Florida becomes first state to enact DNA privacy law, blocking insurers - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/florida-becomes-first-state-to-enact-dna-privacy-law-blocking-insurers-from-genetic-data <comment><USER2> I would think the DNA companies would support this.

Right now, I have no plans to ever get a test. My curiosity as to whether I descended from Dr. Zaius or Cornelius is not strong enough for me to risk having my information available for things like insurance companies dinging me.

On another note, I heard that the jury is still out on the lingering aftereffects of COVID-19, and there's a better than even chance that testing positive means that we can be discriminated against for a pre-existing condition for the rest of our lives.

<comment><USER3> It'd be nice if the government banned preexisting condition consideration. Extremely possible; it would take one law. It'd change the economics of the market, but would it actually change them enough to make a business model where people hand you money, for free, while they're still alive unprofitable or merely less profitable?

<comment><USER4> > It'd be nice if the government banned preexisting condition consideration.

It...has: [https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing- co...](https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing- conditions/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about GINA? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act)

> The act bars the use of genetic information in health insurance and > employment: it prohibits group health plans and health insurers from denying > coverage to a healthy individual or charging that person higher premiums > based solely on a genetic predisposition to developing a disease in the > future, and it bars employers from using individuals' genetic information > when making hiring, firing, job placement, or promotion decisions.

<comment><USER6> I had to scroll down way too far to see this. The added value of the Florida law was at the end of the article. It included:

> long-term-care, life and disability insurers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great decision! What is the point of insurance if they can predict your health issues.

<comment><USER8> To properly price the product. Otherwise, people at higher risk are subsidized more heavily by people at lower risk.

 _This isn't about healthcare insurance (which is protected against the use of DNA data by federal statute)._

If you're at higher risk of early death or needing extended long term care, even through no fault of your own, shouldn't you have to pay more for these optional products? That's what insurance premiums are for: to appropriately price risk.

<comment><USER9> > To properly price the product. Otherwise, people at higher risk are > subsidized more heavily by people at lower risk.

But that's the very definition of insurance: spread the risk over the entire pool.

US health insurance does not work this way, and it's part of the reason that system is so messed up and super expensive.

<comment><USER10> Right, but people that have gotten into a lot of car accidents pay higher premiums than people with accident-free records.

Insurance is not socialism. If my risk of getting into a car accident is low, shouldn't I pay low premiums? Why should I subsidize bad drivers?

<comment><USER11> Why should you pay higher premiums for color of skin or sexual orientation? After all you don't choose these. Same goes for your DNA.

I think we already have precedents which go further. With ADA you have to provide reasonable accommodation for disabled people. Some of them are disabled purely by chance, but some are disabled because they are dumb (they dived head on and are now on a wheelchair). No difference under that law.

<comment><USER8> In some circumstances (life, disability, and long term care insurance are not compulsory nor necessary in all situations), you should pay for risk you incur, whether by choice or not.

This isn't about race or sex (and the discrimination argument made), but the underlying genetics that present as those traits (and any risks, such as premature death or the need for extended assisted care, that come along for the ride).

Using systems like social security and universal healthcare are better models if the desire is to ignore identifying and pricing risk (as insurance does) and spread the costs across the population with less admin overhead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _But the prohibition doesn't apply to life, disability or long-term care coverage._

So it's meaningless unless you buy an individual non-Affordable Care Act policy.

<comment><USER13> Did you read the article? That's the current federal law.

Florida is extending that federal prohibition, it now applies to long-term- care, life, and disability insurers.

<comment><USER14> Nobody reads the articles apparently. This is getting as bad as reddit :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py health is a fascinating area of privacy because

(1) it's one of the best-known and beefiest privacy statutes (HIPAA)

(2) you have a legit negotiation interest in keeping your info private (wouldn't want to tell an insurer about past history lest they charge you more)

and (3) insurers can punish you for witholding information by revoking coverage when they find out

this is an important step

<comment><USER15> > (1) it's one of the best-known and beefiest privacy statutes (HIPAA)

HIPPA protects you from gossiping staff, everything else is fantasy thinking.

When my wife miscarried and was hospitalized from an ectopic pregnancy, sufficient PII was available through various channels for enfamil to send a "Welcome Baby" biz via fedex on the would-be due date.

<comment><USER16> I'm so sorry. I hear advertising stories like this more and more frequently and I wonder when the US will at least ban targeted advertising based on health data - actual and inferred. It's despicable.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, I appreciate the thought.

We felt really violated by this, and I ended up buying the marketing list in question for my zip code to understand what happened better. It's unlikely anything will change for the better. The scrubbing of identity data is pretty easy to reverse engineer by design, as the stream of data is used by pharmaceutical companies, insurance subrogation, etc to do all sorts of things. A pharmaceutical sales rep has a scorecard for your doctor — they bpm now how many scripts were written and filled. The people who gather prescription data have your prescription before your pharmacy does.

Some states have fed things like Medicaid claim data to companies to mesh against data from insurers to build models designed to target opioid abuse. By correlating events or behaviors tied to abuse to diagnoses, predictive models can be built from unprivileged data. (Remember when Target predicted someone's pregnancy before they knew a few years ago?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really wish strong protections would be adopted universally for all forms of discrimmination based on genetics. There is an amazing amount of value to be unlocked but we will never get there if people have to roll a giant dice to access their genetic information. I wish I could have any faith that insurance companies would see the longer term benefit in enabling people to freely learn about their health risks and manage them. However I have observed completely the opposite so far - people with very mild genetic results being denied completely unrelated insurance because an insurance algorithm auto-banned them.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting. Florida became the home of "Florida Man" because it is notoriously _lax_ on privacy restrictions in another area (arrest records).

<comment><USER19> It's often credited as being one of the most "free" states, with things like information and no income tax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act not already cover this?

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately it does not. The definition of "biometric identifiers" is pretty narrow: finger print, iris scans, facial geometry, and voice recognition. IIRC genetic information is specifically _excluded_ from the definition as are a host of medical-related types of data (x-rays, for example).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Relevant background: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act)

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope this California bill[0] soon gets enacted into law, that would give extra protection to the residents against selling a customers data without written consent. Written consent is big here!!

[0] [https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- aler...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol- alert/article240227106.html))

</comment><comment><USER23> Can we add this to the constitution?

</comment><comment><USER24> "Federal law prevents health insurers from using genetic information in underwriting policies and in setting premiums, but the prohibition doesn't apply to life, disability or long-term care coverage."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My profile says that I posted this link 11 hours ago, but the front page says that I posted it 9 hours ago... that was done to boost the post, I guess? (I'm not sure when I posted it)

</comment><comment><USER25> It's like that film Gattaca is becoming reality</comment>


The Grand Challenges of Robotics - <AUTHOR> https://shuby.de/blog/scitech/grand-challenges-of-robotics/ <comment><AUTHOR> This post was inspired by a question Richard Hamming asks in "You and your research" (paraphrasing): "What are the most important problems in your field?". When I thought hard about this question, I realized that I didn't have a satisfying answer. This post is an ongoing attempt to remedy this.

Since solving these challenges is a collective pursuit, I'd appreciate suggestions on content to add, general feedback, and comments! :)</comment>


Radical open-access plan could spell end to journal subscriptions - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7 <comment> phoe-krk I find it funny that this article, or even the HN comments at the moment of me writing this one, do not mention SciHub. It's effectively the most radical open-access plan for science paper nowadays after all.

SciHub is the original reason why open-access plans like this one have a chance of working at all. The authors of this paper simply announce that the SciHub approach has won and it's time to stop pretending otherwise and break the status quo of modern science publishing.

<comment><USER2> While sci-hub undoubtedly plays a role here, in my field the arXiv is really what has obviated the necessity of journal subscriptions. Essentially all math papers, in both the preprint and post-review form, can be found on the arXiv. I would also emphasize that, with regard to decisions involving journal subscriptions and access, authors generally have very little power. As a researcher, if you have the grant money, you can pay to make your work open access; alternatively, you can restrict yourself to only open access journals (which in some fields, could come at significant opportunity cost).

<comment><USER3> Probably worth mentioning Andrej Karpathy's [http://arxiv- sanity.com](http://arxiv-sanity.com) as the flood of papers to read keeps growing

<comment><USER4> Most journals still publish a list of titles in the open, so you can 'follow' influential journals, and read the relevant articles on the arxiv.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Google Scholar scrapes arXiv and coalesces the results with journal updates, i.e. it will show the entry for a new journal article with a clearly visible [PDF on arXiv] link when this is available. Google Scholar also scrapes institutional repos (at universities etc.).

<comment><USER5> Google Scholar is a service to humanity. However, I do wonder: how comprehensive is it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great step forward IF the Open Access fee is rationalized. Take for example, Nature Communications - which only publishes OA. The OA fee for one article is €3,850! [0]. Why should tax payers pay two times - to conduct the research, to access the research - to access the research which they fund? Specially, when most of the work is done by the researchers themselves. And before someone talks about journal costs etc. I have been a reviewer for different journals and conferences for many years now. I haven't received a single penny for peer reviews. I highly doubt hosting a PDF on a server takes € 3,850.

[0] [https://www.nature.com/ncomms/about/article-processing- charg...](https://www.nature.com/ncomms/about/article-processing-charges)

<comment><USER7> I think the solution isn't to change the publishers it's to let them go bankrupt. In my experience in Computer Science most papers are at conferences and if those simply focused on the conference itself and maybe a website linking to the arxiv versions of the accepted papers there simply wouldn't be a need for any other publishing. As it stands 99% of the burden is on the scientific community anyway, that leaves publishers with abysmal editing and extortion.

<comment><USER8> I agree but to be fair the editing done by journals _does_ provide some value: Most researchers, in most fields outside of mathematics, physics and computer science, have rudimentary editing skills at best. Many very good biologists I know outright refuse to learn LaTeX, decrying it as a waste of time. Of course this isn't an insurmountable problem but at least for now there's a clear demand that journals fill; take a look at manuscripts submitted to bioRxiv. The average quality is a lot worse than CS conference papers or arxiv submissions — not just in terms of text layout and formatting but also for rudimentary language editing etc.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps editing could then be a product sold to the researcher, rather than a reason to yield publishing rights to a single journal.

<comment><USER10> by yielding publishing rights to a journal the journal gets to collect small bits of money from lots of people, the bearable cost of editing for any researcher would be quite a bit smaller, effectively for these publishers selling editing as a service is a no-go.

<comment><USER8> Many researchers at the moment happily pay APCs (=Open Access article processing charges) in the several thousands of dollars — this is _way_ more than is required as a minimal cost of editing. In fact, you can easily hire a freelance editor to work on your paper for less. If the process becomes minimally streamlined it could be made very affordable: at the moment, a lot of the work of a journal editor is (intentionally, as well as due to inertia) due to the utter lack of streamlining.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I'm not surprised if their actual costs are in the range of thousands of dollars, because they typically have horrible typesetting workflows that take your nice LaTeX, mangle it into QuarkXPress and give you a PDF for proofreading with tens or hundreds of annoying small errors. Which you have to find and point out, and then they fix every single one manually in their horrible software.

It's not the cost of a value-adding service, but the cost of having a huge technical debt that nobody has bothered paying down on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a fantastic step forward, and the most drastic of measures I've seen so far. The most important part, in my opinion, is the exclusion of hybrid journals, which do not help at all in the transition to open access other than extract even more public money.

Other important steps:

\- Abolishing copyright transfers

\- No more embargo periods

\- A cap on publication fees ("Article Processing Charges")

<comment><USER12> With regard to copyright transfer agreements, I have found one publisher willing to publish an article I retain copyright of. I asked at a conference. I have not yet published in a journal, as I am not willing to transfer copyright and find conferences acceptable, but when I do, this will be how. Then they won't be able to stop me from publishing the final version of the paper on a preprint site (for free access), and I still get the benefits of my research being in a journal.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps you could assign rights to the FSF. I'm not sure if they're prepared for that kind of battle, but my gut indicates they might be in a better place than the rest.

And, they have 35 years of history showing they wouldn't sell your content under the bus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's about time. Currently governments fund most of the research, and then constantly have to pay exorbitant fees for every copy of the resulting work. This will also have a tremendous positive effect for the public, Who currently do not have easy access to the work that they're paying for, and in many cases the only stuff they can easily get is quackery or old things. The only thing this is bad for is the Publishers who do not want to adjust to the internet.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand the "bar publishing in 85% of journals" part; presumably they mean "exclusively".

That actually means that papers (and research data hopefully?!) can be published for the people who bought the research to be able to legally access it; but journals have opportunity to prove their added value still. And if they do add value, the market can provide a price for it.

So non-OA journals can still curate, review, typeset, index, etc., just not lock the publicly funded research itself away.

<comment><USER11> Researchers funded by the participating funds are not allowed to publish in journals that do not make all of their research freely available, which indeed excludes many a popular journal today - unless they change their business model, which this plan appears to aim for.

<comment><USER15> You can require all footpaths to be mapped, and make those maps publicly accessible (for free), without having to make it illegal to sell a footpath map.

That means the public can find all the footpaths, but if someone creates an innovative map, or a useful compendium they can still sell that.

<comment><USER11> They're not making it illegal to sell a footpath map, they're just disallowing you from paying a footpath map seller for giving your map away for free. Instead, you have to give them to people who are already giving away maps for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Been a while since I left academia, but certainly at the time this would open the door wide for atrocious publication fees as long as quantitative productivity ranking based on Science Citation Index was upheld.

Since the publication fee is covered as direct costs in research grants reimbursed at 100% by the funding authorities, there is no incentive for writers to be price conscious while at the same time being strong-armed to publish in those journals or lose their job.

<comment><USER11> That's mostly still the case, and they're hoping to mitigate that by capping publication fees. I do think a change in incentive structures, where you need to publish with certain journals to advance your career ("pay to promote"), is still needed though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious, can anyone update me on the related problem of whether it is still the case that failing studies are rarely published so there's a potential for duplication and misreading of significance--because if 101 studies are run and publish the one time it hit p 0.01 you got what would be expected by chance.

Are the structural problems inherent in publish-or-perish mitigated in any way yet?

<comment><USER11> Yes, that is still the case, and while a problem, it's a different one than the problem of restricted access to research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In the meantime Germany and Sweden are having fun with Elsevier: [https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/universities- in-g...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/universities-in-germany- and-sweden-lose-access-to-elsevier-journals--64522)

</comment><comment><USER19> Its a little confusing because the declaration of the initiative says that the "hybrid" model is not acceptable yet just before that it says that they will pay open access fees up to a specific capped amount throughout Europe. Which one is it?

In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial publishers in order to avoid their own internal politics. Open access publishers can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this time masked because everyone publishes in high-impact third party commercial publishers. It is a little more difficult to trust the publication record as a proxy for value when you know that e.g. connections have played a part in it.

<comment><USER20> Paying for OA is not hybrid.

Hybrid usually refers to journals that have some OA and some non-OA content.

However, I'm not sure if the initiative is talking about not publishing in hybrid journals at all, or that publishing non-oa followed by later paying for OA is not acceptable.

> In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial > publishers in order to avoid their internal politics. Open access publishers > can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this > time masked because everyone publishes in third party commercial publishers.

I'm not sure if I understand right, but there's no distinction between OA publishers and commercial publishers. OA really just refers to the rights of the final paper, not whether the publisher turns a profit.

<comment><USER19> OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. Paying for open access used to be optional (like in Cell) now becomes mandatory (like in Cell Reports). The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill.

> I'm not sure if I understand right

I was making a point about how impact factors are used as proxy for value in life sciences. Because life scientists have done that, they are now dependent on a model in which a third party (the commercial publishers) is judging their work. Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same impact factor, because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid subscriptions) has gone away. So , at least in life sciences, academics will have to learn to evaluate the work of each other more openly, something that other disciplines have achieved long ago (e.g CS, math , physics).

<comment><USER20> > OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction.

It's potentially the largest part IMO. That would dramatically change the landscape as all research output from EU funding could simply _never_ appear in certain journals rather than requiring that journals add an OA option. Major journals would need to switch from closed/hybrid to full OA, and soon.

> The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's > probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather > than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill.

Yes, it's a shift in who pays - it's not a claim that the EU will now forbid paying for publishing. They are however (as now a customer with enormous weight) saying they'll cap the APCs.

> Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same > impact factor,

I don't see that being at all true, I'm not sure why you'd expect that.

> because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid > subscriptions) has gone away

The incentive is still to get researchers to publish in the journal, arguably the desire to be more restrictive may increase.

<comment><USER21> [These days I'm entirely industrial, but I used to be an academic working in this space. I am extremely biased.]

This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time, in my personal view).

The centre of the argument is in life sciences, because that's where the most money is, because all of the physical scientists read arXiV anyway, and because the scholarly societies, led by the American Physical Society, have managed to hang on and are notably less rapacious than Holzbrinck and Elsevier.

Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully pulpit.

A lot of this comes down to the scholarly societies – many of whom are much easier to deal with, a notable exception being the American Chemical Society, who are very hard to deal with because they're led around by the nose by the Chemical Abstracts Service – being displaced by a small number of vehemently commercial big corporates. They know fine well this is a wasting asset and they've been trying to wring as much cash from it as possible, and it's hastened this endgame.

<comment><USER20> Not sure if I've put in this thread but just to avoid any issues, I work for Digital Science (which is part of Holtzbrinck) though as always only ever speak personally and not for the company.

> This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and > the Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time, > in my personal view).

I don't know I'd see it quite like that, far from a negotiating point they seem to be much more simply the customer. They have decided what they want to do with their work and money, it's entirely up to them how to spend it. It's been a while coming, but publishing is a slow industry.

The risk, really, that the publishing industry has been running with for some time is that it relies enormously on submitted work from a relatively small number of funders (and then the funders are often owned by the same government, and in the EU those governments work very closely together). A change in view from those few customers means larger things need to change.

> Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of > course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully > pulpit.

Not sure I've seen DS arguing either side in this really. Personally it'll make my work at DS easier the more that's open access and unless I've missed something doesn't really impact any of the major products - I can't see how it'd change Dimensions for example (apart from making it easier to ingest more full text data). I certainly can't see where it would "disrupt" DS. Would be interested to know what you think would be disrupted.

It's a change to the business model of some of the publishing, but while a big change in the industry hardly one that should come as a surprise - and one that there's already a widely used alternative model already in place. It's a much bigger shift given they aren't accepting hybrid journals, but doesn't rule out commercial operation. Seeing what they choose as their cap for the APCs will be interesting.

<comment><USER21> Not so much DS as Nature. (I know several people who used to be at DS, and they were uniformly all great; DS appeared pretty clearly to be Macmillan-at- the-time's hedge against OA blowing up the conventional journal business, though, from an outside perspective)

It certainly doesn't rule out commercial publishers, but it cuts the knees out from the selling-non-negotiable-bundles-to-university-libraries model the big publishers have been leaning on.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I think part of the change is likely to be to negotiate yearly fees for no APCs to keep more reliable revenue. It's a big change.

> DS appeared pretty clearly to be Macmillan-at-the-time's hedge against OA > blowing up the conventional journal business, though, from an outside > perspective)

Yes, I don't know if I'd put it as OA focussed though, rather it's been a hedge about _something_ changing and altering the business model. Never been in the high level meetings that would have seen this discussion though so it's all anyone's guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Finally a legal way to find and read and cite publicly funded scientific papers. What a time!

</comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone know of any open-source arXiv like frameworks that can be self- hosted?

<comment> T-A Maybe one of these?

[http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Free_and_open- source_journal_...](http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Free_and_open- source_journal_management_software)

<comment><USER23> These are great! Thanks for pointing them out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a great idea. Even better if they applied the requirement retroactively.

</comment><comment><USER25> "As written, Plan S would bar researchers from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential titles such as Nature and Science." \- Nature

Conflict of interest with this reporting much?

<comment> GuB-42 There is an obvious conflict of interest. However I see nothing wrong with the article. What is written here is a fact. 85% of journals don't match the criteria for Plan S and Nature and Science are definitely influential.

Arguments of both sides are presented, not too much sensationalism, that's better journalism than many so called "independent" newspapers.

<comment><USER14> Oh, the text is biased. E.g., the word "radical" is not emotion free, it is clearly selected to suggest that this is a bad idea. They also emphasize strongly the number of journals that do not meet this criteria, without noting that changes are absolutely possible. The percentage is so small because of the strong armed resistance of organizations like theirs. We should not expect that an organization used to free money would be happy about losing their exclusive access to hard work that was paid for by the public.

<comment><USER26> > E.g., the word "radical" is not emotion free, it is clearly selected to > suggest that this is a bad idea.

No, it's clearly chosen to suggest it is an extreme break from the status quo practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In complement to the Nature's article: The FNS/SNF (Swiss national science foundation) explains on its website the reason for not signing it (yet): [http://www.snf.ch/en/researchinFocus/newsroom/Pages/news-180...](http://www.snf.ch/en/researchinFocus/newsroom/Pages/news-180904-open- access-snsf-supports-plan-s.aspx)

<comment><USER28> "We have a different plan and we're sticking to it" is not much of an explanation.

(I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.)

<comment><USER11> To be fair, it's more like "we committed ourselves to a different plan to other stakeholders, and we're sticking to it until we have convened with those stakeholders whether they're OK with us joining this plan".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There are alternative ones which are using blockchain technology. I know Pluto project([https://pluto.network](https://pluto.network)) and ScienceRoot project([http://www.scienceroot.com/](http://www.scienceroot.com/)). It's not exactly same with open-access(they insist a fair rewarding system.)

</comment><comment><USER30> This could be great for replication studies, as they are really hard to publish under the current model.

<comment><USER19> This is not about publishing itself, but about access to published articles. Journals will keep wanting to maintain prestige and be picky, so guess which studies are not going to be accepted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Aaron Schwartz is like "wait, what was I on trial for again?"

</comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone else find this ironic that this article is published in Nature, a subscription journal?

</comment><comment><USER33> The solution here is easy and obvious. The Nobel Committee should adopt a rule saying that any research first published in a pay-walled journal will not be considered in evaluating a candidate for any of the Nobel prizes.

That would stop publication in a day. Or less.

</comment><comment><USER34> Thank Goodness. I've been advocating for funders to insist on open publication of results (and more) for over a decade: [https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter- to-grantmakers-and-donors...](https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to- grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html) "Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non- profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations."

Longer version: [https://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public- works.html](https://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html)

Related pledge for organizations: [https://pdfernhout.net/pledge-to-only-fund- and-create-free-w...](https://pdfernhout.net/pledge-to-only-fund-and-create- free-works.html) "Our organization, ______, pledges to our our stakeholders and the people of the world that from this date forward, ________, whenever we use charitable or public dollars to fund or create any new content, software, or any other sort of copyrightable or patentable materials intended for public distribution and public use (or substantially modify existing public content), we will ensure those works will be distributed to the public under free/libre licenses. Free/libre licenses means those who receive the works have the freedom to use, run, copy, study, change, improve, redistribute, and/or distribute modified versions of the works without paying additional fees or obtaining additional permissions."

</comment><comment><USER35> "Rent-seekers could lose their privilege and everyone else could win indirectly."

</comment><comment><USER36> How is this radical. People who have invested in knowledge (e.g. via taxes) should be able to access that knowledge, i.e. reap the benefits of their investment. There is nothing radical here.

Sure, I get that this is radical in the sense that some leeches' industry will dry up. That's a good thing but it puzzles me how we got in this situation in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER37> That's great, and definitely better than paywalls, but how are we going to fund the work of good reviewers?

<comment><USER38> reviewers are not paid by the publisher in the current system either

basically:

      - authors pay to publish their work
      - readers pay to read the articles
      - reviewers review pro-bono

now you are thinking "well where the hell goes the money" and you are in the same situation as 99% of scientists

<comment><USER39> It goes to funding distribution models that can't deliver unicorns, rainbows, OR puppies to your doorstep. See the following quote from William Gunn, Communications head at Elsevier.

      When one user argued that people in rare-disease
      families "shouldn't have to jump through additional
      hoops to access information," Gunn responded, "Yes,
      everyone should have rainbows, unicorns, & puppies
      delivered to their doorstep by volunteers. Y'all keep
      wishing for that, I'll keep working on producing the
      best knowledge and distributing it as best we can."

[https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/who-gets-to-read-the- re...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/who-gets-to-read-the-research- taxpayers-fund.html)

<comment><USER40> Elsevier's profit was almost a billion pounds in 2017. They are the last people to complain about margins or cost/benefits.

<comment><USER4> They post a profit or about 33% according to others in this thread. This means they still have ~2 billion pounds in actual operating costs. Not that I support the current model, but that work still needs to be done, and it seems naive to expect it to be done for free / substantially less.

I wonder how far the 'fee per published article' gets to covering bare costs for e.g. the journal Nature.

<comment><USER40> I highly doubt most of the operating costs come from the journals. Considering there are far more people working for other publications in the Elsevier company. Usually the publications with high turnaround have low profit or break even, and I do not think the journals are among those and actually raise the profit margin substantially.

But then, I can't back this up with numbers as they do not publish specifics...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Preparing papers for publication requires a non-negligible amount of not-fun work. Someone has to proofread the paper, verify compliance with the journal's house style guide, manage the interactions with reviewers, etc.

For high impact journals, it may be possible to find enough volunteer editors who are willing to accept compensation solely in the form of a line of their CV. Less prestigious journals need to provide additional incentives to editors, and cash has a proven track record of motivating people.

Perhaps academic publishers collect to much rent from their pseudo-monopolies on specific publishing niches, but it is difficult to escape the basic economics of publishing.

<comment><USER42> I just don't get this. I was involved in a conference committee this year (CS is published in conferences), and as far as I know everyone from the general chair on down was a volunteer. There were some costs like conference space for the program committee meeting that had to be covered via the cost of admission to the conference, but in a journal presumably even those would not exist since you don't need reviewers to meet in person.

As far as I know, the only ongoing costs for the publisher (not immediately recouped via conference admission) would be running their own website and providing downloads. These hardly seem like massive expenses to me.

I don't see any fundamental reason why the model in CS couldn't work for other disciplines even if you don't want to adopt conferences; people are willing to step up and do the work, so why is so much money going to the middle men?

<comment><USER14> > why is so much money going to the middle men?

Because the middle men like getting free money, and it's not other people's jobs to fix the problem. If you're an academic, your job is to produce papers that get published, not fix the publishing system. If you're a library, your job is to make materials available to patrons, not fix the publishing industry. In contrast: If you're a for-profit publisher, your job is to maximize profit, which means minimize your costs and maximize your income.

What's changed is that the costs are now so steep, and the value provided by publishers is so little, that it's become painfully obvious that scientific journal publishers don't provide value compared to the rent fees they charge everyone else.</comment></comment></comment>


Competing on easy - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3302-competing-on-easy/

<comment><USER2> Already on the front page --- discussion at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4725872></comment>


France considering "Google tax" to support dying media - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/google-says-french-ad-tax-will-create-cultural-opposition.ars <comment><USER2> So car manufacturers should fund the continued operations of buggy whip manufacturers, even though nobody wants their products anymore.</comment>


Algorithm Visualizer – Knight's tour problem - <AUTHOR> http://algo-visualizer.jasonpark.me/#path=backtracking/knight%27s_tour/basic <comment><USER2> Poetic Summarizer:

If you are more inclined to Sanskrit :-)

verse 1: each syllable is placed on a square in sequence. verse 2: each syllable provides the answer to the knight's tour.

929\. sThirAgasAm sadhArADhyA vihathAkathathAmathA sathpAdhukE! sarAsA mA rangarAjapadham naya

930\. sThithA samayarAjathpA gatharA mAdhakE gavi dhuranhasAm samnathAdhA sAdhyAthApakarAsarA

see: [http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/vdesikan/rps/knight.h...](http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/vdesikan/rps/knight.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is neat.

There is something similar if you are more inclined towards python:

[https://pyalgoviz.appspot.com/](https://pyalgoviz.appspot.com/)

<comment><USER4> >To edit, run, save, and share algorithm visualitions at PyAlgoViz, we need to know who you are. [Sign in with Google]

Looks really cool, but no thanks :/

<comment><USER3> That's definitely turn off I agree, it says that the reason is if you need want to edit or upload. I agree though that for read-only you shouldn't need to auth. There TOS is are fine though if you read it. Also the person behind this a Google employee so i don't think theres necessarily anything nefarious going on. This is the OSCON talk he gave on the project a while back:

[https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/oscon- amsterd...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/oscon- amsterdam-2015/9781491928028/part57.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why does running the simulation with N>6 cause a stack overflow? In this naive implementation, the deepest the recursion stack can be is N^2 cells, which for (e.g.) 7 is only 49 cells deep. That shouldn't be enough to cause a stack overflow, even in a js interpreter like this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Knights tour was one of the earliest Java programs we wrote at the university. Fun times, even found an old jar with some cool Swing visuals: [http://i.imgur.com/6Q5ODT2.mp4](http://i.imgur.com/6Q5ODT2.mp4)

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't visualizing algorithms actually get in the way, when what you actually need to do is reason about them abstractly?

<comment><USER8> If you need to reason about something abstractly, visualizing it is an excellent first step because it helps build intuition for what's going on.

Your brain has billions of neurons dedicated to making sense of visual data. It's good to use them.</comment></comment>


How to Be Good Enough - <AUTHOR> https://adequate.life <comment><AUTHOR> I've created a "commonplace book" of all the things necessary for adequate living. If I was versioning it, it'd be v7.6, so I'd appreciate ANY criticisms.

It's a guide on being "good enough", so it's kinda ironic that my perfectionism got in the way of me advertising it...

</comment><comment><USER2> In terms of the presentation, I would prefer no to have to click on the topic. It would be easier if everything was just expanded and you have a TOC.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had my doubts about the contents. I didn't want to overwhelm anyone, since there's a lot.

I realized what you were saying, though! "Long-Term Environment Improvement" is a great grouping, but a terrible descriptor.</comment></comment>


Namecheap $0.98 com/net per year coupon - <AUTHOR> https://www.namecheap.com/deals/20000-retweets-0.98-domains-june-2013.aspx

<comment><USER2> Search Google for $0.50 domains and you can get .com/org/net domains for a $0.50USD for the first year from companies like Register or Network Solutions.

The downside is you have to be very careful when you sign up as to not forget to remove the $100 worth of junk they throw in your shopping cart, but a few months after you register you can then transfer your domain to another registrar so you don't have to renew at their ridiculous $30-$40 price tag.

The upside is you don't have to spam your Twitter followers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only valid for 24 hours, at $10 a piece i'm sure theres not a whole lot of people waiting to register names... so this is probably going to cause a bunch of people to register names they don't care about :(

<comment><USER4> Or to register names they don't care about _that much_ :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slightly OT but what is the real cost of storing an entry in a database ? Domain names always seemed very expensive to me.

<comment><USER2> A domain name is much more than storing an entry in a database. The root name servers are not cheap to operate. Domain names can also have glue records which mean more records in the root name server.

Also the more expensive a domain name is, the less spammy domains you see. If domains were $1 all the time, there would hardly be any domains left since everyone would register anything they can think of. Adding a price point reduces the number of unused domains.

<comment><USER6> Now days, you also have to include a legal cost of operating a DNS registrar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just this month I saw sale for .eu domains per 1EUR. What's up with these specials? They sure have to pay much more for them.

</comment><comment><USER8> If I understand the promo correctly, that's a whole lot of twitter spam that needs to go out to unlock this deal.

<comment><USER9> Did Namecheap graduate from Y Combinator? If not, how are they getting away with spamming the front page.

Or does this count as news?

<comment><USER10> It is my impression that a lot of people on this site buy domains fairly often. I'm one of them, and I'm interested in this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some providers make often 1$ .com or .org without asking you spamming Twitter followers... They may be estimate that a tweet has a ROI of 5$. This is not the case, because influencers will not retweet to avoid paying 5$. My twitter followers worth better content.

</comment><comment><USER12> They lost me at the word Twitter.

<comment><USER12> So why did I get downvoted? Are people honestly comfortable with companies strong-arming them into crowd-sourced social media advertising? I was under the impression from numerous posts on this website this is exactly the demographic that is repulsed by this type of activity.

I also have a Namecheap account. I am a happy customer. But this, in conjunction with their attempt at FB/Twitter anti-CISPA campaigned, left a bitter taste in my mouth.

<comment><USER13> You're not getting strong-armed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A nice deal, but it's not clear if this is only for those that retweet, or everyone. Or whether it's for a year or per year (the latter would be quite something).

If only there were decent .com's and .net's still left ;-)

<comment><USER15> the rules are listed on the page as:

 _you nave to retweet_

and

 _you have to follow namecheap_

to qualify

<comment><USER16> It read to me like those were rules for the retweet to qualify (and the follow @namecheap seems like an ask rather than a requirement, possibly not allowed to require this by Twitter TOS).

<comment><USER15> again from the rules:

 _If the deal gets enabled, your account should meet the following criteria to take advantage of the offer_

so it clearly says that if you want to take advantage of the offer, you need to retweet and follow

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ugh, talk about bad timing... I just spent the last week moving all of my domains from Godaddy to Name cheap. I even looked for a coupon before I did it.

<comment><USER18> (limited to 1 per customer) ...so don't sweat it too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting to see bitly stats on the link <https://bitly.com/retweetdeals+>

</comment><comment><USER20> <http://iwantmyname.com> is not as cheap but they provide a bullshit-free service, contrary to most domain peddlers.

<comment><USER4> They are not the only bullshit-free service but are actually costlier than, at least by $ 4-5, all other bullshit-free competitors.

my current registrar doesn't spam me, doesn't pester me to buy their XYZSD and never adds anything else in the cart and their interface is fairly clean and costs almost 1/2 for the .com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For 1 year or per year?

<comment><USER22> Probably the first year, they never seem to have coupons for renewals.

<comment><USER23> One of my favorite hacks: DreamHost sold 1 year of domain + hosting for $60, and you could use coupons to get it down to $10. Then you could cancel everything and use the "redeemed" $60 to buy a domain for six years.

<comment><USER2> I had to do a chargeback to get my money back from Dreamhost. They refused to refund me after I asked for a refund less than 2 hours after signing up.

I would never recommend Dreamhost to anyone.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YouTube Wants Input for the Next Update - <AUTHOR> http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/01/spring-cleaning-comes-early-to-youtube.html

<comment><AUTHOR> You have to click on the link at the bottom and log in. I hope some of you will join me in upvoting HTML5.</comment>


Lessons Learned from the rise and fall of Sonar - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/best-thing-i-found-online-today/72c6f8bec7df

<comment><USER2> I particularly liked:

> Removing friction from existing user behaviors almost always has a higher > ROI than building castles in the sky

> You do not have 20% time. Identify your top three priorities. Throw away > numbers two and three.

> "Focus is saying no to 1,000 good ideas." -Steve Jobs

Maybe (roughly condensed):

 _Work hard so users don 't._</comment>


Peter Thiel funds a science publication questioning evolution and climate change - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1537150/peter-thiel-is-funding-a-science-publication-questioning-evolution-and-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> Sure, lets question climate change. Until it is conclusively proven not a threat, assume the worst case predictions and act accordingly. Faced with an unknown threat, anything else would be irresponsible. Uncertainty and doubt cut both ways.

<comment><USER3> Let it continue to 'cut both ways' \- should we apply the logic of 'assume worst case predictions and act accordingly' to all that ails society?

The worst case predictions of muslim immigration into Europe are pretty bad, should the E.U seal the turkish border and Med ports with the gusto they hereunto reserved for greenhouse gas reductions?

<comment><USER4> Going to be pretty interesting if/when there's enough climate disruption to force those in the north to migrate southward. How would that fit into your 'logic'?

<comment><USER3> Castle Europe. Keep the enemies outside and put everything inside in bubble wrap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the issue with questioning these things? Isn't that how science works?

<comment><USER6> _> One article about a biomolecular research laboratory was written by a tennis instructor._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Freeman dyson, who is one of the smartest human beings ever to live, questions evolution and climate change. On climate change, I don't think he opposes being proactive — he just disagrees about the completeness of the evidence. He also has an unconventional opinion about nuclear war: that it's not a very big deal.

<comment><USER8> Sorry but you can't be one of the smartest human beings alive if you question settled science like evolution and climate change.

Being smart isn't just thinking of new stuff. It also includes understanding the world and it's proven qualities, properties and processes.

<comment><USER9> Intelligence is context specific. Find me a person who you think is intelligent, I can find a situation in which they will act like an idiot.

<comment><USER10> A great example would be Linus Pauling, who later on in his career became a proponent of mega-doses of vitamin C as a cure for all sorts of stuff, including cancer. He remained obsessed with the idea in the face of repeated studies that have shown it's no better than a placebo (in fact mega-dosing may even increase your risk of some cancers).

History is full of really smart people believing some pretty stupid things, especially in areas outside of their area of expertise. We have a very one- dimensional view of intelligence that assumes that because someone is smart (or even a genius) in one way, or knowledgeable about one area, that this must automatically apply to every facet of intelligence or knowledge.

Smart people are still people, with all the same biases, preconceptions, ego and other human frailties.

For some reason some physicists in particular seem very prone to underestimating the complexity of other branches of science, and over- estimating the applicability of their ways of working to them, especially the biological sciences which are full of complex systems that often turn out to react in unexpected ways.

<comment><USER7> So we are supposed to dismiss dysons conclusions because he's a genius? That is the most astounding contortion of logic I have ever seen. If you disagree with him, then go find out the logic he uses to justify his conclusions and discuss _that_.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely not. In fact I think Dyson is definitely worth listening to. Obviously I didn't explain myself clearly enough.

The point of my comment was that just because someone is a genius, does not automatically make them right. The fact that Linua Pauling was very wrong about vitamin C mega-dosing doesn't stop him from being one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, and someone who was right about an awful lot of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wrote script that generates publications that cover "all sides" of every issue:

        setInterval(function() {
          document.write(randomLetters()+" ")
        }, 1000)

        function randomLetters() {
          var wordSize = Math.ceil(Math.random()*20)
          var letters = Math.random().toString(36).replace(/[^a-z]/g, "")
          return letters.slice(0, wordSize)
        }</comment>


Configuring Sublime Text 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.mutuallyhuman.com/blog/2012/10/18/configuring-sublime-text-2/ <comment><USER2> Something the article misses: Sublime Text 2 already comes with a command line front end called "subl". Just copy it in your favorite bin/ directory and you can open your files with it from any shell.

<comment><USER3> Even better: use a symlink.

You won't have to copy each update.

        ln -s target link

thus:

        sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/subl

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Always wondering why the version '2' is emphasised heavily. Never heard of Sublime Text when it is version 1. The version number is part of the app binary file name. It is the only OS X app in my Mac that has the app name together with version number on the menu bar. Nothing wrong with this "unconventional", just that it will break a little thing when Sublime Text 3 is released. For example to change command prompt linking as in "ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/bin/sublime".

<comment><USER5> They're not too big on marketing. Doesn't matter; it still works great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _My first piece of advice is to set up a command line alias for Sublime..._

Sublime ships w/ a command-line executable:

        /usr/bin/subl

<comment><USER7> This hasn't been working for me for some reason on OSX, the posted alternative however did work so I'm quite excited!

<comment><USER8> On OSX I just use the built-in 'open -t', which works so long as Sublime Text is configured to open .txt files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another useful tip for navigation - when using the fuzzy search, you can start typing a filename to jump to that file, then with that still in the search box, hit # and start typing a keyword to jump to in that file.

So if you wanted to find something with the class btn_order in index.aspx, in Windows you'd hit CTRL-P and type "index#btn", hit enter, and there you are. You can of course scroll up/down through the available files matching the filter before you hit # -- the keyword search applies to the currently selected file.

<comment><USER10> An even better one IMO is @, same thing as with # but it uses symbols.

<comment><USER5> Or : to jump to a line number. Beautiful.

<comment><USER11> CTRL+G in Windows.

<comment><USER5> (this is when in the Ctrl+P fuzzy-file-search box, so the colon : in that context also jumps to the line number in the found file)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here are two other sources that I found pretty useful when switching to Sublime.

[http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and- tips/essential-s...](http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and- tips/essential-sublime-text-2-plugins-and-extensions/)

I'm not a huge fan of video sources when I could just look at images/read text and get it done faster, but these do offer some pretty good stuff. I was fond of him giving me the idea to use the Gist plugin, creating a new account, and have a great way to manage snippets.

[http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/news/perfect-workflow-in- su...](http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/news/perfect-workflow-in-sublime-text- free-course/)

<comment><USER13> This (free) video walkthrough is a terrific resource, and with no disrespect to the OP, is a better resource regarding getting the most out of ST2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sublime team by default need to advertise Packages and just how much you can customize the thing. You'd be amazed just how powerful this thing can be - once you get the hang of it, the shortcuts and some basic packages.

My favorite ones are Zen Coding (now deprecared in favor of Emmet) and SublimeERB when working with ERB - the front-end dev in me cries of joy when using them :-)

<comment><USER15> I agree I recently installed Emmet and it has vastly improved my life (front- end dev)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > FileDiffs - This can be a really useful tool for diffing files. [...]

This is something I've been looking for. I had to use an external diff tool or vimdiff, but this might change things quite a bit.

The other thing that would be a great addition to ST2 (if not existing already) would be a search by symbol in all project files. Currently Cmd+R is great for navigating to a symbol in the current file. Extending this to a whole project would be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been tweaking my Sublime for 5 months or so, and this is how my config file looks so far.

        "color_scheme": "Packages/Color Scheme - Default/Monokai.tmTheme",
        "detect_indentation": false,
        "detect_slow_plugins": false,
        "font_size": 10,
        "highlight_line": true,
        "highlight_modified_tabs": true,
        "margin": 0,
        "move_to_limit_on_up_down": true,
        "remember_open_files": false,
        "shift_tab_unindent": true,
        "tab_completion": false,
        "tab_size": 4,
        "translate_tabs_to_spaces": false,
        "word_wrap": false

I'd suggest going through the default settings file to see what options there are to change. It's pretty darn configurable.

I'd also like to suggest the plugins Bracket Highlighter and Emmet (previously Zen Coding). I also use Package Manager, Sublime Linter, and FileDiffs as mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER18> This is just my opinion, but I think detect_indentation should always be turned on. The reason being that having mixed indentation in a file is worse than having the "wrong" indentation.

<comment><USER17> I use tabs strictly in my projects, but often times I work on websites built by other people and there's a hodgepodge of 2 spaces, 4 spaces, and tabs. It's best to leave it as it is and get out as soon as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What I need to know is how are people versioning the settings? For Vim, a simple .vimrc is all I need to take care of. What do people do for Sublime?

<comment><USER20> You would version the Preferences / Settings - User file, which overrides defaults in the Preferences / Settings - Default. I found a decent overview of how to store these in drop box with symlinks, but also describes where these are stored - [http://wheels.onebuttonapps.net/2012/04/use-dropbox-to- store...](http://wheels.onebuttonapps.net/2012/04/use-dropbox-to-store-your- sublime-text-2-settings/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I set Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab to behave like they do in web browsers and notepad++:

        [
            { "keys": ["ctrl+tab"], "command": "next_view" },
            { "keys": ["ctrl+shift+tab"], "command": "prev_view"}
        ]

</comment><comment><USER22> Tip I figured out accidentally: command + 1 through x changes to the 1 through xth tab in the current window.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a python programmer, these were the first two settings I configured after installing Sublime Text.

        "tab_size": 2,
        "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true

You can either set them as Preferences > Settings - Default or Settings - Syntax specific

<comment><USER24> Uh, two space indentation in Python? Consistency is valuable. Everyone else who writes Python uses four spaces.

<http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#indentation>

<comment><USER25> This is a great reason to use tabs over spaces.

<comment><USER26> That everybody else uses spaces?

<comment><USER27> If the file uses tabs, at least you can choose to display the indentations as 2 spaces or 4 spaces.

If the file uses spaces, you don't get to choose.

<comment><USER17> This is my reason for preferring tabs. Plus changing indent levels is faster via arrow keys.

<comment><USER28> And even faster using tab or shift+tab to pop up or down a level, regardless of whether you're using tabs or spaces.

<comment><USER17> I do this too, along with Home/End to navigate. Once in a while though I want to move only half way left of the indent, which is one press on tab, 2-4 of space. Can't use ctrl+left there.

But more than anything I'm sure it's just familiarity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you're using Sublime I'd highly recommend writing some Snippets, there's plenty you can write and it gets you digging into Sublime's docs. Helped me get used to Sublime a lot more.

</comment><comment><USER18> This post reminded me that 90% of the developers I work with _don't_ set their editor up properly. I'm constantly finding Windows line endings and trailing whitespace. I wrote this (really short) guide that I send to new developers, but imo editors should come configured like this out of the box. <http://wildlyinaccurate.com/setting-up-your-editor>

</comment><comment><USER30> Here's my Github-themed, less-ugly-than-the-default setup: <https://gist.github.com/3164018>

</comment><comment><USER31> Here's my (rather opinionated) setup. I'm quite visually impaired, so getting my editor just right so I can code comfortably is important. Most of my changes have to do with making things easier to see.

[http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/29158801106/sublime- text-...](http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/29158801106/sublime-text-2-for- the-visually-impaired)

</comment><comment><USER32> For those who sometimes prefer straight GUI, you can just drag the folder into Sublime Text (or Textmate) and it will open it in the sidebar (probably obvious to some, but I did not know to do it until I saw somebody else do it).

Also, another thing I have grown really attached to:

Command-Option [1,2,3,4] to open up multiple views within one window, good for viewing several files at once.

</comment><comment><USER33> Does sublime text 2 work well with CL or Haskell?

<comment><USER34> I tried using it with Clojure (FWIW) and I really disliked the REPL's style (maybe I am too used to Emacs here).

I have since decided to use Sublime Text for Python, LaTeX, C, C++ (it really shines there) and Emacs for Racket and Clojure (I don't use it so much).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is the real lesson of this article: "As a craftsmen it is important to understand and use our tools properly. Just as a painter needs to use the best paint and brushes - and understand how to use them - a developer should understand and use the best software tools available. For me, Sublime Text is the highest-quality brush available."

Great stuff, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER36> The biggest win I've had from configuring Sublime Text is in setting up build systems. Specifically, configuring F4/shift-F4 (skip to next/previous error). The build system integration is rudimentary (and I hope that's a focus for Sublime Text 3) but "skip to next error" is all you really need to be productive.

</comment><comment><USER37> Kind of awesome seeing him mention one of my plug-ins I created to scratch a simple itch (Auto Semi-colon). Definitely motivated me to work on the slight improvements I wanted to implement.

</comment><comment><USER38> Can someone explain the difference between command-p and command-t?

<comment><USER39> On OS X, they appear to do the same thing.

On Windows, ctrl-t doesn't seem to do anything.

I don't have Sublime set up on Linux so I can test there.

I suspect the author has an older configuration since he's been using it for almost 2 years, and that the keybinding probably changed since then to cmd-p.

<comment><USER40> IIRC, ⌘P was Sublime's original mapping, and then ⌘T was added on Mac because the then-extremely-popular TextMate had a well-known ⌘T function that was similar.

<comment><USER19> And the famous CommandT plugin for vim inspired from Textmate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The hardest part of configuring Sublime Text is the color scheme. It's written in some apple XML format that's hard to edit by hand.

<comment><USER42> Maybe you will like this <https://github.com/vinhnx/Ciapre.tmTheme>

<comment><USER43> I really like this theme. Looks best on Ubuntu. :-) <https://github.com/buymeasoda/soda-theme>

<comment><USER42> Awesome! Glad you like it! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Why isn't there a plugin to Find in Files in the same way Ctrl-P works? Open the best match in buffer as results stream in.

</comment><comment><USER27> Awesome stuff. I would dare say the command palette alone makes ST2 better than Vim.

</comment><comment><USER45> How to make the same settings for root and my user?

<comment><USER46> If it is the preferences you're modifying, there are per-user specific settings and default. I believe the default settings will apply for all users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> > "trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true, # trims trailing whitespace

bad for Markdown, as it will delete spaces that are needed for newline, I believe.

<comment><USER48> I find this to be a questionable practice. When coding I like the idea of "trim whitespace from _my changes_ on save", but doing it globally within a file creates a lot of diffs and makes for convoluted commits. Having a +/- 75 lines when you fix a typo in a comment is annoying when doing a code review.

If everybody on the team uses SublimeText (or an equivalent vim extension) I think this is a good idea, but when you have some folks using TextMate or other editors that are notorious for leaving extra whitespace, I find it better just to live with it.</comment></comment>


Using Gowalla checkins to predict alcohol-related travel - <AUTHOR> http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> This was my final project for the quarter. I was surprised at how many Gowalla profiles were matched exactly by voter registrations.

</comment><comment><USER2> Some very interesting results, especially that only 20 out of 1000+ people sampled made their names on Facebook private.

Something that I thought was strange is that I usually go out drinking near work rather than near home, and then ride my bike or take the bus home afterwards. I also routinely walk more than a mile. The article seems to consider this uncommon, but it's common amongst my group of city-dwelling friends.

It would also be interesting to use this data to see how public transportation affects drinking. When I go drinking at a bar that's near the Green Line, which closes around 1:20am, I make sure to finish up and leave around 1 (unless the extra hour is really going to make a difference to me). When I go drinking near a bar that's near the Red Line, which is 24 hours, I rarely leave before closing time. Am I normal? Mining the data could tell me :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought I had my Facebook set to maximal privacy, but it turned out that I didn't. I'm not too surprised at this, to be honest.

You think you can do something else cool with the data? Have at it! :) Let me know if other data such as more detailed user profile info will help.

[http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.g...](http://xrtc.net/f/projects/gowallahol/gowalla_checkins.csv.gz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have to say this is so cool! Police department could use this data to do roadside random breath test. And there will be less killer on the road.

<comment><USER2> Probably not. The number of people driving drunk is much lower than the number of people driving distracted or driving stupid.

<comment><USER4> There may indeed be more distracted/stupid people, but the inebriated ones cause about twice the number of deaths overall in the US:

[http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/ind...](http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/distracted_driving/index.html)

[http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impai...](http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired- drv_factsheet.html)</comment></comment></comment>


SPAW Editor Project is for Sale - <AUTHOR> http://blog.solmetra.com/2009/09/08/spaw-editor-project-is-for-sale/

<comment><USER2> A quick test on the demo to make some text bold and italic revealed this in the source code:

Test

Inline styles, really? What happened to  and  tags?</comment>


Cypress testing framework that runs in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress <comment><AUTHOR> I was just testing this piece of software and i'm really impressed by what these guys accomplished.

It runs tests on file save and let's you open the developer tools. When it rans on the cli it even records a video for you so you can playback to see what went wrong.

I had seen something similar to this with chimp, still had some issues that cypress solves, by being interactive in every step of the way.

Sorry it looks like I'm trying to sell this, I'm not, I don't know the company, I'm just impressed.

<comment><USER2> thank you, our small team at Cypress appreciates every little bit of good publicity</comment></comment>


Southampton, UK to Edinburgh, UK - Google Maps - <AUTHOR> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=southampton&daddr=Edinburgh&hl=en&geocode=FYa_CAMdnpbq_ykJKRW-V4lzSDHwcdpMalqMpw%3BFWC7VQMdsFzP_ykjJpilALiHSDEnF-d8exTyZA&mra=ls&dirflg=w&sll=53.422628,-2.438965&sspn=6.916865,18.962402&ie=UTF8&ll=53.028,-0.285645&spn=6.980744,18.962402&z=6

<comment><USER2> I don't actually see what's wrong with that. If you ask to walk from Southampton to Edinburgh it's going to give you the fastest route. Obviously it includes the possibility of ferries, and so it's found the fastest route is via France, Dover and Belgium.

<comment><USER3> If you're going to allow ferries, why not include trains? That's obviously much faster and more direct.

<comment><USER4> I imagine it would if Google Maps had National Rail data for the UK

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google's directions from Sydney to Hobart take you to Hobart, IN, USA via Japan and ask you to "Kayak across the Pacific Ocean", twice.

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=from:+sydney+to:hobart&sll=-33.623581,151.150117&sspn=0.036307,0.084543&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=2)

<comment><USER6> Three times, actually. It counts Australia to Japan as Kayaking the Pacific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Actually, that's quite impressive. Though probably not the expected result, it's surely faster than walking the whole way... =)

<comment><USER8> Google will often suggest ferry as a means to get somewhere when you try for a walking route. Which as you point out is faster than walking the whole way. I wish it could also take into account more public transport options though as I am sure a direct train would also be fairly fast and require less passport control.

<comment><USER9> Plane would be quicker, my Dad used to commute (weekly) from Southampton to Edinburgh. It's about 40minutes by air.

It would great to have something compute the 'fastest possible travel' from A to B, including as many types of travel as possible. That way you could compare train/ferry/plane/car/etc. for long journeys and optimize accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like that the fact that once the ferry arrives at Rosyth it sends you up the Forth and over the Kincardine Bridge rather than over the Forth Road bridge that you would have just sailed under.

</comment><comment><USER11> The alternative route where you walk across England to Birkenhead and then take the ferry to Belfast is also pretty awesome. Four and a half days! Thank you, Google Maps Chaucer Edition.

I know the train is expensive, but it may be worth it to get to Edinburgh in seven hours rather than 3-4 days...

</comment><comment><USER12> The directions take you to Boundstone Ln in Lancing. I went to school at Boundstone Community College on that street (actually just a High School with some extra-cred classes). I'd walk the whole length of it twice a day because I lived on Leconfield Road just off the southern hairpin, just after you get on Sompting road.

So I've walked/cycled a fraction of that route at least a few hundred times.

</comment><comment><USER13> To quote directly from the above link:

"Walking directions are in beta."

</comment><comment><USER14> Slightly off-topic, but not really...

This reminds me of a customer of mine who needed to rent 3 passenger vans to move 20 of his people between the airport, hotel, and office for a project in another city.

It cost $10 per day to equip each van with a GPS, but he didn't know how many days he would need. Or he could just buy a GPS at Office Depot for $90, put in into the lead van, and have the other 2 vans follow. Or just buy 3 GPS's in case the vans didn't travel together. Their PHB asked me which made more sense.

I told him to print google directions between the 3 locations and give them to everyone. Free.

That would have required planning ahead. Instead, they bought the GPS's. I don't work there anymore.

</comment><comment><USER15> Love it. Also worth trying Southampton to Swansea :)

</comment><comment><USER16> This really can't be right though...

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=sou...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=southampton&daddr=New+Mallow+Rd%2FN20+to:Edinburgh&geocode=FYa_CAMdnpbq_ykJKRW-V4lzSDHwcdpMalqMpw%3BFRJ4GAMd7Ix9_w%3BFWC7VQMdsFzP_ykjJpilALiHSDEnF-d8exTyZA&hl=en&mra=mr&via=1&dirflg=w&sll=51.68618,0.637207&sspn=12.246571,26.279297&ie=UTF8&ll=51.206883,-0.241699&spn=12.374799,26.279297&z=6)

<comment><USER17> I would downvote you if I could, because you added a destination in ireland for a walking route from southhampton.

<comment><USER18> Indeed - who'd have thought that attempting to answer a silly question would result in a silly answer?

<comment><USER17> There are no silly questions or answers, just silly comments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Texas teen in jail for his Facebook comment - <AUTHOR> http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201307032030-0022876 <comment><USER2> He doesn't need an Internet campaign, he needs a good lawyer. He has a very good chance of winning this case if he takes it to trial.

[ _I am not a lawyer and this post is not legal advice._ ]

The fact that he was detained isn't the problem. Prosecutors try bad cases all the time. They're bloodthirsty inhuman bastards by design. The problem is that his bail was set at $500k even though he was charged with nothing, that he doesn't have a lawyer (read: society has not provided one) competent enough to file a speedy trial motion and vacate this stupid charge on First Amendment grounds by now: the problem is that our legal system is totally broken. Bail that can be brought cf. the Eighth Amendment exists for a reason. Legal counsel cf. the Sixth Amendment exists for a reason. But defense attorneys and jury trials have been vilified to the point that even a "socially conscious" show like _The Wire_ portrays Maurice Levy as the bad guy. And this is the result.

It doesn't matter whether it's a real crime or not: a defendant _has the right_ to be able to make bail. A defendant _has the right_ to a lawyer. A defendant _has the right_ to a fair and speedy trial. The fact that we accept figures like $500k bail for drug dealers, thieves, pimps, whatever is _also wrong_. Bail is good. He who fights with monsters must take care that he himself does not become a monster, _und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein._

<comment><USER3> > Prosecutors try bad cases all the time. They're bloodthirsty inhuman > bastards by design.

Agreed.

> But defense attorneys and jury trials have been vilified to the point that > even a "socially conscious" show like The Wire portrays Maurice Levy as the > bad guy.

While true, this is not the problem.

Private criminal defense attorneys have a horrific reputation, charge through the roof, but are highly competent and get results. Most of them used to be prosecutors and know the system well.

There are really two reasons a budding attorney becomes a prosecutor. Because they aspire to political office or because they want to get into private criminal defense.

Who ends up as public defenders? Idealistic and _inexperienced_ attorneys who are not paid well. This does not bode well for their clients. You really do want somebody who used to play for the other team.

We should abolish public defenders and establish a voucher system where those who cannot afford a private attorney are provided funds to allow them to do so. In the end, it may end up costing use substantially less in tax dollars and get good results for the accused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like there's a new story like this every month. And part of me struggles to find sympathy for the individuals who have been arrested because regardless of your opinion regarding surveillance, publicly saying anything like " _I 'm going to shoot a school up_" -regardless of the obvious "joke" behind said comment- is just dumb. He likely wouldn't have announced the same remarks in real life, yet he and many others like him, do so online. It's like they forget that conversations on Facebook and Twitter are not private.

That all said, it's still not right that these kids are detained for so long based on such circumstantial evidence (and that's overstating the weight of evidence, if these articles are to be believed verbatim) is a clear abuse of justice. Kids say stupid things. As adults we might cringe, but many of us were the same when we were teenagers. So locking someone up based on a stupid comment is complete unacceptable.

edit: just to clear up a few points because I think some have misunderstood me:

1) The comments in question were posted publicly on Facebook. It wasn't a PM - it was a public message. This is why I stated that the teenager in question likely wouldn't have made those comments in the same way in real life (ie he wouldn't stand in the middle of a busy town center and announce the same comments at the top of his voice for all to hear).

2) I appreciate the comments were a "joke" and it's not the content of the message that offended me (far from it - I have quite a dark sense of humour myself). It was the fact that he publicly announced his comments that I thought was stupid. You have no idea who might misunderstand public comments (case in point, me having to make clarifications in this post) - and this is particularly dangerous with darker jokes where others might -at best- be offended, but at worse, miss the point entirely. This isn't about censorship, it's about respecting your audience (ie keep the darker jokes private where your friends -who understand and share your humour- can enjoy).

3) I'm not blaming the teenager (or not exclusively anyway). I think what has happened to him is completely and utterly unacceptable. However I do think he was wrong for posting those comments to begin with. This is one of those instances where several parties are in the wrong.

I hope this clarifies a few things :)

<comment><USER5> Whenever you feel it's difficult to find sympathy for those individuals, try to remember every time you saw someone write something along the lines of "I'm scared to post what I truly think."

In the last couple of years, those comments have become a lot more common here on HN. I imagine it's pretty much the same everywhere else on the Internet.

Yeah, it's "dumb" to post something like that after seeing it backfire so many times, but self-censorship that comes from that line of thought means you're giving up one of the most essential freedoms your country is supposed to stand for and be proud of.

<comment><USER4> Actually I'm all in favour for self-censorship because if everyone always blurted out every stupid thought they had then the signal to noise ratio of would be horrendous. However there needs to be a sane balance between having the freedom to say dumb things but largely having more sense not to, and having the freedom to say important things which might be unpopular but still needs to be said. It's a difficult, if not impossible, balance to strike.

<comment><USER6> The thing you're calling X here isn't X. There's a big difference between what the comment you're replying to is calling self-censorship (chilling effects), and what you're calling self-censorship (googling before you ask a question, etc).

If I understand you right, you're saying you support the state punishing people for saying dumb things, but feel that it shouldn't be too harsh because otherwise people won't say important things.

When I first read your comment I didn't think the idea of banning dumb speech was a good idea. But hearing it put the way you just did made me change my mind... because I think it would be hilarious. I hope you get your wish, and your comment becomes Exhibit A at your upcoming trial :p

<comment><USER4> _> If I understand you right, you're saying you support the state punishing people for saying dumb things_

I don't. I oppose it strongly[1][2]. I just think the kid is also in the wrong (albeit less so). Sometimes people argue free speech as an excuse to say anything - and while I'd rather live in a world where people have the freedom to say whatever they want, I also think people have a moral obligation to be mindful of the audience they communicate with.

A wedding speech is an example of this. The best man has to strike the balance between embarrassing the groom while still keeping content appropriate for kids and grandparents. So some of the jokes that the groom and friends would laugh at in private might be best censored from the public version.

Granted that example is a really mild scenario that most people wouldn't consider "self-censorship" (if just because it's what most people do in their daily lives without much thought), but it demonstrates how we have a responsibility not to abuse our free speech by now considering the audience we're talking to. And that is where people run into problems.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991208)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991171)

 _> but feel that it shouldn't be too harsh because otherwise people won't say important things._

And this is just another example of how some individuals think they can post all sorts of rude bullshit online because "freedom of speech" gives them the right to behave like pillocks.

Given the number of times I've stated and clarified the point that I'm not trying to ban free speech nor am I justifying the teenagers jail time (which is unjustifiable), you have no excuse to behave that way. But who cares about having a sensible conversation when you can beat your chest like the alpha male you assume to be.

The ironic thing is, when people like yourself make insulting remarks like that, you force others to question whether they can be bothered to expose themselves by giving an honest -if potentially unpopular- opinion. So you're effectively encouraging self-censorship by posting trolling remarks.

<comment><USER6> > some individuals think they can post all sorts of rude bullshit online > because "freedom of speech" gives them the right to behave like pillocks

Right. Freedom of speech does give them that right.

You've backed off from your original position all the way to merely making the point that you wish people would think more about the effect that their actions have on others before acting. I think everyone agrees with that.

Taking 14 paragraphs to say "people should think more before acting" is the sort of thing I think you think should be self-censored.

> So you're effectively encouraging self-censorship by posting trolling > remarks.

Reread the comment I replied to, and the comment it was replying to. You didn't understand the other side -- you rounded it to the nearest straw man, and then did a poor job of attacking it. I thought it was a waste of space on the site. I do support your right to free speech... I just doubly support it on sites that aren't this one.

Communities don't need to have the same standards as governments. If facebook banned the kid for his comment, that doesn't seem wrong to me. Having the government enforce things like this does seem wrong to me (for the reason that I pointed out: we'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you while they're in jail).

<comment><USER4> _> You've backed off from your original position all the way to merely making the point that you wish people would think more about the effect that their actions have on others before acting. I think everyone agrees with that._

That was always my position. Trying reading what I originally posted again rather than posting kneejerk reactions.

 _> Taking 14 paragraphs to say "people should think more before acting" is the sort of thing I think you think should be self-censored_

There was a number of points. And the post doubled in size because I had to dumb those points down to people like yourself who seemed unable to read my post in it's entirety before starting senseless arguments. Perversely, it's yourself that should have considered before replying.

 _> Communities don't need to have the same standards as governments. If facebook banned the kid for his comment, that doesn't seem wrong to me. Having the government enforce things like this does seem wrong to me (for the reason that I pointed out: we'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you while they're in jail)._

" _we 'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you_"? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I've probably contributed more towards taxes over my life than you have.

And I was never in favour of sending this kid to jail. I don't know how many times I need to reiterate that before you finally click. Or are you deliberate trolling me just for the irony of being an insensitive moron in a discussion about sensitivity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If he had said, "I want a drone to take out a school in Pakistan", he'd have gotten recruiting calls from the military.

</comment><comment><USER8> People say stupid things all the time (like politicians). But bad speech is no reason for long prison sentences and $500,000 bail. Words are just puffs of air or clicks of keys not actions. Remember the childhood saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". If we choose to punish words then people may as well turn to the hard stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is saddening. Many lone gamers will say these things to make them look tough, feared or just to make others think they're crazy. source : been in the gaming community a long time. USA, where prison is the solution to everything.

<comment><USER10> _USA, where prison is the solution to everything._

Don't post ignorant flamebait. You have no idea what you're talking about.

<comment><USER11> _According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year- end 2011 – about 0.7% of adults in the U.S. resident population.[7] Additionally, 4,814,200 adults at year-end 2011 were on probation or on parole.[11] In total, 6,977,700 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2011 – about 2.9% of adults in the U.S. resident population.

_ The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world (743 per 100,000 population), Russia has the second highest rate (577 per 100,000), followed by Rwanda (561 per 100,000)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Comparison_with_other_countries)

<comment><USER10> So? That doesn't back up the flamebait claim that every illegal action a US citizen engages in results in going to prison. I don't care if my country is unpopular right now, it's still BS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is the 1st amendment starting to die, too? The "free press" part of it, certainly is:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2013/06/1...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik- wemple/wp/2013/06/19/ap-chief-intrusive-government-is-chilling-journalism/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Given that many people who actually shot up schools communicated their intent to do so in some not especially ambiguous way beforehand, I think it's not unreasonable for law enforcement to respond to it. In terms of impact, it's probably similar to pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire.

I do not know if there is an appropriate law in his jurisdiction. It's pretty close to the letter of the law for terroristic threatening, but the actual impact of his actions seems more like disorderly conduct. If there's not an appropriate misdemeanor for this, there should be.

</comment><comment><USER14> Freedom of speech at its best. Of course there's a limit to what you are free to say, but 8 years of prison? Really?

<comment><USER15> I'm willing to bet that's just a theoretical upper limit, and will be tossed out at soon as its in front of a judge. But still. The fact he was arrested at all is just friggin stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Poe's law at it again [1]

Also, how long between the original comment and the lol j/k?

At most, I think, he can be accused of being insensitive.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how long it will be until children younger and younger are jailed for this?

I can see a time when a 6 year old will be jailed for pointing a plastic toy gun at another kid at school and saying "I'm going to shoot you"

</comment><comment><USER18> Back in the days you had to steal chewing gum from the grocery store to join a gang, it seems that's superseded by writing something crazy online now.

</comment><comment><USER19> What was his exact comment? I'm frustrated that one of the most critical pieces to this story is seemingly being paraphrased.

<comment><USER17> _" I'm f---ed in the head alright, I think I'ma (sic) shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat their still-beating hearts,"_ he said.

According to [http://www.news.com.au/technology/teen-justin-carter- jailed-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/teen-justin-carter-jailed-for- sarcastic-facebook-threat/story-e6frfro0-1226673667876)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Thought crime is real in the US. I think we all make concessions not to say things in emails, text messages and on the phone so we don't set off invisible tripwires the government has set. We do it almost unknowingly.

The statement this guy said is different. It's not sarcastic, it's ultra- violent and distressing. He's either a person completely devoid of morals and decency, mentally ill, or so angry he can't control what he thinks and says.

He needs to fully account for what he said/threatened.

<comment><USER21> English is not my first language, but even for me, it is crystal clear that he was sarcastic.

<comment><USER20> English _is_ my first language, and I write for a living, and _it 's not sarcasm_.

<comment><USER22> was it a statement of intent?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to make money as a developer without writing code? - <AUTHOR> Specifically I'm thinking of possible side work. I'm familiar with working as a technical interviewer (eg Karat) and doing code reviews (PullRequest). Any other non-development opportunities that you all partake in or are familiar with? <comment><USER2> You could do paid technical support. I'm working on a platform for doing paid support for your code: [https://otechie.com](https://otechie.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reading code, and writing documentation and diagrams.

Clicking on buttons and guessing why it didn't work.

Making a code camp, or organizing a coding event.

Answering RFPs...</comment>