Eighth Circuit: Citizens do not have a right to film public officials in public - <AUTHOR> http://krcgtv.com/news/local/eighth-circuit-citizens-do-not-have-a-right-to-film-public-officials-in-public <comment><USER2> To clarify, the 8th circuit includes:

\- Arkansas

\- Iowa

\- Minnesota

\- Missouri

\- Nebraska

\- North Dakota

\- South Dakota

South Dakota legislators recently exercised a _State of Emergency_ to overrule an anti-corruption bill voted in by its constituents: [http://www.salon.com/2017/01/25/south-dakota-republicans- sta...](http://www.salon.com/2017/01/25/south-dakota-republicans-state-of- emergency-is-a-brazen-political-coup-against-anti-corruption-law/)

<comment><USER3> These states are also among the most conservative when it comes to gun rights in defense of freedom against a tyrannical government. Upside-down world we live in.

<comment><USER4> It should be pointed out the judges are federal appointments and not local people.

<comment><USER5> District and Circuit Court judges are very often local people and historically the appointments are strongly influenced by the Senators in the area served (particularly, but not exclusively, when they share a party with the President.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This headline is literally a lie. No such statement was made by the court.

How does this sort of thing happen? It's insanely dangerous when media channels just fabricate news that did not happen. You can see the effects here – the number of comments that are along the lines of "isn't the fascist police-state USA awful" is surprising. The statement in the headline is not even supported by the content of the article, let alone the judgement itself.

<comment><USER7> This is often the case, especially with a hot-button topic. I suspect this might be the case here as well -- I have not read the judgement yet. However, to have an informative discussion, can you provide a TL; DR summary.

The main question I personally have is if can I still film anything and everyone on public property or has this been curtailed in some way shape or form.

<comment><USER8> I scanned through the dockets a bit; scroll down to see my post.

As far as I see it, the author of the article leads you to believe that 'public' means 'any public space' when in fact the court was ruling about filming in 'public proceedings', which is completely different.

<comment><USER7> IANAL, so if someone decides to hold public proceedings in a public place, can I still film this (because it is a public place) or not (because terrorism/policy/precedent/whatever)?

<comment><USER8> Take a look at one of the older dockets on the case and decide for yourself what they're saying:

[https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district- courts/missou...](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district- courts/missouri/mowdce/2:2015cv04096/121651/117)

Page 14, sections 4, 5, 6, and 7 are the incidents relevant to filming.

With respect to section 5, Akins filmed in the lobby, was asked to stop, and the person who asked him to stop was told that he was in the wrong for saying so. Section 6, he wasn't allowed into a media event because there wasn't a ton of space and he didn't have credentials. Section 7, he was posting video to the PD's and the city's Facebook pages and they removed the videos.

These are discussed on page 34, last paragraph. Seems like Akins is more interested in retaliation charges, and that's what the court is addressing here. The "he has no constitutional right to videotape any public proceedings he wishes to" seems a bit out of place as I re-read it, but I guess it's just establishing a baseline? I'm not sure what specifically the statement is meant to respond to.

The only thing that seems like public proceeding is the media event, and so in that context the judge is saying that I can't just bust in with a smartphone and say I have a constitutional right to record the event.

<comment><USER7> Thank you for the info!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reading this gives me chills. Just one more step of many towards living in a police state. I feel like the particular sort of freedom I was raised to enjoy in the 80s and 90s is slipping away.

And as a black person, it really feels like the obvious abuses of police power continue unabated. There's finally a parade of evidence showing just how egregiously the cops treat us, and that door is at risk of closing, if the SCOTUS affirms this over the other circuit's opinion.

<comment><USER10> As cynical as I am, I still expect the supreme court to take up this case, and issue a 9:0 ruling in favour of filming officials. SCOTUS has a strong free- speech track record: [https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/21/free-speech- triumphant-or...](https://www.popehat.com/2017/06/21/free-speech-triumphant- or-free-speech-in-retreat/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Judge Nanette Laughrey ruled that [..] any citizen or the press, has no > right to record the activities of public officials on public property

Weird how governments do watch their citizens in public all the time, waving any privacy concerns with arguments of "public safety" or "national security". While at the same time they prosecute whoever is filming them at work.

<comment><USER12> To piggyback off the quote you pulled, can anyone explain how she came to that legal ruling? It seems incredibly out of sync with the popular perception of American rights and freedoms. Is there something I'm missing?

<comment><USER13> This appears to be the underlying decision on the motion to dismiss / summary judgement that was upheld by the 8th Circuit: [https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=169732989067196...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16973298906719659917)

Again, I don't see any discussion about right-to-record. It's mostly a long list of why you can't sue prosecutors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most of the time when you see a headline like this it's worth reading the actual judgement. They are publically available.

[http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/17/07/163555P.pdf](http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/17/07/163555P.pdf)

<comment><USER15> This seems to be mostly concerned with the rules for when someone should be recused? There seems to be no discussion of the right to record anyone anywhere, presumably that was covered in the previous, appealed/upheld judgement? Do you have a link to that?

<comment><USER14> This is the judgement in question. It has no bearing on free speech and should not be presented as doing so by anyone.

If you can find a different case involving Akins on July 25th you are welcome to link to it instead. [http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/opnByMM.pl?theMM=07&th...](http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/cgi- bin/opnByMM.pl?theMM=07&theYY=2017&A1=Get+Opinions)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was told not to expect privacy in public places, because CCTVs are everywhere, can CCTV record public officials?

<comment><USER17> You can film people all you want, I imagine the important thing is that it is inadmissible in court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does this mean you cannot record a police officer during a traffic stop but he can record you?

<comment><USER19> It's probably going to depend on the Supreme Court now, since other circuit courts have issued opposing decisions. Here's one from the last time I remember it being discussed on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13672482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13672482)

IANAL, but one interesting consequence of this ruling might be that it will embolden police since they can point to it as evidence that the right to film police is not clearly established and, even if the Supreme Court rules it's unconstitutional for police to prevent filming, the officers are still deserving of qualified immunity when preventing that constitutional right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The 8th Circuit ruled on the case but not on the right to record police in public. On 8/2/16 the lower federal court only found that the plaintiff "has no constitutional right to videotape any public proceedings he wishes to." She also cited a 2004 8th Circuit case holding that "Neither the public nor the media has a First Amendment right to videotape, photograph, or make audio recordings of government proceedings that are by law open to the public." This is far different from the right to record outside in a traditionally public forum (street or park) and only applies to the jurisdiction of the federal trial court not the full 8th Circuit. Akins is now seeking an en banc review or motion for rehearing of the 7/25/27 8th Circuit ruling which basically dealt with affirming the lower court's decision to grant summary judgment to the defendants and also affirming the denial by the trial court judge of the motion for her to recuse herself from the case. The First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have all ruled that the right to record police officers performing their official duties in a public palace is clearly established which will negate a claim of qualified immunity by police.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm wondering if this is more like "citizens do not have this right" rather than like "citizens do not, and should not, have this right".

There is obviously nothing in the Constitution about recording public officials, and I assume there isn't a statute against it, so that means it's relying entirely on case precedent, right? Which I understand is still law, so I'm as baffled by the ruling as anybody, but I also feel that if I were taking this case on for the first time, I would find myself ruling that citizens don't have this right -- even though I would desperately hope and agree they very much _should_. Does anyone feel that if there was no case precedent, they would still believe they had this right due to freedom of "speech" (or something else)? What would be your legal justification?

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder why you would need a right to do a certain thing. In a non-opressive country everything is allowed, unless forbidden. So one doesn't need a right, it just doesn't need to be forbidden. This little change in perspective means a lot.

</comment><comment><USER8> > In a free speech ruling that contradicts six other federal circuit courts, > the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court ruling that > says Americans do not have a first amendment right to videotape the police, > or any public official, in public.

Worth noting that this circuit is the outlier, if the assertion is indeed accurate.

But where is the "district court ruling that says Americans do not have a first amendment right to videotape the police, or any public official, in public"?

I scanned over the 8th Circuit's opinion, which mostly talks about why the recusal denial was okay in their opinion:

[http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/17/07/163555P.pdf](http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/17/07/163555P.pdf)

As well as dockets relevant to the case:

[https://dockets.justia.com/docket/missouri/mowdce/2:2015cv04...](https://dockets.justia.com/docket/missouri/mowdce/2:2015cv04096/121651)

But I haven't seen anything relevant to the claim in the lede.

EDIT:

Looks like this has some of the language mentioned, starting on page 32. In particular, the last paragraph of page 34:

[https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district- courts/missou...](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district- courts/missouri/mowdce/2:2015cv04096/121651/117)

> Further, he has no constitutional right to videotape any public proceedings > he wishes to. See Rice v. Kempker...

[http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th- circuit/1380406.html](http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1380406.html)

That's Rice v. Kempker. Part that the Akins ruling quotes:

> Because we hold that neither the public nor the media has a First Amendment > right to videotape, photograph, or make audio recordings of government > proceedings that are by law open to the public...

So, I'm not a lawyer or a judge, but it seems like the specific claim that the lede latched onto is much more narrow in scope. If a proceeding is public, it doesn't guarantee that anyone is allowed to come in and videotape it. I can't go to the Supreme Court and argue that I have a First Amendment right to take video in there.

Am I missing something? If I'm interpreting this correctly, this news article is outrageously inaccurate.

Here's another take on the story: much more nuanced and in line with what I've been reading in the dockets.

[http://www.abc17news.com/news/top-stories/attorney-asks- fede...](http://www.abc17news.com/news/top-stories/attorney-asks-federal- court-for-rehearing-in-columbia-police-filming-suit/602091246)

</comment><comment><USER23> Direct link to the ruling: [http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate- courts/ca8/16-...](http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate- courts/ca8/16-3555/16-3555-2017-07-25.html)

They don't link to it in the article. This should be the link, it has a summary of the ruling with it.

</comment><comment><USER24> Welcome to the police state, USA.

Here in Germany it's legal to film police officers but they sometimes arrest you, beat you, damage or search your phone for it. (Source: witnessed all four kinds of events at demonstrations)

<comment><USER22> Courts in Germany do not generally agree that you can record somebody and use that that recording in court, because of "Recht am eigenen Bild".

Even if a burglar enters your house, you may photograph him, but you cannot use that photo in court. You need to have a sign at the entry telling that you are doing video recordings on your property. Source: police information event.

Still, if you question authority, you need to be prepared. In this case I would recommend immediate upload of the material, so taking or damaging the phone wouldn't help them.

<comment><USER25> I can see how it has a point for public places (e.g. bars). But this makes negative sense for your house. What's "at the entry" in case of burglar anyway? Door? Now they just have to claim they entered via window and did not see the sign. How is that any good?

Any restrictions on how citizens protect their property in court should be gravely discouraged. This is just plain taking rights from citizens to award them to feudals (of which police is a member)

<comment><USER22> According to police, all normal entries would need that warning. A windows is not a normal entry point. It is even enough to have a barricade tape around your land. What is important is that there is a visible border that indicates that crossing is not wanted.

<comment><USER25> Land is one thing and home is another thing. It's obvious that you should have some kind of fence before ever accusing anybody of trespassing. But burglary inside an apartment is another thing entirely isn't it?

<comment><USER22> Sure, I wasn't talking about the legality of burglary, but the legality of video record others on your ground, or house for that matter.

If your house has a door, unallowed entry is automatically "Hausfriedensberuch" unless under some limited circumstances. Still, you need a sign beside the door if you want to video record burglars and use that recording in court.

I think it's stupid, but that's the way it is, apparently.

<comment><USER25> > I think it's stupid, but that's the way it is

I hope it's not their line when Last Judgement comes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Troubling ruling but very unlikely this survives further appeals.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Akins also alleged that the defendants violated his rights by removing > videos he had posted on the CPD Facebook page, by ordering him to stop > filming the filing of a citizen complaint in the CPD lobby, and by posting > in the police department a flyer with information about him.

While I support the right to film public officials in public (which Akins did sometimes), it seems he takes his actions too far, to the annoyance of officers.

Perhaps the judge focused on these specific instances behavior, rather than a typical event of filming an arrest?

<comment><USER28> It is not about Matthew Akins, but about the ruling of the court and the argumentation it used to arrive at that ruling. US law is based on precedents, so in future similar cases, the court must take into account the argumentation used and apply it to them. Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created.

In this case, that could mean that a new law has been created that prevents citizens from filming the police. Unless the case reaches the Supreme Court and they make a contradictory ruling that is. But IANAL and I'm happy to be corrected.

<comment> joatmon-snoo > Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created.

Not potentially - each new verdict _is_ law. All lower courts are bound by law to follow the precedent established by higher courts; in other words, this now applies to all public-camera-bla-bla-bla cases in the 8th circuit.

There is clear and established precedent for how courts can issue rulings that affect _only_ a single case. Evidently that's not the case here.

Disclaimer, IANAL.

<comment><USER28> Interesting. That appears to be a difference between common law and civil law. For example, here there is a legal uncertainty what the law says regarding snow-covered speed signs. Some people have been ticketed for not following speed limits they reasonably could not have seen without stopping the car and wiping the speed sign clean. Others have been acquitted in almost identical situations. Each court makes a new and independent reading of the law and isn't as affected by what other courts have found. The upside is that new laws aren't created by courts, the downside that legal uncertainties can remain forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> can someone provide a more serious analysis of this instead of a local news website. I like things I can share with my facebook friends.

</comment><comment><USER30> Camcorder Truth Jihad vs. Cricket Chirping Competition. Sad.

<comment><USER30> This story had 3 points after 2 hours and no comments, which I didn't expect to change. I wanted to leave more than an upvote for the submitter, but didn't have anything worthwhile to say, not being an American and knowing little about the related laws. I know that's not a substantive comment, or too meta and too rash, but still, "heh".</comment></comment>


The Next Ten Billion Years - <AUTHOR> http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-next-ten-billion-years.html <comment><USER2> I feel there's a much higher chance that humanity will drastically change its own fate (for better or worse) in the next hundred years, and any forecasts beyond that have very wide error bars. Artificial intelligence is the big one (it ends the current era of "business as usual" no matter whether it's friendly or not), but there's also nanotech, superviruses coming from desktop bio-hackery, mind uploading, good old nuclear terrorism, etc. For "business as usual" to continue and things like climate change to stay relevant, we need to dodge all of the above, which is difficult.

For a more thoughtful take on the future of humanity, Google for the keywords "existential risk". Bostrom's writeup is a good start: [http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html](http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html)

<comment><USER3> Earlier generations could have said the same thing before each of: the internet, petroleum, flight, biotech, robotics, atomic bombs, the electric grid, the automobile, etc.

AI, nanotech, biohacking, and other possible future technologies just don't seem anywhere near as disruptive as that first list. They'll get incorporated into the "business as usual" machine if they come to pass at all — and much more easily than, say, atomic bombs were.

<comment><USER2> A world with cars and electricity looks like "business as usual" to us, but not to the people who lived before cars and electricity. The rate of change is now much faster than they were accustomed to. The technologies I listed will make it faster still. You can't talk meaningfully about what happens a thousand years from now, because accelerating change implies that at a certain point in imagining the future you just _run out of imagination_ , and that point might be a hundred years away or even closer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great, I love to start my day with a bit of existential horror.

I had some stuff to do, but now I think I'll just stare into the middle distance and contemplate the pointlessness of it all.

<comment><USER5> There's a follow-up post[1] where he talks more about the reactions:

"A vision of a future in which civilizations, species and worlds follow life cycles like those of all other natural things didn't leave them furious or depressed. Their comments instead featured such words as "comforted," "delighted," and "awed." It's easy, and also common, to mischaracterize such feelings as simple schadenfreude at the failure of humanity's overinflated ambitions, but there's something rather more significant going on here. Not one of the readers who made these comments made gloating remarks about the fate of humanity or the Earth. Rather, what comforted, delighted, and awed them was the imagery of Nature's enduring order and continuity that I wove throughout the narrative, and brought to the tightest focus I could manage in the last two paragraphs. "

[1]: [http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-sense-of- ho...](http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-sense-of- homecoming.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This brings up a thought I've had repeatedly (an admittedly unscientific one) when considering human history.

Considering that it "only" took us several thousand years to transform ourselves from hunter-gatherers to our current technologies, it makes little sense that this is the first human culture to reach the point we've reached. Then I try to dissuade myself from such a notion, rationalizing that if that were the case, we'd know it from some sort of evidence by this point.

And yet, I still can't shake the notion that this "shouldn't" be the first time around. Weird, especially since I consider myself a hardcore skeptic.

<comment><USER7> What about artificial satellites? If their orbits were stable, shouldn't any satellites from previous civilization still be around? Do you have an estimate on the attrition rate from random meteor collisions and the like? We should be able to do pretty well just from our own experience.

<comment><USER8> It's as likely that a different civilization would go all-wired/wired-only for mass communication and only use satellites for observation purposes and GPS purposes. Then the number of potential satellites to be found is much lower than our current civilization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Relevant

Timeline of far future from Wikipedia

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future)

To me the most interesting point in the future is 120 trillion years: when all the stars in the universe have exhausted their fuel, and the Universe has gone dark.

<comment><USER10> > _To me the most interesting point in the future is 120 trillion years: when > all the stars in the universe have exhausted their fuel, and the Universe > has gone dark._

Sorry, but doesn't that sound like the LEAST interesting point in the universe?

<comment><USER11> Well, you may never have read Asimov's "Last Question": [http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)

<comment><USER12> I have somehow never read that. It was stunning in its breadth. I loved it. It made me ponder the significance of the series of self-perpetuating chemical reactions that comprises my biological existence. Now I'm sitting here at my computer, waxing existential, when I'm supposed to be building the auth and permissions section for an API...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Ten years from now... Among those who recognize that something's wrong, one widely accepted viewpoint holds that fusion power, artificial intelligence, and interstellar migration will shortly solve all our problems, and therefore we don't have to change the way we live.

Oh, of course. Dontcha know that, during that time, we'll be no more than 6 years away from a computer passing the Turing Test? [http://longbets.org/1/](http://longbets.org/1/)

And we'll be only ~20 years away from the singularity which solves everything. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity)

But in all seriousness, this was quite entertaining. I don't know if we have any reason to expect another (highly) intelligent species to arise in the next 100 million years. Were there any obstacles in the _past_ 100 million years that prevented an intelligent species from developing before humans?

<comment><USER14> Just because they don't make jewelry and weapons doesn't mean some other animals (elephants, whales, other apes) are not highly intelligent. I prefer to call civilizations like ours "technological" and not pass judgement on the smarts of other creatures because they don't like building things.

<comment><USER13> I wasn't sure what phrasing to use (and I definitely didn't like the simple term "intelligent species"). I kind of agree with you, but I think it's a little silly to say _only_ our technology distinguishes us. I'm reminded of _Anathem_ here: even if we all lived like monks shunning technology, we'd still be set apart by our mathematic, scientific, and philosophical reasoning.

<comment><USER15> The monks in Anathem are technologists that shun distraction.

<comment><USER13> It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't believe that is an accurate description:

>The law of the Second New Revised Book of Discipline that governs the lives of the avout at the time of the narration... bans the avout from owning anything but two pieces of clothing and a sphere with multiple uses, and bans them from using or even knowing how to use any technology but paper and pen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem)

Unless you want to argue about whether those limited items are worth calling technology, at which time I will have to point out that we are not the only species to use tools.

<comment><USER15> It's also been a while since I read the book, but my recollection is that I viewed those rules as the set of preconditions that were settled on to allow them to continue to have monasteries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder on what basis the author assumes that the next glacial period is a million years from now.

This would be a clear break with the last million years (100k year severe glaciations separated by 10-15k year interglacials), or of the first half of the pleistocence (mild glaciations every 40k years).

If the holocene interglacial really is extended to a million years, it would likely be enough time for the polar ice caps to disappear completely, ending the quarternary ice age altogether.

<comment><USER17> I thought that at first too, but then I realized that there is no explicit declaration that there weren't many glacial periods in-between. It just so happens that a million years from now, the earth is in a glacial period. Then again, I don't know what the "holocene interglacial" is, so your other points are probably well founded.

<comment><USER16> The holocene interglacial is what we are living in now. It started 12000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. This extended period of glaciations and interglacials together is called the quarternary ice age, also known as the current ice age.

Ice ages are the periods in earth's geological history when permanent ice caps and glaciers existed at the poles and in mountain ranges. We think of that situation as normal, but it has only existed for the last 2 to 2.5 million years. The high albedo (reflection of sunlight) of the ice sheets at the poles cools the planet down further, so an ice age reinforces itself. In other words, we are now living in a warmer period inside an ice age.

There have been other ice ages before, but the last one before the current ended about 100 million years before the first dinosaurs evolved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me of a Time Team special where they pointed out that the island of Great Britain has completely lost its human population and be re-populated at least _seven_ times so far.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1528151/Humans-tried-and- fai...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1528151/Humans-tried-and-failed-to- colonise-Britain-seven-times.html)

<comment><USER16> "It reports that sea level rises and cold climates intervened to push pioneering groups of humans out again and again until our ancestors were finally established some 12,000 years ago."

I wonder if the word finally is misplaced there. During the next glacial period, the area may become uninhabitable again. In those past 700k years they talk about, there may have been periods much longer than 12k years that the area was inhabited. Each of those previous 7 settlement attempts would probably have seemed like the finally successful attempt to the people at the time.

<comment><USER6> The article mentioned one gap of 100,000 years between colonization attempts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great reading! Things could of course play out like this but, since we have no really no clue, aiming for the stars is the most exciting alternative.

The biggest mistake we could be making right now is to waste the current free oil reserves that are probably necessary to move to the next technological level.

But I guess capitalism leaves no other option: we need the profit motive to keep things running. Maybe another economic system would be better suited to reach grand goals, but which one?

<comment><USER21> Utopianism, of course. Imagine a civilization fueled entirely by hopium!!

<comment><USER20> I am not suggesting that capitalism is not the economic system most suited for human nature: it probably is (at least more suited than communism, if we accept that the theory of evolution can be applied to historical processes, and thus capitalism has survived as the fittest alternative)

What I am suggesting is that _precisely_ because human nature is only compatible with capitalism, we are not going to be able to tackle long term existential problems.

<comment><USER21> That is a sensible criticism. I agree that the human race is wasting absurdly vast quantities of oil and that they seem to display no more awareness of this issue than the average monkey. I'm not sure if "capitalism" is the problem though, since greed and waste existed long before its ideas were articulated. I sometimes thing our economic system should be overhauled with better accounting techniques so we actually count the expenditure of resources as a loss rather than as a profit as we currently do, under the rather dubious assumption that more consumption is always better. I guess we'll find out how badly we have erred when the future teaches us. I hope its lessons are gentle...

<comment><USER20> It has nothing to do about articulating the ideas of capitalism. Capitalism exists whether or not we articulate it , the same way that the Andromeda Galaxy existed before we saw it in our telescopes. My point is that human nature seems to be very much correlated to capitalism.

And the important question is whether this is a fundamental characteristic of life, or is it just a feature of this particular version of intelligent life that we have in planet Earth? Or maybe is just a consequence of the evolution of our social system?

To state it clearly: is it possible to conceive an intelligent society collaborating by other means than the ones that we are currently using? Could catastrophe be averted by working together in other ways? Are we humans at all capable of this?

Currently, the answer seems to be _no_ , but who knows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting, but how does humanity rise from a non-industrial dark age to high technology without any reserves of fossil fuels? I say we get only one shot at this - if we our our grandchildren blow it, we remain at ... ok this is stupid ... ewok levels of civilization forever after.

<comment><USER23> Actually, you just have to wait until the planet "generates" more oil via geological processes.

You're just going to be waiting a very very long time.

<comment><USER24> When our great deposits of fossil fuels were being laid down in the Carboniferous, efficient decomposers / recyclers of dead wood and plant material (chiefly higher basidiomycete fungi) had not yet evolved. Nowadays there is much less opportunity for dead organic material to accumulate in the kind of quantities that geological processes can turn into significant oil reserves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the author ignores several important facts. For one, humans are high on the food chain and in turn may not be as robust as say roaches, but we can construct pretty much everything. We will evolve and change, but the extinction of the human race would require several Unprecedented events. Even a large meteorite striking Earth would have trouble killing off humanity (obviously if it's big enough...). Furthr, algae reduce carbon much MUCH more efficiently than plants and can reproduce much faster. Even more we already have processes of turning algae to oil (although the oil is of poor quality). All that being said the more carbon dioxide is released the quicker/more algae will grow and the more oxygen and oil can be produced. In other words, obviously there are limits and I challenge you (the author or reader) to do research, but although humanity has problems. As a species we are doing alright.

</comment><comment><USER26> Artificial intelligence not being practical is a silly conclusion. We already have intelligence: in a few million years of fucking around with existing intelligence, I am pretty sure we can make some significant progress. The insistence on it being silicon is what causes people to get the wrong idea.

</comment><comment><USER27> Reading the follow-up article he talks more about the 'folk mythology of progress' and speaks of the cycle of nature (intelligent species and civilizations) as a more fundamental truth. Here's a counter proposition: yes, the processes of nature are supremely powerful and yes, humans are apt to make life difficult for ourselves and yes, progress isn't a given. What we call progress is really just humanity fulfilling our ecological destiny of adapting to new niches, just like every other species. But by destroying our environment, we are creating the very evolutionary pressure necessary to force our own adaptation - which we will continue to rightly term 'progress'.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you are at all interested in constructing these timeline focused thought experiments I highly recommend "microscope" an RPG by Ben Robbins.

[http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/](http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is pretty bleak and pessimistic. As an optimist, I'd like to think that our advancements in technology will save us eventually. We have made significant advancements in clean energy like wind and solar, and those advancements won't stop. We have also made significant advancements in crop yields, etc. Of course, by the time those power sources are so widespread, there will be much more pollutants in the atmosphere from fossil fuel power sources, so who knows.

Anyone have a future that is a little more rosy than this? Not looking for a utopia here, but just something other than the complete fall of civilization thousands of times over.

</comment><comment><USER30> Although not completely related, this reminds me of Asimov's famous story... The Last Question. Must read.

[http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)

<comment><USER31> It reminds me of only-partially-related C.S. Lewis poetry.

[http://allpoetry.com/poem/8508345-Re-adjustment-by- C_S_Lewis](http://allpoetry.com/poem/8508345-Re-adjustment-by-C_S_Lewis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Contrary what reading the news might lead you to believe, the world is better off than it's ever been and continuing to get better. Why does the author believe technological progress will halt tomorrow?

</comment><comment><USER33> If you liked this you may like Asimov's The Last Question: [http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm)

<comment><USER34> True, and even more similar to Olaf Stapledon's 1930 novel "Last and First Men" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men)

And on a much shorter time-scale, similar to Clifford Simak's novel-ish collection of stories "City" from the 1940s onward: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_(novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_\(novel\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The most fascinating part about this post is seeing how differently people react to it: nihilism, awe, wonder, etc. The story seems to be a rorschach test of sorts.

</comment><comment><USER36> Very interesting work. I find it very hard to imagine that a society capable of building skyscrapers and venturing into space won't leave more clues of it's existence to subsequent societies. Certainly it will be much more permanent than what the Mayans are leaving us. Perhaps the clues will be cities, perhaps it will be radiation, perhaps it will be stripped land.

<comment><USER37> I don't share the vision of the author but you'll be surprised how quickly any building may collapse once not maintained: plants will grow under concrete and end up breaking it over years and years, and erosion will progressively do the job as well. And sidementation will end up covering all that's left over centuries: look in Egypt, most of the ruins we found were deep under several dozens of meters of sand.

<comment><USER36> I think the point of the article is not the end truth of what he says, but just to encourage speculation, so I think all of us will draw different end conclusions. I doubt that we'll have as many iterations of society as he suggests. At some point we'll do something that kills all of us, and will then hand it off to the next species.

If you look at Detroit, it doesn't take long for nature to take back buildings. I would just think that there are certain artifacts or clues that would be somehow visible. We are leaving much more artifacts than every civilization before us put together. But I might just be inserting my short term bias into the situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I like better the version in which a civilization could colonize the entire galaxy in about 5 to 50 million years (with low-speed means of space travel): [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=where- are-t...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=where-are- they&page=3)

</comment><comment><USER39> Great read, reminds me a lot of Last and First Men. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men)

</comment><comment><USER40> This projection seems to hinge entirely on the idea that you can't build solar panels, wind farms and hydro dams without cheap oil.

As those have only become _more_ economical as oil has become more expensive, I find it particularly difficult to buy into long-run projections based upon that unexplored/unexplained/unjustified assumption.

Setting up humanity as reliant on fusion, or massive increases in new energy generation in general, also strikes me as a red herring. Likely: we just won't need it.

Even if (this time) it really is ready in ~50 years, guess what? Population is going to peak and begin to fall in ~50 years as more countries become wealthy, healthy and secure enough to make large families a poor reproductive strategy.

And is there any reason to expect that energy demand is going to increase fast enough with a static-to-falling population (in the future) to match or outstrip the growth of energy demand with a growing population (today)?

Western per-capita energy use is _flat_. [1] So I don't see how.

Absent some trend of every nation transitioning to US-level per-capita energy use [2], the energy needed by the ~9B humans living in 2050 likely represents the _peak_ of world energy _demand_.

If you're going to predicate the collapse of civilization on a shortfall of energy _generation_ , you need to show how that happens in the next 50 years, which is well within the capability of existing coal, oil and gas resources.

Further, an assumption of a war-wracked world hand-waves away the question of how on earth nuclear-armed powers are _able_ to go to war with one another. This has been an unsolved problem in modern geopolitics for nearly 70 years now. These powers can certainly squabble via proxies. But, by definition, no major harm can be on the line lest it escalate directly into the conflict no- one can win. And existential threat is _the_ major harm. So how could a nation decide that _certain destruction_ is at all preferable to _incremental destruction_?

[1] Some countries are at a higher level than others, but all the western countries are essentially flat. chart: [http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/en...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/energy%20per%20capita.png) from: [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its- official-western-europeans-have-more-cars-per-person-than-americans/261108/)

[2] Any assumption that every nation will transition to US-levels of per- capita energy use seem unjustified by the data. European and Japanese levels have been flat to falling-modestly for some time. It's much more likely that US energy use will begin to fall, as suburban sprawl and huge houses become increasingly uneconomical and we move closer together, drive less, build more sensibly, telecommute more, etc.

<comment><USER41> _" 2050 likely represents the peak of world energy demand"_

I guess I'm a Sci-Fi dreamer about energy use. There are some REALLY cool things you can do if you have an infinite supply of free energy. Some of the cooler ones: Magnetic force fields with superconducting coil generators. If you had enough energy, you could create a magnetic force strong enough to stop bullets. Heck, with enough energy you could build magnetic tractor beams and capture passing meteors. (Remember, infinite and free energy). Railguns to launch us to space. Water desalination on a scale big enough to purify the world's water supply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> A perfect example of a naive linear prediction. The thing is that progress is not linear.

</comment><comment><USER43> What's so wrong with solar power?

<comment><USER44> Ask the Corbicules!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> That was strangely relaxing.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is awesome</comment>


Company hit with $1.1M penalty under Canadian anti-spam rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/5499/Quebec-company-hit-with-$1.1-million-penalty-under-CASL.html <comment><USER2> I've filled two formal complaints to an EU regulator regarding spam (one is a company, another an individual). The first complaint was made back in early 2014, and a few weeks ago I got a response from the competent authority. They fined the company with just over €30,000. I'm still waiting on the second complaint.

On both occasions I was receiving emails/spam I never signup for, and on both occasion I tried (several times) to contact the sender directly asking to be unsubscribed. Neither responded to my emails (and I've tried various different email addresses).

When the path of least resistance is filling a complaint, senders should expect no less. And if you decide to spam people, make it easy to unsubscribe, because the next fastest option is to file a complaint, and fines don't come cheap.

<comment><USER3> How do you file that? I could use that as well...

<comment><USER2> For the UK, ICO: [https://ico.org.uk/media/report-a-concern/forms/1479/spam- em...](https://ico.org.uk/media/report-a-concern/forms/1479/spam-email-or-fax- concerns-form.pdf)

They ask to send them the spam emails (with headers) to them, all communication from and to. I guess it's the same around the EU, just the relevant national agency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm seeing a lot of spam by companies that purport to be legit startups.

1\. I make an account on their service, or buy something. 2\. There is no newsletter signup box. 3\. They send me lots of newsletter emails. 4\. They often keep coming after unsubscribes.

I consent to transactional emails, but I'm not consenting to newsletter and marketing emails. It's spam. I hope laws like this help deter such behavior.

Meanwhile, I've been marking non-consented emails as "spam" in gmail. If enough people do this, the companies will get blacklisted, which is another form of deterrence.

<comment><USER5> I wonder when, if ever, they'll dock LinkedIn for this. Easily the worst offender in my inbox as far as legitimate companies are concerned.

<comment><USER6> At this point, I'm convinced LinkedIn is literally paying Google to whitelist their spam.

I have yet to find a single person who actually appreciates the emails LinkedIn sends them. That includes business people who got their job through LinkedIn, and the recruiters who use it.

When it gets to the point when TV shows are casually taking jabs at LinkedIn for their abusive email policy, I think that's a sign that they're not wanted. Anywhere.

Edit: To clarify, the recently released Simpsons episode poked fun at LinkedIn, as has John Stewart (multiple times), and John Oliver.

<comment><USER5> I definitely think there are some backroom deals.

Usually, emails I don't ever click on or explicitly mark as spam end up in my spam box automatically. Gmail is smart enough to do that. Even Quora emails land directly in the spam box.

Not so for LinkedIn. I've never clicked through on an email from LinkedIn. I don't even have a profile on the site - just an account that's sitting empty.

Yet, all emails still land in my inbox.

I wonder why...

<comment><USER6> One of the benefits of running your own email server: You can block all LinkedIn spam at the gateway.

All LinkedIn email is banned at my gateway. As is any vendor who considers me purchasing from them to be an agreement whereby they can send me unsolicited email. 0 tolerance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This likely means that the spamming will now become a dedicated off-shore service in Canada.

Meaning that the next time Compu-Finder will quietly hire a one-man shop in some other country and it will just spam on their behalf. It will be nearly impossible to (legally) pin this on them, because of the possibility that it was a hostile move on part of their competitors. Spammers gonna spam, just from a non-Canadian IP.

<comment><USER2> I don't think it works that way. One might be sending emails from abroad, but if you sell a product/service where you are suing, the company can still be liable, regardless of the geographical origin of the email.

<comment><USER8> GP is suggesting that the spam might be a joe job[0]. Don't like your upcoming competition? Work with some foreign spamming company to send emails looking like legit emails from them in the hopes that their real emails are penalized.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This company was in flagrant violation of the law indeed. I was receving 2 e-mails from them every single weekday, at multiple jobs over the years, advertising their training courses. Unsubscribing did nothing. Every mail had a different sender, with one of a large collection of garbage domains (Today it was acfcursus.ca, promotionacf.com and capsulesacf.ca). The justification footer was a joke: "You are receiving this mail because of your function in the company". -- You're supposed to tell that the mail is opt-in, jackasses.

Most office workers know about "ACF Management" in Quebec because of the relentless spam and I'm not surprised they're the first hit by CASL. It's like the law was made for them.

</comment><comment><USER10> The company I work for just got hit with an Amazon SES probation for having too high of a bounce rate.

Investigating into this, I learned that you can set up SQS queues for SES bounces or complaints. Complaints? Yeah, SES somehow gets information back when you hit the "Spam" button in gmail. An acceptable complaint rate is below 0.1%, and if you go above it you can get banned from SES, from other emailing services like Mandrill, or if you're emailing directly to ISPs they can block you at their level.

So hit those spam buttons! Make email senders pay for bad email!

(My story had a happy ending-- I cleaned up what segment of users my company is sending service emails to and now our bounce rate is below 5% like it should be.)

<comment><USER11> > Yeah, SES somehow gets information back when you hit the "Spam" button in > gmail.

This is called FBL (feedback loop)[1]. It's a standard[2] adhered to by all of the bulk message senders (SES, Mandrill, marketing providers like Mailchimp, Emma, etc) and the big account providers like Gmail, Yahoo, etc. When you hit the "report spam" button that triggers an FBL message back to the Return-Path address in the message. Complying with FBL reports is _super important_ to staying on the account providers' good sides.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback_loop_(email)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback_loop_\(email\))

[2]: [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5965](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5965)

<comment><USER6> Does anyone know how to manually send these complaints to Google? Eg if you run your own mailserver and some Gmail account is spamming you?

Thank you for the link to the wikipage, I didn't know about FBL. It's disappointing that the page can't provide more information on how feedback loops are established between mailbox providers though.

<comment><USER12> Based on the links zrail mentioned, it looks like it is just a standard for sending abuse reports. The RFC looks pretty comprehensive, but there is also more information at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_Reporting_Format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_Reporting_Format).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When CASL was first passed, I was worried about it being toothless. Glad to see I'm wrong.

<comment><USER14> It is a huge headache at our company but I am glad to see this penalty handed down because it means all the work we are doing on it is worthwhile.</comment></comment>


Twitter Great Again – Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/make-twitter-great-again/okmepbglpjobecobbkeodgdnpcfnjldc <comment><AUTHOR> I have made a Chrome extension to hide the liked tweets by others on timeline, promoted tweets and others improvements for Twitter.com</comment>


Hacker Writes Easy-to-use Mac Trojan - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/220823/hacker_writes_easytouse_mac_trojan.html

<comment><USER2> Yawn. Another proof of concept trojan for OS X.

The time to start getting nervous about these things is when there actually is a way to put trojans on your Mac through remote exploits.

<comment><USER3> Google Pwn2Own... Apple is the first to fall every year.</comment></comment>


Graphing the history of philosophy - <AUTHOR> http://www.coppelia.io/2012/06/graphing-the-history-of-philosophy/ <comment><USER2> I think this shows the perils of relying on wikipedia for "serious" studies.

Consider Wolfi Landstreicher. I happen to know his following comes from his regular self-publication of a photocopied individualist-anarchist zine. Wolfi is a great guy and I like to have drink with him every time he hitch hikes into town from the Southern Oregon town where he lives on SSI. However, I think professors of philosophy would be aghast that he gets as many edges on the graph as many "serious" philosophers. Shows how much they know. I will certainly tell him of his coup the next time I see him.

A scan of the graph shows the whole as what-you'd-expect. It's a mix of "serious" professional opinion and the idiosyncratic opinions of amateurs and gadflies. The influence of a philosopher shouldn't be just a matter of how "sexy" they might be, I assume there's a matter of how serious work they've done - being amateur gadfly myself, I'm only guessing here of course.

It's especially instructive that the complicated graph-analysis tools that are brought to bear here seem to fail entirely at avoiding the best "garbage-in, garbage-out" principle.

</comment><comment><USER3> The graph shows Thomas Aquinas as more influential than Duns Scotus. As much as I admire Aquinas, I dispute that.

When I was in seminary, one of the guest lecturers told us of how he was in Rome, doing his dissertation, and he needed to consult a work by Scotus. He went to one of the Vatican libraries and requested the relevant book. He struck up a conversation with the librarian, saying "You must not have a lot of copies of Scotus' work." The librarian disagreed, saying "Oh no. We have more manuscripts of Duns Scotus than we do of St. Thomas."

Except for a brief period during the Council of Trent, the works of St. Thomas Aquinas were almost forgotten from the time shortly after his death until Pope Leo XIII revived his reputation. Graphs like this do not reflect the change in influence over time.

<comment><USER2> The chart shows Anarchist Crack-pot John Zerzan as significantly influential. I'm sure he is in some circles but clearly the data is unselective in many ways. I mean, I don't think Zerzan is that influential even among anarchists.

I'm doubtful of the size of Leo Strauss' bubble also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're kidding me that Confucius has degree 5 way over on far left.... There's far more connections between East and West thought than this reveals.

This is very much a biased history, from what seems like a single interpretation's perspective.

So -- it's propaganda.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone have experience with FLEX + HaXe development? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone I'm planning to knock out some apps using FLEX and HaXe. All for the sole purpose of doing some fun projects on the side. Unfortunately I do not know where to start as documentation in the HaXe website is quite sparse at the moment. Especially the bits on FLEX development.
Can any of you point me out to the right direction?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Check out:

[http://www.amazon.com/Professional-haXe-Neko- Programmer/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Professional-haXe-Neko- Programmer/dp/0470122137/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I already have the book! but does anyone in YC know more sources I can go to?</comment></comment>


Motherboard Specifications on MotherboardDB - <AUTHOR> https://motherboarddb.com <comment><AUTHOR> I found this during research and thought I'd share. It could be better, but it's a one-person project labor of love, so I'm pretty forgiving.

For new-ish parts, PCPartPicker.com is still the single best resource for this info, but their info isn't always _entirely_ accurate. For a given board I was researching with USB3.0, PCPartPicker listed it as having USB3.1Gen1 support. For compatibility its built-in checking is pretty good for what it does, but if your use case demands specific I/O ports/functionality, especially dicey things like Thunderbolt over USB-C, always discover the ground reality for yourself from first-party sources, such as the OEM/vendor.

[https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/](https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/)

Here's some other motherboard research links I found:

[https://acme.com/build_a_pc/boardfinder/](https://acme.com/build_a_pc/boardfinder/)

[http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/stats.html](http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/stats.html)

<comment><USER2> > but their info isn't always entirely accurate. For a given board I was > researching with USB3.0, PCPartPicker listed it as having USB3.1Gen1 > support.

This one is just USB being USB. USB 3.0's 5 Gbps Superspeed mode was renamed to USB 3.1Gen1 with the release of USB 3.1.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, now that you mention it, I can remember enough of what I read at the time to corroborate this. I actually feel a bit silly for not remembering, then I remember that I've been alive for every USB revision, and it's hard to keep up with this stuff.

I'm reminded of the WiFi renumbering scheme that dropped with Wi-Fi 6, and yes, that is the way that it's written. I never write it out hyphenated, or usually with numbers, because that's not how most equipment with those features is labeled; only modern Wi-Fi 6 devices, and those older spec devices produced since its introduction, use the new numbering scheme, rather than 1-2 letter revision name.

Thanks for the correction, and the reminder.

<comment><USER3> The names changed out from under us. It's hard because some people expect to see 3.0, while others expect to see 3.1gen1. Whichever one we pick we end up confusing the other side. In the end we went with the current industry naming because that's what people will see on manufacturer spec pages and most retailers. Had our specs differed in naming between those (even if we were specifying the same thing), we'd end up getting a lot of confused people thinking our specs were wrong. We ended up doing the same rename for WiFi numbering - both those name changes went in about the same time, though I stubbornly held out as long as I felt we could...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> May I suggest adding some information that enthusiasts are interested in? For instance, VRM, debug LEDs, RGB headers, pci-e conflict information (eg. if you use pcie_0 alone, it runs at x16, but if you have pcie_1 populated they both run at x8).

basically this: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IY6W6YhyjnzSvi8BqEqi...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IY6W6YhyjnzSvi8BqEqiK1xykSiTDF2Lt1FO8cNhI6I/edit)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really well done spreadsheet. It's not my project, but I believe the creator invites contact via email.

It's a shame I see so many good spreadsheets like yours, almost always on Google Sheets. A social network based on spreadsheets would help surface this content, and if clear licensing were included, instant remixable data would have me beating down that site's door.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've found that geizhals.eu is great for this sort of stuff. Here's an example for Intel LGA1151v2: [https://geizhals.eu/?cat=mbp4_1151v2](https://geizhals.eu/?cat=mbp4_1151v2)

You can filter by details like the LAN chipset (e.g. Realtek RTL8111E, AQuantia AQC107, etc), the audio chipset, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I could upvote you twice, I would. This is even better than PCPartPicker.com. You really did a good thing with this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its terrible to buy MB. I want the best possible MB for my 3950x that supports 128ram at the highest possible clock etc regardless of pricr and i just get lost with all the possibilities.

<comment><USER7> You want two community spreadsheets:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp- TXr-0zTJF...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d9_E3h8bLp- TXr-0zTJFqqVxdCR9daIVNyMatydkpFA/htmlview#gid=639584818)

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wmsTYK9Z3-jUX5LGRoFn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wmsTYK9Z3-jUX5LGRoFnsZYZiW1pfiDZnKCjaXyzd1o/htmlview#)

But I'll save you the work (since this is rather complex): Look at the Asrock X570 Taichi, MSI X570 Aorus Xtreme, and the MEG X570 Godlike, those are the three boards that have most overbuilt VRMs and least flawed designs.

Asus sold nothing worth mentioning for X570. Sadly the ROG Crosshair VIII Formula isn't as good as the other three, and Asus boards may have an issue with cooking CPUs due to subtle overvolting.

<comment><USER8> That should be "Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme", right?

<comment><USER7> Whoops, my bad.

Yes, Gigabyte. Too many companies with gamer brands, I usually refer to boards purely by their brand/product line, not their actual company, and that, apparently, finally stung me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When last I built a PC a few years ago, I found that the best place for motherboard specs was their user manual, certainly not any "product" webpage nor even their "specs" subsection, which is overloaded with marketing BS.

The user manuals had accurate information on the number of ports, their capabilities, number of sockets, max RAM, etc...

I'm glad to see that MotherboardDB has direct links to the User Manual PDFs, and distills that information down.

</comment><comment><USER10> Learned something new today from this site: there exists motherboards specifically designed for cryptocurrency mining, e.g., [https://motherboarddb.com/motherboards/920/B250%20Mining%20E...](https://motherboarddb.com/motherboards/920/B250%20Mining%20Expert/)

<comment><USER11> Wow, there's an ASUS mining mobo. I knew cryptocurrency boards existed, but I thought they were bespoke diy projects and random aliexpress jobs. Anyone else wondering, those are PCI-E x1 ports, 18 of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Consider adding a Crossfilter or something similar that shows how many results exist in the criteria you are narrowing by.

Eg: [https://github.com/crossfilter/crossfilter](https://github.com/crossfilter/crossfilter)

For a working example - see the flight search results on Kayak

</comment><comment><USER13> It would be good to add the info on super I/O chip maker there.

This is useful to know when selecting a motherboard since for example Nuvoton usually provide documentation for their chips and ITE don't, that's why sensors work much better on Linux with motherboards that use Nuvoton.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a good resource, but I with it was easier to search for motherboard with 2x PCI-E @ 16x

</comment><comment><USER15> Great idea, very useful resource.

First suggestion: make 0 results look different in [https://motherboarddb.com/advanced- search/results/e1afe77e-f...](https://motherboarddb.com/advanced- search/results/e1afe77e-f380-4ffc-99b5-9c40f07c7b0e?page=1) \-- way too many elements there for an empty list.

Secondly, it'd be a good feature to have a "None" option for drop-downs, as in, if I would like to find a motherboard without audio chip on it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wish it allowed me to search by CPU family instead of socket.

I care a lot more about the CPU family than the socket. There is no way I remember what socket the latest AMD Ryzen 4000 family uses.

<comment><USER17> While the general idea that discovering sockets for different CPUs can be challenging, all AMD Ryzen consumer CPUs use the AM4 socket, including the Ryzen 4000 APUs. That hasn't been hard to remember, in my opinion. (But sure, Threadripper and EPYC are different - TR4 and SP3.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I need is search by PCIe lanes/slots, comes from PCH or CPU. Whether the lanes come from PCH or CPU is important but rarely described in specs but on manuals.

</comment><comment><USER19> This looks nice and detailed.

If I had one wishlist item, it would be the exact board dimensions. Occasionally there are boards smaller than what their form factor specifies. For example, the Asus PRIME A320M-K, at 226mm by 221mm, will fit in a CM NR200, which is nominally a Mini-DTX case.

</comment><comment><USER20> This will make life simpler ... buying a motherboard with knowing exactly which chips come with the board (like Ethernet) is usually digging through bunch of online documents or reviews.

<comment><USER21> Unexpectedly finding a nic isn't compatible is a painful experience. ESXi 7.0 had no support for some newer nics.

<comment><USER20> Audio is also a problem sometimes though generally the specs are pretty clear on it. I wish it had more details like USB layouts and PCI lane distribution

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Before clicking, I thought this was another new database startup. But this is an interesting site, and appreciate the effort.

</comment><comment><USER23> Cool site, but the hamburger menu doesn't open on Firefox Mobile :(

</comment><comment><USER24> scrapping pictures from the manufacturer website might not be the most legal thing imaginable</comment>


Data diversity: Preserving variety in data sets should aid machine learning - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2016/variety-subsets-large-data-sets-machine-learning-1216 <comment><USER2> I believe they are using mcmcs at the core. markov chain multi carlos. this might be useful if you are wondering what it is [http://mlwhiz.com/blog/2015/08/19/MCMC_Algorithms_Beta_Distr...](http://mlwhiz.com/blog/2015/08/19/MCMC_Algorithms_Beta_Distribution/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is the paper, which oddly isn't linked in the article:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01618](https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.01618)

<comment><USER4> That seems to be a precursor to the work mentioned in the article. This is the one that was presented at NIPS this year: [https://papers.nips.cc/paper/6182-fast-mixing-markov- chains-...](https://papers.nips.cc/paper/6182-fast-mixing-markov-chains-for- strongly-rayleigh-measures-dpps-and-constrained-sampling)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a more detailed paper describing the algorithm? The description is very vague in the article. When they pick the two points, is there an evaluation on how much "diversity" increases w/r/t each of the three possible operations, and that's how they choose?

edit: thanks @q_revert for linking the paper</comment>


Mildred Dresselhaus - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Dresselhaus <comment><AUTHOR> Just as one particularly notable article about the life of the "Queen of Carbon" \- [https://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/media/dresselhaus- featu...](https://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/media/dresselhaus-featured- technology-review)</comment>


Ebola Zaire + USA Immigration Centers = Utter Disaster? - <AUTHOR>

Is anyone else concerned that at the same time we have set up large immigration centers with poor sanitation conditions, we also may soon see the Ebola Zaire (EZ) virus enter the USA? If that occurs and EZ gets to one of the immigration centers, then the immigrants will undoubtedly flee, scattering throughout the population. The result would be a disaster of almost unbelievable proportions (of course it might be a disaster even w/o the immigration centers, just not as rapidly spread).
The incubation period for Ebola Zaire is 2-20 days and the fatality rate is 80-90%. There is no vaccine; there is no cure.
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/26/5839394/the-deadliest-ebola-outbreak-in-history-is-happening-right-now <comment><USER2> It has a fatality rate of UP TO 80-90%. Some outbreaks it's been as low as 35% and the current outbreak in west Africa has a 65% fatality rate.

Ebola isn't super contagious. Way, way more people die from the flu every single year than have died from Ebola ever.

<comment><AUTHOR> While other varieties of Ebola were not very contagious, the current outbreak of Ebola _Zaire_(EZ) is _very_ contagious.

EZ spreads by contact, may spread via air (the monkeys in the study cited below apparently inhaled the virus in one form or another), has a long incubation period during which the carrier can pass the virus to others, is mostly fatal, and has no good treatment or cure. Furthermore it has been shown that EZ can be carried by pig populations (it doesn't kill pigs apparently) so now we need to worry about our pigs too:

[http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs- monkeys-...](http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys- ebola-goes-airborne-112112)

Combine this with the poor conditions at immigration centers and it looks to me like an oncoming "cluster f*sck" SNAFU for the USA. I fear incoming EV may far outstrip Iraq/Syria in significance but see little activity or awareness at the political level.</comment></comment>


Did Linus Torvalds backdoor Linux random number generation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1lucdy/did_linus_torvalds_backdoor_linux_random_number/

<comment><USER2> It's a sensationalist headline, but the problem is one that needs to be addressed -- whether it's acceptable for the kernel to just assume that the RDRAND instruction does what Intel claims it does.</comment>


Man and superman - <AUTHOR> http://www.cdixon.org/?p=1391

<comment><USER2> His superman reference to Nietzsche is totally wrong. Overmen weren't supposed to be super-duper great, productive people. He was making a really complex argument about human beings shedding their animal nature and antiquated morality to ascend into a new kind of intelligent being.

He doesn't make any kind of argument anyway -- pointing out that some leaders of companies are more effective than others does nothing to support the argument that complex forces are not at work.

<comment><USER3> I was hoping for more meat in the argument too, the plural of anecdote is not data. If Steve was the sole factor behind Apple's success, then why didn't Next take over the world too?

I'd be a lot more interested in the mechanics of how 'great men' make a difference. I'd argue in Apple's case Steve's biggest influence was building a culture fanatical about the customer's experience, replicating versions of himself across the company. He's also been amazingly hands-on about the details of the business.

Most fans of the great man theory in business seem to be looking for a quick fix, a savior they can recruit. That leads to hiring apparent visionaries who spend too much time thinking deep thoughts about strategy, and not enough on the operational and personnel nuts-and-bolts of the company.

<comment><USER4> _"why didn't Next take over the world"_

You could make a strong argument they did. Next and Apple is often cited as a case where the bought company took over the buyer.

Netscape and Collabra is another, less successful, and recently modish example.

(not a fan of the great man theory in general though)

<comment><USER5> _You could make a strong argument they did. Next and Apple is often cited as a case where the bought company took over the buyer._

The Disney/Pixar deal might count as well. After a falling-out between the companies due in large part to Disney wanting more creative control, Disney eventually caved and "bought" Pixar in an all-stock deal, with top people from Pixar being put in charge of Disney's animation division and the majority shareholder of Pixar becoming by far the largest single Disney shareholder-- more than the next five largest combined, if memory serves me.

(Extra credit: Guess who the aforementioned shareholder is.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Alternative theory: Many people of the type he talks about 1) were lucky to be in the right place at the right time, 2) had strong, effective organizations working for them, 3) were smart and competent enough to make effective use of #1 and #2, 4) stepped down while they were near or at their peak.

Most people, no matter how great, are not going to have #1 and getting #2 is difficult and unreliable.

Too much focus on the traits and actions of individuals is probably a result of the general cognitive bias to cast events in terms of structured narratives with well-defined causes and effects.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's "Übermenschen", with sch, not ch.

As a German, I'm offended. They chose to use the word but they failed to make sure they got it right.

on the content: interesting observation.

</comment><comment><USER7> It just shows how dumb are large organizations. Single human being doing educated guesses can be smarter than corporate entity.

Great leaders perceived efficiency is effect of two factors. One, they manage to actually strongly influence what happens in their organizations. And two, they are not dumb.

At least one of these just must be false for Steve Ballmer.</comment>


Show HN: Arengu – Easily build forms that communicate with your API - <AUTHOR> https://www.arengu.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN Community!

This is Jacobo, one of the cofounders @ Arengu. I am looking to receive some feedback of what we've been working for the last months.

We've created Arengu to help building and scaling your sign-up process without dealing with complex integrations or wasting valuable development resources.

Unlike other online form builders, Arengu allows you to connect your forms with any API and execute actions at different stages of your form. This is specially useful to cover advanced uses cases like a multi-step form with SMS verification, verify if an email is valid or if it's already registered in your system, validate data against 3rd party services, sign up users or authenticate them with your API, etc.

How we do this?

\- We have a flows module where you can visually build your business logic: native integrations, custom HTTP requests, if/then conditions, etc. Validation flows need to finish with a return response action with a success or failure message that will be automatically mapped to your form.

\- Inside our drag & drop form builder, you can trigger flows at different stages of your form: between form steps, before submission or after submission. As an example, if your flow validates users email (valid MX record) and someone provides a fake email, it will show an error message on the browser but, if the user provides a good email, it will allow the user to continue to the next form step or submit the form.

When Arengu is useful?

\- As a SaaS boilerplate. When you start building a new SaaS there is always a bunch of non-core features that you always need to develop: registration and login forms, recurring payments, task automation like sending welcome emails, notifications, email subscription, etc. Arengu helps you building all of this without development overhead so you can focus on your core app.

\- To scale user acquisition campaigns. Sometimes marketing teams need to create loads of landing pages with a sign-up form and they ask dev team for help. Arengu allows them to reuse that form in as many landing pages as they want with just a line of code without dealing with technical complexity.

Our short-term plan includes

\- Adding a landing page module to easily create static pages based on a HTML template with editable content (HTML, text or images).

\- Support main social login providers (Facebook, Google, etc).

\- Adding workspaces to organize your account.

\- Support styles on form editor.

I'd love to know what you think about the product, if there is something you don't understand, if you are missing some features, etc. Any feedback or comments will be really appreciated as this is very important for us to keep improving and offering the best experience for our users.

Also I am available to schedule free 1:1 meeting to help building sign-up flows with Arengu, you can email me to jacobo.vidal[at]arengu.com

Thank you very much for your time reading this!</comment>


(Cr)app - Quality Vs. Profit - <AUTHOR> http://appicurious.com/2011/10/24/crapp-quality-vs-profit/

<comment><USER2> You know I agree with this at so many different levels. I am currently at a point at my App where I need to decide to 'launch' or keep improving the quality of the product.

By improving the quality of the product I don't mean fixing bugs, I mean improving UX for example, execution speed, and the sort.

We decided on a release on an specific date, and we are sticking with it. But still I think about how much time I should spend improving the quality vs launch.

I guess one successful example is delicious. I trashed them so badly for releasing a low quality product (I am referring to the new owners). But then after a week the product already feels so much better than before.So I guess release often, does work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad that there are other people agreeing with my view. As I was writing the post I got the feeling it was too negative and discouraging. But then I figured if a simple post discourages you from your idea you don;t have a passion for it. It is for the better to move on and do something else.

If you need help or just some notes on your project get in touch. I'm always happy to lend a hand if I can.

Cheers

<comment><USER2> Thanks I deeply appreciate it. We will show HN first before everybody. So I'll send you an invite once we launch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Quality counts" is a nice meme, but without specifics it lacks usefulness and can even be misguiding. There are many forms of quality. Some are vital when launching an app, others should be pared back if doing so allows you to launch earlier or provide better core features.

The real trade off with Quality is not profit but iteration speed. Every feature you include has a quality scale from 1-10. A '1' is going to be barely usable and will frustrate users, a '10' can take months to achieve and your feature or app may be irrelevant by the time it's done.

Picking the right value to hit will depend on your market, your users, and your resources.

</comment><comment><USER4> A very good read; something I agree with a lot.

I especially love:

"Start something because you have a passion and you want to create something good and long lasting. Start something because you want to change things for the better"</comment>