Show HN: Dffer – Get notified when a website changes - <AUTHOR> https://www.dffer.com/ <comment><USER2> There are many, many competitors in this space (visualPing, changeTower, versionista, followThatPage, trackly.io). Most have similar pricing to Dffer, but some are completely free (possibly with worse UI).

I wonder whether this sort of freemium model works, because there are some people who's use case (like mine) absolutely isn't worth spending money on, but I'd like more than 3 checks for free. Obviously I'll take a worse UI that's free over spending money on such a ridiculously simple app. I could literally buy an EC2 instance just to run 10-20 daily cron jobs for less than signing up for Dffer.

My use case is to use trackly.io to see when new firmware/software updates come out for devices I own. But of course, that's never something I'd be willing to pay for.

<comment><USER3> There are some users who would actually rather pay $5/mo than use a free service. Thats because paying money gives the impression (real or not) that the service is more likely to stick around and be fixed when it goes down.

<comment><USER4> For me, $5 for not having to setup cronjobs is worth it.

<comment><USER2> I don't think price is about the task (cronjobs), it's about how you value the output.

If I'm using cronjobs for some trivial unimportant task (like checking for firmware updates), I am not willing to pay. If I'm using cronjobs for super important competitive analysis, sure I'd pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does this work with content that is loaded dynamically with JS? I've used [http://www.changedetection.com/](http://www.changedetection.com/) in the past, but it only scrapes the HTML.

<comment><USER6> We offer "full page" rendering using PhantomJS (soon to be headless Chrome) for Versionista, a competing product. It works rather well, but it introduces its own set of problems... eg you need timers to ensure all the AJAX calls have completed, and so on.

<comment><USER5> Thanks - just signed up.

I found the 'crawl' settings a little confusing, as the first item is about loading additional URLs (which is what I thought I wanted, as JS is often loaded from separate URLs rather that being embedded in the HTML), but then there's a later option about a full browser. I chose this latter option, and left the other one unchecked. I hope that's correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how its implemented. I think its possible to do run this type of service at a very large scale for extremely low costs using AWS Lambda and Cloudwatch events.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly what we use for a competing product. The difficulty is less in the crawling, and more in the scheduling and difference visualization (including filters). Presenting salient results without a ton of false positives is hard work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've made something similar a while ago called "rssa" [1]. You give it some urls, some way of extracting information from them (via a jQuery selector, regex etc.) and if things change it tells you.

I use it for tracking prices on Amazon, some stats about my repositories and so on.

[1] [https://github.com/fabiospampinato/rssa](https://github.com/fabiospampinato/rssa)

<comment><USER9> seems like a lot of us did this. my version let you write little JavaScript modules to extract data from a page (which had been parsed by jsdom already), and then the change tracking picked things up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's something I've wished I'd had over the 20 years of web development efforts I've been involved in: for production sites, a site that crawls a path regularly and saves a copy of the site in a timeline fashion.

How many times I've thought, "Man, we've made a lot of changes in the last 9 months and no one has a visual narrative of all of those changes..."

<comment><USER11> I built exactly this once, was fun to set and forget and look back on it in a few months. It calculated the diff and you could see obvious spikes when big changes were rolled out. You saw a lot of big spikes on say Apple.com when new products were announced or marketed, whereas Reddit.com was always changing and couldn't detect any meaningful patterns.

It also had ffmpeg in the backend that would create a timelapse for you on demand. I built it when we rolled out our some rebranding/homepage changes on GitHub.com and nobody really knew off the top of our heads when exactly the last time we updated it was. Git only tracked code changes, no visual changes.

It was originally built on top of [http://www.paulhammond.org/webkit2png/](http://www.paulhammond.org/webkit2png/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I use Huginn for this - [https://github.com/huginn/huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn)

</comment><comment><USER13> What I really want is something that can track changes to documents (PDFs, but any doctype really) hosted on some site. The URL may or may not change, but the location of the document URL on the page probably won't be changing. Really I'm just interested in the MD5, so no need to track specific changes.

I've got some custom scripts but paying somebody would be nice. Management of these becomes a pain after 10 or so.

<comment><USER14> Hey, can you tell more about the context on why you need this? It would help to know if there's a more general need and if so, maybe someone gets motivated to implement it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been using a Firefox add-on for this

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/update- scanne...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/update-scanner/)

It works quite well but there's not much in terms of excluding content. When I needed to do that I just ran it through a simple script that filtered for me (Node.js).

</comment><comment><USER16> Curious if this works on SPA's, and if so what are you using?

<comment><USER6> It's posaible to do this for SPAs, yes. We use PhantomJS for rendering JavaScript at Versionista... soon we will swap to headless Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is the use case for this? Why would I pay for it?

<comment><USER18> > What is the use case for this?

I've written something similar for a company who wanted to monitor their rival's website for news about expansion.

> Why would I pay for it?

I'm not sure either. A quick script in a cron job could also do this.

<comment><USER19> > A quick script in a cron job could also do this

I love comments like this. You couldn't hope for a better example of "shit's easy syndrome".

Yeah, a quick script in a cron job. Oh, but now we need 2 pages monitored. Now we need 100. Now provide an interface for marketing to add and remove pages. Make sure it emails these N people (different for each page of course!). Oh, this has to be up 24/7 so we'll need a server and monitoring and a test environment and deploy strategy. Your script is giving false positives because of changing asset timestamps. Oh, your script needs to provide a visual indication of what changed and when. Etc etc etc et cetera.

That's why you pay for things like this. Because it's actually a shitload of work.

I recently used a similar site (visualping.com) to score a pair of airpods, which are in tight supply, by watching my local apple store for availability. Worked beautifully. Write my own script, are you kidding?

<comment><USER20> > Yeah, a quick script in a cron job. Oh, but now we need 2 pages monitored. > Now we need 100. Now provide an interface for marketing to add and remove > pages. Make sure it emails these N people (different for each page of > course!). Oh, this has to be up 24/7 so we'll need a server and monitoring > and a test environment and deploy strategy. Your script is giving false > positives because of changing asset timestamps. Oh, your script needs to > provide a visual indication of what changed and when. Etc etc etc et cetera.

> I recently used a similar site (visualping.com) to score a pair of airpods, > which are in tight supply, by watching my local apple store for > availability. Worked beautifully. Write my own script, are you kidding?

You are totally conflating use cases. For most people, monitoring 2/3 things, a cron script works fine. In fact, I have one that's running right now and it Just Works (TM). By the time I need to provide visual diffs and have bulk email logic, I'm probably going to use an external tool (or whip it up as a side project if I think it's worth my time).

You can't equivocate the n=1 case and the n=10000 case.

<comment><USER19> > You can't equivocate the n=1 case and the n=10000 case.

Fair enough, but the comment I was replying to was equivocating those cases too. I was simply pointing out that maybe, just maybe, a service like this might have some value above and beyond a 5 minute script and a cron job. And indulging in a small rant against the "i could do that in a script/i could write that in a weekend" etc mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Long ago, web browsers used to actually have this capability built-in. I remember doing it with Netscape Navigator.

</comment><comment><USER22> Wanted to do something similar for so long !! I am also interested if you do ajax sites, and if so how ?

</comment><comment><USER23> If you want to build something like this on your own, check Page.REST.</comment>


Introducing Opera Face Gestures - <AUTHOR> http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/04/01/ <comment><USER2> Certainly an April fool's joke... however, work like this has practical applications for patients whose physical disabilities prevent them from using the traditional computer inputs. I did some work with mapping shoulder movements to control a powered wheelchair at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago during an internship in 2007, and I had the impression that there is a lot of room for improvement in current devices. One interface commonly used today is the sip-puff switch: [http://www.techready.co.uk/Assistive- Technology/Sip-Puff-Swi...](http://www.techready.co.uk/Assistive- Technology/Sip-Puff-Switches/Sip-Puff-Switch_2) I wouldn't be surprised if there were people doing serious work in developing facial gesture UIs.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Adult Web sites

Users visiting Web sites that contain adult content sometimes make unconscious facial expressions. If Opera keeps opening Speed Dial and Zooming In and Out, please be aware that this not a bug. It may be useful to disable Face Gestures for a better experience. Also remember that wiping your cache is recommend after visiting untrusted websites."

</comment><comment><USER4> The thing is that this is actually possible with the technology we have these days.

Look at some of the works done by Iain Matthews and Simon Baker at CMU here:

[http://www.ri.cmu.edu/research_project_detail.html?project_i...](http://www.ri.cmu.edu/research_project_detail.html?project_id=448&menu_id=261)

and you can see that they have already realized realtime face tracking with dense registration ( which allows expression recognition ) based on the LK- inverse composition algorithm applied to AAMs

Facinating stuff =)

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like april's fool to me :)

<comment><USER6> Me too, but I really think it would be cool technology

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "By using an internal technology dubbed _Face Observation Opera Language_ , we are able to recognize pre-determined facial expressions and match them to commands on the Opera browser."

 _F_ ace _O_ bservation _O_ pera _L_ anguage, eh?

</comment><comment><USER8> I read the first paragraph, watched the video and thought it was real (didnt even occur to me it was april 1st)

Tweeted it. Went back and read it properly. Realised it was april 1st. Do'h

</comment><comment><USER9> Come on, they have to try harder. Didn't even need to read the title to identify it as an April's fools.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but definitely quite a funny one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What if you can't blink with both eyes? Back to the mouse...</comment>


Ask HN: Do you like the country/city you're living in? - <AUTHOR> I'm an almost 25yo self-taught developer and deciding where I want to live is becoming an important decision to make for me.
Ideally I'd like to live in a country/city that ticks all these boxes:
- Either the local language is English or people are generally very good at English
- Bureaucracy isn't a mess and most things can be done online
- People are generally tech-savvy
- There's a good startup culture
- The city is at the forefront of technology advancement, especially software-wise
- Public transport is good enough that I don't need a car
- Public healthcare probably won't kill me or make me go bankrupt if I get a tumor
- Renting prices aren't crazy high
Do you have any places to recommend?
Are you happy with where you're living? Which of these boxes does the country/city tick? <comment><USER2> I live in Los Angeles and the first 5 boxes sounded like that is what you were describing. But public transportation is lacking so you need a car pretty much. Public healthcare I'm not sure anywhere in the US has that...you just buy insurance. And Los Angeles has the highest rent vs salary ratio in the country. But we have the best weather in the country so that makes it worth it for many people.

<comment><AUTHOR> So do you like living in LA and in the USA in general? :)

From what I read online it seems that even with an health insurance the situation is far from good, but I guess that depends on how much one is willing to spend for the insurance? I'll have to document myself more about this.

Public transportation is pretty important too for me, perhaps this is/will-be less of a problem with uber/lyft and the advent of autonomous driving though.

<comment><USER2> I like living in LA. The weather is what I like best. I would be miserable anywhere it rains or snows. I like the freedom of driving so public transportation isn't an issue for me. Neither is rent or health insurance...I own a house and my wife is a nurse (we get platinum insurance through her hospital).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> NYC. Ticks off all but the last two. But salaries are more than high enough to make up for the high rent - especially if you're willing to make some compromises about living by an urban rather than a suburban standard.

I love it here. There's a great tech scene and tons of career opportunity without the pathological monoculture of SV.

You most definitely don't need a car, though if our current elected officials have anything to say about it, 5 years from now the subways will stop working entirely and the city will come to a standstill because there is quite literally not enough road space for everyone to travel by car.

That last bit (plus, yes, the insane US approach to health care) is why I'm looking into getting out of the city; but in the meantime it's a surprisingly good place to build a career and save a bit of money.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, I'll add my experience living in Catania, a city in the south of Italy:

\- Almost everyone over 35 doesn't know English at all, and even younger folks are pretty lacking in this regard.

\- Bureaucracy is definitely a mess. Even if sometimes there's a website for something it's the sort of website optimized for IE6, if you know what I mean.

\- I can't speak for all Italians of course, but I don't think most of the people I've interacted with are particularly interested in tech. A friend of mine recently decided to learn programming and people reacted to it as if he decided to stay unemployed for life or something.

\- The situation regarding startups of course varies from city to city, we actually have a startup incubator in my city, they claim something like a 90% success rate of their startups... Also I'm not aware of any even remotely big tech company that started here.

\- Catania is definitely at the forefront of something, perhaps organized crime, but not technology.

\- Public transportation is ok-ish.

\- Public healthcare is not perfect but still way better than what you'll find in the USA for instance.

\- Renting prices are pretty low.

Overall I don't think it's worth living here, the missed opportunities greatly overcome the low rents and the good weather.</comment>


Italy's teetering banks will be Europe's next crisis - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21701756-italys-teetering-banks-will-be-europes-next-crisis-italian-job <comment><USER7> It's easy for Merkel to insist that Italy has to strictly follow EU rules since she doesn't have to win an Italian election.

The Euro just seems like a complete failure. Giant economies are limping along with 20% unemployment, unable to recover 8 years after the recession. In contrast the US has managed an OK recovery, now closing in on full employment.

The problem is that each EU national leader is accountable only to voters in their own country. When countries have opposite interests there's no good way for resolving the disagreement.

The only way it could work would be if Europe-wide economic policy were made by the European Parliament so that taxation and bank regulation would be made coherently across the continent by accountable representatives. But voters, probably correctly, want to maintain national control. But that makes the shared currency a noose.

<comment><USER8> "The Euro just seems like a complete failure. Giant economies are limping along with 20% unemployment, unable to recover 8 years after the recession. In contrast the US has managed an OK recovery, now closing in on full employment."

You are aware that the problem with the EU banking reforms (or lack off) was also that the UK didn't wanted stricter rules with regards of the city of London... ? They even wanted an exemption.

In this regards I find it really intellectual dishonest that over the pound they are pointing fingers to the failure of Europe as they were part of the problem to begin with.

I do hope that from the moment that the UK stops dragging their feet and leave the EU it will be able to make swifter decisions instead of losing energy in constant oppositions.

<comment><USER9> There is no intellectual dishonesty. Fixing the Eurozone's banking problems (assuming you believe those regulations would do the trick) is not the UK's problem and it's not the UK that blindly insists on a one-track, one-speed Europe: it's Germany and France that are wedded to that concept. They could easily have introduced new rules only in the countries that wanted them.

But regardless, the problem in Italy is simply that not enough people are paying back their loans. That's not something bank regulation is going to fix. Banks make loans, that's kind of what they do, and if a country collectively gets too bad at paying back those loans then it's gonna have a banking crisis.

<comment><USER10> > Banks make loans, that's kind of what they do,

How naive. Banks have to take collateral and give loans only to people/companies that have good track record. What they did is to give loans to people who could not pay back, which is a fatal mistake for a bank.

<comment><USER11> _give loans to people who could not pay back_

The people they lent to seemed like reasonable credit risks at the time - <USER2> isn't the same situation as US "subprime". Fundamentally there's no way to _know_ whether a lender will be able to pay back, you can only make statistical guesses at the time based on limited information.

There's an additional problem in that NPL levels depend on the state of the economy as a whole, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(See e.g. [http://english.mps.it/media-and-news/press- releases/2016/Pag...](http://english.mps.it/media-and-news/press- releases/2016/Pages/Disposal-of-a-non-performing-loan-portfolio.aspx)

Edit: MPS isn't even loss-making, at the moment. The cliff is not so close. [http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials...](http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=BMPS:MIL)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ahem...valuation / assets:

      JP Morgan: 9%
      Goldman Sachs: 7.1%
      BoA: 6.5%
      Santander: 3.5%
      Societe Generale: 3%
      BNP Paribas: 2.5%
      Unicredit: 1.5%
      Deutsche Bank: 1.0%

Two lessons: US banks are much better capitalised in the eyes of the market, and it is _Deutsche Bank_ , not any Italian bank, which appears to be the biggest risk to European (and global) banking systems. It has a balance sheet of 1.6 trillion, supported by a market equity valuation of only 16 billion. Deutsche also has a reported 55 trillion notional of derivatives exposure.

 _Sources: Yahoo finance for assets as of 2015, Bloomberg terminal for latest valuation._

</comment><comment><USER13> The Economist has often badmouthed Italy. The title is way too sensationalist. The comment section also highlights this ethnic bias. I will never forget their insulting cover from years ago: [http://static.fanpage.it/socialmediafanpage/wp- content/uploa...](http://static.fanpage.it/socialmediafanpage/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/Grillo-Berlusconi-Economist-300x225.jpg). Just clickbaits and provocations.

<comment><USER14> If not Italy, what do you think would be Europe's next couple economic crisis countries?

<comment><USER15> Here in EU, ironically, the talk these weeks is about German Banks... yeah, I too was surprised.

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/deutsche- ba...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/10/deutsche-bank-germany- financial-colossus-stumbles)

<comment><USER16> Agreed. February, when your article was published, isn't these weeks though.

<comment><USER15> My bad, I just linked the first article I found. They are talking about it a lot in the news in TV, especially after Brexit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Banks have enough cash to cover 20% of their obligations. I think that is not that bad.

<comment><USER18> Good ol' fractional-reserve banking. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all do that?

<comment><USER19> Ever taken out a loan with nothing more than a down payment?

<comment><USER18> Yes, in fact about $100k worth in order to learn about the very subject you're incorrectly making a snarky comment about!

A down payment on a loan? That makes zero sense. I think you're talking about unsecured loans (i.e when there isn't an asset that can be repossessed if the debtor defaults). The fact that the loan is "unsecured" is precisely why the resulting interest rate will be higher. I am paying to borrow that money, and it's more expensive to borrow because of the increased risk assumed by the bank.

However, fractional reserve banking is entirely functionally different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> the big problem in Italy are taxes, I pay 38%, but for more than 55k you pay 41%, how politicians pretend Italy can survive? In Switzerland you pay 16%.

<comment><USER21> How can Switzerland survive on 16%? That is my question.

<comment><USER22> Basically like this (just an example):

$100,000 income at 20% tax = $20,000

$35,000 income at 40% tax = $14,000

Switzerland's median income is between 2.5 and 3 times that of Italy. They have a smaller black market economy than Italy, so they're likely deriving a higher actual share of taxation out of it.

Further, the 16% referenced isn't complete. If you cap out the federal income tax in Switzerland, it's more likely you're paying a total of closer to 25-30% in income taxes (depending on what part of the country you're in), between federal, cantonal and municipal income taxes.

<comment><USER9> This. There are several income taxes.

Also there are lots of hidden costs. Health insurance and mandatory unemployment insurance etc. A lot of stuff is pushed onto the private sector but made mandatory, so you have to buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> No smoke without fire but financial wars in the name of sacred principles are just the contemporary art of war.

</comment><comment><USER24> if italy gets into trouble the EU will just force its members to give up more sovereignity so it can deal with the issue. they will go along because only the EU would be strong enough. which is very bad for the populist nationalist exiteers who have been causing so much trouble lately.

<comment><USER25> well therein lies the problem. they knew they could never sell that to the public so they created a union which explicitly allowed member nations a great deal of autonomy. Part of the BRexit and possible exits of the French and Dutch is because the politicians in Brussels are trying to end run that agreement and impose it.

America had one super super advantage, it started out by rebelling against one nation and winning. Then the second advantage Europe never had made it easier to stick together, it has a common language. It also does not have hundreds of years of brutal wars between member states that Europe has experienced and experienced within just a few generations.

So unless they really can convince countries to cede the majority of their sovereignty and go to the routes of states in the US there will always be strife and situations like this.

I will say, the current restrictions and such they do have run contrary to allowing for any individual nation getting out of trouble without a lot help

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Oh noes a bank is in trouble? Well not to worry, tax payers will gladly bail it out, while the bankers collect their bonuses and leave "for the next big challenge". Fuck I love banking.

<comment><USER18> You're beef should be with government (crony-capitalism), not banking. A bank can't force you to bail it out, only government can do that. The "force" 100% resides with the government, not the bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am really amazed and frighten everytime I read anything about politics - economics on HN.

So we see all this BS about "work less", "meditation", "how trees calm us down", etc. but in fact when you do read across the lines you only see a crowd of hypsters totally obsessed with economics, money-money-money, free market, productivity, basicaly : materialism as the holy grail.

Allo ? Is there any European in these comments ? I mean, we all know the USA where a European colony from the XVI century, but the country as it is today seems to be born only 250 years ago, and maybe more acurately with the secession war and the yankees take over. That my friend is just nothing, dust in the wind, in the scale of history.

So we have this bunch of unsocializes nerds IT guys asking for every European nation to give up their own culture and souveirgnty for a centralized Federal State, certainly in the model of the glorious USA, and if possible infeodated to it. What's the next move, maybe get rid of any state currency to go all the way with bs bitcoins ?

France was born in 496 when Clovis was baptized as a catholic. Our history and culture is not about cars, movies, fast foods and Wall Street. Just come and visit to check it out and learn a few things about the history of the world.

There is more than Banking and Wall street and metrics and GDP in life. Actually, let me correct this, these are all the things which are actually not Life. So just respect the right of a nation to exists as it is and to give to her childrend what her parents gave her since centuries.

So Brexit is all in the rage now, great, the world is collapsing, maybe Germany will engage war with UK and laucnh a bunch of V2, who knows ? Bullshit. UK will go fine walking away, much better in fact that France and Germany are right now, our corrupted politics just fear that all the nations figures that sooner or later and ask to leave EU asap.

LET ME REMIND ALL THE HN READERS OF SOMETHING RIGHT NOW : Brexit is no a unique event, some want not to remember that France, Netherlands and Ireland had their own "Brexit" moments and the EU did denied the rights of these people to leave. I urge you to refer to the 2005 french referendum about the EU constitution, who was rejected by the french people, just to have it passed a few month later by the parliament denying any direct democratic right to the nation. That went also in the Netherlands. And they made people of Ireland vote twice, just till they vote what they wanted them to.

Please, do not make Europe another heartless Silicon Bullshit Valley with absolutely no history except the atrocious gold rush and the infamous tech boom. Facebook is not history, let us keep Pascal and Academie Française in lieu of Snapchat and Tinder, if you please, in the name of the french people.

I said.

</comment><comment><USER28> Euro is nothing but a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick)

<comment><USER29> The whole western bank system is a confidence trick. Never head off fractional-reserve ? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional- reserve_banking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking)

<comment><USER30> It's worse than just fractional reserve banking. The vast majority of the money supply is based off debt.

Would recommend watching the 4 minute introduction on the Positive Money homepage for a quick overview of the current situation with money creation:

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

<comment><USER31> The world's population in the 1900 was 1,5B people. By 1970, it was twice that. By the year 2000, it was twice that again! And by 2050 it will be 9B.

Where does the money for all those people would come from if not from borrowing (money from the future)?

<comment><USER32> You can just print more money in proportion to population growth. While keeping a stable minimum reserve percent.

<comment><USER31> The rich people will be less rich in that situation. They are in a similar situation now with the current inflation, but growth of money has to be tied to economic growth or otherwise the rich will feel screwed.

I'm not saying it's good, but you cannot screw the rich. The current situation is a compromise and a very sensible at that I might add, despite all the noise from tin-foil hatters.

There are also other, practical consideration which will make what you are proposing impossible to put in practice for a prolong period of time.

<comment><USER22> The rich do better than everyone else in times of inflation. Their assets are heavily liquid and easily moved. They have very little to fear from higher rates of inflation, it enables them to outperform everyone else that is more income dependent and less asset rich. The poor have the most to fear, by far. That's also why the rich have done so well since the year 2000, the Fed's policies have been heavy on dollar debasement since then, which has eroded the median while the rich have been able to benefit from the Fed's monetary support of asset prices. The Fed's asset inflation policies are a prime driver of the growth in wealth inequality in the US.

<comment><USER33> I would say it's not a rich vs poor issue. The people who lose money with inflation are the ones who are over exposed to their currency: pensioners close to retirement, forex traders or foreign governments who bet on that currency, black market players who have to hold large amounts of cash without investing it, banks with a lot of fixed 30 year low interest rate mortgages outstanding. Forex players, banks, and foreign governments can be rich, pensioners and black market players can be poor.

Banks actually sell most of the mortgages back to the federal government in the us. Maybe that's the reason us government isn't inflating the dollar too much. They themselves hold most of it through mortgages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's all hearsay...but, an inlaw (wife's uncle) who passed recently had a lot to say about his native greece, the work ethic, and why he decided to stay in Germany (he and his wife did have a place in Greece).

Those stories over the years dovetailed almost word for word with former colleagues who actually moved to Milan and other places in Italy to work.

Personally, the US approach to work is kinda backward as are other areas, balance should be most important. But, the article and stories I've heard over the last 10 years just ring a bit. I know this is about banks, but the larger culture is at play -- just like in the US, Enron, Lehman, etc. were extremes of those values we espouse.

</comment><comment><USER35> EU now requires all member nations to enforce bail-in so ordinary depositors carry same risk as creditors of banks.

America - <USER6>

EU - <USER6>

Canada - <USER6>

New Zealand - <USER6>

Australia - nearly gone - Turnbull was head of Goldman Sachs in Australia.

All thanks to Goldman Sachs etc

[http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2014_03_20_Treasury_Bail_In.h...](http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2014_03_20_Treasury_Bail_In.html)

[http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2015_11_27_G20_Accepts_Bailin...](http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2015_11_27_G20_Accepts_Bailin.html)

[http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2016_01_06_EU_bail_in.html](http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2016_01_06_EU_bail_in.html)

[http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2016_03_22_Bail_In_PR.html](http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2016_03_22_Bail_In_PR.html)

<comment><USER36> Be aware: the above links point to press releases from the Citizen's Electoral Council - this is the most batshit insane political party I am aware of in Australia.

You don't get to print and distribute pamphlets talking about lizard people running the world and then get to be taken seriously.

<comment><USER35> if you follow the links within their articles you will find the hard evidence.

even crazy people sometimes talk about true stuff too.</comment></comment></comment>


Italian doctors successfully transplant a kidney in the place of the spleen - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.it/20161214/italian-doctors-transplant-kidney-for-spleen-in-world-first <comment><USER2> I just want to point our that the title, "Italian doctors transplant kidney for spleen," remains misleading, to my eyes. This isn't as interesting as it sounds.

The patient had renal failure and needed a transplant. Due to vascular anatomy, it sounds like the lower abdomen was not an appropriate place for a new transplanted kidney.

The innovative technique was to sacrifice the spleen to create a space for the kidney, then to use the intact splenic vasculature to hook up to the transplanted kidney.

The spleen is a lymphoid organ that people can live without. Many people with sickle cell disease are "functionally" asplenic. It can be removed after injury. Etc. It's a highly vascular organ and has a robust supply via the splenic artery.

In no way does the kidney perform the function of the spleen.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, we've updated the title again to help clarify.

<comment><USER4> The current title is still misleading as it overcorrected in the other direction: now it sounds like the doctors made a mistake.

If the word "innovative" sounds like inappropriate - which I am not sure why that would be the case, given this was a "first-ever" technique, at least "successfully" should be added in the title to avoid it sounding like there was a mishap.

<comment><USER3> Yes, thank you. We've added "successfully".

<comment><USER5> I would change it to "Italian doctors graft kidney to splenic vasculature, sacrificing immune function for intra-abdominal real estate".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Other sources:

[http://www.thelocal.it/20161214/italian-doctors- transplant-k...](http://www.thelocal.it/20161214/italian-doctors-transplant- kidney-for-spleen-in-world-first)

[http://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/12/14/news/torino_t...](http://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2016/12/14/news/torino_trapiantato_un_rene_al_posto_della_milza_e_il_primo_intervento_al_mondo-154081884/) [ITALIAN]

<comment><USER6> The Italian link has more info. Thanks. Autotransaltion: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftorino.repubblica.it%2Fcronaca%2F2016%2F12%2F14%2Fnews%2Ftorino_trapiantato_un_rene_al_posto_della_milza_e_il_primo_intervento_al_mondo-154081884%2F%3Frefresh_ce)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a French-speaking person, I was a bit confused by the word "Spleen", as it means something akin to "Melancholy" in French (it was mostly used by Renaissance poets like Beaudelaire), but I always assumed it was an anglicism or something so I really wasn't expecting it to be a body part.

What's kind of funny is that the French word for this organ, "rate", is used in the idiom "Se dilater la rate", which means laughing a lot.

So the same organ's name is related to both sadness and laughter, depending on the language.

I now realize that I still don't know what a spleen is or what it does in the body; time to fire up Wikipedia!

<comment><USER8> I didn't know until I looked at a dictionary just now that "spleen" can mean "melancholy" in English too... The more common emotional meaning would be something more like "spite" or "anger"; hence the adjective "splenetic". One gets the impression that each different emotion associated with this word corresponds to a different idiosyncratic medieval theory about the emotions originating in the viscera.

<comment><USER9> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen#Contributions_to_medicin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen#Contributions_to_medicine")

Galen and Hippocrates vital humors theory

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> And I was expecting a malpractice mix-up. Can any biologist folk explain how this is possible?

<comment><USER6> Weird. IIUC, it looks like they removed (partially?) the spleen to get some room to put an additional kidney, not to replace the functionality of the spleen. Do someone has a link with more info? Can any biologist/medic folk explain more???

<comment><USER11> I don't think this can be the whole story. Normally when a kidney is transplanted into a patient, the defective kidneys are not removed (adds unnecessary risk). There is plenty of space to add a kidney without removing the spleen so there must be more to this!

<comment><USER12> Yep, and in particular it's not difficult to get sufficient access to circulatory system.

[http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments_and_procedur...](http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments_and_procedures/kidney- transplant/hic-kidney-transplant-procedure)

We definitely need more info.

EDIT: Actually, looks like it was in fact an issue of space and blood vessels. From the Google-translation of the Italian article linked elsewhere in the comments:

> The particular malformation of the baby made it impossible for the kidney > system donated by the classic conventional technique. The only option then > was to use another way of connecting to the bloodstream....In order to > create the necessary space for the new kidney, a revolutionary surgical > technique which involved the removal of the spleen and the installation of > the kidney on splenic vessels of the spleen itself along their course behind > the pancreas was applied. The ureter of the transplanted kidney was then > implanted directly on the bladder.

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftorino.repubblica.it%2Fcronaca%2F2016%2F12%2F14%2Fnews%2Ftorino_trapiantato_un_rene_al_posto_della_milza_e_il_primo_intervento_al_mondo-154081884%2F%3Frefresh_ce)

<comment><USER11> Oh how interesting! Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Intentional.

Both kidney and spleen filter blood, although spleen is not essential and can be removed (splenectomy). Sacrificing the spleen, the surgeon used the spleen vessels to connect the kidney to the blood circulation. Reading the Italian news, the vessels of the other kidneys were in bad shape.

<comment><USER14> Does that mean that we could implant a third kidney to people in the future?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since the transplant recipient requires immunosuppression anyway it's probably a good trade off.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is incredible.

</comment><comment><USER17> To be clear: this was intentional.

<comment><USER18> Should there be a renaming here?

It's not intentional clickbait, but my brain did catch that title very quickly and proceded as fast as it can to make assumptions.

Both titles here[1] are better in my opinion.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13176066](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13176066)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Being in Italy, just by reading the title there was 50/50 chance that it wasn't.

<comment><USER20> quite racist

<comment><USER21> That's not racist. Italy is not a race. It is an indictment of the medical competency in Italy based on his perception of their system. I wish people would stop throwing that term around so loosely. If you don't like what he said, then actually form a coherent rebuttal. Not that his comment was much better than your own... just making a point here.

<comment><USER22> As an Italian whose wife is working in the public health care system my views might be a little biased.

Not that Italian system does not have its problems, but we have quite high life expectancy [1] and our system was ranked second in 2000 by the WHO [2] and apparently is still quite efficient [3].

And, by the way, it cures just anybody the same, from super rich people to illegal aliens.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems_in_2000)

[3] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s- healt...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s-health-care- system-ranks-as-one-of-the-least-efficient)

<comment><USER21> I was not making any claims of the Italian medical system. I have no idea how they stack up. I was taking objection to the parent post claiming that the grandparent post was making a racist statement. If you guys are doing great in Italy, then awesome! :) Maybe you guys could share some notes with the United States, particularly when it comes to cost... we need serious help.

<comment><USER22> I totally agree with you. I'm not the best person to ask for advices, but this guy [1] knows tons about how to run hospitals on budget. The only problem is that he is perceived as very leftish in Europe, so I guess that in the U.S. his opinions will never ever be acceptable.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> your leg bone's connected to your........ hip bone</comment>


Apple's annual profits fall for first time in 15 years as iPhone sales decline - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/25/apple-profits-sales-decline-2016-iphone-7 <comment><USER2> > Company has [only] sold 45.5m iPhones in current quarter, down 5% from last > year

Perpetual unlimited growth is not possible. How surprising?

</comment><comment><USER3> Phones are a commodity</comment>


Why You Need A Professional Social Networking Avatar - <AUTHOR> http://www.moneytized.com/professional-social-networking-avatar/

<comment><USER2> Sorry, but LOL.</comment>


Taking Libre-SoC, Our Open-Source CPU/GPU, from Code to Tapeout in 12 Months - <AUTHOR> https://systemeslibres.org/updates/code_to_tapeout/ <comment><USER2> I feel like this has been tried before. The first GPU@5GFLOPs isn't very good performance, but its a move in the right direction for FOSS hardware.</comment>


Facebook take out full page newspaper ads to apologize to users - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/BBC_Joe_Lynam/status/977837702933614593 <comment><USER2> Fuck'em.</comment>


Which companies help protect your data from the government? - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013 <comment><USER2> I don't think this "benchmark" is that relevant anymore. It feels way too simplistic post-Snowden revelations.

I think we need a more comprehensive benchmark, that also includes the type of security they use (perfect forward secrecy, 128+ bits of security), as well as stuff like not tracking your _private_ conversations, and so on.

While many of the companies there fail even at _this_ benchmark, it makes it sound like a few of them that have 4+ stars are very "privacy-focused", and that you should feel very "safe" with them, and again, post-Snowden revelations, I don't think that's so true anymore.

In a new benchmark, companies like Google and Linkedin would probably get 2/5 stars, or 3/5 at most. Maybe make it out of 10, so you can still include other companies that may have privacy level at 1/10, or 3/10, which is harder to show in this 5/5 type of rating.

If a company that _tracks everything_ receives a "top privacy rating", I don't think the benchmark used is very useful.

<comment> chestnut-tree _" I don't think this "benchmark" is that relevant anymore...If a company that tracks everything receives a "top privacy rating", I don't think the benchmark used is very useful."_

I think it is a useful comparison, but only part of the picture as you say. For example, Google gets high marks in this EFF survey but, as you rightly point out, you also have to balance that against the amount and type of data that Google (and other companies) collect about users.

I don't doubt that Google has a strong committment to security. But security and privacy, although closley related, are not the same thing. Even if Google stops the NSA snooping on their data, that doesn't stop Google from continuing to collect as much data about you as they possibly can. Google's comments relating to the NSA revelations have all been couched in terms of security (but not a word about privacy or the volume of data they collect). So yes, better security will protect your data from government eyes, but it won't necessarily stop companies collecting as much data as they can about you.

Just to be clear, there's no comparison between Google collecting user data and a secretive Goverment agency with questionable motives and intentions collecting data - one is obviously an order of magnitude worse. But that doesn't mean it's fine for companies to track users unhindered just because they're not the NSA. And Google arguably tracks more than anyone else. Isn't it time we also had transparency reports from these companies about the data they collect?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I feel like the title is a little bit misleading.

It should be noted that this is related to protect your privacy from government attempts to to access such data.

Given LinkedIn's MD5 password leak, the LinkedIn Intro "MITM", and the fact that LinkedIn asks users for their e-mail and e-mail password, when I read the title I assumed it would be related to security issues and not legal issues.

<comment><USER4> Original title: EFF gives LinkedIn 5 out of 6 stars for protecting your privacy (sourcefed.com)

I guess the update is since your comment.

<comment><USER5> Security is a required component of privacy. Just talking the talk of policy is useless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This report was published in early 2013, and it appears the only update since the beginning of May was for MySpace[0]. The report doesn't take into account any of the new information we acquired in 2013 or the "transparency reports" some of these companies have added. As others have pointed out, considering what we know now, the approach (or at least the categories) probably isn't particularly relevant anymore--we need to take much more into consideration. I'm looking forward to what the EFF comes up with for this year.

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130501214421/https://www.eff.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130501214421/https://www.eff.org/who- has-your-back-2013) , [https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.eff.org/who- has-yo...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.eff.org/who-has-your- back-2013)

</comment><comment><USER7> This title is outrageously misleading.

Turns out this is a policy assessment of those companies and whether they publicly stand on the side of users when the government attempts to seek access to private data.

This a 6 point assessment: 1\. Require a warrant for content of communications. 2\. Tell users about government data requests. 3\. Publish transparency reports. 4\. Publish law enforcement guidelines. 5\. Fight for users' privacy rights in courts. 6\. Fight for users' privacy in Congress.

</comment><comment><USER8> This list _must_ include Lavabit. They deserve their own column, "Willing to shut down rather than comprise their customers privacy."

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone knows how relevant this is for non-US citizens? If FBI wants my gmail, will Google still require a court order? What court would be the relevant one?

<comment><USER10> Just a heads up, the FBI's jurisdiction is within the USA. But that's a great question.

<comment><USER11> The FBI collaborates with other countries' federal investigators a lot (e.g. RCMP). I could definitely see them doing something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the same LinkedIn that was hacking people's email accounts to siphon contact lists?

<comment><USER13> Hacking might be the wrong word. What they do is quite underhand though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's the report: [https://www.eff.org/who-has-your- back-2013](https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013)

</comment><comment><USER15> I guess this chart only applies to American values of "you", "your data" and "government".

And the stars in the column "Fights for users' privacy rights" seems like a sick joke, given the massive international anti-privacy lobbying of some of those companies.

</comment><comment><USER16> A report like this could become another track from which privacy respecting companies (against the Govt.) can differentiate them selves from others.

If sonic.net (to pick one from random)consistently keeps touting "Five stars from the EFF for protecting your privacy" then runs ads where they show how poorly their competition are doing, this might sway customers.

Unfortunately this report needs an addendum -

Companies that made the ultimate sacrifice (Shut Down) rather than cooperate with Big Brother - LavaBit, SilentCircle et al.

</comment><comment><USER17> I find Apple's poor rating kind of sad.

Apple has a good revenue stream without collecting private data and exploiting that and if they both respected private data and stood up to the government then they could be a viable safe haven. I think that Apple is missing an opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER10> That's cool so many of these companies are fighting for users' privacy rights in Congress. I was surprised to see Comcast alongside Google in fighting for privacy rights in courts as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> #1 problem with this is that it is based on policy language, not actual measured behavior. Behavior is hard to measure, but especially in this area, where lying is both common and sometimes required by law, policy wording isn't so meaningful.

For example, it doesn't include a measure of security against government hackers, or internal "hackers" doing govt bidding.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ultimately corporations won't defend you from the law. You'll have to insist on the laws being rewritten.

</comment><comment><USER19> Odd that they'd include the Bells (Verizon, AT&T) but not TMobile or Sprint.

</comment><comment><USER20> Same as they gave Google?

<comment><USER21> And Dropbox. And less than they gave Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How much did LinkedIn donate to EFF? They talk about transparency, yet I can't find their donors list? Or any info whatsoever how they are funded... Strange

<comment><USER23> [http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...](http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=7576)

Transparency in government activity is different from disclosing support to an organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how much leverage this list gives the EFF.

"If you don't do what we say/donate to us, you might find yourself off of this list."

We wildly speculate the NSA blackmails politicians, so why can't we wildly speculate the EFF blackmails companies too?</comment>


Dancing with Professors: the trouble with academic prose - <AUTHOR> http://trc.ucdavis.edu/bajaffee/NEM150/Course%20Content/dancing.htm

<comment><USER2> I got a PhD but never found my voice writing as an academic. For a while I thought I was a bad writer, but I spent a year or two, a few years later, where the bulk of my income came from writing. I found it was more profitable to write software than to write computer books, but that was when I realized the problem was in academic writing, not in me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Along the same lines (in case you haven't seen it):

The postmodern essay generator: <http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/>

And Alan Sokal's brilliant hoax: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair>

</comment><comment><USER4> I really don't see much of this in reading (or writing, hopefully...) papers in astrophysics. The prose is generally dull and impersonal, sure, but it's also simple. Obfuscating your own papers won't buy you anything, because published papers don't count for much unless people cite them. And to do that, they need to know what they are about.

Of course, there's always a certain degree of what's known as a "community of practice" in very specialized writing: Words have special meanings and there are customary ways of expression that makes it hard to penetrate for outsiders. But that's not because the writing itself is necessarily bad, it's because you don't know the code it's written in.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ha, great article.

Makes me think back to the terribad philosophy classes (at least the softer, less mathy ones - the pure logic ones were fine) I had to sit through in college. My trick back then: whenever I read a paper/essay/book on any topic (particularly metaphysics), I always kept an informal tally of the percentage of argument devoted to arguing that someone else's definition of a term is "wrong." Generally speaking, that percentage is inversely proportional to the overall quality and relevance of the paper - there's no point listening to people argue whether God exists or not if they're merely redefining "God" turn-by-turn until they each prove their point!

This obsession with arguing over definitions and attempting to answer ill- formed questions isn't limited to philosophy, though, it's quite rampant throughout most of the humanities world and even comes up more often than it should in sociology and psychology. Which is a shame - those are both fields where tangible advancements with real world consequences could probably be made, but mired as they are in soft thinking, where everyone can be right (or at least present arguments obscure or pointless enough to dodge criticism), they have a very long way to go. At least psychology is starting to give way to cognitive science, which may pick up some of the slack; I have yet to see any sign of future improvement in sociology.

<comment><USER6> The search for definitions goes back to Socrates -- What is Virtue? What is Justice? Etc...

I hardly think this denotes bad philosophy.

<comment><USER7> I agree with wittgenstein and the parent. most "philosophy" is arguing over vague definitions. The real meat of philosophy is arguing over axioms. Every system has presuppositions, those can be fruitfully argued about.

<comment><USER6> _The real meat of philosophy is arguing over axioms._

Says whom? You're engaging in the very practice the parent is complaining about -- you're attempting to define philosophy in terms suitable to you. In other words, attempting to limit the domain of philosophy to exclude discussion of definitions is an attempt to define philosophy and thus a self- contradiction.

This is all besides the point. The original article is a critique of obfuscatory academic writing, and I would assert that one can discuss semantics -- and philosophy generally -- without necessarily being obfuscatory.

<comment><USER7> discussing semantics is distinct from say discussing how semantic differences across time influence thought. the former I would not define as philosophy, the latter I would. discussing semantics is very easy to categorize. I file it under "discussing semantics".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the worst part of this is that "dull writing style is an academic survival skill because they think that is what editors want." I would argue with the author's assertion that "dull, impersonal prose" is not sought.

During my CS graduate school days, I saw several examples of technical article templates (for lack of a better word or phrase) that were specifically geared to follow the existing style of "successful" journal and conference submissions. By template, I mean something that was almost pre-written where you could just drop your data/charts/algorithms/etc into the proper place and submit. The use of such style templates did not leave much room to actually focus on the clear communication of ideas in a paper. But there is so much pressure to publish and build up the CV that I kind of understand why people used that approach. Combine that with the "hack the paper together in a fury of writing in the last hours before FedEx can get the submission into the conference" and I see where writing well is not as valued as simply producing publications.

Of course, I'm also commenting from the viewpoint of someone who received feedback on a tech paper along the lines of " . . . I liked the words and flow . . . but . . " - paraphrasing here - the ideas aren't so good. Not missing grad school so much these days.

</comment><comment><USER9> I, for one, do claim to understand the quote by Bloom. I think he means that openness understood as "going with the flow" is in fact not openness at all because it obscures alternatives. This is actually a theme recurring throughout the literature, nothing really special.

I do not mean to defend the poor prose of some professors, there is indeed plenty of that, however, in many cases it is simply not an option to use everyday terms because of their ambiguousness.

Finally, the charge of obscurantism and particularly its "explanation" by social factors is just nasty! It's no better than calling your readers too stupid to understand you. In fact, I would argue that while both factors are at work, the latter is much more so. But hey, I'm biased.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm hardly a researcher, but I've written my share of dense academic papers as a student.

I remember not trusting my own ideas if they didn't seem written in a 'smart' enough way. I almost thought if something could be written simply, it was too simple.

So I'd re-word my sentences until I came up with something appropriately jargon-filled and wordy. Then I'd feel better about it.

I guess it comes down to trusting yourself.

</comment><comment><USER11> The good news is the internet will put an end to this type of argument by intimidation in academia. The university system is toast just like the journalist and newspapers. No one knows what will replace it but that is the process underway right now. Do a search for Clay Shirky and his article on newspapers and journalism, its the same principles.

</comment><comment><USER12> Reminds me of a few sociology papers. Some of the most __* awful, self- referential terminology I ever came across. Might have been just those papers, or my mood, but it left a permanent bad taste.

<comment><USER5> Neither your mood nor those particular papers were at fault - sociology is a rancid cesspool, filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking at its worst, masquerading as a science because the questions it deals with are more concrete.

I suppose it's to be expected: the problems that sociology addresses are very complex ones, beyond the reach of science currently (though we're getting closer), and soft "methods" are academic Gods-of-the-Gaps that let people think they're doing useful work while they ramble on and on about topics that we don't actually have the tools to understand yet. Physics was in a similar state at one time, and it took several breakthroughs to get it to the point where we could learn anything useful from it.

<comment><USER13> I disagree with your assessment of sociology as a discipline "filled to the brim with Humanities-Style-Thinking."

Sociology uses rigorous, analytical, and quantitative methods to shine insight on the modern condition. It allows one to better understand the condition of the world, and by extension, one's place within it. And it has contributed significantly to my intellectual growth.

When I've felt a lack of community in my life, for instance, Robert Putnam showed me that civic and social participation in America have systematically declined for the last six decades.

When I've aspired to get into a good school or _ahem_ a prestigious startup incubator, Robert Frank explains how concerns of status and position have a salient effect on my decision making.

When I express a preference for a particular kind of music or type of food, Bordieu shows that preferences that I take for granted are in fact strongly correlated with my culture, socioeconomic background, gender, and profession.

When I pay money to send a virtual gift to a friend, Baudrillard shows that I'm motivated by "sign value" rather than "use value" -- that what an object represents matters more than what it actually does.

And that's just the beginning.

Sociology gets a lot of criticism, perhaps because it's such a broad field. However, it has done more to shape my understanding of the world than any single other discipline, and I'm far from speaking alone.

<comment><USER14> Well, you listed several prominent sociologists and stuff they claimed. That doesn't in any way, shape, or form prove that their claims are true or even based on falsifiable hypotheses and experimentation like the sciences we trust, i.e., physics and medicine.

This is probably because sociology is one of those disciplines, and I use the term loosely, that really isn't yet close to being able to have its referents captured, chopped up, classified, quantified, analyzed and put into little boxes.

In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say the observations you point to could have been made by your run-of-the-mill keen observer of humanity, like a Tom Wolfe or Shakespeare.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NOAA tells SpaceX to turn off the camera 9 minutes into Iridium Next launch - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/spacex-launches-a-rocket-but-noaa-prevented-some-of-it-from-being-shown/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was the most interesting statement for me in this blurb. -- _" These NOAA regulations were enacted to prevent individuals from launching and flying their own personal spy satellites in space. However, as astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell pointed out on Twitter, it is not clear what national security rationale there is for controlling cameras on the second stage of SpaceX rockets."_

I asked in this comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555617)) what happens when someone sends up a cubesat that turns out to be a "spy satellite." Apparently NOAA has a regulation for that. Apparently buried in this web site ([https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/](https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/CRSRA/)) which includes _" Balance commercial viability of private Earth remote sensing space systems and sound regulatory practices and policies while protecting national security, foreign policy and international obligations."_

So I guess they would come after you if you put up a cubesat that you could point in any direction and take pictures and send them back to Earth.</comment>


Where to move from Debian on desktop? - <AUTHOR>

I am a bit tired of the systemd controversy. And as years pass, I am also getting tired of change for the sake of change and of younger generations taking Debian into unpredictable directions.<p>Should I look into FreeBSD or even NetBSD? Or jump onto Gentoo? Any other alternatives to consider? <comment><USER2> PC-BSD looks ok - actual FreeBSD is behind in the desktop department; if you like minimalism, Slackware appears similar to Debian.</comment>


Opera downloads triple after browser ballot screen debut - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9165458/Opera_downloads_triple_after_browser_ballot_screen_debut

<comment><USER2> Well deservedly so. I use Chrome now, instead of Opera, but I'm using features that Opera first pioneered.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this really count as good news? The choice a user makes on the ballot screen is essentially random. That their downloads triple just says that they originally had very few downloads.

<comment><USER4> Ins and outs Opera is a very good browser, mine favorite. I think they just have that bad karma, possibly stuck to them from the ealy days when they used to display ads on the toolbar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This has nothing to do with the fact they released a new version?

And these are just downloads, not necessarily long-term users. I'd rather see the remaining users in, say, 3 months.

<comment><USER6> Your "new version"-concern is addressed in the third paragraph: _Assev said the swell of downloads was above and beyond the increase caused by the final release of Opera 10.5 for Windows yesterday. "We compared the downloads against previous launches, such as Opera 10.0, 10.10 and 9.5, and the tripling is above what we would normally expect with a new version launch," he said._

<comment><USER7> Yes - "above and beyond" but still affected by the new release which means that the ballot didn't cause downloads to triple - to increase, but not to the extent that the headline makes it seem. They don't even try to explain what kind of increase above what they would expect they are getting. maybe its double what they expected, maybe its 5%. The fact that they don't really go into it makes me a bit suspicious.

<comment><USER8> I think you parsed that incorectly,

      Normal = X
      Normal after realease = X * Y
      What they saw = (X * Y) * 3

PS: The browser choice is on a per country basis, so they can easly seperate the effect.

<comment><USER9>
      Normal = X
      Normal after realease = X * Y
      What they saw: (X * Y) < (X * 3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So they got their wish. They got the EU to enforce a browser ballot to gain popularity because their marketshare blows. It's funny how Mozilla never needed to use government to get to the 25% marketshare they have.

<comment><USER11> What difference does it make if the EU gives you the boost or if Google does? Either way it helps take the internet out of IE's hands, lets just be thankful for that.

Also, woot Opera. I really do feel it could be a dominant browser if given a chance. It has the best mouse gestures interface, built in torrent support, excellent dev tools, fastest js engine on the market, superb standards support, and a very sleek UI. Good to see it get some attention, even if it is a bit forced.

<comment><USER12> What makes you think it hasn't been given a chance but Chrome/Firefox/Safari have?

Aside from IE, it's a pretty open market for browsers and thus far Opera hasn't dominated.

<comment><USER13> False,

Safari comes pre-installed on macs.

Firefox comes pre-installed on linux and was the first open source browser and was adopted by many for this.

Chrome is advertised all over Googles network of sites telling non tech people that they will see youtube and other sites better with chome.

Opera is just there and sadly forgotten.

<comment><USER14> I remember the surprise that I experienced when Opera suddenly appeared on my Macbook. I had no idea how it happened, until I did some research and discovered that it gets installed with the Adobe CS.

<comment><USER13> uh... You sure about that? Opera did not install when I installed Abobe CS.

<comment><USER15> There were ancient versions of the free Opera.app buried inside the app bundles for several programs in the Adobe Suite at least through CS3. If I remember correctly, both Help Viewer and Bridge wrap Opera. They hid it from the user, but not from LaunchServices -- right click on an html file, open with, and there would be at least one copy of Opera there. Launching it would reveal it to be from back when the free version had a banner ad in the browser chrome...

Acrobat Professional had a full copy of MySQL included in its bundle, and there'd be a mysqld process running whenever it was.

When they switch to WebKit, they'll probably bundle their whole own copy of that too, probably via their Air runtime.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Good Tips For Faster Websites By Google - <AUTHOR> http://guidesigner.net/collection-of-development/good-tips-for-faster-websites-by-google/ <comment><USER2> Miserable. No discussion of the topic or even commentary. Useless "me too" post.</comment>