Snopes Under Legal Attack from Salon.com - <AUTHOR> https://www.snopes.com/we-wish-we-had-better-news/ <comment><USER2> This article is very light on details. Apparently, this lawsuit has its source in the divorce between David and Barbara Mikkelsen, the two founders of Snopes. Barbara sold her shares to a couple of people who also owned the company that handled advertising for Snopes. That company, Proper Media, at some point withheld ad revenue from Snopes which nearly killed Snopes[0]. Now they have acquired Salon, and this article makes it sound like they're using Salon's resources to continue the legal battle, but I have no idea if that's the case.

It would have been nice if Snopes of all sites had provided a bit more background on this, though I suppose they can never be considered impartial on their own legal struggles, so perhaps they're right to keep this brief.

[0] [https://nypost.com/2019/05/16/salon-media-sold- for-5-million...](https://nypost.com/2019/05/16/salon-media-sold- for-5-million-to-tech-entrepreneurs/)

<comment><USER3> "Barbara sold her shares to a couple of people who also owned the company that handled advertising for Snopes."

That really reads like a decision just bound to bring up more conflict...

<comment><USER4> You don't think that was the plan? Sounds to me like the sort of thing that happens all the time in messy divorces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have kind of soured on snopes since the 2016 election. Their political fact- checking includes a heavy dose of spin, framing issues with certain wording so that they can say "mostly false" with a big red X on their own strawman, so that you have to read between the lines to realize that what's true is actually the crux of the matter.

Snopes used to strictly be a site you linked someone to disprove urban legends, and that good reputation is now being wielded in a partisan political battle

<comment><USER6> >framing issues with certain wording

I've seen this repeated a few times now. Can you provide an example?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop- president...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-presidents/)

They haven't said anything untruthful here. But imagine the site were run by republicans - the framing would be different. The claim would be "5 of 6" instead of "every", allowing them to print a big green checkmark graphic, and supporting details for each attempt

<comment><USER7> They're literally responding to a republican meme that phrases the question exactly that way? The meme itself is posted in that page. I think you might be projecting.

<comment><USER5> To me there's not such a big difference between resorting to a totally original straw man and picking the weakest argument among those different individuals on the other side of party lines have put forward. This snopes article serves as a catchall for claims about democratic attempts to impeach. There's no separate article for a different wording of the meme.

And even if this were the only way anyone had worded the claim, it still merits a "partially true" or "mostly true".

I deliberately avoided putting specific examples in my first post because I didn't want to quibble over the specifics. Spin is spin, it's not outright lying. Snopes isn't going to bend the truth to such a degree that a democrat, when confronted with the article, would be forced to admit they are dirty rotten liars.

<comment><USER6> >And even if this were the only way anyone had worded the claim, it still merits a "partially true" or "mostly true".

How so? At best, only 2 of the last 6 Presidents were actually called for impeachment by the Democratic party and, at worst, it was 3 if you count Nixon which was bi-partisan. How does that make the claim, in any way, "mostly true" or even "partially true"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is really sad to me. Snopes, for the most part, is pretty impartial with their fact-checking and I think it's an invaluable resource. If it were to go away and be replaced with something less established, it would be the end of an era and all because they don't have enough money to protect themselves from the litigation of a larger company. If that doesn't show you our legal system is effed, then I don't know what does. Victims can literally be silenced simply by being drowned in litigation by someone with more money.

<comment><USER8> Snopes fact-checking the satire site Babylon Bee suggests to me that their days of being a valuable resource are over. Any reasonable people at Snopes apparently no longer have any influence.

<comment><USER9> _Those who weren't following us when we began back in the mid-1990s and have only more lately encountered our fact-checking efforts sometimes ask us why we address humorous and satirical articles at Snopes.com. And the plain answer to that question is, "Because people ask us about them."_

[https://www.snopes.com/notes/why-we-include-humor-and- satire...](https://www.snopes.com/notes/why-we-include-humor-and-satire-in- snopes-com/)

Articles from sites like _Babylon Bee_ \-- hell, even from _The Onion,_ in more than one case -- get stripped of context, quoted, slapped on meme GIFs, and traded around by folks who don't know (or sometimes don't care) about the source. Another quote from the linked article:

 _If Clickhole (an offshoot of the Onion humor /satire site) publishes a new article, and within a day 1,200 different people have queried us to ask if that article is "true," then clearly Clickhole isn't well known to those 1,200 people. They, and others like them, are the audience we're attempting to reach and inform that Clickhole is a humor site — not, obviously, the many people who follow Clickhole and therefore know that the site's material is not intended to be factual._

In our current highly-politicized environment, there's a subset -- and not an insignificant one -- of the population which is _very_ ready to believe the worst about "The Other Side". The web site _The Conversation_ surveyed over 800 people to ask about the most shared fake political stories on social media during a two-week period, and _The Babylon Bee_ came up in their results:

"Members of both parties failed to recognize that The Babylon Bee is satire, but Republicans were considerably more likely to do so. Of the 23 falsehoods that came from The Bee, eight were confidently believed by at least 15% of Republican respondents."

[https://theconversation.com/too-many-people-think- satirical-...](https://theconversation.com/too-many-people-think-satirical- news-is-real-121666)

I'm not suggesting this is a sign that Republicans are more gullible, per se -- I'm suggesting it's a sign that when people are fed satire _that plays into their biases_ and that satire is played with an Onion-style perfectly straight face, more people than you think believe it. That means there's going to be way more than you think who say, "Hey, is that true?"... and go to snopes.com to find out.

Even, yes, if the quote is from _The Babylon Bee._

<comment><USER10> Hold on there.

What was believed by significant percentage of people were "claims" from satirical articles. For example, "CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper said his belief that Trump colluded with Russia is unshakable; it will not change regardless of statements or evidence to the contrary." or "National Security Advisor John Bolton said that an attack on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman is "an attack on all Americans.""

When taken out of context, it could appear entirely plausible (though unlikely) that Anderson Cooper or John Bolton really said that. People say weird things all the time. Only when the context of a satirical article is given would we expect someone to understand.

An article like the CNN industrial washer story would clearly not be believed by a significant percentage of people.

<comment><USER11> Clearly I'm in the minority of the public here, but both those claims are so outrageous that even if Reuters reported them I would be checking other sources as well to see if they got duped or hacked, or who knows what.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's happened more than once in the last couple of months that I came across actual news and had to do a double take and check to see if I'm accidentally on a satirical page. Just today:

"Trump says Republicans should release their own transcripts in impeachment probe"

You think that's satire? Here's the news article:

[https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/468788-trump- say...](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/468788-trump-says- republicans-should-release-their-own-versions-of)

Not a line in there to suggest this is nonsense (which it is), here it is directly from the Ass's mouth:

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11938962750931845...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1193896275093184512)

Parody account? It has 'real' in it... You be the judge.

<comment><USER12> Why do you think that's satirical? It's been proven that Adam Schiff lied in statements made in Congress and he's repeatedly leaked information or cherry picked parts of testimonies to support his narrative. Trump is suggesting the republicans release transcripts too, to better represent what's happening in the hearings.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for making my point better than I ever could.

<comment><USER13> Schiff is not the actor I'd choose to rest my case on.

<comment><AUTHOR> To believe that Schiff would doctor transcripts is ridiculous, especially because there are quite a few republicans in the room who would immediately jump on any opportunity to nail him to the nearest cross if he were to do something like that. In a situation where Adam Schiff and Donald Trump claim opposites your safe bet would be on Schiff.

Think about it this way: Adam Schiffs reputation can be damaged by mere paraphrasing of someone else's words, Trump could say _anything_ and it would not damage his reputation.

<comment><USER13> Schiff's reputation doesn't ride on twisting of words, it rides on how much he's participating in the activities that he's supposed to be in charge of investigating.

Nobody's saying pick a side between the two. Be sceptical of _every_ politician. Don't pick either one as your character reference for a narrative.

(That said, I don't mean any of the following to be exonerating _or_ damning to Trump.)

I find it troubling that Schiff appears to have taken an abrupt change in strategy, once he was accused of meeting with the "whistleblower" before the claim was filed. The timeline doesn't look good, especially when considering the change in IG whistleblower rules.

And cherry-picked leaks are a giant problem in DC right now.

Regardless, you don't need to necessarily change a transcript if you told (coached) the witness what to say (or how to say it) in the first place.

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

And that applies no matter how innocent or guilty Trump is of anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say meeting with the whistleblower is _well_ within the job description for the leader of the committee.

As for being skeptical of every politician, Schiff has so far been pretty clean in all this as opposed to the counterparty, who seem to have made a bonfire of all the rulebooks and are running the United States over a cliff at a speed that I would have considered impossible a decade ago. Suddenly all those questions about how Germany could have slid off as fast as it did from being a reasonable country to a totalitarian state make good sense. All it takes is a small bag of money, a couple of Stephen Millers and you're good to go.

The _good news_ if you can call it good news is that they are going about it in the most stupid way possible and that just maybe there is an outside chance that the United States constitution was drawn up in such a way that this travesty can be brought to a halt. I fear it may be too late though, with the recent stacking of the Supreme Court and the way in which all these puppets are in various pockets we may very well be in the endgame for that country and what it stood for.

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, but that doesn't mean they're out to get you for the wrong reasons. You may simply deserve being 'got' and put in jail. In the case of the Trump family and their grifting hangers on that's a slam dunk, that they just might end up being censored (at worst) or pushed out (at best) because some people come to their senses and put their country over their party is about equal to getting Al Capone on tax evasion. Works for me though.

> Regardless, you don't need to necessarily change a transcript if you told > (coached) the witness what to say (or how to say it) in the first place.

Not sure if you are aware of it but the 'transcript' of the call was published by Trump and the transcripts of the various depositions appear to have been made without any coaching whatsoever, if you sincerely believe that witnesses have been coached then you have crossed a line somewhere that you probably should not have crossed.

<comment><USER13> Why must everyone act like criticism of other politicians is somehow defending Trump?

The _committee_ could question him, on the record. Oversight responsibilities are, by definition, reactive, hands off, public, and transparent. Any one-on- one should have been through the IG, not Schiff.

Regardless, impeachment is an inherently political process (as was intended), which means optics matter. And Schiff has really screwed this aspect of it up, no matter how "relatively clean" he might seem compared to other politicians.

If there's one thing Americans hate more than corrupt politicians, it's hypocritical corrupt politicians. If there are two things, it's that and being backed into a corner, politically.

Both are reasons why Trump was elected in the first place, even though I'd argue most of his voters weren't as thrilled about voting for him as he'd have you believe.

Schiff's methods are only serving to stir this up again, regardless of whether some think the ends justify the means.

>if you sincerely believe that witnesses have been coached then you have crossed a line somewhere that you probably should not have crossed.

Because politicians would never do something so corrupt? We'll see what comes out. But at this point, Schiff needs to do some serious disclosures on what was discussed between him and the witnesses before the report was filed, including if he suggested waiting on the timing, for the IG rule change.

Which is why he should never have put himself in that position to begin with. It soils the integrity of the entire thing. It stops looking like an investigation, and starts looking like an orchestrated coup.

If Al Capone's prosecutor would have been caught doing such things, they wouldn't have even gotten him on the tax charges.

If Trump gets impeached, but the prosecution looks dirty, it'll all but guarantee he's re-elected. The sense of injustice will motivate voters far more than whoever's name happens to be on the ballet.

I'm not saying that's what _should_ happen, only what's likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hadn't heard about this, and there's nothing in the main article posted about the origins. I went to their gofundme and read a bunch of updates, and was able to find this article. Seems to stem from an alleged breach of contract. As an anonymous internet commentator and IAAL, I will say that a skim of the complaints and various actions leads me to believe that Salon group is acting in bad faith, and the various courts who have ruled agree with that view. Poor Snopes. :(

The complaint:

[http://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Snopes- COM...](http://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Snopes- COMPLAINT.pdf)

From here:

[https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2017/snopes-is- locked-...](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2017/snopes-is-locked-in-a- legal-battle-for-control-of-its-website/)

A snippet:

The relationship between the two companies stretches back to the fall of 2015, when Bardav founder David Mikkelson inked a deal with Proper Media to manage all content and advertising accounts for Snopes, according to the complaint. Mikkelson terminated that agreement in spring 2017, according to the document.

"Our termination of the contract was fully in accord with the cancellation provisions of that contract," he told Poynter in an email. "The contract was terminated because it was highly disadvantageous to us."

A month after Proper Media filed its legal complaint, Bardav filed a cross- complaint in the Superior Court of California in San Diego County alleging four claims, including breach of contract.

"Proper Media failed to perform its contractual and legal obligations, and Bardav eventually terminated the contract in accordance with its terms," the document reads. "Proper Media is now wrongfully withholding money owed to Bardav and effectively holding the Snopes.com website hostage by preventing Bardav from moving the website, advertising and other back-end functions to another service provider."

Bardav signed over a share of Snopes' revenue to Proper Media in exchange for web services such as management of its back-end advertising platform, according to the cross-complaint. Proper Media alleges in its original complaint, which was filed in early May, that it still has a valid, written contract that the company upheld until Bardav withheld the "accounts, tools and data" it needed to manage Snopes' operations. The complaint alleges that Mikkelson himself breached the agreement by canceling it.

<comment><USER6> That's great context. Thanks for the response. Very helpful in understanding what's going on since Snopes seems reluctant to offer more detail on it, understandably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Snopes, from my memory, was the original place to point people who email- forwarded old wives tales and other such junk that would otherwise spread uncorrected. Hang in there Snopes!

<comment><USER16> I remember after a few months of being forwarded on stupid urban legend email chains by my mom, I started replying all on her messages with links to snopes.

Did that stop her from sending around stupid emails without verifying them? No, but it did stop her from forwarding them to _me_, which is I guess a kind of victory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It should be illegal to abuse the legal system in this way.

<comment><USER18> Technically, it is. The relevant law is called anti-SLAPP

<comment><USER19> This seems more like a contract dispute spun way out of control than your standard SLAPP suit.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21514478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21514478)

<comment><USER20> Why not both? The possibilities don't preclude each other - that there is and it is an attempt to abuse the courts to silence.

<comment><USER19> It could be, it's hard to rule out that but the parties are both owners which feels like an odd occurrence for a SLAPP suit. It makes sense as a contract dispute but not much as a SLAPP suit.

If it is a SLAPP suit what are the advertisers for Snopes trying to prevent Snopes from publishing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love Snopes, but this is one of the worst expositions I've ever seen because it assumes that the reader is already familiar with the situation. The first sentence is:

> We wish we had better news, but they have filed another appeal.

Who is "they"? Appeal of what? There isn't even a link to any background material so that someone who wants to come up to speed can. If you're not already in the know, you're out of luck. This is absolutely shocking for a site whose entire raison d'etre is to combat misinformation.

It pains me to say this, but if this is what Snopes has come to I have to wonder if they still deserve suppport.

</comment><comment><USER22> FWIW, I've just hit the 'donate' button. This is a resource that deserves to be defended.

<comment><USER23> For all the sanity snopes has brought to the internet I'm surprised it's been so long and I never have donated to them. I dropped $50. Thanks for the good advice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can't say I have much confidence in Snopes. Over the years, I have seen at least a few Snopes articles on topics beginning with "FALSE" which then go on to list several facts supporting the notion that the claim actually is true, but then defer the final word to so-called experts, who arguably have a conflict of interest in said matters.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why? Aren't they on the same side?

</comment><comment><USER26> Sounds a lot like a SLAPP suit, something John Oliver covered this week: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU)

<comment><USER27> Does it though? Is there any evidence you have that this suite is being brought in order prevent public participation from snopes? The suite seems to be entirely about who is contractually owed the profits from advertising. This may be an abuse of the system but its not a SLAPP.

<comment><USER28> Since Snopes has already won an "anti-SLAPP" legal motion against Proper Media's defamation case against Snopes, I'd say that's evidence that Proper Media is abusing the system in a way that's subject to anti-SLAPP statutes.

[https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/06/anti- slapp.pdf](https://www.snopes.com/uploads/2019/06/anti-slapp.pdf)

Snopes Prevails in Anti-SLAPP Motion. Truth is "an absolute defense to any libel action." SNOPES STAFF, PUBLISHED 16 AUGUST 2019.

[https://www.snopes.com/snopes-anti-slapp- motion/](https://www.snopes.com/snopes-anti-slapp-motion/)

>Snopes filed an anti-SLAPP motion against Proper Media, Schoentrup, and Richmond, and as expected, the Snopes fact-checkers prevailed. The court held that the statements in question were true, were not defamatory, and/or were published outside the one-year statute of limitations, and therefore struck down the claims brought against Snopes based on those allegedly defamatory statements.

Ironically, here's a Salon article about SLAPP lawsuits:

Real free speech threat isn't on campus: Rich use courts to silence foes. How the wealthy use frivolous lawsuits to silence activists, journalists and even victims of sexual violence. AMANDA MARCOTTE. SEPTEMBER 12, 2018.

[https://www.salon.com/2018/09/12/real-free-speech-threat- isn...](https://www.salon.com/2018/09/12/real-free-speech-threat-isnt-on- campus-rich-use-courts-to-silence-foes/)

<comment><USER27> That was a separate lawsuit and as you mention they already won it.

<comment><USER28> It was a successful "legal motion" "TO STRIKE PLAINTIFFS' THIRD AMENDED COMPLAINT" from Proper Media's defamation case, not a "suite" (sic) nor a "separate lawsuit" as you claim.

You could try reading the document I linked to. It's all there in stark black and white:

"By cutting off Snopes' primary source of revenue and stymying its ability to pay legal fees, Plaintiffs hoped they could bring Snopes to its knees." ... "Plaintiffs' claims are exactly what California's anti-SLAPP statute is designed to prevent. This motion is proper because the challenged claims are a calculated effort by Plaintiffs to obtain an economic advantage over Snopes by expanding the scope of litigation, driving up legal costs, and chilling Snopes' fundraising efforts."

You said "The suite seems to be entirely about who is contractually owed the profits from advertising."

It states quite clearly and addresses your point that that those profits from advertising were Snopes' primary source of revenue, which they used to pay their legal fees. Which is why they they won the anti-SLAPP motion.

Do you still have any misunderstanding now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Salon.com... yuck.

What an echo chamber of millennial leftist garbage. I think Buzzfeed news is better journalism than Salon, and thats really saying something.

<comment><USER30> This comment breaks the site guidelines. Would you please review [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and use HN as intended, regardless of how strongly you feel about websites?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Also relevant: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon- bee.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.html)

<comment><USER6> How is that relevant?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Honestly, I really don't care if sites like Snopes or Wikipedia shut down or disappear. While I appreciate what they provide and what they at least claim to provide, no one should be considered the gate-keepers of all that is not "fake news". BTW I did donate to Wikipedia this year...

<comment><USER33> They're not gatekeepers, they present facts. It's up to you whether or not to believe them.

<comment><USER34> Group sourced refrences, summarized by often biased volunteers, are not 'facts'.

<comment><USER6> Wikipedia, in a random sampling of information, came in as equally or more reliable than nearly any other privately published reference. It's not perfect but it doesn't have to be.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My HN themed merchandise - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/Ld2FZ.png

<comment><USER2> Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.</comment>


Threewords.me sold - <AUTHOR> http://sale.threewords.me/?sold <comment><USER2> There's something about how the progression from the original post by Mark on here a few weeks ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051288>) to the post that the site was for private auction (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2113064>) to the post yesterday that threewords had been sold (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122604>) that gives it a 'used car salesman' feeling.

Maybe it's the fact that in the end it was sold to Kevin Ham; (taking absolutely nothing away from what Kevin has done). Maybe it's that the site had such a quick flame out.

Having been on this site for quite some time now and having the shared passion of others on here to scratch an itch, I'm both inspired by and wanting to turn the other cheek at the same time w/r/t the adventures of threewords.me.

Congrats on the sale, but I hope it's not a sign of a trend to come on here.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry that it came across with that notion.

Bottom line is: I really want to focus on my projects that have high revenue viability. I'm not experienced with monetizing free products, but someone else is. Until then, having threewords.me on my back is extra baggage that I'd rather let someone take care of, so I can focus back on what's important for me: creating profitable startups.

I had the opportunity to take six-figure funding amounts from big firms and individuals, but I said no to that. I'm passionate about building better support systems for startups. I'm passionate about building an OpenTable competitor. I don't feel the same passion with threewords.me, and since I never take capital on something I don't really think my soul has a connection with (to go all zen on you), the other option was to sell it.

I really appreciate the kindness of the Hacker News folks for taking an interest in the threewords.me 'saga' (thank you!) but I'm admittedly a little embarrassed because the image that all this coverage is putting out for me isn't something that I actively pursue. I secretly hoped that the threewords.me sale wouldn't hit HN, and was satisfied (until now :P). It's just a side project that went big.

<comment><USER4> > It's just a side project that went big.

I thought you handled it extraordinarily well, and this should be a case study on what to do when you've got a successful project on your hands that you aren't inspired by... a number of people fall into this circumstance, and usually they just let the project languish and die a slow death. I think you handled this really well and I'm inspired by it.

Congratulations and I'm hoping this is a sign of things to come when people have side projects go big.

<comment><USER3> Thanks man! I really appreciate your kind words. If this helps people derive more value from their side projects, that would be awesome.

<comment><USER5> Congratulations. are you going to share who bought it? is it public ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've met Mark (BarCam 4 and 5) and found him to be very intelligent and personable. I think he did the right thing (and smart thing) to flip this. If you look at his other work, it's more long standing and of bigger scope comparatively.

I've worked on short projects as well and then have my longer projects. For example <http://www.Blabberize.com> has been running for over 3 years now. We could have had a quick and early pay off by flipping the site but instead we took the long haul route to build it out. It feels completely different from a quick turn over project. As such, comparing a site like this to a much larger business with deep technology and IP does not make much sense.

<comment><USER3> Hey man! Thanks for your kind words :) definitely — I want to get back to work on the big scope projects.

How's the site going, btw? And are you going to BarCamp Boston 6?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> soooo.... how much?

<comment><USER8> and who?

<comment><USER9> Kevin Ham.

<comment><USER10> Interesting article about Kevin Ham for those who don't know who he is.

[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/index.htm)

<comment><USER11> If you want to look at the old stuff, his company was called Vertical Axis. One of the biggest domainers around, competing with him was not fun. He is very savvy at domaining and easily one of the most creative, pulling off .cm was brilliant.

<comment><USER9> The .cm domain deal with Cameroon truly put him in a different league than most domainers.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. That league would include Yun Ye, Frank Schilling and him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome job! Has the amount been disclosed?

</comment><comment><USER13> yeah, what was the price range?

Based on your metrics, I'm curious to know what the market sentiment is for them.

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats to Mark. That looks to be a well executed business deal all around.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats Mark!

</comment><comment><USER16> Yet another sign that we are in the midst of a new tech bubble. Zippity doo dah! Bubbles are a lot of fun, except when apartment hunting in San Francisco. I can't wait for some social media startup in S.F to start throwing raves at their offices every week. You'll know there's only about a year left on the bubble when that starts happening.

</comment><comment><USER17> Congrats on the sale Mark, if you disclose the price, please make sure you do that on HN :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Good work! What are you doing next? :)

</comment><comment><USER19> In case there are any buyers still interested in .me concepts, check out <http://winklevoss.me></comment>


Nokia's 41MP Lumia 1020 looks impressive - <AUTHOR> http://connect.dpreview.com/post/1305711237/lumia-1020

<comment><USER2> It actually doesn't seem that impressive. For all that much larger sensor and the big bump on the back, I expected it to be much better than something like Galaxy S4. But it only seems to have slightly more detail than S4 in daylight, and a bit more detail in low-light. But from what I've read about Motorola X' camera technology, it should be able to match or even exceed its details in low-light at least, and without a huge camera bump on the back.

I think this is happening because they basically used the exact same tech as in the 808 from a few years ago, and it might have neven gotten a little worse when they ported it to WP8.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a link to some technical description of the "camera technology"? I have only found some fanboy blabberings about fast shutter speed.

EDIT: also did you RTFA? Re: "worse than 808":

>The Lumia 1020 holds even further promise this time around with a more modern redesigned 41MP 1/1.5" back-side-illuminated sensor, a faster aperture at F2.2 versus the 808's F2.4, a six-element Zeiss lens with optical image stabilization and the new Nokia-developed Pro Cam app.</comment></comment>


Forum and Message Board Consolidator Raises $7.85m - <AUTHOR> http://www.crowdgather.com/blog/?p=vB10014912

<comment><USER2> I would say "forums are back" except they never went away in the first place...other than to investors and advertisers. Great news!</comment>


What Critics Don't Understand About Gun Culture - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/gun-culture/554351/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I grew up in a family with a lot of guns around. As an adult, I've never felt the need to waste my money on them. For me it's just another thing I have no real need or want for, that would require occasional maintenance, and occasional training to stay proficient. I have enough stuff to clean and enough stuff to learn that interests me a lot more.

My issue with many members of my family is that they are sloppy. They do not treat the weapons as the instruments of war that they are. Having a shotgun, loaded and propped in a corner is not good stewardship, especially when entertaining visitors. Having an unlocked gun cabinet is not good stewardship. Tossing loaded rifles in the back of a pickup with the barrels pointing backward towards the tailgate and towards people who _do not know_ the rifles are loaded when they unloaded the truck, not good stewardship. Blasé attitudes abound and as far as I can tell, blasé attitudes towards gun ownership increases the more the owner reveres the second amendment or protecting the constitution or whatever.

Worship at the gun alter if it suits your interests or if you have a legitimate need as the author seems to. Be a good steward of the responsibility that gun ownership entails.

<comment><USER3> Have any of your relatives had a mishap?

<comment><USER2> Nope, thank god. I've shamed them a bit when I found out these particulars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is written by one person who is one small part of gun culture. There are lots of angles in "gun culture." I live in a place that goes pretty strongly pro-gun. I think that most of "gun culture" around here is not much connected to the gun culture described by this author.

A lot of the gun supporters live in rural America and only experience the types of threats related here when watching Hollywood productions. Everybody these days is feeling the threat of all the mass shootings, but very few in rural America have been personally touched by them. They also haven't really experienced gang violence, home invasion, mugging, etc. We all know those things happen, and some feel some distant anxiety about them. But most in rural America have not experiences them except through news reports.

Yet, gun support is strongest in rural America. Some point to hunting. Some will talk about self-defense. Many are just enthusiasts who like to target- shoot for enjoyment. Some feel some nationalistic pull to defend against Germany^H^HRussia^H^HChina^H^HNorth Korea^H^H or whoever is the latest poster child threat to the American Way. And some think that from the very beginning of America, there has been one constant threat--the one threat the founders new first-hand and the reason for the right to bear arms.

It seems like terrorism to actually say it, but for some the main reason to bear arms is to be able to rebel against tyranny--foreign and especially domestic. In other words, it's important for people to be able to occupy a wildlife refuge and "take it back" from the government. Taken to the extreme, this right is for the express purpose to allow civilians to kill policemen and military personnel in a pitched battle. It's not really about hunting or defense against home invasion. It's about an armed citizenry to keep the government in check.

That's a part of "gun culture" with which the author may not be able to relate. That's very scary to a lot of people. And to some that thinking is no longer needed to keep people safe in the modern world. But to some, it's absolutely vital to the preservation of the Constitution.

You may not agree with it. The author of this article may not agree with it either. But it just goes to show that there is not one true gun culture. There are different reasons to oppose guns and different reasons to support them.

<comment><USER5> > It's about an armed citizenry to keep the government in check.

Which made sense 200 years ago. Today, against a government armed with reaper drones et al, a populace armed with AR-15s would last about an hour if the government really wanted to put them down.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see similar statements to this quite frequently around this topic, and every time they strike me as quite simplistic.

If such a conflict were to ever happen (and let us pray that it doesn't), I feel that it would be quite a bit more complicated than "government brings out the big guns, game over," for several reasons:

1\. This ignores the historical track record of the US military in asymmetric warfare, fighting determined foes with inferior equipment and weaponry. I'm thinking of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Not perfect comparisons, but worth some thought.

2\. It is likely that the US military would see significant desertion and insubordination in such a situation. Military personnel are people too, and many may be reluctant to go to war against their own country.

3\. Every state has an Army National Guard and an Air National Guard, and many states has state defense forces. While the National Guard units are legally obligated to obey orders from the federal government, there is no guarantee of what would happen were there to actually be a domestic insurgency.

A populace armed with AR-15s may well be enough of a problem that the opposing force weakens its opposition and starts to fracture.

Again, let us all hope that nothing like this ever happens, but that shouldn't stop us from analyzing in more detail what might happen.

<comment><USER5> > every time they strike me as quite simplistic.

Sure but the whole "we need guns as protection against the government" argument is equally simplistic.

> many may be reluctant to go to war against their own country

Perhaps but the enthusiasm with which e.g. ICE officers have turned against their own country does not give optimism here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not morally opposed to gun control. For me, it's more practical.

Let's say that we did "ban guns" like we "ban drugs" and now we have a "War on guns". How affective has the "War on drugs" been? How evenly has it been applied? Why would anyone think that the same biased criminal justice system that applies punishment and enforcement of drugs unequally would all of the sudden start applying stricter gun laws equally?

Why do we think that we could anymore keep guns out of the hands of criminals than we could keep drugs out of the hands of people?

<comment><USER7> >Why do we think that we could anymore keep guns out of the hands of criminals than we could keep drugs out of the hands of people

Your equivocation seems to imply that gun regulation would either have either no or negative effect on gun ownership and usage. Yet other countries with stricter gun laws than the US have fewer incidents of gun violence, which would appear to suggest that it is, in fact, possible for gun laws to be effective at limiting gun violence.

The question, then, is not whether gun laws _can_ keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but whether one believes they _should_.

<comment><USER6> I didn't say it wouldn't have any effect. I'm saying that that the trade off of giving the government more power to lock people up isn't worth it. The criminal justice system has harmed far more lives by locking up non violent offenders than gun violence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > It starts with the consciousness of a threat. Perhaps not the kind of threat > my family has experienced. Some people experience more.

Why can't it just be a hobby, or hunting, or sport. I remember having fun shooting at a range. Around 8th grade I joined a local small bore club and shooting range and we shot .22 rifles. It was tons of fun. It wasn't in US, not sure if those things exist here for kids at that age. But anyway I can definitely see people doing it for that reason.

<comment><USER9> I graduated high school (US) in 2009. My mom did the same, at the same school, 30 years earlier. When she was in high school, guys would leave shotguns and rifles in gun racks in the backs of their pickup trucks, in the school parking lot, and there was never an issue.

In 1991 (year I was born), a kid brought a sawed-off shotgun to my high school and held up a class, discharging something like 10 shots into the wall. Nobody was injured and everyone made it out alright. This did not get weeks of nonstop national news coverage like contemporary school shooting incidents do. The kid brought a sawed-off shotgun, and handgun legislation was the thing of the time (which has now mysteriously switched to rifle legislation for no perceivably valid reason). Also, nobody died, so there weren't any dead kids to use as the emotional bedrock for any sort of political activism.

When I was in high school, a kid at either my high school or maybe it was the school across town, got a felony for leaving a paintball gun (from the weekend or whatever) in his car and parking it in the school parking lot.

What's changed in the past 30 years?

<comment><USER10> Deinstitutionalisation - reduction of involuntary mental care and closure of large psychiatric hospitals - took full effect? Combine that with (local) economic downturn, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan wars..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem is mostly about culture, not guns.

The crazy gunman shooting at a school pictures himself as George Clooney in a Tarantino movie.

</comment><comment><USER11> My husband and I have guns, and we rarely shoot them. Mainly because of cost, time, and the effort it takes to go to a shooting range in an area where few exist. They're good for protection, but we both really enjoy the mechanical engineering behind them. Science behind delivering a projectile do a paper target 100 yards away. They are absolutely should be more restrictions, but I think it's also a slippery slope.

<comment><USER12> >They're good for protection

I'd really like to see the stats on this. because I have a feeling that this is quite possibly provably incorrect.

<comment><USER13> Easy. Please be less lazy in finding them (one Google search is all that takes to get Eurostat data) and consider that all kinds of statistics are incomplete.

Preferably skip US stats as they are loaded with noise, mishandling and organized crime confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author, like most people who oppose common sense regulations like the banning of assault rifles, sees the world in simplistic black and white. There are _bad guys_ who want to harm people, and who scoff at laws. And there are _good guys_ , who follow laws, are patriots, and just want to protect their family and community.

Of course the world is a lot more complicated than that. Yesterday's _good guy_ is tomorrow's school shooter. Domestic violence, alcohol, mental health disorders, theft, and accidents are all cracks in this simplistic worldview. No matter how you cut it, a world where all the good guys have assault rifles with high capacity magazines is a world where the effects of the inevitable -- the breakdown of social order -- are magnified. A shooting spree instead of a bar fight. A family murder-suicide instead of a black eye and a CPS visit. 20 school children dead instead of 10.

This is what NRA supporters don't seem to understand about the world. They're stuck in a comic book good-vs-evil story and they're the hero.

<comment><USER15> > Yesterday's good guy is tomorrow's school shooter.

Sorry, but that's patent nonsense.

Somewhere north of 3 million AR-15 rifles have been sold. The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) committed at schools averages about one per year.

[http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still- one-o...](http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the- safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/)

You should be embarrassed to even make that claim.

<comment><USER16> > The number of mass murders (not all of which use AR-15s, by any means) > committed at schools averages about one per year.

Only in America you will find someone saying, with a straight face, that _one mass murder at school per year_ does not constitute social crisis...

<comment><USER15> Way more children drown in swimming pools.

Something like 15 teenagers (comparable to the number killed in Florida) die _every day_ from texting and driving.

Why aren't those things "social crises"?

<comment><USER17> More people died from the Spanish Flu epidemic than all of WWI. Was WWI not a crisis? Half of all people who have ever lived, died as a result of mosquito- borne illnesses, do all other causes of death not matter? Shall we stop bothering to develop autonomous vehicles because deaths from automotive accidents pale next to that?

Note that I'm not even attacking your premise that accidental deaths during an activity voluntarily engaged, in some way relates to mass murder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "At the end of this process, your life has changed for the better."

Not really. Life would change for the better if the bad guys found it very difficult to obtain and keep possession of weapons, so the rest didn't have to play the arms race. Of course, since we don't know who's bad and who's good, that means everyone should find it extremely hard to buy and possess. Angry ex-boyfriends would then probably not be (fire-)armed unless they were, or willing to become, serious criminals.

The whole "responsible ownership", and "guns don't kill people, people do", argument also appears broken. It is not legal to own a cruise missile for example, so clearly the weapons themselves are the problem, and there is a level of destructive power beyond which individuals should not be trusted.

IMHO that level should be drawn lower; everyone gets crazy or depressed sometimes, we should reduce the potential for severe consequences.

And even an AR-15 isn't going to be much help against an oppressive government, as the tanks roll down the street, so the whole 2nd amendment argument seems very weak too.

<comment><USER19> Why do you think the "guns don't kill people" argument is broken? A gun is merely a tool that a murder uses to kill. After the gun control act in Australia the number of people killed didn't change much, just the method of killing them. The problem with most gun control arguments is it ignores the fact that someone choose to kill someone. The fact they choose to use a gun isn't really relevant.

<comment><USER20> From Australia's own crime statistics: "Homicide in Australia has declined over the last 25 years. The current homicide incidence rate is the lowest on record in the past 25 years."

[http://crimestats.aic.gov.au/NHMP/1_trends/](http://crimestats.aic.gov.au/NHMP/1_trends/)

<comment><USER21> "The US is safer than ever — and Americans don't have any idea"

America also had a decline over the last 25 years.

[https://www.vox.com/2015/5/4/8546497/crime-rate- america](https://www.vox.com/2015/5/4/8546497/crime-rate-america)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lettering.js: A jQuery plugin for radical web typography - <AUTHOR> http://letteringjs.com/

<comment><USER2> I saw this not terribly long ago, seems like it might have accessibility issues as it wraps each letter in a span so I wonder. if. screenreaders. would. read. each. letter. as. a. single. word.

Also wonder perhaps about SEO issues - does the google bot execute javascript?</comment>


For some, meditation has become more curse than cure - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> _Eventually, life lost its meaning. Colors began to fade. Spiritually dry, David didn 't care about anything anymore. Everything he had found pleasurable before the retreat—hanging out with friends, playing music, drinking—all of that "turned to dirt," he says, "a plate of beautiful food turned to dirt."_

That's depression. Clinical depression. Fits my experience to a T. The first thing out of my mouth when I finally saw a "real" doctor was "I can't see colors or taste food anymore... I mean, I can tell you its red or blue or tasted like chicken but I can't _see_ or _taste_ it anymore. I know that sounds crazy but..."

This article is a little dangerous. Like saying "Running causes heart failure" but omitting "in people with congestive heart failure". Its the heart condition that's the problem, not the running.

If you have these symptoms, it wasn't the meditation. You're depressed. See a doctor. They can fix you.

<comment><USER4> This is kinda something that meditation is supposed to do. It brings problems you have to the fore so that you can see them clearly and fix them. This is something entirely ignored by the new-agey "im super spiritual" types. Meditation isn't something to make you blissful or happy or whatever they're saying it does these days. It's just a tool to see yourself just like a microscope is a tool that allows you to see what's already there.

<comment><USER5> Depression is a medical diagnosis because it has physical make up that causes people to be depressed.

I work and live with people who think depression is a "spiritual" or personal lifestyle problem. I think they are wrong.

I lost a sister to cancer when she was 15, my brother to probably suicide when he was 19 and my son died of cancer at 12. I seriously can say I never had a day of depression. I have had a broken heart missing them and feeling the pain. I will cry for them (I did for my son on Sunday while I was unloading groceries (Go figure)) But I have never lost the taste of food nor anything else. I have sorrow but their is a root cause for that. Depression is sorrow with no real root cause (to me). So I usually come out to defend people who are depressed since I feel like I should be the kind of depression but have never experienced it due to the luck of my genetics.

<comment><USER6> But, there are lifestyle and "spiritual" things that can be done to help treat depression. Things like exercise, diet, social interaction, exposure to nature and sunlight, and other environmental factors can have an effect on the physical make up of the brain. Now none are cure alls and a lack of any one of them isn't necessarily to blame either, but there is merit to some of these "spiritual" practices that get more of those things in one's life.

<comment><USER5> > But, there are lifestyle and "spiritual" things that can be done to help > treat depression

(I am the OP on going through loss and sadness and not being depressed.)

Yes 100% correct. Just like if you have heart disease or a bad back their are non-medical activities that will help those medical condition. My statement is that their is a medical piece that people discount and/or actually dismiss. A person can't just "fix themselves" and having the medical piece help them with treatment with counseling is a big help. Depression isn't that your sad.

Depression Definition: Clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or more.

Symptoms of depression include:

        Low mood or irritable mood most of the time

        Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

        A big change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss
        Tiredness and lack of energy

        Feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, and guilt

        Difficulty concentrating

        Slow or fast movements

        Lack of activity and avoiding usual activities

        Feeling hopeless or helpless

        Repeated thoughts of death or suicide

        Lack of pleasure in activities you usually enjoy, including sex

[https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003213.htm](https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003213.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> About 1 in 4 adults experience some level of mental illness in a given year.

> _" I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with > confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old > who arrived at Britton's Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death > with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over > again."_

That's not an effect of meditation, that's a symptom of a mental illness. Meditation probably helped him discover it earlier than he otherwise would have.

I mean, the words "mental" and "illness" don't even _appear_ in the article.

<comment><USER8> But mental illness can have all sorts of causes. I don't think it's crazy to suggest that meditation itself _could_ in rare cases be one of them. Or suppose the person never meditated and lived and died with a latent mental illness that never actually manifested. Could they be said to have a mental illness at all?

<comment><USER9> If you want to suggest that and not sound crazy, cite something suggesting the possibility.

<comment><USER10> The article in question doesn't state that meditation was a cause of their problems, but pretty obviously details that people coming to meditation looking for ways to improve their lifestyle, instead began down a road to a much worse place.

While it might be unsurprising that meditation did not provide direct benefits to mind or body, it also failed to insulate or deflect these people away from new misery.

It's interesting to learn that the people described in the article had uncovered unsettling realities about themselves while meditating.

Knowing what I know about many people, uncompromising introspection is not something everyone would be comfortable with. Some people are jerks. Some people have their head in the clouds.

Grinding one's life to a halt, and taking a hard look in the mirror, is bound to derail an unrealistic world view now and again. But if, on the other side of an unceremonious introduction to cold reality, awaits absolutely no way to fix profound disappointment...

What then?

<comment><USER9> I'm not convinced that time didn't do the uncovering, and meditation happened to be what they were doing at the time. Correlation != Causation and all of that, you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme anecdotes. It's good that people are investigating any potential side-effects that may exist, but until they find something that's conclusive and statistically significant, it's not worth worrying about.

Let's not forget that the psychological/physiological benefits of meditation have been well documented and demonstrated by numerous scientific studies. If you're someone considering trying out meditation, you have much more to gain than lose by giving it a shot.

<comment><USER12> > The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme > anecdotes.

At least in vipassana, the dark night period is considered to be a phase along the path or whatever. In other words, you basically can't reach enlightenment without having a complete mental breakdown and losing your ability to hold down a job and function normally in society, often for a couple years if not permanently. C.f. her interviews on the Buddhist Geeks.

You're not going to have issues if you're just meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes a day or whatever, it's only if you're doing this for hours every day and getting into the ego dissolution stages.

<comment><USER13> I feel that "at least in vipassana" is too broad to be useful – "vipassana" in Pali just means "insight", and there are an awful lot of different groups that lay claim to the term. That's especially true without more resources that support that claim. I'm no expert in this, but I have explored the meditation ecosystem a bit, and this is the first time I've heard the claim that the dark night is _necessary_.

<comment><USER12> Each tradition within vipassana has a slightly different roadmap, but they all seem to have some sort of 'completely losing your shit' stage somewhere in the middle:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1%B9%87a)

See also Daniel Ingram's book, which Buddhist Geeks also talks about all the time: [http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft- berlin.de/downloads/ma...](http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft- berlin.de/downloads/mastering-vers-3.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not going to say I'm the most experienced meditator in the world, but I've gone fairly deep. I'd argue that if you aren't getting into weird ego- dissolution experiences you are still meditating for comfort (which is totally okay! meditation is a great stress dissolver) and not moving towards the actual point of most meditative practices...but this also points to two things -- 1) meditation can't "cure" everything, sometimes you need a good therapist, or some chemicals, or some combination of the above 2) you absolutely must have a meditation teacher you trust if you want to do deep dives (yes, a 10 day vipassana retreat is certainly a deep dive, as is a zen sesshin). Preferably one you know has actually touched most of these spaces, is well grounded and compassionate, isn't woo-ey or ego-challenged in terms of feeling like your bad experience might threaten their "good teacher" status, etc.

<comment><USER15> I'd just note that the best "marketed" vipassana retreat, dhamma.org/Goenka is extremely woo-ey. Apart from simply false claims (eg cloud chambers we're always useless), the stated purpose of his practise is to excise "deeply rooted" problems so as to reincarnate better. This is in spite of them insisting it's a pure technique with zero dogma.

I know that might not represent vipassana as a whole, just adding a warning since it's the most popular one.

<comment><USER16> I'm a physicist and went to a number of Vipassana retreats. I also disagreed with the science comments and was fairly agnostic on the reincarnation comments. But, in Goenka's favor, he basically says, ignore all of the metaphysics and just see whether or not the technique works for you. Give it a fair try and if it doesn't work, don't use it. It wasn't about reincarnating better, but whether or not it offers you some benefit in this life. I really appreciated that attitude.

<comment><USER15> That's the marketing line: try and see. And that's the only reason I even went, as my woo-meter was off the chart. Except Goenka explicitly states the end goal, then goes on with a parable about how, if you don't accept it, you're like an ignorant child and will come around to his way of thinking. It 100% is about reincarnation; he makes this totally clear in his talk on day 3 (or thereabouts).

What really put me over the edge though was his chanting. "For good vibrations". What made me think it was cult like was the number of people repeating things in dead languages.

Additionally, he'd use manipulative techniques while speaking. Even though he was capable of speaking clearly, he'd intentionally lay on the accent, draw words out, repeat words over and over. This was laid even more clear I took a course in two languages. The translated version was quick and succinct.

Like you say, he denies this. At one point he says a sentence like "we have no dogma, nothing to believe, just the universal truth" \- with no trace of irony.

Overall, between the woo and flat-out falsehoods, I found it very disingenuous. It certainly doesn't do meditation as a whole any benefit, just reinforces stereotypes. Which is a shame because some of the locations are superb, and the volunteers were extremely nice people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rainy-day In the yoga tradition, meditation is not something you can just sit down and do regularly from the beginning. You are supposed to do asanas to prepare for breath exercises, and breath exercises to allow the mind to concentrate, and then the "meditation skill is unlocked".

The general idea is that sleepiness and sluggishness is a certain outcome of an unhealthy body, as well as anxiety and irritability that are caused by various body aches.

In the worst case, meditation can become a formality, just a checkbox to fill out, a way to spend an indulgent, lethargic half-hour, or the opposite - <USER2> constantly distracted, obsessive anxiety (which is perfectly fine and even to be expected at the beginning of a meditation, but not at all times).

That's not to say that meditation is completely off limit: the idea is to do a bit of meditation and breath exercises at first and a lot of asanas, and then gradually increase breath exercises and then concentration; and finally meditation.

But this whole idea that meditation can be counter-productive in some circumstances is not really alien to the Eastern traditions. They are not stupid and they've been doing it for a long time with an empirical, practical approach.

<comment><USER17> Yes, definitely this. And even before the asana and pranayama (breathing practice) are the yamas and niyamas (yama-niyama-asana-pranayama-pratyahara- dhyana-dharana-samadhi) there are eight rungs to the entire eastern yogic/meditative practice. The whole focus on "meditation" and physical poses by the modern western approach of $50/hr yoga classes completely goes against the eastern method of guru and disciple. There's a reason these things are meant to be studied under a learned master. What's the saying... a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. These practices were studied by students for years before they attempted what some people do in their first couple of yoga classes..

That said, I don't mean to discount the experiences of the individuals described in the article. I think it's terribly unfortunate that anyone has to suffer from practicing meditation and yoga, and also find it sad that they were unable to find a master to help them recover from their experiences sooner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> These experiences during meditation are real. It is therefore very important to develop compassion for yourself. In the Dhammapada the Buddha teaches to "Love yourself and watch". If you cannot love yourself, it may be better to not meditate (yet). There is a related and equally well known quote by Dogen which cautions against "driving the self to enlightenment". If one doesn't love himself, that will be what he will attempt to do and then because things don't work that way desperation results.

<comment><USER19> One of the interviewees mentioned that meditating was very difficult because he kept having thoughts that were not supposed to come up emerge. My immediate thought was to what I learned in Buddhist teaching to have compassion for oneself. If he had been instructed well, we would have known to accept all the thoughts that arose and merely observe them.

The following passage from Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind:

Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse (the Mahasaccaka Sutta), he recounted:

I thought, Why don't I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by these efforts, This practice caused other feelings of pain to arise in me besides the pain associated with the austerities, and I was not able to tame my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is strange for me to read in the comments all the advice to--as I understand it--be a relatively "whole" person before beginning meditation. In my limited experience and perspective, I was under the impression that meditation can assist one with releasing stress and anxiety... I thought meditation was one tool which could be applied for achieving more "wholeness" as a person, and I'm surprised at the suggestion that apparently other means must be pursued first?

It seems to me that it would be hard to go wrong with 15-30 minutes of "meditation" spent focusing on breathing and non-judgmentally observing your thoughts as they bubble up and dissipate. I've often felt that a lot of my stress and anxiety and even depression is the result of hanging onto things and the result of trying to control things which are actually outside my control.

Or perhaps these other comments are directed toward the serious, multiple- hour, practice of meditation? I have no desire to separate my consciousness from my physical being, for instance. I'm happy to stay firmly rooted on earth, while learning to accept the good in my inherent existence. If that makes sense.

<comment><USER21> This isn't talking about 15-30 minutes of meditation. It's talking about 2+ week retreats.

Having been on a couple 10-day retreats, I've experienced what I can only describe as significantly altered states of consciousness (after 6+ days of meditating 14-16 hours a day). Fortunately, I managed to make my way back into the world after they ended, but I can see how some people might be permanently altered.

<comment><USER22> That sounds like something a lawsuit away from being shut down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> MCTB - Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha - which is a fairly hardcore "path" towards enlightenment has these phases well charted out.

[http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma- wiki/-/wiki...](http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma- wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+5.+Dissolution,+Entrance+to+the+Dark+Night)

 _Once one has crossed the Arising and Passing Event, one will enter the Dark Night regardless of whether one wants to or not. It doesn't matter if you practice from this point on; once you cross the A &P you are in the Dark Night to some degree (i.e. are a Dark Night Yogi) until you figure out how to get through it, and if you do get through it without getting to the first stage of enlightenment, you will have to go through it again and again until you do. I mean this in the most absolute terms_

These are a well understood steps in the journey towards enlightenment and comes with necessary warnings. For most people, they will not step this far and this point is moot. For hardcore practitioners of meditation, it's a necessary step. What I think has happened is that meditation has become classified as "infinitely benevolent" : you can go down that path, as far as you can, and all will be good.

Meditation like weightlifting, needs guidance and care. You can hurt yourself if you don't respect the barbell.

</comment><comment><USER24> A while back I had the thought that meditation for self-improvement is a non- starter. Meditation, supposedly done properly, is supposed to be non- judgemental observation. But if you're approaching the whole practice as a way to improve some aspect of yourself, the entire foundation is flawed. In that case, the whole reason you're doing it is based on a negative judgement.

I was wondering if someone more experienced with meditation can comment on this. Does this make any sense?

<comment><USER25> I meditate about 20 minutes a night before i go to bed. Nonjudgement is a big part of this. I just sit there and observe my thoughts, without trying to change them.

Why is this helpful?

Because trying to change your thoughts is itself a form of thinking. Trying to change a thought is reacting to that thought, and a lot of my problems come from reacting to thoughts uncritically.

When I sit there and just try to notice the thoughts, thoughts about disturbing thoughts bother me less and less. An unpleasant thought doesn't quickly lead to a progressive series of counter-thoughts or responses.

To give you an example of how this helps: on the way to the grocery store yesterday, I thought "I'm out of beer, I could buy some beer." Reacting to the thought, without being critical of it, would mean going to buy the beer.

But observing the thought allowed me to be aware of it and to _decide_ if that's what I actually wanted. I decided that no, I didn't really need the beer, and that I'd gain more utility from knowing I made a more responsible choice.

For me, practicing nonjudgement allows me to better exercise judgement at suitable times. I couldn't tell you how many times i've gotten carried away giving imaginary speeches when I think about running for office - a practice which has caused me no good. It's like that judgement was entirely wasted.

By meditating, I've become more aware of the background ebb and flow of thoughts, which has freed me up to be judgemental when it _matters_ - such as over the small part of the world I have control over, instead of wasting energy judging things I have no control over, because that's a conditioned response to unpleasant thoughts.

I hope that helps.

FWIW I did go through a 'dark night of the soul' period. It lasted a few years, and my life got noticeably worse, but eventually I stopped believing everything I thought, and focused on repairing my life, and now it's much better than it ever was.

If meditation brings up dark or horrible thoughts - for me those were there all along, but I was just not paying attention because I constantly thought about getting rich, or politics, or starting a company, or p vs np, or whatever other abstractions i was into that day.

<comment><USER26> Would you be able to go into what your 'dark night of the soul' period entailed?

<comment><USER25> A drug addiction and struggle with mental illness (bipolar) ran through it.

I was starting to understand emotion, and I felt like the world was based on lies. I knew I was different from everyone else but couldn't figure out how exactly. I identified more with the idea of being an AI than with being fully human.

[http://noisebloom.tumblr.com](http://noisebloom.tumblr.com)

I expressed some of this on Tumblr of all places. I haven't touched this since the end of that whole process: I was hospitalized 5 times in a year and realized it was a matter of survival to fix my life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meditation can induce a psychoactive experience much like you can get with a chemical agent. just as you can go on a bad trip or experience religious ecstasy on a drug, you can induce a similar state through meditation. This is neither good nor bad. You just need discipline and an understanding of the risks.

<comment><USER28> In many respects deep meditative states resemble sensory deprivation. The majority of people find both calming, but hallucinations, altered states of consciousness and deeply unsettling experiences are possible in both cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> No mention of kundalini anywhere... Seems he went a bit deep too soon with no guidance. Electrical currents, spasms, sexual thoughts, digestive issues, etc. Classic kundalini symptoms.

Aypsite.org has some good info on it and how to avoid or deal with it.

<comment><USER29> In fact, to elaborate a bit, he mentions feeling a 'knot' in his lower belly. That sounds like swadhistana chakra, or what the Taoists call the Lower Dan Tien. That'd correlate with the sexual thoughts as well.

Normally the recommendations for this sort of thing is to back off, and to circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit. See Mantak Chia for details.

An interesting book I read years ago about this was "Path Notes of an American Ninja Master". Cheesy title, but pretty interesting as an alternative to Gopi Krishna. The author specifically addresses the 'Dark Night of the Soul' phenomenon and emphasises the importance of creating Good Feelings inside to smooth the process and to lessen the effects of the darker aspects...

<comment><USER30> As someone who practices Taoist meditation, Mantak Chia is meh. Got most his notoriety through sexual practices which are nearly insignificant in actual Taoism (religious or mountain). His school has also latched onto the MCO as some great achievement when most other lineages treat it as simply an energetic movement that happens while practicing.

Meditation, as with hallucinogens, if you or your family has a history of mental illness, tread carefully.

Sitting can be surprisingly hard work. It pushes the body through pain while introducing you to the limits of your mind. In any training, slow progression is very important. You wouldn't go to a body building competition with no lifting experience, why do people dive into 10 day retreats without years of experience?

<comment><USER29> > You wouldn't go to a body building competition with no lifting experience, > why do people dive into 10 day retreats without years of experience?

That's kind of the point though with highlighting MCO, especially if you read Gopi Krishna. Some people stumble upon things spontaneously before they're ready, and some just go off on their own focussing on the higher centres or overdo it (like 10-day retreats before they should). MCO for beginners is about opening the pathways to handle greater energy flows. Anyone writing books trying to educate the masses should focus on safety first, which he does.

He specifically calls out Kundalini yoga schools as only focussing on sending energy up, without safely describing how to bring it down. That's not my experience - the Kundalini yoga I learnt included the MCO but, as you say, didn't make a big deal of it. But, you know, Gopi Krishna again... you can never be too careful. Chia must have come across some schools that didn't mention keeping the tongue up and bringing energy down, or bringing in earth energy for balance.

I've found the Lesser Kan & Li - as taught by Chia - very effective (when I finally got it right), and haven't read about it anywhere else. Some say MCO is all you need.

My criticism of Mantak Chia is that he doesn't sufficiently emphasise single- pointedness, i.e. what others generally refer to as meditation. If you read his books you could come away with the impression that meditation is always active, always moving energy around.

That's why I prefer the aypsite approach - half chi kung/pranayama, half awareness with a mantra. It's much more balanced with an emphasis on going slowly and self-pacing. And the really interesting stuff happens in the stillness anyway...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I remember reading this when it came out, and noticing how it reflected some of my personal experiences.

I found that meditation unlocked some of my inner anxiety and I was experiencing frequent panic attacks when I wasn't meditating. I had to stop for months.

I have started again, mostly because I miss the benefits of meditation, but it is closer to what another poster labeled "comfort meditation." I still consider one of the longer retreats, but I don't know that I'm yet ready to face that again.

<comment><USER32> I never did meditation but did a few "retreats" into other countries to get away from everything and just have some time for myself. I had a similar experience where it made 'click' and suddenly I was a lot more aware of all the anxieties that I have and usually don't think about. It made everything else so insignificant that I feel I am constantly wasting my time with almost everything I do.

I still have it and not sure how to get rid of this feeling. At the same time I feel "good" that I "found myself". It made clear for me what I actually want in life. Now I treat things like a stable job, work and a salary are just temporary and intermediate steps to reach my actual goals.

Getting reminded about these things with a scary anxiety attack is indeed not nice but I learned to "use it" to my advantage as good as I can.

At the same time I need to keep myself busy to not get reminded about it too much.

Again, still no idea how to "solve" this problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I certainly had heard about this aspect of deep meditation and that it is in many cases a stopping point for many serious practitioners. I like that the article touches on the search within esoteric religious practices of dark experiences.

<comment><USER34> I didn't read the article totally but this experience seems to be a result of incorrect practice. Just meditation without mastering the previous steps of Ashtanga Yoga is not advisable. Yes - you can use it but not as the main vehicle for your practice. I meditate daily - between 1/2 hr to an hour. I do not have the time to spend doing it for hours at a stretch. I do not think I have the temperament to do it either. Forcing myself to do it for hours on end is repressive - the focus and concentration should come about naturally. Even then a highly contemplative practice is not recommended without the close and personal guidance of a Teacher (or Guru).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I practice mindfulness meditation and the way it has always been taught to me is to simply sit and observe without judgement. That is, don't actively try to push away thoughts. Simply acknowledge them as they arise, and return your focus to breathing in and out. Forcing away thoughts is just another way of engaging ego -- you get caught up trying to get somewhere rather than simply being in the moment.

One of my favorite descriptions is by Alan Watts, called "listening meditation":

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c)

</comment><comment><USER36> I meditate daily, and I'm part of a community that encourages it, but only _after_ a thorough process of mental housecleaning. If you're full of un- dealt-with bitterness, anxiety, resentment, guilt, restlessness, shame, etc.—to say nothing of untreated mental illness or trauma—yeah, meditation is going to be a supremely unpleasant experience. Shutting out all distractions is only comfortable if you haven't been using those distractions to keep from having to deal with life.

</comment><comment><USER37> > He panicked. Increasingly vivid pornographic fantasies and repressed > memories from his childhood began to surface.

As someone with Aphantasia, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.

</comment><comment><USER38> Adverse outcomes of meditation practices described in the article covered a range of disorders, e.g., depression, panic attacks, possibly frank psychosis. These conditions are familiar to psychiatrists and not rare, guessing something like <=5% of the whole population have a serious form of such conditions.

We know that assigning _a singular cause_ of psychiatric disorders is spurious since all major conditions have been connected to multiple genetic, social and environmental factors.

It's certainly conceivable that meditation could _precipitate_ an episode of a psychiatric disorder, and of course it is mostly impossible to say if or when the condition would have emerged otherwise.

IOW the apparent sequential onset of psychiatric symptoms could be just chance occurrence reflecting the general population prevalence, or there might be a genuine causal effect of the preceding meditation event. Logically, at this time there's as much basis to assert meditation "caused" the condition as asserting meditation did not cause it. Until a lot more information is available, the relation remains indeterminate, or undefined.

It's a good principle (and the safest course) to hold that any/all spiritual practices or psychiatric treatments have risk of bad outcomes. No "prescription" is going to be good for everyone.

The idea that meditation and psychotherapy have overlapping risk potential is compelling. Haven't looked into to it yet, but definitely worth finding out what if any studies have been done.

Along those lines there's a just-published meta-analysis re: outcome of treatment for depression with CBT or medication. With both treatments, ~5-7% of subjects had at least some "deterioration" of their condition, and those with the greatest pre-treatment symptoms had the worst outcomes. [0]

While the domains are only partially congruent, 5% is probably a good initial guess concerning the probability of mild or greater adverse effect of meditation, IIRC corresponding to ~2 SD from the mean. I didn't see any references in the article to publications by the researchers profiled, but I'd imagine they'd have some data that sheds light on the prevalence of the outcomes they're studying.

[0] Vittengl JR, Jarrett RB, Weitz E, et. al. _" Divergent Outcomes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Pharmacotherapy for Adult Depression."_ [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+depression+CBT+pharmacotherapy)

</comment><comment> rainy-day I would also add that meditation is a bit tricky in the sense that it increases awareness of what's there - and what's there may be good or bad, but increased awareness is a better gift than merely good or bad things. Noticing more things means I'm not as locked in to my obliviousness. It's paradoxial but having a bad meditation is often beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER39> Apart from mental illness, perhaps some practitioners of deep meditation have simply trained their brains to disconnect from physical reality and not align with the physical and emotional stimulus that keeps thoughts "normal"

</comment><comment><USER30> The title is wrong on the linked page. It says The Dark Knight of the Soul and everywhere else in the article refers to it as the Dark Night. I do appreciate the Batman of the Soul though.

<comment><USER40> I'm quite sure that was intentional. They're going for the double entendre (not Batman, but the notion of a force of darkness)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not at all convincing. I have been meditating for more than 10 years and it has always been an exhilarating experience. The author is trying to make up a story, it seems.

<comment><USER15> Anecdote, just like lots of people have great times with psychedelics. If you search you'll see "some" stories of people suffering derealization/depersonalization after going on a meditation retreat, for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> _There was stuff dropping away … [and] electric shocks through my body. [My] core sense of self, a persistent consciousness, the thoughts and stuff, were not me. "_

This sounds to me like the beginnings of psychosis. I don't doubt that these feelings could be induced by meditation, but I do doubt that they would not have emerged in some other way.

</comment><comment><USER42> Sounds like he just got older.

</comment><comment><USER43> 2014

<comment><USER43> What possible reason was there for downvoting this? I was pointing out that its an old story and should be noted in the title as per hn custom.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for Javascript, CSS, and image dependency management? - <AUTHOR>

Past a certain point of complexity, it becomes desirable to have a framework to manage all the various JS, CSS and image files that one uses into "modules" of functionality, some of which might even be loaded on-demand from the client.
If you have this problem, how do you solve it? Do you use a framework like YUI? Something else?
What in your opinion is a must-have for such a framework? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I understand the question. Some javascript files depend on functions provided in others, but what are CSS and image dependencies? Are you referring to stylesheets that specify image backgrounds?

<comment><AUTHOR> CSS files that need images are an example of this, yes, but the browser handles that anyway (you might want to preload it, for efficiency, though).

For example, imagine a user profile page on a social network.

The page might come preloaded with a Javascript widgets that you use all over your site, like a common interface element to hide and expand content. These widgets might demand some base Javascript libraries, as well as their own CSS classes and images.

Then, if the user wants to edit their hometown, we might want to load a map widget. Since this is a rare thing, we didn't include it in the page, but we decided to load it on demand. Once again we might load a lot of base JS, CSS or images.

Now, obviously this is all possible by inserting each dependency manually. But when your site gets really big and dependencies get very complicated, one wants to be able to say to a framework "hey, framework, go make sure this page has everything it needs for hide/expand widgets". Or, "hey framework, the user just clicked 'edit hometown', so now we need everything required for map widgets".

<comment><USER2> I think I see what you're getting at. I don't know, I usually just pack everything into a single minimized javascript file and include that on every page. It may take longer for the user's browser to download the first time, but then it's cached on their machine for every page when they're browsing and when they return several days later.</comment></comment></comment>


Edit and Continue (Visual C#) - <AUTHOR> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x17d7wxw.aspx <comment><USER2> That's one of manifold reasons Visual Studio's the best professional application development environment.</comment>


Ask HN: Other examples of "standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants" tools? - <AUTHOR> I know this is probably too broad of a topic, but there are some great tools out there that allow one to use solutions created by experts, to build something new without actually possessing expert knowledge in that topic.<p>Some examples are:<p>* LLVM: you can build a programming language that compiles to LLVM IR — and get all the optimizations for free.<p>* SAT solvers — convert your NP-hard problem to SAT and run a SAT solver on it.<p>* Boehm(-Demers-Weiser) garbage collector — collect garbage without actually explicitly writing any garbage collecting logic. <comment><USER2> Honestly feel like most software we use fits this description. Programming languages, libraries, operating systems, drivers. Feels like you'd have a harder time naming software that doesn't fit this description than that which does.

</comment><comment><USER3> Plenty: SQL databases, spreadsheet software, CRUD application builders such as Ruby on Rails, pretty much every dependency management tool and the libraries those provide through public repositories ...

</comment><comment><USER4> Operating systems, VMs, programming language interpreters, compilers, and code libraries.

Oh, and the computers all that stuff and the the things you build by tying them together run on.

Just for starters.</comment>


Kirk Sorensen on energy from Thorium - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/energy-policy/if-thorium-good-enough-moon-its-good-enough-earth.html

<comment><USER2> although it's already on the 4th page of HN's newest submissions, I find it extremely interesting and worth spending a couple of hours.</comment>


What really happened at Volkswagen - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21722818-why-emissions-scandal-still-hangs-over-german-carmaker-what-really-happened-vw?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/thevolkswagenscandalwhatreallyhappenedatvw <comment><USER2> Regarding the other comments here: this is a book review, not a general analysis of emissions cheating.

I am about halfway through the book right now (so far, very highly recommended).

There is a lot more in the book than is captured in this review. VW's history is extremely interesting, and the company has unique organizational aspects (even by German standards).

And related, an excellent, detailed technical summary of cheating implementations, including the historical evolution across manufacturers: [https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel- sp17.pdf](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf)

<comment><USER3> "Unique" is very right: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "autocratic" management style seems to be the biggest cause of this issue. I'd be surprised if members of upper management didn't have a sense of what's going on.

It reminds me of the events leading NASA Challenger disaster. The engineers and lower management employees were totally ignored by upper management in that scenario.

Though, I should mention, I haven't read any books about the VW scandal yet.

<comment><USER5> _The "autocratic" management style seems to be the biggest cause of this issue._

Unclear. The author of the book takes that position. The author seems to be hostile to worker ownership or state ownership.

Companies with multiple classes of stock to deprive the stockholders of voting control can have a much worse autocratic leader problem. Google and Facebook are set up that way, of course. Here's the list of the 28 S&P 500 companies with restricted voting rights.[1] As a group, they underperform the full S&P 500. Some of those companies that aren't doing well face shareholder litigation. Viacom's minority shareholders did manage to get rid of Sumner Redstone, but he was 93 and really had to go.

For many decades, no big company did this, because the NYSE didn't allow such companies to be listed. (Except for Ford and Hershey, which predated that rule; they were grandfathered in.) It's still rare, but now companies can get away with it.

[1] [https://s.thestreet.com/files/tsc/v2008/photos/contrib/uploa...](https://s.thestreet.com/files/tsc/v2008/photos/contrib/uploads/a982bf14-396f-11e6-8a30-933f82343784.JPG)

<comment><USER6> I wonder if there is a dropoff in returns for companies with voting control. Google and FB have been pretty good in their early years so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Like VW is the only company that cheated on emissions? Fiat Chrysler, Daimler, GM, Mitsubishi, Renault, and the list keeps growing. The interesting story is why the whole industry is allowed to get away with cheating. And it's got nothing to do with Hitler.

<comment><USER8> In fairness, the violations in the other cases I've seen (and I admit I haven't paid all that close attention) seem to be much more marginal.

<comment><USER9> There was a program on national French TV almost a full year before VW case blew up, they tested PSA, Renault and Fiat cars and _every single one_ was several times above the norm.

also [http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/reuters-america- update-1-fren...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/reuters-america- update-1-french-prosecutors-open-peugeot-diesel-cheating-probe.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The first couple paragraphs is light-on-facts shade throwing. I didn't read the rest. My first impression was not one of even-handed journalism.

<comment><USER11> what the hell is "throwing shade"? I've seen this expression crop up everywhere but literally only in the past few months. Is it new? Recent surge in popularity? What is this.

<comment><USER12> Gimlet Media's "Reply All" podcast has a fascinating episode partially devoted to the etymology of "yass", "throwing shade" and other phrases: [https://gimletmedia.com/episode/69-disappeared/](https://gimletmedia.com/episode/69-disappeared/)

<comment><USER11> thanks. I listened to the relevant part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I first heard about the cheating I saw VW engineers (both management and practitioners) as totally at fault. I thought they were directly detecting that the vehicle was undergoing a test and modifying the engine computer in response. I later found out they were changing the computer algorithm only when the inputs to the throttle and gearshift matched the test protocol. To me this seems like a legitimate way to "cheat." They are using TDD and are passing the test. The test writers should have thrown in a secret or random test as well as the pre-defined tests.

<comment><USER14> Laws don't work that way

<comment><USER13> In this case the law is written precisely like a unit test:

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTP-75](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTP-75)

The problem with the testing is that it also followed the exact same unit test. I have not read the law, but they certainly violated the spirit of the law if not also the letter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> FTA :

>>> He delves into VW's origins, when Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of a "people's car", or Volkswagen in German. VW set up shop in the German countryside. Wolfsburg bred a "headquarters mentality" that insulated the firm from outside influence. Unprecedented union power, handed over in the 1960s as the price the federal government paid for floating the firm on the stockmarket, and the sway of the state of Lower Saxony, which retained a 20% voting stake in the company, gave outside shareholders little say.

So basically, union power and government involvement (and lack of private investors) lead to cheating ?

come on...

<comment><USER16> no, it's in your quote, Hitler did it /s

that's just some comtext blurb, you're extrapolating too much out of it

<comment><USER15> >>>> Unprecedented union power, handed over in the 1960s as the price the federal government paid for floating the firm on the stockmarket

Unless I'm missing something, this is roughly 15 years after Hitler disappeared. Or my english skills are truly fading away :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh no, another VW hit piece, attacking the biggest US competitor.

It is definitely NOT what really happened with the emissions scandal, as it omits the most important facts, how this cheating scandals began, and how it spread out.

The first emission cheating scandals happened with US carmakers, then the US and EU emission testing laws deviated, allowing the US to cheat with their drivers, giving national carmakers the advantage, whilst EU and Asia committed to reproducible tests. But only on one model out of R&D, and not every single engine coming out of production. And then of course the tricks began to detect the tests, probably at Audi (certainly not VW), with Bosch being the one who needs to take the blame. They implemented it. Then many others detected the same tricks, and either used the sophisticated cycle detection in the Bosch ECU or used simplier timers. In the last list I saw 50% of all tested engines cheated with the NOx emissions, and VW was not even at the top of the numbers.

<comment><USER18> Hello! Just the other day I argued that the EU's new antitrust case against Google isn't economic nationalism, so allow me to even the score :)

VW's conduct both in implementing these cheats, as well as resisting the investigations into them (to this day!) was obviously, morally indefensible, and totally stupid. Health statistics put the most likely number of premature deaths caused by it somewhere in the 4-digits, in the US alone.

The absolute amount of the fine must have punitive component large enough to make it obvious that such crimes don't pay. At the same time, it wold have been unconscientious to level a fine that would bankrupt VW. I believe the US did a pretty good job.

It also shows a deep misunderstanding of the processes by which the Federal Government works. These fines are not determined by some Trump-like egomaniac impulsively acting on his emotions. Nor is the EPA known to be a fan club of US car manufacturers.

Why only VW? It's quite easy: these manipulations are really only relevant to Diesel engines, which for some reason became a fetish for manufacturers in Germany only. VW sells more Diesel cars in the US than all other companies together.

<comment><USER17> Whow, so many mistakes.

"VW's conduct both in implementing these cheats": No Bosch implemented these cheats. If there was help or demand from outside, it was Audi, not VW.

"Why only VW? VW sells more Diesel cars in the US than all other companies together."

The fines should be on all manifacturers of the cheaters. From the list of the affected engines I see not a single one being targeted. The relevant VW engines are all manifactured by Audi, the relevant cheats were manifactured by Bosch, the other relevant cheaters involve everyone: Audi, Daimler, BMW, Skoda, Volvo, VW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Citroen, Mazda, Peugeot, Hyundai, KIA, Toyota, Ssangyong, Infinity, Fiat, Ford, Mitshubishi, Seat, Vauxhall, Chevrolet, Dacia, Honda, Nissan, MG, Porsche, Renault, ... you name it. [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/23/diesel- cars...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/23/diesel-cars- pollution-limits-nox-emissions)

Only those 7 diesel cars meet the Euro 6 NOx limits, the other 97% not.

      * Audi	A5	2014
      * BMW	3 Series	2013
      * Skoda	Superb	2016
      * Volkswagen	Golf SV	2015
      * Volkswagen	Passat	2016
      * Volkswagen	Scirocco 2015
      * Volkswagen	Touran	2016

Note that this mostly consists of VW cars meeting the limits, all others not. A good technical overview is summarized here: [http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT...](http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_NOx- control-tech_09032015.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>