California's DNA Law Violates Privacy Protections Guaranteed by State - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-court-californias-dna-collection-law-violates-privacy-protections-guaranteed <comment><USER2> Here's another interesting fact.

Once the arrested bit is set, it is immutable in the eyes of the State of California. Law enforcement knows if you have been arrested in the past even if the specific reasons are expunged at the request of the arrestee. Also, there's a very narrow window to request that arrest records be expunged. If you are arrested and acquitted or the charges are dropped, get in contact with the court as soon as possible to make sure you are within the window.

<comment><USER3> That seems directly opposed to the presumption of innocence.

I guess the lawyers have a way of justifying this by separating different states of being "in the eyes of the law".

<comment><USER4> > I guess the lawyers have a way of justifying this...

Lawyers have other safeguards in the courtroom, so that random police habits don't mess up the entire system. For example, prior arrests are generally inadmissible. It doesn't mean this is a nonissue for citizens, but it blunts its ability to corrupt the entire process.

<comment><USER5> Connecting your statement with the dominating use of "plea deals" one sees that these "courtroom safeguards" mean pretty much nothing.

<comment><USER4> > plea deals

There are more violent crimes than can be tried. This is a _hard_ problem. Of the options, simplified a bit:

a) try fewer crimes and let more suspects free

b) try all crimes and forgo the right to a speedy trial

c) increase the funding of the criminal justice system by a factor of 10-100

d) allow prosecutors and defense attorneys to negotiate settlements in easy cases, to avoid wasting court resources, and providing a path for leniency for certain defendants

(d) has flaws, but I'm not surprised our system has opted for it as the least bad solution.

Legal scholars have struggled to find a better approach for decades. Curious to hear your recommendation, really interested in novel approaches to this issue.

<comment><USER5> The problem in the USA is not violent crime.

The problem is that there are too many arbitrary laws that are applied capriciously by prosecutors who don't care whether people are innocent or guilty, that these same prosecutors don't care whether the due process of law is fact not fiction, and finally that when these prosecutors deliberately subvert the process or threaten people with horrendous consequences unless they sign a plea deal (even when they know the accused is innocent), these people suffer no consequences.

<comment><USER4> > The problem in the USA is not violent crime.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean "violent crime" is the problem, I was talking about limited resources in the justice system. It's the ratio of crimes to trial resources that causes this problem, not the raw number of either alone. Scarcity / imbalance forces a dilemma, a dilemma that's tempting to ignore, because it's a hard problem.

Sometimes hard problems look simple to people who have never worked in the profession. It's like how people who've never written code ask, "Why don't programmers just write software without any bugs / that can't be hacked?"

On the other hand, sometimes an outsider has a fresh perspective that can point out flaws in old habits.

Could be either here, but let me explain why I think it's the former.

I worked in the criminal justice system in a major metro area. Most the people I knew in the profession swapped between defense and prosecution every few years, because they were interested in the process, not in scoring points for one side.

I strongly suspect that's because people who don't have that mixed perspective, the people who are just overzealous to one extreme or the other, they are worse at connecting with judges, who pride themselves on impartiality. Their crusader bias makes them bad at their job, so eventually they get burnt out and leave.

That's not to say there aren't obstacles to fairness in the US justice system. Real problems. There are a ton, some on each side. For example: Public defenders are vastly under-resourced. Prosecutors have resource dilemmas, but defenders are just fucked. Juries have zero sympathy for victims that aren't like them. Jurisdictions that are right next door to each other can approach low level crimes way differently, because of uneven resources, so walking a block can turn a no jail time misdemeanor into a ten year offense. Those with psychological problems or mental disabilities should basically never be put in front of a jury, as either a victim or as a defendant. Also, the mentally ill need solutions that aren't jail, but they're often shoehorned into a system that only makes their situation worse.

Having seen all that on a day to day basis, the problem you described, where prosecutors just love framing innocents because fuck justice? That doesn't line up with my experience at all. I mean, I'm all for safeguards, but there are some other issues too, some of which seemed slightly more common to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't the state collect DNA from all newborns by law as well?

Now, I do see in principle why one would want one's DNA profile removed if an arrest doesn't result in conviction, but if the state already collects DNA at birth by law, would that not supercede these cases? Alternatively, the state could simply pass laws making retention from this input stream legal.

<comment><USER7> Does it? I was not aware of that. I know that my state, Pennsylvania, does no such collection -- or at least it did not a decade ago when my children were being born.

<comment><USER8> My impression is that the collection is so routine and automatic that most parents don't even notice it's happening, and would need to assert themselves in advance in writing to exercise their religious opt-out.

This site suggests Pennsylvania's policies for sample retention (8 months) and use of results (by subject and their medical provider only) are more restrictive than "save indefinitely" states like California:

[http://www.babysfirsttest.org/newborn- screening/states/penns...](http://www.babysfirsttest.org/newborn- screening/states/pennsylvania)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, during newborn delivery there is so much going on, most parents will not notice that this happens at all.

So my question is what leg does the EFF stand on when making this complaint?

<comment><USER9> > So my question is what leg does the EFF stand on when making this complaint?

The honorable Carol Yaggy, trial judge for the superior court of San Francisco. [http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/revpub/A125542M.PDF](http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/revpub/A125542M.PDF)

If indeed DNA is being collected at birth, without consent, the EFF would have similar grounds to object to that. If an act is against the law, it doesn't matter that the state is breaking that same law in another instance. Breaking the law twice doesn't validate it, or, as my first grade teacher Mrs. Thompson might have said, two wrongs don't make a right.

<comment><USER6> It does and people are aware. It's offered as screening for diseases, etc. Few parents opt out. Fingerprints are also collected at DMV, they should look into that, afaik, there is no opt out, except not getting an ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > California officials argue that the court should follow the lead of the U.S. > Supreme Court, which ruled in Maryland v. King that citizens' privacy rights > are outweighed by the government's need to use DNA to identify arrestees, > just as it uses fingerprints.

The article makes it sounds like the Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue. Wouldn't that make this California case moot?

<comment><USER11> In Maryland v. King the crucial difference is that according to the Maryland law in question the DNA sample has to be destroyed if there is no conviction and it can't be processed before the arrestee has been charged. (according to wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_v._King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_v._King))

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Hundreds of thousands of Californians who were once in custody but never > charged still have their DNA stored in law enforcement databases

Can those databases be cleaned from this information? By a judge request maybe?

</comment><comment><USER13> I have a lot of faith in the EFF but in this case I think they are confused. Our DNA is one of the least private aspects of ourselves. We share the vast majority of it with our family and even neighbors. The idea of hiding it is absurdly impossible. We leave it everywhere we go in quantities that are more than sufficient to completely reconstruct our genome. We would literally need to wear full body latex suits with filtered respirators to keep it private. In the medium term, the idea of having private DNA while living in a public environment is as incredible as desiring to have a public social experience while keeping your face completely hidden. DNA sampling arrestees is no more invasive than taking their photo. It is only our current technical capacity that makes us see the two as different.

<comment><USER14> This is kinda like saying that because our bodies constantly emit electromagnetic radiation that could be used to construct a detailed nude image, using a camera with the tools needed to do such isn't invasive.

What happens when we have the technology to read internal monologues? What happens when the police are able to hear the lawyer talking to their client because they are talking too loud for the new technology... if they didn't want to be heard should they whisper... and what happens when even that is too loud? Under this reasoning, most all privacy is as good as dead and we are just waiting for the technology to get here.

<comment><USER13> When it comes to DNA we are already nude. You will have better luck keeping your face private and going about a normal life than hiding your genome from the world. The former can be accomplished with a mask. The latter requires living in a plastic bubble and never sharing the genomic information of anyone.

I do not want to live in a world where everyone must be masked, and although the utility of sharing information about DNA is of a different kind I will also be profoundly sad if we are too afraid of the bogeyman to let other people know what we are made of.

Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm. I challenge you to provide an example. Digitized DNA sequence information from tens of millions of people is floating around in the world. If this were as dangerous as some people make it out to be I would expect there to have been many problems already.

(The example that I have heard is when someone learns their biological parents are not who they think they are. Although this may be troubling I find it absurd that someone should have the right to delude or be deluded about their genetic background. At worst it can pose a dangerous liability as someone lacks information about diseases that may affect them or their offspring.)

<comment><USER15> > Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one > case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm

Wrong:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the- dark-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-dark-side-of- dna-databases/408709/)

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately you are mistaken. The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics.

> Two seemingly unrelated individuals—one white and one black—shared the same > two markers at nine of the 13 places in the standard DNA profile.

Forensic standards of identity are based on a few _hundred_ base pairs of the three billion in each of our genomes. It is scientifically dishonest to represent this as a conclusive test of identity. The markers are not distributed randomly and large numbers of false positive matches against microsattelite databases are the norm.

If the full genome sequence of an individual were the standard of truth this would not be an issue. It would resolve the problem of mistaken DNA identity entirely! This is the problem the EFF should seek to solve.

Try again.

<comment><USER14> >The problem here is not the sharing of DNA information, but the incredibly poor resolution of the standard tests that are used in forensics.

This seems like a goal post shift from 'DNA information alone cannot cause harm' to 'sharing of DNA information alone cannot cause harm', with the alone excluding all uses of DNA information. To me would be like arguing that giving everyone a nuclear bomb is not harmful, it is their use of the nuclear bomb that will cause harm. Or to generalize further, the harm is always the fault of the last event in a chain of events, and all events leading up to it cannot be blamed.

To make another extreme comparison, violations of the 4th amendment related to searches aren't harmful, it is only the (mis)use of that information that is harmful. That isn't an argument I'm buying.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CGRP: A new era for migraine treatment - <AUTHOR> https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cgrp-new-era-migraine-treatment-2018030513315 <comment><USER2> Decades of migraines. I know know now that mines are directly related to my diet, although stress, breathing, posture, sleep, screen time and lack of exercice are all aggravating factors.

But food is the trigger. Regular important quantity of sugar or milk can trigger it. A huge meal as well. Something very hard to digest aw well.

But here is what prevented me make the link between food and my head exploding for all those years: it can takes up to 48h between the trigger consumption and the start lf the pain. Also, the trigger is the straw breaking the camel back, but it can take some time to eat again and again the same thing before reaching the tippung point.

Once I realized that, a diet journal was enough to notice trends and understand what my body reacted to.

I don't think all migraines are food related, but it's worth investigating given the handicap real migraines are in ones life.

</comment><comment><USER3> My wife is a lifelong migraine sufferer and these anti-CGRP drugs really seem to be working (fingers crossed). She'd literally tried everything and had given up. Virtual high-five to these researchers

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish they would focus more on what causes these symptoms rather than on pain control.

I began having migraines in my early thirties. My mother was a long time sufferer. Coincidentally, a few months before I began having them, she told me birth control pills had caused hers. I was having them the three weeks of the month that I took the pill and not having them the week I was off the pill to menstruate.

When I went for a refill, they didn't have my usual brand available. My headaches temporarily went away, but soon came back. With this additional piece of evidence, I concluded the pill was indeed the most likely cause.

I informed my husband that I would complete the pill packets I had on hand, I think three months worth, but I wasn't getting my prescription renewed. So we had three months to come up with some other birth control method.

I went off the pill and the headaches promptly cleared up.

I'm sure there are myriad different things that can cause a combination of headache and nausea. If you can figure out the cause for the person in question and treat that, it's a vastly superior solution to pain management type approaches.

Also, the light and noise sensitivity mentioned in the article is something I successfully treat as a symptom of magnesium deficiency by upping my consumption of magnesium rich foods. I routinely get such symptoms following fever or vomiting and they are readily cleared up by improving my magnesium status.

I didn't invent that solution. I learned it from an internet forum. It has worked consistently for me for years.

</comment><comment><USER5> I used to have migranes every two weeks on average but they stopped when I switched from a western diet to pure vegetarian ("vegan") diet some time in May last year. I'm not 100% certain it's the diet (how could I be?) but I can't ignore the causality.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am really interested in how this progresses, as someone who has migraines it'll be great to have another option vs what's currently available.

</comment><comment><USER7> So... do we know why CGRP exists in the brain in the first place? What is its function? Why is it released, and what does it accomplish?

<comment><USER8> > CGRP has been shown to activate the mitogen-activated protein kinases > (MAPKs), which are phosphorylated in some tissues following CGRP activation. > This can lead to the proliferation of gingival fibroblasts (215), via PKA- > dependent and -independent pathways (214). CGRP can protect cultured > vascular smooth muscle cells from oxidative stress-induced apoptosis by a > signaling pathway involving activation of extracellular signal-regulated > kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and p38 MAPKs (354).

([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187032/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187032/))

To simplify, migraines are a result of oxidative stress, and CGRP helps reduce oxidative stress. Seems a bit reckless to me to be decreasing CGRP

Anecdotally, while I've never had a proper migraine (but my mom does occasionally), I used to get terrible headaches. I've completely eliminated this by eating an anti inflammatory diet and taking a collagen supplement. Glycine is the main amino acid in collagen, many (most?) people are deficient, and is used to make glutathione, you body's natural antioxidant and detoxer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The only thing that makes me survive migraines is marijuana, I've tried a ton medicament and all of them make you feel dumb or sleepy, with a good hybrid weed you can do almost anything.

<comment><USER10> Good weed, a dark cold room, and some white noise like a shower running. Best cures I've found so far.

I've never found the current drugs more helpful than a Tylenol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read this as "GDPR: A new era for migraine treatment"

I need a vacation!

<comment><USER12> Thx4blog.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker news from command line in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/socketubs/pyhn

<comment><USER2> Looking good. Here is an analysis of your project: [https://www.codacy.com/public/socketubs/pyhn/dashboard](https://www.codacy.com/public/socketubs/pyhn/dashboard)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with users on your machines? - <AUTHOR>

Hey, folks. Most of the software I build gets deployed to Actual Linux Boxes -- either virtual or metal -- and I have yet to find a good solution for user management on those machines.
These boxes nominally live in the cloud, and not in a datacenter that I control.
I'm looking for something that can automate the process of adding and removing shell users on a large number of boxes, including access to databases and such.
What does the HN community use to deal with this? <comment><USER2> openldap, pam_ldap, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have set these up a number of times, but ran into some... fun problems:

1\. It's a central point of control. If I use a cloud-hosted LDAP service and that gets 0wned by l33t haxx0rz, then I am in the soup.

2\. LDAP can't add/remove users to PostgreSQL et al.

3\. Even with NSCD, network connection hiccups can and will lock you out of your machines, usually exactly at the time when you really need to be on them.

4\. LDAP flailover is a black art. I ended up having my entire authentication infrastructure wedge itself shut during a "chaos monkey" testing run, where the master went down and came back up, and then locked itself into eternal war with its replacement.

<comment><USER2> 1\. What's the alternative, replication from an offline directory server? LDAP server could be in a VPN, [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22217567/create- a-hybrid-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22217567/create-a-hybrid- cloud-between-aws-ec2-and-my-local-openstack-instance)

2\. Would need custom syncrepl client, e.g. [http://www.python- ldap.org/doc/html/ldap-syncrepl.html](http://www.python- ldap.org/doc/html/ldap-syncrepl.html)

3\. Just did some reading, apparently SSSD is the current best practice, it can work with different backends, including AD & LDAP, [http://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/sssd-for-ldap- au...](http://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/sssd-for-ldap-auth-on- linux/) & [http://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/sssd-for-ldap- au...](http://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/sssd-for-ldap-auth-on- linux/) & [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Enterprise/Authentication/sssd](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Enterprise/Authentication/sssd)

4\. Was that with OpenLDAP? Perhaps MS AD (works with sssd) gets more high- availabilty testing in the real world?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very informative set of links, I'll dig in -- thanks!.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chickpeas threatened by extreme weather conditions and genetics - <AUTHOR> https://vtdigger.org/2018/02/15/genetic-limits-threaten-chickpeas-globally-critical-food/ <comment><USER2> I've never tried growing them but apparently pulses are a good 'green manure' in that the plants absorb beneficial nutrients that can be composted to improve soil quality.

Are green-thumbs up to the task of preserving these heirloom varieties via their vegie patch!?</comment>


Myths about Financing Start-ups that Hurt Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/01/five-myths-about-financing-start-ups-that-hurt-entrepreneurs.html

<comment> old-gregg The piece is written completely in reverse, spreading popular myths as opposed to debunking them. Actually it _does_ take a lot of money to start a new business. True, an "average startup" probably "gets going" on 25K or less, but you don't want to head where average startups usually go (oblivion).

And just for the record, 25K is about 3 months of modest living for a team of 3 in SF/NYC/Boston. Then you should start generating ~20K/month of revenue to support yourself. Zero to 20K in 3 months? Good luck with that.

An "average" _successful_ startup goes through several rounds of funding, just look at some recent exits and see how many of them took 25K or less.

About bank financing: the "myth" is true. You won't use it. Banks always tie their loans to either solid revenue history or personal obligations of the founders. It won't be any different from taking a home equity, don't do it.

Tech startups aren't restaurants: they have zero revenue for the first 1..3 years. That's why looking at federal reserve stats for small businesses is pointless. Getting a loan to run a roofing business isn't the same as getting a loan to sit and code for a year.

<comment><USER2> > 25K is about 3 months of modest living for a team of 3 in SF/NYC/Boston

An excellent reason not to do a startup in one of those cities. They are expensive to live in and full of tempting and expensive distractions. If you're serious about bootstrapping a web startup and can choose where you live, then living in an unglamorous place with a great net connection is one of the easiest ways to stretch the time you have before funds run out.

<comment><USER3> That is true. That will definitely get you more time to build your app. What you lose out on is the connections to the people that being in a startup hub will get you. Those connections are king for getting talent to help you build and scale your app. The other thing those connections can get you is face time with the media to actually market the app.

None of the above items are _essential_ to building a successful internet startup, but like most things in life there are tradeoffs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not impressed by this article, unless by "startup" you mean "pizza parlor". The stats are bogus and misleading.

Ok, so if I was in bad a mood, I'd make fun of this professor of entrepreneurship, who never enterprised anything? Pontificating about startups from a cushy desk job is one thing. Actually doing it and speaking from experience is another entirely. Sorry about the rant.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do more than 1 in 4000 people _really_ die from falling in the shower?

<comment><USER6> Showers or tubs are pretty dangerous, but not for the 18-35 demographic.

<comment><USER7> I also thought that was kind of misleading. Probably more than 1/4000 people who die are killed in the shower, but that's not really a relevant comparison. When people get old they probably die in the shower fairly regularly. There was definitely an implication that the probability of getting vc money for your startup is less than the probability of you dying in the shower, say, tomorrow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He mentions debt but not security. Most banks won't finance a pre-revenue company without personal guarantees. And if you end-up borrowing against your own assets, you're basically financing yourself.</comment>


The complete TeX source (DVI) - <AUTHOR> http://tex.loria.fr/tex-source/tex-source.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The above is a typeset book version (so in DVI form, is misleadingly named). For the actual source, see [http://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex- archive/systems/knuth/dist/tex/t...](http://tug.ctan.org/pub/tex- archive/systems/knuth/dist/tex/tex.web)</comment>


Ask HN: Modern, accessible draggable list? - <AUTHOR> I'm working on a side project that allows people to reorder items in a long list¹. I've been using html5draggable, which works fine. But I don't want to neglect accessibility in my project.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find an accessible draggable list library out there except for Dragon Drop (https://github.com/schne324/dragon-drop) which is based on the old Dragula library and isn't usable on mobile². Before I try modding together my own thing, I wondered if anyone on HN knew of an alternative. Things I've tried so far:
- html5sortable
- SortableJS
- drag-on-drop
- Draggable JS
- Draggabilly
- table-dragger
¹ Pairs of residency programs, in case you were curious.
² Specifically it's slow, and dragging an item causes the page to scroll <comment><USER2> If your list is one-dimensional (not a grid), this should meet your requirements: [https://github.com/atlassian/react-beautiful- dnd](https://github.com/atlassian/react-beautiful-dnd)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely try that out, thank you!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which developer tools do you use and need? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,<p>Everyone uses different dev tools (programming languages, IDEs, workflows, etc).
Which ones do you use on a daily basis and which ones you need to boost your productivity? <comment><USER2> I use QtCreator, vscode.

What I need is a better way to develop linux server app on my mac.

I'm using either ssh or docker on mac to have a linux environment.

On mac, the docker container is extremely slow and it keeps my cpu busy all the time, the laptop gets very hot.

vscode/ssh remote is a better solution, but requires reliable network, (hard to use in a coffee shop)

I still prefer a local setup.

<comment><USER2> I found this [https://github.com/linux-noah/noah](https://github.com/linux- noah/noah) !

looks promising

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use [https://wakatime.com](https://wakatime.com) to boost my productivity with project goals.</comment>


Notes on my first iPad experiences in a blog post - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/04/03/myIpadIsHere.html <comment><USER2> I'm writing this post on an iPad.

It's a very nice device. Noticeably heavier than a kindle 2. Typing on this is a breeze, but not as accurate as with a keyboard. Write now I'm typing about as fast as I can on a normal keyboard (landscape mode). Making several typos here and there, but it's nice to do short messages with. I won't correct typos in the next paragraph.

No PDF support but ere are some programs that support is. Noticablt GoodReader which has drop box support.

"the above should have read" No PDF support but there are some programs that support it. Noticeably GoodReader which has drop box support.

If you type slower on it, it's more accurate. Think in the 20-30 WPM range.

Netflix on it, wow. Really cool. The screen on it is gorgeous. Everything looks really good, except upscaled iPhone apps. Most of those are muddy looking. For example, Fieldrunners for iPad looks a zillion times crisper than the iPhone version upscaled.

Some media (an iTunes movie I bought, some games) don't have very good volume. Other things are loud and clear, so there's some rough edges here and there.

Scrolling in this hacker news text entry box is annoying. Similar to using it with an iPhone. It needs a scroll bar (likely Safaris fault).

Overall it's about as intuitive as an iPhone with a few new things here and there to learn. It's really fun to consume content on it, particularly books and websites. Im not sure I would want to create much on it. Creative apps will have to have very intuitive, easy, automated UI's to make creation easy. Part of me wants to see TextMate ported to it, but another part of me thinks that's a horrible idea. Maybe with an external keyboard...

I can see a lot of people buying one of these and using it more than their laptop/desktop. Really, if you didn't have to sync the iPad with iTunes, you could forgo using a desktop entirely. Not an option for techies or hackers, but few people fall into that category.

It has gotten easier to type on since starting this post. Definitely try one out. This is some very cool tech.

</comment><comment><USER3> _BTW, I thought I should mention that my netbook has no trouble with AVI files. It runs VLC, an open source app that plays anything as long as it isn't DRM'd (and some stuff that is DRM'd)._

I really hate this. It seems to me like people really don't understand audio/video encoding and compression. After putting in patches to ffmpeg I found an appreciation for the capabilities and limitations of the software. For example, the reason why his netbook probably isn't able to play 720p H.264 is probably because it doesn't have an integrated hardware decoder chip. The iPad does. After seeing the kind of nasty things that people do with video formats I don't really blame Apple for limiting the video decoder. FFmpeg, for example, is perfectly willing to package AVC/H.264 video and AAC audio into an avi container in complete violation of the specification.

It's not like Apple leaves the user no choice, either. Quicktime 7 is capable of transcoding almost everything I've found to AVC/H.264 in an MPEG4 container.

I'm not claiming I'm an expert on signal processing, but it always seems like the people who know the least are screaming the loudest.

<comment><USER4> People don't care. If they have an AVI file then they want to watch it. If their netbook plays it, but their iPad doesn't then they're going to blame the iPad for not managing to do something that open source software can manage.

<comment><USER5> And what is the problem with that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Boy, just when I thought Dave Winer's ramblings can't get any less coherent he does this. This stream of consciousness stuff is certainly not working for him.

<comment><USER7> What are you talking about it? It made perfect sense to me. Bathtub monkey sausage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> To convert any video source (including AVI and--don't tell anyone!--DVD's) to MPEG4/H.264 to play on the iPad or some other device, you can use HandBrake: <http://handbrake.fr/>

</comment><comment><USER9> My first big surprise of the iPad is how good the keyboard is in landscape mode. Without doing a proper typing test I feel like I'm probably at 50+ wpm already.

</comment><comment><USER10> Really? This is the first review I've seen that claims the iPad is difficult to use. It's really not very hard to buy the Big Lebowski from the iTunes store for 9.99, rent it for 2.99, or to stream it from Netflix. I'd much rather do these things than load biglebowski.avi from a disk.

<comment><USER11> You'd rather pay again than watch existing content you already bought? Is this just video or is it not worth your time to rip CDs or import live FLACs either?

His point about .avis is interesting. At first I thought he was playing dumb, but on second thoughts why should people understand that file A is part of Apple's blessed ecosystem and file B isn't.

It's basically the same reason I don't have an Apple TV (though my friends with them have "hacked" them in some manner to allow this). And I've never figured out why I can't even find a good step-by-step guide for getting mpeg-4 part 2 video plus mp3 audio in an .avi container onto my iPod. It can play the video and audio if presented in the right manner and I understand that remuxing might be required but it appears everyone just gives up and re- encodes.

<comment><USER12> _You'd rather pay again than watch existing content you already bought?_

Where did anybody _buy_ movies in AVI format?</comment></comment></comment>


E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/science/recycling-cardboard-online-shopping-environment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> It seems that shipping trucks are more ripe for EV adoption than consumer vehicles with centralized fleet infrastructure for charging, and capacity for multiple/larger batteries on board trucks. Not sure why there hasn't been more activity on this, but with Amazon's rumored entry to logistics it could be a chance for a new approach.

<comment><USER3> > shipping trucks are more ripe for EV adoption than consumer vehicles with > centralized fleet infrastructure for charging,

Yes, but the bottom line is always the cost. When EV is cheaper it will happen.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about the current education system? - <AUTHOR> Is it good, bad? What can be done better? What problems do you identify? Is it upsetting? are you used to it? <comment><USER2> Trying to make kids memorize a bunch of stuff that's unimportant to them is incredibly inefficient and the information fades fast.

Having them do this at the expense of play (accelerated self-guided learning through social simulation, art and sports), at the expense of physical activity and in an insanely toxic social environment, is plain crazy.

Apprenticeship, where one learns what they need to learn when they need to apply it, and then uses the newly learned skills to achieve own goals beats that hand down. Look up Tobi from shopify and his posts about his learning to write software in Germany's apprenticeship programs.

Convincing kids that they are smart or stupid based on their teacher's opinion on the kids' obedience and ability to regurgitate uninteresting (to them) data is harmful at best. Convincing them that what they are experiencing in school is learning is even more harmful.

Schools are great at efficiently enacting a plan that has little to do with children's needs and little to do with learning.

Like a close friend who attended an elite private school with tiny classes and a lot of self-elected subjects, time allocation and projects said, "when I went to college I thought I was surrounded by idiots. Later I realized these were kids who didn't get a chance to learn good writing, or public speaking, or to plan, schedule and execute on their own nprojects, or to navigate bureaucracy."

I'd say same goes for other important life skills, like financial planning, media preparedness (understanding propaganda and advertising), job hunting, entrepreneurship, art, etc.

<comment> V-2 _" Trying to make kids memorize a bunch of stuff that's unimportant to them is incredibly inefficient and the information fades fast."_

I've come to the conclusion that it's not about this information itself. It's more about _learning how to learn_. This is the skill that the education system helped me develop, and which is useful for me long after the "training data sets" the school used have fallen into complete oblivion. Personalized mnemotechnics.

<comment><USER3> The problem is almost all schools fail miserably at teaching people to learn.

First off, we learn best when our learning is motivated by something more concrete than "good grades". As an example, I had a hard time with advanced math in school. When I went on to build engineering projects that required advanced math, the same concepts that mostly eluded me previously became fairly straightforward.

Secondly, learning happens best when the material presented is varied, and revisited many times over a long period of time. Schools tend to compress learning about a given subject into a limited time frame, then only revisit it in final exams.

Third, learning occurs far better from trying to recall and apply information than from having it passively presented to you. Instead of having school be mostly lecture with a few exams, school should be mostly tests, with the teacher going back and clarifying only things that many students had trouble with.

In the end, school mostly teaches people to sit still and follow instructions.

<comment><USER2> > In the end, school mostly teaches people to sit still and follow > instructions.

And we all know that following instructions does not lead to fulfilling lives, and that sitting still for long periods of time is a sure predictor for a shorter lifespan.

Schools were institutionalized and were good for preparing cheap factory labor.

Our society no longer needs this.

So schools fail the economy and the kids. Preparing today's children for yesterday.

The very institutions that proclaim themselves as the beacon of knowledge and enlightenment act as the opposite.

Ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's bad, mainly because it was built at the end of the 19th century and since then it's calcified. It's like having legacy code and instead of refactoring it when you need to make changes, you build more stuff on that, get more technical debt.

To add some context to what I mean, the current system is largely based on the decisions of the Committee of Ten[1]. If you read that short note, you'll notice that it's pretty much applying the lessons of industrialization to education ie. assembly line approach.

The example of the assembly line approach is especially relevant for me because I don't think that it is applicable to humans. Different humans learn at different rates so it doesn't make sense to group them by age. Additionally, teaching everyone the same things, while making things nice and uniform, takes away the biggest motivation for learning - curiosity.

This is completely anecdotal, but the further away I moved from this assembly line education system (from high school to college, from college to self- taught developer) the better grades I got (college) or more money (work) and the more time I spent learning, even things that are unrelated to my main focus because the world is fascinating.

As for an idea on how to fix this, I admit that I don't have a concrete one. I've skimmed the topic and the thing that drew my attention most is the Montessori system[2] system of education. It proposes a few points relevant to what I wrote in the previous paragraph, but also one that I find particularly interesting to developers: "Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours".

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Ten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Ten) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education)

</comment><comment><USER5> There is very little good about the current education system:

1/ Dividing kids in age based groups is very poor. They only learn negative behaviour from each other. Skill based would be more interesting as the younger kids would learn from the older students and the older ones learn some responsibility towards the older students

2/ Scientific research has proven teacher based education to be sub-optimal. You take away the inquisitive nature of the kids. They will take what the adult says as true and fail to look for different ways to reach the same goal.

3/ School just isn't fun. Information is pumped into children which they forget once it has been tested. Let them discover things in a playful way and they will remember it much longer.

4/ Exams really only test how well one can game exams and tests, not how well one understood the matter. Test should be used as a personal measure to check if you understood everything and if you are ready to move on to more complex issues, not as a benchmark compared to others.

And so much more.

<comment><USER6> My high school had a vertical curriculum. From the age of 12 to 18, every student got to select 7 different subjects (plus sport) each semester. Most students would accelerate a level in one subject they were proficient at, although due to the 'levels' of classes it would usually end up with each level being 95% a certain age.

There were exceptions, like one student (may have been a savant) finished his high school certificate in four subject areas 5 years early.

This curriculum had its weaknesses. I accelerated in Math at the age of 13 after starting high school. I was then in a class with no friends, and without much social interaction, I'd zone out and spend the lesson trawling the internet.

Since that class, I've struggled with maths ever since and ended up eventually returning down to a standard level for my final two years of high school.

Happy to answer any other questions about having a vertical curriculum for those that are curious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm in no way an expert, but I've pretty much seen the gamut: private preschool, public elementary school, charter middle school, inner-city public middle-school, elite private boarding school, magnet public high-school . . . I think the public education system is a travesty, but I know it also doesn't make sense to talk about "the system" as if there's anything approaching uniformity. Detroit Public Schools and Bloomfield Hills public schools are worlds apart.

And even still, today's education system might be the best there's ever been . . . most people learn how to read . . .

This doesn't address higher-education, which is a whole 'nother shit-show . . .

</comment><comment><USER8> I think the current education system is inefficient at best. It also fails to expose kids to variety of skills/professions out there enough, so they can get a taste of what it's like to be this or that. Most kids don't know what they want to do even after starting college because all they've dealt with has been subjects that taught them the tools (e.g. mathematics, language) without giving them context.

Further to that, instead of focusing on minimalism and utility, each subjects goes to depths far beyond of what most kids need to know to make use of. Lo and behold, they're going to forget majority of it in a month. And some subjects have gone completely off the rails, like English, with the main focus on past literature. That's not what natural languages are most used for. Arguments, public speaking, legal, journalism, marketing. These matter day in day out, not what Shakespeare spewed while he was high on an Autumn afternoon. That's fine too but let the kids do it on their own time and focus the efforts in equipping them with critical thinking, etc for when they enter the wild!

</comment><comment><USER9> Very simple, the problem is not education but the true purpose of it. If education is a mean to earn more money, or the best way to get to the top and it doesn't matter how to get it, then learning only teach you what to avoid and how to simulate being a person.

Education is about making up what is important for us as a society. If we are to allow million of people to starve and get convince that what we see is just a natural state of affairs, then we have defined education as a system not about us as a society but about you as an individual. Society must speaks out with their pockets: If you are paying low wages to scientist, teachers and doctors, you are educating people about what to do with their lives. Forget about the shiny words, education is a lot about economic, incentives and giving people a decent life. Education can't be build without a framework and a clear purpose. Today all of us know what is the purpose of education: save yourself, stay alive, survive. The rest is just a hollow mud of words, deceitful, vain group of vacuous words.

In this forum virtual reality can be turned into a platform for education. We can use virtual reality to replace opium and get people sideway of our way, that is convert into passive, sleeping minds.

But otherwise, we could transform virtual reality into a platform for action, were people are actively engaged into learning and helping others to create and promote knew ways of learning and discovering what is being a human being in the 21th century.

We all want feedback, learning is about communication for action not for self- oppression. I am for an education for action. Now, go, ruin the idea, sell the product, crook the intention, ban the action and feed the vultures and continue educating for succeed.

</comment><comment><USER10> I find the use of examinations and tests to assess the "quality" of the student non-ideal.

It's very possible to perform very well on tests with minimal actual comprehension of the material through memorization. In fact, it's quite possibly easier to memorize solutions than to actually learn to solve them.

<comment><USER11> Do you have a proposed solution to test understanding rather than memory?

I think possibly regular problems. E.g. with learning code, you put each question into a solution by learning the way to do it, and then implement a solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Education! First and foremost, teachers must be paid very well, they are the stewards of knowledge...

Secondly, globalization without universal cultural appreciation has done a lot of damage to what we could consider our collective human heritage. A great dream would be to have schools that rotate around the continents, so that students/scholars/people would be exposed to the best of what other parts of the globe have to offer. It would forward-leap humanity a lot if there were simply better crosstalk between tribes.

Thirdly, the emphasis of education should not be to create/fuck/produce/consume but to actually emphasize co-reliance of beings, species, environment, nature. We cannot exist without our planet, and although we can drive fast places, most people do not realize at what a cost this simple luxury comes. Sure we can advance and make up for some damage, but not making damage in the first place is generally the best idea.

I suppose my main beef is that education is not looked upon as a topic worthy of evolution, when it is in fact the head of the inch-worm of humanity-at- large.

</comment><comment><USER13> * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto)

* [http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm](http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm) _

</comment><comment><USER14> It's too expensive, takes too long and fails to accommodate the diversity of educational needs. It also does fairly little to help people find suitable careers during adolescence.

That said, these problems are widely known and discussed. Alternatives such as Montessori education are becoming more available. Most American 18-year-olds are reasonably numerate and literate; some even manage to pick up some scientific, historical or foreign language knowledge as well.

In hindsight, the weirdest thing about it was how difficult it was to find suitable times to go to the bathroom.

</comment><comment><USER15> Its becoming more of a business than a public good. College prices are out of control - you need to get into large debt to do anything. Very little support for people who needed to work to support themselves after (or during) high school. Grants are awarded based on parents income regardless of relationship with parents (mine disowned me after I came out), unless you get a judge to legally separate yourself from them.

</comment><comment><USER16> I went to a Waldorf school up through eighth grade, and it was wonderful. Then I went to a run-of-the-mill private high school, and it was hell.

</comment><comment><USER17> The current education system is broken, yet it's designed to prepare people to the real world, which is even more broken.

We can't fix education without fixing the rest of society. The system is so complex and inconsistent, we simply can't expect a kid that keeps what makes him good (curiosity, honesty, idealism) to thrive in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think we probably need to pay teachers significantly more if we want to improve things, at least until we understand education sufficiently well to be able to train anyone to do the job.

Back in the early 1900s, and even through a significant part of the century, teaching was nearly the only place for graduates of top women's colleges, at least until they got married. Upwards of 90% of employed graduates of these schools were teaching. Whether that was a matter of it being the most respectable or the most lucrative thing for women to be doing, the fact is that it had a pretty great talent pool to work with. By the 1980s/90s, when you looked at the top 10% of women in terms of academics, only about 10% of them had any interest in teaching as a profession [1].

Now, both the money and the respect are lacking. The perception is that any idiot can become a teacher as long as they can make it through their four years of college. Some people will be quick to say that you can't teach for the money. While that's certainly the case in the US right now, and it agrees with the overall notion that it's much better to be in a job you love, it ignores a lot of the problem. Top students, when they pick what area of studies to pursue, are bound to think about the prestige and earning potential of their future careers, though the amounts of those will differ for different people. If you could easily be headed for a job where you'll make upwards of $100k, accepting $40-50k is a lot for some people to swallow. Suppose I think I'd really enjoy teaching, and hopefully even be good at it, but asking me to be unable to retire for ~40 years, versus the 7-10 I can manage otherwise, is a bit much. Even if I'm not doing my ideal job, I can afford some hobbies that will make up for that. I like sailing, skiing, and traveling, and I'd like to get my pilot's license. Teaching isn't going to pay for any of that. So I make my trade-off, reducing by one the pool of potential teachers. And there are a lot of others doing the same thing.

I have many more things I could say, but I should wrap up my rant. I also believe that home life has an enormous influence on school performance, and I think land use patterns in the US increase this effect by reducing community cohesion, and along with it possibility of parents who struggle being assisted by the people around them.

[1] Somerville College Report, 1987 and 1996. (I've used statistics from Oxford here, but the trends are similarly mirrored for US. I just don't have a resource handy.)

<comment><USER19> > Some people will be quick to say that you can't teach for the money. [...]

> Top students, when they pick what area of studies to pursue, are bound to > think about the prestige and earning potential of their future careers [...]

To support this point, if the profession is lucrative and respected, it attracts both people who love it and people who just want prestige. If the profession is not prestigious, less people who would love it choose it (i.e. only those who want to work in it _despite_ its status), the rest being filled with drop-outs from other areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Relevant [https://youtu.be/H5NUv0nOQCU](https://youtu.be/H5NUv0nOQCU)

</comment><comment><USER17> We all know what the problem is.

The solution is to preserve curiosity and honesty. These are the only traits that matter.

</comment><comment><USER21> teaching should be a private affair. If you want supersmart kids, avoid sending them to the compliance system. Governmet intervention has to be minimized from now on.

</comment><comment><USER22> Speaking in terms of the USA here.

Garbage. An almost complete waste of time and energy. For grades K-12 a lot of it is just babysitting, to give kids a place to be and keep them out of trouble while their parents are at work. I value my primary school education very little.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that college is a scam, I would say it is often one of the poorest financial investments people make, and it's even worse because we trick naive 18 year olds into doing it. College is not for you to find yourself, and it's not for you to waste time pursuing a degree that can't help you support yourself and pay back the insane amount of debt you took on to go there.

The current generation of kids was told that you need to go to college or you'll be a failure in life. My dad constantly was saying that if we fucked up and didn't get into a good college we'd be "Making hoagies at Wawa". They say your major doesn't matter, it just matters that you have a degree - you can figure out the rest later.

It's a shame no one sits kids down and says - "Hey, you're about to take out one of the largest loans of your life, one that you'll have to pay many years, maybe even decades. Why are you doing that? What career do you want? Will this degree get you there? What can you expect to earn with this degree - can you pay down these loans with it? If your loans are X, you will be paying _at least_ Y a month."

Most people I know did not get a talk like that from their parents, or high school teachers/guidance counselors. I wish they did.

Some things to improve the current system:

1\. Not every kid needs to go to college. Are you bad at that book learning stuff? That's fine - push more kids into trade schools.

2\. In the upper grades of primary school, focus on teaching kids the things that will actually matter and are useful. Financial things - how to do your taxes, how to use and maintain a budget, how to pay your bills on time. Life things - applying for jobs, finding an apartment, what careers pay best and how to get into them. Civil rights - how to protect yourself from the police. Real life things that will actually benefit them.

3\. Encourage kids to do community college for two years then transfer to a real college to save money. The "college experience" isn't worth the price most pay.

4\. Hammer it into kids' heads that unless you're going to MIT, Harvard or Yale, where you go to school doesn't matter. Your degree and the field you choose to go into matters a lot more. Require all colleges to provide what the average jobs and starting salaries are for all majors before a student is allowed to pick one.

Education is important, but the system we have today sucks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Humanity screwed up education the day teaching became a profession (to earn money).

<comment><USER24> You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary. Nor do you get high quality staff when they cannot be fired(as is so common today).

<comment><USER23> I guess my concept of education is completely different then yours. For me education is the idea that we - the current generation - can give knowledge and skills to the next generation so that they are ready to face the challenges of future and the cycle continues and humanity wins. BUT who give a shit to humanity, all we want to teach kids is how to "score good marks and get a good earning job".

The problem of education is not how it is done but the current purpose of "education" is wrong i.e it is "what" that needs to be fixed about education.

By the way "You do not attract high quality staff by offering $0 salary" is exactly whats wrong with education.

<comment><USER11> I could not agree more. I do however think fundamentals are important, our focus is just wrong.

The fundamentals and mentality need to change. However a wise man once taught me that it is human nature is to cheat and find easy ways out - which is why KPI's never work if they are implemented for more than six months or so. So it is necessary to keep goals fresh and change things every so often.

But more to the original point and a specific solution, more things should be taught of how to be an adult, morals, values, goals, communication, persuasion, how to do your tax etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>