Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/opinion/transaction-costs-and-tethers-why-im-a-crypto-skeptic.html <comment><USER2> > So that's why I'm a crypto skeptic. Could I be wrong? Of course. But if you > want to argue that I'm wrong, please answer the question, what problem does > cryptocurrency solve?

Secure, trustless, decentralized consensus. Or in practical terms - a ledger database that everyone can write into without having to trust third parties to maintain correctness.

It's strange author doesn't seem to attribute any value to solution to that problem.

It's also strange author doesn't know it has very strong link to reality - security of the system is proportional to hasrate.

Seems like just another case of a guy arguing without having understanding on the topic?

<comment><USER3> > Seems like just another case of a guy arguing without having understanding > on the topic?

At best he is ignorant, at worst he is perpetuating the current monetary system(s) which is in a macroprudential[1] policy mode - not good - as many of us can see around us daily.

Aside from the truth of there being more money owed with interest (as a debt) than current money in circulation with which to pay that debt off (results in either #1 forced defaults on loans at some time in the future or #2 a feedback cycle with bursts of new loans created to pay off the previous debts without the forced defaults of #1) the current dollar system and all modern currencies are directly harmful to the population and indirectly harmful in a number of ways. I cant stay on here all night but seek elucidation elsewhere if you are interested. Macro voices the podcast does a pretty good job.

I don't think all the kings horses and all the kings men will be able to stop bitcoin from success or the dollar from failure but what always astonishes me are the endless arguments for inflation being good for the economy when its basically how the government pays off its outrageous debt by stealing from the elderly, disabled and anyone with a fixed income. And its not just the benefactors of the system, there are volunteer robot numskulls repeating this hypothetical garbage every day on the internet about inflation when really it just allows the government to sustain itself by getting senior citizens to eat dog food.

People need to stop letting themselves be tricked into exchanging their time, youth, skills and labor for tokens that are guaranteed to be devalued, its been over 100 years now and none of us know anything different. :(

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

<comment><USER4> The solution to the problem you described is financial literacy, not decentralized MLMs.

Nothing stopping people parking their savings (if any) in mutual funds, Bitcoin HODLing is not the only choice for protection against inflation.

I would argue that it's not even protection, b/c nothing guaranties that artificially-limited supply model will work in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > And these costs aren't incidental, something that can be innovated away. As > Brunnermeier and Abadi point out, the high costs — making it expensive to > create a new Bitcoin, or transfer an existing one — are essential to the > project of creating confidence in a decentralized system.

No they aren't. See: Proof of stake, Lightning network.

> Bitcoin is real without knowing who issued it, so you need the digital > equivalent of biting a gold coin to be sure it's the real deal, and the > costs of producing something that satisfies that test have to be high enough > to discourage fraud.

This is a pretty wildly inaccurate analogy of why the Bitcoin network uses mining.

> Bear in mind that conventional money generally does its job quite well. > Transaction costs are low.

To pay in cash, yes. To pay digitally? You're paying high credit card fees. So, no, not really.

> The purchasing power of a dollar a year from now is highly predictable – > orders of magnitude more predictable than that of a Bitcoin.

Disingenuous argument. If the US dollar were invented 10 years ago, it'd be highly volatile today too. The fact that Bitcoin is volatile today is only relevant if you are going to argue that that volatility is _inherent_ to cryptocurrencies. An argument which may be valid, but that Paul fails to make.

> Using a bank account means trusting a bank, but by and large banks justify > that trust, far more so than the firms that hold cryptocurrency tokens.

Because using a cryptocurrency does not require trusting _anyone_.

> But gold does have real-world uses, both for jewelry and for things like > filling teeth, that provide a weak but real tether to the real economy.

You mean the way darknet markets provide a weak but real tether to the real economy? You literally _just_ enumerated Bitcoin's tether's to the real economy. Also, the idea that the gold market is in any way meaningfully tethered to its industrial usage is a complete joke.

There are really great arguments against Bitcoin and crypto-currencies. All of which Paul Krugman completely fails to make in this piece. The best of which he's positioned to make, too! Bitcoin is a deflationary asset - that's a real problem for anything trying to be a currency. That's a great case against it, and one close to Krugman's heart.

This article is seriously disappointing.

<comment><USER6> > To pay in cash, yes. To pay digitally? You're paying high credit card fees. > So, no, not really.

I wonder what high credit card fees you are talking about. As a _consumer_ , I pay none of them. In fact, I get money back every time I purchase something with my credit card (in addition to getting a bunch of other benefits, like purchase protection, extended insurance/warranty, ability to charge back, etc).

As far as I know, none of this is available in the cryptocurrency world, and more importantly, all of the cryptocurrencies that I know of do charge a transaction fee, which cannot compete with $0 flat (not to mention cash back).

Crypto currencies have interesting features, but low transaction fees vs CC isn't one of them.

<comment><USER5> > I wonder what high credit card fees you are talking about. As a consumer, I > pay none of them.

That's not how economics works. You are still paying.

<comment><USER7> Do you though? Except for gas, everything I buy costs the same whether I pay cash or credit. If a store started accepting bitcoins, I doubt they're going to recalculate the price to be lower than the cash price because you don't have a credit card transaction fee.

<comment><USER5> We collectively pay, as a society. Credit card fees are a tax on commerce.

<comment><USER8> Except that the bulk of the fees to the merchant are paid back out to cardholders in the form of rewards and cashback. So it's closer to a wash.

<comment><USER5> Visa still managed to make $15 billion in gross profit last year. Seems pretty significant to me.

<comment><USER8> On $7.4 trillion in volume. So about 0.2%.

<comment><USER5> I'd call that a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course Krugman can't see what problem cryptocurrencies are supposed to solve. That's because the problem they are supposed to solve--government manipulation of money--is not something he sees as a problem.

<comment><USER10> It's fine for currencies with responsible governance. In some countries like Venezuela, cryptocoins would be useful. But oppressive regimes with currency controls are also likely to control access to the internet and/or block chain networks. So, in practice does it make up for an irresponsible central bank? Hard to say.

<comment><USER11> My problem is with how new money is distributed. It's given to banks to lend at interest rates higher than they borrow it from the fed.

I'd love to borrow money at nearly 0% interest and then turn around and lend it at 5% or even 15% interest. That'd be awesome.

How people can not see this as an elitist plutocratic system is beyond me. Of course the systems it replaced were also elitist and plutocratic and so far cryptocurrency appears to be turning out that way as well, so this remains an unsolved problem.

<comment><USER12> That's not how it works. The 5% or 15% is the cost of risk over the risk free rate that they are getting it at. If there is sufficient interbank competition this is a market determined rate.

A central bank injects the money via the banking system because they cannot give it to arbitrary winners and losers, they are not in a position to price granular risk, and that is the normal function of a working banking system.

<comment><USER9> _> A central bank injects the money via the banking system because they cannot give it to arbitrary winners and losers_

No, a central bank injects the money via the banking system as a hidden subsidy to banks and other financial institutions.

If a central bank really wanted to make printing money neutral (i.e., not picking any winners or losers), it would use newly printed money to increase every single person's dollar holdings by the same percentage.

<comment><USER11> AFIAK that kind of "money from helicopters" approach is something I've heard discussed by progressive economists, but until quite recently it was not technically feasible to do this fairly. It would still be pretty hard to implement.

<comment><USER12> The money from helicopters approach is better done on the fiscal side. Except the guy in the US who wanted to do it was cock-blocked by his opponents for 6 years and in the EU they are handcuffed by various laws. Still, by comparison of US vs. EU, even dumping the money into the banking system vs. austerity was the better way to go. The EU wasted 2-3 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > If you like, fiat currencies have underlying value because men with guns say > they do. And this means that their value isn't a bubble that can collapse if > people lose faith.

Until the value does collapse that is, just look at <how many?> examples of hyperinflation in my lifetime.

<comment><USER14> Depending on your age and what exactly you count, probably around 5ish.

<comment><USER15> _Depending on your age and what exactly you count, probably around 5ish._

Maybe he's from Brazil? Maybe he's 76+ years old? If so, then I think there were 5 "ish" 1000x devaluations in that single country in his lifetime.

I never lived in Brazil but knew people who did. Some quick checking Wiki for dates, I probably missed some devaluations?:

       1942 cruzeiro replaces real at 1000x

       1967 new cruzeiro replaces old at 1000x

       1986 cruzado replaces second cruzeiro at 1000x

       1989 cruzado novo replaces cruzado at 1000x

       1993 cruzeiro real replaces cruzado at 1000x

Pick another random country in Latin America and you probably see the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nick Szabo, who some people thought might be Satoshi, wrote an interesting essay/paper on "micropayments and mental transaction costs" for those interested:

[https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/micropayments- and-...](https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/micropayments-and-mental- transaction-costs.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> Krugman, in a real way, is why Bitcoin exists.

He literally advocated a housing bubble. (Broken Window fallacy)

The housing bubble collapsed causing bailouts of banks.

Bitcoin is a direct response to this nationalization of private losses. Not to mention the century of financial corruption that preceded it.

Satoshi was not coy.

The genesis block contains the text: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks".

Of course Krugman is a "skeptic".

Bitcoin repudiates his entire career, ideology and work, and is having a significant positive impact in the world.

Unlike Krugman.

Every year bitcoin continues it gets stronger, it rewards supporters and forces the corrupt banking system Krugman endorses into the light a bit more.

Krugman and other nocoiners hate bitcoin?

Bitcoin don't care.

This is what you have to understand about bitcoin:

Bitcoin doesn't have to care.

It's the first real tool of individual financial sovereignty.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not a crypto skeptic: things like encryption, one-way hashing, etc. are extremely important, fundamental technologies with loads of math and experience behind them. They work, and should be used widely.

Crypto-currencies are a totally different story. For one, many of them are scammy rich quick schemes that have used greed to influence the technically unsaavy to corrupt the English language.

</comment><comment><USER19> In science if a theory doesn't work in practice then the theory is wrong.

In economics if reality does not conform to theory then it's reality thats at fault

No I'm not saying bitcoin is the future but millions of users are freely choosing to use this system seems to count for nothing against some theoretical failings in Krugman's eyes.

<comment><USER20> There aren't millions of users freely choosing to use this system. There are millions of speculators hoping that some day billions of users will freely choose to use this system and that <insert giant leap of logic> these particular instances of this system won't be replicated ad infinitum and somehow all economic activity on the planet will settle on these initial implementations.

<comment><USER19> I won't speak for all users but I've used it to accept payment for selling used stuff on gumtree (very handy for this). It's also very useful for sending money overseas which I've also done. I don't think I'm a special case which is why I wouldn't miss the forest for the speculators and dismiss the motivations of millions.

I also live in a country that wants to pursue land expropriation without compensation based on skin colour. Having a bank account that no one but me can access is quite appealing right now.

So I'm not using it to spite your worldview - it's been genuinely useful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are good reasons to be skeptical of some things in the cryptocurrency world, but whenever I see people high in the existing financial system talking this way about it I can't help but think of RIAA executives in the late 1990s arguing that the Internet should be shut down.

</comment><comment><USER21> Crypto skeptics always discount the value of the network.

>If speculators were to have a collective moment of doubt, suddenly fearing that Bitcoins were worthless, well, Bitcoins would become worthless.

It wouldn't though. The bitcoin network itself has a non-zero value.

<comment><USER22> What's the value of the bitcoin network itself (its computing power?), and how does the holding of bitcoins give any right on this value?

<comment><USER23> Value is subjective. But you could say that the Bitcoin network has a price: the sum of the price of the miner hardware and electricity usage.

<comment><USER22> Yes, well, I can imagine that under the assumption that people loose "faith" in Bitcoin, it's still possible to assign a "value" to the Bitcoin network, e.g. the hardware that makes it (miners and nodes) -- I wouldn't count the electricity usage as part of its __value __, though. But the point is that holding units of Bitcoin, i.e. knowing the secrets that allow spending them, does not give any rights on those hardware assets, so the value of the network cannot provide a lower bound to the value of Bitcoin units, in the same way that industrial or jewelry usages of gold does give it a lower valuation bound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is kind of a disingenuous story. Coins were not particularly burdensome, relative to paper. Gold is light. Anyway, people always used credit mostly.

A phoenician ship at a minoan harbor didn't need to buy gold in order to trade purple dyes for bronze ingots and olive oil. They used hardor-credit or _something_. It was probably "gold backed" too, in the sense that it was denominated in gold or silver even if no metals were present.

Money and credit are intertwined. We can always make money by loaning it to eachother.

I think both the crypto-libertarian sm and Krugman's veiled response to it miss that point. Also, neither have much to do with cryptocurrency's success or lack thereof.

</comment><comment><USER25> >But if you want to argue that I'm wrong, please answer the question, what problem does cryptocurrency solve? Don't just try to shout down the skeptics with a mixture of technobabble and libertarian derp.

"Technobabble" and "libertarian derp" are pejoratives clearly designed to shut down the conversation in certain places. He can use those terms to disregard basically any argument, as Bitcoin is both technical and libertarian in nature.

</comment><comment><USER26> Obligatory quote from the same author made in 1998:

> _The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in > 'Metcalfe's law' — which states that the number of potential connections in > a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants — > becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or > so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been > no greater than the fax machine's_

EDIT: Really? Downvoted for stating a true context fact?

<comment><USER27> I dunno. I think it's fair to say he had a point about people running out of things to say to each other. His main mistake seems to have been not to realize that people would carry on doing it anyways.

<comment><USER26> > I think it's fair to say he had a point about people running out of things > to say to each other

Reddit, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp even HN disagree.</comment></comment></comment>


This Is Why People Fear the 'Internet of Things' - <AUTHOR> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/02/this-is-why-people-fear-the-internet-of-things/ <comment><USER2> ...as we ought to. Internet of Things Designed To Spy On You. Yay.</comment>


IPhone background applications - the solution, sort of - <AUTHOR> http://www.solidstategroup.com/page/2730/company/tech-blog/posts/iphone-background-applications-the-solution-sort-of

<comment><USER2> this sounds like a great idea to me. it is a kind of middle ground between power/bandwidth hogging apps updating themselves all the time and the complete silence everyone is subjected to now.

the follow on to the main 'update all' icon, which is kind of a 'force sync now' option, which is a user defined sync definition on a per application basis is the big win.

apple - listen up and expose some update scheduling apis!</comment>


NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor details leaked - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/18/nvidia-tegra-4-processor-leak-4-plus-1-quad-core-28nm/ <comment><USER2> I don't really understand why we are putting this kind of computational power in mobile phones. I mean, for the daily usage of almost everyone, I don't even see the difference between a Samsung Galaxy S3 (or an iPhone 5) and my phone which is a Wiko Cink Slim. Yes the phone I'm using is only dual-core at 1 GHz and not a 1.5 GHz quad-core, yes it "only" has 512 Mo of RAM instead of 1 or 2 Go, yes its screen pixel density is less impressive (but still more than two times better than what we have on laptop screens). But I actually can't see a difference when I'm using it: it is as fluid and as responsive. The main difference I see is that I paid my phone less than 150€ while the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone 5 are four times more expensive than that.

<comment><USER3> Because 64 KB of RAM should be enough for everybody, right? Common, just because phones seem fast enough for everything right now, there's always the next killer app lurking around the corner waiting for a little increase in performance to happen. What about really good AR? You think that's gonna be cheap on the hardware? Or driving external monitors, using as phone as laptop replacement, with a full blown OS? HN of all places should understand this!

<comment><USER4> "Come on" or "C'mon" or , not "Common".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My question is if this amounts to 1/6 the battery life.

I personally don't care for gfx intensive mobile games, i would rather OEM's focus on efficiency rather then raw power. But thats just my 2 cents.

<comment><USER6> More interesting to me in this regard are the "4+1" cores. The +1 is a low- powered standby core. I don't know if it's new, but if not, it could change the battery life profile quite a bit.

<comment><USER7> The Tegra 3 had this feature and appears to work relatively well according to [http://www.anandtech.com/show/5779/htc-one-x-for-att- review/...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/5779/htc-one-x-for-att-review/3)

<comment><USER8> If i'm not mistaken, that review is for One X for att, which doesn't have Tegra 3 in it. It does have data for Tegra 3 (One X international version), but it doesn't seem to support the claim that Tegra 3 is more power efficient because of the +1 core.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe not more efficient than everything else out there, but more efficient than if it used 4 cores only - especially at that 40 nm process. I think Samsung's Exynos processor was a bit more efficient, even though it didn't have the 5th core, but it was made at 32nm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 6x seems like a big difference; it makes me wish Ouya had waited a few months.

<comment><USER10> > 6x seems like a big difference

From the user's point of view, maybe not. If you do not do anything which requires much CPU power, then the difference may be between waiting 6 milliseconds and waiting 1 millisecond. I believe the parent's question was to know which kind of task requires the CPU power.

<comment><USER11> Parent is talking about the GPU performance; there are six times more graphics cores. The use case for OUYA, a games console, requiring more graphics power is surely obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really wish someone with the skill and the money would build a C64/Atari 800/Acorn-style computer with one of these. I bet sub-$100 would be a possibility.

<comment><USER4> Do you mean a device where the expectation is that the user will do his own programming? I don't see the need for special hardware. Just make apps that make programming more accessible. Or even just emulate the old hardware.

<comment><USER12> I think programming will be more accessible if there is sub $100 hardware that allows a person to program it out of the box. Apps that make programming more accessible need to run on something and the entry price to programming is not as cheap as it was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Tegra 4 is based on the Cortex A15, and the A15 makes things very interesting for high-power ARM mobile computing. The A15 supports hardware virtualization, and already has preliminary support in QEMU/KVM. A tablet with hardware virtualization support would be very interesting (well, at least to me :))</comment>


My Product Feedback - <AUTHOR> http://massivegreatness.com/mobile

<comment><USER2> My response to this: [http://www.businessinsider.com/sequoia-capital-jim- goetz-on-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/sequoia-capital-jim-goetz-on- enterprise-startups-2012-9)

Mobile is a clear choice for apps targeted at the consumer market.

However, there is still huge opportunities in the B2B and enterprise market. It depends on the problem you're solving, but in most cases the desktop is still the natural place to _start_ if you're going after business users. Examples: Basecamp, Salesforce, Kissmetrics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like his market research is purely based upon himself. To expand the control group to 2, I have a smartphone but only use it secondarily when I dont have access to my laptop - to me poking around on a 4 inch screen is usually an inferior experience in many cases.

Smart phones and tablets are decent for consumption but their main limitation is screen real estate and efficient user input (which usually refers to typing). It really is a case by case basis (whats the product, who are your users, etc) and usually the answer is that you're going to want to be well represented across all typical client types.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is dreadfully wrong. There's a bunch of activity in the healthcare space, which is currently heavily reliant on pen and paper. They will soon transition to PC's, many institutions already have, and the results will be dramatic. Mobile will play an important role, but most likely in conjunction with desktop based devices that people work from, because of the extent of typing that remains involved.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's something called target customer segmentation. If building for consumers, do a website and/or mobile which are great for consumption (hence the name consumers). If building a "creation" app for businesses (ie. payroll mgmt, Photoshop, etc.) then do a desktop and/or website with perhaps a simplified companion mobile app.</comment>


Ask HN: Does YC blog has an expired SSL certificate? - <AUTHOR> Am I the only one to have a chrome warning about https://blog.ycombinator.com/ to be not secure/invalid SSL certificate? <comment><USER2> I see the same error. You must contact email@example.com because this threads sometimes go unnoticed.

[I'm not 100% sure that info@ is the correct address for technical problems, but it's listed as the official YC address so they will know how to forward the tip to the technical team.]

</comment><comment><USER3> Chrome warning about YC blog has been resolved, I can see SSL certificate is activated for another 3 months from 18 June to 16 September

</comment><comment><USER4> The certificate is expired, it may be an issue with the automated certificate renewal process.</comment>


Introducing Britecharts: Eventbrite's reusable charting library based on D3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.eventbrite.com/engineering/introducing-britecharts/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm excited our team have pushed this through to an open-source release - we've been evolving it internally for over a year.

Particularly notable: this had a ton of collaboration from our design team, so if you're interested in charts that have had plentiful input from actual designers you should take a look!

</comment><comment><USER2> I was chatting with one of the developers on this project this morning and seeing how we could integrate it into one of our projects. He mentioned that a simple js bundle version is coming soon so that you can just include it and start playing without having to worry about npm.</comment>


Life in New York City, Where Arrests Are Down and Tickets Are Rarities - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/nyregion/life-in-new-york-city-where-arrests-are-down-and-tickets-are-rarities.html <comment><USER2> I work in Manhattan and visit fairly shitty areas of Brooklyn and Queens regularly. These past few weeks have been the first time since I moved here that I've felt safe in the presence of cops. I'd read about enforcement being down just after the funeral for the officers shot in the Bronx but it really didn't click until a pair of them walked down the street by me in Chelsea. They didn't look at my SO like they were ready to beat the shit out of him for once. They were actually laughing and looked approachable.

I think all this little passive aggressive "protest" will prove is that the world isn't going to end when the police stop hassling the young, non-white and homeless. I'm surprised they don't realize they're pulling the curtain back on their own charade.

<comment><USER3> I'm suspecting that it will eventually prove that those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.

NYC in the '70s and '80s was not that safe. Street crime, muggings, etc. were common. In the 1990s Giuliani stepped up patrols and sarted enforcing what most people thought were petty crimes, such as loitering, graffiti, parking violations, subway-gate-jumping, etc. with the effect that more serious crimes also decreased, and within several years NYC became one of the safest big cities.

<comment><USER4> The "broken windows" theory of police enforcement doesn't stand up when compared to other Western cities. A big part of the "broken windows" theory is that small crimes, such as graffiti, created an atmosphere that allowed worse crimes to happen. And yet, if you visit Berlin, you will see a city with a shocking amount of graffiti, but very little crime. If you visit parts of London you'll see run down industrial districts, but very little crime.

Even if you confine your analysis to the USA, the "broken windows" theory of crime does not explain the relative shift in crime towards the suburbs, nor does it explain the increasing epidemic of drugs in rural areas. There is a lot that it does not explain, so it should be treated with suspicion. A theory that only explains one data point is not a theory at all.

Most Western nations have seen decreases in crime during since the late 1980s. The USA had the most crime, and the USA has seen the biggest decrease. No one knows why. New York City has seen the biggest decrease of all the big cities, but figuring out why, given the extremely multi-variate nature of the problem, will be extremely difficult to do. Even those theories that attempt to explain the decline of crime in the USA (aging of the population, Roe vs Wade, unleaded gasoline, change in police tactics) fail to explain why New York City should see the largest decrease in crime, since one can find other cities, for any of those variables, that saw larger changes than New York City.

<comment><USER5> > A bit part of the "broken windows" theory is that small crimes, such as > graffiti, created an atmosphere that allowed worse crimes to happen.

I've always been confused as to why the broken windows theory presumes that the window is broken because of malicious action. It seems obvious to me that the window was broken accidentally, and as such, the correct response (in police action and otherwise) is to repair the window. Full stop.

<comment><USER6> You're taking it a little too literally. The theory is that once a situation seems less maintained, people will normalize that state and allow it to decline further.

It's essentially a slippery slope argument, though I do think there's a _little_ bit of psychological truth to the argument. But I also think there's a really high cost for trying to keep things perfect.

<comment><USER7> The cost is in cultural adaptation, not police work. Singapore has a high standard of public appearance and behavior. It comes at a cost. But they did succeed in creating the social norm. Without that the police effort is endless.

<comment><USER6> That's what I meant, though maybe with a different spin. The cultural adaptation to a grossly over-aggressive police force is the major cost: fear, oppression, distrust, etc.

As far as Singapore goes, I don't have a ton of experience there to comment. If their standards end up leading the police to proactively treat people like criminals, then I suppose I wouldn't like that very much.

Worth noting that Asian culture in general seems to have much more of a "compromise the individual for the good of the whole" component, though. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a poor fit with our cultural expectations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let me add this article: [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the- bene...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-benefits-of- fewer-nypd-arrests/384126/)

 _> >But the police union's phrasing—officers shouldn't make arrests "unless absolutely necessary"—begs the question: How many unnecessary arrests was the NYPD making before now?_

<comment><USER9> > begs the question

Gah. "Begging the question" means assuming something is already proved. Alas, people misuse "beg" as a synonym for "suggests" or "raises"...

<comment><USER10> phrases can take on new meanings and no one looks good whinging about prescriptivist language use dude

<comment><USER11> That literally kills me.

<comment><USER12> Irregardless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the Times editorial board:

> If the Police Department's current commanders cannot get the cops to do > their jobs, Mr. de Blasio should consider replacing them.

> He should invite the Justice Department to determine if the police are > guilty of civil rights violations in withdrawing policing from minority > communities.

> He should remind the police that they are public employees, under oath to > uphold city and state laws.

I could not agree more.

<comment><USER14> _He should remind the police that they are public employees, under oath to uphold city and state laws._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia)

<comment><USER15> I have no legal training, but doesn't the ruling say police officers still have a duty to the public, just not to the individual?

<comment><USER16> Basically, yes. Ignore the public part; it just means they have a duty in general. A cop can watch you getting murdered in your house and they do not have to help you. The only exceptions for duty to an individual are the "danger creation exception" and the "special-relationship exception".

For 'danger creation exception', if the government doing or not doing something puts you in danger, they are liable. If you're already in danger it's not their fault.

For 'special relationship exception', basically, unless 'the government singles out a particular party [..] and affords that person special treatment', they have no liability to help that person or provide them proper services. The only exception to this is when the state has restricted the freedom of the individual, such as with prisoners.

This may be news to some of you, but that whole "I pay may taxes" line is ridiculous because of these conclusions. Yes you pay your taxes - to people who have no obligation to help you. You're welcome.

What's really odd about all this is the recent cases where someone who was handcuffed by police subsequently died. Technically this would fall under both these exceptions, because their freedom was restricted by the government _and_ the police's action or inaction caused them danger. In the recent cases, though, the police were let off the hook. Weird.

<comment><USER15> Very interesting.

By your guidance I've found several articles describing the circumstances that establish "special relationships", yet I can't find anything that describes an officer's duties besides duty to individuals (like those you mention). Are these listed anywhere?

For now, if I suppose the exceptions you mentioned are the only duties of an officer, is there some legal mechanism that requires officers to enter special relationships? Or is it simply that a police officer who failed to perform his or her job would be fired, but could not be sued?

I'm suddenly having a hard time identifying exactly what are an individual police officer's duties. Should "protect and serve" always appear with quotes?

For others, some links on duty to rescue, public duty, etc:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue) [http://www.policeone.com/police-jobs-and- careers/articles/49...](http://www.policeone.com/police-jobs-and- careers/articles/4913117-Addressing-cops-confusion-over-the-public-duty- doctrine/) [http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseac...](http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1172&issue_id=52007)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think this most recent trend in the police department has a huge potential to backfire. Perhaps this will highlight the fact that in the US, our lives have become over-criminalized and over-monitored by an increasingly growing police force and that we simply don't need so many officers and laws. This would be a good thing in America.

However, I hate the fact that this change was brought about by the deaths of people.

<comment><USER18> It's all relative I guess. Here in the Nola we desperately, DESPERATELY need more cops.

<comment><USER19> New Orleans has had quite a history of corruption in its police force. Are you sure?

<comment><USER20> I am pretty sure that nobody who says "we desperately need more cops" means "we desperately need more corrupt cops".

<comment><USER21> If you don't deal with the problems that lead to the existing cops being corrupt before trying to add new cops, that's what you get. So if you say "we desperately need more cops" without including "we first desperately need to deal with police corruption", when your present police department is noted for corruption, you are _implicitly_ saying you need more corrupt cops.

Or, at least, that you need more cops _even if_ they are as corrupt as the existing ones.

<comment><USER18> Yeah sadly, it's the latter.

Arbitrary numbers but if your cops are 50% corrupt and you suddenly have twice as many total cops you still then double the number of non-corrupt cops. Obviously that's wasteful but... Fixing deep-routed cultural corruption is obviously extremely difficult.

So yeah, at this point I (and a lot of others who live here) would say we just need more cops because violent crime is increasing and the number of street cops out there is decreasing and that's just a bad combination.

So many lesser of two evils at play here :(

<comment><USER22> I don't think that's just wasteful. Depending on the nature of the corruption, one corrupt cop might do more harm than one honest cop can prevent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> New York public employees cannot strike, so this is the labor action available to them.

The union should think carefully though. If life just goes on without the nanny-state tickets and other revenue generators, the thought process may change. Maybe more fare jumping and double-parking would be ok, and we can live with that -- but with 10,000 fewer policemen.

10,000 * $100,000 = less need for ticket revenue.

<comment><USER24> The effectiveness of cost-cutting in the NYPD would be multiplied if they started with the shiny toys first. Cut the number of SWAT teams, sell off the armored division's tanks, to Ukraine perhaps, and cut the spies and surveillance gear first, and you'll be able to keep a lot more of the useful police who might then be able to focus on boosting their solution rates for crimes people care about.

<comment><USER25> > sell off the armored division's tanks, to Ukraine perhaps

People like to throw this line around... but I've yet to see an actual tank in the hands of a police department anywhere in the US. What I have seen are a lot of Armored Personnel Carriers (APC), which have no weaponry and are basically just heavily armored trucks designed specifically to protect the personnel inside (from riot, projectiles, bullets, explosions, etc).

With that said, I have no issue with a police department using an APC in a situation where bodily harm may come to them (SWAT situation, riot situation, terrorist situation, bomb situation, etc).

And "riot" is not to be confused with "peaceful protest". Riots are bad; people and property get damaged.

<comment><USER26> Part of what was said was that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear. With little oversight on how and when it is used. Allegedly.

[http://mashable.com/2014/08/14/war-veterans-ferguson- police/](http://mashable.com/2014/08/14/war-veterans-ferguson-police/)

Personally, I think the problem is when there us no cost benefit analysis. What's the cost in terms of maintenence as well as public perception and trust.

<comment><USER25> > that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear

I do realize you put the disclaimer "seemed", but I don't see any evidence that the police in Ferguson (or anywhere) were ill trained to drive an APC or use riot gear (gas masks included). APC's have been used by police departments for a long long time, just only they were purchasing them back then and now the military is giving them their old ones (as apposed to just scrapping them since they were bought and paid for with tax payer's money).

Ferguson was special, there were "riots" going on for a while (stores being raided, projectiles rockets and fireworks fired at police, even guns being shot). There were both peaceful protests happening simultaneously with full on riots.

<comment><USER27> In terms of 'trained', it seems like their attitude towards crowd control was to out-macho the crowd, which can only really escalate the situation. Look at that picture of the dude on top of the APC brandishing the mounted gun. He's completely exposed, he's not in a combat position, he's in an intimidation position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As someone who fancies libertarianism but who's wary of its effectiveness in practice, I'm hoping we get to see this impromptu social experiment play out long enough to gather some useful statistics.

<comment><USER29> What's the connection to libertarianism?

<comment><USER28> I mostly meant anti-regulation.

I'm not sure we need strict laws regarding parking, public drinking, loosies, ect. Let alone aggressive enforcement.

I think parts of NYC are a good example of how enforcement can cause a more negative environment than the original activity.

<comment><USER30> If you have ever been to NYC you would know that if the parking regulations were not enforced so zealously the city would be a mess. The only reason why $40 parking garages are full is that you know if you park illegally on the streets of Manhattan, your car is getting ticketed, and likely towed. Surely it makes NYC a ton of revenue but it is the only way to make things work. I agree with you on the other points.

<comment><USER31> Every time I get annoyed by how religiously parking regulations are followed in the UK(and they are anal about it to the extreme), I remember how it works in the country I come from. Try parking in Krakow or Warsaw - very little regulation, and people park everywhere, on sidewalks, on the grass, on pedestrian crossings...they would park on top of each other if they could. Parking regulations are a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If these minor offenses are not affecting crime then are they offenses whose only purpose is to generate revenue? If the city has not imploded then is that not sufficient evidence to get a discussion about the existence of these offenses?

<comment><USER33> I would guess that there hasn't been enough time for people to realize their minor infractions will no longer get punished.

<comment><USER34> Is the fear of punishment the only thing that keeps people from doing criminal acts?

1\. People speed and park wrongly despite both of these being illegal

2\. A huge majority of people aren't assholes all the time, despite this not being illegal

3\. Murders do get committed though it's illegal

4\. Most stuff isn't stolen even though it is very difficult to catch someone breaking into houses

There's a book called Three Felonies A Day which posits that the average American commits three serious crimes every day despite the overwhelming majority of those folks not meaning to. [https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=three+felonies+a+day](https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=three+felonies+a+day) The reason for this is that the laws are written broadly enough that entirely innocent acts could be construed to be strict-liability crimes that require absolute adherence; intent does not enter into the equation.

If society is not falling apart even if the average American is in fact committing three felonies a day, then it stands to reason that perhaps the law as a whole is over-written and could stand to be reduced. This new informal policing policy in New York might end up being further evidence of such problems.

Further people have found that in many cases persuasion is much more effective than compulsion. In the UK they've found that they can replace speed cameras (which issue tickets) with radar controlled signs that display smiley or frowny faces and that's much more effective at getting people to slow down. The theory goes that compulsion is a very ephemeral threat and that the police can't be everywhere at once ticketing everyone who's speeding all the time and people know it. But just asking them to slow down with no threat is more effective since it's polite.

[https://www.google.com/webhp?q=speed+cameras+persuasion+comp...](https://www.google.com/webhp?q=speed+cameras+persuasion+compulsion#q=speed+cameras+persuasion+compulsion)

A similar theory was used to great effect by King Frederick of Prussia to get people to eat potatoes. Decrees did nothing to make people plant them, but declaring the potato to be a royal food and nobody but the king could eat it caused people to plant it either out of spite or a desire to flout the rules. [http://www.historynet.com/ask-mhq-king-frederick-ii-of- pruss...](http://www.historynet.com/ask-mhq-king-frederick-ii-of-prussia.htm)

<comment><USER35> I have not read that book, but the answer here sort of blows it up:

[http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does- the-a...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-average- american-unwittingly-commit-three-felonies-a-day/22536#22536)

(That too many things are crimes is probably something I agree with; that accounting companies must only destroy documents according to retention policies and not after they find out one of their clients is a giant fraud is not something that worries me)

<comment><USER34> This is literally a real problem that Ohio has just taken steps to reform.

[http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/ohio-remembers-mens- rea](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/ohio-remembers-mens-rea)

<comment><USER35> My point was that the book you cite is apparently a terrible resource on the issue. Which is material when you frame your statements so directly from it: _even if the average American is in fact committing three felonies a day_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wish they would stick with it. This is the New York I grew up in, and loved so much. I don't believe the broken windows theory, and i think Freakonomics made a good statistical argument it is the number of police, rather than the style, that reduces violent crime.

I think funding your government through tickets and summonses is hostile to quality of life. And detainment or imprisonment for minor offenses is imho a human rights violation.

So great.

</comment><comment><USER19> NYPD, one of the largest municipal armies in history, has become a latter-day Praetorian Guard. They have yet to stage a coup and appoint their own Caracalla as emperor, however.

</comment><comment><USER37> Stopping the aggressive pursuit of people selling individual cigarettes would be a good place to start. If cigarette taxes are too damn high, people will find a cheaper way to smoke. Quit picking on poor people that smoke. Note: I don't smoke or drink.

<comment><USER38> If the cigarettes were purchased as a pack at a retail store, then resold individually, the tax has already been paid.

>Quit picking on poor people that smoke.

Are you referring to cigarette taxes or the law banning the selling individual cigarettes?

If the former, as a non-smoker, I do not wish to continue covering the cost of health care for those that choose to smoke.

<comment><USER22> _" If the cigarettes were purchased as a pack at a retail store, then resold individually, the tax has already been paid."_

Unless they were purchased in a jurisdiction without that tax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So is this a return to pre 9/11 or pre 1990s standards ("Broken Windows Theory")?

<comment><USER40> It's a direct response to De Blasio's asking police to implement Broken Windows policies. They are sending him the message they aren't taking his orders anymore.

<comment><USER41> Which, to me, is the scary part of this whole thing. Before, it was only implied that the police weren't accountable to anybody -- now they're literally turning their back on the head of the municipal government.

<comment><USER42> Police is still accountable and are doing their job. If anything the extra 'cash' they generated was a 'favor' to the said municipal government.

They are actually doing you a huge favor. No more bullshit tickets at the end of the month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> and what are these police officers doing on duty while not arresting or ticketing poeple: getting injured while riding on the hood of their cars: [http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/nypd-rides- hood...](http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/nypd-rides-hood-patrol- car-brooklyn-article-1.2066644)

</comment><comment><USER44> I think it is a bit too soon to tell what will happen. Keep in mind it has also been bitterly cold, crime is generally down when the weather is like this no matter what.

<comment><USER45> It is bitterly cold this week, but it hasn't been the two weeks prior. And the article itself includes the relevant reported crime statistics. They're down a little from this week last year, but nothing like the decrease in summonses.

Check out the infographics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> You actually don't need police to collect parking tickets. Other countries have specialized kinds of law enforcement forces to handle traffic.

<comment><USER44> The NYPD actually has an entirely separate arm that handles parking tickets & traffic enforcement. They don't have guns and can't arrest you. They also drive around in silly 3 wheel cars.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_New_York_Ci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_New_York_City_Police_Department#Traffic_Enforcement_District)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> All this back-turning, slowdown, etc. have more to do with the NYPD contract renewal coming up. I hate to say this, but it looks to me that the unions are politicizing the death of the two officers to gain leverage in the contract negotiations.

<comment><USER42> The slain officer lived in my neighborhood. Every single officer I know was impacted by this. They have 24/hour shifts guarding their house on their own time and thousands of officers showed up to his funeral.

You sound extremely ignorant.

<comment><USER48> Funny how officers deem their lives worth more than the lives they take or families they destroy with no accountability.

<comment><USER42> It's funny that you assume that. Given the amount of crime and interactions they have, they are actually doing a pretty good job.

This is coming from a guy who got harassed by cops and filled formal complaint that went no where.

Shit happens, you are out of your mind if you think any police in the world that deals with so many people outside and inside multiple 'hoods' will have better accountability.

Bubble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Sounds like a better place to be right now.

</comment><comment><USER50> I hope terrorists dont get any bold ideas. NY police are first line protection at major events like New Years Eve.</comment>


Show HN: Online WordPress theme builder - <AUTHOR> https://www.resimit.com?builder

<comment><AUTHOR> The theme builder has a focus on mobile-first responsive design. It makes use of machine learning algorithms to select the best combinations of creative elements built from a data of 20,000 websites and premium themes. We plan to open source it on github. You may build yourself a theme.</comment>


Google now lets you send money via Gmail on Android - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/03/14/google-now-lets-send-money-via-gmail-android/ <comment><USER2> I wouldn't risk it. Given Google's track record, they'll probably scrap the service before the recipient of your largesse has a chance to spend it.</comment>


VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak - <AUTHOR> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/05/04/026257/va-tech-student-arrested-for-posting-perceived-threat-via-yik-yak

<comment><USER2> > Yik Yak stores the IP address, GPS coordinates and time and date from which > a message was posted.

Why would an "anonymous" site keep IP addresses, let alone the _GPS coordinates_?! (why does it even need them?)</comment>


Learn Coding Without Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/potato-pirates-the-tastiest-coding-card-game/reft/17493735/hackernews <comment><USER2> Interesting & hilarious idea. Would love to give it a try with my students. It seems like an easy & fun way to start a CS class! Just curious, did you test it out with any educators and what is the overall response like? We tried a few games (e.g. code.org, robot turtles) in class but students got bored pretty quickly as they were mainly directional movements. This seems more dynamic and engaging. Love to hear more on how it is implemented in classrooms :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm one of the creators of Potato Pirates. The whole motivation behind the game was to build an offline and interactive platform to introduce programming concepts which were not trivial and had a real application to computer science. While developing the game we tested it with multiple audiences such as elementary, middle school and high school students, teachers, parents and even tabletop gaming enthusiasts. So far everyone loves it and our data shows that after just one hour of playing the game players pick up fundamentals of coding (as mentioned by some of the other comments) which in a traditional computer science class would take 8 to 10 hours to complete. We do so by removing syntax and focusing on the universal logic of computer programming which is not language specific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This game is very addictive. My 7 yo daughter and 9 yo son pester me every day to play with them. The worst part is that they kept ganging up on me. However, the best (and very surprising) part is to witness my kids being able to explain some basic programming concepts when I showed them some Python code after several play. It's very impressive.

</comment><comment><USER4> This game is really fun and competitive for children and adults to bond while learning something new. Great purchase!

</comment><comment><USER5> Perfect gift for the kids in the family. Fun and learning all in one!

</comment><comment><USER6> This is crazy!! Need to get this for my next board game night.

</comment><comment><USER7> Def worth a buy for the kids</comment>


Show HN: Scheduling app for a non-profit café - <AUTHOR> http://vol.dhappy.org

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an app I developed to handle the volunteers for a local café. They're considering between this and [http://volgistics.com](http://volgistics.com) and their reservations are mainly that my software is untested. So, check it out and poke around a bit.</comment>


China is building a digital dictatorship to exert control over its 1.4B citizens - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278 <comment><USER2> "Buying too much alcohol might suggest dependence; she'll lose a couple of points."

Credit card companies are already doing things like this.

 _What one of the executives there did, he looked at how people were using Canadian Tire credit cards and tracking what products they actually purchased. Then he found out that people, who for instance buy premium wild bird seed, it turns out that they very infrequently went bad on their debts. Whereas people who bought chrome accessories for their car, they walked away from their debts more frequently._

[https://www.marketplace.org/2009/05/15/business/how- credit-c...](https://www.marketplace.org/2009/05/15/business/how-credit-card- companies-track-you)

<comment><USER3> My cynical take would be that alcoholics (and other people whose self- destructive habits you could mine from their purchase behavior) would be less likely to make waves or rebel, so I'd have thought you'd lose a couple of points for never buying any alcohol... Also odd that "buying nappies" earns you points for being responsible, presumably the Great Database already knows you are a parent?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as it seems like a foreign concept, I wonder what parallels can we derive from a state-backed social credit system to say something like our corporate-backed financial credit scores. We see that companies from health insurers to cell phone providers are already adopting skimming through your or your demographic's purchase history to see if you are worthy of success or not.

Not defending China, but boogeymen pieces like this evoke responses like this is a truly non-western concept and not just a "hardcore" version of what we have

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm genuinely curious to see how this works out. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm not part of it - but I can't help be fascinated.

Growing up, we cared what the neighbours thought. They were our "social score". If we skipped school, it'd be noticed. If we misbehaved, they knew it. And little old ladies ensured bad news travelled faster that twitter.

Now life feels anonymous, and it feels like this has been lost. Anonymity, while sometimes valuable, often leads to toxic behaviour online. A lot of things we'd never have dreamt of doing with the 'old lady brigade' judging us. And now the real world feels much more anonymous, and I fear the same happening here too.

On the face of it, it seems like China have figured out how to scale the little old ladies. This could be horribly interesting, or simply horrible. But I think I'm glad to see someone (else) give it a shot.

<comment><USER6> I can't understand why anybody would be glad. People in China will have their lives ruined by this. This kind of thing has been bad when any previous authoritarian regime did it. So tracking/controlling people doesn't just become okay or potentially good because you're using computers. The Stasi etc would've loved this.

<comment><USER7> As a Chinese citizen who lived in the US for a while, I'm totally in favor of this, and especially when I go back to China. We don't value "freedom" as much as most westerners, and the social credit system is there to make existing laws better enforced, so bad actors can really get punished as they should.

<comment><USER6> There are hundreds of thousands currently sitting (possibly dying) in "reeducation camps" in Xinjiang, I guess they don't value "freedom" either. The social credit system is just a continuation of the current authoritarian controls, and will be used to further chill any chance of dissenting opinion. This might be fine to you individually if you find yourself on the right side of everything, but clearly not everyone does.

<comment><USER8> Replace "reeducation camps in Xinjiang" with "projects in Philadelphia" and "social credit system" with "private credit ratings" and you see that we're not as unlike as we thought. Yes, the scope and severity of the situation is more blatant in the Chinese example, but pointing fingers overlooks that we have similar problems brought about by similar causes in the West. Moreover, we already have these systems in place, and we treat them like oracles. How many poor in the West will never get a chance to be anything else because they get stuck in a system that only sees them as an unnecessary risk? I'm not claiming either system is good or bad. I'm saying both systems are similar and will have similar benefits and pitfalls.

I would ask Westerners to look long and hard at our financial credit systems and ask whether they allow dissent or whether we have simply accepted that dissent is a largely fruitless endeavor.

<comment><USER9> Whoa whoa whoa, just because both systems have problems and have some similarities doesn't mean no one can complain. I'm not gonna defend the US's problems because it doesn't matter! It's easy to see the Chinese system as morally bad. Why? Because free speech and dissent are the mechanisms by which we improve our ideas and systems. This social credit system backed by the already authoritarian government will further cement the will of the party powers over the will of the people. And everyone should care about a billion people.

<comment><USER8> We're agreeing. My point is that we should care about a billion people in China and a billion people in the West and billions everywhere. You're right that free speech and dissent are how we make change. I'm questioning the Western perspective because it seems like free speech and dissent are reaching limits as well. Dissent as you like, it probably won't work, and you'll probably suffer consequences in the commercial sphere, albeit not formally in the political or national spheres. We should keep complaining until it gets better. I just wonder if the complaints ever get heard in good faith.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What was the reasoning behind social credit system? To keep track of bad actors or create surveillance nation?

On a side note, this is what happens when "technocrats" become the ruling class in overwhelming majority. Ability to apply technical solution to societal problems. Most of the China's ruling class are technocrats. We need anthropologists, social scientists, philosophers as law makers. Yes technocrats should be there in the mix too but they alone won't fix societal problems.

<comment><USER11> Probably both. It's no secret that China has long aspired to transform into Singapore - clean and sterile. CCP leaders have been openly talking about it for decades now. Compared to the mainland, Singapore doesn't have large issues with stuff like crime or social order. imo Singapore has achieved it via a technological Big Bro state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Defenders say this is just the latest version of traditional Chinese ways, but that is not the case. Traditionally social trust and good behavior was enforced by the whole network of social relations and basic values.

But in the modern era this has broken down, in part because China has gone through 4 different basic political and economic systems in the last century, and is now on its fifth.

So the government is now trying to enforce good behavior and social trust from the top down. Unfortunately, unlike in Confucianism, there is no way to ensure the people at the top are trustworthy, so the whole thing will likely become quite dysfunctional at some point.

<comment><USER12> Let me add a couple of points. Chinese defend this system in part because if they were to criticize it they would be punished by the government. But beyond that, in China there is no real thought about or discussion of basic political philosophy and so people don't even know how to go about it, they can only repeat what they have been told.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is a system that results in rich and poor, where rich are holding stakes and incentivized to maintain and grow their status and the poor are insignificant to do anything. Then there is the vast middle class who don't see the poor but only aspires for the rich. Such system exploits human nature and has proven to be quite stable -- isn't that any society's goal after all?

It takes compassion and faith in truth, in sufficiently large doses, to challenge such systems.

<comment><USER14> Where in history has there been a system that didn't either 1) Result in rich and poor or 2) Result in oppression by force? Egalitarianism doesn't scale past around 450 people without the introduction of some form of hierarchy.

 _It takes compassion and faith in truth, in sufficiently large doses, to challenge such systems._

Principles can be used to challenge such systems from within. The overall history of the United States is a good example of this. Also, the history of the past several years is a testament to what happens when principles are forgotten in favor of feelings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I sure am glad I live in a country (the U.S.) where my movements, purchases, and public movements aren't tracked!

<comment><USER16> your purchase been tracked by some private companies, not the government

<comment><USER17> Is there a meaningful difference when the latter buys it from the former? Or when the latter can easily force it from the former?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> According to this guy, the Western media has a habit of getting this story very wrong: [https://twitter.com/ChinaLawTransl8/status/10420403727660277...](https://twitter.com/ChinaLawTransl8/status/1042040372766027781)

 _There are so many things wrong with China and the world today, there is simply no reason to make things up, and much of what is in this piece is wild speculation or outright fabrication, belittling the real struggles of some featured in it._

More: [https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/seeing-chinese-social- cred...](https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/seeing-chinese-social-credit- through-a-glass-darkly/?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER19> The results will absolutely be total success. How could it result in anything but success? Anyone who complains about any aspect of the social score system will have their score lowered until they are effectively silenced.

Marginalizing minority views and other edge-cases is a feature of the system.

I feel very sad that there is likely to be an entire generation of Chinese whom are crushed into the most extreme pressure to conform and obey.

#Resist #QuestionAuthority #Disobey

</comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone Chinese or who knows more about China provide any insight into why they're doing this? Is there some local political reality?

My reading is that they're worried about their explosive GDP growth leveling out and the political instability a debt crisis might cause.

<comment><USER7> I'm speaking as a Chinese citizen who is totally in favor of this. Here's some perspective I can give:

"credit system" is far less established than countries like US, and private companies are generally much less trusted by the government and by the people (which is the opposite to the US). Some big private companies like Alibaba has started to create credit systems themselves, but the state owned banks and law enforcement would only use something backed by the government.

The "social credit system" it actually not that different from other credit systems excepted it is managed by government. It's really needed now given that there was a rising debt default problem -> Without a credit system, many people thought they can just delete the app where they borrowed money and get away with it. It became a crisis when a lot of this happened at the same time.

Surveillance is a separate topic. It's one of the technology advances that made law enforcement easier (like DNA samples are much more used nowadays in identifying criminals). There has been reports that criminals being captured with these new tools. It's something that western people fears a lot, so all the western reports focuses on the negative side of it and exaggerate it many times more.

<comment><USER9> Aren't you worried the silencing of dissent will hide a very dysfunctional world from you? Aren't you worried it has happened already and your opinion has already been influenced?

<comment><USER7> I'm sure there are darker side of China that the government would love to hide and there are many parts of the society that's disfunctional. That's no secret in China, most people are aware about that. I'm sure my opinions are influenced by all the stuff I've read and seen, and I try to keep an open eye and have been traveling around the world. But no one has "god's view", most western media are also writing articles that supports their existing views. "Fake news" is no longer a new concept to the west and it indeed can distort people's beliefs. Even when media report the truth, selecting what to report and choosing the tone can also influence people's views to a great extent. When it comes to topics about China, the western media (and Chinese media as well, in a different way) can be quite extreme. I'm sure your opinions are also being influenced, it's too hard not to be

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe more western news pieces like this will cause the Chinese people to reconsider this system.

<comment><USER22> Why would they care and why should they care what we think?

They should make their own self-assessment and figure out what works form them by themselves.

Ther system evolved from different badic principles and that has arrived at diffetent conclusions.

That said, things can radically change as in Japan during WWii —> Pracetime transition, but that requires buy-in from all involved to avoid what usually happens during radical change (Tsarist to Sowiet; Dynasty —> Republic —> PRC).

<comment><USER23> How are they going to figure out what works for them? Vote for the individual who best represents their views? How exactly to individuals even get a say in "what works for them"?

<comment><USER22> That's a bit tangential. Even if you got them all exposed to our opinions, what does that do in terms of actionability? They would be in the same place. Change has to come from within.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can't foresee this backfiring at all!

</comment><comment><USER25> what if it actually works out fine long term and our western sensibilities were just wrong in the context of china

<comment><USER23> How could it possibly not be abused to gain power? What checks and balances are there? Out of all the past data points we have throughout history, which one points to governments with unchecked power not abusing it? And is there any more powerful example of unchecked power than an unelected state single party government who can monitor every action of every individual and unvoice/unperson them with the click of a button?

<comment><USER6> The parent has the flaw that a lot of people do. They don't seem to understand that not everyone is a mostly decent person and that there exist bad actors in any population. You can't get away from this in any society, for example what percentage are psychopaths? That means if you create systems (like this) that eventually bad actors can exploit for themselves, they will, and they do. It's not a conspiracy. It doesn't happen right away. But slowly it'll happen that the few percent can use these tools in ways to serve themselves over the interests of the wider population. (I don't know why this is hard to comprehend, just look at the bad actors around you in your $dayjob.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> China has had a "police census" for centuries. Under communism, they had the dang'an, a lifetime work record maintained by each citizen's work unit. But with a more mobile population and more private employers, the paper based dang'an system didn't scale. So, now the social credit system. It's not new, just more automated.

</comment><comment><USER27> Didn't we have this exact same story yesterday? And the day before? And the day before that?

When the EU, Australia and Canada does it, the news frames it positively as combating "hate" speech. When china does it, it's digital dictatorship.

For an industry, especially so in australia, that loves censorship and digital dictatorship, the media sure do love to criticize china about theirs. Maybe it's just envy.</comment>


uWebSockets 0.9.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/uWebSockets/uWebSockets/releases/tag/v0.9.0 <comment><USER2> We have been using it (0.4.1) since it came out, and really cannot say enough good things about it. We were able to cut down our socket server nodes by ~ 50%, and it is way more stable (both server wise and connection wise). Combined with AWS, it really has made life extremely easy.

<comment><USER2> Side note -- we use it under the node interface w/ SocketIO

<comment><USER3> Hi, can you elaborate please? I don't quite understand, thanks!

<comment><USER2> We use SocketIO as our main interface through NodeJS, and the websocket engine is uWS. The intermediary to communicate between servers is Redis. EC2 + ELB (the new application load balancer is slick) makes it scalable quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using µWebSockets with libuv/from C++ directly and have been happy with the performance/API. Much simpler than the other C++ options we've tried.</comment>


Why you need a home lab to keep your job - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/07/home_lab_career_saver/ <comment><USER2> Unless I've misunderstood this article, I think this is a bad idea. When working for a company your work should ideally stay at work. Come 5pm, if you're privliged enough to work a 9-5, your day should be done.

This growing push for work to be extended into the family home really erodes the necessary work life distinction that allows for a happy life. Thats not to say you shouldn't have a lab at home to train yourself on things that interest you in your own free time, but if staying at a job means investing unpaid hours at home then one should probably consider whether the job is worth it.

After all, if a company expects you to do unpaid training in your own personal time then what will it expect from you in the future?

Furthermore, these articles constantly push the message that more work is better for your career than less. My father always told me its not the quantity of time you spend at a task but the quality.

<comment><USER3> For my personal situation, this is a good idea.

My current job involves me writing code for robots. This sounded interesting to me, until I realized that I am working with some ancient software here - I'm talking .Net 1.1 on Windows 2000! Not to mention that writing software for robots isn't really all that challenging.

If it weren't for my after-hours exploration of open-source technologies, my skill-set would be severely outdated, and my career would effectively be dead here.

<comment><USER4> I work with something very specific as well, and completely missing out on the web and what's hot. I have to do something in my spare time to ensure I'm employable. But I'm not going to do job-related training at home, screw that.

<comment><USER5> Great and meaningful distinction you are making! You are learning for yourself, not your employer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Companies that won't invest in training or research are not worth working for. If they want you (as an employee) to pay for that out of your own pocket and you do, then you're a sucker, unless you've negotiated a fat salary and a 4 day week.

<comment><USER7> True enough. And employees who wait to be "trained" on interesting new technology instead of learning it for themselves aren't worth hiring.

Obviously neither statement is (completely) true. At the "rockstar" level, all learning is self directed. And rockstar employers expect and rely on that. But for everyone else I think it's reasonable that there be some level of support for education from employers, and some level of self motivation from good employees. Neither is going to make up for a total shortcoming in the other.

<comment><USER8> > And employees who wait to be "trained" on interesting new technology instead > of learning it for themselves aren't worth hiring.

> At the "rockstar" level, all learning is self directed.

This is a bit of brain damage that is, as far as I can tell, limited to programming, for various weird cultural reasons.

Go to Goldman Sachs and ask them how many of their "rockstar" traders learned the craft at home on their free time. Or go to a top research hospital and ask them how many of their surgeons did the same. Or go to a top architecture firm and ask them how many of their architects learned skyscraper design on the weekends. They will probably all laugh at you.

Rockstars can be created through institutional processes by identifying, nurturing, and systematically training talent. All industries have their rockstars, but ones more mature than the software industry have saner and more efficient ways of taking raw talent and nurturing them into rockstars.

<comment><USER9> "Go to Goldman Sachs and ask them how many of their "rockstar" traders learned the craft at home on their free time. Or go to a top research hospital and ask them how many of their surgeons did the same. Or go to a top architecture firm and ask them how many of their architects learned skyscraper design on the weekends. They will probably all laugh at you."

The difference in all these fields is that the practitioner, to learn, needs to things that cost significant amounts of money (trading/building skyscrapers), cause people to live or die (surgery) or go to jail or be executed (law), or need to do things that require significantly altering the real world to create an artifact(setting up skyscrapers). Hence the need for supervision, and systematic training with a lot of 'apprenticeship' feel.

In _most_ programming, the real rockstars (say Carmack or Linus or whoever) _are_ self taught, and _did_ learn on their free time, because all you need is a laptop and the internet and you are ready to go and creating a significant artifact (a programming language, a game, an operating system) needs only knowledge (easily acquired from books and the internet) and time.

Not to take away from your larger (and valid) point that company training _can_ be effective. But your analogies are a bit 'off' and that affects the power of your argument (imho, feel free to ignore).

<comment><USER8> The comment to which I was replying stated: "At the 'rockstar' level, all learning is self directed."

Parse this out logically. I read this as: "self-directed learning is a necessary condition for achieving rockstar level skill." My point is that in other fields, institutional training can create rockstars without self- directed learning. That is to say, self-directed learning is not a necessary condition.

Your point is that programming is different from those other fields, because you can become a rockstar learning on your own. I.e. that self-directed learning can be a sufficient condition for achieving rockstar level skill. But that does not contradict my point, which is that it is not a necessary one.

<comment><USER9> "The comment to which I was replying stated: "At the 'rockstar' level, all learning is self directed." "

 _In context_ , that quote sounds more nuanced.

"Obviously neither statement is (completely) true. At the "rockstar" level, all learning is self directed. And rockstar employers expect and rely on that. But for everyone else I think it's reasonable that there be some level of support for education from employers, and some level of self motivation from good employees. Neither is going to make up for a total shortcoming in the other."

I suspect if you add "(In programming)" before the sentences "At the rockstar level .. " etc it would make more sense,especially if those sentences are describing present reality than some imagined future.

And as for "the fact that it's easier to learn programming on your own than it is to learn other fields doesn't prove that", sure it doesn't prove anything.

But then if we are to descend to that level of hairsplitting, your quote about other industries training programs doesn't really prove the point that something similar would work in software/programming, and is equally 'neither here nor there'.

It _may_ be true that you can create rockstars by company training, so you have a valid point in that we should probably explore the idea, look for supporting/opposing evidence and so on.

It still remains to be _shown_ to be true,and ajross has a valid _argument_ that " _as of today_ company training programs haven't produced programming _rockstars_ (vs competent devs)", so your comparisons to surgeons or whatever don't really counter ajross's statement.

ajross seems to be describing the present reality (and extropolating off that) and you seem to be saying that a different reality is possible (but unproven).

Not much of a conflict that I can see. (but hey ymmv, I freely admit I could be interpreting all this incorrectly)

And just fyi, I responded to (what I thought was ) excessive rhetorical flourishes like 'brain damaged thinking' in your reply. That phrase conveys no information beyond your annoyance and detracts from your main (and valid imho)argument. You can make a solid point without 'name calling' (note quotes), especially here on HN.

EDIT: rayiner changed his post from when I typed this reply(which is all right, I do that all the time), so this answer may not make as much sense as it should . Now his point is that "self-directed learning is not a necessary condition (to become a programming rockstar)".

It is probably true and certainly an idea worth exploring.

One _possible_ answer to that, especially in a forum called _Hacker_ News, is "Show us".

(to those fond of logic, to prove that a universally quantified argument, "All X s are blah" is wrong, you need to prove that "Not all X s are blah" and that in turn becomes "There exists a Z that not blah" and you have to show that there does indeed exist such a Z - aka an existence proof, what can I say, I'm a nerd).

And with that, I bow out of this thread. Have a nice day.

<comment><USER8> > But then if we are to descend to that level of hairsplitting, your quote > about other industries training programs doesn't really prove the point that > something similar would work in software/programming, and is equally > 'neither here nor there'.

It's not hair splitting, it's the fundamental question of whether self- directed learning is necessary to achieve rockstar-level programming skills. This seems to be commonly assumed in the programming world, which I think is a bit of cultural brain damage. Indeed, I think the proposition that programming is somehow different from those other intellectually demanding fields in trainability is the exceptional proposition that has the burden of proof.

<comment><USER7> plinkplonk already pointed it out, but I'll say it again: _this fact is commonly assumed in the programming world because it is empirically true_. If that's "brain damage" then you have a strange definition for that term. We observe facts ("at the rockstar level, all learning is self directed") and make hypotheses to support a theory ("self-directed learning is necessary to achieve rockstar-level programming skills"). If you want to assert a theory counter to that, then I'm sorry but it is _you_ that needs to provide some evidence to support it.

And seriously: there is none. There are no "trained" rock stars out there that I've seen. Can you find just one? Someone who through diligent classwork or apprenticeship reached a top-tier position in their field? I've never seen it.

<comment><USER8> First, even if it's empirically true that there are no trained rockstars in the programming field (which is a point I'm not going to concede), that doesn't mean that "at the rockstar level all learning is self-directed." There is an obvious difference between "all the rockstars I can see are self- directed learners" and "self-directed learning is necessary to become a rockstar." Asserting otherwise is a basic failure of logical reasoning.

My theory is that programming isn't any different in this regard from other intellectually demanding fields except culturally. I think the assertion that it is different is the one that requires proof, or at least an explanation for the mechanism by which it might be different.

As for self-directed learning, I'll point to Dennis Ritchie as an example. He's arguably somewhere in the middle between self-taught and trained. On one hand he started at Bell Labs concurrent with/immediately after Harvard. On the other hand, UNIX was something of a side project. Compare him to his father, who was a scientist at Bell Labs working on switching theory, and received his training in the AT&T engineering machine. What's different about the two men? Why is Dennis's field not trainable but Alistair's field trainable? My assertion is that there is no difference except the fact that there was an established framework for training engineers but not really one for training programmers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting discussion here. I've always had a home 'lab' because I've always been interested in a variety of technologies. At college it was half my desk and a couple of carrying boxes, (one for tools, one for parts). Once I got married I had a desk in the spare bedroom which had other stuff as well. Eventually I got a room to myself in the house. Back in the dot.com days before it went tango-uniform I was going to build a basement (machine room, library, office) but alas that was not to be.

Since learning is my hobby and my passion it serves me well. But I could certainly understand it if you hated what you worked on and wanting to get away from it when you were at home.

</comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR: An evangelist for a company that sells software for virtual labs says that everyone should have a lab at home.

</comment><comment><USER12> His $1,362 per month spend (not including hardware, which it sounds like he gets for free) seems a bit spendy for just a hobby "lab". Since when was a rack of computers called a lab? Does a few servers in the closet count? I want to know if I'm in danger of losing my job.

</comment><comment><USER13> The main problem with my rack is the noise - I live in a flat and there's nowhere but the living room to put it. I've seen a few noise cancelling designs around, but they're all too expensive.

I wonder if I could build a simple noise cancellation system with an FX-LMS algorithm?

<comment><USER14> Does your experimentation require you work on blades and not on virtualized environment?

<comment><USER13> They're 1U and 2U servers on which I've installed ESXi. I love it - I can run a VM locally then transfer it across, then if I'm travelling I can chuck it onto VMWare Fusion on my laptop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Who needs a home lab when you have AWS and other on demand cloud computing providers at your disposal?

<comment><USER16> But AWS uses Xen and not VMWare!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If an employee is going to have invest effort into a significant home lab, it'd make sense to go the extra mile and start using the lab to earn an income, reducing reliance on said employer.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yep, having your own personal lab allows you to do what you want and can actually be a sort of pretest bed for applications and/or hardware you want to recommend for your employer.

</comment><comment><USER19> To get true understanding of what you're working with you need to be able to trash the configuration of your gear at will. I learned a lot buying up some big old Cisco Catalysts and EMC Clariion SAN boxes back when I was doing data center work. Later on though, when I was in charge of buying new stuff I'd rack the stuff up first and go crazy with it before it was in production. Either way works. I don't miss having those fans running in my house though.

<comment><USER20> The really nice thing about labs these days is how much you can do virtually. Before I changed jobs, I had 2 NetApp filers doing replication, two EMC Clariion CX arrays, and two complete VMware datacenters doing DR failover, vMotion, and DRS. All on two PC servers in a downstairs closet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Girlfriend Impact" -- bleh. Yeah, I know, 99.99whatever9% of IT workers, esp in the ops role, are guys, but would it have taken so much extra thought to put "family impact"? Or even "balanced life penalty"?

And I say this as someone who has spent a ridiculous amount of money on tech books in the past year (probably four figures) and who is giving up 1.5-2 nights a week, on average, to tech meetups.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure he was referring to his own personal "Girlfriend Impact". It was not a general statement about all IT workers, just the one who was talking about the lab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Today, the lab costs £870 a month thanks to the presence of a pair of Dell EqualLogic arrays."

To paraphrase that fount of wisdom, the hippy from The Simpsons: Sounds like you're working for your lab. Simplify, man!

</comment><comment><USER24> Oooh! I got aggregated. Thanks for the nice discussion

<comment><USER25> So you did!</comment></comment>


Simple & flexible MySQL ORM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pkeane/myorm

<comment><USER2> It would help a bit if you wrote on the README that it's a PHP ORM.

I mean, it's not that it takes long to figure it out, but hey.</comment>


Latin Lover - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Latin-lover-8611 <comment><USER2> I am routinely startled and pleased every time I remember that Catuullus was responsible both for one of the most gutting elegies I know of (101) which ends with the well known phrase

        And forever, brother, hail and farewell

.. was _also_ the guy who wrote the angriest and most explicit rebuttal to a critique of his style -- so rude, in fact, that it wasn't printed in translation in english until the middle of the 20th century, because the opening lines are:

        I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
        bottom Aurelius and catamite Furius,

Which even in this article is alluded to, but not actually printed.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_101](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_101) [1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16)

<comment><USER3> #16 is my personal favorite [1] - but #85 is a close second:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_85](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_85)

[1] It reminds me of the spoken-word intro to "Love Sosa" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Latin was required as part of my program in high school, some 20+ years ago now. It wasn't until tonight that I remembered we weren't supposed to read Catullus. Some of the more adventurous guys (all boys school) would make reference to his poems and our highly conservative teacher would have a fit.

</comment><comment><USER5> My class studied Catullo and those poems at school some 30 years ago in Italy. I had no idea that there was no English translation yet. Nice to know there is now. Basically they are the only fun poems we studied in the whole Latin literature course. Maybe the Somnium Scipionis too, but for other reasons.

</comment><comment><USER6> I had an incredible Latin teacher in high school. Regrettably, he never mentioned Catuullus (or perhaps that was saved for the Latin IV and V students...)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would like to learn Latin. Does anyone know any good free online resources?

<comment> barry-cotter First use Duolingo to learn Italian. Then start buying copies of books from the Loeb Classical Library and read the Latin and English text. Then read the Latin, noting the words you can't recognise and study them. Then read the Latin again. Once you can read one book buy another one. You will not learn to write Latin this way but you will end up able to read it.

Or you could try these. I vouch for none of the below free websites. The time investment needed to learn a language is insane and textbooks are cheap, especially secondhand.

[http://www.learnalanguage.com/learn- latin/](http://www.learnalanguage.com/learn-latin/)

[https://www.lingq.com/learn-latin-online/](https://www.lingq.com/learn-latin- online/)

[http://surfacelanguages.com/language/Latin](http://surfacelanguages.com/language/Latin)</comment></comment>


Boot directly from ISO files, using Grub 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.panticz.de/MultiBootUSB

<comment><USER2> I used this to stick two bootable WinPE images on my USB drive and still be able to use it for other things. Very handy!

</comment><comment><USER3> Boot any and all ISO images from USB drive [http://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/201005080700_boot_any_iso_from...](http://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/201005080700_boot_any_iso_from_usb.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note that this requires kernel support in addition to Grub 2.

There is an iso-scan/filename kernel option in Ubuntu and a findiso option in Grml.

<comment><USER4> No, this requires initramfs/initrd support. And actually all distributions using debian-live (>= 1.173.1-1) support this feature: <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=534887>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, right, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh GRUB2, how I love and hate thee.

I have an operating system my friends and I have been building for the last few years, and I'm glad to see GRUB2 happen in theory, but the lack of documentation makes it really rough to actually program for.

<comment><USER6> Have you considered running your operating system in a paravirtualized environment instead of on the bare metal?

<comment><USER5> Yes, and we actually started out developing with bochs, too. Not anti- virtualization, but bare metal is a goal.

If I really sat down and went through it, I'm sure it wouldn't be the end of the world. Unfortunately, I've got a few projects a bit higher up on the food chain right now.</comment></comment></comment>


An Outbreak Among Farm Workers Would Be Catastrophic - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/an-outbreak-among-farm-workers-would-be-catastrophic/ar-BB1257dl <comment><USER2> MSN verges on the absurd. An outbreak among farm workers is extremely unlikely given their social distancing is measured in miles.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my portfolio site - <AUTHOR> Two weeks after starting to learn HTML and CSS, this is my personal site. I would love some feedback on the CSS, UI, and Design.<p>Portfolio images are placeholders. Please also test responsiveness and mobile performance. Thank you! URL: https://weilisdesign.000webhostapp.com/ <comment><USER2> On latest iOS 11, iPhone 7 and Chrome browser the email and phone number is not clickable. Would change that so that there is less friction for me to contact you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable link: [https://weilisdesign.000webhostapp.com/](https://weilisdesign.000webhostapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the gradient fill.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! My only problem with it is that, on mobile, it stays fixed to the device height, even when the content is longer. When I make it fill the entire body, it streches across all the content, but stops at the bottom edge of the page content, leaving an ugly white area on desktop. Does anyone have an idea, how I can make it stretch across the whole body, while also stretching to the viewport height if the content doesn't reach the bottom edge?

<comment><USER4> I think you can at least add a background-color of the color the gradient ends at, so it doesn't end with just white. like this:

background: linear-gradient(to top, #30cfd0 0%, #330867 100%) #330867;

if I'm not mistaken, that should work, otherwise, just add the background- color property with the desired color.

As for making it stretch across the whole body, maybe try min-height 100% for body and html? Haven't tried it yet, but I could imagine that works.</comment></comment></comment>


Podcast: Niantic Director of Engineering on Building and Launching Pokémon GO - <AUTHOR> https://www.gcppodcast.com/post/episode-57-pokemon-go-with-edward-wu/ <comment><USER2> Can this be true? 'Pokémon GO' is about to surpass Twitter in daily active users on Android. Wow.

<comment><USER3> around launch (from when the linked article is) that seems easily imaginable. Interesting question is if it actually did (can't listen to the recording right now).</comment></comment>


Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in northwestern Europe?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1282

<comment><USER2> The problem with most of these theories is that they don't prove causation - just correlation. The causation could go the other way. For example, let's consider the argument that it was the growth of institutions that led to economic development. But could it not be that it was economic development that led to institutions? Did industrialization cause the growth or did the growth cause the industrialization?

This is easier to see with more current examples. Why is Silicon Valley what it is and some other parts of the country technological backwaters? Any causal argument can be turned around so that the effect is the cause and the cause is the effect.</comment>


Some Thoughts on Military Revolutions – Andrew Marshall (1993) - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The link appears to point back to HN, not to the external article.

I was actually interested in reading that article. Can someone supply a correct link? (Or is this a meta thing where "revolution" is illustrated by being led in a circle by the link?)</comment>