An Advanced Guide to HTML and CSS - shay-howe http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/ <comment><USER2> > One functionality of CSS often abused without awareness are selectors [...] > How elements are selected within CSS affects performance, including how fast > a page renders

This assertion used to be thrown around as one of the supporting arguments for using OOCSS, but I'm sure I later read that it was largely debunked; the performance implications were negligible and so it was just making CSS less legible/maintainable for no real reward. Has that changed? Have you any recent benchmarks to share?

<comment><USER3> >> This assertion used to be thrown around as one of the supporting arguments for using OOCSS.

I've never seen selector performance used as an argument for OOCSS.

>> ...and so it was just making CSS less legible/maintainable for no real reward.

That's a pretty broad sweeping statement that I think you'd be very hard pressed to back up. OOCSS is all about maintainability. Legibility is debatable, but I've seen OOCSS examples that are just as legible, if not more so, than old-school CSS (leaning more on tagname selectors/DOM structure - <AUTHOR> that is the opposing stand-point, sometimes it's hard to tell what OOCSS dissenters are really arguing against).

<comment><USER2> > I've never seen selector performance used as an argument for OOCSS.

Harry Roberts is one of the most vociferous proponents of OOCSS, and he has written about it a few times, notably here: [http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/writing-efficient-css- selecto...](http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/writing-efficient-css-selectors/)

> That's a pretty broad sweeping statement that I think you'd be very hard > pressed to back up.

I'll admit it's an opinionated statement, but I don't think that in itself makes it invalid. Opinions are certainly divided when it comes to how to structure CSS selectors, and I am firmly in the camp that OOCSS is bad stuff.

I've had a half-baked article on the whys of an alternative structure to OOCSS drafted for about 18 months now, so I guess it might be time to dust it down and fully write it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know of any guides or books for _really_ advanced HTML/CSS? I find a lot of these guides target regular websites, which I have experience with, whereas I'd love to know how to create much more advanced layouts (e.g. Gmail, Grooveshark). Does anyone know where I can find information on that kind of stuff?

<comment><USER5> Last time I checked, gmail was still using tables for layout.

<comment><USER6> I would say that ignoring implementation dogma and going for the best solution to a problem definitely falls under advanced development. It's certainly not something you see coming from developers with a few flavor of the month tutorials and maybe a site build or two under their belt.

<comment> saint-loup Gmail uses tables for the list of mails, which makes sense, but there are also tables for things like the logo. I'm not qualified to assess the work of the team behind Gmail, but it's curious notheless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Beautiful implementation.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, it is work in progress, so do not be too harsh of a critic.

Once all the lessons are up and a responsive layout is implemented, I believe this to be a beautiful addition for beginners and advanced programmers.

P.S.: Reminds me a bit of <http://www.phptherightway.com> \- Maybe you can borrow a few of the good ideas from that guide?

</comment><comment><USER8> What is the deal with those orange buttons that hover on the right hand side of the code snippets?

They look like they should be interacted with, but when I hover my mouse over them they fade away. That's terribly irritating.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure they're just markers telling you what the code is an example of, so they get out of your way when you hover over the code.

<comment> shay-howe You're correct, thanks for the answer here.

Feedback has been hot and cool on them, still trying to decide if they are worth it or not.

<comment><USER10> Btw, Does not fade away in IE8 with hover.

<comment><USER11> IE8 can't do anything fancy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lovely website! I always kick myself when I'm two weeks into a project and my CSS is starting to get unwieldy.

Keeping CSS rules clean and well thought-out pays for itself in the long run, I know this; yet - for some reason I don't follow my own advice. Hehe.

Edit: Another great website with no fluff and pure awesome content is www.htmldog.com.

I learned about HTML and CSS there when I was a wee lad, helped me grok floats.

<comment><USER13> I disagree on "Lovely" -- I find it hard to read. Dark-gray text on light-gray background throws away several levels of contrast. I had to ctl-+ twice to get a comfortable type size. And the wide blue nav-band on the left is just a waste of space once you get past the second paragraph or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just going to throw this out there: <http://www.betterfrontend.com> \- been working on this. It's open source.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can appreciate the layout, organization, and design of the site (as a frontend developer myself, this is very well executed), but personally, I have an _immensely_ difficult time learning from a structure like this:

 _< definition of a term that is difficult to grasp out of context>_

 _< loose context / example for said previously defined term with no real world application>_

Stuff the whole thing with formal copy coupled with lorem ipsum placeholder text, and I can't force myself to endure the boredom through the first lesson. I have a similarly difficult time learning by reading textbooks (of which this guide feels reminiscent). It just doesn't click for me, but it does seem to work for many, many people.

</comment><comment><USER16> The first thing that the chapter regarding Performance and Organization takes up is establishing a structure for your CSS. Whilst I'm well aware that the approach made towards separation of similar classes into multiple files is a good one, I've seen it argued that the usage of @import or linking multiple stylesheets has a significant impact on performance. The guide even mentions the important practice of combining all styles into one stylesheet in order to avoid multiple http requests, but only later on, in a different section. I don't think the first section does a good job at stressing this. It ought to at least mention that some form of preprocessing should be present here, if only to minify and combine the files. To me, it seems a bit counter-intuitive that this first section of the guide could be interpreted incorrectly by a newcommer (''I should separate everything and include it all in a nice, fancy list of link tags!'')

Just some feedback. I must say that I feel like the guide so far is representative of most of the gems I came across whilst trying to improve my webdev, doing small-company websites on the side whilst studying, starting with some basic HTML3/4 and CSS2 knowledge and working on 3-4 projects over the course of 2 years. It's what I now wish I had known before diving into my first project.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks great, and reading the first lessons shows it's also written well and very useful.

One small question, why did you chose a non responsive layout? It is pretty unreadable on mobile (at least for me). I'm sure it's work in progress, but this is the first thing I've noticed.

Again, thank you for posting (and creating) I find it useful and looking forward for the next chapters.

<comment> shay-howe Making the guide responsive is an absolute must, and something I am looking to do right away. For now I just wanted to get it out there and start collecting feedback.

Thank you for the kind words!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is truly awesome. What's even more awesome for me as a noob is to see what the web design/dev community is like out there. People really and truly care about educating others and sharing the knowledge they have...now imagine if the people in every industry were as open and awesome?!

</comment><comment><USER19> Great work! The writing style is clear and easy to understand. Clearly a great deal of work!

If I had my druthers, I'd bump up the contrast just a bit, especially in the code blocks.

Also, just a minor thing: looks like you've used a[src...] in your attribute selector examples when I believe you mean to have a[href...].

</comment><comment><USER20> The 'Learn Advanced HTML & CSS' button takes me to a password protected area, I'm guessing that's non-standard behaviour?

Site looks really nice, not got much time to check the content whilst I'm at work but I'll have a better look at it. It certainly seems very clear from the quick scan I had.

<comment> shay-howe Sorry about that Nicholas, the 'Learn Advanced HTML & CSS' button should be good to go now. Thanks for the heads up!

Let me know what you think of everything once you've had a chance to further check out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It use to be the old teaching the young, now it's the young teaching the old. As an old guy I like it.

<comment><USER22> Hear, hear. That's exactly the nature of my intended comment. There's a disadvantage to being an old Web veteran, in that you tend toward the grooves you have created over the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> You lost me at the fade in.

<comment><USER24> Shouldn't be so snobby. There's cool stuff inside!

<comment><USER25> It's not that it fades in, it's that the way it does so loads the sidebar information first, and then awkwardly displays all of the main information staggered, but still quickly enough that the animation has no purpose. If you're going to fade content in, do so in a manner that makes it a non-issue for me to know which content is most important.

As it stands, the primary content page has no visual hierarchy. Everything is the same size and loads at approximately the same exact time. On refresh, sometimes everything under ul.breakout flashes first before hiding again. The border-radius on the images is also giving them some awful-looking jagged edges which appear to be coming from the filter property.

I haven't taken an extensive look at the current unlocked lessons, but as someone with extensive CSS experience, these little things are what makes me hesitant about the rest of the information contained therein. Additionally, as others have pointed out, the palette is bland if not going to be hard for a lot of people to see, so I don't think a little skepticism is snobby.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> In my opinion, the detailed positioning section should discuss flexbox as well.

<comment> shay-howe You're absolutely right!

Flexbox, along with regions and columns, is on the list of updates to be made soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This looks great, and on first glance has a lot of useful tips. I'm pretty sure I'll discover a lot of things I'm doing inefficiently, and hopefully this will help me put them right.

Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

</comment><comment><USER28> The content seems just great - even in a current work-in-progress state it reads like a solid, proper, well structured and thought out book and not just like a typical set of more or less random posts on HTML/CSS. The presentation wakes a grumpy rebel[1] in me, though =)

Also, I think that having the ability to play with some code and see results right there on the site (e.g., tweak all the included numerous demos) would bring even more awesomeness to the project.

Edit: formatting. (Thanks, saraid216, you are right.)

[1] <http://contrastrebellion.com/>

<comment><USER29> The caret is not the greatest choice for footnote annotation, btw. I'd suggest [1] or something. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just want to praise you for it NOT looking like that awful look Win 8 is now designed in. That style must have a name but I dont want to dirty my mind by knowing it. ;)

Grumpy old git moans aside, what I really want to say is that layouts like this are so, so easy to come up with on paper, as it were. Lets face it, there is nothing new there at all. But making something so basic look so elegant is the real art.

Yeah, there are nitpicks, but I'm sure you'll smooth those out. The bulk or core is bang on.

As a lazy useless git, I wouldn't mind a template of it!!!!

Nice work.

<comment><USER31> The style is commonly referred to as "metro", inspired by the design of metro signs. The idea is to reject skeuomorphism, and use large, clean typography to deliver something that is 'digitally native'. You could think of it as a direct rejection of Apple's adoption of decorative skeuomorphic designs that bring things into the digital space which really don't belong here.

It's not exactly a bad idea, though it is possible to take things a little too far. Certainty if you observe the trends in web designs recently sites appear to be "flatter", less cluttered and more focused, without the Apple inspired "Web 2.0" glossiness that has taken over from circa 2006 onwards

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is such a great resource, thanks for this! I have been looking for a good consolidation of some of the more advanced features just to keep around. Can't wait to see this finished!

</comment><comment><USER33> If there's a github repo attached to this, I'd love to contribute.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is really awesome work Shay - I love your intro to html and css guide as well, and have used it as a resource for many of my students (they loved it too). Fantastic work. If you ever need help with any piece of this, I'd be more than happy to pitch in.

I noticed one really strange thing - when you hover over any of the circles on the homepage, all the ampersands change font. Never seen this before and I'm sure it can be fixed quickly, just a heads up.

</comment><comment><USER35> In all honesty this should be called a beginner or intermediate guide, no?

When I saw it I was thinking an advanced guide would cover some of the details found here: <http://www.html5rocks.com> which I find somewhat hard to digest (especially all new semantics).

In no way do I mean to be negative towards what you have done, it looks awesome, I just expected something else.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/detailed-css- pos...](http://learn.shayhowe.com/advanced-html-css/detailed-css-positioning)

"For this to work within Internet Explorer 6 [...] in Internet Explorer on an Apple computer will also [...]"

Seriously, when was this written, in 2003? Totally irrelevant and makes newcomers confused.

<comment><USER37> I agree with you, but even in 2009, web developers had to worry about IE6. It had enough of a market share, because so much of web browsing is at-work by people who either aren't allowed or don't know to install a better browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've heavily used CSS and HTML for many years and I still learned a thing or two in here. Great work Shay.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yes being a newb all of shay's guides have been awesome and probably the best guides out there today!

</comment><comment><USER40> I already knew about the topics, but I still found the table introduction to be incredibly useful. I haven't seen many who worked on creating beautiful, semantic tables like this.

None of the guides online basically have tables with rounded borders.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is a wonderful guide and concisely brings together all the key elements you need to cover in web design, but without the being burdened by the huge mass of material you see in beginner guides. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER42> This looks really nice! Any way that this could also get uploaded as a PDF?

<comment> shay-howe I'd love to get this implemented, hopefully once all the lessons are posted.

<comment><USER43> I recently spent the better part of a day trying to figure out this seemingly- straightforward problem, so if you do go down this road I'd recommend a tool called wkhtmltopdf: <http://code.google.com/p/wkhtmltopdf/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I thought image files were already in a compressed format and the gains would only be seen for extremely large files (think MB in size.) Is this really needed for mobile first design? Honest question.

<comment><USER45> There's compressed and there's compressed. Two PNG-8 images may be perceptually identical (or at least close enough that youd need to overlay and switch between them to see the differences) but one has a 16-color palette and occupies less than 1K (and may be neatly tucked into a stylesheet as a data URI, saving a request) while the other is over 20K. Some JPEGs can barely take 4:1 compression, while others can stand 20:1 without artifacting. It depends on the amount of detail and local contrast. (Oh, and killing any extraneous EXIF data can save huge amounts of space without affecting compression.)

Is this really needed for mobile first design? I'd be inclined to say that it's more important for mobile-first since data transfer tends to be slower _and_ more expensive. Remember data caps, whether hard or soft, and overage fees. Every byte you can save is worthwhile to a mobile user. Think of them as the modern equivalent to a dial-up user whose host connection is a long- distance number.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I love these guides. Even as an experienced front-end web developer, I always learn something new and insightful as well as design patterns I can improve on. Bookmarked.

Thank you for your contribution.

</comment><comment><USER47> 13px is too small for body text, but at least the page zooms okay.

</comment><comment><USER48> I can't read the sidebar due to a lack of contrast: <http://contrastrebellion.com/>

</comment><comment><USER49> Thanks! Good layout and color scheme. I would suggest your code highlighter has a touch of stronger colors for strings and divs.

<comment> shay-howe Good call, thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Really great guide. CSS is often rushed by backend coders, so it's nice to have a formal guide like this.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is the first time I've read about the image data URI technique. Is this a common practice?

<comment><USER52> I'd say spriting is a lot more common - <http://www.patternify.com/> uses the URI technique, came up on HN today.

I've been using it for a few years for a vCard SVG image (that is probably next to useless).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> wiil you expose remaining tutorials from lesson 4 onwards

<comment><USER54> > New lessons will be posted each Monday until all ten lessons are available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> fyi: it's all squashed to the left on chrome on linux w ghostery etc.

oh come on, this thread is being astroturfed. no valid hn post has 90% of comments with nothing more than vacuous praise. please flag.

</comment><comment><USER56> Nice job Shay - Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER57> Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER58> Thanks for providing it.

</comment><comment><USER59> Thank you!!

</comment><comment><USER60> Awesome Guideeee!!!!!!!</comment>


Developer proposes to his girlfriend with a custom iOS app. Watch her reaction. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaQuThPAMjs

<comment><USER2> That was so sweet, but why did he propose while she was at work?</comment>


The Feds Are Cracking Down On Mt. Gox, Not On Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/15/the-feds-are-cracking-down-on-mt-gox-not-on-bitcoin/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

<comment><USER2>
      | Bank of America refused to send a transfer
      | to the Japanese account

It's a little off-topic (from the meat of the article), but why? Is this just a part of some generic BoA policy, or something specific to the account?

<comment><USER3> Right on topic. It may be only a little sidenote in the article, but that is an interesting revelation that is worth investigating further.

It is very strange for a bank to not allow a standard wire to an international account. A refusal with no real reason could be because there is a Justice Department sealed order to not allow money transfers into Mt Gox, or it could be a simple mistake.

Only one way to find out - ask Bank of America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (And not on Mt. Gox but on Mutum Sigillum - a subsidiary) Gox still works OK - all wires to and from Mt. Gox work with the only exception of the path from Dwolla through Mutum Sigillum.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is the go after the ammo strategy (gun control reference). The Feds could never literally stop Bitcoin, but they can endlessly assault the Bitcoin network via the global banking infrastructure that Bitcoin requires to function properly (currency exchanges, bank transfers and wires, and so on). In doing so they'll drive up the cost of the Bitcoin network to the end users, making it less appealing.

<comment><USER6> There are quite a few Bitcoin supporters who believe that an independent Bitcoin economy is possible and that Bitcoin can survive without exchanges. I guess this will be a small test of that theory...

<comment><USER7> Sure, you can just sell cupcakes for bitcoins without a single dollar changing hands, but then the feds will just shut down your cupcake shop.

<comment><USER8> How would that work?

<comment><USER9> Let's hope we don't get the opportunity to find out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First, all my bitcoins in bitcoin-24.com got frozen, then in bitfloor and now the same thing will happen to mtgox?? Seriously, it took a month until I could access them again. Good that I know better now, because now I will withdraw all my bitcoins from mtgox immediately and transfer to coinbase...

<comment><USER11> I'm getting mine out of MtGox and keeping them in an offline paper wallet. I would not hold them in ANY online wallet these days, _especially_ Coinbase, given their recent problems.

<comment><USER10> Is there a wallet that is in the cloud and safe of being shut down, because what if my hard drive crashes?

<comment><USER12> Backup? Paper wallet?

Really, there's just no reason to keep all your bitcoins any one place. Keep a couple in an online wallet for convenience, some on your hard drive for quick access, some on your phone and some in paper wallets. Or spread them across multiple computers. The flexibility is part of the appeal.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does Gentrification Cause a Reduction in Laundromats? - <AUTHOR> http://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/109370229799/does-gentrification-cause-a-reduction-in

<comment><USER2> I'd be curious to see this replicated in other cities. I sort of suspect that there are cultural norms specific to New York at work here. For one, space is at a premium in a way that isn't really true elsewhere in the US, even in expensive neighborhoods, in a way that disincents owning your own washing machine.

Also, the wash and fold is a huge thing in New York, and lots of people use them. DC, where I live, probably has a few, but most people don't live near one, and I've never used one. For New Yorkers, by contrast, there's a different cultural expectation where paying someone to fold your clothes is much more accepted.

Those things together, I think, make laundromats in New York more likely to appeal to non-lower-class people there than elsewhere, and at least anecdotally, lots of laundromats here have closed as neighborhoods have gentrified, and at least a couple of now-affluent neighborhoods I can think of don't have any anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" The only borough with a reasonable negative correlation between income and laundromat density is Staten Island with a moderate correlation of -0.44:"_

Couldn't it be argued then, that population density acts like an agent against the depletion of infrastructure for the poor?

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, sure.

And bodega's, pawn shops, Western Union and check cashing establishments...

<comment><USER5> Even the affluent need laundromats.

<comment><USER6> I guess it would depend on the income level change that accompanies gentrification.

If incomes move from "low" to "middle", I don't think you'd see much of a change in laundromat density. In places like SF and NYC, if you don't have a W/D in your home, a "middle" income isn't going to give you enough cash to get one (most of the time it's a space constraint).

If incomes move from "low" to "high", then yes I could see an effect since if you have enough money, you can do the sometime-needed major renovations to add a laundry room to your home.

<comment><USER5> The plumbing systems in a lot of older buildings in NYC (including $3 million brownstones) can't handle washing machines.

<comment><USER7> This is a myth. There is no special plumbing required for a washing machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Laundromats are a strange thing... only the USA.... all the other "lower and middle class people with limited floor space" in the world seem to have their own washing machines. Why is that?

<comment><USER9> My guess would be that the American washing machine market matured during the era when apartment living was seen as low-class, and thus the market concentrates on big machines for the big suburban houses that everyone who could afford a laundry machine lived in.

Likewise, the big American laundry machine risked overflow and drew a lot of water and power that a lot of old buildings couldn't handle, so landlords banned them. Nowadays, even though laundry machines have evolved so that there are models that use less water and power and overflow less, the housing situation in cities like NYC and SF is so competitive that landlords don't really need to adjust their policies to get the tenants they want. And our minimum wage is very low, so labor-intensive services like laundry are relatively cheap for middle class urbanites to outsource.

<comment><USER10> > the housing situation in cities like NYC and SF is so competitive that > landlords don't really need to adjust their policies to get the tenants they > want

This bothers me to no end, I'm continually amazed that the standard of apartments in SF is so very, very crappy. You're charging several thousand dollars per month, yet the stove and the fridge and the in-apt washing machine is either 20 years old or the cheapest shit you can buy. And since the market is the way it is where most people don't care about these things, this is what you get. :-/

<comment><USER11> Rent control bears much of the blame for this. Landlords subject to rent control are discouraged from keeping their tenants happy with updated appliances, frequent maintenance, etc., because the only way they can re-price their units at market rent is if the current tenant vacates the unit. Poor upkeep, on the other hand, will encourage tenants to vacate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In my experience it certainly does. And it's annoying as hell if you live in a place without a washer & dryer.</comment>


This is Water - David Foster Wallace's commencement speech from 2005 - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure that a music video of an abridged version of the talk is better than just reading the whole thing.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.margina...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> You forgot the link.

[http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=xmpYnxlEh0c&desktop_uri=%...](http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=xmpYnxlEh0c&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxmpYnxlEh0c)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's weird. I submitted it with a link to vimeo, otherwise you can't submit it. I guess those must get filtered out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had the PDF of this speech for a few years now. Great stuff!</comment>


Jerry Brown proposes "by-right" zoning in California budget - <AUTHOR> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CiXEBaiUgAA_zHW.jpg:large <comment><USER2> Is there an article about this that we can change the URL to? HN penalizes image-only posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I unfortunately don't know of any yet. There are stories on the new California budget, but they only mention "affordable housing" in a general way, nothing on Brown's specific proposals. My source for this diagram is Liam Dillon's Twitter feed: [https://twitter.com/dillonliam](https://twitter.com/dillonliam)</comment></comment>


Quick puzzle: how long to get to heaven? - <AUTHOR> http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2010/11/23/quick-puzzle-how-long-to-get-to-heaven/

<comment><USER2> Expected value of a single game: 1 day delay. Chance of "winning" a replay: 2/3. The has no memory so all picks are independent. Sum of infinite geometric series, done.

This is math team math all the way: if you were asking _any_ question I might have to think, but since it involves repetitive calculations of expected value (probability times result), infinite length, and a trick allowing hand calculability, I know it has to decompose to sum of an infinite geometric series somehow.

Some variants left as an exercise to the reader:

a) Three door game as above with doors where A = heaven, B = 2 days + retry, and C = 4 days plus retry. If you get the lesson, this should be trivial.

b) Write a Satan's version of the three door game, where the rules look "simple enough" but the expected time to reach heaven is not finite. (This would be a great extra credit problem for a high school advanced math course -- and full points and a smiley face for "Doors A, B, and C all say 'come back tomorrow'.")

<comment><USER3> Do you even need to think about infinite geometric series?

You have a 1/3 chance of picking the direct door, so _on average_ it will take you three tries to catch it.

1 try == 1 day delay expected (1/3 x 0 + 1/3 x 1 + 1/3 x 2).

3 tries, 3 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The answer to any question of this form is: Unless you happen to be able to solve it quickly by doing mathematics, simulate!

      import random
      def one():
        n = 0
        while True:
          k = random.randint(0,2)
          if k==0: return n
          n += k
      def many(k):
        return sum(one() for i in range(n)) / float(n)
      [many(1000) for i in range(10)]
      many(100000)

will make it pretty easy to guess what the right answer is.

The previous-but-one posting on the same blog has a distinctly more difficult question: repeatedly pick independent random numbers uniform on [0,1]; stop when your latest number is smaller than some previous one; what's the average number of numbers you have to pick? Exercise for the reader: provide the appropriate definition of one() to make the calculation above work. It's only a few lines.

(Mathematically expert readers will be able to solve both these problems rigorously and quickly without simulating. But if such a problem comes up in a context where you actually care about the answer you'd do well to do the simulation anyway, since it's an easy way to check your reasoning.)

<comment><USER5> I know you just tossed off that code, but I wanted to run it. I think n should have been k in the line "return sum(one() for i in range(n)) / float(n)"

<comment><USER4> Actually it should have been "def many(n)" instead of "def many(k)" :-), but yes. Thanks for the bugfix. Too late to edit it in, alas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is how I solved it before looking at the answers:

I calculated that from a scale of 0 and 1, we have a 0.33 chance of going in in 0 days.

The probability of going in within 1 day is equal to the probability of choosing the second door (0.33) multiplied to the probability of choosing the first door the second time (0.33). 0.33 * 0.33 is equal to 0.1089, so we have a 10% chance of getting in with 1 days.

To get in in 2 days, we would have to choose the second door, and then the first door. Again, this is another 10%

At this point I thought that we have a 53% chance of getting in _within_ two days (33% + 10% + 10%), and 47% of getting in with more than 2 days.

The probability of getting in within 3 days is 0.33 * 0.33 * 0.33, which is around 3%. Considering that the probability of getting in within 4 days would be 1% (0.33 * 0.33 * 0.33 * 0.33), I somehow imagined that of the remaining 47% of chances of getting in within more than two days, the 75% was represented by the probability of getting in within 3 days. The 75% of 47% is 35.2%, which is slightly higher than the chance of getting in within 0 days. The answer is 3.

Given that I lack math background, I wonder if my way of solving this problem is correct (hopefully someone can follow my reasoning).

<comment><USER4> > I wonder if my way of solving this problem is correct

Nope, sorry :-). First, you missed a bunch of possibilities (e.g., you said that to get in after 2 days you need to choose 2,0, but you could choose 1,1,0 instead; you said that to get in after 3 days you need to choose 1,1,1,0, but you could also choose 1,2,0 or 2,1,0). Second, at best what you've got is an estimate. Third, the question wasn't "what's the most likely time it takes", which I think is what you've tried to work out, but "how long on average". (The most likely time is actually 0 days.)

<comment><USER6> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was strikingly similar to a recent TopCoder problem: [http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&pm=1119...](http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&pm=11193&rd=14241)

I've run into a few problems like this. The simplest solution exploits the property that there is an ordering on the states, so each "later" state can depend only on "earlier" states or itself. A more general EV problem would require Gaussian elimination instead of DP. Fun stuff, all in all.

</comment><comment><USER8> Saint Augustine makes the argument that for God to exist, time must not.

<comment><USER4> Ho ho ho. But, er, does he? He says that God exists outside time, and that time is measured by its impact on human minds; he says that past and future things don't exist; but it seems to me that he says that time _does_ exist.

Whether he expected heaven to involve any experience of time for its human inhabitants, I don't know.

<comment><USER8> I wasn't intending to deride the point. I was just surprised I hadn't run into anyone else before who made the observation, since it implies that the very existence of time depends on one's frame of reference, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The interesting part of this problem for me is the OP's recurrence relation he comes up with at the end that makes the problem (trivially) soluble is the same skill required to solve dynamic programming problems.</comment>


What, why and how about Linux/kernel network sysctl parameters - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leandromoreira/linux-network-performance-parameters#what-why-and-how---network-and-sysctl-parameters <comment><USER2> Great content about linux network however not 100% accurate but fair enough for learning</comment>


Compact normal forms and linear types = efficient network communication - <AUTHOR> http://www.tweag.io/posts/2017-08-24-linear-types-packed-data.html <comment><AUTHOR> The comments on previous posts in the series have some discussion on linear types in general:

* Linear types make performance more predictable: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13866787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13866787)

* Encode state transitions in types using linear types: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14920333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14920333)</comment>


Who had Intel in the 'discrimination lawsuit' pool? Congratulations - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/02/who_had_intel_in_the_discrimination_lawsuit_pool_congratulations/ <comment><USER2> Congrats. 40k - the sad part is this type of discrepancy is typical. Hope there were punitive damages. Other companies need to re-evaluate.</comment>


Zuckerberg's Rules Would Hurt Everyone but Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-02/zuckerberg-op-ed-new-rules-would-hurt-everyone-but-facebook <comment><USER4> > Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like- > minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and > paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on

The irony is that the media is doing this now, with respect to anything related to Facebook. Facebook is a website with 99.9% benign user generated content. The news media has been spreading outrage and paranoia and trying to get 'engagement' since before Facebook was born.

<comment><USER5> That's a little disingenous. No doubt you are correct that 99.9% of the user- generated content is benign, but that 99.9% of user-generated content would likely not represent 99.9% of viewer traffic.

If only 0.01% of toxic content by terms of volume is receiving disproportionate attention and focus, not only permissible but actively encouraged by complex opaque algorithms, then it is certainly a much bigger problem then it's meagre character count would otherwise suggest.

<comment><USER6> I'm puzzled why Facebook is getting the blame here. If you are seeing toxic content in your feed, it's because your friends put it there. It's not Facebook's fault that _your friends suck_.

<comment><USER7> No. The most toxic content is often comments, which are shown to me even when I don't want to see them.

If it weren't for comments from non-friends, Facebook would have no toxic content for me at all.

<comment><USER8> If you go to the persons profile and click unfollow then you won't see their comments on posts that are now yours.

<comment><USER7> I can't do that with billions of users. I'm saying that I'm shown comments by complete strangers on every post that shows up in my news feed. There's no way to turn that off.

Facebook was great until it started inserting posts from people I didn't explicit whitelist as friends, and I'm including news articles in that category.

<comment><USER8> You must have your privacy settings to "World" change it to friends or maybe Friends and Friends of Friends and you will be better off. Sometimes when I want to say something on a subject I will go to Facebook and do a search on that subject and post on World readable posts with the opposite opinion of my own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as "harmful" speech is a legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility. There's no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept accountability.

Is there a term for when journalists forgo making an argument about why something is bad in favor of just making a bunch of assertions + some negative sentiment words? Why is deciding what speech / UGC should be allowed in social media a 'corporate responsibility' such that letting the government or some 'impartial' NGO arbitrate this a bad thing? Why would you want every platform to have it's own content policy? Why do you want corporations to 'exercise judgement' and to be accountable (to the state? to journalists?) if you also don't want there to be some formal guidelines about what is or isn't allowed on social media?

<comment><USER10> Yeah I don't buy that part either. The problem is inherently hard and pushing the responsibility for policing content to a corporation is not okay. As a specific example, I was listening to a podcast I was listening to earlier that was dealing with how Facebook filters content (I think radiolab). I'm para- phrasing heavily since it's been a while since I heard the show, but I think I got the gist of it right.

\- There was a violet attack in Mexico against a journalist by some drug cartel and a random body part (leg or an arm or a head or whatever) was chopped off and posted on social media by the cartel. The people protesting cartel violence picked this image up and were using this image as a part of their protest. Facebook's censors allowed it until the image popped up on some school kid's feed in America / England and all sorts of outcry later, it was removed from the site as a violet image.

\- The boston marathon bombing happened and gruesome images of people lying on the floor with limbs strewn about started getting shared on the site. Facebook's policy at this point specifically said no violent images on the site so they got blocked by the censors. Media picked this up and raised an outcry on how facebook was censoring these images and basically someone high up said 'leave it up or else' and the images were allowed on the site.

This is clearly hipocrisy and there's no right answer here. Traumatizing school children with violent imagery they didn't even want to see is not great while the Boston marathon bombing was a significant political event in America and those images didn't deserve to get silenced.

This ends up being a question of free-speech and what sorts of content Americans were okay with. There are no right answers and I believe the govt. definitely should step in and provide guidelines here.

The disingenuous thing is using this as an example of how Facebook is okay with govt regulation while resisting any regulation around things that can hurt them like any number of their privacy mishaps, shady 3p data markets and ad tech in general.

<comment><USER11> This was a good episode and really showcased how the standards were forced to evolve by various stakeholders (protestors, execs, govt, etc).

I think I recall one them pointing out that a lot of challenges came from Facebook trying to be everything for everybody.

Moderating content so people don't get pictures of Boston Marathon gore next to their grandkids' photos is problem they made for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't doubt regulation would help Facebook in some respects, but (in usual Bloomberg fashion) this article is also stretching some things a bit. For example:

> Start with harmful content, which Zuckerberg defines as "terrorist > propaganda, hate speech and more." Facebook would prefer that someone else > decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down.

I agree with this. Having a private corporation that's invested in engagement, which is also headquartered in the US (very far geographically and culturally from some of the places it moderates) be in charge of defining what's right and what's wrong, is and has been a recipe for disaster— let alone the implications it could have around the sovereignty of nations.

> But it's hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook.

Excuse me, what?

> Inviting the government to arbitrate what qualifies as "harmful" speech is a > legal and ethical minefield, while establishing a third-party system to do > the same would amount to offloading corporate responsibility.

Isn't this the government's job though? To define what is a crime/wrong and what isn't, and to deal with the moral aspect of legal codes? Isn't this why we have laws? I don't think anyone is vouching for "big brother" type government control here, but governments always have a principal role in civil rights, inclusion and the moral development of a nation. It's part of their job, and the reason people care to have leaders with strong moral compasses as public servants. Has this view of government been lost in the US?

> There's no reason to expect every platform to adhere to the same content > policies, but every reason to want them to exercise judgment and accept > accountability.

I'm there's things that should clearly be blocked or allowed. But the gray areas are what's being discussed here, and honestly I don't think that should be Facebook's job (or any private, American, for-profit corporation for that matter).

<comment><USER13> It has never been the US government's job to decide which speech is 'harmful' and should be silenced. The First Amendment prevents that. (Of course, some things like slander are illegal, but that's nothing like the 'harmful speech' Facebook is talking about.)

<comment><USER14> It is entirely the US government's job to decide which speech is harmful: it just takes the view that most speech isn't harmful, and should be allowed. The First Amendment _is part of the US government 's decision on speech:_ its view is that most speech is more good than bad, and thus is protected. When it does decide that certain speech, like libel, is harmful, it bans it. It even can ban speech in specific contexts! For example, in Brandenburg v. Ohio the court upheld that speech "which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action" could be banned. So, saying an inflammatory thing privately to your friend, for example, could be fine, but boosting that post to millions of people could be viewed as "likely to incite imminent lawless action" such as a riot.

<comment><USER15> > _The First Amendment is part of the US government 's decision on speech_

This is just flat out incorrect.

The _Bill of Rights_ was the people saying "You want a US government ruling over the several States? Here are the rules for what you're allowed to do." The US gov't never made a decision on speech, _they agreed to the terms of "We, The People"_, full stop. You're acting like it's the opposite.

This is also why the gov't can't just rewrite the 1st amendment willy nilly— _all_ of the US government's legitimacy with the American people comes from respecting the _Bill of Rights_. Stop respecting those rights and a rebellion is right around the corner.

Historically, the States had to _approve_ the _Bill of Rights_ (and the rest of the new Constitution) in order for it to come into effect. It's definitely NOT the US gov't "deciding", and it never was. All of the power resided in the States.

Interestingly, the "Federalists" that (re-)wrote the Constitution were mostly opposed to the _Bill of Rights_ —that's the contribution made by the _anti-_ Federalists to the US Gov't as it exists today.

Isn't it funny how most citizens treasure the _Bill of Rights_ more than anything else in the Constitution? That makes it pretty clear which "side" had the well-being of the people in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> All of this moderation stuff feels like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for Facebook.

People have been crapping on Facebook for making judgement calls on what's allowed on its platform. When Facebook does so without government backing, people get up-in-arms saying that it should be the government's role to decide free speech. But when the company goes and requests that government start doing that, people get up-in-arms about how it'll be "regulatory capture".

I can't predict what the outcome of all of this will be. I can however, predict that there will be an angsty article (Bloomberg? New York Times? Wall Street Journal?) decrying how Facebook is awful, evil, and incompetent.

<comment><USER17> I feel like this entire opinion piece is just a knee-jack reaction against anything what Mark Zuckerberg has to say.

I was giving it the benefit of the doubt until it started talking about how bad GDPR is. GDPR has some short-comings, but it's a bit less black-and-white than what this article makes it out to be.

Maybe what Mark Zuckerberg saying really is self-serving but this article doesn't make any good arguments for it. It's just making assertions which it doesn't back up. I don't know if it's just me getting old, but I started noticing this kind of intellectual dishonesty more and more recently in the media and even here on HN.

<comment><USER18> I think a lot of psychological research confirms that people start with the opinion or position and find evidence (any will do) to back it up, not the other way around. So it's not surprising it shows up in lots of debates between people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ".. forcing competitors to make their own data exportable to Facebook would in all likelihood benefit Facebook"

What competitors is the author even talking about here? There are, as far as I'm aware, essentially no competitors left to Facebook anymore.

That being the case, I'm not sure that statement is correct at all. On the contrary, it seems like if FB were required to offer an easily exportable data format, that other services would pop up overnight to try and lure people away from FB onto their (hopefully) more privacy conscious platforms. It would also lower the bar for people to make the switch to something else, as they know their friends can switch just as easily without losing their data.

I agree with the rest of the points of the article, but I don't see how data portability can be anything but a net positive for the consumer.

<comment><USER20> There are several active competitors depending on how you define the market. WeChat, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Larg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service#Largest_social_networking_services)

<comment><USER19> The 3 key features that most people I know who still use Facebook are Photo Sharing, Event Organizing, and Messaging. The things you listed do one or two, but I don't think any of them do all 3.

<comment><USER21> WeChat does all three of those, plus payments and food ordering. Basically everything Facebook wishes they could do, WeChat does it for about 1B people.

<comment><USER22> WeChat doesn't have a significant presence in Western markets, and Facebook doesn't have a significant presence in China. They don't _really_ compete with each other, even though they provide a lot of the same features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's almost comic villainy - like, everything they say, do, propose, etc. is always evil in some way.

Can anyone on the inside give some insight into current morale? Is the constant deluge of negative press cutting through the indoctrination or nah?

<comment><USER24> I really dislike comments like these, and I find it dismaying that they've gained currency on HN recently. Almost every article about Facebook or Google has some variation of this comment.

> It's almost comic villainy - like, everything they say, do, propose, etc. is > always evil in some way.

The problem I have with it is that you can replace the meaning of "they", and have this comment "work" for any number of biased echo chambers. Go ahead and replace "they" with Facebook, Google, Obama, Trump, Exxon-Mobil, scientists, billionaires, politicians, Internet trolls, the media, ad nauseam.

If this sentence can work for any of these scenarios, verbatim, then what's the point of uttering it?

To bring this back to the issue at hand: is there anything Zuckerberg could say that would make you not respond this way? And if you can't come up with anything, are you sure you aren't completely biased against Facebook such that nothing they can do will ameliorate you?

<comment><USER25> I agree with your premise, not just from the ethical sense of wanting to treat others as human beings, but I think when I manage that I make a more compelling argument.

That said, let me try to answer why you're seeing this pattern.

Facebook has a business model that works for certain strategic choices, and doesn't work for others. A big one is they don't charge a subscription fee to users. That puts hard constraints on how they generate revenue.

> is there anything Zuckerberg could say that would make you not respond this > way?

That's why it's nigh impossible that Zuckerberg will come along and announce, "we've ended our policy of treating users as the product."

Personally, this was one of the reasons I've been happy to work at firms that sell specific products and services. It doesn't guarantee they'll behave well, but the fact that customers can take their money elsewhere does tend to keep them grounded in the long run.

I think most social media, for that reason and others, has a bad business model. I'd like those businesses to fail to clear out space for alternatives to be built. (And they're not villains working there, so I'd also hope they all land on their feet and find new jobs.)

<comment><USER26> > I'd like those businesses to fail to clear out space

There's practically zero chance that will happen - either that the existing companies will "clear out" or that the same role would be filled by anything with a different business model. In the real world where Facebook will continue to exist, is there anything that the company or its employees could do that would meet with your approval?

<comment><USER25> > There's practically zero chance that will happen - either that the existing > companies will "clear out" or that the same role would be filled by anything > with a different business model.

Are you going to justify that claim? It's been made repeatedly about prior companies that were too big to fail, especially tech giants, and they all fall or become obsolete.

> In the real world where Facebook will continue to exist, is there anything > that the company or its employees could do that would meet with your > approval?

I gave an example: "we've ended our policy of treating users as the product." You're repeating this rhetorical question without addressing any of the points I made or adding anything new.

<comment><USER26> > they all fall or become obsolete.

I was in this industry through all of that. It takes a _long_ time for a company to fall that far. Yes, given enough time anything can happen, but I'm not interested in tautologies. In any time span relevant to this conversation, it's not going to happen. If you want to claim otherwise, that's your burden not mine.

> "we've ended our policy of treating users as the product."

OK, so I guess there is that one unrealistic possibility. Even if Facebook moved to a subscription model, "treating users as the product" is not a phrase they'd use for what came before. So you still haven't indicated that you'd be satisfied by anything that could actually happen.

> You're repeating this rhetorical question

It's not a rhetorical question if there are multiple valid answers, and repeating a question is still better than repeating statements based on counterfactual assumptions. If you want to play "high school debate champion" you'll have to try harder.

<comment><USER25> > In any time span relevant to this conversation, it's not going to happen.

If they made that promise to investors, they could go to prison.

> OK, so I guess there is that one unrealistic possibility.

You're demanding that everyone else has to show that they're ready to abandon their principles, lest you judge them instransigent and unreasonable. What changes have _you_ made to _your_ worldview, without seeing something significant change?

Probably never: your views are shaped by observations of concrete realities and reflections on the consequences of those. And unless those realities change or you get new information, you couldn't come up with a coherent set of new views if you wanted to.

> It's not a rhetorical question if there are multiple valid answers

It's still a question intended for rhetorical effect. I wasn't saying that makes it invalid, it's just annoying if you're repeating it while dismissing the answer given.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have zero faith in Facebook as an organization doing the "right" thing. Their machine is fueled by highly targeted advertising. If you erode their targeting capabilities, then marketers will be quick to invest elsewhere. Funny enough, with ITP 2.1 and potentially a less cookie friendly Chrome, they are increasing FB's value prop to marketers.

I am going to butcher this, I can't articulate it how I think it... Why do we need regulation for social network that is only as strong as its network. Is the network effect so strong users can't or will not leave on their own accord? I left FB and instagram a few years ago. It is just so funny to me that this entity (a people aggregator) is powerful but all we need to do is leave it. How many people in your network have to leave before it loses its value? Networks expand exponentially. Is the opposite true?

</comment><comment><USER28> Why am I not surprised? At this point I have _no trust_ in that company. It would be _very unwise_ to listen to them, and very unfortunate for someone like Senator Warren and those who want to break them up to adopt their policies.

</comment><comment><USER29> Most government regulation benefits large companies at the expense of small companies, because large companies have more resources to make sure they are in compliance and have the lobbyists who help write the rules. So it's no surprise that new regs here would be helpful to big companies and harmful to small ones.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm not even upset that Facebook is lobbying for their own self interest. I just wish such a blatant attempt would have a lower chance of success.

<comment><USER31> You just quashed your own fears. Fortunately this is going nowhere because it's so blatant.

<comment><USER32> How are you so sure about this?

<comment><USER31> I'm not but Zuck isn't winning any popularity contests in congress or among the general public these days. Odd time for him to publish this piece IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> To be fair, Facebook has said since the beginning that regulation had a strong possibility of making competition harder and entrenching established players.

<comment><USER34> To be fair, Zuckerberg has said anyone who trusts him in any way is an idiot.

<comment><USER35> [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Look, most government regulations ultimately favors the incumbent while making it much harder for new entrants to challenge the large organizations. Thus creating less competition which ultimately solidifies the status quo.

</comment><comment><USER37> Facebook knows regulation in coming and is transitioning from being anti- regulation to regulation on their terms (ie. regulatory capture). Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in our government to properly regulate technology, for one Congress seems totally unaware of how Facebook works ("Senator... we sell ads") and judging by the diasaters that were the great recession and the Boeing crashes, even a well known "strong" regulator isn't enough to curtail the biggest companies

</comment><comment><USER38> There's no need to "regulate the internet", we only need to regulate social network operators. Regulation should look like this :

* no ban of any user whatsoever * obligation to provide a public unlimited read only acess to standardized api for all the data * no private messaging

and let a million better Facebooks emerge. The content policing problem will solve itself

</comment><comment><USER39> This seems like an attempt at classic regulatory capture.

"Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating." [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

<comment><USER40> Alternative take: this is an attempt by Zuck to push regulation preemptively in order to counter the recent bad press. Better that the gov't create rules affecting all players (all companies affected, including FB) than to continue having just your own company in Washington's crosshairs.

Even if he doesn't get to dictate the regulation (thus not achieving regulatory capture), it would still accomplish the mission of keeping the business alive. They will continue selling their ads and making money, regulation or no regulation.

<comment><USER41> It's possible for both of these to be true. Supporting regulation - particularly known regulation that it pretty similar to what you have to do anyway to compete internationally - both takes the PR crosshairs off your company and creates a barrier to entry for any potential competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So data portability is now bad, because Facebook is suggesting it.

</comment><comment><USER43> Here's a regulation that I'd like considered: a default licensing scheme for personal data, that stipulates a 50% revenue share with the user of any money made from the use or sale of their data. The regulation would stipulate the scheme can only be renegotiated in a way that would be impractical to implement at scale (to avoid easy circumventions through TOS and click- throughs).

This would hit the privacy-invading companies where it hurts, in their pocketbooks.

<comment><USER44> Profits based on the sale of data has been discussed a few times on HN. However, the price for it is so low on a per user basis.

That said, there should be a law on the books that disallow the sale of data between companies. I'd wager this is the bulk of where Facebook makes it's money. That's where we should be targeting with legislation.

The use of data should be fine. As the end-user or end-company never actually get their hands on the data. They just use a UI with categories and filters and put up ads based on the options available.

<comment><USER45> Facebook makes its money from selling ads. You can see this in its revenue report, [https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release- details/...](https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release- details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full- Year-2017-Results/default.aspx)

Of course, these ads are highly targeted using all sorts of personal data, but they aren't actually selling the data, as that's also just less profitable.

<comment><USER44> I know that.

But is there a distinction in advertising between:

1) Allowing users to use the data for making ads.

2) Selling the data to companies such as Apple for other means.

There isn't any visibility. This is what I'm trying to get at.

<comment><USER45> From another report,

>> Mobile advertising revenue – Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 91% of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2018, up from approximately 85% of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2017.

In particular, Facebook makes its money from mobile ads

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > Facebook exacerbates poisonous politics by creating filter bubbles of like- > minded partisans, spreading hoaxes and inaccuracies, inducing anxiety and > paranoia, rewarding clickbait and outrage, and so on.

An interesting example is the yellow vest protest in France. The mass media heavily emphasized the violence of the protesters.

But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the police. (ex: [https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673](https://twitter.com/Albirew/status/1104799813076508673) )

Another interesting news that was discovered thanks to social networks was that the public TV photoshoped a picture of the protest, changing a text from "Macron get out" to just "Macron" [1]

The contrast between those two sources of information is striking.

Both top-down mass media, and bottom-up social networks bring interesting news, but both are biased and inaccurate.

[1] [https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand- france...](https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/16/actualite/quand- france-3-censure-une-pancarte-anti-macron-111152498/)

<comment><USER47> > But, on social networks, people mainly shared videos of violence from the > police

It was actually both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> If Facebook wants to get ahead of and control privacy regulation, Zuckerberg needs to create an arrangement with a third party to push his agenda. IE - <USER2> charismatic CEO from another company that has a good public image. If it was done correctly, he could be pushing the exact same agenda and be getting kudos instead of (completely justifiable) skepticism. Politicians will be especially susceptible to this kind of proxy-ism.

</comment><comment><USER49> "Facebook would prefer that someone else decide what constitutes such content and should thus be taken down. But it's hard to see how this would benefit anyone but Facebook."

I can actually get behind this. As I said before, I'm wary of Fb and Google becoming judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech.

It's against their will now, but they may well grow to like it.

</comment><comment><USER50> Maybe Facebook should convert into a Benefit Corporation. There's a petition for this here: [https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook- in...](https://www.change.org/p/mark-zuckerberg-convert-facebook-into-a- public-benefit-corporation)

</comment><comment><USER51> All of the constant time in front of Congress is likely affecting their bottom line. The constant threat of regulation or breakup is getting to the point where it is harming the company more than any regulation would. It makes sense for Facebook to get in front of it.

That said, obviously they shouldn't get to craft their own regulation. And any regulation setting the boundaries of an industry risks locking in the way it works (think how how awful dealerships are in the US). If we craft a set of rules for Facebook, we will almost guarantee that it continues to exist.

My (very weak) opinion as someone who hates FB is that we keep the status quo - the constant pressure and hoop jumping and negative media cycles seem to do quite well at driving users away.

</comment><comment><USER52> I hate zuck as much as the next guy, but this writer is being dishonest.

Data portability is the first step in allowing other companies to compete with FB and takes away a huge advantage they have (switching costs). Call a spade a spade.

</comment><comment><USER53> > On privacy, Zuckerberg has become an exponent of Europe's behemoth rulebook, > known as the General Data Protection Regulation. That approach is badly > flawed in its own right: It undermines innovation, burdens companies, annoys > users, and offers few benefits.

Outside of the authors' views on Zuck.co, this is a myopic view of GDPR. In reality, GDPR empowers, rather than annoys users, and the regulations actually gives EU citizens _some_ degree of control over their data - which is of increasingly huge benefit, especially their interactions with Orwellian companies like Facebook.

<comment><USER54> Well, I am sure there are some aspects which annoy users (e.g. having to search for the opt-out button on every page you visit), but AFAIK those are actually bad implementations. Sure, some things could have been done better, but ultimately the GDPR is a huge step in the right direction.

It is good this article is posted as 'opinion' as it is quite opinionated (doesn't reflect my opinion though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> According to the article 'Zuckerberg deserves a hearing'. He didn't show when called before the UK parliament, and if he doesn't appear when it suits him, does he deserve a hearing?

[https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life- st...](https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life- style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mark-zuckerberg-parliament-uk-canada-westminster- dcms-select-committee-a8609996.html%3famp)

<comment><USER56> I think you should show up at my home to justify yourself for this comment in person, otherwise I don't think you deserve a hearing either.

<comment><USER55> That's not even remotely similar. His company interfered with an election and was asked to explain. He didn't show. Why was your comment made with a throw away?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> On the surface this isn't shocking at all. And yet, when was the last time anyone really tried to compete with Facebook? Sure, they're in the ad business like everyone else, but no one really competes with them on product.

Yet whenever we hear about Facebook culture, it's about move fast and break things. Is that really a culture equipped for coping with regulatory compliance? In my experience, the answer is no.

So I'm really left scratching my head on this one.

<comment><USER58> You can't compete with Facebook unless you commit the same invasive acts that allowed them to collect their data in the first place. Nobody is going to willing enter their phone-number, address, all their friends, all their contacts, all their meta data, at world-scale, anytime soon to some new start- up.

<comment><USER57> That's kind of my point. If no one else is willing to compete, why bother advocating regulation that makes your incumbent advantage harder to maintain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I don't think anyone who built a network that exploits people's profiles for profit, should be setting privacy rules proposals.

</comment><comment><USER60> The article starts by saying that inviting the government to arbitrate is a legal and ethical nightmare, and establishing a third party is offloading corporate responsibility. It finishes saying that it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that needs it. So which is it? Gov regulation is no good, _and_ self regulation is no good!

</comment><comment><USER61> "Zuckerberg deserves a hearing, but it's rarely a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated."

This sentence implies there are instances (albeit "rare") when it is a good idea to outsource regulation to the enterprise that most needs to be regulated.

Can anyone cite a few examples?

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm not a Facebook fan but nor do I agree with this article, the analysis seems pretty shallow. Zuck's rules seems like broadly positive things, and like they'd benefit the competition more than this article lets on.

Harmful content => Any government regulation of harmful content will probably hurt small players more, since it's a big fixed cost of moderation. But everyone will realistically pay that cost anyway unless they're something decentralized like Mastodon.

Elections => Nothing to do with size of platform I think, they're just saying that it's disingenuous since filter bubbles are more important. I disagree, election financing is super important and as another poster said filter bubbles are as old as print.

Privacy => It says that GDPR is terrible for small companies, but without any evidence (or spec of "small") I think for anyone the size enough to be looking to challenge Facebook it's not a big deal, and broadly I like GDPR. "Don't store people's data unless you need to, and ask permission". Not a bad first effort to trying to fix surveillance capitalism.

Making data portable => This definitely, definitely would hurt Facebook more than help it. Noone is sitting on Instagram thinking "I'd swap to Facebook if only it was easier". They're the monopolist with the inferior product + network effects, that narrative makes no sense at all.

<comment><USER63> I had the same sentiment. Not to be harsh against Bloomberg, but it for a few of these the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about.

The "sophisticated tools" to make data portable for example: building it in to any new social network wouldn't be all that difficult, and perhaps adds even a little mental structure over the data since now there are two types of output: the website/app itself, and the portable data export. Sounds good to me.

<comment><USER18> The crowd here is so cynical that I'd start to be suspicious that Zuckerberg is pulling a reverse psychology move on us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I am quite surprised Sheryl Sandberg all but disappeared in the past few months from these discussions.

</comment><comment><USER65> He just asks government to make some laws so he can just obey them and forget about the whole thing. He can't figure how to be good so he asks for explicit rules to be legal. Because business only needs to be legal to continue.

</comment><comment><USER66> The CEO has fiduciary duties related to not making any decision that would hurt the corporation. That's really all you should need to know about Zuck and the regulations he proposed.

</comment><comment><USER67> Is there any surprise?

None.

It is good to see this being discussed. I am not making light of that.

The more I see the market shape our Internet, the more I feel some baseline law, to set reasonable, ethical norms, makes great sense.

</comment><comment><USER68> Yes, that was pretty obvious.

The elephant in the room is advertising. This is all about ad targeting. Zuckerberg's "rules" totally ignore that. Of course.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is exactly why regulation is needed: Articles like this, spreading misinformation and clickbait should not be allowed to be published.

</comment><comment><USER70> On the one hand it's nice to see FB admitting to not being able to come up with a solution for their hate speech problem. On the other hand, putting it on the government when the government is struggling financially and FB is rolling in money, well, I don't know about that. They ought to reap the whirlwind they created and implode as things like the NZ attack become more common.

</comment><comment><USER71> This article tries to make the case that, among other things, the GDPR "hurts everyone except Facebook". Wait, what?

The GDPR is a net positive for citizen privacy. This article's attempt to spin it as an anticompetitive bigco-driven monstrosity is factually wrong and ignorant of the GDPR's history.

I have similar (but less strong) doubts about this article's case that automated censorship is obviously better for "everyone except Facebook" if the rules about what to censor were set by tech molochs and not governments. I'm wary of any kind of censorship, but if we have to have it, I prefer the rules to be set in a public parliament and not some boardroom somewhere. "Corporate responsibility" my ass. At this scale, Facebook are public infrastructure and should be regulated as such.

I'll gladly believe the author that Zuckerberg will always and only do things that benefit Facebook. Zuckerberg has shown time and time again that every single public initiative he takes turns out to be in Facebook's direct benefit and often in everybody else's disadvantage. Of course there's a hidden agenda here, there always is.

But the author hasn't found it.

</comment><comment><USER72> I just want to know if anyone is surprised by this.

</comment><comment><USER73> This is absolutely true. We all need to realize that regulations such as European GDPR, Article 13 etc. hurt newcomers a lot more vs. incumbents big players such as Facebook. Facebook will one way or the other nudge/influence/incentivize users to click on that "Agree" button to opt into sharing data with them. However, new players who don't have a surface where users come frequently enough, will be at a loss. And there will be no way they would be able to use growth tactics such as Facebook does to drive opt in.

Please wake up and smell the coffee. Regulations are needed but GDPR is absolutely not the answer.

</comment><comment><USER74> This article is wrong when it comes to GDPR. It could be a good thing. I friend invited me to MeWe via Twitter post and I accepted. I would like not to be able to export and if I wish delete my data. That would be my all of my data, including my contacts. I would import this data to MeWe, or what's possible. At the moment Contacts would do. Good for me and MeWe. This is what GDPR would allow. There is no open format for this exchange, but being on the market, someone will quickly come up with a service to convert the data, or MeWe guys could some up with import data from FB function.

</comment><comment><USER75> Right!

</comment><comment><USER76> Anyone want my Facebook password? I haven't used it in a while, but don't trust them to actually delete anything. Might as well poison the well.

edit:

u: email@example.com , p: zaZLc&ncedu%X8apb$j9

Have at it.

<comment><USER77> I just reset your password, and logged out all active sessions.

I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account like that.

<comment><USER76> Thanks, I guess?

> I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and > families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account > like that.

That's kind of the point. FB isn't going to change until it starts to suffer, and the a good way to cause it to suffer is to reduce its usefulness.

The best way to do that is to make the feed useless.

 _shrug_ Whatever. The account's locked now and I don't really care enough to unlock it.

Interesting experiment.

<comment><USER78> Real question.

How does making your family deal with extra bullshit from the awful parts of the internet make facebook suffer? I don't understand your logic with this.

<comment><USER76> a) It's debatable how much people "suffer" from fucking with Facebook. Facebook is evil. Fucking with them is good.

b) Facebook will only suffer if the feed becomes (more) useless.

I don't understand how you _don 't_ see the logic. Bad feed -> worse FB experience -> decreased usage.

<comment><USER12> I don't think you addressed what the previous comment asked:

> How does making your family deal with extra bullshit from the awful parts of > the internet make facebook suffer?

Assuming this is your real account with your real friends/family (which seems to be what you're saying, since you're convinced this would give real people a bad feed) then you're just exposing people who trust you to trolls.

I could text your friends/family with spam, and since it's coming from someone they know, they might click it. I could ask them for personal details. I could just straight out insult them out of the blue and hurt their feelings, or send awful things their way.

I really hope nobody did and in general would like to think people here wouldn't— but this is a public site and the internet is a big place.

I doubt for your friends this would register as "their feed becoming useless"— it'd mostly just register as you being awful out of the blue, until you explain you were hacked. In any case, creating no content and letting people know you are only reachable through other services is probably a more effective way of making the Facebook less useful for the people you know. You could also just post noise yourself if you were committed to do so.

<comment><USER27> Facebook makes money by selling advertising space on its feed. It builds advertising friendly profiles of users that marketers use to target for their ads. You can setup a Facebook ad campaign today and see it for yourself. OP made its profile open for anyone to log into and potentially make edits. For example, changing his birthday, connecting to new people, new likes and dislikes, are all signals back to FB. They would no longer have a realistic advertising profile on OP. If everyone did what OP, then the overall advertising value proposition to marketers greatly diminishes. They can no longer say with a good degree of accuracy, "I am targeting 20 year olds who work in tech."

<comment><USER12> Don't worry, I understand that, and I know that's what OP was going for. My point is that OP didn't seem aware that it opened a vector of abuse for family/friends. A commenter mentioned:

> I appreciate the gesture you made, but you're exposing your friends and > families to the random dregs of the Internet by giving away your account > like that.

And OP responded with:

> That's kind of the point.

I don't think OP thinks the point is to expose friends to potential damage, just noise and nonsense unrelated to him. I was explaining that if that's what he wanted, he can "post noise" himself, as opposed to opening his account to the public internet to ensure the safety of his acquaintances.

<comment><USER76> What damage? It's fucking Facebook. It needs to die. I cannot imagine a situation wherein some dickwad posts something that would cause more damage than they already do, and the long term gain, should a movement start and Facebook become infected by rampant noise, would be a net positive.

<comment><USER12> Sigh. I see you still don't see what I mean. I invite you to analyze the earlier replies not only by me but also by other people who thought what you were doing wasn't the best approach, because no one disagrees with your motivation, just your execution. Have a good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> As usual, big business doesn't support free markets -- it supports regulations that it can deal with more easily than its competitors.

</comment><comment><USER80> Imagine not being able to start a little grass-roots, home-grown social network without millions in capitalization for compliance. That's exactly what Zuckerberg wants.

</comment><comment><USER81> This is very similar to Amazon pushing for higher minimum wage. Big lawyers of Facebook can deal with any regulation and no regulation would pass without Facebook's approval. This essentially is rent seeking behaviour and that is why I have stopped using Facebook. I only need to move away from Whatsapp now.

</comment><comment><USER82> I say repeal the law that exempts them from liability. It has had an un- intended consequence of allowing large pseudo monopolies to emerge. It has also given them an un-fair advantage over TV and newspapers who are liable for their content.

<comment><USER83> If you apply that standard be careful with any walls on your house because you would be liable for death threats spray painted on it. Look at Gawker - <USER3> are liable for /their/ content. Not user content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Zuckerberg ruined the web, made sure that Facebook becomes synonymous with the internet for billions of people to make profit for himself using all means and created a generation of mentally unstable teenagers. This alone makes him among the worst criminals of the 21st century.

</comment><comment><USER84> As far as I'm concerned, the Internet has and always will have only one set of rules: [https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInte...](https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInternet..txt)

<comment><USER85> And you already broke them just by linking them.

<comment><USER86> Rules 1 and 2 only apply during raids (on another site), and no-one is raiding this comment section, so no, they did not break the rules.

<comment><USER85> That rule is not in the rules.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Internet of Things Talks - <AUTHOR> http://iot.thebln.com/2016/01/all-the-talks-from-iot-forum-2015-in-one-place/ <comment><USER2> I expected a new speech synthesis or something. Rather dissapointed :/</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone form Amazon? Can you fix this UI-Gore - <AUTHOR> I am trying to order some WHEY protein. When I choose the brand I want, on the left I have an option for flavours. If I click on some of these flavours Amazon decides I don't want WHEY anymore, but instead want CASEIN and changes it without notifying me. This is the 3rd time I fall for it and order wrong product without realizing.
Imagine going to Toyota website, choosing Corolla, and then choosing color Red, and the website decides you don't want Corolla anymore but you want Camry!
Tried to bring it up to the attention of support but of course they didn't do anything.
Demonstration video:
https://youtu.be/dDnWspgUw6M <comment><USER2> Yeah, this is a problem in the catalog, the product database. Some Amazon employee thought that these were variations on the same thing.

I've long wondered why Amazon doesn't have a mechanism for customers to flag problems in listings; seems like there should be a way to have other customers agree or disagree and thus filter what the staff actually need to look at.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. It's frustrating to be treated like a Cassandra...</comment></comment>


TIL HN: You can resize the text box for replies - <AUTHOR> Have been on this site for years, never noticed it. Super nice though! <comment><USER2> That's what those little diagonal lines in the corner are indicating.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's actually an old webkit feature.

<comment><USER4> Firefox has also allowed text input boxes to be resized for quite a while now.

HN might be one of the few web sites still around that uses a simple HTML <form> for input, so people might not be familiar with this basic browser feature anymore.</comment></comment>


Uber is under federal investigation for spying on Lyft drivers - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/08/uber-federal-investigation-hell-program <comment><USER2> ...and yet, Uber is the dominant competitor in the driving for hire sphere. It has done damned near every shady and illegal act that you could come up with (allegedly) apart from drug trafficking and contract killing. If these things don't beat the heck out of it, what motivation does anyone have for not being so underhanded and shady? What motivation does any VC or PE investor have for not demanding the same? At the end of the day, all they really do care about is their IRR.

<comment><USER3> "If you're not cheating, you're not trying..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like their long track record of shady and irresponsible behavior continues to catch up to them. I hope authorities throw the book at them to discourage other people from behaving this way. Sad!

</comment><comment><USER5> I, for one, am shocked.</comment>