff. The trick is that we have a system where we make mistakes and then learn from them, not that no mistakes are ever made.

I just wouldn't be too pessimistic. I'm more concerned with the rise of people who think they can use some sort of social engineering to make the world perfect than the foibles of our current reality.

<comment><USER7> You make some good points, but America didn't obtain any real power until after World War II. Our fortunes are actually quite recent.

<comment><USER9> I'd highly recommend Fareed Zakaria's "Post American World". Give gives good insight into how America rose to power. WWII helped, but it wasn't the defining moment. It was the huge industrial advances at the end of the 19th century that shaped our economic leadership in the world. Before even WWI, we were the top producing nation in the world, with double digit growth rates year after year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> America contains 5% of the world's population yet remains a leader with 20& of the world's economic output. Watch the markets. The American markets dictate what overseas markets due on a daily basis, not the other way around. Sure, things aren't rosy, but to suggest that the American economy is anything less than a clear cut economic leader is silly.

<comment><USER11> I think the line this article is taking is one that has been told for a while. It's just now possible that it will become visible in the next few years.

The US may continue it's first place in % of world GDP for a long time (depending on how we define the EU), but that's not going to mean what it used to. First with 15% when second third & fourth come in at 14, 13 & 12 doesn't have the same sort of affect on the world.

In 2006 the surprise free (exact continuation of existing trends) prediction for the economic superpower map was China surpassing the States by 2040 with India not far behind & several countries at around 50% of the US's GDP. The China-US equivalent was then moved to 2025 in 2007 (when the dollar went on the move).

Now, a year down the line we hit another bump (so much for no surprises). China's political dependence on economic growth & preference for good news, might mean it's a while before anyone knows how China is affected. They could come out more affected then the US. But that said, it seems possible that the US will indeed be only one of several big players very soon. China doesn't seem too interested in exerting political influence beyond their immediate interests currently. Russia does but is not likely to wield enough power soon. The EU is not a great mechanism for converting economic power to military & political power. So the US will probably have a little more pull then their % of GDP should entitle them to, for a while. But USA 2020 is not the same kind of a power as US 1990. Potentially similar to Russia 1970 vs 2000.

The reality about things like 'The War on Terror' is that opinions of it among academics, analysts, intelligent politicians (who by definition do not disclose their true feelings on the subject) and importantly security/military experts are that it is a threat on par with organised crime, HIV, traffic accidents or whatever other troubles they might have. Only a small handful of countries are seriously threatened by 'terrorists' either in terms of affecting the lives of citizens (eg Israel) or politically (eg Lebanon). And that is a far less serious threat then your average border conflict between nations (which is likely result in loss of sovereignty or territory) or internal conflicts.

The thing is, that makes sense. Britain copped a bombing. I don't want to belittle that but if not for the political ramifications, that's no worse then what a month of bad weather can do to traffic accidents. Certainly affects people's lives a lot less then things like healthcare, policing or education. It's not a danger of the 'Napoleon is coming' kind nor is signing up to the a war effort controversially effective in stopping it.

If that's the opinion of most while the US president is still talking terrorists, the US comes off as irrelevant. Almost like talking about making a choice between Socialism & Barbarism.

<comment><USER8> Quick correction. You mistake the effects of terrorism to only be immediate- damage-related. Terrorism is an existential threat in a democracy because the goal is to create wide swings in public opinion to make the democracy do things which are harmful to it.

<comment><USER11> I agree. But political, psychological implications considered, Britain is not under a _serious_ threat from terrorism. Neither is France, Germany, Canada, Japan or virtually anyone else.

The US is more susceptible to terrorism largely because of its rhetoric. They could for example, get drawn into or prolong a war. But that's not the same kind of threat that even dwarfs like N. Korea or Iran present. Terrorism fast hits a brick wall. If attacks become common in The States (eg 5 per year) long term, they will get used to it. Just like gang violence. You could theoretically just ignore it & the US would still be the US. The same could not ba said of the Cold War War II, or any other 'real' war.

<comment><USER8> Think about your use of the word _serious_. Wars are fought until one side decides to stop fighting. Laws are made because people are emotional creatures. I'm not going to get long-winded, but there are plenty of examples of small losses of lives leading to major policy changes, loss of freedom, change of ruling party, decisions to either engage or disengage large military forces etc. Terrorism is an emotional warfare, not one in which you count up the damage on a balance sheet.

The outcomes I mention are extremely serious. Outcomes that are easily existentially important to the state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps America should check behind its Couch. These sorts of articles are reddit-bait.

<comment><USER13> The Spiegel should change its cover layout. In Germany I always fear I being mistaken as a socialist Spiegel reader when I carry my Economist around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 2007 GPD in millions of USD: (1) United States 13,843,825 (2) Japan 4,383,762 (3) Germany 3,322,147 (4) China (PRC) 3,250,827 (5) United Kingdom 2,772,570 (6) France 2,560,255 (7) Italy 2,104,666

Hey Spiegel, why don't you come back when Germany's GDP hits double-digit trillions.

<comment><USER15> Statistics, statistics...

 _European Union_ : $16.62 trillion (2007 est.)

United States: $13.84 trillion (2007 est.)

<comment><USER16> Statistics, statistics...

European Union: 500,000,000 people

United States: 304,000,000 people

<comment><USER17> The US also works much longer hours.

People in France and Germany produce 30-40% more GDP per hour of work than people in the US do.

<comment><USER16> Umm, no. From the Boston Globe:

"American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory, or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year.

They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians, according to a UN report that said the United States "leads the world in labor productivity." The report was released in Geneva today, which is Labor Day in the United States.

The average US worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, followed by Luxembourg at $55,641, Belgium at $55,235, and France at $54,609.

[http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/09/03/...](http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/09/03/study_us_workers_are_worlds_most_productive/)

My guess is that the Norwegians are doing so well because they are a tiny country with a massive amount of oil exports.

These figures are all the more surprising since, when one works fewer hours, the rate of productivity should be higher, not lower, as the low-hanging fruit get picked first (law of marginal utility). Moreover, the trend is that the US productivity rate is increasing faster than that of Europe. At current trends, it won't be many years from now when the EU has a per capita GDP less than half that of the US.

<rant> One of our problems is that we are working long hours to pay for the defense of the rest of the free world while Europe goes on vacation. When you get up and go to work in the morning, think a fond thought for our European "allies" who are taking the day off.

We need to get out of NATO now. Let the Russians shut off the gas to them (again), or the Arabs and Iranians shut off their oil, or the "youths" of indeterminate cultural background burn a few thousand more cars. The Europeans (it wasn't just the Germans and Italians) have killed about 400,000 of our young men. That's enough, I think. </rant>

<comment><USER17> Are those numbers adjusting for purchasing power parity? If so they're bogus.

The nominal GDP per hour worked numbers from OECD confirm my statement.

And if you're paying for the defense of the "rest of the free world", it's being "paid" with debt financed by Asia and the Middle East.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Other countries also love the stuff we in America produce, I think Buffet said in his Charlie Rose interview that we export 12% of our GDP which is good but also pales in comparison to how much we consume which is where a lot of the global market makes it's money (from US consumers).

</comment><comment><USER19> World trade will become irrelevant once we develop our own energy independence and desktop manufacturing. These two technological breakthroughs will render cultural and economic hegemonies irrelevant.

The next great economic triumph won't be the victory of any particular country or region. It will be the emergence of distributed and decentralized economic power.

That's how I'd like to see it go down, anyhow..

<comment><USER3> There wil;l still be resource contention, fresh water for instance.

<comment><USER20> <http://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+desalination>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think that it's too early to say that America has lost its dominant economic role.

When it's true, it won't make such a long news story because it will be obvious and uninteresting.

The length of the news stories shows that it is still early. So far, the only one who says America is about to collapse is the crazy president of Iran.

<comment><USER22> After reading this article: <http://bit.ly/2QsjEr>

I had a feeling that this article would be off-key.

"Financial Crisis: So much for tirades against American greed"

"It took a weekend to shatter the complacency of German finance minister Peer Steinbrück. Last Thursday he told us that the financial crisis was an "American problem", the fruit of Anglo-Saxon greed and inept regulation that would cost the United States its "superpower status"...By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Notice the authors didn't sign their names to the story. When the US bounces back from this, and I am completely convinced it will, it will have the 'respect of the world' again. As Buffet pointed out with Rose, the US is hacking new frontiers in the advancement of the standard of living. But there are perils in being a pioneer, and the US is working through one now.

<comment><USER24> > Notice the authors didn't sign their names to the story.

That's odd, I had assumed that the list of names _at the end of the article_ were the authors...

Beat Balzli, Klaus Brinkbaumer, Frank Hornig, Hans Hoyng, Armin Mahler, Alexander Neubacher, Wolfgang Reuter, Christoph Pauly, Michael Sauga

<comment><USER23> I believe that you are correct. My mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is Germany one of the nations threatening to stop buying Treasuries if we don't buy back the subprime meatballs?

</comment><comment><USER26> Heckofa job, Republicans.

</comment><comment><USER27> The only real saving grace is the speculators that were allowed to be wiped out.

</comment><comment><USER23> see also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=321318>

</comment><comment><USER28> This doesn't surprise me: the highly risky money speculations (all invented in the US) had to come to an end, sooner or later.

They did well as long as the US had a continuous growth, but there are now many 'New Americas' out there, which will make there own new way of life.

America: sorry, but you're getting old already...</comment>


Tesla's ver. 9 software update is coming in August 'full self-driving features' - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2018/06/10/tesla-version-9-software-update-fully-self-driving-features-elon-musk/amp/ <comment><USER2> "Begin to enable full self-driving features"? This means nothing. After all, it is the company who calls something that doesn't stop for stationary objects "autopilot".

</comment><comment><USER3> frankly speaking, I'am amazed that 'full self-driving features' could de delivered to 1000's of cars via OTA update without any oversight from authorities.

Zuck is being grilled by Congress for sharing some likes, but tinkering with real cars on real roads is OK for some reason.

It just does not compute.</comment>


How to Build a Portrait with Dice (using Photoshop) - <AUTHOR> http://www.attackofdesign.com/how-to-build-a-portrait-with-dice-using-photoshop/

<comment><USER2> It's great to see examples where code can be side-stepped in favour of a quick-n-dirty, 'designer'-type solution - different ways of thinking about the problem.

I have fond memories of my first years in the VFX industry being made a fool of by non-programmer effects artists who, by hooking together a few nodes in the industry-standard package Houdini, could in minutes recreate algorithms that took weeks for me to code the 'right' way, and in a couple more minutes interactively tweak the constants to get results which I would have taken even more weeks to derive 'scientifically'. It was a crash-course in the value of rapid-prototyping, but also in that particular case introduced me to new ways of thinking: Houdini presents a completely different view of geometry and image processing, which is thoroughly non-intuitive to the typical comp-sci graduate. Houdini taught me an (almost literally) orthogonal way of thinking about computer graphics problems.

The lessons are more general: \- rapid prototyping is not necessarily coding \- sometimes the non-technical, 'designer' approach is the more efficient one (not necessarily in this case - there is plenty of merit in both approaches) \- the more tools you learn, the more leverage you have - why not learn some of those design tools and learn a different way of thinking about things.

(This comment is inspired-by, not directed-at, the two dice portrait posts.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought it was interesting to see a different solution to the same problem (see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3254392> ). The developer thinks "let's write some code!", but the designer thinks "let's use Photoshop!"…

<comment><USER3> The designer thinks to use the tools he or she is most familiar with, just like the developer.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Turns out Photoshop is even more powerful than what you'd think: I created an action to automate the whole process with any photo. You can download it here:

<http://cl.ly/BwdO>

(By the way, little known fact: you can actually script Photoshop using Javascript. I once used this to automatically generate all letter tiles as separate images for a touchscreen keyboard based on a template)

<comment><USER4> > you can actually script Photoshop using Javascript.

Could you write up a tutorial post?

<comment><USER5> Photoshop's scripting capabilities are pretty astonishing. I taught myself over lunch the other day. You can script in JavaScript, AppleScript, or VBScript and implement dialogs and UI panels.

It works exactly as you'd expect and scripts are quite lean (you don't need to do a bunch of setup).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am the guy who wrote the original post, I think this is great work, I wish I could use photoshop as proficiently!

I should say that for my part, I drew inspiration from flight404: <http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=131>

and a paper I read where someone wrote an algorithm to do this with dominos.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd be intrigued if something could be done with the orientation of the 2, 3, and 6 faces to improve image quality.

I'm coming up mostly blank, but they probably create textures when the same number is in a large contiguous block and the orientations are the same.

Also, I'm wondering if anything can be done with 2&3 specifically because they have bright corners and dark corners.

I'm guessing the effects are fairly subtle and can't really be used to good effect, but...

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder why did they reduce the number of colours twice? Using the mosaic filter pretty much canceled the effect of the first "posterize" run.

<comment><USER9> I believe this is because you would be getting a mosaic with all the different shades of gray instead of only 6

<comment><USER8> If you reduce to 6 colours, then make a mosaic, you will get all different shades of grade. Mosaic will take (simplifying) an average of colours one tile covers.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, you should swap those two steps

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used a similar visual concept to produce the following: <http://www.behance.net/gallery/Impossible-Triangle/1968627>

However, I chose to manually use random numbers so it wasn't exactly quick. I wonder if there's a way I could have hooked Photoshop up to do that.

</comment><comment><USER5> It would look better if the image were dithered into the target palette.</comment>


US military is terrified of climate change – but is the world's biggest polluter - <AUTHOR> https://thecompost.io/articles/the-war-machine <comment><USER2> The DoD is the world's largest employer. Unsurprisingly, they are the largest polluter. That doesn't make them hypocrites automatically.

<comment><USER3> I fail to see a causal relationship between employment and carbon emissions?

<comment><USER2> How do you fail to see that?

More employees = More buildings, More work, More everything, etc.

"I fail to see a casual relation between city size and carbon emissions. Why does New York City have higher emissions than McMullen, Alabama?"

<comment><USER3> I mean the causation could very well be reverse (more building require more employees etc.)

It could also be from a third factor (population growth demands more work and more infrastructure which leads to more carbon emissions).

I'm not denying the correlation as it exists today (bigger employers probably emit more carbon into the atmosphere; or at least intuitively; I haven't looked at the data), but that correlation is by no means neither necessary (you could theoretically employ a lot of people without having any carbon emissions) nor sufficient (you can be a very large polluter with only robots doing all the work; like a big automatic aluminum smelter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've recently seen an interesting documentary [1] about then-senator Al Gore asking the CIA to study the vast satellite image archives to figure out what was going on with the arctic. They half-heartedly started a project but it really only took off when Bill clinton became president and Al Gore vice president. They'd invited scientists of all disciplines to the CIA, gave them clearances in an accelerated process and gave them access to the images. They even went to russia to study _their_ reports of the arctic. With Bush, the project was cancelled until Obama revived it and even established a dedicated office [2].

[1]: [https://sales.arte.tv/fiche/ESPIONS_POUR_LA_PLANETE](https://sales.arte.tv/fiche/ESPIONS_POUR_LA_PLANETE)

[2]: [https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases- statemen...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/press-releases- statements/center-on-climate-change-and-national-security.html)

<comment><USER5> From 2 above:

"Its charter is not the science of climate change, but the national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts, and heightened competition for natural resources."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> China contains 14 of the top 30 most polluted cities on the planet. China is constructing new coal power plants, while the united states closes down more coal plants every year. There's a weird thing going on in the news where real polluters like china get a free pass to destroy the earth and the environment and light polluters like the united states are harshly criticized for running operations in a more environmentally friendly manner.

</comment><comment><USER7> When the aliens want to destroy a planet they give them capitalism, science, and technology. The people do rest of the work. Because power corrupts. The greater the power the worse the eventual catastrophe.

<comment><USER8> Going to need a source for that.

<comment><USER3> We do have a sample size of one. We've tried global capitalism once, and combined with a global industrial revolution we've so far increased the global average temperature by a whole degree celsius[1].

1: [https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding- climate/...](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding- climate/climate-change-global-temperature)

<comment><USER5> Ah, that's good. We've got a bit of leeway before we reach boiling point.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. While the industrial revolution is kind of irreversible, global capitalism isn't. Logic dictates we use this leeway to reverse global capitalism.

<comment><USER5> I kinda figured we'd find a cure for cancer so that we could survive the cancer-causing air-particulate matter from hot climate change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The headline is misleading, since it suggests that the military is scared of _someone else_ , when in fact _they_ are the biggest polluter.

<comment><USER10> No, the headline says they are scared of climate change (which is not a "someone", but a collection of serious consequences) and then includes the irony that they are contributing to that very threat as a big polluter.

<comment><USER9> You may have seen the updated headline, which is much clearer.

<comment><USER10> Very possible - I didn't realize it had been changed. My apologies.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Our 36 Hours on Show HN - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@justinlaing/our-36-hours-on-show-hn-34d47b6b56ee#.k9a8i7pt4 <comment><USER2> Hmm, this is the first "I Hit The HN Front Page" humblebrag posts that's not a humblebrag, and as a result is interesting.

Being successful is not a binary get-on-front-page or not; ranking on the front page matters. At #27 of 30, that is effectively off the front page. (for reference in how important ranking matters, when one of my submissions went from #1 to #3, the number of active users dropped _by 2 /3rds_. Going from #3 to #20 halved the traffic again.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely, 27 is pretty low. But it did drive a lot more traffic than being #5 on Show. Which I think is interesting. I would have thought more people looked at Show. But I guess not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> And now you're trying to break back on the front page, clever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, but hopefully providing some insight for others! It was definitely a learning experience.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hinto – Follow sites in real-time and read news - <AUTHOR> http://www.hinto.co/

<comment><USER2> As a first impression, I found it very easy to add a bunch of sites at once to my page.

Although I'm not quite sure I understood how to add content from a new site, one that's not in the curated collection.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

In order to add a new site to your page, type its address in the field at the top of the page and press Add. When the web page is loaded, you can select the content you are interested in and save it. Each time the source site changes, your selection will be updated on Hinto as well.

Hope this helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like how the news are displayed and that the snippets are synced with the origin website automatically.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much! Please don't hesitate to share any feedback you may have.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What do you think about Hinto?

<comment><USER4> From what I can tell this looks cool, news readers are always something I make a point of checking out. However, I find the Facebook login a big turn off.

Is there a way to use the site without it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your comment and I'm really glad you think it looks cool! For now, the Facebook login is the only option, but Google and Twitter logins will be available soon.

Have you given it a try yet, despite the FB login? If you did, please let me know what you think about it.

Cheers

<comment><USER4> I signed up. I personally always prefer an email option. Or no signup at all where possible, especially to let people try it out.

I got to the source selection list and the continue button was unresponsive. Do I need to choose a minimum number? I'm on my iPhone and can try on desktop tomorrow if I remember.

<comment><AUTHOR> Duly noted for the signup ;)

When you first log in, you are presented with the cards from our curated Catalog, organized in main topics (News, Tech, etc.) Normally all the cards in the first category(News) are selected by default so you only have to press Continue to finish the signup process. You can of course select or deselect as many cards as you want from the various topics.

The logic behind this is to have some initial content on your page, otherwise it would be empty. So, to respond to your question, you have to select at least one card and then the Continue button becomes active so you can move on.

The site is fully responsive and it works on mobile and also on desktop. My guess is that maybe there's some network latency and it takes some time to load the card's images on your iPhone. But when the images finish loading, you can tap on the cards you want to keep and unblock the Continue button.

Note that you can browse the topics also at a later time by going to the Catalog section and add other cards to your page.

I hope it's more clear now and you'll be able to finish the signup process. If you have any other questions or remarks, please let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Cheers

<comment><USER4> So I had a go on my tablet on wifi. I selected continue and so got all the default news sources.

I then went on to additionally select 4 tech sources.

The content seems to show up nicely in a two column feed but there are a few issues I'm still having. Firstly, I don't seem to be able to turn off sources. I seem to be able to delete items but not the sources themselves. There seem to be duplicate items, for example the guardian homepage shows up twice with no clear difference.

Finally, tapping an item just seems to take me to the homepage for that source, not the article.

This is the news reader I made and use myself: [http://www.serializer.io](http://www.serializer.io) and it's what I'll continue using.

I do like the look of the site but I think that it could be more reactive on mobile. As outlined above I think I'm either not getting it or there are some functionality issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello again,

I'm glad you were able to finish the signup and play a little with the app. It's also nice to hear you like the look of the site and how the content shows up. As for the sources, you can't indeed turn them off, because they're always there as curated content to choose from. And there's also no restriction on how many times an item can be added from the Catalog, thus resulting the possibility to have duplicate items. But you can always delete the extra cards.

Concerning the fact that when you tap on an item it takes you to the homepage of that site, I'm currently working on a feature that will allow users to go directly to the articles featured on the card. It's a request that many users have asked for, so it will certainly be included in a future version of Hinto. Thanks for your feedback anyways, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

I also took a look at serializer.io and it's quite nice and easy to use. However, I didn't find a way to add other sources beside the ones by default and neither to add a custom subreddit for example. The simple look and only displaying the text headlines has its advantages, but I personally prefer a more visual presentation, with more images instead of text. On the other hand, you were right, it's nice to be able to test the app without having to create an account, that's something I should definitely consider for Hinto. BTW, I found serializer's page on Product Hunt and I upvoted it, I hope you'll get some traction with your app!

Cheers!

<comment><USER4> It seems to odd that you cannot remove sources, to me at least. Even stranger that sources can be added more than once (leading to duplicate items). Perhaps I'm not quite getting the idea.

About custom subreddits, I've opted to only let users select from a list sources. The main reason being that I poll a number of subreddits every 10mins as it is and I want to keep my collection times down to preserve CPU time on my Droplet ($5 tier 😀). The same kind of goes for showing images of stories - I'd have to cache a ton to cloudinary and I'm on the free tier over there too.

serializer is never going to turn a profit and I guess there are somethings that come with that which limit it. That said if you think there's a subreddit that would have wider appeal let me know and I'll consider mixing it in.

Cheers for the vote on product hunt - glad you like the site.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zork source and binaries, January 1978 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MITDDC/zork-1978-01 <comment><USER2> My earliest memories of interacting with the computer are those of playing Zork with my father. When I grew older and learned how to program, my most ambitious project in high school was a text based adventure game engine written in Common Lisp. I utilized the natural language parser that Paul Graham Details in _On Lisp_ to parse game instructions. Game elements like the Loud Room (where every command just echos until you say the magic word) or the maze drove me to create numerous game permutations.

I love Zork so much. So many good memories with that game.

</comment><comment><USER3> To go meta, see "Inform 7". It's a system in which one programs guess-the-verb text adventures by using a guess-the-verb semi-natural largely-declarative programming language.

[http://inform7.com](http://inform7.com)

<comment><USER4> And here, you can see the Inform 7 source for Zork: [http://i7-dungeon.sourceforge.net/source.html](http://i7-dungeon.sourceforge.net/source.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related from 3 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23108626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23108626)

2019: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21740147)

2019: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19672436)

2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15147346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15147346)

</comment><comment><USER6> > _The ownership status of these files is not entirely clear._

And to think that some people like to cast doubt on even reading GPL code… What would they think of this?

Anyway, for actually free classic text gaming, see [http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-adventure/](http://www.catb.org/~esr/open- adventure/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I never got to play Zork but I did play Return to Zork. I always loved adventure games. my list of finished games is quite extensive: full throttle, the dig, prisoner of ice, goblins (2 and 3), grim fandango... never finished return to Zork though. one day ill probably will.

thanks for sharing the source code.

<comment><USER8> I loved Return to Zork. But I only finished by cheating.

Want some rye?

<comment><USER9> 'Course ya do!

 _That line is chiseled in stone on the surface of my brain._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yeah, I was sort of into interactive fiction like over a decade ago. I actually converted a random haiku generator from JavaScript to Inform 6.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this would compile with ZILF:

[https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf](https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf)</comment>


Live with Jake Winebaum: how to upend a $20 billion industtry - <AUTHOR> http://chill.com/room/this-week-in-startups

<comment><USER2> Interesting guy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Super interesting. Didn't realize he had previously founded Business.com before Brighter.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Realtime audio analysis of YouTube videos using Watson services - <AUTHOR> https://audio-analysis-application-starter-kit.mybluemix.net/dashboard?v=mXMeQ-76SRA <comment><USER2> Another one in which it works really nice [https://audio-analysis-application- starter-kit.mybluemix.net...](https://audio-analysis-application-starter- kit.mybluemix.net/dashboard?v=Mznq26S726k)

</comment><comment><USER2> The app seems to like physics =) [https://audio-analysis-application-starter- kit.mybluemix.net...](https://audio-analysis-application-starter- kit.mybluemix.net/dashboard?v=EKvHQc3QEow?list=PL19E79A0638C8D449)

</comment><comment><USER3> Works really well here: [https://audio-analysis-application-starter- kit.mybluemix.net...](https://audio-analysis-application-starter- kit.mybluemix.net/dashboard?v=rJ4U2VdKlW0)

</comment><comment><USER4> For now use Firefox or chrome (desktop)</comment>


Show HN: I built a 3D virtual art gallery - <AUTHOR> https://spaces.gallery <comment><USER2> I tried it twice but each time it froze my Safari and got stuck at 90% after few seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Use google chrome. Safari is pretty buggy still.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I built a 3D virtual art gallery. This is the first launch. Excited to get some feedback!

</comment><comment><USER3> yooooooo this is so dope! one thing i would suggest is to make it move faster, it's a little annoying moving that slow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. What do you think of adding a feature like a virtual moving pathway, kind of like a moving mat they have in airports, museums, and aquariums to keep lines moving.</comment></comment>


Marissa Mayer: An Unauthorized Biography - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8?op=1 <comment><USER5> Buried in there this gem:

"The first is that she would recreate the technological circumstances of her users in her own life. Mayer went without broadband for years in her home, refusing to install it until it was also installed in the majority of American homes. She carried an iPhone at Google, which makes Android phones, because so did most mobile Web users."

edit: this one is funny:

" As she spoke, two of the people seated near her typed away like crazy, trying to take verbatim notes in Google Docs."

Yahoo using google docs for their email strategy :)

Who is leaking to Kara Swisher?

Having a leaky board member can be lethal.

"She said that Tumblr was an excellent product — an amazing tool for self- expression. She noted that it was beating Facebook with younger consumers."

Aha. Younger generation+mobile->tumbler acquisition.

Funny how in the same breath that Yahoo acquires companies to shut them down they can state with a straight face the new way of doing this is to let them stay independent post acquisition.

<comment><USER6> > Funny how in the same breath that Yahoo acquires companies to shut them down > they can state with a straight face the new way of doing this is to let them > stay independent post acquisition.

I don't think that's fair. There is a huge difference between acquiring a successful startup and letting them continue to be themselves, and acqui- hiring a failing startup and stripping it for parts. The point is tumblr isn't a repeat of flickr, delicious etc. Summly etc., are in a different category altogether, and it's not like they are being misled about what's going to happen when they are being acquired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would call this historical fiction, not a biography. The author says as much (after tens of thousands of words that almost no one will read all of). Quoting someone else, he writes:

 _" As part of the narrative, I have included passages of dialogue. Dialogue— what words were said— is a fact like any other. It is not necessarily a quotation from an interview with me and I would discourage readers from inferring that one or both of the speakers is a direct source."_

The article ends up being overwhelmingly flattering, and subtly balances the flattery by bringing up and then dispelling muckety-muck from the news, with an insider POV. And of course no one has to vouch for a word of it.

<comment><USER8> Om malik thinks that the founder of business insider is biased: " Business Insider's Henry Blodget, who benefits directly from the largess of Yahoo as a longtime shareholder and part time employee "

So this might explain this article.

And Om's take on yahoo: except for a rising share price, yahoo has achieved nothing in the past year [1].

[1][http://gigaom.com/2013/08/22/no-henry-you-need-to-get- real-a...](http://gigaom.com/2013/08/22/no-henry-you-need-to-get-real-about- yahoo-here-are-the-facts/)

<comment><USER9> Om's analysis should be a submission on its own. Pretty devastating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A terrific read! I learned a lot about what kind of a person Marissa is. If I had to summarize, I'd say she's "firm but fair".

An observation: There are 8 pages in total, but pages 1-3 were much shorter than 4-7, and 8 was the sources page. I think it's pretty smart of them to keep the first few pages short to keep you moving, and let the latter half be longer as you're committed to finishing if you've made it that far. I don't know of this is common practice for longer articles, but it's a great thing to do!

<comment> yo-mf Good point, though I just read it on mobile where is automatically shows as one page, something I find to be a smoother reading experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The dollar numbers being talked about in the article are kind of stunning, for a website that dropped off my radar more than a decade ago. Who are all these people with all that much money and where are they getting it from??

<comment><USER12> You are giving too much credit to your internet usage preference and its relation to a company being relevant and successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Personally I find it amusing that she mixed personal life with work - <USER2> dating Larry and all.

You lose a lot of respect from peers if you are rising fast and they find out a powerful person has soft spot for him/her.

I am wondering if that had something to do with so many Googlers hating her. She was always pain to work with - office hours etc. What changed?

<comment><USER14> _lose a lot of respect from peers if you are rising fast and they find out a powerful person has soft spot for him /her._

The only place this kind of favoritism is a negative is with personal relationships. Nobody bats an eye when the riser is a fraternity or alma mater cohort, where that kind of thing is _expected_.

If I were a betting man, I'd say it's a class argument that the favoritism wasn't "earned" in the proper way, without the old school tie.

Aside from that, in contemporary business culture, losing respect of your peers is no loss when you're upwardly mobile. They're the ones you're leaving behind.

<comment><USER15> >The only place this kind of favoritism is a negative is with personal relationships. Nobody bats an eye when the riser is a fraternity or alma mater cohort, where that kind of thing is expected.

I suspect that you're projecting here. I think favoritism in any of those situations is _both_ expected and resented.

I don't see how sexual relationships are any less class-based than alma mater or frat stuff. People are more likely to have been in the same frat with someone outside of their class than to have dated someone outside of their class.

<comment><USER14> I think you're thinking that class necessarily means economics. Think more "cohort."

<comment><USER15> I am thinking cohort. People tend to date people who hang out in the exact social circles as they do. Which is what happened in this case, really.

There are lots of token and outsider members of colleges and frats that the insider groups will never even notice. The person dating the boss or the bosses' daughter/son is more likely to be a member of an insider group than somebody who attended the same elite university at the same time - <USER3> if the frat/college person is of a different race or economic class than the boss.

Went to the same school, in the same frat, from the same town, went to the same camp, dated your sister once are all shorthand for describing insider groupings, not the cause of them.

People who work hard who are not insiders in that way will resent it.

<comment><USER14> Not sure what your point is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The most interesting detail to me is this mentioned so off-handedly that it's easy to miss it: "At one point during Mayer's early years at Google, she and Page started dating."

Now, I'm not saying that this had anything to do with her later success, on the contrary -- she obviously proved repeatedly that she is amazingly capable. But it's interesting that this kind of power shuffle that's going on in large companies inevitably includes some dose of sexual attraction; it reminds me of Salman Rushdie's Moth podcast appearance[0], where he described something similar in a Latin American coup.

[0] [http://www.podcast-directory.co.uk/episodes/salman- rushdie-w...](http://www.podcast-directory.co.uk/episodes/salman-rushdie- writer%E2%80%99s-block-14492745.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is it meaningful that everyone she didn't get along with at Google had a name from southern Asia?

<comment><USER18> Kamangar is from Iran

<comment><USER19> Which is in south(western) Asia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article has very low information density.

<comment><USER21> Indeed. But it does have rather a lot of information.

If you're interested in this, and e.g. Google history you might want to read it; I had to decide I couldn't justify the time and energy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That tidbit about her piano teacher's daughter was from a great talk about creativity she gave at Stanford in 2006.

My notes on the lecture: [http://personalopz.com/blog/nine-lessons-learned- creativity-...](http://personalopz.com/blog/nine-lessons-learned-creativity- google/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I am very interested to see how a dead horse can be brought to life again - <USER4> would be an incredible feat if Marissa does it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Misleading title, does this article dig up some dirt about mayer or not, I don't get it.

The title sounds like people have been lied to about Mayers, but what lies ?

</comment><comment><USER25> what did you feel while reading this?

</comment><comment><USER26> For the context, that is, computing, the Internet, mobile, etc., there is a fundamental problem: We are awash in cheap processor cycles, main memory bytes, solid state and rotating disk bytes, infrastructure software, LAN and Internet bandwidth, client devices, sensors, transducers, etc. and for most of these are getting more rapidly.

The fundamental problem is what the heck to do of high value -- change the world size -- with these fantastic, cheap resources?

Open ocean sailing? Permitted trading without the many 'tolls' from long paths across land.

Personal cars? Killed off the horses and passenger trains and opened up suburbia.

Trucks? Killed off a lot of freight trains.

Electric lights? Got rid of lighting by burning candles, whale oil, kerosene, and coal gas.

Big stuff.

Computing's done a lot so far. The fundamental problem now is, now what?

The common assumption is that a big IT company must frequently 'reinvent' itself and 'create' its future. If so, then the big IT companies -- and related companies in 'media', cars, etc. -- just must successfully address significant parts of this fundamental problem.

So, the fundamental problem must be (no choice) shared by Yahoo, Google, Apple, Facebook, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Cisco, Juniper, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Amazon, newspapers, TV, movies, DARPA, essentially all _information technology_ (IT) startups and venture capital, etc.

Efforts that successfully address significant parts are coming forward quite slowly, maybe only a few such efforts each 10 years. Not fast enough.

Big IT companies, I hate to say it, but a lot of you guys stand to go the way of buggy whips if you fail successfully to address significant parts of this fundamental problem. So, better set up a group, issue thinking caps, and get to work. Maybe the projects look 'blue sky', but at least some of them have to go all the way to revenue, earnings, and big changes in the world. Gotta be willing to stand there on the sea shore and think "open ocean sailing" and, then, make it real, make a lot of money, and change the world. Do that or you are in line for a buggy whip award.

In a musical analogy, a little, student's piano sonata won't cut it; think more like Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony'.

One way -- not the only one -- is to look at some 'economics', i.e., how to take some work needed in the economy and do it better and/or cheaper.

Yahoo? So, you have a lot of stock market data. Now what? Envision an investor, see what else they need, and start to provide it. Yes, there should be a mobile tie in.

Yahoo? Yes, you have some headline news, maybe some of it is entertaining. What about information that is really valuable? Find some such categories and how to get the information out there.

Yahoo? There's lots of stuff on the Internet, and recently at AVC.COM Fred Wilson has been complaining that he doesn't know how to find blogs, videos, etc. he wants. A solution is needed.

With just the economic driver, we can go on and on. I didn't say that it was all easy, but neither was Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony', and when he wrote it he had been stone deaf for years.

Get on it Marissa or be in line for a buggy whip award. And, f'get about picking colors or numbers of screen pixels. And, to think better, get some sleep.

</comment><comment><USER27> When do we get another Vogue photo shoot?

</comment><comment><USER28> print version?

<comment><USER29> I guess this will do it: [http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=site&url=http%3A%...](http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=site&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fmarissa- mayer-biography-2013-8%3Fop%3D1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is 22,424 words long. Literally the length of a light book. (Even long- form journalism usually tops out at around 7-8,000 words.)

Anyone got a TL;DR?

<comment><USER31> TLDR: everything you need to know to predict how Marissa Mayer will run Yahoo.

I would say that the article is very short. It's supposed to be a biography; those things are usually massive.

It's a great condensation of a biography; just enough detail from the early years to get a sense of Marissa as a person and what guides her, the detail increasing through her Stanford and Google years to fill out her style and her strengths and weaknesses. And then a bunch of detail about why she was hunted and how, and on some of the pivotal actions she took at Yahoo (like the Tumblr acquisition and Mail redesign).

It's long, but it's very much story telling so it reads well. If it was half the length it could contain the same amount of information but would be much harder to read. In many cases the best way to convey information is to tell a story.</comment></comment>


Airbnb rentals cut deep into SF housing stock, report says - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sf-report-says-units-rented-for-short-term-reduce-long-term-housing/Content?oid=2929888 <comment><USER2> SF also needs to study how its own city policy affects housing stock.

From [http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2014/12/23/sf_now_has_more_tha...](http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2014/12/23/sf_now_has_more_than_50000_units_in_the_housing_pipeline.php) :

Although SF has 50000 housing units in the pipeline, it supposedly won't be completed for decades.

It takes a very long time to complete a housing project:

      The median time of completion for projects that have
      been finished in the past year is 43 months from the
      time of first filing with SF Planning to opening

As a concrete example, from [http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San- Fran...](http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Francisco- creates-its-own-housing-crisis-5139869.php)

It took 6 years just for _approvals_ to convert a closed down Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant to about 10 units of housing.

<comment><USER3> And the weirdest thing is when you wonder who the hell was protesting the approvals. NOBODY thinks a KFC is superior to a modern apartment building. (And even if one did, you could just allocate the first floor of all buildings to commercial leases and let KFC move in where it wants.)

As far as I can tell, the only obstacle to new construction are existing property owners who fear that the appreciation of their old property's value will diminish as supply finally expands to meet demand. While they're probably right in the very short run, I'm pretty sure that turning SF into Copenhagen -- that is, 5-7 floor buildings, narrow streets dedicated to pedestrians and bikes, mixed usage between residential and commercial purposes, etc. -- would DRAMATICALLY improve long-term property values.

So who the hell is fighting to keep SF car-dependent, dirty, old, and sprawling? I just can't understand the resistance to new construction.

\- - - - -

Edit: To answer my own question, aside from property owners, we know that car owners are ferociously defensive of parking minimums and low density. The idea is to ensure constant free parking anywhere they go and to discourage traffic they think slows them down.

Trying not to sound as contemptuous as I feel, such people are making very basic errors in logic when they believe pedestrians add to, rather than subtract from, automobile congestion. Also, literally this entire country has been razed to accommodate automobile interests with the partial exception of the urban cores of New York and San Francisco. One would think that if driving were so important, such people might decide to live in an existing sprawling strip mall rather than insist on turning SF into one.

<comment><USER4> Well, many people are living in the housing that would have to be torn down, and replaced with non-rent controlled housing. They certainly oppose it. Others don't care to live across from heavy construction for a couple years, or see already heavily oversubscribed parking and public transport in their neighborhoods get significantly worse. Try getting a seat on bart at 24th st for most of the day. Or sometimes even getting on the busses in upper haight during commute hours.

As for cars, well, the difference between nyc and sf is that in the former, you can live without a car, and in sf, it is very difficult to live an adult life without a car. To list off many examples re sf: there are huge holes in public transportation, both temporally, safety wise (particularly for a petite woman), and geographically; there is not the same delivery culture for takeout, or laundry; grocery stores are far away from many places and don't deliver, though instacart helps some; there often aren't gyms or other services in reasonable (10 min) walking distance for large chunks of the city. We lived car-free in nyc and needed at least one car in sf. And once you have that car, and commit to the $600-$800/mo it costs, then you want to use it. Part of the reason to put up with occasional public transport headaches in nyc is you're saving the cost of a car. My take on public transport in sf is it would be worth it if the idiots that run what is, after all, a very rich city got their act together and improved public transport first rather than attempting to push people to not use cars in the vain hope that eventually muni and bart may be improved.

ps -- muni is wildly expensive compared to any other competent city, plus very slow

ps2 -- I dare say that most people who will disagree with my contention about transport in sf either haven't lived here or are young, able bodied, live in one of the few neighborhoods that are well-served, don't have kids, and often eat out or at work

<comment><USER5> "muni is wildly expensive compared to any other competent city"

This is just so not true. Transit is much more expensive in both Tokyo and London.

Agreed about SF transit being awful though.

<comment><USER4> combining the end-user and city-paid prices, it is

see, eg [http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/the-muni-death- spiral/C...](http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/the-muni-death- spiral/Content?oid=2176739)

       • Your Muni is slow. With an average vehicle speed of 8.1 mph, it is far and
       away the slowest major urban transit system in the nation. While some of
       this can be blamed on San Francisco's congestion and density, there are
       myriad methods of speeding up service other agencies have adopted that Muni
       hasn't. This isn't just an inconvenience for Muni's declining ridership;
       it's a major financial drain on a beleaguered system. Slow vehicle speeds
       force Muni to spend more money to provide less service. Muni's lethargy is
       literally costing it millions.

       • For these and other reasons, Muni spends more to operate its vehicles than
       virtually any comparable transit agency. For every mile Muni runs a bus in
       this city, it spends $19.21; comparable agencies nationwide pay between $10
       and $13. For every mile Muni runs a light-rail vehicle, it throws down
       $24.37; comparable rail services spend between $12 and $22.

<comment><USER5> That is an interesting link, thanks. I do wish it was better about providing sources though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Welcome to Californian People's Republic.</comment>


If truth is so valuable, why is there so much BS? - <AUTHOR> http://philosophytalk.org/pastShows/BS.html

<comment><USER2> If gold is so valuable, why are there so many rocks?</comment>


Romania Has The Fastest IPv6 Adoption Rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.maindevice.com/2012/06/07/romania-fastest-ipv6-adoption/ <comment><USER2> Romania has 2 major ISP's, one that has always been very innovative, forward- thinking, has kept prices as low as possible (100 Mbps, unlimited data, for $13 a month, in pretty much any urban area in the country, and even some rural ones), and the other who used to be the landline/dial-up monopoly, but right now are playing catch-up to the other one a bit, but still doing pretty well.

We're still waiting for carriers to start adopting LTE in Europe, though, and it probably won't happen until 2014 or so. Hopefully, they'll jump straight to LTE Advanced by then.

<comment><USER3> I'm living in Romania now and can confirm this. My friends in Germany can only dream about such uplinks. Internetwise, Germany feels like a Second World Country for me now. The rds founder seems like a very smart man. I never met him but I like him already :)

Let's see if Cluj can continue to build and hold the startup scene there.

<comment><USER4> I second that. I'm going from Germany every August to Romania and it feels like going to Internet Worderland. Cabletv + 100mbs unlimited for 8 euros, prepaid 3G cards with 5000mins+internet a 5euros, lots of free wireless. Not to mention the cool operator Zapp ( based on EVDO ), had 2Mbps in on a isolated mountain summit!

Meanwhile in Germany pretty much is a hindrance, beginning with DSL ( i hate the uplink ). Not to mention that Vodafone Germany is billing 3g internet like is made of gold.

EDIT: formatting

<comment><USER5> Contact me, please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No .. it is Bhutan .. with 8.37% adoption ;)

<comment><USER7> And a population of 3.6% of Romania... I think we can find a 700k pop city in Romania with a higher adoption than that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, but he's still right and I apologize for my error. But I couldn't really find Bhutan there :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As someone who's been watching these statistics obsessively for a while now, the most impressive part is how fast Romania's risen - they've gone from zero to 6% in literally a couple of months.

</comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately the article doesn't expand much useful information beyond the title...

TL;DR: > According to Google statistics, Romania leads the way with a 6.55% adoption rate, followed by France with 4.67%. Japan is on the third place so far with 1.57% but it seems here "users still experience significant reliability or latency issues connecting to IPv6-enabled websites."

</comment><comment><USER10> Apparently Romania is also popular for Cybercrime, [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_hackerville_romania...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_hackerville_romania/all/1) , related?

<comment><USER2> A funny story. When Bill Gates came to Romania to launch their Microsoft branch here, and before he gave his speech, the president (still in power now) made a "joke" about how _pirating_ Windows has helped Romania tremendously in the IT sector over the years. I'm not a big fan of the president, but to say that before the founder of Microsoft and before a crowd (and on TV, too), takes a lot of guts.

<comment><USER11> or a lot of stupidity

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder why Norway has 2x adaptation compared to neighboring Finland and Sweden?</comment>


We need Geneva convention for the internet, says new UN privacy chief - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/24/we-need-geneva-convention-for-the-internet-says-new-un-privacy-chief

<comment><USER2> 'Illegal combatants' would, of course, not be covered.</comment>


Netflix for Android has arrived - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/05/12/netflix-for-android-released-for-select-samsung-htc-handsets/

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, I can't find it on the Android Market using my HTC Incredible.

Edit: Direct link to android market. [https://market.android.com/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclien...](https://market.android.com/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient)</comment>