A Russian TV Insider Describes a Modern Propaganda Machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/14/world/europe/russian-tv-insider-says-putin-is-running-the-show-in-ukraine.html <comment><USER2> Public indoctrination through control of the media is easily the most pressing problem of our days. Far more important than that of the global warming, for example, simply because it blocks meaningful discussion on the subjects that really matter.

While the public opinion is manipulated both in the US and in Russia, the methods and outcomes are vastly different. For a diligent study of the US media manipulation I highly recommend Chomsky's book "Understanding Power" [2]. You may disagree with his opinions, but they are still worthy of consideration because Chomsky backs up each observation with a verifiable reference, to the point where all of the references combined make an entire separate book of equal volume. If you don't like Chomsky's answers, you will at least appreciate the questions he's trying to tackle.

I haven't read the headline book yet [1], but it has the potential to shed some light on how things are done over in Russia. Between the two works, I hope, one can gain actual knowledge of the methods of the public opinion manipulation. The kind of knowledge to replace both the blind faith in the media and it's twin brother - the entirely counterproductive nihilistic disregard of all news.

[1] "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible", Peter Pomerantsev [http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Is-True-Everything- Possible/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Is-True-Everything- Possible/dp/1610394550)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Power-Indispensible- Chom...](http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Power-Indispensible-Chomsky-Noam- ebook/dp/B003XU7IFY)

<comment><USER3> Chomsky, unfortunately, is not the most rigorous guy when it comes to empiricism. Look at how he interpreted the Khmer Rouge genocide [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#Choms...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial#Chomsky)

He defended them saying that what we said about the Kh R was Western propaganda, etc. Years later, when the truth became undeniable, he defended his actions saying, but well, I couldn't very well know they were so bad and since I didn't have the data, I was still right. Yet, at the time, there we all kinds of information coming out from Kampuchea, all pointing to it being a disaster --even the Vietnamese were utterly alarmed.

So, you really have to be careful with him.

<comment><USER2> Single-sided "news" reports can be right in some cases and wrong in others. Given that there is no way to verify them, they are obviously untrustworthy at that time, even if later they turn out to be correct. When evaluating one- sided reports absent a different perspective, your best bet is to weight in the biases and the track record of the people reporting it. I'm not sure why you have a problem with that line of reasoning. If anything this _is_ empiricism.

Even if he was wrong about his stance on KhR, how does that affect validity of the book? The book cites all of its sources and makes its conclusions in broad daylight, so it's entirely possible to have a productive discussion about the contents and the arguments being made, without discuss the person making those arguments.

<comment><USER3> It's not as though there were not refugees streaming out of the country recounting the atrocities and the difficulties they faced escaping the regime. Look, the first two years, the KCP itself thought it was illegitimate that it had no name. They didn't even acknowledge they existed.

All you have to do is listen the population. When you have thousands of escapees and refugees recounting the same horrible things, it's not a sinister "propaganda plot".

I've heard the stories from actual escapees who still have nightmares from when they trudged though unknown jungle for months not knowing if they'd see another day, not less make it out free. Decomposing bodies, where you might see a cow, in previous times, so in all kinds of places, you din't know who might turn you in, hunger, dispossession, etc.

<comment><USER2> Sadly, there is no shortage of manipulated victim testimonies either, often used to start or perpetuate a war.

\- Nayirah testimony leading up to the 1st Iraq war [1]

\- Numerous refugees testimonies leading up to the 2nd Iraq war (WMD, torture reports, etc)

\- Torrent of testimonies from Ukraine in recent months, e.g. [2]

\- I heard there is plenty of made-up material coming from Palestine

You can see how giving much credence to a single-sourced report is not just un-epistemological, but also plain dangerous in that it can easily make bad situation worse.

It's a very interesting question - how do we judge credibility of such reports? Clearly you can't take them at face value, but there must be things we can do. Obviously the best is a number of investigations by multiple independent people on site, but that's not always possible. One thing that comes to mind is interviewing all of the refugees and collating their accounts, as it could give a lot of data - people make errors, but if they all make the same errors it can point to manipulated accounts.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_%28testimony%29)

[2] [http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine- chil...](http://news.yahoo.com/russian-tv-sparks-outrage-ukraine-child- crucifixion-claim-114839196.html)

<comment><USER3> I think if you can verify that people are indeed taking perilous journeys dragging along families and whatever possessions they can (usually the clothes on their backs and some money), it's a good indicator of bad things happening. In Kampuchea, it wasn't a few dozen people. There were lots of 'boat people' in vietnam, hong kong, who escaped from the Kh R. That in no way can be interpreted as being "ambiguous".

People don't travel through jungle, losing members along the way, for propaganda. Like I said, these weren't a few dozen people. It was thousands. People who ignored this can only be described as ideologues. It's kind of the same way some people in the West didn't want to believe gulags existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The headline sounds very interesting but I was actually quite disappointed by the article itself. It doesn't offer any concrete examples or any attempt to actually validate what this guy is saying. It also doesn't even attempt to compare this to what the media landscape looks like in other countries.

If all that happened was that a "prominent news anchor reviewed the coming events as if they were part of a film script, musing on how best to entertain the audience and questioning who that week's enemy should be" then this doesn't sound too different from what probably happens in some US news rooms as well.

I have no trouble believing that Russian TV is a propaganda machine and projects like the World Press Freedom Index [1] tend to agree. But this seems like a very weak article to make this point.

[1] [http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php](http://rsf.org/index2014/en- index2014.php)

<comment><USER5> I find it amusing that an article that's supposed to criticize a controlled media system is itself a thinly veiled advertisement. I guess mass media has issues everywhere you look :)

<comment><USER2> New York times regularly publishes book reviews. They even have that thing they call "NYT Bestsellers" [1]. I'm not sure why that seems problematic to you?

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/](http://www.nytimes.com/best- sellers-books/)

<comment><USER6> As a book review, it's a near-complete failure. You hear very little about what the book recounts about Russian propaganda, which is the main interest; instead we get fluff about his school chess club used his Sovietness to intimidate others. That may be a cute biographical detail fine for a book, but is a waste of limited space in a book review.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regarding Russia's foreign propaganda, a Russian-born person (I think he may not wish to be named) described the situation like this:

" Many have wondered why the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out a torrent of such preposterous claims that few people take seriously.

They know it will not be believed abroad. The purpose is not that it is believed.

The purpose of disinformation was is to destroy trust in _all_ media. Create a space where _nobody_ believes in _anything_.

Then, when people brag that they don't believe the Kremlin propaganda, but also they don't believe "the other propaganda" that is published by media in countries where there is a free press, the information war has been won.

If you think that Western media ( _for purposes of translation: let 's take for example DW or BBC_) is as unreliable as Russia Today, you are not above the information war. You are its casualty. "

And seeing the preposterous claims about persecution of ethnic Russians where I live, contra reality of ethnic Russian people I know, and how some people still keep reminding how also the Western TV channels and papers are part of a propaganda machine... he has a strong point.

<comment><USER3> That is their greatest achievement, to gain equivalency. To a good degree this has worked. There are lots of people who believe major European and NorthAmerican media are no better than Russian media.

It has worked for their domestic audience, to great effect, and to a good degree internationally.

Just look at Putin's approval ratings.

<comment><USER8> I don't really believe Putin's approval ratings. In Russia there is no free press and private companies or academic institutes can be controlled at will by the executive branch. So if any institute or private company conducts a poll... well...

<comment><USER3> I'm afraid I believe the role of the Emp(eror/ress)/Tsar(ina)/Premier/President in Russia is akin to the role of a Father-at-large. So basically, people know he's flawed, they're not innocent, afterall, but they feel protective of him. They take him personally. So an attack on him, by the media, by western institutions, are, indirectly an indictment on them. I think this has foundation in how the country has always had a strongman or strongwoman at the helm who have always projected their power unambiguously and forcefully. It has been this way since the Khievan Rus. People were for practical purposes enslaved serfs till 1917. And then it arguably got worse.

<comment><USER9> This is how my wife has explained it (she's Russian born). Regarding Putin's popularity, it's actually true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > a prominent news anchor reviewed the coming events as if they were part of a > film script, musing on how best to entertain the audience and questioning > who that week's enemy should be.

Having avoided traditional American news sources for a long time (10+ years), whenever I get a glimpse of it now (especially cable news sources), I always got the sense that this is exactly how American news is produced.

<comment> rational-future Russia is a small country (as population and industry) compared to US and EU. It cant afford to reinvent the way a modern society, government, media, etc. works. The state propaganda machine is a direct copy of what the US and especially the UK governments have built.

<comment><USER11> I find it funny how you're trying to defend RT and Russia (which is fine), but managed to make the most damning criticism of the whole thread :)

Poor Russia, the first country to put a man in space, now reduced to copying propaganda machines!

<comment> rational-future I'm not trying to defend anyone. Russia is as evil as the US, it just doesn't have enough hardware to do as much damage.

The man in space flew on a rocket initially designed in Nazi Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The U.S. has been in perpetual war for over a decade, the media is part of that war. While advantaged, educated U.S. citizens want to make believe in a free Western press, invented narratives like Jessica Lynch rescue, staged Saddam Hussein statue toppling, Diane Sawyer's yellow journalism showing bombed out Gaza calling it Israel, BBC filming actors in supposed Syrian gas attack, embedded media to show our boys in a positive light, Brian Williams lie to also make war personal for viewers that was shot down by soldiers over "stolen valor", these incidents paint a different picture. How about how journalist Helen Thomas who was set up to discredit her. 6 corporations control 90% of media in U.S. Is that the diversity Nuland crows about. Journalists and academics are often found to be paid agents of intelligence services.

</comment><comment><USER8> Funny story: In Germany there is currently a "movement" of people calling for stricter immigration control (to abbreviate an endless discussion about what they actually want), called Pegida.

During one of their demonstrations a comedy/satire show dressed up an actor as a "Russian" journalist from "Russia Today", a news caster/online magazine financed by the Russian state.

The Pegida participants were very willing to talk to him. They said that western media is all corrupt and unfree, and that Russia Today is a "welcome" and more honest alternative.

Which is so far from the truth it isn't even funny.

<comment><USER13> Actually this shows the opposite. The mainstream media is unwilling to engage in discussion with someone who is anti-immigration (unless that person is is an Israeli politician). Instead they do cheap tricks to humiliate the speaker without addressing their actual arguments.

The mainstream media, like all people, has the accusation of "racism" hanging over their heads so they are unable to speak freely on topics like immigration (see [0] for a deconstruction of the concept of racism). I know that the mainstream media in the UK, for example, publish some controversial materials on immigration and culture. But these are always from the perspective of "we're doing immigration wrong". All the mainstream right is allowed to say is that immigrants need to assimilate better. And they are only really allowed to say this about Muslims. They can't say it about Africans outside the context of Islam. And they can't say that assimilation is impossible, or that immigration is not worth the effort.

I don't believe that the Russian press in general is more free than the Western press, but the person you are referring to is correct in that the Russian press is able to say things about immigration that the Western press can't.

[0] [http://beyondtheright.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-i-am-not- anti...](http://beyondtheright.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-i-am-not-anti- racist.html)

<comment><USER8> Unwilling to engage? You seem to watch the wrong shows... I've seen tons of interviews with people advocating immigration control. Some where even quite friendly.

There is a problem you don't seem to have noticed: The AFD Party does not only advocate tighter immigration control, but it also wants to hold offices. So if the news media document the utter failure of this party to even conduct their basic business without minor and major scandals, it saves us from voting some complete idiot into office.

And where they got into office they continue to disappoint. Some just quit the party, others don't do any constructive work, some collaborate with the extreme right (and then they say they didn't).

The media has an obligation to inform the public about the quality of politicians. That the AFD mostly fields ridiculously incompetent or inadequate candidates is not the media's fault.

<comment><USER13> > _Unwilling to engage? You seem to watch the wrong shows... I 've seen tons > of interviews with people advocating immigration control. Some where even > quite friendly._

As I said, the mainstream only allows a very narrow discourse on immigration, which Pegida don't seem to fall under.

You characterize this act as a fair way to expose the incompetence of would be politicians. I disagree. It's actually highly unfair, and I think any unbiased person can see that. Why did they pretend to be from RT instead of just asking Pegida their opinions about RT? I don't think Pegida would have given a different answer in either case. The real reason was to make Pegida look stupid. "Look, they can't even tell a real reporter from a fake one". Whatever you think about Pegida's views on freedom of the press and RT, they should be judged on their merits and not in the context of a stupid stunt.

As to what Pegida said, as I said before, I disagree but I see where they are coming from. They have a justified view that the Western press is not free when it comes to some issues. That they lack knowledge of RT and are uncritical of RT, is a minor issue.

<comment><USER8> Actually, journalists from serious media tried that. With very little success. Most participants refuse interviews, and there is a video where masked participants forcibly carry away an interviewee. In other videos journalists are hit, their cameras damaged, and all the time they are shouting hate at the journalists.

The "narrow" discussion of immigration is more due to the limited options which have any reasonable chance of getting public support. As we've seen, the majority disagrees with Pegida. Only a fringe portion of the German public wants to break the constitution to tighten immigration. And those who try to fall somewhere in between current policy and breaking the constitution, often don't understand the topic worth a damn. If a journalist has even a modest understanding of the topic he will have the greatest difficulty of entertaining opinions and solutions which are based on factual errors.

<comment><USER13> Do you have any links regarding what you said about the impossibility of interviewing Pegida. From googling, I found the following interviews with Pegida members by RTL, at what appeared to be a peaceful protest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl0KPaLPL7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl0KPaLPL7g) and by Phoenix at another apparently peaceful demonstration: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp2HKPQpfdg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp2HKPQpfdg)

> _And those who try to fall somewhere in between current policy and breaking > the constitution, often don 't understand the topic worth a damn. If a > journalist has even a modest understanding of the topic he will have the > greatest difficulty of entertaining opinions and solutions which are based > on factual errors._

Well that's a very subjective matter. I see a lot of junk "knowledge" touted by pro immigration groups on this topic. For example, in most European countries immigrants commit more crimes. But there is a lot of obfuscation on this topic, and it's easy to get a smart sounding person to obfuscate the fact that the conditional probability of someone committing a crime given that they are an immigrant (see [0] for an example).

[0] [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-26/davidsonrefugee/273222...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-26/davidsonrefugee/2732220)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any big media is a propaganda machine, starting by the New York Times, that is broke and easily controlled by those that sustain it.

The US of A invaded Iraq and Afghanistan because somewhat a modern propaganda machine convinced Americans that because 21 guys coming from a friendly dictatorship nation decided to kill themselves in planes, they needed to invade another different country with probably the biggest oil reserves today.

Of course the modern propaganda machine tried very hard to convince people that controlling the oil was not the important part. That more than 5000 Americans and a million Iraqis died and more than a trillion dollars was spent because of "freedom".

Remember "war on terror" propaganda?

Remember weapons of mass destruction invention?

Remember Osama Bin Laden that appeared and disappeared as was needed and then died when needed(and nobody independent saw the body before being buried in secret in the Ocean).

<comment><USER15> > Remember "war on terror" propaganda?

Sure do. It was largely spun by a single entity which wasn't state-owned (Fox News). And it was criticized by other agencies for doing so (MSNBC, CNN, Hell the Dailyshow made it their mission).

Let's see RussiaToday's competitors (do they have any?) criticize RussiaToday for defending the Ukraine situation. The entire organization would probably end up in a ditch somewhere, having died in a fatal plane crash.

Sorry, but as much as you want to equate the two, they are not remotely the same. To hold the belief that they are means the person lacks critical thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This whole article is rubbish by the way. This guy grew up in London, and here the article describes his TV experience:

> FOR a time, at least, Mr. Pomerantsev, now 37, seems also to have been at > home in the raucous world of middlebrow Russian television, making films > about gold-digging women (hunting men known as "Forbeses" — as in the Forbes > list of the wealthy), ruthless gangsters and sinister cults.

From the sounds of it, he never even worked on news programs, just producing TV shows and movies. And this is someone the NY Times considers an 'expert' to 'uncover' the Russian propaganda machine?

While you want to talk propaganda, how about maybe bringing up the fact that this guy is a Brit. He lives in London, and his family moved away from the Soviet Union before it broke up. How about you talk about the fact he wrote a book, is obviously trying to drum up sales by virtue of the fact he's writing about propaganda while he was himself personally involved in low-brow TV shows.

Yet this makes it to the NY Times and front page of HN by virtue of? It's like getting a producer of real housewives of whatever to talk about US coverage of the Iraq war...

tl;dr - this guy produced shows about:

> making films about gold-digging women (hunting men known as "Forbeses" — as > in the Forbes list of the wealthy), ruthless gangsters and sinister cults.

What does he know about propaganda... And HN is eating this up, talking about Russian propaganda like this article had something to say.

</comment><comment><USER17> Strongly related:

Adam Curtis' short documentary shown during Charlie Brooker's 2014 Wipe program – [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy8uLjRHPM)

<comment><USER18> This right here should be voted right to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Gee willickers, I sure am glad nothing like that happens here in the good old US of A.

<comment><USER8> No, actually it doesn't... This stuff may be going on inside Fox News, and I doubt that. But that would be a single TV channel. In Russia they coordinate among all TV channels and there is no dissenting voice.

The superiority of western media over what is available from Russia or similar countries is not in the honesty and quality of any single media outfit, but in the plurality of media voices.

In the west, there are so many channels, shows, magazines and online sites, financed by completely different means, often pulling in different political directions, that most attempts at disinformation are discovered sooner rather than later.

<comment><USER16> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent)

We in the west are far more brainwashed than we think...

<comment><USER8> If you know you are brainwashed, you obviously know the "truth". So how come you know the truth but believe the truth isn't told? You see my point?

<comment><USER16> > If you know you are brainwashed, you obviously know the "truth".

We never really know the truth. I can tell you what I ate this morning, and I can tell you that the sky is blue (maybe blue-greyish today).

The point is that too many people believe what they see on CNN, and assume it's the absolute truth. People base their world view upon curated news without questioning anything.

Here's a great interview by Larry King on his Ora TV network (re-broadcast online by RT): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv2f6ZZmx4A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv2f6ZZmx4A)

In it, Stephen Cohen (the guest) makes the point that there's little debate in the western media these days. Either you agree, or you agree more. No one questions anything anymore.

Russians will tell you everything is a lie not because everything in Russia IS a lie (some things are, some aren't - much like over here), but because it's part of Russian culture, their outlook on the world, to be cynical and critical of everything.

One poster brought up that RT is trying to discredit everything, but that's not really correct. Russians question everything, it's a part of slavic culture, hell my 92 year old Ukrainian grandfather who's been here his whole life shares that outlook.

We in the west though have been transformed into gullible sheep, who question nothing we're told because we are comfortable working our 9-5 (more like 7-6) job to pay off our credit cards and debt, while watching shitty TV shows and never finding the motivation to ever learn about anything...

<comment><USER8> I think watching shitty TV shows is slightly better than drinking ungodly amounts of wodka...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Meanwhile the NYT hosts a tiny AP story on the new Reporters Without Borders report, under the "Europe" section [1]. Russia is rated much lower than the US, but we are not free from embarrassment. See Glenn Greenwald's commentary [2].

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/12/world/europe/ap-e...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/12/world/europe/ap- eu-europe-press-freedom.html)

[2] [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/12/u-s- drops-49th...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/12/u-s-drops-49th- world-press-freedom-rankings-second-lowest-ever/)

</comment><comment><USER21> > "What they are basically trying to undermine is the idea of a reality-based > conversation," Mr. Pomerantsev said, "and to use the idea of a plurality of > truths to feed disinformation, which in the end looks to trash the > information space."

<comment><USER22> War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

<comment><USER23> "Diversity is our strength". Fits right in.

[https://www.peaceproject.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/...](https://www.peaceproject.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/product_full/LS99-Diversity- is-our-Strength-Large-Bumper-Sticker.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hey everyone check out this documentary film!!

[https://vimeo.com/67739294](https://vimeo.com/67739294)

Experienced investigative journalist John Pilger looks at and questions (among other things) the British medias role as a dumb mouthpiece for the government leading up to and during the invasion of Iraq.

EDIT: link has been fixed

<comment><USER25> Your link is, while great, completely unrelated.

<comment><USER24> lol!! I am cracking up!! How did that happen!?? Considering the grim dystopian subject matter here this is hilarious!

Will fix it now!

<comment><USER24> This is what I accidentally posted btw [https://vimeo.com/6773929](https://vimeo.com/6773929)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We have engineered GMO food so why not engineered news media? Free speech is really a mechanism to protect advertisers. As I feel myself as a sort of penned livestock that gets to choose between competing capitalists, all I can say is I'm off Western news media as it gives me diarrhea, but if you can consume it then more power to you.

<comment><USER26> Just like GMO is merely a continuation of the manual engineering ("cultivation") that has been going on since the earliest days of human societies, biased media is nothing new at all, sadly.

Although the Luddites would have you think it's a novel problem, news never where unbiased in the first place. Sure, good journalistic self-control can go a long way in preserving the original information, but that information in itself is biased already.

There's another analogy about processed food and processed information here, but it's still a matter of where you can source what you can consume. Buying local means you'll have to abstain from foreign material, which I don't think is an option for many when it comes to news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nytimes is a very crude propaganda machine, I hope one day a decent person would expose them.

</comment><comment><USER28> Its like a news source version of the Byzantine General's problem.

When it comes to Ukraine there's so much doubtfulness in the accuracy of everything because both sides are so contradictory. I don't think it is that simple to just trust one side's story

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Did I just read 10 pages random guy bio? With one-liner about a question from the title.</comment>


People getting killed by fake news on Watsapp - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/as-mob-lynchings-fueled-by-whatsapp-sweep-india-authorities-struggle-to-combat-fake-news/2018/07/02/683a1578-7bba-11e8-ac4e-421ef7165923_story.html <comment> nv-vn The logical solution is to focus on how to stop lynchings, not how to stop "fake news". At the end of the day, these are still murders and treating them as anything else, especially for the purpose of smuggling censorship into law, is disgusting.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, from the end of the article, even the person sent in to warn of fake news was beaten to death. Don't forget these are the same areas where honor killings happen all too frequently.

It's a deeply rooted societal problem and it all seems a bit easy to hide under the skirts of 'fake news' and blame whatsapp for these instances.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a societal problem but the big social media platforms amplify that social behaviour. I am sure we still dont know the effects of social media on society, so simply thinking of it as a societal problem is also a bit easy. Its more of a societal+technology problem

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems strikingly similar to another Indian story from a few years ago in which a man was lynched by a mob after a rumor falsely alleged that he had eaten beef. ([https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/indian-mob-kills- man-...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/indian-mob-kills-man-cow- slaughter-rumour-150930193719666.html))

That time Whatsapp was not involved at all, yet the rumor spread just the same. This seems to be a case of treating the symptom, and not the problem. For example:

>Sukanta Chakraborty, 33, a tabla musician with a sonorous voice who was paid about $8 a day to travel from village to village in a van equipped with a loudspeaker, warning about the dangers of fake news. He and two others were beset by a mob wielding bricks and bamboo sticks in a crowded market Thursday.

In this case, the mob attacked him for trying to get the mobs to question their accepted beliefs (that child traffickers are rampant, and can be identified through Whatsapp), which is a pattern of behavior found in similarly situated groups through history, for example, the witch trials. Much like the witch trials, there are likely causal explanations for these villager's behaviors. For example, the witch trials are suspected to be a reaction to the citizen's fears of brutal native attacks that were happening around that time.

Perhaps the Indian gov't should look to identify and fix the situation making these people fearful and violent, not just plug up the tubes with legislation that will cause them to revert back to old-fashioned rumor spreading.

<comment><USER4> > For example, the witch trials are suspected to be a reaction to the > citizen's fears of brutal native attacks that were happening around that > time.

The vast majority of witch trials were in Europe, and not New England.

edit: Change "Britain" to "Europe"; citation: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_mode...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period#Decline_of_the_trials:_1650%E2%80%931750)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Mandatory informational session before sims can be sold? The owner of the phone, not the person who buys the sim, must demonstrate knowledge that rumors spread via whatsapp?

And only let people who agree to enforce this sell sims?

<comment><USER6> Or police mob violence and prosecute murderers regardless of being inspired by rumours?

<comment><USER7> This won't happen, the ruling coalition and PM have a long history of Hindu nationalist mob violence. Before modi became PM he was banned from the US for addicted that happened while he was governor of an Indian province with tacit approval. The RSS, the paramilitary wing if the BJP, openly takes inspiration from Nazis and Hitler's violent nationalism.

<comment><USER8> Please cite sources for the Hitler reference.

<comment><USER7> "Germany is the other Nation most in the eye of the world. Germany tried to unify its nation via taking over Austria. Germany's religion is not what it should be. "German race pride has now become a topic of the day.

To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifest here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by." - Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar _We, or Our Nationhood Defined_

[https://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/We-or-Our-Nationhood- De...](https://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/We-or-Our-Nationhood-Defined-Shri- M-S-Golwalkar.pdf)

M. S. Golwalkar was the second supreme leader of the RSS</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/how2hire <comment><USER2> I am the developer in this situation right now. I was hired by a small company as their sole developer to write them a program. So far, I have to say I pretty much disagree with everything said here.

I think the developer really needs to know the details of the domain and problem space. The company I am working for is a workforce management consulting firm. The first week on the job I interviewed 10+ consultants with the company. Got to know their tasks, goals, accomplishments, needs and pain points. I also shadowed in on one consultant for a day, and read a lot of literature. I know an awful lot now what it means to do work force management and workforce management consulting. This is helpful, very helpful. I become a knowledgeable user of the very system I am creating. Imagine if Adobe's developers had no clue about image editing, Photoshop would have been a disaster.

This feeds into my other point. Don't give the developer detailed descriptions of every click, button, error, etc. Give them the exact opposite. Tell them what the system needs to accomplish, and let them design it. For one, they will almost certainly design a simpler and easier to manage system than you will (maybe not easier to user, because let's face it, that's not usually a programmer's forte). Since the developer now knows the domain pretty well, they can use that knowledge to help design an effective solution. let the developer arrive at your goal with as minimal amount of code and work as possible. That way you can see your vision in the flesh, use it, and actually start to understand what it does. Only once a feature is actually implemented and put to use do you really start to understand what it needs to do.

Maintain a dialog with your developer. Give feedback often and have the two of you work together on where the project is going.

Basically all I am saying boils down to what most agile development processes ascribe to.

I do however totally agree with doing the "simple" version 1.0 release first.

<comment><USER3> You sound like a great developer, but the reality is that you're an anomaly. Most developers suck, especially the ones on elance, rentacoder, etc. And if you're not technical, _you have no idea how to figure out which ones suck._ So I see this advice as being for non-technical folks who want to maximize their chance for success and limit their downside. And in that light, I think it succeeds.

<comment><USER4> That and the fact solo founders or non technical people with an idea don't already have 10 or more consultants working for them.

<comment><USER2> But then isn't this all a recipe for disaster? If you need a piece of software to be written from scratch for you, then it's probably critical to your business. It may even literally be your business. Why in that case would you want to scrape by with a crappy coder and try and wield them to be effective? I think if that is the situation you end up in, you're better off not doing it at all.

Granted I've never done a start up, so maybe I'm just naive. But it seems like if you want to do a technical start up, you should be technically minded.

<comment><USER5> "If you need a piece of software to be written from scratch for you, then it's probably critical to your business."

G'lord, no! How much software is necessary for the minimum viable product of Groupon? Digg? TechCrunch? Facebook? Twitter? FourSquare? StackOverflow? Heck, we KNOW that Digg was outsourced, and that worked out okay. Many (maybe even MOST) startups true problem is marketing/UI/social rather than deep geekery. Many more can get by on half-assed engineering to prove out the initial assumptions and then just rewrite if they see a glimmer of success. Paul Buchheit has said that he rewrote chunks of Gmail quite a few times... It's not unusual.

There are plenty of startups where this would be a disaster but (as web apps get easier and cheaper to build) I think they are increasingly the exception rather than the rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Assuming most HN readers don't need this advice for themselves.

But if you disagree with it or think I left out something important, please consider leaving a reply in the comments on that page, so future readers will see your suggestions, too.

<comment><USER7> The way I was taught was to start by hiring several designers to design every screen, and then only hire programmers after you're completely satisfied with the design. The way these outsourcing firms get you is by offering a cheap bid, and then charging you every time you want to make a change. So start out by knowing 100% what you want, and then once they've accepted the project don't let them ask any questions or make any suggestions until 1.0 is completely finished. (If they don't understand something they can ask for clarification, but that's it.)

Always have your fights up front, never once the project has started. That way you'll get the project on time and under budget.

<comment><USER8> Right get the UI right and it won't cause as many iterations on the back end (where it hurts more) as well prototype the whole UI in HTML/Javascript, Flash, Desktop app, whatever suits your fancy. Have a fully functioning UI that the user can touch and feel before you develop the back end. This will flesh out all data requirements and business logic services that will be needed to support the UI.

I am a little leery of not allowing the developer to provide input though. Things are going to change, you just want to narrow those changes to the important things.

<comment><USER9> I don't think you need a finely polished UI to start with, but some wireframes or even hand sketches of what each page/screen/dialog will look like can be a very effective communication tool. Written use cases are great but a picture can truly be worth 1000 words.

<comment><USER8> End users think in terms of screens, if you can provide them with a fully functioning ui then you can get valuable feedback about useability up front. The client knows in short order that they are getting all of the features they want because the get to touch and feel the system. After I adopted this method my project change orders slowed to a trickle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regarding the overall "numbers game" approach, it will work, in the strict sense that the client will get what he asked for, but not in the sense that he will get what he wants.

Most people, when they try to hire me (although they don't realize it) are looking for technical or domain expert feedback. They may think they need such-and-such coded, but in reality they have a business problem that they need solved. More often than not, I can weasel out of them the business problem, and the technical solution to solve it, and it's often not at all what they originally wanted to have me do.

Part of it is that clients vastly overestimate the development time of some types of features, and vastly underestimate the complexity of other types of features, so they cut the wrong stuff from their MVP. In a sense, their project is doomed before they even hire a programmer.

Top technical talent can get and keep you on course in a way that will fix problems you don't even know you have.

</comment><comment><USER11> Granted, detailed requirements are good. But many - if not most - clients are unable to write a requirements document on their own. So it becomes part of the contractor's job to help them develop the requirements.

I've seen a number of cases where the client spends a lot of time writing detailed requirements that are technically infeasible. They may not realize that in their simple "if x then y" statement, x is actually the result of a fifty step process involving a unicorn and a carebear making sweet love.

<comment><USER12> Just curious, in what instances have you experienced a client request something technically infeasible? What was the feature or project?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the idea of getting multiple teams to take on the first milestone, and not just because it a good long term strategy. As a contractor I frequently encounter clients who have unrealistic expectations. This process would give someone new to the industry a more realistic idea of the range of skill and the difficulty of the work.

</comment><comment><USER14> I actually don't believe in detailed requirements or specs anymore. It is never possible to think of all issues beforehand. I am also not sure if they are really good for the client. Sure, it helps when negotiating fixed price contracts. But that also means that you will only get what was negotiated. If the developer has a brilliant insight while coding the thing, he'd better not tell you about it if he doesn't want to mess up his time calculations.

</comment><comment><USER4> Based on my own experiences using marketplaces to find freelancers, as long as the project posted is well defined, it is much better to have the coders submit bids for the total.

Every single time I paid by the hour I have had problems. I understand Derek's advice is to find one coder to work on a large project. But even then, IMHO is better to start with a fixed amount and eventually change and pay by the hour (and add other perks) only later.

</comment><comment><USER15> Cool, the post describes how to build a Nondeterministic Outsourcing machine to solve your programmer problems... just fork a whole bunch of jobs trying to solve the same problem and then pick the one that turns out best!

Sarcasm aside, I like the "I AM REAL" suggestion to auto-filter out the guys who reply to every single job without reading. It works well on Craigslist too, to reply with a special subject tag.

</comment><comment><USER16> the best way to get a developer to work really hard on your project is find one that has worked on similar projects and then pay them enough that they don't have to have other jobs on the go.

The biggest reason for a developers work to slow is that they have another job. Ask the developer if they've got other work on, when it's scheduled for. If they are the type to have lots of projects on... Pass or ask that your job be their only job for a specified time.

Hiring off shore for a complicated app is simply an exercise in banging your head against the wall. You can give an identical spec to two programmers and have a great app and a piece of crap come back. Hiring offshore is bad because 1. It's harder to communicat. With them due to them not being native English speakers And 2. At least in some countries there's a culture of doing the minimum required to get the job done.

Having said that, if you are non technical and have a limited budget, I think the original article is a pretty good way to hire someone in a bad situation.

<comment><USER17> Could not agree more! Hiring someone who has already done something similar and received a good review is as close to a guarantee that the project will work out as you can get. I have done some

That said, once you've used them, I find it is ok to branch out a little and stick with the same person.

Still, I generally stick to branching out _only a little_ because I find giving a web app to the "Firefox Extension Guy" might mean you are out of their sweet spot--they may not enjoy web app development which slows them down, or they may not be very proficient at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I was listening to a project proposal the other day and had a similar set of questions to guide the conversation. It was actually with a psychologist and I think that field and way of thinking represents the exact flip side of the type of rational thought that is reinforced and developed by programming. I'll likely end up turning down the project; my biggest fear is getting sucked into something that won't conclude well, so I'm going to use this fleshed out guideline next week and see how many of the steps I can reach clarity on.

</comment><comment><USER19> There is an overwhelming desire by non-programming business people to reduce programming to something they understand better. Not knowing how to program, they have to grasp for analogies like building a house, a bridge or some other large engineering product.

The problem with this is that every large development project I have seen on included a large element of what is really R&D. Most of the engineering around came in the from network admins, DBAs and sysadmins and, most of all, compilers. To roll with the analogy, the development team was designing new studs, beams, screws, and other widgets, to be produced by a (zero cost!) digital factory and later installed by a team of helpers.

This perception gap leads to all sorts of dysfunctional behavior and game playing on both sides. The example you see here is like working extremely hard to boil down your R&D to the equivalent of a one day high school lab, and then staging a contest. It will definitely give you some information, but won't solve the original problem.

<comment><USER20> I like to explain programming by comparing it to writing a book. You can't change the plot-lines overnight without having to throw away a few chapters, as well does the plot always have an impact on the story that builds up to it. Starting to write a book without a good grasp of what story you want to write will probably just be a time-suck.

Both are a produce of intellectual activity and require adequate understanding of the goal in order to streamline the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Leave off all details that the programmer doesn't need to know._

I differ on this, what you need is a clear road map, not people left in the dark. A feature for 2.0 may require a portion of 1.0 to be designed in a certain way, if you omit the knowledge of that feature coming down the road, you may be looking at a costly rewrite to adapt the app to that feature. Whereas the developer having for knowledge of the feature may steer them in designing the system with the though it mind that it will be coming.

 _you're paying multiple times for this first milestone, but it's worth it to find a good one_

This is not good advice. You would be much better off combining that money and hiring a proven senior level guy, as one senior level guy can outperform a group of junior level guys. Which is what you get many times when you solicit from those sites. To be honest those sites are a race to the bottom and no senior level guys are lurking there because they have plenty of work and don't need to compete in that race.

The best advice is to break your 1.0 requirements into micro-milestones with the respective developer, the trick is to get them down to 40hr increments, for example you ask the developer do you think you can get account create / update done in 40hrs and the developer says yes with the exception of roles and permissions, or just yes, I can get that all done.

You work the contract from that perspective, they have to produce something in 40hrs and if they start going over then it becomes apparent quickly and you are rarely ever at risk of loosing more than 40hrs. This allows you to measure your risk in small increments and allows you to cut loose at the point that they start failing, while still having and completed 40hr blocks as feature complete, that you can turn over to a new developer should they start failing.

For instance, say you have 3 features in 1.0: account, orders and inventory. say the developer does account in 40hrs, submits it to you and it is feature complete, you then move on to orders and the developer misses 40 and claims that he needs 20hrs more (it happens) so you give him the 20hrs and it comes back feature complete. Now you have 2/3 done, but at any given time you where only at risk for a 40hr loss and 60hr loss when you decided to take a greater risk. Finally, say they miss inventory and claim it will take them another 40hrs, you decide that you are willing to assume 80hrs risk and it still come back defective and it will be yet another 40hrs. At this point you feel that it is too much risk so you cancel the contract, you are still in possession of 2/3 of the development effort and you can solicit for that final 1/3. As well you can opt at that point to diversify because you are loosing faith in the original developer at which point you could agree to the addition 40hrs with the original developer while hiring another developer to build the final 1/3 in parallel, in case the original developer is not able to complete the task.

One other thing to note, is when the first 40hrs is complete hire an independent party to review the architecture and the code to ensure that it is not a ball of spaghetti that will become a maintenance nightmare.

This is a far more pragmatic approach to hiring a developer.

<comment><USER21> I've spent the last couple of weeks looking for work on Elance, things have been pretty slow. There are some good people there (one of my old co-workers introduced me to it), but it's easy to lose them in the mass of offshored firms. It doesn't help that most people who post bids there only care about the price and will go with the cheapest one, which is the offshored firms.

I got my foot in the door on one job by charging the minimum for it ($50) because it involved changing one line of code (guy sent me the script for review before I bid). I'm now revamping more of that for a little bit more. But every other bid I've placed has been declined and they've accepted people who must work for $15/hr or less.

Elance is a totally depressing place, but all of our clients have us on hold so I'm looking everywhere I can.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, your musing gave me a great idea for a site. I just registered the domain name igi.gs (if only you could do 2 letter domain names gi.gs would have been awesome). My idea is invitation only freelance site where members have to invite new members and new members have to have a proven track record, its real loose in my mind right now, but I think I am on to something, all the other offerings in this area are a crap shoot. Maybe some form of bare minimum rate as well so it does not become a race to the bottom.

<comment><USER22> There are a couple of better domain names i can think of that that.

How would you populate initially?

<comment><USER8> If you want to share them, I am all ears. I am working on how I would seed the site now. My initial thought was to target reputable blogging freelancers and make them the initial group. I was also thinking that maybe also allowing open enrollment, but only allowing open enrollment individuals to bid for extremely small projects (under $500, so if the minimum allowable rate is $50hr then 10hr projects) this would allow them to build rank slowly, as well if a member uses them for services they can up them to an invited status. As well I have formulated the idea that a member is forever linked to their invites. If you invite someone to the site and they do good your recommendation rank goes up, if they are bad your recommendation rank goes down. If it gets too low you are no longer allowed to invite people, as it gets higher you are allowed to invite more people. This has no bearing on your abilities rank (which is what gets you gigs). My other thought is new members get feed smaller projects and as their ability rank grows then they are feed larger projects. As well, I think I would go with pure rank not a pure customer satisfaction indicator one bad project can ruin an otherwise good freelancer on the site and lets face it at some point for whatever reason, you are going to run into a bad project. I think the site could make money by being a paid verification service where we would charge a fee to certify that the code is of good quality and we act as PM's to make sure the project is tracking to the schedule.

<comment><USER22> email me, address is in my profile.

<comment><USER8> it's not in your profile you have to put it in the about section if you want other members to see it.

<comment><USER22> Woops. Sorry, updated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _"VERY IMPORTANT: To separate you from the spammers, please write I AM REAL as the first line of your bid. We will delete all bids that do not start with this phrase, since most bidders never read the requirements._

Van Halen:

Just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say "Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes..." This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation."

So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl ... well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error. They didn't read the contract. Guaranteed you'd run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening.

The folks in Pueblo, Colorado, at the university, took the contract rather kinda casual. I came backstage. I found some brown M&M's, I went into full Shakespearean "WHAT is this before me?" ... you know, with the skull in one hand ... and promptly trashed the dressing room. Dumped the buffet, kicked a hole in the door, twelve thousand dollars' worth of fun.

The staging sank through their floor. They didn't bother to look at the weight requirements or anything, and this sank through their new flooring and did eighty thousand dollars' worth of damage to the arena floor. The whole thing had to be replaced. It came out in the press that I discovered brown M&M's and did eighty-five thousand dollars' worth of damage to the backstage area.

Well, who am I to get in the way of a good rumor?

<http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp>

[http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1211081vanha...](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1211081vanhalen1.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> Most freelancers seem to be concerned about being out of the loop if people followed this advice. I can feel that, too: IMO clients almost always benefit from the improvements I make to whatever they were planning.

But what I really wonder is how many people even could follow this advice. In the years I've been freelancing I don't think I've ever received even a single feature request that was thought out to the every click, every branch level of detail--let alone an entire application.

</comment><comment><USER25> I stopped reading at describe every click. This guy is our worst nightmare who has worked with too many talentless hacks.

</comment><comment><USER26> How about using this idea to hire people long term for your company, as a supplement to the interview? Filter through resumes, send promising ones a one day scope problem, with a one day deadline and one day's pay. Allow one or two "call tickets" where they can contact you for feedback.

</comment><comment><USER27> This comment applies to non-engineer college students who have ideas for complex websites, big ambitions, and are looking for programming help. This doesn't apply to those looking for spot jobs and minor features.

Personally, I've gotten burned big time hiring "talent" abroad, even utilizing a bidding and feedback system like that on getafreelancer.com, primarily due to the fact that (at least for me), it's impossible to get a foreigner psyched on a predominately American consumer product. I found that these programmers are constantly striving to provide the bare minimum, they constantly recycle code from other projects where they think it might fit (even if it doesn't), and they are desperate to close the ticket on your project and move on to the next as quickly as possible.

In my opinion, my observations fall in very closely with what Marx describes as "alienation," wherein workers (or in this case, foreign programmers) are to the extreme out of touch with what they are making. Sure, you can provide detailed documents specifying the exact nuances of what you want implemented, but you will NEVER anticipate the misunderstandings that are possible when traversing across complex language barriers, and secondly, you will never get the fit, finish, and craftsmanship that only somebody passionate about the product can imbue into it.

The second trap, of course, is to think that you can hire American freelancers, or, better yet, the "hacker" at your particular university. This, of course, comes with other disadvantages. It is often the case that university undergraduate "hackers" have several pet projects, and even in the case that they are open to discussing programming your idea, they often eventually begin to doubt whether it is worth it to essentially build your website for you (as they see it) as you sit around and tell them what to do. After all, did YOU spend the time, sweat, and endure social ostracism honing the valuable skill of computer programming as they did for years? Look no further than what happened to the Winklevoss twins at Harvard when they tried to get Zuckerberg to do ConnectU.

These arrangements almost inevitable fall through, consistently. Having been very close to entrepreneurship circles at an elite university, I can tell you that I have never once seen a non-hacker recruit a hacker to build a product successfully, though I've seen, and made, multiple attempts. The hacker's pet project ALWAYS comes first, followed by school and internships. And too many hackers, in my observation, are trying to chase the Zuckerberg dream by precluding any strong non-coding liberal arts thinkers from their teams and making all business and user experience decisions themselves. I can't speak to the success of this trend because I haven't seen the opposite case even attempted due to the pervasiveness of this hacker-centric startup attitude.

My pessimistic conclusion (though it might have a silver lining) is that unless you have a really trusting programmer friend who will help you out of your preexisting relationship, it is both not worth it to pursue hiring a programmer for your startup from abroad and not worth it to pursue alliances with your local college hacker. The best way to go is to bite the bullet and learn to code, and that way you actually have a means of effectuating your own ideas, which are liable to change, multiply, grow, etc. at a pace that you will want to control. Once you learn to code, you'll gain more respect of the hacker types anyway, and from that point you can build meaningful alliances of mutual understanding and respect. This is the route that I have taken, and I don't regret it one iota. A year into programming, I've got three iPhone applications in the store, with several more coming. The only limit for me, now, is time, and that's the only limit you really ever want to confront when building a startup. Depending on a stranger who is just doing it for money? For the birds.</comment>


Google's POWER8 server motherboard - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/111282580643669107165/posts/Uwh9W3XiZTQ <comment><USER2> In case it helps, the larger context of this story is that IBM has spent a couple billion dollars developing a new server CPU (POWER8) that is just about to come on the market: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2014/04/23/ibm- debuts...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2014/04/23/ibm-debuts-new- power-servers-and-new-open-platform-partnership-with-google/)

They've also formed a consortium to promote this processor, of which Google is a flagship member ([http://openpowerfoundation.org/](http://openpowerfoundation.org/)). The expectation (or hope, or fear, depending on your point of view) is that Google may be designing their future server infrastructure around this chip. This motherboard is some of the first concrete evidence of this.

The chip is exciting to a lot of people not just because it offer competition to Intel, but because it's the first potentially strong competitor to x86/x64 to appear in the server market for quite a while. By the specs, it's really quite a powerhouse: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openp...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openpower-x86-server-monopoly)

<comment><USER3> However, the "Google model" of computation involves a huge amount of cheap "light" servers, instead of a few "big" servers (on which the Power model was based)

Well, the Power architecture had some success in Apple products, but ended with the inability of IBM to scale production and produce parts that consumed less power

<comment><USER4> Google's servers are not that light, and this is a dual socket one, so 20-32 cores or so, rather than a huge Power 16 socket board which are the real scale up ones, so it is not that much more scale up. You get more IO bandwidth out of Power than Intel.

<comment><USER5> [citation needed]? I've not seen any useful IO benchmarks of POWER in a long time, if ever, and they've never been remotely comparable to more commodity systems, since POWER almost always gets used in the huge systems you mention...

<comment><USER6> Citation Given: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openp...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openpower-x86-server-monopoly)

Power8 has 230GB/s of bandwidth to ram compared to a Xeon's 85GB/s. That's nearly triple (270.5%) a XEON's I/O speed.

<comment><USER7> ummm... I see STREAM copy benchmarks for Xeon reporting at least double the number you cite.

Further, a benchmark like this is complicated. How is RAM divided between sockets? What's the bandiwdth between a CPU and memory in another socket? etc etc

<comment><USER6> Unable to respond, citation not given.

But I'll respond anyways. It looks like you have GB and Gb per second confused. One is 8x the other.

admin-magazine: claims 120Gb/s [1]

intel claims: 246Gb/s [2]

Independent claims on intel forums range from 120-175Gb/s [3]

Intel's cut sheet for their own latest generation xeon states it only supports 25GB/s (200Gb/s) memory bandwidth [4]

[1] [http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/Finding-Memory- Bo...](http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/Finding-Memory-Bottlenecks- with-Stream)

[2] [http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/benchmarks/server/xeo...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/benchmarks/server/xeon-e7-v2/xeon-e7-v2-4s-stream.html)

[3] [https://software.intel.com/en- us/forums/topic/383121](https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/383121)

[4] [http://ark.intel.com/products/75465/Intel-Xeon- Processor-E3-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/75465/Intel-Xeon- Processor-E3-1285-v3-8M-Cache-3_60-GHzz)

<comment><USER7> Reporting memory bandwidth in Gb is misleading.

The page you cite here: [http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/benchmarks/server/xeo...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/benchmarks/server/xeon-e7-v2/xeon-e7-v2-4s-stream.html)

shows a triad bandwidth (STREAM) of 246,313.60 MB (megabytes) per second which is 240 GB (gigaBYTES) / sec.

If I'm making a mistake I'm sure we can work it out.

<comment><USER4> That 240GB is on 4 sockets, so corresponds roughly to the 85GB/socket cited above, while the Power7 compared was about half the Intel, so about 50GB/socket, while Power8 is allegedly at 240GB/socket.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the clarification. HN took ~30-40 minutes before it would show a reply option for this post, so I went ahead and acknowledged the performance difference in a reply to my original reply (ugh). Anyway, that's great to see such high memory bandwidth per socket, rather than summed over the whole machine.

<comment><USER4> If you click the "link" button you can reply sooner...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So Presumably, Google will manufacture their own POWER8 CPU. But Who made them? TSMC? GloFo? Not IBM since IBM will be exiting Fab business in the near future.

I am going to guess this Dual CPU variant will be aiming at Intel Xeon E5 v2 Series. The 10 - 12 Core version cost from anywhere between $1200 - $2600. Although Google do get huge discount for buying directly from Intel and their volume.

Assuming the cost to made each 12 Core POWER8 to be $200, that is a potentially cost saving of $1000 per CPU, and $2000 per Server.

The last estimate were around 1 - 1.5 Million Servers at google in 2012 and 2M+ in 2013. May be they are approaching 3M in 2014/15\. Even with most of those are low power CPU for storage or other needs. One million CPU made themselves could be savings of up to a billion.

Could this, kick start the server and Enterprise Industry to buy POWER8 CPU at much cheaper price? And Once there are enough momentum and software optimization ( JVM ) it could filter down to Web Hosting industry as well.

In the best case scenario, this means big trouble for Intel.

<comment><USER9> In the link here they estimate the price for a single power8 cpu at $5000, based on real server price.

[http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openp...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/181102-ibm- power8-openpower-x86-server-monopoly/2)

<comment><USER10> That may be list price and keep in mind that a similar Xeon costs around $4,600.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if POWER8 based servers will be available for the mass market? I'm not sure whether Google is interested in commoditizing POWER8 servers or just participates in the OpenPOWER foundation to ensure that POWER-based servers will suit their needs. The fact that Google is open about their new motherboard hints at the former, but it's not much.

I wonder how non-Google-scale developer could even potentially get to use POWER-based servers. Will they be available from the regular dedicated server hosting companies? What OS could they run? RHEL does support POWER platform, but for a hefty price: [https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/](https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/) CentOS doesn't, presumably because all the POWER hardware CentOS developers could get is either very expensive or esoteric. That likely means I don't have to consider using POWER-based servers for at least 3 years, right?

<comment><USER12> > What OS could they run?

Since POWER8 is little endian now it's pretty easy to get things running on it. We had Ubuntu ported in one cycle and 14.04 runs sweet on POWER8. All the compilers and the entire toolchain is ready to go. Everything in the archive works, just apt-get install.

All of your Linux workloads will probably just work on a POWER8 server. I started working on this server about a month ago, and have never used power- anything before. I just ssh'ed in did my work, and unless I did a uname or noticed the URLs with the arch in them when upgrading, it acts just like my Ubuntu x86 machines.

Yesterday at IBM Impact we deployed SugarCRM /w MariaDB and Memcached, a Websphere petstore, and Hadoop (using IBM's Java), all at once from zero to fully deployed and serving in _173 seconds_. These machines are _fast_.

Disclaimer: I work at Canonical and helped run the demo backstage during the POWER announcement.

<comment><USER11> Wow, thanks! It's great to hear the information first-hand from someone "in the trenches". So, I guess, Ubuntu 14.04 is running, but it's due to some kind of "last moment" special porting effort by IBM, not an official version from Canonical? Or else, why isn't POWER support mentioned anywhere on Ubuntu's website? [http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server](http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server)

<comment><USER12> Not last minute, we've been working with IBM on this as part of 14.04. It's officially a supported platform for 5 years, here are the ISOs, you'll be able to get support for the entire thing from IBM and Canonical:

[http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/trusty/release/](http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/trusty/release/)

It's not mentioned on the website because the hardware is not publicly available yet.We have announced it on the blog though:

[http://insights.ubuntu.com/2014/04/28/the-ubuntu-scale- out-a...](http://insights.ubuntu.com/2014/04/28/the-ubuntu-scale-out-and- cloud-partner-ecosystem-expands-with-ibm-power8/)

When the machines start shipping in real life (I think they said June?) it'll be more obvious on the main site.

All the surrounding ecosystem bits around Ubuntu will also get POWER8 support, so PPAs will start building POWER8 binaries, and all of the deployable services available on jujucharms.com will be available as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can someone explain the benefits of POWER8 as compared to Intel? I though the volume of POWER8 chips being low (as compared to the exceedingly powerful Intel and Arm chips) would mean that innovation in that area would be low as well.

<comment><USER14> POWER is _fast_. I have remote access to a 64-way POWER7 server through work and it really rocks.

<comment><USER15> That's the interesting thing about POWER. Uses 250 watts? No problem. Costs $5000? Whatever. They only seem to have one design criteria: It has to be fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Large photo of this motherboard: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/ibmevents/14051347355/sizes/o/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ibmevents/14051347355/sizes/o/)

They've masked all the chips with something black. Are they hiding chips they are using, or is this something for thermal dissipation?

<comment><USER10> Looks like typical Google "secret transparency". You can look but you won't learn anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two things. First, slightly off topic: is there anyway this could be a negotiating position with Intel, on price?

Second: while many CPU cores (with enough IO) is great for large Borg map reduce jobs, I am curious to see if Google will develop/use better software technology for running general purpose jobs more efficiently on many cores. Properly written Java and Haskell (which I think Google uses a bit in house) help, but the area seems ripe for improvement.

<comment><USER18> Google is a flagship partner in the Power8 consoritium, so I doubt it's just for leverage against Intel.

<comment><USER19> Google's position as a major backer of the competition gives them credibility at the negotiating table. Intel won't give them better terms unless Google can demonstrate a viable alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Funny layout. I would like to know why the PCI slots a spread out like that.

I know Google don't have a standard rack setup, but still, it would make seens to have all the expantion ports the end of the board... No?

<comment><USER21> Maybe these Connectors are for daughterboards with Centaur Chips + RAM. (A Power8 can connect to 8 Centaur Chips where the RAM is connected)

<comment><USER4> They must be, as there are otherwise no RAM chips on the board...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It would be great if somebody could list modern computers for personal use which are still based on Power architecture?

<comment><USER23> Both Xbox360 and PS3 use modified POWER-designs.

Edit: Also, it's notable that both Xbox One and PS4 switched to use x64.

<comment><USER24> Wii and WiiU also have POWER-based designs IIRC.

<comment><USER25> Both are PowerPC 750-based according to Wikipedia, which is part of why the Wii U runs games released for the Wii.

Note that PowerPC, as used in the Wii, Wii U and old Macs, is not exactly the same as POWER, as in this announcement. The POWER architecture is used by IBM AIX and AS/400 servers, and by the PS3 in its Cell variant.

<comment><USER26> There is contradictory evidence whether the Cell's PPE was 'PowerPC' or just a 'Power' core. In any case, it could run PowerPC software. Incidentally, three of those exact same cores are used as the CPU of the Xbox 360.

For reference, the PowerPC 750 derivatives in the GameCube/Wii/Wii U are in the same family as the PowerPC G3 used in Macs around the turn of the century. It is also related to the CPU running Curiosity on Mars. So yeah, although Nintendo is a big customer of the Power architecture at the moment, they're not really breaking new ground.

<comment><USER27> The Cell is the world's first in order execution PowerPC. Its similar in design to the G3 family but has a very high clock speed. They stripped a lot out of the chip design (such as the out of order execution pipeline, a lot of the cache brains, etc) to get the core as small and as low power as possible while relying on modern compilers to make the magic happen.

I'm not entirely sure they succeeded in their goals, but with how well SPEs are used in PS3 games, I'm not sure it matters.

<comment><USER28> When you think about it, it makes sense for a CPU in a game console to not include things like out-of-order. 100% of the software it's running are program compiles for that _exact_ machine. Therefore you can just tell developers to use a particular set of compiler flags and get acceptable instruction scheduling.

Contrast this with the software a PC runs -- mostly compiled to be optimized for a "generic" x86 CPU. In fact, it may have been compiled many years before the CPU was even designed. There is a lot more scope for runtime re-ordering to improve execution unit utilization.

If the whole world ran Gentoo, commodity CPUs probably would be in-order too.

<comment><USER27> Well, if you look at modern IBM System/360 descendants (z/arch, etc), this is almost what they do. Programs are compiled to an IL bytecode, and then recompiled during install to produce a CPU-specific binary. Its largely the same concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is significant. With POWER back in the game, and ARM server CPUs arriving, Intel will again have competition.

<comment><USER30> I think currently there are few big customers that can afford the overhead of porting their code and dependencies to a different architecture.

For example I don't expect cloud providers to have a huge marked soon for non x86 architectures. Well there are JVM or other VM users which in theory could not care, as long as you don't need some native library.

In the past the battle with intel had to be played by providing an alternative implementation of the x86 instruction set for precisely the same reason: legacy.

The mobile market proved you can achieve good performance with ARM and especially better power per performance. I really can't wait to see some more fights in this arena.

<comment><USER31> Writing architecture-agnostic C++ or C code is mostly just a matter of avoiding some silly tricks which you shouldn't be doing anyway, and using the correct types and sizeofs.

Porting an operating system is hard. Porting a compiler is hard. But most applications on top of those are fairly straightforward to port, if not completely trivial.

<comment><USER32> It's possible but not trivial. If a programmer has never been exposed to any memory model other than the Intel PC model, they are in for big surprises when they start using POWER. When will write from thread A be visible to thread B? Can this atomic load pass that other load? For multithreaded C++ programs these are tricky. For other languages that always communicate between threads using messages, maybe not, but also maybe you're favorite language runtime doesn't exist on POWER.

<comment><USER33> They're only tricky if you're communicating data between threads without using locks. Since this has always been a "here be dragons" area even with x86's convenient memory model, code that gets it right for x86 but not other architectures is pretty rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> 250W TDP in a package that size.. as the article correctly states, it's about how many FLOPs you can get inside a rackmount case. that TDP alone is going to mean that you wont be able to put that many in a single case.

a dual socket board, 500W on CPUs, 600W with everything else.. the power supply would have to be something special, but the biggest challenge there would be getting the energy (ala heat) back out of the box..

GPUs have similar TDPs and issues - that's why the HSFs on top of them are so massive (and hence GPUs have a bit of an advantage here - they have the entire PCIE board to fit their cooling hardware on)

finally, 4.5ghz? what the hell? in one clock cycle, a beam of light wouldn't even get half way across the board (EDIT: not chip). branch/cache/TLB misses may literally kill any reasonable performance you might hope to get out of it. intel get around this by having years of market leading research in branch predictors, caching models, etc. and it's going to be no mean feat to match that.

i know IBM aren't exactly new to this game. but AFAIK x86 has always been faster, clock for clock, than POWER.

that said, i hope my concerns are misplaced. i'm hoping intel get some competition in the server room. it will be of benefit to everyone.

<comment><USER35> Light would travel about 660 millimetres in 0.22 nanoseconds, and the chip is about 25 millimetres on the side, so a beam of light could run a few laps around the chip in one clock cycle, or bounce off the sides 20-30 times. Maybe you wanted to say across the motherboard?

I don't think 4.5 GHz is somehow ridiculous when 3 GHz is routine (and POWER7 was 4.2 GHz). Hundreds of cycles of latency when accessing anything off the chip is now routine - that's the world we live in now. I think that the biggest problem is that IBM is not able to make the investments (especially in semiconductor manufacturing) to match Intel's rate of bringing technology to market. The current POWER7 is a 45-nm device if I remember correctly, and this 22-nm POWER8 is not yet on the market. Intel has been selling 22-nm Haswells for how long now? And of course the POWER7 chips have been up against next- generation semiconductors for most of their life.

EDIT: I see that IBM started selling POWER8 systems a few days ago. That's close to a year later than Haswell, and what's more, this chip is likely to compete against 14-nm processors for most of its lifetime.

<comment><USER36>
      Light would travel about 660 millimetres in 0.22 nanoseconds

Important note: the wave propagation speed in copper can be as bad as .42c

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Between people shifting from pc to arm-powered phones and major data-center users doing their best to cut costs this is shaping up to be a tough decade for Intel.

<comment><USER38> In all seriousness, I would not want to be leading Intel right now as I can't imagine what they could actually do to escape this.

Hindsight makes Itanium look like even more of a disaster, when that energy in that era should have gone into evolving the x86 platform for the future. Without AMD doing what they did (x86-64) I wonder where Intel would actually stand in the server market today.

<comment><USER39> From what I heard modern Intel chips basically only keep up the x86 instruction set as a facade and the architecture beneath is different (much larger number of registers etc.). Wouldn't it potentially be a good idea to do a clean redesign of the "frontend" and eliminate all the legacy support?

<comment><USER40> Yes, modern Intel CPUs use a RISC-like architecture underneath. The CPU contains a decoder unit which converts x86 instructions to RISC-like micro- ops. Getting rid of x86 support would not be a good idea. It's their "legacy support" which has allowed them to dominate the desktop and server market. Porting your software to a new architecture can be a real pain.

<comment><USER39> Couldn't the decode unit be translated into software that converts legacy software on the fly? It seems to me that the outdated instruction set is detrimental to innovation and power efficiency. Also how high is the overhead in terms of chip space and power that the decoder incurs, vs. one that has to decode a simpler instruction set? My limited understanding is that the number of instructions issued per cycle heavily depend on the instruction set and decode speed.

<comment><USER41> Transmeta tried to do exactly what you are proposing i.e, have a software layer (Code Morphing) translate the x86 instruction stream to their native VLIW instruction set. They didn't go very far.

<comment><USER39> In the case of Intel the underlying architecture is really fast, whereas my understanding is that Transmeta failed because the VLIW architecture did not really work out.

If Intel Cpus use a Risc like architecture nothing would prevent static translation to it, which was not feasible for Transmeta cpus. The x86 software layer would then only be there to preserve backwards compatibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So they're saying it's easier to use a brand new incompatible little endian Linux personality, with associated new toolchains and new ports of low level stuff etc compared to the standard Linux PPC64 stuff...

Sounds kind of surprising even if IBM did some of the bringup work ahead of time, but maybe they've got little endian assumptions baked in many internal protocols/apps.

<comment><USER43> Linux has supported POWER for ages. Is endianness such a big issue? Why?

<comment><USER44> Endianness is an issue because programmers ignore it - they think "undefined behavior" is a synonym for "not yet standardized", and the mentality of "works on my machine" typically trumps concerns of portability.

This isn't a concern for low level developers, such as the kernel developers - they understand the concerns and take care to implement code in portable ways.

The issue is with user-space developers who think C and C++ are a good choice of language, and they have no qualms using bitfields, unguarded compiler pragmas, violating strict aliasing rule, and failing to specify the endianness their protocols use in the protocol itself (BoMs are not universally used) - also there is often a failure to provide the endianness conversions in implementations of such protocols where necessary. Not to mention a complete lack of standard way to test the endianness of the current machine, which typically requires violating the strict aliasing rule to check.

<comment><USER43> I believe it's safe to assume having more endian-diversity is then a good thing. Bugs in software and protocols will be exposed and eventually corrected.

Since most Linux distros fully support a very diverse set of machines, endianness is usually not a problem with most of the software that's already part of a Linux distro.

As for software developed inside Google, they hire smart people. They'll manage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does that say "little-endian _support_ "? Like you just set a flag and all your math switches from big-endian to little-endian?

<comment><USER45> I believe Power has long been a bi-endian architecture. I gather it's a switch thrown (in either software or hardware) at startup.

<comment><USER46> The old PowerPC processors did this by flipping the low bits of memory addresses when in little-endian mode, but the data lanes had to be reversed to make this work. So back in the day, it only meant that you could use the same chip for a little-endian design but not the same motherboard. I don't think that's how newer POWER processors work, though.

<comment><USER47> Correction: a modified memory controller wasn't necessary as long as all of your memory accesses were naturally aligned. As I remember, in little-endian mode, unaligned accesses would also trap to the kernel, so kernel authors could include code that would fix things up, at a huge performance penalty for unaligned access.

Most architectures that support unaligned access have a small penalty for unaligned access anyway, and some architectures (Does anyone remember Netscape Navigator on Solaris SPARC crashing with SIGBUS much more often than the same Navigator release crashing on x86? At least Solaris 6/7 didn't include kernel code to emulate support for aligned memory access on SPARC.) don't support it, so it's best to avoid unaligned memory access in C code.

I don't recall the JVM specification forcing a particular object layout on an implementation, and I believe most JVM implementations naturally align all object fields rather than packing them for minimum space usage. I believe an implementation could reorder the fields in order to optimally pack them while avoiding unaligned accesses, at the cost of breaking any hand optimization of locality of reference made by the programmer. However, I think the space savings for almost all programs would be very meager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Would these be too pricey as hypervisors for cloud compute? It seems to me to be ideal for CPU thread intensive applications like databases, on-demand transcoding.

What are some use cases for a server like this for Google? I'd love to see these available in the IBM Cloud (SoftLayer) but I think they will be too pricey and reserved for enterprise.

<comment><USER49> You can also logically partition these beasts into multiple real servers. Who needs a hypervisor when you can have 96 "real" servers sharing the same hardware?

<comment><USER18> Memory bandwidth would be a nightmare, not to mention every other kind of I/O.

<comment><USER50> There are some tricks for IO: [http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/redp5065.htm...](http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/redp5065.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think its interesting that they didn't include the "traditional" mouse/keyboard/VGA ports. Not particularly surprised since this is a server motherboard, but still interesting. I think I do see an HDMI connector in the lower right next to a tall silver port (possible USB connector).

</comment><comment><USER52> It's a bit short on details imo : where are the specs, the benchmarks etc ?

<comment><USER53> It's actually quite impressive that google would open up this much of their secret sauce, a lot can be gleaned from looking at this board. You can bet that this is not exactly revision one (and you can bet as well that this is likely not their latest and greatest, no need to show off more than you have to, competitive edges are pretty thin).

When I see stuff like this it is painfully clear that from a technological perspective a company like duck-duck-go has a huge amount of defensible moat to cross before they can begin to be a serious contender. Think about it for a second: the company that you're trying to compete with is operating at such economies of scale that it can afford to have its own custom motherboards + non-standard expansion boards made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I love when google announces something through Google+</comment>


Yahoo tells Microsoft: 'Buy us' - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7712298.stm

<comment><USER2> Yahoo was a good company, but they missed their mark. Ironically, it wasn't Yang's fault. His predecessor who decided that Yahoo should be a media company (ala AOL) rather than a tech company (ala Google) screwed it up. So, the technology languished as they tried to throw poorly construed media at people. Only problem is that isn't profitable. Tech is.

So, now Yahoo either has to spend a ton to catch up with a company (Google) that shows no signs of slowing down or combine forces with another tech firm (Microsoft) who might be able to eek out something. Neither looks promising, but one definitely looks better.

<comment><USER3> I do like Yahoo Sports though. I always go there for stats because the ESPN pages take so damn long to load. If sports fans benefit, then they've done well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against Microsoft when time is on the line.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I were MS I'd have some fun with this. Offer $5/share and wait for the market to catch up.

<comment><USER6> that might be illegal even though it shouldn't be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uff. Is Yahoo now banging their heads against the wall for not accepting the deal the first time? And is Microsoft drooling at this 50%~ sale on Yahoo's price?

Waiting for the next chapter of this soap opera...

</comment><comment><USER8> Yahoo, please decide what you really want to do in life! You are being extremely fickle minded. Arghh..

<comment><USER9> Agree. The main problem of Yahoo is, that they do not own any substantial technology where they would have competitive edge. Google has search, MS has windows and office, but what Y! has? None of their web products are essential. Well..ok, I use flickr and delicious, but those are not big money makers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the last chapter reads: "The smart money always knows when to sell."

Jerry Yang is a great American entrepreneur, but he did miss the mark by a wide margin on this.

<comment><USER11> _"The smart money always knows when to sell."_

Does that say anything about Zuckerberg?

<comment><USER10> I'm sure Zuckerberg is a hard working and smart guy. But if Yahoo didn't know when to sell, I seriously doubt someone with Zuckerberg's limited experience does.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I wouldn't argue with the hard working and smart part. And also, I'm sure if you let anything go to your head, you'll end up missing the best deal. I suppose you could argue that nothing went to his head and he just had a great rational argument for why Facebook is worth so much.

Makes me wonder what his advisers were telling him when he was offered the Y! deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the worst time to sell, and the best time to buy.

</comment><comment><USER13> He's just trying to drive the share price back up.

</comment><comment><USER14> he is offering to sell because Yang knows it is only going to get worse and lower. and he is still making more to sell now then later.

</comment><comment><USER15> If MS ends up buying Yahoo, what will happen to Zimbra?

<comment><USER16> It'll die a slow and horrible death? They'll probably convert Zimbra users to some flavor of Exchange Online. If they're smart, they'll find someway to incorporate Zimbra into their Exchange suite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone else think he sounds like a tool? Maybe the article quoted him out of context, but... "They walked away from a public offering and we were ready to negotiate. We wanted to negotiate a deal. We felt we weren't that far apart. At the end of the day, they withdrew and they have since been clear about not wanting to buy the company," "Buying AOL? I can't talk about that, John. If I told you I would have to kill you." Mr Yang said he was "disappointed that they [Google] didn't want to defend this deal." "So I clearly don't agree with what the viewpoint is, but they are the government and they can decide on these things." You know what quote I didn't see? "WE MASSIVELY SCREWED UP AND ARE WORKING ON IT" ---> Which is what everyone thinks... if they came out and said it, then put out a cohesive-seeming turnaround plan I reckon much good would come of it. Criticizing other company for not buying your company that lost half its market value, criticizing the larger profitable player who almost wrote you a billion dollar check for not fighting hard enough for it, criticizing the government... not so much good there.

</comment><comment><USER18> Too late!</comment>


Google has no RSS for their newest Chrome extensions, so I scraped them w/ Pipes - <AUTHOR> http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=3a278cf4a09002559eabe05741ff596d

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the twitter account that uses this Yahoo Pipes feed: <http://twitter.com/chromeplugins>

</comment><comment><USER2> Here's one with slightly more detail (user count & description), made with Feedity - <http://feedity.com/rss.aspx/google-com/UlRVUVJS>

(shameless plug)</comment>


Tesla strikes deal with Ohio Auto Dealers - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-strikes-deal-with-ohio-auto-dealers-2014-03-26

<comment><USER2> "The proposed bill would bar all other auto makers from bypassing franchised dealers to retail cars"

A potentially adequate solution for Tesla that offers no change or threat to the status quo to assist future industry challengers? If my reading is correct I am disappointed.</comment>


USAF chooses 747-8 as next Air Force One - <AUTHOR> http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usaf-chooses-747-8-as-next-air-force-one-408408/ <comment><AUTHOR> The last paragraph of the article:

"The Air Force already knew it would need a four-engine, wide-body aircraft to meet the needs of the Air Force One mission, which carries the president on long-haul journeys and serves as a command post during emergencies. The Air Force in 2007 first approached Airbus for information on the A380 and Lockheed about the C-5. Airbus subsequently declined to offer the A380 for the competition, saying it would be impractical to set up final assembly in the USA."

I am a little confused over having a C-5 as a possible Air Force 1. It just seems like an odd choice.

<comment><USER2> I interpret it as a sort of CYA policy. The 747 is the obvious fit for the requirement, but they need to ensure that they tried other possibilities, as otherwise it might look like simply giving money to Boeing.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's probably it. I guess some CYA is needed since the entire modification contract was given to Boeing.</comment></comment></comment>


Smart speaker calls cops - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/10/smart-speaker-device-alerted-the-cops-to-an-assault.html <comment><USER2> I hadn't considered the implication of being able to call police/ambulance without having to locate/handle a phone, whereas I have been reluctant to purchase one of these speakers because of the surveillance aspect. The headline and beginning of the article even make it sound like some sort of Minority Report precrime thing. While that is a bit more supernatural scifi, mining sounds, conversations and matching voices seems already possible. I'm sure you could classify domestic assault vs a game of yahtzee.</comment>


Self-description - <AUTHOR> http://www.xkcd.com/688/ <comment><AUTHOR> Mouse over text:

 _The contents of any one panel are dependent on the contents of every panel including itself.The graph of panel dependencies is complete and bidirectional, and each node has a loop.The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters._

</comment><comment><USER2> The leftmost self-description is false. The amount of black ink is actually greater than what is shown on the pie due to the black ink being used to show the pie (i.e. circle) perimeter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that he has acounted for that too. For example, the mouse-over text says: _...The mouseover text has two hundred and forty-two characters._

It is indeed 242 characters. i.e. he considered the meta data too in the length.(That is why it is called self-descriptive)

Related read: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenos_paradoxes#Achilles_and_th...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenos_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise)</comment></comment>