About 2M People Rally in Hong Kong Weekend Protests - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-16/protests-swell-as-hong-kong-rejects-leader-s-compromise <comment><USER2> I live on the other side of the world, but this still strikes a deep chord with me.

I'm Swedish, born and raised in Gothenburg. After the Umbrella protests in 2014 five people connected to the Causeway Bay Books store in Hong Kong disappeared. One of them is a naturalized Swedish citizen, his daughter was raised in my home town. He is now imprisoned and can't communicate with his daughter, or with the Swedish authorities. Angela Gui, his daughter, is continuing on the struggle for his release to the extent she can, being only 21 when her father disappeared.

All these arguments about "leave China be" or "this isn't the West's problem" just don't make any sense to me. This is a small world, whether we like it or not, and letting authoritarian stuff like this extradition treaty to a dictatorship slide is condoning it and before you know it your citizenship, constitutional rights and passport which you thought would keep you safe doesn't work anymore and you get snatched from a street for something you've said. Your family can only cry themselves to sleep over it from the feeling of powerlessness.

We don't have to go into hypotheticals about what will happen if China gets more power to persecute people of Hong Kong. In Sweden, we already know what they've done with the limited power they hold now.

<comment><USER3> CCP does have a lot of room to improve in protecting human rights. But to be fair, for the matter of national security, every country takes the extreme measure. Look at the Assange case. Neither Swedish nor US government makes any sense to me.

<comment><USER4> Assange will get a fair trial, does the PRC know what a fair trial is?

<comment><USER5> "Fair" is a big word. It will likely not be fully public, for a start.

China is undoubtedly the worst offender, when it comes to the right to a fair trial; but let's not pretend "our" countries cannot stack the deck when they feel it's necessary.

<comment><USER4> Whenever people bring up human rights abuses in China, that China is a totalitarian country, there are always people bring up that democracy isn't that much better, it's chaotic, there are special interests, there are ways to abuse human rights in a democracy too etc.

Here's my take: people living in democratic societies have this powerful weapon called free and fair election. Furthermore, independent judiciary and the rule of law. All of their constitutions have some kind of bill of rights built in, and the governments, by and large dare not cross the legal boundaries or it's almost certain that there will be consequences. If these checks and balances are not enough due to prosecutors stacking their deck with heavily financed teams of lawyers, enacting or reviving controversial laws, the civil societies are fully able to demand change, and action it during elections. While we should not pretend that democracies are perfect, let's also not pretend they are totally useless. Change can happen quickly if enough people want it to. On the hand, China after Tiananmen, has expanded its state power so much, its control of information so effective, its surveillance system so encompassing, and its civil resistance so shattered, its policies has bribed so many people, it's almost impossible to effect any substantial change without a total collapse of the regime.

Saying or implying democracies are just as bad as totalitarian regimes like the PRC risks spreading hopelessness that the people in democratic countries cannot change things. So I hope the next time people bring up this comparison, have some proportion, some perspectives in mind, and think about what they can do to better their governments, instead of just conveniently dismissing the value of democracies.

<comment><USER5> I completely agree. My aim was simply to point out that Assange's case is so bad, that one really shouldn't use it as a point of superiority of this or that system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So my HK team had the week off to protest. Luckily I didn't get any calls at 2am to bail anyone out of jail.

This result- where the government backed down, was not expected by anyone. Ever since the Beijing-picked government stared down the Umbrella Protests in 2014, it's been a death by a thousand cuts to Hong Kong's autonomy.

After talking to a friend who works for one of the pro-Beijing parties, it turns out the biggest fear for the Chinese authorities wasn't related to HK at all, but Taiwan. China has spent so much resources to promote friendly candidates for office in Taiwan and this HK debacle has instead emboldened the incumbent president of Taiwan, who is not at all friendly towards Beijing. In fact, she won her party primary and is now well positioned for the elections next year. As it turns out, as important as HK is, Taiwan is more important to Beijing and anything that provides fodder for Taiwan's independence leaning party is not allowed.

<comment><USER7> The damage is done. It will take quite some time for the opinions of the Taiwanese people to change again, if ever.

<comment><USER8> We're used to Beijing thinking for the long term. When they rotated leaders, this was largely true. With Xi as leader for life, however, the short-term decision making and incompetent bureaucracies that characterises dictatorships are beginning to emerge.

Hong Kong shouldn't have been a problem. Most Hong Kongers, until recently, identified as Chinese moreso than Hong Konger. The transition in 2047 would have been uneventful.

Now, Hong Kong pissed off. Taiwan has seen the writing on the wall. China's multi-decade integration strategy must be rethought because Xi didn't think he could survive Hong Kongers criticising his leadership (including its corruption).

<comment><USER9> This is the sort of thing predicted by Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God that Failed", the basic premise of which is that short term leaders as found in democracies will try to get as much as they can in the short time they have, whereas lifetime leaders as in monarchies will treat the country more like a property owner would his own property.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed)

<comment><USER8> > _short term leaders as found in democracies will try to get as much as they > can in the short time they have, whereas lifetime leaders as in monarchies > will treat the country more like a property owner would his own property_

The evidence shows the opposite. Political leaders (in any system) want to act in the short term. Democracies simply constrain them.

No "lifetime leaders" are guaranteed a life term. They must continuously fight for political survival. (And with that, often, actual survival.) Dictatorships deploy, with limited constraint, their immortal nation's power on mortal time scales.

(Democracies' rotation of leaders also allows for fixing mistakes. Dictators are constrained in terms of backing away from bad decisions. They thus have a bad habit of doubling down on stupid decisions.)

<comment><USER10> > Dictators are constrained in terms of backing away from bad decisions. They > thus have a bad habit of doubling down on stupid decisions.

I find this to match the behavior of the dominant parties in my country.

<comment><USER11> The difference is when one party doubles down on unpopular choices they become more likely to be voted out of office. This is direct communication between the populace and rulers.

In single party systems, dictatorships, etc leaders are frequently acting on really bad information or simply don't feel the need to back down. Thus, such things tend to build up and compound over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am proud of our democratic cousins in Hong Kong; this is just the beginning. Who knows what kind of country China will be in 2047, maybe there is hope for democratic China or 50 more years of democratic Hong Kong, who knows.

As for Taiwan, Taiwanese people already identify themselves with being Taiwanese. Nearly 80% of people polled identify themselves in fact, in recent polls. Now we just need the older generations to slowly fade away (ones that still watch China influenced news channels). The fact that president Tsai (who is close to our US allies) won her party election recently and has a 10% lead over her opposite party opponents (who are now distancing themselves from China) give us great hope. Our independence is going to continue.

As for the naysayers that say China can simply invade, I beg to differ. China was always going to have problems attacking a well fortified island. But an old, broke China with no allies in the region attacking Taiwan with US backing it is impossible. And as time goes on, Taiwan will eventually declare independence and have the world support for it. That's the future I am looking forward to

<comment><USER13> The PLA is not China's army, it is the Chinese communist party's army.

PLA training is 90% political indoctrination, 10% combat training.

They have garrisons in Hong Kong (edited).

Unless the Chinese communist party self-destructs, there's no foreseeable end of communist rule in China.

The social credit system and online censors prevent people from criticizing and opposing the government.

<comment><USER14> I don't think they have garrisons in Taipei. Please explain what you mean?

<comment><USER13> I meant garrisons in Hong Kong, facepalm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wish they could use the Official Figure as 2M and 1.

The 1 was tribute to the one died in protest of the bill [0]. R.I.P

And I don't think the photos aren't what 2M people in the City really looks like. Here are few better ones.

And thank you everyone who supported us, even if you are not in HK, it is still much appreciated.

[0] [https://time.com/5607742/hong-kong-protester-dies-anti- extra...](https://time.com/5607742/hong-kong-protester-dies-anti-extradition/)

[1] [https://ibb.co/WtLMvCH](https://ibb.co/WtLMvCH)

[2] [https://ibb.co/BgQkb0S](https://ibb.co/BgQkb0S)

[3] [https://t.co/5NahUcGSKt](https://t.co/5NahUcGSKt)

<comment><USER16> Your link [1] [https://ibb.co/WtLMvCH](https://ibb.co/WtLMvCH) is an altered image. See how it is mirrored horizontally?

<comment><USER15> This is my bad! I have been spreading fake images! Sorry that was sent to me via WhatsApp. ( But I can promise you the real thing would have look just as stunning ) Keep your attention to the Dropbox Folder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They've made it. The Chief Executive apologized and the government has suspended the fugitive law amendment. That's really a RARE concession in these years because the Chinese government typically doesn't compromise at all under pressure.

<comment><USER18> This is nothing but a temporary delay. It will still be passed soon enough. Remember Hong Kong is on a 50 year countdown anyway so there's always an inevitable end coming.

<comment><USER19> "The current social and economic systems in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Private property, ownership of enterprises, legitimate right of inheritance and foreign investment will be protected by law."

[http://www.gov.cn/english/2007-06/14/content_649468.htm](http://www.gov.cn/english/2007-06/14/content_649468.htm)

China needs the West and it is politically unsavvy for China to renege on the rights granted before 2047. However, the British Foreign Office announced that Chinese officials now treat the Joint Declaration as "void".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino- British_Joint_Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino- British_Joint_Declaration)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I strongly believe that the people of Hong Kong should have the right to self- determinism. There is nobody alive who has lived under Chinese rule in Hong Kong. For reference, I am British. I hope that someday Hong Kong can be recognized as a country in its own right.

<comment><USER21> Why is Northern Ireland still part of Britain?

<comment><USER22> Mostly because the majority of people living there wish to be remain part of the United Kingdom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's incredible. That's about one or two people from every household participating. Democracy FTW.

<comment><USER24> > Democracy

Is it though? Or... Something closer to communism with a democracy wrapper over it.

The part I find most confusing is that Hong Kong believed China's word on separate laws separate courts. That was going to be the case until it wasn't convenient, which I suppose is now.

China didn't keep their word you say!? Whaa!?

<comment><USER25> > Hong Kong believed China's word on separate laws separate courts

Plenty of Hong Kongers left before 1997 for this exact reason.

It wasn't a question about whether Hong Kong believed China's assurances - that decision was made in London, not Hong Kong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 2M is ~27% of its population. Mind blowing if 2M is roughly correct.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is that around 2/7th of the population? What are some alternative systems to make the people have a stronger impact?

<comment><USER28> 2/7th is huge. The Bolsheviks had a tiny, tiny percentage of the population and they took over Russia. Also 2/7 participation doesn't mean 2/7th support. A lot of people might support the movement but are unwilling for various reasons to take to the streets. 2/7 is historic and huge.

<comment><USER7> The other 5/7 may watch TVB - a HK TV channel of which to many people is their _only_ news source, and which has since been bought by mainlanders, just like many other media and publishing assets in HK - and believe in something totally else.

No joke, if you watch only TVB news, you will think the HK government is doing a great job and these protesters are arrogant, dis-obedient trouble-makers.

The gap in understanding can be really really big.

<comment><USER29> > No joke, if you watch only TVB news, you will think the HK government is > doing a great job

I get that: we have the same thing here in the USA with many newspapers and some TV stations. Heck, because of this, some people actually believe President Trump is a Russian Agent, you know, despite the fact that he is one of the great capitalists of all time, and he never ran for Any elected office until he won the Presidency--a feat which was all but impossible... still they think Putin made that happen, because that is what they are told.

<comment><USER29> I stand corrected: I said > "and he never ran for Any elected office until he won the Presidency"

Technically he did run in 2000, I apologize for the inaccuracy; however it was more akin to dipping one's toe into the shark infested waters of big time politics than a full on assault.

I still feel he accomplished the impossible; like Marquez does in MotoGP, or Senna did in F1--people like that are Rare indeed, and I respect the hell out of that ability, and you trifle with them at your own risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/) has lots of videos of the events today, for those who want more than static photos.

<comment><USER31> Good timeline with pics here:

[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/politics/article/3014695...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong- kong/politics/article/3014695/sea-black-hong-kong-will-march-against- suspended)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> People at both sides think they are legit.

An average HKer: I don't trust China's Justice system, which is heavily influenced by their government. I could be sent to China for made-up crime.

An average Chinese: Its a shame that HK as a part of China has Extradition treaties with all other countries but not Macau/Taiwan/Mainland (historical law by british). Imagine the same case for Hawaii and US Mainland.

<comment><USER33> Also, China has explicitly stated that want HK and Macau to join the same system as the rest of China.

It's just a matter of time.

<comment><USER8> > _It's just a matter of time_

Well, yes. The handover is explicit in 2047. This whole mess was an avoidable miscalculation prioritising Xi's short-term political interests over China's long-term strategic wellbeing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> How is it they are not fucked? No country that wants to continue to do business with China is going to back this uprising. Is there an imaginible sequence of events that doesn't result in either capitulation or a violent crushing of dissent?

<comment><USER35> They're actually succeeding- the government has backed down and apologized. The protests are pushing on for the resignation of the Chief Executive.

Keep in mind this new extradition law also applied to foreign, non-HK/CN citizens visiting Hong Kong legally. Companies operating in HK _really_ did not want this bill, either,

<comment><USER19> I don't think we can conclude the long-term intent from backing down now. It could be simply kicking the can down the road. Beijing might just be waiting to try this later. The longer they wait, though, the riskier it gets to push the Socialist system onto Hong Kong. It seems more and more citizens are willing to defend Democracy than has been the case in Hong Kong's past. If the numbers are correct, this is more protestors than the Umbrella movement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Justa matter of time before Beijing use Tiananmen force to quell these protesters. Done so multiple other places like Xinjiang and Xizang.

</comment><comment><USER37> I thought Xi was smarter than this. Between this and his inability to end tarriff escalation with Trump, Xi is looking vulnerable on foreign policy.

</comment><comment><USER38> Doesn't USA have same extradition treaty with most countries and under Patriot act anyone can be extradited without due process from any of this nations

</comment><comment><USER39> Hopefully the common folks in mainland China are watching, and is not censored, and take inspiration from HK folks in marching and fighting for their human rights.

<comment><USER30> To give due credits, the Hong Kong people put great effort to ensure that the protests--both the Umbrella protest in 2014 and the anti-extradition protest in 2019--are peaceful, largely because they don't want to turn Victorial Park into another Tiananmen Square--there are 6000 PLA troops stationed in Hong Kong, and they will come out once the Hong Kong police loses control of the situation.

Hong Kong people learned from mainland China first. I do hope that one day mainland China could learn back, when the time calls for it.

Okay, as for the bit on cleaning trashes [1], we don't learn it from China, we learn it from Japan (for example [2]). Well, we all have something to learn from each other.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/c18ybh/protester_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/c18ybh/protester_is_cleaning_and_clearing_the_rubbish/)

[2]: [https://nextshark.com/japanese-world-cup-fans-clean- stadium-...](https://nextshark.com/japanese-world-cup-fans-clean-stadium- winning-colombia/)

<comment><USER40> While I agree with your other words, is the last paragraph really necessary? If you want us mainlanders to trust you, it is advisable to not praise Japan when it is not directly related to the conversation.

Mainlanders are also perfectly capable of doing it, although we are not doing as good as we can.

[https://www.chinasmack.com/chinese-football-fans-pick-up- tra...](https://www.chinasmack.com/chinese-football-fans-pick-up-trash- copying-japans-example)

Downvote me all you want, I still support your democratic movements. But if you truly want mainlander to hear your voice, talking about how good Japan is is counterproductive.

If you want to make friends with the victims, it is not a good idea to talk about how morally superior the criminals are. Please explain why are you down- voting this. I changed my mind seeing your previous posts, and I may change again if you can point out my mistake.

<comment><USER30> Thank you for your honest reply, I just upvoted you.

> While I agree with your other words, is the last paragraph really necessary? > If you want us mainlanders to trust you, it is advisable to not praise Japan > when it is not directly related to the conversation.

I agree that the last paragraph is not necessary. But I did learn something from your reply to my last paragraph.

I personally separate the Japanese people we see nowadays from the wartime Japan under militarism, and I think this sentiment is popular among the recent generations in Hong Kong (and perhaps in Europe and US, etc). Older generations in Hong Kong, who experienced the Japanese occupation, think differently, understandably.

So to a Hong Konger like me, praising Japan does not have any strings of nationalism attached. It is like praising the spice in Thai food (and this is _irrelevant_ to whether we like Chinese food, or China). And that's why I am being over-insenstive here, and I could have done better.

Likewise, most of Hong Kong people could separate mainland people from CCP.

> Mainlanders are also perfectly capable of doing it, although we are not > doing as good as we can.

> [https://www.chinasmack.com/chinese-football-fans-pick-up- > tra...](https://www.chinasmack.com/chinese-football-fans-pick-up-trash- > copying-japans-example)

Thanks for letting me know something I was not aware of, and I sincerely praise those mainlanders for their effort. Keep up with the good work.

As your linked article also suggests, Japan is leading the world in cleaning after themselves, that's why I gave credit to them.

And back to the protest, I mention that Hong Kong people are cleaning trashes in protest [1], because I disagree with the "riot" charge by the government [2], which could result in a maximum term of ten years.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/c18ybh/protester_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/c18ybh/protester_is_cleaning_and_clearing_the_rubbish/)

[2]: [https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/13/hong-kong- protesters-c...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/13/hong-kong-protesters- charged-rioting-hospital-visit/)

<comment><USER40> > separate the Japanese people we see nowadays from the wartime Japan under > militarism

Yes, this is the sane choice. Unfortunately we both know that bad news draw more attention from the general public. Just like many mainlanders still remember vividly that (a small fraction of) HKers called them as locusts, when some Japanese say something bad about China, it gets spread much much faster than other news and stays in the memory for a long time. I was merely stating the fact that it is not a good idea to praise Japan in a conversation in general unless necessary, given the current state of our media. But still, their officials need to stop visiting the Shrine, or the names of the war criminals need to be removed.

> "riot" charge by the government

Usual CCP bs. My stand on this is that: HK is the best candidate for advocating changes to the CCP, if you can succeed before 2047 then we really own you a big favor. But HK should also remember that this is our internal affair, no foreign organization should interfere. The West can be used as extra pairs of eyes to keep the CCP checked so it doesn't repeat the disaster happened in Tiananmen square, but that's it. I hope you can understand why we don't trust the West, after we have witnessed the events happened elsewhere.

<comment><USER30> > I was merely stating the fact that it is not a good idea to praise Japan in > a conversation in general unless necessary, given the current state of our > media.

Agreed, and points taken. Thanks.

> My stand on this is that: HK is the best candidate for advocating changes to > the CCP, if you can succeed before 2047 then we really own you a big favor. > But HK should also remember that this is our internal affair, no foreign > organization should interfere. The West can be used as extra pairs of eyes > to keep the CCP checked so it doesn't repeat the disaster happened in > Tiananmen square, but that's it. I hope you can understand why we don't > trust the West, after we have witnessed the events happened elsewhere.

That's reasonable. Thanks for voicing out your main concern: that China may lose control to foreign organization, hence CCP should stay unless absolutely unbearable. I think I understand more how mainlanders think now.

<comment><USER40> Please allow me to add more details.

I have spent 9 years in the US. When I first came here, I was fed up with CCP's bs and thought the US and its system is the best. But now I have come to the conclusion that it is just as evil as the CCP, but in different ways. I think so because I have witnessed first hand about how insulting the Chinese is still acceptable [0] even in the PC culture (ppl still ask me if I eat dogs), how biased the mainstream media are, and how the democratic system here is full of flaws. More and more mainlanders are sharing my view, for better or for worse.

Also, it's not just "lose control to foreign organization". Based on the above reasons, we believe that the West is hostile towards Asia and will do everything to prevent any country in that area from growing up and challenge them. The US supports Korea, Japan and Taiwan just so it can put pressure on China, instead of actually caring about their people. Look, the HN crowd are still down-voting my post that complains about you mentioning Japan and I still can't think of why.

Yes, I understand that rights can only be obtained by earning instead of begging, and the Chinese-American community did a poor job to defend their rights. But until we have a memorial day for [1], I do not believe the Westerners care about our well-being at all.

As for your protest, this image of the flyer in [2] was circulating privately on our social media, and I have to say that one of the bullet points is really questionable, namely, collective punishment (do you have proof of this?). Even if all the other ones are true to some extent, this one is going to hurt your credibility a lot and push people away from you.

I am going to take a risk by quoting Chairman Mao's words: 政治就是,把支持我们的人搞的多多的,把反对我们的人搞得少少的!The number of people in the mainland who doesn't like CCP's actions is probably larger than you realized, but these people, by their nature, dislike liars in general. If HK want to win their support, then it really should make sure that their flyers/slogans are flawless and based on facts, and do not smell like the typical Western propaganda. I know this is putting the burden on you but hey this is not an easy task to begin with.

Keep up the good work!

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFxOsUe0I8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFxOsUe0I8o)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#Transcontinental_railroad)

[2] [https://twitter.com/liuyun2018/status/1133227121713659904](https://twitter.com/liuyun2018/status/1133227121713659904)

Edit: Let me add more materials that supports my view that the US doesn't care about us at all [3], and how they provided continuous support to Chiang Kai- shek even if he did [4] and [5]. I am from Henan so you can imagine why do I think this is just as bad as what the CCP did, and how angry I am when almost no Westerners talks about these when they talk about the KMT.

[3] [https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ygpo0/i_was...](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ygpo0/i_was_taught_that_general_macarthur_wanted_to/)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Yellow_River_flood)

[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Changsha_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_Changsha_fire)

<comment><USER41> FYI, this conversation is very productive and contributes to the greater conversation in a positive way. Thank you for bringing in a unique viewpoint. I hope we all can work better towards the future.

> I think so because I have witnessed first hand about how insulting the > Chinese is still acceptable [0] even in the PC culture (ppl still ask me if > I eat dogs), how biased the mainstream media are, and how the democratic > system here is full of flaws.

I have seen this as well, HATE it, and I've had to chew people out on it before. But it's something bigger than just one person trying to be mindful, I think.

There is the normal amount of it that is in jest, as with any other group of people, but for some reason, treating Asia like the butt of your jokes almost NEVER seems to be taken with any sort of seriousness at all. For example, a normal, sane westerner wouldn't go out saying 'Black people eat nothing but watermelon,' without complete irony, but for a much longer time, it was completely reasonable to make similar jokes, even more vulgar jokes towards people from Asia. Only recently have people started thinking 'Oh, maybe this is a bad idea, too.'

The media... Yeah. The media is dreadful. But it's a growing sentiment in the west that the media is useless and does extraordinarily more harm than good (being a shame since it's so ingrained in everything)

> Look, the HN crowd are still down-voting my post that complains about you > mentioning Japan and I still can't think of why

Just for a western perspective, there may be a few reasons this is happening

* People in the west LOVE Japan. Obviously we'll look at the entire country with rose tinted goggles, and anything they've done to the west we've done back to them tenfold. So as a rule, Japan tends to get a MUCH bigger free pass on just about everything. Doubly so because their culture is so prevalent in the west. My initial thought, without actually reading into what you were saying was: "Japan is terrible. China is better." Obviously that's not what you said at all, but it's STILL my first gut reaction (the next thought was instinctively 'maybe some nuance was lost between languages?' Which is also a very unhelpful sentiment, but it remains my initial reactions)

* There's been a LOT of anti-Asia, especially Chinese, sentiment lately. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, if there's some sort of propaganda push or people are literally just echoing the political climate, but especially on Hacker News, it has been almost unusable due to how toxic it is lately. Again, I try to see beyond what I'm seeing/hearing, but even for me it's hard to not get swept up at times. So ANYTHING pro Chinese is bound to be at least met with skepticism at best.

* People unfortunately, and incorrectly treat the 'flag' button as a 'dislike/I don't like this' button. I think Reddit unfortunately normalized this as a trend.

> we believe that the West is hostile towards Asia and will do everything to > prevent any country in that area from growing up and challenge them

I may not be as well researched into this as someone who's actually on the receiving end, and I am on the younger side, but from the perspective I know, Russia, China, and the US were always on equal footing and were constantly trying to do similar things like this to each other. I would be interested in hearing more about this from a different viewpoint, however.

<comment><USER40> Thank you for your kind words, it really warms my heart.

Yes, recently there has been an abnormally high amount of news about China on HN and I find most of the comments questionable to say the least. I was so pissed and registered this account to post some comments that are also questionable, so I really should calm down and contribute something that actually helps.

Speaking of the Japanese culture, I must admit that I envy them for how well it is preserved and developed with time. I totally understand why you find it's beautiful and think it represents the good things in the Far East. Our problem is that the Japanese government treat us like they defeated us during WWII because now they are the ally of the allies, which makes us super upset.

Yes all our governments suck, but from our perspective, the US has actively caused much much more trouble around the world than China. And we are genuinely concerned about what's going to happen next because of mentality shown by words like [0] (sorry if the link is pay-walled).

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/04/because-c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/04/because- china-isnt-caucasian-us-is-planning-clash-civilizations-that-could-be- dangerous/)

<comment><USER41> The more people having constructive conversations, the better. If at least to attempt to drown out the toxicity. But, if we never succeed, well, at least we made the effort.

The general west hears very little about Japanese government as a rule. So I don't have any reason to believe or disbelieve you. All we get are the culture's good bits, but maybe never see the underbelly. Maybe we'll hear something if there's a controversy, or about the new emperor since it was a novelty, but that's it. So that's very interesting to hear about Chinese- Japanese relations.

Funny enough, if you just skim this article, it seems to prop up Japan as a underdog model state. Reading into it a bit more has more detail, but I know at least several people who just read the bullet points of articles like this, and walk away with whatever they got. I wonder if this is a contribution to the push, but it might be that this is what is in the news right now, and this is what politicians in the west are talking about. (Or at least what the media is reporting)

I think the thing to watch for is next year's US elections. The two parties in the US are somewhat similar on a global scale, but the differences that do exist between them are really important for these relations, and has the potential to improve things, rather than continuing to polarize them. Either way, the US was divided almost in half by population last election, (the majority didn't even vote for the Republican offices, but that's not how the election system works,) so it seems at least say that there is a large number of people that do not hold the same opinions as their government.

<comment><USER40> There is no Chinese-Japanese relation, because you cannot leave the US out of the discussion, not after WWII. In fact, what the Japanese think about us is pretty much irrelevant because pro-China [0] government officials die before they can actually do something, at relatively the same time [1] [2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Japan%E2%80%93So...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Japan%E2%80%93South_Korea_Free_Trade_Agreement)

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It will be rough. China is unlikely to rest.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but she's probably too occupied at the moment to kick another honest's nest.

Also, HK can be a valve for the Chinese economy if the trade war continues to deteriorate.

The majority of the Chinese people have no idea what's happening in HK anyway, so it's not like HK will lead to troubles in other Chinese cities by itself, at least not in the short-term. So it is IMO wise for the Chinese government to leave HK alone for the time being.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's so silly Hong Kong is on its way back to China. I hope there is some future in them being an independent nation.

</comment><comment><USER44> Every article I see about the HK protests makes sure to focus on how non- violent the gathering was. I see many people framing that non-violence as a better way to affect change in their government.

I sincerely hope that a non-violent protest gets these people the change they want, but I take real issue in framing violent protests as unnecessary when your historically oppressive government refuses to listen to the will of its people.

<comment><USER28> Violent protests brings out the tanks and people start dying literally in the streets. Unless you are talking about actual revolution, violent protest accomplishes nothing and results in losing the moral high ground which is critical if one is to have international support. Violent protest in Hong Kong would result in Beijing sending in soldiers to suppress the rebellion under the guise of "public safety." You get martial law and its justified (using their calculus) as protecting people from harm from the violent protesters. Violent protest in China would result in thousands dead and Beijing accelerating the 2047 expiration of the two systems, one country agreement. Bad idea.

<comment><USER44> So if Beijing is just going to send military force if they perceive something that will truly threaten change in HK, but they did not send anything, what does that tell you about the probable outcome of these non-violent protests?

I think the protestors are fighting the good fight, but I'm not holding my breath that anything will actually come about because 2 million people stood in the street.

<comment><USER45> Violent protest that is not "actual revolution" doesn't bring change. It just leads to fighting in the streets as the parent said.

compare the violent protests that ignited the Syrian civil war (actual revolution) to the violent protests that resulted in no actual revolution (Rodney King riots, yellow vests in France, etc) to consider the difference, I think.

<comment><USER46> There is little distinction. One leads to another.

If you can dig news in well, you know that Syria began with some bakers protesting flour price hike and them roughing up some policemen.

A lot of revolutions stared with public disturbance events which had only tangential relation to political context, with Russian revolution being the best known example

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Some notes

* French yellow vests are ignored week after week. This is all over the place.

* HK already has extradiction with the USA.

* USA debacle demanding a journalist extradition to prosecute.

* Protesters posters are in english.

* Mainstream narrative, small HK will be successful independent. UK brexit will be terrible because it will be a insignificant country.

<comment><USER48> This is a very solid round-up of what faceless accounts have been spamming all over Twitter since this story emerged.

These arguments are weak enough to strain credulity. Almost all of them can be answered by saying "the context is very different"

1\. Yellow Vests - no overlap in what is being protested. Dissatisfaction with policy vs dissatisfaction with fundamental political rights = very different context.

2\. Extradition with rule of law abiding country that isn't explicitly trying to silence _your_ dissidents = very different context.

3\. Assange situation is complex and one-off, and the charges are more complicated than just reporting on stuff. It is also being openly discussed, scrutinized and will be prosecuted openly in a legal system. What _routinely_ happens with dissidents and party critics extradited to China is very different.

4\. HK was under British rule for a long time and there is a large English- speaking base.

5\. Narrative about HK has to do with categorically different political / economic freedoms than the mainland. There's subtlety beyond a comparison like "what will be the bigger GDP"

<comment><USER49> The "Assange situation" is not complex, and it's not one-off. He published numerous secret documents that were deeply embarrassing to the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and many other countries. He is being targeted for entirely political reasons, and the cooperation of the British and Ecuadorian authorities is likewise politically motivated. In the case of Britain, the motivation is twofold. Assange released documents about the UK government's actions, and the government wants to maintain good relations with the United States. In the case of Ecuador, the motivation is better relations with the United States and access to IMF loans.

The persecution of Assange is not one-off, because it sets a precedent for future prosecution of journalists in the United States, and it establishes that journalists are in danger in any country that has an extradition agreement with the United States.

Given all the concern about the Hong Kong extradition law being used to target critics of the Chinese government, I would expect the same people who oppose the HK law to also vigorously defend Julian Assange against extradition to the United States for political crimes.

<comment><USER47> Also after the recent Assange developments, there was the Australia ABC raid after another journalist/leaker, with a warrant to "view/change/delete" anything in the station. And 2 more journalists arrested in France, covering the yellow vests, possibly not "correctly".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's a bit sad feeling like this level of participation would never happen in the US. I'm not sure what the reason is, but likely a mix of being a highly individualistic society, apathy, distraction.

<comment><USER51> What do you expect us to rally for? Genderless bathrooms?

<comment><USER52> How about : "how come we have more than 500.000 people file for bankruptcy every year, due to medical bills?"

<comment><USER53> That's bad. It's not nearly as bad as "my way of life and the way of life for all my friends and family is completely at risk"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


License Utopia - <AUTHOR> https://writing.kemitchell.com/2019/03/17/License-Utopia.html <comment><USER2> Could anyone explain why it's required to do "notice of liability protections"? To me it seems absurd that unless you are getting something directly in return (ie selling it) someone could sue you for just publishing code.

<comment><USER3> Probably: "We used that code, and it harmed us in some way (e.g. we had to give someone money for something). You wrote that code. It is your fault. You have to pay us that money now."

<comment><USER4> Several minutes' searching failed to find a single real-world example of this happening with open source software specifically, and I don't recall hearing about any such case either.

All of the liabilities I found for open source software involved intellectual property cases.

Are you aware of any cases where this has actually happened? Because, if not, it sounds more like the standard boilerplate disclaimer that lawyers tell you to include just in case anyone ever does try such a thing, rather than a protection against a thing that has actually happened.

<comment><USER3> I am not aware of any examples. I was purely speculating what a company trying to sue someone might "think" (or use as justification).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not sure if I am reading it correctly. So Consistent Copyleft would be used to describe AGPL?

I do feel we have way too many OSL, even the permissive ones, MIT, BSD 0,1,2,3. Apache 2.0 and Dozen or other smaller ones. It is just a bag of hurts.

</comment><comment><USER6> This. We need copyleft API licenses, simply because the primary way of "linking" nowadays is using APIs. Heck yeah.</comment>


Ask HN: Karma-points-based politics? (disc: wild idea) - <AUTHOR>

One starts by doing community work/social work. 1hr = 1 karma point. Reach certain points, join a committee. Keep working, keep adding points, keep joining higher level committees and acquiring new 'powers', like say remove points from corrupt ones. After many years one eventually reaches congress and then the oval office. No elections, no campaigns, no personal/private interests, proven experience and public service vocation. No? <comment><USER2> 1 hour for one person does not equal 1 hour for another

Time spent on certain activities is more beneficial than time spent on others. The best example is the difference between a proactive team/committee member versus a lazy one who is there to, well, put in their time.

Some people are more inept, less intellectual and emotionally equipped than others.

Basically, there is a problem of equivalence in your proposed system that I don't think is possible to resolve. But of course, there's also the inevitable advantages offered by such concrete rules for ascension. There are no shortcuts...at the minimum you need to "show up" for, most probably, an inordinate amount of time to be any one of importance in the political sphere.

The ramifications of that might be numerous and worth examining from a theoretical standpoint. Money is stripped of its influence in such a concrete system. That's the biggest positive I can pin down... perhaps your point in the OP?

It seems as if you are inspired by grinding a la video games, which is such a simplistic system compared to leveling up in "life."</comment>


We should stop calling live projects beta - <AUTHOR> http://www.andymboyle.com/2011/10/17/we-should-stop-calling-live-projects-beta/

<comment><USER2> Labels alpha, beta indicate some pattern of design thought and course correction toward finished product. As long as there is a thought-through follow-up, I think beta is fair to use.

But, if the product is more like being freeformed, 'beta' is a misnomer. Does such thing really have a name?

<comment><AUTHOR> The point I'm trying to make is that most of the products we create for the web aren't necessarily ever "finished." You're always attempting to add new features or create new value, right? So I feel like projects are never truly finished.

<comment><USER2> When people use 'beta' as a scrutiny shield, I fully agree with you that it deserves a storm of invectives. My take is that some projects truly deserve a 'beta' label, suggesting there will be meaningful updates to it. Our common distaste for the word will devalue those worthy projects.

Yes, projects are truly never finished. But in news you can't spend all that much time refining a package after an event has passed and editors have their sights on other things (excluding truly evergreen items.)

Being a cynic, I'd normally focus on anything labeled 'beta' and disassemble it with a jeer. But, my restraint is there so that I don't miss out on examining things that aren't labeled beta and thus slip under that beta-hating radar.

For example, check out the Guardian's 'favorite foods' map. Make sure to mouseover Mexico and India:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/interactive/2011/jun/...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/interactive/2011/jun/16/world- favourite-foods-map-interactive)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm really looking for counterpoints to my argument. So please, I welcome them.</comment>


85 Years After Pluto's Discovery, New Horizons Spots Small Moons Orbiting Pluto - <AUTHOR> http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150218 <comment><USER2> Pluto is ridiculously cool. Small body research is at the forefront of getting a handle on the conditions of the early Solar System. Between discoveries made by the Rosetta mission [1], Dawn's visit to Vesta and Ceres [2], and the incredible discovery of rings around Chariklo [3], we are really in a golden age at the moment.

New Horizons has a lot more in store, not in the least because we know that there are at least two other moons in the system: Styx [4] and Kerberos [5] (discovered by my advisor Mark Showalter [6]). There's been a concerted effort to search for rings around Pluto too, not in the least to be able to assess the safe passage of New Horizons through the system.

All I can say is don't blink, you're not gonna wanna miss this!

[1] [http://rosetta.esa.int/](http://rosetta.esa.int/)

[2] [http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/](http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/)

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

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx_(moon)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx_\(moon\))

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(moon)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_\(moon\))

[6] [http://www.seti.org/users/mark-showalter](http://www.seti.org/users/mark- showalter)

<comment><USER3> Mark Showalter is like the _Moon Whisperer_.

How can any single person these days discover six moons and three planetary rings?

<comment><USER2> You've gotta see him in action; he gives great talks. Here's a recording of his SETI talk on the discovery of Styx and Kerberos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6t51YPOuSA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6t51YPOuSA) (I worked on Uranus' moon Mab, which is mentioned at the start of the talk).

If you get the chance to see him live, I'd definitely recommend it. Unfortunately, he's very busy, so even during my PhD I haven't had many chances to sit down with him.

The coolest thing to me is that Mark is a dynamicist actually, but has such a deep understanding of instrumentation and image processing that he can attack new discoveries from both sides. Good example of why it serves to have many tools in your toolbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh man, it finally made it. I remember working on the ground telemetry bit for New Horizons about 11 years ago (has it been that long?). The C++ code base was hard to understand, and I'm sure I didn't make it any better as a junior developer.

I worked on the part that said, "Hey, are you still there?", and listened for "Yeah, I'm still alive." That was my small contribution.

It was one of the few groups at APL at that time that was actually using source control. (hurray!) Everyone else was doing something akin to copying file folders on a shared drive. I was even on a code base that had comment annotations of the person that changed the line. I think APL has adopted source control lab-wide now, after some hard lobbying by software devs there.

Ahh, good times.

</comment><comment><USER5> My understanding was Pluto could not be a "planet" because it was not a part of the formation of the original solar system due to it being located beyond the frost line boundary [1] which separates terrestrial planets from gas giants.

Basically, anything within the frost line boundary is close enough to the protosun that things like solid water, CO2, et al. melt, allowing for accretion of solid matter and eventually rocky (terrestrial planets). Anything beyond the frost line, and these solid materials freeze up then accrete, and then collect gas from the protosolar accretion disk, forming gas giants.

It's entirely possible Pluto could've been a part of the original solar system but somehow wasn't massive enough to collect gas, or it was a captured object not present during the formation of the solar system.

Either way, I'm sure New Horizons will discover more.

In my opinion, the IAU was correct in downgrading Pluto to a dwarf planet. Scientific observation and study should not be dictated by social tradition.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line_%28astrophysics%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line_%28astrophysics%29)

</comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting that they are doing research using images that are going to be obsoleted very soon as the probe gets closer.

<comment><USER7> I think these images help them figure out what's interesting to study as the probe gets closer. It's going to zoom by, so they need to know beforehand what to look at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's another object near the left edge of the video, moving from top to bottom. Does anyone know what that is?

Its movement per frame seems too consistent and predictable to be an artifact (noise) of the camera.

<comment><USER9> That's very interesting. It's not moving with the background stars. However it could still be a camera artifact - see how there's a 'trail' behind Pluto's disc? In frames 4-7, the object you've identified is in the same position relative to the trail (off to the right if you are following a line outwards from Pluto along the trail).

I made an image to show what I mean. See frames 4-7; it's not an exact match but maybe it's a clue: [http://i.imgur.com/TADflVd.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/TADflVd.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for making that!

I hadn't considered the rotation, because as you point out, it doesn't exactly match up. It's gaining distance from the center of image as it moves.

It could still be some kind of internal reflection artifact (even dust?) which varies in distance slightly, I guess. I'm pretty sure the team looking at these images would have gone over every object in depth, so it's unlikely I've spotted something they haven't :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very interesting! I also highly recommend the following video just published by Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures:

Pluto on the Horizon: Anticipating our First Encounter with the Double Planet

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfODJpfS0fo&feature=em- subsc...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfODJpfS0fo&feature=em-subscription- upload)

[Edit] - Adde video title

</comment><comment><USER11> Moons? It's a planet after all! Reinstate! Reinstate!

<comment><USER2> That's not what the IAU classification is based on [1]. There are dynamical reasons to argue for the fact that a planet has to have cleared it's orbit. Pluto fails in this regard. A lot of people mistake the reclassification of Pluto as folly, when there are fundamental reasons that underpin the current definition of a planet. This has evolved as we've come to understand the dynamical processes that shape the Solar System.

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

<comment><USER12> > There are dynamical reasons to argue for the fact that a planet has to have > cleared it's orbit

Maybe so, but as the wiki article points out in its criticism section, this excludes Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune from being planets.

I don't think it's so much folly as much as a waste of everyone's time. "Planet" isn't a natural thing like the speed of light, if astrophysicists want to be more specific about which orbiting bodies they're talking about, which "dynamical processes" they're talking about, they should come up with a new term instead of dragging literally everyone (including the children!) into an argument over definitions. It's like a scientist insisting that "sound" can only refer to this vague thing a brain experiences, and it can't refer to generic vibrations in the air, but some people are still on the fence about whether it can refer to vibrations in water.

<comment><USER13> I don't believe the International Astronomical Union has offered an opinion about the Webster's definition of the word, or about how you and your six year-old may use "planet" in ordinary language.

The IAU's definition is a scientific definition, one that pertains to usage among astronomers. Insisting that astronomers make up another word is silly for all the same reasons that (as you pointed out) it would be silly for astronomers to tell us how to use one of our everyday, non-technical words. The same sequence of characters or phonemes can have slightly different meanings in different contexts.

<comment><USER14> But the IAU definition makes no sense for astronomical use, _particularly_ as we get better at finding extrasolar plane^H^Horbital bodies. We're going to have hundreds of repeats of Ceres/Vesta/Pluto - bodies that we discover, consider to be planets, and then only much later with finer techniques discover that there were other bodies in the same orbit. That's not good for science.

<comment><USER15> Upvoted, as this is an excellent point. The IAU definition makes serious presumptions about our level of knowledge. Could the IAU definition be used at the time of Pluto's discovery? If not, what does that say about using this definition for future discoveries?

Note that I'm not saying that I think that dwarf planets should be categorized as planets (there are too many), but that the definition shouldn't depend upon us having complete knowledge of every object in a newly discovered potential planet's neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A pity they didn't name the two moons Chip and Dale.

</comment><comment><USER17> Dwarf moons for a dwarf planet? This reclassification is getting harder to justify.

<comment><USER18> Many asteroids have moons [1]. This has no effect on the reclassification.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor- planet_moon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor-planet_moon)

<comment><USER19> Fascinating. Thanks for the link</comment></comment></comment>


AJAX Libraries API: Speed up your Ajax apps with Google's infrastructure - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/announcing-ajax-libraries-api-speed-up-your-ajax-apps-with-googles-infrastructure <comment><USER2> This is really cool, but I'm not sure I'd use it because of the plugin issue. Usually, I don't just use JQuery - I use JQuery, plus a few JQuery plugins, plus JQuery UI, plus some custom JavaScript files that are built off this. To deploy them, I concatenate them all together in dependency order, minify the whole thing, and GZip it. That saves HTTP requests, and multiple files with the same coding standards tend to compress _very_ well. (JQuery + Dimensions + Dropshadow + Corner = 20504 bytes when compressed together, vs. 21919 bytes when compressed separately.)

It looks like with this, I'd need to request JQuery off Google's infrastructure and then all the other stuff off my own, so it's multiple requests where one used to do, and you don't get the benefit of compressing them together.

<comment><USER3> While I think you have some good points, the difference between 20504 and 21919 bytes is completely meaningless.

<comment><USER4> It's brings it down to one request _and_ it reduces the filesize. Requests are relatively slow, you want as few as reasonable possible.

<comment><USER3> I tend to agree, and I didn't make any claims about the number of requests. But data transfer really isn't all that slow, and 1415 bytes only takes about 10 milliseconds on a dsl connection (and 100ms on dial up), which is insignificant compared to the other factors involved.

<comment><USER5> and you assume all who are accessing your web application from n number of places over the world have such fast internet access. I doubt

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Related to this, people might want to take a look at Doug Crockford's suggestion:

[http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog- TBPekxc1dLNy5DOloPfzVvFIVOWMB...](http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog- TBPekxc1dLNy5DOloPfzVvFIVOWMB0li?p=789)

Basically, he suggests that every script tag have an option attribute called 'hash'. Whenever the browser downloads a script, it computes the hash and caches the script. For any further requests that specify that hash, the browser can used the cached copy instead of downloading a new one. The main benefit here is that everyone can continue hosting their own scripts, yet still take advantage of caching.

Brendan Eich (creator of JS) proposes a different solution:

[http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/04/popu...](http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/04/popularity.html)

In your script tags, you would specify both a local version (using the src attribute) and a canonical version (using a 'shared' attribute).

Brendan's concern about the hash solution is the poisoned message attack ([http://th.informatik.uni- mannheim.de/People/lucks/HashCollis...](http://th.informatik.uni- mannheim.de/People/lucks/HashCollisions/)). However, I'm not sure that applies here. I believe that you need to be able to generate both documents in order to easily find a collision. Anyone else know if that's true?

</comment><comment><USER7> I still think I'd prefer to host them myself. When I used YUI style sheets hosted on Yahoo's servers they always took longer to load than local files. Also, Google ads are always the slowest item in a page to load. Until these libraries are embedded in the browser I don't see much benefit.

</comment><comment><USER8> _edit_ Nevermind, nothing to see here _edit_

In the video they say that they used many of Steve Souders' techniques to speed up the deliver of the files since most web servers aren't properly optimized out of the box

Looks like Google missed the part in Souders' High Performance Web Site where he talked about using ETag to speed up sites. :P

      curl -I http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Last-Modified: Mon, 26 May 2008 18:45:05 GMT
      Content-Type: application/x-javascript
      Expires: Wed, 27 May 2009 17:39:22 GMT
      Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 17:39:22 GMT
      Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000
      Content-Length: 55740
      Server: GFE/1.3

<comment><USER9> I don't think you need an ETag if you're serving a Last-Modified.

<comment><USER8> Oops, you are right. For some reason I thought using the If-None-Match header was the "right" way of doing this, it just adds flexibility to how you cache stuff.

<http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags>

"If you're not taking advantage of the flexible validation model that ETags provide, it's better to just remove the ETag altogether. The Last-Modified header validates based on the component's timestamp. And removing the ETag reduces the size of the HTTP headers in both the response and subsequent requests."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a neat idea, but I can't imagine using it. Do you really, really trust Google with your business? What happens when google decides to "fix" something in one of those frameworks that the upstream developers disagree with? Even worse, what happens when your app is irreconcilably broken because of something that happened at Google? Worse still, what happens when your app somehow becomes reliant on Google's version of the framework(s), and you don't realize it until it would be too expensive to unhook yourself from Google?

<comment><USER9> There's nothing new about depending on external parties - if your site hosts ads (or uses an external stats service) you're already running code hosted elsewhere, so you should probably be comfortable linking through to Google (I trust them a lot more than most ad networks). The question is always "do I trust this provider not to screw me over" - Google's developer network stuff HAS to be trustworthy or they'll lose the hearts and minds they've been cultivating overnight.

As for your app becoming reliant on Google's version of the framework, you can always download the JS file they've been serving and host it yourself. You can't get locked in that way.

<comment><USER10> _As for your app becoming reliant on Google's version of the framework, you can always download the JS file they've been serving and host it yourself. You can't get locked in that way._

This misses the point. I'm not concerned about _where_ the file comes from. If breakage occurs with regard to where the download comes from, a few customers get annoyed while you fix it (or even better, you implemented caching and customers never know the difference). That's a normal and expected maintenance issue that you plan for.

What I'm really talking about is the _content_ of the file. If Google fixes bugs or adds features and you don't realize it until your app has become dependent on Google-specific changes, it's not an easy thing to fix. This is a different problem than getting screwed over by ad providers.

<comment><USER9> Aah I understand where you're coming from. I would be amazed if Google made changes to the libraries they are serving up (since it would undermine the entire concept of the hosting service).

<comment><USER10> It would definitely seem to go against the motto, right? You need look no further than Microsoft (and other software vendors whose entire strategy is based on lock-in), and assess the probabilities for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent. With pipelining browsers this will speed things up even on the first hit

</comment><comment><USER12> Thank you, this is useful to me.</comment>


Classic mistakes in the software industry (1996) - <AUTHOR> https://stevemcconnell.com/articles/classic-mistakes/ <comment><AUTHOR> I was astonished by how much they're still relevant nowadays. And many of them, while the article is from the 90s, were identified in the 80s!</comment>


IT Security firm with data center and patents on Indiegogo - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/CyberiaLabs

<comment><AUTHOR> Sean Rooney, I (Kimberly Crawley) and Mike Kaulbach are partners in this new business venture.

Sean Rooney has over 25 years of experience as an IT security scientist who has contributed to the curriculum for the CISSP and the CompTIA Security . He ran a successful IT security firm (Coldstream Associates) for nearly 15 years, with clients such as Alcatel, Sears Canada, and the Canadian government. He also owns three patents for firewalls.

I am an experienced web developer, tech support agent and SEO/marketing guru.

Mike Kaulbach has years of experience running data centres and working as a sysadmin.

We already have a server room on Bay Street in downtown Toronto.

Mike already has companies who are interested in using data centre/cloud services. Sean has business contacts who are interested in IT security auditing, penetration testing and digital forensics services.

We have a few Linux based servers connected to a high bandwidth and heavily secured network.

We're combining our talents and business contacts for our start-up, Cyberia Technical Security Workshoppe.

Feel free to research Sean and Mike's work history and credentials.

With enough funding, we can buy new equipment (rackmount servers, networking infrastructure, thousands of terabytes of disk, etc.) and spend money on promoting our business to attract new clientele.

We'll be offering a combination of IT security services (pen testing, security auditing, data recovery, network hardening and digital forensics) and data centre services (web hosting and remote databases).

We can also use funds to market Sean's firewall patents to tech firms such as Cisco, Alcatel, and MTS Allstream.

If you can't help us financially (even with $10), please help us out with two minutes of your time by promoting us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Our Indiegogo page: <http://www.indiegogo.com/CyberiaLabs> Official website: <http://cyberialabs.coldstream.ca> Our Google+ page: <http://plus.google.com/102363012294872996502>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sean Rooney, I (Kimberly Crawley) and Mike Kaulbach are partners in this new business venture.

Sean Rooney has over 25 years of experience as an IT security scientist who has contributed to the curriculum for the CISSP and the CompTIA Security . He ran a successful IT security firm (Coldstream Associates) for nearly 15 years, with clients such as Alcatel, Sears Canada, and the Canadian government. He also owns three patents for firewalls.

I am an experienced web developer, tech support agent and SEO/marketing guru.

Mike Kaulbach has years of experience running data centres and working as a sysadmin.

We already have a server room on Bay Street in downtown Toronto.

Mike already has companies who are interested in using data centre/cloud services. Sean has business contacts who are interested in IT security auditing, penetration testing and digital forensics services.

We have a few Linux based servers connected to a high bandwidth and heavily secured network.

We're combining our talents and business contacts for our start-up, Cyberia Technical Security Workshoppe.

Feel free to research Sean and Mike's work history and credentials.

With enough funding, we can buy new equipment (rackmount servers, networking infrastructure, thousands of terabytes of disk, etc.) and spend money on promoting our business to attract new clientele.

We'll be offering a combination of IT security services (pen testing, security auditing, data recovery, network hardening and digital forensics) and data centre services (web hosting and remote databases).

We can also use funds to market Sean's firewall patents to tech firms such as Cisco, Alcatel, and MTS Allstream.

If you can't help us financially (even with $10), please help us out with two minutes of your time by promoting us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Our Indiegogo page: <http://www.indiegogo.com/CyberiaLabs> Official website: <http://cyberialabs.coldstream.ca> Our Google+ page: <http://plus.google.com/102363012294872996502></comment>


Parrot AR.Drone - <AUTHOR> http://www.parrot.com/ <comment><USER2> But is the video link to the iPhone encrypted or not?

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks awesome but I couldn't easily find a price on their site (maybe none announced yet?).

Also, I'll be holding out for the Android version (if they make one).</comment>


Designing for Humans - <AUTHOR> https://realm.io/news/altconf-dave-wiskus-designing-for-humans/

<comment><USER2> Some excellent reminders about empathy, not being a condescending designer, and trying to understand _actual people_ when you build something. It shouldn't be that hard, you're one, and presumably you know some.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage new feature requests for your application? - <AUTHOR>

Basically, what i'm planning to do is to include a minimal number of features in my application, partially because of the 'do less' thing and actually, because i'm not very sure of what path the app should take in future; so i want the users to define what should be added next.
So i was wondering what would be a good way to collect users' reactions and requests? Should i just have a feedback form (problem with that is that users wont know what other features are being asked for)? Or, should i use something like uservoice.com (though it seems, it might lead users to bias towards certain features)?
What do you think? <comment><USER2> _So i was wondering what would be a good way to collect users' reactions and requests?_

Check your email.

No, I don't mean right now. Well, sure, actually. Check your email right now. And every 5 minutes while you're awake for the rest of the year.

When you get an email from a user, reply to it. Get into a conversation with your users. Find out who they are. Tell them what features you're thinking about adding next, and ask for their opinions.

The biggest problem you'll ever have with collecting feature requests is the people who have great ideas but are too polite to bother you with them. If you can get those people to see you as a friendly human rather than as a faceless business, they'll be far more likely to send you their ideas.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it depends a bit on how relevant community is to your application. If there's a community of users that is built up naturally by using your app (like there is at say Stack Overflow, which uses UserVoice) then you'll want to provide a place for the community to talk about features.

If your various users are generally unaware of each other, then I think that having a place for them to send you suggestions is fine.

My general thought is that building a system to handle suggestions before you have any is mildly premature. Provide an obvious way for users to send suggestions - a form or a prominent email address is usually fine - but wait until the flood of suggestions becomes a problem before solving it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Be careful leaving the future of your app open to user feedback, especially when it comes to feature requests.

A good talk on this topic (by 37signals' Jason Fried): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H8RB24ZfRo></comment>


Humble "Be a Coder" Book Bundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/be-a-coder-books <comment><USER2> This has a number of very good books, including many I have read already (and so won't get it). Recommended to take a look through it.

<comment><USER3> mind commenting on the good books? a few of these cover topics on my "to learn" list...

<comment><USER2> Goodness. So many.

* Learn you a Haskell - Fun for Haskell (which I've used since around 1990, but read the book anyway when it came out)

* Realm of Racket - Wonderful book. Used this to teach my son Racket at ages 7-8

* Clojure for the Brave and True - Good introduction to Clojure. Also available online for free in HTML form.

* The Art of Assembly Language - Read it a number of years ago but I recall it being very good (but unfortunately not as low level as you would think)

* Land of Lisp - I own it but haven't read it; seems to be very popular for Common Lisp, another language I have used since 1990. Also, see Practical Common Lisp (available free online)

* Ruby under a Microscope - read this when learning Ruby some time ago, but should have read it later in my Ruby career

* Understanding ECMAScript 6 - I'm not sure if this is the ES6 book I read or another one, but man, ES6 is so much better than its predecessors that it makes JavaScript fun again, and much more "functional" (which I like), especially if you use a nice library like Lodash to extend the paradigm

Others in the list I want to read and have heard good things about.</comment></comment></comment>


The biggest and strangest batteries - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/business/energy-environment/biggest-batteries.html <comment><USER2> The last one (ice storage air conditioning) is going to be a huge one. It doesn't depend on cycling some useless process (like moving water/rocks/air/electrons in and out of some potential gradient) -- rather, it uses a process that already needs to happen (air conditioning and chilling) and runs it at a higher efficiency and a lower price, by using cheaper night electricity _and_ colder outside temperatures.

It also scales neatly up and down with the space being cooled; there's no inefficiencies at small scales. It's possible to add such a system (with an appropriate phase-change material) to most any air-conditioning installation -- as long as there's a varying load (if it runs 24/7 with the same load, ice storage won't do anything useful) and the system isn't weight-sensitive (i wouldn't put this aboard an aeroplane, say), there's a potential.

</comment><comment><USER3> Another nice gravity based one: [http://www.heindl-energy.com/gravity- storage/idea-function.h...](http://www.heindl-energy.com/gravity-storage/idea- function.html)

A piston of rock carved out of the land. For now just a concept though.</comment>


Electric car owner charged with stealing 5 cents' worth of electricity [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.11alive.com/rss/article/314666/40/Electric-car-owner-charged-with-stealing-5-cents-worth-of-juice

<comment><USER2> It'll be interesting to see what the court does with this. I wonder what statute he's being charged under?

From the Georgia Code:

> A person commits the offense of theft by taking when he unlawfully takes or, > being in lawful possession thereof, unlawfully appropriates any property of > another with the intention of depriving him of the property, regardless of > the manner in which the property is taken or appropriated.

If he's being charged with theft, it will be interesting to see whether energy is "property of another" in this case. What he took from the school was electrical potential energy. Is that property? If there's a waterfall on public property and I temporarily place a water wheel under it, is that also theft? What about holding a solar cell over top of a solar cell on public property?

> A person commits the offense of theft of services when by deception and with > the intent to avoid payment he knowingly obtains services, accommodations, > entertainment, or the use of personal property which is available only for > compensation.

This seems to be a poor fit; it's not obvious that electrical charging at a school is a service "available only for compensation", especially if the school permits other people to charge things gratis. The _mens rea_ bit also seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Most of the case law seems to be about people bypassing mechanisms the power company uses to bill for the provision of electricity, which fits nicely into the theft of services statute.

Either way, should make for interesting case law.

<comment><USER3> Theft of property could include money. By using this electricity, he's making the school pay marginally more in utility bills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nobody has pointed out that this guy didn't just randomly go up to the school. His kid was at soccer practice there. Presumably the school has reasonable accommodations to be made for the people who are using it. This person certainly pays taxes that support the school.

If he went up to the water fountain outside the restroom and filled a water bottle from it, should he be charged with theft for that?

<comment><USER5> The slight difference being that, from the video, it seemed like you had to walk 'off trail' to get to the outlet.

If the outlet was obviously obfuscated or inaccessible, this argument is lessened.

(My other posts I remark that he also has precedence because several government entities - parks and rest areas - offer free electric car charging)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The reaction is interesting and seems semi-valid but only because it is a car. If someone charged a phone I doubt anyone would care.

<comment><USER7> I'm not familiar with Georgia law, but wouldn't this be a misdemeanor and easily handled by a simple citation? (Personally, I think a warning would have been sufficient). The cost of arresting him and holding him in jail for 15 hours, plus prosecution, etc, would be far more expensive than the 5 cents worth of electricity. A simple warning would probably have been more than enough to prevent him from doing it without permission again.

<comment><USER8> " _A simple warning would probably have been more than enough to prevent him from doing it without permission again._ "

It sounds like they were using him to set an example for others. If they just gave him a warning, hardly anyone would have heard about it. Arrest him and haul him off to jail, and everyone in the town knows about it (and apparently, now, everyone in the world).

I'm guessing that keeping him in jail for 15 hours costs the city hardly anything, since the jail has to be staffed 24 hours a day. Maybe they had to give him a couple of meals. The prosecution will probably cost nothing, since the charges will probably be dropped (or plea-bargained down to a small fine). Any prosecutor who wasted time and resources to prosecute a 5-cent theft would probably face a lot of well-deserved criticism, especially now that the story has been distributed this widely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The police shouldn't have wasted all this time and money on what isn't really a crime.

Say it's not a car, and the driver recharged his phone, because it was dead. By the same logic, he should be arrested, but it would seem a bit silly to do so.

What about filling up a water bottle with an outside water faucet?

It's pretty reasonable to not want people to charge their devices using your external outlets, but I don't think it's a crime.

As plug-in vehicles become more prevalent, buildings will start to figure out the right way to handle this.

<comment><USER10> So if I run out of gas it's ok for me to siphon some off another persons car? Does the amount of gas siphoned matter, or is it the act that primarily punished?

<comment><USER9> Of course not, just like, if you're hungry, it's not okay to steal food.

And the amount isn't really the issue, theft is theft.

The question, is charging your car like:

1) Running an extension cord to neighbors to power your house (theft)

2) Plugging in your phone into the wall-outlet at the airport (probably not theft)

It's probably both, so lawfully, why arrest the guy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would they arrest someone who was charging their phone without permission? Seems like there could be a lot of arrests worldwide if that was the case.

Also, asking a police office if he made a mistake in arresting someone, or giving them a ticket, would they do it again, etc. does not usually result in enlightening journalism.

<comment><USER12> I'd guess someone charging a single phone would not be arrested, but how about someone charging 100 phones, or 600 phones?

Charging the car for 20 minutes uses about as much electricity as fully charging from empty 100 iPhones. It uses it at a rate equivalent to trying to charge something like 500 iPhones simultaneously.

<comment><USER13> If you're going to add any value to these numbers, don't leave out the estimated damages. In USD that number apparantly is 0.05.

I understand that they don't want to risk a very high electricity bill, but if the damages are about a nickel, then keeping the man in jail for 15 hours is extremely and inexcusably excessive, in my opinion. I understand that they want to send a signal not to randomly plug your electric vehicle in sockets, I sympathize with that, too, but not the resulting action taken by the police. Not over a nickel.

<comment><USER14> What are the odds he could've blown a fuse and caused more issues?

<comment><USER15> It would still be far cheaper to put a sign or lock on the outlet than invoke the legal system.

<comment><USER14> Cheaper to put a sign or lock on every outlet, than invoke the legal system once? I'm not sure about that (especially if this doesn't go to trial. It may still be preferable, but I'm skeptical about cheaper.

<comment><USER15> I doubt this is going to the only case. Electric cars are going to become more and more common, and the hunt for an outlet at a parking lot is going to start mirroring how it looks at airports with smartphones.

That said, I bet there's more to the case in the OP than we're seeing. Probably they've told this man to stop before and he keeps doing it.

<comment><USER14> They don't arrest you for plugging in your smartphone in an airport. This is precisely an attempt to prevent it from becoming common. If everyone knows that is not something you do, then you don't need to put up signs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems excessive. A verbal warning or, at most, a trespass notice or injunction would suffice.

I'm also surprised that the police can prosecute this without a complaint from the school. Is this specific to Georgia or is it the same in other states?

</comment><comment><USER17> I assume we're supposed to be outraged, but it seems completely reasonable to me. I'd be pretty annoyed if somebody just plugged their equipment into one of my exterior outlets and started using my electricity. The "electric car" part doesn't even matter, really.

<comment><USER18> Do you pay taxes? Does the near-zero cost of the electricity vs the thousands of dollars the town will waste dealing with the matter seem like an odd tradeoff to you?

<comment><USER9> Cost to the taxpayers isn't a mitigating circumstance when choosing whether to arrest someone for committing a crime.

I should note, that I don't think this was a crime.

<comment><USER19> _Cost to the taxpayers isn 't a mitigating circumstance when choosing whether to arrest someone for committing a crime._

It should be a factor in deciding what is and is not a crime, however. If the cure is worse than the disease...

<comment><USER9> I 100% disagree.

If I steal a $60 video game from a store, it's going to cost tax payers and the company more than $60 to prosecute me.

Should shoplifting > $1,000 no longer be a crime?

<comment><USER19> If you steal a $60 video game from a store, and as a result the store goes out of business or people become afraid of thieves, the county will lose a hefty chunk of property taxes. Society also loses the opportunity to turn a miscreant into a contributor.

If you plug your car into a school for half an hour, you ... what, exactly?

<comment><USER14> If everyone makes a habit of driving to the school to plug in their cars, I totally see it being a problem. If it is limited to everyone with a legitimate reason to be there in the first place, less so, but I could see it still being an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The same result would happen stealing 5 cents worth of gasoline from somewhere or someone.

<comment><USER5> It seems it would only be similar if a gas pump (or at least a pressure connection for a handle) were publicly available.

You can also say that it's different because the public does offer electrical charging for vehicles in some places (state rest areas, state parks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Funny how I subconsciously read that was "Tesla owner ..."</comment>