Calls for TikTok to be banned in Australia over Chinese spying fears - <AUTHOR> https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/fresh-calls-for-australian-government-to-ban-tik-tok-app--c-1146435 <comment><USER2> It's time to do what China has been doing to "us" for years and make western knock off versions of Tik Tok and Zoom

<comment><USER3> Actually, Zoom is not available in China for personal use.

The CEO of Zoom is from China and is an America citizen.

<comment><USER4> Semantics. TikTok _is_ available in China, but with a different name (Douyin 抖音).

<comment><USER5> GP is talking about Zoom. You're talking about TikTok/Douyin

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What authority does the Australian government have to ban an app? And would this authority also apply to apps built by Australians or only foreign apps?

<comment><USER7> Australia is unique amongst its peers in that it has no bill of rights, and instead largely relies upon common law to determine what can and cannot be done; making rights subject to legislative authority.

Kind of similar, kind of, Canada has a notwithstanding clause that allows the Government to temporarily override protected rights with legislation.

<comment><USER8> >Australia is unique amongst its peers in that it has no bill of rights, and instead largely relies upon common law to determine what can and cannot be done; making rights subject to legislative authority.

Is this really unique among British Commonwealth countries? Besides this, it's a rather interesting situation, in which scholars on free speech and the US 1A use America as an extreme example - even questioning why there should be an explicit constitutional right to freedom of speech. I think the arguments are pretty interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would be all for a ban. The app is a ccp spyware trashfire.

</comment><comment><USER10> Australia banning it might only be the start. It might extend to other FVEY countries. Think of the other intelligence related laws they passed over the years in a coordinated fashion. There are plenty of influential people in the US who are very critical of TikTok, e.g. Josh Hawley.

<comment><USER11> There's no legal mechanism in the US by which TikTok could be outright banned. Apple and Google could drop it from their app stores if pressured enough, but even that wouldn't be a government action.

<comment><USER12> The government can block payments and government employees can be blocked from installing it on their phone.

<comment><USER13> It's an American company that hasn't done anything wrong and that other American companies are also doing. We're in this situation because American businesses have lobbied to kill privacy legislation and Congress let them have their way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does the Herald Sun (which seems to be the source of this sparse article, but which I cannot read because their website is trash) give more details than this?

> _There are calls for popular video app TikTok to be banned in Australia._

The passive voice here is obnoxious, who is calling for it?

<comment><USER15> The Herald Sun is a Rupert Murdoch publication, which means that it has a comparable relationship to the conservative political party in Australia as Fox New has with the Republicans.

I would recommend viewing all its content from this frame of reference.

<comment><USER16> The Herald Sun is Melbourne's leading trash tabloid newspaper. With headlines like "Chinese Virus Panda-monium", they were stoking racist sentiment long before Trump did.

Another example of how openly racist they are is when they published and defended this cartoon of Serena Williams: [https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e062f6c7325e5b96b12c306e...](https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e062f6c7325e5b96b12c306e91e1e25e?width=1024)

And just today, the Daily Telegraph (the Sydney paper with the same owner) reported the closing of the Victorian border with the headline "Mexicans Shut Out" (Victoria sits on the southern border of New South Wales): [https://twitter.com/echewy/status/1280285466521034752](https://twitter.com/echewy/status/1280285466521034752)

Definitely view their content from this frame of reference.

<comment><USER17> The papers are trash but complaints against the last one seem misguided. The phrase itself is just a reference to 'south of the border', and I've heard people in both states use it as a light-hearted joke to refer to Victorians. It has been used for many years in a non-racist context as a play on words.

Though it does straddle the line a bit, I think it was worth clearing up that it's not just a reference to shutting borders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Possibly the US too:

> POMPEO LOOKING AT TIKTOK BAN IN U.S - FOX NEWS INTERVIEW

[https://twitter.com/Fxhedgers/status/1280329630918930432](https://twitter.com/Fxhedgers/status/1280329630918930432)

</comment><comment><USER19> Sucks to see so many engineers on board with locking down the internet. "Made in China" should not be a magical phrase that subverts your normal instincts.

</comment><comment><USER20> India made up 40%+ of their user base, when they banned it, China are taking it to court in India. The monetary impact must be big for their advertising revenue.

<comment><USER21> The issue is that India banned ~60 apps by Chinese companies with one fell swoop.

This makes the argument that these were banned for being by Chinese companies simpler, and that is banned under WTO rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there anything like virtual machine for mobile apps like you can install apps in that. To bored without tiktok.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm more concerned about the U.S. spying on me.

I don't like China spying on me either but people take that one seriously.

<comment><USER24> On the US, you have data to make money for business. In China, you have the same to regulate thought crime, reduce financial scores and make people disappear.

While you are right about "data is data" and nobody can predict the future, there is no question right now about which one you should be _more concerned_ about.

<comment><USER25> I don't think "making money for business" is such an innocent activity. Actually "making money" it is the reason and justification behind most the US abuses around the world.

Also, we may not see it, but marketing, commerce, and media are also brainwashing people with the consequences we see today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If we need to be worried about TikTok, what about cheap Chinese phones like Xaomi and OnePlus?

<comment><USER27> Or expensive phones like iPhones?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if Gen-Z understands why yet, and that its not just adults trying to mess up their fun.

<comment><USER29> I'm right on the older limit of zoomer. I understand perfectly and think it would be a good idea to ban it. But I also think every privacy destroying social media app should be shut down.

<comment><USER30> Would you be more in favor of the government shutting down privacy-averse social media companies or simply regulating them? In either case, why?

<comment><USER29> I think the Australian government should bring in a GDPR set of laws. To me it seems that the GDPR has improved the internet globally. So many sites added in automated data export tools and ways to opt out of tracking.

Companies not following these laws should be fined or if the fine is unenforceable they should be banned from doing business in the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Response: [https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/tiktok- aust...](https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/tiktok-australia- responds-to-not-credible-ban-reports/news- story/45e14af49e0abc29236e6d0a89f31ab4)

 _"We place the highest importance on user privacy and integrity."_

Sensible chuckle.

 _Mr Hunter said the concerns over user data getting into the hands of the CCP are overblown and the data isn't stored on Chinese servers. "TikTok Australia user data is stored in Singapore," he said._

Is this credible?

<comment><USER32> > Is this credible?

Have you tried access Chinese servers in Australia? It's awfully slow.

<comment><USER33> This doesn't mean it's not duplicated on remote servers.

<comment><USER32> If a Chinese IP requests a public static video file on Singapore AWS S3 (Or whatever the CDN tiktok use) and stored it on a Chinese server, does this mean duplication?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> TikTok steals kids attention and is completely useless for society. Sorry, but fuck it. We don't need more useless apps that steal peoples' attention span.

<comment><USER35> Why do you believe you are in a position to decide what people are allowed to do with their free time?

There's a lot of good arguments against tiktok but this ain't it.

<comment><USER36> He didn't say he should be the one to decide.

Anyway, there are lots of things that people can get addicted to which aren't healthy. Banning things for that reason is an option.

<comment><USER37> Patiently awaiting the ban on alcoholic drinks.

<comment><USER30> You're about 100 years too late.

Yes, I realize you're being sarcastic (at least I think you are), illustrating the point.

A government which bans things because they aren't deemed "healthy" (by said government) is not the right course of action (in my humble opinion). When it comes to something like alcohol, it's only "unhealthy" when its consumption is not moderated. Not to mention, what nutritionists recommend (and subsequently, what governments adopt) as health guidelines for food consumption is widely subject to change. The food pyramid that some of us were taught in the '90s is greatly recognized as being largely incorrect and is no longer taught.

Of course, the question becomes, where do we draw the line? Is it better for society for something like cocaine to be outright banned by the government or is it better for society that the government legally allows its distribution but regulates it similar to the way that it does tobacco and alcohol (effectively cutting out the market share and profits of the black market and cartels)? I don't have the answer to this question.

<comment><USER37> My point was that society/people by and large don't care about unhealthiness and/or the negative effects of addition, they simply want things that they dislike or disagree with (usually from a weird moral or intellectual high horse) to be banned. Else Americans would all be on the streets protesting the continued legality of alcohol consumption or the ridiculous amount of sugars pumped into so much of their food and drink; why the pearl-clutching over teenagers being teenagers and fooling around on a frivolous app compared to the monumental damage to society those two things inflict?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Netflix splits off DVD service to Quickster - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2011/09/19/netflix-ceo-i-messed-up-introduces-dvd-spinoff-called-quickster

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like Netflix but this seems like a mistake because I think that the AI recommendation system will be cut: movies watched on DVDs will not affect recommendations for streaming, and vice-versa.

The recommendation system is important to me: my wife and I have different streaming accounts just so our recommendations are accurate since we like different types of movies.</comment>


What PHP Needs - <AUTHOR> http://phpneeds.orchestra.io/

<comment><USER3> PHP needs a champion, a Douglas Crockford and book entitled "PHP: The good parts".

PHP faces a lot of similar discrimination that JavaScript did for the longest time. Sure, there are still criticisms for JavaScript but for the most part people have settled and realized that to make JavaScript good you have to write good code. Which is exactly the case for PHP.

The trendiness of PHP bashing exasperates the actual issues of PHP which can easily be abated with good practices.

We need a call for someone to get up and preach the best practices of PHP. And with that, a call for PHP Lint based on those best practices. There are a few individual attempts at providing JS Lint type analysis for PHP files but nothing from anyone with clout. We could use an official analyzer supported by recognized field leaders pushing quality coding practices.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely, if PHP has good parts, I want to know what they are.

<comment><USER5> It looks like the book for that is already out: <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596804381>

<comment><USER6> I found that book to be disappointing, not up to O'Reilly's standards, and certainly not in the same league as JS: the Good Parts. I guess they rushed it out to capitalize, which is a shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> PHP to me is a hodge podge of ideas all thrown together with no real engineering sense behind them. That might be just how I feel though.

<comment><USER8> > That might be just how I feel though.

No, I got the exact same impression. PHP is a language that takes away all the fun in programming for me.

<comment><USER9> I believe that this (ideas thrown around) is the truth, Rasmus Lerdorf comes across as a very pragmatic developer who's more interested in getting things done rather than being an architectural perfectionist.

But I'm not saying that in a derogative way. Coming from C#, Java and Ruby, I feel that PHP is kinda fun and refreshing. The object model is quite simple, and I love the $$ (variable variable) syntax, and how 'reflection' is way simpler than any other language. It's language for hackers.

<comment><USER10> Reflection is simpler than _any other language_?

Here's an example from the PHP docs on the reflection API, in the comments:

      $a = new A();
      $reflector = new ReflectionClass('A');
      $properties = $reflector->getProperties();

      $i =1;

      foreach($properties as $property)
      {
        //Populating properties
        $a->{$property->getName()}=$i;
        //Invoking the method to print what was populated
        $a->{"echo".ucfirst($property->getName())}()."\n";

        $i++;
      }

You have to instantiate _another object_ to inspect the first one! Here's Python, just as an example. (Most languages would be simpler. As with most things, it would be difficult to find a language where reflection was more clunky than in PHP.)

      a = A()
      for i, key in enumerate(a.__dict__):
        setattr(a, key, i)
        f = getattr(a, 'echo'+key.capitalize())
        print(f())

On another thread somewhere, someone once suggested that PHP is actually Blub -- a fictional language whose immense and inherent superiority cannot be explained, only experienced.

As a long time PHP dev, let me assure anyone who thinks that this is the case: in no way is PHP Blub.

<comment><USER11> "Blub" isn't a fictional superior language; it's a fictional average language probably imagined to be similar to Java. It was, so far as I know first described here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html>

PHP is Blub in the sense that it is not the most powerful language[0], and some of its users decline to recognize that other languages have advantages over it. From my perspective, there can be no perfect language; certain characteristics are more optimal in some situations, less so in others and mutually exclusive. Type safety and certain kinds of dynamic behavior are an example.

[0] I'm not claiming here that any specific language _is_ the most powerful, just that PHP certainly _isn't_.

<comment><USER10> Yes you're right, I got the Blub parable wrong.

What I mean is that the commenter believed that all other languages are Blub to PHP, as in, PHP is higher on the spectrum of powerful languages and other language users did not realize that they were looking up when they looked at PHP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just an Idea. I think what causes so many sentiments against PHP is due in part to the mass adoption of PHP.

These days, you find PHP almost everywhere. And how do you get to PHP? Let's assume we are in collage and want to write that next big website that's surely going to rule them all.

Now, we don't really know that much about all this "tech" stuff. But hey, I can hit "show source" in the browser. This must be easy. After a few baby steps with a WYSIWY(WishYoud)G tool, you decide to learn /some/ HTML for good. Once you figure that HTML alone can't do a lot, there's a somewhat native path to PHP.

You keep on reading tutorials written by others, who know as much as you or a little more. You are still on the cheap side, and need to keep tight on your money for that next big website you are going to write.

And the more you read the more enlightened you feel. Wow! I can actually do that and my dead cheap webhost offers PHP as well. Life is good.

Because you don't lack any minimal intelligence, you figure out how to write your next (big) website. You probably didn't succeed in writing the next FaceBook, but hey, you are now /one/ of the /web guys/. You probably think what you are doing is real fun.

There are then two paths you can take: \- A: stick with PHP and feel enlightened all the way, when ever you learn some new trick, or \- B: wonder if PHP is the only true real thing. You don't know C or some other "ancient" language, so you are still a little afraid. Perl seems to look a lot like PHP but it's syntax is confusing and no one of your friends on the forums you are frequenting is using it anyway. Then there is Python or Ruby. Wow those look strange. No curly braces for function bodies. Why do people here talk about templating? What's this about? Do I need that? PHP was so easy... Anyway, you are still curious and learn about this "other" way of writing webapps (that's what we are still primarily concerned with). Once you start to figure out that variables do /not/ have to start with $ to be valid, you wonder what else PHP might have hid from your novice learning? There is a lot more. Not necessarily PHP's fault. Just the lockin in that PHP mindset.

\----

The basic problem with PHP (to me) is that I've seen it to be more a motel on the way to enlightenment. Some just find it too comforting to move on. Others, once they've passed it, rarely(ever?) come back unless someone else tells (forces) them to do so.

</comment><comment><USER13> I almost posted a new Hacker News story, but I saw this and figured my blog post belongs here better. It's an old post I dug it.

<http://leftnode.com/entry/what-php-needs-to-change>

<comment><USER14> I agree with most of the changes on your list, but to be honest (as I'm sure you're aware) what you're suggesting is not a viable solution.

It would be far easier and more effective to simply create a new language based heavily on the good parts of php.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd be happy if we moved to "+" for string concatenation and "." for object member access (but this would break every script out there). Though I've been a PHP user for 5+ years, I still do this when switching back from longer JS / Ruby development periods.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why the hell does this site need to be able to read my Twitter direct messages for me to be able to cast a vote?

<comment><USER17> It doesn't want to read your Twitter direct messages.

Here's what's going on. The Twitter API currently has two levels of permission: "read" (can access your data, which includes your tweets and followers even if you have a private account, and unfortunately also your DMs) and "write" (can update your account, including posting new tweets, adding new followers, creating new lists etc).

Most Twitter users were unaware that granting "read" access to an application gave that application access to their DMs. This was a problem. Twitter opted to solve it by introducing a new permission level, "direct messages", which is write-plus-direct-message access. They plan to remove the direct message ability from the "read" access.

To give developers time to fix any apps that this would affect, the switch- over date for direct message access is set to June 30th.

Up until that date, the Twitter OAuth authentication screen includes copy that tells you that the application will be able to access your direct messages until June 30th.

This does NOT mean that the application author intends to access them - <USER2> just means that the permission level you are granting gives them that ability up until the cut-off date.

This issue is a big problem for people like us ( <http://lanyrd.com/> ) who use Twitter for authentication, because it scares away potential users. At least after the 30th we won't have to worry about the DM clause, but we'll still suffer from users assuming that we're going to tweet on their behalf.

Unfortunately, we need "write" access so that the follow buttons on our site work (Twitter's new JavaScript follow buttons aren't appropriate for our attendee directory because we show 20 people on a page: <http://lanyrd.com/2011/europython/attendees/> ) - we also need "write" access for our currently-in-alpha Twitter list management features.

The best solution I can think of would either be finely grained permissions (so we could ask for list and follow access but not send-a-tweet access) or the ability for us to specify a reassuring message to be displayed on the Twitter OAuth screen clarifying our intentions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "What PHP really needs is: Strong leadership and an official process to submit new ideas, extensions", "New blood, and less old blood.", "A plan for the future of web development".

PHP is an opensource project: volunteer!

<comment><USER19> PHP is an open source project, sure. But really, have you ever tried to volunteer for the PHP core? I've never gone through a more painful process -- so much political bullshit, resistance to change (even backwards-compatible change), and echo chamber nonsense. I attempted to volunteer on PHP for a long while, but finally realized it just wasn't worth it and gave up.

<comment><USER20> Someone should fork the damn thing.

<comment><USER21> Someone did.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2640756>

Self plug: I cleaned up his original repo and put the patch against the official PHP git repo.

<https://github.com/sc68cal/php-src>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm disappointed in the people who put disparaging comments in as ideas, and the people who voted them up.

This was an attempt to generate awareness and that kind of behavior doesn't help anything.

<comment><USER23> The lack of commenting and downvoting means this list will lack any kind of real curation. There's several large blocks of text on the popular list that should have been submitted as multiple items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> WARNING: Frank opinions ahead.

I added "To die", because that's my honest opinion after having been a PHP dev since ~PHP3. Whether it's the language's fault or not, my experience with other people's PHP code is that anything big tends toward spaghetti except in a few well-engineered cases. Non-pasta is the exception that proves the rule.

People who actually know something about programming well, frankly, would not start new projects in PHP. Its only use to me is as a litmus test -- if your answer to "What do you think of PHP" doesn't include a significant critique of the language, I probably wouldn't like working with you. (Nor you with me)

<comment><USER24> There's nothing inherent in the language that makes building non-spaghetti code difficult. All the weird annoyances and idiosyncrasies are a big pain in the ass but, unlike say COBOL or Basic (or even C), they don't fundamentally prevent you from building nice organized easy to understand code.

That being said, I totally agree with you -- other people's PHP code tends towards spaghetti in the vast majority of cases. My take from this is that if PHP were to disappear tomorrow all these programmers building spaghetti would just inflict their level of skill on other platforms.

<comment><USER11> _There's nothing inherent in the language that makes building non-spaghetti code difficult._

Technically, that's mostly true. Culturally and psychologically, I'm inclined to say it isn't. Just as you're more likely to leave things lying around haphazardly in a room that's already messy, you're more likely to write sloppy code in a sloppy codebase. When the language itself feels sloppy, it's damn hard to avoid that effect.

Sure, you can write good code in PHP, but why would you want to when there are so many other languages out there? The only reason I can think of is if you're selling a product to be deployed on shared-hosting websites belonging to customers.

<comment><USER25> PHP is the default web language. If you're pitching to a client who expects to maintain the code once you're done and you suggest Clojure, Node.js, or even _Ruby_ in a lot of cases you won't get the gig. By doing so you've raised their costs; PHP programmers are easier to find.

This is the main reason I'm not doing web consulting!

<comment><USER11> _By doing so you've raised their costs_

I don't think that's actually true, aside from maybe $10/month extra in hosting[0], I think costs tend to be lower with not-PHP. Using PHP greatly increases the probability that a random contractor will be a bad programmer who will write things that are broken, require more billable hours to get things done or make a mess that slows down the next guy.

I've never lost work due to suggesting not-PHP to a client. I have, however regretted failing to do so several times. I've come to believe that a client's insistence on using PHP is nearly as much of a red flag as a programmer not knowing anything else.

[0] If a client is worried about $10/month extra in hosting costs, you'll probably also have to fight them for every dollar. They might even try to get out of paying what they agreed to. I've had it happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is ridiculous. It's like saying hammers should include screwdrivers. Just know your toolbox and you won't have a problem.

PHP is great. What's with all the hate? It's a good tool for a certain kind of job, not the right tool for others. Big deal. There isn't a single language that you can't find bones to pick with. It's all about what you do with it and how you like to code. If you're comfortable writing server-side script in brainfuck, more power to you.

<comment><USER27> _> What's with all the hate?_

Some people want every language to be just like Java, so they can switch between languages with little to no effort -- never mind we'd have only Java in the end.

Some people want everything abstracted out, so no implementation details have to pe paid attention to -- nor leveraged, ever.

Some people won't believe a language supports something until there's a class explicitly named after it (``proper unicode support'' my ass -_-').

Some people believe an object wrapped around something will magically make it better (``a core object that represents the HTTP Request and Response'').

The list goes on...

Please let PHP remain PHP, at least let it retain the good parts :-)

<comment><USER26> So, uh, can't we all just get along? I mean, I could make a list about why Java's a nightmare, or Javascript or C# or something else, but if I were hiring a coder who said, "yes, we must write this server in Neko" I would say, "okay, why?" And if the reasons were good, then great. Do it. These are just tools. You should never lean on them for something they weren't designed to do; but if you find that one matches the job, then use it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Love!

</comment><comment><USER29> A final nail in it's coffin.</comment>


Jason Fried: "Venture capital money kills more businesses than it helps" - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2019/1/23/18193685/venture-capital-money-kills-more-businesses-than-it-helps-says-basecamp-ceo-jason-fried <comment><USER2> VCs want binary outcomes - either something grows 100 times or it dies. This is not because they are evil, or crazy (and don't want money from a slow growth but still money earning business) - but because this is a way to avoid principal agent problem ([https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with- crowdfunding-81b53f...](https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with- crowdfunding-81b53f963387)). If you don't want that - then don't take VC money. Fried is right with that, but the VC model works well in fields where there is a strong first comer advantage (like everything with network effects). Because there if you don't outgrow your competition - then you are dead.

<comment><USER3> I don't get it. How does it help to avoid principal agent problem. The link also states it as a fact with no explanation.

<comment><USER4> The link says:

> This relies on the theory that startups goal is to grow a 100 times or die — > so small continuous extractions by the executives are ruled out.

I interpret it as following: if the regular company earns $1 million/year, then an executive stealing $500k/year by making deals with friends will make investor's return much smaller. But in a startup, it does not matter -- if the it fails, it would simply fail slightly earlier. And if it succeeds, then it would earn $100 million/year, and $500k/year that executive steals will be a small, insignificant change.

(I am not personally convinced this is true, but this is how I interpreted that article)

<comment><USER5> I guess, but why steal $500K a year, when you can steal millions? Certain insider deals from a certain very large unicorn are what I'm thinking about.

<comment><USER2> VC investing is on a spectrum - at companies already at the unicorn stage it is more private equity than what happens at earlier stages. Also now partial liquidity events for the founders are a standard. They improve the incentives alignment at these later stages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 70% of VC backed founders end up with zero in capital gains, after toiling for 5-10 years... primary reason is they are "forced" to grow at unnatural high rates, to attempt to deliver exponential 50x returns to their (diversified) VCs, which usually doesn't work out.

I wonder how that number would be different, for those very same companies, had they not taken investors?

<comment><USER7> 70% of tech startups (or even more) fail on themselves and not just because they took VC money. It's just a risky asset class and people should understand that. And the most of them would be impossible to properly launch without significant initial investments as most of the time the idea is to reach near zero marginal costs and scale by investing a lot in your tech/community.

<comment><USER6> Main point is the startup risk is unnaturally amplified by capital, which increases monthly costs, with the hope of generating unnatural growth rates that never arrive...

It'd be really interesting to see the failure rate of bootstrapped tech startups vs. those that took VC money, I'm betting it'd be a lot lower.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think there's a happy path between bootstrapping your own company and taking millions in VC funding, where you can place your customers ahead of delivering investor returns but not have to design your products and roadmaps due to financial limitations. On that note, TinySeed is open for applications until 2/15 :) [https://tinyseed.com/](https://tinyseed.com/)

(I'm not affiliated with them, but I read Rob Walling's "Start Small, Stay Small" and it was the best book out of 70ish books I've read in two years)

<comment><USER9> There is....there are investors who don't require 100x returns. It's just harder to find them, they're usually more risk averse, and you'll need a way to return their money that doesn't necessarily include an IPO.

<comment><USER10> Not clear to me why someone would want to invest in high risk startups for a low-mid return.. there are much safer options that would give similar returns.

<comment><USER11> From my understanding, VC funds as an asset class don't perform that well. A few of them hit the jackpot, but if someone spreads their bets across a number of funds, I would be surprised if they beat the market. So keep that in mind when comparing returns.

Another thing to consider, is that focusing on the 'middle road' does not necessarily preclude a company from swinging for the fences, it merely sets the incentives such that getting to profitability sooner is advantageous. They do this by encouraging dividends as a form of compensation, but the company still has the option of going the VC route.

So if anything, I think this structure is the best of both worlds. If a company can take ~$100k in seed for ~10% in equity and turn that into a small business worth $10M, that is a 10x return. But if it looks like they are on to something bigger, they can raise another round and keep grinding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some Angels too. I have ran into small startups that are forced to make poor/crippling choices because their angel(s) would rather not spend anymore money before flipping the company.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why are these articles always aimed at the 'victim' companies, rather than the actual venture capitalists?

If the thesis is correct, they are the main losers, with incentives to find the 'right' size for companies.

Edit: I am aware of the current business model of venture capitalists.

It just seems to me that the value maximising outcome would be to enlarge every company to the largest it could be but no bigger.

Why isn't this happening?

Is it that venture capitalists are psychopaths and bad investors to boot? Is it that identifying the 'right' size of company is hard? The question that then arises is why are founders so good at identifying the right size, when investors find it so hard? Is there survival bias here? Sour grapes? If founders are genuinely better, why hasn't that been picked up on and harnessed?

<comment><USER14> They're not losers if the profits from a few big winners outweigh the losses from the losers.

That works out for VCs because they're diversified. A founder lacks the diversification, so while their average expected return is the same, their specific outcome is likely to be poor. They'd be much better off with a strategy that has lower expectation but also less variance.

<comment><USER15> VCs also have a resource that is much more scale-able, especially in a horizontal direction, money.

Most founders don't have the ability to diversify anywhere near the same degree because the resources they have personal control over (time, energy) are generally much more limited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Venture capitalists see a whisp of smoke and dump a truckload of firewood on the first embers.

They want a big bonfire asap, and don't really care if they end up extinguishing the flames instead.</comment>


Python 2.7 now fully supported on AppEngine - <AUTHOR> http://googleappengine.blogspot.in/2012/02/announcing-general-availability-of.html

<comment><USER2> I've been using 2.7 for few months now and I'm glad it finally goes official. The concurrent serving of requests really does make a difference: for app that is mostly I/O bound and isn't using a lot of asynchronous RPC, it greatly increases request throughput. For us it not only nullified the pricing change from last Fall, but actually reduced the overall cost, compared to Python 2.5 + previous billing.

Now when it's official, GAE looks like a much more viable and cost-effective platform than it was for the few passing months.

</comment><comment><USER3> To any AppEngine developers who might see this:

Please, please roll out SSL on custom domains already. It's been just around the corner for years!

<comment><USER4> Could be that they just can't get enough IPv4 addresses to implement it anymore (at least without sacrificing windows XP compatibility :/)

<comment><USER5> You can get IPv4 addresses; the going rate is about $1/month/address. Whether Google's infrastructure can handle zillions of custom IPs is a different story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> being able to finally use PIL and lxml on appengine is huge, and 2.7 also goes some way to resolving the billing issues. 2.7 going gold is starting to sway me back towards using appengine again.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm glad it's gold so I can use more modern libraries again. But the reduced cost thing is not a guarantee. If you do a lot of rpc calls per request, multithreading actually makes latency and instance count absolutely horrible.

Of course this seems kind of ridiculous to me, if you aren't using the rpc's what the heck is your app actually doing?

So like everything, you need to test your application to see what configuration is right for you. For the app I maintain, python2.7 single threaded is only slightly slower than 2.5 but I expect that to improve over time and it was worth switching now just to not have to write for python2.5 anymore.

Costs are higher, but still less than leasing a data center and employing staff to maintain it.</comment>


Data Centers Work to Reduce Their Enormous Water Use - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/04/09/data-centers-move-to-cut-water-waste/

<comment><USER2> Perhaps this is naïve, but why aren't more data centers in Alaska, or atop mountains? It's cold and windy and cooling costs would (potentially) be so much smaller.

<comment> patrickg-zill I think there are some that are... a company called Verne Holdings was planning to build one in Iceland, but it has been delayed.

[http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting- news/022309_Iceland_Data_...](http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting- news/022309_Iceland_Data_Center_Postponed_A_Year)

Remember as well, that proximity to lots of reliable power is also a concern. My guess is that the datacenters in sunshine states, will eventually buy solar power systems to put on their roofs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > As part of our commitment to the environment,

don't pull my dick Debra</comment>


Chad Hurley: How We Did It  - <AUTHOR> http://newteevee.com/2008/06/27/chad-hurley-how-we-did-it/ <comment><USER2> Haven't had a chance to watch the video, but there is some great information in the notes.

"ServerBeach had two pipes, one for redundancy, and YouTube was using one and a half of them, with rest of its customers limited to just half of the one left. ServerBeach had a great plan, $129 month for unlimited data."

<comment><USER3> On a 10mbit pipe that's around 3000GB/mo max - the "non-unlimited" (for a bit less $) would have been 2000GB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "YouTube didn't have PowerPoint, just product and stats, when it made the rounds on Sand Hill Road."</comment>


Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Teenagers Hardest - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/schools-are-slow-to-learn-that-sleep-deprivation-hits-teenagers-hardest.html?ribbon-ad-idx=6&rref=upshot&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=The%20Upshot&pgtype=article&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I predict this will be a difficult sell, for the reasons pg outlined in "Why Nerds are Unpopular" ([http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html)):

> Now adults have no immediate use for teenagers. They would be in the way in > an office. So they drop them off at school on their way to work, much as > they might drop the dog off at a kennel if they were going away for the > weekend.

Schools are government-subsidised daycare first, educational institutions second, which is the reason they often fail at teaching students but rarely fail at keeping them in place.

From that perspective, why would you change a child's school hours to anything less compatible with their parents' work hours? If anything, I would expect the trend to be towards longer hours at school, perhaps by more tightly integrating after-school activities.

<comment><USER3> There's also the much-cited football problem: if high schools ended at a more reasonable hour like 3PM or 3:30PM, this causes problems for football coaches, who might see their after-school practices running to 6PM or something.

I'm reminded of how my school district carefully made sure that the austerity or budget-freeze budgets which happened when voters failed to approve their preferred budgets always just happened to not have enough funding for football...

<comment><USER4> > There's also the much-cited football problem: if high schools ended at a > more reasonable hour like 3PM or 3:30PM, this causes problems for football > coaches, who might see their after-school practices running to 6PM or > something.

I checked my high school and others districts to confirm they operate on an 8 am - 3 pm schedule +/\- 30 minutes. Is this uncommon?

<comment><USER5> Same over here in Aus, those are standard hours for most every school I've seen.

<comment><USER6> Little later in my experience (vic) 9am to 3:20

<comment><USER7> That's standard UK primary school (4-11yo) hours too.

<comment><USER8> And pretty much the same for secondary.

5 _60 min or 6_ 50 min periods, 45 min lunch, 15 min morning break. 6 hour minimum day. Any extra time is padding for registration or longer breaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Going a bit off topic here (since my kid is still in elementary), but I wish schools started later for more selfish reasons. Our kid naturally wakes up early but the Mrs. and I are night owls. We've been miserable since our kid started going to school. We've been trying to force ourselves to go to bed earlier than its natural to us, with varying degrees of success, but most weeks are spent half asleep most of the time because waking up at 7am just doesn't work for us. I can't wait for middle school when the kiddo will likely be old enough to wake up on her own, fix herself up and go catch the school bus.

<comment><USER10> My parents were night owls, and so was I. Waking up before dawn was a nightmarish hell for me, all through junior high and high school.

<comment><USER11> Same here. I surfed the internet and played computer games until 1 or 2 AM every night, and then spent a lot of time in junior high and high school nodding out in class.

I really learned almost nothing, which isn't the fault of my teachers or anyone else. I would have been better off in a radically less structured educational environment, something as simple as being put in a room alone with some books and an offline computer for 4 hours a day, with long breaks in between to exercise and socialize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is absolutely ridiculous that we make growing humans get out of bed before 8 AM. Pubescent teens should be sleeping 10 hours a night, particularly boys who are in their growth spurts.

When I am emperor dictator, no schools open before 9AM.

<comment><USER13> But, then people will just stay up later. I know that's what I did as I went through schools / jobs. My last job I could get there around 1030am (wake at 9:45~) so I would make sure to get to bed around 2am.

<comment><USER14> Your personal experience doesn't comport with the findings of sleep researchers. Later work or school start times correlate with increased sleep. This is due to biological influences on behavior (people feel tired at night and go to bed.) To take your argument ad absurdum, if your job had started at 6pm, would you have gone to bed at 11am?

<comment><USER13> Well my father worked 3rd shift when I was a kid, and he slept through the day time while I was at school. So, yes?

<comment><USER15> Was he tired all the time? It's been shown that shift workers never fully adjust to sleeping during the day. Children and teens need a lot more sleep than adults, so it's particularly hard for them. As a teen I worked in a bakery and later as a pastry chef, both of which involve very early starts. I loved the work, but that early alarm never got any easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My 16 year old home-schooled daughter wakes up at noon... By the way, where I went to school we had 7am (!!!) classes ... I used to sleep in and just skip them as a teen ;)

My personal schedule as an adult is to start working around 10am. Oddly enough when I am on vacation I tend to trend towards getting up earlier. If I need to get to work early for a meeting e.g. I tend to feel very tired the entire day.

I think some lot of this is related to how our sleep patterns are screwed up by artificial lighting. When we go camping we generally don't have fires and we go to sleep when the sun sets down and get up when it comes up. It all feels very natural after you've done a few days of that...

<comment><USER17> Try camping one full year in Ireland (beautiful country) and see how natural it feels to sleep 7 hrs in summer and 17 hrs in winter. And Ireland isn't even that far north.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I have been wondering is, do later start times really help teenagers? I know when I was going to high school, if I was allowed to sleep in for an extra two hours, I would have stayed up two hours later at night. Meaning I got the exact same amount of sleep. Is this not common? Or does later start time actually lead to more sleep on average? Also, the homework load does not get lighter, so the amount of time they have to stay up to do the homework stays the same. The start time just shifts to later in the day. Is there any research out there that shows changing start times does anything other than shift the entire schedule in the day? With the exact same amount of time spent at school, time doing homework, sleeping, etc.?

<comment><USER19> The thing about sleep is, it's not a factual, hard science thing. Different people need different amounts. Different people feel better waking up at different times. Having a schedule and sticking to it makes you feel more refreshed. Hell, some people barely sleep and seem to be fine. Personally, I can sleep 8 hours and still feel like crap having to wake up at 8AM. If I can sleep till 10, I wake up much more refreshed and immediately ready to start working.

In my mind, the only ideal solution for kids is a much more flexible schooling system that runs from the earlier hours to the later ones. Students would be able to select their classes (there's never THAT many in grade school) based on times that are convenient for their mental health and living arrangements. So Suzy could wake up and start classes at 8 and go home at 3, while John, who like me hates early mornings, could start classes at 10 and go home at 5. Of course, a bunch of organizational problems come up and let's not forget that anything run by the government is dreadfully inefficient, but in an ideal world, I think this kind of system would work.

<comment><USER18> Right, I am the same way. Not at all a morning person. I, don't want to get out of bed before 8, at the earliest no matter how much sleep I get. That is why having flexible work hours is important. Many of my co-workers have been at work for 2 hours before I wake up. But that's what they like to do. So nothing wrong with that. Having flexible school, at least for high school teens, would be a really interesting idea. Though like you said, scheduling issues would probably be too complicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Perhaps more important, the number of car crashes by drivers 16 to 18 was > reduced by 70 percent when school start times were changed from 7:35 to > 8:55.

This is what stood out to me. I'd like to know more about how this study was done, but if it's valid this is one of the most compelling arguments I've seen for changing school start times.

<comment><USER21> I suspect it might also have something to do with letting all the rush hour traffic get to work first, THEN let teenagers drive around town. Whatever the root cause, if later start times are safer, all the more reason to support making changes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seattle Public Schools, for one, has taken this to heart and rearranged the schedule for next year. Elementaries now get the early starts, and the high schools will start at 9:35 AM.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a late sleeper (and a high school student), i've found a way to make the 8am classes (waking up at 6:45) more bearable. I used to go to bed at 12 and was tired all the time since I did not get the 7 1/2 hours I needed. When I had classes late (twice a week, waking up at 8:15, 8:45 respectively, and going to bed at 1am), I still felt tired because I did not sleep much the days before. What I do now is go to bed at about 2am and nap for 2 to 3 hours a day. Once I got used to it, it worked out great. I am not tired in the mornings at all and can make it though the whole school day. At 5pm, I start getting tired and that's when I starting taking my nap. At 9-10pm, after dinner, I start doing my homework for which I now have plenty of time and I'm not even tired.

That might not work for everybody, but I advice everybody to try out what works best for them.

<comment><USER24> I tried that when I was your age and it didn't work that great for me. I did it because I was just so tired after school that I crashed for hours when I came back. My problem was that I overslept (2 to 4 hours) during the nap and I felt so refreshed I wasn't tired until 2am. So I ended up sleeping only 5 hours for the night, pretty much like you. On the other hand, I was still tired during the day.

My point is that naps are good but at some point they're harmful for your night, and 3 hours is getting close. I believe it's better to keep at least 7-hour nights and have 30- to 90- minute naps. But the truth is that school hours are poorly designed.

This is a kind of biphasic sleep by the way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My high school started at 730 am. They always gave bus scheduling as the reason they couldn't have a later start. Basically, the district only had so many buses to allocate for pick-ups, and would stagger start times to make sure the bus count was minimized.

<comment><USER13> I mean, it is a valid reason. My small town (4k~ people) did the same, high school started at 7:45am and each bus had both a high school / middle school route, and immediately after an elementary school route. Not only would you need twice as many busses, you'd need twice as many drivers. The cost difference is massive. That said, that doesn't mean they can't bump the start time of all the schools up an hour or two.

<comment><USER26> There's an even easier solution to that: IIRC elementary school kids are way more resistant to sleep deprivation than teenagers, so you can just flip the schedules around and start elementary school kids before teenagers. Downside is probably then that the more-demanding elementary school kids get home earlier, but I think they're already getting home well before the working parent does.

<comment><USER27> I've heard that the reason this isn't the default is that parents get far more upset about making an elementary school kid get up and wait for a bus in the dark than a teenager.

<comment><USER28> Makes sense too, America is way too dangerous to have kids wait for buses in the dark. No doubt they would be kidnapped almost immediately.

<comment><USER29> Can't tell if sarcastic or not.

<comment><USER26> Poe's Law strikes again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> News flash: the educational system is utterly broken and still has old throwbacks to America's agrarian past.

Remembering when I was a teenager not too long ago, I could have told you the same. To this day, however, I am a night owl, which has also been shown to be more common in more intelligent persons,[0] so it really is a potentially more hard hitting situation to those brighter than average as well.

[0] [https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=vpsd64gAAAAJ&citation_for_view=vpsd64gAAAAJ:_FxGoFyzp5QC)

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm currently a sophomore at Harriton High School in PA. Here's what my day looks like. Ideally wake up around 6:20, sometimes I oversleep to 6:40-6:50. Wake up, shower, breakfast if there's time (when I wake up too late, I'll grab some Clif bars on the way out). Run to bus stop, bus comes at 7:02. School starts at 7:30. 6 classes a day, an hour each. Lunch starts around 10:45. School ends at 2:40, sports start at 3:00. Sports normally go until 5:30, occasionally 4:30. I go to bed around 11:30-12.

</comment><comment><USER32> Let's not even talk about the fact that educational system is extremely inefficient and is prone to wasting student's time. One would think that after spending 6-8 hours a day for 12 years that you'd come out somewhat knowledgeable about something.

<comment><USER33> You are if you come out of high school.

You understand the global history since the neolithical times rougly, and your own contintents history since the 1500s pretty exactly.

You understand how algebra, analysis, stochastic work, and can do simple mathematical proofs.

You know the laws of physics, how and why things work, you have learnt general and special relativity, and even know parts of quantum mechanics, including being able to work with the probability functions of electrons.

You know basic chemistry, understand what each element is, know a large part of organic and inorganic chemistry, have experimented with it, and can explain why some molecular bindings work, and why some don't.

You speak fluently 3 to 4 languages, and can read standard literature in them, as well as being able to write essays about cultural topics in them.

You have had PE, know how to play a majority of sports, and have a physical condition where you are able to play them.

You know the historical styles of art produced, and when and where they were produced, and have experience working in a majority of styles yourself.

You know how our political system and our economy works, and know how to do accounting and taxes for yourself. You know how to start a company, and the trade offs of different types of incorporation.

You are able to work in teams, can delegate work, know how to learn things from existing sources and do your own research, how to write scientific papers, can debate with others in a civil way.

________________________

Excerpted and translated from the curriculum for high school students in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, 2012.

(And I can attest that what I learnt in school fits this description)

<comment><USER34> This roughly matches what is expected of a high level student in The Netherlands. Note that The Netherlands (and I think Germany as well) segregates students with a learning aptitude test.

This means for example that my sister who is more artistically talented than I am was sorted into the high school track that is shorter, teaches only the very basics of these topics. Her highschool track ends at 16 and students are expected to go into a college that teaches some kind of physical skill, she did graphical design, and after that got accepted into an academy of arts.

In contrast I went to the highest highschool track, did everything parent post mentioned, did that until 18 (6 years) and was then expected to pick a higher learning college (which we call university) to which you are generally automatically accepted if you have a higher learning high school diploma.

I often wonder how the US deals with this. My sister would be severely unhappy at my highschool being constantly confronted with topics that would be hard and uninteresting to her. I would likely be bored and vastly unqualified for proper university if I went to hers. How would you put us in the same classroom? ( though I would have loved to go to the same school as her, she rocks :) )

<comment><USER35> While I wouldn't say I learned all of this, we did cover quite a similar set of topics during my schooling. It's not everywhere that schooling is bad in the US. Not every school just lumps all of the kids no matter their aptitude into the same classes. A lot of schools have many levels of placement that are to help understand the baselines a student can be held to. For most math and science classes I took the top classes and felt it was a great pace (most of the time) and learned quite a bit. For history and English/grammar classes where I'm not as strong, I took a middle level class and still learned much of the same material but at a slower pace.

For cases like your sister, there was options for classes to be taken. She can take many different art classes over the course of a couple years to help build a portfolio for submitting to colleges. I on the other hand had 2 maths, 2 sciences, and an English class my final semester. It was great since it so closely aligned with my college studies and helped me get ahead (AP). I never felt difficulty in college having taken these APs either.

Just setting the record straight, it's not the complete Wild West over here. Just some schools are stronger than others. My school is pretty standard as far as schools in south east Massachusetts go.

<comment><USER34> Cool thanks! Just to clear it up, I didn't think it was a complete wild west out there. Clearly the U.S. has many of the best universities in the world, and similarly many of the best arts academies so somehow it's able to produce well prepared students. I was just a bit confused on how exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Crazy to me there's no precedent to talk of stress and sleep together. The word stress doesn't appear in this piece.

Stress and sleep are the same physiological system. The best way to recover from stress is to sleep. Not surprisingly, increasing stress also inhibits memory, learning, and attention. So by driving a stressful lifestyle with few hours of sleep, students are working against the need to strengthen the brain. Sleep literally seems to refresh us, consolidating new memories and washing away built up toxins.

Don't set an alarm clock - set a time to sleep.

</comment><comment><USER37> Let's assume that everybody has his own natural sleeping schedule (so also teeangers). With ubiquitous internet why can't one stream the school lessons via internet from home so that everybody can start his/her schoolday when he wants to and only comes for the tests etc. or school activities that involve personal attendance (this could easily be scheduled on afternoon).

This could also probably reduce the wasted time of going to school and going home, if you only have to go their where personal attendance is necessary.

<comment><USER33> Because school isn't a streamable activity, and hasn't been for several decades.

School today works in a way where the teacher doesn't teach the students things directly, but where the students try to explore and understand themselves in small groups, with the teacher only giving hints.

This technique started in the applied sciences, where the concept of giving students a task, like "find out what this material is" (chemistry), and letting each group then design an experiment on how to test it, and then – after they succeeded or failed – letting each group present their results to the others.

Nowadays, it's used in almost all classes, from language classes to math, from PE to compsci.

Streaming such classes – which are the majority in todays schools – would be an impossible task.

EDIT: Again, if you downvote, please comment why you did so – an open discussion is always better than just plain downvoting, as it helps understand why you disagree.

<comment><USER21> Even if we accept you premise that all classrooms work that way (which is not a universal truth)...I don't see why that would make streaming impossible. On the contrary, it would make it easier. Self-paced exploration online, with collaboration with a teacher or peers as needed. If lecture-style teaching is appropriate for a topic, it can be recorded and streamed, and the student could always pause it, replay, or ask a question in realtime before moving on in the video.

FWIW, Not only is streaming education possible, it is already happening in the home-schooling world, and k12.com comes to mind, which is driving online education in public and private schools. Trust me, I attend educational trade shows, and I see increasing number of vendors in this space. And yes, some of this is moving to the traditional classroom, but we are a few years off of it being common.

<comment><USER33> All of these things require _working with others in groups, physically_.

You can't work on an experiment in chemistry or physics or biology via streaming together (aside from the fact that buying all the required materials is a financial impossibility).

How is playing an excerpt from a theatre play in groups possible online?

Almost all language and scientific education requires direct interaction.

> it is already happening in the home-schooling world

Which is something that most nations have declared as "not properly fulfilling the right to education of the child".

________________________

I'm seriously questioning how you propose kids do scientific experiments or do theatre plays, etc in groups via online education.

<comment><USER21> You have a valid point that some subjects do require interacting in real life. Good thing I never claimed that ALL education can be handled online, and was just showing that some education can and does happen via online streaming, and it increases every year.

As far ALL things require physical interaction... no. That is simply untrue. Some do, not all. You gave valid examples of some that do, and I agree with those. But you are approaching this discussion with absolutes and tossing the word "impossible" around enough that I want to respond with quotes from the Princess Bride.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> That's something I'm still trying to wrap my head around since I moved to the US. Some classes start before 8am, sometimes closer to 7am. This is insanity.

When I see the school bus picking up kids in my neighborhood at 6.45 I feel so sorry for the poor bastards. A buddy once told me that they start so early because they need the buses later for little kids.

And it has other bad impacts. They most likely get breakfast around 6am. How can they keep it together until 12pm? So of course, they snack on a bag of Cheezy Poofs in the morning. Doesn't help with good eating habits.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think when it comes to schools and large institutions like universities, their term should be:

"Too big to succeed"

We need education to be able to change fast and adapt. Something we clearly cannot get with these large institutions.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am under the impression that even if you move the start times back eventually the teenagers would adopt to it and they would still have insufficient sleep.

Perhaps school six days a week with shorter hours for more days per year? Or just full year schedules with shorter days as you increase in grade?

Schools cannot adjust for the schedules of their students times simply because there are too many variances. Start times will simply be followed by changes where the advantage wanted gets lost

</comment><comment><USER41> So if schools start later, what about all those high school students that have jobs? Because, you know, some families _rely_ on that income. This has always been the reasoning I heard for starting high school so early.

</comment><comment><USER42> How very convenient that we have schools as a catch-all scapegoat for everything that is wrong with society. I'm sure teachers are enthused about getting lots of tips by armchair experts about how they should do their work.

<comment><USER43> School is an institution that occupies every child full time from age 5–18. Even when they're not physically in school, school dictates the structure of their life.

So nearly all of our population experiences their most impressionable, value forming years under the influence of schools, which almost all operate in a similar way. You'd expect this to have a profound effect of behavior, on the level that religion can have. So yes, schools make for a good "catch-all scapegoat" because the impact that they have on society is so large that for any given problem with society, you can probably find a quite reasonable causal link from schools.

The term "armchair expert" is used to make anti-intellectual arguments. It's usually not hard to tell the difference between someone arguing a carefully considered position and someone who's just hastily defending their ideas against new information, or whatever it is that people do. Don't lose the signal in the noise. If you don't consider any of it signal, then there's no reason to be in this thread.

But it's not like teachers are especially qualified in this area. Some are because they consider it a professional obligation to keep up on such literature and have an informed opinion on the issues the encounter, others simply because they're naturally inclined to care about these matters. But teachers in the US only need a bachelor's degree and a teacher's vocational training. Having a bachelor's degree doesn't make them any more qualified than the average HN commenter, and the vocational training typically doesn't bother with child psychology or pedagogical philosophy. The only factor that makes teachers any more qualified to speak on this than HN commenters is their lived experience working as a teacher. Such experience is subject to bias, for example, selection bias favoring the way thing are because the ones who disagree never became teachers or got fired. More importantly, though, it's not very exclusive experience. Everyone has a reasonable amount of experience with the education system from their 13 years in it as a student. People also get to experience working with children from an adult perspective when they become parents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Schools in Japan don't have this problem

</comment><comment><USER45> about fucking time common sense caught up with academia

</comment><comment><USER46> Why did you bother having a child then? Really? You're excited until they wake up by themselves, get ready and go away? So what's the point of their life and yours intersecting? A few minutes after school to say 'hey' before they go off to do homework and sleep?

I appreciate that not everyone can do this, but my wife and I home school our daughter, and one of the very things we talk about is that we're glad we don't have to wake up earlier than our bodies need to get the child somewhere. That's not the main reason we home school, but it's a nice benefit.

Edit: I meant to add that the main reason we home school is to get to spend the most amount of time with her as we can. It's such a precious time and I wouldn't want to see her gone most of the day.

<comment><USER47> > _Why did you bother having a child then? Really?_

This is unduly personal and not in the spirit of civility which is supposed to govern this site. In fact it's a downright nasty response to cesarbs's perfectly cordial comment. Please don't post like this. If you'd left (or edited) out the first paragraph, the comment would have made your point without putting someone else down.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410231) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER33> By the way, @dang, is there a specific amount of karma after which I can post comments more often?

Most of the time I get questions as comments to my comments, and can't answer them because of "You are submitting too fast".

So I type my answer to that comment, leave the browser tab open, and wait an hour to submit it.

This obviously makes discussion with others quite problematic, and I've even thought about starting a second account just to be able to answer other comments with less than a few hours delay.

(Ironically, this comment was also posted in a similar way: I wrote it 2 hours before posting, but had to wait again and again for the "You are submitting too fast" to end).

<comment><USER47> This is the sort of thing that the site guidelines ask you to send to us at firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Any HN readers in Florence, Italy? - <AUTHOR>

Just moved to Florence, Italy, for a job. Any HN readers around? <comment><USER2> From experience, Italy is not the best place for hackers. I had to move out to find a decent job. There might be something in Milan or Rome but other way is really hard. Anyway, buon divertimento!

</comment><comment><USER3> We _were_ there for two weeks about a week ago. You're living in a lovely city!</comment>


Why most of us believe that exercise makes us thinner—and why we're wrong - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/print/?/news/sports/38001/ <comment><USER2> I took a nutrition class in college and had to read a few studies about the relationship between exercise and weight loss. The studies found that in the short term, there was little difference in both rate of weight loss and amount of weight loss in groups that used diet and exercise vs. diet alone. However they did find that those that exercised had a significantly higher success rate at maintaining their weight loss in the long term.</comment>


Charlie – Free HR platform for small businesses - <AUTHOR> https://www.charliehr.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm the target audience for Charlie - long running small business in the UK willing to spend money on a service that saves time and effort. However I wouldn't risk something as important as my HR on a company that has no visible form of financial sustainability. When the VC bubble bursts, my data is gone and it would be irresponsible of me to take that risk on behalf of my staff, suppliers and customers.

 _Edit_ People seem to be comparing it positively to Zenefits. From what I can tell, Zenefits raised >$500mm and has $60mm annual recurring revenue (ARR)[1]. They also recently fired 250 people, which is 17% of their workforce. This means that they have around 1500 people working there. If each person conservatively costs $100k/year, their staff costs are $150mm/year so they have a way to go before they're profitable. Then of course there's the ethical issues[2].

I don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong with CharlieHR and I wish them all the success in the world. I hope the product works and that in a few years, I'll be able to use the service of a business that is likely to continue operating.

[1] [http://uk.businessinsider.com/zenefits-missed-sales- projecti...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/zenefits-missed-sales-projections- by-a-lot-2016-2) [2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/technology/zenefits- scanda...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/technology/zenefits-scandal- highlights-perils-of-hypergrowth-at-start-ups.html)

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer - I know the founders and they're a really good crew. Super solid background in business and really care about creating a great product.

The business model for this is all based around providing pensions / pension brokering. Since all UK businesses have to transition to providing pensions over the next few years there's a huge opportunity in helping make it easy and painless and that's what the guys behind Charlie are focussed on.

Sorting out pensions is going to be a massive headache for both businesses and employees so there's a huge window for a startup to take that pain away and make it all seamless. They've got lots of companies using it already and it's very well built and well funded so I think they're in a great spot.

Will be interesting to see how they compete against Xero or perhaps integrate with them but in a pure HR/pensions play there's a lot of room to make a swoop

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Trying to figure out if US businesses can use this. Seems very UK-centric from my reading so far.

<comment><USER5> It's quite tricky to create HR software that works for the US and UK market, especially when the offering is free and they make the money from selling pensions which will almost certainly be a UK-centric provision.

So while US companies might be able to use it, they'll miss US specific functionality that US HR apps offer.

Source: I built and run [http://www.staffsquared.com](http://www.staffsquared.com), a competitor to CharlieHR (but we're not free!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks like it's focused on the UK, anything tailored for the US? HR is fairly regimented here and I want to ensure the free HR system will not land me in court.

<comment><USER7> Zenefits

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the idea of building a general platform and adding paid features, pensions are mentioned on the |product| page. Because pensions don't really exist much anymore for private business in the US most of the time, it got me thinking.

Since one of the important roles of HR staff is compliance with employment laws, it would probably be good for the guiding legal framework to be explicit in the description of the product.

<comment><USER9> Wow, you don't have pensions very often in America? Mind if I ask what alternatives you have, or if you are just paid your pension in cash for you to spend as you please.

<comment><USER10> Most places offer a 401(k). Here's the differences between the two [http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100314/whats- differe...](http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100314/whats-difference- between-401k-and-pension-plan.asp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great to see competition in this space that isn't a PEO. There's still a lot of room for disruption here.

</comment><comment><USER12> I know a bunch of businesses using Charlie HR. It gets great reviews.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just a heads up, the header on the security page [1] says "SSL and TSL". I see later on that you correctly say "TLS", but mistakes like that in headings don't spur confidence :)

[1] [https://www.charliehr.com/security](https://www.charliehr.com/security)

<comment><USER14> There are quite a few typos, "enrol" on the home page.

<comment><USER9> Just to put it out there that as far as I know, it is spelt "enrol" in most other countries to America. At least, England spells it with only one 'l' and that's where this company was made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py enough is enough with free products. I get freemium but this always turns into a messed up incentive structure where the service perceives no obligation to their bottom-tier users and they have to do something filthy to them to make money.

how about cheap-mium instead? keep the lights on with breakeven service.

half the appeal of freemium is that account signup and electronic payments are still pain points. Solve those problems and freemium's advantage narrows.

There's an uncomfortable parallel here with nation-states. Finland can afford to provide high-quality free education because their 'freemium mix' (i.e. tax base) is a healthy normal distribution. Not naming any names, but in 'freemium' countries where the GDP centers on top earners, there's tremendous tension about providing basic services and quality declines.

Point being: freemium is a bad model if your community structure is wrong and incentivizes a bad community structure even if you start out right.

<comment><USER15> I can see this becoming a very lengthy debate about the pros and cons of a freemium model, but the point I think is that many new companies offer this to help get their product into the hands of people who may otherwise shy away from them. I agree with you that it provides no incentive for companies to support their bottom-tier users, but if those same users find value in the service they eventually become paying customers who are confident on the platform and more likely to do business with them long-term. It's a marketing thing more than anything else. Not unlike drug dealers. Give em a taste and you'll get em hooked. :)</comment></comment>


If you are a hacker, exercise is not as hard as you think - <AUTHOR>

By 'the new' definition, a hacker is someone that builds stuff.
Part of the process of building stuff is tackling (and persevering on) problems that seem insurmountable for a number of reasons. Either you don't have the technical chops for one particular thing, or customers seem elusive or marketing seems bizarre.
Either way, part of being a hacker is just figuring it out. i.e. it is having the mental strength to push through.
That's all exercise is. It's about 80% mental, 20% physical.
I have led a sedentary lifestyle for at least the last 8 years (or more my wife would argue) and while I am still 'relatively young' (28), exercising was not something I was fond of (in the least). Perhaps it is partly due to my asthma (cliched...yes...I know), but I think it was because I overestimated the challenge.
Now that I have been exercising for the last 2 - 3 weeks, I have found that the hard part is starting (and being consistent day-in, day-out). But....the hard part is mental. Not so much physical (for me anyway). Programming and problem solving is also mentally taxing for me, so I realized that I developed the skills to deal with the mental roadblocks. It's the same ones I use when deciding to start working on something that has been stumping me. I have been doing that for the last few years - so while it's a bit uncomfortable, it's become a habit.
Now that I look at exercise like that - it's much easier to get up and do it.
Don't push yourself too hard right out the gate, and know your limits - if you feel dizzy and light-headed, that's your limit. Don't always push yourself to your limit at first.
Just do as much as you can. The important thing is not so much what you do initially, it's doing it every day (or 5 days for the week).
So...go be healthy. Just start...and keep starting. <comment><USER2> I've been told that I am a hacker by others, so I am going to offer up this advice for other hackers: Rock climbing indoors has been getting me into the best shape of my life. The first month is just getting stronger and being able to hold onto the wall. After that, it is an excellent combination of mental and physical. You can wear yourself out pretty easily in an hour doing whatever you want. But if you want to do all the cool stuff everybody seems to be able to do, you really have to sit, think, and watch every one else. After a certain point, it is impossible to power through a problem.

Plus, it's fairly addicting and a good time all around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good advice. Thanks for sharing. I haven't used it for exercise, but the oft- mentioned 'Seinfeld Calendar'[0] is a genuinely good aid in building a habit, I've found.

[0] [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity- se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been meaning to do this....but you are absolutely right!

<comment><USER2> google chains.cc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Once you get into a good exercise routing it will be easier. You will get more energy to hack away more. My best advise would be to do it early in the morning, its easier before working.

</comment><comment><USER5> Also, if a regular workout isn't mentally stimulating enough for you, do something more technically challenging: ie. rockclimbing, martial arts, crossfit, etc.</comment>


Coronavirus and Cyber Attacks Exploit a Common Weakness: Good Hygiene - <AUTHOR> https://xmcyber.com/coronavirus-and-cyber-attacks-exploit-a-common-weakness-good-hygiene/ <comment><USER2> > Coronavirus may be dominating discussions, but don't allow it to overshadow > the need for smart security practices.

Do we already have a new name for Corona related blog titles that have nothing to do with the disease other than using it to gain clicks or should we stick with distasteful clickbait? While the point raised is certainly true given the amount of companies facing the introduction of remote work, this is random and nothing more than an ad.</comment>


Saudi Arabia runs online database of women to track them, stop them running away - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/absher-saudi-website-men-control-women-stop-escape-2019-1 <comment><USER2> An anecdote.

I know a guy from a small country in that region that begins with Q and sounds like a common word for mucous membrane inflammation. His late father was an imam. He wears the traditional garb when he is home. He is a fairly standard [person from that country].

I asked him why he feels women shouldn't have equal rights to men.

The beginning of his response: "Well, it is medically proven that women are natural carriers of disease…"

That's the culture there.

EDIT: Removed the country name because I'm flying their airline tomorrow.

<comment><USER3> I recall seeing a video years ago (unable to locate it at the moment) with an imam explaining how science grounds the ruling that a woman's testimony is only worth half of a man's. He presented brain scans of a male brain and a female brain, explaining that men's brains light up in different areas when they speak versus when they recall memory. Women, on the other hand, use the same brain regions for speaking and for recollection. Thus, a woman's memory cannot be reliable, because when she speaks (which women do incessantly, so say the stereotypes), the memory is wiped out.

It is very, very difficult to combat pseudoscience draped with religious authority.

<comment><USER4> >It is very, very difficult to combat pseudoscience draped with religious authority.

Luckily, that never happens in the Western world.

<comment><USER2> Of course it does (and the sarcasm isn't lost on me), but nowhere near to the same extent.

At least not these days anyway.

<comment><USER5> Joel Olstein. It may be different but you can argue it's just as extreme.

<comment><USER2> No, I couldn't.

Nobody is being systematically murdered at the command of even America's nuttiest televangelists.

<comment><USER6> I'd also like to point out that America's nutty televangelists are a uniquely American problem. The rest of the "western world" is not remotely as religious as America.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They should ask themselves why the women want to run away, but i know, i'm just being overly gnarly again.

"Under her father's guardianship, she watched her teen brother spend a $1,600 monthly allowance as he pleased, while she begged for money to buy the most basic products. "I couldn't even buy anything for my period," she said. "It was my brother who paid for it, all the time, and he was younger than me.""

How awful that must be, for her to know that societies in foreign countries dont treat her like that..

<comment><USER8> > They should ask themselves why the women want to run away

I'm sure they do and the answer is certainly always something that can be blamed on the woman.

</comment></comment><comment> phoe-krk This is the same country that led a 2015 United Nations human rights panel.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why- one-of-the-worlds-worst-human-rights-offenders-is-leading-a-un-human-rights- panel)

<comment><USER9> Their criticism of Canada was correct, people just laughed at the person saying it.

Children's history books in the future won't include what people thought of the messenger at the time. Just that an issue came to light and a problem was fixed. So the irony doesn't really have much to say about the capacity to operate under the panel's guidelines.

<comment><USER10> I don't see anything about that issue in the article. Are you just wandering off or am I missing the segment?

<comment><USER9> It wasn't mentioned in the article, it is something they did while keeping a representative on that panel.

This thread:

"hey my country does horrible things (that I'm totally exempt from in the upper echelon) but I'm not allowed to research what other countries do on the panel formed specifically to do that"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Blood oil, another reason to get off our hydrocarbon addiction. Without the constant influx of cash, having lost all their mighty power, it will be child's play to neutralize these sickos and eradicate their morbid culture. (Which, just to be 100% clear, is the specific, very narrowly defined pastoral clan culture of the region.)

<comment><USER12> US actually produces the most oil of any country now. I'd like to see someone do the math and see if it would be cheaper to leave the middle east and save money on wars and just subsidize our own oil production to make up the difference for any price increase consumers might see. Of course that won't happen because war is a industry now

What's also amazing to me is seeing this culture defended by the left, when if most muslims were given power in Europe they would strip away most rights for women and homosexuals that the left also fought for

<comment><USER13> >What's also amazing to me is seeing this culture defended by the left

You're going to need a citation for that. Projecting such a large claim against such a large heterogeneous blob of people with absolutely zero evidence to back it up should not be acceptable on HN

<comment><USER14> It's amusing and somewhat annoying to see people attempt to categorize all Muslims as wanting to destroy the rights of women in the US while the rights of women in the US are under very real siege by Christian fundamentalists tearing apart bits and pieces for things like reproductive rights.

The left isn't afraid of Muslims in the US because not only are they usually more progressive than their fundamentalist counterparts but also because they're a minority population with very little political power.

It's a rather disengenous argument. I see very little fear or animosity pointed towards the groups that are actively in power and trying to tear things down versus the scapegoat being blamed for the actions of another country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There have been a few high profile cases of women leaving and trying to get asylum lately, but there's a weird case of two Saudi sisters who were found dead after they had tried to claim asylum.

[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/saudi-sisters-whose- bod...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/saudi-sisters-whose-bodies-were- found-bound-together-near-hudson-n961541)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-crime-sisters- sa...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-crime-sisters-saudi/father- of-saudi-sisters-found-dead-in-new-york-rejects-suicide-finding-idUSKCN1PO23E)

"""" Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 23, who had previously been living in Virginia, were found along the rocky Manhattan shore of the Hudson River with duct tape around their waist and ankles. A New York Police Department official has said they likely entered the water alive and were said to have preferred suicide over returning to Saudi Arabia.

Their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered that the Saudi Embassy in Washington had ordered the family to leave the United States because the daughters had applied for political asylum """"

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe Apple should revoke the certificate for the iOS app shown in the article.

<comment><USER17> This is actually a really good idea!

A headline like "Apple facilitates subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia" might have a chance of making that happen. If Cisco helped build the Great Firewall, they'd be excoriated here on HN. This seems similar.

<comment><USER18> If?? Cisco did contribute technology to Golden Shield project! [http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/03/china%E2%80%99s-go...](http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/03/china%E2%80%99s-golden- shield-cisco-systems-complicit)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I cannot understand how the feminist movement and women's rights and welfare organisations aren't in all out war with Saudi Arabia.

The only theory I can come up with is that most feminists believe in freedom of religion as well as women's freedom and the conflict between the two induces a sort of moral paralysis.

<comment><USER4> I don't know what "all out war" is supposed to look like, but how do you know they aren't?

Have you done research into what feminists believe, or if there is any feminist activism in that direction?

Because I'm certain that a lot of them are vehemently opposed to the way women are treated in Saudi Arabia, including feminists _in_ Saudi Arabia.

<comment><USER19> If there are any initiatives vex in that direction, all I can say is their publicity activities are unimpressive to say the least. Have you heard of any? I mean sure, go and find some now we're talking about it, but before?

Actually even if you can find some by going and looking, I am interested.

<comment><USER20> There are some protests in Australia a few weeks ago to let a Saudi woman in [http://time.com/5498790/australia-topless-protest-saudi- runa...](http://time.com/5498790/australia-topless-protest-saudi-runaway/)

There's the more minor controversy of people criticising Mariah Carey for having a concert there [https://spy.nzherald.co.nz/celebrity/mariah-carey- slammed-fo...](https://spy.nzherald.co.nz/celebrity/mariah-carey-slammed-for- saudi-arabia-performance/)

But the bulk of the work for Saudi Arabia is being done by Saudi activists (which is unsurprising) [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/worl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/world/middleeast/saudi- arabia-women-driving-ban.amp.html)

I think the reason there aren't more is that protests are pretty much always about a local issue (which is true of all protests, it's why HN cares a lot about privacy in the US and EU but doesn't agitate as much about it in places like the Middle East or China). I think you're confusing lack of large scale protests and thinking it's okay, to use HN userbase as an example I know people who have protested various US privacy laws who haven't been to a protest about the Great Firewall. That clearly doesn't mean they don't think it's a human rights issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Control over finances, movement, and who someone can talk to are textbook signs of abuse. It's crazy to see it engrained even at a governmental level.

<comment><USER21> It's probably no coincidence that domestic abuse is so rampant there as well, not that living as someone else's property isn't already abusive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The West particularly the US, if it wants to restore its image as a proponent of freedom and democracy and counter the growing geopolitical influence of China at global stage, will have to reconsider its relationship with KSA. There is no way in which West can acclaim its moral policing stature in the global arena if KSA is allowed to continue barbaric customs and practices as rules of law. West has made severe human rights abuse allegations against China. Meanwhile KSA literally chops off heads in public places with a fucking sword, stones women to death in public places for adultery, treats women as second class citizens by compelling them to always be in custody of a male and many other barbaric laws and yet the entire West calls KSA its ally. This kind of double standards makes people question the West's sincerity when dealing with human rights abuse. It makes people think that human rights is just a propaganda tool that the West props up when-ever it wants a regime change and the West doesn't really care about human rights. West already lost its war of ideas in Syria where governments from Brussels to Washington couldn't muster up public support to oust a ruler who was gassing children. People just asked "well if you are so for human rights, then why dont you take action against KSA?." The establishment couldn't muster up a convincing answer to this question and couldn't rally its electorate for a war.

Also KSA's cozy relationship with West and how KSA makes US fight its war signals to other countries that as long as you have pockets big enough to buy politicians, lobbyists, bankers etc, US will be your ally even if pedophilia is legal and practiced in the country. Sickening and damn shame.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am going to go home tonight and tell my wife she is forbidden from leaving the house all weekend. I will talk to everyone in a week after i recover from the injuries i am bound to sustain from such a comment.

Joking aside, it is sad, in the US we still have so many sex inequality issues, it is so difficult to fathom countries THIS far behind us in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER24> Saudi-Arabia, together with slave-holding Qatar, the Arab Emirates and all the other countries that feed off Western oil money but completely ignore any basic human rights standards, should be sanctioned into oblivion.

If that fails, why is literally the entire tech world doing business with them? Why are their internet uplinks still active, why do Western companies trade with them _and why has no one in the SV a major problem with Saudi investment funds_?

We as techies are as complicit in enabling these abusers as our governments are.

<comment><USER25> The citizens of the US and UK have voted time and time again for politicians that support these regimes, as long as they keep buying weapons and help support all the jobs at Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics and now the tech companies.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, same for us Germans. Leopard tanks and G3/G36 rifles are just too profitable to not export into a civil war region (which is actually forbidden by German law)...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> from many stories it sounds like fathers, brothers, etc. not just submit to the will and traditions of the society - it seems that they really feel about their female relatives as something like a property and are really cruel toward them. I kind of wonder how a natural biological strong feeling of kinship toward your family members is getting that override to such an extent here.

<comment><USER27> The history of patriarchy shows that kinship rarely trumps the desire for dominance and control.

<comment><USER28> I guess they are afraid to end up with a dozen catladies instead of grandchildren. For a traditional society, something like the west must be looking like a particular disgusting Nurgle cult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > and Interpol had already come calling to her flatmate

Is Interpol involved here because it's a possible international missing persons case? Or was it already a "criminal" investigation based on a warrant issued by Saudi Arabia?

<comment><USER29> This is the part that I was really shocked to see. International law clearly protects the right to leave one's country freely and relocate to any country why one may be lawfully present, as well as the right to receive asylum from oppressive governments.

<comment><USER30> Sure, but they're not going to say she's wanted for leaving the country. They'll flag her as a missing person, or for the theft described in the story:

> Creeping barefoot out of the bedroom, al-Mohaimeed gathered her family's > credit cards, keys, passports, and, crucially, their phones. This would slow > them down, she thought, when they tried to follow her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> All saudi women should get out of the country and solve the problem. No women, no new generation, and end of said practice.

<comment><USER32> All the slaves in Qatar should just do the same. That would solve the slavery problem. And while we're at it, sex trafficking victims should just stop being trafficked. That would solve the human trafficking problem.

Or maybe people could just stop treating other people as property. Interesting that wasn't your suggested solution. Perhaps because it's not that easy?

Your comment (though said in jest - I hope) is dismissive of the very real and very dangerous consequences Saudi women face in trying to exercise their most basic of human rights. You're putting the responsibility of "escaping" on the victims. Don't you think they've thought of that? Many have risked everything to do just that.

What does your comment add to the conversation? Nothing of value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Saudi Arabia is one of the best arguments against moral relativism.

<comment><USER34> I wonder if somewhere out there in space some weird looking alien just typed "Earth is one of the best arguments against moral relativism".

<comment><USER35> I sure hope so.

<comment><USER34> Me too.

Though now I'm wondering if such a civilization existed if it wouldn't be part of their moral imperative to educate other cultures about their morality, or if being sufficiently moral assumes that other entities need the ability to explore morality on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sounds like a good opportunity for some hacktivism to me. If you wanted to reduce chances of detection you could leave the web portal functional but attack the SMS infrastructure, causing certain texts to appear to have been rejected by carrier or similar. Or even distribute some malicious Android apps to the Arabic market requesting SMS permissions and silently intercepting these texts.

</comment><comment><USER36> With software systems that are being strategically used for abuse in guise of its declared purpose, I wonder if there are underground hacker groups or individuals who are using their skills and resources to help quell such abuses.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you want to know what all those airplane passenger data sharing agreements are.

</comment><comment><USER38> Riiight. There must be a Borat (of KZ) joke here somewhere...

<comment><USER39> Do you know why I tolerate that extremely distasteful shit? The "Borat" meme?

That's because someone thought it was a small thing, then made fun of it, then persisted. I actually think that no other type of language can reach the people that are in that mode, and pull them in to what I'd call "get your head out your ass mode"</comment></comment>