Explaining copyright broke the YouTube copyright system - <AUTHOR> https://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/engelberg/news/2020-03-04-youtube-takedown <comment><USER2> Adam Neely (YouTube music educator) had an absolutely farcical run-in with this situation ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8)) where he made a video defending Warner Music and Katy Perry's Dark Horse against Flame's Joyful Noise plagiarism suit. He lost the claim from Warner Music even though:

1- he was defending Warner Music

2- he didn't play any recordings, he just played 3 notes on a synthesizer (which is his whole premise that it's un-copyrightable)

3- Warner Music lost the actual suit (which implies they don't have copyright on those 3 notes?)

4- someone at Warner Music manually tagged the "infringing" part of the video, except the person tagged not the Dark Horse part of the play through but the Joyful Noise part of the play through (*^∀^)ノ彡┻━┻

changelog: improved ascii art

<comment><USER3> It's pretty simple, Alphabet/Google make it far too easy for mistaken, false or frivolous claims. It's obvious why, usually the claimant has the heavy bags of money to use as a bludgeon, but it's not right.

<comment><USER4> It's also because US law requires companies to excessively defend their trademarks in order to enforce them as a rightholder otherwise they lose it. So really US law has just been interpreted in a way that is absurdly annoying for everyone. Companies have no choice but to defend and actively seek out even minor things because it can all be used against them in court eventually one day. As long as they actively suppress that stuff, it proves to a judge they are protecting their IP. It's really a precedent set by the US government to force companies to waste this time and annoy us.

<comment> rolls-reus I've seen the point you make about trademarks often repeated but it is infact not true. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does- not...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require- companies-tirelessly-censor-internet)

<comment><USER5> I donate to EFF regularly, and I support the article's premise.

However, I am not sure an argument by EFF, no matter how much I support it, can be considered a factual counterpoint.

Also, I'm bummed to see the parent post downvoted. I thought on HN, downvotes were supposed to be used on off topic/hostile/unproductive points, not just ones with which we disagree.

<comment><USER6> Downvoting for disagreement has been a long-accepted practice, as noted by 'pg and 'dang.

<comment><USER5> My bad. I reread the guidelines and FAQ. I must have been thinking of some other forum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Classical pianist here. I've been through youtube's broken copyright enforcement system several times. I'll post a video of myself performing some composition that is in the public domain and it'll get "identified" as a copyrighted recording by someone else. Of course youtube doesn't give you an option for "mistaken claim", you have to choose between "this content is entirely my work" (which isn't quite true in my case, since I didn't write the music) or "this video counts as fair use". I typically select "this video counts as fair use" because it's the least untrue of the available options. Nineteen times out of twenty the claim disappears immediately. (I don't even monetize my videos. I just don't want ads on my videos at all, and I especially don't want ads on my videos if the revenue is going to some completely unrelated party.)

There was, however, one time when I had to deal with an escalated claim. The piece in question was the slow movement of Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. The Symphony has long been in the public domain. However, the slow movement was adapted into the song "Goin' Home", which is still under copyright, and there is a long-standing myth that the song was the inspiration for the Symphony rather than the other way around. Thus when I challenged the copyright claim on my New World video, the claimant came back and insisted their claim (on "Goin' Home") was valid. This notice was of course accompanied by the scary warnings about how if I persisted it could count as a strike against my youtube account.

I called their bluff. I responded with links to every online source I could find showing that Dvorak's work came first and was in the public domain.

I don't know what I would have done had they continued to dig in their heels. Happily, they ended up releasing the claim - days before their claim would have expired anyway - with no elaboration. I'd be curious to hear from anyone else who stuck it through the scary youtube warnings and what the outcome was.

[EDIT: thanks for the clarifications on "own content" and "fair use". I never thought of it that way, but now it seems obvious.]

<comment><USER8> Actually a performance piece of a public domain work counts as its own copyrighted work. So the least true option would be claiming that the song is your work.

<comment><USER9> He says he's posting videos of _himself_ playing the piece, which means he owns the copyright of his performance.

<comment><USER10> Yes, so the "work" as far as copyright is concerned is the performance. The "work" is entirely his own.

<comment><USER9> And how does that make "this is my work" the least true option?

<comment><USER11> > Actually a performance piece of a public domain work counts as its own > copyrighted work. So the least true option would be claiming that the song > is your work. reply

Since this was the reply, which explains how "this is my work" is the most true option, I'm not sure why you feel the need to post your question. Both sides have been explained and you can decide on your own.

<comment><USER12> > > So the least true option

> "this is my work" is the most true option

Obviously this was a typo, probably meant to be "least untrue".

<comment><USER8> Yes, I meant to write "least untrue" just the same as the original poster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The "solution" they arrived at boggles my mind:

> We reached out to YouTube through private channels to try to get clarity > around the copyright strike rules. While we never got that clarity, some > weeks later we were informed that the claims against our video had been > removed.

We need competition in this space.

<comment><USER14> This is the most concerning part. What do "regular" content creators (read: no legal team) do to remove these kinds of invalid copyright strikes?

<comment><USER15> They give up. Literally. A lot of content creators even joke about it during their videos.

"Gotta hurry past this café so the music won't get my video copyright striked, lol!"

<comment><USER16> This morning I got a copyright claim for a video I published in 2015 which had a brief bit of background music, using a royalty-free song I got as a perk for being an iTools user from FreePlay in _2003_.

I can choose to combat the copyright claim (and during this process you check a box that says "you agree that you could have your account deleted if you don't win this claim" (something like that)), or I can give the $1/year revenue I got from that video to the scummy company that files these claims.

To me that's $1/year lost revenue (no big deal, right?) but that company now gets the revenue from this video—and millions of other videos... so they're making mint and gambling that most users won't even try to appeal.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't that mean they need to be sending a hundred of these out per hour, 40 hours a week, just to make payroll?

<comment><USER18> A machine (script) can send out a lot more than a hundred/hr.

Remember, they don't have to be true.

<comment><USER19> The person clicking the button just needs to think it's true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _> While our colleagues in the communications department were highly supportive of our efforts, they were concerned that one misstep could wipe NYU Law's entire YouTube presence off the internet._

The copyright system on YouTube is broken and stuff like this allows rightsholders to abuse the DMCA and bully small creators. It's a shame.

 _> Since we are the center at NYU Law focused on technology and innovation, it was not a dead end for us. We reached out to YouTube through private channels to try to get clarity around the copyright strike rules. While we never got that clarity, some weeks later we were informed that the claims against our video had been removed._

It is so with all Google products. Your content will be taken down or account will be randomly locked or your apps will be removed and unless you have lots of "clout" and/or can build up an outrage about the incident on Twitter/HN, you're screwed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Slightly off topic...but I recently had a Facebook page removed from Facebook for copyright violations. Though I had an agreement with the copyright holder to use their content/logo, etc. I reached out to that copyright holder...and they didn't file the complaint. So I made an appeal to Facebook, with the paperwork showing I had an agreement (in this case with a German soccer club) to use their logo, etc and they (Facebook) didn't even reply to me at all. Incredibly frustrating experience. I've reached out multiple times, through the appeal process, and through emails. No one even cares, and worse I created a new page similar to that page...and Facebook unpublished it. So, now I am stuck in limbo or can likely never have that page back or similar pages...all because Facebook is black hole and doesn't care even slightly. I get that they have billions of users, but so do a lot of companies, and they will at least reach back out to you and give you a status...even if the answer is "too bad." This happened almost 3 weeks ago now. Nothing.

BTW, the page is non-commercial and doesn't profit from anything.

<comment><USER22> Sounds like the EU bureaucrats should sharpen their knives again, otherwise there is no justice for the little guy.

<comment><USER23> > Sounds like the EU bureaucrats should sharpen their knives again, otherwise > there is no justice for the little guy.

Au contraire, the EU is demanding automatic copyright filters (also known as censorship machines). Don't mistake EU doing one good thing – GDPR – for EU always taking the side of the little guy.

[https://edri.org/censorship-machine-takes-over-eu- internet/](https://edri.org/censorship-machine-takes-over-eu-internet/)

<comment><USER24> My hot take: Automatic copyright filters help the little guy if implemented correctly, because then independent and established content creators both have the ability to shove stuff into Content ID and other filtering systems. Right now you need to be in the Big Boys Club to get access to Content ID, and once you have it you can do whatever you want. This bias is possible in part because it isn't a regulated program, it's just the result of back-door deals between Google and other companies.

Of course, automatic copyright filters are a complete disaster for _multiple_ reasons, but establishing them universally via regulation in a way that doesn't favor big corporate players is a lot better than the ones we have right now. The ideal is to abolish them entirely.

One of the biggest problems with Content ID is that Google seems to make no effort to verify actual ownership before allowing claims to be made, so you can trivially steal other people's content without being penalized. If filtering happens at a regulatory level, it could be tied in with the system for registering copyrights, at which point anyone can utilize the system by registering their work and you have an easier way to resolve disputes over claims (is this copyright registration valid or not? is the match correct?) vs the current YouTube mess.

<comment><USER25> Your "if implemented correctly" is but one of the big non-starters in the argument for upload filters, that's plain and simple not going to happen. And not only from a technical perspective...

In legislations like ours in Germany copyright registration isn't really a thing for most arms of copyright related topics, rights on creative works are rather complicated in general and even with the EU subject to local laws. So there's hardly anything to tie into really.

And from the viewpoint of "helping the little guy/gal" it seems that all recent legislation worked against that, e.g. here most of these issues were delegated to commercial interest groups that just flat out deny smaller content creators like YouTubers or bloggers.

Even if they could upload content, then you have the same content in there twice and need to bake on another layer that's likely broken.

To me it honestly seems that no amount of good will legislation in this space that mandates anything close to upload filters will ever turn out benefitial to smaller players in the space.

<comment><USER24> "it seems that all recent legislation worked against that" is blatantly untrue. The DMCA functions for individuals and Content ID does not, which is part of why big players wanted Content ID: it favors them.

I agree that it's very hard for legislation to fix this problem, but I think people are too eager to claim that legislation is unable to help small players when the situation is far more nuanced. Well-crafted legislation in this area could help a lot, but content filters aren't it.

<comment><USER25> I was referring to legislative changes that are currently either in the works or being discussed in Germany as a response to the upload filter proposals based on EU requirements.

Only have a German link at hand but it's definitely not helping the little folks, e.g. this breakdown was cited with the remark "bloggers don't even make the cut to appear in the statistics". [https://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-so-viel- geld-...](https://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-so-viel-geld-wuerden- die-verlage-von-google-bekommen-1809-136436.html)

I'm by no means arguing that legislation wouldn't help, I'm honestly of the opposite opinion. I just see content/upload filters as a bad idea and broken by design, apologies if I didn't get that across in the previous comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Once again, this illustrates how modern tech companies (primarily Google) are failing in terms of overall correctness of following or apply rules - apparently primarily because they choose not to employ enough humans in the process.

In most of these cases of unreasonable takedowns or account closures, there is no way to reach a human to have the case reviewed reasonably. It seems to (almost?) always depend on somehow finding an employee, such as often happens when someone posts their story here on HN.

I haven't read the annual report of Alphabet lately, but I can safely assume they are making enough profit that they could afford to make improvements in these systems (by employing more humans in key positions and by slowing or limiting the chances of automated processes reaching terminal decisions).

</comment><comment><USER27> There are many potential technical solutions to solving the problems of identifying copyright infringement and mediating the dispute between parties in a way that is fair to all involved. But why is the current system a dumpster fire? It seems Google/YT doesn't care because the companies sending out fraudulent disputes are many times the the same companies spending $$$ on ads. Without any real penalties for fraudulent claims (correct me if I'm wrong) they have every incentive to send out disputes by the truckload just to see what sticks.

The only real damage done to Google/YT as a result of fraudulent disputes like these are to it's reputation of not being friendly to creators - a view I think is already firmly rooted. We desperately need alternatives but it's an uphill battle the whole way with huge barriers to entry...

<comment><USER28> The solution is to go nuclear and enshrine adversarial balance in law.

If a company, _or an agent acting in their name_ , makes a fraudulent copyright claim, then have the wronged party name one item in the offending company's catalog that becomes public domain. Any contractual losses for entities who were benefiting from royalties in the said work are the offender's problem. Not only do the copyfraudsters lose a (possibly much more valuable) item from their catalog, they'd also have to compensate those whose incomes they have affected with their fraudulent acts.

Align the incentives and make the stick painful enough. People being people will take care of the rest.

<comment><USER29> What's to stop me, jbay808, from sending fraudulent copyright claims in Disney's name, against you, bostik, as part of a coordinated plan to make Star Wars public domain?

<comment><USER24> No law anyone passes will ever push a Disney property like Star Wars into the public domain, no matter what was written into it

But on the other hand, nothing's going to stop you from filing fraudulent DMCA claims. The few measures in the law designed to discourage it don't work.

<comment><USER30> Not with that attitude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You know the law is broken when even _legal experts_ can't exercise their right to the fair use of copyrighted works for the purpose of educating others about copyright litigation.

<comment> jagged-chisel Ah, but they _did_ exercise those rights. Oh, it was expensive; too expensive for the average creator to have exercised those rights. I think that's the message: the _cost_ of making sure you and your content are treated correctly.

<comment><USER32> I don't think they got to exercise their rights. They only succeeded by using private back channels, and they only succeeded in making the problem disappear. If they had been able to exercise their rights, they would be able to sue for costs. They demonstrated that the processes provided by Youtube to exercise their rights do not work, and for people not in the inner circle your only recourse would be to sue for damages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think a lots of people end up having a reaction like "well they're trying their best! what else are they going to do!? it's basically an impossible problem!" to things like this and other recent youtube headlines.

That reaction betrays an assumption that YouTube _must_ exist at its current scale in its current form, just because... it does already. And I think that assumption is dead wrong: we're bumping up on all kinds of emergent phenomenon (conspiracies, runaway recommendations) and issues (copyright, borderline child porn) that cannot be solved, and we shouldn't let Google give us their best-effort compromise. If you can't address these kinds of problems in your product, _don 't fucking build it_.

<comment><USER34> There's an interesting meta-phenomenon here. I call it _automation handcuffs_. A platform grows massively due to radically eliminating the policy and bureaucracy infrastructure that others have (YouTube vs typical content distro channels). That same platform is now so big that it has to add back in that bureaucracy and policy that it lacked. However, it's now so big that it _must_ use automation to solve these problems or else go bankrupt hiring people. In the end, society gets a half-measure. The platform is too big to legalize. The existing players are too small to compete. Users are forced to accept substandard experiences.

<comment><USER35> > it's now so big that it must use automation to solve these problems or else > go bankrupt hiring people

This is what Google and Facebook would like us to believe, but I'm not convinced. What it really comes down to is that they'd _very much like_ to stay in the realm of automation, especially Google who are notorious for keeping humans out of the loop at any cost. See the long history of problems with their automated "developer relations" on Android. And the problem is that the disincentives for continuing to fail at these halfway-automated tasks are simply not strong enough to force their hand.

So they can just keep "doing their best" with automation, even though automation itself is far from the best they could do.

<comment><USER36> How else can they actually operate the platform without automation? Android app store submissions weren't even within several orders of magnitude to the scale of YouTube & Facebook videos.

I think something like 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube. How do you propose people review that in real time? Just to keep up in real time you need (300*60) 18000 people watching the videos and not falling behind, which means you likely need at least 5x that number.

<comment><USER35> I didn't say _without_ any automation. I'm saying that when these unreasonable cases come up, and people appeal, there often isn't even a human brought in at that stage (or at least, not one who's given enough bandwidth to legitimately investigate the situation). Example: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324)

Cases like this, and the OP, are common-sense to any human being. Google doesn't especially _want_ them to be resolved in this nonsensical way, they just don't care enough to direct the necessary resources to make sure a human touch is applied to them.

<comment><USER37> This doesn't apply to your example, but for copyright, what is there to prevent a content stealer from spamming the appeals? You can ban or demonetize their account, but that's basically the status quo.

Also, YouTube doesn't want to settle disputes because that makes them liable to be sued if they happen to be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The problem is the legislative framework in the US. The definition of fair use is not clear enough. You need to get together and amend the laws to make it much clearer what is fair use. If the law stated (for example) "a song playing in the background in a coffee shop for less than 10 seconds is fair use" then youtubers wouldn't be joking "Better hurry past this coffee shop so I don't get a copyright strike".

Less whining about the problem and more work on a legally helpful definition of Fair use would help everyone.

(Consider other countries which have clearer fair use policies where they clearly indicate "how many pages of a book can be copied" etc. This needs to be updated to include video, i.e. "How many seconds of a video can be shown/sampled" with no subjective test of "if deemed in the public interest, or newsworthy etc". Just a simple blanket rule. "People can clip up to 10 seconds of video" or something like that.

<comment><USER39> Even with a clear definition, private entities don't have to honor fair use privileges. Their server, their rules.

<comment><USER40> The (well, a) problem here is that the legal system is misclassifying youtube as a private entity, rather than as the public common carrier that it in practice actually is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm a hobbyist musician. I put some of my work on SoundCloud and license it CC no-commercial. A fan made a video to my work using public domain footage of various DNA processes. It happens to resemble the background of an old Bjork video. It was auto-striked as containing content belonging to her label due to the similarities in the video content. In reality they are violating MY copyright if the video happened to ever generate any revenue. I made an account just to post this. It's a sad situation.

<comment><USER42> Generating revenue alone does not make it commercial use in the context of copyright

<comment><USER41> Correct, perhaps that is arguable, especially given the grey area this is all taking place in. I was speaking to the reality that if you're a popular YouTuber, and your content gets striked in this way, all revenues from that video go to them instead of you. This is especially terrible for music related content creators, fair use essentially does not exist for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The situation is now so silly that some people are circumventing the system by copyright claiming their own videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo)

This enable them to at least get some of the revenue of their video (by sharing with other (often bogus) claimants), and to monetize re-uploads (something normally available only to big channels).

Why Google doesn't do anything about this mess is beyond me.

</comment><comment><USER44> This unfortunately is not the case for most poor users. No such muscle and resources.

"This would have been a dead end for most users. Unable to understand how the already opaque dispute resolution process might impact the status of their account, they would have to decide if it was worth gambling their entire YouTube account on the chances that their some combination of YouTube and the rightsholder would recognize their fair use claim.

Since we are the center at NYU Law focused on technology and innovation, it was not a dead end for us. We reached out to YouTube through private channels to try to get clarity around the copyright strike rules. While we never got that clarity, some weeks later we were informed that the claims against our video had been removed."

</comment><comment><USER45> >We discovered that if we continued to challenge the accusation of infringement and lost, our video would be subject to copyright strikes. If the account was subject to multiple strikes its ability to live stream could be restricted or the account could be terminated. While our colleagues in the communications department were highly supportive of our efforts, they were concerned that one misstep could wipe NYU Law's entire YouTube presence off the internet.

To be clear, if you dispute and counternotice everything, then the only way this would happen is if the other side actually sues you, which is incredibly unlikely here.

<comment><USER14> That's not how I read that. "lost" in this context simply means the so-called copyright holder clicks the button that says "nah, still can't use my stuff" that's considered a strike.

<comment><USER46> The "Resolve a copyright strike" section of [1] includes:

> There are three ways to resolve a copyright strike:

> [...]

> 3\. Submit a counter notification: If your video was mistakenly removed > because it was misidentified as infringing, or qualifies as a potential fair > use, you may wish to submit a counter notification.

That's not entirely clear whether the copyright strike is removed when you _submit_ a counter notification, or whether the status of the copyright strike is resolved after further proceedings.

I _think_ the strike is removed immediately upon submission of the counter notification, because I think this is the action that moves the dispute fully into the formally defined DMCA takedown legal procedure and out of YouTube's own content ID procedures. But Google's documentation is obviously avoiding any clear statement of user's rights and what's required by law vs by Google policy. Google and the big copyright cartels want the system to continue to function largely on intimidation, and don't want it to be too easy for users to find and exercise the "sue me or fuck off" option they are legally entitled to.

[1] [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000)

<comment><USER45> The strike isn't removed until after ten days, but the effects are paused during that period. The content will stay down during that period but the account is fine.

I don't want to ascribe particular motivations to Google here, but I agree that more people should be aware that they can dispute and counternotice and won't be harmed except in the very unlikely case that they actually get sued.

<comment><USER47> This also assumes that the entity that made the original claim doesn't just come back and say that your counter-notice is invalid. Google doesn't actually check that they are telling the truth and will just suspend your account permanently instead.

If you involve some lawyers and media pressure they might reverse the decision, but if you are just a random person without a legal team on call 24/7 you're SOL.

<comment><USER45> >This also assumes that the entity that made the original claim doesn't just come back and say that your counter-notice is invalid. Google doesn't actually check that they are telling the truth and will just suspend your account permanently instead.

Not how it works. They need to actually file a lawsuit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rickety-gherkin A couple things I'm confused about here. Was NYU monetizing this video? Is that where the grounds for dispute are? If that's true, would demonetizing the video clear out the disputes? Even though this clearly falls under fair use, it's still something that was unclear to me.

I'm surprised there's not a serious case against Youtube/Google for denying people the right to Fair Use. Is this because people don't have to use Youtube? Is this in the Youtube contract somewhere? Is it because Fair Use doesn't work like that? If you provide a platform like Youtube for people to use, are you not held legally responsible for protecting Fair Use laws the same way you'd be held liable for copyright infringement if you didn't give corporations/people the ability to dispute?

If Youtube allowed all videos to exist regardless of copyright infringement, and didn't lay out any paths for claims, would they be in legal trouble? Is this not the same as automatically removing obvious Fair Use content?

<comment><USER48> A copyright violation does not just remove your right to monetize the content, it also removes your right to determine if the content is monetized. The copyright holders who claimed infringement can decide to allow the content and force it to be monetized for their profit.

<comment><USER49> It's worth noting that while this is the most common mechanism employed by youtube.. it is possible with the same system to just remove the right to have the video (or at least that segment) published at all.

But the general business youtube has pursued, which in fairness, is partly to make it possible for people to publish videos with such works in the first place, is that most copyright holders will allow the work to be use but instead the entire video (regardless of how significant that small copyright portion was) is monetized to the 100% benefit of the copyright holder.

There are some plusses to this, in that it's easy (and free) to actually publish a video containing copyrighted works. And that in general by working with all the publishers to do this, it has in theory prevented them from chasing YouTube harder to disallow any such content.

The downside is the entire system is one sided and the review and oversight process is clearly lacking. I could understand a little how this happens with small channels... but I frequently see channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers (who are typically full time youtubers) and sometimes even millions.. get the same lack of oversight to their claims.

To me it's crazy that the "3 strikes" rule applies just as equally to accidental and incorrect violations on an otherwise very active and largely original channel (that posts 1 video a day making it very easy to accidentally or incorrectly get recognised as having a violation) as it does to a 1 video channel with no subscribers that is actually violating copyright. It boggles the mind that there is no scale applied.

And time and time again I witness channels I watch have this same process of having to somehow reach out to someone at youtube by yelling on twitter or hacker news and then problems just "go away". Even those with millions of subscribers that have internal youtube partner managers.. often those channels still can't solve these problems. It's madness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The automated copyright filter isn't going to pass revenue onto the artists YouTube and the rights holding giants want to claim that it will. This is a system that Youtube essentially poured $100M into building to keep the big licensors on its side (and avoid any surprise bills from them) and, with Article 13 in the EU under proposal, ensure any new entrants struggle to meet the technical demands and costs of more misguided regulation. Of course, Youtube would prefer to avoid the burden of this sort of moderation altogether, but it will be convenient when it costs around 9 figures to build anything close to what they have just to avoid the copyright regulation landmines. Pricing power will be further concentrated among the few big platforms and the share going to creators will continue to dwindle.

<comment><USER51> Well, not really. For instance our Attribution Engine [0], which is much more advanced than YouTube's Content ID is free to all rightsholders and platforms. We make money from taking % from all licensed content, but that also means both platforms and rightsholders generated revenue in the first place.

[0] [https://blog.pex.com/introducing-the-attribution- engine-19ec...](https://blog.pex.com/introducing-the-attribution- engine-19eccd3441a9)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> A point could be made, given that a false claim is a vioalation of the DMCA, that an automatic system must recognize fair use context, erring in favor of the accused. If it fails to do so, it's not ready for production.*

(A possible salvation by the party inflicting the harm onto the falsely accused by allowing a disfunctional system to raise these claims, may be providing funds required for taking the case to court. Else, the entire situation is essentially disproportionate, since, to all probability, the accused party may lack the means to rectify the situation.)

* ) Read: I know, detecting this kind of context is prohibitively complex and probably not in the practical scope of the state of the art. Meaning, the technology is not ready for production.

</comment><comment><USER53> > _After reviewing your dispute, IMG has decided their copyright claim is > still valid_ (response to a dispute)

> _The claimant can request that your video be removed ... if they believe > their claim is still valid_ (response to an appeal)

Question: Does it seem strange that YouTube has the copyright claimant decide on disputes and appeals of their own copyright claims?

This seems like a court in which the plaintiff is also the judge. How can this possibly work?

If I were a troll and just wanted to make life for people needlessly hard, could I submit claims for random videos and simply reject all disputes and appeals - and if someone tried to sue me, say I was just playing by the Content ID rules and didn't invoke actual copyright law at all? What would happen?

<comment><USER54> > Question: Does it seem strange that YouTube has the copyright claimant > decide on disputes and appeals of their own copyright claims?

From a very cynical perspective: Not really, it makes perfect sense as it is the cheapest option that also empowers the people who can make youtube's life a misery. (The big corporations that file these claims).

Hiring third party people to decide these or whatever mechanism you can think of would be more expensive for youtube than what they have now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> That was disappointing, I was expecting more insights into the law and YouTube's system, rather than someone at YouTube thought it pertinent not to help scam NYU Law school.

</comment><comment><USER56> The correct answer of course is for a mass protest where a great many people flag Google's own content as violating copyright...and keep doing it month after month after month until this nonsense ends.

Here's the channel, get to flagging. [https://www.youtube.com/user/Google](https://www.youtube.com/user/Google)

</comment><comment><USER57> Reading through the article the appeal process was shown to be highly fuzzy and uncertain even for a group of highly trained legal experts.

This Kafkaesque situation is similar to the way the legal process works inside a totalitarian state like China, where the citizen caught in a sticky legal situation, could not use the appeal and defence mechanisms, because nobody knows what is the actual mechanism.

And similarly the Youtube user has no natural rights or protection, even if the entire misconduct lies with the Youtube copyright strike process.

It is times like this that I start to agree with the way governments have begun to scrutinize Facebook and Google.

Clearly they do have a responsibility beyond a commercial term of service, to provide not just a utility but also to ensure that some degree of fair play, truthfulness, and consistency is applied.

</comment><comment><USER58> Fun fact: Youtube's revenue in 2019[1] was just slightly less than the combined revenue of all box office ticket sales[2] for the same year.

They should be under severe antitrust scrutiny.

[1] [https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/alphabet-youtube-ad- re...](https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/alphabet-youtube-ad-revenue- first-time-15-billion-2019-1203491155/)

[2] [https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/)

</comment><comment><USER59> YouTube has a feature where you can add a soundtrack to a video from a list of free-to-use songs. These are supposed to be songs that are in the clear. I got a copyright infringement strike on my account from it.

<comment><USER60> Proof?

<comment><USER59> You're either going to have to take what I say for what it is, or call me a liar to my face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I remember when Youtube was created, and then bought by Google I thought how can these people make so much money on what is basically a file server. But this right here is it- they did not solve any kind of technical problem, they solved a legal one. The automated copyright system is the main value add of Youtube, do not doubt it. It allows Youtube to make more ad revenue than it loses from lawsuits or from having to hire an army of people to deal with copyright claims.

</comment><comment><USER62> There is a monetized YouTube video with thousands of views made entirely of my hi-res photos and the captions I wrote on those photos.

I've tried to file a takedown request, and the process is so onerous, and they require all kinds of proof they're my photos I've never been able to actually complete it.

<sigh>

<comment><USER60> That is not true. They have to honor a proper takedown request, which does not have to include any explanation of why you feel your takedown request is valid, Elise they risk their safe harbor. I don't know what you tried to do, but it wasn't 'file a DMCA takedown request'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> And, in the end NYU Law don't learn their lesson, at the very least they could've pointed their visitors to watch said videos somewhere else and not on yt. So long yt doesn't loose users this will just continue and likely will get much worse.

</comment><comment><USER64> If you upload a white noise video you will get many random copyright claims.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why hasn't anyone just started a YouTube competitor in a jurisdiction with no copyright law whatsoever?

It seems like such jurisdictions can quickly become havens for innovation.

<comment><USER66> What are those jurisdictions?

<comment><USER65> I don't know - do none exist? If not, why not? Can't some small state gain a huge advantage by adopting an IP-free legal framework?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> But I thought all that was required is a cartoon video explaining copyright to YT's users because they're just stupid and don't understand?!

</comment><comment><USER68> The situation is all the more interesting because these are not DMCA claims. This is an internal YouTube system and you have zero neutral avenues to fight it.

</comment><comment><USER69> TLDR: You need to be a world-class legal research center in order to ensure IP rights holders don't squash your right to free speech by overly aggressive flagging of fair use material. And even then, it's an uphill battle.

</comment><comment><USER70> Another recent copyright abuse was this one [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8) and this was even manually stricken.

Basically this was a critique of aggressive copyright lawsuits that was manually copyright claimed... for the wrong song.

</comment><comment><USER71> Why isn't there a successful distributed alternative to YouTube and the like?

<comment><USER72> They solve problems that the mainstream doesn't care about, are more complicated to use than Youtube, and hosted alternatives to Youtube already exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> If current copyright laws and the processes built around enforcing them prevent educating people about those laws and processes, then, IMO, said laws have become overgrown, and need to be cut back.

</comment><comment><USER74> YouPorn is a great Youtube alternative.

</comment><comment><USER75> And this is why humans can't and won't ever have anything nice</comment>


Joe Hewitt may harm your computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=joe+hewitt&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a <comment><USER2> See, when I saw the Hacker News title for this, my first thought was "Good to know, I'll simply avoid installing Joe Hewitt." Now that I think about it, maybe a blanket policy of not installing people on my computer is a good one. Better just to stick to programs.

</comment><comment><USER3> His site was indeed hacked recently, and it was harming my computer inasmuch as it was crashing firefox. I consider the google warning to be late but not incorrect.

Here's an email I sent to Joe on 2007-12-17. (It's really hard to make these kinds of messages not look like spam!)

\----- Hey, I was checking out iui tonight, and your site seems broken.

The front page has JS that does something involving "fredkidns.com" and it repeatedly causes my firefox to fill memory. Kazehakase is able to show the broken page, though.

I think the blog top page is also hacked; other internal pages seem to be ok.

<comment><USER3> I apologize for the slang use of the word 'hacked' up there.

I meant 'vandalized, probably by means that required deep knowledge of a system to initially develop, although the vandal was unlikely the same person as the hacker who came up with the exploit'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> SiteAdvisor used to do some really cool things before they were bought -- looks like google is trying to replicate that...<http://www.siteadvisor.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> Makes sense. How many of the plugins sites try to install are actually useful?

I wonder if Google will whitelist the page once this comes to their attention.

<comment><USER6> I heard Google doesn't like fixing stuff manually. They'd rather fix their algorithm instead.

But if they can't fix your problem by fixing their algorithm, you're basically fucked.

<comment><USER7> > But if they can't fix your problem by fixing their algorithm, you're > basically fucked.

I think it's reasonable to say that the algorithm isn't worth much if it has such false positives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is this?

<comment><USER9> It's Google's malware warning system gone astray.

Joe Hewitt is the creator of Firebug and a Y Combinator company founder and all around good guy.

<comment><USER10> Joe Hewitt is a YC founder? For what company? Are you Joe Hewitt??

<comment><USER11> parakey (acquired by facebook)

<comment><USER7> Whatever happened to parakey?

<comment><USER12> I asked this a while ago on here because I was wondering if parakey was going to end up integrated into Facebook. A YC founder answered that he didn't think Parakey had gotten very far before the acquisition and that it was a talent acquisition.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin is undergoing deflation, not inflation. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexsmith.io/?p=43 <comment><USER2> ...as was clear to anyone with any vague understanding of the definitions for deflation and inflation.

<comment><AUTHOR> You would really be surprised... Then again maybe HN was just a little tipsy last night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > as a result I noticed that a lot of people seem to think that bitcoin is > undergoing massive inflation

Really? Bitcoin was designed to be a deflationary currency from the get-go. This is very, very common knowledge. How did this get voted up on HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, I mean they are confused about fairly basic terminology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bitcoin is most similar to gold, so it's not surprising. Gold based economies also underwent severe deflation [1]. This is definitely a good thing for bitcoin as a store of currency (that is what it was designed for anyway), but it would be a bad thing to have an economy actually based on bitcoin as everyone would just hang onto their bitcoins as long as possible without utilizing them for growth as there would be little point.

Bitcoin is still a dubious store of currency as it could completely crash (or skyrocket) in the next few months with no prior warning. If bitcoin does survive, it will eventually settle as some kind of new age gold, but for now it's more of a slot machine. Whether bitcoin survives or not depends on how hard governments try to force regulation on it in the short term, I'd think. Long term doesn't matter because if it survives it will be entrenched and regulation will be far harder to implement if businesses are using it en-mass.

If you're up for gambling, I'd say bitcoin has much better odds than slot machines, so roll the dice.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Depression_and_Wo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Depression_and_World_War_II)

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't agree more. I think litecoin actually has the makings of a better day to day currency:

[http://blog.alexsmith.io/?p=59](http://blog.alexsmith.io/?p=59)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's an oversimplification.

The words 'inflate/inflation' have several senses depending on domain, and even within the economic domain, shades of meaning based on whether you're referring to price level or money supply.

All of the following statements are true, when considered in their likely context:

"The price of Bitcoin [in dollars] is inflating."

"The Bitcoin supply is currently in an inflationary phase, as dictated by an algorithmic 'mining' schedule set at its creation, but will reach an eventual fixed maximum."

"Since the permanent supply of Bitcoin is capped, economists would classify it as a deflationary medium of exchange."

"Prices of other things as denominated in Bitcoin have been undergoing extreme deflation during the run-up in the Bitcoin/USD exchange rate."

The words are confusing enough in traditional colloquial and economic usage... and Bitcoin is weird enough, straddling a number of the categories that were devised before its creation, that it's even harder to describe. Entirely new categories and words may be necessary.

</comment><comment><USER6> Inflation is an increase in money supply which is what is happening today with the number of Bitcoins in production. Eventually it will be deflationary because coins get lost.

Inflation has nothing to do with price volatility. Something that cost 10 Bitcoins yesterday might cost 1 Bitcoin today and 2 Bitcoins tomorrow. It doesn't mean that Bitcoin is deflationary today and inflationary tomorrow.

(Good job removing all comments on your blog that don't agree with your flawed definitions)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if I removed a comment of yours -- wasn't intentional. I only removed comments stating that bitcoin was undergoing inflation to help avoid confusion.</comment></comment>


I released my own Visual Studio Code Extension Pack and here is how you can too - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/lampewebdev/i-released-my-own-visual-studio-code-extension-pack-and-here-is-how-you-can-too-5g87 <comment><USER2> You can add an "extensions.json" file inside of your workspace's .vscode directory with a list of recommended extensions[0]. The first time a new coworker joins the team, he only needs to pull the project and open it in VSCode, the editor will notice the file and prompt you to install the recommended extensions. The same thing can be done in the devcontainer.json file[1].

If you put the remote development extension in the "local" recommended, and the required extensions in the "remote" recommended, the requirements for the onboarding of a new team member boil down to "install VSCode, Docker and docker-compose"

[0] [https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension- gallery#...](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension- gallery#_workspace-recommended-extensions)

[1] [https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote- overview](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote-overview)

<comment><USER3> It takes very little effort to not say "he" and be more inclusive.

<comment><USER4> It takes less effort to not be offended

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > People forget what extensions they have installed

automatically sync your settings into a Gist with [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Shan.cod...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Shan.code- settings-sync)

bonus - if you work on multiple machines, it'll automatically update from one machine to the next too

<comment><USER2> You can also list them with `code --list-extensions` [0]

[0]: [https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension- gallery#...](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/extension- gallery#_command-line-extension-management)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One day I hope someone builds a VS Code distribution that comes as a 1-step setup as an IDE for "all" languages. So long as you have docker (or snap or whatever is favorable then) you can install a plugin and get LSPs, linters, code building, etc setup for "all" languages. Also autocomplete for things like proto/thrift files would be cool (by finding .proto and .thift files, running code gen, and indexing that in the language server).

One can dream...

<comment><USER7> Not sure why that would be useful to anyone. One of the benefits of vscode is how well it is architected, enabling users to customize the experience with nearly zero effort. This is primarily enabled via a rich extensions API.

It's pretty obvious but to be clear, included support by default for all languages would degrade performance with little value to most users, since most users work only with a handful of languages.

Personally, I love that I can setup my default extensions that run across all projects/repos, then when I want to work in a language or use a tool not in my typical workflow, I can configure this with a few clicks or by updating a JSON file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Bit offtopic. But I'm looking for extensios, that will allow me to set pernament filter on directories that are displayed in the explorer (sidebar). I quite often need to check some source file from node_modules and scrolling through all installed modules is painful. I wish I could filter those directories, like you can do in search (files to include/exclude).

<comment><USER9> Look for "Files: Exclude" within VSCode Settings.

Edit: additionally, the sidebar explorer now supports type-to-search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Compared to Emacs extensions where you simply eval your new function and it becomes part of the editor this process is quite complicated.

Those who don't know Emacs can't really understand how quick it is to write extensions for emacs.

I wonder why VSCode could not replicate this simplicity instead of creating package.json files and stuff.

<comment><USER11> I have been quiet about this until now, and this will probably go against some grain here, but here is a question:

If emacs is so much more extensible, why is there so much better language support for mainstream languages in VSCode?

I couldn't find support for Angular with Typescript. Java support isn't anywhere near the big three (Netbeans, Eclipse and IntelliJ) and even the newcomer VSCode has decent Java support these days.

You'd think that the most extensible IDE with the smartest users should have support for most stuff one needs on a day to day basis?

<comment><USER12> What do you consider "better language support"?

Most emacs users are happy working at the level of "code with some completion", and generally don't want much more.

I write Java in emacs (Ive used netbeans and intellij quite a bit as well) and I cant say I've wanted anything that I dont have.

So... what might I want that you have found to not be available?

<comment><USER4> I triedVS Code and found it to be not as enjoyable as emacs. Sure, it makes some things easier, but emacs is light years ahead in functionality. I think most of the shortcomings could be addressed with a couple of projects.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Availability of the Government of the United States - <AUTHOR> https://govavailability.info/ <comment><USER2> { "start": "1995-11-14T00:00:00-05:00", "end": "1995-11-20T00:00:00-05:00" }, { "start": "1995-12-16T00:00:00-05:00", "end": "1996-01-07T00:00:00-05:00" },

I remember this one. I was in college. I was sitting on the front stoop of the house I was living in when the mailman came by. I mentioned that I was surprised he was still working since the government was shutdown. He laughed and said that the USPS is self-funded and is flush with cash and had no debts so they had no problem staying open. Oh how things have changed.

<comment><USER3> In case you don't know: the government passed a law that USPS must _prefund_ all benefits (like pensions), which is _extremely_ uncommon (pay-as-you-go is typical).

[https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432](https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432)

<comment><USER4> pay-as-you-go is typical and nearly universally results in bankruptcy of the pension plan.

requiring USPS to pay for obligations incurred today isn't some crazy scam to bankrupt them

<comment><USER5> Actually requiring a fund in escrow to complete its promises is what __all companies __should have been required to do. Employees took a willful paycut to save money for later... But, why does the company care?

You want to know what happens when they don't? They declare bankruptcy and the judge dismisses the pensions, and the federal government takes it over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a truly optimistic assessment of the Availability of Government Services.

I went to the post office a few weeks ago, and while the building was open, they had stopped taking packages. Not that they wouldn't mail them today, but that they just wouldn't even take them. And that doesn't even count the hours they're meant to be closed.

In any case, it's clear that the length of any specific downtime matters as much as the cumulative downtime.

<comment><USER7> It's measuring whether the service as a whole is outright down and refusing to respond to requests. There's arguably been a degraded user experience since the 80s, but we seem to have reached the cascading failure point in the last 2 years.

<comment><USER5> There's arguments to be made that this is a right-wing coup.

Many hardliners in the republican party, along with trump, want to starve the beast. And there's not much more you can do than by harming the rank and file with "you must go to work but we won't pay you". The people in federal positions I know of are already looking elsewhere. Some are trying to survive it. And others are going "sick-out".

Regardless how its being done, it is. And this shutdown is starving all non- military federal positions from TSA to the USDA. If this goes on for months, then those people will leave, along with their experience their tenure brought. And eventually, when the government is not "shut down", they will have proof that the government _really_ didn't need those positions.

And we open our eyes, and realize the swamp wasn't Capitol Hill. The swamp was us. We're in the middle of draining.

<comment><USER7> Maybe, but I think it's ironic that this shutdown is over a Republican (well, Trumpist) initiative to spend _more_ money, while it's the Democrats who want to hold the line on spending.

<comment><USER8> It's not really money. You'd need 3 or 4 significant figures to even tell the difference, depending on how you calculate it. With less, the wall completely disappears in the rounding.

Maybe that says something bad about the size of the rest of the budget. It's kind of disturbing that the wall cost is like loose change dropped down under a seat cushion and forgotten.

To put it another way, the wall cost is just half a day of the federal budget. Most likely, we've already blown far more than that on the cost of the shutdown.

Scaling things down to median American household sizes, it's like a couple getting a divorce because one person insists on spending $16.81 to $93.42 and the other person is flipping out over it.

<comment><USER9> Absolutely, this is not really over money. I think if you look at the past few decades, Democrats have been better at being fiscally conservative, for whatever reason, but this is a battle over principles, not money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find the timestamp in the data really enjoyable for some reason...

"usa": { "start": "1789-03-04T00:00:00-05:00", "end": null },

<comment><USER11>
        {"screeching_eagle": true}

<comment><USER12> // TODO: I could only find a red-tailed hawk sound. Fix before shipping.

<comment> house9-2 LOL, this cracks me up because movies always use the Red-tailed call, even when it is an eagle or vulture being shown

<comment><USER11> I did not expect this thread to teach me anything, and yet here we are.

Why is this the case? Do most birds of prey not have particularly virile screeches or what?

<comment><USER13> Bald eagles make a sort of whiny peeping. It's a very cute sound, not at all what people expect.

To quote Sibley: "Call rather weak, flat, chirping whistles, stuttering, variable. Immature calls generally harsher, more shrill than adult until three to four years old."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most of us would be fired if we had only one nine in our uptime rate.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can we also have little dots that show which services are currently impacted by the outage?

<comment><USER16> I would like a US government statuspage.

<comment><USER17> I'd be happy just to see it listed on downdetector.com

<comment><USER18> Ha just for funsies I went over there and searched "U.S. Government" and it brought me here: [https://downdetector.com/status/irs](https://downdetector.com/status/irs)

I guess that's close enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> No shutdowns until 1980, and 10 since then according to the data.

What changed in 1980?

<comment><USER20> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)

<comment><USER18> And we have plenty of data showing how this works out, latest of which might be Kansas: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Senate_Bill_Substitute_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Senate_Bill_Substitute_HB_2117)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Website isn't for small screens. There sure gotta be some funds for that?

An SLA I'd never agree to. There might not even be a single 9 in the this year's uptime percentage.

<comment><USER22> Works fine on mine (iPad mini, pixel1) - what problem do you have, on what device?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One nine of uptime isn't amazing.

</comment><comment><USER23> durability would be an interesting measurement, including compromise, data loss due to redaction, etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> The dataset misses one of Trump's earlier shutdowns. He's had 3 shutdowns.</comment>


Apple claims Woolies is getting fresh with new logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/apple-claims-woolies-is-getting-fresh-with-new-logo-20091004-ghxe.html <comment><USER2> Question: Is October 5th the equivalent of April 1st in Australia? Because, honestly, this is so ludicrous that I was sure it was a joke.</comment>


Would you rather be the #1 smartest person or add most value to most people? - <AUTHOR>

Would you rather be more like:
A) An extraterrestrial that is observing the evolution of the human species, as it is controlled by a hive mind. This hive mind supra-organism, similar to the Borg from Star Trek, divides itself into different possibilities in humans (as well as bees, ants, etc) and distributes values to promote certain actions, as an automated process similar to asteroids affecting matter and energy as it runs itself with increasing efficiency through the universe. Your brain contains the whole of human knowledge and you watch fluctuations as this knowledge evolves.
B) Contribute the most value to the evolution of this human hive mind. For example, transhumanism, solving world health problems, making the average intelligence smarter and raising quality of life with robotics. <comment><USER2> You're getting a little too New-Agey for me, but I'd pick B.

All of the smarts in the world means nothing if you don't apply it.</comment>


Paying Top Dollar for Condos, and Leaving Them Empty - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/nyregion/paying-top-dollar-for-condos-and-leaving-them-empty.html <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that some ~85% of apartments in Manhattan are coop not condos where this often wouldn't happen. Developers like condos because they can sell to anyone. Buying in an established building means meeting whatever requirements the coop board sets. This can vary from the easy to the onerous.

What side effect is that I would posit that coop owner-occupancy rates are much, much higher.

Coop boards tend to have heavy restrictions on subletting too, which admittedly is more of an issue to lower income earners than the megawealthy (that seem to be the "culprits" for vacant luxury condos).

Personally I'd find it eerie living in a large apartment tower and never seeing any other residents. Lonely is right.

<comment><USER3> I live in a coop in Manhattan and I would guess at least 30% of the building doesn't live here full time or they are just holding on to the property until we surpass 2008 real estate values (from checking streeteasy and the previous sale price/ask price today). Also this isn't a super luxury place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> NYC should decrease income taxes and increase property taxes. I don't mind out of towners buying expensive condo's, but they should help pay for the services that make New York great. Right now, because their income is all earned out of town and property taxes are very low, so they are not really supporting the city.

<comment><USER5> And what would happen to people like my grandmother who can barely afford their property taxes now. She has lived in the same house for 50 years

<comment><USER6> Not intending to be harsh, but your grandmother could use the equity established in her property, and move to somewhere where the costs of living are within her means.

In cases where the property has appreciated so much that the increase in property taxes is a burden, surely there is a corresponding increase in equity to lessen the blow.

The "CA Prop 13" option pretty much makes newcomers finance existing landowners' property taxes - not my favorite option.

<comment><USER7> Prop. 13 is a disaster in another way. Because commercial buildings are higher-valued, it is now common for them never to be sold. They are just spun out as a separate entity, and that entity changes hands.

Since they are never sold, their property tax base never increases (re- assessment happens most often after a sale). So there has also been a net transfer of property tax burden from commercial to residential property.

<comment><USER8> More and more people are doing it too, I think. I was looking at property records, and a surprisingly large number of them were owned by various "trust"s .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Then there is the $88 million crash pad at 15 Central Park West, bought last year by a trust linked to Ekaterina Rybolovleva, then 22 years old."

Can somebody send me the AirBNB link to that one please?

<comment><USER3> Or her okcupid profile... :)

<comment><USER10> Eh: <http://i.imgur.com/i8L0JUW.jpg>

She looks much older than 22. Then again, with all that money, you'd never have to worry about finding funding for a startup again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For the record, empty real estate is the norm over here in China. The government dissuades capital exodus, a strategy which is also partly assisted by cultural and linguistic challenges. The result has been that many people have simply bought, developed, and sat on real estate right across the country, a huge proportion of which is empty. The really poor people (most people) cannot afford anything, and even if you do "buy", it's only a lease from the government for under a hundred years. In other words, even if real estate _is_ perceived as a safe haven, in fact it's not. Nobody's comfortable. Everyone's constantly on edge. The older generation, despite opening their eyes to the world, cling desperately to their children as insurance against the coming winds of change. (And the 'typical' family structure: 4 grandparents, 2 parents, 1 child.)

</comment><comment><USER12> This was the reason to allow squats in Amsterdam. It was 'legal' to squat a building or appartment that had been empty for 12 months. Moreover, the burden of proof (for new plans with the building and/or use in the preceding 12 months) was on those seeking to evict.

Now squatting is illegal again.

</comment><comment><USER13> I live in a Vancouverism condo and about half the units on my floor are currently empty. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism>

These residents winter in Hong Kong, Phoenix, San Diego, etc. I don't really blame them. I'd rather spend the rainy months in a warmer climate, too.

I would imagine that the case may be similar for New York. If you can afford a multi-million dollar place in New York, you can probably afford another multi- million dollar place in some other place, too.

</comment><comment><USER14> _Others, however, describe living in a deserted piggy bank as something else: lonely_

If you live in New York, even in an otherwise empty building, and feel lonely, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER15> Actually, one of the ironies of living in a big city like New York is that even with all of the options, loneliness is _more_ prevalent[1].

[1]: [http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/olivia-laing-me- lone...](http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/olivia-laing-me-lonely-in- manhattan/)

<comment><USER16> I live in São Paulo (the whole metropolis has 30 million people) and I feel horribly lonely.

Plainly because everyone is like visitors, I see thousands of people every day, and I don't know any of them, as I move around the city (I lived in 4 different places in the city over the years), I noticed that I never felt at home, it is like being a eternal stranger, a eternal visitor.

When I lived in a 100k people town, I remember that I could realiably find the same people in the same places, for example I could go eat a hot dog at night in a park, and talk with the regular, build friendships, and so on. And yet, it was still strange...

But São Paulo? Well, I could take the same route every single day, and don't see the same people twice. It is just horrible.

I only don't feel depressingly lonely, because I made friendship with some people over internet, and every month we all meet on someone house.

<comment><USER17> > _"Well, I could take the same route every single day, and don't see the same > people twice. It is just horrible."_

Have you tried to see them twice? Have you asked?

Having lived in quite a few large metros in my life, and now living in NYC, I have to say: the city is as impersonal and isolating as you let it be.

My challenge to you: forget _every_ preconceived notion you have about strangers, how you're supposed to behave in public, and the how and the whys of friendship and hanging out - and go talk to some strangers.

You'll get some weird looks, but your success rate will be 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than what you'd expect.

I've seen this stance expressed on HN before and receive some flak - but I say fuck the naysayers. They can have solitude if they wish, but there is no crime in asking a stranger to shoot the shit over coffee, and anyone whose day would be ruined by such a request is oversensitive and paranoid to the point of absurdism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My impression is that Bloomberg has consciously chosen the strategy of encouraging second home ownership in Manhattan as an attempt to decouple New Yorks service and consumer economy from the financial services sector.

This trades off the progressive goals like affordable housing against providing a baseline of consumption activity to sustain NYC's tax base and its service workers.

<comment><USER19> Do people not spending much time in NYC actually contribute much beyond property tax?

<comment><USER18> An apartment in a condo in NYC will be about $100k+ per year in fees and taxes. Dozens of people will be employed in the management and maintenance of the building.

I've also got the impression that consumption of various luxury goods and services in NY is highly coupled to bonus season in the financial sector. Millionaires from Kansas etc are likely to consume such services like Broadway, Bergdorfs etc year around because there are a lack of equivalent services back home.

<comment><USER20> >An apartment in a condo in NYC will be about $100k+ per year in fees and taxes.

[citation needed] Property tax in NYC is pretty low; this $3.35m condo in Tribeca is just over $20k/year in taxes and maintenance: [http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/809162-condo-22-warren- street...](http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/809162-condo-22-warren-street- tribeca-new-york)

<comment><USER18> It depends on the buildings amenities and staffing levels. You can find multimillion dollar properties with no staff but generally there is a dozenfull time staff members is a 100 hundred unit building

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One thing to note about the buildings in the article, is that they're all in fancy areas for shopping and tourists but not really places that long time residents want to live.

I would be more interested in knowing the stats for luxury housing across the whole city.

<comment><USER22> What're you talking about? The examples are: Columbus Circle, 157 W. 57th street, 65th and lex. The last one is in the heart of the UES old money residential area, and the former two are right where the fancy central park view housing happens to be. You know those rich kids whose parents are paying for their apartment in Williamsburg? Those are the places where those parents live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Given NYC's sky-high rent, I wonder what would happen to the real estate market if these apartments were occupied by full-time residents. It seems grossly inefficient to have an apartment sitting empty for that long, no matter how much money you have. I guess there aren't too many good options, since airbnb-style renting is probably a) illegal and b) frowned upon by the building. If I were these people, I'd just treat the apartment as an investment property and stay in a really nice hotel when I was in town.

<comment><USER24> If you really where those people, it would be too much of a burden and hassle to have to deal with it as an investment property. They just don't want to deal with booking hotel rooms, the hassles. They can store whatever and know that it will remain untouched, they can fly into town and have an affair and leave, and best of all, it's prime real estate that figure will stay in high demand for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER25> That was my take-away as well. In addition to having a relatively stable investment (prime real estate in a popular city should hold value very well), you get to avoid the hassle of booking travel, and can manage your expectations about what you're getting. It's a more exclusive and more- personal place to visit or rest than a hotel, since it can have YOUR art, YOUR bathrobe, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Waiting at a red light, I look up at the large glass windows that are the eyes of Park Avenue. From a population-density point of view, this is the Midwest of Manhattan. Towering above me are rooms - rooms and rooms and rooms. And they are empty. There are powder rooms and dressing rooms and piano rooms and guest rooms and, somewhere above me, but I won't say where, a rabbit named Arthur has sixteen feet square all to himself."

-The Nanny Diaries: A Novel by Emma Mclaughlin, Nicola Kraus

</comment><comment><USER27> I feel a little the same in SF. Maybe not at the same ratio, but still. Quite a few places are rented, but the people are rarely there. I always imagine they're just all very rich and have those places instead of hotels when they move from city to city. But really, i've no idea.

Note they all seems to own the place, ie it's not a rent.

</comment><comment><USER24> so? millionaires also pay tens of millions for private planes and it sits in the hanger most of the time!

<comment><USER28> Not the smart ones. They lease shares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Seems like it's clearly money left on the table. Perhaps someone is rich enough that they don't care, but that seems odd.

Residences have something of a P/E ratio: market rent vs cost of the property. Perhaps the foregone rents are a drop in the ocean, but I don't think so.

If it's a question of luxury – the desire to have one's own place even if it lies fallow – well, someone would have to be _very_ idle rich to allow that to happen. Certainly there are high-end brokers who could host parties, or special visitors, in such places.

</comment><comment><USER30> Are there occupancy rules for insurance in the USA? I know there are in Canada and UK

"Not living full-time in your home can invalidate your insurance"

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19422609>

<comment><USER31> You buy more expensive insurance, just like you'd have to do for an investment property.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anything that isn't a primary residence should be heavily taxed. There should be an onerous carrying cost associated with real estate in markets with limited available real estate.

</comment><comment><USER33> _"It is a safe haven,"_

and that's it, especially with Chinese, Russian or ME oil money. If you have $1++ bilion, you want to safely put away enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life, should government act up and taketh it. Maybe you are on a foreign trip, or you make it to the border, fake a passport or whatever, and then your property in NY or London awaits you. No need to work as a busboy or at a dry cleaning service.

In US, rich people may buy land, bunkers, gold and silver coins. But USA is much more stable and property rights are relatively safe so we call them paranoid.</comment>


Boy survives tetanus. 57 days in hospital. Parents refuse further vaccinations - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/well/oregon-child-tetanus-vaccine.html <comment><USER2> > This month, a teenager who defied his mother's antivaccine beliefs and > started getting shots when he turned 18

Just in case any young people are reading: In England you get to make your own medical decisions at 16 and your parents don't need to know, and if you're under that age your doctor will see if you understand the issues ("Gillick Competent") and if you do then again you can make your own medical decisions and your parents don't need to know.

This is because you are a human, and you have human rights, you are not the property of your parents.

</comment><comment><USER3> All it takes is an epidemic level flu to hit and these idiots will be classified as terrorists.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to hear the parents' perspective on things... "The boy spent 57 days in the hospital and racked up medical bills of more than $800,000." All that pain and cost, and they still didn't want further vaccinations: "But despite an "extensive review" of the risks, and the benefits of vaccination, the article said, the family declined the second vaccination — or any other recommended immunization."

</comment><comment><USER5> You leave a 13 year old with a mobile phone home alone for the evening in the suburbs and you can go to jail.

You torture a kid by denying effective treatment it's fine.

I can't understand the doctors that didn't say fuck it I don't care what these morons think and didn't just vaccinated the kid.

<comment><USER6> > I can't understand the doctors that didn't say fuck it I don't care what > these morons think and didn't just vaccinated the kid.

Probably because they didn't want to lose their medical license, and make their degree (that they're still paying back their debt on) suddenly worthless?

<comment><USER5> The a medical board that revokes their license it should be disbanded, forcing someone to suffer through this seems to be directly go against the Hippocratic oath.

<comment><USER7> Forcing someone to undergo a procedure that they explicitly do not want is far worse than harming someone at their request IMO.

Doctors aren't there to make everyone healthy, doctors are there to offer their services when desired. Sometimes they have to make a tough call and can't ask permission (e.g. patient is incapacitated and the legal authority isn't available), but directly going against someone's wishes _is_ harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Parents like this should be denied all tax-exempts. They should even have to pay a high extra tax. That tax money can then go into vaccination education and treatment of unvaccinated children.

<comment><USER9> In France vaccination is mandatory, and not vaccinating your kinds is considered child abuse in the eyes of the law.

I have argued for a long time that not following the child vaccination programme (in Sweden,my home country) should disqualify you from childcare and any public schools since you are putting other kids at risk. then I'd probably withdraw their government benefits (1050sek/month/child)

Edit: but of course, one should also see to what works on the population scale. Sweden has no compulsory vaccination, but also has the highest percentage of vaccinated kids in the world. I do however think removing child benefits or limiting childcare for unvaccinated kids is a good idea. You can choose whether you vaccinate your kids, but you can't choose not to have an infection sensitive kid that can't be vaccinated.

<comment><USER2> > should disqualify you from childcare and any public schools since you are > putting other kids at risk.

In the UK you're allowed to home-educate your child, and we see disproportionate numbers of parents with conspiracy-theory mindsets home- educating. This is because we see larger numbers of "freemen on the land" and "sovereign citizens" in this group.

Excluding these children from mainstream education feels satisfying, but may well be counter productive. At school they get to see all their friends having BCG and polio vaccines (I had these at school, are they still given?) and not suffering any harm. They also get less indoctrination about wierd ideas. And I'm uncomfortable with making the child suffer because they have an idiot for a parent.

So, it's a bit tricky.

<comment><USER9> Sweden has no homeschooling (except for one orthodox Jewish family a couple of years ago which I believe ended up in the supreme court. I don't know the final.judgement though), so that problem is already solved.

But yes, that is a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know what's more shocking, the inflated 800k, or the ignorance of the anti vaxxers

<comment><USER5> I'm not entirely sure how inflated that is form the NHS in Wales:

"A Level 3 Intensive Care bed cost an average £1932 per night".

Add to that the additional costs of the treatment and staff and even in a country with relatively cheap health care you get to costs of $300-400K for a period of nearly 60 days.</comment></comment>


Implementing a CoffeeScript Feature in Pure JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2012/12/end_of_days_ellipses.md#the-end-of-days-implementing-a-coffeescript-feature-in-pure-javascript

<comment><USER2> This is coming in the next version of EcmaScript. See Rest Parameters: [http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:rest_paramete...](http://wiki.ecmascript.org/doku.php?id=harmony:rest_parameters)

If you're adventurous or just OK with the idea of using transpilers/precompilers (which you would be if you like CoffeeScript), you can use rest parameters with Traceur [1] or TypeScript [2].

[1] <http://code.google.com/p/traceur-compiler/> [2] <http://www.typescriptlang.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Most useful features in CoffeeScript have been co-opted by ES6 and its proliferation will put pressure on CS to innovate some new features or become much less relevant. The "ideal" JS code near the end of the article almost is valid ES6. The following _is_ valid ES6:

        var leftPartial = (fn, ...args) => function(...remainingArgs){
          return fn.apply(this, args.concat(remainingArgs));
        };

Run it in <http://benvie.github.com/continuum>.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is really nice, both for showing a useful feature, and also for helping expand my mind on how useful functions which take functions and return another function can be!

</comment><comment><USER5> > Works like a charm!

but is ugly. When a feature is part of a language , you dont need to look at the source code of the language to understand how to use it, nor have to import yet another script to make it work.

<comment><AUTHOR> _When a feature is part of a language , you dont need to look at the source code of the language to understand how to use it_

WHy do you have to look at source code? If I tell you that the Underscore library includes a function called "once" that does such-and-such, you can just use "once," correct?

Same with "ellipses." You don't have to look at the source code if you don't want to.

 _import yet another script to make it work_

Ah, this is a deep philosophical question, well worth consideration.

One philosophy is to have a language that does everything and has extensive official libraries. Java went down this road under Sun's stewardship. The other philosophy is to make the language smaller but powerful enough that people could invent their own stuff and let "the marketplace" decide.

JavaScript is mostly going down this road. Things like "let" and "=>" are being added to the language, but at a fairly slow pace because the language does support creating your own idioms to accomplish the same things, so making it part of the syntax waits until there is an overwhelming mass of programmers who are familiar with the idea.</comment></comment>


Part 2 of How to become better at software estimations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/code-runners-blog/how-to-become-better-at-software-estimations-part-2-fb286a9d496a <comment><AUTHOR> Here's Part 1 for those that missed it - [https://medium.com/code-runners- blog/how-to-become-better-at...](https://medium.com/code-runners-blog/how-to- become-better-at-software-estimations-part-1-b50ef0619884)

</comment><comment><USER2> I noticed a few typos in both parts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that, I'll go through them again and edit as much as I can.</comment></comment>


PayPal President David Marcus Credit card Hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.cybernewsalerts.com/2014/02/paypal-president-david-marcus-credit.html

<comment><USER2> Title (in original) wants for apostrophe.

 _Marcus noted that his credit card had EMV chip technology, a more secure system currently in use in Europe. But that didn 't stop the data from being stolen and used for a "ton of fraudulent" transactions._

So much for C'n'P.</comment>


The Science of Rubbing - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a31996381/what-is-tribology/ <comment><USER2> [https://archive.is/CYda2](https://archive.is/CYda2)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use Go for? - <AUTHOR>

I was playing with go since last week and it feels good while I code in go, today morning did some benchmark and found it's faster than interpreted languages like python, ruby. So I was wondering in which cases you code on Go in production? <comment><USER2> [https://microcorruption.com](https://microcorruption.com)

Also: [https://github.com/tqbf/speck](https://github.com/tqbf/speck) :P

</comment><comment><USER3> I work for MongoDB. There we use go for all of our agents for our various services. Originally they were developed in java and python, but we spent far too much time supporting issues that arose from existing environments run times. A blog post was written that expands on this further. [http://blog.mongodb.org/post/51643994762/go-agent- go](http://blog.mongodb.org/post/51643994762/go-agent-go)

In my free time I develop a static site engine called Hugo which is hundreds of times faster than others written in python and ruby and is super easy to install as it is distributed as a single binary without any dependencies. You can learn more about it at [http://hugo.spf13.com](http://hugo.spf13.com) .

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really interesting, thanks for sharing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm using Go for a project that people deploy on their own servers. It allows me to distribute as a single binary, with all dependencies statically linked.

This makes deployment much simpler than Python, which leaves the user to find all dependencies, which isn't as always as straight forward as it seems.

Also, with go.rice I was able to embed my static resources (.html mainly) right into the binary, giving me a single file to deploy, much like a Java fatjar.

This was actually a port of a small Python project to get the feel for Go, and I'm really sold on the "scp" style of deployment (I can get that from Java to, but Go seems more approachable for smaller projects).

</comment><comment><USER5> Game Development - Pwnie Yard ( [http://pwnieyard.com](http://pwnieyard.com) )

The back-end of is written in 100% GO. Asset pipeline tools are mainly go apps as well.

<comment><USER6> From the little bit I've seen your game looks very cool. Any tips or recommended resources on game development in Go?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am working on an end-to-end encrypted file synchronization service and it is going relatively well. I am not particularly far along but I have been enjoying the ride.

[https://github.com/gaigepr/secureBox](https://github.com/gaigepr/secureBox)

I chose go because it is significantly faster than python, compiled, has a decent selection of libraries, and because I really wanted to learn go.</comment>


America may outsmart China in 5G with AI and blockchains - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613499/america-may-outsmart-china-in-5g-with-ai-and-blockchains/ <comment><USER2> This is article so idiotic it makes me hurt. The researcher is quoted in the article saying it's 10 years out. Blockchain??? AI?? What exactly is the competitive advantage?

</comment><comment> crooked-v Blockchains? Yeah, sure, I'd love to have a five-minute proof-of-work lag on all my calls and a phone running at 100% CPU all the time.</comment>


Personal names around the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names

<comment><AUTHOR> "How do people's names differ around the world, and what are the implications of those differences on the design of forms, databases, ontologies, etc. for the Web?"

This has basically convinced me that you should only ever have a single (long) "Name" text input.

See also: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods- programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers- believe-about-names/)

<comment><USER2> Except as pointed out that's generally not sufficient for Japanese since given their kanji based name you'll have no idea how to pronounce or sort it without them also telling you in a separate field how it's pronounced.

There's also the issue of interacting with other systems. You may want just one field but some credit card processor might want 2 etc....

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is always a difficult task to tackle, especially when dealing with data sources like Active Directory that want a surname and given name, which may not always be the case for everyone.

Admittedly the best answer is to get a "Family Name" and a "Nick Name" (not to be confused with a user name). The big problem is convincing the management they don't need to collect first name, last name, greeting...etc

<comment><USER4> I was thinking about this- maybe one could have a "formal name", "familiar name", and "honorific" field?

I think the problem is drawing the distinction between the questions "what is your canonical identity?" and "how should we address you?"</comment></comment>


Category Theory for Programmers (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://bartoszmilewski.com/2014/10/28/category-theory-for-programmers-the-preface/ <comment><USER2> This article reminds me of a couple of things.

1\. Wasn't Feynman the one who was promoting replacing classical mechanics with relativity for freshman physics? How has that turned out?

2\. Fuzzy logic makes a similar argument. Bart Kowasaki down in San Diego I believed proved mathematically that fuzzy logic equates Calculus and Nyquist equations. I'm probably not getting that quite right. But, Fuzzy Logic was called the "cocaine of math" and yet the Japanese have done quite well in using fuzzy math in software and manufacturing. The arguments put forth here about why every developer should learn category theory smack of the same arguments that have been made about Fuzzy logic and why fuzzy math should be taught in elementary school. I personally like and use fuzzy logic for programming but wide spread adoption of fuzzy logic never took hold. From what I've read of Category Theory, Fuzzy Logic seems to have a better argument as a programming shift because Fuzzy is a lot less abstract. Just start with a bunch of if statements that approximate the math.

<comment><USER3> Fuzzy logic is good for fuzzy things. Dealing with nature, in the widest sense of the term.

Category theory is good for making extremely watertight conceptual arguments for discrete properties being preserved under transformations: it's "general abstract nonsense", yes (a famous characterization of the subject) but it really does elucidate the underlying structures in common across a lot of different mathematical settings.

If there's something wrong with the computational flavour of category theory, it's probably that it lacks fuzziness and is too much part of the linguistic/logical picture of the world. Giuseppe Longo, a category theorist, has a paper about this: [http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo/files/PhilosophyAndCognitio...](http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo/files/PhilosophyAndCognition/CritiqCompReason- engl.pdf)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! for the paper reference!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might be interesting to see what mathematicians-in-the-wild think about _higher_ category theory, which is viewed in a somewhat similar way by people who don't work in certain fields.[0]

[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/169187/what-non- categorica...](http://mathoverflow.net/questions/169187/what-non-categorical- applications-are-there-of-homotopical-algebra)

I suspect the reasons are broadly analogous. To paraphrase a quote of Atiyah's, the usefulness of theory is that once a field is complex enough, a little bit of it can serve to provide "organizing principles" (quoting Qiaochu Yuan from the MO post above) that help both learners (who can exploit similarities in different fields so that unfamilar things feel less alien) and experts (for whom many things are made easier, or even possible, by working at higher levels of abstraction[1]).

Knowledge just keeps piling up, and abstraction is one way of increasing the "density" of information one takes in so that one doesn't have to spend one's whole life trying to learn enough to work -- or, in the researcher's case, getting to the frontiers of current knowledge.

[0]: Roughly, my understanding of it is that it's what happens when you don't require properties like associativity, but say that (ab)c should be "deformable" into a(bc) in some way. Complications arise, interesting stuff happens. The usual.

[1]: Akin to the birds of Freeman Dyson's "birds and frogs".

[http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1506](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1506)

</comment><comment><USER5> My manager dropped a bomb on me about 20 years ago as a young engineer and had me be a liaison with some of the people doing research on the Pi calculus.

Still somewhat shaken to this day by that very first meeting, it really didn't go that well.

I really don't grok the math behind it and it is very nice to see this pop up, and Bartosz definitely knows his stuff. I'll give it another whirl. Hats off to him for trying to make it approachable.

Also Brian Beckman and others have often had interesting things to say in these areas.

[http://rebcabin.github.io/blog/2013/03/17/category-theory- re...](http://rebcabin.github.io/blog/2013/03/17/category-theory-reveals- value-of-autoiconicity/)

These days I understand the formal math behind it even less than I used to, which is to say abysmally; however it did teach me some things about how to think about composition that have subconsciously been influential I think over the years.

Nice post.

</comment><comment><USER6> The accompanying YouTube playing list is good as well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8LbkfSSR58&list=PLbgaMIhjbm...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8LbkfSSR58&list=PLbgaMIhjbmEnaH_LTkxLI7FMa2HsnawM_) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XTQSx1A3x8&list=PLbgaMIhjbm...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XTQSx1A3x8&list=PLbgaMIhjbmElia1eCEZNvsVscFef9m0dm)

</comment><comment><USER7> If you have FP experience and are interested in practical applications of category theory, I encourage you to reach out: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14025110](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14025110) \- we're hiring mathematicians and computer scientists.

<comment><USER8> Hi. I'm a junior in college studying Math + CS and with Haskell experience. Are you looking for interns?

<comment><USER7> Not this summer, but thanks for checking!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> if you squint, it all looks like state machines!

<comment><USER10> State machines aren't even Turing complete. Even if they where, that doesn't mean we should be using them to program Von Neumann machines. Building levels of abstraction just helps you get more work done. Otherwise you might as well go back working in a tarpit ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_tarpit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_tarpit)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What research is being done in functional programming/category theory in the academic world? This interest me quite a bit.

<comment><USER12> Categories of cubicle sets/Cubical Type Theory [http://dlicata.web.wesleyan.edu/pubs.html](http://dlicata.web.wesleyan.edu/pubs.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can anyone point to any concrete benefits theyve gained from learning Category Theory? I've used Haskell and I see _some_ value from that (mostly in getting more comfortable with functions and typings I suppose), but not sure if I should spend any time on Category Theory.

<comment><USER14> The way I see it is, just as in Object Oriented design patterns, category theory are the design patterns of functional programming. It just so happens that the mathematicians got there first and gave everything greek names.

<comment><USER14> I recall this guys blog, he seems a bit boastful, but it seems like a decent response to this question.

[http://logicaltypes.blogspot.com/2015/08/pure-functional- pro...](http://logicaltypes.blogspot.com/2015/08/pure-functional-programming- claims-irl.html)

<comment><USER15> Jeez. Whatever he's got to say, I couldn't see past the mountainous ego to get to it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>