Latest Intel, AMD chips won't support Windows versions earlier than Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/02/windows_intel_kaby_lake_amd_zen/ <comment><USER2> I don't get what the big deal is. Does Linux add support for newer Intel and AMD chips in old kernels? No. Does Apple add support for newer Intel and AMD chips in older versions of Mac OS? I'm sure no. So why does Microsoft have to do something the other companies aren't doing either? I mean it's not like they actively prevent older Windows versions on running on these chips, it's just that they don't add support for the newest chip features.

Sometimes when I see these newspapers bashing Microsoft I question whether they even think about what they are writing before pressing the publish button. Headline: Microsoft is doing what all other OS companies are doing too.

<comment><USER3> It's actually not a big deal but with the issues Microsoft has had with Windows 10 over the past year, it makes for good media fodder to stir up the masses. When this first hit the tech news sites earlier this year, my answer to anyone shouting "OMG I can't have my Win7 on my Skylake, die Micro$oft!" was to politely ask them to attempt to install Windows 98 on a Core i-series machine. You could see the gears turning in their skulls and revelation would dawn upon them that yes, this has happened before, many times, and is a perfectly normal progression.

It's not even limited to Microsoft; you can't install Mac OS X 10.7+ on anything older than a 2nd generation Core2 Duo, and with good reason. OS X 10.6 ran like crap on the first gen Core Duo and Core2 Duo machines, despite being fully supported by Apple.

There comes a time when the software exceeds the capabilities of the hardware, and this is no exception.

<comment><USER4> No, that's nonsense.

No one liked Win 98, and it was comprehensively EOL'd by Win XP - which always ran fine on iX machines.

Now, many people still prefer Win 7 to the creeping user-hostile horror that is Win 10 - if only because it's possible to use Win 7 with relative confidence that an update won't suddenly kill your machine, or your webcam, or your Kindle, or whatever else MS manages to screw up in the next year or two.

That's not a trivial difference. MS+Intel are attempting to force users towards an OS that is inherently broken, and - given the level of competence on display in the Windows division at the moment - is unlikely to _ever_ work reliably.

<comment> dao- > No one liked Win 98,

As I recall Win 98 and 98SE were hugely popular. People may not have loved them, but I don't think it was generally disputed that they were a huge improvement over Win 95. In fact, hardly anyone liked Win ME, and many clung to 98 until XP arrived, much like people clung to XP and avoided Vista until Win 7 arrived.

<comment><USER5> My dad would still use 98 today if he had the choice. He's increasingly hated every version of Windows since 98.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        Microsoft chooses not to support new Intel & AMD chips in Windows versions earlier than 10.

The title makes it the fault of chip makers. Isn't it just a software problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> What I understand is that Intel and AMD decided not to work on drivers for their new chips to support older Windows, aligning themselves with the new Microsoft support policy... Intel said: "Intel will not be updating Win 7/8 drivers for 7th Gen Intel Core per Microsoft's support policy change". AMD said: "AMD's processor roadmap is fully aligned with Microsoft's software strategy". Microsoft are also holding back, for example by not supporting 7th gen xHCI USB controller on older versions of Windows.

So it doesn't seem like it is Microsoft's choice alone. I think the current title (Latest Intel & AMD chips won't support Windows versions earlier than Windows 10) is not pointing blame at anyone, just saying that the chips are not going to be officially supported.

Source: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/3112663/software/microsoft- ma...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3112663/software/microsoft-made-em-do- it-the-latest-kaby-lake-zen-chips-will-support-only-windows-10.html)

<comment><USER7> Rationally speaking, yeah, it doesn't mean much more than that they won't work with it, independent of who's to blame, but I did initially still read it as if it was Intel's and AMD's fault, and I'm obviously not alone with that either.

Better would have been like I've already used it: "Intel's and AMD's chips won't work with Windows 7/8"

Then it's completely open why that is and the reader can make up their own mind.

<comment><USER8> > Better would have been like I've already used it: "Intel's and AMD's chips > won't work with Windows 7/8"

A much more appropriate description would be that Microsoft won't support Intel's and AMD's newer chips in the company's earlier OSs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slightly mis-leading headline....bug it's direct from the register. tldr; the headline should read "Windows 10 is the only Windows OS that will support latest processors." Guess MS is tired of supporting 30 years of hardware with each OS release. Hopefully that'll free them up a bit to do more interesting stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is strange that most of the news sites currently covering the story have misleading or ambiguous headlines:

 _Microsoft made 'em do it: The latest Kaby Lake, Zen chips will support only Windows 10 (PCWorld)_

 _Windows 10 Or Else? Intel 's New 'Kaby Lake' Chip Won't Support Windows 7, 8 (Forbes)_

 _Intel 's Kaby Lake and AMD's Zen processors will only support Windows 10 (PC Gamer)_

 _From this point forward, all Intel and AMD CPUs are Windows 10-only (ExtremeTech)_

 _Intel 's latest CPUs will only support Windows 10 (TechRadar)_

<comment><USER10> Windows 10 isn't very popular, and that is good. No other operating system is as hostile to the users privacy, and certainly no desktop operating system where everyone stores many private files. And not just personal files, but think of all the doctors offices, lawyers - which makes Win10 illegal to use in many countries, as it transfers automatically your key strokes, microphone samples, screenshots, search history, application list, hardware configuration and what not else that god forbids to dozens of domains that have not even Microsoft in it's name. And the domains and IPs ate whitelisted in the signed 64-bit kernel mode part of Win10 network layer. Good night, no work around possible. Except you carry a hardware firewall around attached to your laptop. So it's good that the "free" (free to exchange for a Win7/8 license dongled to one mainboard) Win10 failed all expectations and got little uptake. Most companies are still on Win7 and all literated users too beside some foolished fanboys/early adopters/noobs. Many reverted back to Win7 after the got Win10 tricked "by accident". XBoxOne failed spectacular too being far far behind PS4 and even WiiU sales. And WinMobile/Phone 10 is dead too, with as little as 0.6% global market share. If I would be an investor, I would fire this failed CEO and some of his top managers incl PR department and restore and rebrand some of their former good products.

<comment><USER11> Yep. I realized today that in my office of about 30 employees, there are about 2 windows machines, 2 devs running Linux, and the rest running MacBooks.

All of our servers are CentOS on AWS.

Email is Gmail enterprise.

We use a dozen different languages and frameworks, but no dot Net, no Visual Studio to be seen.

And most of us now collaborate with Google docs or just markdown / Confluence / Slack. The only ones using MS office are a few of the managers over the age of 50...

<comment><USER12> Sure, me too except zero windows. but Microsoft has realized going after 30person offices is not lucrative compared to 30,000person companies and government depts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To get an idea of what kind of grief arises from a legacy kernel on significantly newer hardware: XP doesn't know how to save and restore AVX register state across context switches. The cpuid instruction doesn't look at the OS, so AVX is detected as being available, but it doesn't work right. (This has been an actual problem for crypto code in Firefox.)

<comment><USER14> XP doesn't natively support hard disks with non-512-byte sectors, leading to performance degradation (and possibly more wear?) on modern, higher-capacity hard drives which use 4096-byte sectors and have to emulate 512-byte sectors for Windows XP's sake.

<comment><USER15> Vanilla Windows 7 doesn't support 4K sectors either.

I discovered this when I unthinkingly replaced my laptop's failing disk with a 4K disk. Windows 7 installed itself from the recovery DVD, but would blue screen on the first reboot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In HN, the headline currently reads:

         Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10 and Linux, BSD, OS X

But on thereg it reads:

        Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10... and Linux, BSD, OS X

The ellipsis implies that Intel's and AMD's chips run other OSes too. In fact, according to thereg, they'll run "homebrew kernels", which I'm glad for. I don't want to be limited to Windows and Unix-derivatives. I agree with commenter jcbeard that the headline should be changed to "Windows 10 is the only Windows OS that will support latest processors", or something similar.

<comment><USER17> Lol, the ellipsis means... pause.

<comment><USER18> Lol, the ellipsis can also mean... information is left out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Windows 7 is now in extended support. Microsoft are 100% within their rights to not support the new CPUs on it.

But not adding Zen and Kaby Lake support to windows 8.1 is a little weird, it still has 16 months of mainstream support.

</comment><comment><USER20> After having used windows 10 for about a year, I feel confident in saying that if you don't want to use Windows 10, it is better to switch to Linux or something else you like, than using clearly inferior versions of windows. Most people want to stick with 7 just because of nostalgia, and it's good that intel is cutting them off.

<comment><USER21> I have a unix based system for work and am using a Windows 10 PC solely for gaming purposes. Win10 makes it incredibly difficult to try and trim down your Windows installation to its bare minimum, so that the disk, cpu, and network activity won't affect your gaming experience.

Then there's the forced update system, which allows you to define a time interval where it won't automatically install updates, but it can't be set to more than a 12hs window. It just feels like an OS that thinks it knows what's best for you, but it actually results in an inferior experience compared to the previous versions due to its limited configurability.

I haven't played around with the registry and internals that much since Win'95, just because it adds all this unneeded overhead without any option to remove it from within its own settings.

Don't get me wrong, it certainly works and I'm getting used to all its new features and changes, but Win10 makes it really hard to optimize it to your specific needs for seemingly unnecessary reasons, so I can understand why people want to stick to their Win7 or even Win8 installs.

<comment><USER22> _> Win10 makes it incredibly difficult to try and trim down your Windows installation to its bare minimum, so that the disk, cpu, and network activity won't affect your gaming experience._

You are laboring under some really weird assumptions from the jump. Namely that you have to "trim down" anything at all. My Windows desktop is almost exclusively for games (occasionally a little C#). The only changes from the default settings I made is to use a local account instead of a Microsoft account, fiddle with the times for Windows Update

When I am idle, the machine is idle. There is no unnecessary disk activity (there is _indexing_ , but I want that and the switch is in the exact same place it's been since XP). There is negligible CPU usage. There is no network activity unless Steam decides to do something in the background.

This is the future. We're in it. And if you are buying reasonably new hardware, stuff really just works.

<comment><USER21> Except when it doesn't.

My Win10 install was showing a constant 100% disk usage right after upgrading from Win8.1. I read online that it can be caused by Windows search indexing all the files, so I simply left it running. After 2 days I had enough, stopped all the search related services, and disabled them where possible. Then the Cortana update got released and the exact same thing happened again with search processes taking up all the available disk I/O.

Network speed was also an issue where Win10 kept on downloading updates while the PC was in heavy use instead of doing so when in idle status. That's when I found out about above mentioned 12hs update window, where it kept on downloading stuff in the background whenever I had a late/early gaming session.

CPU usage was not as bad as the disk usage issues, in my case, but there are the occasional spikes from Windows processes even when in idle status.

That's why I had to start looking into options in regards to trimming down Windows to its bare minimum features, as the system was barely usable with its constant disk usage spikes.

PC configurations differ, so of course your milage may vary. Just from my own personal experience I know people on both ends of the spectrum, where everything just worked for them, or it was so bad that it rendered their PC useless and they went back to their previous Windows version. In my case I just had to figure out how to prevent Windows from doing certain tasks that would end up having a noticeable effect on the system performance.

<comment><USER23> As a DJ, windows 8 touch was actually a godsend because I could give up the keyboard and just use the screen in the dark. Win 8 had a number of services to turn off in order to reclaim CPU, memory, and disk (necessary for real-time live shows with no glitches), but it was manageable.

Win10 refuses to stop updates, the antivirus (defender), turning off cortana is a mess, it even forces reboots as early as every 12 hours. Completely unusable for a professional. I'll have to upgrade to win 10 pro, and even then they don't make it easy, I have to edit the group policy.

This is nuts for anyone in pro audio. Even though I have thousands invested in Windows compatible software and hardware, I'm seriously considering switching to osx. Windows touch has no equivalent, this is an awesome underrated opportunity and they are blowing it.

<comment><USER22> Granted, I just dabble in audio, but I'm surprised you're using Windows in the first place. Fully anecdotal, of course, but everybody I know runs OS X with one or another setup (Live or Logic, depending). I do audio more for podcasts and the occasional composition and Logic Remote on my iPad (an old iPad 2) is a really solid touch surface with surprisingly low latency.

<comment><USER23> iPad only has toy DJ apps, it doesn't allow remote playlist control or really anything useful that compares to having the full OS as a touchscreen.

Also the iPad is more fragile, twice as expensive, and has a fraction of the storage for audio, compared to my Asus ultrabook. I only use the iPad in the studio.

It's much cheaper to get started on Windows, the plugins and programs are vast and often free compared to the Mac equivalent. The majority of my stuff also works on Mac but I'd have to relearn my workflow.

I do have a Mac but using it feels like I'm in the office compared to Windows touch experience. As an app dev I'm always trying to push the boundaries in music interfaces.

<comment><USER22> To clarify: the iPad acts as an interface to the DAW, not as a DAW itself. Either Logic Remote or the OSC-based equivalents are really nice ways to drive applications (touch-based mixers, etc.).

<comment><USER23> Right, I use several of the controller apps myself and send OSC or MIDI. It is a complex, less intuitive, more fragile, and less useful setup than having one machine that can do everything with touch. In the studio, where nothing changes, this is less of a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When the AMD Opteron came out in 2003, did Windows 95 run on it? I don't think so.

Windows 7 is seven years old. It's just a reality that commercial software that old doesn't get support, unless you're an enterprise customer willing to pay for the privilege.

<comment><USER25> Then should we consider Windows or other commerical software for anything designed to outlast a 5 year period?

<comment><USER26> What's the alternative? Old MacOS versions also don't support newer hardware, old Linux kernels neither. By your reasoning, no operating system should ever be considered for anything designed to outlast a 7 year period (which is windows' 7 age).

<comment><USER27> > Old MacOS versions also don't support newer hardware

Which is why nobody uses MacOS in production for anything but end user devices.

> old Linux kernels neither

They do. All major enterprise distributions backport drivers exactly for that reason – and unlike with Windows, you can update the kernel in place without having to touch any other part of your software stack. Your software won't care whether it's running on top of Linux 2.4 or 4.2, but it will care whether it's running on Windows 7 or Windows 10.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> All I want is an operating system to game on that doesn't spy on me and advertise to me and force me to do things or disallow me to do what I want. I sure hope WINE has gotten better in the past couple years because I refuse to put up with this Windows 10 bullshit.

<comment><USER29> Wine and linux drivers will never be good enough to play games. You might as well install windows 7 in a vritual machine. And this whole thing about spying... you can install O&O ShutUp10 which helps a lot but on the other hand, if you're on the internet, chances are everything is spying on everything. Google is spying on you, facebook is spying on you. Unless you're only using TOR and chat clients with end to end encryption, if someone wants to spy on you, they will. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone Microsoft for this (hence the o&o comment) just that there are other players here as well.

On the other hand, being a user of all three OSes I could complain about all three of them.

<comment><USER28> I'll look into that.

I minimize the usage of my windows machine usage to steam and gmail and a handful of gaming websites. Nothing out of the ordinary is spying on me. But I'm far more concerned by my OS spying on me than whatever details some JS can pick up. Hell, I have my ext4 fs mounted on windows. In Windows 10, that means it can index and beam that info back to the mothership.

<comment><USER29> Coming from a semi-security IT background I always assume there are forces out there who see everything (in the great scheme of internet things). It doesn't make it better any way. Just helps me cope with how everything is screwed up these days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> When microsoft is done shooting off its own feet, I've got a bridge to sell them.

But I'm all for win10 atm. I just bought a new dirt-cheap netbook. The push for Win10 meant that even the cheapest of netbooks requires the muscle to run win10. The fact that mine never even booted into that OS is beside the point. Rather than a machine that runs win10 poorly, I've now got a very nice little linux mint box ... and a pile of Win10-related stickers.

</comment><comment><USER31> But new x86 chips are backward compatible. What will happen if I install windows 7? Will Microsoft introduce a kill switch or am I just not going to take advantage of the new features?

<comment><USER32> it will work just fine, you just won't get support from Microsoft and it Windows 7 will not use any of the newer processor features.

<comment><USER31> Reading another article I wonder if the chipset won't be more of a problem. Like USB drivers.

<comment><USER32> maybe you are right about Windows 7, but Windows 8/8.1 has the same driver model with Windows 10 so at least that won't be an issue. now why would anyone want to run Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 10 is unclear to me.

<comment><USER31> Agree. If they were making an adware and spyware free version of Windows 10, I would be more than happy to upgrade.

I know Windows 10 enterprise is adware/spyware free, but as an individual I have no idea of how to get one.

<comment><USER26> MSDN subscription.

<comment><USER31> Isn't there a limit on how many licenses I can get? I have a few laptops and VMs around, it can go up pretty quickly.

<comment><USER26> No limits on the amount of devices, though IIRC after using 10 different keys (for each version) you have to ask for a refresh.

To be honest I'm also unsure on the details of how you can use the OSs you get from the MSDN license.

edit: I checked my subscription, for enterprise editions you get 2 multiple activation keys. I've no idea how many activations these keys allow. It's worth noting that you get two for regular enterprise, 2 for the N edition and 2 more for the LTSB version.

edit2: nevermind! Turns out that if you want to stay 100% legal the msdn subscription is pretty restrictive:

> Many Visual Studio subscribers use a computer for mixed use—both design, > development, testing, and demonstration of your programs (the use allowed > under the Visual Studio subscription license) and some other use. Using the > software in any other way, such as for doing email, playing games, or > editing a document is another use and is not covered by the Visual Studio > subscription license. When this happens, the underlying operating system > must also be licensed normally by purchasing a regular copy of Windows such > as the one that came with a new OEM PC.

<comment><USER31> I think I'll probably get one. Everything I do is kind of experimental and hacky (home DIY rather than professional programmer). So none of what I do really leaves testing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Why is Microsoft doing this?

> Windows 10 must succeed at all costs. It's Windows 10 or bust. If you're > buying a flash new machine, what a superb way for Microsoft to shoehorn its > latest operating system onto it; that'll really help inflate its usage > numbers.

<comment><USER34> Fuck Microsoft, I been using Windows all my life but if I could jump to any other operative system with games and software support I would do it in a heartbeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So loading win 7 ahould be no problem, it just won't be supported any longer?

<comment><USER36> From the article

> Microsoft holding back support is the xHCI USB controller in sixth- > generation Skylake and seventh-generation Kaby Lake: Windows 7 doesn't > support that USB hardware, so installing the operating system from a USB > stick using those chips is tricky. Intel provides xHCI drivers for Windows 7 > once it's up and running.

<comment><USER37> AFAIK, consumer editions of Windows 7 never even officially came in a "USB stick" form factor. It has always been on a DVD.

So the more salient question would be: is it possible to plug in a USB external ODD to a Kaby Lake laptop, pop the Windows 7 DVD in it, and install from it? Or is it just as "tricky" as installing from a USB stick?

<comment><USER38> How would the usb ODD work without a working usb controller?

<comment><USER39> How can one _boot_ from an USB DVD then, sans an OS?

<comment><USER40> I don't know what the newer systems do, but on older ones that had USB boot support, the BIOS has a basic USB driver that lets even DOS apps access CD/DVD/USB media via the traditional INT 13H interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Won't happen. Microsoft has made threats like this before, and backed off at the last minute.

<comment><USER42> I wouldn't take that bet this time. Microsoft's shown an aggressive willingness to break anything that gets in the way of Windows 10.

<comment><USER41> No, they are too beholden to large corporations who will not be railroaded into using an OS they don't need or cannot use for compatibility reasons. It may take some time, but eventually Microsoft will capitulate. They always capitulate. There's no sane business reason not to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Will the next Intel & AMD chips support Windows 10, or will we see a similar planned-obsolescence dance again?

I'm asking to see whether this is part of a larger trend where compatibility is falling by the wayside or whether this is an isolated incident to kick the world up to modernity, and I am fully aware that it is difficult to predict the future.

IMO Windows 10 really is an atrocious piece of software and forcing it onto people could backfire.

</comment><comment><USER40> _One example of Microsoft holding back support is the xHCI USB controller in sixth-generation Skylake and seventh-generation Kaby Lake: Windows 7 doesn 't support that USB hardware, so installing the operating system from a USB stick using those chips is tricky. Intel provides xHCI drivers for Windows 7 once it's up and running._

As far as I know, the xHCI spec is freely available, and so are the DDKs that let you write your own drivers (or perhaps port them from Linux), so I don't see anything stopping the enthusiast community from doing that, besides maybe (currently trivially circumventable, but who knows...) driver signing, and if my past predictions are any indication, that will likely happen.

Ironically, there are already xHCI drivers for _DOS_ : [http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/](http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/)

</comment><comment><USER44> What a pain in the ass for people doing OS compatibility testing

<comment><USER45> Use a VM.

<comment><USER46> Would this work? Doesn't a VM pass the CPU directly through to the client OS?

<comment><USER47> In a VM the hardware is fake, and usually works on most OSes. The real hardware is the problem here, because it only has official drivers for Windows 10. The CPU is fine. Using a VM makes it more difficult to use some features of real hardware, even if it is still technically possible to pass real hardware into a VM. It's a usability issue.

What people want is to have their favorite OS or OSes on the newest hardware. But sometimes the hardware and OS makers collude to make older tech obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It is the other way around Microsoft wont support Windows 8.1 and older on newer processors.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does this mean

a) older Windows versions will not run at all on those chips?

b) older Windows versions will still run but cause some problems?

c) older Windows versions will run without problems or performance impediment compared to old chips but some new features are not supported?

d) everything will work just as well but when problems occur Microsoft won't provide official support?

<comment><USER26> It means it's untested. In reality it should be option d) but they're saying that if a) to c) eventually happen then you were warned. Also don't ever expect chipset drivers for those OSs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Cortana will force herself inside your hardware whether your willing or unwilling.

This is an interesting move and I wonder if these companies will back track under pressure from corporate. Is this just a matter of a few drivers built by AMD, Intel or Microsoft? I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER50> Bit of a tangent, but that was a surprisingly readable article for TheRegister. They seemed very clickbaity with CAPITAL LETTER WORDS scattered around not so long ago. Are they now back to this more reasonable style in general or was this a fluke ?

</comment><comment><USER51> >> Microsoft loves Linux! Right?

> Right.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

<comment><USER52> Your sensor is indeed properly calibrated; carry on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> All I'm reading is that my next upgrade will see me move to Linux full time.

</comment><comment><USER54> And what about Windows Server?

</comment><comment><USER55> Seems like there's a market for a tiny hypervisor.

</comment><comment><USER36> Fix the title please, lets not bring clickbaits on HN.

Newest Intel & AMD chips will not work with any Windows version below 10.

<comment><USER56> It's practically the title of the actual article.</comment></comment>


The Parser that Cracked the MediaWiki Code - <AUTHOR> http://dirkriehle.com/2011/05/01/the-parser-that-cracked-the-mediawiki-code/

<comment><USER2> This isn't the first alternative parser for MediaWiki content -- there are 28 rows in this table. (I just added Sweble's and my own project...)

[http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers#Known_impl...](http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Alternative_parsers#Known_implementations)

Most of these are special purpose hacks. Kiwi and Sweble are the most serious projects I'm aware of, that have tried to generate a full parse.

However, few of these projects are useful for upgrading Wikipedia itself. Even the general parsers like Sweble are effectively special-purpose, since we have a lot of PHP that hooks into the parser and warps its behaviour in "interesting" ways. The average parser geek usually wants to write to a cleaner spec in, well, any language other than PHP. ;)

Currently the Wikimedia Foundation is just starting a MediaWiki.next project. Parsing is just one of the things we are going to change in major ways -- fixing this will make it much easier to do WYSIWYG editing or to publish content in ways that aren't just HTML pages.

(Obviously we will be looking at Sweble carefully.)

If this sounds like a fun project to you, please get in touch! Or check out the "Future" portal on MediaWiki.org.

<http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Future>

<comment><USER3> Hey Neilk!

Did you ever turn up anything regarding this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2216249>

btw, neat js parser, i'll have to check it out. :)

<comment><USER2> FYI the JS parser is broken for some cases, but it works great for most things you want from message strings.

As for your original question, I don't think there is a forum that tries to unite the left-brained and right-brained wikipedians. There is a bit of a divide. I'll send an email right now to someone who might know better.

We don't have contests per se to try to steer the community, other than I guess GSoC, or reaching out to developers that we think are already doing good things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's great to see people tackling this problem, but I wouldn't declare victory for sweble just yet ("The Parser That Cracked..."). There are other promising MediaWiki parser efforts out there.

For one, sweble is a Java parser, and I'm not sure this makes it a good drop- in replacement for the current MediaWiki PHP code. The DBPedia Project also has what looks like a decent AST-based Java parser [1]. I would be interested in a comparison between sweble and DBPedia's WikiParser.

I stumbled across a very nice MediaWiki scanner and parser in C a while ago [2]. It uses ragel [3] for the scanner; the parser is not a completely generic AST builder, but is rather specific to the problem of converting MediaWiki markup to some other wiki markup. It does do quite a bit of the parser work already though.

Presumably a PHP extension around a C or C++ scanner/parser could someday replace the current MediaWiki parsing code.

[1] [http://wiki.dbpedia.org/DeveloperDocumentation/WikiParser?v=...](http://wiki.dbpedia.org/DeveloperDocumentation/WikiParser?v=hdy)

[2] <http://git.wincent.com/wikitext.git>

[3] <http://www.complang.org/ragel/>

<comment><USER5> Given the complexity of Wikipedia's deployment compared to a typical MediaWiki installation, it really wouldn't be much effort to hook into a parser in say, Java rather than PHP, and would be well worth doing if it had significant benefits.

Of course, a PHP parser would still have to be maintained in parallel as not everyone would be able to do the Java option.

<comment><USER4> > Given the complexity of Wikipedia's deployment compared to a typical > MediaWiki installation, it really wouldn't be much effort to hook into a > parser in say, Java rather than PHP...

No doubt the incremental complexity for Wikipedia would be small in relative terms. I assume that argument would support a variety of proposals.

A solid scanner and parser in C/C++ would benefit a broader audience though. All the major scripting languages can be extended in C/C++. In fact, the ragel-based parser I mentioned earlier [1] was built to be used from within Ruby code.

[1] <http://git.wincent.com/wikitext.git>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Site down, here is a mirror: <https://www.readability.com/articles/r9i55x6e>

cache version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8xjwEj-...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8xjwEj-4nrcJ:dirkriehle.com/2011/05/01/the- parser-that-cracked-the-mediawiki-code/+http://dirkriehle.com/2011/05/01/the- parser-that-cracked-the-mediawiki- code/&cd=1&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr&source=www.google.fr)

<comment><USER7> Your readability link redirects me to readabilities home page.

<comment><USER8> dito (because upvote doesn't suffice anymore)

<comment><USER6> Mirror of the mirror: [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2577298/The%20Parser%20that%20Cracke...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2577298/The%20Parser%20that%20Cracked%20the%20MediaWiki%20Code%20%20%20webcache.googleusercontent.com%20%20%20Readability.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a breakthrough and a welcome one. From a end user point of view, it has a couple major implications.

First, I believe this reveals the complexity of the parser, which implies a complex syntax, which implies a complex user interface as felt by end users. A more complex the user interface may make it harder it is to attract new editors, although it's unclear (to me) if that is a fact.

Second, having an AST representation is awesome. It makes it possible to even think about building a path towards WYSIWYG or some other form of rich text editing. It was not really possible to build a WYSIWYG editor around the wiki syntax.

If you have an AST, you can also store the page as the AST since you can regenerate the wiki syntax from the AST for people who need text-based editors.

<comment><USER10> _A more complex the user interface may make it harder it is to attract new editors_

There may be friction against gaining new editors from the user interface of the MediaWiki software, but I think the greatest barrier to participation by new editors is the hostile, drama-filled environment on many controversial topics on Wikipedia. My evidence for that is the decline in "unsustainable fashion"

[http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Wikimedia_Editor...](http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Wikimedia_Editors#Chapter_Three:_The_future_.282007-present.29)

in the number of Wikipedian administrators, who presumably for the most part are people who know how to use Wikimedia software. Too many of best contributors (people who look up facts in reliable sources and edit articles for better readability) on Wikipedia feel attacked and that their time is wasted. I know a lot of dedicated hobbyists who quietly work on their hobby- related subjects putting together great articles, but on any subject that is controversial, and for which looking up reliable sources takes some effort, Wikipedia is becoming a war zone and is not improving in quality.

[http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_P...](http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities#Increase_participation)

[http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_P...](http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Movement_Priorities#Improve_Content_Quality)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From reading the article, and especially the interesting comments thereon, it seems this problem is half a bogus "language" specification and half that the unwashed masses are inputting any damn thing they like and Wikipedia accepts it.

I suppose this is one of the knobs that must be tuned to balance between reproducible I/O and turning away meaningful contributions from the community.

</comment><comment><USER12> AST of an example page is the interesting bit:

[http://sweble.org/crystalball/result?query=ASDF&format=t...](http://sweble.org/crystalball/result?query=ASDF&format=text&stage=postpro&expMode=with_expansion)

</comment><comment><USER13> I hadn't realized that there were any parsing issues around MediaWiki's markup. 5000 lines of PHP? Eek.

<comment><USER4> It's worse. The MediaWiki PHP code doesn't implement a proper scanner and parser, it's a bunch of regexes around which the code has grown more or less organically. Silent compensation for mismatched starting and ending tokens abounds, and causes problems for all consumers of the markup, in the same way that lenient HTML parsers have. The difference is that Wikipedia, as the sole channel for editing markup, could have easily rejected syntax errors with helpful messages instead of silently compensating.

If it was anything else, I'd say "who cares," but this is "the world's knowledge" -- we absolutely should care about the format it's stored in. I'm glad to see people tackling this problem.

<comment><USER8> Interestingly markdown has the same problem.

Another example of the imperfect but working implementation winning.

<comment><USER14> Markdown...ugh. Let's just stick to DokuWiki or Mediawiki syntax for everything, please. If you need something more advanced than that, you should be using LaTeX. Actually, it'd be cool to build a working MediaWiki + Markdown => LaTeX converter....in something like Python.

<comment><USER8> there is markdown2pdf written Haskell, which seems to have XeTeX as an intermediary step.

Personally I'd be happy to see _any_ markup language becoming the default, regardless which one it is. Having a proper grammar would be a bonus.

<comment><USER15> "Personally I'd be happy to see any markup language becoming the default."

I don't agree with this. All lightweight humane markup languages are not born equal, some are better others, and Mediawiki's is not in the list of the best ones. Now there seem to be a trend towards Markdown, but it should be improved and then, migrating Wikipedia to this Markdown2 could be a real good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Site is down due to harddisk problems, but the actually referenced Sweble Wikipedia Parser project site is at <http://www.sweble.org>.

</comment><comment><USER17> link died. any mirrors?

<comment><USER12> Googlecache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=opera...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=cache:http://dirkriehle.com/2011/05/01/the- parser-that-cracked-the-mediawiki- code/&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest)

<comment><USER18> It's back up at <http://dirkriehle.com> \- the project site is actually <http://sweble.org> where under Crystalball Demo you can play with the parser without having to install anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think we killed this poor site.</comment>


Private Property Is the Real Threat to Online Freedom of Speech (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://artplusmarketing.com/the-biggest-threat-to-freedom-of-speech-on-the-internet-6b528235d356 <comment><AUTHOR> Or in other words, as I said in my article...

How everything online is private property dependant on a huge number of other parties.

This causes two major issues:

1\. Your private platform can be taken away at the whim of a large company or ten, simply because your enemies made a big fuss about your beliefs on social media. If your reputation gets bad enough (or the false threats to the host or registrar common enough), 99% of companies will simply cut ties rather than do the right thing.

2\. All platforms being privately owned means there's no way to get a message out if it's disliked by either the powerful people that own said platforms or a large percentage of the population.

Real life doesn't have these issues, because:

A. Public property is mostly unavoidable, allows freedom of speech and basically comes with a built in audience. Protests in the middle of the street or a public park have a guaranteed audience and cannot be blocked simply because one or more groups of people dislike the message.

B. Private property is truly owned by you, with the government generally not being able to kick you out because people complained about your views.

The internet's real freedom of speech issue is that everything is rented and nothing is truly either 'owned' or 'public'.

<comment><USER3> I agree to an extent, but part of ownership is having the ability to rent it out. Without the incentive to extract rent, there would be no motive to accrue the large amount of infrastructure which has given us such incredibly low costs and high efficiency. This has reduced barriers to entry for the average individual to operate blogs, personal pages, online businesses, and more. I can't think of a better time for free speech.

"Real life" is not as different as you think from what's going on right now. There's a reason that you see the exercise of free speech (peaceful, lawful demonstrations) in public spaces: private individuals should be secure in their private property from the intrusions of others into their otherwise private affairs. You can't just violate someone's private property against their will or you'll face legal consequences. Corporations are legally recognized persons (like it or not, established law in US), and are entitled to similar property rights, including the same right that I use to lawfully rent out my residential property when I'd otherwise be taking a loss on it while not living there.

Specifically, though, you seem focused on the rent aspect of the property issue, and (if I'm reading your argument correctly) are concerned that large corporations seeking rent are a threat to free speech. It's strange that you contrast "Real Life" to the one in which corporations don't have similar property rights. You're making an unnecessary distinction between "online" and "real life"; ownership rights extend to everything digital, and a corporation has no less a right to own infrastructure (servers, cables, routers, etc.) or software than an individual.

And why should they? Individuals can't deliver the scale and efficiency that large corporations regularly do. Corporations such as AWS have brought us into an unprecedented time in which there is no shortage of ways for individuals to exercise their free speech--due entirely to their desire as a corporation to make profit from seeking rent.

The endgame of your argument is nationalization. It hinges on some cabal of powerful people doing powerful things to powerless people, which of course we need the government to protect us from. Some well-meaning, but onerous regulations are enacted to appease an irrational fear, and smaller competitors are pushed out while large corporations increase their market share. While you recognize that there is a "huge number of other parties" in the market, you fail to see that you are proposing a self-fulfilling prophecy in that even smaller numbers of "powerful people" will control vast swaths of infrastructure. Of course, it logically follows for the government to protect us again from the "powerful people" when they inevitable suffer the back-end of the business cycle, either by nationalizing the infrastructure outright or seizing ownership of large portions of it through. Or you could consider a bailout of some sort, but we are pretty far from the healthy market conditions that exist if we're discussing bailing out tech companies.

While well-meaning, your argument would result in the exact opposite of its stated purpose of protecting free speech. I can't imagine that allowing the US --not exactly considered a bastion of civil liberties by the crowd on here--to nationalize infrastructure would result in a net positive for free speech around the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The internet and the physical world are fundamentally different. Anyone can make a new website to espouse their views, rather than use an existing website. I think the premise is flawed.

<comment><USER5> The article explicitly addresses that response - you can't just "make a new website" \- you need a domain from a registrar and you need a place to host your content - both of which are private companies which can refuse to keep doing business with you.

<comment><USER6> You do not NEED domain nor third party hosting service, you just need access to the Internet. Obviously you are still relying that your ISP doesn't cut you off or censor you.

Then why does it need to even be a website? IRC has been a thing for a long time, the protocol is simple to implement and anyone can setup a server, and once on a server anyone can make a channel. Sure at the end of the day you still need Internet access or you have to rely someone else doesn't ban you from their server/network, but if you go down this rabbit hole then you are relying on the power company to provide you with electricity and your government not to police/censor you.

There already exists ideas (if not solutions) about distributed ham radio "dark webs" which would go around the ISP issue, but even then someone could just blast the air ways with random noise which would disable the network or at least slow it down to crawl. At some point you have to accept some amount of "risk", since you literally can not control for everything.

<comment><USER5> You don't even need the internet, you can just whisper to yourself inside your head.

Obviously you're relying on the power company and relying on the government of your own country to not lock you up - which brings us back to the public spaces where people can rant on street corners without being locked up - <USER2> heard by random passers by. Those same people can't rant on the internet in the same way without being banned from the sites where people might be able to discover them. A dark web site is only useful for speech if you have some way to be discovered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmmm, I'm not sure I see this as a problem. Isn't China a good enough example that having a government controlled Internet doesn't really solve any of these issues, but in fact makes them worse?

I understand the issue that corporations can do unexpected things, but at least, in a much shorter span of time, corporations who consistently bad decisions for their users end up dying, supplanted, or worked around.

But let's imagine we had a totally anonymous, fully sponsored portion of the internet, what would stop it from being used for child porn, spamming, and propagating fake news?

And even if we could somehow regulate it and not encroach on anyone's freedom and/or privacy, that doesn't guarantee that the government won't just change the regulation rules every 4-8 years.

The upside to corporations is that if one screws up, then at least, theoretically, there are options.

I guess my overall feeling is that there's no such thing as free speech, at least not in the sense the author means it (as im reading it, which could be my bad). As a member of a society, we all agree to abide by certain standards. So I think no matter whether it's authoritarians in a corporate suit, or a bureaucrat's, it leads to the same general dissatisfaction, but at least with a corporation, you can let your dollars (or ad views, membership, whatever) vote for you.

</comment><comment> jim-jim-jim I've been thinking for a while now that there should be some sort of public access social network, just like with television. It would be a proactive state-funded effort to promote genuinely free discussion without fear of being censored (or tracked and advertised to.)

Of course it's hard to imagine a current state being on board with something like that. Especially the no tracking part.

<comment><USER6> It would need to somehow be 100% anonymous in order to get around every last bit of censorship (because last point is self-censorship, when you see others with your views being ostracized by rest of user base)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > On the internet on the other hand, that's not the case. There are pretty > much no communal or 'neutral' spaces. There are no sites which aren't > classed as the private 'property' of someone or some group.

IPFS?

Though that might only be half of a public space.

</comment><comment><USER9> The OP obviously has no idea of what actual freedom of speech is.

</comment><comment><USER10> Usenet.

<comment><USER11> Exactly what I was thinking. Does this still exist in some meaningful form? We used to have an amazing thing there... I remember before Endless September. alt.* was about as free as it gets.

<comment><USER12> Usenet is still up and running. There's a public news server at "news.eternal- september.org". Serious groups such as "sci.electronics.design" and "comp.lang.python" get heavy traffic. Eternal September doesn't host the alt binary groups; too much junk.

Path of a typical post:

        Path: eternal-september.org
              !news.eternal-september.org
              !feeder.eternal-september.org
              !news.glorb.com
              !peer02.iad
              !feed-me.highwinds-media.com
              !news.highwinds-media.com
              !post02.iad.highwinds-media.com
              !fx01.iad.POSTED!not-for-mail

Google Groups is a Usenet node. Posting to Google Groups will result in Usenet distribution, and posting with NNTP to a Usenet node will show up on Google Groups.</comment></comment></comment>


Penn State's 98-Year-Old Outing Club Is No Longer Allowed to Go Outside - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/22/penn-state-outing-club-safety <comment><USER2> I'm a Penn State grad and have been hearing about this from a couple of people, glad to see it's getting wider attention.

If the "no cell service" issue is really the problem, this is even more embarrassing. Satellite phones are a thing, and if they can't afford the subscription for that, then get a subscriptionless emergency satellite beacon instead. They cost a few hundred dollars.

It's even run by an international treaty with many satellite networks listening for these alerts and forwarding them to local authorities. Works pretty much anywhere in the world and costs less than most cell phones.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas- Sarsat_Pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas- Sarsat_Programme)

Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of students it wouldn't be a football school.

<comment><USER3> > Risk management my ass. If they were really concerned about the safety of > students it wouldn't be a football school.

But, what about all that sweet, sweet sportsball money? Oh yeah, TBI? Nahh, the helmets are "safe".

<comment><USER4> Snark aside, I think you hit on the main point. Bean counters have a two columns whenever they assess something, the value in profit a venture brings and the potential costs. They find the profit they derive from football more than covers the cost that they have to bear, while allowing students (adults, mind you) to go on outing trips has more potential cost than profit.

So, under the system we've given them, they made a rational decision.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but the root of the problem is that beancounters shouldn't be anywhere near such a "decision". We're reinventing totalitarianism through insurance companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is almost surely related to the insurance policy PSU has for official clubs. If the Outing Club could get liability insurance for itself, I doubt that PSU would care. If it wants to use the university's policy, it plays by the university's rules, no matter how stupid they are, because it's really the insurance company's rules. Because the university is a giant cash cow that's target #1 if anything goes wrong, and what the Outing Club does has a high chance of injury (try getting travel insurance that covers what these guys do -- it's way more expensive).

This article just feels like clickbait. No analysis of why the university might have taken a decision that on the surface is bizarre but is reasonable given a moment's thought.... ironic given the name of the site.

<comment><USER7> If it is related to insurance, I don't think that makes Penn State look any better.

Far smaller universities and colleges have outing clubs that are covered by the institutional insurance policy. Some schools like Middlebury even run officially sanctioned and organized outings for matriculating students.

This is not impossible or expensive coverage to get.

<comment><USER6> PSU has unlimited coffers as a state school and the Outing Club is very popular, and also run by amateurs. A perfect storm for e.g. a rich international student to get injured or killed and then have their parents sue Pennsylvania for megabucks.

This is 100% related to liability reduction. No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac.

The condition demanded here is 100% reasonable given the risk.

Reason is complaining about people wanting to do risky things and have other people pay for them which is par for the course for libertarianism these days, I guess.

<comment><USER7> > the Outing Club is very popular, and also run by amateurs.

This is true of hundreds, maybe thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S. It's not unusual to have a college outing club that is led by students.

> No insurance company would cover a high-risk activity group without > demanding conditions like being able to call 911 or medevac.

This is just incorrect. Backcountry activities are not necessarily higher risk than other activities, and insurance companies will certainly cover such activities. Again: many, many colleges and universities already have coverage for their outing clubs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the kind of dishonesty that gives risk assessment a bad name. Note that they weren't even allowed to see and contest the assessment, and Alpine ski racing was allegedly deemed safe.

<comment><USER9> > _Note that they weren 't even allowed to see and contest the assessment_

I don't know much about how risk assessment in large organizations is done, but that strikes me as an illegitimate attempt to stifle debate. Are there any legitimate reasons the university administrators might keep the risk assessment secret?

<comment><USER10> Risk assessment is often a politically heavy org that sometimes writes the report before assessing.

In some organizations they quack like auditors, but aren't really auditors. Usually if they are involved, a big shot doesn't want to do something.

In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports.

<comment><USER9> Using risk assessment as a political smokescreen is illegitimate from my point of view.

> _In terms of legitimate reasons, there may be discretionary expenses > relating to insurance that can be cut for clubs, but not for sports._

This could be a legitimate reason to cut a risky club while allowing a similarly risky sport; it is not a legitimate reason to hide the report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Last year at Stanford, the Business School Kids Club (the org for families with kids) attempted to do an outdoor "water" event featuring water balloons, squirt guns, and sprinklers that kids could play with.

Part of the event was to have open 5 gallon containers of water so the kids could refill their squirt guns. The whole event was killed by the administration because the open water containers posed a "drowning hazard." As a number of commentators have mentioned, this was driven by the school's insurance policy.

A few weeks later, they hosted a professional birds of prey experinece - including faclons, eagles, etc for the kids to engage with. The Admin again banned it - but the organizers put it on anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like they sure can go outside. The written issue seems to be that the school is keeping them on a cell tower tether. That is weird. Are underground parking lots also banned if they are off school property? No cell coverage, likely higher probability of injury/robbery etc.

I wonder if "safety" is a dog whistle for something else. Or will the admin reverse its decision if every student gets a satellite phone, or goes with a team of professional trained guides?

<comment><USER13> Honestly, probably just best for the club to shut down and reform as a Venturing Crew. Same concept, much more independence, and you get access to the properties and resources that Scouting International and the Boy Scouts of America both offer.

I've yet to run into any issues going on trips as a gay couple in crew, its solidly not bad. Much more of a collegiate atmosphere than Boy Scouts too, and no uniform requirements or competitions either!

<comment><USER14> "Venturing is an inclusive program through the Boy Scouts of America for males and females aged 14-21 (or 13 and completed the 8th grade)." [0]

A Venture crew would not be accessible to many juniors, most seniors, or (almost) any graduate students.

[0] [http://www.venturing.org/learn-more.html](http://www.venturing.org/learn- more.html)

<comment><USER15> Scouts Australia runs a program called "Rovers" for 18–25 year olds: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_(Australia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovers_\(Australia\))

Maybe there is no equivalent in US Scouting.

<comment><USER14> The Boy Scouts of America offers 3 coed programs for teens/young adults (in addition to its well-known "Scouts" program):

* Venture Scouting (aged 14-21),

* Exploring (aged 10-20) [0],

* and Sea Scouting (aged 14-20) [1]

However, there are plenty of university students that would be too old to take advantage of programs that had an upper age limit of 25.

[0] [https://www.exploring.org/about-us/](https://www.exploring.org/about-us/)

[1] [http://join.seascout.org/join/](http://join.seascout.org/join/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ludicrous. You can buy a Garmin inReach Explorer Plus for $450, pay $25/month for a subscription, and have two way messaging via Iridium/GPS/GLONASS satellites, mapping, position sends every 10 minutes to an interactive map on the website, and an SOS button that sends the cavalry if the shit really hits the fan.

</comment><comment><USER17> But concussions by the football team, almost guaranteed to be happening on a game by game basis, are totally ok (because money).

<comment><USER18> Because football is a profit center and is already handled by actuarial analysis for insurance purposes. Clubs on the other hand are risky non-profit centers that are notoriously hard to insure. Just ask any council member for the Boy Scouts of America about insurance...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It reminds me so much of the 1990's when they ripped all of the tall slides and monkey bars, all of the fast merry-go-rounds, etc. out of playgrounds for younger kids. It is just moving up the chain. Where can it go next? Employer- sponsored health insurance will require members not to participate in certain activities?

<comment><USER20> I believe that's already a thing. In that some explicitly refuse to cover certain dangerous activities

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think we're not getting the full story. This same university tolerates fraternity culture that literally killed someone last year. What ever actuary looked at the outing club had to have looked at the fraternities too.

I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of hazing or even worse behavior is the real reason for the shutdown.

<comment><USER22> I don't think it's as sinister as you say. Plus they also allow football and that's far more dangerous.

<comment><USER21> Full disclosure I live in State College. Football is a dangerous sport yes - but we have bears here. Both football and all activities the Outing club did can be safe. The same can be said for fraternities, if responsible people are involved it can be a rewarding experience for all.

I'm trying to point out that there may a larger crackdown at foot, and if the clubs were involved in especially risky behavior, or hazing or worse we probably won't hear about it.

Here's some frat crackdown news: [https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another- one-bites-the-dus...](https://onwardstate.com/2017/11/08/another-one-bites- the-dust-10-of-49-penn-state-fraternities-now-suspended/)

And some moving reporting about the fraternity death. [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/a-death- at-penn-state/540657/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> college football, of course, is completely safe in all respects!

</comment><comment><USER24> As a non-American, Penn State didn't immediately register and I was thinking this was about an organisation similar to scouts (i.e. for kids) and was thinking this was already harsh. Then halfway through it dawned on me that this was a university club and it seemed downright crazy.

</comment><comment><USER25> I didn't expect this from Reason, a libertarian magazine.

Libertarians tend to support free and voluntary association. The college is not stopping these students from voluntarily hiking together. The college is simply saying: we don't want to get eaten alive by the potential liability if you hike together with our organization's name attached.

If anything, you'd think Reason would applaud the college for not strapping the non-hiking student with the increased insurance costs of allowing the hiking group to continue.

<comment><USER26> You're missing that the Student Activities Fee or equivalent at most American universities is not voluntary. Students pay it (often several hundred dollars or more) on top of tuition and other fees, and have only limited or indirect control of where the fee goes. Here, the administration is giving a flat "no" rather than seeking a way to make things work (insurance or a satellite phone for the club).

That paternalism infantilizes the adult students and encourages a childlike mindset of seeking safety in exchange for submission to an authority and its power over you rather than an independent minded, solve-it-yourself, get-up- and-go ethos more conducive to a free society.

<comment><USER2> Re: Student Activities Fee, the current fee at PSU is $258, including $60.26 for student activities. Some of that is student organization insurance, the bulk of it is allocated to activities by UPAC, the University Park Allocation Committee. And IIRC a $50 default budget for any organization.

I used to be the treasurer for the Urban Gaming Club and got them UPAC funding for "Nerf capture the flag" events run on Friday/Saturday nights in the student union building. We had inflatable paintball bunkers and maybe 10 loaner blasters, most of the recurring attendees brought their own. Fun times.

EDIT: link for reference [http://www.studentfee.psu.edu/university-park/up- how-the-fee...](http://www.studentfee.psu.edu/university-park/up-how-the-fee- is-used/)

<comment><USER2> Completely forgot to finish my thought, which is that a few hundred dollars for an emergency beacon is a pretty small deal and I can't imagine UPAC would decline it. They could probably get several.

With the $54.13 per student and an undergraduate population of roughly 46,000 on main campus, UPAC is allocating a budget of nearly $2.5 million per year.

[https://www.rei.com/product/843146/](https://www.rei.com/product/843146/) for example. Buoyant, waterproof, and transmits a GPS location (some don't, and are only triangulated to a few km by the receiving satellites). Costs $270.

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, if Risk Management is concerned about financial risk rather than student safety, calling search and rescue may not be cheap. But the risk of needing this seems _very_ small. In the club's 98 year history has it ever happened?

For actual student safety issues I would bet the top three are sports, drinking, and street crossings (especially Atherton).

[http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/crime_courts/article_9f27f...](http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/crime_courts/article_9f27f418-dc18-11e5-aebe- fbb046c48991.html)

>Josef Blunschi , a Ph.D. student and part-time university employee, was crossing the intersection of East Park Avenue and McKee Street around 6:50 p.m. when he was struck by a vehicle travelling westbound toward Atherton Street, police said.

>Three other pedestrians have been killed crossing streets on the north side of campus in the last 20 months, State College Police Chief Thomas King said at a press conference on Thursday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like the university is using their power of the purse in a shitty overbearing way. Fortunately, college students are adults, and they can just form their own unofficial organization and do what they want, particularly since it's a perfectly legal set of activities.

</comment><comment><USER28> They're not keeping students from going on hikes or going caving, right? They're just keeping them from doing it as an RSO?

<comment><USER29> Which presumably prevents them from using university resources and funding. It may also limit their ability to recruit and hold meetings on the campus, depending on Penn State's policies.

So yes, this is still a fairly big deal for the Outing Club.

<comment><USER28> Is the flip side of this official funding and support coin the fact that the University's insurers will be on the hook for anything bad that happens during one of these expeditions? In which case this isn't about helicopter parenting so much as simple risk management.

I imagine the insurance situation for Penn State extracurriculars is already problematic, given the recent history.

<comment><USER7> I don't find the insurance argument compelling because so many other colleges and universities have official outing clubs that are covered by the institutional policy. It's not an unusual addition to a college insurance policy.

<comment><USER28> Penn State had a national scandal involving its extracurriculars just a few years ago, so the level of scrutiny there might be higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _I 'm furious that Penn State administration allows indoor activities but > has hobbled healthy, outdoor leadership and controlled risk-taking > opportunities_

Easy solution. Forbid indoor sports activities as well and mandate that students spend all their freetime in the safety of their homes browsing reddit.

</comment><comment><USER31> _Maybe they can take virtual reality walks in a padded room—provided there 's cell service._

We may need a great many more padded rooms if such insanity continues in the world. It has never been easier to rescue someone in serious trouble in a remote location, cell phone or no cell phone.

</comment><comment><USER32> Pete Hautman wrote a satirical novel about a decade ago, called "Rash," in which a spirited teenager defies the very cautious norms of "The United Safer States of America." Our hero gets sent off to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he must make pizzas all day. Without giving away too much, the system does not crush his spirit.

It's a weird book, but when well-meaning grown-ups are putting the squeeze on adventurous students, I'm glad that such books (still) exist. Hope they don't get banned. A link is here: [https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete- Hautman/dp/0689869045](https://www.amazon.com/Rash-Pete-Hautman/dp/0689869045)

</comment><comment><USER33> " _...the angry alum who alerted me to this travesty,..._ "

Is there a version of this article _not_ written by the professionally offended?

</comment><comment><USER34> If lack of cell service in case of emergency is really the reason for denying backwoods hikes, can't they just carry an emergency personal locator beacon?

<comment><USER35> or even satellite phones which aren't that expensive

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Student safety in any activity is our primary focus

<comment><USER37> Maybe it's time to rethink our collective focus on safety as the most important attribute in everything we do.

We in the "first world" live in the safest period in human history, but we are constantly being fed the idea that we are not safe enough, and we always need to do more. The UK is collectively freaking out about knives and other implements that are only "weapons" if you squint just right[0], and parents in the United States risk being arrested for letting their children walk to the park[1].

I'm not saying we should start freebasing (either kind) on the side of an active volcano, but as safe as we are, we could accomplish amazing things in space flight, medical technology, and food production if we just allow, or even encourage, more informed risk taking.

[0][https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856...](https://mobile.twitter.com/mpshackney/status/562993045759856640?lang=en)

[1][https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parent...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents- investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/)

<comment><USER36> My thought was more that schools should focus on teaching as a first priority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Another meaning for "safe space" in college!

</comment><comment><USER39> That sucks. Wisconsin could never touch the hoofers

</comment><comment><USER40> I think the club should disband, and just happen to meet as individuals at the walk venues.

</comment><comment><USER41> This will reduce environmental awareness. The school is being terrible. There is no doubt the trips will resume eventually and these administrators will be laughed at. This bad and comic action may well the legacy for a couple of them.

</comment><comment><USER42> This is administration in action. These people are bureaucrats. They should be doing what they are doing best, ie. pushing paper. Instead they are allowed deciding how the students should be shaped and this is wrong on so many levels.

</comment><comment><USER43> I suspect it's about legal liability for rape.

And they know that any "legitimate" reason they cook up is going to apply to some other club or sport so they're keeping the report secret.

</comment><comment><USER44> I wonder if this is related to the incident at a different School where a kid got locked in a cave for several days?

<comment><USER22> How does one get locked into a cave?

<comment><USER14> This was at Indiana University (in Bloomington, Indiana) in Fall 2017. The Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club went on a hike through a nearby cave. To prevent vandalism and overtraffiking, the cave has a locking gate inside the entrance. (Far enough inside that there is no cell signal at the gate.) (I believe the key can be checked out from the park office.) One new member fell behind the group, and:

* his assigned buddy completely forgot about him, and

* the club leaders failed to account for him at an end-of-hike headcount.

Later that weekend, somebody who was on the trip (I think it was his "buddy") realized what had happened, contacted a club leader, and they drove out to the cave. They found him just inside the entrance. He had spent about 2 nights inside the cave with no food and little water. He was fine, but it caused a bit of a ruckus in the news.

FWIW, the Indiana University Outdoor Adventures club continues to operate as a university student organization. [0]

[0] [https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor- adventures/index....](https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor- adventures/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> As a former student of Drexel, across the street from Penn State, this doesn't surprise me.

<comment><USER46> That's UPenn in Philly. Penn State is in State College.

<comment><USER45> Well crap. Sorry for the misidentification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like the university doesn't want the liability. Students can just do things anyway, so long as it's not under the university's purview. Annoying, but not that bad.

<comment><USER48> It's more than just annoying. Schools typically offer opportunities for funding to official clubs. I'm guessing this club needs to pay for things like rental fees for equipment, equipment purchases, etc. Now students who want to engage in these activities have to self-fund, which may not be possible.

Meanwhile other students can engage in much more dangerous activities (downhill skiing, football, etc.) with school funding. That makes no sense.

<comment><USER49> What is an outing club going to buy? Bug spray?

<comment><USER43> The northern third of Pennsylvania is almost all forest and is _really_ rural. It's very easy to get lost.

GPS trackers would certainly be something I would have for every member of the club.

<comment><USER27> Its pretty hard to walk more than a few hours in a straight line anywhere on the east coast without hitting a road of some sort.

Even the so-called 100 Mile Wilderness on the AT in northern Maine is crisscrossed with dozens of logging roads.

Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS

<comment><USER50> > Basic map and compass training would be better than GPS

Surely any kind of hiking should include at least a little informal training in using a map and a compass. I had that in primary school in the UK. Mind you that was in the early sixties. Here in Norway children get an early introduction to simple woodcraft (shelters, fire, tools, maps, compasses) in primary school and have outings into the woods. My children would come home with a brief letter saying that a trip to the woods was planned and could we make sure that they were supplied with sausages to cook over a fire and a knife to cut sticks with to make the fire and a rudimentary shelter. And they did it before mobile phones were common too.

One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.

<comment><USER43> Maps are great if you know where you are. If I'm in the woods, that may be non-trivial to figure out.

In addition, GPS works fine in the standard conditions where you can't see very well (heavy rain, snow or fog) which would make figuring out where you are pretty stupidly difficult. This is extremely helpful even when using a map.

Teach people to use a map and compass? Absolutely. However, GPS is really useful.

> One of my sons was accidentally cut by a classmate but we didn't sue and he > came to no lasting harm. The trip was not called off, the teacher simply and > effectively bandaged it up and they all carried on. If primary school > children can manage then surely 20 year olds can.

Most people think like this. The problem is that if even _one_ parent/student winds up winning a big lawsuit, it ruins it for all the sensible people.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Former gang member turns entrepreneur... by giving tours of LA gangs - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2010/01/cruise_la_gang_turf_for_65_wit.html

<comment><USER3> I ran into a guy with a similar idea in Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa. He had started out doing the standard Township Tour, where you go visit the slum and take pictures of yourself standing next to poor people. Naturally, it didn't work out so well for him. Until, that is, an Australian convinced him to modify the tour into...

"Township Pub Crawl"

So now, he takes you into the township at night, and quickly gets several beers into you at a few of the local government-issue-shack-turned-bar. Before you know it, you're arm-in-arm with the local Reggae band doing their Bob Marley covers on a beat up $5 casio toy keyboard, talking with toothless moms and holding their babies, and generally having the time of your life.

He's booked solid every night.

<comment><USER4> Why does it not surprise me that an Aussie suggested a Pub Crawl? Still - <USER2> the sounds of it - meeting the locals at a bar sound much more authentic than the original idea.

<comment><USER3> So the story goes, one time a couple tourists decided it would be a good idea to go back to the same bars by themselves the next night. They had another good night about the township, but were intercepted on the way home by a group of locals that they'd been drinking with an hour earlier, who relieved them of all their money as well as their shoes.

South Africa is a rough place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Instantly reminded me of this: <http://plif.courageunfettered.com/archive/wc282.gif>

That comic was pretty prescient - which isn't terribly hard if you assume the worst about humanity, and go on from there.

Edit: the link seems to be giving people some troubles; try mirror here: <http://imgur.com/3NJiL>

<comment><USER6> Doesn't load for me.

<comment><USER7> It seems to be checking the referrer (probably to avoid hotlinking). Copy and paste the link.

<comment><USER8> No, that also doesn't work. Even going to the actual website doesn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Firefox cached the bad response for me. Try refreshing.

<comment><USER6> Worked now. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me somewhat of the tours they give around Belfast, showcasing the murals in the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods.

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome.

Also recommended is Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, whose work with the crack gangs of Chicago's Robert Taylor homes was featured in Freakonomics. Sudhir revealed the inner workings and social motivations behind gang behavior.

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594201501/?tag=httpwwwhiph02-20>

<comment><USER11> Freakonomics was a fascinating read! I like your book choices.

The gang's corporate structure was fascinating. One could easily draw comparison between entry-level day laborers and the management/entrepreneurs of large businesses.

Kudos!</comment></comment>


Apple: We Don't Use Carrier IQ… In Most Of Our Products… Anymore. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/apple-we-dont-use-carrier-iq-in-most-of-our-products-anymore/ <comment><USER2> If Carrier IQ on iOS only collects information about calls and location data during those calls and if it is turned off by default and if Apple is explicit about the data they collect† then there is no problem.

It seems obvious to me that carriers or manufacturers can collect that data if the user explicitly agrees to it (by actually flipping a switch without being forced or tricked into doing so).

Carrier IQ is only a problem if it is turned on by default and if it collects more data than is explicitly said∆.

—

† If the Diagnostics & Usage switch indeed controls Carrier IQ then we already know that the last two conditions are met.

∆ This is only the minimum viable evilness. Worse kinds of evil are imaginable, like not telling users anywhere that data is being or collected or making it hard for users to turn the collection of data off.

<comment><USER3>
      > Carrier IQ is only a problem if it is turned on

The problem being that having it installed is just another attack vector that houses potential vulnerabilities on your device.

<comment><USER4> I disassembled the iOS version of Carrier IQ, and it exits on startup if not enabled. Even when enabled, it runs as an unprivileged user and connects via SSL so should not be any "attack vector".

<comment><USER5> This is reassuring -- would you consider writing it up in more detail?

<comment><USER4> I did here: <http://blog.chpwn.com/post/13572216737>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised the author didn't jump on this sentence:

"With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information..."

As I understand it, Carrier IQ is about sending data to carriers. Apple only denied that data was silently sent to Apple. That's completely different than saying no data has been transmitted at all.

<comment><USER7> While that is a good observation, it has been proven that no statistical data is sent to CarrierIQ when the preference is disabled. This has been determined by reverse engineering the daemons used for CarrierIQ reporting on various iOS versions.

This has more information: <http://blog.chpwn.com/post/13572216737>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone actually found evidence of Carrier IQ software ACTUALLY STORING personal data such as key-presses on Android or iOS? All I have seen is log events being generated from adb logcat, which is not the same thing, by any means.

<comment><USER9> Does it really matter?

Why on earth would they be doing keylogging? What data can they get that doesn't violate my privacy? If they aren't using that data, then why the fuck is that code there tracking the keys pressed?

<comment><USER10> Ostensibly, they are looking at keystrokes to see if a particular key sequence is pressed while talking to customer support, thus indicating that it should send the diagnostics data to the operator. Ostensibly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> CarrierIQ itself isn't the problem, it's a diagnostic device with legitimate functionality for mobile devices(we want our service to get better, this requires certain aspects of reporting.) The problem stems from CarrierIQ being implemented poorly, and reporting information which is not reasonable for diagnostic uses or privacy reasons.

As such I feel like this is being blown out of proportion, Apple's use of carrier IQ has never been anything to worry about. A user can optionally choose to participate. (I.e it's not an opt-out scenario) and the information it sends is benign and not personally identifiable.

The issue has been that some vendors have been adding full-capability CarrierIQ to android handsets which then have been shown to be reporting more than what can be considered reasonable, including allegations of key logging. This is obviously wrong and should be corrected. (Or simply removed.)

<comment><USER12> > have been shown to be reporting more than what can be considered reasonable

Funny how you first lament that the issue is being blown out of proportion wrt Apple and _then blow it out of proportion yourself_. Nobody has shown what data is being reported or indeed, evidence that any data is being reported at all.

They primary issue at this point seems to be that the temporary local logging of the data represents a security risk on these devices even if it is never reported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am still wondering why I was down voted into oblivion for suggesting carrier IQ is not supposed to be the main party to be angry with <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3298924>

Can someone please explain why the rage is not directed at phone manufacturers who asked for, and put this software in the phones they sold to customers?

<comment><USER14> > Can someone please explain why the rage is not directed at phone > manufacturers [...]

Because every single statement from phone manufacturers have indicated that it was the carriers that demanded this be put on the handsets (or did it themselves in cases of operator modifications).

The only carrier I've heard say very clearly that they are not using Carrier IQ is Verizon.

<comment><USER15> No, I'm sure Verizon develops all the spyware they put on phones in-house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The press release seems pretty clear to me, what's with the headline?

</comment><comment><USER17> if you paid hundreds of dollars for a device, and you pay a 50-60 dollar a month contract ... you still may be the product..?

<comment><USER18> No evidence yet that this information is being sold to third parties, or even used internally for sales purposes. Although the latter would be pretty obvious and not surprising (to me at least). Is there something buried in the TOS that alludes that they may do this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So Carrier IQ is still present in some iOS 5 and in all iOS prior to version 5.

That's still an awful lot of places.

</comment><comment><USER20> All it would take is someone who knows what they are doing to go check real quick. report back whether or not the phone is throwing out information or not.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think what's really remarkable about this is that Apple issued a statement seemingly less than 24 hours after it became an issue. In the past, Apple has tended to wait a week or so before issuing statements, resulting in a lot of criticism and the issues sometimes steamrolling simply due to the fact that the charges aren't answered.

I'm not at all surprised that Apple isn't violating users privacy.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure Apple's "wait a week" clock began ticking when the initial flurry of reports about CarrierIQ on Android started circulating, not yesterday...

<comment><USER23> Where 'wait a week' probably is: some high level manager or vp asks people to investigate this to get all the details before putting out any statements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> All due respect, Apple should not need to use CarrierIQ.

They are a hardware company that sells the hardware it makes direct to consumer. They are perfectly positioned and quite capable of writing their own "rootkits".

Of course, when they do everything possible to prevent you from "rooting" the phone you purchase from them it's a tad more difficult to check for such things.

For the average non-technical iPhone customer it would seem next to impossible.

<comment><USER25> True, but it seems that CarrierIQ is, as its name implies, a service for the carriers. Since Apple doesn't let ATT et. al. customize iOS, it likely got into the OS as part of the bargain with them.

<comment><USER24> Right. The way I see it, CarrierIQ gives carriers the kind of information that Apple could, in theory, gather quite easily. Maybe that was the idea behind CIQ? Just taking a wild guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> haha! must be hard to realise for some ppl that not only the gov is spying on them, but almost everyone else too. and you've paid thousands of dollars for this feature!

</comment><comment><USER27> An earlier report said Carrier IQ was definitely in iOS 5, and perhaps earlier versions. So, which is it?

Either way, ugh. Bad Apple.

<comment><USER28> Apple's statement confirms that it is still in some iOS 5 products.

<comment><USER29> It's still on the iPhone 4

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> do I detect some Apple employees/shareholders in here? I think the (CIQ)video made pretty clear the fact that YOU CANT TURN IT OFF and that THERE IS NO OPT IN/OUT button because you would have to be digging around like a technophile to find it in the first place. I would not be at all surprised if Apple uses something like this. Wireshark anyone?

<comment><USER30> The CIQ video was of the Android software. Initial analysis of the iOS version of the CIQ software indicates it isn't nearly as intrusive as the Android version.

And from all indications (the researcher vs. what Apple states) is that you can explicitly turn it off.</comment></comment>


China cites US for "unscrupulous" spying, wants IBM out of banks - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/china-cites-us-for-unscrupulous-spying-wants-ibm-out-of-banks/

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised it's taken them this long after the Huawei scandal. Cisco should be next, but I assume Cisco has been so compliant with giving them the backdoors they need to spy on their own citizens that it's probably not on their immediate list for banning.

</comment><comment><USER3> All these governments accusing each other of unscrupulous spying has got to be the biggest bunch of pots and kettles calling each other black in human history.

The USA is, despite all its overreach and corruption, much more on the liberal side of things than most other large superstates. I think a safe assumption is to take Snowden's revelations as a baseline and to assume that nearly all nation states with the means are _at least_ that bad.

<comment><USER4> Most of them do not have the means, though, so nearly all nation states are not that bad.

<comment><USER3> Russia, China, the UK, and the larger EU states certainly do.</comment></comment></comment>