Gini coefficient - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient <comment><USER2> One of the most interesting uses of gini coefficient I've heard of, was counting messages, winks and likes received on a dating site as money or wealth and measuring the gini coefficient for men and women.

Apparently the distribution is pretty fair for women and extremely skewed for men.

<comment><USER3> I think this is the article you are refering to.

[https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments- ii-g...](https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys- unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting- your-2ddf370a6e9a)

<comment><USER4> It's a little odd that the author almost consistently refers to men as "men" but uses the word "femlaes" consistently to refer to women. A take on the experiment is here: [https://medium.com/@ericschulman/2-big-problems-with-the- tin...](https://medium.com/@ericschulman/2-big-problems-with-the-tinder- experiments-meme-6dbfdfcee6a8)

I feel as though thinking of dating as a kind of economy with transactions likely isn't the best way to find someone, especially when the "training" for such "jobs" in the economy is so one-sided - men are very rarely taught how to properly look after their appearance, but it's a core part of every girl's life, 12 and up (and usually sooner than that). It does not surprise me that those with the training (through receiving positive and negative signals on their appearance) are more picky.

You'd find that a Javascript programmer asked to choose a JS framework would probably make a better decision (and of course, be much more demanding given the options) than a documentation writer or graphic designer on the same project.

<comment><USER5> How many times each term appears on the page:

women: 13

men: 14

male: 6

female: 6

The language used is equal and every case where "male" or "female" was chosen, it was matched by its inverse in the following statement. Same goes for "men" and "women", I think you're perhaps reading something from the article that isn't there.

<comment><USER4> The context matters. Look at these sentences:

>The most important data I needed was the percent of men that these females tended to "like.

>The females who responded to my questions could have lied about the percentage of guys they"like"

>I have to assume that in general females find the same men attractive.

>Most females only "like" the most attractive guys.

>According to my last post, the most attractive men will be liked by only approximately 20% of all the females on Tinder.

>According to this analysis a man of average attractiveness can only expect to be liked by slightly less than 1% of females (0.87%).

In sentences where men and women are mentioned together, more often than not, "female" is used instead of "woman".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's an online calculator[1] for Gini coefficient that I found some time ago. Tinkering around with some numbers there was what finally gave me an proper intuitive understanding of the Gini coefficient and the Lorentz curve.

[1]: [http://shlegeris.com/gini](http://shlegeris.com/gini)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think this is a bad way to gauge an economy.

If you want to look at why people are poor, I would look towards corruption rather than merely inequality. Or maybe people in a country are poor on paper but can afford a hundred dollars of luxuries a week.

Using gini reminds me of GIGO. You used a poor metric for information, your decisions are going to be poor.

<comment><USER8> Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN is a community and we want it to remain one. For that, users need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. [https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity)

You needn't use your real name, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My mind went straight to gini impurity</comment>


Facebook refuses to disclose "chuck Chequers" Brexit advertiser to UK parliament - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/06/facebook-refuses-to-disclose-chuck-chequers-brexit-advertiser-to-uk-parliament/ <comment><USER2> From the article, Facebook already disclosed this information to the government via the Information Commissioner's Office who is free to share with parliament.

From their refusal letter: "You will appreciate that it would be inappropriate to provide personal data of our users to any third party absent a lawful basis for such disclosure."

I think this makes sense, today it's about this advertiser, but if they set this precedent, what is stopping them from requesting information on their competitors in their next election?

<comment><USER3> > what is stopping them from requesting information on their competitors in > their next election?

Plus equally important is it chilling the political speech of their opponents out of fear of state retribution.

<comment><USER4> What state retribution do you envisage?

Democracy would be in a worse place if there was no accountability.

I'm as staunch a defender of free speech as anyone, but at least take ownership of the things you are freely saying.

<comment><USER5> In this day and age of ruined lives and careers over a tweet, the need for anonymous speech is greater than it has been in a long time.

<comment><USER6> There is also something to be said for separation of concerns.

If the CEO of Ford was gay or pro-choice, should she be deterred from supporting such causes because many of the people who buy Ford trucks have contrary opinions?

And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in private will de fact out you as a member of that class. Which means less support for marginalized people, by the full measure of what they could get in private but not in public.

Moreover, what is knowing the source of money supposed to get you? If you see some "climate change is a hoax" rhetoric, you don't need a paper trail to know who is behind it, and the answer in any case is to disprove it rather than ad hom the funding source.

<comment><USER7> > And being forced to support marginalized causes in public rather than in > private will de fact out you as a member of that class.

Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about.

> ad hom the funding source

Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit it.

<comment><USER6> > Not at all necessarily - this is what allyship is all about.

That doesn't really work. It means that you have to disguise support for your cause by spending most of your resources to support several other causes which may themselves already have more support than yours.

Moreover, "mix your money into a pool of money from other people that then goes where you want it without anyone being able to tell who sent what where" is basically how money laundering works. If that is allowed then you might as well abandon the pretense of tracing the money to begin with, because the "bad guys" will just do the same thing.

> Some funding sources may be illegal, and I would hope that tracing > advertising to foreign intelligence agencies would do something to discredit > it.

That is still basically an ad hominem attack. If the Russians get hold of Clinton's emails and release them, the fact that it was the Russians releasing them doesn't do much to disprove that she wrote them.

Moreover, if the funding source is a foreign intelligence agency, it's not as if they're going to file a disclosure statement saying "Funding Source: KGB" instead of using the name of a cutout. You have to prove it was them using some other means than what they disclosed, which makes the disclosure requirement pretty useless at catching the bad guys while still imposing real costs on people who are not doing anything wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Important background: [https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fil...](https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/166225/fs- imprints-npc.pdf)

All "election material" in the UK is required to carry an imprint saying who published it. Either the unknown advertiser here or Facebook themselves are probably breaking the law, although up until now this has not been well- enforced on websites.

This law exists to prevent British politics being flooded by unaccountable lies, and this seems to have broken down quite badly just now. In fact, I don't think there _was_ more than a tiny amount of political Facebook advertising carried out by third parties prior to 2010 elections.

<comment><USER8> That only strictly applies during the regulated period of a campaign. As there isn't presently a relevant election ongoing and there isn't a candidate or referendum vote that it is directly promoting, they don't technically have to have an imprint.

Now, that's not remotely to say that imprint law isn't flouted during campaigns, I've absolutely seen literature going out that looked very like (though couldn't be proved as) party-distributed literature trying to influence an election but which didn't contain an imprint. But, this isn't a breach of that particular law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> if there is anybody out there working at facebook who has access to the info and can pass it on over tor, then I'm all ears. I'd be happy to put this out into the public for you. My ricochet id is in my profile.

Edit: The best person to send this to is actually Carole Cadwalladr. But she has unfortunately no set-up that wouldn't eventually get you in hot water.

<comment><USER10> All they need to do is get a warrant/subpoena or the British equivalent. Why would Facebook agree to give out user info voluntarily?

<comment><USER11> Hasn't the British parliament that kind of power already? From what I understood, they got documents from the Six4Three/Facebook lawsuit by telling someone they would be in contempt of parliament.

<comment><USER10> The Parliament does have that power, yes. I don't know if the committee does and has used it, though - hence the exec saying:

"in the event that Facebook receives a request for personal data from an entity which can legally require such information, Facebook will provide information in line with normal procedures. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "It is now a matter for ICO (acting in accordance with its statutory duties) to determine what they will do with the data provided to them," Allan adds"

Are Facebook trying to taunt the ICO into breaking the GDPR provision for legal basis?

</comment><comment><USER13> I think we're past the point where differences in political opinion can be aired without fear of violent retaliation.

<comment><USER7> The UK had a live-fire civil war until the late 90s. Violence has long been marginalised, but it's always there on the edge and as a possibility (police or demonstrators) at every demo.

<comment><USER14> An MP (Jo Cox) was murdered (I don't think it's too strong to say assassinated) during the Brexit campaign.

<comment><USER15> ...by someone with a mental illness.

<comment><USER7> The court ruled that he was sane at the time of the murder, and it was extremely pre-meditated. And incited by all the far right material he had been reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No-bullshit link: [https://outline.com/ZEdxXN](https://outline.com/ZEdxXN)

</comment><comment><USER17> _" Facebook has refused to provide the British parliament with the names of individuals behind a shadowy network backing an extreme 'no deal' Brexit outcome over a government-negotiated compromise."_

Good? Why on earth should governments be allowed to pressure companies to disclose who is advertising on their platform? It's not like this company is breaking into people's houses and forcing them to do things at gun point, they're just running ads. Honestly, if an ad can convince people that your position is bunk, maybe it's not that great of a position to begin with.

<comment><USER18> You don't want a company to abide by the law of the lands in which it operates? Political advertising is regulated in many countries.

So why would you draw a distinction with breaking into a house? The only difference is they have not chosen to break that law, _yet._

Not liking the law is an entirely different matter.

<comment><USER10> They are abiding with the law, though. They have been asked for information and replied that they don't just give out information because people ask - essentially they said 'come back with a warrant.' That's perfectly reasonable.

<comment><USER18> It would be if the select committee system were an organ of the police. They are not, and warrants are not required.

<comment><USER10> Ok, so the select committee system questions have compulsory answers?

In the US, the committee would have to subpoena in order to legally force the answer. Is that not the case here?

<comment><USER19> The Constitutional Society wrote an 86-page paper in 2012 attempting to show that any such powers are extinct, and that primary legislation is necessary to restore them: [https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/Select-...](https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp- content/uploads/2012/06/Select-Committees-and-Coercive-Powers-Clarity-or- Confusion.pdf)

But late last year, a select committee exercised these powers anyway: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/24/mps- seize...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/24/mps-seize-cache- facebook-internal-papers)

<comment><USER20> The question is one of enforcement. Parliament can certainly order the production of documents, and send the Serjeant-at-Arms to threaten consequences if the documents aren't provided. That was enough in November to get the documents coughed up (one suspects that the target in that case had no particular incentive to test the limits of constitutional authority, given it wasn't his secrets he was being coerced over - a good excuse for handing them over would seem to be enough).

What's not abundantly clear is if Parliament can actually still carry through its threat of imprisonment for contempt, if the recipient of the order decides to face down the Serjeant. It's possible that the courts would swiftly issue a writ of Habeas Corpus on the basis that contempt of Parliament is defunct.

It's also possible that the European Court of Human Rights would consider legislative proceedings for contempt to be a breach of the Convention, but as actions of Parliament are outside the reach of the Human Rights Act (which makes the Convention directly applicable in the UK) they have no way of enforcing the decision even if they made it - and it would take months at least to get to the front of the queue.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Goldman Sachs Says It May Sell, Hedge Facebook Stake - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-06/goldman-sachs-says-it-may-sell-hedge-facebook-stake.html

<comment><USER2> What twaddle. So the investor information GS is sending out says "at some point in the future we might sell some of our Facebook holding and we won't feel obliged to tell everyone who's bought Facebook stock through us". This is supposed to be interesting? Of _course_ Goldman Sachs doesn't want to rule out the possibility that they might sell some of their Facebook stock. The possibility of selling later is, after all, one of the main reasons for buying any sort of securities.

You might as well look at some major company's annual report to investors, find things like "We depend on manufacturing facilities in China for much of our production; in the event of war or a breakdown of international relations, our business might be adversely affected", and say "Major company says US, China may go to war". (I don't know whether that particular concern is in any large company's annual reports, but that general kind of thing is absolutely commonplace. It's mostly a way of suggesting to investors that the company has been very diligent in looking for risks to their business.)</comment>


Random Numbers Generated Out of Nothing - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19520-random-numbers-created-out-of-nothing.html

<comment><USER2> They might be "true" random numbers, but hardware implementations could introduce some noise which might bias the distribution in such a way to give some advantage on exploiters (I'm assuming a cryptographic usage).

If I remember well, also a quantum encryption (unbreakable) scheme was broken exploiting "practical" issues like that.

</comment><comment><USER3> More like "random enough." Quantum fluctuations are not necessarily random. We just don't have the technology to understand the forces and processes which influence their fluctuations. Randomness is a human concept I don't believe truly exists in nature.

<comment><USER4> As far as I know quantum physicists already proved that there can be no "forces and processes" which can make quantum physics effects predictable. Einstein didn't believe in that, but it was proved.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Advanced Bitcoin and cryptocurrency alerts with multiple conditions - <AUTHOR> https://www.currencytrigger.com/cryptocurrency-alert <comment><AUTHOR> I am the creator of this site. It's still early, very beta. But the aim is to create the best and most advanced alert system for cryptocurrencies. So far everything is free. On the roadmap is SMS-integration and other cool stuff.

<comment><USER2> I think its great, I appreciate the simplicity.</comment></comment>


German police successfully trains dogs to find hidden USB flash drives by smell - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fweb%2Fcybercrime-schnueffler-wie-die-polizei-mit-datentraegerspuerhunden-aufruestet-a-1297622.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm again and again amazed by what dogs can accomplish with their nose. If this really works (they say it does) this might have a bigger impact on cybersecurity than it appears at first. Think about dissidents, whistleblowers, etc.</comment>


Federal cops gets pulled over by TN cops, car illegally searched - <AUTHOR> http://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/i-40-search-raises-new-policing-for-profit-questions <comment><USER3> This has been known for a many years and many people who have been searched figured it out. Dogs are a key element in letting them rob people on the side of the road. We hear those K-9 are treated as officers, someone shoots one, and the sentence for that is usually pretty harsh. It takes years and many tens of thousands of dollars to train them. But they are worth their weight in gold. They are the the magic voodoo doll that hacks the 4th Amendment. You say 'no', but, the puppy says 'yes' and there go your rights. It is pretty magic.

What is interesting here is that person who was searched got to present his story to the news and it was published as is.

\---

"NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Ronnie, "You are convinced that they cued that dog to hit?"

"Yes, 100 percent," he said. "There is no doubt they cued that dog."

\---

Usually traditional media takes the side of the cops. At best, they would make the cops' version sound just as plausible as that of victim of the robbery (hrm ... I mean, the person who was detained).

So, of course, what makes this story, is the occupation of one of passengers -- he is both a cop and a veteran. That is front and center in the article. It is emphasized mutiple times, even in the HN title. We don't want the audience to forget that and think he is just a regular janitor or plumber here! I believe that says a lot about the beliefs that go around -- that cops are somehow more honest, and noble (and so are the troops). This aspect, is just as interesting to look at as the story itself. In order to stop this behavior, it is important to change that attitude, first, and then it would be possible to talk about fixing the laws that allow this to happen.

<comment><USER4> _Dogs are a key element in letting them rob people on the side of the road._

Ya know, after I had written my parallel comment and gave it some thought later, I concluded that it's all just bullshit. The dog didn't alert by sitting, and the officer didn't cue him. They were going to search the car regardless.

 _You say 'no', but, the puppy says 'yes' and there go your rights. It is pretty magic._

Here's where I disagree with you (but only in the details). The dog didn't say anything. I mean, I've seen dogs sniff for drugs (and find them). I've watched amateur Noseworks competitors ( _slightly_ related to the training sniffing dogs). No dog "alerts" by sitting, at least none I've ever seen. Dogs sit all the time, it would be a stupid cue. That dog could have just stood there and ripped the meanest fart you ever smelled, and the thieves (pardon: cops) would have said that the dog "alerted". "Yup, smells like he found something!"

As you point out, the dog is a prop, a talisman. That car was getting searched, full stop. They just needed a "get out of the 4th amendment free" card in the shape of a German Shepherd. They might as well train gerbils for that. They fit in your pocket, cost less to feed, and with a little propaganda we can all be led to believe they work just as well as dogs (and they probably will if you're just looking for false positives).

(And to be clear, I'm not saying you can't train a dog to sniff for drugs or bombs. Obviously they can be trained for this, and to a high degree of reliability. They can, however, also be trained to bark, dig, or whine on command, whether they smell drugs or not.)

<comment><USER3> > As you point out, the dog is a prop, a talisman. > Here's where I disagree > with you (but only in the details).

Oh I agree, the dog saying 'yes' was meant to be the officer using the dog to note on paper that 'dog said yes'.

As you said, in case of this group, they didn't have to pretend much at all. I imagine others would actually have a functional, probably somewhat non-obvious alerting signal. But this groups was getting good results without trying much.

I think they probably learned their lesson from this -- spend more time training the dog to actually alert and figure out how to make it do it reliably and out of the sight of the camera.

<comment> mark-r How do you reach the conclusion that they've learned any lesson from this? Have the officers been reprimanded in any way?

If this couple had any amount of cash on them, it would have been confiscated as "drug money". Good luck getting it back, even in the absence of any evidence. That's why these tactics are tolerated, it's a source of income for the department. Who cares if a few innocent out-of-staters are taken advantage of?

The whole situation just makes me sick, and I'm continually surprised that it hasn't been ruled unconstitutional.

<comment><USER5> Police don't get reprimanded in America. They just get paid vacation at worst. Shoot a handcuffed guy in the back of your squad car? "Oh, he must have had a gun we just didn't find when we searched him." Right. Right.

<comment><USER6> "Enjoy your two-week paid fishing trip."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "If you look in slow-motion, the dog passes an open window on the passenger side with no alert. The handler then leads the dog around the front. Then, on the driver's side, he turns his body around and gestures toward the window. Suddenly, the dog sits. That's the alert."

As I've always suspected. I could take just about any random dog from your local animal shelter and train them to do that in about 20 minutes (look up "clicker training Zach" on YouTube, watch what he can teach in half that time). And point at the window is the cue? Amateur hour. Given the amount of time given to train a K-9 unit, I could come up with something much more subtle, and I only train dogs as an amateur volunteer, not a professional K-9 trainer.

Alternatively, many dogs that I've trained long-term will default to "sit" when they can't figure out what you want. Could have been that the dog didn't know what "point at window" means, but the mutt knows it means _something_. Doggy runs through his mental database, comes with no match for "point at window", defaults to "sit".

TL;DR: the more time I spend training dogs, the more I'm convinced that drug dogs are about as reliable as polygraphs, if not worse because the handler can game it.

<comment><USER7> I've seen that. We did some obedience competition with one of our dogs. If she didn't understand a command, she'd cycle through the first three things she learned (sit, down, roll over) until stopped :-)

<comment><USER8> Glad to see that our dog isn't too weird with that behaviour! When she doesn't know what to do, she cycles between sitting and laying down, pretty rapidly. Great entertainment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a little surprised that Ronnie even engaged in an apparent argument or conversation with the cop. A very good friend of mine who is an attorney and has given me the following advice which I give to an officer anytime I'm stopped. It goes like this:

Officer, please understand - after I identify myself with my name and date of birth (and proof of insurance if I am driving a motor vehicle) I am refusing to answer any questions until I have a reasonable opportunity to consult with my attorney. I refuse to take any field sobriety tests including: reciting letters and counting numbers, letting you look into my eyes with or without your flashlight, or any other physical tests performed outside my vehicle until I consult with my attorney. I refuse to get out of my car unless you order me to do so. However, I still refuse all field sobriety tests. I will show you my hands at all times so that your safety will not become an issue.

I refuse to consent to the search of my vehicle, my person, my belongings, or any premises with which I have an expectation of privacy, including my residence, hotel room or any other rented room without the reasonable opportunity to consult my attorney. If you have probable cause to search you do not need my consent anyway.

If I am not under arrest but you are going to issue a traffic citation please do so immediately so that I may go about my business. If I am not under arrest and no citation is going to be issued please tell me if I am free to leave so that I may go about my business without further interference with my liberty.

If I am under arrest, please tell me immediately so that I can cooperate by submitting to your authority because I do not wish to resist or obstruct your official duties.

If I am under arrest I wish to invoke all my rights under Miranda. I want my attorney. I won't answer any questions, perform any field sobriety tests or consent to any search without a reasonable opportunity to obtain the advice of my attorney.

Then I shut up!

<comment><USER10> I've heard other lawyers give this advice. It may or may not be good advice, depending on circumstances, but I'm a little suspicious of the lawyer's motive. It sounds designed to ensure that every single traffic stop, no matter how benign, results in billable hours.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'm suspicious too. The more I read about life in the US, the more I think the law system there is ripe for disruption. Lawyers are the middlemen, introducing _huge_ inefficiencies and taking enormous rents out. Somebody needs to cut them out.

<comment><USER12> Lawyers are not middlemen between people and the law. Lawyers are the experts who know the law and make interactions with the law more efficient.

Context-relevant example: a person dealing with a DUI stop might spend months of their own time fighting the DUI in court without a lawyer--days wasted just trying to figure out what to do. But with a lawyer, most DUI cases are wrapped up in about a day or two!

If your time is truly worthless, go ahead and try to play at the law yourself. But if your time, and your freedom, has any value, pay the expert to do it for you.

<comment><USER11> You're proving my point for me. They're the middlemen who over the last few decades managed to make themselves indispensable. The law is that complicated for a reason, and it's not just because humans are messy.

Speaking about your example - somehow, many otherwise civilized countries manage to handle DUI cases without lawyers getting involved.

<comment><USER13> Common law is not so messy. Unfortunately we live in a world of victimless crimes, with a system of law that is like it's own universe, always expanding, and of unknowable vastness. So arcane that it requires temples upon temples of seers to interpret it. It's ripe for disruption alright, but probably not by market forces in a peaceful fashion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The submitted story has a confusing timestamp. It's dated January 2016, but there's a line that says " _(Story originally created Nov. 10, 2014)_ "...I suspect it's a problem with the news site's CMS (which is probably shit, a situation most news sites have to deal with)...they probably created a new URL to package this story in their larger ongoing investigation.

In 2014, Radley Balko blogged about this incident: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/11/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/11/12/policing-for-profit-in-tennessee/)

Obviously doesn't change the impact or interest in the story (if anything, goes to show how much interesting news you can forget about or not know about when it was originally published), but the submitted title needs a "(2014)" in it. I was interested if this story went anywhere, but a Google search for Ronnie Hankins name didn't turn up much.

</comment><comment><USER15> If police departments were responsible for paying for the collateral damage they create and even deliberately exacerbate (time wasted, damage to the car, and emotional distress from assault), this problem would fix itself overnight.

"Probable cause" is not a justification for evading responsibility to their victims.

<comment><USER16> Not sure that's the solution as they'd probably then be paralysed to inaction in valid cases too.

<comment><USER15> The case can't be too valid if the police aren't confident the person is guilty. It sounds exactly like more detective work would be advised, to avoid harming innocent people.

But yes obviously it would be less efficient to fund the true cost of policing, rather than leaving it the reverse lottery we have now. But not doing so is essentially a violation of due process, as the victims are extrajudicially punished based on mere suspicion.

<comment><USER17> Innocent suspect indemnisation might lead to every pull-over resulting in a charge.

<comment><USER15> Time wasted in court and lawyer fees would be added to the list of damages when the victim is finally found innocent. The police and the prosecutor might argue over which one is responsible, but I'm sure after the first few cases of malicious persecution they'll have it figured out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Again, why is there a loop hole for illegal search and seizure?

There have been lots of news coverage on illegal search and seizure for last couple of years, but it still happens very frequently.

How can it be solved? May be a new constitutional right should made it to law that guarantees a no fuss recourse path for every law if you believe you have been wronged.

Without people actively participating in democracy, its going to rot.

<comment><USER19> > May be a new constitutional right...

The Constitution enumerates only specific rights to the federal government. All other rights are retained by the states and by the people (10th Amendment). Not to mention that the 4th Amendment most specifically addresses the issue of unlawful search, and which the courts -- as an apparatus of the state -- have mutilated beyond recognition to the benefit of the state.

Most citizens are completely unaware of the multitude of rights possessed by the people and assume that the government has to tell them what rights they have. That way is serfdom.

Then again, with one semester of government class in 12 years of compulsory state-controlled education -- and that taught by a coach half the time -- it's no wonder that we allow the state and its officers to walk all over us.

<comment><USER20> We need constitutional limitations on state power.

The U.S. constitution[1] must be amended to enumerate and accord the states a limited specific set of rights, and all other rights must be reserved for the people.

[1] Alternatively, individual state constitutions could be amended to have an enumerate powers clause added to them -- but I doubt those deep red Republican "conservative" and "small government" states would want to limit the power of the state to abuse marginalized groups. Conservative hypocrisy is unnerving.

<comment><USER21> Lol, and progs are any better?

<comment><USER20> Progressives are indeed better in this case.

Even though they are not big supporters of limited small government (which I favor), at least they are not actively trying to suppress black people and other non-white minorities -- instead they're fighting for their rights.

To me, justice is more important than small government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I read these kind of articles for years now. Why isn't there anything done about this? The Police in the US is just corrupt and must be dealt with.

I would love the visit the US sometimes, but stories like this just make me feel like the US is just a very dangerous place to be. Not because of the people with guns, but because of the police that is as corrupt as any 3rd world country's police.

<comment><USER23> I say this as a non-American, but there seem to be two Americas.

The first one is the Norman Rockwell vision of plenty and freedom. It really is like that - for some people, mostly white (or at least not black), in some places. Given how big America is, that means there are tens of millions of people who never see the bad side. Or when they do, assume that those involved deserved it.

The other side of the coin is for the people who end up on the wrong side of the internal colonialism. There's a lot of brutality there, but (like with many 3rd world or marginal countries) it's avoidable as a tourist.

The one thing you do have to make sure as a tourist is not to get in trouble with the border check agents.

<comment><USER24> I have a friend, ex-military, very clean cut, pretty 'normal' guy. His brother is a cop. We both grew up in the same rural area. I used to be a punk kid, crazy hair and clothes, but a good kid, definitely not a criminal. I was constantly harassed by police, even had to file charges once against a cop who assaulted me on private property at my father's place of employment. My view of the cops is very different from him. He gets absolutely offended if I talk bad about cops. He really sees them as noble people with only a few bad apples. He says people like me just like to talk up the bad cops to make the rest look bad. Or it was my own fault for being so outside societal norms that of course I would be the target of constant suspicion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Confusing title - to add some clarification from the article:

> He's a federal police officer at the Marine Corps Air Station-Miramar in San > Diego.

Ronnie, the male passenger is employed as a Federal police officer, but his wife (driving) does not have her employment specified, nor are they driving an official vehicle or on Federal business. He also sounds more worried about losing his job than having his employer go to bat for him:

> "It makes me angry that someone would attack my character because not only > do they attack my character, but that could cost me my job," Ronnie said.

<comment><USER26> If there were two tiers of citizenship - the police and the non-police - <USER2> the former has an implicit right to confiscate assets from the latter, of course anyone would worry about losing their police job.

<comment><USER27> Even off duty cops (from different jurisdictions) aren't immune.

<comment><USER28> >> Watts is also off the road, but by her own choosing. She remains with the Florida Highway Patrol but no longer looks for speeders because she is afraid her fellow officers would no longer back her up in an emergency.

[http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/11/26/fhp-trooper-donna- watts...](http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/11/26/fhp-trooper-donna-watts-last- stand/)

even on duty officers doing their jobs aren't immune... if you don't follow the blue code of silence, the blue code will stalk you.

<comment><USER29> Miami PD is one of the most corrupt departments in FL. My wife was harassed and ticketed by a fat cop who got out of the car smoking a cigar and stunk of alcohol with gold chains around his neck.

Earlier she had pulled into a parking garage that was mislabeled and scrapped the roof of the truck. The attendant called their boss who called their insurance, who said to get a police report and they would cover it. She got a ticket for reckless driving. Thankfully the attendant stayed on the scene the whole time, because my wife got the sense that the cop was alluding to her negotiating her way out of such a hefty ticket.

Fortunately my wife's friend (who we where visiting) is very good friends with the chief of the Hollywood PD and made a call, who then made a call to Miami PD, long story short a supervisor came out, ripped up the ticket apologized to my wife, wrote the police report about the garage and left, but before he did he told her it would be best if this where the end of the incident. Nothing was ever said or done about the other officer.

<comment><USER30> I'm glad your wife beat that corruption, but sad that it took more corruption to do it: connections. This doesn't help the 99.9% other people.

<comment><USER29> Agreed it is a shame that one has to have connections to avoid transgressions that should not happen in the first place. I was thankful for those connections at the time but very uneasy about the whole situation. The lesson learned is that we avoid Miami, which is difficult given that we live in the Florida Keys and it sits directly in our path to the mainland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > [We] took the dashcam video to a nationally respected respected expert

Redundancy aside, this seems like a pointless thing to include in the article if you don't even name the field in which he is an expert.

<comment><USER32> Sounds like he's an expert on respect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> What I don't get is why isn't the dog "search" considered a search?

I mean, if you don't concede to a search and they don't have probably cause, how can they have a dog then search your car?

It seems like having a dog search and smell around your car would constitute a search by every legal definition?

And this would be a breach of your rights against illegal search?

What am I missing?

<comment><USER34> It's the same as if the cop looked through the window and saw a baggie full of weed on the dashboard. Anything which is exposed (sights/sounds/smells) to the outside world isn't considered a search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> As someone from a developing country, it really shocks me to read stuff like this about the US. Mainly because we kind of look up to their justice system to be better than ours. Yes, there are police harassments in my country as well. But it's not this bad. And apparently what they did is legal, which is really shocking.

<comment><USER36> I am virtually certain that it is illegal on a lot of counts, but that circumstances and the law make it very difficult to fight in an effective manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What amazes me is how people are putting up with this. Why arent we putting the highway robbers ( police ) in prison and having emergency elections for new sheriffs so they can deputize honest people ?

<comment><USER38> You start getting special police attention if you try to start a political movement against them.

Most people don't have the time and inclination to do so, and the ones that do are often incoherent or do things that shoot themselves in the foot, like the people who blocked the SF bay bridge on MLK day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I hear of a lot of startups working on image detection and sound detection, but I'm wondering why there isn't anything done for scent detection. Maybe A2D for scent doesn't really exist yet, but it would limit the need for drug sniffing dogs

<comment><USER40> I did some work during my PhD on recognizing scenes from electronic-nose data. The problem is more on the hardware side of things than the algorithm side of things. Today's electronic noses are still pretty large devices in which a sample needs to be placed within the device. Unless the state-of-the-art has advanced significantly in the past 3 years, none of them are like wielding an artificial nose on a stick that you can just wave around sniffing things.

<comment><USER41> Can confirm.

I was "digitally sniffed" for explosives once at an airport in Florida about 3 years ago.

They took a piece of what looked like tissue (probably an odorless control) and rubbed it inside my backpack.

They then placed that "tissue" into a very large machine (half the size of the man performing the procedure) which I assume smelled it for explosives.

After standing there for about 30 seconds staring at the machine, I was told I was free to proceed into the secure waiting area.

<comment><USER38> Those are things similar to a mass spectrograms. The tissue picks up particles, and is then analyzed by the machine to create a mass spectrogram of the napkin. If it contains masses similar to explosive powder residues, then you're in trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Isn't that a known fact that US police train their k-9 to false alert to get probable cause for a search ?

There's this video by Ex narcotic police officer Barry Cooper that features a segment on k9 false alerts: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-mU77Pie44&t=23m30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-mU77Pie44&t=23m30s)

<comment><USER43> It's very possible many of these cops have no clue they've subtly trained the dog to alert.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is there anything in the article to support the claim in the title, that the car was "illegally searched"?

As much as it galls me, my understanding is that this kind of thing is procedurally legal. Drug dogs can "alert" based on nonsense, and that forms the pretense for a legal search. The Supreme Court seems willing to say "you can't be held waiting for a drug dog" (Rodriguez v. U.S.), but doesn't seem to be willing to adjudicate the accuracy of those dogs.

My personal belief is that they should be banned, unless we're willing to hold them to a _very high accuracy rate_. Like, if consequences of a false alert are "career-ending", and not just "Tuesday afternoon".

But as much as I hate this, describing it as "illegal" seems inaccurate.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can't wait to see these officers hailed into court on a 1983 action.

<comment><USER46> Won't happen. Rural cops are entirely autocratic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Yet another reason it's a great idea to get your own dash cam if you're doing long road trips.

</comment><comment><USER48> "So why not say yes?"

This is how the article frames the situation, somehow insinuating that the default is to let the cops violate your privacy.

However, the law is very clear on this aspect. The default is No. The cops have to find a valid reason to be able to search. There is absolutely no reason why a citizen should allow for a search, and doing so can only hurt, not help, them.

<comment><USER49> Pretty sure the article wasn't insinuating anything like that. It was just a journalist asking an obvious question so the interviewee explains their thought process in more detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> >(Story originally created Nov. 10, 2014)

>Posted: 12:20 AM, Jan 18, 2016

>Updated: 4 hours ago

Does anybody know what the update was?

</comment><comment><USER13>
      First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Socialist.
      Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
      Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
      Because I was not a Jew.
      Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Sort of difficult to empathize with a federal police officer ever-so slightly maligned by the application of a terribly unjust national drug policy. Too little, too late.

</comment><comment><USER51> Bandit de grand chemin (highway robbery): [https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https](https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https): //fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandit_de_grand_chemin&prev=search

"Under the old regime the offense was punished with the torture of the wheel"

</comment><comment><USER52> This makes me think there should be an app / GPS plugin that will alert all drivers which stretches of highway are prone to this type of search. Then it would automatically reroute as if that stretch were under construction.

</comment><comment><USER53> Simple solution: track the accuracy rate of drug dogs. If a drug dog has a false positive rate of over 50%, then it can't really be callse "probable cause" can it? Probably not, more like.

<comment><USER54> Your simple solution has already been tried in Florida v. Harris. The actual false positive rate was ~80%, but the court still found that it could be used as probable cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> What was the turning point when cops became the bad guys in the US?

<comment><USER56> The turning point is probably not that their behavior changed, but that it began to be exposed. First, when video cameras became easily attainable by regular people (Rodney King), then later, when almost everyone starting carrying a video camera (smart phones).

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> > "You felt violated?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked.

> "Yeah, I felt violated. He didn't want to hear it."

Objection your honour, leading the witness.

</comment><comment><USER58> > He believes the dog may have inadvertently been cued to hit on their car.

How do they explain how the dog was 'inadvertently trained'?

</comment><comment><USER59> This is what happens when you let dogs make legal decisions. Thank you Supreme Court.

</comment><comment><USER60> Police as the highwayman.

</comment><comment><USER61> I had this exact same thing happen to me coming into Oklahoma from Texas, while I was living in Dallas for a few years. I'm actually from Oklahoma, so I was going back to my Dad's at the time so I could renew my license plates.

One thing I will note is that I won't allow someone to tell me they think I am lying, if I'm not lying. I don't have to rationalize with someone who blames and speak for others. The best possible thing to do is get of of the car and lock it behind you and stuff your keys in your pants the absolute second you are stopped. When they start blaming and speaking for you, tell them they are doing so and you won't allow it. You can then keep your mouth shut until the officer makes a choice between hauling you in and towing the car, or letting you go.

Nobody has to make things "right" when there's nothing wrong to begin with.

By keeping the amount of stuff you say to one of these jackasses, and what they have access to, greatly limits their ability to fuck with you.

<comment><USER62> "and stuff your keys in your pants"

"He was reaching for a gun!"</comment></comment>


Google's AI is no smarter than a 6-year-old, study says - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/artificial-intelligence-is-no-smarter-than-a-six-year-old-study-says/ <comment><USER2> If Google had an AI that was even close to as smart as a 6 year old, in the general sense, that would represent a nearly unbelievable advance in AI technology.</comment>


Ask HN: Any people who work at a small shop, and prefer AWS? - <AUTHOR> If so, why? <comment><USER2> Anyone work at a small shop and DOESN'T prefer AWS? They're the leader in the hosting space, from my perspective you'd have to have good reason NOT to use them at this point. They have more in terms of services and robustness than any other cloud platform, and its easier to hire developers who know it. If you're managing your own servers in this day and age then you either have a very specific use case that requires it, or you're behind.

</comment><comment><USER3> Although it is more complex than say heroku, there are so many features, and eventually you may want them. Also the pricing is very competitive , if developer time is expensive. Need to send emails, there's SES. Want to dynamically put up new test environments? Once you've got your setup right, you can have it modify route 53 dns records and connect it to a load balances and your EC2 instances... the list goes on forever.

</comment><comment><USER4> All the tooling around is great, support/faq/docs are great. You can scale upscale down fast, and testing new ideas with AWS services is painless even for the costing view. I'm not too concern about general costing compared with DO or Heroku. Another benefit is if AWS is down, "half" of the internet is down, so explaining this to a customer you can just tell - "AWS is down."

</comment><comment><USER5> Have been a 2 person dev team for awhile. Run software on both AWS and GCP.

We almost always reach for AWS, and that comes down to one thing. SUPPORT!

AWS support has been quick at resolving our issues on numerous occasions. GCP, not so much.</comment>


Inside the iPhone 6s - <AUTHOR> http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-the-iphone-6s <comment><USER2> Isn't 8mb of L3 cache a huge amount for a phone with 2 gigs of ram? A $260 Intel i5 6600 only has 6mb

<comment><USER3> Perhaps by comparison with desktop CPUs, but since the A8 had 4MB of L3, presumably there are good reasons for Apple to include more L3 in the A9. It may well be that Apple has found that a larger L3 cache contributes more to overall performance (or power efficiency) than, say, faster clocks or more RAM.

<comment> ju-st Intel's L3 cache is for CPU only, Apple's is propably shared with the GPU. Also some Intel CPU's have 128MB of "L4" cache to primarily speed up the GPU.

<comment><USER4> It isn't for CPU only, Haswell and up GPUs can zero-copy their command buffers out of it (thus making a large number of GPU compute situations "free"); they can't usefully use such a small amount of L3 for texture and framebuffer stuff (not like the highly optimized prefetch and caching systems in Radeons and Geforces can; that is sometimes a work of art).

But yes, I highly suspect the bigger L3 on these serves the same purpose as the L4 on Crystalwells.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wonder why they have multiple power management/amplifier modules ? : 1\. Apple/Dialog 338S00120 Power Management IC 2\. Qualcomm PMD9635 Power Management IC 3\. Texas Instruments 65730AOP Power Management IC 4\. Avago ACPM 7714 Multimode Power Amplifier 5\. Avago AFEM-8030 Power Amplifier Module 6\. Skyworks SKY77357 Power Amplifier Module (likely an iteration of the SKY77354) 7\. Skyworks SKY77812 Power Amplifier Module

<comment><USER6> Well, the first three you mentioned are for providing power to other chips, the last 4 are RF amplifiers, they aren't really related.

Why you need (or want) multiple power management ICs: they are likely powering separate zones of the board which may have very different power requirements, e.g. need different voltages, need to be able to power up or down separately, or need particularly clean power.

Why you need multiple RF amplifiers: Almost all phone today run on many different cellular frequencies and protocols, a quick look at the specs indicates the iPhone 6 supports: 800Mhz, 850Mhz, 900Mhz, 1700Mhz, 1800Mhz, 1900Mhz, 2000Mhz, and 2100Mhz along with various different signaling schemes. You can't handle all that in a single RF pathway.

<comment><USER7> > __ _need to be able to power up or down separately_ __

Need to be able to power on the Data, MIC and Camera per the Court Order without waking up the rest of the phone :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > This year Apple did multi-country launches ... so no more driving down to > the US and queuing for hours to be sure of getting one or two.

What is Apple's iPhone 6s release schedule?

Apparently, they have already released it in the countries other than the US, but I still can't see any information online regarding where it was released and where it's going to, next.

<comment><USER9> Released in "Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK, and the United States."

[http://imgur.com/wvTtvNu](http://imgur.com/wvTtvNu)

[http://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/24/iphone6s-launch-kicks- of...](http://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/24/iphone6s-launch-kicks-off-in-new- zealand/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks! Any info on the next wave of country releases?

<comment><USER10> Today's press release[1] announced Oct 9 as launch date for 40 more countries. Expected to hit 130 countries by end of the year.

[1] [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/09/28Apple-Announces- Re...](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/09/28Apple-Announces-Record- iPhone-6s-iPhone-6s-Plus-Sales.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


When Science Went Modern - <AUTHOR> https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-cultural-contradictions-of-modern-science/articles/when-science-went-modern <comment><USER2> > _when relativity theory and quantum mechanics not only overturned the > achievements of Galileo and Newton but also challenged our deepest > intuitions about space, time, and causation._

Causation stayed the same from Galilean to Lorentzian relativity. It remains as a touchstone of things working as expected.

<comment><USER3> Yes. All these historians inspired by Kuhn's construction of the "revolutions" are completely missing what the discoveries are, and are misusing the words like "overturning." There are also a lot of philosophers that also simply don't understand what they talk about.

The Newtonian Laws are still good enough for most of the common calculations of the effects of gravity, where they aren't enough we are using the improvements by Einstein, but technically these are still the _improvements_ for the calculations in the extreme ranges. So it's not that it's practical to say that what Newton is "overturned" when one still needs his very formulas every day.

<comment><USER4> Not really. The explanations of reality are entirely different thus reaching different conclusions (even if the different conclusions only happen on extreme events). That's what the historians mean when talking about overturning theories. It's not really surprising that Newton and Einstein explain most experimental data, otherwise, one of them would be a crappy theory.

To put a simple example, geocentric model not only was at least as accurate for calculations of celestial bodies positions than initial heliocentric models, but it was actually simpler, but it's easier to say the model was overturned because the difference in the explanation is obvious.

In Newton/Einstein case, the difference is on the underlying concepts (the most obvious, the speed of light limit), but it's really easy to see that even if equations approximate on some range, they're not equivalent.

<comment><USER3> If these narrations were first introduced in the internet posts on HN and the "fine" historians would post under the title "Newton overturned" their post would be flagged at least as a clickbait. Because we use the same Newton formulas today for the same kinds of calculations for which Newton used them: to calculate the motions of the planets in the Solar system.

For all the observations and measurements available at Newton's time, his formulas were enough. Once we managed to measure some extreme behaviors like the constant speed of light in different directions (by Michelson), something better was needed for these extreme cases which would still get _the same results_ for all previous existing observations! That's exactly how Einstein presented his work at the time.

So the new formulas are improvements, and except for the extreme cases the new formulas produce the same results like Newton's.

All that talk about "overturning" is just trolling, and Kuhn is the chief one, "par excellence". Or as 'whatshisface' correctly named, it's the plain "false narrative." The only one from those mentioned by Kuhn who was ever actually "overturned" was Aristotle, but nobody can call him a scientist, for he is the one who didn't like experiments to learn something or prove his thoughts. Kuhn specifically tried to come to the terms with Aristotle's work and then projected his confusion to everything else in his "seminal" work. And that was accepted and even more bastardized by every "philosopher" or "historian" who reads only other "philosophers" and "historians" but never tries to understand the topic about which he writes. It turned out to be the basis for "everything is relative, including the scientific conclusions and the truth is also relative because those who don't understand the topic will not accept the arguments" which is as deep as "math is hard let's go shopping." I definitely share Feynman's opinion that the "philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." (Yes, I feel anger when I write about said "historians").

So contrary to Aristotle, there were enough ancient Greek thinkers who did make real scientific conclusions:

Just an example: around 2200 years ago

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

Hipparchus estimated the distance to the Moon in the Earth radii to between 62 and 80 (depending on the method he used, as he intentionally used two different). Today's measurements are between 55 and 64.

Also around 2200 years ago (note the pattern, a lot was done before Brian was born), some 240 years Befowe Bwian, Eratosthenes measured the Earth's circumference to almost exactly to what we know today (if I remember, when one honestly checks what he claimed, his error was only around 5%). Etc.

Claudius Ptolemy was of course also not wrong and his calculations were scientific: his formulas also worked for the measurements available to him, exactly because one can write formulas using different origin of the coordinate system. It's the Church and its dogmatic behavior that made big fuss with the claim that the Earth is "special" (because specially treated by the magic deity). And Aristotle also noted that the speed of Earth rotation would be "too big" because it would produce too much wind, if I remember. But in this case that was a bit of scientific-like reasoning, as he also had to have an idea about the approximate circumference of the Earth and he had to calculate the speed with which the surface rotates (sitting in our chairs, we still move a thousand miles per hour only due to the Earth's rotation). I say scientific-like because the word "science" simply didn't exist in the time of Aristotle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I will interpret the label of modern to mean that current science is somewhat directionless on many fronts overwhelmed with an explosion of conflicting theoretical findings that are difficult to verify or disprove or categorize their utility meaningfully—progressing at a snail's pace as a result. Or perhaps this more accurately is post-modern science.</comment>


Promoting your iPhone app in print - <AUTHOR> http://blog.indieiphonedev.com/2010/01/27/promoting-your-iphone-app-in-print/

<comment><USER2> I love people trying to innovate, but this is going to run into the brick-wall reality of conversion math.

My site, where 6 cents gets me a guaranteed visitor: ~20% download or sign up, ~2.5% pay, cost per conversion thus about $12. I charge $30 and smile.

The iPhone app will have three different gates in the funnel: percentage of people who visit website (or search on AppStore by name -- can you even do that?), percentage who download, percentage who purchase. I can tell you that gate #1 is not going to be anywhere near 100%. I'd be pleasantly surprised if it were in the two digits. The math just gets more depressing from there.

Don't charge $2 if you're going to have marginal advertising expenditures, folks. It is not sustainable.

<comment><USER3> I don't see $150 breaking the bank, not if the app being advertised has sold marginally well in the past. And its a fun, different way for people to remember about your app _after you've spoken to them about it_ (say, after a conference). If they seem interested, give them a card. And if the person in question isn't interested, just don't give them a card.

Not that the situation I outlined above is how the cards are being used. Instead, an _application about running_ is being advertised at a _running event_. Presumably, you have some sort of interest in running, if you're watching a leg of a marathon take place. So, its not too hard to presume that this would be useful for more than 1 in 25 people watching the marathon.

This kind of reminds me of a sticker. Only, instead of just a picture of the app (or the app icon, in Colloquy's case when we handed out stickers), it also says a few words about what the app does for you.

 _percentage who download, percentage who purchase._

These two "funnels" are the same. The App Store doesn't currently have any sort of trial, and this app doesn't seem to have a free version of any sort.

 _or search on App Store by name -- can you even do that?_

Yes, you can search for applications by name (or keyword, or developer) in the App Store.

 _Don't charge $2 if you're going to have marginal advertising expenditures, folks. It is not sustainable._

As a random datapoint, I've seen a few companies pay for a weekly spot on daringfireball, which is $2,500/week where the app only costs $2/app and the company didn't have any other applications available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I will be curious to read about the results. I don't foresee it being very successful. My guess would be 1 in 100, at best, will result in a sale.

I think he'd have more success with iPhone text ads targeting running-related sites on the mobile web. It will cost him $.25 per click, but the conversion rate will be much higher because 100% of the people that click the ad will have an iPhone and be interested in running.

</comment><comment><USER5> Possibly if the app is really good this kind of advertising could generate a lot of word of mouth buzz around the app.</comment>


Ask HN: Ryzen or i7 for computations in R/Python - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>has anyone here experience with Amd Ryzen build on a purely computational PC? I am mainly interested in heavier R/Python calculations. Thanks! <comment><USER2> If you can live with single precision floating point, a cheap GPU will crunch numbers about an order of magnitude faster than a CPU. That assumes the computation can be parallelized. If the computation cannot be parallelized then single threaded performance matters most. Single threaded performance differences between similar CPU's tend to differ more modestly and small performance improvements tend to come with much higher costs.

Depending on data size, more RAM and faster disks and faster networks may make more of a difference. But again, GPU's and parallelization are going to reduce computational time more than CPU choice when parallelization is an option.

Good luck.</comment>


Ruby without Rails - <AUTHOR> http://codenoble.com/blog/ruby-web-applications-without-rails/ <comment><USER2> What about Ruby without Rails... without web? I know Ruby is used in Puppet and Chef, but I am curious as to what other software is written in it. It seems that because of Rails, Ruby is only seen in web development (as opposed to Python, which is used in many domains).

<comment><AUTHOR> Some examples:

[http://sonic-pi.net/](http://sonic-pi.net/)

A free live coding synth for everyone originally designed to support computing and music lessons within schools. Use code to compose and perform in classical and contemporary styles ranging from Canons to Dubstep.

[http://artoo.io/](http://artoo.io/)

Artoo is a framework for robotics, physical computing, and the Internet of Things written in the Ruby programming language. It provides a simple, yet powerful way to create solutions that incorporate multiple, different hardware devices at the same time.

[http://metasm.cr0.org/](http://metasm.cr0.org/)

Metasm is a cross-architecture assembler, disassembler, compiler, linker and debugger. It has some advanced features such as live process manipulation, GCC/Microsoft Visual Studio-compatible preprocessor, automatic backtracking in the disassembler (similar to "slicing"), C headers shrinking, linux/windows/remote debugging API interface, a C compiler/decompiler, a gdb- server compatible debugger, and various advanced features. It is written in pure Ruby, with no dependency.

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

Metasploit was created by H. D. Moore in 2003 as a portable network tool using Perl. By 2007, the Metasploit Framework had been completely rewritten in Ruby. The Metasploit Project is a computer security project that provides information about security vulnerabilities and aids in penetration testing and IDS signature development. Its best-known sub-project is the open source Metasploit Framework, a tool for developing and executing exploit code against a remote target machine. Other important sub-projects include the Opcode Database, shellcode archive and related research.

[http://jruby.org/](http://jruby.org/)

An implementation of the Ruby programming language atop the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

Gives you access to any Java library.

What can you do with Java.. without the web?</comment></comment>


Massachusetts Introduces Software Service Tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/07/as_software_services_tax_hits.html <comment><USER3> MA has so many make-work jobs who do absolutely nothing at least they could leave those of us trying to do something alone. I was talking to a guy who used to be a product designer for Brookstone, Polaroid and GM. He has an idea to create 100 simple products all manufactured within 100 miles of Boston.

[http://www.onehundred.co](http://www.onehundred.co)

He thought he would reach out to some MA economic development organization and let them know what he was doing. They got back to him right away, I forget which exact agency, to let him know they would not be able to provide any help. He was kind of miffed because he hadn't asked for anything - but now he knew they would not be able to help no matter what he might need.

I tried to look up the agency he contacted and I found these agencies:

Commonwealth Corporation

MassDevelopment

Mass. Office of Housing and Economic Development

Mass. Office of Business Development

Mass. Business Development Center

Mass. Small Business Development Center

Mass. Export Center

Mass. Office of International Trade & Investment

MassVentures

Mass. Growth Capital Corporation

Mass. Technology Collaborative

Mass. Technology Transfer Center

Mass. Clean Energy Center

Mass. Life Sciences Center

Commonwealth Marketing Office

Don't worry about any waste or duplication - the Mass. Office of Performance Management & Oversight was created with the job of making sure all these groups are working together.

Each of these places has dozens if not hundreds of employees with titles I can't even parody:

Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director

Program Assistant to the Director

Director of Cluster Development

[http://www.masstech.org/meet-masstech/our-team/meet-our- staf...](http://www.masstech.org/meet-masstech/our-team/meet-our-staff)

All of these people standing by ready to fire back an email that they really can't be of any help

<comment><USER4> Well, I'd assume "Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director" is the secretary for the no. 2 at the MTC, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. The "Program Assistant to the Director" is probably a project manager. The "Director of Cluster Development" is probably in charge of whoever is developing clusters, whatever those are. The titles are slightly overblown, but little more than I'd expect at any government department or large corporation.

<comment><USER5> It sounds like you aren't familiar with the depths of corruption in Massachusetts state government. Let's put it this way: the last three previous Speakers of the House are all Federal felons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> According to a friend of mine who is relatively knowledgeable about this law, it was originally intended to target enterprise companies that were essentially selling software for next to nothing and then charging like mad for the "installation and configuration" to avoid sales tax.

The wisdom of even that approach is debatable, but the actual language of the law is far from conveying that intent and is a total, indecipherable mess. No one has the remotest clue what is actually covered under the language of the law.

I'm part of a small software consultancy in MA, and we've now got 30 days to decide which of our customers this crazy language applies to, and which it doesn't. Is Django "pre-written" software? Does spinning up and customizing an instance count?

It's crazy town.

<comment><USER7> >intended to target enterprise companies that were essentially selling software for next to nothing and then charging like mad for the "installation and configuration" to avoid sales tax.

Such is what happens you impose high tax rates: people relabel transactions so they fall outside the tax. The. You have to issue new rules that try to make the relabeling not work. Then, the regulation books start to explode in length to cover the all the blooming techniques, and with it, he regulatory agencies...

And then the process starts over.

<comment><USER8> This is America, where even people who pay a next-to-nothing tax rate on high incomes complain about supposedly high tax rates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hey guys,

The ABI Hub is an awesome coworking space and startup incubator in Manchester, NH. [http://abihub.org/](http://abihub.org/)

I've been going there for a few months and moved to NH at the beginning of the year. It has been awesome.

There is a technology scene ready to bloom in Manchester. Also, the cost of living is about 50% of Boston's.

For those who aren't from around here, NH doesn't have unfair taxes :)

<comment><USER3> NH has no sales tax and no state income tax. Of course you have much fewer "services" than MA. For example MA has a 19 member Commission on the Status of Women - which of course needs an executive director. And the executive director needs an assistant.

<comment><USER10> But don't forget that reduced services include things like town water (you'll need a well with a radon filtration system), a reliable electric grid (you'll need a generator), and timely snow removal (you'll want a vehicle that uses thrice the fuel).

And the crux of the matter - as NH does absolutely nothing against federal taxes, you'll still be paying the majority of your present transaction costs.

<comment><USER11> NH has water (right?), an electric grid (no idea whether it's reliable, all I know for sure is that they have a nuclear power plant) and based on what I was told, the best snow removal in the country.

<comment><USER12> Since when do we let facts get in the way of snark?

<comment><USER10> No facts were harmed in the making of this snark.

Sure, not everywhere in NH is like that. But one can't spread libertarianism by proposing to dismantle the fire department.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This has disturbing implications for the rest of the country. What happens if the developers of Massachusetts just roll over and give the state hundreds of millions of dollars of extra revenue? What message does that send to other states?

<comment><USER14> I have no doubt that this will spread. I'm almost surprised that it hasn't taken off before now. But as for the people of Mass., they won't be rolling over and "giving". It is money that will be _taken_. That's one of the big differences between a tax, and government "revenue", and the way a business makes its money.

<comment><USER5> Maryland tried this and killed it, try this search: [https://www.google.com/search?q=maryland+computer+services+t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=maryland+computer+services+tax)

Particularly unwise given how easy it was for people to move to Northern Virginia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is a plumber in Massachusetts required to charge tax on all services rendered, or only those that involve pre-made physical parts?

Is there a paralogous example from a different profession that we can use to gain insight into this new law?

<comment><USER3> No plumbers don't charge sales tax on services; neither do doctors, lawyers, dentists, or landscapers. Sensible states tax things they want to discourage like gasoline use or smoking. They don't tax people trying work more.

<comment><USER16> It seems ridiculous to charge only one profession for providing service, and it sounds like software people just have the worst lobbyists and the worst public image (plumbers are the iconic symbol of the "little guy" small business).

Here in Ontario it's much simpler (but steeper) - the harmonized provincial/federal sales and service tax is 13% on everything. Sales, service, you don't have to give a crap. There's a short list of exemptions for groceries and medical stuff.

Our taxes are high, but straightforward.

<comment><USER17> You guys pay 13% every time money exchanges hands? Does that include when you eat a restaurant, and if so, do you also tip the waiter?

<comment><USER18> You realize that in most of the U.S. you pay sales taxes on restaurant food _and_ tip the waiter, right?

In some states groceries are exempt from sales tax, but restaurant food is not exempted by any state (except in the trivial sense in states that don't have a sales tax at all).

<comment><USER19> New Hampshire even has a special sales tax just for restaurant food (despite not having a general sales tax).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Move. Now. The more people leave the state and/or refuse to provide services to people there the less money they get. Sure it's not a easy thing to do at all but the only way politicians get a message if it there is a high price attached.

</comment><comment><USER21> In the state of Vermont where I live our legislature introduced and passed a similar bill several years ago, under nearly identical circumstances. Nestled into another bill, the state house inserted and passed a sweeping tax on "Cloud Services" which affected all software delivered to the end user via the internet.

The real salt in the wound for businesses was that the tax was going to be retroactively applied to the previous four years of revenue. This would have driven a fair share of our fledgling technology sector out of business almost immediately.

Thankfully, our Governor did not agree with the way the tax was passed into law, nor how it was applied. He first delayed and eventually removed the tax all together.

When politicians sneak revenue draining taxes into the business market like this, without public comment or discussion, it makes me truly concerned that they are simply self interested.

Hopefully the Massachusetts state house will pull their heads out of the sand and clear up the confusion with their constituents. Maybe by next election cycle, those affected will let their feelings be known in the polls.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Singleton is upset that the technology industry did not lobby more strongly against the tax, and he worries it will hurt Massachusetts"

It occurred to me I've been a developer for 13 years and have no clue who's got my back if the government starts to target my business unfairly. What kind of industry lobbies or trade groups are even out there to fight a law like this?

</comment><comment><USER22> There is a FAQ here: [http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dor/law-changes/faqss- computer-...](http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dor/law-changes/faqss-computer- software-2013.pdf)

Per question 23, it appears that adding a computer to a LAN is an example of a taxable service.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'll say this as the owner of a small consultancy that will (probably) be affected by the new law: I have far less objection to the tax itself than the specifics of how it's implemented. In any case, it might first be worthwhile to read the actual language in question [1].

So with that in mind, the implementation problems include:

1) There was very little notice given to the affected parties - the bill passed July 24, effective July 31. (This is somewhat unavoidable, since part of the stated purpose of the tax is to fund transportation projects in 2013 - so delaying its effects would be counterproductive to the underlying goal).

2) There's still quite a bit of ambiguity surrounding implementation, including - crucially - what's taxable and what isn't. MA DOR (the state's version of the IRS) has issued some FAQs [2] and clarifications - which, annoyance aside, have actually been helpful. However, they only begin to answer the very real questions that this presents for many businesses - <USER2> we're responsible for collecting the tax basically yesterday (first filing due September 20, to cover taxes starting August 1). I read today that DOR will issue additional clarification and guidance in October... which I can only assume will be retroactive. So we'll likely be forced to either charge some people an unnecessary tax, or take an unexpected 6% revenue cut, or possibly end up having to pay penalties. Merits of the tax aside, the uncertainty - inevitable with such a new rule! - is what's killer.

3) Broadly speaking, the distinction they're trying to draw in the law does seem a bit weird. As I understand it (and IANAL, but have talked to a few - all of whom are still trying to parse what this means), if I write a custom CMS "from scratch", that's still considered a tax-free service. If I train you on, say, Wordpress (or any open-source or commercial product, really), that's still tax-free as well. If, however, I build a plugin to integrate Wordpress with your in-house SSO system - that's taxable. A custom theme? Probably.

Where do frameworks fit in? (Say, if I write you a shiny, custom CMS in Django). I don't know. There's a specific clarification issued by DOR that operating systems are exempt - or rather, to quote directly: "Custom application software (including custom software that incorporates such proprietary code) that is designed to run on a prewritten operating system is treated as custom software and not as a modification of the prewritten operating system software."

There are some interesting caveats being carved out - for example: "Suppose a computer system is designed but not actually built, so software is never actually integrated with hardware. Are the services still subject to sales tax? No."

Again, while on the whole I'd of course prefer that this tax go away entirely, at the end of the day it's no more or less rational than the taxation (or non- taxation) of many other goods and services. The critical problem here is the implementation, which introduces a whole lot of uncertainty and risk into a business that, until a few days ago, has never had to deal with this sort of thing.

[1] [http://www.mass.gov/dor/businesses/help-and- resources/legal-...](http://www.mass.gov/dor/businesses/help-and- resources/legal-library/tirs/tirs-by-years/2013-releases/tir-13-10.html)

[2] [http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dor/law-changes/faqss- computer-...](http://www.mass.gov/dor/docs/dor/law-changes/faqss-computer- software-2013.pdf)

<comment><USER24> It seems like they should extend that to all industries and not just single out software development. Why not say that any lawyer who just modifies boilerplate legal documents is now subject to a tax? That would seem to be in the same spirit.

<comment><USER25> However, it's not likely that they'll ever put a tax on lawyers, since most members of the state legislature are probably lawyers themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Throw all the software services into the harbor!

<comment><USER26> Careful it may be considered terrorism these days.

<comment><USER27> It certainly was at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Looks like Boston needs another tea party or LAN party? I don't know but something has to be done. It seems like this industry has been attacked unfairly as of late.

</comment><comment><USER28> The main problem I have with this is that they are taxing information work that is clean, to fund /freeways/. Way to go, 20'th century!

</comment><comment><USER29> Why do all the American states have different taxes?

Here in Australia we have 10% GST (Goods and services tax). So wherever you're from in the country you can expect both goods and services to be priced the same. So much simpler for the average consumer!

<comment><USER30> The name of the country is United States of America.

So it was formed that way - each of the original 13 states got together to form a more perfect union. But each of the 13 states retained some autonomy including ability to levy tax within the state for various means or purposes.

Been that way ever since.

Can't see a national tax - our culture would not allow it.

<comment><USER31> There is a national tax on gasoline.

<comment><USER30> Let me try again. I'm talking about a national tax to divide among the states.

Federal Income tax, Gasoline tax, etc all fund the Federal Government. And yes the Feds does distribute some of the money via grants or a Congressional action (Medicaid, highway funds, etc).

But I don't see the US adopting a national use tax like VAT that is collected by the Federal government but automatically given out to the states based on where the money is spent.

Our country likes to keep things on the state and local level as much as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What a mess... So if I buy a SaaS product that requires some config on the providers end, is that taxable too?

<comment><USER33> Taxachusetts

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why computer services? Why not tax something no one likes - radio and TV ads

</comment><comment><USER34> I practice tax law and write for forbes on tax law.. this area of law may seem confusing, but that is mostly for the media buzz. The law has generally been fairly clear.

Many states have long had laws that taxed "pre-written or canned software." MA is just one of the newer states that have enacted this law. New York has had the law in the books for years.

Pre-written software means that you've previously created software and you've literally re-used the code.

Professional, custom or designed software is still exempt as a "professional service."

What happens when you're like SAP and you start with canned software, but then customize it? Then, you pay sales tax on the canned portion and then you don't pay tax on the customization costs.

In sales tax audits, they test this by comparing code sold off the shelf to the code presented as "custom." Generally, consultants are used.

There are also sales tax on "informational reports." This started as paying sales tax for "stock tips" sent over the fax. But, today this has extended to informational reports that were created by software. Thus, a lot of businesses that "don't sell canned software" and provide a "service" cannot escape the tax law by simply providing the end product alone.

I can understand people getting angry, but the law has been around for a while... I've gone through multiple audits with companies such as reuters, bloomberg and etc. I don't particularly feel that its unfair, since if you provide a "custom service" then you're exempt.

Obviously, there are always going to be ways to "technically" get away with avoiding sales tax, but that doesn't mean that they're inherently unfair. Companies avoided paying sales tax on software for a while, until the states realized that they were being cheated by these businesses. Then, businesses decided that if we don't sell the software on "CDs" then its not tangible property and "legally not taxable." So, they would bring the CDs and install the software and then leave with the CD's to effectively avoid the sales tax.

Then, they started to allow the software to be hosted online and only provide the "end-product aka SaaS." Services are commonly exempt and hard to follow, thus they escaped the states radar for years. Its a cat and mouse game that will continue.

I think the best example is if an attorney or accountant were to provide the same exact tax return or memo to everyone, then it'd be taxable under sales tax law. But, because we provide a different memo or tax return to everyone (maybe using a system like turbotax or something), it is a custom product because the service is only applicable to that person. If the developer provides a copy of turbo tax, then its taxable because its always the same. But, if the developer uses RoR, Python or some other system to "create" the end product for the individual, then its not taxable. Hopefully, this crude example is decent enough to get the point across.

<comment><USER24> Why do they single out software in this regard? Or are there similar laws on the books for things like legal documents? i.e. if I have a lawyer draw up a lease and its a boilerplate with the correct blanks filed in, is there a tax on that? If not, why not since it seems extremely similar?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Taxachusetts...</comment>


Google launches photo service - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/bradley-horowitz-says-that-google-photos-is-gmail-for-your-images-and-that-google-plus-is-not-dead-54be1d641526

<comment><USER2> This is really interesting for several reasons. But this most important one for me personally is that Google decoupled this service from the other services.

My own use case is managing photos of my young kids, but I think the benefits of disentangling the service from other Google services apply to many different scenarios.

Like many parents, my wife and I take thousands of pictures of our kids. And, like most serial breeders, we no longer have time to deal with managing them or even importing them ourselves. We just want ALL our pictures to automatically go to the same shared archive, no matter who in our family took them and no matter what device was used, and we want to access that archive from all our computers and tablets and phones.

Apple's new iCloud Photo Library is totally unworkable for us, because iCloud's services are all coupled as a monolithic group. There is no way to do what we want without setting all our devices to use the same iCloud account -- but if we do that, then we can no longer find each other with Find My Friends, no longer have separate calendars and notes and other iCloud features.

For our photos, we currently use Dropbox Carousel -- but that only works because my wife doesn't use Dropbox, so we give up nothing by having her phones and tablets set up using my Dropbox account.

So for me, the key thing here is that Google smartly disentangled photos from its other services. My wife uses Gmail, and I use Google drive, but we can both set up Google Photos independently of the other Google services we use. So we will probably switch to this.

I can see this level of granularity being useful at work, too.</comment>