Make the Metric system the standard in the United States - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-metric-system-standard-united-states-instead-imperial-system/FndsKXLh <comment><USER7> It's obviously a great idea, and obviously (to Americans) unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anybody reading this forum.

Does anybody else from America remember being taught the metric system in public elementary school, and being told that we'd be switching to it over the next few years? I was taught this around second grade (1981), I think based on the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act>), which was not just signed by some random interweb tubers -- it was signed into law by the president. But IIRC, it was a toothless and impotent piece of legislation that was effectively stymied by the US auto industry.

P.S. Amusing visual evidence that the US system sucks:

[http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/metric-...](http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/03/metric-system-1024x450.png)

<comment><USER8> Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks: <http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png>

<comment><USER9> >1/6 is a rather sizable fraction of the world's population (India itself is ~1/6 or 1/7 at over a billion people). Are there any other languages that are official for so many people?

The metric system graphic indicates <1/6 of the world's population highlighted as not using the metric system, making gp's point stronger.

<comment><USER10> > Are there any other languages that are official for so many people?

Yes, Chinese for one. And Spanish closely follows English[1]

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_numb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most of the comments in this thread are talking about the units for personal height, weight, local road signs or for the weather forecast. Those are by far the _least_ important things to be worried about. All of those things are local and there is no carrying cost for them. There would be a cost to change all those signs and forecasts - for no real gain.

However, dimensions of physical goods are a constant recurring cost to the economy. Anything that crosses the borders for trade (all resources mined/farmed, everything manufactured) has to be dealt with in both sets of units. There is massive redundancy in fasteners, components, scales, paperwork, etc. It requires companies to keep two sets of tools (and not just wrenches, also drills, taps, dies, cutters, etc).

<comment><USER12> THe 'sets of tools' argument is kind of spurious. I already have a box full of wrenches; I'd need some more in the box. Nobody argues 'lets get rid of 5/32 bolts, so I can get rid of that wrench'.

Its the mental effort to rationalize them that is the real cost. Lets see, slightly larger than 1/4 - is it 7mm? or 8? or 9/32?

<comment><USER13> When I had the tires on my buell motorcycle changed the guy here in germany only had metric wrenches. He had to "fix" one to get the wheel of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Before we start with the standard junk about "imperial measures are better because they are easier to understand / better suited to human scale / etc." can I say _nope_.

The only advantage that imperial measures have (for some) is that they are familiar. That's the sum total of it. People where were raised metric find these apologies for imperial measures to be pure gibberish.

<comment><USER15> Actually, I think metric could be improved with a few imperial equivalents - <USER2> "metric foot" as 30cm, for instance - because they _are_ convenient measurements.

e.g. If somebody asks me "How tall is that person?" it's easier to say "About five foot" rather than "I dunno, about 155cm?"

(I'm British, btw)

<comment><USER16> I only live in Metric-using country and I have no slightest idea how tall is five foot, whereas 155cm instantly comes to my mind as, ah, at around my eye level. It's all about familiarity.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but that's 3 digits versus 1; if the requirement is to express common, human sized-objects with rough accuracy in as few words as possible, it works just fine. Really, it's all semantics (as you say), but there are specific cases where one might be a better fit than the other. It's the inconsistencies in imperial that are truly horrible, not the arbitrary standard unit...

<comment><USER18> > Sure, but that's 3 digits versus 1

It isn't, really. If asked about my approximate height, I'd say 'eins-achtzig' ie 1.8m (notice me omitting the unit), which in practice also has only a single significant digit (or 2 if you account for tall people) and to me isn't any more unwieldy than '6 foot'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I moved from Belgium to the US last year, and one of the things that surprised me was that metric measures actually see a fair amount of use in the States. It makes a convoluted system even more weird, but it's also just plain fascinating.

2L bottles of coke and 9mm bullets, miles except when people suddenly switch to kilometers, 50 meter pools and 5K jogging runs but a 120 yard football field, 2 oz shaving cream but eye drops come in a 20ml bottle and so on.

Guess that's what globalization does for ya.

<comment><USER20> To be fair, non-metric units are also use worldwide in some specific fields. In aeronautics, height is in feet. In a boat, distance are nautic miles (not even the same miles as Americans on the road).

Quick quiz: what's the diagonal size of your laptop screen in centimeters? Your mobile phone?

So it doesn't matter if you use completely unrelated metrics for different things. When you want to buy a laptop you know how many inches you want. When you swim, you know what a 50 meters pool means. But do you care how many laptop diagonals you're swimming? Probably not.

Now back to US switching to metrics: I think the real argument in favor of sticking to imperial is the cost and risk of the switch. Risk because confusion between metrics could lead to a catastrophe (example: filling the tank of a plane with liters when it should be the same number of gallons).

<comment><USER21> You understand, though, that the reason laptop screens are measured this way is because of America's continued use of the imperial system.

<comment><USER22> Yes, TV screens are measured in cms, no reason why computer screens couldn't be too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Only vaguely relevant, but I grew up in a rural area in Canada which caused me to learn a strange set of units. For me, highway distances are measured in kilometres, but country roads are measured in miles. Groceries are priced per kilogram, but my weight is in pounds. I readily swap inches and centimetres for measuring small sizes and distances (sometimes on the same project). I am more comfortable with Celsius, but the thermostat in my parents' house was in Fahrenheit.

Just to throw an additional wrench into things, prior to official metrification (which technically predates my birth), Canada used "imperial" (i.e. British) units, not "standard" (i.e. U.S.) units. Because of this and the close proximity to the U.S., one had to be careful about just which gallon or pint you were talking about.

People younger and/or more urban than me seem to be 100% metric. I am starting to learn my weight in kilograms, but I still have no idea what my height is in cm without converting.

<comment><USER24> Canada also has so-called weak metric measurements: 454g of butter (1 lb), 354 ml of pop (12 oz) and so on.

<comment><USER23> Yes, though I think this is largely due to trade with the U.S.. It probably helps keep some standard units alive in Canada.

<comment><USER25> Indeed in country fully converted to metric, the old unit are converted to their closest sane metric equivalent.

For example, my grand-mother still talks about buying a pound of stuff. However a pound is now understood as meaning 0.5 kg, we even learn it that way in school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> At the risk of being lumped in with the negative/unhelpful/HN-is-on-the- decline comment crowd, and I hate naysaying here but...

Seriously?

1) If you haven't seen enough of these White House Polls go by yet (and there is a never ending list of inanity, for example: <http://www.modernman.com/12-dumbest-whitehouse-petitions/>) let me clue you in. They do nothing. Nothing. No one reads them. Just go back to wishing on a star.

2) The belief that something like this would ever be on the White House's radar/todo list is honestly just retarded.

3) Why is this even here? This isn't Reddit. The focus of HN is pretty nebulous these days but this is well outside the realm of entrepreneurship and programming which I believe has always sort of been at the heart of HN.

4) _Rabble rabble_ HN is in decline.

<comment><USER27> It does have a lot to do with programming actually. I'm building an international application and I have to convert all my dimensions and weights to make it work in the US.

<comment><USER26> No. It has as much to do with programming as currency conversion does. It's a problem involving numbers that people occasionally solve with the use of code. By your logic beanie babies have a lot to do with programming because someone built a site to list and sell them online (ebay).

But hey, the metric system seems more sensible to me too.

 _Edit_ I don't mean to come off as a jerk. I haven't slept yet and just got a BS call from m boss so I'll probably read this later and wish I were more diplomatic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's a couple of things you'd want to consider converting to metric: long distances, short distances/dimensions, volumes, weights, and temperature come to mind.

Long distances: swap out a bunch of highway signs, consider that 60mph (a mile a minute) ~= 100km/h, not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.

Volumes: people are used enough to 2-liter bottles of soda, expect the 3.78 liter milk to stay around for a while because of supply chains. Gas prices will be modestly interesting for people, but really easy on the industry.

Short distances/dimensions: now things get tricky and potentially expensive. There are a lot of fractional-dimensioned parts out there in industry in different supply chains.

Weights: 2.2lb = 1kg and you're pretty good. Nobody _really_ uses ounces anyway!

Temperature: Here's the thing about temperature: converting would be relatively useless because Real People don't do math with the temperature outside. Even scientists don't do math with the temperature outside all that much. For most people, a scale that starts at 0="civilization shuts down because you can't ice the roads" and goes up to 100="heatstroke territory" is a _fine_ representation of humanity's day to day temperature. Why would we bother changing it?

<comment><USER8> >not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.

Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit 29 1.6 km".

<comment><USER29> You do not need to replace them all at once. For example the new signs could be European style, red ringed white circles with the number inside. Virtually every car has both readings already. This would make new speed limit signs immediately recognizable to more visitors in the future while avoiding ambiguity of units during the transition. They could even say km/h during the first generation.

<comment><USER30> Road signs need to be very clear and instantly understandable. Adding a tiny delay to comprehension; a tiny bit of lack of attention to the road; could, when multiplied over the number of kilometres driven and number of drivers and time mean many deaths.

Whether that's acceptable or not is another matter, but it'd suck if "km/h KILLED MY FATHER" became a meme.

It is odd how some countries make massive national changes overnight. eg, Sweden:

([http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20...](http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm))

> _In 1955, the Swedish government held a referendum on the introduction of > right-hand driving. Although no less than 82.9% voted "no" to the > plebiscite, the Swedish parliament passed a law on the conversion to right- > hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, the 3rd of > September 1967, at 5 o'clock in the morning._

Leaving it until now has meant the UK would find it very hard to change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sad it only has 237 votes as of my visit (waiting for my acct to validate so I can sign).

The problem is, I think the US has already declared itself to be metric to little effect.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act>

It's not the do-nothing congress this time, it's the learn-nothing public.

<comment><USER32> Just a simple measure like forcing all government signs to use metric would go a long way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's nice to be reminded that there will always be fresh waves of not-yet- cynical people to take up issues like this. But boy, am I cynical about the chances on this one.

The wikipedia article on Metrication in the US [1] isn't the best article ever but is worth reading for mentions of previous efforts.

A few things: \- the US Congress has in various ways 'blessed' the metric system, more than any other. However...

> _Proponents of the metric system in the U.S. often claim that "the United > States, Liberia, and Burma (or Myanmar) are the only countries that have not > adopted the metric system." This statement is not correct with respect to > the U.S., and probably it isn't correct with respect to Liberia and Burma, > either. The U.S. adopted the metric system in 1866. What the U.S. has failed > to do is to restrict or prohibit the use of traditional units in areas > touching the ordinary citizen_ [2]

Did you know that Jefferson proposed a decimal system for the US before the SI system had come about? (See e.g. [2].) There were also proposals to measure land in decimal units rather than in 640-acre sections.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States)

[2] <http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html>

</comment><comment><USER34> I was born in Russia and used the metric system until i moved to the US. Imperial system is so archaic it's amusing to see a developed nation use it. A few centuries ago Russians used to measure weight in "handfuls" and short distances in "elbows." (scratch that, it's "cubits") When only a fraction of the population had any sort of education, it was easier for everyone to understand an anatomical measurement. Eh, some things never go away. I don't anticipate US dropping this... ever.

<comment><USER35> Sadly, we (US Citizens) all learn the Metric system starting in at least 7th grade (was for me at least back 15 some years ago). We continue to use it through High School for courses such as Chemistry and Physics as well as University studies.

However, many of those that are not interested in going into a Science field tend to discount the Metric System in the United States as nothing more than a "means to an end" in order to get a passing grade. They quickly forget it or just pay lip service to it as they don't see the need for it outside of the classroom.

Until that changes with some sort of mandate by the US Government, I'm afraid as you mentioned, the larger percentage of the United States will feel no need to care about the Metric System outside of a few Science courses they took back in school.

<comment><USER34> You're absolutely right. Technical people would most likely embrace the switch. Everyone else will brush it off. I find that Americans are typically very cautious of any kind of change. Especially baby boomers. Let alone a change that is "imposed" by the rest of the world. That isn't going to fly here. We don't do things in the same way the rest of the world does them. That's just our mentality. Imagine a football field marked with metric units. Man, I just cringed a little bit. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The way I explain this one to my European friends is:

Do you remember the transition to the Euro? How you had to mentally convert prices at first? And how old people had more difficulties with it in some cases? Now, imagine that, not just for one unit, but weights, lengths, temperatures and volumes, all at the same time.

<comment><USER37> Oh, the problem with the Euro was that they raised prices everywhere where they introduced the new currency. What was previously 0.8€ becase 1€, 28€ to 30€ and so on. Economic power also moved from individual countries to the ECB in Brussels. If the US started using SI (Systeme International), it's not like you would be subject to a metric-controlling organisation in Paris. :)

<comment><USER38> The ECB is in Frankfurt, Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> ISO 216 paper sizes while you're at it, please!

<comment><USER40> I'm surprised paper hasn't formed a larger part of this discussion.

The 'A' system for paper has many advantages, and actually would be something that could be accessibly changed (all printers and scanners handle it just fine).

<comment><USER41> > The 'A' system for paper has many advantages

The ISO system in general, ISO 216 and 269 provide 3 series (A, B and C, A is the base series, B is the geometric mean between two sizes of the A series, C is the geometric mean between the A and B series at a given index, and is thus mostly used for envelopes for the A series: an envelope Cn will hold an An sheet without folding, and of course a Cn envelope will fit an A(n-1) folded in two)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I look forward to everywhere using metric.

I'm in the UK, 27 and still struggle at times to comprehend lbs, ounces, stone, feet, inches, yards, miles etc., when everything I was taught in school was in metres, litres, newtons and kilogrammes.

<comment><USER42> We ask for a footlong, a quarter pounder etc when we go out for fast food.

Our fat friends are 16 stone, 17 stone.

We live miles away from each other.

Penalties in football are taken in the 18 yard box.

We use cup measures for flour, sugar etc in cooking.

The average penis is ~6 inches when fully erect.

I've got two 4 pint cartons of milk in my fridge.

I could go on. Imperial units are absolute muck and I cannot wait for a entirely metric world.

<comment><USER43> > We use cup measures for flour, sugar etc in cooking.

We do? My cookbooks are in metric units. In fact I own no books that use "cups."

<comment><USER42> As an example go have a look at <http://gordonramsaysrecipes.com/> which hosts a collection of Ramsay's receipes. All in tablespoons, teaspoons and cups.

<comment><USER43> That's an American web-site. His books are in metric.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gordon-Ramsays-Ultimate-Cookery- Cour...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gordon-Ramsays-Ultimate-Cookery- Course/dp/1444756699/)

Click "search inside." Everything is in grams.

edit: That web-site isn't even associated with the chief. It is just some fan site. Here is a legit web-site and it is all in grams: [http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon- ramsay/go...](http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/gordon- ramsay/gordon-s-lasagne-recipe)

<comment><USER42> > Click "search inside." Everything is in grams.

There's loads of references in that book to knobs of butter and tablespoon/teaspoon measurements.

<comment><USER30> teaspoons and tablespoons are metric - one teaspoon is 5 ml; one tablespoon is 15 ml. I'm not sure how useful it is having a volumetric unit instead of a mass[1] unit; but that's one thing I like about US cooking. "About a cup of this; about to cups of that" - it's all nice and intuitive. I know roughly what 500 g of flour is, or sugar, but 80 g of butter is tricky.

[1] sorry if I'm using the wrong term. Friendly corrections welcomed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> From the petitions.whitehouse.gov petition kindly submitted for comment here:

"The United States is one of the few countries left in the world who still have not converted to using the Metric System as a standardized system of measurement. Instead of going along with what the rest of the world uses, we stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit - despite the fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric."

This petition has the same problem most petitions submitted to the White House have--its factual premise is incorrect. I'm an American who has lived in another country (Taiwan) for years. The National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that "The United States is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement."

<http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/upload/1136a.pdf>

But the same government report notes that

". . . . In 1866, Congress authorized the use of the metric system in this country and supplied each state with a set of standard metric weights and measures.

"In 1875, the United States solidified its commitment to the development of the internationally recognized metric system by becoming one of the original seventeen signatory nations to the Treaty of the Meter."

In other words, the United States has treated the Metric System as official and legal since before my great-grandfather was born. The customary measurement system is, by contrast, simply customary, not mandatory. The United States has been metric since 1866 "in the sense that Americans have been free since that time to use the metric system as much as they like."

<http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html>

If a particular individual or corporation engaged in manufacturing or trade wants to use metric measurements to meet customer needs and gain a profit, no one in the United States is stopping that. If someone desires to use customary measurements out of sheer habit from long-established custom, no one is stopping that either. My late dad the industrial engineer was aware of plenty of industries in the United States that from the 1970s, at the latest, had gone fully metric simply because those industries were involved in vigorous international trade. Perhaps the best governmental nudge that can be given for more use of metric measurements in the United States is more encouragement of developing international markets for domestic businesses.

I note that customary measurements are often used in other countries even long after metric measurements are adopted officially. For example, the Republic of China (the regime that governs Taiwan at present) has been officially metric since before I was born. Japan (the former governing country in Taiwan) was metric from the 1920s. But the unit of weight for vegetables bought in an open-air market in Taiwan is still the traditional 斤 ( _jin_ "catty," or Chinese pound), although that is now standardized at 500g. Prices are given in monetary units per 斤 for most fruits and vegetables to this day in markets in Taiwan (and in China).

A Facebook friend with a scientific education recently told me about the saying "A pint's a pound, the whole world round." If the United States begins using metric-standard units more for selling foods and the like, then perhaps a half-kilogram (500g) package will be considered to be one new "pound," just as a half-liter (500ml) package will be considered to be one new "pint." It is interesting to me that traditional Chinese culture and traditional British culture both had weight units in that range, about a half kilogram even before standardization to metric units. How are grocery measurements treated in Britain these days?

<comment><USER45> That's a typical case of theory and practice.

Yes, in theory the US is a country that supports metric. In practice, go and ask anybody in the country outside of the military for the following:

\- An M10 bolt

\- a 16mm wrench to drive it with

\- a 3 meter long 50 mm od pvc drainpipe

\- a tape-measure that measures only in metric

\- a highway sign that is posted in km

And so on. See how many people can point you to any of these.

Then try this:

\- a 3/8th " bolt

\- a 9/16th " wrench to drive it with

\- a 10' long 2" od pvc drainpipe

\- a tape measure that only measures in Imperial

\- a highway sign posted in Miles.

The petition is dead on in the way the US approaches the metric system, in practice it is imperial all the way. As long as the practice doesn't change what the technical situation is won't matter one bit.

The only way to get out of this is to change the law, and to deprecate Imperial in favor of metric.

<comment><USER46> Have you ever been inside of a hardware store?

Every hardware store I've ever been to has a section for metric. Our lab, for instance, keeps a supply of bolts, and as far as I remember /only/ has metric.

Also every socket set I've ever used has a metric and standard set.

Why would you care about road signs? And why would you care about a tape measure that is /only/ in metric? The second one seems kindof silly.

The only thing I know of that isn't available commonly in metric sizes are machining tools like mills. As far as I know, machining is always done in "mils", or thousands of an inch.

<comment><USER47> Or if you happen to ask anyone who works on a vehicle that isn't from one of the American manufacturers. My Toyota used all metric, AFAIK, and all of my motorcycles have used metric. I can't say I've ever even used the standard set of tools that came with my toolset (which had both metric and standard).

<comment><USER48> Toyota is weird, in that all of the nuts & bolts on their cars are metric, but their tolerances in the factory service manual are listed in thousandths of an inch. I did a double-take when I saw the deck flatness tolerance of ".002" for my car, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ireland has converted mostly to the metric system, we switched to kilometers for speed limits in 2005. To be honest you get used to it pretty quickly. There are a number of items, particularly those that are traded with our neighbours in the UK that are shown as both metric and imperial. You still get a pint of Guinness in the pub but all bottles and cans of beer are in metric.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_Ireland>

</comment><comment><USER24> _Metrickery is a socialist plot to weaken America. First it's units of measurement divisible by ten, then it's universal health care, then gun control, and finally off to the gulag for the last remaining freethinkers._

Sadly, there are people who believe more of less exactly what I just wrote.

<comment><USER50> Actually, the "Europe is better and the US is inferior" mantra, which is very widely held in the American left-of-center, _is_ a significant factor in all of those.

<comment><USER24> As a Canadian, I'd be inclined to call it the "every other industrialized liberal democracy on earth is better" mantra. Countries tend to converge on an optimal balance of individual liberties and social protections because it _measurably works_.

The US is a notable outlier, and the various comparative social and economic indicators are pretty damning evidence that the continued American insistence on an 18th century approach to governance actually _is_ inferior to a number of other approaches that have been more inclined to take evidence-based best practices into account.

<comment><USER50> > Countries tend to converge on an optimal balance of individual liberties and > social protections because it measurably works.

That's just utter nonsense. What measurement are you optimizing for?

What makes you think that moving the US to the left moves it closer to, say, Germany, instead of closer to, say, Brazil, India, and Mexico (which is what I think will happen)?

And even if it did move it closer to Germany, _I wouldn't want that,_ which speaks to the fact that your "measurably works" claim probably refers to some non-objective sense of optimality.

> the continued American insistence on an 18th century approach to governance

That's a straw man. Predominating sentiments in the GOP are strongly contra the Founding Fathers. I mean, George W. Bush greatly expanded the welfare state.

<comment><USER24> > What measurement are you optimizing for?

Take your pick. The US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility.

<comment><USER50> Most or all of which would not be helped by liberal attempts to emulate Europe.

For example, high child poverty is to be expected in a country that harbors many poor immigrants from Latin America.

For another example, high rate of incarceration is largely to be blamed on the "War on Drugs," which has the same effect as the prohibition on alcohol did.

For another example, low rate of doctors is largely to be blamed on the fact that medicine is a _guild_ (as in, midieval guild) where med school is super tough to get into, doesn't select for competency as a medical practitioner, and creates a "class hierarchy" within medicine where a highly-trained nurse can perform as well or better than a doctor in many common situations, but is not legally allowed to practice in that capacity.

This could go on and on.

Overall, American liberals want a society where everybody gets whatever they demand, to the degree that there is enough to go around, except the actual producers. That society already exists, and it's called India.

<comment><USER24> > Most or all of which would not be helped by liberal attempts to emulate > Europe.

You mean the rest of the industrialized world, not just Europe.

> high child poverty is to be expected in a country that harbors many poor > immigrants from Latin America.

You mean unlike a country that harbours many poor immigrants from Northern Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe?

> high rate of incarceration is largely to be blamed on the "War on Drugs"

Yes, and it is the conservative right that most strongly favours continuing the War on Drugs. Those left of centre liberals you don't like generally favour ending the war on drugs and following a more - dare I say - <USER3> approach to legalization. (Sadly, Canada's Republican-lite Conservative government has taken a more American approach to the War on Drugs, establishing mandatory minimum sentences and other punitive measures that have already failed in the US.)

> low rate of doctors is largely to be blamed on the fact that medicine is a > guild

That's true across all the industrialized countries, but the other countries are much better than the US at achieving a higher rate of doctors and much better overall health outcomes, despite spending only 40-70% of what the USA spends on health care - and running various incarnations of universal health coverage.

> American liberals want a society where everybody gets whatever they demand

That's a lazy straw man attack. American liberals, like liberals in other industrialized countries, want their country to value human rights, pay attention to evidence-based public policy and invest enough in public social and physical infrastructure to ensure everyone has an adequate standard of living and the opportunity to work hard and prosper.

Ironically, the USA has among the _worst_ levels of socioeconomic mobility in the OECD. Poor Americans are more trapped in their poverty than poor people in countries that do more to level the playing field so everyone has a fair chance of escaping poverty.

<comment><USER50> > despite spending only 40-70% of what the USA spends on health care

Right. And if the USA tries to emulate Europe in healthcare more than we alreay do, we will end up wasting _even more_ money. There is no solution to be had here through _more_ regulation.

> value human rights

> ensure everyone has an adequate standard of living

Contradiction. But providing a moral basis for individual rights requires understanding a complete philosophical system, which is out of the scope of an HN comment.

> ensure everyone has an adequate standard of living and the opportunity to > work hard and prosper

You're asking something that may be outside the scope of reality.

> Poor Americans are more trapped in their poverty

As someone from a poor part of rural eastern North Carolina, all I can do is LOL at this, because it's utterly, utterly false. That is a complete myth. I mean, we already have free universal education, de jure through high school and de facto through college.

<comment><USER24> > if the USA tries to emulate Europe in healthcare more than we alreay do, we > will end up wasting even more money.

The evidence is that American health care costs would go _down_ significantly, given the clear correlation across industrialized countries between the extent to which health care spending is private and the overall cost (either per capita or as a share of GDP).

> Contradiction.

It's not a contradition, the latter follows necessarily from the former. It's why nearly every industrialized country has converged on public health, public education, public health care, affordable housing, and so on.

> But providing a moral basis for individual rights requires understanding a > complete philosophical system, which is out of the scope of an HN comment.

Or we can dispense with the 18th century a priori legerdemain and just recognize human rights as a self-evident basis for a fair, just and humane society.

> You're asking something that may be outside the scope of reality.

And yet the rest of the industrialized world does a much better job of it than the United States.

> As someone from a poor part of rural eastern North Carolina, all I can do is > LOL at this

The plural of anecdote is not data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Every objection that is being raised on this thread was raised when other countries enacted metrication. You are free to read the history of these processes. Nations did not collapse and people learned how to use new units.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication>

I would more support a petition that was well and cogently written, however.

</comment><comment><USER51> We already have the metric system. An inch is defined as 2.54 centimeters. Et cetera. I can't think of a single way in which we're NOT metric, except that stubborn people refuse to let go of gallons, miles and pounds.

Every item you buy in the stores will be measured in metric units. Just because we call it a gallon doesn't mean it isn't actually 3.785 liters. And just because the serving size is a cup, doesn't mean it isn't actually 240mL. And check the nutrition label sometimes. It's all metric.

[http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov- public/documents/image/...](http://www.fda.gov/ucm/groups/fdagov- public/documents/image/ucm225384.jpg)

So what's the problem again?

<comment><USER52> > So what's the problem again?

America sucks and is like the worst thing to ever happen to the world. Or something, it all blends together eventually.

Oddly no one ever makes a serious push to ban languages other than English or Mandarin Chinese throughout the world, or currency other than USD which would _actually_ have beneficial effects on global interaction. Instead they compare the U.S. to Myanmar as if Americans should seriously be offended by that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It very likely is never going to happen. The main reason for resistance apparently is the various land boundaries that would have to be re-scaled to metric, which would be a source of endless legal wrangling. Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old.

I've used both metric and imperial, for construction imperial is lots easier, for physics and other things that involve frequent conversions metric is far easier.

The Canadians officially have metric, try buying a 250x125 sheet of plywood. Everybody will look at you as if water is burning.

<comment><USER53> >Already houses in the US have the longest history attached to them, sometimes all the way from the homesteading days if the plot is old.

That's young by European standards. Somehow we managed the conversion.

<comment><USER54> How many European countries are there? How many of them have had the same government for 230 years?

The US surveyed and then subdivided much of a continent into townships. Land was sold and granted by the section, halfs and quarters thereof. Flying over the Midwest, the manifold rectangles on the ground show how problematic even the slightest of conversion errors would be.

Maybe it's technical debt. But it exists because the legal system is stable.

<comment><USER45> How many of them even have the same borders over the last 230 years? I'd wager very few.

<comment><USER54> I think the reference for US borders is probably better put at 150 years - outside of Hawaii.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> > the imprecise Imperial Unit

englilsh units aren't any less precise than SI/metric ones. They're just more awkward and less used worldwide. The cases which I find particularly irritating in US units are lb mass vs. lb force, and HP/BTU/foot- pounds/calories/Calories (and kWh) when all you need is a J.

</comment><comment><USER56> I understand and agree that metric is strictly better, how much better is it? Do the benefits outweigh the costs of changing the whole system?

<comment><USER14> What about the recurring cost that we have now of using both systems?

<comment><USER57> I'll play along. What "recurring cost"?

<comment><USER14> As mentioned elsewhere on this page:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996563>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996646>

And also things like the occasional cost of writing off a Mars probe (and they aren't cheap) because not enough was spent on checking unit conversions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I could care less about using metric, but don't touch Fahrenheit. Celsius (water based) is inferior to Fahrenheit (air based) for those of us whom just so happen to reside in the atmosphere instead of the sea.

<comment><USER59> It's more accurate to say Fahrenheit is brine based. 0°F was based on the freezing point of a brine solution used by Ole Rømer: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B8mer_scale>

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Might as well start now - these things take time. In Norway, we introduced the metric system in 1889, but there's still a lot of non-metric measurements still around, at least in common speak.

* Length of a boat are measured in feet.

* Lumber is measured in inches, two-by-four and so on.

* Most engines are measured in horsepower(though nowadays the kw/h is usually given as well).

* Firewood have different measures, most of them derived from the pre-metric system.

* distances at sea are measured in nautic miles

* Boat speed is measured in knots. (not sure what the status of these last 2 is regarding SI these days).

<comment><USER61> _Boat speed is measured in knots._

Knots are non-SI, since they're based on the non-SI nautical mile (1 knot = 1nm/hr). But they are a good example of why context is important; the nautical mile is absolutely superior to the kilometer for use in navigation (at sea or in the air). Forcing the SI unit there would actually make the relevant tasks more complex and more difficult.

<comment> guard-of-terra "the nautical mile is absolutely superior to the kilometer for use in navigation (at sea or in the air)."

Why is that?

<comment><USER61> It solves headaches that come from trying to project the not-flat earth onto flat charts.

As Wikipedia puts it:

"In most projections, scale varies with latitude, so on small scale maps, covering large areas and a wide range of latitudes, the linear scale must show the scale for the range of latitudes covered by the map."

"Mariners generally use the nautical mile, which, because a nautical mile is approximately equal to a minute of latitude, can be measured against the latitude scale at the sides of the chart."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Water is the most important substance for life in Earth.

It boils at 100º centigrades and freezes at 0º centigrades

0.1m³ is one liter (1L) of water, so 1m³ is 1,000 liters of water

1L of water is 1 Kilogram

The imperial system is awful, please bury it.

</comment><comment><USER63> I think most engineers would naturally support this idea. The reality is that doing something like this is pretty tough because the current system has so much weight. It's akin to asking a company to abandon a perfectly functioning legacy software system just so that someone can rewrite it.

My dad was an engineer with Caltrans and he told me about how California was ready to make the switch. It was going to be a gradual transition where signage would start listing both metric and imperial speed limits. They had actually gotten pretty far along into designing signs, etc.

He told me that the state eventually killed it because no politicians supported it and there was no strong desire from the public. While I think this is a great idea, I don't have my hopes up.

Apparently the state did a lot of work actually switching over to the metric system (all manuals, standards, etc. were updated to metric) but the plan was eventually aborted in favor of English units and much effort was then spent on switching back. :-/

<http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/oppd/metric1/DD-12-R1_Final.pdf>

<http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/oppd/metric1/metricpg.htm>

</comment><comment><USER64> Metric system is way more understandable and easy to mentally manipulate. The only good argument against standardizing it, is people are used to it for many years. But so were my grandparents with our country's currency before we switched to Euro. There's an awkward "bootcamp" period where you just convert every unit to the old one just to get the feeling of the "quantity" but after a couple of months the new units feel normal.

</comment><comment><USER65> what a coincidence, just yesterday I saw a comedian making fun of UK&US for not using the metric system and instead something he considered archaic

<comment><USER66> Imperial is very visible in the UK (for road instances and for beer glasses in particular) but the country is pretty much metric now and has been for decades.

<comment><USER67> Funny you should mention beer – I've noticed an increasing tendency for pint glasses to be marked "568ml". Milk also doesn't come in pints any more, but does come in 568ml and 1 litre varieties. Still, as a nation we ask for and think of our beer and milk in pints.

<comment><USER42> The 2 cartons of milk in my fridge right now, say "2272ml 4 pints" on them.

<comment><USER68> This is because in both the US and the UK, imperial measures are legally defined in metric units. A pint _is_ 568ml, by definition (well, in the UK, the US believes a pint is 454ml, but that's another argument).

<comment><USER42> The milk is clearly sold in pints though, if they were selling it in litres they would've sold 2 litres, not 2.272 litres.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Measuring metric adoption by counting countries with official adoption is common. Less common is measuring by aggregate PPP-GDP and actual adoption by the public. To approximate actual adoption, I give the US, UK, Canada and Jamaica completely to traditional units and the rest of the world completely to metric.* Using 2011 data from the IMF, I then conclude that traditional units command 31% of usage worldwide.

* These are the countries in red on this table [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication#Chronology_and_stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication#Chronology_and_status_of_conversion_by_country) But a review of the UK article shows that the language "partially complete" is pretty fanciful in describing the current situation in the UK. The story in China is more complex...

</comment><comment><USER70> Don't we have bigger problems than this right now?

Our schools are so badly mismanaged that we're not even graduating people who can use either standard.

We've got millions of people unemployed who would love to turn a wrench regardless of metric or standard.

(Not to cast aspersions at either party, they are both very nearly equally to blame)

</comment><comment><USER71> Ironic that a post designed to attempt to rid the world of obfuscation and confusion has a UI that commits the cardinal sin of auto loading the signature list so that it's virtually impossible to get to the footer without letting all the signatures load. :)

Reminds me of getting classes on water conservation in High School only to walk outside of class and see that they are watering the High School's parking lot.

How very often the government evokes the classic hypocritical parent of the old anti-drug campaign commercial of the 1980's where the son finally breaks and yells at his Father "I learned it by watching you Dad!"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Elr5K2Vuo>

</comment><comment><USER72> Everything else aside, can someone explain to me the obsession with fractions (w/out common denominators, even!) in the imperial system?

I love metric, but I have no problem using the imperial system for my work - however, the fact that all objects made for the imperial system are built on fractions makes it _impossible_ to work with. There is no 0.1" there's only 1/8. There is no 0.15", there's only 5/32. etc.

Given the bottom is almost always a power of two (2, 4, 16, 32, and 64 at the most) the conversion isn't _hard_ but there is a _definite_ cognitive overhead to comparing 1/8" vs 5/32" whereas comparing .125" to .15" is an order of magnitude simpler.

<comment><USER52> Fractional measures are useful when you often have to sub-divide a thing, but you are right in that they make the problem of comparing two things more difficult.

But with that in mind the answer to your question is that when the scales were first devised in the first place that it was apparently more important to be able to evenly split things up easily without grade-school arithmetic than it was to be able to compare a 3/32" socket to a 1/8".

<comment><USER72> But why not just use /64 or /32 for everything?

3/32" vs 4/32" is win-win compared to 3/32" vs 1/8" or .09375" vs .125"

<comment><USER52> The stupid answer is that it's easier to add 1/2 and 1/4 than it is 32/64 and 16/64. Keep in mind this is the kind of measurement system that might evolve in the time before most people had a formal education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Did any of these petitions accomplished anything?

</comment><comment><USER74> Regionalized units have the same damaging effect to manufacturing as closed software ecosystems has to software development. The only reason most US citizens do not feel the pain of this fragmentation is that they do not have to buy anything that is not adapted to the US market. Again, this is because the US is the biggest market on the planet and thus it is profitable for big companies to adapt their products to US standards.

However, supporting several unit systems is a huge tax on startup companies that work in manufacturing and therefore they reduce innovation and competition, causing harm to everybody along the way.

<comment><USER75> This is actually an argument, for some people in the U.S., to keep using imperial units. The use of imperial units acts as sort of an "artificial trade barrier" to foreign competition - it's like a tariff that international trade agreements can't touch.

<comment><USER76> That is a ridiculous argument for a country that is already so heavily reliant on foreign manufacturing. If anything, at this point, the imperial standard is a barrier to having the US become a manufacturing nation once again - <USER4> so much industrial technology has been developed without a thought to the archaic measurements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Maybe it's just me but, while I agree with this, I would like our government to focus on gaining a certain level of basic competence. The last few years seem to have brought to light just how impotent and incapable the US legislature is.

The other two branches seem to be doing fine, but I'd like to focus our attention on perhaps changing this ridiculous farce into something that might work, just a little bit.

The big problem is that due to our system of govt any change will be brought of the back of legislation, which, unfortunately, will have to pass thru the broken and disfigured legislature.

That said, I hope this petition succeeds :)

</comment><comment><USER78> The US use of imperial units definitely requires a good bit of annoying overhead - owning two sets of socket wrenches and hex keys and never knwowing which one a manufacturer has used is just the first such inconvenience that comes to mind. So I agree that it's well past time to complete the switch.

That said, I will miss imperial units if they go. There's a natural poetry to them that metric lacks. Imperial units seem to embody and communicate their own history - history of path-dependence and weird math, to be sure - <USER5> metric units seem too perfectly consistent, and therefore somehow sterile.

</comment><comment><USER79> I don't see this ever happening. There just isn't a push from within to do it.

</comment><comment><USER80> I grew up with the metric system but have now come to largely accept the imperial system as a more humane system.

Nassim Taleb actually talks about the benefits of it in his latest book Anti- Fragile as well.

The metric system is already used for anything important in the US and doesn't need to be further legislated. Look at any food item you buy in the supermarket it already has grams or ml on it.

I wrote a piece a few years ago about this: [http://stakeventures.com/articles/2007/08/28/in-defence- of-i...](http://stakeventures.com/articles/2007/08/28/in-defence-of-imperial- units)

</comment><comment><USER81> I remember being at a 1971 conference in London, when a Brit asked a member of our party "When will the US go metric?"

My buddy quipped without hesitation, "As soon as you Brits learn to drive on the right side of the road!"

</comment><comment><USER82> I don't think politicians would ever allow this, especially during these times, since the proposed change would cost millions in change of signs and anything where the imperial system is used.

<comment><USER83> You would save that pretty easily in not having to write separate software/everything for the US and for the rest of the world. Not to mention things like [http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric....](http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric.02_1_climate- orbiter-spacecraft-team-metric-system?_s=PM:TECH)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Not the first time it's been tried: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_State...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States)

</comment><comment><USER85> There were still some kilometer markers on the roads in Alabama when I moved there in 1997. Apparently, the state spent $3.2 million to put up km markers and signs in addition to the mile markers and signs. This proved to be too confusing, and they were all taken down. Most the people I knew didn't miss them.

[http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19971128&...](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19971128&id=Q8gnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SscEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1434,4556205)

<comment><USER86> I lived in Alabama for a while back in the metric days. The article you link to seems to confirm the general impression I had of how it went down. US: "We're switching to the metric system, everybody!" Alabama: "Yay! Switching to metric!" Alabama: "Okay guys, we've got all our new metric highway signs up, how's everyone else doing with theirs?" (crickets chirping)

I personally thought the kilometer signs were pretty cool. The person's comment about the metric initiative being hard to defend when none of the other states followed through seems to ring true -- it's easy to see how the public might have thought they had been talked into a boondoggle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Another petition which may be more effecitve would be directed at the more rational/scientifically minded people at Google (in as much as they don't have Rick Santorum on their pay roll) to rename nexus 4/7/10 to be in terms of metric units not inches. That would may lead to a very rapid comfort with metric sizes for a large and influential chunk of the population.

This would also avoid the potentially unpleasant comparison to those who hope to eradicate Spanish by demand English be _the_ state language.

</comment><comment><USER88> Interesting war story around Imperial to Metric conversion errors.

Relevant to the discussion...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider>

</comment><comment> mark-r One thing I never see mentioned is the awkwardness of the metric names. The older measurements are all one syllable, while their metric replacements are often three or four.

mile -> kilometer inch -> centimeter pound -> kilogram

The only one that comes out even is ounce -> gram.

Obviously it's not a huge impediment since many other countries got past it, but I'm sure it just adds to the discomfort people have with it.

<comment><USER89> >The only one that comes out even is ounce -> gram.

Gallon -> liter?

And most of the extra syllables are because SI uses prefixes, instead of inventing completely different units. I think the verbosity is justified by enhanced understandability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The real cost is in manufacturing and maintenance.

What is the cost of replacing every machine, every factory, every load tolerance specified in every standard? Every screw, every nut.

Things that need to work, in place for decades, which we can't arbitrarily take down. Power plants, water filtration systems. How would you roll it out?

It's _because_ the US is so large and industrialized that _makes_ it expensive.

</comment><comment><USER75> One argument some people make against switching away from imperial units - <USER6> acts as sort of an artificial trade barrier for foreign competition. It costs non-domestic manufacturers more to package their products for distribution in the United States, making it sort of a "tariff" for foreign goods that international trade agreements can't touch.

<comment><USER91> But it works both ways. It is a "tariff" when you want to export.

<comment><USER75> I didn't claim the argument made sense. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I've Given up.

BUT, the metric system in the US has ben usurped by base 10 US units. As a civil engineer the measuring tape was in feet and "tenths of feet". A "mil" is a thousandth of an inch. I worked for the US government civil engineers in the 1990's. They were going to issue contracts in metric years ago. I don't think they ever did.

</comment><comment><USER93> related question to people from the US: did you actually learn the metric system in primary school? did you learn it besides the imperial units? I believe as Tloewald pointed out that the adoption really depends on whether people are learning it and not what politicians declare to be the standard.

<comment><USER36> You learn it, but academically. Growing up with everything in feet, miles, pounds, etc... you get a _feel_ for whether to put on a sweater if it's supposed to be 60 degrees out or not, or how long it might take to drive 10 miles on the freeway, or about how far 20 feet is. So even for someone like myself who has lived in Europe for a long time, metric units don't feel quite as 'native' or ingrained, except for temperatures, because you deal with those every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> This is fantastic!! They told me in 2nd grade (1968) that the metric systems was coming in 4 years and we had to learn it. This is great news. Finally I will be able to use those metric socket wrenches I bought. Oh, wait I already do.

</comment><comment><USER95> Just a note: Brazil adopts the metric system, but we measure diameters in inches and land in acres.

Adopting the metric system doesn't mean getting rid of non-metric units, some things just _make sense_ to measure in units that follow human scale.

</comment><comment><USER96> The tech industry has to take the lead by renaming their products: MacBook Pro 33cm, Nexus 18. Using inch for display is a worldwide standard, not just US. It would be strange to look for a 35.5cm notebook or a 100cm HDTV.

<comment><USER97> Maybe in the US. People from other countries want a TV with a diagonal of one meter. It even sounds better because 1 meter is like a barrier unlike 40 inches which is just a number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> So we'd have to rename the quarter-pounder with cheese to royale with cheese?

</comment><comment><USER99> The Metric system would probably be ubiquitous in the US by now if Ronald Reagan had not disbanded the U.S. Metric Board in 1982 and overturned laws encouraging schools to teach kids the metric system.

</comment><comment><USER100> A bit of helpful contrarianism about how Metric isn't always best:

Dan Bently, "Metric Doesn't Work", OSCON 2012

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdK-Cr1pe30>

</comment><comment><USER101> I'll just leave this here.

[http://www.theonion.com/articles/metric-system-thriving- in-n...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/metric-system-thriving-in-nations- inner-cities,458/)

</comment><comment><USER8> While we are at it, why not standardize:

* date and time formats

* language

* time zones

* currency

Seems about as easy and has the same kind of benefits.

<comment><USER102> It seems to me that time zones are standard.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_time>

<comment><USER8> For the most part, although daylight-saving time rules are very non-standard even from year to year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> OMG, I actually learned the metric system in public school in the 1970s. Then Reagan got elected and canceled it.

Now American kids have to get into drugs to learn the metric system.

</comment><comment><USER104> Why not start a bit of a geek pro metric movement to raise awareness on the issue. I could imagine some funny Tee's and stickers if nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER69> The metric system? Pff! Sign this petition instead: <http://wh.gov/UNMa>

</comment><comment><USER105> One sure way to get metric passed in the US: tell all the 220-lb ladies that their weight will drop to 100kg.

</comment><comment><USER106> Never happen. The crazy right-wingers will see it as a another "sign" of the UN trying to take over the US.

</comment><comment><USER107> Please do this.

Regards, The rest of the World.

</comment><comment><USER108> <http://wh.gov/UQye>

Help stop the metric system!

</comment><comment><USER109> Well, you can make a change too. Don't use products that are not in metric.

</comment><comment><USER110> Why do they have to make this page look like propaganda?

</comment><comment><USER111> US uses US standard measures, not imperial.

</comment><comment><USER112> Yep. It's long time overdue.</comment>


You will travel after COVID19, but it won't be the same - <AUTHOR> https://www.travelperk.com/blog/the-future-of-business-travel-after-covid19/ <comment><USER2> Remember those people on FB/IG that have photos of travelling to exotic islands and Europe while working minimum wage jobs? That up to now used to be every second profile I would stumble upon on social networks, not anymore.</comment>


I built a webapp that finds/sorts/previews video game news by number of views - <AUTHOR> https://newsbrute.com <comment><AUTHOR> I tried to follow the self-promotional guidelines, so I hope I'm in the clear.

Just to add more context, I built it in AngularJS w Java and Google App Engine backend.

"Okay, you built an aggregator, who cares".

I getcha. I try to do a couple things differently. I thought that a lot of content-heavy sites sucked, so I wanted to try to make a decently fast one with javascript. I sort the articles by "relative popularity" (how many views did this article get vs a normal article on that site?), which I get by doing some simple math on data I get through the Feedly dev API. This lets me sort articles from different sites next to each other, despite the sites having vastly different viewcounts.

I also show a slick (heavily truncated) preview on click of an article, which lets you see if you're actually interested in something before following the link back to the content creators. The mobile view is pretty good too, so check it out while you're pooping.

There are a lot of challenges to a content-heavy site in javascript, like RSS/Google crawling not working out of the box. Honestly it probably wasn't worth the effort, but here we are :)

Any comments / criticisms are welcome. In particular, I think the layout of the front page could be improved, but I can't pinpoint how. I don't like how the articles look like little "sticky labels", if you get me.</comment>


Portland-based PHP cloud platform PHP Fog raises $1.8M - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2011/01/11/portland-startup-php-fog-raises-18m.html <comment><USER2> >> PHP Fog was formed last year by Lucas Carlson, a PHP developer over the past eight years who is also described in the news release as one of the world's leading developers of the Ruby programming language.

Am I the only one who finds this ironic?

<comment><USER3> No. The ruby community just attracts more language snobs than most languages, and unfortunately, tolerates them. In reality the people who make sweeping negative generalizations about PHP developers are a vocal minority.

In reality, most rubyists acknowledge that there are plenty of good PHP developers and plenty of bad Ruby developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hoping to get a beta invite for this (I filled in the forms!) - it _looks_ like it could be perfect for some things I had lined up but the site is a bit short on specifics, which I guess is understandable at the moment.

It's nice to see things like this popping up for PHP. I was starting to feel like I'd been left alone here while all the kids go play Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems really interesting, although the latest series of issues with heroku makes me wonder if it ever can be done in a high quality way.

I hope so, if it did, it would be super-fantastic.

<comment><USER6> What were the recent Heroku issues? I must have missed this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ditto. Anyone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Have been trying it out, and it seems like it could turn into an awesome company, and the guys behind it seem great as well.

Pleased to hear about this investment, and hope they go far.</comment>


At CES 2017, Acer debuts its $9,000 gaming laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/01/04/ces-2017-acer-launching-9000-laptop/96147922/ <comment><USER2> I'm always curious how many of these type of things get sold.</comment>


HN pages no longer expire - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycombinator.com/news2

<comment><USER2> I don't understand; nothing has changed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Today, I have expiring page 2 links...

eg: <http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=sB1PcxtzQi>

</comment><comment><USER3> Finally. Would like to know the issue and its synopsis.

<comment><USER4> It has been written about multiple times. I would suggest a search that includes the terms "expired", and "closure".</comment></comment>


Craig Newmark quits Craigslist? - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/tech/rumormonger/has-craig-newmark-quit-craigslist-292777.php

<comment><USER2> Could you add a question mark to the title? What kind of alchemy turns a first-hand rumor into a second-hand fact?

Edit: _poof_

<comment><USER3> The kind that turns lead into gold. You should really study these things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm personally not a fan of Craig Newmark.He'll wake up one day and kick himself in the ass for not doing more with craiglists.

He worries that effort to monetize the site more will be the equvilant of selling out, but the reality is that it will happen with or without his consent (my guess is without). A big player like ebay holding 25% will not lie still forever and will jump at any opportunity to acquire more interest in the company from any shareholder willing to sell out.

<comment><USER5> "any shareholder" == Craig, you mean, since he owns the other 75%.

<comment><USER6> Not quite; per <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist> : "[Craigslist] is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three Board members). Ebay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How to write tech blog linkbait:

1\. Get a rumor with even the slightest shred of evidence that would be outrageous if true.

2\. After the links start pouring in, "update" with a "correction" that your unsubstantiated bullshit rumor is false, surprise surprise.

3\. Profit? Fuck yeah, profit.

</comment><comment><USER8> does it matter anymore???</comment>


Wil Wheaton Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120124/04344817524/wil-wheaton-says-chris-dodd-is-lying-about-lost-jobs-says-mpaa-accounting-creates-more-losses-than-piracy.html <comment><USER2> I don't understand why actors don't negotiate on observables like total box office receipts rather than numbers that can be gamed. That said I'm going to be purely speculative and venture a guess:

I'm suspicious that actors and actresses actually are not that interested (as a group, I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions) in getting paid from residuals and actually prefer to get a big check rather than a smaller check with bigger payments later. I think philosophically though they feel entitled to an equity stake, after all how much of the success of a blockbuster movie is due to the stars that are in it i.e. they bring significant brand value. So they _deserve_ a fractional share, but don't necessarily want to get paid that way for risk and time preference reasons. So we get a mutually agreed upon fiction where the actors get a big check AND a huge chunk of the profits which in practice will be zero since we'll account away the profit, yet we still respect the enormously significant contribution of stars to blockbuster pictures by giving them an imaginary equity stake. It seems that actors and actresses tend to act less like capitalists and more like star employees and so in practice their compensations looks more like what you'd expect from the latter than the former.

<comment><USER3> In the end I think much of the power lies with the studios, as they have more capital, and are closer to the customer. Blockbusters can easily create stars, but stars usually cannot - without major studio backing - create blockbusters.

<comment><USER2> This is absolutely true for the first movie, I wonder how much it applies to the seventh. I think Daniel Radcliffe would have a not of negotiation power in discussing salary for Harry Potter 7 part 2; there's a bit of a hold up problem. Also there's more than one studio and they do compete for talent, although you always have to look out for gentlemen's agreements a la Apple.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure this is true. The likelihood is that the contract for all the movies was signed before any of the movies, such that Radcliffe would be contractually obliged to finish the series, rather than holding development hostage at the last minute.

<comment><USER2> This is true of the first five films, but the later ones were separately negotiated

"Radcliffe found himself playing the lead role of Harry Potter in the anticipated family film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, based on J.K. Rowling's popular novel, and signed on to star in the first five movies. Once his contract was up, he signed another contract for $50 million to star in the final two films of the series."

<http://www.tribute.ca/people/daniel-radcliffe/6160/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Definitely a well known phenomenon but I'm glad to see more industry professionals acknowledging it and speaking out.

I think a lot of the industry's professionals are looking for innovation and a way into the future while the industry itself refuses to provide.

<comment><USER6> I'm glad Wil Wheaton is so vocal about his distain for the industry practices. He holds a lot of respect in many "geek's" minds and is a good spokesperson for many people to get behind. If enough people start raising questions then hopefully we can see more public debate regarding these practices from the general public.

<comment><USER7> Devil's advocate: would Wheaton be speaking out in this way if he were more successful actor?

I don't for a second mean to talk down his accomplishments- he's an author, blogger and even TV personality these days- but now that he doesn't rely on his acting career he can talk out against Hollywood accounting. I would imagine that other middling-successful actors would worry about doing that, as Hollywood could easily refuse to hire them and destroy their career.

I guess what I would like to see is someone like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, etc. speak out about this kind of stuff. They're big enough that I don't think Hollywood could shut them out, and they're also successful enough that I don't think Hollywood accounting affects them so much personally. But they could speak out on behalf of lesser known actors.

<comment><USER8> > _They're big enough that I don't think Hollywood could shut them out,_

Most of us on this board are probably too young to remember the blackballing of (accused) communists in the 50s and 60s, but that put a permanent end to the career of some fairly big stars of the time. The context is somewhat different, but I think if the (perceived) threat is big enough that there isn't really any actor that's too big to shut out.

<comment><USER7> I don't know about that. Being labelled a communist resulted in you being seen as a threat to national security. The obvious parallel today is a terrorist, but I'm pretty sure that any attempt to portray George Clooney as an extremist terrorist would fail.

<comment><USER9> Belief in one's own invincibility is probably one of the stupidest beliefs conceivable, straight past creationism without shedding any speed.

Besides, you wouldn't portray him as a terrorist. You'd portray him as a Muslim.

<comment><USER8> > _You'd portray him as a Muslim._

Or a Muslim _sympathizer_. Better, and yet worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Direct link: [http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/16246156406/mpaa- directly-...](http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/16246156406/mpaa-directly- publicly-threatens-politicians-who)

</comment><comment><USER11> I find this a curious statement. I don't necessarily (dis)agree but how can it be proven? What if Piracy really does have a huge impact on sales? I see his point but it's a gesture of disapproval not an actual point because piracy and the supposed resulting lost sales have no quantifiable measure.

<comment><USER12> Until their is a "quantifiable measure" draconian legislation like SOPA and PIPA shouldn't even be on the table.

Edit: creative accounting is fairly quantifiable, so why not "fix" that first?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of people here are running away from what Wheaton is actually saying and this is all he's saying:

"Hollywood's refusal to adapt to changing times is what's costing the studios money. That's it."

</comment><comment><USER14> Great that he's vocal about this.

It's a pity no one takes Mr. Crusher seriously.

<comment><USER15> I think there are people who do, however they are such geeks that he is preaching to the choir :-)</comment></comment>


The Central America Suicide Shower - <AUTHOR> http://justinwashere.com/the-suicide-shower/ <comment><USER2> No, this is a _homicide_ shower.</comment>


How Compete.com kicked everyones Ass - <AUTHOR> http://okdork.com/2008/09/04/how-competecom-kicked-everyones-ass/

<comment><USER2> Reduces to one sentence: People prefer Compete to Alexa because it's more accurate.</comment>


Fsociety web app - <AUTHOR> http://www.whoismrrobot.com/fsociety/

<comment><USER2> It's funny because it requires a Facebook login, and Elliot isn't on Facebook and hates it :-)</comment>


Unreal.js: V8-Powered JavaScript in UnrealEngine 4 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ncsoft/Unreal.js <comment><USER2> Wow, that's going to be big if the implementation is performant. Well done.</comment>


Python recursion visualization with rcviz - <AUTHOR> https://zvzzt.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/python-recursion-visualization-with-rcviz/

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is pretty cool. I like how elegant the usage of it is, just decorate the functions and then render the graph. It'd be great to have more export options. For instance, getting the raw .dot source would be great.

<comment><USER3> From the doc[0]:

        The output file type is derived from the file name.
        Supported types include .dot (graphviz dot file),
        .png (png image), .svg (vector graphic)

[0] [https://github.com/carlsborg/rcviz](https://github.com/carlsborg/rcviz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Attach this to code dynamically with `sys.settrace()`</comment>


From Google (Norvig): How to write a spelling check in 20 lines (very cool) - <AUTHOR> http://www.norvig.com/spell-correct.html <comment><USER2> As one of the collaborative projects on my social network, we asked that people code a spelling check script in PHP. One member, who had zero previous knowledge of PHP took up the challenge. After investing a few hours into it, he came up with the following:

<http://shuzak.com/Teamwork.php>

You're welcome to download the source code. One major issue with the code is that it loses efficiency when the dictionary size is increased from 1,000 to 20,000 words.

<comment><USER3> Memcache your dictionary if you can. Or dump it into a MySQL heap table. That will speed it up a lot.

Seriously, though, looping through the dictionary is really a bad solution. Maybe reading the dictionary into an associative array and matching on index or something like that would be a better idea for speed. Loop through words in the post instead of words in the dictionary.

The major limitation here is that it requires a word to be in the dictionary to be considered correct. Non-optimal. No pluralization handling (other than brute forcing by adding to the dictionary), no possessive case (as was noted in the code), and no new-line handling (hint: simply strip all newlines from input, replace with a space, and be done with it. Check for hypens before a new-line to detect continued words; though, that is unlikely in a web post. Just don't use the output directly into a post. Maintain a control copy.)

Also, I can't download the source directly (file not found). I had to edit the URL to make it work. You need to fix the link by removing the second instance of shuzak.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The headline is somewhat misrepresentative - this is on Mr. Norvig's personal site, so it's only from him, not from Google.

</comment><comment><USER5> Half of the value of this example is the chance to see beautiful code. Looking at it has improved my programming.

That makes me wonder: are there repositories of quality code out there for us to use as training sets? Links?</comment>


Ask YC: Can other investors join the round of funding with YC? - <AUTHOR>

We've applied for YC this round. We've had two [one very prominent angel & one large seed fund] contact us asking if they could (maybe) invest.
We would love their money (small amounts initially - enough for Q2 2010 with growth), and we'd love the YC mentorship, branding and community.
Is there a way to make it work? Or do we just ask to speak to them after YC? Sorry for posting on an alt, with this stuff I'm really paranoid. <comment><USER2> It's not in your interest to have them join the same round. The valuation YC invests at would be a bad one if we were only supplying money. So what we'd recommend is doing another round after YC's at a higher valuation. If you were in YC we'd obviously help you arrange that. Your call whether you want to take the money during YC or have your potential investors come to Demo Day with everyone else (assuming they don't already).

<comment><USER3> How would other investors react to this? It seems an obvious case of letting one investor in at valuation A & another at valuation A+B with anchoring in the relative value of the company at these two points.

Is the socially correct in the investment world?

</comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter Why would you want to take both? It would seem to me that if people are approaching you asking to invest you're in a fantastic position. The money they're offering seems (Q2 2010) to be more than the standard YC offer but what you're getting there is (mentorship + community + brand + Demo Day + MONEY) whereas all you're guaranteed from the Angel/Seed Fund is money. You will more than likely get mentorship as well but the community and brand are not availabler outside YC.

It sounds like you're being offered ~double YC standard investment, but how much stock your potential investors want is not mentioned.

You're obviously in a good position with people looking to invest in you already but why would YC take on the pain of having others in on the round with them on anything resembling an equal basis unless they think you're so fantastic a bet that they'd be fools not to take it, like when Sequoia and Kleiner (bastards who invest in patent trolls) Perkins went in together on Google, which didn't need the money?

<comment><USER4> It is not that much money and if you can double the team and have a better product by Demo Day, you may be in a better position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the YC startups I have spoken to, you can raise more money from outside investors, but it cannot change the fundamental terms and amount you receive from YC.

If you talk to YC, I'm sure they have a pretty good strategy on that since they're very entrepreneur-friendly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably a direct e-mail to the YC partners would've been more appropriate

</comment><comment><USER6> No reason you can't take both I think... but I'd wait for PG to weigh in.</comment>


Projects in Sublime Text 2 - <AUTHOR> http://thecrumb.com/thecrumb/2012/01/24/projects-in-sublime-text-2/

<comment><USER2> You can add the first folder by opening it(cmd+o) or add it by dragging it into the SublimeText view.

Also if you wish to remove project from the quick switch list you can do so by editing the recent_workspaces array in the Session.sublime_session. On osX you can find it under /Users/USER_NAME/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Settings/</comment>


Constant Energy Diffusion in D3 - <AUTHOR> http://bl.ocks.org/ZJONSSON/raw/1706849/

<comment><USER2> Awesome -- would be great if the jitter were reduced when the spheres are closely packed!

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially they overlap which is one of the main cause of the jitter. Spreading out the initial locations would be a remedy, but then I would have to find a different way to explain "diffusion" to my daughter :)</comment></comment>


Teen: I Am Not the Boston Marathon Bomber - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/teen-am-not-boston-marathon-bomber-175755674--abc-news-topstories.html <comment><USER2> FFS, ABC:

"Barhoun's younger brother, who declined to be identified..."

Seriously? First of all, the kid is under 18, so you shouldn't be identifying him anyway without his parents' permission, but second, you _just identified him_.

<comment><USER3> This is intentional and common in deliberately shoddy journalism. They're violating every fiber of journalistic ethics without _technically_ running afoul of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a classic example of why this type of information should just be forwarded to the authorities. Last thing we need is a mob mentality going after someone who may turn up to be innocent; it's happened before, and it can happen again.

<comment><USER5> Surprise! This type of information IS indeed handed over to the authorities - [http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1ck5hl/me...](http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1ck5hl/media_outlets_please_stop_making_the_images_of/)

<comment><USER6> "just"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, to be clear, the teen Salah Barhoun was the guy in the blue tracksuit who some 4chan'ers thought was the bomber. Also called out here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5562975>

Here's the NYPost cover where he was featured: [http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk- production/images/28618/large/o-N...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk- production/images/28618/large/o-NEW-YORK-POST-570.jpg?1366309915)

And this is why vigilante justice sucks. I'm just glad that some nutcase in real life didn't go off on him and he went to the police himself to clear his name before anything bad happened to him.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately being doxxed by Reddit (funny how Reddit is known for that these days) isn't a requirement for having some nutcases go off on you:

[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bx_idiots_beat_up_a...](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bx_idiots_beat_up_arab_in_revenge_76qKozmZwDUpLUbacqqP3O)

Ironically NY Post was one of the "news" sources driving up the hysteria and publishing these photos.

<comment><USER8> Not ironically, the NY Post is just as bad as the Daily Mail.

On the day of the bombing, they were reporting that the bomber had already been arrested. The day after the bombing, they had a picture on their cover of a backpack that was supposedly the bomb... except it wasn't. Today, they had a picture of two middle eastern looking people, who had nothing to do with the bombing. This is par the course for the NY Post.

My favorite though, is when I used to do political work, the NY Post would show up to large events, set up a quick photoshoot with paid actors, then leave, and whatever they staged a picture of would be the next day's front page.

Fuck the post.

<comment><USER9> Is there no penalty available for flagrantly inaccurate and damaging reporting?

<comment><USER10> Well, in the UK you can complain to the Press Complaints Commission. Headed by the editor of the Daily Mail

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Classic News Corp. material - lazy and sensationalist. Unless the people who are targeted start filing libel suits and claiming damages in these cases, the organizations that profit from this jump-to-conclusions journalism crap will keep just on doing it.

Listen to NPR, read the New York Times, AP Wire. Stay the hell away from TV and all News Corp. publications.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is a lot of hate here for the "vigilantes" who singled him out. In no way do I approve of the subreddit devoted to finding these people, but I think many of the comments here blow what happened out of proportion.

No one arrested him, fired him, threatened him, or tried to hurt him. Even to a kid, I can't imagine this impacting your life too much. If he were traumatized, he'd not be allowing everyone to use his name.

Again, I don't approve of this kind of speculation, but they always labeled their work as speculation and discouraged people from acting on it. I think we might just be over-reacting.

<comment><USER3> > _"No one arrested him, fired him, threatened him, or tried to hurt him."_

Citation needed... _Far_ tamer acts have elicited all of the above when put in front of the Internet Hate Machine (which now includes Reddit).

Remember Adria Richards? Yeah, she didn't kill anyone and she _still_ got direct threats of being raped and killed.

The individual here hasn't been arrested or fired, but you can bet your ass he has been threatened and intimidated in ways neither of us can even imagine. The level of cruelty internet strangers have repeatedly demonstrated to others can best be described as "unquantifiably high".

> _"Again, I don't approve of this kind of speculation, but they always > labeled their work as speculation and discouraged people from acting on > it."_

This is a cop-out, and has about as much legitimacy as those "no copyright infringement intended" descriptions under pirated YouTube videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> STOP doing this!!!. This is irresponsible at many levels. A really huge mistake

Everybody knows currently that this guy is not suspitious at all and police will be glued to him 25 hours a day in the next weeks, but... what if the true bombers had seeing the photos of the guy with the big red circle on 4chan before his declaration?

What a golden opportunity for the ba[dg] guys could be... They only need to reach this boy, with name graciously provided by the stupid press, before the police gets him. Two minutes in facebook and they have the direction. Later, "the main suspect commits suicide" at home, "solved" crime and jail avoided... what's the next target?

Please STOP putting people inside a circle... just now! Don't publish the real name of a "suspect" with big uppercase letters! This should be strictly forbiden. Just give a copy of the photos to the police, is as simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER14> And _that_ is what it really happens "when you give 4chan images of the Boston Marathon".

<comment><USER15> Observe that 4chan users did not set up a whole board devoted to the topic and a spreadsheet of suspects. Nor, for that matter, do alleged journalists frequently use 4chan as a primary source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Mob justice was wrong? Hoocoodaknown??

This is such a freaking waste of time. He had to go clear his name, and the cops had to listen to him.

<comment><USER17> Where's the "mob justice" part? Seems more like crowdsourced investigation. The crowd came up with a theory, that theory was sent to the authorities, and the suspect went to the police preemptively.

<comment><USER18> > Where's the "mob justice" part? Seems more like crowdsourced investigation.

In this case, same thing.

> The crowd came up with a theory, that theory was sent to the authorities, > and the suspect went to the police preemptively.

And you really have no idea why this process might have caused Salah Barhoun to experience genuine fear for his safety and the safety of his family? Not to mention all the anxiety any normal, thinking person experiences when having to deal unexpectedly with both the national media and the police?

<comment><USER17> >In this case, same thing.

When people use the term "mob justice" they are usually referring to something less benign than the public collaborating online to provide the FBI with the tips they're asked the public for.

>And you really have no idea why this process might have caused Salah Barhoun to experience genuine fear for his safety and the safety of his family?

Anyone finding themselves in the spotlight unexpectedly is going to be stressed. He's doing the right thing by going to the authorities. His name will then likely be quickly cleared.

<comment><USER18> > When people use the term "mob justice" they are usually referring to > something less benign than the public collaborating online to provide the > FBI with the tips they're asked the public for.

We're using the term advisedly. It's the interpretation of events that there seems to be some disagreement about.

> Anyone finding themselves in the spotlight unexpectedly is going to be > stressed. He's doing the right thing by going to the authorities. His name > will then likely be quickly cleared.

You completely ignored the question, and it's an important one. Do you really, sincerely not understand how being fingered as a suspect in a very public way, in America, in 2013, in a terrorist bombing case, will cause a dark-skinned guy with a foreign name to experience well-founded and reasonable fear for his safety and the safety of his family?

I don't know how much further I can unpack this for you. "The subreddit" (whatever the hell that means) engaged in a small - perhaps accidental, in the way a lot of what a mob does is accidental - act of terror in a time of terror. Good job with that. It would be nice if they actually acknowledged it, but I expect they'll soon just move on to putting words over pictures of cats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I read on the fbi.gov that US.A. Carmen Ortiz is in charge, I am not surprised that the daily routine of these 2 innocent people was already drastically damaged for the upcoming years.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was actually wondering yesterday if this would happen. You'd have to be living under a rock for those pictures not to get back to you. And when they did why wouldn't you immediately come forward and say "it wasn't me."

[Sorry for being unclear. I knew he came forward. I was saying that that happening was predictable.]

<comment><USER21> You also have to be living under a rock not to read the second paragraph of the article

"Salah Barhoun, 17, said he _went to the police yesterday to clear his name_ after he found himself tagged in pictures online"

<comment><USER20> Sorry for being unclear. I knew he came forward. I was saying that that happening was predictable. Most people would have done the same.

<comment><USER21> Ooh, sorry about that :) I was in a snarky mood. Also looking at the rest of this thread, it seems that communication has broken down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In the Netherlands you could sue anyone publishing your face without your permission. There are exemptions for media in some cases, but suspects like here still have to get at least a black bar so that they're not easily recognizable. Doesn't America have similar laws?

<comment><USER23> Only some states require consent of the person in the photo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Jpeg investigation 5 minutes after the event turns out not to give legitimate results, shocker.

</comment><comment><USER25> Twitter and FB are amazing tools for spreading ideas (Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Rebecca Black's "Friday", etc.) but they have also resulted in a shameful lack of fact-checking and an inexcusable free-fall in journalistic reporting standards that seems to have no end in sight.

What will it take to bring reporting standards back up to anywhere near their pre-social media levels?

For example, why can't the FCC start handing out massive fines ($x million) to news agencies that report false or inaccurate information? Of course that's not scalable but hopefully it could act as a deterrent and make people think twice before they post something. If the FCC can fine CBS $550,000 for allowing Janet Jackson's nipple to be exposed on national TV, you'd think they could do the same when major news companies' rushed reporting ends up ruining people's lives.

People's lives are being destroyed time and again by well-intentioned but misguided individuals and companies disseminating false information. Is there really nothing that can be done?

<comment><USER26> Nope, nothing. Well, you can win sometimes, but it has to be National Enquirer-level blatant. "New York Times Co. v. Sullivan" is the basis for modern defamation cases and it is heavily weighted to the press.

The second part is that the FCC does not have "truth" in its charter, but it does have decency legislation. Although a recent ABC case might make it impossible for the FCC to repeat the CBS Superbowl fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is exactly the kind of scenario I said would happen in previous HN comment in another submission (as did many others). Reddit and 4Chan speculate and distribute images of innocent people, the media would eventually pick them up and people would be false-fully accused of being the bomber. It's the Ryan Lanza situation all over again. If you have suspicions, privately send your concerns and imagery to the authorities and let them handle things, don't post them onto Tumblr or Reddit without any proof, you could be ruining the lives of innocent people.

Put yourself in this situation. Your picture is being plastered all over the news and Facebook, you are being called a suspect in a brutal bombing case, your family see your image and immediately assume the worse, your employer sees the photo and you lose your job and you weren't even involved. The media doing what they seem to do best in this day and age: report now, fact check later.

</comment><comment><USER26> So, no major news network or newspaper did itself any favors. NBC, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, Post, etc. all printed or aired bogus stories and the American public is confused and ill informed. CNN earned a spot on the Daily Show.

I don't know the answer other than some network could make a decent business out of only airing confirmed facts and actually giving us a view of the scene without the pundits. Actually interview people there and skip the "inside sources".

Who am I kidding, its all about what KK feels about the event.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is so important. Online research can do a lot of good, but it is so easy to get carried away. I'm impressed by what reddit and 4chan and all the others found, but taking action is the job of cops.

</comment><comment><USER29> It reminds me of Harold and Kumar: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDz74_ANojg>

</comment><comment><USER30> Sunil Tripathi, however, may be one of the Boston Marathon Bombers. Internet vigilantism applied to high profile "offline" crimes is intriguing.

</comment><comment><USER31> I honestly think it's time to take Rupert Murdoch's news empire from him, and destroy it.

The world is a shittier place with him and his BS propaganda outlets in it.</comment>