The Rise of Return-Anything Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/return-policy-retail/422145/?google_editors_picks=true&single_page=true <comment><USER2> Another oblique example of the Peltzman effect: make something less risky (purchase) and people will take more chances (in this case, purchases they might not otherwise have made due to worries about an untrustworthy vendor, questionable product quality, or just buyer's remorse.) Same goes for credit cards that have strong chargeback and false-charge protection policies. If you know there's virtually no risk, you'll make that purchase you otherwise wouldn't. Very important for enabling things like online commerce to happen initially (and probably allows it to continue as it does.)

<comment><USER3> Well its more than that - people "buy" several sizes of the same item and decide which to keep (or none). For clothing its the new fitting room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same exists in Germany for many years, as there is a law allowing customers to return goods bought online within two weeks. Shoppers abused this regulation a lot (I think H&M had problems with this), so that the rules got changed lately: you need to state a reason and certain items are excluded. Here is a somehow recent article in german about said law [http://www.br.de/themen/ratgeber/inhalt/verbrauchertipps/kun...](http://www.br.de/themen/ratgeber/inhalt/verbrauchertipps/kundenrecht- widerrufsrecht-versand-online-shop100.html)

Edit: Amazon even started to block accounts when they returned too frequently (link in german) [http://www.golem.de/news/verbraucherschutz-amazon-sperrt- kun...](http://www.golem.de/news/verbraucherschutz-amazon-sperrt-kundenkonten- nach-haeufigen-ruecksendungen-1307-100711.html)

The Atlantic article doesn't mention Germany, but is has been a issue for years over there.

<comment><USER5> The same is true in the Netherlands, customers can return something within 14 days (in fact I think they only have to initiate a return within 14 days, the retailer may not receive it for a while). The retailer is not required to pay for return shipping, or to refund the initial shipping costs. Many retailers do, however.

Recently I've been buying one of the most likely-to-return things I regularly purchase (running shoes) online. Two out of four have been returned, and the seller (Zalando) reimburses shipping costs and pays for return shipment. Hopefully the have negotiated some nice rates with the post office...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a person staying in a country without US-like return policies, I'm incredibly jealous of the choices American consumers have. Out here, its more like "buy it if you want, we can't open the packaging for you to see how it feels in your hand and we won't accept returns unless it is defective (or you are exchanging it for something more expensive)".

<comment><USER7> It's a real tradeoff. On the one hand, a liberal return policy is great for consumers. But if its abused its a source of enormous fraud and waste. Unfortunately I doubt there any good solution to the problem.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't Amazon ban you if you abuse their return policy? Especially if you have Prime which causes them to pay original _and_ return shipping

<comment><USER7> That requires tracking individuals, which doesn't work for brick-and-mortar stores (yes, those still exist... ;).

<comment><USER9> you very much get tracked by brick and mortar stores, not all but many. Just did a return tonight, and once again had to give them my information in order to complete the return. depends on the situation of the return, whether you had a receipt or not, whether you were already on file, or if you had paid with credit card and they could track that.

<comment><USER7> And all those caveats are why Amazon can catch return abusers while brick and mortar stores have a much harder time, and ultimately don't bother as its not worth the effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think I've made a return in the past 10 years. If I'm not sure I need an item, I don't buy it. If I get an inappropriate gift (wrong size, etc) I'll give it to Goodwill.

<comment><USER11> Not a single thing was broken? I had particularly bad luck with Amazon this December and received four different items broken when I opened the box.

<comment><USER10> So far, no. The only one I was nervous about was a ceramic cat water fountain, but it arrived fine.

I have had discs from Netflix arrive unreadable/broken (yes, I still do the by-mail thing as I get consistent picture quality even on Saturday nights). I'm not sure if that counts as a store return though, as I just drop it in the mail and they send me a replacement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Regarding the premise: _Liberal return policies used to be rare in the middle of the 20th century—something that a few smaller retailers offered as a perk._

I'm curious how much this applies say pre-WWII era (before the majority of goods were produced far from their sale). Maybe I've got some Hollywood- influenced idea of what life was like, but I would think a small town would have some sort of a general store where refunds would be no big deal (within reason). This would probably be less of an imposition when the store owner knew the majority of the customers. Even the big-city department stores would probably take back merchandise, since there wasn't exactly any concept of opening a shrinkwrap or a restocking fee. Unless you had something like a tailored dress, I don't see why a late 19th/early 20th century American store wouldn't have a liberal return policy.

Also, in terms of shipping returned items, I believe that the "money back guarantee" was a major selling point of catalog-based retailers such as Sears Roebuck, specifically to compete with local department stores.

Someone with actual historical knowledge should weigh in, but it seems to me like the mid-20th century was the first cultural shift in return policies, and the present decade is a shift in the other direction.

</comment><comment><USER13> Frank & Oak ships a box full of men's clothing in Canada every season and you return what you don't want. I used to do this before just getting bespoke suits/shirts made. Rogue Territory denim in LA also has a good return policy and free hemming/repairs if you pay return shipping.

I've only been hosed trying to return broken fitness equip from Amazon, since I didn't bother reading the fine print about only allowing US domestic customer returns

</comment><comment><USER14> Generous return policies in the US have historically been significantly more prevalent than the author states. Stores like Nordstrom have accepted anything a customer would return up to and including tires which the do not and have never sold. Mercantile stores had a similar policy. Same with LL Bean. REI until recently had unconditional returns. North Face has repaired 20 year old products for me. Returns for credit only were primarily only enforced in specialty retailers and independents.

Of course warranties and returns are figured in to the balance sheet of every company. It's not really free. The cost of such policies are baked into pricing decisions. Ultimately it is one component of a retailer's value proposition.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have only returned a few items in my whole life and all of those because of product defects. Flip side: my brother returns many items every month and I am surprised that he does not get, somehow, blacklisted as a customer. He does spend a lot on consumer items so maybe he has not tripped a bad customer alarm because of the large volume of stuff he purchases.

My question is how much do consumers like my brother cost consumers like myself due to increased costs? My brother is a great guy and I hope that I don't sound like I am dumping on him, but it would be nice if customers like me got some sort of discount.

<comment><USER16> Alternatively, he's buying loads of stuff so he should get a discount compared to consumers like you who hardly buy anything.

<comment><USER15> +1 true enough! Thanks for the alternative viewpoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> graham-miln Within the European Union (EU) returns for online sales are affected by the Distance Selling Directive: [http://www.columbia.edu/~mr2651/ecommerce3/1st/Statutes/Dist...](http://www.columbia.edu/~mr2651/ecommerce3/1st/Statutes/DistanceSellingDirective.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> Few years ago there was an extended return period for goods from a local eshop. I think it was up to 4 weeks instead of 2 (normal in EU, IIRC). Friend of mine was thinking about getting a few GPUs, power sources and a motherboard, mine litecoin for 4 weeks and then return it.

<comment><USER18> I was just about to reply "is that even possible", in disbelief.

But then I read [https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/changed-your- mind...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/changed-your- mind/changing-your-mind-about-something-youve-bought/)

If you buy online you can return a product, even if it is opened, within 14 days of receiving your order, with a few exceptions like hygiene products or CDs/DVDs.

TIL.

<comment><USER19> Well also very often a retailer's return policy will be more generous than is required by law because their research shows them that it ultimately increases profit. In the US you can expect to be able to return opened and slightly used merchandise. It's easy to abuse, but it doesn't get abused nearly as often as one might think. It's frowned upon socially to buy something with the intent of likely returning it, except in some cases like online clothing stores where the nature of the product being purchased and the method of purchase necessitate returns (in this case it could be said that the returned product was defective for the purposes of the customer).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've always wondered if anyone ever returned a wine bottle after tasting it. I've never dared trying.

<comment><USER21> I have. On the very rare occasion, the wined is corked. I get an exchange, not a refund.

<comment><USER22> I've always wondered how obvious corked wine is. Having I think never tasted it. Makes me paranoid I'd be wrong.

<comment><USER3> It is more obvious to some people than others. Many people just assume its bad wine but will drink it anyway.

<comment><USER22> Is it seriously vinegared taste or just weirdly pungent? I'm betting I'd drink it anyway cause I didn't know better.

I do love a good sipping balsamic.

<comment><USER3> No it is not vinegar like at all, the wine tastes pretty tasteless, but there is an unpleasant smell, does smell a bit like a cork might taste.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Never do today what can be put off 'til tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://rcoder.net/content/never-do-today

<comment><USER2> Article is actually about the necessity of being able to run tasks outside of the request/response timeframe for web stacks.

In case, you know, the title was less than obvious.</comment>


Reading for the Rushed (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogus.me/2012/02/22/reading/ <comment><USER2> I just started being more systematic about taking notes, and I've found it to make reading both more pleasurable and more memorable. I write marginalia, as well as keeping a separate notebook, and it keeps me more engaged with the author, as if it's more of a conversation than a one-sided lecture.

</comment><comment><USER3> You know what is reading for the rushed? Audiobooks. Once I started listening to audiobooks on my commute, walking the dog, doing household chores (laundry, cleaning) I went back up to about 50 books per year. I listen at 1.5x to 2x speed. Love it.</comment>


Bitcoin Is Not Real Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/01/bitcoin_is_not_real_money_121766.html <comment><USER2> I wonder why this article wasn't written when Bitcoin was valued at $1100. Also this 'Bitcoin is not money' circlejerk is getting pretty old and has been discussed to death.

> So fellas, please go back to the drawing board.

What a smug douche.

</comment><comment><USER3> The arguments in this article are so immature and out-of-touch that they do not merit a response.

</comment><comment><USER4> Let's be clear about what is fluctuating, it is the value of bitcoins compared to other currencies. At this stage, the market value of bitcoin compared to the US dollar (for example) is not yet firmly established. Events like the Mt.Gox scandal and moves by governments to block bitcoin trading has knocked back the price of bitcoin, but these are early days for cryptocurrencies, a few shifts in the maturity of the market should ensure a more stable future as long as they are popular. These shifts include a next-gen Mt.Gox (architected to avoid the issues of its predecessors), and mining rate slowing down (will be inevitable at some point, it's just a question of time).

</comment><comment><USER5> Fluctuation in "hundreds of dollars" doesn't say anything - it has to be talked about in percentage to make any sense. The fluctuations are big in that sense, too, but it shows how much credibility the author has on the subject.

<comment><USER6> Liquidity is what makes markets fluctuate less generally. Part of bitcoins high volatility is directly attributable to the dearth of exchanges. The dearth of exchanges is directly attributable to regulations that're difficult to comply with (mainly because of the license cost and difficulty of the process), and to established Banks/MSBs not willing to use their already being in compliance with those regulations to explore bitcoin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> TV presenter and Failed economist Larry Kudlow has an impressive resume of being wrong about things

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

</comment><comment><USER6> The regulation so that Square, Paypal, Dwolla and every other bank can participate in Bitcoin EXISTS.

KYC, AML, etc. exist. The SEC exists. MSB and Banking licenses exist. SEC regulation on exchanges exists.

These regulations are expensive for startups. But they're a nobrainer for established institutions because they already qualify.

There's nothing the "community" can do to make regulatory compliance easier for Banks and MSB'es. Because Banks and MSB'es are ALREADY licensed, regulated and in compliance.

The whole thing is a red-herring.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you can buy things with something, then it's money.

No need to complicate things, bitcoin is money..</comment>


Steve Jobs' 10 Secrets to Building a Huge Empire - <AUTHOR> http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/10/steve-jobs-10-secrets-to-building-huge.html <comment><USER2> Three secrets to writing a blog article that people will click on:

\- Summarize Steve Jobs' life so far (thanks, Wikipedia!).

\- Copy some quotes from a Fortune article and call them "secrets". [http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.job...](http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/index.html)

\- Summarize and number each quote. Put the total number of quotes in the article title.

</comment><comment><USER3> #11: Get kicked out of your empire, watch the usurpers drive it into the ground, then come back and repair the damage. People will love you for it.

<comment><USER4> He didn't just sit back and watch. He built the OS that later on Apple relied on to rebuild the empire. And I don't care what your biases are, that's an incredibly badass comeback to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I swear if anyone but Jobs - tries asking "Why are you here?" in a interview with me I'm out...

<comment><USER4> That's because very few companies put such a public effort into making their products as good as possible. For most companies, asking something like that would be pretension.</comment></comment>


Ending at-will employment: a better remedy for cancel culture? - <AUTHOR> https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-better-remedy-for-cancel-culture <comment><USER2> Ending at-will employment is a legal solution to a cultural problem. Unlikely to work, but more importantly, I'd argue it's unwise to rely on legal codes to solve non-legal problems. You end up ignoring other forms of education and culture (for example, from the family or local community) in favor of those which are explicitly written down.

Instead I think we need to collectively, as a society, be less sensitive to perceived insults and disagreeable opinions. Words are not violence. Disagreement is a natural, healthy consequence of a diverse society.

<comment><USER3> I think a lot of the unspoken debate on "cancel culture" is how much of a _culture_ it actually is. If you spend all of your time on Twitter it can seem like the whole world is entangled in cancel culture, but in reality I think the majority of people have better things to do than call on strangers to be fired.

Employment law seems to me like a surface-level-reasonable way to prevent small mobs on twitter from spilling over into the real world.

<comment><USER4> >but in reality I think the majority of people have better things to do than call on strangers to be fired.

But if the majority of people are forced to behave super conservatively in order to hedge against cancel culture does it really matter how small that vocal minority really is?

I see the phenomenon to be similiar to people being worried about frivolous lawsuits or being worried about Karen calling the police because their kids are playing outside unsupervised. These events are rare but fear of them shapes all of society's behavior in a bad way.

<comment><USER3> Right, the problem is that a small mob of people can have outsized control by putting pressure on individual employees. To that employee, it doesn't matter how big the mob is.

But in terms of ending cancel culture, if a small mob is all it takes, how effective can anything _but_ employment law be? People calling on someone to be fired, after all, have free speech rights themselves; the best the law can do is limit the consequences of that speech.

<comment><USER5> > People calling on someone to be fired, after all, have free speech rights > themselves

Somehow the "everything is free speech and nobody should ever be censored" arguers forget this.

<comment><USER6> Free speech is not a positive in isolation, but need to be channeled constructively according to democratic principles. Most people are not educated to wield that power.

<comment><USER7> Did you just say most people are not educated enough to have free speech?

<comment><USER6> Yes indeed. Of the kind social media optimize on, most people are NOT educated enough for, or rather, society have not enough controls for; fringe outrage growing into trends and mob.

Beware empty belief in general principles.

<comment><USER8> > most people are NOT educated enough for

That was a rather fringe outrageous thing to say.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. So will you protect it, or will you lie?

Let me clarify: While people may be educated enough to cast votes how many beans is in the jar, or what cause to support in the moment, they are mostly not equipped to be jury and judge of mob rule, or am I wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This doesn't seem to cover "cancel culture" more generally, but narrows in on regular workers being terminated for their political beliefs.

Is that what cancel culture is? I certainly don't think that's what most folks are referring to when they discuss "cancel culture." Is what's being mentioned here the common act of terminating employees who go on racist rants or act out violently and go viral? The piece preempts the objection of employers protecting employees from hateful conduct (without taking a stab at how exactly one should balance those interests,) which makes me think that these terminated employees are at least a portion of what the author is discussing.

I share the author's skepticism for the utility "Right To Work" laws provide workers, but I don't understand how this relates to "cancel culture."

<comment><USER10> Cancel culture is calling for firings or other loss of status due to expressing a political view or social view that does not conform to a large in-group with the ability to draw attention to an artifact (often taken out of context, with no due process) that undermines your reputation.

The other word for cancelling someone is bullying them.

<comment><USER11> Cancel culture is right-wing code for "facing the consequences of my actions."

No longer is being fired for being a Nazi facing the consequences of one's actions, it's the result of a targeted harassment campaign aka "cancel culture."

Bullying implies the aggressor has a power advantage over the victim.

<comment><USER10> You could just as easily say it is code for people on the left to impose their personal moral view as a Borg-like culture mandate where any dissent whatsoever will lead to having your life ruined through mob justice that considers no facts, context or due process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The problem is that people are dependent on employment by a single party and finding a new employer is not automatic, which creates a huge non-diversified risk and creates abusive dynamics.

The solution is to make it easy, normal and automatic to either find new jobs, be a contractor for many parties, or be unemployed, living on UBI/rent/self- production and not dependent on finding work.

Monogamous relationships have the same problems and the same solutions (easy serial monogamy, non-monogamy, or being content being in a relationship with oneself).

<comment><USER13> I think you're more correct than this article. I read the first few sentences of the article and thought .. if employment was not at will,job interviews would be next to impossible.

<comment><AUTHOR> The US is the outlier here, every single European country I'm aware of has the level of protection suggested by the article. And job interviews aren't an issue.

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's why most businesses come to the U.S. lol

<comment><USER11> Maybe it's why so much business left the US for China and India.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm in a country with very strong labor rights (Sweden), but we still have serious issues with cancel culture. You may not get fired, but you can be reassigned to a different position or have your career ruined. Also your employer can make your life pretty miserable if they want to get rid of you but can't fire you. You can also run into problems when applying for a new job. It's not a great solution IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also your employer can make your life pretty miserable if they want to get > rid of you but can't fire you

Isn't that illegal?

<comment><USER14> Depends on what you mean by miserable and how sensitive you are I guess. An employer holds a lot of perfectly legal authority over you. It's hard to say that anything that makes anyone miserable would be illegal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Step 1 for talking about "cancel culture": define the terms of reference.

This seems to have a sensible approach given that it refers to people who are not public figures being subject to misinterpreted incidents caused by outrage spreading on social media, resulting in them being fired by their employer.

> While the government is not entitled to punish political dissent, in most > parts of America it is perfectly legal for your boss to fire you if they > happen to dislike the person you voted for in the last election.

Indeed. At-will employment with zero notice periods and no process is ridiculous. That's at-whim employment.

> But there are no equivalent federal protections to prevent employees from > being disadvantaged because of their political views.

This .. is much more fraught. And they know why:

> Clearly, for example, no member of an ethnic minority should have to endure > racist taunts at their place of work. But this could also be addressed > through carefully worded legislation. Seattle already offers exemptions for > political conduct that would cause "substantial and material disruption of > the property rights of the provider of a place of public accommodation." > Employers also have an affirmative obligation to protect employees from > racist harassment.

<comment><USER15> > Step 1 for talking about "cancel culture": define the terms of reference.

Part of the problem is that it is quite hard to do so, or rather it is very error prone.

Something similar happens with the right to repair movement, it both cases it is very easy to mischaracterize both the problem and proposed solutions.

For me cancel culture is how easily mobs are created online calling for action on inconsistent criteria. But it is quite easy to identify this phenomenon with the propensity of corporation to listen to these mobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Europe has this, and I'm a small employer. The question "what will it cost to let this person go if I need to?" goes through my head even before "is this person qualified?".

Stronger worker protections lead to a divide between people who have jobs and those for who there are not enough jobs. Go look at southern Europe or South Africa.

What workers need is the security of a viable alternative to their employer. Us techies can change jobs at will and have no need for this type of protection. The best general alternative I'm aware of is a publicly funded unemployment and retraining scheme such as A-kasse in Denmark. Even better would be UBI, but that would require more political will.

Society needs private entrepreneurs and corporations, and should work to support them. In turn, society should take what it needs (better put, society should only allow so much to be privatised) as to ensure stability and quality of life for citizens.

Business is hard. Don't make it harder in the name of transferring the responsibilities of society as a whole onto the companies.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was actually talking about this yesterday with my dad and we are Canadian so have "protections" and are not able to be fired without cause. However in reality what we discussed is that if they want to fire you they will do so. They will hyper focus on your performance and pick at anything. Small mistakes get written up and if they really want you gone will just lie about some things like claim always tired at work, slacking off, not on time whatever. This won't happen at big public or government companies but definitely could happen at a smaller privately owned one. An example of this was once my dad cut off the tip off his finger at work. The doctor stitched him up and said you will need 6 weeks off work for this to heal. My dad laughed and said doc I am going to be back to work in less then an hour I can't get time off work I will be fired. The doctor said "they can't do that" to which my dad laughed again and explained that's not how the real world works if they don't like you they will fire you and just lie. So yes there are protections but they just change the number of steps how you get a person fired.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a real solution to a real (maybe exaggerated?) problem, but I'm curious to see how people in general would accept it, because the solution is associated with the Left, and the problem is associated with the Right. It's clever framing, and the benefits would reach far beyond the issue of cancel culture, but I doubt D's or R's as groups would seriously consider it. Hope I'm wrong.

<comment><USER19> I am a gamedev, and at least to us cancel culture became a really serious issue, it even caused a suicide of a famous indie dev after a Twitter mob made his business partners dump him and disavow him.

<comment><USER20> You call them a "Twitter mob", the game devs call them their customers and fans. If your customers and fans are telling you they'd rather not buy, use, and support your product if they know it's made in part by a known serial sexual assaulter of women, what would you do?

The guy sounded seriously mentally unwell. Maybe if we had better support for mental illness and less stigma around the whole issue, the outcome would have been different. But I find it hard to put blame for his suicide on the people who didn't want to be associated with him after his despicable behavior became known.

<comment><USER19> If you read more about it, the people accusing him and calling for the game cancellation are NOT the clients of the gamedev. Since I am in that field more or less I know why the distancing from him was necessary, and had nothing to do with the buyers.

The other thing is, the accusation (it was a single one in fact) was flimsy, the accusar have accused a lot of other people over the years and made some weird claims (like claiming she murdered a person in an alleyway)

I said twitter mob because it was a twitter mob, literally, outsied twitter he was not that bashed, it was only on twitter that there was a huge storm of people bashing him, mostly people that weren't going to buy his game in first place.

<comment><USER20> Maybe we are talking about different incidents then because the one that comes to mind is Alec Holowka, where there were multiple instances of abuse and his own sister believes he did what he's accused of. Those who fired him specifically state it was not because of a "single flimsy accusation", so I guess you're talking about something else?

<comment><USER21> The Twitter Mob aren't customers or fans. They are a vocal minority of perpetually outraged busybodies that just want to control everything.

<comment><USER20> Well in the case I am referencing specifically the people involved wrote a very detailed rationale for their reaction and specifically noted their choice was _not_ due to appease a mob ([https://www.reddit.com/r/NightInTheWoods/comments/cxqjp8/end...](https://www.reddit.com/r/NightInTheWoods/comments/cxqjp8/end_of_summer_backer_update/))

But in a general sense I don't see why you assume that the "mob" are not customers or fans. How does "cancel culture" even work if the actual customers and fans maintain the same level of sales? What is the mechanism by which public pressure causes a "mob" to exert control over a company's decisions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Independently of the effect on online mobs, I think ending at-will employment is a no-brainer, especially when healthcare is tied to your employer.

In any case, in many european countries we have something similar to Montana: at-will for a fixed period of time (typically 3-6 months), and after that you need a good reason to fire someone.

</comment><comment><USER23> There are other parts of life besides employment. Universities have expelled or rejected students for publishing things they didn't like (although this is rare and usually appropriate IMO.)

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's another solution: don't use social media.

</comment><comment><USER25> I believe greater job security would improve many aspects of society, this argument implies that people with very high job security designed to promote risky speech would promote more viewpoint diversity.

Yet tenured faculty seem to be part of cancel culture. Heterodox Academy [https://heterodoxacademy.org](https://heterodoxacademy.org), its members, and peers are trying to reverse the trend away from diverse views among academics, but they, or as a member I should say we, are a minority in academia and swimming against a strong current. That current undermines this article's argument.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is nonsense: making people harder to fire won't protect them from other forms of vigilante harassment.

</comment><comment><USER27> You all discussing this like many of these cancelled folks didn't do abhorrent stuff

<comment><USER21> I think you mean "Y'all".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This article (and a bunch of comments here) seem to be arguing against a straw man: that there are a bunch of "minority opinions" that are being threatened to be withdrawn from the sphere of discussion by cancel culture, and people who happen to share these opinions are at threat of losing their jobs over it.

Cancelling is not simply about disagreeing with someone's opinions. It's about stopping the spread and normalisation of actual sexual violence [1], racial violence [2], or hate speech [3]

I think it's hard for American engineers (I am one) to understand this, but there are actually times in which suppressing certain vile speech and acts is good for society. Our profession deals with absolutes most of the time, but we forget that there are actually nuances and shades of grey all around us. In Germany, for example, there are very strict restrictions around Nazi language and symbolism [4], and for good reason.

Even in the US, there are towns in the south that have a long history of "cancelling" their local white supremacist chapters. Stores won't do business with certain people, they aren't welcomed as a part of the community [5]. This is to protect the town from damaging people and ideas, and is a perfectly healthy part of growing a community.

These vile acts and words are not worth promoting as part of public personalities with high-profile jobs. In many cases, those cancelled don't even face legal consequences for their actions, but are simply removed from the public sphere. With the way we idolise fame, it's a good way to help make sure that kids aren't looking up to rapists and racists as idols in our society.

And just to add another point about several cases which I know people will try to rebut my point with (Louis CK, Aziz Ansari, ...) These people were never unanimously cancelled like the others. There were debates even within leftist communities about how bad these acts were. And reality reflects that. Both Aziz and Louis have only had relatively minor hiatuses from the spotlight. Both are back on tour now (I went to see Aziz live last fall). This is not a "threat to our democracy" or a "threat to minority opinions".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein_sexual_abuse_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein_sexual_abuse_cases)

[2] [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/news/...](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/films/news/mark-wahlberg-racist-hate-crimes-wikipedia-history- george-floyd-blm-protests-a9554191.html)

[3] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/11/tuck...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/11/tucker- carlson-writer-blake-neff-resigns-amid-allegations-racism/5419820002/)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#Re- unifi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#Re- unified_Germany_\(1990%E2%80%93present\))

[5] [https://abcnews.go.com/US/life-inside-small-north-dakota- tow...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/life-inside-small-north-dakota-town- terrorized-white/story?id=33778885)

<comment><AUTHOR> > In Germany, for example, there are very strict restrictions around Nazi > language and symbolism [4], and for good reason.

I feel that needs a bit of clarification. The reason nazi symbolism is restricted is because it is promoting an illegal political party. It is a disgusting ideology full of hate, but its symbolism isn't illegal because it is vile or hateful. The nazi party (NSDAP, and lot of other related smaller parties) has been ruled unconstitutional because it is explicitly against the German constitution. The same has been done with communist parties trying to overthrow the constitution, and you also have symbolism of the islamic state that is considered illegal.

My point is: the legal argument is based on the defense of the constitution, not on the fact that it is considered hate.

Germany also has regulation for hate speech, but that's not what is being used in the context of unconstitutional political parties.

<comment><USER29> That is not true. Section 86 StGB explicitly mentions "former National Socialist organisation" separately from other unconstitutional organizations. Since they were technically never banned in the FRG (as they didn't exist anymore), their symbols would be still legal otherwise.

Also the only parties that were ever banned were the SRP (replacement for the NSDAP) and the KPD (under pressure from the Adenauer government).

[https://www.gesetze-im- internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...](https://www.gesetze-im- internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p0917)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the correction, I appreciate

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The bullying/mobbing aspect of Cancel Culture should explicitly be made illegal. I don't understand how people don't recognize it as what it is: idealogical "cleansing" in the same way the Nazis, Mao, Stalinists did it. Simple employer protection as suggested doesn't go far enough, the intent to harm one's career on ideological grounds must be punished.

<comment><USER5> ... are you going to be able to define this _at all_? Or are you going to make it illegal to report e.g. someone saying the N-word to their employer?

<comment><USER30> Preferably we'll make it illegal to damage someone's career and conspiring to do so. Just like it's illegal to damage someone's property. You have a problem with someone's speech? Let authorities handle it. If the N-word is illegal, tell the police, not the employer. Where's the problem?

<comment><USER5> It's not illegal. That's the point. You're arguing that it should be illegal to ever complain about anyone. Writing "the waiter was rude" in a review shouldn't be a criminal offense.

<comment><USER30> > _It 's not illegal. That's the point. _

Then you'll just have to suck it up instead of trying to seek mob justice by harassing employers.

> _You 're arguing that it should be illegal to ever complain about anyone._

You can complain but not with the intent to damage property or careers. You can also criticize people but not assault them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Has this author never heard of tenure? All tenure has done is push massive conformity where groups lobby and lobby to make sure only politically correct people get teaching positions.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's off topic, the author isn't suggesting tenure.</comment></comment>


Porn site to pay $12.7M to women who didn't know videos would be posted - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/03/girlsdoporn-site-pay-127m-women-didnt-know-videos-posted <comment><USER2> > In November 2015 60 emails and phone calls called for her to be expelled. > The emails went to the dean of the law school, and to the head of the > student body with links to the video.

What kind of evil person does this? Is there anything these monsters can be prosecuted for? At least the people who made the movies had a motive in greed. The people who sent these emails wouldn't even gain anything. They are clearly nothing but malicious, bigoted and evil.

<comment><USER3> Can you be more specific on why you think the people who sent emails are "evil" and deserve to be judged? And I'm talking about moral aspect here, not legal.

> They are clearly nothing but malicious, bigoted and evil.

Try to look at it this way. Jane Doe lived in a society (family, coworkers, friends) where she was respected and was considered to be good, ethical and honourable person. At the same time she wanted to play in porn. Maybe because she was just curious, or being filmed during sex was her secret fantasy (you know, it can be a big turn-on to imagine other people watch your sex), or she wanted some quick money, or something else. The problem was that playing in porn was unacceptable in her society. We don't know why they thought so, maybe their perception of sex was different from hers and they didn't like people to to it publicly, or they also had this fantasy of playing in porn but never had courage to actually do it, or something else. Whatever were the reasons of the society and of Jane, I don't judge them.

So Jane encountered this dilemma. She wants to keep the respect she has in the society, and she wants to play in porn -- two wishes are incompatible. Jane is smart, and she decides to play in porn making sure the society never finds out. It looks like a win-win sutuation for her. I hope, she realizes that there's a risk of being caught at this point.

People who film the porn promise Jane not to publish the videos online. And they break their promise. This is obviously a "bad", "evil" and immoral thing to do. I think we all agree that not keeping our promises is immoral.

Someone encounters Jane's video online, and assumes that the society Jane lives in is very likely to consider this immoral, and Jane has probably played in the video secretly. And this person has the choice: to report Jane and act in the society's interest, or not report Jane and act in her interest.

I don't think we should be concerned here with only Jane's interests, people around also have their wishes and feelings. If she's a teacher, her students parents may not want a porn actor to teach their children, and that's their preference which, I think, we should respect too. Her parents may be traditionalists and they may want to know if their daughter is doing something that they consider immoral. Jane is not the only person who has feelings here. So why shouldn't the person email Jane's friends and parents and tell them that she's lying to them?

\--

You might notice that I'm writing this comment from an account I just created. When I did this I also had a choice similar to Jane's.

Most of the people around me now are strongly liberal. And when we discuss something related to women, sex and slut shaming, it's not very favorable to express anything except sorrow for women and judgement for anyone who caused them trouble. But I have many other thoughts on this subject (like the ones I expressed above about Jane), and I'm afraid my friends will not like this. So I did the same choice Jane did, I decided to do what I want secretly and anonymously.

And if somebody finds out my real name and decides to inform people I know about this terrible sexist pig they invite to parties and spend time with, I won't judge that person. They're just acting in other people's interests, not mine.

<comment><USER4> "Can you be more specific on why you think the people who sent emails are "evil" and deserve to be judged" Sure. they did something to harm another person without any real benefit to society. I know you argue that "her students parents may not want a porn actor to teach their children" but of course there is no actual harm of a porn actor teaching children. Parents only object to the idea that a porn actor is teaching their children, which might never be known if the emails were not sent. What if you were a teacher and also liked to engage in S&M. Someone takes a picture of you through your bedroom window and sends it to your school. Do you think parents want some teacher with a weird kink teaching their kids? Would you feel ok about losing your job in such a situation?

<comment><USER5> So if a murderer teaches children (never murdering them) or a fraudster, or a stripper, then that's okay if no one knows? People avoid them for a good reason.

The image drawn in the story is far better than reality is. At least one of these "girls" was charged of theft and underage alcohol, with issued arrest warrants. You know the lack of morality doesn't come alone, otherwise it would not be a big deal.

>Someone takes a picture of you through your bedroom window and sends it to your school

Having fun behind closed doors is normal. Doing that on camera for redistribution is not. If you were spied on, you're a victim. If you shoot pro porn consciously, you're blamed. Social reaction supports that de facto, that's what this case is about. Is it that hard?

<comment><USER6> You can't really wield 'social reaction' like that.

In many western societies in 2020, for example, many people's learned reaction to loud puritanism is to casually wonder what skeletons are being so desperately hidden.

I'd be much more comfortable with my children's math teacher stripping or doing porn than being some puritanical moral crusader, just based on recent history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My wife fell victim to this before we met. I'm curious how we'd go about filing a case against the website. I send a message to the FBI a few years ago and never heard anything.

<comment><USER8> Battling Against Demeaning and Abusive Selfie Sharing (BADASS) has a lot of experience helping people get the content legally taken down from hosting sites. [https://badassarmy.org](https://badassarmy.org)

<comment><USER9> thanks for bringing this to my attention, sent a small donation their way

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is disgusting.

I am sure you can find enough people in the world who would voluntarily do this without coercion. Getting people drunk in another city/state (?) and coercing them to do something else is rape territory, and I hope everyone involved faces criminal justice for that

It's strange that the site is still up? I'm not visiting but, but how can there be civil and criminal charges and the site is still up...

<comment><USER11> > Getting people drunk in another city/state (?) and coercing them to do > something else is rape territory

The "other state" part would make it human trafficking too. Being transported to a different city might also be enough, it depends on how the laws are worded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> (no disrespect intended to the victims in this story when I say this)

This is a cautionary tale in the world we live in today: Once something is recorded, it could be anywhere. Even without willful intent on the part of the owner, phones get lost or stolen, old hardware gets sold on ebay, cloud accounts get compromised, etc.

Have fun, but be careful.

<comment><USER13> This does indeed come off as disrespectful.

These videos weren't "leaked", they weren't found on someone's old phone.

The people who shot the video LIED to the participants in order to coerce participation. They paid other people to lie to them as well in order to create a more complete deception. Then they posted the videos in exactly the way they said they would not do.

They also provided drugs and alcohol to the participants before offering paperwork.

This is fraud, pure and simple, thus the monetary reward. And your comment here comes across as patronizing at best. You read an article about criminal behavior and then blamed the victims of the crimes.

"Have fun"? These are desperate people desperately trying to negotiate a contract so they can survive. This is not some kids having sexy time.

<comment><USER12> My comments were not about the people in this story directly. I am certainly not blaming them for what happened.

My point is, if you don't control the source of the recording (whatever it may be), you can't control what happens to it. With how easy it is to share any data these days, it could go places you don't want it to very quickly.

"Have fun" was a general comment for people. Look at all the political fallout that has happened to various people over pictures from decades ago that have resurfaced, for one example.

Here's another (older) example of what I mean: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Kid](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Kid)

<comment><USER14> Honestly, I don't think you need to defend your comment any further to appease anyone who would be potentially offended by reading it. "Do not knowingly film your sexual encounter(s)" period. It's a general cautionary statement and should be treated as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _"I'm always paranoid when I meet new people that they have seen my video or [when I] meet new people [they] are going to say, 'I know you.'"_

That reminded me of a comment I saw in a discussion about being worried that someone would find out your real identity by noticing your profile on a fetish site --- and thus the correct response to that is "I know you watch porn."

<comment><USER16> I mean, I anecdotally feel like a majority of people watch porn now-days, so not really a heartbreaking retort.

<comment><USER17> I've always wondered about that stat. What does "watch porn" mean? 1x a year? 1x a month? 1x a week? I think people assume the rate is higher than it really is.

<comment><USER18> There are stats available from porn sites. E.g.:

Now we're not saying that size matters, but 2018 was an impressively big year for Pornhub and its users. Visits to Pornhub totaled 33.5 billion over the course of 2018, an increase of 5 billion visits over 2017. That equates to a daily average of 92 million visitors and at the time of this writing, Pornhub's daily visits now exceed 100 million.

2018 saw Pornhub's average visit duration grow by 14 seconds to 10 minutes and 13 seconds.

[https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in- review](https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2018-year-in-review)

Relevant: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/09/everybody...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/09/everybody- lies-how-google-reveals-darkest-secrets-seth-stephens-davidowitz)

Book: [https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About- Really/...](https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About- Really/dp/0062390856)

<comment><USER17> Unless I missed it, I didn't see something as plain as "X million in the US watch porn at least 1x a week" or something like that, which is what I'm curious about.

<comment><USER18> They say "Once again, the United States continues to be the country with the highest daily traffic to Pornhub".

The give a graph of top 20 countries, which they say represent an aggregated 80% of their traffic.

The US is first, and take around 40-50% of that traffic.

Let's go with 40%. Of 80% that's ~ 32% of total.

They also say: "Pornhub's daily visits now exceed 100 million".

This means 32% of 100M, so around 32M americans visit Pornhub alone each day.

And that's just one porn network. Along with Pornhub (which is however the most visited) there are also XVideos, XHamster, XNXX, Redtube in the list of Top 50 most popular websites.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I'm curious about the distribution therein. It's obviously not the same 32M every single day, though I'm sure there are people who indulge daily. Are 20% of them daily users? And 60% weekly? etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder with facial recognition and etc if it would be possible that all sorts of sites would get caught up in this sort of thing where previously they thought they could just do whatever with the video and it likely wouldn't be noticed?

</comment><comment><USER20> was it hidden in the contract? just curious the extent of the lying.

<comment><USER21> My understanding is the girls are told that the videos will go in some wealthy dude's private collection or something like that. No one reads contracts.

<comment><USER22> That seems to echo exactly what is stated in the article.

"They were promised that the footage would go straight to DVD for wealthy buyers in other countries, in particular Australia and New Zealand, where the defendants come from."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Each woman was seeking 2 million from what I've found online. The judgement ended up being a payout of 12.7m sum and that's for splitting between 22 victims with their representation. I wonder how much each person walked away with after their attorneys were paid. I've not witnessed justice in my life but I like to think they will be happy with the judgement even though it's a lot lower than they sought.

<comment><USER24> No amount of money is going to help them deal with trauma and problems they are facing everyday. I see this more as punitive damage than actual compensation for the harm the company did

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> In the future everyone will know a pornstar and nobody will care

</comment><comment><USER5> Reading through comments I feel like being from completely another world. While an option is to simply stay silent, I struggle to understand how that plot ends up unquestioned by everyone except lawyers. Is it self-censoring in action? Because I feel self-censored.

<comment><USER26> I think you are saying that we should treat the accused as just that: innocent until proven guilty. Which is a very good policy. Especially since this industry sees a lot of attacks on the grounds of of "immorality"

But in this case we have moved beyond merely accused. We have a completed verdict in a real trail. And although the judicial system has flaws, in this case the weaker parties actually won against the more powerful. And in several instances too.

So I think it's reasonable people feel quite confident that the verdict was correct and that the good guys won here.

<comment><USER27> that's my take on it too. I didn't fully read through all the details, but I have to believe that courts did their due diligence and the women were legitimately coerced by the website.

And I've just realized that 'legitimately coerced' out of context sounds like an oxymoron.

<comment><USER28> _demonstrably coerced_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow this post got a lot of comments

</comment><comment><USER30> If you don't want a video of yourself in the Internet, don't make a video. I always assume that any picture I take can leak to everyone anytime. How naive can you be? Someone pays you money to have sex with a stranger (prostitution in my mind) and take a video of it. And she really thought they wouldn't sell the video?

</comment><comment><USER31> This whole thing is idiotic. The lying producers are assholes. The women are idiots for trusting anything told to them in this context by complete strangers motivated only by money. In the words of Shakespeare, "all are punished".

 _> "These are millennial women who grew up with the internet – they knew the consequences of pornographic videos ending up online which is why they asked where the videos were going before they were lied to."_

I'm not sure they did, really. That last sentence should end with "knew the consequences of pornographic videos ending up online which is why _they wisely chose not to risk doing porn._ " Maybe college should teach mandatory classes on risk management.

 _> Her life, she says, is irrevocably changed, and her hopes of a legal career have been ended.

"I do not want a career as an attorney. My name is completely destroyed."_

I hope somebody explains to her this isn't necessarily true. There are places and firms in the country more sex-positive and/or forgiving where this won't destroy her life and she can still be an attorney. She also pretty much has a ready made career as an attorney focusing on sex-trafficking and similar fields.

<comment><USER7> I hope you don't have kids. 18 year olds do dumb things. They're legally adults but neurologically speaking that's questionable. My wife was still reeling from an abusive and sexually exploitative relationship and trying to survive when she was tricked into making porn under the guise of auditioning for an off-camera job. Glad to know you think she's an idiot. Class act there buddy.

<comment><USER32> > They're legally adults but neurologically speaking that's questionable

Adolescence has been recently extended to 20-something years.

I think this is still not enough, looking at myself 30 years back and looking at my children and their friends.</comment></comment></comment>


On Reviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=2380 <comment><USER2> It took me a while to realize how broken the process at my company is. You have to write your own review, review your coworkers, write your own goals. There is never any feedback from management if the goals are realistic or what their expectations are. At the end it's always "Keep doing what you are doing".

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a little funny that in most sane situations (gaming, hardware manufacturing, book-writing, movies, etc. etc.) self reviews are a scandal, an abhorrence; while some types of company managers actually think it's a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think a bigger problem for MS is this: [http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300072551/microsofts- enterpris...](http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300072551/microsofts-enterprise- software-price-hikes-paying-off-as-sql-server-business-hits-5-billion- mark.htm) (and don't think it is limited to SQL Server, I think it probably is affecting Windows too)

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel this. Also a couple of years out of MS and finally calming down about the review system...

My 2¢ is that in principle the review system was never too bad, self review + manager review + calibration -> pay + stock. The biggest problem IMHO was no protection from bad actors, there was an implicit assumption that all parties were being honest at all times

<comment><USER6> This implicit assumption is what the bad actors notice and capitalize upon. Before you realize it, they are consolidating power and it's too late to oust them because they are writing your review.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microchip Technology decouples yearly reviews and pay raises. (And pay raises aren't necessarily once a year, it ebbs and flows with company earnings.) I like this a lot; it removes a lot of the stress from the review process.

</comment><comment><USER6> The problem is that your only options, as an on-the-ground engineer/dataperson/designer/etc are to play ball or quit. There is no panel in front of which to make your case, mistakes are not corrected. Authority is absolute and reviews are a charade.</comment>


Apple Policy Said to Prompt U.S. Allegation by Adobe - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asdIuYfRt_7U <comment><USER2> This is like when you were a kid and you got in a fight with your sibling, one of you lost and went and told mommy.

And then, you both got in trouble. Surprise.

Apparently Adobe's managers do not remember lessons learned during childhood.

</comment><comment><USER3> >Adobe says Apple is stifling competition by barring developers from using Adobe's products to create applications for iPhones and iPads

What exactly are Apple and Adobe competing over in this particular case? Language? Is code language a market?

I can understand Flash developers feeling that this behavior excludes them from the market, and I understand that Adobe feels (rightly) that this makes CS 5 less attractive, but is Apple competing directly with Flash app developers or with Adobe's CS 5?

I guess it's just not clear to me what competition is being stifled and if Apple directly stands to gain from section 3.3.1 (as opposed to indirectly gaining because of their ability to maintain control of their platform's direction and features).

<comment><USER4> Apple is competing with other mobile platforms. Adobe wants to provide a portable application environment across these platforms (leaving aside the question of whether flash is a _good_ portable application environment). Apple won't allow it. They want iPhone apps to _only_ be iPhone apps.

The only way Apple could make 3.3.1 work is because they are the dominant smartphone platform that everyone must support. If Google or RIM or Microsoft or Palm were to try the same thing it would fail: they'd get no new customers and hurt their platform. Apple is leveraging its dominant platform to perpetuate its dominance, and that certainly seems to be anticompetitive to me.

<comment><USER5> Apple made "the dominant smartphone platform that everyone must support" through its own extraordinary and dilligent efforts, and they deserve every bit of their success. I disagree completely with these attempts (both in the media and through legal means such as antitrust law) to cut down tall poppies like Apple - they've achieved their position fairly, and this antitrust talk is just about bringing down a company that is good at its job.

<comment><USER6> The point of antitrust talk is to prevent a company that has achieved dominance fairly, through extraordinary and diligent effort, from maintaining that position in _other_ ways.

Bringing down companies that once were, but no longer are good at their jobs is the whole point.

<comment><USER5> The only way for a company to remain "dominant" without doing a good job is for it to curry special favors from the government. This is done usually by lobbying for regulations that harm competitors, while leaving the company relatively unharmed (differences in scale following consolidation are natural, for example, but additional regulatory burden will keep small upstarts from entering the market - think about the way milk is sold in California). Without regulatory assistance, unearned monopolies are impossible to maintain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Man the title to this article means nothing.

"U.S. Allegation?" WTF is that.</comment>


Our Consumption Model Is Broken. Here's How to Build a New One - <AUTHOR> https://shift.newco.co/our-consumption-model-is-broken-heres-how-to-build-a-new-one-bda838cd5dde <comment><USER2> Great read! Thanks for articulating the problem, this opens so many opportunities for startups.</comment>


NASA Moves Closer to Building a 3-D Printed Rocket Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2015/piece-by-piece-nasa-team-moves-closer-to-building-a-3-d-printed-rocket-engine.html <comment><USER2> This makes sense for rocket engines, which are mostly rigid objects with a lot of internal plumbing. 3D printing is good at objects with complex internal voids. The rigid parts can be made up as one piece, rather than welding or bolting a large number of parts together. The surface finish of the plumbing usually isn't critical, so there's no need for finish machining. It's the right tool for the job.

Here's Space-X's 3D printed engine.[1] Watch the video of the test firing. The engine is being throttled up and down, at higher and higher rates. Those guys like aggressive control strategies, as seen with the Falcon booster landing, and an engine which can keep up helps.

[1] [http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space- explor...](http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space-exploration- technologies/spacexs-superdraco-engine/)

</comment><comment><USER3> SpaceX has been 3-D printing injectors with a titanium printer for a few years. I wonder how much information is shared.

<comment><USER4> SpaceX also prints its SuperDraco engines ([1]) using Inconel superalloy ([2]) powder, which is even harder to process with a mill than titanium.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDraco#Manufacturing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDraco#Manufacturing)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconel)

<comment><USER5> I hadn't heard that iconel was worse to machine than titanium, but machining titanium was a much bigger pain in the ass. You have to be very careful about your metal chips when machining titanium because they can ignite.

<comment><USER4> According to the machinability ratings [1], Inconel 700 is rated at 0.09 (less is harder) and Inconel 702 at 0.11, while most of the Titanium alloys are above 0.15. There's a single Titanium alloy family (MST) in the table that is just as hard to machine as Inconel 700.

So, you're technically correct: generally, they are on the same scale. And your argument about ignitability is certainly true.

1\. [http://www.quakerchem.com/wp- content/uploads/pdf/skill_build...](http://www.quakerchem.com/wp- content/uploads/pdf/skill_builders/no10_machinability_ratings.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really wish that we could replace the phrase "3-D printing" with "additive manufacturing" when referring to metals and/or serious, low-tolerance manufacturing.

"3-D printing" should be used when referring to hobbyists making semi-useless, plastic trinkets. No disrespect to plastics or hobbyists, it's just that the phrase lost some dignity when it became a over-generalizing buzzword.

<comment><USER7> There is a whole range of machines that can be classed as 3D printers, from a simple reprap like setup all the way to SLS and DMP printers. Yes, they're all 'additive', but additive manufacturing is a concept that is a lot wider than 3D printing. For instance metal vapor deposition is also additive manufacturing and definitely not 3D printing.

<comment><USER8> One nitpick - metal vapour deposition, when done in-situ through a moveable shadow mask, certainly is 3D printing. One can dynamically "draw" out structures having controlled variable-height profiles inside the vacuum chamber during the evaporation process by altering the position (and thus speed) of the moving shadow mask.

This method is quite different from the "ordinary" metallic vapour deposition process you're referring to that uses a simple fixed-position mask, usually photoresist that is baked right onto the silicon wafer.

Eg, here is my research paper from 8 yrs ago demonstrating nanoscale-level dynamic stencil deposition using a nanopore in a suspended silicon nitride membrane shadow mask. We controlled the mask's position using a piezo actuator inside the deposition chamber during the evaporation process to 3D print nanowires and other nanostructures with programmable height profiles. Eg, we created nanoramps, and nanowires with one or more "valleys" to simulate quantum wells or metallic grains. [http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/rsi/79/7/10.106...](http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/rsi/79/7/10.1063/1.2960573) Arxiv link : [http://arxiv.org/pdf/0802.1848.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0802.1848.pdf)

<comment><USER7> That's very neat, and yes, you're right, when doing it with a movable shadow mask it is 3D printing. Totally missed that option when I gave the examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rocket Lab is 3D printing most of their engines: [http://fortune.com/2015/04/17/rocket-lab-satellites- space/](http://fortune.com/2015/04/17/rocket-lab-satellites-space/)

</comment><comment><USER10> So which 'parts' are actually printed? I cannot believe that the turbopump blades could possibly be printed additively as they would lack proper crystal structure.

Piping can be printed, but given the stresses at attachment points, I cannot see that printing pipes would save many man-hours.

The turbopump casings could certainly be printed, but not in "one piece". Someone needs them open to insert the bearings and blades. So two pieces at best ... exactly as if they had been milled rather than built additively.

So what's left? The combustion chamber and bell might do well. They have some internal voids/plumbing that probably suits such printing. But the stresses?

</comment><comment><USER11> One cool part about this is that once they prove that current engine designs can be replicated using additive manufacturing, then totally new engine designs, different from anything possible with traditional manufacturing techniques, can be developed. It would likely mean higher thrust per unit fuel and generally more efficient systems.

<comment><USER10> Higher thrust per unit fuel isn't limited by manufacturing technique. Per-unit cost isn't really a limiting factor for rocket engine development. These things cost tens of millions of dollars and they push things worth perhaps a billion. Governments have been throwing billions, defence billions, at the technology for over a half-century.

The physics of ISP is well-understood and current engines are near what is physically possible, regardless of who/what builds the engines. 3d printing could certainly make engines more affordable and/or lighter, but it isn't going to allow an engine to be any more fuel efficient.

Anyone who builds an engine with significantly increased ISP using standard fuels (ie without going nuclear) will probably win a few nobel prizes. 3d printing is about improved manufacturing, not new physics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hasn't SpaceX been doing this for a few years?

<comment><USER13> Yes, they have.[1]

[1] [http://www.spacex.com/press/2014/05/27/spacex-completes- qual...](http://www.spacex.com/press/2014/05/27/spacex-completes- qualification-testing-superdraco-thruster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is bigger news for asteroid mining than it is for Mars (why return the ingredients to earth when you can 3D print end products at the source). But kudos to Elon for getting the world talking about Mars again.

<comment><USER15> Kudos to our holy savior.

Can we rename Christmas to Christmusk and change the date to the 21st?</comment></comment>


Why Developers Keep Making Bad Technology Choices - <AUTHOR> http://www.obsidianscheduler.com/blog/why-developers-keep-making-bad-technology-choices/

<comment><USER2> The only bad technology chices I met, were the politics/business-based ones.

"We use Java, because we're Oracle partners!"

"We use PHP, because there are many developers who programm in it!"

"We use SAP, because all the other big company using it, so it can't be bad!"

etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> The headline probably should have "bad" or "inexperienced" before "developers" because this is a handy discriminator for things like interviews, etc.</comment>


Singapore: no more cars allowed on the road, government says - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/24/singapore-no-more-cars-allowed-on-the-road-government-says <comment><USER2> Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15536481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15536481)

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it interesting that Singapore ranks very high on the "Economic Freedom" (read: business friendliness) indexes but is for sure a nanny state, that fines you for chewing gum on the street and so on.

Libertarians use it as an example of prosperity resulting from freedom but there is heavy intervention and central planning everywhere. How do they explain the thiving in the face of this?

<comment><USER4> They don't and never have fined anyone for chewing gum. Just the sale and import of gum are banned. You can go to another country and bring back gum for personal use, though doing so may be of dubious legality. I know plenty of friends that have done so many times with no issues.

<comment><USER3> You're right, I accidentally conflated it with spitting out gum:

It is illegal to drop litter, and to "spit any substance or expel mucus from the nose upon or on to any street or any public place". Penalties for a first offence can be as much as S$2,000, or S$10,000 for doing it three times. In both cases you may also be forced to clean the streets wearing a green vest.

<comment><USER4> This is very much a problem in many parts of Asia. Whether there should be a law against it is debatable, but I can absolutely understand why something like this would be on the books. I find spitting and blowing your nose onto the street pretty revolting personally, so I don't have a problem with laws like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting.

The economic and environmental rationales are compelling.

After reading this, I'm wondering if the prohibition of private vehicles will be unavoidable in the future for large, densely populated areas with growing populations.

<comment><USER6> Places like Singapore are an isolated incidents. They have nowhere else to grow (unless they want to reclaim land from the ocean sort of what seoulites did with Songdo).

<comment><USER7> If I recall correctly Singapore has increased it's landmass by about 20% in 50 or so years by reclaiming land from the sea. I have to say though they have plans that by 2030 no place should be more than 10-15min walk from an mrt station and have been trialing different kinds of self driving tech for the last mile travel. I expect in 10 years they might actually get to a point where owning a car might not be worth the hassle.

<comment><USER6> I would say in most of the cities that are like Singapore owning a car is a hassle. The point is you cannot replicate Singapore. Take Seoul for example with its massive and well maintained infrastructure. The city despite the similar population density is just too big to efficiently cover all its corners by public infrastructure. Sure this will work for "poor" (loose definition of poor i am talking about people that can afford to own a car but prefer not to because it would perhaps eat to much of their budget) that can or have to cope with the public mrt but will not work for 70% (number out of my ass) of other citizens.

The solution is clearly a better urban planning, perhaps some limits to the size of the cities etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A History of This^, #This, and This - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter/how-a-single-pronoun-became-the-internets-most-expressive-meme-f6f89a365064

<comment><USER2>
      > Writing "This." or "This^" (the caret points upward in the forum's
      > chronologically-ordered conversation) may be the earliest form of
      > a fav or reblog.

Me, too!</comment>


ReMarkable MicroSD - <AUTHOR> http://www.davisr.me/projects/remarkable-microsd/ <comment><USER2> The page doesn't load for me. Here's the content from the Archive: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200226133832/http://www.davisr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200226133832/http://www.davisr.me/projects/remarkable- microsd/)</comment>


Robust Landmark-Based Audio Fingerprinting (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/resources/matlab/fingerprint/ <comment><USER2> Unrelated to the article, but I bookmarked this a few years ago when I first read it. It was my first real deep dive into a novel problem for a while and reminded me of why I like to build cool stuff. I never did anything with the knowledge, but that feeling of excitement and wonder still reminds me of the day I read it.

It was one of those "Hey, I could actually do this" moments in a space I thought I would have no hope without prior experience (signal processing)</comment>


Can anyone recommend an affordable web/interface designer? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Best ones you can get for the cost of pizza and coke if what you intend to implement is cool enough :)</comment>


Kinect Programming - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested in doing a small side project this summer using the Kinect. I'm still thinking about what exactly I want to do. Are there any good resources/tutorials other than those from Microsoft's site that would be beneficial for me? <comment><USER2> I guess this will help you: [http://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://openkinect.org/wiki/Main_Page)</comment>


Ask HN: How to file a patent alone? - <AUTHOR> I've just started my own company/start up. I've got enough funds to work on the idea for a year or so by myself, so I've got some time and a nominal amount of money at my disposal. I'm also pretty sure that my idea is patentable!
How do I, as an LLC, file a patent? The common response I've heard in person is "don't" or "get a lawyer." But the former is not fun, and the latter is not an option.
Has anyone personally filed for one? Or used a cheap online service or template like LegalZoom? <comment><USER2> Go to your public library and you will probably find some books by Nolo press on patent law, take them home and read them.

If you are small and never filed a patent before you can get services from the PTO for 1/4 the price.

For less than $40 you can file a provisional patent application that holds your priority for a year to write a full patent. I have put together PPAs in four hours or so by cutting and pasting technical and marketing material and writing some text to make it look (a little) like a patent application.

If you really understand what is in that book in the next year you can file a real patent application yourself, enough to keep the clock running. I have had co-workers write good applications (that got granted) in about two weeks of full-time work.

I like intellectual property lawyers, but I don't like paying their bill. Five shaky patents are probably more intimidating than one patent that looks strong so it makes more sense to file for more patents yourself at the bargain basement price than getting a lawyer who will do better than you on average but could well make a mistake too because anybody could make a mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Paul! It sounds like the amount of work is equivalent to what it would take to do a write up and submit it to a patent service, so I might as well skip shelling out a thousand dollars to have someone basically proof-read my application, and just submit it myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > I've got enough funds to work on the idea for a year or so by myself, so > I've got some time and a nominal amount of money at my disposal.

And you want to spend your precious time and money on a patent? One that most likely will be worthless in court since you want to do it without a lawyer? Maybe the answers you heard are correct. A year goes by very fast.</comment>


Why is Fossil so fast? - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/msg27160.html <comment><AUTHOR> Quote: The wonder of it all is not how Fossil can manage to construct a few kilobytes of HTML by using millions of CPU instructions, but that we've ended up in a world where we're uncertain about whether millions of CPU instructions are sufficient to accomplish the task! (Warren Young)</comment>


Midnight.js: a jQuery plugin to switch headers based on the content below - <AUTHOR> http://aerolab.github.io/midnight.js/ <comment><USER2> The use of the word "header" here was a little confusing. When I read the (HN) title I thought it was referring to HTTP headers (I know it doesn't make sense...thought maybe I was missing something). Then when I first looked at the page I figured it was referring to the h[1-6] elements (and thus thought the library was pretty dumb). Only after that did I figure out what it was actually referring to.

That said...I don't really have a better word to use. Also at least some of the confusion may have been due to the HN headline not having the word "fixed" in it (the actually project does, but I didn't re-read the title).

<comment><USER3> I was thinking the exact same thing. I think using "headings" would have fixed the issue for my brain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I stop midway between sections the header has two styles at once, how did you work that out?

<comment><USER5> The effect works by creating multiple copies of the header (one for each design/section), which are then wrapped in two clipping masks (.midnightHeader and then .midnightInner inside that).

When you stop between two sections (let's say we need a blue header on the top one and a white one on the bottom one), we grab .midnightHeader.blue and place it exactly above the border. We then place .midnightHeader.white exactly below the border.

That nets you two headers, a blue one on top and a white one below the border, which isn't quite that we want. To fix it, we then grab the .midnightInner inside those and move the blue one towards the bottom (so it gets chopped in half right at the border, showing only the top part), and do the opposite with the one of the bottom (moving it upwards so it also gets chopped in half, but showing only the bottom part).

By doing this, the design looks continuous and all events work as they should, so the effect doesn't cause any usability issues.

We did a subtle implementation of Midnight at [https://xapo.com/](https://xapo.com/) (it's particularly noticeable in the vault/security part of the landing page). If you check it out with the Chrome Dev Tools it's easier to see how the masks work together, since it's a more realistic use case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every cool new thing targetting the browser uses jQuery. How this relates to using a big framework like React?

<comment> at-fates-hands This was maybe true five or six years ago. Most of the newer frameworks I've seen are trying to get developers to stop using jQuery. A lot of developers are building alternatives to jQuery as well.

Take for example AngularJS. AngularUI just built a set of Boostrap directives so its not dependent on jQuery:

[http://angular-ui.github.io/bootstrap/](http://angular- ui.github.io/bootstrap/)

This guy says, "You might not need jQuery" and gives some good examples:

[http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/](http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/)

I have a co-worker that will go to his grave thinking VanillaJS is much much better than jQuery. .

[http://vanilla-js.com/](http://vanilla-js.com/)

To try and answer your question, most jQuery apps have the business logic, the model and the UI all together. React (as I understand it) abstracts each of these out separately. This makes debugging, and maintaining a large scale app a lot easier. Also, jQuery is all about manipulating the DOM. React uses other methods to stay away from directly interacting with the DOM.

<comment><USER7> This isn't exactly true either. Taking the points line by line:

Angular has a version of jQuery embedded, and replaces that with the full version if it is included in the page. AngularUI was not there to reduce dependencies on jQuery (UI, which is different than jQuery Core), but rather to provide the UI patterns in Angular directives so that developers didn't need to write their own over and over. That said, if you are new to Angular, my recommendation is to try not to use jQuery as that will force you to consider the "Angular" way of doing things rather than the "jQuery" way.

The guy who wrote You Might Not Need jQuery has also said that he was looking more at framework developers who don't need to make jQuery a dependency, not the average joe building a website. RWaldron, a jQuery contributor, put together a list of quite a few of the bugs that jQuery fixes for browser compatibility.

Don't get me wrong, Vanilla JS is great, and I love the site. But there are quite valid reasons for using jQuery and many of them are just as valid now as they were in the past. You can write "good" jQuery, it doesn't have to be "js soup".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very nice looking landing page. May I ask how you make the scroll so smooth?

<comment><USER5> We ended up using SmoothScroll on Windows ([https://gist.github.com/salipro4ever/35ba6d9e61cade99a0c2](https://gist.github.com/salipro4ever/35ba6d9e61cade99a0c2)), which helps us demonstrate the effect a lot better on the project page. It captures the mousewheel event and adds some tweening to make it scroll smoothly.

It does break easily if you have a non-standard mouse config, however, so I can't quite recommend the library unless there's a really good reason for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can you just use angular?

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks awesome!

</comment><comment><USER11> Looking cool!</comment>


Wal-Mart doesn't have enough bodies to stock the shelves - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-26/customers-flee-wal-mart-empty-shelves-for-target-costco.html

<comment><USER2> It is small things that start to undue big companies be that mass merchant retailers or tech companies.</comment>


Nvidia has confirmed a driver bug resulting in a loss of performance on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/nvidia-has-confirmed-a-driver-bug-resulting-in-a-loss-of-performance-on-linux.10804 <comment><USER2> Supposedly with the latest driver some websites (even popular ones like Reddit) have stopped working:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1382358](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1382358) [https://bugs.gentoo.org/639250](https://bugs.gentoo.org/639250)

The complexity of modern computing is truly terrifying.

<comment><USER3> there was a quote by some well known graybeard that went something like "Computers are so incredibly complex, the fact that they boot at all, let alone do anything useful, is simply astounding".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A bit off topic, I do not understand why it is acceptable to have game optimization put inside the driver and not optimize the game, it seems like all the time there is a driver update and the nvidia auto-updater thing failed for me when I tried it.

<comment><USER5> The problem here is that the games being manually optimized by the graphics card vendors can have pretty horrendous code. To the point that I remember reading a post at some point about a large game not even calling glEnd after a glBegin. So these big companies get the graphics card companies to manually go through and hack together some specialized code (including the shader code that will replace the shader code written by the big game company) to fix up how the game works, and optimize it so it works well.

Part of the reason for this is that it's so incredibly difficult to get to the "happy path" of a GPU when writing graphics code. (at least, with more complicated APIs. I think the newer things like DirectX 12 or Vulkan provide a much lower-level set of primitives to allow the developer to get to that happy path much easier, rather than doing 5 incantations in a magic circle to get there) The underlying state machine and code for a driver is incredibly complicated, and the only people who know how it really works and can view code at all levels of the software are the employees of the graphics card vendor. So they're the only ones who can truly squeeze every ounce out of the hardware/software.

<comment><USER4> I read about the story, but why not contact the game developers and send them the information? It would be like Firefox or Chrome would have a database of broken websites, and when you navigate on that website would monkey patch the site JS/CSS/HMTL to make it work faster to get a big score in benchmarks.

<comment><USER6> Because now your hardware can run the game faster than the competition.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Is Launching A Company That Hopes To Cure Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-launching-a-company-that-hopes-to-cure-death-2013-9

<comment><USER2> This is the most exciting news I've read on HN! Go Google, these people rock!

</comment><comment><USER3> You can't cure death, you can only prevent it.

<comment><USER4> Or attempt to remedy the symptoms. e.g. mummification</comment></comment>


Show HN: How much does this meeting pay? - <AUTHOR> https://howmuchdoesthismeetingpay.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all! I've recently been spending a lot of time in meetings and a few mates over at WIP came up with this idea that I should make a counter that tells you how much you've earned just by sitting in a meeting.

This is the result of that idea being turned into an actual thing! It doesn't have any purpose other than being a silly tool to track what your hourly rate converts to in meeting time.

I hope you enjoy it!

</comment><comment><USER2> I could make this in a single day. I can't believe you added a donate button.

JUST KIDDING! :)

Looks great! Good job, this was nice and simple.

Seriously, this was a lot of fun, and the cha-ching sound effect is an excellent touch.

<comment><USER3> Single day? $75 an hour. That's a $600 cost!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice

</comment><comment><USER5> Great work. Email me.</comment>


Ask HN: How many companies have started from a Show HN? - <AUTHOR>

EasyPost (YC S13) was <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER3> I find the comments extremely interesting given DropBox's fate to date.

<comment><USER4> My favourite:

        1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite
        trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs,
        and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac,
        this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

I snorted audibly when I imagined explaining this approach to my non-techie colleagues.

<comment><USER5> Another gem:

        This looks like a good competitor for Google"s "GDrive"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> PHPfog/AppFog credits an HN post for their start: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1414560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1414560)

"I was hacking around with some code seeing if I could create something useful for my PHP programmer friends," said Lucas Carlson, founder of PHP Fog. "I got a prototype working to prove that it's possible. Then I put a landing page up that described the promise of PHP Fog. A single link on Hacker News went up the next day and 800 people signed up for what I built. That was the day I knew I had to go all in."

[http://siliconflorist.com/2011/01/11/portland-funding- cloudy...](http://siliconflorist.com/2011/01/11/portland-funding-cloudy-foggy- madrona-leads-18-million-investment-php-fog/)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3864615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3864615)</comment>


Pamela Anderson says Julian Assange is 'sick' and should be 'let out' - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8346751/Watch-Happens-Live-Pamela-Anderson-reveals-losing-touch-sick-Julian-Assange.html <comment><AUTHOR> WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange misses UK hearing due to being too "unwell," says lawyer: [https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1267431932910067714](https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/1267431932910067714)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone who actually reads the Podesta email archive knows why: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384573](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21384573)</comment>


OTCA metapixel (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/OTCA_metapixel <comment><USER2> A video depicting a glider moving in metapixels.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8)

See also, Gemini, self-replicating ship going the path of universal constructor: [http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Gemini](http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Gemini)

</comment><comment><USER3> I remember getting really meta with this. I think golly came with a script that took a pattern as an input and outputed the pattern encoded as metapixels. I of course fed it the definition of the metapixel. The result is a metapixel implemented in metapixels. This is surprisingly fast to simulate because of the Hash Life algorithm which optimises that sort of thing incredibly well.</comment>


What it's like to eat at one of the best restaurants in the world? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@solanojuan/what-its-like-to-eat-at-one-of-the-best-restaurants-in-the-world-3bd05b7b60e6 <comment><USER2> If El Bulli was voted 5 times as the best restaurant in the world, why did it close?</comment>


Show HN: Instastrm - Instagram Live Photo Stream - <AUTHOR>

Please review my week-end project. Instastrm is a live streaming of images from Instagram by photo tags. You can enter or select a photo tags from the popular ones and Instastrm will create a live stream of recently uploaded images from the Instagram server. Check it out here: http://instastrm.com <comment><USER2> nice job and congrats on delivering.

might want to scale the images so they fit within your display div. at the moemnt they get cuto ff at the bottom/right by (i assume) the overflow:hidden so that the full image doesn't display

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi thanks, I think I did the overflow:hidden on purpose to not shrink or stretch the images. Thank you for noticing it.

<comment><USER2> good idea for keeping your layout intact, just need to control the image size so we can see the whole thing. should be pretty easy with instagram images since they all the same dimensions

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> clickable <http://instastrm.com></comment>


Hacking Smartwatches – The TomTom Runner, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://grangeia.io/2015/11/09/hacking-tomtom-runner-pt1/ <comment><USER2> This is excellent!!! I've been wanting to get into embedded hacking, specifically a GPS watch, the polar m400. Thanks for sharing.

BTWPart 2 is here for those curious: [http://grangeia.io/2015/11/16/hacking- tomtom-runner-pt2/](http://grangeia.io/2015/11/16/hacking-tomtom-runner-pt2/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh cool! Now somebody should hack the smartwatch to have a TomTomagotchi living in it!</comment>


Secure User Authentication in PHP - <AUTHOR> https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/04/secure-authentication-php-with-long-term-persistence <comment><USER2> If you're like me and you don't always have the luxury of working on up to date PHP installs, this is the suggested compatibility library which will make the code here run[0], do you have any opinions on it?

[0][https://github.com/ircmaxell/password_compat](https://github.com/ircmaxell/password_compat)

</comment><comment><USER3> If the words "Secure" and "PHP" were coming from anyone else I might be suspicious. But these guys know their stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the vote of confidence. :)</comment></comment>


[Rate my App] Our Android Application Release Today - <AUTHOR> http://www.phonehalo.com/2010/06/android-application-released/

<comment><AUTHOR> It always feels good to get something out the door. Look forward to hearing questions and feedback.

Thanks, Chris</comment>


Is WikiLeaks Still Active? - <AUTHOR> https://secureblitz.com/is-wikileaks-still-active/ <comment><USER2> 2 pages long article with 2 short paragraphs on the topic, not answering the question stated. Considering the importance of the topic, I say the article is a click-bait at best.

Go and minus me now, but at least improve the quality of your writings. I hope you will.</comment>


Ask HN: Minority Report with NSA data?  - <AUTHOR>

Just a thought experiment. Can we prevent crimes from happening with NSA backed data? Can we use AI to predict the actions of individuals and then take action before they do? Like using browser history patterns and linking it with suspicious phone calls and online posts etc. <comment><USER2> In a sense, yes, but it will not look like the highly accurate oracle that the film presents.

What you will be able to do is to, for example, rank people by how similar they are to specific examples.

Say, for example, you were a dictator that wanted to cement his authority on the nation.

You could rank your entire population by how similar their behaviour appears to be to known dissidents, and then implement strategic discrimination based on that ranking: targeted imprisonment, punitive taxation, barring from positions of power & property ownership etc... etc...</comment>


Ask HN: Udemy recommendations? Many classes are only $10 today - <AUTHOR> I'm not a CS major (a college dropout actually). I only finished half a coding bootcamp before leaving (got my money back). I've worked as a technician, in support at a hosting company, as an intern at an agency, and as a front-end developer at a startup. I want to either work for a company I respect or create one that others respect.
topics I'm interested in:
WORDPRESS: - Developing my own WordPress themes and plugins
JAVASCRIPT: - A thorough introduction to Javascript-based development with Node.js, Express, React, Redux, Vue. A course that helps me build a few sample apps that I can improve over time. - I'd like to know what exactly many of the most used Javascript frameworks (Backbone, Modernize, Moment) are and when/where I could/should I use them.
DEVOPS: - Getting better with git and ssh, so I can be comfortable with running a Vultr or Digital Ocean set-up with Terminal - Managing my own VPS. I want to get to this stage eventually.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Don't rush into a Udemy class because it's on sale, there are sales like this every month if you just google "Udemy coupon <current date>".

<comment><AUTHOR> Really? Good to know that.

I'll check back after I do more Googling and make a list. I can get by with free tutorials and videos for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> take a look at this : [https://www.udemy.com/understand- javascript/learn/v4/overvie...](https://www.udemy.com/understand- javascript/learn/v4/overview)</comment>


Like ice in children's hands: on lost books - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/search-lost-books/ <comment><USER2> I still hope someone finds some of Monteverdi's lost operas in some stuffy archive somewhere in Northern Italy. Monteverdi, who's generally considered to have composed the first proper opera wrote 10 operas of which only three (the very first and the two last ones) have survived.</comment>