Monsanto Attacks Scientists After Studies Show Trouble for Its New Weedkiller - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/26/559733837/monsanto-and-the-weed-scientists-not-a-love-story <comment><AUTHOR> NPR has been reporting on the issues farmers have had with Dicamba for months now

[http://www.npr.org/search/index.php?searchinput=dicamba](http://www.npr.org/search/index.php?searchinput=dicamba)

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/13/557607443/wit...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/13/557607443/with- ok-from-epa-use-of-controversial-weedkiller-is-expected-to-double)

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/07/555872494/a-w...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/07/555872494/a-wayward- weed-killer-divides-farm-communities-harms-wildlife)

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/06/535669282/dam...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/06/535669282/damage- from-wayward-weedkiller-keeps-growing)

[http://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/532879755/a-pesticide-a- pigwee...](http://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/532879755/a-pesticide-a-pigweed-and- a-farmers-murder)

It's not surprising that Monsanto would try use their widespread influence to stop research on their product.

Monsanto has claimed that the issue with Dicamba drifting and killing crops in fields that it wasn't applied to was the fault of the farmers mis-application of Dicamba. Evidence now shows that Dicamba will evaporate from the soil _after_ being applied to crops safely, meaning that it cannot be prevented from drifting into other fields and killing innocent farmer's crops.

<comment><USER2> Where is the evidence to suggest that evaporated dicamba is able to condense in sufficient quantity to effect plants at a distance?

I've lived among large production farm, much of my life. The application of spray products (keyword: sprayers that produce mists of liquid products) are easily caught and carried by the lightest winds.

Dicamba does not "evaporate" in any appreciable amount. It is highly soluble in water and has a melting point 237-241 degrees F.... The water would evaporate, leaving the chemical behind.

<comment><USER3> That's an insufficient model of evaporation.

The evidence is the study in which they applied Dicamba as directed to waterproof trays of dirt in one field. They then trucked the trays of dirt to another field, and laid them between rows of non-resistant crops. The crops died, showing that the Dicamba in the trays must have affected the crops.

Water has a melting point of 212F. Nonetheless, it evaporates, and does not all stay behind.

<comment><USER2> Water boils at 212F, melts at 32F. It is a sufficient model of evcaporation. For dicamaba to have a sufficient concentration to harm (even targeted plants) it must be rather concentrated, compared to what one might find in concentrations produced by condensation (one field over). Having a degree in organic chemistry and thousands of hours of bench chemistry, I can speak with some authority on the matter.

<comment><USER4> Liquid water has a vapor pressure, dependent mostly on temperature. When this vapor pressure exceeds the partial pressure of the water in the gas phase, water crosses the phase barrier. This is how you can have trace measurements of water vapor in (1 bar) air that is cooler than 100 degC.

Some volatile chemicals--such as the acetone in nail polish remover--are detectable as odors even when their temperature is well below their boiling point. This is the liquid phase establishing an equilibrium with the gas phase at that temperature. The most energetic molecules in the liquid escape into the gas (cooling the liquid in the process).

Imagine a lake in a desert. The maximum daytime temperature in that desert is 40 degC, well below the boiling point of 100 degC. The lake has no outflows. Over the course of a month, the lake disappears. Where did the water go? It evaporated, and the water in the gas phase blew away and was replaced by dry air, thus allowing more of the liquid water to evaporate. If you put an airtight dome over it, the lake would stay put, and the air in the dome would get very humid. You would probably also be able to see condensation on its walls, as the vapor movement continuously transfers heat from the lake to the dome.

The dicamba is likely evaporating from the soil into air with no gaseous dicamba in it, blowing to adjacent fields, and the plants are uptaking it as a gas via their normal respiration. No condensation is required, for the same reason that plants don't eat dry ice to get their CO2. Once inside the plant, the vapor dicamba is free to dissolve into the plant's own water. It is not necessary for it to dissolve in water outside the plant to be taken up by the roots. Those plant cells might not have a lot of water in them, or they might be filled to bursting with it. Plants have to deal with deluge and drought differently than we animals do.

The questions everyone have to ask are what concentration of dicamba is damaging to the plant, and what is the exact relationship between wind, distance, ambient moisture, and concentration? By calculating from the vapor pressure vs temperature of the chemical, and solubility, you should be able to draw a plume-shaped area on a map that shows where dicamba-vulnerable plants will die after an application. If plants outside that area die, something in your model is wrong. And people are claiming that plants outside the area are dying. What part of the model is wrong? Based on the article, it seems like the volatility is off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just to tie this back to the more common HN topics (don't get me wrong, this is an extremely important story both for scientific and cultural (attack on science) reasons):

The reason we use pesticides and weed killers is mainly to reduce the labor input. Once we have cheap, non-fossil-fueled agricultural robots, then a large percentage of our food plant production can be cheap and, by today's standards, "organic" (perhaps better since organic farms can use different pesticides).

I spent some time kicking around an ag robot startup idea. Farmers have low margins and tend to be conservative, but the successful ones† are all spreadsheet jockeys who are much more comfortable than those in other sectors to swap op ex for cap ex. And in the usual B2B the killer ROI is within a year. In Ag it's within _10_ years. Not an easy market technically but on the business side pretty straighforward.

It's not a panacea; not all pests are amenable to mechanical (hand or machine) removal (e.g. phylloxera) and the Haber-Bosch process will still be important, but a _HUGE_ reduction in chemical application is very likely. And with robots, no-till and other soil-saving processes can become economically valuable in the short term (NT has always been valuable in the long term, but people don't live/think on that time scale).

† which is all of them today in the US, and to a great degree in Europe; the unsuccessful ones were long since bought out

<comment><USER6> I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of productivity-increasing tools to boost the productivity of a given plot of land or to increase efficiency of water use.

<comment><USER5> > I really wish it worked that way; but agriculture still has a number of > scarce resources (namely land and water) that will require the adoption of > productivity-increasing tools to boost the productivity of a given plot of > land or to increase efficiency of water use.

What you say is not incompatible with my assertion. Labor is a productivity- increasing tool. If you weed and prune your yield goes up. If you water (but not too much) yield goes up. If you remove pests, yield goes up. Etc. Those are all labor-intensive, so if it's cheaper to use a machine or chemical to do it, you do. And in fact robots are likely to be able to individually water plants more efficiently than either a human or a standard irrigation system. Which people will do if it is cheaper than current irrigation (flood, or drip primarily today, depending on crop and conditions).

Sure, I believe fertilizers will still be needed and some other chemicals as well. But many of these pesticides and herbicides have "unfortunate" side effects (e.g. destruction of the rhizome) which also reduce productivity so avoiding them has a double benefit.

And note that there is some evidence that artificial fertilization and overwatering may be reducing the nutritional value of grasses (think of it as "the same number of nutrients divided by a larger amount of plant matter". The mechanism, if real, is more complex, but that's an analogy).

‡ I don't mean productivity in the macroeconomic definition of "economic output per labor hour" but in the sense you used it: "economic output per unit area"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a hilarious parallel here between Monsanto and your average tech company that had an innovative hit.

Glyphosate was an awesome herbicide and Roundup Ready crops a big hit, but between the expiration of patents and the introduction of generic glyphosate- resistant crops and the increase in glyphosate-resistant weeds, it's losing its value, both to the company and to the consumers. So they need another hit.

And like a million tech companies before them, they took an uninspired rehash of their first hit, ignored feedback from early adopters and internal dogfood about glaring problems with the new product and are trying to push it as the second coming. And now they're lashing out at anyone who says it isn't, and insist their new product is as revolutionary as their first.

Only, you know, it's not bloggers and tech journalists they're mad at, it is farmers and scientists.

It's almost funny when it happens to someone else.

<comment><USER8> Growing a better world!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Monsanto claims they've solved the problem independent weed scientists are talking about, but won't show their work. So do we believe that Monsanto is right about their multi-billion dollar strategy and won't show their work for mysterious reasons, or do we believe that they're lying to protect their multi-billion dollar strategy and won't show their work for the obvious reason that it doesn't exist?

I'll be interested to see how HN responds to this.

On the one hand, by and large we're probably pretty friendly to the sort of hacking Monsanto wants to do. Not that we're all on board with GMO crops, but I'd say we collectively lean that way.

On the other probably stronger hand, independent scientists should win out over corporations with this crowd. I mean, there's an awful lot of corporate love here, but science trumps all, right?

Then there are the paid shills, and those who show up to remind us all that there are the paid shills.

<comment><USER10> My take: there's no GM story here. No-one's saying the GM crops don't work, no-one's even saying they have negative externalities.

Instead, we've got a lousy product being sold by a large multinational that's trying to suppress the evidence of the awfulness of its product.

So yeah, they deserve to be sued into the ground, but it doesn't move the needle one jot on what I think about GM in general.

<comment><USER11> I believe it is a GM story. Monsanto's GM is to allow chemicals like dicambra, and glyphosate to be sprayed on these crops, their modifications make them resistant.

So, the GM application is mainly pesticide resistance, and the subsequent shitty pesticides they use which kill everything that hasn't been modified. The use of these pesticides is because they are growing GM crops.

<comment><USER12> First, you are talking about herbicides, not pesticides.

Secondly, GM opposition is a very odd thing. Every carton of milk I buy has a little sticker that it comes from non-GM cows, Every one of those stickers is a lie. We have selectively bred cattle for hundreds of years to build the modern dairy cow with specific genetics. It's been very scientifically done for a long time.

Third, the real issue here is not GM. It is IP. (I know Stallman would bristle at generically lumping it all under IP). But this new idea that one party can own a seed and just license it to others for planting is crazy. The idea that they can contaminate other crops and then claim ownership of those crops, too? Crazy.

<comment><USER13> >We have selectively bred cattle for hundreds of years to build the modern dairy cow with specific genetics.

I don't think it is a good idea to conflate selective breeding programs with gene splicing as they are very different.

<comment><USER14> > I don't think it is a good idea to conflate selective breeding programs with > gene splicing as they are very different.

Yeah, we have a lot more specific control and selectivity with gene splicing than selective breeding.

<comment><USER15> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiotropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiotropy)

<comment><USER16> What point are you trying to make?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a new approach that competes with Monsanto's herbicide-resistant crops. Robotic weeding is finally here.[1] John Deere just bought Blue River Robotics for $305 million. They make a unit that's towed behind a tractor. Cameras look down at the plants, and when they see something that looks like a weed, it gets zapped. No need for herbicide-resistant crops.

This is for vegetables and row crops, rather than field crops. It's been used on cotton and lettuce so far. For lettuce, it's weeding as a service. They bring in the machines and do the job at a flat fee per acre. They're doing 35,000 acres in California and Arizona now. This isn't experimental. It's out there working in fields.

Bosch has a similar product. Blue River kills with a spray. Bosch either pounds the weed into the ground or zaps it with a laser.

[1] [http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/](http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/)

<comment><USER18>
      >> Blue River kills with a spray.

An extremely clever idea that I saw previously was to zap weeds with concentrated fertilizer. Rather than being toxic to nearby plants, it is actual beneficial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> More broadly, Monsanto's aggressively anti-farmer and anti-scientist positions (and poor optics/PR) have done immense damage to the public perception of GMO crops and foods. GM food is a technology that offers the possibility to greatly expand yield, nutrition and hardiness of crops: it is essential to the continued improvement of our world food supply.

But with Monsanto at the helm (or at least most frequently associated), their unethical business practices shine a bad light on GMOs as an entire field. It's a shame that the forerunner in this extremely important area could not act as more of a positive envoy on behalf of GM technology.

<comment><USER20> Whats also sad is that all GM technology is seen through the anti Monsanto filter. I was appalled when Greenpeace and other called Golden Rice a trojan horse conspiracy, despite the fact that its free, can help with Vitamin A deficiency and has proven to be safe.

The amount of FUD and science denying rhetoric that Greenpeace directed at Golden Rice or any public backed GM effort is basically reminded me of the press releases from climate change denying groups. Whats also hypocritical of Greenpeace is that they are fine with mutation based on radioactivity (that has been practiced since the early 20th century and where we get a lot of our varieties from today)

<comment><USER21> After two decades they're still struggling to create a viable Golden Rice product.[1] At the same time, some areas have seen a large drop in vitamin A deficiencies. One has to wonder if Golden Rice is actually a good way to solve this problem.

[1] [https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified- golden...](https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden-rice- falls-short-lifesaving-promises/)

<comment><USER20> Its true that its taken a long time but its due to the fact that their first attempt didn't produce enough beta carotene. The second attempt worked and is still being tested in field trials in China, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Its true that we can also combat VAD with supplements, but shouldn't we have multiple strategies to combat it?

Regarding the article, who is to decide when we should abandon an approach? You could apply the same argument to Organic Food. After 30 years, it still only accounts for more or less 1% of global food production, and there is evidence that its not necessarily more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture. By that logic we should also abandon it.

[http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/vitamin-rice-now- reali...](http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/vitamin-rice-now- reality-1305439) [https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better- for...](https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better-for-the- environment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> On a different note I recommend you also google "Let Nothing Go." [Monsanto is being accused in court of hiring 3rd parties to shill public forums including facebook, and it's alleged the internal name of that program is "Let Nothing Go"]

<comment><USER23> I couldn't find anything besides Russian propaganda outlets. Do you have links to any reputable sources?

<comment><USER22> Actual court briefing: [https://usrtk.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/04/MDLLetNothingGo...](https://usrtk.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/04/MDLLetNothingGomotion.pdf)

<comment><USER24> That's simply appalling. What an absurd situation. It seems like everyone knows what a monster Monsanto has become but nobody can actually do anything about it.

<comment><USER25> Not until there is advocacy for the health of the soil and surrounding environs. If there were a Ministry of Soil and Earth that they had to answer to, they wouldn't be able to pull half the stuff they do. Unfortunately Evil pays well in the short term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Yep, they have been attacking people who criticize them for years. Nassim Taleb has done a good job of calling them out.

The sad part is all the "scientists" who take money from them to do "research" and, shockingly, find only positive things about Monsanto's products.

<comment><USER27> The scientists don't even have to be shills if Monsanto controls publication of results. Pay for 15 studies from above-the-board researchers. Only publish the 6 that _didn 't_ find harm. Later meta-studies from totally disinterested parties will also find a preponderance of evidence for "no harm," just due to selective publication practices that aren't directly visible.

At least that's how drug companies have systematically biased studies in favor of their products without needing to find amoral shill scientists. The way to prevent it is trial pre-registration, so that _all_ trials are known about, not just the ones that turn out favorable after completion.

<comment><USER28> >>The way to prevent it is trial pre-registration, so that all trials are known about, not just the ones that turn out favorable after completion.

Is this not required? I am required to pre-register my clinical trials well in advance, and they are publicly searchable worldwide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you haven't read it, Paolo Bacigalupi's SF novel The Windup Girl is a very good take on the future of companies like this run amok.

</comment><comment><USER30> How many documentaries do we need to stop using these poisons (and to put these people in jail) ? We are breathing volatile pesticides. IMHO, the short term plan of Mosanto is to make money with weeds by killing concurrent weeds and the long term plan is to make money with drugs to cure all the illness caused by these poisons.

<comment><USER31> Don't worry, monsanto already has vertically integrated your life as if it was a mere product: They're planning to merge with Bayer, a pharmaceutical group[0]. So while Monsanto is actively trying to kill you, Bayer is actively trying to heal you. Isn't that great ?

[0]: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer- eu/eu-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-m-a-bayer-eu/eu-starts- in-depth-probe-of-bayer-monsanto-deal-idUSKCN1B21GJ)

<comment><USER32> FWIW Bayer is acquiring them outright, not merging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This reminds me of the Tyrone Hayes story [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable- rep...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable-reputation)

</comment><comment><USER34> To me the question isn't if weedkiller is bad for ecological systems or plants: it obviously is. The question is, why the hell do we use it when we've had agrarian societies for 10,000 years? I see basically two areas where weedkillers are typically used: agriculture, and aesthetic.

For agriculture, weeds can be a fierce problem. On small gardens it's possible to use various tactics to control weeds without chemicals. But on large farms, usually a variety of tactics need to be used to control weeds, and chemicals end up being the simplest and quickest. But they are certainly not required. Here is one list of non-chemical weeding options: [https://thefanningmill.com/2015/05/27/infographic-weed- contr...](https://thefanningmill.com/2015/05/27/infographic-weed-control- strategies/)

Really I think we should be having a conversation about whether the risks of chemical weeding are worth the benefit, which is primarily just an economic one from agricultural exports. We can easily provide for our nation's agro needs without dangerous weeding techniques, and at about half to a quarter of the current amount we produce.

On top of this, our diets in general are hampered by the crazy way we consume specific foods. We let "consumer demand" drive what crops are grown and brought to market, even though it's been shown that consumers often demand things that are bad for them, or are overly picky. We consume too much food in general, but consuming less would hurt the economy, even if it would make us healthier and reduce healthcare costs. And we give up the option of purchasing from small local farms in order to get more food for less money. Not to mention the fact that processed foods are still in high demand, as well as meats which place burdens on both agriculture and environment.

Weedkiller seems like a good place to start this conversation. Do we need weedkiller? Do we need such gigantic amounts of just a few crops? Do we need giant farms owned by a few companies? Do we really need to eat oranges year round? And should we really be letting vendors [whose primary objective is profit, not health or choice] control what foods we are given the option to eat?

<comment><USER35> Isn't the problem that food prices would have to increase hugely if we were to switch to less industrialised forms of agriculture, and thus the poor would suffer worst of all?

Overall though I agree with you - it's said that the British were never as healthy as under rationing. We don't need anywhere near as much as we produce, and would all look and feel better eating less. And less cash going to Monsanto - who IMHO seem to be a truly sinister outfit - would be a welcome side benefit.

<comment><USER36> Between tractors and artificial fertilizer, feeding everyone has been a solved problem for a very long time now.

Dousing fields with glyphosate and dicamba has more to do with maintaining the dense crop monocultures we use in industrial agriculture than feeding the poor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> >Monsanto — and farmers who want to use dicamba — have been fighting back. In Arkansas, where state regulators proposed a ban on dicamba during the growing season next year, Monsanto recently sued the regulators, arguing that the ban was based on "unsubstantiated theories regarding product volatility that are contradicted by science."

Meanwhile in Europe, countries are considering signing free trade agreements with Canada and US (CETA and TTIP). How would anyone in their right mind want to open up the door to allowing companies to sue governments? (if you wonder, this is part of these trade deals and the kind of attitude Monsanto is putting here is exactly what they could reproduce once their products are "threatened by regulations")

Yet, only the far left are fighting this in bigger European countries. I'm not sure people grasp the implications! I'm not politically aligned with the far left but this is clearly a loss of sovereignty against the power or money. Kind of gets me wondering what the point of voting would become...

Ok, maybe I'm a little left leaning (in European terms that is)

<comment><USER38> This has been coming up in the media, especially in the context of NAFTA being renegotiated. I can't believe that big business supporter Trump and the US Govt would remove this, but that's one aspect of NAFTA I'd like to see changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Slightly OT, but this made me wonder about David Friedberg, who founded Climate Corp, acquired by Monsanto. In 2013 he wrote a letter about the acquisition and clarified his stance on Monsanto ( [https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/why-the-climate- corp...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/why-the-climate-corporation- sold-itself-to-monsanto) ). In 2016 he stepped down for an advisory role ( [https://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-executive-david- friedb...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/monsanto-executive-david-friedberg- shifting-to-advisory-role-1458763510) ) .

</comment><comment><USER40> Ever since we saw 'We Feed the World' we knew what kinda company Monsanto is. For those who havn't seen the movie, I strongly advise to watch it. It is said to be the most successful austrian documentary.

German: [https://archive.org/details/WE_FEED_THE_WORLD_DEUTSCH](https://archive.org/details/WE_FEED_THE_WORLD_DEUTSCH)

Sadly I could not find a link to the english stream, but here is a link to the english version of the website: [http://www.we-feed-the- world.at/en/index.htm](http://www.we-feed-the-world.at/en/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER41> The sad part is that amaranth is actually a healthy crop. the palmer amaranth specifically is edible, nutritious and very climate and drought resistant.

it's just not as profitable in the US compared to corn or soybeans and therefore it is destroyed and considered a pest.

that's really sad if you ask me, because they undergoe such troubles to kill a field crop. why not just embrace it and farm it??

<comment><USER42> What are the November amaranth futures trading at right now?

Nobody will plant something they can't sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't understand why they not just farm amaranth (pig weed).

it's a healthy nutritious crop, regarded as food in other countries and the palmer amaranth especially is very drought resistant and resilient.

but because soy and corn is more profitable in the US they undergoe so much trouble to kill what would otherwise considered to be a perfect choice of crop.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm just copying an old comment:

I've been telling HN about this, and mostly derided for it. I was working as a sysadmin for a bigag company in 2010 or so, who touted themselves as good ol local farm people who take care of their own. Come to find out, the millions the owner got to fund his extravagant lifestyle (besides from daddy), was from selling some of the genetic modifications to Monsanto. I was in the middle of my Decartes reset after getting back from Iraq, and dug into Monsanto.

Monsanto is one of the worst companies in America. As a constitutionalist, my primary issue is with their blatant undermining and corruption of the legal process, for example a SCOTUS who formerly worked for them refusing to recuse himself from relevant cases, infiltration and takeover of the top positions at the FDA and other regulatory capture issues, and the stifling of free speech through their massive propaganda machine, which includes online.

As a military person, I came to find out they were the ones who had been responsible for agent orange in Vietnam. Something many of my friends and family have directly had to deal with. (to be fair, it was a different business than the current Monsanto, the same in name only)

I learned they were one of the main sources of lobbying to allow patenting of organtic material (so they could patent genes in their gmos), that they created the BT killer strain of seeds designed to prevent farmers from saving their seeds, (incidentally Monsanto gmo seed business has been tied to large numbers of farmer suicides in India), and have brought legal action against farmers who saved their seeds. They have participated in farm mergers in aquisitions to the point that almost no farm is truly a family farm anymore, and they have been involved in illegal waste dumping more than once.

Once I learned all these things, I quit the job on principle. As luck would have it, the good ol rich guy who "would always take care of his people" subsequently, a year later, sold the company and fired half the staff... and now the local "community", despite protests from many of the farmers, decided to give Monsanto a 5.8 million dollar tax break to built a state of the art facility because it will "bring jobs".

To top it all off, our anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws seem to be completely dead and ignored, because the Bayer Monsanto $66bn merger seems to be full steam ahead at the moment.

They have created a sitution that requires more chemicals, causes more nitrogen runoff, have drastically reduced seed diversity (therefore setting up a massive crop failure potential across many crops), and continue to ignore GMO warnings.

Having sysadmined in a bigag company with a genetics department, and at a genetics company, my primary issues with GMO's is that there is a lack of rigourous scientific testing, especially over longer time frames. It wasn't uncommon to see a new GMO go from testing to prod within a year! That's not enough time to truly understand the implications of those kinds of products. Not to mention, as the article suggests, that they have artifically affected the actual science to be in their favor regardless of the real results.

If there ever is ecocide, Monsanto will be the primary hand to have caused it. I am willing to bet roundup will be the new agent orange. And finally, for your viewing pleasure:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM)

Relevant past comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9009446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9009446)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893325)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559024)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12398969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12398969)

</comment><comment><USER44> > These are proprietary products. Until they release those formulations for > testing, we're not allowed to [test them].

This can't be true, or I must be missing something. Why can't they buy these chemicals as "farmers" and test them?

<comment><USER45> "In this case, Monsanto denied requests by university researchers to study its XtendiMax with VaporGrip for volatility - a measure of its tendency to vaporize and drift across fields.

The researchers interviewed by Reuters - Jason Norsworthy at the University of Arkansas, Kevin Bradley at the University of Missouri and Aaron Hager at the University of Illinois - said Monsanto provided samples of XtendiMax before it was approved by the EPA. However, the samples came with contracts that explicitly forbade volatility testing."

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pesticides-dicamba- in...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pesticides-dicamba- insight/scant-oversight-corporate-secrecy-preceded-u-s-weed-killer-crisis- idUSKBN1AP0DN)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Monsanto is fucking genius. This is the kinda can do attitude I associate with American Capitalism. Get other people to break the law for you and create a network effect that no-one can run away from.

Buying stock in Monsanto.

</comment><comment><USER47> Attack the science not the scientists if you defer with their opinion.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does Monsanto add any value to the world? Everything I read about them for several years now makes me wish the company would just die.

</comment><comment><USER49> Can farmers sue if their crops are damaged by dicamba being used upwind of them?

<comment><USER50> Yes, lawsuits from pesticide drift are common.

If you negligently spray your fields and ruin your neighbors field, you're at fault.

This kind of thing isn't new, and has little to do with GMOs. Pesticide drift has been a issue for 100 years, and GMOs actually helped relieve it by shifting farmers to less volatile chemicals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Monsanto is without doubt the most non-ethical, profiteering, corrupted, evil company on earth.

</comment><comment><USER52> When are we just going to shut Monsanto down???

</comment><comment><USER53> Same old shit.

This was doing the rounds:

[https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/920935967082639360](https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/920935967082639360)

and this

[http://swns-digital.com/2KU4-15FL6-095I05M7FE/cr.aspx](http://swns- digital.com/2KU4-15FL6-095I05M7FE/cr.aspx)

Hi Monty

We have a story that we thought might be of interest to you, looking at plans to ban key chemicals in weed-killers.

Quick Pitch: Green-fingered Brits could soon be forced to weed their entire gardens by HAND if Brussels bureaucrats ban a chemical found in the biggest selling weed-killers, it has emerged.

More: For more than 40 years glyphosate has been the key component of weed- killers such as Round-Up, enabling keen gardeners to eradicate menaces such as knotweed, hogweed, bindweed and black grass.

But environmental activists Greenpeace and a string of anti-pesticide socialist MEPs want it banned despite it being certified as safe by numerous chemical and food safety agencies.

Experts fear a vote in favour of removing the chemical will leave gardeners to rely on less effective weed-killers, or even further down the line products which contain a fast-tracked replacement chemical.

News Copy can be downloaded from our online newswire.

<comment><AUTHOR> This isn't about Glyphosate (Round Up), this is about Dicamba

<comment><USER54> You're missing the point of the comment. The same company produces both products, and has a long history of manipulating media coverage in this manner.

<comment><USER55> By "manipulating media coverage", you mean "having a PR team that pitches stories"? Because virtually every company listed on the NASDAQ does that --- as does every company that has ever issued a press release.

<comment><USER56> So, that makes it cool to spread terrible lies? If not, why post this? What's your point?

<comment><USER55> I mean, hats off for a deft deployment of the assumptive close in your argument --- I don't really even understand what the arguments they're promoting are, let alone whether they're "terrible lies", but my point was pretty straightforward: the comment to which I replied singled out Monsanto as having a reputation for media manipulation, and if pitching stories is that, basically all major media companies are guilty as well. That's what PR groups do.

<comment><USER56> So, here's my issue with your comment and the mindset it betrays: rather than acknowledging that this is a serious issue that we should not take lightly, you do the opposite. You say, 'That' what PR firms do. They lie to help the company. Everyone does it.' We can get to everyone as we go, but it's time to start holding people accountable, rather than accepting it as the way it goes/is.

<comment><USER55> You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say "they lie to help the company", or that they lie at all.

<comment><USER56> >Yesterday's groundbreaking news of a new lawsuit regarding Monsanto's collusion, cover ups, and corruption inside the EPA is a part of a long string of unraveling safety claims.

Decades of faulty chemical review procedures are beginning to be overturned. Last week, after years of asking, I received an email from the EPA confirming that the National Toxicology Program is currently reviewing glyphosate and glyphosate formulations.

[http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy- environment/324...](http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy- environment/324386-monsanto-and-the-epa-have-been-lying-to-us-for-years)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-simon/top-10-lies- tol...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-simon/top-10-lies-told-by- monsa_b_1819731.html)

<comment><USER55> That is a string that does not occur in the story we're commenting on, but rather an op-ed that you've brought in.

<comment><USER56> >You're missing the point of the comment. The same company produces both products, and has a long history of manipulating media coverage in this manner.

^That's the original comment you replied to. We're talking about Monsanto's history of lying and manipulation through the media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> They also pay shills to spread propaganda in the comments sections anywhere Monsanto is discussed. It's particularly obvious since it's the same users, with the same talking points, commenting within minutes. The same 5-10 pro- Monsanto accounts on Reddit show up in most discussions. I suspect this is going on for many other aspects of our life and it's downright paranoia inducing.

<comment><USER50> Or maybe, juuuust maybe, people have different opinions about things.

Imagine that.

<comment><USER20> I've been accused of being a Monsanto shill so many times online, its not even funny. I researched a lot of the claims against Monsanto or GM crops and I found many of them untrue, largely exaggerated, although I do agree most of the Dicamba debacle is mostly Monsanto's fault.

Ironically, there is a lot of propaganda pushed by the likes of USRTK and the OCA, calling anyone including university scientists that contradict them as Monsanto shills. These groups are also anti vaccine, against water fluoridation [1] etc...

I've largely stopped arguing online, because conversations become really super polarised and sometimes nasty. Its hard to have an intelligent discussion. A good place to find info on these issues is the Food and Farm Discussion Lab

[https://facebook.com/groups/FAFDL/](https://facebook.com/groups/FAFDL/)

[0] [https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-mainstream- media...](https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-mainstream-media- insults-public%E2%80%99s-intelligence-vaccines) [1] [https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/water-fluoridation- che...](https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/water-fluoridation-chemicals- now-officially-linked-brain-harm-cognitive-deficits)

<comment><USER58> What slays me about the GMO debate is the misportrayal of my anti-GMO position, lumping me in with the anti-vaxxors, creationists, and defenders of Freedom Markets™.

<comment><USER59> > What slays me about the GMO debate is the misportrayal of my anti-GMO > position, lumping me in with the anti-vaxxors

The scientific consensus on GMOs being safe is stronger than consensus on climate change. If you go against the scientific consensus, you are rightly labeled as being anti-science.

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon- entine/post_8915_b_657213...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon- entine/post_8915_b_6572130.html)

[https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/mark- lynas/gmo-s...](https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/mark-lynas/gmo- safety-debate-over)

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/once-again-us- expert-...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/once-again-us-expert-panel- says-genetically-engineered-crops-are-safe-eat)

<comment><USER58> Who said I have a problem with the science?

I'm meh about the genetics of GMO, its just accelerated selection. Transgenetic could be worrisome, so we should be hippocratic there.

But crops that allow us to expand into more arid, saline, or whatever areas are probably good to have. And developing perennial grains (eg kernza) sounds great.

But that's not why I oppose GMO.

\--

I'm utterly opposed to "ReadyUp Ready" genetic engineering. Any effort to increase, permit the use of more pesticides (herbicides, insecticides) must be opposed. We need to reduce the use of pesticides, maybe even eventually ban all pesticides.

I'm utterly opposed to Monsanto's (and Big Ag's) business practices, especially patenting life, and secondarily turning all farmers (people who work the land) into serfs. Their GMO efforts, independent of the actual plants and biology, or just the wedge for those strategies.

I reject the pro-GMO arguments about increasing yield. We already toss 1/3 to 1/2 of the food produced. Trying to increase yields is passing over dollars to pick up pennies.

Lastly if Monsanto (and Big Ag) is for it, I'm against it. They've done so much harm, for so long, with zero contrition, I presume they're guilty. If there was some kind of truth and reconciliation tribunal, maybe, just maybe, I'd give them a second chance. And massive reparations followed by acts of goodwill.

But the burden of proof is on them, not me.

<comment><USER50> >We need to reduce the use of pesticides, maybe even eventually ban all pesticides.

You are fighting your own best interests.

Roundup ready has reduced harmful pesticide application by millions of tons.

Yes, zero pesticide is best, but you can't reach the moon in one step. It takes incremental change. Glyphosate replaces much more harmful pesticides like atrazine, and we are all the better for it.

>especially patenting life,

You can't patent natural genetic sequences.

>and secondarily turning all farmers (people who work the land) into serfs

Contracts are willingly signed, and those that don't sign are successful in other areas of agriculture (see organic farming).

>I reject the pro-GMO arguments about increasing yield.

No GMO plant has ever directly tried to increase yield. Rather they mitigate risk from weather or pests.

>Lastly if Monsanto (and Big Ag) is for it, I'm against it.

I'm glad you're willing to approach this topic reasonably, and with an open mind.

<comment><USER58> _"You are fighting your own best interests. ... It takes incremental change. Glyphosate replaces much more harmful pesticides like atrazine, and we are all the better for it."_

Wise words. Big fan of incrementalism. Even though I'm currently freaked out about decline of pollinators, I'll keep your viewpoint in mind.

If Big Ag owns this issue, and helps address it, I'll ease up.

 _"...approach this topic reasonbly, and with an open mind."_

No such luck. I'm fresh out of goodwill. When Monsanto et al stop lying (being merchants of doubt), I'll resume listening.

As my libertarian bestie teases me: the problem with you liberals is you can't tolerate hypocracy. Guilty as charged. To my tribe, any good Monsanto does is completely negated by their (documented, proven) malfeasance.

<comment><USER50> More power to you. Hate the company all you want, but the technology and science is sound, and helpful to your (our) cause.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Wait, the US allows widespread use of potentially catastrophic chemical substances without conducting independent research of its safety or efficacy?

America circa 2018 everyone.

<comment><USER61> Where's the sarcasm?

<comment><USER60> Yes, I wasn't being sarcastic. More suffused with resigned horror.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is not the only Roundup related issue.

I wish there was more discussion about the impact of these herbicides on insect populations. For instance the Monarch butterfly population has dropped 90% due to herbicides such as Roundup. No public discussion.

[https://www.ecowatch.com/david-suzuki-how-to-save-the- monarc...](https://www.ecowatch.com/david-suzuki-how-to-save-the-monarch- butterfly-1882035035.html) [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/01/monarch_butterfly_decline_monsanto_s_roundup_is_killing_milkweed.html)

Michigan State study: [http://makewayformonarchs.org/i/archives/2682](http://makewayformonarchs.org/i/archives/2682)

<comment><USER55> Part of the reason there might not have been much public discussion is that the underlying story is not that Roundup directly affects butterflies, but, according to the study, it is simply very effective at eliminating weeds that the butterflies were relying on --- making this less a story about Monsanto and more about the impact of industrial-scale farming on local fauna.

<comment><USER36> Guns don't kill people. People kill people.</comment></comment></comment>


Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution - <AUTHOR> https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/security/2963983

<comment><USER2> Mitigated by EMET.

If you are on Windows and you are _not_ running EMET, you should really drop everything right now and install it.

[http://www.microsoft.com/emet](http://www.microsoft.com/emet)

<comment><USER3> No you shouldn't.

1\. It breaks a lot of stuff.

2\. It isn't very good:

[http://bromiumlabs.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bypassing- eme...](http://bromiumlabs.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bypassing-emet-4-1.pdf)

At best it's a dose of Tamiflu.

As many people before have said, you can't retrospectively apply security mitigations properly; you have to design them in from the start.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Really? I've been using it for a while, and no breakage. Sure, I just use the default rulelist instead of applying rules to everything (which imo is what most people should do).

2\. Sure, but it's better than nothing. As parent said, this exploit is mitigated by EMET. See [http://rationallyparanoid.com/articles/emet- testing.html](http://rationallyparanoid.com/articles/emet-testing.html) for more tests

Yes, it's a bandaid. But since it help and it's free, why not?

<comment><USER3> We've had a couple of older COM-based applications that target Windows 5.1 (2003/XP) platforms fail unpredictably with it on later operating systems. Whether these are just badly behaved applications or compilers or a faulty design in EMET we don't know as it's all closed source and when you're left with a steaming minidump (because you can't catch these unless you use ADplus) it's not easy to work out why a process failed from that if EMET shot it.

As for the better than nothing, yes until your phone starts ringing like a cheesy sci-fi flick because half your MSMQ sinks are crashing...

My comment above probable shouldn't have been: no you shouldn't use it until you've soak tested your applications on it.

<comment><USER5> EMET should show a notification when it blocks something and it should also make an event log entry. (These are configurable iirc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The subtitle has the meat: "Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution".

"Microsoft is aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit a vulnerability in [IE 6 through 11]." \--date published: April 26, 2014.

<comment><USER7> I think remote code execution and the easy method for payload delivery warrants a high level of concern.

<comment><USER8> It seems from the subtitle that this isn't just a known vulnerability, but one being exploited in the wild, if I'm not mistaken. Definitely a serious concern either way though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> XP is absent from the list of affected OSes. Does that mean XP isn't affected, or is it just off the radar now that it's no longer supported.

Could this be the first big unpatched XP hole?

<comment><USER10> Isn't there an extended, for-pay support service for xp? In that case, it must mean a patch will be engineered and released to paying customers. How long until these leak out and pirates start trading XP patches?

<comment><USER11> How long until people start offering unofficial patches that include backdoors?</comment></comment></comment>


South Korean ID numbers are "master keys for hackers" - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29617196

<comment><AUTHOR> Wikipedia has lots of interesting info about South Korea's RRN number:

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

Basically it's a 13-digit number with format yymmdd-sbbbbnc consisting of year, month, and day of birth, sex, birth location, a check digit, and single extra digit to differentiate persons who happen to have the same date and place of birth.

The US Social Security Number (SSN) encodes some personal info too, but not to this degree.

The nature of identity numbers--being permanent or very difficult to change-- means that you can expect much confidentiality. But the South Korean design has eliminated all possibility of keeping it private. If you know a person fairly well, or they're a public figure, you can deduce the RRN. Conversely, if you get the RRN, you automatically get a lot of personal info.</comment>


Show HN: Bubbles – A minimalist visualization of what's new on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://bubbles.amizrahi.com/

<comment><USER2> Hm. I hope this comes across as constructive criticism, but I'm not sure the visualization type matches well with the data you are presenting.

The movement of the bubbles doesn't seem to convey any useful information, it's just added flare. I'd get rid of it. (you might enjoy some classic books by Edward Tufte too)

The placement of the bubbles seems to be completely random. You can use your space more wisely.

You are trying to represent growing trends with this visualization, perhaps some sort of component should go into representing that. Maybe you can represent that in your x and y plane somehow?

You're viz looks blurry on retina screens. You can fix this by setting the width attribute of your canvas element to twice what you want it to be, and adding a css style width at what you want the width to actually be.

Edit: I just read the text describing what velocity actually does, nvm, I'm dumb.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the criticism! This was my first time doing data visualization, so any feedback is really helpful. I'll definitely check out some books by Professor Tufte.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A friend and I did something related to this in a project, where we attempted to analyze a hash tag, by fetching the latest 100 tweets about that hash tag. It is very useful in trending topics. For instance searching for "Stuart" right now reveals a lot of other relevant tags and attempts to find out what the general mood is of the words used in the tweets doing a simple Sentiment Analysis using AFINN. Try it here: [http://hashtagram.dk/?t=stuart#hashtags](http://hashtagram.dk/?t=stuart#hashtags) (might get unavailable due to many visits, and don't mind the broken Instagram images at the bottom, site needs updating due to API changes). If for some reason the site does not work, see a static version here: [http://imgur.com/EQzMrUP](http://imgur.com/EQzMrUP)

<comment><USER4> It might be interesting to do a separate one just on Instagram. I have no idea what half of the trending hashtags on Instagram means and a picture speaks a thousand words.

<comment><USER3> The Instagram pictures were there to back up the understanding of a hashtag generally. For under the world cup, it was really easy to find out what #worldcup2014 was about. Interestingly refreshing the page for a specific page during some kind of event, such as the world cup one, or during 24 Hours of Le Mans, it is easy to follow what people say about it. In the Le Mans case it was also quite easy to follow that for instanced someone crashed their as the sentiment drastically went to the negative side, and you could back that up with pictures of the crash on Instagram.

But I agree, a separate one analyzing the pictures could be valuable as well. However, Instagram pictures often don't contain much text apart from a wall of hash tags. So the text might not be super important to analyze. Anyways, picture analysis might be slightly more difficult and more resource intensive than text analysis, but very interesting as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could run a topic model [1] to display, say, the top 20 topics discussed on Twitter. LDA [2] is a good one.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_model](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_model)

[2] [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/lda](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/lda)

<comment><USER6> It's more complicated than that, an LDA clusters documents into topics but it's non-trivial to determine what the topic is. You can use the head words of a tf.idf analysis but those still don't necessarily equate to topics. For what you're looking for I think you'd need ontology tagging so a bunch of tweets mentioning soccer players would give a topic word like 'soccer'. The problem then becomes the granularity to ascribe topic to, for example, should it be soccer or sports? Should it be more specific still. Then there's the non- obvious things like a plane goes down and the topic would likely be aviation, but that hardly gives any new information. Representing 20 topics on twitter is very difficult problem. Someone dies and the topic of "death" shows up, not very useful. I'm not disagreeing with you but rather saying that what you're suggesting is a very difficult problem to do in any useful and meaningful way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great and I bet there are a ton of directions the author can go from here, pausing bubble movement on hover, clicking on bubbles to see the tweets, etc. JSYK, I reloaded and a fast moving but small bubble became a much slower moving much bigger bubble.

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks really cool. Perhaps filtering out certain words would make it better? Most of the words don't really tell me what's going on. But I guess I could just look at the trending hashtags.

</comment><comment><USER9> Color (as in a heatmap) would be a better indicator of rate than the velocity of the bubbles. Currently one is zipping around so fast I cannot read it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Velocity can make it a little hard to track changing words. Intensity of bubble color might be a good parameter to change for this metric.

</comment><comment><USER11> should probably remove stop words

<comment><USER12> and common words that aren't proper nouns

<comment><USER4> especially numbers that are contextless. right now one of the biggest bubbles are 1 and 2.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm adding a lot of common words to the blacklist right now. Expect to see an update shortly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this open source? I'd love to take a look around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep! Feel free to star / look around on GitHub. [http://github.com/amizra/bubbles](http://github.com/amizra/bubbles)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> can you filter noun? most of the world is not really informative keyword, and having them as bubbles only add noise.

</comment><comment><USER15> Uses /GET every 60 seconds.

[1] setInterval(grabWords, 60000);

<comment><USER16> Is this bad? It's a site to see what's currently trending on Twitter. I figured it'd update more often, actually

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> this is awesome. is this real-time?

<comment><USER18> I'm guessing it must be close. One of the bubbles is "Stuart", and Stuart Scott of ESPN is trending on Twitter quite heavily today after passing of cancer.</comment></comment>


What makes a translation great? - <AUTHOR> https://scroll.in/article/876969/what-makes-a-translation-great-ten-literary-translators-from-across-the-world-weigh-in <comment><USER2> > What makes a translation great?

A publisher that gives you a lot of time to work! I have done some literary translations out of certain European languages into my own, and there is not much time to sculpt a really powerful translation when the publisher wants the whole novel done in 3 months or so, and of course during this time I will be juggling this job with other jobs, because literary translation by itself doesn't pay the bills. Most other literary translators I know have the same complaint. Words like "sweatshop" are used to describe the industry, and you definitely feel that publishers, at least in my country, don't believe that the general public really cares about quality; the publishers just want to crank out the content as fast as possible.

Often the classic translations across European languages – Joyce's _Ulysses_ , or verse translations of Dante's _Commedia_ , or Shakespeare, or the Greek playwrights, etc. – were made over the course of a few years, and I envy anyone who had a secure relationship with a publisher where they could take their time on the translation but still know that it would be published in the end and they would be fully paid for it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't do literary translations, but I have done plenty of technical translations from Japanese to English. The biggest mistake I see novices make is trying to do a literal, word-for-word translation. It never works because the language structures and cultures are too different.

The key to a good translation, in my mind, is understanding the source language and the content well enough that you can write a good target translation that reads as though it was written in the target language to start with. The point of translating something is to convey an idea, not a list of vocabulary words and grammar structures.

<comment><USER4> Were you paid for the translations? I'm interested in learning more about technical translations as part-time work.

I've translated some articles from Russian to English, though I don't know Russian and instead relied on Google Translate combined with domain knowledge for phrases translated incorrectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a little disheartened to see Pevear and Volokhonsky not mentioned. As an amateur in the field of translation, perhaps my understanding is weak, but, having read multiple translations of several Dostoevsky books, I've always seen their work as head and shoulders above others'. I do find that each translation comes with its own insights and I'm glad to have read multiple, but I still think they deserve the recognition they've been receiving.

</comment><comment><USER6> Obligatory plug for Le Ton Beau de Marot, by Douglas Hofstadter. He explains his accidental fascination with the translation of a simple short minor poem from Renaissance French into English. He experimented with a few different approaches to translating it (preserve the rhyme? the meter? the avuncular tone? write it in Shakespearean-style English because it's old?) and then began to challenge his friends and colleagues and students to make their own translation. The act of translation is a beautifully subtle one, built on decisions of what elements of construction, theme, presentation, meaning, context to preserve, adapt, or abandon. It's also a personal tale of a difficult time in Hofstadter's life. I found it moving and enlightening. Much recommended!

Hofstadter talks with a lot of different translators, including the much- beloved translator of Stanislaw Lem's works, Michael Kandel. Kandel's rendition of the poem of Trurl's Electronic Bard is rightly famous. The ever- astonishing Marcin Wichary (a native speaker of Polish) reproduces, and discusses it, here: [https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson- snored-72...](https://medium.com/@mwichary/seduced-shaggy-samson- snored-725b5a8086d9)

</comment><comment><USER7> 9 of the 10 translators in the article are translators of other languages to English. The remaining one translates Arabic to German.

I wonder if in general X to English is harder or easier than English to X?</comment>


US Energy Secretary: paint roofs white to fight global warming - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=asoQnPxZIsaM&refer=environment

<comment><USER2> This simple solution was suggested long ago. It'll help keep the building cooler and the roof will last longer. I'm so bored with these dead simple suggestions and no action.

<comment><USER3> They also suggested American school kids hide under their desks in case of a nuclear attack by the USSR!

Some "solutions" are more of a psychological crutch, or placebo, than anything.

<comment><USER4> How is this solution a psychological crutch? If there is evidence that painting roofs white will help cool off cities and reduce your a/c usage by 15%, why not do it?

The analogy you provided is not applicable.

<comment><USER5> "If there is evidence that painting roofs white will help cool off cities and reduce your a/c usage by 15%, why not do it?"

Is there actually evidence for this? In the real world, not just some calculations? Various people have pointed out flaws such as: it won't stay white. In the winter it makes things worse, and depending on where you live the net is no good.

One reason not to do it is that it costs more than it saves.

And in the places where it's really bad, like Tuscon, they put white rocks on the roof, so I bet that anyplace where it's worth it - it's already being done!

<comment><USER4> Well there's a nice video out there from our most favorite cuddly energy analyst Amory Lovins; he's talking about parking lots but the same premise holds (I think):

[http://fora.tv/2009/05/01/Amory_B_Lovins_Big_Savings_Through...](http://fora.tv/2009/05/01/Amory_B_Lovins_Big_Savings_Through_Integrative_Design#Amory_Lovins_on_Integrative_Energy_Solutions)

The entire video is fascinating if you've got 2c of coffee in you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not an expert on the matter, but my understanding is that rooftop greenery is a cheaper and more effective way to reduce cooling in the summer and heating in the winter.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps however white roofs or roads etc would increase the amount of heat reflected back into space, as per the shrinking ice caps.

<comment><USER8> Even if we made every roof and every road a pure titanium white, it wouldn't make up for more than a fraction of the albedo change caused by the shrinking of the ice caps.

In the US roads cover less than 3% of the surface and all artificial structures together cover less than 10% of the surface.

<comment><USER9> The relevant quantity is not albedo x area. The relevant quantity is energy reflected = albedo x area x energy deposition.

Energy deposition is low near the poles. That's why they are cold.

<comment><USER8> Yes, and surface albedo is only one of many factors affecting the global heat budget.

Dr. Schneider's site is a reasonably good point to start understanding the complexities of climate change. <http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/index.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there more energy used to heat buildings than cool them? Of course it depends on many factors, including location; so a blanket statement of "white roofs everywhere" seems wrong.

<comment><USER5> It strongly depends on where you live.

But very little of the heat from the roof gets in the building in the winter. Mainly because it's insulated. But also because hot air rises, so little of it travels down to the building space.

But A/C is with vents, AKA air currents, so may be more effective at capturing heat from ceilings.

But all that ignores the fact that white paint does not survive. In Tuscon the roofs would have white rocks on the roof. I strongly doubt you could make a white roof paint that would survive for more than a few years.

How about shiny aluminium roofs?

As a side note, I always wondered why metal roofs are not more popular. Aluminium would last pretty much forever, and it doesn't have to be one piece - you can make it into shingles for easy installation.

<comment><USER11> As far as shiny aluminum goes, it's my experience that it does not remain shiny for long. A coating that kept it shiny would increase cost as well as the process of making it mirror finished in the first place. Once the coating failed there would be no practical way to re-polish and recoat to anywhere near factory quality and there goes your efficiency.

In Florida a dull aluminum surface will be much hotter than a white painted one.

Metal roofs are not as popular as they should be because the capitol cost is more and they are often considered low class. These days there are several fancy metal roofing systems that are more popular than 5 V crimp and the classic corrugated. I personally like the classic standing seam style which I saw a lot of in Maine and New Hampshire and are installed by skilled craftspeople.

Asphalt shingles are made from the cheap and plentiful byproducts of the oil refining process and crushed rock. They are made from dirt and installed by low skilled labor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've thought about this a while back when a co-worker and I were discussing the aesthetics of light colored shingles. Dark ones look better was his opinion, and probably in the opinion of many others.

If one were to develop a process by which titanium-dioxide (or whatever, white) paint could be applied to the "top" face of the shingles on a sloped roof (asphalt shingles are covered with small 3-dimensional granules), while leaving the lower faces dark, you would have the best of both worlds: Reflectivity from the summer sun which is high in sky and also heat capture from a sun in the winter when it is low in the sky, plus the aesthetic of a darker roof when viewed from ground level.

Just another half-baked idea of mine...

</comment><comment><USER4> Or we could stop using _black shingles_ on houses.

<comment><USER5> Keep in mind that the black singles help in the winter. In hot climates I've seen white rocks on the roof (with tar or a rubber sheet underneath).

<comment><USER4> Well i've never lived north of the mason dixon, so I didn't consider that end.

What is this "winter" you speak of?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds a lot like duct tape to stave off chemical attacks.

If dramatic change is the agenda, go after cars more aggressively.

</comment><comment><USER14> How much energy would be spent on the production of white paint? How much energy would be saved by painting the roofs white? Unless a detailed quantitative analysis is provided, this is pretty much nonsensical...

<comment><USER5> The article suggests up to 15%. Assume 10%, and a $1000 yearly A/C bill, that's a savings of $100 a year.

Energy spent is pretty much exactly equal to the price of the paint. So how much does paint cost? How much to install, and how long does it last?

All theoretical questions, since I don't think paint that can survive on a roof exists.

I'm going to make some wild guesses:

You need 10 gallons of paint at a cost of $40 per gallon. And it takes about 1 day to install, at a cost of 8 hour*40 $/hour.

So total it would be about $720 to install. And I bet it would last 3 to 5 years. Lets be generous and say 5.

So it costs $144 per year, but saves you $100.

Not a good plan. It uses more energy than it saves.

Of course my numbers are totally guesses. Especially the cost for paint that does not exist.

<comment><USER15> They have paints that are good for 5-10 years. They are white and you'll find them on the bottom of your local swimming pool. It's exposed to the sun everyday with the weight of hundreds of gallons of water on top of it. The paint does exist, but depending on your location you might not be able to find it. I'm sure you can get it if your along the south coast.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be paint. Tiles are also useful and they are good for 20 years or more. Almost all new houses I've seen built in Florida for the last 15 years have been using white tiles for the roof.

<comment><USER5> Paint at the bottom of a pool has all the UV filtered out. I don't think it would survive full UV from the sun. Don't they use tiles at the top of the pool?

If they do use paint at the top, I bet it has to be repainted every few years. You said 5-10 for in the water, I bet that out of it it's more like 3-5. And that's not anywhere near long enough for a roof.

Of course, I don't actually know. But when I looked for UV resistant paint I didn't really find anything.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Neapolitans understand about death (better than most) - <AUTHOR> https://lithub.com/what-neapolitans-understand-about-death-better-than-most/ <comment><USER2> I am from Naples, and we do have a bit of a thing for death, but I doubt the average Neapolitan knows any more than any other average citizen anywhere else.

I think people in Naples might, if anything, care and think less about death than your average person.

Neapolitan people, for better or for worse, tend to have a "day to day" attitude to life (which contributes to what makes the city a mess)

<comment><USER3> Doesn't a mess come from mafia controlling dumpster companies or something like that? By the way, I love this place called pizzeria da Michele. Best pizza in the world.

<comment><USER2> Oh and Michele makes hands down the most representative pizza of the Neapolitan style. It happens to be my personal favorite too :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obligatory mention: "'A Livella" is the most famous poem on death by one of the most well known Neapolitan actor, Totò. [0]

[0]: [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27A_livella](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27A_livella)

</comment><comment><USER5> Death announcements on the walls are common everywhere in Italy, not just in Naples. They are a very effective way to let people know when and where the funeral is, better than obituaries in newspapers.

<comment><USER6> That's is the same in all of the Southern Europe, not just Italy. Odd coming from a Spaniard when for sure she saw literally thousands in her life.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, confirming the Portugal and Greece inclusion on the "all".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Mexicans slightly raise one eyebrow._

</comment><comment><USER9> Having driven in Naples, I'm not surprised Neapolitans are intimately familiar with death...

<comment><USER10> To be fair, for Italians to get a driving license they need to go through a fairly intense driving school (much more intense than in the US). As such, you'll regularly see Italians drive in a "risky" manner because they know the other drivers on the road are more competent AND because their driving skills are actually better

<comment><USER11> I've always wondered if more skilled drivers would equate to low accident/death rates or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is the user experience after you die?

Ah, that's probably the greatest question of all time.

<comment><USER13> You just go into some deeeeep sleep and never wake up again?

<comment><USER14> Some say you reboot and a new instance of yourself is generated inside another type of container.

<comment><USER13> Not so sure I want to try that, which is exactly the most fundamental conundrum I wanted naughtily to downplay here... ehehe...

<comment><USER15> The manual states that only a clean exit may result in a new instance. Any core dumps will surely piss off the Great Maintainer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is related to the topic, but not this specific article. I used to have a really, really, really tough time with death. I spent far too much time thinking about it, trying to avoid it. There was a show on showtime called "Dead Like Me" (its available for free on prime). It had a profound effect on me, I don't obsess over death anymore and that is a gigantic relief. Hell, I only watched one season 10 years ago, but its stuck with me. I hope this helps anyone that has gone through something similar.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of this [http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/resources/death- positive-...](http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/resources/death-positive- movement)

</comment><comment><USER18> The bibliography cannot be complete without C. Malaparte 'La pelle' ('The Skin') book.

</comment><comment><USER19> _In both, visitors can see the skulls and bones of people who died in the 1600s—a century full of devastations, including the Black Plague and the eruption of the Vesuvius volcano—and didn't receive a proper burial._

The Black Plague was in the mid-1300s. There was a bubonic plague outbreak there in the 1600s, though, which probably caused the confusion.

</comment><comment><USER20> I read the article, never found the bit about what Neapolitans understand about death better than most. If they're trying to say that Neapolitans understand better than most that death is always near, and is an integral part of the human experience, may I recommend travelling further afield and broadening one's experiences? Then you'd find that Neapolitans aren't overly special at all, and that the author is a little excitable.

<comment><USER21> The only particularity of Napoli might be the incredible depth of historical detritus that covers it and fills the caverns beneath the historic center. Death is ever present because dead things (and people) tend to hang around a long time.

I don't know where the habit comes from, but there just isn't the same kind of intense urge to clean and purify public space as in other European and western cities. But it's not that people aren't careful about cleanliness. Rather, that energy is spent inside the house.

Then there are the active volcanoes in, under, and around the city. Every day you see Vesuvius. And frequently, you think about the supervolcanic complex at Campi Flegrei, whose last major eruption is sometimes credited with wiping out a hominid subspecies. These really twist your perception of the future and the possibility of destruction. Maybe this effect has diminished because Vesuvius has been quiet, but it seems to rest on in the culture. I'd say this is much more important than any cave full of bones.

<comment><USER22> > there just isn't the same kind of intense urge to clean and purify public > space as in other European and western cities

This is rather a gross romanticization of the situation. It's not at all that the exotic people of Naples are somehow essentially different and just don't feel a squeamish need to clean public spaces, as in other cities. Most Neapolitans strongly wish the city was much cleaner.

An ongoing dispute between the local government and organized crime has resulted in minimal trash collection since the 1980s, as part of efforts to pressure the city government.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples_waste_management_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples_waste_management_crisis)</comment></comment></comment>


1 Password for iOS was available for free in the AppStore - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/1password-password-manager/id568903335?mt=8

<comment><USER2> It's showing as "Free, with in-app purchases" for me: [http://cl.ly/image/3U202T0g0X1k](http://cl.ly/image/3U202T0g0X1k)

I wouldn't be surprised if they accidentally switched the app to free before uploading a new version and we'll soon see a re-release of 1Password with a freemium model like on Android.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've just checked and I can confirm it works.

I wouldn't normally keep this, but AgileBits screwed me over last year on 1Password for iPad. I had paid ~€15 for the app so I could have my passwords synced using Dropbox. All was working fine, then they told users that because Dropbox were changing their API, they were 'forced' to build a brand new app that had the new Dropbox API support and SUNSETTING the old app. Dirty and underhand in my opinion so I'm going to take advantage of this with a clear conscience.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by "I would normally keep this,..."

<comment><USER3> I guess I mean that if another company had accidentally given away their product because of a mistake I'd feel bad about keeping it. In this specific case; in that I feel cheated by AgileBits historical actions, I don't feel bad at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would love to use 1Password if only they supported Linux. I thought of them as paid KeePass. Unfortunately, LastPass beat them to it, and so I choose the convenience of omnipresence of my passwords over the security of keeping everything local.

I cannot have my password not follow me somewhere, especially if these password programs suggest complicated passwords to me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seems to be some kind of AppStore error. This page [1] is already gone ( so I'm posting cached version ), but if you check out the comments they suggest that something bad happened and this is really an accident.

[1] [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1SaVkmz...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1SaVkmzSPS8J:www.idownloadblog.com/2014/09/16/1password- is-available-for-free-right-now-in-the-app-store/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de)

</comment><comment><USER5> It is also free in the play store

<comment><USER6> I doubt it's accidental then.

<comment><AUTHOR> Android version has always been free with in-app purchases. On their webiste [1] it is stated : "Freemium pricing Free to try, easy to upgrade! Details on the Agile Blog"

[1] [https://agilebits.com/onepassword/android](https://agilebits.com/onepassword/android)

<comment><USER7> Has it always been this way? I remember downloading it a while ago and only a few days ago I got the first popup stating that I can only edit entries on my phone when paying for the pro version.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Using PGP keyservers for decentralised file storage - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yakamok/keyserver-fs <comment><USER2> Have you as yet determined if keyservers will accept unusually large payloads?

<comment><USER3> I suppose that, given you can have limitless pgp subkeys, the size of payloads can be arbitrarily large as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds good, thank you</comment></comment></comment>


Dutch Hackers Found a Simple Way to Mess with Traffic Lights - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/hacking-traffic-lights-netherlands/ <comment><USER2> I read about this a few days ago. It seems that the app doesn't send any unique identifier from the submitting user (no registration required I guess, but I didn't check). Good for privacy I guess?

Also, the researchers (original source at [0]) admit that you can't create an unsafe situation, the worst you can do is sort-of-DoS by causing the signal to minimize the green-cycle for the cars to it's minimum allowed value.

[0] [https://zolder.io/2020/08/06/hacking-the-traffic-light-of- th...](https://zolder.io/2020/08/06/hacking-the-traffic-light-of-the-future/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like they violated rule 1 of accepting client-side input: always assume someone will send you maliciously crafted input.

<comment><USER4> How do you verify malicious GPS coordinates at the server side if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER3> Cryptographically sign them before sending.</comment></comment></comment>


How to write about code and give zero fucks (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://garann.com/dev/2013/how-to-blog-about-code-and-give-zero-fucks/ <comment><USER2> > Fuck quality control.

Summed up the article for you.

Not saying it's a bad article, but it's kind of lost in itself. I agree that, syntactically, blog posts about code don't have to be as correct wrt. syntax as the code itself. But something that is very necessary (that this blog post ironically does a good job of showing) is making sure the flow of your words is unobstructed.

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."

I agree with the author. Type whatever you feel explains what you're trying to say! But maybe don't "fuck quality control". Maybe, if just to make the reader's life a little easier, remove some of the things that aren't 100% necessary after your first round of writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well... She does also say sleep on the article and rewrite/fix the next day. Maybe there's an idea that you shouldn't write with a censor sitting on your shoulder interrupting your train-of-thought.

I have found it valuable to separate "generating" from "filtering," and I understand this is a standard piece of advice from people peddling "creativity" seminars.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that standard piece of advice is essentially what I was going for. She doesn't say to sleep on it and fix it the next day, though.

> Save it as a draft and come back and reread it in the morning. [...] If you > can amuse yourself when you just woke up and you heard all the jokes about > the text selection API last night, you have done a good job. And if you > can't, _fuck it, leave it in the drafts and don 't worry about rewriting > it._ [emphasis mine]

The author doesn't mention any sort of copy-editing process and instead leaves a misleading dichotomy between "rewriting" and "leaving it in the drafts".

Blog posts should be written with an awareness to the audience, but not necessarily catering to them. Just enough awareness to say "y'know, someone else is going to read this, so maybe I should cut out a few paragraphs and get to my point a teensy bit quicker." Otherwise, comments are about the style of writing rather than the content, or about adjacent points that don't concern the main topic. And not being able to interact meaningfully with your audience is lame.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, I think my approach sides more with her than with you. I blog mostly to work things out in my own brain, and rewrite only when it helps me clarify the ideas for myself.

I explicitly refuse to have comments on my blog, so I certainly am not a poster-child for interacting meaningfully--or at all-with my audience.

But I do agree that rewriting does serve your audience.

[http://braythwayt.com/2015/01/16/write-for-yourself- rewrite-...](http://braythwayt.com/2015/01/16/write-for-yourself-rewrite-for- others.html)

<comment><USER2> Besides catharsis, I think interacting with people is a great blogging motivator. I appreciate your inclusion of the two Louis C.K. videos (I've seen them before, love 'em :)

Your blog post was far more effective at showing the differences between writing and editing, which is definitely far more nuanced than "fuck quality control." I agreed with her to a degree, and I definitely agree with you.

Looking at the reddit thread of your article, though, you're incorrect about not interacting with your audience. You absolutely did that. And suddenly, once you linked your article, _I_ have become part of your audience. And you're interacting with me. (Good work.)

I don't advocate editing just to serve some imagined audience, either. You are your own audience, like it or not. And if your text is unclean, your thoughts incomprehensible, then what use is your blog post, even to yourself?

Well-written blogs are far more useful than stream of consciousness ones. I took far more out of your blog post than from the OP. I agree that "giving zero fucks is totally fine", as OP mentions, but polished posts are many times more useful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel declares Clover Trail Atom processor a "no Linux" zone  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/intel-declares-clover-trail-atom-processor-a-no-linux-zone/ <comment><USER2> The current-generation Cedar Trail Atom also has issues with Linux. It will run but there are no video drivers so you are stuck with VESA graphics.

It's not just Linux either, it doesn't have video drivers for 64-bit Windows. Even though Cedar Trail is a 64-bit chip it is stuck running 32-bit Windows.

<comment><USER3> Ars is usually so good that I thought I would find insights into Imagination Tech's PowerVR GPU or at least _something_ to rationalize the disconnect between Intel's usually great linux support and Clover Trail.

The mention power management but not GPU power management or GPU anything. Huh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blogspam of [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205462/idf- intel-s...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205462/idf-intel-says- clover-trail-will-not-work-with-linux)

which was posted on HN 9 hours ago.

<comment><USER5> HackerNews thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4520473>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read this as "low-level employee with no authority to speak for the company says dumb thing at conference."

<comment><USER7> I wish that people would double check with someone higher up when they hear a quote that's too good to be true.

Why would they put "no linux" in quotes? I didn't see anybody in the source or source's parent that mentions "no linux".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hereby declare my workspace a No-Intel zone!

(Of course, I must admit my workspace was a no-Intel zone even before the release of the Clover Trail processor.)

</comment><comment><USER9> ... thus prompting hackers worldwide to quickly create a version of Linux that will run on the Clover Trail Atom processor. Just to piss them off.

<comment><USER10> Linux can already run on the processor, it's just x86.

The processor was built with new windows kernel features that allow the OS to issue "hints" to allow the processor to make use of special power states.

Basically if you use it with Windows (for which it was designed), you'll get good battery life.

If you use it with Linux, you'll get poor battery life because none of the advanced features exist in the Linux kernel.</comment></comment>