In Denmark, Harsh New Laws for Immigrant 'Ghettos' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/01/world/europe/denmark-immigrant-ghettos.html <comment><USER2> I used to live in Tingbjerg, and could witness firsthand how the immigrants abused the welfare there. The laws may seem harsh, but on the other side you have people who take pride in cheating the social security system.

<comment><USER3> How many, how often? How do you know they abused it? Anecdote, data and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "ghetto" lists have been a thing for a number of years now in Denmark.

There used to be a couple of areas in the city where I live, in cheaper community housing like this

[https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?mod...](https://www.alabubolig.dk/S%c3%b8g-bolig/Afdelinger.aspx?moduleAction=displayDepartment&departmentNo=25&companyNo=99)

This was perceived as a huge problem for the housing associations renting out the apartments, so they've been doing a bunch of different things, including hiring social workers, courses to try to get people in a job, networks, giving the buildings a serious makeover destroying some and building new in an effort to get a better mix of low-rent and high-rent inhabitants. But also getting permission to decline new renters on welfare payments.

In the end, all housing associations where I live managed to get off the ghetto lists, so aren't affected by this new law.

I think the new law is probably more about signaling a hardliner attitude than actually solving problems.

On the other hand, no doubt people gathering in small closely-knit enclaves ends up being a problem for many of those living there. In a nutshell, if you need a job, networking with people who don't have one doesn't help.

<comment><USER5> How much is it actually a problem as far as crime is concerned? I know some countries where it's really bad but haven't heard of this issue in Denmark so can't comment.

<comment><USER6> Crime is lowering actually, so I guess it's less concerning than it was say 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, I don't want to go down the road of "this is backwards and shouldn't be happening in Denmark" and I'm already tired of comments saying "it's about time, wish they did that in my country"...

So I'm asking the smart people of HN. What could be good solutions for the problem they are trying to fix?

Children of families that come from other countries don't speak the language when they enrol in 1st grade.

<comment><USER8> Create a culture of migration. The United States and Canada are examples of countries where integration is wonderfully successful [1][2][3]. New citizens to the United States and Canada are welcomed in huge stadiums adorned with flags, families celebrate by making signs, and most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the country as any native born person. Attitudes among native born persons really make a difference, where even the United States' fairly conservative Republican party touts its immigrant supporters at their conventions.

Leaders in Europe have recognized the need for this attitude in the past, but they've acknowledged that it hasn't quite worked out [4][5]. Making the transition from a country with very long family lineages just requires a lot more convincing of the local population.

1: [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimil...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/assimilation- nation/309518/) 2: [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near- to...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-near-top-in- integrating-immigrants-survey-says/article568517/) 3: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/fo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/business/international/for- immigrants-america-is-still-more-welcoming-than-europe.html) 4: [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-12371994](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk- politics-12371994) 5: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela- merkel-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel- german-multiculturalism-failed)

<comment><USER5> > most everyone would agree that a new citizen is just as much a member of the > country as any native born person

This is already the case in Europe though; if anything, the racism/discrimination situation seems better than the US, since you don't have to fear for your life if you're black and see a cop.

I'm not sure there is a "nice" solution when some people immigrate for the sole reason of freeloading on the welfare system. I've noticed that in France where some people do not even wish to integrate (the tools are there if you want it), and prefer to stay within their community, relying either on welfare, or will often transition to living off crime (drugs, etc).

<comment><USER9> >> have to fear for your life if you're black and see a cop.

I am not sure black people in France are not afraid of police. If you exclude ugly episodes like this one:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french- polic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-police- officer-paris-charged-rape-22-year-old-black-man-bruno-le-roux-aulnay-sous- bois-a7565601.html)

Being black nevertheless means that police stops you very often, speaks at you with some rudness ("tutoiement") and police in general is white and close to far-right mindsets:

[https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=...](https://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.liberation.fr%2Fdirect%2Felement%2Fplus- de-50-des-policiers-et-militaires-ont-vote-fn-en-2015_28175%2F&edit-text=)

<comment><USER10> With all due respect blacks are afraid even in their own native land of africa, and similarly muslim in many muslim countries. That along with economical betterment is one of the key reasons why ppl immigrate in first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in Norway and we have similar problems with some immigrant children starting in the regular school without speaking Norwegian. It drains resources and takes away from the children that has learned to speak the language.

Denmark and Norway is quite similar and it's extremely common to have the children in daycare while both parents work. This is common across the board and low-income families get this for free (at least here).

Daycare is a good place to learn the language and obligatory daycare could be a solution to this.

HOWEVER, I am very disturbed by the statement that they will be forced through religious practices. In Norway, all religious activitys in daycare / school are optional. My children are not participating in these things since we are atheist, so are many others due to various reasons.

I hope that the article is misrepresenting this and that is the same way in Denmark. Maybe some Danes can enlighten us.

<comment><USER12> I just quickly read through the proposal ([https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-dan...](https://www.regeringen.dk/media/4937/publikation_%C3%A9t-danmark- uden-parallelsamfund.pdf))

I do not see religion mentioned

<comment><USER11> The article is wrong then:

"or mandatory instruction in "Danish values," including the traditions of Christmas and Easter"

Not too surprising, I think Denmark has religious freedom specified in their constitution as do Norway.

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't that be considered general culture though, considering most people in that country still celebrate those holidays?

You can not believe in that particular religion, but still it probably wouldn't hurt anyone knowing the reasons & beliefs behind those particular days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It was about time, but I am not sure the situation in Denmark is bad enough to warrant this - I wish other countries had this though, like France where the complete rejection & hatred of French values & culture by "ghetto" residents is quite worrying.

</comment><comment><USER13> This law makes sense to me (and I say that as an immigrant myself).

Immigrants are flocking to Denmark because it is a stable, prosperous society with generous benefits. But that stability and prosperity wasn't conjured up from thin air. It was built by the Danes for a homogenous group of people. If you want to join them, I find it perfectly reasonable for Danes to demand assimilation into Danish culture.

If you have problems with that, then don't go to Denmark. But it is wrong to fail at building your own country, seeking refuge in a better place and yet insisting on playing by your own rules in the new place.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of other similar attempts that have happened in the past to help "assimilation" and "integration":

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

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

</comment><comment><USER15> In ghettos they see less need to learn the local language, as everyone speaks their own language and all services are provided without needing to learn much.

Considering that immigrants chose to go to x country, I see no racism in making them integrate, otherwise that country will become like the old one pretty soon. Now jailing parents for "forcing" kids to visit the old country and other measures are out of line and most likely not needed. Just learn the local language, go to school and learn /abide by the values. Or else...this country is the wrong match for you. Try another country or go back to the old one.

<comment><USER16> The ghetto issue is separate and the only solution seems to be to force resettle people. Immigrants gravitate towards cheap housing and people speaking the same tongue which makes integration harder. You could skip this issue by skipping a generation of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As an Israeli who had gone through an education system almost exclusively dedicated the history of Eastern European Jews and the holaucaust, I think it's wonderful that we can now have real time and in color footage documenting how a so called "enlightened" and "advanced" society, pigs out and turns into brainless pack of animals that follows orders.

I would personally would like to see Israel's prime minister going to Denmark to protest, the way he did in Poland.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Starting at the age of 1, "ghetto children" must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in "Danish values,"

I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8.

<comment><USER15> _> >"I can't see how the first half of that isn't a violation of ECHR Article 8. "_

The law says ..."except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

Otherwise I can decide not to school my children.

<comment><USER18> It looks like this is subject to the decision in _Wunderlich v Germany_ which appears to be ongoing; I had no idea that homeschooling was illegal in Germany, it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education.

<comment><USER15> _> >it's perfectly legal in the UK provided that the parents provide adequate education._

and "adequate" is the key word. The letter and the spirit of the law makes it clear that the state has a very legit interest in educating people--including and maybe, especially, immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Well, in contrast: [https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut- eng...](https://hechingerreport.org/california-voters-poised-gut-english- instruction-law/)

</comment><comment><USER20> As an immigrant from a Muslim majority country into a European country, I find this approach very troubling.

I completely agree that most of the immigrants have a lot of trouble integrating into the host countries but I believe it's as much as a problem of the hosting culture as it is the of the immigrants coming in.

It's not just the Muslims, though they might be the most pronounced case (just because the sheer number of immigrants), immigrants from India, China, and even Eastern Europe face similar issues.

Anytime there is going to be a mass immigration to a specific place there is going to be a concentration of immigrant communities in certain places, it happened with the Irish and Italians in the US, and still happening with a lot of different areas in America (Michigan is one of the heaviest populated areas by Christian Arabs). The reason being is that when you first immigrate to a new place it's a lot easier to stick to the people you know and share behaviors with than to go out and make a new social circle.

However, the culture of the host society plays a big role in the acceptance of foreigners, for example, people in the US and Canada are usually a perceived to be lot friendlier than most typical Western Europeans, it's a lot easier to chit-chat with an American than to a Dutch, German, or French person..., It is also very easy to get to know people in the US, meanwhile unless you've really gotten to know each other it's very difficult to get close to a typical European. Norwegians usually joke that if two people get on the bus one of them is going to set at the front and the other all the way in the back.

Another culture tidbit that could contribute to this is that conformity plays a very huge part in the European culture, and they just confirm to a very different set of values than the ones where these immigrants are coming from, find someone walking naked down the street, that's completely normal but finding a women wearing burqa on a beach and suddenly a lot of heads are turning. Although this might also happen in the US but with the American stress on individualism it's always reassuring that it's OK to be who you are, rather than the typical European mindset of why don't you just take it off and be like everyone else.

Also The Hollywood effect, immigrants coming to America usually have a base understanding of what to expect coming in from watching movies, TV shows or even the news and are usually touched in one way or another by the American culture, meanwhile it's very difficult to understand the culture subtleties when you don't understand the language and haven't been exposed to this culture before and add that to the stress on conformity as mentioned before and very quickly you become an outcast in your social circle.

My point is that brute forcing people to integrate is simply the incorrect approach to solve this issue, culture intricacies needs to be studied and incompatibilities with the immigrant and host culture needs to be addressed to reach an effective solution, otherwise what you'll have is a very angry socially inept minority that could sing Jingle bells.

<comment><USER21> This is the best comment I've read here so far, and interesting to learn you're also a Muslim. You're clearly very well educated too.

I do have concerns though in relation to political Islam. Watching some videos hearing from "the horses mouth", I find troublesome to expect any possible integration from the many millions of Muslims already living in the EU. As the following video shows, it's the common Muslim who thinks like what the Western only attributes to the radical Muslim.

I'd like to hear your comments about the contents of this video please [https://youtu.be/fhBvzliBey4?t=1m30s](https://youtu.be/fhBvzliBey4?t=1m30s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how the Danish immigrants in Lebanon are fairing under the government and society in place.

<comment><USER18> The few Danes in Lebanon are almost certainly doing alright. It's the refugees in Lebanon that aren't; there's _1.5 million_ Syrian refugees there, which is causing similar social and economic tensions on a much larger scale.

(The headline article mentions that several of those interviewed are refugees, presumably from the previous civil war in Lebanon.)

<comment><USER22> I posted that comment to be snarky, but your earnest response has compelled me to elaborate on the motivation behind the crassness.

I imagine any Dane in Lebanon is doing quite well because, barring the exceedingly unlikely but not impossible chance of human trafficking, Danes in the Levant are there by choice and persons of considerable means (or privileged volunteers subjecting themselves to unnecessary hardship for a plethora of potential reasons). Denmark hasn't experienced a war since 1945 and hasn't had a home front war since ~1860. They don't generate refugees, and by and large neither do their neighbors. This is not magic. This is not a product of colonialism, or racism, or slavery. This is because certain cultures made a concerted effort to stop repeating a cycle and chose to operate differently. Having the means to do this was a lucky break in history (Nazis loved the Danes but the Danes never publicly reciprocated so they got all that sweet Marshall Plan cash) as well as some incredibly forward thinking and talented people who wanted their ethnostate to be happy, healthy, and productive. The last place Europe sent a bunch of refugees (outside of Europa) was Palestine. This led directly to a diaspora of Arabs and others out of the Levant. Guilt opened Europe's borders, foolishness propped the door open, and cognitive dissonance will claim it is the right thing to do. Denmark, or any country, that attempts to transfer culture through enforced education (as opposed to child rearing, intermarriage, social pressure, or the quite effective but completely contemptible method of attempted genocide) is doomed to fail. It is just a matter of time.

The author of the article tried very hard to paint the immigrants as hapless victims with a s __thole on one side and s __tty people on the other, a poor young mother desperate to be accepted by the country she wishes to be a part of. And this may be true for her. It could be true for many of the immigrants in Europe currently. But history is very clear about what mass migration does to native populations, regardless of the initial power dynamic between immigrant and native, nevermind the motivation for immigration (European immigrants to North America were fleeing widespread violence, scant economic opportunity, and oppressive religious suppression as well). Color, Creed, and chronology are irrelevant. The advantage lies with the more aggressive in almost all conflicts, regardless of whether or not each participant acknowledges that the fight is occurring.

<comment><USER18> > Denmark hasn't experienced a war since 1945 and hasn't had a home front war > since ~1860.

Yes

> They don't generate refugees, and by and large neither do their neighbors.

Not since the war, no.

> This is not magic. This is not a product of colonialism, or racism, or > slavery.

.. no. The refugees fleeing the Levant absolutely are doing so as a result of colonialism, and the more modern phenomenon of "spheres of influence". The Syrian civil war wouldn't be happening without the colonialism of the 21st century, including Russia trying to preserve its Mediterranean naval base.

Certainly _Libya_ wasn't sending any refugees to the West until the West bombed it.

> Denmark, or any country, that attempts to transfer culture through enforced > education (as opposed to child rearing, intermarriage, social pressure, or > the quite effective but completely contemptible method of attempted > genocide) is doomed to fail.

Enforced culture transfer may not work, but voluntary culture transfer works extremely well. That's why American culture is so prevalent across the world to the extent that some countries have minimum "native content percentage" media laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion, it's simply not possible to maintain a first world civilisation with third world people.

Instead of allowing immigration and destroying western society why don't we just stop bombing these peoples homes so they don't need to move to start with?

<comment><USER24> Are you trying to say the place of birth somehow decides what capabilities you are born with as a human being? Are you saying people born in third world countries are different than people born in first world countries? Because that seems to me to be absolutely ridiculous.

<comment><USER25> In the case where place of birth dictates culture and customs, then yes in that sense there is a difference. Culture is a very difficult thing to change.

What we get is culture clash, where people are essentially born with different values, customs, and ways to behave in society.

There is very good internet lore, which sort of describes this phenomenon called "The Eternal September":

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

What Europe is experiencing right now, is essentially the same as what the internet experienced during Eternal September; the ability and capacity to assimilate has been exceeded, and therefore yes, there is a very real possibility of destruction of the western culture and values.

As for stopping the bombing and destruction of these countries, you simply cannot argue with that proposition.

It's actually quite perplexing that politicians are putting so little effort into solving the root cause, instead preferring the virtue signalling easy route, without seemingly any thought to the actual cultural and societal consequences of their actions.

<comment><USER24> > Where people are essentially born with different values, customs, and ways > to behave in society.

When I went to school there was a pretty high number of second generation muslim immigrants, but even there you already saw their strict values eroding. Where their parents were mostly strictly religious, most kids (not all) went partying and drinking, didn't care about wearing veils. A girl from back then, became my neighbour last year and she couldn't care less about religion anymore, they have decent jobs and live life like everyone else here. I'm certain not every immigrant or their kids will adjust as fast, but it's a matter of time, if not this generation, the next. What 'strict' values will my neighbours kid still have from their 'home' country? They won't even be brought up with their religion anymore.

> the ability and capacity to assimilate has been exceeded Has it? Can this be > quantified in some way? Just like my anecdote, is this a personal feeling? > As I don't feel that way at all.

<comment><USER26> >When I went to school there was a pretty high number of second generation muslim immigrants, but even there you already saw their strict values eroding.

I certainly wouldn't take that happening as a given. If you bend over backwards to attempt to accommodate their culture in the west, you aren't giving any incentive to join your culture and worldview.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young- Britis...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young-British- Muslims-getting-more-radical.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Cardwhat – simple and interactive UI for sending custom postcards - <AUTHOR> https://www.cardwhat.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I made this as a way to improve my programming skills and as an experiment on what a good UI to do simple tasks would look like (looking to create a custom t-shirts web app in the future).

Keen to hear any feedback. Will be releasing the front-end code base (Typescript, React, GraphQL) on Github. It's been a good learning experience for me that might be a good reference for other people too.</comment>


Grit Has a Negligible Effect on Success Compared to Intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550620920531 <comment><USER2> From the study:

> The Short Grit Scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) was used as a measure of grit > and was administered to most of the NLSY participants in 2013 (6,476 of the > original sample of 8,984 in 1997). It consists of 8 items in total, 4 items > for each grit facet—perseverance and consistency of interest. Sample items > are "I am diligent" (perseverance) and "new ideas and projects sometimes > distract me from previous ones" (consistency of interest). Answers are given > on a scale from 1 (very much like me) to 5 (not like me at all).

This is like measuring intelligence by asking people whether they identify with statements like "I am a fast learner." Most people aren't very self- aware. I often find that people that work less hard (in general across a wide range of things) often self-identify as having more grit because people work hardest when they work on something they are motivated to do, but being able to work superficially in the absence of motivation for long periods of time makes people feel they have more grit.

My suspicion is that grit (in the sense that matters, not whatever the grit researchers have been pushing) is mostly indistinguishable from intelligence as it's typically measured. I'd be shocked if most intelligence tests don't already do a better job of determining grit (in terms of the level of perseverance you could expect from someone) than asking someone if they are diligent.

<comment><USER3> As Sam Altman says, think more about what you want to do. Moving fast in a wrong direction isn't going to help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few points for context:

1\. Those R squared numbers in table 2 are quite low. The statistical analysis itself is painfully basic. I'm a statistician, and I've a bookshelf full of excellent books written by statisticians who publish in psychology, so they should have been able to find someone to beef up the analysis a bit. That said, psych publications is also notorious for bad data analysis. I'm an outsider to this field, but this feels like an omission.

2\. The paper doesn't use any causal inference techniques despite making a clear causal claim in the title. They use simple linear regression, which is not a causal model unless causal assumptions are made explicit. In my book this is a grave sin, one avoids making causal assumptions that might be hard to defend, fits a model with linear correlation, then makes causal conclusions. To understand what I mean by causal model, read this (these techniques are well-known and if the authors' defense is that they don't know them, it reflects badly on them): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_causal_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_causal_model)

3\. It is worth thinking about what the intelligence assessment, the AFQT test, actually quantifies. One critique of AFQT is that it is more of a measure of literacy than intelligence. Read more here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Vocational_Apti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Vocational_Aptitude_Battery#Test_validity). Maybe the title should be "Having parents that make sure you can read by age five has a greater effect on success than grit."

4\. The AFQT and other intelligence tests have a pesky problem of having averages that change in time. This suggests that much of what they measure is not innate, but learned.

5\. Social psychology is plagued by a reproducibility crisis. I'm sorry to say, their papers, no matter how provocative the findings, have to be viewed with great skepticism. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/replication- crisis](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/replication-crisis)

6\. The paper says social economic background has a significant effect, but about the same effect on pay as intelligence. That seems to conflict with a pile of research that says that social economic background is the strongest predictor of success. To say that IQ is just as important as your parents' wealth is pretty eyebrow-raising.

<comment><USER5> I have a friend who got a PhD in psychology. She had me look over her analysis and it was bad. The two "highlights" were:

1\. Her advisor told her to use a student's t-test for multivariate data.

2\. When the P value insufficiently low to reject the null hypothesis, he walked her through p-hacking the data.

<comment><USER6> I had the same thing with a friend who was getting her PhD in nutrition.

She was aware that the statistics were not strong, but they were horrendous.

After helping her to get at least a bit back on track I developped a strong skepticism to anything published without a rewiew of the stat methods. Which is almost everything one can read in the press.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Abstract says: "intelligence contributes 48–90 times more than grit to educational success and 13 times more to job-market success. Conscientiousness also contributes to success more than grit but only twice as much..."

Very challenging to evaluate without paying $40 to read the paper. They mention a difference in how they group the subjects (by intelligence). My gut take (often wrong!) is that they're grouping the subjects in some way that pushes part of my understanding of grit into intelligence.

<comment><USER8> Seems to me like intelligence and drive ("grit") are multiplicative factors. Saying either is more important sounds wrong because if either is zero, you have nothing. And if intelligence is fixed, then working harder is the only way to improve your chances. From that perspective, "grit" is the only thing that matters.

<comment><USER9> There's inclusive evidence that intelligence is fixed, and there's evidence that people that believe intelligence is fixed have worse outcomes.

I think it's very likely environmental factors and personal mindset have considerable impacts both positive and negative on intelligence. I also suspect in the next decade or two research will come out on pharmaceuticals that show improved mental performance. There's already the beginnings of this.

<comment><USER10> What evidence do you have that intelligence is fixed? I believe there is evidence that it is mix of fixed and not fixed attributes, but I don't think there's any evidence that it is strictly fixed.

<comment><USER9> Right. The parent comment I was replaying to stated "if intelligence is fixed" and I was attempting to cast doubt on the clause. I wouldn't want to take position that intelligence is fixed in an argument.

<comment><USER8> The context was more of a fixed ceiling. Presumably everybody knows and agrees that being tired, drunk, ill, having dementia, etc. can affect apparent intelligence. By "fixed intelligence" the implication is that there is a ceiling where a person's brain has developed and they are fully functional that isn't straightforwardly or easily raised.

<comment><USER11> We don't have clear evidence for this being true.

Perhaps for performance on a fixed kind of test or for certain kinds of raw calculation speed, it is true, but handling complexity and problem solving skills can continue to develop based on experience and exposure to concepts.

The belief that intelligence is fixed is a trap for the mind.

<comment><USER8> I wasn't asserting that it was true, and it seems that you want to argue with someone who _both_ thinks that "it" is true _and_ has a different definition of _it_ from what I was using, in context.

It's a morass I'm uninterested in getting into.

<comment><USER11> Once again you violate the spirit of the group with ad hominem.

I agree your original comment used the conditional 'if' about the truth of fixed intelligence.

Such a proposition naturally invites examination of whether the conditions are in supported by evidence, which is all I am doing.

I am curious if you have a definition of intelligence that sheds light on your original argument.

I have no stake in what truth you believe.

However I think your argument is clearly incorrect.

As you suggest, I could be basing my conclusion on a different definition to the one you are using.

But if you won't produce a clarifying definition, you can't reasonably make claim to be operating under any principle of cooperation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The paper is behind a paywall and not open-access, so here are some pieces of information I thought were interesting:

"Intelligence" was measured by an individual's performance on the "Armed Forces Qualifying Test" (AFQT).

"Grit" is self-reported on the "Short Grit Scale" which asks participants to rate themselves from 1 to 5 on statements like "I am diligent."

"Success" was measured by level of education attained and hourly wage rate in 2015.

Control variables include: Gender, household income as a child and level of education by parents. Study participants were born in the early 1980's.

Top-level findings:

> Although in our representative sample of the American population grit does > explain educational and job-market success over and beyond other predictor > variables such as socioeconomic status, intelligence, and the Big Five > personality characteristics, its absolute effects are rather minimal. In > particular, its effects are negligible in comparison to the effect of > intelligence. Finally, the effects of grit were also considerably weaker > than the effects of conscientiousness.

<comment><USER13> > Grit" is self-reported on the "Short Grit Scale" which asks participants to > rate themselves from 1 to 5 on statements like "I am diligent."

This is a pretty awful way to measure grit and makes me doubt the results

<comment><USER14> But the measurement of Conscientiousness was much worse, and it still outpredicted Grit considerably:

"Given the NLSY 2-item measure of conscientiousness and the 8-item measure of grit, this comparison is likely to overestimate the effect of grit relative to conscientiousness (Crede et al., 2012 for the consequences of using short measures of the Big Five personality traits)."

Plus, going from an 8-item test to a longer one isn't going to close a gap with IQ that large, and as they point out, the reliability is decent enough and pro-Grit authors have no trouble making claims based on, so what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander:

"The reliability of the scale in our data was .72, which is comparable to the reliability reported by Duckworth and Quinn (2009) and within the ranges reported in the meta-analysis of Crede et al. (2017)."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is grit before and after a certain point on a "trajectory" that matters. And intelligence may get you far, maybe grit will help you complete the last mile. So no I don't think you can definitely say what the study says

</comment><comment><USER16> TLDR; grit helps, but only when in the same range of intelligence as your peers.

This isn't particularly shocking. There aren't a lot of high paying jobs for dumb people and nepotism doesn't scale enough to make up for that.

<comment><USER17> This. There isn't much more to take away from the paper.

As an aside, there seems to be some sort of snowball effect that might confound a naive interpretation of the role of intelligence. For example, getting a high SAT score (and AP scores) is likelier to lead to Ivy admission. Ivy admission is likely to lead to above average training, as well as more influential social networks. This can lead to interviews with above average firms... etc. You get the picture.

Now, intelligence played a role in the high test scores and admission to an elite undergrad, and still plays a role throughout the journey of a successful (whatever the definition) individual. However, there are many feeback loops and amplifying/compounding first and second order effects as well. Quantifying the effect of grit, intelligence, etc seems very difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Mn6V1IzHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Mn6V1IzHw)

</comment><comment><USER19> Comparing two ill-defined high-level cognitive traits to determine which will more greatly effect success in a unmeritocratic society and extrapolating the results to general humanity: what could possibly go wrong?

>The measure of intelligence was taken from the 1999 wave, the measure of grit was taken from the 2013 wave, and the measures of suc- cess from the 2015 wave. Thus, intelligence was measured when the participants were aged 15–19, grit was measured when the participants were aged 29–34, and success was mea- sured when they were aged 31–36.

Jesus.

<comment><USER20> American society is many things but it is not a low merit society. If you are significantly better then someone else at something you will, in general, reap the rewards.

<comment><USER19> I'm appalled that this passes muster for you as a rational statement, knowing all we do about how parental wealth and education, professional network size and health, and even residential location can effect career outcomes in even technical fields. I thought we put this canard to rest.

<comment><USER21> Nothing is perfect, saying something is atrocious because it is not perfect is irrational.

Also, if you define "merit based" as "capable of improvement through own effort" then both "professional network size and health" and "residential location" fall under that.

<comment><USER19> I would define "merit-based" as "measuring and ranking based on directly relevant capability." There are limited cases where the first contributes to merit, but both are becoming less and less justifiable in a global, or even national, job market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The hope is that grit can be developed and nurtured in children, while we're pretty sure intelligence is genetic to a super high degree.

<comment><USER23> > while we're pretty sure intelligence is genetic to a super high degree.

No? There are tons of studies about childhood development that focus on intelligence being affected by their environment / upbringing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems to be the full paper for those noting the paywall:

[https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2020-zissman.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2020-zissman.pdf)

<comment><USER10> I think the most interesting thing in this paper is the fact that grit seems to be extremely important in certain circumstances, and much less important in others. It makes sense that getting through a challenge like going through West Point is going to require a sense of the importance of your goals. Most of the time, though, we're not in those circumstances and other factors are more important. Grit, as described, could even lead to a lack of flexibility in some circumstances, which could inhibit success.

<comment><USER21> I agree, looking at the questions they seem to penalize changing your goal which I view as a vital part of success. Work hard towards your goal but stop if you realize your goal is wrong. Then work hard at whatever you consider the better goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Neither intelligence nor grit hold a candle to luck and having chosen the right parents.

</comment><comment><USER25> That 10% that comes from grit matters more than the 90% that comes from intelligence, because it's the only aspect that reflects the sovereignty one has over oneself and the ability to define oneself in spite of physical reality (supernatural). The 90% is just an inheritance.

<comment><USER26> Matters more to whom? I'll take your inheritance if you are offering.

<comment><USER25> Why would you choose what's natural (inheritance, physical development, parent's DNA) over what's supernatural (your willpower)?

<comment><USER26> I get what you are saying philosophically, but I don't think it holds up in reality. I'll take good healthy genes over whatever life lesson you are offering.

<comment><USER25> It only matters if your happiness is in this-life-only. If you don't then it's just another part of staying in a bad inn.

<comment><USER26> You seem to have a clear view of what will make you happy, and I genuinely commend you for that. My initial question was "To Whom (does it matter)?" and you seem to have answered it with "To me and my beliefs about who I am". Fair enough.

But I wonder, \- Do you want a brilliantly gifted surgeon or one who gets by on grit to operate on your loved one? \- Do you want to listen to the effortless musician who seems to have some gift from god, or one that practices 6 hours a day even though they know they kinda suck?

<comment><USER25> Kind of a theoretical question since you cannot observe grit. Only the surgeon can know if he has grit based on his own self-reflection.

> or one that practices 6 hours a day even though they know they kinda suck?

Again, we know that practice does not make perfect, but rather perfect practice makes perfect. Just because he practiced for six hours a day doesn't mean he practiced well.

<comment><USER26> this is all rhetorical, especially when you brought in the afterlife.

grit == effort, not results, and not even effective effort, since that would take an inheritance to understand what is and what isn't effective. you dodged the question

<comment><USER25> Reframe it! Instead of thinking results matter, reframe your life as the following:

1\. Pretend that only effort exists

2\. Assume beforehand that all your results are equal to <insert first-rate role model>'s results in <insert your desired field>

3\. Only exit this make-believe world by looking at your actual results in order to measure the quality of your effort

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Here's a non-paywall copy: [https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2020-zissman.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2020-zissman.pdf)

<comment> D-Coder "...a major concern about the studies which argued that grit has a strong impact on success is that they were based on selected samples such as West Point cadets (Duckworth et al., 2007), employees in technology companies (Jachimowiczet al., 2018) or students in inner city schools (Eskreis-Winkleret al., 2014). These samples were drawn from institutions which are characterized by a homogeneous socioeconomic population (and perhaps even by population that are homogenous in their intelligence)—a characteristic which is likely to impose a range restriction on important predictors of success."

Ow!

<comment><USER19> You mean, they... controlled variables?

Between those 3 cohorts, I see a phenomenon that cuts across a wide slice of the population.

<comment><USER28> If you're arguing for particular significance of a variable (grit), you can't go around controlling for all other variables with the same effect. It's not meaningful to see significance of a variable in a homogeneous cohort and translate that to the the variable being significant in the general population.

It might make sense that West Point students differ largely by grit, especially if all other variables are controlled for. That does not prove that the success of people generally is significantly affected by their grit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> TLDR: Stupid is as stupid does.

</comment><comment><USER30> Standard warnings: Social Psychology is not a science and should probably be ignored. "Grit" and "Intelligence" are so poorly and inconsistently defined as to be meaningless. This is controversy for controversy's sake

<comment><USER31> Not true but typical belief of STEM types. If you go by reproducibility rates you could say the same about medicine and economics. Hell, gravity is poorly and inconsistently defined, but we don't throw away physics.

<comment><USER22> Gravity is extremely clearly defined. And yes, we do bash on economics quite a bit. We bemoan medicine, but we don't make fun of it for having reproduction rates in the low single digits. Because it doesn't.

<comment><USER31> Even the Standard Model does not explain gravity, hence it is not "extremely clearly defined".

<comment><USER32> There's a famous saying in the sciences: "All models are wrong, some are useful." Many of our physics models have been "wrong" historically, but yet they describe the world well-enough to be useful in making very good predictions. Newtonian physics is a perfect example of this - it tells an incomplete story of reality, but it's still extremely useful in making predictions about how the world works.

The reproducibility crisis across the social sciences (and sometimes even in biology and medicine and - hot take - machine learning) is evidence that many of these models are both wrong AND useless for prediction, as opposed to just being incomplete.

<comment><USER31> Many sociological and psychological models are useful as well. All sciences are affected by the reproducibility crisis because of the incentive structure in the peer review process. Physics has perpetuated useless models also so it's not immune from criticism.

Back to my original point, it's misleading to claim that social psychology is not a science and should be ignored.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Henry Ford would disagree. Does today's economy make some difference?

</comment><comment><USER34> That's hilarious. Extremely counter to the prevailing narrative of how hard work and grit get one to the top.

<comment><USER18> I'd say that's still better than the other fake narrative: The game is rigged, the cards are stacked against you, they're holding you down, don't even try.

<comment><USER12> Is it? For the question "what predicts your pay", your "grit" beta coefficient is only 0.09, compared to a sum of .55 determined by your gender, background, and intelligence.

That is, raising your "grit level" by 1 standard deviation will only increase your pay by 0.09 standard deviations, when compared to your age-matched peers. Somebody only one standard-deviation down on each of the other factors would have to be 6 standard-deviations higher on grittiness in order to get the same pay. That's the difference between the 0.1th percentile of grittiness and the 99.9th percentile.

The data shows that increasing your grit enough to compensate for even small levels of adversity is impractical.

<comment><USER18> > Is it?

Yes, because if you buy into that narrative, you're going to be a loser, guaranteed. If you don't, you might still be unsuccessful, but you will earn (self) respect. You gave it your best shot.

 _Nobody_ respects the person who never tries, who always makes excuses, who blames everyone and everything but themselves. It's _bad_ for you.

<comment><USER12> Maybe we shouldn't base our respect for people on how much grit they seem to show, if it doesn't seem to matter anyways.

<comment><USER18> It _does_ matter even by the numbers shown in the paper. It matters more than agreeableness, emotional stability and even conscientiousness. It just doesn't make up for intelligence.

Also, if you're lazy and smart, you're still going to be a loser. You'll still need some amount of grit.

<comment><USER12> It matters half as much as conscientiousness, was the conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Using the term "tools" loosely, fork and spoon comparisons digest better than apples and oranges.

Eating soup with a fork is still a success with enough intelligence.

Pfffft. Spoon-fed geniuses raised with only forks was a cruel joke.

Let me guess... For an encore, they'll do a study that says AI is more successful.

A suckers iterated ever minute on the Internet with a path/information like that.

<comment><USER35> I hope the downvote was for being incomplete.

A fork, spoon and a knife are required tools for most meaningful job/professional successes.

It may even mirror the mind, body and soul tools needed to achieve personal successes. 2 outta 3 sucks. 1 outta 3 is worse..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Increase Yearly Income Potential as Young Talented Developer? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a talented young developer who can easily complete challenges on Project Euler in various languages (Ruby, Java, C#, PHP). I am passionate about technology and stay up-to-date on all the latest technologies. At work, I find that I rarely ask assistance of Senior developers and that often they're asking my assistance. I see the work that is done by people with more experience is done slower and is often poorly designed.
I have a Bachelors in Computer Information Systems, but even now that I'm graduated from school I still find that jobs require 3+ years of experience. Today I asked a recruiter what I could do to increase my income, they responded that I simply need more experience. With my 2 years experience, I can see that I am much wiser - even though my technical knowledge hasn't improved considerably. I appreciate the importance of experience and how it ties into wisdom, but I can't help but feel like there is still a large discrepancy between my skills and my job. Also, wisdom can be shared - and I am pretty good at finding the right person to ask the right questions too. How can I bridge this gap between my real potential and the potential that my resume implies?
What are good ways to reliably show off my skills? I do personal coding projects, but those don't seem to count for much...
How can I increase my yearly income potential? <comment><USER2> Find a better company. Find a better recruiter. I'm 2 years out of school and don't have those issues. If you are in the Bay Area, hit me up (email in profile). I'd love to talk more about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm 9 months out of school and I'm in Canada... I'd love to move to the Bay Area though.</comment></comment>


You are the 1% - <AUTHOR> http://globalrichlist.com/# <comment><USER2> I nearly had a fit with that background full screen. Interesting idea though.</comment>


A $41B Pension Fund Is Betting Big on Private Credit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-30/a-41-billion-pension-fund-is-betting-big-on-private-credit <comment><USER2> The graph in the article, with private credit showing both higher and much smoother returns than corporate bonds and loans, is a fantasy, perhaps caused by using portfolio manager marks for the private loans in the absence of a traded market.</comment>


Should we be worried about creating a black hole? - <AUTHOR> Let's just say that I sleep well at night knowing that my fellow physicists are busy slamming atomic nuclei together at near the speed of light. There are plenty of subatomic fireworks in those big accelerators, but probably not any black holes. We're not even sure we'll rip open such a hole in space-time — that prediction is based on a narrow class of speculative theories, which may or may not (let's just go with "not" for the time being) be true. So should we be worried about creating a black hole? <comment><USER2> This is extensively discussed at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator#Black_hol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator#Black_hole_production_and_public_safety_concerns)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_high- energy_particle...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_high- energy_particle_collision_experiments)

(maybe HN readers would like to continue the discussion)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well there is the cosmic ray 'oh my god particle' with a energy of 48 joules. Or 3×10^8 TeV. That hit the upper atmosphere in 1991 and we didn't all die.

The LHC I think the max energy is ~10 TeV.</comment>


The Decline and Fall of Tech on Digg - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_the_decline_and_fall_of_tech.php <comment><USER2> The author suggests that techies may migrate back to Slashdot. I, for one, never left. Their editorial selection for front-page news cannot be beat. The commentary is still drivel, though.

My philosophy: go to Slashdot for the news, come to HN for the commentary.

<comment><USER3> i've found myself going back to slashdot after a decently long absence as well, but man, it's like they are in a competition with digg over who can have the worst comment interface. it's better than it used to be, but it's way too noisy.

<comment><USER4> I still haven't figured out how the new comment interface actually works, which scores major negative points for usability. At least the old-style version was simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> an all too common tragedy with growth on the internet; it's hard to manage the charm and experience for early adopters; popularity attracts mediocrity and pollution, a sad reflection of the interweb swarm. syndicated content was a savior from this information overload till the blogsphere copy/pasted other's original content to feed bloated link farms. woe.

side rant aside, this graphic does not paint an accurate picture as categories, liking gaming, now have their own section and not counted as technology... among other significant flaws.

personally, digg lost its charm for me when it started integrating youtube videos and offbeat. I can find that crap elsewhere and it completely attracted the wrong crowd to the other, more relevant discussions. it's in this regard that I feel digg overextended them self and jeopardized what was rather an intelligent and sophisticated news source/discussion.</comment>


Ask HN: Tools for taking notes on videos? - <AUTHOR>

What software exists for taking notes on videos? (e.g. lectures, political speeches, video games, or even music videos.) Having a clean and easy way to annotate video content according to timestamp would have lots of educational value. I've found these two sites which seem to do the job, but they seem clunky or non-intuitive:
http://www.videonot.es/ https://ant2.cehd.umn.edu/
Can anyone suggest other options? <comment><USER2> If I was faced with your problem, I'd solve it in an odd way which _might_ not be what you want.

I'd use subtitles.

With a bit of ffmpeg magic, I'd get the video file into MKV (Matroska) format simply because I like them best and I find them easiest to edit. The important piece is MKV supports embedding subtitle text into the video container format as a separate "stream" (read:file). It's easy to add or remove subtitles.

The next problem is timing your text to specific parts of the video, but this problem has mostly been solved by the fansub crowd. There are a few different open and closed source subtitling programs out there. I have no experience with them, so I can't make any suggestions. If I needed a solid suggestion, I'd ask any of the fansub groups. They'd know what works well.

In most regards, what you want is the subtitling software itself since it allows you to both view the video and _edit_ your text. If your text is simple, it should do the trick.

EDIT: If you have the urge to do some hacking, you could also modify a player like VLC or mplayer to show text in a separate window from the video. This could help if you need to _present_ your additions to others.

<comment><USER3> Are you answering the same question OP asks though? By definition, "notes" are your personal summary/questions/ideas about what's being presented. Your notes might refer to the words in the presentation, or the video, or pictures, or the music, or just random ideas that come to you. Subtitles are not that - subtitles are the original text in its entirety. So I guess I don't see how subtitles == notes.

<comment><USER2> Subtitles are just text data with a time code corresponding to a point in the video, so the _feature_ of "subtitles" can be used to store whatever text you want, including notes, even though keeping notes was not the intent of the feature. There is nothing requiring the text data to be either an exact transcription or translation of the audio data. In fact, some fansub groups have released "joke" or "troll" translations for fun on various anime videos.

Once you generate your subtitle text file, you can easily merge it into the video file. There are a few different subtitle text formats but the only one I've really worked with is SSA/ASS.

The MKV video container format allows you to store multiple "streams" (files) of ASCII or UTF-8 text synced by time codes to the video. The reason for multiple subtitle streams is so one video (container) file can have subtitles in multiple languages. This means if there's some hard limit (I'm not sure if there is) on the amount of text you can have at a single time code, you can get around the problem by adding another stream/file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer the old standard of pen and paper for two good reasons:

1\. I hate typing.

2\. Handwriting aids retention more than typing.[1]

[1] [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095458.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095458.htm)</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg on a Future Where the Internet Is Available to All - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/mark-zuckerberg-on-a-future-where-the-internet-is-available-to-all-1404762276?mod=_newsreel_3 <comment><USER2> I trust Mark Zuckerberg to do his best at replacing the internet by facebook access. It has already happened in France where mobile provider offer "internet access" strictly limited to facebook for a couple euros.

This is not internet available to all, more like what microsoft failed to do in 1995 with msn.

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing to keep in mind though, is that the Internet is not always a good thing that it probably could be.

With all the entertainment, media, ads and greedy people caring only about money and not people the Internet sometimes causes more damage than it brings true benefits to users.

Yes, it's up to us what we choose to consume, but maybe if the Internet _only_ consisted of resources and technologies that foster the intellectual and spiritual growth the humanity and especially the developing countries would benefit more from it.

<comment><USER4> If the Internet only consisted of such resources, it would remain a geek's toy and ignored by the vast majority of the population, who would simply continue to watch TV. I'm far from a fan of Steve Jobs, but this quote from an interview is spot-on:

 _"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."_

And the same happens with the Web. Though, I'm not saying a different society is impossible, but you'd need to change the people before changing the internet.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the quote, it really explains your point. I agree with that, although that's not always true for news :)

Well, yes, it's surely not a one step easy process, but I think it worth a try. Especially in places where the Internet isn't provided yet.

For example, in terms of the "Internet to all" initiative by Mark or whoever, while working to make the Internet freely accessible they could prioritize resources and _start with_ , Wikipedia, StackExchange Q&A, language translators, simple messengers, communities maybe.

The useful content most of the time _is_ boring, it's true, but it definitely can be improved, take a look at KhanAcademy, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately all our governments are determined to not let this future happen [http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/07/03/net- threats/](http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/07/03/net-threats/)

</comment><comment><USER6> That curve of the developing world looks a lot like the developed world circa 1998.

</comment><comment><USER7> Everyone doubts the motives, and it makes sense why they do, but any progress he makes in developing country is better than no progress at all IMO

<comment><USER8> Maybe not if you think that a rich local culture can be vanished because of the globalization effects of the internet..

I think people need to get well educated and prepared to know what they have of real value, so they can cope with the globalization effect more smoothly

Without a good care, this can do more damage than good.. and do the same thing as the conquistadors from the middle ages did with the culture of the natives.. pratically vanishing milenar cultures and wisdom from earth..

Imagine now if every place on earth was like San Francisco, London or Sao Paulo.. how would we run, if we want some peace for instance.. or meet people with different point of views.. if suddenly you wakeup and decide to become a fisherman in a quiet and beautiful beach somewhere

<comment><USER3> Agree that local people should be well prepared for a full Internet access, otherwise culture and values are lost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I for one welcome our new Cat Meme Lunchphoto overlords.

</comment><comment><USER10> If by Internet he means Facebook, thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER11> No kidding, right? I am not sure I can respect his interests and goals as an innovator when this is a week or two after the latest Facebook drama.</comment></comment>


In the Works – AWS Region in Canada - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-the-works-aws-region-in-canada/ <comment><USER2> We (rsync.net) should have our Montreal location up and running any month now.

We chose Montreal because that's where _I_ want to hang out and tour in the off hours between building cabinets and burning disks in.

When Montreal is live, people with .ca-only requirements can run their VMs on EC2 and transfer disk images, S3 data and Glacier data between Amazon and rsync.net using 's3cmd':

      ssh email@example.com s3cmd get s3://rsync/mscdex.exe

Our HN readers rate[1] OR our petabyte rate[1] OR our non-profit/student rate[1] makes this very cost effective, relative to current S3 pricing.

[1] email us.

<comment><USER3> HN readers rate? What now?

<comment><USER4> They'll offer you a discount if you let them know you read this on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Technically the French announcement should be first if they want to follow language laws. :)

I'm glad to hear this, as it was rather silly that a whole bunch of companies in Canada couldn't use AWS because of requirements around where their data must be stored. Now they will be able to.

<comment><USER6> Silly? You are ok with a judicial system from a different country ruling over who can access your health or tax records?

<comment><USER7> Being on Amazon in Canada may not help you depending on the outcome of this: [http://europe.newsweek.com/does-us-warrant-apply-data- stored...](http://europe.newsweek.com/does-us-warrant-apply-data-stored- foreign-server-332236) (as mentioned by @axelfontaine below)

And the requirements pertaining to Canadian data actually staying in Canada are largely overblown: [http://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2011/04/cloud-computing- and-pri...](http://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2011/04/cloud-computing-and-privacy- faq.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is this affected by the case between Microsoft and the US Justice department regarding U.S. warrants for data stored on foreign servers? (See: [http://europe.newsweek.com/does-us-warrant-apply-data- stored...](http://europe.newsweek.com/does-us-warrant-apply-data-stored- foreign-server-332236))

<comment><USER9> I imagine it is being primarily driven by the recent vast decline in the Canadian dollar. Just about all of the costs involved are going to be about 30% cheaper compared to a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER10> I doubt long term infrastructure investments are affected much by short term currency fluctuations.

Quebec has cheap hydro power and a cool climate which are probably more important factors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "This region will be carbon-neutral and powered almost entirely by clean, renewable hydro power." ... Like anyone living in that province.

Considering the low Canadian dollar and the low cost of electricity, will the pricing be different for people hosting in this zone?

<comment><USER12> I also saw that as taking undeserved credit at first, but the fact is, this region will be carbon-neutral and they are right to advertise it as such for those who would be interested in hosting in a carbon-neutral environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Digital Ocean also has a new Canadian datacenter...

[https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our- ne...](https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our-new-canadian- datacenter-tor1/)

<comment><USER14> As is Microsoft: [http://reimagine.microsoft.ca/en- ca/](http://reimagine.microsoft.ca/en-ca/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean AWS will now start charging sales tax in Canada? My costs increased by 13% when Digital Ocean opened up in Toronto and had to charge me HST.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure your Canadian usage would be subject to GST (which may be why Amazon opted for Montreal target than Toronto) but I think they arrange the subsidiaries so that you don't pay taxes on your usage in other countries.

It doesn't matter for businesses of course, since GST/HST is a reclaimable VAT.

<comment><USER17> I think they chose Montréal for cheap electricity rather than sales tax issues. My residential rates more than doubled when I moved to Toronto. Looks like business rates follow a similar pattern: [http://www.hydroquebec.com/business/rates-and- billing/rates/...](http://www.hydroquebec.com/business/rates-and- billing/rates/comparison-of-electricity-prices/)

<comment><USER16> Yes, the Ontario government has horribly mismanaged the power utility, with extremely high rates resulting. I figured that Amazon probably wouldn't be paying retail rates, but if they couldn't negotiate anything better that would definitely explain why they avoided Ontario.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if/how Quebec's laws on language will apply to content hosted there.

My guess is that unless your business is actually in Quebec then you should be OK, but it's an interesting topic.

<comment><USER19> Your data is your data, the issue is hosting a website to Quebec customers, which then might have a complaint from the OQLF

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm intrigued to see when someone launches in Africa.

<comment><USER21> Yes, at least an edge location (for CloudFront CDN etc) in Africa would be useful.

<comment><USER22> Given that the team who originally built EC2 are based in Cape Town, it seems crazy that there is zero AWS presence in Africa.

<comment><USER20> the closest to anything really mainstream I'm aware of currently is CloudFare in Kenya. When I saw this last year it gave me some hope that the bigger players may start to look at Africa seriously in the near future. [https://blog.cloudflare.com/mombasa-kenya- cloudflares-43rd-d...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/mombasa-kenya- cloudflares-43rd-data-center/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wonder how the CAD/USD exchange rate will affect pricing in the region.

<comment><USER24> Moreover I am curious about whether they will charge in USD or CAD.

If USD, then a Canadian firm still has to deal with currency exposure as with the US AZs

If CAD, it might be interesting if a lot of US load heads up to Canada chasing lower prices.

<comment><USER25> That's not how exchange rates work.

<comment><USER24> Please do enlighten me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is good news for Quebec, hopefully this won't take too long!

</comment><comment><USER27> us-north-1?

<comment><USER28> +1 :)

But to be politically correct, it should be ca-east-1 ;)

<comment><USER16> Just hope Quebec doesn't have another referendum - qc-central-1 anyone?

<comment><USER29> As a western Canadian, it's fun (?) to joke about Quebec separation. (Indifference/irrelevance, right or wrong, is a common western view on it, I think.)

I had to look this up but it seems the last big poll of Quebecois on this was in 2011: 41% voted in favour of sovereignty. [http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/323376/sondage- lege...](http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/323376/sondage-leger- marketing-le-devoir-l-appui-a-la-souverainete-ne-flechit-pas)

That's actually way higher than I thought. But if support for the Bloc Quebecois is any indication, the sovereignty movement was dealt a big blow in our fall 2015 election. They lost a lot of federal seats and smaller polls suggest popular support for sovereignty might be around 31% now. [https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/quebec- indep...](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/quebec-independence- movement-a-big-election-loser-203722455.html)

Still, it's fun/interesting to talk about. As a westerner. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is the first Ive heard about an ohio data center, that will be good news for us in the midwest - wish it was a bit further west than that but still better than East.

<comment><USER31> I think Ohio will be called us-east-2. It's not that far from their Virginia data center. Midwest for me would be more like Chicago or Kansas.

<comment><USER30> makes sense. any latency decrease though will be welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Are they actually going to put it in mtl? It'd be more likely that they build a centre in beauharnois and benefit from cheap hydro like OVH

<comment><USER10> If it's anything like the other regions they will be building DCs scattered around the Montreal metro, not necessarily on the island.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Lots of cheap hydro electricity up there.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's great AWS is expanding. Here's to hoping they fix the dire reliability issues they've been facing every now and then. I looked really hard at using AWS for ELB and other services but GCP won me over because they solved the ELB and scalability pre-warm up issue(s).

<comment><USER35> > dire reliability issues

Source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Since the provincial government is already giving huge tax credits to the video game industries, I'm wondering the government will be giving Amazon any financial incentives to implement that in Montréal.

</comment><comment><USER37> "...in the coming year". They've been claiming that the Canada datacenter is coming for awhile now... disappointed there are no details on launch date.

Anyone have insight into the timing?

<comment><USER38> They haven't claimed it publicly at all, until now.

<comment><USER37> You're right, I meant privately. It's been relatively widely known in Canadian tech circles that this is coming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sweet! Been waiting a long time for this one :)

</comment><comment><USER39> This will have interesting effects for US patents that are practiced on AWS machines in Canada to serve client devices in the US. All the steps of a method claim in a patent must be performed in the US to infringe, so choosing to use machines in Canada will create defenses for many extant US patent claims.

This only works for method claims, though. Device claims in patents are a different beast.

And of course, this isn't new, but a AWS region in Canada will make the issue more prevalent.

<comment><USER40> > a AWS region in Canada will make the issue more prevalent

How on earth will it? The EU region launched 9 years ago & AP 6 years ago. Would the prevalence be in Canadian businesses who weren't aware of these other regions and the legions of other hosting providers available outside of the USA?

<comment><USER39> Low latency, at least by geographic distance, alternative.

<comment><USER40> That's nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Lohri gift ;)</comment>


Stratolaunch: 'World's largest plane' lifts off for the first time - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47923697# <comment><USER2> I hope they take inspiration from these folks and do a simultaneous takeoff, in opposite directions:

[https://youtu.be/R5P70XtI4zQ?t=39](https://youtu.be/R5P70XtI4zQ?t=39)</comment>


Show HN: CheerpJ JavaFiddle – Run Java in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://javafiddle.leaningtech.com/ <comment><USER4> Now you can just shove this in electron and have java apps everywhere again!

<comment><USER5> Then run the Electron application in the browser with Emscripten

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome! I'm very excited about this...

As the primary developer of a large sophisticated Javascript app ([https://shaxpir.com](https://shaxpir.com)), working with Javascript is an ongoing nuisance, and I'd love to switch the majority of my development to a type-safe language.

I've been considering a switch to TypeScript, but with 17 years of experience as a back-end Java developer, my natural first-choice of language is Java.

But this is a modern webapp, so I'm not really interested in seeing Console/Swing/AWT demos. I'm much more interested in seeing demos that integrate Java code with native Javascript dependencies, especially around DOM manipulation and browser event handling.

I want to rewrite all my own business logic in Java, while continuing to integrate with my existing dependencies in the browser (JQuery, Bootstrap, Quill, etc).

A demo like that would be very compelling to me!

<comment><USER7> Hello Benji!

Please get in touch with us, your project is very exciting and would be a great use case for CheerpJ. Just drop us a line at [http://leaningtech.com/cheerpj/#early](http://leaningtech.com/cheerpj/#early).

CheerpJ has full DOM access and interoperability with JavaScript. Demos of these case study will be coming soon.

Cheers - <USER3>

</comment></comment><comment> jay-anderson Seems to work pretty well. I like this approach over things like GWT. Though creating a syntax error caused a bad exception:

      public class JavaFiddle
      {
          public static void main(String[] args)
          {
              x = 0;
          }
      }

Results in

      An exception has occurred in the compiler (1.8.0_131).
      Please file a bug against the Java compiler via the Java bug reporting page (http://bugreport.java.com) after checking the Bug Database (http://bugs.java.com) for duplicates. Include your program and the following diagnostic in your report. Thank you.
      java.lang.NullPointerException

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, good job! The CheerpJ Chrome Extension to run old Java Applets actually works, eg [http://dogfeathers.com/java/octicos.html](http://dogfeathers.com/java/octicos.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you don't see any "compile and run" button or the text console, you may need to zoom out or go fullscreen. That was my case on Firefox 54 with a 1366x768 screen.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't anticipate ever using AWT or Swing again. JavaFX would get me interested but I don't see it mentioned. How feasible would that be?

</comment><comment><USER11> The boilerplate HelloWorld code hangs on `compiling...` for me. Not sure if it's my network ad-blocker or something else though.

<comment><USER7> Hello there. Can you share your browser and OS? We can't replicate this here. - LT

<comment><USER12> Same here. Worked after I deactivated my addblocker (uBlock Origin)

<comment><USER13> same here using privoxy

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The future is coming. [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)

</comment><comment><USER15> Besides the Swing/AWT support which isn't very interesting to me how do you compare to teavm?

We currently use TeaVM and it's pretty performant/small.

</comment><comment><USER16> Obviously not a problem with the platform, but your example Java code doesn't really use standard Java conventions. A bit odd for samples usually.

</comment><comment><USER17> Horizontal non-resizability of the editor is a bit of an issue (Chrome / Win7).

<comment><USER7> You are right of course. This will keep improving over time, especially on the HTML side of things. We'll keep your comment in mind. Cheers - <USER3>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is seriously cool. Who needs a REPL when you can just use this.</comment>


Judge won't release man jailed 2 years for refusing to decrypt drives - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/judge-wont-release-man-jailed-2-years-for-refusing-to-decrypt-drives/ <comment><USER2> This is interesting, because the case is clearly being structured (intentionally by the government, one presumes) to force the test case of "is compelled decryption legal" onto the most unsympathetic possible defendant.

If the government "knows beyond doubt" that the encrypted drives have CP on them, then they have everything necessary to move forward with a trial without decrypting the drives at all. That satisfies society's legitimate interest in suppressing child porn, while also not trampling all over the legal right to use encryption. Choosing to structure the case in this way, with an appeal to the Supreme Court over a matter that's a technicality in the original case, clearly shows that the goal is to get a precedent for forced decryption, not merely to jail one child porn possessor.

<comment><USER3> They don't "know beyond doubt" in an absolute sense. They know sure enough to make the encrypted drives content part of the trial in the first place, which is a determination the judge made himself and that wasn't challenged by the defense so far.

At some point the main trial will continue, very probably without the decrypted drives. Then the defense will very very likely argue why the hashes aren't enough proof for possession of illegal files, and they will hear experts statements on the matter on both sides, other evidence for the possession etc. And then a _jury_ will make the judgement, with much more factors and on a very different standard of "beyond doubt".

<comment><USER4> They "know beyond doubt" that the drives at least _used_ to contain CP, and most likely do now. It's possible that the CP was deleted at some point, and the only way to determine that would be to decrypt the drives.

<comment><USER5> > They "know beyond doubt" that the drives at least used to contain CP

If they even merely had sufficient evidence to know beyond a _reasonable_ doubt, then they would have sufficient evidence for a trial conviction and the decryption would be a sideshow.

Either they are lying about their knowledge (unnecessarily from a legal perspective, so probably for PR), or lying about needing the decryption for evidence, or telling the truth about both but the source of their knowledge is itself illegal evidence (and any evidence they collect based on that knowledge is fruit of the poisonous tree.)

<comment><USER4> Or they're telling the truth but they're worried that a jury won't understand the explanation of how they know and would really like to have the actual CP in-hand to use as evidence instead.

<comment><USER2> If they've linked specific hashes to known CP content, then presumably they have those files available. They can still present that as evidence, then have the experts testify that those specific files are known to have been on the drive.

Going to the Supreme Court specifically on the forced-decryption issue sends a pretty strong signal that that's what they actually care about.

<comment><USER3> Technically, the defendant is the one going to the Supreme Court. Of course they somewhat forced his hand by putting him in jail. IANAL, but probably he could have abandoned his fifth amendment defense strategy much earlier, which is the only thing currently before the Supreme Court, go back to the original judge and raise the "I forgot the password" defense there. Under the assumption that he could have done that, and again IANAL so I'm sorry if that is wrong, he is the one forcing the issue at the Supreme Court.

Of course the prosecution has nothing to loose here, so why would they do anything (if they could, I don't believe they play any role in this part), and the judge that made the contempt of court ruling that is the basis of all of this is unlikely to just give in and admit he was wrong, and also probably pretty interested to get a final judgment on what he believes is his legal right to do.

And you make it sound like getting the highest courts opinion is a bad thing. Either way, then we know, and I'm glad I'm not the one that has to wait it out in jail.

<comment><USER2> I am also not a lawyer, but if the government really just wanted their conviction of this one guy, the obvious path seems to be to abandon the court order to decrypt the drive, and just move forward with trial based on the forensic evidence from the system root. Slapping him with contempt on this, and continuing to sweat him out in jail while he files higher and higher appeals, is the government's decision.

Getting the Supremes' opinion on this is kind of a superposition of states: if they decide in favor of right-to-encrypt, that's great, as suddenly the government will (presumably) stop using these kinds of court orders; but if they find against, then it's worse than the current uncertain situation, as orders to decrypt will then become an accepted tool. If the Supremes would find in favor of compelled decryption, then I'd prefer it never go to them, and remain in the current legal limbo.

<comment><USER3> "The government" as such is not involved here. I'm not going to pretend the separation of powers is as clean cut as what one learns in school, but first and foremost this is a ruling of a single and independent judge that the defendant is challenging.

I fail to see any motivation for the judge to back down on his contempt of court order. I fail to see any motivation for the prosecution to try to continue the trial faster without the drives (which would be a much weaker case). Just because they are good people and have any problem with somebody they believe to be very guilty sitting in jail? They send people to jail all day long.

And I for myself, owner of many encrypted drives, prefer to know and not having to fight that fight myself while sitting in jail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you can be jailed indefinitely for not decrypting a drive then can't you be jailed indefinitely for not remembering your password? That sounds fair.

<comment><USER7> At the contempt hearing, you are allowed to testify that you do not remember your password, and it puts the burden of proof on the government to prove that you secretly remember your password and are lying to the court when you say that you don't. Of course if you _do_ testify this and you _are_ lying, then that's a perjury charge -- which means that for example if you have told your lawyer that you _do_ remember your password, your lawyer cannot knowingly allow you to lie on the stand and could be disbarred etc. if you do. But assuming that you're _not_ lying and so forth, you can just say "I can't comply with this court order because I don't remember the password" and that will suffice for your defense at your contempt hearing unless the government can meet a strong burden of proof that you secretly do know your password and are lying about it, which you are of course entitled to counterexamine and poke holes in.

Rawls did not testify, at his contempt hearing, that he did not remember his password. He did not testify at all at that hearing. He said prior that he doesn't remember his password to the police, and he has said it afterwards to the media, and he might have even said it to a different judge in these weird follow-up hearings--but he didn't say it at the contempt hearing and as I understand it he didn't appeal this hearing directly to say "well shoot I didn't realize I was getting jailed on a _technicality_ , let's re-do this hearing so that I can testify that I forgot it properly."

There are many reasons that Rawls might not have testified; possibly he has a very good lawyer who is concerned about some bigger issues that Rawls might have to address if he testifies at all; possibly he has a very bad lawyer who did not know that this is how forgot-my-password law works and did not read the Supplemental Order the judge wrote explaining why Rawls is being held in contempt of court. I do not know why he did not testify this. However, testifying this is sufficient to be not held in contempt of court, unless the government can meet a stiff burden of proof that you are lying.

<comment><USER8> > At the contempt hearing, you are allowed to testify that you do not remember > your password

Isn't it the government's job to prove you remember it? Shouldn't the right to remain silent apply in contempt hearings as well?

<comment><USER7> It _is_ the government's job to prove you remember it. They have the burden of persuading the court that you don't remember it. This is spelled out explicitly in the Supplemental Order issued by the judge, PDF freely available at:

[https://ia601303.us.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.paed.50...](https://ia601303.us.archive.org/0/items/gov.uscourts.paed.507511/gov.uscourts.paed.507511.21.0.pdf)

What is at stake is a burden of _evidence production_. The difference between production and persuasion, in a court room, is a distinction both of quantity and quality. You "produce" single pieces of evidence, whether weak or strong -- then the totality of all of the pieces of evidence, evaluated together according to their strengths, "persuades" the court. "Produce" is quality- agnostic and refers to single pieces of evidence; "persuade" or "prove" refers to all of the evidence on both sides and weighs them by their quality.

And what's really at stake is that your lawyer, at a contempt hearing, cannot _merely_ claim, "Well, your honor, the prosecution has not proven that my client is definitely able to fulfill the order, because they have not disproven every possible reason why my client could not fulfill the order." The reason that this is not enough is that it is asking the government to prove a negative, "you cannot possibly have any excuse."

Instead the procedures that courts use to decide these cases require the defense to identify specific reasons why the defendant cannot fulfill the earlier order, and then the burden falls on the prosecution to prove that those specific reasons are BS. And for this purpose they need to produce _some_ evidence -- it doesn't need to be strong, persuasive evidence -- that the defendant cannot fulfill the order for that reason. Because it does not have to be strong or persuasive, a statement of testimony is taken at face- value as sufficient.

The only attack the government can make at the _evidence-production_ level is "even if this evidence were 100% persuasive the defendant would still be able to decrypt the drives", so the evidence has to have some clear logical relation to the excuse. But obviously if your sworn testimony that you cannot decrypt the hard drives were 100% persuasive, you would not be able to.

It's still the government's job to prove you remember it, but you need to produce some sort of pertinent evidence (no matter how flimsy) that you don't, so that the court even evaluates this defense in the first place.

<comment><USER8> It's not inconceivable that the courts could prove that the defendant could access data. The data could be on an encrypted cloud drive that the defendant decrypts when he accessed his email this morning.

Or he already stated to Witness that he keeps his bitcoin keys there and he has been trading bitcoins lately according to Exhibit J.

<comment><USER7> Look, it's _not inconceivable_ that competent prosecution could prove that every murderer wasn't acting in self-defense, either. What's _conceivable_ has little bearing on courtroom procedure.

What matters for procedure is, what's reasonable. It's reasonable that someone who claims they killed in self-defense would have to present evidence that they felt they were in serious danger. It's reasonable that someone who claims they were not sane at the time they committed a robbery, should have to explain with evidence the causes and circumstances of their insanity that distinguish their mental state from other mental states that we'd treat normally, like that of simply being greedy. These are routine situations where the burden of proof is on the defendant to mount the corresponding "affirmative defense." They arise because of a more fundamental principle that if you did fail to obey the law, but you want to argue that it's OK that you failed to do so, then you should be able to tell the court _why_ you failed to do so, so that we can indeed evaluate whether it's OK.

The only difference here is that insanity, self-defense, entrapment and the like -- traditional affirmative defenses -- are self-evidently very exceptional circumstances. Forgetting is, by comparison, quite routine. Therefore the courts are actually incredibly lenient, putting only a weak burden of production on you so that the question of "why can't you?" is answered up-front, and then this reason will be evaluated under the assumption that you're innocent until proven guilty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Prosecutors said Rawls has a lot of "chutzpah" to even ask to get out of jail while he appeals the contempt-of-court order to the Supreme Court, which has never decided whether forcing somebody to decrypt hardware amounted to a Fifth Amendment violation._

He's being held in jail on a basis that may violate his constitutional rights, yet _he_ is the one with chutzpah?

</comment><comment><USER10> What sort of lousy hard drive encryption reveals hash values of plaintext?

<comment><USER11> What I've been able to piece together from the fragments of this case that have been reported by non-technical journalists is that he used some sort of P2P software like BitTorrent to download the files. This P2P software kept the checksums of every downloaded file on his unencrypted drive (basically it stored the torrent files somewhere). The FBI compared the checksums in those file to ones of known CP images and found some number of matches (how many has not been reported from what I've seen).

So it really looks like they've got plenty to convict this guy on the evidence they have, but are refusing to bring the case to trial until he unlocks his external hard drive for some reason.

<comment><USER12> It's one of two ways. It's either the hash algorithm hashes are strong enough to prevent manufactured hash collisions (not just accidental ones) and the gov could convict on the hashes alone, meaning the files aren't needed and the All Writs Act is not appropriate, so he's not in contempt. OR the hashes wouldn't stand the trial by themselves, and leaves a much weaker argument for the need to decrypt because you're less certain that it would contain the files you think it does.

I think the specifics in this case, Like the sister's testimony, go against the second possibly weakening their argument.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I feel like anyone with a functional brain can see this is a fifth amendment violation.

<comment><USER14> Although I'm sympathetic with the side I think you're on, the legal issue at stake here is much more complex than you are giving credit for, and reasonable people can disagree about this. Courts have apparently found in the past that disclosing a physical key is not a 5th amendment violation whereas disclosing a code (eg the combination to a safe) is. The EFF is apparently of the mind that this is a violation. There's a decent writeup of a different case that raises the same issue here [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-fifth- amendment-privacy...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-fifth-amendment- privacy-and-computer-passwords/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Confess regardless of guilt there was child abuse obscenity and forgot password. Then file lawsuit claiming confession was coerced.

<comment><USER16> Does being jailed for refusing to cooperate count as coercion?

<comment><USER15> The fatal flaw here is that this guy lost over 90 days (I think that's the lower bound) of liberty without a jury trial. Under this scheme a judge could jail you until you produce the body in a suspected murder, or until you tell the cops where the money is in a suspected bank robbery.

Contempt is a quasi-criminal remedy with severe limitations. SCOTUS will rule from this that contempt confinement for longer than 90 days requires jury fact finding.

<comment><USER14> Hmm. It's not true to say under this scheme a judge could jail you for not producing a body. This is more like a situation where the judge could jail you for not allowing people to search the spot where they suspect the body _is_ (eg if you won't let police search your freezer). That's something they can in fact already do. That is to say, they have the right (assuming a warrant) to search where they want to search, and if there is a physical protection (eg a key) it isn't covered by 5th amendment and you have to cough it up.

The 5th amendment doesn't bestow a right to prevent the collection of evidence in general. You could argue that this particular person wanted a jury trial they could easily have got that by disclosing the password and allowing decryption.

That said, forcing disclosure of a password is particularly troubling. On its face it seems obvious that he is deliberately not doing that so as not to reveal the incriminating evidence (ie incriminate himself), which is why he is pleading the 5th amendment right not to be forced to do that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I'm Giving Up on Facebook (Sort of) - <AUTHOR> http://www.deliberatism.com/editorial/why-im-giving-up-on-facebook-sort-of/

<comment><AUTHOR> I know there have been a number of posts of this nature on HN over the past while. Seems like a lot of us are trying to find a way to get a grip on how to fit social media into our lives, without it becoming a completely overwhelming distraction.

<comment><USER2> Let me guess - I bet you've also posted this on Facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did.

First off, I didn't want folks to think I was being a jerk for not responding to things there, or getting the wrong idea from my absence. It just seemed like a good way to explain what I'm doing.

Additionally, it's good for traffic, and I still intend to use Facebook in that capacity. I'll continue to post on our agency and project pages, or have someone assigned to do so for me.

As I noted in the post, I'm not anti-Facebook. I just want my time back. The biggest impact on this, came when I killed the apps on my iPhone (I knocked off LinkedIn too). Later, I may do the same to TV and respond to fewer blog posts.</comment></comment></comment>


3 tips for beginning web designers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.12spokes.com/web-design-for-beginners/

<comment><USER2> Good. The one about "write your own code", and if you need to paste some CSS section into your own CSS file, first print it, and check where that piece of code is going to fit, and you may need to spread it along your own code.</comment>


Cnpmjs.org - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cnpm/cnpmjs.org

<comment><USER2> Private npm base on mysql and simple store service for company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you very much !!</comment>


Show HN: PassingSage – Share the best parts of what you're reading - <AUTHOR> https://passingsage.com/ <comment><USER2> There seems to be an error when, after signing up, I hit the profile button at the top.

> _Cannot GET /profile_

> _Content Security Policy: The page 's settings blocked the loading of a > resource at inline ("default-src")._

Also, just wondering, is there any sort of search or browsing ability? Or is it solely limited to "Recent Passages"?

Edit: It would be wonderful to be able to browse by book perhaps, or genre. Maybe a tagging feature could help with the sorting? I'm just spitballing here - I think you need something to make you stand out from sites like Goodreads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out, I'll take a look into this. Right now it's limited to "Recent Passages" but I plan to include genre and friend based filtering, and searching by title/author in the future.</comment></comment>