Ask HN: If I launch in the App Store will my Linode 2048 crash - <AUTHOR>

I'm about to launch an app in the App Store that talks to a Linode 2048 downloading/uploading pictures.
Will that crash the server?
What should I expect in terms of resource consumption? <comment><USER2> Could you move the pictures to Amazon S3? Or another CDN?

(But as far as your actualy question, I don't know what kind of traffic the app store would generate.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can move the pictures to Amazon S3. What's the rationale behind that?

<comment><USER2> I haven't actually used it but that's the advice I always hear.

I guess check it out and then do some math on the pricing. The benefits are that it won't crash under heavy load, and it can be cheaper.</comment></comment></comment>


For Hardee's workers, it's not a parable, it's a job - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/unlike-sen-ernst-for-hardees-workers-its-not-a-parable-its-a-job/2015/03/14/c7a5fd5e-c6ac-11e4-a199-6cb5e63819d2_story.html

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article: _" Trina Starkey, who is 18, spends hers on rent and ramen noodles."_

From 'Ramen Profitable': _" Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders' living expenses."_ [0]

[0] [http://paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html](http://paulgraham.com/ramenprofitable.html)</comment>


How Insulin Helped Create Ant Societies - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-insulin-helped-create-ant-societies-20180814/ <comment><USER2> A Quora answer pointed out something to me, I'd pull it up but Quora makes it really hard to search through your previous upvotes, something that people regularly miss about ants.

The worker's stomachs is separated from their mouths by a very, very small opening. Meaning they can't eat solid food. Instead they chew it and regurgitate it so the larvaes, who don't have such a constricting path to their stomachs, can finish digesting it. Worker ants eat the liquid waste of the larvae.

So there's a body-morphological explanation for eusociality.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm interesting, I always thought queens were the result of a "mutant" highjacking the means of reproduction to "spay" the other insects leading to survival cooperation of others and the arrangement being so advantageous that the original largely died out along with any "resistant" strains which were either unaffected or reacted by trying to kill the queen.

Insects are apparently easy to puppet relatively speaking given cordyceps.

I suppose insulin works as a reproductive feedback loop if it rises from sufficient food reproduce to offload excessive nutrients. If lower care for existing genetic investments and go gather more food, lacking the first part would be a r-strategy probably doomed to fail.

</comment><comment><USER4> Edit: apparently this is b.s.

On an unrelated note, I recently found out that ants pass the mirror test[0]. Is that weird or what?

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Insects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Insects)

<comment><USER5> This may well be true -- I clicked with enthusiasm because this would interest me a lot -- but if you follow the link you'll see that the married authors of the "study" have a history of making nonsense claims (she has two separate nonsense Wifi studies, which you'll see a bunch if you Google). The study itself was published in a pay-to-publish journal with no peer review.

I read the paper. The design, as listed in the paper, seems fine. The main rival hypothesis for me would be that the ants do see the mirror, don't think it's themselves or pass the mirror test, and scratch because they're bothered by the marking on their face which they can feel. But the authors do claim to test this and find that ants not exposed to mirrors don't scratch their faces. So to be clear the threat I'm proposing to the study's validity is fraud on the part of the authors, not a failed execution.

<comment><USER4> Ugh I knew I should have done more research into it. Thanks for finding that out.

<comment><USER5> No problem. I hope someone replicates the substantive result in a less tainted way!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you have a personal website that isn't just a landing page? - <AUTHOR> In the increasingly-distant past, personal home pages were mostly eclectic collections of what the author was like, what they enjoyed, and links to other pages they found interesting.
Nowadays, it seems most personal websites are just either A) resumes, B) blogs, or C) trying to sell a service.
Does anyone still have a site that hearkens back to ye olden days? <comment><USER2> I'm still working on [https://chrisgermano.dev](https://chrisgermano.dev) which primarily features my blog, rather than my portfolio. You can see my work through links in the main menu but the real focus are my posts, which don't try to sell anything or be hyper-SEO content. I just like writing about things that come to mind and I give enough links for readers to explore the topic further if they want. I didn't want to pressure myself to cater to a demographic or search engine. It's still a pretty fresh site so there isn't a lot of content yet, but you get the idea I think.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have one. It's just my poems, what I build, what I talk about and what I blog about.

[https://gaurav.koley.in](https://gaurav.koley.in)</comment>


Geiser, a new Scheme Emacs mode - <AUTHOR> http://programming-musings.org/2009/05/14/geiser/

<comment><USER2> Hey, an emacs <-> lisp interaction mode with tagged releases and potentially documentation in the future. How refreshing! (slime is particularly irritating in that they don't make stable releases or documentation because they don't feel like it).

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone on here tried this yet? I've gotten on reasonably well with Quack, but I'm always excited about new modes!

<comment><USER4> doesn't slime support various scheme implementations? It would have supported them all if some Schemes, and now clojure, didn't introduce weird little syntaxes.

<comment><USER5> The problem is usually not syntaxes; the problem is a lot of Schemes don't have sufficient support for introspection, making a SLIME-type editor impossible. SLIME is also heavily informed by its CL background and has historically been a clumsy fit at best with most Schemes.

When I was doing a lot of PLT Scheme development for my thesis, I mostly used Quack and suffered; something like this would have been immensely welcome.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Syncit - An open source privacy-first co-browsing Tool - yz-yu https://syncit.luckid.io/ <comment> yz-yu Hi hackers.

If you are interested in the details of Syncit, you can check my introduction post: [http://www.myriptide.com/syncit- introduction](http://www.myriptide.com/syncit-introduction).

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know my project [https://github.com/dosyago/RemoteView](https://github.com/dosyago/RemoteView) ? Perhaps it can encourage you, because yours is clearly better.

I think an obvious link to the code or livedemo would definitely help your exposure :)</comment></comment>


PyCharm 4 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/whatsnew/

<comment><USER2> PyCharm is in a pretty good cost/benefit spot [I'm not affiliated]...are there any IDEs people actually prefer for pure Python development?

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome Works, Thanks</comment>


Skimmin - News in 1 minute a day - <AUTHOR> http://skimmin.com I just launched a free mobile app for iOS and Android called Skimmin. It's a news summary service. We hand-select about 10 stories each day; stories that the 'average' American should have heard. We then present them as concise, 325-character summaries, not lengthy articles. I'd love your guys' feedback! <comment><USER2> Hopefully, it doesn't end up like TL;DR.

[http://toolong-didntread.com/](http://toolong-didntread.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> What happened to them? Legal?</comment></comment>


Bromances flourish thanks to changing anti-gay sentiments - <AUTHOR> http://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/research-news/bromances-flourish-thanks-to-changing-anti-gay-sentiments/12257798 <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the journal article: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0768-5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0768-5)</comment>


German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/world/europe/german-education-chief-quits-in-scandal-reflecting-fascination-with-titles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 <comment><USER2> > _Many Germans believe the scandals are rooted in their abiding respect, and > even lust, for academic accolades, including the use of Prof. before Dr. and > occasionally Dr. DR. for those with two doctoral degrees._

> _Prof. Dr. Wanka got her doctorate in 1980, the same year as Dr. Schavan._

While the title-compounding effect did strike me as comical, this did force me to reflect a bit on our own worship of pedigree. Anyone who's spent any time on Angel List has undoubtedly been treated to "founders from stanford & MIT", "started by Berkeley students", "MBA from Chicago", etc.

These are, of course, almost apples and oranges (double-doctorates vs undergrad / masters), but credentialing is certainly alive and well here in the US. Scott Thompson @ yahoo is a particularly recent public example.

<comment><USER3> Good point. For decades the education system in Germany tried to eradicate differences between universities. For the longest time there was also no separate bachelors degree. Getting a doctorate was therefore the only way to distinguish yourself from the student masses. This has changed in the past years after the "Bologna reforms" have replaced the German diploma by the international bachelors/masters system and since the "excellence initiative" has given "elite" predicated to some of the German universities. Ironically this initiative was governed by the education department, headed by Mrs. Dr. mult. Annette Schavan.

<comment><USER4> Let me delve into the speculation about culture a bit more: Back in the day of the emperors/kings, titles and medals were were an extremely cheap way of rewarding somebody without actually paying them. What this incentive system needed to work was a society that respected those titles, so you were and and even today are allowed to use those titles (examples: <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel>). This attitude was probably transferred to academic titles at some point.

In Austria, which has even more artifacts of its imperial time, this title- mania was followed so diligently that even the wife of the doctor was called Frau Doctor until a few decades ago. Also, every academic title at least equivalent to a master's degree is still used with your name in any formal dealings (they will call somebody up as Frau Magister Maier in a waiting room etc.). In Germany, they do this only with PhDs, so there is Herr Doktor but not Herr Diplom Psychologe.

Judging from the mini-bios of authors on books, though, the Germans seem as title-crazy as Austrians. The guy who cannot call himself "Diplom Psychologe Hans Maier" on the title page of the book will almost certainly start his bio with "Hans Maier is Diplom Psychologe ..." because this way, he is only describing academic achievement (OK) and not using it as a title (not OK). So people who worry about status love titles but can only actually use anything from a PhD upwards with their names. Go figure...

<comment><USER5> Strictly speaking, in Germany you don't use the PhD (Dr.) _with_ your name, you just use your full name. Getting a "Dr." is a name change, while getting a diploma or masters degree is not.

<comment><USER6> Strictly speaking, it's not. You can write your PhD in your passport (only in the long form, like "Dr. med.") in a separate field, but you don't have to, and it won't be part of your name anyway.

Source: <http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html> [Law in German]

<comment><USER5> Then why does my German national id card have the text "Dr. Hars" (short form, without the "rer. nat.") in the field with the label "Name/Surname/Nom"?

<comment><USER7> Maybe because it is more efficient than reserving space on the card for something most people do not need?

<http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ummmm Education Minister who (allegedly) cheated at university forced to step down.

Don't really see that as a "Fascination With Degrees"

Might have been a interesting topic, but it's a hopeless segue.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the title is quite misleading. While there are a few people who pursue a PhD purely for its status, this was probably not the case for Annette Schavan.

<comment><USER9> I don't know if my experiment is valid but looking at the collected business cards (~1200) from the past years. 90% of the business cards with Ing, Prof titles and alike are mainly from Germany. Looking at the German wikipedia page about Academic degrees <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad> compared to the other languages. I don't know if they run for its status but at least they showed those titles on their business cards.

It might be interresting for Ken Robinson to make some seminar in Germany about his point regarding academicism.

<comment><USER10> I once read an opinion piece in a British engineering journal that suggested one of the reasons Germany is such an engineering powerhouse is in Germany 'engineer' is roughly equivalent in status to 'doctor' while in the UK it's conflated with 'mechanic/repair man' or at best 'office worker'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, the Germans value degrees.

But Ms Shavan having to step back has nothing to do with that. This is not about her degree, this is about her having cheated. The Germans are very sensitive in this regard. A few years ago, a minister got into serious trouble because he used the frequent flier miles obtained as a minister for a private flight.

</comment><comment><USER12> This whole discussion reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. Sadly no such reference has been made yet. Maybe that's because not a lot of Germans have read it. Anyway, it sheds the whole discussion in a new light. The person in charge of education and research should not plagiarize, no doubt, but in general, if a person proves consistently that they can do their job, isn't the degree system that's supposed to determine who is able to do a particular job a little too rigid and deserves to be undermined? On the other hand there's the real hard work of those who don't cheat, and they'll demand justice. A difficult problem.

<comment><USER13> [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29> , not part of the half dozen KV books I've read either ]

I'd also guess it's not the ability to the the job that's in question, it's the will to do it ethically.

Would you trust the work of someone who's known to cut corners in order to declare the job done?

<comment><USER14> Sure. Sometimes it beats the alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The German hierarchy in academia is unbelievable. Few years back I moved from a federal lab in California to a state lab in Germany. I felt abashed at the extravagant praise of the head professor there.

Also, the Prof. Dr. thing on business cards used to make me laugh, until I could grasp the whole system, and how detrimental it was for students (high pressure, never ending hierarchy, blind worship, ...).

<comment><USER7> This hugely depends on the field of research and the individual research groups. Medicine is traditionally very hierarchical - mathematics or computer science not so.

Could you elaborate on the detrimental effects?

<comment><USER15> sure, I refer to computer science btw.

Detrimental effects that I could witness: \- Prof. are secured in their large offices, hard to get in touch with. This leads to useless work or idle students, waiting for feedback, or picking up the wrong problem, solution or conference. \- Full dependency on the Prof (e.g. for funding, to get a position, ...) \- Students don't voice their concern much, as they need Prof. support.

Don't get me wrong, overall, the system works, and the same observations could be made elsewhere as well (e.g. France, US, ...). Although I'd say the magnitude differs.

With colleagues, we used to make this joke that a 'deadline' in the US would always be slowly pushed back until the project can be stamped as a success (best for everyone, motivates teams, etc...) whereas in Germany the deadline is so deadly that the team hits the wall and leaves blood strains on it, until the next deadline comes up :)

<comment><USER16> Well, the current funding systems in many countries naturally result in Prof's being unaccessible, and it has nothing to do with the offices. A well respected researcher (at the time working in Germany IIRC) told me "Professor's here don't have time to write research papers, they write grant proposals".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Germans may lust after advanced degrees, but we Americans might not want to call the kettle black -- it's well-established that we struggle to acquire Ph.D. degrees even though, on average, this choice produces a _decline in income and employment_ compared to a "professional" degree:

<http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm>

</comment><comment><USER18> ""I just think that many Germans have a police gene in their genetic makeup,""

Lol, discussion Godwin'ed by the OP itself - the NYT, no less.

<comment><USER19> Well, I'm living in Germany and I'm inclined to side with the NYT on this.

<comment><USER18> Oh I realize all too well - I lived and worked in Germany some time ago too, and only a few weeks into the job I was scolded for not putting dr and prof into the field on the signup page where people could enter how they wanted to be addressed. To be fair, the marketing guys were right on that one, me leaving it out was my youthful arrogance - the same disdain for honorifics that is being displayed in the article, actually.

Anyway, I wasn't so much saying that the article is wrong as that the snide tone of the remark came across as somewhat unbecoming of a purportedly 'serious' publication as the NYT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think our discussion focused on the degrees themselves misses the point. What we see here is plain dishonest conduct. Not having a PhD is acceptable. Plagiarism is not - and shouldn't be.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't think that Germans have a "Title-fetish", in general they couldn't care less. I'm working in engineering, having a Physics PhD myself, but titles are never mentioned in daily work.

Politicians on the other hand had always tried to give themselves some additinal credibility by bragging about their alleged academic merits, but searching for plagiatism was not something anyone would seriously had thought to endanger politicians careers.

I mean, it was fun to try and hunt down politicians theses but hardly would have anyone expected that a politician could loose his mandate over them. Furthermore these theses most often had been written in "the old days", and were available only on special request from a few libraries where they were collecting dust for years in some non-publicly-accessible storage room for books no one ever borrows.

But then came Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, whose thesis (written just 2007) started the whole debate about misgotten degrees in 2011. He had dismissed all charges about having cheated with unprecedented arrogance. Even though claiming to live up to higher standards, himself being a whealthy aristocrat, he had wholesale-copy-pasted the whole work from undisclosed sources, some even produced by the parliament's research service for him.

By additionally handling the resulting public-relations disaster pretty inapt, he gave a unbelieveably strong boost to the plagiatism-finders, who normally would have been ridiculed as nickpicking footnote and quotation-mark-counters. Now they were the judges for the integrity of a large number of public persons.

Anette Schavan is only one of many persons accused of copying a relatively few paragraphs in her thesis, not even on the same scale as Karl-Theodor, this theses would never have created the current public outcry if not preceeded by Karl-Theodor's.

And she's even defended by a lot of academics that claim that this amount of un-disclosed copying, 30 years ago, would be on a level that's would not warrant the whole process that has now started and led to her demissal. I mean, she probably has written that manuscript on a mechanical typewriter, with drafts written by hand, not assisted by a software marking handling quotations automatically!

But universities are under a high pressure to show a merciless approach in re- evaluating these theses, and unfortunately there isn't even a limitation- period after which given titles would be incontestable, and hence what appears to be the current obsession with titles in Germany.

\-- References :-)

\- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl- Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doct...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl- Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doctorate_plagiarism)

\- The "Guttenplag" wiki has a graph (and statistics): 94% of pages, 64% of lines have copies of foreign text without attribution: <http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki>

\- This side shows pages in red that contain foreign material without attribution: <http://schavanplag.wordpress.com/>

<comment><USER22> From what I understand from German friends you need a certificate from an "office management" school to do secretarial work. There are internships for the most mundane jobs. Not to attack, but as an outsider it certainly seems to me that Germany (as a generalization and especially outside the software industry) has a title fetish.

<comment><USER23> It is not title fetishism, it is quality control and it is very good. This means that when you want to have someone working for you, you can be ensured the person as the adequate formation. I am French, having spent a couple of years now in Germany, some in Denmark and before some times in the US, I can tell you this is wonderful. If you need someone to fix something in your house, you can be sure he knows about it. Not like in the US where the guy was turning steaks at McDo before and just happen to now do plumbing for a small company because "He did well at the interview".

This level of "quality control" is everywhere in the German society.

For the titles themselves, this comes from the general German culture, I heavily recommend "The German Genius" by Peter Watson to understand it a bit more:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/books/review/Ladd-t.html?p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/books/review/Ladd-t.html?pagewanted=all)

[http://www.amazon.de/German-Genius-Renaissance-Scientific- Re...](http://www.amazon.de/German-Genius-Renaissance-Scientific- Revolution/dp/1416526153/)

<comment><USER22> As a customer, sometimes I need the guy who can do a cheap job on an easy task. Sometimes I'll spend more to get someone with a more proven record (i.e. from a rating service or an agency or recommendations) for the more critical tasks.

As a worker, I would like the opportunity to switch careers/find my way without having to take multi-year training courses for every possible job.

Same about products: sometimes all I need is a cheap drill from Walmart and not an expensive Bosch one that would last me a lifetime.

I can't read the articles right now, but I've seen the book in Germany and it did look interesting! :-)

<comment><USER24> Well if you need real cheap plumbing, you can still hire some eastern European guy and pay him cash. But quality control is your problem then and god forbid if you house is flooded after you come back from a weekend trip...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1\. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict.

2\. It's worse in Austria.

<comment><USER26> they even adress you as Herr Magister, not only Dr. :D

<comment><USER27> Magister is Austria not Germany

<comment><USER28> No it does exist in Germany too, my mum has one.

<comment><USER29> It exists in Georgia as well, and it is equivalent of Masters degree.

Although, it is not used as title - maybe because it would sound much cooler than Dr. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> How is it that such dishonest people become leaders in our countries? I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity!

<comment><USER17> > I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity!

You want people with integrity to run for public office? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? I'm not speaking of the appearance of personal integrity, something that can be manufactured, I'm speaking of real integrity.

"It's not what you are, but what people think you are that is important." -- Joe Kennedy

<comment><USER30> Me too. And I would wish that those people had real integrity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _"title arousal."_

If the Germans had a fascination with degrees, they wouldn't have Mercedes engineers without a university degree <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943>

<comment><USER32> Thats a different thing. The Apprenticeship programs in germany are very popular in the whole range of sectors. You basically train on the job in a company for 3 years earning a minimum wage and have to go to school for about 1/3rd of that time. At the end your company might offer you a full time job. However this kind of education is very practical, not too much theory, so the guys at mercedes for example are more like mechanics that assemble the cars. Its still a very good and highly regarded education, but the real engineers at mercedes have studied Engineering and have university degree.

Same goes for IT, you can do basic apprenticeships for programming or system administration, but its far less theoretical than studying computer science at the university. Still many people do it, because for being a programmer its mostly enough basic knowledge and you learn the rest on the job and with experience anyway. But these people will probably not tacke the hardest problems of computer science.

<comment><USER31> _the real engineers_

Ok, if the definition of _a real engineer_ is someone with a degree, then there's no argument to have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This article seems to not mention another important fact for Schavan: If she loses the Doctorate, she will _not have any degree whatsoever_. The Doctorate is the only degree she ever did, she does not hold a Magister. (→ Grundständige Promotion)

The English wikipedia entry has that added by now, however, it doesn't list any sources...so in that sense:

<http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/153683> & [http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere- ohne-...](http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere-ohne-doktor- haette-schavan-nur-noch-abitur/7255390.html)

edit: Also, leave it to a right-wing Prof. Dr. from Munich to call all Germans crypto-fascist because of their degree fixation. Oh, the irony... → <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_Rhenania_Freiburg>

<comment><USER3> She will still have a honorary doctorate of 4 universities, so technically she is still Dr.h.c.mult.

<comment><USER33> Yes, but for any other purpose, she will not have a degree that proves her own qualifications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Any formal system like that is bad because it's too easy to hack - and that's what they got. Good for America that you don't care much about degrees. After all, a day's long test task is enough to separate good candidates from bad for everything except maybe senior management positions.

</comment><comment><USER35> If someone chooses to spend several years of her life only in order to get a few letters in front of her name, that's her problem. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get out there and do something productive. Degree obsession is a choice.

<comment><USER20> Many PhD's I know didn't work on their research for the extra letters on their business cards, but out of a genuine devotion to further our knowledge on their research subjects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> They are ___academic royalty_ __, however, God did not give them royal divinity, Universities did.

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

</comment><comment><USER37> _Germans place a greater premium on doctorates than Americans do as marks of distinction and erudition. [...] According to the Web site Research in Germany, about 25,000 Germans earn doctorates each year, the most in Europe and about twice the per capita rate of the United States._

Visiting a university in Germany is almost free. More people having a "Diplom" degree means that if you want to stand out you have to aim for a "Doktor". (I use "Diplom" and "Doktor" here since the mentioned fraud-cases stem from a time without bachelors and masters) - that's the easy explanation.

 _Here in the homeland of schadenfreude, the zeal for unmasking academic frauds also reflects certain Teutonic traits, including a rigid adherence to principle and a know-it-all streak._

I wouldn't subscribe to the word "fetish" but there is a certain "Teutonic Trait" here and the acadmic fraud cases are just one symptom of something deeper.

 _People in this society, contrary to what many of them claim, feel a deep need for an authority to follow. [...] It's in them to worship authority and to totally rely on it.[...] It makes sense to me that a strong and faithful believer [...], can in his disappointment become so venomous when, as he feels, that authority has failed him. It's this huge disappointment that turns blind obedience into an uncontrolled need for slaughter._ \- [http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American- ebook/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American- ebook/dp/B005WZYWA2) (a funny but often stupid book, nonetheless I think here the author has a point on us Germans)

A society, keen for authority, provides a reliable way for elite offspring to fill the upper ranks of politics or public service. Our fraternities are almost always tied to one of the two major political parties (SPD or CDU). While beeing a great asset for students after graduation (Alumni-Network) their main service for that offspring is to use all the dirty tricks to get you your (law) diploma. Since these student bodies are very old and established, they often fill the ranks of the personnel in the universities. They might be the ones doing the evaluation of your thesis. They can provide you with the tests beforehand and even if they can't they usually keep log of every test written by a professor, so they can provide you at least with a good approximation of future tests.

It doesn't wonder that there's an established market for ghostwriters providing you those titles, since you have so many people using that "reliable path to power" that don't seek the academic or professional acceptance at all. Most of Germany's politicians are lawyers and most of them never seen a court from the inside.

For me, this Title-Thing is a teutonic trait but it's not tied to genes but tied to culture. And culture can change. This German Title-Mania is getting less. For instance, you don't have to own a "Meister"-Title to open up certain businesses anymore since recently. How this disposal of the "Meisterpflicht" (allowance to open a business is tied to having a Meister-Title, by law) came upon, though, tells about the difference between Germany and the US: It wasn't a succesful grassroot kind of story, demanding personal/economic freedom, but an order from the EU.

And the sentence "an order from above" sums up pretty much every German right or freedom we were entitled to during our history. That makes us prone to dislinkg "game-changers" because, if you spent time obeying the rules, you won't loose on that investment by letting others take shortcuts. This translates to less career changers than in the US, and a higher stigma if you do. It translates to total absence of entrepreneurs or acclaimed business people from entering a political race, because social envy gives them no cance there. This translates to parts of our Acadamia being a thought free market of status. We don't have an american culture of self-education. And the term "Populärwissenschaft", scientists releasing books for the masses, is considered an insult in German Acadamia.

<comment><USER38> Do more Germans have Diplom degrees per capita than North Americans have undergraduate degrees? I was under the impression that more North Americans have undergraduate degrees than Germans Diploms, mainly because the Abitur is the bottleneck. In Canada now it seems everyone and their dog goes to university now.

<comment><USER3> It depends what types of schools you include. The "Diplom" and "Magister" closely resembles the US master's degree, so their proliferation is lower when comparing to _all_ degrees in other countries. However it has been replaced by BA/BS and MA/MS between 2005 and 2010, so you can expect more BAs to enter the labor market today. <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur> it states that 43% of an age group get the Abitur, and most of them attend university according to [http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/pdf/PresseUndAktuelles/2011/eag...](http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/pdf/PresseUndAktuelles/2011/eag_2011_Lange_PM.pdf). That document also states that some 28% of the population get a university (undergratuate/graduate) degree today. On the other hand, more people do apprenticeships in Germany than in other countries (without nessaraily having an Abitur degree), and those apprenticeships are accompanied by classes and an associate degree which can be extended to a "meister" of some sort. Some studies are regarded as apprenticeship that would be taught at colleges in other countries (e.g. patient care). If you add those degrees they make up another 15% of an age group. So in total that's something like 43% which I think would be comparable to US numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The real scandal is that somebody studying catholic theology can become education minister.

<comment><USER40> A real scandal would be if someone was hounded out of office or blocked from attaining it due to their religious beliefs.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Photobomb - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/davidbanham/photobomb

<comment><USER2> You should enable this as a global download. I could not find this in the German iOS App Store for example :( - From what I see on the website, it looks like a cool product, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks pretty good!

I've been looking for decent photo album software and this hits a few things I'm looking for.</comment>


Youtube claims I don't own my own film - <AUTHOR> http://www.mdotstrange.com/2012/06/youtube-claims-i-dont-own-my-own-film.html <comment><USER2> I do not work for Google/Youtube (or BMF), but I have experience with their systems. The short version is that YouTube has an automated tool that scans for duplicates of copyrighted videos that have been uploaded by verified creators. It looks at every upload and compares it against a library of known videos for video and sound issues. When it gets a hit, it automatically classifies the video as containing potentially copyrighted content. Sounds like this got hit by the automated scanner.

Nothing in the notice means that BMF made a claim against this video in particular (in fact, it sounds like it's a private video, so there's no way BMF could review it). It's not a DMCA issue at all -- this is a system that YouTube chose to put in place completely unconnected to any DMCA claim system.

Sounds like this automated scanner result is wrong. I believe there is an appeal process, where a human will look at the video. Also note that the video is not being blocked in the meantime; it's still available.

The bigger problem that comes up is how can YouTube deal with the flood of video copycats (ever notice how every popular video leads to 20 copies of the same thing?) without stifling independent artists whose work gets a false positive in the scan system? It's an interesting challenge to get the right mix of false positives and negatives.

Please post what happens after you try the appeals process -- this could be a simple fix and I'd be curious to know.

Edit: Here's an overview of the automated "Content ID" system: <http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid>

<comment> X-Istence It is still available alright, but someone, not the content creator, is making money off the video due to the ads being placed on the video. That is unfair to the content creator.

How long will it take YouTube to review the video? What possible actions are there? I understand that YouTube provides video hosting free of charge (and makes money from advertisements) and that this stuff can happen, but it seems entirely unfair... how can I get my content added to their content ID system so that people don't re-upload my stuff?

<comment><USER2> > how can I get my content added to their content ID system so that people > don't re-upload my stuff?

There's a signup form here: <http://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup>

<comment><USER3> Is there any penalty for adding content you don't actually own to the content ID system?

<comment><USER4> I don't know, but it has happened. News companies post videos that they actually find on youtube because it is part of a story, then the original video gets a copyright claim made against it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not accidental, they make money doing this and there is no penalty when they get it wrong, so doing this makes "business sense".

Previous cases:

[http://njnnetwork.com/2009/10/associated-press-and-fox- news-...](http://njnnetwork.com/2009/10/associated-press-and-fox-news-make- false-copyright-claims/)

[http://c4sif.org/2012/02/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as- copy...](http://c4sif.org/2012/02/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as-copyrighted- music/)

[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category- topic/youtu...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category- topic/youtube/archive/z1f2Hz2dV0c)

[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/megaupload- youtube-...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/megaupload-youtube- lawsuit-universal-music-285298)

In addition to these media covered cases, I have noticed cases of very old public domain works being seized by corporations with no involvement in their original creation.

<comment><USER6> So the solution to this, as with anything where getting caught and punished is infrequent and high costs are imposed on the victim, is to set damages high enough to make the expected return from this strategy non-positive.

If they owed $100k every time they made a false takedown, they'd probably be a lot more careful in the future.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you that harsh penalties for blatantly false copyright claims done in bad faith would help greatly. However there is a much larger problem in that the victims of these scams are small regular guy artists and content creators and the scam perpetrators are multi-billion dollar media organizations that control the media that advocates for new laws and have the congress, who ignores "small person feedback" in their back pocket with their SuperPAC and other bribery schemes/"campaign financing". How to solve that problem is the one that keeps coming up. Despite many realizing what a problem this situation is and discussion going on about it for many years, things only get worse, such as with the Supreme Court's Citizen United Ruling in 2010.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hate to break it to all the people that failed to read, including the OP, but the hated acronym you want is BFM not BMF.

<http://bfmdigital.com/>

As for judgment on the actual issue, I think ContentID bends over backward to big content to forestall more heavy handed moves, at the expense of bad mistakes like this one.

It looks like it's profitable for BFM to claim or create lots of media clips so they get paid for these ads, in the interim period before the creator appeals. To fix it the incentives would have to change.

Here's a prior example where BFM erroneously claimed a license to a classical performance, which messed with ContentID.

[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/VdWWVV...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/VdWWVVC2Q3o)

Youtube should punish BFM's mistake.

<comment><USER8> I'd be interested to hear (both from Youtube and from people caught by ContentID) about how hard it is to fix these problems.

I also want to know what happens to the ad revenue - do Youtube just keep it; or do they still pay it to the original company; or do they attempt to claw it back at some point; or do they pay it to the real creator of the work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> YouTube has been sued several times in both the US and Europe, and if it didn't offer this system, far worse more draconian systems would be legally mandated. YouTube recently lost a case in Germany where the judge imposed a less accurate filter on YouTube: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/11573918587/huh- to...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/11573918587/huh-to..). This is a regrettable situation, that the OP got caught up in a detection system, but YouTube must do this kind of stuff, otherwise, the courts will mandate it. Not having it just lends more ammunition to SOPA/PIPA backers as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> BMF violated his copyright. They claimed ownership and tried to exercise rights over the distribution of work that wasn't theirs. There are legal remedies for this. They're pirates.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. If this had a been a private citizen as opposed to a corporation, you can bet the heavy handed "justice" system would have its wheels turning already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of the war on terror where it seems everyone is considered a terrorist as if that will solve the problem.

Regular law abiding people are accused of being terrorists and resources are used to chase shadows.

It's the same thing in this situation everyone is guilty unless _you_ can prove you're not, meanwhile the real crooks are nowhere to be found.

</comment><comment><USER13> Did BMF actually make a claim? The creator seems to imply that he uploaded the video as a private one so far, which means that BMF can't have made a claim unless corporations are allowed to scan even private videos?

Could this possibly be a case of YouTube mistaking something in the video as similar to something registered to BMF?

<comment><USER14> When I disputed the claim I learned that BFM is claiming a wind sound from a "Sounds of Nature" CD they own the rights to has been infringed upon-so apparently they own the wind, all wind. So beware when recording the wind with your digital recorders, those evil copyrighted natural content devices!

Thanks for all the tips! I'm reading through these comments now.

<comment><USER13> Wow, that is just pure evil! They're making a total mockery of the copyright system and I'm relishing the idea of someone exposing them for who they are. If they don't resolve this reasonably, would you consider taking them to court? Is it financially feasible?

<comment><USER15> What if we float the possibility that it's not evil, but just incompetent and lazy? It seems pretty likely that they learned they could upload all their content in order to protect it and then did so without any input from someone who knows anything about the fingerprinting algorithms and where they were likely to fail.

It seems that the fault rests squarely on YouTube for not getting this right.

<comment><USER16> I would claim that being willfully "incompetent and lazy" in a way that harms others IS evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This has happened to a band I was part of - we posted a self-produced video for an original song a few years back, and it was denied for monetizing because I "couldn't prove I had all the rights necessary".

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm honestly starting to think this planet would be better without any copyright protection at all.

<comment><USER19> Nice thought until you spend a large sum of money to create something personal and someone copies it and starts stealing your potential audience.

<comment><USER20> In turn you'd get other things people spent large sums of money creating.

<comment><USER21> Eventually you would get no people spending anything on creation because it would simply be cheaper to use something that someone else has already created.

There are some forms of art which can survive on minimal economic returns. There are other forms of art which will not.

<comment><USER22> There may be different ways to make non-minimal economic returns without copyrights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would try suing for damages, especially if their claims are denying you the ability to make money. I think you might be able to sue for slander as well, since they made the claim that you are stealing licensed material, which will affect your reputation as a producer of original content.

<comment><USER24> I don't see how one could consider this slander/libel, since the allegation was completely private until publicized by M dot Strange. Obviously reputation would not have suffered if the claim remained private.

<comment><USER25> Their reputation with YouTube might be damaged. Prior claims against his account might negatively affect him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Upload it to Vimeo. I know the audience is smaller, but they seem to be much more friendly toward content creators than youtube.

<comment><USER27> I disagree. Uploading to Vimeo is a treatment for the symptom, not the problem. I'm rooting for an internet uproar over this.

<comment><USER28> Actually, the problem is definitely YouTube in this case. BMF didn't file a claim, YouTube's automated detection flagged it improperly. It's a question of both the accuracy of automated content detection systems AND why YouTube -- despite having no legal obligation -- is bending over backwards for giant record companies.

<comment><USER9> Because YouTube has been sued several times in both the US and Europe, and if it didn't offer this system, far worse more draconian systems would be legally mandated. YouTube recently lost a case in Germany where the judge imposed a less accurate filter on YouTube: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/11573918587/huh- to...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/11573918587/huh-totally- clueless-german-court-says-contentid-isnt-good-enough-youtube-must-block- infringement-keywords.shtml)

This is a regrettable situation, that the OP got caught up in a detection system, but YouTube must do this kind of stuff, otherwise, the courts will mandate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does the DMCA have a provision allowing BMF to be sued for improper claim? If so, someone should actually challenge them.

<comment><USER30> I believe youtube's takedown process isn't strictly a DMCA feature. From the submission it looks like it's not even a takedown, it's just a thing where google is letting someone put ads on other people's videos if they claim copyright and possibly bully them, but it doesn't look like they're serving DMCA notices.

Edit: The comment at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4122258> was posted while I was typing this post and is a lot more informative. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Could the moderator who changed the title please explain why? Normally I would not care, but now it reads as if _I_ am the film creator.

If the titles on HN now have to match the article title, you should just change the posting guidelines. Coming along 12 hours later and changing a post title is just power tripping.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wish you the best of luck Mdotstrange (if you didn't see it, he posted in this thread claiming BFM actively claimed copyright over the sound of wind.)

Yes, piracy and copyright infringement is rampant, but by both individuals and corporations. A great example is the Amen Break. If you've got 20 minutes, I can't suggest this video enough for everyone: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac>

It's in everything from old hip hop, to Oasis' "D'You Know What I Mean?" to the original Futurama theme song!

And all used with, according to the creators, absolutely zero royalties. (And they're fine with it, having been told. They get it.)

<comment><USER32> Sampling happens a lot in music. Using a few seconds of someone's performance in your very different song probably falls under fair use, or it might even meet the "transformative" criterion for being a completely different creative work. There's another discussion about this issue going on: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120691>

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One of my music videos on YouTube is blocked in Germany with a note that it infringes copyright. I wrote the music and the lyrics myself. I shot the video myself. I'm the sole copyright owner. The appeal didn't lead anywhere. It was detected as such because it's likely registered on Content ID because it was published by Sony, the record label. But Sony does not have the copyright. Still. Nothing I can do. (Even calling up Sony to resolve this didn't lead anywhere.)

</comment><comment><USER34> O boy, I don't think there's anything that looks worse than the new Blogger themes in Opera Mobile. Unreadable, unusable.

<comment><USER35> It's not much better on the desktop, in my opinion.</comment></comment>


Is this good high-concept pitch for Writer.is? - <AUTHOR>

I'm meeting investors for http://writer.is And need high concept pitch. I got this one "Typewriting on wallpaper" Is this good? <comment><USER2> I clicked your link, and clicked "How it works?" and was taken to a registration page. Is that intentional? Why would I sign up for something that I have no clue what it is?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. That is bug. Will fix it.</comment></comment>


China Is Quietly Reshaping the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/china-belt-and-road/542667/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I am curious about the prevailing fetish for adopting a hyper critical stance towards China's growth rate. Is it just me, or does it seem that when articles are posted portaying China in a positive light, the immediate tendency is to adopt a critical or skeptical stance? Of course a certain amount of skepticism is warranted, but I feel that these criticisms take on a bit more of a personal tinge, as if there is something ominous or threatening about China's growing economic influence.

If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that economically dominates, I would honestly like to hear your explanation. Or if your skepticism is ideological e.g., a general belief that undemocratic societies cannot prosper economically, I'd be curious about that as well.

<comment><USER3> > If you feel threatened by the idea of a China that is economically globally > dominated, I would honestly like to hear your explanation.

Do you not see those articles where China build artificial islands and try to enforce the China seas as if they own all of it? They bully everybody, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, etc..

They're doing this because of the oil in the area and to exert dominance. USA on the other way just want everybody to be okay cause you know USA is all about money and business. If you lock that area like China is doing USA can't really profit.

I think in general I rather have USA ideology over China bullying.

<comment><USER4> _> They're doing this because of the oil in the area and to exert dominance. USA on the other way just want everybody to be okay cause you know USA is all about money and business...I think in general I rather have USA ideology over China bullying._

When the United States wants an island and its surrounding territory, it doesn't build a new one. It takes over an existing island and depopulates it by force.

      Diego Garcia was located far away from any potential threats, it was low in a
      native population and it was an island that was not sought after by other
      countries as it lacked economic interest...Diego Garcia and other acquired
      islands would play a key role in maintaining US dominance.

      The Chagossians had to be removed from the island before the base could be
      constructed. In 1968, the first tactics were implemented to decrease the
      population of Diego Garcia. Those who left the island—either for vacation or
      medical purposes—were not allowed to return, and those who stayed could
      obtain only restricted food and medical supplies. This tactic was in hope
      that those that stayed would leave "willingly". One of the tactics used was
      that of the killings of Chagossian pets. Dogs were carried into sheds where
      they were gassed in front of their owners.[1]

The island now houses a US military base (née "Camp Justice") used as a black site torture facility and banned munitions depot. The former inhabitants live in poverty and exile, the US and UK having recently declared the area a sham marine reserve specifically with the secret intent of preventing their return.

But that's fine, because the USA just wants everybody to be okay.

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

<comment><USER5> If you want to talk about 1968, we can talk about the mass purges going on in China too.

Criticizing the history of the United States is fine, but it's not even in the same _universe_ regarding human rights abuses. China _continues_ to purge and "disappear" people, so I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about 2017.

<comment><USER6> Do you count killing someone as human rights abuse? Killing hundreds of thousands, millions? I guess these U.S. killings have been mostly of people in other countries, which don't count as human rights abuses? It's somehow worse if a country kills its own people, than the people of other countries?

<comment><USER5> I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant deaths directly caused by the US.

Notice that I never said that the US hasn't committed shameful human rights abuses. I'd be happy to discuss them. Most are taught in schools, like Kent State in which 4 students were killed. Do the Chinese teach about Tiananmen, where hundreds were killed?

If you seriously want to compare the US to one of the bloodiest nations in the history of the world, I'll take that comparison any day.

<comment><USER4> _> I would love you to find me a source for millions of non enemy combatant deaths directly caused by the US._

The US killed roughly 20% of the population of North Korea with direct targeted bombings of civilian centers and infrastructure.[1] They destroyed so much of the country that they ran out of targets. Civilian death estimates for North Korea alone start around 1.5 million.

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too." — General Curtis LeMay

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime- nor...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea- wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html)

<comment><USER5> I would invite you to read a list of notable quotes by Gen. LeMay [0]. The man had a specific interest, sustained over decades, in promoting and normalizing the idea that the US should kill civilians to make wars easier.

Meanwhile, most estimates put North Korea's _total_ deaths at between 400 and 700 thousand. I'm sure you'll find many war crimes on both sides. The crimes of North Korea do not justify those of the US, and those of the US do not justify those of North Korea. If you insist on comparing them, again, I'll take that comparison any day.

To put this another way, the fact that the US has done X, does not excuse 1000X done by repressive regimes around the world. Trying to cast the US as the world's "bad guy" isn't brave or controversial, it just gives cover to the truly evil nations committing ongoing genocide.

[0] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay)

<comment><USER7> I've found it fascinating that people cannot coherently talk about a different nations moral failings without equivocating and falling back onto moral relativism and what-aboutism regarding how the US is just bad.

Funnily enough, the EU is the chief purveyor of this equivocation, regularly chiding the US for it's privacy laws while hypocritically issuing exemptions to China for its repression of political dissidents and keeping conspicuously quiet regarding its censorship.

<comment><USER8> > I've found it fascinating that people cannot coherently talk about a > different nations moral failings without equivocating and falling back onto > moral relativism and what-aboutism regarding how the US is just bad.

Translation: "USA, USA, USA, USA".

If you think about it not as a citizen or partisan but in terms of systems of human organization, the question to ask is: "Why is it that different nations with different cultures still manage to have some of the same moral blind spots?"

In this view, Hitler's concentration camps, Gitmo, and the Russian Gulag are all serving the same function. The difference is in magnitude.

The idea that citing _equivalence_ is dishonest rests on the idea that magnitude is all that matters in moral issues. If Jerry Sandusky had only molested one child would he be a significantly better person than he is after molesting dozens? Sorry I don't really feel the need to canonize someone who unlike Sandusky only managed to victimize one person, nor would I feel the need to give Sandusky any credit if a person were discovered who had victimized thousands.

My point is that ugly things happen for a variety of reasons. All regimes (the US, NK, Russia, China, etc.) benefit in some way from identifying a class of people to imprison as political prisoners. The US is generally able to keep the number imprisoned fairly small and keep them overseas where they are out of sight and out of mind. Other nations are not able to manage this and must imprison more people.

Similarly, any spouse may benefit from intimidating the other spouse in some way. Some do it verbally, while others do it physically. Sure you can get on a moral high horse and say that only the physical form of intimidation is bad, that verbal threats are harmless. That's analogous to the idea that Gitmo is harmless but NK or Russia's treatment of political prisoners is deeply concerning.

Note that my argument is not that both are equally bad. They are not. My argument is that they are both bad enough that we have s much stronger moral duty to fix the problems at home before we focus our energy on politicizing similar issues abroad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is just another way to keep GDP growth up by boosting spending. Basically there are a few policies that the Chinese are pursing:

1\. Conquering the industries that they are lagging in(i.e auto and semiconductor) by disguising govt subsides as state "support" and flouting WTO rules[1].

2\. Spend money on belt and road thingy to prop up GDP because there is no more to spend on existing overheated asset bubbles.

Remember all those years of propping up GDP in construction projects, where the interest on debt(and the debt itself too) becomes too large a portion of the GDP such that most of it goes to just servicing the debt. Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2].

But ultimately with extra spending and little growth they will keep running against fundamental issues like the Impossible Trinity[3] which is like the CAP theorem of macro economics. Unless the economy balances spending and real growth, and if it does not the only Q is when will it burst or become like Japan's decades of stagnation.

[1][https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/2172944...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and- economics/21729442-its-record-industrial-policy-successes-patchy-china-sets- its-sights) [2] [http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997](http://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/72997) [3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity)

<comment><USER10> "Ultimately you want consumer spending and standard of living to grow in lock step but it does not[2]."

This is often said, but even after reading the linked article it's not clear why that's desirable.

Why not for example keep growing exports instead of domestic consumption?

<comment><USER11> Too much exposition on "non-china" factors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Annoying quibble about the author's carelessness: there's an article from the Economist that this sentence is linked to.

"Scholars who looked at Chinese investment in Africa from 1991 to 2010 found that Chinese assistance does not appear to help economic growth..."

However, the article linked is actually about Chinese government assistance in Pakistan (not Africa) and the impact on Pakistan's relationship with India -- not about Chinese private investment at all, nor about Africa.

>_>

<comment><USER13> Chinese private investment in other countries is "private" in name only. It's investment by largely state-owned enterprises in the service of government foreign policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "secure the natural resources it needs to grow"

This gets repeated a lot. Maybe Chinese propaganda make this point to justify its outward investments to the Chinese people. Statements like this then take on a sinister sheen when discussed in the West.

Commodities are fungible and China is rich in natural resources itself. Oil is the one thing it is insecure about yet the insecurity is much more about a potential blockade in time of conflict than insufficiency of suppliers. Yes it has interests to see more supplies so it certainly would encourage investments in natural resources but to control the resources? That doesn't even make sense in the modern (WTO) context. It can't even control rare earth exports when 90% of the supply is based inside China, how can it expect to control supplies outside of China?

China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills.

<comment><USER15> >China has a high savings rate and runs a trade surplus and by necessity it will export capital. There is no other way around it. The Chinese government right now finds it more attractive investing in overseas infrastructures than buying more US Treasury bills.

Why can't China now run a huge deficit like the US is expected / encouraged to do, thus becoming consumers of products built in the US and Europe, instead of the other way around?

You say there is _no other way around it_.

Actually there is, but China prefers to play unfairly (though I agree they wouldn't get away with it if our own business and political leaders weren't so corrupt and short-sighted).

<comment><USER14> When I said "no other way around it" I meant trade surplus must be balanced by outward investment, an arithmetic fact. I didn't mean they can't run a trade deficit.

As for why they don't have a trade deficit: to run a trade deficit domestic investment rate needs to exceed savings rate. They have a high savings rate. They are already accused of doing too much domestic investment to prop up the economy so an even higher investment rate is not a solution. They can try to lower the savings rate by increasing welfare spending.

As for why it may not want a trade deficit: China can't borrow in its own currency from foreigners like US, that is Chinese RMB is not a major reserve currency. To fund trade deficits with USD denominated market borrowing would expose its economy to mood swings of foreign investors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The amount of comments on this article that are emotion and fear-based, rather than fact and experience-based is surprising for HN.

<comment><USER17> I think part of the problem is that China has zero respect for human rights for even its own citizens. Pretty common knowledge they farm their own undesirables (human beings) for organs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not mentioned in the article is China's desire to develop the western areas of the country, which benefit from Belt and Road.

To manufacture a product in Hebei and ship it from Tianjin, or manufacture in Jiangsu and ship from Shanghai/Ningbo, or manufacture in Guangdong and ship from Shenzhen, is pretty cheap.

To do the same in western provinces is much harder. There's a big regional disparency. While China's landmass goes far west, (western) Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, the western provinces I mean are the shanxis, gansu, sichuan, yunan with large population bases.

Myanmar was also not mentioned in the article, but will also play an important role as support to southwestern China's access to the ocean.

<comment><USER19> It is mentioned, even if not deeply: "...Gwadar is experiencing a storm of construction: a brand-new container port, new hotels, and 1,800 miles of superhighway and high-speed railway to connect it to China's landlocked western provinces"

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I might be wrong but didn't something similar happen with Japan too? After the rise of their industrial power they started expanding outside, buying/investing in stuff outside their country in accordance to the BoJ guidance also known as "window guidance". But then the asset bubble burst causing issues for their economy.

Chinese loans seem to be on the rise: [https://www.reuters.com/article/china- economy-loans/rpt-upda...](https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy- loans/rpt-update-2-china-new-yuan-loans-rise-more-than-expected-in-september- idUSL4N1MR15L)

So, will something similar happen here too?

</comment><comment><USER14> "most of its largesse comes as loans"

These investments are not really Chinese government's money to give unless it wants to tax its people more. What Chinese government has is a very large sway over where Chinese external investments go since it requires exporters to sell their forex earnings and large outward investments require state approvals. But these investments are not taken from depositors as a tax. The depositors still have claims on the Chinese banks. What the Chinese government/banks do is really to provide a guarantee to the domestic depositors as intermediaries. If the investments go bad they will have to plug the financial hole somehow.

</comment><comment><USER19> Really interesting article. A couple of comments. Investing in foreign infrastructure and trade is good, as the article itself says, also because it creates a disincentive for war. But we need to keep in mind that economic interest isn't enough to prevent war; before WWI lots of people thought that a new war in Europe was unthinkable, considering the interdependence of Europe economies at the time and how much everybody had to lose with a war. It didn't matter.

Another very important point IMHO is that the end result of this will depend a lot on how productive will these investments turn out to be; will they create good returns or not? If returns are good, they will create wealth and everybody will probably be happy in the end. If returns will be poor, I'm afraid they could end up creating very big tensions in the future between China and the countries that are getting indebted now.

</comment><comment><USER21> Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang...

But it is impressive though, I just can't believe they will actually achieve it. Already done internal loaners are failing and they are holding back European expansion ( Chinese firms) on command of the Chinese government.

But as usual, we will see

<comment><USER22> > Too many loans, they'll probably fail big and it will be a bang...

Just like IMF "loans" many of these are given with the understanding that the receiving country will never be able to pay it back. The goal is to gain control. So they might go and agree to "restructure" the loans if the country agrees to number of conditions, like say opening the market for more Chinese companies "hey my cousin such and such owns a recycling plant, how about your country lets him dump some of the byproducts in your landfills, and we'll forgive some of these loans" kind of stuff.

<comment><USER23> It's more than that. Look at the recent deal with Sri Lanka to resolve the debt owed to China for building a port there:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-china-ports- idU...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-china-ports- idUSKBN1AE0CN)

<comment><USER22> "...included a plan for a 99-year lease..."

The loss of sovereignty is the most extreme example for of course. Leasing is something in between. Though 99 years is a pretty long time.

"You can't pay, ok how about we'll just take control of this little part of your country for 99 years".

<comment><USER24> 99 years is long, though significantly less than the duration of the Guantanamo lease.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The internet will go crazy over China now, mostly of which will be:

1\. Abuse human rights.

2\. A dictatorship.

3\. South China sea.

But the internet will happily use "Made in China" shamelessly. Hypocrisy at its best.

The internet being the western majority crowd who have never seen a world outside of their state.

As seen on youtube

" Do you support Iraq war"

Yeah absolutely. They have WMD.

Show me where Iraq is on this map.

Points to Madagascar.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Supreme excellence consists on breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." \- Sun Tzu

<comment><USER27> What enemy? The world benefits immensely from China no longer being hyper impoverished and no longer being a big negative drain on world aid. Now that China can fully support itself - which is something that is actually relatively recent, only occurring in the last 20 years - more global aid is available to help the remaining very poor nations, and China can contribute to that, accelerating the climb of the global median standard of living.

500 million of the world's poorest people still live in China. While they have a long ways to go yet, every bit of progress helps the rest of the world tremendously.

<comment><USER28> Thanks somewhat to US domestic politics, China seems to be gradually edging from global enemy towards saviour status.

With regard to climate change, they are now more progressive than the US. Perhaps the chinese emphasis on long term thinking and the importance of future generations is counteracting the negative effects of their ruthless and undemocratic regime.

<comment><USER29> China starts from a huge deficit in environmental protection that can't really be compared to the USA. They are being aggressive today because 500+ 2.5pm is unlivable.

<comment><USER30> Climate change is nothing to do with PM2.5. That's a very short term (falls out of the air in days) local issue. They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US.

<comment><USER31> > They're emitting less CO2 per capita than the US

The most disingenuous statement in this thread? In other news...

High School coach points out his QB completes more passes per game than NFL team QB. Demands equivalent compensation for better performance.

Total physical amount of pollution is a quantitative problem. Trying to cut it up per capita by a population grouping is not constructive. Hand waving with this kind of reductionist calculation is political spin. It's "unfair" to discount this measure, but thats because physical/practical problems lie outside political interests.

<comment><USER28> Are you saying a country with 4M people that emits the same as a country with 100M people is doing OK?

Per capita is a useful measurement (but not the only one).

<comment><USER29> Depends on density if we are talking about local livability, Mongolia would have a lesser problem if everyone didn't live in its capital. CO2, on the other hand, is a global problem, so per capita is more relevant, but has all sorts of tragedy of the commons and prisoner dilemma implications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow those numbers are staggering... Staggeringly small compared to US's budget for the War(s) on Terror, that is.

</comment><comment><USER33> China is destroying the world. The amount of ecological damage they do OUTSIDE their own country is staggering.

<comment><USER34> That's how industrialization looks, at this point. For now, you can either choose to be "pure" or "rich". 99% of people choose "rich".</comment></comment>


Pickens rips Yahoo management, says he dumped shares at a loss - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/29/BUS6120SSI.DTL <comment><USER2> I dispise these shortterm-investors. Dudes people have other more meaningful goals than to make you rich.</comment>


Cognitive Toolkit beta for deep learning advances - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2016/10/25/microsoft-releases-beta-microsoft-cognitive-toolkit-deep-learning-advances/ <comment><USER2> CNTK from Microsoft Research has been rebranded as Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit.

Here's the github repo: [https://github.com/Microsoft/CNTK](https://github.com/Microsoft/CNTK)

CNTK homepage ([http://www.cntk.ai/](http://www.cntk.ai/)) now redirects to [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/cognitive-t...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/cognitive-toolkit/)

> CNTK ([http://www.cntk.ai/](http://www.cntk.ai/)), the Computational Network > Toolkit by Microsoft Research, is a unified deep-learning toolkit that > describes neural networks as a series of computational steps via a directed > graph. In this directed graph, leaf nodes represent input values or network > parameters, while other nodes represent matrix operations upon their inputs. > CNTK allows to easily realize and combine popular model types such as feed- > forward DNNs, convolutional nets (CNNs), and recurrent networks > (RNNs/LSTMs). It implements stochastic gradient descent (SGD, error > backpropagation) learning with automatic differentiation and parallelization > across multiple GPUs and servers. CNTK has been available under an open- > source license since April 2015. It is our hope that the community will take > advantage of CNTK to share ideas more quickly through the exchange of open > source working code.

<comment><USER3> > CNTK allows to OT pet peeve: the tech culture's distaste for pronouns has > made this all too common. It doesn't even have to be a pronoun: "users", > "people", "clients", etc all work -- but without it, the author is referring > to a thing is never specified. That offends me as a technical person far > more than pronouns ever will.

In particular, project descriptions and readmes are rife with "X allows to".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Finally Python bindings! I wanted to use this because Tensorflow is impossible on Windows, but the lack of programming language bindings made it a non- starter. Glad this is finally here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Besides the rebranding, the Python bindings seem relatively (2 months) new. Though the docs seem to imply it is pretty high level compared to other frameworks [https://www.cntk.ai/pythondocs/](https://www.cntk.ai/pythondocs/)

One interesting note is that there seem to be plans to create a Keras backend that lets you run Keras models on CNTK: [https://github.com/Microsoft/CNTK/issues/797](https://github.com/Microsoft/CNTK/issues/797)

<comment><USER6> CNTK contributor here - Keras indeed is pretty high on our list of things to cover soon. But then, all our code is out there on GitHub and we welcome PRs :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More information about Cognitive Toolkit is available here [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/cognitive-t...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/product/cognitive-toolkit/)

</comment><comment><USER8> How does it compare to TensorFlow?

<comment><USER9> CNTK has significantly higher performance with one or more machines; great multi-gpu scalability. Can train harder on bigger datasets given your resources.

<comment><USER10> Can someone clarify this? In my head "one or more machines" means "always". Does CNTK generally have higher perf even on a single machine? Or is ajwald trying to say it is better at scaling to multiple machines.

<comment><USER11> CNTK user & contributor here. CNTK overall has very low framework overhead and has tensors with dynamic axes as first-level citizens. This means that sequences can be expressed without needing to do padding, sorting of the input data, or any other workarounds, and can be packed automatically by the toolkit in an optimal way. In particular, while it is laying out the rectangular structure it uses to traverse multiple RNNs of a minibatch in parallel, it fits shorter sequences into the holes and can reset the RNN state for these sequences while it is traversing this structure. This makes CNTK especially suitable for expressing RNN models (for CNNs many of the calls are just forwarded to CuDNN, so the difference might be much lower).

As for distribution, a) it has an extremely simple way to run data parallelism (for CNTK 1 it was just using MPI and starting the worker with a few extra options. I think CNTK 2 will add this in a week or so to the Python bindings), b) it has 1-bit SGD and more recently BlockMomentum, which are just dead simple methods to use for distributing the gradients, and they just work. All of these are open source (though 1-Bit SGD and BlockMomentum are patented).

<comment><USER12> An algorithm for updating parameters is patented?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How general/efficient are these AD systems ?

New ops in tensorflow seem to be oriented towards forward-mode AD rather than reverse-mode (for which one needs a pull back op on a dual).

</comment><comment><USER14> The fastest for distributed deep learning workloads... The proven Toolkit for Microsoft production system... Now Python support is native! Cognitive Toolkit rocks!!!</comment>


Year 2038 problem - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

<comment><USER2> As an early 30s programmer with low-level backend experience, I'm relying on the 2038 problem to form the backbone of my retirement income. I've already started writing the business plan for my migration consultancy.

This comment is only marginally tongue in cheek.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since no-one runs the code I write this is not going to matter.

<comment><USER4> Predicting code use in advance is hard. Linux was a casual side project not meant to be taken seriously; Javascript was hacked together in a few weeks.

<comment><USER5> PHP was hacked together quickly to help Rasmus Lerdorf write his website.

<comment><USER6> Ahh, interesting to see the PHP mindset was born with its creation: _Why would I use someone else 's code when I can write it myself?_

Mind you, that's not PHP's fault - seems that a lot of novice programmers take this approach, with PHP being an easy beginner language.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, when PHP was written, there was pretty much no other code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Back when I first heard about this, I wondered if it wouldn't be possible to simpy add an extra byte to the date. That would last us until the end of the universe.

I still don't know enough about OSs to know how feasible it is, but back then, the move towards 64 bit OSs seemed like a great opportunity to make this change. Maybe when we move to 128 bit systems we can finally do this? I'd like not to postpone this until the last minute like last time.

<comment><USER9> Adding another byte would only make it last another ~17000 years, not until the end of the universe.

<comment><USER10> That, or he's not too optimistic about the lifespan of our universe :\

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems that Y2K was mostly painful because tons of data interchange formats specified two-digit years and fixing it meant getting it fixed at all endpoints at the same time.

Basically beginning with XML in the 1990s, the "modern world" is rapidly converging on accepting full, textual dates (preferably in one of the ISO 8601 formats) in any but the most private and short-lived of formats (protobufs and the like). These textual formats are obviously not vulnerable to the 2038 issue, so preparing for 2038 will be significantly easier, as it can be done unilaterally, without all the coordination overhead.

<comment><USER12> You'd be surprised in how many places unixtime crops up. I'd really prefer ISO 8601 (especially becase it's a sane format, human-readable and supports time zones) though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> >> The furthest time that can be represented this way is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038 (2147483647 seconds after January 1st, 1970).

I do hate bugs that only pop up at 3am in the morning.

As I understand it, the problem is more in the compiler/interpreter than in the storage medium. Say, your using mysql to hold an int field - to alter the storage allocation to include more bytes is simple, even trivial. It is the language which will need to be updated to understand that it is using an unsigned integer for the unix epoch.

</comment><comment><USER14> You can see this bug if you have a Roku. The popular instant watch browser app shows Netflix TV shows arriving in 2038.

</comment><comment><USER15> By 2038 I don't think this will matter

<comment><USER4> "By 2000 I don't think this will matter."

\- 1978

<comment><USER16> Well, seriously, how much did it really matter in 2000? How much systems from the 70's were still in use in the year 2k? And how much of them actually failed? Even my IBM 8086 was y2k compliant.

I do know some people (even those who had no technical background or whatsoever) that made ridiculous amounts of money by "consulting" about the y2k problem.

My retirement plan is consulting on the y2k38 problem. However, as opposed to the y2k witch-hunt, this problem is very real. Preparing systems to be y2k38 ready actually requires work to be done...

<comment><USER17> The y2K problem was very real as well. A lot of the systems were still in place, and a TON of work happened at the end of the 90s to solve the y2K problem. The fact that not many of them failed showed the success of the Herculean effort to solve the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> seems like someone is just learning to program...

<comment><USER19> The HN community thanks you for this well thought out and high quality comment. You have clearly shown us some knowledgeable information for which we are truly grateful.

In all seriousness, comments such as this degrade the community and add no value. Please reconsider next time.

<comment><USER20> The comment isn't interesting but the question behind it is quite legit: it's odd to say the least that a post like this would surface on the front page, here where you'd assume most if not all are already aware of it. It'd be interesting to know why.

<comment><USER11> Why would you assume that?

Do you have a list of other topics that are so obvious that no Hacker News community member can possibly gain any value what so ever from reading about them?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Use Cases for the Web of Nations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bblfish/use-cases-for-the-web-of-nations-361c24d5eaee <comment><USER2> Here is a summary of the 12 Use Cases for grounding Trust on the Internet using national registrars:

      1. Enhance Trust in Small Business
      2. Help Legitimate Institutions of Knowledge stand out
      3. Make Fake News sites stand out
      4. Stop Phishing attacks
      5. Stop GUI Confusion attacks
      6. Improve Trust in Apps
      7. Help Search Engines and Social Networks attribute content
      8. Cheaper EV X509 Certificates (0 cost?)
      9. Anchor flexible Verifiable Credentials (age, licences, …)
      10. Trusting Linked Data
      11. Grounding Provenance
      12. Machine Readable GDPR Policies

[https://medium.com/@bblfish/use-cases-for-the-web-of- nations...](https://medium.com/@bblfish/use-cases-for-the-web-of- nations-361c24d5eaee)</comment>


Facebook's "Listen w/ Friends" Feature is Coming Today - <AUTHOR> http://thisismynext.com/2011/09/21/facebooks-music-service-listen-friends-feature-ticker-integration/

<comment><AUTHOR> Facebook's best bet at nailing social music today is to

\- Be easy \- Work well \- Make people feel a connection between themselves and their friends, through the music they have in common.</comment>