More people are killed in homicides than war - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-41038987 <comment><AUTHOR> """By tending to focus on war, the media misses an even more crucial reality: homicides probably kill three to four times more people each year than conflicts."""</comment>


People Who Use Netflix to Fall Asleep Has Doubled in the Last Two Years - <AUTHOR> http://exstreamist.com/the-number-of-people-who-use-netflix-to-fall-asleep-has-doubled-in-the-last-two-years/ <comment><USER2> I used to fall asleep listening to tv or music but am happy that I stopped. Granted, it's been many years since, but the readiness with which I fall asleep and the quality and duration of my sleep is now quite good.

I am an anxious person and my mind does sometimes race when trying to fall asleep, but I picked up a visualization technique somewhere along the way that works for me.

Basically, I visualize a looping scene (kind of like a boring, relaxing animated GIF) until my brain gives up and goes unconscious. It's been different things over the years, starting with the memory of relaxing solo experiences (e.g. riding a bike along a segment of lakeside bike path on a cool, sunny day) and is now something more abstract (a 3D cube with different- colored faces rotating in a black space).

<comment><USER3> Ha, that's interesting, I'm similar. The best visuallization that's worked for me is imagining a massive hilly vacant landscape at night with a giant grey beach ball that falls from the sky and bounces (slowly due to it's huse mass) around on the hills. Most times I think I only make it 2 bounces before I'm fast asleep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I prefer listening to a familiar podcast to fall asleep. It's easier to do while lying down in bed and I can do it with my eyes closed, unlike TV/Netflix. The lack of visual stimulation is nice, at least for me.</comment>


Snapchat Sees More Daily Photos Than Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/19/snapchat-reportedly-sees-more-daily-photos-than-facebook/

<comment><USER2> Not really surprised by that.

It's much easier to send a photo on Snapchat than post one on Facebook and they all disappear so obviously absurd numbers of photos will be sent. Not really a valid comparison.

</comment><comment><USER3> ... and now they're all gone. This metric does not matter, as you cannot compare people posting pictures meant to be semi-[permanent, public] with people (primarily of lots-of-free-time age) posting ephemera.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/19/snapchat-users- upload...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/11/19/snapchat-users-upload-more- photos-than-facebook-not-so-fast/)

Is Sanapchat being overhyped? it is a little ridiculous to consider it 'safe to be silly', with every modern smartphone have a screenshot option

</comment><comment><USER5> Only if you count one photo sent to ten people as ten photos...</comment>


Fact-checking claims coronavirus might have started in August 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53005768 <comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion on the contested study: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23459963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23459963)

The study itself: [https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42669767](https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42669767)

</comment><comment><USER2> The virus will have come from rural China, where bats live and you have humans, livestock and wild animals mixing.

And probably kicked around for a few months at least before getting to the city.

So it quite possibly started in August or even before.

However the study looked at is typical academia, citation bait.</comment>


Faile & BAST Deluxx Fluxx (Post-Modern Arcade) [video]  - <AUTHOR> http://deluxxfluxx.com/london/index.php?id=video

<comment><AUTHOR> There is currently a show in NYC: <http://www.deluxxfluxx.com/>

More gallery photos [flash]: <http://deluxxfluxx.com/london/index.php?id=arcade>

Looks like the cabinets have each been tricked out with custom games in the same art style.</comment>


Show HN: iOS Switch as Web Component - <AUTHOR> http://ankurp.github.io/paper-switch/

<comment><USER2> Nice! I've been getting into Polymer with Paper, and Google's new material design. Would be very cool to have an equivalent theme for iOS.</comment>


Tesla Is Now America's Number One Premium Automotive Company - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/01/02/tesla-is-now-americas-number-one-premium-automotive-company-outsells-bmw-lexus-in-q4/#14c2254d4af3 <comment><USER2> Title is inaccurate due to the Forbes article being inaccurate. Forbes compares Tesla's worldwide sales with BMW's US sales.

[https://twitter.com/FredericLambert/status/10809989511956766...](https://twitter.com/FredericLambert/status/1080998951195676673)

</comment><comment><USER3> That's great but this is being very generous because Tesla cuts across market segments in a way that the other manufacturers don't per brand. This is by total vehicles sold, not delivered, including the Model 3, which I would not put on the same level as a MB C-Class, for example. It competes with Honda Accord, not Honda Legend/Acura RLX.

If you were to split up the numbers by auto groups and then focus on sales of comparable vehicles across brands, it would look very different.

<comment><USER4> Competes with the Accord?

<comment><USER5> Certainly not in build quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why anyone would spend $40K plus on a vehicle baffles me, but that being said, if the article is accurate, good on Tesla for being such a rival to the other established brands against all odds.

<comment><USER7> How does it baffle you? A vast majority of people in the US rely on their cars daily. These people prioritize quality and moving away from gas/diesel.

<comment><USER8> >A vast majority of people in the US rely on their cars daily

This keeps baffling me. Why don't we just build far denser cities?

<comment><USER9> >Why don't we just build far denser cities

This keeps baffling me. Why don't all people just start working remotely and move to Thailand?

<comment><USER8> Are you sarcastic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> BMW's average selling price is about $55K, but Tesla's Model 3 sold in the high $30s to low $40s when the federal tax credit is included. States like California offer additional discounts.

<comment><USER10> Further, the author compares Tesla's _global_ delivery numbers with other manufacturers' US-only numbers, and doesn't explicitly mention that the expiring tax credit temporarily pulled demand forward this quarter.

<comment><USER11> So maybe BMW is more profitable or pulls in more revenue than Tesla in the US, or maybe not. Also, Model 3 has only been delivered to US and Canada's customers, and only expanded to Europe very recently. But the point remains, Tesla is "now America's Number One Premium Automotive Company"? Whether that will be true next quarter remains to be seen. Not sure what you're trying to dispute?

Also true that tax credit expiration played a part. Do you think BMW or Lexus didn't have any promotion this past quarter?

<comment><USER10> Tesla doesn't release US-only numbers, so the article is factually incorrect, and thus its conclusion is also incorrect.

See [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/contrary-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/contrary- to-musk-s-tweet-tesla-isn-t-the-no-1-premium-carmaker).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway - <AUTHOR> http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060184 <comment><USER3> Video with English subtitles: [http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige- historier/artikkel.php?art...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige- historier/artikkel.php?artid=10060251)

Article in English: [http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige- historier/artikkel.php?art...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige- historier/artikkel.php?artid=10060251)

Live stream tomorrow: <http://www.vgtv.no/#!id=55544>

<comment><USER4> Hmm the live stream is black since 20min. Is it down for everyone or just me? :)

<comment><USER5> It should start in 3 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my hometown in Uruguay we have this monument: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/flodigrip/1510286707/> the sphere on top is meant to be open every 100 years. In 1992 it was opened and we could see what the people from our hometown 100 years ago left for us.

They had a letter to us, documents, different kind of money, pictures, etc. Very interesting stuff

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder what they would do if inside there was another package that said "don't open until 2112"...

<comment><USER8> And then inside that is a Rush album on a compact phonograph record with the inscription, "From the Great Library at Temples of Syrinx. Please destroy at your convenience. Do not play. - Best Regards, The Priests."

<comment><USER9> but then you play it anyway, and it is actually Rick Astley at his finest.

<comment><USER10> Would you please go back to Reddit?

<comment><USER9> i can taste the smug. btw this entire thread belongs on reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package, I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912.

I'd like to get that back somehow.

<comment><USER12> Handwriting is an amazing thing.

But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a bad student.

The net result was kids with genuine brilliance, appetite for hard work but with a bad handwriting struggled. Some times forced to imitate their class mates in a bad way. I was a big victim of it. In fact the head mistress called my mom and told her, every thing was brilliant about me and if only I could have great handwriting I could score higher than everybody else. The worst part of it was I took it seriously, I had convinced myself no matter how hardworking or intelligent I was I didn't deserve to score well as I didn't have a good handwriting.

It was not until a couple of years later. During my pre university days. My uncle cleared my mind of all this. He convinced me that good handwriting discipline is nothing great in itself. Although its good to have one. But greatness lies in what you write and not how you write it.

Later I developed how to write in script with separate letters without joining them as in cursive writing. It greatly increased readability. But people around me used to find that strange and some even suicidal for a student.

Its basically what Leo Tolstoy said:

 _What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness._

<comment> johnx123-up

      "Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - <USER2>

Ironically Gandhi's handwriting [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_handwriting.jpg)

<comment><USER13> At the bottom of the letter, Gandhi writes _"I see that I must reserve the right hand for N.J."_. And the caption at the bottom says "Left hand."

Do you suppose that means that Gandhi deliberately wrote this letter with his left hand?

<comment><USER14> Yes. His right hand isn't any better, though, in fact: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_handwriting2.j...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gandhi_handwriting2.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I watched without the subtitles and had no idea what it was about; nonetheless, i got to listen for 5 minutes to a language i never heard before and it was beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER16> My guess is that it is collection of letters by people about the historic value of the day. It must be something boring like that otherwise he would have kept it for himself.

<comment><USER17> Maybe Johan was a huge troll and it's nothing but turn of the century pornography.

<comment><USER18> It's actually an old, yellowed photograph of Rick Astley.

<comment><USER18> But seriously, why the downvotes? I responded to a joke about pretend early 20th century spammers with a joke about pretend early 20th century rickrolling. Are we only allowed to be completely serious here? Did I do harm to the level of discourse here? What's going on?

<comment><USER19> The downvotes are probably because joking is already frowned upon enough on HN that when you make an unoriginal, not really funny joke, it kills it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Imagine if it was a 100-years old, still functioning and yet to be released smartphone, with an HD video of the 1912 celebration. :) That would be so cool... Like in that movie, "Das Jesus Video".

Anyway, as others said, it probably contains letters from people of that time.

<comment><USER21> It would be cool if it was a smartphone that looked exactly like an iPhone. Destroy those lawsuits with a bang.

<comment><USER22> There's a chance that time machines would pretty much destroy prior-art as a defence in patent lawsuits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The package was opened. It contains a collection of historical documents, letters, telegrams, newspapers clippings and national decorations. Also a white banner with gold tassels that said "Fra Kongen" which translates to "From the King." and several other banner and flag-like decorations in the Norway's colors of red, blue and white. The package weights 3 kg.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone else remember Al Capone's vault?

<comment><USER25> I was thinking the same thing! Big buildup and nada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> They need to open this damn box already.

<comment><USER27> Why?

It's a great oportunity for joyous ocassion and natural attractor for romantics.

Savour it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here is the package being opened:

[http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/pakken-er-aapnet-oj- oj-o...](http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/pakken-er-aapnet-oj-oj- oj-3860187.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Nothing inside that small package could be as valuable as 100 years of wonder and excitement. But it would have been hilarious if it was pics of the Mayor's wife.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm wondering what prevented them from doing x-rays on the package, or an echography, or something to find out what's inside? I mean, I get that they want to keep the mystery, I just don`t think I'd be able to contain myself for 100 years!

</comment><comment><USER29> I put my money on it being a Back To The Future 3-style letter from the past

<comment><USER30> a Hari Seldon style video/letter/audio would be totally cool, but I'm mostly sure it would be only a letter. Still Cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "...my dirty laundry...the whites."

<http://youtu.be/dQbpx5Be5rI>

</comment><comment><USER25> Ok, what was it?

<comment><USER32> You can watch the unwrapping here:

[http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=100603...](http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060370)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> beautiful website

<comment><USER34> haha alexa #6 site for Norway too!

Pretty common for Scandinavian countries. Something about engagement plummeting whenever they try to change them. So they do it like Craigslist and never change anything.

<comment><USER35> vg's website has been the poster child for other scandinavian news papers. Apparently their butt-ugly layout works really well.

<comment><USER36> Not related to their design, but Varnish (the HTTP accelerator) was initially created by VG: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varnish_(software)#History></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Free the Law: all U.S. case law online - <AUTHOR> http://librarylab.law.harvard.edu/projects/free-the-law <comment><USER3> No, not "freely accessable online", not until the 8 year exclusivity agreement with Ravel expires. It's a pay service with a free tier.[1]

 _" Under the Harvard-Ravel agreement, Ravel is paying all of the costs of digitizing case law. HLS owns the resulting data, and Ravel has an obligation to offer free public access to all of the digitized case law on its site and to provide non-profit developers with free ongoing API access (Ravel may charge for-profit developers). Ravel will have a temporary exclusive commercial license for a maximum of eight years."_

 _" For the duration of that commercial license, there will be a restriction on bulk download of the case law, with some notable exceptions. Harvard may provide bulk access to members of the Harvard community and to outside research scholars (so long as they accept contractual prohibitions on redistribution)."_[2]

[1] [https://www.ravellaw.com/plans](https://www.ravellaw.com/plans)

[2] [http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/12/oa/harvard-launches- fre...](http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/12/oa/harvard-launches-free-the-law- digitization-project)

<comment><USER4> If you want free access to all the law, YC's Casetext.com provides it and they provide it for free for everyone right now.

Try searching for cases that interest you, and you can read about them and lots of comments from attorneys.

Disclaimer - I know most of the team, but I think anyone would agree after reviewing casetext.com, ravel and the other companies trying to do this that casetext is by far the most open and the only real free option for everyone.

<comment><USER5> There's actually several others. "Free the Law" is not even the first Ivy League entry in this space. Cornell has the Legal Information Institute ([https://www.law.cornell.edu/](https://www.law.cornell.edu/)) which is entirely free.

In the for-profit space, FindLaw has been around forever.

There's still nothing yet that really competes with Westlaw or LexisNexis for professionals though. It's not simply a matter of indexing all the decisions and adding a few hyperlinks. The stuff they are redacting for copyright reasons is stuff that you want when you are doing real research.

<comment><USER4> > There's still nothing yet that really competes with Westlaw or LexisNexis > for professionals though.

I have a few friends at big law and they have 100% access to Westlaw or Lexis which means they do not need any of the alternatives at this point. That said, many, many, many small to mid-sized firms cannot afford access to Westlaw or Lexis which is why these various initiatives and companies are so important.

At a fundamental level, these services all help improve the odds you will win a case when hiring a smaller law firm. A lot of people comment here about how there are not society improving companies anymore (uber for food delivery), but I am a believer that each of these companies in this space are fundamentally important to our society.

<comment><USER6> You are missing the point. Why is it that in a "Democracy" we have to purchase access to the law through a private party? Ignorance of the law is no defense, but I have to pay to relieve that ignorance? Come on!

<comment><USER7> > Why is it that in a "Democracy" we have to purchase access to the law > through a private party?

You don't. What you have to purchase through a private party is electronic access to the annotations that the private party adds to the cases. If you just want the public domain cases you don't need to purchase anything from a private party.

First, there is PACER [1]. PACER is not free, but it is pretty cheap and it is owned and operated by government, not by a private party. The documents retrieved through PACER are usually public domain, and so once someone gets a particular case they can legally share it. I don't have a link handy, but I believe there are startups that gather together cases contributed this way to build a growing body of PACER material that you can get without having to pay even the small PACER fees.

You can also get the material for free at government and school law libraries that are generally open to the public.

[1] [https://www.pacer.gov](https://www.pacer.gov)

<comment><USER8> RECAP: [https://www.recapthelaw.org/](https://www.recapthelaw.org/)

Scraps PACER when you use it, injects the docs into the Internet Archive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They have to digitize, in part, because all of the states have exclusive publication/etc agreements with westlaw or lexis or ....

So you can't get a feed of cases from pretty much anywhere, and often, you aren't allowed to bulk download, etc.

Plenty of folks have digitized all the data harvard is talking about here. They are not first. Carl malamud, for example, has scanned all the federal reporters and tons and tons of other cases. [http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/08/carl-malamud-takes-on- westl...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/08/carl-malamud-takes-on-westlaw.html)

and

[https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/](https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/)

(My experience here is from back in the early 2000's working on getting pacer/states/etc to open up all of this data, so we could get it into google scholar and elsewhere. Often, they were willing to sell it to us, but they would not let us pay them pretty much any amount of money to make it just open and freely available, which is what we really wanted. Things have not gotten better, sadly, and in fact, have gotten worse)

<comment><USER10> I also tried and failed to "buy out" existing scans for permissive public licensing about five years ago. I actually approached the Law Library Microsoft Consortium, which none of the librarians I knew were even aware of, and couldn't get anywhere.

Frankly, even now, with Harvard announcement in hand, I doubt I could. It just wasn't a thing the institution knew how to do. "Does not compute."

I'm sorry to hear things have gotten worse.

<comment><USER10> Autocorrection changed "Microfilm" to "Microsoft".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They are projecting to have Federal and CA, NY, MA, IL, TX done in 2016, and the rest of the states in 2017. I'm curious why those particular states are being done first.

In particular, I'd have expected Delaware to be in the first group, because so many public companies are incorporated there, and so the decisions of its courts on corporate and stockholder issues have major national importance.

Offhand, I can't think of why MA or TX would worked on ahead of DE. Of course it is possible that the volume of material from each state is a factor...it could be that DE is being done in the first group but has a lot of material so won't finish in 2016. I've never taken a look at the volume of each state's output and so have no idea which state courts handle the most cases.

<comment><USER11> There is quite a bit of IP law handled in Texas thanks to patent trolls in East Texas. So I can see there being some interest in getting it covered. MA? Maybe it is interesting from a historical perspective since it is one of the older areas of the US.

<comment><USER7> Those patent cases are in federal court and so will be part of the Federal collection, not the Texas collection. The Texas collection is decisions of the Texas state courts, not Federal courts that are located in Texas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ravellaw ([https://www.ravellaw.com/](https://www.ravellaw.com/)) has built interesting knowledge graph visualization tool for the court cases.

[https://vimeo.com/127559698](https://vimeo.com/127559698)

 _So one truly fascinating aspect of legal practice is that we tend to operate in the gray areas. However, the traditional way of researching case law – reviewing a list of cases returned based on your query – does little to help you sort through the mess.

With data visualization, you not only see the cases, but you see the relationship between cases, and how the cases work together. Among the most significant benefits, the data visualization elements of Ravel Law will help you narrow your research to the most relevant cases more quickly, while also helping you find those cases and arguments that, for whatever reason, didn't rank in the top of your search._

[http://www.thecyberadvocate.com/2015/09/30/data- visualizatio...](http://www.thecyberadvocate.com/2015/09/30/data- visualization-ravel-law/)

 _The value in this appears to relate concepts from one case to others through the visuals on the graph. The larger the circle, the more important the case will be. Lines connect one circle to another circle and it's very easy to see which major cases are connected to other major cases. This is like a citator on steroids in my opinion as one can get to this point with a simple search. That means multiple steps in developing the analysis that finds the value and use of related cases. The snippets help immensely in determining which related cases are of value._

[http://llb2.com/2014/02/04/a-very-brief-look-at-ravel- law/](http://llb2.com/2014/02/04/a-very-brief-look-at-ravel-law/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious how LexisNexis is going to attack this breach of their monopoly. Do they have patents on case law search?

<comment><USER14> LexisNexis doesn't have a monopoly. First, Thompson West's database is just as comprehensive. Second, most of the decisions are indexed online elsewhere (Justia, Google Scholar). Third, almost all the underlying opinions are available elsewhere.

Contrary to popular belief, the dominance of Lexis/West doesn't come from having access to information other people don't. It comes from decades of experience in how to index, annotate, categorize, and cross-link case law, along with value-add services like being able to grab the actual scan of the printed page (OCR sometimes has errors!) or have a runner physically pull a document from a court docket.

<comment><USER15> No doubt LexisNexis and WestLaw have certain value added services that have certainly been developed through the years based on their positions as industry leaders, but you can't deny certain business practices that box out any potential free competitor.

Reflect back on your law school days. I bet you received a free student account to either or both LexisNexis and WestLaw (accounts worth thousands of dollars given for free through 3 years to train students on their programs); probably free training to your class from certified company representatives; donations to your school/creation of computer labs for exclusive rights to the students; etc...

I recognize your point about not being a monopoly, but that is in the Google - competition is only a click away - sense of the word, there are all kinds of anti-competitive practices and the marketplace reflects them.

If you want further indication of West willingness to engage in anti- trust/anti-competitive behavior take a look at Rodriquez v. West Publishing Corporation and Kaplan, Inc., where West for found to collude with Kaplan to create monopolies in Bar prep and LSAT review classes.

<comment><USER16> My agency just dumped Westlaw for cost reasons and now we are exclusively Lexis. Lexis is inferior in many ways. The subject indexes are not nearly as comprehensive or usable (makes sense, since West has a huge head start with this with its Key Number System.) The case summaries are too wordy.

Westlaw and Lexis both get big bucks to invest in their databases but then they are not at parity. So I doubt that some free (beer or speech) competitor is going to come along without those same resources and mount a serious challenge in the Lexis or Westlaw strongholds.

However, there is a reason Westlaw and Lexis are both going to Google-like interfaces with their next generation products (Westlaw Next and Lexis Advance). Attorneys are just going into Google now. Certainly if I'm looking for a news article I'm going to Google first, where years ago one might have done LexisNexis first. Even having to type my Lexis password is too big an impediment when I can get stuff on Google.

Also, when I don't need the firepower of Lexis I often go elsewhere. A lot of my work is just the CFR or US Code and the government has those for free, though the search capability is not as good.

So overall I doubt anti-competitive behavior explains much what dominance Westlaw and Lexis still do have (and I do think it's shrinking.) They have invested lots of money and these are professional tools that need lots of investment. The free (beer or speech) competitors aren't going to compete on the elements that need lots of investment, but they will nibble away at the things that Westlaw and Lexis were overkill for.

<comment><USER15> Sure statutes and the USC are easier on Google. In fact I have never used Lexis or Westlaw to look those up. I disagree about articles, you can certainly find legal articles on google on various topics, but the results are a shadow of Westlaw and Lexis.

But try search for a case on Google - not by citation, not by case style - <USER2> natural language or connectors like Lexis or Westlaw. Results are worse than useless, because you just lost time. Any startup could do case law search 10 times better than Google, but they could never compete in the market because lawyers were trained on Lexis and/or Westlaw are entrenched in law schools training the next generation of lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No response.

\---

To: Erik Eckholm <firstname.lastname@example.com>

From: Aaron Greenspan

Date: October 30, 2015 at 1:31 PM

Subject: Concerns over Ravel/HLS Deal

Mr. Eckholm,

We just briefly spoke on the phone about your article ([http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/harvard-law-library- sac...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/harvard-law-library-sacrifices-a- trove-for-the-sake-of-a-free-database.html)). I am a Harvard College '04-'05 alum, one of Professor Zittrain's former students (I actually had to fight the administration to be permitted entry into his Law School course in 2001), and one of the first people Ravel tried to hire, because I am a programmer and I run a legal database called PlainSite ([http://www.plainsite.org](http://www.plainsite.org)), which competes with them and receives about 16,000 unique hits daily worldwide. I was also a CodeX Fellow at Stanford Law School in 2012-2013, which is a program at Stanford that Daniel Lewis and Nik Reed are now also affiliated with. I tell you all of this only to point out that I am generally quite familiar with the principles, technologies and individuals involved here.

I've now corresponded with Jonathan Zittrain and Adam Ziegler at HLS, the latter by phone earlier today. I have brought to their attention a number of concerns, none of which have been resolved in my mind. They are as follows:

1\. Harvard University is a Massachusetts not-for-profit organization. Its investment in Ravel, a for-profit corporation, via its XFund venture capital arm, and its subsequent contract with Ravel to earn "proceeds" (HLS's term) from that relationship, involves profit. The University could in theory lose its tax-exempt status over this deal. This is not the same as the Harvard Management Corporation investing in for-profit corporations to further the University's mission by earning capital gains and/or dividends—this is an exchange of cash for assets that Harvard claims it owns (even though case materials are public domain) and a contractual promise to monetize those assets through a for-profit company on an ongoing basis.

2\. Worse yet, the deal involves profit from the withholding of public access to legal data, which is the precise ill that this relationship is nominally supposed to and claims to cure. In reality, it only exacerbates it by legitimizing, with all of Harvard's imprimatur, the monopolistic legal information model that has dominated the nation's judiciary for the past century and a half.

3\. Professor Zittrain wrote an entire book on the dangers of internet lock-in and monopolies, yet his actions here are helping to create exactly the kind of monopoly he has become well known for warning about. According to Adam Ziegler's recent post on the HLS Library blog ([http://etseq.law.harvard.edu](http://etseq.law.harvard.edu)), there are to be "bulk access limitations" and "contractual prohibitions on redistribution." This is inconsistent with precedent concerning openness to court records and First Amendment law. That aside, what will these restrictions look like exactly? We don't know, because…

4\. ...Adam Ziegler told me that the contract with Ravel is not available for public examination and he did not know when it would be (if ever). He did read me a portion of the contract over the phone, which cited "non-commercial developers," and challenged me to come up with better wording. That's easy. I don't know what a "non-commercial developer" is, but I do know what a "non- profit organization" is. As an individual, I am a software developer who is the CEO of a for-profit corporation in a joint venture with a 501(c)(3) non- profit organization which together maintain PlainSite. Does that make me a "non-commercial developer?" Although Mr. Ziegler insisted that the contract was not subject to interpretation because it is simply clear enough already, I strongly disagree, as I expect any lawyer would. All contracts are subject to interpretation. The contract needs to be posted.

5\. One of Ravel's investors is Cooley LLP, a law firm in the Bay Area. Based on what Daniel and Nik have told me in the past, Cooley has early access to Ravel's software. Essentially this means that Harvard Law School is giving one particular law firm an advantage, which I imagine must violate a number of its own policies, and seems wrong on the surface.

6\. Professor Zittrain claims it would have taken 8 years to raise the money that Ravel is providing for this effort. This is extremely difficult to believe. Although Mr. Ziegler refused to disclose how much money is actually involved, we can safely assume it is in the $5 million range given that Ravel has only raised just under $10 million and has had employees to pay for several years. Recently, a single donor gave Harvard University's engineering school $400 million, as your own newspaper reported ([http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/education/john-paulson- giv...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/education/john-paulson- gives-400-million-to-harvard-for-engineering-school.html)). Harvard is also in the middle of a $6 billion-and-counting capital campaign, as reported by The Crimson ([http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/9/18/capital- campaign...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/9/18/capital- campaign-6-bil/)). Are we really to believe that the number one law school in the country (by some measures, anyway) could not scrape together the cash to buy its own scanners, or that it does not have scanners already? Are high speed scanners even that expensive? Here's one on eBay for $1,450:

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/KODAK-i610-PASS-THROUGH-HIGH- SPEED-D...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/KODAK-i610-PASS-THROUGH-HIGH-SPEED- DUPLEX-80-PPM-B-W- Scanner-/271985315247?hash=item3f53968daf:g:XjQAAOSwBahU8oC4)

7\. Mr. Ziegler could not answer my question as to why a consortium of non- profits was not consulted ahead of time. I know many that would have been eager to assist, likely including the Internet Archive in San Francisco, which already has several scanners.

8\. Though I do not speak for them, I did notice that Harvard and Ravel seem to have nearly appropriated the name "Free Law Project," which is actually a project and non-profit organization at Berkeley that took over from work at Princeton. See [http://www.freelawproject.org](http://www.freelawproject.org) and [http://www.courtlistener.com](http://www.courtlistener.com).

9\. The Harvard Gazette has falsely reported, "The 'Free the Law' initiative will provide open, wide-ranging access to American case law for the first time in U.S. history." (See [http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/free- the-law-w...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/free-the-law-will- provide-open-access-to-all/.)) I have been in regular contact with Jonathan Zittrain, Harry Lewis (an XFund Advisor who was Dean during my freshman year) and others at HLS about PlainSite since I brought the idea to them in 2011 almost immediately as soon as I started working on it. Additionally, CourtListener (from the group at Berkeley) has also been in operation for years, offering open, wide-ranging access to American case law. There's also Google Scholar, which is free and certainly more wide-ranging than Ravel.

10\. Ravel is, to the best of my knowledge, unprofitable. It remains unclear why Harvard would place its bets on an unprofitable startup, rather than solicit donations for a project—as it is so adept at doing—in order to ensure maximum sustainability.

Mr. Ziegler attempted to dismiss the above concerns on the grounds that we still both agree in the greater goal of open access to law. I certainly have done all that I can to promote open access to legal information, including developing prototypes for digital legal data standards and suing the courts themselves ([http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california- northe...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/29himg3wm/california-northern- district-court/think-computer-foundation-et-al-v-administrative-office-of-the- united-states-courts-et-al/)). But if we both agree on this greater goal, then why has HLS been almost completely unresponsive to requests for cooperative assistance for the past four years, while this deal was being negotiated in secret?

To be clear, Harvard is not the only institution that has made highly questionable and insincere claims about its legal transparency efforts. Stanford CodeX claims to support open access to the law, yet it is now directly sponsored by Thomson Reuters, the parent company of West Publishing, and its "innovation contests" involve pledges not to redistribute case materials. But I would expect the Times to be able to distinguish between academic puffery and genuine efforts to improve the state of our incredibly broken legal system.

Aaron

PlainSite | [http://www.plainsite.org](http://www.plainsite.org)

<comment><USER18> It's unfortunate that Aaron's (thinkcomp's?) Harvard Law and Stanford Law educations did not include proper instruction on nonprofit tax law, or he would have known that this is a permissible activity for a nonprofit to engage in.

Though I guess I'm not surprised by this post. After all, Aaron does claim to be the co-founder of Facebook and in the past filed a number of nuisance lawsuits against more than a dozen companies...

<comment><USER17> You know, at this point I'm hardly surprised by ignorant and mis-informed comments on the internet such as this one, but just for the record, I have never filed a "nuisance lawsuit."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What would Aaron say?

</comment><comment><USER20> Didn't a Stanford student already do this, posting XML of all federal/state judge opinions on his blog?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7026960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7026960) (discussion)

[https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/) (free mirror, looks like)

It's a great concept, and more/newer is better, but it seems odd for Harvard to act like they're the first to pull it off.

<comment><USER21> I was browsing around the directory listings, and found what looks like malware - [https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/govdocs/index.php](https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/govdocs/index.php) (non-rendered)</comment></comment>


The Function of Reason - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/conversation/dan_sperber-the-function-of-reason <comment><USER2> Some very interesting ideas about reason and communication in human society.

However, it missed that a key social function of reason and communication is for joint decision making. So one person throws out a suggestion with some reasons for it, a second presents reasons to point out what is right and wrong about it and persuades the first person, and throws out a new suggestion, the first person critiques it, and so on back-and-forth until a course of action is arrived at that both people agree is best. You can see this process even in fairly young children.

It is odd Sperber misses this since he seems to have just this sort of relationship with his collegues and co-workers, and enjoys it very much.

</comment><comment><USER3> This piece contains four major ideas. They're mixed up with biographical detail and polemics so they can use a separate exposition:

A. _Your words are not an encoding of your meaning_

> [Y]our words are not an encoding of your meaning; they are a piece of > evidence from which your meaning has to be inferred. [T]his can also be > expressed by behavior, by gesture, and indeed by cultural symbols, where you > convey that relevance will be achieved by orienting in a certain direction, > by looking at certain things rather than others, by approaching them with a > certain kind of expectation. There's a continuum of cases between precise > meanings that you can paraphrase and much vaguer effects

B. _The paradox of cultural transmission_

> [T]he paradox is that if you look at cultures, what you see is quite a bit > of stability: The same words are being used more or less in the same sense > for generation [...] the same tales are being told to children [...] the > same recipes are being cooked [...] How can things stay so stable?

> [C]ommunication is not a replication system. When I communicate to you, you > don't get in your mind a copy of my meaning. You'll transform it into > something else. You extract from it what's relevant to you.

> If you see a friend who has a great recipe for apple pie and you "imitate > it," you don't really copy it. You look at it and you extract from it a way > to do it your own way. There's a loss of information at every step, which is > quite significant. [...] So how can you have this macro stability of > cultural things with this micro failure to replicate?

> Fidelity [of copying] is not the only way to ensure stability. You can have > stability [...] if the transformations that everybody produces at each step > [...] converge, if you have what I can call a "cultural attractor"

C. _Reason is an ability to share intuitions and justify ourselves in the eyes of others_

> Why are reasons of any relevance to us? In our own individual thinking, > reasons don't matter very much. We trust ourselves. [...] You don't need to > look for a reason for what you intuitively believe. [...] But if we want to > communicate to others what we believe and they don't have the same > intuitions, we may still share intuitions about reasons for our belief

> We use reason to justify ourselves. [... Others] have to think that the way > we think and behave makes us reliable partners. The evidence they have is > from what we do, which can be interpreted in a variety of ways. What we can > do is provide reasons for our actions and our thoughts [...] to show that we > had good reasons and can be trusted to have similarly good reasons in the > future.

> It's an ability to understand others, to justify ourselves in the eyes of > others, to convince them of our ideas, to accept and to evaluate the > justifications and arguments that others give and be convinced by them or > not

>Rather than seeing as a paradox the fact that people can use reason to defend absurd ideas, as we see happen all the time, this is exactly part of what we assume is going to happen.

D. _Science progresses by people using their reason to defend what they hit by luck_

> It's never the case for me, and rarely the case for anybody, that you gather > so much evidence and data that somehow an idea emerges. [...] I think it's > mostly luck, when you hit on a good idea. Other people, just as bright and > smart as you, have the bad luck of hitting on a bad idea. They invest a lot > on the bad idea and they don't get anywhere. If you have been lucky enough > to hit on a good idea then, indeed, you'll find confirming evidence, good > evidence that will start explaining lots of things. But initially I think > we're groping in the dark.

> The kind of achievements that are often cited as the proof that reason is so > superior, like scientific achievements, are [...] typically a product of > social interaction over generations. They are social, cultural products, > where many minds had to [...] progressively explore a lot of directions > [...], not because some were more reasonable than others, but because some > were luckier than others in what they hit. And then they used their reason > to defend what they hit by luck.

<comment><USER4> So, reason isn't actually for _reasoning_ , because we can't (or don't) actually do that. But somewhere in this, he used reasoning to arrive at his conclusions. That is, on some level his position is self-refuting.

<comment><USER5> Reason for reasoning sounds like a tautology at best, or at my estimation, a vacuous statement.

A hammer is not for hammering, but for building something. Reason is a tool, like the hammer, which is not an end in itself, but used in service a greater goal.

If I understand the summary posted, reason is used as a tool to maintain and keep /culture/ stable through the generations. That is the larger goal it is employed towards.

<comment><USER4> The stated goal of reason is somewhat orthogonal to deriving logically correct conclusions, which is what reason is usually assumed to be for. But that conclusion - that reason is for keeping culture stable - was reached through some use of the reasoning process. But the reasoning process that was used isn't actually for reaching logically correct conclusions. Therefore, the conclusions reached may not actually be logically correct.

<comment><USER5> > But the reasoning process that was used isn't actually for reaching > logically correct conclusions

The purpose that reasoning is bent towards affects the truth value of the outcome of that reasoning?

The purpose of a building-- house or office-- affect the framing quality, and not the materials and hammering technique I use?

<comment><USER4> > The purpose that reasoning is bent towards affects the truth value of the > outcome of that reasoning?

Yes. Consider two types of "reason". "Reason-type-1" is used to logically derive correct conclusions from correct premises. "Reason-type-2" is used to justify and communicate conclusions that we have irrationally reached. Which type of reasoning will achieve better "truth value", to use your term?

The article claims that Reason-type-2 is all that exists, even though we all claim that we're doing Reason-type-1.

So, to restate my point: If the author is correct, then what the author used to reach the stated conclusions was Reason-type-2 and not Reason-type-1. We therefore have grounds for suspecting the truth value of the author's conclusions. This is what I mean when I say that the author's position is self-refuting.

<comment><USER5> If the author really is correct, and all that exists is Reason-Type-2, then there is no actual Reason-Type-1 by which to reject their claims. It's self- reinforcing, rather than self-refuting.

It's like 15th century herbalists who claimed that certain herbs were balancing humors, when the herbs had actual medicinal values. Their methods were efficacious, but they did not understand why and made false claims about why. We all use Reason-Type-2, and only that, because that is all that exists (if the author is correct), but mistakenly claim we're using Reason-Type-1, which doesn't actually exist (again, if the author is correct), the same way people had wrong-headed, but reasonable in context, theories about how the world worked.

<comment><USER4> True. But at the same time, there is no Reason-Type-1 by which to decide that their claims are correct. All we have is Reason-Type-2, and that is insufficient to know whether their claims are actually correct, as opposed to "reasonable in context".

If we only have Reason-Type-2, we're much less sure that we're really _right_ (about anything) than we are if we have Reason-Type-1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So... Reasoning is for socializing, but I never found out why, this is too rambly and I'm not trapped on a four hour flight anymore.</comment>


One of Google's Self-Driving Cars Gets into an Accident - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/08/05/google-car-accident/

<comment><USER2> From the article:

        Update: A Google representative tells us that the
                accident occurred while the vehicle was in
                manual mode, not self-driving mode

So why is this interesting?

<comment><USER3> Prior to that update, it was quite interesting. It's inevitable that the computer controlled car will get in an accident, the only question is if they are better or worse than humans?

I can tell you one thing, they aren't driving in snow in Nevada. And while I'd gladly trust a computer on dry roads when the only things to avoid are hard objects (other cars, tress) and soft objects (people/animals), I get wary on wet or snow covered roads where you have to perceive the road surface itself very clearly.

<comment><USER4> I imagine a computer would be able to react a lot better than a human would to a hydroplaning / icing condition since the human element of reaction times are no longer a factor, and can measure the car's dynamic forces with much greater precision. I would, however, question whether the car in its current form could get itself out of a small ditch.

<comment><USER3> I would agree that a computer reaction time is better, but it's prior to the loss of traction that is the difference. I drive a lot in the snow - I spent something like 12,000 miles last year chasing snowstorms to ski in. There are some times it is obvious traction is going to get a lot worse with changing conditions, maybe you are about to drive over a roll over into shade on a borderline freezing day, or the wind has pilied up snow in a section of the road ahead. I can recognize these situations and slow down ahead of time. I find it hard to believe that the computer vision we have today is capable of this based on my experience making autonomous vehicles. Surely they will just set it to go about 5mph the whole way for safety, but that just ignores what modern snow tires & 4 wheel drive are capable of.

<comment><USER4> What kind of work do you do on autonomous vehicles? I agree with all points, I just find this stuff fascinating :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <i>"While Jalopnik believes that the fender-bender is proof that self-driving cars may not be in the best interests of society, we have a different take. There were 10.2 million traffic accidents in 2008, which results in 39,000 deaths. That's 17.9 people per 100,000 licensed drivers. If Google self- driving cars can beat those statistics, they could actually prevent more accidents than they create. We also waste millions of hours commuting and driving through traffic; imagine if you had that time to be productive instead."</i>

Also, computers can't get drunk...

I'd love to have these brought to the masses. But, no matter what the statistical benefits are (safer and time saving), I can't picture a time in the near future when normal people will be accepting of automated vehicles. Just like this incident almost was, 1 death caused by a self-driving vehicle is going to overshadow 100,000s of deaths by human-driven vehicles. Even once proved feasible, I can't see something like this being adopted in a matter of years or even decades.

Anyone know of any historical examples of a similarly disruptive, but untrusted technology radically changing people's lives? How long did it take for adoption?

<comment><USER6> The place where it will really hit the fan will be the first time there is an accident where the autonomous vehicle had to choose who lives and who dies.

For instance, a child darts into the road, and due to the speed and the geometry, there are only two possible outcomes: hit the kid, or swerve hit an oncoming car in the next lane. Humans don't have time to make a cold, rational calculation in that situation--we are likely to either hit the breaks immediately (even if it isn't going to stop in time), or swerve immediately, and THEN we notice the oncoming car.

Not so with the computerized car. It will have time to calculate if it can stop in its lane in time, figure out the likely impact speed if it hits the child, forecast the severity of the injury to the child, and then compare that to the likely injury to its passengers from a collision with oncoming traffic, and even make some guesses based on statistics as to how many people are likely to be in the oncoming car. And then it can decide whether to hit the kid or hit the oncoming car.

I wouldn't want to be the engineer trying to explain that algorithm at a wrongful death trial.

<comment><USER7> Then it can post to the child's mother's facebook about why it made the decision it did. Social cars! :D</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Summaread – Millions of Articles Summarized Daily - <AUTHOR> http://www.summaread.com <comment><USER2> One nitpick. I browse without JS by default and could not click on any of your links. If you're already using <a> tags, you should always fill out the href value so the links work no matter what. Use the web as it was intended.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

The is the first project I release publicly and I'm happy to discuss anything with you.

<comment><USER3> Great project, although my opinion may be a little biased.

I'm one of the founders of oko.ai and I would love to share some of the things we learned doing something similar.

Feel free to check our demo in [https://app.oko.ai/ycdemo](https://app.oko.ai/ycdemo)

<comment><USER4> That's interesting! What do you use to get get a clean version of the article? I tried newspaper3k, but it doesn't always give best results

<comment><USER5> We currently use Goose, a python library, it works pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The summaries are not good. They will point something out like "five key points are made" without stating those five points...which would presumably have been clearly stated in the article. Did you try other APIs/services/software?

<comment><USER3> We, at oko, do more extensive summaries, maybe you will find it interesting. Check our demo at [https://app.oko.ai/ycdemo](https://app.oko.ai/ycdemo)

<comment><USER7> Maybe only shamelessly plug once per thread :)

<comment><USER3> I tried reply only to relevant comments but I ended up being repetitive. My bad.

<comment><USER6> It was helpful for me as I check only my comments often, not the whole thread so I would've missed it otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks great, but I was immediately turned off by the combination of infinite scroll and a footer with contact info that you can never reach.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is really great, I was recently looking for something like this, thanks for building it! I have some layout suggestions:

\- Summaries are short enough that they could be displayed by default for all articles, rather than requiring an extra click for each row. This would be a killer feature, even if optional and not enabled by default.

\- The categories at the top take up too much screen space - it would be nice if it was a bit more condensed (e.g. in a single row, or even remove it and leave just the side nav).

\- Using inline cards instead of full rows would make it possible to see a lot more info without having to scroll so much. The current layout (one row per news) would be better suited for mobile, though.

I'm not sure about the quality of the summaries yet, but just by removing the clickbait from news browsing you're already doing us a big favor.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is AWESOME! Thank you! I'm a giant news junkie, while I work in IT and like/need to stay abreast of whats going on, I also used to work for an online gaming publication. Checking news sites is just wired into my everyday routine.. and it's nice to have these stories aggregated in one place so I don't have the big splashy front pages on my screen at work :) Thanks again!

</comment><comment><USER11> There is bizarre global auto-scroll behavior when expanding a cell to show its summary. On click, I would rather just expand the cell and leave everything else alone.

Also, the following CSS (with Stylish, for example) makes it way more readable:

.main-content-section { margin-top: 0; }

.navbar { height: auto; }

.filters-menu { height: auto !important; }

.source-filter-tab { margin: 1px 6px; }

</comment><comment><USER12> As a reading tool, it's great. I noticed that there are a few headlines with nothing in the summary.

I like the potential. I'd especially like it if this tool could banish the click bait aspect of headlines.

Can you give us a view into your general techniques and tools? I'd like to know how you created it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Site is actually good. I think traders will find this useful. They end up clicking through multiple analyst recommendations. Instead if this shows a preview, they can make a better decision if they want to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER14> Sorry, just a linguistic aside, whenever I see summarize I assume that I am going to see some version of NLG but it's always some version of most important sentence. I like the site though.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice site! Some of them don't work though. For example, the "Tim Cook Drops to #53 on Glassdoors List of Highest Rated CEOs" one just displays empty bullet points.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd love to know how you summarized articles. Are you using a specific strategy to summarize for each websites or is it more generic ?

<comment><USER17> Indeed, that's the interesting part! Wild guess: named entities and tf-idf?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice news aggregator! The sentence selection looks like it works really well for these stories. How are you doing your scraping?

</comment><comment><USER19> Great summary !

>How much investing risk should you take in retirement? June >21, 2017, 10:32 a.m. CNN Personal Finance

> _

</comment><comment><USER20> site looks clean and nice. but it's hard to consume that amount of information. plus it's not possible to always understand what inside the link if article title is misleading

<comment><USER21> What if robot or trainable crawler can do personalized summaries of information?

[https://medium.com/rosenbridge/only-robot-can-free- informati...](https://medium.com/rosenbridge/only-robot-can-free- information-9f4ac3bb0701)

<comment><USER5> Nice read, are you the author?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe Twitter can follow suit...

</comment><comment><USER23> please set the debug to false</comment>


Snapchat is a fad, not a business. Do not glorify. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> A lot of people don't seem to get Snapchat, so I wrote a blog post about it here: [http://www.brianchu.com/blog/2013/09/11/photo- embarrassment/](http://www.brianchu.com/blog/2013/09/11/photo-embarrassment/).

Have people actually met/seen others using Snapchat? I'm in college so tons of my friends use Snapchat regularly (about every couple of hours). Snapchat is essentially used for picture messaging of frivolous images, almost like a picture-status-update of something funny or current. Nobody I know really uses it for "dirty" pics, though unflattering pics (of yourself or others) are fairly common. It's almost a foil to Instagram - Instagram encourages you to post by making your photos permanent but beautiful; Snapchat encourages you to post by making your funny/ridiculous/unflattering photos ephemeral. See the difference? It's ephemeral vs permanent, funny/ridiculous vs beautiful.

<comment><USER3> I found your blog post insightful. Consider submitting it as a story on HN.

Has any of your friends run into the problem of the expected privacy of their photos being compromised and the photos reposted elsewhere?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook, Twitter, and the sort hold on to content in perpetuity and content is monetizable. In this case, other than a network of friends who would be embarrassed with you, what is left of Snapchat after the first "My stuff wasn't really deleted" scandal? An "I have all of your dirty photos service"? Could their users just jump onto another "delete everything" app?

</comment><comment><USER5> As much as I'd like to agree, Twitter is about to IPO. So empirical real-world data suggests otherwise, that it's not a fad, and just because I don't get it doesn't mean that others don't derive enough value from it to be a business.

Boy, being an investor must be hard.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm sure people were saying the same things about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc...

</comment><comment><USER7> True, but if they are smart (which they don't seem to have enough of), then they can turn it into a business.

</comment><comment><USER8> Are dickpics ever going to go out of style ?

</comment><comment><USER9> SnapChat's success is a huge reminder to start by _making something people want_. Ever since watching Mr. Gadget, the idea of self-destructing messages seemed _useful_ not just for cartoon spies, but for _so many_ ordinary reasons.

I'm not a user of snapchat, but to my college age cousins, the value isn't in "sexting", though that happens, it's in the intimate, momentary connection.

This is the same reason, for aesthetic reasons, why I prefer not to take pictures of famous buildings & landscapes. I _know_ I was there .. it's imprinted in my mind and I can go back and explore that experience with my imagination. I don't only visualize, but I smell, I hear, I feel what it was like.

Snapchat captures that zeitgeist, whether the experiences was funny, intimate, sexy, embarrassing, cool, awe-inspiring or sad. It then goes into history, save the shared mindspace of 2.

That's something people want.</comment>


Segmented Sleep - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

<comment><USER2> Winston Churchill is supposed to have possessed this sleep-wakefulness pattern. But the article might have mentioned the other variety of "bimodal sleep" -- the one in which one hemisphere falls asleep while the other stays awake. This pattern is seen in migratory birds and dolphins:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unihemispheric_slow-wave_sleep>

Never was the expression "I was half-asleep" more literal.</comment>


The Python GIL Visualized - <AUTHOR> http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/01/python-gil-visualized.html <comment><USER2> Step 1: Don't use threads.

Step 2: If you think you need threads, revisit your design.

Step 3: If you ignored step 2 and/or still think you really need threads use one of the GILless Python implementations.

Step 4: If you can't/don't wanna use one of the GILless Python implementations then pick another language. There's plenty to choose from.

Step 5: We all get to read about stuff more interesting and important than the GIL.

<comment><USER3> Wrong. Wrong, and Wrong. Plenty of people - all over the world including myself - can use threads (and python threads) perfectly well understanding their limitations. It does benefit our applications just fine.

That said, this GIL drum does get old.

<comment><USER4> In my opinion, threads are in a similar vein like goto and eval.

It is true, that a good, disciplined programmer with the goal of a performant application with simple and good code can use gotos in a way which enhances the code, and he can use threads to enhance the performance without bringing all living hell down on people around him.

However, it is also true that a lot of people who only consider themself to be a good programmer want to use threads, gotos and all these powerful constructs, and because some dude called tetha said that good programmers can use them well, they will use them. But since they are not good programmers, a mess will happen.

Thus, strongly advocating against threads -- while wrong -- is still right in my opinion.

Granted, I don't want to go off-topic too much, but I cannot talk about the GIL too much, because the matter is too delicate and complicated for me. Sometimes the GIL enhances performance, sometimes it degrades it. Live with it, and if you really need parallelism, use the libraries out there for it.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised; I find threads both conceptually simple, easy to explain and criminally easy to use - it's when you start talking about locks, semaphores/etc things sort of go sideways for most people.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Laundrapp, "Uber of Laundry" Collapses - <AUTHOR> "Laundrapp was founded in 2014 to provide an on-demand laundry and dry cleaning service. The business initially operated in London, Edinburgh and Birmingham before expanding elsewhere in the UK.<p>More than £15m was pumped into the company during successive funding rounds but it ran into cash flow difficulties and was forced into administration after its investors declined to put up more capital." <comment><USER2> The company has been taken over by a group who's last 2 companies went insolvent owing hmrc hundreds of thousands. Very dodgy. Wouldn't give them my clothes.</comment>


The right time to turn in your keyboard as a coder/founder - <AUTHOR> http://thebln.com/talk/turn-keyboard-whats-valuable-use-time-founder/ <comment><AUTHOR> Robert Moore - the guy in this video - also did a funny blog on his companies logo looking like underwear by accident. Interesting thing was that it actually turned out quite well for him. [https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2013/10/09/our-logo-looks-like- un...](https://blog.rjmetrics.com/2013/10/09/our-logo-looks-like-underpants-a- case-study-in-internationalization/)</comment>


How Helsinki Arrived at the Future of Urban Travel First - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-15/how-helsinki-arrived-at-the-future-of-urban-travel-first <comment><USER3> As a Helsinki resident (and Whim user) it's important to point out that while the user base of Whim has grown quite a bit, it's most likely due to the introductory price that won't last forever. For 49 € you get public transport, public bike (first half an hour free), cheap taxi rides and perhaps slightly cheaper car renting, whereas to get public transport alone without this app is around 55 €. So I wouldn't call it a success just yet.

<comment><USER4> As a another Helsinki resident, I agree. Whim is nice experiment but not necessarily a solution with their current business model.

I think that Whim (or another Whim type service) can work if you consider the the price of the parking space.

Currently Helsinki has zoning regulations for mandatory parking places that is too high (roughly 0.8 per apartment). The cost of parking place is something like 30,000 - 70,000 euros or more. Assuming that return of capital is 8%, the cost of parking space is 100 - 400 euros per month.

If the mandatory zoning requirement is dropped, Whim style services can become profitable even in the long term.

<comment><USER5> That is a remarkable cost for a structured parking space! In America the construction cost is like $20-30k (17-25k EUR). I bet you could find projects for more than that but nothing like 70k EUR.

<comment><USER4> If parking space is build underground as it often is in the cities, the construction is expensive. If you build below sea level, it can be even more.

If you build above the ground, the construction cost can be just $20-30k EUR, but after you factor in the cost of the land, the cost is similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its the availability that is the killer for these sorts of services, as one of the people interviewed in the article says.

I don't see how these services can compare with a private car without totally saturating the neighborhood with lots of idle vehicles sitting around to cover the spikes in demand without suffering infuriating unavailability when you need to get somewhere. Its already annoying seeing all the dock-less bikes and stuff left all over the streets - it'll be much worse when they are dumping cars as well as bikes/scooters.

Having to wait 5+ minutes for Uber to accept your ride and then arrive (complete with the little car icon doing seemingly pointless loop-the-loops on the map) while you are left impatiently tapping your foot is fine every now and then. But having to do that _everytime_ I want to get anywhere? Really? Its not for me - I _value_ having a car sitting idle just so that it is immediately ready for me to use at the precise moment I need it so I can just jump in an go.

Would you sell your car and _rely_ on a service where they might one day just not have any drivers available? I am sure many of us have been in situations pre-ride-hailing apps where we'd be on a night out and call someone for a cab only to be told there is a 2+ hour waiting list. Better start walking home then I guess ...

One-way trips or if I am drunk is where ride-hailing shines - I dont think it'll ever replace car ownership for anyone apart from those people living in the absolute centre of cities who only need to get to work and bars (and in those situations walking _is_ a viable option if you have the time)

<comment><USER7> On the flip side, consider the time you spend looking for parking. Depending on where you live, that's also a big time sink. I'd rather be checking Twitter on the sidewalk than cursing the parking gods looping around, but that's just me.

<comment><USER6> Yeah that is true - it can be useful in those situations where they can just drop you off (often - at least in the UK - where parking is bad, public transport is usually fairly functional though so that is an option too - <USER2> said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport - e.g. instead of going from A->B then B->C on a train, you can just go direct A->C etc)

Of course, a car-sharing application also suffers from the parking issue though.

Personally for me I use my cars most where parking is not a problem (e.g. driving to friends & family, to the shops, vacations etc). I fail to see how ride-hailing is going to make this sort of use of a car obsolete.

<comment><USER8> _that said it also helps to fill in gaps in the public transport_

But that's exactly it - when 95% of your transportation needs are better solved by a tapestry of buses, trains, boats, bicycles, delivery services, etc, keeping a car just for those 5% becomes an expensive and often inconvenient luxury. It's like buying an apartment in every place you visit, rather than using an hotel or equivalent. I don't think ride-hailing/taxis will ever become a default, but it's an important part of the whole system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish the author of the article didn't repeat the trope about car sharing reducing carbon emissions. Nothing about this app encourages ride-sharing per se, so the actual car trips in a shared vehicle will not impact carbon emissions. However, encouraging alternative forms of transit such as buses, subways, trams, and bicycles is a big saving. This is a really I,portent detail to get right. The only thing that's going to cut back on the energy use from private car rides is ... fewer private car rides, not shared cars.

<comment><USER10> Shared vehicles don't need to be parked between rides, and sit idle much less between rides. The former doesn't really impact anything unless shared vehicles are common enough to impact city design. The latter doesn't impact anything unless there is a marginal capital improvement to the vehicle that only pays off if the duty cycle ratio is high enough. I don't know of any such technology off hand. Bypass oil filters with full-synthetic lubricant, perhaps? Season-specific tires? Special paint job that reflects all non- visible light? Hybrid with regenerative brakes? They all seem to me like long shots at producing an actual effect on emissions under real-world driving conditions.

If anything, I'd think that shared vehicles could increase emissions, because the vehicle has to travel between the site of one ride's end and the next ride's beginning. That travel does not accomplish a goal of getting a rider from their origin to their destination. The inter-ride travel is minimized in a denser city, but those cities can make mass transit pay off more easily, for the same reason. In a dense city, the strongly overlapping trips can be coerced onto common routes with fixed stops. So the shared vehicle probably does not save emissions unless the trips of multiple passengers can be easily combined. And if they can, just put a bus route there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a former Helsinkian, I'm rather surprised to see the label "future of urban travel" applied to a city that has banned all forms of Uber-style ride-sharing due to pressure from the taxi lobby.

<comment><USER3> I believe they banned it because they ignored the local laws (and Helsinki isn't exactly an isolated case of this behaviour from Uber) and were unlicensed.

However they've recently regained presence in Helsinki since it's been legalized [1].

[1] [https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/anyone_can_be_a_cabbie__n...](https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/anyone_can_be_a_cabbie__new_law_transforms_finnish_taxi_trade/10283444)

<comment><USER12> Uber black has returned which is basically taxis with the uber UI. I left on vacation just before the regulations changed. What are the prices for Uber compared to before with the private cars and drivers?

<comment><USER13> I just checked fares from the central railway station to the Herttoniemi metro station 7.5km away.

Whim(Taksi Helsinki): €19.72

UberX €12-16:

UberBlack €17-23:

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A great system for the young and able-bodied, those with no literal or metaphorical baggage. But try getting on the bus with a disabled child in a large wheelchair. Or try taking your bleeding dog to the vet in a cab. Or board a bus carrying a windsurfer. I want to go rock climbing this weekend. No bus or taxi will take me up a logging road. Must i walk from the nearest town? Because then i'll have to take time off work. There will always be a place for personal vehicles.

<comment><USER15> Wheelchair: Vote for better politicians who invest in accessible public transportation. E.g. in Switzerland and I suspect most of Skandinavia this is not a big deal.

Rock climbing: That's when you rent a car [1]. Although again, Switzerland's trains, post buses and cablecars bring you there without any big issue, so if there's the political will there's also a way, as long as you don't want to go to a place that's too remote from densely populated areas.

Bleeding dog: Again, rent a car [1].

Windsurfer: You got me there, if you have that hobby you probably best have your own car.

[1] we have a car sharing service here that is ubiquitous and costs you around 40-50 bucks for half a day and 40km or so. Doesn't sound that cheap, but a car costs you at least 400 a month here (cost of ownership). Renting cars once a weekend plus public transport subscription (70-250 dollars depending on your needs) means you never have to care about parking spaces, you can comfortably work on your way to work and you have a car when it's really the most useful method.

<comment><USER14> Lol. Rent a car? Have you ever seen a car rental agreement that would allow a rented car to be driven 10/20/30km up a logging road?

Do you know what it means to take an autistic child, or cancer patient, or dementia sufferer, on public transportation for more than a few minutes? Not everyone does well in groups or unfamiliar environments. Doctors regularly tell people with suppressed immune systems to avoid public transportation due to infection risk. Charities all over the world FLY these people in private PLANES because they know how difficult even private cars can be when you are ill.

My point is that there are a great many lifestyles and activities that either demand or are made vastly simpler by personal vehicles. Not including personal vehicles in a transportation plans pushes those people away.

Shameless plug for my favorite local charity: [http://www.angelflight.ca/](http://www.angelflight.ca/) Fyi, these flights walk on water in BC. Their callsign is given priority for everything. Fees are waived. 747s and fighter jets will be moved to make room for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The ticket API and SDK for the greater Helsinki area subway, trains, trams and busses is here: [https://sales-api.hsl.fi](https://sales-api.hsl.fi)

There's a call for new service pilots: [https://hsl.fi/idealab](https://hsl.fi/idealab)

The official open data and APIs including GTFS, GraphQL and MQTT here: [https://hsl.fi/en/opendata](https://hsl.fi/en/opendata)

Disclaimer: I've worked on these at HSL.

</comment><comment><USER17> There was quite interesting pilot service run by the entity responsible for the public transportation in the Helsinki region in 2012-2015. It was called "Kutsu Plus". There is a report available in English [1].

This service was something between bus and taxi. They were operating small busses. All the rides started and ended at a bus stop (which you have plenty in the region). You would use a website/mobile app to tell where you are going and when. The system would then optimize the requests from multiple people, determine the routes and tell you when to be at the bus stop, how long the journey takes and the price.

Eventually the service was shut down as the local municipalities did not want to put in more money to support it. All the trips were very heavily subsidized. They would have needed to significantly grow the pilot to see if could have become economically feasible.

Seems to be the software side of the project is now part of Volkswagen owned Moia [2].

[1] [https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2016/final-report-kutsuplus- trial...](https://www.hsl.fi/en/news/2016/final-report-kutsuplus-trial-work- develop-ride-pooling-worth-continuing-8568) [2] [https://www.moia.io/](https://www.moia.io/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I can imagine this to work in a city like Mumbai - with one of the cities with high population densities.

Context wise: Traffic in Mumbai is really bad at peak times, and has got worse given the advent of ride hailing services. A lot of people already use the public transport - the network of local trains and metros to get from Place A to Place B. However, after you get down from a station/stop, you rely on taxis, autos, buses, or ride hailing apps to get to final destination which could be 4-5 miles away. and those options are not always available. This is one of the reasons that some folks take their own vehicles even to far off places despite them taking way too much time.

Where I can see this work is: Getting a ride share/bike/(even a scooter) to get to the final place, instead of hailing a cab or an auto. Also, if more people are using it, this would reduce the load on the roads, meaning people might be able to use buses more. (right now, most of us avoid buses due to the traffic situation here)

We already have really cheap passes for public transport. And the frequency is already sufficiently high. If the last mile hailing can work, that could reduce a lot of load, and people will pay for that.

Not too sure about the other cities.

</comment><comment><USER19> The 499 euro price tag for the "all access" seems quite expensive from an American point of view. I can get a decent car with good gas mileage for about half that and outright buying a used car will save me a lot more in less than a year. Most people who would be tempted to go without owning a car in the US don't do much driving anyway, so they don't spend a lot on gas as is.

While I think this could work in NYC, Seattle, or San Francisco, most other American cities have plenty of infrastructure and affordable parking to support a high percentage of car ownership amongst citizens.

Heck, there was even a HN article a day or two ago about how parking spaces in America outnumber actual cars by a huge margin in most American cities and towns. I think in one city it was 80 to 1.

Unfortunately, the US is still too spread out for these types of services to be useful in all but a few cities.

<comment><USER20> That's about $580 US. The average monthly payment on a NEW car in the US is around $500 [0][1]. Add in parking (even "free" parking isn't), depreciation, gasoline, insurance, and registration fees and that's pretty darn close to $580.

From my perspective, living the DC suburbs, I would love to have an all-access app for multi-mode transport. I own two cars (one for me, one for wife). I walk to work, so my car only gets driven on the weekends, and only if my wife and I are doing different things. It's a VERY expensive way to maintain my weekend "freedom". Lyft/Uber would fill much of the gap, except I frequently go camping 2-4 hours away. If Lyft had a "long term borrow" plan, I could get rid of my $400/month car payment and all associated costs.

[0][https://www.thebalance.com/average-monthly-car- payment-41376...](https://www.thebalance.com/average-monthly-car- payment-4137650) [1] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/06/18/pete- planner-503-avg-car-payment-too-rich-most-us/85493088/)

<comment><USER21> Rent a car for the weekend? Though there's obviously some transaction overhead associated with doing that.

<comment><USER20> I've considered it. But, the transaction overhead isn't small. I'd need to reserve the car in advance, Lyft to the rental agency, etc. Currently, I can decide to go to the mountains on a whim Friday afternoon.

<comment><USER21> That makes perfect sense. It also highlights some of the reasons why, a lot of the time, people own items that they don't use frequently. e.g. you may only use a lawnmower 15 times a year but most people aren't going to rent one each time.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely.

But, the cost of a car/truck is massive relative to most people's overall budgets. So, there's probably lots of room for optimization through transit- as-a-service.

<comment><USER21> Sure. The cost of a car and, potentially, the cost of garaging a car in a city definitely merit a harder look at alternatives than other items may. There are definitely city-dwellers who don't drive a lot and, with increased transportation options in a lot of cities, the marginal car-owner increasingly has other options they can consider.

I know a couple in SF who don't own a car that probably wouldn't have been able to do so prior to Uber/Lyft, Zipcar, food delivery, etc. Of course, they also don't really do outdoor trips requiring a lot of gear on a regular basis and their kids are grown up and moved out as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm gonna be in Helsinki for a month from next week. Can I buy the €499 monthly deal and get a car for a month?

<comment><USER23> Disclosure: I work at MaaS Global.

While you could use the Whim app and a Total Freedom subscription to get 30 days of private care usage, we encourage people to use multiple modes of transport that are best suited for varying needs.

Mobility as a Service is based on the idea of multi-modality and the premise that private car ownership shouldn't be a requirement for freedom and spontaneity. We are learning, in many cities worldwide, that private car ownership is leading towards a congested and wasteful (in terms of space and material resources) urban center.

As the MaaS concept and ecosystem are much bigger than one company, I recommend checking out how other people, journalists, researchers, companies, cities, and regions are exploring the concept :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wonder if they ever going to come up with some sort of personal mobility solution for winter. Bikes don't work too well in summer. Perhaps some sort of version of electric scooter or e-snowmobile.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's amazing how this slimy advertisement hasn't been flagged already.

I'm a former Helsinki resident at this is just overhyped bs ad for another startup.

<comment><USER26> Yeah it's abit of a fluff piece, but compared to stuff that comes out in the US scene everyday it's nothing.

Can't we just once be positive? The app works, there are no lies in the article. Maybe if people in Finland were a bit more optimistic there would be more successful companies

<comment><USER25> There is a fine difference between being positive and self-deception. There are no direct lies, but like often in today's media they only focus on one side of the story and leave important information out.

For example what was already meantioned here that this whole thing is just initial offer subsidized with VC fund and that it will not last forever.

Second, the cheaper taxi's argument was true in a way few weeks ago when Finland still had the old taxi monopoly regulation going on. Now that the market is open, there are a lot of options and some probably even cheaper than this. Also the article doesn¨t mention that you need to use special Whim- supported taxi's which are very limited. In reality you are most likely not going to get your "cheap taxi ride" when ever you need it.

Third, Whim has some kind of contract and/or legal problem with the Helsinki Public Transit Authority and while regular users can just use the public transit and keep the traffic card in their pocket, Whim users have to buy individual tickets each time.

And the list goes on...

I like the idea of the company and idea of revolutionising public transit, but these kind of BS advertisement which are made to look like news is not the way to go.

<comment><USER26> Yes, it's not a comprehensive overview of everything the app and concept has. It's just an article exploring a cool new concept, and being positive about it.

Yes, the price might change. But that also mean the service might change.

The reason whim taxis were only through a certain taxi company was because that was the situation then. The app itself is aiming to be open for any ride- sharing platform, so Uber or Taxify could easily integrate.

I'm sorry but your comment just feels like you're trying your best to be pessimistic. It's healthy at times, but sometimes (especially with new concepts), you should let things grow and evolve before squandering it's opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> From TFA:

> The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal > transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car > is used only 4 percent of the time.

Sounds like a great opportunity indeed. Former car owners save money and the car rental companies can still make a profit. Everyone (including the environment) wins.

<comment><USER28> That is an invalid comparison. All we know is that the 4% of time those people spend in their car is to them worth a lot of money to them.

The costs of a car need to be paid. Rental cars need to pay the same costs. (probably more because rental cars tend to be newer cars, and also because people tend to abuse rental cars knowing that the cost will not be theirs.

Yes, if you rarely drive renting a car becomes cost effective. However we already have car rental companies and car sharing companies. The economics of them are something you can research if you are interested. It might or might not pay off in any given situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can Whim do trip planning using all transportation options? Having a few apps doesn't bother me, what I'm missing is something that says "hail a car to the train station A, then take a train to station B and then a bicycle to point C".

<comment><USER29> Yes, that's the whole point - combining transportation methods. Taxicabs, trains and bike sharing are all available via different apps and APIs. Whim aims to work as type of an aggregator who offers them all in the same app.

<comment><USER8> Aggregating is one thing; Google Maps also aggregates ride-sharing and public transport, but can't route using both at once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "The cost of cars accounts for as much as 85 percent of personal transportation spending, according to Hietanen, even though the average car is used only 4 percent of the time."

This figure is a bit silly - you don't drive your car while you're sleeping, or indeed when you're already where you want to be. Doesn't mean it's not a useful thing to own.

<comment><USER20> 4% of 24 hours is about 58 minutes.

So, 6% of the 16 hours/day you're awake. 9% of the 11 hours/day you aren't sleeping or working.

Sure, owning a car is useful. But, private car ownership is highly inefficient.

<comment><USER21> The vast, vast bulk of things that people own they use a small percentage of the time. To be sure, cars are expensive, their storage may be expensive in some locations, and at least some people are fine with just renting a generic car. But just observing that something isn't in use a high percentage of the time doesn't really tell you anything about whether it makes sense to own vs. short-term rent.</comment></comment></comment>


The Fake Sex Doctor Who Conned the Media - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-fake-sex-doctor-who-conned-the-media-into-publicizi-1832711205 <comment><USER2> This is a bit scary. I wonder what Damian Sendler will do with this. Will he turn this into a story and then sell it to Hollywood?

This reminds me of a profile written recently in The New Yorker where Dan Mallory (or A.J. Finn, a bestseller of the novel, The Woman in the Window) made up a whole bunch of lies. This included not only claiming that he had top PhDs but that he had personal psychological problems, which was used to advance his career in book publishing. I'm not sure how culture is reacting to these stories. Are the people who do these things continuing to profit off of these behaviors? Because it looks like Dan Mallory is still going to have an adapted film out by the end of this year. And he's going to be writing another book.

I wonder if all this back-and-forth buzz is feeding them and offering them even larger audiences? Is it encouraging others to act this way?

If anyone's interested in the New Yorker piece: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense- nov...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists- trail-of-deceptions)</comment>


Slick real-time network connectivity visualization - <AUTHOR> https://secure.logmein.com/US/visualization/fullscreen/

<comment><USER2> What is going on here?

<comment><USER3> Logmein is a remote desktop service/tool. I do use it when I need to help my parents on some problem they have in their computer.

So, you are remotely connecting from computer x, to computer y, and that is a live animation of it placed on a map.</comment></comment>