Mate: Netflix browser extension for learning words via subtitles - <AUTHOR> https://www.matetranslate.com/netflix <comment><USER2> It would be cool (but super niche) to have a "wait, what was that" button in Netflix. Skip back 10s, enable subs. Would be great when you're trying not to use the subtitles, but sometimes get a bit outpaced.

Edit: maybe not so niche! Someone build a WebExtension!

<comment><USER3> I just always have subs on. There are shows which are downright unwatchable without subs (e.g. True Detective). I'm not a native speaker, but I'm fluent.

<comment><USER4> Subs also add a lot of the plot sometimes. Certain quiet sounds you wouldn't otherwise hear are mentioned in the subs that can set a scene, foreshadow, or explain motives.

<comment><USER5> So, are those sounds really that quiet? I noticed this before, that sometimes subtitles mention a sound I haven't heard, but I always assumed it's due to my slightly impaired hearing. I wonder if this happens to people with good hearing as well.

<comment><USER6> Never came across this myself and have above average hearing...

One explanation might be if you're watching a 5.1 surround sound movie and playing it through your monitor's built-in speakers which can't handle the extra channels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://languagelearningwithnetflix.com](https://languagelearningwithnetflix.com) is a similar tool. Allows side-by-side subtitles in two languages. It also lets you skip back one whole sentence at a time to re-hear a line.

I used it to start trying to hear and parse Japanese (only about a month in of learning, so brand new, and just hearing the words and sounds of the language is still tricky).

<comment><USER8> It's also amazing. However, Mate is less intrusive in your Netflix experience. It's still the same-looking subtitle which you can just translate and save for learning now. Also, an option to export saved vocab as a CSV or to a vocabulary learning app Reji may come in handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Watching TV and movies with subtitles is a great way for intermediate language learners (B1 and above) to progress. Kudos to Mate for thinking of capturing this in Netflix with a browser add-on.

However, creating a flash card with a translation to your native language is _not_ the best way to master vocabulary. A translation (or, "gloss") can be helpful initially, but it's more important to see the word in context.

It would be great if a browser extension would include spaced repetition / flash card creation of both production cards (sentence with a blank usually) and comprehension cards (the word alone) and pull up the original video frame for context whenever checking one's recall.

FD: I hold an MA in TESOL / applied linguistics / language acquisition, and I have several years' experience teaching ESL students. However, I am not yet fluent in my own second language (Russian). Working on that with the Fluent Forever methodology (though not their new app).

<comment><USER10> I think you are underestimating how effective flashcards can be, particularly as part of a larger system. I'm starting a 4-year PhD in September to develop a system that will gloss words (in text/subtitles in a variety of clients, like FF, ebook readers, media players, etc.) that aren't in your (Anki- compatible) flashcards. That means you get to read "normal" text, enriched with glosses only for words you don't know. The idea is basically to provide automated scaffolding at exactly the level the learner is currently at vocab- wise.

There is an extension to Anki that does what you suggest with the video frames (at least for Japanese?), and I want to integrate that (or similar) at some stage. But there are _heaps_ of cool ideas to implement if you take the flashcard database as a first approximation of a representation of the learner's (lexical) knowledge of a language and then enrich real-world texts that the learner is interested in with enough help to appreciate the real- world content. The beauty with having a representation of the learner's knowledge is that you can take a number of different approaches (say depending on the % of unknown words) or even just let the learner decide how much help they want/need on a given content consumption session. With even a small number of users the data generated will also be pretty awesome for research purposes.

It's pretty clunky still (I haven't started the thesis yet) but it is all going to be completely open-source and I definitely hope I'm not the only one to contribute to it, so hopefully it will get some momentum at some stage, and there will be heaps of clients that can talk to the server part. [https://transcrob.es](https://transcrob.es)

<comment><USER11> Can I sign up to receive updates about it? I'm very curious. This could be pretty awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For me, watching TV shows with subtitles is an excellent way to learn a language, once you are beyond the basics.

I would watch the show with subtitles; when I didn't understand something, I would pause, look up the phrase/words, write them down for future repetition and continue.

A technology solution for this is awesome.

<comment><USER13> I'm doing the opposite. I'm trying to learn Spanish so I'm currently rewatching Game of Thrones in Spanish, with English subtitles (delayed by 2 seconds). I first try to understand what's being said and if I don't then I glance down for assistance.

<comment><USER14> The subtitle delay is clever, I'll have to remember that. Although personally I would probably use subtitles in the target language (and use a dictionary if there's something I don't understand).

<comment><USER13> Sure, I do that as well. I guess it depends on your method of learning and/or current level. The downside to staring at subtitles in my mind is that you: a) miss the acting (just keeping your left hemisphere glued to the text and trying to decipher it) b) miss actually _hearing_ the language, which even if you don't even understand a word is useful since it will introduce you to the overall "sound" of it as well as a lot of repeating phrases

If you're learning how to read/write the language subtitles in that language seems like a great option. If you're starting out, it helps a lot to hear the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I did something similar for myself using mpv's scripting interface (for Japanese immersion).

I can press a button and have the current subtitle analyzed for words with mecab, or press another button and have audio + screenshot + text sent to Anki for review.

mpv allows to seek previous/next subtitle, so even relistening a particular phrase is really convenient.

It makes language learning really fun.

<comment><USER16> The audio + screenshot + text sent to Anki for review script sounds awesome as well as the current subtitle analysis. Can you share these?

<comment><USER15> Indeed, you get high quality in context cards, something that is still missing from most Anki decks.

The code is here [https://github.com/pigoz/mpv- nihongo](https://github.com/pigoz/mpv-nihongo), keep in mind that a lot of stuff is hardcoded, poorly documented, and it requires an mpv patch to work.

If there's enough interest, I can try and make it simple for someone that's not me to use.

<comment><USER16> Awesome. I'd be interested in adopting it to use for French!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is a streaming platform Rakuten Viki (quite popular among Korean drama lovers) which already has a language learning tools as a part of the product. I haven't used it personally because they are focusing on Korean, which is not my language choice, but it looked quite nice.

Also they have a subtitling community - any user can contribute to shows translation.

I am struggling to understand why Netflix is not thinking about that. It would greatly improve the experience and, probably, user base too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Many years ago, I created BabelFrog, a chrome extension to to instantly displaying the translation for any highlighted text. Unlike other similar extensions, I don't have access to your pages until it's activated, slowing down your browsing or risk your privacy.

It's activated with a keyboard shortcut: Cmd-E or Ctrl-E.

[https://babelfrog.com](https://babelfrog.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> Subtitles are an extremely effective way to learn a language. And this extension makes it that much better.

But these edge use cases will actually become less and less common as big copyright tightens its grip on how content should be consumed.

Like, how can you get this functionality on an iPad?

</comment><comment><USER20> Theres a ton of research on the impact of subtitles on literacy acquisition for kids. We are currently running a project aiming to convince the major broadcasters to turn these on by default for kids TV. You can find out more on www.turnonthesubtitles.org

<comment><USER21> I've read that reading is involuntary to literate adults. Do you know anything about this?

This is such a great idea. In my experience, most people complain the subtitles are distracting because they can't help but focus on them and read them.

This is _exactly_ what learner readers should be doing in front of a screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing!

This is generally a good way to immerse yourself in a language with content that actually interests you - now you don't have to maintain a separate window/notes/etc.

I really like the idea, and it looks well executed.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is really fantastic! I have been looking for a good app for this for a while. It seems like there are several solutions for it, all emerging around the same time, which is great news for language learners!

Request: please add an option to not continue playing the video after I click "save". It is aggravating when there are several words that need to be saved at once and I have to pause the video quickly to get all of them.

You could also make the UI much smoother by copying the way the FluentU player works: pause the video and show a translation as soon as the user mouses over any subtitles. Unpause the video when they mouse away from the subtitles.

It would also be really helpful to have some contextual information saved with each word. The surrounding phrase would be helpful, for instance. It would be really fantastic to be able to save the screenshot (in low resolution to save space), but I understand if copyright prevents that somehow.

I really, really wish there were a more open solution for this. Has anyone else used LWT (Learning with Texts)? You could specify the dictionary API/URLs to use. (There were also really primitive word splitting regex settings, but I didn't find them very useful.) I want to be able to get more information on complicated words, from either compounding (German) or extensive morphology (Turkish). I want to be able to look up Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Thai words; these languages require extra processing to extract words because they don't separate words explicitly. When studying Japanese or Chinese, I want to be able to save characters for later study, not just words.

In general I really wish I could dig in and add functionality that I know I would love but I'm not confident that a large enough audience to warrant core app changes would need.

<comment><USER11> Just noticed, this also doesn't play well with NetflixMultiSubs ([https://github.com/dannvix/NflxMultiSubs](https://github.com/dannvix/NflxMultiSubs)). I would like to be able to have multiple subtitles shown on the screen while studying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> One benefit of using a VPN was that Netflix provided shows with far more subtitle options in regions outside the USA. I never understood why if the subtitles existed for a particular language that they wouldn't be present in the USA version of Netflix. For example, now that you can't use a VPN with Netflix I haven't been able to access German subtitles from the USA. Is there a way around this?

<comment><USER24> I have been saying this forever, i have no clue why all subtitles are not available. When I was in italy all of my favorite shows had italian subtitles, now im back in the US, they disappeared.

<comment><USER25> Change your netflix app language to your target language and you magically get more subtitle options, if available. In US Netflix, when I set my language to english, I see english, spanish, and maybe french or italian for some shows. When I set my language to Korean, I see English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese (trad and simplified) when they are available for that show.

Why they base it on your display language and don't just have a setting that is "show me X, Y, and Z language subtitles if available", I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What if Mate kept track of the vocab you learned and as you browsed the internet, replaced English words in articles with that vocab

</comment><comment><USER27> Had the same idea a while ago - only with "watching a series that you know already by heart". Unfortunately I soon found out that there is no spanish version of Start Trek TNG on Netflix/Amzn Prime. ( but I _so_ wanted to see Patrick Steward yelling "Señor Worf!" )

<comment><USER28> I think Patrick Stewart saying 'hazlo así' or 'make it so' would've been brilliant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> While my primary wish would still be something that targets novels ("Learn enough Italian to read Eco"), something similar for TV shows wouldn't be that bad. Preferably not a dubbed version, so that it's clearer that you've already got a benefit from learning what little you did. Problem is that a lot of TV shows are very much in the vernacular. I wouldn't recommend e.g. the Wire for ESL studies.

I learned a lot of my early English from reading tabletop RPGs, so I've got no problem learning about twelve kinds of polearms before I learn the words you need to get by in a hotel…

<comment><USER30> Maybe dual-language novels are what you're thinking of?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> A list of vocabulary words from the movie to memorize ahead of time would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone know of a "reader" app for books that does something similar?

(Totally getting this though---I might not be sold on the Netflix stuff but in general this plugin seems invaluable to me at this point in my Russian skills).

<comment><USER15> You can look up words on the Kindle. And if you highlight them there are ways to access the highlighted sentences in a machine-friendly way (to i.e. export them to Anki).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is fantastic. It would be great to use this to also train text-to-speech models replicating specific people by feeding unsubbed video clips of the same person into it, a la something like wave net [1], or what Google is doing with John Legend [2].

[1] [https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-generative-model-raw- audio...](https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-generative-model-raw-audio/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHghcYqeto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHghcYqeto)

</comment><comment><USER34> I could see there being use for something similar to this targeted towards children for expanding their vocabulary.

Similarly, how neat would it be to have a program that does this for object in video, and testing the viewer on the name of the object? Perhaps to avoid error as a result of imperfections in the neural net, it would require 2 parties, the learners and the teachers. The teachers would go through a video ahead of time with the video, making sure there are no errors, then that session would be saved and the teacher could play it back for the learners.

<comment><AUTHOR> @ language learning: I wish there was a way to watch movies in various vocabulary difficulty levels. Would be awesome for learning. Makes me wonder whether there are fan-dubs with different wordings.

<comment><USER35> Kindle has this in eBooks, for English and Chinese. There's 3 or 4 difficulty levels. I'm just hoping they'll add more languages. (Or that there will be a free software solution...)

<comment><AUTHOR> wow, did not know, thanks for the pointer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Nice & useful. I just wish this worked for Youtube videos,too. Currently I am using Copyfish to grab text from images/videos: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copyfish-%F0%9F%90...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copyfish-%F0%9F%90%9F-free- ocr-soft/eenjdnjldapjajjofmldgmkjaienebbj?hl=en)

Copyfish works well, but since it is a generic solution for copying text from embedded subtitles/images, it is not optimized for language learning.

<comment><USER8> We're planning on supporting Youtube in the same way as Netflix now. Within a month or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Warning for potential users: in order to export the words that you save, you must pay for the premium version of the app.

At $10 lifetime user price, it's not bad. But if you watch a couple shows to try it out and then want to save your work, you will have to pay.

<comment><USER11> I paid. It's worth the price :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Would be cool to see more up front in the privacy policies/terms in conditions (or, source even) to get assurances that an app that can access all my browsing data is only doing so when I actively enable it (e.g., for the video I'm watching).

</comment><comment><USER38> A friend of mine learned english this way with TV and closed-captioning. He said that without the CCs, he often couldn't figure out how the word was spelled sufficiently to look it up, no matter how clearly he heard it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interested in seeing the linked tool Reji but the link ([https://reji.me/en/](https://reji.me/en/)) has a redirect loop for me.

</comment><comment><USER40> The permissions for the Chrome extension require data from all websites?

<comment><USER8> The extension also translates words and texts on any web page by double clicking or highlighting with the mouse. There's no way to do that without that permission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It seems like this doesn't work with Japanese subtitles but works for some other languages. Am I doing something wrong? Is there some way to make it work?

<comment><USER11> Ah yes, I know of this problem. For whatever reason Netflix subtitles for a few Asian languages are images instead of text. Maybe because of font support? I'm not sure. But you basically have to run OCR on the downloaded subtitles for these languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I should try this on my mom. she is learning English

</comment><comment><USER43> Social media links are broken btw, wanted to give you guys a like.

<comment><USER8> Oops... Fixed now! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> And here I Was doing it the old fashioned way, this is cool.

</comment><comment><USER42> btw it didnt work on firefox [https://imgur.com/a/Lpf1dIF](https://imgur.com/a/Lpf1dIF)

</comment><comment><USER45> interesting</comment>


A Soccer Con Man Who Couldn't Play the Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soccers-ultimate-con-man-was-a-superstar-who-couldnt-play-the-game <comment><USER2> How many of you have not worked with someone whom you suspected of not being able to program, despite being paid to do so?

Here's a description of an ex colleague of mine:

\- Asked me after 7 years about whether a system existed that could tell you the state of the code at a given time. You know, because it's inconvenient saving different versions in separate files.

\- Can't do anything other than changing literals without breaking it.

\- Can't tell you what the difference between an object and a class is.

\- Pretends his job is higher level than coding.

\- Since he can't do anything, goes to meetings explaining how he's the architect behind it all. And gets credit for it.

<comment><USER3> Yap saw it. A large company someone new hired. Hung around for about a year, managed to write 100 lines of code. Only 10 were ever accepted after peer review.

However come meeting time, would be very vocal about random technologies -- we'd talk about spawning a process and he'd chime in how you can do this complicated kernel trick with signals, or shared memory and whatnot. At first everyone was impressed. Heck, I was.

After a while nobody saw any results from him though. When came time to show his results he started to claim to have health issues. So was gone for a while.

After a couple of months the manager caught on and kept assigning him different tasks hoping they'd finally find something he's good at. Would get as simple task, yet instead of just doing it, he would re-frame as some complicated theoretical problem, which needed research and the solution needed something like P vs NP solved in order to deliver it. Not sure if someone in the end explicitly told him that "Look Pete, it is a test function, just write the test function. You don't have to solve P vs NP to do it". (Pete is not his real name)

But yeah he was invited to depart, after collected a nice salary for about a year. He's probably at another company now doing the same thing.

<comment><USER4> Oh man, this brings back memories...

There was this company (shall remain nameless) where the product was always "around the corner". Just one more week or two! Yes it doesn't work right now, but these are minor things, let us iron out the final bugs!

This went on for almost _two years_.

Leadership being non-technical, they didn't know whether what the "technical team" was telling them is true or not. They couldn't check, but were not idiots, so eventually suspected bullshit. So they hired us as "crisis consultants", to do an audit and put things back on track.

Needless to say, we had to scrap everything. Which, it turns out, was about half a dozen unfinished PHP scripts and some apache configs... the result of ~4 man-years of work!

The main employee squirmed and lied and lashed back during meetings. Not a pleasant experience at all. For anyone involved. When the true horror of the situation became apparent, they had to be let go.

Of course, this "worked out" only because we had the leadership's full backing (they really felt more shameful than angry, on account of their mismanagement), and because we could stand our ground technically. Now what to do if you're a grunt employee, without good access to leadership, observing such bullshit unfold... difficult. Chances are, the bullshitters are better at politics & smooth talking than you are, so confrontations are risky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This applies to the startup scene.

I have seen it first hand, someone managed to convince a few investors who were old and not very quick thinking that they should invest in his company.

The product idea was just awkward and made up. It was as if someone is given a 5 minute task to quickly think of a startup idea.

But he was a good smooth talker, so millions of dollars later down the drain, with a private office in the Valley, he can now claim he was a serial entrepreneur, CEO, mentor. He'd go to all meetups and give talks. Would publish a blog post here and there so he was also an "author".

Every time he was asked to present his product or asked when it was going to be shipped, he'd claim he saw this trendy technology at a meetup (last was some container thing) and claimed he needed to rewrite his stack using that to go "faster". That lasted for close to 5 years.

People claim it was a failure. I claim it was a major success for him. He's probably off to the next adventure. Not bad overall. Ride the hype and you'll make it!

<comment><USER5> I totally see this not only in the startup scene but life in general! in every trade there is a charlatan that will fake mastery of the skills needed to succeed.

<comment><USER6> I have definitely seen this happening as well. Being the hype and cool factor of startups, wantrepreneurs are sprouting everywhere. It is usually easy to spot them, all talk and nothing to show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's hard to believe that no rumors were circulated among the players or coaches of different teams, or at least, they were never strong enough for a single person to investigate seriously. Especially with the amount of money they must have been paying for nothing.

Although I guess if the fans are happy, the money is well spent...?

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he earned little or no money from most of his clubs, posing as an injured player desperately hoping to resurrect his career who was willing to train with them on a contract structured mostly on a pay-as-you-play basis. I suspect his limitations as a footballer were slightly exaggerated too: Brazilian Wikipedia records him as having made 15 appearances for Fluminense, one of Brazil's bigger clubs, at one stage of his career. As for the fans, I doubt many of them cared about or even knew the name of a free transfer signing in the reserve squad.

That theory doesn't fit with the narrative that well, but if there's one thing we know for sure about him it's that he knows how to spin a good story to the media.

<comment><USER9> Not sure if the Wikipedia page is true; it has no reference for the 15 appearances, as far as I can tell. Globo[1] says he only lasted a week in Fluminense.

[1] [http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/noticia/2011/05/briga-...](http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/noticia/2011/05/briga- com-torcedor-bolas-na-galera-celular-falso-aventuras-de-kaizer.html)

<comment><USER8> Globo seems to credit Ronaldo Torres with unmasking him as a fraud at both Botafogo and Fluminense...

Separating the reality from the fantasy is difficult when the sources from the period can't be relied upon: the Globo article also includes an clipping from a Brazilian newspaper - presumably written by one of his journalist friends - discussing him being the top scorer in the French third tier in 86/7! Which I'm pretty sure he wasn't. Various accounts of him as a footballing charlatan have this stint in France as a brief year in the middle of his career or an extended stint in its twilight; have his career begin as a promising teenager or as a 23 year old socialite. Attempts to total up his career appearances seem to agree he played in around 30 first team matches for professional clubs but disagree about whether these were only overseas or mostly in Brazil

Above all, even in the internet age you can see why some of his taller stories might have been believed...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me a little of Ali Dia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Dia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Dia)

Might not have been a con as such, but amusing none the less.

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Keane)

<comment><USER12> Wow - in reading about Walter Keane, I came across this old Life magazine article about his wife... but then I noticed all the OTHER articles in this magazine and I can't believe all the amazing stuff being written about here: a new AI bot from MIT and Stanford, the World Trade Center being built in NYC, computerization of India, Korea starting to manufacture semiconductors, and more... WOW: [https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56-IA1#v...](https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56-IA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At the lower tiers of the professional game, Brazilian footballers have an advantage in foreign markets because their nationality has a kind of soccer mystique. I can't find the exact quote, it was from an agent, saying it was easier to place a mediocre Brazilian than a brilliant Mexican (Somewhere in the book "Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life" by Alex Bellos). I know my local (second, third, maybe nth) tier professional team were very proud of three Brazilians, apparently obtained as a job lot. They came complete with single word names etc. After watching them play I was pretty sure the aquisition strategy was to pick three random twenty something dudes off the street of Sao Paulo or similar! These guys are sure to be good enough to play professionally in New Zealand right! To be fair one of the three could play and he made a decent career in Wellington. Daniel was his name if I remember correctly.

It looks like this guy took some advantage of this "Brazilian factor", although it hardly explains his stints at huge clubs like Botafogo etc. in Brazil itself!

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting that the article is almost a section by section copy of his Wikipedia page.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Kaiser_(footballer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Kaiser_\(footballer\))

<comment><USER15> Somehow fitting...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You see this everywhere. I saw this in school. Some kids got good grades but really knew jack shit. The grades were a result of memorizing, cheating, plagiarizing assignments, great rapport with professor and TA, great recommendations.

All this and now, working at top tech company.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow that's wild.

I guess it's nice to learn that despite technology opening up the doors to so many other cons, it also closes the doors to some older avenues. I'd venture a guess that the former significantly outweighs the latter, which is too bad, but oh well.

<comment><USER18> It's surprising that he wasn't uncovered through player stats. If a newspaper headline hints about someone's scoring ability, wouldn't a few people get curious and look up the actual stats in some soccer almanac to see how good it is. Maybe that data wasn't easy to come by. In any sport that supports a national stats-gathering bureaucracy, that would be hard to get away with. E.g. baseball in the USA: you know everyone's "batting average" and so on. (Not to mention that when players are traded, the teams or clubs have access to this info!)

<comment><USER19> Player stats are a really American thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Replace Soccer with pretty much anything and you can find similar examples. Yes, even in the IT field

<comment><USER21> Hard to fake injury tho

<comment><USER22> With HIPAA, employers really can't ask too many questions, and with the ability to "work from home" you can hide easily. Eventually they catch on, but it takes awhile. I've worked with a network "engineer" who pulled in six figures, while doing basically nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My favorite of all is the story of Elmyr de Hory who was the greatest art forger of all time. Something like $60million or more worth of fake art sold in his lifetime? Some of his Picasso's and others they say still hang in museums too afriad to admit they are fakes.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory)

Orsen Welles did a great movie on him and fakery in general - [http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gIVgUjj6RxU)

The question of who are the real fakers in the art world, the forger or the critics who are duped and swear that a painting is authentic.

The tragedy of Elymr was that he was a great painter but no one cared for his original works and he was much more successful as a forger. The same for Clifford Irving, ironically, who wrote Elymr's biography.

Irving wrote a fake biography of Howard Hues or something along those lines.

</comment><comment><USER24> There are some stories where reality surpass fiction. In addition to this, I found the story of Frédéric Bourdin to be hard to beleive yet real. The 2012 documentary _The Imposter_ tells the story in an astounding way: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1966604/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1966604/)

</comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of Elmyr de Hory. I watched him one of Orson Wells last movies "F for Fake" and I have no idea what to make of it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Any chance this piece itself is a fake?

(Asking for a friend, as they say.)

</comment><comment><USER27> At risk of being called overly-PC, I must point out that the opening sentence is could be seen as objectifying women:

>Brazilian soccer star Carlos Kaiser had it all: exclusive contracts with popular teams, money, fame, and women.

I normally don't point out things like this, because hyper-sensitivity to things that are often considered "offensive" when they really aren't can be annoying. But I can't see how to interpret this other than "women" being a possession.

To be fair, the author isn't likely being malicious, and I think he just means that he's receiving the attention of lots of women. Such attention is, arguably, an "object" in the sense of a commodity in the social marketplace ("that guy has a lot of women" is often seen as a compliment whether you like it or not). But still, I'm surprised at how much the author's choice of words bothered me. I don't even identify as a feminist in the traditional sense.... _shrug_.

<comment><USER28> Whilst I have friends I don't own them. I endeavour to obtain more friends, and I judge people as to whether they would be the kind of friend that I want - short or long term.

To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.

Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe women as being able to have lots of men - the _slut_ problem.

Enjoying regular sex and really exploring it, like any other hobby, seems incredibly reasonable. Hoping to enjoy lots of sex sounds like something anybody should want, and I don't see why this is limited as a descriptor for men only.

In short, pretty much everybody likes a good fucking - why are we afraid to say it?

<comment><USER29>
      To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate
      and useful - I do not see why this should be penalised.

Can you also see that someone might find this language offensive? That 'having a woman' is somehow vernacular but you don't really see women being described as having 'money, fame, men' ?

The language makes women sound like they are possessions.

<comment><USER28> I argue that it is correct to do so.

Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of something is not derogatory:

> I _have_ friends

I then argue that this usage is in fact desirable

> To describe somebody as 'having' women is often accurate and useful

Which is followed by stating that I also consider the language to be one sided

> Now what does confuse and upset me is the way in which we rarely describe > women as being able to have lots of men

So when you ask whether I can see that someone might find this language offensive I can only say "evidently". And when you state that we don't see women being described as having men I refer you to my earlier dismay. And when you state that the syntax of the language makes it look like women are possessions I wholeheartedly agree.

Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability to access sexual gratification" is detrimental to the expressiveness of the language?

<comment><USER29>
      Firstly I show how being grammatically in possession of
      something is not derogatory:

"Grammatically not being derogatory" is not the same as understanding how something is actually being received. Language is only as useful as it communicates messages, and I think you can believe what you do and still see how someone could find this offensive, given the landscape which you recognize is one-sided.

That is just what I meant. Justifying the usage as accurate and useful and grammatically correct doesn't take away from the point that someone can conceivably, justly, take offense to the language. It's valid for someone to feel the one-sidedness and inequality inherent to the statement.

      Can you see that removing reference to "a persons ability
      to access sexual gratification" is detrimental to the
      expressiveness of the language?

If I'm reading this correctly, then I disagree. I think there may be a better way to say what the author was trying to say that is sensitive to the objectification women face.

<comment><USER28> I understand how people take offense at this. However I am saying that their offense is misplaced and the call for action validates the censorship of womens sexual desires.

I think you understand this, we just sit wanting different things. To my mind you are calling for the censorship of mens sexual desires to match.

In regards to finding a better way for the author to have said it, I imagine simply replacing 'women' with sex would be both more explicit and absent of trigger words.

<comment><USER29>
      the call for action validates the censorship of womens
      sexual desires

How does asking people to be more sensitive validate the censorship of women's sexual desires? I think that's overthinking it.

Women are an underprivileged group right now, and nobody's "calling for censorship." I'm just asking for kindness. Is there anything wrong in hoping that people can be more kind?

There are many offensive things we avoid saying in general. It's not new, and it's not different to ask that people respect one another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I find this story very hard to believe or grossly exaggerated. I mean this is soccer we're talking about, not brain surgery. If you plucked a random reasonably healthy person who had never seen a soccer ball in his/her life off any street in America say, and put them in a pro club with a contract and daily training with other pros, that person would probably become a reasonably good soccer player. Was it really harder for him to just, well you know, play than to fake it for 20 something odd years?

<comment><USER31> Apparently you are completely unaware of just how highly skilled they players are at this level. If anyone could do it they would, it's a highly desirable career.

<comment><USER32> This is correct. Football is "our thing" in the UK. Even in high school, some kids just had a knack for it and could run rings around everyone. There was no amount of training you could do to catch up to them. None of these kids went on to play professional football - they weren't good enough.</comment></comment></comment>


I downloaded an app and was part of the Cajun Navy - <AUTHOR> http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/I-downloaded-an-app-And-suddenly-I-was-talking-12172506.php?cmpid=twitter-premium <comment><USER3> I notice people talking about untrained ad hoc groups VS professional and paraprofessionals.

There is no competition here, there is only lives saved. Untrained ad hoc groups had smaller boats, had more boats, and were able to help people who would have died otherwise.

I do think it is worthwhile to talk about problems that occurred. Get a list of them, prioritize them, find solutions. Though they have to be solutions that don't make things worse, preferably ones that get tested during a mock disaster, not during the next real one.

One thing to note: Most people involved in these efforts were good intentioned and did their best. There are a few reports of bad actors, but they were rare.

<comment><USER4> A decent plan executed fast beats the perfect solution next week every time when lives are on the line. That said, now we have some time to think and plan. So let's make an app.

What training videos or info graphics does an ad-hoc flood rescue group need? How about urban earthquake? Terrorism response? Wildfire? How do you do effective dispatch? Triage? How do you best integrate with the professionals when they show up?

The knowledge gap between an amateur and a paraprofessional has never been substantial, and now we have the ability to provide training on-demand. We just need to build the capability to rapidly scale baseline knowledge and plug into a coordinated network. When disaster hits, you download the app and see what you can do.

<comment><USER3> There is knowledge and there are skills. An app can provide knowledge, but only training and practice can provide skills.

Skills may, to a limited extent, be substituted by something that guides decision making. Like that chatbot that helps people file small claims against Equifax. But that works best with well documented stable situations, and can be brittle in more fluid (no pun intended) ones.

As well, when it comes to definitive local resources like phone numbers, web sites, you have to keep checking them and updating them. And if information is changing rapidly or uncertain, this may be extremely difficult.

I am a generally thoughtful individual, but I really see the benefit of a domain expert in planning any app or tool for this purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The second he answered, he was screaming that his brother and cousin were > laying in the backyard, unresponsive, possibly electrocuted.

> I told him they needed to try to get to them

> I went to the bathroom, refilled my tea, walked around a bit, thinking to > myself, "What are you doing?? You're not qualified to do this!"

I'm not trained to handle this sort of thing either, but I'm pretty sure if you suspect someone has been electrocuted you shouldn't encourage others to attempt to rescue them unless you're confident they aren't also at risk of electrocution.

<comment><USER6> I was mortified reading this part. As well, telling people rescue is soon when you don't know (or know it isn't) can be disastrous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish there were a disaster militia, with something like quarterly weekend trainings, with some FEMA sponsorship but still independent. It would be fun to practice ham communications and boat rescue anyway, and a little bit of practice could have a huge impact when the shit is truly hitting the fan.

<comment><USER8> That's sort of what the national guard is for. They train a couple weeks per year and respond to situations like this.

<comment><USER7> Well, the national guard aren't civilians or local, plus they get sent to fight in wars and shit.

I am thinking more like a level below volunteer firepeople, with some regional and national coordination.

<comment><USER9> state guard. many states have it.

Or form your own. visit your local shooting range for details.

<comment><USER10> My (outsider's) impression of most private militias is that they often structure around people who are itching to gun down some bad dudes, as opposed to provide humanitarian aid.

Like, ah, these fine gentlemen. [1]

[1] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/new9wd/the-birth-of- canad...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/new9wd/the-birth-of-canadas- armed-anti-islamic-patriot-group)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When Katrina hit, I remember finding the blog of a guy who had a company doing custom websites in New Orleans on the front page of hacker news. He stayed there through the storm and after, and I remember sitting in the undergraduate library at Wayne State University fighting back tears reading it. This had a similar affect on me. Very powerful story.

It wasn't clear to me, but I'd love to learn more about the tech powering this app. Is it open source? Is it somehow decentralized?

<comment><USER12> You might be thinking about [https://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/](https://interdictor.livejournal.com/2005/08/) ?

<comment><USER13> The Interdictor // this is the one that I remember. I was glued to this guy's post during that time ... was fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The part of this story I don't understand myself, is how so many people had bandwidth to download and use an app, in an environment in which I would have assumed both power and the cell network–especially data–were limping or just down.

The implicit question is, what percentage of people in the disaster zone did, and did not, have a channel out through this app? Does this story represent the 10% case or the 50% case or...?

Not sure where to find the answer...

<comment><USER15> Some of the cellphone network can operate with no wired power or network. Towers can have p2p microwave links and battery backups. That doesn't really answer your question about how/if/how-long it worked this week.

[http://ups-battery-backup.com/cell-phone-ups.php](http://ups-battery- backup.com/cell-phone-ups.php)

[https://enterprise.spectrum.com/solutions/carrier- services/c...](https://enterprise.spectrum.com/solutions/carrier- services/cell-tower-backhaul.html)

<comment><USER16> Some of the ones near me even have small wind generators.

<comment><USER17> These probably were super-effective during this occasion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's really depressing that we've largely abandoned the art of decentralized radio communication. I think Amateur radio has seen a minor resurgence in recent years, but it seems like more and more traffic that traditionally would have been passed by decentralized amateur operators now relies on centralized networks.

Obviously Zello and its ilk bring significant benefits with them, but I worry about the impact they have on proliferation of radio skills.

<comment><USER19> Amateur radio is still alive, but there are not nearly as many active hams as there were 30 years ago when I first got my license. A much smaller percentage of hams know how to pass traffic in a systematic way these days, and not as many are proficient with Morse code, which is arguably the most efficient use of spectrum in disaster scenarios.

Hams did help during Harvey and are helping during Irma, but it doesn't get as much press as it used to.

I also think that there has been sort of a systematic degradation in neighborhood relations that has an impact on disaster response. My neighborhood has mostly middle aged and older people in it now, most of us know each other, but many neighborhoods have become much more transient in the last generation or so and ties are not as strong.

My challenge to a community that includes "hacker" in its name is to consider picking up the radio hobby. It has some real old school hacker opportunities for everyone. And, it has never been easier to obtain an amateur license. The Morse code requirements have been dropped. The technical part of the test is not that difficult for anyone with any understanding of electronics. The regulations are somewhat obscure, but not difficult to grasp. We need an infusion of new amateur radio operators. The old guys (like my dad) are disappearing fast.

<comment><USER20> > My challenge to a community that includes "hacker" in its name is to > consider picking up the radio hobby.

You hit the nail on the head here. I've been fooling around with computer programming for over a decade now (since I was in Jr. High), and Arduinos and Raspberry Pis as long as they have been available, but I never put much thought into ham radio. Most of the makers I know go straight to pre-made WiFi or Bluetooth modules when the time comes to make their projects work wirelessly - accepting their limitations while overlooking much simpler solutions which can be achieved though RF and a little bit of know-how. In hindsight, I wish I had learned about ham radio much sooner.

There is a massive schism between the ham community and the hacker community which doesn't make much sense to me. They are both very much interested in finding novel solutions to problems and sharing them with the community, doing more with less, placing value in decentralization, and have a similar sort of independent counter-culture and grounded respect for technology.

I think it is simply a problem of awareness. Before I got into ham radio, I assumed that the FCC simply allocated a tiny bucket of useless spectrum for amateur use, and that it's practical utility was quite limited. I didn't know that amateurs had access to bands all the way across the spectrum, that they are allowed to transmit at 1500 watts, that they could talk directly to the ISS, or make use of satellite repeaters and reach across oceans with a walkie talkie. On the HF bands, ham radio makes international communication possible without any middleman, subscription fee, or infrastructure. It is also a godsend for people launching weather balloons, allows you to build some incredibly badass RC craft, and can serve as the backbone of all sorts of other fascinating endeavors.

I think the schism is generational. The maker movement is composed largely of kids who grew up with the Internet, and really took off with social media and web 2.0, while the ham community is composed of a large body of people who came of age and mastered their craft before computers became ubiquitous. For better or worse, a lot of them seem to remain set in their ways. Many ham websites, including those of active clubs, brick and mortar stores, and repeater networks, look like they're straight out of the 90s, and social media outreach remains quite limited. I suppose the fundamentals of radio, much like physics or mathematics, hasn't changed much in the past 50 years, but these communities unfortunately seem to be living in different worlds.

I think that it is essential for us to bridge the gap. The alliance of the hams and the makers really stands to bring positive outcomes for both communities.

<comment><USER16> Some of the fundamentals have changed, or at least been added to - <USER2> some radios are actually software defined radios, but their owners might not even know it because the SDR and an embedded computer are built into one chassis, with physical front panel controls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> We used Zello when we were down there with a boat. We are just regular people, not part of anyone's navy, just a few guys with a boat that were part of a much larger civilian response to this disaster.

About the Cajun Navy - There were so many people responding to this disaster wanting to help with their time and boats that many times we found ourselves staging to launch but ultimately unable to get in the water because the neighborhood or area we were planning to search only needed 15-20 boats and two or three times that many boats staged for the task. That means dozens of trucks pulling every kind of floating contraption lined up on relatively dry Houston streets and roads and waited in line hoping to be able to take off into the floods and bring people out who needed assistance. When the authorities determined that enough boats had launched for that area, everyone else had to find somewhere else to go. Massive resources were wasted with boats lined up in one spot that could've been actively searching somewhere else.

We ran into a couple of guys from the east coast following Zello Cajun Navy reports who at great expense, drove out to help and had not been able to participate for two days because they were trying to stage in spots where the Cajun Navy was being called up. Once the call went out to the Cajun Navy, boats flooded in from all over and you were nearly guaranteed to have more than you needed. In Orange, we ran into a Texas-based rescue outfit, not the Texas Navy but some group who dressed in military duds. We explained that we were heading into one of the neighborhoods along the Sabine to check a report and asked whether they had already checked it or knew anything about it. They hadn't heard that report or checked that area so we were cleared to go in and the leader of the group asked how we heard about the people needing help. When told that we heard it over Zello, he commented to the effect that the Cajun Navy and Zello was kicking their asses in mustering people and boats.

Fun stuff but the reality of the Cajun Navy effort from our standpoint was that a lot of people wasted a lot of time following their channels and maybe better coordination with other groups would've made a smoother effort.

About the Cajun Navy channels on Zello and Zello itself - Over time the effort evolved into one where each affected area had a dedicated channel to direct boaters to those who most needed assistance. This was not true at the start when the Houston channel had reports from all over the Houston area and eventually Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange and Vidor too. It was tough at first to determine where the person filing the report was located although there was a website we used to guide us that was actively accumulating requests for rescue and pinning them on an active map. This map evolved to eventually drop many of the requests that were determined to be expired due to rescue already happening or floods receding, etc. We chased reports from that map in the areas that we worked and several times found ourselves following an old report that had not been updated. Obviously, the solution to that is to have boaters radio in and update as they visit addresses. Once the large collection of initial reports from those who had been rescued were tagged or removed the site was much more useful.

A big drawback of Zello in our opinion is that it is vulnerable to manipulation by anyone with the app installed. We kept hearing reports of shots fired at rescue boaters, attempts to steal rescuers boats, rescuers being attacked by residents, etc. and I feel that they were almost all false. We staged at Addicks Dam at the same time reports were actively coming in on Zello Houston channel about shots being fired and boaters were encouraged at the staging area there and later at Bass Pro Shops in Katy to be aware that some rescuers had been targeted. While at Addicks Dam staging area none of us, all Texans and familiar with weapons and gunshots, heard anything remotely like a gunshot. In the days that we were there none of us heard a gunshot at all though the reports over Zello made it sound like you might be taking your life into your hands if you tried to rescue in some of these neighborhoods. A number of rescue boaters were armed and as far as I know none of them had to fire a single shot. I could be wrong though.

Along the same lines Zello was full of reports about imminent dam or levee failures. This got really old as we moved from Houston to Beaumont to Orange and kept hearing the same reports of imminent failure from possibly the same person who kept assuring listeners that the Coast Guard was there with him and informing him that people should leave as failure was imminent. Jeez. Give it a rest. I checked maps around Orange and found that there is no large lake or dam or levee just upstream and we radioed to correct the reports letting people know that they likely applied to Addicks Dam in Houston if they applied to anywhere. Within minutes the same guy came on and announced that the failure of the dam was imminent, the Coast Guard had informed him, etc. A lot of bad information and potentially damaging misinformation was spread.

Anyway. We're home now. Rebuilding will take a while. Help if you can.

<comment><USER22> _Massive resources were wasted with boats lined up in one spot that could 've been actively searching somewhere else._

I'm on a search & rescue team, and this is usually the chief challenge with "the public" getting involved, there is no established organizational structure. People all mean well, but it is incredibly difficult to utilize a horde of untrained people effectively at the drop of a hat, and it can also make things worse.

Zero criticism of the Cajun Navy et al, sometimes a motley crew is the best you've got and you do the best you can. But if you've ever been turned back when you tried to volunteer for a disaster, this is why.

I wonder if a future extension to ICS/NIMS could be, how to plug in these unconventional resources where professional manpower is insufficient. Develop a 2-minute briefing, a point of contact for unconventional resources to report to, a simplified structure & communication network. The most important concepts are pretty simple, and the first responder doesn't need to know that much about it.

<comment><USER9> > I wonder if a future extension to ICS/NIMS could be, how to plug in these > unconventional resources where professional manpower is insufficient. > Develop a 2-minute briefing, a point of contact for unconventional resources > to report to, a simplified structure & communication network. The most > important concepts are pretty simple, and the first responder doesn't need > to know that much about it.

Great idea, but unfortunately when it gets officialized, the lawyers and the bureaucrats get involved and start talking about liability and ways to insert themselves into the situation to profit from it and things quickly gain the complexity of joining the original organization, so it ultimately fails. Maybe I'm too cynical here.

<comment><USER22> ICS/NIMS trainings are painful to sit through, but in practice it appears pretty agile to me when implemented faithfully.

Instructors will tell you, it's only when you want to be part of the management structure that you really need to know what is going on. Even today, the bottom rung mostly just needs to know where to check in, who they report to, and how to communicate.

I understand your cynicism, and in many places it's applicable. I've noticed however that gov't works developed in the wake of a disaster seems to be pretty solid. Maybe because the project leaders are granted unusual latitude to ignore the lawyers & bureaucrats :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Holy Crap that's a tough read.

</comment><comment><USER24> Lot of misconception on this app that it works without cell service, like a regular walkie talkie.

Does seem like a good idea if Apple or Samsung might build in some point to point radio hardware similar to a Gotenna that's works without cell infrastructure.

<comment><USER25> Serval actually does this with WiFi mesh networking.

[http://www.servalproject.org/](http://www.servalproject.org/)

<comment><USER24> Wifi mesh seems obvious but at 2.4ghz or 5ghz too limited in range.

I was thinking 150Mhz~ MURS like Gotenna for a few miles range.

<comment><USER25> They have a "Mesh Extender" which uses 900 MHz ISM band radios for ~4 km range, and can be connected to an external HF radio if you have a HAM license. It even implements store-and-forward so you can send messages to people who are wandering in and out of range.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I heard about Zello through this article a couple days ago. I installed it and to be honest it's been kind of interesting to listen to, reminded me of the old days when I wold listen in on my CB radio to the random chatter. I'm not sure how useful it is for actual communication though, it seems like SMS or similar apps are more efficient and let me know I didn't miss anything if I'm away from my phone for a while.

<comment><USER27> This tool is more useful for immediate communication with 'somebody' not 2 way communication. I listened in to a channel with Irma closing in, and People were asking questions like "I'm on the road, and not going to make it, what is the nearest evacuation center to where I am now?" or important messages were relayed like "We are working at store X, in city Y, and we just got another truck with more bottled water"

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Could I ask, what's so bad about going into the attic? Surely that's just one of the easier ways to get out onto the roof?

<comment><USER29> If you have no roof access from the attic, and the water level rises, you are stuck.

<comment><USER28> Rip away the roofing felt, shove the tiles, then you have a hole. Climb out.

<comment><USER30> After you've gone through the 3/8"-3/4" plywood/osb that's nailed on well enough to not come of in a hurricane?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> We need ham radio hardware with an iOS interface

<comment><USER32> It exists. Off the top of my head, Flex SDR radios can be fully network controlled via iOS:

[http://www.flexradio.com/amateur- products/flex-6000-signatur...](http://www.flexradio.com/amateur- products/flex-6000-signature-series/smartsdr-for-ios/)

There's other options as well. But I'm not sure how that would help here?

<comment><USER33> Yeah, it wouldn't really help communicate with the victims in an emergency like this because virtually none of the general public is going to have (and know how to use) specialized equipment that they only need in extremely rare situations. Perhaps equipment could be distributed to the volunteers, but it seems like many of the boat owners already had basic radio capabilities anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> When I first read this thread I was really happy to read so many stories about people flocking to help each other.

But I became almost depressed after reading this [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/irma- carib...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/irma-caribbean-st- martin.html)

I've got different meanings for "First World Problems".

</comment><comment><USER35> Why don't we have people doing this dispatch professionally? What are FEMA and the Red Cross doing if not helping coordinate emergency response when the normal channels are overwhelmed? Don't get me wrong, this person, and all those who aid the rescue efforts, is a hero. Don't the people who do this deserve to get paid and have resources for dealing with PTSD? And don't the victims deserve organized, professional response?

<comment><USER36> How do you scale that in a hurry? Do you have people doing this full time sitting idle waiting for a full scale disaster to hit? You already have the National Guard, but how can that force cover an area the size of the Netherlands — with a thousand boats ready to go? Texas had literally thousands of rescues. It's ridiculous to suggest that any government force can deploy a force large enough to handle that within a day. Even the military would have a tough time blanketing an area that large with everything needed in time. Ranger battalions could secure an airport size area within 18 hours notice on the other side of the world, but this emergency covered a land area about 3000 times the size of the Houston airport. We are talking about thousands of troops not to mention the logistical requirements — as well as a considerable need for local knowledge as well.

This is the difference between Americans and many other cultures — there is a sense of self-reliance that often doesn't exist in other places. Many people would prefer to let the government handle it as if the government was some omnipotent force with infinite resources that are positioned exactly in the right place: like battalions of Rangers sitting in a C130 at Hunter Army Airfield just waiting to drop into action. People underestimate the logistics of massive rescue operations.

Also, a practical question: how do you deploy 1000 boats instantly? Air drops? Does the government just have thousands of boats staged across the country with thousand of qualified operators ready to jump into action?

Americans as a culture are different — they don't sit around waiting for "official" help — they jump into action. I'd personally rather count on some redneck with a boat than just hope government comes through. While bureaucrats are figuring out what to do, old Jimbo with his swamp boat is already in the water en route.

That's America. You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like it, but Harvey was a great example of the American spirit in action: neighbors helping neighbors — even local businesses, like Houston's largest furniture store, opening their doors to help. In France, you would never see an IKEA or Auchan opening their doors to those in need during a disaster, you'd never see a virtual armada of volunteers ready to jump into action. During the great Europe flood of 2016, people died in their homes — wouldn't they have loved to have the Cajun Navy? In Triftern, Germany, 250 students were trapped in a school for 24 hours — I bet they would have liked to have some rednecks with swamp boats.

I am not arguing against government disaster response, I am arguing that in times of disaster, Americans, especially in the South, are proud to jump into action. Lives were saved because a whole bunch of people decided to act.

<comment><USER37> Hundreds of people opened their home in October 2015 after the huge rainstorm and floods in Cannes and Biot. Several supermarket (Carrefour and Intermarché for sure) delivered tons of food to the people there.

Hundreds of people opened their home on July 14 2016 after the terrorist attack in Nice. Same in Paris before that. And same in Barcelona this summer.

While it's true that American people jump into action, it's just wrong, and immensely disrespectful of the people who helped, to say the same doesn't happen in France or in other countries.

<comment><USER38> Germany opened its home to a million Syrian refugees in 2015/16............

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Real Heroes!</comment>


John Cleese on How to Make Your Life More Creative - <AUTHOR> http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/12/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991/

<comment><USER2> There is a better, longer version of the video here: <http://vimeo.com/18913413>

He elaborates on collaborating with other people, connecting disperate ideas, and managing creative people

or

"How to stamp out creativity in the rest of the organization, get a bit of respect going."

</comment><comment><USER3> If this was a TED talk it would have been in the 1 million plus votes for sure. This man is a genius, the content and the delivery of the content is wonderfully done. I am for sure going to try his methods in the coming days.

</comment><comment><USER4> One of the best talks on creativity I have ever heard. Worth a listen whether you're a designer, developer, writer etc

This is an especially good video for managers to watch. In fact, it should be mandatory.

<comment><USER5> I would agree if the only goal was to reinvigorate people who were creative to begin with.

However, my concerns lie with the majority who aren't creative because they weren't taught this at home or by the school system when this is becoming more and more important in an economy that is difficult to find a job. It's difficult to teach anyone to be creative past the time they graduate college. They become too set in whatever ideology they believe in.

<comment><USER4> Everyone has the ability to be creative. Being creative has been part of human history for thousands of years.

The problem is more often that people aren't empowered to think creatively. You often get handed a set of tasks to complete or instructions to follow.

Some people naturally break out of this and follow their own path to accomplish the task. That's why it's so important for managers to watch this and understand they need to create an environment where people can get into the "open" mode as John puts it.

I agree that throughout life and education we've been taught to think and act within certain parameters, that's why I love this video so much, it actually gives ideas on how to create an environment that fosters creativity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah, well, this sort of explains a method of mine.

When I get stuck on a problem, I get the dog and go for a walk. I can then mentally give the problem a sense of freedom and let it sort of wander round my mind. The problem get mental time, and mental space. 9 times out of 10, the solution appears. The trick then is not to forget it by the time I get home!!!!

With out doing that, I would never have passed my degree.

</comment><comment><USER7> Since I have watched this talk, I have been integrating the open/closed modality to the pomodoro workflow. Sure, it isn't setting aside an hour and a half as Cleese suggests, but I think it's a far better use of left over pomodoro time then the standard "over learn" advice. I get to see what I just did under different lenses, and it sets me up for a more relaxed break.

<comment><USER8> Can you expand a little bit for those of us who aren't as familiar with advanced pomodoro techniques?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While I loved the video I need to do a bit of a meta rant on the rising ui trend that I personally find apalling:

why on earth would I like a version of a page I read on iPad to have a horizontal scrolling complimented with back button jumping between sub pages instead of taking me back?

Is there something fantastic I'm missing here with this newish approach? For me it breaks the time tested and familiar vertical scrolling that I've been doing for the last 15 years and doesn't add any value.

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh hell yes. I feel very closely aligned with his philosophy, and this message is so well delivered, its almost cathartic to watch. For anyone who has tried to have new ideas in the face of closed minded people who strangle ideas before they have a chance to grow- this video is your antidote.

</comment><comment><USER11> Charles Bukowski begs to differ... [1] (but Charles Bukowski is no ordinary creative)

[1] [http://zenpencils.com/comic/97-charles-bukowski-air-and- ligh...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/97-charles-bukowski-air-and-light-and- time-and-space/)

<comment><USER12> If you are born as a creative person, like Bukowski, you _will_ create this time and space, no matter what. For the rest of us, Cleese tells us about the importance of creating them - while Bukowski warns that they're just a tool, not a solution. Likewise, you buy a set of pencils _because_ you have an urge to draw; not the other way round.

<comment><USER13> Creative and Not Creative is just a mindset. I don't believe you are inherently one or the other. Either you accept things as they are, or try to make something new.

<comment><USER14> To say Creative and Not Creative is just a mindset makes about as much sense as saying height is a just a mindset.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remind HN: Your Flickr Favourites Are (Still) Public and Searchable   - <AUTHOR>

A lot of you probably haven't used Flickr in ages like I, and maybe Flickr or you have changed since then.
In late 2011[^1] (pre-Mayer), Yahoo! allowed users to search in the favourite collections of each other. Here is a basic query for mature content for your own profile to see what people might come across in your collection of favourites:

    http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=faves&q=sex+or+boobs+or+butt+or+porn [^2]
 To search within another user's favourites, retrieve their user ID from idGettr[^3], and paste it in a query like this:

    http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=faves-[[ ID ]]&q=sex+or+boobs+or+butt+or+porn [^4]
 I didn't know this, and I imagine it happened while I wasn't using the service. Add to this that you cannot opt out of this.
I have been in touch with Yahoo![^5], and to summarize their response, public, searchable favourites with no opt-outs are here to stay. To each their own, and I am definitely a bit on the nutty side when it comes to privacy—I just can't bring myself to ever have a Facebook account, but I totally understand people feel differently about these things. I'm sure other privacy fanatics on HN who check their privacy settings meticulously were as unaware of at least some this.
Some things have changed since the last time I and you used Flickr, and many of them are here to stay, so in the spirit of Steve Jobs's choice words on privacy, at you at least now should have a good idea of what you're signing up for. <comment><AUTHOR> Links/footnotes:

[^1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/13/how- flick...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/13/how-flickr-has- made-it-easier-to-out-pervs/)

[^2]: [http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=faves&q=sex+or+boobs+or+...](http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=faves&q=sex+or+boobs+or+butt+or+porn)

[^3]: <http://idgettr.com/>

[^4]:

        http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=faves-[[ ID ]]&q=sex+or+boobs+or+butt+or+porn

[^5]: <https://twitter.com/pessimism/status/336090432398323713>

</comment><comment><USER2> Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't personal favourites made available to the public in two clicks instead of one in the 'old' design as well? And you could see all users that added a photo as a favourite when viewing the photo?

It just never occured to me that it was a feature that was not meant to be 'public'.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just thought of a way to check: archive.org.

It does indeed show that favourites were available from the user page: [http://web.archive.org/web/20130501115607/http://www.flickr....](http://web.archive.org/web/20130501115607/http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/).

As a result, I removed the paragraph from the OP. This is what it read, to anyone visiting just now:

        In addition, your favourites are now a single click
        away for users in the redesign of your user profile.
        It's entirely possible this was the case before, though.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for confirming. I haven't touched flickr for a while either, until this new redesign fanfare :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> How does this behave when you have marked private photos as favourites (or those someone has shared with you and a small group)? I assume it doesn't show those pictures or even any metadata about them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would consider it an outright bug, if that were the case, so I wouldn't worry about that.

I haven't added any photos to my favourites, so I can't test it for you, alas.

@YahooCare are very quick to reach out, if you direct any questions at them, as shown in the last of my footnotes. It's actually really weird, albeit a pleasant surprise, to see a big company respond and reach out to users in 2013. :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Abandon (text based accounting tool) v0.3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hrj/abandon/releases/tag/v0.3 <comment><USER2> How does this compare to ledger?

<comment><USER2> Sorry, just read the README.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, its inspired by `ledger` and the syntax is similar to a large extent. The focus is on cross-platform support, and a more declarative style (order of specifying transactions shouldn't matter).

A detailed comparison is missing, however.</comment></comment></comment>


You can buy a cheap chicken today, but we all pay for it in the long run - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/cheap-chicken-we-all-pay-in-the-long-run-patrick-holden <comment><USER2> I agree with the sentiment but this is a poorly written article.

There are plenty of consumers that are willing to pay extra for grass- fed/organic/free-range/etc meat. But there's also a limit to the extra I can pay. The whole "natural food" and "organic" trend is now just a marketing gimmick. You'd often find the same product at a massive price hike when sold at a "health store".

The question of who's to blame isn't answered in the article except to say that it isn't the farmers. I guess the implication is that it is the consumer that is to blame.

The article also blames the government. As if it's the role of the government to provide a level playing field to the parties involved. I do agree that legislation should be introduced to limit the use of antibiotics and hormones and it already is in some countries. But nothing more.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article does not provide any data/link to the alleged destruction of environment.

Chicken is a lot like fracking - it probably has some external cost - but its a lot better than beef,tuna . . or any other meat out there - in terms of environmental sustainability.

Its also possible to recycle almost all parts of a chicken.

For example people in europe,america like what is know as the "white meat" ( not sure if its a co-incident ) - breast,thigh - and people in asia like "brown meat" \- which includes leg,wings.

So what the global food producers do is recycle and even out the demand which is one of the reason why white mean has became so much cheaper in europe.</comment>


The Razor template language (introduction) - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/02/introducing-razor.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems like a fairly complete view/template language. Optional static typing and a very unobstrusive syntax.

The release announcement below has a whole list of articles about Razor linked, including the basic introduction.

[http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2011/01/13/announcing...](http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2011/01/13/announcing- release-of-asp-net-mvc-3-iis-express-sql-ce-4-web-farm-framework-orchard- webmatrix.aspx)</comment>


Dear Google: Why did you ban teenagers from Google+? - <AUTHOR> http://leilavc.posterous.com/google-and-age

<comment><USER2> I hope the OP is reading this - I highly doubt Google is mistrusting its teenager population, you might be reading into this more than you should. The invalid invites that got sent out - more than just the teenage crowd were offended.

Let's look at this a different way - you're 14, you're on the Internet. You start a hangout...to extended circles. Certain people join, and you get more "hanging out" than you had intended. And now questions are being asked. Did your parents consent to this? Where was the form that required parents to agree? Should there be restrictions on underage accounts? What kind of data should be public?

There's just a lot of legal issues, more than you'd expect. It requires a set of both design and engineering effort to get it just right. Google will get there. I hate to sound like a broken record but it's still in the feedback/reiteration stage (aka "field trial").

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response! No, Google today still doesn't ask for your age when you create an account, and I'm actually not personally aware of any US bill that regulates how internet companies have to deal with teenagers. It seems like a bit of a legal gray area.

The thing is, we get that scenario that you gave with the hangouts and circles with Facebook, which teenagers use all the time. And, again, those questions you brought up are part of the legal gray area I mentioned above, of how much control the government and parents should have over how teenagers can use the internet.

I think the main frustration I have here is that I have other friends who never gave their ages to Google - i.e., who never signed up for a Youtube account - who have been able to get onto Google Plus. (I know because they keep sending me invites. It's quite aggravating.) Which just goes to show that Google's rules aren't even being evenly applied across the board.

But hey, fair enough. As I said at the end, I just hope they get out of the field trial stage soon. And for now, I'm off to make a new anonymous Google account. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Or, you know, all those pesky laws. Like the ones that deal with what information you can legally store about minors, most of which GMail and Google+ would violate due to their very nature.

I don't blame them at all. It isn't Google's fault, it's the fault of whoever decided that 'protected' teenagers meant forcing them to lie about their age to get accounts on the net.

</comment><comment> T-R I understand how you feel, but I can't imagine Google's restricting the service for anything but practical reasons. Minors are, legally, a special case, and Google+, being in such an early stage of development, might not have the privacy features necessary yet, or they may not feel ready to test them. A legal issue arising from minors using the service at this point in the product's lifecycle would be disastrous PR-wise.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tries to blame Google+ for what is essentially an Internet wide issue. There are thorny legal issues involved that aren't limited to just COPPA.

Facebook did just fine restricting its website to just college kids.</comment>


Fell in love with coding - <AUTHOR>

I'm a graduating senior who majors in Business at a top school. Recently, I've branched out of my comfort zone and have taken some courses in C++. I I've done really well in the intro courses and I regret not doing a dual major in BBA/CS!<p>I have a job lined up at a top consulting firm after graduation however I still want to code. Any advice on the best plan of attack? My goal is to build an iOS app. Should I just pick up a book on Objective-C? I can't imagine learning coding by reading a book…I appreciate any tips! <comment><USER2> Start hacking yet always look for and apply (most current) best practices along the way as much as you can or where applicable. Constant refactoring your old code and learn functional programming (in addition to the classic imperative style). For Objective-C, master stuff like Block, Category (can be evil but very neat when applied properly), GCD, KVO, and ARC (as well as autorelease pool).

</comment><comment><USER3> Big Nerd Ranch has a great book on iOS programming. If you're in Austin, I'm doing a intro to iOS class in the next month.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would take MOOC courses on my favorite programming language (JAVA).</comment>


Applebee's fires server for sharing receipt on Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/13738.aspx

<comment><USER2> She was fired because she shared private information about the customer and made the company look bad.

I don't think anyone would expect to not be fired if they don't redact information that could lead to them being instantly identified.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, I believe Reddit itself claims to have a strong "no doxxing" policy so I'm surprised the picture/thread wasn't deleted, especially when it became clear that people knew who had left the zero tip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel bad for the lady losing her job over pointing out an idiot.

I'd boycott Applebees for this except... I never eat there anyway because a random TV Dinner from the grocery store is better quality and taste and I don't have to go sit in a poorly controlled environment to do so.

<comment><USER5> She didn't just "point out" an idiot. She posted the receipt with his name on Reddit, and ended up inciting an internet mob against him: [http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/17i382/my_mistake_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/17i382/my_mistake_sir_im_sure_jesus_will_pay_for_my_rent/c85oqet)

I agree the guy was a jerk, but it should be common sense for any employee that they can't expect to keep their job after revealing private customer information, publicly humiliating that customer, and in this case very likely damaging that customer's career. Duh?

<comment><USER6> The pastor is a woman.

<comment><USER5> I don't think that changes the situation, though.

(Incidentally, I'm apparently not the only one who got that detail wrong, since the original post on Reddit was titled "My mistake sir...")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> She should check her math...10% of your total salary is quite different from 18% of a meal check.</comment>


Ask HN: Reading Old News? - <AUTHOR> While being gone: Apparently UFO has been found - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804535 USB Killer strikes -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19689601
And this https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/05/04/xinjiang-u-s-accuses-china-of-putting-up-to-3m-muslims-in-concentration-camps/#3a1c719272b1
Do you try to catch up with the news while spending time in holiday? <comment><USER2> As far as HN goes, you can look back through the stories that spent the most time on the front page via /past in the top bar.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks dang, I was there when you renamed it into past. I was most interested into hn opinion on reading older news.</comment></comment>


Flamers force lawyer to drop application for Bitcoin trademark - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/07/07/bitcoin-flamers-force-lawyer-to-drop-u-s-trademark-application-so-now-hes-trying-it-abroad/

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of the asshole who tried to trademark Linux back in the day. Jerks like these have always existed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Trademarks aren't like patents or copyrights, there isn't a strong presumption of validity attached. Even if he should manage to get one he shouldn't be able to much beyond send threatening letters (at least in the US).

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe some cheeky bitcoin user could trademark _Magellan Capital Advisors_ in France, Italy, Spain, Japan and China.

</comment><comment><USER5> This, and the story about modified versions of VLC being used to distribute malware, seem to be timely illustrations of why Open Source projects should file for and protect their names as trademarks.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like how he equates filing for IP ownership on something that was obviously developed by others with a gainful venture under capitalism.

<comment><USER7> I think it's fair to call it capitalism--he's obviously capitalizing. What's debatable is how conscionable that is.

He would have done better to go to someone in the Bitcoin community and offer his services. Someone should own the trademark to protect it. Lots of cc and open source stuff has registered trademarks so the name can't be abused.

<comment><USER6> Capitalism as an economic system means more than just that "people capitalize". It encompasses things like competitive free markets and legal systems to enforce contracts and discourage fraud.

Filing for IP protections on something that is not by any stretch of the imagination your own IP sounds to me like some combination of fraud and perjury.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> someone tried to do a similar thing for cyanogenmod. He tried to pass it off a 'protecting' the project in some way.

</comment><comment><USER9> Uh, would this paper count as "strong compelling evidence"?

<http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf>

<comment><USER10> To serve as evidence, its date of publication would have to be established with reasonable reliability. For a fee, The Wayback Machine will provide an affidavit confirming that Document X was archived on their servers as of a given date.[1]

[1] <http://www.archive.org/legal/faq.php>

<comment><USER11> Alternatively you could just print it out and mail it to yourself with a seal and never open it unless called for.

<comment><USER12> Poor man's copyright seems flawed [0]. Where's the basis for mailing it with a seal having legal grounds?

[0] [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Poor_man%27s_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Poor_man%27s_copyright#Flaws)

<comment><USER11> I'm curious if there's any precedence in the courts. But as far as convincing a judge or jury one way or another, it's some evidence that can help you out in a "he said she said" case. Printed out emails are frequently used in civil cases to help convince the judge of one thing or another, and they're quite easily forged but that doesn't stop them from being considered.

Other methods include putting it in public dirs, pastebin, etc. and letting the internet mirror it for free. Encrypt it if you must, torrent an encrypted tarball if you've got name recognition..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> the problem is he used a Lawyer License form the USA to file a US trademark which he knew at the time contained some false statements as he was fully aware of the prior art of the trademark being claimed..

anyone know what state he was licensed in?</comment>