To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170202-math-and-the-best-life-francis-su-interview/ <comment><USER2> As a counterpoint to the overly exuberant article let me chime in as a graduating theoretical computer scientist. Math is hard and despite its beauty and allure academic life doesn't take place in a vacuum- ergo there's a lot of politics and pettiness from your peers. You should expect to invest years of your life into making progress on some hard problem with little encouragement in the meantime, this takes a tremendous toll on the mind and not for someone who falls easy prey to self doubt. Sometimes even after you publish your top result that took a lot out of you, it may take many years before people appreciate, let alone understand, your work- the vast majority of papers are never going to be read. To compensate for this horrible feedback mechanism you need to basically play the popularity game and try to give many talks and talk up your result when you meet people, so there's a lot of salesmanship involved here as well. So the career path of a junior scientist is pretty crushing mentally and I couldn't stomach it in the long run.

In an ideal world I might have continued in academia but the career path is so twisted you have to either be insanely good (at math and at managing time) or just hate yourself enough to sacrifice your best years working essentially in the metaphorical darkness well outside the spotlight and most likely alone and poorly paid.

<comment><USER3> Chiming in from Bio: Yep, this is true here too.

I can't find the citations right now, but there was a recent study done through Elsiver's website. The group got a hold of the servers for Elsiver and took a look at page views. They wanted to know what the rates of papers being read was. It was... disheartening. They found that ~46% (again, not sure here as I can't find the source) of papers will _never_ be looked at outside of the authors, reviewers, and the editors. The articles are not only never downloaded, but the pages are never even loaded. The stats were, to me, confusing, but hey that is what peer review is for. Still, if you take this paper (that I can't find now) to be true, ~half of all papers are effectively lecturing into the void. I admit, I drank a bit after reading that one.

<comment><USER4> In CS, most authors host "preprint" copies of their papers on their own website, and most views are of those versions. So I wouldn't be surprised if Elsiver's defunct distribution system isn't getting used much (at least in this field).

<comment><USER3> Yes, but roughly half of all papers will never even be page-loaded from the 'official' source (if you believe my recollection). I am not a CS researcher, but I would imagine that of 10 people that cite a paper, at least one will bother to download the original paper or look up the source. Hell, even 'vanity' page-views of your own work would have been counted in the paper that I mentioned, and that is with many authors on a single paper too.

I honestly don't know what to make of it really. I at least bother to look at my papers once, if only to show my family on the Holidays, and I have a lot of so-authors that may be doing the same. Are most researchers so fed-up with their own work as to not even bother looking at it again? What is going through their minds concerning their efforts? It's just ... heartbreaking. At least half of researchers don't seem to care at all, not even the people that put all that time and effort to get their research out there. Like, what are we doing with our lives?

<comment><USER5> To be fair most papers are written for readers that have the exact same viewpoint and specialty. So they are incredibly difficult to parse for people in the same field but a different sub specialty.

I think many more papers would be read if authors invested more time in learning how to write.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I took this to be a general call to learn and practice mathematics, and not as a summons to a career in academia, so perhaps I'm seeing it a bit differently.

I have to say as somebody who through attrition always feared math in university that it is meaningful to think about reasons why people fear embracing certain types of knowledge. It's only after the fact that I realize how useful and even how romantic applications of mathematics might be.

I might never be a starry-eyed or an often-drunk academic, but I've grown to really see my initial lack of mathematical learning to be an immensely high opportunity cost. So I can relate to anybody who thinks of structural reasons people might shy away from math and indeed all forms of intimidating knowledge.

<comment><USER7> >how romantic applications of mathematics might be.

like, in the dating market or do you mean a philosophical potential? The philosophical aspect is huge, eg. _to tell_ once meant counting, or logic and language having a common Greek root.

<comment><USER6> I mean, I was thinking more of romance as "imbued with idealism", but if differential equations can help me find true love, even better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Based on all the supposed benefits of doing math, it sounds like people would be better off studying philosophy. Same benefits but a much broader appeal, and far more applicable to most people's everyday lives.

When I finally "discovered" philosophy in college, I was angry that we hadn't been exposed to it at all in middle or high school. Instead, I'd been forced to waste years on things like math, biology, etc. that I had no interest in and no use for. Our history / social studies classes would be greatly improved if they incorporated more philosophy.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. I find math much more interesting. Philosophy is vague. It's all guesses and interpretation, with the exception perhaps of pure logic. I like the purity of math. It's all a matter of preference.

<comment><USER10> The concepts you deal with in philosophy are vague, the challenge is to provide very precise analysis of these vague (fuzzy?) concepts.

But yeah I don't think one is better than the other. Each provide value.

I would actually claim that to live your best life, be an engineer. They seem to me at least to be living in that sweet-spot between the abstract, creative and the concrete.

<comment><USER11> Along with a increased chance of being a creationist and/or jihadist.

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis)

[http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2007/11/11/the-salem- hypothesis-...](http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2007/11/11/the-salem-hypothesis- explained/)

[http://www.theness.com/index.php/creationists-mechanical- eng...](http://www.theness.com/index.php/creationists-mechanical-engineers- and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/)

<comment><USER12> This has a 99% probability of being absolute nonsense. Looks more like 30 years of anecdotal evidence and hearsay. Try find a credible source with actual numbers.

<comment><USER11> I'd love to know where that 99% comes from. (Or maybe I wouldn't.)

I'd say there's far more than anecdotal evidence, but not, obviously, not enough to draw necessarily firm conclusions. So I would say there's enough question to sustain further scientific inquiry. That, interestingly enough, puts us in a position at odds with one of a common traits noted among engineers, in psychological terms: 'need for closure'; which would put the 'engineering mindset' in conflict with the 'scientific mindset', due to the open-ended nature of the science. (Of course, this is only my own speculation.) Which is why we get things like this: [http://cosmicfingerprints.com/ee/](http://cosmicfingerprints.com/ee/)

Harder numbers:

[http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jih...](http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/gambetta/Engineers%20of%20Jihad.pdf)

(expanded book form) [http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10656.html](http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10656.html)

(less numbers, but foundational)

[http://www.sicotests.com/psyarticle.asp?id=212](http://www.sicotests.com/psyarticle.asp?id=212)

[http://www.sicotests.com/psyarticle.asp?id=235](http://www.sicotests.com/psyarticle.asp?id=235)

<comment><USER12> I pulled the 99% out of thin air, I just wanted to emphasize how small I estimate the chances of this being true. I found one analysis [1] that found that creationist or only half as likely to be engineers as the general population, admittedly only using data from a preexisting survey as proxy for the question at hand.

Maybe it is a naive view on my side but I expect that additional education will make it less likely that one believes religious claims to be true in general and this extends to becoming an engineer and being a creationist.

But even if there was indeed a correlation of the form claimed by the Salem hypothesis, I would naturally want to look for traits that make it more likely for one to become an engineer and a creationist, not for something that causes engineers to become creationists.

You did not explicitly spell it out this way and I am inclined to think you do not think this causation exists, but your response to a comment suggesting that it might be a good choice to become an engineer at least allows the interpretation that becoming an engineer causes becoming a creationist.

And I obviously consider the idea of a causal relationship between being an engineer and being a creationist even more unlikely than that of certain traits increasing the likelihood of becoming an engineer as well as a creationist.

Not that it is unlikely in the general case that learning about X makes one more likely to also believe Y, that is actually certainly pretty common, but in the concrete case I am really unable to see which things one learns when becoming an engineer are suitable to turn one into a creationist.

Finally I am not sure what you wanted the express with the Evolution 2.0 article, but at least in the linked article the reasoning is heavily flawed.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/talk.origins/Xunl5Sl...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/talk.origins/Xunl5SlJmZc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with this theory, is that it completely ignores that a lot of people good at math have poor people skills. And you need people to be happy and improve your life opportunities.

So yeah, math is beautiful, and if you like it, go for it.

But if you look for a skill to acquire or practice, your taste no withstanding, this may not be the best investment. Sport, social skills, languages, time management, self introspection and cooking are examples of things that usually pay off better than math in your life. It brings more people, opportunities, health, money, etc.

Again, not saying math is not a good thing to practice. We need math as a specie. And an individual may need it for his or her happiness. But as a strategy I don't think so.

<comment><USER14> Maybe people good at math are actually great at people skills and you're just repeating a bias spread by a banality driven media.

<comment><USER15> In my experience, people are all equally bad at math. There are just people who have spent longer with the problem(s)/domain(s) and have developed a skill set around it. They start from the same beginnings, though. If you take them out of their usual 'watering hole' they go straight back to beginner status (and of course the degree of it varies by how far it is from their usual routine).

<comment><USER13> Yes, but some personality traits will make you more apt and willing to keep working on it.

There is a limit in the skills you can acquire. If you spend time and energy on flirting, learning to dress up, building social network, you will have less time to learn maths.

Because of course you'll have sport, music, games, books, movies, family and other study topics taking time as well.

Now maths incline kids, given the choice, will usually choose working on math than going to 10 groups of people to chit chat about superficial topics just to stay in the network.

Nothing wrong about it, just an observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, mathematics is hard. It takes a lot of effort to really learn it, a lot of dedication and (self-)motivation. Not everyone can do it, and, frankly, very few people - even among those who have spent many years studying mathematics - could say that it is the best way to live your life.

<comment><USER17> I profoundly disagree. I believe that mathematics can be learned and appreciated by many, because mathematics is a language for articulating inner urges and perceptions that are common to a wide range of creatures, not only humans. This idea that mathematics is only for the few is self fulfilling, and perpetuated by narrow ideas of what it constitutes.

<comment><USER18> I agree. I think that mathematics is being teached the wrong way. Especially in the USA, the state of math education is absolutely terrible.

I suspect a more visual approach to be more useful than the classical textbook approach. It is true that a lot of textbooks do use pictures, but video's would help a lot, I think.

<comment><USER19> There is a wonderful book, "Visual Group Theory", that demonstrates this approach [1].

However, there are people who learn better algebraically than visually. So, combining different approaches would probably be optimal -- the problem currently is that often a very dry (and anti-historical) endless litany of definition, theorem, proof is taught.

[1] [http://web.bentley.edu/empl/c/ncarter/vgt/](http://web.bentley.edu/empl/c/ncarter/vgt/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Francis is a great lecturer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEyWLGvvdw&list=PL04BA7A9EB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEyWLGvvdw&list=PL04BA7A9EB907EDAF)

<comment><USER21> I agree, I watched his lectures when trying to teach myself real analysis. He also has a website with lots of useful info including links to the videos organized by lecture number/subject and some other interesting links

[http://analysisyawp.blogspot.com/](http://analysisyawp.blogspot.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems like a lot of the benefits mentioned could arise from many other activities with similar likelihood. I think a lot of it has to do with developing expertise at something _you believe_ is important, and which you are (or can become) comfortable doing.

Totally agree that for people working in abstract technical areas (e.g. software architecture, philosophy, inventing things), however, mathematics has a special sort of value over other subjects. It deals in these super distilled concepts which have very general applicability; so, the concepts you learn end up expanding this pool you can draw from for coming up with new, related ideas, in a wide range of fields.

It's also important to learn it as a sort of literacy, to widen the range of technical material you can read.

</comment><comment><USER23> Everyone I know who went to his MAA farewell address said it was wonderful. Definitely follow their link to read or hear the whole thing:

[https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for- hu...](https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-human- flourishing/)

<comment><USER24> There's a link at the top of your linked site to an audio recording - maybe it was recently edited in

<comment><USER23> The Wayback machine does not absolve me—probably I just missed it twice. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if inmates have access to computers, would they become good programmers?

<comment><USER26> Give anyone (not just inmates) a computer and they are much more likely to become good Candy Crush players, Facebook users, and Buzzfeed readers than good programmers.

<comment><USER27> Sure, just like give anyone access to a library and they are much more likely to read magazines and romance novels than 19th century French literature.

That's missing the point though. The point is access and opportunity. Even if only 5% become programmers, it's a net win overall (and that's not even counting the people who might play Candy Crush but still use the computer to better themselves in other ways - learning, filing taxes, etc.).

<comment><USER28> There's nothing wrong with his response given how the original post was worded...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well maths always sounds good with all its allure of "purity" and "intellect". However I think one should remember that maths is basically some very-high level abstractions on our analog, chaotic world. Just like rigid linguistics/grammatical rules fail miserably in representing actual human languages, abstract maths probably also cannot claim to represent the real essence of the world that well. Even a statistical/neural network-style approach does it so much better. So yeah, if you're so into constructing and deconstructing abstruse abstractions, maybe do maths very seriously. But does it really represent the "truth" of life? I think that might be a bit dubious.

</comment><comment><USER30> While I can not claim to have made any imporant progress on the sorts of toy problems I like to work on (e.g. counting/bounding the number of strings two regular expressions both accept, counting the number of ways to represent integers using polynomials), I find the mere process of working on them, inventing new notation to succinctly express ideas and read relevant (and completely irrelevant) mathematical textbooks and articles a way to keep an "active brain" but relax: probably because nobody expects me to produce anything and my career doesn't depend on it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Elementary math skills, which many of us reading and writing on Hacker News know, would change the lives of many millions of people in ways we take for granted.

<comment><USER32> "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interesting. Anyone have a recommendation on a Math app for everyday use?

<comment><USER34> The level of math amenable to apps isn't really what Su is talking about.

I would suggest learning proofs, and maybe pick up some _Art of Problem Solving_ books. Or perhaps working through the foundational curriculum of any decent math program (e.g., algebra, analysis, topology, number theory, etc.).

<comment><USER35> [http://incredible.pm](http://incredible.pm) is perhaps relevant, albeit shallow and localized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> it reminds me of the awesome team who get involved with the numberphile youtube series. guys like james grimes and matt parker. inspiring the love.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was recently explaining to a group the radiance of learning math for many years. It is really hard to convey the beauty that you see in things after years of studying math/logic. That amazing feeling through your mind when you solve something new. I can sometimes only best describe it as a lens that allows you to sense a previously imperceivable part of the universe and self. I can't even imagine walking around without this lens. Perhaps that sounds a bit hyperbolic or mystical, but this is my feeling.

</comment><comment><USER38> Frank Su is a great teacher. I had him in ~2000 Teaching Game theory at Cornell, and I still remember the Math Fun Facts he used to start the class.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's the video: [https://www.facebook.com/maanews/videos/10154879169165419/](https://www.facebook.com/maanews/videos/10154879169165419/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Surprised no mention of music.

<play, beauty, truth, justice and love.

Math and music gives me all those.

My Math inclination brings tears To binary situations and lasts (as in the last time I'll ....)

Truth is a set.

Justice is relativity (<,>,=)

Play is math humor with the pun as king.

And love is random uncontrolable feeling.

</comment><comment><USER41> "To Live Your Best Life, Do +Applied+ Mathematics". There's something delightful about using mathematics as a mean to an end...

</comment><comment><USER42> Being math with different syntaxes, this is true for programming as well.

<comment><USER34> That's certainly the contention of the authors of _How to Design Programs_.

[http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/part_preface.htm...](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/part_preface.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I would rather say "to live your best life, make art"

</comment><comment><USER44> and also take your vitamin d.

</comment><comment><USER45> > In 2015 he became the first person of color to lead the MAA.

I didn't realize chinese was a person of color.

<comment><USER46> Compare [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7819625)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The Greeks also drank hemlock. Just saying.

</comment><comment><USER48> Su seems almost blind to the fact that you can do math outside an academic environment. You don't need to go to school for math to experience truth, beauty, play, etc in the context of math. You can read books, play around with the results, read articles on places like Quanta. You probably won't discover new things this way, but it will enrich your life.

If your goal is for math to make people's lives better, then assuming school is involved at all is another unnecessary restriction.

<comment><USER49> _Su opened his talk with the story of Christopher, an inmate serving a long sentence for armed robbery who had begun to teach himself math from textbooks he had ordered. After seven years in prison, during which he studied algebra, trigonometry, geometry and calculus, he wrote to Su asking for advice on how to continue his work. After Su told this story, he asked the packed ballroom at the Marriott Marquis, his voice breaking: "When you think of who does mathematics, do you think of Christopher?"_

It doesn't sound like he has that bias to me. He opens his talk speaking about someone who is a non-traditional student doing match outside an academic environment.</comment></comment>


Which country has the best designers? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.folyo.me/post/17220220150/dribbbolympics-which-country-has-the-best-designers

<comment><USER2> Belgium and Netherlands "kick Ass" by not having many designers?????

I think the most appropriate question was the "top ten" with followers. No one cares if there are many designers in a country or how many people live there.....just who's the best. So I partially agree...with Netherlands (yes), UK, and US.</comment>


Nokia 150 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-150 <comment><USER2> well the only smartphone feature I need from my phone is maps. I'm not sure if this will work well enough without a touchscreen</comment>


Show HN: Sinkhole – A CLI tool to archive your files into AWS Glacier - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ncthis/sinkhole <comment><USER2> Glacier as a first order archive reminded me of this discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921365)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that sound like a nightmare. I was wondering why it would be that high and then I saw there were a bunch of failed attempts being billed for as well in that instance.

I personally just push anything that would be highly improbable for me to ever need.</comment></comment>


On the Scottish independence referendum and the post-Westphalian settlement - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/09/the-referendum-question.html <comment><USER2> Abstraction is the napkin with which pundits wipe their sloppy chins. I don't know whether Scotland should secede from the UK or not, but I do know that this article doesn't hold enough substance to contribute to the question. There's simply too much handwaving. "Forget all the short term arguments...about whether we'll be economically better or worse off." Uh, no, I'd say that a substantive and long-term issue. "And to the extent that all of us who aren't in the 0.1% are "working class"—if you have to work to earn a living, you're working class, even if you're a brain surgeon or an accountant—the enemy of all of us?" Oh...kay so brain surgeons are now in the working class and that means nationalism is the enemy of everyone?

Westphalia. Beige dictatorship. Cute. But please don't apply your favorite cookie cutters to a deep and complex issue and tell me they slice it just the way it needs to be sliced.

<comment><USER3> I think the point is that any calculation about whether we will be economically better off is inherently a short-term forecast. Nobody knows beyond that.

I think the point about the ideal size of a state being closer to Scotland's population than to the UK's is a reasonable, _fundamental_ contribution to the debate. It's not a 'cookie-cutter' argument. People are right to think in fundamental, philosophical terms.

As the referendum draws closer I find myself paying less and less attention to short-term issues (which are mostly just quibbles over SNP _policies_ , which really don't have much to do with _independence_ \- we could get independence then elect a different party) and thinking more along fundamental lines. One thing I'm sad not to have seen much discussion on is the constitution for an independent Scottish state. That to me is vitally important from a historical perspective.

<comment><USER4> The debate about a constitution is both short term and vital, it is the most worrying of the SNP's policies. They both want a unicameral chamber and keep bandying around terms like "Sovreign will of the Scottish people" \- which has worrying populist tones and a distinct lack of accountability. Seeing what they get up to in the Scottish Parliament with a majority on the committees that are supposed to hold the Executive to account makes me worry about what sort of government an independent Scotland would be starting with - and that is very hard to change, especially to introduce checks and balances.

I don't know where the Scottish equivalent of the Bill of Rights would come from.

<comment><USER5> An independent Scotland would supposedly join the EU which would give it the basics in terms of a bill of rights. Until the EU the UK as a whole never had a written bill of rights so it would be no worse off.

In terms of the SNP, what happens to them in an independent Scotland might be the most interesting thing. They'd undoubtedly do well in a first election but after the glow has worn off and without their current USP (independence, the only party which is just about Scotland) it'll be interesting to see how they define themselves - after all, politically it's not impossible to view them as to the right of the Labour party (they're not the Tories but they're certainly not socialists), and in another few years time they're going to be very much part of the establishment.

<comment><USER6> Don't Spain and Belgium vehemently oppose Scotland acceding to the EU?

<comment><USER5> As far as I can tell they're currently opposing it somewhat indirectly but they absolutely don't want the precedent of a country separating and being allowed into Europe.

Neither of them are quite European heavyweights but ultimately , unless there is some sort of fudge (not impossible but unlikely), every existing EU nation will have to vote to accept an independent Scotland. For that to happen it would appear that something will have to be done to placate those with similar potential domestic issues themselves if it's too happen. Whether of not such a something realistically exists or not I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the Swiss 'canton' concept, where each canton is fairly autonomous, with its own constitution and courts. These cantons were previously completely separate states, ironically formed as part of the Treaty of Westphalia:

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

I'd like to hear any Swiss opinions on this system, since they have to live in it, but as an outsider I've always considered this local governance, with limited national state powers to be attractive. However, I'm not sure whether this kind of model is applicable everywhere. I'm guessing there are some historical, geographical, cultural and/or economic reasons for its success in Switzerland compared to other countries.

<comment><USER8> One need look no further than the US to see the folly of a weak federal system.

<comment><USER9> There are a lot of people who would say that the biggest problems the US face are because the Federal Government is too strong and more power should be given to the states.

<comment><USER10> There are also a lot of people that believe in angels and think we should switch to you-keep-what-you-kill libertarianism, both questionable viewpoints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Westphalian system exposed it's massive flaw not in 1914 but at the turn of the 19th century. The Westphalian states could not stop a rampaging Napoleon from conquering vast swathes of territory until marched 500,000 men without proper supplies into a Russian winter.

Ukraine is an excellent example of the flaws of NATO - the system of small countries has to be plausible in their desire to stand up for each other. And the Baltic states have just cause to be very nervous these days - it is American backing that secures them, not the smaller NATO members who don't even meet their 2% of GDP spending pledge.

The problem of the Scottish debate regarding international relations is that it is so focused on 2003 Iraq. It forgets the many good international engagements the UK has been a part of, and the potential future ones it could. Only powerful countries get to make mistakes on the magnitude of Iraq. An independent Scotland would not be able to look at something like Bosnia, Kosovo or Sierra Leone and be able to intervene if it wanted to.

Alternatively see a certain Team America speech about various bits of the anatomy...

</comment><comment><USER11> Another Scot here (and a 'no' voter). Totally agree on almost everything except the 'short-term implications'. They have the potential to be both devastating and medium- to long-term. The currency issue, for example, is decidedly less trivial than either side have said. Specifics will depend on a lot of fights between Westminster and Holyrood that we won't get to see until after we've decided.

<comment><USER12> Agreed, after watching the last debate I was stunned by the extent to which Salmond tried to handwave this.

<comment><USER13> The independence campaign has to hand-wave the issue, and can't outright declare that Scotland would _almost certainly_ have a currency-union with the UK, because it's ultimately contingent on the UK government.

If they did, the unionists/UK government could attempt to call their bluff by having UK politicians declare that a currency-union would never happen. It's doesn't cost the unionist politicians very much credibility and it undermines the independence campaign on that key issue, whether or not a currency union is a strong likelihood in the case of independence.

<comment><USER11> The truth is the UK government would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't enter a currency union - unless they thought the Scottish economy was a real threat to the stability of the rest of the UK, or that having Salmond's cronies on the board at the Bank of England was politically unviable.

The thing is though that in a currency union there's only so far the two economies can diverge before they _have_ to adopt different currencies to maintain stability (Greece and the Euro is a fine example of the bad end of this stick) - which kind of defeats the purpose of being independent, to an extent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "No, seriously: 95% of the discussion in the referendum debates and on the street has been about short term issues that can be resolved one way or the other in the coming days and months (occasionally, months or single-digit years)."

Talk about handwaving-I'd say that the currency system and EU membership are _very_ big issues that deserve essays in and of themselves. I get he's a libertarian who doesn't like the Westphalian system (though why is it that conservatives and libertarians are seemingly the only people who give a rats ass about 17th century politics) but the actual issues of Scottish independence are more of an afterthought.

<comment><USER14> I don't think he's a libertarian. See, for instance, his take on Bitcoin.

<comment><USER6> I assumed since he was writing on PopeHat. My bad for making that assumption.

<comment><USER15> I think you're confusing popehat.com with antipope.org. Charles Stross is a self-described socialist.

<comment><USER16> Being a libertarian myself, I must admit I rather tend to agree with the socialist guy here. Smaller governments are better _especially_ if they'd be socialist. If the government in the place where I live decides to build socialism, I'd like to be able to move before the toilet paper shortages start (I don't know what is special about toilet paper but socialists tend to have worst of luck with it [1]) and smaller is the government smaller is the distance I would have to move to regain access to this under-appreciated commodity. So besides all political reasons the most practical reason of minimizing the risk and the transaction costs if the worst does happen, smaller governments are better for me.

[1] [http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-27/venezuela-i...](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-27/venezuela- is-running-out-of-toilet-paper-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't think you'd find very many people who would support breaking up the United States -- at least in the United States. There might be support for breaking some of the states _in_ the US into smaller entities, particularly on the West Coast.

But we have a pretty strong national culture, despite our local differences and our shared and troubled history.

<comment><USER18> Although the number of people involved is relatively low, there are some loud voices in various parts of the US that would like to secede.

Hawaii - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_sovereignty_movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_sovereignty_movement)

Texas - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements)

Alaska - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Independence_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Independence_Party)

<comment><USER17> There's a movement where I'm from that wants the Pacific Northwest states plus British Columbia to split off into a country called Cascadia. Barring some terrible disaster, I highly doubt that's ever going to happen in the near future.

Maybe in some distant future where things are very different, but it's not realistic right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "The population of the American Colonies in 1790 is estimated at roughly 2.7 million; the United States today has over 300 million inhabitants. In 1780 England and Wales had around 7.5 million inhabitants"

I didn't know that ratio between the England and Wales population versus the American colonies was that small at that time. I would have thought it would have been bigger.

<comment><USER20> Not sure where they got that.

The 1790 census says 3.893 million, with 694,000 being slaves.

(Jefferson and Washington both believed the true figure to be higher)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_Census)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > the kind of nationalism that brought us the Great European War (...) is > pretty much dead.

Not sure which rock the author is living under... Has he ever heard of e.g. Golden Dawn? Seems like this kind of nationalism is still very much alive.

</comment><comment><USER22> If I were a Scot, I don't know how I would be able to decide which way to vote. The impulse toward autonomy collides with the value of "economies of scale". A small autonomous entity has to provide its needs for itself, or wind up negotiating with numerous other entities to assure having necessary resources, not likely a stable or reassuring situation to be in.

It appears parallel to the episodic waves of industrial consolidation and fragmentation. Innovations start off as small local efforts which begin to "catch on", and the idea spreads. Over time small autonomous enterprises begin to merge because of efficiency pressure, until only a few giants remain. Eventually, innovations challenge the giants' dominance and the cycle renews.

Political entities rise and fall, empires grow and decompose. It's not a static process, and it is very evident that some small nations survive and some large ones have not.

For regions and nations the key must be finding the best dynamic balance between autonomy and the benefits of larger pools to provide for common interests. It is a very tough goal to accomplish.

To take the USA as example, there are problems with state-to-state differences as it is. Health care is a currently prominent example. Arguably, my health needs don't change if I move to a different state, is it logical that health care should vary greatly one state to another? Should there be less or more autonomy in this regard? There are advocates on both sides, in any case, a delicate federal vs. state balance exists that's risky to disrupt.

Large-system uniformity and efficiency are beneficial when it works, and miserable when it does not. Perhaps the best we'll do is, where possible, keep working to improve inter- and intra-regional communication, respect and cooperation.

I know, that's hardly an answer to the question, but I don't think there is really any answer at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> From the comments to the article:

>"My broader point stands: there is a precedent for a constituent nation peacefully leaving the UK within the past century." //

Has he forgotten that the EU started about 30 years after this? That seems the main reason that this situation is completely different - the geopolitical landscape has changed entirely, ignoring that seems rather strange.

Currently we enjoy the CTA, so no obvious border controls with Eire. But UK + Eire are not in the Schengen area. EU have decided that all new countries will be in the Schengen area, Scotland thus will not be able to be in the CTA without the rUK (and Eire) effectively accepting the Schengen Agreement. Now I may have misjudged the current political temperature but with the rise of UKIP I can't see the rUK voting to relax immigration policy.

If Scotland don't get in to Europe presumably rUK will be required to maintain border controls whether we acceded to the Schengen Agreement or not.

Peacefully?

He does at least mention the 2 year war of independence, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence). There was a lot of violence besides, I'm sure the PLA/INLA/[provisional] IRA and the likes haven't been forgotten but those considerations probably aren't relevant _what with all the differences between the situations_.

The lesson to learn from Eire is probably that if a unified region vote No then don't try and keep them as part of the Union. But that doesn't really work, if there's a land border it makes sense (Borders or D&G). Also for the islands, if Orkney and Shetland voted No, then there's far less chance that rest-of-Scotland will form a navy and start attacking them as their first action? The geography is different, the age is different, the politics are different, the modes of government are different, we're 100 years further away from feudalism for starters.

It's worth making the comparison but concluding the situations are the same seems disingenuous at best.

<comment><USER5> The EU may make an exception to Schengen as Scotland is in a unique position - it will claim (with some justification) that it is already in the EU (and outside Schengen) and the starting point for it should be the UK's current position.

More interesting on the CTA is that it would involve signing up to many of the immigration policies rUK and Ireland have agreed to as part of that deal - that contradicts the more open immigration policy the SNP are selling as part of their pitch (which also includes the CTA).

<comment><USER23> Do you think the other member states of the EU, Spain say, want to set an easy precedent for regions of countries to become autonomous states and be accepted in to the EU?

The UK is in the EU - a new country is being formed, that country is not in the EU.

The Yes proponents appear to be answering all the tricky questions with "{smiling and waving hands} we're sure it'll work out in our favour".

I'm waiting for HM the Queen to dissolve her Scottish parliament and put Salmond in the Tower! That'd spice things up a bit.

<comment><USER5> Obviously not - Spain in particular (but not exclusively - there are plenty of other counties in the EU who face similar issues) won't want a precedent which could apply to, say, Catalonia.

But that's a separate issue about Scotland joining full stop, rather than the terms on which they'd join. I suspect if Catalonia declared independence then the most sensible starting point for their EU membership is what covers them already (that is Spain's position). No-one really benefits from a position where unnecessary change and uncertainty is pushed onto newly formed countries.

I agree that the yes campaign's approach to difficult issues seems to be essentially "don't worry your pretty little heads about it, it'll all be fine, we've got the oil".

Short version: if it's a yes vote, it's going to be a big ol' mess for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I dislike small countries, I felt claustrophobic back when Sweden wasn't a member of the EU and a move abroad would need to be planned many months in advance with reams of paperwork. Problems were smaller scale back when we had those itsy-bitsy countries that Stross is so romantic about. Small countries today only breeds parochialism (not in my backyard!) and cultural backwardness.

And EU isn't an escape valve from that. Multiply the number of countries in the EU by three and watch it grind to a halt.

I wouldn't mind a nordic union swallowing all the nordic states and move away from the romantic idea of a state for every nation.

<comment><USER20> New Zealand, Hong Kong (pre 1997), and Singapore, aren't really what I'd call culturally backwards. They may not be on the cutting edge culturally, but they're not backwards.

And on the flip side, there are plenty of large countries that are narrow minded and backwards in every respect. I'd argue most countries in the world today are either slightly or extremely backwards and mostly tend to their own sphere of matters. There are perhaps a mere three dozen countries for which such isn't true.

India and China have 2.4 billion people, I'd argue about 2/3 of those people live culturally backwards (what a cultural snob from NY, Paris, London etc might define as such anyway) and narrowly focused lives. Most of those people have very little real knowledge or awareness of the greater international world. Their problems, knowledge, experiences and lives in general are all extremely local.

I struggle to see that parochialism and cultural backwardness is in any way particular to size.

<comment><USER24> If you slice and dice say the UK into smaller pieces, do you think London are gonna help Tyneside when the latter is hit by economic trouble? That's the parochialism that results from small countries, an endless accounting of small favors granted just because a border is put up and some people are defined as strangers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Smaller nations sounds nice but in the intermediate term reality Scotland would become a minor province of the EU nation. It'd be trading Britain for something much bigger.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've already got that something (the EU). It's relatively benign. (Meanwhile, we've got an extra tier of government that insists on spending tax revenue raised in Scotland on stuff the Scottish people really don't want.)

<comment><USER25> The EU is an ongoing and succeeding effort to replicate the United States Federal government in Europe. Scotland will eventually wind up having as much say as New Hampshire does in very important matters, such as control of its borders and agriculture policy.

<comment><USER26> "control of its borders"

I'm pleased to say that we don't seem to have quite the same obsession in Scotland with keeping immigrants out as a lot of people in the UK. In fact the SNP is rather keen on _encouraging_ immigration.

I'd far rather have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU than be trapped in the UK with Boris Johnson as PM running second hand UKIP policies.

<comment><USER25> Control of borders is practically the definition of a nation. If you don't have a say in who comes in, you aren't a nation.

<comment><USER27> Restricting freedom of movement and labour is morally unconscionable. I'm certain we will look back to that in a few centuries with horror.

At least the EU was able to reduce that somewhat in some places. Sure, the outer border of the EU is horrific, but inside it's at least somewhat ok. A world with borders is an evil and oppressive world. We should always work towards removing them all for everyone.

(Yes, I know about Schengen and the differences between Schengen and the EU. However, be assured that Schengen would not exist without the EU. It's just that achieving consensus is hard, so some want out of some things and some want it. That's why it's always so complicated and hard. EU is a convenient shorthand, because I don't just mean visa free travel, I also mean being able to live and work in other places.)

<comment><USER12> That might work if all countries had similar culture, values, standards of living and agreements over things like how healthcare should be paid for. In reality, if a first world country opens it's borders to the rest of the world , even if the agreement is reciprocal then most of the traffic is going one way as people try and converge on the source of wealth. We already have this problem within the UK when trying to cram so many people into London.

It also raises questions like, if I can live and work wherever I want why should I only be able to vote in one fixed arbitrary place?

<comment><USER27> Yes, and abolishing slavery was also hard … (I do explicitly not want to compare the severity and impact of borders to the severity and impact of slavery or even racism today. It's an analogy.)

I know there are practical issues in the way that prevent abolishing borders. I know this won't happen quickly, probably not during my lifetime, probably not in a couple centuries, but working towards a world where this is possible seems like a worthwhile goal to me. Why should people be arbitrarily bound to the place they were born? It's insanity and highly unethical.

<comment><USER25> I look forward to hearing your tune when 2,000 illiterate indians show up in your neighborhood and start publicly defecating all over the place. [http://www.poo2loo.com/](http://www.poo2loo.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This guy dresses up his reasons in pseudo-intellectual guff. If we follow his reasoning reductio ad absurdum what would be the size of the smallest state he'd like? One with 15 million people? One with 5 million? One with one person?

In reality he just doesn't like the English, specifically English conservatives. The Scots claim they don't like being ruled by people they didn't vote for. But they were happy to vote for Labor for 15 years before this Tory government. Part of a mature society is that you understand that around half of the time you don't get who you vote for.

I'm no great fan of Paul Krugman but he correctly points out that the new Socialist State of Scotland would be set adrift in a world of capital flows it cannot hope to control. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/paul- krugman-scots...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/opinion/paul-krugman- scots-what-the-heck.html?_r=0)

David Cameron should never have let it go this far. A federal system would have made far more sense, and not divided Scotland's people and broken a successful union.</comment>


HN Idea: HN alerts Att PG - <AUTHOR>

Hey, how about having an alert system, say I'm interested in SEO etc, when a post is mentioned on HN with more than (threshold I set) points, I get an alert by email of it's presence...<p>How many Kama points do I get for this as a bonus and any chance of some shares :P <comment><USER2> Just build it on top of the <http://twitter.com/newsyc20> <http://twitter.com/newsyc50> or <http://twitter.com/newsyc100> twitter stream.</comment>


The Future of Apps - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@davehariri/81b70928bc60

<comment><USER2> "many advancements in what we can do with Javascript and HTML"

Please don't be closed minded about only using to languages because the "open" web won't let you use anything else (no transpilation crap please).

"The web is open"

It is not open in every sense. It is locked to a few languages and technologies: JS, HTML, CSS. Where can I vote for standardizing a proper intuitive grid control instead of CrapGL and crapvas?

"Why would we continue to have to have specialized developers working on ports of the same application for every different platform?"

To have a chance to work with languages that don't suck. Business could have a different view though.

"Imagine if all the new iOS features were available to javascript"

All I see is a potential sad future where you are forced to use one crappy script language for most career paths in IT.

<comment><USER3> >To have a chance to work with languages that don't suck.

Yeah, but developing in Java for Android isn't exactly the coolest language. And I have heard second hand that objective-c isn't to great either.

<comment><USER4> I sincerely hope Google will officially support Go in future, that would really make the difference. Having to use Java and Eclipse is one of the reasons many mobile developers go the iOS route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've held this viewpoint for a long time now, and it's yet to pan out. It's probably worth understanding the two main forces that lead to the browser defeating native desktop applications roughly 10 years ago:

\- Developers liked the web for three reasons: write once run everywhere (give or take a few browsers peculiarities), no versioning of the software, and bugfixes are immediate.

\- Users liked websites because they didn't want (or weren't able) to install software, and they got a consistent experience across mulitple computers (work + home).

Looking at these, it's clear why native is beating the web right now in mobile. Software is easy to install, and you only have one phone. It's still annoying when you run an app that hasn't been active in a long time and are forced to upgrade on the spot. But that's the only chink in the armor at this point.

<comment><USER6> Apologies for the pedantry, but it's "chink in the armor."

See [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chink](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chink) and [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kink](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kink)

<comment><USER5> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nope. The arguments in this piece are way off base. This is also now a very old argument which has been rehashed too many times. Modern wisdom shows us that native mobile apps have their place and Apple, Google, Mozilla and others are rapidly advancing web technologies. They are hardly holding back in order to force developers to build native apps. Once SVG, Canvas and other powerful HTML5 features become more common along with a more powerful runtime for the web, we will see the situation change. For now, I am happy building and using native mobile apps. I also build responsive web pages and plan on continuing doing so. They can coexist and they should.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you. You're saying that the two things can exist symbiotically and I can't disagree. I think it makes sense given what's happened until today, but I think the open source way is far more sustainable and will yield far better results. We need developers to start thinking about what implications are carried with their decisions. I disagree that my arguments are "off base" or have been rehashed too many times, but I invite you to elaborate on that further.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While your points are reasonably valid, I think it's missing one grander conclusion: the tools are simply that, tools. Above all else, it's what you make with them that matters.

As an engineer, I might be interested in the implementation details of a particular system, but as an end user, I don't give a shit.

And with that, it's up to the engineer to determine the appropriate tool for the job, as has been the duty of engineers since man carved the first wheel.

</comment><comment><USER9> For the most part, I agree with your opinions and have chosen to develop my product as a web app rather than one that runs on iOS or Android. However, I think web apps will always be hindered for developers if we have to continue relying on an arcane and ugly language like JavaScript.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! So have I. I'm still learning how to best use javascript so it's still exciting and new to me. I'll probably share similar feelings to others about it in the future, but for now It's how I imagine web applications being written

</comment></comment><comment> chestnut-tree On the deskop, I find it hard to believe that web apps will come to dominate the app space. Perhaps they will find a space to sit side-by-side with native apps. But will they ever be able to match the speed, responsivenes and capability of a native app? I'm sceptical. Web apps on mobile are mostly about consumption of content in some form or require limited interaction.

What if I want to create my own music? Edit or touch-up my photos? Create graphics for my web pages? Do some digital painting? Edit some videos? Dabble in 3D or motion graphics? Create an animated GIF? Create a richly formatted book, magazine, brochure or report? Can I do any of this right now in a web app with the same richness of features, speed and capability as a native desktop app?

</comment><comment><USER10> Users use apps on phones. They don't want to open a browser and navigate to an 'app'.

They go to the app store to get apps. They don't open a browser and google for a web page and expect it to operate like an app. Also you need to have an internet connection to even use an app, who wants that.

Technology improves but the drag comes from user adoption. You'll need to change behaviour.

<comment><USER11> Like everything on the web, there's multiple flavours, yet we're told it's "one platform". But here goes. I think you missed :

1) android

[https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/installtoho...](https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/android/installtohomescreen)

2) ios

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17306806/how-can-you- give...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17306806/how-can-you-give-your- mobile-web-app-an-install-screen)

<comment><USER10> The point was the drag is from user adoption. No-one is doing this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Native vs web is mostly just the UI layer. Write it three times it's not that hard.</comment>


Ask HN: My HN has vanished - <AUTHOR>

I've moved to a new apartment, and my new internet connection doesn't seem to like HN, in that it won't actually load it. From my neighbour's open wifi connection (which appears to be with the same ISP) everything loads fine, but from mine I get nothing. Telnetting directly to port 80 connects fine, but the server closes the connection instantly before I can even issue a request.
I thought maybe it was a DNS thing, but both connections are going to 22.214.171.124.
The only thing I can think of is that I've been re-allocated an IP address that did something bad somewhere before, but that seems a little unlikely.
Any suggestions as to what's going on, or things to investigate further? <comment><USER2> Have you installed the recently posted greasemonkey script:

<http://github.com/brainkarma/hnreputation/tree/master>

This may have triggered an automated block... It seems like a rather abusive script.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that'll be it. I hadn't seen any of the threads asking not to use it (as I'd been offline for a few days moving apartment), and wasn't aware of how abusive it was. I've emailed pg asking if he can unblock my IP.

Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you connect to other sites containing the word "hacker"?

</comment><comment><USER4> See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=789469> (pg's request for people to stop using hnreputation)

</comment><comment><USER5> The Bug Fixer could probably tell you if you have an ip-non-grata. Such a list does seem to exist: [http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=ip+ban+site...](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=ip+ban+site%3Aycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you or your neighbor recently installed the greasemonkey script that gets people banned? I don't have it handy but answer this: "Have you recently installed a new greasemonkey script for using HN?"

</comment><comment><USER7> This happened to me; something weird was going on, so PG blocked my IP. E-mail him with your IP address and username and let him know what's up.

<comment><USER8> IF this was the case he wouldn't be able to telnet into port 80.

<comment><USER9> Unless the block was at the application layer.

<comment><USER8> I was under the impression that he was able to do a GET once he established a connection...

Thats why I suggested another browser. I've had this problem quite a few times (especially with chrome) because some browsers do some goofey DNS caching...

<comment><AUTHOR> > I was under the impression that he was able to do a GET once he established > a connection...

No: As I said: "Telnetting directly to port 80 connects fine, but the server closes the connection instantly before I can even issue a request."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Guys, if he can telnet into port 80 and do a get, that means that he isn't blocked (either by HN admins, or by his ISP).

What browser are you using? Some browsers (like chrome) do weird DNS caching that can, sometimes, cause problems.

The fact that you can get it from telnet, but not from your browser, means that you should be looking at your browser.

<comment><USER10> No, you can still telnet. It depends on how a block is done. If it's done at the application layer, you would still get an initial connection. Open up firebug and hit the URL. Try to see what if any status errors you're getting.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I guess I assumed he was telnetting in, then doing a get...

<comment><AUTHOR> I was trying to, but the connection would close before I could even issue a HEAD or GET.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you have a bad IP address, why not disconnect and reconnect? On many connections that should give you a new address (unless you've got a static address).

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have a static address, so unfortunately unless pg decides to lift the ban, I'm stuck with having to switch to leeching my neighbour's connection just to use HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I assume that you can get most of the rest of the web through your new connection normally?

</comment><comment><USER13> When my IP was blocked I could connect but the HTTP server wouldn't respond. The ban was caused by a userscript posted here a couple of days ago that was poorly scripted and would thus trigger anti-DDOS/anti-scraping protection. I emailed PG about it and he unbanned me. The same thing happened to at least one other person.

See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=781918></comment>


Nintendo Gets Sued Over The Wii - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/07/nintendo-gets-sued-over-the-wii/

<comment><USER2> If recent events are any indication, the proper course of action for Nintendo is to countersue, claiming the WavIt remote infringes on some of their patents.</comment>


CEO who puts profits second - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ft.lucy.html

<comment><USER2> I love how his bio opens.

"Possibly the only CEO ever described as anti-establishment, a communist, and a socialistic anarchist..." <http://www.craigslist.org/about/jim.buckmaster.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I like reading stuff like this. It's nice to think that it doesn't take greed, or any kind of significant focus on the bottom line, to outperform everyone else. Otherwise, life seems pretty tiresome.

Now, if someone created a most awesome computer game that wasn't a complete waste of time I'd be a happy person.

<comment><USER4> "Now, if someone created a most awesome computer game that wasn't a complete waste of time I'd be a happy person."

Try programming. It's a very nice open-ended computer game. The depth of gameplay is just unbelievable. And there are challenges for people of all skill levels.

<comment><USER3> I'll be making a in-game re-programmable MUD at some point.

Neither is awesome in the sense of WoW or any of these other games that are such huge time sinks for so many people. I find that depressing since it implies the useful and the preferable don't match up.

Now if computer games could become equivalent to great art, there'd be hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This guy has achieved some kind of zen - true to himself in a very innate way - its great!</comment>


Does the FCC really not get it about the Internet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/10/31/does-the-fcc-really-not-get-it-about-the-internet/ <comment><USER4> " _It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!_ "

— Upton Sinclair

<comment><USER5> This is true for both sides of the debate.

On one side you have the lobbyists and big cable companies (and telcos).

On the other you have the people who want more regulation because these companies are too big-- but who ignore the fact that the only reason these companies are so big is that they are state granted monopolies in the first place.

The "right" to run cable is a monopoly that the local municipality uses to extract money from the populace (via cable fees that the populace ultimately pays in cable bills)

The "right" to operate a cell tower is a monopoly (or tri-opoly- only three providers are permitted per metropolitan area) that the FCC created when it "auctioned" off the spectrum.

The reality is, both over cable wires and over the wireless airwaves, there is no natural monopoly. Spread spectrum technology (and the infinite variance in frequencies of light a single optical cable can carry) mean that there is no real scarcity of capacity. And while there are limits, there are huge swaths of spectrum that can be used, but that the government is keeping off the market to increase the revenue it gets from the "auctions". There's enough money in the industry to run separate cables. Many larger cities ran fiber rings and these could handle many, many competing providers. The cost of laying fiber to one cable complex is fixed, while the number of providers that could use it is pretty high (multiple providers per fiber and multiple strands per cable, and hundreds (thousands?) of wavelengths per fiber.)

Further we've already seen what the government has done with the internet-- they tapped it. They started recording everything. They weakened cryptography. They have forced people to give up private keys.

They have proven that they cannot be trusted with something as sacred as the internet.

So, while "regulating" the internet might seem like a savior now-- we all get the bandwidth we're paying for-- and I'd certainly like that[1]-- I believe the end result will be further consolidation into ever larger, and fewer players, all of whome are very closely tied with the government, and even less privacy or security.

Ultimately resulting in a return of an AT&T like monopoly which has no interest in innovation because it has no competition.

Back in the "old days" of the internet, the primary impediment to getting good connectivity was AT&T and its remains after it broke up (into smaller still highly regulated and not-at-all-interested-in-what-you-wanted-to-do-with- THIER-phone-lines.)

[1] I find it astounding that in south america, where the entire country has to share a single optical connection to north america I could watch netflix in HD, but here in a city that google is currently wiring for fiber, I can only get Netflix on SD over my "40 megabit" cable modem. So, yes, I've experienced this problem first hand. It pisses me off.

<comment><USER6>
        but who ignore the fact that the only reason these companies are so big is
        that they are state granted monopolies in the first place.

I disagree with that statement. Standard economics theory has long held that "natural monopolies" are possible, in markets with high barriers to entry [1]. Internet infrastructure, with the massive fixed costs of laying wires to every home, is one such natural monopoly. So it's not fair to say that the only reason these companies are so big is because of state granted monopolies. AT&T was a monopoly before it became a state sanctioned monopoly. Standard Oil, as well, became a monopoly without very much state aid. While state regulations may make natural monopolies worse, it's inaccurate to say that removing regulation (e.g. allowing anyone to run cable or put up cell towers) will automatically end the dominance of Comcast and Verizon.

[1] [http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Natural_...](http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Natural_monopolies.html)

<comment><USER7> Where I live we have a local telco that is rolling out fiber, neighborhood by neighborhood. They are successfully competing in this "natural monopoly". It is not infeasible for competing "last mile" providers to exist, just infeasible for any of them to immediately service any home in a given area. So you could imagine a situation where you have choice between the existing monopoly provider (Comcast, ATT, or Verizon who has their cable or copper everywhere) and a smaller provider who might just serve a couple of neighborhoods.

<comment><USER6> While it's not _impossible_ to compete with natural monopolies (after all, there are upstart airlines), the amount of competition in a market with high barriers to entry is much lower than in a market with no barriers to entry. Imagine how many more choices you would have if companies didn't have to lay wires to your door in order to get your business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fast lanes are just one horrible side effect of our "everything capitalism" country.

The fact that most cities in the USA are duopolies when it comes to wired internet means essentially everyone is screwed.

Even if the FCC was strict with them, it wouldn't matter.

I pay $45/mo for 5mbps in 2014. Higher speeds are available but at much greater cost, because there is no competition.

<comment><USER9> >Fast lanes are just one horrible side effect of our "everything capitalism" country. The fact that most cities in the USA are duopolies when it comes to wired internet means essentially everyone is screwed.

The duopolies you describe are definitely terrible. They are cronyism and corporatism operating under the guise of capitalism, but they are very far from the free markets of capitalism. It's worth noting that these monopolies could not exist without government regulation. More ISP's can't run fiber to your house because the local law prevents them. I'd rather get rid of those bad laws instead of piling more bandaid laws on top of them.

<comment><USER10> How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense?

City gov't is a minor problem, but remove that and you still have strong natural monopoly conditions.

It seems like the only way to get competition in the last mile is that the entity which owns the last mile infrastructure must be required to provide competitive access to that network. Ideally that might have been government owning the infrastructure, with a market of multiple competitors running services across the last mile. It seems like many nations with competitive last-time ISP markets got there by starting out with national ownership of much of that infrastructure, but when much of that network is privately owned - it's much harder to get there.

<comment><USER9> > How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a > house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial > payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense?

I think that depends on the current market. If there's room to make money in the long run by either offering better service or cheaper service, then I think companies will take the plunge and run the cables. In my area, we had DSL over phone lines and cable internet over coax for years. That didn't stop Verizon from laying all new fiber to nearly every house in the area. They smelled profit in doubling existing internet speeds in my area. What did nearly stop them was intense lobbying by the existing players to deny them access to run cable.

What bothers me is that it required huge lobbying muscles to get through the red tape. What about all the other less politically connected companies with innovative ideas that could revolutionize our connectivity in ways most people have never considered? That's the beauty of the Internet. Got a great idea for a new web service? There's no government wheels to grease, no need to lobby the FCC for broadcasting permission. You just do it and let the consumer decide your fate.

<comment><USER10> You mean the Verizon fiber service whose expansion was halted in 2012ish time frame because it wasn't paying back, and was recently reiterated that they wouldn't be investing more into for some time?

[http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well- look...](http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well-look-fios- expansions-once-it-returns-cost-capital/2014-03-10)

Or actively trying to reverse rollout agreements in NJ [http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowe...](http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowed_to_break_its_FiOS_promise_to_New_Jersey.html)

I'm no expert analyst of Verizon, but even during the expansion many wall street analysts were skeptical of the ROI of Verizon's FIOS rollout.

If companies are going to be digging up the street in front of my house, I want a certain amount of red tape to ensure it's not multiple separate times instead of fewer times with better coordination to minimize inconvenience. I also don't want some undercapitalized startup to start digging, run out of funding, go out of business and leave a bunch of open trench - so I'm fine with cities verifying plans and funding too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am glad the article mentions discrimination. I think the net neutrality debate should be framed this way.

There are no fast lanes. We don't want slow lanes designed to segregate and discriminate against traffic from individuals content or demanded content, essentially creating a virtual caste/class system. What class are you in? What class will areas/countries be put in? Who will be our privileged new kings? What part of the internet bus can you sit in?

People don't realize what they have until it is gone sometimes. When you have some freedom, hold onto it because it takes fighting to get it back. Nothing we have on the internet now would exist like it does with internet segregation.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the FCC is responding to industry pressure that the Internet, in its p2p form, is a dead experiment. Cable worked better. Never had to worry about Napster before, just descramblers (but switched networks eliminate that). Read-only, receive-only, don't produce anything, just consume. Put the content distribution servers next to the backbones, but squeeze the small players & independent creators. (Netflix, Twitch..) Charge them more for slower access to the same fiber. Throttle any peer-to-peer protocols, encourage server->client protocols and traffic. Merge content creation & distribution into large conglomerates. Crush the companies who won't be acquired.

The question is: is the open nature of the Internet worth preserving at all? We're already forbidden to run 'servers' on domestic IPs. Can they now destroy the notion that the Internet was ever a peer-to-peer thing?

</comment><comment><USER13> The FCC gets it. They also know where lobbying dollars come from, and its not consumers (individuals or companies other than carriers).

<comment><USER14> "Last week, the Obama administration announced its choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission: Tom Wheeler, who is not only a former telecom lobbyist but also a huge bundler for the Obama campaign. The New York Times Editorial Page today explains that this choice is "raising serious questions about [Obama's] 2007 pledge that corporate lobbyists would not finance his campaign or run his administration." It also notes that "given his background, it is almost certain that [Wheeler] raised money [for Obama] from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential conflicts of interest."

Last week, President Obama named another big bundler of his, the billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, to be his Commerce Secretary; at the Nation, Rick Perlstein details just some of the interesting questions about that choice that need to be explored. At this point, the only surprising thing is that there are any more bundlers left for Obama to appoint to important administration positions." \- Glenn Greenwald, [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/09/hawking...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/09/hawking- israel-manning-transparency-fcc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> They do get the internet. But the future income of the top brass depends on not getting it right for the consumers.

<comment><USER16> Maybe the general public can gofundme Tom Wheeler 40 or 50 million dollars to compensate him for for the bribe we're asking him to sacrifice.

<comment><USER17> I've had this thought before. I feel like if you changed the mechanism of donating to PACs to only be drawn if a goal is reached (like kickstarter) you'd have much more engagement. No one wants to donate a dollar if they feel like it is going to be alone.

But I imagine something like this already exists?

<comment><USER18> You have to actively prevent money getting from those with it to the politicians they want to bribe. Simply having other funding sources won't stop the cartels from installing their own puppets.

*edit, this was actually directed @rectang

<comment><USER19> "You have to actively prevent money getting from those with it to the politicians they want to bribe. Simply having other funding sources won't stop the cartels from installing their own puppets."

Exactly wrong. The solution to lies is not censorship, it is more truth. If censorship -- or prohibition of campaign money -- is the law, only the interested liars will control the machinery of censorship and they're not going to use it to promote truth.

If all personal campaign donations were illegal, the telecom monopolies would be even more powerful and unaccountable. They have armies of employees, ex- employees, influential executives, relationships with regulators, no-show jobs for pols' shiftless cousins, charitable foundations for networking paid for with your fees, and everything it takes to exercise influence without campaign cash. Only the existence of public spirited and ideologically motivated and unrelated agenda private donations can empower the leaders that do question the insider power of the telecoms.

<comment><USER18> I agree, in part. Politicians do need to have a glass bank account. It was a metaphorical prevention, like not getting a job in an industry you just regulated. Corruption is American politics runs so deep, I don't know of an acceptable way to handle it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article doesn't get the internet.

I think it's spurious and mendacious to suggest that consumers upload amounts of data that are in any way comparable to the amount downloaded by people who stream HD video for live consumption.

I'm not particularly pleased about putting content consumers and content producers into two separate boxes, but the classifications of internet endpoints definitely exists in the usage patterns we have today.

Unless the security and privacy problems of the cloud are fixed, people are unlikely to upload the kind of data required to make them comparable - <USER2> only thing I can think of that could make it happen is life streaming or continuous security footage across multiple cameras. But I think cloud storage's problems are increasing, not decreasing, and they'll continue to increase until we get to the bottom of the tension with government spying and commercial exploitation of user privacy.

I think net neutrality, as it's naively presented, is highly unfair and subsidizes people who consume a lot of content at the expense of people who only use the internet occasionally. Flat rates for all you can eat downloads, combined with necessarily oversold capacity (since most people don't use all their available capacity all the time), inevitably means that high usage consumers are subsidized by low usage consumers.

There's two ways to make this fairer. Charge people based on how much they download - i.e. caps and overage charges, as horrible as that sounds - <USER3> charge companies that upload data more, who can then pass on those costs to their customers. The market has generally rejected the first solution. It's now trying the second solution. But either way is better than network neutrality.

And I say that as a person for whom "network neutrality" is in their interest. But I can see that it's plainly and patently unfair.

<comment><USER21> _> Flat rates for all you can eat downloads, combined with necessarily oversold capacity (since most people don't use all their available capacity all the time)_

What does this have to do with net neutrality? Net neutrality is not about how much data gets transferred. It's about not privileging some data types or data sources over others. Charging higher fees for more bandwidth usage is fine, and completely consistent with net neutrality. Charging someone who streams 100 GB/month from Netflix more than someone who streams 100 GB/month from Redbox or Hulu is not.

 _> The market has generally rejected the first solution._

No, ISPs have generally rejected the first solution, because if people who only used small amounts of bandwidth only got charged for small amounts of bandwidth, the ISPs would get less revenue. They are able to get away with this because the market for internet access in most places in the US is not free: ISPs have sweetheart deals with local governments giving them exclusive access. (And every time a local municipality tries to build out broadband as a public utility, with equal access for any ISP, the big ISPs have kittens and take them to court.)

<comment><USER20> > _ISPs have generally rejected the first solution_

I think ISPs like segmented pricing models. Segmented pricing models let them extract more profits from sections of the market that can afford more. But segmentation by bandwidth cap doesn't seem to be very successful.

> _Charging someone who streams 100 GB /month from Netflix more than someone > who streams 100 GB/month from Redbox or Hulu is not._

Just to get some reality into these figures; on a 5Mbit line, 300G/month was typical for our house. Now that we have an 80Mbit line, I would expect our home usage is now well in excess of 1T/month. (I live in the UK.) This should tell you that I have no self-interest in bandwidth caps, especially joke 2-figure ones.

Given that, I agree that there shouldn't, in principle, be a distinction between packets from company A vs company B. But without being able to efficiently price the scarce resource via bandwidth caps and segmented pricing models on the consumer side, the ISP is reduced to negotiating with the upstream providers of packets that are consuming the scarce resource on behalf of their customers. It then becomes a business negotiation problem, with contracts, leverage and relative power. So naturally there will be variance in which company pays what.

Somebody has got to pay for the scarce resources being exhasuted. That person will be the consumer who downloads more. The only question is how the payment will be routed.

<comment><USER22> If they sell you a 100Mbit/s line with unlimited data, it should be illegal to charge you again if you use all that potential... either directly or indirectly.

<comment><USER20> > _If they sell you a 100Mbit /s line with unlimited data, it should be > illegal to charge you again if you use all that potential... either directly > or indirectly._

(QFP) It's "thinking" like this that's responsible for a good 40% of the outrage over net neutrality, IMO.

<comment><USER23> The argument about whether "unlimited data" really means unlimited data is a completely different discussion. It has nothing to do with net neutrality, it's a discussion about false advertising.

<comment><USER20> Only a child could read "unlimited data" and think it meant unlimited data. Your network speed is finite; multiply it by time and you get the maximum amount of data you can possibly download. This is a hard limit that cannot be exceeded, and it is well short of "unlimited".

What grown ups understand "unlimited" to mean is that there is no bandwidth cap. There is no hard limit on number of bytes downloaded, beyond which the connection stops working until the next rebilling period.

But this doesn't get rid of the underlying problem. Thinking that it does, that it's just an advertising lie, is magical thinking unfit for adults.

Without a bandwidth cap, other mechanisms need to be used to deal with the fact that consumer internet is sold via contended lines. Some packets will need to be dropped; available bandwidth must shrink when there is more contention. What decides which packets get dropped and which ones get priority - complete randomness, or should your phone call be less important than the difference between a 1.9M/sec video stream and a 2M/sec stream? This is exactly where network neutrality comes in. It's a different way of dealing with the scarce resource, the contended lines.

So it is not a completely different discussion. It is in fact the same discussion, from a different angle.

<comment><USER24> Here's an alternative viewpoint.

Power companies have the exact same problem. That being said: how do power companies solve it? They make absolutely sure they have enough extra capacity - because if they don't people complain, loudly.

So: Here is what I read "unlimited data" as: The service provider has enough capacity that a customer has access to at least their full subscribed service normally.

In other words, I am challenging the preconditions of your response: I do not believe that consumer internet should be sold via lines that are contended to the point that "brownouts" (that is having bandwidth of < subscribed rate) are a normal occurrence.

<comment><USER21> _> Power companies have the exact same problem._

Not to anywhere near the same extent. The range of power consumption of residences probably covers less than an order of magnitude. The range of bandwidth consumption of residences probably covers several orders of magnitude.

 _> how do power companies solve it?_

By charging people for power consumed, directly. Power companies don't have flat-rate, unlimited-use plans. Everyone knows that if they use more electricity, they pay more, and if they use less, they pay less.

 _> if they don't people complain, loudly._

Yes, because electrical power is a necessity in a way that Netflix-level internet bandwidth is not.

 _> I do not believe that consumer internet should be sold via lines that are contended to the point that "brownouts" (that is having bandwidth of < subscribed rate) are a normal occurrence._

ISP's do have customers that get that kind of service. Those customers are called "businesses", and they pay significantly more than residential customers do, because they insist on actual service level guarantees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's a similar situation that turned out much better than expected.

Back when I grew up in Texas in the 80s, the power utilities were regulated monopolies (like pretty much everywhere else). They owned both the power plants and the wires going down the street. Then in the 90s, the utility lobby convinced the state that it would be much better for "competition" if utilities were "deregulated". The state went along with it, split utilities in to "wires" and "production", and deregulated production[1] (i.e. let anyone build a power plant and sell power at any price).

This was great for the current utilities because they were the only ones with existing power plants, so they could collude and jack up the rates[2]. However, in the early 2000s oil companies/prospectors started realizing that all this natural gas they were fracking could be used in power plants, and they could be the ones who owned the power plants.

So there was a huge boom[3] of gas power plants in the 2000s as many non- utilities built and competed on the wholesale market to provide power. This drove the price in the late 2000s and early 2010s down significantly since gas was so cheap. Deregulation actually worked in eventually driving down the price due to competition!

The difference between Texas utilities vs. FCC/ISPs is that the grid operators were still regulated and had to let anyone who sold power to use their grid. This effectively created the equivalent to the "Title 2" common carrier for the electric grid. The competition is fierce on the power production side, and the parts of the old utilities that were split off to compete are starting to go bankrupt[4].

So if the FCC wants competition, they need to follow the Texas system and split the cable company into regulated "wires" and deregulated "ISP" parts. Unfortunately, the existing monopolies have seen what happened in Texas, so I don't think they'll push for deregulation.

[1]: [http://www.ercot.com/about/profile/history/](http://www.ercot.com/about/profile/history/)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation_of_the_Texas_elec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation_of_the_Texas_electricity_market#Electricity_prices)

[3]: [http://www.poweracrosstexas.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/P...](http://www.poweracrosstexas.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/PAT-2013-Issue-Brief-Electric-Generation-Mix1.pdf)

[4]: [http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/TXU-Oncor-Owners-Vote- fo...](http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/business/TXU-Oncor-Owners-Vote-for- Bankruptcy-257126791.html)

<comment><USER26> So in this model, you are saying we should have companies that are responsible for just laying literal wires to connect houses to some type of neighborhood switch and then from the switch side on is "ISP" territory and they are responsible to connect to the "greater internet"?

I'm just wondering how the physical roles would be split and literally where.

<comment><USER27> The reason for the split is that you don't want to have a bunch of companies trying to lay wire everywhere. It's very easy to build 10 power plants to connect to the grid vs. trying to run 10 sets of power lines everywhere.

The problem is that internet wire technology moves so much faster than power wire tech. Even in just the last 20 years we've gone from copper phone lines to cable to fiber. As long as the last-mile tech continues to improve it will be hard to work this scenario because what incentive does the "wires" company have to re-do all their infrastructure from fiber to the next big thing?

<comment><USER28> _Even in just the last 20 years we 've gone from copper phone lines to cable to fiber._

Is there any reason to suspect that today's fiber (albeit possibly "lit" by tomorrow's fiber modems) will be insufficient twenty years from now? Are we approaching some sort of theoretical limit to the number of beams of light that one glass fiber can transmit?

<comment><USER29> > Is there any reason to suspect that today's fiber (albeit possibly "lit" by > tomorrow's fiber modems) will be insufficient twenty years from now? Are we > approaching some sort of theoretical limit to the number of beams of light > that one glass fiber can transmit?

No. And the premise that we've gone from twisted pair to coax to fiber in a period of 20 years is similarly silly. Telephone wire is essentially telegraph wire and has been in use since before the American civil war. Coax is from the same century and had been in use for cable TV before the internet was even a thing. Even modern fiber optic cable is older than, say, TCP/IP. The only reason fiber wasn't used to begin with is that the other cable was already in the ground before the internet existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They get it, they're just corrupt. What I want to know is why mozilla pushed such a proposal.

<comment><USER31> The ISPs seem just as mad about the proposal as we do. I'm convinced after watching Wheeler that he isn't so much corrupt as he is some combination of stupid and corrupt. I guess that's what makes him an "inspired choice" as Comcast put it.

As for Mozilla, it's possible they were convinced the FCC was going to go for section 706 entirely at the time, and pushed for something to increase the chance that they wouldn't be completely fucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think the converse can also be asked: Does the Internet really not get it about the FCC?

Time and again, these government agencies (e.g. FDA) have shown that they care more about the companies than the general public.

</comment><comment><USER33> Their paid to not quite get it.</comment>


IPhone Nightly Data Usage -- Culprit found? - <AUTHOR> http://rephorm.com/thoughts/iphone-nightly-data-usage-culprit-found/

<comment><USER2> Short version: It seems that if you: a) don't perform updates of the current apps b) In "Settings" "Store" you enable "Automatic download" of "Apps" and disable "Use Mobile Data" then iPhone still downloads an xml with the list of your apps every minute even if not connected to a WiFi.

This looks like a real, inconvenient bug. The article author's list was 30 KB which still adds up to cca 40 MB daily or 1 GB per month, really too much over the mobile network.

Still, curiosity only, I'd like to see how that xml looks like, or how many appy you have to have to make it 30 KB big.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have ~60 apps installed. So, hardly a large number. The 30K is actually 83K that has been gzip compressed. The uncompressed file is a plist containing some encoded data. You can see the form at: <https://gist.github.com/1855135> But, since I haven't taken the time to dig into decoding the data, and don't know exactly what it contains, I removed it from the posted file.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Wow, it looks really inefficient: some binary data are stored in xml (I guess as base64), then xml gzipped which again produces a binary file. Interestingly enough, if the binary data were encrypted, the gzipped size would be bigger like 60 KB and not 30 KB so even when I don't see the data I know that these 80 KB binary values aren't compressed or encrypted.

If you copy only these 80 KB encoded you can easily convert it from base64 to binary with this:

<http://ostermiller.org/calc/encode.html>

You can copy the encode.html to your computer, then open it there, it's client side javascript so the decoded data stays in your computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> python's base64 module works fine ;) and yes, this is very inefficient (in more ways than one). First, the outer xml is actually gzipped twice (once by the web server I'm guessing). The base64 decoded data is yet another xml file. (Which is only ~60K compared to the 80K encoded blob).

This inner xml file is another plist containing a dictionary that is primarily a large set of links to <http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/*>. Most likely to update app store / itunes app functionality. It also contains some configuration parameters (e.g. "<key>eBook-store- available</key><string>YES</string>").

None of it appears to be sensitive (and doesn't appear to list any of my apps). But, there could be an id in one of the links, so I'm not going to post it yet. I'm guessing that this was meant to be downloaded relatively infrequently, so the verbosity wasn't considered an issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Live stream of morning, closing keynotes at Open Source Bridge - <AUTHOR> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/strange-love-live

<comment><AUTHOR> The streaming URL is at a different domain than the event's site, <http://opensourcebridge.org/>.

You can see the schedule there.</comment>


Diagnose irregular heart rhythms better than a cardiologist - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01836 <comment><USER2> Interesting read about electrocardiogram (ECG), machine learning (ML) and convolutional neural network (CNN) that outperforms humans in diagnosis, since it has a large training data set. Keep in mind though, that two out of five writers of the paper are from [http://irhythmtech.com/](http://irhythmtech.com/) and the measurements were taken with their Zio product (patch you wear that records for 14 days), but that doesn't make the results any less valuable.</comment>


IT is changing, here's how - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bettercloud.com/changing-role-of-it/ <comment><USER2> I miss the mainframe and thin clients. I really do. I miss when IT workers were white collar workers, not the now-expected know everything from cabling to programming crap that has become the hallmark of current HR demands. It's one thing to be well rounded, but very, very few people know all of the "skills" expected these days. I know of very, very few people who are both competent systems administrators and yet stellar programmers.

I know my opinion on the above is largely in the minority of IT pros, but I really disdain how IT is shaping up. Nothing seems concrete like it used to. It's difficult to put what I mean into mere words, but those who have been in this industry across three decades like I have will understand, even if they don't necessarily agree. I miss when IT was "magic" to most people. I miss feeling like I was accomplishing something rather than putting out fires because the pointy heads are making yet another useless change because they saw it at some C-title conference. I miss the absolute rock-solid performance of mainframes. I miss being able to deploy a new diskless client in 30 seconds with NFS running on a Solaris E10K. I miss running FreeBSD on Netra 1Us that never went down. I miss never having to be around a Windows environment. IT is a mess. I loathe BYOD, BYOT. Just my opinion. Not bitter, just worried a bit.</comment>