A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries - <AUTHOR> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5O9I4XJdSISNzJyaWIxaWpZWnM/view <comment><USER3> This story was flagged by users, no doubt because politics are mostly off- topic here and flamewars, which inflammatory topics predictably produce, are the worst.

However, more than one user emailed to plead the case for the article, arguing that it is substantive and pointing out that the discussion has so far mostly remained civil (a small miracle in relative terms), so we'll try turning the flags off on this one.

If the thread gets nasty we'll have to turn them back on, so if you add a comment here, please ensure that it is extra civil and substantive.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the most interesting (and perhaps hopeful) aspect here is that people now have an _expectation_ of fairness in the selection of party candidates. That's a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, I think people widely assumed that the party was biased towards individual candidates. Even now, that's clearly the case when the sitting President is a candidate. I personally think that expecting an unbiased party structure is unrealistic, given the very nature of the organization. The party doesn't have a product, other than its opinion. The idea that an organization of partisans only arrives at that collective opinion through primaries and caucuses seems quite naive to me.

<comment><USER5> To me there is an unquestioned premise to the article: why should the state [as in "government"] conduct elections on behalf of political parties. Enrolling voters as Democrat or Republican or whatever and then restricting the voter's access to ballot items based upon that enrollment [or non- enrollment] does not seem to be the business of the government.

A political party is free to change the rules for nominating candidates however and whenever it chooses. It is free to nullify the decision of those voting in a particular primary. A political party is free to nominate whomever it chooses [and almost certainly multiple candidates for the same office it wishes should it choose].

Ultimately the party, not a judge, chooses whose vote matters and whose doesn't. Placing the imprimatur of the state upon a political party's process doesn't change that or make the process of candidate nomination little 'd' democratic. The people within a political party charged with making the rules for candidate selection are not elected or selected little 'd' democratically. The process of nominating candidates is not little 'd' democratic in any meaningful sense.

<comment><USER6> _A political party is free to change the rules for nominating candidates however and whenever it chooses._

This is something we should take away from them. The outcomes of private party activities shouldn't have any impact on the names that appear on ballots. They can maybe mark the names they choose to endorse as an organization, but we should throw away the system where the parties are directly involved in putting names on the ballot (of course they'd be indirectly involved, as an organized group is, uh, organized and thus more ready to act together, so would have an easy time dealing with ballot petitions).

<comment> white-flame There are many barriers to entry to get a name on the ballot, and political parties will rally together to help jump through those hoops to get specific names on. If there were lower barriers to entry, the ballots would be flooded.

I think the barriers to entry should likely remain high, but we need an overhaul of the voting system itself to break the two-party system, which itself is just a side-effect of the mechanics of our voting process, not anything mandated.

If I remember correctly, early on in the country's history the founders noticed that the mechanics of voting were trending towards a limited two-party system, and that consternated them. Most every (if not actually every) democracy established after the USA has a voting style and representative bodies that allows more parties to coexist, or creative destruction within the set of active parties to thrive.

<comment><USER6> Why is having lots of names on the ballot a bad thing?

I'd rather have some system of arbitrarily limiting the number of names on the ballot than a system that privileges parties. For instance, for statewide elections you could choose the 5 (or 10!) names that had satisfied the ballot requirements in the most voting districts (so it doesn't matter that Uncle Larry likes to "run" for state senate in his home county, he doesn't kick someone with a better/actual shot at winning off).

<comment><USER7> There are 1,862 candidates for President right now [0]. The 5 or 10 candidates you will see on the ballot in your statewide election for President are those that have satisfied the ballot requirements in the state.

It turns out that satisfying the ballot requirements is already a challenge requiring organization, and that organization is called a political party.

[0] [http://www.fec.gov/data/CandidateSummary.do](http://www.fec.gov/data/CandidateSummary.do)

<comment><USER6> Yes, but in many jurisdictions the rules are simpler for the parties than for some rando. That's my objection. The rando shouldn't have a higher bar than the established organization, they should have the same bar. Partly for the reason you highlight, backing of a party already makes it significantly more likely that someone will succeed in getting on many ballots.

<comment><USER8> What problem is lowering the barrier to entry for the balloting process solving? If someone has broad and genuine support, they will be able to either apply their own resources or raise funds to completing the paperwork necessary to get on the ballot. Party-supported or not, registration is a relatively small investment of time, compared to what it will take to mount a successful campaign.

The public has a vested interest in having a ballot present only those candidates who can demonstrate a minimum-level of popular support. Otherwise why have a qualification process at all -- we can give voters phonebooks to take with them into the booth, and they can find the name of whichever citizen they feel should be elected.

<comment><USER9> Every carve-out or differential treatment for established political parties is a barrier to the establishment of new political parties.

So the political parties have become these weird, permanent, pseudo- governmental entities that no longer have consistent identities of their own, but are basically available for capture every 4 years.

That's how you get the "Republican Party platform" doing a full reversal on trade policy, international policy, health care, and a dozen other issues between 2012 and now.

The "Republican Party" today is just a shell--a collection of structural advantages that the Trump folks have won the the right to put on like a costume. Same with the Democratic party--Sanders just failed to win the costume.

What we need, is to regularly reset the requirements for political organizations, so that it's just as easy for new candidates to be supported by new organizations, as old parties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this story does not need to be flagged, but could benefit from a very constrained discussion ('self-censoring') to not let personal political opinions take over the discussion. I'll try.

Is this a direction more modern, western democracies seem to be heading? I feel a loss of democratic appeal and subsequent machinations of all kinds by apparatuses of state to keep in power. Democratic in name, but the number of options available to the public limited to what is in line with what public officials think of as good sense.

Examples:

-DNC machinating to get Clinton elected as candidate. The public needed Russia (!) for a fresh dosis of unpopular truths about those machinations. This documents more evidence on machinations.

-The unpopular and undemocratic European Union. Examples abound. The best being the EU-constitution: struck down in popular referendums, flown in as a treaty.

-In my country, the Netherlands, a referendum in which the public voted against an EU-agreement with Ukraine (wholy within law, with very obvious machinations by state and political parties), on which both the government and EU reneged

Counter example:

-Brexit

Disclaimers

-Please, don't hit on the 'red herrings' (if any), like 'undemocratic EU'. I see it as both a fact (imho, populus does not recognize European parliament) and an opinion (mostly in the more populist parties over Europe). Not center to my view of democracies limiting decision power of the populus. -The 'public officials' need not be those paid by the state. But more broadly: those aspiring to have their organisations have a say over public policy.

<comment><USER11> Since you are Dutch, here's a wonderful act of public service done by your countrymen, getting voting machines to play chess: [http://hackaday.com/2006/10/06/voting-machine- chess/](http://hackaday.com/2006/10/06/voting-machine-chess/)

My country, Ireland, briefly flirted with the idea of voting machines areound the same time, and decided to scrap them at enormous expense and go back to paper ballots: [http://www.irishtimes.com/news/opposition-condemns-e- voting-...](http://www.irishtimes.com/news/opposition-condemns-e-voting- shambles-1.839481)

> The public needed Russia (!) for a fresh dosis of unpopular truths about > those machinations. This documents more evidence on machinations.

I'm not convinced the "Russian hackers" angle is correct, it seems like a convenient cover story for the DNC, to draw a distinction between Hillary and Trump with regard to Putin. They know many older voters don't understand this stuff (no offense to older HN readers!) and will likely buy it. It's just like the North Korean hackers story for the Sony hack. It could just as easily have been disgruntled DNC insiders, and Wikileaks is happy to have the real source of the leak disguised.

<comment><USER12> Why assume 'disgruntled' insiders when the established forces are the ones profiting from the hack? Or are you saying that they did it because Sanders would never have gotten through national convention anyways, but they could hurt Hillary by blackening her?

<comment><USER11> I'm not assuming anything, I'm saying it's a possibility. The Russian hacker story just seems bizarre and made up, just like the Sony North Korea story.

Here's an interview with Julian Assange when asked about the source of the leaks, with direct quotes from Clinton's campaign manager, quoting unnamed experts: [https://youtu.be/axuJfX3cO9Q?t=12m50s](https://youtu.be/axuJfX3cO9Q?t=12m50s)

 _" On Sunday morning, the issue erupted, as Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, argued on ABC's "This Week" that the emails were leaked "by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump" citing "experts" but offering no other evidence."_

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald- trump-r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-russia- emails.html)

I mean anyone can quote anonymous "experts" to craft a narrative. Doesn't make it true.

<comment><USER12> My point is, at some point you have to assume that the easiest way of all this happening is that either DNC or Hillary's staff is rotten from the top. At this point it seems to be a pattern to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is there convincing evidence in this document that the amount of irregularities were actually sufficient to change the result?

I haven't read the entire document yet but have sampled a couple of parts. The exit polls section, by the way, is irresponsibly flawed.

It's _well-known_ that the primary purpose of exit polls in the US is not to audit elections. It's not even to project winners. It's to update demographic models. It's well-known that using the vote count to update an exit poll's model is normal and expected practice, and not evidence of conspiracy. Yes, there have been cases where exit poll divergence has been used as evidence to point out likely fraud. But that only happens when the divergence reaches a certain level, and - this is more key - this determination is made by the exit poll organizations themselves.

Here, in order to believe that exit polling shows evidence of fraud, you'd have to not only believe that the exit poll divergence does not have simpler, alternative explanations, and that the level of divergence goes beyond a reasonable range, but that our exit poll organization - a non-partisan coalition of several different independent news organizations - was aware of it and unanimously chose to suppress the information. This is tinfoil hat territory.

I call it irresponsible because the point of view advanced in this report is willfully ignorant of how exit polls even work.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/04/22/ho...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2016/04/22/how-exit-polls-work-explained/)

<comment><USER14> > Is there convincing evidence in this document that the amount of > irregularities were actually sufficient to change the result?

If an athlete is caught doping, do we question whether they would have won anyway?

<comment><USER15> In athletics, usually not. But perhaps surprisingly, in the American legal system, yes! The relevant question actually is whether "they would have won anyway".

The standard is that if the prosecution intentionally "cheats" and obtains a conviction through unconstitutional means, the conviction cannot be appealed unless it can be shown that there was a "reasonable probability" that the verdict would have been different without the violation of rights. Worse, in our adversarial system, prosecutors are essentially obligated to argue that any misconduct had no effect. One might even conclude that they are "obligated to cheat".

Ken White, a former prosecutor and legal blogger at Popehat has an excellent explanation of this in his recent piece "Confessions of an Ex-Prosecutor". I'm tempted to just quote entire sections from it, but perhaps better just to link to it. If pressed for time, start with the section "Prosecutors Are Duty-Bound to Argue That Rights Don't Matter": [http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an- ex-p...](http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex- prosecutor/print)

So, while your point is excellent, one might ask whether our voting system should be more like an athletic contest, or a legal proceeding? And if the answer is "like an athletic contest", what does that say about our legal system?

<comment><USER16> From a layman's perspective, it certainly sounds like the legal system needs to be changed, not replicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does any other country have a 'primary' system like the US? In Australia there is no pretending to elect candidates for each party. In our recent election we had two choices for PM from the major parties, chosen by the parties themselves.

In the US you spent a year choosing your candidates, but behind closed doors one of those parties spent all their time trying to push one candidate whilst the other party spent all their time trying to stop another.

The Australian system seems a little more honest, even though the roles of PM and President are quite different. We can elect a PM and the party can then choose to throw them out the week after. This happens frequently.

<comment><USER9> The U.S., as a system of government, does not actually have a primary system. See if you can find it in the U.S. Constitution--I'll wait while you look.

> In our recent election we had two choices for PM from the major parties, > chosen by the parties themselves.

This is what the U.S. has as well. The Democratic "primary" is a private process that is not required by the Constitution or federal law. It is set up and run by private citizens for the benefit of private citizens. It is how the Democratic party chooses its candidate, and it works however the Democratic party says it should work.

Participating in a primary is not like participating in a general election. There is no federal right to be considered for the Democratic candidate for president. There is no federal law that says the Democratic National Committee staff has to provide equitable treatment to any particular candidate or campaign. There is not even a federal requirement that a citizen be permitted to cast a vote at all in a primary.

I am hopeful that one of the results of all this hysteria and lawsuits right now is that the courts will help make that clear to people.

<comment><USER18> They don't have to participate in state-run primary elections, but if they choose to, they are not allowed to commit election fraud. Primary elections are still elections.

Of course, they don't have to provide equitable treatment to candidates in other ways.

<comment><USER9> How is a primary similar to a general election? No one is elected to anything in a primary. A primary results only in an advisory signal to a party nominating process, which is privately run. We just saw the Democratic one conclude tonight.

What is the state or federal government interest in how a private organization chooses to endorse a slate of candidates? Will we see lawsuits and government regulations over how the Sierra Club or NRA choose to endorse candidates? Will we see state officials stepping in to run or monitor caucuses or conventions if the state party decides to do that instead of a primary?

Just because a party primary has the same mechanics as a general election, that doesn't necessarily mean it has the same legal status--or that it should. In fact it's arguable that spending state resources to help a group of private citizens decide who to endorse is an example of straight-up corruption and waste of taxpayer money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this report is excellent. Even for those who don't believe the statistical evidence it provides is conclusive in this case, I think no reasonable person could disagree with the improvements it suggests:

Quoting from page 8:

1) Exclusive use of hand-counted paper ballots in all future US elections.

2) Automatic voter registration with same-day party affiliation switching as a mandatory condition for all elections that are publicly funded.

3) Restoration of voting rights legislation which would ensure adequate access to polling sites.

<comment><USER20> Reasonable people can oppose same day automatic voter registration if it comes without proper fraud prevention.

Everyone should support adequate access to polling sites, but also understand that there is a level of free access that has in the past allowed and encouraged fraud. I think no reasonable person could disagree that showing an ID is a reasonable requirement for voting.

<comment><USER21> > I think no reasonable person could disagree that showing an ID is a > reasonable requirement for voting.

Ok here is some reasonable disagreement

Voter impersonation is a very rare type of fraud [0] and ID laws tend to make it hard for some but not all voters to vote [1] meaning they don't prevent fraud, they just prevent democrat votes.

0\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-com...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive- investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one- billion-ballots-cast/) 1\. [http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measurin...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measuring- the-effects-of-voter-identification-laws/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Damning. Another report from April, 2016 about fraud in the Democratic primaries favoring Hillary Clinton.

[https://medium.com/@spencergundert/hillary-clinton-and- elect...](https://medium.com/@spencergundert/hillary-clinton-and-electoral- fraud-992ad9e080f6#.51i8q11bq)

</comment><comment><USER23> The only question we should be asking is this. Why do some votes count more than others? The fact that there are delegates, let alone super delegates, is damning. You should always question someone claiming they will "represent" you.

Democracy at its best does not need any systems or hierarchies or even parties. It needs people, all equal, to all vote, and to all be counted. That's it.

I for one am all for mandatory voting, and a mandatory voting national holiday. Those who don't want to vote can vote "null" in protest. And they will feel their voice was heard because it will be. That would be a true democracy and a holiday America would be proud of.

<comment><USER8> Your claim that direct, popular democracy is the most desirable form is not obvious, and needs to be substantiated.

<comment><USER23> If democracy is about every American having an equal say, and if our vote is that voice, then there should be nothing standing between an individual and their vote.

There is nothing that can be placed in between you and your voice that will add to what you will say. No system, no bureaucracy, no process, no delegate, nothing. This is a fundamental virtue of communication. Imagine if anything stood between you and the submit button you used to respond? Even if you had to tell someone first who then had to tell me, the message could be tainted. A man-in-the-middle is inherently insecure, whether it's actually a man or anything else. Just my keyboard will give me typos.

<comment><USER8> I think you are reiterating your claims without demonstrating why these things are true. There are a wide number of issue which require a deep level of research and experience to consider.

It's unfeasible to educate all 150M+ voters to the level where we can be confident their opinion on the question is informed. Absent that, their votes will only measure how the question feels with respect to gut-instinct and common "wisdom". Moreover, it would be a waste of time to have 300M (we need to teach the children too) people all be educated on the minutiae of every public policy. The field of public policy is an actual discipline precisely because it is something that people need to specialize in.

Given questions like,

\- what range of broadcasting frequencies should be set aside for public use?

\- what should the maximum allowable individual gross income be before one should be required to pay AMT if it exceeds AGI; what about jointly-filing couples?

\- what should the agricultural subsidy be for soy and grain farmers?

how do you think the average person is supposed to decide these things?

<comment><USER23> > how do you think the average person

You're saying not all votes are equal, and that idiots shouldn't get to vote. This violates a basic tenet of democracy. The next step would be to not allow them to speak, because they will contaminate the minds of our good voters. Or better yet, kill them. That's censorship, and genocide, and precisely how they occur even today.

The moment we decide we need to determine who is good enough, we start comparing people. This opens the floodgates of racism, sexism, ageism, elitism, and every -ism under the stars. Democrats will discriminate republicans, and Bloods will discriminate Crips. You of course are free to argue you are none of these things, but now you're saying you're above these people, and so you've just joined the discrimination.

Who is to judge anyone but ourselves?

If democracy is about equal voice, then all these comparisons between people become moot. This is how democracy transcends what any of us think of each other, and that's the beauty of it. And that's why it's better than anything else we've come up with so far.

Granted all of our votes are equal, you are free to attempt to educate the 150M+ voter pool if you so desire. This is what you are free to do, and encouraged to do. Go out and solve the problems you envision, so long as you don't alter our democracy as part of your solution.

That is why the only issue in implementing a true democracy is with the logistics of accounting for our voices. And anything that gets in the way, be it requiring IDs, or delegates, or electoral votes, or districts... all become hindrances to democracy. But the moment anyone tries to manipulate votes, these are the devices they have. This is how they get in between us and our vote. And that is why there is so much of it. It works! People, like you mind you, who have ideas about "how" votes should be counted decide to muck with democracy, and to their credit, they have been successful.

Setting all this aside, what you are advocating is to have a more educated voter pool, which doesn't seem like a bad idea. Backing votes with more brainpower clearly will dictate decisions to be smarter. You will be able to back this statement with evidence, because it is true.

The problem is not with the statement or the desire to design a better democracy. The problem is with everything else. And with all things considered, "equal voice + freedom of speech - violence" still seems like the best equation.

Speak not to change the system but to change people's minds. This already works in America. I can't even name where it works anywhere else. The system is still broken, but only because we don't need 99% of it (and by system I mean voting, not government).

<comment><USER24> > You're saying not all votes are equal, and that idiots shouldn't get to > vote.

How about if you respond to what the GP _actually_ said instead of making up things that they didn't say? It seems to me that what they actually said is that "representative democracy works better for the real people in the real world -- a large percentage of whose time, on average, is and, for maximum personal and social benefit must be, spent on non-public-policy pursuits -- than direct democracy in which every public policy question was directly submitted to the citizenry.

There may be good counterarguments against what was actually said, but the strawman you set up, and the arguments you deploy against that strawman, are not among them.

<comment><USER23> You're citing what (you think) he said about policy, which is what was off- topic. I was only talking about voting, so I only responded in terms of voting. Not sure why I'm the one being accused of swapping issues here or why you find it worth accusing anyone if you care to add to the discussion, feel free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hand counting of votes seems like a no-brainer, regardless of whether there was a conspiracy this election.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree, we have to make hand counting possible in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Election Justice USA reporting their site is under attack since reporting their findings. [0]

[0][https://twitter.com/Elect_Justice/status/758376021674561536](https://twitter.com/Elect_Justice/status/758376021674561536)

At this time, I'm still unable to reach their site.

</comment><comment><USER27> I found this election cycle interesting from the point of view of a true outsider versus the party ruling clique. It seemed to me the big difference in outcomes was the amount of work done at the grassroots level in previous elections. The party who has had their ruling clique challenged for multiple election cycles had an outsider nominated, as opposed to where the party leadership was much more able to deal with insurgents.

</comment><comment><USER28> So why didn't any of this conspiracy to rig Diebold machines get referenced in the 20,000 leaked emails?

<comment><USER29> The last guy that talked about rigged Diebold machines died in a plane crash before testifying. That one should have been investigated just as vigorously as this time.

[http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/republican_it_special...](http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/22/republican_it_specialist_dies_in_plane)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig Makes 15-Minute Case That U.S. Is Nowhere Near A True Democracy.

[https://collegetimes.co/larry-lessig-american- democracy/](https://collegetimes.co/larry-lessig-american-democracy/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Since I haven't written it elsewhere, I'll write up my recent voting experience here. I'm registered as a "No Party Preference" (NPP) vote-by-mail voter living in Contra Costa County, California. As an non-partisan ballot, (logically) that ballot did not include the ability to vote in any presidential primary. But the rules of some parties in California (Democratic, Green, and Libertarian) allow you to vote in their primary as an NPP voter if you exchange your NPP ballot for a "crossover" ballot.

Shortly before the primary election, the California Secretary of State issued a clarifying statement about how the process worked for NPP voters. It included these options for NPP voters who wanted to vote in a primary:

      Contact your county elections office no later than May 31
      to request a [party specific] vote-by-mail ballot... OR

      Bring your vote-by-mail ballot to an early voting location
      or the polls on Election Day and exchange it for a ballot
      with presidential candidates

      NOTE: If you have lost your original vote-by-mail ballot,
      you will have to vote a provisional ballot at the polls—your
      vote will still be counted.

[http://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and- advis...](http://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and- advisories/2016-news-releases-and-advisories/tips-no-party-preference- voters1/)

Since I was planning to vote in person anyway, and since I wanted to vote in the Democratic primary, I decided to bring my valid vote-by-mail ballot with me to exchange for a standard non-provisional Democratic party ballot at my assigned polling place.

When I got there (the lobby of the local Catholic church), I waited (briefly) in line, presented my mail-in ballot, and was told that exchanges for Democratic ballots were not being allowed. I mentioned the Secretary of States memo, and was (politely) told by the volunteer at the desk that they they knew nothing of this, and had been instructed that only provisional ballots were to be given.

Not wanting to hold other people up, and not wanting to accept a provisional ballot that would not show up in the end-of-day count, I left my place in line, went outside, and researched my options on my cell phone.

I discovered that indeed, Contra Costa County historically has had a policy of not exchanging mail in NPP ballots for "real" partisan ballots, that the Secretary of State's memo was part of the attempt to make clear that this was against state law, and that the day before the election the County had begrudgingly agreed to temporarily change its policy:

      After hearing reports of Contra Costa County's practice,
      the Secretary of State's Office contacted local elections
      officials. On Monday, they announced they would change
      their practice and offer these voters replacement ballots.

[http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/06/07/contra-costa-county- at-o...](http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/06/07/contra-costa-county-at-odds-with- state-over-mail-in-ballot-exchange/)

But apparently no one had told the volunteers working at the polls!

So seeing no way to solve this on my own, I went though the line again, and accepted a Democratic "provisional" ballot. I was told that I needed to take the "provisional voting class", and directed to a table with 4 or 5 confused people already seated at it. A few minutes later, another volunteer (elderly, bewildered, apparently having a very hard day) tried unsuccessfully to give us instructions on how to fill out the form on which we were to affirm our identity, electoral status, and reason for requesting a provisional ballot.

Then the volunteer left, and we filled out the forms as best we could. The process was sufficiently confusing that one of the voters gave up and left. After 5 minutes, the volunteer returned, and then mentioned that I wasn't supposed to have filled out the line that said "Reason for requesting provisional ballot", crossed out my complicated answer.

He then went to fetch the actual ballots for us. Most of us filled them out at the table, although I think one person went to a voting booth to do so. A second person gave up at this time. Or maybe they hadn't understood that they were supposed to sign and seal the envelope and drop it in the box on the way out? Or maybe they had to go to the bathroom and planned to return.

Eventually, the volunteer returned and I was told I was told to tear off the "receipt" from the provisional ballot and drop the ballot itself in an official looking bag next to the exit. The instructions on the receipt said that after 30 days, I could check online or by phone to see whether my ballot was accepted.

I came home, and immediately filled out and faxed a Voter Complaint form, which I hoped the State would be sympathetic too as the County was directly disobeying their directives and failing to uphold their agreement: [http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/additional-elections- informa...](http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/additional-elections- information/voter-complaint/)

I never heard back any followup from the complaint. I've checked online several times, but 45 days later it still shows up as "No ballot found". That's right, so far as I can tell my vote was neither counted nor rejected, just lost. I might try phoning or going in person to see if I can learn more, but at this point I feel it's a lost cause.

Edit: I should point out that I don't blame the volunteers --- they were poorly trained, and doing as they are told. But why are we relying on poorly trained volunteers for our elections? I do blame the County, since they failed to follow through on their pledge to the State and the press, but assume this is mostly poor communication rather than any specific ill-intent.

<comment><USER31> > I'm registered as a "No Party Preference" (NPP) vote-by-mail

Could you explain this to a Brit? I'm interpreting your statement as when you register to vote that you have to indicate which party you prefer - is this really true?

If so, are you allowed to vote for the other party?

<comment><AUTHOR> American voters have the possibility to register as Democrat, Republican, Green, another party of their choice or none (NPP). Depending on the voter's State and which party he intends to support during the primary process, the voter may or may not be required to be registered under a specific party preference in order to vote during the primary.

For example, the Democratic New York primary is a closed primary which means only voters registered as Democrats have the right to vote. However, the Democratic Californian primary is an open primary which allows voters registered as Democrats or as NPP to vote.

Voters can change their party preference at any time but they may be required to be registered under a specific party for a certain period of time in order to be given the right to vote in some States. For instance, in order to vote in New York you needed to be a registered Democrat for the past 6 months prior to the election date. This is a disadvantage to candidates who are well supported by independent voters (NPP) as many of them did not change their registration on time. That said, these rules are those of the party and while they can be considered unfair, this doesn't qualify for election fraud.

An election fraud tactic the report mentions is "registration tampering" which consists in switching the registration of voters without their consent and knowledge in order to suppress their right to vote. There have been numerous reports of registration tampering across most States with voters being switched from Democrats to Republicans or from Democrats to NPP and so on. Registrations seem to have been switch electronically (change in the database) some even involving forged signatures.

<comment><USER32> Note that registering as a particular party depends on the state, and not all of them do it. Here in Virginia, for example, there isn't even an option to indicate party preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is unacceptable. How can you be proud of cheating to win?

<comment><USER34> My view of this is evolving, particularly in the context of a Presidential election.

There is zero fair play at that level of politics, and if you have been coddled on your path to that chair in any way, including expectations of the orderly and fair appraisal of the absolute merits of your platform, you are unprepared.

I'm saying that Clinton, with all her party machinations, is proving that she understands and has controls over real levers of power, which in turn, suggests she is capable of operating at the level required for that position.

Sanders came in expecting a fair fight, and that's completely unrealistic, naive, little league politics. If you can't survive your party's nominating process, whatever that is, you are a light snack for the players at that level.

<comment><USER24> > Sanders came in expecting a fair fight

There are two senses of "expect", one about _factual_ expectations (what you think will happen) and one about _moral_ expectations (what you think _should_ happen). There is plenty of efforts from Sanders efforts to impose accountability from very early on for variously ways the DNC seemed to be putting its finger on the scale that Sanders "expected" a fair fight in the second sense, and was prepared to fight to make the fight as fair as possible.

There's zero evidence I can see that Sanders "expected" a fair fight in the _first_ sense, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Perhaps the Russians were involved.LOL! [http://blogosqarteam.typepad.com/.a/6a0148c7b55aa3970c019b02...](http://blogosqarteam.typepad.com/.a/6a0148c7b55aa3970c019b028bfea0970d-pi)

</comment><comment><USER36> Not to sound like a conspiracy nut but this just reinforces the idea of a corrupt (if not idiotic) US voting/election system.

<comment><USER12> > Not to sound like a conspiracy nut

The fact that you have to state that after being given this whole bunch of good evidence is a big part of the problem.

<comment><USER36> Well the way the America is currently going, I am not sure any amount of good factual evidence will matter.

I think John Oliver described it best in his video a couple of days back. People seem to be motivated by feelings, not facts. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdkrtfZP8I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNdkrtfZP8I)

<comment><USER37> > motivated by feelings

While it was written for the creationism/evolution argument, this[1] article is one of the better descriptions of this mode of thought.

While the typical HN reader uses language to convey _ideas_ , to the creationist or the RNC attendees on John Oliver's show language instead is used first for phatic expression and social hierarchy. This is a language barrier; one side argues facts, while the other side defers to authority and feelings. Before any real communication can happen between the two sides, you first have to solve the language barrier.

[1] [http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just- resi...](http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resistance- of-s/)

<comment><USER38> Exactly. Another example of this was that debate a while ago between Ken Ham and Bill Nye the science guy, about evolution vs. creationism. No one actually "won" the debate; both sides claimed their guy won, because they were both speaking different languages. Nye spoke the language of science and everyone who has a scientific viewpoint of the world thought he won, whereas Ham spoke the language of fundamentalist religion and everyone who has that viewpoint thought he won.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How exactly does the flagging work?

<comment><USER3> I've detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173595) and marked it off-topic so as not to distract from the thread.

The way flagging works is that users click the 'flag' link that appears after the timestamp underneath a story title. A user needs a small amount of karma (31 or more) before such links appear. Flags have a number of effects, one of which is to downweight a story so that it is more likely to fall in rank. If there are enough flags on a story, the software will eventually kill it (close it to new comments and hide it from users except those with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile).

The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. But there's a new 'hide' link for people to click if they'd just like not to see a story.

Flagging of comments is important, too. If you see a comment that breaks the HN guidelines, such as by being uncivil, you should flag it. But there's one extra hoop to jump through in the comment case: you have to click on the comment's timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. That's a speed bump to dampen impulsive flagging.

<comment><USER39> Ok, that was creepy. I was wondering if I was crazy and if had just commented or not. Thanks for the insight. Is the HN team considering open sourcing more of HN given all the recent changes?

<comment><USER3> Sorry. Our experience is that off-topic meta discussions quickly get out of hand, most of all on divisive threads (which a partisan political thread certainly is). To stave that off I detached your comment right away, but it took time to give you a detailed reply.

<comment><USER40> this is not my thread, but I - and I think probably many other users - <USER2> appreciate the increased process transparency on HN, and the clarity and alacrity of decision explanations. Even if people should disagree with some decisions, at least they know what the official positions are. I look forward to more of this increased community information, responsivity and engagement as much as is feasible. Thank you.

<comment><USER3> You're welcome, and I hope everyone realizes that they can get answers by emailing email@example.com as well. Posting on the site is hit and miss, but we see all the emails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The link suddenly disappeared from the homepage while trending...

</comment><comment><USER41> It's a rigged system that's the way it's supposed to work.

Either you overcome the rigging, or you STFU and unify with the corruption. As Sarah Silverman would say, stop being ridiculous.

Besides, what are you going to do about it? Vote for Trump?

<comment><USER42> Never underestimate the power of "stick it to the man".

[http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/](http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/) he has some good points.

<comment><USER11> Scott Adams, the Dilbert guy, has some amazing analysis of why he thinks Trump will win: [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/136818042136/trump-and- climate-...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/136818042136/trump-and-climate- science-master-persuader)

<comment><USER43> Why is that amazing?

<comment><USER11> Ok that article is a bad example.

Here is a better example (ignore the cheesy setup, the actual analysis is very insightful into Trump's media manipulation tactics):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NxKENplG4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NxKENplG4)

If you look at his blog posts written during the primary, he was saying quite early that Trump would win also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Quite typical for the mods to delete this. After all, wouldn't want word to get out that YC's political friends are crooks.

<comment><USER3> The only thing moderators did to this post is turn off the flags on it so it would go back on the front page ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173595)). We did that in response to emails: polite emails, I might add, making the case for the article and the thread. Had you written a polite email instead of posting a drive-by (and completely bogus) attack, you could have contributed to that outcome yourself.

One good thing came of this. When I read your comment, it occurred to me to add "Presume good faith" to our provisional list of new HN guidelines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The irony of hosting this all on Clinton financing Google.

in for nearly $1m

[http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton- foundati...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation- donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228)</comment>


Five Things Old Programmers Should Remember - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@garywiz/five-things-old-programmers-need-to-remember-e78caf0b0973 <comment><USER2> "1: You knew what you signed up for."

I'm sorry ? I'm pretty sure the 'programming' I signed up for 25 years ago wasn't anything like the internet/device-driven world of today.

Whilst technological change is a given, the scope and pace is far beyond anything that was thought back then.

I'm not suggesting it shouldn't have changed, but to say we had much insight into the changes is disingenuous.</comment>


Microsoft's design video features a completely redesigned desktop and email app - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15625970/microsoft-fluent-design-desktop-email-app-ui <comment><USER2> Longhorn feelings here.

Will they be able to pull off a redesign like this?</comment>


Search laws/regulations from many countries at once; autotranslated when needed - <AUTHOR> http://global-regulation.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm one of the co-founders. Here's a write-up on my own blog about the service, including a bit of details on the tech stack (runs on a combination of cloud platforms, about 12gb of laws in RAM): [http://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/announcing-global- regulation...](http://www.cameronhuff.com/blog/announcing-global- regulation/index.html).</comment>


A retired pilot un-retires in Japan - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/business/japan-older-workers-retired-pilot.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness-economy&action=click&contentCollection=economy&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront <comment><USER2> It's all good as long as you don't have to work with 65...</comment>


More Young People Are Moving Away From Religion, But Why? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169342349/more-young-people-are-moving-away-from-religion-but-why <comment><USER2> Because most religious myths are pretty absurd and it's become less and less difficult to admit it without persecution.

One of Dawkins' theses is that many Christians just identify as such because "Christian" has historically meant "good" or "normal" in many communities. In these communities to introduce yourself as a Christian gets a slight nod and the conversation moves on but saying you are an atheist (or otherwise) makes it "a thing."

I remember growing up Catholic and hearing news that some friends admitted to being atheists. This had the same feel as hearing friends had admitted to being thieves, liars, or cheats. Lots of whispering, rumors, and altogether reprehensible behavior for such a stupid thing. It had less to do with disagreements about true, deep belief in an all powerful deity and more about saying "we are not part of the team" and being tarnished by admitting such.

<comment><USER3> "Love each other" is main rule of the Christianity and it's not a myth, definitely. Rites are absurd, love is not.

<comment><USER4> "Love each other" is almost certainly not the main idea of Christianity (rule? perhaps). The main idea of Christianity is that you are inherently in a state of sinning, and that Christ has sacrificed himself to atone for your sins: if you accept Him, you will be forgiven your sins and accepted into the Heavenly Kingdom. If you do not believe in (or know of) Him, you will burn for eternity in the pit of sulfur.

That's the main idea of Christianity.

<comment><USER5> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Start with Yusaf's story regarding Abraham - it would be difficult for an educated, critical-minded person to believe or respect the narrative when it doesn't even have a good moral to back it up. Many stories from the various holy books fail to show the actions of an all seeing, all knowing creator – by today's standards it would come across as a creepy psychopath with magical powers.

Combine education with technological advancement, better medicine, better understanding of the mind, and the simple notion that you don't require a supernatural sky-policeman to be a loving, caring, empathetic individual leaves religion looking a bit impractical.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm a bit sad that none of these quotes include, "Because there's no evidence." I wonder if this is because none of the people interviewed said it, or because it didn't make a good quote.

<comment><USER8> I suppose it's only natural. Us religious folk have had thousands of years of practice with people being religious for the wrong reasons. Now you atheists finally get a chance to experience people being atheists for the wrong reasons.

<comment><USER9> What? Everyone starts out an atheist. There can't be a wrong reason to be an atheist because its the default setting on the human.

<comment><USER7> Why does atheism being the default setting on a human mean there can't be a wrong reason to be an atheist? That doesn't follow at all.

<comment><USER8> I also doubt it's true. Most kids seem perfectly willing animists to me. Not ascribing supernatural causes to things is learned, not built in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Religion is a social phenomenon. It is the codified, formalised expression of a given group's customs and rules (which is why writing it down and letting people outside a narrow priesthood have access to it is generally a disaster - it makes it very hard for the religion to change as the culture does, because there's always someone ready to take the words seriously). Successful religions tend to be those with a significant social aspect. Even churches that are nominally the same religion often have deep divides across the social groups.

With the opportunities young people have now to explore beyond their immediate group, both physically and mentally, it's hardly surprising that religion won't take.

</comment><comment><USER11> It bothers me when people say that science conflicts with religion. It certainly conflicts with specific religious dogmas, such as young-earth creationism, but the frontiers of science fall well short of proving or disproving the existence of any possible deity.

If you go strictly by evidence, agnosticism is a tenable position, but both theism and atheism require leaps of faith beyond scientific fact. As such, atheists who claim science is on their side bother me almost as much as young- earth creationists.

<comment><USER12> Atheism requires no leap of faith. You can not believe in a god, and operate your life as such, while still acknowledging that you have no proof that there is not god. Nearly every single self described atheist has this position.

On the other than, people who claim to be somehow neither atheist nor theist are being intellectually dishonest to both themselves and everyone else. You operate your life under one of these assumptions.

edit: and for reference, you can either be an agnostic atheist, gnostic atheist, agnostic theist, or gnostic theist. These cover all possibilities as the concepts are defined.

<comment><USER13> > you can either be an agnostic atheist, gnostic atheist, agnostic theist, or > gnostic theist

I have a TV. I don't know how it works. Some people say it's because of electrical waves in the air (whatever that is), others say its because there are small people in the box acting things out for me.

I don't care, and have no opinion on the subject.

Being this form of agnostic (being intellectually honest with yourself to say you don't have an informed opinion either way) is valid.

<comment><USER14> It's pretty straightforward to check if there are people in your TV box or not. Doesn't sound like a reasonable (or valid) position.

What about Santa or the Spaghetti Monster? Do we have to be (or claim to be) agnostics about everything we can't prove it doesn't exist? There's no need to prove these things because there's no good reason to believe otherwise. And no, just feeling you're right and visions don't count.

TLDR: Burden of proof is on religious people, not on atheists. Thus, agnosticism seems like an unnecessary compromise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I watched a Jodi Beggs Ted Talk this morning "Context is King" she discussed how the human mind will attempt to alter its perception of its environment until things make sense. This altering is far less possible the more we make sense of the world and universe in which we live.

My guess is that now we've answered and explained scientifically much more of those questions which religion generally sought to explain, we're much less susceptible to fairy tales.

</comment><comment><USER16> Young people today have more access to information (via the internet) than ever before. Live in isolation you can be brainwashed to believe almost anything. Live in a connected world where you can inform yourself, you make up your own mind, typically (hopefully) based on reason and logic.

</comment><comment><USER17> Education.</comment>


Using sugar to create blood vessel networks in synthetic tissue - <AUTHOR> http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/penn-researchers-improve-living-tissues-3d-printed-vascular-networks-made-sugar

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a video showing the process (I found it hard to visualize what was going on without it.) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VHFlwJQIkE></comment>


The Navy's Second Stealth Zumwalt-Class Destroyer Is Almost Ready for Action - <AUTHOR> http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-navys-second-stealth-zumwalt-class-destroyer-almost-24383 <comment><USER2> It has a very striking design: [http://nationalinterest.org/files/styles/main_image_on_posts...](http://nationalinterest.org/files/styles/main_image_on_posts/public/main_images/zumwalttnibaby.jpg)

but:

> Given the sheer expense of the DDG-1000 class and its lack of certain > ballistic missile defense capabilities—not to mention a number of outmoded > technologies onboard—the Navy opted not to continue building the Zumwalt > class. The three-ship class _has cost the Navy $23 billion, with each ship > coming in at roughly $4.25 billion per vessel_ when research and development > is not factored in.

> In the medium term, the future of the Navy's surface fleet lies with the new > Flight III Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer—which BIW will start > building starting with DDG-126 and DDG-127.

Flight III Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke- class_destroyer#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke- class_destroyer#/media/File:130920-N-NX070-025_-_USS_Arleigh_Burke_\(DDG-51\).jpg)

Naval shipbuilding needs a SpaceX.

<comment><USER3> I wonder how all these super expensive and complex weapons systems will do if there ever is an all-out war against an enemy who has access to advanced technology. It seems you should be able to bring down a 4 billion ship with a swarm of thousand drones for maybe 1 million each for the total cost of 1 billion. Same for aircraft carriers.

From what I have read about the maintenance needs of systems like the F-22 and B-2 someone who has simpler, easier to maintain airplanes should also have an advantage once things get busy.

<comment><USER4> This is what's disturbing about the way we contract these projects: we're weaker because of cost-plus and an emphasis on expense over efficacy.

Compare the tanks of WWII. American Shermans (at first) were something of a death-trap in terms of armor and carried weaker armaments. But you could churn them out quickly and teach someone with a high school degree how to do maintenance. Germans went the opposite: high-tech behemoths that were fast, heavily armored, and big-gunned. They were hell to fight, but they also couldn't be produced or maintained at anything close to the speed of a Sherman. And as it turns out, modern war is not just about having the best toy but the one the market can produce and replace reliably.

It seems to me that our extreme willingness for expense and new tech fetishism is putting us in the position of the Germans of last century—we'll win all our short engagements but once we have to start replacing parts and vehicles, we'll be hamstrung.

EDIT: and so as not to seem like I'm repeating the myth, I'll link here to a little debunking—the Sherman wasn't a _bad_ tank, just not a particularly cutting-edge one:

[http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths- surrounding-m4-she...](http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths- surrounding-m4-sherman/)

<comment><USER5> There is a lot of vested interests in the Sherman Debate Should the USA have fitted the Hot 76.2 and more of the expensive ammo for D day

Or should have they have gone for the Brit conversion using the 17pounder - towards the end Brit doctrine was 50/50 firefly / stock Sherman.

Ok the 76.2 with the right ammo was good but they only had 2/3 rounds per tank of those as opposed to a British troop with 50% 17 pounders

There are rumours of Infantry generals delaying the introduction of the 76.2 as allegedly one had an interest in the factory that made 75's - There is also the NIH aspect in refusing the funnies in American Beaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Given the recent problems with collisions on Navy ships I might be a little nervous serving aboard one that is designed to defeat naval radar. It would be pretty embarrassing to sink the newest destroyer because some big cargo ship couldn't see it in the dark and ran over it.

<comment><USER7> That would be 100% the decision of the Captain who chose to sit in a busy shipping lane showing no lights. The civilians captains going about their legitimate business, in a shipping lane, showing running lights, and restricted in ability to manoeuvre, have been blameless in all collisions to date.

<comment><USER6> Which could definitely be an issue since the Zumwalts are tiny and low prestige so they might not get the top shelf Skippers.

<comment><USER8> At over $4 Billion each, I'd hope they still get top class skippers. Whatever the training, recruitment, retention etc. costs the Navy it would be worth it.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but it's a ship with a crew of 140 with no realistic path towards a combat deployment. It's the naval version of a dead end job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because of a recent "Software Engineering Daily" episode about modern warfare, I just finished reading "Ghost Fleet", a fictional book from a few years ago which features this Zumwalt-class destroyer in a war between the US and a joint China-Russia alliance. It was a fun read.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems that in a sense the Zumwalt is the first casualty of China's new anti- ship ballistic missile system.

<comment><USER11> No. That'd be like saying the US should stop making carriers because of the new India/Russia BrahMos cruise missile. Or the so called DF21 carrier killer from China.

These systems are primarily for fighting nations not named Russia and China. If China decides to sink a carrier or a Zumwalt, it's WW3, millions will die.

<comment><USER12> > These systems are primarily for fighting nations not named Russia and China.

But are those "nations not named Russia and China" realistically going to be able to do anything to a destroyer like this? Could they have realistically done anything to the previous generation of destroyers? It seems (to my uninformed eye) that these upgraded destroyers are almost comical in how far ahead of the technology that any adversary has (once again, those not named China and Russia).

<comment><USER13> Didn't the attack on the USS Cole (a dinghy loaded with explosives driven by suicidal fanatics) demonstrated that being "comically far ahead" in therms of technology sometimes amounts for precious little?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Whats the advantage to these over the Arleigh Burke III's other than that these look cooler? It seems like you could have 2 or 3 of the Burke class for every one of these.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's the stealth aspect, of course (which is a big difference from conventional ships like the _Arleigh Burke_ s all by itself), and beyond that the _Zumwalt_ class was supposed to incorporate a bunch of other next- generation features too: cutting-edge guns and missile-launch systems, an advanced permanent-magnet powerplant that could generate ten times the electrical power of conventional ones (which in turn would allow mounting things like beam weapons, when they became practical), new automated systems that allowed a crew half the size of a _Burke_ 's to operate the ship, and so forth. (See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt- class_destroyer#Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt- class_destroyer#Design) for a good overview.)

Trying to roll so many technical leaps forward into a single ship proved to be a big mistake, though, as many of those advances were never able to be practically realized and some of those that were ended up costing much more to develop than originally anticipated. So the _Zumwalt_ s have become kind of a white elephant; the cost overruns caused the Navy to eventually cut its order for the ships from 32 to just three, and those that will be delivered are unlikely to ever be as capable as they were originally planned to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder what would have happened if they took all that development money, didn't worry at all about stealth, and just tried to make it as unsinkable as possible.

</comment><comment><USER16> Did the Navy ever figure out what the solution to the 155-millimeter Advanced Gun Systems ammo problem?

<comment><USER17> Yeah. They're adapting the projectile developed by the railgun project to conventional powder guns. It'll end up being a much more affordable and practical approach.

As far as whether they'll end up on the Zumwalts? Who knows. The lack of a missile defense system on the Zumwalts has more or less made them pointless beyond research/development testbeds. We're just going to build more Burkes and upgrade existing ones instead, which is more cost effective on the whole.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing the whole "you can't get a radar lock on me to shoot in the first place" didn't work out for ballistic missile defense?

<comment><USER17> It's not a binary thing. But the main limit of the Zumwalts in missile defense is lacking the right radars and the combat management software. There's a kinda long history to all this, and it's a little muddled. My understanding of roughly what happened is originally a larger stealth cruiser design was going to handle missile defense, while the Zumwalts would handle strike. Then the cruiser project got canceled, so they started talking about adding the capabilities to the Zumwalts. That fell through when the development contract for the needed radar went to Raytheon (I don't fully understand why this killed it, seems to be something political?).

What no one in the navy wants to say clearly and openly is: the Zumwalts, as well as the 2 LCS designs, are pretty much useless as built. They won't be used for more than training, development testing, and perhaps mine sweeping duties.

Out of all 3 of those classes, the only fully capable ship anyone is talking about is a new, stretched version of the Freedom class LCS that tries to be a mini-frigate. And that's only getting talked about because foreign customers are interested.

It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.

<comment><USER18> > It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.

I wouldn't be so negative. The money coming in allowed newbie engineers to get into the field and existing ones to get smarter and increase their skills. Not having such a project would lead to a vacuum in the knowledge required to do those sorts of projects (I don't believe the US has any other project of this sort underway). I'm sure they'll be able to learn from what went wrong to make the next project turn out better.

<comment><USER19> come on. There's a silver lining, sure. But it's still a massive failure. It's not a comparison between no project and a disastrous project, it's one between disastrous and successful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Books I Love: Stephen Mitchell's "Tao Te Ching: A New English Version" - <AUTHOR> http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2016/08/books-love-stephen-mitchells-tao-te-ching-new-english-version/ <comment><USER2> Nice to see that someone else likes this translation. Mitchell's version was the first version I was exposed to and I prefer it to the others I have read (even though other versions may be more a more accurate translation).</comment>


Starbase comes with its own programming language - <AUTHOR> https://www.pcgamer.com/starbase-comes-with-its-own-programming-language/ <comment><USER2> It looks a bit like BASIC. Interesting choice to have goto statements.</comment>


Jupyter Notebooks Can't Fix the Scientific Paper - <AUTHOR> https://www.oliversherouse.com/2018/04/17/notebooks_arent_papers.html <comment><USER2> I tend to agree with the overall sentiment of the article. Jupyter is doing a tremendous job for reproducibility and easeof sharing.

It does not feel as good for writing though. I like the Rmarkdown [1] files (successor to latex and sweave) better from that standpoint.

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


Thrift vs. Protocol Buffers - <AUTHOR> http://floatingsun.net/articles/thrift-vs-protocol-buffers/ <comment><USER2> For me the most important point in this article is that Thrift includes an RPC implementation while Protocol Buffers does not.

This was very helpful while writing an iPhone application that records audio and sends it to a server for voice recognition processing. Thrift allowed me to setup the iPhone client and the Windows/C# server in only a few lines of code. Protocol Buffers required that I establish a socket connection, send the audio data across, and then reassemble the data on the server side. Not the worlds most difficult problem, but being new to Objective-C at the time it was a bit tricky. I wish I had known about Thrift when I was building my initial implementation based on Protocol Buffers.

<comment><USER3> I'm (honestly) curious why a custom serialization format and RPC was a better fit than HTTP for this problem.

What was the payload like that made this a better fit?

<comment><USER4> I don't think network overhead is the problem here, it is about ease of development. Thrift generates working server code and you just have to implement RPC functions. On PB, you need a stack to handle connections, parse messages, dispatch, etc.

<comment><USER5> Note that Thrift supports HTTP as a transport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I first read about protocol buffers, I was surprised at the similarity to ASN.1/BER: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Encoding_Rules>

Basically, they're both nested type/length/value data formats with primitives for numerics, strings, etc with an human readable description language and toolsets to auto-generate language types + (de)serialisers etc.

Given that the ASN.1 toolset exists (even if a little dusty, SNMP and X.509 keep it alive) I don't see why google bothered to re-implement.

The FAQ: <http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/docs/faq.html> mentions ASN.1 but it's main argument (being tied to a particular form of RPC) doesn't apply to ASN.1.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, it has all been done before with ASN.1. ASN.1 was invented for the exact same reason: data-efficient, fast communication. Currently it is mainly in use by telecom.

I've also wondered why so many re-inventions of the wheel what is basically ASN.1 and did some research:

The main reason which I found was that, according to developers, for reimplementation ASN.1 was too complex to get right (it has a big legacy) and that the current toolsets had or not the right license, not the right languages, etc.

Also, they didn't like the ASN description syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Although not mentioned in the article Go now has support for Protocol Buffers:

<http://code.google.com/p/goprotobuf/>

<comment><USER9> Go also has gobs which according to Rob Pike improve on protocol buffers in several ways: <http://blog.golang.org/2011/03/gobs-of-data.html>

And while gobs are (by design) Go-centric, there are already implementations in C for example: <http://code.google.com/p/libgob/>

And Go also has the rpc package, which uses gobs (but can also use json or other encodings): <http://golang.org/pkg/rpc/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The serialization/deserialization times are _dramatically_ different for Python. Thrift has an accelerated binary serializer written in C with Python bindings, while Protobuf's is pure Python. While there exist third party C++ wrappers for Protobuf in Python as well, they are buggy (segfaults).

<comment><USER11>
      export PROTOCOL_BUFFERS_PYTHON_IMPLEMENTATION=cpp
      python setup.py build_ext

It's "EXPERIMENTAL", but it seems to work well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I personally really like mspack and msgpack-rpc. There are a tone of well supported implementations for various languages and there are some speed and other advantages over thrift and Protocol Buffers. The core implementation is written in C++.

<http://msgpack.org>

<comment><USER10> The Python RPC libraries seem to rely on Twisted. Does it support generic code generation to fill in your own RPC implementation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am very cautious of Thrift's custom network stack.

We have a java backend service that gets thousands of requests per second per node and where latency is of upmost importance. We tested thrift for communication between the backend service and the front end web code, however we saw an increase in failed requests and latency compared to a server written using netty.

For us, using netty and Protocol Buffers works much better, but maybe we were using Thrift wrongly.

</comment><comment><USER14> Some of the protobuf implementations are a bit more official than others. We are using the Go protobuf plugin at Tinkercad and it's maintained by Google for internal use. Given the importance of protobufs in communicating across Google is pretty safe to assume that the implementation is solid (disclaimer: I used to work at Google and know the folks maintaining the Go plugin).

That said, we are starting to miss a Javascript protobuf implementation. There is a lot of binary data to serialize across the client/server boundary and not all of it requires a custom format. It would be nice to just drop in server side protobufs and have them work seamlessly on the client.

I do understand the criticism about the missing RPC library but I've always found that you need to write your own anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like how this thing looks <http://msgpack.org/> more than each of the aforementioned. Perhaps I'm missing something, but Thrift and protobufs both seem very lacking in comparison

</comment><comment><USER16> Protocol Buffers are versatile, allowing nesting and includes but performance we got on Java server and PHP/iOS client was pretty poor and PHP libraries do not support whole specification.

So we switched to Thrift and whole FB stack with HipHop and Scribe and we're thrilled. Documentation is a problem just at the beginning when setting up the stack. Everything else later is self explanatory.

</comment><comment><USER17> > But thrift and protobuf are by far the most popular

[citation needed] _(seriously, I'm interested)_

XML seems far more popular (in the sense of market-share/adoption, not in the sense of being liked).

<comment><USER10> That's a good point, but I think by "most popular" the author was referring to popularity in the hacker/startup community. One could make a similar argument about operating systems ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_sha...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg)) or web browsers (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers>), but I don't think anyone on hn would call Windows XP or Internet Explorer "popular"

<comment><USER17> That makes sense, since most startups are technology users, rather than technology seller. e.g. for a startup selling tools/middleware, technology market-share is customer market-share.

Thinking further, startups might be early-adopters of new technology, that will eventually become mainstream. But it doesn't seem to be a reliable predictor, since many (most) new technologies don't reach critical mass before being replaced by the next new thing. eg. ASN.1 binary serialization format. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Syntax_Notation_One></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm a PHP/Laravel developer, should I move to Node.js? - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone, I'm a PHP/Laravel developer, have been using PHP professionally for the last 6 years.<p>Is it time for me to switch to NodeJS or there's still hope in the PHP with Laravel? <comment><USER2> Do NOT switch from php/laravel, but if you really want to, at least switch to something a little more worthwhile like Golang.

</comment><comment><USER3> You have not list what is the problem with your current web framework.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think it's worth learning NodeJS if you're interested in it. I have heard of PHP backend and NodeJS (building react, redux etc) stacks. So I suggest do both.

</comment><comment><USER5> nodejs is a huge step from php. You literally have to implement the actual web server and whatever template paradigm you choose, where as in php everything is already set up. If you are thinking about switching from php to c++ and already know javascript, then nodejs is a good alternative. But if you just want a better web framework stick to php.</comment>


Damn It All: The Penguin Book of Hell - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/damn-it-all-book-of-hell/ <comment><USER2> _> "Demons - here called the "angels of Tartarus" - carry out special tortures designed for particular types of sinners."_

I thought the name Tartarus seemed familiar, so I looked up Wikipedia, and it describes Tartarus as "the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked".

Tartarus was also the name of the student email server at my university when I was studying computer science.

<comment><USER3> It's originally Greek, I believe. (My OED is being unhelpful.) A name for the underworld; no punishments, but an eternity of playing Yahtzee with your great aunt in the grey mist.

<comment><USER4> > A name for the underworld; no punishments, but an eternity of playing > Yahtzee with your great aunt in the grey mist.

I believe that's wrong. _Hades_ was the greek name for the underworld, _Tararus_ was the place within it for the punishment of the wicked, _Asphodel Meadows_ was the indifferent place for indifferent people, and _Elysium_ was the rewarding place for the especially glorious and distinguished.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_underworld#Geography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_underworld#Geography)

<comment><USER5> Tartarus was also the place where the Titans (The Elder Gods of Greek mythology) were cast when Zeus and his siblings ascended to Mount Olympus (Zeus's father Chronos(Saturn) included).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fascinating expose of a manifestation of humanity's desire for justice.

I'm reminded that I find it odd that Moloch is still referenced by the American elite in passing: U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2016-07895 Doc No. C06131616

<comment><USER7> Moloch is also the thematic devil in my favorite essay on Slate Star Codex, which is kind of a modern theodicy replacing the question of "Why does an omnipotent God allow bad things to happen?" with "Why do we, as thinking, feeling beings allow bad systems to persist?"

Joseph Vogl asked this same question about why "efficient" markets allow inefficient ouctomes in his book Oikodicy.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

[https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2015/08/the-end-of- an...](https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2015/08/the-end-of-an- illusion.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a SF take on hell, see "Surface Detail" by Ian M Banks. This takes place in his Culture [0] universe, and details how various societies maintain virtual hells, some specifically to punish (now dead) citizens who previously uploaded their personalities into their society's virtual spaces.

[spoiler]

One of the characters in the book is an alien female who has hacked into her society's hell to expose its horrors to doubters in 'the Real'. She becomes trapped and (long story short) becomes an angel of death whose special gift / eternal punishment is to be able to release from hell one trapped soul per day. Unfortunately, every time she does this, she takes some of their pain upon herself.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_(series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_\(series\))

<comment><USER9> Some similar is hinted at in Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_ , also the ending of _A Colder War_ by Charlie Stross.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God 's infinite love._

<comment><USER11> What choice does God have, He doesn't make the rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Voltaire: "My good friend, I no more believe in the eternity of hell than > yourself; but recollect that it may be no bad thing, perhaps, for your > servant, your tailor, and your lawyer to believe in it."

I'm not sure why humans have to dream up a Hell or Heaven after death. It appears to be obstinate refusal of observing what's right in front of them.. On what we call earth. You can either observe someone in Hell or Heaven and it's not like anyone has any real control over the matter. My whole life was pointed in one direction and there has never been any choice for me. /determinist

I think it's a bad thing to believe in afterlife and when what's in front of you is all that should be considered. Reason being, maybe it prolongs people having to be in Hell and not just Heaven.

<comment><USER13> >I'm not sure why humans have to dream up a Hell or Heaven after death.

Weird way to exclude yourself, but ok.

The article to me explained that the idea of heaven and hell is a manifestation of justice. That even if YOU can't do anything to them, bad people will eventually suffer and good people will eventually be rewarded. Nicer to believe than the alternative. Did you read the article?

<comment><USER14> Is it nicer than the alternative? Many people are perfectly ok with death being the end. Many people don't need some affirmation of themselves or others to believe in.

Also, wishing for the unending torture for someone who's slighted you is a very non-christian, non-most-religeons way of thinking.

<comment><USER13> >Also, wishing for the unending torture for someone who's slighted you is a very non-christian, non-most-religeons way of thinking.

You know it's pretty much a key tenant of Christianity to pray for the souls of those that have harmed you or others right?

<comment><USER14> My understanding is that that's only Catholics and, only for those in purgatory. However, it's never been clear to my why the petitions help the person.

<comment><USER15> > My understanding is that that's only Catholics

No, it mostly just some subset of Protestants that reject it (the practice is common, as well as in Roman Catholicism and some Protestant communities, in the Eastern and Oriental [despite etymological similarity, these are not synonyms] Orthodox Churches, and, apparently, the Assyrian Church of the East.)

> and, only for those in purgatory.

It's true that in the Catholic tradition, there is a special connection between prayers for the dead and purgatory (arguably, purgatory as a doctrine is a Catholic explanation for the ancient Christian practice of prayers for the dead.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's too bad that he didn't cover Hinduism.

</comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps tangential, but Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves Christain (the article refers to 'modern Christains' collectively as believing in hell, but I'm not sure that's actually accurate; perhaps they meant Catholics? Do born- again or LTS believe in hell?) but don't believe in hell because as the article also states, it isn't mentioned in either the Hebrew or Greek scriptures.

The origin of hell is probably pagan.

<comment><USER18> As a Christian, I accept that God is impossibly complex. The Bible uses a lot of memes that were well known at the time to describe God. We run into trouble when people start to look at those memes as if they were meant literally.

<comment><USER11> Why do you believe they weren't meant literally?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Next time I'm in a hotel, it will be tempting to replace that book in the bedside table by this one.</comment>


Steve Wozniak: The Future of AI Is 'Scary and Very Bad for People' - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/steve-wozniak-future-ai-scary-154700881.html <comment><USER2> What does it say about us as a species that our primary concern about a logical consciousness is that it's going to probably want to kill us?

</comment><comment><USER3> The robot revolution as term should be reserved for the moment we have to look twice to distinguish soft-bots and hard-bots.

<comment><USER4> What's the difference between soft-bots and hard-bots?</comment></comment>