Ask HN: If new hires getting paid more, ask for raise? - <AUTHOR> We just hired 3 new employees for my group at my same position. They are were hired on at a salary that is greater than mine. Is it common practice for me to ask for a raise? <comment><USER2> It might be fair if your salary matched that of the new hires (or it might not be, depending on a ton of details that are not in the question). But in many businesses fairness might be a weak case for a raise with an immediate boss. Weak because claiming unfairness puts the boss on a defensive emotional footing and countering the claim merely requires picking and choosing evidence that makes the difference in pay plausibly fair.

The fairness claim also caps the raise at what the last person got and tips your hand in terms of information that the counter party to the negotiation does not know that you have: the counter party does not know that you know what other people are paid.

My random internet advice is to have an independent case for a raise based on your work. It can be helpful to describe some specific financial objectives inside the request, for example "I am hoping to buy a house and the raise will help with the down payment" makes the request seem more concrete and safer (e.g. you did not say you're going to spend it on illegal drusgs). It can also help the counter party think about the benefits of providing the raise and feel better about providing it. Just like few people want to be accused of being unfair, many people want feel better if they help someone "buy a house".

But again, focus on your work. The advantage you have is that you can point to what you accomplished for the business whereas new hires cannot.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great ideas. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think there are any hard and fast rules.

If the new hires told you their salaries the difficulty is discussing it without revealing this fact. Management sometimes frowns on that.

If the pay range was publicly disclosed in an advert that would be the best way to go.

In general however it seems like an entirely reasonable thing to do. Just don't get too aggressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It depends on the quality of work, experience, and where they worked before. Just because they are on the same level as you does not mean you should earn as much as them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sound advice. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of my first jobs I 'negotiated' my wage, I was pretty pleased with myself then later found out I was on less than half what everyone else was getting. That was an experience.

So don't undervalue yourself, you can ask for nothing and if you don't get it just move on to a place that values you.</comment>


The Cloud Is For You - <AUTHOR> http://paddy.io/posts/the-cloud-is-for-you/

<comment><USER2> Blatant advertisement for a possible solution to Sentry's problem with the cloud

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry you feel that way. I try to keep the line between my work and myself pretty clear. If I didn't work for Iron, I'd still suggest he try the product, as I actually believe it may help. I use it in my own projects, and it helps me. If people ask me if they should use Iron and I don't actually believe it would help them, I tell them it's not a good fit for their product. If developers aren't happy using our products, they stop using them and we stop getting paid, so what's the point?

I think it's a bit unfair to say the point of the post was an advertisement, however. Considering I spent the entire post talking about the difference between cloud computing and PaaS and only mentioned the company I work for twice (once as a matter of disclosure), I'd think it a bit of a stretch to claim the point was to shill a product. Especially when I could've just spammed him on Twitter. As far as spamming goes, this is probably the least effective way I've ever heard of.</comment></comment>


How to be a packager - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/how-to-be-a-book-packager.html

<comment><USER2> I was with him until "As the agent of change, you deserve the lion's share of the revenue."

All he was doing was introducing people to each other. He didn't produce the content, he didn't distribute the product, and he didn't front the money for the investment. All he really risked was some time, same as everyone else involved.

He served an important role, and deserves to be compensated well. But to claim that he deserves the lion's share of revenue seems ridiculous.

<comment><USER3> These ventures wouldn't have happened at all without his work. Without him, the producers and distributors would have $0 (extra). With him, they get > $0. So if he can find a way to put more cash in their pocket, I don't see why he can't charge whatever he wants. He also says it takes 3 - 5 years to really get into it, so it sounds like it takes significant work and experience to connect these companies.

<comment><USER2> Your claim only makes sense if everyone else involved sat around idly during the time that they would have been working on the project he 'packaged.' I seriously doubt that would be the case.

Obviously the project Seth proposed provided some marginal benefit over their normal work - and he is entitled to the lion share of that marginal profit he generates. I just don't buy that marginal profit he generates comes close to approaching the total revenue of the package.

It's the exact same as me claiming the content producer is entitled to the lion's share of all revenue - since without him there would be none. If people weren't working on this content producer's project, they would be working on something else with someone else.

<comment><USER3> Sure, you're right. There is work involved by everyone else as well. I guess I was oversimplifying.

For content producers getting the lion's share, I think it depends on the situation. There are definitely some untalented pop artists these days that are only popular because of their producer's distribution. In those cases, the producer probably should get the lion's share.

Ultimately, it comes down to market forces. If people are willing to pay Seth what he charges to do the packaging, then who are we to say what is fair? If he charged too much then they either wouldn't do it or would hire someone full time to do packaging for them. If his advice to newbies is to charge a lot then it must work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks to me like an area that could benefit from some automated infrastructure.</comment>


Addition Font - <AUTHOR> https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html <comment><USER2> I started to work on something similar in the past (not turning complete, but cool glyph/ligature substitution). I wanted to make a font that auto-replaced company names with their official logos.

This ended up being far too labor intensive to get right, but it still seems like a cool idea for someone else to tackle eventually.

<comment><USER3> It's been done. [https://www.brandnewroman.com/](https://www.brandnewroman.com/)

(The ligatures are subtle -- try typing "OOOO" to see an example.)

<comment><USER4> One more 'O' gets you the Olympic rings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool. macOS's Font Book says "Do not use these font files" and then doubles down with, "Serious problems were found with these fonts and may cause system problems or even crashes if installed," and if you still insist on continuing it will copy the file into ~/Library/Fonts but it cannot be used.

<comment><USER6> I think your engineering must be pretty bad if a font can cause a crash and system problems.

<comment><USER7> Well, a font nowadays is Turing complete.

<comment><USER8> Computational class is orthogonal to capability management

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice work. Here's another awesome font for inline sparkline charts.

[https://aftertheflood.com/projects/sparks/](https://aftertheflood.com/projects/sparks/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Very neat. If it supported arbitrary stack-arithmetic, it'd be a really useful terminal font. If, perhaps, the least inefficient desk calculator available.

</comment><comment><USER11> Didn't this strange complexity of fonts lead to an iOS jailbreak?

<comment><USER12> Back in the JailbreakMe days, the third iteration of it (JBMe) used an integer overflow related to fonts [https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/T1_Font_Integer_Overflow](https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/T1_Font_Integer_Overflow)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do not think the article provides the correct explanation. I'm sure, most of the readers do not use Smalltalk, and they have their own (straightforward) reasons for that. Most probably, why should they care about an old, outmoded, strange and almost dead language? You cannot sell a dead horse.

It is a pity. I could name dozens of its great ideas that are still waiting to be re-invented by the mainstream languages of today.

<comment><AUTHOR> This post is obviously in error, but I suspect it won't go over well there. You probably want to remove this from here.</comment></comment>


Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Enlightened intolerance - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/04/ayaan-hirsi-ali <comment><USER2> Islam - the religion - is strongly anti-Jewish, denies equal rights to women and non Muslims, and denies any rights whatsoever to those who are not members of an Abrahamic religion. Apostasy is punishable by death, and theft by amputation. There is no separation of Church and State in Islam; rather, the State is to be Islamic.

These are not 'radical' positions; they have been upheld by numerous schools of Islamic jurisprudence and are law in many Islamic states.

Gay? Lesbian? Atheist? Christian? Baha'i? You'd better hope that there is never a Muslim majority in your country, or you will watch your rights evaporate and, in some cases, your life threatened or ended. If you doubt this, track down some local Lebanese Christians or Iranian Baha'is, and ask them why they left.

Tolerance of evil - for how else would you describe a religion that prescribes the execution of those who leave it? - is no virtue. I'm saddened, but not terribly suprised, to see the pitchfork mobs skewer Eich, and refuse to support Ali. Here's the thing: anti-gay hatred is equally wrong, regardless of who expresses it, and why.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget -we are in America- that islam seeks to re-introduce slavery. Another one of those non radical positions (America forced most islamic states to give up slavery in 1950 or so, and they haven't really done so [1], only legally abolished it).

Oh and islam denies equal rights to muslims as well. Members of the state apparatus are also elevated, and one of the rights they have is to kill anyone they please. Also islam prescribes death for freedom of expression, for singing (yes, really), ... [2]

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann- hari...](http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the- dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html) [2] a search for 'asma bint marwan' will quickly yield the rules for this

The problem is that the moral values the world currently has are distinctly Christian values. Yes people like to pretend they are atheist values, "humanist" (you'd think scientific education would prevent people from thinking moral values are associated with a natural object like that, but I guess not) ... yet they defend equal rights for all people, equal rights for the sexes, protecting the weak, they go very far in the rights of children, pro-adoption, anti-war (in the sense that they are against war unless in defence), they defend freedom of trade, ... All very much Christian moral positions (well, especially that specific combination is distinctly Christian. E.g. islam does have freedom of trade, as it is mostly based on Roman law), distinct from other religions. If you judge any other religion by this modern standard it will fail badly. Especially equality is rare.

The problem is that islam is just a very bad example of a religion, but it is not special. It is not the worst (certainly natural religions are far worse), but none of it's rules are exceptional at all.

The norm in human history, and likely the majority position of all humans worldwide is what one would consider bad religions' positions. Death for gay people, or generally any sex outside marriage. Death for freedom of expression. Death for sex outside marriage. Religious or physical leaders get to execute people. No separation between church and state. Neutral or pro position to slavery. War as the default position due to religious or ethnic "eternal" conflicts or "holy" wars. These things are the norm, not the exception.

So what does one do ?

<comment><USER4> since you cited sources, i went and checked.

Your first article is an expose on the wealthy class in Dubai, not a religious position. Granted, they speak Arabic, but almost no one believes what the ruling class in Dubai (or Saudi for that matter) does has anything to do with Islam.

Your second reference is to a story from the 7th century that historians believe is a fabrication. And, even if it was true, she was condemned to death for inciting violence, not for singing.

i understand that there is a lot of hostility toward what some Muslims do, and justifiably so, but that doesn't necessarily represent Islam any more than Warren Jeffs or Fred Phelps represent Christianity. And, there's no doubt that some won't agree with Islam's sense of morality, but at least disagree with the actual tenets of the faith, not corrupt foreign rulers and centuries-old gossip.

<comment><USER2> Briefly - as I'm formulating an in depth reply - let's not trot out the "corrupt implementation" defense. Similar and equally invalid defenses have been made of communism over the years. Eventually one has to accept that the supposedly corrupt implementations of a philosophy are representative.

If the majority of Islamic countries interpret Islamic law a particular way, it's probably safe to criticize Islam on the basis of that interpretation, especially in the context of evaluating immigration from those countries.

<comment><USER5> > ...let's not trot out the "corrupt implementation" defense... If the > majority of Islamic countries interpret Islamic law a particular way, it's > probably safe to criticize Islam on the basis of that interpretation...

That's the reason I've stopped getting into arguments with people over the internet regarding Islam; I don't agree with you there.

Governments of Islamic countries and their laws influenced by politics and foreign military powers don't make for an accurate source of Islamic law in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> Let's take a concrete example, capital punishment for apostasy.

"... in all the major schools of law in Islam (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafii, Maliki and the Shiite Jafari school) there is unanimity that the penalty for apostasy is death. The difference is only whether an apostate is given the opportunity to repent or not, or whether he is given a certain number of days to repent. But it is a fact that Islamic Law demands everywhere that the apostate is put to death." [1]

Here is Dr. Mohammad Mukadam, (then) Chairman of the Association of Muslim Schools, stating in debate with Richard Dawkins that the penalty for apostasy is death:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvWdWZq8To](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvWdWZq8To)

Now, let's look at the treatment in law [2]:

* Afghanistan – illegal (death penalty, although the U.S. and other coalition members have put pressure that has prevented recent executions)

* Egypt – illegal (3 years' imprisonment)

* Iran – illegal (death penalty)

* Jordan – possibly illegal (fine, jail, child custody loss, marriage annulment) although officials claim otherwise, convictions are recorded for apostasy

* Malaysia – illegal in five of 13 states (fine, imprisonment, and flogging)

* Mauritania – illegal (death penalty if still apostate after 3 days)

* Oman – legal in criminal code, but according to the family code, a father can lose custody of his child

* Pakistan – illegal (death penalty since 2007)

* Qatar – illegal (death penalty)

* Saudi Arabia – illegal (death penalty, although there have been no recently reported executions)

* Somalia – illegal (death penalty)

* Sudan – illegal (death penalty, although there have only been recent reports of torture, and not of execution)

* United Arab Emirates – illegal (3 years' imprisonment, flogging)

* Yemen – illegal (death penalty)

So. There is complete agreement amongst all major sources of Islamic law that apostasy should be punishable by death; in many Islamic countries it is, and in others it is otherwise punishable.

Would you care to provide an "accurate source of Islamic law" that _doesn 't_ manifest this particular evil?

[1] [http://www.answering- islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/bassiouni_a...](http://www.answering- islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/bassiouni_apostasy.htm)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#Countries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy#Countries)

<comment><USER4> Wikipedia is far from an "accurate source of Islamic Law", but you seem to be a fan, so here you go: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam#Opposition_to...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam#Opposition_to_execution)

Regardless of whether or not you decide to dismiss these positions as out of the orthodox, it's a logical fallacy to assume that because some Muslim- majority states implement some of the penal code describe in Islam, that any activity by these states is somehow part of or sanctioned by the religion.

<comment><USER3> So are we to understand that when your prophet did this, he was wrong ? That he is not part of your religion ?

How exactly does your argument work ? The islamic prophet killed people for apostacy. That's a fact, confirmed by both islamic and non-islamic historical sources. In fact he massacred an entire city for that.

So answer the simple question : was that wrong ? Is it okay to kill individuals or massacre cities for apostacy ? If he was wrong, then is there any islamic religion at all ?

<comment><USER2> You won't get a reply; Saleem is either a troll, or practicing taqiyya ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya) ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I cite:

> _Of course, Mr Wilders leads the farthest-right party in the Dutch political > landscape, one with which most Dutch parties have refused to cooperate._

False. The labour party announced a cordon sanitaire with them, but went on to propose legislation that this right wing party had described in their electoral programme, almost 4 weeks after the announcement.

The article concludes with:

> _The fact that such statements are not welcomed in American public discourse > is one reason why the American model of integration and tolerance works > better than the Dutch model, and why the Netherlands continues to be wracked > by tensions over Islam and integration—years after those tensions forced Ms > Hirsi Ali herself to leave._

This is entirely nonsensical.

</comment><comment><USER7> So, American tolerance seems to be tolerance by religious towards other religions, where Dutch tolerance is tolerance by non-religious towards religions.

I don't respect religion, but I do respect your right to have one and exercise it. Just not to the point where you form a hazard to your surroundings.

I don't know if every Dutch person shares that attitude, and if that attitude is the reason that our tensions with immigrants are worse than the U.S.'s (or even if that is true.) But I do know that attitude reflects the kind of free thinking society I want to be a part of.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Universities are no longer institutions of inquiry but 'safe spaces' where delicate flowers of diversity of race, sex, orientation, 'gender fluidity' and everything else except diversity of thought have to be protected from exposure to any unsafe ideas.

As it happens, the biggest 'safe space' on the planet is the Muslim world. For a millennium, Islamic scholars have insisted, as firmly as a climate scientist or an American sophomore, that there's nothing to debate. And what happened? As the United Nations Human Development Programme's famous 2002 report blandly noted, more books are translated in Spain in a single year than have been translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years. Free speech and a dynamic, innovative society are intimately connected: a culture that can't bear a dissenting word on race or religion or gender fluidity or carbon offsets is a society that will cease to innovate, and then stagnate, and then decline, very fast.

As American universities, British playwrights and Australian judges once understood, the 'safe space' is where cultures go to die."

Excerpt from: [http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia- features/9187...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia- features/9187741/the-slow-death-of-free-speech-2/) (Hirsi and Brandeis are discussed in a larger context)</comment>


Airlines scour the world for scarce 737 Max simulators - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-training/airlines-scour-the-world-for-scarce-737-max-simulators-idUSKBN1ZL0EH <comment><USER2> There's some weird numbers in the article, which may either be a lost in translation situation or more evidence that airlines and Boeing are once again playing fast and loose with their plans.

For example, Southwest is apparently claiming they will be able to train their 10000 737 pilots on the simulator in 30 days. They have 3 simulators (still going through certification) and have ordered another 3 for late 2020.

Assuming they have all 6 on day one, that means each simulator will be training approximately 1600 pilots. Divided by 30 days, gives you 50 pilots a day? In other words less than 30 minutes a pilot assuming extreme efficiency. And training 24/7.

<comment><USER3> I was surprised by that 10,000 pilot number. It seems huge until you look it up and realize they have 752 planes. Each plane averages 6 flights/day. So they have about 13 pilots per plane and an average of 2 pilots per flight. *Of course, many of those flights are flown by the same pilots which gives them coverage for the various shifts. The numbers are probably a little more off now too since some of their fleet is idle. Either way, 10,000 pilots doesn't even sound like enough after roughing up the numbers.

<comment><USER4> 13 pilots per plane sounds like more than enough.

Each plane needs two pilots at a time. Each plane is manned maybe 105 hours a week (say 17 hours a day on average, less 5% of the time in maintenance), so it requires 210 pilot-hours per week. A full time employee works about 35 hours a week after sick leave and holidays. So you need about six full-time pilots per plane.

Pilots spend some time in training and admin outside of the plane, but it could hardly amount to enough to double the staffing requirements, especially for Southwest who are famously lean and efficient. I'd guess a significant number of the 10,000 are on standby or get limited hours (but of course need to be trained to the same level as full-timers).

<comment><USER5> You need 1 crew per flight, but really 2 crews per day per plane. Pilots work about half the days, so 4 crews per plane. That gets you to 8 pilots per plane, which is roughly 6k pilots without redundancy or pilots working very limited segments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting that Boeing does no make the simulators directly but through partners. Having a delay in making the simulators might be because the makers of the simulators are having problems with the software replication from the real plane. Wonder what happens when the software on the simulators is in desync with the software on the real plane; or when software on the real plane has a bug that manifests only after 10 hour of continuous operation while the software on the simulator is continuously resetted for each new pilot. On the other hand, Boeing and the airlines should have provided more simulators if their new model is so different that it needs a dedicated simulator. One idea - Boeing should only sell new planes together with simulators - 1 simulator included for each x planes delivered.

<comment><USER7> > Boeing and the airlines should have provided more simulators if their new > model is so different that it needs a dedicated simulator

I highly recommend reading this article:

[https://onemileatatime.com/boeing-737-max-lion-air- simulator...](https://onemileatatime.com/boeing-737-max-lion-air- simulator/#boeing_mocked_lion_air_for_wanting_737_max_simulator_training)

The first crash was with Lion Air. Boeing mocked them for wanting simulators. After the crash, Boeing claimed pilots of Lion Air were at fault. This while saying no simulator training was needed.

<comment> o-__-o >Boeing mocked them for wanting simulators.

These were the conversations of two employees. I wouldn't say that Boeing outright mocked them but, in the processes going on above the employees paygrade, simulators were difficult to get to Lion Air

<comment><USER8> You think because the employees weren't executives and they were talking to eachother it's all ok? What on earth are you talking about?

Boeing employees should be in prison, there shouldn't be bail while awaiting trial. This is a act of willful negligence and deceit and coverup that killed hundreds of people. It's one of the biggest crimes ever in the history of our country.

<comment><USER9> They're a defense contractor, they can't commit crimes.

<comment><USER10> Hahahahaha

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Simulators normally already run very close to 24x7. Not strange at all to have a 1am sim slot or 5am or similar at most airlines. So this is going to be chaos if the MAX is reauthorized to fly before everyone is trained.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how the validation of correspondence between the actual plane (with the unknown/unreleased MCAS related mods) and the simulator behaviour is performed, i.e. who (Boeing, the simulator manufacturers, the FAA, experienced test pilots) actually does what and - ultimately - which kind of "stamp" attests that the simulator is a valid representation of the plane behaviour (and how much time is it needed to perform this step).

<comment><USER13> Scrounging around for simulators or wondering how close it is to the real thing is moot because the 737 MAX is dead. The CEO is gone and there are more and more safety "glitches" being discovered. Even if they return them to service, who is going to fly on them? You? Sorry, but the cheapening-out on engineering and manufacturing over the years has eventually produced a New Coke, who's side-effect is that it kills the consumer. There's only "classic Coke" as a fix (737 NG), but that's not much better. In fact, Al Jazeera did an exposé in 2010 about the internal whistleblower who was ignored by Boeing management when it was revealed that substandard critical structural components made by subcontractor Ducommun were being crudely constructed by- hand and were grossly out of tolerances, yet Boeing management ordered them installed on customer planes anyhow. 737 NG's (-6xx, -7xx, -8xx, -9xx) have already been involved in hard landings and runway overruns where the fuselages broke apart, killing passengers, when previous similar airframes survived intact but were possibly damaged and needed inspections. These NG's are flying around above your head today, and it's unclear if the next landing or severe turbulence is going to rip the plane apart because it was either poorly engineered or poorly manufactured due to decades of lax "self- regulation"/regulatory capture and corporate greed. Some engineering areas and some planes were made better than others, but it's unnecessarily playing Russian roulette with people's lives because management used "creative" ways to cut corners.

If you want less micromorts, stick to well-maintained older 737's/777's and Airbus.

<comment><USER14> The capital cost of the 737 Max fleet is likely to be at least $20 billion. Do you think the airlines or Boeing are just going to write that off?

<comment><USER15> Do you think they won't get bailouts?

<comment><USER16> To get a bailout they need to act as if it were important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have any reading material on how the simulators work? Do they run the same computer hardware as actual aircraft, or is it all simulated? If it's simulated, how do they avoid the issue of a bug not being present in the simulator?

<comment><USER18> I don't think the simulator is designed to QA test the airplane. It's only for training pilots, and pilots are only trained on procedures that airlines deem worth training for. This is things like engine failures at inopportune moments, stall recovery, etc. The idea is not to simulate the outcome of strange circumstances, but to get pilots comfortable with procedures. So if there is some bug, it doesn't matter -- if you're training pilots to take off after v1* is called out and an engine fails at that exact moment, the instructor is not looking to see that "hey we applied the brakes and the airplane stopped OK with light rain and 3 knots of wind", they are looking to see that the pilot continues the takeoff anyway and doesn't try to stop on the runway. The pass condition is following procedure, not "well that's not the procedure but it looks like everyone lived anyway".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds#V1_definitions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds#V1_definitions)

The various data that feeds into training procedures comes from actually flying the real airplane.

<comment><USER6> Since the planes become more software dependent, the pilots should be trained on procedures to recognize/evaluate/react to software problems/glitches as well. The problems with the B-MAX were actually related to bad software (MCAS). There is probably some delay between how pilots are training and the importance of software in their job.

<comment><USER19> I think, functionally speaking, a software failure is no different to that of hardware-based control / instrumentation systems (think of all the odd behaviour that could be caused by a short circuit or a bad connection somewhere in the wiring). The difference is that software systems tend to be more complex, and failures are in theory less random and more systematic - it's more a case of stepping on an unlikely combination of inputs (i.e. a bug that occurs in an untested corner-case) than encountering a random component failure which is more likely the case for a hardware system.

Edit: actually I suppose I just made your point

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article says Southwest has 10.000 737 pilots. Let's say all of them will be trained. The article also says that simulator training costs 0.5-1K USD per hour. Let's take the higher figure. So that means 5M USD per hour training for all pilots (two pilots per simulator). Let's then speculate and say that the FAA approved training package is 10 hours (I believe this will turn out to be less than 3).

We're looking at 50M USD cost of training pilots for the MAX, for an airline which ordered almost 300 MAX planes.

That is less than 200K USD per plane. It is depressing that this was being weighed against loss of human life.

<comment><USER21> There's other costs as well. An untrained pilot can't fly, meaning that the airline is shorthanded. If you don't have enough trained pilots, you have to cancel flights and lose revenue.

<comment><USER10> Which they now had to do for over a year. So that was some great cost-saving exercise again...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> With all the effort Boeing put into making controls the same, I wonder why they couldn't just release a software update for existing 737 simulators that adds the ability to switch to Max characteristics. I get the no new training was a goal of the Max, but in existing simulators would at least be a consolation prize.

<comment><USER23> The issue they're getting bit by now is that technically, MAX can't be architected the same way as older 737's due to the Flight Computer representing a single point of failure with catastrophic consequences.

Older 737's are fine having two separate Flight Computers with only one in command at a time. MCAS changed that. So they now have to consider significant hardware/software rearchitecture which goes beyond a mere

       If(MAX){
          MCAS();
         } else {
          otherStuff():
         }

For instance, early on in the investigation, pilots had to use the NG simulators with manual fault injection to recreate the experience because the MCAS software simply wasn't there.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/newly...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing- aerospace/newly-stringent-faa-tests-spur-a-fundamental-software-redesign- of-737-max-flight-controls/)

The "newly-stringent" tests described are basically 101 level test cases in excluding catastrophic outcomes from a design, where you basically assume the perfect confluence of bit flips occur to ruin your day. If you've done your job right, that shouldn't end up being a problem.

Boeing didn't, therefore, it was a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The title makes it sound like simulators are going extinct

In fact, now that training is going to be needed, new simulators are going to be built, but it takes time. Maybe some 737ng Sims can be converted

By the way, some airlines have their own but several have their crews train in outsourced training facilities (CAE, etc)

</comment><comment><USER25> what surprises me is that there are even any simulators for this plane, when the manufacturer said such training isn't necessary. apparantly some airlines still put safety above everything.

<comment><USER26> It's worth it from a financial perspective. If a plane goes down it hurts the brand and public trust significantly. People in general are already afraid of flying, lets not give them more reasons :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> >> The 737 MAX has been grounded since March 2019 after two fatal crashes and cannot return to service until regulators approve software changes and training plans.

My understanding from the previous wave of news was that two planes crashed because they stalled in mid air because their engines were too large and too far forward and that somehow affected the plane's center of gravity... And the solution is a software update? You can't fix hardware problems with software.

I wonder if this is a trend. First Intel and now Boeing... Shipping defective products and then trying to hack together patches on top.

<comment><USER28> They did not stall because of the engines. The plane would be perfectly flyable without mcas, the plane only behaves differently. But in order to avoid recertification boeing decided to tweak the plane behaviour with mcas so that there is no noticeable difference for the pilots. In hindsight this obviously wasn't done right.</comment></comment>


Swiss forensic report on Arafat's death - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/investigations/killing-arafat/swiss-forensic-report-arafat-death-201311671255163780.html <comment><USER2> An impressive read; that's a tough job to take on. No matter the quality of the researcher's work, someone, somewhere, is going to be inflamed by the conclusion.

It's also a super fun job to take on. Nuclear measurements can be very perceptive. Everyone I know in the business loves to have meaningful applications in the wider world. Our lab was a fun place to be immediately following Fukushima [1] (and Chernobyl, too, but that's before my time as a physicist).

On the scale of technical reports, it's well-written, and intended to be read by semi-technical readers. The analysis covers a lot of ground on sources of uncertainty. They do a reasonable job handling uncertainties on the things I know about, and my only remaining concerns extend beyond my expertise.

It's a worthy read; check it out!

(as a bonus, in the appendices, you get to see photos of everything in the travel bag.)

[1] [http://www.npl.washington.edu/monitoring/node/1](http://www.npl.washington.edu/monitoring/node/1)

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course Yasser Arafat was killed. I don't think anyone sane ever thought otherwise considering the circumstances... Same goes for Slobodan Milosevic... There likely are others, but they don't come to mind at the moment.

Love the anonymous downvote for saying something unpopular politically, but more than likely factually correct.

Dangerous political prisoners/personalities dying in mysterious circumstances at opportune times is not coincidence. The US reign death from above via remote controlled drones and this isn't contested, yet thinking that very suspicious deaths at expedient times are likely assassinations is some crazy conspiracy theory...

<comment><USER4> At the risk of getting down voted on what is an emotional issue for a lot of people, here's my (quite realist) view.

I was living in the West Bank when Arafat died, and I knew a bunch of people who worked in his compound. He got very sick, very quickly. The doctors around him were baffled by the steep decline, which is why he was flown to France just before he died.

I acknowledge that my theory on the issue is purely circumstantial, but a good place to start with these things is "qui bono?". Ariel Sharon (and Israel, and in my view, everyone) had a lot to gain by Arafat's death.

Whatever you think of the nastiness that he'd been involved in, Sharon was a remarkable human - Israelis aren't given to overstatement and they called him the "Lion of God".

Sharon was clearly making a dash for a grand bargain, and it's obvious that the "bulldozer" (another of his nicknames) wasn't letting anything get in his way.

By pure force of will, he withdrew Israel from Gaza (an absolutely wrenching move for Israel to make), and then left Likud to establish Kadimah so that he could move forward without blockage from the right wing radicals in his old party. In a very short time frame, Sharon bent a famously fractious Israeli parliament into a position to make a grand bargain that would stick - the last major road block to a bargain was Arafat.

Israel had had a real go at negotiating with Arafat with Bill Clinton at Camp David. It didn't work out. Of course, there are a bunch of conflicting opinions on who's to blame for the breakdown in talks, but the basic, unarguable outcome was that Arafat wasn't willing to take Israel's best offer.

Sharon obviously knew that, and also knew that Arafat's successor was going to be the comparatively mild mannered Abbas, who Sharon was already dealing with constructively. I think Sharon basically decided that, given Arafat's previous form, he was a very high risk as a grand bargain spoiler - Arafat's moral authority with the Palestinian population remained high. So, in the absence of any other option (since Arafat was essentially a dictator), good night Arafat.

If you think that Sharon wasn't capable of something that cold, take a look at his conduct in the massacre at Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre)).

Sharon had a stroke shortly thereafter, and with that, arguably the only person capable of cutting the gordian knot in the medium term was out of the picture. Gotta love ash-sharq al-awsat.

<comment><USER5> They call Ariel Sharon "Lion of God" because Ariel means Lion of God in Hebrew.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I didn't know that. According to Wikipedia, another of his nicknames amongst Israelis was "The King of Israel". That moniker at least, indicates that he was regarded as a formidable character.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yasser Arafat was a known quantity both to the US and the Israeli for at least 30 years. There was little incentive to kill him at this stage of his life (unlike in 1982) - and I doubt it brought any significant tactical benefits to do so.

I would bet that the poisoning was ordered by someone within the factions of Palestinian struggles.

<comment><USER7> I think this is a very good point. Of all the actors who would interact with Arafat, what motivated one of them to (presumably) kill him in Summer/Fall 2004?

Also curious: why did his wife refuse to permit an autopsy?

<comment><USER3> > Also curious: why did his wife refuse to permit an autopsy?

Islam has fairly strict burial customs, and many Islamic clerics have outlawed autopsies. It isn't a universal belief, but likely figured into the equation...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Why_ would anyone use Polonium 210 as a poisoning agent?

...I don't know that much about poisons, but I bet the people in this lob have whole arsenal of "stealth" poisons that could much more easily go unnoticed. And if you want to make it obvious, why not go for something even more obvious or simply a bullet?

It seems more like an "artist's signature" thing and it would be interesting to know who this "artist" is!

<comment><USER9> > Why would anyone use Polonium 210 as a poisoning agent?

It's a very rare agent that only very few assassins have access to, so most routine poison searches would not pick it up. Especially since the symptoms are basically nondescript. In addition to that polonium was pretty much unknown as a poison when Arafat was killed - the high profile Litvinenko killing was after Arafats death. The lethal dose is extremely low and even if it is detected, there's no antidote.

That's a pretty good stealth poison in my book.

<comment><USER10> Wikipedia says chelation with mercaptopurine has been effective in mice. Not sure how quickly it would have to be given, though. (Wikipedia says biological half-life is 30 - 50 days.)

<comment><USER9> Probably before the onset of the worst symptoms. Basically the cause of death is massive radiation poisoning and all the symptoms are radiation sickness symptoms, i.e. tissue damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The choice of poison is suspicious:

"Notably, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident, in 2006 was announced as due to Polonium poisoning."

"According to the book The Bomb in the Basement, several deaths in Israel during 1957–1969 were caused by Polonium."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Well- known_poisoning_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Well- known_poisoning_cases)

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't it be interesting if Litvinenko wasn't killed by the Russians after all, but the hit was contracted out to/preformed by Mossad... I really doubt that, but I wasn't aware there'd been such use of Polonium previously.

<comment><USER11> Well, the Russian poisoning happened _after_ the Mossad poisoning. The person who killed Litvinenko had time to learn from whomever killed Mossad.

Russian agents learning from Israel perhaps.

<comment><USER13> Where for God's sake are you even getting "Mossad" and "poisoning"? There was apparently a radioactive leak at the Weizmann Institute in 1957. Professor Dror Sadeh, in whose laboratory it happened, died of cancer in 1993, i.e. 35 years later. Another researcher died of cancer in 1969 and someone else died of leukemia a month after the leak (which means it was probably unrelated to that specific incident). Sure, exposure to radiation in the laboratory, and not just that particular leak, must have elevated their cancer risk. Cancer deaths are pretty common among early nuclear researchers. But elevated risk of cancer years later is not the same as radiation poisoning. And the Weizmann Institute is not the Mossad.

<comment><USER11> Oops I meant to say "Arafat poisoning" not "Mossad poisoning" in my original comment. I can no longer edit it. I don't have any solid evidence/source for Israel's involvement, just weird coincidence that they came up on Wikipedia. Purely speculation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not convinced he was assassinated, but I won't shed any tears if he was. He was an evil terrorist with blood on his hands who also managed to rip off his own people to the tune of more than a billion dollars. Good riddance.

<comment><USER15> Are you implying that a Nobel Peace Prize winner was, in fact, corrupt?!

(Said sarcastically)

<comment><USER16> Doesn't Obama have one of those?

<comment><USER17> Not to mention Kissinger, cough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that on p. 59 they discuss the theory that the Po-210 was because of smoking, as smokers have twice as much. Conclusion: smoking still wouldn't account for the total amount in some samples, and he wasn't a smoker anyways.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is no motive to the use of Polonium 210.

It was used on Alexander Litvinenko because the Russians wanted to show that they were able and willing to take the life of former agents that attacked their interests.

What motivates the use of a radioactive element that very few possess?

<comment><USER19> > It was used on Alexander Litvinenko because the Russians wanted to show that > they were able and willing to take the life of former agents that attacked > their interests.

Or maybe not. It is very well known that Russian security services brutally murdered Litvinenko, but there is remarkably little evidence. The only evidence, in fact, is that "everyone knows it". What if new data will make you reconsider this well known wisdom?

> What motivates the use of a radioactive element that very few possess?

It is very widely used and easily available.

<comment><USER18> Widely used? Easily available? Where and by who?

<comment><USER20> Right here, by anybody in the U.S.

[http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cP...](http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5&products_id=819)

<comment><USER21> You'd need thousands of those button sources to make a lethal dose of Po-210.

[http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact- sheets/po...](http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact- sheets/polonium.html)

> They are typically in a form that, if ingested, would pose no health > problem, and the radiation is so small that they do not pose a hazard even > if the polonium were to be absorbed. It would take 30,000 of these exempt > quantities to represent the 3-millicurie fatal dose estimate.

Button sources are typically of the size where you wouldn't mind letting undergrads gnaw on them during their physics labs. The worst they could do is choke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's remarkable about Arafat's death is that it came as late in his life (75!) as it did.

Fun fact: I went to school in a building which later became the PLO Embassy.

</comment><comment><USER23> And in Russia they did a parallel investigation that shows no polonium. So as usual, every side of the conflict can pick its own narrative.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/us-palestinians- ar...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/15/us-palestinians-arafat- russia-idUSBRE99E0LN20131015)

<comment><USER24> Did you read the first sentence of that article?

"However, the government scientific body later denied that it had made any official statement about the research, saying only that it had handed its results to the Russian Foreign Ministry."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's is what I know and hold to be true from following the story over the years:

Quite a few high ranking sources in Israel insinuated he died of AIDS. He contracted the disease in the '80s. He was a homosexual and the Israeli intelligence is rumored to have videotaped proof.

Israel had no reason to poison him. After the Karine A affair [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_A_Affair](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_A_Affair) Arafat's reputation was tarnished beyond repair with Western leaders. In later 2004 the intifada was mostly mitigated already. He was no longer a threat politically or militarily. Israel knew he was dying anyway and if you go back and read news reports you can see that over years he received quite a few treatments overseas for cover up diseases.

<comment><USER26> It's very coincidental that somebody would die of AIDS at the same time he had a lethal dose of polonium in his system.

<comment><USER27> If he actually had any polonium.... Because apparently other investigators found none.

<comment><USER28> It is addressed in the opening part of the report. At least give it a shot before debunking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So strange--I went to see what, if anything, Gérard de Villiers had written about the situation, and noticed he just died.

That always happens. I'll try not to think of anyone here.

</comment><comment><USER30> Considering that this material is supposed to degrade quickly - to find the amount they did after so long in the ground is incredible sleuth work.

<comment><USER27> It's not "incredible sleuth work" it's completely impossible - the background radiation is more than what's left.

<comment><USER30> false

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just putting this out there - what if Arafat's body was contaminated after he died .... so that there would be a controversy later and some target could be blamed ? Say it was done just within the few minutes or hours after he died, could the polonium be absorbed into his body far enough that it would look like he was poisoned ?</comment>


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Here's what is blocking Bertha, the world's largest tunneling machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2014/blocking-bertha-worlds-largest-tunneling-machine

<comment><AUTHOR> This is in relation to the previous post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6939710)</comment>


A book claims that Americanisms will have absorbed the English language by 2120 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170904-how-americanisms-are-killing-the-english-language <comment><USER2> When I worked for a multi-national silicon valley based company we got so sick of the creeping Americanisms (to be fair their jargon was worse, they even had a company glossary for it) that we started a game.

We had a tally chart on the wall for anyone who slipped into saying one of them accidentally. I survived for weeks until I rang someone to 'touch base'!

They seemed to have a group policy (or something) that changed the the dictionary in Office back to 'American English' each reboot. I just ignored the coloured (!) underlines and typed the way I wanted as my own personal battle.

I don't actual have a problem with the variant spellings of American English. I have a problem with certain kinds of bad English that happen to seem more prevalent amongst Americans!

1) Verbalisation: "I am hoping to medal in the next Olympics". This sounds to me like they are planning to _meddle_ with it. What is wrong with, "I am hoping to win a medal"?

2) Bi-monthly and bi-weekly. Twice a week or every two weeks? Twice a month or every two months. When you want to hold a meeting every two weeks then perhaps a fortnightly meeting would tell people when they need to be there?

3) Reaching out. To mean making contact. What is wrong with, I wrote to x, I called Y etc.

4) Bootstrapping a business: I get down-voted for this, but this seems to cover everything from, "I'm so rich I didn't need to take outside investment", to "I did this as an add on to my existing business and supported it with our existing funding" to "We started on a server I found in a skip and scaled it up from there until I could quit my job". In most of the cases I have seen it could be replaced with the phrase, "I started a business" without losing any meaning whatsoever.

I should stop annoying you all and do some work

<comment><USER3> My pet peeve is when Americans say "I itched myself" ... you scratched an itch.

> 3) Reaching out. To mean making contact. What is wrong with, I wrote to x, I > called Y etc.

As a young nonnative whipper snapper I think reaching out kinda makes sense in the modern world. We're connected to people in so many ways simultaneously that the way in which we reached out is irrelevant and often forgotten. I don't always know if I called, wrote, emailed, texted, slacked, tweeted, messengered or carrier pigeoned you. I just know I reached out.

And before you say most of those are a form of writing, I think they're often perceived as closer to talking (in person almost) than to writing.

<comment><USER4> you know, scratching damages the skin, numbs it too, but might worsen the itch, so its quite apt if introduced by double tongued nanny types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think I just hurt my eyes from rolling them so far back in my head. Cultures in contact with each other share words. It goes both ways. A quarter or more of the words in English are outright copied from French... oh, but that happened a long time ago.

As an American, I've noticed certain words I associate with British English creeping into our vocabulary as well. In my mind I associate it with Harry Potter and Doctor Who, but I realize Anglophilia is no new thing--these are just the bits of British pop culture that hit me in my early adulthood.

The fact is that British and American English will each remain distinctive, even as they continue to share and evolve together as well. The Internet is definitely making this evolution happen more quickly. But it still goes both ways, and will continue to do so. Some of the changes you'll like and adopt without thinking about, some you will find annoying or crude, some you will hate with a completely irrational passion. It's part of life. Enjoy it!

<comment><USER6> > _I think I just hurt my eyes from rolling them so far back in my head. > Cultures in contact with each other share words. It goes both ways._

Not really, it goes mostly from the direction of the stronger nations to the less strong in the relationship.

And cultures and languages do die out in such processes.

Now, some might find all this inconsequential, but for some of us those things means something (and the fact that historically things change and die anyway isn't more comforting than it is when its told about one's family dying).

What I'm more amazed is how people can lament some latest sequel to a movie franchise "betraying" or losing the spirit of the original or losing its way etc, but at the same time can't understand others that are concerned with whole cultures doing the same.

<comment><USER4> strawman! those aren't necessarily the same people. Edit: But even though, a bit of cognitive dissonance is part of the learning process. I think you are pointing out a true correlation. which is, often times its enough to be popular or just shout the loudest to attract attention, and everything else might follow.

<comment><USER6> > _strawman! those aren 't necessarily the same people._

Well, isn't that a strawman too? Seeing that, I didn't say those are "necessarily" the same people -- just that "some people" hold both opinions simultaneously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a foreign speaker, American English has become the reference. Almost all English sources I use are American. (e.g. movies, tv series, youtube channels...). I try not to use words specific to British English and I set my spellchecker to U.S. English.

It sounds wrong to refer to British English as _the_ English language. There are several English languages that coexist and cross-pollinate.

<comment><USER8> That's interesting. I'm the other way 'round. Mostly because American English has managed to confused the hell out of me. Pronouncing (or softening) "t"s as/into "d"s means many Americans spell accordingly - Tao becomes Dao.

Then there's the impossibility of popular phrases (individual words such as "movie" don't bother me much at all). "What are you hungry for?" simply cannot be. It makes more sense to ask what one feels like eating. Same with "I'm excited for..." Just doesn't make sense. We're excited ABOUT a thing, not FOR a thing. The American propensity to fake it because PR annoys me no end, too. Every time I hear "I'm thrilled to..." I do a little mouth-vomit. There's just NO authenticity behind a statement that starts with those words.

Many more such nuances. Like "He disrespected me" instead of someone being rude, curt or otherwise unfriendly to another (respect is earned).

There are going to be as many opinions about this stuff as there are people.

<comment><USER7> I agree. Now that I think of this, I realize that there are lot of americanisms I would never use. Things such as "I'm gonna" or "dude". I feel it doesn't sound right when you have a heavy foreign accent. Maybe the best thing to do for a non-native English speaker living in the "global world" is to target an English free of local idioms, and a neutral north-american accent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the perspective of a non-native speaker of the language, it seems to me that the United States _is_ English's killer product. A great deal of the credit for the English language's dominance must go to the US and the culture and technology it exports relentlessly all over the world. Far from killing the English language as the author complains, the US might just have made it prevail over similar contenders like Spanish or Mandarin.

<comment><USER8> Let's see how this turns out over the next decade or so. Both the US and the UK have and are slowly withdrawing from the world stage, making English less and less important. Without the UK in the EU, for example, why would English need to remain the common language when German is the most spoken language in Europe?

<comment><USER10> "Both the US and the UK have and are slowly withdrawing from the world stage..."

What a crock...

<comment><USER8> Leaving the EU isn't a withdrawal? Can you elaborate a little more eloquently?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An interesting phenomenon I've noticed is that a lot of people, and often intelligent people, believe that language that have been evolving for thousands of years should, somehow, just stop evolving today.

Interestingly, while one would expect it to be correlated with political belief (conservatives would want language as it was in good old days, progressives would embrace the change) my personal anecdotal evidence says it isn't.

<comment><USER12> Richard Dawkins once tweeted his rule for accepting something new.

If it adds something new to the language, he accepts it. If we already have existing words that do a better job, he rejects it.

This begrudgingly forced him to accept the use of 'like' the way teenage girls use it because they don't mean "this person said", or "I said". They mean some more like "this person said something to the effect of".

<comment><USER11> Interesting. One would expect Dawkins, being an evolutionary biologist and father of the concept of meme, to just accept the change. But he probably wasn't speaking of what should or should not be. Rather about what he's doing himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This has been happening to the English language for the entirety of its existence. The process may have accelerated, but it's the same process that's led to the mishmash of Germanic, Latin and panoply of loanwords that we use every day.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was about to point out how much American TV is broadcast daily in the UK and how that shapes language and culture over here. But I think the complete lack of British online social communities is going to be even more influential. Everyone over here is on facebook, youtube, reddit, etc. Everyone is installing games and apps on their phones with American English phrasing. Aside from reading the bbc, telegraph etc or shopping/banking online, every other bit of online content consumed over here is mostly American centered.

</comment><comment><USER15> 'marvellous' saw something of an ironic renaissance in Australia as a homage to Richie Benaud.

The Spanish cognate 'maravilloso' survives.

<comment><USER16> Because cricket is the number one game in town.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just another special case of erosion of all kinds of diversity as we become globally connected. Biological, linguistic, cultural etc.

If you want to do something about it, and you aren't an American, then preserve what's unique to your place and people. Don't get swept up mindlessly in the global consumerist culture. Merely lamenting is not going to save vanishing diversity.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Engel says. "A nation that outsources the development of its own language – > that language it developed over hundreds of years – is a nation that has > lost the will to live".

I believe something similar applies now to Australian English. Many of the words and phrases, developed over 200 years of unique shared experience, and also incorporated from a diverse range of linguistic immigration, are no longer commonly in use. Or at least not commonly in use amongst the younger urban population, which seems to drive much of the national cultural norms today.

I think the language is poorer for this loss, but also understand it is perhaps an inevitable consequence of constant exposure to the dominant Western global cultural force.

</comment><comment><USER18> How can you "kill" something that constantly evolves?

A hundred years ago modern-day "britishisms" would be viewed as "killing the English language".

Also, what's "British English"? These two are British English:

\- received pronunciation with it's "proper English": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIemPxHSb6Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIemPxHSb6Q)

\- Glasgoans (??) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le_uNGdpa4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le_uNGdpa4c) with "bubblin' and greetin'" and other weird stuff

<comment><USER19> "Glaswegians"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> No doubt we "Americans" have changed the language, for better or worse, but this comment is more about journalism.

I expect more from the BBC than to let a former Bloomberg journalist make generalizations without anything to back it up. "Awesome" occurring more often than "marvelous" doesn't provide us with anything other than the fact that the author appreciates the latter more than the former.

Seems appropriate that I should go write a piece for the BBC on how journalism has declined and how Brits are contributing, and be sure to cite this article.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps it's not obvious to non native British English speakers but the American use of "awesome" to mean something rather different to its traditional British English meaning is very clear and obvious example of 'undesirable' Americanisation of English. Any native speaker of British English would recognize the phenomenon from their own experience but the author provided some actual numbers to back up the reality of this particular linguistic evolution.

It's a change I've personally lamented due to the loss of the word awesome to use for its original meaning without a good replacement.

<comment><USER20> I think what he fails to understand, and many British for that matter, is that the language is not "owned" by anyone. Australians have probably augmented English more than us Americans, but I don't hear or see much complaining about their use of the language. The article comes off as whiny and unsubstantiated.

It's a tough time to be an American, and most people realize that. Exploiting that with bad journalism is just throwing gas onto a trash fire IMO.

edit: More importantly, if Brits want to preserve the language as they see it in their country, they should consider going the French route [1].

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise)

<comment><USER21> I think you're projecting your own concerns onto the author. Certainly language is not owned by anyone (which is why the French approach is stupid) and languages always evolve (as the author acknowledges early in the article). The article is not trying to change American English, it's aimed at a British audience and drawing attention to something that the author fears the British are losing by adopting American English without thinking about the consequences.

I grew up in England but live in Canada and speak quite Americanized English as a result. I've got nothing against Americans or them speaking American English and I don't think the author has either. I do agree with him however that as Brits (and as Canadians in my case) we are losing something valuable by adopting American English unthinkingly and it's worth paying a bit more attention to individually when we use language as a result.

<comment><USER20> > I think you're projecting your own concerns onto the author

It's entirely possible.

> which is why the French approach is stupid

I think there's _some_ merit to what they do, but it is a bit much.

> I do agree with him however that as Brits (and as Canadians in my case) we > are losing something valuable by adopting American English unthinkingly and > it's worth paying a bit more attention to individually when we use language > as a result.

I would agree, but would say the author / BBC could have had more tact and not used the headline, "How Americanisms Are Killing the English Language." If a Japanese news outlet ran an article, "How the British have 'watered' tea down for more than 100 years" \-- not too many Brits would be excited about reading it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> British English is no longer appropriate because it was never properly promulgated in its colonies. Around the world from South Africa to Belize and even in Canada varietal bastardizations of the language have been allowed to emerge creating more English that is not British. Both Spanish and English are languages that have become decentralized and there will never be a global standard in favor of the country where the barefoot barbarians claim to dominate it so completely.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am not sure what is the author trying to convey with the article. I mean... isn't it a feature of languages that they evolve and change with society? I think pretty much every language today is not exactly the same that it was a couple of generations ago so why would we expect it to be what it is now in the future? Or is the complaint just that are the Americas bringing the most changes?

</comment><comment><USER24> Though there are lots of conspicuous imports in e.g. product names, those are just on the surface. It's harder for "supposed to be" to replace "meant to be" than for "ATM" to replace "cash point."

</comment><comment><USER25> This article's giving me the heebie-jeebies.

</comment><comment> d--b It's sad to see such bullshit conservatism from someone who has written for bbc and the guardian. This is the kind of arguments that Brexit backers use. "Let's protect the English language! Let's kick all the foreigners out!"

<comment><USER6> Yeah, because caring for language and culture is fascism. Yay change towards any direction!

<comment> d--b It's not. Fascism is something else entirely.

<comment><USER6> Missed the (non there) /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Misleading title, author equates "English" to "British English".

<comment><USER27> International English.

Supposably, Americans could care less that other English-speaking countries are closer to en-GB than en-US, despite the relentless onslaught of inconsiderate software defaults.

<comment><USER28> _supposedly_ ;) Sorry... being slightly facetious :)

<comment><USER29> I think supposably is a valid word and makes sense in this context.

The meaning overlaps a lot with supposedly, which is much more-commonly used, so it sounds a bit odd.

<comment><USER27> I hope that you, too are being sarcastic. The meaning doesn't overlap, it's the same word, mispronounced.

<comment><USER29> No.

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supposably](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supposably)

<comment><USER28> Supposably is a real word, but the meaning is different.

It is a synonym for "conceivable", whereas supposedly means: "according to what is accepted or believed to be true"

see: [http://www.dictionary.com/e/supposedly-vs- supposably/](http://www.dictionary.com/e/supposedly-vs-supposably/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> No one has done as much damage to English as the English. Maybe its time to let someone else carry the torch for a while. We can't do any worse.</comment>


Ask HN: Remote people: Do you have a constant voice/video call running all day? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> No. That sounds incredibly distracting as well as fairly awkward.

</comment><comment><USER3> Last company I worked for a as "remote worker" had three tools you had to switch on all the time: Flock, Slack and Skype. For actual conference calls etc. more tools were used ad hoc.

All the interruptions and constant onslaught of messages were very distracting and hampering productivity. After a while I had the phantom ringing syndrome where I looked up the tools all the time even when no message arrived.

Companies require remote workers to use those to exert control (to make sure they are online/at work) but it backfires as no high quality creative work is possible when you add so many stressors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, Flock, Slack and Skype at the same time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nope. Being sync, and being so extremely "sync" like that is just detrimental for remote work. You have to go async in order to really leverage the benefits from remote work in your organization.

</comment><comment><USER5> No. I find that invasive. I would honestly quit if that were to become a requirement.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to, but it drove me slowly insane. It wasn't all day every day, it was one day a week for about 4 hours in the afternoon. Everyone is in a conference room, working on laptops, munching on food, discussing things, etc. There's usually a standup round. And then there's a few remote people like me.

I didn't want to be a remote worker (which is why I relocated), and this just reinforces it. This meeting is working with a remote team in our same project but in a different location. It's really hard to communicate over teleconference with meetings/groups. The microphones either pick up some noise or side conversation, if you can hear the other person at all. And the lag can be very tiresome. Whiteboards are also liabilities.

Even just trying to listen in on the background and tune it out when I wasn't being talked with was hard.

I really would advise against it. I find slack to be more useful and less distracting.

</comment><comment><USER7> I did, it was non-mandatory and most of the (small) company would be on the call each day. I would turn my camera off and opt for just audio, but others would leave theirs on.

I enjoyed it for being able to have a quick back and forth when I had a question for something that was stopping my current task. Alternatively, I would be waiting on an unknown response time to a chat message which lead to a lot more task switching mid progress. But most of all, I just enjoyed the general talk that comes from being on a non-specific all day call - sports, family, news, etc. I learnt a lot more about my work mates that I otherwise wouldn't have, which made us closer and work more enjoyable, plus working remotely can just get lonely sometimes.

I say all this and must mention that this call would happen daily for 6 months or so, but has slowly lost participants or only happens every other day as the company changes/grows. For me, I would like to see it come back!

</comment><comment><USER8> I was a remote full-time solo developer for a client (small UK-based medical team) for 6 years. All work done over email; 2 phone calls in all those years.

Could some things be done faster over a phone call? Probably. However, both me and the client preferred the async nature of emails and avoided calls as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> No. I would never work like that. In all the projects I have been doing remotely we have used email, wiki, and occasional online meeting or phone meeting. It has always worked great, even with people from a completely different timezone (day/night difference).

</comment><comment><USER10> We communicate by Slack, email and Zoom. I routinely turn mine off for hours at a time and no one complains because they respect that we need to do focused work. I would love to cut down on non-essential meetings, but that's a stretch.

</comment><comment><USER11> Not all day, but we do have some time (timezone crossover) when people can join a conference to talk about anything. We also do party line conference if we feel like it - basically an invitation for anyone to drop in and pair on something.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes. A good portion of our team sits in Mexico and India. They find it easier to collaborate with the US based staff through an always on WebEx. We typically will keep the conference phone muted and the remote folks mute their individual mics. Each US based team has a dedicated webcam that stays on. When a remote person needs someone they can just un-mute their mic and speak to whoever is at the table.This works well for us. Some remote folks leave their cameras on and others turn it off. We also utilize Microsoft Teams. The tools are there and it is up to the individual to determine how they want to use them.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've tried it and I think it works great for a closenitted team. I'd have some reservations for a company-wide session.

Related: if you need someone for accountability purposes, this is a great service: [https://www.focusmate.com](https://www.focusmate.com)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Recently I've been seen more people that are having an always on zoom/slack call that anybody can join to discuss whatever they want.

I find this quite intriguing and don't know if this is a trend or just for some specific use cases... anybody else doing that?

</comment><comment><USER14> No. We call each other as needed, either on Slack, Jitsi or other similar platforms. Sometimes, I get Loom.com screen casts from colleagues if they have something to show me which that be responded to asynchronously.

</comment><comment><USER15> No. That would be extremely distracting, and make it harder for me to concentrate on doing my job.

Leaving Slack and an email client open in the background works fine as it is.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nope, but we have a fairly active Slack channel that we use, so we just put things in text.

Having that on my work PC and IRC on my personal really gets mind-boggling.

</comment><comment><USER17> No. Sounds terrible.</comment>


An Artist Who Obsessed the FBI - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/13/the-artist-who-obsessed-the-fbi.html <comment><USER2> > "Nonetheless, after a perfunctory investigation lasting two days that > consisted of brief interviews with Lombardi's girlfriend, Hilary Maslon, and > Lombardi's parents, the Williamsburg police declared the death a suicide. > The studio door, securely locked from the inside, showed no signs of forced > entry except for the transom the police had opened themselves. Lombardi's > body was not marked by struggle, and the hasty autopsy determined that his > injuries were consonant with having hanged himself."

While it's easy to cry "conspiracy theory, everybody was in on it!" I generally believe the majority of these types of deaths, if they are actually shady, do not involve local law enforcement as co-conspirators whatsoever, regardless of the people who want to believe.

It seems that the upsides for actually following rabbit holes in these types of circumstances are little to none for local law enforcement. If you're a local law enforcement agency with little resources, what's a better outcome for the image of your agency? Take Occam's razor, even under suspicious circumstances, send the body to the morgue, and call it done, or send one of your detectives into the labyrinth?

Sending the detective into the labyrinth has two risks, both of which are bad. You'll either end up blowing a bunch of time on a conspiracy where one does not exist, or, in the case that there is, you will probably just end up sending a detective into a world of classified disaster and end up collateral damage of a much more powerful, much more insidious organization. Either way, probing further means you'll lose face. Most will choose the path of least resistance.

<comment><USER3> If you are ever doing anything political for which there might be retaliation, put yourself under constant surveillance... these days this can be done for a few bucks maybe $50/month and multiple camera all around you can watch your every move and send everything to the cloud. Make it much more difficult to get you without leaving behind plenty of evidence.

<comment><USER4> If anyone else knows it's there or to even look for it. Never underestimate your local law enforcement's ability to go 'yup, it's a suicide' right off the bat and not look any further. Because any cloud based accounts are apt to be secured with strong encryption and passwords your friends may not be able to gain access to your accounts.

<comment><USER5> I imagine anybody who would go through the trouble to stream everything to the cloud would also bother to setup a dead man's switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking for someone with knowledge on what happened regarding BCCI's involvement with Saudi Arabian money.

Throwaway account, email firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER7> _>..if he had indeed been dead for more than 24 hours, the active ingredients in both Tylenol and alcohol would have metabolized out of his body_

This doesn't sound right. Wouldn't metabolism cease at death?

</comment><comment><USER8> That title makes as much sense as "An Artist Who Addicting the FBI".

<comment><USER9> It's fine. "Obsess" has a transitive meaning. "1\. to dominate or preoccupy the thoughts, feelings, or desires of (a person); beset, trouble, or haunt persistently or abnormally: _Suspicion obsessed him._ " [0]

[0] [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obsess](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obsess)

<comment><USER8> I think it's the inclusion of the word "who" that throws me, making it sound like the act of obsession was directly effected by the artist.</comment></comment></comment>


Network Analysis of Wes Anderson's Stable of Actors - <AUTHOR> https://dhintro18.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2018/11/06/ten-things-network-analysis-of-wes-andersons-stable-of-actors/ <comment><USER2> This "analysis" is so much worse than what Wikipedia has:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Anderson#Recurring_collabo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Anderson#Recurring_collaborators)

A table makes a lot more sense for this kind of content. The graph looks very messy and it's hard to get anything out of it quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> This served as a great demo into Google's Fusion Tables so that was cool! Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Using math to choose a mate - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10309716-71.html

<comment><USER2> There's a _huge_ problem with this though. From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem> : "There are n applicants for the position, and the value of n is known."

That is categorically false when talking about marriage. How do you define "potential life partners"? Is that anyone of the appropriate sex? Anyone who meets your criteria (but potentially you don't meet theirs?).

Further, the number of people you will meet is a function both of time, and of the probability that you will meet a new person on any given day. Then there's the issue that your desirability is non-linear over time, based on age, experience, etc.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume I could seriously date 1-3 people a year (other people might go slower/faster, but that seems like about how long it takes for me to get to know someone in that context), with an average of 2. Assuming I start seriously dating at 18, and want to get married before 28, I've got 20 potential mates to evaluate.

So, the 'algorithm' is that I should date as many as I can (each for just enough time to be able to order them ) till I am ~22 (1/e*20/2 ~ 3.7 years), and then between 22-28 only date women long enough to compare her to all the women I dated from 18-22. If she is better, I should marry her. Otherwise, move on ASAP.

Of course, I've already 'failed' miserably at that plan (e.g., a 3 year relationship from 19-22), but that's what the math says you should do ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They are talking about: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem> is also interesting (Residency programs use it to match up students to hospitals)

<comment><USER4> Hm, I think the next time Google has a job opening, I'll let some time pass before I send in my application :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the approach described in this article, which is, in fact, "Take some time to look around and then choose." Choose too soon -- you don't have a relevant criterion. Wait too long -- you might have already missed the best units.

I wonder if there is an insight into the actual model behind the resulting change_mode_number = total/euler_number formula?</comment>


Hacking Laws are Silly, don't click this link - <AUTHOR> https://breakthelaw.xyz/ <comment><USER2> The poll on the "What is this?" page is pretty stupid.

Legal Poll:

Is it illegal to walk into someone else's home uninvited if the door is wide open?

No door, no locks, no guard dog, no "no trespassers" sign at all. Is walking into someone else's house illegal?

\---

This isn't precisely the same situation, but it's pretty close. Regarding the actual poll (accessing a completely open MongoDB database), the question I have for you is how did you find that database? If someone posted a link to it saying "hey here's my database, feel free to take a look" then by all means go look at it. If you go portscanning the internet and find the database, it probably wasn't intended for you to access it.

> _It 's important to understand where the lines are, is it illegal for a > security researcher to stumble across a completely unsecured database? And > then view the records in it?_

Stumbling across it is fine. Once they know it's there, why does this "security researcher" need to go snooping through the actual data?

Even when attacking a system that has a real bug bounty and invites security researchers to access it, the rules generally prohibit actually poking around customer data. Once you verify that you are capable of accessing the data, that's where you stop, you don't _actually look at it_.

<comment><USER3> > No door, no locks, no guard dog, no "no trespassers" sign at all. Is walking > into someone else's house illegal?

I believe that in the UK, trespassing isn't actually illegal[0] (but aggravated trespassing is).

0: [https://greenandblackcross.org/guides/laws/5-trespass- aggrav...](https://greenandblackcross.org/guides/laws/5-trespass-aggravated- trespass/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > if (counter == 34) { $("#messages").append(invite) }

You could at least made it 42

<comment><USER5> Maybe the reference to rule 34 was more appealing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> UK's Computer Misuse Act of 1990</comment>


Night School: How regulators undermined a transportation startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/night-school-failed-because-it-followed-law

<comment><USER3> Didn't like that article. Spent the entire thing waiting for exactly WHY they shut down but got no real explanation. This is the entire meat of the article:

> But less than two weeks later, the week of its planned launch, Night School > was postponed indefinitely while its founders grappled with the CPUC, which > claimed the start-up was not properly licensed as a passenger carrier.

And that is literally the only explanation you get for what the regulators did and why it caused them to scuttle the entire project. The entire rest of the article is just crying about other car pooling services and complaining about over-regulation in general.

Would like to read an article about Night School and why they weren't able to operate under the regulation, this article just isn't it. It contains little information and a ton of fluff.

<comment><USER4> That's the only explanation, but why you need more? If CPUC doesn't give your permission to operate, the only choice for you is either go the Uber way and just ignore CPUC or shut down. The founders of Night School couldn't do the former, so they did the latter.

As for why CPUC withheld the license, I'm not sure the founders even know. I'm pretty sure they were presented with the very diverse array of paragraphs and checkboxes, without which it is impossible for them to operate, and these achieved their goal - the disruptors despaired and went away, letting the bureaucracy get back to its comfortable slumber. The founders could, of course, try to fight, hire a fixer[1], start a press campaign - but sometimes it's just not worth it. People tried to do good, but the bureaucrats said - <USER2> thanks, not on our turf. I think the picture is pretty clear.

[1] somebody like this: [http://gideonstrumpet.info/?p=7201](http://gideonstrumpet.info/?p=7201)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The company would use the public school buses that sit unused in parking > lots on the weekends, and charge $8 per ride or $15-20 per month for > unlimited service (the price points fluctuated).

The real outrage would be if a private company were allowed to run a for- profit transit service using public property, and an unlicensed one at that.

<comment><USER4> Of course, it's better than the property is not used at all, and the people remain without proper transportation - but at least the worst is avoided, nobody is making a profit. That would be the worst, and thankfully, it is averted, whatever the cost.</comment></comment>