Why Should I Care That No One's Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/04/dzhokhar_tsarnaev_and_miranda_rights_the_public_safety_exception_and_terrorism.html <comment><USER3> You shouldn't care. Because not reading someone under arrest the Miranda warning is constitutionally irrelevant in and of itself. It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial.

Discussing the similar case of Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square, Orin Kerr, a law professor who is an expert on the 4th Amendment wrote:

"Importantly, though, it would not have violated Shahzad's constitutional rights to not read him his Miranda rights. A lot of people assume that the police are required to read a suspect his rights when he is arrested. That is, they assume that one of a person's rights is the right to be read their rights. It often happens that way on Law & Order, but that's not what the law actually requires. Under Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003), it is lawful for the police to not read a suspect his Miranda rights, interrogate him, and then obtain a statement that would be inadmissible in court. Chavez holds that a person's constitutional rights are violated only if the prosecution tries to have the statement admitted in court. See id. at 772-73. Indeed, the prosecution is even allowed to admit any physical evidence discovered as a fruit of the statement obtained in violation of Miranda — only the actual statement is excluded. See United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630 (2004). So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful."

Oops, link: <http://www.volokh.com/2010/05/05/shahzad-and-miranda-rights/>

<comment><USER4> Being read your Miranda rights also serves as an explicit acknowledgement by the state that you have those rights. Most of the time, this isn't really important, but in this case it would have served a very important purpose.

The Bush administration systematically created a legal netherworld for people they captured on suspicion of terrorism -- people usually referred to as "enemy combatants". They weren't arrested per se, so they weren't entitled to a trial, lawyers, or even the basic rights we associate with a criminal trial such as protection against self-incrimination (i.e. the right to remain silent). On the other hand, the administration argued they weren't prisoners of war either, so the Geneva Convention didn't apply to them.

By defining enemy combatants in this negative way -- in terms of what they are _not_ \-- the Bush administration pushed enemy combatant status into a grey area where no pre-existing legal rules seemed to apply. That's how they argued that torture was legal: they said that laws prohibiting torture only applied to prisoners of war or people charged with crimes, and that because enemy combatants weren't either of those things, they could legally be tortured.

If they had read this guy his Miranda rights, the Obama administration would have made it clear that they would treat his future as a police matter and that they were rejecting the enemy combatant framework in this case. They failed to do that, and I think it's a wasted opportunity.

(By the way, when justifying drone strikes and the courtroom procedures at Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has continued the enemy combatant framework that Bush's lawyers established.)

<comment><USER5> Don't blame Bush, the Obama administration Justice department created the Miranda exception for "operational terrorists". This has nothing to do with enemy combatants; rather, there is the possibility that an active terror suspect on US soil has information about an active threat to public safety, and the police have a right (and duty) to question him about possible threats.

<comment><USER6> They have the duty to do that, only he has the right not to answer, despite not having been told so. You have to defend even terrorists' rights if you want yours to stand.

<comment><USER7> >>You have to defend even terrorists' rights if you want yours to stand.

Completely agree with this. Unfortunately most people are too stupid to realize that in order to protect your constitutionals rights you must also protect the rights of people you do not like, i.e. hate spouting religious extremists, of any religion. Even the rights of killers like the Boston bombers must be protected if we want ours to be protected.

<comment><USER8> I'm with you as far as _suspects_. _Suspects_ should have their rights protected. Convicted felons, however, we _already_ deny a number of constitutional rights de-facto. E.g., right to bear arms and freedom of travel.

<comment><USER9> Please tell me when he was convicted?

I do not know if you were simply clarifying the parent post or actually referring to the Boston bomber, but the fact of the matter is, you become a "convicted felon" when you've found guilty in the court of law.

<comment><USER8> Clarifying parent. I know this individual has not been convicted yet, and ergo is not a convinced felon. Just responding to this:

 _you must also protect the rights of people you do not like. Even the rights of killers ... must be protected if we want ours to be protected._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sir Thomas More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

<comment><USER11> I had not heard that quote before but it really spoke to me. That's a very articulate statement of why Guantanamo and other modern injustices "in the name of freedom" are simply not so. I want every despicable terrorist to have a fair trial so that when my time in court comes (if it ever does) I know I'll have a fair chance.

<comment><USER12> It's from a play called 'A Man for All Seasons', doesn't diminish its relevance though.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons#Themes>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Jesus people. Read about what the "public safety exception" actually is before going all police-state-paranoid.

If the FBI or police try to misuse or abuse the public safety exception to attempt to get Tsarnaev to incriminate himself then they are going to have some fun times in court and get their asses handed to them. I'm skeptical that that's what's happening. I'm also skeptical that he's not been read his rights before being interrogated. Let's keep our heads on straight and avoid operating on incomplete data.

<comment><USER14> "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not hear his Miranda rights before the FBI questions him Friday night" [id.]

This implies he'll be going through a potentially long interrogation with the FBI that may be admittable as evidence, without having been given a Miranda warning. There is definitely something about this application of the "public safety exception", and the stare decisis discussed in the article, that gives cause for concern. We generally prefer citizens to know of their fifth amendment protections prior to a custodial interrogation. The fact he was in possession of a weapon or other armaments in his person should not defeat this aim.

<comment><USER15> >This implies he'll be going through a potentially long interrogation with the FBI that may be admittable as evidence, without having been given a Miranda warning.

Any statements before the Miranda warning are inadmissable in court:

<http://www.volokh.com/2010/05/05/shahzad-and-miranda-rights/>

<comment><USER14> "if the defendant is in possession of information regarding ... exigent circumstances which require protection of the public, the defendant may be questioned without warning and his responses, though incriminating, will be admissible in evidence"[1]

The public safety exception allows for some latitude for police to gather admissible information prior to giving a miranda warning.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona>

<comment><USER16> This is correct. However, as I understand it, a defense attorney can throw holy hell to prevent the admission of such statements in court and has a decent chance of winning.

They don't need him to say a word to convict him of a staggering number and severity of crimes. I would be surprised if they even bother trying to admit as evidence anything he says during interrogation, and after chatting with a couple of con-law lawyers who all concurred I feel that's a pretty fair guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is literally no point having rights at all if there are exceptions to those rights which can be used but authority when things get difficult or controversial. A right is universal, if there is an exception, its is no longer universal, there for no longer a right. If a right is not universal, it becomes a privilege.

The whole point of rights is to protect individuals when things get difficult, when people's emotions or political bias over ride actual justice.

When everything is normal and fine, what do you need rights for? Nothing what so ever. You only rely on them in the extremes, when things go wrong or when you are being unfairly treated by the state (or business). But that is exactly when government, law enforcement, etc want to suspend them, and they do. So, in the end, it become totally pointless.

<comment><USER18> Let's cut to the chase, what if, as in this case, granting an individual their full rights could deprive others of their rights, like the right to not be blown up by another bomb?

You are suggesting that rights only have value if there are no exceptions to those rights. I disagree.

Rights have value, but there must be a way to assign value to each individual right for each person, otherwise, when you cannot grant everyone in society all of their rights simultaneously, how do you decide who gets which rights and who does not?

<comment><USER19> It is not a zero-sum game. Depriving a right from a suspected terrorist does not necessarily guarantee the right of some other, unrelated person. Rights are rights, selectively applying them is the slipperiest of slopes.

<comment><USER20> There wasn't an assertion that depriving one person's rights necessarily (in all possible cases) guarantees others' rights. The implication was that there are real cases where this is the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For people asking "how do we know he wont be read his rights" its because the DA Carmen Ortiz[1] said she wouldn't in the press conference immediately following the suspects capture[2].

1\. [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united- stat...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states- district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck)

2\. I haven't been able to find video although I saw it live, this site confirms [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/19/boston-bombing- su...](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/19/boston-bombing-suspect-is- not-being-read-his-miranda-rights-why-and-what-does-that-mean/)

<comment><USER22> Unfortunately, this gives Carmen Ortiz every chance to be known for something other than the prosecution of Aaron Swartz.

<comment><USER23> Don't forget this as well: [http://reason.com/archives/2012/11/21/drug- dealing-and-legal...](http://reason.com/archives/2012/11/21/drug-dealing-and- legal-stealing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Serious question... Have we verified that the reason he hasn't been mirandized yet is anything other than the fact that he's in serious condition and may not yet be able to affirm that he is aware of his rights?

<comment><USER13> We haven't even verified that he hasn't been mirandized yet.

So, no.

<comment><USER25> [http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/doj-official- no-...](http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/doj-official-no-miranda- rights-for-boston-bombing?ref=fpb)

 _A DOJ official explains why Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev has not been read his Miranda rights.

"The suspect is en route to the hospital for immediate treatment," the official tells TPM's Sahil Kapur. "But we plan to invoke the public safety exception to Miranda in order to question the suspect extensively about other potential explosive devices or accomplices and to gain critical intelligence."

The public safety exception allows law enforcement officials to question suspects briefly in a legally admissable way prior to providing Miranda rights in cases of terrorism or when the public might face imminent threat. _

<comment><USER26> I'm fairly sure that the various agencies and investigative apparatuses have generally come to the consensus that there is no remaining threat, and have explicitly said as much. How can they invoke this Exception when they have stated (and, now as it has become obvious) that there is not a threat? It just seems that invoking the Exception is tantamount to a post facto repudiation of their previous statements, and would require some sort of justification for a reemergence of a threat other than some assertion that conflicts what the entire rest of the world has agreed upon (something which they don't seem to have). They're trying to have their cake and eat it, and it doesn't seem as though it will go over well in court.

I'm not versed in the law at all, but this seems intuitively sketchy and lacking in justification. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER27> What amazes me is how quickly law enforcement starts using various loopholes. It doesn't seem to be necessary here and reading Miranda rights takes less then 30 seconds, still they're not doing it. To think of another example several years ago it was a common knowledge that tasers could be used only when there is threat to others now it is standard practice to taser anyone who doesn't follow police orders.

<comment><USER28> The Miranda Warning reminds people that they don't have to say anything and that there's no real benefit to doing so anyway. If you want maximum information out of someone, then it runs counter to that, so you would prefer not to say it if possible. There's a great two-part youtube video on the benefits of the 5th Amendment, the second part is with a 30-year veteran police officer who talks about strategies around the Miranda warning [1]

Here in Australia, things are a little different - not talking to the police _can_ be held against you in a court of law, as you've hindered them in their duties. I'm not sure of the details, just that the local law advice sites say "It's not like in the US on TV".

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs. It is not unreasonable for the FBI to be concerned that they may have left other bombs in place that could detonate later. Or, that there were other people involved that we don't know about. Invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights seems prudent to me.

<comment><USER30> No, Tsarnaev and his brother did not plant bombs as of the current moment. They are SUSPECTS in a criminal investigation in which one or more parties planted bombs.

Be VERY, VERY careful before you throw out that distinction. One day you may find yourself arrested for something you did or didn't do, only to find public opinion very much against you based on little more than hearsay.

<comment><USER31> Ya know, I'm all for "innocent until proven guilty" but blury pictures of them dropping a bag, a witness description, a car chase where they threw bombs out the window, a shootout where one brother got hit with shrapnel of his own pressure cooker bomb, etc.

Let justice do its blind thing but it's OK for us to state the obvious. They did it.

<comment><USER32> I'm getting the feeling the defense is going to have a hell of a time finding an impartial jury.

<comment><USER33> We wouldn't want them to be confused with the facts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I thought witholding Miranda means that anything he says is inadmissible as evidence in a court of law – but it's not like there's a lack of other incriminating evidence so that they would need to use self-incrimination to form a case against him.

<comment><USER35> They don't care. They have enough evidence to put him away for life, or to even execute him.

<comment><USER36> Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

<comment><USER37> It will be tried in federal court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm more concerned that Lindsey Graham and John McCain are hoping to declare this kid an "Enemy Combatant"

<comment><USER39> After attacking the president's legalese regarding hypothetical drone strikes on citizens. Political theatre, the lot of it.

<comment><USER40> Not McCain. He strongly criticized Rand's filibuster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Because lawmakers are terrified of proper process under our legal system, really says a lot (remember most Senators are lawyers).

I guess all rights can have restrictions in this country except gun ownership.

Several Senators have insisted he should NOT be mirandized a couple days after voting down background-checks for all gun sales. I don't understand how they can not implode from their lack of consistency.

<comment><USER42> What pisses me off most about fanatic gun owners who talk about their rights and being able to protect themselves in case the "government goes rogue", is that they seem to be very apathetic, or even _supportive_ of measures such as this or of government infringing other rights like the 4th amendment, the 1st, the 5th, 6th, etc. You'd think that the people so worried about the government going rogue would be the first to be outraged by such infringements of rights, too. But apparently not.

<comment><USER43> Be careful. That kind of rhetoric is one step away from, and seems to be intended to imply, the claim that the pro-gun position is itself invalid or less valid because of _other_ positions held by some of its proponents, which is textbook fallacy.

<comment><USER44> "Be careful"?! I have to say, that sounds rather menacing!

I think the argument is specifically about how the positions they hold are inconsistent. This says nothing about the positions themselves. Doesn't even imply it, to my eyes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "if prevention rather than prosecution is to be our new main goal"

I find this increadibly dangerous. Does that mean the police will move against "potential" crimes? Against people making plans? I hereby jokingly declare that I am planning to steal a cucumber at my local supermarket. Does this make me a goal of preventive action? Did I commit a thought-crime?

1984 and Minority Report come to mind when people say stuff like this.

<comment><USER46> Conspiracy is already a crime. Your cucumber example wouldn't attract a response because nobody actually cares enough to prosecute it. For example if your cucumber was made of solid goal then you would become a target of preventive action.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)>

<comment><USER47> IANAL, but I believe that in most jurisdictions conspiracy requires two or more co-conspirators (i.e. the crime of conspiracy to commit a crime means two or more people agree or plan for a crime to be committed).

Attempting to commit a crime is also a crime in many jurisdictions, and only requires one person - maybe a prosecutor could convince a court that Derbasti was going to steal something, as demonstrated in a HN comment, but the plan was foiled.

Also, perhaps it is a threat - if other comments could be used to show that he/she was threatening the local supermarket unless they do something, perhaps charges for threatening could be filed.

<comment><USER46> Yup, conspiracy was just the first example that came to mind. The actual class of crimes is inchoate offences (found after some brief googling).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchoate_offense>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The Miranda warning is just that, a warning. Some people mistakenly call it the Miranda rights, which is wrong. Your rights are in the Constitution, and the Miranda warning just reminds you of those rights.

Now, the question is this: do the authorities make a big deal of not reading him his Miranda warning simply because they expect that if they do he will excercise his rights? Or are they implying, without saying it explicitly that he has no constitutional rights? If it is the latter, then this is worse than declaring him an enemy combatant (for which I see no basis), since now it basically means that anyone the Feds want to nail badly enough can fall under this category.

Imagine a hacker who responsibly disclosed a security issue with some military property being declared as having no fifth amendment rights. Does that sound like a precident we want?

I am not in any way trying to condone Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's actions. At the very least, he fired shots at the police on his own accord and I am fairly certain we will find out a whole lot more terrible stuff as the investigation continues. However, I am not a fan of how the interrogation is being presented.

<comment><USER49> It's entirely to the authorities whether to Mirandize the suspect or not. Perhaps they think they already have so much evidence that they don't need any statements from the interrogation to convict. In that case, they're just looking for information.

Remember, the authorities are perfectly free to interrogate you as much as they like without reading you any warnings at all. It's only at trial that the warnings become relevant. If your case isn't going to trial, it's not relevant.

<comment><USER48> Agreed. You have no right to the warning and the warning itself is only there to protect the evidence the authorities may gather.

My issue is that despite the horrific things that the suspect allegedly, and in my mind certainly, has done, he has certain rights, like the right to remain silent and the right to representation. Whether the case goes to trial or not, is irrelevant to how the detainee is treated. Otherwise, the police can pick you up, rough you up, prevent you from contacting anyone on the outside world, and then release you, saying that they never intended for you to go to trial, so it's all good.

> Remember, the authorities are perfectly free to interrogate you as much as > they like without reading you any warnings at all.

I don't believe they are. I believe they need probable cause, and they need to charge me with something first. Otherwise, I would be living in a police state where I am presumed guilty unless proven innocent. The warning itself is meaningless. It only comes into play if I can reasonably claim that I did not know the Constitution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Because one day it might be you who doesn't get read their rights.

<comment><USER51> As long as you remember you still have those rights, it doesn't really matter?

<comment><USER52> Yeah, this article and most comments seem pretty ridiculous.

<comment><USER53> Yeah, let's just assume he knows all of his rights. Come on! It's on TV all the time and stuff. No reason to even bring them up.

Now where did you buy those pressure cookers, hmm?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm also concerned that the information (such as a confession) he gives may be rendered inadmissible in the future by the Supreme Court if it ever rules that the public safety exception was improperly applied in this interrogation.

<comment><USER55> It is not only the confession that may be rejected, but everything based on information that he gives about co-conspirators. Imagine that it was not only him and his brother, but that there is a cell of a dozen people getting money from an overseas hub that manages a wider network of AQ cells. He talks without being allowed a lawyer, and the FBI uses the information to roll up another five or six cells and seize the hub's assets in the US. When it gets to appeals court, all of the seizures and arrests can be thrown out as fruit of the poisoned tree because the warrants were based on inadmissable information from an unlawful interrogation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is no different than "Signature" killings via UAV, nor is it much different than the Telcoms receiving immunity for their participation in the unconstitutional domestic surveillance program.

It's just another example of how far our nation has fallen in a relatively short period of time.

<comment><USER57> > _This is no different than "Signature" killings via UAV_

Completely disagree.

There's a _vast_ difference between _assassinations without trial_ of both US and foreign nationals vs. not reading a suspect their Miranda rights. Note that the rights themselves are not being stripped away, as is obviously the case with the former.

This doesn't mean either practice is noble or desirable, but it's patently ridiculous to draw false hyperbole-laced equivalencies all over the map.

<comment><USER56> Both set a precedent for violations of Constitutional rights.

<comment><USER58> What exact constitutional right is violated?

<comment><USER59> The Miranda rights apply to multiple constitutional amendments (4th and 5th, others indirectly) from the Bill of Rights, and it is also the constitution that states the Supreme Court decision for which they are named is law, and the only binding interpretation for how those amendments are to be applied.

In short, the Supreme Court ruled that not informing suspects of these rights violated the amendments, and the Constitution itself says they have the right to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If anyone thinks the government will need Dzhokar's confession to establish guilt here they are bonkers.

<comment><USER39> This isn't really a question of a confession as much as it is Holder's DOJ has a long history of expanding the definition of the exemption. If they ask him where he's keeping any bombs, fine, but if they're doing this purely for long- term intelligence reasons above and beyond any clear or present dangers, I'm not sure if I would agree with that usage.

<comment><USER40> Huh? That'd be exactly how I'd want it to be used. Information on who his brother met with on his last trip to Russia, for example, is fairly useless in prosecuting #2, but as an intelligence lead it could be invaluable.

<comment><USER39> The exemption is fairly narrowly defined to clear and present dangers to the public. Holder has been attempting to expand the definition for years, while also trying to carve out the 5th amendment protections. It's absolutely not how the law should be applied. They can gather that information without denying the kid his rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I said this on reddit a couple hours ago. I don't care if he murdered 100 men, he still deserves the same rights as any of us.

If we don't treat the worst of us the same as the best, what can the rest of us expect?

<comment><USER60> He has the same rights as any of us. The government chose to slightly jeopardize their prosecution, confession may be inadmissible, in the interest of public safety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> The Bill of Rights does not say "Applies to citizens of USA". He should be properly Miranda-ized. No ifs, ands, or buts.

<comment><USER4> Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a US citizen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Dzhokhar was in no state to hear his Miranda rights. He was in serious need of medical attention, so the highest priority is his medical attention, not reading an injured person his miranda rights. Also, I'm not sure if he'd even have been able to repsond that he understood.

<comment><USER63> Exactly, that's the point. I was wondering how to rightly interrogate to a severely wounded person. (sarcasm: You can not talk of course, but, hey! do you want this pretty anaesthetic injection?)

Here is a real risk to end like in Madrid's 11-M, dead terrorists -> no answers -> a lot of problems for all spaniards. The FBI will probably want to secure the game and to avoid this, and to avoid the spreading of rumours for years also. The full recovering of this guy probably is in his priority's list now. And I'm not joking at all. Simply there is no point in let him die; only other terrorists (if they are other terrorists) could gain something with this. It's the old same history since Lee Harvey Oswald.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I went to highschool with this guy at CRLS and after going there you know your miranda rights as well as exactly whats legal and whats not. they make sure of that, and that he'll stand up for them. weather the FBI cares or not is beyond our hands reach at this point

</comment><comment><USER65> The FBI page on the "public safety exception" is really interesting: [http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law- enforceme...](http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement- bulletin/february2011/legal_digest)

<comment><USER66> Indeed. " The commitment to this rule is so strong that the Supreme Court has recognized only one exception to the Miranda rule"

So, not much of a commitment at all. I am so committed to my wife that I only recognize one exception to my marriage vows: if I get a chance with a really attractive woman, then not only can I do it, but I can charge my wife for the cost of dinner.

<comment><USER65> I can see the merit in both ironclad protection against self incrimination, and the public safety value of making a scene safe.

I think the proper balance would probably be to allow physical evidence produced under "implied duress" (being in confinement/control and asked without being notified of Miranda rights), but not statements. So, maybe 25% more restrictive than the current legal standard.

The true problem with Mirandizing someone is that anyone who isn't a fucking moron will realize "oh, I shouldn't say anything until I get an attorney". Physical evidence is assumed to not depend upon statements to discover, but it certainly will be discovered faster with a statement. This argument isn't actually 100% valid in some scenes and with some types of evidence.

I don't have as much of a problem with lack of notification of someone of his rights vs. not giving him rights when demanded, too -- interrogating someone without Mirandizing him, in a very limited fashion, is less objectionable than doing the same interrogation under direct threat or execution of death/physical attack, drugs, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> This article is ridiculous. It starts with the assertion "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will not hear his Miranda rights before the FBI questions him Friday night." How do we or the author know this, is he assuming this is common practice, has FBI mentioned that they won't read him Miranda?

Second, I was expecting him to mention a case where the police or FBI didn't read the rights to what turned out to be a non-threat/wrong accusation, etc. At least in all the cases mentioned this is not the case, the person presented a clear and present danger.

<comment><USER68> What I'm more curious about is whether or not he still has those rights even if they weren't read to him. I would assume he does no?

<comment><USER69> Yes, he does. The Miranda rights are (and were) always present, they only serve the function of ensuring that the citizens under arrest actually realize they have those rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> For someone from the civilized world, there is a clear way from "innocent" to "convicted": through a conviction.

Only a court can convict someone.

Only a convicted person may be legally punished.

Before a conviction can occur, there must be suspicion, and most probably an arrest. A suspect is still to be treated as innocent.

If you allow suspects to be punished, you allow innocents to be punished. At that point, the rule of law has ended, and your country is not part of the civilized world anymore.

</comment><comment><USER71> As I understand it, even though they haven't Mirandized him, all that means is if he confesses that confession still won't be admissible. They probably didn't Mirandize him because they don't care 1 bit about getting confession, they want to be sure if there's anyone else out there that is planning attacks they get that info from him. Getting info about whether he's guilty doesn't matter, because he's super fucking guilty.

</comment><comment><USER72> None of this matters in the present case, because they have ample evidence to convict if he never says another word.

This discussion is all about future cases.

</comment><comment><USER73> Glenn Greenwald always has lots of interesting points to make on issues like this one.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/20/boston-m...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/20/boston- marathon-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-mirnada-rights)

<comment><USER74> Strongly recommend the Guardian article as well as the links in there.

Also, as a friend commented -- labelling this as "an act of terrorism" has another effect: making many insurance policies void. Were it a "mass murderer" (as I believe seem to more correct, based on what we know so far of what happened) -- most of those policies would still be valid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> In other news, it's U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz who decided not to read our suspected bomber his rights:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5583278>

Gee, where have I heard her name before?

</comment><comment><USER76> The reading of Miranda rights doesn't in and of itself confer or trigger any new "rights". It's a reminder of the rights he already has. He could simply choose to not say anything without a lawyer being present and there's nothing law enforcement can do about it. People start talking even after being reminded, because I imagine for the most part, by now, those arrested think it's just a bunch of boilerplate that's part of the booking process - <USER2> it's almost a TV trope. Once read their rights, the police don't have to wait around for the arrestee to "lawyer up".

</comment><comment><USER77> From a notorious disinformation site [http://debka.com/article/22914/The- Tsarnaev-brothers-were-do...](http://debka.com/article/22914/The-Tsarnaev- brothers-were-double-agents-who-decoyed-US-into-terror-trap) a plausible explanation of the non-miranda situation. Perhaps someone more knowledgable can comment on how _elite_ is Cambridge Rindge and Latin School [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Rindge_and_Latin_Scho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Rindge_and_Latin_School)

</comment><comment><USER78> What I find interesting here is that my emotional visceral reaction was that I hoped that not readying Miranda would end up materially hurting the case against this guy.

I guess that is because at the end of the day the odds of me being substantively impacted from terrorism is actually low. The odds of me being impacted from degradation of constitutional protections, actually quite high and I would argue I experience quite frequently.

I just found my own emotional reaction interesting, and indicative that winning for the terrorists is solely in how we react.

</comment><comment><USER79> Does this mean that Tsarnev _has_ the right to remain silent and just won't be told about it, or does the public safety exemption mean he can actually be compelled to speak?

</comment><comment><USER80> I think some tradeoff could also be reasonable: throwing part of the evidences in the name of public safety. You could interrogate someone in an emergency situation and not use the declaration or anything coming from his declaration later in court. And only use material evidence found before. As far as I know, here they already have strong evidence against the guy, now is time for due process and trial.

</comment><comment><USER81> Boston doesn't need this guy to give an incriminating statement to put him away for the rest of his life. Just the multiple shootouts with police (which produced a lot of evidence and witnesses) would do the trick.

What the feds are really interested in is the intelligence they can gather in regards to terrorist activity. If this is part of something bigger, the feds need to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER82> There is time to link to this excellent video by James Duane

Don't talk to the police <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc>

From what I understand there is no such things as miranda rights. They are miranda reminders about your rights granted by the US Constitution.

</comment><comment><USER83> The author admits a valid case for eschewing miranda rights within the first paragraph. You can't make an argument for a constitutional right and say 'oh wait but there is an exception. and by the way this one might meet it.'

</comment><comment><USER84> Other countries get by fine without having a Miranda law at all so I don't see what the big deal is about. To be honest I thought Miranda was only used in movies to make an arrest sound cool.

<comment><USER82> There is no such thing as Miranda law. It is just a warning/reminder about constitutional rights.

Also any country worth living in has anti self incrimination right.

<comment><USER85> I am not a lawyer but I think precedents have the force of law, and the "Miranda rights" were established by the Supreme Court's ruling on Miranda vs Arizona: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_v._Arizona>

Any law enforcement is screwing themselves by not advising a suspect about his "Miranda" rights. They are risking blowing up the case and forcing the courts to toss evidence that could be critical to achieve a conviction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> I've heard of this "public safety exception" before:

In 1941 Adolf Hitler ordered a directive intended to suppress members of the resistance. It was called Nacht und Nebel ("Night and Fog"). People suspected of "offenses against the Reich" would disappear without any trace.

Who could be considered suspect? _"anyone endangering German security"_ (die deutsche Sicherheit gefährden).

<comment><USER13> This is a bullshit comparison.

The public safety exception is a very specific exception. Let's say you're a cop who just caught a guy who has rigged a building with bombs and you ask him where the bombs are and how to disarm them. If he tells you and incriminates himself _before being mirandized_ that's still kosher. That's the public safety exception. Period.

If you ask him "why did you do this", and you haven't mirandized him yet and he confesses right then but recants later, you dun fucked up.

<comment><USER86> I'm not comparing the Nazi party to our own government. I'm simply giving an example of how easily the term "anyone endangering [country name]'s security" can be abused.

<comment><USER87> Actually, you're using a slippery slope argument and fueling it with a hitler reference.

<comment><USER88> Also known as an argumentum ad Hitlerum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> There's no way he is ever going to see sunlight again, even if found not guilty.

<comment><USER87> I think u mean Taco Bell instead of sunlight. It would be impossible to never see sunlight again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> This is an amazing discussion. I love this country

</comment><comment><USER90> <IANAL>

</comment><comment><USER7> "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-Benjamin Franklin

<comment><USER91> "I'm so tired of this quote." -rmrfrmrf

<comment><USER92> Why?

It is in times such as these, it is the most important to remind us of this.

<comment><USER91> A few reasons:

1) In this particular case, the public safety exception to Miranda has been around since 1984 (cue Orwellian conspiracy theories). So, for almost 30 years (longer than my existence), Americans have been "deprived" of this "liberty". Suddenly it becomes an issue in 2013 for armchair devil's advocates in a pretty much open-shut case of domestic terrorism.

Furthermore, the Miranda warning never existed in Ben Franklin's time -- it's a "right" given to us purely via judicial policy. Given that not even Ben Franklin thought that an explicit reading of one's Constitutional rights was worthy of inclusion in the amendments, one could argue that the Miranda warning is a "nonessential liberty," in which case Franklin's quote wouldn't even apply.

2) The same people who spew out this quote give up liberty for safety every day as a convenience. Our purchases, thoughts, questions, conversations, and movements are all monitored on a daily basis. Ironically, the people who frequent HN are actually the ones responsible for not only implementing these monitoring technologies, but also _monetizing_ them--figuring out how to use all of this data collected on you to squeeze extra nickels and dimes out of you. In these cases, we give up liberty for...what, exactly? "Free" products? Certainly not safety. This "it's only wrong if the government does it" BS doesn't fly with me. We ARE the government.

3) The quote itself doesn't explain why those who choose to give up liberty for safety deserve neither--in fact, the only thing going for this quote at all was that Ben Franklin said it. Take away the attribution and you're left with an empty sound bite.

<comment><USER78> "The quote itself doesn't explain why those who choose to give up liberty for safety deserve neither--in fact, the only thing going for this quote at all was that Ben Franklin said it. Take away the attribution and you're left with an empty sound bite."

Good point. I think of Maslovs hierarchy and decisions rational people take almost every time they are in danger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> I hope this guy survives, only reason why? So he can go to trial, and then face his victims. They deserve to see justice done with the death penalty.

<comment><USER94> exactly, the same happened with Kasab, he was put on trial, with all his rights, and only through sheer evidence was he sentenced. To make a example out of these people, law must take its course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Wouldn't public safety be better served if the police granted him grand-jury- style immunity from "using his statements as evidence" in exchange for getting information about other bombs?

</comment><comment><USER60> Miranda is for legal proceedings. I am in favor of getting as much info as possible before erasing him from the face of the planet. Who cares if it is inadmissible. Here is a kid with scholarships and naturalized randomly blowing up his neighbors for allah(presumably), we need to know why and how he became radicalized, we don't need more evidence for trial.</comment>


American Education is failing black males. Here's how we fix it. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sendhub.com/post/18444770376/american-education-is-failing-black-males-heres-how

<comment><USER2> No, here's how you fix it:

Treat them as students in need of an education. Ignore all else. They are students. They need education. Everything else - income, place of birth, place of residence, race, sexual orientation, anything else - is completely and utterly irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of all the reasons for the black-white achievement gap, access to computers is pretty much the least of the problems. Interesting ideas, but bad title.

<comment><USER4> Would welcome your thoughts on what tops the list.

<comment><USER3> Parenting, tracking, and peer groups probably top the list.

Check out a copy of Hart & Risley's book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children to understand the effect of parenting.

To understand the tracking and peer group, just pick up a book that summarizes all the most important research on education. Two good ones are Equality and Achievement by Riordan, and Visible Learning by John Hattie.</comment></comment></comment>


PHP performance: error suppression - <AUTHOR> http://vega.rd.no/article/php-performance-error-suppression <comment><USER2> The best thing to do is convert all your PHP errors into exceptions:

        function errorToExceptionHandler($errNo, $errStr, $errFile, $errLine, $errContext)
        {
            if (error_reporting() == 0) return;
            throw new ErrorException($errStr, 0, $errNo, $errFile, $errLine);
        }

        set_error_handler('errorToExceptionHandler');

You get a complete stack trace and try/catch handling of errors. It will throw even for notices and warnings, but that's a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Error suppression: bad. Exception handling: good. Some of my earliest code has stuff like @mysql_query() because many books recommend this...and that's not even a reasonable place to suppress an error!

<comment><USER4> Not only is it bad practice, but as the article points out, there is a performance hit.

The reason is because @ makes the PHP engine switch between rendering modes. Basically it's as if you have an extra <?php ?> in there.

Do that a lot and it adds up. So it's bad on every level.</comment></comment>


Why There's No Financial Advice for Most Americans - T-A http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-22/why-there-s-no-financial-advice-for-most-americans.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Simple. Financial advice is valuable, so financial advisors prefer to get paid. And paying for their time means that they offer more value than they cost. That really doesn't happen until an individual's wealth reaches a certain inflection point, which is basically upper middle class. It's in the financial best interest of the advisors to work for the clients with the most money.

Below that, there are any number of free or inexpensive resources, books, etc available. If you're disciplined enough to take the advice of a financial planner, you're probably disciplined enough to to follow the advice in "Saving for Dummies" or somesuch.</comment>


Life and death in Apple's forbidden city - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract <comment><USER2> I went to Shenzhen and worked for Egoman, a Chinese company that made the first batch of Raspberry Pis, before that manufacturing got moved to Wales.

The dormitories look typical. I arranged to stay in one through a different friend; mine wasn't arranged by the company.

Now I'm in Taiwan, and life is better here. Factories are newer and cleaner, and working hours are more sane. Chinese factories often set long shifts because there's nothing to do in the local area except work. Kaohsiung has much more local culture than Shenzhen, so the workers are more interested in time off, and happier for it.

I've been here for 3 years to get the necessary work experience for future visas. I'm now considering other options, particularly New Zealand or Australia, where my girlfriend and I both want to go.

Please ask me if you have any other questions, I'm willing to share my experiences.

<comment><USER3> Based on your name, I assume that you are not ethnically Asian. Do you find racism / xenophobia to be a significant issue for you in either Shenzhen or Taiwan? As a very white Canadian, if I wanted to explore, work and travel for years on end, and was willing to live at the same financial level as the locals, would that be offensive to them?

<comment><USER4> China seemed to me like a pretty down-to-earth place, people are pragmatic and generally accepting of foreigners. There are many different ethnic groups. If you stick around a while and work on your Mandarin, I think you can find your place quite ok. Kunming is a nice city, and the surrounding area is very pretty.

Some photos from a trip here: [https://goo.gl/photos/FawpURbZweNNQt288](https://goo.gl/photos/FawpURbZweNNQt288)

I am working on some electronics and will be back in Shenzhen sometime this year, although I'm not sure if I will stay on much longer afterwards, I don't know if it's that much fun to live there.

<comment><USER5> OMG, those mountains! If I lived there, I would wake up every day in awe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.

<comment><USER7> Let's not forget that the average age of Foxconn worker is only 23. According to (somewhat dated) WHO, that age group has the lowest suicide rate ([http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chin.pdf](http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chin.pdf))

Number of suicides by age group and gender. CHINA (mainland, selected rural and urban areas*), 1999.

Age (years) 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ All

Males 83 626 1357 1287 1196 1165 1325 1009 8048

Females 64 915 1937 1351 1186 1017 1273 1045 8788

Total 147 1541 3294 2638 2382 2182 2598 2054 16836

the same age group has the lowest suicide rates in other countries (eg, US) as well.

<comment><USER8> You should look at per capita suicide rates because populations are not distributed evenly by age group. Also, China in 1999 was a very different country so it's difficult to draw conclusions from this dataset about the situation there today.

<comment><USER7> Sure, I also accounted for the One-Child policy which started in 1979. It still supports the conclusion that the suicide rate is much lower for that age group:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China#/media/File:China_Sex_By_Age_2010_census.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A friend of mine is an investigative journalist in China - he spent a while working in a helmet foam factory and living in a dorm such as the one in the article.

He heard rumors that the Chinese mafia would pay workers to commit suicide at Foxconn in exchange for money for their family in the countryside. The mafia would then threaten suicide attempts as leverage to extort concessions from Foxconn.

Not sure if it's true (was only a rumor), but certainly got me thinking about it from another perspective.

Some of my buddy's work:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yvwj3k/chinas-21st- centur...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yvwj3k/chinas-21st-century- eunuchs-v23-n3)

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/09/xian_village_the_residents_of_an_ancient_village_in_southern_china_are_in.html)

<comment><USER10> Honestly, that sounds like a convenient rumor for Foxconn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The only thing that I can add is an anecdote.

Around 2000, I worked at a startup that was streamlining the globalization logistics for large manufacturers. One aspect of our software was a qualitative and quantitative rating system for factories in low-cost countries. One of our largest challenges was coming up with reliable scoring metrics that couldn't be gamed by the factories. Because Of this, we eventually had to resort to randomly sending physical auditors to factories.

I wasn't part of that side of the business, but we had systems that allowed these auditors to enter data and notes. It wasn't uncommon for them to report on suicides. At the time, we didn't know much about Chinese culture beyond what we understood through movies and such, so we thought that 'suicide' was a euphemism for 'forced suicide'. Who knows - But, people would just disappear, at least at a seemingly higher rate in China than elsewhere. It was quite chilling.

<comment><USER12> Please note that the myth of a high rate of suicides at Apple's factories has been proven to be an invention.

<comment><USER13> Given how many times it's been said and how sensible the question is, would you have a source for that?

<comment><USER14> It's simple maths. In the worst year for suicides, Foxconn had 14 deaths out of 930,000 workers. Divide one by the other and you get a remarkably low suicide rate by any standard.

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

<comment><USER15> > It's simple maths. In the worst year for suicides, Foxconn had 14 deaths out > of 930,000 workers. Divide one by the other and you get a remarkably low > suicide rate by any standard.

You need to take it one step further; you should compare it to the suicide rate of healthy, employed young adults. If (for example) the suicide rate is higher than employed adults, but comparable to unemployed, it would show a serious problem at the factory.

In many industrialized countries suicide rates are not spread equally across all demographic groups.

<comment><USER16> What is the suicide rate for young adults stuck working brutal rural farm jobs? Because that's what most of Foxconn employees waiting in line to escape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Doesn't Foxconn also manufacture products for many other companies? It doesn't matter because, at the end of the article:

"This is an edited extract from The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant, published by Bantam Press (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44 go to bookshop.theguardian.com"

<comment><USER18> They recently announced they are going to build a huge $10Billion plant in Wisconsin to build LCD screens. (likely related to their Sharp acquisition)

<comment><USER19> Only if they get the massive tax breaks they are demanding.

<comment><USER20> a small slice of pie is better than all of a non-existent pie because the pie relocated to another state or country

<comment><USER21> With the 3BN tax-dollar giveaway, Wisconsin will not receive any positive pie returns from Foxconn until 2043. Assuming Foxconn doesn't move on to another location in 2042.

It's worth pointing out that Wisconsin is giving billions to a company where working conditions so bad that workers have been killing themselves there since 2010: "It wouldn't be Foxconn without people dying."

<comment><USER22> > It's worth pointing out that Wisconsin is giving billions to a company where > working conditions so bad that workers have been killing themselves there > since 2010

Suicide is very common. Pick any large company and you'll find similar rates of death by suicide.

<comment><USER23> I pick Apple's California campuses. Now, where are the people flinging themselves off company buildings there?

This apologism misses the fact that the Foxconn suicide statistics are about suicide attempts on company grounds reported to the company. Most suicide attempts aren't known to the company - if someone dies outside the company, it's not necessarily known to the company or counted as part of the aggregate statistics.

I've known two people attempt suicide, and neither of them let their workplace know. Similarly, a friend of a friend committed suicide by flinging himself from a hospital roof - do you really think his company would count his death as being due to their workplace? Of course not, what company would ever tie a suicide to themselves if they could avoid it, regardless of whether they contributed to it.

In short, your argument makes the false assumption that the people killing themselves at their workplace are the _only_ suicides in that demographic.

<comment><USER24> [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3561995/Police- inves...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3561995/Police- investigating-possible-suicide-Apple-s-headquarters.html)

Although I don't know what this does to your statistics; Foxconn employed and houses 2x magnitude more workers vs the apple campus (which houses none)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is an extremely well written story, I kept imaging action scenes from thriller.

But I kept wondering the legality of actually stepping into an iPhone fab without permission. As the journalists might be seen as given prior approval, what if they saw the new iPhone and how does journalism in here functions toward revealing information v.s. respecting policies. I also felt that the reason this article was written is only for partially humanitarian cause, but still largely trying to capture curiosities from readership, and the risks definitely seem to have paid off.

</comment><comment><USER26> One thing I always find chilling about stories like these is the description of work - specifically, how easily it can be automated. Very few people in western countries depend on jobs like these, but your average Chinese doesn't have much padding against automation taking away this type of jobs. Articles like these make me feel very lucky to have been born into a country which gives me enough opportunities to pad myself against obsolescence.

<comment><USER27> I wouldn't say very few, driving is a large portion of many breadwinners duties whether they're cab drivers or truck drivers and those jobs will very shortly in the grand scheme of things be automated out.

Tellers, and clerks are another big group of people who might be hit pretty hard by automation.

<comment><USER28> If the automated checkout at the grocery is any indication, truckers will be ok :)

<comment><USER29> I've been using automated checkout at Ralph's for a year now, couldn't be happier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If they beat a journalist for taking photos from the outside, I'm quite worried what they'll do to the guard that let the author in.

</comment><comment><USER31> 38 suicide attempts among 450,000 workers would place Foxconn's suicide rate at lower than the general suicide rate across the US.

<comment><USER22> Yes, 38 per 450,000 people would be a bit lower than the current US rate.

It's very hard to compare suicide rates internationally because different countries have different definitions, and the people who do the counting are not consistent.

The US probably undercounts suicide. The age standardised rate is roughly 13 per 100,000

China definitely undercounts suicide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> As consumers we have the power to vote with our wallet. I'm actually proud to say that the last Apple product I bought was the iPad generation 1 for these exact ethical reasons.

I'd really encourage others to look at the companies they buy from and see if they align with your morals before making a purchase.

<comment><USER33> What phone and/or tablet do you use?

Clients of Foxconn include Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco, HP, Dell, Huawei, Nintendo, Sony, Toshiba, Motorola, Blackberry and many more. They don't just make iPhones. Next time you look at an XBox or Switch, guess where it came from? Do you know that workers prefer to work on the Apple lines because Apple has greater say in the factory conditions than the other clients and pays the workers on their lines more? When you looked into the companies you buy from, how far did that research go?

<comment><USER32> I use a Fairphone based on Ethical Consumer's research ([http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/mobile/phonebroadband/mobilep...](http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/mobile/phonebroadband/mobilephones.aspx?mobileversion=true))

I still have my iPad Generation 1 as my use case for it is reading epub and pdfs and that hasn't changed since 2010. Also my ethical stance with regards too my consumerism is something I've been doing since 2014.

Granted my laptop is a Dell XPS 15 9550 and while the machine itself is very environmentally friendly Dell's ethical practices leave a lot wanting but so do the other ultrabook manufacturers. In my line of work I am often client facing therefore I need form and function. I'm at least aware of the trade off and my eyes are open with regards to whom I'm supporting with my money.

To answer your question about how far I go, I rely on Ethical Consumer a lot and my own internet searches before making a purchase. Of course I'm also on the lookout for reputable news articles that are focused on this area good or bad.

<comment><USER33> Well, personally I have no problem supporting highly sought after jobs in China, and industries that have helped raise hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and transformed the country into a modern advanced nation. If you'd seen what China was like the first time I went in 2001 and saw it again today, you might understand.

<comment><USER32> Yes I've been to China and in a way I supported China's growth by founding a sunglasses marketing and distribution company when i was 18 that grew exceptionally well in New Zealand (50% market share for under $20 price point).

Our manufactures were in Guangzhou and Xiamen.

One thing that struck me when I was in China once was that human life didn't seem as valued as in the West. This planted a seed that had a profound influence on my thinking.

At that time I didn't think about ethics in our supply chain, my focus was solely on survival and then growth... but as I've gotten older I've seen how that's part of the problem. Consumers generally don't see the whole picture and they largely don't care. The theory goes if consumers did start to care, and changed their purchasing habits accordingly, the whole supply chain would be forced to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How economically feasible is it to automate assembly? It looks like a lot of human suffering can be lessened if at least some parts of assembly are automated.

<comment><USER33> Have you ever been to the Chinese countryside? I have, my wife is Chinese. My wife's sister is disabled and married a man from the countryside, a common arrangement in China, so I have relatives from the country. Trust me, sending all those workers back home really isn't going to do an awful lot to reduce human suffering. They choose to go and take those jobs for good reasons.

Many of the workers in those factories are women. After a few years, they often go back home as the wealthiest members of their families, with enough capital to build homes and start new businesses of their own. It's actually started a distinct demographic trend. People have all sorts of bizarre ideas about china. Sure the conditions in these factories are awful by western standards, but China isn't the west. The same basis for making decisions just don't apply. Hopefully they will one day, but we're not there yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Reason enough not to buy apple

<comment><USER36> Apple is about one of the very few companies that at least have a program to check and improve working condition of their manufacturers. If you don't want to be a hypocrite, you've got to stop buying most tech all together.</comment></comment>


Stanford scholar gets six-figure settlement from James Joyce Estate (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/shloss-joyce-settlement-092809.html <comment><USER2> Summary: According to Stanford University's account, Lawrence Lessig (then Stanford, now Harvard) helped lead Stanford's lawyers to victory over Joyce's grandson's lawyers in a fair use case, letting an English professor publish certain Joyce-related materials in the USA only...this article represents the coda of the legal argument, with the English professor getting $240,000 in legal fees reimbursed.

<comment><USER3> That is a summary of the facts, but misses the bigger point. The Joyce estate had a history of being legal bullies. Someone stood up to them, and won their case, setting a precedent that not only is legal bullying not going to work, but can backfire to the tune of a quarter million dollars. It is a win not just for one scholar, but for all of academia.

<comment><USER4> This article misses the point. Someone needs to call out, by name, the lawyer, laywers, law firm, or law firms who hoodwinked Joyce's estate into doing this.

some author's grandson isn't going to have such notions. I have a very strong prior (99%?) that this is just some lawyer(s) milking a famous writer's estate. Of course it's easy for them to trick the grandchildren - who don't have any legal training. This is wrong and should be called out specifically. (obviously be prepared for a fraudulent defamation lawsuit by the same, if you do it under your own name - hell, there's a chance those bad, corrupt, lawyers would follow me into this Hacker News thread, a chance I weighed before posting and found acceptable as I have no relation to the case or the estate and did not even take the time to find them by name. But I am fairly certain that if I did the research, I would find what I surmise in this comment. Really, nobody does this.)

<comment><USER5> There's no hoodwinking. The grandson is the problem, and has been for a long time. I've met scholars who've been personally confronted by him at conferences. It's his personal crusade. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_James_Joyce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_James_Joyce)

<comment><USER6> The Wikipedia entry explains that much of Stephen James Joyce's efforts to silence academics relates to his aunt, Lucia.

      > In 2004, Stephen Joyce threatened legal action against the
      > Irish government when the Rejoyce Dublin 2004 festival
      > proposed public reading of excerpts of Ulysses on
      > Bloomsday. In 1988 he destroyed a collection of letters
      > written by Lucia Joyce, his aunt. In 1989 he forced
      > Brenda Maddox to delete a postscript concerning Lucia from
      > her biography Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom. After
      > 1995 he announced no permissions would be granted to quote
      > from his grandfather's work. Libraries holding letters by
      > James Joyce were unable to show them without permission.
      > Versions of his work online were disallowed. Stephen
      > Joyce claimed to be protecting his grandfather's and his
      > family's reputation, but would sometimes grant permission to
      > use material in exchange for fees that were often
      > "extortionate".

It's been more than 20 years since I've studied James Joyce's work in an academic setting, but I remember very clearly the family controversies surrounding James Joyce's wife, Nora, and their daughter, Lucia. The only thing I feel can safely be asserted about Lucia is that she suffered from mental illness, usually understood as schizophrenia.

There are also rumors that Lucia shared a bed with her mother and father well past puberty. Such rumors gain strength given that James Joyce's erotic behaviors (documented in his letters to Nora and elsewhere) are considered by many to be fetishistic at best and depraved at worst (coprophilia, for one example).

In 2004, Michael Hastings published an article in _The Irish Times_ about his writing a play about Lucia Joyce. [0] In that article, Hastings writes about the troubling hint of incestuous intimacy between the father-daughter relationship that sits at the heart of Joyce's avant garde masterpiece _Finnegans Wake_.

      > [In _Finnegans Wake_] is a hint of intimacy between father and daughter here
      > that borders on incest. Lucia once remarked to her father
      > that no matter how many loves she had, she could never be
      > unfaithful to him.
      >
      > Even today among Joyceans this subject remains taboo.
      > Regarding Lucia, academics have toed the Joyce party line -
      > that she suffered fits, had uncontrollable sexual urges, and
      > endlessly shouted forensic sexual details with involuntary
      > abandon. For the sake of being allowed to quote from Joyce's
      > papers, writers have repeatedly cast Lucia as the "problem",
      > just as James and Nora always did. In effect, Lucia has been
      > vaporised from history; memories of her obliterated. She is
      > a "vanished woman".

Given these details, one can understand the intensity of Stephen Joyce's efforts to restrict research surrounding the life of his family, even if one disagrees with the execution of such efforts. As James Joyce's sole surviving descendant, Stephen Joyce may well have decided that squelching such academic and biographical speculation is preferable to seeing traumatic personal details of his family and his most renowned ancestor exposed for all the world to see.

[0] [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-life-and-loves-of- lucia-...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-life-and-loves-of- lucia-1.1134416)

<comment><USER7> Mobile friendly quotes:

> In 2004, Stephen Joyce threatened legal action against the Irish government > when the Rejoyce Dublin 2004 festival proposed public reading of excerpts of > Ulysses on Bloomsday. In 1988 he destroyed a collection of letters written > by Lucia Joyce, his aunt. In 1989 he forced Brenda Maddox to delete a > postscript concerning Lucia from her biography Nora: The Real Life of Molly > Bloom. After 1995 he announced no permissions would be granted to quote from > his grandfather's work. Libraries holding letters by James Joyce were unable > to show them without permission. Versions of his work online were > disallowed. Stephen Joyce claimed to be protecting his grandfather's and his > family's reputation, but would sometimes grant permission to use material in > exchange for fees that were often "extortionate".

> [In _Finnegans Wake_ ] is a hint of intimacy between father and daughter > here that borders on incest. Lucia once remarked to her father that no > matter how many loves she had, she could never be unfaithful to him.

> Even today among Joyceans this subject remains taboo. Regarding Lucia, > academics have toed the Joyce party line - that she suffered fits, had > uncontrollable sexual urges, and endlessly shouted forensic sexual details > with involuntary abandon. For the sake of being allowed to quote from > Joyce's papers, writers have repeatedly cast Lucia as the "problem", just as > James and Nora always did. In effect, Lucia has been vaporised from history; > memories of her obliterated. She is a "vanished woman".

(HN tip: Don't format a quoted paragraph like code with leading spaces, put it all on one line with a single ">" in front, and a blank line between paragraphs. Also, "_" doesn't work for italics but "*" does.)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that, and you're right, but... really, HN should be able to render code-quote (leading spaces) in a mobile-friendly way.

<comment><USER9> Pick one of:

1) Nobody has ever brought the problem up before.

2) It's a tricky problem to solve.

3) Mobile usage is a niche fad which will go away if left alone so no point addressing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shel Silverstein's literary estate is also known to take scholars and biographers to court under some misguided notion of protecting the brand.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/10/my_shel_sil...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/10/my_shel_silverstein_biography_can_t_quote_shel_silverstein_why.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> This should be marked [2009], but it's still a good read!

<comment><USER12> Added. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Add to the ever-growing pile of reasons to shorten the duration of copyright protection. James Joyce died in 1941 -- under a sane copyright regime, we would not be having this discussion. _Dubliners_ was published over 100 years ago, and the author has been dead for 76 years.</comment>


Facebook opened their blog to user comments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.facebook.com

<comment><AUTHOR> We've had our own set of issues managing user feedback on our blog. Never to the scale of this, though. It will be interesting to see how they moderate this forum.</comment>


Ask HN: How Is the job scene for Software Engineers in Florida? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I am in Florida, and pretty familiar with the market. Like anyplace, it depends on where you are at in the state. Overall there are plenty of jobs, some places just have more and pay better than other areas.

Tampa area has a good number of jobs usually but is also a little depressed salary wise.

Jacksonville is pretty solid, but skews towards Microsoft/.NET people, but not excessively. Pay is usually really solid, and startup scene is good. Larger employers are banks, and JM Family.

Central Florida (excluding Tampa), so basically Orlando East to Volusia and Brevard Counties is pretty solid as well. More defense contractors in this area, pay is decent for the low cost of living. There are also a decent & growing amount of space based positions popping up. They use to be huge, but it died down for about 10 years but has started picking back up. Startup scene is pretty good, and growing.

East South Florida (Ft Lauderdale - Miami) is solid and growing all the time. Pay is good and again cost of living isn't crazy for being a known city. Startup is growing more and more with a few good successes in the past few years.

South West Florida - Ft Myers area, I rarely see anything advertised down in that area but there are some larger enterprise employers.

Key in Florida is you don't find a ton of tech only companies, usually it is businesses trying to solve problems not invent new tech. That said, there are a number of name brand tech companies in the Orlando and Miami area. Miami and Jacksonville are the best overall for startup environment with Orlando and Tampa respectively.

There are some other areas like Gainesville which kinda falls into the Central Florida category. The panhandle outside of Jacksonville is kinda weak except for state government from what I have seen.

<comment><USER3> > Pay is good and again cost of living isn't crazy for being a known city.

The Miami metro area has one of the most expensive housing and rental markets in the country.

In addition to that, Miami has awful traffic. If OP, or anyone for that matter, plans to live there, make sure you have a good car and be prepared to sit in traffic for hours.

The city does have it's high points -- food, culture, beaches \-- but at what cost? A four-hour commute roundtrip to bum-fuck Kendall? No thanks.

<comment><USER2> I don't know where you get your data but I can't say I agree. Having owned real estate in South Florida and having many jobs there over the years I don't agree overall with what you are saying. Except we agree, the culture and beaches are definitely a high point.

In real estate terms the median home price is ~$400k (in 2019), of course there are choices in life. If you chose to live on South Beach or Key Biscayne etc you'll pay a lot more to live there. Likewise, if you chose to move up into Wellington or parts of palm beach you'd could easily spend in the 7 figures for housing, but that is not where most working middle to upper middle class people live, so not sure it is relevant. I have been involved in a lot of real estate in South Florida, it can be expensive but it definitely isn't one of the most expensive in the Country on a median basis. Specific sub sections of the state do have some of the highest price real estate in the nation, but again, not relevant for the average job seeker.

As well, if you compare San Francisco to Miami, you can earn significantly less in Miami to live a more comfortable life.

Traffic in South Florida can be a bitch, but compared to most major cities it isn't horrid. It doesn't rank in the top 10 for bad traffic nationwide. So yea, for Floridians that have been here for a long time the traffic sucks and is a constant source of pain. But for someone moving from Boston, LA, Chicago, NYC, SF etc it is not as bad. The one thing that drives me the most nuts in regards to traffic is still the lack of good solid public transportation options, that is something I'd love to see increased across the state -- and it is happening just so damn slow.

Everything is relative of course.</comment></comment></comment>


South African authorities admit to mass surveillance - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/09/02/south-africa-mass-surveillance-spying-undersea-fiber-cables/ <comment><USER2> > worrying is that the SSA has said that such surveillance and data collection > is "common practice" globally

I think if you believe that any major country is not intercepting all undersea fibre cable traffic within their reach or even beyond it then you're being very naive. I can't understand how this news would surprise anyone.

<comment><USER3> I can imagine a sustainable business could be made operating a fleet of ships in international waters that pick up undersea cables, taps them, and uplinks the data in real time to whichever .gov subscribes to it.

The company taking the risk gets a big fat government check every month, and the governments get to deny they're tapping anyone's data.

<comment><USER4> You can't export the data wholesale from your ship though - you'd need another cable for that :D So you'd need sift and process that data on the ship.

<comment><USER3> _You can 't export the data wholesale from your ship though - you'd need another cable for that :D_

The key word, though, was "uplink." Go straight to satellite, and let the intelligence agencies sift through what they want.

<comment><USER5> Are there sat links with enough bandwidth to siphon data off undersea cables?

I have no knowledge of this area but I always thought sat links can't compete with multi gbps cables.

Maybe I'm wrong though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > it also covers information about organised crime

Let's just pause a bit here. In South Africa, if your phone gets stolen and you go to the police, they may well respond with: "Yes we know the guy, but we're not going to do anything." [1]

I think that surveillance doesn't have the same twang in South Africa that it has in the US and EU. Organised crime and unorganised violent crime for that matter in one thing that a lot of South Africans would like to see better monitored or "surveilled" if you will.

South Africa has this sort of dichotomy between illiteracy and high level tech that I think many people outside of Africa are not aware of. There is 60% youth unemployment [2] and at the same time it's the most developed African country. I heard a story that some of the surveillance tech that Muammar Gaddafi used was built by a company in Stellenbosch.

Most middle class people will have some form of armed response and cities especially are pro-surveillance for crime prevention, many of it by 3rd party security companies. I think that there is some kind of common sense notion of how to differentiate between security and privacy that the CIA or NSA could only dream of. Security means not being robbed; privacy means leave my life out of yours.

As mentioned in some of the comments, surveillance is not new at all in South Africa and in fact is much less than under the previous, non-democratic government.

But to summarise, South Africa is from a "freedom" point of view a really great country. You can pretty much do things and live the way you want. The level of crime and incompetency of the police is, however, too much to live with for some people.

<comment><USER7> To think of surveillance as a solution against violent crime is fantasy anyway. It wasn't a requirement at least for all other countries getting it to manageable levels.

Sure, you might catch some guys but as you yourself reported, it may not even matter if there is evidence.

But the incentive to abuse surveillance is certainly something western nations have readily helped with their active approval that couldn't even net results besides more civil resistance.

So I am not pointing the finger on South Africa here.

<comment><USER6> I think you are right, but I think it's more about people's sentiment. It's like saying in Washington's time people respected politicians. The question is then did people's perception change or did policians change? In terms of surveillance, I don't think people are "pro" surveillance, I think it's just not a priority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wasn't it 6 years ago when Snowden made public his revelations and Google said 'nope' and encrypted the lot? Who now sends traffic over these links and doesn't encrypt them?

So, what value do the SA government have in intercepting these links now?

<comment><USER9> There were plenty of small samples in the various Snowden powerpoint slides of stuff NSA incepted from the pipes.

It seems a ton of mobile apps are sending information with identifiers over HTTP (the ID is a key part for them legally to pick it up and store it in a DB, forever). I notified one developer that was sending real-time GPS data + an email address highlighted in one of the PPT slide's (just a screenshot of a spreadsheet-like table) and never got a response from the developer. It was a small Canadian company with an app with a few million downloads, so I told Citizenlab about it (don't remember the name, had something to do with sports IIRC).

This is a chart of TLS traffic sent via Chrome and across Google:

[https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview?hl=en](https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview?hl=en)

2014 = ~50%

2019 = 94% of traffic encrypted for Chrome users which is great.

Linux users currently have the lowest when using Chrome with 86%. I'm curious why this is.

Again mobile apps seem to be the biggest problem right now and there was no red HTTPS sign when they sent your sensitive information over cleartext:

> Mobile devices account for the vast majority of unencrypted end user traffic > that originates from a given set of surveyed Google services. Some older > devices cannot support modern encryption, standards, or protocols.

Maybe Google PlayStore should start punishing apps for not using HTTPS? Just like how Google is trying to make the internet faster by ranking performant/mobile friendly sites higher.

The app testers should put fake identifying information in the various app forms + automatically measure the outbound HTTP traffic for cleartext versions of the IDs.

<comment><USER10> >> Linux users currently have the lowest when using Chrome with 86%. I'm curious why the is.

They probably browse quite a few old sites for documentation and tooling that are just not updated for HTTPS. A forum I post on to this day is still served over plain ole HTTP and they have no interest in changing.

<comment><USER11> Isn't it more likely to be low grade android devices in poor countries with outdated government, banking, and education portals?

I doubt kernel hackers make up a large enough demographic to skew the metrics...

<comment><USER12> Android is separate from Linux in the report. Developers and tech people make up a significant (if not majority) share of Linux users.

A lot of popular Linux and developer related pages are HTTP only. I did a quick Google search for some Linux related tasks, and found plenty of sites that don't use HTTPS. e.g. man7.org, linuxhowtos.org, linuxcommand.org

The report does break down HTTPS traffic by country, and you're right that lower income countries do have a lower share of HTTPS traffic.

<comment><USER9> All the major wikis seem to be using HTTPS: Ubuntu, Fedora, Archlinux, Debian, Majaro, WineHQ, Gnome, KDE, CentOS, OpenSuse

Wikis arent the problem!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can't believe it's been over ten years.

2008 was when there were numerous undersea cable disruptions[1]. I wrote about them when it happened from the best sources I could find at the time[2].

It isn't surprising to see that surveillance may have occurred as a result.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_submarine_cable_disruption)

[2] - [https://randomdrake.com/2008/02/12/the-submarine-cables-a- co...](https://randomdrake.com/2008/02/12/the-submarine-cables-a-complete- guide-to-the-2008-internet-outage/)

</comment><comment><USER14> If there's any comfort to be had, South Africa's intelligence agencies are a shambles, and unable to deal with real-life threats right under their noses. The idea that they'd be able to do anything actionable with bulk—collected electronic intel is laughable.

The way things are going, wouldn't be surprising if whole thing is a corrupt scheme linked to procurement of storage media.

<comment><USER15> Is that comforting? It just leaves all the risks associated with an invasion of privacy with none of the claimed security upsides.

Just because they can't use it competently doesn't mean they can't abuse it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Surveillance is nothing new in South Africa. It is not even a secret. We have a regulation with a name that fully disclose that your communications can be intercepted. It is called RICA, which is short for Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act 70 of 2002 [1].

When you buy a new SIM card, you have to register it using your identification document and proof of residence. Every legally obtained SIM card is accountable. That way they wil know they are intercepting communication of the right person.

[1] [http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2002-070.pdf](http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2002-070.pdf)

<comment><USER6> > legally obtained

As an aside, you and I both know how easy it is to get an activated sim card... But I agree with you comment; this article is not really "news".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The German BND snoops traffic at DECIX. UK snoops on transatlantic cables. Everyone snoops.

Either we move to full e2e encryption or we organize democratically to tear down the modern Stasi.

<comment><USER18> > The German BND snoops traffic at DECIX.

To forward a lot of it to the NSA [0], the same NSA that also messed with Germanys G10 laws to "legalize" these kinds of practices in the very first place [1] for exactly that reason.

edit: UK is pretty much also NSA, because unlike the German BND they are at least part of FiveEyes [2] because real global surveillance is a rather exclusive club.

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

[1] [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/20140...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's worrying that developing countries can buy off-the-shelf solutions to surveil its citizens without going through the decades of cultural and social change other countries have. We asked questions like "Is this ethical?" before the technology became possible. For them, the tech is here and the social discussions were never started.

Maybe this is the same thing. We haven't upheld our ideals on privacy anyway.

<comment><USER7> I see few uses in asking if it is ethical, doing it anyway and putting dissidents in prison, which also happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Assume all Internet connections are party lines and just encrypt all the things.

<comment><USER21> Also, assume that states have access to root certificates.

<comment><USER20> No clue why this is downvoted. I would assume that at least for G7 and orher "first world" nation states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not helping the security of the country very much. SA has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More details on South Africa's bulk interception of undersea fibre cables - [https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/09/03/murray-hunter-digital- ri...](https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/09/03/murray-hunter-digital-rights- surveillance-south-africa-spying/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm no big fan of recent Google, but huge thank you to them for driving a push towards https by default

<comment><USER24> Thanks to Let's Encrypt too for making it easier and cheap to SSL your site. I now see "[http://"](http://") and think "that looks dirty, what's their excuse?".

<comment><USER25> HTTPS has downsides too, let's not kid ourselves.

<comment><USER24> What is the downside of using https over http?

<comment><USER26> Nobody said the downsides were over HTTP. When talking about state sponsored espionage, the glaring downside of HTTPS is PKI and buying into the CA model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wonder if they have any partnerships with the Five Eyes?

<comment><USER28> Given South Africa is a member of BRICS, it's not likely.

> In addition to commercial motivations, the new fiber optic Silk Road could > also have geopolitical and strategic implications. Russia and China > evidently share a desire to shield themselves from U.S. and other Western > intelligence agencies and probably believe that their own communications – > both with one another and to and from Europe – will be better protected if > cables run across their own territory rather than through the Indian Ocean > or the U.S. The same motivation explains the announced Telebras cable, which > will connect Brazil to Portugal without any U.S. technology, and the BRICS > cable project, which will link Vladivostok to Brazil, via China, India and > South Africa.

[https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/a-fiber-optic-silk- road/](https://thediplomat.com/2015/04/a-fiber-optic-silk-road/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While interception is common and probably ubiquitous, I think we overestimate the governments' ability and wherewithal to use all this data. At the end of the day, only the worst hackers work for government.

</comment><comment><USER30> If traffic is encrypted E2E or OE it should not be a problem that someone eavesdrop on traffic.

Here is one to make public key crypto practical using AI+Human derived mnemonics:

Btw, Jack Dorsey's Twitter account was hacked recently, which is another interesting story.

[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1f2k6fsIkDmIS1WyJAT0l...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1f2k6fsIkDmIS1WyJAT0lXQmDuHIPeo9GDKfP1FY2rVc)</comment>


Collecting feedback on Algorithms/Interview Prep site - <AUTHOR> Do you guys enjoy most mainstream sites for coding questions like leetcode, hackerearth, interview bit etc. I feel that it is difficult to learn from as the solutions can be hard to understand and some problems are hard to visualize. Do you guys have any similar problems with these sites or any ways they can be made better?<p>I ask because I was thinking about starting my own prep site, that included much more tutorials and giving you harder questions step by step. I just wanted to gather your guys thoughts on what can be made better about the process of interview preparation learning. <comment><USER2> Rather than making even more people waste time on this, can we please stop encouraging these sorts of interviews, and the pointless cramming involved?

</comment><comment><USER3> HackerRank is complete garbage. My favorite platform for practicing algorithms is Leetcode because it receives updates often, community is very large, collection of problems and solutions are very well moderated and tagged (company, problem category) and the user experience is frictionless compared with HackerRank.

My problem with HackerRank is primarily based on its difficulty in jumping right in with little instruction specific to HackerRank's platform. A good example of this is its JavaScript support. Without going in to detail, users solving problems in JavaScript are forced to write code in a strange way, such as wrapping the solution in a "main" function. This should be abstracted away so that users of the platform can focus on solving the problem, not figuring out obscure details of the language support due to mediocre implementation on behalf of HackerRank.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you think the lack of teaching algorithms and data structures makes leetcode weak? It seems that users are expected to dive right in. Have you looked at interviewbit at all? They have a lot of videos in categories but the problems and solutions are not as well done as leetcode.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Rust library for face detection - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/atomashpolskiy/rustface#----rustface <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, HN'ers! This is a port of SeetaFace C++ library to Rust. I've recently read the (awesome) Rust Programming Language book and could not stand the temptation to get my hands dirty with some small, but meaningful project. Cheers :)</comment>