Why Is the NYPD So Powerful? - <AUTHOR> https://rossbarkan.substack.com/p/why-is-the-nypd-so-powerful <comment><USER2> NYPD polls well.

Granted, these are a bit old and things could have changed, but people are generally happy with them in New York.

[https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/13/poll-shows-broad- sup...](https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/13/poll-shows-broad-support-for- nypd-surveillance-of-muslims/)

[https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/07/16/yelp-for- cops](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/07/16/yelp-for-cops)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/)

In general in America, police are very trusted and even in years with significant issues, that trust did not sharply decline:

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/213869/confidence-police- back-h...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/213869/confidence-police-back- historical-average.aspx)

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/236243/military-small- business-...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/236243/military-small-business- police-stir-confidence.aspx)

Even a recent poll (two days old) had trust in police to be quite high:

[https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos- coronavir...](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus- index)

As an institution, they are one of the most trusted in America:

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence- institutions.as...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence- institutions.aspx)

<comment><USER3> > _NYPD polls well_

This is one of the first things criminal reform advocates in New York are taught. The police is well-funded and powerful and strong because it's popularly supported, and the political class knows that.

And no amount of protesting is likely to change that. Not in the near term. This is why "f __* the police " styled slogans are discouraged. They alienate the only responsive audience: reasonable New Yorkers, who [EDIT: by virtue of most New Yorkers supporting the NYPD] likely support the NYPD in general, and have simply not prioritized your reform policy as a talking point with their friends and elected.

<comment><USER4> So easy to be "reasonable" when life is good.

<comment><USER5> Fact is, the majority of people are generally happy with their life, attacking those people and their life just makes them hate you and support whomever is trying to stop you. I don't see why that is unreasonable or unexpected.

<comment><USER6> If you are happy in a country built on the sweat and blood of enslaved people, and then simply not willing to listen to their suffering, you are an aweful human being.

<comment><USER5> I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth or throw insults at me.

I'm merely pointing out that violent rioters will elicit negative responses from people who don't want society to burn down and those who stop said rioters will elicit positive responses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Think of all the money, real estate wealth, media presence and power that exists in NYC. This is why.

NYPD can operate with impunity, because they know they will not be exposed by local media and will be backed up by the financial power they are protecting.

Contrast this with any other city, whose police force may have unfortunate levels of systemic cover and approval, but nothing even close to NYPD.

Additionally to all of that, the militarization of police forces that many seem to be aware of nationally, seems to have occurred with NYPD as much as any other force [0][1] (9/11 being the obvious reason). So they are extremely well funded, well supported, and "well" (over) trained as far as tactics and methods.

There's also documented, but controversial [2] examples of some of this wealth and power mixing with ethnic conflict, that have resulted in shameful racist abuses of... well it isn't even police, but a sort of "private" force that a lot of people don't know about which has surprising amounts of funding and power. Fact that something like this even exists with limited coverage in media given the abuses is pretty surprising.

[0] [https://fpif.org/why-we-should-be-alarmed-that-israeli- force...](https://fpif.org/why-we-should-be-alarmed-that-israeli-forces-and-u- s-police-are-training-together/)

[1] [https://documentedny.com/2018/09/12/report-criticizes- nypd-c...](https://documentedny.com/2018/09/12/report-criticizes-nypd- collaboration-with-israel/)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/nyregion/brooklyns- privat...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/nyregion/brooklyns-private- jewish-patrols-wield-power-some-call-them-bullies.html)

<comment><USER8> It should be noted that none of the men involved in the shomrim beating of the black man (he also happened to be gay and an artist, and lost one of his eyes in the attack), mentioned in the article, ultimately served out any sort of prison sentence for their roles. All of them got off on technicalities in appeals, and no one seems interested in justice for the man whose life and livelihood were threatened.

<comment><USER9> One person's legal technicality is another person's constitutional right.

<comment><USER10> This seems like a rather odd excuse for a violent racist attack on a black man. I'm sure plenty of KKK members got off on 'legal technicalities', but that doesn't make it right.

<comment><USER9> Constitutionality does not imply "rightness or goodness".

Criminal procedure (legal rules associated with prosecuting crime) is rooted in constitutional law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > It's the marriage of Wall Street, real estate capital, and urban planning, > with politicians—self-described progressives and moderates alike—religiously > supporting tax giveaways and favorable zoning policies for the for-profit > developers of real estate.

I don't find this analysis - which ignores the low[1] rate of housing construction in NYC and the political role of homeowners wrt zoning and property values - remotely convincing.

[1] [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/03/26/new-york-is- sh...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2020/03/26/new-york-is-shrinking/)

<comment><USER12> Low supply for housing increases prices, which is what landlords and real estate investors want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems like pushing through massive budget cuts and busting up police unions is the next logical step. I understand this is easier said than done, but the sooner we get started on actually fighting this fight the easier it will be to get through.

<comment><USER2> Trying that on teacher unions failed and police are more trusted and more respected than teachers/schools.

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/274673/nurses-continue-rate- hig...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/274673/nurses-continue-rate-highest- honesty-ethics.aspx)

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/236243/military-small- business-...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/236243/military-small-business- police-stir-confidence.aspx)

<comment><USER14> That isn't a good comparison, police unions have mostly different support systems and allies than other unions. Police unions are not generally helped by other unions to put it mildly.

Also, enough public support exists for both sides to try and act so which one has more "public trust" doesn't matter at all, it's about exerting power now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Arrests and summonses plummeted in early 2015. This, in labor and political > parlance, is called a slowdown.

Why doesn't this lead to shrinking budgets and layoffs of police? Aren't they providing a data backed solution to reducing the cities budget?

<comment><USER16> Isn't this analogous to cutting IT budget when there's no problems?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The main motif of the article is that the cops had nothing to do with lowering crime under Giuliani and that their apparent withdrawal after many years of tough policing didn't cause any resurgence.

I'd say standard of proof is rather low either way.

<comment><USER18> Guiliani's crackdown on crime coincideded with a nationwide drop in crime in the 1990s, in cities that _didn 't_ implement the same tough "broken window" policies as NYC.

Between 1991 and 2000, homicide rates fell from 9.8 to about 5.5 per 100k people, which is a drop of 44%. There were probably multiple overlapping causes [1], but the most compelling explanation so far is the removal of lead from gasoline in the 1970/80s [2].

[1] [https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime- drop](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime-drop)

[2] [https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated- le...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime- roundup-for-2018/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why is the head of the police not a sheriff? Someone who is elected?

Better question: Was it ever a sheriff?

Seems like elected sheriff's work well in a local community assuming high voter participation.

Very high profile position. I'm from the tropics so I understand that elections can be rigged (see DR 1994). Would love to hear if this worked or failed in the states.

<comment><USER3> > _Why is the head of the police not a sheriff? Someone who is elected?_

Do we have evidence elected sheriffs are more humane than appointed ones? (Honest question.)

<comment><USER20> Elected Sheriffs anecdotally seem to be at higher odds of being charged with corruption and are often focused on politicking rather than policing.

1\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/us/ana-franklin- alabama-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/us/ana-franklin-alabama- sheriff.html) 2\. [https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary...](https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary- reforms-can-help-stop-sheriff-corruption-in-south- carolina/article_391cb9e8-630e-11ea-b32f-a3fd8283a39b.html) 3\. [https://apnews.com/afa9172c457725c92dcb39aca9c85a49](https://apnews.com/afa9172c457725c92dcb39aca9c85a49)

The issue may also be exacerbated if the electorate is actively okay or willing to ignore the corruption.

I believe the increasing political nature of the position is, in fact, part of the issue. The influence of politics through Mayors and the Police Unions makes running a department efficiently and effectively an impossible task if you want to hold onto your job. A chief of police either spend all of their time appeasing politicians by implementing their ideas for how to police effectively or are replaced by someone who will. At the same time they are receiving constant push-back from the Police Union. Never mind the years of experience, training, and graduate degree work almost all police chiefs have endured; they either do what politicians think they should do or are replaced. If they lose the confidence of the Union the Union will sabotage them and they will be replaced.

The second major issue, as I see it, is how we select and hire police officers, which still, almost universally, relies on the polygraph test. The polygraph is proven pseudoscience, but the actually effectiveness, I suspect, is irrelevant because the goal is to see if prospective hires can take the pressure of the test; not to detect dishonesty. You either get perfect applicants, or those who are okay and comfortable with lying.

There are many more issues, of course: the increasing militarization, some departments actively rejecting high IQ candidates, low pay and long working hours for patrol, etc.

<comment><USER21> To add on a third issue, also anecdotally, there's the nature of duties that the typical county sheriff finds themselves with.

They're not local police, they're not state police or FBI, their primary job often winds up being running corrections. Secondary job is detail work on county property. Actual job is often being a patronage network for their boss, the sheriff, help him get re-elected and keep your job.

It's actually the worst possible scenario, because we bring in all the downsides of an elected sheriff with none of the upsides -- they don't work on any of the things where being elected would add accountability. Hiring standards are low, they're based on political usefulness, and there's no downside to the sheriff because who gives a shit about a prisoner being abused.

It's possible that elected local police chiefs might improve things in a way that doesn't extrapolate from the way elected sheriffs work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The police union is powerful, but so are several other public sector unions in the city. I don't see any reason to create a special theory for the police only. I guarantee you the mayor will defend the teachers union from criticism as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> Success has given them a lot of leeway. One cannot deny NYC is a good safe city. Every borough is safe mostly, other than parts of the Bronx.

</comment><comment><USER24> Having lived in NYC, I'm amazed at the level of restraint they've been showing over the last two weeks. They're taking a vicious beating and really pretty much holding fire. Not sure I agree with that strategy, but you have to respect their discipline.

Wild horses couldn't get me to do that job.

<comment><USER25> [https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po- be...](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po- benefits.page) [https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po- hi...](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-hiring.page)

<comment><USER25> To clarify, this is in response to "Wild horses couldn't get me to do that job." It is no mystery. Joining a police force is a powerful tool of upward mobility in a country (ours) where pretty much all the others have been lost. I would hope that the people enjoying those advantages (possibly deserved but evidently rare) would want to preserve them. Sometimes that might result in the restraint you note. Other times the results might be quite different.</comment></comment></comment>


CAPPORT Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-capport-architecture/ <comment><USER2> This seems to me as a protocol to replace the current way of handling "Accept terms and conditions to get access to the internet" in public wireless networks. Currently this is done with HTTP MITM.

<comment><USER3> It's about time. As HSTS is becoming more prevalent, these "legitimate" MITM techniques don't work nearly as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Captive Portal architecture standardization, apparently.

It SHALL be IP layer or higher, so it can work with any physical medium.</comment>


Don't Jump to Conclusions About the Killer - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-unknown-why-in-the-aurora-killings.html <comment><USER3> "Psychologists describe depression as anger turned inward."

Correction: Freud described depression as anger turned inwards.

Specifically, he described anger at external forces (your mother, etc.) turned inwards. In his view, the only way to get rid of depression would be to allow this anger to express itself against the actual external force. This is very, very far away from the majority view of modern psychology (which has dismissed the vast majority of Freudian thought), but I still hear it repeated all the damn time.

The reason I think it's important to correct it is that therapies based on Freud's notion of depression not only aren't helpful, they in many cases made a person worse. It turns out, getting a person to focus on all the things that should make them angry in their life is, in fact, not helpful for their general mental health.

It is true that depressives tend to think a lot of shitty things about themselves. More successful cognitive behavioral therapy (which has been clinically proven to be as helpful as antidepressants in treating non-severe depression), tries to train people to think of alternatives to those shitty thoughts without necessarily saying which one alternative is right. Turns out, getting in the habit of thinking not just the worse thing possible is actually quite helpful. It gets you out of the rut your in.

<comment><USER4> "This is very, very far away from the majority view of modern psychology (which has dismissed the vast majority of Freudian thought), but I still hear it repeated all the damn time."

Actually a lot of therapists still use personal mythology construction as a therapy tool, which is very similar to Freud's idea of directing anger outward in the sense that both creating a new identity for the person or strengthening their existing one. It's basically the same idea but expanded a bit and better explained. If you search for personal mythology on Amazon there are all sorts of books about this.

<comment><USER5> He wasn't talking about what "a lot of therapists" do but rather the modern understanding of depression and its causes and solutions.

<comment><USER4> What a lot of therapists do is by definition part of the modern understanding of depression and its causes and solutions. Depression is a biopsychosocial disease, so to have any real understanding of it you need to look at it through a variety of lenses and disciplines.

<comment><USER6> I assumed "view of modern psychology" as used by parent meaning some generally accepted views of academics backed up by current experimental research results. Which as the parent states is in conflict with current practices of therapists.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. But to be clear, there are, of course, many, many therapists that practice scientifically supported approaches to treating depression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's just a complete waste of time to think about these kinds of things. Some humans malfunction and do this kind of thing. It happens quite rarely, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. One's probability of being harmed by the occasional insane murderer (or terrorism for that matter) is microscopic compared to so many other things that we _can_ actually do something about.

<comment><USER8> I understand what you're saying, but really "there is nothi that can be done to stop it"? What about outlawing firearms for civilian use, or even just not letting the assault weapons ban lapse? And don't tell me every angry/depressed yuppie kid who was going to go on a rampage when guns were easier to get than a drivers license is going to negotiate some black market underworld he knows nothing about to get his guns.

<comment><USER9> The problem is that too many guns exist already in the USA. If guns had just been invented and only a few of them existed, or if we were a moon colony that had never imported guns, or if we were some country where, due to social/cultural/political circumstances very few people have guns, then gun control would stand a chance of working.

But we have to work with what we've got. The situation we're actually in is this: Even if we could get the massive political coalition it would take to repeal a Constitutional amendment, there are still millions of guns that exist in the USA.

There was an article on HN very recently about a site that allows buyers and sellers of guns to find each other and go through transactions using Tor and Bitcoin for anonymity. So I think it's fair to say that the advancing state of software and Internet technology will make it increasingly easier for people to obtain firearms illegally.

So if you outlaw guns in the USA, the practical effect is disarming responsible, law-abiding citizens, whereas anyone who's bound and determined to get a weapon and doesn't care about the law, can still get one.

(Presently I believe there is a federally mandated waiting period and check for felony records for those buying firearms, called the Brady bill; the idea is to make sure you have time to think about what you're doing and have a few days to "cool off" if you're angry about something.)

My state recently passed a concealed-carry law, whereby any citizen can become certified to carry a concealed weapon. The controversy surrounding that has made me aware of an interesting argument:

What if we go in the opposite direction?

If we assume most people are responsible enough to handle firearms, and a non- negligible percentage of the population carries concealed firearms wherever they go, then it's harder for mass tragedies to occur. When the crazed maniac begins his massacre, the would-be victims can start shooting back.

Concealed carry can also serve as a deterrent to violent crime like armed robbery. If you're desperate enough to try something like that, and you know you're gonna be the only one with a gun, you also realize that the worst thing that will happen is you get three squares a day and a roof over your head at taxpayer expense. Whereas if you know there's a decent chance somebody else will have a weapon, suddenly the worst-case scenario becomes a hole in the head, which might affect your calculations enough to change your decision.

That's the argument, anyway; I'd be interested if anyone can find holes in it.

<comment><USER10> The one glaring hole is in the idea that people with concealed carry will be ready and able to effectively "start shooting back".

Are there objective examples of this? I've seen counter-examples, such as how in the Giffords shooting in Arizona the victims actually brought down the perp through physical force, even though some of them were carrying. Are there similar examples of concealed carry folks bringing down a shooter? It should be noted, I'm pro gun ownership, but I'd still like to see you prove your point rather than just regurgitating what all pro-gun people are saying without any data to actually back it up.

<comment><USER11> Recent event in Ocala FL.

[http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/71-Year- Ol...](http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/71-Year-Old-Man- Shoots-Would-Be-Robbers-at-Ocala-Internet-Cafe-Authorities-162941656.html)

Although apparently the robbers had an unloaded shotgun.

<comment><USER10> That's a good example of stopping a robbery, however what I'm really looking for here is an example of where armed men came in with the intention of killing people and were stopped by someone carrying, as that's the scenario we are discussing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I cringe every time I hear perpetrators of mass shootings described as "evil". Evil implies a presence of something bad. It's an easy label that allows people to hate the perpetrator.

It's much more accurate to describe the perpetrators as cold, empty, detached. That is frightening, because there is no hope of reasoning or bargaining with someone who is truly detached from emotion.

There is no such thing as evil. I appreciate this reporter for offering a more accurate picture of who these perpetrators really are.

<comment><USER13> > That is frightening, because there is no hope of reasoning or bargaining > with someone who is truly detached from emotion.

This position is strange, you think the only position from which you can reason or bargain with another person is if they are emotionally attached?

I purposely try as hard as I can to live a life completely free of emotional entanglement, I think emotion is largely useless. By this measure I suppose I would be cold, empty, detached. I choose to be this way because appeals to emotion are usually weak and lacking in actual reason as support.

I can't understand why anyone would look at a wrathful, violence laden action like mass murder and think that the problem is that the offender is not emotional enough.

<comment><USER14> Why do you believe emotion is useless? I cannot think of any aspects of our psychology that are useless (they evolved for a reason).

Negative emotions are fundamentally indicators of a cognitive dissonance and are absolutely invaluable in maintaining a healthy system of introspection. Your profile shows you're also a programmer so here's an analogy I use internally: negative emotions are part of a monitoring system built into our brains that inform us when an assumption in our set of operating beliefs (our personality source code) has been violated. (You get angry when your beliefs about 'fairness' are violated, you feel disappointment when your beliefs about e.g. 'relationships' are violated, etc.)

Positive emotions fulfil a similar role, in the opposite direction by reinforcing the value of the beliefs you've created, although negative emotions are more interesting because your response to the emotion can be extrospective ("I feel angry because that guy cut me off on the road and that violates my beliefs about fairness; I'm getting out my tire iron and teaching him the _right_ way to do things") or they can be introspectively rational, controlled and empowering ("Should I revisit my beliefs about fairness to be more in tune with reality, where people make mistakes?"). People with dysfunctional belief systems and rigid attitudes towards their beliefs are prone to depression (i.e. their belief systems do not serve them well given reality, either through distortion or inadapation).

From an evolutionary perspective, I suspect extrospective analysis was more useful ("I'm angry because the other ape has stolen my lunch, and resources are scarce, so I'm going to punch him in the face"), which explains our default, instinctive "emotional" response to emotions, but as civilization develops and the rules change, introspective responses (which encourage co- operation) are more useful (but more fraught with dangers such as depression, which is a kind of reinforcement feedback loop of negative emotional states, beliefs and poor assumptions). Nevertheless, the high _value_ of emotions remains present.

If anybody reading this finds this personal philosophy interesting, I highly recommend reading David Burns' "Feeling Good" for an exhaustive listing/discussion of emotional states and responses, and constructive ways of dealing with these experiences.

<comment><USER13> I believe emotion is useless because it is largely a distraction. By this I mean that if there are reasons other than emotional to take a course of action, the positive enforcement of emotion to push you in that direction is unnecessary. However, if there are no reasons other than emotional in order to undertake an action, that's a good indicator that the action is not a good path to take.

This doesn't mean that an action which we are compelled to undertake for emotional reasons is necessarily bad, merely that the emotional justification alone is not enough. Same with when we are compelled not to and negative emotions.

Emotion just serves to muddy the waters. I certainly agree with your position that it had an evolutionary advantage at one stage, however I think that has run its course. Frequently human society appears to be little more than an orgy of unthinking, emotionally charged activity. People think less and feel more, and they are guided by these emotions more than by their rational thoughts, to the extent that normal people even think at all.

I think that this is a bad thing. Look at our politics and advertisements, or more generally our levers of compulsion, what largely are the appeals in these arenas designed to target? Our emotions, because this is an extremely effective path for manipulation, the vast majority of humankind is enormously weak to this kind of thing. I believe there is value in making a conscious effort to reject this paradigm.

<comment><USER15> Actually no.

Emotions help us by allowing quick shortcuts in decision. Without them a person loses ability to think within normal limits. Remember last time you wrote your signature on a contract. Imagine taking half an hour to write your signature ? Impossible, well without emotion you will completely rationally debate whether or not to use blue, red or black pen, which ink color is better, etc.

Here is a quote:

 _For 30 minutes the patient enumerated reasons for and against each of the two dates: previous engagements, possible meteorological conditions, virtually anything that one could reasonably think about. "He was now walking us through a tiresome cost-benefit analysis, an endless outlining and fruitless comparison of options and possible consequences. It took enormous discipline to listen to all of this without pounding on the table and telling him to stop," Damasio wrote._

[http://www.smh.com.au/national/feeling-our-way-to- decision-2...](http://www.smh.com.au/national/feeling-our-way-to- decision-20090227-8k8v.html)

Knowing when to keep your emotions in check is another thing.

<comment><USER16> I wish that went more in depth. It seems like a metareasoning reminder that taking time to decide is inefficient would turn into a quick choice. Unless someone without emotions is somehow incapable of picking random numbers.

<comment><USER17> > _" Unless someone without emotions is somehow incapable of picking random > numbers."_

My wife once suffered from a mental illness that nerfed her emotions. I noticed her once, standing immobile in the kitchen. She'd been there for about 5 minutes. She wanted to make a peanut butter sandwich, but couldn't decide whether to get the knife or the bread first.

Someone without emotions is incapable of _caring enough_ to make the decision. They might get stuck on the decision as to which color pen to use, and random numbers wouldn't help -- they wouldn't care enough to decide "I should just use an RNG because this decision is arbitrary". Someone with normal emotions would recognize that pen color _doesn't matter_ while signing the contract _matters_ ; it is the emotion of _caring_ that makes you capable of deciding that one decision isn't worth the effort while another is.

As NY Times columnist David Brooks once wrote, _"People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don't know how much anything is worth."_

<comment><USER16> This is legitimately interesting but in the end it's very much away from the original point. Okay, caring/having motivation matters immensely. Even if you practice and learn logical prioritizing you still need to care enough to implement it. You won't get anything done if you see no problem with sitting still for hours on end.

But almost all other emotions can be ignored. When people talk about making decisions without emotion they mean without fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, trust, anticipation, surprise. You don't need any of those to arrive at a solid decision. Having a goal is something else. As far as wikipedia is concerned "Motivation is related to, but distinct from, emotion."

<comment><USER17> > _"When people talk about making decisions without emotion they mean [list]"_

This is exactly the kind of point-missing people engage in when they talk about decisions or rational thought without emotion. They recognize how some emotions can be distracting, without recognizing how some emotions (even the same ones) can be extremely useful. They say things like "almost all other emotions can be ignored" because they don't have a good grasp of what "almost all other emotions" are or the role they take in cognition.

Emotions like surprise, curiosity, and frustration are incredibly useful for rational thought -- they help you realize that some particular line of inquiry is _worth pursuing_. Emotions make you care about getting something right, or finding a hidden answer, or solving a mystery. Emotions can positively or negatively affect your level of attentiveness, as well as memory formation. Even supposedly bad emotions like anger can serve to focus your attention on "high value" problems (problems often get solved because people are angry or annoyed enough to direct their energy to solving them.)

You actually do need emotions to arrive at a solid decision -- some in making value judgments at the point of decision, others during the analytical processes leading up to the decision. The key is to have a healthy level of emotion contributing to your rational process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Think outside the box.

I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American phenomenon. [1]

So what is it so special about the US that makes this a recurring problem?

Is it poor parenting, without much communication? Is it societal pressure, i.e. Mr Popular vs Mr Loser? Is it easy access to guns? Is it the disproportionate amount of media attention that these cases give to depressed folks with low self-esteem? Is it all of the above? None?

I imagine severe depression happens everywhere, but there's got to be something in the US that turns depression into mass murder. I wish someone would analyze the problem from outside the box, not inside.

[1] Before someone jumps the gun about international news, note that terror and drug/gang crimes are very different. They have clear, consistent motives. Columbine-like stuff is puzzling- their motives seem to be all over the place, hence why to this date experts are still trying to figure them out.

<comment><USER19> I know American's do not like to hear this but I am of the opinion that it's easy access to guns which is the cause of these mass murders. Now that Australia has gun control, the crazy's just stab a few people. It's very hard to kill so many people with a knife.

If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage.

<comment><USER20> _If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage._

Taking away legal access != eliminating easy access to guns. It still may well be the case that it is easy to buy guns on the black market.

On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer.

<comment><USER21> _On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target for mass murderer._

Has a massacre in the US _ever_ been stopped by someone with a gun, who wasn't a cop?

<comment><USER22> Possibly the Appalachian School of Law shooting, [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_sho...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Of course they're sad; they've probably gone their entire day getting berated relentlessly, by the single person in the world whose opinion they hold most dear — themselves."

This is the most important part of the article.

All of us to some degree have wrestled with negative self-talk in our lives; a feeling of not liking yourself or just not being "good enough." For some, it can be a steady, continuous feedback loop that's difficult to break. I've wrestled with it myself. For me, it takes the form of the "imposter phenomenon" and it becomes more pronounced when I'm in groups of smarter people or when I perceive there to be particularly more at stake than normal situations. "What are you doing here, you're not smart enough, how did you get this job, you're not good enough to run a successful startup etc." In the past, it's caused me to freeze up, have trouble articulating what I want to get across or (worst of all) escape the situation entirely. As I've gotten closer & closer to where I want to be as it relates to the startup ecosystem and my place in it, that inner voice has gotten louder. So I can certainly relate to that aspect of it. It's a battle that's fought anew every day.

And sometimes it does manifest itself in a more social context, e.g. "nobody cares about me, etc." which can also be difficult to quell, particularly for someone who's more of an introvert at heart. Left unchecked, I can clearly see how that can get the better of someone and send them down a destructive path, although I still think to take that anger and push it back out to society in such a violent way requires a synapse somewhere else misfiring.

It's a good reminder that external stimuli alone aren't usually to blame for negative, depressing feelings.

</comment><comment><USER24> _"Resist the temptation to extrapolate details prematurely into a whole."_

The author of this article spent a decade researching the Columbine tragedy[1]. Here, he's describing how readily mass tragedies and shooting sprees lend themselves to misinformation by the media and mythologizing by the public. We can think of the perpetrators as always being loner outcasts, but the effort to make sense of their motives isn't that simple. They might be clinical psychopaths or suicidal depressives or paranoid narcissists or something else.

[1] - <http://www.columbine-online.com/>

</comment><comment><USER25> I think of the murderers as having some kind of hardware bug. We have evolved special safeguard that prevents us form killing the people we live with and people we meet daily. It's crazy that we do live in proximity of other people and meet them if you think how dangerous single person can be when this safeguard fails.

All the search for reasons why the person killed is little bit like creating fake narratives to kind of natural bizarre event. If person is able to intentionally kill then there's something wrong with that person and we have to deal with it. You may investigate how it came to be that this safeguard was damaged. Maybe the person underwent military training or just had a childhood equivalent to that. Most likely there is something wrong with the brain of that person that was there from the beginning or manifested during puberty or manifested as a result of shock of some sort. "What was the murderers reasons?" is the most irrelevant question of all.

<comment><USER26> I think this is too dismissive, and is the equivalent of sweeping it underneath the rug and hoping it doesn't happen again. To me, this is a symptom that there is something broken with society. The way I see it, energy builds up in the system, and needs to be released somehow. If there's no way for that energy to be released, it builds up and reaches a phase-transition state, like how water will slowly boil but then explosively turn into steam. But something about the structure of society creates a kind of feedback loop, something like this happens, people dismiss it as a "natural bizarre event" and dismiss the person as "having some kind of hardware bug." People then carry on with their lives, forget about it, and then a few years later it happens again. People don't change. People haven't changed one bit since the beginning of time. People have the same exact emotions that they had 2000 years ago, and they react in the same exact way. This is why history repeats, because the way people react to emotions never changes.

<comment><USER25> > People haven't changed one bit since the beginning of time. People have the > same exact emotions that they had 2000 years ago, and they react in the same > exact way. This is why history repeats, because the way people react to > emotions never changes.

Not true. We are becoming less and less violent. You can see it by observing numbers of wars fought, war casualties, crime punishment, crime rates, entertainment over the last hundreds of years. Some artile about this: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less- violent-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent- stats_n_1026723.html) There was also TED talk about this. You can find more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've read about killings before, I lived through 9/11, but for some reason these killings struck me really hard. Even more than school shootings. Perhaps because I think of the cinema as sanctuary - a place of make believe where we go to escape (move over places of worship!) but mostly because I wanted to really know motivations - why did he do it? Especially when it turns out he's not a person who tortured animals as a kid etc etc. I want to know why a seemingly normal person can meticulously plan such a senseless act of destruction.

<comment><USER15> Why is there a need to find out why? Killing spree is a lot like thunderbolt. It has no prediction why it struck, in the path it stuck.

If you only want to minimize risks of future murders, then don't read/watch the news. Each time a murderer has his/her face shown, she/he is glorified in even tiniest of ways (i.e. comic book villain), with a number of murders he/she committed put in front line, number of violent copycat acts will spike.

<comment><USER28> It's completely incorrect to say there is no explanation why it struck. Maybe it's true that it was impossible to predict, maybe it's true that we will never find out the cause, but can be 100% sure there is a cause.

<comment><USER15> True. There is some semantic mismatch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't think there was a rational motive behind this, or we would have heard about it by now. What the scary truth seems to be is, that these individuals are in a severely distorted state of perception, in which the killing of people becomes justifiable for them. He has most likely a extreme case of depression, psychosis or something else along those lines, of which the causes need to be investigated. But there will never be a reasonable "why", other then a sad story of a human being, who's life went wrong at one turn or another and in the end his mind malfunctioned. To prevent this from happening, I'd argue, given the amount of people, the complex society we live in and the unfortunate circumstances some people experience in their live, we need to accept that disturbed personalities like these sometimes "happen", and I'm not sure how to avoid that. In my opinion, the most effective prevention would probably be to restrict easy access to lethal weapons. When we realize that (sadly) our society can produce minds like this, we have to make sure you can't buy smoke grenades at a pawn shop.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm getting convinced about an interesting new theory on free will. Our free will isn't exactly "free", and is not certainly a conscious act. What we will is determined by the genetic predispositions and a historical interaction of the self with environment. This creates a feedback loop and the self takes one of the trajectories for which it is NOT responsible. Yet, the consequences of the actions are faced by the self in an immediate sense (imprisonment, sadness, happiness). This creates an unfair situation.

So, in a way, _I_ am not responsible for my actions, yet the blame is put on _me_.

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER11> This is certainly true of animals, but we as human beings do have the power to control the direction of the feedback loop.In other words we have the ability to decide how we respond to external stimuli, a truly unique ability in the animal kingdom.

"Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Therefore, we can predict his future only within the large framework of a statistical survey referring to a whole group; the individual personality, however, remains essentially unpredictable"

\- Viktor Frankl, _Man's search for Meaning_

<comment><USER30> We respond to external stimuli in a unique way, true. I'm not saying free will does not exist, but YOU as an agent do not have that will. It's actually a combination of genes + historical feedback loop between environment and you. When you are asked to pick between a color (red or green), on what basis do you pick that color?

The recent book on Free Will by Sam Harris: <http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will- Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405> is relevant here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> From the submitted article: "At this very moment, the police have probably gathered a great deal of evidence from James Holmes. They may well have a clear read on his motives right now. It is vital that they share this information fully with the public, but just as vital that they conceal much or all of it while they conduct their investigation. Testimony from friends, family and survivors of the massacre is also crucial, and witnesses are highly suggestible. Information must be withheld in the short run to safeguard corrupting their stories."

This should be ROUTINE practice in police investigations, to guard against corruption of witness testimony, but, alas, we all know counterexamples. Moreover, it is a professional ethics violation for prosecutors to make excessively detailed statements to the press (who are always willing to ask for as many details as they can get) about the course of an investigation in progress and about possible motives for a crime when the accused has not yet been put on trial. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is STILL important, despite many cases we can observe where it appears to be violated.

The human mind leaps to supposing explanations and forming a narrative around new, disturbing events. The mind is a "belief engine"

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies- How-C...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How- Construct/dp/0805091254)

and all of us would like to get an answer, even a quick and dirty answer that may be flat wrong, rather than have unanswered questions about a shocking news story. I remember well the speculation that swirled around the Columbine High School shootings some years ago. I was active in a different online community then, and a bunch of programmers were unembarrassed about going beyond the limits of their occupational knowledge to endorse various hypotheses about why the shooters killed their classmates. Right now we don't know why James Eagan Holmes shot movie-goers, evidently planning well in advance to kill many strangers. I'm not going to speculate about it.

The public-health perspective on violence reduction is interesting, because it doesn't depend on knowing much about the motives of individuals. The theory is that certain risk-reduction measures work in general, minimizing the chance that some individual will engage in any kind of incident like the one in Aurora, Colorado. Gun control is such a sensitive issue in the United States that it is barely being discussed yet by politicians in connection with the incident this weekend, but differing national patterns of gun control have been mentioned by commentators who point to the example of Australia's response to the 1996 Port Arthur, Tasmania shooting

[http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/donohue-gun- contro...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/donohue-gun- control/index.html)

[http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8502957/smaller-risk- of-...](http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8502957/smaller-risk-of-getting- shot-in-australia)

as the right way to reduce risk of further mass shooting incidents. That's food for thought. So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in residential neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called "assault rifles" for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood.

First edit: I see other Hacker News commenters are picking up on the submitted article's author's remarks on depression. This may be overgeneralizing too much from one example, even though the author also refers to a Secret Service study of the small number of examples of school shooters studied to that time. I think the author's most accurate point on that issue is "A vast majority of depressives are a danger only to themselves."

<comment><USER32> _So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in residential neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called "assault rifles" for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood._

By "assault rifles" do you mean the colloquial definition of black semi- automatic firearms with pistol grips and detachable magazines? Or the technically accurate definition of select-fire automatic weapons, which this alleged killer's ar-15 was allegedly not?

There is very little functional difference between the ar-15 rifle used in this crime and rifles commonly used to hunt, other than hunting rifles for medium and large game are usually larger caliber and therefore usually more lethal.

Hunting laws prohibit _use of_ higher capacity magazines in some situations. However, proper accuracy usually makes reloading time a minor factor in how quickly one can go through 100 or 200 rounds. If you make lunatics like this focus on accuracy rather than letting them think they're all set because they can show up with a drum magazine, more people would probably die or have life- threatening injuries, even if fewer people are hit.

The drum magazine used probably contributed to the shooter's S&W AR-15 jamming, possibly saving lives. They are not the most reliable magazines.

There are owners of assault rifles (in the colloquial sense, and possibly in the true sense) in my relatively safe neighborhood, and it does not concern me in the least.

As far as your reference to "young people", I take it that you want to create yet another age restriction, beyond the 16 years necessary to get a license, 18 necessary to vote and serve in the military, and 21 necessary to drink and buy a handgun from a FFL? 24 year olds are now not trustworthy? What age limit would you propose? 30? 35? Can someone be old enough to serve in the Senate or as President and still not be trusted with a rifle? Anders Breivik was 32.

<comment><USER31> For concreteness, is there any credible argument that the restrictions on gun availability that were put in place after the shooting incident in Australia in 1996 (which has not been repeated) have in any way reduced the freedom of citizens and residents of Australia? I know a lot of Australians, and they are very freedom-loving people, and I think if gun laws in Australia are different from how they are in the United States, one reason is that Australians like to be free of being shot to death by crazy people in public places.

<comment><USER13> Originally Australian here; our gun laws are stupid and largely ineffective, there is currently a war between various outlaw biker gangs going on, they mostly use guns. The Port Arthur massacre actually used weapons that were already illegal at the time and not but a month ago an m4 with underslung grenade launcher was confiscated in a Sydney suburb by police.

No other reasonable interpretation of available data exists other than gun laws have only effectively disarmed the law abiding. Some may claim this alone as all the victory required, but the pretense that gun laws stop criminals from using or acquiring guns in Australia is completely false.

<comment><USER33> "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." A typical remark from gun-loving Americans. They seem to miss a couple of things: if guns are outlawed, and you catch someone with a gun, that indicates they posess the gun with criminal intentions (i.e., their objection can actually be an advantage); if lots of people have guns and normal people can buy them, it makes it that much easier for criminals to obtain them; and a gun in a home is more likely to be use to accidentally kill children than to kill a criminal intruder, which means there is a good reason to try to discourage regular citizens from owning guns.

I think there are compelling reasons to keep guns legal, and I could imagine circumstances in which I would buy a gun. If I have children, I will teach them to safely handle a firearm, as I was taught. But this NRA cliche about banning guns doesn't hold water as an argument.

<comment><USER34> The key word there is _if_. If you catch a criminal with a gun, he'd usually be holding it illegally within pretty much any current US law. The problem is that catching those criminals before they do harm is problematic - <USER2> until they do, you don't know who they are. And doing random searches on law abiding citizens just in case they are hiding something would probably be too much even for Brady campaign.

Evidence shows that in countries where private possession of guns were banned - like USSR - the criminals did have guns and did use them to kill people. Government restrictions rarely make something wanted inaccessible - prohibition failed miserably, war on drugs did the same. War on guns would inevitably fail too, but would bring enormous amount of victims among regular citizens - just like the ones mentioned above did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Slightly offtopic, I read a comment somewhere that asked what would have happened if the killer had been an Arab. It is interesting. When the killer is one of our own, we are able to quickly switch off group-think and acknowledge that the killer was insane. In contrast, when the killer is of an outgroup, we instantly assign group blame and then exact group retribution.

</comment><comment><USER36> _"... The Secret Service's landmark study of school shooters in 2002 determined that 78 percent of those shooters had experienced suicidal thoughts or attempts before mass murder. ..."_

With respect to Columbine, the same study noted this observation about targeted violence in schools.

 _'... Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack ...'_ [0]

The relationship between bullying and targeted violence appeared to be a serious enough problem for the Secret Service to consider and investigate.

[0] Fein, R.A. Ph.D., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W.S. Ph.D., Borum, R. Psy.D., Modzeleski W., Reddy M., Ph.D., "Threat Assessment in Schools: A guide to managing threatening situations and to create safe school climates", Chapter III, P17, United States Secret Service & United States Department of Education, Washington, D.C., 2002. (pdf, 754Kb) ~ <http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_guide.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER37> Only tangentially related, but I'd like to know:

The Wikipedia article on the incident says "The first phone calls to emergency services via 9-1-1 were made at 12:39 a.m. The police arrived within 90 seconds and apprehended the suspect."

I'm wondering, can this be true? Are they really _that_ fast? If so, impressive.

<comment><USER38> According to the police chief, they had a lot of extra officers out on the streets as part of a summer initiative. Aurora is a typical strip mall suburb so it is feasible that a unit even a mile or two away could get there in 90 seconds, especially at that time of night with no traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> _"Instead, buy my book!"_</comment>


Datomic: Can Simple be also Fast? - <AUTHOR> http://www.dotkam.com/2013/05/31/datomic-can-simple-be-also-fast/ <comment><USER3> Whether through Datomic or something else, it seems like some version of "database-as-a-value" (as described by Rich Hickey) is bound to happen. We're keeping immutable version histories of as much as our hardware and systems will allow, from source code management through other types of media. Why in the world wouldn't we do this with our data if we could?

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Widespread adoption of technology tends to follow a path of least resistance. Does Datomic offer a simple enough path to pull many people over? I also know many of us have a preference for building on open source systems; will this be an obstacle for Datomic?

<comment><USER4> Take a look at Event Sourcing, commonly used with CQRS. The approach is indeed to store data as change-events in an event-store (which could by a SQL database or NoSQL store, that depends on your needs) and then built one or more views (separate databases, Lucene indexes, files, anything really) to service the type of requests that the application handles.

For an example of CQRS with Event Sourcing in Java: [http://axonframework.org](http://axonframework.org)

<comment><USER5> SQL databases also do this. They have events called 'SQL statements' which are written to a 'journal' and applied to the domain which resides in the 'tables' of the database :)

<comment> Tuna-Fish You seem to not understand the point. SQL databases don't count because these mechanisms are not visible, and the _programming model_ is changing data in place.

No-one really cares how DB's are implemented under the hood, we just care about the programming model. (And speed, CAP, ACID, etc...)

<comment><USER5> I do get the point, in fact I'm building such an app right now, but my statement is still true and I find that quite amusing.

<comment><USER6> Given the underlying architecture of most relational databases, is it realistically possible to do "point in time queries", without requiring playing back the entire log history into a clean database up to the point in time you want? That's not going to be very efficient.

I've only seen SQL logs presented as solutions to replication and disaster recovery, not point in time functionality.

What I'm getting at, is it even possible in principle to expose part of the inner workings of some relational database systems to get this kind of capability?

<comment><USER5> Snapshotting and log replay should be fairly straightforward, if you save all sql statements in their entirety. Snapshots would stop the world, which might pose a problem, but I presume this is no different to other event sourcing solutions. Given the concurrency of a db, I'm also not sure that there's a strict ordering of all incoming statements.

Edit: Seems like at least Oracle is already doing this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redo_log](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redo_log)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One database pattern I use is to have new data/events be inserted into tables. Then use either window functions, views, and/or triggers to get a snapshot of the most current version of the data. It takes more space, but it allows me to figure out why the database is in the state that it is.

For example, if I want to track ups shipments, I'd set up a shipment_events table. Every time I check the status of a shipment, I'd insert into the shipment_events table. If the shipment changes state from in_transit to delivered, then I'd set shipments.state="delivered".

</comment><comment><USER8> Never Trust Sheep - isn't it the sheep that spot the bugs, scaling issues in real-world scenarios, indirectly help get the funding for the parent company so that they can scale teams and isn't it sheep that write tools, clients and community documentation?

<comment><USER9> If you're talking about enterprise companies--the type of company where suits often make engineering decisions--they seem to rarely release any of their "tools, clients and community documentation".

<comment><USER8> I'm talking about companies like mongodb, what was mysql and postgres - <USER2> ones with the large communities (sheep).

<comment><USER10> Not all flocks are made of sheep.

<comment><USER11> Ah, you fancy yourselves as flocks of wolves?

<comment><USER10> I don't like Mongo or MySQL. That doesn't mean other people don't have good reasons to use those platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am always interested in Datomic's approach. How can you build a simple thread-safe counter with it?

If you do it in a time-series db fashion, there will soon be too many facts to count.

<comment><USER13> You can define functions inside the database and then use them inside a transaction [1] so that you can get atomic update, if that's the question. You can also mark attributes as noHistory [2] if you don't care about the past state.

[1] [http://docs.datomic.com/database- functions.html](http://docs.datomic.com/database-functions.html)

[2] [http://docs.datomic.com/schema.html](http://docs.datomic.com/schema.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Isn't HornetQ the queue that allows one "ack" to speak for the past five messages. That is, if I were to lose one of the past five messages I sent, I would never know because the system would consider the message delivered. To me, that is a severe flaw and could open you up to a nightmare of debugging if used improperly. Either go full acks or go ack-less.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like mongodb's batched write semantics.</comment></comment>


Was this Wikipedia page computer generated? - <AUTHOR> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Barbour<p>This page doesn't seem like just a non-native speaker wrote it. Does it look like one of those computer generated articles? <comment><USER2> This is the original contributor [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Brownw...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Brownweepy) If they are generating content automatically, they are also using the same account to talk to editors.

</comment><comment><USER3> For sure. The culprit is likely one of the 'references'.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's certainly very positive and full of repetition, a native speaker would probably watch out for that. Very interesting.</comment>


Stock Forecasts based on Quantum Physics - <AUTHOR> http://www.aktien-prognose.de/?idd=qy

<comment><AUTHOR> very good idea. let's see if it works.</comment>


Fantasy Football Draft Optimizer Tools - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone! We've been hard at work and are happy to announce we are releasing our free 2015 fantasy football draft optimizer apps. The apps allow you to calculate custom projections for your league based on your league settings. The projections incorporate more sources of projections than any other site, and have been the most accurate projections over the last 3 years (http://fantasyfootballanalytics.net/2015/02/best-fantasy-football-projections-2015.html). Based on these projections, the draft optimizers determine the best players to draft based on your risk tolerance. The Auction Draft Optimizer dynamically updates its selections as you draft.
We'd love to hear what people think. We're planning on keeping the tools for free so that we can continue to help out the community. Please let us know what you think and how we can improve the free tools!
Snake Draft Optimizer: http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/projections
Auction Draft Optimizer: http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/lineupoptimizer <comment><USER2> I'd like to see more custum scoring, or at least projected yards and touchdowns. One league I play in is .05 points per yard instead of the standard .1 points per yard.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Jareds, The tool has lots of custom scoring options, just click "Change Data Settings". To go from .1 points per yard to .05 points per yard, change to "1 pt 10 yards" to "1 pt per 20 yards". Thanks and hope that helps! -Isaac

<comment><USER2> Thanks, found it. fOr some reason it was not obvious with my screen reading software.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Is Apple on the decline? - <AUTHOR>

There have been a number of stories recently indicating that development of new/updated Apple products has sort of stalled.  A few die-hard Apple fans I know have migrated recently to non-Apple products (e.g. from iPhone to Android).  Is excitement about Apple beginning to wane?  Apple is obviously on a solid footing financially but are "alpha geeks" now are finding their shiniest new toys elsewhere? <comment><USER2> I don't think so. The WWDC presentations yesterday still contained only a fraction of demos for what's coming in iOS6. If things were bad, I don't think they would have added so much.

I understand how people can think this, seeing how the Mac Pro lacks a compelling update, but Apple seems to have its own mercurial schedule these days. Just when you think they've forgotten or ignored something, BAM!, they announce a big change.

Still to come is a new iTunes and improved store discovery. Neither of these are small things.

And iOS still has many strong apps Android doesn't. The real challenge will be what happens when Windows 8 tablets start showing up and devs create for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The real challenge will be what happens when Windows 8 tablets start showing up..._

It also seems like there have been more stories lately that portray Microsoft and its products in a more positive light....

<comment><USER2> For most people, Windows 8 is really an unknown. I've seen videos and read posts, but until it's out and can be handled, it's all like a movie trailer to me. Android hasn't gained the tablet traction of iOS, so maybe Windows 8 will. It still has very large number of devs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are "alpha geeks" leaving? No. Apple's never been stronger in that domain. Conferences are virtually 100% MacBooks with a smattering of ironic Dell or Lenovo systems. If anything it's even stronger since there's even more iPad presence.

The people who are leaving are technology hipsters. They want to use the things that haven't become popular, that are unappreciated. Apple's too mainstream to be cool for people like that. They want problems to solve, things to fiddle with, not finished products that anyone can use. They want challenges and bragging rights for getting it to work.

It's not a case of elitism as easy as that would be to see. It's just that Apple's platform is, as far as hackers go, quite "done" and there's not much untamed land to occupy. The rugged frontier is far beyond iOS and OS X.

I'm sure a few of these people are working on a Raspberry Pi phone.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some % of users of anything is always unhappy. I'm unhappy with the Android phone I've got because it has no official ICS yet, then I instal CM-based ROMs which aren't perfect and get mad when the device has trouble.

It seems that Apple has one of the lowest % of unhappy users, and that means it will not decline, but thrive...because they care about the experience so much.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use an Android phone. I primarily use Win 8 consumer preview (sometimes Win 7 or Ubuntu). I dislike Apple for many reasons. However, I bought one of the new Macbook Airs yesterday. I'm going to dual-boot Win 8 on it. Currently, they are just the best hardware for the price when it comes to ultrabooks in my opinion.

When it comes to iOS, I don't think iOS or the Apple ecosystem will be the dominant ecosystem. Their products are simply too expensive for the majority of the world to afford, plus I think a merger between tablet and computer OS like Win 8 is the future of computing. However, It think they will continue to dominate the high end tech field, which has way better profit margins.

<comment><USER6> Would love it if you could share your experience running Win 8 in dual boot on the new Macbook Air. ( I am also considering this option)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in Ann Arbor, MI, and 90% of the laptop users (in coffee shops or other public locations) use an Apple. So, from what I can see, they don't appear to be declining.

<comment><USER8> Thats interesting. I've always thought that Apple was mainly dominant in Silicon Valley, and MAYBE other tech hubs but thats pretty interesting.

<comment><USER9> They're mainly dominant in coffee shops---their overall laptop share is less than 10%.

<comment><USER8> I assure you in the Valley its not just in coffee shops. I've lived here for 5+ years and the mass majority of folks I come across are Mac users. While its true Mac shares are probably still single digits, in this region, they are dominating.

<comment><USER9> I don't doubt it. I just thought it was funny that coffee shops were mentioned specifically in multiple posts. Probably not a good random sample.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> On the decline? Of course not. Have they peaked? Maybe.

<comment><USER11> Isn't decline the only thing to do after a peak?

<comment><USER12> You could plateau post-peak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No. The iTV is going to be a very big deal. Not sure what Apple will do for an encore after that, but it should keep them on top and growing for the next several years.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would not say that Apple is on the decline, but I do think that their products have become less exciting as of late. For me, at least, I am much more excited about the next version of Windows (8 and Phone 8) and Android then I am about the next version of OSX and iOS.</comment>


McDonalds's initiative to save 'The Sparrow' - <AUTHOR> http://nadinepereira.com/#happySparrow

<comment><USER2> _The sparrow population in Mumbai has decreased mainly due to urbanization and electromagnetic waves from mobile phones._

Huh - if it's not wind turbines killing them it's RF from mobile phones - I'd say its stacked up against them and Ronald M is not going to be able to help all that much.

Causes of bird deaths: <http://www.currykerlinger.com/birds.htm>

</comment><comment><USER3> Bloody hypocrites, poison humans with their fast food and 'save sparrows'? Pffft...</comment>


Android app reinstalls not as easy as can be - <AUTHOR> http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=1776 <comment><USER2> AppBrain works really well for this. You still have to do some clicking, but not nearly as much.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is the tallest manmade structure only 2,722 feet? - <AUTHOR>

I don't get why nobody built a simple tower with a narrow base to best that. Is it really that hard to do, or that expensive? Why aren't there any 10,000 foot towers? <comment><USER2> Elevators. I mean obviously there are significant structural concerns as well, but elevators are a big part of what makes building super-tall buildings uneconomic and impractical. The Elevator Conundrum, as Wikipedia dubs it ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_design_and_construc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_design_and_construction#The_elevator_conundrum)), means that as you build a taller building, you need more elevators to service the floors. More elevators take up more space, meaning less rentable space for occupants. While skylobbies, double-deck elevators, and other tricks can help, they don't eliminate the problem, especially since no one is willing to transfer elevators four times to get up/down. We also run into the issue of how to build a 10,000 foot elevator, which is so far outside the competence of manufacturers that it would represent a huge risk to the completion of the entire building project.

I am, of course, assuming you plan to build a useful tall building instead of an empty 10,000 foot tall shell for no particular reason.

<comment><USER3> The elevator problem is partially solved by never leaving your section of the mega tower!

Work on level 120 Sleep on 73 Recreation on 145 Skyway connections to neighboring mega towers every 50-75 levels.

Actually travelling to the surface world would be akin to driving for hours across the state. It's a trip and would be planned for accordingly, and happen rarely.

<comment><USER4> >Actually travelling to the surface world would be akin to driving for hours across the state. It's a trip and would be planned for accordingly, and happen rarely.

I must be missing something. 10,000ft is 1.8ish miles. That's like an 8 minute bike ride not a cross-state drive. Even if it took 30 minutes by elevator, that's a reasonable commute in cities like Chicago.

<comment><USER3> Yea, I went funny with the scale. Jumped straight from skycraper to something the size of a GSV from the Culture series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, let's give your skyscraper a nice 80' x 200' floor plate. A 100 stories up, and you've probably spent a billion dollars on construction and land and entitlement...at least in the US. Less some other parts of the world, more in others.

You're only half way to matching the tallest building, have just put an additional million and a half feet of expensive space into the local real- estate market, and your costs are only going up.

But that doesn't really paint the right picture about how expensive it is to build upward beyond a half dozen stories or so rather than building outward or just cramming more into less space.

No to put the cost of building upward in perspective: the great pyramid was the tallest building for nearly 4000 years. Lincoln Cathedral was then the tallest ever built for more than 500 [250 years if you want to say it lost the title when the spire collapsed, which brings up the point that the great pyramid would have been, but for erosion the tallest structure from 1647 to 1874, but was still the second tallest in the age of steam and iron].

So yeah, it's expensive and hard and unless you're the Pharaoh doesn't serve much purpose.

</comment><comment><USER6> Relevant: [http://what-if.xkcd.com/94/](http://what-if.xkcd.com/94/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some of the thecnical problems are discussed in "Billion-Story Building" [https://what-if.xkcd.com/94/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/94/)

Another problem is the cost. Who is going to pay it? Do you want to pay it???

</comment><comment><USER8> Assuming you want a serious answer, a very HN one is to discuss scalability, and unlike rope or cables or fiber, towers most certainly do NOT scale merely linearly with length. Its way, way worse. Or if you prefer to think of it this way, we don't have enough income inequality and/or world wide wealth for one plot of land to "deserve" a 10 kilofoot tower.

Another fun term to google for is Euler and column buckling. That's why we don't have 75000 foot tall radio towers, which at least superficially would seem to be a great idea that could get past the scaling costs because potential revenue would scale even better with surface area within line of sight. Or even more interesting a 75 kilofoot rocket launching tower so you could use higher Isp vacuum rated nozzles at launch (if you tried that at ground level they'd buckle from the outside in)

</comment><comment><USER9> I suggest a giant snow man

</comment><comment><USER10> ask yourself, why do you need a taller building, and if so, are you sure you want to spend the money to engineer it?

</comment><comment><USER11> They say that the tall skyscrapers sway a lot with the wind. It's perfectly safe, but it freaks people out. I've never been to the top of one to see for myself.</comment>


Yellowstone loses radio frequencies used to track wildlife - <AUTHOR> http://wtop.com/national/2015/07/yellowstone-loses-radio-frequencies-used-to-track-wildlife/ <comment><USER2> This is strange.

Catch all radio-collared wolves and elk to change the frequency? Bureaucracy.

<comment><USER3> They aren't doing that, they are going to, with the cooperation of the new license holder, continue listening on the previous frequencies until those collars run low on battery¹ and start using collars that operate on a different license.

¹ at which point a device on the collar causes it to fall off

<comment><USER4> This must be so annoying to the animals. Humans catch you, wrestle you to the ground and put this random object around your neck that you can't get off. It must be such a relief when the battery finally dies. I understand it must be done, but it must be annoying never the less.</comment></comment></comment>


Fire in Microgravity - <AUTHOR> https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2016/1/fire-in-microgravity/1 <comment><USER2> It's weird how some phenomena can act so differently when the only variable you change is gravitational acceleration, even if it's still in a pressurized, oxygenated environment and it seems like a change in acceleration would only have superficial effects on a system's fundamental behavior.

It's nice to be surprised though.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't gravitational acceleration affect everything? Seems like if you remove or lessen something with such a large effect, you would expect everything to change.

<comment><USER2> It does, though its effect is usually small with respect to other ones like electromagnetic interactions in chemical reactions. But I forgot without gravity there are no traditional convection currents.</comment></comment></comment>


A Chrome Extension to Make Brain Pickings Truly Ad-Free - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brain-freeze/fghmpfhlmghdninlimmocofbebblodgd/details

<comment><USER2> I don't know if I'm missing some context, but this seems like a really mean- spirited plug at someone. I would say this isn't appropriate for HN, and I'm not sure who would upvote this.

Here's the Chrome Extension's description:

"So you made it through the first paragraph of the Curator's Code without killing yourself only to find out that your favorite, humble, curator-person Maria Popova is generating money through affiliate links on her self-described "Ad Free" blog.

"You're angry. But don't fret.

"This extension strips Brainpickings of all affiliate revenue––giving you a truly ad free, yet still unbelievably pretentious curatorial experience that you've grown to love."

</comment><comment><USER3> ``` (function drain() { var links = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

      for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
        var link = links[i];
        var href = document.getElementsByTagName('a')[i].getAttribute('href');

        if (href) {
          href = href.replace('tag=braipick-20', '')
        }

        link.setAttribute('href', href);
      };

})(); ```</comment>


Presidents and the Mythology of Munich - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/141502/ <comment><AUTHOR> From the article: "It may be true, as the saying goes, that leaders who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. But it's also true that leaders who carelessly or heedlessly use historical analogies, who twist or hype the lessons of the past, may be destined to make even bigger mistakes than their predecessors."

Interesting to see how important historical cliches are, being a source of influence for post-war politicians, and so present in today's political discourse.</comment>


How to Wrap a Present with Mathematical Precision (and Waste Less Paper) - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/60493/how-wrap-present-mathematical-precision-and-waste-less-paper

<comment><USER2> I believe this method - or a very similar one - is often used in Japan (as documented in the book here: [http://pa- mar.net/Main/Hobbies/Tsutsumi/Gift%20Wrapping%20Bo...](http://pa- mar.net/Main/Hobbies/Tsutsumi/Gift%20Wrapping%20Book.html) \- and seen "in person" in stores in Japan)</comment>


The Clueless Young Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://blog.abi.sh/2010/the-clueless-young-entrepreneur/

<comment><USER2> I'll agree on the first timer bias, VC's are probably less likely to invest in new entrepreneurs because the don't have a well known team and VC contacts. That's their prerogative though, it probably comes down to their appetite for risk.

Don't agree with the young part though, I've seen VC's say they prefer to fund younger founders.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think if you look into the history of the people on that list, they are actually not first timers, even though they are very young. For instance, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg had built small businesses (programming consulting I believe) before they created Microsoft & Facebook. I'm not sure of the others. Anybody know?</comment>


Which startup is cleared for launch as Europe's next €100+ million exit - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/which-startup-is-cleared-for-launch-as-europe's-next-e100-million-exit/

<comment><USER2> The article is very US-centric, it completely ignores the large number of hugely successful gambling startups that have come out of Europe as well as startups like Just-Eat (world's largest online takeaway aggregator, >$2m/daily turnover) and Wonga (they just closed a $117m series C round of funding).

It's as if unless you have customers in the US you don't count.

<comment><USER3> Almost every fast food place in the town I live in is also on Just-Eat. It seems to have become massive over the past ~6 months or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the first comment ([http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/which-startup- is-cleared...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/16/which-startup-is-cleared- for-launch-as-europe%E2%80%99s-next-e100-million-exit/#comment-204420101) ) gets it right: Europe have produced plenty of huge startups, as you'd expect, but they've almost all sold to larger US companies rather than remain in Europe. Which is a shame.

<comment><USER5> I don't see it as a shame at all. US acquirers typically are able to pay higher multiples and are more acquisitive in general. And in most acquisition cases, it's not like the companies up and leave Europe. In larger acquisitions, it's rare the Europe team is cut.</comment></comment>


How To use Social Networks for Small Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://www.getapp.com/blog/social-networks-small-businesses/

<comment><USER2> Talks about the various networks small businesses should join, with a BIG warning on how time can also be wasted there.</comment>


TSLint Is Being Deprecated - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/palantir/tslint-in-2019-1a144c2317a9 <comment><AUTHOR> The team are focusing their effort on supporting TypeScript in ESLint. This feels like a good thing.</comment>


Free Access Fr: symbiont to parasite: evolution of for-profit science publishing - <AUTHOR> https://www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/mbc.E19-03-0147 <comment><AUTHOR> article with a suggested revision to the Elsevier logo</comment>


The end of Netflix - <AUTHOR> http://blog.movies.io/day/2012/07/14/

<comment><USER2> But only the beginning of overstatement and hyperbole!

...These "cloud torrent" services seem to last about 4-5 days before they get dragon punched by copyright lawyers. Let's see how long this one lasts.

<comment><USER3> put.io has been around since '09, and they're smart guys. I wouldn't worry about them: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/put-io>

I don't really feel bad for Boxopus though, thinking Dropbox would put up with their stunt was really silly.</comment></comment>


How we turned angry users into our biggest fans - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fiplab.com/how-we-turned-angry-users-into-our-biggest-fa

<comment><USER2> Great post, but I feel that in the first email you sort of got lucky. The guy owned up to his mistake and realized how hasty he was with his first message. Not every customer will equally mature. He asked for a refund. You ignored that point. Even if it was the customer's fault, you should offer a refund when asked.

On a side note, great job on using your blog to promote your startup.

PS: Why did you delete the previous submission that had already several points?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks dude, from experience, a lot of angry customers change their tune after they receive a quick and helpful response. This was just one particular example.

As for auto-refresh, we couldn't do this as it would trigger TfL abuse systems.

(I pinged a few friends to up vote, and the post disappeared from the new list, so I deleted and resubmitted).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I completely agree with your ethos here - my only question is: how scalable is this?

Its fine for the odd customer, but what if your user-base suddenly changes by a couple of orders of magnitude?

<comment><AUTHOR> For our cycle app alone, we have 300k downloads and at least several thousand active users per day (when it's not raining).

Scaling is definitely an issue if you're getting a lot of complaints, but this is certainly great early on when each 'fan' (or hater) of your product can have a significant impact.</comment></comment>


At Goldman Sachs event, Travis Kalanick compared his company's woes to Ferguson - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/11/20/on-stage-at-goldman-sachs-event-travis-kalanick-compared-his-companys-woes-to-ferguson/

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not envy Uber's PR team this week. (Or most weeks, to be honest)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, remember that this is from Pando, so there are two sides to a story of course.</comment></comment>


Did I just get a karma point for checking the new page? - <AUTHOR>

Or was it just a coincidence? <comment><USER2> Just a coincidence.</comment>