The British are Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24/the-british-are-frantically-googling-what-the-eu-is-hours-after-voting-to-leave-it/?campaign_id=A100&campaign_type=Email <comment><USER2> I'm strangely moved by this whole thing. It's a pretty decent status check on where we are with democracy ATM. I'm not against democracy, but I do think we need to pay attention to what it can & can't do.

On one hand, this has been a model of democracy. A primary election agenda and referendum. The phrasing of the question was simple, clear and unbiased. The "will of the people" won over the will of the ruling structure. Most politicians and the main parties (especially before the opportunists jumped in) were against leaving. So was the financial sector and most big businesses.

OTOH, some of the problems inherent in democracy were also on display. A "right to my opinion" emotional public moved by very emotional arguments. Lies, untruths and misleading truths were the most prominent arguments on either side. A majority of the discussion was stupid.

We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas?

<comment><USER3> > We haven't figured this shit out yet. Kings anyone? How about the best > wrestler gets to be in charge? ideas?

As a Swiss citizen, I think the swiss system is very close to perfect in this regard.

Sure, emotional and stupid arguments sometimes prevail, but most of the time the people make the perfect decision. Public discourse is most often also very rational, more so than most world parliaments.

Irrational arguments have been a staple of especially the British political system. I am amazed at the low level of discussion in the UK even by their representatives.

Direct democracy is something that has to be done regularly, otherwise you end up with situations like the UK or California.

<comment><USER4> The UK is a much more divided society than Switzerland, in terms of the base level of income and education. The median income in Switzerland is double that of the UK. Education is harder to compare, but you can't really expect the same level of discourse

<comment><USER5> I remember listening to a Ted talk where the speaker basically said, Get income inequality in check by whatever means and most of your problems go away.

<comment><USER6> Get hold of a copy of Tony Judt's _Ill fares the land_. It has references to the correlation between inequality and many measures of 'problems' and tries to make the case for a causal link. Also explains philosophical background.

<comment><USER5> Thank you for the recommendation. I will check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone with no dog in this fight, I have to say that many of the pro-stay comments here are dismissive, arrogant, and the epitome of hand-waving "we know best and everyone who disagrees with us is stupid or evil." It's an ugly and insular attitude that is itself usually a sign of ignorance of the other side's arguments and motivations. As a dev, I find it hard to believe that someone who can be so easily blinkered and so dismissive of others is going to be able to show flexibility and humility in their code and engineering decisions.

And maybe you're just that good at compartmentalizing, but I wouldn't want to risk bringing someone like that onto my team. How can you work with people who you think are stupid and ignorant when they disagree with you, even when you won't explain your reasoning? And how will you ever be able to switch sides and admit you may have been wrong when you state your initial position in such absolutist terms?

<comment><USER8> The disdain and disgust impressed on the elderly in this issue in particular is distressing. Seeing people advocate for selective voting or implying that the younger persons' views are worth more because of their older countrymen's vicinity to expiration is personally upsetting as a self-loathing Millenial.

<comment><USER9> As another self-loathing millennial, it's also distressing to empirically see the detrimental effect of my elders making extremely poor choices that will fundamentally affect my life much more than theirs.

Nobody really wants to disenfranchise certain voters. But it doesn't mean that we aren't frustrated with their poor choices either.

<comment><USER10> This is a simple matter of disagreement. Your elders aren't "making extremely poor choices" in an objective sense. They're making the choice _they believe_ is for the long-term interest of the country, just as you did. You should not assume idiocy or malice on the opposing side's part just because you lost. Informed, well-educated people can and do disagree. This _must_ be valued and believed in a democratic society if it's not to tear itself apart.

If it were up to me, minimum voting age would be bumped to 30 and votes would become _more_ valuable as people aged. Personal experience and history is nothing to sneeze at. The open disrespect to just dismiss this by-definition- wiser voting block as making "extremely poor choices" is very distasteful and short-sighted.

<comment><USER11> I'm 43, and I think the idea of no-votes-until-30 is a crazy idea. Yes, the young are less informed, but they're also more interested in finding alternatives. The old are _incredibly conservative_ , and as proven in this referendum, more fearful of diversity. They don't _want_ to deal with change, which is a bad thing in a world that constantly changes - for example, keep in mind that the internet is only 20 years old, as far as the public is concerned. Cut off the young, and you take away the meat of the progressives, and your society will stagnate. Wisdom is definitely important, but so is the will to enact change.

And if you want evidence that the old are just as susceptible to stupid politics, look to Fox News's target audience: the silver hair brigade. Or talkback radio. Wisdom in personal life (everybody has one) does not necessarily translate to wisdom in political life (where few actually do engage).

<comment><USER10> >They don't want to deal with change

Brexit is a pretty massive governance change. Everyone blames old people for its success, so I'm not sure why the narrative is that "old people won't vote for changes". I think it's less that older people are hostile to change as much as they've seen enough political opportunists and fraudsters that they have some firmness to their opinion (and again, this is a good thing). As Brexit shows, older people often _do_ support changes that they believe would be beneficial.

I know that my dad, for example, would really like to see some stuff change, even though he's a senior citizen. But he's not excited by Bernie Sanders.

>for example, keep in mind that the internet is only 20 years old, as far as the public is concerned.

I am 1000% behind the idea of changing the laws that govern intellectual property and internet access, but this is not an issue that's age-dependent. Few people in any age strata care or think about this because if their news sources have _any_ vested interest, it's in keeping IP laws locked down as tightly as possible. You'll find near-universal praise for copyright among every age group, because the public is presented only one side of the copyright debate. Laws expanding IP rights and locking down tech access routinely pass with minimal debate or interest. The exception to this is the hacker subculture, where it's not really an age-dependent thing either. Some older persons involved in certain niche businesses may remember slightly-less- oppressive copyright regimes and want to go back to that.

>Cut off the young, and you take away the meat of the progressives, and your society will stagnate.

This is everyone else's complaint too, but it's begging the question. "Progressiveness" is not inherently correct. Social insistence on certain behavioral standards is good. We don't want to "progress" out of all of our values.

>And if you want evidence that the old are just as susceptible to stupid politics, look to Fox News's target audience: the silver hair brigade. Or talkback radio.

I know a lot of young people who are into Fox News and conservative talk radio. People consciously pick the news outlets that agree with them most often because it's more pleasant to listen to someone encourage your beliefs than discourage them. Conservative media is _not_ specifically targeted at old people; it's targeted at all conservatives.

<comment><USER11> > _Brexit is a pretty massive governance change._

The people voting for Brexit want to stop the changes their seeing to their country. Brexit itself is a massive governance change, but the people going for it see it as the option to stop the change they see in the streets around them.

> _internet = copyright issues_

Bollocks. If that's all you think the internet means to people, intellectual property, you need to open your eyes considerably wider.

> _" Progressiveness" is not inherently correct._

Not inherently, but a) our societies are far wealthier (fiscally and socially) and far more equitable than ever before, largely due to progression, and b) the world changes anyway, and you have to adapt to change. If it weren't for progressiveness, we'd still have slaves, women wouldn't be able to vote (or work, really), Africa and Asia would still be colonised, anti-semitism would still be the norm of polite society, so on and so forth.

> _I know a lot of young people who are into Fox News and conservative talk > radio_

'Target audience'. You can have a lot of other members in your audience.

<comment><USER10> > _The people voting for Brexit want to stop the changes their seeing to their > country. Brexit itself is a massive governance change, but the people going > for it see it as the option to stop the change they see in the streets > around them._

I'm sure Brexit supporters would argue this is a mischaracterization, but even if it's true, it proves that they're not afraid of change _per se_. They're willing to make a massive change to the country's governmental structure and role in the region in order to prevent other changes that they perceive as negative from occurring. They simply have a different evaluation of the situation than yourself. This is called a "disagreement".

> _Bollocks. If that 's all you think the internet means to people, > intellectual property, you need to open your eyes considerably wider._

I was addressing the major fields of law that impact the internet, which is a) tech access laws like the CFAA and b) copyright/IP law. I guess your comment here indicates that you were thinking along the lines of net neutrality (already the law) and municipal internet/increased ISP competition (which is a complex issue that varies by locality and doesn't really represent a major, large-scale legal conundrum; it's mostly just legwork and local politics to resolve). Everyone wants improvement in that area too, but to my mind, it's minimally important compared to tech access and intellectual property, and it's certainly much more fractured since it's highly dependent on local politics.

> _our societies are far wealthier (fiscally and socially) and far more > equitable than ever before, largely due to progression_

This is a non-sequitr and far too airy to really rebut. To the extent that changes associated with socially progressive politics have been beneficial (and I would argue that such changes are scant), it's not due to the fact that the positions were supported by social progressives, but that the position was reasonable and important. You act like this is inherently the same thing, that anything under the banner of progressivism is _automatically_ just and important. That doesn't make any sense, which is becoming increasingly obvious as progressives have begun to run out of reasonable things to protest.

> _the world changes anyway, and you have to adapt to change_

Sure, some things change, and many things _don 't_ change. People today are biologically very similar to people from 5k years ago; on an evolutionary timescale, that's a miniscule difference, so the things that were logical and biologically compatible 5k years ago are probably pretty similar today.

It's not that people are afraid of change itself; it's simply that people understand that changes aren't always for the better.

> _If it weren 't for progressiveness, we'd still have slaves, women wouldn't > be able to vote (or work, really), Africa and Asia would still be colonised, > anti-semitism would still be the norm of polite society, so on and so > forth._

You've essentially redefined "progressive" as "positive" and saying "anything good is progressive". Your statements here are not remotely reflective of reality. Every positive change is not automatically the work of social progressives. Slavery in particular drew fire from people of all ages and economic classes; the lines were not what you're trying to imply here.

> _' Target audience'. You can have a lot of other members in your audience._

Yeah, I addressed this. This is another issue with getting definitions backwards, something you seem to be doing a lot. Fox News's target audience is not "old people", it's "conservatives". There are a lot of conservatives in all age groups, despite the media's attempts to make them invisible. Old people are _overwhelmingly_ conservative, not because they're afraid of change, but because they recognize a lot of the proposed changes are not beneficial.

This boils down to simple political disagreement, and you're trying to generalize it over every demographic that's more likely to belong to your political opponents. Many would call this "ageism"; may want to watch it before your progressive brethren catch wind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't that expected? People who voted for the establishment status quo want to know what might happen in the years to come now that the vote has gone against them.

Voting to stay meant no change, therefore they knew more or less the outcome, but now that the outcome is opposite their votes, they want to look into the repercussions --this informs that it's likely they stay vote didn't investigate the alternative before voting and likely voted out of custom to stay.

But way to go WaPo and imply naïveté on the Brexiters.

<comment><USER13> I think you're drawing conclusions based on your biases just as much as wapo is. You don't know who is googling the EU right now, or what their motivations are.

Just as much as some remain votes were blind votes for the status quo, some leave votes were blind votes for change.

<comment><USER12> Right... But then again, I'm not a journo at the WaPo. They are making these implications without knowing who... However I find it likely the Stay voters would be interested to know the implications of the vote now that the vote has gone against them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's a Leave fellow who says he just did it as a protest vote thinking it wouldn't actually pass. [https://twitter.com/AdamWSweeney/status/746269140915208193](https://twitter.com/AdamWSweeney/status/746269140915208193) I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The most important international agreement in the UK's history torn up because people thought this was a Buzzfeed poll.

<comment><USER15> On the contrary, the fact the EU had enormous power over British people, yet barely anyone knew what it was, what it did, or why it was important, was a compelling reason for the UK to leave.

<comment> a-priori Or, perhaps, it's a compelling reason why things like this shouldn't be decided by referendum.

<comment><USER16> how should they be decided then?

<comment><USER17> By representatives. You need a buffer between raw emotion and action.

Otherwise, this happens.

<comment><USER18> How is this "raw emotion", though? Leaving the EU has been discussed for a few years now, quite widely.

Also, "raw emotion", direct democracy (in Switzerland, for example) can work very well. Direct democracy may not scale well, hence we need representation, but big issues should be left up to the people to be voted on.

In the end, I believe, the people in the UK voted against not so much the idea of EU, but rather expressed their frustration with the EU's inability (unwillingness?) to fix its problems. It's been brewing for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of the original suggested referendum questions was "Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?"

It was rejected in favour of "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of European Union" because "some participants in our research did not know that the United Kingdom is currently a member of the European Union."*

If that wasn't evidence the referendum was a bad idea...

*[http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file...](http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/192075/EU-referendum-question-assessment-report.pdf)

<comment><USER20> That's not evidence in my book.

If you check the history of the European Union ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union)) it is history of various agreements between an ever-changing set of member states. Eventually (1992) there is the Maastricht Treaty that creates called the European Union, but that has been amended various times. To complicate things there is also the European Economic Community (renamed to European Community) and member states are in/out of various important provisions of European governance such as the Euro or the Schengen Agreement (like the UK and Ireland). The Schengen Agreement I believe includes even some non-EU members.

So people googling for "What is the EU" isn't proof of stupidity in my book. They may haven been familiar with critical elements of the EU (which were the deciding factors for their vote) but want to understand the full implications of this historic vote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What I're read so far about pro-leavers:

-They are stupid.

-They are xenophobic racists (over 50% of the population!).

-Trump welcomes the Brexit, so being pro-leave is stupid.

-Old people vote "leave" since they don't have to face the consequences as long as the young people, and old people have no clue.

-"Leave" votes come mainly from E.U. subsidized areas, thus they bite the hand that feeds them.

-Pro-leave doesn't even know what the E.U. is.

I have read a lot of insults regarding either position, but the attribution of stupidity comes almost always from the "Remain" camp. Which comes close to saying: there are no reasons to vote for leave, so they must be stupid. How stupid.

<comment><USER22> Well, what _are_ those reasons that are so impactful that people should have voted "Leave"? Because I have not really heard a single informed argument about that, and the public discourse for Leave has shown an enormous gap in knowledge about what the EU actually is.

<comment><USER23> If you don't search for it, you want find it. I am not sure if the "Leave" people voted for it for the right reasons or the wrong reasons (xenophobia).

I think its fairly easy to make a case of why the EU is a bad institution. I have made so here and other places. I think people are blinded by the idea of the EU but ignore the actual EU. Can anybody deny that the EU has shown horrible management in everything related to economics? We have a Great Depression level crisis and now a horrible slow recovery. 90% of this hole crisis could have been avoid if the EU and specially EMU were such horribly setup institutions. The EU is not really democratic either, when it should be the most democratic. It should improve on the state of institutional democracy, while in reality its a very clear step back. Take a look at Swiss Federalism and Direct Democracy, its a much better set up for a system but many of the ideas are nowhere to be found in the EU.

Britain has economic problems right now because a lot is changing, but I see no reason that the long term growth should be negatively impacted by this. In the long term I think it can be a net positive. It all depends on how Britain will operate going forward.

<comment><USER24> The people of the UK voted for the Conservatives, on an explicit platform of austerity.

Only 37% of the population was needed for this, but this is because the UK voters had been apathetic about the opportunity to reform the voting system.

So how can they claim to be disappointed by the EU adopting the same polities?

<comment><USER23> Because the EU is soled on a platform of European Unity and how they are the highest achievement of the European Political classes.

The UK has a reason for their bad system. They have a very gradualist history. Compare it to France, where we are talking about the Republic 5 right now.

If we are doing a project for European Unity is should actually be better then everything else. It should be better then Switzerland, not worse then the UK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The BrExit vote was caused by the same problem that enables Trump (and Sanders) to win so many votes. The British Elites, like the Republic Elites are ignoring the pain caused to the working class through trade agreements and (in the case of BrExit) immigration from poorer parts of Europe. In different ways the EU integration put an additional burden on the already struggling British working class.

As a specific example, the immigrants, who came to the UK for jobs drove down wages for the working class with additional competition while at the same time putting a lot of pressure on budgets for the National Health System and social services.

The British Elites ignored the complaints of the working class while not even increasing the budgets for social services and the National Health Service proportionate to the additional demand caused by immigration.

It is this total lack of sensitivity of the British Elite to their fellow citizens that caused the BrExit.

Similarly, the "rise of Trump" is because Paul Ryan, the billionaire Wall Street hedge fund owners, and other Republic Elites have totally ignored the feeling of the working class. They have created trade policies which have "exported" American factory jobs while at the same time wanting to cut the social services that workers need precisely because of policies of elites (Republic and Democratic) to export their working class jobs.

For example, when Carrier air conditioners closed their Indiana factory and exported the jobs to Mexico, it was only Trump that complained repeatedly. Not Paul Ryan, Not billionaire Paul Singer, not Cruz, not Jeb Bush, not Rubio. The total cluelessness of the Republic Elite is why Trump won the nomination.

The rise of Sanders is because the Democratic elite refused to listen to among others, the young, for whom the cost of education has increased significantly and who are unable to buy homes, etc, because of rising student debt.

In the cases of the British Elites, the Republic and Democratic Elites, they all appear to care more for "The City" and Wall Street Bankers than they do working class citizens and the young who are attempting to start their lives as their parents had.

<comment><USER26> I'm confused. Are you saying that Trump is _not_ part of what you're calling the "Republic Elite"? Or that he's not part of the billionaire class? That he's not highly connected? Are you saying he actually _cares_ about the working class?

I don't understand how average Americans can buy into this idea that Trump is some kind of outsider. He rubs shoulders with all kinds of rich, powerful, and connected people, including presidents.

The idea that people are enamored with Trump because he represents their interests just doesn't add up. At the most, I can see how people might find his off-the-wall antics and constant flip-flopping somewhat entertaining, but surely that's not a good reason to put him office.

<comment><USER27> >I don't understand how average Americans can buy into this idea that Trump is some kind of outsider.

It's because Trump is politically incorrect. He dresses like the just got off shift at the factory and makes jokes about his dick size and most importantly, when he speaks, he doesn't come off as being more informed or articulate than his supporters.

All it takes for a politician to convince Americans they're not part of the "elite," is to act like a convincing caricature of "the common man."

<comment><USER28> > He dresses like the just got off shift at the factory

This comment baffles me, because one of the most consistent aspects of Trump's image is always being in a suit and tie.

I just searched for "Donald Trump" on Google Images. Nearly every picture has him in a suit and tie. The first wherein he was visibly not wearing a tie or bowtie was #70 (but he was still in a suit). #139 was the second picture lacking a tie (but still in a suit). #176 was the first picture featuring a person without a suit, but it was Michael Moore alongside Donald Trump (still in a suit and tie). #551 was the first image where he was not in a suit, but it was a caricature drawing. #603 was the first photo of Donald Trump where he was not in a suit; it was this picture: [http://government.northcrane.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/...](http://government.northcrane.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/01/jacksontrump.jpg)

#693 was the second and only other picture in the first 700: [http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5580938f69beddba025...](http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5580938f69beddba025e62f2-480/donald- trump-playing-golf.jpg)

It seems to me that Trump always wears a suit, except when he's golfing, and is always wearing a collared shirt. I'd be happy to see a picture where "he dresses like [he] just got off shift at the factory".

<comment><USER29> It's part of the elite narrative about what confuses rubes, so Trump must dress that way.

The reason people are voting for Trump is because he's as openly racist as the Republicans have gotten so far. This is the same reason why Democrats haven't won whites since Kennedy. The question is whether Trump's supporters will suspect that his newly found overtly racist anti-establishment stance is a deception before the election and not turn out, or whether Hillary will make enough Democrats sick that they won't turn out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This sort of distain-for-plebes arrogance on the part of the elites is why they will continue to be surprised by events for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER31> Why not to have referendum on taxes? Care to guess the outcome?

<comment><USER32> The Swiss held a referendum on universal basic income, and it was overthrown by a large margin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Hey, you voted against what we recommended to you, so now we will be telling you for the next 5 years that you are the stupid one that you don't even know what you voted against!"

I don't get it - this is a prime example of democracy in action so why so much outrage? Do you rather want to live in technocracy/totality and allow voting "properly profiled" people only? "USSR is a great idea" anyone?

Get over it, as much as shocking it can be to you. You can't always profit from every democratic decision, even if you feel it's the only correct one. Just accept other people desire something else and pick up your next fight properly so that you won't be as shocked as now and completely unprepared. And next time vote politicians into office that actually have brain and don't risk everything for their own personal agenda. It's just grotesque.

<comment><USER34> "On balance democracy is a good thing" and "this electorate is utter shit" are not contradictory beliefs :-)

On the face of it this seems like a terrible idea, and certainly the politicians promoting it are fucking cretins of the lowest order. But, maybe we're wrong! After all, the people who generally voted Leave are the same folks who have not shared all that much in the prosperity created by global capitalism. Come to think of it, so are most of the folks who voted Remain. It gets a bit tiring, for the listener _and_ the speaker, when one constantly blames so many of society's ills on wealth inequality and plutocracy, but wealth inequality and plutocracy are responsible for a lot of society's ills. I do take some solace in the fact that the rich will suffer the consequences of this referendum the same as the poor - however they can withstand it better than the poor, too. I don't think the average Briton is going to be better off for leaving the EU, but if this convinces the ruling class that they should try fucking everyone else over a little bit less (I doubt it will), maybe it will end up having been worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sanity check: Google searchers aren't necessarily voters. The UK had a massive (72.2%) turnout, which still leaves 13 million potential voters at home [1]. I think it's reasonable that those least-likely to vote on this issue also might be a large contingent of those who don't even know what the EU is. Moreover, Google searchers aren't necessarily in the electorate. They might be kids, etc.

1\. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/23/high-turnout- for-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/23/high-turnout-for-eu- referendum-vote-could-break-uk-records/)

<comment><USER36> Exactly. A lot of people are reading way to much into this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "People of $MY_IDENTITY believe a thing, so I'll vote for it no matter what $OTHERS say!"

I thought before reading that story that the above was a bad caricature, but holy shit. How can you not know what the EU is if you're in a member country and can read? It's like an American not knowing what Congress is!

<comment><USER29> If you google "What is cancer?" after being diagnosed with it, does that mean that you don't know what cancer is, or that you don't know about it in the detail that you now expect to need?

The upper middle class think that everyone who works with their hands is a failure, and are willing to believe the worst about them.

<comment><USER38> People were lied to. Some of them believed the lies.

Borris and Farage said that £350m will go to the NHS. Here's a picture of Borris by a sign that he had created for his campaign:

[https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048](https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048)

It says "Let's give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week"

Here's a picture of their campaign bus:

[https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048](https://twitter.com/mgtmccartney/status/746245181532418048)

That says "We send the EU £350 million a week

Let's fund our NHS instead"

What have the Brexit campaigners said the day after the referendum?

Here's Farage explaining that saying it was a "mistake" to say the £350m per week would go to the NHS.

[https://twitter.com/GMB/status/746218028195426305](https://twitter.com/GMB/status/746218028195426305)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Even though I voted to leave, this morning I woke up and I just — the reality did actually hit me," one woman told the news channel ITV News. "If I'd had the opportunity to vote again, it would be to stay."

<comment><USER40> #WhatHaveWeDone seems popular on Twitter, as is #notmyvote

<comment><USER41> Which might be posted by those who voted "remain" as well, because people feel that they belong together although they voted differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

\- Winston Churchill

<comment><USER43> He also said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

"Perhaps the late Lord Attlee was right," she [Mrs Thatcher] observed, "when he said that the referendum was a device of dictators and demagogues."

<comment><USER29> Obligatory horrific Churchill quote: "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is the problem with popular votes on issues with far-reaching and complex consequences. There are certain matters that are better left to elected politicians. If one were to have a popular vote as to whether or not we should dissolve the IRS in the US, that measure would likely pass because "yay no taxes!" but would result in the collapse of the US government.

I'm not sure that individual voters that have no conception of the myriad issues associated with this decision should have been allowed to vote on it.

<comment><USER45> it's taboo to say this but I've been reading a lot about Ancient Rome before Ceasar and yearn for that type of government. I know people have a disdain for aristocracy but people in charge were raised knowing they'd be powerful. As such, they'd be extensively educated both academically and in Roman culture. (Also sometimes moving to Greece to study at the best universities in the world). There was also no partisanship as each senator made the moves that benefitted them or their people the most.

<comment><USER46> > There was also no partisanship as each senator made the moves that > benefitted them or their people the most.

How would you describe the populares and the optimates?

<comment><USER45> these weren't parties really. it's similiar to saying you are a populist. To me bernie sanders and trump are both populists yet have vastly different views and would never be considered the same party.

edit: as it says on wikipedia, " ...the designation populares refers as much to political tactics as to any perceived policy."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The subtext of the article seems to be that British voters don't know what the EU is despite voting to leave it.

But their evidence doesn't show that. Yes, there is a spike in people googling "what is BREXIT" and such things. But how many voters are doing that search? What percent of voters are uninformed? No one knows, so why write an article about it?

This is low quality journalism.

</comment><comment><USER48> Pundits need to stop it with this "mock the unsophisticated yokels" click- baiting and trolling. _Of course_ people are Googling about the EU after a major upset referendum about the EU.

One reason "insane" anti-establishment positions like this are winning (even when they are insane) is because pundits stubbornly refuse to actually listen to peoples' reasons for supporting them. Instead they mock them as backwater idiots and insult their intelligence.

I don't know UK politics well enough to say for certain, but I know in the USA Trump is largely a FU vote against an establishment that's allowing vast swaths of the country to collapse into permanent depression while ignoring the problem and horribly distorting the economy to keep Wall St. pumped up at the expense of things like housing affordability. I can't stand him myself but I know where the support is coming from, and if nobody listens to these issues we're going to have President Trump in November.

<comment><USER49> 48% voted to stay, now they are Googling what happens next to them. It's a stupid article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> My first impression of the result was shouldn't there be a requirement for a larger difference than 1 - 2% for something like this to pass? A majority of at least 65% for example? I don't know what I'm talking about really but that seems logical, what do you all think?

<comment><USER45> The number is arbitrary though. Why not 60 or 63 etc..? I don't think it should even have been voted on. Direct democracy makes no sense when 99 pct of those voting don't understand the issue. We are dealing with extremely complex economic and political webs. When experts are ignored everyone fails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> In my jumbled mess of thoughts this is a rough list of priorities that should be addressed at before democracy can work in a "more perfect way" and can't be misused by the power-hungry elites or the disgruntled masses led by dangerous clowns:

1) Wealth Inequality brought on by unfair access to opportunity (This one item needs its own list of priorities in order to be figured out... Basic income? Better social support in the form of jobs, education, health? Fair legal treatment?.. too long to list here)

2) An uninformed populace (Removal of "personalities" from politics. Maybe even a shift from voting for people but rather for issues. Engage people in political life often, not just when elections roll around. A more responsible media landscape - Less Kardashians and much less opinion or propaganda journalism.)

3) Get money out of politics or at least enforce mandatory transparency of financial influence in politics

4) Ability to delegate your voting power to someone you trust (it could be a group or an individual). If you're on social assistance and your priority is to survive, you might not have time to be informed about every single issue. You could however empower an individual, association, union or another entity that you feel represents your interests to vote on your behalf).

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands So when googling something is an indication of what people _actually know_??

This only tells you what people were _looking for_ not what articles they read or what conclusions they drew from the actual articles they read. We have truly jumped the ship if people are drawing conclusions based solely on what people are searching for in Google.

Here's your sign. . .

</comment><comment><USER52> Or, you know, this could be an uptick from the percentage of people who did not bother to turn out to vote. Spin the narrative however you like.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'd actually modify most referenda and other public elections to include a brief quiz about the choice taken.

For example,

I VOTE:

[_] LEAVE [_] REMAIN:

My choice above means (choose one): (_) more welfare; (_) less welfare. Foreign trade will be (choose one): (_) simplified; (_) complicated. etc.

If the quiz choices don't match the vote itself, the vote is INVALID.

Thus the amount of uninformed votes would be reduced to zero.

Of course the options would have to be agreed upon by both sides.

"Oh, but someone could easily be taught to 'cheat', you could tell someone what answers to pick!" Well, sure. Good luck convincing an immigrant to tick the "(_) less jobs for immigrants" box.

</comment><comment><USER54> > Awakening to a stock market plunge and a precipitous decline in the value of > the pound that Britain hasn't seen in more than 30 years

There's a tad bit of sensationalism here. Yes, this is a HUGE drop to happen in one day, but the British Pound is only ~1.5% lower than the low of 3 months ago (when compared against the US dollar).

[https://www.tradingview.com/chart/34OYpFIv/](https://www.tradingview.com/chart/34OYpFIv/)

[http://imgur.com/6IyjxnX](http://imgur.com/6IyjxnX)

</comment><comment><USER55> Why can't these people just accept a democratic decision without painting those who voted in an undesired way as retards?

Every major voting decision in the last 10 years was painted (in basically all media) as the smart and educated ones vs the retards, bigots, racists or even nazis.

With this attitude we are one step away from abolishing democracy altogether. Obviously because we must protect the stupid ones from their own opinions.

I originally came from a Communist country and I've got to say that over the years all mayor western publications have turned into something resembling the Soviet Pravda.

<comment><USER56> Western culture as a whole pretty dumb these days - we used to have the Bible and the classics as common cultural touchstones, but nowadays the only shared culture is idiotic stuff like Star Wars, so most people get their fundamental ideas of how the world works from there, rather than anything that touches on the real world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm confident in the future this will be a case study on the failings of democracy. I absolutely do not believe all 52% of leave voters realized the economic repercussions.

<comment><USER58> Maybe they had an idea and don't care? [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1adcce2-397e-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8e...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1adcce2-397e-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8ee7.html#axzz4CWIHe58u)

"the piles of ballot papers told their own story about those parts of Britain that felt comfortable in a modern, connected world, and those which felt cut off from the fruits of globalisation. Voters in London and Scotland, the two most prosperous parts of the UK, turned out in large numbers to deliver a clear message that they wanted to remain in the EU and its huge single market. But elsewhere — in the old industrial centres of the north, the small towns of the Midlands and the faded seaside resorts — the ballot papers were stacked high in favour of Leave, rejection of an establishment that had let them down."

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> We need some form of modern Sortition;

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

</comment><comment><USER60> Haven't read all the comments here, but isn't it possible or even likely that it's Remain voters having an "oh shit what next" moment that are Googling the EU and the implications of leaving, as opposed to ignorant abstainers and Leave voters checking up on the consequences of their vote after the fact?

The article doesn't actually take a position, but the tenor of the viral social media chatter seems to assume the latter case.

</comment><comment><USER61> Going out on a tangent - Would California be more successful leaving the US as an independent country?

As things stand, California is currently the eighth largest economy in the world on their own. 17 of the top 30 U.S. tech companies are in California, which should come as no surprise. Tourism, entertainment, biotech, and agriculture are multibillion dollar industries already. Aerospace and defense contracts still rake in around $25bn a year. And many state business leaders are increasingly showing a real commitment to renewable energy.

Overall, while I believe there is definitely more potential for a social democratic style of government if California were its own country, the changes would not be that drastic. Barring a major collapse, California would, like Canada, still remain in the U.S.'s economic and cultural shadow. And who knows? Secession might be the best thing to happen to other states like Texas, New York, and Massachusetts. Who else would be capable of filling the void left in the energy, media, and technology industries? There is certainly upside in such a move but also a great deal of risk.

<comment><USER62> I forget the exact amount (it's likely changed), but CA is one state that is subsidizing the rest of the country. It was somewhere in the ballpark of $0.20 received for every $1.00 given.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I have no real reason why I think it would work well, but I have always felt that voting on anything should only be allowed to the people that can show a half decent knowledge of that topic and not for people that just go with the first thing they hear. You might as well flip a coin at that point. If you want to vote, do your part as a citizen and learn about what it is you are voting on, how it will impact you and your country as a whole and if you don't want to do that, don't vote.

Democratic countries gave power to the people, but we basically give it right back because "its too hard", or "i dont have time", etc. so we only vote from our gut feeling and follow the loudest voice. Gut feeling is fine in a fight or flight sense, but not for policies that impact the whole country.

IMO I would think decisions like this and many others would benefit from something similar to the scientific method. Construct your proposal, share it with everyone, let them critique it, revise, share, etc. and then vote. Biggest thing is taking ego out of the equation.

</comment><comment><USER64> You decide to go on a trip, next you get out a map. This makes perfect sense, and in no way reflects poorly on the British people.

<comment><USER65> If you decide to jump over a cliff, you really should havr looked at the map first. Just to check how high the fall would be.

<comment><USER11> When I travel through a new country, I look at a general map first. When I get to a new area in a country that's now in my direct personal experience, I look at a more detailed map.

<comment><USER65> "What is the EU" isn't a detailed map. It's the most general for the purpose. "How many times a year does the chamber of ministers meet" would be a more detailed local map.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Some voter demographic info - [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk- politics-36616028](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028)

\- Rural areas mostly voted to leave

\- Younger voters voted to stay, but turnout by younger voters was lower

\- Of 30 areas with the fewest graduates (I assume this means college? wasn't clear) 28 voted to leave

</comment><comment><USER66> From the video:

> No country has ever left the European Union before and hasn't used article > 50.

I'm not sure about article 50, but Greenland left the EEC (EU predecessor) in 1985.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_Union#Greenland)

</comment><comment><USER29> The WaPo was always bad, but it's descending into linkbait shit, and every headline is a backhanded editorial. Leave won by 4 points with a 70% turnout. _Plenty of the people doing the googling voted stay._ I assume the stay voters knew less about the EU than the leave voters not because of the position they chose, but simply because it was the status quo, supported by the entire establishment, default.

What's happening is that people who are facing what has been painted to be a major change in their circumstances are checking the internet for as much information as possible so they can figure out how to deal with it.

Translated into WaPo: the idiots who voted against the EU didn't even know what it was.

</comment><comment><USER67> The title is written such that they would have you believe it's the people who voted to leave the E.U. who are doing the Googling.

How does WP know it's not the other way around? It could be it's all the people who voted to stay...

</comment><comment><USER68> Odd, how in some close elections if the result is aligned what the media and the establishment want, "the people have spoken" and grandiose words are spoken about the power of democracy.

And yet when the election is close but the result runs counter to what those in power want....suddenly we have hand-wringing over misleading campaigns, "uninformed voters", the perils of democracy, etc. etc.

Like clockwork.

</comment><comment><USER69> So, can they rejoin? Or will the entire country collapse due to the awkwardness of reversing the earlier decision?

<comment><USER70> They didn't leave yet and may not. I feel like this has been used as a vehicle for Boris Johnson to increase his chances to be prime minister and others' to provoke changes. It seems to me that Britain didn't seriously consider the repercussions of an exit that doesn't involve cherry-picking.

<comment><USER6> The referendum is advisory and not binding.

I think this particular Golem has too much momentum now to simply decline the advice of the electorate, however it did occur to me that Cameron's 3 month delay in applying Section 50 would allow the attention of the public to be distracted to some extent.

<comment><USER71> > The referendum is advisory and not binding.

OTOH, the referendum _did_ kill the Britain-EU agreement on new terms -- as that was expressly conditioned on a "Remain" vote -- so while it doesn't legally obligate the government to withdraw from the EU, in addition to creating a strong public expectation (both in the UK and in the rest of the EU) of withdrawal, it also makes the conditions for _staying_ in the EU worse for the UK than they were before the referendum.

<comment><USER72> But not worse than leaving and coming back cap-in-hand 5 or 10 years down the road. And as England, not as the UK.

<comment><USER6> I take the point, and that was a significant part of my own decision to vote remain.

I actually think that the EU itself may scale back the political union bit and push up the economic cooperation bit over the next decade. Then options for the future (on all sides) may open up again.

Those options will be for the ones under 30 now to explore of course and they voted heavily to remain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> A little late to ask that question... is democracy ok when people don't know what they are voting for?

<comment><USER68> Is it democracy if they aren't given the opportunity to decide?

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> "some British voters are now saying" ...

So says The Washington Post. What doesn't seem to get through to the global elite is that regardless of the decision, the people demand constitutional and auditable mechanisms to 'voice' their opinion.

</comment><comment><USER75> There are 25% who didn't vote, maybe because they didn't expect the Vote to Leave to win and just now they got worried.

Instead of this trouble, they could probably go through with fixing the EU legislatures that they find problematic.

</comment><comment><USER76> Maybe things would make more sense to if EU countries went to the olympics under a single flag? It's not like American athletes compete under the flag of their state.

</comment><comment><USER77> I've only seen percentages, not figures. I'm not sure you can even say that these searches are being issued by people who turned out to vote.

</comment><comment><USER78> The establishment viewpoint seems to be that snide recrimination coupled to rampant emotional predictions of doom is news. I don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER79> Quite possibly not the sames ones who voted?

</comment><comment><USER80> history will tell if they did the right choice. right now no body really knows.

</comment><comment><USER81> I'm googling "what the F' is the BREXIT about anyway".

</comment><comment><USER82> "What the hell did we just do guys?"

</comment><comment><USER83> Wow talk about someone not prepared to look at data but instead sneer and insult . Quelle surprise (that's French by the way)

<comment><USER84> We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11970636](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11970636) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> If this is for real... It is really sad. I understood that xenophobia was the main reason Great Britain wanted to get out of EU, which is also sad.

<comment><USER86> Wanting a sensible immigration policy or control over your laws is not xenophobia. The idea that half the country is racist is absurd, and downright insulting. There's a reason people voted leave, and part of it is due to both labour and conservatives constantly ignoring the working class's issues over immigration, dismissing them as racist. You reap what you sow.

<comment><USER87> Pretty much - Brexit is a push to (slightly) tilt the British labor market to the advantage of the common British man - lower and middle class people who work for wages. Less workers from Spain/Eastern Europe will re-balance the market towards higher wages for Brits.

For the elites that will mean less profits so naturally they are opposed. If they were smart and played their game well, they would have slightly hiked the wages previously, thus opened some steam valves. I read the guardian (as liberal as it gets), and vast majority of leave comments pointed to stagnating or decreasing standards of living as the cause. Either way, democracy worked as intended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> People who voted remain want to see what it's all about now.

</comment><comment><USER89> They should now have a vote to rename England "Brity McBritface".

</comment><comment><USER87> Patronizing attitude towards British voters from newspapers and the elites. Democracy happened, British people wanted to regain sovereignty over their affairs, and they did it. Good for them.

</comment><comment><USER90> The left wing establishment once again shows their utter contempt for the common people. Of course there's a lot of people searching about the EU today. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest it's a sign that they're ignorant. But hey, anything to defend the narrative, right?

</comment><comment><USER91> As usual, WaPo is shitposting. Why are they not banned here?

Yes, people are deeply curious about the full effect of this huge proposed change, especially the half of the entire population who voted for Stay because they weren't too worried about the UK/EU boundary when they were happy enough with the status quo total package.

<comment><USER88> HN users in general lean heavily left (at least publicly).

<comment><USER92> Actually I think HN leans center. HN has no particularly inspiring agenda, it's mostly conformity to the status quo. There are extreme left and right on HN but they are usually down voted.

<comment><USER93> I see a lot of people leaning left and a lot of people leaning Libertarian. What's conspicuously absent is the religious right.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dark Art of Interrogation (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-interrogation/302791/ <comment><USER2> In light of what was later revealed, this article seems dangerously naive.</comment>


Wall St. Computers Read and Trade on the News  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/technology/22trading.html <comment><USER2> Jesus. An almost completely uninformed article.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a little like a communist central planners dream come true... Have a giant computer make all the decisions in the economy faster than a human could.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why, this sounds like a brilliant idea, immune from failure. A recipe for stability if ever I've seen one.</comment>


Show HN: NightCafe Creator – neural style transfer app with style masks - <AUTHOR> https://creator.nightcafe.studio <comment><USER2> Nice art works and slick experience. Some suggestions

1\. While waiting for the art to be generated, get the user to do a hot-or-not between some existing art to get a better sense of what they like and then generate them something

2\. Have a little more feedback on how much longer they'll need to wait while generating

3\. Once generated, show the artwork framed and hanging somewhere not just the rendering

4\. When a user kicks off a job, kick off a bunch in parallel using some other styles in case the style they pick really doesn't work well.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are great suggestions, thanks!

I especially like the last one, particularly for a user's first creation - because if their first creation doesn't work out so well, it's often their last. Auto-creating a few jobs based on their content image - with styles that are known to work pretty well - would really improve their experience and first impressions.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> NightCafe Creator has been my side project for about 6 months. It's a PWA built with TypeScript, React, Next.js and Firebase; and the style transfer jobs run on Algorithmia.

There are plenty of neural style transfer apps online. Some of the features that set mine apart are:

\- Multiple style images with relative weights

\- Style masks - clip a style to a certain region of the content image

\- Free image search built in (via Pexels)

\- No signup required to create (uses Firebase's anonymous users)

There are still a lot of improvements to make - I want to improve and speed up the back end algorithm, add public user accounts and the ability to 'like' creations, along with a never-ending list of smaller things like pagination - which I've avoided adding thus far.

This is probably the most effort I've ever put into a side project. Would love to hear your thoughts and am happy to answer any questions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been playing with this for several weeks now and it's a lot of fun. I was always really intrigued by style transfer algorithms and thus was a great low- barrier way to play around with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> @airdeck thanks for being the #1 Creator and early adopter!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a way to rotate the original image after uploading? The image I tried originally uploaded sideways so it made doing the mask more difficult. I edited the photo on my phone to rotate it and resubmit it. (my phone didn't show me the photo needed to be adjusted until after I uploaded it)

<comment><AUTHOR> iPhones do this sometimes. Thanks for letting me know - I will add this to my to-do list.

Thanks for trying it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love the giraffe image. Although I wonder if your algorithm handles faces well.

There is a huge demand in Instagram for auto touchups. Like improved lighting, smoother skin, vibrant colors, convert to anime etc. Make amateur photos look like they're taken by pros.

<comment><AUTHOR> Faces often don't work well unless they're really tightly framed / close up. I think it's because if the eyes turn out a bit weird, it's very off-putting.

I've thought a bit about marketing to Instagrammers, I think neural style for short videos would be a good service to offer. Not sure where it fits on my roadmap yet though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very cool! I remember working on an evolutionary algorithm at one point to generate CSS versions of images using random fonts, positions and transforms. The results you've got here are very impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that project sounds interesting, I'd love to see some examples.

I should also clarify - I'm more of a front-end developer and I'm just using an open source style transfer algorithm from github (with some minor tweaks) on the back end. I can't take much credit for how well the artworks turn out, apart from the factors of UX guiding people to choose good images, and a good set of preset styles.

</comment></comment><comment> 100-xyz Good job. Fun to experiment with!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for giving it a go!</comment></comment>


Is GNOME or Unity the desktop for you? - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-gnome-or-unity-the-desktop-for-you/ <comment><USER2> When shortcuts work consistently regardless of the DE the users install then it is neither. Installing xwhatever or editing dotfiles and scripts to get this working disqualifies the user experience argument.

Once again, macOS is the desktop that gets out of the way.</comment>


Will the Next Zuckerberg Be a Designer, not a Hacker? - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/business/37449/ <comment><USER2> Zuckberg IS a designer. Facebook gained massive initial traction not because it was technologically superior to other options (although it eventually ended up being so), but because it was very well thought out from a product perspective.

<comment><USER3> The UX of Facebook beats the pants off Myspace, but still... doesn't strike me as a triumph of design. Though to be fair this may just be because things break more readily at a half billion users.

<comment><USER2> By design I don't mean rounded corners and typography -- I mean things like limiting the networks to universities to begin with, having the Facebook graph mirror real-life social networks, the timing and characteristics of News Feed, Platform, Connect, etc.

<comment><USER4> That's not typically referred to as a designer. Those types of things typically fall into the realm of a "program manager".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker regardless of if he is a designer.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think designers will play a bigger role in founding teams in the future as products need to be designed for various platforms such as touch tablets, browser based web apps, mobile devices, etc. Each will require a unique set of interactions and design elements.

</comment><comment><USER7> False dichotomy. What's happening now is that the barriers to both fields are being lowered, and the youth coming up today has the opportunity to become adept at both from an early age.

Granted, both fields require different thought processes and it's rare if not impossible to be truly great in both, but that's not what a startup needs. A startup needs a decent idea, fast execution, and hustle at all levels. Two things that factor very little into developing traction are stunning design and impeccable engineering. You want something that works and looks decent, but it's more important to move quickly and achieve product-market fit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Lest we forget, the reason Facebook took off in the first place is Privacy.

The design changed every six months or so.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. To start a company such as Facebook, you must have an intimate knowledge with how your product works. A 'Hacker' implies that someone knows the internals of their program, a 'Designer' implies they know how to make it look and feel nice.

The Hacker mentality works great for leading a company, knowing the ins and outs and possible future situations. The Designer mentality does not, making it look and feel nice.

The next Zuckerberg will be a hacker.

</comment><comment><USER9> The next big guy (let's not make the poor guy/girl follow someone else's legacy) can be anybody who is great in either of Design, Programming or Business and practically capable (if not 10X) in the other two.

If you are just a great hacker, you CANNOT be the next thing. If you are just a designer, you CANNOT be the next big thing. And likewise.

Assumption: You do not have a team/cofounder that/who compliments your skills totally and share the same vision.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems like there is an anecdote somewhere about how, in the early days of Google, an anonymous user would occasionally send the developers a message that simply stated the number of elements (words/links/whatever) on the main page, whenever that number went up. The developers took the implicit message to heart and endeavored to keep the noise to an absolute minimum.

Do you need to be a designer to realize that simplicity is a virtue?

</comment><comment><USER11> I think that the mindset of Zuckerberg or the next Zuckerberg will be the one of a hacker. Making him/her in fact a hacker.

What I'm trying to say is: Designers are hackers not in the software engineering point of view but in the problem solvers one.

In my opinion he was successful early on not because of his exceptional programming skills (although nobody said Facebook is the easiest thing to develop), but because his "Product Designer" skills.

</comment><comment><USER12> This one is a hacker?

</comment><comment><USER13> What makes you think good designers are not hackers and that Mark Zuckerberg is not also a designer?

</comment><comment><USER14> Funny thing is that, especially early, Facebook didn't require particularly good programming skills. But it did have a much better and more professional, less sleazy (MySpace) or nerdy (LiveJournal) -looking UI than it's competitors/progenitors did. And then grew in a very intelligent and calculated away (Harvard first, then other Ivy League, then other colleges, etc.; and refusing to commercialize the experience too early). All of that really had nothing to do with the quality of the code or the main coder behind it (Zuck). Quality of the designer (arguably, especially early on: Zuck) and strategic direction (Zuck again?), but not of the hacking.</comment>


Why I Want to Run – Lawrence Lessig - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/why-i-want-to-run_b_7971368.html <comment><USER2> my fellow citizens are too wrapped up in the "sporting" nature of politics to set aside their differences on whatever hot button issue the mainstream media is jamming down our throats for something like this to actually work.</comment>


Why File Sharing Will Save Hollywood, Music - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/why-file-sharin.html <comment><USER2> Books have been a good model for music, as far as technological effects go.

Technological advances in publishing have acted to democratize the industry. We have fewer ultra superstars like Hemmingway. (J.K. Rowling seems to be the most recent one.) But publishing a book is something almost anyone can do on their own now, albeit with considerable effort, so you don't necessarily need to be an ultra-superstar to earn a living at it. You may have to devote considerable effort promoting yourself, though, and you'll probably have to tour.

You can replace "books" with "music" and most of the paragraph would apply just as well, minus the sentences mentioning J.K. Rowling and Hemmingway.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, though. It used to be that all entertainment culture was locally produced and consumed, in the form of parlour music and after dinner stories. When media enabled this to be centrally produced, this also enabled extreme concentrations of wealth. However, it also took away people's power to produce their own culture. Now technology is putting it back into the hands of the people.

So no, hopefully file sharing won't save Hollywood. Hopefully some significant portion of it will remain as a gathering place for some of the best and brightest talents, but Hollywood's former brilliance will be shattered and redistributed to everyone out there.</comment>


Timeline of Failed Predictions - <AUTHOR> http://toptrends.nowandnext.com/2010/12/02/timeline-of-failed-predictions/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, but a little too long. Besides, some of them aren't really failed, and some of them aren't really predictions.

 _"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." – Albert Einstein, 1932._

Einstein was careful with his words, and saying that there was no indication that something is possible is not the same as predicting that it's impossible.

 _You better get secretarial work or get married." – Emmeline Snively, advising Marilyn Monroe in 1944._

Marilyn Monroe was dead by 36. Maybe she would have been better off with the secretarial work.

 _"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." – Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869._

He was right. There were no _good_ reasons.</comment>


Windows XP: How end of support sparked one organisation's shift from Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/windows-xp-how-end-of-support-sparked-one-organisations-shift-from-microsoft-7000028510/ <comment><USER2> The reasons given in this article are fairly nonsensical. He states that if he upgraded all of the windows desktops now, he'd have to do the same thing again in 4 years, yet if he had upgraded all of the desktops 4 years ago, why don't they have Windows 7 on them? It was released in 2009. Also noted is the switch from a desktop to a laptop making people more mobile - really?</comment>


Headphone Palace - <AUTHOR> which guides are best for buying a headphone? <comment><USER2> [https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/category/headphones.258/](https://www.head- fi.org/showcase/category/headphones.258/)

+maybe some other review sources +your own preperence

Depending on what you are looking for you might wanna listen to the actual device before buying.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://marco.org/headphones-closed-portable](https://marco.org/headphones- closed-portable)

[https://marco.org/headphones-bluetooth](https://marco.org/headphones- bluetooth)</comment>


Ask HN: Accept offer from startup accelerator? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I am running a start with my co-founder (2 devs). We've done lots of freelance work together before and a previous startup which failed sadly. The previous startup went through a European accelerator.
I am now faced with an offer for our new startup from a different European accelerator. There terms are approx 6% to 10% for around £20k ($34k).
The startup has about £19k cash in the bank and generates about £4k to £5k a month. We want this startup to do well and get big.
We are not marketers and this is what we need help with most. We know a few people we can get help from friends / network. We have both quit our jobs and will soon work on the startup full time. It has been bootstrapped for the past 18 months and we could only work on it part time.
Questions:
Would you accept the offer from the accelerator? Why? Would you go straight to an Early stage VC? Why? Would you continue working on it yourself for a few more months before to get a better valuation? Why?
Anything else to consider?
Other notes:
- We don't think we've quite reached PMF - Our product is pretty much MVP, no bells and whistles - Our next goal is to concentrate more on Cust Dev
I appreciate any quick responses as I have to make the decision soon.
I am sorry but I had to post this with a new account. <comment><USER2> What was your experience like in the first accelerator? We're the advisors, mentors, and network any good? Is this one better?

In general, there are too many accelerators out there that don't do a great job. You might run the risk of getting bad advice or dead-end connections that could run your company into the ground. Or it might be great -- hard to tell without more information.

Sounds like financially speaking, you guys aren't in a bad situation if you're bootstrapping and being lean. Should at least be ramen profitable, which is a big success in itself. So you gotta now ask yourself how much more would an extra £19k do? Can you hire the people you want for how long you want them with that money, or do you need more?

Would this accelerator legitimately help you raise more, or can you do that without em?

I normally am against raising or applying to incubators without PMF. Too much unpredictability that can't usually be solved with more money -- just with more hustle. Then again, if running experiments, doing customer dev, or day- to-day operations require a large budget, then you might need the money simply to figure it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> The previous accelerator was good. They helped raise some decent money after their initial injection of money. Mentors were great too and the connections we built were useful. It has hard to know if this one will be better.

That is interesting that you wouldn't recommend and accelerator if you don't have PMF. Most start-ups that get into accelerators seem like they do not have PMF (judging from their website). However, I do see your point as you won't make the most use of your time.

<comment><USER2> Well, quality incubators invest in quality founding teams, not products with PMF. I'm a believer that in most startup cases, the founding team can find some early form of PMF with customer dev + building + hustle rather than money + employees. And if you do find PMF, raising money and getting into the incubator again wouldn't be a problem.

In your case though, you might've already found it if your rev is recurring and growing at a decent rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait for a better valuation--

You identified marketing as an area where you need the most help. Suggest engaging an independent marketing specialist or agency on a contract/interim basis.

</comment><comment><USER4> Who's the accelerator ? (feel free to ping me by email if you prefer)

</comment><comment><USER5> Well... lets do the math... You have a valuation of 2-4x revenue. Sounds like a good deal just on those numbers alone... but if you need the money and they can offer you something you don't have like marketing assistance. Seems like the offer makes sense.

No way to really tell if you will ever get a better valuation since we don't know what you do and what your financials are like.

Money in the bank leads to more money in the bank...</comment>


Introducing: Engineering Weekly - <AUTHOR> https://thoughts.t37.net/introducing-engineering-weekly-3cf9fa832c56 <comment><USER2> Good idea suggested by you !</comment>


Eduardo Saverin renounces US citizenship to dodge tax bill - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/11/facebook-billionaire-renounces-us-citizenship-likely-to-help-dodge-massive-tax-bill/

<comment><USER2> This article doesn't make sense. He's not "dodging" taxes, since he's also giving up any claim to benefits of those taxes (social security, roads, constitutional rights, etc.) And I'm sure Singapore has higher tax rates than the US, generally speaking?</comment>


What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618

<comment><USER2> this one is old; was already on HN a few weeks ago. still nice, though :-)</comment>


StackOverFlow: Why is Github more popular than Gitorious? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78991/why-is-github-more-popular-than-gitorious

<comment><USER2> From one response:

 _Github offers hosting of closed source projects, while Gitorious is all FOSS_

Seems like a no-brainer to me. How many people develop absolutely nothing but open source projects that share 100% of their code from day zero? It stands to reason that a lot of programmers don't fall into that category.

(And even if I were paid to develop nothing but open-source software, I would occasionally want private repositories. I don't want to continuously display 100% of my prerelease code to the whole world. Looks like Gitorious has finally started to figure this out, years late: [http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg01...](http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg01148.html))

And who wants to set up two Git hosts when one will do? (Even if Git _does_ make it really easy to use more than one?)

<comment><USER3> Point taken, but I assume that those guys that want to protect their code from the outside might want to go for a complete in-house solution as well, instead of storing it in the cloud (I know that this is the big thing now and all, but let's assume that I'm not the only one that likes to have local storage, local backup and local basic/essential services).

Those can grab gitorious and set it up locally. Takes (depending on experience with linux, rails etc) half a day for your first installation and you have the same thing running in your office/vpn. With all your closed source precious projects.

<comment><USER4> I've tried this route and the problem is that my company wants _some_ open- source stuff and _some_ closed source stuff. So a private Gitorious setup isn't great because we can't put our open-source stuff there.

If self-hosted Gitorious allowed for private & public projects then I could let it face the internet and have the perfect solution. I've seen a few implementations of private projects with merge requests, but sadly the Gitorious team has largely ignored them.

<comment><USER3> Don't want to be the gitorious fanboy here. I'm using both and I'm not involved with either project (although I kind of run an internal gitorious instance here at work).

I have to agree with you: Both on one server is not possible. The only way to make this work would be cumbersome:

Install a public and a private instance of gitorious. For private projects: Works just as before. For public projects: Push to somewhere and make the post-receive hook propagate the change to public/private.

Ugly? Hell, yes. It's nothing but a workaround.

On the other hand: You can mix GitHub and Gitorious just fine. Your client (if you use one, or the git cli) doesn't care about the hosts, so having <http://myPrivateGitorious> repositories next to <http://github.com> repositories would work fine and you gain the best of both worlds. It's the same system. You can easily push/pull/merge from one to the other, it's not like the decision to use one or the other has to be an XOR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really think the answer has to do with Github's take on what a "public" view looks like. They focus on the actual files (which is the primary use case of a repo host) and then they focus on the README file (the WHAT), and finally focuses on the contributors (the WHO). It's not as pretty as Gitorious, but it is functional and clear and it gives me a clear indication of what I'm getting out of the site and why I should care.

The ability to link to the Github 'public page' also helps make it go viral -- I never actually ended up in Github's homepage until today, I always ended up there because of a link I followed for an open source project, and then was upsold to sign up and set up a private repository.

On the other hand, Gitorious doesn't make it obviously easy to find the public repositories, makes their front page look like yet another project management site and even when you click on one of the obscure links for a public repo, you're shown a bunch of Activity feeds which doesn't mean anything to the typical visitor.

I think the hardest thing to do with WebApps is to show the user what a "humming" version of the app looks like, how a productive user of the site can use the WebApp. Github does this excellently while Gitorious does not.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone else notice how all the top ranked answers address the technical differences between GitHub and Gitorious? GitHub certainly has a great product, but that is not a sufficient condition for being popular (it may not even be necessary). I don't know how GitHub got a head start, but the answer to their continuing success is the network effect.

<comment><USER5> Just goes to show how there will almost always be different communities online with differing levels of focus.

StackOverflow's community clearly values the intricacies of tech.

If this conversation was happening in a LinkedIn group, I can imagine many more discussions on distribution models, market size, or even strategic partnerships.

HN has the unique blend of tech+business providing unique insights and answers that takes a lot of these different factors into consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's also more book that talk about github.. or the book that I have actually read talk about github and not other services. Also, in the same idea, github has a better marketing visibility.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. Other responses here explain some of the original popularity of github. At this point though I also think github has a huge amount of momentum. I had not heard of gitorious until reading this post (granted I use mercurial, not git), but I see references to github everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gitorious needs a "documentation" link on its front page leading to at least "overview" and "getting started" docs.

Also, as an aside, Gitorious should consider switching to a new logo, or none at all, and then choose a lighter colorscheme for the site. The current theme reminds me of a hospital room at night.

Seriously; if you ask around and find that people really can't seem to come up with a good reason why they use Github instead of Gitorious, this is why.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sidenote: that thread is more than one year old (mid 2009)

</comment><comment><USER11> Path dependence matters.</comment>


Hacker News Lisbon meetup, Thursday 30th January - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/HNLisbon/

<comment><USER2> About time! With so many startups based in Lisbon, it's kind of surprising we didn't do this sooner :)</comment>


Show HN: My 5-year basement Plan 9 project - <AUTHOR> http://9gridchan.org <comment><AUTHOR> While this is here and visible to the public, I would like to see if I can get someone connected to the EFF to tell John Perry Barlow that an old outsider hardcore Deadhead may have done something interesting in the world of computers. Also, I trolled IBM about a patent (see <http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/173>) and there might be some matters of professional interest in terms of patent law. A very personal document that makes the connection between the psychedelic anarchism of the 60s and the software design of ANTS is found at <http://9fans.net/archive/2013/03/206>

Professional colleagues of the late University of Wisconsin Law Professor John Kidwell might also have a vague personal interest in knowing what his son has been up to in the world.

I don't like facebook or any of those things, so I'm not well "networked" in the world. Kind of isolated actually. Me and a basement of Plan 9 machines. Figured I should reach out a bit.

<comment><USER3> Even if you aren't into "Facebook or any of those things', you could have found John Perry Barlow's mail address on his home page : <https://homes.eff.org/~barlow/> \- firstname.lastname@example.com and the AT&T cell phone he lists there is probably still valid since it is also the one he lists on his Facebook page...

<comment><AUTHOR> I always figured that it wasn't my place to bug anybody about anything. My comment was more or less meant as, "I think this might interest him, if you happen to have a personal connection, you might point it out to him" - <USER2> seems like that is a different kind of thing. See I can't really put what I've done and what is going on into any kind of meaningful context in my head, so I feel like I'd just be some crazy person knocking on the door if I tried to email and explain myself.

I just have a general sense of the world working through personal connections. I have never considered trying to contact a "public figure" as something which made sense to do as a random individual. Maybe I'm mistaken in that feeling though. I honestly haven't figured out how to interface with the world very successfully and maybe my instinct that I'm not allowed to try to contact human beings I don't know personally is wrong.

<comment><USER4> You went far enough to post this to everyone here, and follow up on it with comment(s). Most everything here is contacting human beings we/you don't know. It's OK. Don't feel so bad about it!

If he lists it on his homepage, an email concerning a project of interest is certainly not overly intrusive. Worst case it gets ignored, better case you go back and forth about your implementation.

<comment><USER5> Hey mycroftiv, <https://twitter.com/JPBarlow/status/313356240237506561>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to make Plan 9 easier and more fun for home hobby users to explore. Plan 9 is amazing and I think the possibilities created by the clean and consistent design are exciting. Advanced Namespace Tools try to make Plan 9 easy to jump into, and also have a more reliable architecture when used as a grid.

One way to describe my software is as a Grateful Dead inspired approach to home clustering. Maybe it's even "outsider software art" or some ridiculous term like that.

Anyway, it has no web/facebook/ecommerce anything aspect to it, so it may not match the prevailing concerns here, but I tried to make it easy to use by providing preinstalled virtual machines to play with. Use them on a private network because they have default passwords and listen for cpu service. The "ANTS farm" subsite (<http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/tutorial>) has the VM/tutorial style documentation and walkthroughs.

I'd be interested in any feedback.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting, but I can't tell from the documentation what it's actually for. It's apparently for clustering, but what does it do? I had downloaded the image a week or two back, but it just...booted Plan 9. A few examples that tie it together or explain some sort of use case would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you seen the tutorials at the ANTS farm subsite? They show a series of things you can do to explore the 9worker and 9queen in combination with live CDs, which show what I believe are new exciting features for Plan 9 that I have tried to add. There is also a full length paper explaining how I have tried to improve the design of Plan 9 and how I use ANTS on my systems.

<comment><USER7> Can you say in one sentence what it is that you built that doesn't already exist, and why it is important?

<comment><USER8> There is some interesting historical context here following the history and lessons learnt link in the article. <http://www.9gridchan.org/9gridhistlatest.html>

Found a little more background via Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs>

"Plan 9 is a grid computing platform. It is an effort to provide a computing environment for geographically distributed clusters running on heterogeneous hardware, engineered for modern distributed environments and designed from the start to be a networked operating system.[12] It can be installed as a self- contained system and used on a single computer, but also has the capability to separate its components between separate computers. In a typical Plan 9 installation, users work at terminals running rio, and they access CPU servers which handle computation-intensive processes. Permanent data storage is provided by additional network hosts acting as file servers and archival storage.[13] Currently available desktop computers can emulate this architecture internally using multiple virtual machines."

Anyone else care to explain the elements which make Plan 9 stuff awesome (in noob terms)?

<comment><USER9> Plan 9 is "Unix done right." Think of everything everyone loves about Unix, especially its ability to connect components together via pipes and plain text files, and take it to the limit, and you'll get Plan 9.

Because everything was a file in Plan 9, tasks that were difficult for Unix were no brainers. Want to redirect your screen from one host to another? No problem, just mount a different framebuffer over the network. Compare that to the X11 monstrosity and its associated specific protocols for remote desktops and screen splitting/sharing and so forth -- in Plan 9, this was just done with mount.

Want to place a mixer on the audio path? No problem, the filter exports a filesystem interface, and you just mount it on top of the actual audio file. Different apps write to what they think is /dev/audio, which turns out to be a pipe to the mixer, which then mixes the signals from different apps and writes to the real /dev/audio. Contrast this with the "Poettering-approach" to Pulse Audio: klunky, specialized, complex, and ultimately broken.

Plan 9 was small, simple and incredibly powerful. Its /proc filesystem had impact on other OSes, notably Linux, but sadly no existing OS comes anywhere near its clean and elegant aesthetic.

There were so many other innovative aspects of Plan 9 (e.g. no superuser, utf-8 for everything, network protocols, the fileserver, the WORM filesystem that retained everything, the editor, the windowing systems, etc) that I cannot hope to be comprehensive, so I picked out its main feature. For the rest, I encourage everyone to read the papers: <http://plan9.bell- labs.com/sys/doc/>

<comment><USER10> I have heard Rob Pike describe Plan 9, or at least the kernel, as "The most object-oriented system ever built," (apologies if I paraphrased incorrectly). He was referring to the fact that everything satisfies one simple interface, and so everything can be plugged into almost anything else.

<comment><USER11> How does it compare to the way BeOS was built?

<comment><USER6> BeOS and Plan 9 have such different concepts of OO that they're hard to compare. In BeOS, there's a C++ interface your applications have to conform to, and it's somewhat machine-centric. Your objects are live processes in memory.

Plan 9 guys tend not to like the design of HTTP ( <http://http02.cat-v.org/> ) so don't tell anyone I used this illustration, but Plan 9 is OO similar to the way REST is.

In Plan 9 (and Inferno) your objects can be files on disk, structs in memory, devices, etc. Anything that can conform to the interface. The interface in this case is files. Your objects expose a filesystem, and you interact with them by means of the usual tools for file manipulation. The Acme editor exposes a filesystem, the clipboard ("snarf buffer") is a file, and the network is, instead of a group of special syscalls, a filesystem. So you could write a shell script that reads a URL from the snarf buffer, downloads the page it points to, and puts the content into a new window in Acme, in three or four lines, without using anything more complex than cat and echo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like your username. To those that have not read Heinlein's 1959 novel "Moon is a Harsh Mistress"(1), one of main characters is a computer ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Model L" - a HOLMES FOUR) that the narrating character has named Mycroft Holmes, or Mike for short. Mike is a supercomputer that has other computers added to it, until one day he woke up. It is my favorite novel.

Plan 9 software appears to be software that would enable a person to make a HOLMES FOUR on their own. Pretty cool.

1\. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh- Mistress/dp/03128635...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Moon-Is-Harsh- Mistress/dp/0312863551/ref=sr_1_1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you exactly have it. And the structure of the ANTS software is intended to bring the "non-disruptible mesh" concept of the revolutionary organization of the novel into the organization of plan 9 grids, which usually have a much less fail-proof chain of linear single-point of failure dependencies.

Manuel said it was poorly engineered and used #3 arm to improve the boot namespace.

<comment><USER12> My wife works on statistical problems with large data sets. You can imagine her dislike of me the day I accidentally tripped a breaker and shut off her PC which had been running a large model for a couple of days. Would it be possible to use this software and cluster a bunch of old PCs I have from work into my own little Google-esque cloud? Perhaps that could keep me out of the doghouse next time if her models could converge quicker with more computing power.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends a lot on definitions. Protecting and backing up your data against hardware failure is a big part of what I want this software to do, but it is not a drop in replacement for mathematical/scientific cluster computing solutions at all. It is more about backing up static data, providing multiple working environments at once, and allowing data to flow between machines in arbitrarily complex ways.

I think this software is very interesting and does have real world uses, but it would need work to turn it into a math/science tool, and in general Plan 9 has a much smaller ecosystem built around these things. There are Plan 9 supercomputing projects like XCPU and if that is compatible with your wife's work it might be relevant to use XCPU top layer on top of ANTS architecture, - but I've never used XCPU personally.

I would say my software at the moment is better suited to hobby and exploration at the moment, but if you were interested in the possibilities, it could have an application in this field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> a /g/ mention on a hn linked blog.

end times.

<comment><USER14> From the article:

        I hope most people know this already, but it needs to be said anyway. 4chan is a
         popular website with millions of users. Negative stereotypes about people who
         visit particular websites are just as silly as thinking that every person who
         lives in Chicago is a gangster or any other unfair assumption.

P.S. install gentoo</comment></comment>


The Extreme Weight Cutting and Rehydration Secrets of UFC Fighters - <AUTHOR> http://fourhourworkweek.com/2013/05/06/how-to-cut-weight-ufc/

<comment><USER2> I can't fathom how one can drink 2 gallons of water in 24h (provided one doesn't live in a desert area).

The recommended quantity is 2 liters per day which is about half a gallon. many people don't drink that much. OK they are not athletes but still.</comment>


Show HN: filter HN stories to avoid the linkbait - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/kevinburke/better-hn-filter

<comment><USER2> You should add an option to hide stories with titles in the form of a question.</comment>


Should others be trying to "hire a boss" - <AUTHOR> http://main.susanhiresaboss.com/

<comment><USER2> _"So are there any real qualifications for this job? I've thought about it quite a bit over the last few weeks. And the only clear almost un-negotiable one I could come up with is that you have to be a guy. A guy who's been in a serious and stable relationship for a significant period of time. That's it. Every boss I've worked with well has met that criterion. Weird, huh?"_

This sparked some reactions, as you'd expect.

<comment><USER3> I've worked for quite a few women and I've found all to be excellent managers, except for one who really didnt like programmers (she said so herself). I've worked for quite a few jerks, and they were all guys. Maybe it is a gender related thing. Or maybe I'm not looking to have my hand held.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I emailed her and she said people have asked about taking over the blog once she has a job and others asked about doing a similar thing.

Would people pay to be showcased on a hire a boss site?

</comment><comment><USER2> They already are, but most of them call it "looking for a job".

If you mean trying in the same way this person is, it probably wouldn't matter much if a lot of people start doing it.</comment>


Skipping church? Facial recognition software could be tracking you - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/07/24/skipping-church-facial-recognition-software-could-be-tracking-you/ <comment><USER2> _" A church will upload a database of photos of its members, and they usually use security cameras they already have in place to match the video with existing photos. Churches could use it to track regular attendance or see who's missing."_

What church is this? Our Lady of the Panopticon?

Why anyone would want to attend service at an Orwellian institution is beyond me. For centuries, churches have been able to not only track headcount but missing members (in the sense that an elderly attendee perhaps is unwell) without resorting to such Big Brother nonsense.

Disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is pretty disturbing. I'm not sure I'd want to go to a church -- or any institution, really -- where this kind of Orwellian behavior is acceptable. Yikes.</comment>


LSTM for Time Series Prediction - <AUTHOR> https://towardsdatascience.com/lstm-for-time-series-prediction-de8aeb26f2ca <comment><USER2> Nice! It would be nice to a comparison between GRU and LSTM

<comment><AUTHOR> Most probably you would get very similar results</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Startup Failure Book. Would You Read It? Contribute? - <AUTHOR> I am in the process of putting together startup failure stories for a potential book. Is this something that would be of interest to you? If you have experienced startup failure would you consider contributing? <comment><USER2> I don't have a good failure story. I'm a semi-regular reader of [https://www.failory.com/interview-failure](https://www.failory.com/interview- failure) though so I think there might be a market. At least if you can identify a couple of patterns (e.g. filters in the left pane of [https://www.failory.com/cemetery](https://www.failory.com/cemetery)). In the interviews I often see entrepreneurs pointing to (marketing?) their new projects which might get outdated fast.

I did enjoy Founders At Work ([https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories- Startups-Early/...](https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups- Early/dp/1430210788)) 5 years after it got published. Not sure if a list of company names on the cover would work for failures.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links. I'll check them out!</comment></comment>


Work at a StartUp - Pitching 4 Development Talent - Manchester, UK - <AUTHOR> http://techcelerate.org/may2011

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you ever thought of joining a tech startup and making a significant difference? But the prospect of finding the right startup and learning how to join them might have been a mystery until now. Big companies have a well laid out recruitment process. Startups, in some cases, don't even have an office, let along a well structured recruitment process. Most startups tend to hire friends or based on recommendations.

This event is a special event designed to demystify the startup recruitment process. How do you know whether the startup you are speaking to is a good company to work for? How much salary and/or equity should you expect at different stages of a startup? What does share options tied to service means? Are there any danger signs you should watch for? We will try to answer these types of questions.

This event is FREE to take part. You must advise us your techcelerate username to secure your place. If you do not, have a techcelerate username, please create a free account

If you are looking to join a startup, please send your CV to firstname.lastname@example.com for forwarding to pitching companies before the event. The CVs must be received by 23rd May the latest.

This event is inspired by Work at a StartUp took place in San Francisco.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's not too late to sign up for this event. We have 13 tech companies confirmed.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> companies confirmed:

www.capsulecrm.com www.edocr.com www.canddi.com www.WebEnableIT.com www.yrfee.com www.stardotstar.com www.iManagePlus.com www.shapingcloud.com www.studioskylab.com www.assuredsale.com</comment>