America's Addiction to Mercenaries - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/iraq-afghanistan-contractor-pentagon-obama/495731/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Personally, I feel this military contracting is a disgrace and a threat to the democracy. Bring back the draft or don't fight the war. Even in World War 2, America's paragon of a "justified" war, 61% of troops were drafted. [1]

Not only does it create private military forces with significantly less allegiance to the country, it destroys the morale of active duty troops. When I was in Iraq, it seemed like there were more contractors than troops. Kenyan's managed by dutch contractors provided internal security. Indian's worked in the chow halls. Filipinos manned the commissaries. And on and on.

The Special Forces soldiers I worked with had former SF soldiers helping with the training of Iraqi forces. They considered them lazy and unhelpful in general, taking none of the risk but getting paid $1k a day. Compare that to the actual soldiers making a few grand a month, and you get the sense your country doesn't really give a shit about you and your just a dupe.[2] Get out as quick as you can and get paid 5-10x more for less risk.

Throughout history, private military forces are the tool of tyrants. I don't want this for America. War is a last resort. Either we go together or don't go at all. Hopefully the latter, but contracting out the fight is stupid and lazy and destroys the fabric of our country by slowly eliminating our citizen military. Opposing the draft isn't opposing war, it's supporting war by contractor and making wars easier to wage by politicians who've never served, whose kids don't serve, and who have no real skin in the game. Truly a sad state of affairs.

[1] [http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for- student...](http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for- students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/us-military.html)

[2] [http://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/military...](http://www.dfas.mil/militarymembers/payentitlements/military- pay-charts.html)

<comment><USER3> Similarly, I feel that this educational contracting is a threat to democracy. Either employ forced labor to provide education or don't have public schools at all.

I understand the concern that mercenaries may revolt against the real military, but is anyone really suggesting this is a danger to the US? I don't see anyone making that case.

The article also brings up real issues that soldiers-for-hire are inadequately supervised. This is a valid concern, but again the response to that should be a measured cost/benefit analysis as to whether adequate supervision + contractors or employees is better. Teachers-for-hire are, in many cases, also not adequately supervised. That doesn't mean we should resort to forced labor to provide teaching, it just means we need a better supervisory apparatus.

<comment><USER4> It's not that mercenaries may revolt. It's that people are less likely to support war if it will affect them personally.

The is a spectrum for military participation: conscription -> volunteer professional -> mercenery. With conscription people will be more vested because it can affect their families more personally even if they don't support a war. With a mercenary army not only is the death of strangers easier to ignore, but deaths are not always made public. Look how often we had stats about army deaths/injuries reported daily vs how often you heard about Blackwater deaths during the Iraq war/occupation.

<comment><USER3> People are also less likely to support public education, road construction or cleaning up Flint's water if the result is that they will be victims of forced labor.

If your goal is simply to bind an unpopular position to a policy you oppose as a political maneuver, that's fine. But lets clearly distinguish political strategy (sneaking your favored choices through democracy by removing preferred choices from the voters) from a normative argument (we _should_ do X because...).

<comment><USER5> Consider the fact you are categorizing armed conflict as labor in the first place. Not as the collective action of citizens defending themselves, for whom economic incentives would be dwarfed by more important ones.

If the draft isn't justified, how is the war justified? I'm having trouble imagining an ethical system where forced labor is obviously unethical but war for profit isn't.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say I supported war for profit. I said poof131's argument against it [1] was flawed.

[1] I'm assuming he was making an argument against war. It's possible I was misinterpreting him and he was merely suggesting an anti-democratic hack to get around the populist support for war.

<comment><USER5> You keep referring to military service as labor, the draft as forced labor and comparing it to other labor. That's an economic concept. The only type of war where that is a coherent position to take is a war for profit. So obviously the draft would be forced labor and unethical, because the war itself would have to be.

Few people are pro-conscription, they are choosing between the incentives present when conscription is the only path to war and when mercenaries or professional soldiers recruited from those of lower status are used. If the war is considered just by a democracy then many will want to fight, because it will be obviously necessary, defensive, and those chosen must be chosen fairly.

Perhaps you think this is an argument for the continuation of American global continuous war combined with conscription? Because it's very much not. It's a statement that the only just wars would inevitably result in conscription also being just, even without the incredible moral hazard present when democracies can vote for wars to be fought by labor.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that tying a policy choice you oppose to a horrible poison pill like forced labor is a potentially effecitve way to subvert democracy and prevent popular policies you dislike from being enacted by the public.

I said so two comments up, and reiterated this in the very comment you replied to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12286281)

The tone of your post suggests you disagree with me about something. Am I misinterpreting? If not, what do we disagree on?

<comment><USER5> I guess we're just not arguing at the same level of abstraction?

You keep referring to it as forced labor, and missing the central point while labeling the elimination of the moral hazards inherent with mercenaries as a "poison pill". And referring to subverting democracy.

If a fighter in a war is ever remotely close to being labor then they should not fight, in fact they should probably be fighting those trying to send them. I'm not arguing for a poison pill of forced labor, that isn't on the table. Ever.

Do you disagree that there is any form of conscription that isn't "forced labor"?

For example: defending your own home or community or democratic nation from an invading army is not labor, it's a non-economic activity. Say a contract of mutual defense with your fellow citizens in the case of an invading army? I'll go fight if they invade the east coast even though I live on the west coast because of a legally binding reciprocal agreement that is in all our best interests? In that case we are all called in to serve and organized to fight effectively. Our neighbors who can't fight take care of our kids while we're away. Is that forced labor?

<comment><USER3> _I 'm not arguing for a poison pill of forced labor...Do you disagree that there is any form of conscription that isn't "forced labor"?_

I think that by definition, taking people and forcing them to do work they don't want to do is forced labor. I don't subscribe to your Orwellian redefinition of soldiering as not being labor, simply because you label it "non-economic".

I'm also not sure of the relevance of this redefinition. Whether or not your poison pill is redefined to be forced labor or not, it's subverting democracy because the public wants a war staffed by volunteers and mercenaries. You want to remove that choice from them.

 _In that case we are all called in to serve and organized to fight effectively. Our neighbors who can 't fight take care of our kids while we're away. Is that forced labor?_

If we've all contractually agreed to it, no. If we are forcing people who didn't agree to the contract to join us, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obligatory link to Eisenhower's farewell speech, warning about the rise of the military-industrial complex, eerily prescient about current state of affairs: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knBEQnuJNiI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knBEQnuJNiI)

<comment><USER7> I think one of the keys to remebering that speech is to remember the original draft called it the MICC or the military industrial congressional complex.

<comment><USER8> That's almost a tautology. With the system rigged to depend on unlimited campaign donations, every "complex" has the "congressional" part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting article. Pretty terrible writing/editing though.

"Contracting is big business, too. In the 2014 fiscal year, the Pentagon obligated $285 billion to federal contracts—more money than all other government agencies received, combined. That's equal to 8 percent of federal spending, and three and a half times Britain's entire defense budget. About 45 percent of those contracts were for services, including private military contractors."

Without knowing what percentage of "services" are PMCs this doesn't tell us anything and the comparison to Britain's spending is therefore meaningless.

The entire phrase "were linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery, and anti- Coalition activities" is repeated twice in different paragraphs...

I expect better of the Atlantic.

</comment><comment><USER10> The English parliament's use of Hessian contractors for security and skirmishes in their American colonies was one of the colonists' specific complaints.

Ironic that this has come full circle!

</comment><comment><USER11> In the end we will be fighting wars to keep people employed (probably already the case) just like for profit prisons strongly encourages incarcerating more people.

It is a very sad world where we favor profit over lives and suffering.

<comment><USER12> Is it sadder than a world where people are subject to the draft?

Should the US be "the world police"? If not us, then who?

<comment><USER13> An international entity, with representation from all countries, under the guide of international law that is just.

US as a world police is heavily biased to it's own interests, and not to the interests of peace and coexistence.

<comment><USER12> Let's define the IWP as "The International World Police" \- the IWP. For any given single-human actor within an IWP, they then have to carry two sets of methods of accountability. One, to the nation-state they call home. Two, to the IWP.

The (military historical) literature is full of examples of this not working well. Making it Canada instead of the US, and using the UN as an IWP, the rules of engagement in Bosnia led to ... extremely widespread dissatisfaction.

I don't think an IWP is consistent with the mores and reality of the nation- state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why not Congress simply grants them Letters of Marque as allowed by the Constitution instead of contracting them?

</comment><comment><USER15> > The U.S. government does not track contractor numbers in war zones.

Because they don't _want_ to.

</comment><comment><USER16> I like that the writer asks why there is a need for (often foreign) mercenaries and correctly states that there are not enough volunteers willing to join the army.

But instead of following this thought and asking why there are not enough volunteers he proceeds to teach us why using mercenaries is bad for a country. (as if we didn't know)

It would be important to widely discuss this and get to the bottom of this problem because I believe it is caused by very bad government policies of the last decades that ultimately could lead to the downfall of Western civilisation itself.

My personal opinion on that is that we have basically removed all incentives for men to do what traditionally was their role in society - building and maintaining civilisation itself and protecting the society from threats.

Call me sexist but the fact is that roads, houses, airports, planes and all kinds of infrastructure is built and maintained almost 100% by hard working men. So is internal (police) and external (army) security.

So why do men have no incentive anymore to do this important work for society and instead choose to withdraw to some escapism like excessively playing video games, using drugs or watching porn?

Traditional families as a goal in life was or is in the process of being destroyed and bad economic policies have on top of that created an environment where most men, even if they wanted to, can't acquire the necessary resources to support a family anymore.

Even if you get a great education you'll start your life with massive debt that barely enables you to pay rent if you get a good job. So men withdraw from society, almost nothing is manufactured anymore in the West (wealth creation) and the economy enters a fatal downward spiral.

And for people that are still successful the outlook isn't much better. I myself came from a former Communist country to the West and made it to the top 1% in the EU country I am in even though I started out with nothing. But I am not willing to marry my girlfriend (and I have told her this) because we have here laws that would basically give her the power to dominate and destroy me at will if she ever felt like it.

Don't get me wrong, I highly value marriage but I'm not willing to enter a deal where I'm having to give up everything to her and can not expect to get anything in return for it. For example if we married and divorced (without children) she would be entitled to 40% of my net income as long as I am alive.

If I then decided that it's not worth it anymore to work so hard just to have all profit taken away from me (or god forbid, my business could fail for other reasons) the government could punish me (literally put me in prison) because I intentionally do not make the kind of money I made before that she is for some reason entitled to.

And that only covers what could happen to me if she played fair. Divorce lawyers would likely suggest to her that she accuses me of abusing her physically to extract more money out of me.

So sadly for me starting a family is currently out of question in the West. Maybe Trump wins in the US and turns the ship around (by ending Socialism and promoting Patriotism and Capitalism again) and I'll cash out here and go through the legal process of moving there, or I move at some point to Russia because they are right wing Capitalists there too.

But the EU is pretty much beyond saving in my view, there's no perspective to have a normal life here anymore. If there was no perspective for me to cash out and move to a better place in the future I would have stopped working so hard already. I could easily survive by working only 10 or 15 hours a week because I personally don't need much and slaving away to have more resources only makes sense if you plan on starting a family. I definitely don't, at least not here.

<comment><USER17> This is so wildly off-topic.

<comment><USER16> Why? I try to explore why we need mercenary armies in the first place. Why are not enough people volunteering? What makes them withdraw and what could this mean for our future?

There are many comparisons that you can draw between the US and fallen empires that had to rely on mercenaries before they finally collapsed internally.

The last time Western civilisation collapsed at a large scale (Roman Empire) it took the West almost a thousand years to recover from it.

<comment><USER17> > Why are not enough people volunteering?

Because these particular wars are pointless and immoral? Your segue from briefly discussing mercenaries on to gender roles, marriage, Trump, the EU, etc. just doesn't follow. It's obvious that your steering the conversation toward a certain set of talking points. The last 3/4 of your comment probably would've been arrived at no matter the topic at hand.

<comment><USER16> > It's obvious that your steering the conversation toward a certain set of > talking points.

I'm obviously biased as everybody else is. So I interpret the direction our society is moving towards (and articles like these) according to this bias. You can enter a discussion or ignore my comment, it's up to you.

But what I'm definitely sure of is that we don't really need to discuss why needing mercenary armies is bad for a society. Most people will agree that mercenary armies are a bad thing.

It's better to discuss why we do we need them in the first place and what can we do about it. The article suggests legislation to ban this, but you can't simply legislate societal trends away that created the problem in the first place.

Someone will eventually have to do this job, it's just that there aren't enough persons willing to do it. So if you ban use of mercenaries some other entity will likely take power where we left a power vacuum. (like ISIS did in Iraq)

And if at some point we can't even find enough volunteers to provide internal security (which could happen) then we are probably all finished.

Edit: Btw I agree that most of these wars have been immoral and wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Article lacks any real valid argument for why outsourcing to contractors is an issue.

Simple fact is that most wars do not need to be fought, so the idea that how they're fought matters is irrelevant; which is to say that I'm not aware of any war the US has fought since WW2 that was vital to future operations of the US.</comment>


The Secrets of Silent-Film Footage Found Buried in the Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-secrets-of-silent-film-footage-found-buried-in-the-earth <comment><USER2> Aside from the historical aspect, it's good that these were discovered and removed, because nitrate film doesn't need an external oxygen source to burn and its decomposition is exothermic.</comment>


Open Dylan's Call for Help - <AUTHOR> http://opendylan.org/news/2014/01/28/call-for-help.html <comment><USER3> It's a crying shame that Dylan did not become the systems language of Apple's new era — it's really quite lovely. Much nicer than Objective C, though undoubtedly trickier to compile efficiently.

<comment><USER4> It seems as though Objective-C is slowly morphing into something more Dylan- like over time.

<comment><USER5> Will Objective-C ever get hygienic macro?

<comment><USER4> That would be nice. I think there are a lot of other cleanups that will come sooner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of open source projects are quite human resource constrained. I see two solutions to this problem:

\- universal citizen revenue, so that programmers who want to work on free software or open source may do it more easily.

\- let's reduce the ecosystem diversity. I'd move to drop all those useless fancy languages, and let's all concentrate on Common Lisp, developping tools and libraries, perfecting the implementations, etc.

(No need to argue, I know the former will occur sooner).

</comment><comment><USER7> In the mid-90s I did some playing round with something called MINDY from Carnegie Mellon. It was (IIRC) a Dylan interpreter (the acronym was 'MINDY Is Not Dylan Yet') and was very interesting both to experiment with Dylan and also to see how MINDY itself was implemented. As I remember, a cool thing about the Dylan concept was that it had a sliding scale of dynamic-ness - <USER2> other words you could start off being quite relaxed about types but, where needed, you could narrow down the types, seal generic methods etc. and the compiler would then be able to optimise better, for example by avoiding dynamic dispatch if it could prove it knew the specific method at compile time.

<comment><USER8> Mindy was used to bootstrap Gwydion Dylan, a Dylan compiler implementation. This was the main open source Dylan implementation for quite some time until Functional Objects (which obtained the code and rights from Harlequin when they went out of the language business) open sourced their implementation which is now 'Open Dylan'.

Functional Developer (What was Harelequin Dylan) was nice. The editor would syntax highlight the code based on the optimization level. In this way you could look at a method call and see if it was inlined or not and decide whether to seal functions or classes to improve performance.

Another interesting feature was the editor was written in Dylan (using a framework called Deuce). This was emacs-like and had features like virtual sections in a buffer that could each be mapped to a different file on disk. This allowed viewing in a single editor pane the implementations of all methods of a generic function even if they crossed multiple files. This could also be edited as if it was a single file.

<comment><USER9> Optimisation colouring was one of the Harlequin Dylan features I was most proud of having a hand in back in the day. Did anything like it ever get implemented in a more mainstream IDE?

We only implemented it for static optimisations I think (i.e. you could see at a glance how well the compiler had inferred types, resolved method calls, inlined functions, etc), but we had a lot of ideas at the time around its future application to profiling results, as well as layered, more interactive presentation.

It'd be a great addition to Light Table...

<comment><USER8> I don't know of other IDE's that use the idea. It's a pity as I used this feature a lot when using HD/FD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> ah, Dylan! I remember from far 2005 a team called "Dylan Hackers" who earned both the judges' prize and the second prize at the ICFP Contest (cop & robbers), [http://icfpc.plt-scheme.org/](http://icfpc.plt-scheme.org/).

Here the blog post describing their entry: [http://www.hoult.org/bruce/icfp2005/](http://www.hoult.org/bruce/icfp2005/)

<comment><USER8> Dylan did well in multiple ICFP contests IIRC.

<comment><USER11> The team is infinitely more important than the language, and the Dylan Hackers team was top notch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When reading about Dylan, it seems one of it's main selling points is "everything is an object." But nowadays, that's true in many other dynamic languages like Python, Ruby and Clojure. Macros are everywhere and you can even add them to Python if you want to using third party modules. Though I've never felt the need because Python's syntax is excellent as it is.

For me it is very hard to see what Dylan brings to the table. It's nieche is already filled by more popular languages.

<comment><AUTHOR> A Common Lisp-style condition system is a pretty key thing for me.

It is highly readable. And you can use '!' and '?' in names!

An optimized implementation of multimethods is always nice.

The ability to apply optional static typing is great for putting stuff into production and feeling good about it.

Having multiple return values, keyword arguments and rest arguments is nice (and yes, Python can do much of that).

<comment><USER13> > _It is highly readable. And you can use '!' and '?' in names!_

Somehow this feels a little contradictory.

<comment><USER14> Why do you feel it is contradictory? I think having method names end with "?" whenever they return a boolean value is quite intuitive. They seem to stand out more than having such method names start with "is _" or "has_". YMMV.

<comment><USER9> Looking back at some Dylan code again now, I still find its richer, Lisp- derived, hyphenated naming approach more readable-and-expressive than either camelCase or underscore_separated identifiers.

When Dylan switched from Lisp syntax this was something that was fretted over an awful lot, for obvious reasons, but we went with it and it worked fine.

I'd love to see some other algebraic (non Lisp) syntax language get more creative in this direction again one day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those interested in using Dylan or helping out, I've found the community very welcoming to beginners and they're eager to help you get started.

</comment><comment><USER16> Since Dylan people are probably reading this.

\- What GC will the LLVM backend use?

\- Is there any data an the performance of the MPS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Nick,

I have a branch that will soon allow using either Boehm or MPS on the various backends. That'll probably be the case for the LLVM backend as well.

Part of the reason that I'm doing that is to help gather some performance data on the MPS. (I'm actually doing that Dylan runtime work under contract.)

<comment><USER16> Hi Bruce.

I actually met prom yesterday and he showed me that there are much more information on MPS know. I already read threw most of the documentation and I'm very interested to maybe use it.

I don't yet fully understand the license and what it means, I will probably join IRC in the next days and dig for some more info on MPS.

Great that you get payed to work on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Developing the language is more interesting then developing tooling I guess. F# has same issues.

<comment><USER18> I'm still waiting on a C# REPL since the 2008 demo [1] or Roslyn release beyond CTP, not M# whatever that is.

[1] [http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/pdc2008/tl16](http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/pdc2008/tl16) @ 1h1m

<comment><USER19> C# REPL like this [http://www.mono-project.com/CsharpRepl](http://www.mono- project.com/CsharpRepl) ?</comment></comment></comment>


DoD uses 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy control system of US nuclear forces - <AUTHOR> http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-468 <comment><USER2> Yay! A new machine for me to perseverate on. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Series/1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Series/1)</comment>


Reclaim Your Android Phone - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.fsfe.org/Android

<comment><USER2> <http://f-droid.org/> looks very interesting, just having a play with that now ... the flexible listings criteria (open source apps that track or contain ads are listed but flagged so you can choose) is good.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell I use Cyanogenmod but I usually install the Google application package with it. I can probably live without installing the Google application package if there is a reasonable alternative to Google Maps and Navigation. What do people recommend?

</comment><comment><USER3> Tried the FDroid app. Exploring open source apps was really fun. Got some nice apps that i needed from a long time. Thanks for sharing :)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've just installed CyanogenMod after reading this!</comment>


Searching your Hugo site with Lunr.js - <AUTHOR> http://bart.degoe.de/searching-your-hugo-site-with-lunr/ <comment><USER2> How big does an index get? 2x the content? 10x the content?

<comment><AUTHOR> It will contain all content for pages that are live (in my case that's only 2 so far: [http://bart.degoe.de/js/search/index.json](http://bart.degoe.de/js/search/index.json)), so your user will download all the content you want to have available for search on your site on page load, and then, depending on your index configuration, load more data in memory.

Lunr has an analysis pipeline that will generate a bunch of tokens for queries to match on, and you can do pretty much anything there.

It won't scale to thousands of pages, but I don't have thousands of them anyway :-)</comment></comment>


After Tyrone Hayes said that a chemical was harmful, its maker pursued him - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/10/140210fa_fact_aviv?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> Wow. If there was _one_ article you had to read to understand how large corporations systematically and unethically try to vilify their critics to shift focus from their own dangerous behaviours, this is it!

Just a few of the things Syngenta turned out to be doing:

1\. paying for detailed sychological profiles of critics, including weaknesses ("grew up in world (S.C.) that wouldn't accept him," "needs adulation," "doesn't sleep," was "scarred for life," "investigate wife")

2\. paying others to not just discredit Hayes' work, but to make him look "as foolish as possible"

3\. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes"

4\. buying Google keywords for his name and variants to astroturf people searching for him. Searching Google for "Tyrone Hayes" brings up "Tyrone Hayes Not Credible"

5\. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist"

6\. leaning on universities (Nicholas School of the Environment, at Duke) so they wouldn't hire Hayes

7\. trying to get Hayes to bait himself ("set trap to entice him to sue,")

8\. sending sock puppets to Hayes' talks whose job was to only ask him the same embarrassing questions ("everywhere Tyrone went there was this guy asking questions that made a mockery of him. We called him the Axe Man.")

There's so much more in the article that this could become either

(a) a primer for scientists and critics to understand how corporations target them, or

(b) a ready reckoner for corporations on what tactics to use to smear opponents.

<comment><USER3> > 2\. paying others to not just discredit Hayes' work, but to make him look > "as foolish as possible"

> 3\. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to > act as "spokespeople on Hayes"

> 5\. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk > scientist"

> 8\. sending sock puppets to Hayes' talks whose job was to only ask him the > same embarrassing questions ("everywhere Tyrone went there was this guy > asking questions that made a mockery of him. We called him the Axe Man.")

These are the truly terrifying ones. The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively every controversial scientific finding. If that much 'scientific' expertise can be bought, then you never know if that failure to reproduce certain results was bought and paid for or not! Following the funding sources isn't always possible. It completely corrupts the whole scientific process and destroys its objectivity.

If you want to see a similar example, look at what's happening to the team that discovered irregularities in rats generated by Glysophate. They're being discredited in a very similar way, only much more thoroughly. How do we know that all of that paper's detractors haven't been bought in a similar way?

<comment><USER4> The glyphosate team is a bad example. They deserved every bit of the criticism they received [2]. In fact, I'd go so far as to Monsanto's criticism was highly understated and generally an outstanding example of scientific discourse. I suspect that they (the team that found negative effects) didn't get the results they wanted so they came up with an implicit null hypotheses so shitty that they practically guaranteed p<.05: they first did PCA on a 48-dimension dataset and _then_ did significance tests along the principal components. I'm not a statistician, but that methodology is about as dubious as it gets. You should read it and decide for yourself before using it as an example.

It's a pity that this kind of behavior is par for the course in the category of "controversial environmental findings," because there are plenty of legitimate questions to ask and legitimate issues to raise.

I have no relation to Monsanto, except that I eat their products. We talked about this paper [1] in journal club and were unimpressed (except by their criticism of Monsanto's methodology, which was, ironically, spot on). I wasn't aware of Monsanto's formal response [2] at the time, but from a brief glance it appears to hit the nail on the head.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793308/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793308/)

[2] [http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Documents/SpirouxdeVendimo...](http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Documents/SpirouxdeVendimois.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Well, and this is the very problem with these tactics and the very reason why they are so thoroughly evil.

I do not have the ability read a scientific paper and judge its merits. I'm a software engineer. I can usually get the gist of what the experiment did, what they found, etc, but not judge the merits.

The fact that this amount of scientific critique can be bought, for someone like me, calls into question any scientific discussion anywhere. Because I don't know who to trust to tell me whether a paper or experiment is good or not.

My natural inclination would be to be suspicious of Monsanto and side with the glysophate paper's author. After it was so thoroughly discredited, I believed the critiques of the paper. However, reading about the methods that were used against Tyrone Hayes, I'm now thoroughly questioning that paper's being discredited. Because the manner in which that paper is being attacked _looks_ so similar to the manner in which Tyrone Hayes was being attacked.

Do you see what I'm getting at? It ruins the trustworthiness of scientific discourse for anyone not a scientist. And that's an enormous problem.

<comment><USER5> What source of information in life isn't like this? You have to trust the news, the history books, everything else. You make a fair point, but you can't simply just say the two studies can both be questioned because of the manner they are attacked.

You don't judge the the paper based on how it's being discredited. You try your best to judge the paper on it's own merits. If you lack the knowledge/information to do so, then you obviously have to live with the fact that your opinion on the matter may not necessarily reflect what is true. It's a tradeoff many of us make considering we can't be experts in everything. If it's something you truly believe in and want a better opinion on...then you have to spend time on doing research into it.

<comment><USER6> Everyone verifying everyone is O(n) work per person or O(n^2) total work. I think it is possible to do better than that. Web of trusts for instance.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't have to be everyone verifying everyone - just that a reproducible result tends to be more trustworthy. This is why reproducing results from other studies are also valuable scientific endeavours.

<comment><USER6> But you know, just verifying that it is reproducible takes time. Ideally you would have a system that enable you to trust everything you read with minimal work. Like if I claim the world is round you would know from my awesome reputation / fancy title / little green WoT indicator, that you can take that at face value.

In this case the poster tried to use fancy title, but found that it didn't work satisfactorily.

> The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were > able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively > every controversial scientific finding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing that I have been saying for years is that google is a dichotomy. Google claims that their intention is to organize and show the most objectively relevant content as possible and yet all their income is from advertising which is a completely different objective. It's offering up relevance to the highest bidder. This _can_ work in certain circumstances (if I'm willing pay more for a search term than anyone else I likely have relevant content) but it is far from the promise of objectivity.

To wit: The P.R. team suggested that the company "purchase 'Tyrone Hayes' as a search word on the internet, so that any time someone searches for Tyrone's material, the first thing they see is our material." The proposal was later expanded to include the phrases "amphibian hayes," "atrazine frogs," and "frog feminization." (Searching online for "Tyrone Hayes" now brings up an advertisement that says, "Tyrone Hayes Not Credible.")

Is everyone really cool with the premier organizer of information being so easily bribed(through a fucking API) to essentially lie to it's users.

<comment><USER9> To google's credit it keeps the organic search and the paid search separate and everyone knows the paid results are 'bribed(through a fucking API)' as you put it. To me when that came it that was great - I think the biggest competitor at the time Google came in was Yahoo which I think allowed straight bribery in the main results and most other information came through main stream media, in my case in the UK things like the Guardian and the BBC which were ok but had an official kind of politically correct line and not much coverage of anything else. I'm not quite sure how Google could do better while still making money. Perhaps if they allowed people to rate the paid ads as good or rubbish etc.?

<comment><USER10> Google could make the paid ads more distinct.

Many people don't know the ads are ads, even though their on a different background colour and that box is labled "ads".

They could also allow me to tell them that an ad has zero interest to me. I don't block ads, but it's frustrating when I get a blitz of car insurance ads. I don't own a car; I am never going to buy car insurance. It would be great to be able to turn those ads off.

I imagine some alcoholics or gambling addicts would like to turn off alcohol and gambling ads too.

<comment><USER11> That "different background color" becomes invisible on cheap TN laptop screens at a slight deviation from vertical. I wouldn't be surprised if Google A/B tested background colors until they happened upon one that effectively disappears for a lot of users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _wrote that the company could "prevent citing of TH data by revealing him as > noncredible."_

> _looked for ways to "exploit Hayes' faults /problems."_

> _"If TH involved in scandal, enviros will drop him,"_

Heh, I thought corporations being this unethical and immoral was only a movies thing, not something that actually happens.

> _She wrote, "What's motivating Hayes?—basic question."_

Wow. So, it's not malice, it's genuine curiosity? This company literally did not understand basic ethics?

<comment><USER13> Corporations aren't really immoral, just amoral.

If a human bit the head off a live baby seal, we'd probably call that evil. But when a polar bear does it, it's just the nature of the polar bear. It operates on instinct.

Most corporations only care about their bottom line. Even if the individuals within them are moral, the structure tends to cancel that out.

They are built to seek profit. If they obey the law, it is only because obeying the law maximizes profit. If they are moral, it is only because morality maximizes profit. On the other hand, if breaking the law maximizes profit (e.g. because enforcement is lax or penalties are low) then that's what they'll do. Likewise, if immoral acts make the most money, that's what they'll do.

What Hollywood gets wrong is that corporations aren't intentionally evil. There's no CEO sitting in his office laughing maniacally about how his new project is going to kill widows and orphans. Hollywood always wants a villain, but in this case there isn't one. Villainy falls out of the corporate structure and lots of employees just doing their jobs to keep bread on the table.

This is far from an isolated example, of course. Discrediting or destroying whistleblowers is what just about any corporation will do and has done, as long as they think the positives outweigh the negatives on next quarter's earnings statement.

<comment><USER14> > _Corporations aren 't really immoral, just amoral._

> _Most corporations only care about their bottom line. Even if the > individuals within them are moral, the structure tends to cancel that out._

It's ridiculous (and disastrous) that we grant this idea of corporate personhood, bestowing to companies the rights of people, but not the responsibility. It is a dangerous mindset which cooly accepts that corporations are amoral vs. immoral.

At the end of the day, there are _people_ who are making these decisions and _people_ who are benefitting from them. If the decisions are immoral, then the corporation is immoral. If the corporation is engaged in immoral behavior, then the people are immoral.

> _What Hollywood gets wrong is that corporations aren 't intentionally evil. > There's no CEO sitting in his office laughing maniacally about how his new > project is going to kill widows and orphans._

I don't think I've ever seen a Hollywood movie wherein the CEO of a corporation laughed maniacally about doing something evil for its own sake. Instead, corporations and their leadership are always characterized as being driven by greed.

> _Hollywood always wants a villain, but in this case there isn 't one._

Sure, there is a villain. Those people who do evil things for the sake of greed, whether in Hollywood or IRL, are still villains and are rightly portrayed as such.

To imply that evil deeds are not villainous if a person is driven by greed vs. sadism/insanity plays into the culture of corporate absolution and tacitly endorses the behavior.

<comment><USER15> GP is saying, I believe, that the corporation's greed doesn't necessarily grow out of the greed of an individual, but rather out of an organization of individuals all trying to do their jobs. Each is responsible for making a small contribution to 'protecting the bottom line,' but as an organized system it makes the organization greedy.

This is why we need strong regulations. I never liked them before, but now I've come to understand that they are required to allow the honest people to behave honestly.

I've made a similar point here before: the same situation is occurring in the US' national intelligence groups right now. There is no 'evil' person trying to 'take away our rights.' There are just people who are responsible for protecting us who have been granted the authority to read our emails.

What are they going to do? Not look? Suppose it was you? And tragedy happened and you later learned that had you looked you would have saved 2000 lives? You would have a hard time getting over it. So you look- trying to uphold the principles you believe in as you do so, but you look.

However, as an organized system, with good people trying to do the right thing in each of their own small part, it's evil. That's why we need laws to prevent it.

We need the laws to prevent evil results of good intentions.

<comment><USER14> > _the corporation 's greed doesn't necessarily grow out of the greed of an > individual, but rather out of an organization of individuals all trying to > do their jobs_

I don't believe that's all your GP was saying. But, I disagree nonetheless. My primary point is that there are actual people who benefit from the corporation's actions. So, we need to stop this nonsensical notion that corporations are "amoral". And, we need to stop slipping in and out of corporate personhood when granting rights vs. assigning responsibility. Actually, the whole idea of corporate personhood just needs to die.

> _Each is responsible for making a small contribution to 'protecting the > bottom line,' but as an organized system it makes the organization greedy._

Sure, in any organization there are people who just toe the line and, in many cases, don't even know that their efforts may contribute to something immoral. But, that's irelevant here. The point is that there are certainly people within the company who are making these decisions and who are well-aware of their immorality and consequences. They do this for personal gain (perhaps among other reasons).

So, putting this off on the corporation or organization is ill-considered. There is a tendency to let these individual decisions just sort of dissolve into the morass of the organization. It's especially bad because then we say, "Oh the corporation is amoral. It was just doing what it was supposed to do".

I believe your analogy with U.S. intelligence overlays roughly but differs significantly enough that it's a different discussion. The short though, is that I don't believe that we can just conclude that it was all good intentions with coincidentally evil results.

<comment><USER15> These options aren't mutually exclusive. Yes, there _are_ bad operators out there. But there are also cases, I believe, like I outlined.

The danger of ignoring it is that if we blame really bad outcomes (like the banking crisis) on a malicious plot by a bad player, it's too easy to dismiss as a one-off event when the problem may be systemic.

<comment><USER14> Even in these cases there are _actual people_ who are responsible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Googling "Tyrone Hayes" now shows an ad titled, _Atrazine and Hayes - Academics Question Tyrone Hayes ' Work_.

The ad links to the "official sounding" [http://academicsreview.org/](http://academicsreview.org/). That domain is privately registered by proxy and there is no information on the site itself regarding ownership.

There are, however, clearly industry-supportive, but unattributed articles on a variety of topics, in addition to Mr. Hayes. Not sure if those were added for "credibility" or actually used in separate campaigns.

This stuff is straight out ouf Hollywood, and it's the reason conspiracy theories thrive. Sometimes, and perhaps more often than we think, there really are people out to mislead us for their own gain.

<comment><USER16> For what it's worth, I see no ads in the search right now, and a Wikipedia blurb saying

"Tyrone B. Hayes is an American biologist at University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his research demonstrating that the herbicide atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor that demasculinizes and feminizes frogs."

A slight aside: "People also search for" contains Steven Milloy. His name autocompletes to "steven milloy is an idiot".

<comment><USER14> Yeah, looks like the "Tyrone Hayes Not Credible" ad from the article is back in circulation for me. Maybe HNers exhausted the budget for the other one.

This ad links to [http://agsense.org/atrazine-alarmists/tyrone- hayes/](http://agsense.org/atrazine-alarmists/tyrone-hayes/) where the tagline is "Where farmers explain the real benefits of atrazine for healthy crops and healthy land". Awesome. Makes me want to drink an ice cold glass of it.

Their page on Mr. Hayes leads off with an ad hominem attack:

[http://agsense.org/atrazine-alarmists/tyrone- hayes/](http://agsense.org/atrazine-alarmists/tyrone-hayes/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What I want to know is this. How do people go to work, find out they need to _work_ to discredit someone, then try to go on about it. Coming from the tech world, I'm not even sure how this exactly works, and I wonder if I have rose tinted glasses for most of the "real world". For instance, are there meetings about who and how to discredit people?

<comment><USER18> What if you believed the work in question unfairly demonized your product? What would you do then?

Note that the EPA reviewed all the data in question and still determined that the risk did not outweigh the benefit. The article implies that industry owns the EPA, which I find a little surprising due to the power they can (and do) wield.

Anyone else shocked at the number of studies the EPA reviewed and found didn't fit their definition of quality work? Wow, kind makes you wonder!

<comment><USER19> Welcome to the grand world of revolving doors and regulatory capture.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture#United_States_examples)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I found most disturbing is how EPA works. They accept only research that passes a bar that was lobbied by the industry and that only industry can pay.

Even if they accepted negative research about a product then they do a risk assessment to see how many deformed babies are affordable given the dollars the industry would lose.

</comment><comment><USER21> The privatisation of science (pesticides, medicine, etc) will always lead to these types of conflict of interest.

If the objective is to find The Truth, then a profit motive can be very damaging. It is why pharmacology in its current form is very badly flawed, among other endeavors.

</comment><comment><USER22> WOW, I am subscribing to the New Yorker, this kind of journalism is refreshing.

<comment><USER23> How could you know without extensive investigation on your own that it wasn't sponsored by some other biased group?) No, really, when you have believed any similar article, it seems unreasonable to expect truth of any journalism and science (which has now become a form of journalism since the only visible effect is articles being published).

<comment><USER9> Even if it was sponsored by some biased group it provides a lot of information as to what was going on and then you can judge who you believe. Bit like the adversarial court system where both sides put their case. Without the New Yorker article there would not have been someone putting Hayes case as well. Syngenta can now reply and say why it's all rubbish if they are so inclined.

<comment><USER24> > Syngenta can now reply and say why it's all rubbish if they are so inclined.

I would love to see Syngenta's response. The facts were supposedly from INTERNAL memos of Syngenta. Will Syngenta sue New Yorker for lying and defamation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hate to be that guy. But this reminds me hysteria around DDT, now it is estimated that DDT ban is responsible for 20M deaths due to malaria.

But how strong is link between that chemical and negative effects? This guy works on this for 15 years, other confirm his result. But there is no lawsuit or anything which requires strong evidence.

Also the lethal dosage is 3 grams/kg for rats, that is far from poisoning. In EU it was banned not because of toxicity, but because it degrades slowly in ground waters.

<comment><USER26> That's a moot point. Science isn't about banning dangerous chemicals. It is about providing politicians the facts they need to make an educated decision regarding whether a chemical should be banned or not.

This is simply another another example of a _long_ tradition of standing behind scientists when their findings agree with you, only to shun, ignore and discredit them when their findings are inconvenient. Tobacco, DDT, asbestos, deep sea diving, global warming.

Science rarely cares about what to do. It's only about finding out what is true. If politicians read Haynes's research and concludes that this is an acceptable tradeoff, there's no problem. If they are unaware of Haynes's research and make a decision on incorrect assumptions, that _is_ a problem.

<comment><USER27> See here the word "scientific" used by a politician to prepare for some hardball during the ongoing TTIP negotiations.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoue- mlQxw&t=56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoue-mlQxw&t=56)

Multinationals will be able to sue countries for their business obstructing laws concerning environmental legislation etc., thereby conveniently bypassing democratic process.

<comment><USER15> _Multinationals will be able to sue countries for their business obstructing laws concerning environmental legislation etc., thereby conveniently bypassing democratic process._

That's a ridiculously stupid idea. We are now all going to be vulnerable to the most gullible among us.

<comment><USER28> I think that's currently called 'Representative Democracy'

 _Ba dum chhhh!_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wait, so the use of atrazine is still legal in the US?

<comment><USER30> Yep and its banned in the EU. [http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Atrazine+Regulati...](http://www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Atrazine+Regulation+in+Europe+and+the+United+States)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The PR damage control team is pulling extra hours, I just got an atrazine advert reading another unrelated New Yorker article. And certainly nothing would indicate I would be interested in any agricultural product...

<comment><USER32> Isn't that just very basic web-tracking and ad targeting? Somewhere an ad- server is keeping track of keywords your browser is associated with and now atrazine is in your list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm getting a Michael Clayton-esque vibe from this whole story.

</comment><comment><USER34> While reading this, I wondered if there is a startup focused on crowdfunding research. A quick Google search brought up Microryza.com, an online crowdfunding platform for researchers.

This type of funding might end up being really useful for scientists in the future, in light of corporate shenanigans and diminishing government funding.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nice article, could probably have been a bit shorter, but I guess that is the new yorker.

<comment><USER36> Try Text-to-speech... the best multitasking trick.

<comment><USER37> Yes, the voicedream app + instapaper is great for listening to these articles while you walk around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article should be manually pinned to the top of the first page.

<comment><USER39> The articles for which this statement is true often end up there for a day or two. The system works :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The internal Syngenta documents the article talks about can be found at [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:Atrazine_Exposed](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:Atrazine_Exposed) Exhibit 19 is a scan of Sherry Ford's notes on Syngenta's FUD strategy.

</comment><comment><USER41> The takeaway of the article seems to be: when fighting limited-liability companies, being irrational is a good tactic. It is sad if guerilla warfare is the only option left when fighting corporate actions one disagrees with.

</comment><comment><USER42> What prevents some enterprising high school student from purchasing some Atrazine off Amazon.com, catching a few hundred tadpoles from their local pond, and doing their own study?

</comment><comment><USER43> Why is the article dated February 10th 2014 ? Did this come from the _future_?

<comment><USER44> Its a weekly magazine,this article being in the next week's print edition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 12 billion dollars a year. There's your answer.</comment>


In Paris, the customer is not always right - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8500246.stm

<comment><USER2> Having spent much time in Paris during my lifetime, and far more in France itself, I'm very doubtful of this piece. In my entire life, I've only met one rude service provider in France and incidentally he was Croatian and despite speaking fluent French he had a heavy accent I couldn't understand.

I have a _strong_ suspicion the author of this piece is violating basic etiquette on a regular basis. The key to the French is to start any conversation with 'Bonjour' regardless of if you know French or not, because 90% of the time you won't even get a chance to use a second word in French, especially in Paris where virtually everyone in the tourist areas speak decent English.

I remember me and my wife were in a little bistro near the Eiffel Tower, I took the lead and ordered. I got about half-way through before the waiter interrupted me and let me finish my order in English as it made it easier for both of us. Two or three tables down we saw an American couple (I'm guessing New York area by the accents), they got the same waiter as I did, but they said 'hello' and started trying to order in English. The waiter played coy, he didn't let on he knew English their entire meal, I think it took them 5-minutes to get through the entire order with him.

I find it quite moronic that people visit a foreign country and don't even bother to learn how to introduce themselves. I expect non-English immigrants to my country to at least know some basics, and 99% of them seem to. However the majority of English-speakers who go to France invite this trouble onto themselves by not even bothering to use a single word of the native language.

I've been to France, Spain (and several Spanish islands where dialects and customs differ a fair amount), Portugal and Turkey and I've never had this problem, because I always introduce myself in the local language. I remember getting a discount on speedboat rental in Turkey, the guy stopped us speaking Turkish (quite thankfully, because I think we got through the A-material in the first 3-words) and explained in English that we're one of the few 'Anglo's' in months to actually try speaking Turkish.

Common courtesy in a foreign country goes a _long_ way, but most people are too ignorant to understand. In France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey if you spoke the local language, people appeared to bend over backwards to help you because you just showed them immense respect, not just personal respect but to their nation too.

<comment><USER3> This is ridiculous. The waiter pretended not to know English just because a tourist said 'hello' instead of 'Bonjour'? WTF?

An example of a waiter being an ass. And I think a very good example continuing the theme of the original post.

I see absolutely no reason to say 'hello' in language X if I'm going to proceed speaking English. I'm trying to communicate, not to impress with my language knowledge. This just doesn't make sense. Hello is a greeting like any other, and it is accepted all over the world, except France that is.

<comment><USER4> Your feelings are exactly why the waiter behaved as he did. Day after day of dealing with people with attitudes like this would sour anybody who couldn't even be bothered to put forth the effort to say "hello" in the local language, which requires about as much effort as drinking a cup of coffee.

<comment><USER5> It's not about the effort of saying "hello". If you don't know the language, it's reasonable not to try and begin a conversation in it -- what do you do when they reply with a rush of words you don't understand?

What they should have done was learned "Parlez-vous Anglais?"

<comment><USER4> > what do you do when they reply with a rush of words you don't understand?

It's not that hard...in fact I'd go so far as to say that it's so easy it's a non-issue. Just start pointing and speaking in very simple English after the introduction and unless they have an IQ that fluctuates with the ambient temperature, they'll get the picture. More importantly they'll at least appreciate you gave the old "being polite" a shot and be more inclined to help. Opening with English, like you expect them to serve you in your language, which just feeds into the popular global view of Americans and native English speakers, very rarely works.

Even if you expect help in English, it's how you package it up that matters. Rolling in, appearing that you are _expecting_ to be helped in English makes people less inclined to help you. Bookending your interaction in "local", with "thank you" and other politeness as you can interspersed throughout packages up your expectations in a polite bow.

If you still get treated rudely even after you demonstrate that you are willing to try and meet them halfway in the interaction...it's likely just a rude person.

I wish that more of my countrymen and fellow native English speakers understood this type of basic politeness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a cultural difference that, at least according to one theory, actually reflects an authoritarian culture rather than an egalitarian one. It comes down to why people follow orders. In egalitarian societies, people see the ability of one person to tell another person what to do as role-based, purely for the sake of efficiency. In authoritarian societies, people see it as based on the personal superiority or privilege of the person giving the order.

This can cause friction when two people from different cultures step on each other's sensibilities. A person with an egalitarian mentality working in a corporation in a less egalitarian country may be shocked at the way his "superiors" speak to him -- as if they were any better than him! A person from an authoritarian country may be offended when someone who is not his "superior" tries to "order him around," because "giving orders" presumes a hierarchical relationship between the two.

From my point of view, it's quite convenient that I feel free to tell other people what to do, or do what other people tell me, without worrying about whether that implies a power relationship between us (+). But then, I would feel that way about my own culture, wouldn't I?

For one analysis, see this book, which is oriented towards management and business communications:

[http://www.amazon.com/Cultures-Organizations-Software- Geert-...](http://www.amazon.com/Cultures-Organizations-Software-Geert- Hofstede/dp/0071439595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265599541&sr=8-1)

The author identified five dimensions that he thinks are the most informative about national cultural differences. This how France and the United States compare:

[http://www.geert- hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php?cultur...](http://www.geert- hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php?culture1=95&culture2=33#compare)

Note that France scores much higher on the Power Distance dimension, which attempts to measure "the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society's level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders."

Obviously it's a gross oversimplification to measure national differences on just five dimensions, but it's also a gross oversimplification to presume anything about France merely from its embrace of "liberté, égalité, fraternité." The United States also officially and quite ostentatiously embraces equality, yet in the eyes of many, the United States is a leading exporter of inequality. The "equality" we celebrate in the United States can seem hollow or even trivial or useless from another perspective. Different cultures have notions of equality and inequality that appear simple to them while appearing complicated or contradictory to people from other cultures. I took a few semesters of French in college, but I don't have a clue what "égalité" means to them, only what it means to other Americans.

(+) I just have to worry that if I'm consistently taking orders instead of giving them, then I must not be coming up with many good ideas!

</comment><comment><USER7> I actually find the US way more uncomfortable. It seems to come across slightly in your face.

All of my favourite restraints are in France (thouh not Paris) almost exclusively for this reason. Quiet, polite, restrained.

As another poster in this thread touched on it is simply a case of local custom. Not tipping in the US, for example, is sure to net the same response I suspect.

</comment><comment><USER8> Rude people in a major international alpha-city? I never.

</comment><comment> Asa-Nisse I absolutely loath french culture. Sorry. Every time I go there I end up with a bad taste in my mouth and a mind telling me "never again". It's like you cant win with a french person.

However, their beaches, mountains, wine and food tells me otherwise. I'll keep this article in mind the next time I visit (this summer).

<comment><USER4> > It's like you cant win with a french person.

And there's your problem. Try working with them instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I tend to agree, though it's clearly not as bad as this article makes it out to be.

(I should precise that I'm French and have been living in the US for 5+ years) I think it's a different culture in customer service, and every time I go back I'm now expecting to have at least one weird-to-disastrous customer service experience. For Christmas, it was a call-center guy at Orange who was super condescending, refused to let me talk to his supervisor and ended up hanging up on me. (NB: I wasn't rude myself) I can absolutely not imagine that happening in the US.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are plenty of times when the customer should only very rarely be right. When you're a designer, for example.

</comment><comment><USER11> I spent a week in Tokyo at the beginning of the year. I'm glad that I read a _lot_ before I went and picked up a few words. In hotels and restaurants, people will bend over backwards to help you. Everything they do is based around politeness. Everytime you walk into any kind of store you are greeted, whether a 7-11 or a high end hotel. But things are different. Your waiter doesn't come around to check on you until you specifically call for them. It's considered rude to bother the customer until they signal they need something. When at work or out socially, nearly every situation is governed by "sempai", which is who is senior among us. I went out drinking with 2 guys I met. They both worked as welder, but one was slightly older than the other. The younger one made sure he was always doing what the older one wanted. It wasn't as extreme as it sounds like I'm making it, but it was an under current the entire night.

<comment><USER12> Did you ever specifically ask someone to "motto shuchou shite kudasai"? I've always wondered if they enjoyed the politeness, or if it was something they'd cast off if they knew you'd appreciate it.</comment></comment>


Apple Is Manufacturing a Siri Speaker - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-31/apple-said-to-ready-siri-speaker-in-bid-to-rival-google-amazon <comment><USER2> People (rightfully) pointing out that Siri sucks compared to competitors should realize that Apple is making a very serious tradeoff in favor of privacy.

It's a huge handicap when you're only allowed to train models on device using just one user's data, or only allowed to use various complicated privacy preserving training methods (I'm not talking about taking a user's data, removing the obviously identifying fields and sending it to the server, which does not really preserve privacy except for simple statistics). There's no way Apple can train the same super complicated deep learning models that Google uses, for example, when Apple can't just gobble up all their users' data. And all of the "provably" private methods for training models incur significant accuracy penalties.

So it's a little rich that users on HN will complain about Siri on one hand, and on the other hand complain about losing privacy.

In the end I think this is a fatal mistake for Apple: people love to complain about privacy, but time and time again reveal through their purchasing choices that they don't actually care, especially when there's usability tradeoffs. Apple would be better off vacuuming up all their users' data if they don't want to be crushed by Google/Amazon.

<comment><USER3> Of the 3 companies, Apple is likely the _most_ privacy centric. However, they have a fuck ton of private data. You raise an interesting point; it may explain some percentage of why Siri is worse. Although, it has been in use longer and is still pretty shit. Apple sends a lot of telemetry and search data.

Also, I find it baffling anyone would want to put an internet connected always on mic in their house no matter who makes it. Insane.

<comment><USER4> How much worse is it than an internet connected always on mic on your person at all times, which also tracks your every move to boot?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, I think this will be a tough market to compete in for Apple. I think it's generally accepted that Siri is the worst of the assistants out there right now and that underlying technology will drive this entire new product. I really think Apple is going to need to decide between privacy and AI research as they are struggling to keep up and having a product like this will only make that gap more pronounced.

<comment><USER6> The problem may not be the Siri software, it may be the iPhone hardware. I believe the Echo has a pretty sophisticated microphone setup that is light- years better than an iPhone's. Apple is generally pretty good at hardware, so they could catch up quickly there.

<comment><USER7> The last 1/3 of your comment contradicts the first 1/3 :)

<comment><USER6> The iPhone is a phone, with all the space and power limitations inherent in that form factor. A standalone speaker is something else entirely.

<comment><USER8> True, but I speak directly into my phone, which I assume is a big advantage for the phone?

<comment><USER6> Seems like it would be. I never use Siri speaking directly into the phone, because if I have the phone in hand, I just do whatever I need to do and skip Siri. The only time I try it is when the phone is out of reach, or in the car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All these companies keep pushing voice input as _the_ way to interact with their personal assistants, I personally feel that it would be 100x better to let me interact with them however I choose. In my experience, voice recognition is just not there yet, especially noisy environments, even if some companies are better at it than others.

If I could just type something into Siri I would use it countless times more. Most of my frustration comes from it misunderstanding me, often resulting in me pulling out my phone and typing in my question into search engine anyway.

Additionally, I do not want my business spoken aloud.

<comment><USER10> Worse, using voice recognition allows companies to store your voice samples, that allows them to generate your voice fingerprints, that allows your presence to be detected once you happen to say something out loud in proximity of such devices.

<comment><USER11> That's only google, Siri doesn't work that way.

<comment><USER12> From Apple's website: _" processing is done by remote servers, it requires a data connection"_

From Apple employee: _" only collects the Siri voice clips in order to improve Siri itself"_

Which is basically what Google says.

EDIT: both companies have promised "off-line" processing, whatever that means, but I don't know if any already does that. Note that off-line processing does NOT mean they won't store your voice clips on their servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No Spotify, no buy. Being locked into Apple Music is a non-starter for me. It's still mindboggling to me that Siri can't/won't interface with my Spotify account. My lowly Amazon Echo supports this just fine. In fact, I prefer it to the spotify UX/UI.

<comment><USER14> This is same reason why I refuse to use Fire TV, Android TV or Apple TV. I'll stick with Roku until the walled gardens fall.

I would suggest Roku make a digital assistant as well but it would probably come in 4 different models ranging from wholly unusable to outrageously expensive, have a purple bow tie, and need to be replaced annually with the latest model.

<comment><USER15> Roku itself is a walled garden. You cannot develop apps for them unless you are blessed by them. Last I checked the SDK was closed (as in, closed to even try out developing for Roku).

<comment><USER16> The BrightScript API for Roku app development is freely available, and any Roku set-top box or Roku TV can be put in developer mode where you can sideload your own channel. You can also upload private channels where users can install your content via a weblink -- they have to go through certification to be in the on-device Roku Channel Store. All developer docs and samplers are all on GitHub, see [https://github.com/rokudev](https://github.com/rokudev)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hope it is as impressive as the rumors claim as it'll help legitimize the "Speaker AI" market, but...what Apple needs to learn is that a product, no matter how advanced it may seem at launch, means nothing if they don't update and support it continuously.

The iPad and to some extent the Apple TV both have top of the line hardware. The software on the other hand...improvements every 2 or 3 years don't inspire confidence.

Updates to Siri once a year would kill this product.

</comment><comment><USER18> Normally I would count this as an auto-win for Apple but the interesting thing about these speakers isn't necessarily the hardware itself but the many services that back them. I play with both Home and Echo a lot and I'm most impressed by how quickly Google is adding lots of useful functionality. Their documentation and evangelism for developing on their platform seems to be pretty good too. I think Apple will catch up quickly as they did with the Watch.

<comment><USER19> As far as I'm concerned, Siri is on death watch until Apple figures out a strategy to open it up. Outside of setting timers, creating reminders, setting alarms, doing a little dictating or mishearing directions, the product is stagnant.

I just don't see a lot of utility going forward unless they liberalize the service and allow other people to develop new experiences for users. That should also give them new data to mine and allow good voice UI patterns to bubble up.

Not sure how they should go about designing a framework for developers to plug-in to, though. It's a tricky problem. But presumably they've learned some things after 'sharing' some of Siri with Uber and Facebook and that could help them move forward.

<comment><USER20> I think that Apple has bet (correctly) that voice is a feature not a platform and that great hardware will make people buy into its services. Voice is great for a few things but very lousy for most things. Obviously it's all conjecture at this point, but my guess is that this product will augment the use of its devices for the things that voice is superior to GUI for (playing music and basic queries). Since Apple typically blows the competition out of the water with design and marketing, I imagine that this will do pretty well in this space (just imagine walking into an Apple store and seeing an IKEA-like display with a sleek home theatre and its speaker system on display).

I do think that the walled-garden is concerning since you can't use it with all music services, for example, but on the other hand, if its a premium speaker system that might be enough to push me the other way and switch to Apple music. The question is is the product compelling enough to get people to buy into the platform.

<comment><USER19> I agree that voice is lousy for many things, maybe even most things. And I think Apple is uniquely positioned to offer an end-to-end experience across devices (desktop, laptop, phone, watch, house/speaker) and that their design sensibilities could lead to a top notch speaker. I think the product will find buyers. But it's ultimate utility will remain in question until Siri improves.

I think part of the problem is that the things 'voice' is good for tend to have humans on the receiving end that then carry out complex, human actions. "Stu, could you schedule a dinner for me at a good local Italian place at 7:30 and invite Scott and Robin?"

Well shoot, that is a lot to unpack! It's a hell of a lot for a computer to unpack. It's a lot for anyone to unpack unless they know you and your circle of contacts. Carrying it out would require interaction with at least 3 people over a variety of mediums.

I suspect that by opening Siri up (And other digital 'assitants') it might promote the growth of infrastructure and services that would begin to make some of these more advanced queries a little more tractable.

<comment><USER21> I think that's very much the problem. Current voice systems are really just API-command-by-voice, maybe with a tiny amount of context awareness.

To be really compelling, voice needs to offer the whole AI concierge experience. At a basic level, it needs to be able to deal with queries like "Find me a good place to stay in Barcelona" and "Find me a new jacket". It needs to ask questions as needed, to operate with the initiative to search tens or hundreds of sites, and to recognise the useful data in the results.

With Google, Amazon, and the rest, search is becoming more and more of a problem, not less. For non-trivial searches, finding good products and/or reliable information can be incredibly time-consuming.

So currently voice is a bandaid on top of search tools that aren't progressing much, and may even be regressing. Voice has to solve the search problem first before the recognition and context awareness problems really become important.

It looks as if the industry is to trying to do this the other way around. I'm not convinced that's going to work. It works up to a point, but the point isn't as advanced as users expect it to be, and the overall experience can be disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I still don't understand the desire to have any sort of electronics constantly listening for commands. In the balance between convenience and privacy, to me, devices like this don't seem to add enough value to draw me in.

<comment><USER23> I agree. It's weird as f __* having every word spoke in my home recorded. I guess they say they 're not recording, but you know they are or will soon.

<comment><USER24> they are recording, there was a murder case recently that used the alexa voice recordings as evidence

<comment><USER25> Incorrect. Police asked Amazon for a murder suspect's Alexa history, and Amazon initially refused until the suspect/customer gave permission. It is yet to be proven if anything was recorded without the wakeword.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Last-mover advantage seems to be Apple's specialty.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are these home speakers the new smartwatch? A product that every company has to make because it's "the big new thing" but the actual functionality is questionable?

I don't understand why I'd want a tiny speaker sitting in my house listening for commands, when I already have that on my phone and it can provide a display of the results, along with voice.

<comment><USER28> There was a great "Ask HN" thread a while ago on this and I read everything thinking "oh good, power users will tell me what I'm missing here" and when I was done I was left thinking "I am not missing anything here". In their current form, they just didn't seem to do all that much that would make any measurable difference in my life. I have an echo, it was plugged in a for a week and everyone forgot about it.

<comment><USER29> I have a Google Home, rather than an Echo, but the biggest changes are the fact that I listen to a lot more music and I have it hooked up to a Logitech Harmony Hub so that I rarely need to hunt down the TV remote. "Hey Google, Turn on the TV // Pause Roku // Volume down" are pretty useful shortcuts I have configured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Going to be hard to outdo Google and Amazon with the dogshit that is Siri. Ok Google and Alexa are lightyears ahead of Siri in terms of voice recognition and response.

<comment><USER31> But at least it probably won't activate when someone on your TV says "Alexis"

<comment><USER14> If that's all that's activating your Echo then consider yourself lucky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Macrumors says they are going to differentiate themselves by deeply integrating with the Apple ecosystem and having a better speaker.

These aren't real selling points.

Google Home integrates very well with Google products (out of the box I thought to try asking it to 'play the latest video from [youtube channel] on my shield', and it worked, exactly as expected.

As far as speakers, Amazon _started_ with a device that had very good speakers, and has since downgraded to a puck.

<comment><USER33> FWIW, the speaker on the original Amazon Echo isn't very good.

(I also own small Bluetooth speakers from Sony and Anker, and both are appreciably better for music — enough so that I go out of my way to use them while cleaning or whatnot, even though the Echo is right there.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I keep wondering why they don't open Siri up to the command line or applescripts. It seems like that would be a great way to grow the Siri ecosystem. Does HN have any ideas why it is so locked down?

</comment><comment><USER35> If they don't turn some kind of key that makes Siri about 10x better than it is now simultaneously with release, this thing is DOA.

<comment><USER36> Without visual feedback to see misheard phrases in real-time, the form factor alone effectively necessitates a massive increase in accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's not the hardware - it's the software. I went all in on Amazon Echo and Dots. I have them in my living room, office, bathroom, bedroom.

The ecosystem that Amazon provides is far richer than Apple can hope to provide. Google does seem to be better positioned.

Even if the hardware is amazing, I don't want Apple music (I have prime music) the voice assistant is no better and I have serious doubts about the integrations that will be available.

Whats going to make this DOA is integrations, it's not in Apple's DNA and its going to be the best sounding, most beautiful, most seemless voice assistant nobody wants. I hope I'm proven wrong.

</comment><comment><USER38> More evidence today's Apple lacks vision. These products are niche. Some people love them I know. But look at the sales. They are not appealing to the mainstream. The future of digital assistants is not dedicated devices in every room of your home. I'm not sure what it is but it's not that.

</comment><comment><USER11> I believe the best way to interact with Siri is through the Apple Watch, something that is always attached to you and doesn't require you to shout across the room. The Watch also connects to Wifi, and can work independently of the iPhone, allowing Siri, iMessage, calling etc. Also, the siri speaker has to deal with the possibility of multiple users using "Hey Siri" while the apple watch can be tied to an individual person.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've had a hard time finding much useful with these devices - anecdotally even my friends have been ditching their Echo's.

I've ended up dropping my usage to setting timers and turning on/off lights, both of which don't work with Siri in MacOS.

I'd hope that they'd get their own ecosystem in order before adding yet another gadget, but that's not happened time and time again under Cook's leadership.

</comment><comment><USER40> Multiuser voice recognition is now table stakes for these type of devices. Not to mention contextual inference, free phone calls and screen casting.

</comment><comment><USER41> So I really have tried to use Siri. Really. I want it to work. My home ecosystem is all Apple (for the user facing devices). However most of the time with anything beyond "set a reminder or set an alarm" I give up and just do it the old fashioned way. Part of the issue is that the backend search results are just no where as good as Google. IIRC Apple is using Bing for that..Ugh.

</comment><comment><USER42> If I could make Siri consistently "Call Mom" without asking "Which Mom?" showing "Carla's Mom", "Erica's Mom", and "Mom" I'd be happy with Siri.

But I literally have a single contact named "Mom" that is also starred as a favorite.

Yet sometimes Siri calls my mom, and sometimes she asks me "Which Mom?" even though I always choose the same one.

Jerk.

<comment><USER14> Google's Assistant isn't any better at this sort of inference. I have my wife's work and cell number and I get asked any time I use it which one though I'm reasonably sure I have never once caller her work number.

The Google Assistant happily asks me if I want to finish researching "Care Bears" because I once searched for them on Amazon using Firefox in Incognito Mode on a friend's computer but it can't seem to figure out that I always only ever call my wife on her cellphone.

<comment><USER40> Google Home is able to infer which "mom" you're referring to as demoed at their I/O 2017 presentation.

[https://youtu.be/Y2VF8tmLFHw?t=33m32s](https://youtu.be/Y2VF8tmLFHw?t=33m32s)

<comment><USER14> Uhuh... I tried to ask it for directions to Mom's tonight in the car and then for my mom's address by her full name and it failed on both attempts. It did however manage to find her Pinterest account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wonder what condition this Siri will be in. I feel pretty slighted by Apple in their decision not to include HomeKit in MacOS Siri.

</comment><comment><USER44> I still haven't seen a compelling use of these things. It could still happen, but haven't seen it yet.

<comment><USER45> There really isn't one. But normal people (i.e. non techies) use these things for small "factoid" type situations. Weather, sports scores, stuff like that.

It takes longer to ask a thing what the weather is than looking at my phone, but that's just how it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Maybe and finally a dedicated App Store will be established and developers can make money from the apps/new skills they create for Apple's AI speaker!

Right now on the other platforms devs are creating skills but there is no revenue stream for your efforts!

</comment><comment><USER47> Siri is worst for indian English Accent like me, Could not even compare it with Google. Google is light years ahead , it can recognize my english 100% and most of the times even transliterated tamil spoken in English (another local indian language)

</comment><comment><USER45> The problem, for me, is that Siri is just really dumb in comparison to Alexa and Google Assistant. And those aren't that smart yet either.

</comment><comment><USER48> Hey if they can bring something that truly differentiates from the other two that would be awesome. Home kit doesn't give much hope.

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't understand this focus on speech-as-interface.

<comment><USER50> try to communicate with your friends without talking and you might understand the usefulness of speech-as-interface

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> does apple still innovate anymore or just follow trends that are already on their way out?

<comment><USER51> Apple has always refined things that are almost working but clunky and awkward to use. Mp3 players were terrible for non-nerds for example. Browsing the web on a palm pilot sucked. Apple's problem now is that their competitors are building pretty good stuff. Echo is a great combination of hardware and software. Surface laptops and tablets are quality.

VR/AR is an area where everything is clunky and awkward to use and Apple could probably build something really amazing here but the market size is tiny and the use cases are outside of apples wheelhouse (industrial applications and gaming right now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Oh great... another self-driving car project... /s

To me, this just feels like another jump on the bandwagon. I have an Echo and, while it was awesome at first, with all the skills and everything it feels less amazing than it did when I first got it. Now, I feel like it mishears us all the time, it doesn't give the answers we'd normally get unless we say things in a very specific way, and all the cool tricks ("Who is the mother of dragons?") are just gimmicks now.

Unless Apple can actually make their version useful and able to understand questions that aren't formed in "robot" as the language, I don't see the point of this.

<comment><USER18> I've found the Home useful. All I can use the Echo for is to set multiple simultaneous kitchen timers and to play music while cooking. The Echo just doesn't seem to be able to handle natural language well or there isn't support for what I'm asking.

<comment><USER53> I use my Alexa also for listening to Baseball which, correct me if I'm wrong Internet, Home can't do.

<comment><USER29> I have no idea where one would listen to baseball, but Home has the ability to play radio stations at least through TuneIn and iHeartRadio: [https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7071793?hl=en](https://support.google.com/googlehome/answer/7071793?hl=en)

One of the examples is playing ESPN Radio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> It must be an unusual place for Apple to be in, chasing trends as opposed to setting them.

<comment><USER55> Unusual? _If_ the 'outdo' of this article really is OUTDO, it would be a repeat of what they did with MP3 players and mobile phones.

Thats a big if, though. Services aren't Apple's strongpoint, and their stance on privacy means they may have to do a lot of the processing in the device, and limit their ability to rapidly improve their offering.

<comment><USER56> > _Services aren 't Apple's strongpoint_

They aren't? Tell that to the teams that run iMessage and the iTunes Music Store.

<comment><USER57> Exactly; those are not mainstream services any more.

<comment><USER58> What do you mean? I use iMessage probably hundreds of times a day (to my chagrin, but I digress). The Music Store has been overtaken by streaming services, but it made a titanic impact on the market -- and as much hate as Apple Music gets, it's actually a completely adequate service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Here is where Steve Jobs would have said "No". stay focused apple...

<comment><USER60> At least see the product first, before making such a statement. Apple does quite well by entering a market late (digital music, phones, etc.) and then dominating it by making superior products and user experiences.

If Apple releases the product and it's just a "me too device" with nothing new, then your statement is reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Innovation via duplication.. Genius!

</comment><comment><USER62> > Apple Inc. is already in your pocket, on your desk and underneath your > television. Soon, a device embossed with "Designed by Apple in California" > may be on your nightstand or kitchen counter as well.

Nope, nope, nope, and nope.</comment>


How using gestures can make you smarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=with-a-wave-of-the-hand <comment><USER2> I've noticed that various physical activities alter how I think.

Typing out comments in code prior to writing the code or tests (i.e. comment- driven development) helps me think better about what I want to do than simply sitting and musing inside my head. Maybe it's the typing, maybe it's being forced to actually find words for what I think I'm thinking.

Same goes for drawing stuff on a white board. The physical act of standing up, moving my arms, pacing around in front of the board, all seem to alter my thinking.

Finally, I seem to be better able to find stuff in my house if I move my fingers a lot while wandering around looking. Seems to help me focus.

</comment><comment><USER3> Gestures obviously play a role in communicating very simple concepts like "pay close attention", "look at this", "stop a moment" or "hurry up" when the speaker is playing the role of a guide. However I strongly doubt they have a positive correlation with deep understanding on the audience's part. If anything I suspect they more often serve to distract, confuse, misdirect or supply a false sense of understanding. Consider the antics of a stage magician whose gestures are purposely deceptive.

I generally distrust anyone who relies on gestures to communicate their point, e.g. <http://images.google.com/images?q=Henry+Paulson>

</comment><comment><USER4> Very interesting research.

A very explicit & clear observation: Playing Dumb charades: enact movie names or phrases. I find myself far more creative by the end of game. Out of the box thinking comes so naturally post that.</comment>


Ask YC: Does anyone know of a simple web page layout tool that you can share with others? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking just a simple tool where I can draw boxes to layout a page.  Nothing fancy, like colors.  Just ability to drag and drop boxes and label them.
<comment><USER2> I've had good luck with OmniGraffle:

<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/>

<comment><USER3> I <3 OmniGraffle - such a rad program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried Gliffy [<http://www.gliffy.com>]?

</comment><comment><USER5> I've has some success with Inkscape. And I was liking DENIM for a while, though it seemed to get flaky with larger sites. However, its ability to exported clickable, navigable site mock-ups is very slick. (When it works.)

</comment><comment><USER6> gliffy.com is great for mocking up pages and sharing them with others, I find.</comment>


Why Should You Learn Rust? – Better Programming - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-programming/why-rust-d52516e70ab8 <comment><USER2> I couldn't read the article but I wholeheartedly agree anyway. In fact, we NEED this language more than ever, since C/C++ is eating the world with its memory unsafety.</comment>


Smallest possible machine for web programming? - <AUTHOR> I use 15 inch MacBook Pro for work. My personal machine is 13 inch MBP. I like to stop by coffeeshop and work on personal projects until traffic dies down. However, carrying both machines at same time is a bit cumbersome. I could leave my personal machine in the car but prefer to keep it on my person in office. It gets really hot in summer and we don't have covered parking always.
So I am looking at smaller personal machine that I can carry with me to work. My personal projects are mostly web based, I have various VPS for dev work.
So here are some options:
1. Surface Pro is the first option that comes to mind but it is almost as big as 13 inch MBP.
2. 10.5 inch iPad Pro is next option, not perfect setup but many blog posts about using it as main dev machine with certain apps. Bit expensive for what it is though.
3. Pixel C - 10.2 inches. Looks good but older and storage options are limited.
3a. 8-10 inches Android tablets (not sure which one). Again these will be limited but it seems people are able to make them work. Will need to buy a keyboard, don't see many clean solutions like iPad pro.
Anyone here has any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I've been working on an elderly 11" MacBook Air a bunch. Don't love the 16:9 screen ratio, and I've been spoiled by retina screens at work, but it's perfectly adequate for local development on small projects or to SSH into a server. And it weighs barely more than a tablet plus keyboard.

The 12" MacBook is probably perfect (even lighter, better screen), but a bit pricey for the use case. Maybe a secondhand one when the Air kicks the bucket.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like a cheap android tablet plus a cheap Bluetooth keyboard and cheap Bluetooth mouse. It costs 1/3 of what those 2-in-1 machines costs, and will make the people who showed up at the hackathon with a mac jealous (at least as far as style)

Just make sure you don't get one (Google Nexus) that can't do WiFi and Bluetooth at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER4> MacBook 12' would work for most webdev work much better than any tablet while being much less in weight and size than mbp 13'.

</comment><comment><USER5> 11 inch macbook pro?</comment>