"We're committing Twitter to increase the health and civility of conversation" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jack/status/969234275420655616 <comment><USER2> Today, Twitter is a planetary-scale hate machine. By which I don't mean "people post hateful things on Twitter." I mean literally generates hate, as in, put a bunch of people with diverse perspectives on Twitter and by the end of the day they hate each other more than when they started. Common ground might have existed, but they won't find it, because Twitter, like any arms dealer, works better when they fight. It even benefits from collateral damage, when they hurt people they didn't specifically intend to hurt.

Through its core design—short messages, retweets, engagement metrics—Twitter incapacitates the safeguards necessary for civil discussion. It eliminates context, encourages us to present each other out of context, prevents us from explaining ourselves, rewards the most incendiary messages and most impulsive reactions, drives us to take sides and build walls.

If Twitter is going to foster healthy conversation, it will have to change fundamentally. It won't be a matter of tuning some filters and tweaking some ranking algorithms. A big part of it will involve making us the customer, not the product (Zeynep Tufekci: [https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/965937392942305280](https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/965937392942305280)).

<comment><USER3> Regretfully I agree. There's a lot I like about Twitter, but it's clear — just reading my own feed — that for many it's primarily about seeking that quick fix of outrage. I get carried away too, retweeting some screenshot of someone being an ass in a discussion about gun control or whatever, and later I feel ashamed.

Twitter is the closest thing to Orwell's "Two Minutes Hate" in _1984_. Scroll through your feed for two minutes and build up a righteous anger about how stupid the leftists/NRA/FBI/reactionaries/whoever really are.

<comment><USER4> _" Twitter is the closest thing to Orwell's "Two Minutes Hate" in 1984. "_

That's a great analogy. I almost tweeted this. Almost.

<comment><USER5> I tweeted it.

<comment><USER6> You will be hated.

<comment><USER7> <3 I don't hate that person. <3

#wholesomeHN

Edit: <(^_^)>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's vaguely disturbing to read the CEO of a company that hosts one of the world's largest communications platforms talk about "measuring the health" of conversations and his company's goal to get rid of conversations they deem unhealthy.

The problems Jack talks about (echo chambers, political bias, misinformation campaigns) are serious problems that our society faces as a small group of voices increasingly have the ability to reach millions of real people. However, I think it's unethical to solve it by eliminating speech based on an arbitrary group of people's notion of what is "healthy speech".

I think that Jack forgets that he's talking about real people expressing real thoughts and opinions. Of course he is well within his rights to do whatever he wants with his platforms, but if we want to view this as a problem of ethics, Twitter is directly infringing on private individuals' rights to autonomy of expression and manipulating their view of the world by deciding what they should and should not see. I don't think that is a solution which produces the greatest net good.

<comment><USER9> Twitter is a reflection of society. Twitter can't fix society, only censor its speech, which never works.

Congress needs to look at extending First Amendment protections for users of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

<comment><USER10> I very strongly disagree with applying the First Amendment protections to data hosted on private infrastructure. 4chan more or less takes the "free speech" approach and it's a goddamned disaster.

People honestly can't even handle free speech in real-life, let alone anonymously on the internet. We literally have to create barriers around Planned Parenthood because people use free speech to berate women who are already suffering.

Speech needs to be protected, but when it starts to encroach on my pursuit of happiness it's a problem. Facebook, Twitter, etc don't need to become chan sites.

<comment><USER11> First amendment jurisprudence, thankfully, disagrees with you. But first, some history.

For most of modern history, speech has been censored in some form or another by governments. Naturally so, as any kind of divergent thinking can be dangerous to power structures (this hasn't gone away). In 1663, John Twynn, was tried and executed in England for printing material that suggested that perhaps the monarchy should be beholden to the people. The Sedition Act of 1798 was passed by the American Congress and signed into law by President John Adams. Namely, it prescribed fines and imprisonment for those who "write, print, utter, or publish... any false, scandalous and malicious writing" against the government. This was used to jail several members of Congress, among others.

Modern free speech jurisprudent didn't start to develop until as late as 1917. The Espionage Act of 1917 was enacted at the start of World War I to prevent actions that were seen as unfavorable to the war. The Supreme Court upheld the law as not violating freedom of speech in Schenck v. United States. I believe there was a subsequent 1917 or 1918 case that began to turn the tide (the reference escapes me at the moment and I'm at work), but it wasn't until 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio that the Supreme Court ruled that inflammatory speech is protected as long as it satisfies a two-prong test:

1\. The speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action," AND 2\. The speech is "likely to incite or produce such action."

The case concerned an Ohio Ku Klux Klan member who was recorded saying particularly horrid and denigrating things about African Americans, but, notably, nothing specifically threatening. The Supreme Court upheld your right to say things like "I think we should kill all Jews" because, although a terrible thing to say, statements like that aren't imminently encouraging lawless action and not likely to do so.

Past that point, the Supreme Court has regularly upheld this interpretation of the first amendment. The best argument against a more European, say, interpretation of the first amendment is that, simply: governments only ever censor speech that they don't like. That's why the Espionage Act was used to incarcerate the likes of Emma Goldman and not, say, the people who were helping organize lynchings. If you were to enact hate speech legislation, and history bears this out, the people most affected are the minorities: black people, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ people, pacifists, communists, anarchists, socialists, etc. Think about all of the police that shoot unarmed black men. Can you seriously imagine police forces across America protecting the speech of someone that calls for the abolition of the institution that person belongs to?

So that's a brief history and law lesson (caveat: I am neither a lawyer nor a historian). This is certainly a larger discussion to have, and I very much enjoy debating things like hate speech legislation and speech restriction in general, but I'll leave you with this for now.

<comment><USER12> None of this is relevant to whether Twitter want to be complicit in publishing this speech which they are under no obligation to do.

Edit: I'm also wondering why the great examples of free speech that people reach for are always racism. It's not really surprising that racism is allowed in a country founded on racism. It might be more interesting to look at what _has_ actually been banned in American free speech law over the years.

The "ag-gag" laws that were recently overturned are one thing I'm thinking of. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws) are another.

<comment><USER11> > None of this is relevant to whether Twitter want to be complicit in > publishing this speech which they are under no obligation to do.

Grandparent was arguing that people can't handle free speech and that:

> Speech needs to be protected, but when it starts to encroach on my pursuit > of happiness it's a problem. Facebook, Twitter, etc don't need to become > chan sites.

I hear this a lot, particularly from the left (although the right does it too), on the grounds of protecting people from "harmful" speech. I disagree with that, which is why I responded, because I don't think enough people know about the modern interpretation of free speech and the long, storied history it has (not just in the US but everywhere). I certainly had no idea before I started reading.

> I'm also wondering why the great examples of free speech that people reach > for are always racism.

It's not that they're examples, it's that the landmark Supreme Court cases that established our modern understanding of free speech typically involved the KKK and nazis (c.f. National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie). In other words, people with horrible beliefs are the only reason why you can stand on a street corner and preach about socialism, communism, anarchy, etc (which might be "horrible beliefs" too, depending on the individual). 100 years ago, someone distributed a gentle poem by a socialist and was put in jail, and it was legal. Do you want to go back to that? Because it is absolutely possible.

<comment><USER12> Long, storied history dating back to ... 1977?

<comment><USER11> I'm going to quote my original post:

> In 1663, John Twynn, was tried and executed in England for printing material > that suggested that perhaps the monarchy should be beholden to the people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good old "civility". The excuse that tyrants, dictators, liberals, conservatives and social media tycoons use to justify censorship.

Surprised the other excuse ( "won't you please think of the children" ) wasn't used.

Can't wait for the next wave of censorship. ISPs banning twitter, news and pornography to increase "health and civility".

The promise of open and free internet is quickly turning into a nightmare of censored social media.

Is anyone else concerned that twitter and social media are now openly stating that they will manipulate content/people to fit their agenda?

If it was china doing this, HN and the media would be attacking it from every angle possible. Strangely, the same type of behavior in the US is supported by these same people.

<comment><USER14> _Is anyone else concerned that twitter and social media are now openly stating that they will manipulate content /people to fit their agenda?_

Not really, based on what Jack is saying here, and Facebook's stance of "stop promoting third party posts and promote friends' posts more[0]".

A lot of what we see on social media now - slews of paid ads and suggestions based on easily gamed algorithms - are tools of other peoples' agendas... Do you think you're really in control of your social media feeds?

0 - [https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882536/facebook-news-feed- ch...](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882536/facebook-news-feed-changes)

<comment><USER15> > Not really, based on what Jack is saying here, and Facebook's stance of > "stop promoting third party posts and promote friends' posts more[0]".

Facebook saying that is just a way of saying "Make people using Facebook for advertising purposes pay more to reach the audience", which is what Facebook makes changes to do _frequently_ , usually with the same explanation and no real change in the amount of non-friend content (just the non-friends reaching you are more heavily tilted to those paying more for paid reach, i.e., ads that don't get distinguished from organic content.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the tweet storm, emphasis mine:

> While working to fix it, we've been accused of apathy, censorship, > _political bias_ , and optimizing for our business and share price instead > of the concerns of society. _This is not who we are_ , or who we ever want > to be.

I don't understand why people don't admit that that their own political biases exist. Hell I know I have them. It's part of what makes us human.

Apparently we're not alone either: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608986/forget-killer- robo...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608986/forget-killer-robotsbias- is-the-real-ai-danger/)

<comment><USER17> Ask any politician - there is power in appearing to be above the frailty of bias, apathy, etc. Hypothetically, if twitter wanted to purge it's platform of one side of the political spectrum, it would be far easier to do it for the sake of "collective health, openness, and civility", than for the real reason of "we don't like you".

<comment><USER18> > Ask any politician

They will tell you they favour fairness and freedom from bias. _It 's the other side that are biased._

<comment><USER19> Bad guys have biases, good guys have _convictions_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The fact that it took @jack, by my count, 13 tweets to say this is itself evidence that what he's trying to do will never come to pass on Twitter. Trying to read it, I kept thinking, "why is this so long?"

It's not. I'd read a Medium article or HN or Reddit post three times its length and not blink.

The right move to increase civility of discourse would be to stop providing that discourse via environments designed to discourage comprehension, lower the attention span of the user base, and encourage flamey, bite-sized "takes."

<comment><USER18> Why is it a long-form post more suited to Livejournal or blog post and in no way written to work _on Twitter?_

That in itself is indicative of the problem.

<comment><USER21> It would be nice if there was a platform that was as good at short messages as Twitter while also being good for longer more deliberative posts.

Of course the problem for any new social network is that it is hard for it to become successful, due to network effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Twitter is taking itself too seriously, believing that if it could tweak around the edges, it could improve the quality of the debate in the direction of civility and understanding. Perhaps some nudges and UX changes could encourage these things (I remember a long article about Facebook tweaking their "report picture" function to encourage messaging the person to talk about it before reporting).

BUT

I hate to break it to @jack, but Twitter conversation simply reflects the nature of humanity in an adversarial political system. Attempting to "elevate the debate" will never work, since the debate has never been "elevated." There were no good ol' days of citizen-statesmen calmly discussing their political differences and coming to reasoned conclusions on policy.

No. Politics is always adversarial. As a libertarian, both "sides" of the American political divide feel threatening to me, since all proposals out there are for one form of authoritarianism or another. All proposals involve me giving up a little more of my personal or economic liberty. Will @jack do anything to alleviate my fears that my liberty is being attacked every single day? Probably not.

He's devoted to "collective health and civility," which reads like a _1984_ thought-police handbook. Of course, the debate always seems civil after the dissenting voices have been crushed.

(Pre-emptive retort to attack on libertarianism: Yes, I know Twitter is private property. Yes, Jack can do whatever he wants with his business, within the laws for a publicly-traded company.)

<comment><USER23> Huh, your comment actually caused me to re-evaluate my thinking a little bit.

Because you're right, in general this is true:

> There were no good ol' days of citizen-statesmen calmly discussing their > political differences and coming to reasoned conclusions on policy.

It seems that way sometimes (calm debate and discussion), but US history of course is full of angry, threatening debates with even politicians themselves erupting into actual physical violence sometimes [1].

Still, it feels like there's been a notable shift. Compare one of the 1992 presidential debates [2] to a 2016 presidential debate [3]. The former feels like an actual debate, the latter feels like a segment on a political news show where basically the loudest voice "wins".

Of course, US politics has always been a thin veneer of civility masking some extremely aggressive adversarial acts (e.g. Watergate), but it seems like that mask has now disappeared almost entirely.

I don't know that Twitter is the cause of any of this (as opposed to just a reflection of where we're at), but it does feel like things have certainly shifted nonetheless.

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_violence#United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_violence#United_States)

2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg9qB_BIjWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg9qB_BIjWY)

3: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Am6ovK7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Am6ovK7s)

<comment><USER24> > Still, it feels like there's been a notable shift.

I don't know if I agree completely...I watched your videos and yes- the debates during the 2016 election were absolutely ridiculous, I think that's mostly due to wider and more public acceptance of conspiracy theory, Fox News, and your Rush Limbaughs, and on the flipside thought-policing, extreme sensitivity, etc

It's funny, back to why I somewhat disagree with you, if you watch any news from the last twenty or thirty years everyone seems to have the exact same concerns as they do now. Donald Trump (and even Hillary Clinton when she was running) are just really loud mouthpieces for those concerns.

<comment><USER25> Setting aside formal debates among politicians, if you want to talk about why discussion of contentious topics by average Joes and Janes has degenerated into its current state of pointless shouting matches, I feel like it has less to do with Fox News, conspiracy theories, fake news, Russian meddling or whatever else is regularly associated with the alt-right. In the run-up to the election and the months following it, a large faction on the left has abandoned any pretense of discussing ideas and policies or of having civilized debate, preferring instead to become very aggressive with insults, wild accusations of racism, white supremacy, misogyny, etc., in order to demonize their opposition. You see it all the time on this forum and others. It's lazy and harmful, and it's being used as a tool to avoid any self-reflection.

<comment><USER24> I agree with one caveat- I think it's preposterous to say that the left is responsible for this- both sides participated in this nonsense and it's obvious that that is the case.

And, I think you have to take the context in which Donald Trump rose to power into account- to many (myself included) it's also preposterous that someone with a track record of failure, bankruptcy, and lack of experience could come to head our administrative branch...it's hard to have a conversation when the very idea of his election is so absurd, for better or for worse.

Another edit! I think it's misleading for you to present Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, et al. as things associated with the Alt-Right. These are very much poor sources of information and are very much so digested by a huge swath of conservative Americans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> To me, the most interesting part is the following:

>What we know is we must commit to a rigorous and independently vetted set of metrics to measure the health of public conversation on Twitter.

>So we're seeking help by opening up an RFP process to cast the widest net possible for great ideas and implementations.

RFP: [https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/...](https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/twitter- health-metrics-proposal-submission.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> There is hate and bile on Twitter because people are full of hate and bile. This is a frightening time to be alive for a lot of people, full of uncertainty and a feeling that they have been hard done by and manipulated by faceless bureaucrats.

The answer to this aspect is "simple"; make people happier.

What makes is easier and more 'acceptable' for people to write these things is that they don't have to look into the faces of their targets. You can't have civil discourse when two people are wearing masks. This problem can't be solved by social media in its current form, or maybe ever. Perhaps VR communities where everyone is forced to use their own face and have it 100% accurate and real-time.

Even then people don't have the same sense of humour and understanding of nuance which is a big reason we choose to associate with the people we do. It's easy to be offended when you hear two people talk in terms you aren't familiar with and aren't privy to past discussions and inside jokes. This is unsolvable by social media without federation, which is basically what traditional forums are.

</comment><comment><USER28> The crazy thing every time I read something like this,is how out of touch tech companies are.

Isn't technology supposed to enhance our lives? In twitter's case, why cannot it lead to people having more compassionate conversation.

I think there is difference between free speech and hate speech and because of metrics such as MAU's and other's Wall Street imposes on twitter and other tech companies, they are not incentivized to have stronger communities which may be smaller rather than larger communities who are more distant if that makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER29> I can't take this seriously. Their economic model seems dependent on extreme messages/people.

<comment><USER30> Well, if Facebook were able to change the news feed to focus more on friends and family and away from their $-cow companies and advertisers, then maybe Twitter can change.

<comment><USER31> If anything we should take it extremely seriously in as much as we're getting to a point where private companies undertake research projects on how the can alter the public discourse through algorithms.

I'm not saying that _has_ to be bad. It could very well be good too. But it does open some fairly terrifying possibilities as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This reads like an arms wide-open embrace of politically correct language and inoffensiveness, along with a shunning of everything else on the platform.

I'm honestly not sure how much I blame Twitter. It's not their duty to stand up for offensive ideas and they'll undoubtedly be more commercially successful by limiting the discussion to things that result in algorithmically good "conversational health."

It's just a bit disappointing to see us take yet another step away from free expression--particularly in this case because it follows major Democratic senators threatening action if they don't [1].

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/1/16591646/facebook- senate-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/1/16591646/facebook-senate- hearing-feinstein-russia-google-twitter)

</comment><comment><USER30> You can submit research proposals to Twitter about this commitment, and get funding for it. (I think they are after peer review research level proposals, rather than "ban $politician")

[https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/...](https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/twitter- health-metrics-proposal-submission.html)

* Your proposed health metrics, and methods for capturing, measuring, evaluating and reporting on such metrics

* Anticipated resource requirements and methodology

* Proposed output from your proposal and estimated time needed to capture, measure and evaluate health metrics

* Relevant, peer-reviewed, publications and papers

</comment><comment><USER33> Why is there not a national public social platform? Certainly this has been discussed, yet in all my years of geekery, I haven't come across a conversation about it.

Whenever the topic of YouTube/Facebook/Twitter censorship comes up, it always ends in "Well, it's their platform so they can do what they want". That's true. But don't we need a platform where they can't, that is owned by we the people?

<comment><USER34> The Internet itself used to be owned by the public and the government privatized it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yeah they are so concerned. If they had started adding decent shadow-ignore capabilities to curb the harassment ten years ago, it would already have been scandalously late. Twitter is what it is, and no amount of executive window dressing could change that. If they were a firm capable of major functionality updates (or profit!), they would have shown some sign of that before now.

</comment><comment><USER36> Civility is nice, but I don't think it's what's fundamentally wrong with Twitter. One can (and people do) express hateful ideas quite politely.

Preserving some concept of free speech while also preventing it from growing into an ideological cesspool is required to give Twitter net positive societal value, but mere civility ain't that.

</comment><comment><USER37> Twitter is deeply depressing. Their best feature, lists is lost and goes completely unnoticed. Meanwhile we get moments plus hashtags which link us to literally every minor iteration of the exact same story. A measure of madness?

</comment><comment><USER38> Looks like Twitter finally reached a level of toxicity that it's negatively impacting shareholder value.

</comment><comment><USER39> Online trolls love figuring out and exploiting automated systems. Any computer-evaluated "health metric" will just become another weapon in their hands. You need human moderators!

</comment><comment><USER40> Twitter should just realize they are the "you're gonna have to throw one away" of global-scale internet discourse and just shut it down and try again.

</comment><comment><USER41> Twitter might have its quirks. But the truth is that the content on the internet been supplanted by these mega-malls, called Google, Facebook and Twitter and Reddit and VK, and such. And these mega-malls want to be everything to everyone. And at the same time they are aiming for the lowest common denominator just to attract more and more people to its platforms. So, of course the quality of content and discussions will go down. These platforms control the digital ad market. Real journalists can barely survive. Fake news proliferate. Internet is becoming increasingly similar to the strip malls you see everywhere around you, and they have all the same offerings of choices (McDonald's, Subway, Verizon store, etc). Here's a good read: [https://www.medgadget.com/2018/03/google-serfdom- publishing-...](https://www.medgadget.com/2018/03/google-serfdom-publishing- digital-age.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> On the one hand I am hopeful because it is a decent sentiment about a real problem and because Twitter is the only possible entity in a position to fix it. On the other, the format of the message suggests how daunting the task is.

         Thanks for taking the time to read and consider,
         and also, come help us:
        +</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---+
        |       |                                       |
        |       |     Twitter Careers                   |
        |       |     careers.twitter.com               |
        |       |                                       |
        +</comment><comment>-+</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---+

Twitter does not make it easy to know when to STFU.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is kinda related to the topic, but does anyone have any resources relating to how we as humans are not phycologically ready for mass communication on the scale that we have today? I know it's broad , worth a shot though.

<comment><USER44> Not communication directly, but I've been reading Future Shock and found many of the points relevant even 50 years later. One that comes to mind: the past few generations have seen an enermous erosion of belief in institutions and systems that once gave people purpose (religion, family, community, craftsmanship, ...) This, combined with extremely rapid change, has left a lot of people feeling unmoored and lost in their own time. How they react to this is unpredictable but it is often strange or sad, and sometimes even dangerous

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Twitter should implement federation with an open protocol: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub)

</comment><comment><USER46> I've been strongly doubting that there is such a thing as "the collective health and society." At best, we're in a growing pains situation as a species. At worst, we're simply not built to have this type of communication. There is nothing in nature that makes me think this simple, open-sky way to "communicate" with hundreds of thousands of faceless people is necessary.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think this might call for some fundamental changes to their algorithms. Maybe automatically penalize hate filled comments/flame wars and reward conversation that adds "value". Maybe charge bots on a per post basis? Perhaps reward real users with utility tokens like steem?

</comment><comment><USER48> Bershidsky's take here: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-02/twitter-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-02/twitter- s-attempt-at-self-regulation-won-t-work).

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm sorry Jack, but just log into your own service and try to read the message you just posted, and maybe it will dawn on you why Twitter as it currently exists is antithetical to healthy and civil conversation.

And once you've lost trust (which you have on all sides) any steps or "measures" you implement will inherently be distrusted.

Good luck with your "hate machine" as another poster aptly describes it. You're going to have to dig a lot deeper than sentiment analysis to find anything close to redemption.

</comment><comment><USER50> I look forward to seeing how they are going to deal with the US President's tweets from this point forward.

<comment><USER51> Or for that matter look at the replies to Trump's tweets if you want an example of vile hatred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Isn't this what their "Trust and Safety" Comittee was for?

</comment><comment><USER53> They should create an authenticated badge on Twitter, if you confirm your identity, you can get one, then users could filter by "authentic badge only" so you'd experience twitter with only vetted, real people. This would greatly reduce trolls imho.

<comment><USER54> This is something which can be done and is easily achievable.

I have seen (and currently seeing) that to create an echo chamber a certain number of troll armies have to create it one first, trend it and then people take over from that.

Having a verified tag will really help and go long way. Sure, even the KYC process will hurt and potentially can be gamed with but having this visual cues will alert the user about the source and maybe the authenticity of the content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I think we've heard something similar from them for years now. When will it happen?

Twitter is now part of everyone's life in the U.S. given that the president uses it as a bullhorn. It needs to clean up its act, now.

</comment><comment><USER56> First Amendment protections apply to suits brought by the government. Civil suits are required to prove damages ("quantum of damages"). There are opportunity cost, pre-judgement, and post-judgement interest calculations.

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

There are many open platforms. (I've contributed to those as well). Some are built on open standards. None of said open platforms have procedures or resources for handling the onslaught of disrespectful trash that the people we've raised eventually use these platforms for communicating at other people who have feelings and understand the Golden Rule.

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

The initial early adopters (who have other better things to do) are fine: helpful, caring, critical, respectful; healthy. And then everyone else comes surging in with hate, disrespect, and vitriol; unhealthy. They don't even realize that being hateful and disrespectful is making them more depressed. They think that complaining and talking smack to people is changing the world. And then they turn off the phone or log out of the computer, and carry on with their lives.

No-one taught them to be the positive, helpful energy they want to attract from the world. No-one properly conditioned them to either respectfully disagree according to the data or sit down and listen. No-one explained to them that a well-founded argument doesn't fit in 140 or 280 characters, but a link and a headline do. No-one explained to them that what they write on the internet lasts forever and will be found by their future interviewers, investors, jurors, and voters. No-one taught them that being respectful and helpful in service of other people - of the group's success, of peaceful coexistence - is the way to get ahead AND be happy. "No-one told me that."

Shareholders of public corporations want to see growth in meaningless numbers, foreign authoritarian governments see free expression as a threat to their ever-so-fragile self-perceptions, political groups seek to frame and smear and malign and discredit (because they are so in need of group acceptance; because money still isn't making them happy), and there are children with too much free time reading all of these.

No-one is holding these people accountable: we need transparency and accountability. We need to focus on more important goals and feel good about helping; about volunteering our time to help others be happier.

Instead, now that these haters and scam artists have all self-identified, we must spend our time conditioning their communications until they learn to respectfully disagree on facts and data or go somewhere else. "That's how you feel? Great. How does that make your victim feel?" is the confrontation that some people are seeking from companies that set out to serve free speech and provide a forum for citizens to share the actual news.

Who's going to pay for that? Can they sue for their costs and losses? Advertisers do not want a spot next to hateful and disrespectful.

"How dare you speak of censorship in such veiled terms!?" Really? They're talking about taking down phrases like "kill" and "should die"; not phrases like "I disagree because:"

So, now, because there are so many hateful economically disadvantaged people in the world with nothing better to do and no idea how to run a business or keep a job with benefits, these companies need to staff 24 hour a day censors to take down the hate and terror and gang recruiting _within one hour_. What a distorted mirror of our divisively fractured wealth inequality, indeed.

"Ban gangs ASAP, please: they'll just go away"

How much does it cost to pay prison labor to redundantly respond to this trash? Are those the skills they need to choose a different career with benefits and savings that meet or exceed inflation when they get out?

What is the procedure for referring threats of violence to justice in your jurisdiction? Are there wealthy individuals in your community who would love to contribute resources to this effort? Maybe they have some region-specific pointers for helping the have-nots out here trolling like it's going to get them somewhere they want to be in life?

Let me share a little story with you:

A person walks into a bar/restaurant, flicks off the bartender/waiter, orders 5 glasses of free water, starts plastering ads to the walls and other peoples' tables, starts making threats to groups of people cordially conversing, and walks out.

</comment><comment><USER57> Great, more censorship and them determining what is "fake news"

</comment><comment><USER58> Man. This is exactly what happened to the democrats.

</comment><comment><USER59> "Committing twitter" sounds like a crime. An all-too-common one at that.

<comment><USER60> I read it in the "committed to an asylum" sense. And that it must be Tim Berners-Lee talking, until you see the source.

</comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt Ehhhhhh.

There's like two things that I want from Twitter as someone who buys internet clicks:

Lower prices. More cost effectiveness. Those two things are two things that Twitter has never offered.

</comment><comment><USER17> The political/philosophical diversity of awardees will illuminate just how genuine this effort is.

Interestingly, these social media companies which are engaging in censorship are now being reminded that if they decide to censor by politics, they may be held liable for everything posted to their platform.

</comment><comment><USER61> First things first, Twitter. Small baby steps before you shoot yourself in the foot.

Focus first and foremost on getting rid of radicalizing terrorist content. That has been on your backlog for years now, while you prioritized more pressing matters, such as cutting off access to developers and apps. You kind of owe it to society and the parents of your teenage users to make this right.

Then, when it is 2023, go after the grieving trolls. Those who mock suicide victim families, DOX innocents, post indecent pictures of naked black people doing lewd things to watermelons. Some people may even help report such things manually for free.

Then bots. Kill 99% of all bots, keep only those with a 1000+ legit followers, or make bot owners verify them with a cute droid badge.

Then after one of Trump's tweets starts WWIII, and you are as significant as Myspace, maybe you can have a look at the health and civility of online conversation.

I'd start with a "My Safe Space" button, where you can automatically unsubscribe to all posts about a certain topic/containing a certain trigger word. If you can't wait that long, there is an easy fix to remove 50% of uncivil content by going back to a 140 character limit. I feel that was closer to the healthy and civilized discussion platform you envisioned Twitter to be when you started it.</comment>


You are spending too much f'n money - rob-guilfoyle Just because you are doing a start up doesn't mean you cannot save for retirement. When I say 'save', what I really mean is 'not spend'. Lowering your daily need can happen from now until death, not just while your producing income. Visualize this with a product I created called "Kate": https://www.edukate.com/tools/gap-analysis.<p>We built this tool in 3.5 weeks with Ember, D3, Velocity, and a ton of over time. It's now on producthunt.com's front page and is an excellent use of a relatable data viz for the common folk. <comment><AUTHOR> If you don't mind, enlighten me on how this is different from MyFico community forum where similar things are discussed?

[http://ficoforums.myfico.com/](http://ficoforums.myfico.com/)?

<comment> rob-guilfoyle It appears fico forums is mainly around the idea of the credit score. Building good credit is certainly a positive asset to have in your personal finances. However, having an understanding of how to spend less and why it is important to live within your means is fundamental to being successful financially.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having an understanding to spend less is very important but I actually am very active in MyFico community hence the question. The community is not just about credit scores. There are various threads about what you have on your site.

The key difference is that the question people ask are live and we all try to help and brainstorm. So what makes you different from them knowing they are just not about credit scores?

Do people want just an a site where they can watch a video or do they prefer to have real life interactions about the product/services...</comment></comment></comment>


Aaron Swartz, American hero - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-american-hero/ <comment><USER2> >"As I said at the time of Swartz's arrest, his actions were foolish and some punishment was probably appropriate. "

Bullshit. No punishment is appropriate. A system that punishes someone for standing up for justice does not deserve to continue its existence. Aaron deserved a medal, not a fine or a prison sentence. Here is my take on it:

[http://jacobexmachina.blogspot.com/2013/01/aaron-swartz- free...](http://jacobexmachina.blogspot.com/2013/01/aaron-swartz-freedom- fighters-death.html)

<comment><USER3> I find it singificant that you used the word "justice" against the judicial system.

The very concept of law started as a need for order and justice, preventing grave crimes. Now, controlled by the powerful, it stands as a way to reduce justice, and to increase injustice.

<comment><USER4> Yes and in particular, it's not the other way around: "justice" is not defined as "that which a judicial system purports to implement". Just like "good" is not synonymous with "legal".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As always, nationalism is wrong. Beeing a hacker, activist or unconventional thinker has nothing to do with beeing american.

There are enough counter examples, just study history. (for example that of the CCC and his members and fellows)

<comment><USER6> That may be so but this is the first article I've seen in the mainstream that painted him in such a positive light. Using nationalism is probably the fastest way to get a broad audience in America to support what he was making a stand for.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely, I understand and maybe even somewhat support that. The problem is when this proud nationalism comes at the cost of taking a dig at other nations/countries or cultures.

Yet that's exactly what this article did.

And they really did not have to do that, in order for them to make their point (and nor did Graham, for that matter--but perhaps that was an old essay and quoted out of context).

It's a particular stumper when you consider that Swartz has loads of fans outside the US as well, and they are following this news with just as much interest, reading also US mainstream articles like these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"It is no accident that Silicon Valley is in America, and not France, or Germany, or England, or Japan," Graham wrote. "In those countries, people color inside the lines."_

It's all right to be proud of your country, although of course it's neither very original nor very elaborate thinking. But why denigrate others? For your information, there are a lot of activists who fight for freedom of information, human rights and net neutrality in those countries as well.

<comment><USER8> "It is no accident that Silicon Valley is in America, and not France, or Germany, or England, or Japan," Graham wrote. "In those countries, people color inside the lines."

That may be true. But those countries also don't torture people, inprison people without charge, or start senseless wars. The US may make people richer, but it also has the highest proportion of its population in jail, compared to all other countries in the world. The US has a lot to learn from Europe.

<comment><USER9> Seriously? Do you actually believe that France, Germany, England and Japan have not tortured people, imprisoned people without charge, or (gasp) started senseless wars?

ROTFL

<comment><USER8> Good point, but what I meant is in the current era, after WWII. Since WWII the US has been the leader among western countries in torture and senseless wars.

<comment><USER9> I think you'd have to narrow it further than WWII. France was involved in colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria (the latter involved lots and lots of torture). England has participated in most of the US adventures and a few of their own (Suez, Northern Ireland, Falklands). Japan and Germany have kept their noses clean since WWII but that's partly a side effect of the complete asskicking they received in the war, rather than some innate cultural appreciation of peace and human rights. Up until recently France was conducting nuclear tests in the Pacific and their agents were apparently involved in the sinking of a protest ship in New Zealand.

England and Germany have much greater limitations on free speech than does the United States.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hero. Almost super. An interesting idea. He definitely had some Batman-ish tendencies as far as stepping just over the line to accomplish what he thought was right.

So far, everyone has talked about the losses of not having Aaron's (and those like him) extraordinary contributions.

I wonder if a better way to count the cost is by how many bitter, cynical super-villains we're creating. What happens when all of the people with Aaron's talents decide that good is for suckers and become "investment" bankers instead. A culture that loudly and openly demonstrates that it cares nothing for truth or justice and reduces the law to politics is going to create a lot more Madoffs than Swartzes.

<comment><USER11> Exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like the perspective of comparing Aaron to older "hacker/visionaries" of decades gone by. I wasn't aware of some of those brushes with the law.

<comment><USER13> Not to mention the comparison of the Pentagon Papers to the Manning cables leak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Things he made:

<https://www.jottit.com/>

<http://openlibrary.org/>

<http://watchdog.net/>

<http://reddit.com/>

<http://webpy.org/>

HN will miss your contributions. Rest in Peace. #Love.

<comment><USER15> I would hate to see webpy die. It is really an elegant framework. You can see Aaron's intense desire for perfectionism, simplicity and clarity in it. I respect those qualities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "It is no accident that Silicon Valley is in America, and not France, or > Germany, or England, or Japan," Graham wrote. "In those countries, people > color inside the lines."

Whaaaat, you have got to be kidding me.

Colouring inside the lines? Let's see, the Demoscene is almost exclusively a European phenomenon. There's the CCC. Fravia did not exactly colour inside the lines. There's the Pirate Bay. Wikileaks. Just a colourful few from the top of my head, there's more if you dig further.

If you really have to look for a difference with Silicon Valley, I'd say it's about making money, startups, entrepreneurship, chasing _that_ "American Dream", contrast with the above examples which are all people that did it for idealism, art or just for the heck of it, instead of for profit. In that context, Aaron Swartz falls squarely in the latter category.

Before you throw a fit about my stereotyping, stop. The distinction I sketched in the previous paragraph is just as stupid as the one Graham tried to make. I think it's stupid to draw a distinction between US and EU like this[0], after all, that's what this global communication information age is about. There's "startup-hackers" in the EU just as much as there are "tinkerer-hackers" in the US.

Having said that, the first thing I thought when reading that headline was "wow, if a big media outlet like the Washington Post names you 'American Hero', you really did something very right", and I felt happy. Which turned to disappointment when I found that the "American" part of that title was wrought with such bitter nationalism.

[0] I'm leaving Japan out of this because I really hardly know anything about that country and don't want to be caught with my foot in my mouth, somebody more knowledgeable than me can make that part of the argument.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hacking systems to their advantage is a pretty strong trait in the best entrepreneurs and PG recognized this pattern earlier than most and built a business out of it, it's called YC :).

What saddens me the most is not so much that he died but more that he didn't live to accomplish all the great things a fearless visionary like him could have done for all of us...

</comment><comment><USER17> Every time stuff like this happens reminds me of The Conscience of a Hacker ( [http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=...](http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=txt) ), a timeless piece.

> You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're > all alike.

</comment><comment><USER18> This reminded me of Arnold Schwarznegger's rules for success in life: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJ4hbkLiY0> about 50 seconds in. Rule 2 -- break the rules.

</comment><comment><USER19> Aaron Swartz, hero.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's sad we are doing all this now.

</comment><comment><USER21> What crap.

The idea of dissent is practically everywhere and there is nothing inherently american about it. Neither is 'dissent' the first thing or the top 10 thing that comes to mind when you talk about americanism.

Breaking the law is breaking the law. How can one have humor about it? I would love to see the author share this 'humor' when someone plugs into _his_ network and steal his digital stuff.

<comment><USER22> >>Breaking the law is breaking the law.

Except he didn't break the law.

<comment><USER23> The US Attorney's Office disagrees with you. So did a Grand Jury.</comment></comment></comment>


Man who downloaded recipes on how to make explosive devices jailed - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/9498382.Man_who_downloaded_recipes_on_how_to_make_explosive_devices_jailed/

<comment><USER2> Nice 'fear the internet' headline writing there.

Man who appeared to be planning terrorist acts jailed. Oh and he obtained some of his information from the internet.</comment>


How I integrated Keen IO and Ducksboard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.keen.io/post/35003966828/how-i-integrated-keen-io-and-ducksboard

<comment><USER2> How does Keen differ from MixPanel?

<comment><USER3> Michelle here (OP). We consider ourselves an API company rather than an analytics portal. We sometimes describe ourselves as a "mobile analytics backend as a service", although that is kind of an awkward mouthful.

Our target customers are mobile developers who would otherwise need to roll their own analytics infrastructure for their apps. Generally people build their own analytics backends because other tools on the market don't provide an easy way to get data back out. That makes it hard to build analytics into custom interfaces or do data analysis across other areas of your business, for example. We provide full export and expose analytics via API.

We are trying to make our product extremely developer-friendly and make it as easy as possible to get data and metrics in and out of Keen IO so that people can do whatever they want with their data. For example, you could build a tab in your iPhone app that displays your custom event data metrics.

Hope that makes sense. We welcome any feedback you might have for our startup :)

<comment><USER4> Very nice. I love that you're concentrating on making a solid scalable data analytics backend instead of a flashy 'it goes ding when there's stuff' interface. I don't know how many solutions I've hand rolled where your product wouldn't fit in quite nicely. I've taken a look at your documentation and even though it's young it looks pretty good. Great work.

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much for the kind words. We love to get feedback from people like you who have some experience building their own backends. It helps drive our roadmap. If you have any feedback at all, would love to hear it: firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any reason you went with Ducksboard over Geckoboard ?

<comment><USER3> I didn't do a ton of comparative research, but I tried them both for about 15min each. They seemed to do about the same thing, but Ducksboard was friendlier aesthetically and everything on their site, from the UI to the docs, seemed simpler than Geckoboard. Seems like they both offer good products, though.

Oh, I also met the Ducksboard guys at Gluecon, so they got the opportunity to explain how it works to me in person. That extra exposure and personal connection probably influenced me quite a bit too.

<comment><USER5> I tried both and know your feeling. Geckoboard seems to support more services but Ducksboard has a far nicer UI. Shame we can't merge the two together.</comment></comment></comment>


San Francisco reforms: Police no longer will respond to noncriminal calls - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-12/san-francisco-police-reforms-stop-response-noncriminal-calls <comment><USER2> Noncriminal could still mean dangerous - no? TBH any news I've seen over the past several years suggests that San Francisco is a dumpster fire of a city. Just generally, it's dubious that radical change to a complex system doesn't have major unintended negative consequences. But given their history this is perhaps even more true.

</comment><comment><USER3> What about traffic stops?</comment>


Stars in Their Eyes: Art and Medieval Astronomy - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2017/01/stars-in-their-eyes.html <comment><USER2> I find this stuff fascinating. I also learned something too.

If you look closely at Isidore of Seville's De Natura Rerum image there is (disturbingly) a planet called Lucifer. Being now terrified, I immediately google around to figure out what is going on in this diagram.

If you notice there are are actual 3 planets that seem odd here: Lucifer, Vesper and Phaeton (Fofton).

Phaeton is the mythical planet between Mars and Jupiter. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeton_(hypothetical_planet)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaeton_\(hypothetical_planet\)) Interestingly it was called out in a 10th century manuscript. Likely a visible comet that was thought to be a planet.

Lucifer and Vesper were both Venus. However, in the 10th century people didn't know they were the same planet (possibly). In the later manuscripts you clearly see "Venus". By the 14th century a more scientific approach was in order apparently.

But in the old manuscripts you have the planets "Lucifer" and "Vesper". This idea came from the fact that you can see Venus before the sun rises in the morning and later on after the sun sets in the evening. These were believed (by some i guess) to be different planets, "The morning star" and "The evening star" \- Lucifer and Vesper.

Apparently the greeks knew that the two stars were the same planet but called them "Phosphorus" and "Hesperus" (BTW this gives rise to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frege's_Puzzle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frege's_Puzzle) which is interesting in itself)

Even earlier than that the Cannanites called them "Shachar" and "Shalim". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Canaanite_religion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Canaanite_religion)

The cannanite story behind these is a tale of a god rising to the heights of the sun (by day) but falling to the earth by night. It's believed that the text in Isaiah 14 which calls out the name Lucifer is comparing the Babylonian ruler to the myth of the morning star and the hubris that it entails.

<comment><USER3> But they were correct that the comet was a planet. It wasnt a star, not fixed to the celestial sphere with the other stars. So it was a wanderer and therefor a "planet". By thier definitions they were correct.

The fact that some later upstart scientists looking for a headline decided to change the planet definition doesnt mean that previous scientists had made mistakes.</comment></comment>


Gift card purchases – today's personal story of machine learning run amok - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/v0max/status/1076927245107777536 <comment><USER2> The fraud algorithms between big companies are connected... If you've just been detected as a fraudster at Amazon, then doing pretty much anything at target will also flag you up as a fraudster, simply on the basis of "if Amazon has blocked this guy, we don't want to take the risk either".</comment>


Doing the Hard Things – B Horowitz - <AUTHOR> http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3369

<comment><AUTHOR> "Its just as much work & just as traumatic to build a company that no one cares about as it is to build an important one."

There has to be a balance. How do you know when it is too complex, too hard, impossible... unless you try?

</comment><comment><USER2> One of the best replies was, when asked how did you feel being a CEO, Ben answered: "I felt like a baby. I used to wake up every 2 hours, cry and go back to sleep."</comment>


Reactive (Dataflow) Programming in Java and Clojure with Quasar and Pulsar - <AUTHOR> http://blog.paralleluniverse.co/2014/02/20/reactive/

<comment><USER2> What's the performance characteristics of Pulsar vs. core.async like?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did a benchmark a while ago. If your go blocks block a lot and communicate with many other go blocks, then Pulsar can be _much_ faster (without changing your code if you're using Pulsar's core.async API). If they don't, then core.async can be faster than Pulsar if you're using Pulsar's default scheduler, which is based on ForkJoinPool, or a little slower than Pulsar when using an ExecutorThreadPool-based scheduler to schedule the fibers (see the UI example in the post on how to create and assign schedulers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is Quasar vs Akka?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure whether Akka supports reactive programming or not, but the main difference is that Quasar has true lightweight threads which means CSP like in Go, and actors just like in Erlang (Quasar actors can, and should, block, they have selective receive just like Erlang etc.). Also, I think Akka has a distinct Scala feel even to its Java API.

<comment><USER4> [http://typesafe.com/platform/runtime/akka](http://typesafe.com/platform/runtime/akka)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_programming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_programming) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_reactive_programming)

[http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/](http://www.reactivemanifesto.org/)

[http://vimeo.com/user18356272/review/66548920/f93e3fa7d9](http://vimeo.com/user18356272/review/66548920/f93e3fa7d9)

[http://letitcrash.com/](http://letitcrash.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The "reactive" in the "reactive manifesto" shares only the name with reactive programming, nicely explained in the Wikipedia articles you link to (which are also linked in the article).

Same goes for Akka. I don't know if it supports reactive programming (despite the use of the word "reactive" in the materials you linked to), but none of the links you supplied suggests that it does.

<comment><USER5> Are those really that different? Sure, the manifesto spends more time showcasing the benefits of a reactive system than explaining how it works, and that explanation takes the form of an event-based view.

But event propagation ''is'' a way to transfer change throughout a system built on data flows, so it fits the definition of the reactive parading. In doing so, the manifesto could be seen as a particular way to realize RP, a subset of a larger concept.

Am I missing something? Why do you consider they don't have anything in common but the name?

<comment><USER6> To be honest I'm not even sure what reactive programming means. I took the Reactive Programming course from Coursera, by Odersky, Kuhn & Meijer, and in the forums Kuhn explicitly said it's not _functional_ reactive programming.

I'll admit I'm confused by the relationship between FRP, RP and Akka's brand of RP. The only thing I'm certain is that Akka's RP != FRP. The assignments from the course were full of side-effects, mutability and global variables.

<comment><USER7> Rx is not FRP, for sure, but even most impure FRP systems (like flapjax) are not really FRP given a pure definition.

"Reactive" is quite vague. The earliest programming systems labelled "reactive" were meant for expressing low level real time control behavior, but these days the word could just as well be related to UI or enterprise/web data processing (note, that the above projects don't really help with UI, they are more for the latter!).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find out more on a company work environment before applying? - <AUTHOR> Hey there,
I'm a self-taught web developer and I think that before applying to a company (someone that is not Google, Facebook, you name it) there is no much information about the company itself. The about pages are pretty scarce in information and are mostly cliche bullshit. That's why I thought of reaching out to companies and ask them for an interview or a discussion about them as a team.
So, now I'm trying to find out if you guys have the same feeling as me and you would love to find out more about: - how that company works in terms of workflow - how is the atmosphere as in they usually have ping pong competitions on Fridays or something like that - something that the company believes is specific to them - why should you join them and not because they change the world, everybody says that
If you do want to read about these kind of things then please subscribe here > http://eepurl.com/cFBioD to the email list, so that I can gauge your interest and move forward with the initiative and start contacting companies.
Also, feel free to recommend in the comments any company you would like to find out more about and which specific questions would you like me to ask them.
Thanks and I can't wait for your feedback! <comment><USER2> Getting a reliable pulse on the culture before joining is definitely an important problem to solve.

Ideally try to find someone you know who works there or has worked there. If that doesn't exist then a second-degree connection might. Your LinkedIn connections are a good place to check.

For an early stage company, this will be difficult, especially if you are hire 1-10. In that case I would try to make inferences from the founder's resumes based on where they worked prior (eg defense industry, big co, startup, agency) and in what roles. Culture doesn't appear out of thin air and is influenced by our history, so this can be useful info to keep in mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> > The about pages are pretty scarce in information...

View any online sources with healthy skepticism, especially media stories and Glassdoor reviews. It's seldom as good/bad as it appears.

THE only true way to get an insiders take on a company and culture is go talk to them. More specifically, you want to speak with individuals at all levels/departments. People will open up more away from the office, over lunch or a beer. Then you'll begin to see a portrait of what the place is really like.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apply. Then, ask the recruiter, he or she will answer your questions during a 30 minute chat on the phone. It's the first step of the process. If you make it onsite you'll get a tour of the office and will be able to ask tones of questions to your interviewers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Check out glassdoor as they have thousands of companies listed with reviews by current and ex employees. Take the reviews with a pinch of salt as you can imagine that someone who got fired might not be in the best mindset to leave a review ;)</comment>


Who's Afraid of Synthetic Biology?  - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/25/whos-afraid-of-synthetic-biolo

<comment><USER2> From the article: "Better medicines, carbon neutral fuels, cheaper food, and a cleaner environment—who could be against that? Well, quite a few people, as it turns out."

That is begging the question. No one is opposed to these things. This is exactly equivalent to arguing against those who are opposed to nuclear power: "You are for pollution and opposed to clean energy."

Sorry, but the possibility of great advances for humanity in any given field, does not, in and of itself, cancel out the real dangers involved, nor negate the arguments of those who urge caution.

Do not get me wrong. I am a big proponent of nuclear energy, and also think that bioengineering has huge potential, but let's not use hyperbole to stifle legitimate debate, and label any opposition as hysterical hand-wringing. It's a rather unreasonable argument for Reason.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find this article not only strongly biased (both in the presentation of the actors of the debate and in the poor addressing of the arguments themself) but also completely missing the core of the debate.

Opponents are depicted as driven by their "fears" (of accidental or voluntary release of dangerous synthetic organisms). Whereas propoents have a "goal" (to produce efficient and clean products, and even to clean our current ecological situation). One of the opposing organism, the ETC group, is described as an "anti-technology group" even if its position is basically presented as people wanting to think before acting. More, on ETC website I am reading: "developments of technologies useful to the poor and marginalized".

The "fears" of the opponents are not stated as groundless as they are not negated, but solutions are presented in the second part of the article: synthetic organisms would not be dangerous because it's too early, we survived extinctions related to movements of organisms caused by humans, and because synthetic organisms could be watermarked and controlled with chemical deficiencies. First one is not even logic, second one is saying that retroaction is not useful in the process until we are not dead, and the third one, well, what about voluntary leaks, evolution. Well, maybe I've seen to much science fiction.

But in the end, this article is just poor because it hides its position in the debate behind "it's science!" and just doesn't address the true political questions appearing with each technology: who will control it and towards which end? Obvously, discussing patents and interests of Venter and associates (which happen to be... Exxon Mobile or BP...) should definitively be out of the discussion scope, just like the irony of the way the try to surf the "bio- ecologial" wave: "look ma, we're going to repair damages we've made and make $$"

</comment><comment><USER4> Nature is inventing new bugs every day. Humans genetically craft new plants and animals all the time, the old-fashioned way, by crossbreeding. Now we can do it without random side-effects. It can actually be safer.

<comment><USER5> Random side-effects are a part of reality. It's dangerous to assume that corporations deploying GM technology: a) have accounted for dangerous side- effects, b) are concerned about anything beyond the bottom line.

For example, Monsanto's Roundup Ready GM technology leaks into the wild via pollen such that Monsanto brings charges against farmers who didn't plant GM grain because they are using Monsanto technology without paying fees to Monsanto (<http://www.percyschmeiser.com/conflict.htm>).

And, for further consideration, Monsanto has had plans to develop seedless technology so that the farmer would always have to buy their seeds from Monsanto - what if that got into the wild?

This is one corporation. I don't see how we can monitor them all adequately to prevent a colossal problem. And all it will take is one big mistake (see BP and the Gulf of Mexico).

Still think the gain is worth the risk?

<comment><USER6> Wait, wait.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but how would "seedless technology" get "into the wild?" I mean, wouldn't it be totally incapable of doing that, by definition?</comment></comment></comment>


Erik Meijer: "Agile is a cancer that we have to eliminate from the industry" - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/08/erik_meijer_agile_is_a_cancer_we_have_to_eliminate_from_the_industry/

<comment><USER2> Agile methods were born in the world of custom LOB software development, where the real problems are not technical but social -- and chiefly, communication. It's not surprising that agile would be less useful as you get further from that environment.</comment>


Married in Montana: Servicemembers take advantage of state's double-proxy law - <AUTHOR> https://www.stripes.com/news/married-in-montana-servicemembers-take-advantage-of-state-s-double-proxy-law-1.91942 <comment><USER2> Montana is an interesting state in general when it comes to laws.

It's the only state where an engagement ring is an unconditional gift, for example. Every other state the giver can sue the receiver to recover the ring if the engagement is broken off.

Another example is that Montana is one of a few (the only?) state that doesn't have at-will employment. After a probationary period, if you fire someone it needs to be for cause.

<comment><USER3> > the giver can sue the receiver to recover the ring if the engagement is > broken off.

Which contradicts the whole idea of an engagement ring:

> In the United States, until the Great Depression, a man who broke off a > marriage engagement could be sued for breach of promise. Monetary damages > included actual expenses incurred in preparing for the wedding, plus damages > for emotional distress and loss of other marriage prospects. Damages were > greatly increased if the woman had engaged in sexual intercourse with her > fiancé.[32] Beginning in 1935, these laws were repealed or limited. However, > the social and financial cost of a broken engagement was no less: marriage > was the only financially sound option for most women, and if she was no > longer a virgin, her prospects for a suitable future marriage were greatly > decreased. The diamond engagement ring thus became a source of financial > security for the woman.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#Purchase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#Purchase)

<comment><USER4> So, we are celebrating women as chattel property who need to preserve their virginity to enhance their capacity to marry well. In 2018.

Your comment is making me feel vastly better about never having had an engagement ring, though I got married at age 19 and spent about 2 decades as a homemaker in a 1950s style marriage.

(Edit: I'm a woman, in case that actually needs to be said.)

<comment><USER5> Perhaps the poster was celebrating women as chattel property. I don't know. I thought it was an interesting fact. It's weird more states haven't determined an engagement ring is simply a gift, and not a sort of (as i learned today from the poster's comment) bizarre form of insurance policy.

<comment><USER4> It is interesting historical information. Except for the introductory statement "Which contradicts the whole idea of an engagement ring" which essentially asserts an expectation that we should accept this historical practice as the correct basis of laws today.

I'm currently 53. When I was 19 or 20, I had a college classmate in her 70s iirc who talked about legally needing her husband's written permission to even get a job when she was in her twenties. This was the degree to which women were treated as property. So, yes, around 80 years ago, marrying well was just about the only hope of financial solvency a woman had.

I'm a former homemaker. I raised two special needs kids and followed my husband's military career around the world. Between that and a serious medical crisis, I've been really dirt poor for years and spent some years homeless.

So I think quite a lot about the degree to which society and husbands really ought to compensate women more for their labor and personal sacrifices in raising kids and supporting male careers at the expense of their own.

But policies are always two edged swords. Given how incredibly poor I have been, I am incredibly leery of the existence of actual _laws_ still on the books that are rooted in the historical artifact of treating women literally as property of their husbands, even if that law is supposedly in the interest of the woman who is otherwise expected to accept being treated as a man's possession.

I have worked hard to try to find my voice in a world that is often openly hostile towards a former homemaker and her views being treated like a real person. I get crapped on a lot by self-proclaimed feminists who are often childless career women who seem to not actually be happy with their lives and are taking it out on me for various reasons.

The world needs very much to find a way to help people both stay home to care for children when that is the right answer for the family and also help them get a real career afterwards when that time has passed. The law in question is part of the manacles that keep women oppressed and poverty-stricken.

Please note I was careful to not attack the GGP. I just commented that it made me feel better about a detail of my life that I occasionally lament as evidence of a lack of "romance" in my life. I had something better than romance. I had a husband who genuinely cared about my welfare, something that is typically lacking in marriages based on the idea that he basically bought her because he has money, even if it isn't as explicit as such arrangements once commonly were.

The engagement ring laws cited are part of a polite form of selling oneself into slavery. It should be ancient history, but in 49 states, it is still the law.

<comment><USER6> > So I think quite a lot about the degree to which society and husbands really > ought to compensate women more for their labor and personal sacrifices in > raising kids and supporting male careers at the expense of their own.

Isn't that the whole idea behind alimony? Assuming the marriage ends prematurely (i.e. not "till death do us part") and speaking of the husband's responsibility in the matter.

As to society's responsibility in this matter, women have 100% the same rights as men in this day and age (well, other than the "right" to be conscripted) so at some point people just need to accept that choices they make in life will have certain drawbacks and/or advantages which may or may not affect their future in positive and/or negative ways. I'm also roughly the same age as you so I know there really weren't "manacles that keep women oppressed and poverty-stricken" in our lifetime and in fact the plight of women has arguably been the best it has ever been in all of human history. I'd even go as far as say it's The Golden Age of Womendom. Though, admittedly, things were a bit different pre-90's with regards to single mothers and, umm, "non-traditional" gender roles, probably more so if you didn't have the "luck" of growing up a major metropolitan area I'd imagine.

Please don't take what I'm saying as a personal attack but merely as an opposing viewpoint because I know these subjects get kind of touchy these days.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that women still get pregnant, women still lactate and men do not (people looking for BS excuses to attack me can spare me their rant about how that statement makes me transphobic, thanks -- there are far better ways to advocate for trans rights than randomly pissing on people). This is further compounded by a raft load of social norms that I see as ultimately rooted in that fundamental reality.

I'm not interested in fighting with you, but when you outright dismiss my assertion that women remain oppressed, it's really not fertile ground for having a good discussion on the topic. I'm not having a good day to begin with and your comment just reminds me of comments on HN where people try to dismiss the idea that my gender is a serious barrier to financial connections on HN and my rebuttal to that is that I appear to be the only woman to have ever been on the leaderboard and then that gets attacked as irrelevant and it's a really crazy making thing for me.

A lot of men on the leaderboard are quite well heeled. Some of that money clearly comes from their connections here on HN. These conversations make fire coming shooting out my ears and that's not a good place from which to try to engage in civil discourse in accordance with HN guidelines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > afford dream wedding

So many people make this mistake. Instead of splurging on a really big wedding, put the money into something that is actually going to benefit you and your relationship.

<comment><USER8> Throwing a pig roast for 150 inebriated friends benefitted myself and my relationship immensely

<comment><USER9> I believe the criticism is directed towards the wedding industry that manipulates emotions to make the hard sell. The modern wedding is mostly a consumer product. Like all consumer products, it can certainly be very enjoyable if you like that sort of thing!

I also believe the criticism is directed towards people who concentrate their efforts on the wedding to the detriment of the actual marriage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 1) Doesn't the US military have chaplains who could perform marriages? Why don't they?

2) What additional value does a married service member provide to the taxpayer that is worth an additional $40/day over what an unmarried service member provides?

<comment><USER11> 1) I don't understand the thought process behind this question. Having the title "chaplain" doesn't magically confer teleportation abilities.

2) This is the wrong frame of mind. The answer is zero. There is zero articulable additional benefit for a service member to be married. It is a worthwhile expense anyway.

<comment><USER12> > 2) This is the wrong frame of mind. The answer is zero.

What? That doesn't make sense. At a glance, otherwise, what's the point of marriage versus civil unions? I'm assuming here, and could be wrong, that there's no legal difference - but people still fight for marriage when they can only have civil unions.

Even if you got rid of all the legal and pay advantages to marriage, people still find it valuable and enriching. It may be an ephemeral benefit, but it's still articulable.

<comment><USER13> > what's the point of marriage versus civil unions? I'm assuming here, and > could be wrong, that there's no legal difference

Yep, there are/where legal distinctions (sort of irrelevant now in the US with federalized same-sex marriage). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union#United_States) . The main problem is that unlike marriages, there is no requirement that states recognize civil unions granted in other states, because:

> The federal government does not recognize these unions.

Not a _direct_ legal distinction, but:

> Civil unions are commonly criticised as being 'separate but equal', critics > say they segregate same-sex couples by forcing them to use a separate > institution.

<comment><USER12> Did not know that it wasn't a federal thing! Thanks for teaching me.

And yeah, my point is about the "separate but equal" sort of thing - it's not a legal distinction, but it's one people definitely care about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's awesome that such a thing is available to members of the military who need it. Seems to me like the sort of thing that could be ripe for abuse, though. I wonder if anyone's ever been married by proxy without their knowledge or consent?

<comment><USER15> How would a fraudulent proxy marriage be more likely than just making a fraud in-person marriage? Once falsifying paperwork is on the table, the rest is easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > With the extra money the Army will pay him now that he's married — an > estimated $1,200 to $1,400 a month

Anyone know what/how this is? Is this just blatant discrimination against unmarried servicemembers, or what?

<comment><USER16> Yes, I served in the Marines for 4 years and I experienced this firsthand. Unmarried service members often times get the short end of the stick: less pay (if married, you get extra money for housing and food, and separation allowance if you don't live with your spouse), crappier or more duties (hey! Give the unmarried people stuff to do after normal work, they have no spouse to go home to!), and more. This leads to a whole set of issues: people - especially junior service members - get "contract marriages" where they get married just for the extra benefits money and benefits, which leads to a high divorce rate, and people getting charged under the UCMJ for cheating on their "spouses". It's dumb and insane and people should all be paid the same and receive the same benefits

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >A Montana double-proxy marriage is considered legal in all 50 states except Iowa and is recognized by the U.S. military.

What's up with Iowa? Also, what happened to the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, requiring, among other things, marriages in one state to be recognized by another state.

<comment><USER9> According to one of the proxy marriage sites:

>To be recognized as legally valid pursuant to Iowa State Law, marriages, which are originated via proxy, must be further perfected; moreover, additional processing is required. Please inform us if you will need your proxy marriage to be recognized under Iowa State Law.

<comment><USER18> Doesn't Article IV, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution (the "full faith and credit clause") pretty much require Iowa to accept a Montana wedding certificate at face value?

<comment><USER9> I would think so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "With the extra money the Army will pay him now that he's married — an estimated $1,200 to $1,400 a month — the Bakers will be able to afford their dream wedding this fall, he said."

Seems a bit out of step with the current American zeitgeist.</comment>


DHS: Kinder Surprise Easter eggs 'too dangerous' - <AUTHOR> http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/dhs-kinder-surprise-easter-eggs-too-dangerous/466336

<comment><USER2> American kids aren't smart enough to tell a toy metal car from chocolate? PC nonsense?</comment>


Pythonic string formatting in Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://davedash.com/2010/11/19/pythonic-string-formatting-in-javascript/

<comment><USER2> Well... Python is a little bit better, e.g.:

      >>> class Person:
      ...     x = "lol"
      ...     y = "right?"
      ...
      >>> "{0.x} {0.y}".format(Person())
      'lol right?'

Also this function: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/610406/javascript- printf-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/610406/javascript-printf- string-format/4256130#4256130) adding it to the String objects would be cool too.</comment>


Review Our Mashup: CrowdTube.tv - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to get some feedback on a recently launched mashup idea. http://crowdtube.tv finds trending youtube videos and plays them like a never-ending TV show.
Built on Django, we use cookies to keep track of what you've watched(may move toward HTML5 local DB...but trying to avoid register/login), and we use jquery/ajax to make it feel like a TV station.
A little background:
I'm always annoyed when I try to watch short YouTube videos on Digg/Reddit/Etc... while I'm eating or just chilling on the couch, and pretty much hate Cable TV with a passion, so we built this out of necessity to fill the void.
While I'm not an active contributor here, I know the community is great at giving open, honest, and constructive feedback on ideas...so I'd really appreciate to hear what you think.
Thanks! Cory <comment><USER2> Hi Cory. Could you make it so that next button doesn't disappear? I tend to hover over next buttons so that I can click next, click next, click next, but it had faded away when I wanted to click it. Also, you might want to be careful of what videos you show, or have categories / ratings. One of first that came up was a man being mauled by a lion with a screaming crowd. It was quite shocking. I think the idea is good (the site, not being mauled by a lion). It's something that I think is lacking from YouTube, although it is now possible with music videos.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. It may not have been obvious in the intro screen, but we've enabled keyboard controls so that you can use your left/right arrows to skip back/forward, up/down arrows to control the volume, spacebar to play/pause, etc.

Knowing that, would you still want the arrows there?

<comment><USER2> Cool, keyboard shortcuts are great, but easy to forget, so visual controller are always good.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Timeup.io – Find a suitable time slot for a meeting with your peers - <AUTHOR> http://start.timeup.io

<comment><USER2> This does not solve the two issues I have with doodle:

\- The creator is the only person with permission to add alternatives (both for their "Make a choice" and "Find a date" features)

\- There's no way to limit the number of responses from each participant - e.g. each user need to select their 3 most preferred time slots.

Also this app, contrary to Doodle, requires you to select time slots, whilst with Doodle one can just decide on dates (and the time is optional). I also quite like the "Yes/No/If-needbe" feature that Doodle provides and I'm disappointed about the binary view of event planning this application takes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey lordlarm, thank you with your valuable feedback and suggestions! We'll definitely will talk through them in our next meeting!

<comment> martin-adams We'll assume you will be able to find a suitable time to meet with your team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Kleinigkeiten:

\- your url-structure is confusing (www.timeup.io vs start and landing)

\- write "use timeup.io now" instead of "try"; add try once money is involved

\- add small titles to the 4 bullets-list on event entry; right now they are very confusing; there is also too much white-space on desktop browsers; perhaps left-align the event-entry form on larger screens

\- Slot Length should have an effect on Timeframe so one can start at 8:30 for example

\- Text liest sich oftmals zu Deutsch (zBsp: "timeup.io focuses on the finding of the best fitting...") oder ist Englisch inkorrekt (zBsp: "Shoot a message!" müsste "Shoot us a message!" sein)

Grüße nach München!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello Dan, thank you for your answer! You're right there is still a need in optimizing the landing page. In fact the whole page was developed for a customer development course at university. So I really appreciate feedback on the psychological parts of increasing the "customer" base! Beste Grüße aus München :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please, explain the real and important differences with doodle.com

<comment><AUTHOR> timeup.io focuses on the finding of the best fitting time spots for all event participants. On other platforms the event creator usually determines at which time slots an event should take place. Mostly, these time slots are the ones only the event creator can attend. So there is always a shift to inaccuracy. In addition, the design of timeup.io is very clean and intuitive. This allows an event creator or participant to be extremely quick on the creation or join process.

<comment><USER4> I read the FAQ but honestly couldn't understand the difference. As with doodle, event creator decides the only available dates and time range. And even if design is cleaner (subjective opinion) people presence group switching (gray/colored) is not so intuitive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few thoughts on the UX from my two minutes on the site.

When I created my event, the first thing I did was select a date in the calendar, before going down the page to fill in the other details. When I got to the bottom, the submit button was greyed out, which confused me. What had I missed? It was only when I scrolled back up that I saw that events require a title, which is confusing and frustrating.

The timeframe bit is confusing, too. First I'm asked to pick my slot length (let's say I choose a four-hour slot between 19:00 and 23:00, because I'm going to the theatre), but then I get some radio buttons asking for the same thing... and I've only got three options (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour). I've just told you I want a four-hour slot. Do these radio buttons override that? Confusing.

I found some of the UX elements a bit fiddly to use on my laptop, which slowed down the process. If the idea here is to have a really quick way to schedule meetings, I think things could be a lot clearer and more straightforward. The only thing you /really/ need to know is the date and time, right? Maybe I can add more information later if I really want to?

</comment><comment><USER6> Now the problem is that there are multiple time managers that don't talk to each other. This needs a standard.

 _" I'll have my time manager call your time manager."_

<comment><AUTHOR> Since timeup is for free I think that a good way to go into that direction is to completely expose our API and make it publicly available.

Than everybody who wants can create addons for several kind of devices and other software. Right now the API is still very tiny and in my opinion it should stay like that. Only a very small selection of additional features will come.

So far our capacity (only 2 devs) is very very limited to support all kind of other software / devices in short time. (We're still students and doing timeup as a small side project - We saw the need of that tool when trying to organize meetings for learning groups)

Any other idea how to further support your idea?

<comment><USER7> Something related is going on with json and email with fastmail[1] -- a standard needs to bee free/open, _and_ have a usable free/open implementation.

That way people can pay you for the convenience of a service, and not be afraid to be left in the cold once you move on to other things/get hit by a bus/get bought by doodle and they decide to fold your service etc.

Another example is Mozilla sync, which has a nice and viable self-hosting solution (both for the new and old sync)[2]. Not that Mozilla is charging for the sync service, but IMNHO they probably could - perhaps giving paying users a larger quota. Not that the free quota is a limit; more as a sensible way for users to support the project.

[1] [http://jmap.io/](http://jmap.io/) (Note that jmap is a reaction to a) the cruft that's been assimilated in IMAP, b) the need for webmail anyway (so rather than have what is essentially a http-to-imap proxy (squirrel, horde/imp) -- just have the mail server speak http).

[2] [https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run- sync-1.5.html](https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync-1.5.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried this out with a skeptical attitude, but the the process and UI impressed me -- it solves the specific problem minimally and works exactly as I'd want it to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your words! Please shoot a mail or comment if you have any unexpected experiences or are in need of any new features!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was also pimped a couple of weeks ago — by the very same person ⌘ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710357)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=timeup](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=timeup)

</comment><comment><USER10> When did the trend of actually demonstrating your product with images and feature lists die?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, next time we'll post a link directly to the page! As soon our short explanatory video is done there is no need for a landing page in between. It will be available on the top right corner.

<comment><USER11> Please, include text + photos of the software in addition to a short explanatory video. Many of us prefer reading to needing to watch a video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The horizontal bar at the top should have people's names, not numbers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you like them to be always visible or when you are doing a mouse hover over the color? In addition, how would you solve the problem that there are multiple time slots where the number X of your peers can attend but at each of the different time slots it's a different subgroup of all attendees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this similar to Calendly?

</comment><comment><USER14> What about Meet by Sunrise

<comment><AUTHOR> Meet by Sunrise is definitely also cool tool. I think the difference too them is still the hotspot way of seeing things. In the near future there will be also a keyboard for our "service".</comment></comment>


Margaret Dayhoff Brought Modern Computing to Biology - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-margaret-dayhoff-helped-bring-computing-scientific-research-180971904/ <comment><USER2> In a previous posting of the article I mentioned that Wikipedia offers a somewhat more detailed background of her personal life and contributions [0]. It's a shame that she passed away at a relatively young age (57) before she saw the impact of her work. [0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Oakley_Dayhoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Oakley_Dayhoff)</comment>


Chinese Military Wants to Develop Custom OS - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/06/chinese_militar.html <comment><USER2> seL4 based system would make most sense for security [http://sel4.systems/](http://sel4.systems/) [https://github.com/seL4](https://github.com/seL4)

First as a hypervisor, then adding more stuff.</comment>