What Is the Best Way to Stop Internet Trolls? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160318-what-is-the-best-way-to-stop-internet-trolls <comment><USER2> I feel like an odd man out every time this topic comes up. Like I'm sure many others here I've been involved in online communities and discussions in some form or another since it was all green text on a black background, and I don't think things are any different now than they have ever been in any way that really matters.

The secret to dealing with internet trolling is some combination of ignoring it, turning your devices off now and then, and realizing that the character you are interacting with online is not actually a real person. Though -- like a character in your favorite movie or TV show -- it is of course created by a real person, it is still a fictional character.

With the exception of actual actions that come into the real world, such as fake reporting to the police, interfering with someone's ability to have a job, etc, the vast vast majority of online "trolling" is solved by ignoring it. Same as it ever was.

<comment><USER3> Your "solution" means many people have to not use the internet. Sucks to be them, I guess. Meanwhile, people saying they want to rape you, or posting images of dead children to you, or posting your address and saying they're going to murder you, get to carry on without hinderance.

<comment><USER4> That behavior is illegal regardless of the medium. Report it to the police. It has nothing to do with the internet.

<comment><USER3> Wait, parent post is saying to just ignore it. You're saying to report it to police.

Which is right?

Thousands of reports are made to police each year. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- london-24160004](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24160004)

> About 2,000 crimes related to online abuse are being reported to the police > in London each year, according to new figures.

Over a thousand reach the threshold for court action: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23502291](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23502291)

> More than 1,700 cases involving abusive messages sent online or via text > message reached English and Welsh courts in 2012, the BBC has learned after > a Freedom of Information request.

The criado-perez trolls were enabled by the Internet. They saw other people trolling and thought it was okay; they were able to create many accounts rapidly; they were able to send very many messages.

<comment><USER5> You're discounting the possibility that there's a difference. There's varying levels of harassment, and it should be up to the victim's discretion as to how severely it should be treated. If person A calls person B a jerk on Twitter, that's easily enough ignored (unless there's a pre-existing personal or parasocial relationship between persons A and B that would make "jerk" sting more than it otherwise would), but if person A organizes a campaign involving all of their followers whose sole intent is to make person B feel threatened then that's an entirely different matter.

The hardest part of dealing with online harassment and "trolls" seems to be drawing that line, or even acknowledging that it exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> TFA mentions Twitter at the beginning, but doesn't follow up at all with how terrible their interface is and has been for targeted users. The "solutions" discussed in TFA require the coordinated voluntary actions of users and site administrators, and are therefore impractical. We need instant technical solutions. It should be possible to "un-@" any other user, with no questions asked. That is, after 'alice takes this step with respect to 'bob, no matter how many times 'bob includes the string "@alice" in his tweets, neither 'alice nor any of her followers would ever see those tweets or any other by 'bob. This would not be difficult, and would make Twitter much less threatening.

<comment><USER7> > That is, after 'alice takes this step with respect to 'bob, no matter how > many times 'bob includes the string "@alice" in his tweets, neither 'alice > nor any of her followers would ever see those tweets or any other by 'bob. > This would not be difficult, and would make Twitter much less threatening.

The problem with is then @alice controls whose tweets I can read if I want to follow her content. :/ Just because I want to hear what @alice has to say doesn't mean I want @alice to control whether I can talk to @bob.

I think solid ignoring features is really the limit to this approach due to that fact. [e.g. @alice ignores @bob, @bob never shows up in her feed no matter what]

<comment><USER6> OK, split it down the middle. If you're already a @bob follower when you start following @alice or when @alice un-@s @bob, whichever happens later, then @alice's action has no effect on you. Even if @bob has been hidden from you by @alice's action, it only affects internal-to-twitter links like retweets. If you have a link directly to @bob or his tweet from Google or from an email, you can follow it successfully, and that action removes the hiding effect for you. These extra complications would probably be good for @alice, since it would make it much less obvious to bullies that she had taken this action in the first place. (Yes, if @bob has observant friends, they'll notice eventually, but that's probably OK.)

I agree with you, the main point is that @alice doesn't have to smell @bob's shit anymore.

The point isn't to nail it down exactly right here and now. The point is that this is a discussion that should have taken place many times at Twitter, and we should see some concrete results by now, rather than fluffy PR-focused fake-internal memos to the effect of, "ok guys now we gotta try hard!"

<comment><USER7> > OK, split it down the middle. If you're already a @bob follower when you > start following @alice or when @alice un-@s @bob, whichever happens later, > then @alice's action has no effect on you. Even if @bob has been hidden from > you by @alice's action, it only affects internal-to-twitter links like > retweets. If you have a link directly to @bob or his tweet from Google or > from an email, you can follow it successfully, and that action removes the > hiding effect for you. These extra complications would probably be good for > @alice, since it would make it much less obvious to bullies that she had > taken this action in the first place. (Yes, if @bob has observant friends, > they'll notice eventually, but that's probably OK.)

That could work well enough. :)

Yeah, my main concern was a power user who people wouldn't want to unfollow abusing the feature to silence critics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've wondered about this for a while. There's no shortage of _dicks_ [1] on the Internet. It's too easy to spout off and attack someone online in a way you'd never do "in person" and there's plenty of people who make a sport of it. For the former, there's not much that can be done, for the latter, I think there are a few solutions (variations of which I've seen tried).

Personally, I think it starts first with community standards and moderation. Hacker News, Stack Overflow and such do a pretty good job already. You get a share of jerks here and there but by and large the community self-filters the tone[2] as much as the quality of the comments.

When the inevitable trolls appears, one of the best approaches I've seen is to silence them without their knowing it. I wonder how often this practice is figured out and remediated by creating a new account. It'd be possible to extend this further by categorizing troll posts and selectively providing them to each other (as well as providing all replies) so that they think "it's working" and don't bother switching accounts, all the while hiding _all_ of the trash from everyone else. Perhaps that's a lot of wasted energy but I'd be interested in hearing if something like that has been tried anywhere.

[1] That word always seems to describe the behavior best, to me. I'll use "jerk" from now on. :)

[2] I've always believed that you can say "someone/something is wrong on the internet!" without having to be a jerk about it and have seen many examples of such on Hacker News and the StackExchange family of sites. Those who cannot lack creativity and are, unfortunately, less likely to have their (possibly) valid arguments heard.

<comment> ross-life _one of the best approaches I 've seen is to silence them without their knowing it_

Shadowbanning does work well but requires (somewhat obviously) fair admins/moderators. Otherwise it becomes something like a censorship tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article alludes to it, but there's some pretty neat work at Riot Games around improving player behavior. Here's a pretty good video:[http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The-Science-Behind- Shaping-...](http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The-Science-Behind-Shaping- Player). It's half an hour long but has some fun results. When you have a player base as large as Riot does with League of Legends, some sorts of experiments become possible.

Good fun.

</comment><comment><USER10> Journalists seem to make a habit of misunderstanding the term 'troll'. Trolling is a joke. Harassment is not.

Joining a dungeon in World of Warcraft and wiping the group is trolling.

Sending someone genuine sounding death threats on twitter isn't.

There's a spectrum there somewhere, but more often than not it feels like we've lost another useful term to hyperbole.

<comment><USER11> Always this. The BBC seems especially bad for calling being insulted or offended by something on the internet "Trolling"

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A beer truck? Seriously everywhere you have free and open communication some people will be trolls. The only difference between today and say 2500 years ago is the speed of dissemination and little fear of being run through with a sword.

<comment><USER8> _The only difference between today and say 2500 years ago is the speed of dissemination and little fear of being run through with a sword._

I think, though, that it's a pretty _huge_ difference. The speed with which someone can crap all over a discussion is instantaneous and psychologically a lot easier due to not being "in person". Trolling in the form that it would have existed a couple of centuries ago[1] still exists today (without the sword, perhaps, but the threat of violence in retaliation to trolling still exists today -- we just have better technology and better enforcement). I would use Donald Trump as an example. He gets his share of trolling (and non- trolling protesting) at his in-person events, however, I'd hazard a guess that the amount of such activity during his entire campaign would be about as much as is seen in an hour on Reddit.

[1] We don't have a lot of historical evidence that dates back 2500 years, so I'm assuming that was a typo or an embellishment used to make a point (or, perhaps, something I missed in my speed reading of the article).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Remove all perceived anonymity. Of course that sense of anonymity is what makes the experience richer and safer.

I'd rather just live with the trolls. Is it that bad?

<comment><USER3> People are happy to make idiotic comments under their real names linked to their real identity.

See the Sikh who advertised Facebook ("What's this raghead terrorist doing on my wall?") or comments under any news article (especially Daily Fucking Mail ("Kill the immigrants")).

<comment><USER13> They exist and are ultimately in the minority.

Anonymous apps tend to bring out the worst in people, especially with groups like teenagers and cyberbullying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have yet to see an article about Internet trolls and cyberbullying that addresses the nuances inherent in a couple of points:

1\. Disagreement is inherent to a lot of discourse. Social networks are not research papers -- some of the disagreement is going to be accompanied with strong displays of emotion. Where does the line between strong disagreement and bullying lie? If Anne tells Bob, "Bullshit, your arguments don't make any sense and you are just an arrogant cyberbro I DRINK MALE TEARS", is she cyberbullying him? Should her access to Twitter be cut off, or would voluntarily blocking her on the part of Bob address this problem in a sufficient manner?

2\. How to balance prevention of trolling with limiting self-expression? The outside world is not a perfect place where everyone engages in reasoned discourse either. Given that pub-sub systems like Twitter are the equivalent of everyone shouting their opinions loudly in the same street, how much of the unreasonableness inherent in human discourse do we allow to penetrate these social networks to keep them essentially human in nature and not turn into a LinkedIn style list of platitudes?

I wish the article went some ways towards addressing these. Instead it seems to focus on ad-hoc initiatives set up by a lot of people who (in my opinion) seem to not have any concrete ideas of what they are trying to accomplish. For example, one of the research papers linked [1] describes cyberbullying as including "...posting mean or hateful comments, aggressive captions or hashtags". In my opinion this is a rather extravagant definition of the term and should be examined more carefully and revised per the points above.

\</comment><comment>--

[1] "Detection of Cyberbullying Incidents on the Instagram Social Network" [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.03909v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.03909v1.pdf)

<comment><USER15> I just thought it would be good to point out that you are creating a strawman. You've created an example that you acknowledge isn't cyber bullying, and use that to suggest that therefore cyber bullying can't exist in any form.

It's a disingenuous argument at best.

<comment><USER16> A straw man is a misrepresentation of someone else's argument, and the poster did not say something anything so unsophisticated as what you have suggested. Your argument, on the other hand...

<comment><USER15> Not to point out the obvious, but "is she cyberbullying him?" and "Should her access to Twitter be cut off" are both clearly attempting to misrepresent the argument of the other side. Just because they are rhetorical questions doesn't mean it isn't obvious what the poster is implying.

<comment><USER16> This is the parent-level post. There's no dishonest misrepresentation of anyone. The poster also didn't even come close to suggesting anything so unsophisticated as "therefore cyberbullying can't exist in any form!"

That is an awful misrepresentation.

The paragraph in question basically pushes the conversation toward, "Where are the brightlines?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Easy: introduce laws that require all communication to be consensual. We don't allow people to force food down your mouth, and we shouldn't allow people to force words into your brain either.

What would this be like? Before seeing something, you'd be asked if you want to see "An advertisement for a home care product." Or "An angry personal attack" (Maybe with some indication of who it's against.)

This solution allows everyone to say whatever they want, and adds the ability for everyone to not be exposed to what they don't want to be exposed to.

<comment><USER18> >An advertisement for a home care product.

How do you know I want to be exposed to a consent related question?

Kinda like how asking certain questions about consent can be classified as harassment if you have already been told no, even if the actions of which consent was being requested for were never carried out.

<comment><USER17> Sufficient pedantry can make any solution seem unworkable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For all the good that Twitter does, it is farceorsecwhat social harm is done.

I don't use Twitter and likely never will. It's a cesspool of discrimination and abuse. I hope it dies as a medium.

</comment><comment><USER20> Moderation is the best way to stop them. If you've got actual people going through posts and content and removing the low quality stuff, you'll maintain a much more well ordered and useful community than you would a mostly 'uncensored' platform.

Unfortunately, this has a few issues...

1\. You need the manpower to actually check what's being posted on a regular basis. Or enough active members willing to help out that they'll do it for you on a voluntary basis as moderators. This is obviously easier for small sites like customer support forums and the average fan site.

2, You need to really, really limit bias as much as possible, so that you're booting out people or bots because of their behaviour rather than their political/social stances. This is what Twitter doesn't do at the moment, to the point being a 'progressive' troll is a good way to never get banned while being a conservative or having an unpopular opinion will get your account suspended for the smallest trangression.

3\. A willingness to ban popular, rich or 'powerful' users as much as anyone else, if they break the rules. A good forum/community manager will just as easily kick out a troll with ten thousand posts as one with ten, but social media sites don't seem to have figured this out yet.

So for a community manager or site owner, moderation is the best way to stop internet trolls (and every other type of troublemaker or nuisance as well).

Making a user's post invisible to everyone but himself (shadowbanning or as vBulletin called it, Tachy goes to Coventry) and making their time on the site a nightmare due to fake errors (hell banning/miserable users) used to work. Note the word used to, since the internet is a lot more savvy about this sort of stuff and will usually figure out these systems pretty quickly now.

As for how to avoid internet trolls as a user? Well, stay off large social sites with few rules (or in some cases, extremely badly enforced ones) and go to places where the people tend to be a bit nicer to each other due to a shared interest or two. Less Twitter, more forums.

Stay fairly anonymous wherever possible. Seriously, trolls love knowing every detail about someone's offline existence and what annoys or upsets them. By giving less personal information, you force people to either REALLY dig for information to use or to attack your arguments rather than your background/appearance/personality.

Don't engage in arguments with trolls/idiots. The more you make it seem to affect you, the more pleasure a troll will get from their actions. If you've ever watched The Simpsons, you probably remember the scenes where Bart prank calls Moe's Tavern, right? Or how often, Moe would basically scream back down the phone in anger afterwards? That's what a troll wants to see. They want people who are easy to annoy.

So yeah. Moderated community platforms tend to be the best way to stop internet trolls, since they mean such users and comments are removed as quickly as possible.

<comment><USER21> > You need to really, really limit bias as much as possible, so that you're > booting out people or bots because of their behaviour rather than their > political/social stances.

This is a political non-starter right now, which is why Twitter doesn't do it. Seriously, when they accidentally ban someone for threatening violence against other Twitter users in the name of left-wing activism a huge swathe of the tech and security community launches a campaign to reinstate them and accuse Twitter of all matters of evils fro banning them in the first place.

<comment><USER20> Well, they could always get a thicker skin themselves. Forum and community owners have been the subject of complaints for doing stuff like that for years, the best solution is just to say 'here are the rules, if you don't like them, LEAVE'. You have to be willing to potentially lose a few popular users to keep the peace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Don't feed them?

<comment><USER23> That doesn't work. They are perfectly happy to revel in the attention of their friends.

[http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/02/28/dont-f...](http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/02/28/dont- feed-the-trolls-is-bad-science/)

<comment><USER8> This is what caused me to wonder if allowing trolls, but eliminating their conversation from everyone but other trolling users might be an option. Let them revel in the attention of their friends, but have that attention only serve to give them the illusion that they're affecting others while _directly causing_ others to ignore them (and thus, prevent unintentional feeding). It'd be tricky to get right and probably not worth the energy in most places, but would be interesting to see and study the results.

<comment><USER20> So in other words, like a multi user version of Shadowbanning?

It's an interesting idea (and I'm 100% sure it's been done before), but it doesn't really work out on any site with a significant audience. I mean, all you need is one of those trolls to access the site at work/school/wherever and notice their posts are being shown if they're not logged in, and then suspicions are raised.

Too easy to bypass and figure out. It's like how people figured out Twitter's shadowbans, because people who followed them said off site that they weren't seeing their messages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ignore them.

</comment><comment><USER25> In public we arrest those who break down civil society by smashing windows, beating people up or threating law-abiding citizens. On the internet, we dispute whether anything is actually going wrong. Or how to automatically solve it.

At some point I think a wet team is the only solution.

<comment><USER26> Wet team? (Are you referring to "wet-work", aka murder?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There is no such thing as a troll.

There is such a thing as people being presented with content that's irrelevant to their interests.

I better way to semantically express what we need, as well as a recommendation system that goes with it, is what we lack today.

</comment><comment><USER28> I always find it strange how people are seriously concerned with trolling. I understand that children, the emotionally immature, and the psychologically ill are actually harmed by trolling. However, those people are already at risk of being harmed by anything approaching verbal abuse. These are the people who have more important issues to deal with than trolling. These people are irrelevant in this context.

The people who matter to trolls are those who can't take a joke, who are super serious all the time; they want to be mad about something. Trolls merely give those people what they want. Flame wars ensue. Purposeful trolls are social pranksters and are conscious of their trolling; these can be reasoned with and are thus not serious issues to fora.

The actual trolls worth worrying about are those who troll yet know not their trollish behavior. These people begin arguments over trivialities and get called jerks/dicks/assholes. These people are much harder to reason with, because they will only listen when they are emotionally sober; bringing up their trolling just gets them deep into another argument. You can't stop trolls; they have to grow out of their own emotional immaturity.

Thus, as the unconscious trolls are themselves a subset of those harmed by trolling, they can and do harm others without understanding what harm they cause.</comment>


On Truth and the Tyranny of Illusion (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://freedomainradio.com/board/blogs/freedomain/archive/2008/09/11/book-on-truth-the-tyranny-of-illusion.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> > When a child asks us why something is wrong, we are put in a terrible bind. > If we say that we do not know why lying is universally wrong, we believe we > will lose our moral authority in the eyes of our children. If we say that we > do know why lying is wrong, then we retain our moral authority, but only by > lying to our children.</comment>


Android in Cloud – An Open Source Android cloud emulator - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/alter-way-innovation/announcing-aic-2-0-an-open-source-android-cloud-emulator-8571b06c424d <comment><USER2> I've found for better "real-world" testing, once my app is passing the basic emulators, the Firebase real-device test cloud is excellent for reliable data on what will happen on User XYZ's actual device.

[https://firebase.google.com/docs/test- lab/](https://firebase.google.com/docs/test-lab/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Really excited by this. Bookmarked for a more detailed look later.

Small tip - You might want to review your spell checker settings, which seems to have passed words like: "developper".

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words (spell check is ok now :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks interesting. Are there instructions for setting up a local instance? This link looked promising, but yields a 404:

[https://github.com/AiC- Project/documentation/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/AiC- Project/documentation/blob/master/docs/sub/local-aic)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, you'll find the documentation here : [https://aic- project.github.io/documentation/sub/local-aic/](https://aic- project.github.io/documentation/sub/local-aic/)

May I ask where you got the broken link from ?

<comment><USER4> Follow the "documentation" link at the bottom of this page:

[https://github.com/AiC- Project/documentation/blob/master/doc...](https://github.com/AiC- Project/documentation/blob/master/docs/index.md)

<comment><AUTHOR> This kinda is the unbuilt documentation, so kinda normal relative links get broken... Please see the documentation here : [https://aic- project.github.io/documentation/](https://aic- project.github.io/documentation/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To register it seems one must be a member of an organisation like a University.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can go for "AW - Alter Way" organization and I will let you through

<comment><USER6> I submitted one with AW - with email ending in .wa.us.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it possible / a good idea to emulate Android on Ubuntu?

<comment><USER8> Possible sure, it was possible in 2013 itself. I've run android both on Ubuntu in AWS and locally inside Virtualbox (or maybe VMWare). And Eclipse (then) and Android Studio come with a variety of emulators. In all cases, you better have a somewhat beefy dev machine. Macs are more than enough, my wife's cheap Thinkpad can't handle both Studio and emulator.

<comment><USER9> May I ask which thinkpad you're referring to?

<comment><USER8> T420, sorry for the delayed response, I had to get home to check.

<comment><USER9> Not a problem at all, thanks for getting back to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> !! To everyone : we are getting a lot of requests for testing, so keep on submitting as we are adding new servers to the test pool. Thank you !!</comment>


Footage shows young elephants being captured for Chinese zoos - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/03/exclusive-footage-shows-young-elephants-being-captured-in-zimbabwe-for-chinese-zoos <comment><AUTHOR> You guys should consider donating to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[0][1] which fights these poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[2], is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train the park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed.

There is also the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[3][4] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans (most of them are orphans due to poaching). For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor these cuties [5][6]. It's a good gift.

You should also check out [http://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs](http://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs) for a daily dose of elephant gifs.

[0] [http://www.iapf.org/](http://www.iapf.org/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti- Poaching_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti- Poaching_Foundation)

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

[3] [http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/)

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

[5] [http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp...](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=318)

[6] [https://www.instagram.com/p/BZz6S-fFBQL/?taken- by=dswt](https://www.instagram.com/p/BZz6S-fFBQL/?taken-by=dswt)

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, are these organizations literally fighting poachers? I.e. we're saying that an elephant's life is more valuable than a human's?

That's an interesting moral question.

<comment><USER3> Harmers are less valuable than victims, regardless of species. All consciousness should be respected.

<comment><USER4> Depends why they're causing harm. Nothing is ever black and white.

<comment><USER5>
        > Nothing is ever black and white.

This is true, but I feel like people claiming this often intend to imply that everything is exactly 50% gray which is also never the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd highly recommend watching "Blackfish" for some insight into this sort of phenomenon with a more domestic spin (spoiler, it's about SeaWorld's acquisition of and treatment of their Orcas).

<comment><USER7> I'd actually recommend against it due to its "domestic spin", as well as its bias, questionable editing, and questionable experts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if legalizing the sale of elephants, rhino horns, etc. (but still protecting the ones in the wild) would lead to a sort of positive version of the [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

After all, if you can make tons of money selling rhino horns (but know you'll get shot if you kill an existing rhino to do it), people might start putting a lot of money into rhino farms, which could be good for the global population size.

<comment><USER9> No. People weren't "farming" them before laws cracked down on it. Laws cracked down on it precisely because of _how_ people _were_ going about getting ivory.

Besides, we're not aiming for pure population count... imagine the shitty quality of life an "ivory farm elephant" would have? And after they take the horn or tusk, what then? Meat?

<comment><USER8> People weren't farming because there was a plentiful natural supply that was easy to get at. The costs of acquiring "free range" elephant is already so high that if you allowed people the cheaper option of farming elephants, it would probably be viable.

You don't have to kill an elephant (or rhino) to take their tusks. Presumably their quality of life would be no worse than that of e.g. cows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think they are just getting them where and while the getting is good, and the one being stomped by a boot wasn't about to get out of the cart or something.

If it's legal and is good money -- what are you going to do? Get it to be little money, or illegal and too much trouble. If reducing this phenomenon is your goal, that is.

</comment><comment><USER11> There are zoos all over the world with animals from africa.

I'm against all zoos personally, but who cares if they are for chinese zoos?

Britain has a bunch of zoos with elephants, rhinos and all kinds of animals from africa. Is it bad because it is for the chinese?

<comment><USER12> NPR Planet Money did an episode about how zoos acquire animals. I recommend listening to it:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/09/09/493295430/episode-566-the- zoo-economy)

To put it in a nutshell, they are not allowed to buy and sell animals. Aquariums can trade animals with other aquariums but no money should change hands. Zoos depend solely on goodwill, as even trade is banned. So when an animal is born in a zoo, if they don't need it or cannot keep it, they donate it to another zoo who needs it. And if a zoo needs an animals, they put the word out that they require one and some other zoo donates them one of theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe this is about China or young elephants.

Every one of us continues to be cruel and complicit, multiple times a day in the the torture and killing of several living beings.

There are a few degrees of seperation from the actual act but each of us, personally, are the direct reason it happens to a specific other living being.

Look inside you and at your life before you judge others. For cruelty isn't just what is in sight.

</comment><comment><USER14> WHY? Why do people have to be such assholes? Jesus.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ah, China, you know, it is the modern day and age and you cannot get what we here in the west got the way we got it. Sorry.

Edit: Oh, getting some downvotes, just saying that it is a bit hypocritically to go to a western zoo (not saying you all are) and watch elephants probably acquired in a similar fashion.

<comment><USER16> > we did something wrong in the past so other people are allowed to do it in > the present

Not sure on your logic here.

<comment><USER17> That said, I can understand the frustration at the hypocrisy.

Perhaps the developed world could recognize the unfairness of the situation and help Chinese zoos with care standards and loans/donations of elephants from zoos that have them.

<comment><USER15> I agree very much with that, same as with polluting industries etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows Phone 8 earns key government security certification - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2013/09/17/windows-phone-8-earns-key-government-security-certification.aspx <comment><USER3> Does Microsoft think this is a selling point to any entity other than US government institutions? Do they not see the irony?

:)

</comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, at first this headline made me laugh out loud. Then I chuckled again thinking 'Has MS's PR department completely lost the plot re what is happening nowadays vis a vis the NSA?'

Finally I actually feel a little sad. I used to trust my government (to a certain degree). Now, not in the slightest.

</comment><comment><USER5> *insert NSA related quip here.

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't help it, but I could only envision the tiny stickers that emblazon every non-Mac laptop out there with a new, and proud, banner: MCB - <USER2> Certified Backdoor.

In all seriousness - it's in their best interest to push forward as if nothing has changed. Keep in mind the majority still has little to no idea regarding the extent of the data that's been disseminated regarding the NSA thanks to the way the US media deems things appropriate to report.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seriously, Microsoft!

Did no one involved with the approval process on this post think this would be an, um, inopportune time to tout the fact that _the US Govt certified your security_?

</comment><comment><USER8> So they passed the same certification level (FIPS 140-2) that the recently broken smartcards received?

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/fatal-crypto-flaw- in...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/09/fatal-crypto-flaw-in-some- government-certified-smartcards-makes-forgery-a-snap/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Pretty sure that means the government can get the data at any point they want, right? Sounds secure to me!</comment>


Ask HN: Going from manager to executive. What should I know or learn? - <AUTHOR> Recently I got promoted to executive level. What is the difference and what skills do I need to acquire? <comment><USER2> Congrats! Found this to be a thought-provoking read: [http://delian.io/lessons-3](http://delian.io/lessons-3)

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought most companies consider executive level VP and higher, going from manager to VP is a big jump.

If its a startup probably nothing. I don't think a bigger company would jump you this many levels.

</comment><comment><USER4> What kind of manager position to what kind of executive?</comment>


The PMP – How It Ruined Project Management - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/worker-new-commodity-stuart-hamilton <comment><USER2> In a broader scope, if I may: If we suppose there are people that are undervalued by the dominant market process, where's the arbitrage -- teams seeking that talent out and applying it for gain (and competing with one another to correct the price)?

Is it the case we have a bear market for human intellectual effort and "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" \-- the rare organizations capable of skilled-labor arbitrage can't form and thrive?

Or, are humans just that much less useful to organizations (and capital) than we are used to suppose (and than they are currently compensated)?</comment>


Ask Apple: Why Isn't Jony Ive the Face of the Company? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> A CEO is not just a figurehead.

While Apple is often regarded as the quintessential design company a large part of their continued economic success is built on their supply chain. Tim Cook is the right person to ensure this key factor to Apple's success. It's not glamorous but for a global company like Apple it's essential.

<comment><USER4> Yes. It really cannot be overstated how amazing the Apple operation is - <USER2> the course of a year they make, distribute and sell half a million iPhones every day. All while having some of the highest environmental and human standards in their supply chain (I'm not saying those standards are good enough, just that they appear to do more than many other companies).

When you start to consider the numbers, it gets quite crazy - 200 million iPhones a year need 200 million LCD/OLED panels to be made and delivered to factories in sync with production demand, same for NAND flash (Apple buys about 20% of the world's capacity for NAND production every year, and given that starting capacities are 64GB these days, Apple must be buying at least 12 Exabytes of flash a year). They also then need 200 million of their custom CPU/GPU chips to be fabbed, 200 million aluminium cases, etc. etc. Right down to 200 million little SIM ejection tools to put in the 200 million instruction booklets in the 200 million boxes.

It boggles my mind when I start to think about it all :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple is at the junction of technology and art (at least that's what their marketing has said since its beginning). Jobs had a passion for typography, knew how to program and design logic board, and also had a mystical / philosophical side. Would Ive be able to convincingly explain that the latest arm cpu architecture is a breakthrough, or talk about the latest apple filesystem ? I don't think he would. He seems like a pure « outside » design guy. I've only seen him talk about materials, shapes, and manufacturing process, but never about what's inside the box ( i may be completely wrong, because i don't know the guy).

And you also need to be a great salesman, which most artistic oriented people hate.

Note that by this definition, Cook isn't a good replacement as well. He seems very much concerned by « doing good » or moral / ethical issues than jobs was (at least publicly), and he likes to invite famous people to talk about the products, but i don't feel the same passion for this junction of tech and art that can only rise when you're personally living in that junction.

<comment><USER6> Steve Wozniak makes it sound like Jobs barely knew how to program, so I'd be very surprised if he knew anything about designing logic boards.

<comment><USER5> [https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/127537/Steve_Jobs_Atari_...](https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/127537/Steve_Jobs_Atari_Employee_Number_40.php)

At least that was his job at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He doesn't even like to present at keynotes. The most he does is voice-over for videos. I think he hates the excessive exposure.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it has anything to do with a hate for exposure. Rather, a keynote is live. A video is edited. A video can be designed to show exactly what you want to show, in the way that you want to show it. A stand-up presentation, albeit powerful in its own rights, just may be too raw for him. He doesn't want to do keynotes. But if exposure was the issue then he wouldn't be in all of those era-defining videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Isn't the answer simply that he doesn't want to be?

I'm sure I've seen him answer this question in interviews in the past.

<comment><USER10> I think i seen that too - Jobs wanted him to take the role - but he didnt want to

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the best question I have read all day and I've spent hours on Quora. Hoping for substance!

<comment><USER12> A question similar to this is on Quora by the way: [https://www.quora.com/Why- doesnt-Jony-Ive-present-at-Apples-...](https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Jony- Ive-present-at-Apples-keynote)</comment></comment>


Mail2JSON - <AUTHOR> http://mail2json.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Mail integration is annoying. I don't recommend connecting a personal email. For app/service mailboxes this simplifies the polling & notification processes.

It's also possible to forward from your box to hook+<code>@mail2json.com which then triggers the web-hook; no password required - this behaviour is improved over the IFTTT offering

</comment><comment><USER2> Aw, yiss. I've been looking for an untrusted website to give my email username and password to. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> Why should I give your site access to my mailbox?</comment>


Tell HN: Please, don't send form letters in protest of SOPA - <AUTHOR>

The EFF's heart is in the right place with their new campaign against SOPA[1], but sending form letters en masse is usually a bad idea.
Once the people reading the letters know where the language of a form letter came from, those letters are usually taken to represent the interest group rather than the individual who clicked "send".
If you want your letter to be read and taken seriously, edit both the subject and the the content of the message to reflect your personal feelings about the law. Personally addressing your congresscritters in the text doesn't hurt either.
I know something about this because I worked on a tool this summer to group public comments on regulations by similarity, which you can find here: http://anacostia.sunlightlabs.net:8080. You'll note that the vast majority of these letters are exactly the same, and don't really provide compelling reasons why individuals are affected.
This bill is bad enough that you should be able to find plenty of reasons to be outraged, rather than defaulting to someone else's. And contrary to popular opinion, congress really does read these things. Together, we can kill this thing.
[1]https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173 <comment><USER2> When I had a job in Congress, 1,000 form letters pretty much counted as 1 letter. It wasn't hard to send one form letter in response in just 5 minutes to everyone.

An individually written letter--not a copy and paste job--gets the most attention.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand that calling on the phone to express your opinion carries much more weight to the staffers tallying the constituents attitudes towards a particular bill.

<comment><USER2> It depends on the office. If you can get the Legislative Assistant, maybe. Chances are you are going to get a Staff Assistant (the lowest paid person in the office) or anintern. Then it is just up to whether or not they take notes and/or how well they take them.</comment></comment>


Why we love Twitter Bootstrap and why you should too - <AUTHOR> http://taskmessenger.com/blog/index.php/why-we-love-twitter-bootstrap-and-why-you-should-too/ <comment><USER2> "Ignore advanced web developers complaining about 'not another Bootstrap website'" I agree. It's your customers that matter. And unless you're building a product for advanced web developers, pleasing them should be no matter to you.

I've shown Bootstrap sites to non-developers and the response is usually that the sites look nice. Never has it been "ug. boostrap?".

<comment><USER3> We run the resource page listed in the article [1] and as a result of that it is quite possible I've looked at more sites built with Bootstrap than even the creators.

From this I've really found two things:

One, I think there is some massive confirmation bias at work. If a site customizes Bootstrap and it looks nice nobody credits it as a 'Bootstrap Looking' site, so as a result it is only when the defaults are used that people really pick up on it.

Second, the alternative to a site built with Bootstrap is typically not a beautiful custom designed front end, but a pretty rough looking unstyled, inconsistent mess.

Bootstrap is the new baseline for what a website should look like, it should be customized, it can be improved but there is now zero excuse for it looking worse.

1 - [http://www.bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of- twitter-...](http://www.bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of-twitter- bootstrap-resources)

<comment><USER4> Re: bootstraphero.com

Ugh. Really. Hate the fonts (Mainly the bold condensed ones). Hate the color scheme(Yellow text on a grey-green background? Seriously? It actually looks reasonable with the colors inverted[cmd-option-control-8 on OSX]). Slow to load, at least the first time. And socialist realism posters have very bad connotations, no matter how hiply ironic you find them.

<comment><USER5> Is this how you talk to people? You could have stated the same opinions without intentionally being offensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obviously I love bootstrap otherwise I wouldn't be building Jetstrap. But really, bootstrap is an extremely solid framework, and you can do a ton of customizations to make it look completely non-default (for example, our designer built our company site in a day with bootstrap+jetstrap which looks completely customized: <http://drifty.co/>).

You will implement the same structures if you don't use it, so you might as well take advantage of the framework and invest in a nice custom design.

<comment><USER7> I'm not a professional but wanted to look into bootstrap for a while. Your Jetstrap finally made me get on the bandwagon and I was able to look at the potential in a single day no less!. Thanks.

I think it would be even better if you were to showcase some example websites on your landing page. I'd wish to see what others are building with Jetstrap.

<comment><USER6> Sure, great idea. We are working on gallery/community stuff. Lots to do, very exciting :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "You are not a crusader for artistic and unique web design"

Thanks for reminding me of what you have no business reminding me of.

Yet another article telling me what I am, what I should and shouldn't do.

The flip side is that HTML and CSS is not rocket science. It's rewarding and valuable to build your own sites.

If your code is "untidy at best" I would recommend you find another job where you skills don't amount to "untidy". Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love building sites too and I find it even more rewarding building on top of Bootstrap.

While it's not rocket science some of us enjoy a little help. Don't take my word as gospel, it's just an opinion.

I don't do this for a living yet but hopefully one day soon...

<comment><USER8> Fair enough. I guess I've read a few articles lately such as "stop using carousels", "do this, do that"... and your article tipped me over the edge!

If you can make a living making websites with bootstrap, that's great. Many of your clients won't even know you copied and pasted, then spent the rest of the day playing Crysis.

All these templates and frameworks however, should be tools in your shed that you choose to use or not depending on the build requirements. Relying on one tool is risky, and may prevent your skills improving in web dev in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Some great CDN hosted (for free) sources for twitter bootstrap files to help new users get going:

<http://hostedbootstrap.com/> <http://www.bootstrapcdn.com> <http://cdnjs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Not trying to be rude, but you might wanna take a second look at the frontpage of Task Messenger – not the greatest advert for Bootstrap :)

<http://i.imgur.com/7H0dGnI.png?1>

Safari 6 on OSX by the way.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's always surprised me is people taking the compiled CSS and working directly off of that.

I thought the whole point was that since it's LESS, you can change things up really easily.

<comment><USER12> Easy until you try to upgrade.

<comment><USER13> It makes the upgrade process easier if you stick to only making changes in their variables.less file[0], or even better creating a copy of it and including that instead in bootstrap.less. Heck, you can even just create your own top-level myproject.less file and copy over the includes you need using bootstrap.less[1] as a template.

[0]: [https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/less/variab...](https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/less/variables.less)

[1]: [https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/less/bootst...](https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/blob/master/less/bootstrap.less)

<comment><USER11> Just import bootstrap.less into your own project's main less file and go from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They're awesome. It's just that their JS gives me cancer.

<comment><USER3> Too many jQuery plugins?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Aaaand they're down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry richo, trying to fix now :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Winding a 10 day old baby and keeping a site up while on the front page of Hacker News isn't easy.

Can anyone help me keep it up?

<comment><USER16> Looks like Wordpress. If it is, use this <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/>

Edit: Also would recommend using Cloudflare.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yes it's Wordpress. I've installed that and removed the couple of images which seems to be helping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Did anyone else first see this <http://i.imgur.com/kglXUKw.png> or this <http://i.imgur.com/KxRY9Vo.png> and immediately laugh out loud like I did?

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, glad you got a laugh :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone have a mirror? Seems to be down for me.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can I use bootstrap without jQuery?

<comment><USER20> Yes, you can use just the CSS, but all the scripts are tied to jquery ,since they are jquery plugins.

Regarding bootstrap , i'm a designer, and i dont mind people using it. The heck i used it myself.

It doesnt turn server guys them into ergonomists nor usuability specialists , but they know that their code will render well on all the browsers with virtually no test. I prefer people using bootstrap sites to coders that try to come up with their own design and just cant...

Now i design webapps and sites that need to stand out more than the basic bootstrap look but bootstrap can be a tool to work upon too.

Of course there will be a bootstrap backlash like there is a jquery backlash from javascript "purists". But these purists tend to forget what was web development before jquery or before boostrap ...

<comment><USER19> Thanks. I'm using YUI in my app right now. Adding jQuery along with Bootstrap is a huge overhead for me.</comment></comment></comment>


FBI Slammed on Capitol Hill for 'Stupid' Ideas About Encryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/politics/second-crypto-war-hearing-washington/

<comment><USER2> Daniel F. Conley[0] knows better than technical experts? Alright we have to dive into their qualifications:

\- Law school + bar exam

\- Suffolk County District Attorney

\- Assistant D.A.

\- Anti-gang violence task force (D.A. attorney)

\- Homicide Unit of the D.A.'s office

\- City councilman

\- District attorney

So, no, Conley has zero expertise in this area. They don't know better than the experts (who are correct by the way), and creating silly analogies about going to the moon doesn't help the situation. Why are we even putting this person on the stand? They just sound like an authoritarian nutjob.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_F._Conley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_F._Conley)

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed this part in particular:

Conley made the most colorful remarks of the day, including saying that he didn't believe technical experts who said building backdoors is impossible.

"Did John Kennedy say we couldn't go to the moon?" Conley asked. "He said no, we're going to go because it's the hard thing to do."

"I'm a proud and patriotic American, too," Farenthold responded. "But maybe the proper analogy would be if Kennedy said 'We're going to go the moon and no one else is ever going to go. Ever.'"

</comment><comment><USER4> > "Conley then proposed that a backdoor be implemented on personal devices but > corporate networks be allowed to keep strong encryption with no 'golden > keys.'"

Wow. This is deviously brilliant!

/cue establishment of tens of millions of new LLCs and corporations

States will love this, the revenues and tax implications are going to be massive! /s

</comment><comment><USER5> Giving the US government a back door will legitimize the concept. Every tin- pot authoritarian jackass on the planet will write their spy infrastructure into law. It won't just be one back door in our products. It will be one back door per jurisdiction.

<comment><USER6> Possibly fewer or more than one backdoor per jurisdiction.

Maybe there would be a Five Eyes back door, for the US and its Friends with Benefits. Maybe European. NATO. Warsaw Pact.

Muslim. Suni and Suffi. Turkey would have at least two, one for NATO and one for however they identify as a nation and a nation of Muslims.

California's backdoor would carry a warning about carcinogens.</comment></comment>


Facebook Bans Mentioning Other Social Platforms in Apps (#11) - <AUTHOR> http://developers.facebook.com/policy/#policies

<comment><USER2> "Competing social platform" is pretty broad. Would this give Facebook grounds to remove an app because it promotes SMS messaging, email, delivering ads, storing photos somewhere, etc?

 _Caveat emptor_.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's so surprising about that? It's common sense that they'd do it.

Apple does the same thing concerning android apps, and Android does the same thing with apple apps. Online games do the same thing with other online sites and so on.

Nothing new, nothing surprising, and nothing wrong it it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you post some links regarding Android doing the same thing with Apple? I can't find any examples of anything that compares to a ban of this scope.

<comment><USER4> The closest thing in the Android Market terms is this: "You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market." So, no, there is nothing that compares to the Facebook policy on Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Smart!

If you link to Google Plus, we'll Ban Your Ap! That way you can just build your ap into Google Plus.

This strategy should work well long term. _sarcasm_</comment>


The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> "I gave a presentation in France and academics there flat out told me that academics shouldn't write to express, they should write to impress."

Wow. That speaks volumes about French academics.</comment>


Harlem Shake Your Websites  - <AUTHOR> http://hsmaker.com/

<comment><USER2> This website has been reported as unsafe by Microsoft SmartScreen

This website has been reported to contain the following threats: •Phishing threat: This is a phishing website that impersonates a trusted website to trick you into revealing personal or financial information.

</comment><comment><USER3> From someone using OpenDNS, I copy-paste:

Phishing Site Blocked Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information under false pretenses.

</comment><comment><USER4> At first glance, it seems a single js file and an ogg file (for music) are added to the pag. The JS will work on the DOM from the sidelines (<http://hsmaker.com/harlem-shake-script.js>)

</comment><comment><USER5> Code Meme - Awesome!</comment>


Why Diablo 3′s always-online DRM is a good thing - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/129688-why-diablo-3s-always-online-drm-is-a-good-thing

<comment><USER2> "None of this would be possible without permanent Battle.net connectivity."

Er, no, all of it would be possible. There is absolutely no need to have a permanent connection. And hey, even if we assume that it _wouldn't_ be possible, why not make the cloud stuff an option that you can turn off? Maybe some people are responsible and keep their computers backed up and would rather not lose access to the game they paid for each time their internet connection flickers.

<comment><USER3> Well, it would be possible, but it would be slower, clunkier, more prone to errors, etc.

As soon as you store some data locally, you have to do a lot of sanity checking, and synchronisation is a pain, and so on.

Personally I think you should have the option of making an 'always offline' character, with no access to the AH, but I think that would involve Blizzard putting too much data on the client side -- which it obviously doesn't want to do.

<comment><USER4> Why would it be clunkier and more error prone?

I remember back in 2000 using gamespy to see which games my friends were in and join them with a single double-click, pretty much friction free.

I don't see why being able to hex edit is necessarily a problem, if I want to play through the game with a fully decked out character why couldn't I?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How many sales of Diablo 3 did they have so far? Something tells me not as many as they expected.

<comment><USER6> What makes you say that? The article mentions 2million preorders</comment></comment>


'Serial' missed its chance to show how unfair the criminal justice system is - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/17/serial-missed-its-chance-to-show-how-unfair-the-criminal-justice-system-really-is/ <comment><USER2> Full disclosure. I haven't been following 'Serial', but this is a good article on the larger role of Prosecutors, especially in light of the Ferguson Trial and Prosecutor Bob McCulloch's admission that he knew that witness #40 was never at the scene but decided to present her testimony as truth to the Grand Jury [http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/some- witne...](http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/some-witnesses- told-obvious-lies-to-michael-brown-grand-jury/article_fd6effff- fc82-5df2-a248-cb93587847c7.html?mobile_touch=true)

Justice should not depend on the whims of the Prosecutor, especially since there tends to be a desire to 'win' cases rather than have justice done. This is the same problem with cops going after low level crimes (especially with people/groups with little social power, i.e minorities) and arrest quotas. Once you lose sight of the fact that justice is not about putting away as many people as possible you're on the road to hell.

</comment><comment><USER3> in most of Europe, the role of prosecutor is split in 2 since the introduction of the "code Napoleon".

(I went to look for the English names of these roles, but only found the name for 1 of them: "Examining magistrate". It seems there is no English speaking country that also has a legal system based on the code napoleon ? )

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know about the justice system, but blaming 'Serial' is bullshit. Damn it every piece of art doesn't have to be about shedding light on some societal problem. How does someone even decide what the purpose of a podcast/movie/painting/song etc. "should" be? No one except the creator has that right.

<comment><USER5> So...does the creator of this article not have the right to criticize? If not, what grants you the right to criticize this piece?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I need a standing desk. Should I buy or build? - <AUTHOR> I need a good standing desk. My requirements are simple: I want something height-adjustable and sturdy, but without electronics or a motor. Simplicity is key. I'm thinking something with a crank to adjust the height of the surface. I know there have been a lot of threads on HN about standing desks (I've read them all). Some members might be tired of the subject but I wanted to ask what other HN people, especially developers, are using. Thanks. <comment><USER2> I just noticed that IKEA has a new product called SKARSTA, which is a hand- crank standing desk. This is different from the electric IKEA standing desk that others have mentioned. Lets see if this link will work: [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=SKARSTA](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=SKARSTA) ps. I do not own this product and can not recommend for or against it, just saying that it exists.

</comment><comment><USER3> What about a fixed standing desk with a drafting chair?

I have a Conset 501-27 legs with a custom top, and it's been great. [0]

Last I looked, hand crank desks weren't much cheaper than the motorized ones.

[0]:[http://www.conset.com/product/prodone/4380/default.aspx](http://www.conset.com/product/prodone/4380/default.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER4> I went down the route of trying to build one, and it's simply not worth it. To get to a point where you can _easily_ adjust the height on a homemade desk is really, really difficult. You're much better off (both in terms of time and finances) with going with a prebuilt solution.

Here's a few of the commercial options that I considered:

* Crank-adjustable desk frame: www.amazon.com/Ergo-Elements-Adjustable-Standing-Black/dp/B00YE6CRY8 with an IKEA desk top, perhaps. I also considered using a solid wood door that a friend was going to give me, but it was quite heavy and looked pretty bad.

* The IKEA electric standing desk (Bekant): [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19022530/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19022530/) A couple friends have had mixed success with this one. If you live near an IKEA, go check it out in person.

* A fixed standing desk and a tall stool (this is likely the cheapest option and would be the easiest to build yourself). Nothing in particular that I can link to on this one, but if you can find something that has the desk top at > 40" from the ground, that's probably a good candidate. I'm 6'0" and my standing preset is at 43.5" (sitting is 27" if you're curious).

* NextDesk - this is the one I ended up going with. I got the Terra ([http://www.nextdesks.com/terra](http://www.nextdesks.com/terra)) and I'm _very_ happy with it. It's expensive, but it felt a lot more solid than many of the other options that I looked into, and at the end of the day, it's holding a lot of expensive things. I don't want any issues with it, particularly those that result in the damage or destruction of my electronics.

A question, though: you said you didn't want electronics or a motor. I'm curious - why not? I'm assuming you're a developer, and you're going to have a computer at your desk, so there's likely power nearby. Is it a philosophical thing or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. The reason why I'd rather avoid electronic adjustment is because I've seem some of them burn out (the motor) and then the unit can be tough to replace, esp if the manufacturer goes out of business. I prefer manual adjustment. I'd also expect to save some money that way.

<comment><USER4> FWIW, Nextdesk has been in business for quite a while and the desk comes with a three year warranty (though I think you can get an extended warranty for not a lot of extra money). In any case, yeah, you'll probably save money with a crank mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can buy a finished product for $350! The side is in Polish but and the delivery time can take up to 3-4 weeks, but it's worth the price. I have one myself. They also have an English website but the price is twice as much, don't ask me why. [http://www.ajprodukty.pl/meble-biurowe/biurka/biurka-z- elekt...](http://www.ajprodukty.pl/meble-biurowe/biurka/biurka-z-elektryczna- regulacja-wysokosci/biurka-flexus-ergonomiczne-proste-z-elektrycznie- regulowana-wysokoscia/6205343-61474.wf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks. I was totally unaware of these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the trestles you can get at IKEA and putting a large table top from IKEA on top of them. The trestles look very DIY / workshop / cave like and you can adjust the height. I'm not so tall so if you are more than 6 ft something you may not find it high enough.

If you don't find any table tops to your liking you can buy solid wood fireproof door blanks at a hardware supply and use that instead. They have serious heft and will last and are relatively cheap.

Having a good high stool to sit on when you don't feel like standing is also useful.

<comment><USER6> There's actually a trestle with a top bar. I got a pair in Dublin last year. Here : [https://goo.gl/c8hAoB](https://goo.gl/c8hAoB)

The pinewood trestle near the top. You can see the adjustable height work table with dowel pins.

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00225293/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00225293/)

Yeah, it seems that's the max height. From there, improvization. ( Your weakness, is not your technique. )

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've heard good things about the Renew[1] by Herman Miller. The IKEA standing desk, as mentioned by others, is a good and more affordable option too - however it does have a motor.

[1] [http://store.hermanmiller.com/Products/Renew-Sit-to-Stand- Ta...](http://store.hermanmiller.com/Products/Renew-Sit-to-Stand-Table- Rectangular)

</comment><comment><USER8> Buy & get an extended warranty. Then get back to working on whatever it is that you do, that you're good at.

If you're good at woodworking, build it. You can be better than a warranty- be your own repair guy. I've never checked, but I would imagine there's a community online which can point you to guides & plans/prints.

Either way, I wish you the best.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not sure where you're located, but if you're anywhere in or near the UK, check out Biurko: [http://biurkobiurko.com/](http://biurkobiurko.com/)

Incredibly well crafted (& in full disclosure: made by a friend!)

</comment><comment><USER10> You should just build one opensource from opendesk

[https://www.opendesk.cc/lean/standing- desk](https://www.opendesk.cc/lean/standing-desk)

</comment><comment><USER11> Check out what kind of desk does Linus use :-)

[https://youtu.be/HSgUPqygAww?t=1m31s](https://youtu.be/HSgUPqygAww?t=1m31s)

</comment><comment><USER12> Build one with "spare parts" you have laying around and then try it out first and see if it's for you. I've seen a few people go out buy a fancy standup desk and then decide it's not for them. Don't worry, they aren't for everyone.

If you really like (and it takes a good month for you feet to get conditioned to the change) then you'll have your answer :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Ironing board. Works great and folds up when done.

</comment><comment><USER14> You can get a wooden minimal one from Jaswig.com their Kickstarter launches in 4 hours!</comment>


Ask HN: What's your opinion on Airbnb's Hypernova? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/airbnb/hypernova Personally I find it pretty interesting but could really be benefital for sophisticated frontend apps, thoughts? <comment><USER2> Link: [https://github.com/airbnb/hypernova](https://github.com/airbnb/hypernova)

</comment><comment><USER3> You mean Next.js?</comment>


The mentality of Homo interneticus: Some Ongian postulates (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1155/1075 <comment><USER2> > _It isn't much of a stretch to visualize the Internet successes such as > Google, e–Bay and Amazon gradually being replaced by open source distributed > processing just as Napster was by Gnutella._

Surely any day now!

</comment><comment><USER3> So, let's decide the important question: _homo connecticus_ , _homo iunctus_ , _homo in nexu_ , or something else?</comment>


BBC Radio episode "Global Business - Race Against the Machine" - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0164621

<comment><USER2> when i picture this with the rising cost of educating people [for the 20th century workforce]… we're just getting started with the next 32 squares of the chess board…</comment>


The €963 Book Launch That Made Me Wish to Get Back to My Secured Job - <AUTHOR> https://christoph-rumpel.com/2019/07/the-book-launch-that-made-want-my-old-job-back <comment><USER2> Seems to be a book for a very specific audience. In such case, the sales of that book should complement your income, not be your only source.

<comment><USER3> Came here to say very similar statement.

I'm a software development manager, I wouldn't buy this for my team or even myself as developer.

> The content is not the problem

In the article the author states the above. The content is the problem. The value the content provides is not up to par with other book options.

The book goes against an opinion I strongly hold that I tell those on my team , focus on fundamentals and principals.

The book appears to be so focused on an individual task and language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to read an honest post about what was the thinking behind the actions. Definitely many lessons to learn. Thanks for taking the time to write and share this.</comment>


New TPP Leaked Text Reveals Weakening Resistance to Copyright Proposals - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/new-tpp-leaked-text-reveals-weakening-resistance-maximalist-proposals <comment><AUTHOR> In other TPP news, [http://www.zdnet.com/article/nz-it-industry-mobilises-to- fig...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/nz-it-industry-mobilises-to-fight-tpp- software-patent-threat/)

 _" New Zealand largely banned patent protection for software two years ago ... However, leaked Trans Pacific Partnership documents now indicate the same government that passed that law, with cross-party support in a vote of 117 to 4, is prepared to reintroduce patents in return for better market access for dairy products."_

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150808/05331531886/why-t...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150808/05331531886/why- tpp-threatens-to-undermine-one-fundamental-principles-science.shtml)

" _.. data exclusivity is a kind of super-patent in that it can 't be challenged or revoked: if a drug company has run clinical trials to establish the safety of its new drug, it has an absolute and irrevocable monopoly on the use of that data ... Granting data exclusivity is thus nothing less than giving a monopoly on knowledge itself, since it forbids any other company from being able to use that newly-established scientific fact._"

</comment><comment><USER2> The very fact that this is being negotiated in secret shows that the people involved _know_ it is wrong. Any law that comes out of this "agreement" should be considered completely invalid.

<comment><USER3> Not necessarily. They might be under the impression that the public does not fully understand the economics and how the world really works.

<comment><USER4> Also, although transparency always sounds wonderful, negotiating a treaty in the open is potentially very difficult: the media are liable to trumpet a 'humiliating U-turn!' any time someone ends up negotiating to a new position, even though that's kind of the point.

<comment><USER5> So this is kept secret to avoid hurting some bureaucrat's feelings?

<comment><USER6> I think GP's point is that media will take the most idiotic view of the problem possible; it's not about hurting bureaucrat's feelings, it's about people hurting themselves by mindless, knee-jerk reactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The oligarchs will have their way on this one sooner or later. Just keep beating the negotiators over the head with it until they surrender.

</comment><comment><USER8> It is becoming clearer and clearer that we are in a time where to be a good person you must break laws.

</comment><comment><USER9> If TTIP leads to re-introducing software patents in the EU proper,so that I can get cheap meat from the US, I'm literally (no not figuratively, don't post the XKCD) gonna lose my mind.

<comment><USER10> Since we-re all wondering now: [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/literally.png](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/literally.png) ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> DRM lobby makes anything it touches a toxic thing. Anti-circumvention laws are based on unethical foundation (i.e. DRM), and anyone who pushes for that garbage should be viewed accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder when the TPP will become so unpopular as to cause its negotiations to be abandoned. But I don't think that will happen, the parties involved have already sunk enough cost into it that they cannot leave.

<comment><USER13> The minister "negotiating" (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) for New Zealand anounced publicly he is "too emotionally invested to walk away". Which makes him as an absolute cretin (or a mark, if you're a poker player). But it's hardly surprising because he's spent 30 years either in the civil service or as a professional politician trying to get something like this passed. So your latter point is absolutely true. Groser has an absolutely religious position on this topic. New Zealand as a country will sacrifice pretty much anything to appease his desire to have this "accomplishment" for a zealot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thusfar I've been seeing only negative articles about TTIP. What are the positive sides? What will it give us in return?

<comment><USER15> A charitable view would be that that politicians earnestly believe the treaty improves free trade, lowering the barriers to trade so everyone in every country better off.

A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with their cronies but unpopular with voters, and they want to pass the blame to faceless foreign bureaucrats. e.g. "I'm sorry the tax bills for huge multinationals have been slashed - I don't like it any more than you do! It's these international treaties you see, I'm powerless to change anything"

<comment><USER16> > A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with > their cronies but unpopular with voters

What makes you think TPP will be unpopular with voters? See [1].

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans- fa...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-favor-tpp- but-less-than-other-countries-do/)</comment></comment></comment>


Pivot forward - <AUTHOR> http://www.braytonwilliams.com/2/post/2013/05/pivoting-or-shitty-idea.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "We pivoted before it was called pivoting. We called it, we had a shitty idea and needed a new one."</comment>


Cash chaos in Venezuela after banknote withdrawn - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/cash-chaos-venezuela-banknote-withdrawn-161216132241925.html <comment><USER2> Just when I thought things couldn't get worse here, Maduro does it again. There are reports of looting in several cities because there is no cash to be found anywhere. Lots of workers get paid every Friday in cash. Some of them got paid with Bs.100 bills which are no longer being accepted. So they effectively have no money to buy food with.

Around 30% of the population here doesn't have a bank account to deposit the Bs.100 bills. Also, many of the small bodegas don't have points of sale to take debit cards.

This is just another round of the improvisation game Maduro plays with the economy here. They promised the new bills would be out yesterday and they are nowhere to be found.

<comment><USER3> Since you know the local situation, could you tell me if it's common to see people use foreign currency for local products? I remember that when eastern Europe economy was isolated / currency unstable, people sometimes either did small scale barter, or used US dollars for large transactions (if they could get any, that is...)

<comment><USER2> There is a small market in USD for larger transactions like real estate, cars,etc. But not for day to day stuff like food.

Some people might have some savings in dollars or euros which they exchange at the black market rate to get bolivares and live off that. $100 could be used for a family of 2 or 3 to live for a month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One culprit behind Venezuela's hyperinflation is their multiple exchange rate program. They have 3 official exchange rates levels, with the most favorable two reserved for government prioritized imports, like food and medicine, and the third acts as the supposed general rate for all other products. However, the third rate is not always available so a fourth, 'black market' rate has emerged, which is higher than any government rate.

So the import lifecycle is this: (1) Political insider secures import contract and exchanges bolivars for dollars to buy goods abroad. (2) The goods are never purchased, but instead go 'missing' in transit. (3) The dollars, now supposedly lost to theft, are exchanged back to bolivares at a much higher rate. The rate of return on this round-trip is on the order of 1,000%.

Although it's unclear how much money the government is printing and spending directly, it's this process of exchanging cash into more cash without actually bringing in any products that drives the inflation. The amount of cash in circulation skyrockets but the goods in circulation stay the same, or fall, and so prices need to rise. This process also has the devastating flaw of making it more profitable to feign the import of food than to actually do it and so the items most heavily favored for import by the administration are, in fact, in the shortest supply.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/venezuela...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/venezuela- the-country-with-four-exchange-rates)

</comment><comment><USER5> > On Sunday, Maduro made a surprise announcement that the 100-bolivar note, > which is worth little more than two US cents, would go out of circulation.

This math is not checking out for me. xe.com and Google put the exchange rate at 1 VEF = ~ 0.10 USD. That would make a 100 bolivar note at around $10, not 2 cents.

What am I missing?

Edit: Ah, ok so it looks like the "bolivar fuerte" (VEF) replaced the original bolivar (VEB) at a rate of 1/1000 due to hyperinflation. I guess the "100 bolivar" note they're referring to is the original.

Edit again: Nope, looks like this is the black market rate as georgeglue1 mentions. Crazy.

<comment><USER6> The officially pegged rate also significantly differs than black market rates in Venezuela.

<comment><USER5> That's it. Thanks.

So what makes it "black market" outside of Venezuela? Can Venezuela impose their desired rate on money markets in other countries? If I went into a bank in another country and purchased 100 bolivar, would it cost me 2-3 cents US? Or $10?

I always thought foreign currency was an asset like any other that you could trade at rates determined by the market.

<comment><USER2> They can't, but they want to play that that's how the economy works. That you can place an artificial value on your currency and everyone has to obey. So, you get a disastrous economy like the one we have.

<comment><USER7> >So, you get a disastrous economy like the one we have.

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER8> The two sibling comments mention the effects, black markets (trading outside the rules) and production problems. But they don't mention the 'why'.

People who haven't taken some time to understand microeconomics will look at a fiat currency and say "Gee, if I can say this is worth what ever I want, I'll say its worth 10 units", and since they are just paper and ink, if I need a 10 million units to buy something, I'll just print a million of these notes out." And when you do that you get any number of examples of economies that got trounced.

The reason is that while there isn't any restriction on naming something, if it tender for trading goods and services it must have two properties, first it is has limited supply (for reasons that get explained in macro economics) and it has to be hard to duplicate (which is needed to keep the supply in check).

So consider the farmer, the butcher, and the feed store owner. The farmer has to buy feed for his stock, he gives units to the feed store owner in exchange for feedstock. The butcher needs animals to butcher for selling to people who are eating them, so he gives units to the farmer for his stock. The feed store owner is feeding his family so he gives units to the butcher to buy meat to put on the table.

The units (currency) are all traveling in a circle, farmer -> feed store owner -> butcher -> farmer -> feed store owner -> butcher -> farmer ... they don't "mean" anything they are just markers being traded through the economy as it operates.

You tell the butcher what they have to charge, or limit the number of units a farmer can ask for his stock, and then the market can't adjust to the changes in expense. It breaks down.

<comment><USER9> > The units (currency) are all traveling in a circle, farmer -> feed store > owner -> butcher -> farmer -> feed store owner -> butcher -> farmer

Note that price controls work iff you can dictate prices for each transaction - the price for meat and feed. Actually, in this case the feed store owner muddies the waters, as he is not a direct source of production. If you just think of a cow farmer selling cows to a farmer in exchange for grain, and the prices for the cows to grain is fixed by the state, everything works for a while.

Until the farmer realizes that he needs fertilizer for his fields to produce grain. He goes to the fertilizer producer, who is NOT under the state, and attempts to buy the fertilizer for the state-set price.

That price is either going to be too high, in which case the fertilizer producer sells the farmer all he needs and more, or the price is going to be too low, in which case the farmer gets none. By "too high" and "too low" I mean the price of fertilizer set by the market, the price where you can both buy and sell fertilizer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just finished re-reading Cryptonomicon. One of the business ideas in that book is to create a stable digital currency to replace failing Asian currencies and help their economies grow. I don't know that an accessible, anonymous, global, hands-off libertarian digital currency is the ideal situation, but it would certainly provide some interesting alternatives.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure it's possible to create a stable (in the sense that prices for the things you buy don't go up or down) currency that isn't somehow managed. If the currency becomes more popular prices will go down. During recessions prices will go up.

The fractional reserve system, which injects money into the economy as the economy grows, is an attempt to create that stability. But you'll never create a workable fractional reserve currency that isn't intimately tied with government regulations.

The most you could probably ask for is a digital currency that wasn't subject to the whims of politicians and central bankers.

<comment><USER12> This is widely known as the "trilemma"; you can have at most 2 of:

\- Fixed exchange rate

\- Free movement of capital

\- Ability to conduct your own monetary policy

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Observation:

The world community really needs to figure out how to deal with failed states. And the real, live humans that suffer in those states.

The list goes on: Venezuela, Syria, Libya, North Korea, etc.

<comment><USER14> The problem is that Venezuela's government doesn't recognize that they failed. They blame all their self-generated problems on US imperialism, subversive right wingers, counter-revolutionaries and whatever nonsense they can come up with. So even if there was an international motivation to give help, Venezuela would most likely not take it. Not to mention the rampant corruption, which requires force to solve.

<comment><USER15> Generally, most countries don't accept they they've "failed".

NK doesn't think they've failed, nor does Assad, nor any govt. that continues to stay in power.

<comment><USER16> If they continue to stay in power, have they really 'failed'?

How do we define a nation state failing?

<comment><USER17> My criterion: Are its little girls being educated?

<comment><USER16> I think that just means they are a bad state, not that they are a failed one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are there any good charities that work in Venezuela? There are regularly appeals for other poor or war-torn countries but little for such a close neighbor that seems to really need food & medicine.

<comment><USER2> The government would not allow any charities to work here. They do not want to admit that they have a crisis in their hands.

They recently confiscated a container full of medicine and food sent from Chile to Caritas Venezuela. Some of the medicine was spoilt, the rest was confiscated by the government.

<comment><USER19> Are foreigners allowed to stay in the country for prolonged periods (e.g. more than year), buy a land, house, flat, open a church, charitable fund, firm?</comment></comment></comment>


Bear sale sparks global equity and dollar sell-off - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef412c80-f3fa-11dc-aaad-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1 <comment><USER2> For some reason I thought it said "Beer sale". Now I'm disappointed.</comment>


Launch HN: Lunch Together – Virtual Lunches with your neighbors - <AUTHOR> https://council.club/lunch <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, it is getting to be pretty isolating these days and perhaps more to come.

I wanted to connect with other like-minded people and have lunch virtually together.

Since I couldn't find something, I built this myself over the weekend.

Let me know your thoughts :)</comment>