Neurodiversity - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27221 <comment><USER2> Everyone always wants to prevent cures for autism, but no one ever suggests inventing something that gives people autism.

(It was sort of a plot point in a Vernor Vinge novel. And Brave New World?)

<comment><USER3> Problem is there is autism like (maybe) Einstein or Tesla and then there is autism where the child can't communicate or adapt to any form of human social interaction or contact. The former is neurodiversity, the latter a debilitating disease.

These are not the same thing and need different terms.

<comment><USER4> The recent developments of DSM-5 and ICD-11 show the opposite: decades of research failed to show any scientifically valid distinction between functional and non-functional autism. That's why they are being conflated into a single "autism spectrum disorder" category.

<comment><USER5> Those books exist as a method for billing insurance. The DSM only recently (1983) stopped considering homosexuality a diagnosis.

As a result we're hearing the phrase "somewhere on the spectrum" for any number of behaviors we don't see fitting the norm, and the reality of autism is not this "beautiful mind" scenario for many, but instead a crippling illness like the AP mentions. They are definitely not the same thing to the people who live with them.

The article is completely centered around the media image that autism creates geniuses, and that's a dangerous, misleading idea at best. The reality of living with it is usually much more ugly. Children who often become grown adults who can't make connections between cause and effect violently lashing out, throwing feces, biting care givers, screaming, screaming, and more screaming.

We should absolutely keep looking for ways to prevent and try to treat/cure it, and not act like everything is fine and great and accept it as diversity, for the sake of those who can't live normally.

<comment><USER6> As someone who falls in the "Beautiful Mind" end of the spectrum I find it insulting and abhorrent that people would do anything OTHER than cure us if they could.

Beneath superficial success and contribution, my life is a nonstop Munchian scream. I find it less insulting when people say everyone on the spectrum should be exterminated, than when people say some of us should be allowed to continue existing because our particular end of the spectrum happens to write pretty code / invent pretty theorems / etc.

<comment><USER7> On the other hand, I've met high-functioning autists that feel offended at the idea that people want to cure them. My cousin is on the "very crippled side" of the spectrum, so I'd give anything for a cure. So I guess if the person can understand the concept, it should be their own call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think we will start to limit our capability for diversity soon. Population control, anti-aging and direct genetic control will limit the opportunities for change. A case of our short term culture conflicting with our long term biology.

It's a pity because we will be less likely to ever become something we can't already imagine.

<comment><USER9> >>It's a pity because we will be less likely to ever become something we can't already imagine.

The desire of mankind to control everything is its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author has a point. As long as we don't understand how we're built and functioning, modifying our code is a bad idea. Learning by doing is only applicable when the thing in question is expendable, which is definitely not the case with the human genome.

<comment><USER11> Surely we have devised experiments for which the use of the human genome is indeed expendable? e.g. tissue cultures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I once used the term "neurodiversity" in a meeting with the vice principal and a resource teacher in the context of the behaviour of one of my children. The knife-eyes and suspicious looks were amazing.

Lots of _talk_ in the school system about acceptance and anti-bullying, but I think our society has never been so intolerant of the diversity it claims to covet.

(We switched schools and things are much better now.)

<comment><USER13> was that recently? I thought "neurodiversity" was the preferred term for conditions like dyslexia dyspraxia and so on

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't think it's possible to edit autism out until it's actually understood on a mechanical level. It's likely that's what's now called 'autism' in reality are several completely different things with vaguely similar symptoms.

Once it's understood, I don't think it's going to disappear: positive forms of it (ie. milder Asperger's) are going to become a niche option for parents, along with high iq edits of course. The 'little Einstein' option on a menu.

<comment><USER6> Hi, I have milder asperger's, and I've been highly successful by most objective measures (great job in finance, make more money than both my parents combined, trophy wife, etc.)

If I could go back and start over without the disease, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant sacrificing all that success and being a fry-cook all my life.

<comment><USER14> How can you know? The only way to really compare two lives would be to live them both.

<comment><USER6> I'm completely fucking isolated. Like, a million miles away.

Someone at work invites me to a party. I go, I have fun. I never get invited again. New person gets hired, pattern repeats. Reliable as a clock.

My wife? I picked her up using techniques from the seduction community, which I studied like a science and practiced for over a year. I did that because I was tired of being a virgin, now I hate this relationship and feel powerless to escape it. BTW, during that seduction community time I spent endless hours at bars and clubs, surrounded by people having fun and pretending to have fun myself. I never had any fun there. It was more of a war zone which I tolerated in pursuit of a goal.

At work I feel like the mythical Cassandra, cursed to see the future but no- one will believe you. (I'm a programmer, of course.) I wish I could just treat it like a job that doesn't matter, and that it wouldn't physically pain me when some idiot can't even follow in-house variable-naming conventions, etc.

Sure, I guess I can't be 100% certain that fry-cooks aren't in their own screaming hell, just like I can't be 100% sure I'm not living in Plato's cave. But I think that's pretty fucking academic compared to the above things which I can be sure of.

<comment><USER11> The adage 'birds of a feather flock together' is a true one. Our ability to communicate with each other relies most strongly on shared experience esp. with regard to normative behavior, thoughts.

I would not advise you to act as neurotypical but to seek out your own kind. That might not be easily found in collected pools of humans but to take a leaf out of the Major's book: 'The net is vast and infinite.'

How many of us have mentioned an obscure topic in passing on HN, and then been surprised by an erudite observation? Of course this does not always prevail, but it happens with enough frequency that I am convinced for each person there are companions.

To be less academic, if there are conventions for furries, then there are places in the world for you too!

It is frequently noted that geeks do much better at themed events with a purpose than at generic social outings. Less night club, more book club. The more object oriented the activity, the easier geeks get along. If you've been to a Hackerspace you'll know there is a wide range of interesting people at such places.

P.S. Every line cook I've known does claim to be in their own screaming hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The actual question is- what is or was neuro-diversity useful for? Its a uncomfortable question, because the answers may insult conservative and progressive comfort zones.

The publicly condemned sadistic murderer, might be a perfectly adapted model- citizen for a society that wents savage every second generation.

The schizoid paranoid might be have been a model citizen in society ravaged by disease and bubonic plague, forming hate-filled sub-communitys, who would purge outsiders and self-quarantine.

The sexual-deviant might have been a model citizen in a society that had no real justice system, by being forced to uphold basic social contracts.

Autism would be a attempt of evolution to develop reliable automation and mass production in a medieval society in need of it.

All of this of course has to be "triggered" somehow, so there would be a feedback loop of mothers in the making, that create with the society they perceive, the counter measure of tomorrow. Have strife and stress? Next generation will have more psychopaths that see your genetic lottery ticket through that. Have a disease like the anti-baby-pill?

Lots of paranoid schizophrenic that want humanity to retreat into gated community.

Of course non of this is written in stone, it is always how nature turned out by supply and demand. What we make of this, is completely open to debate, but it has to be made upon a foundation of well researched knowledge, not upon a wishing well.

<comment><USER16> There is no need to assume a reason for genetic variance or a particular genetic expression. The idea that evolution is directed, that each change is somehow purposeful has been fairly conclusively disproven: genetic drift has been observed nearly universally. As speculative fiction your ideas are somewhat interesting. I don't know if you've ever tried your hand at a short story, but it could be a good premise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Even though my intuition tells me that I should support neurodiversity my reasoning keeps failing to justify it without introducing "diversity is unconditionally good" as an axiom. I find it difficult to add it to the list of axioms I support because it seems like hypocrasy to endorse diversity considering the history of humans.

Almost every human has the ability to learn and speak language, which is unique to mankind. (What media often reports as an animal language is not a language in that it doesn't have recursion -- the ability to handle it is, Chomsky and his supporters believe, unique to humans)

But shortly after language was born, in the very first stage of evolution of language, there must have been significant percentage of people who could not learn language. Where did they go? The answer is: they went extinct, failing to reproduce. And that's why we all can learn and speak language. The ancestors of us are those who could speak it. By making it difficult to reproduce for those who couldn't speak language, through the process of natural selection, we managed to build society where almost all of the members can speak it. Having autism in this era is analogous to being non-verbal in the early stage of humans.

With that said, endorsing diversity seems to be denial of evolution to me, denial of how we have come this far. It is by putting selection pressure on those who cannot adapt to society. And the sad reality is, you cannot stop it from happening. Autistic people will go extinct, even without the gene-editing technology, just like non-verbal people went extinct.

<comment><USER10> Why do autistic people have to go extinct? Can't we support them in this wealthy day and age? Couldn't great cognitive tools lie beneath autism and other supposed illnesses? In my experience, "normal" people are the most boring because they can't think in (what they would consider) contorted ways.

There's a whole spectrum of people, one end which defines large parts of society, the plain average. On the other end are people whose minds are so distorted relative to the norm that it's impossible for them to function in our society. I would put the blame for that on society not being diverse or open enough.

It seems to me that evolution works because of diversity: an organism diversifies through mutations to the point where one type gets an advantage over the others and survives. Think of it this way: If you limit yourself to what you already know, you'll be turning in circles, constantly reaching the same conclusions for the same problems. Let some outside knowledge/factors mess things up and you'll be able to move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I live with mental "illness". With respect to the brain, the diversity is our story. The types and subtypes are challenges on how to live, past and beyond the diagnosis.

</comment><comment><USER19> I believe they're right about neurodiversity overall but that doesn't make a case for preventing gene editing so these people can better function in our society.

If you think about it, surely out of the counless gene variations possible in sexual reproduction some of them will most definitely be bad and even fatal.

In fact this happens all the time. The fact is that society is naturally tuned toward the average case and straying far in either direction usually causes a bad quality of life.

Humans have a tendency to mark everything as good or bad. Beautiful or ugly, smart or stupid. In reality everything is on a statistical distribution and for most traits you want to be in the middle. We shouldn't be breeding humans to live 20 years or 200, as a social species it's largely better to just correct the large outliers, even if it means losing our "geniuses"

</comment><comment><USER20> It can be a-la-cart. We'll find ways to make it possible to edit our genomes so that we can have:

* dark skin when we want it (for practical reasons or style)

* stripey zebra skin (just for this week, it's a novelty)

* genetic tattoos (program your skin to make tattoos of your design)

* cuttlefish skin, glowing jellyfish skin (for parties)

* change eye/hair color to match our clothes when going out

* change mental processing style for exams, getting jobs, learning languages (this week I'm autistic)

</comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR CRISPR will lead to fewer people on autism/spectrum?

A friend mentioned his son is a bit "Aspy" \- he said it with a bit of pride in his voice. Both father and son are brilliant coders.

Meanwhile, there's Modafinil. Originally intended as a treatment for narcolepsy, others use it to improve concentration.

I wonder if neuro-configurability will lead to less or more diversity?

<comment><USER10> Less, because the choices you would be offered would be limited compared to the messy free-for-all that is natural evolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Like it or not Autistic people will be weeded out of society through fetal genetic testing or other interventions. It will be a net loss for humanity, but I don't think there's anyway to stop it.

It's a paradox in that it's nearly impossible to appreciate the value of neurodiversity until you build a close relationship with such a person.

My cousin Tony with Downs's would have most likely been aborted decades ago if a test were available. What no one knew is that he would become so kind, good natured, and socialable it would bring incredible joy and love to literally hundreds of family members and friends. There won't be too many like him from now on: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/22/downs-syndrome- pe...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/22/downs-syndrome-people-risk- extinction-at-the-hands-of-science-fe)

The paradox is that most families with Autistic or Down's children would tell you their lives have been greatly enriched. To outsiders it sounds like parents are in denial and blinded to their child's predicament. But it's not denial or sympathy, the value is beautiful, but invisible until you experience it.

<comment><USER23> On the other hand I have heard more than once people who do sometimes very secretly confess they wish their cousin/brother/etc with Down's had been aborted. They always talk about all the love and joy and positive things too. But at the end of the day, they say, they think they would have preferred it the other way. But this is not pretty, and it's not something people like to talk about. So if you just take what people say in public, you maybe don't get accurate representation.

Maybe the people I know are not good representation of the population, though!

<comment><USER22> Sure, there will always be people who don't make the connection. Just like there are people who scale approval of their children based on accomplishments in sports, academics, or whatever.

I'm pretty sure that's a minority though. I'm involved in an organization where I interact with lots of ASD families and anecdotally at least there are not many regrets.

The best way I know to explain it is this: [http://www.our- kids.org/Archives/Holland.html](http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Building Web Apps with ASP.NET Core and DotVVM - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/building-web-apps-with-asp-net-core-and-dotvvm/ <comment><USER2> I think it's great idea write web app without tunns of javascript

</comment><comment><USER2> I think it is great idea. It looks like simple framework for web app</comment>


Media Observatory – Quantifying Media Bias - <AUTHOR> http://mediaobservatory.com <comment><USER2> This article teaches some useful things about the media landscape, like the main players in the "wholesale" part of the news supply chain. Not sure how deep the described service will be able to categorize and label bias in the normal sense of the word, but it can nonetheless (possibly) prove to be a highly useful tool for media meta analysis.

Will be following this.

<comment><USER3> Is there a clear, and precise, definition of bias? "Systematic deviation from the truth" sounds like a good start, but _truth_ isn't exactly something that is easily available in practice.

Honestly, similarity measures seems like a good start to build a more robust "bias" definition on, even if it won't be exactly the meaning I suggested above.

<comment><USER2> > _" Systematic deviation from the truth" sounds like a good start_

"Truth" is such a vague notion bordering on unusable in most rational contexts, as what most people consider "truth" contains some bias or other. When people quarrel over truthfulness is seldom the facts that they disagree on; it is the valuation of those facts in relation to the topic, i.e. relevance.

Not counting the type of bias which is not ashamed to twist the actual facts, but that is a rarity, and easily dismissed.

<comment><USER3> > When people quarrel over truthfulness is seldom the facts that they disagree > on

Eh, I think this now we are at a mostly semantic point: for example, there is nothing strange about arguing there exists some optimal weighting of various facts, and this optimal combination can then justifiably be labelled truth.

> Not counting the type of bias which is not ashamed to twist the actual > facts, but that is a rarity, and easily dismissed.

Isolated instances are easily dismissed, but the USA is now ruled by a systematic dismissal of truth so it is not quite so easy.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Web Development with React, Falcor, and ES6 - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.widen.com/blog/future-of-the-web-react-falcor/ <comment><USER2> I don't have a problem with the concept behind Falcor and GraphQL. My problem is the execution and the fact that one has deal with yet another layer of complexity on top of everything else, which expose an ORM,RPC like framework on both side, and make things more difficult to cache. There has to be a better compromise to achieve the same goal.

EDIT: Or let's go full AMF again and use classes and objects defined on the server in the client... I fail to understand how Falcor and GraphQL are a better alternative to what already exists. Why limit it to queries then ? let me get my FactoryFactories right back in the client instead of yet another format, since REST is basically thrown out of the window anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> Falcor is still in developer preview ([https://github.com/Netflix/falcor](https://github.com/Netflix/falcor)). Otherwise the API (both on the server and the client side) look simpler than anything else I've tried so far.

<comment><USER4> It might be a clean API but it was developed to solve a problem that nobody besides huge companies like Netflix have to the detriment of REST API design and a clean network protocol.

You are also bound to use both their client-side AND server-side libraries which locks you completely in.

<comment><USER5> REST is inadequate even for smaller companies, when it comes to the use cases Relay+GraphQL (or Falcor) tries to solve.

1\. Under fetching and over fetching.

2\. REST is great for CRUD, but not everything is that simplistic. Eg: Changes spanning multiple entities with transaction support.

3\. Patchy PATCH support. Also, endless debates on whether something should be a PATCH or a PUT or a POST. The answer in some of those cases was that it couldn't be solved with clean REST.

(Edit: added GraphQL)

<comment><USER4> Do you have use cases that won't fit in a REST design ?

I'm genuinely curious because as a web developer most of the problems I have encountered can be solved with API versioning, filters, paginations, scopes (limiting returned fields) and hierarchical URL structures (e.g: /users/:userId/comments/:commentId).

<comment><USER5> Let me use the example you have.

1\. Clean RESTful URLs like the one you have doesn't make it easy to fetch { article, article.author.name, [user.comments.commenter] } in a _single call_. GraphQL let's you define the Shape you want.

2\. Updates spanning multiple resources aren't a good fit for a Resource Oriented pattern like REST. a) How do you delete multiple comments (Ids 1, 34, 44) in one shot? [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7511195/rest- architecture...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7511195/rest-architecture- for-multiple-deletes)

3\. How do I edit /users/200 and /users/201 in one single call? Imagine a Grid with a Save Button. Also, this could be a transaction as well.

The above is doable with REST, but it is kind of a grey area and loses some of the obviousness seen in clean URLs such as in your example.

<comment><USER4> I agree that those cases would be tough to make work in a "clean" or at least standard RESTful API design but it's really improbable to encounter them.

1\. This issue could be attributed to the database schema design imo.

2\. In what case would you want to delete multiple comments at the same time ? I'm not trying to argue for the sake of arguing but I've genuinely never had to remove parts of an array that were not either a single element or the whole array.

3\. Again I don't see a scenario where you would have to do this. If it's a consequence of another API call for example: You DELETEd a "group" so all of its member "users" should be deleted too. Than this kind of side effects or consistency CRUD should be handled inside the DELETE API call of the "group".

I don't think that REST API design pretends to answer every single business logic use case but it does answer most of the common ones.

In my opinion it's also dangerous to use a library that will abstract those difficult / unconventional use cases because they will feel easy to solve and hide the inherent complexity and cost that is present in the Database queries.

<comment><USER6> Case for point 2: Comment administration page. You get a list of comments with checkboxes, check the ones you want to select and then click "Delete selected".

Case for point 3: Like he said, a grid (with inline editing) and a "save" button.

<comment><USER7> I've put some thoughts below with references to cookbook recipes, I'm not saying they are in sweet point for a lovely resource oriented design but they are things you can handle.

1\. Recipe 2.4 is one option. Alternative might be granular resources, if the characteristics of your use case means they can be done efficiently. For example we might include the URL to author details inside the article. That means another request, but if those author details are made immutable (as in change to author details means new URL), then they can be given a long cache period. Also HTTP/2 will mean more granular resources have different performance characteristics.

2\. Recipe 11.10 could work so the URL would be the comments collection as a whole, I'd use PATCH (or POST if PATCH isn't an option) to then send the updates you need. So a PATCH to /<posturl>/comments with the result body including information that causes those comments to be deleted.

3\. Same idea as 2, I'd use PATCH to the collection or a custom resource.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool. This is very similar to a repo I recently published: Data-driven React application using the Flux pattern and the Cosmic JS browser client. [https://github.com/tonyspiro/react-flux- cosmicjs](https://github.com/tonyspiro/react-flux-cosmicjs)

</comment><comment><USER9> Small note on Falcor and its paradigm - in huge, complex applications, delaying errors until runtime is something to be avoided. Using Falcor seems like it'll be prone to that.

On the other hand, ASP.NET MVC or Web API will give you intellisense when consuming your endpoint.

<comment><USER5> From an earlier @falcorjs tweet: @evanwinslow Not out of the box. However the great thing about a untyped schema, is that you can always layer a typed schema over it. [https://twitter.com/falcorjs/status/596416048988966912?s=08](https://twitter.com/falcorjs/status/596416048988966912?s=08)

The reason Asp.net MVC and Web API gives you type information is because a) you've already given type information b) tooling

You can overlay schema on Falcor API and verify it as part of the build. The tooling for the probably doesn't exist right now, but the building blocks for tooling do. Actually, your point is more about JS vs a statically typed language.

<comment><USER10> Yep, and Relay/GraphQL do this so that would be a place to look at how it'd be done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> can anyone tell me why Falcor and/or GraphQL is better than using hypermedia apis and a orchestration layer service?</comment>


EFF Urges State Appeals Court to Protect Twitter Parodies - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/eff-urges-state-appeals-court-protect-twitter-parodies <comment><USER2> Are we sure the "BadAss Lawyer" isn't himself a parody on lawyers in general? The Bar Association should kick him out and sue him for attempting to make a parody of the law.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best highly-configurable dashboard? - <AUTHOR> I'm setting up a big touchscreen display for monitoring our products, and there's a wide range of data I'd like to be able to easily display in sections, such as:
Server
- Server status - Green, Yellow, Red - Uptime - Last Push - i.e. "4 days ago" - Jenkins Build statuses - CPU - Memory - Disk space - Database statistics? - Django errors (prod)
Business
- Total number of customer sites (Production only; not including test sites, demo cases, etc) - Total number of customer devices (as above) - Total number of users - Avg number of users / site - Avg number of devices / site - Sales $
Project Management
- Number of Open tickets in milestone - Number of tickets currently being worked on - Number of stale tickets (in progress but over 1 week with no updates)
Customer Service
- Number of Open Salesforce tickets - Number of stale tickets - Average response time - Average call duration
What is some good dashboard software that provides out-of-the-box display modules (i.e. graphs, numbers, on/off "leds") that can be mapped to arbitrary APIs?  Ideally this would be self-hosted on a Raspberry Pi.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> This looks pretty close to what I want: [http://mozaik.rocks/](http://mozaik.rocks/)

Configurable via npm module, though there aren't that many yet, but this seems potentially great.

</comment><comment><USER2> Check adminLTE</comment>


JQuery PointPoint – A Plugin For Pointing To Things - g-garron http://tutorialzine.com/2011/09/jquery-pointpoint-plugin/

<comment><AUTHOR> I went to the demo, saw the button, pushed it, got confused, and finally read the description of what exactly the plugin was supposed to do, at which point I went back to the demo and noticed the little arrow.

As an unprimed user, I did not even see that arrow. However, you could always make it larger and more contrasting.

<comment><USER2> I did exactly the same thing. I can't see this being a useful plugin as it stands and I've never seen something like this in any UI either. Something like a shake or highlight would work better.

<comment><USER3> I could see it being useful in a html/javascript based game or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty cool. Sure you can make your UX completely intuitive and accessible to everyone from 5 year olds to grandmas and everyone in between, but not all of us are that capable.

I see this as like the "guiding light" on modern video games when you're confused on where to go or what to do next.

For extra hand-holding I would actually enhance the plugin to highlight the target element and have feedback when the pointer and target come together. Also if there's a specific action that's supposed to occur (click, hover, etc) that a guide shows up when the cursor reaches the target.

<comment><USER5> I don't want to play down the project, but...

For quite a while I didn't understand the purpose of the project. I opened the demo page and found a nice HUGE and RED button in the middle. Clicked it. Nothing happened.. Searched for clues (you know, mouse still hovering over the button) - no idea.

I only noticed the arrow by accident, when I wanted to leave the site for good. And even then it was far to subtle for me..

<comment><USER6> The demo could use more work to better represent the problem that the project is trying to solve. It makes it seem as if the button is going to kick the demo off.

What might be better is some sort of "Find Waldo" and the mouse pointer guides you to him. Or a pseudo-tutorial that it helps you walk through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am fascinated because the demo and presentation was probably a lot more work than creating the plugin itself? (Is it basically an arrow always pointing to the same point?)

<comment><USER8> I came here to say the same thing. Nice demo and site - don't think I'd ever have a use though.

<comment><USER9> It could probably be argued that needing this plugin is actually a symptom that you need to rethink some part of your UI. If an element is important enough to be pointed out like this, it should perhaps feature more prominently in the layout.

<comment><USER10> agreed

<comment><USER11> Just to explain why I downvoted you, since you're new here: on HN, if you agree with a comment, you should upvote the comment. Writing a comment whose only content is stating agreement is very frowned upon.

<comment><USER12> He wrote the comment for the same reason that you wrote yours. Comment scores are hidden and the meaning of an upvote is hidden both from the commenter and other users.

With hidden upvotes the only way to show assent is to comment. Actually as a hack for no comment scores I think I could come to appreciate a string of "agreed" comments as a visual indicator.

It's redundant elsewhere, it's not here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Text Rendering in the QML Scene Graph - <AUTHOR> http://blog.qt.io/blog/2011/07/15/text-rendering-in-the-qml-scene-graph/ <comment><USER2> Date 2011</comment>


Startup Quote: Steve Case, co-founder, AOL - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/1429247128

<comment><AUTHOR> You shouldn't focus on why you can't do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.

\- Steve Case (@SteveCase)</comment>


Phoenix offers free net zero home plan after architectural contest - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90404502/this-home-design-is-completely-free-and-it-could-help-save-the-world <comment><USER2> Two car garage? Suburban land use is the problem. It takes a ton of energy to make and power cars, but if you allow people to live in walkable/bikes or places, that energy isn't necessary.

<comment><USER3> I had a business trip to Phoenix and it is pretty bad for walking and biking but not the worst. There are bike lanes and stuff, but none are protected and they are regularly interrupted by right turns which saw cars and trucks flinging around them at 30-40 mph or just blatantly driving in them. Road lanes are wide and speed limits are high even on side streets. Everything is at least a mile apart though except a few expensive malls and plazas.

Crossing the street feels like a game of frogger. Even if it's just a parking lot entrance. The sidewalks are ovens with zero shade or protection from the insane heat levels. The pavement acts as a radiant heater and you can feel the heat coming off of it.

However, the busses and light rail are pretty nice there! But the scooters being used by people feels like I'm walking into a virtual reality version of "/r/watchpeopledie"</comment></comment>


Embracing Disruption: A Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://kck.st/Ty0kj3

<comment><USER2> Exciting

</comment><comment><USER3> nice cat</comment>


Inspection Paradox (2015) - happy-go-lucky https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html?m=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Another neat example is that 98% of the world's population lives in a country larger than the median.

A more interesting deduction is that humanity is probably atypical, and larger than the average extraterrestrial civilization. Any sentient observer is equally likely to be any single individual, but purely on statistical grounds it is more likely to be part of a larger group. There are further corollaries (see the linked paper), like that the average inhabitated planet is probably smaller than the Earth, the average alien probably has a longer lifespan, and they are probably larger than us in size. But in my opinion, these are a bit spurious as they hinge more on the unknown distribution of life over variables like species diversity, surface area, gravity etc...

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07804](https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07804)

<comment><USER2> Is there a website or book that digs into this topic, what an extraterrestrial life would likely be like - to the best of our current knowledge? Or more generally about the search and likelihood's of finding them on x timescale, and the practical implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Overall the article is very informative. But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early.

The author says: _Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are nearly empty._ But airlines haven't complained about that in a while. Here's a quick google: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load- fa...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/221085/passenger-load-factor-of- delta-air-lines/)

Delta had a load factor of 85.6% last year. It would be hard to find "nearly empty" flights given that load factor. Many years ago airlines ran with 50% load factor. Nowadays they're selling most of their middle seats, most of the time!

<comment><USER4> > But I hit a Gell-Mann amnesia moment very early. [...] The author says: > Airlines complain that they are losing money because so many flights are > nearly empty. But airlines haven't complained about that in a while.

Is that the article being wrong, or is that just an older example? Keep in mind the article itself is from 2015, and all of the examples presented might not be up to date (since the author was listing ones that they've noticed over time). That's nowhere near what Crichton described: "You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is also why, even if Bitcoin blocks are mined every 10 minutes on average, the average size of the _current waiting period between blocks_ is 20 minutes, when averaged over all moments in time.

I wonde if submitter found this blogpost after the recent discussion about Poisson processes.

<comment><USER6> Which discussion was that?

<comment><USER7> Probably [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18321062](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18321062)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Non-mobile link: [https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection- para...](https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is- everywhere.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> The plural of "bus" is "buses".

"busses", refers to kissing.

That is all.

<comment><USER10> Nope, both spellings are fine: [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/busses](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/busses)</comment></comment>


Show HN: "Command Line" for the Social Web - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, this is a side-project I've been working on for my senior year independent work in CS. Would appreciate any comments or feedback.
www.aperator.com
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Cool idea. I had a similar idea this week about just creating a version I can run from my actual command line. I worked on it for a few hours and got Facebook and Twitter working. If you're interested you can see the code at [https://github.com/mattmccormick/Social-Media- Command/blob/m...](https://github.com/mattmccormick/Social-Media- Command/blob/master/social_media.rb)

(Although it's really pretty simple and only does status updates at the moment)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah, this only has status updates working too--mostly I did this as a proof of concept that real applications can be built through Twitter.</comment></comment>


Any Americans using the metric system in daily life? - <AUTHOR>

i.e. in day to day personal life outside of work/school <comment><USER2> Working on sourcing parts for Reprap's and I was shocked to find out that the metalworkers in the area had to convert all my numbers to standard. In electronics manufacturing we used whatever the print had so I just assumed everyone did. I stick with the standard I am used to which is use whatever the print has on it...if its standard I use standard, if its metric I use metric.

I still prefer miles and gallons to km and liters but if I am doing a precise measurement I will use mm. In electronics everything is metric so that is what I use.

Conversion errors kill spacecraft...right?

</comment><comment><USER3> At least in the USA you're consistent (or so I'm lead to believe). In the UK, fuel is sold in litres, but fuel economy is quoted in miles per gallon...

<comment><USER4> I always thought part of the reason for the switch from gallons to litres was that the price in gallons was getting too high. Now we need to switch from litres to decilitres!

Wonder if this would ever drive a similar change in the States.

I still can't think of fuel economy in anything other than mpg despite not knowing how many gallons are even in my tank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only everyday. I HATE our system. Any math, science, design, I only use the metric system.

It's just so much easier to do math and not nearly as confusing when you're trying to communicate with someone. Pound? Wait Pound Force or Pound Mass, wait maybe I meant a Slug. Horsepower, wait what. It's like someone randomly pulled names out of a hat and assigned them random numbers.

<comment><USER3> The word horsepower does originate from some measure of the power of one horse :) But I concur, I'm English, so I've grown up with the metric system, but there are also some imperial stragglers around (distance, speed, etc), and I can say with out a doubt that metric is so much easier to use and understand. Eg: I have absolutely no idea how many yards there are in a mile, but I know it's 1000 meters in a kilometer.

<comment><USER6> When would you need to know how many yards there are in a mile (aside from a damn good pub quiz type question!)

I've never needed to know the amount!

But then again - who's used the pythagorus theory since leaving school? :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I excerise (kettlebells), drive (Honda Insight), cook (with Metric kitchen tools), build (home projects), own Metric only tape measures, and think in Metric, dropped the antiquated American Imperial System years ago. No problem if you have the right tools and do not 'convert' measurements. Only buy if product is in Metric units. All in Pennsylvania. Just use it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a wannabe chef, and I use it for all recipes I've created, or adapted from others. Ratios for baked goods are much easier to work with in metric than imperial. Same goes for woodworking, and anything else with smaller distances. Try as I might, I'm still too used to 'miles' to switch to kilometers.

<comment><USER7> What do you think of my instructable.... [http://www.instructables.com/id/Metrication-of-Recipes- Simpl...](http://www.instructables.com/id/Metrication-of-Recipes-Simplified/) one lbs > 500 g one ounce (dry or fluid) > 31.25 g or mL one cup = 250 mL one tablespoon = 15 mL one teaspoon = 5 mL

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a pharmacy student and nearly all the calculations I do on a regular basis are done using the metric system.

</comment><comment><USER10> I switch back and forth between metal working and wood working on a daily basis and have used metric for both for 15 years. With the wacky thicknesses of plywood/etc fractional units are just not convenient any more.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've almost entirely switched to the metric system in my daily life, but then again, I'm an American living in Thailand. Hard not to change when you live overseas ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> Not yet, but I log my body weight every day and lately I've considered doing it in kilograms to force myself to use the metric system more often.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish the metric system was base-12. It's so close to perfect.

<comment><USER7> Imperial System is based on people with 12 fingers and toes. Thus you can tell an American from a Canadian or anyone else in the World.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> all my running is measured in km.</comment>


Ask HN: Startup with minimal programming knowledge - <AUTHOR>

I have this idea I plan on implementing in the form of an website/app combination that requires some serious programming to implement correctly and to my vision.  My question is can I do this with barely enough programming skills to maybe look over the program written.  I am more of a CFO kind of guy.  What are the options for a startup whose founder isn't a true hacker and how could one do this while still being frugal on the capital side. <comment><USER2> Unless you are paying market rates you are asking a developer to be an investor in your startup and you should treat them as such with a full pitch including the likely returns, risks and proper business plan.

Also a CFO wouldn't be in the top 5 priority roles for most start ups what are you going to bring in the early stages? Sales, marketing, contacts, domain knowledge, significant cash? There may be other things you can bring but you should have an answer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Agree with josephlord, you'll need to bring some proper business skills/experience to the table to be able to convince a developer to partner with you.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do scrum. You have the vision and the budget. You are the product owner.

Hire a scrum master and a team. Pay them handsomely and treat them kindly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Participate to events like startupweekend.org. Pitch your idea and get a team of developers/designers.</comment>


Bujalski's Computer Chess: Sports Film About 1980s Computer Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/01/computer-chess-movie/ <comment><USER2> I love that the "secret" teaser trailer is hosted on apple.com [http://www.computerchessmovie.com/secretteaser/secretteaser....](http://www.computerchessmovie.com/secretteaser/secretteaser.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks awesome

Could compete with 'Primer' as Best Indie Nerd Film</comment>


Introducing 1Password for Families - <AUTHOR> https://blog.agilebits.com/2016/02/16/introducing-1password-for-families/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've often worried my wife won't have access to my online accounts when I pass. As a happy 1Password user I'm happy to see this new feature set.

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks really good. As a LastPass user, how does 1Password compare?</comment>


Analysis: How Far Do Projects Launched At Startup Weekends Travel? (Not Very Far) - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/29/analysis-how-far-do-projects-launched-at-startup-weekends-travel-not-very-far/ <comment><USER2> The "startup weekends" have always seemed like a good way to waste a weekend to me. Not to mention that it's the all too familiar dilution of the word "startup" where "website" would be more apt.

At least if they were just called websites it wouldn't have the false air of them somehow being companies afterwards and it'd be easier for me to not be cynical of the time people spend on them.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill I was under the impression that the main reason for a startup weekend was to knock the moss off, and encourage people to actually DO something; that is, it is more like practice or a dress rehearsal.

<comment><USER2> Practice and dress rehearsals are usually longer and more effort than the real thing so that you learn how to do it.

This sounds more like going to one of those _career day_ things where you watch people pretending it's one of their normal days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am involved in a project that started at Startup Weekend in Nashville, TN (that is not listed in that article). We are very active and fully expect to be profitable this year.

It sounds like they missed a few other active projects as well.

<comment><USER3> If anyone is interested you can see our project at <http://gpsassassins.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this article misses the point of Startup Weekend. I attended the one in Columbus and the main goal was to have some fun, meet new people, and build something cool (which was only briefly mentioned in the post). Frankly, I'm surprised and impressed that ANY of the websites from Startup Weekend are still operating. We should be congratulating those teams among the 10%.

</comment><comment><USER5> I cant imagine anyone would have thought a startup weekend project would succeed as a company. However, as the article notes, the benefits to the participants are obvious. Good connections and a little extra experience.

I think trying to build a startup in one of these time limited events really helps speed up development on your other work. I know it has for me.

</comment><comment><USER6> Of course they don't go far, to succeed as a startup you need dedication, you need some skin in the game to keep on going, no matter what. If all you spent was a couple of hours on the project, you really have no motivation to help it suceed

</comment><comment><USER7> It's obvious why: start ups are a marathon.

I wonder how many iterations of user feedback it takes for successful companies to get their product right. I would wager at least 5.

</comment><comment><USER8> I participated in the San Francisco edition. I had a great experience. I met several people who I still regularly hang out with and plan to collaborate with in the near future.</comment>


Codakido, Lua/SDL programming environment for Kids, with C64-alike editor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/antirez/codakido <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

this is the result of two days of hacking during the weekend, the obvious inspiration is Codea. I and my son have fun with Codea but we can't use it often (we don't have an iPad at home), so I wrote this code. Later I realized that using an external editor was not working so I added a retro-computing alike editor, and now it is much easier for kids to modify and execute the program.

Everything is currently very work in progress, I hope I'll find more time to invest into this project, but even more I hope to get pull requests by interested parents that have children and are interested into teaching some programming.

EDIT: since I used most of the time hacking on the code I was not able to add some decent example. Please if you write some nice one drop me an email, pull request, whatever.

<comment><USER2> I really like the idea and the code is just great. I had fun by just reading the C code and experimenting a bit.

Now that the editor is included it's even more awesome :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks badboy! The editor was definitely the most fun part to write (but it need more love, there are a few bugs). Since the whole editor only uses setPixel() as basic primitive it will work the same in different operating systems that can be a good point. Probably could be easily extrapolated to be used into games for the same reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want kids to use it, do not call it Codakido. Call it something that sounds interesting, and do interesting things with it. Kids don't want to be kids. Kids want to be kids getting ready to be adults. This is essentially instinctive. Things that are "for kids" are things that are labeled as things kids need to transcend, not things they need to grow into.

I learned on a C64, and was inspired by C64 demo-scene demos and the fact that the C64 was used for industrial process control. I started at age five.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I think I'll rename it, and extend it enough to make it more interesting than just drawing a few circles ;) good suggestion thanks.

<comment><USER4> As a rabid fan of your project, some things I think it needs:

a) cloud storage - somewhere to stash Lua scripts and retrieve them for playback (See moai cloud for inspiration: <http://getmoai.com/>)

b) sound synthesis - not just .WAV playback, but real synthesis using a small but happy engine. (See sfxr for inspiration: <http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html>)

c) some sort of network/multiplayer integration - again, with the cloud, it'd be nice to be able to push messages out to a queue and get messages back

d) 3D primitives .. ermm .. maybe this is going a bit too far. Okay, instead of 3D, how about some .png loading and basic sprites management?

Actually, I guess I'm describing MOAI at this point, but yeah .. you're definitely on the right track! Maybe I should go pester the MOAI guys about making a code-editing IDE for MOAI, in MOAI .. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great stuff! And most are already in my TODO list indeed... The next weekend I'll hack on it a lot again to bring a few of this features.

But I would add another one:

e) Ability to write some kind of assembler or other low-level stuff interleaved with Lua, so that's possible to also do as-fast-as-ASM computations if needed.

I guess this should be a layer translating something like Z80 assembler into x86 code. You call Lua with a string containing the program, it gets translated, and executed. I guess it should not be entirely impossible to provide something that also compiles to something safe (that can't crash the Load81).

Thanks for the suggestions!

<comment><USER4> Inline Assembly, eh? Hmm.. not sure I can get behind that one, given that I've mostly been running codakido on my ARM machines .. but I can certainly understand the desire.

For my purposes, Lua has been _quite_ performant enough!

Well, anyway maybe its time I added some of these features (can't stop thinking about the synth feature!) and do a pull request ..

;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really nice!

But I do not get the C64 editor look stuff. I mean why not add syntax highlighting and make this more eye friendly (neither requires abandoning a cute color scheme)? I never had a C64, I saved 2 years so I could afford a 286, I used GWBASIC and, soon after, TurboC++. Neither had syntax highlighting. I don't think it helps kids who are getting into programming if the looks of these dev environment were regurgitated either. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> For now it's just a start ;) Soon I'll add more features into the editor to make it more user friendly indeed.

I don't want to add completion as IMHO does not help learning.

<comment><USER5> Cool. :)

Btw., I assume you know LOEVE? <https://love2d.org/> Is is very similar, though the target audience is not kids. :)

Personally, I think time would be well spent making a kids-friendly version of LOEVE (and ofc, porting LOEVE to Android/iOs, finally).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been playing around with Scratch (<http://scratch.mit.edu/>) and its slightly extended version BYOB (<http://byob.berkeley.edu/>) over the past couple of days.

It's simple enough that after an afternoon of basic instruction, my 5 year old managed to create this entirely on her own while I was cooking dinner - <http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/hobart/2372941> (try pressing various keys - I know that "g", space, "8", "m", up arrow and the green flag all do something, but there may be more in there as well).

<comment><USER7> Congratulations, that's excellent! I'll have to show this to my daughter. She wants to make her own Hello Kitty game since she's been watching her older brother (8) making games on Scratch :) Its an excellent platform for learning the basics of programming. I was worried that my son wouldn't have the patience to work with Scratch since he sees what's on Wii and XBox and that has set his expectation level. But fortunately he's become very excited by Scratch and can build games with very little or no guidance from me now, w00t!

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I was expecting my daughter to get bored quickly as well. But having watched her, it strikes me as a software version of Lego - you'll never create a toy/game as good as one you could buy in the shops, but the real fun is the fact that you can create pretty much anything your imagination can come up with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has potential on the Raspberry Pi.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's my target, I hope that when the Raspberry PI will be available enough, Codakido will be functional enough to be a good alternative to the BBC micro BASIC.

<comment><USER9> I like the choice of Lua and SDL, not only as a modern LOGO/BASIC alternative. I think it can go much further.

I guess as a minimum you want the editor to function to the level of notepad/pico/nano, and then perhaps have helpers with regards to indenting, and after that error marking similar to that of QBASIC, and after that syntax highlighting.

<comment><USER10> You might be surprised how "modern" BBC Basic is, even today.

<comment><USER11> yeah, it had some very well-thought-out features. dijkstra notwithstanding, i am glad it was my first language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you like this, you'll love MOAI: <http://getmoai.com/>

(For when those kids grow up a little more, perhaps..)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Project renamed as "Load81", so unfortunately now the link is broken. If an admin could fix this it would be great.

<comment><USER12> Make a new codakido repository with just a readme pointing to the new location.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! done. Github should suggest this in the rename page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The project has moved here: <https://github.com/antirez/load81.git>

</comment><comment><USER14> Very nicely done!

</comment><comment><USER10> This is exactly what I have been talking about! The way to get kids into programming is exactly the same way we all got into it: the 8-bit micro experience. Top marks!

<comment><USER15> The language here is lua, a structured language, rather than a thin instruction layer over hardware. If it more of an API behind it (e.g. ability to work with sound at a low level) then the result could be better.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I want to add low level things like POKE to write to the screen memory. Sound would also be awesome.

<comment><USER16> Sprites are quite fun to move around, even if you're not doing it in a more interactive fashion (like Logo).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Reinventing Smalltalk? Nice job.

<comment><USER18> Y U NO READ THE README???

No seriously, are you implying that

a) you consider small talk a language for kids or b) this is a complete and dynamic development environment with live debugging etc.?

I wish the OP best luck with the second, but I think he's not quite there (nor he needs to be, since the very nature of this project seems completely different from, say, squeak)

<comment><USER19> Offtopic, but Smalltalk was in fact meant to be kid-friendly. Modern Smalltalks are different beasts, though, with all their enterprisey bullcrap. Squeak is an attempt to correct that.

<comment><USER18> TIL

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> From user point of view using flash as GUI is a better idea. <http://code.google.com/p/lua-alchemy/>

example: <http://lua-alchemy.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/demo/index.html>

<comment><USER21> I disagree.

Flash won't work on iOS or (soon) any new Android device, nor will it work in the default browser on Windows 8. Despite what Adobe may say in public, I expect Flash to be completely dead (except possibly for maintenance/security updates) by this time next year.

<comment><USER22> Incorrect. The Adobe AIR SDK allows you to package Flash content as native apps for both iOS and Android. Adobe only halted development on the browser plugin for Android.

<comment><USER21> Apples and oranges. The example to which I was responding shows it running in a browser.

If the kids are going to share their creations, they need to run in the browser, without requiring installations, app stores, and so on.

As much as it sucks, Flash did have the one big advantage of being ubiquitous. That's no longer the case.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jeffrey Epstein: Financier 'found dead in cell' in New York - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49306032 <comment><USER2> This sounds too convenient. If this was a suicide and not anything more sinister, this is gross negligence by prison authorities. It was their solemn duty and responsibility to see this person face trial.

This will only inflame conspiracy theory minded people to believe there is a vast conspiracy by the powerful to protect themselves.

This is depressing. I'm yet hopeful evidence will be used to bring guilty parties to justice. This wasn't just mr Epstein.

<comment><USER3> I am not a lawyer, but @klasfeldreports on twitter quotes an unnamed legal source who says:

"Background: An important note after Epstein's death: no one else will have standing to challenge the search warrant on his house. Everything will be admissible against any other defendant without possibility of a motion to suppress."

So maybe this will be a net good for justice?

<comment><USER2> Maybe. One hopes this can be salvaged. I guess we may never know who was behind it all pulling the levers. Mr Epstein can't have been at the top.

<comment><USER4> Epstein was quite plausibly the chief procurer; he no doubt had a wife array of powerful clients, but there's not a lot of reason to think there was a higher-level mastermind behind Epstein in the procurement operation.

<comment><USER5> Epstein comes off as an unhinged individual. With a mansion full of sex art, a normal reaction would be "we should have known in retrospect", not a sweetheart plea deal.

<comment><USER4> > Epstein comes off as an unhinged individual. With a mansion full of sex art, > a normal reaction would be "we should have known in retrospect", not a > sweetheart plea deal.

That Epstein had politically powerful clients and friends is not in serious dispute (which were clients and which were merely friends unconnected to his child rape business is somewhat less clear), and explains the sweetheart plea deal without resort to some behind-Epstein mastermind.

It's not impossible, but there is nothing that is explained more easily by such a mastermind than by the Epstein being the master of his own sex trade operation which garnered him influence (simply heading that operation means he has powerful blackmail material on powerful people.)

<comment><USER5> I suggest reading the book October Surprise by Gary Sick. Intelligence agencies don't use competent people.

Your understanding of the situation is incorrect, and is leading you to incorrect conclusions.

<comment><USER4> > I suggest reading the book October Surprise by Gary Sick. Intelligence > agencies don't use competent people.

They use incompetent people who can be manipulated into believing they have common interests and competent people who believe in their own that they have common interests, but, yes, they often use incompetent people. The relevance of this observation is unclear, as it still presents no existing phenomenon that requires a shady superior to Epstein to explain.

> Your understanding of the situation is incorrect.

You have as yet provided no way in which my understanding is incorrect.

<comment><USER5> Looking at Epstein's life seems incredible.

It is so incredible it is beyond my understanding.

But you claim to understand it, which is also very much beyond me.

But you are right, more so than you think, I cannot provide a way for you to understand something I don't understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This makes me so angry. Such an important case, so much on the line. And then this. And if you question the official narrative of "suicide", you will probably soon be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Oh an just by the way, this news broke first on 4chan (thread 222518349). That just on the matter of what the value of these sites are.

edit: and already there are [dead] comments who question this

<comment><USER7> The problem, in my experience, is that for one legit fact usually there is a lot of actual fake news thrown in, along with context free facts, in those communities. This causes a lot of people believe false things and keep repeating it to others. A form of brainwashing. Also people who assume someone's guilt and then work backwards towards showing it, while ignoring other signs.

<comment><USER8> This is the way I would have explained the main stream media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. I don't think I have seen a situation before where Occam's razor doesn't help writing off the conspiracy. It seems harder in this case to believe someone in a jail cell on suicide watch kills themselves than to believe that it was arranged (that is, at least "allowed"). It's suspiciously sloppy.

<comment><USER10> People "on suicide watch" die all the time. It's not super rare.

<comment><USER11> It's not super common either. He was a very high profile criminal, but also a potential witness against very high profile people. Special precautions should have been taken.

<comment><USER12> And he was under 24/7 camera surveillance. If it was a clean suicide there should be video evidence.

<comment><USER13> And wouldn't you know it? "Oops, camera malfunction. We'll investigate that, too..."

<comment><USER14> That's indeed what happened.

<comment><USER15> I believe you, but could you cite a source on there being a camera and it malfunctioning? Because damn, this is just getting truly impossible to believe it was just a suicide.

<comment><USER14> I shouldn't have affirm it. @michaelcoudrey tweeted it yesterday, without a source, and others followed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These headlines...

"Financier"

Everything I have read since this came out states no one has any idea how/where Epstein made his money. And yet, the headlines read "Financier." Not convicted criminal. Suspected sex trafficker, rapist, pedophile, or anything of that nature.

Everything about Epstein and this case shows the insane power imbalance between those at the top of our society and everyone else.

<comment><USER17> In the press, the alleged victims were "young women" \- not "minors" or "underaged". The difference in reporting is amazing to behold.

<comment><USER18> There is a term for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Somehow 4chan knew it before media reported it: [https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/222518349/](https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/222518349/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe because they didn't need to corroborate the story first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It may be a good idea to watch out for cops and guards from that prison suddenly 'buying businesses', making other large and successful investments, receiving expensive gifts and/or gaining large amounts of wealth. My current theory is that Epstein had a bounty on his head and was killed by a cop or guard, it's often case that prison 'suicides' are in fact covers for police brutality gone too far, so I think this is the most likely scenario.

<comment><USER21> > it's often case that prison 'suicides' are in fact covers for police > brutality gone too far

How often?

<comment><USER22> Are you implying that prison suicides are always genuine suicides?

Are you denying that police doesn't commit extreme brutality?

How can anyone give a number? Sure, one can give a number for suspicious cases but how can anyone say for sure that a given suicide was in fact a murder?

Can you always access the actual information regarding what happens in jail?

How often do you think Black people are mistreated by police? What are the actual numbers of black people being subjected to police brutality? If you cannot provide the actual numbers, does that mean it doesn't happen at all.

I am all for data but many times I feel like people ask for data just for the sake of derailing the otherwise meaningful discussion or because they're trying to be over smart.

<comment><USER21> > Are you implying that prison suicides are always genuine suicides?

I'm asking how often they are cover-ups.

> Are you denying that police doesn't commit extreme brutality?

I'm asking how often they are cover-ups.

> How can anyone give a number? Sure, one can give a number for suspicious > cases but how can anyone say for sure that a given suicide was in fact a > murder?

Maybe someone has done some research into this or is otherwise more informed than I and I would love to know.

> Can you always access the actual information regarding what happens in jail?

No but one can certainly try.

> How often do you think Black people are mistreated by police? What are the > actual numbers of black people being subjected to police brutality? If you > cannot provide the actual numbers, does that mean it doesn't happen at all.

That's irrelevant to my question.

> I am all for data but many times I feel like people ask for data just for > the sake of derailing the otherwise meaningful discussion or because they're > trying to be over smart.

Sometimes I feel like people derail a thread because they're presumptuous and read too much into a simple question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was expecting to see conspiracy theories due to the assorted powerful and wealthy people Epstein has been linked with, but really think about it. He was a wealthy man who lived a pampered lifestyle and had largely escaped consequences for his actions in the past but was unlikely to do so in this case. He was looking at spending the rest of his life not just in prison but as something of a pariah in prison (wealthy, privileged, child abuser). He'd attempted suicide previously and if that was an attempt on his life he had ample opportunity to say so.

As far as the suicide watch, sure he was high profile but he was in jail awaiting trial and there are probably plenty of people put on suicide watch. The jail doesn't have the resources to monitor everyone 24/7, and frankly regular checks are probably plenty to catch or prevent most attempts.

<comment><USER24> Hanging yourself takes material and a room where you can tie it up. Suicide watch is supposed to involve access to neither. That's a more important component than someone watching you occasionally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A lot of people talking about how hard it would be for him to kill himself and conspiracy stuff, but if there is a conspiracy then I think it's just as likely that Epstein could use his immense resources and connections to make sure that someone was looking the other way when he attempted.

It certainly could be a murder, but I'm not quite as convinced as other people seem... I'm sure it's very convenient for lots of his ghoulish friends, but it also makes a lot of sense that he would do anything necessary to get out of facing his crimes and the surrounding media circus.

<comment><USER11> > Epstein could use his immense resources and connections to make sure that > someone was looking the other way when he attempted.

If we're entering conspiracy theory territory, why couldn't Epstein use said resources and connections to find a lookalike/prop artist, buy people and fake his own suicide?

<comment><USER26> It's not actually a conspiracy theory to suggest that — all that's required is ordinary corruption.

<comment><USER11> Another possibility that doesn't require a conspiracy theory: Epstein's death is fake but blatantly obvious because he agreed to be a protected witness.

<comment><USER27> That's also a conspiracy theory...

A conspiracy theory is just a theory that a group is conspiring without the knowledge of others. In this case, the conspiring group is the one faking the death.

<comment><USER11> I never thought of the witness protection program as a conspiracy, but I guess it fits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Oy. Certainly they knew this was a strong possibility, and a high profile case. I'm not prone to tin foil hattery, but this smells bad.

<comment><USER29> There was an earlier attempt or incident and he was on 'suicide watch'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Paraphrase from someone I saw on Twitter (can't find now):

Most people have already jumped to the conclusion that he was murdered. That's child's play for conspiracy theorists.

The real conspiracy theory is he faked his death!

<comment><USER30> The current theory is that they faked his death, they switched someone with him, who will get cremated very soon. The NY Post photo of him showed a different guy, and the meds looked also very suspicious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> What a waste. May none mourn this creature's passing, but his particular case represented too many valuable opportunities for him to be allowed to die before trial.

Whoever allowed enough of a lapse in his suicide watch that the concept of him being "found" at all even makes sense should be fired and sued for gross malfeasance.

<comment><USER32> Even then they would only be getting another little guy, and not the malicious party.

<comment><USER31> True, but honestly, with so many people clearly after him, I'm not sure we can assume any of them got him. His psyche had clearly been cracking for many weeks now: I got as much sadistic pleasure as anyone else out of watching him basically flat-out break down and beg the judge for a chance to flee. We already know he'd tried to kill himself once before any of his long list of enemies could get their hands on him. If he was indeed "found dead", then yeah, it's fun to joke that he was clearly hanged 37 times by the CIA, the Clintons, Hollywood, MI6, MIT, the Russians, Trump, and at least two alien species, but I don't think we can discount the possibility that he simply siezed on the next opportunity to beat any of them to the punch.

He should have gotten that horrible 24-hour naked suicide watch thing that Manning got, all the way until trial. Certainly he demonstrated better need for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> [https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international- news/rule-o...](https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of- law/when-will-epstein-be-found-dead-before-or-after-a-deal/)

Predicted by Martin Armstrong

<comment><USER34> Didn't take much analysis to predict it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If he was suicided, it was very well done, and a message sent to everyone who is involved. The message is "if you betray us, we will find and kill you even while you are on suicide watch in jail".

Epstein just didn't seem like a guy who would have a guilty conscience and decide he couldn't handle all any more.

I looked a bit into his case, mainly prompted by articles like these:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20576530)

There made the point of connecting Brin to Epstein and other SV tech people, but then Clinton didn't show up to his dinner party once. Hmm. It seems to me like there is a deeper connection to the Clintons since they are going out of their way to distance his from Epstein with such awkward articles.

I guess, maybe those who feel brave enough should see if the prison warden or one of the guards on duty ends up getting some scholarships or trust funds for their children. Or one of them suddenly pays off a large chunk of their mortgage.

<comment><USER36> > Epstein just didn't seem like a guy who would have a guilty conscience and > decide he couldn't handle all any more.

He did seem to me like a guy who would take the prospect of a life sentence _very_ badly, though. Based on recent reporting, he seemingly believed that he was going to usher in a new stage of human development through a combination of spreading his own DNA (i.e. impregnating dozens of women) and funding research into genetic engineering, AI, and maybe even ESP. The near-certainty of recent events dooming that project could have been a fatal blow to his ego.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> NYT reports Epstein was taken off suicide watch, and that on suicide watch, he would not have had something to easily hang himself with, plus, he would likely have had a cell-mate to keep him out of trouble.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyregion/jeffrey- epstein-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein- suicide-watch.html)

So, yup, definitely fishy for him to be taken off suicide watch.

</comment><comment><USER38> This happened hours after the latest tranche of documents were made public, documents that named names.

Unfortunately for this community, one of our MIT heros was on that list. Don't even know what to say.

<comment><AUTHOR> Source please... I want to see the names, ALL of the names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you were in his position though why not just kill yourself off? At 66 there's not much life left to live and what's left is going to be pretty shitty anyway behind bars.

<comment><USER40> If I was his attorney, I would have advised he negotiate for a lighter sentence in exchange for cooperation around bringing others to justice. Standard practice. He could have gotten off with a light sentence and brought many others to justice. He's literally done that before.

<comment><USER41> It sounds like trump was involved in at least one instance. I don't think any lawyer would advise against flipping on that turd sandwich while Moscow mitch is running the senate.

<comment><USER42> There's zero evidence of this.

<comment><USER43> Certainly testimony anyway: [https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald- trump-rape-law...](https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape- lawsuit/)

<comment><USER44> That case was odd. It's not clear that the plaintiff even exists. The addresses on record for her in the court system were bogus, journalists haven't been able to speak with her, she was a no-show at the press conference promoted by her lawyer where she was supposed to appear, and all of the lawsuits were dropped before she could testify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "Epstein will be 'suicided' in prison before he talks" went from "conspiracy theory" to fact in a matter of weeks. When a certain mindset or perspective is able to see that clearly around the bend, it's time to start considering that it has some real explanatory power.

Although this feels less like a conspiracy than an open demonstration of power. "Yes, we run everything and we're completely above the law to the point we don't even need to hide it anymore. What are you gonna do about it?"

</comment><comment><USER46> And notice how all mainstream media headlines use a strictly affirmative tone wrt whether it really was a suicide.

CNN: "Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide" NyTimes: "Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in jail" ABC: "Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide"

etc etc. Just go to Google News and see for yourself. It's as if no reasonable person could possibly suspect that he was helped along, even though literally everyone was saying he will not live long enough to see trial, for months.

Lots of very powerful people (including some/all of the media owners) want this swept under the rug as quickly as possible for obvious reasons. I expect that it will be memory holed within a week at most.

If DOJ/FBI/US penitentiary is not complicit, they should take in Ghislaine Maxwell into custody at this time and put her on the suicide watch, but for real this time. And possibly also offer protective custody to some of the girls who are testifying.

</comment><comment><USER32> This "suicide" is as believable as a "Russian reporter falling on a knife 26 times".

<comment><USER47> [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Moscow%20Sui...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Moscow%20Suicide)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Does anyone know the going rate for a prison murder in NY? Through the guards, not the other inmates.

<comment><USER28> I imagine the stakes are high enough here that the _" going rate"_ is irrelevant. Millions would be a pittance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Jokes from Reddit:

1\. Committed suicide by shootings himself 15 times at the back of his head

2\. If you are surprised by his suicide, imagine how surprised he himself was

Reddit has been predicting this for days or weeks now.

</comment><comment><USER50> How does a guy on suicide watch kill himself? This is a massive failure of Justice.

<comment><USER10> "Suicide watch" covers a range of activity. Someone may be getting a visual check once an hour, once every 30 minutes, or once every 15 minutes. That may be as simple as looking through a hatch / peephole to see if the person isn't obviously ligatured, or it may include calling to the person and hearing a response.

There's not much evidence that 15 minute observations work, and some evidence they cause harm. If someone's risk is high enough for them to be on observations they probably need to be on continuous observations.

Continuous observations are tricky. Imagine another person being with you 24 hours of the day, watching you while you eat, bathe, defecate. We want to avoid them if possible because it doesn't build the patient's / prisoner's safety. It keeps them safe for those few days, but it may significantly increase their risk afterwards.

And this is if the observations actually happen. Sometimes staff lie. [https://twitter.com/KirstenSjovoll/status/106738247933674291...](https://twitter.com/KirstenSjovoll/status/1067382479336742912?s=20)

15 minute obs disturb sleep and don't work: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych- bulletin/art...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych- bulletin/article/against-the-stream-intermittent-nurse-observations-of- inpatients-at-night-serve-no-purpose-and-cause-sleep- deprivation/BF2CD76D8F8970581ED48C7594E9A3C4#.XGPGNer5dXM.twitter)

<comment><USER12> Wasn't he on 24/7 camera surveillance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> How common is it for a federal inmate on suicide watch to commit suicide? What's the Bayesian prior?

</comment><comment><USER52> Relevant [https://reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/covug3/noth...](https://reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/covug3/nothing_to_see_here/)

</comment><comment><USER53> Now we may not find out the further extent of his rings, the clients, etc.

</comment><comment><USER54> I too believe this might be a conspiracy of some sort

But there is still a chance he committed suicide willingly. Perhaps he himself couldn't stand the upcoming revelations and bribed the guards or someone else to remove some of the restrictions so he can roam free enough to do the deed.

I read before,he has had a conviction at some point where he only served time on weekends and basically had cops dedicated to his "protection" who called him "Mr. Epstein" unlike they would a normal prisoner.

I just hate concluding with incomplete information at hand.

</comment><comment><USER55> Epstein's case shows why all those "Pizzagate" and other similar conspiracy theories seemed believable, no matter if they were fake.

The current political crisis is the crisis of trust.

<comment><USER56> I want to reply to you before your comment probably gets flagged.

That "political crisis of trust" is not entirely organic, and mentioning Pizzagate is an example of why that shouldn't be taken at face value. Pizzagate wasn't just a meme, it was an orchestrated attempt to poison the well of support for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic campaign. People in this very thread are _still_ trying to push a connection between Epstein, Pizzagate and the Clintons.

I mention this because whenever this "crisis of trust" is brought up, inevitably the blame for it is placed either entirely on "the left," "the (left-wing) media establishment" or (probably leftist) politicians... in other words, its scope and nature is almost always framed in a way that benefits a specific political narrative.

<comment><USER55> That was my point. The Russians, or whoever was behind that particular operation, chose this narrative over many other options, exactly because it was believable.

Any real controversy will be amplified, inflated and exploited by foreign interests these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is totally not suspicious

<comment><USER58> Agreed. He has motive for suicide, too, though.

<comment><USER59> And the motive would be...he swore a blood oath to commit suicide once he was caught. It was either that or an ordinary political murder.

The idea that this guy killed himself out of despair or whatever is an unbelievable laugh. He was psychologically a reptile.

<comment><USER60> I don't think we can know this for sure. He was definitely a sex predator, quite possibly a sociopath, but to call him a psychopath with a 'Reptilian' emotional structure seems like a step too far

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> My default perspective on this is that he was an intelligence asset tasked with blackmailing the worlds most powerful people.

<comment><USER62> Because a well known creep with a $B doesn't already explain it? Instead we postulate an extra hundred horrible people all keeping a terrible secret... that also have terrible OpSec so they pay people off all the time.

Or the "underage girls" were actually fembots designed in an underground lair by radio controlled sharks?

<comment><USER61> This perspective was reached after a discussion with a top adviser of Trump, Clinton, Obama and other world leaders.

<comment><USER61> Its very HN to get downvoted for sharing a perspective and how one arrived at it.

Acosta said the reason he didn't give him a harsher sentence back in 2007 was because he "belonged to intelligence".

>> He'd cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. <<

[https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy- intelligenc...](https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligence- work/)

<comment><USER62> Wow, you literally have to go to Jared Kushner's magazine to find that out... of course there is other controversy as well, but it seems a bit self serving.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Suicided.

<comment><USER64> Probably not suicided in the direct sense. Probably, "we aren't going to walk by your cell for the next hour, if you're still around rich and powerful people will make you wish you had taken your life."

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> This reminds of the famous 'Whackings' scene from the movie The Casino.

Reference: [https://youtu.be/m4NUFTwAlQc](https://youtu.be/m4NUFTwAlQc)

</comment><comment><USER66> Why was he not on suicide watch considering he just had a failed suicide attempt? Either that's gross incompetence or something more sinister

<comment><USER10> "Suicide watch" doesn't have a fixed meaning.

People on 15 minute observations can and do die by suicide.

If someone is at risk and you think obs are going to help (they don't always help, they can make things worse) you need to have them under full time obs.

But even then how close does that need to be? Two staff members within arms reach 24 hours of the day, including during eat, bathing, defecating?

<comment><USER9> I thinking he would have been under some kind of regular watch and in a room with no sharp corners, no cables, no belt, ...

It's going to be really interesting to hear how it happened.

<comment><USER10> People rip their clothing to form ligatures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Just one word comes to mind: "convenient"

</comment><comment><USER68> It's an interesting question whether a person in his position has a right to commit suicide.

<comment><USER69> No, not really, that doesn't seem like an interesting question at all. Can you convince me otherwise? It seems obvious to me that while a right to commit suicide _might_ exist typically, somebody imprisoned is obviously not entitled to it. We restrict many rights when we imprison people, and I see no reason why the 'right to commit suicide' should not be one of them. Allowing such a man to kill himself denies his victims, some of whom may yet be unidentified, to opportunity to resolve the matter in a satisfactory way.

<comment><USER70> > No, not really, that doesn't seem like an interesting question at all.

You say that, yet you went through the trouble of writing a reply that ponders this exact question: At what point does suicide become _morally_ acceptable?

I do think it is an interesting question. I'd go the way of saying: If you still have serious responsibilities (as in this case), it is immoral.

It's worth noting that suicide used to be a serious offense - or even a capital offense, ironically.

<comment><USER69> I can think of many situations in which suicide is morally acceptable. I'd be very critical of anybody who asserts otherwise, that would be a much more interesting conversation to have, if only because I think I could really lay into anybody who disagreed with me on that matter. Whether prisoners should be able too is less interesting, so far I've not seen a compelling argument for permitting it. It seems like a perversion of justice to allow it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Does this mean that the case will be immediately dropped since he was the only accused?

<comment><USER72> Only accused _so far_. Hopefully other indictments will be coming.

The civil suits will continue against Epstein's estate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> But the dead guy who was photographed when they rolled him out, had a different nose and a different ear. Convenient, if so.

</comment><comment><USER73> Helped by the powerful right up to the end

<comment><USER74> Is the death penalty "cruel and unusual" punishment, or helpful?

There is no way to humanely force people to tell the public what they know. This doesn't really impact the accusations against him other than preventing people from asking him questions to which he lies as a response. His suicide does not erase the evidence, nor witnesses and accusers.

<comment><USER73> It just seems like he must have had help, somehow, in order to kill himself. Regardless of his or his assistant's motivation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Monsters can occur anywhere. What makes a real difference is a community's capacity for looking the other way when an individual sheds their personhood in the perpetration of heinous acts. Look at religious organizations (Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, ...) and in the sports world (USA Gymnastics) and in financial/political circles.

Now more than ever, if you see something - say something. No matter how esteemed a person may be within their field of activity, monstrous acts demand the swiftest of retribution.

</comment><comment><USER76> This article doesn't ask, let alone answer, the question in the HN title.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, sorry. Having no legal background I was genuinely curious what happens next.

Does the state drop everything? Are the materials made available for other cases?

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Here's your choices:

1) Killed by cleaners doing the bidding of the elite to protect them and cover up their misdeeds. If so, the reach of the mighty is total and that would explain why so many politicians and public figures are scared to commit to changing anything and why police detectives commit suicide mysteriously and why so many public officials "fall in line" isn't just to keep the dental plan but to stay alive.

2) Committed suicide because he was either loyal to a foreign intelligence agency or to whoever is on the other side of the people he was helping blackmail. A disciplined foreign agent? Seems unlikely. Maybe more of a rogue agent or someone who "left the reservation" as they say. Usually those types get cleaned up before they can do much damage, but suppose he was protected?

3) It is entirely possible that he entered a witness protection program of some high-level variety. I think this is less likely since those types of things usually happen after the trial and this was his own trial but the evidence entered into the record would likely have implicated many public figures and well known people. I would venture as far as saying 99% of those people would be Democrats. Sorry to make it partisan, fwiw GOP establishment people are just as crooked, but they accept bribes.

3a) Like the allegations surrounding Ken Lay, maybe he had enough money to create his own escape? It would be "allowed" the way it was "allowed" that El Chapo escaped from prison in Mexico. Bribery, deals, etc.

4) Facing the prospect of remaining behind bars for the rest of his life (10-15 more years?) he took the coward's way out as did so many evildoers before him. Recall that he hobnobbed with the fanciest and most fast moving people in the world and to be brought low like this is impossibly damaging to that kind of personality. It's also possible, however unlikely, that his conscience finally caught up to him. He certainly did abuse a lot of young women.

What have I missed?

I'm enthralled but also disgusted with what is going on these days. In the span of just one week we've seen 8chan taken down, which, even if you hated that place, you have to admit was a major blow to actual freedom of speech on the Internet. Someone used influence and corporate preference to do what governments couldn't do, which is shut up a vocal minority asking real questions. We can't even have the barest, most meager free speech, not really. Yes, that site was full of antisemitism salted with kiddie porn, but I suspect that stuff was spammed there by agents provocateur in order to chase away the curious. It was just too constant a thing, as was all the astrological horseshit and other attendant, easily debunked nonsense. How better to marginalize dangerous minds than to apply the "child porn" label to them? There is no better way! Wait until "Red Flag" laws get weaponized.

So Epstein is dead or won't be heard from again, at least. Assange is next. What after?

The entire Western world seems to be sleep-walking right into totalitarianism. When we lose the rule of law or when there is two sets of policies for the elite and for the "rest of us" or for the "party loyal" that portends the next wave which is violence. It is entirely clear that violence is what is sought, too. They aren't even pretending to care what moderate people think anymore or who ends up being harmed, as long as power keeps concentrating.

<comment><USER78> > What have I missed?

I think there are many other possibilities, but unfortunately, we may never have a more conclusive answer than the one we have now. Without trying to give any particular weight to any of these:

Perhaps he unintentionally died during an "enhanced interrogation", and death by suicide is an officially sanctioned coverup.

Perhaps he died naturally of a heart attack, and for whatever internal reason (to cover for the lack of proper medical response?), the prison decided to report it as a suicide by hanging.

Perhaps he was poisoned by a guard or another inmate simply because accused child molesters don't fare well in prison. The prison decided that declaring it a suicide was better than explaining why their security was so poor.

Perhaps the rumors are true that he was working for an intelligence service (US or foreign) and he was sprung by his employer. The apparent suicide is merely a coverup to explain his sudden absence, with the prison deceived as well.

Perhaps nothing at all has happened to him, but for some reason the prosecution and defense decided that a false story about this was the best way to "flush out" some other offender.

I think the real pressure should be on obtaining proper video evidence of whatever did happen. Who knows if it's true, but there are rumors of camera malfunctions. Like police body cams that seem to avoid recording crucial moments, this would seem incredibly suspicious. Was there ever any video found for his "previous suicide attempt"? If nothing else, perhaps there can be a change in policy so that at least the expectation of video evidence will prevent some future recurrence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> What a wierd header to use for this story. What about "Jeffrey Epstein: Suspected child trafficker 'found dead in cell' in New York"

</comment><comment><USER80> Can we just shut down the Department of Corrections? They are, at best, massively incompetent and negligent, and at worst, massively corrupt and negligent.

<comment><USER81> So just let all the inmates out into the streets, not because they do absolutely nothing, but because they aren't perfect according to your standards. A stop the world rewrite, HN style, right?

Have you ever seen documentaries of prisons in South American countries?

Peru has some truly apocalyptic examples of prisons that are just walled yards with dilapidated shelters and no guards. Well, maybe a maximum of watch towers manned with snipers...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvu575hiOOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvu575hiOOc)

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

In these prisons they just drop raw ingredients for food that the gates to the yard, and transfer them to the inmates' possession. On occasion there are incidents that require communication or the transfer of individuals, and they treat it like handling hostages.

So, it's not like your suggestion isn't in use. Consider the shape it takes, when directly applied to real world scenarios.

<comment><USER82> Your comment was dead. I vouched for it, because I think the point you're making is a valid one.

I'll just note that you come across very combative. HN is intended to be an environment of thoughtful and substantive discussion. I would recommend that you peruse the guidelines[0] for discussion.

Some specific feedback on what I interpret as combative, and what I expect led to the killing downvotes:

The first paragraph is very dismissive and responds to your assumption of the intent of the parent, rather than something they said. I would suggest a clarifying question to understand what shape they expect their suggestion to take, rather than assume a strawman.

The second paragraph is disparaging and suggests that you consider the parent to be ignorant.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER83> And to top the irony this comment is downvoted as well.

I know the guidelines say something about not talking about voting but there are times when I guess it would be good to understand the spirit of that rule instead of the letter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> He was suicided.

</comment><comment><USER85> Most conspiracy theories are obviously bullshit.....</comment>


Ask HN: CDNs with GDPR Blocks? - <AUTHOR> For business with minimal EU market keeping up with all the latest rules and potentially huge penalties around GDPR may not be easy.<p>Are any CDN's with a GDPR block option - that keeps up with which ipblocks or similar are GDPR covered and allows the website host to block access or redirect them? <comment><USER2> "BunnyCDN also provides way to block users from the EU" \-- and many cdns anonymize log info so that it does not trigger gdpr

</comment><comment><USER3> Clearly there is a market for it. I don't know of one but it makes sense.</comment>


Avast: Update to the CCleaner 5.33.1612 Security Incident - <AUTHOR> https://blog.avast.com/update-to-the-ccleaner-5.33.1612-security-incident <comment><USER2> For the first time ever, CCleaner 5.33.1612 is offered to immediately update, without begging you to upgrade, or trying to show you a video, or anything. The new version is 5.34.6207. The claim is that only the 32-bit version was affected. See [http://www.piriform.com/news/release- announcements/2017/9/18...](http://www.piriform.com/news/release- announcements/2017/9/18/security-notification-for-ccleaner-v5336162-and- ccleaner-cloud-v1073191-for-32-bit-windows-users)

At least I hope that's what happened.</comment>