U.S. Supreme Court endorses gay, transgender worker protections - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-lgbt-idUSKBN23M20N <comment><USER2> A better title would be "Supreme Court holds that Title VII prohibits gay, transgender employment discrimination."

Titles like these make people think that the Supreme Court is "endorsing" or "rejecting" gay and transgender worker protections. But the difference between the majority and minority here wasn't about "should we have a law protecting gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination?" It was "do we _already have a law_ protecting gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination." The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Gorsuch—a dedicated textualist—said that such discrimination violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act's prohibition on discrimination "because of sex." I happen to agree, being in the camp that believes "the law says what it says, not want Congress wanted it to mean." But it's important to understand that the upshot of this decision is that "Congress, in 1964, already prohibited employment discrimination against gay and transgender people." That's a pretty remarkable outcome!

In one of the appellate decisions leading up to this, Judge Lynch of the Second Circuit dissented, agreeing with the positions that Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas would take, that Title VII does not protect gay and transgender workers. He's an Obama appointee, born in Brooklyn. His take: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/us/gay-transgender- worker...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/us/gay-transgender-workers- supreme-court.html)

> "Speaking solely as a citizen," he wrote, "I would be delighted to awake one > morning and learn that Congress had just passed legislation adding sexual > orientation to the list of grounds of employment discrimination prohibited > under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I am confident that one day > — and I hope that day comes soon — I will have that pleasure."

> "I would be equally pleased to awake to learn that Congress had secretly > passed such legislation more than a half-century ago — until I actually woke > up and realized that I must have been still asleep and dreaming," Judge > Lynch wrote. "Because we all know that Congress did no such thing."

<comment><USER3> > I happen to agree with Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion (the existing law > already covers such discrimination, in view of the text and existing > judicial gloss on the text).

Could you expand on this a bit? I'm genuinely asking. The article sums up the contention pretty well:

> The legal fight focused on the definition of "sex" in Title VII. The > plaintiffs, along with civil rights groups and many large companies, had > argued that discriminating against gay and transgender workers was > inherently based on their sex and consequently was illegal.

At first glance, I think I agree with Judge Lynch. Its great that these protections extend to more people, but I think the argument is tenuous. A gay man and a straight man have the same sex, so discrimination against the gay man is not really based on sex, but on sexual orientation.

And, as I understand it, the difference between sex and gender is very important to transgender people. Biological sex != the gender you identify as, that's why we say trans_gender_ and not trans_sex_ . How does a MTF trans person who has not undergone surgery / hormone treatment / sex change answer if asked what her sex is? Again, genuine question.

I guess this is a "spirit of the law" situation, where "sex" doesn't just mean "sex", but all sex /gender/orientation/ groupings of people.

Personally, I think it would have been ideal to amend the law and explicitly add gay / transgender people as a protected class. This avoids the possibility of another case in a few years overturning this one. But the current congress would never write such a law.

<comment><USER2> Title VII prohibits employment discrimination against someone "because of" their "sex." Supreme Court precedent holds that this phrase includes discriminating against someone for not conforming to sex stereotypes. For example, in _Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins_ the Court held that it was Title VII discrimination to fire a woman because she had masculine behaviors. She wasn't fired because she was a woman, but because she was a woman who did not conform to stereotypes and norms applicable to women.

In view of that precedent, Title VII can be seen to prohibit sexual orientation and sex discrimination. You can't fire a man for failing to conform to the male norm of dating women. You likewise can't fire someone whose sex is male, but whose gender identity is female (i.e. she does not conform to the gender expression expected of biological men).

<comment><USER3> That makes a ton of sense, the precedent about sex stereotypes was the missing piece for me. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Also, In the article I believe the reasoning is outlined that given you wouldn't fire a woman for dating a man, then firing a man for dating a man is discriminating on he basis of sex. The behavior alone isn't objectionable, it's only when sex comes into play that you start discriminating which cases are ok and which aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's the decision: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

The dissenters basically believe that "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." doesn't include "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" so legislation would need to be passed to change that.

<comment><USER6> >race, color, religion, sex, nationality

Wouldn't it be more effective for the law to say that any discrimination that doesn't affect a person's ability to perform the job is not allowed?

When you start itemizing specific traits it's a never-ending list. For example, the list quoted doesn't include eye color or hair color, or spoken language dialect, or ...

<comment><USER7> Playing Devil's advocate, let's imagine I pour my life savings into opening up a fruit stand, it does well I move to a fruit store that is popular and everyone loves, at this point everything has been bought with my personal funds, it is basically my property, I run it as a sole proprietorship instead of an LLC, I hire people, but ultimately everything is bought paid for and owned by me.

I also happen to hate people with purple hair and decide to ban them from my property and refuse to service to them. Now this is my store and property that I own, these are my goods that I sell. Why should the government be able to legally control what I choose to do with my property and my goods, if I want to pour them into a sewer, or set them on fire should I not be allowed to do that? So why should the government force me to sell them to people I do not want to?

So the reasoning behind carving out every specific protection revolves around the idea that there should be a good reason for the government to control what I do with my private property, as it extends to reducing my liberty to do with my property what I want, and now becomes a matter of balancing various parts of the implicit social contract.

Whether or not this is justified or which side is right is a different discussion but that is why each exception needs to be carved out as I understand it.

<comment><USER8> You're absolutely allowed to discriminate based on hair color because it's not a protected class.

As a society we have decided that discriminating on some things is abhorrent (race, et al), and other things is not (hair and eye color).

<comment><USER9> > " _You 're absolutely allowed to discriminate based on hair color because > it's not a protected class._"

The "not a protected class" counterargument is self-defeating because it suggests that discrimination was A-OK before that protected class was created by law. If illegality does not imply immorality, as is often said on HN, then conversely legality does not imply morality.

<comment><USER10> That's the inverse, not the converse, and if we're talking about propositional logic it is _not_ implied by the original statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want a good tech example of how courts evolve the definition of phrases as society evolves, you need look no farther than the word "eavesdropping." We use that word all the time today, but why do we call it that? When towns started to give way to cities, the spacing between houses began to shrink to the point where rain could cause water to spill off the roof of one house onto their neighbors property, a process that was called eaves dropping because the water dropped off the eaves of the roofs. Who owned that water and who was liable for the damages it might cause became a thing courts needed to address. That English common law decision, that courts could adjudicate the ownership of and damages caused by things that unintentionally pierced property boundaries "because water" is today the legal basis for a broad class of infosec law that we think of as eavesdropping law.

EDIT: HN won't let me respond to the question below on sources. This comes from a physical copy of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica, which has Eavesdropping as an entry and only discusses the water dropping off roofs meaning, strongly suggesting that our modern use of the term had not become common by that point.

<comment><USER12> > example of how courts evolve the definition of phrases as society evolves

They haven't evolved anything. Please read the court's opinion, the logic they use to describe why "sex" from Title VII isn't divisible ("but for" test) from LGBT rights is extremely difficult to refute.

Nothing has "evolved." They're arguing that you cannot descriminate against LGBT people without ALSO descriminating against someone's sex, which is unlawful. Even the dissenters weren't really able to poke holes in that logic, instead ignoring the whole issue of how someone's sex determines if they'd get decriminated against in some circumstances and not others (e.g. employers banning being married to a women is only "banned" for one gender and not the other, making it sexual descrimination).

They give numerous examples and go into great detail about why it is just sexual descrimination with extra steps, exactly like Title VII was expressly designed to outlaw.

<comment><USER13> The civil rights act has been on the books for 64 years; but has not been interpreted this way historically.

<comment><USER12> It has always been interpretted exactly this way.

The Civil Rights Act Title VII bans employment descrimination on the basis of sex, you cannot descriminate against an LGBT person without _also_ descriminating on the basis of sex.

All today's ruling did was clarify to the lower courts that sex descrimination with extra steps and obfustication is still sex descrimination. Being LGBT doesn't remove your rights not to be sexual descriminated against under Title VII.

Again, I implore people to read the actual court's opinion.

<comment><USER14> to play devil's advocate here, that argument breaks down for bisexual people. But I'm aware that the court's opinion actually handles this because of prior precedent holding it illegal to discriminate against gender norms.

<comment><USER15> I think this is the second time I've seen this sort of reply, and truthfully I don't understand? Why wouldn't the argument apply for bisexuals?

If someone fires you because you're bisexual, they've still committed sex discrimination: they fired you because you do not fully conform to gender stereotypes (the stereotype being that gender A dates gender B; and you as the employee may date A and B).

<comment><USER13> Consider a generic action FOO. Suppose Alice and Bob are identical in all respect except that Alice is female and Bob is male; and Alice is heterosexual.

Both Alice and Bob do FOO. If you let Alice do FOO, but fire Bob for doing FOO, you have commited sex discrimination, because you would not have fired Bob but for his sex. However, if you were to fire both Alice and Bob for doing FOO, then you are treating both males and females equally, so there is no discrimination based on sex.

In the case where Bob is homosexual, FOO=experiences attraction to men. When Alice does this, she is fine. When Bob does this, he gets fired. Bob was fired for being male.

In the case where Bob is bisexual, FOO=experiences attraction to men and women. Bob still gets fired, but this time Alice does not do FOO, so there is no comparison to base a sex discrimination case on. If Alice were to do FOO, she would be bisexual, and fired under the same policy that Bob was. Either way, there is no case here where a male and female do the same thing but get a different result.

<comment><USER15> Thank you! I think I understand what you're trying to say here, and it also clarifies why I found this response confusing.

I think this idea of a loophole is too caught up in _actions_ leading to discrimination; and also the specific setups of the tests that the Supreme Court laid out in their ruling.

There need not be a specific counter-example within an organization to compare against when determining if an action was discriminatory or not. And moreover they weren't really talking about "actions taken that are incongruous with sex stereotypes." My understanding of the ruling (after reading it) is that if an employer fired you for being gay/bisexual, even just for stating the fact that you are, that would still amount to discrimination based on sex stereotypes.

Then again, I'm sure finer legal minds than mine will find any such loopholes that do exist over the course of the next two years. >_<

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unfortunately it comes at the same time that the administration rolled back healthcare protections for transgender people. Must be terrifying for someone to make your basic humanity a political football. SCOTUS rulings are much more durable than executive actions though.

<comment><USER17> > Must be terrifying for someone to make your basic humanity a political > football.

Thank you, you worded it really well. A lot of us are just trying to live a quiet life with dignity. I work for a large company that considers itself progressive in these matters. Everybody with access to my background (HR, upper management) is constantly letting me know that "they know" about my background, they win awards for how well they treat me, and feel-good stuff like "they're with me". It's hell.

<comment><USER16> Ah but did you know how brave you are for existing? Imagine... I couldn't exist like _that_... but _you_? So brave... your courage... to just stand there and exist. Wow. I'm so inspired. I tell my wine tasting friends how brave all my lgbt coworkers are and i honestly feel like an honorary lgbt and i just tear up. _sniff_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The actual decision, BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA, is here [1]

[1] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

<comment><USER18> There are two dissents, one by Alito joined by Thomas, and one by Kavanaugh alone.

The Alito dissent is fairly straightforward -- Congress has tried to fix the language of the bill several times, but has been unsuccessful, indicating that the legislators have not universally agreed that this is how it should be applied. They claim that fixing this should be Congress's job, not the court's, and the attempts to amend it are clear indicators that Congress recognizes that the law does not current protect those classes.

> Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment > discrimination on any of five specified grounds: "race, color, religion, > sex, [and] national origin." 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a). Neither "sexual > orientation" nor "gender identity" appears on that list. For the past 45 > years, bills have been introduced in Congress to add "sexual orientation" to > the list,1 and in recent years, bills have included "gender identity" as > well. But to date, none has passed both Houses.

> Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend Title > VII by defining sex discrimination to include both "sexual orientation" and > "gender identity," H. R. 5, 116th Cong., 1st Sess. (2019), but the bill has > stalled in the Senate. An alternative bill, H. R. 5331, 116th Cong., 1st > Sess. (2019), would add similar prohibitions but contains provisions to > protect religious liberty. This bill remains before a House Subcommittee.

Kavanaugh makes a very similar argument, even citing the same attempts to amend, and I'm not sure why he didn't join.

> The Court has previously stated, and I fully agree, that gay and lesbian > Americans "cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity > and worth." ... But we are judges, not Members of Congress ... Our role is > not to make or amend the law. As written, Title VII does not prohibit > employment discrimination because of sexual orientation.

<comment><USER19> Worth noting Thomas' dissent is very consistent with his dissent in Texas V Lawrence, where he explicitly says that if he were a texas legislator he would vote to strike down the anti-sodomy laws (as he believes they are bad laws) but he doesn't believe it's the SCOTUS' role to do so.

<comment><USER20> And yet decidedly inconsistent with his reputation of being a textualist, since he appears to take into consideration the intention drafters of the law by looking at other attempts to amend it. He does not appear to address in his dissent the meaning of the text itself beyond pointing out an omission that the Majority opinion addresses explicitly (though somewhat contradictorily).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Dissenting opinions start at page 38: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

<comment><USER22> Kavanaugh's separate dissent at 145.

<comment><USER23> tldr...

Kav: "Sex" is not the same as "sexual orientation".

Majority: Close enough.

...but Kav makes some solid points. 50 out of 50 didn't equate the two. ...so in a real sense, the Supreme Court is making law - not really _interpreting_ law.

...and that is a big long term danger to the separation of power.

<comment><USER15> Having read the opinion and dissents, I heartily disagree that Kavanaugh made solid points. Nor Alito, for that matter.

> "Sex" is not the same as "sexual orientation".

This is the crucial point. Alito and Kavanaugh imagine a world where you can discriminate against sexual orientation while somehow _not_ considering a person's sex. I don't see how that is possible.

If you know that someone is gay, or lesbian - and then discriminate against "sexual orientation," you can't say that sex didn't play a part: sexual orientation is inextricably linked to sex and gender. It's kinda the whole point. And in this case you _know_ that a man, or woman, is attracted to men, or women (or both, really). Sex isn't something to wave away at that point, it's a known fact and the discrimination seems obvious.

But even in the extreme hypothetical of "discriminating against homosexuality while somehow not knowing the sex or gender of the people involved" still commits sex discrimination: it then shifts to the "stereotypes" interpretation, which has been held to be discriminatory under quite a lot of case law at this point. In this world, you've discriminated because you know that a homosexual person has attraction towards someone of the same sex/gender. You don't know _what_ sex, but you know it's _about_ sex. And that's why it falls under sex discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Related question for discussion: Do you believe dress codes that have different standards for men and women should be outlawed? For example, if a man wants to "cross-dress" at work in front of clients and complies with the female dress code it follows from the reasoning of this ruling he should be allowed to.

<comment><USER25> Their logic of "imagine a person doing X (say... being attracted to a male) if you'd punish a male for it but not a female that's sex discrimination" is going to open up whole new world of equality/discrimination lawsuits.

Sex based bathrooms for example are now discrimination under this logic.

<comment><USER26> There's nothing legally stopping someone from using whichever restroom they want in most states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > 6-3 ruling represented the biggest moment for LGBT rights

Why did 3 vote against? Is there an explanation for their reasoning?

<comment><USER28> Yes, they'll have written a dissent that will be published alongside the majority opinion. I'm looking for it now, but since Reuters didn't bother to name the case, that's more complicated than it might be.

 _edit:_ Found it: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

Kavanaugh's dissent (p. 145ff.) appears to revolve around it being not the proper province of the Supreme Court to decide the extent of Title VII, which, IANAL but that seems like a weak dodge. The whole _point_ of the Supreme Court is to finally decide among competing interpretations of extant legislation.

Alito's and Thomas's dissent (pp. 38-144) appears to rely on the same strict- constructionist interpretation. Its Appendix A cites a stack of dictionaries. So there's that, I guess. Appendix D is an application for employment in the US armed forces. Presumably the body of the dissent explains what this is meant to prove, although I doubt I would feel myself enlightened for the effort of going back and finding that exegesis.

<comment><USER29> The majority opinion and dissents are rich sources of insight as to how the law in question will be applied as to how the decision could affect precedent in the future so I agree that the least the journalists could do is name the case so those of us who want to go to the source can look it up.

For example, the "legalization of gay marriage" case from a few years back contained phrases and platitudes about "love not being illegal" but the crux of the decision came down to the majority's opinion that a license issued in one state shouldn't be rejected in another. It didn't specify MARRIAGE license... which immediately made me comment to co-workers that in addition to requiring marriage licenses issued in any state had to be recognized in all 50 states, logically this ruling also stipulated that a concealed carry permit issued in any state would have to be recognized even in states that didn't issue concealed carry permits (Illinois at the time) as well as states in which it's very hard to get them (New York and California). To my knowledge, nobody has tested this by getting arrested in such a jurisdiction with such laws and challenging it citing Obergefell v. Hodges.

<comment><USER30> Would this further extend to fishing or hunting licenses?

I think I one could say that fishing or hunting licenses only apply to certain locations - you are only able to use methods X in location Y. This out of state the license is valid but not useful.

Then the question is whether gun license is more like a marriage licet or a hunting license.

<comment><USER31> Well a marriage license is not actually a document certifying that you are married, it is a document granting you the right to get married _in the state_ that issued it. You can't get a marriage license in Indiana and use it to get married in Illinois.

Once you do get married, though, the marriage itself becomes a public record of the state that would be protected under the Full Faith & Credit clause. But as I mentioned in my previous comment, Obergefell v. Hodges had absolutely nothing to do with marriage licensing and states recognizing each other's licenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There appears to be something of a contradiction in the majority opinion:

From page 2: "Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren't thinking about many of the Act's consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. _But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands._ "

Then later, on page 4:

"The employers also stress that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex, and that if Congress wanted to address these matters in Title VII, it would have referenced them specifically. _But when Congress chooses not to include any exceptions to a broad rule, this Court applies the broad rule._ "

The Majority refuses to limit the scope of Title VII simply because the drafters did not consider gay and trans workers when they made the law, and also penalizes those same drafters for not creating exceptions for individuals they lacked the imagination to think of to start with.

<comment><USER15> It's less contradictory in my mind if I don't frame it as "penalizing" the drafters of Title 7. To me - especially when read together - it says "Congress gives us no choice but to apply the law in a broad fashion, because they explicitly chose not to limit it; and it's not our fault if this results in unintended consequences." With an implied wink and a nudge to Congress saying "you can fix this if you're really all that bothered, you know." :)

Or maybe put another way: sure, they didn't and couldn't possibly have listed all exceptions to the law. But they didn't really try; rather they listed one exception for everything (churches, basically) and didn't bother with _any_ other exceptions. And in light of that, the court didn't consider it appropriate to read in exceptions when Congress _very_ clearly wrote an extremely broad law. Essentially Congress gave no signal it _wasn't_ supposed to be broad.

<comment><USER20> Agreed, this is a better framing, especially when you consider the tense of the word "Choose": "Congress _chooses_ to leave this in place without exceptions," which is in line with textualism / separation of powers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> From [https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-rules-for-gay- rig...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-rules-for-gay-rights-in- the-workplace-11592230310):

> "'Sex,' 'sexual orientation,' and 'gender identity,' are different > concepts," Justice Alito wrote, observing that repeated efforts to > explicitly add the latter terms to Title VII have died in Congress. During > debates over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, no member of Congress "said one word > about the possibility that the prohibition of sex discrimination might have > that meaning. Instead, all the debate concerned discrimination on the basis > of biological sex," Justice Alito wrote.

I don't see how the justices who supported this decision can possibly claim that the word 'sex', which has a specific definition that was even more rigid in the 60s, can somehow include 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity' which are entirely different concepts. This does seem like legislation by Supreme Court.

<comment><USER33> They are not saying that. Say you have two employees:

      * Person A is male and has a wife.
      * Person B is female and has a wife.

If you fire person B because of her sexual orientation, you are treating her differently then person A, when the only difference is her sex.

I think the dissent does a good job showing the flaws in that argument, but it's better then you're giving it credit for. The flaw is that you could ask on a hiring form:

      Are you [ ] homosexual [ ] heterosexual [ ] other.

If they answer homosexual and you fail to hire them, you don't even know their sex - so you can't possibly be treating men and women differently.

<comment><USER34> For completeness, I'll quote the majority's counterargument to that thought experiment:

> Change the hypothetical ever so slightly and its flaws become apparent. > Suppose an employer's application form offered a single box to check if the > applicant is either black or Catholic. If the employer refuses to hire > anyone who checks that box, would we conclude the employer has complied with > Title VII, so long as it studiously avoids learning any particular > applicant's race or religion? Of course not: By intentionally setting out a > rule that makes hiring turn on race or religion, the employer violates the > law, whatever he might know or not know about individual applicants.

> The same holds here. There is no way for an applicant to decide whether to > check the homosexual or transgender box without considering sex. [...] Any > way you slice it, the employer intentionally refuses to hire applicants in > part because of the affected individuals' sex, even if it never learns any > applicant's sex.

<comment><USER33> Alito did respond to this too. As he says, if they check a box saying they are black or Catholic, presumably they are one or the other. But checking a box saying you are homosexual doesn't give any information about your sex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Political affiliation otoh, which in every other western democracy with anti- discrimination laws usually goes right alongside religion remains an unprotected category in the US

</comment><comment><USER36> For all the legalese that occurs inside a courtroom, SCOTUS decisions are surprisingly accessible. The beginning of the opinion is a lovely bit of prose:

> Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives > practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation > rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, > Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, > color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an > employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The > answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or > transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have > questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and > undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

> Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work > would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren't thinking about > many of the Act's consequences that have become apparent over the years, > including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood > or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the > drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. When the > express terms of a statute give us one answer and extra-textual > considerations suggest another, it's no contest. Only the written word is > the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

Continuing:

> From the ordinary public meaning of the statute's language at the time of > the law's adoption, a straightforward rule emerges: An employer violates > Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part > on sex. It doesn't matter if other factors besides the plaintiff 's sex > contributed to the decision. And it doesn't matter if the employer treated > women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. If the employer > intentionally relies in part on an individual employee's sex when deciding > to discharge the employee—put differently, if changing the employee's sex > would have yielded a different choice by the employer—a statutory violation > has occurred. Title VII's message is "simple but momentous": An individual > employee's sex is "not relevant to the selection, evaluation, or > compensation of employees." _Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins_ , 490 U. S. 228, > 239 (1989) (plurality opinion).

> The statute's message for our cases is equally simple and momentous: An > individual's homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to > employment decisions. That's because it is impossible to discriminate > against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating > against that individual based on sex. Consider, for example, an employer > with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals > are, to the employer's mind, materially identical in all respects, except > that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male > employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the > employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his > female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an > employee to fire based in part on the employee's sex, and the affected > employee's sex is a but-for cause of his discharge. Or take an employer who > fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now > identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical > employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally > penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it > tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the > individual employee's sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in > the discharge decision.

> That distinguishes these cases from countless others where Title VII has > nothing to say. Take an employer who fires a female employee for tardiness > or incompetence or simply supporting the wrong sports team. Assuming the > employer would not have tolerated the same trait in a man, Title VII stands > silent. But unlike any of these other traits or actions, homosexuality and > transgender status are inextricably bound up with sex. Not because > homosexuality or transgender status are related to sex in some vague sense > or because discrimination on these bases has some disparate impact on one > sex or another, but because to discriminate on these grounds requires an > employer to intentionally treat individual employees differently because of > their sex.

[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf)

<comment><USER18> It would seem that this argument (as summarised here) would make it illegal to discriminate based on any behavior or characteristics that would not be problematic were the parameters to be changed.

So speaking with an offensive caricature of an Italian accent or wearing makeup intended for individuals with a different skin tone could potentially be acceptable under this standard. Or we would have to see a strong reversal in tolerance for in-group people using terms that would be interpreted as slurs were someone not in that group to use them.

I hope that the Congress will move to pass legislation explicitly adding protections for sexual orientation and gender identity so that we don't have to suffer through any slippery slope related to this.

<comment><USER37> Fortunately, our written law isn't treated like computer code, and our judges are human interpreters and not bots.

I don't know if anyone is fighting for the right to speak in offensive accents or to wear blackface, but if someone did these things, got fired, and took it to court, I'd be surprised if the judges were unable to articulate the nuance between how these scenarios differ from firing a person for being gay.

<comment><USER18> I mean, obviously, yes, I agree -- the conditions are not even remotely parallel, and this decision is clearly just a case of the Supreme Court expanding a law in a direction that is _clearly_ the correct direction. They are acting here as legislators, fixing a bad law to be better, and the "logic" they use to justify it is clearly incorrect and not internally consistent, and is just a patina of justification around the decision to legislate from the bench.

We should be way more angry at our representatives in Congress who have refused to incorporate this language into the law than at the justices who oppose this opinion on what seem to me to be much more well-reasoned grounds that are unrelated to their opinions on the treatment of these classes of people.

Still, expediency here counts for something, and in the end this is a positive move with tangible gains in the near term.

<comment><USER37> I actually agree with all of this, though it probably doesn't frustrate me as much. The courts are supposed to be a check on the legislature after all. Democracy can be two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner. The courts are supposed to prevent this tyranny of the majority, and protect the rights of individuals. This decision, to me, is a perfect example of that process working exactly as the founders intended when they set up the three branches of government.

I'm reminded a bit of the gay marriage debacle in the late aughts. At the time, people were arguing that we should just strike the word "marriage" from all our laws, and replace it with "domestic partnership". Let "marriage" be a purely religious term, a process that happens in whatever church someone happens to attend, then everyone would be happy (theoretically). In actuality, the legislators arguing against gay marriage weren't really arguing in good faith, and they very much wanted "marriage" defined, in law, as a relationship between a man and a woman. This stubbornness forced gay marriage advocates to go through the courts, which worked for a bit, until it didn't (Prop 8), until it did (Obergefell v. Hodges).

It's not ideal, but as long as the courts are on the side of protecting people from having their rights legislated away, I'm not tremendously bothered by these examples of legislating from the bench.

<comment><USER18> I think there's a solid point in this regard because when they rule on legislative issues (as opposed to constitutional) there is a remedy for the legislature to override if the interpreted behavior was not what the legislature wants (rather than just intended).

At this point, to reverse this, Republican (presumably) congressmen would have to actively introduce legislation excluding the protections for LGBT individuals, which would make it much more unpalatable than the current strategy of "dragging their feet" (as with gay marriage) to prevent the law from moving forward.

My only fear, probably unjustified, is that the logic and precedent used here can be used to generalize the protections in unexpected and undesirable ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The dissenters are just saying that they existing law doesn't cover gays and LGTB etc. Not that are against it. Meaning the court cannot make, but just interpret, laws, and so on.

But no doubt if the law was passed today it would include "sexual orientation"

</comment><comment><USER39> Lets not pretend that a company won't just point to some other reason to fire the person. Really what stops that with this ruling?

<comment><USER23> The same thing that is required for any court case in the protection of a protected class to proceed - evidence.

There are many such cases that are successful going on all the time.

Your comment is baseless cynicism.

<comment><USER39> I basically lost two good tech jobs back in the south because people started rumors about my sexuality. The gas lighting and harassment went on for over two years and has caused many psychological problems. Even now I think a recent job offer was lost after they contacted one of these previous employers.

As we should be aware, there is a big difference between making a rule and enforcing one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Should I interpret the fact that the majority opinion opposes the trump administration and was written by trump's appointee as the supreme court's way of putting trump in his place?

<comment><USER41> I'd interpret it as the supreme court isn't a political weapon to be used against or for a sitting president rather a tool to interpret law and the anti trump appointee stigma was baseless.

<comment><USER42> Gorsuch has broken rank w/Trump maybe twice. The only other one that comes to mind was a case concerning the property rights of Indigenous People. But that's still voting with him like 90% of the time. And I don't think Kavanaugh has _ever_ voted against Trump's interests yet. We know for a fact that both of them would very much like to overturn Roe v. Wade.

So no, I don't think it was "baseless".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think this is a good ruling both for the outcome and the logic behind it. I would still like to see a more general change in Title VII though: instead of listing categories (sex, race, etc) as if there is a single master list of groups deserving of protection, the rule should be Any factor that is beyond an individual's control AND is not relevant otherwise (not relevant to the job for employment questions). This would prevent this weird need to fit new groups into old categories while also continuing both the spirit of the original law and of freedom in general.

<comment><USER12> In your example you've managed to inadventantly weaken Title VII, not strengthen it.

Because "beyong an individual's control" would become a major legal fight, for example many, even in scientific literature, thought being LGBT was "within someone's control" as recently as into the 1970s, and certainly marrying someone of the same sex or changing your gender is "within someone's control" today.

So you've taken Title VII and cuts its legs out under the gies of making it more expansive. Plus "not relevant otherwise" would likely allow much more gender descrimination than the existing Title VII does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> From the majority opinion: "The parties concede that the term 'sex' in 1964 referred to the biological distinctions between male and female."

I am not a lawyer but this sounds to me like the Supreme Court just admitted that while the text of the law doesn't include protection for gay or transgendered persons, they are going to retroactively "understand the term" as though it does.

How, then, can we assume any of the laws mean what the text says when a court can decide words mean something else? I have to agree with the dissent in this case; amending the Civil Rights to update, expand, or clarify the definition "sex" is the surest way to protect gay and transgender person from a future court taking a strict textual interpretation and annulling this ruling.

Too bad the court system can't create the equivalent of a bug report for legislation. If we had that then in this case the SCOTUS could have issued a legislative mandate to Congress requiring them to clarify or expand the definition of "sex" so that now-protected classes are protected from a further court ruling on what the actual text of the law says. It is the role of the court to interpret the laws, not make them.

<comment><USER44> > I am not a lawyer but this sounds to me like the Supreme Court just admitted > that while the text of the law doesn't include protection for gay or > transgendered persons, they are going to retroactively "understand the term" > as though it does.

The rest of the argument makes it very clear why the conservative textualist justice who wrote the opinion considers that discrimination against homosexual or transgendered people is based in part upon the biological distinction between male and female: the assumption that the sexual preferences or identity of the individuals in these cases would be entirely unobjectionable to the employer if their biological sex was different. They're very clear on this and go on for several pages about it.

You may or may not agree with this argument or its applicability to these specific cases, but cherry picking something from the beginning of their actual argument and substituting a completely different 'retroactively "understand the term"' argument of your own invention is disingenuous at best

<comment><USER45> Wouldn't that also open the door for 'transracial' discrimination suits from people like Rachel Dolezal?

<comment><USER44> I suspect any employer who fired a white person for, say, dressing their hair like Rachel Dolezal whilst permitting their black employees to do so would already be in danger of the discrimination suit.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mats Järlström's victorious 6-year battle over yellow lights - <AUTHOR> https://www.koin.com/local/washington-county/mats-jarlstroms-victorious-6-year-battle-over-yellow-lights/ <comment><USER2> Quick summary: when someone is making a right-turn, and the light has changed to yellow, they do not have sufficient time to finish their turn before the light turns red. Therefore, at lights with red-light cameras, many people who could not possibly stop in time are getting tickets. (The point is that the fact that cars turning have to slow down must be taken into account when calculating how long it takes to traverse the intersection. If you are going at close to the speed limit, you get through while yellow, but if you have slowed down because you plan to turn, and the yellow occurs too late for you to stop, you will be long enough in the intersection to get a ticket).

Mr Jarlstrom made many efforts to point this out to the Beaverton (OR) city council. Not only did the officials treat him with disdain, the state even fined him for practising engineering without a license. (Talk about shoot the messenger!)

However, it turns out he was right, and he has been vindicated in an article in the Journal of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

<comment><USER3> The engineering association didn't really fine him for the campaign itself. They were upset that he claimed to be an engineer when making his arguments, despite not being licensed in that state. Even then, they gave him repeated warnings before issuing the fine.

In the end, the courts ruled in his favour. As a matter of freedom of expression, anyone can now claim to be an engineer in the state of Oregon.

<comment> crooked-v In the context of what was basically "I have been educated as an engineer, which is why you should be giving me more credence than a random person", I feel the use of the word is perfectly fine.

<comment><USER4> In the real world, professional engineers are bonded and are liable for errors like lawyers.

<comment><USER5> Are there many examples in the real world of this actually happening?

<comment><USER4> Close to home... yes, the FIU bridge engineers could have been charged with manslaughter ([https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article23659748...](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article236597488.html))

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure anyone that works on something that kills people "could" be charged manslaughter. The entire PE system seems antiquated and obsolute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200301140653/https://www.koin....](https://web.archive.org/web/20200301140653/https://www.koin.com/local/washington- county/mats-jarlstroms-victorious-6-year-battle-over-yellow-lights/)

[https://archive.md/Sy521](https://archive.md/Sy521)

[https://outline.com/TtHBpK](https://outline.com/TtHBpK)

</comment><comment><USER7> In Australia you only get a ticket if the rear axle passes over the line while the lights are red.

It is very common for people to bank up an intersection and join the perpendicular traffic. Also we have left-lane-to-turn-right intersections.

Realistically being in the middle of an intersection when a light is red endangers no-one. You're already there, so people can see you and aren't going to T-bone you. Even if stationary.

<comment><USER8> > Realistically being in the middle of an intersection when a light is red > endangers no-one. You're already there, so people can see you and aren't > going to T-bone you. Even if stationary.

At low speeds, maybe. At anything above 30 mph, or at night, or with otherwise reduced visibility, it's still very dangerous to be in the middle of an intersection when traffic is flowing the other way.

There's also no right-turn-on-red setup in Australia, which means that this situation is unlikely to happen in the first place.

<comment><USER9> We have left turn on red, remembering we drive on the left hand side. It is not universal though, it has to be signposted.

In practice, you only get "caught" inside the intersection when there is heavy traffic, so speeds shouldn't be particularly high.

<comment><USER8> Whoops, you're right. That would explain why I got a resounding "no" when I searched for "right turn on red Australia". My American ignorance at work again :)

<comment><USER10> In some U.S. jurisdictions (like mine) you can turn _left_ on red, when turning from a one-way street onto another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There doesn't seem to be much information as to the legal basis for Järlström's efforts -- is there some Oregon or US requirement that red light cameras need to be "fair" in order to be legal?

(Also -- would this extend to California? I received a red light ticket at an odd double intersection here I'm convinced involved a no-win situation, trying to figure out options, traffic lawyers of the ticket clinic variety do not seem to be of particular help.)

<comment><USER12> In this case, it's not a question about the camera at all - the camera was just what got him interested. The question at hand was the timing of the lights themselves, which were timed upon a simplified model that is not applicable to intersections with turns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well this is convenient timing.

I just received a citation for making a right turn at a red light 0.3 seconds after the light turned red. I had already been preparing my arguments for why my actions produced the safest possible outcome, but these materials should prove exceptionally useful in our case.

<comment><USER10> If it's safe to reveal so, what made it safer to turn than to stop in your case? Having a hard time picturing such a scenario.

<comment><USER13> Driving 30MPH. The light turned yellow when we were 100 feet from the intersection. If you are traveling straight through the intersection, you can be up to 154 feet away when the light turns yellow and make the light before it turns red.

As we decelerated to make the turn, I realized we might not make the light and had to decide whether to take the turn at an aggressive speed or heavily brake to a stop. Suddenly stopping would pose a significant risk to the passengers in my vehicle and in the vehicle behind me. I observed that the intersection was clear and committed to the turn.

This is the exact 'dilemma zone' described by Mats. If you are still having a hard time picturing it, there are plenty of diagrams in the ITE journal article that explains his calculations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Referenced journal article, which hopefully is available to all:

[https://www.nxtbook.com/ygsreprints/ITE/ITE_March2020/index....](https://www.nxtbook.com/ygsreprints/ITE/ITE_March2020/index.php#/34)

</comment><comment><USER15> Previous discussion (2017):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14234223](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14234223)

<comment><USER16> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14197512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14197512)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Red light cameras are nothing other than a revenue machine. Be suspicious of anyone who advocates for them.

<comment><USER18> Enforcement of traffic rules shouldn't have to be a problem, but when fines are seen as revenue, that may create perverse incentives for the people who implement the rules. Yellow lights staying yellow for just a bit too short is one of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wasn't this guy fined for "practicing engineering without a license" or something similar?

<comment><USER20> Indeed he was, and it shouldn't really need to be a cautionary tale because that's the natural result of giving organizations like this such power.

It's why software is so much better: no one takes certification guys seriously.

<comment><USER21> Ah, yes. Software is _so much_ better. [https://xkcd.com/2030/](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

<comment><USER20> Killed fewer than any of the others.

<comment><USER21> Because we rarely put it in a position of power. When we do, stuff like the 737 Max (where badly-programmed software attempted to compensate for badly- designed hardware, and probably could've got away with it if it weren't badly- programmed), or the 1994 Scotland RAF Chinook crash (where the software controlling the engine was just rubbish, but it's unknown whether that actually caused the crash), or Therac-25 (where the software controlling the radiation therapy machine was rubbish) happens.

If you're counting war systems, the list is much longer. I don't.

All of these issues were caused by ordinary software development practices being applied in a context where the software was actually important. Real- world software development practices completely suck, and have to be completely thrown out of the window if everybody's going to get out alive.

The reason more people haven't died is that software isn't given positions of responsibility very often, and it's usually held to actual standards when it is.

<comment><USER20> And that's what good engineering is. When you know your product can't do the job, you don't put it in a position of responsibility. If you can't do it safely, don't do it. That's good engineering.

Physical world engineers could stand to learn a lot from software engineers about the hard parts of engineering. Sometimes it's about saying "No, we shouldn't."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sorry but this somehow strikes me as a very swedish thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER23> traffic cameras are put up to collect rent, not enhance safety :(

</comment><comment><USER24> Would formal verification be helpful in this situation?

<comment><USER25> How? This is a question of policy, really.

<comment><USER24> Whether or not a driver would find themselves in a situation where they would get a ticket despite following the law. Basically where they would have to run a red light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Archived version, since access is blocked for european readers: [http://archive.is/Sy521](http://archive.is/Sy521)

<comment><USER27> The original article is not available to me because "European Union visitors are important" to them, the archive version, miraculously now compatible with my dns service, features a Google captcha which is unsolvable due to being half off the page.

Where did it all go wrong?

<comment><USER28> There wasn't a singular moment when it went wrong. It's been a long, steady decline. Hackers have gradually been marginalized and replaced by bureaucrats.

I've been reading Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution [1] by Steven Levy. It's fascinating, but also heartbreaking, to see how things have gone, given that the hackers of the 60's and 70's were fighting against it even back then.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers%3A_Heroes_of_the_Compu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers%3A_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution)

<comment><USER29> Well, to be fair, the transition between the hackers and the bureaucrats was greased by abusive MBAs.

EU data privacy legislation wouldn't have been seen as necessary if companies weren't exploiting their user base unethically. The fight to keep the Internet open to everyone should have been an easy one for the "hackers" to win... but the other side had help.

<comment><USER30> Yup, all those FAANGS were founded and are currently run by evil MBAs. In reality of course, even Cook started out with a STEM degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Either

"Our European visitors are important to us."

or

"This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws."</comment>


Microsoft downloading Windows 10 to your machine just in case - <AUTHOR> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2425381/microsoft-is-downloading-windows-10-to-your-machine-just-in-case <comment><USER2> Anything that reduces the usage of IE is a very good thing!

I've been working on a project for a couple of months, testing on Chrome, Safari and Firefox. With zero effort, things look great in Edge, but completely broken in IE.

If this takes off, it will be a great thing from a web development perspective!</comment>


Windows 8 Touchscreen Laptops See Slow Start - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/11/27/windows-8-touchscreen-laptops-see-slow-start/

<comment><USER2> The Windows 8 rollout exemplifies everything that's wrong with the PC sphere: a bunch of compromised products, each with at least one glaring flaw. Hell, Lenovo has four different Windows 8 convertibles and tablets, and each of them are severely deficient in one way or another.

Most of the devices have only 1366x768 resolution. That's just not acceptable for $600+ products when the iPad is at 2048x1536 and the Nexus 10 is at 2560x1600 at $100 and $200 less, respectively.

Several of the convertible devices (Sony's Duo, Dell's XPS 12) have severely compromised battery life (4-5 hours). That's not acceptable when the iPad and Nexus 10 are at 8-10 hours at half the price.

In a bizarre product segmentation choice, the 1080p screens seem to be tied to the Ivy Bridge processors. Which means you can have iPad/Nexus-like readability or iPad/Nexus-like battery life, but not both in the same device.

I'm really looking hard at Windows 8 because I want to consolidate to a convertible-like device, and the iPad's lack of a mouse for Citrix remote log- in is a problem. But the Windows 8 offerings available right now are just really lacking to what exists in the iOS and Android realms.

<comment><USER3> You appear to be confusing (understandably) WindowsRT and Windows 8. WindowsRT is the OS that runs on devices intended to compete with the iPad (using ARM processors), the only one of which I have actual knowledge of is the Surface.

Windows 8 (which is what runs on the convertibles) is the desktop OS. I personally don't expect a full fledged laptop (especially one costing a mere $500) to get 8 hours of battery life.

If you can get hands on a Surface (WindowsRT) device for a day or two I highly recommend trying it out. It's quite impressive, and for my uses a better device than the iPad. YMMV.

<comment><USER2> I'm not confusing the two--you're drawing a broader distinction between the two versions than is warranted by Microsoft's own product positioning. Regular Windows 8 is targeted at tablets too. The Samsung 700T, Acer Iconia W700, etc, all run regular Windows 8, as will the Surface Pro.

The basic problem is that Microsoft seems to have focused on creating artificial product differentiation instead of creating the most compelling device possible. I was very underwhelmed by the Surface when I used it. Microsoft left too many of the goodies for Surface Pro, and saddled Surface RT with last-gen hardware, not to mention very "1.0" software. The differentiation between the lines is just bizarre. If you go for the Surface RT, you get Nexus 7-level hardware for $100 more than a Nexus 10. If you upgrade to the Surface Pro, you get way too much processor and end up with half the battery life. It makes no sense. What Surface should have been is a Clovertrail-based tablet with a 1080p screen. The ability to run Office would have justified the $100 price premium over Nexus. That would have been a very compelling product.

<comment><USER3> As I said, understandable confusion, and MS has done a very poor job of making a distinction between the two. I suspect that in two to four years there will be no distinction.

I used the Surface for a few days and was quite happy with it, but don't find that I need a table full time. My iPad toting teens adored it and have been complaining because their school requires the use of an iPad.

I'm waiting for the Pro, which will be slightly less processor than I want, but I expect it will completely replace my laptop while still giving me tablet abilities. Regular Windows 8 isn't targeted so much at tablets as it is at touchscreen devices. Which covers tablet, laptops, and that weird huge canvas form factor and others.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Pack.png Project - <AUTHOR> https://packpng.com <comment><USER2> This is sooo cool! Definitely give the methodology section a read. They're using information about the Java RNGs as well as Minecraft world generation algorithms, including cloud patterns and abnormalities, to try and reverse it...</comment>


Ask HN: What are best resources to learn chef? - <AUTHOR> I have seen this one lately, http://gettingstartedwithchef.com/ but are there any better resources you know of ? <comment><USER2> I used Chef Rally with great success. [https://learn.chef.io/](https://learn.chef.io/)</comment>


Public WI-FI is not safe, but Internet providers could change that - <AUTHOR> http://meshedsociety.com/public-wi-fi-is-not-safe-but-internet-providers-could-change-that/

<comment><USER2> It's a trade off. You can potentially have your information viewed/stolen by someone on the same local WiFi network. Or, you can have all of your traffic go through your ISP/VPN provider where they can act as a central point of data collection for someone to steal your information.

If you were trying to steal credentials or financial information, wouldn't you rather target the systems of a VPN provider instead of a local WiFi Hot Spot? Not to mention the government actors having a centralized place to see users' traffic (even when a user is not on the ISP's network).

It's certainly a positive step in some cases, but a better one would be encryption handled directly in the applications/services being used. Then the transport doesn't matter.</comment>


The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques.htm <comment><AUTHOR> I was recently looking into audio antialiasing/interpolation algorithms for a software synthesis project and stumbled across this. It's written by Miller Puckette, who created Max/MSP and PureData. It's one of the best resources I've seen for the theory/math and implementation of digital audio algorithms.</comment>


Copyfarleft, Copyjustright. - <AUTHOR> http://www.telekommunisten.net/CopyjustrightCopyfarleft <comment><USER2> "property is the enemy of freedom. It is property, the ability to control productive assets at a distance, the ability to 'own' something being put to productive use by another person that makes possible the subjugation of individuals and communities."

Sure. That's why the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba and all places that restricted property ownerships are so well known for their freedoms.

How can a sane person not think twice for a second about that statement?

<comment><AUTHOR> USSR, China etc have very strong property rights, property was very strickly enforced.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, what sane person reads the sentance "The ability to control productive assets at a distance, the ability to 'own' something being put to productive use by another person that makes possible the subjugation of individuals and communities" without seeing how well this applies to the USSR, China, etc. Property is still just as much property when it is owned by the State, the King or The Corporation. It is important to understand the distinction between property and possesion. Proudhon: "I prove that those who do not possess to-day are proprietors by the same title as those who do possess; but, instead of inferring therefrom that property should be shared by all, I demand, in the name of general security, its entire abolition."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If I may be allowed a moment of snark: "The 19th century is calling, and it wants its failed ideology back". This is pretty much just politics, in any case.

<comment><AUTHOR> One man's "snark" is another man's ignorance. Do you have a logical argument, or is snark all you got?

<comment><USER3> "The 20th century"

<comment><AUTHOR> What about it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm with him right the way except where he dis's CC-NC-SA. Surely if someone from the copyfarleft community works on the project then they too will be releasing it free and so how is the work not endogenic. CC-NC-SA simply puts up a wall, that PD does not, to prevent exploitation from outside the sharealike community (to coin a term).

I can see that without [intellectual] property if we wish to enjoy artistic works we must establish a way of paying artists; the question is will we do any better than copyright?

It is only really the long terms [monopoly periods] that stop copyright from performing its duty to aid movement of creative works into the public domain AND allow ample time for artists to gain reward from that work.

Oh yeah and viva la revolution comrades.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the comments. For example take the book 54 by Wu Ming, released under a NC license, because it is NC this prevents both Random House and the local Anarchist bookshop from havin free terms, Copyfarleft allows the bookshop to have free terms, but not Random House. That way the bookshop could independenlt manufacture and sell copyfarleft material without any violation, but Random House would need to negotiate a licence with the authors, exactly as they did for 54.

<comment><USER4> The Anarchist Bookshop can produce it, just not commercially, in copyright law commercial damage can be made by giving stuff away for free but I've always assumed in CC that commercial means anything above material costs.

You say the Anarchist Bookshop (I'm not sure if that's a real example?) could then sell the work, why, why should they sell it I thought this was about removing rental costs on intellectual items. What's your criterion for allowing a reseller to make profit, political persuasion?

Now I'm confused.

<comment><AUTHOR> Material costs, like all prices must include rent, interest and wages. CC removes rent only on the IP, not on the location the store is in, for example, which still must be included in the final consumer price. Manufacturing books and selling them is commercial activity even when undertaken by an anarchist book shop. The anarchist book shop, presumably works collectively and thus has no external shareholders, and therefore can only have income, not profit. The point of copyfarleft is to prevent value derive from free terms from being captured by non-producing capital owners.

<comment><USER4> First up don't say "The anarchistic book shop" (definite article) when you mean "An anarchistic bookshop", ie a hypothetical bookshop which from your description appears to be a worker owned co-op.

I get where you're at now (I think), you want to allow the commercial use provided that the business, eg a co-op, isn't providing profit to external agents only to owners or workers in the form of wages. That's still commercial. It's not greatly different if a family owned bookshop make millions off liberalised copyright works versus a publically owned company making millions split amongst it's shareholders. In fact in some ways it's worse.

The only way to keep your model and not have this sort of scenario would be to specify the allowed wages, but then if the same people own the building they can put the rent up - the company doesn't make a profit as their rent eats up all excess monies which goes to the same peoples bank accounts at the end of the day.

I like the spirit of what you appear to be suggesting but in practice it seems entirely unworkable as a system unless all members of society agree not to abuse it. Most systems would work under those terms IMO.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: do you intend to use unikernels eventually when they become viable? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER3> If Moore's Law is over, the Gates' Law ([http://catb.org/jargon/html/G/Gatess- Law.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/G/Gatess-Law.html)) is sure to follow... unikernels seem like one solution to cut out a lot of cruft and get more out of the same hardware (probably more securely as well)

My favorite development in this area that I've seen so far is Rump Kernels ... most others seem to be use focusing on "cloud" and hypervisors etc... but rump kernels can be used on real hardware so you can be true unikernels.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the future even desktops, tablets, etc are basically just of a bunch of unikernels running on top of virtualization hardware

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, definitely. Unikernel is in fact the very reason I've been (trying) to learn Ocaml lately.

</comment><comment><USER5> what makes them unviable currently, in your opinion?

<comment><USER4> Too many of our toolchain is still unix-based, and they have to be ported, or unikernel-based alternative have to show up: anything C related (which power the majority of the infrastructure anywhere), DB also comes to mind - <USER2> still need a linux distro to run them on (even if the server only has the database on it). You can probably write your app in a unikernel, but there isn't that much benefits if everything else (external stuffs to your app) is still running on linux.</comment></comment>


Snowden: Most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/04/edward-snowden-warns-about-data-collection-surveillance-at-web-summit.html <comment><USER2> What can be done when the institutions that must be reigned in are _the most powerful_?</comment>


Generating a Digital TV signal with nothing but a VGA card - <AUTHOR> http://bellard.org/dvbt/

<comment><AUTHOR> Another neat hack from Fabrice Bellard, the guy behind FFMPEG and QEMU. Granted, it's not technically "broadcasting" the signal because signal strength is so low, but it's a neat trick.

<comment><USER2> Being that this page is from 2005 (almost exactly 4 years ago!) and the source is still not available, I would say that it is a neat trick, but also difficult to reproduce.</comment></comment>


Tips for Startup Companies - <AUTHOR> http://philip.greenspun.com/business/startup-tips/ <comment><USER2> Good advice when he sticks to things he knows. Inexplicably he throws in a 'here's a book I read, maybe it's OK' section. Excerpt: "...you need to [measure] achievement and make that measure available to the worker so that he or she can motivate himself (for a computer programmer in a software company, components of this measure might be 'number of bugs fixed, with extra points for the severe or tricky ones' and 'pages of documentation written...'

Good lord. Read what Joel Spolsky (and everyone else in the world, it seems) has written about the perfidity of measuring the "output" of knowledge workers with punchcard goals, not to mention the effect on morale of 'motivating' your workers like you would motivate a lab rat. Here's more: "...people don't do what you tell them to do; they do what gets them a reward."

There's even a Dilbert strip on the subject. Yikes.</comment>


How to set up a Redis cluster (preview, not production-ready) - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/post/2-4-and-other-news.html

<comment><USER2> The title is a bit misleading :) This is just a preview of Redis Cluster, it's not good to just claiming that I'm working at it, I wanted to show the first stuff we have that users can actually play with (but not use in production environments!).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, sorry, I assumed people would understand that from the post. I added (preview, not production-ready), is that better?

<comment><USER2> perfect, thank you.

p.s. I find it very cool that you, working for 10 gen, submitted this article on hacker news. There is still hope in the NoSQL landscape :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey antirez, both this and 2.4 look really great. Can you talk to some internals of redis-trib? Is it using a cyclical hash on keys approach? What sort of controls are you planning on giving datastore designers?

I was using redis for consuming a multi-gigabyte financial analysis dataset, but eventually moved on because I didn't like using Hiredis on perl or C, so the clustering is very appealing as a way to keep latency down and get bandwidth higher.

<comment><USER2> Hey. All the possible keys are simply divided into 4096 slots. You can assign any part of this slots to any given node, so you can assign things in strange ways, like, node 1 50% of all the nodes, and 10% each to node 2,3,4,5,6.

Redis-trib will simply propose something that makes sense, but you will be able to edit the initial guess of the tool.

About sharding before redis cluster you can do it already but with more problems for sure as resharding will be much simpler with redis cluster (however you can just avoid doing resharding for now, using a lot of nodes from the start, not optimal but works). Not sure what is the problem with hiredis or perl, did not understood this part.

<comment><USER3> hriedis on perl works fine, well, mostly fine. I uncovered at least one small bug which I'll send on at some point.

The issue is that hiredis didn't have a usable python client, and I hated developing in perl, or C. Without hiredis, redis over python is unusably slow for querying 100k+ keys at once, I believe due to python's networking / socket code.

In the end, I ended up moving to pytables for this sort of stuff; it would be nice to use redis for it, but the data access patterns are tuned a little bit more for the web than for a 'do this math on these 3 million data points' kind of use case.

Anyway, I'm excited about redis cluster, I think it fits a huge need for web- scale application development.

<comment><USER4> Tip: try node/coffeescript and hiredis, you might like it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Redis cluster will be great when it gets here.

I really like 2 new features in 2.4:

\- variadic versions of functions to reduce pipelining. This will reduce latency in my write-happy app

\- memory optimized memory sets that will saves me money on RAM.

Thanks Salvatore and Peter!

</comment><comment><USER6> Reading about Redis Cluster, I am a bit worried that some re-invention of core erlang features is going on.

If nothing else, an erlang to redis bridge might make for a nice pesudo- cluster...

<comment><USER2> Like execution is more important then idea in a startup, implementation in the right "scope" and with the right tradeoffs is more important than idea in a software system. So while for sure Redis Cluster will look a lot like any other distributed hash table I think it is important that we implement it inside our system, with our system language, and with Redis specific tradeoffs.

<comment><USER6> I see what you mean, and wish you the best.

Thanks for the reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> antirez -- looking good. But may I ask why the name 'redis-trib' -- what does the trib mean? Short for contrib? Tribune? All I see is the nsfw definition, but maybe that's just me.

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trib>

<comment><USER2> redis-trib-ute :)</comment></comment>


New Twitter has Gist Support - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/1138803213/new-twitter-with-gist-support <comment><USER2> I'm skeptical.

Twitter's beauty resides in its 140-char limit: authors of Tweets don't feel burdened to write long messages, and readers know the messages will always be short and sweet. Sure, authors can circumvent this limit by linking to blog posts, but followers hate clicking on links so there's a disincentive to do so.

With these new changes, Twitter is making it easier for readers to visit linked content, but they're also making it easier for Tweet authors to be more verbose. Before, I had to painstakingly craft my 140-char message; but now if I'm having trouble doing that, I can just use the Tweet as a title and write my full message in an embedded text box. But isn't this just reinventing the blog?

<comment><USER3> "but followers hate clicking on links"

Can you qualify this statement? I don't hate clicking on links.

<comment><USER4> I cant bring up the exact stats right now, but everything I have seen would suggest the same, if I remember off the top of my head 2 things with a reasonably large reach on twitter ( between 100,000 and 1,000,000) had around 0.5% clickthrough rates, that struck me as tiny.

<comment><USER5> That would seem to be consistent with the statistics of users with less followers: [http://twitterfacts.blogspot.com/2008/06/tweetburner- clickth...](http://twitterfacts.blogspot.com/2008/06/tweetburner-clickthrough- rates.html)

However I would consider clickthrough rates to be a poorly suited metric for Twitter. If you're not using Twitter to just follow your friends then your typical use case is just dipping in and reading some tweets when you have the time (the 'fire hose' model). Having one million followers does not mean that one million people will read a given tweet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any other things people want in the right panel?

<comment><USER7> 3rd party plugins so that I can get evernote or snaptic or remember the milk or whatever third party content to display in there.

there are a million and one public custom data sources, don't let us be constrained by the ones you bless.

or if you don't want to deal with the security headaches, just allow a standard way for 3rd parties to inform twitter that their content is #newtwitter friendly and allow it to display formatted text.

basically, instead of using twitter through all of those sites, I just want to go to twitter and have all my content there and not be redirected all over the web (or at least have the option).

and 'lest I sound too demanding, great work and congratulations :)

<comment><USER8> _basically, instead of using twitter through all of those sites, I just want to go to twitter and have all my content there and not be redirected all over the web (or at least have the option)._

Just what we need, a new, centralized portal website. Oh, that reminds me, I need to go add some widgets to my iGoogle page.

<comment><USER7> a portal comprised 100% of content that my friends recommend? yes please!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to think that if I ever created something like Twitter, I'd do cool things like this, too.

I hope they keep it up.

<comment><USER10> When you do...Please don't crush your developer community.

<comment><USER6> Where's the crushing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess it makes it easier to fit crazy programs into a single tweet ;-)

</comment><comment><USER12> As much as this pleasures every software-engineer-neuron in my brain, this kills what's so great about Twitter - it's brevity.

Twitter + Tumblr/Facebook Angst = #NewTwitter = #FailTwitter :(</comment>


Spell Correction in Search Engines – Algorithms and Strategiess - <AUTHOR> In this blog post main focus is to talk about a specific type of error that is more common in apps called fat-finger error and how we could use it strategically to improve speller accuracy.<p>https://prdeepakbabu.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/spelling-correction-in-search-engines-algorithms-strategies/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://prdeepakbabu.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/spelling- corre...](https://prdeepakbabu.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/spelling-correction- in-search-engines-algorithms-strategies/)</comment>


Whistled language - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language <comment><USER2> Be in this place this summer and even though not heard the real one personal it is quite famous

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a Turkish whistled language in action: [https://youtu.be/bQf38Ybo1IY?t=1m40s](https://youtu.be/bQf38Ybo1IY?t=1m40s)

</comment><comment><USER4> The Tleilaxu use a whistled language in the Dune sequels to control their gholas.

[http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Whistling_language](http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Whistling_language)

</comment><comment><USER5> I came across an article on a disappearing Greek whistled language earlier this year:

[http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170731-greeces- disappearin...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170731-greeces-disappearing- whistled-language)

</comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h Related: Solresol, a conlang built on music

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

</comment><comment><USER6> First thing comes to mind is Yondu, from 'Guardians of the Galaxies'.

Movies borrowed inspirations from this, maybe?

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yondu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yondu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe Toki Pona could be adapted to boatswain whistle?</comment>


D on embedded Linux (ARM) - <AUTHOR> https://fkromer.gitbooks.io/d-on-embedded-linux-arm/content/ <comment><USER2> It's always exciting for me to see more D usage. What's nice is that it has both gcc and llvm frontends, with all the optimisations and target architectures that those come with, such as the article's ARM.

I recently worked through Advent of Code in D to get a better feel for the language, and I had a blast. It's a fun language with some very interesting ideas.

[http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/advent- of-d/](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/advent-of-d/)

I particularly enjoyed concurrency during Day 18, which seemed to really stump those who tried Advent of Code in other languages, whereas D made it very easy.

[http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/advent- of-d/#day18](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/advent-of-d/#day18)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if D could ever become mainstream at this point. Back when the language first released as a C++ coder I was very interested in D but the weird not-technically-open-source license and the garbage collector put me off. Now they "fixed" the licensing and I suppose garbage collection is more readily accepted in system programming but it doesn't have the hype and novelty of Go or Rust. I don't know any program I use that's written in D for instance while I do use a few Rust and Go programs daily. I can't shake the feeling that D missed its chance at becoming mainstream.

<comment><AUTHOR> It has been proven multiple times, at Xerox PARC, ETHZ, DEC Olivetti, Microsoft that garbage collection systems programming languages are doable.

However technology adoption always needs to fight against non-believers.

Joe Duffy has stated on his Rustconf 2017 presentation [0] that even Midori running on front for their eyes, with some use cases where System C# was even shoulder-with-shoulder with C++ [1], that Windows devteam was not getting it.

Nowadays he is an happy Go coder instead of trying to convince them otherwise.

D has a big problem with their GC implementation, which provides good arguments for the anti-GC crowd in systems programming.

However they have been improving it quite a bit during the latest releases, as well as, making the runtime library more @nogc friendly.

As for reaching mainstream, I share your thoughts. It is not only Rust and Go. There is also Swift, C++17 and the ongoing improvements to make Java and C# more machine friendly (memory management and AOT compilation).

Still, even if just a small group gets to use it, it is already a victory.

Most languages never achieve it.

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuD7SCqHB7k) [1] - [http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/12/19/safe-native- code/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/12/19/safe-native-code/)

<comment><USER4> > It has been proven multiple times, at Xerox PARC, ETHZ, DEC Olivetti, > Microsoft that garbage collection systems programming languages are doable.

It's my understanding that D's garbage collection isn't considered very performant. I know it used to receive a lot of criticism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which I happen to address on my comment....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really think D, like Go has a better chance of attracting programming languages from higher, not lower level languages.

C++ can't event get the C greybeards to switch over while being a strict superset. On the other hand, Go is being embraced as a python replacement in the backend world

<comment><USER6> pedant here: C++ is far from a strict superset of C, with many syntactic changes over the years.

<comment><USER4> C++ is actually missing some of the nicer stuff from the last few ANSI-C standards. Struct initializers especially.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is what constructors are for.

In any case, they might make it into C++20.

[http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/aggregate_initiali...](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/aggregate_initialization)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Has Facebook become more of a familybook for you? - <AUTHOR> Facebook is trying very hard to connect everyone. However, from where I come from everyone is not connected. Friends and families are different network.In facebook, no matter how much they try (privacy or custom post), friends and family are friends. I recently found it very odd to use facebook when mom, dad and my friends are replying on the same comment for a video or photo.
Thinking about moving away from facebook due to this very reason. Facebook shall become family book and I might have to find another social network for friends.
How many of you feel the same and have moved away ? <comment><USER2> I had these concerns almost 10 years ago [FB "friend" request from my boss, WAT?]. Clearly, the ship has already sailed and nobody is moving away (at least not for that reason). As others have mentioned, Google Plus had an elegant solution that I quite liked, and was never truly replicated by facebook.

As a father, I've started building my own web presence for my family. I have no desire to upload pictures of my daughter growing up to Facebook, and I definitely don't want all of these photos shared with everyone I've ever facebook friended. Right now, I've got a bunch of photo galleries on my- daughters-name.com, but I'm going to have to re-think this strategy since we're expecting again next month.

</comment><comment><USER3> The circles feature was amazing on Google Plus. It does exactly what you want. You add "friends" to your Google Plus profile and add them to circles you create, "Work Friends", "Pub Friends", "Family" for example. Then once you share a post you decide what circles get to see it.

It was a great feature too bad no one cared about Google Plus.

</comment><comment><USER4> yes? obviously? It became shitty for other reasons as well, but this clearly was one of them. Also not only parents, think you boss and coworkers!</comment>


Theresa May announces her resignation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/24/theresa-may-steps-down-resigns-tory-leader-conservative-brexit <comment><USER2> Brexit consumed the last Prime Minister of the UK, it has consumed the current one, and it will almost certainly consume the next one too.

What happens to a society when its political institutions are in such a state that they can no longer function?

<comment><USER3> Since I became aware of it as an issue, which is almost thirty years ago, it seems to me that the question of Europe has consumed a hugely disproportionate (relative to the importance of other matters) amount of time and people in the UK political system.

To answer your question, other issues in society don't get the airtime and deep attention they deserve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Live thread:

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/may/24/theres...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/may/24/theresa- may-resignation-uk-prime-minister-politics-brexit-live-news)

</comment><comment><USER5> Too little, too late.</comment>


Great co-founder is somebody who gets it - <AUTHOR> http://codingwithlove.com/thoughts/great-co-founder-is-somebody-who-gets-it

<comment><USER2> I partially agree. Finding someone with good skills shouldn't be second. It's probably at least third on the list. The first and second should be someone that gets it AND someone who is passionate about it and has the drive to execute on it. Someone that gets it but is incompetent in the areas of execution as a cofounder is not really cofounder material either.</comment>


Deep Learning in the Real World: Dealing with Non-Differentiable Loss Functions - <AUTHOR> https://fruty.io/2019/11/04/deep-learning-in-the-real-world-how-to-deal-with-non-differentiable-loss-functions/ <comment><USER2> The post lists Auto Differentiation as one of the techniques that can overcome non-differentiable loss functions. Can someone explain how this is even possible? After all automatic differentiation[1] is a way to compute gradients/derivatives in a way which could become costly if otherwise done(symbolic differentiation[2]). The function or the operations defined in the function(in case of source-to-source differentiation[3]) needs to be differentiable.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8GyNneq5D4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8GyNneq5D4)

[2] - [https://stackoverflow.com/a/45134000](https://stackoverflow.com/a/45134000)

[3] - [https://github.com/google/tangent](https://github.com/google/tangent)

EDIT: 1. Added reference. 2. Formatting

<comment><USER3> Non-differentiable here doesn't mean _actually_ non-differentiable in the mathematical sense, it just means that the function does not expose a derivative that is accessible to you.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure. According to Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiable_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiable_function)),

> a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose > derivative exists at each point in its domain

Most programs aren't differentiable functions because conditionals aren't in general differentiable. For example "if x > 0 { 1 } else { -1 }" doesn't have a derivative at 0 (and so, by the definition above) isn't differentiable at 0.

...or have I missed something?

<comment><USER5> In deep learning, you generally don't require differentiability on the entire domain, only on most points you're likely to encounter. So a finite number of non-differentiable points is fine: You just trust that you're never going to hit them by chance (the probability that you do is 0), and if by some miracle you do, you just use a subgradient.

Case in point, the currently most used activation function in neural nets, the rectified linear unit

ReLU(x) = max(x, 0),

is clearly not differentiable everywhere either.

<comment><USER6> > by some miracle you do, you just use a subgradient

This is the most succinct comment I have encountered on how people think about non-differentiability in deep learning.

This helped me reconcile my experiences with the deep learning paradigm. Thank you.

You see, in the numerical optimization of general mathematical models (e.g. where the model is a general nonlinear -- often nonconvex -- system of equations and constraints), you often _do_ hit non-differentiable points by chance. This is why in mathematical modeling one is taught various techniques to promote model convergence. For instance, a formulation like x/y = k is reformulated as x = k * y to avoid division by zeros in y during iteration (even if the final value of y is nonzero) and to avoid any nonsmoothness (max(), min(), abs() functions for instance are replaced with "smooth" approximations). In a general nonlinear/noconvex model, when you encounter non-differentiability, you are liable to lose your descent direction and often end up losing your way (sometimes ending up with an infeasible solution).

However it seems to me that the deep learning problem is an unconstrained optimization problem with chained basis functions (ReLU), so the chances of this happening is slighter and subgradients provide a recovery method so the algorithm can gracefully continue.

This is often not the experience for general nonlinear models, but I guess deep learning problems have a special form that lets you get away with it. This is very interesting.

<comment><USER7> I don't know why you think subgradient is that important. It's just a shorthand for anything reasonable. DNNs are overwhelmingly underdetermined and have many many minimizers. It's not so important to find the best one (an impossible task for sgd) as to find one that is good enough.

<comment><USER6> > I don't know why you think subgradient is that important.

I underquoted. It's more the approach to handling of nondifferentiability in deep learning problems that is of interest to me, whether it involves subgradients or some other recovery approach.

These approaches typically do not work well in general nonlinear systems, but they seem to be ok in deep learning problems. I haven't read any attempts to explain this until I read parent comment.

> It's just a shorthand for anything reasonable. DNNs are overwhelmingly > underdetermined and have many many minimizers.

This is not true for general nonlinear systems, hence my interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The course notes for "Learning Discrete Latent Structure" should be helpful if you're interested in this topic: [https://duvenaud.github.io/learn- discrete/](https://duvenaud.github.io/learn-discrete/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Related: "In general a machine learning system is built and trained to optimize a specified target objective: classification accuracy in a spam filter or tumor diagnostic, efficiency in route planning or Amazon box packing. Unlike these precise performance metrics, the criteria of safety, trust, and nondiscrimination often cannot be completely quantified. How then can models be trained towards these auxiliary objectives?"

From "Interpreting AI Is More Than Black And White": [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderlavin/2019/06/17/beyon...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexanderlavin/2019/06/17/beyond- black-box-ai/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I thought this was going to be about differential inclusions and deep learning which sounds pretty rad! Is anyone out there working in this direction ?</comment>


NASA Releases Kepler Survey Catalog with Hundreds of New Planet Candidates - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-releases-kepler-survey-catalog-with-hundreds-of-new-planet-candidates <comment><USER2> No info which planets were tidal locked, had a moons, or what their surface type is. Only suggestions of what they could be. However, the the Kepler spacecraft has provided amazing reconnaissance for the James Webb Space Telescope launching in 2018. The Webb telescope will tell us whether some Earth-like planets have enough water to have oceans. I presume this will included info about planet rotation, orbit and moons too.

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone who's interested in exoplanets, the community keeps a pretty well maintained database of all known exoplanets, along with any known physical or orbital parameters, here:

[http://www.exoplanets.org/](http://www.exoplanets.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> -

<comment><USER5> Just curious, are you a panpsychist?</comment></comment>


13 Seed Funding Options For Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/13_seed_funding_options_for_entrepreneurs.php

<comment><USER2> "Self-fund on credit cards and a second mortgage"

It shouldn't have to come to this. It's so cheap to start a software startup, at least in the initial prototype phase.

Most founders already currently have jobs as developers where saving enough to cover your expenses for a few months shouldn't be too hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> | Do consulting on the side to self-fund. This is less risky than using credit cards. One partner works for a Big Old Dinosaur on contract for $20k per month and splits it 50/50 with the other partner, who builds the company which is shared 50/50 between the two. It gets a little more complex with more than two people.

This sounds like an awfully big share to give to someone for that much capital! Am I wrong?

<comment><USER4> Unless the financing founder is also working on the product in the expectation that both will be working on it full time once there is enough money to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reader's comment number 5 represents the purest example of "seed" funding I've ever heard of.

<comment><USER6> Well played :-)</comment></comment>