Techies Vs. The Business - <AUTHOR> http://plpatterns.com/post/55433565/techies-vs-the-business

<comment><USER2> I think the advice that 'tech people should learn to talk business' and 'business people should learn to talk tech' is spot on, and ultimately _the most important point here_. After all, there really is no such thing as a 'business person' or a 'tech person' there are just people, some of whom have spent time building experience in one domain, some in another domain.

My word of caution is this: due to the all too common 'them and us' situation (as described in the article), it is sometimes the case that the situation escalates to the point that one (or both) parties put up barriers to prevent 'the other side' from learning to speak their language, aka 'domain freakism'. This is sometime done as a defensive measure to prevent 'the other side' from 'getting in', for example to cover the tracks on things they dont want 'the other side' to know.

This doesnt always happen, but it is sad when it does. My advice in this scenario is to find an independent person (either inside the company or outside) who can help you learn the basic language of 'the other side' to help bring that wall down. And then go solve the root problem around why one side does want to let the other side in (it's often skeletons / legacy).

<comment><USER3> This article alludes to this, but doesn't go into it - but the terms "Technology" and "Business" are totally bogus and I usually recommend that people don't use them.

I hear this all the time in big corporates - "We need to ask the Business", or "That's for Technology to sort out". It sets "Technology" apart from the rest of the organization in a way that just isn't realistic or productive.

When people invoke the term "The Business", what do they really mean? - is it marketing, or the call center, or the HR department, is it sales, is it the warehouse? It's a meaningless term. Technology is the Business just like every other part of an organization.

I've worked on projects where that mentality persists - and had successes and failures. I've also worked on projects where Tech/Business is never mentioned, it never comes up... These projects have been overwhelming successes (and more fun to boot).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It starts well, then gets all political at the end. You don't get trapped in a job _by the job_. You get "trapped" by commitments that you freely entered into at the time, such as, having kids, buying a house and so on. Commitments that the job makes it possible for you to keep. If you really want to stay out of the trap, it's not hard! But is it worth it?

<comment><USER5> It did feel rather tacked on and poorly considered. Human beings are not slaves to employers but to our own needs. We take out our frustration at this upon our employers even though it isn't really their fault (most of the time) that the only safe and efficient way to satisfy these needs is through tedious employment.

(Well, it's not the only way, but it is the way most people chose, which is primarily their fault.)

I very much liked the comparison of management of people to management of computers. We each understand our own field and how, generally, to utilize the resources we are meant to manage, but we don't understand each other's so well. This is a problem when we have to cooperate and each have a good understanding of what the other needs and does, as it is in the employer/techie relationship. Division of labor has its advantages, but it's no excuse for not knowing what your neighbor does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its extremely well thought out articles like this one that have converted me and so many others from digg to HN.

<comment> a-priori I agree. This is one of the better articles to grace HN in some time, and if I'm not mistaken, the blog is a newcomer here as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, everyone. I've been around for a little while. I recently moved my entire blog from plpatterns.blogspot.com .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting and thorough article. I think these questions are particularly interesting to consider from the perspective of a startup. While smaller startups may not face these challenges yet, since them teams are still relatively small, it is a good idea to begin considering them. It makes me wonder if there is something an organization can do ahead of time to mitigate these conflicts down the road. Any thoughts?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think it definitely has to be in the culture from the start. I doubt people who have been working at a company for a while are going to go for switching to a completely different methodology for getting compensated.

In the beginning, when a startup is very small, everything is transparent. Everyone knows who's doing what, and their share of the pay/company can be proportional. Kind of like the way Joel Spolsky describes having compensation open, not a big secret how much every person is being paid. But as the company gets bigger, you might not even know all the people there, let alone what work they're doing. The transparency breaks down.

I was already considering ideas of how to measure contribution by analyzing source code that you commit. But this obviously only works for code. Not all value contributed is through code. Maybe each department or kind of work could have its own scheme. (Manning the phone, for example, probably _should_ be paid hourly.)

In the end though, some hybrid will probably make the most sense. I'm looking for other ideas too.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, very good point about transparency. I remember reading some entrepreneur's story who stressed fostering this kind of environment. It is a somewhat different but related point: he insisted that everyone in the company spend time doing customer service, so everyone had a sense of what the customer's needs were and how the product was progressing. I thought this was very clever.

I also think you're right - there doesn't seem to be enough innovation in regard to compensation. Even bonuses don't necessarily create the right incentives - often these seem more related to the overall health of the economy rather than work or contributions. While it is a good idea to share success with employees, regardless of the cause, it does little to encourage employees in their individual actions. While you say this sort of salary structure is in reaction to a company's growth, it seems like they are even less useful as a company grows and each individual's contribution has an ever smaller affect on how well a company ultimately does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, absolutely! Doing customer service is a great idea. Many problems (esp. usability) stem from the fact that the people making the product don't empathize with the people using the product. It's just like when developers eat their own dog food, the software almost always ends up being significantly better.

I actually have asked multiple times to work in different departments at my day job to get a better sense of how users use the stuff I'm making. I feel it's necessary to do my job well. _Necessary._ But the culture just isn't open to that I guess. Short of quitting, I don't see it ever actually happening.

I completely agree with you about compensation. At a big company, the bonus I get has no correspondence to what I actually do. I wonder if it would work out better if profits were broken down by product, for example. Then, if you worked on a given product, you get a cut of the profit for that product. At least then, the profit from big hit products wouldn't be split among everyone in the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Techies priorities:

1\. Technology

2\. Processes

3\. People

Business priorities:

3\. Technology

2\. Processes

1\. People

</comment><comment><USER9> I for one thought this article was incredible. I'll recommend it to my student group.</comment>


User Onboarding Podcast with Samuel Hulick - <AUTHOR> http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatchradio-episode-2-samuel-hulick-user-onboarding-guru/

<comment><AUTHOR> Key Insights

Mailchimp – Show your users the value of your product right away. Create a human and memorable product experience.

Basecamp – Pre-fill content to give users your product 'aha' moment when they sign up.

Wistia – Onboarding should never stop. Create educational content and show your users how to become power users.

Read more: [http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatchradio- episode-2-...](http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/saasquatchradio- episode-2-samuel-hulick-user-onboarding-guru/)</comment>


Solomon Golomb (1932–2016) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/05/solomon-golomb-19322016/ <comment><USER2> > Most of the scientists and mathematicians I know I met first through > professional connections. But not Sol Golomb. It was 1981, and I was at > Caltech, a 21-year-old physicist who'd just received some media attention > from being the youngest in the first batch of MacArthur award recipients.

Man, Stephen can #humblebrag the shit out of anything, including the death of a famous mathematician

</comment><comment><USER3> I first encountered his name when learning data encoding which used [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_coding).

One thing that struck me there was the use of unary coding, which I thought was pretty cool. In my case I was writing a JPEG-LS decoder. Looking at the wiki, I see it is also used in some audio codecs as well.

<comment><USER4> Also neat (and a prefix code) is Fibonacci coding: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_coding)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am lucky to have attended the small symposium at Villanova University only a few weeks ago where Golomb was presented the Franklin Institute Award in electrical engineering. One of those in attendance was Dr. Andrew Viterbi, known for another significant contribution to telecommunications.

A short video of Golomb's accomplishments is available here at the Franklin Institute website: [https://www.fi.edu/laureates/solomon-w- golomb](https://www.fi.edu/laureates/solomon-w-golomb)

</comment><comment><USER6> """biology uses a more straightforward encoding, where some of the 64 possible triples just don't represent anything"""

I don't think this is strictly true, 61 of the 64 codons translate into 1 of 20 amino acids, and the other 3 are "stop" codons, which I'd argue do represent something. (and at least one of those is sometimes translated as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenocysteine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenocysteine))

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting article. I had not associated him with LSFRs, but did know about his eponymous ruler: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_ruler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_ruler)

</comment><comment><USER8> > Berlekamp also created an algorithmic trading system that he sold to Jim > Simons and that became a starting point for Renaissance Technologies, now > the world's largest hedge fund.

Renaissance isn't the world's largest hedge fund.

<comment><USER9> As far as I know, they only have to disclose to the SEC how much money they have invested in equities. Since they don't publicly state total assets under management, we can't really know how much money Renaissance manages. They could have loads more than $52b invested in debt, commodities, currencies, etc.

[http://whalewisdom.com/filer/renaissance-technologies- llc](http://whalewisdom.com/filer/renaissance-technologies-llc)

<comment><USER8> I should correct myself:

It is extremely unlikely that they are the biggest fund based on their fundraising history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The man was an intellectual giant, and not only because he scored 44/48 on the Titan Test. He will be fondly remembered.

</comment><comment><USER11> If, like me, you've learned to avoid everything Mr. Wolfram writes do yourself a favor and make an exception to read this one. It's great. Either he's learning from his mistakes or the meds are working.

<comment><USER12> This comment was flagged dead (maybe justifiably), but I vouched to bring it back. While it may sound like an insult, I felt the same pleasant surprise as 'tacos' while reading it. This was definitely a different voice than usual for Wolfram, and I genuinely hope it's because he's taken feedback from others on how his tone sometimes comes across.

<comment><USER10> No, I think you made the correct decision. Wolfram must finally be learning something about how to make a comfortable verbal approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wolfram at his best

<comment><USER14> I'm consistently amazed by his blog. Wolfram's posts are always so huge and so detailed. I'm a decent writer (or so I thought), but it would take me weeks to write that post, even if I understood all the math, which I don't. It's insane how prolific he is.

<comment><USER6> Hasn't he used uncredited ghosts in the past?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great read</comment>


Ask HN: How I can get a job in "Big Data" technologies (Hadoop, Spark etc)? - <AUTHOR> Hey All,
I know,  at first sight the question seems to be lame. But I am struggling with this for years. By background is "Backend Development". Mostly used python and also some node.js. So, I want gradually want to move to work on technologies like Hadoop, Spark etc.
I am already doing online course on Hadoop but I don't know where to apply my learnings. As my days job is mostly backend development+devops staffs. I applied for jobs which are looking for Hadoop eco system developers but I don't get any response as I don't have real life experience with these technologies. In general I have 4 years software development and writing only backend code is getting kind of boring.
I really appreciate your suggestion.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Maybe the better question to ask is, "What kinds of problems are these technologies intended to solve? And how can I go about understanding those problems, and what other approaches might be used to solve them? Are Spark/Hadoop really the answer, or is that just what people are talking about because... it's what they keep hearing about?"

Remembering that, like everything, Hadoop, Spark and whatnot are means to the end -- and not even necessarily the best solutions for the problems everyone talks about using them for. And that understanding _business problems_ end-to- end (and how they drive technology choices) is infinitely more valuable than being able to play back what you learning in some online course somewhere.

And in the meantime -- don't worry about the rejection slips; just be awesome in the skills you do have, + continually seek to become awesome in whatever new areas you may be exposed to (which might be something relatively "unsexy" like Postgres or Solr) --

\-- and eventually people will come to see that it is your _awesomeness_ , not your online coursework or having this or that keyword show up in your most recent job description, that is your main selling point, and will be happy to bring you on board and throw you at new problems, and newer, even hotter technologies (way more interesting than whatever the online courses are pushing these days).</comment>


Couple fights for 44-year-old phone number - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-08/frontier-spectrum-customer-service <comment><USER2> It sounds like they cancelled the old account before the number was ported.</comment>


Generation Uphill - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21688591-millennials-are-brainiest-best-educated-generation-ever-yet-their-elders-often <comment><USER2> > Throughout human history, the old have subsidised the young. In rich > countries, however, that flow has recently started to reverse. Ronald Lee of > the University of California, Berkeley, and Andrew Mason at the University > of Hawaii measured how much people earn at different ages in 23 countries, > and how much they consume. Within families, intergenerational transfers > still flow almost entirely from older to younger. However, in rich countries > public spending favours pensions and health care for the old over education > for the young.

Speaking in broad strokes (i.e. I'm sure there are plenty of individual examples to the contrary) the baby boom generation is the most selfish generation in recent history, voting to cut taxes and benefits for government and societal services after they had gotten their full use out of them.

[http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/yes-summer-job- paid...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/yes-summer-job-paid-tuition- back-in-rsquo81-but-then-we-got-cheap/)

> What really made me feel ancient is that the 1981 UW student guide shows the > Med school charged only $1,029 a year back then. Today: $28,040!

> The reason a summer at KFC could pay for a year of UW med school in 1981 > isn't that we were so hardworking and industrious. It's that taxpayers back > then picked up 90 percent of the tab. We weren't Horatio Algers. We were > socialists.

> Today, the public picks up only 30 percent of UW tuition, and dropping.

Imagine what would happen if young people actually voted.

<comment><USER3> Why not get to the root of the problem? An education should not cost that much. Much of the reason the cost has outpaced inflation is the subsidizing of the tuition price paid by the student instead of making the process of educating less costly by using technology.

Imagine what would happen if a degree was about what you know, not just a credential.

<comment><USER4> Education should not cost anything at all. Full stop. Free education for everybody should be considered the biggest achievement by human beings.

If a society is not able to provide free education for the upcoming generations, then the basis of such a society should be questioned, rightfully so.

<comment><USER5> Is there a limit to your principle?

Should people be able to live at university forever, with a living wage from the public purse? What if they were enrolled but didn't ever attend?

Should the government even be involved in education? Were it not for government protection, what kind of disruption would we have seen to the education sector by now?

Given that university-educated people earn more than other taxpayers, why is it unreasonable to expect that they should be responsible for covering the cost of their education?

Consider the deferred payment system of the Australian model.

The Swiss model is interesting as well. In Switzerland, each university has to take whoever wants to go. But there's no rules about the conditions that they give you when you get there. So if 200 people applied and they were only set up for 50 places, they could give aptitude tests to them all, and then put seats and books in the gym for the remaining 150 with instruction to submit one difficult major project for pass-fail assessment each per semester.

<comment><USER6> You make some very interesting points - I just want to ask a side-question on a linguistic issue:

\- do you use "disrupt" in a positive sense, or in its original dictionary sense:

"interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem, alter or destroy the structure of .."

My point is also that often when people mean to disrupt in one way, they end up achieving the other.

<comment><USER5> I always think of disrupt from the perspective of creative destruction, and it always being unambiguously good. So if I was in a stagnant industry, I'd be trying to reform. And if I was getting hit hard by reformers, I'd see that as justice that I was on the wrong side of.

Hence, I'm tempted to say that both meanings mean the same thing to me.

But it's interesting you raise it. I recently reread _A Second Chance at Eden_ by Peter F Hamilton. In one of the stories, a character turns down an opportunity at fabulous wealth from a mindset that it would cause vast social trauma. This seeded a thought - perhaps creative destruction is not as unambiguously good as I presume. But it still hasn't yet sunk in. (And such a correction would require a worldview rebuild - a trauma of its own :) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can relate to the allegation that baby boomers like to 'keep millennials down' \- I truly cannot stand aspects of family renunions with aunts, uncles, even my parents who casually dismiss the majority of things I stand for or aspire to as 'a phase' or as 'nerdy'... meanwhile they swear by Fox News, pedal oversimplified, uncompromising viewpoints, and are more interested in talking to me about how I find time to party than the projects I work on ("Work hard, party hard, Orthoganol"). I sit at my grandfather's table when I can, maybe it's just an effect of old age, but I feel like his generation better understands the important things.

<comment><USER8> > 'a phase'

If you aren't a liberal by age 20, you don't have a heart. If you aren't a conservative by age 35, you don't have a brain.

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart- head/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/)

My generation blamed the previous one, as well. "Don't trust anyone over 30", "Hope I die before I get old", etc.

<comment><USER7> I think it's too simple to say "this is how all generations think of the previous one." I think baby boomers, admirably, set out to create a new identity - coming of age at the height of the 60s, time of prosperity meaning more independence, with Vietnam and the civil rights movements probably casting doubts about the prior generation's values (rightfully so). A clean break of sorts. I think the problem is they threw out the old, but failed to actually assert something substantial that could raise the next generation. Vague values and sentiments, really. Millennials get told to just be ourselves, find our passions, and are encouraged to party, drink, have sex... don't work too hard. Partying is treated almost as importantly if not more, as working hard to make something out of yourself and your life. Nerd culture is despised, maybe because they all watched a ton of jock 80s movies. I don't doubt a correlation between being raised on those values and the depression and mental illness rates we see today among young people... you can surely overcome it eventually, but you're raised on it by default. I'm painting with a broad stroke, but I think the baby boomers represent a sort of 'break' with the generations before them, and it didn't set up the next generation so well. My grandfather's generation, while they weren't socially progressive by any means, seems more grounded overall - they at least have access to the wisdom of many generations before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Where's the connection between mellinials in China and the West? Wildly different challenges.

<comment><USER10> I'd say more difference than connection. China is facing a terrifying 'demographic cliff' due to the previous 1 child policy, much more so than western nations. This also skewed gender towards males in the Chinese Gen Y cohort ([http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8957256...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89572563)).

Similar story is rural India; lots of 'missing women' from the population. In both cases, the first born son is/was culturally expected to be the 'old age pension fund' of the parents, whereas girls were considered financial liabilities until they could be married off (i.e. someone else's problem).

The very disturbing implication being: if you can only have 1 child, and you believe only boys can support you in retirement, what do you do when you give birth and find out it's a girl?

<comment><USER11> Yes, this is why it is illegal to determine the sex of the child before birth in India

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_sex_discernment#India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_sex_discernment#India)

<comment><USER10> I honestly wonder if this does more harm than good. By which I mean it leads to more of this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- child_policy#Effect_on_inf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- child_policy#Effect_on_infanticide_rates)

and this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_India#Co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_India#Contemporary_data_and_statistics)

 _" The 'one-child' policy has also led to what Amartya Sen first called 'Missing Women', or the 100 million girls 'missing' from the populations of China (and other developing countries) as a result of female infanticide, abandonment, and neglect"._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article does not address trends in health care or pension spend. These are the two largest total (federal, state, and local combined) spend items in our collective budget. 2015 figures:

      Total Spend: 6.18tn
      Total Revenue: 6.08tn

      Healthcare: 1.32tn     (21.3%)
      Pension: 1.20tn        (19.7%)
      Education: 0.93tn      (14.8%)
      Defense: 0.80tn        (13.1%)
      Welfare: 0.50tn         (8.2%)
      Other*: 1.43tn         (23.1%)

      *Other = Protection, Transportation, General Government, Interest

Healthcare expenses lean heavily towards the old but are funded by the working age population. What happens as the birth rate decreases and the average individual lives longer? Expenses increase for the working-age population.

Currently, social security is taking in ~$74bn less in payroll taxes than it pays out in benefits. The $2.83tn fund is invested in federal debt that pays 3.4% interest. So the interest payment (from the Federal government) of $96.2b is enough to cover the deficit.

By 2020, interest will no longer be enough to cover the deficit between revenue in from taxes and expenditures out to retirees. At that point, the SS fund will need to start redeeming treasuries for cash. The federal government will then need to issue new debt and/or raise taxes to cover SS treasury bond redemptions.

If the Federal Reserve follows through in its quest to raise interest rates and inflation, it will be relatively expensive to raise the $2.83tn in debt that we will need to fund SS through 2029, when it is projected to completely deplete its reserves of treasury notes. At this point, SS will only be able to pay out 75% of promised benefits given the current tax rate and demographic trends.

I'm less concerned about spend on education (which is broken) than I am about how we plan to fund our health care and pension systems. The only feasible way I can see is through increased taxation. I just started working last year. Hell of a time to enter the work force!

Overall it seems to me like we are paying an increasing amount of our federal budget on the older population than we anticipated we would need to and that we did not adequately provision for.

<comment><USER13> And to think I'll be "getting a pension" (or so I'm told) in 2047, or 18 years after Social security is broke, assuming 4% average return, which we're not getting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> From the article:

" _They are also brainier than any previous generation. Average scores on intelligence tests have been rising for decades in many countries, thanks to better nutrition and mass education._ "

Is this true? From what I've read on the Flynn effect[0], these are only possible explanations.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Proposed_explanat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Proposed_explanations)

</comment><comment><USER15> The internet has solved most problems that the article is referring to; but not for everybody. From his "village of mountains, rivers and trees" he could create the next facebook on his laptop (or even something less ambitious). The reason why he does not do that, has nothing to do with a lack of "hukou" privilege. When he says: "It is unfair", he is fixating himself on a problem that he cannot solve, instead of moving on. Seriously, the "hukou"-holding Chinese are as ignorant as he is. They will not create the next facebook either. There is nothing to learn from them or their schools. That is what him and 99% of the world's population don't seem to see. With the internet around, location does not matter. You can make exactly as much money as your intelligence allows you to. That means: almost nothing in terms of money for the "hukou" guys.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't think I got a satisfying answer to "Why now?" Why has the gerontocracy suddenly taken over in so many countries?

<comment><USER17> The aging of the post-war baby boom, I guess? Truly just a guess though.

Edit: What I mean is, what makes you question that explanation?

<comment><USER16> The author is trying to explain a global phenomena. Can an aging demographic bulge explain the Hukou? Honest question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Politicians in democracies listen to the people who vote.

A reasonable observer would conclude that either

a) the statement is false because politicians listen to the people with power/money

b) the set of democracies is empty, and the statement, while true, is a tautology.

</comment><comment><USER19>
        www.economist.com - Access Denied
        Error code 16
        This request was blocked by the security rules

_Okaaaaay_

Edit: Strangely The Economist seems to be blocking Tunisian IP addresses.

<comment><USER20> I had to enter a captcha yesterday for the first time at their page. I think they are under a DDOS attack.</comment></comment>


Is the Panic Worse Than the Virus? - 100-xyz https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/panic-worse-virus <comment><AUTHOR> That comments section is quite something!</comment>


'Obscene' U.S. Manga Collector Jailed 6 Months  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/obscene-us-manga-collector-jailed-6-months/ <comment><USER2> This showcases several major problems with our legal system. The first is obvious; cartoons are not children, nor can they be abused. So there is no point in going after people who possess said representations. Not really my thing, but definitely not a federal crime. (How long until any document the Ruling Party doesn't like becomes "obscene"?)

The second problem is more subtle; and something I see as a major threat to the rights afforded to the accused -- ridiculous trumped-up charges, and minimal pleas in exchange for not going to trial. 15 years in prison for owning certain books? Who would risk a fair trial if that's a possible outcome? Much better than submit to the will of the system and take your six months.

Fifteen years should not even be an option on the state's table. 1 year max. Fifteen years is what murderers and rapists get, if they have a really bad lawyer. Is owning books worse than taking someone's life?

Not going to trial means that the legal system never has a chance to strike down these blatantly unconstitutional laws, leaving anyone who owns books open to potential criminal charges. Are you sure the government likes every book on your shelf? With this kind of precedent, you should probably quit reading and just watch CSPAN -- It's What's Best.

Edit: I just realized that many actual child rapists face fewer than fifteen years in prison. So rather than reading a book showing someone who might be underage, it's better for you to just rape children instead. A fine message our lawmakers are sending us.

A few more cases like this, and I'm quitting programming and going to law school. This stuff needs to stop.

<comment><USER3> Little bit of legal background for you, hopefully it adds something to your thoughts:

The standard for "obscenity" is defined in the leading Supreme Court case Miller v. California, which held that obscene material was not protected free speech. I won't go through the whole test (Wikipedia explains it well), but it generally says that obscene material has to "appeal to the prurient interest" to an average person in the local community, and it has to have no redeeming social values.

So I wouldn't be worried that the "Ruling Party" deems something obscene or not. Instead, I would be worried about what the "average person" thinks. Isn't that a little odd--that your constitutional rights depend on what your neighbors think?

(That was an argument that one of my law professors made, and I think it's pretty compelling.)

<comment><USER4> This test is greatly complicated by the internet, where 'community' takes on a whole new meaning.

<comment><USER5> Not in the minds of senile judges and functionally illiterate jurors...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is utterly absurd. You cannot limit in any way _fiction_ that people read or write - not if you claim to be a free country.

Seriously - why is this happening? I am not talking about "protecting the children" or other such nonsense - the question is what _actually_ is happening here? What is the reason? What possible advantage can anyone have from destroying the life of this man like this?

EDIT: Improved wording.

<comment><USER2> _What possible advantage can anyone have from destroying the life of this man like this?_

"God" will like them more. Pleasure is evil, sex is even more evil, and sex involving people who look like they're under 18 is so evil that you shouldn't even be allowed to think about it.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention that it establishes a precedent. Your library, your viewing habits, your browser history are all potentially criminal now. Can you declare with certainty that you possess nothing incriminating?

What if the definition of obscene materials were expanded to include depictions of abortion or of darwinism...?

<comment><USER2> What if you could be imprisoned for your thoughts alone?

<comment><USER7> Just wait till next year when we start installing the brain scanners at airport security checkpoints.

/me wishes that sounded less plausible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just googled the probable original Japanese titles of the first four listed seized items. I found they are all available on Amazon.co.jp (3 available as used from third-party vendors, 1 as new directly from Amazon). From the covers it's clear these are the items in question.

It's not like you need to go underground to buy them; Amazon is selling them, though obviously Japanese standards of what counts as obscene are different than those of the U.S.

<comment><USER9> Is there even a word in japanese for "obscene"?

<comment><USER10> "hiwai" works, but the "waisetsu" is used more in the legal context. Japan did a trial regarding a publisher few years back, called "Matsubunkan trial". Some details in the middle of page: <http://comipress.com/article/2007/07/17/2307>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Sorry for two top-level comments, but I did some more reading on the case. It started when the postal service seized a box containing the books. So if there's someone you don't like, just order a few books from amazon.co.jp for them, and then they'll be facing 15 years in prison.

"Land of the free," indeed.

<comment><USER11> Now you're getting slightly hysterical. They would just claim that they didn't order the books themselves, the evidence would back them up, and they probably wouldn't even be prosecuted.

<comment><USER2> Or maybe they'd just take the plea agreement, because they actually do have a few comic books on their bookshelf.

<comment><USER11> Plea bargaining is one stage of prosecution, intended to avoid a trial. If they don't get prosecuted (for example because there's no evidence that they ordered the books), there's no plea bargaining.

Plea bargains are not unique to manga-related crimes. If your claim was accurate, it would be easy to get someone locked away for _any_ crime just by planting weak evidence against them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _"Handley was the nation's first to be convicted under that law for possessing cartoon art, without any evidence that he also collected or viewed genuine child pornography."_

Mike Diana was first to receive a conviction for publishing, distributing, and advertising "obscene" comics (in 1996). See:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_diana>

And Diana's website to see the comics he was jailed for:

<http://www.mikedianacomix.com/mikediana/mikediana.html>

</comment><comment><USER13> The whole article was pretty horrifying, but this sentence in particular stood out for me:

 _The high court ruled that the ban was too broad, and could cover legitimate speech, including Hollywood productions._

So Hollywood's business interests matter and regular people don't?

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems the legal system as well as our society as a whole is pretty schizophrenic about that relationship between fantasy and reality.

Do we believe that representations of violent fantasies generally cause crime? And secondly, if something does indeed cause a tiny group of people to commit a crime is that a good enough reason to prevent everybody from using it?

Depending on the answers the consequences of applying it consistently are very far reaching.

Clearly, if comic books depicting child porn are prohibited, any depiction of rape and murder for entertainment purposes must be prohibited as well. That includes mainstream movies, TV programs and video games.

I suspect the real purpose of laws like the one applied here is not preventing crime or protecting anyone.

So the meta question is whether laws should be consistent and effective at preventing crime, or whether it is sufficient if they allow some kind of collective emotional identification.

I'm concerned that if we put up with the latter the law will become a mere pretence for mob rule, which is easily exploited by fanatics and populists.

<comment><USER2> _Clearly, if comic books depicting child porn are prohibited, any depiction of rape and murder for entertainment purposes must be prohibited as well. That includes mainstream movies, TV programs and video games._

It is interesting how many arbitrary lines this creates. Soldiers killing the enemy would be legal to depict, but the enemy soldiers killing us would be illegal. Depicting someone having sex at 23:59:59 on the day before her 18th (or whatever) birthday would be a crime, whereas at 24:00:00 it would be legal.

Extending this to cartoons is even more arbitrary. How do you know which side is the good guys (where killing is legal) and which side is the bad guys (where killing is a crime)? How do you know the age of someone being depicted? (I've seen 14-year-old girls that could pass as 25, and 25-year-old girls that could pass as 14. If you depict someone who is 25 but looks 14, is that a crime? If you depict someone who is 14 but looks 25, is that a crime?)

All I can come up with is that any fantasy should always be permitted, unconditionally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> wire article from 2009 with more details: <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/>

''' Chase says he recommended the plea agreement (.pdf) to his client because he didn't think he could convince a jury to acquit him once they'd seen the images in question. The lawyer declined to describe the details. "If they can imagine it, they drew it," he says. "Use your imagination. It was there." '''

moral of the story: GET A BETTER LAWYER

<comment><USER2> I don't think the jury should even matter. They determine the facts of the case, not the law. The fact is, he has what the law disallows. But the reality is, the law is totally illegal.

I would be shocked if he didn't win his first appeal.

(Some other details seem shady. Is receiving books in the mail grounds for the warrant used to search his house? Were the obscene pictures in "plain view"? If this is what I can think of, having never studied law, you'd think someone's whose job it is to think of stuff like this would do better.)

<comment><USER16> Can he appeal, having pleaded guilty? Shouldn't the invalidity of the law have been raised At the trial he elected not to have?

<comment><USER17> IANAL. Having said that, there are a _few_ avenues for appeal. For instance, if the defendant's lawyer was provably incompetent or did not disclose a conflict of interest against his client. Or if the prosecution withheld evidence that would have prevented the defendant from taking the plea.

In most jurisdictions, the defendant could also opt for a bench trial, which would have just the judge and no jury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does it stop being porn when it's old?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_Wife)

<comment><USER2> Unrelated, because the girl in that painting is not obviously under 18. No, I don't think the legal system makes sense here.

<comment><USER18> Not unrelated, Wired implies that part of the problem with the manga was that they depicted bestiality. Although it seems that he wasn't convicted for the bestiality part?

I don't totally understand the law - maybe the bestiality helped further classify it as 'obscene'?

<comment><USER19> He wasn't convicted at all: he pleaded guilty.

@metamemetics: OK, but you get my point :). Does anyone have a suggestion for a succinct way to say what I meant to say?

<comment><USER15> convicted=found guilty and punishment decided. He was convicted. Pleading guilty is how the majority of people are convicted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That sounds absurd. What about South Park creators? Shouldn't they be jailed by same laws?

</comment><comment><USER21> "I'd say the anime community's reaction to this, since day one, has been almost exclusively one of support for Handley and disgust with the U.S. courts and legal system,"

I'd say the reaction of any intelligent, decent person would be the same. Which, I guess, is why his lawyer told him he'd better not face a jury.

</comment><comment><USER22> And yet, somehow 4chan continues on... The irony is overwhelming.

<comment><USER23> is it really relevant ?

<comment><USER24> Well, it makes it even more obvious that local standards for obscenity are meaningless. Also that if you must find a common denominator it should probably be the most permissible. All things said and done, I very much like the old principle: "You do not have a right not to be offended".

<comment><USER2> _"You do not have a right not to be offended"._

Not sure how that even applies here. The books arrived in sealed boxes and remained in the guy's home, free from public view. Nobody should even know that the guy has the books, making it even more powerful than "you do not have a right not to be offended". You do not have a right to open other people's mail and be offended, because you do not have the right to open other people's mail!

<comment><USER24> If I read correctly, the package was opened by customs officials. While slightly annoying, it is their job to open packages from time to time, and it has its uses.

The problem is it should not fall on me to keep my manga hidden. It's actually pretty hard to keep something completely out of sight... should he make a special room locked at all times just because he _may_ have questionable materials? I'd say "you don't have the right to be offended" is the more general principle here, and solves the issue much more elegantly then privacy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The project manager from hell (integrates with Git) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/michaeldv/pit

<comment><USER2> My 2 cents:

I don't like much the idea of naming a branch by a number. I use git-flow (<https://github.com/nvie/gitflow>) and there is a standard name convention.

It would be nice to adapt the pit hook to branch name of the form : _pit <num> or in regexp /._pit\d+$/

On the other hand I use wedoist.com They don't have any API for now (<http://wedoist.com/Help/showQuestion/137>) It would definitively be great to have the ability to synchronize task with this service.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been looking at ditz recently. I fail to see the point of using C for something like this though?

<comment><USER4> From the readme

> I wrote it because I needed a command-line tool for tracking tasks. Besides, > after years of Ruby and JavaScript programming I missed plain C.

<comment><USER3> If he needed a command-line tool for tracking tasks, why couldn't he use ditz?

<comment><USER5> Other than the fact that they're both command-line project managers, these don't look all that similar. Among other things, pit is designed to store your data in your home directory, while ditz is designed to store it in your VC system. Pit has git commit hooks, but it doesn't look like ditz does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> oh, this is good.

_Nothing_ beats command line productivity. If it all happens at the same moment I'm managing git, I expect this tool to be perfect for project management needs.

Spot on.

</comment><comment><USER7> This could be really interesting project, however using locally stored tasks for a project hosted in distributed VCS renders it pretty much useless.

<comment><USER8> Come on Piotr, it's the very first version, how can it be useless? :-) BTW you can store .pit file anywhere you want.

<comment><USER7> Yes, you can store _PITFILE_ anywhere, but:

1) There is single _PITFILE_ that contains all tasks (which means that it would be source of conflicts in all task-related commits).

2) _PITFILE_ contains tasks for all your projects instead of the current one, which means that it isn't really good candidate for storing inside your project's repository. This could be worked-around by exporting _PITFILE_ every now and then, but it's far from perfect.

If you wan to make it _useful_ then I would propose:

1) Store tasks inside git repository (maybe special refs/tasks/* tree? Like for tags or notes: refs/tags/* , refs/notes/*).

2) Store each task in separate file, that is: .git/refs/tasks/001, .git/refs/tasks/002, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Moves to Disallow Apps From Running Google Ads - <AUTHOR> http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/20110210/facebook-moves-to-disallow-apps-from-running-google-ads/ <comment><USER2> "We are continuing to work with various ad providers and will add them to the list as they sign the terms..."

I hope them working with the various providers would make sure that the information they recieve about each user isnt gathered or resold in some way, or heck even allows a user to opt out from having their information logged but in the end a little bribe never hurts to have facebook look the other way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to think this will launch with Google onboard, unless there is some reason Google is specifically targeted (which the article says they weren't.)</comment>


Bruce Schneier: Drawing the wrong lessons from horrific events - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/31/opinion/schneier-aurora-aftermath/index.html <comment><USER2> Even here in Germany, the overreaction to the event in Aurora can be witnessed:

I went to the cinema last sunday (for Batman), and they had signs all over the place saying something like "In reaction to repeated worried requests about security, we will not allow visitors to be costumed and may search bags."

I won't comment on the knee-jerk reactions of the customers. What more interesting to me is the decision made by the people in charge there, in reaction to those "worried customers". Was the cinema management panicking as well? Or were they just not courageous enough to stay calm and risk being deemed as "not doing something about it"?

<comment><USER3> That seems more like pandering to customers to me, which is a common thing for businesses to do. Customers keep asking about $foo, so you have to at least pretend to care about $foo.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but by doing this, you potentially scare all other customers off as well, and make them feel uncomfortable. I don't think that is a wise business decision.

An alternative would be to just give those worried ones a warm fuzzy feeling, without even informing the others. Or, if that doesn't suffice, just live with the fact that a few people won't go to the cinema for a month.

Of course, I don't know how many people were "worried" in this case. I hope there weren't to many of them, that would be a sign that my country is getting _really_ paranoid.

<comment><USER4> " I don't know how many people were "worried" in this case."

I think that's the thing about irrationality. If the media hype is strong enough anyone's brain can be taken over.

I remember very clearly the anthrax scare. I remember consciously thinking about anthrax when receiving envelopes at the business when that happened. I knew it was irrational but it was nearly impossible to fight those thoughts until the media attention died down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A quick search says that 71 people were shot or killed in the massacre.

If a gunman were to go out every day and shoot up a movie theater of say, 110 people, for the next century; the death toll[2] would be:

(110 * 365) * 100 = 4015000

Which is a little more than 4/5ths of double the annual fatalities in 2009. [0]

[0]: <http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm>

[1]: Of course, if our hypothetical gunman only targeted movie theaters, going to any single movie theater on a given day might be a risky proposition. If someone can find the number of people who see a movie every day in the US I'd love to know.

[2]: Actually, shot != death; so the death toll would be lower. Of course then you have to think about things like permanent debilitation and traumatic memories, not to mention healthcare costs.

According to this table:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/wv8t1/comprehensive_ti...](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/wv8t1/comprehensive_timeline_aurora_massacre)

There were _60_ victims, and 38 have been released from the hospital. 8 are still in critical condition, so we can't know if they'll live or die.

I'm going to assume, just for the sake of being on the _pessimistic_ side of estimations (I don't actually believe this.), that everyone in critical care dies.

So presumably that would mean:

60 - 38 = 22.

Depending on the lethality of the shooter and random chance, the death toll may be as much as 2/3rds lower than the total number of those injured.

EDIT: This post originally said:

 _Which is still lower than the amount of people killed by heart disease in a single year here in the US. [0][1]_

At the first citation.

<comment><USER6> I don't know, these exercises seem pointless to me.

If you find that kids in a certain school district have a high rate of death by self-inflicted gun shot, you don't ignore it and say "Well, that's statistically insignificant compared to the number of people who die of cancer every year".

It's still a problem and still needs to be looked at and solved.

<comment><USER5> That's not what people are doing though. They aren't looking at a local issue and trying to figure out what to do to heal the community. They're looking at a shooting in Aurora and asking what to do about our _national_ gun laws. And our _national_ security infrastructure.

And the answer is, largely nothing. Because this is _nationally_ statistical noise.

(And on the subject of noise, giving crazed gun men this level of attention I would think is probably one of, if not the; largest factor in causing these incidents to happen.)

<comment><USER7> I think a call for restrictions on gun ownership is a natural reaction to the fact that any lunatic can (and does) load up with military-style weaponry and can go on a killing spree.

It doesn't happen everyday, but there are without a doubt lots of people who are stocking up on guns. Many of them are at least a little wacky, and long- guns are nearly unregulated in most US jurisdictions.

You can call these events statistical noise, but the general public put you in the category where folks who claim that nuclear reactor meltdowns are no big deal are.

<comment><USER8> > military-style weaponry

Please stop.

All semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are functionally identical.

The suspect had a rifle, shotgun and handgud. that is 'loaded up'?

Since when does 'requires federal background check' == 'nearly unregulated'?

<comment><USER9> _All semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are functionally identical._

I take your point. However, the cartridges fired by those guns may differ significantly in their effect, and the media persists in calling the killer's AR-15 a "high-powered assault rifle". This is demonstrably false. If anything, it's a " _low-powered_ assault rifle".

The AR-15's 5.56mm NATO ammunition [1] is designed to be light and portable, and to injure rather than kill. Compare that to, say, the AK-47 and it's 7.62x39 ammunition [2]. The energy of the AR-15 ammo is about 1300J, while that of the AK's is 1500J or more.

The media is causing a certain degree of the fear here. I see three possible reasons:

A. They've got a specific agenda

B. They expect that sensationalism will get them better ratings

C. They're lazy. "High-powered assault rifle" is a hackneyed phrase that just springs to mind, and they don't care enough about accuracy to check it. (of course, the reason it's hackneyed is itself the media's overuse)

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56x45mm_NATO>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x39mm>

<comment><USER10> _The AR-15's 5.56mm NATO ammunition [1] is designed to be light and portable, and to injure rather than kill. Compare that to, say, the AK-47 and it's 7.62x39 ammunition [2]. The energy of the AR-15 ammo is about 1300J, while that of the AK's is 1500J or more._

7.62x39 is not a NATO round only because it's Russian in origin. It's generally the same is the 5.56 (basically a .223) in that it's a non-expanding bullet typically due to the FMJ (full metal jacket). The light and portable part is mostly due to history - the arms race of more shots equaling more kills, and mobile infantries. Compare that with say the .30-06 or 7.62x54 which are big rounds shot from big, heavy rifles (M1 Garand and Mosin-Nagant, respectively), a holdover from trench warfare.

You can purchase non-NATO 5.56/.223 ammo for hunting, and are typically required to use it when hunting game. The opposite of warfare, it's considered more humane to kill an animal than to injure it.

<comment><USER9> _7.62x39 ... It's generally the same is the 5.56 (basically a .223) in that it's a non-expanding bullet typically due to the FMJ_

The fact that they're typically jacketed is where the similarity starts and ends. They are loaded differently, spin at different rates, and so on. But most obviously, 7.62x39 is almost twice the diameter of 5.56.

7.62x39 is probably much more comparable to the .308 Winchester [1] typically used for hunting larger game. According to wikipedia, "the .308 Winchester has become the most popular short-action, big-game hunting cartridge worldwide".

Now, circling back to my original point about the AR-15 (or, really, the 5.56mm cartridge it shoots) being low-power, wikipedia lists the energy of the energy of the .308 bullet at 3600J-3900K, nearly _triple_ the power of the 5.56mm.

So I stand by my claim that the AR-15 is a _low-power_ rifle.

 _You can purchase non-NATO 5.56/.223 ammo for hunting, and are typically required to use it when hunting game._

This is absolutely false. 5.56mm ammunition is too small for hunting deer, bear, etc. You've got to be a very good shot to take down large animals with something bearing so little energy. That's why hunters tend to use rounds in the .30cal range -- like the .308 I mentioned, and also very commonly the 7.62x39 from the AK, but when hunting it's probably being shot out of an SKS [2]. Wikipedia verifies that "In the early 1990s, the Chinese SKS rapidly became the "poor man's deer rifle" in some Southern areas of the United States".

So there are a variety of _larger_ cartridges used for hunting larger game, generally in the .30cal neighborhood or more, because the 5.56mm/.223 cartridge just doesn't carry enough energy to take down the big animals.

(looks like someone changed the wikipedia link on me! The new link for 7.62x39 is <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9739mm> )

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.308_Winchester>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sks>

<comment><USER10> _You can purchase non-NATO 5.56/.223 ammo for hunting, and are typically required to use it when hunting game._

I re-read my sentence and it didn't come out quite right. I agree that 5.56/.223 isn't your typical hunting round. What I meant by my sentence is that you _can_ hunt with it but it isn't generally legal to use non-expanding rounds for hunting.

 _So I stand by my claim that the AR-15 is a low-power rifle._

No need to move from your position, you are correct. It's an instrument of war and not utility.

There are slight ups and downs depending on the size of game but I agree that the .308 is probably the de-facto starting round for big game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Daniel Kahneman wrote about this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman#Hedonic_psychol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman#Hedonic_psychology)

and is a concept called the Focusing Illusion or Anchoring:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focusing_illusion>

In his tests, Kahneman showed that people assign too much "utility" to painful events, even though a simliar event with less heuristics for pain was statistically the same.

Great read for anyone interested:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow>

<comment><USER12> I just finished _Thinking, Fast And Slow_ a couple of days ago, and it's the most thought-provoking, moving work of non-fiction I've read in years.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. I can't recommend it enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wrote Bruce an email after reading this article on my phone this morning:

\</comment><comment>-

Mr. Schneier,

I read your piece on CNN this morning (Drawing the wrong lessons from horrific events) on my phone.

I thought you'd like to know that when viewed on a phone, the (utterly ridiculous and annoying) links that CNN inserts in their articles are no longer distinguishable from the content of the article, as all formatting is stripped. Consequently, it appears as though on the second page of the article, you wrote "Opinion: Average Americans don't need assault weapons", when that is not the case (as far as I can tell). I've included a screen shot from my phone for your convenience (also viewable here: <http://d.pr/i/MTOx>).

Cheers, \-- Travis Northcutt

</comment><comment><USER14> Even if we assume that such crazy shooting attacks could be frequent, it's still not obvious what should we do about them.

Should we ban the weapons or should we allow carry weapons, so law-abiding citizens could protect themselves? After all, that movie theater was in a gun- free zone.

<comment><USER15> It was dark. It was crowded. The guy set off a smoke grenade. Everyone was panicking.

Firing a gun in those conditions, you could hit _anyone_ \-- by sheer force of numbers, you'd be far more likely to wound a hapless bystander than the shooter. Especially as he was wearing body armour.

As such, I hold that the death toll would have been considerably higher if some of the cinema-goers had been packing heat and decided to shoot back. There's no way this incident is a valid argument for more guns.

<comment><USER16> >It was dark.

Hmmm... Which person do I engage? Maybe the guy with the rifle, down in front of the screen, who is facing the audience, shooting everyone, with a clearing around him?

>Everyone was panicking

Not everyone panics in emergency situations.

>I hold that the death toll would have been considerably higher if some of the cinema-goers had been packing heat and decided to shoot back.

He shot about 60 people in about 90 seconds. Anything to trip him up would have lowered the death toll.

<comment><USER17>
      > Hmmm... Which person do I engage? Maybe the guy with
      > the rifle, down in front of the screen, who is facing
      > the audience, shooting everyone, with a clearing around
      > him?

Imagine every person in the theater was packing. They all pull out their weapons. Through the smoke and the dark, which is the good guy, which is the bad guy? Just shoot everyone that has a gun?

<comment><USER18> You may be assuming that 'guns' are the only added factor.

What appears to happen is that people who carry on a routine basis are more aware that they _are_ carrying and act accordingly.

It's a theater. The good guys are in stadium seating, the bad guy is in front.

It's a perfect setup for that kind of a thing - everyone is carrying a weapon, everyone keeps their seat, fires over the heads of the row in front. Problem solved.

But in reality, guys like this never pick an armed crowd of people. They never show up at the police station, never at a gun show, at an NRA convention, never at a shooting range.

I submit if everyone were armed at the theater he would have gone somewhere else.

<comment><USER17> Right _now_ most of the people that are packing legally concealed weapons are generally people that are obsessive about their guns and practice a lot (and generally take them seriously).

If _everyone_ started carrying concealed weapons, that would be another story.

<comment><USER18> Consider cars.

Everyone drives. Yet only a small minority truly panic when something bad happens on the road. Most of us turn into a skid, slow down in wet conditions.

Any road - absent something mind-bendingly drastic, I don't see more than a small minority of people carrying daily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm actually a lot more concerned with how we handle people with mental illness in the USA. If it wasn't a gun, it would have been a backpacked filled with explosives, but the common factor is a sick mind that had multiple interactions with people who could have helped. It seems like we need to spend some money on figuring out why our systems and processes in this area are failing.

</comment><comment><USER20> for the people who are arguing "but what about the right to bear arms"?

The wikipedia page has some interesting discussions about the history and analysis of the 2nd amendment.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

<comment><USER9> Downvoted: simply saying "there's another page that has something interesting; go read it" isn't adding anything. At least summarize, or point us to something there that you think is salient.

<comment><USER21> They're simply linking to a page related to the topic. It's adding historical context to the "right to bear arms" issue, and that's valuable when debating such a thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > People tend to base risk analysis more on stories than on data.

People base all decisions on stories rather than data. It's marketing 101 -- don't sell features, sell stories.

</comment><comment><USER23> Comments under the CNN article are universally positive. You basically never see that on news site comments -- seems like there is broad public support for ratcheting down security theater. I don't really understand what stands it up now.

<comment><USER9> _I don't really understand what stands it up now._

American politics has nothing to do with reality anymore.

This morning in the car there was a news bit about a guy who had just been arrested, and it was found that he'd posed with the Governor for a photo a couple of weeks ago. Clearly the Gov poses for scores of photos every day, most of which are with people whose names he doesn't even know. But it appears that someone thought that we needed to know about this photograph, and I can't imagine any reason for that.

The political system seems to be a perpetual motion machine. It sustains itself independent of the rest of the world by producing unfounded hype that creates hysteria.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > If a friend tells you about getting mugged in a foreign country, that story > is more likely to affect how safe you feel traveling to that country than > reading a page of abstract crime statistics will.

One can make an argument that this is reasonable. I share many common interests with my friends, and so if I were to visit that foreign country I'd probably be interested in the same things in that country that my friend was interested in, and so would likely be traveling to the same places my friend visited. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to weigh my friend's experiences in that country higher than statistics derived from the combined experiences of everyone who goes to that country.

<comment><USER25> Ok, well, feel free to not understand statistics.

<comment><USER26> Same back at you - tzs's comment is entirely reasonable. The point is that statistics collected from a situation with a higher similarity to the one you're trying to predict can provide a better indicator than general statistics, even if the sample size is smaller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> John Kay's piece today about the same issue is quite pertinent: <http://www.johnkay.com/2012/08/01/8684>

He's looking at how a media frenzy affects perception and laws disproportionally.

</comment><comment><USER28> As someone not living in the US, my takeaway from this article was that citizens and visitors should all wear bullet-proof vests in public places similar to the way everyone wears car seat belts for safety. Since one shouldn't over-react and take away the freedom of toting around assault- rifles.

Body Armour companies would LOVE this.

</comment><comment><USER29> Gun debates are about as hacker newsy as abortion or gay marriage or other controversial subjects. In other words: not very.

<comment><USER30> The article isn't about guns[1], but about evaluation of risks.

[1] Or if it is, I totally missed the point.

<comment><USER29> You wouldn't know that from looking at the discussion here. I think a more hacker newsy kind of thing would be an actual discussion of risks with some mathematical modeling, not a discussion of current events from cnn.com, with statements that are bound to set certain people off.

<comment><USER14> Guilty as charged. It's too tempting to slide into "pro-gun vs gun control" discussion even if the topic is "overreaction to extremely low probability events".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another attempt to blame guns for what people do.

I don't own any guns of any type. I've fired quite a few of them, of all kinds. I don't feel the need to own one for personal protection or as a hobby. I know plenty of people who do. Without fault, these guns spend more time locked-away in a safe than being fired for any reason. Yes, even the "assault rifles" (do rifles assault without a person holding them?).

Every time something happens liberal-leaning media rushes to blame guns. It's never people, is it?

A gun doesn't kill any more than a car. It's the people using them that sometimes, intentionally or not, harm others.

None of these articles are backed by any data. Yet they are quick to blame "assault rifles" and proclaim all manner of remedies.

I wanted data. A quick Google search for "homicides by weapon type" produced a bunch of links. The top link comes right out of the US Department of Justice:

<http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/weapons.cfm>

The very first chart shows very clearly that the vast majority --by a factor of 3 to 5 or more-- of homicides are committed with handguns. Not "assault rifles".

I'm assuming that "assault rifles" falls under the "other gun" category in the chart.

What's even more interesting is that homicides using a Knives exceeded "other gun" by a good margin from 1976 to about 1994 and then run about even. That's interesting data. It seems that knives are just as dangerous today as "other gun".

Far more detailed data is available here:

<http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr>

I really didn't have the time to dive into it, but I suspect I would learn exactly the same thing: "assault rifles" represent less than about 3% of total homicides. Put another way, more people --like TEN TIMES MORE-- are killed with knives every year than with "assault rifles". This is data from the DOJ and FBI so one can hardly put any kind of spin on it.

All of this anti-gun talk after some crazy nutcase goes and does something stupid is absolute nonsense. The claims are not backed by data and those making the claims, for some reason, never choose to present any data (or confuse people by lumping "guns" with "other guns").

I am more of a libertarian who leans left on some issues and right on others. I'd like to believe that I think things through rather than follow like sheep.

I happen to find the way the left constantly bitches about and vilifies guns to be disgusting pandering. They never discuss what the actual data shows: That young blacks are killing each other en-masse for drugs and other bullshit. And that our first black president has done virtually nothing to materially change the reality of millions of black kids who I am sure would be wonderful assets to our society given the right ecosystem.

It's far easier to sling distorted statistics, vilify the NRA and rally idiot voters to try to take away gun rights. In the meantime the real victims of violent crimes, which --by far-- statistics show are hispanic and black youngsters, don't see anything of real value change in their environment.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States)

And, of course, let's not forget that the 9/11 attacks where carried out using knives. They killed thousands.

The penalties for using guns criminally should be brutally severe. Automatic life in prison or some such thing. Criminals need to know that choosing a gun is the worst possible idea. I'm all for that. As far as your average Joe, leave him alone.

<comment><USER32> I live in a country with tight weapon control, so I'm genuinely curious. What do you need an assault rifle for?

<comment><USER33> >What do you need an assault rifle for?

Very few people actually own assault rifles (you need a tax stamp and it has to have been registered before 1986). The weapon the shooter in Colorado used wasn't an assault rifle because it was semi-automatic.

Whether you agree with it our not our constitution gives us the right to bear arms as a check against government oppression.

The second amendment clearly wasn't written to protect hunter's rights.

That being said an AR-15 can be used for hunting, target shooting, or home defense. Its not fundamentally different from any semi-automatic hunting rifle.

Previous "Assault Weapons" restrictions in the US targeted guns based on how "scary" they looked (guns with barrel shrouds, collapsible stocks etc...). Since statically these kinds of guns are almost never used in crimes, regulating them would have almost no impact on overall death rate.</comment></comment></comment>