I want to write software that helps kill people. - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/zmaril/5326884#file-softwarehelpskill-md from the Philosophy in a Time of Software discussion list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/philosophy-in-a-time-of-software/SnV8qMUQc3Y <comment><USER4> That you have a computer at all is in large part due to the overwhelming demand for accurate ballistics data and codebreaking during WW2. It's very easy to play '6 (military) degrees of separation' and conclude that virtually any human activity supports the killing of people. Like baking at home? Your bakery hobby slightly reduces the demand for manufactured bread, thus making it more affordable to a heartless military machine. And so on.

If you're not actively and directly involved in military activities, there's little that you can do about the knock-on effects of whatever it is that you're engaged in; and even if you can quantify the human cost of your activities, it needs to be offset against the positive externalities. For example, the same software that allows Palantir to identify 'bad guys' who are potential targets for military attack is equally capable of identifying peacemakers or other constructive individuals who are good candidates for receiving financial aid or suchlike.

Technology itself is neutral. Don't use it as a stick to beat yourself over the imperfect state of the world.

<comment><USER5> Technology is not neutral. Technologies are designed for discrete purposes. A hammer is designed for, among other things, hammering nails, not eating. And as it has been said, "When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails." A CIA drone is not a neutral technology.

Kevin Kelly (a former editor of Wired) wrote a book called "What Technology Wants." He reminds us that technology does have a purpose, does influence human behavior, and may in fact be changing human nature.

Kudos to the OP for taking a reflective, responsible, and principled stance. We should all be so discriminating.

<comment><USER6> Technology is _morally_ neutral. To use your own examples, a hammer could be used to build a house or commit a murder, and a drone could be used for aerial strikes or to monitor endangered animals for poaching activity ([http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013117135...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013117135422298209.html)). The initial use case for a technology to be developed will always be shaped by the morals and intent behind it, but other uses can always be found that are good or bad no matter what the technology is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The question that this comes down to is a question of one's world-view and philosophy of responsibility, guilt, and concept of sin. It says something about how you conceive of those things if you trace responsibility from "meaningful contribution to a NoSQL storage engine" to "code was executed by a system used by people to seek terrorists and justify an eventual drone strike".

Due to relativism, I can't tell you whether your view is intrinsically right or wrong in a manner that all people are guaranteed to respect, but I can tell you: I would be upset if you used that logic to find fault with someone _else_ who wrote NoSQL database engines, and blamed them for killing people (terrorists or no). I think it would be horribly unfair and modestly ridiculous - and if you agree with that when it applies to other people, consider whether you are, in fact, giving yourself a fair shake here.

</comment><comment><USER8> The fact of the matter is that war is a basic function of human societies, as much as food production or waste disposal. Unsurprisingly, it thus taps the ingenuities of the society in the same way as those other areas. It both benefits from ingenuities intended for other purposes, and results in inventions itself that can be used for other purposes. And for better or worse, war is a great way to get the public to support R&D spending. DARPA could not be what it is without being a part of the DOD. See: <http://tech.mit.edu/V114/N29/dod.29n.html>, <http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres07/12.00.pdf>, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge>.

And let's face it, its something you benefit from tremendously. You do not want a society in which the US does not have the power to kill everyone. That is a society in which your lifestyle is not as nice as it is now. Indeed, with the challenges we face in the coming century (oil, water scarcity, etc) as well as the ascension of India and China as world powers, our ability to kill people is going to be more important than ever.

<comment><USER9> _> The fact of the matter is that war is a basic function of human societies, as much as food production or waste disposal._

That makes me sad. Does anyone on HN(besides me) believe that one day humans will be able to rid themselves of war? That one day we'd find a solution to these issues that don't involve sending a group of armed people to kill?

<comment><USER8> I'm sure people do, but they're wrong. There are always situations in which the use of force is rationally self interested. As such, as long as those situations exist, a rational people will maintain and use war capability. Asking people not to go to war is asking them to put emotion (empathy) above rationality. You can do it to a degree, but only to an extent.

Indeed, US hegemony is good for peace. You can eliminate the rational self interest in going to war by imposing an external cost to going to war (like any negative externality). That's the role the US serves. Its military machine implicitly backs things like international sanctions that are punishment for anti-social behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter."

Nathaniel Borenstein

That sums it up for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> You also give money to kill people (You do pay taxes, right?). How come you are not bothered about that also?

It's pointless to think about the impact of a micro action on a macro event. Especially macro things such as war. There are so many different factors that culminate in a war.

And about the good/evilness of war, that has a been a debate since ages. One can never win this argument.

<comment><USER5> Plenty of people refuse to pay taxes for precisely this reason, or deliberately seek lower salaries that do not pay federal taxes.

They believe, correctly, that macro-events are the culmination of micro- events, and that change begins on the personal level. It takes just a handful of dedicated people to start revolutions. Startups should know that.

<comment><USER11> Such people are hypocrites at best. Don't they use roads for their commute. Dont' their kids go to public schools. Don't they visit national parks etc. If they do all these things, aren't they ashamed of living off the money of the rest of the society that diligently pays taxes, and not contributing/pitching their share towards these common societal support structures?

<comment><USER12> Conscientious objection within a system is not hypocritical. That's how actual change begins. Movements generally arise through disobedience to immoral laws and through an appeal to the reason and compassion of others. It's unintellectual to presuppose the validity, morality, and consistency of the actions of others based on divergent false equivalencies.

There is currently only centralized, pooled, coercive funding. Certain institutions (e.g. war industries and monopolistic entities) are disproportionately backed by forced funding. Certain road contracting is also backed by forced funding. It's illogical to suggest that a conscientious objector to the war industry is therefore being hypocritical by using roads. They are, as it happens, trapped within a system where the only alternative would be to refrain from using roads, which itself is a highly oppressive suggestion and a predicament many people find worth conscientiously rejecting. The funding of roads and the funding of unethical industries are not mutually inclusive. These are the types of moral imperatives that most discriminatory and anti-humanitarian policies have imposed on people throughout history.

Wiser is the one who asks why and listens. Many things that appear hypocritical are, in actuality, the superficial understanding of a much deeper dilemma taking place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 This logic seems like quite a stretch. I'd imagine the person who designed a hammer or a screwdriver isn't preoccupied with the fact that it might be used in helping to build a bomb factory.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wrote, but never published [1], a variation on the MIT license that has specific clauses stating that the software can only be used by parties who dont own/manufacture/trade firearms or ballistics. I never published it because I am not a lawyer, and it probably would have come across as an elaborate troll. If anyone is interested, I'll release it.

[1] <https://github.com/binarymax/Non-violent-License>

<comment><USER14> It's your license, but owning firearms somehow makes you violent? Certainly sounds like an elaborate troll to me.

Even if you could somehow iron out the kinks, the end result of your sort of action is a host of additional licenses that bar the various bête noires of their various authors, eventually leading to code that simply can't be used together because of conflicting moral obligations. I really don't want to have to run a program just to sort out the ethical dependencies of the stuff in my Gemfile.

<comment><USER13> Yes, all those points and more :)

While I don't consider everyone who owns a firearm to be violent - <USER2> are instruments of violence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This has nothing to do with open source. It's just a consequence of living in a warmongering superpower. Considering that a good percentage of America's GDP goes towards killing brown people overseas, just about every economic action you take as an American is contributing towards killing people. If you extend certain moral frameworks far enough, just living in America is an evil act.

<comment><USER10> Come on ... be real ... america spends roughly 600 B USD on military and related stuff. And they kill what 200-300K of civilians and combatants overseas per year top.

So this means that a brown person's life costs the government what 3 million USD per person to take. That is grossly inefficient. I am sure that if they just offer the dictators and warlords the money directly to kill their own populace they will manage to bring down the bill to 10K per person.

The goal of the US military is not to kill people (it is just not good enough) or defend the country (there is no real threat and terrorism is a joke) - <USER3> is to waste GDP in the best Orwellian way possible in which it excels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I vaguely recall license terms which disallow anyone from using the code for military purposes - maybe it's time to adopt stuff like GPL/CC by extending them with an (optional) "do not use this software in machines/systems which have the power to kill/hurt people, or enable people to do so"

<comment><USER17> Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

<comment><USER16> Who defines what is "good" and "evil"?

Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

<comment><USER18> This concerned IBM, so Crockford sent them a document saying : "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866>

<comment><USER19> Makes sense for IBM, as they do have a history of that sort of thing [1].

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highe...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I should've have noted that this came from the Philosophy in a Time of Software discussion list: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/philosophy- in-a-time...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/philosophy-in-a-time-of- software/SnV8qMUQc3Y)

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/>.

Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

<comment><USER20> I suspect that future generations will be disgusted by the fact that we find it okay to shoot conscious beings for amusement. Am generalising of course.

<comment><USER21> Is shooting an animal really any worse than what happens inside a slaughter house? The videos I've seen seem to indicate that it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was once at a guest lecture by Bjarne Stroustrup (creator of C++ for those who don't know), and during Q&A, someone in the audience asked him how he felt about the fact that his work was used to kill people.

(The rationale behind the question was based on fighter jets, to some extent, using software written in C++.)

The question was not tongue in cheek. Everyone in the auditorium laughed, though.

</comment><comment><USER23> I want to hack your software such that it always returns null. And then write software that identifies better distribution methods of food and water to famine and drought-stricken areas. Or maybe find the best areas to reseed of those that have been deforested.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you work at McDonalds, you probably fed a soldier or a weapons designer, or CIA field operative. You'd have to drop out of productive society entirely to escape this dynamic.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is the nature of living in a free society (or at least what parts of one that are left). You don't get to dictate what other people do. If you release your code "free to the world", you have to open your idealistic eyes and realize that that might include things you aren't comfortable with. And to maintain consistency with the views that led you to opening your code, you have to be okay with it. That is the unfortunate conceit of most people who claim to be tolerant and open minded, they often mean "but only for things I approve of".

</comment><comment><USER26> It's even worse than that! I hear people use hammers to build buildings where people work on military projects that eventually kill people! Clearly, we need to stop people from using hammers for evil. Boycott the hammer industry today.

</comment><comment><USER27> > I'm reasonably certain I would be orders of magnitude less well off and less > happy if open source didn't exist as a concept.

Right... what happened to just saying 'hundreds/thousands of times better off#' in hyperbolic sentences? Too pedestrian?

#Of course you can replace 'better' with any fitting adjective.</comment>


Shum or will the short audios replace text posts? - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.voicerproject.myvoicer&hl=ru&ah=F8sEjvSULBeWxbCavshZe8Ihz7Q <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm co-founder of Shum, app to record and post 1-minute audio notes (Twitter for audio) We have MVP available, but there are few users yet.

So, I want to talk about perspectives of audio sharing in future. Will it be the most proliferated format to express thoughts and share news in your opinion? Or will such format be short videos(Tik-tok) / smth more advanced (like 3D models, short animations, whatever)?

I think audio notes will definitely step up. Reasons: 1) People in big cities spend a lot of time to commute to work from home and back. And cities grow faster than travel speed. The most convenient ways to interact with information on the road - audio, as far as hands in public transport, bike, car are usually occupied. I performed a review among technopark residents, which showed that 8/10 people consume audio content on the road. 2) Voice processing methods are close to advance. People tend to use audio messaging more(from reviews) along with voice assistants. 3) Music streaming services, of course. There is already popular and working business model of consuming audio content on freemium base.

What do you think, what are the obstacles in the way for services which allow to share short audios?

<comment><USER2> Text is information dense but allows skimming. Audio (and video) are linear. One minute is a short audio or video message. It's a very very very long text. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, think about possible introduction of speech -> text transcription under each voice. It might not be perfect but useful for rapid communication. On the contrary, majority of audio content could be conceived as a background. Text or video require more attention.</comment></comment></comment>


I quit my job to run a developer newsletter full time. Now it makes $3k/mo - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-my-newsletter-for-developers-generates-subscription-revenue-8fff929be1 <comment><USER2> Yooooo!

Founder/newsletterer/~curator~ here - happy to talk this through, answer questions etc! With the caveat that I live in Melbourne, Australia so I may not be around immediately. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Good to see that you made a success of the newsletter.

Your newsletter was one of the few that I tried to read at least weekly.

That said I did not subscribe despite enjoying the free subscription:

The value proposition was not there in my personal case:

* I get dozens of newsletters in my inbox daily, so paying for one would feel really weird, I'd almost feel forced to read it daily.

* Your curated content while generally of high quality also has their own ads/promotions, so it is like paying for Netflix and getting broadcast TV commercials. Happens when you pay for cable.

* big overlap with HN and appropriate subreddits, I was getting maybe 20-30% new content.

Psychologically the biggest aversion to paying was because it was a heavy upsell from a formerly free product.

I've seen free -> paid conversions happen to many online services over some 20+ years and it always feels a bit of a deception.

I thought that Versioning was a completely SitePoint owned product and that normal cross-sells with their affiliate web hosts would ensure that you the curator would get paid appropriately.

By comparison I binge buy Udemy courses on their never ending sales because the value proposition feels higher.

<comment><USER2> Ah thanks for the feedback. I understand the free->paid aversion, espec with an emerging product type like paid newsletters. It's always hard when these monetisation models change.

Hopefully the paid model will give me the ability to add even more value without ads, via additional curated content like deeper dives into relevant subjects, plus some original content. Still early days but going well so far.

But I'm glad you enjoyed the newsletter - worth saying you can still sign up (or stay signed up, in your case) for occasional free updates. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Founders Never Sleep - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/28e03a3c7659

<comment><USER2> Sleep is certainly a challenge as a founder, or I would say "overworking" in general. It can be tempting to try and fix things by working more on them, and I've found personally that it rarely helps. With sleep, if I get 7.5 hours of sleep compared to 5 hours of sleep, it makes a huge difference for how much I can achieve, how focused I am. Especially the tasks that take a little more willpower (which are usually the most important ones) are the tasks that get left until tomorrow if I haven't had enough sleep.</comment>


Account Hijacking Forum OGusers Hacked - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/05/account-hijacking-forum-ogusers-hacked/ <comment><USER2> > _It's difficult not to admit feeling a bit of schadenfreude in response to > this event._

Yes, that sounds about right. I'm honestly super surprised that it doesn't happen more.

<comment><USER3> Expertise in one thing does not imply expertise in all things.

Which is why I'm super suspicious of any corporate culture that revolves around "Rah, rah, we're the best." Too easy to get blindsided by reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who used to frequent that website, I've no remorse for them. While it was a site for the buying and selling of OG accounts, it was ripe with people encouraging and partaking in the stealing/hacking of accounts. Some of the more savvy members made a living off of jacking accounts.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Raidforums thread announcing the leak: [https://raidforums.com/Thread- OGUsers-Database-Leaked-Downlo...](https://raidforums.com/Thread-OGUsers- Database-Leaked-Download-Exclusive)

</comment><comment><USER6> Didn't this guy dox notdan?

<comment><USER7> And so far did not even acknowledge even though peeps keep calling him out on it.

Kinda shameless if you ask me.</comment></comment>


Inside Wade, a 1kb search library - <AUTHOR> https://blog.kabir.ml/posts/inside-wade.html <comment><USER2> It just so happens that I've been working on trying to build the fastest possible trie implementation in JavaScript to speed up `lz-string` and potentially `js-search`. The whole process I went through is too much to write down here, but you can basically read it here:

[https://github.com/pieroxy/lz-string/pull/98](https://github.com/pieroxy/lz- string/pull/98)

[https://github.com/bvaughn/js- search/issues/42](https://github.com/bvaughn/js-search/issues/42)

The short version is: replace those single-char strings with the result of `charCodeAt()`, and then use `charCodeAt()` during search too. The reason is that integer key lookup is much faster than string key lookup:

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10639488/faster-to- acces...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10639488/faster-to-access- numeric-property-by-string-or-integer/10639526#10639526)

It's important that _all_ of your keys are integers though, so the trick is to actually store/look up `charCodeAt()+1`, and then store the indices at key 0.

If you feel like taking a risk, you can make a slightly more complicated data structure where you replace the object with an array and do a linear search:

[https://jsfiddle.net/vanderZwan/ccfxv4sg/1/](https://jsfiddle.net/vanderZwan/ccfxv4sg/1/)

For most data this is the fastest, because the array will only be a handful of characters (except at the root). However, in certain special cases (specifically, if you have a lot of unique characters at the root) it becomes prohibitively slow.

<comment><USER3> Using `charCodeAt()` for numeric keys is an interesting optimisation, I'm definitely going to try that out with Lunr.js.

I'm also interested in _why_ that is quicker though, aren't all object keys converted to strings anyway?

<comment><USER2> That is what the spec says, but one way to interpret that is to say that they only have to _behave_ as if they were.

Hashing an integer or double can be much simpler than hashing a string, and like the other comment said: for small enough keys you might even get away with using an array.

edit: to give another example, the spec also says all number are doubles, and yet all JS modern engines use optimisations in places where it can guarantee a value is a 32-bit integer; in some cases adding `|0` (a forced truncation by bitmask-or zero) as a compiler hint can speed up code.

edit2: this is also part of why you want your objects to be as type-stable as possible (it also makes code less bug-prone that way because easier to reason about). This includes the shape of _objects_. See these slides from 2011:

[https://www.slideshare.net/newmovie/know-yourengines- velocit...](https://www.slideshare.net/newmovie/know-yourengines- velocity2011/126-Typestable_JS_examples_Typestable_NOT)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the memory consumption like? A node for each letter seems like it would result in substantial memory consumption. I was thinking an object pool might help here, but I'm not sure if its possible to use it given the nesting of the nodes

Also, if the library removes stop words, does that mean its limited in which languages it supports? I'm assuming only English stop words are filtered

Not being critical here, just genuinely curious and don't have time to look through the code ATM

<comment><USER3> Lunr.js [1] used to use a trie data structure and memory usage was a concern. The problem is that although the data structure compresses prefixes, it does nothing for suffixes. Depending on the corpus this can lead to a lot of duplication.

Switching to a trie-like structure that compresses prefixes and suffixes can lead to significant savings. Building the structure can be a bit more burdensome, so there is a trade off there. There is a paper describing the approach [2] and, if you're interested, my JavaScript implementation [3][4].

[1] [https://lunrjs.com](https://lunrjs.com)

[2] [http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/J00-1002.pdf](http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/J00-1002.pdf)

[3] [https://github.com/olivernn/lunr.js/blob/master/lib/token_se...](https://github.com/olivernn/lunr.js/blob/master/lib/token_set.js)

[4] [https://github.com/olivernn/lunr.js/blob/master/lib/token_se...](https://github.com/olivernn/lunr.js/blob/master/lib/token_set_builder.js)

<comment><USER4> Cheers! Thanks for sharing. EDIT: I like the site design too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _In the end, we will be left with a results array like:_

      [1, 1]

Is that supposed to be [0, 1]? If not, how does that correlate to _[ "Hey", "Hello"]_?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, it is supposed to be [1, 1]. The actual value of the element corresponds to the score it has, and the index of it refers to the index in the data.

I'll add a note in the article.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry, I'm still a bit confused. If it "refers to the index in the data", how is it referring to both "Hey" and "Hello"?

Running the following doesn't seem to work for me:

      var Wade = require('wade');
      var search = Wade(['Hey', 'Hello']);
      search('he'); // returns []

<comment><AUTHOR> The article doesn't exactly simulate what Wade returns, but uses a simpler version. I added a note about it now.

        [1, 1]

The item at index 0 is 1. This means that the item in index 0 of the data ("Hey") has a score of 1. The item at index 1 is 1, meaning that the item at index 1 of the data ("Hello") has a score of 1.

Edit: Your example with Wade isn't working because it ignores the first item in the query ("he") as it is a stop word. Searching for "h" will return both.

<comment><USER5> Okay, I gotcha with the [1, 1].

I'm still curious about using it. The GitHub example [1] works as described, but I can't get a result from the 'he' example. Is it saying no match was found by returning an empty array?

EDIT: Okay, saw your edit. Might be nice to use an example that's not a stopword. ;) Nice work on the library and the blog post.

[1] [https://github.com/KingPixil/wade#usage](https://github.com/KingPixil/wade#usage)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, glad you understood. The library returns an array of results, and will return an empty array if there are none. Try searching for "h" or "hey" for an example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is nice. How much work would it be to make this incremental, i.e. update the data structure whenever new data is added or data is changed?

PS: Am I the only one who thinks it is quite strange that "search", being one of the pillars of CS, has so few open-source libraries dedicated to it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It wouldn't take much work to insert data actually, in fact it would be done pretty fast. Updating something will take more time, as it needs to update the whole structure.

I totally agree, search is an extremely interesting topic and I learned a lot writing Wade. I'd definitely recommend people to learn more about how this kind of stuff works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting write-up - I use DefiantJS [http://defiantjs.com](http://defiantjs.com) regularly and it seems to work similarly but instead it pre-processes the data into XML and then uses (fast) in-browser xpath to do searched

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. DefiantJS uses a different way of searching because it needs to be able to search JSON. Wade is focused on a simpler use case of searching within an array of strings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really nice explanation on how it works, I think a lot of people could benefit by understanding how a search engine works!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's really interesting stuff! I explored a variety of different algorithms when first writing Wade, including Knuth-Morris-Pratt and Boyer- Moore. In the end I ended up using a trie as it has great performance at the cost of a little preprocessing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hey Kabir! Congrats on making the frontpage :) I loved reading this post a couple days back.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you liked it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> it'll be really helpful if you explicitly list its supported language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, for future reference, the library itself is for Javascript. The post is more focused on how it works, rather than what language it uses.

<comment><USER10> i was asking the language it supports, i.e. English, Spanish, Chinese, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> My bad, it supports English, but the only feature dependent on this is the part that removes stop words.

You can easily configure the stop words that Wade removes by editing `Wade.config.stopWords`.

<comment><USER11> It will likely have trouble with languages that don't include spaces around words. This will likely work for most latin based languages though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why nurses are the new auto workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/07/health-care-jobs <comment><AUTHOR> And, like auto workers before them, nurses have become a big target for automation.</comment>


Something terrible could be happening in Parliament on Monday - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tom_watson/something-terrible-could-be-happening-in-parliament-on-monday-and-i-need-your-urgent-attention-22c3136de17c

<comment><AUTHOR> Update:

        @tomwatson
        Statement on Comms Data and Interception confirmed for this morning.
        MPs have not seen the BIll that will be railroaded through next week.

[https://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/487148889951440896](https://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/487148889951440896)</comment>


Ask HN: Who was hired via 'Ask HN: Who wants to be hired?' - <AUTHOR> I'm interested to know how that's working out for folks. <comment><USER2> Related "Ask HN: How effective is monthly Hire me?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24346900](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24346900) from two weeks ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was a couple years ago - it wasn't an organizational effort to post there, just one of the devs already on the team took the initiative to post it there. It was an mid level web developer role, nothing fancy. I worked there for about a year. It was my first full remote opportunity though which was a nice change at the time.</comment>


Tesla Model X owners finding car doors won't shut, windows won't close - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/tesla-model-x-owners-finding-car-doors-wont-shut-windows-wont-close/ <comment><USER2> I got one on March 29th, and it's been in the shop for the last two days (they haven't been able to find the problem yet!) because all of the sudden it gave eight errors and the power steering went out.

Hopefully they fix it soon... And get the driver's window to roll all the way up. And get the passenger side falcon wing door to close without always thinking there's an obstruction. And figure out where a piece of plastic that popped off a chair is supposed to go. And get the autopilot to stop seeing a "ghost car" (that causes it to slam on the brakes) when driving on the 10.

But, I still love that acceleration, with three car seats across the middle (because we're waiting on the recall for the rear two)!

<comment><USER3> _> And get the autopilot to stop seeing a "ghost car" (that causes it to slam on the brakes) when driving on the 10._

this all sounded like normal luxo-car post purchase pain, except... that.

metro expo line downtown to santa monica opens on may 20th though, so you may be in luck while your tesla's on the lift!

<comment><USER2> Yeah! I'm pretty stoked for that! But then the tesla autopilot kind of obviated the need (since bumper-to-bumper traffic is its specialty)... but thanks to this glitch, I'm happily stoked again!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reliability problems in exotics/supercars in the $150K+ price range are not uncommon. It's somewhat more tolerable for most as those cars are not bought as daily drivers, but I get the sense that's not the case with most Tesla owners.

Rather funny to read all the excuses. "We all expected a few bugs, like beta testing software" \--- I'm not buying it. Beta testers usually don't pay six figures for the privilege.

Compare to my $2,500 secondhand Ford that has had no faults in several years of ownership. Yes it does need occasional oil and filter changes. I'll take that compared to doors that won't open or brakes that activate upon sensing ghosts.

<comment><USER5> The Tesla is not a supercar. It's a luxury car. Its competitors are BMW/Mercedes-type luxury cars. Just because a car is $150k does not make it a supercar.

<comment><USER6> Well it's in top trim 0.5 sec faster to 60 then Porsche cayenne Turbo S and just a bit slower then Lambo Aventador. Tesla model S p85d is faster then Aventador and same time to 60 as Lambo Veneo (costs over 4 million USD).

<comment><USER7> And on the Autobahn it's slower than most family sedans, actually obstructing traffic.

<comment><USER8> Maybe those "most family sedan" drivers should try to obey the speed limits?

<comment><USER9> Big parts of the German autobahn have no speedlimits...

<comment><USER10> I'm German and that's just a false statement.

<comment><USER11> What's false about it? I drive through Germany regularly and there are stretches of the autobahn where there's no speed limit, I've driven at 130mph past police cars and it's absolutely fine - are you saying that the "big" part is false?

<comment><USER12> quick fact check via google: 40% of the German Autobahn have speed limits, I guess 60% can count as "big parts"

<comment><USER13> There's a difference between "most" and "big parts".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _In fact, after trying numerous approaches and trying to work through the car's software controls, Deeter found himself driving to a board meeting with one hand on the steering wheel and one holding shut the driver-side door. "It wasn't terribly smart, but I didn't have time to call an Uber."_

Don't do things like this.

<comment><USER15> He's not driving a '55 mack truck. The Tesla has power steering. You don't need two hands to turn the wheel. As long as he's willing to not screw around with the touch screen for the duration of the drive it's barely less safe than driving a manual and resting your hand on the shifter.

<comment><USER16> The Tesla has power steering, which is controlled by the same software that decided that the door doesn't need to stay closed while driving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No big surprise here. The design screamed "second system effect!" I'm surprised nobody at Tesla was able to reign in the feature list. Big management failure IMO. Tesla should have focused on the electric drivetrain + control software and avoided all the needlessly complex tangential mechanical features. The Model X showed that Tesla's engineers lack wisdom.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure lack of wisdom is a fair characterization. It does not look like they have functionality regressions caused by new features in other sections of the car. Had the new features ruined some old ones, I would have agreed with you, but these issues are all centered around the new features themselves. With that in mind, your characterization of wisdom in this context will be a prescription of never changing anything radically. They took a risk and they'll likely make it work just fine in near-term updates despite the embarrassing v1 and then we'll look back and see they have made a _great_ car which wouldn't have existed had they been _wiser_.

<comment><USER19> >>With that in mind, your characterization of wisdom in this context will be a prescription of never changing anything radically.

Your parent has said they should not spend too much on "tangential mechanical features". Can you explain what was radical in such features?

<comment><USER18> Falcon wing doors.

<comment><USER20> They open like this, not like this.

<comment><USER21> > one customer whose falcon-wing doors wouldn't open

or not

or if they do

> owners finding car doors won't shut

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So this is what the future is like.

Imagine you're on the freeway when suddenly a chip malfunctions and your doors open. How exciting!

<comment><USER23> My parents used to have an Audi A5 - sometimes, when you've hit a decline just right, it would shut off completely, no steering, nothing, all you could do was to let the car roll and reboot it.

This is a known software problem: [http://www.audiworld.com/forums/audi-a5-s5-rs5-coupe- cabrio-...](http://www.audiworld.com/forums/audi-a5-s5-rs5-coupe- cabrio-125/very-strange-concern-engine-shut-off-twice-while-driving-2722655/)

I.e., the future is already here and it sucks

<comment><USER24> Honestly, I wouldn't classify 8 forum posts as a "known software problem".

I think if this was as wide spread as you make it seem, there would have already been a recall made by VW as this is clearly a huge safety hazard.

<comment><USER6> Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. (Fight Club)

<comment><USER25> It's actually a paraphrasing of the Ivey (GM) and Grush-Saunby reports (Ford) from the 1970s. This was several years after Ralph Nader's famous book, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)

1\. [http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/files/FordMemo.pd...](http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/tortsprof/files/FordMemo.pdf)

2\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just rode 80 miles in a friend's Fiat 500e tonight. The regenerative braking and the stability control are both inoperative with the dash lit up like a Christmas tree with warning lights. They've had it to the dealer multiple times and they reflash the software or something. It'll be good for a day but then fail again. Apparently the workaround is to disconnect and reconnect the 12 volt battery before you start it every time. They're going to try to Lemon Law it.

<comment><USER27> > _I just rode 80 miles in a friend 's Fiat 500e tonight._

So, what's your point? That some cars are lemons? That's well understood.

The consumer reports article isn't about one car; they systematically review complaints from all kinds of owners and report a score. In this case, the overall score is below average.

<comment><USER26> "Apparently the workaround is to disconnect and reconnect the 12 volt battery..." It's a known and common issue that seems to be unfixable.

Not having regen cuts 10 - 15 miles off the max range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Maybe I'm a total Luddite, but with how fast cars depreciate, and with how fast electronics become obsolete, right now I have zero interest in the marriage of the two. You might as well just take the 138k it costs and start a bonfire.

I'm totally sure it's the future and all that, but when I bought a new car in 2013 I got a stick shift with the most advanced electronics being pretty much the radio (and even that could be mistaken with a cassette player from 1980 if you don't notice the bluetooth connection). You know how many problems I've had with the car so far? ZERO!

<comment><USER29> Tesla Roadster values have dropped about $30,000 in 6 years, or 5% a year. That's pretty great for a car of any sort.

<comment><USER30> That may be because not many roadsters were sold and the rarity makes them more desirable. The newer models sell in larger numbers and (i assume) will fall faster in the used market.

<comment><USER29> It's possible. The P85, for instance seems to have depreciated more rapidly. But that might be because Tesla keeps pushing the line out on their top of the line model.

By comparison, though, the 2011 Mercedes SL500 cost around $105,000 and is currently worth (depending on mileage) right around $50k. That's more typical depreciation for high end sports cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Guess what - my 5 series bmmw just won't open a trunk becaus there is a broken latch mechanism in the trunk, no big deal, things like this happen, especially to a new company like tesla

<comment><USER32> You've probably already checked this, but there's a switch in the glove compartment of BMWs that will lock the trunk and prevent it from being opened. Try flipping the switch and see if your trunk opens.

<comment><USER33> Funny anecdote time: my first car was a used Honda Civic. The owner was selling it much below KBB price, because it had a problem: the rear doors would not open from inside.

I take it home, and was going over the car with some friends, and one of them finds a switch on a rear passenger door: hmm, what does this do? He flips the switch, and we try to open the door from inside, and voila! The door opens. Flipped the other switch too, and the doors were functioning fine. I think I saved 20% of the cost of the car simply because the owner didn't know about child-proof switches. :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is why I don't understand people who are ready to rush headlong into autonomous vehicle world. I especially don't get it with tech people, and more especially with software people.

We know what can go wrong. I've heard the arguments that "yeah, but software is less fallible than humans". Maybe, but what happens when a situation arises that requires human judgment beyond what mere sensors can provide?

And, what happens when an OTA update regresses some safety feature or conflicts with another?

<comment><USER35> I tried the auto driving in a Model S and I hovered the brake closely for a long time with some anxiety about trusting it for the reason you noticed.

It was quite amazing and for long trips on the highway and in traffic it really is remarkable. That's why people are getting excited I think.

You still have to pay attention of course and take over fully at times because the sensors don't have what they need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't own a Tesla, although I'd like to.

These sorts of expensive problems are not unknown in top-end cars from long- time manufacturers either. The list of problems an S-class Mercedes will have over the course of its life is long, and can be very, very expensive.

So, not to say this isn't a problem, just that buyers of fancy, super-fast 'super-car' type cars do put up with a lot of maintenance issues.

<comment><USER36> I guess that comes with having the new toys in low production runs. Fewer testers and technologies or implementations that are yet to be run through their paces, I wouldn't be too surprised as an informed buyer.

An uninformed buyer would be pretty annoyed though!

<comment><USER29> For sure. If your last cars were good production year Volvos, the high end car thing can cause some heart burn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Same thing happened with Model S when first released. Mine had window that wouldn't rollup, door that spontaneously opened, noise from engines and noise from sun roof. All fixed, but annoying. Thank goodness cars have longer warranty than other tech and tesla stands by car.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ha. From what I've seen, the more expensive the car, the less reliable it is.

My brother's BMW needs about 5x more maintenance than his Nissan.

</comment><comment> blubb-fish I long to return to those days when a car's panes where adjusted by means of a simple mechanical crank ... I despise this obsessive compulsive digitality.

</comment><comment><USER39> But at least their resale value "is holding up well"

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/722891148126060545](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/722891148126060545)

<comment><USER27> I know people who sold beanie babies on the secondary market for thousands of dollars because they were "limited". That says more about the buyer than the product.

Obviously, in this case, Ford ($8BB in profit) overspent to look at a leading product. I fail to see the humour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Modern car: When you need a debugger instead of a mechanic to fix your car.

</comment><comment><USER41> Fail fast!

</comment><comment><USER42> It is true. There are issues but they have been minor and Tesla is fixing them. My guess is that they were pushing these out by March 31st for quarterly numbers and quality control slipped in their haste.

<comment><USER43> It's a "minor issue" that your door slams into overheads because the proximity sensor fails? Is Tesla repairing the damage to whatever was hit too?

I've heard of a whole lot of "glitches" excused away that, frankly are not particularly excusable for a car that costs more than many people's homes.

<comment><USER44> If a large percentage (by that I mean 10% or more) of that model car were having the same issues, I'd be concerned. Hell, even if 1% were it would be grounds for a model-wide recall. But this is two anecdotal reports. TWO. I'm not saying there aren't a few more people with these issues, but neither is it a widespread issue (that we know of yet, based on this article).

It's my understanding as an admittedly sideline spectator, that Tesla stands behind their vehicles and is always quick to address any issues. Granted, these are safety issues and should receive the fastest attention possible, but there's no indication (other than an indirect inference by one of two affected people) that Tesla is ignoring this. They can't ignore it, because they are too young to afford to.

I'm calling it a hit piece, or at the least, poor journalism for now.

<comment><USER45> It's like the story of the Tesla catching fire. It was a big deal, and then it turns out that, statistically, Teslas catch fire at like 1/4 the rate of your average car, and harm their passengers even less often.

These stories aren't interesting to me until you can statistically compare the incidents to the malfunctions of equivalent vehicles.

<comment><USER46> You shouldn't get a job for a newspaper, they would go under :)

<comment><USER47> That's not true. As long as _someone else_ writes the headline :)

        You won't believe how a flaming Tesla proves their superior safety!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Doors and windows have opening and closing problems...such is life when you swap a 460 into a foxbody or jump your XJ a lot...

</comment><comment><USER43> "I bought a $140,000 car that I can only get in through the passenger door. Oh well!"

(if you didn't read, this is pretty close to a synopsis of one of the affected customers quotes).

<comment><USER48> Not quite, you left out the part where he had to drive to a meeting with one hand on the steering wheel, and one hand holding the door closed. Oh well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ahh growing pains. We'll see many more of these from Tesla.

</comment><comment><USER50> >huge infotainment screen in his Model X has repeatedly frozen.

Dont worry, Tesla put CTRL_ALT_DEL right on the steering wheel just for the occasion (not a joke)

</comment><comment><USER51> This is the pitfall of not having manual backups for critical systems.

I hope this "do-fast, shiny, fix later" culture hasn't spread to SpaceX too. From what I'm seeing Musk wants to prioritize the look and feel of Dragon instead of the raw functionality that's necessary in case something goes wrong. That'd be a very, very bad idea if something were to happen. Space is not a forgiving realm.

<comment><USER52> Really ridiculous connection. SpaceX has spent _years_ working on redundant safety systems for Dragon, testing them, refining them. That's a large part of why it's taking so long.

And if you haven't forgotten, Tesla reigns over all other manufacturers for safety ratings. Trying to imply their cars are aesthetic and not functional exhibits a level of ignorance on the topic that renders your contributions essentially meaningless.

And, lastly, are you inferring this from the fact that Musk spent 5 minutes explaining that the interior was actually pleasant and modern and well- designed? From that, you jumped to the conclusion that most functionality at SpaceX was taking a backseat to the interior design? I'm sorry, have you noticed what they've accomplished? Do they seem to be slacking on core functionality to you?

<comment><USER20> "Tesla reigns over all other manufacturers for safety ratings."

Is that with the doors open or closed?

<comment><USER52> I laughed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why iOS started to require a lot of free space for updates? - <AUTHOR>

I am using iOS since 5.x and in iOS 7, updates of sizes like 18 MB - 50 MB started to ask for free space of 800 MB - 1.5 GB on the phone. That sounds absurd. From a programmer point of view, what could be the reason every single update requires so much spare space on the disk? <comment><USER2> The downloaded updates are just deltas from the previous release of the OS. These updates are assembled into (more or less) a "new OS image" on-device and then installed in the same manner a monolithic OS install is done. Since the device needs to make a copy of the entire OS image, you need a ton of free space.

Installing the "full" OS update from iTunes shouldn't require quite the large amount of space on device, since tethered to iTunes the existing OS image can just be replaced at once since the iTunes download is the full OS image and not just a diff. The diff saves on network bandwidth at the cost of large amounts of scratch space on the device.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably to avoid people diff'ing the updates.</comment>


ESPN Has Seen the Future of TV - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-30/espn-has-seen-the-future-of-tv-and-they-re-not-really-into-it <comment><USER2> This article has an interesting point buried deep down in the middle of it (that really isn't the point of the article), in that all of the new-ish things, like Sling or Vue or YouTube TV or otherwise look suspiciously like cable packages on the Internet. And that's something I can't quite get over.

I've used Sling in the past, it can be a good bridge if you've cut the cable and want to hop back in because you miss it, but besides the delivery mechanism — I can bring my own device and it streams over the Internet — I don't see that much of a differentiator from cable. With either package of Sling, I'm still getting a bunch of channels I have no interest in, and while the price may be less per month than cable, it still _feels_ like 70% of the money I'm paying is going towards channels I have absolutely no interest in. Not to mention all the commercials I have to watch with it, not just in live viewings (because that's part of the stream, I get that), but even in on- demand things.

I ask this honestly: is there something I'm missing here? People that I know that haven't cut cable because they would miss this or that laud these products as "the thing that may finally get them to cut cable," but this feels like cable just over streaming.

<comment><USER3> > 70% of the money I'm paying is going towards channels I have absolutely no > interest in

Why does that bother people so much? The incremental cost of delivering you a new channel is zero, so it makes sense to just deliver all of them. Where is the wasted money that's implied by a statement like this? If the average person watches 3 channels, and provider has a choice: charge $30 per channel and let everyone pick only the ones they want, or just charge $90 and let everyone watch whatever they want. I'd rather not be forced to choose the few channels that I'm locked into.

<comment><USER4> It bothers people because cable packages are so expensive. If they were cheaper no one would complain.

<comment><USER5> Sure but there's no incentive for anyone to make them cheaper. The cable operators make more by creating more expensive packages and then can justify it by putting a bunch of channels in them. The networks make more by forcing the operators to take small/niche channels if they want the popular channels. And since cable networks are not perfect substitutes, you can't just disrupt the industry by carrying a bunch of channels no one cares about. Also, because the channels have a fair bit of power in the relationship, they can structure their contracts with the operators in way that it's not economically viable for the operators to unbundle.

<comment><USER6> >The cable operators make more by creating more expensive packages and then can justify it by putting a bunch of channels in them.

But they won't make more money if they keep driving more people off.

<comment><USER5> Where are you going to go? All the OTT providers are similar, it's just fewer channels for less money. No one has an incentive to sell you individual channels and the channels don't have an incentive to sign contract with someone who would sell you individual channels (because they can just do that themselves for $10/mo). Remember that a cable operator can't just decide to start carrying a channel, they have to sign a contract, so a channel can ensure that they can always under cut someone who's selling unbundled channels and still make a healthy profit.

If you're interested in more than a couple channels then it's going to be cheaper to get a package through someone like Playstation VUE or Sling. You're paying anywhere from $20-$75 for one of those services and once you put it on top of your monthly internet how much are you really even saving vs. a Double Play from a cable provider?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I may be in the minority here, but one aspect of TV that I'd miss if did end up 'cutting the cable' would be the communal sense I get from watching TV. It's a bit hard to articulate, but when I watch TV I know that other people are watching exactly what I'm watching on that channel at that time. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you look at the Sun or Moon and know that people hundreds or thousands of miles from you are looking at the exact same thing. Or perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be watching a movie in a theater. Being there in the theater with other people is part of the experience and adds to it.

Netflix and streaming services don't really offer this because while other people may have watched what you're currently watching, your viewing experiences aren't synced up. You can watch whatever you want when you want and so the chances that you're watching the same thing at the same time, synced with others, is very small. Though freedom of choice is the major strength of streaming services and I love them for it, you lose that vague connection of sharing a singlular experience - watching that show, at that time - with thousands of others.

Maybe if Netflix were to implement a feature that indicated how many people were watching a show or movie at any given time it'd restore the communal aspect.

<comment><USER8> This is a good point. I could almost imagine a live social site where you could "watch X with friends" like a meetup and chat on a side channel. Of course you could do this wholly out of band but NF could certainly be involved.

<comment><USER9> I have seen this with... erm... less-than-legal streaming setups, it would be great of somebody figured out how to do it legitimately.

With Youtube it would actually be pretty simple because you can embed an iFrame for the video and manipulate the timestamp, but with other streaming sites I imagine it would be harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It sounds like they are still intent on riding cable into the ground, as they are "planning to roll out a Netflix-like interface for a section of the ESPN app that's limited to cable customers." Seriously? Wouldn't it make sense to just offer an OTT service at a pricepoint slightly higher than what cable providers give them per sub? If they cannot get enough subscribers at that pricepoint, then why not offer pricing per event?

I'm a cord cutter. I follow a single NFL team. They are on MNF maybe once a year. I'd pay $25 or so to watch that game (legally) at home rather than go to a bar or deal with a flaky illegal stream. They're leaving my money on the table.

<comment><USER11> They most likely have a contractual obligation with cable companies to only serve their content to subscribers. Probably a catch 22 of "We can't afford to renegotiate with cable companies right now, but we can't innovate on our current model without marketing to cord cutters".

ESPN (and many other media companies) are stuck and most likely in revenue- maintenance mode.

<comment><USER12> This exactly. ESPN was forced to sign such exclusive contracts in order to get the content. They are not permitted to sell the content any other way (like to individuals). It's a terrible contract they cannot get out of. If Disney pushed ESPN out on its own, that entity might be might be able to renegotiate. Of course the NFL for example could always sell the content to some other sucker then. Sports content is a nasty business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My wife and I just cut the cable, and it feels great. Even adding HBO Now and Turner/Criterion to Netflix and Hulu Prime, we save a ton of money, and no commercials.

Not being subjected to network news like MSNBC, Fox, and CNN is another fine bonus.

Paying for ESPN on cable, and never watching it was a nudge to cut the cable.

<comment><USER14> It's been about a year for me, and it's blissful. I tried to watch some Channel 4 UK on demand, and even that small amount of advertising had my teeth on edge. It's amazing how quickly you stop calmly glazing over for the high octane mindlessness you find in advertising; the tolerance just vanishes. The music grates, the acting is more obviously terrible, and messages more obviously manipulative... when you're not constantly immersed in them.

I also find that I watch less, because I'm actively finding anything I want to watch, rather than passively channel surfing or just "seeing what's on".

<comment><USER15> It'd be great if Channel 4 let you pay a subscription to go ad-free. I think ITV does, but I have no interest in their programming (unlike Channel 4, which would be worth it in my opinion).

<comment><USER14> I agree completely, and anecdotally it's the ad-free option that finally got me on Hulu.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Few weeks ago a very fantastic thing happened in my city, about live sports and so on.

Context: soccer is the main sport, TVs buy the rights to transmit, and pays a big money for the whole season. But the two biggest teams didn't sold their rights, so TV can transmit the whole championship except for those two teams.

When the confront of those two teams was about to happen, commercial controversy arose: the teams didn't accept a one-time-contract to that match because they estimated to receive 3x more from youtube live stream. The league had a say, the tv, the teams... bureaucratic problems prevented the have from happening at the expected day, but it happened a week later.

Live at youtube, enough quality, free, ad sponsored.

League wasn't happy (the championship worths a lot less without those teams, so smaller teams received a smaller share this year). Tv was more or less, as it profits selling pay-per-view or live transmission.

Public was happy. Those who wanted to go to the stadium, went and were happy too. Teams got bigger money and were happier than never.

\</comment><comment>---

I cutted cable because I was paying >$100 to watch just 4 or 5 channels. Would they have some kind of subscription, I would surely go for them.

I'm still waiting when cables (or channels companies) will allow me to subscribe for just specific channels.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article makes a point that if ESPN charged $15 a month for a standalone streaming channel, they'd need 43 million subscriptions to make up for revenue it gets from cable packages.

In the same paragraph it mentions that ESPN pays more than $100 million for the rights to a single Monday Night Football game. What I don't see mentioned is that the price of content should be a function of how many people watch that broadcast. And disregarding the fact that some of these prices are locked in from long-term contracts, if ESPN loses subscribers, fewer people will watch the content and the price broadcasters will bid in the future for that content will go down.

Cord cutters aren't all switching to OTA antennas either, so the usual broadcast networks should be bidding less on the content as well. It seems like an equilibrium will eventually be reached letting ESPN survive with fewer subscribers, which makes the $15 a month standalone streaming channel more feasible. The real loser in all this would be the sports leagues that can no longer command the same price for broadcast rights.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've cut the cord and subscribe to ESPN through Sling. I'm very happy that ESPN has readily made themselves available on all the different streaming services (PS Vue, Youtube TV, Sling, etc). However, I also pay for Hulu and Netflix. In the end it still comes out to be the same price as cable, but with a more friendly subscription model.

Time Warner tried giving me a free year of basic cable and each month all of the random fees and surcharges were placed on me. Bills weren't predictable. All of a sudden the price would change 1 month and they have every right to do so. So yeah, I'm never trying that experiment again.

In the end, as long as ESPN has games to broadcast, they will no doubt have viewers and subscribers. Aside from that? People unsubscribe to ESPN either because they never wanted it to begin with OR because they honestly lack programming. Football has Sunday Ticket and Basketball has NBA GameTime.

Outside of live sports, IMO Scott Van Pelt is the last great sports commentator on ESPN and everyone else on the show (Stephen A Smith, Skip Bayless) and other people I don't care to remember the name of, sucks. The commentating and the topics they discuss are now more reality TV than it is about sports. Why did Kaepernick kneeling get so much airtime? Are they same demographic of people who watch sports on ESPN the same who would care? I felt like any coverage of that should have been on Bravo or E.

Also Bill Walton's coverage of NCAA Basketball seriously makes me want to shut the damn game off.

</comment><comment><USER19> The root of ESPN's problem seems to be that what they call 'ESPN subscribers' are actually just 'cable subscribers', because ESPN is bundled with so many cable subscriptions. The actual number of people that _want_ ESPN is some subset of all cable subscribers.

Since the only way to get ESPN right now is to be a cable subscriber, it means two things: everyone that still wants ESPN still has ESPN (because they still have cable), and all of the people unsubscribing no longer want ESPN. Note: To keep this away from pricing issues, I am excluding "cannot afford or do not want to pay the price of cable but still want ESPN" from people that truly "want ESPN".

The true number of ESPN subscribers as a percentage of cable subscribers is likely going up. The cable companies probably know what this number is (feedback from set top boxes), but as far as I know don't share this data.

I would assume their cost to get rights to events seems would be somewhat based on their published subscriber numbers. Since those are the wrong numbers, they are getting hit in two ways: the subsidy from non-ESPN viewers that no longer subscribe to cable is going away, and the cost-per-subscriber of broadcast rights is going up because number of subscribers (according to their broken metric) is going down.

Had they just always charged for ESPN separately (meaning 100% of people who paid for ESPN wanted to pay for ESPN) it seems like neither of these things would be a problem, though, they'd have lower revenue. The market will correct itself eventually, and ESPN will either adapt by cutting their costs or they'll eventually go bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER20> ESPN is honestly the single biggest selling point FOR cable. If not for ESPN I'd have cut the cord long ago. Live broadcasts to millions of people at the same time make tremendously more sense in a broadcast model than a TCP connection per viewer model.

It works fine for sporting events that are expected to have fairly low viewership or for content like Netflix which gets preprocessed and pre delivered to closer-to-viewer nodes. If I'm trying to watch Clemson vs Alabama in the national title game and the feed goes out because so many people are trying to watch it at the same time I'm not going to be a happy camper.

<comment><USER21> Just get Direct TV or Slingbox you get all that for $30 to $35

<comment><USER20> Used to have Direct and got tired of the annual price increase drill.

Step 1) Get pestering phone calls to change your package for 3-5 months for FREE to include all of the movie channels

Step 2) Promotion runs out and you want to go back to your old package, but it's now $5 / month more expensive than it used to be

Step 3) Start refusing the free package change calls and watch the calls just keep...on...coming.

Plus, with Direct I can't use my Tivo Bolt...which is giving up a lot because it's so much better than any of their DVR tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> ESPN is at the dangerous point that Kodak was at some time back - and made the wrong decision about.

When the mass popular switch to digital photography was imminent, Kodak still had enormous sales from film - mostly sold & processed thru retail stores, which relied on the product/service to generate foot traffic (one visit to buy film, one to drop it off for processing, one to pick up prints - with likely tangential purchases while the customer was there). Retailers saw Kodak starting to make noise about switching to digital, which would have (and eventually did) destroyed that very lucrative sales model - so the retailers threatened Kodak with "if you push digital, we'll drop your products" ... so rather than sacrificing the cash cow, Kodak slowed the digital roadmap to >5 years to keep retailers happy, failing to notice that retailers weren't the actual end customer making the actual decision to buy film. Competition emerged from bizarrely non-sequitur competitors, like printer & computer manufacturers Epson & Hewlett-Packard - leaders in markets that had nothing to do with photography. Bottom-end digital camera prices fell to around $100, UI/UX improved, picture-takers discovered that "digital film is free", and the whole market switched from photochemical consumables to digital capital equipment practically overnight.

ESPN and other major specialty content producers are facing the same problem. The bulk of their customers still watch via "cable TV", and cable TV providers are likely threatening to drop the ESPN-type packages entirely if they start providing serious streaming/app alternatives. That's a LOT of revenue to lose fast, so they're avoiding the big push to new media. Unfortunately for them, some other content delivery companies (like Netflix and Amazon) are seeing the potential, and putting big money into producing or negotiating highly desirable alternative content. Remember, there is a new generation coming of age who were raised playing soccer or other engaging sports instead of American football; they're looking for content that's not necessarily NFL etc, they're not so mentally tied to "TV", they want mobile content, and other non- sequitur competitors are making serious progress toward capturing their dollars where ESPN et al are reluctant to go under threat of old-model revenue being abruptly cut off.

If ESPN et al really want to survive the pivot that killed Kodak, they need to call Comcast et al's bluff, pivot into on-demand streaming, and partner with Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc for future survival, and make an ESPN-branded push for viewers to spend the one-time $50-150 already for a superior & enduring viewing experience. Otherwise, NFL on iTunes and World Soccer on Netflix etc will become not just a thing, but the thing. Kodak doubled down on retail, instead of leaping to the seemingly non-sequitur future, and died. ESPN is doubling down on cable, with no reason to expect a different result.

<comment><USER21> > Retailers saw Kodak starting to make noise about switching to digital, which > would have (and eventually did) destroyed that very lucrative sales model - > so the retailers threatened Kodak with "if you push digital, we'll drop your > products" ... so rather than sacrificing the cash cow, Kodak slowed the > digital roadmap to ....

I don't think that is the right narrative. All those same retailers print out pictures more now then ever. Kodak's digital products were a sub par and their competition (Especially Sony and Nixon) were destroying them in the market.

<comment><USER22> That _was_ the narrative. That was the perception at the time, and decisions were about a predictable future (even if the prediction was wrong). The retailers may (I'll have to check) be printing more than ever, but customers are walking into the retail store _once_, not three times - and that point alone terrified retailers.

Kodak had excellent imagers in development and high-end production. They knew the imaging technology & business better than anyone. They just didn't pivot (fast!) to making that their core competency. Having literally 5 miles of chemical processing factories clouded the vision required to build highly competitive cameras.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if any other recent changes by ESPN are compounding their viewship decline.

</comment><comment><USER24> Black background with white text makes me semi blind for about 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it just me, or are the images on the page incredibly broken?

<comment><USER26> That's sort of what they're going for. It's streaming and the distortion that happens sometimes.</comment></comment>


The Supreme Court just killed Aereo's streaming service - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/25/the-supreme-court-just-killed-aereos-streaming-service/

<comment><USER2> Previous Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7943964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7943964)</comment>


Ask HN: Are you able to work on two different projects at once? - <AUTHOR> Just curious how effective people are at project multitasking or how possible it is. I work for myself so I have quite a lot of time, but I feel like two projects would be difficult for me to focus on, that the switching would be expensive, even if they're both the same language. Anyone here regularly do this with success? <comment><USER2> I work full time and I'm trying to get something going off the ground on the side. it's very slow going.</comment>


Engine maker Cummins to recall 500,000 trucks after failed emissions tests - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/cummins-to-recall-500000-trucks-after-emissions-tests-but-its-no-vw-scandal/ <comment><USER2> They'll only have to fix the few thousand that still have the emissions equipment installed.</comment>


NSA Spying Documents to be Released As Result of EFF Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/09/hundreds-pages-nsa-spying-documents-be-released-result-eff-lawsuit <comment><USER2> Great news!

Let's put it in context. In a nation of over 300,000,000 people, in which we _know_ several departments of the executive branch are spending billions to spy on the world in gross violation of the Constitution, it seems only one or two people (Snowden and Manning with help from the press), and one or two organizations (EFF and ACLU), are able to make _any_ meaningful progress.

The legislative branch has done almost nothing and is largely complicit. The judicial branch has been largely complicit except when motivated by the EFF and ACLU and didn't help with Manning. Same with the press. What's left? What other successes can we build on? What historical models can we learn from?

Probably everyone reading this wants to help. Surely we can come up with some way to do something. We can contribute resources to the EFF and ACLU. Frankly, I don't see marching in the streets helpful, but I'd love to be proved wrong. What else?

WE'RE TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURS! We claim to understand the issues and know how to create and lead teams and marshal resources to meet demand. If any progress is to happen, IT HAS TO START HERE WITH US.

What else can we -- you and I -- do?

\- Can we motivate and support more whistleblowers so future ones don't have to fear jail and persecution?

\- Can we contribute more time, money, and other resources to the EFF and ACLU?

\- Can we create new organizations to augment their work?

I have to believe we have more ideas in us. What else can we do? Can YOU add to this list?

<comment><USER3> > in which we know several departments of the executive branch are spending > billions to spy on the world in _gross violation_ of the Constitution,

We don't know that at all. The closest thing we have is a FISC opinion which declared certain minimization measures to be unconstitutional which aren't in place any more.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, how could we know whether or not the spying was unconstitutional given nobody could sue over it because it was a secret program that by its very nature went unacknowledged.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, how could we know this about any of hundreds of other government programs that touch our lives, whether we know about them or not?

Mandated vaccination regimes? We know about those, but what about the specific drugs/vaccines that go in each regimen? I don't remember voting for the person at HHS overseeing that.

Nuclear weapons development and stockpiles? How do you know those are being properly supervised or not?

Foreign military sales? How do you know we're only giving our allies ships and other arms that wouldn't give away vital American secrets?

Or what about IRS tax audit policies? How do we know those are applied constitutionally?

Or abroad, how do we know that our diplomats are not doing anything shady?

Or even at home, how do you know the local cops don't have a pen register wiretap running on your cell phone tower this very day?

And it could go on and on. When it comes to the USG it's frankly a bunch of "unknown unknowns" that the people similarly can't really pre-emptively sue about. That's why it's important to get the built-in transparency and oversight measures correct in the first place, as the job of oversight is far too complicated to leave to the people alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congress should be following Bruce Schneier's advice, and appoint a special independent prosecutor with full powers to see everything that's happening within NSA, and to be able to take confessions from NSA employees, without them fearing repercussions. The NSA needs to be reined it, and it needs a full audit.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the- only...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the-only-way-to- restore-trust-in-the-nsa/279314/)

<comment><USER7> Why would congress want to do that? They approved all this and they don't seem interested at all in stopping it.

<comment><USER8> No, they didn't approve it.

Jim Sensenbrenner, Author of the PATRIOT Act, has himself said that the presidents' interpretation are an abuse of the law.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/abuse- pa...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/abuse-patriot-act- must-end)

If the guy who wrote the law says, "that is not what I meant" it is pretty clear that what congress voted for and what they got are two different things.

<comment><USER5> > If the guy who wrote the law says, "that is not what I meant" it is pretty > clear that what congress voted for and what they got are two different > things.

And so when people warned him that the law he _actually wrong_ might be used to create programs that _actually happened_ , why didn't he reword the law to conform to what he says he meant?

Either way, doesn't matter one fig what Jim personally meant when he drafted the law; what does Congress think they _passed_ is the different question.

Just like you shouldn't proofread your own writing, you shouldn't assume 535 legislators and a President came to the same meaning of your draft legislation as you had in mind when you drafted it.

<comment><USER8> Your proof-reading example doesn't fit this case. When you write something, the people who read it rarely also talk to you about it.

In congress, most bills are "lobbied" for by the authors - they go around talking to other members of congress to try to sell them on voting for it. In such a situation it absolutely matters what the author thinks the bill says because, if nothing else, it will have a large effect on how the bill is perceived when it is later read. In the specific case of the patriot act most members of congress did not even read it before voting on it. The _only_ thing they had to go on is how it was presented by the author.

[http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2009/03/02/congress- had-n...](http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2009/03/02/congress-had-no-time- to-read-the-usa-patriot-act/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Organizations like EFF and ACLU are extremely impressive—they are one of the very few effective actors that actually seem to be able to strike blows at the current wave of authoritarian madness. I wish their German and European counterparts managed similar feats.

<comment><USER10> Who would these counterparts be?

<comment><USER11> In the Netherlands, there's Bits of Freedom for example ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bits_of_Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bits_of_Freedom))

<comment><USER12> OpenMedia in Canada has been successful in changing government positions on Internet regulations(Unlimited Bandwidth).

[https://openmedia.ca/](https://openmedia.ca/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The released information will be legal opinions:

"[O]rders and opinions of the FISC issued from January 1, 2004, to June 6, 2011, that contain a significant legal interpretation of the government's authority or use of its authority under Section 215; and responsive "significant documents, procedures, or legal analyses incorporated into FISC opinions or orders and treated as binding by the Department of Justice or the National Security Agency."

This is actually a huge win, because it will show the legal theories underlying the NSA surveillance. This will help us figure out whether the surveillance is Constitutional, and also give insight into what sorts of surveillance is being conducted.

</comment><comment><USER13> EFF continues to impress.

<comment><USER14> I have noticed that the ACLU has a tendency of making dubious choices when they run into a conflict between agendas (i.e. supporting corporate free speech in Citizens United and then opposing the same in Elaine Photography v. Willock. The EFF seems to have fewer qualms defending enumerated civil liberties online.

I have come to _really_ appreciate the EFF. I won't donate to political candidates. I will donate to the EFF what I might have donated to political candidates....

<comment><USER15> > supporting corporate free speech in Citizens United and then opposing the > same in Elaine Photography v. Willock

These two cases are completely different. One is about a non-profit being prohibited from speaking about a candidate before a primary election, and the other is about discrimination by a commercial service.

<comment><USER3> Its a tough case. On one hand its a commercial service, which always gets less speech protection. On the other hand photography is art.

<comment><USER14> Additionally suppose what was at issue was a slogan printed on every wedding photograph which was clearly discriminatory because it was also political. Something like, "One man. One woman. One holy marriage."

If a photographer does this, you _must_ choose between political speech and non-discrimination because the political speech interferes with a right of a vulnerable group to enjoy their purchased goods. Otherwise where do you draw the line?

Or what do you do if a cake decorator insists on a similar slogan on the wedding cake and opposite-sex decorations? Surely this is both political speech and functional discrimination, right?

The EFF avoids this by having a narrower focus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The EFF is a great thing, but let's look at what they won:

> [O]rders and opinions of the FISC issued from January 1, 2004, to June 6, > 2011, that contain a significant legal interpretation of the government's > authority or use of its authority under Section 215; and responsive > "significant documents, procedures, or legal analyses incorporated into FISC > opinions or orders and treated as binding by the Department of Justice or > the National Security Agency."

My interpretation of that is that the results could just include a lot about: "As stated in (some law or regulation) case # (redacted) with regard to (redacted), (redacted) is fully (or not fully) within the rights of the government to do so."

So, I'm sure there will be some information there, but it will be about the laws and regulations surrounding what is possible, not about the actions being discussed. And, frankly I've known for years (who hasn't) that our government wants an excessive amount of information about us with the intent to keep us safe and/or dominate the world, so I don't need the EFF or our government to spend much time on this. The EFF should be figuring out what can be patented and what can be free, and our government should be doing what it can to boost our economy in a long-term fashion while ensuring our freedom and safety. If that involves an overreaching security group, so be it.

<comment><USER17> The laws and regulations revealed in this document will be important for targeted action on issues. Whether it was obvious to you that the government was harvesting data on its people for years, we cannot fight what we have no evidence about. With this release, we can actually pick out the laws that we have an issue with, and target them for debate.

> our government should be doing what it can to boost our economy in a long- > term fashion while ensuring our freedom and safety. If that involves an > overreaching security group, so be it.

If you trust the government with that much power I suppose this whole issue over surveillance seems quaint to you. Most people however would like to have some input over the powers wielded by their government. Something about a 'for the people, by the people' type thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So many people have accused Ed Snowden of treason, but it seems a lot less likely that this would have happened had he not had the balls to allude to the kinds of spying the federal government has been doing on the world.

Thanks Ed, and to all the awesome people at the EFF.

<comment><USER19> If he was actually a capital-t Traitor, the government would not have to release any relevant documents. This is to say that the government's arguments would persist in their strength towards maintaining secrecy, but the fact that these events are transpiring tells me that there is no _actual legal support_ for a treason charge (pace Dianne Feinstein). Otherwise, the NSA itself would be acting against the interests of the nation by doing this, thus themselves be traitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Loud and assertive people get results in today's world. I applaud the EFF and their aggressive legal actions.

</comment><comment><USER18> In related, but largely unimportant news, the federal government has created a tumblr account to post its surveillance-related propaganda:

[http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/](http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/)

and it's as ugly as anything you've ever seen come out of the federal government. I still can't believe that someone makes those graphics for a living, and still makes them look that bad.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if big chunks of it will be redacted....

<comment><USER22> IANAL, wonder what does FIOA ruling entitles you to? can the government redact everything except one sentence? Just wondering.

<comment><USER23> Yes. [https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/images_insert/FISC%2...](https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/images_insert/FISC%203.png)

Edit: 4th paragraph for another example. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/eff-victory-results- ex...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/eff-victory-results-expected- release-secret-court-opinion-finding-nsa-surveillance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I hope that what they release is actually something can be read in its entirety and not redacted so much you can't read it.

[http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=19153896&ref=https%3A%2...](http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=19153896&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F)

</comment><comment><USER25> Supposing the Justice Department has committed a crime:

\- What laws have been broken?

\- What individuals broke those laws?

\- What punishments are appropriate?

\- Who decides who is guilty?

\- Who gives out those sentences?

\- Where will the criminals be held?

Additionally, is the President at liberty to override them?

If all else fails, would it be possible for the people to set up their own courts outside of the Justice Department for this purpose?

<comment><USER3> Violating the Constitution is not a criminal offense, for obvious reasons. When the FEC tried to enforce McCain Feingold in Citizens United, and parts of the law were declared unconstitutional, should the people at the FEC who engaged in the enforcement action have been criminally charged, tried, and punished?

Also, the federal courts aren't in the Justice Department, which is a division of the executive branch. They're part of the judiciary, which is a separate co-equal branch.

<comment><USER26> > should the people at the FEC who engaged in the enforcement action have been > criminally charged, tried, and punished?

Ideally, yes! We would have far fewer "good Germans" for the internet to Godwin about.

Pragmatically, no, anyone other than a judge or lawyer cannot be expected to know what is constitutional or not.

<comment><USER27> And at least as importantly, people outside the judicial branch aren't legally empowered to determine the constitutionality of laws. Allowing the executive branch and its employees to treat laws as unconstitutional, all on their own, would open up a ridiculously large can of worms.

<comment><USER28> Maybe it would, but everyone punting the issue of "is it Constitutional?" to the judicial branch is also a violation of ethics. What if they mess up once?

The Legislature should not pass laws without sincerely believing they are Constitutional, and the Executive should not sign laws without believing they are Constitutional. Bush 43 violated this -- he thought McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional but punted the hard unpopular decision to Someone Else.

<comment><USER27> I would agree that the legislative and executive branches do have some responsibility to write and sign laws they actually believe are constitutional. Just punting that to the courts does seem like a cop out.

I was talking more about laws that have already been written and signed since we were talking about the actions of the FEC in the context of McCain- Feingold. Absent extreme cases (like death camps or something), I don't think the FEC or its employees would have any legal right (or responsibility) to decide for themselves that McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional. Giving them that power and responsibility is the can of worms I was talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sometimes things happen in America that do make me happy about how this country works.</comment>


Motorola Atrix = Palm Foleo? - <AUTHOR>

Anyone remember the Foleo?  Seems to have come 4 years too early. <comment><USER2> Five years ago I met with some people from google and some then colleagues of mine. I was trying to recruit developers to make then, what today is the Atrix.

Specifically - I had spec'd up a dist of linux that would work the way the Atrix claims to today... it was based on a kiosk computing design white paper I wrote in 2002...

I couldn't convince anyone at the time with my main premise which was that going forward 100% of our digital identity would be carried in the phone.

The problem that the current implementations of such systems have is that they are being driving by the wrong organizations - Carriers and Handset Manufacturers... the parties with the least innovation incentive. The ONLY incentive ANY of these companies have is incremental profit.</comment>