Prison book ban ruled unlawful by High Court - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30344867 <comment><USER3> I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people, then we're going about it in a very strange way.

Lock people away in a cell for a decade, deny them a lot of basic human rights (like books) then when they're good and messed up in the head from it, let them lose on the public. If they re-offend, well, that's clearly a sign that they are just a _bad person_. Best lock them up again.

<comment><USER4> _if the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate people_

You imply that rehabilitation is the only reason for prison and that there are proven methods of rehabilitation.

Rehabilitating people is hard and we don't know of any great ways to do that. Removing criminals from society is easy and straightforward.

<comment><USER5> And really really expensive. If the point is a safe society without high costs of maintenance it seems foolish to overlook rehabilitation.

<comment><USER6> We could make it much cheaper, if we wanted to. Cages hold a man as well as cells made of bricks, prisoners can work whenever they are not sleeping and things like recreational facilities are just going be used for and by gangs.

We could make prisons much cheaper than they currently are just by choosing either rehabilitation or warehousing. Warehousing would be even cheaper - <USER2> maybe split the prisoners up by worth (essentially asking is this person a good person who did something bad, or a bad person) and then have two different criminal systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And ofcourse Mr Grayling has done his best to destroy Judicial reviews that highlight this kind of problem.

Basically if you want to challenge a law, a judicial review is the only way you can go about it (going through the political process, writing to an MP and the like leaves you open to the whim of the press and "public opinion")

[http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18682/...](http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/18682/charities_face_greater_judicial_review_costs_after_commons_vote)

If this law goes through only those with significant amount of cash can ever challenge illegal laws. Combine that with the changes to legal aid, mean that only the rich will be able to attain justice.

<comment><USER8> At what point has the judicial review become merely the means for judges to disagree with government policy? This wasn't a law change, this was a change to an existing policy about what prisoners could receive in parcels. Judicial review seems to have become an all too regular occurrence used by people who don't like what a particular government is doing.

<comment><USER7> But the point of british law is that no one is above it. A precedence set by the magna carta. (which has now been superseded apart from two clauses.)

This means that if the government changes policy, and that policy change is incompatible with the law, it must be changed. This is the mecanism that would stop the government from passing a statutory instrument(a law that requires no vote in parliament) to allow the Treasury to take assets without due process (something that was protected by the magna carta, but was recently repealed)

How ever for a law to be challenged, a judicial review must be triggered.

<comment><USER8> Except many judicial reviews aren't about the legality of the decision, merely the way the decision has been made.

"Judicial review is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. In other words, judicial reviews are a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached. It is not really concerned with the conclusions of that process and whether those were 'right', as long as the right procedures have been followed. The court will not substitute what it thinks is the 'correct' decision."

[[http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/19/judicia...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/19/judicial- review-statistics)]

<comment><USER9> > Except many judicial reviews aren't about the legality of the decision, > merely the way the decision has been made

But isn't that an essential feature of the constitutional structure of the UK: given that the UK doesn't have a separation of powers system in which various entities within government have limited powers, any decision by government that is within the sovereign power of the government is _substantively_ legally, the only question of its legality is whether or not it _is_ a valid decision of the government, made by the means legally prescribed by the government for the kind of decision it is -- but this can look at like review of the legality of the substance of the decision, because the legally prescribed mechanism for a decision may vary based on the substance of the decision.

(In a sense, this is true of _any_ sovereign government, even, e.g., the US separation of powers system, wherein the "way the decision has been made", in order to be legal, for certain decisions involves a Constitutional Amendment.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if there are any schemes making e-book readers available in prisons - no danger of smuggling in drugs in a stream of bytes!

<comment><USER11> Funny you should ask.

This company aims to provide modified iPads to prisons and jails. SF county has signed onto the scheme: [http://apdscorporate.com/](http://apdscorporate.com/)

This company already has a heavily locked-down tablet and provides a way for relatives to buy music for or send email or donate money to prisoners: [http://blog.jpay.com/mini-tablet-for-prisons-now- available-i...](http://blog.jpay.com/mini-tablet-for-prisons-now-available-in- louisiana-and-virginia/)

Victims' rights groups are not very happy about this: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/17/tablets...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/17/tabletsforinmates/2651727/)

EDIT: I mentioned a scheme in Ohio, but associated it with the wrong link. That state uses Jpay, not the APDS system.

<comment><USER12> Surely they could go with something cheaper than iPads?

<comment><USER11> They're probably not using the latest models or have some deal with Apple similar to an education discount. I don't know what the business logic is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm glad about that overturn of the ban

</comment><comment><USER14> The one issue brought up which I think it a legitimate concern is, how do you insure the book is not used for improper purposes. Those would be but not limited to, concealment of prohibited objects, drugs, and messages?

You can screen for some, but I would expect all parcels to have some limited form of search. I would tend to think a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to prisoners, perhaps even only allowing access to the delivered books in a library setting; books are kept by the system in the library for the prisoners.

I understand that idea that reading is fundamental, but controlling what is in their environment is a big part of maintaining a safe and secure environment.

<comment><USER15> In the uk, prisoners get sent _other_ parcels, they of course are screened. No real reason for not allowing books. This ban was just the prisons minister playing to the tabloid press.

"a better option would be to fix the availability of library services to prisoners" \- alas, this is not even a bad joke. In e.g. high security prisons, you might get to visit the library once every 4 weeks. If (or these days, more often than not when) there are staff shortages, supervision of prisoners' library visits is among the first things cut - in which case, you might get to visit again in 4 weeks time, maybe.

Source: 2nd hand info from talking to someone who works in a prison.

<comment><USER16> The first sentence of the article is "Under the current rules prisoners are prevented from receiving parcels unless they have 'exceptional circumstances', such as a medical condition."

<comment><USER15> Yes, I saw that, and I thought it was incorrect. After some digging:

This does not apply to remand prisoners.

Convicted prisoners get 1 parcel of _clothing_ after conviction (at the governer's discretion).

Also exceptional circumstances "could include for example ... replace clothing due to restricted access to laundry facilities."

Source: Prison Service Instructions 30-2013 Section 10.4, 10.5 and also annex F.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


After 25 years of homelessness, I learned there's one thing you can do to help - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/25/after-25-years-of-being-homeless-i-learned-theres-one-simple-thing-you-can-do-to-help-gregory-p-smith <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR to compensate for clickbaity title:

"I was recently asked by someone what they should do when they come across a homeless person. My response to this question is quite simple. Maybe you cannot make a difference to that person's circumstance, but you can make a difference to how you see them. Many are hurting with the shame and stigma of being homeless. Don't pretend they don't exist: they are people too."</comment>


Ask HN: Learn You Some Perl For Great Good - <AUTHOR>

Due to recent discussions about perl and its lack of attention, wouldn't a guide á la learnyouahaskell.com or learnyousomeerlang.com be a wonderful introduction to perl? <comment><USER2> I'm happy to talk to anyone interested in writing it.</comment>


What Happened to Google Maps? - <AUTHOR> http://www.justinobeirne.com/essay/what-happened-to-google-maps <comment><USER3> I'm confused by the replies saying that more dense labels would somehow harm usability for driving or navigation. When you're driving, you know where you're going, the map knows where you're going, and it's easy to see the route you need to take. When you're not on a route, denser labels help you to orient yourself with the map and to know when to zoom into a particular location.

That said, I also think the focus on paper maps is misplaced. Old-style road maps had to answer the question, "how do I get there from here?" New-style digital maps don't need to answer that question any more! Questions new-style maps need to answer include:

* I know the name of a place or street; where should I zoom in to see more things around that place or street?

* I need to go to a (gas station / rest stop / hospital); where's the closest one?

* How would I get home from where I am?

* I'm in an unfamiliar place and would like to go "downtown" (where there are restaurants and things to do); where is "downtown"?

* Where is my car right now?

Roads help you to orient yourself with the map, but they aren't as fundamentally important to digital maps as they were to old-style road maps. The visual space of the map might be better spent helping answer questions like these.

<comment><USER4> For driving Google Maps getting quite bad. See this screenshoot: [http://imgur.com/uPO8QJh](http://imgur.com/uPO8QJh)

This kind of crowded display is fairly common now. I use Here Maps now which is much better + I like supporting a second option to avoid one service getting 2 monopolistic.

My theory of why google maps is getting worse is there must be designers dedicated to this that need to constantly look for 'new' things to add even if its to the detriment as they can hardly say its all good now and twiddle their thumbs. Maybe that's unfair but I've seen this effect on other digital products first hand.

<comment><USER5> The worst part about Google maps while driving is that it won't read directions until your right up on the turn.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. I'm that idiot driving in circles around the roundabout because Google Maps gives me the turn right as I'm passing it.

Also, it's forking is completely fucked. If there are 2 right turns coming up it does not indicate which lane I should be in. In once case I had to drive 60kms, 30 kms there and back, because the interchange had 3 right exits and I chose wrong.

Now I use Google Maps to find the location and copy the coordinates into Apple Maps. Or use Waze.

<comment><USER7> I always assumed Waze had the same maps as Google...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Google Maps, like several other google products (like Groups, even Search), has seen a constant degrade in user experience since 2005 or so.

Maybe people forgot, but google maps was /blazing fast/ in the beginning.

Nowdays, it brings my browser down to a crawl even before the images are shown. Maybe people are just stuck with this "google is the best" mentality, but this has stopped being universally true since many years.

Use OpenStreetMap. It's data is way superior. It's _your_ data. Cannot strett this enough.

Want a fancy browser? Nokia maps have always been incredibly sleek to use:

      https://maps.here.com/

Heck, even bing maps are /so much faster/. The imagery is also higher quality in several regions.

Google has still the lead with street view, but for the actual maps I really encourage you to look for alternatives. They've destroyed their interface as far I'm concerned.

<comment><USER9> OpenSteetMap is very difficult to compare to Google Maps as it uses pre- rendered raster map images at fixed resolutions, rather than a dynamic vector- based approach. For me at least, this makes it far slower to load in non- cached areas, and the lack of precise zooming is super annoying.

<comment><USER10> For me Google Maps is slower than OpenStreetMap anywhere in the world, cache or no cache. Might have something to do with not using Chrome, where Google makes their websites work the best of course.

What do you mean by "the lack of precise zooming is super annoying"? In my experience, zooming in Bing Maps and OpenStreetMap are very fast, and only in Google Maps you're waiting ten seconds for the region to load and browser to respond before you can zoom further.

<comment><USER9> On Google Maps, your zoom factor is any real number within a range. On Open Street View, you are stuck using one of several predefined zoom levels (integers 1-20).

To test out, try modifying the "10" in both of the links below: [https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-74.2581905,10z](https://email@example.com,-74.2581905,10z)

[https://maps.here.com/?map=40.71455,-74.00714,10,normal&x=ep](https://maps.here.com/?map=40.71455,-74.00714,10,normal&x=ep)

<comment><USER11> Google maps also changes the zoom level to the nearest integer. You can't do 12.5 for example. When I change the 10 on the google maps link in your comment to 10.5, it rounds it back down to 10 and rewrites the URL. Have ran into the issue before doing custom maps for sites where 14.5 would be the perfect zoom level, but can only pick 14 or 15 :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I am not crazy after all! The other day I was driving in Palm Springs, and I was using Google Maps. I literally had to zoom in until the road I was on almost completely field the screen before it would show me the name of the road or the roads around it. They did something to their display algorithm where you now have to zoom almost entirely into an area to see anything about the area, very inconvenient.

<comment><USER13> It drives me crazy that I can't find half of the labels I'm looking for, and when I do, I can't increase the size of the labels enough to make them readable. Frequently I'll have to fight with the map, zoom in and out and scroll around to get it to show me the name of a street at all, but when I finally do coax it into revealing a tiny name far downroad, the font is often too small to read. If I reflexively expand the map to get a closer look, everything expands except the label I'm trying to read.

And there's no way to expand it. I do understand that they don't want it to keep expanding beyond a certain point, especially as they add more details as they zoom. But they could let it expand within some constraints, such as the name of a street within the stripe of the street, and cap the size at 3x the normal size or some such thing.

If the algorithm for letting the labels grow a bit is just too hard for them, then just give me a little slider on the side to add a fixed, default label magnification factor. I could expand it a bit to make the labels easier to read in general, expand it more (but just temporarily) to get a better look at something, or shrink it a bit in cases where the labels were harder to read due to overcrowding.

As it is, they've removed too many useful labels without expanding the ones remaining to make them easier to read and prevented me from expanding them manually. Bother.

<comment><USER14> Try to tap-and-hold on the street. It'll put a pin in there and tell you the address, which contains the road's name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised the author didn't mention the main difference between paper maps and google maps. That is, google maps is interactive. With a paper map what you see is what you get. You had to cram as much information as it would allow. But this is not the case with google maps. You can zoom in, out, and anywhere in between. You can't compare the two based on the level of information displayed at one fixed zoom level because google maps is 3D whereas traditional paper maps are 2D.

<comment><USER16> Not only zooming, Google Maps also has search. If you're looking for Oakland, CA, you go to the search bar and type "Oakland, CA", and it shows up on the map. No need to scan the map for the thing you're looking for, that's the computer's job!

<comment><USER17> Search is of course _entirely_ useless, worse than useless, if you don't know in advance what you are looking for. Needless to say, search is not an adequate substitute for intelligent design and proper levels of detail on maps.

<comment><USER18> Can you explain your use case here? Normal Google search is great for finding the name of films you can't remember by typing vague descriptions of the plot. Maps has similar functionality, like "local coffeeshops" or "<business> in <city>".

<comment><USER19> How do you search for "an interesting area in Woonsocket". Like say you want to go to a park and then walk past some shops.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.google.com/maps/search/an+interesting+area+in+Wo...](https://www.google.com/maps/search/an+interesting+area+in+Woonsocket)

Doesn't seem too bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's a broad trend of tech companies disrupting traditional industries and then making rookie mistakes and generally not living up to the standards of the tradition.

Google, hire cartographers. Amazon, hire librarians and typesetters. Spotify, hire musicologists.

<comment><USER22> Why do you think they haven't?

<comment><USER21> Well, I assume Google has a big staff of skilled people working on GIS, but I'm curious to know what kind of input they get from people trained in the art of cartographical mapmaking...

My hunch is that the tech industry is bad at taking advantage of this kind of traditional trade knowledge, and the essay in question here is an indicator.

As for Amazon, the Kindle e-books very often have horrific typesetting that would be laughed out of any traditional book printing shop.

And as for Spotify, their catalogue mechanisms and information design are clearly awful from a musicology standpoint.

<comment><USER23> Something that has become interesting to me recently is the amount of knowledge about maratime weather and sailing that isn't readily accessible in a some kind of neat database, app or website. You actually have to talk to people and wander through museums to find out some of it.

It's an example of an industry and body of knowledge that still grows and is passed around outside of the internet.

Weather patterns for a particular area, places to anchor and dock, safe passages through reefs. You can't always google the answer and much of it is gleaned from other sailors who used experience and their tools to figure it out.

Having grown up pretty much constantly online, with the answer to any question I have being reasonably available with a quick search; that some common information about the world can still be discovered and shared is is really fascinating.

It sometimes feels like there isn't much outside of STEM fields left to explore.

<comment><USER24> _> Something that has become interesting to me recently is the amount of knowledge about maratime weather and sailing that isn't readily accessible in a some kind of neat database, app or website. You actually have to talk to people and wander through museums to find out some of it._

I've been online and windsurfing for decades and I've watched online info about weather/wave conditions at various locations grow then peak, and now it's been declining and drying up in recent years.

It used to be curated and published on websites and talked about in public discussion forums. Even usenet and mailing list archives dating back to the early 90s would appear in searches. In the last 5 yrs or so it's all been slowly evaporating into ephemeral Facebook group posts hidden behind a login form.

I suspect this is happening to all sorts of other communities too as they drop below critical mass. I'm not thrilled about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The way I use Google Maps a lot is for discovery. I look at the map of New York to see cities around it. When I look at a more zoomed in level of the city I want to see different boroughs and major roads. More zoomed in you want to discover shops and businesses. The bareness of the current Google Maps makes it very unsuitable for these functions. For example, even at full zoom level it only shows a few (<5%) of the shops and bars at the city center where i live. If i want to get a feel for a city (where are the most restaurants, where are the shopping centres, etc) the maps are really bad for that unless i go searching for the specific terms in the search bar. But that is the down side of the search bar: you never finf something you didn't know you were looking for.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's much more wrong with Google maps on the desktop than what the article mentions.

My biggest gripe is contrast, rather the lack thereof. Zooming in and out doesn't help. There's a lack of contrast at all levels!

And the algorithm for displaying place names sucks. You'll see certain names at one level, zoom in and they disappear, zoom in some more and they finally reappear.

Paper maps are unquestionably more ergonomic (but much less convenient) than Google maps. But it's not just Google. I find other online maps equally bad. It's quite sad that a paper Rand McNally map is so much better at actually presenting the geography of an area.

Perhaps other posters here are right, it seems like Google maps is designed for point-to-point navigation, nothing more.

</comment><comment><USER27> Gripe: The font used on this blog is so thin it's almost invisible. I dislike this trend.

<comment><USER28> The font is so small I had to zoom in 3 times to 150% get a comfortable size. And then zoomed in one more time to 175% to make the font a little thicker - as you say, due to the light color. The irony made me giggle a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Google know more than the author about how Google Maps is used by end users. The author is grading Google Maps based on the number of cities and roads displayed, not how the users use it.

Google provide an alternative mapping product, Google Earth, for satisfying curiosity about the planet. Google maps is primarily a navigation tool. They have very distinct use cases.

<comment><USER30> I'm sure Google knows more than the author about their own maps, but please give the author his due: he wrote a successful blog called 41Latitude that did a lot of in-depth analysis of Google Maps's display of information, and later led the Apple Maps team. If he has something to say about information density on maps, I'm inclined to listen.

<comment><USER31> >and later led the Apple Maps team

I'm not sure that puts him in a position to be trusted to criticize google maps. Apple maps has been considered inferior to google maps since its launch.

Just because he has ideas about how to pack an overwhelming amount of information onto a map doesn't mean it's a good idea for normal users.

<comment><USER32> Apple Maps has actually significantly improved since its launch, and I wish people would give it its due. I, for one, often prefer Apple Maps to Google Maps nowadays.

<comment><USER33> My main problem with Apple Maps has always been that it just shows too little information on the screen, exactly what the author now criticizes about Google Maps. That doesn't seem to have changes with the current Apple Maps.

<comment><USER34> Funny enough, this guy is responsible for Apple's map design apparently.

"I designed and led the development of Apple's cartography, and I founded, recruited, and managed Apple's multinational Cartography team."

[http://www.justinobeirne.com/projects](http://www.justinobeirne.com/projects)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The new maps look clearer and less cluttered and more useful to me. I would guess that the maps were simply designed to follow their primary utility function which is navigation.

Old style printed maps had cities on them, because the map didn't know where you were going! You had to find your city or your location on the map. Now the map knows where you're going, so it can show that place extra-clearly while hiding a lot of detail that's not relevant. Roads are relatively more relevant than cities, since you travel along them to get from one place to another: displaying a road shows the user that they have a primary thoroughfare between locations. You might not care about the name of a city if you're just passing through; and the city that is your destination will be specifically shown.

My guess is that they display only as many cities as needed to help people orient themselves while looking at the map, to understand what they're seeing. More than that is irrelevant to the primary use-case of navigation.

> Google Maps of 2016 has a surplus of roads — but not enough cities. It's > also out of balance. So what is the ideal? Balance.

The ideal is _utility_ , and the key use-case for Google Maps at that zoom level is driving navigation. The user's going to input their own destination into maps anyway, most of the time, and they'll _expect_ it to appear, so it's no surprise when it does.

Google would have data on this: how many users use Google Maps while driving regularly, multiple times on a trip (at that zoom level), while _not_ having a destination entered (and with no destination, obviously no turn-by-turn directions)? Probably not many. Now imagine overlaying your route with current position and destination on the maps - it's going to be easier to scan the new ones. Edit: Navigation is the primary use-case for a map, and I'd guess usage motivated by that purpose dwarfs the rest by an order of magnitude, and so it's a good default.

<comment><USER36> What you write is true for navigating _when driving a car_. For those who try to use Google Maps for other purposes, the changes are somewhat less useful.

<comment><USER37> For what purposes is it less useful? If you aren't driving a car, you're unlikely to be traveling between cities.

<comment><USER38> You could be planning a trip - deciding where to stay for example.

I personally have found the new google maps very frustrating and slow - I'm constantly zooming in and out. This article finally made me realize what I'm missing, and why I'm having so much trouble with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Google is a data company and the data available has changed over the last few years. Maps are both a way to present data and a way to collect data.

The new data that Google has comes from Android handsets and from users using Google maps and Waze on Android and non-Android handsets.

This data is all about users in motion. At the scale shown in this article, it's almost exclusively people driving. As a result, it makes a lot more sense to focus on the connections over the places they connect. This becomes clearer when you view the roads as more active entities by including congestion and other real-time data.

This may not be the best presentation for everyone, but it seems to be the presentation that fits best with Google's current mission and capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER40> The difference between today's Google maps and the authors 1960 paper map is easy to understand when you stop to think about how those maps are used.

The paper map was used to navigate from place to place. That never happens with a google map. Sure, you navigate with them, but by telling Google where you want to go and _letting them draw a line on your map_. You don't need all that extra information if your phone is navigating you from place to place. You just need something clean that you can glance at to get a sense of where you are.

So that's what they've designed their maps to give you.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think that OpenStreetMap has a bit more information that Google Maps at the same zoom level. To compare on New York:

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5263/-73.8556](https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5263/-73.8556)

[https://email@example.com,-73.9399427,9z](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-73.9399427,9z)

(Edit: as the child comments correctly point out, this is only the default OSM rendering style.)

<comment><USER19> Keep in mind that the tiles shown by default on the OpenStreetMap website are just an example rendering. Anyone can take the OpenStreetMap data and use it to render a map with different cartographic choices.

There's even several other example renderings that can be easily accessed on the website, for example

[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5253/-74.2003&layers...](https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/40.5253/-74.2003&layers=C)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The Google part happened in Maps. It was a mapping product, and now it's a geographical fronted to search. The v2 was all about services on a cute (and sluggish) rendering substrate. It's now usable these days, still way slower than OSM or bing. I miss the old presentation but alas ...

ps: I recently discovered the 'my timelime' feature. Surprising to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER43> This criticism reminds me a bit of when people criticize Google search results for a query like "insurance" or "shoes" having too many ads. Searching for vague terms is useless, so they just display ads instead.

At the zoom level the screenshots are taken at, maps are essentially useless. The most important information they can convey is "there's lots of roads here" or "this region is densely populated". The maps aren't optimized for accuracy, they're displaying a summary. The long island example really struck me - <USER2> old map displayed the primary route only, the new map conveys the fact that there are multiple options. If you're stuck in traffic and you pull up the map, you can see there's another decent route and ask the app to provide you with directions on an alternate route. If you're using the old maps, you'd just see the single primary route highlightedand assume you should stick with the route you're on.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is it just me, or is that site _unreadable_? Chrome 50, Windows 10, and the font is about the thinnest I've ever seen.

<comment><USER45> Chrome/Win 10 and I had serious trouble making the site readable; zooming to 175% just about worked.

Default rendering: [http://i.imgur.com/uhbRcsR.png](http://i.imgur.com/uhbRcsR.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's the speed/lag that really annoys me nowadays. If I pan across the map or zoom in, I know I'm waiting a good 5-6 seconds before the new tiles will be loaded. And that's on desktop, not mobile. It's so irritating I've just about abandoned google.

</comment><comment><USER47> "What Happened to Google Maps?" or "How to say 'more roads and less labels' in 20 different ways".

</comment><comment><USER48> Google really won't care about any comments here, they are all about the data. So simply stop using Google maps. Tell your family to stop using Google maps. Tell all your friends to stop using Google maps. Blog about not using Google Maps.

Find alternatives, there are several mentioned in these comments for starters.

When/if Google start seeing a reduction in their map use, only then will they start paying attention.

</comment><comment><USER49> I suspect that these changes are dues to the switch from bitmap tiles to vectors.

<comment><USER10> Right, giving away too many labels at once would make it too easy for people to copy the map data. By requiring much higher zoom levels, people would have to do many more requests to grab everything.

Not applicable at the zoom scale used in the article, but on higher zoom levels this is certainly a factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've noticed the disappearing detail from Google Maps as well, and I find it really annoying - especially when perusing a rural area and having to zoom in to ridiculous levels to see town names.

Another thing I'd like to see is making the "avoid tolls" setting easier to get to. Northern Illinois is toll road central, and I-355 in particular is a huge ripoff when you pay cash. Since I don't need any of the tollways for commuting, I can't justify getting an I-Pass.

<comment><USER51> Yes! I hate that!!

It doesn't even remember the setting, you have to hit the three dots for menu before you search, choose "Route Options", then tick "Avoid tolls", then hit OK. EVERY TIME.

And if you forget to go through this and start navigation, there's no way to change it, you have to hit back, then do the above. Why not have a way to change route options from the navigation screen??

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> With open-source tools and services for OSM data from Mapzen and Mapbox, you can make your own map styles: light or heavy in detail, highlighting cities, highways or footpaths.

</comment><comment><USER53> I suspect part of the idea is that you will use the search to find cities instead of finding them visually based on their names on the map. The issue with large cities that are near other large cities being omitted from maps is 'The Baltimore Phenomenon'

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartographic_generalization#Th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartographic_generalization#The_Baltimore_Phenomenon)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been noticing this but could never quite put my finger on what it was. This is exactly it.

On google maps I can never find what I want. I thought it was because I've been using OpenStreetMap, and had gotten used to a different display style. Seeing a place once in OSM anywhere in the world, and zooming out from it to continent view, I can almost always find it again later. On Google Maps I always got lost. Now I finally get what the problem is.

</comment><comment><USER54> I noticed the same thing a few months ago. I live in a larger city, largest in our county, but we don't exist on the map unless you really zoom. A small town right next-door that's a lot more affluent shows up even when zoomed out to the tristate region. My guess was Google is stepping up their advertisement business for cities.

That or people just find whitespace aesthetically pleasing and Google designers went kind of crazy with it.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've only ever been using Google Maps for the sattelite imagery, street view, and routin. For those things, Google Maps is still great. OpenStreetMap is what I use for orienting, find cycling paths, trails etc.

So I'm not too bothered by this change. What I don't understand is why hasn't anybody taken the Google Maps routing and use it in OSM apps? Might not be legal, but similar non-commercial projects it should be fine.

<comment><USER56> There's a lot of effort right now going into making OSM itself better for car navigation. (Take a look at the OSRM changelog: pretty much every feature in the last 6 months seems to be targeted to this use case.) And I'd say OSM is already better than Google for cycling and walking routing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> While the analysis is fine, the conclusion is almost certainly false. At Google's scale, nearly any iteration made on core products is backed by an immense understanding of their end users and a near unlimited supply of user data.

<comment><USER10> There can be a million things wrong with user testing, and while I am certain they know more about it than me, I think it's a safe bet to say they're not perfect either and may make mistakes in such a complex topic.

(Small example of what I mean: many people like the new style because it's prettier, but when I use OSM I get to places a lot faster than people using Google Maps, so they might be asking the wrong question even if they did user testing with a million people. But that's just one example of everything that could go wrong.)

<comment><USER57> Sure, it's possible, however unlikely, that a mistake of this sort fell through the cracks, but I wouldn't place any bets on it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The "Google, where did I leave my keys?" joke is getting closer to feature status, and that's probably what's going on with Google Maps.

Anecdatum: last month I was driving out for a weekend in some rural bungalows a few miles outside a small city (Elvas, Portugal). The address was a bit vague, the place name too common, so much so that I had GPS coords stowed away in a message pic (don't ask ;-).

So, when I pop out Google Maps in the old faithful iPad2 (which happens to be the 3G version, and therefore GPS chipped, good for navigation), and zoom in the area ... amidst thin local roads and lots of blank space, there's the place name _and the days we 're staying there_.

Turns out the Gmail app in that iPad was also used to send or review the emails with the reservations.

Even in my 'desktop' I've been noticing Google Maps marking out city places which seem small compared to other landmarks, but where I often go or mention in emails.

(Thanks, I do know where I left my keys today, I'm good.)

<comment><USER59> Never thought I'd see Elvas mentioned on HN, now I've seen everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> "The primary route across Long Island — Interstate 495"

Off-topic, but as a native NYCer, we would never call it that. It's the LIE. I once had a woman ask me in the parking lot of a Walgreens how to get on the 278. I was puzzled for a second, then I realized she was talking about the BQE. Living out in California now, I miss the days of calling highways by name.

</comment><comment><USER61> I think what Google is doing makes sense given smartphone adoption and the fact the maps are use for fundamentally different functions now.

You don't need a hulking great map with loads of detail at a high level to get from point A to point B, you now just use your smartphone for that.

I assume Google spotted a trend of people searching place names as opposed to picking points between two separate locations.

So how does that change the function of the map?

Well, we no longer need to have the zoomed out overload of detail, if we need more information about a place we are visiting, we type in the city name, or address, then zoom in close to see the detail we need.

The article kind of skimps over the point that we can interact with those maps now.

<comment><USER62> Why can't the map serve multiple functions? I guess I wasn't overloaded by the detail.

<comment><USER61> I would guess that placing labels on a map has _some_ cost. Not doing this(especially over 3G, 4G, EDGE) might have some gain in loading time.

If you need that fine-grain detail zoom in?

Not saying I advocate this approach, but thought I would try give you an answer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> "Less is just less. And that's certainly the case here."

Not sure I agree, in my opinion most of us use search & destinations nowadays, even in offline mode. The only reason I look at a map is to gauge distance between me and my destination.

<comment><USER64> Almost no one I know uses directions – all look at the map, see "3 intersections north, then right, then the 2nd on the left" and drive/bike/walk like that.

I certainly do

And for this use case Google maps is getting pretty useless

<comment><USER65> Oh we all know that person that just follows the printed directions blindly. They get off the route, they're helpless. And they can't get there a 2nd time without the directions again, because they never paid attention to _where they were actually going_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I've had the frustrating experience of looking on google maps and seeing a town I was looking for not be labeled at a zoom level where I could see where it was in relationship to other towns. But I wonder if part of this is about google trying to funnel users into using maps in a particular way. Is this their attempt to get users to search more and scrutinize maps less? Are they trying to make online interactive maps a different experience than paper maps?

</comment><comment><USER67> It's way too slow and its missing some stuff buts it's moving in the right direction. Task based (someone mentioned this) is correct. Tasks are easy targets for Google's user-centered design and machine learning. It's not as simple as reproducing a road map from the 1950's, adding pan and zoom and calling it a day. You design for the device (hint: mobile) and the tasks that are used MOST. Do you really think Google doesn't keep track? People don't use Google Maps the same way as a 20in folded road map or a school atlas. If you wonder what tasks are they are designing for just look at the UI of the App. It's dominated by a big SEARCH bar and a big "get DIRECTIONS" button. That's what people do and that's what it's designed for. They are trying to make it glanceable in a car and make room to see search results or to add stuff based on interaction (like traffic, alternative routes, etc.) and not waste time and bandwidth on loading all the extra crap.

</comment><comment><USER68> Look at Here maps. It is a much better designed map, from a cartography perspective.

<comment><USER69> I would also recommend Here Maps.

Offline usage is best for travelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Satellite imagery for close zoom levels aren't loaded for Turkey! [https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/maps/Ixm4C6...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/maps/Ixm4C6hviZQ;context- place=topicsearchin/maps/category$3Afirefox)

<comment><USER64> And in Germany they haven't been updated since 2004.

 _Google's products are shit outside of the US, more at 11_

It's nothing new, it's been like this for quite a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> The difference between the album-cover paper map and Google Maps is that every "pixel" on the paper map was put there by conscious, functional and esthetic choice. In fact the people who designed and drew that map probably bragged about it to their peers.

No designing human ever sees a rendered Google Map, except for testing. The overall esthetic programmed into the algorithms are designed, but no human looks at the final result and says "it would just look better if this was shifted up and to the right a bit." There are an infinite number of possible renderings on a digital map, but a specific published paper map goes out the door with a sigh of satisfaction.

Which is to say, there's a long way to go before a digitial map is beautiful, and a specific rendering is as good as possible for the person viewing it for a specific purpose.

The only way digital maps win (and they do) is that you can ask them things, and they cover the world.

</comment><comment><USER72> From my experience, using the Google maps within the city, it tends to ne pretty sparse with labels by default.

This is a good thing because in a place like tokyo there is just too much stuff - if I care for aometgubd I either search for it, or drop a pub and check what is around.

On the other hand, Maps always shows the labels of things I have searched for in the past, yielding a customized legend of landmarks+things that matter to me.

</comment><comment><USER18> The conclusion seems to undermine the whole piece. If the changes were made to help mobile uses then great, I almost always use it on mobile, and apparently so do the majority of users.

He poses the question of which map you'd want when lost. A mobile phone with Google Maps is clearly the right answer.

</comment><comment><USER31> The comparison to a paper map is stupid. A paper map is severely limited in that you can't zoom in on it so it has to be packed with enough information to hopefully be useful. An interactive map only needs to give you enough context to know what to zoom in on. If I'm using a touch interface that overloads me with information in one screen, it's a bad interface.

It's like claiming that the new york times should display the entire full front page of the newspaper on a mobile device so you can read several articles without scrolling or loading more content because that's what you used to be able to do with the real paper.

<comment><USER17> Not stupid at all, actually. The paper map is hand-tuned and shows a great deal of thought and care about precisely what to show, how to show it, and where to show it.

There are many lessons that digital maps can learn from hand-crafted maps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> The article has its points and it is always interesting to analyze those specific readibility and rendering analysis. It helps to understand the choice made by interactive map platforms through static image and dynamic controls.

Justin O'Beirne knows what he is talking about. He has worked for Apple Maps and he also created other interesting and really precise analysis in the past.

[http://www.justinobeirne.com/essay/google-maps-and-label- rea...](http://www.justinobeirne.com/essay/google-maps-and-label-readability)

</comment><comment><USER22> It's probably already been said, but comparing Google Maps to a paper map is stupid.

The paper map _has_ to have lots of cities on it, because there's no other way to find where exactly the specific suburb is if it's not on the map. In Google Maps, you can zoom in, you can search, you can have a link for direction sent to you, ...

The author may claim "less is just less", but apart from "printing a map before knowing where I'm going", I can't think of a situation where the "improved" map would be at all useful.

</comment><comment><USER74> Great article, but man it reads oddly with JavaScript turned off. Huge masses of text repeated, scrolling weirdly broken. It's almost a proof of its own point …

</comment><comment><USER75> Optimal placement of labels is an NP-hard problem[1]. Since google maps transferred to vector and label placement is now done on the (mobile) client, I am not surprised by what happened. [1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_label_placement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_label_placement)

<comment><USER19> It would be cheap to transmit pre-calculated hints for various display situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> When using a map for navigation at a glance, with a route overlaid on the map, I do not need to know the names of the streets, but I do need to see that there are three cross streets before my turn.

</comment><comment><USER77> Comparing google maps to here maps at the same zoom level (on desktop, not on mobile) here maps has more info. It's like google maps has completely given up on the desktop.

</comment><comment><USER78> What if they simply don't want people to _print_ the map and rather use google maps to actually perform the guidance?

</comment><comment><USER79> Last dozen images in the article are mis-distributed. They don't go with the local text.

</comment><comment><USER80> Anyone done a comparison with Apple Maps?

<comment><USER81> Out of curiosity, I took the final comparison and re-created it (roughly) in desktop Apple Maps.

[http://imgur.com/5CvnHn8](http://imgur.com/5CvnHn8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Really, just zoom in if you're unhappy with the decluttering setting...

</comment><comment><USER80> Most use cases the user will have their location and destination marked with route - so they don't need all the detail at that zoom level.</comment>


Statement on npm‑cdn.com and npm‑js.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.npmjs.org/post/161325296275/statement-on-npmcdncom-and-npmjscom <comment><AUTHOR> Seems pretty likely that the goal is to get people using this unknown CDN to start serving malicious code...</comment>


Show HN: Wololo CI The complete CI solution for game creators v0.1.0 is out - <AUTHOR> https://wololoci.com <comment><AUTHOR> Good news everyone! we're happy to announce our new release of Wololo CI

\- Build support for different platforms (Android, iOS, StandaloneOSX, StandaloneWindows, WebGL, Linux).

\- Build Triggers for Github, GitLab, Bitbucket (build on push).

\- Added Unity3D Advanced Options

\- Commons:

      Build custom scenes
      Development build
      Strict mode build
      Run API updater
      Scripting define symbols
      Pre/Post-Export method
      Pre/Post-Build script (.sh)
      Define custom environment variables
      Compression type (default, lz4, lz4hc)

\- Android:

      Android app bundle (.aab)
      Split application binary (Apk & .obb)
      Android build system.

\- Linux:

      Handless build

\- Build Logs (Unity Pipeline Steps and full downloadable build log).

-Improvements on the UI/UX of the site, so now you can find quickly what you want to find.

if you wanna know more just ping me firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Google explores sale of Zagat - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-zagat/alphabets-google-explores-sale-of-restaurant-reviewer-zagat-sources-idUSKBN1ES1RZ <comment><USER2> Their diversion into products like Zagat, is a huge invition to anti-trust scrutiny, while providing barely any business benefit versus their core.

They made the same mistake most platform tech monopolies do, they started eating the ecosystem they were providing food for. Microsoft did the same thing, aggressively, for 10-15 years, during the peak of the Windows will rule the world era. Their behavior on that front only slowed down once the seriousness of the anti-trust actions became clear.

Google will likely begin moving about the landscape much more carefully, ditching small businesses that make them look particularly bad as a monopoly, due to the anti-trust hammers being swung around that are trying to land on them.

<comment><USER3> This article does a good job of outlining the dance they are doing in the travel space:[https://skift.com/2016/11/01/googles-travel-business-is- alre...](https://skift.com/2016/11/01/googles-travel-business-is-already- twice-the-size-of-expedias/)

Doesn't mention ITA, though, one of their larger acquisitions in travel.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Follow up article about ITA at google: [https://skift.com/2017/11/01/google-to-retire-ita- software-f...](https://skift.com/2017/11/01/google-to-retire-ita-software- flight-search-engine-for-small-companies/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TIL that Google owns Zagat</comment>


Lisp developer walks away with Google AI contest - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/hungarian-lisp-developer-walks-away-with-google-ai-contest/2131 <comment><USER2> Lisp was clearly a fine tool for this kind of challenge, but the programmer was, as usual, the important piece of the solution. Otherwise I'll expect to have some other of the 33 lisp based entries in the top spot (the second lisp entry is ranked at the #280 spot: <http://ai- contest.com/language_profile.php?lang=Lisp>).

What about the top ten solutions? <http://ai-contest.com/rankings.php>

      4 Java
      3 C++
      2 C#
      1 Lisp

So is Java the real king of the AI challenge? ;-)

[edit for formatting]

<comment><USER3> I find the mix of languages found in the top 100 interesting. Smart is obviously a big factor in determining the winners. Speed was a factor in the contest as well, with a 1 second per move time limit. Based on that, I'd expect to see the faster of what Paul Graham calls "languages for smart people" near the top. Lisp, Haskell, ML and Lua come to mind. That didn't happen. What follows are observations about things I found interesting, with no specific conclusion:

Popularity in industry seemed to be a big factor, with Java, C++, C# and Python making up most of the entries in the top 100.

Speed wasn't that important: Python made up 20% of the top 100.

Some popular languages, such as Javascript, PHP, Ruby and Perl did quite poorly. I'd blame it on speed, but Python did quite well.

New and exciting languages I'd expect the sort of people who enter programming contests for fun to like were underrepresented. Only 6 people used Go, and 4 used Scala.

Unless I'm mistaken, the contest was limited to supported languages. F#, Clojure, Lua and Scheme don't appear because they weren't supported, not because nobody wanted to use them.

<comment><USER4> I think a lot of participants might be in the same situation I'm in: I like new and exciting languages and play with them now and then in my free time, but I work in one of the "boring" languages. Having way more experience with the boring language, it's the one I turn to when I have a deadline or the problem is hard enough that I can't afford to spend brain cycles on the language itself.

<comment><USER5> I feel like Clojure has crossed that threshold for me.

I program in Java at work because it's what my team understands and it's what the rest of the application is written in. But if I need to do some exploratory programming or build tools to increase my personal productivity, I turn to Clojure first. It's much more productive because I can test each little piece at the REPL and it takes so much less code than it does to do the same things in Java (even when it is just invoking methods on Java objects).

If I need to, it is then a straight forward step to expand the code out into its verbose Java form.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A better title: "3 Time Winner of Computer Games Olympiad Wins Yet Another Contest".

<comment><USER7> Can't believe this Reddit quality comment is getting any upvotes. Google AI Challenge is "Yet Another Contest"? Though you may not be surprised, he is, <http://quotenil.com/Planet-Wars-Post-Mortem.html/>.

<comment><USER8> The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp.

<comment><USER9> _The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp._

Given that people have argued that the absence of Lisp winners from such competitions is evidence against Lisp's greatness (I'm going by memory here and don't have time to dredge up the record), it seems relevant to point out when it does happen.

<comment><USER10> So, essentially:

a) given that people has made bad arguments before b) it "seems relevant" to make bad arguments in the opposite direction now

Huh?

<comment><USER9> It's relevant because it's a counterexample. Now people can't say, "If Lisp is so good why don't people win these things with it?" They have to say things like this instead:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1961546>

Obviously the OP is relevant for other, better reasons than this, but that's what my comment meant.

<comment><USER10> It would only be a "counterexample" if it was a valid example. This only keeps the "counter" part, but as an example it is flawed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of a classic comic strip:

<http://www.whattheduck.net/strip/95>

</comment><comment><USER12> Is there a summary of the algorithms he used anywhere? I don't see how it was the language that won the competition, rather than the code he wrote in it.

<comment><USER13> Looks like alpha beta with a good evaluation function, move ordering, and a changing depth parameter (not sure about this one, though).

<comment><USER14> Isn't alpha-beta pruning a type of optimization you can do to a search algorithm, but not the base algorithm itself? I only bring this up since I helped make an Othello bot that used Mini-max _with_ alpha-beta pruning to help reduce the number of branches it needed to follow down a tree.

<comment><USER15> Alpha-Beta pruning is, to my knowledge, only really defined in a mini-max setup. By definition, it leverages the mini-max framework to prune areas of the search space.

You can apply the core concept -- refusing to expend computation effort when the result of that effort is guaranteed to not be used -- to any number of other methods and approaches in Machine Learning and AI.

<comment><USER14> As far as the first line in the wikipedia page goes..."Alpha-beta pruning is a search algorithm which seeks to reduce the number of nodes that are evaluated by the minimax algorithm in its search tree."[1] it seems like you're correct. Thanks.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-beta_pruning>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm .. maybe I should consider settling in Hungary.

<comment><USER17> After seeing Gábor's performance, many participants commented that they would be taking a new look at the 1000 year old country. "Bocsimako is the proof that Hungary is best for AI algorithms", quipped one player.

<comment><USER18> Being born and educated in Hungary is even better. Compare John von Neumann, Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner.

They changed the education system, and no longer used the one they had around 1900. Unfortunately.

<comment><USER19> There is a quote that I don't know who to attribute to or even the exact quote but it's roughly "Only in Budapest can a man walk into a revolving door behind you and come out in front of you"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There are many comments here that he won because of his programming/thinking skills versus using the Lisp language, and I think this true in comparison to the other contestants. However, one thing he mentions that is an interesting piece of the puzzle -- and a common theme in language competitions that include Lisp -- is:

 _Lisp doesn't get in my way as much as other languages. After getting hooked I learned to value the interactive development environment, the object system, etc.. What's good about Lisp is rapid development and speedy execution._

This might be a small effect, and you can have good programmers in every language, but if he was just as familiar with Java as he was with Lisp, could he have accomplished the same results in the same time with Java? How would the code look?

</comment><comment><USER21> I know at least a few people who had bots written in/were prepared to write bots in Clojure. They didn't end up adding support for it, however. I still can't wait for the next contest—wouldn't Pentarow be cool? Or Pente?

Anyway, cheers to Waterloo for putting this on again!

<comment><USER22> You should beware not to be too enthusiastic, because this year's organizers were pretty aggressive when I politely asked (over PM) if there was any specific problem with adding Clojure. I still don't know what the problem was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Bocsimako is the proof that Lisp is best for AI algorithms_

Cargo cultism at its finest

<comment><USER24> It seems that any positive inclination towards lisp is cargo cultism.

Gabor Melis is a seriously smart guy, and probably would have kicked ass in any language.

That said, I'm going to pull out that phrase next time someone says 'Java/C# is good for Enterprise', or 'C++ is good for video games', or 'C is good for systems programming'.

Cargo cultism indeed.

<comment><USER25> Two things:

1) "X is good for Y" is very much not the same thing as "X is _best_ for Y"

2) One person having great success at something is not a pattern, and doesn't usually prove a general rule (I'm hedging with 'usually' - I can't think of a counter example but I expect someone else will :-). Common usage, while not a guarantee, is at least a good indicator of fitness - if Java were better for systems programming than C, it's likely (though of course not certain) that we would be saying 'Java is best for systems programming', and have some basis for that claim beyond the success of one person who has already demonstrated competence in the same general area (i.e. the contests previous competition wins).

The headline might better have been "Experienced programmer uses Lisp to win Google AI contest". Correlation vs causation - he didn't win because he knew Lisp, but he did use Lisp in his winning solution, and you can understand that without taking a position on Lisp itself; there are shades of fanboism in some of the comments on this thread.

<comment><USER24> 1.) People (who use them) will happily tell you that each of those are the 'best' choices in their respective fields. People say 'C is best for systems programming', that I worded it more weakly is irrelevant.

2.) Lisp has been in use in AI, since before the birth of AI. It is still used in AI, and there has been plenty of success with it. There is plenty of 'constant conjunction' (to borrow the causative definition from Hume), associated with Lisp and AI.

Acting as if his use of Lisp couldn't have given him an advantage in an AI contest is pretty much the ultimate lisp denial-ism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "You can win 6, 12 or 24 months of membership to AiGameDev.com PREMIUM if you place third, second and first in the contest respectively. We'll also provide any single person team that ranks higher than our official bot three months of AiGameDev.com PLUS — our brand-new part of the site that launched last week."

he must be excited. until google puts out non-trivial problem sets and offers non-trivial prizes i'll save my upvotes and cycles.

<comment><USER27> Meh, it's worth quite a bit to have that on your resume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Very interesting stuff. Is the source for the various bots posted anywhere? Is it even a requirement that you disclose your source or that it will be made public after the results are published?

I looked around but couldn't find any obvious place to find the source for the bots used.

<comment><USER29> The winner: <http://quotenil.com/git/planet-wars.git/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The matrix will be programmed in Lisp...if it's not already...

<comment><USER31> It is already: see <http://matrix.itasoftware.com/>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not a bad article, but did you have to make the title a Lisp promotion fest?

<comment><USER33> This very short article mentions the winner's views, as he sees it, on the suitability of Lisp (used by 0.7% of the contestants, surely interesting) for the job. Half the article never even mentions Lisp. And this amounts to a 'promotion fest'?

<comment><USER32> _The point is that he won because he's a great programmer, not because he used Lisp._ I was referring to the title and not the article. Do you understand that or have you got more asinine comments?</comment></comment></comment>


Insurtech Startup CoverWallet Partnered with Starr Companies - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coverwallet.com/coverwallet-announces-partnership-with-starr-companies-hank-greenberg/ <comment><USER2> Excited to see what they do! There needs to be some disruption here for the benefit of small businesses! The premiums are disproportionally high and we get much worse service than larger companies. Customer care is non-existent. These guys seem to be providing not only protection but also all the other risk-related stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Exciting news!</comment>


Bill Gates and the Population Control Grid - <AUTHOR> https://www.corbettreport.com/gatescontrol/ <comment><USER2> Conspiracy Bullshit

<comment><USER3> > Conspiracy Bullshit

What conspiracy is promoted in the video?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The primary reason I follow Corbett is that he is good at doing research. However, I can't always follow the connections he attempts to make.

There are notable strange things around Gates. He doesn't promote things like clean water or refrigeration, which has long been among the very biggest problems in Africa (aside from horrifying levels of corruption). For the current crisis, he doesn't promote living a healthy lifestyle. The clip of the creepy conclusion of Melinda Gates and the reporter that the obvious problem in Africa is too many children. Somehow the only feasible technology to solve all mankind's greatest problems (like too many children) is a massive tracking apparatus. His being presented on every media outlet as an authority on anything without a single question as to why he is such an authority.

<comment><USER4> > There are notable strange things around Gates. He doesn't promote things > like clean water or refrigeration, which has long been among the very > biggest problems in Africa (aside from horrifying levels of corruption).

[https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Growth- and...](https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Growth-and- Opportunity/Water-Sanitation-and-Hygiene)

It's literally the very first result for a Google search on "gates foundation clean water".

For someone who claims to value research, you're making an awful lot of extraordinary claims while patently doing zero research to back them up with any trace value of facts.

<comment><USER3> The primary reason you won't see me bothering to engage with comments such as this is that as soon as your single, de facto trusted top Google search result of their organization's own website is presented as the beginning and the end of your argument, I know that no matter what I present it is highly unlikely to do anything other than create some stupid long chain of discussion where any point I attempt to make is just "conspiracy theory" because you've already proven me wrong with incontrovertible proof.

<comment><USER4> > (...) as soon as your single, de facto trusted top Google search result of > their organization's own website is presented as the beginning and the end > of your argument,

You claimed the Gates foundation didn't promoted access to clean water.

The Gates' foundation website clearly shows that they do in fact promote access to clean water. And sanitation. And hygiene.

Either you were lying or you were just blabbering about stuff you did not knew.

That, if anything, is enough reason to end an argument, because your claim is clearly bullshit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's Me, In an Ad, On Facebook. Is This Legal? Allowed? Who Knows? - <AUTHOR> http://battellemedia.com/archives/2011/07/looky_here_its_me_in_an_ad_on_facebook_is_this_legal_allowed_who_knows.php <comment><USER2> This is pretty clear copyright infringement. Whoever took the picture owns the copyright.

Being a public figure would matter if this were a first amendment free speech issue, but it's not. It's just a plain violation of the Lanham Act, both due to the copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. §§ 101 et seq) and because of the false advertising claim (15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(B)) you could make because of the impression that the person endorses the ad (but I'm not a lawyer, for the record). So no, it's not legal, and illegal acts should not be allowed by any company's terms of service.

It's also ironic given how Facebook got its start (i.e. Facemash), which was by misusing photos copyrighted by Harvard.

<comment><USER3> But doesn't Facebook claim ownership of the copyright if you upload a photo to its site?

<comment><USER4> Ignoring the other answers about the legal aspect: He _didn't_ upload that picture to Facebook anyway.

The article states, that this was the cover picture of one of his books.

<comment><USER5> He doesn't say that it wasn't uploaded to Facebook, he says it wasn't a profile picture.

I would think this was a nitpick, except he specifically said "not a profile picture" so my guess is he _did_ upload it to Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Guys, I think, no matter how "nice" AppSumo is in deflecting this stuff, the fact is, they've done it before, and they keep doing it. It's shady, and it's rather lame.

</comment><comment><USER7> This doesn't surprise me in the least, Appsumo is a pretty scummy operation, regardless of how much PR effort they put into cultivating the HN audience.

<comment><USER8> What have they done that is scummy?

<comment><USER9> Try signing up for their spamletter. Then try reading halfway through their incredibly annoying spam when you get it. It reads like the transcription of a carnival barker.

I don't know if their practices are actually scummy. But their communication definitely has the same feel as most scummy MLM materials.

<comment><USER10> They're trying to mimic the supposed charm of the Groupon deals, but don't seem to have the skill to do so in a way that's widely appealing. YMMV as to whether Groupon has or ever had said skill themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Disappointing to see AppSumo using people's photos without permission.

</comment><comment><USER12> Per Facebook's advertising guidelines [1]:

 _Copyrights and trademarks Ads cannot include any content that infringes upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary right. The advertiser must have intellectual property rights to the creative and be permitted to display such creative as advertising on the Facebook Site._

So yes, it is clearly not allowed, assuming that the copyright holder has not given the advertiser the permission to use his picture.

[1] <https://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd be interested in Noah's response.

<comment><USER13> Noah's pretty active on HN (at least reading), so I expect he'll chime in soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think you can make money off someone's "likeness" (eg, a photo!) without their content?

Especially a portrait shot.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is not the first time that AppSumo has run an ad with a person's likeness. When a public figure has a fan page, I think it's safe to say that it's fair game (per Facebook's TOS) for Facebook advertisers to target fans of that person. I get targeted ads for authors and bands all the time that use a similar tactic. It's actually not that different from someone buying a Google ad using your name. I think what was jarring to Battelle was that he thought that AppSumo was targeting his friends, and not his "fans".

<comment><USER16> I think what was jarring was that AppSumo was trying to make people believe that Battelle was associated with and/or endorsed their product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's a disruptive, unorthodox, mischievous public relations hack. Also a legal and moral hack. Or at least, that's probably how they feel about it. This is the dark side of thinking outside of the established box: sometimes it's not that others don't see the outside of the box: it's that, on average, we don't want anyone to go outside the box in that way.

Remember: getting away with murder is hacking the justice system.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not really surprised, I just went to unsusbcribe from their newsletter this morning, was getting increasingly tired of their over the top sales shpeel.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is declaring "Facebook bankruptcy" cool? I thought JB knew about this stuff?

<comment><USER6> Well...I do "know" about it. It's just that I have not found the time to fix it. I hope to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm sure we'll hear from Noah soon enough...</comment>


The Many Methods of Communicating with Submarines - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/the-many-methods-of-communicating-with-submarines/ <comment><USER2> I was disappointed with how much this missed:

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(satellite)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_\(satellite\))

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

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

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

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

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

The interesting aspects of how USN submarines access these systems doesn't appear to be openly available.

<comment><USER3> > FLTSATCOM 7 and FLTSATCOM 8 have been used for repeating UHF Satcom > transmissions by unauthorized radio users particularly in Brazil, including > criminals, illegal loggers, truckers and individuals located in remote > areas.

I wonder how much disruption they're causing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite attempt to get the Department of Defense to pay for physics research is a paper that suggests building a muon storage ring and using that to generate a beam of neutrinos to communicate with submarines[1].

The physical principals are pretty sound. We do already generate neutrino beams, like at Fermilab[2]. And we do have the ability to detect neutrinos in water, optically as ANTARES[3] does, or acoustically, as SAUND[4] demonstrated.

There are some serious engineering challenges to building a muon storage ring, which is why we don't have any. If we could build them, we could build a muon collider. Muon colliders would be great. Muons are elementary particles, and don't have all the garbage inside that a proton does, and so you'd get very clean signals out of such a collider, unlike the LHC. And since muons are much heavier than electrons, it's easier to get them to very high energies without losing a lot of power to synchrotron radiation.

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/0909.4554](https://arxiv.org/abs/0909.4554) [2] [https://www.fnal.gov/pub/science/particle- physics/experiment...](https://www.fnal.gov/pub/science/particle- physics/experiments/neutrinos.html) [3] [https://antares.in2p3.fr/Overview/index.html](https://antares.in2p3.fr/Overview/index.html) [4] [http://saund.stanford.edu/saund1/](http://saund.stanford.edu/saund1/)

<comment><USER5> I've often wondered about the feasbility of a private firm doing something similar to _dominate_ the HFT scene by getting a massive lead on information from the opposite end of the globe.

<comment><USER6> Avoid the pesky curvature of the Earth's surface by going directly along a chord through the mantle rather than along a great circle?

Using [https://planetcalc.com/7725/](https://planetcalc.com/7725/) and [https://planetcalc.com/73/](https://planetcalc.com/73/) I just concluded that the straight-line chord distance between Tokyo and San Francisco is 1552 km whereas the great-circle distance is 8270 km. (Neither of these is very precise because it's unclear where in each city you should measure from, and unclear whether either calculator uses data about the irregularity of the Earth's curvature.)

It does make a noticeable difference for HFT applications, I guess: 1552 km/c is about 5 ms while 8270 km/c is about 28 ms. (The neutrinos might do better in another way because I guess light in a fiber doesn't directly follow the curve of the fiber itself, since it's getting repeatedly reflected off of the inside surface of the glass.)

<comment><USER7> Are those numbers correct? In the worst case, the chord would be the diameter and the great circle would be half the circumference, so the ratio would be (pi.d/2)/d = pi/2 = 1.57.

For fun the cos rule can be used to derive a general formula for the ratio of great circle to chord, given the angle (theta) in radians subtended at the centre of the Earth:

theta / sqrt( 2-2.cos(theta) )

where: theta = (great circle distance) / radius

(Assuming I haven't mucked up my algebra.)

\--

Not sure why my comment is rendering in italics. No emphasis is meant. Figured it out, it was the asterisk I used for a multiplication symbol.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for the sanity check. It looks like the web site has a bug!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you like this kind of stuff checkout "Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage"

There are so many fascinating details about submarine operations that are now unclassified (and makes you guess about what things are like that _are_ still hidden). From communications to the underground listening stations to attempting (and succeeding) in wire-tapping soviet communication cables, to attempting to lift a wrecked foreign submarine right off the ocean floor.

It's an amazing read and very well written.

<comment><USER9> The audiobook has some nice extra commentary as well.

That book blew the cover off missions that hadn't been known to the public at all, so it was a bit controversial at release - the commentary touches on all that.

 _Red November_ and _The Taking of K129_ are also great reads along these lines.

<comment><USER8> I loved the audiobook, but somehow I missed the controversy part. Thanks for the recommendations!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I worked on the Eaton AIL CVLF radio receiver, which was the one of the first digital radio receivers done in the late 1980s. Because the frequencies used to communicate with subs were around 19 kHz, the CPUs of the time were just fast enough to do the signal processing. We used the Fairchild 9445 which was essentially a Data General "Nova 4" on a chip.

This receiver was used to receive launch commands. It received teletype data that was printed on a Model 29 Teletype. The encryption keys and the key generator used on this project were compromised by the Walkers, a family of spies (See [https://news.usni.org/2014/09/02/john-walker-spy-ring-u-s- na...](https://news.usni.org/2014/09/02/john-walker-spy-ring-u-s-navys- biggest-betrayal) )

The Submarines dragged a wire antenna that was used to receive the VLF radio signals, that were transmitted from several megawatt sites within the US and beyond.

</comment><comment><USER11> What, nothing about NATO's JANUS?

> _JANUS performance has so far been evaluated by many collaborating partners > at centre frequencies from 900 Hz - 60 kHz and over distances up to 28 > kilometers in waters all over the world._

> _JANUS packet and bit error rates have been computed as functions of the > signal to the noise ratio (SNR) and time spread over periods extending from > hours to months. Signal correlation times have been computed and long-term > experiments by CMRE(external link) in 2008 and 2009 have helped quantify > robustness during variable environmental conditions._

* [http://www.januswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=About+Janus](http://www.januswiki.com/tiki-index.php?page=About+Janus)

Toolkits available under GPLv3.

* [https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a27247/nato-janus-underwater-communication/)

* [https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/nato-de...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/nato-develops-first-standardized-acoustic-signal-for-underwater-communications)

* [https://robohub.org/janus-creates-a-new-era-for-digital-unde...](https://robohub.org/janus-creates-a-new-era-for-digital-underwater-communications/)

<comment><USER12> JANUS looks great on paper, but is pretty restrictive for doing anything useful in real life.

At the standard frequency bands they've chosen (9440-13600 Hz), with the type of coding scheme they use FH-BFSK, the bandwidth is too limited (4KHz -> ) to do anything except service discovery.

Having said that, I agree, it should have been mentioned.

<comment><USER11> > _JANUS looks great on paper, but is pretty restrictive for doing anything > useful in real life._

Were they going for reliability rather than bandwidth?

Are there any alternative 'underwater modem/codec' standards?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> You can actually hear some forms of Gertrude through the hull!

I slept with my head right near the hull, and when we did a certain kind of op where it was in use, you could faintly hear what sounded like a home modem.

<comment><USER13> You can hear it in the movie The Abyss as well, since Cameron is a stickler for accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "It sometimes seems hard to believe that we humans have managed to explore > so little of what we have so much of: the seas."

Apparently fewer people have been to the bottom of the Mariana trench (between 11 and 12,732 km away from you) than to the moon (about 400,000 km away from you).

<comment><USER15> Visiting the bottom of the Mariana Tench might be feasible for some people here.

Apparently there are three slots available on a first-come-first-serve basis, for $750,000.

[https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/marianas-trench- challenge...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/marianas-trench-challenger- deep-dive/index.html)

Climbing Everest used to be a bucket list item for me, but not anymore after I hear how bad it's gotten over the years.

Going into space seems more feasible for me than the trench, only $250,000.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, Mt Everest... nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded ;-)

I happened to be in Guam in 2012 and in some dodgy dive bar (...) ran into the crew that took James Cameron down to Challenger Deep, only the second manned descent ever. Didn't believe them a word until I saw my couch surfing host dancing with Cameron.

<comment><USER16> > Yeah, Mt Everest... nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded ;-)

Mt. Everest is the kind of place where that could be literally true (though I don't think it is, yet), if you count corpses as part the crowding...

<comment><USER17> While I do feel like it is still an appropriate joke to make in the sense that it sounds ridiculous to say you aren't interested in Mt Everest because its too crowded, sadly it seems we have already reached that point in time - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/05/24/mount- everes...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/05/24/mount-everest-has- gotten-so-crowded-that-climbers-are-perishing-traffic-jams/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I recall an X-Files episode where a woman was affected by the transmission of a ULF or ELF antenna and it was making her crazy. Was a fun episode

Here it is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(The_X- Files)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_\(The_X-Files\))

<comment><USER19> Ah yes: the other Vince Gilligan TV show starring Bryan Cranston.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >"While the high frequency (HF: 3 MHz to 30 MHz) and low frequency (LF: 30 kHz to 300 kHz) bands are perfectly capable of reaching across the globe thanks to ionospheric refraction, the high conductivity of seawater rapidly attenuates signals in these bands.

Dialing down the spectrum a bit, the very low frequency (VLF: 3 kHz to 30 kHz) band starts to exhibit decent penetration of seawater, down to a depth of perhaps 20 meters."

[...]

>"Going even further down the spectrum, signals in the extremely low frequency (ELF: 3 Hz to 30 Hz) band are capable of penetrating 120 meters of seawater"

Submarines aside, this is tremendously interesting how specific mediums (in this case, salt water) either act as transducers or attenuators for different radio frequencies.

Now, when a radio frequency is influenced by some form of matter (in this case, salt water, and at higher frequencies, attenuation), it might be because the matter and the radio frequency are somehow related.

In other words, perhaps future scientists will discover that the molecules of water are resonating at a frequency which is a much higher harmonic than the radio waves that they block. And/or perhaps their frequency is somehow related to the much lower frequency radio waves that they conduct.

See, it's sort of like any attenuator can act as a conductor (or vice versa), but the frequency or set of frequencies used makes the determination as to whether the medium in question is going to attenuate or conduct...

Compare this concept to resistors in electronics.

They resist standard DC... but what about AC at a certain frequency, or pulsed DC at a certain frequency?

The higher the frequency (to a certain point when space becomes conductive and thus dissipative with respect to the circuit), the more a resistor should become a conductor...

Also, observation: The reason why distance is lost (in seawater, but also other mediums) when higher frequencies are used, is typically because power is converted into frequency, which then, in the case of a standard radio wave, expands into space as a sphere, that is, it's a inverse-square-law power loss over space.

Compare radio waves to lasers; lasers do not lose power in accord with the inverse-square-law over space...

<comment><USER21> >They resist standard DC... but what about AC at a certain frequency, or pulsed DC at a certain frequency?

Um.. yes. This is actually exactly how you model coupling capacitors when analyzing circuits. You use them to connect two nodes. Apply DC and no current flows through once the capacitor is charged. Apply AC and the signal is transmitted to the other side. The strength of the transmitted signal is dependent on frequency and of course whatever else you have connected to the circuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I remember researching this in 2008 and I thought satellite based lasers were already in common usage (sending signal to specific known surface location and also receiving from that location using the surface of the ocean as the medium that the sub and satellite read.

This was a while ago so no links maybe I'm misremembering.

<comment><USER23> they do this with directional encrypted radio. what would be the advantage of doing it with a laser other than 'friggin' laser'?

<comment><USER22> What the other comment said. I guess it's also because of friggin lasers and I may even be misremembering that part. But a laser would have a smaller beam diameter and less likely of interception.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The USSR used buoys extensively during the cold war. Here's a former naval officer describing the sonar based system:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb6e_- HvBzw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb6e_-HvBzw)

<comment><USER25> I recently stumbled on this channel. It's amazing to watch him "twitch stream" analyzing an underwater recording to pull out all sorts of interesting insights while only using a consumer, general purpose audio software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just did a Ctrl-f on this comments page, and on the article for "iridium", and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the disposable/expendable iridium buoys yet.

They absolutely exist and come in several varieties. These are not as big a secret as they were 15 years ago. The USN was the first user of such things, but other NATO countries have also purchased and deployed them, or developed their own models.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love reading about stuff like this!

I had 2 questions perpetually on my mind:

1) The article doesn't go into physical sonic wave communication, like ultrasonic I suppose. Did that ever have applications for submarine comms?

2) I always wonder whether like in the movies, submarines actually have or ever use the audible ping. Of course, it gives away one's position instantly, but does such a ping capability even exist still, on modern submarines?

<comment><USER28> Re: #2, that is active sonar, which is for useful for locating objects that are silent, e.g., rocks.[1] It also is very loud and disruptive for whales and dolphins.[2]

[1] [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sonar.html](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sonar.html)

[2] [https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4236](https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4236)

<comment><USER27> Ah of course, the issue several years ago when the Navy's testing was causing whale / dolphin strandings...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > The 228,000 ocean-dwelling species that we know about represents about ten > percent of the estimated total aquatic species.

I don't buy it. The idea that the deep ocean is full of all this life we haven't plundered yet seems like a fantasy.

<comment><USER30> They usually make these types of estimates by looking at the rate of new species discovery, and assuming it will asymptotically approach zero.</comment></comment>


As of today, Facebook is one step away from trademarking FACE - <AUTHOR> http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78980756

<comment><USER2> "A trademark is a distinctive indicator used by a business organization to identify that the products with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish from those of other entities." [1]

As Facebook has become a nearly universal popular phenomenon, do you really have any expectation that another business using the word "face" for a product in the realm of online communication and social behavior should be allowed to conduct business? This isn't a patent on faces or anything crazy like that; there's nothing particularly evil going on here. Implications on your tech startup? Don't mooch brand equity from Facebook.

I mean, it would certainly be confusing to consumers to have, for example, some sort of video chat with a name like Face ... hrm... time. Oh...

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

<comment><USER3> The problem is that "face" is a quite common word by itself, they didn't make it up or pick it from some obscure source like "google" or "yahoo". It's outrageous to claim ownership of a word on the whole Web centuries after it entered the language, regardless of their popularity at this moment. What's next, YouTube trademarking the use of "you" ?

(On second thoughts that wouldn't be so bad; I'm sick of all the wannabe you*.com trying to piggyback on a silly name)

<comment><USER4> A lot of people here need to spend some serious time learning about trademarks, for instance: <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm>

Stop panicking. Trademark abuse is not unheard of, but if anything we technologists grossly overestimate how often it actually happens because we've seen domain names getting "stolen", for various values of stolen, by claiming trademark ownership over domain names. (And for that matter, much of the "trademark abuse" is _really_ ICANN abuse rather than trademark abuse, it's really ICANN's decision. If they take the domain name because of a bribe or even "just because", you still wouldn't be able to do much.) But it's actually an importan aspect of the law, and even if you're of a mind to throw out patents and copyright entirely, you really need to stop and think some more about throwing out trademarks. What a trademark boils down to is a mark that allows you to identify when you are dealing with an entity. Trademark violation is when you mark yourself in such a way as to cause people to confuse who you are. There's hardly a model of society I can think of from the rabid left to the rabid right and all the things that don't fit on that scale where it's actually _desirable_ to let entities falsely masquerade as other entities. Most of them are actually so deeply built on being able to identify the people you are dealing with that you can't hardly even see it any more, it's just part of the background fabric.

And yes, Lamebook and Facebook are very confusable. Don't ask your tech savvy friends, just take a picture of the two websites, go somewhere that isn't a tech hub, stop ten people on the street, and ask them if these sites look like they are from the same company. You'll get your answer pretty quickly, I think. Companies spin off subbrands all the time.

(And read the link carefully for _what it says_ , not what you think you can twist it into if you read certain words in certain ways. Remember, your arguments don't have to convince me, or convince some pathologically stupid AI, they have to convince a _human judge_ , who has spent the past twenty years listening to people trying to twist and bend the text of the law in their favor.)

<comment><USER5> > _Lamebook and Facebook are very confusable._

Oh come off it. Next you'll be saying that people think "Microsoft sucks" is an official Microsoft site, or that "Chimpy Bushitler" is the official name of the previous US president. It's called parody, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together gets it.

> _just take a picture of the two websites_

You don't even need that. Would any company call its own product "lame"?

<comment><USER6> _> It's called parody, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together gets it._

Or if you throw in a few more brain cells, it's called satire.

<comment><USER7> .. or chuck just a few more into the mix, and realise that parody is a satirical device :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting: The original application for "FACE" was filed in 2005, for a UK social network called FaceParty. Doc: [http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/PA_TOWUserInterface/OpenS...](http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/PA_TOWUserInterface/OpenServletWindow?serialNumber=78980756&scanDate=2008102939051&DocDesc=Application&docType=APP&currentPage=1&rowNum=29&rowCount=30&formattedDate=01-Dec-2005)

If you look at the documents, it seems as if Facebook scooped the mark up around 2008: [http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/portal/tow?SRCH=Y&isS...](http://tmportal.uspto.gov/external/portal/tow?SRCH=Y&isSubmitted=true&details=&SELECT=US+Serial+No&TEXT=78980756#)

Can anyone more versed in trademark law parse out what exactly happened?

<comment><USER9> Wow, you're exactly right. You gotta figure that once Facebook got some alert trademark lawyers, they noticed that they had a problem, and eventually worked out a deal to acquire ownership of the trademark.

Faceparty has a fairly interesting history as well: [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2008/06/24/faceparty-tells- critics-...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2008/06/24/faceparty-tells-critics-to-f- off-suspends-entire-site/) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faceparty>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They're applying for a trademark on FACE in the context of "Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars".

The two things that immediately jump out at me from that are:

1\. What about FaceTime? Seems like that would fall under the category they're applying for, unless Apple makes an argument that one-to-one video chat isn't a type of "online chat [room] and electronic bulletin [board]" - although it seems like that'd be splitting hairs and setting up for a whole bunch of suits.

2\. What's the deal with the motoring/cars exception - is there already an online chat forum about cars that's named Face-something?

</comment><comment><USER11> _Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars_

i'm guessing they met opposition from a "face" trademark holder in a field relating to motoring or cars.

<comment><USER9> According to the documents, the EU trademark (#3852779) amended its class after opposition based on likelihood of confusion from the Spanish version of the (American) Automobile Association, RACE:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RACE_%28automobile_association%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RACE_%28automobile_association%29)

They were then required to make the USA trademark have the same class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this going to be their stock ticker symbol in an IPO?

<comment><USER13> There's already a FACE on the NASDAQ, Physicians Formula Holdings.

How about FBOO? Like YHOO for Yahoo!.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They already have trademarks on poke and wall, I don't think they're trying to be malicious, they're just trying to protect their brand.

They won't be able to stop people using Face in unrelated contexts, nor will they be able to stop people who already use the word Face in their brand.

It will stop people creating product with names primarily being composed of the word "Face" in a competing space with Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER15> So why does Facebook want to trademark this word? And what would be the ramifications of this trademark? Would you have to pay a royalty every time you used the word?

<comment><USER16> _Would you have to pay a royalty every time you used the word?_

My last name is a trademark, and part of another trademark. I don't have any problems as long as I don't try using it to sell juice. Or medical equipment.

There was a kid a few years ago called "Mike Rowe", though, who got in trouble by putting up a web page and calling it "MikeRoweSoft".

<comment><USER17> Note that Mike Rowe did pretty well on that deal: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Feel bad for the guys the bought FaceMash.com

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel like getting a trademark for letter "F". Then sue Facebook.

Jokes apart, is there an ALICE bot making decisions at USPTO?

The funny part is, this still won't stop Lamebook. :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Is "book" next? It seems yes: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20023684-36.html>

</comment><comment><USER21> Today, I read Matt's little post about the devolution of HackerNews and wondered what he was going on about.

The ignorance in the comments on this story answered that question clear as crystal. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER22> To what end?</comment>