Why a Dutch court stopped high school students from exchanging schools - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/popular-choice/why-a-dutch-court-stopped-high-school-students-from-exchanging-schools-1315303a48b6 <comment><USER2> >By trading places, students could get another shot at a place. At schools for which they already had a go in the lottery. This would give them better chances. At the expense of students that don't (or can't) trade. This is unfair.

This is culturally alien to me; the students receiving the benefit are not harming other students.

>Another argument, that is related, is about strategizing. Students were told (correctly) that their best strategy was to give their true preferences. If trading were allowed, this would not be true. It would pay off for students to put popular schools high on their list. A spot at these schools would be good trading material.

Solution: only allow trades that are in accord with the students' submitted preferences. That is, if Alice prefers Central to Devonshire, and Bob prefers Devonshire to Central, then we could allow Alice and Bob to switch _if_ their submitted rankings indicated that these moves were consistent with their desires. There would be no incentive to lie.

<comment><USER3> > This is culturally alien to me; the students receiving the benefit are not > harming other students.

It's not just "culturally alien"; it's a straight-up error.

> Solution: only allow trades that are in accord with the students' submitted > preferences. That is, if Alice prefers Central to Devonshire, and Bob > prefers Devonshire to Central, then we could allow Alice and Bob to switch > if their submitted rankings indicated that these moves were consistent with > their desires. There would be no incentive to lie.

It's not obvious to me that this is true? Relevant discussion over on /r/math: [https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/6uyfle/why_a_dutch_co...](https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/6uyfle/why_a_dutch_court_stopped_high_school_students/dlwtroo/)

<comment><USER4> Wait, why is that a 'straight-up error'? They explained why it would harm other students - because it would incentivize students to choose popular schools instead of schools they actually wanted, in hopes of gaining a good trade opportunity. They don't want strategy to come into play, because some people are better at strategy than others.

It isn't an 'error', it is just a decision that they don't want strategy to be a factor.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the incentives this sets up could be bad for subsequent rounds; that is absolutely a real problem. But this passage seemed to be suggesting that trading, in and of itself, harmed students who were not involved in the trade, and that's not correct.

<comment><USER4> Something being unfair is not the same as something harming someone else. Lets say I have a cookie, and there are 10 kids in front of me who like cookies. If I give any kid a cookie for any reason, it doesn't HARM the kids who don't get a cookie; they are no better or worse off than if the cookie never existed. However, suppose I decide to give the cookie to the tallest kid - even though none of the other kids are harmed, this is still not a 'fair' situation.

You can do no harm and still be unfair. Whether that is bad or not is subjective, but it is still unfair (in the sense that every kid has an equal chance at the cookie).

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I just realized that I failed to point out which part I was saying was "a straight-up error"; it's kind of buried in the sentence. My mistake! With emphasis this time:

>By trading places, students could get another shot at a place. At schools for which they already had a go in the lottery. This would give them better chances. _At the expense of students that don't (or can't) trade._ This is unfair.

The emphasized part is what I'm objecting to. Sorry about that.

<comment><USER5> Let's say there is a lotto for concert tickets. If I pay 1,000 people to take part in that lotto who don't want the tickets then I get an 'unfair' advantage.

The logic is similar for the school lotto as people would target schools based on their ability to trade not necessarily their actual preference. This would lower the odds of people who otherwise had fewer options.

AKA, if only bob or sam want a spot sam's odds are 50/50%. But, of ted joins but would always give his spot to bob then sam's odds are 1/3 and bob's odds are 2/3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Win-win swaps could be done automatically by the lottery system. This eliminates the non-fairness objection (as this optional upgrade can happen to anyone). It does theoretically create room for strategizing though: If there is a very popular school that I don't want to go to, it makes sense to put in down as option #3 or #4 because if I get it, I might slingshot back into my #1-#3 options.

<comment><USER7> > _It does theoretically create room for strategizing though_

And that is the exact issue with it: it would soon be common knowledge that you should do so, and then the people who don't consciously try to game the system would be at a disadvantage.

In general that seems to be the goal: devising a system that cannot be gamed in any other way than giving your honest preference. In other words, ensure that the system is a self-enforcing protocol.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/self- enforcin...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/self- enforcing.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> San Francisco United School District uses the multi-DA system, but here's the kicker: it _bakes exchanging into the algorithm_.[1] They call it "trading up"; most parents here refer to it as "swapping".

It works more or less as described, where you list off all the schools you want in order of preference. It runs lotteries for each of them in parallel and you get the highest listed one you win. But then it does one more thing: If it finds mutually advantageous swaps, it does so automatically and instantly. In other words, it's not up to or necessary for the student to do it manually.

In fact this feature is detailed by the Ivy League team that put it together, including Alvin Roth, as early as 2010.[2] So while this article is well written it seems to give a less than complete picture. Why did Amsterdam not adopt this feature?

P.S. There is _much to be said_ about the SF lottery system which is a fun / highly stressful topic for nerds and parents. If you like these kinds of problems I encourage you to take a look. It also tries to solve for giving preferences to neighborhood schools and disadvantaged families, while also offering special language and K-8 programs that serve the whole city fairly. The goal is to eliminate strategizing as much as possible, but it's very interesting to see people figure out some hacks.

[1] [http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd- staff/enroll/files/2012...](http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd- staff/enroll/files/2012-13/Assignment-Transfer%20process%20explained.pdf)

[2] [http://web.stanford.edu/~niederle/SFUSDBoardPresentationFeb....](http://web.stanford.edu/~niederle/SFUSDBoardPresentationFeb.17.2010.pdf)

<comment><USER9> I disagree about the "fun" part having just gone through this with my first kid. I agree with the Dutch, swapping (at any point in time) adds an edge of unfairness to the process:

\- In a situation where all decent schools are oversubscribed swapping 100% encourages (and rewards) setting up your school list strategically. Which helps out families that have the time to collect the information needed and sort their schools appropriately (we spent a bunch of time researching / planning here, but knew off other families who _really_ got into gaming the system)

\- In one of the meetings where the slide you linked in [1] was displayed, they offhand mentioned that the swapping order is done alphabetically. When asked if kids with A* names will get better swaps they kinda ignored the question and moved on. But how are multiple tied swaps resolved?

\- Also, from what we were told, the swapping doesn't respect the "lottery weight" that locals, poor test score neighborhood kids, or siblings get. If that's important, shouldn't it apply to all phases of the process? (I'm aware the math here might get out of hand)

I started out thinking that the swapping was a good idea, but when I saw how much it encouraged and rewarded strategy in building the list of schools I changed my mind. It's not a fair process. It's a system that rewards families that have likely already been rewarded by society.

<comment><USER10> > If that's important, shouldn't it apply to all phases of the process?

Doesn't that same reasoning apply to increasing the weight? Maybe it's so important and not more important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _To allow trading would be to enable strategic behavior in future years...it > could also give an unfair advantage to students that are better at > strategizing — and to students that have more resources to make good > strategic decisions._

Similarly, it could enable wealthy students to buy slots from poorer kids. Poorer kids could choose to prioritize schools that are popular, but that they don't actually want to go to, in the hopes of trading places with a rich kid who was willing to pay for the privilege.

</comment><comment><USER12> Amsterdam is a very special place. You know how on HN everybody always complains about insane all kinds of legislation in SF? Well in that respect, Amsterdam is the SF of the Netherlands. So please let this taint your opinion of Amsterdam, and not of Europe or the Netherlands.

They _really_ like rules and regulations there. More is better. Notably, the whole concept of a high school lottery is culturally alien to most of the country. Let alone a lottery with a 1000-page rule book and court cases.

<comment><USER13> > let this taint your opinion of Amsterdam

Why taint? The judge gave good reasons for disallowing trading. In particular; if students know they can trade places later, they'll pile onto the most popular schools (rather than their true preference) knowing that if successful they can easily trade their place for another one (including their preferred school which may not have selected them). Add to this the possibility of paid trades, I think it's great they're keeping it fair and simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If they allowed trading, then there's nothing to stop the lucky winners of spots at popular schools from selling their spots, or for losers of spots to offer bounties for their top choice. As an argument for, "Win-win swaps" comes up a little thin when you consider the sort of economic shenanigans that folks can engage in.

<comment><USER15> _If they allowed trading, then there 's nothing to stop the lucky winners of spots at popular schools from selling their spots, or for losers of spots to offer bounties for their top choice_

Who cares? If people prefer cash to a spot at a particular school, let them have it.

<comment><USER16> We care, and you should care too: the effect of that policy would be the exact opposite of fairness, the rich would go to the best schools while the poor would get a handful of cash and the worst education.

<comment><USER17> Also the cash goes to the parent, but the kids gets the shit school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would also be interesting to hear about why there are no entrance exams in the dutch system (or at least the article does not mention them).

<comment><USER19> There are nation wide tests at the end of primary school (to get into high school) i.e. CITO and NIO I believe. If you score well on these tests you get a good 'advice' which is non-binding which this post is about.

I had a near perfect CITO score but a literally retarded NIO score because they explained me how the test worked wrong (I was probably being stupid and WAY took their words LITERALLY [1]). So they basically averaged my scores (best and worst) and said "Well you go to the HAVO" which is average.

My parents did NOT sit well with that and just said "No he's going to Gymniasum (highest possible class with Latin/Greek) whether you want it or not. We all know he just screwed up there on that one tests because you explained him the instructions wrong."

Anyway, 11 years later and I'm doing a PhD in applied mathematics. I'm really happy my parents fought for me to go to Gymnasium and I'm so glad the advice isn't binding. I'm not sure whether it still isn't binding or they changed it somehow.

[1] The instructor told us that "at the end of your test you will have time to finish your questions". So what stupid little me did was I made half the test, then I waited till the time ran out and when they took my paper I asked "can I finish the questions now?" And they just took my paper away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can always rely upon economists to exclude any human considerations from the process.

There is no choice here because it fails the 80/20 rule of any hiring system. Any less than 20% capacity spare and there is no free choice.

So since there is no actual choice, why give people one? Is it the same as with toddlers - You can have red juice or blue juice - a way of giving the feeling of control without actually having any.

Giving people a choice and then not giving them what they want causes loss aversion responses. That is worse than not having any choice at all.

Kids want to go to the nearest school and the schools should be sufficiently equipped to cater for all needs in the area.

Every other solution I've seen is more difficult than that one and is based around psychological manipulation rather than solving the problem.

And no the 'free market' won't provide. You're supply side limited by the number of people capable and willing to be teachers. That's why you have to have a mass production system for education.

<comment><USER21> Why can't capacity expand to adjust for demand? Sure, not always possible, but in many cases it could be.

 _Kids want to go to the nearest school and the schools should be sufficiently equipped to cater for all needs in the area._

Nearest school to what? I used to go to a school quite far from my home, but within walking distance from my grandparents home, who took care of me for a couple of hours after school. I had friends who went there because it was close to the swimming pool where they trained.

We had that option because it was a non-profit school ran by a socialist cooperative, instead of the local rigid public system (talk about ignoring human considerations!).

<comment><USER20> Because there aren't enough teachers. Just like there aren't enough medical staff. It just doesn't happen.

<comment><USER21> You don't need more teachers, since the total demand (total number of children) remains the same. You just need to move them around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> French universities have adopted a similar system. For some reason they do not like to select students based on merit, and there are more candidates than seats, so they introduced a lottery to determine who gets to go to university. It's very curious from the outside and even being French I can't think of a good reason for this system. Basically telling students it doesn't matter how hard you work in high school, it has no impact on whether you will work in a bank or a factory...

<comment><USER18> Are French high schools reasonably homogeneous in their quality? Otherwise a merit-based system would be massively discriminating against students which made a poor choice (or live in an area without much of a choice).

<comment><USER22> Not really. State controlled schools in theory are supposed to take students based on postcode only, but in practice the most prestigious do their own selection. And you also have lots of private schools that are even more heterogeneous.

The French system is very paradoxical. By trying to be very egalitarian it is achieving the opposite result.

For high schools, the postcode allocation makes that wealthy areas where parent tend to be all highly educated have much better schools, whereas the poorest suburbs where immigrants live when they first arrive in France, have become educational toxic waste lands. And since teachers do not want to live there or face these students, they also get bottom of the basket teachers and high turnover.

The mainstream universities, because of a long standing practice of having no selection, are chronically over-crowded and under-funded and their reputation has gone down the drain, outside of a few disciplines, like medicine, where incompetence has too great consequences, and which maintained a good reputation based on competitive exam selections.

In parallel to universities, you have _grandes ecoles_ which are small universities (student count wise) but very selective and very prestigious, and from where the vast majority of company executives come from. In theory these grandes ecoles are very egalitarian too, the entrance is based on a very selective competitive exam in math, physics, economy, etc and are either free or cheap (outside of business schools). To prepare for this exam, students go through a 2/3 years preparatory school, with a very intensive and demanding curriculum. Most students keep a horrible memory of these years and these preparatory schools are known for being a "not for every student" experience. As a result, teachers in poorer areas (who did not go through these schools themselves) discourage good students from enrolling ("it's not for you, too hard"), whereas parents who themselves went through this system apply pressure on their kids to do it anyway. As a result, you end up with a massive endogamy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm the parent of a kid who took part in the 2015 school lottery in Amsterdam, and since I had skin in the game I went as far as studying the original nobel prize winning papers on the DA algorithms to understand exactly what was going. This article is actually a really good summary, the amount of misinformation out there being spread by journalists who did not fully grok the (admittedly complex) system is astonishing.

One thing that the article only touches on is the "preferred placement" that some schools managed to bring in from the old system, e.g. Montessori kids get preference for Montessori schools. This ruins the elegance and inherent fairness of the algorithm. In particular it makes it possible to do some form of strategic selection again if you have a preferred placement option that you can trade. This tends to benefit kids with clever parents disproportionately, as the article notes.

A "lesson learned" for policy makers should be that even though an algorithm performs better on being "fair" (Multi-DA), it can still be better to choose an algorithm that is easier to explain. (They did end up switching to a different algorithm the next year)

</comment><comment><USER24> Reason number ### for why lack of choice in education is bad

<comment><USER25> Yeah, the Dutch educational system is clearly failing, being the 9th best in the world...

<comment><USER26> To what degree do those rankings simply correspond to average population IQ? Genuinely curious.

<comment><USER25> Are you claiming that dutch people have genetic traces that lead to higher IQ?

Because a better education leads to higher IQ; so, if the Dutch people have higher IQs on average, it might be because of the better education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought the argument was going to be that exchanges would lead to poor students applying for top schools only to "sell" their spot to the highest bidder in a swap.

It would seem though that some exchanges could take place within the lottery system itself. If two students were accepted to their second choices, and swapping them would give both their first choices, then that should be an optimization pass run after the lottery pass is done.

<comment><USER28> The single-DA variant they switched to eliminates the swapped first choices.

(when a student is assigned to a school, it is always to the best match available for their position in the lottery)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My main concern would be that there is no way to control the potential hidden transactions included in the trades. I can well imagine less well of parents or parents less concerned with education gambling on the most desirable schools with the sole intention of making a buck on the trading aftermarket, or overly keen parents with less inhibition putting severe pressure on other parents to force a trade.

</comment><comment><USER30> This seems like an extreme example of "good in theory" overriding "good in practice".

The multi algorithm outperforms single, so run multi, then greedily swap students at random until there are none that got each other's higher ranked choice.

This obviously outperforms multi, and is fair, strategy-resistance be damned.

</comment><comment><USER31> They could only allow trading if you didn't get into your top 3 schools. That way you couldn't really count on being able to trade and only the people who were really unlucky could trade.

</comment><comment><USER32> Does it not make sense for people to go close to where they live. It reduces the carbon footprint and makes the school more local.

For the specialist schools have people interview, show there art/skill.

<comment><USER16> Luckily most students in Amsterdam travel by bicycle :)

You can only signup for schools in your city area, which already restricts it to a few km radius. For pre-school neighborhood limits apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Only 8000 students? In the US we have high schools that are that large.

</comment><comment><USER34> > Suppose, for example, that a student's top choice school is hugely popular. > But their number two to five schools are only slightly short on places. Then > it could make sense to register for the number two school in the first > round. They would have good chances to get into the second best school. > Going for the number one choice is risky: if they don't get in, they have no > shot at any school in their top five anymore.

Why would not getting into the first-choice school affect the student's chance of getting into any of their top five schools? The article's earlier description of the Boston method makes it sound as though this wouldn't be the case.

<comment><USER16> Because the other schools are very likely to have been filled up already in the first round.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to repost the same comment I made on /r/math:

> By trading places, students could get another shot at a place. At schools > for which they already had a go in the lottery. This would give them better > chances. At the expense of students that don't (or can't) trade. This is > unfair.

This argument here is not correct. It's not at anyone's expense. The two people trading both benefit, and other students are unaffected. Not everything is zero-sum; not every benefit is at somebody's expense! (The strategy argument -- that people had been explicitly told the system was strategy-free, and it would be wrong to go back on that guarantee by allowing trading -- makes much more sense.)

This is an interesting article about social choice theory but the non- mathematical parts seem to be making some implicit assumptions about "fairness" that are, let's say, not exactly uncontroversial. And the argument I point out above is just in error.

<comment><USER4> You are missing some key points - if they allow trading, they are going to incentivize people choosing popular schools instead of ones they actually want to go to. Since more people are going to choose popular schools in hopes of getting a good trading asset, people who ACTUALLY want to go to those popular schools are going to be less likely to get in.

Your assertion that it is an 'error' is only true if they only allow the trading to happen this year (after the preferences were set), and not in future years. The trades are only pareto-superiour if there are no future decisions to be made; since this is a repeated game, allowing pareto-superior trades this year means that next years game will NOT be fair (by their definition of fairness).

I agree that their definition of 'fairness' is not objective, but it is one they have decided to go with; they decided that the ability to strategize is not evenly distributed, and so allowing strategy is unfair.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the incentives this sets up could be bad for subsequent rounds; that is absolutely a real problem, as I mentioned. But this passage seemed to be suggesting that trading, _in and of itself_ , harmed students who were not involved in the trade, and that's not correct.

Notice it _explicitly_ says:

> This would give them better chances. At the expense of students that don't > (or can't) trade.

But in fact those students are unaffected.

In subsequent years, as you say, it is a problem. But I don't see how to read that part as anything other than denying that _when just restricted to that year_ it is a Pareto-improvement.

You may say "well that's a self-evidently stupid claim; of course they're not making that claim, because that would be stupid". But there's a lot of people out there who really seem to believe in a zero-sum world, and are convinced that when anyone's position improves, that means that everyone else has been harmed. That Pareto improvements are fundamentally impossible. There are absolutely people out there who would make that claim.

<comment><USER4> This IS a zero sum game, though. There are only x number of spots at each school.

I agree that the wording of 'at the expense of' is a bit misleading, but I don't think it is categorically incorrect. The idea of fairness can, by certain definitions, even encompass pareto-superiour situation, if the improvements are not distributed fairly.

I gave this example in another comment:

Lets say I have a cookie, and there are 10 kids in front of me who like cookies. If I give any kid a cookie for any reason, it doesn't HARM the kids who don't get a cookie; they are no better or worse off than if the cookie never existed. However, suppose I decide to give the cookie to the tallest kid - even though none of the other kids are harmed, this is still not a 'fair' situation.

You can do no harm and still be unfair. Whether that is bad or not is subjective, but it is still unfair (in the sense that every kid has an equal chance at the cookie).

Of course, whether being absolutely fair is worth foregoing pareto-superiour improvements is a moral argument, and there is no objectivly correct answer to that.

<comment><USER3> I'm afraid the beginning of your comment contradicts your earlier statements. Earlier you agreed that in that restricted situation, it is in fact a Pareto improvement. However, now you are saying it is a zero-sum game. There _are_ no Pareto improvements in a zero-sum game!

The rest of your comment just returns to the claim that the whole thing is unfair even though nobody is harmed. But that's not the part I'm claiming is wrong! The part I'm pointing out as a "straight-up error" is the part where it denies that (in the restricted context of a single year where people didn't know that trading would be possible) is indeed a Pareto-improvement. I'm not making any argument as to the broader fairness.

I'm not sure we really disagree on much here.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough, I should probably have said 'seemingly pareto-superior' or 'pareto-superior depending on your definition of fairness'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Squatmon, a domain squatting monitoring system - <AUTHOR> https://www.squatmon.com/en/

<comment><USER2> Your SSL doesn't look great in Chrome. [http://cl.ly/image/0a0F0v3g0q3K](http://cl.ly/image/0a0F0v3g0q3K)

<comment><AUTHOR> yes apparently i broke OCSP. thanks for the tip i'm fixing it now.

edit: apparently the error lies around certificate transparency and us lacking a public CT log. the security of the connection itself is not impacted, but i'm looking into it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN.

(one of the) squatmon developer(s) here

this is squatmon, an application we built the last few month, with the goal of automagically detecting brand and domain squatting.

i'd love to read your comments.</comment>


The finest Worldcup 2018 CLI, a software engineer prepares for his Worldcup - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/codeaholicguy/wowcup <comment><USER2> Awesome!! Thanks for your contribution</comment>


The science behind how fonts make you feel - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2013/12/23/science-behind-fonts-make-feel/#!rL4k6 <comment><USER2> One study referenced had 20 participants. Another had 25. These are really small studies! Their small size means there is a high chance that the effect doesn't actually hold.

It's fine to say "some small studies suggest this is true", and then use it practice because doing a better study is beyond your means or simply not important. It's fine to do small studies, because it's a cheaper way to look for interesting effects that might then be investigated in more detail. But let's not pretend "science" has decided this issue beyond reasonable doubt.

"Science", some amorphous entity quite disconnected from real science, has become a religion of sorts for some non-scientifically minded people. Put "science" is a post title and you'll fool many into thinking you speak from authority. I feel the author is well intentioned here, but has gone far beyond what the science suggests.

<comment><USER3> Those samples might be on the smaller side, but they're not "really small". And no, a small sample size doesn't mean that there's a high chance that there's a false positive. What it does mean is that there's a higher chance for a false negative - that is, the experiment fails to detect a real effect. That's what the standard statistical tests will do.

<comment><USER4> What you write is not quite wrong, but it must be taken with a spoon of salt due to the way this kind of science is usually done.

If you fix a binary hypothesis, and then run your experiment for that specific hypothesis _and only that hypothesis_ , then you're right.

In practice, though, people look at data such as from such experiments, and then invent a hypothesis that fits. The space of potential plausible-sounding hypotheses is huge (especially since, in many cases in psychology and related fields, both A and not-A may sound plausible). So the chance that such a small sample appears to show evidence for _some_ plausible-sounding but incorrect hypothesis is actually very high.

<comment><USER3> I agree that there is a general problem that researchers go on fishing expeditions with their data. But having a small sample size doesn't make it any more likely to find a false positive.

We've already agreed that a small sample size doesn't make it any more likely to find a false positive for a given hypothesis. This is true for H1, H2, H3, etc., where each of these is a hypothesis. Therefore the aggregate effect of testing N different hypotheses is that you're no more likely to find a false positive with a small sample size vs a large sample size. You are more likely to have false negatives with small samples, though.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _But having a small sample size doesn 't make it any more likely to find a > false positive._

It does. Try and test a die for load. Let's say your prior probability of the dice being loaded is 50%, because this is a real shady place you're gambling in. You further know (based on the game you're playing) that if your die is loaded, it will land with these frequencies:

      1: 1/3 of the time.
      2: 1/6 of the time.
      3: 1/6 of the time.
      4: 1/6 of the time.
      5: 1/6 of the time.
      6: almost never

Now, you will throw the die on the table a number of times to test it for load. Each throw will give you some evidence. If I've got my calculations correct, landing a 6 nearly guarantees the die isn't loaded, landing one gives you 1 bit of evidence that it's loaded, and landing anything else doesn't tell you anything.

Now what is the probability for false positive? Well… With only one throw, you will land 1 one times out of six, giving you a posterior probability distribution of 2/3 loaded, 1/3 genuine (this is as close as you will get to a false positive).

With 2 throws, it's a bit more complicated:

      1    , 1    :  1/36 : loaded with 80% probability
      1    , [2-5]:  8/36 : loaded with 67% probability
      6    , [1-6]: 11/36 : definitely genuine
      [2-5], [2-5]: 16/36 : no evidence

And so on, as you throw the die over and over again. I'll spare you the calculations, but the simple thing is, the die will get more and more chances to eventually land a 6, rendering the "definitely genuine" observation more and more probable (1 - (5/6)^number_of_throws), and the false positives less and less believable.

Okay, this _is_ a contrived example. But sufficiently large sample sizes do indeed reduce the risk of false positives. It's just that some result are so clear cut that they don't need large sample sizes to reach a conclusion reliably.

<comment><USER3> You're getting "false positive" with the method you've chosen, but it's not a method that would be accepted in a scientific paper as evidence for an experimental effect. Maybe your method is more appropriate for, say, a machine learning context, but it's not what would be used in a paper like this.

First, the statistical tests used for these experiments don't make use of Bayesian stats, so the prior 50%-loaded probability simply isn't factored in. The standard is to use null-hypothesis testing, which says roughly, that if the null hypothesis is true -- that is, if there is no actual difference between the populations (experimental groups A and B, for example) -- what is the probability that you'd see a pattern like the one observed in the data. And the tests take sample size into account in calculating this probability.

If you throw the die once, the test that you'd use here (Chi-square) would _never_ give you a false positive, that is a p-value of <.05. With small samples, there is too little power to get a the requisite p-value. (And I'll note that Chi-square is one of the tests used in these papers.)

There's a whole other debate about whether p-values and null hypothesis tests are the right thing to use, whether the standard 0.05 threshold p-value is small enough, whether Bayesian stats should be used, etc. These are legitimate issues. But they're separate from the claim that small samples will increase the likelihood of a false positive.

<comment> loup-vaillant Standards statistics are erroneous. Bayesian statistics are correct. End of story.

 _(I know of the debates. For all I care Bayesians have won by an overwhelming margin. The only advantage of Frequentist statistics is their relative ease of use. But in the search for truth, you just can 't escape Probability Theory. Period. My method wouldn't be accepted in a paper? Then fuck the papers. I'm not trying to get published, I'm trying to get to the truth_.)

I don't have the proof nailed down, but based on the examples I can come up with, I'm _extremely_ confident that as long as you use probability theory correctly, small sample sizes do increase the chance of false positives. On the other hand, those false positives will be weaker than the exceptional false positive you might get from larger sample sizes. (Imagine I throw the dice 30 times, and I get zero 6 and 10 ones? It's very rare, but it would make me all the more confident the die is loaded.) If you use that crappy outdated Frequentist junk, however, all bets are off.

\---

Note however that in a sense, you are correct: by conservation of expected evidence, the weighted average of evidence you expect is exactly zero: if it were not, you would already have changed your belief at the point of equilibrium. Which means that if you expect lots of weak evidence in one direction, you also expect a little, and very strong, evidence on the other side.

I'm not sure this is what you where getting at, though.

\---

When we do null-hypothesis testing, we _do_ assume a prior: using smaller p-values means we're more skeptics towards the competing hypothesis —we have a stronger prior belief for their fallacy. But we don't _speak_ the word "prior", so we can pat ourselves on the back for our "objectivity", and scold the Bayesian for his "subjectivity". Priors, what arrogance. Who is _he_ to believe so and so in the first place? We do science, not faith.

Only we're blind to our own priors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seeing one of the opening paragraphs say "The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everything feel easier and better to read" while being distracted by the bloody sidebar and ad on this site is rather interesting.

<comment><USER6> It appears that this website bought the rights to publish this article from the author.

The original article appears to have been posted on the author's blog quite some time ago: [https://ooomf.com/blog/the-science-behind-fonts-and-how- they...](https://ooomf.com/blog/the-science-behind-fonts-and-how-they-make- you-feel/)

As such criticising contradictions between website design and what the article advocates makes even less sense than it usually does.

<comment><USER5> Well, in that case it makes it even more amusing. They are paying to get the ability to post a story, but aren't even following it. It would be one thing if they posted some sort of rebuttal, but posting a "best practice" style thing in obvious violation of it is rather amusing. (Granted, it is not a criticism of the article.)

I do think there is still more handwaving in the article than I'd care for. In very few cases was it a small change in font that made a difference. And, even then, it is still artistic in nature. Pretty things make people more trusting and happy. Some fonts are prettier than others.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, the three sites the author holds up as good examples (Medium, 37signals' blog, and Zen Habits) are not being run for a profit. Having to monetize a site does make it much harder to keep the layout clean -- ads are _supposed_ to catch your eye, after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There does seem to be an assumption that making your reader "feel better" while they read is a good thing. However, the tactics in the article may actually be counter to what a lot of websites want - I.E. the Cracked example. Your eyes "squinting and darting", and the need to "second guess what you should be reading" is actually desirable. They want you to read more / different content on their site. Its possibly more desirable for you to feel distracted and vaguely unsatisfied by the experience, because then you're hunting for the next hit.

Admittedly, there's still a presentation difference between places like Cracked (fuggly blog style) and sites with similar motives (Reddit / HN). In that case though, the deciding feature is mostly minimalism (list presentation, no huge ads, no content tiles, limited social content links, very light scripting). Similar to why I prefer them over traditional blog layout news sites (Reuters, CNN, ect...) as the initial step of surveying the days events has Way less overhead.

<comment><USER9> Maybe it's just getting old, but with time I find I've got vastly less patience for cluttered sites. I installed the Stylebot Chrome plugin last May when Google+ rolled out its redesign and my eyes bled. Since then, I've created styles for some 850-odd sites, many quite brief, some longer.

The elements I attack:

⚫ Anything that moves. Animations, sliders, pop-ups.

⚫ Fixed elements: headers, footers, fixed-position social bars.

⚫ Fonts. My preferred reading font is 15pt (about 20px on this display). Most sites seem to run between 12-14px, which is painfully small.

⚫ Crappy contrast. Backgrounds should be light.

⚫ Anything "social". If I want to share your content, I've got a perfectly good URL with which to do it.

⚫ Interstitials. If you're relying on those for advertising or messaging, I'll see them precisely once.

⚫ Sidebars. I either nuke them entirely, or de-columnize the page. See: [http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1tniu3/user_sit...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1tniu3/user_site_restyling_multicolumn_vs_fullwidth/)

⚫ I find call-outs and images floated to the right rather than the left less annoying (at least in ltr languages). So I move those elements to float right, clear right, and pad with 10px (or 0.5 em), add a 1px border, and a 20px (or 1em) margin. Often a shadow drop for images just for grins (see above).

⚫ I find a blue link color is far less distracting than other alternatives. Many sites seem to prefer red/orange links (they stand out), my usual preference these days is for #1e6b8c (or something close to it).

⚫ I've found both drop caps and bold leading lines useful in some cases for affordance -- especially in streams of aggregated content where practice of the originating source doesn't include strong ledes, these at least allow you to find the start of a post easily.

The saddest overall impression is that most web design is actively hostile to reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those interested in reading more, I must once again recommend Matthew Butterick's online ebook Practical Typography ([http://practicaltypography.com/](http://practicaltypography.com/)) as a simple, no-nonsense guide to creating good written documents and websites. I used many of the tips and tricks from that to redesign my personal website ([http://kronopath.net/blog/dawn-of-a-new- day/](http://kronopath.net/blog/dawn-of-a-new-day/)) and I think I got something pretty decent, despite not being a trained designer. Medium was a bit of an inspiration for me as well.

</comment><comment><USER11> > 2\. Pick a font size bigger than 12pt

> However, as more reading shifts to digital and screen resolutions improve, > the way we read content is changing. Many designers mention that 16pt font > is the new 12pt font. A recent study has also shown that larger font sizes > can elicit a stronger emotional connection.

This is an interesting one. I have actually found myself frequently using the zoom-out feature of web browsers to make the font type smaller. I viewed the Kickstarter "2013 year" slideshow that's been making the rounds at about 20%, because I found the huge font they used extremely uncomfortable to read.

I didn't zoom out this particular article, but playing with the zoom level, I find 80% works about best for me.

I wonder why I feel so differently about this issue than current designers do.

<comment><USER11> That aside,

> By changing the font and increasing it's size, our email content felt much > better.

bad grammar can ruin your article faster than any font choice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've set my browser to use a fixed-width font (similar to the X terminal ones but with some minor improvements like slashed zero) and override the sizes, precisely so I don't have to deal with some horrible choices some websites make. I use what works best for me.

<comment><USER9> I'd done that for quite a while, but found it broke far too many navigation elements.

You _can_ accomplish that, though, either through your browser preferences, by using a userContent.css override stylesheet, or with site-specific stylesheet overrides (I use Stylebot for this, Stylish is another option).

But, absolute agreement on the crappy design decisions many sites make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> FWIW, I routinely use [https://www.readability.com/](https://www.readability.com/) \- very few websites are actually readable.

</comment><comment><USER7> He's wrong when he says that Medium uses a 22pt font. They have a 22 PIXEL font. 22px is much smaller than 22pt. (37signals' blog and Zen Habits also have a 20-something pixel font size, not 20-something points).

Otherwise, this was a pretty decent overview. A lot of programming-focused sites ignore good practices about line lengths and font size.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would love to see some of the design principles from this article applied to Hacker News.

<comment><USER9> Here's a rough stab at it:

[http://stylebot.me/styles/2945](http://stylebot.me/styles/2945)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://ooomf.com/blog/the-science-behind-fonts-and-how- they...](https://ooomf.com/blog/the-science-behind-fonts-and-how-they-make- you-feel/)

Do yourself a favour and read it here as it was intended.

</comment><comment><USER16> TBH, I stopped reading it because I really do not like the font used on the website.

<comment><USER17> The font was very comfortable to read on my old 3GS, what type of screen are you reading on? Regarding serif fonts, I've certainly found a new appreciation for them since getting a laptop with a retina screen.

<comment><USER18> I'm on Macbook 13.3-inch LED widescreen display and do not like the font either.

Since the majority of internet users have much less pixels per inch as compared to the retina, I think it should be best for websites to use san serif.

<comment><USER17> Actually, looking at it on my laptop it looks far better if I zoom up a couple of notches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Following the idea that poor layout make a reader feel bad when reading, I wonder if it would be advantageous to purposefully evoke this feeling when writing hit pieces or about something bad that happened?

<comment><USER20> Seems to be a technique used in negative political campaign ads.</comment></comment>


Joe Armstrong on NaN propagation - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1007174669160599552 <comment><USER2> That's kinda like complaining about zero, by saying "it's a cancer that silently propagates zero through all your multiplications". If you're gonna be doing weird math, you better be handling your NaNs, Infinity's and -0s.</comment>


Looking for a co-founder (update) - <AUTHOR>

my expertise : experience on marketing and management<p>- desired skillsets of a co-founder :  web and mobile apps developer<p>- the project : dev lab<p>- areas of interest : mobile , Artificial intelligence, Augmented reality ...<p>anyone interesting contact me for more info
mail to email@example.com <comment><USER2> Weird how the comparison is made between "expertise" and "skillsets", placing marketing and management higher than tangible skills in the imaginary hierarchy of responsibilities. Is that notion inherently common? I'm currently trying to train a product manager type and he seems to be holding onto older conventions and I wasn't sure if soft-skilled people are still being taught to hold developers in contempt.</comment>


LookOut Search Plug-in for Outlook - <AUTHOR> http://www.userdriven.org/blog/lookout-search-plug-in-for-outlook.html A few years back I discovered a great Search plug-in for Outlook called LookOut. It was lightning fast and it not only searched all Outlook folders at once, but it even searched designated folders on my hard drive (e.g., the My Documents folder). <comment><USER2> Microsoft ended up integrating the technology into more recent versions of Outlook, I believe. The indexed search is pretty quick in 2007, at least.</comment>


Show HN: A local multilistener realtime radio station based on YouTube - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on this since months during some spare work time at my company and before knowing about turntable.fm.
Maybe some office worker here have the same niche problem as we did and find this useful. Feedback highly appreciated.
Intro (telling the story behind it): http://shufflingsux.appspot.com/html/radiocracy.html
Try it: http://shufflingsux.appspot.com/html/radiocracy_new.html <comment><USER2> How is the bandwidth use, do the clients only get the audio or the video as well? I'd like a single-user version of this that works with keyboard media hotkeys, possible?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, clients are only remotes. There are already (much better) single-user YouTube playlist webapps. Bandwidth: YouTube Steam + some Ajax and Google Chat running in the background of Client and Server.</comment></comment>


In Damp Metro Tunnels, Prehistoric Plants Thrive - <AUTHOR> http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/15/10/09/in_damp_metro_tunnels_prehistoric_plants_thrive <comment><USER2> I wonder if the newly announced[1] federal takeover of WMATA will do anything to address this, or the water leaks in general?

While the fact that this happens is interesting from a botanical perspective, it's pretty indicative of a larger problem with the infrastructure that allows it to happen, IMO.

[1] [http://wpo.st/cB5g0](http://wpo.st/cB5g0)

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't a totally new phenomenon either. I used to ride this stretch of the Metro to work every day back in 2009-2012, and I remember seeing these plants back then too. At the time they hadn't really taken hold at Cleveland Park, but Woodley Park was overrun with them.

These stations also had a tendency to flood during particularly heavy rains, so it's no surprise that questionable drainage is the culprit.

It's interesting to note that these stations get no natural light where the ferns are growing. It's all manmade light.

</comment><comment><USER4> Context: Washington, DC area Metro. Van Ness-UDC is a subway stop for the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).

</comment><comment><USER5> The most surprising detail to me was how much water they have to drain out of the metro each day:

"As a result, he said, they "discharge approximately 2-million gallons of water a day." In other words: about three Olympic sized swimming pools worth."

</comment><comment><USER6> TL;DR a fern found almost everywhere is growing somewhere [http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=adca](http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=adca)</comment>


The Open Source Conundrum: How Do We Keep the Lights On? - <AUTHOR> https://codefund.io/blog/the-open-source-conundrum-how-do-we-keep-the-lights-on <comment><USER2> I've been the lead developer on an FOSS software project for about the last 20 years. I average about $3000 per year in expenses (hardware, phone line, paper, conferences, travel, books, etc.). It all comes out of my pocket.

I have tried every possible path to get funding.

<comment><USER3> Hi @daly, I'm the founder of CodeFund. Please feel free to check us out. We would love to help. Some maintainers on our platform earn over $2,500/mo through ethical advertising.

[https://codefund.io](https://codefund.io)</comment></comment>


What's Next for Moore's Law? For Intel, III+V = 10nm QWFETs - <AUTHOR> http://www.realworldtech.com/intel-10nm-qwfet/

<comment><USER2> Here is the source paper he might be referring to.

[https://www.intel.ca/content/dam/doc/white-paper/non- planar-...](https://www.intel.ca/content/dam/doc/white-paper/non-planar-multi- gate-ingaas-qwfet-5nm-paper.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know much about semiconductor manufacturing, but moving to QWFETs and completely new materials seems like huge change for something that supposedly is going to happen in the next 6-12 months. If I'm not mistaken this would be one of the biggest changes in semiconductors in the past 10-20 years?

<comment><USER4> Finfet was also really hard , and took something like a decade(or more) from research to production with decent yield.

And EUV based lithography(printing finer circuits using xrays), which intel recently bought 10-20 machines of, also took a very long time.

So without a doubt, making chips is becoming much harder.

<comment><USER5> Do you know who they bought the EUV machines from? I didn't know EUVs are producing high enough yields yet to be used for commercial applications.

<comment><USER4> They bought it from ASML. Yield wasn't the problem, throughput was - and many experts lost hope on EUV - so this purchase is quite good news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The RWT site is a gold mine of information and analysis of CPU history, for instance this 2006 piece: [http://www.realworldtech.com/vax-cpu- economics/](http://www.realworldtech.com/vax-cpu-economics/)

Linus Torvalds used to drop in to comment, a few years ago.

<comment><USER7> He still does.</comment></comment>


DNS Census 2013 - <AUTHOR> https://dnscensus2013.neocities.org/

<comment><USER2> Very cool data set of over 106M domains.</comment>


IKEA Channels Apple in a Hilarious Ad for Its New Catalog 'Bookbook' - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3265308/ikea-catalog-2015/ <comment><USER2> I kind of like it, but it's too long. I would cut out the sharing, passwords, maybe something else. It's not as interesting so people would spend over two minutes watching it.

<comment><USER3> But you watched the full video, didn't you?

<comment><USER2> I was actually writing that comment while it was still running in the background :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Despite being an amazing parody, the irony is that the _bookbook_ is made out of paper — if it was actually digital instead, that'd be a whole lot of trees not getting destroyed...

<comment><USER5> > that'd be a whole lot of trees not getting destroyed...

Is there evidence that ebooks are better for the environment? The cost of manufacturing and delivering the reader, which may be replaced quite frequently, and the costs of cloud-based delivery make it non-obvious to me.

Maybe ebooks save paper, but have a higher carbon cost?

<comment><USER6> Paper can be made from renewable hemp instead of forests, [http://www.mastersoflinen.com/eng/histoire](http://www.mastersoflinen.com/eng/histoire)

 _" Perfected by Tsai Lung for the Chinese emperor between 62 and 117 A.D., the technique of making paper with hemp was discovered in the Western world after the Battle of Samarkand (751 A.D). In 1456 Gutenberg printed a Bible on hemp paper, the United States' Declaration of Independence was also written on hemp paper in 1776."_

<comment><USER7> > Paper can be made from renewable hemp instead of forests

Hemp may have a greater sustainable yield per acre (or some other constraint) than other fiber sources for paper [1], but forests are quite obviously also renewable.

[1] I'm not saying it does, just granting that this is possible as I haven't looked into it.

<comment><USER6> Yes, this brochure from the wood-paper lobby notes that a tree takes 10-20 years to grow and that trees are grown specifically to make paper, [http://www.tappi.org/Bookstore/Public-Outreach/Earth- Answers...](http://www.tappi.org/Bookstore/Public-Outreach/Earth-Answers/How- are-Trees-Grown-for-Paper.aspx#page=1&zoom=auto,0,792)

Hemp yields more pulp per acre than forests, needs less acid & chlorine (environmental impact).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Another special feature is voice activated password protection - excuse me, that is mine".

Something fishy about that one, pretty sure this feature was built into everything since forever.

<comment><USER9> You mean I've been hitting people with rocks all these years for nothing?!

<comment><USER8> Of course not, I am sure it served an ... educational purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised that someone like IKEA has gone for this. These sort of mock ads usually come across as quite petty, especially for big organisations.

It seems more appropriate for something like the Somersby Cider commercial (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3rNQ2pTyAY) where the product is already light- hearted to some extent.

<comment><USER11> > These sort of mock ads usually come across as quite petty, especially for > big organisations.

I think the trick here is that Ikea isn't competing with Apple, so it doesn't come across as trying to make fun of Apple's style, it's just _having fun_ with Apple's style.

<comment><USER12> Well said. I didn't get a malicious feeling from Ikea. More playful than anything.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I think the headlines are trying to bait us. I felt like Ikea was poking fun at the digital vs physical world. The ad style was definitely lifted from Apple but the "specs" approach could be any new device "No lag! Each page loads instantaneously via tactile touch" or whatever. Quite good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookbook-for-macbook- air-...](http://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookbook-for-macbook-air-retina)

Cue infringement suit in 5, 4, 3...</comment>


An easy way to use GNU Screen over SSH - <AUTHOR> http://www.earthinfo.org/an-easy-way-to-use-gnu-screen-over-ssh/ <comment><USER2> I think you guys are being a bit harsh on this article. Its not as if it was saying "ssh to remote and run screen" was something new. It does provide some useful hints on .screenrc setup and while running a script to connect to the remote screen may not be for everyone it is useful.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is all pretty basic... not sure why this is news-worthy.

And, as thras pointed out, it's needlessly complicated. All you need to do is:

ssh yourserver -t "screen -D -RR"

And you'll have a new screen session, or reattach to your old screen session, however you left it set up.

If you're on a mac and you want to set up a different background colour for each server, check out my tutorial at: <http://www.swombat.com/setting-up- terminalapp-with-tr-0>

<comment><USER4> Indeed, it is really basic. I guess I could see value in aliasing that to save typing. In my case, I have a "Screen" menu in fvwm with menu entries like this:

        + %terminal.png%"caspian" Exec exec xterm -geometry 80x25+30-28 -T "screen : caspian" -e ssh -t firstname.lastname@example.com screen -x -R

I have menus for local screens as well, with entries like:

        + %terminal.png%"dorothy" Exec exec xterm -geometry 80x37+30+60 -T "screen : dorothy" -e screen -x -c $HOME/.screenrc-dorothy -R dorothy

I usually create a new screen config for each project that launches shells in the right directories, etc. For example, here's my .screenrc-dorothy:

        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/lib/dorothy
        screen -t lib           1 zsh

        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/test/dorothy
        screen -t test          2 zsh

        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/ext
        screen -t ext           3 zsh

        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy
        screen -t irb           4 zsh
        at        irb#            eval 'stuff "irb -r dorothy\015"'

        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy
        screen -t zsh           0 zsh

        hardstatus alwayslastline "%{rk}%H %{gk}%c %{yk}%M%d %{wk}%?%-Lw%?%{bw}%n*%f %t%?(%u)%?%{wk}%?%+Lw%?"

That gives me shells in the directories I'm likely to be working from, and starts an irb session in another shell.

I guess this is only newsworthy if you're not the type to customize your environment to your liking. Well, that and the fact that gnu screen is somewhat difficult to learn and researching it is a pain because "screen" is such a poor, generic name for a project.

I'd love to see this turn into a thread of neat things that can be done with gnu screen.

<comment><USER5> > researching it is a pain because "screen" is such a poor, generic name for a > project.

Really. I find it pretty easy to use search terms like "gnu screen" or "screenrc" to get lots of results in Google...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find the main problem with running screen over ssh is that the remote screen doesn't interact well with the local one. I tend to just have multiple local ssh sessions and not run screen remotely, but it isn't ideal.

<comment><USER7> The solution to this is to use a different escape sequence than C-a on the remote machine, or on your local machine.

I put escape ^Ww in my local .screenrc, and this alleviates most if not all the problems with running screen on both the local and remote machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Was there a hard way? I just ssh to the machine and type 'screen -Rd'

The article seems like needless complication.

<comment><USER9> If I understand correctly, it is newsworthy because it provides a method by which you can automatically go to a particular session and/or shell in that session by running just one command on your local machine in which you specify the Screen title of that session/shell.</comment></comment>


Choose your own environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.stevestreeting.com/2016/10/04/choose-your-own-environment/ <comment><AUTHOR> Honestly this is refreshening to hear someone else say.

Not only does it focus on using the tools that suit you best (OS, editor/ide/tools), it also covers the same theory on project libraries/frameworks/language(s).</comment>


Ask HN: How can I make money using available open source technologies? - <AUTHOR> I have done graduation in computer field, I never wanted to do job, always wanted to start a business of any small to mid scale, I am lucky that my parents are supporting me and giving money as initial finding. <comment><USER2> Make something worth buying and sell it. It will be hard to start a business if you don't have a single idea.</comment>


Perfect Home Automation - <AUTHOR> https://home-assistant.io/blog/2016/01/19/perfect-home-automation/ <comment><USER2> You just posted this 11 hours earlier:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10929402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10929402)</comment>


'Cards Against Humanity' Creator to Buy and Publish Congress's Browser History - <AUTHOR> http://resistancereport.com/news/cards-humanity-creator-just-pledged-buy-publish-congresss-browser-history/ <comment><USER3> As amusing as it would be, the ISPs are only permitted to sell aggregate anonymized data, not anything personally-identifiable (as per the 1984 Cable Act).

They wouldn't get actual Google or Bing searches as neither company would sell those on - I imagine at most they'd get top-lists of DNS resolutions in a given geographical area, possibly with some demographic data thrown in - <USER2> valuable data for some marketers though, but unlikely to be anything juicy.

I wonder if any ISPs would sell that data for any price, given the risk of backlash.

<comment><USER4> You're right, it's never going to be that you PayPal your ISP $25 and get someone's network history (though I may regret those words in a decade).

But, "Sell" is different than "Act" on though, right?

If I'm an ISP, my number one job tomorrow is going to be setting up some sort of software bridge that interacts with current real time bidding ad tech software to better target ads.

Expect the number of "ads that follow you around the Internet" to spike considerably, and be utterly resistant to things like clearing out your local browser cookies, PrivacyBadger, etc.

<comment><USER5> As /u/fjdlwlv said, uBlock Origin will make sure work of that, plus if you're serious about blocking this stuff, pi-hole ([https://pi-hole.net](https://pi- hole.net)) will again add an extra layer of loveliness to your ad-network blocking capabilities.

Now throw a VPN on top of all this (and THEN work on the problems with policy, people)...

EDIT: missing words EDIT 2: URL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's highly unlikely that the ISPs are going to piecemeal out private customer data & browsing history by name.

And why bother when they can follow Google & Facebook's insanely profitable profiling / targeting ad playbook?

Considering that almost 60% of us use Chrome which is owned / designed by the world's biggest advertising company (1) and that leaks privacy even in "incognito" mode (2) I feel like the narrative around the FCC order is not intellectually honest.

EG - Google - in fact - came out AGAINST the original framework that was repealed this week! (3)

The new FCC Chairman - Ajit Pai - has stated he endorsed this act to re-level the playing field for ISPs vs Facebook / Google / and the less visible ad tracking / ad profiling agencies.

And he's further stated that he's going to use this opportunity, of resetting the playing field, to create a framework that applies for EVERYTHING digital.

I am not going to pretend that I am optimistic that the FCC is going to build a consumer framework that we can all live with, but I am confused how Google / FB / etc are getting away with murder on the privacy / profiling side.

Let's use this opportunity to push for the "opt in" framework that makes the most sense.

(1) [https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qpr...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market- share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=0)

(2) [https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-track-what-happens-in- the-...](https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-track-what-happens-in-the- incognito-window)

(3) [https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/100319291940/2016-10-03%20Googl...](https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/100319291940/2016-10-03%20Google%20Letter%20\(WC%2016-106\).pdf)

<comment><USER7> I don't use Google or Facebook. I do use the internet.

I don't pay Google or Facebook. I do pay my ISP.

That is why Google/Facebook get away with so much. Their users opted-in and gave consent for their information to be used in advertising. If people weren't happy they could choose to not use the website. I don't necessarily have that choice with my ISP especially since in many areas there is no competition.

<comment><USER6> Even though you don't use Facebook or Google they ABSOLUTELY are using you.

Both operate global advertising networks, even if you never log into Facebook or set up an account they are tracking you.(1)

And Google owns the largest mobile OS which is RIPE with tracking / profiling features.

MacOS and Windows 10 also track you, Apple seems a little better - theoretically - about leaking your privacy rights - but MSFT is humming right along not only building a massive data business, but also buying up companies like LinkedIn to improve their ability to target you based on how you're using their OS.

So I disagree on the "we have a choice" part.

You've got me on the "I pay my ISP" but that argument died when Cable started showing ads.

(1) [http://bgr.com/2016/05/27/facebook-ads-tracking-non-users- pr...](http://bgr.com/2016/05/27/facebook-ads-tracking-non-users-privacy/)

<comment><USER7> I can use AdBlock on my phone and computer and not be subjected to anything from Google or Facebook. And Apple absolutely does not track you if you don't allow them to. So please explain to me how I am being tracked. It's technically not possible.

ISPs are completely different in that they can track me (a) without my consent and (b) with no technical means for me to stop them.

<comment><USER8> Just use VPN. Or VPN and Tor. Or VPN, Tor, and VPN. Or ...

<comment><USER9> Using a VPN to another country slows down browsing a lot – in my experience, enough to make the web unusable from a bad hotel WiFi connection. It's annoying enough that I usually just accept the loss of privacy.

<comment><USER8> Quality paid VPNs don't reduce speed enough to be problematic in that context. Free VPNs are sometimes throttled. And some ISPs may throttle VPN traffic. If you have problems, you can see if port 443 is better. Or TCP vs UDP.

<comment><USER10> Then you have the issue of anonymous payment, and trusting your VPN. Many paid services are honeypots, because, the assumption is why pay if you are innocent.

<comment><USER8> Well, but then ISPs are honeypots too ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> gingerbread-man There actually is a totally separate debate to be had on the topic of public records and communications by elected officials.

Under federal law, all communications to which a federal employee is a party constitute public records. Obviously, that doesn't mean they are all publically available; white house emails, for example, have traditionally been released several decades following the end of the administration. (With redactions, of course.)

Today, congressional staffers and politicians at every level use private email accounts and cell phones to subvert public disclosure, and by extension, public accountability. Even when the political or security sensitivity of such records is long gone, historians will likely never be able to track them down or study them.

EDIT: Congress is specifically granted an exemption to most of the public records laws that apply to the executive branch, including FOIA.

<comment><USER11> Citation?

<comment><USER12> Watch the #archemail symposium videos from the library of congress.[1] For FOIA a lot of the emails actually do eventually go on the web. But with private individuals, when they donate their email correspondence you can almost always only read them on one computer in one specific university library.

But yeah, even when documents are supposed to go on the web there are often gaps. E.g. Hillary Clinton basically hired folks to steal documents about her legislative record from the library of congress.

[1] [http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/meetings/archivingemailsy...](http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/meetings/archivingemailsymposium.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gingerbread-man "Cards Against Humanity" is known for their crazy publicity stunts. They raised $100k this winter to dig an enormous "holiday hole" for self-described pointless reasons. ([http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/11/27/503502142/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/11/27/503502142/people-donated-nearly-100-000-to-dig-a-big-pointless- hole-in-the-ground))

I'm not really sure how I feel about this one, though. The reason we're in this mess in the first place is that too few Americans really understand what's at stake re: online privacy.

<comment><USER13> I remember the Holiday Hole. We had it up on a screen at work. On the website, one of the frequently asked questions was "Where is this hole?" to which the answer was, "In American, and in our hearts."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps a practical answer to these critical comments: he could fund lawyers to fill out FOIA requests for that information. Presumably anything on govt computers and govt email is fair game.

\--Update-- He brings that up (kinda) here [https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/62a3kj/cards_agai...](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/62a3kj/cards_against_humanity_creator_just_pledged_to/dflaubi/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I've seen a few things pop up about ISPs and selling user data. Some of this is a bit worrying (especially since I seen at least one seeming-scam purporting to "buy congress's browser history"):

As far as I know, nobody is looking to make browser history available for purchase. It's unlikely that anybody aside from the NSA or some other state- actor, with very significant resources available to them, is even capable of _storing_ that data.

Ask yourself this question: can you currently buy all of, for instance, Jeff Session's private facebook data? Every message he's ever sent, like he's made, etc.?

Of course not.

What you _can_ do, and what ISPs are very possibly looking to do, is make general demographic information available to advertisers.

For instance: if a person has shown a recent interest in camping, show them ads for camping equipment.

Now, I absolutely do not think that this is acceptable (ISPs sharing data, however I do think that facebook giving me targeted advertisements is a perfectly reasonable exchange).

I just think that it's important to know _what_ is being talked about. Especially when it comes to people trying to scam others for money.

<comment><USER16> There are two different questions there. Can _I_ personally buy the info? No.

Is that information currently for sale? I have no idea.

Just because it isn't being sold publicly doesn't mean it isn't being sold at all.

Furthermore, comparing Facebook to ISPs is ridiculous. If Facebook pisses me off, I stop using it and I'm slightly inconvenienced. On the flip side, if my ISP pisses me off, I have literally no other choice in ISPs. I would go without internet beyond tethering to my phone, which means pretty much just basic email (IE: no internet). So your comparison is... bad.

Furthermore, for you to suggest the cards against humanity guys are running a scam shows complete ignorance of the company and the group of people behind it. Literally 0 chance they're trying to scam people.

<comment><USER15> I'm talking about this: [https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData](https://www.gofundme.com/BuyCongressData)

And this: [https://www.gofundme.com/searchinternethistory](https://www.gofundme.com/searchinternethistory)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> That isn't how the data sales work at all.

</comment><comment><USER18> He can only buy it if someone's willing to sell it. ISPs won't sell information this granularly - not directly.

<comment><USER19> > ISPs won't sell information this granularly - not directly.

That's not for certain. And anyway, what stops a purchaser of bulk data from reselling individual records as a value-add?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wonder how fine-grained you'll be able to purchase data. Say you can buy data in a 2km circle minimum from a given point, and results with anonymized/aggregate.

Then you buy 2 more circles, find out where they all intersect - bam, got yourself data for a given point.

Same as the old Tinder tracking exploit.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm feeling really manipulated by the media here. So if I am understanding this correctly, this is what ISPs have already been doing forever, and it will continue. There was a new rule put in place to increase privacy protections, but it wasn't in effect yet, and that rule is what is being rescinded.

So the status quo is being maintained, Telecommunications Act already makes it illegal to sell personally identifiable information, and there is no browser history apocalypse coming.

</comment><comment><USER22> Would be nice to have a TLS encrypted DNS. I know that wouldn't hide everything from aggregate reporting but it would help I would think.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just because you can buy it doesn't mean you can't be sued if you use the information to harm or embarrass someone... right?

<comment><USER23> Well, you can sue anyone for most anything - the question is whether you have a case. If the information is true, anyone who published it would most likely be protected on first amendment grounds, especially since there is clear public value and a policy reason for publishing the information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Good man. I work at Bluehost and I spoke to him on the phone once, his website was/is hosted by Bluehost. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Really this is a jab at net neutrality, the open selling of data by ISPs is a power grab away from the FCC that helped to make net neutrality a thing by labeling broadband/ISPs as common carriers.

Republicans (this was a party line vote) say it is unfair that Google and Facebook have your personal information and use it for ads but why can't ISPs have that and also sell it? One big fucking reason is people sign up to Google and Facebook for the purpose of sharing and agree to their ads in exchange for a service. Google built the most powerful search engine and Facebook built the social graph. Google/Facebook built value and they only use your info to target ads to you, they don't sell it because others would do the same. They sell ads and people use them because they have info on you, not necessarily to sell off to others.

If you ask me it is unfair for republicans to legally allow ISPs to do the same because we expect privacy from ISPs in ways we do not from Google and Facebook. You can choose not to use Google or Facebook but you cannot choose your ISP/broadband provider. In my opinion this is like letting someone view your mail, read it and then sell information about you. It is also an unfair competitive advantage for ISPs because they can place ads on any website if they want or track you across all sites not just like Google/Facebook which are huge but only see a portion of what you do. ISPs built no value product like a search engine or social graph for this purpose, they should do that if they want access like Google and Facebook. It seems almost like the GOP are harming innovative companies and rewarding/catching up non-innovators. I bet broadband companies/ISPs won't even use the profits to improve broadband and rollout gigabit service for real. It is a rewarding of lazy semi-monopolies over innovative companies and products.

Republicans also control the FTC not the FCC so they want all control to fall to the FTC instead. It is both a power grab and a bending over of all their constituents.

Most of all, it is also another step in dismantling net neutrality as FCC protected that by categorizing the broadband/ISPs as a common carriers and they want to sap the FCCs power in that regard.</comment>


Paypal India responds one day later. Bad Customer Service? - <AUTHOR>

I have recently (re)started using Paypal. I had transferred funds from my freelancer.com account to paypal.
few years back, i have had my account with a bank account. but it is now closed.
Bcoz of this, auto withdrawal has been initiated. I saw it immediately and tried to reach paypal via phone  / email. Phone, i was not able. so i had sent the email on the same day on which transaction have been initiated.
Paypal responded next day saying that transaction already completed by the time they saw it which is next day. Now they say they cant revert any completed transactions.
And Wrong account / return amount will adhere to a fee oF INR 250 some thing.
when i called up customer care, they said they will always receive email next day and that it will take time to respond.
Is this how paypal takes care of their customers? even for urgent transaction related?
how many of you have faced such bad experiences from a reputed companies like Paypal.
I hope some one would solve my problem. <comment><USER2> Paypal India is f*ucked up. Unusually high charges and bad customer service is common.

Try to look for alternatives.</comment>