Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked - <AUTHOR> http://www.theawl.com/2015/08/literary-magazines-for-socialists-funded-by-the-cia-ranked <comment><USER3> If anyone can read this and /not/ believe that the security state is very much active in a covert way on social media, reddit, and even specialized forums like this...

I realize that to suggest that, say, some proportion of the reddit mods are on the payroll of a .gov alphabet agency sounds like tinfoil hat territory, but it would have been dramatically crazier in the 50's to suggest that the CIA was funding socialist literary magazines, art galleries, and the like.

<comment><USER4> Really? I'd have thought it was a pretty uncontroversial claim that government agencies were funding anti-communist media organizations in the middle of the Cold War (when, let's face it, they were doing it quite openly in many instances). I wouldn't be at all surprised to they are doing something similar with moderate Islamic organizations and interfaith dialogue groups (not to mention many anodyne business ventures with roots in the Middle East) today.

But suggesting that censoring the anti-authoritarian playground that is Reddit or persuading Hacker Newsers of the virtues of the TSA are sufficiently high on their list of current national security priorities to dedicate manpower to in our current environment just seems... rather more of a stretch.

If they are attempting to astroturf these particular corners of the internet it's something of an understatement to say they're not very good at it.

<comment><USER5> You're thinking about to simplistically. The point wasn't always to alter the message, but to embolden and radicalize the target groups.

A reasonable communist might appeal to the people, you discredit them by making them more extreme. When the FBI and NYPD infiltrated the antiwar movement in the 60s, in many cases the agents were agent provocateurs, ultra- extreme "members" of these groups encouraging violence or other behaviors not in the interest of the group. The idea was to undermine and anti-war movement and identify the leaders and undermine them.

(Example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville_Eight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville_Eight) "Bill Lemmer, the Southern regional assistant coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, revealed himself as an undercover FBI operative in May 1972. Bill Lemmer had been thrown out of a 'fast'/protest by DCVC(VVAW) on the Capitol steps in Washington D.C. in January 1972 after advocating for violent, destructive actions on the Washington Monument." )

If there is a covert presence on internet fora, it would probably be in a similar light -- build trust among potentially influential adversaries by emboldening them, then cutting them down by hook or crook. The ultimate coup is to actually co-opt the radical agenda.

<comment><USER4> See, I believe that government agencies actually do this (best 9/11 conspiracy theory: some of the ridiculous "controlled demolition" claims were planted or encouraged to divert the instinctive conspiracy theorists from asking more damaging questions about response times)

But on Reddit? I don't think government agencies are needed to persuade Redditors to say and upvote things that don't look good in the media, or that the Reddit hivemind represents a perceived threat on a par with the antiwar, socialist or even civil rights movements in the 60s

<comment><USER5> How would something like the infamous "Loose Change" video be ginned up and popularized in 2015? Outlets like Reddit, influential Twitter people, etc.

<comment><USER4> Sure. But you don't need a 50 Cent Party, or even to be at all active on social media to find some conspiracy theorists who'll happily do the legwork of promoting the video for you; you can probably entirely outsource the job to the people and organizations you keep files on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Through the CCF, as well as by more direct means, the CIA became a major player in intellectual life during the Cold War—the closest thing that the U.S. government had to a Ministry of Culture. This left a complex legacy. During the Cold War, it was commonplace to draw the distinction between "totalitarian" and "free" societies by noting that only in the free ones could groups self-organize independently of the state. But many of the groups that made that argument—including the magazines on this left—were often covertly- sponsored instruments of state power, at least in part. Whether or not art and artists would have been more "revolutionary" in the absence of the CIA's cultural work is a vexed question; what is clear is that that possibility was not a risk they were willing to run. "

I wonder if the CIA really stopped being the Ministry of Culture?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash The roots of cultural control go further back than the Cold War. Arguably it was Edward Bernays, father of public relations, who used his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories about humans being irrational economic actors motivated by primal instincts of fear, sex, and so on, to sell them products they didn't need.

The U.S. Government (and many around the world, including nazi Germany, whose head of propaganda admired Bernays) adapted these techniques as means to control people, or at least keep them from going out of control (Bolshevik Revolution, Naziism, etc). The popular image of the happy-go-lucky 1950s wasn't just how things "turned out to be," it was a concerted government effort to create the ideal and stable society that wouldn't overthrow the government.

You can see the same influence today in ideological news networks using compelling and vapid distractions instead of keeping focus on the "real" issues.

The BBC made a great documentary on this subject: "Century of the Self."

<comment><USER7> > The U.S. Government (and many around the world, including nazi Germany, > whose head of propaganda admired Bernays) adapted these techniques as means > to control people, or at least keep them from going out of control > (Bolshevik Revolution, Naziism, etc). The popular image of the happy-go- > lucky 1950s wasn't just how things "turned out to be," it was a concerted > government effort to create the ideal and stable society that wouldn't > overthrow the government.

I was up with you until this point. As with most grand conspiracy theories, this seems like a big leap from the emergence of commercialism to a pastoral, planned society for the purposes of control.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Things like suburbs and consumerism were natural, but the reinforcement of that image as the ideal was effective for government that wanted stable citizens, and corporations that wanted predictable consumers. Still works - <USER2> didn't think I needed an iPhone 6 until I got one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did anyone actually read why these magazines were "highly ranked"?

> the CIA actually thought that Levitas's anti-Communism was too ferocious, > unrelenting, and "conservative." ... the CIA wanted a more moderate and > "sophisticated" voice ... The New Leader remained progressive in the context > of U.S. domestic politics; it was one of the first publications to publish > Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

> Like other magazines affiliated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom, > Mundo Nuevo published essays critical of U.S. policy in Latin America and > Vietnam. Its usefulness, from the U.S. government's point of view, consisted > in its defense of the responsibility of the artist as an independent critic > of power ...

I'm probably the only one in this thread, but I actually think some of these cases fall short of crimes against humanity.

I mean, of all the dirty secret squirrel things governments do, if I had to pick, then (1) funding the early publication of 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' and (2) encouraging artists to challenge entrenched power (to include US policy) would be pretty high on my list.

<comment><USER9> > I'm probably the only one in this thread, but I actually think some of these > cases fall short of crimes against humanity.

It's good to resist making generalizing statements about the community. There's little evidence here of readers objecting to the CIA having funded literary journals during the Cold War. (They funded a lot of things, including great musicians [1]. It's surprising what good taste they had.) Mostly the thread consists of extrapolation to present affairs—maybe not the most substantive discussion because it's so speculative, but probably unavoidable.

1\. [http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/louis-armstrong-plays- his...](http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/louis-armstrong-plays-historic- cold-war-concerts-in-east-berlin-budapest-1965.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So it's not "when did the CIA become a rogue actor", but rather "which stuff did the CIA fund", right?

Also, is there anything like a "free market" in the US? It appears that some government agency or another is financing things, or feeding info to entities in just about every single market. This has been going on since WW2, at least. So when do I get to scoff at any mention of a "free market"?

<comment><USER11> Free markets are about freedom of choice in participation - freedom to create a business, take or leave a job, freedom to product or buy the products you want. It's about economic freedom.

That the CIA interfered with things doesn't change the fact that people are still free to do those things. You could argue about whether people really free to not buy a diamond ring to announce an engagement or not, in the same way the CIA has been influencing and financing operations. But the fact of the matter is there is no state actors forcing you to do such things.

<comment><USER10> Any individual might be free to buy or sell or participate or not, but if there's some covert support, monetary or regulatory or informational, then the market isn't working according to the participant's input.

A firm offering worse prices to consumers, but getting inside information might drive its competitors out of business, even if they offer superior service or value. The outcome is different. I don't see how re-defining a free market in terms of the participant's choice makes it work like a market in which the government agency hasn't meddled.

<comment><USER11> It's not re-defining what a free market is, that's always been the case.

I guess the point I haven't got across is that even if the government interferes covertly with one specific product or market, it has little effect on the overall market. Just think of the number of SKUs in an average Walmart and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In recent years I've started entertaining a bit of a heresy. I wouldn't say I believe this, but it's at least a question worth asking:

Is there actually any such thing as a "grassroots" movement?

Over the years I've seen so many unmasked as the product of someone or something with deep pockets: corporations, think tanks, governments. At the very least it's hard for me to think of any movement where major institutions didn't play some role.

Intelligence agencies seem to figure prominently too, and not necessarily in the areas you would think. The 60s counterculture was in part seeded by CIA LSD research, and Tor was funded by the US Department of Naval Intelligence (to provide two random examples).

<comment><USER13> Occupy.

(Note that this is not necessarily a good thing -- Occupy's leaderless, grassroots-über-alles nature is a big part of why it eventually tore itself apart.)

<comment><USER14> Very suspicious that anti-war protests vanished from the headlines as Occupy Wall Street took hold.

<comment><USER15> I am from Brazil, from my point of view Occupy was a sort of copy-cat of the spanish occupy (that spawned from the financial crisis), also vaguely related to Arab Spring.

At the time, I even tought about how closely it looked to the "Stand Alone Complex" discussed in the anime series of same name, when people create a social movement, and they believe they are being copy-cats, but there is no "original" to copy.

When Occupy happened, it was the same time as occupy-style protests in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, the Spanish and Portuguese called themselves "Indignados", and if you saw live feeds of the Greece movement, you could see people carrying "Indignados" banners too.

Also Arab spring happened at the same time, one thing interesting was that Anonymous (the 4chan Anonymous "group") was present in all of those, sometimes doing important things, for example in the same IRC channel they organized live feeds of spanish protests, medical help in Tunisia (a couple of "Anons" with actual medical training in Tunisia roamed around in makeshift ambulances helping injured protesters) and internet infrastructure in Egypt (in Egypt after the government shutdown the internet, "Anons" drove around in vans with satellite and various forms of local connections to provide data links so people could upload photos and videos of the protests).

Occupy Wall Street was a sort of natural consequence, lots of US people got involved in the overseas protests, and it does not surprise me they decided to try the same in US.

The thing is, that in US the cause they could fight for was completely unrelated, in Europe the problem was the stupid austerity programs and the debt problems, in the muslim world it started as protests against corruption (the first protester, a Tunisian that set fire to himself, was upset that the Tunisian police could stroll on the market and take whatever they wanted without paying, that Tunisian was a shopkeeper).

US has much less obvious corruption than Tunisia (ie: no cops stealing food from food trucks), and although US has crazy debts, the dollar being reserve currency allow the US to pretend the debt problem does not exist, so Occupy had to protest confusing stuff.

<comment><USER16> >Occupy had to protest confusing stuff.

I agree that a lot of the details of the financial system fly over society's collective heads, but I think the impunity of white-collar bad actors was a very concrete non-confusing source of outrage.

<comment><USER17> It's a very power populist message. But it's hard to channel that into reform. Holding banks responsible for the crash just wasn't possible. Creating regulation for the future was possible, but it's wonkish and doesn't lend itself to crowd pleasing measures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> By the way, one magazine like that still exists.

CIA, using Ford Foundation, co-founded the Brazillian publisher "Abril", their flagship magazine is called "Veja" (it translates to "See"), it is a sort of centrist magazine (its views resemble the US democratic party, in Brazil this is right of most parties, so the hardcore brazillian left consider "Veja" extreme right-wing, but actual right-wingers consider the magazine as left).

It is interesting that although they do spouse many positions that the brazillian right wing consider left, the magazine usually is supportive of US, the few times it said something against the US is when the US pulled some obviously evil stunt (ie: something that even a stupid and ignorant person can perceive as evil).

I had a hobby of buying "Veja" and "Carta Capital" (It translates to "Capital Letter"), the CC magazine is clearly leftist, usually supporting the obviously marxist and communist parties, also CC magazine is very critical of US, it is not uncommon to see Veja and CC make reports on the same thing, with completely different conclusions, or see Veja and CC taking stealth jabs at each other (example: insulting someone that has a position the other has, without naming the other directly).

<comment><USER18> "CIA, using Ford Foundation, co-founded the Brazillian publisher "Abril"

Source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Czeslaw Milosz wrote that it was very clear that there was American government money behind the Congress for Cultural Freedom--one didn't need inside information to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER20> These are not the only magazines CIA funded. They where very active in the (radical) feminist movement and funded among other "Ms." and Gloria Steinem, who also was sent to Moscow for Socialist meet-ups, payed by the same.

Also this movement is rooted in socialism (to primarily break down the family union, as we can see today). No one can say feminism is not influential in the world today.

Sources: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem#CIA_ties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem#CIA_ties) ->

[http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html](http://www.namebase.org/steinem.html) [http://www.namebase.org/foia/festival.html](http://www.namebase.org/foia/festival.html)

And in an interview: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HRUEqyZ7p8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HRUEqyZ7p8)

[https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism- fam...](https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm)

</comment><comment><USER21> It's obviously not any news that CIA and similar agencies sponsor disruptive activities all over the world as long as they see fit to their own interest. So-called "democracy" and "freedom" etc. are just all convenient excuses, pretext of war. Maybe the only interesting thing here is the assertion that apparently leftists don't only fight capitalists, they also fight totalitarian regimes which have long abandoned their leftist roots. This might further clarifies things a bit.

</comment><comment><USER22> Anyone read Eric Schmidt "The New Digital Age", Eric talks about cyberwar, Luddites, and geo politics as it relates to tech and data collection for the government, just replace the word the future with the present.

</comment><comment><USER23> Communism uses suppression as a means to control the population.

I've never considered the converse, using 'promotion' to control the population.

<comment><USER24> Dictatorships use suppression. Communism is a style of collective government. The USSR was never communist, the government merely used the lexicon of communism to suit its needs.

<comment><USER25> _The USSR was never communist_

By this definition, has there ever been a communist country?

<comment><USER26> It's a no-true-scotsman fallacy at heart.

Pretty common though: North Korea is a democratic state (according to its name), but not real democracy. National Socialism wasn't really socialist. The UK isn't a real monarchy.

It's a language game compelled by the guilt-by-association level of political sophistication of our culture. When the debate is rarely more sophisticated than 'that's socialist, like Hitler!!!!1!', it's no wonder that the response has to be 'that wasn't _true_ socialism'.

<comment><USER27> The UK is no longer an absolute monarchy, and has not been for many centuries, but the UK is a real constitutional monarchy. Australia, Canada and New Zealand are real constitutional monarchies too, in personal union with the UK.

<comment><USER28> There may be a monarch, but not one with any power.

<comment><USER27> The monarch has real genuine powers, and real discretion in how to exercise them, in the case of a constitutional crisis. Constitutional crises are rare, but they do happen. Consider a case from Australia - the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr. That is an example of a Vice Regal official exercising real, discretionary power. If the same situation had happened in the UK instead of Australia, the discretion would have resided with the Queen personally, as opposed to with her (largely indepedently acting) representative. Even in Australia, it is plausible the Queen could become involved in a 1975-style situation. If Whitlam had suspected Kerr was going to sack him, he could have tried to sack Kerr first. If there was a race to sack each other between the PM and the Governor- General, the Queen would have to personally decide how to react. e.g. if the PM advises the Queen to sack the GG, and immediately after that advice but before the Queen acts on it, the GG sacks the PM, should the Queen act on the request of the just sacked PM to sack the GG, or refuse? What if the GG advises the Queen to not sack him/her after all, or immediately appoints a new PM who conveys the same advice? Ultimately, whatever she did in such a scenario would be her personal decision, and it is unlikely that any court (whether in Australia or the UK) would entertain overturning it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hm, wonder if samclemens reads Marxmail.... Louis sent this out a couple hours before you posted it here so thought it might be the case :)

</comment><comment><USER30> So is it just socialist publications, then? No publications of other ideological bents deserving of similar scrutiny? Fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER24> The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. Democratic socialists are natural foes of dictatorships the world over.

<comment><USER31> Democratic socialists are quite capable of forming dictatorships themselves. See: Venezula under Hugo Chavez and Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega.

<comment><USER32> That's a very liberal (no pun intended) use of the term "dictatorship". I think we should be careful to reserve it for countries which are actually _dictatorships_ , not just countries whose policies or methods of government we disagree with or dislike. Venezuela and Nicaragua were not dictatorships under any realistic definition of the word; they had democratically elected governments within the rule of law, with finite terms and with clear means of political participation.

The problem with "dictatorship" is that it's become a curse word. There is a similar problem with "fascism": it has become a way to insult people or governments, whether their are actually fascist (unlikely) or not (more likely).

<comment><USER31> We can use one definition of the word, that offered on the Wikipedia page for Dictatorship:

"is a form of government where political authority is monopolized by a person or political entity, and exercised through various mechanisms to ensure the entity's power remains strong."

Both Chavez and Ortega regularly intimidated opposition media and relied heavily on propaganda to maintain popular support. Both abolished term limits in their respective countries to remain Presidents for Life. Chavez personally selected his successor, Nicolas Maduro, who narrowly beat Henrique Capriles, Chavez's main opposition, in the 2013 presidential elections, elections that Capriles protested as fraudulent. When Ortega couldn't get the Supreme Court to support his unlimited term limits, he replaced dissenting Justices with sympathetic ones.

If these aren't all the signs of a dictatorship, I don't know what is.

<comment><USER32> I don't think that particular snippet from Wikipedia is a complete and accurate description of a dictatorship. It leaves key aspects out, as Wikipedia goes on to describe. A dictatorship is also a totalitarian form of government which seeks absolute power and control over every citizen's private life, as well as the removal of political participation and dissent, which wasn't precisely the case in either country we're discussing.

Sure, removing term limits and replacing dissenting judges may be signs of an unhealthy democracy, but they still don't qualify as a dictatorship.

Note that in particular, when referring to Latin America, populist governments with strong individualist leaders are invariably called dictatorships by their opponents, whether accurate or not. I happen to think it's incorrect, and born out of frustration by non-populist opponents from reaching the population and winning general elections. I do think there are serious criticisms to be made for this kind of governments; it's just that accusing them of being dictatorships isn't one... instead, it's lazy.

It's also very common for media conglomerates in many Latin American countries, such as Venezuela, to claim to be "impartial observers", while actually being powerful political actors with vested interests, as well as money and support for politicians in the opposition. This places them in a particularly convenient situation: they can influence people by telling them every day that their country is going to the dogs, while at the same time, every time they're rebuked or criticized by the government they can claim it's "an attack on the free and independent press".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Quote from "Tempo presente", the Italian magazine in the list (first number, opening text):

> [...] sono incerti e problematici i confini del nostro mondo morale; incerte > le norme del comportamento individuale; incerti il significato e i limiti > dell'azione politica quale oggi la si pratica o la si propugna; incerto > soprattutto il valore delle idee e delle ideologie correnti.

> [...] uncertain and problematic are the confines of our moral world; > uncertain the norms of individual behavior; uncertain the meaning and limits > of the political action practiced or defended today; uncertain most of all > the value of current ideas and ideologies.

source: [http://www.bibliotecaginobianco.it/flip/TEP/01/0100/#/3/zoom...](http://www.bibliotecaginobianco.it/flip/TEP/01/0100/#/3/zoomed)

</comment><comment><USER34> The US financed Bin Laden and the Afghani Mujaheddin to counterbalance the Soviets in Central Asia in the 80s despite the clear signs of Islamic terrorism gathering pace in the late 70s destabilizing the region and the middle east as well.

So all bets are off with these people.

</comment><comment><USER35> George Orwell wrote in 1984 about how much effort was put into propagandizing to the professional-managerial class by the state. He should know, he was an informant against the left for the Foreign Office via Celia Kirwan.

Just go to the front page of the New York Review of Books ( [http://www.nybooks.com](http://www.nybooks.com) ). I know I just had to scan the front page to find some article condemning Arab nationalism and of course one is there, "The Mystery of ISIS" by an anonymous author. It contains pictures of people about to be executed, and a picture of someone pointing a gun at the camera, so you can guess what the text is. What it doesn't talk about is how the US in the past supported religious fanatics in the Middle East against the real US enemy - secular, left-leaning pan-Arab nationalists. Just as the US does today. The US supports Saudi Arabia, where women can't drive, yet bombed Libya, just a few years after Qadaffi had given in to the US and UK after years of Nasserite posturing. Now Islamic fundamentalists sprout there. In Iraq, we had another Nasserite, pan-Arab secular nationalist in a party with socialist roots - Saddam Hussein was overthrown and now we have ISIS in Iraq. More recently the pan-Arab secular nationalist in a party with secular roots in Syria has the US and Europe working to undermine his power. This just happened. So now ISIS controls much of Syria, and just blew up an ancient pagan temple. It's quite clear with all its work to undermine Bashar al-Assad that this is what the US was working to have happen. We can go more into the distant past as well - the secular nationalist parliament of Mossadegh being replaced by a dictatorship initially backed by the mullahs by the US/UK in the 1950s, then the persecution and execution of the secular left - eventually the mullahs changed their mind and now Iran is run by them and devoid of the secular liberals that the CIA sent lists around to be executed.

I'm surprised the New York Review of Books doesn't have a nostalgic front- cover piece bashing the Warsaw Pact. Well there were just two on HN's front page the other day. It's great - while the US government is tapping its own citizens and the whole world, extraditing and torturing nationalists who oppose foreign intervention in their home countries, ringing the world with military bases - a US soldier just murdered a Filipino prostitute who he learned was a transvestite, spying on foreign corporations and stealing their industrial secrets, sending drones to willy-nilly bomb villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan and so on, everyone can focus on the errors Lenin commited a century ago, or how some ISIS militants blew up an ancient pagan temple in Syria (who the US helped back by undermining al-Assad's government - in fact investigative reporters have found the US has been actively backing jihadists in Iraq even in recent years).

<comment><USER36> Your comment history consists of bashing the US and more bashing the US.

<comment><USER37> Not really and there's nothing wrong with criticizing aspects of the government, backed up by fact.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Bans Bail Bond Ads, Invites Regulation - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/05/google-bans-bail-bond-ads.html <comment><USER2> Note that they're banning bail bond _ads_ , not _links._ This means if you search for "bail bonds" you'll see organic links but no ads. This is a crucial difference that this post seems to overlook.

The search algorithm goes way out of its way to determine some measure of "legitimacy." Obviously this is a vague and hard-to-define measure, but the goal is commendable: show results that are both relevant to the user according to Google's relevance metrics and legitimate according to who links to it, quality of the page, freshness, etc. Whatever qualms you might have about the vagaries of the search algorithm, you can't dispute that it's difficult to game.

Meanwhile ads are chosen by what brings the most long term value to Google. Gaming this system is much easier, and usually begins with paying more per click. This favors advertisers with higher margins, which is harmless for innocuous queries like "flowers" which make up the bulk of search ads. For bail bonds, however, this favors advertisers with higher margins, which in turn rewards exploitative providers over the legitimate bail bondsmen this author seems to think will be harmed. If anything, this is actually a boon to the more socially-minded bail bondsmen this article is concerned about: exploitative bail bonds businesses that go out of their way to saddle their customers with debt will not appear on the top of the page, raising more legitimate ones.

Another point: one of the consequences of being able to pay for ranking is you can place ads on terms that are not really related to your business. For instance, "Home Depot" queries tend to show ads for Lowes and other competitors. In a similar way, searching for "bail bond counseling" and other terms tends to include at least one for-profit bail bond operation that offers no or nominal counseling. Meanwhile if there are no ads, then the legitimate counseling services will float to the top of the page. Likewise for queries for all the other services this article claims will be hurt.

Source/disclaimer: These are my personal opinions as someone who works in ads at Google, (but was not involved in this decision). All my points come from publicly available info. Please don't mistake this for anything but my own views.

<comment><USER3> >Whatever qualms you might have about the vagaries of the search algorithm, you can't dispute that it's difficult to game.

Nothing personal against you, but as a user I find that google's algorithms are trivially gamed by the SEO industry. Apart from the ads themselves, I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will go a long way to clean up the search results.

<comment><USER4> > I personally think a small ranking boost for pages that don't run ads will > go a long way to clean up the search results.

It's highly unlikely that google (a company whose business model is selling ads) will prioritise sites without ads.

<comment><USER3> It was unlikely that they would include an adblocker in their browser, but they did. Personally, I don't like Google as a company, but they do do weird stuff like that.

They're going to still be making tons of money from paid ads in the search results, youtube, cloud services, and other google properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Studies show that for-profit bail bond providers make most of their revenue > from communities of color and low income neighborhoods when they are at > their most vulnerable

And doctors make most of their revenue from sick people! Makers of cheap food make most of their revenue from poor hungry people! Makers of cheap cars make most of their revenue from low-income people just trying to get to work!

The level of ignorance in Google's statement is breathtaking, reflecting the mistaken view that selling goods and services to poor people is a bad thing. Bail bondsmen provide a valuable service: they allow people for whom bail is required, because a judge deems them a risk for not showing up at trial, to be released and keep going to work.

If bail bonds are being disproportionately required for people in low-income and minority communities, that's the government's fault. Targeting the bail bondsmen doesn't fix that problem--if those people can't make bail, they'll just stay in jail and potentially lose their jobs. Indeed, preventing them from advertising makes the problem worse, because it reduces competition in the market that would drive interest rates down.

<comment><USER6> Reading Google's statement perhaps rather too charitably, perhaps this might be what they meant to emphasize?

> _including through opaque financing offers that can keep people in debt for > months or years._

This would be a way to make their logic not horrible.

<comment><USER5> "Opaque financing offers" is handwaving. If its anything like payday lending, the real complaint is that the bonds "keep people in debt for months or years." But that's not because of opaque financing, but because poor people don't have much free cash flow to service a loan, and are bad credit risks statistically so the interest on that loan has to be relatively high. Removing the ability to advertising makes both problems worse, by reducing competition.

<comment><USER7> Payday lending goes beyond that. Its rent-seeking in the same way that reordering charges to repeatedly overdraft someone is rent-seeking. Sure "don't be poor" is one way to solve that issue, but even a poor and reasonably reliable person can be taken advantage of by payday loans (whose interest rates are always >100% APR, which is 10-20x more than anything else). There's a reason payday loans interest rates are capped [in many jurisdictions]: a 500% APR isn't something that arises normally.

<comment><USER5> That's not what "rent seeking" means.

<comment><USER7> >Rent-seeking is an individual's or entity's use of company, organizational or individual resources to obtain economic gain without reciprocating any benefits to society through wealth creation.

Does reordering charges to overdraft someone more than they should be provide economic benefit to society at large? No. Does it give the bank additional economic gain? Yes.

Does charging _higher than necessary_ interest rates to low-income, low- information consumers provide economic benefit to society at large? No.[1] Does it give the lender additional economic gain? Yes.

It is rent seeking, quite clearly.

[1]: In fact, there's a decent argument to be made that in the long term it lowers the velocity of money and actively harms the economy.

<comment><USER5> That can't be the right definition of rent seeking. Consider the decision of what price to sell an iPhone at. Selling it at $600 versus $500 does not create additional wealth, but does result in economic gain for Apple. But by your reasoning, setting the price at anything above cost is "rent seeking."

Wikipedia has a more specific definition of rent seeking: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent- seeking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).

> Rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent (i.e., the portion of > income paid to a factor of production in excess of what is needed to keep it > employed in its current use) by _manipulating the social or political > environment in which economic activities occur_ , rather than by creating > new wealth.

With regards to pay-day lending, what is "higher than necessary?" Payday lending is an incredibly competitive market--not only is there a payday lender on every corner in poor neighborhoods, but such loans are easily available online, and there is competition from pawn shops, etc. Interest rates for payday loans almost certainly reflect a competitive market price accounting for the risk of default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some markets are hard to police at scale. I'm reminded of Google's ongoing problems with fake locksmith listings [1].

One way to solve the problem is to try harder to police it. Another (if alternative ways of searching are better) is to get out of the market. This can be a reasonable decision even if it's a perfectly legitimate market.

I'm guessing Google doesn't want to devote the resources into figuring out which bail bond advertisers are legitimate. They have lots of other rules about not accepting ads for legitimate businesses.

[1] [https://marketingland.com/locksmiths-try-sue-google-fake- loc...](https://marketingland.com/locksmiths-try-sue-google-fake-local- listings-208189)

</comment><comment><USER9> > Indeed, [bail bonds] are a necessary service for the legal system to > function.

This is untrue. While bail bonds are a major feature of the U.S. legal system, removing the whole bail bond system would be an improvement.

<comment><USER10> > _removing the whole bail bond system would be an improvement._

How would this improve the system? This would mean that only rich people who can bail themselves out would be able to await trial as free men/women. Poorer people would stay in jail and presumably lose their jobs.

<comment><USER9> I was suggesting that the entire idea of bail money was a bad one, for exactly the reason you describe. Rich people simply leave a deposit, and poor people effectively pay a permanent fine of 10% of that deposit regardless of their innocence.

The idea of ensuring someone shows up to trial by holding onto something they value isn't terrible, but the implementation certainly is. If you want to set bail, why is it based mostly on the crime and not on the wealth of the suspect? $1000 of bail means nothing to a billionaire and everything to someone living hand to mouth.

<comment><USER10> What would be a good replacement for the bail system?

> _$1000 of bail means nothing to a billionaire and everything to someone > living hand to mouth._

This is surely true, but also irrelevant since bail is set in relation to the individual's means. Pretending that a rich person could ever have such insignificant bail is disingenuous.

<comment><USER9> I'm no expert here, so perhaps you can enlighten me. Isn't the whole idea of a "bail schedule" or a "bail algorithm" to have set amounts of bail for a certain crime, like "this person is accused of a DUI, has committed no previous crimes, bail is therefore $1000?" Does wealth provide any sort of multiplier?

<comment><USER10> It certainly can be a multiplier. See $66M bail in the case of this wealthy heiress (whom I believe had no previous record): [http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states- canada/article/...](http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states- canada/article/2085665/chinese-born-heiress-posts-us66m-bail-california)

This was undoubtedly also because she was a flight risk. But this is the case with all super-wealthy people who have means to flee the jurisdiction (private jets or access to other private transportation).

This doesn't mean a rich person will have a high bail amount for all types of crimes, but this would be taking into consideration their ties to the community (own a mansion in town? You're probably not going to leave it behind. Ditto for your high-paying job.) Not saying any of this is fair — just that this is how the bail-setting factors get applied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this just Copenhagen Ethics[1] striking again? "Bail bonds companies are associated with something bad (the current criminal justice system), so they inherent the taint of evil."

What do they expect is going to happen when you make it harder for potential customers to find alternatives to the loudest bail bondsman? You just make it easier for the fewer, established bondsmen to offer harsher terms.

With that said, there _is_ a right way to approach problems like this[3]: actually _help the ostensible victims_ find a good alternative that does care about not exploiting them.

For an example of the model, here's my experience when I visited a California check-cashing place (long story): before cashing the check, on ridiculous terms, they walk you through several cheaper alternatives (no idea if this is a legal requirement).

I don't see anything in their announcement[2] that suggests they'll take this approach, which would be something like: replace the "bad ads" with ones for the superior, non-profit alternatives that they want these communities to use. It's just unhelpful moralizing from advocates with a dubious model of the harm's causation.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10367855](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10367855)

[2] Warning: it will probably set off your add blocker: [https://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/05/google-bans-ads- for-b...](https://adwords.googleblog.com/2018/05/google-bans-ads-for-bail- bonds-services.html)

[3] by "this", I mean a case where there's a bad system, and a for profit group that's offering a local improvement but seems slimy nonetheless

<comment><USER12> Many other posters suggest that native search results (still allowed) will better find legitimate and helpful bail bond companies

<comment><USER11> I saw one or two other posters, and that's conjecture at best. If bail bonds companies really are exploitive and their announcement isn't just virtue signaling, they should be _actively pointing_ people to the orgs that aren't exploitive (and have an actual model for what counts as not being exploitive), not just praying that the exploitive ones don't learn SEO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I disagree with the author on the goodness of bail bond services. A bond should be payable but a hardship upon the person. The very existence of bail bondsman means the bonds themselves are so frequently beyond any reasonable cost to the humans.

That the bail bondsman is also somehow involved in legal advice navigating pretrial conditions is a further crock of excrement upon the system.

Also I'm astounded the Koch brothers are involved in this, and I'm curious what their profit motive is as I don't believe they have a single bit of altruism in them.

<comment><USER5> > Also I'm astounded the Koch brothers are involved in this, and I'm curious > what their profit motive is as I don't believe they have a single bit of > altruism in them.

The Koch brothers have a vested interest in pointing out examples (and this is one of them), where liberal feel-good policies make the lives of actual poor people worse.

<comment><USER14> > The Koch brothers have a vested interest in pointing out examples (and this > is one of them), where liberal feel-good policies make the lives of actual > poor people worse.

The cash bail system and the bail bonds industry it supports are not "liberal feel good" policies.

<comment><USER5> Demonizing and discouraging industries that cater to poor people as "exploitative" (fast food, pay day lending, low quality housing) is a liberal feel good policy.

<comment><USER14> That would make your argument coherent (if still wrong), if Koch Industries was in this discussion as an opponent rather than one of the groups Google worked with on the issue to come to this policy.

Opposition to the cash bail system and the government-spawned industry it supports, while to be sure prominent on the left, also has notable support among (even right-)libertarians.

<comment><USER5> It's not clear to me from the coverage whether the Kochs support Google's idea specifically, or bail bond reform generally: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/google-and-koch-brothers- tea...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/07/google-and-koch-brothers-team-up-for- bail-reform.html).

<comment><USER14> > It's not clear to me from the coverage whether the Kochs support Google's > idea specifically

Perhaps, but your argument about their interest in the present issue only made sense if they were overt critics, when the only reason they are in the discussion isn't criticism of the policy but Google _crediting_ Koch when announcing the policy.

<comment><USER5> No, you're right, I was confused about what exactly their involvement was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> if they want to improve the bail situation, they could help fund the setup of more organizations like the bronx freedom fund. [http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/](http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/)

the stats on the freedom fund's site don't make it sound as though you're doing anyone any favors by leaving them in jail. owing money to the bail bondsman isn't great, but it sounds better than losing your job because you're stuck in jail for weeks awaiting trial.

<comment><USER16> Huh, did they copy Brooklyn Bail Fund?

[https://brooklynbailfund.org/](https://brooklynbailfund.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a slippery slope for Google, and raises questions about their handling of ads for other industries where questionably ethical and/or illegal ads are run on Google.

As an example from my industry (full disclosure- as cofounder of an Obamacare- only startup, I am very biased here):

Search for 'Obamacare' on Google and you'll be presented with ads for sites that do not sell actual Obamacare plans, but use misleading language suggesting they do. The goal is to bait and switch - bring people in promising Obamacare plans, and then sell them plans that pay higher commissions but do not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act such as no restrictions on preexisting conditions, coverage of maternity services, paying for hospitalizion, etc etc. This is definitely unethical (people think they are covered for e.g. hospital visits and aren't) and in some cases illegal under state insurance law, but state enforcement personnel don't have the bandwidth to audit Google ads, and Google's auditors don't appear to have the industry- specific knowledge to catch that behavior.

Given this move with bail bonds, will Google seek to more broadly enforce an ethical standard on its platform (not to mention laws)? Or is this a one off? Note that insurance is a significant portion of Google's ad revenue, whereas bail bonds are negligible.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Google's decision to ban ads from bail bond providers is deeply disturbing > and wrongheaded.

The case made for that is distinctly underwhelming.

> Bail bonds are a legal service.

That doesn't mean Google needs to carry ads for them.

> Indeed, they are a necessary service for the legal system to function.

No, they aren't. They are a necessary service for the abusive system of excessive cash bail to function, but the entire system of cash bail is facing widespread (and not along traditional party lines) criticism as being incompatible with the fundamental values of our legal system.

But even if this description was accurate, that doesn't mean Google carrying advertising for the industry is necessary.

> Whatever the cause, preventing advertising doesn't reduce the need to pay > bail it simply makes it harder to find a lender.

No, it doesn't, as doing a Google Search for "bail bonds _< city>_" and comparing the advertising results, map results, and organic web search results would show.

> Restrictions on advertising in the bail industry, as elsewhere, are also > likely to reduce competition and raise prices.

The source cited for the argument for the general effect here studied effect of advertising _taxes_ , which increase the price for equal visibility; whether the Google ban is in any way comparable really depends what the main mechanism is for people finding bail bonds through Google-placed ads. If it's mostly search advertisement on relevant terms, banning the ads gives organic results the same effect that paid ads use to have, and reduces the cost of visibility, which would have the exact opposite effect of an advertising tax. This would, therefore, be expected to _increase_ competition and _lower_ prices.

<comment><USER5> If Google wants to lobby to get rid of bail bonds, more power to them. But focusing on bail bondsmen is (a distinctly liberal sort of) feel-good ignorance: focusing on the "evil" business instead of the state that is actually causing the problem.

There is a good argument that the government should ensure adequate water supplies in the event of disaater. But if the government fails to do that, banning private businesses from "gouging" people by selling water at market rates feels good but actually hurts people. Targeting bail bondsmen in a world where the government abuses minority and low income communities by requiring excessive bail is likewise misguided.

<comment><USER14> > If Google wants to lobby to get rid of bail bonds, more power to them. But > focusing on bail bondsmen

Is exactly what lobbying to get rid of bail _bonds_ is, but not what Google is doing.

Perhaps you meant "money bail", not just "bail bonds". But they are doing exactly that. Refusing to take money generated by that system and crediting people working to eliminate the system for that, directing media attention to the issue and established reform advocates, is a way of doing that.

> banning private businesses from "gouging" people by selling water at market > rates feels good but actually hurts people

Yes, which is why it would be bad if Google, as you suggest, lobbied against bail _bonds_. But no one is _banning_ bail bondsmen from selling their product, Google just isn't taking paid ads from the industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've gone to a bondsman twice and neither time was I presented with any financing options. Perhaps because the bail was only a few thousand dollars, with the bondsman taking 10% (state law capped at 12% under $10K, 15% over).

The whole infraction -> arrest -> bail -> fines -> probation cycle in my state is highly punitive. Trivial things can lead to a warrant / arrest. Bondsman collect their fees, the courts get theirs. If they've sat in jail for a bit, they may be getting charged for the privilege. Afterwards the person ends up on probation, which collects more fees and produces more opportunity for someone to be arrested again over something trivial.

It's nuts, and that's just one tiny aspect of the policing-for-profit economy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Google keeps blanket banning industries because bad actors exist. There are legitimate ICOs and legitimate bail bond companies, as the author said, and google decides to not differentiate between them. They are an AI company they should be able to detect outright scams. Or god forbid they need to hire someone.

Then Google and Facebook use this and anything else to ask for regulation. Because regulation for entrenched players is just collusion to prevent disruption which will bump stock price.

<comment><USER20> Is disallowing ads but allowing search really that bad for businesses?

<comment><USER14> It's bad for ones that spend a lot on advertising placement to capture business and make up for with high prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google: Today, we're announcing a new policy to prohibit ads that promote bail bond services from our platforms. Studies show that for-profit bail bond providers make most of their revenue from communities of color and low income neighborhoods when they are at their most vulnerable, including through opaque financing offers that can keep people in debt for months or years.

Well, you could extend that further: governments and their so called "justice systems" penalize communities of color and low income neighborhoods when they are at their most vulnerable . . . . expensive defense attorneys, years of probation fees, court fees, supervisory fees, law enforcement budgets are among the highest costs for communities. Court appointed lawyers are almost a sure way these poor folks are going to serve time, while wealthy offenders do probation or walk.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good for Google. Although their stated reasoning is flawed (bail bondsmen don't target poor minority communities for any diabolical reason, they target them because they are part of the entire criminal justice system that targets minorities), the effect will be positive.

Mixing profit and capitalistic incentives with criminal justice is fundamentally flawed.

</comment><comment><USER23> This reminds me of the concept of censor-bait in movies. Filmmakers sometimes include over the top, obviously gratuitous scenes, images, or language in their films so that the MPAA ratings board feels like they've done something when it's cut to later make an R or PG-13 rating.

This feels like Google inviting in regulation here so that lawmakers can feel like they've done something good and just, and that Google can later rely on this saying, "Hey now, we're not fighting regulation! We invited you in to look at the bail bonds thing!"

<comment><USER24> Also the concept of "ducking" comes to mind, from the story of the guy who would talk to a rubber duck while debugging. A former colleague took this to whole new levels and would implement unit tests that would deliberately fail and print "Quack" to the terminal as a way of forcing QA to actually execute tests.</comment></comment>


Ban on UK state-funded academics using their work to question government policy - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/17/britains-scientists-must-not-be-gagged <comment><USER2> Making sure you never hear when you're wrong. There's a winning strategy.</comment>


HTML Notepad – HTML WYSIWYG editor for the rest of us - <AUTHOR> https://html-notepad.com <comment> c-smile Just in case, I am an author of HTML-NOTEPAD - will answer questions if any.</comment>


Ignore details early on - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3387-ignore-details-early-on <comment><USER2> > (Reprinted from Getting Real, The smarter, faster, easier way to build a > successful web application.)

So, 37s turned a bunch of blog posts[1] into a book[2], which they are now turning back into blog posts[3].

[1] [http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/getting_real_ignore_detai...](http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/getting_real_ignore_details_early_on.php)

[2] [http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Ignore_Details_Early_O...](http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Ignore_Details_Early_On.php)

[3] <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3387-ignore-details-early-on>

<comment><USER3> You have to admit, It's quite clever really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great advice as long as you know the difference between a detail and an issue. They are often easy to confuse.

Detail: What font should we use on the payment page?

Issue: Should the customer's credit limit be for our division or for the entire company?

Ignore the former and make faster progress.

Ignore the latter and be prepared to redesign your database and rewrite your app if you made the wrong choice.

<comment><USER5> Exactly what I thought. If you're designing backbone of your application then being sloppy can be very expensive in the long run. Of course you still need to see the difference between essential elements and those that can be tackled later (usually parts of functionality that have nothing depending on them).

Personally I find it very hard to do software design on initial stages of a project. It is similar to deciding on the laws of chemistry when building a tree, if you chose wisely it will grow naturally, if you make a mistake project completion may become impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure. I think this ought to be correct, but in practice I find it often isn't.

The more I try to write fiction, which I think follows the same creative process, the more I find each piece of work needs its own method for development.

Sometimes the shape of an idea comes first and the task is to trace its outline, but at other times an idea will accrete in the process of writing, and the important thing is to edit it into being.

Maybe some web designers really do need to figure out the font in order to work out what they are trying to say.

As usual, Neil Gaiman describes it best:

[http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/39857822411/what-do-you-t...](http://neil- gaiman.tumblr.com/post/39857822411/what-do-you-think-about-the-idea-of-not- editing-while)

<comment><USER7> As a game developer, when making a new game, I will only focus on a few details that might seem small but if they don't turn out the way they were imagined, the game just will never work/feel right. Just like someone might need to see the right font on the page to see how it all ties in together, in games sometimes I just have to have a pretty polished reference animation for a character to tell if the controls are going to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the design equivalent of "Don't optimize prematurely."

If you optimize too soon in programming, you could run into all kinds of pitfalls. You might make the wrong thing efficient; you might spend a ton of time making the right thing efficient and then not use it; you might make something too complex by accident and it could screw you later on. So you wait to optimize.

You make the simplest solution that will work first, then optimize later, if needed. Often it's not needed.

The same _should_ go for design, as it's an excellent fundamental principle of creation in general. Don't prematurely optimize: in other words, don't make things too complicated, too soon. Don't build something up before you have all the information. And don't build things you might not use until you know you need them. All good general rules of thumb, and they apply to all your work.

<comment><USER9> Somehow you seem to assume that optimizing code would lead to complexity. From personal experience I would argue that often the code is actually clearer and more readable after it has been optimized. This is because great care has been put into it -- it's not just written and left at that, but it has been refactored with speed in mind.

Though my experience is mainly in C and C++, I guess it can be different in dynamic languages.

<comment><USER8> There's a balance. You have to optimise to some degree (writing blatantly poorly designed code is just silly), but you shouldn't _over_ -optimize. To me, that's sort of implied in the word 'optimize.' You should start with a good design, that's well-thought-out, and you should reduce it to the simplest and clearest possible concept, but you shouldn't go overboard until you know the path.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Excellent points. Personally I find early detail obsession to a be a red flag about my own behaviour.

As a developer when I notice myself re-tweaking about what shade of green to use, what perfect image to put in place, or what pixel size of font to use, it means I need to walk away for a bit. I've burned out for the moment on the big issues that need to be done and am just fooling myself with inconsequential work in order to maintain the feeling of progress.

</comment><comment><USER11> I find it sad when clueless people end up well-rewarded. It leads to articles with terrible pieces of advice, such as this one.

Anyone who pays attention would notice that things that work well are always built by people who pay attention to details.

<comment><USER12> Sure. Only that's entirely not what the article says. It says not to focus on details _too early_. Because while the entire team may (or may not) agree on the general idea, getting into the details at the same time will take _much_ longer, with very little gain (since that early in the project it may not even be sure if that detail will even be relevant later on). Get the rough ideas sorted out first. Then chip down, iteration by iteration. Finally, get to the details (and then it's time to pay attention to those).

<comment><USER11> On surface, you're right.

However, I've never encountered a person who pays attention to details and can switch this on or off, depending at which stage the project is in. You either care about details (and you can't help yourself), or you don't.

When you are good but don't pay attention to details you end up with things like ... the Facebook website. You make a million bucks by some random chance and then you start writing crap articles like this one. And then all the cool under-30 kids start worshipping you.

<comment><USER13> Give someone a project where there's not enough time to nail down every detail and complete the project.

Either they fail by not producing a working product, they learn to prioritize, they burn themselves out and get it done to their standard, or they quit because they can't accept that sometimes deadlines matter more than details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The process of creating a great [novel, product, presentation] is iterative. You create a first version. It sucks, you find obvious flaws, and you make a few passes through editing it. Then you show it to other people and get more feedback. Repeat.

The advantage of high-level, low-detail [outlines, prototypes, sketches] is that you can find a lot of flaws without doing all the work, and iterate faster. It sucks when you have to scrap 3 weeks of code because there's a fundamental flaw in your architecture. It sucks even more when you have to scrap 5 years of work because you built something nobody wanted.

Novelist Rachel Aaron started writing 5 times faster and with higher quality (at least according to Amazon) through extensive use of outlines[0].

Now, the high-level outline will never be 100% accurate. As you dive into details, you'll realize that there are flaws and you need to change your design. That's okay. The point is to go with the approach that helps you improve faster than anything else. If you're writing a new feature for your app findthenearesthotdog.com, the right iteration loop might be idea -> 15 minutes on a whiteboard -> code. If you're creating software that has interface with 17 different legacy systems from hospitals with administrators who think web apps are made by spiders, you might want to go idea -> talk to customers -> talk to lawyers -> draw up diagrams, get approval -> write up 500 page spec, get approval -> code

With the product you're building, figure out which source of feedback (yourself, customers, friends) and which level of detail (code, specs, whiteboards) will help you improve fastest, and start there.

[0]: [http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-i-went- from-...](http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-i-went-from- writing-2000-words-day.html)

<comment><USER15> This is something I've noticed about Amazon. The first version of things they come out with generally suck (See: Kindle, Kindle Fire, a lot of AWS services), but they iterate like hell. Everything is rapidly improved every iteration.

This is opposed to Google, which tends to throw something out there that's pretty good to begin with, but once it's released it doesn't get much support and dies. Also, Google's (hosting) services tend to get more expensive, AWS always gets cheaper. I think it says a lot about how each company works.

<comment><USER14> If you view the loop as:

Creator(s) -> Product -> Creator's feedback -> Consumer's feedback

Google seems to have heavy focus on the "Creator's feedback" portion, while Amazon has heavy focus on the "Consumer's feedback." That's why Amazon will release crappy v1's. This is basically the same as the agile development philosophy: orient your process to get external feedback as soon as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree, though it's borderline "ship fast and break things" mentality. It's the difference between shipping a product with a great solution to a problem or waiting to ship because you want to make the entire thing configurable from the ground up.

It's much better to ship an early product with not much customization in a prototype/alpha/beta phase and get immediate feedback on what's truly important before arbitrarily deciding for yourself what's needed.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use this process when I'm building things with Obvious(<http://obvious.retromocha.com>). The web and the db are details.

Building this way lets you fill in those bits when you need them, but you don't spend a bunch of time being tied to a particular framework or database infrastructure until you need them.

What is cool is once you start decoupled, it is easy to stay decoupled and the details can stay that way.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the real point is to know which details to focus on, and getting distracted by the less useful examples here makes that case pretty strongly.

If you ignore details altogether, though, you're probably going to miss something important.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm guilty of this, and still debating redesigning my landing page without having enough traffic to even properly A/B test the current one.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you using UI in deeplearning - <AUTHOR> Are you using UI to build/analyze neural networks ? <comment><USER2> I wrote my own ui to show convergence plot.

I think having an ui is nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you share ?

<comment><USER2> everything is here, but kinda half finished. it's like tensorboard.

[https://github.com/shi- yan/FreeWill/tree/master/Utils/WebUI](https://github.com/shi- yan/FreeWill/tree/master/Utils/WebUI)

will take you some effort to bring it up.

it's made based on my own web framework swiftly:

[https://github.com/shi-yan/Swiftly](https://github.com/shi-yan/Swiftly)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Jupyter</comment>


Ask HN: How to be a good programmer if you have a hard time reading? - <AUTHOR> If you have a hard time reading, what should and can you do to be a good programmer? <comment><USER2> How do you mean "hard time reading"? Attention span problem, comprehension issues or lack of interest in reading?

</comment><comment><USER3> Your reaction to reading is just an emotional response. You need to get over the fact that you don't like to read and do it. Eventually it will come naturally to you. That's one of the things that I learned from a CSCI professor when I was in school. Don't be concerned about your emotional response when you face a large coding problem, or any kind of difficulties. You can do it and you will if you really want it enough.

<comment><USER4> > Your reaction to reading is just an emotional response

That's certainly one claim, but on the other hand we have about a dozen decades of actual neurological research that doesn't agree with it.

<comment><USER3> Then what is it? Please help me understand this research that proves my statement incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it reading the code that is a problem or reading the documentation?

</comment><comment><USER6> Change your IDE theme (dark background), change the font size, use syntax highlighting.</comment>


Dear Mr. President: Please stop with these science "moonshots" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/dear-mr-president-please-stop-with-these-science-moonshots/ <comment><USER2> As we now know, cancer can have as many variants as we have genes. We are fortunate that is does not quite do that, the number of cancer variants is far fewer than the number of genes. That said, all cancers are caused by some sort of gene malfunction, and this leads to thousands of causes - and cures. Some cures were easy, and have been done, and some are far more difficult to cure. To liken a "cure for cancer" to a "moonshot", means that the President speaks from a lack of understanding. He does not know there will never be a "cancer moonshot" \- a single cure. While he may be a good politician, if his lack of technical knowledge about cancer and it's causes/cures is similar to his lack of knowledge about other technical matters, like semiconductors, copyrights, patents etc. is similarly inadequate, it means that reform in these areas of research and IP will not arrive during his tenure.

<comment><USER3> I agree. But the number is bigger, because you must calculate the combinations of the genes that may fail. IIRC, usually only one gene failing is not enough.

The best easy explanation I found is in this comic: [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They're just doing what politicians do. Joe Biden experienced a personal tragedy. Instead of accepting defeat, they turn the tragedy around into a platform for promoting new policies.

It's similar to how most famous comedians struggle with crippling depression. The best humor isn't crafted from some precise 'funny formula.' It comes from disassociating and learning to laughing/joke about the same crazy shit in life that was driving you mad.

\-----

Unfortunately, politicians don't actually do anything except write policies that enable others to do the work. They tend to have a skewed perspective on what is and isn't possible. Funding isn't the issue, science is.

I used to know somebody (ie SD is weird) who works directly on the bleeding edge cancer research. The next generation of treatments will target specific classes of cancers based on characteristics of the cancer cells; then, reprogram the immune system to attack those characteristics.

If chemo is the equivalent of dropping a nuke, medication the equivalent of dropping napalm, the new approach will be like building an army to overthrow a rebel uprising.

If a treatment works as expected, it will only work for a specific class of cancer. As another comment already pointed out, cancer is a class of diseases so there'll never be one cure.

Either way, science takes time. Unlike software where an order of magnitude improvement can sometimes be gained by using a better algorithm or better architecture. Scientific research requires brute force. Nobody is going to sprinkle unicorn dust (ie money) on the problem to make scientists magically discover a cure tomorrow. The biotech research industry is already flush with money and using the best technology that industry has to offer.

This article absolutely hits the nail on the head.

<comment><USER5> I have a copy of a book called the Death of Cancer. It is written by one of the best oncologists in history. I think his book would strongly suggest the contrary -- that ample funding, paired with organizational & regulatory improvements -- would put "curing cancer" within reach.

Human success in treating cancer so far has largely depended on government support, and the text does this story justice.

Want the copy? I'll mail it to you free of charge.</comment></comment>


Adobe launches Splashup (YC summer 07) competitor - <AUTHOR> http://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html

<comment><USER2> "Currently United States Only." Dont understand why this is US only even if temporarily. How does it matter what country I am in ?

<comment><USER3> I've had the same problem with Hulu and some other websites. What the fuck is the problem? Just let others use the website while you sort the legal stuff out...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> dead easy</comment>


Singapore to rethink high-stakes math tests - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/780752/singapore-is-rethinking-high-stakes-tests/ <comment><USER2> From experience, there is a tendency to favour quantity over quality of work in Asia. This can be seen from how students in China are given stacks and stacks of mindnumbing multiple-choice questions for homework or how children are measured by time-spent practising music or sports rather than being encouraged to practice smart.

I suspect part of this comes from (relatively) uneducated parents (recall that 50~60 years ago China was in the middle of a cultural revolution and the Singapore of 1960/70 would be barely recognisable when compared to today's).

But I also wonder how much of this is baked into the culture through the language: character-based languages require a great deal more rote learning than others, and especially for children --who have no conceptual grasp of syntax / grammar-- memorisation is probably the most effective way of teaching it. It would then naturally follow to expand on that learning style on other disciplines...

<comment><USER3> > character-based languages

> children --who have no conceptual grasp of syntax / grammar--

Do you speak Chinese? I doubt you know what you are talking about, because IMHO complex semantics are hardly possible without syntax. If you imply that Chinese are in general incapable of ideas as complex as American's, only because of the language, that would be perceived as a slur. Can you substantiate your claim?

> memorisation is probably the most effective way of teaching it

as evident by the myriads of data structures developed to memorize data, memory is syntactic and by that I mean ordered.

<comment><USER4> I think he means that children in general don't learn a language by learning syntax and grammar.

<comment><USER4> With English and I guess other languages, you just learn your alphabet and you can guess words pretty well. This is not the same as in Chinese, so children would most likely need to use repition a lot more to learn the characters that they need to learn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the key take-away is they're using evidence to make decisions. There's no end to prescriptions in education: small class sizes, start early, selection, non-selection, child-led, and so on.

From my own experience, it makes sense to make less of the tests. I liked tests, and I did math contests, but a lot of people don't like it. And when you look at work, you rarely have an occasion where it's just about knowing something and doing a calculation, which is what they do in high school maths. The times I've done math at work it's been something like this:

\- We have some option model that needs to be implemented

\- The model turns out to require a function that we don't have in the standard lib (Bessel function)

\- There's a book with an implementation in C

\- There's a wikipedia page that we'll scan to make sure there's no gremlins

\- We then start to write the implementation in our own lib

\- We do some tests to make sure the number that comes out of the Bessel function is correct

\- We do some tests to see that the option model comes out with the right number

None of that workflow is anything like in school, where you'd take some function, apply some trig relations, apply the list of integration rules, and plug in the starting value. Without a book.

</comment><comment><USER6> We have to rethink the way schools work. The current system is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that people use logic when in reality people use pattern matching but this isn't really reflected in the way we teach. School of the future should teach reading as quickly as possible and from then on, it should be mostly a co-working space where you read and where the teacher doesn't really teach but mostly just helps with things when you get stuck. I think that the current curricula can be compressed into much fewer years, like something equivalent to a high school education can be compressed to like a half. Also the lack of 'immediate feedback' is terrible from the educational point of view.

<comment><USER7> Having high school education last until the onset of adulthood does have a number of benefits, but to realize those benefits, Americans need to stop treating high school as the first step towards University.

The purpose of government-provided education _should_ be to prepare its students to become citizens.

As a side benefit, those students are also employable, because the gamut of skills that you need as a citizen overlaps heavily with what you need to succeed, either as an employee, or as an entrepreneur: critical thinking, rhetoric, art, logic, practical mathematics, writing and communication, collaboration, physical fitness, maintenance of health and wellness, self- directed learning, a knowledge of history and politics, knowledge of both the sciences and how to apply the scientific method, and probably more than a few more things that I have overlooked.

American high schools teach few of these. Sure, you are required to learn "science", but I don't recall my school ever forcing us to go through the process of creating a theory, designing an experiment to attempt to falsify our theory, and running through the experimental process.

Same goes for critical thinking -- arguing against the teacher's viewpoint is strongly discouraged. You are only allowed to color within the lines.

Physical fitness classes are largely a joke, mostly because they don't cater to things that might be interesting to people that prefer individual sports. I would have _loved_ if my school offered Karate, climbing, or even just hiking as physical fitness courses.

We should also take a page from Japan, and make students responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of their schools, under supervision, of course.

I doubt any of this could be done in public schools at this stage, though -- the liabilities are too great, and there are too many special interests that make a large amount of money off of the current system.

<comment><USER8> I don't know how productive some of this would be, really. School is too stressful, and goes too fast, to really understand an example with creating a theory and designing an experiment. It will be perceived as troublesome, most wouldn't understand or be able to keep up. Look at that list you have there. Logic, mathematics, writing, history and politics, and science. These things are huge. Schools /have/ been trying to cram these things in to the point where there was no room left for all the other things you mention.

I think one of the core issues with modern education is trying to teach children complex and specific concepts in the first place. Their brains are not yet developed, their motivation is nil, and there's not enough time. It benefits those with higher base intelligence for the most part. Anything they do understand is quickly forgotten. The same concepts are so much easier to understand 10 years later, and there's a higher chance that they would be grounded in something they actually care about at that point as opposed to trying to explain to a 13 year old why Shakespeare is interesting.

Of course, that would require a fundamental restructuring of society, and more push towards people learning in their 20's and 30's and beyond. But I think it's extremely silly to devote the first 1/5 of one's projected life expectancy to heavy learning, at a point where they barely understand anything, and their motivations are not their own, and then almost completely drop it for the other 4/5 where you just work, work, work. And the first 20 years are probably more important for the rest of your life than anything you do afterwards. The focus on employment is part of an issue. The problem isn't with schools producing employable people. The problem is the concept of employability itself and what it does to society. Why are we trying to make schools more aligned with something that's a bigger problem in itself? What a waste.

School should focus on learning how to learn, how to discern information, where to find information, etc., and core skills that are going to be relevant to effectively everyone - such as some that you mentioned, like health and wellness, and I'd add cleaning and cooking to the list and things like being considerate towards other people.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you make learning fun? - <AUTHOR> This could be answered in two ways: either how do you personally make learning new things fun for yourself OR if you were designing something that teaches, how would you make it fun? <comment><USER2> First, don't call it learning because for some reason we have made believe that learning has to be something difficult.

Second, to make learning fun, it has to be designed like a good computer game: the difficulty should be slightly above your ability. That way you feel challenged and not bored but not too much so you become frustrated.

I think we are still far away from truly "personalised learning" but it's gonna be a game changer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anything audio/visual takes the cake for me. I observed as I get older I find it harder just reading books but video courses/trainings are easier and my attention tends to stray less. That's me though</comment>


I Hope You Don't Have a Borders Rewards Card - <AUTHOR> http://www.mediabistro.com/ebooknewser/i-hope-you-dont-have-a-borders-rewards-card_b9719

<comment><USER2> A few years ago, I signed up for a Borders rewards card. Gave them an email address of firstname.lastname@example.com. Weeks later, began getting tons of spam to that address.

So uh, I'm guessing that this Borders employee isn't the only one who knows about this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminder: If a link you want to submit has an uninformative, sensationalist, or otherwise shitty title, you should fix it. This is precedented, popularly encouraged, and in some cases required.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that it was security through obscurity. Maybe it was an incredible error where editing resources didn't have any type of authorization and no authentication based on the article.

<comment><USER5> Back in 2000 I worked on a website that had a secret page where you could enter any SQL statement in a textarea and it would be executed and the results returned to the page. This was claimed to be necessary for "debugging" and "support" but the only protection was that the URL was not linked anywhere else on the site.

I would not be so sure it's NOT security through obscurity. Whether it is or not, the Borders case is just another example of why it's no longer prudent to trust ANY online service with your personal data (though most of us would probably not think that signing up for a Borders Rewards card would create an online profile).

<comment><USER6> Was it something like /admin/query.php ?

<comment><USER7> I used to use /admin2/ I don't think anyone ever found out, but the website was a hideous mess of a first attempt at using PHP/MySQL.

<comment><USER8> my favorite was /pepe (grandfather in french) for phpMyAdmin. I remember a few places where /pepe stayed alive for many years after I'd left. Sure, there was a password ... but what good is a password if no one is arround to apply security patches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So worst case scenario, someone could have hacked my profile and "upgraded" my account since I just have the basic account. Oh and they could have harvested the spamgourmet email address that has boarders.com as the exclusive sender.

</comment><comment><USER10> I haven't had one that long--I got it because a co-worker was impatient at my not having one. But I haven't particularly noticed quantities of spam that followed it to my Gmail account, other than from Borders of course.

</comment><comment><USER11> Big companies are so horrible at protecting personal data.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure plenty of small companies are shitty too but no one notices or cares as much. If a tiny website has a security breach, who's going to write about it? who would care enough to post it? How many up votes would it get?

We just hear about the large breaches because it affects more people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Google cache still has it

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Abordersacctweb.brierley.com%2Fwaldenpos.aspx)

In case that goes down, here's a screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/H5U8Z.png>

</comment><comment><USER14> I guess when you know you're going out of business you get a little lazy with customer data...

</comment><comment><USER15> Erm.. And for people that have no clue what this is about (even after checking the link) and - like me - miss the capitalization and expect something related to .. borders:

Talking about plain old (boring?) payback card of ~some~ a book store/reseller, it seems. I guess. [1]

1: <http://www.borders.com/online/store/FaqView_faq1></comment>


Ask HN: What companies have the best Paid Time off Policy? - head-chef

What companies have the best paid time off policy? It seems many companies here in America still only give 10 days which I don't feel is really enough. So what companies offer the most? <comment><AUTHOR> Craigslist offers 4 weeks PTO per year. They're hardly the typical American company though.</comment>


Intel 8th Gen 'Bean Canyon' NUCs with Coffee Lake-U Iris Plus Revealed - <AUTHOR> https://wccftech.com/intel-8th-gen-coffee-lake-u-iris-plus-bean-canyon-nucs-revealed/ <comment><USER2> I had to figure out what the rest of the article title meant.

> Feature 128 MB eDRAM, 48 EUs

I'm guessing 48 EUs means 4/8 execution units (4 cores, 8 HTT).

Just learned what eDRAM is, but turns out to be two different things: either a way of having a larger cache shared with the CPUs L3 and the GPU, or a buffer for main memory access which also allows bus devices to use the cache. There's even a mode where the eDRAM can be written bypassing L3 since all of L3 could easily be invalidated otherwise.</comment>


Making Your Mark On The Web Is Easier Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/02/making-your-mark-on-the-web-is-easier-than-you-think/

<comment><USER2> The significant role of luck shouldn't be ignored in a piece like this. Especially in light of our diminishing attention to an expanding volume of voices, getting noticed can be tough even when you're doing all the "right" things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Add one more to the list: Make cool stuff

<comment><USER4> Seems he covered that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does Google get data from ReCAPTCHA yet it knows if I'm wrong? - <AUTHOR> If it asks me to label all street signs, the common understanding is that I'm labeling data for their ML algorithms.<p>But if they're counting on me to label it, then how does it already know if I miss a tile? It seems to already have the data labeled, so what's the point? <comment><USER2> IIUC they mix known data in with unknown data.

If you get a lot of the known data wrong, they throw out your answer and make you answer the CAPTCHA again. If you get the known data right, they assume that your answers on the unknown data are correct and use that to label them, then start adding them in as the known data for other people. They might also show the same images to multiple people and see if they give the same answers - if so, it's probably correct and can be labeled, if not throw them out and make them answer the CAPTCHA again.

</comment><comment><USER3> It mixes knowns and unknowns. It only judges you based on the knowns.

They probably require some minimum level of consensus to determine knowns as well.

For instance NYPL's "building inspector" crowdsourcing program accepts a piece of data as verified if it's been checked by 3 or more participants and at least 75% of them are in agreement. If 75% hasn't been reached, it will keep showing it to more participants until it is.

</comment><comment><USER4> When they still did the text captcha they asked for two words the first was known and the second unknown. You could opt out of their data collection by just giving the first word.

For the images I assume its something similar.

</comment><comment><USER5> Its sampled together with other people. If all of them provided the wrong information, you could label something else as a traffic light or whatever.</comment>


The Case for Free-Range Parenting - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/the-case-for-free-range-parenting.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if it was already around, but the first time I heard the term "Free-range kids" was from Lenore Skenazy[1], who was called "America's worst mom" after she wrote an article about letting her son ride the subway by himself[2].

I remember thinking the issue would go away, that everyone would come to their senses soon and that people would realize it made no sense to worry about everything. Instead, I learned a new term: "helicopter parents"[3].

[1] [http://www.freerangekids.com/](http://www.freerangekids.com/)

[2] [http://www.nysun.com/opinion/americas-worst- mom/74347/](http://www.nysun.com/opinion/americas-worst-mom/74347/)

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

<comment><USER3> Note that helicopter-style parenting is a complex social phenomenon, and not just some sort of personal failing (an implication which is similar to the "worst mom" characterization of Skenazy). Children who grow up in suburban sprawl, long distances from school and friends will require chauffeuring, scheduled playdates, etc. I would be surprised if most parents wouldn't be pleased if their children were able to be more independent at an earlier age (though I am sure some subset would rather maintain control).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would love to be a "free-range" parent, but I won't. Not because I think it is bad for my daughter, but because I'm afraid I'll end up in a an expensive legal battle against the state.</comment>