Supreme Court to consider if silence can be evidence of guilt - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/11/us-usa-court-silence-idUSBRE90A13P20130111

<comment><USER2> It's worth reading the lower court decision for the case in question: [http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=In%20TXCO%202011...](http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?xmldoc=In%20TXCO%2020110317714.xml&docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR)

specifically this part:

 _Still, the United States Supreme Court has yet to decide what protections, if any, the Fifth Amendment affords to pre-arrest silence when the defendant does not testify and his silence is introduced by the State not for impeachment but in its case-in-chief._

Salinas was convicted on both forensics evidence and testimony from his erstwhile co-conspirator; a shotgun he freely admitted to owning matched shells found at the scene of the crime, and his fellow criminal felt guilty after having a dream about the victims and testified against him.

'Not for impeachment' above means that his silence was not offered as dispositive of his guilt. There was plenty of other evidence to prove him guilty in the jury's eyes. That evidence is not appealed from, nor is the lawfulness of his arrest. Salinas' argument is that his conviction should be overturned because the prosecution should not have even mentioned the fact of his silence. You can't tell a jury that they must convict someone because the person was silent when asked an incriminating question. But Salinas is effectively arguing that the jury can not be informed of a question going unanswered, which I don't think is supported by precedent.

In the event that the Supreme court agrees with Salinas (unlikely IMHO), what will happen is that his case will be sent back to the lower court for a retrial, all the same evidence will be introduced, except that the prosecutor will studiously avoid mentioning this exchange. Then he'll be convicted again because there's loads and loads of other evidence.

Refusal to answer a question when in custody cannot be adduced as evidence of guilt. But even if you sit there and say nothing, the prosecution and police are perfectly at liberty to describe how you began sweating profusely and shaking when asked an apparently incriminating question. The prosecution may not submit as evidence expert testimony about what this means ('only a guilty person would react that way,') but the jury is perfectly entitled to draw its own inferences.

Nor is there a binary choice between silence and lying. When the officer asked Salinas if the shells from the murder scene would match his gun, Salinas could have made a noncommittal answer like 'how should I know?' or suchlike. Indications are that he had already voluntarily dug himself into a hole (admitting to owning the gun, how long it had been in his possession, that it had not been in anyone else's possession, and so on).

One other thing to bear in mind when reading the case is that appellate cases are restricted to questions of _law_. With certain rare exceptions, they do _not_ examine questions of fact, which is the job of the trial court (and which is why if the conviction were overturned, another trial would take place because an overturning is not the same as an acquittal). When you read an appellate case, resist the temptation to imagine alternative interpretations of the facts that might lead to a conclusion of innocence; that is a determination for the jury, not the court. The appeals court is examining whether or not the trial was conducted properly, not the credibility of participants.

<comment><USER3> >'Not for impeachment' above means that his silence was not offered as dispositive of his guilt.

Are you sure? The way I read it, "not for impeachment but in its case-in- chief" means "as part of making its case, rather than to show that a witness' testimony was false" - different evidentiary rules apply to evidence introduced for impeachment (i.e. to show that a witness' testimony was false). I see nothing to imply that his silence wasn't used as evidence for his guilt, or that the jury knew to ignore it (how possible would that even be?)

>Salinas is effectively arguing that the jury can not be informed of a question going unanswered, which I don't think is supported by precedent.

Surely that's the only way to ensure a suspect's silence will not be held against him?

>In the event that the Supreme court agrees with Salinas (unlikely IMHO), what will happen is that his case will be sent back to the lower court for a retrial, all the same evidence will be introduced, except that the prosecutor will studiously avoid mentioning this exchange. Then he'll be convicted again because there's loads and loads of other evidence.

Sounds like we should have nothing to fear from a victory on his part then; sure there will be the cost of a retrial, but it's not worth sacrificing vital constitutional protections just to save the court a bit of work.

<comment><USER2> Your first sentence is correct, that's what I get for writing too late at night :-/ As far as the jury knowing to ignore it, that's what jury instructions are for. But note that the court sustained the objection to the police officer's inference that his silence was evidence of guilt, and required the prosecuting attorney to elicit a description of his actions (looking at feet, tightening up) in lieu of conclusory testimony about the significance of same.

On the other hand, the prosecutors reference in the summing up is not evidence. It's like pointing at a defendant and saying 'look! he sits there showing no remorse. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is there any doubt that this man is a cold-blooded criminal?' It's a an empty rhetorical argument, but no more so than 'My client has the face of a baby, look how sweet and innocent he is - you must acquit!'. Those statements aren't offered as facts for consideration, but as the opinion of counsel, which the jury is free to ignore. Witness testimony is supposed to be dry and factual; attorneys can work themselves into Shakesperean fits of indignation if they feel like it (I exaggerate, but not that much...I'd personally like to see stricter standards about this).

 _Surely that's the only way to ensure a suspect's silence will not be held against him?_

But the jury _is_ quite entitled to hold it against him. That's their call to make. What's not allowed is for the _prosecution_ to say that the failure to answer is legal proof of guilt. Failure to answer does not unask the question, as it were.

I don't think we are sacrificing vital constitutional protections here. The guy wasn't under compulsion, and the record shows that his silence wasn't used as the basis of an improper arrest. The constitution is very explicit about scope of the 5th amendment, and there's a good deal of precedent backing up the court's decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. You'd think it'd be obvious. The 5th amendment isn't a digital pin pulled down to zero and magically switched on when the Miranda rights are read.

I'm going to hold out on my outrage until the Supreme Court comments, but should they even hint at silence being a form of confession, I think that will surely be regarded as the day the judicial system in the United States finally jumped the shark for once and for all.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you, but the case isn't that simple. If he simply refused to speak, that would be one thing. The problem is that he was talking and then decided to stop right when an incriminating question was asked. The question isn't whether his silence can be used as evidence as guilt ... but whether his decision to stop talking at that specific moment can be.

It's always a good idea to keep your mouth shut when dealing with the cops, from beginning to end, not just when you find out they're gunning for you.

<comment><USER4> Where do you draw the line? A police officer randomly walks up to you and asks your name (which I believe is the one question you are required to answer, and truthfully):

"How are you doing? Nice weather today, huh? What about that Bears game last night?"

Oh, look. It's a rare friendly neighborhood police officer!

"Mind telling me where you're headed?"

I'm not going to lawyer up yet. Remember, I'm actually innocent and have no idea where this is going.

"Very nice.. Say, do you live around here?" (knowing fully well you're standing in your own drive way)

Yes, officer. As a matter of fact, I do. (Wondering where this is going, but absolutely no reason to go hire a lawyer!)

"See anything suspicious last night?"

So far, so good. I'm not being accused of anything, will gladly answer. Clearly I'm being asked to help and am not a suspect!

"So you _weren't_ home last night? Mind telling me where you were?"

Bells start ringing. Lawyer up or not at this point.

"Ah, so you don't have an alibi for last night and you _are_ in possession of a 9mm weapon... How interesting"

Lawyer! (or silence)

DA to jury: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have here the sworn affidavit of Officer Riley and you can see how the accused clammed up once asked about the weapon, while being perfectly cooperative until that point, and answering all the questions we asked him. As you can see, he's clearly got something to hide. It's your duty as law-abiding patriotic citizens to see to it that he spends the rest of his life in prison."

(This is especially believable for me as someone not immediately recognizable as a minority living in a fairly affluent suburb. I have no reason to distrust the police, and in fact, come across friendly officers all the time!)

<comment><USER6> And to drive the point home; let's suppose that you were out committing a victimless crime such as smoking marijuana. Your choice may be whether you admit to committing that crime or have your silence implicate you on this crime.

<comment><USER7> TWAD came about firstly to crush the chinese, then black people, then mexicans, and now finally the poor.

Your entire criminal justice system is a mockery of the concept of "justice". "Just"? Please.

Again, downvoted due to speaking the truth. I'm disappointed, HN.

The war on drugs started in California, to lock up Chinese immigrants who were taking "American jobs". They smoked opium. 1909.

Next came Cocaine. Used to be rich white folks, but then black folks started using it because it was getting mightily affordable, so you made that illegal too, so you could lock them up. Because they were taking "American jobs".

Next, the mexicans. Hemp. Useful crop. Nope, it's Marijuana, the devil's own drug. Lock them up too, keep them away from "American jobs".

Now, finally, there are no "American jobs", because you wanted everything cheap, and yesterday, so pure economics pushed your productive labour force overseas (nobody moved, but the centres of labour did). Cue mass unemployment and drug use, as the underground economy is pretty welcoming. Whoops, don't like them either, lock them up.

America was a nation built on immigration.

Now it's a nation built on incarceration.

<comment><USER8> No, he's not downvoted for "speaking the truth". He's being downvoted for the hyperbole.

<comment><USER7> You say hyperbole, I say history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would have thought that <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona> settled this question decades ago. The standard set there is that nothing a suspect says is admissible UNLESS the suspect has been informed of his rights to talk to an attorney, and to remain silent, had understood them AND voluntarily waived them.

However Wikipedia points me at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghuis_v._Thompkins> which indicates that this protection has been considerably eroded from what I was aware it had been.

Hopefully this decision will not complete the erosion of meaningful protection from self-incrimination under the 5th. (Though, given the court we have, I'm not very optimistic.)

</comment><comment><USER10> From the article: "Texas opposed the appeal, saying that the protection against compulsory self-incrimination is irrelevant when a suspect is under no compulsion to speak, as Salinas was because he was not under arrest and was speaking voluntarily."

So, because he was under no compulsion to speak, his refusal to speak can be taken as a sign of guilt?

<comment><USER11> I'm reminded of the "Never, ever talk to the police" video from a few years ago, a talk by a defense attorney and a veteran police officer. If you are guilty, innocent, or even just someone who witnessed or reported a crime, talking to the police cannot help you.

For example, Martha Stewart did time of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements; if she had not spoken to federal investigators, her case might have ended differently.

[https://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/criminal-l...](https://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/criminal- law-101-never-ever-talk-to-the-police/)

<comment><USER12> But isn't the point being made here that saying nothing could actively hurt your case? So you're screwed if you talk and you're screwed if you don't.

<comment><USER13> It could hurt your case in a prisoners dilemma (they've got someone in the other room who's confessing and whoever does it faster gets a light sentence). But what do you gain by helping the police build a case against you? If anything, talk to your lawyer and have the lawyer do all the talking.

<comment><USER14> In a sense talking to the police is always a prisoners dilemma - the "don't talk to the police" strategy is equivalent to defecting, and being a helpful citizen is analogous to cooperating.

Statistically it's not in your interest to talk to the police. Talking to them might help them catch a crook, but the payoff there is nothing compared to the shit it might get you into. On the other hand, an effective police force is a _good thing_ in society, and the effectiveness of the police is markedly increased with a cooperative citizenry. So if you could have your way you'd like everyone to talk to the police except for you, but the Nash equilibrium is nobody talking to the police at all.

I think that being able to put immediate self-interest aside and "cooperate" in PD-like situations is a large part of why our societies aren't god awful. Pocketing your trash instead of throwing it on the street, helping someone pick up the papers they've dropped, holding the elevator... they're not universal cultural norms, none of them "pay off", but we do them and life is better because we do.

As far as societies go, citizen self-interest is a loser's game. I haven't figured out my position on this yet, but I wonder whether we might have a moral duty to talk to the police, provided the aggregate good to society (of 1. cooperating in this instance, and 2. maintaining the "culture of cooperation") outweighs the personal risk.

<comment><USER13> _I think that being able to put immediate self-interest aside and "cooperate" in PD-like situations is a large part of why our societies aren't god awful._

There are so many factors that have gone into my conclusion to never cooperate with the police willingly. Primarily, being a minority means I'm statistically more likely to be harrassed, and god forbid, shot by one. In fact, the last time I "asked" the police for help they ran my name for warrants first. My cooperation in that instance could have ended up with me spending the weekend in jail.

My self-interest is the preservation of my life and includes me not going to jail on bullshit charges, the rest of society can cooperate if they want. I'm not the only minority that thinks like this, following the media spectacle of one black, Harvard professor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And yet, we are told by law professors, and cops, never to speak to the police:

<http://boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html>

As well as the ACLU

[http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform-immigrants-rights- racial...](http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform-immigrants-rights-racial- justice/know-your-rights-what-do-if-you)

And flex your rights <http://www.flexyourrights.org/>

<comment><USER16> "Never speak to police" isn't explicit enough.

In many states, police can ask you to identify yourself. Some states require you to answer this question.

Most states don't require you to provide identification, but some do. It's also a good way to disarm the situation, so many lawyers recommend providing your ID when an officer asks for it.

Beyond this, however, you should only have two things you say:

When the officer stops you:

"Officer, did I do something wrong?"

When the officer asks you any other question besides basic information (name, ID, etc):

"Officer, my lawyer has recommended that I do not answer questions like this. May I go?"

When your Miranda Rights are read:

Say nothing. Obey instructions.

<comment><USER17> Note also: they don't have to read you your rights unless you're already under arrest and they want to question you.

<http://www.lawcollective.org/article.php?id=115>

<comment><USER18> They don't ever have to read your rights ... they just can't use your answers in court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If failure to answer becomes evidence of guilt, then answering _is_ compulsory, and therefore falls under the 5th amendment.

<comment><USER20> _If failure to answer becomes evidence of guilt, then answering is compulsory, and therefore falls under the 5th amendment._

This. A thousand times, this. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Misleading, especially the headline. The case doesn't directly concern the admissibility or implications of 5th amendment refusal to testify; that's settled law, as of Griffin v. California (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_v._California>).

This case asks if 5th amendment rights only attach once a suspect has been arrested. If the Court finds that the 5th amendment (and, by extension, the Miranda rule) applies to pre-arrest interviews, then the Griffin rule applies, and such silences are inadmissable.

</comment><comment><USER22> We used to have a right to silence in England. Our current Miranda equivalent police caution says:

> _You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not > mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. > Anything you do say may be given in evidence._

We also tend not to have "loopholes" - someone not getting the correct caution will have to go through years of expensive law . Their case isn't won just because of a missing warning. (I think; I am not a lawyer.)

It's a shame. Right to silence may have started here: ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#England_and_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#England_and_Wales))

But is being attacked here: ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_and_Wales#Facts_later_relied_upon))

<comment><USER23> "Being attacked" seems a bit strong and current for a change that passed into law 18 years ago. If anything, protection for the defendant has been strengthened since then with the introduction of a clause making that section inapplicable to anyone questioned before they've had chance to speak with a lawyer.

You have the right to remain silent. You don't have the right for the jury to draw no "reasonable inferences" from your insistence on remaining silent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I actually thought the headline was a joke or a misrepresentation. Wow.

<comment><USER25> Well, it sounds like the instance in question hinges on the state transition from an hour of freely speaking to sudden silence in the face of a specific question. I can certainly _understand_ why a person would want to ascribe significance to that transition, but...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> If there's no compulsion to speak, is there any compulsion to tell the truth? (I guess lying in that scenario would fall under "obstruction of justice"?)

<comment><USER27> > I guess lying in that scenario would fall under "obstruction of justice"

Yes. The police are allowed to lie to suspects, but suspects are not allowed to lie to police.

Lying is one of the main tools police use to manipulate suspects into giving up information or confessions.

Unfortunately, this means you can't trust the police under any circumstances. You don't know what they know or believe about you. You may not have been aware that something you were doing is a crime, and accidentally confess.

Since the police are allowed to lie, and they're trained, skilled and experienced manipulators, if you think you're helping them do good things and what you're telling them won't get you in trouble -- perhaps you are completely innocent! -- you have no way of knowing whether these thoughts are a correct analysis, or something they've carefully manipulated you into believing so you'll help them send you to jail.

The thin paper shield of the Fifth Amendment is really all that stands between just about everybody and prison, once the police and prosecutors have decided to go after you.

That being said, it's not that police _as a whole_ are bad -- for every politician pushing harsh penalties to be "tough on crime," every prosecutor who's trying to advance her career by maxing her "lives ruined" score, every judge who's receiving kickbacks to fill prison beds -- I'd say there are at least a dozen, and quite probably many more, dedicated law enforcement professionals out there who genuinely believe in truth and justice and putting their lives on the line to protect innocent people, and try their utmost to live up to those ideals.

It's just that, when you interact with them, you have no idea what type you're dealing with, what they believe or have learned about you, or whether there's some obscure regulation you've unknowingly been violating. So it's safest not to take the risk. Same principle as not talking to strangers when you're a young child -- for every sick pedophile or would-be kidnapper, there are at least a dozen, and quite probably many more, strange adults who are simply friendly ordinary people, but you just can't take the risk because the bad ones are so good at manipulating you, you'll have no clue until it's far too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Light someone on fire and if they die, they are innocent."

Silence is neither an acknowledgment guilt or innocence, But the absence of speech. I have never been so fearful of a verdict to such a question involving the admission of guilt since the Salem witch trials. It's the sense of the justices I question not so much the grounds of the case.</comment>


Rolling your own crypto gone wrong: A look at a .NET Branca implementation - <AUTHOR> https://brycx.github.io/2020/08/22/brycx.github.io/2020/08/22/a-look-at-a-branca-implementation.html <comment><USER2> The link is wrong, it should be: [https://brycx.github.io/2020/08/22/a-look- at-a-branca-implem...](https://brycx.github.io/2020/08/22/a-look-at-a-branca- implementation.html)</comment>


Sass Style Guide - <AUTHOR> http://css-tricks.com/sass-style-guide/

<comment><USER2> I am a bit sad that the community seems to prefer Scss over of Sass.

But I really welcome these technologies, because anything that makes CSS more maintainable is welcome.

<comment><USER3> I thought sass and scss were the same thing.

<comment><USER4> SCSS still uses {} and ; while SASS goes for Python-like syntax with indentation doing most of the work. But they are the same thing and are developed by the same guys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nesting a maximum of three levels deep is _generally_ good practice, but don't let that stop you from using parent references (&). This doesn't create a longer CSS selector, even though it's technically nested deeper in the SASS.

In case what I'm saying makes no sense: <http://codepen.io/seraphzz/pen/ByEcx>

<comment><USER6> Nesting should be as long as it needs to be provided the structure is semantic and not html tags.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but also while keeping in mind best practices, for speed of rendering in browsers:

[https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best- practices/rend...](https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/best- practices/rendering#UseEfficientCSSSelectors)

See Github's slide deck on CSS performance, and what they gained by being smart about refactoring, and how they use selectors:

<https://speakerdeck.com/jonrohan/githubs-css-performance>

<comment><USER6> html based diffs might be a special case, but the report is very interesting, thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Shameless plug: the scss-lint tool we built at Causes provides you with an automated way of enforcing a consistent style, including a number of details not mentioned in the original article:

<https://github.com/causes/scss-lint/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Great list. I agree with most of these conventions, except the following:

> List "Regular" Styles Next

> List @include(s) Next

Depends on what the @include gives you, I would either treat @include the same as @extend and put @include after @extend, or just treat @include as regular styles and mix them together. The reason for this is that I generally organize my styles by listing block styles first and then the text styles. It would mess up this organization if all @includes that set only 1 property are listed the last.

</comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one that thinks css-tricks is a really ugly website? which is kind of ironic...

<comment><USER11> I love Chris Coyier for everything he's done for the front-end community, but between his CSS-Tricks layouts and Codepen.io, his aesthetic is much to be desired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I generally tend to go with @extends and @includes first, followed by the specifics for that rule. Alphabetized, because I'm that OCD about it. So, externalities first - if you mix them in the middle of regular rules, it's easy to overlook.

</comment><comment><USER13> The complexity that SCSS and Sass are demanding seems to point to a need to abstract design elements of CSS from the complex layout engine its becoming.

Hunting through this to set fonts and colors (the original intent of CSS) is a bit of a nightmare now. Could we solve this by creating a design only CSS style sheet that defines the variables that plug into this more complex system?

This way designers can tweak live code without hunting through long and difficult to read stylesheets that point to 50?! nested objects.

<comment><USER14> Once you use Sass or LESS you realize that it is much much easier to update things like colors and fonts and font sizes, since they can all become variables. Update one line of code and all of the rules will change.

The number 50 you refer to is max number of lines of code the autor recommends inside of a nested rule, specifically so that you don't have to dig to far in to tweak a rule.

CSS preprocessors were scary to me at first, but I once I started digging in a bit I realized I could never ever go back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good stuff. I've been compiling a list of best practices at <http://betterfrontend.com> – it's open source so feel free to add your feedback.

</comment><comment><USER16> A lot of this was really good but I disagree with three points. You shouldn't stop using ID's unless you have a reason to. Mixing dashes and underscores is just ugly. And finally he calls @import after he declares his own styles which will override anything that he just declared. That is the opposite behavior of what you want it to do most of the time. Beyond that most of it is a good write up and has some really good rules that really help keep your SCSS clean and organized.

<comment><USER17> >You shouldn't stop using ID's unless you have a reason to.

The opposite approach is more useful: don't start using ID's unless you have a good reason. Classes can do anything (CSS-wise) that id's can, and lack the downsides (namely reusability and dealing with increased specificity, here's a pretty good write up: [http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/when-using-ids-can-be-a- pain-...](http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/when-using-ids-can-be-a-pain-in-the- class/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The one thing I don't agree too much with is splitting in many small files. This slows down refactoring and long files are handled properly in good editors.

<comment><USER7> The reasons for this are a couple I can think of:

1\. Large web applications will eventually demand this of you to break the large solution into smaller chunks (components/modules).

See this methodology: [http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/16/a-new- front-en...](http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/16/a-new-front-end- methodology-bem/)

SASS will help you follow whatever standard/methodology your team may be following.

2\. And having multiple files will ease development on a large team. Having multiple frontend developers checking in code, it helps to organize, and alleviate one developer stepping on another when checking in SASS files into source control. No conflicts, if developer A is working on the footer, and developer B is working on the header, which are separate SASS files.

I don't agree that it slows down refactoring, and would argue it speeds it up. In the end, the multiple SASS files will probably (depending on how you do it, and your situation), compile down into one file. SASS also has options that allow you to say what the output looks like too (nested, expanded, compressed).

<comment><USER18> Dev a working on the header and dev b working on the footer is an ideal case that actually never occurred to me. Most of the time they work on both. And any good versioning tool properly used should help avoid conflict, no matter if the coffee is in the same file or not.

It's not like we are doing c or java under cvs, we don't have to split in minuscule files, therefore maybe we shouldn't, in python, js, or css dialects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've never heard of Sass before, so I thought this was a standard for how to communicate sassiness online.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why most people like sass over less?

<comment><USER21> The language has more powerful functions available, or at least it did when I first compared them.

I also find Compass, Bourbon and Susy to be great assets.

The Chrome dev tools support is outstanding.

The biggest drawback is that there's no client side evaluation like less.js. This occasionally makes working with other people a bit tricky. I usually make a sandbox.css for them to fiddle with, and then incorporate their changes every so often.

<comment><USER22> > The biggest drawback is that there's no client side evaluation like less.js.

I've seen less.js make its way into live sites enough times that this almost counts as a positive for Sass for me.

<comment><USER7> For designers, just including a JS file that does the compiling on the fly seems why LESS gets more love from that group. And also that Twitter Bootstrap uses it as default (although there are SASS ports of Bootstrap).

For beginners/designers to the whole precompiling CSS scene, setting up Ruby for the SASS/Compass toolchain could possibly be daunting. Although there are nice GUI alternatives: [http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/internet- roundup/5-mac-apps...](http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/internet- roundup/5-mac-apps-that-make-css-preprocessors-easier-to-use/)

However I agree with other comments that it seems there are more tools/frameworks built on SASS (with Compass), that make it more appealing to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The $100k a year waitress isn't a myth: Some hard truths about tipping in Canada - <AUTHOR> https://nationalpost.com/news/the-100000-a-year-waitress-isnt-a-myth-some-hard-truths-about-tipping-in-canada <comment><USER2> I'm Canadian. I've always kind of stood by the 'tipping should be for good service' rule. If I get poor service in a restaurant or other such place, I don't tip. I completely disagree with automatic tips being added for large parties or high bills. Some places do this. Some places will even happily sit there and let individuals add their own tips on top of the included one...which is sometimes kinda hidden on the bill.

Though, my sister was a waitress for a long time. She worked hard to earn tips, I understand being a service person, especially a server, kinda sucks. You have to deal with assholes, you're constantly moving your whole shift, breaks are limited, there's a bunch of shit to keep track of and again...you have to deal with assholes.

I also like tipping places I frequent with people i've come to know. People in these places always treat me well and makes me happy to leave something extra for them...especially because again...they talk about the shit they deal with.

I don't think tipping should be expected or mandatory and I don't think many of the places that have a tip option really should. Though again there's a few places I go that I kind of wish did because the people that work there work hard and go out of their way for me when I come in.

On another note, i've gotten some pretty decent tips after doing install work and other things at people's houses. I've always really appreciated those. They've never been asked for or expected, they come out of nowhere and when it's like that it does help show that the person you've spent a bunch of hours doing some hard work for appreciated it.

Though then again...sometimes better than a cash tip were the offers of coffee or food. That's very greatly appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER3> The user experience / payment flow on the payment terminals (in Canada at least) to make a tip is insane.

Every terminal is different.

The prompts on screen, rarely correspond to a button that says anything similar. "Yes" usually means press the green button. Although often the yes / no on the prompt are in the opposite positions to the red and green buttons on the keypad. But sometimes it means the small button closest to the on screen "yes".

And sometimes they're touch screens.

Regardless, paying in Australia is actually tap and go.

In Canada you may as well insert the card, you're going to be here a while selecting a bunch of options for tipping.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tipping should be made illegal. It's the only way to remove this broken system. No restaurant can go first in abolishing tipping, because it would make them look more expensive than everyone else.

If you don't like the service, complain to the manager, write an angry review, and never go back. If you like the service, do the opposite. This is how capitalism works in every other industry.

<comment><USER5> > Tipping should be made illegal.

Who gets sent to jail if they tip? The customer, the server, or the restaurant owner? What should happen if a customer leaves before they get change? Who is responsible for enforcement?

Tipping has a number of problems, but prohibition is rarely the best solution.

<comment><USER6> How about just making all tips have a automatic Federal Tax rate of 90%. I think the knowledge that only a tiny amount of your tip is going to the server might force restaurants to just raise prices appropriately. It would "destroy" tipping without making it illegal in any way.

<comment> em-bee as a variation, have a 10% tip included in the price by law. yes, it will raise the prices, but since it is a mandatory tip, it also must go directly to the waiters, thus raising their pay.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Android Release to be named Kit Kat - <AUTHOR> http://www.android.com/kitkat/ <comment><USER2> "It's our goal with Android KitKat to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody."

"It's our goal with iOS 7 to make an amazing iOS experience available for everybody."

"It's our goal with Windows Phone 8 to make an amazing Windows Phone experience available for everybody."

<comment><USER3> "I'm just a junior copywriter in NYC, and I have no idea what the engineers are actually working on at Mountain View, so I'm going to write something that sounds generic enough that it could apply to any advance in the OS, but still sounds exciting to anyone scrolling through this page."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently naming rights to future Android versions are for sale? Lindt, M&M, Necco, Oreo...

</comment><comment><USER5> The BBC article on the deal has more details and quotes from those involved: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hmmmm, really nice product placement, and the Google Play credit inside the chocolate bars are a nice touch.

Is it me or ... they are actually targeting children/teenagers ? Clever move.

</comment><comment><USER7> Product placement, or just failure to think of deserts starting with 'K'?

<comment><USER8> On more than one occasion, I heard an Android engineer mutter the term "Key Lime Pie" when (usually on a jovial manner) referring to a future Android version. Who knows? Maybe KLP got _old_ before it came to be.

<comment><USER9> The Key Lime Pie name was pretty public. I assume JB 4.2 or 4.3 was intended to be KLP, but when Google decided to stick with the JB name, reusing KLP for Android 4.3 or 4.4 would cause too much confusion.

Microsoft skipped "DirectX 4" for the similar reasons:

      after DirectX 3 was released, Microsoft began developing versions 4 and 5 at the same
      time. Version 4 was to be a shorter-term release with small features, whereas version 5
      would be a more substantial release. The lack of interest from game developers in the
      features stated for DirectX 4 resulted in it being shelved, and the corpus of documents
      that already distinguished the two new versions resulted in Microsoft choosing to not
      re-use version 4 to describe features intended for version 5.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX#History)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Key Lime Pie would have been better. I don't have a problem with the name or Nestle getting on board, though if 4.4 turns out to be horrible they're going to regret the tie-in. I just think sticking to dessert names rather than brand names is better.

Side note: This guy [0] owes us a video!!

[0] [http://bit.ly/xGxKfy](http://bit.ly/xGxKfy)

Edit: Didn't want anything to melt.

<comment><USER11> Desert names sound too hot. They should stick with dessert names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Starting a counter for headlines containing "break". (already counting around 4 from google news)

</comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone know if Kit Kat will be coming on the Google Nexus 4 smartphone I just ordered a few days ago? I'm not familiar at all with Google's records with allowing older phones to upgrade to newer versions of Android. Thanks.

<comment><USER14> The Nexus phones are specifically designed to be developer test devices, and even old phones such as the Galaxy Nexus are still capable of running the most recent version. I wouldn't be worried at all. :-)

From what I understand, the only reason a Nexus phone would _not_ get an Android update is if the hardware is no longer capable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 4.4 and not 5.0? I bet the 'major' change will be renaming the stock browser to 'chrome'

<comment><USER16> I hope not. Chrome for Android is definitely not ready. The performance is really bad compared to the stock browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What the hell - so there won't be Android 5 this year, when there are already 2 years since the Android 4.0 release? If they miss the spring deadline, too, and keep 5.0 for next fall, Android's (really major) versions would be upgraded as slowly as Microsoft's Windows.

Plus, Android is turning 5 years old this fall. Meh.

</comment><comment><USER18> it's not Android 5.0 but 4.4. I am curious what functions are still left before we don't need anything new. Also how does Chrome/Android work together now? Somehow I am expecting a surprise.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't KitKat a trademark of Nestlé?

</comment><comment><USER19> Android 4.5 - Snickers</comment>


Awesomebox: a new platform for modern front-end design & development - <AUTHOR> http://awesomebox.co/

<comment><USER2> I don't really understand what you do. I will freely admit that I may be dumb, or not the target market, but I don't get it.

I don't mean to say this to be discouraging, I am interested enough to wonder what y'all are up to so at least you've piqued my interest (admittedly not a huge prize, but I'm not trying to be a turd).

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally understand the confusion - this is the first time we've put this out into the world, and it's great to get feedback about which parts are or aren't clear. Here's a bit more on what we're building:

[http://awesomebox.co/vision](http://awesomebox.co/vision)

If that sounds interesting, we'd love to talk to you about the pain points you have building front-ends and UIs. Feel free to send us an email at email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Upvoted because this sounded interesting: "Our idea is simple - that anyone on your team should be able to use any iteration of your app or website with zero configuration. Awesomebox lets you create and collaborate like you would in the physical world, where it's easy to show people the real thing without having to ask someone to run code locally, install dependencies, or configure a staging server. What Heroku is to back-end development, Awesomebox is to front-end development - a platform that lets you focus on what you do best."

I couldn't find that on mobile without signing up, you might want to add that to an about or FAQ page.

<comment><USER4> While it may sound interesting this says absolutely nothing about the product.

"Our idea is simple - that anyone on your team should be able to use any iteration of your app or website with zero configuration."

Who is my team and what is an iteration? Zero-configuration what?

"show people the real thing without having to ask someone to run code locally, install dependencies, or configure a staging server"

So....a web hosting platform?

"What Heroku is to back-end development, Awesomebox is to front-end development"

So....a web hosting platform?

"a platform that lets you focus on what you do best"

I'm best at sleeping, drinking beer, and criticizing vague PR statements. In that case I guess they're right!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback - this is really more a case of "two hackers trying to describe what we're building" than a "vague PR statement".

I think where we're struggling is narrowing down exactly what we do, without being pigeonholed into "just another hosting platform". We're really excited to talk to the many people who did signup and learn more from them, so that we can get better at this overtime. Thanks for being a "BS filter" and telling us where we're wrong - if you have more thoughts to share, we'd love to hear from you. email@example.com

<comment><USER5> Would it be possible to get some sort of diagram or screenshots up that would at least give us something to look at? A theoretical, yet somewhat detailed, use-case would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Better yet - if you sign up for the beta, we have a working product for you to try out.

<comment><USER5> I signed up for the beta. Now I wait! Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No details = no sign-up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out [http://awesomebox.co/vision](http://awesomebox.co/vision) to see what it's all about.

Sorry about that! We'll add a link to the page from the landing page so it's easier to find.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I read that and I still have no idea what it's about...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is it?

<comment><USER9> An advertisement...</comment></comment>


What I learned from visualizing Hillary Clinton's leaked emails - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cesifoti/what-i-learned-from-visualizing-hillary-clintons-leaked-emails-d13a0908e05e <comment><USER2> Not Hillary Clinton's emails. Podesta's emails.</comment>


The Miseducation of Henry Adams - <AUTHOR> http://www.themillions.com/2017/06/on-the-education-of-henry-adams.html <comment><USER2> I once heard a quote attributed to Henry Adams that endeared me to him, something like: "philosophers are people hired by the rich to tell them everything is alright."

But now I can't find a trace of it online.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say that desctibes political philosophers like Karl Marx very well.

<comment><USER4> To be fair,

 _The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it._

Is inscribed on his grave!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried to read this book once because it's ranked #1 on Modern Library's TOp 100 Non-fiction books of all time: [http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best- nonfiction/](http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/)

I got 2/3rds of the way through and couldn't make it any farther; I was not enjoying it at all. And it's rare for me to not finish a book. It simply hasn't aged well, and his weird tone and unusual focus on "education" (broadly construed) rather than simply just writing a memoir was off-putting.

Also, this site is broken. The text is quite small, but zooming in the page nukes the left margin, pushing the text right up against the left edge of the window and making it hard to read.

</comment><comment><USER6> > Adams feels very dead, very white, and very male

How about "very privileged", rather than use race as a proxy/synonym for the same?

Author talks of "contemporary attitudes towards privilege and entitlement", but I wonder if they mean contemporary _left_ attitudes?

</comment><comment><USER7> The 13-part 1976 PBS series "The Adams Chronicles" has an episode on Henry Adams, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adams_Chronicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adams_Chronicles). The four episodes on John Quincy Adams are fantastic, lead by the actor who played John Adams in the "1776" play/movie.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sent this to my father. A long booster of Adams' works, this'll delight him.</comment>


T-Mobile Launches Cellular iPads with Free 200 MB Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/22/t-mobile-launches-cellular-ipads-with-free-200-mb-data/

<comment><USER2> Not that it really matters and it's kind of a dead point; but, damn, does it piss me off to see Apple's pricing structure between the iPad models simply because of internal storage. Really? Additional 16 GB of internal storage costs $100???? 112 GB of flash costs $300??? Especially considering that iOS takes 3.3 GB out of 16GB.... 20%.... 20% let that sink in...... the OS takes up 20% of the storage on the device you just paid a minimum of $500 for.

Considering Apple's pricing, they are stealing $20 from their customers with every sale of a WiFi iPad. Hear that, lawyers??? Apple is stealing or defrauding $20 from every customer with every sale.</comment>


IQ, Income and Wealth - <AUTHOR> http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/iq-income-and-wealth.html <comment><USER3> > Unlike libertarians, Conservatives believe that those who were the > recipients of good fortunate have a moral obligations towards the rest of > society, in particular the people who do their best but just have less > marketable skills.

(In the United States) I have _never_ heard this as a conservative viewpoint.

> In fact, earnings are strongly linked with intelligence, which indicates > that they are linked to productivity, just as economic theory predicts.

I'm confused. What does productivity mean?

Are schoolteachers productive? Are CEOs productive? What metrics does one use to compare the productivity between the two?

Even if you can measure the productivity of each, isn't their productivity necessarily contingent on other things functioning? In other words, wouldn't a coal CEO's productivity decline if all coal miners quit?

What about if the CEO quit, or died suddenly? What would happen to the coal miner's productivity as the board searched for a new CEO? I imagine it would change much less than the other way around.

If you assume that productivity at any given point is finite, and the CEO suddenly dies, where does that productivity go? Does the president suddenly gain all the productivity value the CEO had?

In a microcosm like a coal company, I'd question who really 'gets' the productivity points. (Miners vs CEO vs board vs shareholders). I wouldn't think those making the most money necessarily have the actual highest productivity values. It would seem to be nearly the opposite, but maybe I have this scheme of modeling things all wrong.

<comment><USER4> > I have never heard this as a conservative viewpoint.

Conservatives believe that charity is only charity if it isn't mandatory. Taxes represent seizure of your assets at gunpoint (no one would pay if the IRS didn't enforce). Forcible asset seizure + spending on purposes which you may or may not agree with is many things, but it is not charity.

In terms of actual charity numbers, self-identified conservatives give a lot more.

[http://philanthropy.com/blogs/prospecting/conservative- voter...](http://philanthropy.com/blogs/prospecting/conservative-voters-are- more-liberal-with-charity/19091)

Households that describe themselves as conservative tend to give more money to charities than moderate and liberal households, according to a new survey.

In a survey of 3,300 households that donated money to charity in the past 12 months, the company Campbell Rinker, in Valencia, Calif., asked respondents about their political ideology.

Of those surveyed, those who live in conservative households donated an average of $3,255 to charities outside of places of worship during the past year. By comparison, moderate households donated $2,926 and liberal households donated $1,879.

[http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2008/04/conservative...](http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2008/04/conservatives- give-more-to-cha.html)

In his book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism (Basic Books, 2006), Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."

<comment><USER5> Personally, I would certainly pay taxes, even if they weren't at gunpoint. I find roads, police, etc far too convenient to give up.

I haven't read the book that you quote, but I'd be interested to know how much of the conservative donations were related to religious causes.

<comment><USER4> (1) Roads and police are a relatively small portion of your taxes. So this statement is a little bit of a bait and switch. Most of it goes towards Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and the DoD.

(2) By aggregating everything into "taxes", individual services do not have accountability. The more locally funded something is, the more accountable it is -- and the more likely it will be discontinued if enough people decide it's not worth the money.

(3) The amount matters. You can assent in the abstract, but 1% vs. 10% vs. 90% vs. 100% taxation are very different. As you increase it, more want to opt out. The guns of the IRS ensure that they can't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author takes care to point out that it is worth examining the extremes of I.Q. but does not examine the extremes of wealth. I wouldn't begin to argue that those earning even 100 times the median income are necessarily taking advantage of the poor, but those earning 1000 times more are almost certainly extracting some rent on the economy that is hurting us all and are only able to do so because if the political power they have purchased.

Seventy-five year copyrights and drug patents on medications already in use for millennial do not provide extra compensation to anyone who has been more productive than anyone else. They just hurt everyone and funnel money up to the top.

This is not an argument for some kind of intervention, just a plea for smart people not to be fooled into thinking that society is fair.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, however, when we get to the argument concerning IQ and productivity, the author conveniently ignores access to capital. You could potentially have a high IQ but living in a particular locale (say a rural 3rd world village) and due to lack of access to capital, you don't have the ability to be productive. Unfortunately, don't have the time to come up with the best example, but imagine a high IQ web developer working in rural Kansas off a satellite internet connection. They are most likely not going to be as productive as someone working off a fiber connection in a major city. They don't have enough money to run fiber to their house, so this lack of capital is a detriment to their productivity score.

<comment><USER8> If you add in an international dimension, the argument that wealth is a product more of IQ than economic systems is laughable[1]. Measures of productivity are subject to debate, but it's beyond dispute that median IQ American's ability to earn more than most Chinese people on the smart side of the bell curve has less to do with intelligence than _chance, connections or "power"_

[1]Even Richard Lynn would agree with me there, if only to explain away the gaps...

<comment><AUTHOR> You are arguing against a straw man.

The author did not claim that inter-country wealth/income is a product of IQ rather than economic systems. In fact, he has already disputed this claim - <USER2> another post, he shows that Swedish Americans are considerably richer than Swedes, and attributes this to the economic system:

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy- in-o...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-one- picture.html)

He is merely disputing a claim made by David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwell of "no correlation between accumulating large wealth and high IQ."

<comment><USER8> I was arguing against the author's quite explicit and unequivocal statement the left is wrong about the market allocating income mainly based on chance, connections or "power". In fact, earnings are strongly linked with intelligence.

Unless he wishes to extend his argument to demonstrate how Swedish Americans have significantly higher IQs than native Swedes, I'm going to have to insist that "the left" is right and he is wrong about the role of chance, connections and power versus innate intelligence when it comes to distribution of incomes on a macro scale. Economic systems don't exist in isolation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Again: he is referring to intra-country variation, you are referring to inter- country variation.

From his post: "Denying the link between productivity and earnings is very important for the modern left, as their entire source of outrage is based on the view that the capitalist system "exploits" the poor. More likely, because of the modern welfare state and because of the growing importance of human capital, more resources are transferred from the productive rich to the poor than vice-versa."

If he were making international comparisons, these two sentences would make absolutely no sense. The modern welfare state does not redistributed from richer Americans to poorer Swedish. He is clearly describing only intra- country variation.

<comment><USER8> (Old debate, but still) I would argue that claiming to refute left wing "exploitation" arguments by focusing purely on intra-country variation, as if the US economy lived in a bubble isolated from the rest of the world, is attacking a straw man. The "modern left" is far more concerned that American capitalists are "exploiting" highly productive cheap foreign labour, to the detriment of US-based jobs in many sectors. After all It's the people that don't have jobs that are the major welfare beneficiaries and don't have any capital to invest in China.

Regardless of whether this is ultimately a good thing (even those without access to capital to invest in multinational ventures get cheaper consumer goods...), the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism.

<comment><AUTHOR> _...the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism._

If only Tino (the author of the blog post) thought of that. Then he might have written this:

 _"There is so little demand in the labor market for unskilled people that the poor in industrialized countries increasingly don't even work full time.

The fact that the rich don't exploit the [same country] poor doesn't mean the rich shouldn't help the poor. But it's one thing to claim you are rich because you are stealing from poor people, and another to believe you have an obligation to help all members of society due to randomly having being granted more valued skills."_

Oh wait, he did think of it and wrote exactly that (minus the words in brackets, which I added).

The point he is making is that if you want to argue for intra-country welfare, the argument that the rich owe the (same country) poor because they exploit them is fallacious. And implicitly, I believe he is assuming "same western country, particularly the US", since all his data is from the US.

As you note, it's the people without jobs who need welfare and it's hard to exploit someone who isn't working (only 15% of poor adults work, or even seek work). So clearly, the US poor are not being exploited.

<comment><USER8> Sure, I don't think we disagree that smart people [deservedly] earn more or that the unemployed section of society isn't offering them very much in return for their welfare checks.

But to put it bluntly, that top quartile (or decile, or however you prefer to slice it) would be a lot less rich (and the poorer Americans would be better of at least in relative terms; those not unemployable would have more job opportunities) if they were stuck hiring people on American level wages. Smart business owners outsourcing to those willing to work for a pittance achieve outsized returns far in excess of their ability to improve labour productivity[1]. Being unable to find work commensurate with their abilities as an averagely productive semi-skilled labourer reduces others' productivity below their natural capabilities. Irrespective of whether you think that's insufficient justification for wealth redistribution, it certainly means that the rich are benefiting disproportionately from chance, connections and "power" in addition to their innate abilities.

[1]Obviously this works better in manufacturing consumer goods than programming...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I stopped reading as soon as it complained about controlling for education. Yes, achieving a level of education is often correlated with IQ, but if IQs vary within an education level then we can obviously isolate it separately, and we should.

<comment><USER10> Me too (or rather I wanted to stop reading, and should have...) - it was clear from that point that he was all set to make some sort of partisan political point. Surprise surprise, down the page he gets all polemic about the left and right.

What he's really itching to say is that poor people are poor because they're stupid. He won't say that because it's offensive and untrue, but it's what he feels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Personally, I have a hard time understanding why IQ is held at such high esteem. It certainly is relevant as it provides a baseline idea of ones intelligence. But when a cup of coffee or a bad sleep can warp a metric like IQ, I have to wonder why we're so insulted or dependent of it. I realize that IQ is the best we have, but you can't ignore the variances and still _label_ people knowing that it's not really an exact science.

</comment><comment><USER5> It seems to me that the author here is drawing the conclusions that he wants from this data. While there does seem to be a correlation between intelligence and income, this correlation has nothing at all to do with whether or not these smart, wealthy people are indeed exploitative of the poor or not. It is in many cases advantageous for CEOs of large companies to use their wealth and political influence in ways that are detrimental to their workers, the environment, and/or our economy.

Second, "productivity" in this article seems to be a vague metric (this is probably because I'm not well versed in economics). As someone asked above, does productivity increase as you move up an organization's hierarchy? The CEO of Nike has likely never sewn a shoe together, yet he pays the welders on the assembly line; is he more productive? If the amount shoes created is a function of the amount of workers hired, and the amount of workers is a function of how much each worker is paid, doesn't it stand to reason that productivity for those at the top of the hierarchy correlates directly to how exploitative their wages are?

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting discussion. I like it because it's sure to piss off everyone.

<comment><USER3> I'm afraid I don't understand why people say things like this. Why would pissing everyone off ever be a plus to a discussion?

<comment><USER7> Well, it is usually in the sense that people are more likely to discuss issues they are pissed off about (proof is available of such if needed, but just think of how much more likely you are to contact a company if they pissed you off, as opposed to just marginally satisfied you). Thus, controversial issues such as this might go left undiscussed if they didn't rile a certain crowd.

That said, I'd agree that it would be better to refer to it as being 'roused' to discussion.

<comment><USER12> I meant that it's likely to challenge some presumption held by nearly every reader. I enjoy honest analysis when it says: Side A is wrong and Side B is wrong, the answer lies elsewhere.

Everyone is angry at first because their sacred cow has been tossed on the grill, but in the end we reconcile and have a great cookout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Brooks further cites a study claiming that there is "no correlation between accumulating large wealth and high IQ."

Both claims are wrong. The result Brooks cites is after "controlling" for education and income. _

Excuse me, but finding no correlation between wealth and IQ after "controlling" for income isn't exactly a surprising finding. As a matter of fact I'd say that usually accumulating large wealth is a direct function of income.

</comment><comment><USER14> A psychology professor talked about this by giving himself a backhanded compliment. He said that IQ and income do have a positive, but not perfect correlation. He said this was due to many factors, but often because people with higher IQs, sometimes pursue professions that are intellectually challenging, such as a career as a professor.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does the data this author provides contradict his assertions? From NLSY79 data, the gap for wealth between low to high IQ is very large compared to the gap in the Terman data where the difference is much smaller. To me, this agrees with Gladwell's conclusion that IQ above a certain point stops being very relevant in predicting wealth.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is it just me, or if you are studying the "extreamly-intelligent" as in the image halfway down, its best to learn how to spell extremely. And the rules on hypenation.

</comment><comment><USER17> In an article that is ostensibly about the correlation between IQ and wealth, he kind of loses the plot when he goes off into political la-la land.

</comment><comment><USER18> > _Unlike libertarians, Conservatives believe that those who were the > recipients of good fortunate have a moral obligations towards the rest of > society, in particular the people who do their best but just have less > marketable skills._

Wow, complete disconnect with reality. Conservatives are the ones who cut social programs repeatedly.

<comment><USER19> probably speaking about Europe

conservatives in Europe would be considered commies in USA

and for the liberals in Europe, they'd have to come up with another term completely...super commies perhaps?

<comment><USER20> The word liberal have very different meanings in the US compared to Europe. The word in its classic sense is nowhere near the meaning it connotes in the US.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism> <http://www.economist.com/node/3353324>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a partisan political post, and not that well written. Judging by the tone of this and his other pieces the author probably believes that conservatives ended slavery.</comment>


75% of fire calls are false alarms. Is there a startup working on this problem - <AUTHOR> Is there a startup working on this problem? <comment><USER2> I am working on a solution. Without giving it all away, it's an app for phones that can record audio and video and recognize a fire using ML and AI. It alerts nearby emergency responders based on GPS from the phone.

Initially this service will be ad-supported. When you launch the app you see a short video ad before the app will record the fire. With such a sharply defined demographic the ad impressions should get a good price.

<comment><USER3> So basically you're monetizing smoke detectors.

<comment><USER2> That's one way to think about it, but smoke detectors aren't programmed in Rust, Typesscript, React, don't run in a K8S cluster, aren't serverless, so I think I have some technical advantages.

The app can either call 911 and report a fire, or you can hold it next to an Alexa/Siri/Google home hub or smart speaker, and some toaster ovens, and it will tell the connected device to call the fire department.

<comment><USER3> >but smoke detectors aren't programmed in Rust, Typesscript, React, don't run in a K8S cluster, aren't serverless, so I think I have some technical advantages.

Smoke detectors don't require a subscription fee, or for me to sit through advertising. Smoke detectors won't stop working on a bad connection or a botched update. Smoke detectors won't spy on me and sell my data.

Is your app actually, testably, provably better at _detecting fires_ than smoke detectors? Will you have the endorsement of fire departments? Will my homeowners' insurance be affected by using this app?

<comment><USER4> I am 99% sure you are responding seriously to what is intended as satire (and ispretty hilarious).

<comment><USER2> I thought the toaster oven reference would give it away. ;-)

<comment><USER3> Oops.

I should have known something was up when you didn't post a landing page...

<comment><USER5> This has been a entertaining conversation to read, I also didn't get the sarcasm immediately, it's quite close to what actually might be happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not surprised nobody has tackled this problem. The result of your "app" breaking is someone who needed help with a fire has their entire home / structure burn down.

I sure as hell don't want a more complicated system to tell me if my house is about to burn down or if I'm about to asphyxiate in my sleep.

The Nest smoke-detector has a horrendous number of examples of exactly this... especially people getting annoyed with false positives because it's over- complicated and then turning off the detector and dying as a result when there was later an actual fire. [0]

[0] - [https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/10/0...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/baig/2018/10/02/how- deal-false-alarm-when-your-nest-smoke-detector-goes-off/1124090002/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Do you think it would be acceptable for a fire department to ignore an emergency call because some AI algorithm tells them it's 92% likely to be false? Who would be responsible if the algorithm made a mistake and people died?

<comment><USER8> Not necessarily what OP is proposing. It could be a group if people fielding calls to the department who rapidly investigate all calls, and get the fire department there for real fires.

They could also provide some first responder care... maybe this is already what some fire departments do?

<comment><USER7> To investigate whether a fire call is real, wouldn't you need to be a trained firefighter? For example, you may have to enter a building that's possibly on fire to see if there's a fire. And a small fire isn't necessarily obvious by just looking at the building from the outside.

Also, if someone has to investigate before the fire department was dispatched, you'd lose a lot of valuable time, allowing the fire to spread. It could be a win if there was no fire, but a huge loss (burned buildings, dead people) if there actually was a fire.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I was playing devils advocate I guess, I do agree with you. The best equipped people to investigate the false alarms is probably the fire department itself, and they are already the ones doing the investigating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Improve fire detection and reporting systems. Possibly improve in-home and in- business fire suppression systems, or even have them. I live in a fire prone area and none of the houses we looked at had fire suppression systems built- in, definitely something I'll be looking into if we have a chance to build.

But this is definitely an area where false positives are much less of a concern than false negatives. We'd rather have fire and rescue sent to non- incidents than not sent to real incidents.

</comment><comment><USER10> At my work folks always set off the alarm with the microwave. Usually popcorn. The FD said by law they have to show up and check out the building each time.

Maybe we change that law for starters.

<comment><USER11> Yeah I think regulation is the way. When I lived in Australia, the law and setup was this:

\- The in unit smoke detectors can be triggered to warn occupants. No emergency services are called. If you have a cooking mishap or any kind of smoke, it will trigger, but just to wake the people in the unit up or annoy your neighbors.

\- There are also smoke detectors in the hallway. Once this is triggered (presumably real fire), emergency services are notified and on their way. The building alarm will also sound. If it is found to be a false alarm, the tenant who triggered it is fined.

I think it's really reasonable. Small mishaps don't need to have a big response, but tenants do need to be notified. Once it's big enough (smoke in the hallway), then a response is justified.

<comment><USER12> > The in unit smoke detectors can be triggered to warn occupants

This is specifically because the National Construction Code (NCC) requires multiple occupancy buildings to have certain fire safety infrastructure that generally includes a 2 hour fire separation between different occupancy units. This gives a buffer to all other occupants.

> There are also smoke detectors in the hallway. If a detector is triggered in > a common area this has the potential to affect the escape routes of multiple > occupants so it triggers an immediate fire alarm.

Australian fire safety rules are some of the best in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sounds like a solution looking for a problem.

<comment><USER14> ... and then looking for someone to pay for given solution

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> God I hope no one on HN ever holds a public office. "No more task forces or comittees or councils. All government reforms will be done via startups from here on out."

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what the savings would be?

Is that something a given department wants to pay for even if you could reduce the numbers?

Is a false alarm very costly?

<comment><USER7> > Is a false alarm very costly?

Potentially, yes. If fire fighters are busy responding to false alarms, they may be delayed if a real fire happens at the same time. This can result in loss of lives and property.

<comment><USER16> Is that common?

Im not sure firefighters are in a position where nobody can respond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It sounds like putting a false alarm cancel button on it would solve the problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> Solution in search of a problem. What you are suggesting is not a realistic business model and would result in another ever money losing startup.</comment>


Ask HN: NoScript worth it? - <AUTHOR>

So I've run NoScript for a long time. On the one hand, I like having control of who gets to send data around. On the other hand, it can be obnoxious reloading pages regularly.
I don't believe websites should have to degrade nicely (though it is nice). In today's world, it NoScript still worth it?
The biggest benefit I see if that I can keep off of some of the tracking/analytics crap. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I used NoScript for a while in the 'temporarily allow the current site' mode, which I felt was a reasonable compromise between functionality and security.

However, there were still times I had to mess around to get certain web-pages to work, Firefox has a pretty good track-record with security, and the common annoyances on today's web (such as pop-ups and analytics code) are neatly blocked by AdBlockPlus or Firefox itself.

The recent furore about NoScript messing around with AdBlockPlus was the final straw - I removed NoScript, and I haven't looked back.

This wasn't very confidence-inspiring, either: <http://adblockplus.org/blog/analyzing-huge-piles-of-code></comment>