Ubuntu 10.10 Supports Magic Mouse Out-of-the-box? - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2010/08/02/ubuntu-10-10-supports-magic-mouse-out-of-the-box/

<comment><USER2> ...except for the multitouch features? It's not that impressive that it supports the standard bluetooth mouse features like pointing clicking.

<comment><USER3> If the scroll feature works, wouldn't that indicate that multitouch is enabled and functional? Am I misreading it?

If it is the case, I probably will pick up a magic mouse for my Ubuntu box.

-edit- The scroll function only requires one finger to move on the mouse; my mistake.

The target site is so ad-ridden and information-poor that I'm compelled to link to the original site.

<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9667180>

The scroll action works fine. It appears that Maverick includes changes to XOrg that allow multitouch (which was the reason none of those features worked for previous Ubuntu versions).

TL/DR: Zoom/Multitouch may work. Scrolling definitely does. The normal mouse functions have always worked.</comment></comment>


How to Participate in Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://edweissman.com/how-to-participate-in-hacker-news <comment><USER3> Here's another suggestion: flag sparingly.

A lot of long-time HN'ers are frustrated at the "flag patrols" -- people of one group who don't like such-and-such author and flag them and their submissions. I've heard several people complain to me about having normal articles flagged and I've done my share of complaining. Don't be the guy who takes out your personal grudges in the form of flagging. Let the votes work.

The system will not work with punitive flagging. My policy is that I flag only when I'm convinced an article is going to take the board off the rails. That's a tough call anymore. With a large enough audience, people get emotional just about anything.

But remember that HackerNews is defined the most by what the people _don't_ do. They don't comment if they don't have something interesting to say, they don't flag unless absolutely necessary, they don't criticize unless it's in the spirit of discovery, they don't vote down unless it's really a trivial comment. Do less and you'll enjoy it more. With the crowd as large as it is, I'm starting to see good comment X which has ten sub-comments, nine of which either didn't understand the main comment or don't understand the issue yet want to score karma points by making somewhat snarky remarks. We all need to fight that tendency. We do that by doing less.

<comment><USER4> I've been on HackerNews for a little over 2 years, and in that time I don't believe I've ever flagged any submission. I guess I've always thought that the voting process would always take it's course.

Curious, if pg is reading this, how often does the flag link generate real actions on submissions?

<comment><USER5> I believe the flags are acted upon automatically if enough people flag the same item.

<comment><USER6> Definitely: I've seen an article turn 'dead' the instant I flagged it. This was on the 'new' page, mind you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been a long time lurker here. I lurked for several months before creating an account and then I lurked quite a bit longer before participating. Groups of intelligent people are intimidating at first but please don't hold back if you have something to add to a discussion. New voices are incredibly important for preventing groups from merely becoming echochambers for established members.

I especially agree with the original article's point about talking about your work. If you are doing something interesting, please share it. I'm always keen to read about amazing hacks and unique projects and I'm sure many others are too. I'm very slow at writing up my own projects, so I probably should spend more time doing that.

If you are working on something that feels like reinventing a wheel for a company that has a core philosophy of Not Invented Here, share that too. I'm sure many of us have been there once and could give you some advice on ways to improve your situation (even reinventing wheels can be done to a high standard and be great practice coding), empathetic support or perhaps a way out into another job.

I implore you, dear lurking readers, participate.

Edit: fixed some pre-coffee writing.

<comment><USER8> Not a total lurker here, but I have mainly 2 reasons why I don't participate as much as I probably would/could/should...

1\. Time. A discussion typically only lasts one day, and after that its mostly silent. Alongside my job, I simply can't find enough spare "thinking-time" to really write a thoughtful comment in that time frame. I feel that my comments would be more of a knee-jerk reaction than a real addition of value.

2\. Language. My mother tongue ist german, not english. While I've been told that my english is quite reasonable, I still feel insecure in it, especially when I read incredibly well-spoken comments. And I do regularly make some mistakes, especially in grammar, and I don't like making mistakes in public (I guess nobody does). And of course, it takes longer to write a comment - <USER2> #1...

<comment><USER9> On 2. Ich wohne in Deutschland seit sechs monaten, und ich macht taglich sehr schlecht dings mit deinen Sprache, so don't worry about it. Just spit it out.

(I notice not wanting to make mistakes is a very apparent German characteristic, also visible in the Italians)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I particularly like this example, which the author acknowledges is extreme:

"3. Be positive.

"This can really be hard when smart people debate, but try it anyway. Notice the difference between:

"Person A: Water is dry.

"Person B: No it's not. You're full of shit.

"and

"Person C: Water is dry.

"Person D: Not in my experience. What data have you encountered to cause you to arrive at that conclusion?"

I really like those "what data have you encountered" questions. In a lot of threads, I silently upvote replies that ask people making striking, unusual, bold, or implausible claims to please provide more information. (Too many of those helpful questions, alas, never get answers. But I'll keep on upvoting follow-up questions looking for facts when I see them.)

The author finishes his list of good suggestions with

"10. No list is ever exhaustive, on Hacker News or anywhere else. Anyone have any more suggestions?"

I'd be delighted to hear other suggestions about constructive participation on Hacker News too.

<comment><USER11> I've asked some "pointed questions" and been downvoted. What I learned from this is that while some discussion threads are about questioning and learning, others are about something else... I'm not sure what exactly... Hearing what you want to hear? Maybe someone else can provide some insight.

<comment><USER12> If your "pointed question" doesn't sound nice enough, the community will punish you for it. There are also a couple sacred cows that you would be well- advised against questioning.

<comment><USER13> Is there a list somewhere? We could learn a lot about our silent assumptions and possible limitations arising from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> my suggestions:

1) When a major event occurs that isn't directly related to technology, don't post comments to the effect "I thought this was hacker news, not reddit". This will ALWAYS get you downvoted and nothing good will come of the discussion.

2) When someone makes a detailed post that you don't agree with, don't down vote it, respond.

3) This is just me speaking for myself, but the only comments I really find useful and thought provoking are the ones that expound on or contradict the original story with your own personal experiences.

4) Nobody here cares if you don't like the font or styling used in the article. Likewise if the page doesn't work in chromefox version2079. Email the owner of the article. Besides, you are a nerd, you already have 4 other browsers installed and know how to use readability.

5) don't be afraid to post funny or terse insightful comments, but make sure they are funny or insightful first.

<comment><USER9> 4) HN is a really good place for feedback, which trying to get online is often like drawing blood from a stone. People will say what they think of my site/article, because it is easy - they already have a HN account and are used to commenting.

Without reference, I say I see a lot that the authors respond and update the original article based on HN comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My main nit to pick with this article is that you violated DRY principles by assigning "Water is wet" to both Person A and Person C. Only one person was required.

edit: I was kidding.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one who gets tired of the first sentence of so many replies being along the lines of "I understand where you're coming from and I respect you as a person, but..."?

Be respectful, but if you disagree, just disagree. Don't patronize.

<comment><USER17> I agree in the sense that's the way I prefer communication. Direct and to the point.

But when I'm dealing with non-techies, I see a use to preface any opinion or question with some sort of disclaimer of that sort. I do this in order to lessen the probability that they take offence to what I say and then become uncommunicative. On more than one occasion, I thought we were having a productive conversation about their problems with the software and I find out (when they inexplicably become angry) that they thought I was insinuating their incompetence or lack of intelligence or something.

I think the terse, abrupt style that I and many other techies prefer, comes across as needlessly insensitive to non-techies and we need to be mindful of that if we want to allow them to contribute to this community. (We do like teachers, accountants and shopkeepers commenting on startups in education, finance and retail, right?)

Not to the extent of prefacing everything with patronizing verbiage, but to be mindful not to be too abrupt. Because many people take that as being disrespectful (in my understanding).

<comment><USER18> It's always been a problem with subject matter experts dealing with the non- experts. A lot of people get agitated easily dealing with something outside of their scope of knowledge.

Neither does it help that computers can be especially complicated and finicky (looking at you windows).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I know I would participate a lot more if I could reset my password. Somehow I was able to register my usual handle without providing an email address because there doesn't seem to be a way to recover it.

I created this new account just to gripe about this and when this cookie finally dies I'm not sure I'm going to bother to re-register.

<comment><USER20> You can reset your password. Fill in your email in your profile.

<comment><USER19> Is there a way to do that without being logged in?

<comment><USER12> It's doubtful at best. Email PG or another site admin, they are exceptionally responsive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21>
        2. Participate!

I often participate, but when I don't it's usually for a simple reason: downvotes sting. This is so important that I would add it as a corollary to "9. Be nice":

        9a. Use downvotes sparingly.

I and my poor primate brain will thank you.

<comment><USER22>
      > when I don't it's usually for a simple reason:
      > downvotes sting

They do. But recently I am trying to use it as an opportunity to learn not to care _too much_ what do random (or semi-random) people think about your opinion. Yep, someone will downvote. Not a big deal it is not like someone is hitting you on the head.I don't mean one should ignore all downvotes because sometimes it is healthy to think why are you really downvoted, but quite often downovtes come as a result of knee-jerk reaction, group-think or because someone just does not like you. That's another thing to learn: resist the urge to write "I know I will be downvoted for this". If you write this (of follow- up comment "why am I being downvoted?") you will be, by me, at least :)

<comment><USER21> I agree. Alas, my poor primate brain is often not so easily assuaged. But your attitude of viewing downvotes as an opportunity is very much in line with Stoic philosophy—an attitude, I think, worth cultivating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Put your contact info in the "about" section of your profile (the "email" is private)._

Just wanted to emphasize this as it seems to confuse a lot of people.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, this got me until somebody found my email some other way and mentioned it was difficult. The real issue is that I basically never see my profile as somebody else would see it.

<comment><USER25> PG might want to add the text "(not shown)" to the user profile template.

<comment><USER26> I think a "make email visible" checkbox would clear up any confusion here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think a good point is to avoid jokes, especially weak ones. They're easy and distract from the original topic(s).

<comment><USER28> HN has a really bizzare, inconsistent relationship with humour. Best to avoid it altogether.

<comment><USER29> It's more that there are large numbers of people who consistently don't get humour, either for cultural reasons or deficiencies in their humour glands or whatever.

On the other hand, in forums where people upvote humour, there can be mechanisms that actually are counterproductive. E.g. on Reddit where there is something serious that you are interested in, but some idiot starts a punning thread which takes off and runs for pages. Or slashdot, where a witty one line (simplistic) put down off a complex issue will recieve maximum karma, whereas a well thought out retort will struggle to break the readability threshold.

Hacker News has a number of mechanisms for impeding flame-wars, and I think some of them also impede the flow of humour. No fast replies for instance slows things down, and also the depth algorithm because PG doesn't like deep threads. Another one is de-emphasising karma. If people hand out karma for being entertained, then the system 'rewards' you for being entertaining, so again people go for the slashdot style one-off witty put down.

On the gripping hand, now that HN de-emphsises karma (and has weird rules about what can and cannot be down-voted), I'm much less likely to actually bother. Karma is already pointless, but rubbing our faces in it simply reduces participation. The ideal system would 'reward' well thought out replies, and I don't see the current system doing that anytime soon.

On the invisible hand humour is an important part of geek culture, as are references to things such as invisible hands and gripping hands. I'm not sure why that is, but word-play and recursion (important parts of being a really clever programmer) are already pretty close to humour, or possibly even forming some of the foundations of it.

Which leads me to conjecture that all of the really good programmers have a healthy sense of humour, and that implies that if hacker news is overrun with people who don't have a good sense of humour, that would indicate the ratio of good programmers here is falling. Why would that be? Perhaps because of the emphasis on money, and winning the startup lottery. The programmers who are only in it for the money tend to view themselves as more 'serious' - so I suspect they are the source of the "humourless git" demographic.

<comment><USER30> I don't think that downvotes necessarily mean that people didn't get the joke. If I see a witty one-liner comment to a serious story, my normal reaction is "Ha ha ha! Downvote." Or else I ignore it entirely. (And sometimes it simply _isn't_ very funny.)

I just don't think we need to encourage content-free comments here; there are plenty of places to go if you want to make fun of the news.

Then again, I moderate a site that's been accused of taking too hard a line on "fun", so maybe I shouldn't talk.

<comment><USER28> The problem I have is the inconsistency. I remember posting a sarcastic comment in a sea of sarcasting comments, then saying 'seriously though' and adding genuine content. Mine was the only comment that went gray. I've seen this stuff time and time again with other users - several comments of fluff, but only one gets pounded. What gets pounded in one thread gets rewarded in others - sometimes I'll post a snarky, devoid-of-content comment, hit post, and then wonder just how fast it will go dead and next thing I know it's really popular. It really is inconsistent, and that bugs me.

<comment><USER31> Well all comment voting systems are inconsistent just because it's tough to get a uniform number of views on comments over time. And now that vote counts are hidden, things are even more wonky in terms of what sees vote volumes.

But in terms of humor I think it's fairly straightforward: don't do it unless you think of something that's really fucking funny (and hopefully a little insightful). If it's funny enough you will get upvoted just by sheer force of charisma. If it's just marginally funny you will likely get buried, and I think that's a good thing, because a lot of people aren't as funny as they think they are, and you don't need to look beyond Reddit to see what a culture of one-liners does to a discussion forum. If it's just some simple pun then likely many of the readers already thought of it and don't particularly want to read it over and over again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What a well-timed post, particularly since reading a bizarre takeover of another thread by a single person who comes off as a bit paranoid:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420845>

<comment><USER33> Thanks for the link.. I find that thread kind of fascinating, not because of anything in particular about the original comment, but because somehow the person causing so much trouble managed to convince a large number of HN posters to jump in and try to reason with him. Usually it hasn't progressed so far. I think it helps that somehow he got to this point with hundreds of points in karma and has some to burn.

<comment><USER32> I was initially a little worried because he was showing signs of being a paranoid schizophrenic, but then I remembered that I was on the Internet and probably shouldn't be surprised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> \- Don't be discouraged at first to post if you don't think you're "following the guidelines". We all get downvoted from time to time. Especially when people first get active.

\- Discussions are almost always value add. Even if you adamantly oppose someone else's position. Gaining perspective is a huge value add for me personally.

</comment><comment><USER35> Great list.

Related side note, I was contacted today by who I can only guess was the same person, asking how to participate on HN. I sent them an email but didn't hear back. I suppose I can assume they were busy contacting a large set of users. Not that there's any harm in that. I hope they find this list instructive!

</comment><comment><USER36> _I never understood why people lurked so long._

As a long-time lurker, I mainly visit HN to get exposed to new ideas that I know little about. This is why I don't (and shouldn't) comment very often.

<comment><USER37> I was a long-time lurker as well for the same reason. I do find however, that participating in the community opens up new discussions and I can further my learning by connecting with other people. It's always a learning experience to have discussions with people who are more knowledgeable about a topic or have differing opinions than your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> 11\. Submit good stuff.

12\. Write your own good stuff and submit that. Got a long response? Write a blog, submit it.

Those two have worked the best for me.

</comment><comment><USER39> > If you have a theory about something but aren't too sure, fine. Just say so.

> And most of all, please never start a sentence with, "It seems to me...". > Many of us already get too much of that from our PHBs.

Could you expand on this please? I've always interpreted "It seems to me..." as "I have a theory but I'm not certain".

</comment><comment><USER40> To participate in HN, you basically want to be sure to point out any logical fallacies, missing citations, and any possible reference to Godwin's Law, the Streisand effect, or the Dunning–Kruger effect.

</comment><comment><USER41> " Best article: I'm nothing until the Hacker News community comments on me."

Well, sometimes the article is better than the discussion. Sometimes the discussion is better than the article. In my experience, the trivial articles sometimes have the best discussions, and the best articles seem to often have trivial discussions.

It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per comment perhaps) ... anyone know how to do that?

<comment><USER42> > It'd be fun to get a list of best HN discussions (highest karma average per > comment perhaps)

The now-discontinued SearchYC database had top lists but not the particular metric you want. It doesn't show up in the Google cache or archive.org's Wayback Machine (<http://top.searchyc.com>)

In my opinion, I think some of the best HN discussions have been/are the ones with hundreds of comments, with divergent threads and replies. They are usually sparked by a fairly controversial topic.

I can't think of an example right now. However, this API to the HN corpus might be able to get you the data you want (not sure how current it is):

<http://api.ihackernews.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 1.) Most of the time I just tell stories. I am only 20 and have relatively little experience. The only thing I can really add is a well written comment that asks a question or explains something neat.

2.)The best way to participate is to go out and do something awesome. Take something you saw on the front page and mess around with it. Maybe something will happen and you make the front page. Probably it won't, but the next time it comes up, you can at least share your experience and point out the basic pitfalls. Example: I am working on extending emscripten to use dragonegg to compile fortran _. It's really hard and I don't think I can do it, but next time emscripten comes up, I will know what's up and can comment on how awesome Alon is.

3.)My password for my account is zackzackzack. Yep, same as my user name. It lets me keep from getting attached to an argument or an account. If somebody can just go in and change my password, then it is pointless to really care all that much. I like contributing, but I know at any instance all the karma I built up on here could be sealed away.

Edit: _fortran to javascript. Google emscripten github for more info.

<comment><USER44> That's pretty dumb. Your account could be compromised for spam purposes, or someone could easily start posting things as you.

Because your full name, personal domain (which includes your last name), college, and interests are all part of your profile, it would be fairly trivial to post some pretty embarrassing comments or links as you. Then if someone (potential employer/girlfriend/family member/etc) does a google search for Zachary Maril, and a bunch of links to racist or pornographic sites come up... "my password is public" is a pretty lousy excuse.

<comment><USER43> What is preventing somebody from copying your profile and creating zcohn, the malicious hacker from Seattle who likes parkour, technology, and doing bad things? Your identity is comparably open as mine is as far as details.

At some point people are going to do bad things to this profile. No doubt. With that in mind though, I can post here because I want to say something and contribute, not because of Karma. If I had a few thousand points and a reputation, I would have something to protect. But now I can just say what I think is useful, not what I think will be upvoted.

<comment><USER5> It's not only (or even primarily) about linking your real identity to your HN account; it's about having a track record on HN itself.

I don't care if you're from Seattle or India, or if you're a young guy or an old lady; I care that you're the same person who posted that real interesting post three months ago about certain subject, or with whom I've had some interesting discussion about this or that, and who has a certain opinion about a controversial topic. I don't know if a certain post with your handle comes from the person I know is smart and probably knows what (s)he's talking about, or from some troll.

If I can never be sure if you're the same person, then trust can't be established; it's not about karma as "points," it's about karma as a property of human relations.

It's the same reason why I (almost) never respond to Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot - I'm never sure if the person who replies to me next is the same I was talking to.

<comment><USER43> That is a really valid point. I am not a creditable source when posting from this accoutn. The words coming from here can only be trusted as words without weight. No more, no less.

As an aside, I was not the person I was three months ago. Neither was anybody else on here. Part of my world view is that nobody is ever the same person as I remember them as.

Rationale:

a.) my impression of a person on the internet is inherently imperfect.

The internet is an autistic medium and can't really describe the complexity of a person. Maybe he is a "dummy" but happened to know one thing really really well and was having an awesome day mentally when he posted that comment. Or perhaps he was a putnam winner who was hangover and just broken up with a long term girlfriend when he made that really douchey comment. I just can't know this things and won't pretend to know them.

b.) people change.

What if my comment about not knowing anything about Python 12 months ago spurred me to go out and master the language last year? If you compared a persons comments at the very beginning of reading hacker news and then a year later, I expect you will see a massive shift in their writing style. People change and aren't the people they were the last time I interacted with them. How could I trust anyone on here (or in real life), if I know I can never be sure they are the same person they were the last time we interacted? It's a hard question that I haven't really found a good answer for yet.

<comment><USER13> To b.) Developement of skills is mostly unidirectional. If you're a master of Python 12 today and you're not having an accident you won't be a total novice next year. Experiences you have made will (hopefully) be remembered next year (and I may want to question you about them), and maybe you will remember the people you had a conversation with. Yes, people change, but more than traces of the past remain nevertheless.

<comment><USER43> Very true. The only exception I could think of to that is when we are working with new technologies. As an example, node js and clojure are changing rapidly enough that the year to year difference is not insignificant. As we deal with technologies that are progressing more and more rapidly with time, it would probably be a good idea to keep in mind that some people who used to know what they were talking about may no longer have any idea of what is actually going on. But this is more a particular exception to places like Hacker News.

If I had a facebook, I would never do this sort of thing there. That would really really suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> one of the main reasons i think people don't participate is because of the language, a lot of us are very good at reading english but are ashamed about our writing skills.

Its very common to be downvoted or insulted because of that, im trying to get pass that problem right now

<comment><USER46> This isn't reddit, you're not going to get downvoted for incorrect grammar or spelling. Anyone who has been on HN for a day can tell it's a multicultural environment and there are many non-native english speakers.

You shouldn't hold back your participation due to insecurities on your spelling or grammar. In my experience the only downvoted posts belong in the categories of; stupid, messaged which consist only of 'haha' or 'this'; Completely offtopic; Insulting or offensive; Incorrect.'

In this post I've probably used semi-colons incorrectly, this doesn't I will be downvoted because of it.

<comment><USER47> Sure, but on the other hand one should read and reread and reread again before posting.

<comment><USER29> That would be easier if the reply box was bigger than the address window on an envelope.

It's like the bad old days of trying to use the Eclipse IDE where most of your screen real estate is taken up with tabs and buttons and you only get a narrow 5x80 window on the world.

Except that in this case instead of the screen being taken up with masses of widgets, it is consumed with vast tracts of whitespace. Good job there, PG.

(Actually, if PG had anything to do with it, I suspect it is a well thought out policy which results because he doesn't like long conversations (possibly a signal to noise bias against long posts?) consider also that there is no easy way to quote the parent, which just wastes bandwidth anyway)

<comment> mkr-hn You can resize the box in Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Before reading this post, a new user should ask him/herself a question: Do I feel a need for validation?

If the answer is yes, go ahead and read the suggestion along with the guidelines of how to act.

If the answer is no, stop reading the suggestion after the first point: "Be yourself."

<comment><USER49> This exactly. Too many people don't say what they think because they are afraid of losing internet points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Thanks for those article. I'm trying HN at the suggestion of a colleague, having been a longtime participant in the Slashdot community. It's a bit intimidating as a noob here, but I think that's just because I'm not used to the higher signal to noise ratio (though /.'s moderation system does a very good job with what it has).

I'll still probably lurk more as I get used to the community. It's great to say "participate!" but there is something to be said for understanding the people with which one is talking as well.

</comment><comment><USER51> Another suggestion - try to avoid reinforcing group think or popular memes. It's a form of karma whoring that just encourages narrow thinking and prevents the discussion of new ideas.

There's really nothing to say about software patents at this point that hasn't been said many times before.

In some ways this is an extension to the guideline of not introducing flamewar topics, but even less interesting as pretty much everyone agrees.

</comment><comment><USER52> "I see no need for "personas"" If you work for a company X and you are posting with your real name, you will somehow represent the company X. Whatever you say on YC is public. Be careful to not damage your company image.

<comment><USER17> This stung me really bad in my first job as a trainee developer. I made a comment on a site (slashdot I think) and foolishly put down my real name and company name.

Some journalist on CNet took my comment as the official company line and included it in an article. It was picked up by investors (during what was in retrospect due diligence before the company was sold) and I got a severe reprimand from my manager for it. He let me know under no uncertain terms that were it not for my excellent work up till then he'd have fired me for that. I was never really forgiven, made to feel uncomfortable and left 6 months later when the company was sold.

Now I don't exactly hide my real name, but its not easily visible. And I certainly don't disclose the company I work for. I advise any non-C level employee to do the same.

<comment><USER52> Sorry to hear that. I did put a disclaimer on my personal blog because I don't want to use a persona but I still have things to say ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> My number 1 tip is to check your comments for replies (see that "threads" link in the menu bar).

Often someone will ask you a question, and unless you check you will never know.

</comment><comment><USER54> Shame for my lurk so long! : )</comment>


Courts reshape the rules around AI - <AUTHOR> https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/oct/22/courts-could-put-important-limits-on-the-use-of-ai/ <comment><USER2> This is a pattern we see time and time again: companies hiding behind "we can't tell you how it works, it's a trade secret, you just have to trust us that it does." And these companies land exclusive government contracts. Police drug tests, electronic voting machines, and now police face recognition.

We need to demand transparency of any company that receives this kind of special treatment, and require them to disclose statistical analysis of their solution at a minimum. How often is it wrong? How was it verified? If they can't do that, then no deal, and no taxpayer funded boondoggle.

</comment><comment><USER3> Three of the cases cited are incidents where state organizations are buying AI, which then benefits that state organization at the expense of its citizens: People were arrested others got less benefits.

These systems are black boxes. The software companies have a financial incentive to sell them. The programmers have a financial incentive to get the customer what they _want_ not what is honest and true. If this software meant the customer would have to pay out _more_ benefits, how many states would buy it?

The same thing happens when the product is _not_ AI. AI is a product. Manufacturers of the product are liable. The product should be open to investigation.

When Ford Pintos were killing people, the Ford Pinto could be examined. The 737MAX can be examined.

AI can't be examined. The decisions it makes can't even be _explained_ a lot of times.

Companies are using AI as a shield. Someone here said the other day that they think people are actually making a lot of the decisions Google makes and saying it was Algorithmic absolves them of the responsibility to explain the decision.

This is not a good way forward. You can't say, "I don't know _why_ the machine is hurting people."

It's hurting people. Shut it off.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Algorithmic Decision System" is not a good term. Some of the systems that are described this way do not make decisions, strictly speaking. For example, facial recognition systems don't make decisions- they make _identifications_. They are classifiers, yes? Planners, game-playing algorithms, decision trees and decision lists, etc, those are systems that are commonly thought of as making "decisions"\- but those are very rarely the subject of scrutiny of AI systems these days.

Take for instance a system that is used to determine whether a person is in risk of recidivism. The system will cough up some number, probably a float from 0 to 1. The number will be _interpreted_ as a probability that the person will recidivate. Then, based on this _interpetation_ a decision will be made by the person or persons using the system, whether to treat the person as having a high risk of recidivism or not. The system hasn't decided anything at that point- it's the person using the system that has made a decision.

The matter is complicated somewhat by the existence of systems that _incorporate_ AI algorithms in a more general automated decision process. For example, self-driving cars use image recognition algos to identify objects in their path but navigation decisions are not taken by the image recognition algos! However I'd wager that those kinds of integrated systems are not what most people think of when they speak of "algorithms" making "decisions". But I may well be wrong.

<comment><USER5> _" For example, facial recognition systems don't make decisions- they make identifications."_

Maybe. Not everyone enjoys the presumption of innocence. In the US, for example, probationers and parolees. I could see facial recognition being judge and jury for them, with little recourse, and serious consequences in the balance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The title is misleading -- few or none of the examples given in this article, as far as I can tell, use AI or machine learning. They're just "automated systems" in the sense of computer systems that execute regular business rules. For example, the system at issue in the K.W. v. Armstrong case discussed in the article wasn't an AI system, it was just a pretty amateurish ad-hoc Excel spreadsheet.

The report quoted in the article (the 2019 AI Now "Litigating Algorithms" report) also shares the same basic problem, making no serious attempt to distinguish between AI and non-AI systems.

<comment><USER7> It might be the title is too narrow then, not that it doesn't apply to AI/ML. I imagine anything that applies to an automated system or algorithm will also apply to AI/ML, as those are just very sophisticated examples of that.</comment></comment>


A Curated List of Falsehoods Programmers Believe In - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> This is amazing.

I don't think these kinds of lists are necessarily always true, or always relevant, but I think they are great at provoking thought, and great at reminding us that real life is impossible to cleanly codify into a computer model.

<comment><USER3> It's also important to remind people to not roll your own when battle-tested libraries exist.

(The exception being, of course, building something for the sake of learning. By all means, build your own date formatting functions, but don't put them in production.)

<comment><USER4> Assuming that the library exactly serves the needs of the project without much cruft, or the cost of rolling your own is higher than using a library all else considered, and the library is well written and documented, then I agree.

As a completely unrelated aside, I wonder if there should be a "Falsehoods programmers believe about libraries"

<comment><USER5> I'd certainly like to see "Falsehoods programmers believe about passwords". And for that matter, "Falsehoods programmers believe about programming", and possibly "Falsehoods programmers believe about falsehoods". ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previous discussion of two years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13637102)

</comment><comment><USER6> It would have useful overlap here, but an awesome "Falsehoods about Programmers" would also be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER7> Addendum:

"This bug must come from backend" "This bug must come from frontend"

</comment><comment><USER8> "Falsehoods Believed by Programmers" ?</comment>


Show HN: Wall, a live communal drawing app - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wall/id1409287068?mt=8 <comment><USER2> When I started my new blog back in 2010 [https://jeena.net/drawing- contest](https://jeena.net/drawing-contest) I had the content aligned left and on the right I had a canvas where everybody was able to draw on. In the start it would only be visible by you but later I saved the canvas and showed it to everyone visiting the website, so people could add stuff and I would wipe it clean every now and then.</comment>


CyberSource outages Day #2 - <AUTHOR>

For the second day in a row CyberSource is timing out and not authenticating customer payment information.  We lose an order each time this happens.  Is anyone else having this problem? <comment><USER2> When this costs you enough money, consider building your next payment integration on Spreedly. Write once, and you can now charge customers with 84 different gateways just by changing one token in your code. CyberSource and every other major processor is supported. You can vault all your billing info there and never be locked in to a processor's storage/tokenization solution either.

[https://spreedly.com/](https://spreedly.com/)

<comment><USER3> I took note of Spreedly months ago when patio11 had good things to say about it on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Had an outage for about 30 minutes yesterday afternoon (ET). Nothing today.

<comment><USER4> Spoke too fast. Just started timing out for us too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Same here. Any ideas on the problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cybersource's support line plays a recording stating that they are aware of a problem, but there's no info on their website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, we experienced the same :(

</comment><comment><USER7> is this still active? just now getting errors.</comment>


How to sell an iPhone app for $9.99 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/24/how-to-sell-an-iphone-app-for-9-99/ <comment><USER2> "More and more, I'm thinking that it was a major mistake on Apple's part not to allow developers to easily offer demos and upgrades in the same app..."

When the author states things like this, it should be written "More and more, I'm thinking Apple should have _delayed the release of the App store_ until they could easily offer demos and upgrades in the same app..." When put that way, does it still hold true? I doubt it.

Apple has singlehanded revolutionized the mobile phone app marketplace in spite of only being in the business for a year at the time they released the app store. Good for them for not trying to add every bell and whistle with their first release.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like a freemium model for iPhone apps</comment>