Supreme Court Strikes Down Defense of Marriage Act - <AUTHOR> http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-26-supreme-court-gay-marriage#sha=f2fa9994b

<comment><USER2> This discusses two rulings. DOMA and Proposition 8. I like the DOMA decision. I like the specific result of the Proposition 8 ruling, but do not like the way they got there.

The issue with proposition 8 is that California lost, and then chose not to appeal. Lawyers for the group that passed proposition 8 then stepped in and took the case. Their argument basically was that if they were not allowed to do this, then any proposition passed by Californians that the government did not like the government could unpass by posting a lackluster defense and then not appealing it.

The 9th circuit did not know whether they should grant standing. They remanded it to the California Supreme Court to decide that. The California Supreme Court said that under California law they did have standing. The 9th heard it. The Supreme Court has now disagreed.

But I agree with that argument from the supporters of proposition 8. California gives voters the power to pass proposition that the state does not like. The state has now been handed a legal tool which undermines that in federal court. (I do not understand precedent well enough to know whether state courts will look to the Supreme Court or the California Supreme Court on this.)

<comment><USER3> > The 9th circuit did not know whether they should grant standing. They > remanded it to the California Supreme Court to decide that.

That's neither procedurally nor factually correct; they certified a question to the California Supreme Court about the authority of petitioners under State law to defend the proposition in court; this was not a remand, and although the Ninth Circuit based its finding of standing on the result, the question to the California Supreme Court was not directly on standing (which is a _federal_ question, not a state law question, and thus wouldn't have been an appropriate question for certification to the state court.)

> The Supreme Court has now disagreed.

The Supreme Court, to be clear, disagreed with the Ninth Circuit's conclusion on standing, not the California Supreme Court's answer on the question of state law authority. In fact, they based their disagreement in part _on_ the California Supreme Court answer, and on how that answer clearly indicated that the state law authority did not have the requisite elements of an agency relationship, which would be necessary for the petitioners to have the standing on the basis that they were representatives of the State interest rather than on the basis of particularized harms they themselves faced as the result of an adverse decision.

> California gives voters the power to pass proposition that the state does > not like.

It gives the voters -- through the reserved legislative powers state held by the electorate -- the power to pass laws (including Constitutional amendments) that the _elected representatives_ of the state don't like.

It also gives the voters the power to voters to elect representatives -- and to remove them if they don't like their actions.

> I do not understand precedent well enough to know whether state courts will > look to the Supreme Court or the California Supreme Court on this.)

State courts -- and federal courts -- will look to the state Supreme Court on the state law question, and would look to the US Supreme Court on the federal law question (except that the question of Article III standing is, unlike many other federal law questions, almost never _relevant_ to a state court except perhaps as persuasive authority on the application of similar state standing rules when there is no controlling state precedent available.)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the corrections and clarifications.

I'm a non-lawyer going off of my memory of what was said in the media, and clearly got some important details wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is constantly surprising to me how nearly-deterministic these votes are: each respective quartet of the court votes along what's seen as party lines, with Kennedy being the swing vote. Is it because the court really is that partisan, or because the technicalities and details in each case fall sharply along judicial philosophical lines? With life terms, it's not as if the justices need to vote a certain way to keep office.

<comment><USER3> > It is constantly surprising to me how nearly-deterministic these votes are, > each respective quartet of the court votes along what's seen as party lines, > with Kennedy being the swing vote

I think there is probably a bit of confirmation bias and media distortion here; plenty of Supreme Court decisions, even on high profile topics, aren't 5-4 or are 5-4 but don't break "conservative 4" \+ "liberal 4" \+ Kennedy (e.g., the decision uphold the Affordable Care Act [1] was 5-4, with _Roberts_ plus the four liberals in the majority, and the four remaining conservatives, including Kennedy, in the minority.) But for the months the case was before the Supreme Court, the media was harping on how it was bound to be 5-4 with Kennedy as the swing vote, so what do you think sticks more in people's minds -- the actual result that was highlighted on the day of the decision and then dropped, or the "everyone knows" that was a focus of attention for months?

And, on the decision letting stand the District Court decision [2] striking down Prop. 8 in California based on the Prop. 8 supporters lack of standing to appeal the decision, also announced today, the 5-4 decision had Roberts, Scalia, Ginsberg, Breyer, and Kagan in the majority with Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor in the minority.

[1] NFIB v. Sebelius, [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf) [2] Hollingworth v. Perry, [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf)

<comment><USER5> There's a lot of speculation that Roberts' vote swung the way it did because he was concerned about public perception of SCOTUS in general, and the Roberts Court legacy in particular.

It's apparently a 'well-known fact' at this point that Roberts switched his vote at the last minute on the ACA ruling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is the text of the ruling. Supreme Court rulings always start out with a very readable syllabus which provides an overview of the ruling, recommended read:

[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf)

<comment><USER7> The opinions themselves also tend to be quite readable. I try to at least skim most decisions as they come out, to have an idea of what the Supreme Court is doing and why (at least in its own words) it's doing so.

One plus of reading both sides is that, with admitted exceptions, the reasoning of the side I disagree with is rarely as stupid as news reports make it sound. A lot of cases that get to the Supreme Court really do have plausible arguments on each side (the really obvious cases get decided lower down).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Curious how this affects startups (along with overturning Prop 8), given the large population of gay people in tech. Presumably since you still need to get married in a SSM-supporting state, those states continue to win out. But federal benefits for immigration and incidental travel to non-SSM states would apply?

The biggest tech centers are now all in SSM-supporting states; TX, VA, CO, IL, and NC seem like the most important holdouts.

However, they only struck down the federal part, not the requirement that states recognize each other, so there's still a strong incentive to stay in an SSM-ok state even after marriage in an SSM state.

<comment><USER9> We'll have same-sex marriage in Illinois by next year (we have civil unions now).

Texas has a state constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriage. Virginia has a constitutional amendment banning both same-sex marriage _and civil unions_.

The Illinois constitution, sanely, is silent on the issue; every year we get closer to passing a same-sex marriage law; it's a foregone conclusion.

<comment><USER10> Virginia will probably be the last state to change. They deny any kind of protection for any kind of sexuality, identity, lifestyle or relationship other than a straight biologically-male man and a straight biologically-female woman getting married. If you want equal rights you end up moving to DC or Maryland. They're getting closer to transpeople getting protected status after a spate of individuals beaten nearly to death in public.

<comment><USER2> Well at least their history is consistent. They were also the state that most strongly resisted making interracial marriage legal. (To those who would say that several states had such laws on the books at the time, Virginia was more actively enforcing it than most. That is why it was Virginia that got sued for putting an interracial couple in jail. By, and I can't make this up, a loving couple actually named Loving.)

<comment><USER11> This seems really weird, given that Virginia was extremely important back during the revolution.

<comment><USER10> ...what does the revolution have to do with interracial marriage legislation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Prop 8 goes down as well. [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Indirectly: the court held that ProtectMarriage.com, as a private group intervening in the case, didn't have standing to appeal a ruling striking down a state law, even if it's one that had been adopted through an initiative they had proposed.

The sequence of events was: a federal court struck down a California law (passed via Proposition 8), and California, rather than appealing the decision, said "ok" and accepted the ruling. That leaves no remaining live controversy between the State and the federal court system, so nothing for an appeals court to hear (says today's decision).

The decision was 5-4 but not strictly on ideological lines: 2 conservatives and 3 liberals in the majority, 3 conservatives and 1 liberal dissenting.

<comment><USER3> > The decision was 5-4 but not strictly on ideological lines: 2 conservatives > and 3 liberals in the majority, 3 conservatives and 1 liberal dissenting.

The assumption that the ideology of members of the court is unidimensional is not justified. "Not strictly according to the popularly perceived ideological factions of the court" is probably more supportable than "not strictly on ideological lines".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not strike down DOMA. Section 2 of the Act, which lets states refuse to recognize same-sex marriages established by other states, remains intact.

<comment><USER14> Were they even able to do that, since it wasn't part of the case in front of them?

<comment><USER13> No, that's a good point. SCOTUS evaluated only Section 3 of DOMA. They did not "strike down" the entire Act, as most reporters are suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean Glenn Greenwald can move back to the US now?

<comment><USER16> He's explicitly said he can't live with his partner due to DOMA, so I would expect as much - assuming they live in a state recognizing SSM rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Independent of whether this is a good decision, I thought that the Supreme Court's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more. Doesn't this sort of judicial activism weaken the separation of powers, or is there a legitimate argument to be made that this law violated a constitutional right of gay couples? If there is, it doesn't seem that the court quotes it.

"The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others."

<comment><USER18> _I thought that the Supreme Court 's mandate was to decide whether a law violates the Constitution and little more._

This is... I don't even know where to begin on how fundamentally wrong this is.

The Supreme Court is established by Article III of the Constitution. It's the end of the line for any legal question that falls under the jurisdiction outlined by Article III, which consists of far, far, _far_ more than "whether a law violates the Constitution and little more".

As for this opinion, the Court explains very clearly the Constitutional issue: DOMA violates the Fifth Amendment. DOMA _also_ has federalism issues, and so in theory a Tenth Amendment problem, but that's not actually necessary in order to strike it down.

<comment><USER11> How does the fifth apply? Nobody involved were changed with a crime, nor did they strictly speaking lose any rights, as they could at any time marry a person of the opposite gender (and hetero-sexual people can't marry anybody of the same sex either).

I would have assumed that the 14th amendment would have applied.

<comment><USER18> The Fifth Amendment includes a guarantee that "No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

"Due process of law" is the key here; the government cannot simply say "well, we don't like this person, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that he doesn't get the same rights as other people".

What it actually means will vary depending on what the government is trying to do; in a criminal case, for example, due process includes all the procedures and safeguards to make sure you get a fair trial before you can be thrown in prison.

Of course, DOMA is more or less literally the federal government saying "we don't like these people, so we're just going to decree arbitrarily that they don't get the same rights as other people".

The Fifth Amendment is the relevant one here because the first batch of amendments -- the Bill of Rights -- are traditionally interpreted as only restraining what the federal government can do; they do not, it is generally believed, constrain the states. The Fourteenth Amendment added equal- protection and due-process requirements for the states, so when a state does something that treats people unequally the Fourteenth Amendment is what the resulting lawsuit usually turns on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm elated. There might be some hope for this country, after all.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a really good thing. Not because I want everybody to marry their same gender [1] (each has the right to choose whom adult to love)], but rather because if they can get protection it means that we as a nation are moving in the right direction. It means we are becoming less judgmental and prejudiced for the sake of it. At least I hope so.

[1] Personally though I think two woman having sex is kinky and quite erotic. Two guys, not so much but to each their own. I'm male by the way.

<comment><USER21> I agree with your premise but why the footnote? It adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.

<comment><USER22> The footnote also is disparaging of gay men, since it implies they are not nice.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's preventing you from implementing HTTPS? - <AUTHOR> Despite HTTPS adoption rising, there are still more - major - sites without it. If you're the maintainer of such site, what's holding you back? <comment><USER2> Google's report on top websites using https [https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/top- sites](https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/top-sites)

An argument I hear is that ad networks don't support https well enough. (I don't have websites with ads so I can't tell).</comment>


401(k) Plans No Longer Make Much Sense for Savers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-21/401-k-plans-no-longer-make-much-sense-for-savers <comment><USER2> I think it isn't recognized what a policy failure 401k and IRA plans are. If people had defined benefit pensions they would be a great supplement, but as it is, only a handful of people will get retirement security for them, but we all lose when money that could have gone into small businesses helps Wal*Mart and other publically traded corportations put them out of business.

</comment><comment><USER3> >The capital gains tax rate was 28% in 1980, 0% today

True if you make <$40000</comment>


Show HN: From Data Model to HTML UI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shujutech/StIGMa <comment><AUTHOR> Those giant framework should have done this, create your data model and automatically generate HTML UI for all the CRUD.</comment>


Stroke burden 74% attributable to smoking, poor diet, and low physical activity - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(16)30073-4/abstract <comment><AUTHOR> OP, here. For the mods, I've summarized the findings in the abstract as best as I could. The title is way to general in my opinion. If this counts as clickbait, feel free to delete my submission.</comment>


Cirque du Soleil acquires Blue Man Group - <AUTHOR> https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/press/news/2017/cirque-du-soleil-acquires-blue-man-group.aspx <comment><USER2> I remember standing in line for Maker Faire in San Mateo several years ago. We arrived a half-hour early, so we had plenty of time to chat with the people around us. Turns out the guy in front of us was a Blue Man, and he was there because they were always on the lookout for interesting bits to add to the show.

<comment><USER3> Both BMG and CdS have succeeded for so long due in part to their constant tooling with the latest tech. A couple of years ago CdS released a video called Spark exhibiting their take on drones. [0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C8OJsHfmpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C8OJsHfmpI)

<comment><USER4> CdS showed up at Microsoft Build this year [0] too, to talk about how they planned to use AR/VR to step up their show production. While it looks a bit like a superficial, it still is neat how they are always on the look for new technologies to improve their work.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNz5Rw6TwCw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNz5Rw6TwCw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many, many years ago, I was at a random party where there were some people from Broadway (mostly from behind the scenes people). One small group was impressed that I, a non-theater random, knew what a dramaturg did when I eventually asked what they did. [1]

During the course of our conversation, they told me that the original Blue Men who started the original Blue Man Group had families in Japan and elsewhere who literally mortgaged their own properties (or whatever the equivalent is) to get the original show off the ground.

The genius of Blue Man Group, to me, was always that their branding made the person performing the role irrelevant (outside of standard physical characteristics). Having no speaking roles, they were all Blue Men. They were all part of their same planet.

[1] www.lmda.org/dramaturgy

<comment><USER6> It's an old idea. In the silent film days audiences didn't know the performers real names so that they did not become too independent or powerful. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(filmmaking)#Begin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_\(filmmaking\)#Beginnings)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are the most interesting new developments in this realm? I'm aware of Drip ([https://ilovedrip.com/](https://ilovedrip.com/)) by one of the Blue Man Group people (every audience member might get drenched in paint, the nerves that this show has.. wow :-D), and just interactive and immersive theatre in general. But I haven't heard of any emerging big shows that rival CdS and BMG.

<comment><USER8> I'd say Punch Drunk ([https://www.punchdrunk.com/](https://www.punchdrunk.com/)) is a big (up-and- comer?) production group in that space. In NYC and Shanghai they put on Sleep No More (consists of an entire multi-story old hotel gutted with stage detail work almost at the level of a spec of dust).

Edit: I'll add another 2 production groups heavier on the physical comedy/circus-side: Strut&Fret -- mainly AU-based but tour int'l. [http://www.strutnfret.com](http://www.strutnfret.com), and spiegelworld ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelworld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelworld)) --mainly in NYC and Las Vegas (put on Absinthe).

<comment><USER7> Great links, thanks! I'll have to add street theatre company Royal de Luxe ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_Luxe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_de_Luxe) ). Due to them being essentially free, they will probably never get as rich as the founder of CdS, but their scope and mechanical accomplishments probably leapfrogs any other show. It's really a sight and thought to behold how they transform a city and keep a story moving day and night for 2 or 3 days with 10 meters high giant puppets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ahhh, wonder if this is why Disney hasn't yet said what is replacing La Nouba in Orlando after its last show - they were waiting for the acquisition to clear.

<comment><USER10> I see a lot of synergy for Disney acquiring Cirque. For example:

1) Disney just built PandoraLand... Cirque has a new show based on Avatar: Toruk.

2) Disney is an entertainment megacorp whose weakness seems to be live entertainment... enter Cirque whose strength is exactly that and has global recognition for it.

3) Disney is going to China (Park in Shanghai)... Cirque is building a resident show in HangZhou.

4) Cirque is weak at merchandise and character building... which happen to be two of Disney's superstrengths.

5) Disney doesn't have a presence in Canada, a rather progressive family- oriented country that generates a lot of traffic in at least DisneyWorld... Cirque is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest brand in Canada.

6) The Canadian $ is low, the American $ is high.

7) The two companies already work together on projects and have been doing so for at least 15 years.

8) Cirque already has a show smackdab in the middle of Downtown Disney.

Am I crazy?

<comment><USER11> #5 Uh what?? As a Canadian, I didn't even know Cirque was actually Canadian (nor was it in any top 50 Canadian brands lists I just Googled), so I'm not quite sure if it's the biggest brand in Canada, unless you are strictly speaking the biggest brand that is from Canada, but people don't know is from Canada.

I know it's a huge brand, but man, I've never seen it in a list, or articles or anything, you know, all that crap that comes up in "25 great things you didn't know were Canadian" and what not, or discussions with people. Maybe I'm just out of the loop. The rest of this stuff makes sense.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, a lot of the Canadians outside of Quebec seem to not give any shit about what happens here. The fact that it has a French name should've been a pretty big clue that it's probably from either France or Quebec.

I definitely wouldn't says the top, but I don't think you can name 20 Canadian brands that are known world wide without including it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Push-aw! This is clearly an aqua-hire!

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow! "I'm afraid I just blue myself."

</comment><comment><USER14> why is this here?

<comment><USER15> The obvious answer is that enough people found it interesting, and upvoted it.

If your question is really "I don't get why do HN users find this interesting?", then I'd recommend reading up about Cirque du Soleil. They're a very interesting business, that got started by 2 street performers who are true hackers, even if their medium of predilection is performing arts rather than computers.

In times where many circus businesses are bleeding money and folding due to shifting consumer expectations, Cirque du Soleil has managed to established a solid brand that many people associate with quality shows. They've effectively disrupted the circus industry, moving it away from sad animals and unfunny clowns, and making tons of money in the process.

<comment><USER16> There used to be some kind of urban legend or joke about CdS, where a banker refused to invest in CdS, saying "Who the hell would lend money to a bunch of clowns?". The banker, of course, headdesked very hard and for a very long time afterwards.

<comment><USER17> That's a very funny joke. I wonder if there are any other examples of people missing out on investment opportunities.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti- portfolio](https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti-portfolio) is a classic example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "24 October 2000, The Register, New Intel Adverts Are Cr __"

At the same time as I feel that thirty years of my life just blitted by unmeasurably fast, the above headline from just 17 years ago seems like a true relic of a different era.

And oh how much I'd love to feel like my computer was going to be really fast come my next upgrade. Thank goodness I am just enough older than to have been learning only while everyone and dog knew what Moore's Law was.

<comment><USER20> How does this comment relate to Cirque du Soleil?

<comment><USER21> The Blue Man Group has advertised for Intel

<comment><USER22> Probably because it was seen as having a nerd/hacker appeal.

<comment><USER23> My understanding is that Andy Grove was a big fan which probably played a big role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Netflix acquires story for Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development season 5.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hacker news.

<comment><USER26> "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


(removed) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/flipflopapp/rewq-cli/blob/master/README.md <comment><AUTHOR> Teaser (or for example),

$ rewq standup

... would open a meetup-standup link... or just

$ rewq

... if its around 11-am, would open the standup link.

$ rewq notebook

... would open your notebook or show a list of URLs for all your notebooks.

Add a comment or upvote if you need something like this.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why did you "remove" this?</comment>


City of Chicago Data Portal - <AUTHOR> https://data.cityofchicago.org/browse?limitTo=datasets&utf8=%E2%9C%93

<comment><USER2> This tells an interesting story about good "looking" but not adopted software. At a cursory glance, this looks great! All these datasets online! How wonderful.

But once you start to dig a bit deeper and scratch the surface, just barely, you can see that it's actually a graveyard of an open data era gone by. Many of the datasets here look like this:

[https://data.cityofchicago.org/FOIA/FOIA-Request-Log- Mayor-s...](https://data.cityofchicago.org/FOIA/FOIA-Request-Log-Mayor-s- Office-for-People-with-Di/fazv-a8mb)

Where they were initially placed online, perhaps with an attempt to be more transparent and open to the public, and they haven't been updated since 2012. The political points got scored by the elected officials and appointees, but either the software that the career bureaucrats is too burdensome to use, or the will to be open to the public just isn't there.

After spending 10 years in this field, That's the primary problem with these transparency efforts. They sound great to the public, and great to the politicians, but nobody bothers to sell the _staff of government_ on why it's important. And when they don't want to do something, or when they're not sold on it, it just doesn't get done.

Software designers and "civic hackers" need to grok that to be successful their first customer isn't the public or the politician, it's usually the career civil servant.

<comment><USER3> How is this not a success for the vendor? They got paid.

I do agree with you though that UX is one of governments biggest problems. Imagine the training dollars that could be saved if enterprise software was as intuitive as consumer software, let alone the intangible efficiency gains from things getting done more quickly/effectively.

And not some ham fisted usability standard, the best response I can see is getting user advocates involved early in the process. Get some vendor trials going asap and immediately disqualify anything that isn't even trying in the UX department. Just one more thing for gov project managers to think about sadly which is why it won't happen.

<comment><USER4> I'm designer for OpenGov, we're an a16z-backed startup that's doing precisely this: the usability and simplicity of consumer apps to the world of government finance.

So far, we have a financial transparency product available to cities. Check out Palo Alto's site on OpenGov: [http://paloalto.opengov.com](http://paloalto.opengov.com).

Transparency visualizations for the public are one thing, but one of our ultimate goals is to positively impact the civic financial planning. Keep an eye on OpenGov.

<comment><USER5> Very nice; any plans for a public data api?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I think that's on the road map.

We're growing fast and looking for developers, designers, and data scientists. If you're interested, hit me up: aliebchen at opengov dot com. YOU could help build our public API.

[http://opengov.com/careers](http://opengov.com/careers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is actually an installed solution from Socrata ([http://www.socrata.com/](http://www.socrata.com/)). You can see in their hero element they actually show Chicago as a successful use case. There are many other cities/states that have installations from Socrata and they build good tech to make it relatively easy for this sort of thing to be setup.

Doesn't take away from the original post, but could be interested for anyone who might have some influence in their local government to know this is fairly off-the-shelf.

<comment><USER7> Fwiw, here's a fun little blog post on Socrata's blog, pulling from the crime dataset[1], looking at which crimes happen at which time of day/week/year: [http://www.socrata.com/blog/crime-time-visualizing-crime- dat...](http://www.socrata.com/blog/crime-time-visualizing-crime-data- chicago/) (Disclosure: I wrote the post)

[1] [https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public- Safety/Crimes-2001-to-...](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public- Safety/Crimes-2001-to-present/ijzp-q8t2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the nicer public data portals I've seen.

I'm not surprised to see that salaries are the the most popular data set by far. I was working for a public agency during the first year they made salary information readily available.

There were two main types in the deluge of complaints:

1.) The significant others of people who had been lying about their income.

2.) People dripping with rage that 'uneducated' people (jobs that don't require a degree) were collecting 'outrageous' (lower middle-class) salaries.

<comment><USER9> Look at the sanitation department. These are probably the jobs that require the least education. General laborers seem to start at $40k. Sanitation laborers and truck drivers seem to mostly be in the $60-70k range. Foremen around $75k. Then look at the law department, which is probably the jobs with the most educational requirement. About $60k to start, going up to about $110k for supervisors who aren't top-level managers. Basically, people fortunate enough to be born with the aptitude for higher education get a 50% premium for their efforts. Seems pretty fair, at a high level.

<comment><USER10> >Basically, people fortunate enough to be born with the aptitude for higher education get a 50% premium for their efforts.

That's an odd way to phrase that. There are plenty of people who are born with this aptitude who take different actions in life and plenty who never have the opportunity to use it for reasons other than aptitude.

<comment><USER11> >Basically, people fortunate enough to be born with the aptitude for higher education get a 50% premium for their efforts.

I think a minor edit makes this statement more accurate:

Basically, people who complete higher education get a 50% premium on their efforts in aggregate.

Though as others have noted before, this level of analysis is in and of itself problematic. If top performers for multiple generations have entered the higher education system, it is difficult to separate out the confounded variables of natural ability, drive, and the "higher education premium" (so to speak).

How do we necessarily know that college graduates are earning more due to their education, and not because the population of the most driven and/or most able individuals happens to go to college? It's a difficult problem.

The only real viable suggestion I've heard is to compare earnings of individuals with similar pre-college academic performance who attended college to those who didn't. Most likely, these individuals would have to be on the threshold of collegiate entrance (by SAT, GPA, etc.), so perhaps even this analysis would not properly assess the benefit of college to high performing students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What would be really nice would be if Chicago could find a way to federate this portal with the suburbs.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is pretty interesting stuff, esp since I live in Chicago. There could be lots of neat data apps created from all this data.

One thing I found interesting is the data in "Current Employee Names, Salaries, and Position Titles." The mayor is actually the 2nd highest paid employee (surprised me) at $216,210. The highest paid is the superintendent of police, making $260,004. Pretty neat data sets, thanks for sharing the link!

<comment><USER7> Here's a smattering of example apps built off this kind of data (e.g., data in Socrata-powered open data portals like this one): [http://www.socrata.com/civic-apps/](http://www.socrata.com/civic-apps/)

(Disclosure?: I'm friendly with the Socrata folks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most major cities have public data portals like this, including San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, Austin, Oakland, and so on. Some are more useful than others, I think. (For instance, Oakland is mostly crime-related reports... surprise?)

San Francisco has some great ones that could be used to make new startups... things like street cleaning schedules, maps of every building in the city, the location of every parking space, and so on. You could easily build a niche app to, for example, remind you to move your car when street cleaning is coming by. Or maybe an app to inform you of local graffiti reports so you can be a good Samaritan and clean it up.

It's really great stuff. I love public data sets like this... and I'm actually using Chicago's (and several other cities) in my own work at my day job, so it's nice to see this get some recognition!

<comment><USER15> The City of Chicago's open data portal is very neat!

I've actually created an app called Car Pal which helps you avoid parking tickets by reminding you when to move you car based on where you park & street cleaning schedules.

Check it out here [https://www.carpalapp.com](https://www.carpalapp.com)

Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slashg.car...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slashg.carpal)

<comment><USER14> The open data portal is actually open source... many of the larger cities in the US are using it.. but yes, it's great!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The dataset I used was completely wrong, and it cost me!

The schedule of when the city is supposed to clean the streets was ignored. My car was ticketed because the city decided to sweep one day early. * * *k chicago.

</comment><comment><USER17> > &utf8=✓

Ok, that got me to smile.

<comment><USER18> I've seen that around other websites as well. If I remember correctly, it's to force IE to post data using UTF-8 encoding.

<comment><USER19> A snowman is also used to achieve this.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13797389/utf8-post- parame...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13797389/utf8-post-parameter-on- gmail-login-contains-a-snowman-character)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [https://data.sfgov.org/browse?limitTo=datasets](https://data.sfgov.org/browse?limitTo=datasets) [https://data.cityofnewyork.us/data](https://data.cityofnewyork.us/data) [https://data.lacity.org/data](https://data.lacity.org/data) [http://www.civicdata.com/en/dataset](http://www.civicdata.com/en/dataset)

</comment><comment><USER21> I like how you can suggest datasets: [https://data.cityofchicago.org/nominate](https://data.cityofchicago.org/nominate)

The link was at the bottom. Maybe if it was more prominent and closer to the top it would give users the impression that they have a stronger role in this.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm actually working on an app that pulls data from here and compares all of the aldermen in the city. Most people living in the city have no idea what their alderman is doing for them. I want to give people the ability to compare theirs to someone else's, at the minimum.

</comment><comment><USER23> Cincinnati, while maybe behind, is pushing forward with theirs with a partnership with a non-profit. [http://opendatacincy.org](http://opendatacincy.org)

</comment><comment><USER24> ctOS v0.1</comment>


Ask HN: Why PDF generation is so hard? - <AUTHOR> I was working w/ PDF generation in the past, but once I finished that task I wiped everything from memory, bad experience, hacks etc. Back then I thought, hah it's .Net such a crappy environment and tools are not great for this kind of tasks.
But, now I work w/ Python and surprisingly I have even worse experience. Finally got weasprint package but it's already impossible to make it work in AWS Lambda because of environment differences (I use mac to develop), I do not really understand why that library has tons of reference libs, such as cairo, cffi or that or that. Is PDF generation such a complex tasks, or generation in backend, or ... <comment><USER2> You can run this node project in an Azure function can convert HTML to PDF. Easy peasy - [https://github.com/marcbachmann/node-html- pdf](https://github.com/marcbachmann/node-html-pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> What about AWS Lambda?</comment></comment>


Charter Suffers Worst Selloff in Nine Years After Shedding Subscribers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-27/charter-suffers-worst-rout-in-nine-years-as-it-sheds-subscribers <comment><USER2> Good. They bought my isp and jacked up my prices (and did this to countless others as well of course).

Who would have thought that it could get worse than Time Warner.

I'm glad to see that CEO Rutledge's idea of playing hardball with customers and not allowing them to extend or take advantage of promotional offers is not paying off.

I paid $60 a month with tw and would call in every year and extend that offer by explaining that I would consider going with the DSL provider. Annoying, but better than the standard $90 a month.

Rutledge came in and killed that saying that those customers are undesirable. [http://stopthecap.com/2017/05/24/get-better-deal- charterspec...](http://stopthecap.com/2017/05/24/get-better-deal- charterspectrum-2017/)

Sure, if you are selling a low margin product and not making money on those long time customers that makes sense. But data has almost zero marginal cost once you've got the pipe hooked up and the autodraft payments flowing.

Their refusal to not offer to extend to me, a long time customer, the same offer they are giving to all their new customers caused me to cancel with them and switch to a slower DSL connection, just out of spite.

I suspect by these numbers that I am not alone. And they don't appear to bear out the idea that they would make more money by gouging a smaller set of willing customers either.

</comment><comment><USER3> A stagnating industry stagnates even further by acquiring time warner and another cable company. They have a far inferior product and their services are some of the most out of date and customer service is rage inducing for their customers. They can't compete in spite of having more money and a longer track record in the field.

<comment><USER4> They can't compete because that would require a _competitor_</comment></comment>


Why Learn About Operating Systems? - <AUTHOR>

As a CS student, we're all subject to the rigorous, mindf<i></i>* of a course called operating systems. I most likely won't be creating an operating system in the future, so why do all CS students have to learn about OS? <comment><USER2> The point of the OS class isn't to teach you how to CREATE an OS from scratch, but to teach you how an OS WORKS. I've interacted with a lot of CS students, and it boggles the mind how ignorant they are in using a computer. To fully understand how your program works, you should have a general understanding of what's going on behind the scenes. It definitively makes you a better coder. If you understand that a file-system, memory, cpu etc...aren't just black boxes that "just work", you can code around their bottlenecks.

My OS class was one of the most rewarding classes during my undergrad years. Don't think of it as a hurdle. Embrace it.

<comment><USER3> Back in the early 90's, a neighbor was finishing his Master's in CS. We were having a discussion and I mentioned _Dr. Dobbs._ He'd never heard of it (though in fairness he did give me a floppy with Mosiac and Winsock).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same reson why we want to know why quantum teleportation works.

Knowing how is really only half of the knowlage your going to need. In most cases you will never need to go deeper than the userspace level, but in thoes rare instances you do that understanding is invaluable.

Also dont write off not wanting to write os in the future, its one of the most rewarding pet projects i have ever worked on.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because OS will give you a better feel for how threading works, for how file systems work. Just because you (probably) wont be working on OS source code, doesn't mean the behind the scenes knowledge wont be beneficial because you will be getting a better grasp of Computer Science as a whole. I have friends who work on Android apps, and often times they have to dig into the Android source code to see what the hell is going on. The more sense you can make out of the code, the easier it will be to find what you are looking for.

Also, it is considered a weeding out course in many schools. It separates those who are willing to dig deeper into the world of CS and those who will either quit the major or become a desk drone.

Signed, Your CS112 TA

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks...I remember you mentioned some of this to me. My one thought was that there are some pretty cool applications courses in our department (distributed system design/AI). Out of the upper division classes, OS grabs my attention/interest less than others. But I was wrong to assume that learning about operating systems didn't have applications to what I want to do in the future with CS. The answers here cleared it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got the co-op job that I'm doing in January after the interviewer quizzed me on interrupts for 20 minutes. I was like you when we were studying interrupts wondering why I need to know about such low level abstraction but lo and behold it ended up getting me the job. I had a friend who used concepts from the Automata Theory course (arguably the most esoteric and least practical course in the Comp Sci curriculum) on his internship. You never ever know what you're going to end up using in industry esp as an undergrad, therefore having breadth in your CS knowledge is important.

</comment><comment><USER7> Because sometimes when you're programming you can rely on your language or framework to abstract away the details of the hardware and operating system. This allows you to solve easy problems that language/framework designers have anticipated.

Other times, you'll be faced with hard problems that require you to roll up your sleeves and mess with the stuff under the hood. Before you can do this, you need to understand what operating systems do and how they work. If you can write this kind of code, there will be far more problems that you can solve.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've taught the labs for my university's Intro OS and Advanced OS courses, and I've heard this question many times. Here's the short answer: everything you do will eventually interact with the abstractions that your OS provides you; sometimes (often?), that abstraction leaks out implementation details. When you're confronted with an otherwise confusing problem (e.g. Why do I get shit performance when I read one byte at a time from disk?), understanding what the operating system is doing is going to be the quick way to figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Checkout this awesome post on Facebook's Engineering blog: 'The Full Stack' <https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=461505383919>

I'm in ECE and I'm taking OS right now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice troll.

In the unlikely event you're actually asking in earnest, it's the same reason electrical engineers learn about electrons, or chemists learn about orbital shells, or authors learn about Shakespeare, or linguists learn about Latin, or biologists learn about Mendelian genetics, or physicists learn about Newton, or military generals learn about Thermopylae.

<comment><USER11> In addition, while you may not ever make an OS, you will most definitely make things that have to interact with an OS. Understanding the world your application lives in and some of the constraints the designers of that OS faced will make it easier to troubleshoot interaction problems that occur outside of the borders of your application.

I'm more impressed that OS is considered an exceedingly difficult part of a curriculum somewhere. I found it a relatively straightforward course, and do not recall anyone else complaining about it. Most of the difficulty in the curriculum seemed to center around Theory of Computation and our programming language concepts course that was in scheme, a lot of people have a really difficult time with continuation passing and understanding call/cc after all OO languages.</comment></comment>


Ask YC:  Why doesn't Google use better technology to build its services (e.g., Flash)? - <AUTHOR>

Almost everyone has Flash installed after all.<p>I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight. <comment><USER2> Why doesn't Google use better technology to build its services (e.g., Flash)?

What better technology? Guess who popularized AJAX?

Flash sucks. There's no real support for linux from adobe, it makes the browser heavier, it's a closed proprietary technology and it's awful for things that are not animation related.

<comment><USER3> Actually Flash is open source now. You can even make your own player: <http://www.adobe.com/openscreenproject/>

<comment><USER4> But making your own player doesn't give you any say over the future of Flash, so if you do that you're getting on a treadmill controlled by Adobe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google revolves around information accessibility, using Flash for anything besides the presentation of graphics is a big step back in that area.

Youtube may make good use of Flash, but even they limit it to areas of absolute necessity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why can't Flash be improved to make information accessible?

<comment><USER6> _".... Why can't Flash be improved to make information accessible? ..."_

Probably for the same reason the tech that google does use can. Openness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For my own selfish reasons, I'm pleased that Google doesn't use Flash for applications. Using XHTML/CSS/JS/etc. is great because other developers can inspect it, understand it, and go from there.

For practical purposes, I suspect Flash may be a pain in the ass to use on their scale. Debug, version control, localization, analytics, and more probably wouldn't play well with the rest of their platform and processes.

Also, Flash isn't supported on many wireless devices including the high- profile iPhone.

Future releases of HTML and JavsScript will handle some of what Flash does today. Perhaps it's just not necessary.

</comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't anyone remember, back in the day, when HTML was "just fine" and javascript was 'clunky', 'unusable', and had a multitude of accessability issues. Cross-browser javascript problems, anyone? Now, of course flash also has its issues, but believe it or not, they are, much, much fewer and smaller than javascript/ajax had when it first started out, and even, dare i say, now.

The accessability issues, associated with flash are usually (as always) because the developer didn't know how to fix them, or didn't care to. There simply hasn't been a "killer app" like gmail, to show all the world that it could do thing much better than is generally asumed.

For example did you know that you can make a flash site change it's url as you navigate through it, enabling you to link/bookmark a specific section or a page of it (also allowing you yo use back/forward buttons)? The accessability issues have also long been solved, giving 'no-flash' users a striped down, yet fully functional/accesible site (as is the idea of javascript behaviours, if I recall correctly). (Take a look at this site <http://www.rizn.bg> for example of the two above - I know it's not english but the important thing is the concept)

And flash in itself has much more potential than javascript/ajax. 3D animations, build-in optimised compression algorithms, easier server integration, _video/audio streaming_ , webcamera support, better file upload, etc, and it's all build in, on a single platform, with a quite nice and consistent api on top of it. Actionscript (the flash language) is a quite nice blend of java and javascript, minus the java bloat, complete with classes, inheritence, true C-like data types (insane performance), clusures. And it's all a lot more cross-browser friendly, than any other competing tehnology.

Now, i'm not suggesting we all jump in, because it does have issues still (font rendering, os integration and of caurse performance, to name a few) but there are quite a few places where it is a very good alternative. Just because most of the flash we come in contact with are useless splash screens and tacky animations, it doesn't mean that it can't do better. It's a hugely undervalued platform in my opinion, and we kinda have to 'wake up' and talk about its benefits instead of "it'll never work, its better to stick to what you know".

As for the original question - maybe because when it started out, flalsh was not good enough (pre flash 9 time), and by now they already have an infrastructure in place. Maybe if they create something radically new, they'll try to adopt flash, otherwise they'll stick with what works for them now.

</comment><comment><USER9> > I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to > Flash/Silverlight.

Microsoft has big problems getting Silverlight off the ground, although it is imo technically superior to Flash. I don't think it would be easier for Google to launch a competing platform. I personally think that they will bet on HTML5 through their partnership with Mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER10> Google uses Flash for their charts in analytics and finance.

</comment><comment><USER11> because flash sucks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you elaborate?

Maybe it's not convenient for developers, but the result is better for users than an ad hoc mix of old web technologies that is seriously lacking in features and plagued with compatibility problems.

<comment><USER12> From the Google Webmaster Central Blog: "Try to use Flash only where it is needed... this makes you[r] site accessible to a larger audience, including, for example, blind people using screen readers, users of old or non-standard browsers, and those on limited low-bandwidth connections such as on a cell phone or PDA."

[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best- uses...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/best-uses-of- flash.html)

I can think of a few good examples of web sites which use Flash effectively, e.g. the BBC 'Get Cooking' site:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/get_cooking/>

However, Flash normally seems to be used for displaying pointless, obnoxious splash screens which add no value for the user.

<comment><USER13> > _I can think of a few good examples of web sites which use Flash > effectively_

Youtube!

<comment><AUTHOR> But why not use Flash for the entire site rather than just the video player?

<comment><USER14> Because when you display all that extra site stuff with flash you take away tons of simple but important functionality.

         copy/paste

         save as...

         view image

         copy image location

         Bookmark this

         Open in new tab

etc. you get the idea.

<comment><USER15> 1) Copy-past works just fine, at least with flex 3 text or textarea controls 2) Saving the swf is easy, and you can view it any time 3) Images are usually embedded, and you can get them with a resource viewer 4) Copy image location - this is not necessary, as images are usually embedded 5) flash supports url fragments for navigate (path after #), so as long as the flash site uses fragments, it is bookmarkable 6) open in new tab works

I'm curious where you got this misinformation, anyway.

<comment><USER16> The difference is that for flash websites, the developer has to actively be 'nice' to allow these things (default=not accessible), whereas with html+css+javascript, the developer has to actively be obnoxious to NOT allow these things (default=accessible).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> * It's slow * It's proprietory * It's not supported on several platforms (iPhone, wii, etc etc)

Javascript works just fine thanks. With HTML5 and the video capabilities flash/silverlight will become even less relevant IMHO

</comment><comment><USER18> Why would an indexing company promote non indexable content?

<comment><USER19> That's a big part of the answer. Flash is not indexable, and is one of the biggest problems that Flash has.

Flash has its uses, and Google does use Flash where it makes sense, e.g. the charts on Google Analytics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned what I would expect would be one of the biggest reasons: bandwidth. Considering the number of people hitting the various Google services at any given moment, adding Flash, and/or pretty images or extra CSS or fancy-pants JavaScript could induce a pretty big additional cost, and for no justifiable reason.

<comment><USER4> Why would compressed bytecode (Flash) be larger than source code (JavaScript)? AMF is also generally smaller than JSON or XML.

<comment><USER20> | Why would compressed bytecode (Flash) be larger than source code (JavaScript)?

I read the original question as asking why Google didn't add Flash onto its interface. I suppose it might be possible to replace their current JavaScript functions with Flash bytecode, but given the lengths they go to already to compress their JavaScript, I'd be surprised if the benefits there would be worth the trouble, not to mention any possible costs they might end up with due to migrating to Flash. (Browser support, version changes...?)

| AMF is also generally smaller than JSON or XML.

I kinda recalled Gmail (for instance) not using XML, but I dumped a session through Firebug to make sure. They're using their own (very simple) data format, and I doubt that AMF, or SOAP, or anything else could beat it, short of using actual data compression on both server and client side (and, again, probably not worth it).

Crawling through the Gmail code and data only reinforces my guess that their services are designed with low bandwidth usage among their top priorities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >I wouldn't be surprised if Google is working on its own competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

<http://gears.google.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not a competitor to Flash/Silverlight.

<comment><USER21> It's the only thing they have in the online/offline integration space. If not a direct competitor, it still has relevance. Google doesn't use Flex or Silverlight because they can reproduce complex interfaces in just javascript and it's usable offline with Google Gears.

If Google wanted to compete with Flex/Silverlight, they could release a GUI widget toolkit for javascript and combined with Google Gears they would have a contender.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> To what end?

</comment><comment><USER23> flash is shit. next?

</comment><comment><USER24> Iam not a flash fan. But off late it has amazed me with the functionality and features that can built so fast. If u have flash IDE, man building web sites are lot faster and easier. Iam sure it has is own drawbacks. I don't agree with folks that say flash is not available in all browsers. Flash penetration is around 80-90 % of global market. Wake up guys.

Cheers, omfut

<comment><USER25> links, screen readers, mobile, and sometimes see gap between flash 7 and 9 on linux not the current version.</comment></comment>


Why We Took Cocaine Out of Soda - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-took-cocaine-out-of-soda/272694/ <comment><USER2> Racism is behind many bans. I think that the goal is not so much to harm the minority group as it is a form a status signalling: showing that "we" disapprove of what "they" do.

Cocaine was banned in the US because of its use by blacks.

Marijuana was banned because of its use by hispanics.

The first gun bans were in the post Civil War south, where armed black citizens stood up to the KKK riders (the phrase "Saturday Night Special" is a contraction of "Niggertown Saturday Night Special" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_special#Origin_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_night_special#Origin_of_the_term)).

Tangentially, I strongly recommend the book _Albion's Seed_, which traces American culture to four different subcultures prominent in England in the 1500s - quite enlightening.

<comment><USER3> Relatedly, the KKK supported women's right to vote, but they did so mostly because the women were more likely to vote for prohibition, and prohibition gave them a chance to put the Catholic-Irish immigrants on the wrong side of the law.

<comment><USER4> Yup. Very few progressive measures are passed for reasons that we'd recognize as progressive today. I'm going to highlight a book that I haven't read:

[http://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Counter-History-Domenico- Lo...](http://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Counter-History-Domenico- Losurdo/dp/1844676935)

<comment><USER5> I'd say that the Progressive movement of the early 20th century and the Progressive movement of the early 21st really aren't any more similar than you'd expect any two randomly selected political groups to be.

<comment><USER4> I didn't capitalize "progressive" very intentionally. And further, I am not talking about merely the 20th century, but also the 19th, the 18th, and the 17th.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stepan Company actually sells the cocaine to a pharmaceutical company, for use in medicine.

"The plant is the only commercial entity in the USA authorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to import coca leaves, which come primarily from Peru. Approximately 100 metric tons of dried coca leaf are imported each year. The cocaine-free leaves are sold to The Coca Cola Company, while the cocaine is sold to Mallinckrodt, a pharmaceutical firm, for medicinal purposes." -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Company>

<comment><USER7> > _for use in medicine._

Ear-nose-throat guys still use it for contact anesthetic. I had a light shoved up my nose and then back into the throat while they examined the result of a punch to the throat. (Martial arts FTW.) I sat there amazed that I didn't really give a damn with a giant flextube ramming into my face.

<comment><USER8> I got some fryer grease splashed in my face many years ago. The pain in my left eye was intense. The doctor at the emergency room gave me a couple drops from an eye-dropper which immediately removed the pain, and I have to say, put me in a fairly chatty mood. I asked him what it was and he said "Liquid cocaine, my friend."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting article, but the comment about "dutch courage":

"Yes, even the Dutch were not spared from the racism."

isn't really correct. Dutch courage has been an expression for alcohol-induced courage for centuries. Even in the early 20th century it wasn't making a comment on the Dutch, just using a common expression. Is that expression still common in the US? It certainly is in the UK.

Rather nitpicky though...

<comment><USER10> > "racism" ... isn't really correct. Dutch courage has been an expression for > alcohol-induced courage for centuries.

Right, it is centuries-old racism.

Only 3 centuries though. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Dutch_Wars>

<comment><USER9> But in the context, it wasn't actually racist. It is not racist to suggest that cocaine usage makes an individual more courageous, and given that the accepted (and still accepted) saying for inebriation-related courage is Dutch courage, it wasn't racist to say that cocaine gave shy individuals dutch courage. Perhaps the expression has its origins in racism, but centuries later and without that original context, I'd argue that its no longer a racist expression.

It was of course racist for Dr Ed to suggest that somehow the issue was only with black people, but that's unrelated to the use of the expression dutch courage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Of course racism was prevalent at the time, but does that discredit all arguments against putting cocaine in soda? Can we say that the social ill- effects are completely imaginary just because at the time concern was focused on blacks? The article seems to be suggesting this, but stops short of saying "let's start drinking cocaine again". Is the journalist ultimately unconvinced by his own arguments?

<comment><USER12> "all arguments against putting cocaine in soda"

What other arguments have been given? Alcohol is the only major drug to have been re-legalized after being banned in America.

"Can we say that the social ill-effects are completely imaginary"

What social ill-effects can you cite in the case of cocaine-infused soda?

"The article seems to be suggesting this, but stops short of saying "let's start drinking cocaine again". Is the journalist ultimately unconvinced by his own arguments?"

It is politically incorrect to argue against the war on drugs, regardless of the damage it has caused to society (much greater than any damage the drugs themselves cause). We are trained from an early age to assume that drugs are _bad_ , and to assume without question that drugs should be _illegal_ (naturally, "medicine" is in a different category). It makes no difference whether or not the war on drugs has been productive, effective at solving any constructive goal, or in any way beneficial when everyone is fed DARE-style propaganda from age 5.

The reality is that in today's world, we should be more afraid of the DEA than of the drugs they "regulate," since their form of "regulation" involves assault rifles, grenades, and tanks (yes, really, surplus military vehicles including tanks and helicopters are routinely transferred to law enforcement agencies). The DEA, like the FBI, has amassed so much signals intelligence power that they are considered to be part of the US intelligence community. The DEA can and does recycle the proceeds from seized property into its own budget -- a practice that was authorized in the 1980s. The DEA can _declare_ drugs to be illegal, without congressional action, for a year -- and prosecute people for possessing or distributing those drugs. The DEA can override congressional recommendations on drug regulation, as they infamously did with MDMA (ecstasy).

Meanwhile, with only two major exceptions, we are getting no tax revenue from recreational drug sales, there is no regulation on the purity or safety of recreational drugs, doctors have no idea what drugs their patients actually ingested, there is no age limit that drug merchants respect (high schoolers can buy cocaine just as easily as working adults), and criminals have access to a massive, steady, and enormous market. There is no time that would be "too soon" to end the war on drugs, develop useful regulations on recreational drugs, and restore our democracy.

<comment><USER13> > What social ill-effects can you cite in the case of cocaine-infused soda?

What social ill effects can you cite for not distributing bath salts with every hot meal lunch to grade schoolers? I don't believe that specific combination has been done recently (or ever) so we have no evidence it's bad. Let's do it! </sarcasm>

Constructively speaking, perhaps we should do the research first, and put cocaine in soda after.

<comment><USER12> Well, the closest thing to a data point that we have are the people in South America who regularly drink coca tea. To the best of my knowledge, they have no social problems that are worse than societies where people regularly drink coffee.

The entire point of the article was that we _did_ put cocaine in soda at one time, and that did not stop because of the social problems that ensued. Just like the people of Andes have not stopped drinking their coca tea because of some hypothetical social problems it causes. A coca-infused soft drink need not have enough cocaine to cause any sort of "high," any more than a caffeine- infused software drink has enough caffeine to cause a high or a therapeutic amphetamine dose has enough amphetamine to cause a high.

Don't let US government propaganda sway you when it comes to drugs. Cocaine is not the cause of social problems, not in the United States and not in countries where it is widely used. Cocaine _prohibition_ causes more social problems than the drug itself (not that the DEA or ONDCP people would ever admit it).

<comment><USER14> Here, here!

<comment><USER15> It's _hear, hear_ from rowdy parliamentary question times & debates. "Hear, hear" as in "listen to what they are saying, you lot" :-)

<comment><USER16> And the phrase commonly to thought to be "hear ye, hear ye, hear ye" is actually "Oyez, oyez, oyez": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyez>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Racism is behind gun bans too -- "take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black people. The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late."

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the- secr...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret- history-of-guns/308608/)

<comment><USER18> American gun politics underwent a weird switcheroo at some point between the 1970's and 1990's. You'd think that as a constitutionally guaranteed civil right, owning guns would be a civil liberties issue championed by the left, but for some reason it isn't today. Yet as you point out, it used to be the far-left Black Panthers who championed the right to keep and bear arms the most, and for exactly the same radical reasons that libertarian gun nuts today talk about.

I love the link you posted. This is my favorite part--no doubt it required immense courage then, but it would be absolutely insane today to do what Huey Newton did:

\---

In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. "I don't have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address," he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.

"Who in the hell do you think you are?" an officer responded.

"Who in the hell do you think _you_ are?," Newton replied indignantly. He told the officer that he and his friends had a legal right to have their firearms.

Newton got out of the car, still holding his rifle.

"What are you going to do with that gun?" asked one of the stunned policemen.

"What are you going to do with _your_ gun?," Newton replied.

By this time, the scene had drawn a crowd of onlookers. An officer told the bystanders to move on, but Newton shouted at them to stay. California law, he yelled, gave civilians a right to observe a police officer making an arrest, so long as they didn't interfere. Newton played it up for the crowd. In a loud voice, he told the police officers, "If you try to shoot at me or if you try to take this gun, I'm going to shoot back at you, swine." Although normally a black man with Newton's attitude would quickly find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, enough people had gathered on the street to discourage the officers from doing anything rash. Because they hadn't committed any crime, the Panthers were allowed to go on their way.

The people who'd witnessed the scene were dumbstruck. Not even Bobby Seale could believe it. Right then, he said, he knew that Newton was the "baddest motherfucker in the world." Newton's message was clear: "The gun is where it's at and about and in." After the February incident, the Panthers began a regular practice of policing the police. Thanks to an army of new recruits inspired to join up when they heard about Newton's bravado, groups of armed Panthers would drive around following police cars. When the police stopped a black person, the Panthers would stand off to the side and shout out legal advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "In 2003, Stepan imported 175,000 kilograms of coca for Coca-Cola. That's enough to make more than $200 million worth of cocaine."

Coca-cola allegedly sells 350 million Cokes a day in North America. They've managed to make more off coca than they would if they sold straight cocaine (um, a lot more). Now that's just good business.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow, I'd heard before that the "Coca" in Coca-Cola used to be cocaine, but I dismissed it as an urban legend, not even worthy of a google search. This is so worth being wrong.

<comment><USER21> You'll have an aneurysm when you read about how heroin used to be sold in pharmacies. The drug war is a very recent phenomenon with a lot of dirty politics driving it.

<comment><USER20> That's crazy! Maybe the most ridiculous drug-related story of all has to be the Opium Wars the British fought in China so they could continue to sell opium to the Chinese masses. True story. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War>

(Ever see the portrayal of Marijuana's illegalization at the beginning of Pineapple Express?)

<comment><USER22> Not as crazy as the drama currently unfolding in Afghanistan with the opium trade (spoiler: the US has an incentive to condone growth of opiates, since it reduces local economic dependence on terrorist forces like the Taliban).

It's almost fun to watch a government battling two bogeymen against each other, like a child playing with toy action figures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I never realised racism was behind it, I thought it was just regulated out. Although, based off the time frame it doesn't come as too much of a surprise.

I've actually heard some interesting arguments about bringing cocaine back in sodas as a legal way to do it, but whilst the physiological addiction of cocaine is low, the mental addiction is high. You see enough coders twitching for a Red Bull fix, so who knows what we'd be like with the good stuff.

<comment><USER12> Racism has permeated the war on drugs since its inception: cocaine turned black men into monsters, heroin was made illegal to punish Germans and Filipinos (I still scratch my head about that one), marijuana was said to fuel black Jazz and drive white women into the beds of black men, etc. Even today there is racism evident in the drug war: black men are arrested on drug offenses at a rate of 1-in-4 in some communities (yes, a quarter of the men in some American black communities are incarcerated or have been incarcerated).

"You see enough coders twitching for a Red Bull fix, so who knows what we'd be like with the good stuff."

Twitching is hardly the issue; I would be more concerned about psychosis, which can happen with any stimulant. There are stories of coders who use too much caffeine and wind up in a psych ward. Low, therapeutic doses of stimulants can potentially help people get through difficult mental tasks; continued uses of high doses is risky to physical and mental health. Cocaine is not some kind of exceptional drug in that regard -- you see that pattern with amphetamines, caffeine, cathinones, etc.

<comment><USER23> True enough, the problem is too much of a good thing is always risky, although the long term over use of caffeine seems to have as many health risks as cocaine. The biggest downside is cocaines current production cycle involves people who work for little money to avoid being killed in the fields.

As long as cocaine is sensibly used I don't see the big problem with it, it's just encouraging people to use it sensibly.

<comment><USER24> >cocaines current production cycle involves people who work for little money to avoid being killed in the fields.

Legalization of coca agriculture in Bolivia has significantly reduced this. Part of Evo Morales' nationalist/socialist platform is the renormalization of coca production and consumption. So individual coca farmers now grow their product in the open, without fear of persecution from the police. This means they don't rely on the cartels bribing police for their protection.

Life in Bolivia isn't exactly peachy for most of its people, but it's certainly better for its coca farmers than it used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Jews were also the targets of racism around cocaine; I believe it was the NY Times that said every "jew peddler in the South" sold it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know what the actual physiological effects of cocaine delivered in a syrupy soda are? I have to guess it was very small amounts to begin with, and maybe not all that bioavailable orally to begin with.

Whenever there are these stories about cocaine in original Coca Cola, I'm curious about how much the trace cocaine actually did in the original version of the soda.

<comment><USER22> Cocaine can indeed be ingested with some notable effects - in parts of South America, they drink coca tea with effects similar to caffeinated tea. In fact, there's evidence to suggest that cocaine is safer as as stimulant than caffeine is - the main difference as we perceive it is the means of ingestion (we're used to thinking of caffeine as something you drink - very few people snort caffeine pills, which is _very_ dangerous).

Also, chewing on cocaine leaves is used as a symptomatic treatment for altitude sickness in South America.

As for the actual bioavailability, take a look at this Bluelight thread: [http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/394593-Bioavailability- of...](http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/394593-Bioavailability-of-oral- cocaine)

<comment> guard-of-terra Which is kind of fun because I never noticed any effects from drinking caffeine beverages. So I just drink them for taste. Would that mean I'll not notice cocaine either?

<comment><USER22> > Would that mean I'll not notice cocaine either?

Not necessarily, because the two drugs are metabolized through completely different channels and, other than the fact that both are stimulants, have very different effects (ie, the mechanisms by which they take their effect is very different).

You may just have an abnormally high tolerance to caffeine, but there's no reason to suspect that that would carry over to cocaine, as cocaine targets both the D1 and D2 receptors, and caffeine provides cross-tolerance only to drugs which target one XOR (exclusive or) the other[0].

[0] <http://examine.com/supplements/Caffeine/#summary14-3>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article seems to have some factual inconsistencies. He cites the NY Times saying anti-cocaine legislation had started to appear in 1903, "By 1903, [then-manager of Coca-Cola Asa Griggs] Candler had bowed to white fears (and a wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar and caffeine."

Then in the next sentence he says cocaine wasn't illegal until 1914, "Hale's account of the role of racism and social injustice in Coca-Cola's removal of coca is corroborated by the attitudes that the shaped subsequent U.S. cocaine regulation movement. Cocaine wasn't even illegal until 1914 -- 11 years after Coca-Cola's change"

Maybe the federal legislation was 1914, but as the NY TImes states, local and state legislation predates that. For example, California banned non- prescription sales of cocaine 1907. It is a bit slimy on the author's part to conflate the racism of the anti-cocaine movement with Coke's removal of cocaine without some substantiation.

<comment><USER4> > It is a bit slimy on the author's part to conflate the racism of the anti- > cocaine movement with Coke's removal of cocaine without some substantiation.

Not really. It's a plausible claim and roughly the best that can be done without actual documents or a time traveling mind reader.

<comment><USER26> The gap between plausible claim, and substantiated claim used to be the realm journalism. Especially if you are going to start tagging people as racist, you should be able back it up. Plausible claims are ok for rumors about the next iPhone, but not cool for attacking reputations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _They refer to the coca leaf extract simply as "Merchandise No. 5."_

Awesome; did a quick check to see whether there was any connection to the perfume Chanel N°5, alas there was none.

</comment><comment><USER28> Would it be considered anal to note that the Dutch aren't a race, therefore "Dutch courage" can't be a racist term? Nationalist maybe, but not racist.

<comment><USER29> So how exactly do you define "race"?

<comment><USER28> From Merriam-Webster Race: "a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits." Nationality: "a people having a common origin, tradition, and language and capable of forming or actually constituting a nation-state." Dutch: "of or relating to the Netherlands or its inhabitants."

<comment><USER29> That may be the dictionary definition, but my point was that 'race' is mostly a social construct. Go back a couple of centuries and it was normal for (Europeans) to talk about the 'Irish' race, the 'Spanish' race, the 'German' race and even the 'Dutch' race.

<comment><USER28> Yes, but that is not what people mean when they say 'race' today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can't speak for the original Coca-Cola, but coca is not cocaine. Drank a whole bunch of coca tea in Peru to cope with the altitude sickness.

<comment><USER12> Hate to break it to you, but the tea you drank in Peru was infused with cocaine. Not terribly much cocaine -- a coca leaf doesn't have a high concentration of the drug -- but cocaine nonetheless. Cocaine has been used in South America for centuries; it was not until the 19th century that anyone realized you could concentrate and extract the drug, and use a hypodermic needle to get a rapid and extreme effect (this is how Freud used cocaine, as well as the character Sherlock Holmes).

<comment><USER31> A cup of coca tea contains about 1/5th of a line of cocaine, apparently: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_tea>

EDIT: This drink sounds kind of interesting.. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Colla>

<comment><USER32> But since drinking tea is considerably less efficient at getting the cocaine into your system, you'd really struggle to replicate a cocaine high from drinking Mate de Coca. It's more like drinking weak tea.

Good answer here: [http://www.quora.com/Tea/Is-coca-tea- addictive/answer/David-...](http://www.quora.com/Tea/Is-coca-tea- addictive/answer/David-Gorczyca)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yes Coca-Cola used to have cocaine in it. Everybody learns that in middle school. Why is this on HN? Honestly. This would be a bad repost on reddit. Disappointed to see it so highly upvoted here.

<comment><USER34> It is an article in the Atlantic, which uses Reddit reposts as it's primary source of research and was banned from Reddit for spamming. HN upvoters haven't noticed that Atlantic jumped the shark and has been coasting on its brand name for a couple of years now.

<comment><USER28> The Atlantic has definitely jumped the shark. It used to be one of my favorite magazines.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: 50% discount on uservoice with code "startup101"  - <AUTHOR> http://uservoice.com/for/startup <comment><USER2> I don't know if this just happens to be my computer, but every time I click on one of the feedback tabs on a site, and it's hosted by uservoice, the overlayed box loads really slowly. Once I see the 'X' button load, I quickly close it as I've grown tired of waiting the 5 seconds.

<comment><USER3> this happens to me all the time, I thought it was my computer

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I appreciate the offer (and I have a uservoice account myself), how does this qualify as "hacker news"? It's more of an advertisement, no?

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know of a simple widget that you can host yourself that has a simple feedback form (bug/idea)?

I don't want to make my users register on another site or jump through hoops to actually provide feedback, I just want them able to provide feedback as fast and as simply as possible.

I'd love to see stats on click through rates from users clicking feedback. I expect it's quite low, especially if they ask for signup.

<comment><USER6> We are using Google Docs' forms tied to a spreadsheet for our startup. We have it load in a jquery window and looks decent, it is fully integrated, is customizable to be as complex or simple as you want, requires no registration and is free.

<comment><USER5> Good idea. I think something like this that has a great design by default would be a great open source project, and would be a better alternative compared to uservoice et al for most companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that SSL is $200/month extra. I am almost tempted to create a service that provides you with an https proxy for only $20/month...

</comment><comment><USER8> for how long? Forever?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Expires October 31, 2009

> Discount applies to the first 12 month(s) of your premium subscription</comment></comment>


HTTPie: a CLI, cURL-like tool for humans - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie <comment><USER2> I've been using HTTPie a lot more recently. It really takes the tedium out of using curl and I can produce color coded output for people. However, I am still finding myself in situations where I can't figure out how to induce the correct request. In other words, the user friendliness of being able to do things like construct JSON from parameters is great until it isn't.

Is there anything similar for GUI users? The standalone application form of Postman is popular with some coworkers for general HTTP work as is Fiddler on Windows.

<comment><USER3> If you are on OS X, you should try Paw [0]. It's like Postman but with native GUI and lots of options. I use it everyday.

[0] [https://luckymarmot.com/paw](https://luckymarmot.com/paw)

<comment><USER4> Paw is really nice. I love that you can string together multiple requests with "dynamic values" (connecting the output from one request to the inputs of another, with transformations/functions/whatever). I use the command line for a lot of things, but Charles + Paw is a super powerful combination for tinkering with HTTP requests outside of code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> First off, I am really surprised how often this gets re-posted to HN. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=httpie&sort=byPopularity&prefi...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=httpie&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

I discovered HTTPie a few years back and it has completely replaced curl/wget during our API development and testing.

<comment><USER6> I guess it's still growing in popularity but hasn't hit the inflection point of becoming a standard tool.

The concept of an HTTP CLI seems obvious to me in retrospect, but I'm not a web developer, so maybe there's a reason this isn't as useful it would seem at first glance?

<comment><USER7> there is an http cli already. it's included in like every OS ever...it's called curl. httpie is just more user friendly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forgot to mention that when dealing with JSON APIs, httpie + jq is a killer combo.

[https://stedolan.github.io/jq/](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/)

<comment><USER8> Reading the docs will probably make people feel all kinds of feelings. Especially the `last` part.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand. `echo '[1,2,3,4]' | jq last` seems pretty straightforward to me and so are the docs.

<comment><USER8> I was punning on the fact that the last part of jq's documentation introduces an almost full fledged functional programming language with function definition, map etc etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Almost 20k stars. That's quite incredible for a project especially since I have never heard of it before now.

<comment><USER11> 12 minutes later, 23k

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really like this because by default it gives all of the http headers and makes everything look really nice. Curl still has its place, and I wouldn't dream of replacing it, but I would definitely use this as a sort of command line shortcut. Cool project.

<comment><USER13> For me it has been incredibly useful for quickly testing some REST APIs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Previously discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10418882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10418882). More at [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=HTTPie%20points%3E5&sort=byDat...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=HTTPie%20points%3E5&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment><comment><USER15> There's also a nice auto-complete utility built on top of HTTPie:

[https://github.com/eliangcs/http-prompt](https://github.com/eliangcs/http- prompt)

</comment><comment><USER16> I like using HTTPie for many things, however the current release does a bad job of rendering XML, e.g. it'll display `<sitemapindex xmlns="[http://…">`](http://…">`) as `<ns0:sitemapindex xmlns:ns0="[http://…">`](http://…">`). But — I just checked and found the not- yet-released v1.0.0 fixes this by removing the XML formatter completely as discussed in [https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie/issues/443](https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie/issues/443) so my gripe is sorted.

I still tend to go back to cURL when I want to see exactly what's been received, and use httpie for when I know the response headers and body serialization are fine and I want to see the data therein.

</comment><comment><USER17> I keep switching between curl + jq vs httpie. Lately I've been using mostly httpie. It is a great tool. One of my favorite things is it builds json objects (say for 'put' and 'post' for example) using command line arguments. So can have:

        $ http put url key1=val1 key2=val2

If one of the fields is a larger nested object can use :=

        $ http put url key1=simpleval1 key2:='{literaljson...}'

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't use this kind of programs all the time (but I did last week) so I eventually forget that I installed httpie and end up using curl or wget. I should alias curl to httpie and use \curl for when I really need curl.

</comment><comment><USER19> One of the first tools I install every time I buy a new machine

</comment><comment><USER20> Incredible

</comment><comment><USER21> Right, let's take the human denomination away from people that use cURL...

<comment><USER22> This tool pops up every few months, not sure why anyone would use it over curl

<comment><USER23> Because the syntax is easier to remember, it has syntax highlighting for js, html and more and it's super easy to send json, form data, headers etc. It's better and quicker for prototyping APIs for example.

BTW, curl is great too but I hate these kinds of posts. I keep seeing people on HN saying "not sure why anyone would use Y over X" completely disingenuously as if they are expressely not acknowledging the legitimate use cases of Y.

Not sure why anyone would use dropbox over a self-hosted sftp server, right?

<comment><USER24> _> I keep seeing people on HN saying "not sure why anyone would use Y over X" completely disingenuously as if they are expressely not acknowledging the legitimate use cases of Y._

Kind of like titling a project "X: a CLI, Y-like tool for humans"...</comment></comment></comment></comment>