Raytheon, United Technologies Merger Will Create A New Aerospace Giant - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731225619/raytheon-and-united-technologies-merge-to-create-a-new-aerospace-giant <comment><USER2> Large defense contracts tend to span large numbers of Congressional Districts in order to enable the sort of economic protectionism that keeps the F-35 and JTRS funded to the tune of billions of dollars, in spite of cost overruns and schedule deficiencies.

I would be shocked if this lead to significant site consolidation due to the backlash that this would cause from Congress. If anything, this will enable Raytheon (the company with more defense content) to use United Technologies facilities to create a larger network of appreciative Congressmen for large projects.

<comment><USER3> Exactly: Raytheon is going to have considerably more lobbying power after this merger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first internship was as a Sophomore CS student at Raytheon. I learned something life-changing that summer: I will never work at a defense contractor or large corporate behemoth. I think this was in part due to my over-stressed manager at the time saying "I remember college... it was the best time of my life..." as his voice drifted off in a nostalgic melancholy.

<comment><USER5> >I think this was in part due to my over-stressed manager at the time saying "I remember college... it was the best time of my life..."

It's a pretty common trope that you'll hear people saying this regardless of industry.

Is there anything else that lead you to feel you'll never work for a defense contractor?

<comment><USER6> Defense contractors have a huge spectrum of work- some projects will be horrible projects maintaining legacy products with outdated technology and numerous security flaws, some will be using cutting-edge technology and will involve innovative things. There is a lot of bureaucracy, they often move slow, and the pay is often below industry standards. The current backlog of security clearance applications (in the US) means it could take years before you're fully onboard your program, and means that hiring help takes forever as well. If you end up on a great program they can be rewarding places to work, it's just a matter of being careful about choosing your opportunities.

<comment><USER7> > the pay is often below industry standards

Is there any defense contractor that pays anywhere near industry standards?

<comment><USER8> During my career, defense contractors have generally paid a lot more with much more generous benefits (I've seen fully employer paid 401K plans to the IRS maximum), and have been a much more stable employer. Since contract work hours are billable, you generally get paid for each hour you work, unless you are working for the wrong company and only get a salary. This naturally limits extra hours to those that are truly needed, and leads to a good work/life balance.

<comment><USER7> Other than stability, none of those applied to Raytheon while I was there.

The 401k match was 6% which, while good, didn't even come to what my wife gets from her non-profit. I was paying 25% of my health coverage, which is the highest proportion if any of my five employers. (I will day, though, that Raytheon had the best _family_ coverage rates of any of them.)

I was salaried, and other than a few times was required to record no more than 40 hours in my timesheet regardless of how much time I needed to put in. The work/life balance was highly dependent on the program you were on, and I got trapped on a bad one.

<comment><USER9> Some parts make you pay 0% of health coverage. It varies.

If you were told to record no more than 40 hours in my timesheet, then that means you DO NOT put in more than 40 hours. You're supposed to go home. If you were told to stay and this was for a government contract, it's a violation that you're supposed to report. Unless this was decades ago, you got training that told you so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to work at Raytheon. The one weird thing about the defense business is how few businesses and they end up making strange alliances.

We were parters with Boeing on the project I worked on, but bidding against them on other projects.

Raytheon got rid of all its commercial ventures, Amana appliances, RayMarine, Beech aircraft and anything competing in the private sector was spun off. There corporate structure had a lot of legacy from previous mergers (before my joining) which seemed to be stuck at 85% complete.

I can't see how this merger isn't going to set off anti-trust alarm bells in washington, but these companies are well connected.

<comment><USER11> Much of peacetime military procurement is all about keeping defense contractors alive "just in case" (which you could look at charitably as "maintaining readiness for the next war" or uncharitably as "corporate welfare and pork barrel politics"). Right now, we're at peace. There's no reason for these companies to exist - except that if they didn't, it might encourage adversaries who believe it would be an opportune time for war.

A lot of things that don't really make sense on a military level make a lot more sense on a corporate welfare level. Each Virginia-class submarine is built half at Newport News in Virginia and half at Electric Boat in Connecticut; this is far more expensive than just building the subs in one yard, but is intended to keep both submarine manufacturers in business. The Ford class carriers and F-35 warplanes both contain numerous design innovations that don't really work in practice, but could be viewed as experimentation so that we have engineers with experience in various techniques should we ever need to rapidly build up the military later. The F-35 itself has a large number of subcontractors; you could look at that as a way to make sure that expertise in the program remains widely distributed across as many firms as possible.

I suspect the government is content to allow mergers because it doesn't really reduce the deterrent value of having these programs exist, and the whole point of their existence is to funnel money to defense contractors. If we actually got into a major arms race you'd probably see an explosion of new defense contractors as people start chasing the money available, but for now we're at peace with a shrinking military.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you re: keeping them alive, but the US is very much perpetually at war:

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

Almost so much so, that it seems like a reason to keep them alive.

<comment><USER13> Those low-grade conflicts aren't what much of the US military is designed for --a large conflict with another capable military force like China, Russia, etc. They are occupations and anti-surgency operations.

A major conflict would require a lot of new manufacturing.

<comment><USER11> It's interesting to see the U.S. military retooling for these low-level occupation and anti-insurgency operations. Systems like the Zumwalt destroyers, littoral combat ships, America-class amphibious assault ships, Predator/Reaper/Avenger drones, and laser weapon systems are all adapted to low-intensity, close-to-shore work.

I also wonder whether the assumption that the next big war will a great-power conflict with China, Russia, etc. will actually hold. Our template for what war looks like is WW2, because that's the last time in living memory that the whole world erupted in high intensity warfare. So we've naturally built a military machine to fight the last war, but with bigger and more high-tech weaponry.

But historically, Peter Thiel's observation that "each moment in history happens only once" may be closer to the truth. The era of nation-states duking it out with industrialized armored weaponry started with the Russo-Japanese war in 1905 and ended with WW2 in 1945; it had never happened before, and it never happened afterwards. The previous template for wars before then were the "wars of nationalism" (U.S. civil war, unification of Germany, unification of Italy) in the 1860s-1870s - these had some use of industrialization, but still featured things like cavalry charges and generals personally leading troops into battle. Before then was Napoleon's conquest in 1812, and before that were the American and French revolutions, both of which were very different _types_ of war with entirely different political groups on each side.

For all we know, the next major war might look like Syria but on a global scale, with numerous non-national actors all fighting over territory, resources, and mindshare.

<comment><USER14> You are 4-6 years out of date.

1989/1991 to 9/11/01 was genuine aimlessness and downsizing, missing the boat on a bunch of important developments, etc.

9/11 to Iraq War was massive IC expansion and trying to assign "counter terrorism" to any budget line item.

Iraq from ~April 2004 to ~2011 was the massive retasking toward occupation and LIC. That sort of continued until 2014 in Afghanistan as well. This was also when CIA went from an intelligence agency to a global strike agency, and when JSOC became the second most powerful military in the world (after the US- except-JSOC).

2013/2014 was when they realized that they'd basically cannibalized/neglected the entire conventional military and couldn't fight real wars anymore and then did the "pivot to Asia" under Obama, which has continued under Trump. There are still some serious problems (like Pacific Fleet being...substandard, despite being critical).

They're now basically not planning to occupy anyone ever again, given how badly Iraq/Afghanistan have gone (and would love to get out of Afghanistan to the degree possible); the purpose of the military is now fighting near-peer adversaries (China, to some extent Russia) while continuing to make contractors rich and get congressmen re-elected.

<comment><USER15> >They're now basically not planning to occupy anyone ever again,

>the purpose of the military is now fighting near-peer adversaries (China, to some extent Russia)

I agree with you here, but this seems like a massive contradiction. I don't understand how one would win against a near-peer adversary without occupying _something_ , e.g. Taiwan or Hong Kong or parts of Eastern Europe.

<comment><USER11> Presumably Taiwan or Hong Kong would invite us in if there was a serious threat from China.

I think the problem with occupying countries is when the people in the country _don 't want us there_. Occupying companies that want you there isn't really an occupation.

<comment><USER15> I think you're mostly right, but it depends - and presumably Eastern Europe would want us there too in the event of a Russian invasion.

The problem when they "want you" is that your occupying Army now has to do things like government administration and nominal policing, something the United States military hasn't done, at least convincingly well, since WWII (one could make an argument this _started_ going well at the end of the Iraq war but I would heartily disagree). It's just a different type of occupation.

<comment><USER14> It would be "maintain forward bases during a dynamic conflict with or without the support of the local government", not "try to turn Afghanistan into an 18th century state for the first time, or fix Iraq".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Many of these mergers lately seem to be driven by contract books and support structures for future bids. If you lose a contract, buy the company that won, and now you only need one business development group which saves you a bunch of money. Consolidate where you can, call it a win, and now you have a bit more money and less competition for the next contract. (I have no idea if this is the reason for this merger)

While you might not end up closing off entire regions, if both companies have offices in, say, Dayton ohio servicing Wright-Patt you can reduce to one and not worry about spare capacity anymore. That can save a lot - especially when bases are super remote.

You see this a lot with mid-range providers when interest rates are low and coming up with X Billion is no problem. I don't know that it ends up providing better service to government - I would bet the answer there is absolutely no, especially as they recoup costs from the acquisition and squeeze staff. Win for the execs though.

</comment><comment><USER17> Something that many people are missing in this, and that I know I missed the first time around, is that UTC is the company with majority stake in this merger.

The main reason this is relevant from my perspective is that Rockwell Collins, a major employer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa got bought out by UTC a year or so ago, and the clip on the radio about the merger this morning suggested the deal went the other way and the new Collins Aerospace was likely to be renamed into something else. But Collins Aerospace is one of the four main divisions of the proposed new company.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'll offer a different take on this merger other than the typical defense contractors = bad/politically in bed view held here. (Which may not always be wrong, but by no means is it always right/accurate).

I think the merger is about 2 things. 1.) neither company has a "Platform". United builds jet engines, Raytheon, sensors and missiles. But Lockheed builds the F-35. I think this is about Raytheon getting closer to having platform capability, instead of the constant squeeze the platform owners put in their subcontractors. (Both in price, and function, which is lockheed making their own sensors and cutting out Raytheon biz. 2\. I think it's a debt/revenue restructure advantage for United, they've got lots of debt they can spin off without losing revenue, acquire a cash positive company, and look great to stockholders for the next few years and pay out fat dividends. (Which benefits who? all the executives who own tons of stock and make decisions).

</comment><comment><USER19> The implications this merger could have for local and national politics is understated.

Entire Congressional Districts whose main employer is either Raytheon or UTC could see their plants consolidated. Or closed.

Lobbyists for both companies will be working with each other on projects and initiatives, which could result in pressure for other defense companies to merge.

<comment><USER20> Did you see their website posted for the merger? There will be 4 divisions/segments/??? 2 are from UTC and 2 from Raytheon, it does not seem like they are planning for a real integration.

<comment><USER19> I did not, so maybe this disqualifies me from commenting further, however I typically don't read press releases because they often contain lies, spin, and everything in between.

I'll give it a look.

<comment><USER21> Oh so you don't bother to figure out the facts prior to posting your opinion online? So smart!

<comment><USER22> Reading press releases is rarely as useful as reading the filings. Whether it's a company's financial numbers (ignore the PR, read the 10-K), an up and coming IPO ( _definitely_ ignore the investors and underwriters, read the S-1), or even a piece of legislation (ignore the congressional testimony, it's for cable news soundbites, read the floor text and amendments).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not related but some history about Raytheon and Arpanet: [https://www.raytheon.com/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/documents/dig...](https://www.raytheon.com/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/documents/digitalasset/rtn_224614.pdf)

<comment><USER24> Technically it was BBN Technologies that worked on Arpanet. Raytheon would acquire BBN in 2009...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Until they name themselves union aerospace corporation I will not care :)

<comment><USER26> Or Weyland Yutani...

<comment><USER25> We know UAC definitely establishes a mars colony :D

<comment><USER26> On the one hand, clean Argent energy.

On the other hand, Hell.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Project 523 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_523 <comment><USER2> It's nice to see something with a name like "Project $number" or "Bureau $number" and find that (a) yes, it is something in Asia and (b) no, it's not about torture and cruelty and war crimes.

But it seems strange to me that Traditional Chinese Medicine was actually successful.</comment>


Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html <comment><USER2> I grew up in a third-world country, and I've noticed a palpable shift in the moods of my educated, middle-class friends and family back home.

People in many third-world countries have been fed the line that democracy is the correct form of government. This isn't accidental: the soft power of Hollywood and the myth of American exceptionalism have been powerful incentives to have faith in the ability of democratic institutions to improve lives: it's an odd form of cargo-cultism, and if you are a believer in freedom and democracy, a "helpful delusion". The educated elites in third world democracies have recoiled from the notion of authoritarianism, and from the idea of having every aspect of their lives surveilled for safety.

Political events in the US, the rise of social media, and the risks of virality unexpectedly unleashing mob chaos have made them a lot more wary. Openness and the exchange of ideas exposes the worst of human nature: the trolls whose ideas are magnified by algorithms seeking to capture attention. The propagandists and bots with their massive reach are noticed by educated people, who can see how powerless or unwilling social networks and governments are to stop them. It doesn't matter whether the propagandists succeed or not- their mere unfettered existence is enough to disturb people.

With the weakening of democratic norms, other options are suddenly back on the table. As people have theoretically become freer, they seem to seek more security. Blanketing a city with CCTV seems to be a pragmatic trade-off for personal safety. The censorship of China seems to be attractive because of the endless hateful noise of social media, the orderliness of having criminals removed from society permanently via the death penalty suddenly seems attractive. The lesser-educated never really cared for abstract notions of liberty anyway. In short, the authoritarian surveillance state is an increasingly attractive proposition to large swathes of humanity.

<comment><USER3> I know many from various Middle Eastern countries who share a similar viewpoint.

As an Arab myself, I see it as nothing more than a defeatist attitude that is typically held by those who have enough money and connections (typically upper class).

Safety and democracy can coexist and are not mutually exclusive as you claim. The safest countries in the world are democracies last I checked.

Democracy is not only about "abstract notions of liberty", but also (and more importantly) about justice and equality for all. When these "lesser-educated" people are held in prison without trial for watching the wrong Youtube video or practicing the wrong religion, they also realize this fact.

<comment><USER4> While I agree with your overall point, I am not sure I would attribute defeatism to the rest of the world so much as the West. It is the West that is set to remove any form of commonality and turn to a state of legalized corruption and nepotism. The Chinese, Russians and Arabs are just copying the West. They are the ones getting the high-rises, roads and subways. And people are actually seeing progress.

If the West ever returns to the idea of democratic society where everyone should have access to education, housing and good working conditions. Where we run our countries, our infrastructure and invest in scientific progress together. And where we believe that running businesses in line with the values of society is better. Then they would want democracy as well.

<comment><USER5> > The Chinese, Russians and Arabs are just copying the West.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that those countries are categorically different from democracies.

Those countries do not have the interlocking systems of laws, elections, values, that constitute democracy, things like 1) rule of law 2) private property rights 3) protections for minorities 4) independent judiciaries 5) systematic transitions of power through electoral systems with competing parties 6) independent constitutions that require 2/3rds or more majorities to amend, 7) separation of church and state (this includes cult of personalities), I could go on.

Superficially, it seems fair to compare democratic western countries to China, Russia, and Arab monarchies/dictatorships. But you easily slide into a category error. The very fact that they are not democracies means the people in those countries lack concrete tangible mechanisms and systems to ensure their freedom, independence, and safety, in a productive society that also protects minorities. The people are just fundamentally less free than they would be if they were in a democracy.

Your criticisms of western democracies are well founded. The biggest problem in modern democracies is simple greed and regulatory capture (and intensification of capital in a low % of the population but that's connected to greed and regulatory capture). But that's not an argument to adopt a Chinese, Russian, or Arab, system if there is one beyond greed and authoritarian control. That's an argument to fix our democracies (ironically, the idea of fixing a government and society in this way is _unique_ to happening within a democracy, otherwise what are you fighting for? more oppression?).

The grass is always greener when you assume you'll be in the powerful, rich, or successful, portion of society. But you can't assume that. So we have democracy.

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree with democracy. It is just that the system isn't its idea, but what it delivers. Most people never looked up to the US because it was the most democratic, because it wasn't. But because it delivered relative to other systems. The US system gave some of its people prosperity as in a decent sized house, the independence of a car to use the extensive highway network, an education and a career. Essentially a future.

Today it doesn't deliver. People go to the US because the status and the money, despite the visa process, the education system, the housing market and the infrastructure. Soon enough they will catch up to the status and the money, and the West will have little to offer.

It is easy the point the finger to everyone else, but it is the West that aren't fighting for it. We want the global markets, the large companies and the Chinese investments. You can't have both. You can't on the one hand have an idea of how things should be, and on the other sell it to highest bidder.

There are probably hundreds of articles about China "stealing" industries from the West. But overall they are just buying them to the delight of the owners, either with money or effort. And then the West somehow thinks that the Chinese should be the ones considering them successful.

<comment><USER5> I personally wouldn't jump at the chance to live in the US, but I still would. I absolutely would not ever live in a country that is not a democracy. That is the distinction I think you are kind of eliding. A puttering democracy is _still better_ than a thriving authoritarian country.

In general, I agree with you. I would not use the current US as a stirling example, historically, though the US system has been largely successful. We probably disagree on the level of success though.

I can't speak from the US perspective, but in Canada many people come and they like it here. Not just because of status or money. Because people don't just need or want status or money. They like it here because here we actually work to balance security and opportunity. Not everyone is happy. But they're not unhappy and without rights, they're just unhappy. Liberal democracies have been trying to create [Rawlsian justice]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_Two_Pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice#The_Two_Principles_of_Justice)) and some have been more successful than others.

I think the idea that economic success and liberal democratic values coincide has been too quickly conflated. I share your view of West - China trade. The West thought that liberalizing economic markets would naturally _cause_ liberalized societies and democracies. Allowing China to enter the WTO without serious stipulations and controls to ensure democratic transition was a mistake. And now they flaunt their economic "success" as the sign of a successful counter to democracy. Western industries and governments that cozy up to China risk serious moral hazard and we are already seeing the effects of that.

We missed our chance to seriously allow a liberal China to take shape when it would have been best to.

But China _still_ relies on the west for trade. And that is our leverage. Going alone against China is suicide. As a block of democracies, however, we could stand up to them quite easily. We just can't be greedy. That's a hard sell in 2019 apparently.

<comment><USER4> > In general, I agree with you. I would not use the current US as a stirling > example, historically, though the US system has been largely successful. We > probably disagree on the level of success though.

That is sort of the point. People see the US as an example of democracy because of its prosperity, not because of its democracy. If you want democracy you probably go to Finland instead.

Everything _is_ worse in these authoritarian countries not just the freedom. That is another thing people generally don't understand. There is nothing to catch up to. We just have to make sure to not get worse ourselves. And to actually use the advantages we had. That is why I am saying that it is the West that is defeatist. It is we that are changing our ways, to a large extent from our post war ideals.

If you want the feature of democracy you have actually be democratic. Which many areas of our societies increasingly aren't. It is nice to be able to say whatever you want, but if no one is listening there is no effect. The point is that something should happen, otherwise we are just cargo culting ourselves and being jesters for those in power.

<comment><USER6> The democracy thing is how the power centers like to represent it. Democracies without inalienable rights (specifically to property ownership, speech and self defense) are inherently unstable.

The United States is a constitutional republic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the ideal size of a polis? Too small: there's no privacy. Too large: also no privacy.

In the first case, for example a roving band of stone-agers, say N = 30 with all males related and everybody knowing the leader. Which is good because whatever the political system, leadership entails consent of the led. But bad because the leader knows everyone so it's harder to act or think differently. Errors in understanding the world are firmly entrenched.

The second case might be for example a modern state of N = 100M, with IT. There are notional leaders but they are partly controlled by unseen oligarchs, possibly residents of _other_ states. The bureaucracy and businesses collect and sell information about everybody. Voting, if it exists at all, generates little consent, since only a negligible fraction of people know the official leaders, let alone the oligarchs, let alone what sort of decisions will be consequently be made.

The ideal is therefore presumably where N is some fairly low multiple of _Dunbar 's Number_. But even if we wanted to we don't have the technology or knowledge to implement this yet.

<comment><USER8> It's almost as if decentralized federalism of the United States, with a limited federal government, states which are essentially 50 laboratories to experiment with which ideas work, which don't, and which need to be different, with lots of county and town level control as befits the granularities of each level of affiliation, starts to make sense.

<comment><USER9> Now imagine this applied to an entire planet.

All countries doing their own experiments, no wars, and people being free to travel across borders at any time, to live in and support the ideals they prefer.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't work that well if people move to other countries to change them to become like their original country. Would only work if travel across borders with the intention of staying was forbidden. Would also incentivize people to change their own country for the better when they can see other successful countries they just have to copy.

<comment><USER11> > Doesn't work that well if people move to other countries to change them to > become like their original country.

You can make the exact same argument against 'states as laboratories'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This focus on surveillance in China is incredibly disingenuous because things aren't actually all that different in the West. We all carry phones that collect a ton of information on us, and we now know that this information is shared with the government. The only difference is that in China you know that the state watches you while here we pretend that it's not the case. The reality is that Chinese government is just more open about it. We also have a social credit system here it's your credit rating score. Your value in the West is determined solely by the size of your bank account.

So, perhaps if we don't like what we see in China, it's time to start looking inward instead of pointing fingers.

<comment><USER13> > things aren't actually all that different in the West

Really. I feel there's a massive difference between agencies background lurking looking for signs of extremism to focus limited physical surveillance resources and a 'social credit score' where you ability to work a job, attend a school or catch a plane etc is based on a computer generated score on how the govt feels you should act from their surveillance.

<comment><USER14> Well, this particular article is about surveillance tech sold by China. The complain is that Chinese companies don't have the sense of responsibility that Western companies have.

While I'd agree that domestically, the West doesn't have China's direct illegalizing of dissent, for the sales of tech to other nations (Saudi Arabia or China itself), claims of Western superiority seem awfully stretched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also similar maybe not as in depth situations are made in the UK, US and others. Not just China.

<comment><USER16> The Dutch have it pretty bad, possible worse than some of the above. [https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/20...](https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart- cities-data-privacy-eindhoven-utrecht)

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-dutch-surveillance- kings-o...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-dutch-surveillance-kings-of- europe-are-about-to-get-even-nosier)

<comment><USER17> As a dutch citizen from a city near Utrecht, I am baffled by the number of surveillance systems in place operated by surveillance capitalists. This has to stop. Uncontrolled invasion of our public space without properly informing the subjects and giving a choice is totally unacceptable.

<comment><USER18> Sadly I find that the Dutch, in general, are extremely indifferent and even antagonistic towards political activism.

I'm not entirely sure why this is. Perhaps it's general wealth/comfort, or perhaps a history of, at best, amoral profit-seeking.

Or maybe I'm just seeing things. But in general my experience has been that the kinds of people that I would expect to be activists are much less so over here than in, say, Germany or France or Spain.

<comment><USER19> > _Or maybe I 'm just seeing things_

No, I've always been befuddled by how both the Dutch and Belgian have basically had their colonial reigns of terror handwaved away.

It's likely that neither nation really acknowledges it or has anyone agitating internally for the nation to own up to it. So like you said, they're rich and a bit amoral.

<comment><USER18> My impression is that we don't even bother to hand-wavy and justify or defend any of it. We just don't care. It happened. It's in the past. And we didn't personally do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if Ecuador is the best example to use for the export of technology enabled authoritarianism?

I strongly suspect the generation of equipment installed in Ecuador misses the more recent and far more ominous AI/ML force multiplier effect of surveillance technology.

Mass customised surveillance price/performance is making an Orwellian/Stasi state a reality.

In terms of authoritarianism versus democracy my thoughts are:

Votes can't be eaten Votes can't shelter you Votes can't employ you Votes can't educate your children Votes can't ensure a better quality of life for you children

Votes don't equate to trust

I strongly prefer living under democracy than authoritarianism.

But if there was a hypothetical binary choice between:

Corrupt democratic government

And

Net Promoter Score responsive authoritarian government

I believe the needle will be shifting away from the former and towards the latter.

Perhaps the perception of democracy as a luxury with a questionable value proposition to many is one that should be better considered?

Do we want/need Government as a Service/Subscription?

</comment><comment><USER21> Invented in the West for public safety, exported to the rest of the world for corporate profit.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's always right when the West and big corporations do it, because they are the good guys, right?. Everyone has an agenda, whether its open or hidden.

Any form of violation of privacy or rights and anyone who does it should be held accountable. Just don't pick and choose to suit your bias.

</comment><comment><USER23> invented in the UK

<comment><USER19> The playbook was written there too.

Poor George. He'll get a statue as the "godfather of our peaceful watchful state" and not for warning us.

<comment><USER24> The oddest thing about 1984 is how the education system ( at least here in the US ) has turned it into a warning about the soviet union when it was in fact a warning about the west. Animal farm was about the soviet union. 1984 was about the west. And yet we are taught over and over again that 1984 was about the soviet union.

George Orwell worked as a propagandist for the BBC during ww2.

"I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task."

[https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-orwell- sta...](https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-orwell- statue-20160809-snap-story.html)

Orwell based the Ministry of Truth and Room 101 on the BBC. And yet the BBC is building a statue for Orwell for his work as a "journalist" at the BBC. What an insane world we live in. The BBC is co-opting Orwell to burnish their own reputation, even though Orwell criticized and warned us about the BBC. You have to respect the hubris even if you disagree with the misrepresentation.

<comment><USER19> It wasn't framed as anti-soviet when I was in school. Just broadly anti- authoritarian

<comment><USER19> But it makes sense the west tried to reframe it. Otherwise Londoners would have been highly skeptical of the mass installation of CCTV and nationwide disarmament.

<comment><USER25> > nationwide disarmament

should and will happen in most countries.

> CCTV

too many people per sq km to proper police.

<comment><USER19> Okay, statist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The history of China's rise as a technologically enabled state is in direct contradiction to the premise of the accusation.

The West invented technologically enabled surveillance. The Stasi in Germany - for example - developed a records and accounting system and would use home telephony equipment to spy on dissidents. As of the 70s and 80s the United States NSA has backdoored much of the modern global communications systems - and has build these systems to scale intelligence into actionable intelligence for partner enforcement organizations (CIA/FBI/etc). At a municipal scale, the United States is networked with threat scoring systems, camera networks with facial recognition, ISMI interceptors (with continuous passive collections events over all major cities), data fusion centers between policing and data networks, requirements to data holding companies to compel data access, and much more - these systems were build several decades ago but are constantly being updated.

China was struggling through these decades to reestablish itself, and has only recently copied modern Western systems of surveillance.

I don't really have teeth in that game though. I realize this is a political topic ("blame"). The fact that the West employs a sophisticated and pervasive surveillance state should not restrict us from criticizing Eastern implementations of the same gross mal-application of technology. And the fact is that who "invented" it is a bit of a non-starter, as state surveillance existed thousands of years ago in rudimentary forms that have evolved independently between states - and the application of modern technology is just one aspect of historical picture.

Of course the surveillance situation in the United States goes much further, with state intelligence agencies actively "engaged" with the public so that public perception can be shaped. The NSA calls this combination of surveillance and engagement "active listening". I don't know whether China has learned from this yet (such topics are hard to research) but it wouldn't surprise me.

</comment><comment><USER27> I would have subscribed to the times by now if they practiced what they preached. Why can't paykng subs be free of the tracking ads?

</comment><comment><USER28> It's amazing how many of the top-selling IP cameras on Amazon (including "Amazon's Choice" like Wyze) have buyer reviews where people discovered their cameras contacting servers in China, Russia, etc.

And that's why we made an autonomous, cloud-less video security assistant. We should probably do a Show HN at some point!

</comment><comment><USER29> I've written it elsewhere on HN, but the China model is going to be the more popular model of internet management.

It's time to understand the implications of a govt sanctioned whitelist of information.

</comment><comment><USER30> How many people in this thread advocating for surveillance are doing so because they, as information workers, would personally have an advantage under such a system?</comment>


YC bug: can't edit comment - <AUTHOR>

I can't edit a comment just after posting http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=93343 There appears the link to the edit page, but the edit pages ends after the "text" label. The textbox, the button, etcetera are missing :(<p>My browser is Safari 3.0.4 ("Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/523.10.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Safari/523.10.6"). <comment><USER2> Sure enough, that's a bug. Will fix in the morning.

<comment><USER2> Ok, fixed. If anyone's curious, this bug was an interesting example of what happens when you're simultaneously writing a language and an application. For a few months I experimented with having a literal return itself when funcalled. You'd never do this in an ordinary call; the advantage was that it was more convenient to use literals in function-building functions like compose, complement, etc.

I eventually decided this was a bad feature because it concealed so many bugs. But of course the price of getting rid of something bad for that reason is that all the bugs it had been concealing are exposed. I caught nearly all of them, but not this one. (For a few hours yesterday morning the comment counts were wrong, but no one seemed to notice.)

On the whole, this application has been surprisingly reliable. We log all runtime errors, and before this it had been weeks since one occurred.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Thank you Paul!</comment></comment></comment>


Giving up on Google - <AUTHOR> http://robsheldon.com/giving-up-on-google <comment><USER2> I really think this is a case of confirmation bias. We see Google approaching this dominating mass that's impossible to stop, so we begin looking for ways to tear down big brother and look for holes. So, we notice every spam entry.

I work in search and I can't recollect a time EVER having been frustrated with what Google gave me - and having to go to another engine. And I live, eat, & breathe the thing.

I understand I have a notoriously small sample (as compared to the entire world of search - and I generally search for terms that have been optimized by similar search professionals), but the idea is that really, 10 good search results is pretty much impossible - what matters is that there is always three-four results on every page that are relevant. And without fail, Google continues to deliver this - at least for me.

This process is what occurs for every monopoly. We hate the Yankees, Microsoft, whatever. It's natural to want to bring down something so dominating. But for me, Google is doing an absolutely incredible job.

The only potential I see for something like DDG unseating them (or even gaining legitimate market share) is if Google loses the ability to pivot. If this occurs, the dilution of the algorithm is possible, which could turn their product to crap.

BUT, given their history of 200+ algorithm changes per year, they have shown that not to be the case. Because of this, I imagine Google will be with us - & strongly with us - for the entirety of our lifetimes.

<comment><USER3>
      >> I  really think this is a case of confirmation bias. We see Google approaching this dominating mass that's impossible to stop, so we begin looking for ways to tear down big brother and look for holes.

I think that this is a case where we were comparing Google to what existing before (Yahoo, etc), and thought "this is great". Now we compare Google only to what we think it 'should' be.

<comment><AUTHOR> For me, I remember how great Google was when I started using it around 1999, compared to AltaVista or Metacrawler; it was great because it was able to find results that the other two just couldn't, and it did it quickly.

Lately, I've found myself feeling like search is back in 1999 again.

<comment><USER4> > Lately, I've found myself feeling like search is back in 1999 again.

You're spoiled then.

<comment><AUTHOR> "It could be worse" is always a valid rebuttal to any complaint.

But it doesn't actually move the conversation forward at all.

<comment><USER4> But I didn't mean "It could be worse", I meant google search is actually amazing and I find what I'm looking for 99% of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am often annoyed by Google. Its word clustering is too clever by half.

At one point I was debugging, I think, an NSTableView object. Google says "eh, fuck it, iPhone dev is much more popular, here's UITableView. Have fun with that."

And so then I have to wrap NSTableView in quotes to force Google to use my input as I've provided it.

I wish I could turn this kind of stuff off.

<comment><USER6> I can't think of any good examples now, but in some IDEs in the 80s and 90s they had an "expert mode" you could toggle on and off to extend the number of menu options and the like. A similar setting on Google would be great.

I know a little of Google's syntax like the + and " workarounds, but having a literal search as default would be worthwhile for many users. I recall that I switched to Altavista back in the mid 90s because it offered a feature like that.

<comment><USER5> From your mouth to Marissa Meyer's ears.

My ultimate Google fantasy: An account setting called "2008 mode."

No instant search.

No fancy, annoying endless scroll Google image search.

No word clustering/auto-substitution.

It would be awesome.

<comment><USER7> Yes, please.

The image search has been a pet peeve of mine, especially because of the way the results are provided to the end users. It seems they do everything they can to stop people from visiting actual websites through the image search.

Instant search was fun for about 30 seconds. Then it's back to work and then it is rather annoying. At least you can disable it (just to the right of the search bar there is a little settings menu).

The word clustering and auto-substitution are a real pain in the ass, especially when it keeps coming up with stuff that just isn't right but is more popular. I really can't stand that. I find myself using quoted queries far more frequently than in the past.

2008 sounds just about right, they can market it as 'google classic' for all I care.

<comment><USER6> _2008 sounds just about right, they can market it as 'google classic' for all I care._

It makes me wonder if, perhaps, Google2010 is just Google's _New Coke_ ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand the Gmail complaint _at all_. Sure it has its weaknesses such as the policy to not spend the resources stemming emails causing search to suck, but Gmail pretty much defined the usable webmail interface for power users.

 _The interface on my webmail software feels like a mail client should -- easy navigation, threaded conversations, multiple window panes, and it's fast. Google on the other hand took years before they could be bothered to add buttons to Gmail, and even now Gmail's interface is an ugly monument to 90's era design principles._

Uh, in 2004 when Gmail launched it was one of the first widespread AJAX apps. It made Hotmail / Yahoo feel like molasses, gave you 200x storage, and added the idea of labels instead of folders. They obsessed tremendously over performance to make it usable by people who hitherto had only been able to tolerate desktop mail clients.

Now I realize a lot of things change in 6 years, but hell, Dreamhost is still using SquirrelMail. The author just throws it out there like amazing webmail is a foregone conclusion, yet I've not seen any webmail that beats Gmail even by a little bit. Can someone enlighten me?

<comment><USER9> A lot has changed since 2004. Yahoo for example has 3 pane viewing, tabbed email and chat, you can scroll through and see every email in your Inbox ever received without having to click any links.

It feels pretty much like a desktop application, actually...

<comment><USER10> threaded emails is a major reason to choose gmail over yahoo (in 2010)

<comment><USER11> GMail doesn't even respect In-Reply-To, and frequently screws up threading on any technical mailing list I subscribe to. It's good at its ad-hoc "conversation" grouping, not threading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe a minor quibble, but isn't DDG powered by Yahoo BOSS with features added on top? Yet, Rob then goes on to say "Yahoo can't be taken seriously" and points out queries where Yahoo does a poor job of handing synonyms - DDG has the same problem for the exact same query if you try it. Furthermore, the other queries which he suggests give irrelevant results on Google seem to give me irrelevant results on DDG.

<comment><USER13> Among the differences, DDG blocks MFA content mills and junk sites. If you report one they add it quite fast.

<comment><USER14> Yahoo certainly tries to do that too, although I guess you're getting the union of yahoo/bing's spam-fighting and DDG's spam fighting.

I suspect that of the two, yahoo's has a much bigger impact given the size of the teams involved.

<comment><USER15> Actually I remove tons of spam from the Yahoo, Bing & other feeds.

<comment><USER14> What order of magnitude is tons? Not to take away from what you're doing, but historically 90% of new domains are spam.

<comment><USER15> I'd have to check for exact numbers, but for a large % of searches I'm removing links from those APIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've tried several times to give up my Google habit. Once for an extended period with DDG. However each time, despite the correctly mentioned issues with spam, gaming etc, I still experienced severe withdrawal symptoms (and I made myself use the alternatives for 2 weeks at least, so I wasn't just hankering for the familiar).

Ironically, of all Google's services, search is the one I could most easily replace and would most like to replace, if an equally good competitor emerges. On the other hand, giving up Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and even Buzz at this point would be hard as my life is interwoven into them in many complex ways. The fact that my whole life is stored in these accounts but the same account lets google track my searches and associate them to me scares me and actually makes me _want_ to replace Google as my search engine.

<comment><USER17> I agree that Google search is the easiest to replace. I've been using DDG for a few weeks now and I've been happy with it. I tried to look for a good competitor to Gmail but every other competitor is just plain bad. It's like everyone just gave up on email after Gmail came along.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My biggest peeve about Google is how subpar their search is outside of Web & GMail. YouTube is the one that burns me the most. I often have to go to web search and append youtube at the end of my query to find the relevant result. The same _exact_ search on YouTube gets me nothing relevant. The same is true of Android Market. A simple misplaced space, typo or misspelling breaks your search. It's like time warping back to web search circa 1996. I've never understood why Google doesn't apply all their knowledge about search to these other services.

</comment><comment><USER19> Well, as a single sample, I tried the first thing that came to mind in google and duckduckgo. "breast shimming" which refers to the process of adjusting the magnetic field of a MRI scanner to obtain images of the breast (relevant to a project I'm working on). Every single duckduckgo result is irrelevant. Most of googles results are relevant. It's too bad because google is somewhat hit or miss for me. Someone needs to sic duck duck go on pubmed.

<comment><USER20> Did you turn safe search off on DDG? When I gave these queries a go, I noticed that DDG stripped "breast" out of the query. The results seemed much more relevant once safe search was disabled.

Not that I'd want to go around with safe search disabled all the time...

<comment><USER15> Yes, this is a safe search problem. Presumably [http://duckduckgo.com/?q=breast+shimming&kp=-1](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=breast+shimming&kp=-1) is what you want.

Edit: FWIW, I fixed this: <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=breast+shimming> should now work as well.

<comment><USER19> Excellent! Safe search didn't occur to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just last Friday, I was pleasantly surprised to find Duck Duck Go is the only search engine (of those I tried) that shows me a hex color when I search it, e.g. <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=%23004499>

And not long before, I searched for my oldest still-surviving site (on Angelfire). I discovered that while Google returned 20 garbage sites, they didn't include mine; my site was the _only_ one DDG returned.

<comment><USER22> The balance is between offering a cool feature and the danger that all those features accrete into cruft. If you wanted something similar for Google, you can create your own "Subscribed Link" to do this: <http://www.google.com/coop/subscribedlinks/>

I've created a subscribed links to mimic the UNIX cal command, for example: [http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/add-calendar-shortcut-to- googl...](http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/add-calendar-shortcut-to-google/)

<comment><USER15> It's a case by case thing. In this case, the query space is pretty segmented to avoid cruft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I left a few comments below, but I wanted to say thanks for mentioning some searches that Google didn't do well on. They're interesting searches, so I thought I'd break them down:

\- [avaya 103r manual] It's a fair complaint to say some low-quality results are returned, but there's a reason. Do that search and Google says "About 1,510 results." That's a minuscule number of results--it usually means the web has very little content that matches that query in any way. That's why the lower-quality and foreign results show up: we're scraping the bottom of the barrel of the web to find any results at all, and there's not many pages that have that those words. If you go to avaya.com and search for [103r], they don't find any results either. It's hard for Google to return useful Avaya results when avaya.com doesn't have that word anywhere on the site. :)

\- You were looking for specs on a Gateway mt6840 motherboard, specifically the socket. Instead of trying to solve that in one query, I'd go for doing it in two steps. I did the query [site:gateway.com mt6840] to see if there was any authoritative result, and the #1 result was [http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2007/Oasis/1014554R/1014...](http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2007/Oasis/1014554R/1014554Rsp2.shtml) which has specs for that motherboard, but not the socket. But that spec sheet mentions that the motherboard uses a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T2450. So then I searched for [T2450 socket] and got a Wikipedia page that says the T2450 uses Socket M. Just to be safe, searching for [MT6840 "socket m"], which returns a page on computing.net that's a forum with some ads, but the page mentions "945GM-based laptops support Socket M Core 2 Duo CPUs." The Gateway spec sheet says the MT6840 uses a 945GM chipset, so Socket M seems like a safe bet.

\- The last search was about an OpenSolaris machine that wouldn't boot and that said "Error 16" instead. The complaint was that the results were stale/old. I did the search [opensolaris boot "error 16"]. Then over on the left-hand side, click "Show search tools" and click "Past year" to get results from the past year. The #1 result shows a long discussion about debugging this (which implies it's not a trivial issue). The #2 result is a discussion that points into opensolaris.org, which then points to this bug: <http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6774616> . My point on this query is that you can use the left-hand search bar to restrict the results to a certain time range (e.g. only results from the last week, month, or year).

We do try to provide tools (e.g. estimated number of results, or the ability to restrict results by date) to help find the answers--or to find out if there aren't good answers on the web.

And in some cases like your #2 search, we could do a better job of synthesizing information. If page A says that a motherboard uses this chip/chipset and page B says that this chip/chipset uses this socket, then we could infer what socket the motherboard uses. Inferring information like this is really tricky though because the web can be really noisy.

I'm not saying Google shouldn't do better on these searches. You're clearly a power searcher, and I share your frustration when it's really hard to find what you want using Google. I'll pass this article around within the search quality group at Google and see if we could do better on searches like these-- thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER23> Matt, it's great that you think enough of us here to give direct feedback. I wish I could give you some example searches too, but most of what has bugged me lately relates to stuff which might brush up against NDA terms, so I don't feel comfy giving specifics.

Overall I still love Google, I must use the search service 50 times a day so complaints about shortcomings are a bit like grumbling about the paintwork on my free new car :-) So I'll try and identify two recurring (and relatively new-feeling) headaches:

1\. quotes. When I put it "in quotes" I don't want ti speell-checked, or cleaned, or made case-insensitive, or whatever else. I would rather get not results and experiment with other strings, than think I've got results that turn out not to be exactly what I searched for. It _seems_ to me like punctuation often gets stripped even if it's inside quotes. For some kinds of searches involving bits of source code or so, this can be a drag.

2\. Content farming. I know you are constantly struggling against people gaming the system and so forth. I don't blame Google when I get 50 results of generic junk referring to obscure search terms...the "find [niche product] resellers, hints, tips!" types that are totally generic. but what _does_ piss me off is that a few months ago Google offered a button that would let zap such results, and I could label clutter as clutter. Now on a deep search, I often spend several minutes trying to think what terms are common enough to content farms that -excluding them will prune the results sufficiently that the remaining search results are worth checking one by one.

You remember that Bing ad where someone says something random and their geeky partner starts hypnotically chanting associated but unhelpful phrases, implying an overbroad result set? Sorry, but they had a point.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the feedback. Punctuation is tricky, because it only adds value for power searchers, but indexing it would swell the index size quite a lot. Otherwise, using double-quotes should do an exact search.

On content farms, we've definitely heard that feedback. One point up for debate is whether to respond with algorithms-only, or whether we should update our quality guidelines to call out low-quality content farms as a type of webspam. Both DuckDuckGo and Blekko seem delighted to remove sites that most people don't like from the search results. Here's a link for DDG for example: <http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25532/> . The question is: would you feel comfortable if Google removed results that a lot of people don't like from our index? And how do you balance the goal of reducing clutter and junk with the goal of being fair and comprehensive?

<comment><USER24> Yes!

and if people wanted a fuller result, you can say, "more lower quality links found. Click here to view all" similar to the way that searching in gmail lets you search in trash & spam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> >> legitimate search results have become cluttered by old, stale web forums and mailing list postings.

QFT. I spent the beginning of the year teaching myself Rails, and I can't count the number of times I cursed Google's search results. Multiple different copies of the same mailing list post, just from different mirrors. And almost everything pointed to some old version of Ruby or Rails that wasn't relevant anymore.

And searching on Google Groups is _worse_.

</comment><comment><USER26> I also switched to DDG at the prompting of an HN commenter, and agree entirely with the points made in the OP.

The only downside really is just in the formatting of the results - I can get 11-12 results in a google search in a full-height window and about 8 in DDG. Sure, some of that is due to the very nice "disambiguator" box (or whetever they call it), and the results are indeed generally higher quality, but it is also due to large title fonts and designey white space, so I personally would like a bit of that back.

(No I haven't sent this to DDG feedback because for all I know it is a personal peeve and everybody else likes it this way)

<comment><USER27> "(No I haven't sent this to DDG feedback because for all I know it is a personal peeve and everybody else likes it this way)"

The way I see it, Gabriel's job is to decide whether it's a personal peeve or not. Your job is to ask for new features and "complain" about the old features, so that he can hear what real users think.

<comment><USER15> Yes, please complain (although be nice about it) :)

The design is continually in flux based on user feedback, but recently I've been stepping back to take a more holistic approach and really push it forward.

I will be working with a professional designer on this and the duck.co community (if anyone wants to participate). I hope this will become evident (and useful) within a few months from now. So by all means, give design feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Giving up on a blog that can't display the article in full without JavaScript. Progressive enhancement folks!

(Web apps get a pass, but if your site only needs to display text it should not _require_ JS.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads-up. Actually it _is_ designed to gracefully fall back without JavaScript, but there appears to be a display bug I wasn't aware of.

I'll fix it soon but right now I have a server down.

(BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.)

edit: fixed.

<comment><USER29>
      > (BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you
      > noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.)

I can't quite form words around the feeling, but this feels like a very backwards statement to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's relatively easy these days to make sites that use JS in a smart way to dynamically load content. In the case of this personal site, if JS is on, then all the links do is request a "stripped-down" version of only the content of each post, and then swap that into the main content area. There are no http requests then for the images, background, css, and so on, which is nice for the server.

That's all well and good, but then I have to go back and make that also all work for noscript users. So, for example, I can't just have a list of items on the left, and then on page load, have JavaScript just "click" the top item in the list. Instead, I have to put in extra effort to get the backend to handle the default home page, and so on.

On this site, that wasn't really that hard. On more complex sites, it can be very hard.

...and I'm one of the "silly" web developers, that actually tries to work with the .5% or so of people that have JS turned off. With jQuery and everything else out there, most web developers don't seem to bother.

<comment><USER30> I think that's the "backwards" he was talking about. You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without.

The accepted way of doing this is to build your links to point to URLs, then use script to override them with whatever dynamic wackiness you think is helpful. You get all sorts of bonuses by doing it that way (such as ctrl- click, save target as, etc.) without any of the downside you go on about.

And it's not any harder to implement.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to > find ways to make them work without._

Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS.

I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the kinds of backwards testing I was talking about (and obviously didn't do the last time I updated it).

See, in order for the layout to work with a minimum number of images, there's a CSS trick in some overlapping layers. The JS in the page coincidentally extends one of those layers when it inserts the fairly unobtrusive text control links that allow you to scale the page text as large or as small as is comfortable to read on your display (something the noscript folks don't even realize isn't there). Without that element, the content layer wasn't being resized correctly.

I'm on your guys' side here. I know all the "accepted ways"; I have to explain them to my clients when I justify the costs they're charged, and the benefits. Sometimes they want to know how many people this will actually affect, and I have to tell them, "maybe a few", and then try to justify doing it anyway.

And, it _is_ harder to implement. I can build a site that will look exactly right no matter what size display you're reading it on; fonts and images will all scale, and the site will look right at 800x600 or 1600x1200, without lots of scrolling or empty space. The catch is, to do that, I need JS to work, and spending time trying to figure out the least ugly way to display the site sans JS is not "not any harder".

Feel free to browse my page source, it's fairly easy to read, if unconventional in places.

<comment><USER30> The lesson is still the same though: Deliver a simple HTML page to the client that can be viewed correctly and in full without scripting or CSS turned on. Then, optionally, use scripting to enhance what's already there.

By doing it any other way, you run into the issues you're running into.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, I give up. :-) I could continue trying to sort this out with you, or I could just go back to work. Thanks for the advice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wow, that blog design is beautiful.

Anyways, I'd love to switch to DDG, but too often it tells me "No more results. Try Google.", and almost every time a subsequent search on Google provides me with many more (relevant) links for the same query.

If DDG could be configured to basically be a proxy and fetch all of its results from Google, that'd be cool.

<comment><USER13> The text gets chopped for Chrome/OSX.

<comment><AUTHOR> Argh. I will fix this. Sorry.

edit: fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've been on duckduckgo for a few weeks. It's different in a very good way. The only time I reverted to google was to try instant, which I find a great improvement.

It's brilliant that there is still quality innovation going on in the search space. It's an old industry now, after all.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just wanted to vouch as well for yegg's amazing response. He fixed some l-key issues I complained about on duckduckgo within just a couple weeks, and responded to me within a day.

Maybe yegg could drop a comment on how he manages his time to do all this?

<comment><USER15> No magic bullet. Here's the process:

\--All feedback gets pushed to my personal email inbox--gmail :)

\--I try to do 0-inbox, i.e. keep my inbox at zero messages. This is usually not attainable, but means it functions essentially as a to-do list.

\--I respond to all feedback ASAP (unless anonymous).

\--If it is something simple that I know how to fix I try to do it that day.

\--If it is something a bit more complicated, I respond, and put it on the bug queue. I'm currently using <http://speckleapp.com> for that, made by an HNer (<http://elliottkember.com/>).

\--Every few days I set aside a large block of time to go through that bug queue. If easily fixable, I fix it and respond back: "Fixed!" If not, I put it in another category, and explain why it is a complex issue and how and when it might get fixed (or not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not going to comment on Google, but about Duck Duck Go, I really like the service! Especially the !Bang feature and the keyboard shortcuts. I'm using it as a secondary search engine (after Google that is ;))

If someone wants to add Duck Duck Go to search engines in Opera, here's how (my own screenshot): <http://twitpic.com/24ex2e>

<comment><USER15> Note, you probably don't want that &v=d part.

<comment><USER34> You're right, with "&v=d" added to the URL it displays "I'm feeling ducky" and "relevant results" whereas without it displays more 'standard' results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This article inspired me to install the Duck Duck Go Search plugin ( <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/161971/> ); I'm going to give it a week.

<comment><USER36> I would suggest more than that. After 1 week, I hadn't really seen what DDG added in value. My experience says, give it 2-4 weeks.

<comment><USER37> I'm inclined to think that if you can't see why a product is useful to use after a week, it's probably not worth it. But then, my experiences with DDG have mostly consisted of comparing its results with google, and finding that the interface is a lot less usable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article prompted me to do likewise. For the past 24 hours and running, I have used Duck Duck Go exclusively instead of Google. It is like a breath of fresh air. I tried DDG a few months back and it was a bit on the rough side. It has made tremendous strides in the intervening time.

As for Google, they have gone past their prime. As the other comments note, 2008 was the peak. Yahoo is in the midst of what may be the longest running identity crisis ever to hit a company. And the name of the game for both Google and Bing is to keep you on their site with their advertisements for as long as they possibly can. Like some tentacled monster, they don't want to just serve you and let you go. The cheap tricks masquerading as a flashy UI ruin the user experience and make me not want to go back. Duck Duck Go actually keeps you coming by serving salient information (aka 'value') and then lets you get on with life. Kinda reminds me of the difference between the personality ethic and the character ethic from Covey's 7HHEP.

This was a great post. Thanks for putting it forward.

</comment><comment><USER39> As far as I can tell Google is basically giving up on the search business. About a month ago I reported a couple spam sites that were in the top ten results for a fairly popular search phrase. Over a month later they're still there. These are sites that are literally just a list of keywords with no actual content of value on the site, and Google does nothing even though they come up at the top of the results for a phrase that gets several hundred searches per day. That has to be in the top .1% of all searches, and while I realize they probably get tens of thousands of complaints per day this one would have literally taken less than 20 seconds to recognize it was a scam site and delete it from the index. And since clearly any algorithm should have moved this to the front of the queue based on both the popularity of the term and also the good standing of my account, the only real conclusion is that Google has basically just given up on trying completely.

<comment><USER22> Alex3917, do you remember the sites (or the query) you did?

<comment><USER40> I'm curious if Alex3917's response to this was set to dead as a result of automated spam filters or if there's something else going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I can't recall ever being seriously annoyed at google search until instant search. There have been times when I've been disappointed with the results. I've shared many of the experiences he mentions in the article.

Instant search has not saved me _any_ time and a couple times it has gotten in my way.

</comment><comment><USER42> A comparison article on search not mentioning Bing? Yahoo and Duck Duck Go both use Bing as far as I know. Of course there are cases when Bing is weaker than Google. For example your 'streamline/streamlining' example. (As Duck Duck Go also uses Bing of course they have the same problem). On the other hand in other cases Bing is better than Google.

I searched for this a while ago:

'impact of basic research on GDP'

There were no relevant results on Google, and the first result was relevant on Bing. (and of course on Duck Duck Go and Yahoo, which use Bing.)

Edit: It seems that now google also gives back relevant result on my search query, so this example is not relevant anymore.

<comment><USER15> DDG uses Bing, but usually not straight up. In this case, the first result is the same but others in the top ten are either different or in a different order. Not that they're necessarily better though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have seen a blank page on Google, too within the past couple of days. Never saw anything of the sort before. It was when I clicked to try a search on News, and I couldn't get that search to come up with anything different - until I turned of 'Instant'.

Oh well, whatever. I'm sure they logged an exception and will fix that soon.

As for people gaming the results, it is a huge problem, but it's a problem that is bound to plague any market leader in search.

</comment><comment><USER44> One of the issues with Duck Duck go is that it does filter results to the country of the user. As an UK user, when I put in the word flowers or "local programmers", I expect the results to be inclined towards UK pages as this is what will help me. Google does this well! There is no point in showing me stuff in NJ or Canada.

</comment><comment><USER45> My biggest complaint is that queries with something like OpenBSD don't have the word OpenBSD on the page. I have resorted to adding the names of configuration files I know need to be changed in my queries (e.g. pf.conf).

I do really wish I could have a "NO" button when it asks "Did you mean this?". It might give some feedback.

</comment><comment><USER46> > ... Yahoo really isn't in the search business anymore, at least among the > tech-savvy.

Was Yahoo! _ever_ in the search business, among the tech-savvy?

This is a serious question. I've been webbing since '93, but I never made any serious use of the Yahoo! search box. I thought I was typical. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER47> One of the great aspect of Google, it has remained very useful to the tech savvy, but still managed to appeal to the majority as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I don't yet use duck duck go because of the tiny lag (couple ms) that takes to display the results. The google results are almost instant, and i'm relly annoyed by the ddg small lag.

</comment><comment><USER49> It's almost like you need a anti-spam filter program for google to remove all the spam/farm sites from the results.

I wonder why google can't store a list of results I simply never want returned.

</comment><comment><USER50> I love the privacy policy on DDG - so elegant and clear. If google wants my business, I need to be able to u derstand their privacy policy. I am too suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER4> Someone needs to tell him instant can be turned off.

</comment><comment><USER51> Really curious why the website cuts the right border of the text without allowing js for some external site...

<comment><AUTHOR> The external site is my business server, which hosts the JS package that the personal site uses. I wasn't aware of the border issue until just a bit ago. Sorry 'bout that.

<comment><USER51> You fixed it real quick, and I quite very much liked the scale tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Google "search engine"

<comment><USER53> Oh. Wow. EPIC, EPIC FAIL.

Actually, they're doing it for other things too:

[web based email] [adverts for publishers] [traffic analytics]

I'm sure there's more.

Wow. That truly is an epic fail. Google have removed Google from the SERPs.

LOL! I love(d?) Google, but they are definitely screwing something up somewhere. These rubbishy results occur when I'm logged out too (well, I don't have Web History or personalized search enabled so I guess that's n/a)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Reminds me of "Close your Facebook account" day.

Good times.

</comment><comment><USER55> Amen brother. I found instant to be uncomfortable. Sometimes DDG results were not as good as google's, but pretty good. Gabriel is also incredibly responsive and tries to solve problems quickly, every problem I've asked about has been solved or had a serious effort to try to solve. Its so "personal" that I just feel like its a search engine that cares about me, vs me being just another face in a crowd.

In any case, I still love gmail, everything else has been crap.

Also try replacing google EVERYWHERE on an android device, quite well embedded and hard to change in 100 places and still browsers use google as the search engine.

</comment><comment><USER56> Google may be becoming more optimized for the larger number of non-tech/non- elite users, while becoming less optimized for the smaller number of elite users. If so, we've seen this phenomenon happen with other businesses in the past, nothing new. A side effect of becoming popular with the masses.</comment>


Supermarket sues banks over chip card shift, says it lost $10K in 4.5 months - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/03/supermarket-sues-banks-over-chip-card-shift-says-it-lost-10k-in-4-5-months/ <comment><USER2> As it turns out, they actually have a valid reason for this. If the merchant has stated that they're ready for certification, I don't see why they should be held liable when the certification company has been dragging it's ass.

<comment><USER3> And they were ready months in advance, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Tellingly, nothing Milam's Market could have done—short of making the business-crippling decision to stop accepting Visa cards—could have prevented this outcome," the complaint added_

Is that really true? You can't ask for photo ID, a second signature, a pre- verification of the charge against credit limits?

<comment><USER5> >All the networks allow a merchant to ask for identification. MasterCard and Visa, however, explicitly prohibit retailers from requiring an ID to accept a properly signed card.

Source: [http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/can-retailers- as...](http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/can-retailers-ask-id-with- credit_card-1282.php)

<comment><USER4> That seems like a _huge_ loophole that the merchant can use in their lawsuit.

On the other hand, "properly signed" still means that the merchant can compare signatures on the card and receipt, right?

<comment><USER6> Forging signatures is trivial.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention, the signature space on the back of a card is so tiny that we just expect a person's real signature to look rather different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Class action suite. The amount is not the issue. The lawyers looking to make millions is. 10k is a write off for most grocery stores.

</comment><comment><USER9> From what I've read, the fancy credit card terminal that was deployed nationwide is actually not compatible with European-style chip-and-pin, which will be the next version of credit card standard. So billions were spend for nothing.

<comment><USER10> The hardware is compatible, but the software isn't. From what I understand, the card enumerates what applets it has installed and the POS picks the first one it knows how to interact with.

<comment><USER11> The mess of bad hardware, software and UX really makes the acronym POS so appropriate ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


Building a Design Systems Library with Figma and Scripter - <AUTHOR> https://eng.lyft.com/building-a-design-systems-library-with-figma-scripter-c046df0a895c <comment><USER2> holy crap, scripter is going to save me a ton of time</comment>


I can code that FizzBuzz function with only two tests - <AUTHOR> http://boston.conman.org/2020/06/08.1 <comment><USER2> Or with AWK: echo 15 | awk '$1%3==0{s=s"Fizz"} $1%5==0{s=s"Buzz"} END{print s}'

<comment><USER3> Not that it affects your overall point, but you probably want:

      awk '$1%3==0{s=s"Fizz"} $1%5==0{s=s"Buzz"} {print s;s=""}'

Otherwise, consider:

      % printf "3\n5\n9\n15\n16\n" | awk '$1%3==0{s=s"Fizz"} $1%5==0{s=s"Buzz"} END{print s}'
      FizzBuzzFizzFizzBuzz

For bonus points, the following won't treat non-numerics as FizzBuzz:

      awk '$1+0\!=$1 {print"";next} $1%3==0{s=s"Fizz"} $1%5==0{s=s"Buzz"} {print s;s=""}'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no clever way to compute FizzBuzz. It is a constant.</comment>


Ask HN:When to expect reply to emails? - <AUTHOR>

Of the many mails I have sent to different people over the internet (mainly CS stuff) sometimes I get detailed explanation/responder s view  of the topic and some time not even a reply. <comment><USER2> You don't say whether you are talking about people whom you know or happened to have come across in a forum, or some such.

If you e-mail people you don't know (well) with questions then you run the risk of the RTFM / Just Google It! reaction. For CS questions, might be an idea to have a look at StackOverflow and/or ServerFault and if not already answered, raise the question there. The more knowledgeable people are also the more time-poor and more likely to be irritated by people asking questions without having a go at finding the answer.

As for people whom you _do know_ well, well you can always ask them.

My general response to people asking why I didn't respond to their e-mail quickly (and that's a subjective thing) I just say "If it's urgent, pick up the %#@&* phone".

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah even i think a phone is a better option sometimes

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think it depends on how you phrase the question. If the question can be easily answer (or even have an answer) and is properly written, people will be more keen to answer back.

But things that are too subjective or easily find on google, you will probably not get many answers..

</comment><comment><USER4> My guidelines:

If your email is short, very clear, acknowledges that the recipient is likely to be busy, and only requires a short answer, usually you will be answered with 30 minutes of it being read, or never.

If it's long, unclear, rambling and makes no effort to demonstrate that you are in effect asking a favor, or if the reply requires thought and detail, then a week, or never.

Ask yourself: what have I done to motivate the person to answer this email?

Also, read this:

<http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/smart-questions.html>

Don't take all of it literally - pick, choose, and use common sense.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you comment on a product or website that is "hot" at that time, the authors may be overwhelmed by the feedback they get and keeping the servers stable at the same time. Happened to me once with goosh.org, I got approx. 500 emails in a few days after the launch. I tried to answer them all anyway. But I think big corporations that have the money and manpower should answer every single email (yes google I'm looking at you!)

</comment><comment><USER6> In at least two places where I worked, either the consensus or outright explicit policy was that you cannot expect reply to an email earlier than 24 hours after sending (that is, you are not expected to whine or escalate or send another email about the same issue.) On the other hand, there was an expectation that if you receive an email and cannot do what is requested in the timeframe specified in the email or within 24 hours if not specified, you're expected to send SOME reply - decline the request, ask for more time, recommend another path etc.) Overall, SLA for stuff requested by email was "next business day" :) anything more urgent should be done by instant messenger, phone, walk-in and such.</comment>


I would pay X for Y - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would pay $10 for something to block those email subscription popups.

$15 to block the ones that have the cutesy and smug "no thanks" messages like "no thanks, I don't enjoy money saving tips"

</comment><comment><USER3> I would pay X for an app that could maximize the happiness of deciding where to go eat...say I have a list of 3 choices, they have a list of 3 choices, we don't know each other's 1st choice or any choice for that matter, just that there was an agreement, and we're both satisfied.

<comment><USER2> Pick two and flip a coin.

When the coin is in the air, you will know which option you really want. Or you will go with what the coin has chosen, absolving you of the consequences of making the choice. "this restaurant sucked" "dont blame me, the coin picked it"

<comment><USER4> The OP seems to be talking about when two people are trying to settle this question and may have different priorities.

<comment><USER2> Wouldn't the coin flip still apply to that situation? He is asking for "something" else to make the decision. Coin\App\Dart throw\etc all work

<comment><USER4> I don't believe that fulfills the conditions described, no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would pay anything for my kids to sleep through the night.

<comment><USER2> Hire a nanny

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gladly:

      X = 'you on Tuesday'
      Y = 'a hamburger today'

</comment><comment><USER7> I would pay $50/Month to get real valuable leads on businesses/owner that are considering selling their online product based SAAS business.

<comment><USER8> There's two options for this (although, not $50 / month):

\- Opportunity Overload: [http://opportunityoverload.com/](http://opportunityoverload.com/)

\- FE International is a broker that does this: [http://feinternational.com/](http://feinternational.com/)

<comment><USER9> Okay. What would you pay? $15, $20, $30 per month for a weekly digest?

<comment><USER7> I will pay $20/Month for solid leads. But again, the leads have to be really high quality otherwise it is not worth it.

<comment><USER10> Heads up - when I was working for a lead gen company, they would charge per lead, not on a monthly basis.

Also, I assume you'd want to be the exclusive recipient (or nearly the exclusive recipient) for these leads, because for most of the business brokers out there you can get a newsletter with the newest businesses for sale, though maybe not filtered as you'd like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I figured that I lack leadership/social skills. I would pay $1000-$2000 over an year for helping me develop a few of these skills and help me earn an extra 10k-20k per year at my day job. I am at staff engineer level now. Essentially, I am looking for mentor/coach. If interested, send email to firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER12> Check out your local Toastmasters, some of which specialize in specific industry domains. They are a collegial, supportive group. You will be thrown in the deep end of the pool and your skills will advance quickly. It is also very affordable and the processes have stood the test of time. I am 3 speech milestones in and by next year will have my competent communicator and competent leader certifications. Maybe even advanced leader certification based on a city-wide/district level (Shanghai) project I am working on. A great org.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would pay $100 for $10000.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would pay 15$/month for better desktop linux distribution. Something with the polish of mac os/windows/chrome os, but running on a standard linux plarform.

2000 for a 14 inch ultrabook with a great screen, great keyboard and great batery life

A good chunk of money for ads free, in depth technical articals

</comment><comment><USER15> I would pay $0 for ideas... like this :)

<comment><USER16> Some might dismiss your idea as silly -- but you're the only one in this thread who got exactly what he wanted for the price he offered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would pay $0 for idea.... so is this author.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd pay someone who can understand math equations and explain them to me in an intuitive way.

<comment><USER18> [https://betterexplained.com](https://betterexplained.com) might be worth checking out.

<comment><USER17> this website is great, but I want to have someone to explain the latest papers to me.

<comment><USER19> You mean, you want someone to explain to you a recent scientific paper about something? "Vulgarization as a service" or "crowd sourcing vulgarization", that might be an idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would pay $200/month for high-quality data engineering/science leads.

<comment><USER20> Is this leads for offering your data engineering/science solution to (IE Businesses). Or hiring leads? Or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> The service would provide leads for data science/engineering consulting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would pay $3/month for Robinhood ROI numbers on a per transaction basis.

</comment><comment><USER21> I would pay 1% equity to someone who would do all the damn VC chasing.

<comment><USER22> There should be VC agents then who take a commission. They could take a commission from the VC so no loss to you.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would pay $10/month for new things to do in my city (Denver).

<comment><USER23> Would you pay $10 a month + (some budget you determine) to receive a "You're doing X this weekend" type email/calendar invite . It would be complete with instructions of what you need to do, where you need to be and what it is.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER24> I think it could be free and you could monetize from businesses who need customers.

<comment><USER23> I might bend it to be customer pays tho w/ no kickback so that the customer knows we're in their corner. Otherwise I may as well just send everyone to whomever pays me the most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> AUD$4 for a freshly ground large decaffe skinny soy flat white in a takeaway cup.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would pay $45/month for an stock options trading course.

<comment><USER10> What would you want to learn from this course? Are you looking for a strategy or an explanation on how options/spreads/etc. work or something else entirely?

<comment><AUTHOR> second option, explanation on how options/spreads/etc.

<comment><USER10> Cool, I was a derivatives trader for about 6 years, let me know if you want to discuss more of what you'd like to learn. My email is in my profile.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


General purpose analog computer - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_purpose_analog_computer <comment><USER2> Introduced by Claude Shannon, the father of modern information theory, as we know.

Ahhh Shannon. The guy who invented the entire field of digital freaking electronics for his master's thesis [1], and then moved on to even greater things. This was it seems five years after his Master's thesis. He was 25 when he proposed this.

The bane of every grad student. "Shannon invented digital electronics for master's thesis. Come up with anything interesting yet?" Add to this, he also appears to have been located at Medford. The shame. What have y'all been upto lately, Boston/Cambridge area grad students? : (

I wonder if our obsession with profits and quick returns and 'hacker culture' is distracting people like him from making similarly great contributions?

[1] [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Shannon_MS_Thesis.pdf](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Shannon_MS_Thesis.pdf)

<comment><USER3> As Peter Thiel said, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have been wondering recently if analog computing would make more sense for certain search algorithms, like protein folding simulations. Basically, let a set of potentials be placed in the op amp setting representing position, and let them miller integrate the surronding charges and watch it evolve. Basically, physical modelling directly. Im not sure of the state of analog device precision, drift, and temp stability these days but it might be worth a try.

<comment><USER5> Take a look at these, esp math coprocessor:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/07/friday_squid_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/07/friday_squid_bl_488.html#c6701962)

The trick is using analog circuits for just what it's good for. The digital does the rest. Need to have them integrated well. Good news is analog works well with inexpensive process nodes like 350nm and digital stuff on them is inexpensive. Tekmos even can integrate 90nm digital with 350nm analog plus MPW's to keep things cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is my dream one day - to sell my startup, and get some form of mechanical computer, and have it in my house as an art display.

I would like to integrate it somehow to my existing systems - so that, no matter how little it can contribute, it can click and clack away.

I shall name him Switch

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't Clutch be a better name? I mean if you litterally mean mechanical.

<comment><USER8> Switches were mechanical long before they were electrical. And I don't mean 'electro-mechanical', no just mechanical. Think of where the name 'railroad switch' comes from. That lever by the side of the road is the switch (the thing itself is called a 'point').

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Analog computer I saw in Berlin a few weeks ago, very cool stuff - [https://twitter.com/maljx/status/650690241574080512](https://twitter.com/maljx/status/650690241574080512)

</comment><comment><USER10> If this interests you, you may enjoy modular synthesizers, eg: [http://www.makenoisemusic.com/maths.shtml](http://www.makenoisemusic.com/maths.shtml)

<comment><USER11> I recommend the docu-movie "I dream of wires". I think it's on Netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked with a medium-sized analog computer in the mid 1970s. It may have had around 20 op-amps, covered a desktop, and used an HP XY-plotter for output. I could set up different models of differential equations. I remember simple harmonic oscillators and predator-prey models [0]. I was studying physics rather than computer science and didn't then know about Turing computability. I found the GE BASIC timesharing system easier to program and use than the analog computer, but the graphical output of the analog system was much nicer.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equations)

</comment><comment><USER5> There's been lots of practical work on this including a math coprocessor with 100x claimed acceleration. I posted a list of links below for general purpose analog:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/07/friday_squid_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/07/friday_squid_bl_488.html#c6701962)

The field has more potential than most think. Needs more research. One angle I thought about was applying it to neural networks somehow. Turns out there's a Deep Learning company doing that right now. ;) Many possibilities left to explore.

<comment><USER4> I thought I was the only one think along these lines. This field has incredible potential...I honestly think there is an Intel-level (or greater) company waiting to be built out of this line of research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every once in a while, I hear about FPAA's (field programmable _analog_ arrays), but the concept never seems to take off despite serious efforts, even by Motorola in the 90's.

Isn't the GPAC the same thing?

I suppose the reason these aren't popular is because the use-cases are rather narrow (or at least usually implementable with an ordinary digital approach)?

<comment><USER5> By not take-off, I'm guessing you just mean there's not many people buying these:

[http://www.anadigm.com/fpaa.asp](http://www.anadigm.com/fpaa.asp)</comment></comment>


CIA Director says he would resign if ordered to resume waterboarding - <AUTHOR> http://reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSKCN0ZT2T3 <comment><USER2> How about stating that the CIA will, despite being a civilian organization, adopt the oath of the UCMJ. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the "lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92 (2) "lawful order". In each case, personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

</comment><comment> e-sushi I'm sure the ones undergoing such torture in the future will be pleased to hear he's willing to retire early. #FacePalm</comment>