Report: TSA employee misconduct up 26% in 3 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/travel/tsa-misconduct/

<comment><USER2> Anecdotal gripe : the amount of self-important power tripping and vicious snickering among TSA agents has been getting worse as of late.

I feel as if I can't walk through a security line without overhearing one of their staff berating some other traveler for offenses as minor as expressing a wish to walk through the X-Ray instead of the 3-d scanner, or for not taking their liquids out of a bag (a rule which is arbitrarily enforced at best).

I typically sympathize with positions and roles who are entrusted with security, and where success may be measured by a lone failure rather than otherwise sustained competency (much like a sysadmin). However, given what I perceive to be a pattern of escalating negative experiences this report does not surprise me in the slightest.

<comment><USER3> The TSA's hiring process is guaranteed (at least from my wife's personal experience with it here in DC) to hire shit-bags.

My wife, after being a stay-at-home mom for years, wanted to get a job while going to college part-time. She applied and was eventually offered a job by the TSA at DCA airport.

Upon looking at the hours, it was completely, utterly unworkable. Rather than a 40 hour a week job, they offered her 20 hours a week, which is reasonable, but get this: the 20 hour a week job had a schedule that completely changed week to week. This means that a person can't have ANY, and I mean ANY other responsibilities/jobs/schoolwork while working as an entry level TSA employee. She was told this was the standard in hiring new TSA workers. No wonder the lines are always staffed by people who, predominantly (with a few memorable exceptions), have a shitty work ethic, bad attitude towards customers, and poor problem solving skills.

In other words, the people who can't get/hold a job anywhere else end up at TSA.

<comment><USER4> Not to defend the TSA, but most part time hourly jobs have variable schedules like that. I've even worked high paying sysadmin jobs that were like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can prevent the TSA from rifling through your checked baggage outside of your presence (and helping themselves to whatever they want) by flying with a gun: [http://lifehacker.com/5448014/pack-a-gun-to-protect- valuable...](http://lifehacker.com/5448014/pack-a-gun-to-protect-valuables- from-airline-theft-or-loss)

Probably just about the only instance where having a gun can actually thwart a corrupt government official.

<comment><USER6> I usually cheat and just carry a stripped lower receiver if I'm not going to be carrying at the destination. I avoid going to NYC to the extent possible, too, though. The TSA people sometimes lol. The ones who handle guns also seem to be the best ones at the airport, and especially at Seattle, I like talking to them (someday when I get my manufacturer FFL I hope to show off some hot title II stuff there)

Tempted to start carrying an 80% lower, which is tech I ally not a firearm, to be even safer. Should still be able to get firearm service at the tsa for it.

<comment><USER7> This gives me an idea:

There might be a market for cheap-as-hell injection molded lower receivers, not really good for any sort of shooting at all, to be sold to travelers so that they can be "technically" carrying a gun. It would be considered disposable so they could just crack it in two and throw it away at their destination (or perhaps have the shops that sell them also buy them back). I figure injection molded plastic would be sufficient, as plastic lowers have already been demonstrated.

It would only work to and from certain states of course. There are probably problems with selling and buying them back _in_ airports, so disposal in some states may be a problem. If you are flying Kansas<->Vermont or similar it could probably be made to work though.

<comment><USER8> If I'm not mistaken, you can use a flare gun and get the same kind of service. This is a fine, nominally non lethal option if you still want the same assurance as a gun, but don't care for the whole lethal weapon aspect of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Their job is to keep air travelers safe in the wake of the September 11, > 2001, attacks

Not true, their job is to make people feel safer in the wake of September 11, 2011 attacks

<comment><USER10> Emphasis on the "FEEL" is needed here.

<comment><USER11> Agreed.

Its also a works program for the incompetent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Like Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility," the TSA employees are exactly in that position -- they have the a great deal of power at their disposal and they are not trained to control it. One can also argue that they are just doing their job, but it's probably not as simple as that. On multiple occasions when I had to deal with them (I forgot to take out a water bottle of my bag), I have found them to be unnecessarily rude. It almost seemed as if the TSA agent was enjoying it thoroughly. And I know this first hand, having worked in a customer service position for many years, I can probably smell it.

<comment><USER13> Aside from the standard "customer service" jadedness, there's a class stratification at play: people who have to take a TSA screener job to pay the bills, versus people with enough income to fly. When you put an underclass in control of the overclass, don't be surprised when they try to wield whatever power they can, regardless of how disproportionate.

It would be an interesting experiment to staff a TSA gate with frequent fliers selected "jury pool" style (say, one day of service for every 100k miles flown annually), and see if both passenger and agent job ratings are any different.

<comment><USER14> I would be great at a job I knew I only had to perform for one day (or even one week). I also wouldn't be terribly concerned with upholding rules and laws, and just do it how I would want it to be done. Plus it would be fun and different, almost like a game.

I can't believe we have juries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's amazing the kind of shit people put up with in the US.

I'll remember to stare them in the face the next time a TSA agent touches my genitalia as a precursor to being allowed to board an aircraft.

<comment><USER16> I've flown quite a few times in the last few months and have never had a TSA agent overstep their boundaries when doing a pat-down. I've had nothing but pleasant experiences going through security.

<comment><USER17> >I've had nothing but pleasant experiences going through security.

Surely "pleasant" is too strong an adjective.

<comment><USER7> Maybe he enjoys being manhandled. Some people appreciate physical contact anywhere they can get it.

<comment><USER16> I've never been "manhandled" by the TSA.

<comment><USER7> Well that certainly sheds some light on your _" nothing but pleasant experiences"_, doesn't it?

If you've never had a pat down, then it should not be surprising that they have never overstepped any boundaries during a pat down...

<comment><USER16> I have had pat-downs. Where did you get that I've never had a pat down? Pat down != "manhandling"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any time I check a bag, something is stolen from it. I guess I'm supposed to be thankful the TSA has the consideration to leave one of those little "TSA went through your bag" memos with a disconnected phone number to call to report the missing items.

</comment><comment><USER18> The actual report is here: [http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-624](http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-624)

Apparently they did hire 3,200 more people as well. Although it does look like the percent increase in misconduct is greater than the percent increase in employees, new employees are often more trouble at the start and hiring quickly often forces you to lower your standards.

I actually left a laptop in a stacked security tray a while back and the TSA called me asking about returning it the next day and kept it at their offices for me for the month it took me to get back from Asia for it. So there's definitely some good people manning the line as well. I didn't expect to get back something I made the mistake of forgetting.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've been explaining the declining TSA situation in terms of the broken windows theory. Once an organization hits a tipping point where it is universally despised and its primary purpose annoys people, good people will leave and only undesirables will apply. This creates a feedback loop.

It will take fundamental changes to reverse this.

<comment><USER20> Respectfully, I disagree. The socioeconomic status of the sorts of people that tend to despise the TSA, and the SES of the sorts of people that tend to be front-line TSA agents are very, very different. Those self-same TSA agents rarely fly (and thus bear no inconvenience), and are unlikely to have had the benefit of the sort of education that leads one to (a) despise incursions against civil liberties and (b) open opportunities for employment above that of a TSA agent.

<comment><USER19> I agree that there is not a good overlap between people employed by the TSA and people subjected to the policies of the TSA. I'm less convinced that there is a huge socioeconomic gulf between those groups. The cost of airfare relative to overall cost of living has substantially declined in my lifetime. I would agree with your assertion if the passengers of airlines were like they were 20 years ago. But my contemporary experiences suggest that anyone who has a salary of a TSA employee can afford to fly somewhere. I fly out of Orlando, Florida and I don't see a huge difference between the clientele of Southwest and the clientele of Walmart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just to clear up a misconception I'm seeing, the TSA does not use X-rays anymore, except maybe at very small airports (although I haven't seen one in years).

The backscatter machines were replaced with millimeter wave scanners, which are far safer and less intrusive than x-rays.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> The TSA stole a pair of $600 headphones out of my checked luggage. Fuck those guys. I learned my lesson though, never check expensive things.

<comment><USER23> Your checked luggage is handled by a lot of non-TSA employees, too.

<comment><USER24> But it can't be seriously locked anymore, or at least the TSA will cut your lock if it's not one of the ones they have a master key for: [http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/baggage- locks](http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/baggage-locks)

There can't be very many master keys, and the payoff is so great for getting copies....

<comment><USER25> Take a gun with you. Seriously. [1] If you check a firearm (whether a "real" gun like a 9mm or a flare pistol), you have to check your bags. The interesting point is that once you do this, you are required to use a lock _the TSA does not have a key for_. There is also an increased standard of accountability & custody, as your bag will only be moved by a supervisor.

[1] [http://deviating.net/firearms/packing/](http://deviating.net/firearms/packing/)

<comment><USER26> I realize this is a duplicate of what someone else posted above [1], but:

 __Be very careful that it is legal to carry /transport/own/etc that firearm at your destination! __

For example, New York. Don 't bring one there. (I appreciate the tips from other HNers in that regard, I had no idea.) I'm not sure exactly what it is that is illegal in NY, in fact -- is it specifically airport related, or is it general ownership/carry/transport?

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6135445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6135445)

<comment><USER27> It's possession of a pistol without an NYC pistol permit (costs about $340, takes quite an effort to acquire, etc).

Theoretically there is a federal protection for possessing an unloaded weapon locked in a case (with the ammunition in a separate locked case), provided that you are simply passing through a place where it would be illegal (e.g. flying from Seattle through NYC to Vermont, for instance) but the local respect for that protection may vary. New Jersey, for instance, completely ignores it (you will get arrested and charged, but that works as a defense to the charge).

<comment><USER24> " _[...] an NYC pistol permit [which] takes quite an effort to acquire_ "

As in, you won't get one without political pull. There are 50-60 thousand currently outstanding, in a city of 8 million. Long gun possession licenses are similarly restricted, or at least roughly as rare.

The Firearms Owner's Protection Act of '86 protections for interstate travel are pretty much written with car travel in mind, and you can't really observe all of them while carrying guns in luggage. And it was always an affirmative defense (something you could only bring up while at court), but indeed New Jersey was particularly obnoxious about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm pro welfare, and jobs programs for poor people and old people, but could we just pay them to sit at home instead?

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd be curious how the misconduct numbers compare to other occupations granted special access, such as police. That would help me understand if the problem is specifically with the TSA or if the real issue is that granting anyone such deep and unchecked access leads to misconduct.

</comment><comment><USER30> Simply arresting all of the TSA employees would go a long way toward making air travel safer.

Why aren't TSA employees required to register as sex offenders?

</comment><comment><USER31> Blame unionization. Why government employees are allowed to unionize will forever remain a mystery, for non-cynical reasons that is.

<comment><USER32> I can't think of a single complaint I have with the TSA, of which I have many, which could reasonably be blamed on unionization.

<comment><USER31> Right because near-impossibility of firing someone, and the magnified principal-agent problems of public sector managers negotiating with psu's don't influence behavior in any way.

<comment><USER32> My complaints involve their mission, their rules, their equipment, and their techniques. None of which are exacerbated by unionization.

<comment><USER31> Formal spec vs delivered software - there's a similar case here. In any real world organization, the formal written mission and rules are not exactly the ones that are in operation. Unionization especially public-sector unionization further disconnects employees from the rules and the techniques they are _supposed_ to follow. Now this could go either way, but considering the psychopaths and bums that the TSA hires, and the numerous cases we know of theft, I would say that unionization makes things worse with the rules and techniques.

<comment><USER32> I've never encountered a situation where I was annoyed at TSA because they didn't follow the "formal spec" properly, and wished they had followed it better. In fact, quite the contrary: I have, very occasionally, had places where the TSA let something slide that they officially shouldn't have, and made my life slightly easier as a result.

I don't know why you have such a hard time believing me on this....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Do they conduct body cavity search yet? I think Americans can very well adapt to it.

</comment><comment><USER34> As far as I can tell the only reason for TSA's existence is to give menial jobs to people who are out of whatever menial job they were doing before, likely because of automation or their services becoming unnecessary. Basically a gov's artificial attempt at creating jobs. Tbh I'd prefer if they were just given a stipend and allowed to stay at home, get their livelihood without having to harass and steal in exchange.

</comment><comment><USER35> In Boston I forgot to take off my belt, so a) I got the pat-down, and b) my belt and keys had to ride through the machine. The guy who did the pat down was fine. The kid at the end of the conveyor had never heard the expression "perv scanner" (which I used in explaining to my wife why I was still waiting) but took no umbrage whatever.

</comment><comment><USER36> It would be interesting seeing an experiment on how an increase in the media can affect the overall morale of a certain profession. I highly doubt this increase in misconduct has nothing to do with their negative attention over the past decade.

</comment><comment><USER37> Note that this is overall misconduct, not misconduct per employee. What has happened to the TSA's budget (the majority of which is spent on staffing) over the past three years?

</comment><comment><USER38> What do you think they are doing with the confiscated $100 perfume bottle you bought at the duty free ?

</comment><comment><USER39> Two words: Pre Check

Seriously, this will change your life if you are a frequent flyer. Just get it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I had a large check from a client lifted from my bag at a TSA checkpoint at JFK. New York area airports have also been in the news for theft rings operating in the checked baggage areas.

They need to streamline the passenger security checks so that you can keep your bag under observation and reduce the time the TSA has access to it, and reduce the TSA workforce so they can implement higher standards.</comment>


What brought you here? - <AUTHOR>

digg has become cesspool which I refused to believe for the longest time. I was one of their biggest supporters in the early days and looked over the influx of mass stupidity as it arrived in waves.
I just couldn't take it anymore and stumbled upon (pun not intended) reddit which seems to have become a political battlefield and 4chan playground along with digg.
I am here and content for now. It offers the quality stories I have to literally search for on digg and reddit without the words, "newfag" or "sheeple" in every other sentence.
From the very short time I have been reading here, I've seen something that digg and reddit has lost. A sense of maturity. A genuine desire to converse rather than enrage. That's why I am here. I am curious to hear what brought others here and hope this didn't sound too much like a soapbox speech. <comment><USER2> I've been following Paul Graham's essays for a while. I like most of what he writes. That led to finding out about the YCombinator, and although it wasn't for me, I liked the idea of it.

More recently, I came across news.yc when it got some exposure on Reddit, which I've become increasingly less interested in.

I thought, cool! People doing things. Stuff about the things people are doing. Stuff about how to do other things. I can dig this.

Then the last few days happened, and ... eh.

In the last week, I've:

Ground out a few hundred lines of ksh for a pretty cool in-house sysadmin package;

Developed a nifty JavaScript/CSS effect for a client website;

Worked out a wireless hotspot deal that might make my area pretty unique;

Started wondering whether Google's entry into health records systems has closed the doors on that market.

I'd like it if news.yc was about people doing things.

</comment><comment><USER3> You've actually summed up pretty well my own reasons for coming here. :) I think frustration with other once-great sites is common.

But I have also started to appreciate what is unique about yC, both in site design (e.g. you can't mod things down) and that the content is even closer to what I'm generally interested in.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interestingly, I've never really been to Digg or Reddit, so all this "fluff" is foreign to me. The content here has always been good, I hope it stays that way.

I guess most people (myself included) found news.ycombinator.com through the Paul Graham essays and the YCombinator program. As a result, I'm not too worried about fluff; I think those who read PG essays won't be inclined to post garbage, and karma helps as well to encourage good content. Keep up the awesome work here guys!

</comment><comment><USER5> I understand. I came here because I have a start-up, but the community here is one of the best I know. I'm afraid as it becomes more popular, that will change. But I'm enjoying it for now.</comment>


Tell HN: Auto-Blackmail - <AUTHOR> I've got this dirty secret. I blackmail someone and it takes me places.
I call it auto-blackmail, and here is how it works:
Whenever I come up against something I really don't want to do but that I know I have to do I go out of my way to tell others that I'll do it, and when it will be done.
That way, if I don't do it I'll end up looking like a fool in front of those that matter to me.
I call it 'auto blackmail', the similarities are strong enough to warrant the title. I'm sure it is not original but it works wonders for me.
Blackmail is threatening to tell on someone if they don't do something you want them to do, Auto-Blackmail is a preemptive strike, you tell those whose respect you value that you will succeed, failure, after that is no longer an option.
This in response to some of the 'how to stay focused', 'how to avoid coders block' and other posts of a similar nature that I've come across recently.
I don't have a nicer way of doing it, when self discipline fails, blackmail invariably succeeds.
Join me and use the power of blackmail whenever you feel that urge to avoid a certain piece of work (you know, the one you really should be working on right now).
In fact, there is probably a nice little project embedded here somewhere, a place where you can publicly post your next item on your todo list that you'd really like to avoid and when you will have it done, after the timer expires your whole facebook and twitter posse will be automatically informed that you've dropped the ball :) <comment><USER2> There was a study recently that said people are less likely to achieve their goals when they tell other people about them. Here's an article that discusses it:

[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior- motives/200905/...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior- motives/200905/if-you-want-succeed-don-t-tell-anyone)

And the actual study, "When intentions go public : Does social reality widen the intention-behavior gap?" [PDF]:

[http://www.uni- konstanz.de/psychologie/gollwitzer/PUBLICATIO...](http://www.uni- konstanz.de/psychologie/gollwitzer/PUBLICATIONS/Gollwitzer_Sheeran_2009_When_Intentions_Go_Public.pdf)

<comment><USER3> _There was a study recently that said people are less likely to achieve their goals when they tell other people about them._

It's interesting that Robert Cialdini says the opposite; according to his concept of "Commitment and Consistency", if people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.E2.80.9CWe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Six_.E2.80.9CWeapons_of_Influence.22)).

<comment><USER4> So does G. Richard Shell in Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People. Shell, a Wharton professor, cites a study where half of negotiators committed to a goal in writing and the other half did not. Those who wrote down their goals were far more likely to win at the negotiation table. I picked up the book last week after several people here recommended it and am enjoying the many examples from famous people with which Shell peppers his lessons. <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036971>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I do this sometimes, but it doesn't work _that_ well. My problem is that the sort of people that matter to me, the people I'd tell about these goals, are exactly the sort of people who believe in me and support me and won't actually be that disappointed if I fail because they know I'll have tried my best. (Even if I haven't.) So I don't really fear looking like a fool in front of them at all.

Having to eat a nice serving of humble pie after you've told loads of people something's going to happen and it doesn't is unfortunate, but in my experience it mostly happens with things out of my control (job interviews and the like). I can't really empirically say if I've tried harder in a job interview because I told my mum about it or not. :-)

Another drawback of this system is that people really close to you care about what you're doing, so can get too intrusive and keep asking you questions about it. You end up resenting the questions because things aren't going well and you haven't actually started the task, which makes you resent the questioner, even though they mean well by it. It can drive a wedge between friends and obviously depends a lot by personality (one of my friends was like this and after a period of estrangement he learned to back off and I learned to not associate the resentment with him).

Having said that this auto-blackmail does work in specific situations for me, with specific people, but I think with more 'life' stuff than 'work' stuff.

</comment><comment><USER6> For some reason I find that the more people I tell something, the _less_ likely it is to happen.

So, for instance, I don't talk about potential sales calls, leads, stuff I'm picking up, projects I'm working on -- anything that could possibly be "jinxed"

It's probably just superstition, but dang if every time I talk about one of these things it seems to ruin it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not that long ago you wrote here that you were building something and that you would be releasing it soon, how is that coming along ?

<comment><USER6> Still plugging away. It's Sunday morning here and I don't feel sick any more, so that's a big plus! Woo hoo! Hopefully I can get a lot more done today than yesterday.

There are four delivery points. I'm hoping to make it to delivery point 1 in the next week and demo it here. Fair warning: it will be very lame, but each increment builds on the one before it and you have to start somewhere.

Just working by yourself really sucks, jacquesm. I can handle the work -- coding is coding. And I can do the biz stuff and the techie stuff. It's just the ups and downs and worrying about money and such is easier when you have two people to share in the load. As it is, I have a family that wants to know where the exit points are and hell! I haven't even got on the highway!

After reading this article today, I decided to start a video diary. Each day I'm going to explain to myself what my goals are and how I'm feeling. It's basically an advanced form of talking to myself, but hopefully it will help with the motivation.

<comment><AUTHOR> if you need to blow off steam and have a feeling that you are not as alone in this: twelve.truetech.com:6667 #tmc

But don't let it keep you from your work ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm kind of the opposite. I love to work in secret and have others underestimate me, so that when I do go public about a project, I deliver a nice shocking punch. Then I brag the hell out of it at that point.

</comment><comment><USER8> I partially credit keeping going on my startup with having told many of my coworkers about it before I left. Well, more accurately I say: "If I hadn't run my big mouth, telling everyone I was doing a startup, and don't want a job..." Yeah. I had no choice but to keep going. Not always the best thing though. Choice is good.

<comment><USER9> Have to fight other's choices every day: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braesss_Paradox>

<comment><USER10> The link above has a typo:

here the correct one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess_paradox>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very interesting read, I never figured that something like Braess' Paradox would have such acute real life examples. I though it was mostly a thing confined to theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Years ago there was a diet based on this idea, I think it was called the blackmail diet. You set your weight loss goals, and then escrow, say, $10,000 to be paid to the Klan or the Na$is or some other loathesome group if you don't reach your goals.

People are still fat, at least in the U.S.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a fun one, I wonder if people are still fat, why isn't the klan the best funded institution on the planet :) ?

Either someone at the escrow company is now living the high life or the enrollment wasn't very high. But that's a really funny application of the idea.

I've looked it up, I'm late to the party:

      The Blackmail Diet by John Bear (1984, Ten Speed Press)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Regarding the last bit, this exists in a couple forms. The one I can remember at the moment is stickK (<http://www.stickk.com/>).

<comment><USER13> The founders are a practicing lawyer, a professor, and a recent graduate in American Studies. The remaining staff consists of a marketer, another lawyer, an economist, and a couple of MBA's. How well is this working out?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually, the best thing that works for me is to work with somebody. For example, two of us are working on our startup: I'm the coder, my partner is the business guy. When we discuss how each one of us is doing and check if we match our goals, then I get enthusiastic for the next 24h. Of course, this is an oversimplified example but hopefully you got the idea. :)

</comment><comment><USER15> pg has written about a similar idea about founders who get featured in magazines have a higher bar to live up and are less likely to just give up.

I have been doing this _a lot_ recently--telling every friend I meet that I am broke and I am going to fix this part of my life in a big way. But i'm not sure if this is a cause or the effect because I am not doing this systematically or as a plan. I actually would be kinda embarrassed if I was doing it consciously. It is just what comes out of my mouth naturally these days. The impact of this is after a while you attain a certain image in your friend circle. That image gets reinforced from multiple channels. Example: a friend of mine posted one of those quizzes on my fb wall:

      "Is Zaid addicted to Facebook?"
      I answered ''no. But he is addicted to his laptop.
      Constantly refreshes his bank statement. Asks where the f*** is his 10,000. ''

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that for the PG sample that is because the 'bite' is too big. If you say you're going to be a millionaire before you're 30 you are going to find out soon enough that that is not so easy and maybe give up, whereas if you hadn't thought about it you might have accidentally succeeded.

For me the usage is very simple, bite-sized concrete things that I know I can easily do but keep postponing.

I would never use it for something that is either out of my immediate reach or not under my control. Then it would have the opposite effect.

<comment><USER15> Interesting. I don't usually have a problem going forward with my intentions at a macro scale. The most frustrating part is I hit a rut every now and then at a mini-step and may end up avoiding it a few days(or weeks at worst!). It helps to have a friend or two to not only call your BS but actually lend you a hand. I have couple friends who'll go ahead and _do_ the mini thing I've been avoiding. Like I said, in reality it's usually a pretty small thing(like making a call) but in my head it becomes a huge thing until someone shows it's not.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suffer from that. What always amazes me is that even after all those years when I kick myself in gear and get it over with it usually is less than an hour, two at the most to get that molehill-that-became-a-mountain out of the way.

This is a very annoying character trait and I do everything I can to get it out of my life, including the tricks I outlined above. The golden rule seems to be don't make promises you can't keep. Treat those statements about what you are going to do exactly like you would treat a solemn promise.

Sometimes it's stronger, sometimes it is less, but on the whole this is really a bad element in my character and it takes a lot of effort to get (and keep) it under control.

I am not sure if I'll ever be free of this particular demon but I'm definitely going to continue to work on it.

Just one example to show you how bad this can get. I do some contracting and had to move a bunch of tickets over from one ticketing system to another. Not rocket science, simply take one database, do a format conversion and import into another.

All told it was less than 4 hours of work. But it took me 4 days, and I finally did exactly what I said above, I mailed all the users of the old system that their new system would be up later today.

That sort of clinched it for me, now there was no backing out. Several hours later, job done, users active on the new system. Why it took me that long is simple, it's a totally boring job, anybody could do it, there is _0_ challenge in it for me.

Give me a puzzle and tell me that I can't solve it and I'll be on it like a shot though :)

<comment><USER15> Exactly! If you are like me, you probably spent more than four hours just _thinking_ about that monkey on your back. This happens almost on a daily basis for me. I deal with it by at the least telling myself that it's ok to not do something, but it's not ok to be thinking about it all the time. At least this way whenever I do get to it, I wouldn't have wasted hours fretting about it which is the real time sink.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Richard Hamming talks about doing this in his "You and Your Research" talk: <http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html>

(search for 'ashamed')

</comment><comment><USER17> I use this all the time - my favourite is to promise to give a talk about something I haven't actually written yet. Powerfully motivating.

</comment><comment><USER18> better yet, stand up in front of a hall of some of the best engineers in $country and say you will do something. that really is a driver!

<comment><USER19> is this a reference to foreign engineers becoming taxi drivers in the US?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is not blackmail, it's called being "accountable". When you say you're going to do something, you do it. Again, this is not blackmail, this is how successful, trustworthy people operate every day.

From your profile, you seem to understand this, but do others not?

What is happening to this world when accountability has become a surprising new concept????

<comment><USER21> A surprising number of workplaces still do not understand the concept of accountability - I can say that they are frustrating places to work.

I agree with the original poster; there is no better way to get your goals accomplished than by publicizing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > (you know, the one you really should be working on right now).

This is the problem really. Don't compel yourself to do anything you don't want to. Don't guilt yourself into thinking that you should be doing something else instead of what you really want to do. Stop doing this in the name of productivity, efficiency, ambition, or goals. Instead, focus your energy on making yourself realize why something must be done, if it needs to be done at all. If you can convince yourself that it needs to be done, then you will have no problem doing it and will in fact do it willingly. If you can't convince yourself why it needs to be done, then you should do something to make sure you don't have to do it.

E.g., writing a school paper for a class you don't much care for. That is something that happens to me because some of my required Masters classes are a bit too easy (in fact my undergrad courses in the same subjects were much more advanced). I tell myself that life is a learning experience and writing well is an art that I must continually practice to remain proficient, regardless of the subject matter or specific task at hand. Knowing that this one 10-page assignment is a small piece of the bigger jigsaw puzzle of my life as student makes me want to work on it. Not because I love the class but because I see how this particular assignment fits into the big plan I have previously made. I always try to stick with my big plans unless there is a true reason not to. Is a 10 page assignment a true reason not to stick with my Masters degree and my academic plans? No. Then it is something that will take me one step closer to my final goal. Who doesn't want to take one more step in the right direction?

I don't play tricks with my brain or try to excite myself by small goals or high-scores (try to get an A+ in a 10pg paper I wrote in 2hrs). I see a lot of advice in these motivational / GTD type posts that are mostly tricks and advice on lying to yourself. I don't set my clocks 10mins ahead. I try to understand why it must be so instead of fooling myself and hoping that a safety-net for my follies will somehow help me.

Why do I work on the really boring project at work that nobody else wants to help me on? Because I understand that this is something that helps with the bigger picture of my career. If it doesn't, then I will make sure I don't have to do it. I don't want to live a life avoiding things that must be done or playing tricks on myself just so I do things I don't want to do. If I sit back and truly don't want to do something, I make sure I don't have to do it.

This doesn't mean I look forward to doing the dishes. Wife and I both hate doing the dishes and we avoid using too many pots and pans while cooking. However, I do the dishes whenever I can because it makes the misses happy and that is my bigger goal. Doing the dishes gets me one step closer to marital bliss and who doesn't want that? Do I really want to claim "honey I will do the dishes" and do them reluctantly only because I claimed that publicly? Or do I do the dishes willingly because it makes my wife happy and thus me happy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Different strokes for different folks!

What works for me may not work for others, that's for sure.

I've always worked with lists and commitments, that's the way I structure my time.

If it is on the list it will get done sooner or later. If I commit to a time it will _probably_ get done by that time. If I commit to it publicly then it _will_ get done by that time.

When faced with a thousand choices and many of those are more interesting than that ones that should be done the danger of leaving the things that have to be done until it is too late is very real (for me).

I'd rather be washing _your_ dishes because it would make you and your wife happy than I would do my own, but those need to be done as well. (my own solution to this is very close to yours, use as little stuff as possible).

I've rebuilt a house, without the lists to keep me going I would have surely given up. And without telling people that I would have phase 'x' finished at such and such a date I would have finished a lot later.

So, this is my way, I'm impressed with yours, and I wished I could self motivate for the drudgework as well as you apparently can but I feel I need a little extra push.

<comment><USER22> Side note: I have a lot of respect for you and your work. My comment above is in no way an attempt to disrespect you or your work ethic. Reocities is an awesome project and how you managed to do it was even better.

You're right about different strokes. I don't expect everyone to do what I do in the same way. However, I question the underlying premise behind having to do things you REALLY don't want to do. My comment was really about making sure you don't have too many of those.

> I've always worked with lists and commitments...

> I've rebuilt a house, without the lists to keep me going I would have surely > given up.

Talking about lists, I live by them. I even wrote my own todo-list app (like every run-of-the-mill hacker) called <http://untodos.com> that works with my personality. I put things in Today / Soon / Whenever buckets and move them around depending on real-life situations. If something has been in the soon list for too long, I'll revisit it and either drag it up to Today or down to Whenever. I guess it is a very personal list and unlike you, I don't want to tell people publicly about what I intend to do, willingly or not.

> When faced with a thousand choices and many of those are more interesting...

Not to judge you for being so enterprising, but do you feel having a thousand choices is actually a good thing? I've worked in many interesting projects and a couple of startups over the last decade and found that individuals with too many interesting projects rarely brought a project to fruition. On the other hand, those with just a handful of interesting projects successfully completed most of them. It's the old "too many eggs in a basket" issue. Lot of entrepreneurs are afraid of putting all their eggs in a basket so they begin to get more baskets till there's too many baskets and too few eggs. If you feel compelled to do something instead of what you really want to do, is it because you have too many interesting baskets? Again, this is a personal preference and the # of baskets you are comfortable with will be different from mine.

> I'd rather be washing your dishes...

Is that a public admission of a task you will eventually get around to doing? If so, you're always welcome to St. Petersburg, Florida. We live 5mins from the beautiful Gulf of Mexico.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having too many choices is a mixed blessing.

I think that the number of choices we have in life are a measure of our welfare, if you are near starvation you have 0 choices, you need to get some water&food, and you need to get it now.

As you go up on the welfare ladder you get more and more options on how to spend your time and your choices seem to multiply.

To quote Joe Jackson ( <http://lirama.net/song/226232> ) "They say that choice is freedom, I'm so free I'm stuck in therapy", too much choice is definitely not a good thing.

I try to find a good mix between the stuff that I like to do and the stuff that I have to do.

What I have to do is mostly driven by the need to stay afloat and to stay 'current', what I like to do is usually somewhere off on the fringe, learning languages just for the heck of it (human languages and programming languages) simply because it interests me.

I like to work on stuff that has a clear beginning, a middle and an end, open ended things are less of an attraction to me.

Probably because I can never 'check them off' one of my lists :)

As for the many eggs theory, I think you need at least 6, 3 that you currently depend on (less than 3 sources of income for a business and you're fragile, it's like a chair, it needs three legs to be stable), and 3 waiting in the wings as 'plan b' in case one of the other ones fails so you can get back to 3 legs relatively quickly.

If you try to do much more than that it is my experience that the quality will start to suffer.

Re. washing your dishes, that's a really nice thing of you, to invite me! I'm no longer traveling to the US like I used to, I think your immigration department & TSA have become too much of a nuisance to be dealt with. If I were I'd definitely take you up on it.

I've had to give them my fingerprints, a photograph and my _boots_ on my last tour to the US and I ended up late for a meeting on the west coast because I had to go buy new shoes...

Since then I've avoided the US completely on my travels. (the boots were confiscated because they had steel toes and plates in them, they were supposed to be handed back to me on landing but they forgot to put them on the plane...)

Should you make it to this end of the world then please know that you're invited as well, I'm about 2 hours away from Amsterdam.

j.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of this : <http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/21/></comment>


Chatfuel (YC W16) lets publishers and anyone build bots for messaging apps - never-the-bride http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/18/chatfuel-lets-publishers-and-anyone-build-bots-for-messaging-apps/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, TechCrunch: It'd be super-awesome if you'd link to the companies you're talking about. You can always _nofollow_ the anchors if you're worried about sharing that precious PageRank.

<comment><USER2> There is a link, but buried in the article text. I agree they could do a better job about making it more discoverable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> > The company is currently focused primarily on Telegram, which is the only > chat app to open its bots to all.

What about Slack?</comment>


Twitter Needs to Move on from Its "Free Speech" Ideals - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/08/free_speech_is_the_wrong_way_to_think_about_twitter_and_facebook.html <comment><USER2> Wow, that is some positively Orwellian double-speak there. "We need restrictions on speech to have free speech." Ummm.... how about, "no". Twitter has many issues to be sure, and the article is correct to make the distinction between "first amendment issues" and "free speech" in the general sense, but none of this means Twitter should back off on their commitment to free speech.

That said, one has to love an article that makes a point by quoting The Big Lebowski.

<comment><USER3> Its reasonable to quell shouting-down or hazing - some speech is antisocial and indeed needs to be restricted.

<comment><USER4> Why should person X decide what person Y is allowed to read? Just improve blocking, so that Y can decide what Y wants to read. I don't need big daddy to decide what would be good for me to read and what I better not read.</comment></comment></comment>


Yum is dead, long live DNF - <AUTHOR> http://dnf.baseurl.org/2015/05/11/yum-is-dead-long-live-dnf/ <comment><USER2> I may be a sentimental old fool, but I feel a vague sense of sadness at the removal of yum. Seth Vidal, the original author of yum (or, the fellow who forked it from Yellow Dog Updater, and made it yum), was one of the sweetest, brightest, and most helpful developers I've interacted with in my long history with Open Source. He was killed a few years back when he was hit by a car while cycling, and yum has never quite been the same without him, but I occasionally think of him when using yum.

I wish they'd keep the yum name, since dnf is still based on yum, even if a lot of the innards have been replaced. Also, "dnf" is not at all awesome to say out loud, while "yum" is among the most awesome commands to say out loud.

<comment><USER3> > Also, "dnf" is not at all awesome to say out loud, while "yum" is among the > most awesome commands to say out loud.

Indeed, to me, saying "dnf" out loud suggests "did not finish," which is the opposite of what you want from a package repository tool!

<comment><USER4> Well, they eventually did finish Duke Nukem: Forever, right?

<comment><USER5> Well, they released it anyway. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, why not fix something if broken? Why is there is always a half baked alternative that has a different set of problems. Instead of replacing what is perceived broken you can just fix it also keeping the good parts. I have several systems deeply vested in in the yum/rpm ecosystem and I see very little chance that a new package manager is going to offer that much new features that I need while keeping the features I already like from yum.

From the article:

"undocumented API, broken dependency solving algorithm and inability to refactor internal functions. The last mentioned issue is connected with the lack of documentation. "

Well some of them I don't care about as a user of yum some of them I can verify not true (documentation) and some of them I care about and it works for my use-cases (dependency solving algorithm).

<comment><USER7> It's the CADT model of software development, as usual.

[http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)

<comment><USER8> It's kind of sad if most programmers think that debugging isn't fun. I thought that was a very large part of the programming process? Or maybe people just do OSS in order to re-balance their programming more to the side of clean-slate programming.

<comment><USER7> Some debugging can be fun. But not all of it.

There are always things that won't be fun, and those are the things that get kicked to the curb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Serious question, because I am admittedly ignorant to the plusses and minuses of the different package managers.

If you're going to swap out: why not switch to apt? What does apt lack that DNF is going to provide? This seems like one of those low hanging fruit where standardization across distributions would make sense.

<comment><USER10> Everyone should switch to Portage. It's like a superset of every package manager.

<comment><USER11> The portage ebuild system for describing package dependencies and build procedures is awesome. The portage program for solving dependencies and building packages is mediocre at best—it's slow and too prone to not finding a solution even when the constraints of source compatibility are looser than binary compatibility. The gentoo portage repository of packages is clearly understaffed and orphaned packages are all too easy to run across.

All three of those things have gotten better over the years, and I have little doubt that given the attention and effort that RedHat and Debian package managers get, portage could be a clear winner. But the portage we have now has too many pitfalls to be the best all-around choice.

<comment><USER12> Correct, the all-around best choice is Exherbo's package management. It is extremely similar to Gentoo (after all, many of us used to work on Gentoo), but I'd like to think it has fixed all the problems Gentoo had.

Portage is not used.

<comment><USER11> There's no way that Exherbo's package repos are anywhere near as well maintained and broad as the distros that people have actually heard of. There's no silver bullet for that problem; the only solution is manpower that they don't have.

<comment><USER12> Exherbo's package repos are incredibly well-maintained. What is provided generally always works and things are kept very much up to date (KDE/gnome/chrome/firefox updates within 24 hours usually). Lack of public awareness doesn't always mean the system isn't as well maintained as a system like gentoo (which often breaks!)

The broadness of the system isn't quite as vast as many distributions but running a desktop / dev workstation I have never encountered a package not available that I needed.

<comment><USER11> If you haven't encountered packages missing from their repo, then their search must be broken. In just a few minutes of searching, I found that they seem to be missing anything GIS-related, netperf, smokeping, targetcli, any daap server. That's just stuff I've been using my Linux box for in the past month, but it seems like Exherbo would make me do at least as much work as something like MacPorts!

<comment><USER12> Perhaps my needs are just different from yours. What I did say was "I have never encountered a package not available that I needed". That is not contradicted by your example. Your needs are different, that's cool. What isn't cool is claiming that the search is broken because I haven't found the need to search for those packages.

Exherbo may not be for you. It values users who are willing to be developers as well, and augment the system with the packages they need. You want others to do the work for you, that's not what Exherbo is about.

Besides, the original discussion concerned what package management system was best, not if it had tool X, Y or Z that you claim is very often needed.

<comment><USER11> In reply to a comment that listed the quality of the package repos as one of three major areas of concern, you said that "the all-around best choice is Exherbo's package management" and that "I'd like to think it has fixed all the problems Gentoo had".

If you can't be honest about its shortcomings, you won't be able to convince anyone to try out your pet project. It doesn't matter how reliable and trouble-free it is at managing the core of the system if it immediately degrades to "build it yourself" anytime you want to use something that's not popular enough to make the cut for a live CD.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps I was unclear, and if that's the reason for any confusion I am sorry. I was referring to the majority of the comment which was about portage's shortcomings (though it is also true that ebuild quality is a major problem for gentoo). I specifically was comparing portage/the Gentoo package management infrastructure (NOT the package repos per se) with Exherbo's package management infrastructure (by which I mean the package manager, alternatives handling, repositories). This is what I meant by "Exherbo's package management"; that does not mean the breadth of the repositories.

I like to think my comments were honest: I admitted that the system while technically superior does not have the breadth that larger distributions do, but that for my purposes it was sufficient. You ignored that and found some packages not currently packaged in an attempt to disprove my experiences. Furthermore I admitted that the project may not be for you since you expect different things from a distribution than many of us do. What is dishonest about any of this? I have been incredibly frank.

Besides, one of the nice things about Exherbo is that it handles the nonexistence of a package rather seamlessly. You can compile it by hand, install to a tempdir, and then have the package manager merge it directly while giving you the ability to specify information about the package (metadata, dependencies, etc.). And then of course the package manager can uninstall it when you no longer want it. This makes the problem of "build it yourself" kinda moot.

I'm not going to bother responding to the "make the cut for a live CD" remark since obviously the there are far more packages than would fit on a liveCD or liveDVD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Former libzypp/zypper developer here.

It was not mentioned in the post that dnf is based on the openSUSE dependency SAT solver (libsolv) that was created by Michael Schroeder years ago and that powers libzypp and zypper since openSUSE 11.0.

The dnf developers built a thin layer on top of it, called hawkey, and then build dnf in python on top of hawkey.

One of the biggest innovations of libsolv is not only the SAT based solver but also the .solv format which allows to store package metadata for big amounts of packages in an efficient way and operate the solver directly on it.

[https://github.com/openSUSE/libsolv](https://github.com/openSUSE/libsolv)

</comment><comment><USER14> > Yum is dead

Seems more like `dnf.baseurl.org` is dead (it's down right now).

Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PiRy8Wd...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PiRy8WdU6HYJ:dnf.baseurl.org/2015/05/11/yum- is-dead-long-live-dnf/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER15> So, like, what is a package manager and what does it need to do? All the distros have one. All the lanaguages have one. Why do we have so many of these things and is all the complexity necessary? All our configuration management tools try to abstract the differences. The list goes on on and with these things. As I start down the path of doing more and more operations/systems administration I find myself asking the question over and over: What are we doing with our lives?

<comment><USER16> People don't know what they want package mangers to do and they had much less of a clue back when the fragmentation started. So we got rpm and deb. Arch decided these were too complicated when you wanted a rolling release so they have their own package manager. Programming languages need to have their package managers work on more than just Linux, so they make their own cross platform ones, but since the devs are only thinking about their own language they don't make something cross language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yum is "as dead" as one might think Fedora 22 is "production ready!" The reality is RHEL 6, RHEL 7 and many other distributions use Yum and they are not going to go away anytime soon.

<comment><USER18> I assumed that as Fedora is kind of the upstream for RHEL, that RHEL would end up with dnf down the line?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is kinda stupid. Why not just keep the same name and bump the version number to let say yum 4.x?

<comment><USER20> Because it is not the same? They apparently rewrote a lot of yum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> DNF is THE worst acronym to pick for package management tool :D

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

</comment><comment><USER22> Good to know, thanks Hacker News. Better "dependency solving" is appreciated. Though I stopped using Fedora, I assume this will make it to CentOS eventually.

<comment><USER23> Baring anything horrible with dnf, I would expect it to arrive in RHEL 8.

It wouldn't surprise me to see it show up in centos-extras for CentOS 7 if someone sees a benefit to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 503s for me, here's the article on the Internet Archives Wayback Machine: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150517152126/http://dnf.baseur...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150517152126/http://dnf.baseurl.org/2015/05/11/yum- is-dead-long-live-dnf/)

</comment><comment><USER25> PAGING LENNART POETTERING

Yum/dnf haven't been merged into systemd yet, please merge

</comment><comment><USER26> "X is dead, long live Y" is dead. Long live original headlines.

</comment><comment><USER27> Rule of most surprise?

</comment><comment><USER28> is DNF snappy?

</comment><comment><USER29> HTTP status = 503 :(

</comment><comment><USER30> I still think pacman is far superior to yum or apt-get

<comment><USER31> Why?

<comment><USER32> I like it way more than apt at least. I don't have to use apt-cache, apt-get, apt-kitchensink to do what I want. Its all just subcommands of pacman. Its like vim vs nano - the later has the commands in the shell, but they aren't nearly as fast or power to use as vim if you take the time to learn it. Ironically, I use nano most of the time because I'm not terminal-locked enough to get vim muscle memory, but I use pacman enough to remember everything.

Zypper is actually fairly good. Still way more verbose than it needs to be, but it seems like a fair compromise between "apt-get stupidly-oversized- function-name" and "why the fuck does -Sy mean grab updated package lists from the repo".

<comment><USER33> You can also use `aptitude`, available on both Debian and Ubuntu. It addresses your complaints and it's the first package I install.

<comment><USER34> Since apt-1.0 (basically, since jessie), there's also apt(8), which integrates (most of) apt-get and apt-cache.

<comment><USER33> Huh, I had it installed and had no idea about it. Looks good :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Linux is a horrible mess. The more I try to do with it, the more the mess reveals itself. Wayland vs X11, Python 2 vs Python 3, init vs systemd, ifconfig vs ip addr, these are all examples where as a new user you have to learn the new and the old system just to be on a level playing field and it's is far, far too much.

<comment><USER36> Incidentally, what package manager are you using on Windows/OS X?

<comment><USER37> Not the author, but I use brew.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Discussions everywhere  - <AUTHOR> http://discusi.co/?utm_content=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=HN&utm_campaign=submit2

<comment><AUTHOR> This is early prototype. I think what that system can join the audience of the sites and extension/bookmarklet users. You can write something on page and all visitors (with extension or bookmark) can view its.</comment>


How Tesla Will Change the World (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html <comment><USER2> A carbon tax would have been a more efficient way of nudging the economy towards green behavior than subsidizing the development of electric sportscars for people who already have car(s). It's hard to consumerism your way to ecological friendliness.

<comment><USER3> We have carbon tax in BC for awhile... Personally, and people I know, generally aren't being much greener unless it's related general advancements in technology (eg led, hybrids etc).

Instead it's hitting us in the pocket, when it's already higher cost of living in Vancouver.

We pay highest gas prices in all of north america cause of it... Doesn't make us drive less... Just makes us spend more.

Electricity has had 20% price increase over last few years, and expecting additional increases... So adding a electric vehicle doesn't sound so good when not a vast charging network/speed and are already paying tier2 (kwh rates higher)

Transit isn't improving for the fastest growing suburbs very much. (While the transit execs are getting big bonus).

Carbon tax is like a farce, like offsets imho from a high level

<comment><USER4> Did BC implement it in a revenue neutral way (eg carbon dividend, or by cutting other taxes to match), or was it a net tax increase?

Because it sounds like you actually object to _tax hikes_ in general, not to a specific policy of what actions should be taxed.

<comment><USER5> Gp appears to dislike policy-driven tax hikes which are ineffective at achieving the goal of the policy. See the difference?

<comment><USER4> Mea culpa. My brain skipped right over the vague anecdote intended to show that it's ineffective. Obviously actual data are needed.

> _The 12.9% decrease in British Columbia's per capita emissions in 2008-2013 > compared to 2000-2007 was three-and-a-half times as pronounced as the 3.7% > per capita decline for the rest of Canada._

[https://www.carbontax.org/blog/2015/12/17/british- columbias-...](https://www.carbontax.org/blog/2015/12/17/british-columbias- carbon-tax-by-the-numbers/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Day trader sues broker over 'demo' trading platform mix-up - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/46eff974-7470-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287 <comment><USER2> Paywall: [https://outline.com/tw2JZT](https://outline.com/tw2JZT)</comment>