United Broke Its Contract with Flyers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-13/united-broke-its-contract-with-frequent-flyers <comment><USER3> The biggest issue was that United made clear that the implicit agreement between itself and its customers is void. Their policies and procedures reflect a certain attitude that many potential fliers didn't realize were part of the deal. And there's no walking that back.

<comment><USER4> > no walking that back

I don't think it's as dire as you make it sound. The reason is that the real implicit agreement most of us have with our society is that everyone is as helpful and congenial as possible as long as it keeps the wheels turning. Once you run afoul of the airline, or the sheriff, or the HR department, you can be stomped down in the blink of an eye, and even if you successfully challenge it legally, at the end of the day you've still lost some amount of money, time, or health fighting it.

Someone in that mindset is going to look at their Expedia search and _still sort by price_ , because they realize that every airline is playing the same game, and the one in a million chance of being forcibly removed from the plane over a technicality is just one of those gambles that everyone takes whenever they step outside their house.

(That said, if I sort by price and Delta and United come up the same, I'm picking Delta.)

<comment><USER5> > (That said, if I sort by price and Delta and United come up the same, I'm > picking Delta.)

Except that the Delta will probably just be the United sold via Delta!

<comment><USER6> Is that possible? That you actively try to avoid United and still end up in a United plane?

<comment><USER7> If you're not paying attention, yes. I checked flights on Kayak from SF to Vancouver and a lot of the results look like this:

Tue, May 2 Air Canada logo 10:45a – 1:01p Air Canada• Operated by United 2h 16m SFO – YVR nonstop Flight details

That's because United and Air Canada "codeshare", meaning you can book with United or Air Canada but that flight is on a United plane.

Of course, it goes the other way: you can book an Air Canada plane but use a United flight number.

[https://www.united.com/CMS/en- US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotio...](https://www.united.com/CMS/en- US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotions/Pages/AirlinePartners.aspx)

[https://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO- YVR/2017-05-02/2017-05-07?...](https://www.kayak.com/flights/SFO- YVR/2017-05-02/2017-05-07?fs=specificleg=SFOYVR1493719200000AC51151;providers=-AA)

<comment><USER8> Air Canada and United are both Star Alliance (like Lufthansa, Thai, and many others). Delta is SkyTeam. Booking Delta and flying United metal is much less likely.

<comment><USER6> Wait, so flying Lufthansa could have me end up in United? That is something to keep in mind when booking tickets in Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >The contract allows the airline to deny boarding involuntarily in case of overbooking. But that's not what happened; the airplane wasn't oversold. And Dao wasn't denied boarding.

Every article about this story needs to repeat this line.

<comment><USER10> The article also goes on to say (in essence) that even if you assume that United was in the wrong on this point, it constitutes a breach of contract on United's part. At that point, Dao is free to sue for breach of contract...but United is free to ask him to leave.

I'm not justifying United's actions (or that of the police)...just saying that Dao unfortunately probably wouldn't have a legal argument against being asked to leave.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that is true. If you had a valid lease with a landlord for your apartment, your landlord can't just kick you out of your apartment before the end of the lease if you haven't violated any of the contractual terms of the lease.

<comment><USER12> That is because tenancy has a depth of laws surrounding them. The only way to kick a tenant out of his house if with an order from the Court and action by the sheriff (at least in most states). But your right to stay on the property of another person, outside of tenancy arrangements, do not have that body of law.

<comment><USER11> You are absolutely correct that a whole host of laws govern the landlord- tenant relationship. Given how regulated air travel is, as well as United's status as a common carrier, I wouldn't be surprised that there are also similarly restrictive laws for air travel, so I still question whether Dr. Dao did have a duty to vacate his seat despite the breach of contract by United.

<comment><USER13> The actual lawyer who wrote this article believes Dao did have a duty to vacate, so I think that's a bit more authoritative than our layperson opinions here. Of course, only a court could really answer that question, and I'm sure United will try hard to settle this out of court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let's just note that giving the guy a 1st class ticket or even a private jet to his destination would have been less expensive. And could even have enhanced UA's image and business.

<comment><USER15> They could just as easily have flown their employees to Louisville on a private jet.

I have even seen it suggested that the employees could even have gone by taxi, though I don't know if that was really practical.

Anyway, seems to me the best solution would have been to simply keep raising their offer for compensation until they got enough volunteers. Whatever they had to pay would have been far less than the $1.6B hit they took to their stock price.

(I actually like Delta's solution the best: they ask you when you check in how much you would accept to get bumped. It's fair and efficient.)

<comment><USER16> > I actually like Delta's solution the best: they ask you when you check in > how much you would accept to get bumped. It's fair and efficient.

This is kind of like a recruiter asking you what your current and expected salary is. I wouldn't call it fair and it is only efficient for the airline which can then use that information to bump customers with the lowest thresholds, maximizing producer (the airline) surplus.

<comment><USER17> The typical way to do it is to more or less hold an auction, increasing the offer until enough people take it. Either way the people with the lowest thresholds end up getting bumped. These are the people with the least urgency and/or most need so I don't really see what's unfair about it.

<comment><USER18> Hold a reverse auction instead - start high and lower it until you get just enough takers.

<comment><USER19> That's a terrible idea. It would be a PR disaster each and every time you tried to do it.

<comment><USER20> I've been in boarding areas where this happened. The offer started at $400 and ended up at $1,000 by the time they got enough people to accept. No one was outraged (and I was quite happy to get 2x$1,000 in vouchers in exchange for a minor inconvenience).

<comment><USER21> That's not a reverse auction.

A reverse action is offering $2K. More people than we need. OK, how about $1500? Still too many. $1000? OK, right number.

"Wait! You offered us $2K and now you're only going to give us $1K. Lying POSs."

At least that's what I think people are referring to as a reverse auction in this context. I'm not sure if that's a totally accurate description or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is a bill in the works with a simple rule: you cannot remove seated passengers for non-safety reasons [1]. If you care about this issue, please call your U.S. Senators and ask them to prioritize it.

[1] [http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/328497-dem-plans- bi...](http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/328497-dem-plans-bill-to- prohibit-airlines-from-forcibly-removing-passengers)

<comment><USER13> I don't think this is necessary, or even desired. United's Contract of Carriage specifies conditions for removing someone from a plane (all of which I think are reasonable). If they violated that contract (which it seems they have), then they're legally liable, and Dao (and the other three passengers) have grounds to sue. That's how it's _supposed_ to work, and I think that's sufficient. Successful suits (or out of court settlements) and negative PR will make it unpalatable for airlines to do this as a matter of habit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> In the social era airlines (or any company for that matter) shouldn't be worried about breaching or keeping their contracts on paper... they should be worried about 1-click brand damage from a frustrated customer screaming on Twitter or Facebook. Social media is unforgiving, customer experience is everything.

<comment><USER24> You say social media is unforgiving, but is it really? In the short term, sure, but you think this will have a lasting impact on United? Social media is fickle, if nothing else. It will move on to something else soon enough, and completely forget about this incident.

<comment><USER25> They've said they aren't going to call police just to remove passengers anymore. I bet they stick with that for quite some time.

<comment><USER26> Yeah. Maybe people will forget about the incident soon if nothing happens, but they're now primed to think United is even scummier if it ever does something similar in the foreseeable future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have a idea. Well, several.

1\. Let's stop overbooking in the airline industry. The seats are already prepaid for. Who cares if a passenger shows or not? (It'd be different if they were losing revenue when a passenger doesn't show up; they aren't).

2\. Let's take responsibility (the airline) if we fuck up (or an act of gawd enables) a situation where our own staff can't get where to a destination they need to be in per our own scheduling. This means we don't bump customers _involuntarily_ for our fuck-up. If not enough paying customers volunteer so be it: We'll eat the impact of our fuck-up of not properly planning how to get our own staff from point B to point B (whether that means finding an alternative for them to get there, delaying some other flight, whatever).

The crux is this entire situation seems to be four distinct matters:

\- Overbooking (unnecessary)

\- Staff logistics (contingency plans, accepting consequences)

\- Involuntary bumping (goes away with addressing the former two matters)

\- Security / policing efforts for matters that aren't being handled amicably in the moment by a disagreeing party (standard police matter I presume, which has a body of knowledge and skill associated with it which may have been lacking here or needs to be adopted to plane boarding situations)

<comment><USER28> I might be ok with overbooking if they got rid of involuntary bumping and had to auction off being bumped until someone accepted the price.

<comment><USER29> I don't think introducing an unbounded liability is the solution to this (or perhaps any) problem. Would this work for 99% of flights? Sure. But it's just asking to be gamed.

<comment><USER28> You could counter game it by not overbooking. Or start at like 10k and auction down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Let's also remember that David Dao was physically assaulted, which is a separate matter and that cop should be charged for the crime of using excessive force.

<comment><USER31> How was he physically assaulted?

He was told he'd be removed forcefully and the man said he didn't care. He was removed forcefully with adequate force.

<comment><USER32> you can find the answer to your question here: [https://www.google.com/search?q=united+dao](https://www.google.com/search?q=united+dao)

<comment><USER31> I seen the video.

They literally just pull him from his seat. I don't know how else you would forcibly remove someone whose resisting getting out of their seat.

<comment><USER33> [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/assault)

<comment><USER31> Oh cmon.

Going by literal definitions, an officer tackling a man out of the way of a bus would technically be a "physical assault". But if your headline was "Officer physically assaults man", people are going to have a much different impression.

Tell me whats wrong with pulling a man out of his seat when you are ordered to remove someone from a seat and that person refuses to leave peacefully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Title just gave me an epiphany. Could members of that flight sue as a class for trauma/emotional distress?

<comment><USER35> They certainly can. That will be why everyone on the aircraft has been issued a refund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "There's nothing illegal about breaching a contract."

No there isn't. But there is something illegal about lying to police, filing false police reports, and using such false pretenses to assault and batter someone by proxy. There is no question United did this, it's illegal, and it's criminal. They should be charged by the prosecutor as should the cops who did the actual beating. They are _equally_ responsible as United. The police failed to investigate and beat up an innocent person because of their failure to understand the situation. They should lose their jobs and pensions; ideally they should go to jail.

<comment><USER37> That's pretty far off on basically every point.

There's no such thing as "using false pretenses to assault and batter someone by proxy". If you have authority to ask someone to leave, and call the police to enforce that, you have no control or responsibility over how they go about doing that.

Regarding "lying to police" and "filing false police reports", all the police need to be concerned about is that he was asked to leave by someone with authority to do so, and refuses to leave. Airline pilots and other such proprietors generally have broad discretion to require people to leave. If he has a contract that requires him to be transported, then he has a civil claim against the airline, but the order to leave by the captain is still entirely legitimate.

It is also not the responsibility of the police to investigate the reasons behind a request to leave and determine if they are legitimate or not according to contracts. The law recognizes that the courts are for making real determinations of facts, officers on a scene have broad discretion to do what appears to be the law based on the information they have at the time. And in this case, they were entirely right - the crew does have the authority to demand that someone leave and does not need to justify that to anyone. Failure to provide the service under contract is a civil claim to be addressed in court later. Or, the short version, this classic applies - you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.

I really don't get the need in these media sensation cases to burn everyone involved at the stake. Isn't it bad enough what United actually did wrong, which is to have a dumb policy for how to handle overbookings and crew transport? For nobody to look at the situation there and step back and try to find someone else more willing to take another flight?

There's a reason why we have due process instead of lynch mobs - the next person to make a mistake and be the target of the internet frenzy could be you. If you make a mistake someday and it gets blown up on the internet, wouldn't you rather face a reasoned punishment for the actual laws it can be proven that you actually broke, instead of having your life completely destroyed because everyone's really pissed off?

<comment><USER38> > _If you have authority to ask someone to leave, and call the police to > enforce that, you have no control or responsibility over how they go about > doing that._

It's actually highly questionable whether United had that authority. They are bound by contract, they are bound by regulations. They did not have the right to remove him or prevent boarding via overbooking regulations, as the passenger was already seated, and the plane was not overbooked. Also, they were not in the air, meaning the pilot does _not_ have unlimited rights to control who is on the plane. Frankly, I see no legal means for United at all to remove him from the plane.

They certainly did not have the authority via their own contract, the article goes into that.

It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights. Consumers do have rights, there are contracts, laws and regulations. It is also not at all evident why the cops should follow the orders of United. Since United was in the wrong and did not have the authority, it was just wrong for the cops to follow their orders. They already got punished, and it is absolutely possible this will have more legal consequences for them. And for United.

<comment><USER37> > It's actually highly questionable whether United had that authority.

I was thinking about this some more, and I would think that they do. Consider what would happen if, instead of the actual situation, the passenger was being removed for being highly obnoxious. Maybe if he was sexually harassing flight attendants or intentionally making a mess or something. In that case, the commander of the aircraft might also demand that he leave, without needing to cite an exact law that he broke and prove that he broke it.

I'm not saying that the actual removal in this case was right. I am saying that the ability of bad actors to behave in ways that are obnoxious and interfere with normal operations yet technically do not break any specific laws is the reason why property owners, vehicle commanders, etc generally have broad authority, recognized and enforced by law, to demand that anyone leave at any time without needing a reason. The law only specifies a few minor exceptions to this based on certain very specific types of discrimination.

I would consider United to have abused that right in this case, but that's why the system is that if the commander says that you're off, then you're off, and the police don't hold some mini-trial on board the plane to figure out what if any laws were broken.

> It's corporate propaganda to claim consumers have no rights.

I don't think anybody is arguing that. It's a matter of exactly what rights do they have, and how those rights are to be enforced. He does have the right to either be transported or refunded his fare, but that is to be enforced by a civil court of law at a later date, not by a snap decision by whatever cop happens to show up.

<comment><USER39> The case you're describing is specifically listed as a valid reason passengers can be kicked off of flights in the relevant regulations. There is no evidence that Dr Dao was being disruptive or causing a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Where's the fine print on "excessive force"? The officer(s) involved in manhandling Dr. Dao need to be brought to justice as well!

<comment><USER31> How was he manhandled?

They used enough force to pull him out of the seat and stopped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Couldn't United claim that there were four fewer 'available seats' than normal on this flight and thus it was oversold? It doesn't resolve the question of whether he was denied boarding or involuntarily removed but it does seem to be a reasonable interpretation of the first part of the contract.

<comment><USER42> Maybe they could, but it seems like a weak argument to me given that they let everyone get seated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's stronger than just "Broke Its Contract with Flyers". United explicitly broke FAA rules, in both incidents in the last week.

Both were already seated, when someone more important to them arrived (too late). Both of them violated not any of the FAA rules by denying to leave the plane or change seats.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ah, the old implicit contract of don't beat your customers.

</comment><comment><USER45> Am I the only one who interpreted the title as breaking a contract with the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team?

</comment><comment><USER46> The article isn't claiming that united broke its contract with frequent flyers -- it's discussing the contract included in _every_ ticket. The Bloomberg (and therefore HN) title got this wrong.

<comment><USER47> Good point. s/Frequent//.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> [Deleted]

<comment><USER49> >The only person who should go to jail is the person who thought he was so much more important than everyone else on his plane that he was the only one who refused to leave when asked, legally, by a police officer. Not only did he think he was more important than everyone on HIS plane, he thought he was more important than the people on the plane that was going to get cancelled because it didn't have a flight crew. Running back onto a plane, screaming, after being removed by law enforcement is a crime. He should go to jail.

This is such a crazy level of corporate apology that it's got to be sarcastic. United was not in the right to remove him. He stood up to that. If United really wanted to make room they should go for the market-based solution of just continuing to increase the price they were willing to pay for you to vacate your seat.

<comment><USER48> [Deleted]

<comment><USER50> Screaming and bleeding, don't forget. You didn't answer his comment though, why didn't they offer more money?

Where is your compassion?

<comment><USER51> And did they offer cash, or just a voucher?

<comment><USER52> They were offering $800 worth of vouchers, but it's multiple vouchers where you can only use 1 at a time and they expire in a year.

<comment><USER51> God... vouchers are useless unless you travel and want to do it with United. If they really care to avoid messing up their image they need to give cash...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Ok, here it is, basically, as I heard it in some reasoned reporting the other day:

The contract allows them to reschedule you. Period. You can be at the gate -- or even boarded -- with your "normal" fare, and a passenger can show up and pay full fare -- say a grand or two versus your $200 ticket.

It's economically advantageous for the airline to bump you and give your seat to the last-minute, full fare passenger. Even after comping you say $400 (and that's often in their script, not in actually, fungible dollars) for your inconvenience.

And, per the report, they will! Big surprise.

In short (in my words), you don't really have a ride until the plane is in the air.

If you think this is "unfair", might I suggest... gasp, some regulation?

<comment><USER54> It's not that simple, as is usually the case when law and contracts are involved.

I suspect this will take some actual legal proceeding for there to be broad agreement.

Things that make it complex:

\- Airlines are "common carriers". So they are subject to laws above and beyond a mom-and-pop restaurant on issues like refusal of service.

\- They publish a "contract of carriage".

\- Overbooking didn't happen, so those laws don't offer any protection

\- They can't have multiple meanings of the term "boarded" and switch meanings to use it to their advantage depending on the sitation. Denied boarding has to happen before boarding.

\- The door wasn't shut, and the passenger did not assault or intimidate the crew. So "interfering with a flight crew" isn't on the table.

<comment><USER53> Well, then, looks like I have to pay attention to this again and update my understanding.

At the same time, this sounds like... regulation! Some form of restriction on how the terms may be interpreted and executed.

I am not entirely happy with the situation. I want to know that when I purchase a ticket to go somewhere, I'm going -- absent equipment failure or some act of God. (Or, the occasional drunken pilot...)

But, it is what it is. And I get a bit tired of all the outcry when much of such is basically coming from the people who made it this way -- through the governments they've voted for, or not voted for, as the case may be.

<comment><USER13> > _And I get a bit tired of all the outcry when much of such is basically > coming from the people who made it this way -- through the governments they > 've voted for, or not voted for, as the case may be._

Not even so much that: we, as passengers, are in part responsible as well, due to the vast majority of us picking flights through only one metric: ticket price. Economy passengers are not willing to pay higher ticket prices for better service, and yet still complain about baggage, food, and entertainment fees, and fewer route choices and consolidation. Economy fares have been a race to the bottom for decades now. You get what you pay for. If you want to pay less, you'll get less.

That doesn't excuse United breaking their contract, and it doesn't excuse the excessive use of force, but it does put it in context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is one of the cases in law where everyone wants to argue about the contract but no one wants to sit down and read the thing.

Here contract of carriage [https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract- of-carriag...](https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of- carriage.aspx#sec25)

We can read the definitions section of the contract where it defines oversold

>Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats.

So does this apply to this case - yes, even though this individual was removed to accommodate UA employees the fact was there were more passengers holding valid tickets than there were available seats

Now scroll down to Rule 25 which gives the provisions for what would happen in the case of oversold flights - one of which allows for involuntarily denying passengers

>Boarding Priorities - If a flight is Oversold, no one may be denied boarding against his/her will until UA or other carrier personnel first ask for volunteers who will give up their reservations willingly in exchange for compensation as determined by UA. If there are not enough volunteers, other Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA's boarding priority

The article may have one valid argument - that the language of the contract says "boarding" not "leaving once already seated" but I don't know how much of a difference that would make in legal terms. Is there really a world of difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.

It's possible that you might get this in front of a sympathetic jury and get an award. But as a lawyer, under the law it's pretty clear that United did not breach any contract. And This remains true no matter what talking heads on TV are saying.

<comment><USER56> > So does this apply to this case - yes, even though this individual was > removed to accommodate UA employees the fact was there were more passengers > holding valid tickets than there were available seats

There were an equal number of passengers holding valid, confirmed tickets and available seats. Until United decided to reduce the number of available seats to make room for employees who did not hold valid, confirmed tickets.

> the language of the contract says "boarding" ... Is there really a world of > difference between not being let on the plane and being asked to leave once > you've taken your seat. I don't think there is.

That is ridiculous. The act of getting on the plane and taking a seat is literally the definition of the word "boarding". Once you have boarded, you can no longer be denied boarding because you've already done it. They didn't redefine the term to mean something weird in the Rule 1 - Definitions section, so they need to abide by the normal meaning of the term.

<comment><USER55> You are defining "boarding" narrowly as the act of getting onto a plane. I think it's clear that wasn't what's meant by the contract and it is only being interpreted in this narrow way because people are angry with United. Reading boarding in the contract suggests that it it intended to refer to the whole process before the flight.

The contract says "more passengers than available seats" not "more passengers than seats" if it were the latter your argument would be valid, in this case, seats may be unavailable for any number of reasons including there were other passengers or employees who took priority - not great customer service and I won't be flying United anytime soon - but from a standpoint of legal liability, it is well within the wording of the contract.

<comment><USER57> You're wrong. "boarding" comes from the nautical world and has a specific meaning. This is one of the times where the colloquial meaning and legal meaning are identical. You "board" when you enter the vessel/aircraft. There is a reason they check your ticket at the gate: because that's the legally accepted procedure for verifying you are a paying passenger and transitioning from the "not-boarded" to "boarded" state. Different rules kick in (both by contract and by law) once they scan your ticket and let you climb __aboard __the craft.

The Dr in this case had boarded the plane.

If United wanted to bump passengers to make room for crew (ignoring whether that was permissible under the "overbooked" definition), they needed to do it _before_ they let the passengers on the plane.

Furthermore that was an entirely knowable event. The moment they started letting people on the plane they already knew the crew members were running late. They could have had the gate agents ask for volunteers before anyone got on. They screwed up twice.

There is no defense of United to be had here. Everyone can stop apologizing for them now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So many armchair lawyers who have suddenly become so expert in the fine print of contracts of carriage.

Yes, United should have done anything reasonable to get a volunteer to get out of their seat and leave the flight. But this fine parsing around when an airline is allowed to deplane someone is pretty silly. What if the captain determined that he needed to take some weight off the flight? Would the airline be allowed to involuntarily deplane someone in that case?

And guess what. I have been bumped off a flight after I was sitting down for unknown reasons. (It was quite a while ago.) And I managed to avoid getting into a tussle with airport security over it.

<comment><USER54> You're playing armchair lawyer as well though.

There are valid reasons an airline can forcibly remove boarded passengers. It's not clear that the United situation(s) were valid though.

It's fairly complex due to "common carrier" laws, airport city laws, as well as United's own contract of carriage. I can't claim 100% that they weren't technically allowed to do what they did. But there is more than one aviation attorney chiming in and claiming they had no legal standing.

United's CEO said as much himself.

 _" We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off, to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."_

The word "can't" versus "won't" seems deliberate.

Edit: Also, a pet peeve of mine. You've probably heard a flight attendant tell someone something along the lines of "It's illegal to disobey instructions from a flight crew." That's complete bullshit. There is a federal law about "interfering with a flight crew". But it only applies after the doors are closed, and only applies in situations that involve "assaulting or intimidating a flight crew".

<comment><USER58> > But it only applies after the doors are closed

Ding ding ding. Which means all the stupid pontification over whether or not the flight was "boarded" is borderline ridiculous and likely disingenuous at best.

If this flight had closed the doors and then came back to the gate to remove the passenger? All these arguments would have weight. But it's quite clear to me that he was IDB'ed like any myriad other situations I've witnessed. Being IDB'ed makes no difference if you're at the gate or on the plane - <USER2> happens after you board as well. Has no one here been on a flight that had to IDB someone prior to the door closing due to weight issues?

Thus, it's simple trespass once he refused to leave. Either the flight was a flight and subject to all those rules, or it was just a piece of private property sitting on the ground.

I can see no way for someone to make a successful argument that once your feet move past the threshold of the aircraft you have an inviolable right to be there regardless of the wishes of the aircraft owner.

<comment><USER21> >Has no one here been on a flight that had to IDB someone prior to the door closing due to weight issues?

In fact, on a United flight just a few months ago the captain got on the intercom and said they had weight issues because of headwinds on the flight path and they might have to deplane some people. As it turned out, they were able to remove some cargo and otherwise get the numbers to work so everyone could stay.

I have no idea about trespass etc. but flights have legitimate reasons why they _have to_ deplane some people. Now it's _much_ better if they can get people to agree to do so voluntarily with compensation. But one way or the other, they sometimes have to get some people to leave a plane and making a fuss vs. not making a fuss isn't a very good criterion.

<comment><USER54> They do have detailed criteria for when it's okay to deplane someone. It's their "Rule 21" [https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of- carriag...](https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of- carriage.aspx#sec21)

This case doesn't meet that criteria.

That, and the US "common carrier" laws that put more onus on their ability to refuse service is exactly why this is so grey.

Hopefully some news organization will convene a panel of aviation attorneys so we can hear from experts. I suspect United will settle out of court, which would keep us from hearing what the real answer is.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but that doesn't seem to cover "Oops. We don't have available seats." Surely no one is suggesting that an airline can't deplane a passenger because there's a broken seat or because some condition means the plane will be overweight if they fill all the seats. There are circumstances where an airline has to reduce the number of passengers one way or the other. (Of course, there are reasonable ways and decidedly less reasonable ways to do that.)

<comment><USER54> I'd throw that into the "you made your own bed" category. Either change the carriage of contract (if you can, being a common carrier) to account for it in the future, or make offers until you get a volunteer. Everyone has a price.

Certainly when the situation is reversed, airlines have no problem with you losing your unrefundable/non-transferable ticket price when unforeseen circumstances force you to cancel plans. And they cite the contract if you complain.

<comment><USER21> In practice, offering more money is often going to be the right answer. (Unless the plane is full of multi-millionaires, offers in the low $Ks are going to find takers pretty quickly.) Of course, there does come a point where you say we're just going to sit at the gate until someone gets off and cancel the flight if no one does.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Quantum Or Not, New Supercomputer Is Certainly Something Else - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2013/05/22/185532608/quantum-or-not-new-supercomputer-is-certainly-something-else?sc=17&f=1001 <comment><USER2> This is a puff piece.

As <http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400> makes clear, the current incarnation of D-Wave looks cool and costs a fortune, but is slower than a desktop PC running properly-optimized code. And that optimized code only needed to be written once because it solves the problem that D-Wave asks us to reduce all problems to before we can use D-Wave.

<comment><USER3> As <http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400> admits, large-scale entanglement most likely does take place in D-Wave's computer. So now he just argues that their proof of concept prototype is not as efficient as classical devices that have been perfected over fifty years.

If we lived in a world where nuclear energy was still just a theoretical possibility, and you had a company D-Uranium trying to build the first reactor ever, and someone like Scott Aaronson kept saying for years and years "You guys suck you haven't even demonstraded there are any atoms split inside your device, for all we know it's all heat from chemical reactions", and then, eventually in the face of evidence he was forced to admit that atoms indeed were being split in D-Uranium's pile, so he retreated to saying "But your reactor generates less heat than a coal burning power station so you guys still suck!"--what would that make you think?

<comment><USER2> You're attacking me for what I didn't say and ignoring what I did. I'm not attacking D-Wave for their ambitions. I'm attacking the article for being a puff piece.

The article, in the second paragraph, says _...the computer can solve a certain type of problem much faster than conventional computers..._ which is a claim that even cursory research into the subject would find false. (Though a PR company could easily deliver a packet of materials and people to talk to which would give a journalists quotes on both sides, and leave them thinking that it was true.) That theme of "this is insanely fast" is repeated throughout the piece in various ways with no challenges. The journalist did not do their homework.

That right there is the evidence upon which I base my assertion that this is a puff piece. This looks and feels in every way like what a journalist might write based on the information given by a PR firm.

Full stop.

As for the rest, you're unfairly misrepresenting what Scott Aaronson has been saying. His statement all along is that D-Wave's marketing exceeds their delivery, and he's afraid that a legitimate field of study - which he's involved with - could suffer backlash as a result. He has repeatedly said, and I believe him on this, that if they can actually deliver then he'll be a huge fan. But as long as they say they have delivered when they haven't, he's going to be a critic.

This seems to me to be a reasonable response to an overhyped implementation of cool technology. There always will be salesmen overselling their products. But for building long-term trust, remember the mantra "under promise and over deliver". D-Wave is doing the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be honest I never expected that we'd live to see a quantum computer in this decade. Despite of what D-Wave's machine actually is the fact remains that we're pretty close to achieving this milestone. How would this change the computer industry though is something I can't even start to fathom.

What really interests me though as a programmer is whether we'd have to change our tools too when quantum computers become the norm. Would we have to adopt new programming techniques or we'd make it by refining the ones we already use? How would techniques like multithread programming evolve in a machine like this?

<comment><USER5> I don't actually think this will change things as much as you might think. New problems would be efficiently computable, sure, new programming paradigms will be needed, yes, but people have been producing abstractions for a very long time. If you want to know what it will be like to program a QC, look at what it is like to program in CUDA, OpenCL, Prolog, SQL, or any high level language with a compiler. All of these things do substantial work that the vast majority of users are not aware of. 99.9% of programmers will go out and buy a book called "OpenQC for Dummies" and they will build up a set of heuristics for proper programming techniques. Meanwhile, 0.01% of programmers will actually understand QC, and make this abstractions simpler for the rest of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any pointers to a technical presentation on how D-Wave's (or any other) quantum computing is physically implemented? For example, classical computers use silicon doped with impurities to form gates, and connected with metal traces. Are quantum chips created in a similar manner (using different materials), but operate at extreme cold temperatures, for example? Or is it done using a liquid or gas structure with lasers? So far I've only seen the high-level logical descriptions, but nothing about the physical side.

</comment><comment><USER7> Forgive me for butting into stuff i do not understand,but you guys are quoting Scott Aaranson the same way most people quote holy books.He could be wrong,you know.

<comment><USER8> I give him that much credit because if he was wrong, it would be easy to demonstrate. Give this computer an instance of a problem, show it performs much better than the best conventional computer. If this bar is met, there's only so much obfuscation that can be thrown up, if this bar is not met, there's only so much obfuscation that can be thrown up. So far it seems the bar has not been met.

Scott Aaronson has agreed that they've reached a new high, which also helps his credibility in my mind. But they have not reached what they claim they've reached. And being able to solve only one highly restricted problem is a long way away from having a quantum computer. Basically, if you look at what D-Wave actually has, it's a great deal less impressive than their marketing would like you to believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, the article suggests it might be instead some kind of _analog_ computer, right?

</comment><comment><USER10> Are there any schematics anywhere for how quantum forces could be used to add together two integers represented in binary?

Does D-Wave have any top secret schematics or diagrams we could look over?

<comment><USER11> I used to have links to lectures explaining this, but they seem to have 404`ed.

The general approach is to view quantum computers as a series of quantum gates. Specifically, the CC-Not gate takes 3 inputs and, if the first 2 are true, it toggles the third. This is sufficient to build an arbitrary gate, including a binary adder.

I would try explaining how these gates might be constructed, but its been so long since I've studied it that I would probably butcher the explanation.</comment></comment>


An Anti-Immigration Site Posted a Video of Indian Families Hanging Out in a Park - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/anti-immigration-website-stokes-fear-among-indian-tech-worke?utm_term=.kmELQMNoo#.caJ7WvGkk <comment><USER2> Scary stuff</comment>


Tightening up Privacy in Matrix - <AUTHOR> https://matrix.org/blog/2019/06/30/tightening-up-privacy-in-matrix <comment><USER2> The addressbook, contact matching and public email are pretty low value from my perspective.

I'd much rather personally validate and match my contacts on my own and I really think this should be the default with huge WARNING to people that want to share their email globally and addressbook with the server etc.

"Users don't care" is largely because developers submarine the issues with "UX flow" reasoning.

Excusing this toxic data exfiltration with "UX" really doesn't hold water.

Edit -

Specifically looking at

[https://github.com/vector-im/riot- web/issues/10167](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/10167)

This looks like industry standard bury the issue in unreadable TOS boilerplate.

How about "Hey YOU PROBABLY DON'T NEED to share your email globally unless you expect to meet your long lost cousin via the matrix.org social graph"

This is a place where ADDING friction makes the world better.

<comment><USER3> (Matrix lead here) The core problem is: empirically most users want an app which works like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram etc and tells you which other users are contactable. If you're some random installing a comms app, you want to know if any of your contacts are on it already. It's nothing to do with whether your long lost cousin is on it.

However, there are then folks hyperfocused on privacy who declare this 'toxic data exfiltration' and vociferously object.

We're trying to get the balance right, and it's worth noting that the bug you linked is still up in the air. We don't have the final UX yet, but the idea is to even more explicitly warn the user that their contacts are being uploaded to a identity lookup service if they want to discover people on the network. An alternative/complementary approach is [https://github.com/vector-im/riot- web/issues/10093](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/10093).

(edited due to accidentally hitting submit...)

<comment><USER4> > you want to know if any of your contacts are on it already.

For me that is an anti-feature and something which I have so far never wanted to do. I hate when apps ask me to add users based on my other contact lists. I want to curate my contact list and only add the people I communicate with over this platform. I do not want to add a bunch of old contact's which I have forgot who they are when moving to a new messenger and I do not want to add people's accounts which they may have only used once years ago.

And this is entirely ignoring the privacy aspect of it which I do not care that much about.

<comment><USER3> Yup, while many people do like this feature (the billions of people who use WhatsApp and breathe a sigh of relief that they can find their friends & family on the app without having to manually create a whole new contact list), obviously there are others who do not (irrespectively of privacy concerns). The point of the blog post is to show we're trying to cater for both, rather than assuming that everyone falls into the WhatsApp bracket.

<comment><USER5> If you are trying to cater to people that will use your app like the other services, then why would they just not choose Discord or Telegram in the first place?

<comment><USER6> The goal is to make it easier for those people to use Matrix too. Otherwise you won't ever expand past a fraction of the tech community and won't overcome the network effect of larger messaging systems.

This is the same reason why (for instance) E2E isn't the default right now -- there were massive usability issues that most normal users would have trouble with (until very recently you could lose all your historical session keys unless you were very careful and backed them up religiously). Speaking anecdotally, several people I've switched to Matrix really wanted to switch away because they lost all of our old chat messages when they logged out of their account.

I hope you agree that people without very strong privacy concerns should be able to use Matrix as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The feature I miss most is expiring messages. Yes, it totally depends on correct end-user client implementations and honest participants, but it is crucial for many scenarios where a client is compromised after the fact (or, lets say, an over-ambitious border control...). [https://github.com/vector- im/riot-web/issues/2497](https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/2497)

<comment><USER3> Hopefully this will be coming relatively soon once [https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix-doc/pull/1763](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1763) is implemented. It's mainly been waiting for someone interested in sponsoring the feature (which hasn't happened yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I host my own Synapse instance and for the most part it's very reliable. I don't bridge to anything. So far it's been like pulling teeth to get my friends to sign up but once they do it's been super reliable. I'm traveling through Japan right now and the server hosted in NYC has been fine.

There are a few problems. First the UI for approving new client connections in encrypted chat rooms is complete crap. It needs to be clear and concise what is happening and currently it starts a super complicated verification process which is frankly confusing.

It simply needs to say "$user has signed in on a new device $deviceName. Is it okay to send messages to this device? Yes/No"

That's it.

Also there needs to be a better way to integrate third party plugins. One thing I miss from Facebook messenger is being able to paste a Spotify link and have the song come up as an embed.

Finally the bot API could use work. I spent some time professionally maintaining a Slack bot for a major American cable company and currently it's much harder to make a Matrix bot and documentation is lacking.

<comment><USER6> > There are a few problems. First the UI for approving new client connections > in encrypted chat rooms is complete crap. It needs to be clear and concise > what is happening and currently it starts a super complicated verification > process which is frankly confusing.

Device cross-signing has nearly landed and will solve this problem by creating a pseudo-WoT between users meaning that you need to do verifications very infrequently (ideally, only once when you first start talking to the user).

> It simply needs to say "$user has signed in on a new device $deviceName. Is > it okay to send messages to this device? Yes/No"

Doing it this way would open the door to a malicious homesever (or a user's account being hacked into) being able to eavesdrop on you. Device names aren't cryptographically relevant. Device cross-signing (where a user's devices sign each other) solves the problem in a much safer way.

> Finally the bot API could use work. I spent some time professionally > maintaining a Slack bot for a major American cable company and currently > it's much harder to make a Matrix bot and documentation is lacking.

This boils down to the fact that bots are basically just normal Matrix clients (with a few extra features if you've set them up as an application service). You might be better served by using a library (like matrix-nio or the Matrix SDKs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll take the chance to plug miniVector again. It doesn't solve the problems discussed in this thread, but it's a stripped-down Riot fork that requires fewer permissions than the full program: [https://github.com/LiMium/mini- vector-android](https://github.com/LiMium/mini-vector-android)

I have no affiliation with the project.

<comment><USER10> Also RiotX (full rewrite of Riot Android) is hopefully landing soon, so that should improve the mobile experience a lot for people who want a full client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that you tighten up privacy by adding more tracking to your main website with a cooking spanning sub-domains as well: [https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/commit/48545495afe1...](https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/commit/48545495afe19a40152a166baee521bca1562d07) and JS code from twitter directly: [https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/commit/30ece47f8930...](https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix.org/commit/30ece47f893075869ddba7a7906bcac79f1ca50a)

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems like a well thought out response

</comment><comment><USER11> (One of the author of the research doc that triggered this blog entry here)

It's good to finally see a reply, and it's good to see you are addressing some of the issues we have highlighted. It's a shame it took a whole research document posted on Hacker News and other websites to start getting your attention. I am personally surprised about this blog entry (and reply to some extend), given that the research doc was labeled as "FUD" by the lead dev.

Now that we have it, and that you answered in a blog post, there is one question we asked several times and that you still did not answer, even in our GDPR data request: Given that the research document clearly highlights that users are totally unaware of how their personal data was collected, how its going to be used, and that they did not given consent (e.g. storing their email addresses for a lookup query mechanism) under EU GDPR: 1\. Under which lawful basis do you collect, process and allow others to use such data? 2\. Are you going to keep storing/using all the data you have collected using all the methods highlighted in the research doc, or will you purge all that was collected without clear knowledge and consent of the users?</comment>


First new antibiotic in 30 years discovered in major breakthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/first-new-antibiotic-in-30-years-discovered-in-major-breakthroug <comment><USER2> The original paper, from January 2015: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7535/full/nature14098.html)

And a more easily comprehensible summary of it: [http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/01/08/tei...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/01/08/teixobactin_a_new_antibiotic_from_a_new_platform)

The most interesting part of this is how the compound was discovered:

> A multichannel device, the iChip, was used to simultaneously isolate and > grow uncultured bacteria. A sample of soil is diluted so that approximately > one bacterial cell is delivered to a given channel, after which the device > is covered with two semi-permeable membranes and placed back in the soil. > Diffusion of nutrients and growth factors through the chambers enables > growth of uncultured bacteria in their natural environment. The growth > recovery by this method approaches 50%, as compared to 1% of cells from soil > that will grow on a nutrient Petri dish.

The iChip was originally described in an April 2010 paper ([http://aem.asm.org/content/76/8/2445.long](http://aem.asm.org/content/76/8/2445.long)), and builds on earlier work from 2002 ([http://science.sciencemag.org/content/296/5570/1127](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/296/5570/1127)), along with advances in microfluidics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could antibiotics (especially anti-resistant antibiotics such as this) be used in a phased manner worldwide to help prevent resistant bacteria from gaining a foothold?

Say a couple similarly potent (a few vectors to kill bacteria) antibiotics are found in the next 20-30 years. If the WHO encouraged/mandated that drug A was prescribed for the first 10 years, B for the next, then C before going back to A could we "confuse" the bacteria?

<comment><USER4> The theory is sound [1], but as in many situations with a lot of different actors, you get some coordination problems. Already many countries have some rules about how and when you can use certain anti-biotics, and some countries completely ignore them, or ignore them when it's profitable (farmers, usually, from what I gather.[2])

Even given the variety of anti-biotics we have now, if they were on a kind of 4 or 5 year rotation schedule that was actually followed, given the reproductive rate of bacteria i suspect that would work anyways, so hoping for coordination would certainly help, a solution that wouldn't require humans being more cooperative would be greatly expanding the diversity of our anti- biotics.

[1] [http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular- microscopic/d...](http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular- microscopic/drug-resistant-bacteria-lose-resistance.htm) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbcwi7SfZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbcwi7SfZE)

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, is there a reason antibiotic cocktails aren't used more often? Cost?

Seems like it would be more productive and play to human nature if we could decrease the cost of cocktails and mandate that they're always used instead of singular antibiotics.

<comment><USER6> I think a big part of it is that single antibiotics have been quite effective. So there isn't a developed practice of using cocktails and the interactions and so on aren't necessarily well tested/understood.

The most recent course of antibiotics I took was a combination of antibiotics though, so it's changing.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Once this gets approved for human use it should be put on lock down and be used only in extreme cases of resistant infections. Like a last resort cure to avoid the mistakes of the past and prolong it's usefulness.

<comment><USER8> From the article: "Crucially, the scientists believe that bacteria will not become resistant to Teixobactin for at least 30 years because of its multiple methods of attack."

Can anyone tell me what would happen if we instead _only_ used this new antibiotic, or at least used it instead of others as often as possible? If it is indeed so potent that bacteria would have difficulty developing a resistance, could we essentially use that window to let resistances to all the other antibiotics die out?

<comment><USER9> I doubt that 30 year window. If if were nearly impossible to build a resistance, the bacterium producing the antibiotic would poison itself.

And I am not sure how you'd convince people in underdeveloped countries to use the new and expensive drug only.

<comment><USER10> The bacteria has had far more than 30 years to develop resistance, and it could do it in stages. We don't know how many other bacteria over the gigayears managed to poison itself.

<comment><USER9> True, but for one, the antibiotic will be produced and used in really large doses once it enters the market, meaning there are trillions of bacterial cells encountering it, which raises the likelihood of development of resistance. And second, horizontal gene transfer between bacteria means different strains of bacteria can cooperate in defeating it ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unsung heroes. Our civilization seems to have an addiction to dancing on the edge of a cliff. Thanks to heroes like these, we can dance a little longer. At least until the hot coals get us.

<comment><USER12> Dancing on the edge is the economically sensible thing to do. Same reason you only spend so much on earth quake resistance if they only happen once every 50 years. Let the whole city fall down and rebuild is cheaper than an earthquake tax on everything every year.

<comment><USER13> A better idea is to have 2 cities - one built with earth quake resistance, and the other not - and give people the choice about which one to live in.

Then it shouldn't take more than a couple of earthquake iterations to sort out the gene pool.

The mistake you're making is to assume it's cheaper to build non-earthquake resistant structures. It's actually just another iteration of the cheap boot problem.[1]

[1] [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the- ri...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-rich-were-so- rich-vimes-reasoned)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What makes me nervous about this is that the antibiotic resistance paranoia will die out, and we'll just start using more antibiotics again.

<comment><USER15> It's not unlikely.

But it's not really paranoia, though, as antibiotic resistance poses a real threat.

<comment><USER16> Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there really aren't those (diseases) out to get you...

Alternatively -- are you paranoid _enough_?

(Ah, this is the same old news first published last year, iirc. This was from January. This is from January 2015: [http://www.independent.co.uk/life- style/health-and-families/...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health- and-families/health-news/first-new-antibiotic-in-30-years-could-be-key-to- beating-superbug-resistance-9963585.html) )

Edit: To see more discussion over the last 18 months, google: teixobactin site:news.ycombinator.com. This seems the biggest story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487)

<comment><USER15> I don't see how what you write is relevant; paranoia is unreasonable by its definition [1], as opposed to rational fear.

[1]: [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paranoia](http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/paranoia)

<comment><USER16> You _almost_ got the joke, better than expected for a Norwegian. :-)

For people outside of this mutual admiration society:

This is funny since I'm Swedish -- Swedes/Norwegians used to tell bad "racist" jokes about each others. The level was really low, like "Why don't they use underwear when picking strawberries in Oslo? To keep the flies out of the face."

(I always thought those were extra funny, since a relative of mine got promoted to general major for killing lots of Swedes in war in Norway a few centuries ago. :-) )

<comment><USER15> Hah!

I got the gist of it, dear svenskejævel, but I mistook your sarcasm for bona fide paranoia ;)

As for intra-Scandinavian relations: I think we can all agree that the Danes are the worst of us - and their language is just ridiculous [1].

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk)

<comment><USER16> For the non Scandinavians:

Denmark is an old trade nation. When you do business with them, some innocent paragraphs in the contract usually end up with them earning lots more. And they think that is a bit too funny.

At least, that is how the rest of the Nordic countries tend see them.

Also, they are too friendly and too often in a good mood. Weird people, especially my relatives down there. They could almost be called "normal Europeans", or something. Probably get too much sun in the winter.

(Most wars in Europe between two countries weren't France/England, it was Denmark/Sweden. Norway used to fight with the Danes. No one likes the Swedes, not even themselves.)

Edit: I might add that the oil could probably have happened to nicer people, but the Norwegians really deserved a break after a hard history with bad farming and bad neighbours. :-)

Edit 2: Sorry for chatting about irrelevant subjects on HN. Down votes are humbly accepted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't quite understand why this is news now. It's been amply published in academic and popular media (including tech-leaning places like [http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/a-new-kind-of- antibio...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/a-new-kind-of-antibiotic- that-kills-many-drug-resistant-bacteria/)). Has there been some new development?

</comment><comment><USER18> Discovery of teixobactin was announced in early 2015.

It was done using isolation chips to culture Eleftheria terrae (temporary name), a bacterium discovered in 2014.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why are we as a culture not putting much more effort into bacteriophage therapy? It was big in the USSR but seems to have been ignored by contemporary medicine, despite having at least two major advantages against resistance - physical mode of action, and being capable of evolution itself.

<comment><USER20> Bacteriophages are neat but we shouldn't pretend like it's totally surprising why they aren't used. For one, they are constantly evolving so it's very difficult to produce a well-defined stable bacteriophage. The version you test in clinical trials is often completely different from the one you'd get treated with a year later.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy#Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy#Safety)

But more importantly, your comment is off-topic.

<comment><USER21> > But more importantly, your comment is off-topic.

I'm just curious, how is it that you see this comment as off-topic? I'm confused.

<comment><USER20> Bacteriophages are brought up every single time antibiotics are discussed, and always framed as some incredible low-hanging fruit left by the soviets that Americans have stubbornly neglected. I think you really need to keep the discussions more focused than that, especially when the article is about the development and impact of _this_ particular antibiotic.

Otherwise, we end up with the comments for every article touching on city design just rehashing the same arguments regarding car-pedestrian trade-offs ("Did you know that Big Auto had a master plan to kill off the LA street car system!?!?"), and the comments for every article on military jets bemoaning the loss of the A-10 Warthog.

<comment><USER22> While ycombinator tends to be inhabited by professional and intelligent men and women, they hail from a number of different disciplines and backgrounds. That is to say, Hacker News is not an antibiotics specialist blog/forum, and people would like to converse and learn from others more broadly than you are demanding.

<comment><USER20> It has nothing to do with training in antibiotics, or anything else biological, as I have none. I have seen the identical arguments rehashed here a dozen times, and they are low quality. (As JulianMorrison's comment, where he does not mention the very first objections in the wikipedia article, and then dismisses them based on laymen intuition when questioned.)

<comment><USER22> perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe > The lack of new drugs coupled with over-prescribing has led to bacteria > becoming increasingly resistant to modern medicines.

The article doesn't mention meat industry as the biggest consumer of antibiotics.

</comment><comment><USER23> Quick, to the pig troughs!

</comment><comment><USER24> "could be available within five years."

Ah, the usual codeword for "this won't happen"</comment>


(Maybe) We asked for this - <AUTHOR> http://m.techcrunch.com/2013/06/08/we-asked-for-this/?icid=tc__art Schneier is classic: "Welcome to an Internet without privacy, and we've ended up here with hardly a fight."<p>But the author also has an interesting ending.. "When apathy is our defense we deserve what we get. But apathy breeds another kind of insecurity and makes us bigger targets still. We forget this at our peril." <comment><USER2> We are far from powerless. Facebook - the only valuable thing there are the contacts - they can be rebuild.

A new search engines can arise (we are long overdue anyway, time to reinvent the search is nigh - google has been giving crappier and crappier results for the past few years and is still the best out there)

There are a lot of devices that are still controlled by their owners. I have a lot of non technical people asking about encryption and migration to linux lately (pre scandals).

A lot of people have real IPs that allow them to receive incoming connections and are not forced to ask for port forwarding and nat.

There is always ways to create distributed p2p encrypted global network. And with opencompute there will always be enough free home hardware to back it up.

</comment><comment><USER3> We kinda did, we kept voting in anti-privacy and big-govt dirtbag bureaucrats. Until they're gone, the government will rule all of us instead of the way it should be -> we tell the govt what to do.

</comment><comment><USER4> I positively hate single-signons via FB or Twitter, but it is getting increasingly hard to keep your profiles separate between different social media sites.

And the social and job pressure is mounting - don't use Google Docs? Makes you look old-fashioned or too stubborn. Don't like to share your calendar via Google? People will get mad because you are obstructing their work flow.

So if you don't want to limit your social connections, you practically have to throw your data to the street.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe others asked for it, I didn't. I don't use social media, I vote third- party and always have, I believe in open source, I rarely watch tv or see movies. I dont listen to the radio, I use P2P.</comment>


Internet of things starter kit unveiled by ARM and IBM - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31584546

<comment><USER2> Really light on any details... processor speed, capability, memory and io alignments will be the biggest keys here... other issues will include what's in the box in terms of power, networking and a/v support. Right now, it feels like RPi2 is really compelling in this space, despite the closed off warts in the AV side.

</comment><comment><USER3> more tech details & specs

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/24/arm_ibm_internet_of_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/24/arm_ibm_internet_of_things_starter_kit/)</comment>


'Megafire' in Australia Engulfs 1.5M Acres - happy-go-lucky https://www.npr.org/2020/01/10/795169417/enormous-mega-fire-in-australia-engulfs-1-5-million-acres <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if there's a point at which the particulates from the fire become globally relevant. Knowing what we know now about how awful particulates are for health and cognition, we would be in a bad place as a species if none of us can breathe clean air.

<comment><USER2> Australia fires: Smoke turns New Zealand skies 'eerie' yellow

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50969488](https://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-50969488)

Maybe not exactly global but the smoke made it ~2000km to New Zealand!

<comment><USER3> Try Brazil: smoke made it to southern states, ~7700 miles

[https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/not%C3%ADcias/geral/fuma%C3...](https://www.correiodopovo.com.br/not%C3%ADcias/geral/fuma%C3%A7a-de- inc%C3%AAndios-da-austr%C3%A1lia-chega-ao-rio-grande-do-sul-diz- metsul-1.391494)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this historically different from previous instances? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia)

Just skimming wikipedia and there are a bunch of bushfires that were bigger than this instance, and bushfires seem pretty common there

<comment><USER5> Bushfires are a natural part of the ecosystem in Australia. Many plants are adapted specifically to survive and thrive after bushfire conditions. However, bushfires on this scale is somewhat unprecedented.

It's a bit like 5 hurricanes hitting Florida in one summer. Aren't hurricanes normal in Florida?

<comment><USER6> > It's a bit like 5 hurricanes hitting Florida in one summer. Aren't > hurricanes normal in Florida?

Except if 3 of those hurricanes arrived before hurricane season.

<comment><USER7> ... in NewYork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anyone is curious about a billion animal deaths figure in the article here's what this appears to be based on [1]

[1] [https://sydney.edu.au/news- opinion/news/2020/01/08/australia...](https://sydney.edu.au/news- opinion/news/2020/01/08/australian-bushfires-more-than-one-billion-animals- impacted.html)

<comment> john-radio Stealing this take from David Steen:

> Sad and tragic.

> Incidentally, this is also how many animals that cats are estimated to kill > in the United States each year.

<comment><USER9> What's the point being driven at here? Is it minimizing the deaths of Australian wildlife, or is it making a quip about the sheer scale of cat hunting activity?

If it's the former, that seems like a bad comparison. The Australian wildfires are destroying ecosystems on a scale cats don't really do. And a much greater variety of wildlife is dying than what cats will typically kill.

Finally, wildfires don't support life. They're naturally occurring things, but they are not an activity occurring in the support of other life. Cats kill to hone hunting skills (or simply to hunt, if they're actually hungry). With that observation we can impose a reasonable normative, which is that we don't need to accept wildfires the same way we accept predator activity.

Put simply: I don't see that these two things belong to the same category of destruction.

<comment><USER10> It's a bad comparison, but for a different set of reasons.

Wildfires aren't part of the fauna. This is true. But even without humans, there are wildfires. When wildfires happen, they create a new playing field for species to inhabit. Moreover, life has adapted over the course of millions of years to a low number of wildfires i.e. the spread of a species over a large territory whereas wildfires may be incidental and localized. The adaptability of a species to wildfires - amongst other things - is what defines it's resilience.

The difference here is that the size and scope of these fires is far beyond the resilience of entire regional ecosystems. When this is over, what is lost won't return. It will be replaced by different species - plants and animals - that might not be as diverse or rich.

We can safely assert that wild cats are inherently part of the ecosystem. However, if a billion animals being killed a year by cats, well, that's not due to the mere presence of cats as a species. But because of the overwhelming number of cats in the ecosystem. And that number is anything but normal.

Cats are domesticated animals. The main reason why there are so many out there is simply because society tends to keep and protect cats. Cats and humans live in a symbiotic relationship. And that's why cats thrive as a species. Much to the detriment of other species.

Put more poignantly, nobody would argue against the need for pet owners to keep their dogs to a leash and their pet snakes and other predators locked in cages. But cats are the major exception. There are no laws that restrict home owners to let cats go out of the door and roam the neighborhood killing each any small bird, mammal or reptile around. Whereas other wild species who espouse pretty much the same behavior - rats, foxes, mice - are seen as pests.

And so, we can safely assert that neither mega wildfires nor the strain cats impose by their numbers are natural occurrences. In both cases, they are manifestations causes by irrational human behaviours.

<comment><USER11> > Whereas other wild species who espouse pretty much the same behavior - rats, > foxes, mice - are seen as pests.

I have not heard of anyone having a problem with rats and mice hunting other animals. They are mainly considered pests because they eat human food stores. And the only context I have heard of foxes considered pests is when they hunt livestock, chickens, geese etc. If a domestic cat starts hunting chickens, I am pretty sure it will have consequences as well.

<comment><USER12> >> I have not heard of anyone having a problem with rats and mice hunting other animals

In Canada rats are a bigger threat to bird species than cats, topped only by humans. Or visit an island environment Galapagos where they've been introduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious at the use of acres in this article, or even otherwise. This is about 6070 km square kilometers, which is a square of about 77 kilometer.

<comment><USER14> Here is what a 6070 km² square looks like: [https://i.imgur.com/kEFBxZg.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kEFBxZg.jpg)

<comment><USER15> About two Rhode Islands, or one Delaware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Check out the images in this story [https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australian- bushfir...](https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australian-bushfires- photos-before-and-after/11854888) for some before and after fire photos

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there a reason to use acres at this order of magnitude?

In case anyone else finds it easier to imagine this way: 1.5M acres converts to 2,343 mi^2, which i can then envision as multiples of a reference area (7 NYCs).

<comment><USER18> Isn't an acre the conventional unit of area in the United States where NPR is produced? Why use something unconventional and add to the confusion?

But if they used km^2 then almost everyone would be able to visualise it, as almost everyone knows what running or walking a km feels like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So once it finishes, we should have a clean slate with vastly reduced fire potential, right? Seems like there was a build-up of combustible material for some time, and nature decided to run its course.

<comment><USER20> I don't know about Australia, but here in Northern California, that's not how it works. 500 years ago, forest fires were common, cool burning, and did more good than harm. Today, it's been so long since the previous fire that there's a huge amount of underbrush and dead material. When a fire comes through, it's so hot that it kills everything, including huge, old growth doug fir trees. However, it's not hot enough to actually incinerate the old growth trees, so you get left with a bunch of standing deads, and plenty of dead wood for another fire.

<comment><USER19> Ahh I see, that's unfortunate. Maybe we could do more controlled burns to clear the low-lying stuff but leave trees living?

<comment><USER21> We could, but we don't do enough of it because of liability risks. Imagine if the controlled burn goes out of control, and burns down <someone's lakehouse/dacha/cabin/dog/three month old baby>.

People will be in the streets, crying for blood, and won't give up until the Department of Controlled Forest Burns is dissolved, and its executives are sleeping in the Bay, wearing cement overshoes.

Yes, you can buy insurance for this sort of thing, but no, money doesn't grow on trees, and insuring your controlled burn program is _not_ going to come cheap.

<comment><USER20> Not sure where you are, but controlled burns are common in California. And it's expected that a small portion of them get out of control. Source: my neighbor, who's a retired wildland firefighter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone saying this fire is a natural occurrence is completely deluded. There's no such thing as random in the Universe (shocking to some but true), everything has an inherent reason. A causal force. In this case it appears to be humanity itself.

<comment><USER23> Interesting theory but those of us on planet Earth are dealing with plenty of fires started by lightning.

<comment><USER22> If that was the end of the story it would be great.

<comment><USER23> It basically is. Lightning is not caused by humans in the majority of cases.

In short: humans aren't required for fire to exist. Your argument is faulty.

<comment><USER22> You're just assuming it was lightning. Or that lightning was the only culprit. Which is most likely false; Natives have been setting control fires for centuries, yes. That's wrong and primitive i think. But the problem was most likely aggravated by climate changes;

<comment><USER23> No, I've witnessed lightning start a fire. And so have many others. You have no basis to deny this natural occurrence. Even climate change deniers can't disagree with this. Its not even up as part of a climate change debate. At best, you're just plain wrong; at worst you're simply committed to a useless narrative which blinds you from actual truth.

Insulting natives for lighting fires shows complete disrespect and ignorance of the underlying environments, flora and fauna as well as their part in all of it. You aren't advanced and knowledgeable: you're just ignorant, smug, and delusional.

<comment><USER24> > I've witnessed lightning start a fire. And so have many others. You have no > basis to deny this natural occurrence.

I agree that there seems to be a bit of bias (if not racism) in the OP's point, but there's no denying that the vast majority of fires are created by humans, whether indigenous, farmers, or hikers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The BEST project management tool EVER Guaranteed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.celsopinto.com/post/14362844427/the-best-project-management-tool-ever-guaranteed

<comment><USER2> I tend to agree. The only way cards-on-the-wall falls short is with remote employees; somewhat painful transcription ends up being necessary. But no tool is as accessible, visible, simple or powerful as the cards in the office.</comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone find LinkedIn useful? - <AUTHOR> I have mixed feeling about using LinkedIn.
A few times I was contacted by recruiters from Apple and Google who found my profile, but mostly I just get InMail spam from people trying to sell their consulting services or 3rd party requiters.
I've also had pretty low conversion rate sending inMail to well-targeted people when I was trying to organize a conference?
Personally, I find maintaining a LinkedIn profile to be too much of a hassle with little benefits.
Does anyone have a success story to share? <comment> andrew-lucker 2500 connections. I don't even try to actively use LinkedIn, but I get some referrals and short-term contracts through the grapevine. Not sure if this is just _my_ network, or if anyone can find use from sheer number of loose connections.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using it for about 5 years now, and barely have 400. Half of these connections are people I never met trying to sell me something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I got two small gigs & had about 150 connections, all or most of them people whom I personally knew. But none, I felt did anything useful professionally, apart aniversary wishing at office jobs. Linkedin might be useful someday in the future as 'remote' is picking up, but I do not like spending time there & hence closed my linkedin account & chose a lighter online CV which do not spam me with unwanted group postings. And I also feel that post linkedin I am taking less advise of experts, which in some way is boosting my morale!

</comment><comment><USER3> I know very few of the people in my connections or they are so distantly removed from what I do that the connection is of no use at least professionally.

I can't honestly say I have even opened LinkedIn in the past year so I would have to say it is of no value to me. Initially, spam overloaded my email and InBox so I never really attempted to use it as it was initially intended because of the spam.

I did meet a few people I otherwise would not have because of searching profiles of people who were speaking at conferences I was attending but otherwise I have not used it to any real benefit.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't actively market with it, meaning don't go out of my way to find clients through it. I do post pieces from time to time and people find me from around the world for resume editing, and LinkedIn Profile enhancements although I run a firm in Shanghai, China. Besides their own job seeking efforts, numerous clients who I previously worked with, have been approached by third parties for interesting opportunities.

Vince Fulco, CFA, CAIA vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn

</comment><comment><USER5> You should not have mixed feeling about LinkedIn it is a waste of time. 90% of my connection i don't know, but people sending me a connection request i accept for the fun of it.</comment>


Where on Earth: Multiplayer realtime geography knowledge game - <AUTHOR> http://error-500.no.de Another Node Knockout entry created this weekend. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure, where on Earth is Please Wait? It seems to be having some technical issues, I never got past there.</comment>


Ask HN: What should Apple add in the next Mac OS X 11? - <AUTHOR> Apps, features, etc. <comment><USER2> A few articles have said they've denied it (which probably also means their working on it) - Universal apps across all devices

1 app that works across all devices - laptop, desktop, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV if it's warranted. With app thinning, it's completely possible and when the Ax chip gets fast enough to appear in laptops / desktops (another generation or 2 away IMO) completely doable.

With this, give OS X developers a UIKit (another missing / requested feature) and whatever else is missing to make that happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't the X part the number 10?

So it would be Mac OS XI :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Windows Power Management in Mac

</comment><comment><USER5> X11 support. Would be apropos.</comment>


Cognitect, please stop adding alpha to your namespaces - <AUTHOR> https://tonsky.me/blog/alpha/ <comment><USER2> I think the deeper insight here is not limited to Cognitect or Clojure: it is that once software gains traction, it is no longer up to the author to determine alpha/beta/stable status. If something is widely depended upon, it will be difficult to change, and it is de facto stable, regardless of the label that the author put on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stop adding yellow to your website. My eyes burn!

<comment><USER3> Wtf I hit the switch and it literally turns the lights off.</comment></comment>


How does signed Git commits work? - <AUTHOR> So git uses the SHA-1 algorithm to ensure integrity. However SHA-1 is no longer considered secure.
So my question is, what is signed in a signed git commit?
I imagine that either the SHA-1 hash of the commit is signed, or the working tree is directly signed, using the preferred hashing algorithm set in my GPG settings.
Because if it is just the SHA-1 hash of the commit is signed, then someone could make a collision attack on that hash, and introducing malicious code. <comment><USER2> I think google has already demoed collision attack with 2 different pdf files that generate the same hash. [https://shattered.io/](https://shattered.io/)

A good read on git hash [https://link.medium.com/9S9R0cE5GV](https://link.medium.com/9S9R0cE5GV)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://lwn.net/Articles/715716/](https://lwn.net/Articles/715716/)

[https://github.blog/2017-03-20-sha-1-collision-detection- on-...](https://github.blog/2017-03-20-sha-1-collision-detection-on-github- com/)</comment>


Consumer Reports: Latest Autopilot "far less competent than a human" - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/consumer-reports-latest-autopilot-far-less-competent-than-a-human/ <comment><USER2> Consumer Reports Not Thrilled By Misleading Navigate On Autopilot Headlines: [https://insideevs.com/news/351110/consumer-reports-tesla- nav...](https://insideevs.com/news/351110/consumer-reports-tesla-navigate- autopilot/)</comment>


How to Add a Run Script Build Phase to Work with Fabric Kits - <AUTHOR> http://dynamicstm.com/fabric/how-to-add-a-run-script-build-phase-to-incorporate-twitter-kit/

<comment><AUTHOR> It showcases the steps needed in all four Xcode versions</comment>


The Google OS Is Doomed - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2222564/

<comment><USER2> This article fails in it's analysis in some key areas - not least in considering Chrome OS as both a desktop offering ans a _windows competitor_. Once we consider just netbooks many of their issues fall apart.

> Linux is hard to love

They didnt make the point I would have under this title (that consumers dont "trust" Linux). Instead they talk about software compatibility.

Now as I understand Chrome OS the idea is a completely cloud based OS (one assumes using Gears extensively too). Software compatibility it irrelevant because the ideal would be to put it all on the cloud using Googles services (music, well that is a bit of a sticking point...)

> We aren't ready to run everything on the Web

This is a key point. Though it is worth noting that we wont see Chrome devices till next year. Considering 18 months ago cloud services were only _just_ taking shape for consumers it doesnt seem a long stretch to imagine things might make as big a leap forward again.

Irrespective there seems little point in _waiting_ for the cloud to become our whole lives before making an OS to cater for it. Microsoft made a fortune on the policy of "build for the next generation and dont wory overly about supporting the old". Google are taking roughly the same approach - to get real market traction with their cloud offerings in the future they have to offer something cool :)

Yes Word is better than GDocs. Yes Word is coming ot the cloud - BUT it still has to be built using the same tech as GDocs. There is no reason GDocs cant compete with Word in the cloud - and no reason Word in the cloud isn't going to make the same "mistakes" as GDocs.

> Microsoft is a formidable opponent.

This seems irrelevant. MS do have weak points - one of them is probably the netbook market. they are weak there because Vista and W7 are too "over powered", really, for the current devices. So it's XP for the best performance. XP is not really designed for netbooks - the screens are too small for a start. Linux netbooks have done poorly because consumers are somewhat scared of Linux - Google wont have this problem because I seriously doubt Linux will be _obviously_ mentioned to consumers :)

A well designed Netbook OS would stand a cracking chance at taking good market share from MS.

> Google fails often

This is a strange point to make. I dont get if their suggesting Chrome OS will be a failure or that Google's other failings will leave them lacking. I suspect the former - which is a bit of a straw man. right? If it fails it fails (myself I think it unlikely to totally flunk out). Saying "lets not do it, it might fail" is definitely not how Google got to where they are today....

> The Chrome OS makes no business sense.

This is the last and worst point of all. It sums up the shallowness of the article and needs to be dissected in several ways.

 _Google gives away nearly everything for free. That's because it makes pornographic amounts of money from a single product, Web ads, and can afford to dally in any other business venture it chooses, whether or not those efforts hold out any promise of profits_

This shows a fatal misunderstanding of how Google operates. _Everything_ is about the brand. It's about spreading out influence, getting developers onboard, reaching consumers. The writer is correct - Google does make a huge amount from web advertising; the stronger their brand the more money that is.

Put it this way: Google announcing an OS that was somewhat expected anyway and that will not even be ready for a year made _national TV and radio news_ here in the UK. That is the kind of coverage companies kill for.

 _Microsoft often does things for no reason other than to frustrate its rivals—its new search engine Bing being a prime example. But by focusing so much attention on a venture that's unlikely to do the company any good, Google will only hurt itself._

This makes no sense - how can it hurt? The writer presents no outcome that would leave the company in a worse state. Microsoft has been desperate to launch a decent search engine for ages and now have a solid offering in Bing (asserting Bing is essentially there to piss Google off is, well, missing the point entirely....). They are launching web-Office including self-hosted solutions. Both of those are BIG attacks of services Google might consider core aspects of it's online service. Google Docs is certainly one of the most popular online office suites - cloud Office is a HUGe assault on that crown.

So why not do battle with MS on their own turf. They can probably nab the netbook market if they get it right and that will be good for them and mildly concerning for MS. And if the cloud proves to be the future Google have an established OS to bring to the desktop :)

Now Im guessing I am the prime market for Chrome OS. A young professional with some spare cash to burn who travels quite frequently. This is key netbook market territory - I want something fast, portable and gets me on the wbe on the move. Indeed it could be argued the _only_ advantage that XP would have over Chrome is having a music player - but there is no reason a cloud solution cant be used (or even that Chrome OS will eventually cater for this).

Chrome OS netbooks could be lower spec without losing performance (just running a browser after all) ans smaller HDD's. That means a lighter device which _should_ be substantially cheaper than an XP based offering. Covered in Google branding, backed by their marketing machine and the fact consumers trust them.

In my mind they would have to fuck this up _really_ badly for it to fail entirely.

For me this writer seems to believe that Google is simply creating Chrome OS to spite MS and because _everyone else is doing it_. I think they have missed the point entirely. Google have sat and considered the OS angle (similar to how they watched Mozilla, learnt from their mistakes and achievements, and launched Chrome based on that experience) and decided this is prime time to launch an attack.

(sorry for the wall of text - I find this idea fascinating because Google and MS look more and more likely to be facing off in the next few years. Each with a huge user base, each with a lot of money, each with products in each others field. That is a fun and exciting contest to me)

<comment><USER3> I would add, that maybe in Japan, Germany, USA, the internet connection is very fast, but there are countries where it's too slow or expensive.

What would happen if ChromeOS uses GoogleDocs? All the people without fast connections would be ruled out? I don't like the idea to need a connection to use web-photoshop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems to me that the press is presenting this as Google Chrome OS vs Microsoft Windows 7 etc. When really its a competitor for Windows Azure which is another cloud based platform.

Of course Google isn't doing a very good job setting expectations for it either. I would be selling it as an alternative to Microsoft's cloud computing vision, where developers are required to host there apps in Microsoft's cloud if you want to leverage the Windows Azure's eco system.

<comment><USER5> Google Chrome is the competitor for Windows 8. Hasn't Ballmer admitted that Windows 7 will be the last traditional desktop Windows?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't argue with most of the 5 points, but I think the first one misses the mark-- Linux is indeed "hard to love", but we don't know enough about ChromeOS yet to know if it will resemble Linux at all; all we really know is that it will have a Linux kernel. (Insert Mac/BSD analogy here.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't microsoft pushing out a web version office, wouldn't that imply a working version of excel within Chrome OS next year?</comment>


An Internet 100 times as fast: A new network design could boost capacity - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news196940134.html

<comment><USER2> Essentially they're creating dedicated circuits between two endpoints to eliminate store-and-forward delay at backbone routers.

I think the title overdoes the impact of this: this isn't the kind of technology that is going to hook end systems to the core of the Internet, and this approach prevents routing from being done at the network level. I could imagine some kind of overlay routing scheme making use of this to connect points _near_ the edge of the network. Or, as the article states, between big datacenters.

<comment><USER3> Sort of. Optical channel routers already exist. (I think they are even commercially available from companies like Infinera.) This work appears to address management protocols that rapidly redirect optical channels based on network traffic needs.

I am suspicious of the touted throughput increase, at least for personal applications. The public Internet tends to be dominated by _ad hoc_ video and audio loads, which are fairly predictable in aggregate. There probably are some commercial users (like TV networks) who have bursty 100+ Gbps loads that could benefit, but most of them will want to purchase dedicated links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> totally unrelated, but when I clicked this link, the colors/layout made me think it was digg. If anyone in charge of the site sees this, something really should be done about it. Digg is really a terrible thing to be associated with.</comment>