Mac OS Screenshot does not Allow DVD Player to Appear in Captured Region - <AUTHOR> http://jacobirw.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/mac-os-screenshot-does-not-allow-dvd-player-to-appear-in-captured-region/

<comment><USER2> Linux does the same thing. In the case of Linux/X11, it's because an accelerated video overlay is being used -- instead of writing to a framebuffer that's then rendered onto the screen, you coordinate with the video card to have it handle scaling, colorspace conversions and blitting of that data directly onto a memory-mapped portion of the display.

Then the screenshot tool runs and dumps the framebuffer, and finds no image where your DVD playback is happening, because there isn't anything in the framebuffer for that window.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that. I (and I guess a lot of other commenters) hadn't considered that there might be a totally innocent explanation.

Come to think of it, I've noticed this behaviour in the past.

<comment><USER4> Well why should you consider something like that when it's easier for the other commenters to just assume that it's some draconian company with horrible intentions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Could you ever imagine buying a house that doesn't allow you to perform certain activities inside its walls, because the architects and engineers who built it disapprove, and they're fully in control of it?

Neither would I. It wouldn't be _true ownership_. Yet that's exactly what's happening here. The OP bought a Mac, but he can't perform certain activities, because the company that built it disapproves, and they control his machine.

"Your" Mac does what you want, but only if Apple and its partners are OK with it. Is it really "yours?"

<comment><USER6> That's overblowing it a little bit. Has anyone tried doing the same thing with third party DVD playback software? I haven't but I think chances are good that it'll work.

This sort of thing is just par for the course and I see no reason to be upset over it (not saying you are, just generally). You've got a for-profit company with close partnerships and deals with various media companies plus their own iTunes store. Of course this is going to happen. But is it a big deal? It's sure a pain in the ass if you really need a screenshot of the DVD you're watching but if you really need it you'll find a way around it.

<comment><USER7> > But is it a big deal?

It's a deal breaker for me. My present computer doesn't have a DVD drive, but even if it did, I wouldn't buy or use a DVD unless I'm in control. I would rather download from BitTorrent -- not only is it free as in beer it is also free as in freedom, which is more important.

Computers are already ubiquitous and this will only get more true. If they do what governments and corporations want instead of what their users want, then they will become a massive tool for oppression, an oppression more fine- grained than anything Hitler or Stalin dreamed of.

Treacherous computing is an evil, and all good people should have nothing to do with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Extremely annoying and similar: if a Mac is playing back purchased content in iTunes, any anybody has a Remote Desktop connection to that Mac open, it will show that same checkerboard "fuck you, consumer peon, your corporate overlords prohibit you from viewing this content" view.

This happened to me when we had people over for dinner, somebody wanted to show some video, we bought it from iTunes (in the dining room while eating), and it wouldn't play back.

Of course, at that point we gave up so as not to let DRM ruin dinner. Later, I discovered that it was because somewhere in the house there was a notebook remoting to the TV mac (normal, since that is how we mainly control it).

I don't think this has any underlying technical rationale (hardware acceleration, etc); I'm sure it is just a relic of Apple's deals with the 'content providers'.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not really news... this has been the case since the first Mac shipped with a DVD player. Wait until he tries to attach gdb while a Fairplay-encoded file is being played.

<comment><USER10> What does happen if you try to attach gdb? You can't, or the application just quits, or do you get some error message? I'm somewhat curious now.

<comment><USER11> I think this is the story that the parent was referencing. Here's the story from 2005 and a kernel module loadable at runtime that gets around the problem.

<https://blogs.oracle.com/ahl/entry/mac_os_x_and_the>

[http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/Leopard_PT_DENY_AT...](http://landonf.bikemonkey.org/code/macosx/Leopard_PT_DENY_ATTACH.20080122.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It used to actually give you an error dialog box - <http://imgb.mp/jaY.jpg>

It's not due to hardware acceleration, I've never been unable to take a screenshot of anything else in OS X, I think it's due to how Quartz does its compositing (everything is a 3D texture, there are no 2D-style overlays).

<comment><USER13> Used to get round it with a terminal command, until Lion IIRC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Same thing happens on Windows if hardware acceleration is enabled. The video is decoded and drawn by the video card.

<comment><USER15> But in that case (iirc), the video is displayed as a black square. There's no window borders here either.

<comment><USER16> Well if the video is hardware blended there could be anything in the framebuffer, so it could be black or checkered, I see no incompatibility.

The lack of borders is definitely harder to explain that way though. Definitely looks like some form of deliberate "limitation".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> it's not because of hardware acceleration at all. It's actively preventing the window to be captured (I believe iTunes does some similar). It uses a private API and an example is here:

[https://github.com/heardrwt/RHAdditions/blob/master/RHAdditi...](https://github.com/heardrwt/RHAdditions/blob/master/RHAdditions/NSWindow%2BRHPreventCaptureAdditions.m)

</comment><comment><USER18> Rather more annoying, the same issue occurs if Screen Sharing is in use when DVD Player.app starts.

Needless to say, this is a total pain when controlling a media machine remotely. VLC's DVD playback is a little ropey in my experience, but at least it works.

It's the pointlessness of this feature that irritates me. If I wanted to copy the contents of a DVD, I'd insert it and use one of the squillions of programs that are freely available to do so. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't take frame-by- frame screenshots.

<comment><USER19> > _I'm pretty sure I wouldn't take frame-by-frame screenshots._

Quicktime allows to record a video of your screen. I bet QT leverages the same framework as the screen capture thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think if you use VLC you can circumvent this despicable attack upon our freedoms.

<comment><USER21> Of course, it only applies to the inbuilt DVD Player application.

<comment><USER22> Obviously Apple would have known this.

I wonder if part of the reason they agreed to it is that they knew ultimately it was, in reality, basically no restriction at all.

<comment><USER23> I have trouble seeing it as that complex of a calculus

They wanted to make a DVD player. DVDCCA (or someone) required them to block screen grabs during playback as a condition of giving them a proper license for CSS (or something) for their DVD player. They blocked screen grabs during playback.

I doubt "is this really going to achieve anything" ever entered anyone's mind. It would just complicate the licensing negotiation for something Apple doesn't really give a crap about (some random third party app)

<comment><USER22> Thinking as a software developer, if a third party asked me to do something I thought wasn't a good idea for the end user, part of how heavily I'd push back on it would be how big a deal it really was to the user.

You may be right though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Windows System Internals book (6th edition IIRC) also mentions that even debug builds of Microsoft Windows Vista and newer have certain restrictions in observing the kernel, and seeing CSS decryption keys was the thing they mentioned in particular.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's also the case on iOS. You can't screen cap the inbuilt movie player output. Nor can you programatically grab the bitmap layer contents of the movie.

<comment><USER26> You could back when I had an iPod Touch 2G, unless the limitation only applies to iTunes DRMed videos and not your own videos you put on there.

<comment><USER27> cjbprime's explanation (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5792745>) could apply to that one as well; did the iPod Touch 2G have a dedicated GPU chip yet, or was video rendering done on the CPU?

<comment><USER25> Everything on iOS is sent as a texture and displayed via the GPU. This has been happening since iOS 1 / First iPhone.

Macha is actually reporting the opposite, it worked fine. So if it wasnt doing it on a particular version of iOS it was probably just that they were doing the extra work to hide it then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've never quite understood this. There are so many simpler and more effective ways of copying DVDs than using screen capture software (let alone taking a single screenshot) that it doesn't seem worth the effort to deliberately block.

<comment><USER29> I guess it's more about "educating" the public that The Content is a holy cow which can only be watched and admired, solely by paying customers, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It would be plausible if this was actually that the screenshot code could not get at the hardware-decoded pixels that are composited by hardware.

This used to happen on Windows laptop screenshots a lot - often chroma-keyed - and it was how the video on the generation of phones I worked on worked.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @acuozzo I was running dual monitors and was watching the movie on the tinier MacBook Pro screen. I had no intention of using an image from the film for anything at all. But I always open both screenshots (two screenshots are saved to your desktop when you are on two monitors; again, with the shortcut "CMD+Shift+3") to be sure I delete the one I don't want (i.e. the GUI of the monitor I don't care about), in this case, I just noticed this empty region (where the DVD Player app was running) in Preview right before deleting the image.

@mosteveryoneElse yes, it must be mostly related to DMCA BS. And Apple is just being overprotective here. Since the DVD Player App is native to the Mac OS, surely it is mpy difficult to hide 'designated app[s']' windows when a user takes a screenshot.

</comment><comment><USER31> I couldn't do this on Windows a while back because hardware acceleration was on.

</comment><comment><USER32> That person tried, and failed, to take a screen shot.

If he now installs VLC and takes a screen shot is he breaking DMCA anti- circumvention laws?

</comment><comment><USER33> It doesn't matter what type of DVD is playing. It could be one you made yourself and this limitation would still be in place.

</comment><comment><USER34> This has been the case for like a decade.

</comment><comment><USER35> So much for fair use.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady This also happens in iTunes. Is it really that big of a problem? Why would you need to screenshot something you're watching? The OP doesn't say why he wanted to take the screenshot.

Also, does anyone know the reason Mac OS does this?

<comment><USER36> > Is it really that big of a problem? Why would you need to screenshot > something you're watching? The OP doesn't say why he wanted to take the > screenshot.

Wait... are you kidding?

Among other things:

      1  Fair use: Hey, buddy! Check out this cool still.

      2  Fair use: Wow, that's a cool shot! I'd love to make it my background.

      3  Fair use: Gee, that sucks! Director Martin M. McStupid made a bunch of CGI changes to his classic award-winning 70s film. I'd like to share some of the most offensive changes with my buddies on the Example.net Forum.

      4  Fair use: Totally awesome! The DVD9 release of this film was encoded with a high bitrate. Let's take some stills from fast-moving shots so that we can compare it against the DVD5 release from the 90s.

      5  Fair use: This movie no longer has its original theatrical color-timing. I'd like to take a sample from each shot so that I can come up with curves to do a shot-by-shot color-correction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think there are more than 3 video player which could play DVD on Mac. So why we use this BAD application? BTW, the new retina macbook shipped without DVD driver, there is not that much which we need to worry about.

</comment><comment><USER38> This has been true for years — since Mac OS X 10.1. I believe third-party tools like Snapz Pro (and perhaps even the command line screen capture tool) get around this limitation.

</comment><comment><USER39> It has been this way for years.

VLC is ok of course :)

</comment><comment><USER40> DVD player also can't be "seen" over airplay.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm not sure why, but I always find it irrationally annoying when I see someone using their desktop as a filesystem.

</comment><comment><USER42> OT: Wow, that's a messy desktop. Makes me feel a little better about my own desktop.

</comment><comment><USER43> also happens when you try to view iTunes movies or shows while controlling your Mac with a remote desktop connection.

super annoying.

</comment><comment><USER44> That's funny...I know this has been around for awhile, but I only first experienced it this weekend when I was trying to excerpt part of a movie scene (for educational purposes)...I didn't go the Handbrake route because I wanted to say that I had avoided breaking the DRM law...while the copyright law may be ambiguous on backups, cracking the DRM is pretty much always a breach of the DMCA

</comment><comment><USER45> People still use DVDs?

</comment><comment><USER46> Hurray for the DMCA!

</comment><comment><USER47> Now is the time for armed revolution, our human rights are being violated. :b</comment>


The Truth About the Luxury of Qatar Airways - <AUTHOR> http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/the-truth-about-the-luxury-of-qatar-airways/

<comment><USER2> Highly reccomend reading this article, certainly an eye opener. I have known some bad employers, but this is sistemic in that it seems to be country approved. Sadly though as they are a rich country due to oil they seem to be allowed to flaunt such moral and humanitarian standards, given how other countries goverments suck up to their wallets. Truely shocking and I for one will never fly that Airline or associate with any company from that country until they clean up there act and treat women as equals and start learning even the basics of workers rights. It may not be much, but it is what I can do and will do. I will also view any potentual employees from that country more positivly in any reference, to balance out such biased standards. This is not an isolated read or article and I have read many cases of such treatment that it is and does appear to be countrywide. I'm not a goverment nor a country but I can personaly impose my own sanctions and I will. Heck not even going to watch the World cup when they host it and that is commitment and how strongly I feel about such matters.</comment>


Ask HN:  How do you relent to social pressure? - <AUTHOR>

For example, many mathematically sophisticated people vote due to social pressure.<p>How do you relent to social pressure? <comment><USER2> I wear clothes, pretend I appreciate compliments, etc.

<comment><USER3> Yeah ... I was thinking, "I don't", but I do to the extent you list....</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Learning about iphone game development - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to learn some iphone/ipad game development but I'm not sure on where to start. What I want to do is being able to create simple 2d games, but I'd also like to learn more advanced stuff in the future.<p>I know that AI will be of an essential role in this industry but I'm wondering if there are any book/tutorials recommendations for developing games specifically for the iphone ecosystem. <comment><USER2> Start here: <http://www.idevgames.com/forums/>

This forum has been a huge help for me. Lots of good info on writing a correct game loop for iPhones and working with opengl code too.</comment>


Show HN: AutoDocs.io – GitHub integrated JSDoc and PHPDoc generation and hosting - <AUTHOR> https://autodocs.io/ <comment><USER2> Beautiful! One question: Can I write functions/apis document in Markdown and use your beautiful auto generate site to generate the html/pdf?</comment>


Mass Exodus of SF - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/living-in-sf/article/2020-San-Francisco-exodus-is-real-and-historic-15484785.php <comment><USER2> > It should be noted that San Francisco had an unusually low inventory > relative to other large cities prior to the pandemic. Historically, the > ratio of homes for sale relative to total housing has been a quarter of what > New York's was.

the article is totally about percentages. 1->2 = 100%. poor framing, for clicks, if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Amazing what happens in big cities when the job opportunities disappear, rents don't come down, and fun things are forcibly closed.

</comment><comment><USER4> > The San Jose metro, which like the city of SF is dominated by tech workers

Is this true specifically for homeowners? Last I looked it up, only 7-12% of bay area residents work in tech, and I think a lot of us rent.

<comment><USER5> Maybe in terms of recent home sales otherwise you're most definitely on point

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bad news</comment>


Show HN: Deadsimple – A static site server serving Markdown as Bootstrap HTML - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ncthis/deadsimple

<comment><USER2> So just to be clear, this "server"

* doesn't actually convert the markdown to HTML, it relies on client side rendering.

* doesn't serve anything but markdown files (no css, no js)

The reasoning given is "simple and elegant".. I didn't realise a complete lack of functionality was "elegant". If so, this ceramic tile right here, is actually a very elegant computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does one thing and one thing good. Which is getting a markdown file in some place in the server, and "serving" it in a way it could be rendered in bootstrap based html.

      I didn't realise a complete lack of functionality was "elegant"

I wouldn't say it's a complete lack of functionality because it does the one function that it advertises to do. It serves the purpose it was built for, which is serving markdown in a manner that could be rendered to html.

A static server by definition doesn't necessarily have to serve css or js. You could just build a server that serves text file, and call it a static server you know.

      this ceramic tile right here, is actually a very elegant computer

A computer on the other hand, by definition needs to process an input to a designated output, which I'm pretty sure your ceramic tile cannot do.

So, all in all, congratulations on completely missing the point of this, in favor of an incredibly inaccurate metaphor.

<comment><USER2> But that's just it. The "server" simply prepends and appends two html fragment files.

All the work to render it as bootstrap HTML is done client side.

Prepending and Appending two template snippets to a requested file is such a menial task it's a built-in config option in languages like PHP and could be emulated in a one-line call to almost any scripting language that has built in file IO. Hell, it could probably be done with some creative SSI and mod_redirect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you forget the part where the the template snippets become bootstrap html? Granted, it's not something I wrote. I just saw a potential use of a great library that could be achieved by building a simple server over it. Anyone could do it, but I was the one who did it this time, at this place, for a genuine need I had.

If you're going to call a Show HN menial because it doesn't live up to your standards of how complex a show HN would be, your opinion is duly noted.

But from "complete lack of functionality" to "menial", that's quite a stretch.

<comment><USER2> I apologise for my tone in earlier comments. Let me try again:

My point is that the goals of this project seem to introduce more problems than it solves.

It re-creates the same HTML header/footer for every request, but then doesn't do the actual markdown conversion, and it doesn't even serve the associated JS, CSS, etc files that are required to make it work.

A simple Markdown to styled page(s) tool is a great idea, I wrote one myself a few years ago, before moving onto things like Gollum. Having a read-only tool like this is a great alternative to the extra weight of something like Gollum, but this just doesn't really solve the problem very well right now, IMO.

Given that it runs on Node, you could quite easily add a few features to make it a more complete solution:

* Serve all assets - in this way, this can be used standalone, behind a caching proxy like varnish, or as an origin server for a CDN service like Akamai or similar. The specific JS and CSS that it requires could be bundled outside the document root and handled as a special case in the url router.

* Handle markdown conversion in the server. The client-side code can probably run with little if any modification in Node, and would reduce the number of resources and processing time required on the client device

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://h3rald.com/hastyscribe/](https://h3rald.com/hastyscribe/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't be better to compile the Markdown files before?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, that's exactly what most static site generators would do. I wanted to avoid exactly that. Because, then you will write your markdown and compile it to html. The moment that you do that, there are two representation of the same data. And if you want to host it on github or somewhere, you will be checking the html files too.

What if you could just do the whole site without compiling to HTML? What if you could just check in the md file, and it would just work?

That's where I was coming from when I hacked this together.

I'm certainly not saying it's a better way of doing this, I'm just saying I love the simplicity that something like this would bring in when I want to host a simple static site.

<comment><USER3> Right. I understand it. I thought the main goal was to get rid of templates and configuration, just place the markdown and get HTML -- and that could be done with compiling.</comment></comment></comment>


AirNote: HTML Rich Editor for Android - <AUTHOR> Now I would like to introduce the HTML Rich Editor component for Android to here, it is called the AirNote.
In a word, AirNote uses the HTML Rendering Engine implemented in a purely Java code, it is the outstanding characteristic of AirNote WYSIWYG HTML editor.
Unlike iOS environment of Apple, In Android's WebKit environment, the interoperability between WebView and an editing app is getting more complex and unstable because it runs in a separate Process. So as you have known, Evernote's Android versions do not offer the HTML Rich editor, unlike their iOS version.
But AirNote we made is provided the HTML Rich Editor in the form of libraries, it is the biggest advantage because it runs in the same UI thread can be easily and reliably interlocked between the HTML engine and the UI of editor. AirNote is now included in the world famous Nine(Exchange mail client) for Android as HTML rich editor, it's going through in the beta testing phase. Even though you can make sure with your eyes if you use AirNote demo app downloaded from Google playstore, AirNote has a similar ability level of editing functions such as Gmail for PC, and you can feel the HTML
rendering performance much better than MS Word. AirNote provides also some special features for smartphone environment such as image resizing and rotating. But we don't have WebKit-based solutions for the PC using Javascript. So it will be the best solution for companies that have some troubles to implement HTML editor based WebKit to your Android applications, even if you have the WebKit based editor.
Please review the materials and demonstration program of AirNote below.
The homepage of AirNote : http://airnote.github.io/ the demo app of AirNote for Evernote :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wise.airnote.demo Feedback email : firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><AUTHOR> Demo app: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wise.airno...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wise.airnote.demo)</comment>


Cloud with Me - <AUTHOR> https://cloudwith.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! What do you think about this product? [https://cloudwith.me/](https://cloudwith.me/)</comment>


BF4 spotlights EA's inability to launch games, treat players with dignity - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/3/5269676/battlefield-4-spotlights-eas-inability-to-launch-games-treat-players

<comment><USER2> Rockstar has the same problem with GTA V Online.</comment>


Help me test my open source budgeting web app - <AUTHOR> https://sumapp.com Okay, so its no Mint, but its perfect for people who think Mint is overkill or don't want to give a web app their bank information.
I made it for semi-computer illiterate people to manage a budget over email. So far it has changed my girlfriend and my mom's life.
On a side note, I wrote it in Ruby with help from Sinatra. I think it is a pretty good example of how to write a class-based Sinatra app with a full test suite.
Any suggestions or help spreading the word would be much appreciated! <comment><USER2> Nice idea and execution. A few questions/comments.

1\. Does the app assume that users want to spend about the same amount every day? I'll sometimes spend $0 one day and $1000+ the next day (e.g. mortgage payment). I'm entirely interested in keeping my monthly spending within a limit, but not my daily or weekly spending.

2\. I've never taken to Mint or Quickbooks. My finances are pretty complicated, thanks to several income streams and companies, and tools like Mint/Qb assume that you care about ALL of your income and expenses equally. But all I care about is my overall monthly spending (am I going into debt?), and my spending within categories (how much did I blow on eating out this month?).

Have you thought about adding optional categories/tags? So if you want to keep your "beer" spending to, say, $750/month, you can track how much you have left to spend on beer, alongside your tally of total spending? Email/text in "12.55 +beer" and it gets tagged with beer.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. And I love that it's open- sourced. Watch for a fork. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. It does assume that users have a daily budget, however the projected daily, weekly, and monthly budget amounts are still helpful in determining exactly how much damage you're doing.

2\. Exactly my situation.

3\. That is a great idea. If I were to add extra functionality, it would be in a way that keeps the existing system working as is, but has extras for "power users". Your idea fits right in line with that.

I've seen way too many people who think budgeting is too hard, or they need to learn some program/web app to do it. Any help is greatly appreciated!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok so its no Mint, but its perfect for people who think Mint is overkill or do not want to give their bank login to a web app.

It is targeted towards less-than-computer-literate people who know how to use email. I'm not quite sure how to reach my target audience yet :). So far it has changed my girlfriend and my mom's life. They see budgeting as a fun game now.

On a side note, I wrote it in Ruby with help from Sinatra. I think it is a pretty good example of a class-based Sinatra app with a full test suite.

</comment><comment><USER3> You shouldn't ask for an email address without some sort of privacy policy statement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true. Completely slipped my mind. I'll get one up tonight.

<comment><AUTHOR> (Done)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks interesting. I'll give it a try.

What about accepting sms messages in addition to the emails. I did a couple of test projects with textmarks.com. It's free (with an ad on every outbound message), but it would work well for your app.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had never heard of textmarks. Great tip.

<comment><USER4> I built a site to keep tracking of my bowling average during different leagues and practice using textmarks' API.

<http://whatsmyaverage.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very easy! I agree, this might be the wrong audience for this. Maybe look into telling the credit relief orgs about it.</comment>


SiriusXM buys Pandora for $3.5 billion - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/9/24/17895332/siriusxm-pandora-acquisition-music-streaming <comment><USER2> Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago.

Saddly this is almost all self inflicted.

While Spotify, Apple music and Google music really worked hard to get people to actually pay for the service Pandora continued to act like it was a VC backed company in hyper growth mode long after that was the case.

They fought with the record labels longer than most of their competitors did to their own determent and they didn't end up getting any concessions for their extra effort.

And when everyone else was letting you select any music you wanted in playlist, they insisted on staying radio style only.

<comment><USER3> >Poor Pandora and their investors. This is for about a quarter of what they were worth just 4 years ago.

They also got 3.5 billion for a company that hasn't made any money in its 18 year existence so it's hard to feel too bad.

<comment><USER4> Being a business noob, I've got to ask - How exactly does a company that makes nothing in 18 years, get acquired for 3.5 billion?

<comment><USER5> Pandora brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in 2017, and will have even more revenue in 2018.

Of course, licensing rates means that the company only gets to see a few hundred million of that, and a significant portion of that needs to go to advertising sales personnel -- audio advertising is incredibly hands-on compared to other forms of internet advertising.

As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins.

<comment><USER6> > As an aside: it was interesting when the stock cratered last year to the > point where the market cap of the company was lower than its annual revenue > -- all the revenue in the world doesn't make up for negative margins.

Yup, revenue doesn't really mean anything; Walmart's market cap is less than their 2017 revenue.

<comment><USER7> People always yell at me when I say this but what if we lower corporate tax rate and tax revenue instead of profits? Does it encourage companies to get even bigger and do everything in house?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cancelling Sirus is always interesteing. I always say I don't want to pay the $90 or however much for 6 months of access. No $50 is also too high. How about $30? Ok sure I'll pay.

I think Sirus only makes money off the folks who forget to cancel after the promotional period. It's like $20 a month and I've forgot to do it my self for a couple months.

Pandora always had the best selections on their radio channels. Spotify is not as good for random radio selections. I would never pay for Pandora after having so much music available on Spotify or Apple Music.

<comment><USER9> After buying an XM enabled car from a dealership, I was extremely disappointed when I started receiving weekly mailings and phone calls from them as my "trial" was expiring.

I am still pissed off about the lengths I had to go to in order to stop receiving communications from them. They refused to remove my contact information from their system and could not promise I wouldn't be contacted again in the future. I had to ultimately change all of my contact information to false information, fortunately the guy I was talking to was sympathetic to my plight and had no objections testing out the system to see what BS info it would take.

The whole escapade landed them on my short list of companies I will never do business with ever again.

<comment><USER10> Sirius and Onstar are two of the worst things about my car purchase. I wonder the degree to which these partnerships hurt these car brands for short term profit.

Things I want in an OEM receiver: 1) Carplay/Android Auto, 2) Software updates for 1, 3) Radio, 4) To never do anything else ( _call_ me, install bloatware apps, reorder menus, etc).

<comment><USER11> > Sirius and Onstar are two of the worst things about my car purchase

I'd say your car purchase was an awesome experience.

<comment><USER12> You don't know enough about OnStar, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used Pandora in the distant past.

These days I mainly use [http://www.gnoosic.com](http://www.gnoosic.com) for recommendations and then look for the artists on the web, Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc.

Not sure if that makes me one of a kind?

This approach gives me more of a "discoverer" feeling then using one monolithic service that spoon feeds me my musical life.

<comment><USER14> Most of the music recommendation services I know of are based on meta data of the songs (artist, genre, etc.). Is there anyone out there working on recommendation systems purely based on the music itself, now that we have deep learning? I'd kill for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Spotify Premium for family at $15/mo is still gonna be pretty hard to beat. But. IMHO SXM has been doing a great job with exclusive content like recent live recordings (eg phish and other jambands), which is immune to the "shazam->spotify" escape hatch I'd otherwise use. They are desperate to get onto people's devices, and as the early leader in the space Pandora's still got "eyeballs" (eardrums?) galore in terms of installed user base. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out....

</comment><comment><USER16> I think this is really exciting actually. I LOVE SiriusXM because their radio is curated by an actual DJ. You get to hear so many tracks that algorithmic services like Spotify never would surface. I use both Spotify and SiriusXM as for me they fulfill very different use cases. Spotify is for playing what I want to hear and Sirius is for when I want a human with deep expertise in a genre to play things for me.

For me, an algorithmic feed of music just isn't interesting. Music is art, and art is for humans, not computers.

<comment><USER17> Honestly, I discover far more music through services like Spotify and Pandora than I ever have through the SiriusXM stations that I listen to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Recently, I got Pandora Plus through T-mobile promotion. I was enjoying it until one day, while driving, I got "Can't skip due to licensing restriction" which reminded me of the scene in Fifteen Million Merits from Black Mirror...

What worse was it was bit off from type of song I asked for, and particularly I couldn't stand to listen to. I switched back to Google Play Music, which has a mix of my own uploads and (smaller for things in my taste, but doesn't complain I can't skip) music from the service.

</comment><comment><USER19> This makes me side. I am a long-time, paid subscriber. We'll see what happens next, fingers crossed.

I'm not sure if this was a win for the team or a mercy killing. But, if someone can explain what's in this for customers, that would be very helpful.

<comment><USER20> SiriusXM is dying, if not already dead. Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or preload a bunch of music on my phone? Or just stream? 10 years ago, you could still do these things, but it was harder or very expensive. Now, you just open an app on your unlimited data phone, plug in the aux cable, and start driving.

So this purchase is about Sirius re-entering the market. I think they'll pivot pandora to be more self-serve and they'll merge the good things people liked about sirius (comedy, shock jocks) with the good things people liked about pandora (choice, freemium)

<comment><USER21> > Why do I need satellite radio when I can just listen to a podcast, or > preload a bunch of music on my phone?

Anyone who is away from a good data connection for a significant amount of time. E.g. long haul truckers, rural areas (especially in the western US), mountainous regions. If most of your car time is commuting in the city/suburbs, that may not be an issue.

<comment><USER22> My podcasts are all downloaded with multiple episodes for each podcast and so is a large collection of my Spotify music. I get what you're saying but it isn't that big of an issue with a reasonably modern mobile device and a little customization of the app to do the downloads for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Whenever there is an exit like this I like to remember that for just 4B, Sirius could have had a Star Wars franchise instead. These valuations are nutty.

</comment><comment><USER24> Other sources [1] mention a "go-shop" provision, which allows pandora to shop the deal around. I'm wondering if this is likely to result in any alternative deals?

[1] [http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press- release...](http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press- releases/press-release-details/2018/SiriusXM-to-Acquire-Pandora-Creating- Worlds-Largest-Audio-Entertainment-Company/default.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER25> I never liked algorithmic DJs.

They don't really expand my horizons and play the same crap over and over.

My favorite is chirpradio dot org. Real DJs who are real music buffs.

<comment><USER26> Thank you. I thought I was the only one who got tired of algorithms noticing I'm listing to some classic rock and deciding a great move would be to introduce me to this band I may have never heard of called The Eagles.

I've noticed that YouTube (just plain YouTube, not the new YouTube Music) is actually decent at recommending music though. I played some songs by The Meters and Herbie Hancock, and through its recommendations I learned about the existence of Lafayette Afro Rock Band and learned that Prince made a funk/fusion album in 1977 before his pop stuff. I wonder if it's just using its regular video recommendation algorithm and not anything music specific, which might be a different approach than the music services.

EDIT: And by really strange coincidence, I just checked out Chirp, and the last song they played was by The Meters, and before that they played another band (Cymande) that YouTube recommended in the same session.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have used Pandora (happily) for years. Just downgraded my subscription to the "free" level as I have too many streaming music providers and needed to reduce cost. SiriusXM (paid), YouTube Music (paid, new), and Pandora (free) are my streaming services. Trying to build up my YT library now, as Pandora has over a decade of my "likes".

</comment><comment><USER28> It's such a shame that Pandora didn't do anything with rdio.com. Rdio was the best music service I've ever used. Not only was the music high quality, but the UI was very intuitive on all devices, and it also had cool features like if you're playing Rdio on your laptop, you could use your phone as a remote control.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not a bad exit for a company that raised a Series... H?</comment>


Real-time 3D Face Reconstruction - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cleardusk/3DDFA <comment><USER2> > _Beijing, China Ph.D. student dedicated to face analysis, face recognition, > 3D face, face anti-spoof and deep learning._

We used to have the greatest minds of our generation working on HFT and ad technology, now they're working on tech that enables our Orwellian watchers. It's a scary future we venture into.

<comment><USER3> In China can you get someone in trouble with the social credit system by creating fake videos of them doing stuff deemed unacceptable like criticizing the President.

<comment><USER4> The irony is so strong, I first though the comment actually was talking about China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You know you are not allowed to distribute BFM and it's modifications?

> NO DISTRIBUTION: You are not allowed to sublicense or distribute the DATA in > whole or in part to any third party.

<comment><USER2> Author location: Beijing, China. In other words, good luck with enforcement.

<comment><USER6> The person who posted this on HN is the original author of the paper, please be somewhat respectful and not rude. If you want to call him out, talk to him directly here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The alignment feature (halfway down the readme) would make a great poor-man face-motion-capture!

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like it's time for Adobe Character Animator to move into 3D.</comment>


Morpheus: Y Combinator-Like Incubator in India - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/10/morpheus-y-combinator-like-incubator-in-india.php

<comment><USER2> Looks like a scam. 4-8% of the company for no real money invested in the company.

There isn't much to be talked about the background of founders.</comment>


Why did sanctions against North Korea's missile program fail? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/why-did-sanctions-against-north-koreas-missile-program-fail-80666 <comment><USER2> Its much simplier. UN get North Korea into a tight corner. There was no way out of there. And there is no way out of there for now. North Korea have nothing left to do except surviving at all costs.

To defeat enemy make him to face difficult choices where all the options are equally bad. When you give him exactly one difficult option, there is not choice at all for him, and that allows him to concentrate on fighting. He still could lose, but it will be much harder for you to win.

To give different options to North Korea would mean for UN to admit ther mistakes, and that more important to hurt their ideologic feeling. Its a stalemate. Ideology against ideology.</comment>


How Trendrr Developed Their Sentiment Analysis Engine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trendrr.com/2010/09/01/how-we-did-it-the-development-of-trendrr-v3s-sentiment-analysis-engine/ <comment><USER2> One thing I'm unclear on: Did they use the training data in assessing accuracy? (Sorry if I missed this in my reading.) If so, it might be interesting to see how well they do on a separate test set. Also, it would be interesting to see the results broken down conditioning both on the estimated sentiment and on the true sentiment -- "precision" and "recall" by type.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I wrote the piece so I'm happy to address your question. First off, the training data was completely separate from test data, which was painstakingly gathered by hand. We wanted to make sure the data we were testing against was classified as accurately as possible. For training data, volume is more of a priority. Your other point is very well taken-- we'll probably use some metrics like that ourselves to look for improvements! Let me know if you've got any other questions, I'm happy to clear things up.

<comment><USER2> Cool, thanks! Very interesting stuff. Nice of you to share some of the "secret sauce."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very interesting, although I've now had all thoughts distracted after checking out Trendrr's pricing page: the only options are a "Contact Us" enterprise package, and a $999/month option. Is there some reason why they don't offer something like a $100/month basic option for small companies?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're in the process of relaunching our platform, which is why we've temporarily blockaded signups. The sentiment engine described in the blog post will be used on our new version.

When we relaunch in a few weeks, there will be a more affordable option than $999 / month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am just discovering this website. Pretty slow (I guess something related to the HN effect maybe ?). The number of metrics they have is pretty impressive.</comment>


Growing a Time Tracking Software to $316,000/Month - <AUTHOR> https://www.failory.com/mistakes/hubstaff <comment><USER2> I'm definitely never working for a company that uses this product. Any employer that feels the need to constantly review screenshots of my work is an employer that I don't want to work for.

<comment><USER3> Instacart seems a customer (from their landing page). I'm wondering it they track their devs this way.

<comment><USER4> I would feel better as a customer if I knew that anyone with privileges to access user data ran software like this.

<comment><USER2> Why? It takes a screenshot every 10 minutes or so. Easy to misuse data between screenshots. And I really doubt management is looking very hard for data misuse, they most likely care more about employees wasting time.

Also the software now has your data as well so you have to trust a 3rd party company in addition to the one you're doing business with.

In addition, the screenshots are getting shared around the company increasing the risk even further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They're an opt-in pervasive surveillance company, but instead of sharing the data with advertisers, they share it with your employer. I can't personally imagine ever willingly using their product, but apparently many other people can. Congratulations, I think?

<comment><USER6> Good way to identify which companies you shouldn't work for, I guess.

<comment><USER7> But I wouldn't mind having a bank account, credit card, health insurance / healthcare or prescription drugs from a place that did this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wouldn't call it time tracking software.

IMO, what they do is very evil practice, it leaves employees no personal space at their workplace. Imagine receiving a highly personal message via skype or email, and a manager seeing it. It leads to employees hating their job and wanting to leave their workplace as soon as possible.

<comment><USER9> Your personal device is your personal space.

<comment><USER8> I know people who refused to accept otherwise decent job offers just because a company had that policy in the workplace.

For software developers, designers and many other creative workers, work and life are intertwined. They can't, and often don't want to separate one from the other.

People often might fix urgent problems at night, or work extra hours on a weekend from home. But in exchange people want to be able to use company computer to check personal email, read the news, etc, and they don't want that email be available to their boss. That's a creative professional bargain. If employer doesn't accept later he won't get the former. And the value of the former is much higher than the later.

Yes, there're people who slack off, and they should be disciplined and fired if it doesn't help. But, if only people who you can hire are such slackers, may be there's something wrong with your hiring.

<comment><USER10> Why can't you just have a laptop next to your work computer to do personal stuff? For many companies, allowing access to personal email via work network is an absolute no-go as it massively increases the risk of data theft. I've worked at several financial companies in my life and they always blocked any kind of page that is designed to store files. Otherwise you get employees that upload sensitive data to some online storage because it's the "simplest" way to continue working from home.

That doesn't mean those companies don't allow personal use but it has to be from devices on another network. Nowadays with most communication happening on mobile devices that's not much of an issue.

<comment><USER8> Yes, such companies are completely different from what I thought of. I think, allowing personal devices on premises wouldn't be a good idea for them due to security requirements.

I though about staffing agencies creating digital sweatshops without any business justification for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I lost all respect after Hubstaff launched their "Hubstaff Talent" board by copying jobs from Upwork and other freelancer boards. Discovered this when a post I had made on another platform was scraped and posted on Hubstaff Talent. The applicants never reached me.

To make matters worse, Hubstaff themselves started posting their own job ads on the web. When people applied to work remote for Hubstaff, they were instead opted into Hubstaff Talent daily spam.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if they don't have a partnership deal with Upwork. I've hired freelancers through Upwork, and you get a series of screenshots of the freelancer's screens if you want it. (It helped me catch someone trying to defraud me - they had the exact same Microsoft Word screen up for hours on end, billing but not actually doing anything.) A partner deal with Upwork would explain the seemingly crazy high revenues.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is it just me or is failory a blatant copy of indiehackers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there! I am Rich, maker of Failory. I was 100% inspired by IH when building Failory. I love Indie Hacker interviews and I am really active in their community :)

<comment><USER14> No problem with that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are these revenue claims somehow verified? I know that indiehackers never verified them, is failory any different?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised this doesn't mention their podcast. I don't remember how I discovered it, but I really enjoyed the interviews with agency owners and along the way I learned about Hubstaff's features. Eventually, they shut it down because the employee doing the show either was laid off or got another job.

</comment><comment><USER17> The company I work for uses this software, only the CTO finds the overarching surveillance super duper creepy, and refused to subject us (the employees) to the screenshots.

Hubstaff should not have included that as a feature, as many others have commented, it's too invasive. I am lucky to have a CTO that considers employees peace of mind and comfort on the job. The time tracking features are great, the surveillance, not so much.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use and recommend Toggl[1]. It's really a nice fit for contractors.

[1] [https://toggl.com/](https://toggl.com/)</comment>


AirTV Episode 2 - The Circle, Los Angeles  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.airbnb.com/airtv-episode-2-the-circle-1

<comment><USER2> I love these AirTV videos. It makes me want to visit Venice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool place. Though the embedded youtube video with the fs=1& was killing my browser. I guess fullscreen flash in a small box was not ok with firefox on a mac.</comment>


Why you must never generate your own promo codes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/e9dd71041321

<comment><USER2> Also never trust codes generated by some stranger on the internet for free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. For SSL certificates, and many other security related services you always ultimately trust some strangers, who sometime happen to use names such as "Trusted Certificate Authority" which normally should read "Stranger Stranger Stranger".

What would be the alternative, to find a "Trusted Certified Code Generator Authority"?

Edit: for example Bitcoins, Satoshi and Bitcoin Exchanges. The generator is using a version AES FPE (BPS) standards as I see, so it's kind of peer- reviewed.

<comment><USER2> There's a vast gulf between SSL and a third-party promo code generator. The main difference being the number of professionals putting time and effort into SSL standards and the global uptake of those standards. Trust is earned.

To say something as well established as a 'Trusted Certificate Authority' equates to 'Stranger Stranger Stranger' is slightly erroneous. I may not know them personally, but to all intents and purposes my browser is incredibly familiar with the technology and has been for generations. That trust has been earned.

I've no idea what the process was for SSL to become to central, but it'd be a good example of how to reach that position with something like a promo code generator. I'd imagine a lot of time being peer reviewed, worked on collaboratively and if it's ever misused strong evidence of hotfixes in new iterations. A a track record of legitimacy. Of earned trust.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right and indeed the promo code generator uses a hardened version of the proposed NIST standard for FPE, called BPS. It's the result of vast academic research since 1950s, on how to shuffle, generate, unique random permutations within an arbitrary set.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Federal Reserve balance sheet trends - <AUTHOR> https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm <comment><USER2> What matters isn't the size of the Fed's balance sheet or what it contains. The Fed's balance sheet is "invisible" to the private-sector economy. This expansion of their balance sheet is simply a reflection of the stimulus we're doing.

When the Fed expands their balance sheet, what they're doing is replacing private-sector assets with liquid cash. Given that the stimulus is appropriate for the economy, this is all fine. It's not anything that future generations have to "pay back." And it's not going to cause a collapse of the dollar.

The important thing to keep in mind is that we are _intentionally_ shutting down parts of the economy. But some of those parts include mechanisms (jobs) that we normally rely on to supply spending money to consumers and businesses.

Due to the partial shutdown, the economy's productive capacity has taken a hit. But even so, our economy still has the capacity to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. We don't want to compound the crisis by failing to ensure that consumers have sufficient spending power to activate the remaining capacity.

It would be scary if the Fed's balance sheet _weren 't_ expanding like this right now.

[http://www.greshm.org/blog/printing-money-cures-the- covid-19...](http://www.greshm.org/blog/printing-money-cures-the- covid-19-crash/)

[http://bit.ly/intro-to-cmt](http://bit.ly/intro-to-cmt)

<comment><USER3> >When the Fed expands their balance sheet, what they're doing is replacing private-sector assets with liquid cash. Given that the stimulus is appropriate for the economy, this is all fine. It's not anything that future generations have to "pay back." And it's not going to cause a collapse of the dollar.

This is simply not true. The Fed is buying assets at a premium (otherwise counterparties wouldn't sell the assets to the Fed) and is effectively injecting money into the economy. This is a bailout as the Fed is making a liquid market (that otherwise would not exist) for assets, saving the balance sheets of firms. Future generations pay this back not through taxes but through inflation.

Whether or not the U.S. dollar will collapse or not is another topic, but what can be said is that it is not sustainable to continue bailing out irresponsible businesses like banks and others when they do not exercise good business practices like prudence, not being overleveraged, or having a buffer in case of lost revenue. The only way this ends is either a depression the scales of which we've never seen in history before (which would liquidate and clear out bad businesses), or a hyperinflationary collapse of the U.S. dollar whereby more and more money is injected to prop everything up. I'm betting on the latter as the former is too politically inconvenient.

<comment><USER4> > The Fed is buying assets at a premium (otherwise counterparties wouldn't > sell the assets to the Fed)

That's not necessarily true, economic transactions aren't necessarily zero- sum. I would assume for most of the assets being sold to the Fed, the banks need liquid cash more than they need the asset and so would be willing to take a haircut.

>The only way this ends is either a depression the scales of which we've never seen in history before[...], or a hyperinflationary collapse of the U.S. dollar

Why specifically do you think this will happen now when it didn't happen post 2008? Sure the scale so far seems bigger, but also the scale of the hit the "real" economy is taking is much bigger. And, in March, when some of these asset purchases had already started, CPI declined by 0.4%.

<comment><USER5> The fed is buying junk corporate bonds that would otherwise plummet in value.

<comment><USER6> This is not accurate. A "plummet" in value when it comes to the fallen angels that the Fed is purchasing is more like a 10% drop, and even if you treat the difference between the "true" value of the bonds (if the Fed didn't purchase them) and what the Fed pays as a surplus, the aggregate value of all those surpluses is still tiny in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER5> LQD, a corporate bond ETF, plunged -20%.

It likely would have fallen even further, until the fed decided to intervene and buy corporate bond ETFs.

Now LQD has fully recovered and is back to pre-corona virus levels.

More interesting is the rebound in HYG, another Corp bond ETF, which is 50% BB rating, and the remaining 50% below BB rating. I imagine those will get downgraded and be even worst.

Now what happens when companies can't meet their debt obligations is that covenants will get triggered and that can mean a whole lot of bad things for corporate debt. Which the federal reserve now holds because nobody else wants it.

<comment><USER6> Yes, this is a good methodology: we should take the lowest point of a random ETF, extrapolate it out, and use that number in our analysis of the Fed's actions.

edit: they edited their comment extensively after I sent this haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the biggest things confusing people about how public finance works is that everyone is focused on the Fed rather than the Treasury.

A good aspect of MMT is that it explains how the Treasury spending more than it takes in in taxes means more money is created into the economy than is deleted out of the economy. This is the more important thing to focus on.

Some of the MMT professors also do a good job explaining how QE (quantitative easing) doesn't create new net financial assets into the system, it just shifts around assets in accounts at the Fed.

All this focus on the Fed seems counterproductive.

<comment><USER8> > A good aspect of MMT is that it explains how the Treasury spending more than > it takes in in taxes means more money is created into the economy than is > deleted out of the economy. This is the more important thing to focus on.

This is one of the most absurd claims of the supposedly "descriptive" MMT. Taxation does not delete money from the economy. When the federal government collects taxes, it doesn't take that money and burn it in a giant pit. It turns around and immediately spends that money.

Yes, the federal government does not _need_ your tax dollars. Yes, they technically have the ability to print an infinite amount of dollars. But that doesn't support the claim that taxation removes money from the economy.

> Some of the MMT professors also do a good job explaining how QE > (quantitative easing) doesn't create new net financial assets into the > system, it just shifts around assets in accounts at the Fed.

This is completely false. The Fed creates new reserves (base money) in order to buy assets.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE)

<comment><USER9> >>"This is one of the most absurd claims of the supposedly "descriptive" MMT. Taxation does not delete money from the economy. When the federal government collects taxes, it doesn't take that money and burn it in a giant pit. It turns around and immediately spends that money."

I didn't know that idea was so polemic.

So, what you are saying is that government deficits are inflationary because they add money to the economy, but, on the other hand, government surplus don't retire money from the economy?

>>"This is completely false. The Fed creates new reserves (base money) in order to buy assets."

Yes, but the assets the Fed buy (when practicing QE) are in the accounts of the commercial banks in the Fed. After buying them, those assets are not there anymore, and, instead there is money (1). And money is basically a government bond that pay 0% interest.

1 - [http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=661](http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=661)

<comment><USER8> > So, what you are saying is that government deficits are inflationary because > they add money to the economy, but, on the other hand, government surplus > don't retire money from the economy?

Honestly I don't know what point you're trying to make, or what deficits or surpluses have to do with anything. A deficit or surplus is merely the delta between total revenues and an arbitrarily defined budget.

Inflation is caused by additional dollars chasing the same number of goods. Printing money does not create goods and services - it merely decreases the value of each dollar relative to everything else. If I had a machine that could create an unlimited amount of gold at zero cost, the price of gold would approach zero if I made and sold enough of it. I don't know why you would think dollars would be any different.

> Yes, but the assets the Fed buy (when practicing QE) are in the accounts of > the commercial banks in the Fed. After buying them, those assets are not > there anymore, and, instead there is money (1). And money is basically a > government bond that pay 0% interest.

Yes, the bank exchanges an asset (like a treasury) in exchange for reserves (base money). The question you need to ask yourself is, where did those reserves come from? Another question you need to ask is, when Fed engages in QE, why does the monetary base increase?

<comment><USER9> I'm a little late, but I want to answer for the sake of completeness.

>>"Honestly I don't know what point you're trying to make, or what deficits or surpluses have to do with anything."

You say "Inflation is caused by additional dollars chasing the same number of goods". We agree with that (it could be a supply problem too, but that's another subject).

Now, it seems to me that we agree also that a government deficit can be inflationary. So, by definition, a government deficit is adding money to the economy.

My question is: if a government deficit is adding money to the economy, what a government surplus is doing? That's the meaning of "taxes destroy money".

>>" The question you need to ask yourself is, where did those reserves come from? Another question you need to ask is, when Fed engages in QE, why does the monetary base increase? "

Monetary base increase because that is how it's defined.

I think that the problem here is that you subscribe to the fractional reserve banking theory that, I'm afraid, is false. I suggest reading this report from the Bank of England (1) about how money creation works. A private bank lending is not limited for the quantity of reserves available in the system, because central banks have to keep the system of payments working and are targeting an interest rate. So, central banks have to answer any request for additional reserves.

The corollary to all this, is that it doesn't matter if the asset of the private bank is a treasury or reserves in the banking system, banks can lend anyway. The central banks sell treasury to the banks for controlling the interest rate, not the quantity of money.

1\. - [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly- bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf)

<comment><USER8> > My question is: if a government deficit is adding money to the economy, what > a government surplus is doing? That's the meaning of "taxes destroy money".

It's rare for the federal government to run a surplus, but it did have one for four years straight in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001[1]. During that that time, the monetary base increased 32%[2] and the M2 money supply increase 23%[3].

No matter how you look at it, despite the government running a surplus, the money supply continued to increase. How do you square that with your claim that surpluses remove money from the economy?

[1] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD)

[2] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASEW](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASEW)

[3] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE)

<comment><USER7> You're forgetting that the government doesn't _control_ the whole money supply. The government only controls how much it itself creates or deletes on net.

Most money is created by commercial banks. As the demand for credit expands the money supply expands, and as credit is repaid, the money supply decreases. This is going on all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The federal reserve owns half of all US debt. We are paying interest on interest to our own Fed that serves as the banking systems perpetual bailout fund with the ability to create unlimited amounts of money.

<comment><USER11> Is it true that the fed is privately owned and if so does it matter or not really

<comment><USER10> Private banks technically own the Fed receive 6% interest on their capital with any net gains are paid to the treasury. They buy all the bad and risky loans from banks and never have to mark them to real value or take a loss. If asset recovers and becomes valuable they sell it back to the banks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This will work out fine until it doesn't. At that point, the US will face many "bad or worse" kinds of choices. It will be like the choice we face today: "close the economy or the morgues start overflowing everywhere." Except it will be every day, more or less forever. Inject still more money into the economy or the entire financial system collapses.

Whenever this balance sheet chart shows up, MMT boosters descend to explain why the Fed's balance sheet doesn't matter. It's interest we owe ourselves. Nobody in the real economy looks at that balance sheet when making actual financial decisions, they claim.

I think that misses the point. The point is that since the last financial crisis, the balance sheet has on net expanded. By a lot. When the current crisis hit, the balance sheet shot up from an already elevated level.

To put it another way, consider the size of the balance sheet relative to GDP (~$24 trillion):

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP)

At the current level, the balance sheet is about 25% of GDP. There's every reason to believe the Fed is far from done. It's bailouts as far as the eye can see at the moment. And those bailouts will be monetized by the Fed. We can't possibly pay for them at the current value of the dollar. Ever.

To the MMT boosters, what happens when the balance sheet approaches 1x GDP? 2x? 5x?

Nobody knows because this experiment has never been tried before. The reserve currency printer is also a net debtor. It runs very high, structural deficits with no end in sight. The currency is completely decoupled from gold, and as recent history shows, possibly industrially-critical commodities like oil.

I'd be very curious to hear from the MMT proponents on what signals they's look for that the Fed's balance sheet actually does matter in the real economy. Things that can only be explained by problems stemming from the size of that balance sheet. Problems whose only cure is a massive reduction in that balance sheet.

Of course, the balance sheet isn't going anywhere. Nor are deficits. When faced with such situations in the past, the answer has been devaluation.

The US did that back in the 70s when it closed the gold window. It will happen again. What the MMT proponents I've seen seem to ignore is what form that devaluation will take given the highly unusual circumstances around which it will be occurring.

<comment><USER9> I would like to clarify that the MMT proponents that I follow are not favorable to the QE type of interventions that we have seen in the last years.

They only pointed(1), correctly, that QE was not going to be inflationary AND that monetary policy is not the proper tool for this kind of problem. Fiscal policy is the proper tool.

You will not find MMT economist defending QE or the buying of financial assets, other that public debt bonds, if it's legally required to finance fiscal policies.

If fact, many are very critical(2) of this kind of programs.

(1) - [http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=28422](http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=28422) (2) - [http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=4763](http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=4763)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Til, People are more than happy to sell their children for a slightly cheaper mortgage as long as you dress it up correctly.

<comment><USER14> I think this has always been the way we've paid for infrastructure. I remember reading an article about Japan. They've stopped taking on massive infrastructure projects, because the population isn't growing -- they don't want immigrants and people aren't having kids anymore. Without a future tax base to pay for infrastructure, they can't build it anymore. So things like the Tokyo subway system are "done"; no money will ever be available again to build anything.

I think we're beginning to see this in the US. In a few years, you won't be able to live in New Jersey and commute to New York City, or take the train from Boston to Washington D.C. The North River Tunnels will have collapsed, because we can't find any money to repair them.

Ultimately, it's a little disingenuous to say this is "selling your children". Yes, if we keep buying stuff, someone will have to pay for it. If society takes on projects that need to be paid for over 100 years, people that aren't born today will be spending some of their taxes on it. But with the right investments, it's almost certainly worth it. We can look back at some of the achievements over the last century and find that they probably grew the economy more than they cost, which makes them good investments when paid for collectively. In 1920, we didn't have an Interstate Highway System, we didn't live in the suburbs and commute to the city, we couldn't fly to the far corners of the world in 16 hours, we didn't have all of humanity's knowledge available in our pockets. There is no reason to believe that 2120 won't be just as good as long as we keep investing.

<comment><USER9> Money is just a number in some computer. The important thing is the real economy. Deficits, as any other spending, and depending of the circumstances, could be inflationary, but they don't have to be, it depends of the state of the economy in the moment of the spending.

The public debt is just a number, it's the accumulate of pass deficits and it's not inflationary in itself and it's not a problem.

A mental experiment (not so hypothetical): suppose that in order to fight an economic crisis the government decide to spend a big deficit and, in order to do it, they emit bonds. Suppose now, that the Federal Reserve buy all those bonds. Who is that money owned to? who receive the dividends of those bonds?

A second mental experiment: in order to not increasing the public debt and "save for our children" the government don't spend in infrastructure or investigation. In 50 years there is not infrastructure left or new technologies but the public debt is zero. Are the children rich or poor?

<comment><USER15> Whether money or debt is 'just a number in a computer' or not is besides the point. We built the system that way deliberately because bartering is not efficient, doesn't scale, and doesn't easily allow creating debt that needs to be settled in the future.

What we ended up with is a situation where almost all the wealth/value we (governments, businesses, the people) have built is represented in terms of 'monetary units' (the numbers in the computer), but it's increasingly clear that in the future, these positive and negative numbers will never add up to zero anymore, and we're not going to 'grow our economies out of debt' as was originally the idea of taking on debt now to invest in the future. This means _someone_ is going to lose big time sooner or later.

Printing more money to take some negative numbers from the economy and infusing it with some positive numbers is not a strategy that can save the system in the long term as there are exponential terms involved because of interest. There will be a point where diluting the the money supply (which is exactly what QE is) will result in a loss of confidence people have in the 'numbers in the computer' being a reliable proxy for their wealth. Governments will have a hard time selling treasuries when no-one expects them to have any value in the future. When that happens (which IMO is just a matter of time, how much time is not clear but most definitely not 100+ years) all value that is not recorded in tangible, useful assets or skills will simply disappear, and it will not just mean the 'numbers of the computer' have to be adjusted or reset and everything can go back to normal...

<comment><USER9> >>" [..] We built the system that way deliberately because bartering is not efficient"

Not really, the history of money doesn't support that theory.

>>"[..] it's increasingly clear that in the future, these positive and negative numbers will never add up to zero anymore,"

They don't add already, never were suppose to add. Where is the dollar coming from if not the deficits of government? The spending of money in the economy is what creates money. So, it's the debt of the public sector what create the money in the first place. You are complaining that excessive deficits are creating too much money, so you already agree with that.

>>"[..] Governments will have a hard time selling treasuries when no-one expects them to have any value in the future. "

That makes zero sense. The Central Banks can, and frequently do, determine the interest of the public bonds. Japan is the main example, but there are many others.

>>"[..] all value that is not recorded in tangible, useful assets or [..]"

A government tax every transaction in the economy, and can do it because it has the monopoly of force in that country. If the USA government only accept dollars for paying taxes, there will be always (while there is an economy and they keep the monopoly of force) demand for the Dollar. The same is true for all the other countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> With a sample size of 1 based on 2008 you'd probably never expect the total to be back below $5 trillion, in the same way it barely got back below $2 trillion after that first spike. Based just on the graph it's probably more likely to go above $10 trillion than below $5 trillion in the next few years. These numbers are completely ridiculous to think about, how would you interpret this in practice?

<comment><USER17> The way to interpret this is that there is wide latitude in the market tolerance of US dollars.

Think of it like share dilution. For example, without corresponding demand, Tesla can issue 20% more shares arbitrarily, and the price of a share will drop 20%, or Tesla can wait for excessive demand and issue 20% more shares and the price of a share will stay the same because the market clamored for them. Maybe the price of Tesla would have gone 20% higher if they didn't issue those additional shares? Or maybe interested buyers were waiting for a moment to purchase many at once without affecting the market.

Fiat currencies are in the same place. Forget about the cognitive dissonance where currencies are tied to your national identity and comparisons to private shares therefore cause trepidation. The functionality is similar, we just use different terms. Share dilution = inflation.

As long as the relative purchasing power of a dollar, compared only to other currencies, is managed, the Federal Reserve can purchase as much as it wants. When the Federal Reserve purchases things, each transaction creates new dollars. The recipient has dollars that didn't exist prior and are just as fungible, slightly diluting the value of all other dollars (causing inflation). The Federal Reserve is fully capable of selling assets on its balance sheet, for existing dollars. Just options and choices that other market participants don't typically have.

The wide latitude in the side of the Fed's balance sheet comes from the weakness of other currencies. Central Banks around the world are doing the same thing, weakening those currencies, simultaneously actual people are selling their currency for US dollars. This increases the strength of the US dollar, and means the Federal Reserve can dilute it to weaken it. The long- standing predilection of the Fed, the President and Congress has been to not have a strong dollar, so you can predict what the Fed will consider doing based on macroeconomic events.

As long as all currencies are being massively created, the Federal Reserve can do the same proportionally. The amounts don't matter in that regard. You just want to pay attention to the constraints on what it can buy, and if those constraints are being followed, and if there is enough things for it to buy to accomplish its goals (otherwise massive de-flation is likely, and harmful in our ability to predict our purchasing power or investment decisions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone any idea what that means to the average joe? How to protect one's purchasing power?

If the government can give you free money (1200$ checks), it also has the power to take everything away from you, right?

<comment><USER19> The $1200 money isn't free, it is borrowed from future taxpayers.

The money the Fed prints doesn't go to Joe Average. It goes to investors who are selling the Fed junk bonds. (They then turn around, and buy stocks with those dollars, which is why the market is soaring.)

<comment><USER20> It isn't free, but that isn't really true. The $1200 comes out of inflation, which decreases the value of accumulated wealth (at least to the extent it sits in cash).

If you're sitting on a retirement fund, that hurts you. If you're sitting on debt, that helps you. So it's much more past tax payers than future ones who are hurt by this.

On the other hand, decreasing the value of accumulated wealth is exactly what ought to happen here. We're not producing very much, and everyone will have less actual stuff. The question is how the banking system adjusts.

If we see deflation (prices go down, salaries go down, revenues go down), people will default on debts and other fixed obligations, and the whole thing blows up in structural damage from bankruptcies, mortgage defaults, layoffs, etc.

If we see inflation, a lot less structural damage happens.

COVID19 is destroying value. What the fed is doing -- inflation in the stock market to keep prices where they were -- is exactly what ought to happen. Inflation will continue to happen elsewhere in the system. The flip side is you don't want starving, homeless people in the streets -- that will destroy massive wealth. We'll deal with that with inflation too, most likely.

<comment><USER19> No, that $1,200 didn't come out of the Fed printing press. It came out of the general budget, so taxpayers _are_ going to be on the hook for paying it back, in the future.

The trillions the Fed is printing aren't being sent out as stimulus cheques. They are being used to provide short-term liquidity (Which does not cause inflation), and to buy junk bonds, (Which does cause inflation, and also happens to prop up the stock market.) Some of that money is also being lent to the government - if those loans are paid back, they will cause net zero inflation. (Because once the money is paid back to the Fed, it is destroyed.)

This is precisely why we have central banks that are independent of government budgets. It creates checks and balances against a government choosing to print its way out of budget troubles.

<comment><USER21> > No, that $1,200 didn't come out of the Fed printing press. It came out of > the general budget, so taxpayers are going to be on the hook for paying it > back, in the future.

Government debt does not really get payed. Old debts are payed off with new ones.

<comment><USER9> As it should be.

Public debt is just a number that express the accumulated of pass deficits. In order to reduce that number you need a government that, instead of a deficit, have a surplus.

If the government has a surplus, less money is spend in the economy.

If that reduction in spending is not compensated somehow, necessarily, the GDP has to fall.

The only things that can reduce that fall in government spending are a positive balance commerce or an increase in private debt.

Now, an increase in private debt, instead of public debt, that's a real problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So I'm hearing the " the dollar is over, throw everything into gold, fiat money is doomed" in other forums. Can anyone give some conterpoints to that narrative?

<comment><USER23> Look up Peter Zeihan. He's bullish on the dollar mostly because it's the world's reserve currency and there really isn't a good alternative. That said... I've heard the dollar referred to as the best looking horse in the glue factory.

<comment> ro-_-b That doesn't mean you shouldn't buy gold & other hard assets. Even if the Euro and others decrease in relation to the Dollar the Dollar might decrease in relation to gold/hard assets & in my opinion likely will in the next 2-3 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We need to separate the accounting of 'financial flows of money' (money spent on financial instruments) from money spent on goods and services that are not financial. We need to be able to compare the gross financial product with the gdp. This way we can speak more precisely about inflation that affects the real world of Adam Smith vs the world of imaginary values and wealth.

</comment><comment><USER25> aka the only reason the stock market has not collapsed. The economic data, and worse, the economic data forecasts, are horrendous, worse than 2008.

</comment><comment><USER24> The money the fed injects into the financial system is staying in the financial system. Too many dollars chasing too few equities could result in 'equity inflation'=stock market bubble. (I am using the word equity as a symbol for any financial instrument) But none of this money ( or maybe just a token fraction of it) is reaching the real world. The purpose of this quantative easing is to prop up values of the warehouses of wealth. We still have massive unemployment but the firms doing the layoffs have stable stock prices . What is really amazing is that we live in a world where Marie Antoinette can flaunt her wealth and at the same time use that as an example of 'free speech'

</comment><comment><USER26> The markets now firmly believe that any real reductions in asset prices are impossible. The fed will always rescue them with bailouts. That's Just _incredibly_ dangerous and can only lead, in one or two more cycles, to the collapse of the US dollar. That sounds incredible but it we keep on this way I just don't see any other way this could end.

<comment><USER27> I see a 30% drop in the Dow in the last two months. I see a very real reduction in asset prices, here in concrete reality.

You could argue that that wasn't a _real_ reduction, that a _real_ reduction would be 50% or some other number. If that is your argument, it looks to me like moving the goalposts.

<comment><USER26> Right but my point is, as soon as it happened the fed went into a panic and printed trillions of dollars and started buying junk bonds, giving the impression that they will do whatever it takes to make the market not drop. No matter the cost. And the market shot back up even though there are 26 million people who just lost their jobs. But you know, this is still an unfolding story so who knows, maybe all the free loans in the world won't help. We'll find out.

<comment><USER27> Or, maybe you're right, and the market would have fallen a lot further (or at least not recovered) if the Fed had done nothing. And, on that one, we won't even find out, because that's not what the Fed did.

<comment><USER26> And I can see the point too that in the short term in the middle of a crisis, they did what they had to do for the economy to survive. It's after the crisis is over, and things start recovering, that they are really going to have to make unpopular decisions or reinflate the bubble.

<comment><USER27> Absolutely agree. Getting back to stability is going to be... interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yikes. The market plunged like this despite the fed buying up trillions?

<comment><USER21> FED buying trillions was the rebound.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So how does this work? The federal reserve prints more USD and buys stuff with it increasing their balance sheet?

</comment><comment><USER30> They can't even label a chart so it isn't misleading. How about they label that axis with T (trillion) instead of M (million). I know, I know, somewhere it probably says "(in millions)" somewhere in the fine print.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Central banking is the greatest scam in the history of mankind that cartelises the banking sector, gives them the privilege of access to the printing press, and is the root cause of the boom-and-bust cycle. It has managed to convince people (particularly mainstream economists) that its institution is necessary for "financial stability" but what it really does is absolves banks from any form of financial responsibility as they will always be able to receive a bailout if they act irresponsibly, allowing them to always make a profit regardless of risk. This is not free market capitalism but a system that enriches those closer to the central bank (and who get freshly-printed money first before inflation hits the rest of the economy) and punishes those who are relatively further away like manufacturing workers and salary earners. This is the reason why salaries at SV startups (bankrolled by VCs and soaring stock prices leading to valuable RSUs) are so high, and why wealth inequality has notably increased dramatically since we went off the gold standard in 1971[1].

I believe this topic is among the most important things we need to discuss and is arguably more important than climate change (what else is driving consumerism and throw-away-culture but inflation?), but economists have overcomplicated things and made it inaccessible to the average person when it really is so simple that a five-year old can understand it: printing money enriches the few who have access to the printing press at the expense of the many.

End central banking and the economy will be stronger, more resilient, fairer, and will reward those who create real value rather than the well-connected.

[1] [http://wtfhappenedin1971.com](http://wtfhappenedin1971.com)

<comment><USER31> Yes, for those care about anthropogenic climate change, inflationary debt- backed currencies encourage exponential rates of consumption.</comment></comment>


Aurelia Early March 2016 Update - <AUTHOR> http://blog.durandal.io/2016/03/01/aurelia-early-march-2016-update <comment><AUTHOR> Aurelia is looking fantastic! Going to switch my development over to this as well as any future development. Angular 2 just isn't for me, nor react and it's kin.</comment>


The NSA: 'The Abyss from Which There Is No Return' - <AUTHOR> https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_nsa_the_abyss_from_which_there_is_no_return

<comment><USER2> > And once the government starts operating outside the law, answerable to no > one but itself, there's no way to rein it back in, short of revolution.

Exactly. Or can somebody think of an example in history where a government gave up some of its rights? These sorts of authorisations (anti-terror laws and whatnot) don't go away, because they are too convenient for those in power.

<comment><USER3> And a revolution fighting against modern weaponry is practically guaranteed to fail. With the government constantly trying to restrict the citizens' access to weaponry there's no way to even make parody (pun intended) to hold the government accountable. Add to that the fact we've a standing military, something the Constitution never authorized, that's professionally trained. We've had problematic generals before but none of them tried to seize control of the country, yet.

If a revolution breaks out we aren't talking about a conflict the size of Syria's or Egypt's. We're probably talking about the biggest civil war ever, or a military coup. And the outcome of it (no matter if it worked or failed) would effectively _gut_ the USA.

Tyranny is almost assured. We're on the bubble right now if the outcome hasn't already been decided (and we won't know except in hind-sight).

<comment><USER4> I hope that just partly like in Syria, the troops would eventually balk at killing their fellow citizens. However, I admit that such a possibility is less likely for armed forces that are engaging in war remotely.

*: I believe that at some point, the majority of Syrian resistance was formerly the Syrian army.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And it's not only about US citizens.

As things are, any non-US-citizen is under suspect by the US gov which is totally legal in the US. Now, just imagine the US outsourcing surveillance of homeland communications, say to the UK. Again, it would be totally legal in the UK — as in most countries — to monitor the communications of a foreign state. So the American people (same applies to other countries) shouldn't be concerned with domestic effects only. (As of writing this, most European democracies are co-operating with the US and are retrieving informations on their own citizens via US-intelligence.)

<comment><USER6> Exactly, this is the weirdest part to me. The US government feels alright with the fact that they have publicly declared anyone living outside the US a possible enemy. That is definitely not how I feel at all as a citizen and that viewpoint is obviously extremely dangerous. It seems like the US is becoming something like a xenophobic elderly person who isn't able to adjust to the times.

<comment><USER7> >The US government feels alright with the fact that they have publicly declared anyone living outside the US a possible enemy.

I disagree with this. The people who are tasked to prevent foreign powers from attacking, destabilizing or hindering U.S. intentions have a stated mission to prevent them from doing so and as such have that as a minimum starting point.

If you look at the other arms of the USG, namely the State department their charter is exactly the opposite, building partnerships, making friends etc...

So yes, the DoD and CIA view the rest of the world as hostile to the US by default. That's what they are there to defend against so it would make sense. That said, there are tons of building partnerships, humanitarian relief and international relations missions stemming from the DoD to foreign allies and partners. Its actually growing quite a bit - and likewise makes defending the nation against materiel proliferation, attacks, espionage etc... harder.

<comment><USER5> Sorry for the intervening (as this wasn't exactly a reply to my post).

I really would like Americans to understand that there is a great concern outside of the US about the directions the US, its government and its arms are taking.

The US had built a great reputation in 20th century as "the beacon of freedom" – and lost some of it during the G.W. Bush administration. Remember the very warm welcome Obama had when visiting Europe just before the inauguration (for example in Berlin)? This was really an expression of the wish to get back to terms as they used to be and to close the books over what seemed then to have been just an episode. Or take Obama's (quite premature) Nobel price as an example for yet another expression of this wish.

In the meantime things have changed. But it wasn't the change expected. From outside, it looks a bit like the US became out of balance. When naming the State department and other arms headed towards foreign policy, not much of them is perceived outside. (I really can't remember when the US State department was in the news last time, but it feels like to have been years ago.) What's perceived, is the intelligence, the DoD, drones, the NSA, etc. From outside it appears, as if the US with a self-description as the "blessed nation" has lost interest in co-operation on a large scale as it even targets its closest allies. What had been the epicenter of freedom, cool, and hip, now has started to feel a bit like a looming shadow. (It might be worth to note here that most political parties in Europe have their origins in the revolutions of 1848, which were essentially a revolt against surveillance and police control. Even in the social network age there are some of these values still alive and are nurturing some sensibility on this subject.) There's even saying of the cold war returning, but this time with the US featuring the bad guy. This is not, what the allies of the US have learned to expect from their partner. Nor is it, what its friends would wish them to be. This is not, how people would like to perceive the US, but eventually they start feeling being unable to help about it. There's a feeling of disappointment. And there's a great wish for co-operation and trust.

<comment><USER7> I think those are all totally reasonable and justifiable feelings. I agree in general that our military/intelligence arm has been carrying the US brand the loudest since 9/11\. I think that was by design. I won't argue whether that is good or bad, because I could make the case either way.

My intent was to say that yes the self protective parts of the government are going to be inherently anti-foreign, by design. I think what your comment adds is basically replying to that with: "Ok, well if you guys make that part of your government the loudest and strongest part to the rest of the world, we probably will stop liking you guys, and will stop wanting to play with you."

I think that is a very valid criticism. It is one for the legislators and the public to take on however, not the arms of the government that are intended to protect it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I sincerely hope any tech working for NSA is socially outcast. "Pardon us if we're not thrilled that you work for an unconstitutional institution." While the NSA is currently less harmful than say, the Mafia, it has the potential to be far worse.

Contractors on the Death Star?

Bleh, Godwin's Law and all that...

<comment><USER9> I don't think that people who work for the NSA generally acknowledge that they do. Not necessarily out of shame or fear of being outcast, but just because of the nature of working in the "black/top secret world". Some name some non- existent entity as their employer - in a social situation, who would really know if they were lying? And if they are working for a contractor, they can quite easily just name the contractor as the employer

<comment><USER10> I live in the DC area and the people I know who work at NSA typically say they work "for the Department of Defense". That's a sure sign they work at NSA, since anyone else who works at DoD would just say more specifically whom they work for, like I did when I was a contractor at the Naval Research Lab.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Confirms Music Deletion Glitch, Says Fix Incoming in Future iTunes Update - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/13/apple-confirms-music-deletion-fix-coming/ <comment><USER2> Anecdote that is tangentially related...

We upgraded my wife to iPhone 6. When we're driving around, she likes to listen to music on YouTube (don't ask). So we plugged in the charge/data cord to the car's USB port. The phone charged, and the car's system display said 'reading files', but no audio would play. Instead, after 'reading files' it displayed, 'no song'.

We tried a variety of different approaches, including playing YouTube on my iPhone 6 and plugging it in to the car. It worked. My daughter's iPhone 6 worked. My wife's would not.

So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar. We told the story. Their conclusion was 'bad USB chip' in the iPhone and they replaced it as a warranty issue.

We took the new iPhone out to the car, and my wife excitedly plugged it in...

No luck.

Finally, I looked at the phone again and launched iTunes, which, of course, was empty. She does not have a music collection. Then the coin dropped... 'no song'. You don't suppose.....

Yes. In order to get any other media to play through the USB from her phone, she had to have at least _one_ song in iTunes. I loaded 'Year of the Cat' and sure enough, YouTube now played.

I am reminded of that anecdote because some time later, 'Year of the Cat' was mysteriously deleted.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Glitch" and "fix" are terms that seem pretty far removed from the way Apple was talking about this just last week...</comment>