'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2014/10/05/353893046/you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent-or-do-you?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social <comment><USER2> Technically no, because there isn't actually a right to remain silent under the United States Constitution.

Miranda readings, which most people conflate with this "right to remain silent" are a bit of a bizarre invention of the Warren Court from other preexisting rights:

1\. The against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. 2\. The right to have counsel present during interrogation, since interrogation is considered an inherently coercive environment under the Sixth Amendment.

If the goal is for the suspect to understand his or her legal rights during questioning, "You have the right to remain silent," is a very bad way to phrase Fifth and Sixth to an average Jane.

A more sane way might be an exclusionary rule that throws out all statements before the suspect has the chance to talk to an attorney.

To patch up the corner cases, you could probably import quite a few hearsay exceptions, like excited utterance.

Plus, I don't like this "know the magic words or else" type jurisprudence. "Am I free to leave?" "Am I being detained?" "Do you have a warrant?"

In everyday police interactions, a citizen should never have to assert Constitutional rights. The onus should be on the state's system to ensure they're granted.

<comment><USER3> Of course, the Constitution doesn't grant rights. Do you have a natural right to be left alone if you so choose? Do you have a natural right to not be a witness against yourself? It seems a society based on popular sovereignty should define these rights as inherent and innate to being a person.

And if you do assert your Constitutional rights, it's an easy way to escalate a situation where you soon learn the meaning to "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

<comment><USER4> Asserting your rights is a fantastic ride, if you know how to do it. Everyone should Google how Geithner beat both rap and ride from the NYPD in four hours.that guy's a pro.

If you don't know how to properly assert your rights, then you have none; expect to have your window smashed in, and be pulled out of your car. Or have cops and social workers come to remove your kids from an "unsafe" house 30 minutes after the power company shuts off the power for some reason.

But if you do it right, you're treated extremely politely by policemen and justice system participants.

<comment><USER5> Do you have a link to a story? A cursory search reveals people complaining about being duped by a video that was posted two years after some event.

<comment><USER4> Forgive the lack of a link. This was discussed at a lunch with fellow bankers a few years back, and one of my acquaintances had a rather detailed run-down. I figure it was more publically-discussed. As I have no citation, take this with as large a grain of salt as you'd like. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the UK, the police warn people on arrest "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you fail to mention during questioning something you later rely on in court." Which sounds quite a lot like how this is going in leftpondian areas.

The idea is that if you suddenly come up with some claim in court without having mentioned it beforehand, it could be made up, but if you are sticking to the same story throughout then the court is more likely to believe you. Of course, it is absolutely the right thing to ask for a lawyer to be present during all questioning, and that is one's right. The lawyer may advise you to answer every question with "No comment", or (if the evidence is damning) to fess up.

</comment><comment><USER7> The illustrated guide to criminal law - [http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897](http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2897) just finished up the 5th amendment.

You have to assert your right to silence, it isn't enough to be silent.

<comment><USER8> That was actually useful, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's a really terrible trend of requiring magic spells to be cast to "invoke" 4th and 5th amendment rights. You _have_ a right to remain silent, as the Supreme Court has codified it; it doesn't make any sense to talk about "invoking" it specifically. You don't have to declare "I invoke my First Amendment rights" as a magic spell to avoid being prosecuted for writing something on the internet.

<comment><USER10> " You have a right to remain silent, as the Supreme Court has codified it;"

So let's a few things things straight :)

1\. This particular right does not explicitly appear in the constitution. There is nobody who argues otherwise. The history of the fifth amendment does not support any other reading than being about compulsion to testify (IE torture, etc).

2\. The Supreme Court are the ones who say you have to invoke it explicitly

So the Supreme Court, who you say "codified" this right, are the very people saying you need to explicitly invoke it.

So it does make sense to talk about invoking it, since the same people who have explained this right have said, as part of that explanation, that you are required to do it. Basically "that it is your right to invoke your silence". Not "you have an unabrogated right to silence and not have that silence used against you".

"You don't have to declare "I invoke my First Amendment rights" as a magic spell to avoid being prosecuted for writing something on the internet."

Of course, you can be prosecuted for plenty of stuff you write on the internet, because the first amendment is not absolute, as the Supreme Court has codified it.

<comment><USER11> Unlike you, I am not a laywer, so take this for what it's worth:

I agree with most of what you say, but I do think the following statement is a bit unfair:

> So it does make sense to talk about invoking it, since the same people who > have explained this right have said, as part of that explanation, that you > are required to do it.

Unless I'm mistaken, you're referring to two separate SCOTUS decisions that are separated by several decades (the latter decision is very recent). I don't think it's right to treat the Supreme Court as a singular, monolithic entity even within a given session (let alone separated by many years and with different chief justices, etc.)

Our public understanding of the supposed 'right to remain silent' developed after the Warren court decision, and while it's true that the Roberts court clarified (or imposed) the requirement that this be explicit, AFAICT it's not the only way to interpret the Warren ruling.

Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling.

[0] I say 'appearing to' because it's easily arguable that this is a clarification, not a reversal, which AFAICT is the whole controversy to begin with

<comment><USER10> "Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling."

It's certainly fair to criticize, but honestly, this is the problem with unenumerated rights in general (like "The right to privacy" and others), and judicially made rules like the exclusionary rule - they tend to erode or change over time, even after people come to rely on them.

I'd much prefer to see both in the constitution itself. :)

<comment><USER12> The contemporaneous objection to the proposed Bill of Rights was that future generations would come to believe that only those rights enumerated in the Bill are protected by the Constitution.

It seems to me that that fear has basically come true. Adding a few more amendments won't fix that; in fact they would reinforce the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a lecture by a law school professor called "Don't Talk to Police" that I've seen on HN before and is definitely worth watching. The case in the article is unfortunate, although I'm curious what might have happened if Tom had asked "am I under arrest?" after not being allowed to go home.

In the second example the article gives, I wonder what would've happened if the defendant had not answered any questions voluntarily and chosen to remain silent.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

<comment><USER4> I will politely and respectfully disagree with everything stated in this video, but I will not stand in this fine gentleman's way of making more money for criminal lawyers. I hope many people listen to the advice in the link, and then call him to get out of the jam these lessons will put them in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How about right to be in shock, unable to speak? Where is basic empathy?

Guy just trashed car, possibly killing number of people including his relatives, police arrests him just after accident. In such situation I would shit myself , rolled into fetal position and would not talk to anyone for hours/days.

No he gets jail, because he does not make statements for police..

<comment><USER15> No, you see, only victims deserve empathy. Not someone of whom the media, police and prosecuters have already determined that he is a _criminal_

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _"...the courts said the only exception is if defendants expressly tell police they are invoking their Fifth Amendment rights..."_

The absence of speech should be protected as freedom of speech by the First Amendment. The emphasis is on _should_. I wonder in what ways it's been challenged in that sense. Everyone who wants to stay aware of their rights concerning [don't talk to police] topics is hopefully taking note and updating others on this news of last year. It's petty, troubling procedure to be forced to verbally invoke a primary Constitutional right before one 'obtains' that right. Yet so it goes. _" I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights. I want to speak to a lawyer. (repeat)"_

<comment><USER10> "It's petty, troubling procedure to be forced to verbally invoke a primary Constitutional right before one 'obtains' that right"

Which right are you referring to here? As has been pointed out, the right to remain silent does not appear in the constitution. :) Only the right to not be compelled to be a witness against yourself, which is not the same at all (and does not need to be invoked)

<comment><USER16> I'm referring to the right to not self-incriminate. That _is_ the issue at hand. What you said is untrue twice over. It's central to this issue and it does "need" to be invoked. The SCOTUS made some fateful rulings in 2013 and the gist ever since is that one must invoke the Fifth in order to be perceived as protected by the Fifth at that time. That's what the article is about.

<comment><USER10> "I'm referring to the right to not self-incriminate."

Also not in the constitution. Cite otherwise. The right the article is talking about is the fifth amendment, which only says "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself".

Not the same as a general right against self-incrimination (and no court case has ever held otherwise ...)

"What you said is untrue twice over. "

Again, in what way? You are the one who refuses to actually back up your statement that this right appears in the constitution, or was understood to be primary constitutional right.

(Spoiler alert: It hasn't been. There are plenty of state and other supreme court cases where silence was allowed to be used against people, and until the time of Miranda, nobody believed this was part of the fifth)

" It's central to this issue and it does "need" to be invoked."

I'm still not sure what you are talking about. I know what the article is talking about. The article is talking about an implicit right to silence created by the Miranda decision that the court found to be necessary to protect people, and its gradual erosion.

" and the gist ever since is that one must invoke the Fifth in order to be perceived as protected by the Fifth at that time. That's what the article is about."

See above

It is only in the past 50 years that any court has ever held the fifth amendment gave you the right to remain silent, and in fact, precedent was the exact opposite for centuries.

You are of course, welcome to look up the caselaw history if you don't believe me.

It simply was not understood to be a primary constitutional right, contrary to your assertion. There was not even anything you could invoke. Prosecutors were free to use your silence against you

Talking about it as if it has always been an understood part of the fifth amendment does nobody any favors. It hasn't. Again, you won't find any serious legal academic who argues otherwise.

Here's an unbiased view by a preeminent con-law scholar: [http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/17/do-you-have-a-right-to- rema...](http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/17/do-you-have-a-right-to-remain- silent-thoughts-on-the-sleeper-criminal-procedure-case-of-the-term-salinas-v- texas/)

Note the section on pre-1965.

The truth is this is the problem with rights whose plain text does not appear in the constitution, like privacy, like the exclusionary rule, like a lot of things - they tend to erode over time.

But the solution to that is not to pretend they are written into the constitution and then lament a changing ideology of the supreme court, but instead actually put them there.

<comment><USER16> You're confusing explicit rights with implicit rights built on precedence. Much of what's considered Constitutional rights is not definite and explicit. Likewise, the Constitution doesn't explicitly state that you have a right to your physical senses as a sentient being beyond ambiguous terms pertaining to welfare. This reminds me of a leading worry during the writing of the Bill of Rights: a worry that the affirmation of some specific humanitarian rights might regrettably lead society into believing that mere omission becomes the grounds for abusing freedoms unstated.

> _It is only in the past 50 years that any court has ever held the fifth > amendment gave you the right to remain silent, and in fact, precedent was > the exact opposite for centuries._

Yes. It became a right. Go ahead and argue all day about what you perceive as fulfilling the qualification of a "right." I'll argue in direct contrast if your interpretation of rights remains narrow and dictated by the past. It won't help the situation at hand. Miranda warnings wouldn't have resulted if it weren't for precedence and perceived _rights_ upholding it. Now the tides shift again. You're free to call this a _" return to the past"_ or a _" return to previous rights I think you never had"_ or whatever you wish. I call it the erosion of rights.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Edit:

> _But the solution to that is not to pretend they are written into the > constitution and then lament a changing ideology of the supreme court, but > instead actually put them there._

That would be ideal. That would be a colossal task, indeed, in lieu of a great number of other _rights_ continuing to erode through an oligarchy's surveillance institutions and corporate decree.

<comment><USER17> You're caught in a semantic rut. Your peer in this conversation isn't suggesting that there is no "right to silence". Re-read his comment. He's acknowledging that there is an implied right, but pointing out that it is not in the Constitution. He agrees with you that the right is eroding.

His disagreement regards the solution that erosion. Your solution seems to be to shore up the implied right to silence that comes from Miranda. His is to add an amendment to the Constitution to formalize a right to silence.

<comment><USER16> It's a semantic rut, perhaps. It's not necessarily my semantic rut. Off the bat he was arguing down this road as if to suggest that I was implying that "remaining silent" was explicitly spelled out in the Constitution -- something I never implied. I'm not stating solutions. I'm commenting on results. Ideas for solutions are numerous and probably least served for attention in this thread. A full constitutional amendment would be great. Agreed. Unfortunately, that's a daunting likelihood given the prevailing winds.

This matter would benefit from re-reading my comments equally, as well, but I digress. No worries. Thank you for your added thoughts.

<comment><USER10> You wrote: " [basically it's sad that one must] verbally invoke a primary Constitutional right before one 'obtains' that right"

Note: you argue it is a primary constitutional right. Primary constitutional rights are those actually found in the constitution. Yours is not.

So when you say this is "something I never implied", i strongly disagree. If you didn't mean to imply it, fine. But I guarantee that anyone with any legal background read your comment and came away with the same impression.

Your argument seemed to me to be "because it's a primary constitutional right, I should not have to invoke it explicitly".

My argument is: You have to invoke it precisely because _it is not a primary constitutional right_.

<comment><USER16> The term "Constitutional right" refers to legal rights derived from and related to the Constitution. Hence, they're termed _Constitutional_.

If you disagree with this term, you disagree with thousands upon thousands of other rights that are equally considered Constitutional and part of Constitutional law. Most Constitutional rights are not explicitly stated in the Constitution. Instead they're derived from interpretation of the succinct language used in the Constitution. This topic is rooted in Constitutional rights. I respect that the word 'primary' could be misinterpreted. And it's subjective. Personally, I don't know where I'd place this issue on a list of humanitarian rights if I had to rank. Most issues related to speech and freedom from tyranny, and its numerous forms of persecution, are issues that I usually deem 'primary.'

<comment><USER10> "The term "Constitutional right" refers to legal rights derived from and related to the Constitution. Hence, they're termed Constitutional."

Dude, you said "primary constitutional right", not "constitutional right". They are not the same.

Additionally, you are seriously confusing primary constitutional rights and rights and rules whose basis is implementation of constitutional rights. They are not the same as constitutional rights either.

For example, the exclusionary rule (that excludes evidence obtained through police violate your constitutional rights) is _not_ a constitutional right, it is a judicial rule grounded in sane implementation of the 4th amendment.

In any case, this is not worth arguing any more for me.

<comment><USER16> Like I said, I respect that using the word "primary" is contentious. If that's your only true point, then there's little argument to be had other than a subjective nature of what I consider primary. If your argument extends past that, about the term "Constitutional right" itself, then, again, you'd be wrong to imply that "rights and rules" derived from Constitutional interpretation aren't Constitutional rights. That's not judicial wordplay. It's common language.

Example:

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

"What to Say to Invoke the Right to Silence

The new Supreme Court decision raises weighty questions, such as whether it's reasonable to place the onus of asserting constitutional rights on everyday people, most of whom have never cracked the spine of a criminal procedure or constitutional law book. The more practical question is what, exactly, an out- of-custody person must say to inquisitive police officers in order to claim the right to silence. To be safe, they should make clear that they are invoking their Fifth Amendment right to silence and have nothing further to say. That way their subsequent failure to answer any questions cannot be mentioned at trial."

by: Micah Schwartzbach

[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-how-invoke- your-...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-how-invoke-your-right- silence.html)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

This writer uses the term _" constitutional rights"_ in context. He later says, _"...invoking their Fifth Amendment right to silence..."_ (i.e. "... invoking their Constitutional right to silence...") in direct context. I won't dig up numerous other examples from lawyers who write about this subject in- depth. Court rulings continually change the landscape of rights. They change what's inherently so-called "Constitutional" at any point in time. Many issues become topics of people's Constitutional rights once they're challenged on the basis of the Constitution. This is irrespective of a changing landscape's rulings at any point in time.

Outside of that language, we may agree more than we disagree.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's not really about being silent. It'd make much more sense if the Miranda copy was "you have the right to not be interrogated without a lawyer present; if you invoke this right, your silence in response to further questions asked without your lawyer present cannot be held against you. Anything else, can."

<comment><USER19> "you have the right to not be interrogated without a lawyer present" but that implies you have to answer questions once you get a lawyer present.

<comment><USER18> Nah, you don't have to _answer_ —but they have every right to ask all the questions they like to you through your lawyer, and whatever response they observe to _that_ "can and will be held against you" just as if you had volunteered to talk.

You can work it out through this equivalence: when you choose to speak without a lawyer present, you're basically self-representing in the interrogation. So your "lawyer" (i.e. you) can get you in trouble. The Miranda rights are sort of a "we will only assign mens rea to the return values from the public API of your mind" idea: by asserting your need for a lawyer, you're asserting that right now they're speaking directly to your private API—an internal version of yourself they don't have the right to know anything about. You-plus-your- lawyer becomes a full being again, and _its_ words can harm it. (But it also has the _actual_ right to remain silent—without invoking anything—and its silence cannot be held against it either.)

The critical thing about the lawyer right is that they actually _lose_ the ability to interrogate you—to do anything at all that could elicit self- incrimination—until you get that lawyer. Whereas, both in the "I invoke my right to remain silent" pre-lawyer, and "no comment" post-lawyer cases, they can continue interrogating you all the like. in fact, if you're re-read your Miranda rights post-invoking-silence but pre-lawyer, your invocation goes away until you say it again! They can keep trying all sorts of things to weasel words out of you if all you ask is to allowed to be silent; once you ask for the lawyer, though, they're utterly locked out until you get one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have always thought it best to specify that you don't understand. If you are not a lawyer how can you know the ramifications for anything you do or do not say.

<comment><USER21> IANAL, but my guess is that asking for an attorney is the equivalent of asserting your right to remain silent as the police are not allowed to continue your interrogation. The right to counsel is a part of the 6th amendment though, not the 5th.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some states require you consent to sobriety tests to keep your drivers license. You have the right to remain silent. But they reserve the right to ruin your life.

<comment><USER23> A drivers license has always been a privilege, not a right.

<comment><USER24> Likewise, having a cell phone is a privilege, not a right, but it's nearly impossible to survive in modernity without one, so restricting access to one becomes a form of coercion. No matter how you spin it, this is an attempt to coerce people into incriminating themselves.

There's nothing stopping these states from going further and saying that driving a car implies consent to have that car searched at any time, or impounded to be emissions-checked at the state's leisure.

<comment><USER17> Having a cell phone is a privilege? In what state, owing to what statute?

<comment><USER24> It's certainly regulatable, though it isn't now. Since cell carriers lease public airwaves, it'd be possible to mandate that they block some people from using their service, only sell phones if the person's ID is checked, etc.. This is drastic and would disrupt (in the traditional sense of the word) pay as you go phones that are popular for various demographics, but it seems possible, and there certainly isn't a reason why it couldn't happen.

If felons can be denied the right to vote, I think it'd be an easy sell to deny them the right to cell phones. Any state could pass it as a "tough on crime" measure.

<comment><USER17> It's not true that anything one can imagine being regulated can legally be regulated. The state has an extremely compelling interest in regulating automobiles --- they are incredibly dangerous and create externalities. It is harder to see how a restriction on free speech and association could pass Constitutional muster.

<comment><USER24> There's no free speech or association here, only questions of who can access government-controlled radio spectrum.

This is also incredibly dangerous -- nearly all drug trafficking is orchestrated via cellular networks, and it's not a stretch to imagine that felons might lose the right to use government radio spectrum to communicate in the same way they lose the right to vote in many states.

To put it another way, which seems more of a central right in the democratic system: voting, or controlled frequency access?

It seems very quixotic to make this an issue of free speech, when free speech itself is so highly regulated. Ask the protesters outside the free speech zone if free speech exists beyond state regulation -- the silence is your answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's the point of having laws, if your citizens can't possibly know/remember them?

<comment><USER26> Not that I think the US is there yet, but the answer is that having so many laws that basically waking up and going about your daily routine means breaking at least a few laws, is the ultimate goal. If everything is a crime and everyone is a criminal, it's much easier for the government to control the people rather than the other way around. This concept comes up in many science fiction works, even non-Dystopian ones.

<comment><USER27> I've always wondered this while driving through Chicago. The speed limit is 55mph, but everyone, cops included, goes 70 when traffic allows for it. And I've done 80mph with a cop behind me and not been pulled over.

Which leads me to believe that the speed limit is only there so the police have a reason to pull over anyone without any other reason. Don't like the look of the driver? Pull them over, while ignoring every other car doing 70.

<comment><USER26> It's even worse in some places. Here in Atlanta, there is a law against impeding the flow of traffic. The I-285 perimeter highway around the city has a posted speed of 55 for most of it, yet traffic constantly flows at about 70-80mph. Theoretically, if you are going 65mph in the leftmost lane while people are flying around you and backed up behind you, you can be stopped and cited for both impeding the flow of traffic and speeding.

Who knows if it would get thrown out in court, but most people plead guilty to traffic citations by just paying the fine anyway, and the system knows that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article hit the nail on the head. It is a no-win scenario. Having watched many law professors give lectures on this very topic and something they always make sure to point out, the issue that I always have with it is the wording:

"Anything you say or do may (or can and will for modern readings) be used against you in a court of law"

What it does not say is it can be used __for you __. What would of changed if Tom knew that showing good human conscious would help him in court? Yet the Miranda Warning worded to say nothing good can come out of this for you, that is I have absolutely nothing to gain by talking to you. It 's a lose-lose situation. Could you imagine the frustration?

</comment><comment><USER19> "Sir, can you tell me how fast you were going?" I've always wondered what the best answer would be.

<comment><USER26> Maybe it's a regional thing, but around here the question is always "Do you know why I pulled you over?" to which I've answered, "no, sir." To answer anything else is to incriminate yourself, and officers will write in the comments section of the ticket (for the judge to see) that you affirmed your offense, essentially pleading guilty on the spot.

For example, let's say you're going 10mph over the speed limit and you're aware of that, but you don't know your tail light is out. The officer pulls you over for the tail light, asks the question, and you answer "because I was speeding, I guess". Now he can not only write you the ticket for the tail light, but you just gave him a confession for the speeding too. Now you've guaranteed that you'll get two citations when you might have just gotten off with a "fix that tail light" warning.

<comment><USER4> You are absolutely correct. However, a court will accept that you tried to plead guilty at the earliest point in time, and will usually give you a reduced penalty for doing so. You'll usually get no points on your license, either.

from thefreedictionary.com's legal dictionary: In civil lawsuits, the term guilty does not imply criminal responsibility but refers to misconduct.

Source: I settle approximately 4 speeding tickets a month for customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most people have watched enough "Cops" to have memorized the script. Now, go grab a copy of a law dictionary (I use Bouvier's or Black's) and read the definition of every word in that script. You'll be amazed at what it really means.

Silence is considered acceptance in contempt. A cop telling you that you have the right to put yourself in contempt, when you have a duty as a taxpaying citizen to respond, should give you some pause.

Don't take my word for it, though; read a law dictionary.

<comment><USER29> I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say.

It sounds like you are implying that keeping mum is legally equivalent to agreeing to anything that a police officer says. That simply isn't true.

If you have something useful to contribute, please make it more clear and include a citation somewhat more precise than "somewhere within the 2052 pages of Black's Law Dictionary".

<comment><USER4> Interesting quote you put there. Did I say that?

But sure, i'll be happy to do your homework for you. Grab your book, an look up the following words: "You" "Right" "Remain" "Silent" "Attorney" "Afford" "Understand"

Those would probably be a good start for you. You'll learn they don't mean what you think they mean.

Afterwards, might I suggest a book on offer and acceptance? The "Examples and Explanations" series has a great book on Contracts, and might get you to a deeper understanding of the meaning of silence.

<comment><USER29> > Interesting quote you put there. Did I say that?

No. I used the quotation marks to indicate my paraphrasing of what I believed you were implying, not your actual words.

<comment><USER4> We'll consider your silence to the rest of my post as agreement to its contents.

<comment><USER4> And we'll consider your downvotes to be a sign of vexation, rather than legitimate contribution to the conversation. This type of censorship is not in the spirit of the HN guidelines.

Regardless, I have karma to burn. bury away. :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Our Go is fine but our SQL is great - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bumpers/our-go-is-fine-but-our-sql-is-great-b4857950a243 <comment><USER2> I wonder, given the affinity for SQL, if they would have been happier with PostGrest ([https://postgrest.com/](https://postgrest.com/)) as the backing store.</comment>


The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon - <AUTHOR> http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon/ <comment><USER2> This is a complete troll, but a very pleasing and cleverly written one. If you search "Baader-Meinhof", you get the militant group, this article (from 2006), another article referencing the same definition without citation (from 2013), and an Urban Dictionary entry with this definition.

But the question is, by simply naming the phenomenon, even as a joke, has he created it in earnest? If you see this referenced again, then it's the behavioral psychology equivalent of the sentence "This sentence, by xianshou on Hacker News, has only been typed once in the history of creation." \- a statement that remains false until it is made.

<comment><USER3> From said search:

"The considerably catchier sobriquet Baader-Meinhof phenomenon was invented in 1994 by a commenter on the St. Paul Pioneer Press' online discussion board,.."

from: [http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/theres-a-name-for- tha...](http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/theres-a-name-for-that-the- baader-meinhof-phenomenon-59670)

Not sure if that's the earliest reference, but I've certainly heard it called that years before 2006.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Weird. I've only heard about the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon recently, but I'm an expert on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well here's a weird example. Last night I watched the movie _Three Days of the Condor_ , which has a character named Joubert. And here we have a post on the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon by a poster named joubert. Welp.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been thinking about this phenomenon since I was a young teenager, a couple decades ago... (Not knowing that it had a name, if that name was even coined back then.)

My thoughts on this go two-fold: 1) When we see the same concept multiple times, it often has to do with things being trendy, and media looking to other media for coverage. Other than breaking news, most publications publish iterative rather than totally original content. Even when a thing is not super trending, you can often find that multiple occurrences of the same concept have their root in the same origin. Now that we publish on the web and that most writers aren't greedy with crediting their stories' ancestors with backlinks, you can often tell that this has been the case.

2) Survivor bias. We are exposed to dozens of new concepts every day, many of which will linger on in our minds for a few days or weeks, depending on their salience. When we see a second occurrence, our brain creates a link/links with the previous one, and suddenly the original idea gains in salience in our mind along with the new one. But what about the other 15 unique ideas that I was exposed to yesterday, the day before, and all other days before that? They go on to be forgotten. When one original concept re-appears from a different channel, we're delighted, but really, this is all our brains do for a living, connecting things from disparate origins for what they have in common. Nowadays I'm more upset at not being able to link more information to my existing mental super-structure than I'm excited at connecting things in the schema. :P

</comment><comment><USER7> Not to be confused with the Baader-Meinhof Gang: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction)

<comment><USER8> Since we're on the subject, there's a film about them which I'm pretty sure I saw on Netflix (in the UK). Fascinating and rather depressing story.

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

<comment><USER6> And don't forget this humorous take on the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Raspberry Reich [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390418/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390418/) (film cover slightly NSFW, film DEFINITELY NSFW)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Humans are just very good at seeing patterns in random events, while ignoring the events where they don't see a pattern.

Think about all the times it did not occur...

</comment><comment><USER10> I was only talking to someone about this the other day, and I couldn't remember the name of it!

</comment><comment><USER11> That's so weird, I just heard about that the other day!</comment>


Is Firefox lying to users about viruses in downloads? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theindy.us/is-firefox-lying-to-users-about-viruses-in-downloads/ <comment><USER2> If only the voting public understood about statistics, false positives, and false negatives.

Even if Firefox did a full virus scan, there would still be false positives and false negatives in the results.

The system designer always has to put their reporting threshold somewhere, and that always means making a decision to bias towards false positives or false negatives. Eliminating false positives means exploding the number of false negatives.

Unfortunately, people like the OP don't understand this, and yell angry things like "Firefox is lying to me!" Others here suggest FF should inject a bunch of weasel words like maybe and could and might. That's a seemingly rational thing to do if you believe you're informing a customer population that understands things like false positives and false negatives, but we have pretty clear evidence that they don't. So FF makes a conscious informed decision to prefer reporting false positives over false negatives and then allows the user to override if they believe they know enough to do so. Sure, there are some costs to false positives, but they are dwarfed by the cost of false negatives.

<comment><USER3> And why the hell should the browser act as an antivirus?. It's a browser, not an antivirus, it should assume the user knows what he's doing, not treat him like a toddler.

It's just a huge annoyance with no considerable benefit.

<comment><USER4> In the web security space its typically called the browser security model and there are differences between browsers. The browser is not just a portal forwarding/displaying the intentions of the developers. If you want to see one of the more obvious examples look at the same origin policy and how it's implemented across browsers.

Having said that, I do agree that browsers shouldn't implement lots of crazy features but I personally don't mind if they have some kind of malicious file scanning feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Firefox isn't necessarily scanning the files for viruses, they're often just using databases that list domains suspected of hosting malware._

IIRC, Chrome does the same thing too. I think it's not much of an issue for Firefox to flag stuffs downloaded from suspected URLs as a malware since it's not uncommon to have one's system infected from those sites' content. Firefox is just trying it's best to prohibit any sort of system infection through itself.

<comment><USER6> I wonder why they can't integrate some service like VirusTotal into their downloader. Sure, for heretofore new objects it'll take longer, but they have a long list of many many file hashes and their reputation dB .

<comment><USER7> Because I don't want Firefox to send what I download to some (third party) company. Or anywhere for that matter.

Their (and chrome's) current solution to block malware domains use a client- side bloom filter afaik.

If you'd try to build the same client-side into firefox, you'd have just built another (bad) antivirus software.

Might as well integrate clamav into firefox then.

<comment><USER6> Can't they just compare hashes and for those where they have to do a scan, serve as an anonymous intermediary/proxy?

<comment><USER8> Perhaps similarly to Pwned Passwords API, except for files: [https://www.troyhunt.com/ive-just-launched-pwned- passwords-v...](https://www.troyhunt.com/ive-just-launched-pwned-passwords- version-2/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are several ebooks that have been uploaded to libgen that contain PDF exploits, and from what I understand there's no way to remove them.

The way that their library database works is by linking a book number to a file's md5 sum. On the filesystem they are stored something like `$drive:\$batch\$sum` where `$drive` is a Windows drive letter, `$batch` is the primary key of the document rounded to the nearest 1k, 10k or 100k depending on collection and `$sum` is the `md5sum` of the file data. The archive's file data is shared via torrents, usenet and other means in those batches, and to keep that in sync they have a policy of the primary key and sum of each file being immutable.

So if you do happen to download the literary works of mankind via their torrents, you have to do so with your antivirus turned off and hope nobody has uploaded anything too illegal over the last decade.

<comment><USER10> I could be wrong but I think technically a PDF exploit only affects a single viewer program, like Acrobat on windows, right?

<comment><USER11> It would depend on the exploit. For a simple example, an exploit that was a result of a flaw in the file specification could result in it being cross platform.

It's going to be rarer to find something of that scope, maybe even to the point of you being effectively right.

<comment><USER9> Also dodgy files can contain multiple exploits, potentially for different platforms. Problem here from the malicious actor's point of view is that each vector for attack is also a vector for detection, so rather than a cesspool of exploits it makes more sense to use single new and mostly unknown exploit that targets software used by the greatest number of victims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not as bothered by the main point of the article but it does raise an interesting point that was missed by the comments so far is near the end: If you're flagging files as potentially harmful, giving a user a choice to either execute it or delete it is kind of bad design!

<comment><USER13> No, it's not "bad design".

If there's an uncertainty in detection, there are false positives and letting the user decide is the only correct option.

Edit: Nevermind. Re-reading the article - they should indeed allow saving the file in addition to deleting or opening it.

<comment><USER14> The implied better alternative is to allow saving, instead of opening, so users can scan the files themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If anyone else doesn't like this behavior of sending hashes for everything you download to Google, set:

browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled=false

And if you don't want phishing warnings either: browser.safebrowsing.phishing.enabled=false

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently stumbled across just such a false positive, in the NextCloud showcase, no less. Not much they can do about it, as far as anyone can tell.

[https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/9916](https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/9916)

</comment><comment><USER17> Spoiler: no, sometimes flags safe content from shady sources.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h ... so, materially yes? As a user, I don't care that they have an excuse, I care that they said "this file is a virus" when the file was not a virus.

<comment><USER17> Not really. "Lying" includes an intent to deceive. I would have been okay with "raises false alarms", "generates false positive" or even "confuses and/or misleads users".

As a user, I want to be better safe than sorry - but would perhaps be happier with a finer classification than "no problem/OMG VIRUS!"

<comment><USER18> Until the moment where you really need that file.

<comment><USER19> This. Firefox has become far more aggressive in policing use. For ex., if HTTPS is misconfigured 60.0.2 no longer offers an option for one time exceptions, now there's only 'get me out of here' and 'report to mozilla' buttons. Perhaps someone more familiar with ff's config knobs will post the knob name.

<comment><USER20> I'm running 60.0.2 and I still have the option to add an exception, under "Advanced". What you describe only happens when the site is so badly misconfigured that no connection is possible (e.g. protocol errors).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm now wondering what happens if I start posting the string "X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*" to various places. Would it result in the site getting flagged?

</comment><comment><USER22> This is how every other browser does it too. I'd be more alarmed if my browser had an inbuilt antivirus.

<comment><USER23> Like Chrome?

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj7x9w/google- chr...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj7x9w/google-chrome-scans- files-on-your-windows-computer-chrome-cleanup-tool)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I agree that straight up calling it a virus is wrong. "This file comes from a suspicious source and might be dangerous" would be much better wording. Enough to make the user cautious, but not scare the shit out of them (yes, I've literally seen people jump out of their seats and scream when they saw a virus warning).

</comment><comment><USER25> Who cares? Flagging sites probably provides an overall benefit for people to be careful on sites where viruses have been detected. People pirating books will still download them 'cause if they are on a know pirate books site they've already accepted some risk. People who don't know what their doing will still get infected.

<comment><USER26> In part I agree, but then again, it can become a problem à-la windows security prompt, where people have learned to basically ignore it and give permission to mostly anything.

In other words, in my opinion, don't cry wolf unless there's an actual wolf, or at least something that could reasonably look like one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Site is down, archive.org cache here:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180704124718/https://www.thein...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180704124718/https://www.theindy.us/is- firefox-lying-to-users-about-viruses-in-downloads/)

</comment><comment><USER28> It's dead Jim...

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.theindy.us/is- firefox-lying-to-users-about-viruses-in-downloads/)

</comment><comment><USER29> So it's whatever list they use of malware hashes that's the issue, not Firefox, right? It's probably publishers that are adding their pirated works to it, not Mozilla. Or does Mozilla maintain it themselves for Firefox in particular?

</comment><comment><USER30> The history of Google's "SafeBrowsing" with respect to Firefox is a real mixed bag. The privacy protections Mozilla asked for from Google were begrudgingly implemented. As a Linux user, I used to just turn it off.

</comment><comment><USER31> It would be an interesting experiment to see if being direct and clear but at times inaccurate protects more novice users than being a little more wishy washy but accurate.</comment>


The 'Loser Edit' That Awaits Us All - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/magazine/the-loser-edit-that-awaits-us-all.html <comment><USER2> Starting to suspect my loser edit is just hundreds of time-lapsed hours reading HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you tape someone for 24 hours and broadcast their 5 worst minutes, you can make anyone look like a loser.

Those shows also have "loser sound cues", when you can tell that the person is not doing well.

<comment><USER4> Cardinal Richelieu is alleged to have said:

 _If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him._

<comment><USER5> > _If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I > will find something in them which will hang him._

This is what scares me about the permanence of internet commentary, and why I laugh when people say, "use your real name!"

After 10, 20, 30 years of commenting around the internet, it's likely you can paint any picture of me you'd like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Taken from the surveillance camera of the gas station where you bought a > lottery ticket like a chump.

Of all the things, this is the least I'm worried about in the long term. Storing video is expensive and rarely makes sense for businesses beyond 30 days. I setup a 64 camera network for a client and 20TB of space stores about 15 days of footage. Sure, disk space is cheap but at over 1TB/day, 500TB/year would cost about $15k in just HDD and triple that if you want redundancy with proper maintenance. I'd find it hard to justify the ROI on everlasting storage unless the store's selling diamonds.

Even for a small mom and pop store with just 6-8 cams, it can be $2k/year just in cost of storage. Pretty sure they would rather spend that on inventory, marketing, or staffing.

<comment><USER7> Making cops wear body cameras is the big fad issue right now, but it's kind of weird how no one is pointing out the public access to all police cam footage means _ever interaction you have with the police will available to the public forever._

<comment><USER8> I regularly advocate for giving them discretion as to when the camera is on. Of course the rest of the process should be designed so that they want to turn them on in charged situations, but there's lots of situations where taking the choice away from them is going to be harmful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My 2 cents...

There are many people running the US (Congress + Presidents + Supreme Court) who:

\- Failed out of school

\- Got fired

\- Lost elections

\- Had IRS problems

\- Couldn't pay the rent

\- Got cheated on

\- Cheated on their spouse

\- Had drug/weight/gambling/booze/sex/spending problems

What's the significant common denominator? They didn't dwell on a few minutes of failure.

<comment><USER10> It's not up to you whether you get to dwell on failure if someone else has a record of it and decides to use it against you or monetise it to the tabloid press. We're already seeing the phenomenon that when someone goes over a threshold of public visibility, their entire social media presence is scanned for objectionable comments.

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/03/phone- hacking...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/03/phone-hacking- widespread-mirror-titles-court-told)

<comment><USER11> It seems weird that people (or maybe media) act like they want honesty, but if someone were to say "I messed up that time" that seems like a pretty big headline.

"<horrible person> admits to <mistake>"

<comment><USER10> I'm annoyed that even _changing your mind in response to criticism or evidence_ is loudly condemned as a "U-Turn". There's great pressure to pick a position early on and then stick to it, no matter how indefensible it is.

The media aren't interested in honesty and wouldn't recognise it if they tripped over it in the street. They're interested in feeding the scandal machine. If there isn't any scandal, make one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is just another name for "hindsight is 20/20", which is a facet of "confirmation bias". If you look back at the tape, you can pick out whatever shred of evidence that supports the already known conclusion, and ignore anything to the contrary. Confirmation bias is more general; it's not just about hindsight, but about seeing false associations anywhere due to cherry- picked observations.

</comment><comment><USER13> Popular culture thrives on gleefully parading around the failures of others in a vicious 'They are just like us!' cycle that gives celebrity to people purely because we find them unbearable. We're all guilty of letting it in at some point; right from the first moment you laugh at watching a man get hit in the balls with a football.

Saying 'I don't pay attention to that' is simply not enough. Your lack of participation does nothing to solve the problem and like it or not, culture is not going away.

Engage and promote entertainment you find valuable. Engage and promote advertisers that fund things you believe in. Engage and contact advertisers that fund things you believe are detrimental to society.

And if you have something to say that you feel is important but is not supported by anything in popular culture, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE find a way to generate content so that the rest of us that want to back you can engage and promote your voice!

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the appropriate term for this article is "overwrought"

<comment><USER15> I'd say "ironic". The author writes as a loser would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well that was strangely pessimistic...

>The winner edit, even in its artifice, is a gesture toward optimism, the expectation of rewards waiting for that better self. Whenever he or she shows up.

Shows up? I'm right here.

[http://www.ihighfive.com/](http://www.ihighfive.com/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I've never seen an email from them that I was glad I read. I appreciate they're facing a hard problem, but they really need to find a way to filter out low quality content or improve notification targeting.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the writer's points are clear enough that he shouldn't have to refer to the group of Bill Cosby's victims as an "army of accusers" to get through to the readers. Maybe I am wrong and this is a necessary step to demonstrating the overall thesis?

<comment><USER19> You're nitpicking a rhetorical effect and it makes no major difference on the article as a whole.

<comment><USER18> The implicit objection in my comment is similar to other HN user's objections that start discussions every day, assuming my objection has merit. Your comment makes no difference to my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't that just called rationalizing?

</comment><comment><USER21> A few comments from the perspective of having worked in and around tech for over a quarter century, much of it involving data acquisition and analysis (largely industry, not government).

First: the "loser edit" isn't just about video, it's about _any_ narrative -- text, images, audio, video -- and how it can be construed. There's a reason I've enshrined the infamous words of Cardinal Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac, on my G+ Profile: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

For an example I rather admire, see this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15o08h/redditors...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15o08h/redditors_who_had_an_incestuous_relationship_how/c7obfwy)

Second: Sensors and storage are proliferating like mad. If earlier ages were largely notable for how much _wasn 't_ noted (as in: recorded in any fashion), the present age will be notable for how much that _is_ noted is never accessed. How many hours of YouTube video are uploaded every minute?[1] Which means there's a tremendous trove available for mining.

Third: Search of non-textual data is becoming vastly more effective. Being able to first utilize metadata to restrict your search space helps, but as Google is demonstrating, the ability to _describe_ video and search for it is pretty scary.

All of which means that the ability to collect, edit, and distribute a narrative which trashes any given individual, with their own writings, images, spoken word, and video, is tremendously high. We've been seeing that in the area of political discourse as a growing factor over the past decade or two: Declan McCullaghs false story of Al Gore's role in developing the Internet (Gore _did_ play a significant role in establishing legislative support[2]), the Dean Scream ("In a nutshell, you are not seeing that Dean's speech fit the tone of the room."[3]), or in the past few weeks, John Travolta's "awkward" kiss[4] -- a single instant gives a much different view than the context in which it occurred.

Which is a point that media commentators have been making for a long time: that information _devoid of context_ isn't meaningful. See Neal Postman's _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ [5]. Written in 1985, it includes a _very_ Twitter-ish sounding description of randomly-arriving extremely short decontextualized texts -- the telegraph wire. There's a story behind the term "telegraphic".

And there's a fifth point as well: with a putatively comprehensive record, it's quite possible to either bluff or fabricate stories, with increased credibility. While that's a timeless tactic itself -- I believe it was during the _second_ Presidential campaign in the United States, supporters of John Adams spread the rumor that Jefferson had died (or vice versa) -- it was a profoundly dirty campaign.[6] But with an archive, it's possible to claim, or fabricate, or construe a story that is very, very, very difficult to refute or combat.

And that's going to be a growing problem going forward.

________________________________

Notes:

1\. It's 300 hours per minute: [http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html](http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html)

2\. "[F]ormer Vice-President Al Gore never claimed that he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way." [http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp](http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp)

3\. "Dean's Scream: Not What It Seemed" [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/deans- scream-not-what-it-seemed/](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/deans-scream-not-what- it-seemed/)

4\. [http://fixyt.com/watch?v=bY9YMGM-hm](http://fixyt.com/watch?v=bY9YMGM-hm)

5\. [http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780143036531-1](http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780143036531-1)

6\. [http://www.lehrmaninstitute.org/history/1800.html](http://www.lehrmaninstitute.org/history/1800.html)</comment>


OpenWeatherMap - <AUTHOR> http://openweathermap.org/ <comment><USER2> In the US, National Weather Service is free and ad free and has a staff of top notch meteorologists.

[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.267153&lon=-...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.267153&lon=-97.74306079999996&site=all&smap=1&searchresult=Austin%2C%20TX%2C%20USA)

I am a huge fan the hourly weather graph:

[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.26715&lon=-9...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.26715&lon=-97.74306079999996&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=graphical)

Also available in tabular format for your parsing pleasure:

[http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.26715&lon=-9...](http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.26715&lon=-97.74306079999996&lg=english&&FcstType=digital)

<comment><USER3> I really envy you guys. I'm somewhat of a weather enthusiast and here in Germany the (tax funded) Wetterdienst [0] makes only out-of-date low resolution weather data freely available.

There are better systems like webKonrad [1] (live radar data down to city level, etc) available but as a common citizen you can't even get paid access. Access is reserved to the fire department, etc.

Funnily though there was a little f*ck up in the webKonrad app and they had hard coded credentials to a developer test account in the app. With a little reverse engineering we had free access to this pretty cool tool for a few months.

IMHO it's pretty sad that they fund the whole German Wetterdienst operation with taxes and citizens have no access to the full data.

[0] - [http://www.dwd.de](http://www.dwd.de)

[1] - [http://webkonrad.dwd.de](http://webkonrad.dwd.de)

<comment><USER4> Have you considered suing for access?

<comment><USER3> I thought about it but decided that it would be too much effort and too costly for just a hobby of mine.

So I contacted the german Pirate Party about the issue. (About that and german air space maps which, too, are not freely accessible while being produced with tax money).

I assumed this issue would be a great fit for the PP's agenda. But I guess they have more important things to do (like wasting time with arguing about childish bullshit).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect the landing page text was not written by a native English-speaker. I'd suggest an edit and giving it a professional once-over.

</comment><comment><USER6> The popular weather aggregating websites generally do a poor job outside of the US. Presumably because they rely on a global weather data source rather than the country-specific agencies.

When travelling, I typically reference the World Meteorological Organization's site to find the official forecasts:

[http://worldweather.wmo.int/](http://worldweather.wmo.int/)

They list official observations, forecasts, and climate data for ~1700 cities worldwide in numerous languages and provide the link to the respective official local national weather service for each country.

And if you live in a typhoon/hurricane susceptible region as I do, their severe weather website aggregates official tracking estimates and forecasts from a multitude of weather services:

[http://severe.worldweather.org/](http://severe.worldweather.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Like another commenter I am curious about where the data comes from. The occasional blinking dot on a map does not provide a lot of information about how they amassed the data from 40,000 weather stations. When I did not see a lot of details it occurred to me that they might be acting as a middleman for Weather underground's API. However Weather Underground _claims_ to have the most weather stations and they list a lower bound of 25,000 weather stations.[1]

[1] [http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/about.asp](http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/about.asp)

<comment><USER8> They use public airport weather data

<comment><USER9> Yup, when i zoomed in to see the station information, all of them are airports.

<comment><USER7> The numbers do not add up. According to the CIA in 2012 there were 43,794 airports or airfields that are recognizable from the air. This number includes airfields that are "unpaved (grass, earth, sand, or gravel surfaces) and may include closed or abandoned installations." The 2010 figure is 43,982.[2][3]

[1] [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/fields/2053.html)

[2] [http://web.archive.org/web/20120208135324/https://www.cia.go...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120208135324/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications//the- world-factbook/fields/2053.html)

[3] I found this to be interesting: Afghanistan lost an airport/airfield over those two years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There doesn't seem to be any indication of usage limits on the API or a pricing structure (i.e free is 500 hits/hr). Free APIs are cool but expensive to run. Where is the money coming from to fund this service?

</comment><comment><USER11> looks kinda cool... I do a lot of weather scraping ( [http://warningweather.com](http://warningweather.com) ) and have actually just secured a direct connection to AWIPS (the national weather service's computer system).

I really love the idea of you service and will sign up for it tomorrow for some future projects. My biggest concern is your data being contaminated by home weather stations.... those stations tend to be pretty wack and can just really mess up your data set.

<comment><USER7> What does securing a direct connection to AWIPS entail? Sounds neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know much about this stuff but I love the idea of contributing data.

Can anyone with a bit more clue tell me if something along the lines of a DVB-T Stick (great for contributing local ADS-B data to fr24.com) exists in the meterological world?

Basically a cheap (< €150) setup that would let me capture some simple data (temp, windspeed, humidity) and get it into a raspi (or similar)?

<comment><USER7> Check out the list of personal weather station vendors at weather underground[1]. I am not sure about the price but I think I would have remembered if the prices were over your budget.

[1] [http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/setup.asp#hardwar...](http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/setup.asp#hardware)

<comment><USER12> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I played with this a few weeks ago and made a little python thingy, that prints the weather based on geoip: [https://github.com/fs111/geoip- weather](https://github.com/fs111/geoip-weather)

</comment><comment><USER14> In Australia access to a free weather API is scarce. I've had to resort to writing scraping scripts in the past, hopefully OpenWeatherMap means I don't have to scrape sites any more and have access to a nice free API.

<comment><USER15> [http://www.bom.gov.au/catalogue/data- feeds.shtml](http://www.bom.gov.au/catalogue/data-feeds.shtml) ?

<comment><USER14> I didn't actually know this existed, but even looking at this page yields a dissatisfying result. The feeds look like they don't provide nearly as much information and the confusing and archaic feed formats as well. What is wrong with a straight up JSON api?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is excellent. Hi from Stormpulse; welcome to the weather fold.

</comment><comment><USER17> Neat service. I have a typo to report: If you try to create an account that already exists, it says "name alredy exist."

<comment><USER18> That seems a better way to spell that word anyway. Let's start a campaign to eliminate unpronounced characters from the English language. Who's with me?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks epic, but is awfully scant on details: eg. where the worldwide precipitation data coming from, and how current is it?

<comment><USER19> It's written on the frontpage "Weather data is recieved from global meterological broadcast services and more than 40 000 weather stations." [http://openweathermap.org/sys](http://openweathermap.org/sys)

<comment><USER7> I came here to ask the same question and I saw the 40k number you mention and I visited the page you link to. The occassional blinking light on a google map does not really answer the question of how they accumulated data from 40,000 weather stations.

I got the following error when I tried the layer station link[1]:

      ×Ошибка 404 (depricated function, see more http://openweathermap.org/wiki/API/JSON_API)

Ошибка is russian for error/mistake.

[1] [http://openweathermap.org/layer-station](http://openweathermap.org/layer- station)

<comment><USER19> there is an upload api [http://openweathermap.org/stations](http://openweathermap.org/stations) so I guess they scrap/connect 'global meterological broadcast services' and invite stations to submit their data.

<comment><USER7> I do not like guessing. Trust, verify yada yada.

Given the alternatives, NOAA (my preferred source but obviously american- centric) or WeatherUnderground I see no reason to use a service I need to make guesses about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm signed up in the hopes that I'll get grandfathered into better rates when you scale

</comment><comment><USER21> This is amazing, I've been waiting for this.

</comment><comment><USER22> password field is clean ?</comment>


Do (not?) write comments - <AUTHOR> https://en.juffalow.com/other/do-not-write-comments/ <comment><USER2> I have always hated this. I feel in a lot of cases it's just a regurgitated concept that is spouted by developers who just latched on to something they can say to sound smart. In which they have never thought critically about it, and have just used it as a justification for them to not have to put in the effort to do quality work.

The TL;DR; Do document your design by stating the method/function/classes purpose, state your inputs, state your return states. Try to be consistent. Avoid creating ambiguous states, where your co-workers or future developers have to guess what is correct when they use your code.

My opinion is that methods/functions/classes should have documentation stating their purpose and design. Many languages have built in documentation generators or are supported by external generator projects like Doxygen.

Above your method/function/class just put the syntax for your documentation engine. state what your thing does. state the input parameters, state the returns (which includes documenting the success states, and the error states). Bonus points for having a usage example on how correctly use the method/function/class.

just doing this I feel is the bare minimum for future developers to be able to pick up from where you left off. It is like declaring an outline just like writing an english paper. State the purpose for your code.

Now as far as the code itself; Yes by all means write clean and self documenting code. You do not need inline comments as a general rule. However, sometimes you have requirements from a customer and there is complex business logic. Having documentation in the code of an algorithm or business steps can be very helpful.

Complete lack of comments on return states can cause future bugs. A example is a recent project in which I took over for a customer for their websites web service back end, does not have any comments. There are bugs and errors, since my predecessors did not document return states it is hard to tell what the effect of a fix will be. In one particular case, there is a null reference where the variable has check before use, which is used to populate later data. This particular method returns a array of object. The grey area here is what should be returning in the failure state.

What do we return to fix the overall error?

A null Array of objects?

A instantiated but empty object with null components?

A instantiated array object that is empty but containing no nulls (nulls fixed to zero length strings or zero)?

A instantiated array object with the data populated for what we do have and nulls for what we don't have?

A instantiated array object with the data populated for what we do have and no nulls, empty strings and zero's?

As the code is currently, we can not answer this question because each return case is technically correct. Looking at the references upstream we see the method in question being used differently, some cases there checking for a null return, some there checking null components, some checking for empty strings or zero, etc...

This mess, all stems from the original developer not defining or stating the success states and failures on the returns and the example usage in the codes documentation. what is worse is that in other area's of the code the same developers are doing similar logic, but employing yet another return scheme. What is worse than all of that, the method in question, is being used by the same developer (that they wrote) with different return checks. (I guess they slept since then... forgetting how their own code works).

The point is that it is unclear. Looking at the code, yes it is self documenting, fairly clean code, and not written poorly when you just focus on individual chunks. However as a whole the code is not consistent, has lots of guess work/assumptions made which makes for lots of bugs.

This project has been a total refactor, clean up job, in which the my client is happy for the better results, but is feeling the pain of previous less than quality work done by the "popular" in town development house.</comment>


This site cost $18m to make - <AUTHOR> http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/ <comment><USER2> If you've never been involved in the building of a website for a large company then this might come as a surprise. Getting agreement for so many things would have taken many people months of time. "Lean Startup" where things don't work on day 1 is not an option. Include focus groups, armies of usability testing, all sorts of integration misery and this doesn't seem a crazy big number. They don't get 4 developers who'll work for 2 years for 12 hours a day for no money.

<comment><USER3> From what I can tell it looks like a fairly decent deal.

The site is snappy, visually impressive and with a well thought out user experience, tasteful upsell and in general clear communication.

At least it launched and managed to avoid all the pitfalls of corporate politics leading to bad architectural choices leading to a very expensive _and_ poor implementation, which is a much more difficult challenge by itself than most people realize.

It's important to remember that:

* very few great developers/designers will work for Four Seasons on the cheap.

* it'll mostly have been well paid consultants earning $100/hr and up

* it is very likely that the project has had multiple iterations to reach it's current state, all hidden behind a single big release.

<comment><USER4> Try deactivating JavaScript and look at the page. For $18M i would expect something else.

<comment><USER5> Try W3C validation! How dare they cash $18M and not even produce _valid HTML_..

Seriously now, what is it, 1999?

<comment><USER4> There are people who deactivate JS, for personal/corporate/whatever reasons. Shouldn't one serve these customers as well? Or does this feature cost another $1.5M ?

<comment><USER6> Granted, there are people who deactivate JS for whatever reason.

The intersection of "people who deactivate JS" and "The addressable market of Four Seasons Hotels" is likely small enough that the lost potential sales wouldn't even cover the cost of development.

<comment><USER7> Except that the cost is near zero if you approach it right. It also means supporting many mobile browsers that usually break js and providing a better experience on slower connections (3g, edge, whatever).

<comment><USER8> There's a specific touch optimized site that works for mobile. It doesn't look like it or the iPad optimized site are done yet either since they redirect to preview.fourseasons.com, but they're definitely aware of mobile devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the story: [http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons- unveils-18...](http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons- unveils-18m-website)

<comment><USER9> Kinda off-topic, from the article: "The 2012 Four Seasons Luxury Trends Report from Four Seasons reveals that 71% of its customers bring a smartphone with them on their travels and 61% bring a tablet device."

That's a lot. And even so, my only two experiences at luxury hotels meant no wifi available in the room. And daily paid ethernet. I understand being there meant me or my company have money but I'd like to stop being ripped off after paying so much to stay there.

<comment><USER10> On a related note to the off-topic point, visiting the website from a mobile device yields a surprisingly good mobile interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The best way to kick the hornets' nest over at HN is to mention lots of money exchanging hands (i.e. color.com). Nothing brings out the self-righteous geek in us than hearing about other developers getting paid.

<comment><USER12> Right. Developers getting paid. You hear that sound? Listen real carefully. It's the sound of our profession being flushed down a toilet because your buddies are cheating businesses out of their money by charging too much for too little.

<comment><USER13> Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of your buddies charging appropriately for their skills while you consistently undercharge.

<comment><USER14> So a competent version of this site would cost how much?

<comment><USER15> What makes you think this site isn't done well?

<comment><USER14> > _A modern hotel situated in a dynamic, historic conjures up all that's best > about London's past, present and future._

$18mill should buy some pretty damn good proof readers, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lets assume they received a custom CMS with the website, some custom frontend- plugins, development of flash entities, interfaces to in-house IT-systems, a tracking suite, hosting, QA, send some photographers around the world to get high quality pictures, consulting....Still i cant figure out HOW this can cost $18M (and i am a technical consultant in digital agency, working exclusively for enterprise customers).

<comment><USER16> They didn't receive a custom CMS. Actually, they used Adobe CQ5 for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Judging by the URL structure, this is built on Adobe (formerly Day)'s Communique 5.x platform.

The CQ Platform gives you a ton of these graphical widgets and social interaction out of the box, though there is still plenty of development to write a full reservation system. It also handle mobile rendering, site templating, and multiple languages quite well.

So while it sounds like people are seeing "a single website for $18m", I'd be willing to wager that was the cost for the entire content platform (CMS/Social/Mailings/Reservation system. So now they would have access to very advanced templating design, multi-lingual components.

The amount of time it would take them to roll out multiple country and language sites would be dwarfed in comparison to any other platform. That $18m may be a big upfront costs, but might well pay for itself if they intend to use for other properties and across multiple regions/languages.

<comment><USER18> Definitely CQ - pretty impressive in that regard. Having worked with the platform, I can tell you -good- CQ5 developers are very expensive and hard to acquire. Conde Nast is learning this the hard way after they committed to converting all their properties over to CQ.

<comment><USER17> True enough, but with a total cost of $18m, I'd guess they went full consultancy -- not done in house.

Completely unrelated, does MJK mean anything to you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> $18 Mil and blurry images - [http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/we...](http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/web/CAW/CAW_068_aspect16x9.jpg/jcr:content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.720.jpeg)

</comment><comment><USER20> If the website redesign results in 1% more direct conversions on their website (versus discount "Hotels.com" outfits), then $18M is probably a fairly decent "investment".

Perhaps the developers were smart and made a _value proposition_ rather than a pure hourly / salary proposition. Others on HN have talked about this distinction extensively, so try to avoid that little mental roadblock when considering the amount that they paid for the redesign.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if photography was rolled into that cost? I'm sure some shots are reused and rights-managed stock, but for those that aren't, the costs of planning, lighting, rigging, stylists, talent, etc. would be significant. And it looks as though each location has 30+ photographs: <http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/find_a_hotel_or_resort/>

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised that no one yet said anything about the 18M being a fake number. These guys do this all the time. They spend 10M and release to the press that it was 20M.

I work(ed) for more than one company that uses this strategy. The whole idea is to get everyone to think that you are bigger than you really are.

Of course one can spend 18M on a bad project, but you guys covered it already...

<comment><USER23> This is exactly it. Not to mention all of the "internal" resources/time they put into that number. I also imagine they did an overhaul of their internal booking system, and possibly increased full-time staff (project managers, support, and sales staff) to handle the new demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So? It's a pack of ~90 sites + the main one, content management systems that will probably be used by hundreds, photography.. the cost is not surprising at all.

They _could_ do a better job of graceful degradation for javascript disabled without much effort, but I wouldn't blame them - everyone here seems to support the opposing mindset too.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's weird, some elements of the design look to be 5-6 years old in style, while other are clearly inspired by Microsoft's Metro UI (which is good).

The small font size and traditional 'luxury hotel' look of the header/footer really ruin it for me (example look how the tagline in the tiny logo is almost unreadable). Where they succeed (mostly) is in the page content layout and design.

Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should.

<comment><USER25> "Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should."

Responsive design also limits design/ux decisions especially on their content pages which have a non-linear grid system and shouldn't be universal. I'm not for or against responsive web design but I think it should be contextual. I haven't seen many sites that have won me over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well that trumps this website <http://www.bankwest.com.au/> which cost $5 million to make.

<comment><USER27> Did that come with the online banking site, or is $5M just for that one page?

<comment><USER28> Online Banking is usually done internally by banks. The front facing consumer sites are usually done by an agency.

I know that Host was doing work for Bank West. Anyone knows if they also did this as well or are they just above the line for this client?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is it just me or is the text at the bottom of each picture (with the location, temp, etc) unreadable in at least half the locations? The white on white is a bad idea.

This must be a "marketing" driven site where "good ideas" trump usability. I'm sure they got an award or three for this cutting edge design.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've been working on an online reservation CMS for more than 2 years now and this seems quite a good result. Maybe I would have done some things differently, such as location selection: the drop down is really long, the could have used an autosuggest. But everybody likes different things so I can only assume their usability tests suggested otherwise.

The price is not really something we can judge: it could be either fair or too much. Who knows, this may be a very flexible framework they'll use for the next X years (good) or a hard to maintain website which will cost them even more to keep alive.

We can't really judge.

I wish I had 18 Millions to develop mine. Or maybe not, I'm happy with scarce resources, so little goes wasted.

</comment><comment><USER31> The website itself is just be the tip of the iceberg - it would need to talk to multiple back-end systems. $18m wouldn't be unreasonable if the project required complex legacy integration and/or re-design of underlying infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER32> So here's how you do it.

You write a spec sheet, bid low. You want to win the bid. Say 6 mil, maybe even 5. Then half way through the project, say you need another 3 mil to finish, and without that you can't finish it. Sunk costs? don't worry, the flip rate on staff means the sunk costs were the last guys problem.

Continue asking for more until you can't squeeze any more juice out of the orange that is your client. Congratulations, you just won at corporate politics. Ship whatever you've done and say it's the best you could do. Done.

<comment><USER33> ...and lost at contract law.

<comment><USER32> 11 Billion: [http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system- failur...](http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system- failure-11-billion-nhs-system-finally-abandoned-slamming-high-bill- taxpayers.html)

<comment><USER34> I'd like if someone could please explain why NHS don't negotiate a job price (and maybe even a 20% contingency fund) and then pay that price for the job to be done. 50% up front, waymarked payment points and a refund for failure to complete.

Given the budgets here it seems we should have a MP as minister for NHS IT systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From what I can tell:

\- It's hosted on AWS

\- Their CDN is cloudfront

\- 2 elastic AWS loadbalancers

\- Apache webserver, probably with Tomcat

\- Java session id in cookie

I assumed the site would have been either a Java or .Net site. I would have done it for $12 million ;)

</comment><comment><USER36> I bet this site (Wynn Las Vegas) costs $18m per year in lost opportunities, because it's an unusable mess. <http://wynnlasvegas.com/>

It's slow, often times out, randomly doesn't work. The four seasons may have over paid for their site, but it's incredibly nice.

<comment><USER15> I think for $18m they're probably making significantly more than that back. That really is a damned fine website, and you can tell that every piece of it has been double checked and agonized over with the client.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is there an older story on the internet than a software project overruns budget or doesn't get finished? I'd be more interested to see something like, software project costs $18M and here's where we went wrong, or software project costs $18M and here's why the client got their money's worth.

</comment><comment><USER38> I suppose only the client can decide wether that's money well spent or not. And while I think the price is high, it's certainly not the worst hotel website I've seen, and is probably one of the better ones.

</comment><comment><USER39> The site is awesome. The UX is spot on! I think people have seen the price tag and expected something unimaginable. Not quite sure why they chose to use an Adobe application for the cms side of things.

</comment><comment><USER40> Anyone else check the source and notice they're importing jQuery twice?

</comment><comment><USER41> these kind of headlines are easy, the actual story behind it determines value for money. For example, this title is about as insightful as - BP spent £136,000,000 on a "new logo" ... [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP- attacked-o...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP-attacked- over-136m-logo-as-petrol-prices-soar.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> Odd. Every other place in Middle East is listed, except the one with the most tourist attractions. Where is Dubai?

<comment><USER43> Not odd - it closed down a while back: <http://www.fourseasons.com/dubaigolf/message0609/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Lesson learnt: charge more.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think it looks great. And, it's in my interest for websites to cost as much as possible, so I have no problem with this.

I don't understand that thing nerds do where they brag about how they could have done it in a weekend for $15 and some Mountain Dew. Well, I do understand it ("look how smart I am"), but it's still obnoxious.

</comment><comment><USER46> If they spent 18M for this then they should probably fire their CTO or whoever approved this budget. IF

</comment><comment><USER47> How? I've just started experimenting with web development and I can't figure out how it could possibly cost that much. Maybe there is a whole world I haven't seen yet, but if they had used the latest open source libraries/frameworks that do half the work for you, would it have cost that much?

<comment><USER48> I work in a digital agency, similar to the one who did this. 80% of the budget is spent in the requirements phase. More than a year doing designs, sending 20 people down to see the client every trip, business requirements gathering, market analysis, and such.

$18M over 24 months is only $750K per month burn rate. At the typical agency rate of $150/hr, this is 35 people working on this project. Only 2 of them are developers. :)</comment></comment>