Show HN: I trained a neural network to learn Arabic morphology - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tb0yd/rootfinder <comment><USER2> Nice work! If I'm not mistaken, the root requires morphological disambiguation, which may change depending on the context/phrase in which the word is observed.

This is an active area of research in Morphologically Rich Languages (MRLs), since this problem also appears in other semitic languages like Hebrew, as well as Turkish. There's a nice body of work to learn from, both with and without neural nets. For example, this paper from 2017 ([http://aclweb.org/anthology/D17-1073](http://aclweb.org/anthology/D17-1073)) uses a neural model for morphological disambiguation. You can see a nice comparison of tools in the recent 2018 Universal Dependencies Shared Task results: [http://universaldependencies.org/conll18/results- lemmas.html](http://universaldependencies.org/conll18/results-lemmas.html) (look for ar_padt).

If you're looking for training data, the Arabic treebanks in [http://universaldependencies.org](http://universaldependencies.org) could help. I think some of them contain surface tokens with lemmas. I'm quite sure they also have roots.

Also, you might want to take a look at the SIGMORPHON CONLL shared task (2017 [https://sites.google.com/view/conll- sigmorphon2017/](https://sites.google.com/view/conll-sigmorphon2017/) and 2018 [https://sigmorphon.github.io/sharedtasks/2018/](https://sigmorphon.github.io/sharedtasks/2018/)) on morphological reinflection, which IIRC is a similar task - taking an inflected form and reinflecting it with other morphological properties. They also have a nice data set to train on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks! A wealth of resources here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is exciting to see. I am a Semitic philologist (Ph.D.) now breaking into the IT industry, and this sort of work is on my radar, though mostly with Hebrew and Aramaic. Arabic, being a Semitic language, has a non-linear morphology, which means that extracting the root has to be done by extracting non-inflectional consonants from all possible positions in a word. If you train a NN with full conjugation paradigms, over a data set, it should be able to begin to recognize what the various inflectional morphemes are. In other words, instead of looking for the root, look for everything that is not the root, and the root is what is left over. For example, the NN should be able to recognize that mu-, ya-, ta-, 'āC-, -ā-. -Ct-, -unna, etc. are all inflectional morphemes. It should also begin to recognize the various matres lectionis or letters indicating long vowels just as alif, waw, and ha. (I'm including vowels in my analysis, because I think like a philologist, not a typical reader of Arabic. Using unvowelled text might be more difficult for the NN.) Anyway, these are just some off-the-cuff thoughts. I look forward to digging deeper into your code and methodology sometime soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's awesome! I am a software engineer and long time student of Arabic. You're pretty much on the mark with the capabilities of the model at this point. It can recognize the simple morphemes and long vowels but stumbles on more complex constructions. Definitely ping me on GitHub if you have any questions about anything in the repo or if you just want to talk shop about linguistics / data science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an interesting project, although as others have mentioned the space of arabic words is (reasonably) bounded and an explicit parsing approach or something that uses known language data might prove to be more efficient and accurate.

Along those lines, I might be able to provide some useful json (the basis for [http://www.arabicreference.com](http://www.arabicreference.com)) in case you are interested. I've been meaning to do some fun investigations using this data (e.g. predicting broken plurals, masadir, form I internal vowelling) but haven't yet had time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, really nice app! I love the simple-yet-highly-responsive interface. I'm definitely going to be sharing this around to my translator friends. Just curious, are you a translator?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool. Interestingly, Bayyinah (www.bayyinah.com) Institute has a site [1] for the opposite problem where you can generate the 10 morphological families from root letters.

1\. [http://oldsite.bayyinah.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/sarfG...](http://oldsite.bayyinah.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/sarfGenerator.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Can you please explain what the inputs and outputs are supposed to be? I'm familiar with the Arabic alphabet but I don't know the words

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure- I pulled the input set from the arabeyes wordlist and used an online service called aratools to get the answer for each.

<comment><USER7> But what are the inputs? Are they words? And what are the outputs?

I know nothing about arabic, so to my eyes certain wiggles - that aren't a 1:1 match - are "correctly" matched, and others aren't.

<comment><USER8> Some languages, like Arabic, have "roots" which are used to form words. These roots usually have an abstract or ambiguous meaning. You can take those roots and turn them into words, which have a defined meaning, by using a form, kind of like a template. So one root for example is BDL. The kind of vague meaning is to exchange or replace something. One template you can use is TaXXeeX, with the root letters going in place of the Xs. So this results in the word "tabdeel", which means "an exchange".

So what the NN does is takes as input a word, and tries to find its root. "Tabdeel" was the first input listed, and the output was "BDL".

Some more information on this:

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

<comment><USER7> Oh, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I took some Arabic at university. It's a fascinating language. My impression was that the morphology is quite regular, I wonder how complicated an old fashioned, hand-written parser with comparable accuracy would be.

<comment><AUTHOR> It should be possible, because Arabic morphology follows a logical set of rules (mostly). For example, given a word like متوسط, you could match it for the standard conjugations for the 10 standard verb forms, of which it would match for #5 (متفعل), giving و-س-ط as the root. Verb form + conjugation would probably get you 50% of the way there (depending on how you count the number of valid words...) and I wouldn't be surprised if it's possible with just a regex. It would get a little harder once you go past the 10 verb forms and into plurals and adjective forms, which are usually shorter words, but a little less regular in their construction. It seems like it would be cumbersome to catch all those forms algorithmically. But someone has probably taken the time to do it.

<comment><USER10> Knowing arabic, I'm not very surprised of this result. I actually don't think there is underlying pattern, most of the words are memorized and created by social conventions.

<comment><USER9> It's been a while since I read up on this, but as I remember the (Western) description is that there are the roots and the derived forms (which are numbered one to ten/twelve), and then for each derived form there are one or more patterns corresponding to a word class.

So the root d-r-s has derived verbs darasa and darrasa, and to each of those correspond, say, one or more patterns for the verbal noun. But I don't think there is exactly one pattern for verbal nouns derived from the form 2 verb (e.g. from darrasa we get tadris, as I recall, but not all verbs that go like fa33ala will necessarily have a masdar of the form taf3il, right?).

You're right of course, that even though the forms have prototypical systematic semantic variation (like form 2 is usually a causative, "to teach" versus "to learn"), it's not predictable which derived forms of a given root enter into actual usage and with which exact meaning, and the patterns obviously predict a lot of words that don't actually exist, and of course Arabic speakers learn words just like speakers of any other language.

<comment><USER11> > and the patterns obviously predict a lot of words that don't actually exist

I think I remember that there are a handful of cases where speakers started using some of the previously unattested forms in modern times to refer to new concepts... is that right?

<comment><USER9> Well, new words have to come from somewhere... new roots can be introduced (and be made to act like Arabic ones - like how the plural of film is aflam), but the derivation patterns are also productive like in any other language. As an example, though the loan word 'computer' is apparently common, there's also the word 'hasuub' which I learned in my Modern Standard/Media Arabic course. The exact form is not listed in Wehr's 1968 dictionary, so maybe it wasn't used at that time, but it is straightforwardly derived from a root with same meaning as the English word 'to compute' and has the form fa3uul which (according to Wolfdietrich Fischer's Grammar of Classical Arabic) is an 'abstract or verbal noun', so basically a calque of the English.

(What a great topic - I miss this stuff!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like where this is going. But I'm still a bit skeptical at the use of neural networks in this use case

How big is the problem space? There's a limited set of roots and morphologies...

Would a more rules based approach work (more accurately)?

<comment><AUTHOR> It really depends on what dialects of Arabic you are looking at and what your goals are. My starting dataset is very small. I study classical Arabic, so I am only looking at _fus-ha_ or MSA (not quite the same but very close), and I only pulled a small subset of the total number of words because this started out as just a toy project. The total number of _fus-ha_ words in use today is probably in the low millions. But if you extend to all dialects of Arabic and all time periods then you may reach half a billion to a billion words. If you go from written Arabic to spoken Arabic, then there's no telling how big the input set is. Practically infinite at that point.

For the purpose of just using the language, the morphological rules are well- understood. One of the most popular dictionaries (Hans Wehr) is arranged not in alphabetical order, but by root. And there are many online lexicons with morphological metadata as listed in other comments here. So you're right, machine learning is not necessary here (but that's not to say it couldn't be done). This is mainly just for fun and learning.

Now, if you were to add _all_ dialects of Arabic, then you may have a use case for ML...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't seem that deep, I mean the NN itself :) Any particular reason for that? I mean it is pretty hard to imagine that this net can build a model of the problem area.

Edit: thanks for the response, it is interesting result that more layers don't improve the situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried more than one hidden layer and it didn't seem to improve the accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Correct: ['جملة', 'جمل']

جملة means a "sentence"

جمل can mean a Camel (pronounced "jamel" you can guess the origin of the english word)

جمل can also mean "sentences" (pronounced "jomal")

<comment><USER15> I don't see your point. Either way the root is still correct. And you failed to mention the most relevant iteration :

جَمَلَ means to sum-up, to summarize[1] or to concatenate. Which is what a sentence does to words.

[1] [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%84](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%84)

<comment><USER14> My point is that it needs punctuation in order to make sense?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the formatting on the output is a bit confusing. The input is jumla جملة (sentence) and the output is J-M-L or ج-م-ل, not the word جمل, which yes, is a word for camel. I think it would be easier to read if I just added dashes between each output letter to emphasize that it is not a word, but a collection of letters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great work! Are there any plans for latin character support? I'm Turkish and I'd love to be able to play with the words we've borrowed from Arabic but unfortunately I don't know the Arabic script.

<comment><AUTHOR> I added some basic transliteration in the output formatting stage so people who don't know Arabic script can understand the results. Accepting romanized input would require a little more work, so I'd have to tinker a bit there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats for such nice non-English project! It is always lovely to see computer linguistics hitting the front page :-)

</comment><comment><USER18> How does Arabic compare to Indic, Latin and Chinese scripts?

<comment><USER9> It's always written cursive, i.e. the letters are joined together. The letters represent sounds. A letter has the same sound regardless of context. Vowels are divided into long and short ones, and the short ones aren't written. I.e. the word "(he) wrote" is pronounced kataba, with three short a-sounds, is written ktb.

You can write out the short vowels but it's only done in special contexts (like children's books, books for foreign language learners, or the Qur'an). It's easy enough to read if you know the language, but it makes it a little harder to learn.

<comment><USER18> Any idea why it ended up so differently to scripts found in Eurasia?

<comment><USER9> It's actually not very different. Hebrew works in the same way, except it's not cursive. They share a common ancestor in Phoenician script I think, also used for a Semitic language, for which it works well. The Greek alphabet (and thence ours) was derived the Phoenician script that worked in a similar fashion, by adding vowels.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mars: Pictures reveal 'winter wonderland' on the red planet - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46645321 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18733433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18733433)

80+ points</comment>


Are Butterflies Two Different Animals in One? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/08/01/157718428/are-butterflies-two-different-animals-in-one-the-death-and-resurrection-theory <comment><USER2> This was submitted a few month ago (4 points, 3 comments): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4334906>

I will quote a comment that I made that time (beacuse I don't want to write the same thing again):

 _This article doesn't have any scientific base._

 _Insect have exoskeleton so they can't grow like ducks or bats. They have to make a series of metamorphosis to grow. Usually the form for change from one stage to the next step, because they are adapted to different lifestyle. See:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphosis#Insect_metamorpho...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphosis#Insect_metamorpho..). ._

 _Butterflies are one of the most well known and extremes cases of changes. The caterpillar shape is adapted to eat a lot and be camouflaged, the butterfly shape is adapted to travel and mate. (Both shapes share the same general blueprint. For example, if you see a caterpillar carefully, it has only 6 small real legs in the front, and some prolegs in the back.)_

<comment><USER3> It's an intriguing idea though if nothing else. A question here (I don't know your background if it's biology mind you): what actually happens in the metamorphosis between caterpillar and butterfly/moth or any larval animal for that matter?

It does seem rather radical to switch off a massive amount of genes and switch on a bunch of others in adulthood, drastically changing your physical form.

<comment><USER4> I don't know exactly what happens but apparently they mostly turn to mush then reassemble. Interestingly their nervous system/memories have been shown to survive between the different stages.

Re genes turned off: as another poster mentioned huge numbers Of genes are switched off and on at different stages in our life cycle. It's kind of the same as saying 'but neurone don't need the same genes as skin cells so isn't it wasteful having all those extra genes doing nothing?' DNA is relatively cheap so while some 'skin' genes may never Be used in 'neuron' cells the cost is not prohibitive To the organism.

Http://bit.ly/VNYxx2 (a link to livescience.com - apologies am moving between different devices, blocked HN on my mac!)

<comment><USER5> A lot of insects have a fully intact, if immature, nervous system during their adolescence. For example, fruit flies (drosophilla) have brain features called "mushroom bodies". These grow during larval development then hit a state of hibernation until the larva changes into an adult fly, at which point growth continues and the mushroom body fully develops.

I'm not familiar with a lot of other insects, but I believe it is fairly common for the bulk of structures to form, hibernate, and then finish growing during metamorphosis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DNA transfer in higher life forms occurs far more frequently than the geneticists of 60 years ago could have suspected.

 _Astonishingly, only 1.5% of the genetic material in our cells codes for human life. Half of the rest is sometimes described as "junk DNA" with no known function, and the other half consist of genes introduced by viruses and other parasites._

[<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17809503>]

<comment><USER7> The term "junk DNA" is not used in science anymore, much of it is repetitive regions that serve regulatory functions, or other unknown reasons. "Junk" DNA has been renamed to "noncoding DNA", the recent ENCODE-project stated that 80% of human DNA has some purpose. See: <https://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6099/1159>

P.S.: That article reads like the ENCODE-project killed the term "junk DNA", however, that term wasn't in use before the release of ENCODE, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is eerily similar to the biology on the planet of Lusitania in the Ender's Game series book 'Xenocide' in which every remaining species has a two part life cycle which is the result of an virus's effect on two previously separate species. They start as one form, die and are reborn into another form.

<comment><USER9> Bit of a spoiler for the previous novel in the series, that.

<comment><USER8> Ah, I'm sorry, I completely forgot about spoiling it given it being so old. Too bad HN doesn't have spoiler tags :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is extremely silly. Genes that act in larval, pupal, and adult development are all mixed up together in the same chromosomes; there's no plausible way for them to have integrated in the manner suggested. Moreover, the same genes and used and reused again and again in different contexts in insect development. Again, this is absurdly unlikely under the scenario he proposes.

<comment><USER4> I agree that it is extremely silly, however what you suggest about the genes being all mixed up in the same chromosomes as disproving it I don't buy..

I'm not sure if you've ever seen chromosome maps showing gene locations on chromosomes between different species but this is instructive in this matter: between species and thus, as numbers of chromosomes flux up and downwards, the genes which may have started in one chromosome end up spread throughout many-

I am sure you will find the following links interesting

Background: on chromosome rearrangement: [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/21/basics-how- can...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/21/basics-how-can- chromosome-numb/)

Synteny map - cool explination [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/08/pufferfish- and...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/08/pufferfish-and- ancestral-genom/)

mouse human synteny map <http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/MGA2-11-33smc.html>

<comment><USER10> Yes, to some extent genes are mobile and do get shuffled around, but if this hypothesis were true, it would be obvious. Whole genomes don't just merge on the time scales we're talking here. If this hypothesis were true, there would be clear genomic anomalies indicating it (e.g. biases of genes used at the same developmental stage tending to cluster in similar genomic regions); no such anomalies have been found.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One way I've heard it described is that the caterpillar effectively develops an organ that is analagous to an egg from which the butterfly hatches. Then the rest of the caterpillar's body becomes food for the newly-hatched bufferfly. This all occurs inside the chrysalis so that we are spared from witnessing the carnage.

I have no idea if this is a valid way of looking at it or not, but it's one explanation that I've heard. The appealing part about this is when you realize that some wasps lay their eggs inside other insects, which then become food for the wasp larvae in the same way that the caterpillar's body is supposed to become food for the butterfly.

</comment><comment><USER12> Mating between two different speciecs? Rather carying over significant dna of the host inside the parasite that grew out of it.

There are a lot of the winged insects that lay egs inside other insects. Maybe some freakish viral infection long time ago carried over lots of dna of the host into the parasite egg.

It's still insane but at least it's imaginable.

<comment><USER13> IIRC, from an article long ago in New Scientist, there are precedents for this in small marine animals. i.e. plankton or hydras. The "adult" form grows inside of the "larval" form. And then breaks out, fully formed. The "larval" form continues as a separate individual for a few days, before dying.

The eggs are then produced by the "adult" form, and the process continues.

It's easier to do with smaller animals. The process is also simpler (grow new "adult" as a parasite of the "larva"). The caterpillar to butterfly change is much more complex.

<comment><USER5> I suppose you could look at it as a parasitic relationship. But it's actually much simpler than that. (Hydra are super cool, so allow me to geek out for a sec)

Basically, every cell in the hydra knows how to become a new hydra. What prevents a single hydra organism from trying to become a thousand hydras is a dual chemical gradient. The head emits one chemical, the tail emits another. Cells respond to this gradient depending on how concentrated it is in one particular direction

At the "head" end, the "head" chemical is very strong. Those cells respond by being the "head". At the other end, the "head" chemical is very weak (and the "tail" very strong). Those cells respond by becoming the appendages.

If you chop a hydra in half, the gradient becomes altered. On one half of the hydra, there is only "head" chemical diffusing. The other half only has "tail" chemical. These changes in chemical gradients signal the cells to start producing the parts of the body that were just lost. Eventually, you end up with two identical, smaller hydra.

Theoretically, you could keep chopping hydra in half and keep getting identical, smaller hydra. Obviously you hit a point where you are just going to kill the poor thing, but in theory it doesn't matter...the hydra will always be capable of regenerating.

Cool, right!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have a hypothesis of equal scientific merit: Caterpillars are turned into butterflies by an invisible wizard in the sky.

</comment><comment><USER15> _According to this theory, long, long ago, two very different animals, one destined to be wormy, the other destined to take wing, accidently mated, and somehow their genes learned to live side-by-side in their descendants._

This is simply rubbish, and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics.

<comment><USER16> No, it is entirely possible. Entire chromosomes could modified, as by methylation, and the transcription machinery could switch between the two at the appropriate developmental stage.

What it is is (1) extremely unlikely, and (2) easily checked by looking at the DNA sequence of any insect that metamorphoses.

<comment><USER15> The only somewhat similar thing I can think of would be mitochondria, but even mitochondria retain their own unique DNA outside of the nucleus.

<comment><USER11> True, mitochondria contain functional DNA, but the majority of mitochondrial genes have migrated to the eukaryotic nucleus. The transcripts are transcribed in the nucleous, translated in the cytosol, and the protein products are translocated into the mitochondria. There's not necessarily anything preventing the remainder of the mitochondrial genome from making the same transition, although perhaps the mitochondrion would still require a "placeholder" chromosome because its cycle of reproduction is tied in with replication of that chromosome as it is in bacteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Betteridge's Law of... oh, whatever. Is the fetal human form a different animal from the adult human form? Different genes are switched on, but this doesn't mean that the baby growing inside of you is some alien that you're nurturing that just happens to become an adult human.

Anyway, genetic analysis should make the actual question–if it were a serious scientific question–answerable: are butterflies the result of some prehistoric mating between different species? Is the genetic architecture vastly different between the two sets of genes? Is there evidence of what one or both of these two progenitor species were, and if so, can we identify the direction of gene flow and relative contributions?

</comment><comment><USER18> Dissolving into the liquid oblivion of sleep, we are caterpillars to the butterflies of our next morning's waking selves.

<comment><USER19> Brrr, reminds me of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis>

(A novel by Franz Kafka, in which a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes to find himself transformed into a monstrous vermin.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there any actual evidence that supports this hypothesis?

</comment><comment><USER21> Biological Ship of Theseus.

</comment><comment><USER22> If the headline is a yes/no question, the answer is always no.

</comment><comment><USER23> I once smashed two clocks together and a butterfly came out.</comment>


Why switching from Stripe to Balanced has helped LaunchTrack scale - <AUTHOR> http://support.launchtrack.com/why-choosing-balanced-has-helped-us-scale-our-business/

<comment><USER3> I am currently using Balanced to help a client develop a marketplace application - both to collect payments as well as to distribute payouts - <USER2> working with the service has really been a delight. The documentation is well- developed, includes clean sample code for everything I've needed (to the point of just being able to drop it in), and support is really responsive and helpful. Just today I had a question about implementing bank account verification, hopped on the IRC chat room, and within all of 30 seconds had my question answered. Great job to the Balanced team!

<comment><USER4> I'll second this. Balanced has been pretty awesome to work with. I looked at switching away at one point, but everything "just works" and no other solution had all of the requirements met for running a legit marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple, meet Orange.

Why are they bashing Stripe Connect, which is not comparable to Balanced? They were looking for Stripe Marketplace, which does offer a complete white-label solution.

For a fairer comparison and review of Stripe's white label marketplace API, I will shamelessly plug my blog:

[http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe- payouts](http://blog.chriswinn.com/working-with-stripe-payouts)

The people at Balanced are great, but I still prefer Stripe's products any day of the week. They've written the best API and documentation I've seen in a while, and laid a lot of groundwork for others to mimic. A good thing for us developers, at least.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stripe Connect, according to their own website ([https://stripe.com/connect](https://stripe.com/connect)) is Stripe's marketplace offering.

Stripe Connect is not a complete white label solution. The user still has to be redirected to stripe.com to complete the OAuth process. We had many issues with users being confused as to who Stripe was, and why were they asking for their personal information when creating an account.

<comment><USER6> (I work at Stripe)

Stripe Connect is great for a certain kind of marketplace, specifically one that does not want to be liable for chargebacks or refunds and wants to remain outside of the flow of funds.

We launched the ability to send payouts with Stripe over a month ago for a different kind of marketplace (such as Lyft, SideCar and Exec), which want more control over the payout process. You can read more about it here on our site: [https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with- stripe](https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> IMO, neither really are as great as they should be yet. That being said, I'm using Stripe. Switching over from Paypal, this is what I have to say:

-The process to make charges from a sellers account seems to need an unnecessary amount of requests

-Why can't we pay out to multiple sellers at once like Paypal can?

-At least in Stripe, it seems kind of silly I have to refresh a credit card token each time I want to make a new charge

<comment><USER8> If I were you, I'd go directly to the source: @cjc (stripe) and @jkwade (balanced) It seems like you would be served well by both companies, so you should definitely share your specifics and see which one is the best fit.

<comment><USER9> @dylandrop , happy to hear feedback or make recommendations on how to best use Balanced</comment></comment></comment>


RocketCloud - Like DigitalOcean but outside US legal jurisdiction - <AUTHOR>

We are fans of what DigitalOcean have accomplished. They have shown that SSD clouds, with their huge advantages in speed and power usage, are the future. But with recent US Gov activities, US cloud providers are no longer viable for non-US companies or citizens.
The recent revelations do not just apply to data stored inside US borders. For example, if your data is on a US-owned company cloud in any country in the world it can be accessed by US authorities without the knowledge of clients; a fact openly admitted by the US Government.
DigitalOcean demonstrated there is demand for a more modern approach to cloud provision, and with no legacy baggage to slow them down they were able to offer this at a lower cost than rivals. They recognized that many bigger, more-established rivals were so heavily invested in legacy technology they had fallen behind.
In response to these developments a few of us got together to consider an alternative (we are devs and system admins). Our own clients were concerned about developments in the US, prompting us to take action.
We recognized the need for a DigitalOcean, but also realized it is no longer viable for our own clients now or in the future.
This prompted us to put our experience to good use and we created RocketCloud: It is unashamedly like DigitalOcean, but based in London and completely outside US legal jurisdiction. We are currently developing the backend for the system, which should be finished shortly. If we get enough people interested in the beta we will scale it up and offer large-scale SSD hosting like DigitalOcean – with no US Government access.
Perhaps you are like us. Perhaps you are a developer looking for somewhere to host your application, or you just can't host anything with a US cloud provider any more either.
What do you think? Is this something you would be interested in? If so, sign up for the beta and we will give you a shout when it's ready.
https://rocketcloud.me <comment><USER2> I wouldn't be so sure - if anything the UK is more monitored by our own agencies than the NSA monitoring America. We just don't know about it so much. I guess the only difference is the lack of 'backdoors', but I highly doubt Digital Ocean has such a 'backdoor' as well.

Assuming this is the case it is likely both services will be under as much surveillance as each other.

<comment><USER3> You are right, same goes for the Netherlands and Germany.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a DigitalOcean client. You're pricing system is so fragmented than it's impossible to me to digest. Why not charge simply 5 euros and leave it like that, or use a pricing system easier to calculate. Me, as a client, I don't want to waste time calculating stuff for something that will account 20-30 euros monthly, just shot it, guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our prices reflect what we are able to achieve at this time without economies of scale: Once we scale up, these prices will inevitably will come down.

<comment><USER5> I _think_ he means the numbers on the pricing are weird and he finds it distracting when trying to choose a plan, not that the prices are too high. The first plan is £6, the next is £5 more, the next £10 more, the next £20 more, and the last £38 more. Where are £6 and £38 coming from? I believe he's suggesting just making it 5/10/20/40/80 or something like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What would actually be more sought-after is a way to host outside of a government easily coopted by US government interests (legal or otherwise), and to do so in a place without a 160ms latency penalty (sorry UK, long distance relationships don't work).

Perhaps a trawler in international waters off the pacific coast, coupled to a microwave relay.

</comment><comment><USER7> The UK is well within "US legal jurisdication", officially or non-officially. Didn't you guys join and start wars together??

<comment><AUTHOR> The US Government cannot just "take" information from EU companies unless they are US based or a US subsidiary... whether this is legal or otherwise.

Being in the EU gives us strong privacy and security laws and they seem to be about to get tougher in light of recent events from the NSA.

There is also the perception element: The US Government cannot be trusted with data from non-US companies or citizens... this is what some of our clients have said to us and I have also read dozens of articles with hosting providers being asked the same questions from their clients.

This will run and run and I believe that, for the EU at least, US cloud providers will not be considered for future projects.

I am not sure how big this issue is in the US but in Europe it is massive and will not go away any time soon :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bahamas , Jersey , Malta , Singapore, and other offshore jurisdiction seem to be the safest bet for hosting at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER9> Go cheaper. I'd switch even though I have nothing to hide, I'd prefer a UK host, but it's not worth more money for me.</comment>


Ask HN: Have people been punished vigilante-style for their Internet crimes? - <AUTHOR>

I hear all these widely publicized stories about twitter and domain names being stolen, Bitcoin thefts, etc. and I also know that sometimes the 'bad actor' can be traced after investigating the theft. My question: Have there been cases of people punishing these online thieves in a vigilante way? I mean sometimes it is millions of dollars lost/stolen and I can imagine that at some point someone would stop at nothing to get punishment. Do we just not hear about these cases? <comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_vigilantism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_vigilantism)</comment>


Germans in the race to bring electric cars to market - <AUTHOR> https://global.handelsblatt.com/our-magazine/the-germans-are-coming-for-tesla-motors-624915?ref=MzQ4NDA1&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=contentmarketing&utm_campaign=outbrain-retfeb17-longlast&utm_content=The%20Germans%20Are%20Coming%20for%20Tesla%20Motors&utm_term=00c8e13c1b4dbd08a35b361af495798fcf <comment><USER2> This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Toyota Prius. Yet, German manufacturers have no competing product to offer: cars with electric components are those at the high end of the price list, totally overpriced. And when you ask the salespeople, they will tell you in all honesty to better NOT take that hybrid because of the questionably quality. Cars like the Renault ZOE, Kia Niro, Hyundai Ioniq and a lot of other types show that you can make a hybrid/electric car at reasonable prices and good reliability. The German manufacturers seem to have nothing learned from it yet. This summer, the new fully-electric Smart comes out. Range: 120km. Who needs that shit? They say "most people don't drive more than that to work every day". What a bad excuse! They had that 5 years ago. Yet people love their Teslas because they don't have to think about charging every few kilometers. Buy a regular Golf: 17.000€. Buy a plugin-hybrid Golf (one of the very few German offerings): 35.000€. Clearly a sign they try to ride a dead horse. Invest now - live off the scaling effects tomorrow! Something that seems unthinkable in a traditional shareholder-value driven industry like the German car industry, that prides themselves to be at the forefront of technology, yet don't want to stop depending on 130 year old technology. Do you know what Mercedes began to offer in the year the Renault ZOE came out? They were proud on their brand new Mercedes G AMG65 with 12 cylinders. A 32 year old car that (almost) no one needs nowadays.

Look at the (German) Audi website. They have their G-Tron initiative. Looks quite impressive, next to their E-Tron stuff. G-Tron is CNG gas... they are just using the old engines further, branding them as "green" somehow.

<comment><USER3> Nothing can express, their aversion against innovation as Fiat CEO statement: "Please don't buy Fiat 500e electric car".

They only made Fiat 500 electric to fulfill regulation requirements, so they can sells more of 130 years tech, which is cheaper then investing into new clean tech . Only Tesla's success, made them finally innovate. I personally consider this attitude arrogant and would never buy product from such a company.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs- idUSL1N0O71M...](http://www.reuters.com/article/chrsyelr-ceo-evs- idUSL1N0O71MS20140521)

<comment><USER4> If you look at the history of Fiat/Chrysler in the last years is a history of resurgence from troubled waters, probably not the right company to be the innovator in a money-loosing field at this point in time.

So I don't think their attitude is conservatorism or lack of vision, judging from the business results of the last years I bet they'll jump on the EV bandwagon as soon as it starts making money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good, but a lot of models have yet to hit production and here in Germany the only fancy electric cars you can see are Teslas...

Also, I don't think Tesla's advantage is batteries as somebody here is commenting - it's software and data. Tesla is probably the best in class when it comes to software between automakers. German automakers don't make good software and I'd argue don't take it seriously enough even (just look at status and salary of programmers in Germany vs US). Tesla is collecting data on each of their cars, German automakers don't do that yet.

Driveless cars are going to be about software and data and German automakers are weak in both categories.

The only competitive advantage I see is production scale, but how long will this last?

<comment><USER6> Re: collecting data. They will never do it. The cannot because the law does not allow it. A more stricter law is coming. For the suppliers of self driving components is a nightmare, they only can infer datapoints.

Tesla also cannot collect any data from cars driving in EU, but they gather enough data in US.

<comment><USER7> > Tesla also cannot collect any data from cars driving in EU, but they gather > enough data in US.

I'm a relatively recent driver (I've only gotten my license 3 years ago), but even so, from what I've read and what I've seen with my own eyes driving cross-border around several European countries I can tell you that there definitely is a "cultural" difference in driving between different areas of the globe.

More exactly, a driver in Switzerland in Germany will react and act differently on the road compared to a driver from Romania, and a driver from a smaller city will certainly drive differently compared to a driver from a big, congested city (I noticed this phenomena with my own eyes a couple of weeks ago when I went to a quieter part of my country and I didn't understand why most of the incoming drivers weren't "negotiating" more when the roads were getting narrower, like it happens in the big city where I currently live, they were just sitting in front of my car not making any maneuver, waiting for I don't know what).

Taking all this into consideration, I'm pretty sure that the differences in driving styles between Europe and the USA are big enough that Tesla's data collected in the States will be of not that much use when applied to European driving styles. Also, see this recent thread on /r/cars of car-obsessed redditors discussing about why German-like autobahns could never work in the States: [https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/6p30xd/would_an_ameri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/6p30xd/would_an_american_autobahn_be_feasible/).

<comment><USER8> I remember a chap who enjoyed driving around the US for days. Then when on the Dutch road he was completely worn out after 2 hours explaining there was way to much going on for his taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Imagine you are CEO of a german car company- and you see the change coming, you want to change your whole company to adapt to that.

Now first thing you would have to break is the "Zyklus". The "Zyklus" is a 5 year period, in which a care is designed, everything is specified, prototypes are produced and tested, part-deliverers are driven in "netherland"-auctions to go to the lowest price for a specified part (like the software), assembly lines are errected (and "Sonder-maschinen" are ordered for that) and finally the car is produced.

Each of this departments is in more or less open rebellion against your intentions. And they got good arguments. Electric cars are not green currently. They are coal cars - says the marketing department.

Methanol-Cars, using re-synthesized straw is a 100 % green fuel and could re- use our existing technology not dropping our advantage says engineering. And there have been some small-scale breakthroughs there recently regarding method efficiency. Fuels are definatly a better storage then batterys. [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BtL- Kraftstoff](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BtL-Kraftstoff)

All parts vital for a electric cars are easy to get at any time, except batterys, so lets avoid those and switch later, when we dont have to re-invest so much for the tech - says the "Einkauf".

Its a death by a thousand stings. The best thing they could do, is basically form completely seperate companys inside there old mother companys, that are not bound to these cycles and rules.

This is where the power-structure comes to kill you. In any feudal- hierarchical power-structure creating a new department - creates a rush of power-thirsty individuals who want to get to the top. So far so natural. These individuals, will migrate from the old-parts of your company into the new part- bringing along the experience and the mindset of the old company.

And thats it. Thats is how a dinosaur dies. Willing to change, but the body wont rearrange.

<comment><USER10> Another factor is that fuel based propulsion systems are a key differentiator for them, it's complex machinery which is not simply bought from some supplier like most other components. Electric propulsion is way simpler with a lot less moving parts, "everybody" can do it. This also will result in jobs disappearing and politics, which is deeply tied to that industry does its best to delay that inevitable change. Without outside pressure you can't really fight these internal power structures because currently business is still running great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, they are paying lip-service to electric cars now. I am, however, still rather sceptical: these companies have so much baggage, it remains to be seen if they're capable of such changes.

They are, for example, extremely enamoured with whatever tech someone who is now in power masterminded 20+ years ago when he came through the ranks. If every road everywhere were to move underground, they'd still install windshield wipers, if that was the CEO's specialty at some point. Just look at their obsession with Diesels, with got quite close to sinking VW, and may still spread to others (Mercedes seems to have done much the same).

But they'd be the best windshield wipers, ever. Obviously.

The move to electric means they can throw away around half their technology. Make that 70%+ if they're also self-driving. Just the difference in weight, and where the components are mounted, means you're redesigning everything.

I'd also fear that consumers will regard "electric car" as a separate, new category, where the formerly most-regarded manufacturers are suddenly the old guard. For Tesla, or tech companies like Apple, this could be a window where they can capture mindshare.

All that at a moment where they're financially hurting from the Diesel affair, with the next (a cartel) just being reported now. With their dominant position in bot the industry and the country, they've had a decade+ of growing complacent, creating somewhat-corrupt structures, and laughing at the competition that may be eating their lunch, soon. Meanwhile, the car is no longer the status symbol it once was. In their home market, young people no longer buy cars. A 2-digit % of them doesn't even bother with a driver's license anymore. When you do use a car, the brand isn't that important anymore–both because of the loss in status, but also because cheaper foreign brands have come a long way. (Except US cars, obviously. Those are still a tasteless abomination)

(I'm German, btw)

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder why there so much focus on "carmakers" like BMW or Daimler instad of "partmakers" like Bosch that have been working in electric car parts for years, and are able to manufacture up to 60-70% of the inner components of a (electric|gasoline|diesel) car.

<comment><USER6> Also Infineon is quite a leader of power components for electric cars.

Teoretically Bosch + Infineon could team up and produce an electric car with no help from outside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Few years ago, CEO of Audi and others was making fun of Tesla and today all of them jumping on same boat as Tesla did, because of FOMO. Reminds me classical quote: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." I hope Tesla wins, because they deserve it. There was no real innovation for ages, as auto companies only did minimum to keep their profits. Also we should not forget diesel gate scandal. They didn't want to invest into cleaner cars and rather cheated. I've personal aversion agains this industry, because of that.

<comment><USER13> And Tesla even affords the attitude to say they don't want to claim the whole market and they're happy to let others use their ideas, because they want a world with fewer carbon. So, even if they don't win, they can claim it was their plan all along ;)

<comment><USER14> The traditional car companies will catch up with them (Apple was 5 years ahead of the competition at the time of the iPhone too for example), but by then Tesla will have over 50% of the world's battery production, and guess what all electric cars need? Batteries, and lots of them, and they will need to be replaced every 7-10 years.

Tesla right now does pretty well as a car manufacturer and the Model 3 will probably do well too, but by 2025 when the established car companies (like the German ones) have caught up, unless Tesla innovated far beyond those, it'll be a marginal car company - but a huge battery and energy company, as well as a "fuel" company with their supercharger networks.

<comment><USER15> > but by then Tesla will have over 50% of the world's battery production

I'm not sure whether you are referring to control or consumption, but in case it's the former: the cells Tesla uses are produced by Panasonic, so technically, they would be in control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tesla has advantages but they're not making cars with broad appeal outside technocrats. The performance is great, but it's not everything. They're pretty ugly, the interiors are naff and the dashboard + software is distracting in the worst way. I don't drive often, but when I do, it's for covering long distances across Europe and I cannot imagine wanting to be in a Tesla compared to my 11-year-old Audi. The major automobile companies are starting to understand their own strengths and more competition here should help everyone raise their game.

<comment><USER17> How does Tesla's 'autopilot' fare with German streets? I've only seen videos from wide multi-lane US-American streets, nothing with cramped 100-year old German inner-city streets

<comment><USER14> In addition, how does it do on Germany's high-speed highways? They have a number of unlimited speed highways, great for high-performance BMW's and Audi's but probably not great for battery powered cars.

<comment><USER16> I imagine Teslas perform well, I've seen a few on the autobahn, but battery life will be limited somewhat at very high speeds, which is why I imagine they limit the top speed of the Model S. Autopilot is all very well, but on two- lane autobahns, where the speed disparity between lanes can be very high (Lorries in one lane, overtaking in the other), one needs to be fairly vigilant.

<comment><USER6> I drive daily my german Autobahn. With no exception, I haven't seen a Tesla drive faster than 120 Km/H. Most of them trail behind a truck, probably to conserve energy - less wind resistance.

I almost laugh when I see them crawling like that.

<comment><USER18> > Most of them trail behind a truck, probably to conserve energy - less wind > resistance.

Most likely the car is on autopilot, and the driver opined to take his attention off the road and do something else. I see that occasionally with Teslas driving from LA to Vegas - a giant semitruck up front is something that you know radar won't screw up, plus it removes incentives for other guys to cut in front of you, as a spot behind a truck is rarely that desirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Last year, they teamed up to buy Nokia's HERE, a digital mapping service > crucial for driverless cars. Volkswagen's Müller says he does not want to be > dependent on digital services companies in the fast-growing market for self- > driving technology and mobility services. "We want to be in control of our > destiny," he told Handelsblatt in June.

I can understand why they want that, but as a consumer I want a good experience. When non-software companies write software, it seems it is almost invariably inferior. I never actually enjoyed the experience of using a car stereo until I got a deck that supports CarPlay (Apple) and Android Auto (Google). These standards let you attach your phone to the stereo and let the phone run the UI. They are so much better than the software that comes on stereo decks.

Even Apple Maps, made by a good software company, is still noticeably inferior to Google Maps in my opinion. Apple has severely demoted Google Maps on its platform, presumably for the same reason as the carmakers: they don't want to be dependent on Google. So you can't use Google Maps in CarPlay, and if you click on an address in iMessage "Open in Google Maps" is not an option. For Apple I'm sure they see this as being less dependent on Google, but for me as a user it's pushing me away from their platform. I want the best maps product out there, and for me that is Google Maps. So I'm planning for my next phone to be a Google phone.

(It's almost hilarious how far Apple goes in this. If you delete the Apple Maps app from your phone, and then click an address in iMessage, "Open in Google Maps" _still_ isn't an option. But there is an option to _re-install_ Apple Maps. This strikes me as pretty insecure that their maps product can compete on its merits.)

EDIT: I had slightly misunderstood: HERE is an acquisition consisting of all the Navteq data. So it does have legitimately good data behind it.

<comment><AUTHOR> HERE is superb. In my experience it works better for (car) navigation than Apple or Google.

It goes back a long time, I've already had it on my Nokia 5800 and then on my Windows phone.

<comment><USER20> I reguarly drive rentals from all German premium brands. All their navigation is good, but the VW/Audi navigation system stands out. It has the cleanest interface and displays exactly the information you need.

Also, the VW/Audi system that offers route changes around traffic jams is the most transparent.

Years ago, I would navigate using my smartphone. Haven't been doing that though. The only thing I am missing is voice input for addresses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, map updates to car navigation systems are quite expensive.

Anecdote: My father used to drive an Audi that showed all kinds of places on the map: restaurants, gas stations, Audi dealers. All could be switched off.

Except cemeteries. Those were always shown, quite prominently. You were driving overland, and you were constantly seeing cemeteries.

Maybe Audi's contribution to traffic safety education...

<comment><USER20> Funny story :)

> Unfortunately, map updates to car navigation systems are quite expensive.

I thought cars would get their updates via a connection to a cell network?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. You're buying a CD that is physically swapped for the old one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Article is 2016, please put it on the title, this isn't exactly new news.

</comment><comment><USER22> > Volkswagen is investing heavily in batteries and reportedly working on its > own factory. > Batteries are a commodity once production is established.

I would like more info on what it takes to establish battery production for the output of millions of cars (especially in terms of resource availability and timescale for the big players). Pretty much all the articles I saw skip this point all together.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great news for Tesla, they are a battery company after all and only produce electric cars for advertisement.

<comment><USER24> I think it's the other way around. Tesla knew that they need batteries for their cars and that the battery market is highly competitive and volatile. The only way to ensure a reliable supply chain for batteries is to build batteries themselves.

<comment><USER14> Either way they'll win - make batteries at cost for their own cars, or sell batteries with profit for other manufacturer's electric cars. They also win in goodwill. And with the supercharger network, which I'm sure they'll open up (if they aren't already) to all electric cars. How much does a charge cost there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Total bullshit. Handelsblatt is a german website. We have nothing.

The industry is slowly getting it, but I doubt it'll really get big in EVs.

</comment><comment><USER26> "it has no technology or business model that others can't easily copy"

Well, Tesla even made their patents free for you to do so.

</comment><comment><USER27> race, contest, cartel...

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-21/audi- join...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-21/audi-joins- daimler-in-diesel-recall-as-emissions-scrutiny-grows)</comment>


A scholar of video technology reflects on the death of an analog medium - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/07/caetlin_benson_allott_explores_the_legacy_of_vhs_and_vcr.html <comment><USER2> I feel a similar conflict between nostalgia and pragmatism when I think about my experience with computer games. The constrast between the 1980s and the 2010s is pretty stark.

I remember lusting over old infocom game "feelies", like the ones that came with Deadlock and Infadel, which one could argue that due to the limitations of the textual medium were required, but they really did help me set the mood and made that world seem more alive.

Fast forward a decade, consider buying a Sierra game and pulling out a stack of 3.5 floppy disks for Kings Quest 5, or the QfG 1, remake had a very visceral excitement and feeling of heft.

I also remember studying a brick of a manual that came with falcon 3.0 like it was a school textbook or a great American novel.

I can't really imagine playing some of those games again, without some of those physical aspects, even in emulation they don't feel "right". And I wonder about the steam generation of gamers, that while convenient, doesn't really represent the same experience.

But now that I'm 40 and time is precious, im not saying I want to go back. But it's not quite the same.

<comment><USER3> I was most pleased the day I had a direct lesson that nostalgia = brain rot.

I remember using a Mac LC 475 all the time in 1995 and 1996, working on a student newspaper. I remembered it as having been just a startling joy to use; haunting in its ease of use.

Then I used Windows 95 with Office 97 for much of 1997.

Then in early 1998 I got in front of an LC 475 again. _Holy crap, what is this clunky piece of shit_.

Remember: human memory is provably awful, and history is therefore bunk. And you can't go back again because you're a different person now.

<comment><USER4> Yeah nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Incidentally i am watching star gate for the first time and man are those computers clunky. Worse there is scene where you see an early website and it just looks horrific, but back then getting online with a 56 modem was magic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat OT but look into simpsonswave ([http://reddit.com/r/simpsonswave](http://reddit.com/r/simpsonswave)). It's a somewhat new microgenre which mixes vaporwave with clips of Simpsons. It's interesting because the visuals evoke a very VCR feel. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsonwave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsonwave)

This is the video that kicked it off [https://youtu.be/rTfa-9aCTYg](https://youtu.be/rTfa-9aCTYg)

[https://youtu.be/FCb3rblTEds](https://youtu.be/FCb3rblTEds)

[https://youtu.be/qvmbL99ErUo](https://youtu.be/qvmbL99ErUo)

It's double interesting because I can't think of a single music genre that would extend the stylistic criteria to visuals. I think that that's a first, and it says something about the future of music.

<comment><USER6> Well punk music has an iconic visual style associated with it. That goes back to the 70s. I'm sure there was something before that too... this is definitely not a first.

<comment><USER5> I misspoke, I meant like "video visual". But you are right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The loss of physical media is a bigger deal. Cloud services die within a few years. Even ones from big companies. Remember PlaysForSure? Zune? WalMart Music? If you don't have your own copy, you're just renting.

We're losing a lot of film history as the Netflix back catalog shrinks and YouTube gets better at removing uploads of old movies.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't miss anything about VHS. Balky machines, smeary, fuzzy, cropped video, the top of the image bending to the right because of a weak sync signal, rewinding, large storage volume, taking cassettes apart to fix them, cleaning the heads, taking the VCRs apart to fix them, etc.</comment>


Tertill Weeding Robot - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwTWhMbnq9g <comment><USER2> [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h8oWl6FD-7c](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h8oWl6FD-7c) : there are many mechanical weeding robots for field cultivation. France's Naio Technologies is my favourite. They are coming to North America soon.

It seems like Europe is far ahead of us with robotics and field automation. In America, we have always had abundant cheap labour.

Also, American Agtech is a data play and geared towards commodity crops. That's not always suitable for food crops and speciality food crops and fruits etc.

Edited to add: I guess tertill is for gardens. It's not bad but can be better.

<comment><USER3> What is up with that video? A few seconds in it looks like warp is fixing the shaky/moved camera? Cool robot though!

<comment><USER4> Not sure but my google photos stabilisation has this effect...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This won't work! The hardest place to weed is in the grass and around strawberries.... both of these can be just as short as weeds, and from the "how it works" page, it looks like it is using height of plant to determine if it's a weed.

Got me excited for a second.

[https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/](https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/) "Tertill has a very simple method. Weeds are short, plants are tall."

<comment><USER6> Yes, it only works for tall plants like tomatoes, raspberries etc., but that doesn't mean it "won't work".

<comment><USER5> I guess I meant, it "won't work" for me personally... and using height as an indicator of weediness seems risky.... at some point you'll have a tiny new seedling that you want to keep and you'll have to remember to work around your weeder... just doesn't seem as convenient as I would imagine it in my ideal world.

<comment><USER7> > _at some point you 'll have a tiny new seedling that you want to keep and > you'll have to remember to work around your weeder._

There's a metal guard you put down around small plants that prevents Tertill from mowing them down. The video does a pretty good job explaining the basic operation.

<comment><USER8> Or just put chicken wire around areas you don't want weeded

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Discussion from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715110)

I maintain my position at the time: weeding is almost never just weeding. You're there monitoring a lot of different aspects of your plants' health and progress; you need to do that whether you're weeding or not, so you might as well be weeding.

This is a solution in search of a problem, and none of these people seem like gardeners.

</comment><comment><USER10> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwTWhMbnq9g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwTWhMbnq9g)

<comment><USER11> The video calls "the typical garden size in the US" 100 sq ft (or 9 m^2). I find it hard to wrap my head around that number. If I had 9m^2 of green, I would never call that a garden.

Surely this is the average, but not the mean? As lots of apartments won't have gardens at all.

<comment><USER12> I think maybe they are using the word "garden" in the US sense of "part of your land sectioned off to grow vegetables, fruits, etc.", not "the green space in your land surrounding the home" which we'd refer to as the lawn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, you have to put markers around non-weeds. It's not like the John Deere/Blue River weeding machine.[1] Or the Ecorobotics weeding robot. Those use machine learning to recognize weeds visually.

[1] [http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/](http://www.bluerivertechnology.com/) [2] [https://www.ecorobotix.com/](https://www.ecorobotix.com/)

<comment><USER14> I'd choose a proven, 100% reliable criteria such as markers rather than fuzzy methods like machine learning which evolve and can break/behave inexpectedly over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's really cute, but it looks sort of fragile and underpowered.

<comment><USER16> Yup, reminds me of those cheap solar toys you can buy on Aliexpress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious if others who garden have really bad weed problems that can't be solved with mulch & putting stuff down between rows?

I find cardboard or brown packaging paper between rows, & layering the whole garden with grass & straw reduces all but a few random weeds.

I don't understand the value of weeding robots outside large agriculture.

<comment><USER18> That method only works for about one season, and then you have to redo it all. I guess if you like gardening redoing the cardboard isn't so bad, but I'd rather focus on the plants and not the cardboard.

<comment><USER19> you have to redo the garden every season anyway

<comment><USER20> I don't redo everything every season! I like to garden smart, not hard. Check out permaculture.

Last year, I put down cardboard and mulched - planting strawberries directly in the mulch and piercing through the cardboard. Fast forward a year, now that the cardboard is pretty composted, the strawberries were established last year had root systems in place, broke through the cardboard, and beat most of the weeds. The weeds can't thrive because the strawberries are taking up all the sun.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like you have a similar effective way for handling weeds. My main point was that I don't think most gardeners have an issue with weeds in their garden.

Side note, using large pieces of cardboard or packaging paper goes fairly quick. I wouldn't consider it hard or time consuming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why buy this when I have kids?

<comment><USER22> This thing is cheaper and doesn't talk.

<comment><USER23> > Tertill uses bluetooth to talk to your smartphone.

Close, but not quite. Just wait for the 20 "I'm stuck" notifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Or not weed at all and change how we think gardens should be planted in the first place.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No- till_farming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming)

[https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/permaculture- gardeni...](https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/permaculture-gardening- creating-our-own-eco-systems)

The robot seems practical enough though. At least it has solar panels built in!

<comment><USER25> Cutting the weeds doesn't seem anything like tilling; in fact, cutting them and leaving the rest there as mulch seems fairly close to no-till.

<comment><USER24> The little robot still drives around and compacts the soil a little. I'm not saying it's not progress, but is it actually necessary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm surprised they haven't taken the time to create 2 equal gardens one with the robot one without it. If it works then this type of demonstration would be a great marketing win for the company.

By not having a sample garden, it makes me dought the effectiveness of it since it such an easy thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER27> The website really needs a video demonstrating the product.

Edit: there is a video but it only show up on the desktop version.

<comment><USER28> [https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/](https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/)

The "hero" image/banner is a simple video demonstrating the "robot vacuum" behavior, in a garden.

<comment><USER27> It doesn't show up on mobile.

<comment><USER3> Try this [https://www.tertill.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/02/tertill-i...](https://www.tertill.com/wp- content/uploads/2019/02/tertill-intro.mov)

I have used the Divi theme a bunch and I think if you watch the actual link where the video is you should be able to check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I wrong thinking that after a few weeks of cutting the leaves, the root will become gigantic and will keep producing leaves at a faster rate? The only way to get rid of dandelions is to pull the ever growing root from the ground.

<comment><USER30> _How does it remove them? Won't the weeds just grow back?_

 _Tertill whacks weeds using a spinning string trimmer, which cuts the weed off near the ground. Because Tertill lives in your garden and goes looking for weeds every day, weeds are always small when the robot finds them. A whacked weed may sprout again, but sprouting takes energy stored in the seed or root. By coming back every day, Tertill never lets a weed develop the leaves it needs to replenish this energy, so eventually the weed gives up and dies._

[https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/](https://www.tertill.com/how-it-works/)

<comment><USER31> they managed to invent something even more stubborn than garden weeds

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So you will end up with a bunch of weeds inside your collar. Someone hasn't thought this through. I've walked a lot of fields over a twenty year period, weeds aren't always in the middle of the rows.

<comment><USER33> So...you pick the weeds out of the collar? You've reduced the land you have to maintain to just that which this robot can't get to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> TLDR; you are supposed to get rid of all weeds in your garden first, then this little robot will take care of all new weeds growing out of the ground. It's supposed to be pretty much maintenance free and runs on only sunlight.

</comment><comment><USER35> I can imagine that when this rolls over a green hose, it promptly tries to "kill" the hose.

And I don't want to think about what it does to slugs and snails...

</comment><comment><USER2> I might give this a shot to weed between my lavender field rows. I have 1.5 acres. Why not? Just use them on a couple of them to see how it operates.

</comment><comment><USER36> How well does this do on slopes?

<comment><USER28> From the product web site:

Will Tertill get stuck?

Tertill uses four-wheel-drive. This helps Tertill move through soft soil, sand, and mulch, and also helps Tertill climb slopes. Its distinctive diagonal wheels make Tertill more stable on slopes and help it get past certain terrain challenges. Tertill relies on several sensors and clever programming to keep out of trouble. To detect objects like the garden fence and big plants, Tertill uses sensors similar to those found in many smart phones—the lightest touch is all it takes. To detect steep slopes, Tertill uses the same sort of sensor that tells your cell phone which way is up. Tertill can also sense if a motor stops turning—perhaps jammed by a rock—so it can protect itself from damage.

<comment><USER37> You'd think it woudl use tank tracks

<comment><USER38> Tank tracks have problems at a small scale that aren't immediately apparent at full scale.

The big one - especially for something "in the dirt" \- is dirt/mud getting between the tracks and ground wheels/idlers. This can easily stop the drive system, requiring user maintenance. Then there's the issue with water rusting parts (shafts, screws, etc). Also, more moving parts equal more things to break. Finally, on a small scale, tracks have a tendency to be easily "thrown" from the wheels depending on how turning is accomplished and the terrain.

On a full sized tank or bulldozer, tracks still have these issues, but in the case of dirt, it can just power through the obstacles; dirt and mud may build up, and cause some rust, but the important bits are kept constantly lubricated. Any parts that do grind up the dirt just wear down instead of stopping (and eventually need replacement - very $$$$ replacement). If anyone cares to, hosing off the tracks with a water truck can also be done, but isn't likely to be done. Again, it all comes down to maintenance.

Also, full scale tracked vehicles rarely turn "en point", because their tracks can be thrown just as easily as on the smaller scale, but cause more damage and more repair $$$ needed to fix/replace (plus doing it in the field isn't easy, either). The proper way to turn such a vehicle is to not perform such maneuvers, or if you have to, make sure you're on relatively flat and soft ground (that you don't mind utterly destroying - beware your wife's rose garden), and do it fairly slowly. The side load on the tracks and idlers will still be just as high, but throwing the track isn't as great. Usually, though, you steer in a curve just like a car, except using differential speeds on each track. There will still be side loads and "skidding", but the loads are much, much less (also, this is why such machines, whether tracked or wheeled, are known as "skid steered" or "differential steering").

<comment><USER39> The whole thing is a "nice try" but spending money on something like this isn't green--we're supposed to be consuming less overall and this hunk of plastic will break within six months and then sit on a shelf until it inevitably enters the waste stream as difficult to recycle e-trash.

When are people going to wake up and figure out that all this speculative entrepreneurial-ism is pretty much just money making scams that exist as the cost of the environment?

Don't want weeds? Be a gardener. Or don't be a gardener: This whole dilettante Instagram gardener bullshit is what needs to die.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I enjoy working out in the garden. It is time to reflect and get off the screen.

I don't think I would buy something like this.</comment>


Discovery of earliest known tool for making rope (circa 38k BC) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/01/mammoth-tusk-drill-holes-make-rope-change-history-stone-age <comment><USER2> The 40ky Hohle Fels rope making tool made the news in 2016.

[https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope- years.html](https://phys.org/news/2016-07-rope-years.html)</comment>


A Formal Spec for GitHub Flavored Markdown - <AUTHOR> https://githubengineering.com/a-formal-spec-for-github-markdown/ <comment><USER2> It's odd how neither this post, nor the spec, nor GitHub's "Mastering Markdown" help page[1], nor the more complete "Basic writing and formatting syntax" page[2], mentions the fact that GitHub treats every newline as a hard break.

CommonMark contains this little sentence to work around its specified behavior, which is left untouched in the GFM spec:

> A renderer may also provide an option to render soft line breaks as hard > line breaks.

I'd say whether or not it does this is a rather important thing to mention. When I write Markdown documents for GitHub I have to change my editor settings, only because of this.

[1]: [https://guides.github.com/features/mastering- markdown/](https://guides.github.com/features/mastering-markdown/)

[2]: [https://help.github.com/articles/basic-writing-and- formattin...](https://help.github.com/articles/basic-writing-and-formatting- syntax/)

<comment><USER3> GFM itself leaves that line unchanged because we don't actually change that option in our implementation — the reference implementation `cmark` (which we built upon) supplies the "hardbreaks" option, described as follows:

> \--hardbreaks Treat newlines as hard line breaks

We turn this option on when rendering issues, issue comments and so on, but leave it off when rendering blobs (such as README.md). Both are GFM, one just uses this option to make it more conducive to communication.

<comment><USER4> Good to know. Why is the setting different for issues than for blobs?

<comment><USER5> This is covered in the post, no?

> There is a fundamental difference between these two kinds of content: the > user comments are stored in our databases, which means their Markdown syntax > can be normalized (e.g. by adding or removing whitespace, fixing the > indentation, or inserting missing Markdown specifiers until they render > properly). The Markdown documents stored in Git repositories, however, > cannot be touched at all, as their contents are hashed as part of Git's > storage model.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but I'm still confused as to why the display format setting has anything to do with the on-disk format. To me they seem completely orthogonal.

<comment><USER3> In general people have come to expect that hitting return once in a comment field on GitHub will produce a newline, having been the case for many years, so we try to preserve that expectation. Hence not changing the option being used when rendering comments.

Conversely, they don't expect the same from Markdown files stored in their repository (e.g. I put each sentence in a paragraph on its own line for my blog, for easier diffing and editing). Additionally, we couldn't normalise these documents even if we wanted (to prevent everything breaking by being over-vertically spaced). Hence not changing the option being not used in this case!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> GitHub devs & Markdown enthusiasts at large, please consider contributing some brainpower to these last remaining issues that are blocking the v1.0 release of CommonMark:

[https://talk.commonmark.org/t/issues-we-must-resolve- before-...](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/issues-we-must-resolve- before-1-0-release-8-remaining/1287)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great! A couple of years back, there was a failed attempt at standardizing this - [http://www.vfmd.org/](http://www.vfmd.org/) and [http://www.vfmd.org/vfmd-spec/specification/](http://www.vfmd.org/vfmd- spec/specification/). GitHub given it's popularity will surely succeed more.

<comment><USER8> There was also Common Mark ([http://commonmark.org/](http://commonmark.org/)), which failed IMHO mostly due to John Gruber taking offense at their first choice of name, Common Markdown. Will formalising this as 'GitHub Flavored Markdown' similarly cause offense?

<comment><USER9> Did it 'fail'? It seems to have a decent amount of use. And it fixed a bunch of problems with the original Markdown spec (or lack thereof).

I suppose since one of their goals was to get Github and StackExchange 'out of the markdown business' but neither use CommonMark, and further, Github now has put work into creating their own spec, they failed in that aspect.

<comment><USER5> > Github now has put work into creating their own spec

A big aspect of the post is talking about how GFM is now a set of extensions to CommonMark. This is a huge win, not a failure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a specification based on the commonmark specification. Both are not a formal specs. They are more of an informal specification with some edge-cases listed (in contrast to the original markdown specification which has known unspecified edgecases).

<comment> UK-AL I really wish their was concise formal spec for markdown, rather than a multi- page essay. It makes it incredibly difficult for anyone trying to create something to parse it. There is no mechanical way for go from spec -> parser.

I think its quite difficult to do though.

<comment><USER11> Is it really useful to write a formal spec for Github Markdown? The software they use to parse and render it is open source. If you want to know how _exactly_ something works, you can read the source.

<comment><USER10> Yes, if you also want to have more implementations, that can differ in e.g. license or programming language.

For instance it is the reason why there's no reimplementation of TeX.

<comment><USER11> There is pdflatex, luatex,...

Nobody stops you from translating the Ruby or whatever into your favorite language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have to wonder why this isn't done in the form of a context-free grammar, like Hitman[0] uses. Specs in English are still too vague for my liking.

[https://github.com/chameco/Hitman](https://github.com/chameco/Hitman)

<comment><USER13> Is it even possible to define a context-free grammar for markdown?

<comment><USER14> It is not, and not just because of a few idiosyncrasies like C which require context.

Fundamentally, markdown was specified as some pattern matching and English description. The original specification was not done thinking of productions and grammar rules, and you typically don't get there by accident.

See [http://roopc.net/posts/2014/markdown- cfg/](http://roopc.net/posts/2014/markdown-cfg/) for a detailed exposition of how the '*' character in markdown is sufficient to ruin any chance of a CFG.

I have sometimes pondered how to make a markdown-like language with a simple production based grammar. I have not succeeded and would appreciate any pointers. The criteria being that is has to have something like the minimal intrusion into the prose of markdown.

<comment><USER15> Is there some kind of more general grammar that can encode the Markdown spec?

<comment><USER16> There was some discussion of this on the CommonMark forums shortly after the initial release of CommonMark:

[https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal-grammar/46)

See in particular these comments by maradydd:

[https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/1...](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/17)

[https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/2...](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/22)

[https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/2...](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/23)

I'm not sure they ever came to a conclusive answer (at least on this thread).

Edit: Here is JGM himself saying he doesn't know: [https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/3...](https://talk.commonmark.org/t/commonmark-formal- grammar/46/33)

<comment><USER17> If GitHub is normalizing comments anyways, I wonder they could have adopted a CFG.

Overall this a step in the right direction but the whole saga is a perfect microcosm of our understructure cranking out pooly-understood stuff which comes back to bite us and cannot be tamed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://github.github.com/gfm/#disallowed-raw-html- extension...](https://github.github.com/gfm/#disallowed-raw-html-extension-)

Why this? This is not a working blacklist to prevent XSS (e.g. onload="...")

<comment><USER18> Wow, TIL about the <plaintext> tag. Here I thought I knew most of the corner cases of HTML.

<comment><USER19> What's bonkers to me is that there is no closing tag, _everything_ after it is no longer parsed as HTML.

<comment><USER20> If it disallowed certain words (i.e. treated them specially instead of just reproducing the text as written) such as "</plaintext>" it wouldn't be plain text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is great -- lack of a standard that was actually used (unlike CommonMark) was one of my main issues with Markdown ([http://ericholscher.com/blog/2016/mar/15/dont-use- markdown-f...](http://ericholscher.com/blog/2016/mar/15/dont-use-markdown-for- technical-docs/)) -- It's really great to see GitHub leading in this department, and it gives me hope that one day we might actually have Markdown that is portable between implementations.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps you missed Jeff Atwood (codinghorror)'s standardized markdown spec, which is about as close as you'll get:

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

<comment><USER21> Yea, I mention commonmark in the post, and referred to it in the "standard that was used" part -- commonmark is great, but wasn't widely adopted.

Updated my original post to be more clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> At the risk of starting a mini-flame war, is RST a more cohesive format? If one was to pick one of the two formats to start using for personal documentation, which format should one choose?

<comment><USER24> I enjoyed this article [http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/restructuredtext-vs- markdo...](http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/restructuredtext-vs-markdown-for- technical-documentation/) and since the article didn't provide supporting evidence for the Linux/OpenCV/LLVM assertion: [https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/doc- guide/sphinx.html](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/doc- guide/sphinx.html) and [http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/introduction/how_to...](http://docs.opencv.org/2.4/doc/tutorials/introduction/how_to_write_a_tutorial/how_to_write_a_tutorial.html) and [https://github.com/llvm- mirror/llvm/blob/master/docs/index.r...](https://github.com/llvm- mirror/llvm/blob/master/docs/index.rst) respectively

I do think rST is waaay more expressive, but I also recognize that in many of the instances one would want to use markup in a chat or PR situation, the expressiveness likely wouldn't be well received if the trade-off is verbosity.

This is something in life that I file away with competing regex standards: my brain just has to switch languages based on the app in which I'm typing (between markdown, pseudo-markdown (ahem, __Slack __), org-mode, rST, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Now if only org-mode could define a sane, parsable format.

<comment><USER26> What do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> HTML used to serve as a simple way to format a document. Now HTML is too complex for that purpose. Introduce markdown. In ten years, markdown will be too complex for formatting documents.

I am big of markdown in case I didn't make that clear. I love it

<comment><USER28> It wasn't an issue of simplicity, it was about HTML being extremely hard to sanitize so it isn't turing complete. Having formatting (that can still line up with your sites styles) while knowing you can't get script injection is pretty useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is great news! Does anybody have a recommendation for a Javascript parser for Formal GFM? (I know there are a million JS MD parsers; I'm looking for a good one that will let me serve GFM docs over HTTP and render them on the browser.)

<comment><USER5> [https://www.npmjs.com/package/marky- markdown](https://www.npmjs.com/package/marky-markdown)

<comment><USER29> Looks good. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So _that 's_ why my project wikis have suddenly stopped rendering markdown properly. I've been trying to figure out WTF was going on since yesterday!

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm really happy to see this. It's actually quite frustrating that although markdown is so nice, it barely has a consistent standard. It's almost impossible to use it cross-service.

Hopefully now that Github has standardised their own flavour of it (and quite a nice flavour too), more people will start to use it.

Of course there is the obligatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

<comment><USER32> I would argue that it is consistent now.

At the lowest level, you have commonmark. Then, you have extensions at the top, such as GFM.

If Pandoc/Github/Reddit/SO/kramdown switch, that accounts for almost all front- and back-end cases that I care about.

And given that the first four were actively involved with commonmark, I would take as given that they will support commonmark or a superset of it.

<comment><USER33> Pandoc already supports different flavors of markdown (commonmark included) and you can add/remove extensions to base flavors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> web2py handled all of these issues and made its markup language extensible with its markmin specification: [http://www.web2py.com/init/static/markmin.html](http://www.web2py.com/init/static/markmin.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> What's wrong with [http://www.vfmd.org/](http://www.vfmd.org/) ???

</comment><comment><USER36> Why no ~~strike out~~ in spec?

<comment><USER3> Right here: [https://github.github.com/gfm/#strikethrough- extension-](https://github.github.com/gfm/#strikethrough-extension-) :)

<comment><USER37> Is their no corresponding equivalent of INS? I would have thought something like

        +new text+

could be used...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Jeesh, about time!

</comment><comment><USER39> Is it ok if I promote my domain here? I read the guidelines but it doesn't mention anything regarding self promotion. Sorry if it ain't appropriate but anyone looking for a relevant domain ( _markdown.in_ ) please get in touch or any suggestion if it is better to develop it.</comment>


Piaget on Piaget - Genetic epistemology (1977) [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwjIruMI94

<comment><USER2> It's weird how the subtitles leave out about 1/3 of what he says.

<comment><USER3> I was under the same impression, even though I do not speak French.

Anything important left out?</comment></comment>


Sex doesn't sell any more, activism does. And don't the big brands know it - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/03/activism-sells-brands-social-conscience-advertising <comment><USER2> I'm kinda lost. This seems like a good thing? We can move forward, past weird times sex based marketing, and go towards an intellectual discussion of a subject.

<comment><USER3> > _I 'm kinda lost. This seems like a good thing? We can move forward, past > weird times sex based marketing, and go towards an intellectual discussion > of a subject_

Well, sex is what keeps mankind (and animal-kind) alive all these millennia. And only a puritan society would find it bad.

Activism on the other hand can be a blunt instrument, which can also be totally bad. It's also usually a sign of a society in fight with itself. So it's kind of a mixed bag in itself (it's not just Rosa Parks or Harvey Milk, or the noble kind of activists. Any kind of loony can fathom themselves an activist. It can also be used as a cover for political intervention in some countries, exploited by politicians, and various other things).

Now, when brands are coming in, and big corps and big money, it's ever worse: it's activism with a profit motive. Or faux-activist messages that pander to the sentiment du jour. When brands get into politics and everyday life, everybody suffers. It's not like when you do it for profit you stop at the "good activism". If something oppressive is fashionable with their target demographic, they will just as well promote messages in its favor.

<comment><USER4> > Well, sex is what keeps mankind (and animal-kind) alive all these millennia. > And only a puritan society would find it bad.

One can enjoy a healthy sex life and unrestricted informations about it, without having genitalia forced onto them everytime they take the subway to work or watch a screen.

But I agree with you : commercial activism will probably end up in the same place... Maybe the problem is not the subject, but the existence of big interests willing to do anything to be associated with it.

<comment><USER5> > having genitalia forced onto them everytime they take the subway to work or > watch a screen.

In what country does this happen?

<comment><USER6> Speaking as someone who rode the NYC subway throughout their childhood and adolescence:

After advertisements for local colleges, the second most common Subway and MTA bus advertisements are for breast augmentation and men's/women's lingerie. I don't particularly have a problem with these sort of ads, but their ubiquity belies phozy1's point.

It's also worth noting that arguments akin to "sex happens in nature, therefore sex is good" are both appeals to nature and not particularly strong justifications for sexualization in advertising. It's possible to have a sexually open society (i.e., not a puritanical one) without plastering our public transport with glamorizations of surgery or $300 lingerie.

<comment><USER5> I doubt NY would let underwear ads including genitals on the subway.

(Breasts obviously aren't genitals, I'm not sure why they're being mentioned)

<comment><USER6> It would behoove you to read more charitably. Neither I nor the GGP mean _naked people_ ; I don't think most large companies even _consider_ placing ads with nudity in them in most public places.

<comment><USER5> The GPP said 'genitalia forced upon them'. Read charitably, it should probably still actually invoice genitalia.

<comment><USER7> Read not just charitably, but informally, it should involve either a bulge or a prominent shot of the genital area, since that is something we (generally, hopefully) don't do unless we want to call it out.

I mean, seriously, the only people who argue this 'informal' reading are pedants like myself.

There's nothing wrong with it, but let's call it what it is. In context the point was reference to sex and genitalia, not the literal display of genitalia which I _truly_ hope most of us would understand is not the case on the NYC metro (or any other, for that matter).

Of course here I am typing out a response to an outrageously pointless line of conversation that nobody in their right mind would consider serious, so for all I know that's the same kind of reasoning that led to my reply. I guess I'd just prefer to see less of this kind of noise here, and I'm sorry if I'm contributing to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see the problem here. The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics comes to mind. [https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of- eth...](https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't like sex selling nor do I like activism selling. If companies would stop trying to manipulate government, it would be much easier to purchase from them without feeling guilty. There is a problem of government involvement with business and it must stop. No special favors and no outrageous requirements for businesses. Activism is one of the quickest ways for me to dislike a company. Donate money to charity, donate it to random organizations I don't care. Don't act like you're doing it from the good of your heart, though.

</comment><comment><USER10> All they do is virtue signalling.

And my guess is that this won't last very long. Politics are volatile and companies don't advertise to have a positive impact but to sell stuff. Besides that, there is also a big chance of actually swaying people away from buying the advertized product after it became politized.

Ben and Jerry's is a prime example of this. They support Black Lives Matter in the US and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Germany. About the first I don't care that much but the latter makes me really angry. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation has a clear political agenda, is lead by a former StaSi-Member and was chosen to create the anti-hatespeech guidelines for Facebook in Germany (done by a member of the party Die Linke, the "feminist-socialist" party).

As long as they support such organizations I will not buy any B&J Icecream.

<comment><USER6> Please don't use "virtue-signaling" to mean "I don't agree with it." Virtue- signaling (as far as I can tell) refers to being all talk and no action, while public support in the form of advertisements and donations to non-profits is _definitely_ a form of action.

Whether or not that action is good or not (I think it is, under the same qualifications that make philanthropy good) can be subject to rigorous debate, but slapping the "virtue-signaling" label on it without acknowledging the state of affairs _is_ a form of virtue-signaling with respect to others who share your political proclivities.

Edit: I don't know anything about the Amadeu Antonio Foundation or a whole lot about German politics as a whole. I could be wrong here but I'd imagine that there are a _lot_ of former StaSi in German politics, in the same way that there were a lot of ex-Nazi-party members in power in Western Germany. That's not to minimize either, but to observe a general flaw in Democratic transitions - you can only sample your leaders from a qualified subset of the population, and that subset was just as qualified under autocracy as it is under democracy.

<comment><USER11> Reading the definition on Wikipedia, "all talk and no action" isn't it. virtue-signaling means to platitudinous and superficial support a socially progressive view in order to enhance ones standing within that social group.

For example, a secret lobbyist could be doing virtue-signaling by advertisements and donations. Its common understanding that a lobbyist can and will change their views instantly when its profitable, and thus their actions aren't in honest support of the cause for which they are at some point supporting.

<comment><USER6> Which begs the question: What's so superficial about giving $1 million to the ACLU?

Lyft et al. have complex motives including financial gain, but that doesn't seem to detract from the fundamental _good_ of their action. That's why I qualified it like philanthropy - we can immediately observe other motives for action (tax breaks, good standing among your wealthy peers), but these other motives don't negate any good done. The ACLU doesn't put their donations into red and green bank accounts based on who gives it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Somebody needs to tell Hardee's and Carl Jr...

Also, maybe don't spam your ads in the Boston metro area, when the nearest franchise is like 1000 miles away.</comment>