Your body wasn't built to last: a lesson from human mortality rates - <AUTHOR> http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/ <comment><USER2> There is no reason that human beings cannot live forever. Gompertz Law is not a law of physics, but a law of observation similar to Moore's Law. Medical and safety technology are also advancing exponentially. Barring a catastrophe that blasts us back to the stone age, one growth curve will eventually overtake the other.

The article uses a cops and criminals analogy to explain how our bodies degrade over time. Technology can allow us to produce artificial cops and conditions that make things more difficult for the criminals. The Methusaleh Foundation [1] is working on pieces of this problem right now, with a cash prize. There are many other research institutions working on different aspects of immortality. Once medical nanomachines become a practical reality we might be able to turn the work of Gompertz on it's head within a generation.

Many people, myself included, find the idea of effective immortality to be disconcerting. But all of the arguments have been made and rebutted: Just because we can't imagine immortality doesn't mean that isn't a good thing, if we were born into a world without death we wouldn't give it up for any of the advantages of mortality, we would have more productive time to solve the problems of overpopulation, etc and so forth.

If our species is able to continue on its current path then death is going to, well, die. The tragedy is that none of us will live to see it. That doesn't mean that we can't consider the implications and start preparing an infinite future for our descendants.

[1] [http://www.mprize.org/](http://www.mprize.org/)

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, medical technology is not even remotely advancing exponentially. The rate of new drug approvals is decreasing (and costs are rising); we are appallingly bad at turning biochemical knowledge into medical technology.

Now, I know you weren't talking about drugs as such, but they are a reasonable proxy for our ability to understand a biological system and then intervene. And the state of the industries that try and do this, strongly suggests that we haven't got a clue.

Just to lay the pessimism on a little thicker, we may even be lucky to stay where we are, given the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Never mind immortality, I'd be happy to know that we still have working antibiotics when I roll up to hip replacement age!

edit: My grammer sucks.

<comment><USER4> > The rate of new drug approvals is decreasing (and costs are rising); we are > appallingly bad at turning biochemical knowledge into medical technology.

Why should we measure medical technology at the rate of new drugs developed? What about the speed of DNA sequencing advancing faster than Moore's law? What about Organovo's recent claims on 3D printing organs, with vascular system in place, by next year? What about advanced prothesis that can provide touch senses to the user? Or even visual or audio prothesis, made possible with advancements in brain-computer interfaces?

Your argument basically boils down to saying that the rate of CPU clock speeds developed in recent history is indicative of an overall slowdown in computer science. Clearly there are other paradigms that need to be explored before we can say that Moore's law is no longer relevant, let alone all of computing.

Yes, the average of all medical tech is going to always lag behind computing for ethical reasons. And that of course, there are ways we can improve medical testing using stem cell research. But to say that we're at risk of moving backwards because one or two particular areas are in serious need of optimization is a bit far-fetched.

<comment><USER3> > Why should we measure medical technology at the rate of new drugs developed?

Well, I'd stand behind the assertion that it is a reasonable approximation to our ability to understand and modify a biological system. But, I'll happily concede that this is not the only game in town. Your point about tissue engineering is well made, this is highly exciting and should provide some real benefits. But there is a awful lot of hard biology to master here; so while I really hope that we see some rapid initial progress, long term exponential growth here is going to be just as difficult as it is elsewhere in biology.

<comment><USER4> > But there is a awful lot of hard biology to master here

I honestly think most of it can be skipped. The age-old adgage that "a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is totally obsolete with respect to longevity science. Once you've gone past your DNA's "expiration date", it's easier to repair damage than prevent it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd hate to die, for so many different reasons. Why can't we all just keep on living? Any change of immortality in the coming 60-odd years? Or is that just not far enough into the future? Are we doomed to die?

<comment><USER6> The question really is: what aspect of you do you want to preserve? You will most certainly change over the years. _You now_ will be very different from _you in 100 years_. Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years?

The solution to immortality is to embrace the idea that you won't stay the same anyway and that instead of caring so much about your host body, it might be more efficient to preserve what you value in other forms: e.g. your genome and values in your children or your ideas in books. If you write down your thoughts into a book today, these thoughts are more likely to be preserved for 500 years than if you were immortal and relied on your memory.

<comment><USER7> > Your immortal you in 500 years might be as different from your current you > as your grandchildren. Do you really care more about your own existence in > 500 years than about the existence of your grandchildren in 100 years?

As somebody with no kids ... yes.

This is a strange argument since at no time between now and 500 years from now will there be a point where I want to grow old and die. So asking me if I care about 500 year old me is irrelevant, _I_ don't want to die.

<comment><USER8> Related, why should one care more about their own children/grandchildren/etc. than themselves? Perpetuation of the species? Why?

<comment><USER9> Love? I want to live too, very much so. If it came to risking my life to guarantee the safety of my son, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd give my life to save his if it came to it. I'd probably do the same for my Mom or Dad too so I don't see it as a "perpetuation of the species" thing at all.

<comment><USER8> Interesting.

It just all sounds so silly to me. I imagine everybody all sacrificing themselves for each other. Sounds pointless.

<comment><USER9> Well, to be honest, I'm not going to run around sacrificing myself for just anybody. And I'd definitely not just going to jump into such a thing without thinking there aren't any other options. And it'd only be a close loved one. A distant friend would be a tough call. A stranger? Probably not.

It seems almost borderline Sociopath to not love at least somebody that you'd be even willing to consider sacrificing yourself for. Have you ever been tested? (not trying to be insulting, genuinely curious)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I didn't really mean willy-nilly sacrifice on-a-dime.

No, I've never been tested for "sociopathy" (I cannot imagine that this is something that a lot of people do), and I'm not sure that I wouldn't sacrifice myself for somebody else, but regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, regardless of whether or not it is sociopathic, isn't it still a little silly?

<comment><USER9> No, not really. If a car is barreling toward my son, and I can only push him out of the way by jumping in front of the car and getting hit myself (but pushing him free of it), I'd do it, and wouldn't consider such a sacrifice silly at all if I witnessed another doing it.

Now think about the reverse: Several people see you watch somebody you know and personally love get hit by a car, and notice you could have saved them and one of them asks you about it. Would you feel bad at all saying "Yeah, I could have jumped out and saved him, but I would have died and that would be silly?"

<comment><USER8> I could see myself being _pressured_ into feeling bad about not sacrificing myself (societal pressures/norms and all of that), but it really doesn't make sense to me to feel bad, and I sort of hope that I wouldn't. After all, why should I effectively doom myself to save them? Why should I feel bad? Why should I trade my life for theirs?

The answer to these questions seems obvious to many people, but I don't get it. Why is this virtuous? Why is this sensible? Why is this rational?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Biological immortality does not mean immunity from accidents or homicide. Hugh Hixon, at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, calculated the half-life of a biologically immortal population at 1 654 years [1].

If we lowered fatality odds to 1 in 100 000 per year (no accidents, Sweden's homicide rate) this figure inflates to 69 315. It's an interesting illustration of how the effects of randomness will not be muted, just shifted.

[1] [http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/MisadventureAsACauseOfDeat...](http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/MisadventureAsACauseOfDeath.html)

<comment><USER11> But the key question is how long do we have to live before we're going to bed at night and backing up all our memories for the day to the cloud. So if we get hit by a bus we just wake up in a few weeks in a rapidly grown body?

I know people will say it won't happen, but are you going to let a 650 year old mind die with its cumulative knowledge and wisdom? Nope, you'd get them a new goddamn body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a cancer biologist, I can tell you that at least some of these assumptions don't hold true. Acute Myeloid Leukemia is driven entirely by "accumulated lightning bolts". Every time your blood stem cells divide, a small number of replication errors occur randomly in the DNA. If one of these cells accumulate two to three of these mutations in the wrong genes, you will develop AML. The longer you live, the more likely it is that this will occur. Bottom line, everyone who lives long enough will eventually get cancer.

While I agree that these plots are interesting, it's dangerous to read too much into these without thinking more deeply about the vast number of ways that there are to die, many of which will have strikingly different age distributions.

(see [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867412...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867412007775))

<comment><USER13> Kinda late, but I thought that there are typically corrective measures that try to prevent oncogenes from kicking off. The key difference between "accumulated lightning bolts" and the final model chosen is that "accumulated lightning bolts" assumes a more or less fixed rates of lightning bolts, while the final model essentially that the rate of lightning bolts will increase over time, which corresponds well to an interpretation of long-term decay of corrective measures - such as replication error detection systems.

I think the key point is that systems for retaining homeostasis (so second order systems I guess) are themselves subject to degradation.

<comment><USER12> There are some cancers driven by things like mismatch-repair defects, so that the amount of DNA damage grows very quickly over time, but these don't cause the majority of cancers. In liquid (blood) tumors, especially, these are very rare - The predominant mechanism is just the accumulation of random defects due to cellular division.

On the other end of the scale are things like automobile accidents, where incidence peaks in teenage years and decreases thereafter (with a possible second peak as vision and reflexes deteriorate in the elderly). My point is that neither of these fit the neat curve drawn by the author. When everything is lumped together, the curve fits, but trying to draw broad conclusions about mechanisms from that kind of aggregate data is foolish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 4.5 year old blog post that I didn't find any interesting information on. For example:

 _Exponential decay is sharp, but an exponential within an exponential is so sharp that I can say with 99.999999% certainty that no human will ever live to the age of 130. (Ignoring, of course, the upward shift in the lifetime distribution that will result from future medical advances)_

The author makes a hugely controversial statements saying that no human will ever live past 130 and then says, "of course, ignoring the most important variable".

Anyone interested in this topic might want to check out:

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

</comment><comment><USER15> "... millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." \- Susan Ertz

<comment><USER5> So if we can also control the weather, would that be Utopia?

<comment><USER16> You still have to then solve the problem of Sundays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Having taken care of some elderly, and watched others pass, my impression that living forever appeals more to the young than the old. Some of it may be their bodies breaking down, some of it may be losing old friends and loves, but most of the folks 75+ seem to be ready when the time comes. Certainly more ready than their kids.

But still... To quote the Rolling Stones, "What a drag it is getting old."

<comment><USER9> However, if they have the body and mental acuity of a 25 year old at 75+ and so do their friends, they might not be as ready for it. And not need people to take care of them.

All of your argument is null and void if you take out the "dying" part.

It's like saying "Nobody goes 100 miles in a day because they can't walk that far, so nobody is going to want to ever have a car/bike/airplane" also walking that far tears up your feet so a car is silly."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A reliability engineer might say that as a first approximation, the time-till- failure of the human animal (really just an electro-mechanical-chemical machine) has a governing equation which is a linear combination of many Weibull equations [0] and Arrhenius equations [1]. Mechanical failure is known to be governed by Weibull, and chemically-driven devices fail according to Arrhenius.

From this claim it isn't hard to cook up superexponential-ish results over certain timescales by tuning the fitting parameters and combination coefficients. But that doesn't mean the underlying failure physics here are truly superexponential.

But as a better approximation, human death may be governed by a system of differential equations with primarily stochastic coefficients and plenty of strongly nonlinear operators. So after our biomedical engineers remove the first few bottlenecks at ~105 years old, these curve shapes might change dramatically to reflect the true complexity of the underlying physics.

[0] [http://reliabilityanalyticstoolkit.appspot.com/mechanical_re...](http://reliabilityanalyticstoolkit.appspot.com/mechanical_reliability_data) [1] [http://reliawiki.com/index.php/Arrhenius_Relationship](http://reliawiki.com/index.php/Arrhenius_Relationship)

</comment><comment><USER19> In response to the the morbid web calculator at the bottom of the article, I made this a few years ago: [http://javasaur.com/deathCalculator.html](http://javasaur.com/deathCalculator.html) that provides similar information, but takes into account current age and gender. It uses US actuarial tables (so this assumes that you're living every year as if it were 2007 or whatever year it was I used...)

</comment><comment><USER20> Great article. For me personally, the issue is not so much dying but aging. Seeing your hair thin, your eyesight deteriorate, your memory weaken and your energy decrease with time must be a profoundly depressing experience -- one of the major reasons why the old in general are more solemn than the young, I think.

These changes are still in the future for me (thankfully), but I imagine they will happen some day if I live long enough.

I think a world in which people would keep remain mentally and physically fit, but simply die (maybe from a lightning bolt type event) at some point, would be much better than one in which your body and mind slowly fade with time.

I'd be happy with medical advances that let you keep the mind and body of a 25 year old till you're 80 and then simply die one day. Unfortunately, some period of old age and infirmity seems to be present no matter how much lifespan extends.

</comment><comment><USER21> One consideration, is that prolonging human life into 100s of years would be very useful for colonisation of space.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't really want to die, but if there was no end, I would keep wasting my time and life forever. Now I feel a sense of urgency to do something - and a short life with purpose feels better then eternity of boredom and procrastination - that's just my personality though.

</comment><comment><USER23> For anyone here who has not yet read Eliezer Yudkowsky's "You Only Live Twice", please do so:

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/wq/you_only_live_twice/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/wq/you_only_live_twice/)

Pertains to Cryonics, which is our best bet for immortality until we solve the aging issue (i.e., we hopefully stay cryopreserved until immortality is achieved.) At least with SENS/The Methuselah Foundation/Calico now getting attention and a bit of funding, there's hope here. One day, perhaps governments will consider aging "force" or "harm" and do the number one job government should do: protecting people from it (by funding research to prevent it.)

<comment><USER24> That one's a bit... silly. It's a surprisingly _religious_ sentiment for Mr. LessWrong.

Yes, I have heard the shpiel. However, from the shpiel I've heard, cryonics is currently a faith-based ticket to God Only Knows Where. Very few people actually believe whole human beings can be resurrected from cryopreservation, and it's certainly never been _actually done_ even in animal experiments, so why should anyone sign up?

Well then, the cryonicists say, let me tell you about _neuro_ -cryo, which is cheaper. We can totally plausibly claim the information content of your brain is preserved in cryopreservation, or possibly brain plastination says gwern. Anyway, point being, you sign up, and it will result in a future friendly superintelligence reading your brain out into a computer to resurrect you someday...

To which I say, _hold the fuck on you just skipped a whole lot of freaking steps there!_

<comment><USER23> Hanson and Yudkowsky make the point that it's the best we've got (in one article, they put the chance of success at 5%), and that the alternative right now is _nothing_. Considering the relatively low cost, it's a gamble worth taking.

For the record, I've been signed up for a long time.

Edit: as for the tone, Yudkowsky has had the inspirational, secular techno- futurist new-age-ish sounding hope thing going for ages, as you probably know. It doesn't surprise me (and probably doesn't surprise him) that very reasonable people sometimes mistake it for the anti-skeptic / superstitious / actual new-age nuttery / cult types. I think part of the problem here is a kind of Poe's Law effect: if a rational, informed, intelligent person talks seriously about the likelihood of FAI, superintelligences, cryo, etc. in a positive, hopeful way, they're instantly mistaken for a nutcake.

<comment><USER24> >Hanson and Yudkowsky make the point that it's the best we've got (in one article, they put the chance of success at 5%), and that the alternative right now is nothing. Considering the relatively low cost, it's a gamble worth taking.

No, I would say that leaving money or life-insurance to my family when I die is worth more.

Besides, if someone developed a _better_ , more _evidenced_ "immortality treatment", I would want to have the money for _that_. Pascal's Wager is simply not acceptable for real life just because you wave your arms and go "Futuristic super-science!" instead of "Magic!"

>Yudkowsky has had the inspirational, secular techno-futurist new-age-ish sounding hope thing going for ages, as you probably know.

People would mistake it far less for cultishness if he didn't follow the optimistic futurist tone with prophecies of doom and requests for money in order to supposedly fund saving people from previously mentioned prophecized doom.

Which is a fucking pity, because there's so much there worth liking, but they kinda ruin it with the cult behaviors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Your body is a cannon, meant to shoot DNA into the future. Once it has fulfilled that purpose, and possibly done a bit to nurture the next generation(s) of your / your tribe's DNA (or harm the DNA of others), your body serves no more purpose.

<comment><USER26> "possibly done a bit to nurture"

There doesn't seem to be any obvious upper bound on this behavior.

I have a Harvard professor two centuries ago around 1800 in my ancestry. His DNA would still be serving a useful purpose to his descendants if he was teaching/advising my kids today in 2013, or if he was teaching/advising my descendents in early 2300 for that matter.

I would imagine being young in a post 500-year-lifespan society would be very suffocating if your first few decades had a student:teacher ratio flipped around from current numbers to 20 teachers per student rather than current 20 students per teacher.

<comment><USER25> The resources you consume, versus the reproductive edge your provide to your offspring. Specifically, if you're competing for resources they could have used in their own reproduction.

The most successful DNA will be when a group of people launch their descendants off into the galaxy to avoid the Red Giant death in our solar system. We're all rats on one slowly sinking ship, right now.

<comment><USER26> "if you're competing for resources"

A lot of techno-utopia assumptions come into play, such as a culture powerful enough to extend life to 500 years probably has no resources left to compete for other than the momentary attraction of a fertile member of the opposite sex, although even that could probably be worked around in a lab (cloning or something?). If we discover something tomorrow I'd have to eat my words but I'm assuming it would require "star trek era" tech to pull this off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Peter Thiel's version of this: [http://blakemasters.com/post/24253160557/peter-thiels- cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/24253160557/peter-thiels- cs183-startup-class-16-decoding)

</comment><comment><USER28> > I can say with 99.999999% certainty that no human will ever live to the age > of 130

That is unfortunate. I grew up in the 80s (the 8 bit µ processor era), always had a very positive outlook on life, and thought 127 was the perfect age for me to die.

</comment><comment><USER29> I often wonder if all our life's earnings will eventually be used in upgrading our bodies. Could future be like 'In Time' or something parallel to that?

<comment><USER30> That would either require that technology was only barely keeping most people alive or a vastly more restrictive legal regime (because as much horror as people express at patents, you are talking about 20 years not being such a long time anymore).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> We don't neccesarily need a body. I posted this link a while back but it went unnoticed:

[http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/virtual-afterlives- will-...](http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/virtual-afterlives-will- transform-humanity)

"The question is not whether we can upload our brains onto a computer, but what will become of us when we do"

<comment><USER24> Currently, "can we" is indeed a question. It is followed by the question, "Oh dear God in Heaven, why would you do that!?". I mean, seriously, there are large numbers of computer security breaches _each week_. Now what are you going to do if those computers are substrate for _people_? Hell, it's even worse if they're running people using cloud computing: one attack on a datacenter could let you obtain root access to dozens or hundreds of living human minds.

And then we have to decide on scheduling and resource-sharing algorithms. Oy gevalt.

Though actually, trying to devise a secure system architecture for running real people would be a hilariously evil joke-project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a very interesting approach to describe the mortality rate as a function of age. I wonder how this theory ties in with more established theories of aging, such as the Evolutionary Theories of Aging (ref. [http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full](http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full))

</comment><comment><USER33> We already know why cancer rates increase with age: cancer is a result of several _cumulative_ cellular mutations. Obviously, the chance of these mutations all occurring in any given cell increases with the number of cell divisions that occur, i.e. the length of time the person lives.

</comment><comment><USER34> If people lived to, say, 150 or 300 years, 500 years, I wonder how hard it would be to convince people to risk their lives in war? I wonder if people would be more careful with the environment if they knew they'd actually have to live with their treatment of the environment?

<comment><USER26> On the other hand, leadership positions strongly attract psychopaths and sociopaths, and at least some segment of the population will think, eh, I'm going to live for 500 years, I can afford to give President Palin a mere four year chance, and next thing you know we're launching missiles at who knows who for no particular reason, or they're launching missiles at us.

My point being a 500 year lifespan allows a "survival of the craziest" to likely result in truly awful people naturally ending up in positions of leadership. Every nutcase having his 4 years of fame instead of just some of them, or just 15 minutes of fame for some of them.

It could be really bad. And not just politically, imagine the typical CEO psychological profile under centuries of those selection pressures instead of mere decades.

"if they knew they'd actually have to live with their treatment of the environment"

Imagine a 500 year old hoarder.

This whole discussion is enjoyably ripe with possible sci-fi or fantasy novel plots, very interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It bothers me that 8 is the "magic number." Did Gompertz simply round? I find it hard to believe that the real number is not 7.7 or 8.3, and those would have vastly different effects. Why should evolution mark itself by whole rotations around the sun?

</comment><comment><USER36> Do you know any other scenario that results in distibution of this kind?

</comment><comment><USER37> Honestly, I don't want to live forever.

100 years I think is what would be ideal.</comment>


Statecharts: Some Critical Observations (2004) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://mbreen.com/breenStatecharts.pdf <comment><USER2> I agree with some of the criticisms even though I'm not 100% familiar with all variation of the statechart semantics. I use xstate and it works pretty well for all my use cases.

One important thing to note is that statecharts is just a specific runtime. So it compiles down to code - that code just runs the same way you'd expect any other code to run. Main differences is that it's mainly event-driven and that you execute functions only in response to the statecharts _changes_ \- but at the end of the day you're still just executing functions.

A very simple example is:

doorOpened -> ringBell()

ringBell() is only called when the door is opened.

What statecharts adds is simply an extra level of indirection where instead of being event -> action(), it's event -> state -> action(). Meaning that the state is always checked before executing a function:

doorOpened -> opened -> ringBell()

This is crucial because emitting doorOpened again may yield different results based on the state of the chart! Let's emit it again:

doorOpened -> closed -> keepDoorOpen()

This extra level of "check" before executing functions may seem trivial but opens the doors to designing quite complex event-driven reactive behavior using a drawing! Quite powerful stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> All kinds of logic is hierarchical. Some use cases are mutually exclusive, which translates to them being nested under different states.</comment>


Material design Linux desktop - <AUTHOR> http://quartz-os.github.io/

<comment><USER2> I know a lot of the HN community have a lot of bad things to say about flat design, but this desktop looks fun and bright.

There still seems to be some edges that needs to be re-thought about many of the current flat designs (a lot of them have problems distinguishing buttons and text in many real world cases) and hopefully such a large undertaking can be part of a public development of Material.

I wish the team good luck!</comment>


Things XSLT can't do - <AUTHOR> http://www.dpawson.co.uk/xsl/sect2/nono.html <comment><USER2> Is this article intended to be old? It refers to "XSLT as it is today (Sept 2000)"

I thought XSLT was an interesting technology back then when I was doing XML -> XML mappings. Is anyone using it today? What's the closest commonly used equivalent for JSON?

<comment><USER3> IBM datapower relies heavily on it. They are basically an API gayeway which can do soap to xml transformation for example.

As far as I know there is nothing similar for json. The closest thing to xpath for json is jsoniq.</comment></comment>


NES Creator Reveals Story Behind That Infamous Flap - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/02/nes_creator_reveals_the_shocking_story_behind_that_infamous_flap <comment><USER2> Leaving this earlier recording of a similar talk with Masayuki Uemura here: [https://youtu.be/A53gdHXwxHg?t=2686](https://youtu.be/A53gdHXwxHg?t=2686)</comment>


Pipl.com: people search so good it will scare your pants off - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/29/piplcom-people-search-engine-so-good-it-will-scare-your-pants-off/ <comment><USER2> I searched for a couple of old co-workers and got a torrent of garbage results. Also, slooooooow.

There is good, and then there is not good. This is not good.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worked for me, and really, the results are not that great. In fact, the only result that was somewhat interesting was what popped up in the peoplefinder.com sponsored link - the rest of the results were wildly inaccurate. And, seeing as they are just a Google custom search anyways, I would say that they are "no better than Google", despite what the TechCrunch article says.

</comment><comment><USER4> "What makes Pipl different?" leads me to: _Unlike a typical search-engine, Pipl is designed to retrieve information from the deep web, our robots are set to interact with searchable databases and extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources._

But much of the "deep web" isn't indexed because indexing either involves ignoring robots.txt or explicitly going against a site's Terms of Use. For example, take Amazon, which Pipl holds up as an example of a site that has "deep web" content. Amazon's Terms of Use, available here [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=5...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088) say: license does not include ... any use of data mining, robots, or similar data gathering and extraction tools.

How does Pipl index the deep web then? Have they gotten permission from all these companies? The TechCrunch article notes "[t]he folks at Pipl were hesitant to discuss their "secret sauce" with me" and only provides vague details, but even those details seem to point towards some sort of automated crawling of parts of sites that those sites' Terms of Use usually forbid automated crawling of.

</comment><comment><USER5> I tried it... I'm still wearing pants.

<comment><USER6> I took off my pants and then tried it, but I don't think that proves anything. About the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also so good that it's currently down due to high traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> still works for me, well everything except email and username parts

<comment><USER8> Down for me too."Sorry, we're very popular..."

<comment><USER9> Sounds like that line in Bridget Jones: "I'm very busy and important."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Found an old ICQ account I forgot I had with an embarassing nickname.

ICQ wan't tell me the password unless I can remember and still access the email account I had 10-14 years ago. ICQ has, apparently no way to contact them and no other way to delete an account. Great. Thanks, ICQ.

<comment><USER10> More that I couldn't write on an iPhone keyboard:

What I'd like ICQ to do is something like: Recognise that the account has been unused for a decade and that it doesn't matter if I _am_ an imposter and agree to clear the profile at least.

Or, provide some hints to the email address and see if I can complete it.

Or, ask for some sort of proof of ID, given that the name is real and fairly unique.

Get rid of their dismissive don't-care "there is no way to delete an account, just edit your profile to clear the details and forget it exists. If you can't get back into your account with the email-me-a-password feature then that's it, you will need to register a new account" policy.

Or, at least, have some way of talking to them and someone who gives a toss. The forum has lots of completely ignored "please delete my account" posts - I've even seen three with passwords, at least one of which works(!). I was going to be nice and login and reset the password - but the only way to reset your password is from the ICQ client(!). Sod that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The PDF results are sort of cool, but it seems like just another meta-search engine to me.

</comment><comment><USER12> This stuff is SCARY!!

I have been playing around searching for people I know, I came to know that a friend of mine and a close neighbor have court records. One had his house foreclosed before and one had a misdemeanor, I don't know what to think.

</comment><comment><USER13> It aggregates the data from various sources and makes an attempt to present it neatly, but results-wise it's nothing special. People who wanted to be found (e.g. with blogs, Facebook, Linked In accounts, etc) were found, while all others were not or they were buried in a lot of noise. As such it is marginally more convenient than regular googling and nothing to lose the pants over.

If it were able to understand that _this_ guy here is the same guy as _that_ guy over there going by the account nickname, and then link both to an actual person, then - yeah - that'd be interesting, very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER14> Never really was fond of the idea of a people search engine. Albeit facebook has become one, but at least that's a search engine where you are actively taking part of supplying them with data.

As a science experiment fine (indexing etc), but commercially it just freaks me out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Meh. Nothing I don't see on my Google search. And they didn't find my email address.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nope. Fail. The only hit it found which was actually me was my home page, and that way down in the list. Not terribly impressive since it's the first hit if you Google my name.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is unsettling, the creepy future is here to stay I'm afraid.

</comment><comment><USER17> A truly scary proposition is entering a username and coming up with names/addresses/etc.

That would scare the crap out of quite a few people, I would guess.

</comment><comment><USER18> No interesting info on my hard-to-find-online ex-girlfriend. Fail.

</comment><comment><USER19> well it found my friendster! those were the days</comment>


How to work with Sessions in PHP - <AUTHOR> http://mrbool.com/how-to-work-with-sessions-in-php/27413

<comment><USER2> I like PHP. But I can understand why people hate it when they read articles like these.

Not escaping user input, storing password in the session. Bad practice all over the place.</comment>


NYTimes Sues US For Refusing To Reveal Secret Interpretation Of Patriot Act - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111010/04043716279/nytimes-sues-federal-government-refusing-to-reveal-its-secret-interpretation-patriot-act.shtml <comment><USER2> Iirc, Gilmore v Gonzales showed that the government can have secret laws. I can see the administration believing that it's also ok to have a secret interpretation of a law.

I personally _strongly_ disagree with both of the above but don't see how I can change anything by arguing about it. [1]

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html#Pensieri-Stretti> (pg, please put anchors in your essays)

\--

[edit to add]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilmore_v._Gonzales>

<comment><USER3> TIL I am expected to be aware of, and follow, a law that I cannot see.

Someone stop this ride, I want to get off now.

<comment><USER4> Well... that's a really bad way to characterize the case.

First off, this is not a "law" in the sense most people think of; it wasn't passed by Congress and signed by the President. Rather, it's a directive issued by a federal agency, which has powers granted by Congress to issue directives and -- when deemed necessary for security purposes -- to keep the exact details of those directives from being disclosed.

There's nothing particularly new in that, by the way; governments, even governments of countries which would by any standard be considered "free", have long exercised the power to enforce security-related policies without disclosing the details of those policies to the public at large.

Second, Gilmore's case specifically ran into trouble because A) he was informed multiple times, as all air passengers are, of policies regarding ID and B) he was also informed that a process exists for flying without presenting ID, and voluntarily chose not to use that process (this is what really sunk his case).

Third, even if there were no government-issued policies specifically requiring passengers to present ID, there are multiple agencies who would have the power to deny licenses to any airline which did not have -- as a condition of the contract between passenger and airline, represented by the ticket -- a requirement of presenting ID to check in. And, frankly, I don't think anyone would try to argue that down if it happened; such policies already exist and are widely accepted with respect to age-restricted products like alcohol.

<comment><USER5> > First off, this is not a "law" in the sense most people think of; it wasn't > passed by Congres

s and signed by the President. Rather, it's a directive issued by a federal agency, which has powers granted by Congress to issue directives

So in other words it's as good as a law, but without any safeguards and consequently no value to the public.

> Gilmore's case specifically ran into trouble because A) he was informed > multiple times, as all air passengers are, of policies regarding ID and B) > he was also informed that a process exists for flying without presenting ID, > and voluntarily chose not to use that process (this is what really sunk his > case).

Oh, of course he has no rights - they informed him of it. Well then, who could argue?

> Third, even if there were no government-issued policies specifically > requiring passengers to present ID, there are multiple agencies who would > have the power to deny licenses to any airline which did not have -- as a > condition of the contract between passenger and airline, represented by the > ticket -- a requirement of presenting ID to check in.

Almost total corruption being used to enforce secret laws. Check.

> And, frankly, I don't think anyone would try to argue that down if it > happened; such policies already exist and are widely accepted with respect > to age-restricted products like alcohol.

That makes less sense than anything else you've said. How does age-related restrictions on alcohol relate to ID requirements for flying? Flying isn't dangerous for the young like rampant drinking is.

<comment><USER4> _So in other words it's as good as a law, but without any safeguards and consequently no value to the public._

If you'd like to create a society in which every enforceable rule must pass through multiple bodies for approval, feel free to try it.

 _Oh, of course he has no rights - they informed him of it. Well then, who could argue?_

He was informed of the requirement, and of an alternate process which would not require him to present ID. The comment I was responding to apparently meant to imply that this was a law of which the public was unaware, and that violators would only be informed of what they had done after the fact.

And while I dislike the TSA and "post-9/11" "security" measures as much as the next person, I don't believe that enforcing a simple security measure equates to total loss of rights. But then...

 _Almost total corruption being used to enforce secret laws. Check._

Wild hyperbole. Check.

 _How does age-related restrictions on alcohol relate to ID requirements for flying?_

I cannot purchase alcohol without presenting ID. I cannot fly without either presenting ID or going through a screening process.

Interestingly, both involve reasoning based on public safety, and in neither case is there a law passed by Congress which directly enacts the requirement.

<comment><USER5> >> So in other words it's as good as a law, but without any safeguards and consequently no value to the public. > If you'd like to create a society in which every enforceable rule must pass through multiple bodies for approval, feel free to try it.

Actually, yes. You'd have to be crazy to suggest otherwise. Think of it, "Enforceable rule". Not just something in this circumstance, but a rule, and enforceable. That's exactly what oversight is for.

But I was talking about safeguards. Any rule is worthless without knowing when to stop applying it. Who's watching for it to go wrong? Nobody of course because it doesn't really exist.

>> Oh, of course he has no rights - they informed him of it. Well then, who could argue? > He was informed of the requirement, and of an alternate process which would not require him to present ID. The comment I was responding to apparently meant to imply that this was a law of which the public was unaware, and that violators would only be informed of what they had done after the fact.

It is a requirement the public is (mostly) unaware of. And because it's unspoken policy instead of a law it'll likely stay that way.

> And while I dislike the TSA and "post-9/11" "security" measures as much as > the next person, I don't believe that enforcing a simple security measure > equates to total loss of rights. But then...

It's not a security measure because it doesn't help security at all. Enforcing useless rules is a loss of your rights.

>> Almost total corruption being used to enforce secret laws. Check. > Wild hyperbole. Check.

Not at all. Using undisclosed governmental powers to secretly kill someone's business because they won't enact useless and counterproductive policies is a textbook example of systemic corruption.

>> How does age-related restrictions on alcohol relate to ID requirements for flying? > I cannot purchase alcohol without presenting ID. I cannot fly without either presenting ID or going through a screening process.

Yes, that much is a given. Thanks.

But one is because minors have shown to have (even more) problems with booze and it's been proven to kill, etc. On the other hand showing ID is absolutely worthless for finding weapons, in practice and in theory.

> Interestingly, both involve reasoning based on public safety, and in neither > case is there a law passed by Congress which directly enacts the > requirement.

But in the case of alcohol there is a law. We aren't a society of just-take- the-hint and why-won't-you-read-between-the-lines, we're a society of laws.

Why are you so dead set on spinning this as business as usual? Who cares? It's broken.

<comment><USER4> I'm not "spinning" anything, simply posting some comments because there are a few points a lot of people are overlooking in their knee-jerk rush.

One is that the court case hinged on the claim that the policy was secret. The court's response was that the ID requirement was clearly posted for everyone to see, and that when Gilmore asked about it, he was told how he could fly without presenting ID. Legally, this is entirely correct.

Another is that secrets are not automatically the end of the world. Secret rules aren't even illegal, much less unconstitutional; if that were the case, many defense-related regulations, which do have the force of law, would have to go out the window, and effective national defense would be essentially impossible.

A third is a lurking suspicion that if we remove the bogeyman g-word ("government") from the picture, the stock responses on HN would be wildly different.

If instead we had a cabal of airline executives who'd formed a cartel of sufficient clout to quash all competition, and they agreed amongst themselves to implement contracts requiring all passengers to present ID but refused to make public the details of their agreement, I'm almost certain there would be people here loudly defending it. It would be a noble triumph of free-market capitalism. The passengers would obviously be negotiating away their "rights" through a free and fair exchange protected by the holy sanctity of contract. But of course, in that case it would just be a shadowy cabal of possibly unknown people who aren't bound by any rules anywhere (we must never interfere in the free market), rather than a cabal of publicly-identifiable people who are accountable to the Constitution and to elections.

<comment><USER6> Knee jerk reaction? I've been fighting the Patriot Act for 7 years and you're sitting here defending the practice of rushing legislation through the bodies that are meant to serve as a vetting process for the laws that allow the government to effectively (and illegally) suspend our Constitutional rights in the name of terrorism, which is bad enough if we didn't already know it was being abused.

<comment><USER7> I think you and wnight, in your haste to characterize ubernostrum as a secret law lover and prove him wrong, did a poor job of identifying what he's defending and what he's not defending.

<comment><USER6> He makes three distinct points and each are wholesale defenses of secrets, and the second two combine to ignore the fact that it's a government entity making the secrets and dismiss the lack of transparency as important, again, especially given the laws we're discussing. I don't know how I have possibly mischaracterized what's occurred here.

What am I missing here? They've boiled this down to completely trivial examples that ignore the gross violations in Constitutional rights via gagged court orders, NSLs, FISA warrants and courts, warrantless wiretapping, etc, etc. They're debating the need for having IDs to buy alcohol as a defense of secret government laws that are meant for protection.

This is the quint-essential "security vs liberty" and "governmental security through obscurity". It's old, I've been debating it for years. Frankly, it's intellectually weak.

<comment><USER4> Well, no, it's not "intellectually weak".

You seem to be taking an absolutist position against secrecy. Personally, I'd argue that such a position is completely untenable if you want a country that survives its first conflict, but that's not really relevant.

What is relevant is the following:

* Moving the discussion away from "secrecy is always evil" and toward discussing specific instances.

* Acknowledging that a court ruling can be legally correct even if you personally would disagree with the results of that ruling.

* Learning to avoid reflex reactions and instead actually digging to see what happened and evaluating arguments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And this right here is why we still need big, expensive news organizations. Sure, they don't need to be printed on dead trees, but I can't think of any online publications with the resources to bring what will surely prove to be an expensive. lengthy, and possibly fruitless lawsuit.

<comment><USER9> Uh, the NY Times is the closest thing we have to an official government newspaper, so I think you're severely mistaken if you think this counts as holding government accountable.

The NY Times convinced a lot of people to support the Iraq war when it ran its poorly fact-checked story fed to its reporter by propagandists funded by the CIA. I remember how profoundly my view of the Iraq situation changed when I read all of that in the paper I trusted at the time.

<comment><USER10> Did you really believe that the New York Times was infallible?

<comment><USER9> It's not a question of fallibility. It's a question of how propaganda functions in society. The Times has become a voice for the powerful interests in the US.

Judith Miller's "mistakes" were hugely influential to me because I was naive... similarly I think those who believe this lawsuit means anything are similarly naive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If the government has secret interpretation of all its laws, how do they expect citizens to conform with them? Let's say they arrest someone based on a secret interpretation of its laws, does it mean the trial has to be secret too, to avoid revealing this secret interpretation? Can the arrested person hire a lawyer of his choosing, or are only lawyers with the appropriate level of access (determined based on the government's own choosing) allowed to be hired by the said arrested person? The secret trial is held, the judge deems the person guilty (at this point we're not sure the judge was granted access to the secret interpretation, though), the person goes to jail. Now, will the person has access to the secret interpretation, so at least they now know for what secret interpretation of the law they got into jail for? If not, then what if the sentence was capital punishment?

<comment><USER12> You should read a bit about Nicholas Merrill who got a National Security Letter and subsequently sued the FBI and the DoJ.

Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Merrill>

Wired: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order- lifte...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/)

Talk at CCC: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25EkdWLU1k>

<comment><USER13> _Talk at CCC:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25EkdWLU1k*>

That was slow to get started, but became _very* interesting quickly. Thanks for posting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What depresses me most is how Obama is no better than Bush at this sort of thing. It's not Democrats vs. Republicans: they're _all_ out to get us.

<comment><USER15> Yup. Both parties work for the same lobbyists.

<comment><USER16> Who's lobbying to have secret laws? Smells more like government conspiracy by non-elected officials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ask yourself why the US needs to have secret laws? Why the US pours so much resources into domestic "counter-terrorism"? This ramping up of domestic security has gone on intensely for a decade even though there is no credible domestic threat. When the state spends so much resources effectively preparing for war domestically, there just might be cause for concern.

<comment><USER17> Simple explanation:

1970s saw abuse of CIA/FBI power concerning spying, etc on US citizens.

Late 1970s laws passed curtailing that power

911 happens same agencies decide to broker a push to get those powers back..thus we have the Patriot Act

<comment><USER15> That explains the Patriot Act and fun stuff like MAIN CORE, but there seems to be a pattern beyond old-fashioned domestic surveillance: DHS, Northcom, Infragard, secret prisons run by ICE, federal direction of local law enforcement (i.e. Operation FALCON), domestic use of drones, the push for body scanners/pre-crime detectors, the ability of the federal government to assassinate US citizens, the "watch list" that feds can keep you on even if you've been cleared or wrongdoing, etc.

The biggest federal building project since the Pentagon is the DHS HQ:

[http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/homeland.security.hea...](http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/homeland.security.headquarters/index.html)

<comment><USER18> What interests me most is the change in Obama's domestic security stance after assuming the presidency. Remember his promises to close Guantanamo Bay? Now Obama seems more authoritarian than President Bush was.

To me, this radical change in stance suggests that there _is_ in fact a credible domestic threat against the United States - that Obama, on assuming the presidency, learned some things that made a deep-enough impression on him to transform his stance on national security. I don't like that conclusion, but to me, that's the simplest interpretation of his behavior. (I'd love to hear other, less frightening interpretations. As it is, I try not to think about this stuff too much.)

If so, perhaps many of the actions of this and the past administration are justifiable as lesser evils - _perhaps_. However, the executive branch shouldn't get to make this determination alone. It's not necessarily the administration's decisions that are the problem here, but the complete veil of secrecy around them that's keeping us from having an informed debate.

<comment><USER15> >I don't like that conclusion, but to me, that's the simplest interpretation of his behavior. (I'd love to hear other, less frightening interpretations. As it is, I try not to think about this stuff too much.)

Another possibility is that the US powers-that-be have looked at America's long term economic prospects and have decided that America must change to survive. China and India are becoming dominant economic forces and if the US wants to compete it may want to impose new labor standards on Americans and strip them of benefits. This would, of course, create the possibility of a popular uprising. In preparation for this eventuality, they may be using counter-terrorism as a cover for counter-insurgence preparations.

<comment><USER19> That's an interesting argument. whether or not one agrees with the premising, it's interesting to consider that those at the top might.

God forbid we the people (of the US) put a stop to untaxed imports and the like and stop _feeding_ the beasts oversees. Perhaps too late for that to have much impact now, anyway. Somehow we managed to compete with the Soviet's without being pressed into serfdom, but I guess it doesn't matter what _I_ believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If I'm reading this right, the NY Times say that if parts are classified, the interpretation should be released but the classified parts blacked out. What's to stop the government from just blacking out every word, then "releasing" that? Is there some kind of standard or expectation that can prevent the government from doing that?

<comment><USER8> The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is far from perfect, but once a claim is denied and a lawsuit is filed, the burden is on the government to prove which parts (if any) of the document are protected from disclosure. They rejected the initial FOIA request on the grounds that the document is properly classified and would jeopardize national security, but now they will have to prove that to a judge.

In other words, if the lawsuit proceeds all the way to the bitter end, it's up to the judge what parts are blacked out, not the DoJ.

RCFP has a nice overview of the process, if you're interested in the details: <http://www.rcfp.org/fogg/index.php?i=intro>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am confused. Is it not the judges who interpret the act, the law, etc, not the fed or the government.

<comment><USER22> Yes, insofar as the law is brought before the court. But everyone--private citizens and governments alike--are constantly "interpreting" the law, in that they're operating on certain assumptions about what the law means. For example, when you file your taxes, you are, as strange as it sounds, interpreting the tax code.

In this case, there is more than one possible way to interpret the PATRIOT Act. The government has to decide what it thinks the law means, and use that interpretation to guide its actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most transparent administration in history.

</comment><comment><USER24> > What sort of democracy are we living in when the government can refuse to > even say how it's interpreting its own law? That's not democracy at all.

I really don't get his point here. Democracy has nothing to do with the legal structure of elected governments, nor does it have anything to do with the clarity of the legal system.

Democracy is to do with every "citizen" having a fair and equal right to vote. Of which freedom of political expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the presses are considered essential tenets.

The US is currently suffering Majority Rule in that the majority is shit scared of anything and everything, especially fellow human beings with head wear out of their traditional social or religious norms. This means the majority in the US is fully willing to sign away rights and freedoms for the mere assumption that they're "protected" by a piece of paper stored in the library of congress.

I'd feel safer if we armed the clowns with shotguns, you know as a surprise attack thing.

<comment><USER25> My interpretation of democracy is that it needs a legal system that works, and I believe that means it has to be fair and transparent. If the fabric of a legal system is corrupt, what's the point of politics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What parts of Patriot Act are secret?

<comment><USER27> The interpretations of certain parts of the law are secret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> reminds me of this onion video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWfKdKWJEkM>

</comment><comment><USER29> Just another day of Bush in office... oh wait.

<comment><USER30> Sarcasm I know, but far too many people fall for promises made on a campaign trail. Worse far too many believe their side will always do what is right.

Yet once in power there are far too many government agencies and persons who have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. Some will simply overwhelm any new administration so as to keep their power, others will use fear, some will stall, and finally others will just ignore and hope to ride out the four or eight years.</comment></comment>


HTML5 Boilerplate - A rock-solid default template for HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://html5boilerplate.com/#v1

<comment><AUTHOR> The project went 1.0 today. Highlights:

* A custom builder to customize your download

* An Ant Build Script that handles all the optimization to make YSlow and PageSpeed happy.

* Rich documentation: <http://html5boilerplate.com/docs>

* Lots of videos (2 new) on Getting Started and familiarizing with the Build Script

* Default webserver configurations optimized for perf for: Apache, Nginx, Lighttpd, Google App Engine, IIS, NodeJS

* Many small tweaks (read the source comments and full changelog)

* A humans.txt

* All that and we even reduced the overall published size of the boilerplate.

<comment><USER2> Major thanks for html5boilerplate, for Modernizr, and especially for maintaining this page: [https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross- brow...](https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-browser- Polyfills) !

<comment><AUTHOR> :) It deserves a better home, for sure. That'll come soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One of the best things about this (and other irish & co. projects)are the explanations and docs. This team always makes reading and understanding what's going on behind the scenes entertaining. It's immensely valuable to a relative newbie like myself.

</comment><comment><USER4> For the Rails community, there's a compass framework for html5boilerplate: <https://github.com/sporkd/compass-html5-boilerplate>

It's not up to the v1.0 release, but it'll get you most of the way there.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's up to date as of 3 weeks ago, so it's definitely reliable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The build script is an awesome addition to an already great tool. Keep up the great work.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's a great addition, I'll have to start using it. I'm manually replacing the script tags in my code between deployment because I want to keep all the files separate for debugging and then minify after. It's a pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks neat, but being a DIY kind of dude, I'm not sure what this is for. I'm probably missing something--I think I know "what" it is, just not "why". Can anyone give me a brief rundown?

<comment><USER8> All of us involved in the project are pretty much "DIY" kind-of people :)

What we hope people do is to read through the source to see why we made the choices for defaults and pick and choose what they like and keep using them.

There are lots of defaults that were eye-opening to me that were suggested by the scores of contributors to the project.

<comment><USER7> Interesting. So if I understand correctly, the goal is largely to promote guidelines that improve compatibility and performance?

<comment><USER8> That is a goal yes, but these are the defaults that work for us, and we hope they work for everyone else (and we do look for suggestions to improve these), but if it does not work for you, we actively advocate choosing the defaults that do.

The reasons for each of the choices we made is all within the comments of the source file, so it is easier to choose what to keep and what to change.

<comment><USER7> Great! Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using & following the development of this boilerplate since its release & have only continued to be impressed. Thanks for making such a helpful & useful tool.

</comment><comment><USER10> went to the website. got confused by the design. came back to yn to see what's other people like me are saying. they say the like it. going back to get second opinion...

</comment><comment><USER11> I see it uses <head> and <body>, which, in fact, are not required. Pages without them pass W3C validation without warnings.

<comment><AUTHOR> From a validation perspective you're totally right.

But browsers are supposed to create HEAD and BODY elements if your markup doesn't include them. However some do not: [http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/12/autohead-my- firs...](http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2010/05/12/autohead-my-first- browserscope-user-test/)

This means everyone's code that does `document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]` will fail in some cases. Because that is rather risky, we decided to retain these optional elements..

The closing tags for </body> and </html> however...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A very cool starting point for anything going into a web browser. Thank you.</comment>


The python paradox - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html

<comment><USER2> Programming is like electrical wiring; that is, its a means to an end. A "good programming language" is basically one that you're fluent enough to use in order to complete a project.

Additionally, very skilled programmers increasingly become less relevant as processing power increases. In the original days of the personal computer, insanely clever techniques were useful when the computer only had 4K of memory like the original Apple II. These days, knowing such techniques isn't so useful.

The real paradox is finding programmers that can fluently program something that users actually enjoy. Programmers that program only for the sake of solving interesting technical problems are what Paul Graham refers to as "techno-weenies" ( <http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html> ). Ideally, a very tiny percent of people will actually see the source code compared to those that actually use the product. You can write something that people enjoy and then hire programmers later to optimize the source code. The inverse is not true: You cannot program something that is elegantly written and then hire someone to make people like it.

<comment><USER3> If we look at the rise of easier and easier to use graphic design programs - Photoshop, Illustrator, and so on - we don't see a decreased relevance of experienced or quality graphic design professionals. Instead, the ability to get something, anything done that looks OK is much easier. The highest quality products are still produced by the highest quality individuals. The tool is an enabling device.

We can mirror this to programming, and IDEs. Visual Studio, for instance, takes a ton of the nitty-gritty details of programming out of the picture for a vast population of people looking to write software. The need for quality and very skilled programmers isn't any less relevant - they're just not needed for every piece of development like they used to be. This is how we're able to get way more software than before. The very skilled programmers are almost more important in order to facilitate more software to get pushed out, as there will require an increased expectation of quality from software and only a limited group who can produce or lead such a development effort.

None of this is a bad thing, but it's just a change in how things used to be done. As it used to be in the automotive world, not everyone has to be a full fledged mechanic to keep the car running - but for the big jobs, there is a definite demand for the higher skill. (Of course, computerization of the automobile is bringing this back around!)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. Technical challenges are not always deal with issues of processing and memory. In case of web the real problem is scalability and communicating processes and system components. May be we will soon come up with some formalism and technologies that will make scalability a dumb problem but then we will have a new set of technical challenges to be solved. So the demand for highly skilled people who care about their work will only increase with time.

In my opinion it is wrong to assume that a language like Python is better than C. They are all independent of each other. Python is simply useless when it comes to real-time processing where hard deadlines are required, you cant chose anything except Ada or some flavor of C. They each have their strengths and that is why they are still alive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article is pretty old. I think a language like Haskell or Clojure would be a better nerd-clue these days.

<comment><USER5> This article seems to pop up on HN pretty often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google shows 62 hits for this link on this site</comment>


Avoiding CVE-2016-8655 with systemd - <AUTHOR> http://0pointer.net/blog/avoiding-cve-2016-8655-with-systemd.html <comment><USER2> One of the systemd developers has pointed out that the feature being touted is currently broken on several architectures:

* [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2016-De...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2016-December/037987.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tooting his own horn once again...</comment>


Can You Build An Enterprise Only Web App? - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/09/can-you-build-a.html <comment><USER2> The only hard analysis in this post is that enterprises don't adopt corporate IM; they just use AOL IM instead.

First, enterprises _do_ adopt corporate IM. For instance, Notes shops use SameTime. Microsoft shops use whatever comes with LiveMeeting. You don't pay attention to these, because enterprises don't adopt IM _from startups_. I'm surprised when I meet enterprise IT people who don't have some kind of internal IM.

Second, enterprises _don't_ simply use AOL Instant Messenger; take any 10 of my clients, and 8 of them don't even allow their users to connect to OSCAR (and 4 of those filter GMail as well).

Finally, Twitter isn't IM. Nobody really knows what Twitter is yet. If you had done this same analysis for the retail Internet a year ago, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that Twitter is a stupid idea even for home users. But then, Twitter happens anyways.

Third,

</comment><comment><USER3> Yup. Already did and made (and continue to make) millions on it. The Enterprise is a vertical and the app serves that vertical and that vertical has deep pockets.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most enterprises don't seem that web friendly right now. It'll probably be another decade before we see the change happening.

<comment><USER2> What do you mean, "not web friendly"?

<comment><USER4> that they don't trust someone else's hosted solution

<comment><USER2> You mean hosted solutions besides:

* sales/CRM (SalesForce),

* financials (ADP, SurePayroll),

* HR (PeopleSoft),

* investor relations (Morningstar), or

* security (Qualys).

And that's for web apps. Look inside any large enterprise, and you find that outsourcing is _all they do_ ; everything's white-labeled for everyone else, and a huge chunk of the revenue comes from relationships between the giants.

Large enterprises routinely outsource core business process to hosted web apps. Where security is concerned, my guess is virtually every Fortune 500 company does what our clients do, which is to keep a small internal pen-test team and contract third-party security testers to "certify" apps before they get deployed.

And, of course, outsourced hosted apps aren't the definition of enterprise software. Take your Python app, wrap it in an Ubuntu VMware image, and give it an admin interface: now you have an enterprise web app.

<comment><USER4> yeah and all of those are large corporations. You going to tell me that a big corporation is going to trusted a hosted solution with a 5 man team?

<comment><USER2> Not for their payroll, but then, you wouldn't be dumb enough to try to start that company. It took the ADP and SurePayroll people to be that dumb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure if I'm missing the point of this... Doesn't the rise of SalesForce completely contradict this?

<comment><USER2> Yes.</comment></comment>


Rethinking PowerPoint: The New Wave of Presentation Tools - <AUTHOR> http://betakit.com/2012/03/10/rethinking-powerpoint-the-new-wave-of-presentation-tools <comment><USER2> There may well be a better alternative to the local maximum of powerpoint and keynote out there somewhere, but Prezi sure isn't it. At first it was a novelty; now it's just annoying.

<comment><USER3> I wholeheartedly agree. I've seen a few talks created with that tool and the "flying around the screen" gets old pretty fast.

<comment><USER4> I have a feeling that Prezi connects more with people who want to passively watch something explained to them, not very different from watching a youtube video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that creating new tools to fix the apparent problem is missing the point. the point is: public speaking isn't nowhere near the comfort zone of most people – which is fine. it's something that can be trained and developed, and once that process is complete, most people suddenly stop trying to hide behind a story-telling set of superboring slides and start giving great presentations.

<comment><USER6> You're 100% correct. PowerPoint just amplified the symptoms of what's wrong with presentations (corporate, academic or otherwise). People started to shift their focus to things that didn't matter as much (the slide deck) and deviate from the content. These same problems will occur no matter what new presentation tools are invented and will continue to be the same annoyance.

At the same time, products like the Screen.io are providing tools to facilitate good aspects of presentations and these are types of tools that should be built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another alternative to consider is using a tool that is _not_ WYSIWYG (like Org-Mode). I think putting together a presentation that's good enough for most things--e.g. a developer talk about some technology--with a tool like Org-Mode is easier and faster than using PowerPoint, Keynote or any other similar tools.</comment>


The s/ directory is a home only for project commands - <AUTHOR> https://chadaustin.me/2017/01/s/ <comment><USER2> s/ sounds so seriously standardy: [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)</comment>


SpaceX names new CFO (formerly with Broadcom) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110511

<comment><AUTHOR> Smells like an IPO coming...</comment>


Developers think about Android twice as much as they do about iOS - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/developers-think-android-twice-much-do-ios-joshua-fruhlinger/ <comment><USER2> _Tracking activity for particular keywords on Stack Overflow can be a useful way to track developer interest in a particular product, language, technology, or platform._

Also, how much difficulty they're having in getting something to work on that platform. SO is mostly about solving specific developer problems.</comment>


The Secrets of Building Realtime Big Data Systems (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVAAbZijXgc

<comment><USER2> Nathan, on slide 38 of this ([http://www.slideshare.net/nathanmarz/become- efficient-or-die...](http://www.slideshare.net/nathanmarz/become-efficient-or- die-the-story-of-backtype) ) presentation you mention you tried to implement social search with Neo4j and switched to Sphinx when you ran into issues.

Can you tell us more about that? (or is there a blog entry somewhere?)

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> We ran into a number of issues with Neo4j. The main one was that the database would periodically get corrupted and throw exceptions when we tried to use it, forcing us to rebuild the index. This was over a year ago though, it may have improved since then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nathan, would it be possible to share the slides that you used for this talk?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here they are: [http://www.slideshare.net/nathanmarz/the-secrets-of- building...](http://www.slideshare.net/nathanmarz/the-secrets-of-building- realtime-big-data-systems)</comment></comment>


Tokyo WWII firebombing, the most deadly bombing raid, remembered 70 years on - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-09/tokyo-wwii-firebombing-remembered-70-years-on/6287486 <comment><USER2> If you're interested in the context of this type of "strategic" bombing, and how it played into the U.S. decision to use the atomic bombs in WWII, listen to the "Logical Insanity" episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast: [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-42-blitz-l...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore- history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/)

It's long, but quite informative.

<comment><USER3> I wish this were at the top for this thread. Dan Carlin's summaries and analyses of the decision making at that time are wonderfully thought- provoking. The concept of logical insanity in particular is one i see consistently reproduced in every part of modern society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To add to the horror, realize that the vast majority of Americans will adamantly defend these bombings as well as the atomic bombings, using verbatim talking points taught to them as children in public schools.

<comment><USER5> Note: The following is written from the perspective of an individual who accepts that states are necessary, and that war is justifiable. This isn't something I personally believe, but something that the vast majority of people do - not just Americans.

I don't remember any talking points being taught to me as a child, but I guess that would be the case with any good brainwashing. I am familiar with the justifications for targeting Japanese civilians for conventional and nuclear bombing though, something along the lines of Japan being prepared for total war - down to child combatants with sharpened sticks. In war you have two options for ending hostilities, complete annihilation or political resolution (surrender, cease fire, etc). If Japan went into total war mode, and they made it clear that they would if necessary, then they remove the political resolution option. So with that in mind, it is not a stretch to say that firebombing and nuking hundreds of thousands saved millions of Japanese lives.

Consider the fact that this firebombing occurred 1945-03-09, and the Japanese were still wanting to fight for another five months, until the second atomic bomb drop on 1945-08-09. The only thing that brought them to the table was the idea that their enemy possessed a weapon where a single bomb could level a city, they had no idea how many atomic bombs existed.

<comment><USER6> > The only thing that brought them to the table was the idea that their enemy > possessed a weapon where a single bomb could level a city

Utterly wrong. This has been shown many times that the A-bomb was not the decisive part. It was the upcoming involvement of Russians on the Japanese front. Please stop spreading explanations for 5-years olds.

<comment><USER7> Not sure why you're being downvoted, this is widely accepted that both the bomb and the soviet invasion had equivalent weight in their surrender, with some historians saying the soviet declaration of war was more important.

To add on that, _at the time of the surrender_ , the long term effect of the bomb was not known to the japanese and as such the nuclear bombing wasn't the worst city bombing they suffered, neither in terms of infrastructure damage or loss of life.

Some more information for those interested

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u6qqo/there_h...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u6qqo/there_has_been_some_controversy_on_the_true/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2y98yc/did_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2y98yc/did_the_soviet_union_have_a_large_impact_on_the/)

<comment><USER8> > _" Not sure why you're being downvoted"_

The "5 year old" comment probably has something to do with it. HN doesn't tend to downvote people into the gray just because they are saying something that other people disagree with, _unless_ the comment is also not particularly civil.

<comment><USER9> Yes, they do. See my comment near the top. Nothing disrespectful about it, just opinionated.

<comment><USER8> I see only two of your comments in recent history are downvoted into the gray:

This one is not civil, as it personally attacks another commenter: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169613) _" That says a lot about you."_

This one is in defense of the less-than-civil comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169781)

I say things that many people disagree with _all the time_ on HN, but pretty much the only times that I am downvoted into the gray are when I am not civil. For instance, the _only_ comment of mine that has been grayed in this discussion is this one: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169426](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9169426) That comment is little more than a personal attack, and was therefore downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There's an interactive map at the Tokyo-Edo museum (great museum; highly worth your time if you're there) that shows the progression of the bombing campaign over time:

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

The scale of that is mind-boggling. I had no idea, the first time I saw it, the amount of destruction involved. It rivals Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we (in the US) almost never hear about it.

To put a more human face on it:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo#mediaviewer/Fi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo#mediaviewer/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER11> Moral of the story : When in war, be on the winning side.

<comment><USER12> As long as you preface that with "Avoid war if at all possible, but " then I think it's quite reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Everyone should watch Grave of the Fireflies. And then cry for a week.

</comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of Robert McNamara's rule for proportionality in the movie The Fog of War. What amount of brutality is necessary to achieve a political objective?

</comment><comment><USER15> "Just following orders."

God, help me never.</comment>


Why Releasing Text Isn't Enough: Behind the Scenes of TTIP - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/why-releasing-text-isnt-enough-behind-scenes-ttip <comment><USER2> Strange to me how I feel strongly about the issues EFF covers, but always feel like they address a very niche population.

<comment><USER3> It's because they don't want to alienate potential allies by taking a stance on issues outside of their domain.

But I think many people might just end up saying, "yeah EFF, that is bad stuff, but there is worst stuff in this treaty which I'd rather focus on".

I think the approach Greenpeace Nederland took was better. They didn't try to force the discussion to be only about issues they cared about.

<comment><USER4> Well, I think those two approaches are complementary.

Greenpeace released the documents and left the discussion of specific problems within them to others, such as citizens rights movements and journalists.

EFF just happens to be one such party which specializes in digital rights, so it is only natural that they look at the papers released by Greenpeace, and pick the worrying parts within their domain of expertise up for discussion.

It is up to each citizen to decide which of the issues within these documents, brought up by journalists and others he cares deeply about.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have a Copyright Doubt, any lawyers? - <AUTHOR>

If I register a corporation and buy and consume digital goods (books, music and games), can I transfer the corporation to a person without violating the EULA of those products (since the owner itself, the corporation, is not changing).<p>Source link for the discussion:http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3339547&cid=42391857 <comment><USER2> If the corporation purchases or licenses the goods, the corporation continues to be the owner or licensee of the purchased goods despite a change in the make-up of the corporate shareholders. Keep in mind that you are not "transferring" the corporation to another person, there is no such thing. What you are doing is selling your ownership or shareholding in the company to another person. The corporation's identity as a juristic person is not affected.</comment>


Network Monitoring with Iperf: Raspberry Pi vs. Odroid vs. Banana Pi vs. Utilite - <AUTHOR> https://netbeez.net/2015/10/21/network-monitoring-with-iperf-raspberry-pi-vs-odroid-vs-banana-pi-vs-utilite/ <comment><AUTHOR> If you use iperf for troubleshooting or testing you may have thought about the Raspberry Pi as an end point. The RPi is cheap and easy to deploy, but there are other single board computers out there with higher performance.

Networking folks will find this blog post useful.</comment>


Why do ISPs show speed in bits and not in bytes? It's confusing - <AUTHOR> It is very confusing,  because for everything else i.e file sizes the standard is bytes. <comment><USER2> Utilities are sized by capacity not the use of that capacity. The local water works doesn't bill based on mugs of coffee.

How many bytes go over the network is a function of the protocol used to send bits as bytes. If some bits are used as error detection or correction or handshake, then they are like the water used to rinse the mug and wash the coffee pot and left in the sink and turned into steam. In other words, what is or isn't a byte is subject to debate, but thanks to Shannon, bits are objectively measurable.

</comment><comment><USER3> My guess is marketing reasons. If you use a smaller unit, you get a bigger number.

EDIT: Why the downvote? It's a perfectly logical explanation.

<comment><USER4> This seems very likely given that I now see "100% fiber-backed" advertisements for the same ol' DSL that has existed in areas for a decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For years we measured speed in bits. 300 bps; 1200 bps.

It is confusing, especially because B per second is 8 times faster than b per second.

Also, what happens if you're using 7e2 or 8n1 or whatever? What counts as a byte?

</comment><comment><USER6> The best one-word answer is, simply, "tradition".

However, it's tradition that's backed up by a huge raft of prior work in the data transmission and information theory sciences. When you break all of that stuff down, you're left facing questions like "how can I design a protocol so that over a lossy channel I can unambiguously ascertain the correct transmission and reception of a given piece of information?" The natural unit which falls out of this is the indivisible bit, zero or one, the presence or absence of a signal, over a certain measured interval of time.

The theoreticians and engineers who produced the first systems for digital data transmission were all informed by this work, and their fundamental challenge was to produce systems capable of reliable transmission and reception of streams of bits -- not necessarily 8-bit bytes, that being a higher-order concern left to higher-order devices in the network, for sake of modularity. (For a bewildering example as to why telecom techs wanted^H^H^H^H^H^Hstill want to leave this kind of thing to others to puzzle out, see, e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36-bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36-bit))

As a result, today, network engineers pay first attention to the bit-rate rather than the byte-rate capabilities of their equipment, and this is reflected in everything from the names of low-level protocols to ways of talking about circuits to the specifications of concrete product implementations, both in terms of the data-carrying capacities of network interfaces to the speeds offered to consumers.

I come from the network engineering world, as you might have guessed :) So, on the opposite side of your question, I find it terribly distressing when software like my Bittorrent client reports speeds to me in megabytes-per- second. I don't have an intuitive _feel_ for what a megabyte per second is, but I can take that figure and multiply by eight and say "aha!" Roughly the same as old-school 10Mbps Ethernet.

</comment><comment><USER7> My networking professor who worked for AT&T for years, before and after it was sold and up into the internet age. His explanation was that the phone companies (more like phone company) had existed since the late 1800's before computers, and even when they built and bought the first computers and computer networks bytes were not a unit of measurement. So the phone companies network the phone companies rules.

Edit: I'd like to add that the first networks were with dumb devices on the periphery, aka your phones, and smart devices in the core, aka AT&T computer controlled routers. There was no concept of Bytes in that network.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it has to do with avoiding ambiguity.

Granted, the byte hasn't been redefined, but given how every architecture and language in the past had a different standard for each ADS, one might want to be proactive.

Also see the mess SI vs. binary prefixes created.

As a sidenote, early modem producers used the baud ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud)) which coincides with bps only in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the reasons for it is actually Marketing. If I were to provide an 8Mbps connection, an average person would not know the fact that 8b = 1B. From an ISP view, 8Mbps seems a better speed than 1MBps to an average non-tech customer.

<comment><USER10> My assumption: No ISP wants to be the first to make the transition to using MBps. And thus, legacy metrics are used forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > It is very confusing, because for everything else i.e file sizes the > standard is bytes.

No, this isn't true. It was true once, but things have changed. Now there are two standards, one based on multiples of two, the other based on multiples of ten:

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

And, more topically,

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

1 kibibit = 1.024 kilobit

I'm not saying this is why ISPs use bits per second, but it certainly would serve as an explanation in the absence of a better one. Bits per second mean the same thing in all current schemes for describing a quantity of data or its velocity.

</comment><comment><USER12> for computer storage bandwidth, the unit is bytes. for transmission bandwidth, the unit is bits.

i think this is mostly because on the network, transmission actually happens a bit at a time. whereas in a computer system, data is addressed at a byte level (wikipedia says it has evolved due to the fact that in the early days, a byte was used to store every character of text).

hence files have sizes in MBs etc, while ISPs have speeds in Mbps

<comment><USER13> Not strictly true that data is transferred a bit at a time! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation) for example transmits multiple bits on the same wire at the same time.

<comment><USER12> totally agree, QAM does transfer multiple bits

in fact in today's world everything from modulation and multiplexing is done digitally using network processors which actually work with bytes internally, so technically it should be possible to give network bandwidth in bytes

but my point is transmission on network or data bus, always happens in "frames" and a frame of length x bits, usually contains y bits of actual data and (x-y) bits that contain parity/redundancy bits. transmission of 1 byte usually never takes exactly 8 bits during transmission, with an additional few bits to ensure correct reception

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's baiting. Most people do not have the knowledge they are being ripped off.

<comment><USER15> This argument makes no sense. The only way that an ISP could rip people off this way would be if the standard unit of measurement across the ISP industry was e.g. bytes per second, and one rogue ISP listed their figures in bits per second. Thus, that one ISP would misleadingly appear to be 8 times faster than the other ISPs.

But in reality, all ISPs measure their bandwidth speeds in bits per second. Thus there's no ripoff happening -- if you compare the speed numbers from two competing ISPs, and they're both in bits per second (which they are), then everything works out fine and you can choose the faster of the two.

And anyway, it's not just ISPs or whatever. Basically the entire networking industry measures speed in bits per second. It is totally standard.</comment></comment>


The Most Intense El Niño Ever Observed Is Already a Worldwide Disaster - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/11/18/global_temperatures_hit_new_high_amid_record_el_nino.html <comment><USER2> Thanks ctstover for getting the ball rolling...

An even more egregious quote is "Last week, I wrote about new evidence that shows Earth's climate system has moved into an unprecedented state over the last several months, at least since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago."

We have no exact data on what temperatures were like during the Medieval Warm Period or other earlier warm periods (Roman and Minoan, both less than 4000 years ago). There is no way to say whether or not El Niño conditions caused higher spikes during those times, but it's highly likely they did based on simple statistics.

[http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/easterbroo...](http://hot- topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.png)

The other rather important data is that the biggest spike in average global temperature during the 1998 El Niño was considerably higher than the current spike so far. In fact, so far this spike has not even topped 2010.

[http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp- content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_t...](http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp- content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_October_2015_v6.png)

In short, this is breathless hype from Salon, promoting climate related panic in the hopes of pushing through a globalist agenda at the upcoming climate conference. Shameful!

</comment><comment><USER3> From the article: "Humanity has never before had to deal with global oceans quite like this."

That's quite an um "extrapolation" given a data set back to 1877.* See, if you want stop people from claiming its all bullshit, then stop writing and saying things that are total bullshit.

*from the article.</comment>